Rewind Land

02/07/2025

Mary Anning: The Girl Who Changed What We Know About Prehistoric Life

When Mary Anning was just 12 years old, she made a discovery that changed science forever.

Born in 1799 in Lyme Regis, England, Mary grew up in a poor family. To earn money, they collected and sold fossils—then called "curiosities"—from the nearby seaside cliffs.

In 1811, Mary and her brother Joseph made an incredible find. Joseph found a large skull, and over the next year, Mary carefully dug out the rest of the 17-foot skeleton. 🦴

It turned out to be the first complete Ichthyosaur skeleton ever found—an ancient sea reptile that stunned scientists.

But Mary didn’t stop there.

In 1823, she discovered the first complete Plesiosaur skeleton. It looked so strange that some scientists thought it had to be fake—but they were wrong.

Then, in 1828, she found the first Pterosaur skeleton outside of Germany—a flying reptile from the age of dinosaurs. 🦖

Despite these amazing discoveries, Mary faced many challenges. As a working-class woman, she wasn’t allowed to join scientific groups or get credit for her work. Many male scientists published papers based on her fossils without mentioning her name.

Even so, Mary’s discoveries helped prove that extinction—the idea that species could completely disappear—was real, a shocking thought at the time.

Today, Mary Anning is recognized as a pioneer in paleontology, and her work still inspires scientists around the world.

Sources: Britannica, Natural History Museum

02/07/2025

On This Day – July 1, 1867:
Canada officially became a country. The British North America Act joined Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and the Province of Canada (later split into Ontario and Quebec) into one self-governing nation called the Dominion of Canada.

The word “Dominion” came from a Bible verse (Psalm 72), suggesting a land stretching “from sea to sea.” It was proposed by Sir Leonard Tilley.

John A. Macdonald became the first Prime Minister, and this marked the beginning of Canada’s journey to full independence.

Today, July 1 is celebrated as Canada Day, honoring this peaceful step toward becoming a nation.

02/07/2025

Leif Erikson: The Viking Who Beat Columbus by 500 Years

About 500 years before Christopher Columbus, a Viking named Leif Erikson became the first known European to set foot in North America.

Leif was the son of Erik the Red, who had started a Norse settlement in Greenland. Leif was born in Iceland around 970 AD.

Around the year 1000 AD, Leif traveled to Norway. There, he met King Olaf I Tryggvason, who convinced him to become a Christian and asked him to spread the religion in Greenland.

Leif had heard stories from a sailor named Bjarni Herjólfsson, who had accidentally seen new lands to the west after being blown off course. Curious, Leif bought Bjarni’s ship, gathered a crew of about 35 men, and sailed to find those mysterious lands. 🛶

Their first stop was a rocky, barren place they called Helluland ("Stone Land"), likely modern Baffin Island.
Next, they reached a forested area named Markland ("Forest Land"), believed to be Labrador.
Finally, they arrived at a lush land with wild grapes. They named it Vinland ("Wine Land").

Leif and his crew built shelters in Vinland and spent the winter there, enjoying the rich natural resources before returning to Greenland with timber and grapes.

For centuries, this adventure was only known through old Icelandic stories called the sagas, which many thought were myths.

But in the 1960s, archaeologists discovered a Norse site at L’Anse aux Meadows in Newfoundland, Canada. 🗺️
They found Viking-style buildings and tools that matched the time of Leif’s voyage.

This amazing discovery confirmed that the Vikings were the first Europeans to reach the Americas—long before Columbus.

Sources: Saga of the Greenlanders, Saga of Erik the Red

02/07/2025

Four Children Survive 40 Days Alone in the Amazon After Plane Crash 🌿

In May 2023, a small plane crashed deep in the Colombian Amazon rainforest. On board were three adults and four children—including an 11-month-old baby. Sadly, the adults, including the children’s mother, did not survive. But the children were missing from the crash site.

