History All Day – Stories From the Past, Every Day

Black and white studio portrait of General Juan Vicente Gómez, Venezuela's ruler, with a heavy moustache, wearing a dark suit and patterned tie, about 1910 to 1915

Strange History

Venezuela's Oil Age Began With a Well That Sprayed Crude for Nine Days

Exxon has signed a first deal to go back to Venezuela. The country's oil rush began in 1922, when a dry hole at Cabimas blew out and would not stop.

Jonah Okafor · November 10, 2026

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Hand-colored 1749 engraving of a West Indian sugar works, with cane growing on the left, a boiling house, an animal-driven cane mill and enslaved workers watched by an overseer

In 1972 John Berger Won the Booker and Gave Half to the Black Panthers

November 10, 2026

Color photograph of the sheer limestone walls of Santa Elena Canyon in Big Bend National Park, with the Rio Grande running between Mexico on the left and the United States on the right

Big Bend Was Meant to Be Half of a Park Shared With Mexico, Not a Wall

November 10, 2026

Black and white photograph of the old Cairo railway station, a long building with a clock tower, seen across a square crowded with street vendors' carts in the early 1900s

World Figureheads

Egypt's Heir Drowned When His Train Fell in the Nile, and Ismail Got Egypt

November 10, 2026

Black and white photograph of President Sukarno in a peci cap and dark glasses, smiling and waving from the back of an open car in Washington, with photographers and onlookers behind him, May 1956

Indonesia's First Vice President Quit in 1956. The Post Sat Empty 17 Years

November 10, 2026

Hadrian's Gate in Antalya, a triple-arched Roman gateway of white marble set between stone towers, photographed in 2023

Antalya's Founding Dynasty Ended When a King Left His Kingdom to Rome

November 9, 2026

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Black and white photograph of the stone Cenotaph in Whitehall draped in Union flags before its unveiling on 11 November 1920, with troops and crowds around it

The Cenotaph Was Built in Plaster for One Parade and Never Taken Down

Hannah Lindqvist · November 9, 2026

Black and white photograph of D. F. Malan in a homburg hat and glasses stepping off a KLM airliner in the Netherlands in 1953, as a woman holding flowers greets him

In 1948 South Africa's Ruling Party Won the Most Votes and Lost Power

Marcus Delacroix · November 9, 2026

Sepia photograph of José Batlle y Ordóñez, a heavy-set man in a dark coat, standing at a ballot table surrounded by men in suits

Strange History

Uruguay Renamed Christmas Family Day in 1919. Pope Leo Just Visited Anyway

Jonah Okafor · November 9, 2026

Black and white photograph of Senator Birch Bayh speaking at a lectern marked Democratic National Convention, with glass teleprompter screens on either side

The House Voted 338 to 70 to Abolish the Electoral College in 1969

Priya Raman · November 8, 2026

Two photographs of an early 1900s submarine telegraph cable: a length of tarred, armoured cable with a handwritten paper label, and the cut end showing the ring of steel armour wires around the core

Britain Cut Germany's Undersea Cables on the First Night of War in 1914

Marcus Delacroix · November 8, 2026

A gold pocket watch by Breguet, Paris, about 1810, with a white enamel chapter ring and a skeletonised movement visible through the dial

Strange History

The First Chronograph Was Lost for 200 Years and Credited to Someone Else

Jonah Okafor · November 8, 2026

Colour photograph of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin gesturing from his seat in the Knesset during the 1995 debate on the Oslo B agreement, with two ministers seated beside him

World Figureheads

Eisenkot Has Arab Backing. Rabin's 1992 Government Lived on It Too

Tomás Ferreira · November 8, 2026

Photograph of a wedding party in India, taken between 1909 and 1919, with the seated couple garlanded and guests standing around them

Periyar's 1928 Weddings Had No Priests. A DMK Leader Has Just Apologised

Hannah Lindqvist · November 8, 2026

Black and white photograph of an open car and mounted guards passing crowds on a Brussels street during Baudouin's accession in July 1951

