History

Stories from history that are stranger than they have any right to be.

Reading

• War of the Heavenly Horses (Article) — in 104–102 BC, Han China marched 60,000 troops across the desert to seize a legendary horse breed, and came away controlling the Silk Road trade routes.

Videos

• The Printing Press (Video) — a near-hour documentary on how Gutenberg’s movable type made printing cheap and rewired religion, science, and literacy across Europe.

Sites

Damn Interesting (Website) — twenty years of obscure-but-true stories from science, history, and psychology, told with narrative flair.

• The Forgotten Fire (Article) — the Peshtigo firestorm of 1871, the deadliest wildfire in U.S. history, overshadowed to obscurity by the Great Chicago Fire on the very same night.
• The King’s Letters (Article) — how King Sejong invented Hangul in the 1440s to give ordinary Koreans literacy, and why the elite fought it for centuries.