Science & Invention
12 verified stories about science & invention.
An Earthquake Trapped a Lake Above a City. They Drained It With Shovels.
On May 22, 1960, the magnitude 9.5 Great Chilean Earthquake—the strongest ever recorded—triggered colossal landslides that corked the San Pedro River, trapping three billion cubic meters of water inside Lake Riñihue. Threatened by a catastrophic tidal wall racing toward 100,000 citizens in Valdivia, civil engineer Raúl Sáez led hundreds of workers in a desperate, manual shovel-digging operation known as the 'Riñihuazo'.
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What Happens When a Submarine's Window Cracks Seven Miles Down?
On 23 January 1960, two men descended into the Mariana Trench aboard the bathyscaphe Trieste. At thirty-five thousand eight hundred feet down, they reached the seabed of Challenger Deep. During the descent, a sharp bang shook the cabin as an outer Plexiglas viewing window cracked under pressure, yet the steel sphere held.
They Built a Cannon Out of Five Nations' Junk to Survive a 55-Day Siege
During the fifty-five-day Siege of the International Legations in Peking in 1900, foreign legation guards and thousands of Chinese Christian refugees were trapped and besieged by imperial Qing forces. Facing heavy artillery fire without any big guns of their own, Chinese refugees excavated an old, rusted British bronze cannon barrel from an abandoned junk shop. American Navy Gunner Joseph Mitchell mounted the barrel onto a spare Italian gun carriage, loaded it with Russian shells found in a well, primed it with German powder, and fired it using American gunners. Nicknamed the 'International Gun' or 'Old Betsy,' this improvised cannon shattered enemy barricades until an international relief column broke through.
A City's Greatest Minds Let Lice Drink Their Blood to Survive the Nazis
In Nazi-occupied Lwów, Polish biologist Rudolf Weigl invented the first viable vaccine against epidemic typhus by cultivating Rickettsia bacteria inside body lice fed on human blood. Exploiting the German military's desperate need for vaccine doses, Weigl employed thousands of Polish university professors, underground resistance fighters, and persecuted Jews as 'louse-feeders,' shielding them from Gestapo death squads.
They Glowed in the Dark. It Was Killing Them.
In the 1920s, young female factory workers at the United States Radium Corporation in Orange, New Jersey, painted luminous watch dials with radioactive paint trade-named 'Undark'. Instructed to 'lip-point' camel-hair brushes between their lips to paint fine numerals, the women ingested lethal quantities of radium that decayed their bones from within, sparking an epic legal battle that laid the foundation of modern American occupational safety laws.
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A 2,000-Year-Old Bronze Lump Was Actually the First Computer
In 1900, Greek sponge divers sheltering from a storm off the tiny island of Antikythera discovered a Roman-era shipwreck laden with bronze and marble treasures. Among the salvaged artifacts was a heavily calcified, corroded green lump of bronze that seemed worthless. When it dried and fractured open, archaeologists made a mind-bending discovery: more than thirty precision bronze gears capable of calculating solar and lunar eclipses, planetary orbits, and the four-year Olympic cycle. It was the world's first analog computer—engineering so sophisticated that nothing of comparable complexity appeared on Earth for over a millennium.
A River Smelled So Bad That Parliament Ran Away. So They Rebuilt London.
In the sweltering summer of 1858, London experienced the Great Stink: the River Thames was so overloaded with raw human waste that the overpowering stench forced Parliament to suspend sessions and soak curtains in disinfectant. Facing public fury and cholera outbreaks, the government funded Joseph Bazalgette to construct a monumental network of subterranean brick sewers that eliminated waterborne epidemics and modernised the city.
Six Cars Raced From New York to Paris in 1908. It Took 169 Days.
On February 12, 1908, six primitive automobiles lined up before an ecstatic crowd of 250,000 people in Times Square to start an epic 22,000-mile race around the world to Paris. Driving through trackless wilderness, winter blizzards, axle-deep Siberian quagmires, and rough terrain across North America, Asia, and Europe, only three cars finished. After 169 grueling days, American mechanic George Schuster piloted the 1907 Thomas Flyer down the boulevards of Paris to claim an astonishing victory.
He Flew Across the English Channel in 1909 Despite Severe Burns
On July 25, 1909, French aviation pioneer Louis Blériot made the first aeroplane flight across the English Channel. Despite severe burns on his foot from an earlier flight, Blériot took off from Calais in his Blériot XI monoplane without a compass. Flying over the water and losing sight of land for several minutes, he circled above the cliffs of Dover and landed safely after about thirty-six minutes to win the Daily Mail prize.
How Do You Build a Whole New Capital City in 41 Months?
Brazil's capital had been Rio de Janeiro. President Juscelino Kubitschek's motto was "fifty years in five", and a brand-new capital was the cornerstone of his plan. Lúcio Costa won the contest for the master plan, Oscar Niemeyer designed most of the public buildings, and construction that began in February 1957 was finished 41 months later. Brasília became the capital in 1960.
A King Died Charging His Rival. 527 Years Later, He Turned Up Under a Car Park
Richard III charged Henry Tudor at the Battle of Bosworth in 1485, cut down Henry's standard-bearer and was surrounded - the last English king to die in battle. He was buried hastily in Leicester's Greyfriars friary, and the grave was lost. In 2012 archaeologists found his skeleton under a city car park; DNA from living relatives confirmed it, and in 2015 he was reburied in Leicester Cathedral.
A Pearl Farmer Burns His Own Pearls in Public
Kokichi Mikimoto cultivated pearls in Japan and promoted his business with public pearl burnings. His early half-round pearls and his later adoption of the Mise-Nishikawa method were different stages of the story.