Strange History

In 1990 Belgium Declared Its King Unable to Reign, for About a Day and a Half

Jonah Okafor · November 7, 2026

Studio photograph of William W. Belknap in a Union general's uniform, seated, with a long beard

Belknap Quit Hours Before His 1876 Impeachment. The Senate Tried Him Anyway

Priya Raman · November 7, 2026

Black and white photograph of David Ben-Gurion standing at a microphone reading the declaration of Israel's independence, under a portrait of Theodor Herzl, Tel Aviv, May 1948

World Figureheads

Ben-Gurion Exempted 400 Yeshiva Students in 1948. Israel Still Argues

Tomás Ferreira · November 7, 2026

Black and white photograph of Thomas Sully's painted portrait of an elderly Thomas Jefferson in a fur-collared coat

Jefferson Bought a Quran in 1765. Congress Has Owned It Since 1815

Hannah Lindqvist · November 7, 2026

Two pages of a handwritten Rajatarangini manuscript in Sharada script, shown open under glass

Kalhana Wrote Kashmir's History in 1148. UNESCO Has Just Listed It

Eleanor Whitcombe · November 7, 2026

Aerial photograph of San Quentin prison on a point of land in San Francisco Bay, with hills across the water behind it

California Emptied Death Row in 1972, and Manson Got a Parole Hearing

Priya Raman · November 6, 2026

Piranesi etching of the Arch of Titus around 1760, half walled into later buildings, with trees growing beside it and small figures below the carved relief

Rome's Graffiti on Domitian's Arches Said 'Enough.' Then They Came Down

Eleanor Whitcombe · November 6, 2026

The 1812 Gerry-mander cartoon: an engraved map of an Essex County senate district drawn as a winged monster with claws and a beak

The Original Gerrymander Flipped on Its Makers in a Single Year

Marcus Delacroix · November 6, 2026

The pink colonnaded Cabildo of Asunción seen across a paved square, the building that housed Paraguay's Congress in 1999

World Figureheads

Peña's Resignation Was Refused. In 1999 Paraguay Let a President Walk Out

Tomás Ferreira · November 6, 2026

Indian miniature painting of Hanuman offering healing herbs to Rama and Lakshmana on a green hillside, surrounded by an army of monkeys and bears

Before Ranbir Kapoor's Ramayana, a TV Show Stopped India Every Sunday

Hannah Lindqvist · November 6, 2026

Painting of a crowded hall of men and a few women listening to a white-haired speaker at the 1840 Anti-Slavery Society Convention in London

Britain Already Paid Slavery Reparations in the 1830s, to the Slave Owners

Marcus Delacroix · November 5, 2026

Photographic portrait of P.B.S. Pinchback, a bearded man in a dark suit

America's First Black Governor Left Office in 1873. The Next Took 117 Years

Priya Raman · November 5, 2026

Photograph of the Princess Olga Monument in Kyiv, a white stone figure on a tall dark plinth, with the gold-domed bell tower of St Michael's behind

World Figureheads

Ukraine's Top Honor for Women Is Named for a Princess Who Burned a City

Eleanor Whitcombe · November 5, 2026

Press photograph of the crowded House chamber at the swearing-in of Speaker Nicholas Longworth, opening the 69th Congress

Republicans Won the House in 1930 and Lost It to 14 Funerals

Priya Raman · November 4, 2026

Photograph of the old town of Aden, with white mosque minarets in front of the dark volcanic cliffs of the crater

Aden Fell to Britain in 1839 Over a Looted Ship and a Need for Coal

Marcus Delacroix · November 4, 2026

Engraving after Hogarth of Guards soldiers, women and children crowding a road outside an inn on the march to Finchley in 1745

The Bank of England Survived a Run in 1745 by Paying Out in Sixpences

Hannah Lindqvist · November 4, 2026