The four siblings—Lesly (13), Soleiny (9), Tien Noriel (5), and baby Cristin—had somehow survived the crash and disappeared into one of the world’s most dangerous jungles.

What followed was a huge rescue effort called Operation Hope, led by the Colombian military and local Indigenous trackers. The military brought advanced equipment and support, while the Indigenous searchers used their deep knowledge of the jungle—and even spiritual guidance—to help find the children.

Clues like small footprints, a baby bottle, and half-eaten fruit showed the kids were still alive and moving through the forest.

Finally, after 40 days, on June 9, the children were found alive—just 3 miles from the crash. They were weak and covered in insect bites, but they had survived.

Their rescue was a powerful reminder of human strength, especially in children, and the importance of combining modern tools with ancient Indigenous wisdom. 🙏

Sources: The Guardian, Scripps News

02/07/2025

If you fly over the dry deserts of Iran, you might spot long, straight lines of holes stretching across the land. They’re not bomb craters or natural features—they're part of an amazing ancient invention called a qanat. ⛏️

Qanats were first built around 3,000 years ago in ancient Persia. They were designed to bring water from mountain sources down to dry areas—without using any pumps.

Here’s how they worked: Engineers dug a gentle underground tunnel from the mountains to the plains. Along the way, they created vertical shafts to let in air and remove dirt. These shafts are the strange holes you can still see on the surface.

Since the water traveled underground, it stayed cool and didn’t evaporate under the hot sun. This simple but brilliant system used gravity alone to transport water. 💧

Qanats were so useful that other civilizations adopted the idea—from Egypt to Afghanistan, where they’re also known as karez or foggara.

These underground channels made farming and life possible in some of the world’s driest regions. Many qanats are still working today—proof of the genius of ancient engineers.

Sources: Britannica, World History Encyclopedia, BBC

02/07/2025

One Man, One Cathedral: The Story of Justo Gallego Martínez

Justo Gallego Martínez was a former monk who spent 60 years building a cathedral almost entirely by himself near Madrid, Spain.

He began the project in 1961 after surviving tuberculosis. In gratitude, he promised to build a shrine dedicated to Our Lady of the Pillar.

Justo had no training in architecture, construction, or engineering. He wasn’t even a bricklayer. He taught himself by reading books about castles and cathedrals.

Most of his materials came from trash, donations, and leftovers from factories. He used whatever he could find—oil drums to mold columns, bicycle wheels as pulleys, and other recycled items.

For six days a week, over six decades, he worked mostly alone or with help from his nephews and a few volunteers. The entire cathedral came from the vision in his mind—no blueprints, no permits, and no approval from the Catholic Church. But officials quietly allowed him to continue.

Justo died in 2021 at the age of 96, with the cathedral still unfinished.

Today, the building still stands in the town of Mejorada del Campo, a powerful symbol of one man’s faith, creativity, and dedication.

02/07/2025

02/07/2025

During World War II, a 19-year-old literature student named Mavis Batey became part of one of Britain’s most secret missions.

She wasn’t fighting on the front lines—instead, she was recruited in May 1940 to work at Bletchley Park, the secret base for British codebreakers. 🤫

Under the guidance of famous cryptanalyst Dilly Knox, Mavis helped crack the Italian naval Enigma code. Her work played a key role in the Royal Navy's victory at the Battle of Cape Matapan in 1941, giving the Allies an edge in the Mediterranean.

Mavis wasn’t alone. Many young women worked quietly behind the scenes during the war. Jane Fawcett, another codebreaker, decoded a message revealing the location of the German battleship Bismarck. That single message helped the Royal Navy find and destroy one of Germany’s most powerful ships.

Others, like Patricia Davies from the Women's Royal Naval Service, spent their days intercepting German messages—providing the clues Bletchley Park needed to break enemy codes. 🧠

For many years, their efforts were kept secret. The public didn’t know how much these women had done to help win the war.

But their brainpower and quiet courage played a major role in the Allied victory.

