History

Cutty Sark and the Wild Race Against Time

The Thames likes to pretend it has seen everything. It has watched Romans grumble about the damp, Victorians lay down railways with reckless confidence,…

Jeffrey Archer: A Life Stranger Than His Fiction

People

Jeffrey Archer: A Life Stranger Than His Fiction

How Large Are the Largest Insects on Earth?

Nature

How Large Are the Largest Insects on Earth?

Start Here

New to Interessia? These stories explain what we do.

Health

Your Body on Low Battery: The Real Cost of Vitamin Deficiency

Your Body on Low Battery: The Real Cost of Vitamin Deficiency

Picture this: it’s Monday morning, you’ve hit snooze three times, your brain feels like it’s running on grey porridge, and your limbs weigh approximately…

7 min read

Food

Pecan: The Nut That Grew Up With America

Pecan: The Nut That Grew Up With America

There are glamorous nuts and there are sensible nuts. Pistachios arrive dressed in green. Macadamias carry the aura of tropical luxury. Almonds somehow acquired…

5 min read

Places

Toledo: The Capital of Swords

Toledo: The Capital of Swords

Walk through Toledo and sooner or later you will encounter a sword. Usually sooner. They hang in shop windows beside suits of armour, medieval…

7 min read

History

Bicycles and women’s rights: Two Wheels and Scandalous Ankles

Bicycles and women’s rights: Two Wheels and Scandalous Ankles

In the 1890s, Western civilisation found itself facing a terrifying new threat. Respectable women were climbing onto bicycles. They were leaving home without horses,…

6 min read

Britain

The institutions, customs, places and peculiarities that made Britain what it is.

Britain

The Norman Conquest: When England Got New Management

The Norman Conquest: When England Got New Management

There are historical dates, and then there is 1066. British schoolchildren once learnt it almost before learning their own birthdays: William the Conqueror, Harold…

6 min read

Run, Minister, Run: Inside Westminster’s Division Bell Ritual

Imagine that you are an MP. You have spent the afternoon discussing tax policy, planning regulations or some amendment whose title requires more stamina…

5 min read

Eton College: Where Britain Learns to Rule

On 8 September 2026, a thirteen-year-old boy walked through the gates of a boarding school in Berkshire. Normally this would interest his parents, perhaps…

6 min read

The Order of St Patrick: The Knighthood Ireland Left Behind

There are institutions that disappear with a bang, and there are institutions that simply stop receiving invitations. The Order of St Patrick belongs firmly…

7 min read

A Curious Story

Extraordinary people, places and ideas from a changing world.

You probably didn’t know

Montgolfier Balloon: The Day Humanity Finally Left the Ground

For most of human history, flying belonged to birds, gods and people with an unhealthy confidence in homemade wings. Then, during a few extraordinary…

History

Not dates and kings. The stories that explain how the modern world happened.

History

Bicycles and women’s rights: Two Wheels and Scandalous Ankles

Bicycles and women’s rights: Two Wheels and Scandalous Ankles

In the 1890s, Western civilisation found itself facing a terrifying new threat. Respectable women were climbing onto bicycles. They were leaving home without horses,…

6 min read

Culture

How Broadway Became Broadway

How Broadway Became Broadway

Broadway is a street, a neighbourhood, an industry, a dream factory and, occasionally, an extremely efficient machine for turning several million dollars into absolutely…

7 min read

Britain

The Norman Conquest: When England Got New Management

The Norman Conquest: When England Got New Management

There are historical dates, and then there is 1066. British schoolchildren once learnt it almost before learning their own birthdays: William the Conqueror, Harold…

6 min read

Food

Why we eat what we eat.

Food

Pecan: The Nut That Grew Up With America

Pecan: The Nut That Grew Up With America

There are glamorous nuts and there are sensible nuts. Pistachios arrive dressed in green. Macadamias carry the aura of tropical luxury. Almonds somehow acquired…

5 min read

Food

Asado: Argentina’s Slowest, Loudest, Most Serious Meal

Asado: Argentina’s Slowest, Loudest, Most Serious Meal

In Argentina, cooking meat has never been a side activity. It sits at the centre of the day. Everything else quietly rearranges itself around…

5 min read

Food

Rutabaga: The Vegetable That Survived Everything Except Fashion

Rutabaga: The Vegetable That Survived Everything Except Fashion

Rutabaga may have one of the worst marketing departments in the vegetable world. It is large, heavy, slightly lumpy and usually dressed in an…

6 min read

Tech & Science

Things worth understanding, without needing a PhD.

