quiz:135
Potter & Potter’s ‘Houdiniana’ sale on 26 April 2025 will disperse 200 artifacts from Harry Houdini’s career, from handcuffs cracked open during a 1904 stunt to a signed poster taunting Scotland Yard. Star lot is his personalised milk‑can escape prop, expected to fetch US $400 000. Archivists
cat:history
A bird‑watcher crossing Öland’s Löt wetland in March spotted rusty metal protruding from peat and alerted archaeologists. Excavation revealed a 1 000‑year‑old iron bracelet—only the fourth of its type in Sweden—still etched with serpent motifs. Experts credit the bog’s anoxic acidity for preserving
cat:history
Metal‑detector hobbyist Sander Visser struck glittering metal in a Friesland pasture last December and unwittingly rewrote Dutch Viking history. The gilded copper pommel cap—ornamented with Mammen‑style boars—dates to the 10th century and is only the second Viking sword fitting ever found in the Netherlands. Conservators confirmed
quiz:132
Giquello Auction House confirmed that a sabre commissioned by Napoleon in 1802 will go under the hammer on 22 May 2025 with a €1 million high estimate. Still in Marshal Grouchy’s family, the weapon bears the emperor’s gilt ‘N’ and battle nicks thought to date from Austerlitz. Micro‑
cat:history
New York’s District Attorney handed two 10th‑century sandstone statues to Cambodian officials on 26 March 2025, capping a probe that traced them through art‑market middlemen and offshore trusts. The guardian figures, stolen from the Koh Ker temple complex during the 1990s civil war, had sat in a
quiz:130
On Holocaust Memorial Day, 27 January 2025, London’s Wiener Holocaust Library unveiled an open‑access portal hosting 1.3 million documents—from ghetto diaries to SS telephone logs—scanned over three years. The site offers keyword search in nine languages and AI handwriting recognition for uncatalogued letters. Scholars praise
cat:history
Contractors clearing ground for a housing estate near Andover, England, uncovered a 14‑metre Roman mosaic floor in January, its red‑and‑white pelta shields virtually intact. A private buyer quickly applied to ship the panels to Monaco, but in March the UK government imposed an export bar until January
quiz:128
Colombia’s Supreme Court has set 9 September 2025 for oral arguments in the tangled ownership case of the San José, a Spanish treasure galleon sunk by the British in 1708 and rediscovered in 2015 with an estimated US $17 billion cargo. Four parties stake claims: the Colombian state, Spain,
quiz:127
Across the UK, 8 May 2025—eighty years after Nazi Germany’s surrender—was more than a day of wreaths. A two‑minute noon silence followed an Abbey service attended by the King, while schools streamed Q&As with the last Arctic Convoy sailors. Horse Guards Parade swapped drill
quiz:126
On 26 February 2025 Nigeria’s National Commission for Museums and Monuments announced a joint protocol with the Oba of Benin that clears the last legal hurdles for the mass repatriation of looted Benin Bronzes. Under the deal, the commission—not foreign institutions—will catalogue and conserve every piece that
quiz:125
On 4 October 1957 a 184‑pound metal sphere called Sputnik 1 beeped over Earth, shocking the world. The Soviet Union had launched the first artificial satellite, igniting the space race. Its radio pulses spurred U.S. science drives and birthed NASA. Within twelve years rivalry planted footprints on the
cat:history
Sir Ernest Shackleton’s ship Endurance was crushed by Antarctic ice in 1915, stranding 28 men. They camped on floes, rowed to Elephant Island, then Shackleton sailed the 22‑foot James Caird 800 miles to South Georgia. After an overland trek he organised rescue; every crewman survived, an epic now