We Properly Fought A 38Minute War, Mate
One afternoon in 1896 Britain and Zanzibar had a fight that took less time than a telly ad break - and someone very nearly forgot to bring a plan.Read More 
The Day Nobodies Beat the Royal Navy
In 1910 a gaggle of English pranksters dressed as Abyssinian royals, swaggered aboard HMS Dreadnought and made the Navy look like it was taking a very long nap.Read More 
When Paris Printers Went After the Cats
In 1730s Paris a crew of low-paid printing apprentices literally held mock funerals and massacred neighborhood cats as a dark, theatrical protest - and a historian smelled a story worth savoring.Read More 
They Almost Floated an Aircraft Carrier Made of Ice and I Love It
In WWII Britain briefly tried to build unsinkable floating airbases from 'pykrete'-a frozen mix of ice and wood pulp-because history enjoys a laugh.Read More 
Cadaver Synod: They Put a Pope on Trial
In 897 Rome literally dug up Pope Formosus, sat his corpse on a throne, and humiliated him in the most bureaucratic of ways.Read More 