Blown Away? What the Evidence Says About the Mongol Invasions of Japan
Kublai Khan's fleets attacked Japan in 1274 and 1281. Scrolls, a stone wall, lake mud, and wrecks off Takashima show how much of the 'divine wind' story holds up.
· 21 sources
Wonders & Marvels Research Desk
The Research Desk is the in-house byline of the new Wonders & Marvels. Articles are researched and drafted with AI assistance, checked source by source against the publications cited, and held to the standards on our Editorial Standards page.
Catherine de' Medici and the Making of a Poisoner Legend
The queen mother of France wore black for thirty years and was blamed for poisonings and a massacre. What the record shows, what it does not, and where the legend began.
· 20 sources
Did Ancient Greek Women Use Tampons? Testing the Hippocratic Tampon Claim
A popular story says Hippocrates described lint-wrapped wooden tampons. Classicist Helen King traced it to modern marketing and a misread Greek word. Here is what the evidence supports.
· 15 sources
Fialka: How the Soviet M-125 Cipher Machine Rebuilt the Rotor Idea
The Soviet M-125 Fialka used ten counter-rotating rotors, a punched key card, and a deliberate fix for Enigma's best-known flaw. What is documented about it, and what is still unknown.
· 15 sources
Skull, Mummy, and Blood: Corpse Medicine in Early Modern England
From powdered Egyptian mummy to the skull tincture given to a dying Charles II, how European physicians made the human body into medicine, and why the practice faded.
· 18 sources
Walter Freeman and the "Lobotomobile": What the Record Shows
Walter Freeman really did travel the country promoting lobotomy. The van he supposedly called the "lobotomobile" is another matter. Here is where the word came from.
· 12 sources