Protest Slogans: 30 of the Best in History, and What Made Them Work
The best protest slogans in history, from Cable Street to Memphis, and the three rules that make a placard work.
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What Would Lord Haw-Haw Make of Nigel Farage’s Bromance with Trump?
History has a habit of rhyming. In 1939 William Joyce sat in front of a Berlin microphone and broadcast Nazi propaganda to Britain. In 2026 Nigel Farage flew to Mar-a-Lago to lobby against British foreign policy. The mechanism is identical. Only the ideology has been updated.
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Britain’s Greatest Political Eccentrics Throughout History
By the time John “Mad Jack” Mytton arrived at his own dinner party riding a live bear — in full hunting costume, naturally — his guests had learned to expect the unexpected. The bear, unimpressed by the formalities, bit him through the calf. Mytton considered it one of the more reasonable evenings that year. Britain…
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The history of British protest: from Peterloo to punk
On the 16th of August 1819, somewhere between 60,000 and 80,000 people gathered peacefully at St Peter’s Field in Manchester to demand parliamentary reform. They brought their families. Some wore their Sunday best. The local magistrates, watching from a nearby house, decided this constituted a threat to public order. Within minutes, cavalry had charged into…
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Sisu: The Untranslatable Finnish Concept That Won a War
The Soviet Union invaded Finland on 30 November 1939 with 21 divisions — around 450,000 men — expecting to wrap the whole thing up in a fortnight. Stalin apparently wanted it done in time for his 60th birthday in December. The Finns had roughly 300,000 poorly equipped soldiers, no meaningful air force, and an economy…
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12 professions that got disrupted by technology
Technological progress has a long-running tendency to make entire professions unnecessary. Your history teacher in high school probably tried hard to point out one of the most well known examples: the Luddites. These English textile artisans didn’t take well to contemporary industrial automation and famously went on a rampage to smash every piece of labor-saving machinery they…
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Madder than most? Eight writers who suffered from mental illness
Western civilization hasn’t kicked the nasty old habit of stigmatizing mental health in different ways. Except in the arts and literature, maybe. Creatives are allowed to be odd, at least in retrospect. A few words of warning: One needs to tread carefully around this subject to not enable a culture of self-fulfilling prophesies around eccentric…
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Old and Shaky: Amazing 3D Photos of life in 1860 to 1930
The vintage 3D photos below are created using the Lenticular Steroscope, a contraption invented by Scotsman Sir David Brewster in 1851. His invention was presented to Queen Victoria and became a hit phenomenon during the Great Exhibition in London. The resulting images, stereographs were advertiserd with catchphrases such as “See the world from your parlour!”. In a…
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Which historic badass were you in a past life? Take the quiz.
From heroes to despots and everything in between, the badasses of history fought hard, stood their ground, and earned a name for themselves in history books around the world. Sure, they weren’t all paragons of goodness, but that’s what makes them so interesting.
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Watch Mr. Rogers say goodbye to TV in this tear-jerking video
Fred Rogers, more commonly known as Mr. Rogers, was one of the most beloved children’s television hosts of all time. His show Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood, which debuted in 1968, had a positive impact on millions of children and adults, teaching his viewers invaluable lessons in patience and compassion. The show remains one of the most…
