Category: History

The CIA’s Secret Role in Promoting American Avant-Garde Art | July 28 2026, 05:15

Today I learned that the popularity of American avant-garde worldwide turns out to be the result of a CIA program—at least in part. During the height of the Cold War, starting in 1950, the CIA secretly funded magazines, concerts, and exhibitions throughout Europe through the “Congress for Cultural Freedom” and front organizations (the most famous being the Fairfield Foundation). The idea was simple: to demonstrate that the free West produces bold experimental art, while the USSR produced only state-controlled socialist realism. For example, when London’s Tate Gallery couldn’t afford the “New American Painting” exhibition in 1959, a “generous patron” Julius Fleischman suddenly appeared—though the funds actually came from the intelligence budget.

The most astonishing fact is that the artists themselves had no clue. Pollock, Rothko, de Kooning, who came from the left-wing bohemia of the 1930s, despised the government and the era of McCarthyism, and would have considered it insulting to work for the intelligence. The CIA didn’t propose: they didn’t pay the artists or dictate anything, they simply “promoted them in the dark,” paying for the infrastructure of fame through two or three layers of intermediaries. It reached the point of absurdity. While one hand of the government secretly transported their canvases across Europe as a symbol of American freedom, the other—the FBI and conservative congressmen—kept files on the modernists and branded their art as “communist smears.”

Exploring the Missing Trojans: Homer’s Illusive Episodes | July 21 2026, 18:14

Tomorrow I will go to the Odyssey. Remember the Trojan Horse, the snakes, Laocoön, and “beware of Greeks bearing gifts”? So, it turns out that the most famous episode of the Trojan War isn’t in the “Iliad”—the main poem about this very war, and things with the Odyssey are also tricky. In the Iliad, Homer ends the story earlier: the “Iliad” covers only fifty days of the last year of the siege and ends with the funeral of Hector—there’s no horse, no death of Achilles, nor fall of the city in it. In the “Odyssey,” the horse appears a couple of times but only in passing: the bard Demodocus sings about it at a feast, Menelaus recalls how Helen walked around the horse and mocked the voices of the Greeks hidden inside. That’s it. There is no elaborate scene of assault and fire in Homer’s works at all. And that canonical story—with the spy Sinon, Laocoön strangled by the snakes, and burning Troy—is from the Roman Virgil, the second book of the “Aeneid,” written in the 20s of the 1st century BC, almost seven hundred years after Homer. It is precisely from there that the plot leaked into pop culture.

But Virgil did not invent the horse out of nowhere. Between him and Homer, there was an entire “epic cycle”—a series of poems that covered the entire war from beginning to end: “Cypria” (prehistory: the judgment of Paris, the abduction of Helen), then “Iliad”, then “Aethiopis” (the death of Achilles), then “Little Iliad”—here’s where they finally build the horse,—then “The Sack of Ilium”, where they roll it into the city and the massacre begins, and then “The Returns”, “Odyssey”, and a somewhat odd “Telegony” for dessert. Out of the eight poems of the cycle, only two Homeric ones fully survived. The other six—including both with all the salt about the horse—have disappeared and are known only from a later synopsis-summary and scattered quotations, totaling about a hundred lines. That means we have the middle and epilogue of the story at hand, while the beginning and the climax in the original are lost.

Turns out, we’ve been retelling a scene for centuries, the authentic text of which we don’t have.

P.S. A separate story about whether Homer was blind. And whether there was a Homer. It’s all very complicated 🙂 But that’s a story for another time.

Engineering Zen: Mind-Bending Science and History Revealed | July 13 2026, 16:16

Reminding you that I have an Engineering Zen group on Facebook and Telegram. Recently, there have been posts about:

– The British plan to build an aircraft carrier… out of ice. Measuring 600 meters in length — the largest ship in history. Material scientists found an additive that makes ice as strong as concrete. A prototype was actually built — its remnants still lie at the bottom of a Canadian lake.

– The fact that no one really knows why a bicycle doesn’t fall over. For a century and a half, textbooks offered two beautiful explanations — until in 2011 they built a bicycle that disabled both effects. By all laws, it should fall over. Yet, it rides.

