by Aseem Gupta | Jul 24, 2016 | Biography, Lives & Historical Figures
The popular version of Wojtek’s story belongs in a war film: artillery explodes across the Italian mountains while an enormous bear strides through the chaos carrying ammunition for Polish soldiers. The truth is less cinematic, but no less extraordinary. Wojtek did...
by Aseem Gupta | Feb 6, 2016 | Biography, Lives & Historical Figures
On the ninth day of the fourth lunar month in 752, thousands of monks, courtiers, officials, musicians, dancers and foreign dignitaries gathered at Tōdai-ji in Japan’s imperial capital of Nara. Before them sat an enormous bronze image of Vairocana Buddha, the product...
by Aseem Gupta | Jan 16, 2016 | Biography, Lives & Historical Figures
Henry VIII is remembered as a monster in a crown. Six wives. Two executions. One enormous appetite. A king who broke with the Pope, seized monasteries, sent old friends to the scaffold, and turned marriage into a matter of state violence. But that caricature,...
