The story of the American Civil War did not begin with the firing of cannons at Fort Sumter in 1861. It began eighty years earlier, in a hot, sealed room in Philadelphia, with a fatal stroke of a pen. In the summer of 1787, the founding fathers gathered to write the U.S. Constitution. They faced…
In the hot, suffocating summer of 1866, inside a temporary military headquarters in Nikolsburg, a grown man was sobbing hysterically, threatening to jump out of a fourth-story window. That man was Otto von Bismarck. Outside his door, Prussian military generals—drunk on their legendary blitzkrieg victory over Austria—were screaming to march on Vienna. They wanted blood, glory,…
By Lil B Gurung Reading Time: 7 minutes Act I: The Midnight Ink In the autumn of 1722, a sixteen-year-old boy stood over a wooden printing press in Boston, his knuckles stained with black ink and his clothes smelling faintly of boiled animal fat. His name was Benjamin Franklin. By day, he melted tallow for…
When we walk through the glittering skyline of Central Mumbai today, we see towering glass skyscrapers, luxury gated townships, and international corporate headquarters. But if you peel back the layers of history, you’ll find that the concrete foundations of India’s financial capital weren’t built on IT, banking, or modern real estate. They were built on…
Have you ever sat on the couch all day, demanding a glass of water, only for a family member to hit you with: “Tyo gharko Jagat Seth tero bau ho?” (Is your dad the Emperor of Bankers that you are sitting there like a king?) Or maybe you’ve seen someone acting incredibly privileged and bossy, and thought, “Kasto…