– How the military communicates with submarines through the depth of salty water, where radio waves cannot penetrate. The Americans nearly turned 40% of the state of Wisconsin into an antenna, while the Soviet system used the Earth’s crust itself as an antenna. Efficiency — megawatts in, a couple of watts out. And that’s enough for almost the entire globe.

– That very rotor with blades behind glass, which has been explained incorrectly for 150 years. Maxwell was initially pleased — but then they noticed it spins the wrong direction. The correct answer is much trickier, and it specifically requires a “non-ideal” vacuum.

– Why a fridge magnet sticks only on one side, and barely on the other. It turns out, it’s the same trick used to focus beams in particle accelerators. And it has a very non-obvious “flip side.”

– The “Silicon Lottery”: chips from the same production line turn out different, and your processor might just be a flawed model of a higher-end version with blocks disabled. And in the 90s, there was a coprocessor that, upon installation, simply switched off the main processor and worked instead.

– Undersea cables that carry the entire internet: as thick as a garden hose, under 20 kilovolts, amplifying light directly with light — no electricity involved. And why traders are willing to pay for the fact that light in fiber is “too slow.”

– The Hoover Dam, inside which nearly 1000 km of piping is hidden — otherwise, the concrete would have taken 125 years to set and it would have cracked from tension. It was cooled with an on-site ice plant.

– And for dessert — the fact that trolleybuses, electric cars, faxes, drones, video calls, and even humanoid robots are much older than you think. One of the robots walked, talked 700 words, counted with his fingers, and smoked. In 1939. Seems we’re just dusting off the past.

Join us to not miss much more interesting stuff.

“Engineering Zen”, Engineering Zen and on Telegram t.me/engineersdzen

Exploring Engineering Zen: Uncovering the Secrets of Technology and Science | July 02 2026, 21:47

I’m reminding you that I have an Engineering Zen group on Facebook and Telegram. In recent days, there have been posts about:

– Why a fridge magnet sticks only on one side, and barely on the other. It turns out, this is the same trick used to focus beams in particle accelerators. It has a name and a very unobvious “inside out”.

– A skyscraper in New York that could have been toppled by wind — and which was secretly fixed “live,” at night, while during the day offices went about business as usual. It all started with a student doubting the calculations. The story was then classified for almost 20 years.

– The fact that trolleybuses, electric cars, faxes, drones, video calls, and even humanoid robots are much older than you think. One of these robots, by the way, walked, talked about 700 words, counted on fingers, and smoked. In 1939.

– “Kelvin’s Thunderstorm” — dripping water that pumps thousands of volts and strikes with a spark. Completely without a power source. It is assembled on a kitchen table, and the energy comes not from what you might think (and it’s not a perpetual motion machine).

– A fax machine that became commercially successful before the telephone. A two-meter-tall eight-kilogram pendulum with a needle, 1860s. Guess who was the main customer.

– A simple soap film, which instantly “solves” a problem still unsolved by mathematicians in general terms. Without performing a single computation.

– Hoover Dam, inside which nearly 1000 km of pipes are hidden — otherwise, the concrete would have taken 125 years to set and would have cracked. How exactly they cooled it is a separate attraction with an ice plant right on the site.

– Those very same rusty “rusty” iron pieces sticking out in every fashionable square. They rust deliberately, and that is precisely what makes them almost eternal. Of course, they were not designed for beauty.

– Why memory cannot be erased by force of will — and why it’s so easy to inadvertently rewrite it. Also explains why so many people want to go back to the USSR.

– Benford’s Law: the first digit of a random number does not appear haphazardly — a one is at the forefront in almost a third of cases. It is used to catch fraudsters, and is even accepted as evidence in court.

– And for dessert — the world’s best mechanical calculator the size of a can, designed by a Buchenwald concentration camp prisoner. It was this work that saved his life.

Join us to not miss out on many more interesting things. “Engineering Zen”, @engineersdzen

Roman Naming Traditions: From Numerical Sons to Maiden Names | June 17 2026, 13:04

In Rome, there was a tradition to give personal names only to the first four sons, and to the rest — numbers: Quintus — “fifth”, Sextus — “sixth”, Septimus — “seventh”, Octavus — “eighth”, Nonus — “ninth”, and Decimus — “tenth”. However, they quickly grew lazy and stopped counting the children literally. For instance, a sole son might be called Quintus simply because it was his grandfather’s name. There’s a more elegant version too. The numerical names might indicate not the order but the month of birth. For example, Sextus might refer to the month of Sextilis (August, the sixth month).

