Author Archives: davidbressan

On February 20, 1949 Mrs. Henrietta Helen Olivia Roberts Durand-Deacon, a sixty-nine-year-old wealthy widow, disappeared from the Onslow Court Hotel located in South Kensington, London. The police interviewed the residents and soon forty year-old John George Haigh became a suspect, … Continue reading →

The geological sciences experienced major impulses during the 19th century, despite many phenomena were already reported by occasional travellers, it was the expedition of professional naturalists that started an age of exact measurement and observations – in 1848 the Russian … Continue reading →

Modern pop-culture legends tells that one of the most well-known adventurers and archaeologists in movie history, Dr. Henry Walton Jones, Jr. – or Indiana Jones (“who becomes 30″ this very day), was loosely based on real naturalists, one of them … Continue reading →

The First World War was initiated with a fighting spirit inspired by the classic battles man against man, but soon the soldiers realized that the warfare of the 20th century had reached a potential of destruction never seen in the … Continue reading →

A month after the earthquake and the Tsunami that devastated the western coast of Honshu people begin to realize how vulnerable even a modern society can be if hit by a massive geological disasters. From all known geological phenomena surely … Continue reading →

At the beginning of the twentieth century the search for our ancestors – the supposed “missing links” between man and the animal kingdom was a crucial point in the new emerging field of human palaeontology. First results came from Germany … Continue reading →

“So, naturalists observe, a flea                                                  Hath smaller that on him prey; And these have smaller still to bite ‘em; And so proceed ad infinitum. Thus every poet, in his kind, Is bit by him that comes behind.“ Jonathan Swift (1667-1745) … Continue reading →