02/07/2025

Why Does an Hour Have 60 Minutes? Here's the Ancient Reason

The answer goes back over 4,000 years to ancient Mesopotamia.

Around 2000 BC, the Sumerians—one of the first civilizations—used a number system based on 60 instead of 10 like we use today.

Why 60? Because it's a very flexible number. It can be divided evenly by 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 10, 12, 15, 20, and 30, which made it ideal for doing calculations, especially for trade and studying the stars.

This system, called "sexagesimal," helped the Sumerians divide the day more precisely. Later, the Babylonians adopted and improved it.

Meanwhile, the Egyptians divided the day into 24 hours—but thanks to the Sumerians, each hour was split into 60 minutes, and each minute into 60 seconds. That gave people a more accurate way to measure time.

This wasn’t the invention of one person—it was a slow, smart development by an entire civilization trying to better understand time and the sky.

Today, the way we tell time—with hours, minutes, and seconds—is still based on the Sumerians’ clever number system. ⌚

Sources: Ancient Sumerian and Babylonian cuneiform tablets, including The Enuma Anu Enlil

02/07/2025

In 1637, a French mathematician named Pierre de Fermat scribbled a short note in the margin of a book. 📖
He wrote that he had found a brilliant proof for a math problem—but the margin was too small to fit it.

That one mysterious note sparked a 358-year hunt to uncover the proof he claimed to have.

The problem, later called Fermat’s Last Theorem, seemed easy enough for a high school student to understand—but it confused even the smartest mathematicians for centuries.

Many tried to solve it. Some proved it for certain numbers, but no one could find a complete solution that worked for every case.

Then, in the 1980s, a British mathematician named Andrew Wiles, who had been obsessed with the puzzle since childhood, took on the challenge.

He worked in secret for seven years, telling hardly anyone. In 1993, he finally announced he had found the proof.

But there was a problem—a major error in his work was discovered.

Instead of giving up, Wiles teamed up with a former student and spent another year fixing it. In 1994, he got it right. ✅

The final proof was published in 1995, ending one of the greatest mathematical mysteries of all time.

Source: Annals of Mathematics, University of Oxford

01/07/2025

On June 30, 1908, a huge explosion happened in Siberia. It flattened over 770 square miles of forest in just seconds. This event is called the Tunguska Event and is the biggest impact ever recorded on Earth. Scientists think it was caused by a small comet or asteroid that exploded in the sky. Even though it caused massive damage, no people were confirmed to have died. This strange explosion still fascinates scientists and many curious people today. 🌲💫

01/07/2025

Steven Callahan was lost alone in the huge Atlantic Ocean. He fired flares and turned on his emergency beacon, but no one came to rescue him. This is how he survived 76 days by himself at sea.

In January 1982, Steven, a naval architect, started a solo trip from the Canary Islands to the Caribbean. Just seven days in, something heavy—probably a whale—hit his small boat hard and damaged it badly.

Water started flooding his boat, so Steven jumped into a small inflatable life raft with only a little survival gear. Now, he was completely alone in the middle of the ocean. 🛶

He turned on his emergency radio beacon. But back then, these signals weren’t watched by satellites, and he was far from busy shipping routes. So, his calls for help went unnoticed.

His biggest problem was dehydration. Using two solar stills, he carefully collected a little over a pint of fresh water each day—just enough to survive.

For food, Steven became a fisherman. With a homemade spear, he caught fish like mahi-mahi and triggerfish that gathered under his raft. 🐟

For more than two months, he drifted over 1,800 miles of open ocean. He fought off sharks, dealt with broken equipment, and struggled with loneliness. But he never gave up.

On April 20, 1982, after 76 days, some fishermen near Guadeloupe saw birds flying around his raft. They found Steven and rescued him.

He later wrote a book about his experience called Adrift: Seventy-six Days Lost at Sea, telling the story of amazing human strength and survival.

Sources: Adrift: Seventy-six Days Lost at Sea (memoir), The Guardian