The original Olympic games got cancelled for 1500 years because … well … everyone was naked. The Ancient Greek Olympic Games, held from 776 BC to 393 AD, so that’s nearly 10 times longer than the modern Olympics have been running (since 1896), were celebrated almost entirely in the nude. While today’s spectators are used ..read more

1. The oldest functioning planetarium in the world © Isabel Bronts © Isabel Bronts  Hidden behind a pocket-sized door in a doll’s house-like building in the sleepy Dutch town of Franeker is a room so unique that even a King was star-struck. Explore the extraordinary world created by wool weaver turned astronomer, Eise Eisinga. His creation of a fully functioning planetarium in his one-room home sought to quell locals’ fears sparked by astrological predictions, and illuminate the complexities of the solar system ..read more

1. For sale: the only private island in the San Francisco Bay ..read more

Nativa Richard posing as Empress, 1920s The Années Folles in Paris — a time for jazz, literature of the Lost Generation, and a little-known fetish fashion boom. Spearheaded by a husband and wife team largely forgotten by history, Nativa Richard and her husband L. Richard, were the dynamic duo behind a groundbreaking brand called Yva Richard, and opened the world’s first known fetish boutique in Paris. The Richards were busy stitching dreams—or nightmares, depending on your perspective – one leather corset at a time ..read more

1. Fellini’s Forgotten Masterpiece Donyale Luna as Oenothea in Fellini Satyricon, 1969 Fellini Satyricon, or simply Satyricon, is a 1969 Italian film written and directed by Federico Fellini and loosely based on Petronius’s work Satyricon, written during the reign of Emperor Nero and set in Imperial Rome. Fellini Satyricon was entered into the 30th Venice International Film Festival, where it won the Pasinetti Award for Best Italian Film. It received acclaim from international critics, with particular praise toward Fellini’s direction and ..read more

Aloïse Corbaz lived a life outside the margins. Institutionalised, alone, and without any training, her deeply individual artworks were both a product of and a comment on her struggles with mental illness. Within the walls of a Swiss asylum in early 20th century, Corbaz was extremely prolific. She used unconventional materials like toothpaste, flower petals, and scraps of paper to create her vibrant, intricate works, and her art features a fantastical blend of romanticism and surrealism, often depicting regal figures and grandiose love scenes ..read more

A grandstand at Herne Hill Velodrome, South London with a painted sign commemorating the stand’s construction for the 1948 Olympic Games. © Historic England Archive As the countdown for the Paris Summer Olympics has begun and the excitement for the international extravaganza of athletic prowess mounts, few will now remember a past games that had a rather more frugal approach to the sporting proceedings. Compared to the multi-millions spent on the current games the 1948 London Olympics was the make-do-and-mend alternative that has been labelled by some as the ‘Austerity Olympics’. Bombed out L ..read more

1. The Empty Louvre Paul Almásy, a Hungarian photojournalist who immigrated to France in 1934. Almásy’s photograph was taken at the Louvre Museum in Paris, articulating the theme of artworks needing to be remembered by documenting an actual historical event. In 1938 with the threat of war looming, the Louvre curators, under the direction of the museum’s deputy head Jacques Jaujard, were compelled to evacuate the entire museum collection, moving it to châteaux deep in the French countryside and away from imminent danger ..read more

Cave des Coquillages ©  ..read more

1. I did a breakfast podcast with the Earful Tower And I’m now known, according to the brilliant Oliver Gee, as the woman selling the Seine River ..read more