History

Montgolfier Balloon: The Day Humanity Finally Left the Ground

Montgolfier Balloon: The Day Humanity Finally Left the Ground

For most of human history, flying belonged to birds, gods and people with an unhealthy confidence in homemade wings. Then, during a few extraordinary…

6 min read

Tech & Science

Forget the Battlefield: Rwanda Found a Better Use for Drones

Forget the Battlefield: Rwanda Found a Better Use for Drones

These days, drones usually make the news for grim reasons. They appear in reports from war zones, in footage of surveillance, and in stories…

7 min read

Tech & Science

DNA Ethnicity Estimates: Can Your Saliva Really Tell You Where You Come From?

DNA Ethnicity Estimates: Can Your Saliva Really Tell You Where You Come From?

You spit into a small plastic tube, put it in the post and wait for science to inspect several hundred years of family history.…

6 min read

People

The people who changed how we see the world.

Culture

Why John Coltrane Still Sounds Radical at 100

Why John Coltrane Still Sounds Radical at 100

On 23 September 2026, John Coltrane would have turned 100. This feels slightly improbable, because Coltrane belongs to that peculiar category of artist who…

7 min read

People

Michael Faraday: From Binding Books to Rewriting Physics

Michael Faraday: From Binding Books to Rewriting Physics

Michael Faraday never went to university, struggled with advanced mathematics and began adult life binding other people’s books. By the end of his career,…

6 min read

People

Marco Polo: The Traveller Who Saw Too Much to Be Believed

Marco Polo: The Traveller Who Saw Too Much to Be Believed

Marco Polo had a credibility problem that feels surprisingly modern. He returned to Venice with stories so extravagant that sensible people struggled to take…

7 min read

Places

The stories behind the world’s most interesting places.

Places

Toledo: The Capital of Swords

Toledo: The Capital of Swords

Walk through Toledo and sooner or later you will encounter a sword. Usually sooner. They hang in shop windows beside suits of armour, medieval…

7 min read

Places

Ceuta: The Spanish City in Africa

Ceuta: The Spanish City in Africa

Ceuta looks like the sort of place created during a particularly competitive evening of mapmaking. It sits on the North African coast, shares a…

7 min read

History

Is the Great Wall of China Really What You Think It Is?

Is the Great Wall of China Really What You Think It Is?

Picture the Great Wall of China and your mind probably creates a familiar image. You see one enormous stone ribbon winding across misty mountains.…

8 min read

Places

Mallorca: More Than Just a Pretty Beach

Mallorca: More Than Just a Pretty Beach

Everyone has a mate who’s been to Mallorca. They come back with a tan, a bottle of Hierbas, and the same story: “Oh, it’s…

5 min read

From the Interessia Archive

Timeless stories, still worth reading.

Nature

From Beauty to Horror: The Flowers That Smell Like Death

From Beauty to Horror: The Flowers That Smell Like Death

It’s the sort of party trick nature pulls when she’s in a mischievous mood: a flower that smells less like springtime freshness and more…

4 min read

Health

Sarcopenia After 40: Why Strength Fades Quietly and How to Keep It Anyway

Sarcopenia After 40: Why Strength Fades Quietly and How to Keep It Anyway

Somewhere after 40, a quiet negotiation begins between you and gravity. Chairs feel lower. Bags feel heavier. Stairs feel longer, even when the building…

5 min read

Tech & Science

Can Seismic Stations Really Predict Earthquakes?

Can Seismic Stations Really Predict Earthquakes?

People love the idea that somewhere in a quiet room full of screens, blinking lines and very serious scientists, a seismic station might suddenly…

5 min read

Britain

Secrets of Methodist Central Hall

Secrets of Methodist Central Hall

You’d be forgiven for walking past Methodist Central Hall in Westminster and thinking it’s just another one of those handsome but slightly stern Edwardian…

5 min read

History

How Bombay Became Mumbai: Cotton Booms, Empire Dreams and a City Reborn

How Bombay Became Mumbai: Cotton Booms, Empire Dreams and a City Reborn

Mumbai has never been a straightforward city. It began as a group of low-lying islands on the Arabian Sea, home to Koli fishing communities…

7 min read

History

The Boer War: When Farmers Fought an Empire

The Boer War: When Farmers Fought an Empire

At first glance, the Boer War sounds like a colonial mismatch so absurd that even a Victorian newspaper editor might have felt embarrassed printing…

6 min read

History

How to Build an Empire and Call It Restoration

How to Build an Empire and Call It Restoration

He did not look like a conqueror. Instead, he resembled a cautious administrator who worried about drafts and damp air. Yet Octavian Augustus transformed…

8 min read

History

Jonathan Swift: The Grumpy Genius

Jonathan Swift: The Grumpy Genius

Say the name Jonathan Swift and you might hear a faint chuckle roll across the centuries. The man behind Gulliver’s Travels wasn’t just some…

7 min read