Pasternak and Stalin: What Was Said?
A short telephone call between Joseph Stalin and Boris Pasternak sealed the fate of a fellow writer. What exactly transpired during that fateful discussion remains subject to debate.
Missing Pieces
The Lost Years of Jesus
Did Jesus have a difficult childhood? Was his youth spent in Egypt or England, India or Japan? The four canonical gospels are quiet on his early life, leading some to speculate.
The Bruneri-Canella Case
The curious case of an apparent amnesiac in Collegno paved the way for forensic science to become one of the pillars of Italian law.
The Lost Script of Rapa Nui
Attempts to decipher the lost script once used by the Rapa Nui of Easter Island leave more questions than answers.
Percy Fawcett and the Lost City
First Tenochtitlán, then Cuzco, then Machu Picchu – why shouldn’t more cities paved with gold be discovered in South America?
Lost Movies
Almost three quarters of the golden age of Hollywood has been lost. Preservation only began when film came to be seen as art.
The ‘Lost’ Emperor?
Could a pair of ancient looking coins reveal the existence of a previously unknown Roman emperor?
Armless Fun?
In 1820 the discovery of an ancient Greek statue with missing arms posed more questions than answers.
No Laughing Matter
Aristotle’s lost treatise on laughter is a serious business. Could laughter lead to the downfall of society?
Going, going…Goethe?
The question of reconstruction was a thorny issue in postwar Germany, where celebrations of the ‘glorious’ past took on a different hue.