HAistoric — Histories That Almost Were

— The noted genius, natural philosopher and world-class crank invents a cosmology based on celestial petulance. It does not go well. —

— A missed flight, a London hotel bar, and the petrodollars that accidentally nationalised Rhodesia’s corn futures. —

🎙 On the Phonograph

— New analysis of Amarna-era tax codes reveals a scheme to keep 87% of the royal treasury out of the hands of Egypt’s priests. —

— How one thirsty monk turned England’s most sacred pilgrimage into its most profitable pub crawl. —

— The First Qin Emperor’s decade-long war against a truly atrocious shipment of Sogdian silk. —

— One engineer’s bold vision for the Avon Gorge, a dozen faulty wind-braces, and the horrifying sound that followed. —

— The Cuban Missile Crisis was not resolved by diplomacy. It was resolved by a gift shop item from Key West. —

— Khufu learned the hard way that when it comes to grand romantic gestures, some things are best left unsaid, and un-quarried. —

— A triumph of engineering, a failure of literacy, and 472,000 metric tons of very confused fish. —

— One rogue wave, 80 degrees south of where anyone was looking, and a truly spectacular quantity of frozen penguin shit. —

— The 1913 premiere of The Rite of Spring did not, in fact, require a pagan sacrifice. But the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées offered one anyway. —

— One tipsy naturalist, one Moravian monk, and the accidental discovery of a very, very relaxed biochemistry. —

— The Sistine Chapel ceiling sprung a leak. The rest is salvation history. And a rash. —

— Or, How to Lose Your Shirt, Your Organs, and Your Eternal Afterlife in One Easy Down-Payment. —

— One mustelid’s obsessive digging accomplished in three months what the CIA couldn’t manage in thirty years. —