The history of the Forbidden City begins with a bloody coup at the beginning of the 15th century when the ambitious field commander Prince Zhu Di took power. As the Yongle Emperor, he declared Beijing the new capital of China and ordered the construction of a giant palace complex. The building of the architectural symbol … Read more
The Taj Mahal is one of the most grandeurs and impressive buildings ever built. After all, the Taj Mahal Palace is considered one of the seven wonders of the modern world. The story behind Taj Mahal is that the emperor Shan Jahan, who was a Mughal Emperor, built the palace to serve as a tomb for … Read more
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It takes its name from the Angles, one of the Germanic tribes who settled on the island during the 5th and 6th centuries. The Kingdom of England, which after 1284 included Wales, ceased being a separate sovereign state on 1 May 1707, when the … Read more
Both the code names Neptune and Overlord are for one single operation, and that is the Normandy Landings. The battle of Normandy lasted for two months, and it was a turning point in World War II. Operation Overlord was the code name for the allied operation that launched successful invasion of German-occupied parts in Europe. … Read more
In 2013, a new British Museum exhibition in London titled “Life and Death in Pompeii and Herculaneum” gave us a great new extraordinary insight into the diet of the ancient Romans. What we didn’t know before was that back in Ancient Rome, take-out food was a real possibility. Romans could get those in a thermopolium. … Read more
The Adventure of English is a British television series (ITV) in the history of the English language presented by Melvyn Bragg, and a companion book, also written by Bragg. The series and the book is presented as an adventure story, or biography of English as if it were a living being, covering the history of … Read more
There have been inventions that have changed our world. Some of the things we have nowadays seemed like mission impossible just a hundred years ago. For example, take smartphones. We cannot live without them nowadays. But some 20 years ago, nobody could have imagined that such thing. Even so, Nokia, one of the biggest cell … Read more
If you ever have a chance to go to the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library in the Yale University, there you will find, under the MS 408 code, a book so peculiar that to this day there is no explanation for its origin and the content is shrouded in a veil of mystery as … Read more
Lost Gods of Easter Island is a BBC documentary written and presented by David Attenborough. It explores the history of civilization in the remote islands of Passover. Attenborough embarks on a personal quest to discover the history of the strange figure of a wood carving became an auction room in New York during the 1980s. … Read more
Most of us have heard about the “I Have a Dream” speech by Martin Luther King. But that is not the only speech that completely changed humanity. Words and their delivery can galvanize an audience. And that creates a “I remember where I was when” moments. In this documentary, we take a look at some … Read more