Europe

The Maeslant Barrier (Image: Ministry of Infrastructure and Water Management) In the Netherlands, two enormous gates, each 210 metres wide, can close against the North Sea to hold back dangerous storm surges. Known as the Maeslant Barrier, the structure stands near Hoek van Holland and was built between 1991 and 1997. According to Rijkswaterstaat, the…

A Romanian flea-market seller thought an old machine was a typewriter and let it go for €100; the buyer, a cryptography professor, recognized a World War II Enigma I and sold it at auction in 2017 for €45,000/Image: Reuters In 2017, a machine sold for €100 at a Romanian flea market turned out to be…

The government is also spending more on servicing its debt as high interest rates increase borrowing costs. Russia is preparing to cut spending on welfare, education and healthcare in its 2027 federal budget while raising taxes, as the government struggles to meet the rising cost of its war in Ukraine, according to fiscal documents reviewed…

In February 1945, the British submarine HMS Venturer sank the German U-boat U-864 off Norway’s Fedje island, killing all 73 people aboard. More than eight decades later, the wreck has become the centre of a very different problem: a potentially massive mercury cargo that remains on the seabed. In June 2026, Norwegian authorities recovered 22…

Five marble statues stand on the seabed of the Baia del Cannone, off Talamone in Grosseto, Tuscany, in the Northern Tyrrhenian Sea. They were placed there on 19 September 2024 as part of an initiative run by the association Casa dei Pesci. According to the study published in the MDPI journal titled ‘Early Biodiversity Responses…

Broad beans in the pod. Image Credit: Wikipedia A broad bean grown by the same Somerset family since 1875 has become part of a national collection of heritage vegetables. Known as Grandfather Bean, the variety has been maintained by the Burge family for around 150 years, with seed passed down through generations. In 2025, it…

Image Credit: Picpedia.org The England & Wales High Court has ruled on the will of Mark Briant, a 92-year-old man who changed his will while living with his daughter and son-in-law in 2022. The change reduced his wife Rosemary’s inheritance to a life interest in half of his estate, leaving her without an automatic right…

For nearly three centuries, layers of plain paint and plaster hid a remarkable secret inside one of Rome’s long-neglected Renaissance villas. Now, restorers peeling back those layers are bringing colourful scenes of gods, goddesses, soldiers and mythological figures back into view, as per a report by Smithsonian Magazine.The rediscovered artwork is inside Villa Silvestri Rivaldi,…

The House of Dreams Museum began in 1998. Image Credit: Stephen Wright official website A London artist has spent decades turning his home into a dense and colourful record of his life, covering walls, ceilings and outdoor spaces with thousands of discarded and collected objects. Stephen Wright’s House of Dreams in East Dulwich began as…

PC: Landschaftsverband Westfalen-Lippe (LWL) Archaeologists have uncovered a rare Roman-era workshop area in western Dortmund, Germany, during an excavation of a settlement dating from the 1st to 5th centuries AD. The site contains several areas with pits, furnaces, and hearths. It also has the first pottery kiln found at the site and exceptionally well-preserved workshops…