Mont-Saint-Michel could have stopped being an island by 2040
A causeway built in 1878 let silt choke the bay around Mont-Saint-Michel. France tore it out and dammed a river to flush the mud back to sea.
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Germany's allotments began as play space for poor children
Germany has about a million Kleingarten allotments, 70,000 of them in Berlin. They started as fresh air for factory children. Now builders want the land.
A London cabbie learns 25,000 streets to earn a green badge
London's black cab licence rests on the Knowledge: three or four years learning every street near Charing Cross, then oral tests until examiners approve.
Bulgaria's Varna gold undid the myth of an equal Copper Age
A cemetery near Varna in Bulgaria held 6,500-year-old gold in only a handful of graves, the earliest evidence that some people outranked others.
A pope's letter set Roger Bacon writing the Opus Majus
In 1266 Pope Clement IV asked a confined Franciscan friar for his writings. Roger Bacon had none, so he spent a year writing the Opus Majus.
A Basel looted-antiquities dealer walked free as charges expired
Police recovered 5,361 looted antiquities from the Swiss warehouses of a Basel dealer, but the charges against him had already expired.
Martin Luther King answered his critics in a letter from jail
In 1963, jailed in Birmingham, Martin Luther King answered eight white clergymen who had called his protests unwise and untimely.
Maasbommel's Dutch houses ride floods on concrete boxes
At Maasbommel in the Netherlands, amphibious houses sit on hollow concrete boxes that float up guide posts when the River Maas rises, by up to four metres.
Gerald Holtom drew the peace sign for the Aldermaston march
Gerald Holtom drew the peace symbol in 1958 for a nuclear disarmament march from London to Aldermaston, and it later spread across the world.
Every household in Germany pays for ARD and ZDF, TV or not
Germany's Rundfunkbeitrag charges each household a flat monthly fee, whatever devices it owns, and that money pays for most of ARD and ZDF.
Gaia's star map: the position and motion of two billion stars
Gaia measured the position, distance, motion, brightness, and colour of two billion stars, over more than a decade of observing.
India falls to 23rd in the Climate Change Performance Index
India dropped 13 places in the 2026 Climate Change Performance Index, from 10th to 23rd, as its emissions rose and it set no date to phase out coal.
New York made its cable company give airtime to anyone
Manhattan Cable Television launched in 1971 with public access forced on it by the city. It aired TV Party, Midnight Blue and AIDS reports others avoided.
What is materials science and engineering?
Three US university departments explain the field behind batteries and artificial skin. Its engineers test materials, pick them, and work out why parts fail.
The elephant that carries Kandy's casket
At Sri Lanka's Kandy Esala Perahera one elephant carries a golden casket of relics. It must stand about 3.7 metres tall, with a flat back and curved tusks.
IBM rebuilt Deep Blue's chess chip before beating Kasparov
After losing to Garry Kasparov in 1996, IBM doubled Deep Blue's speed and taught it to bide its time before opening a file. In May 1997 it won.
A donkey with no reason to choose starves where it stands
Buridan's ass starves between two equal piles of hay because it has no reason to choose. The tale is usually read as an argument against free will.
Britain and the US both moved against Iran's Press TV
Ofcom pulled Press TV's UK licence in 2012 because its editors sat in Tehran. The US later seized its web domains, alleging they spread disinformation.
IdentityTheft.gov turns a US theft report into a recovery plan
The Federal Trade Commission's site turns your answers into an official report and a recovery plan. Put a fraud alert on your credit report before you file.
Philippine lawmakers refused ABS-CBN's franchise, 70 votes to 11
ABS-CBN went off air in May 2020 after its renewal stalled in a Congress run by Duterte's allies. In July, lawmakers refused a new franchise, 70 to 11.
Cosmic radiation doubles with every 6,000 feet you climb
One long flight gives you about a week of background radiation. A 2019 UK law protects crew who could pass 1 millisievert of cosmic radiation a year.
How the Black Death spread, and why medieval doctors missed it
BBC Bitesize and National Geographic explain how a bacterium on rat fleas killed a third to half of Europe. Doctors blamed the four humours and bad air.
Eighty-one states in Vienna wrote the rules diplomats still keep
The 1961 Vienna Convention wrote down 200 years of custom, upheld by reciprocity. Its immunity rule saw PC Yvonne Fletcher's killers expelled, not tried.
In the UK's North Sea, 78p of each £1 of profit goes in tax
The UK Energy Profits Levy adds 38% to the tax on North Sea oil and gas profits, for a 78% total. It has raised about £12bn and runs until March 2030.