Analysis
Pieces
Modern tennis descends from a handball game born in French monasteries
Before becoming one of the most popular sports in the world, tennis had a little-known prehistory, woven through the corridors and cloisters
The world's oldest stock exchange opened in Amsterdam in 1602
Did you know that the claim that the Amsterdam Stock Exchange was the world's oldest securities exchange keeps popping up in economic
The Galápagos Islands once had their own currency adorned with giant tortoises
Did you know the famous Galápagos Islands, an Ecuadorian territory known worldwide for inspiring the work of naturalist Charles Darwin, once had
Monopoly, the game originally designed to denounce capitalism
Did you know the famous board game Monopoly, an absolute symbol of wealth accumulation and capitalist triumph in the popular imagination, was
When Tsar Peter the Great taxed beards to modernize Russia
Did you know one of the most intimate symbols of masculine identity, the beard, was once the subject of an actual state
The Eusko, France's Local Currency That Circulates Alongside the Euro
Many French people have no idea that, right within their own country, several complementary local currencies circulate alongside the euro, used every
The Zimbabwean 100-Trillion-Dollar Bill That Couldn't Even Buy Bread
Some numbers are so astronomical that they outstrip our ordinary powers of imagination, and the one-hundred-trillion Zimbabwean dollar note issued in 2008
The English Window Tax That Pushed Thousands to Brick Them Up
Few examples illustrate the direct influence of fiscal policy on a country's architecture as starkly as the window tax introduced in England
Barter never disappeared, it hides inside our modern exchange networks
Since primary school, we're often told the same simple story: before money was invented, human beings exchanged goods directly with one another,