Humanity has changed significantly over the millennia, yet in one respect, we have remained the same throughout history: we have always found things to complain about—dishonest merchants, for instance. The oldest known complaint, inscribed in cuneiform on a clay tablet, is directed at a Mesopotamian merchant named Ea-Nasir. Judging by the accusations, he was arguably […]
Russian Ambassador to Warsaw Georgy Mikhno stated recently that 87 Soviet military monuments remain in Poland—down from the original 561—and that these, too, are at risk of demolition, RIA Novosti reports. “According to the embassy, Polish authorities have demolished 474 of the 561 monuments—specifically those not associated with burial sites—listed in the ‘Register of Memorial […]
The Georgian government has placed the wine collection that belonged to Soviet leader Joseph Stalin up for auction, Reuters reported on May 29. Authorities intend to use the proceeds from the sale to establish a winemaking school in Georgia. Stalin’s collection comprised approximately 40,000 bottles of rare French and Georgian wines, some dating back to […]
As it turns out, among the dust and accumulation of long-forgotten things, the dark glass was, is, an early photographic negative. But this isn’t any old negative, or for that
Espionage is one of the rare fields where a job well done is never publicly celebrated or even acknowledged. The public usually learns about an intelligence operation only when a spy is exposed, an operation fails, or governments finally declassify the details decades later. These missions involved more than trench coats, dead drops, and stolen […]