For men (patricians), the structure was strict: Praenomen (personal name), Nomen (clan/family name), and Cognomen (family branch/nickname). For example: Gaius Julius Caesar. In this entire immense civilization, there were about 18 praenomens. The most popular ones were: Gaius, Lucius, Marcus, Publius, Quintus.

If you are a woman in Ancient Rome, you have no name. Period. Women were referred only by the feminine version of their father’s clan name (family name). If the father is named Julius, his daughter is named Julia. If he has a second daughter, she is named Julia Secunda (the Second). The third — Julia Tertia (the Third). The youngest — Julia Minor (the Younger).

P.S. By the way, about the months. Why is September the 7th month, October the 8th, etc.? It turns out the year started on March 1st. January and February were added later. In the very first Roman calendar, which, according to legend, was introduced by the founder of Rome, Romulus, in the 8th century BC, there were only 10 months and 304 days in a year.

Unraveling the Mysteries and Controversies of Curling Technology | June 15 2026, 12:52

It’s amazing that the core of curling is based on a physical anomaly that scientists have been unable to explain for 100 years. According to physics, if you spin, say, a regular glass and push it forward, friction should make it roll in the opposite direction of the spin. But the 20 kg granite curling stone defies these rules throughout its entire existence — it curves in the same direction it rotates. Either the stone leaves microscopic scratches on the ice, upon which its rear part then “jumps,” or the ice clings to it like teeth on a comb – there are many hypotheses, but clarity is nil.

There’s an interesting story in curling called “Broomgate.” In 2015, brooms with such aggressive directional fabric were released that sweepers could literally “steer” the stone like a joystick. Chaos ensued, and players from top teams (!) agreed not to use this then-legal hack out of gentlemanly honor. The federation tested 50 brooms and officially banned these “technological doping” tools. In 2024–25, “Broomgate 2.0” erupted. The controversy was not over the bristles, but the stiffness of the foam under the pad. Right during the Grand Slam of Curling (2025), top teams rebelled and signed a collective agreement to abandon these innovations mid-season. From June 2025, stiffer foams were banned — models like the BalancePlus Firm 2.0 were specifically targeted.

The photo shows curling in 1959 at Loch Leven, Kinross, Scotland.

Rediscovering Pyotr Boborykin: The Prolific 19th Century Wordsmith | June 13 2026, 16:47

I find it astonishing that an unknown to me Pyotr Boborykin wrote heaps in the 19th century, introduced words like “intelligentsia” and “nonsense-maker” into the language. Considered the most prolific writer of the 19th century. Almost no one knows him besides a few philologists. And yet, the guy was a star in his time.

Boborykin was deeply concerned that he would remain in the history of literature as a “secondary” author, so he wrote furiously. He authored about 20 large novels and countless smaller works. 12 volumes, 350 pages each. Essentially, he was the Darya Dontsova of his era. He has a novel “Vasiliy Terkin” which you might have heard of, but not his; you’re likely thinking of the poem by Tvardovsky by the same name, who knew nothing about the novel at all, these were different Terkins.

For instance, finding the novel “Doctor Tsybulka” online is very challenging; there’s only one PDF in the form of a reprint with pre-revolutionary orthography.

The Evolution of Telegrams: A Luxury Legal Service in the USA | June 07 2026, 15:04

WHOA, in the US, telegrams haven’t yet been blocked, and they have transformed into an insanely expensive elite legal service, monopolized by American Telegram and iTelegram (both successors of Western Union). An urgent cable costs $34.95 base plus $0.79 per word. Additionally, they officially charge a $20.00 surcharge for home delivery, $25.00 for sending on a weekend, and up to $200.00 if you dictate the text to a live operator. Even sending a regular e-mail through their service will set you back $14.95.

The main source of income is the emergency cancellation of commercial contracts under the federal “3-day rule.” By law, contracts are terminated the second a telegram is sent. Companies are required to recognize the timestamp of American Telegram, authorized by the FCC, which provides ironclad protection in court. For 100% legal force, the service cunningly imposes on clients a delivery report and an archive copy — at $12.95 for each checkbox.

