How to Rob the Lottery (And Get Away With It)

François-Marie Arouet, better known by his pen name Voltaire, was a famous French philosopher and writer during the 18th century. He wrote everything from poems to essays, novels to serious works of science, and advocated for human rights and freedom of religion and expression in a time where such ideas could get you killed. He inspired […]

This Week in History: 10 Second Barrier for the 100m Broken

This week, almost fifty years ago, Jim Hines became the first person in recorded history to run the 100-metre sprint in under 10 seconds. With modern day sprinters regularly completing 100 metres in under 10 seconds, it’s almost surprising to see that just a few decades ago it was rarely seen. In fact, before 1990, the […]

From Yugoslavia with Love

It’s October 5th, which means it’s Global James Bond Day. For someone so incredibly famous throughout the world, let alone here in England, many people aren’t aware of how the legend of 007 was created. Ian Fleming was known for using multiple muses as inspiration for his most famous character, but a Serbian double agent with […]

This Week in History: West Vs East in the Battle of Lepanto

This week saw arguably one of the greatest naval battles of the Renaissance period, as the Ottoman Empire’s fleet suffered their first major defeat at the hands of Christian forces. It was 1570 and the Ottomans were making designs on Western Europe yet again. The Pope at the time, Pius V, heard about their recent invasion […]

This Week in History: The Man Who Stopped World War Three

This week, just over 30 years ago, a Russian duty officer prevented possible nuclear war when he didn’t retaliate against faulty reports of incoming American nuclear missiles. In 1983, Stanislav Petrov, a lieutenant colonel in the Soviet Air Defence Forces, was the duty officer in charge of the nuclear early warning systems when he received a chilling […]

This Week in History: The Last of the Romans is Murdered

In this week, Flavius Aetius was assassinated by Emperor Valentinian III, just three years after commanding the last great victory of Western Rome. Born in modern-day Bulgaria in 391 AD, by the time of his death in 454 AD he’d cemented himself as one of the greatest military commanders of the classical era. In the space […]

The Year the Dutch ate their Prime Minister

The Dutch Republic, with Johan de Witt as their Grand Pensionary – the rough equivalent of a modern day PM – had been one of the world’s leading superpowers since the turn of the 17th century. Pretty incredible for a country smaller than Ireland and with a population of just 2 million. However, disaster struck […]

Ye Olde Snippets: There’s No Place Like Rome

I would much rather have men ask why I have no statue, than why I have one.

This Week in History: The Battle Of Marathon

This week saw the Battle of Marathon commence, where Persian forces representing the world’s most powerful empire were beaten by a small, splintered group of Greeks in 490 BC. Athens had earlier supported the city of Ionia in their effort to overthrow the Persians. When the Ionians were eventually crushed, Persia’s King Darius vowed to […]

Ye Olde Snippets: President Ike’s Chance for Peace

“Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This is not a way of life, in any true sense.”