Their rates still include astonishing rules: “a word” is considered any group of characters up to 7 signs (more than that counts as two words), and a fee of $10.00 is automatically imposed for text in any language other than English. Special “War Zone” rates for messages to soldiers still apply ($20.00 base + $0.89 per word) and international cablegrams to sea vessels are sent strictly at the “risk and peril of the sender” with no guarantee of response.

Imagine, to save money, entire code books were published in the early 20th century that replaced complex thoughts with a combination of letters that looked like a word (link in the comments). POTUS and SCOTUS are from there.

Exploring Lippmann Plates: The Wonders of Early Color Photography | June 06 2026, 05:30

I learned today about a method of color photography invented in 1891, called the Lippmann plates. The Lippmann method is a beautiful hybrid of photography and holography. A layer of transparent gelatin with silver halide nanoparticles was applied to a glass plate, which was backed by a mirror made of liquid mercury (!). Light, passing through the glass, was reflected by the mercury, collided with itself, and created a standing wave. Inside the microscopic layer of gelatin, the light literally “froze,” burning silver nanostructures in strict accordance with the actual wavelength.

In all modern methods, color is achieved by overlaying three colors, just as on the screen from which you are reading this, red, blue, and green. Thus, there is no true yellow or purple in photographs. But on the Lippmann plate, all colors are real.

It’s also interesting that the Lippmann plate contains not a drop of pigment or dye. It is absolutely transparent! The color in it is born physically (due to structural interference) — just as the wings of butterflies or soap bubbles shimmer.

And obviously, you cannot make a copy from such a “photograph.” I’ll give a link to a good video below.

Indeed, this optical magic had its own quirks. Perfect mirror-like layers inside the plate were only obtained from pure, concentrated color. If a complex “dirty” or dull light entered the frame, the microstructures began to overlay each other, blurring the accuracy of color reproduction. Moreover, two opposite effects were born in the emulsion at the same time: the physical silver mirror created a colorful positive picture, but the silver itself remained just a regular black-and-white negative. Because of this optical conflict, the brightness of the frame was severely compressed, creating a vintage effect of a “hand-painted” photograph. Therefore, the method required jewel-like work with light and perfectly bright set pieces.

The Intriguing Life and Science of Ilya Mechnikov | June 02 2026, 11:32

Talk about tons of weird and intriguing stuff about Ilya Mechnikov (biologist). His older brother (Ivan) – a prototype for Leo Tolstoy’s “The Death of Ivan Ilyich.” Another brother (Lev) – an anarchist, sociologist, fought in Italy alongside Garibaldi. Mechnikov himself made two attempts to depart this life: the 1st time — after the death of his 1st wife (who, suffering from tuberculosis, was carried into the church on a chair). Mechnikov swallowed morphine but survived. The 2nd time — when his 2nd wife contracted typhoid. He deliberately infected himself with relapsing fever. Both survived. By the way, this 2nd was his 15-year-old teacher (when he was 30).

Odessa. The country’s first bacteriological station on Leo Tolstoy street 🙂 An employee there botched a vaccine for anthrax and a whole flock of sheep died. Scandal => M emigrated to Paris.

Paris. Came under the wing of Louis Pasteur (the father of pasteurized milk). P supported M’s theory, gave him a lab in his institute for 28 years. M worked there for free.

M advanced the theory that not everyone who gets infected becomes sick and dies. Basically, it’s all about (of course) the gut microflora. To prove it, he deliberately drank cholera vibrios. Nothing, he got lucky (“lucky as you were”, M thought)

Not satisfied. To prove that it was about the microflora, he made his lab assistant Latapie drink cholera. Hmm, then M gave the culture to a second person, the biologist-watchman J.-B. Joupié. Joupié nearly died. Mechnikov: yay, it works: different microfloras, the microbe works differently (hmm).

Result – Nobel Prize for phagocytosis (cell immunity). And he is also the “father of gerontology”: M proposed that for longevity, one needs to quell “bad bacteria” using probiotics (hmm).

In the end, he still died after the third heart attack. In Paris, his ashes are kept in the library of the Pasteur Institute. Also, in English Wikipedia, he is Élie Metchnikoff. Hard to guess.

In the photo, Mechnikov is persuading Leo Tolstoy that he is not a charlatan.