https://tomesweethome.com Two-minute true stories about films, history, sport and science — told properly, and kept in one place worth coming back to. en https://tomesweethome.com/story/the-great-salad-oil-swindle/ https://tomesweethome.com/story/the-great-salad-oil-swindle/ Sun, 20 Sep 2026 12:00:00 GMT Money Inspectors measured the tanks with a tape dipped in water. Oil floats. One man used that fact to borrow against $150 million of soybean oil that did not exist. https://tomesweethome.com/story/was-tulip-mania-even-a-bubble/ https://tomesweethome.com/story/was-tulip-mania-even-a-bubble/ Sun, 20 Sep 2026 12:00:00 GMT Money The most-cited financial bubble in history may be mostly a story invented 200 years later by a man selling a book about crowd madness. https://tomesweethome.com/story/the-shower-scene-that-took-a-week/ https://tomesweethome.com/story/the-shower-scene-that-took-a-week/ Fri, 18 Sep 2026 12:00:00 GMT Movies Forty-five seconds of film, seven days of shooting, 78 camera setups — and no shot of a knife touching skin. https://tomesweethome.com/story/the-film-that-almost-destroyed-its-studio/ https://tomesweethome.com/story/the-film-that-almost-destroyed-its-studio/ Fri, 18 Sep 2026 12:00:00 GMT Movies Metropolis took 17 months, 30,000 extras and millions of marks. It was a technical miracle and a commercial catastrophe. https://tomesweethome.com/story/the-dead-man-who-fooled-the-nazis/ https://tomesweethome.com/story/the-dead-man-who-fooled-the-nazis/ Fri, 18 Sep 2026 12:00:00 GMT History Operation Mincemeat used one corpse, a fake major, and a set of letters to move an entire German division. https://tomesweethome.com/story/bostons-tidal-wave-of-molasses/ https://tomesweethome.com/story/bostons-tidal-wave-of-molasses/ Fri, 18 Sep 2026 12:00:00 GMT History A tank of syrup burst in 1919 and sent a wave through the streets at 35 mph. The smell lasted for decades. https://tomesweethome.com/story/the-librarian-who-smuggled-350000-manuscripts/ https://tomesweethome.com/story/the-librarian-who-smuggled-350000-manuscripts/ Fri, 18 Sep 2026 12:00:00 GMT History When extremists seized Timbuktu, one man spent months moving a civilisation's records out of the city in metal trunks. https://tomesweethome.com/story/the-war-that-lasted-335-years/ https://tomesweethome.com/story/the-war-that-lasted-335-years/ Fri, 18 Sep 2026 12:00:00 GMT History The Netherlands and the Isles of Scilly were allegedly at war from 1651 to 1986. Peace was declared — and historians aren't convinced it was ever real. https://tomesweethome.com/story/who-actually-snubbed-jesse-owens/ https://tomesweethome.com/story/who-actually-snubbed-jesse-owens/ Fri, 18 Sep 2026 12:00:00 GMT Sport Everyone knows Hitler refused to shake his hand. Owens himself named a different man. https://tomesweethome.com/story/the-marathon-that-doesnt-count/ https://tomesweethome.com/story/the-marathon-that-doesnt-count/ Fri, 18 Sep 2026 12:00:00 GMT Sport Eliud Kipchoge ran a marathon in 1:59:40. It isn't a world record, and the reasons why are fascinating. https://tomesweethome.com/story/the-noise-that-was-the-universe/ https://tomesweethome.com/story/the-noise-that-was-the-universe/ Fri, 18 Sep 2026 12:00:00 GMT Science Two physicists spent a year trying to remove a persistent hiss. They cleaned out pigeon droppings. It didn't help — because the noise was the Big Bang. https://tomesweethome.com/story/the-dinosaur-found-with-its-last-meal/ https://tomesweethome.com/story/the-dinosaur-found-with-its-last-meal/ Fri, 18 Sep 2026 12:00:00 GMT Science A machine operator in Alberta hit something unusual. It turned out to be a 110-million-year-old armoured dinosaur — preserved in three dimensions, with its stomach contents intact. https://tomesweethome.com/story/the-marathon-won-barefoot/ https://tomesweethome.com/story/the-marathon-won-barefoot/ Thu, 17 Sep 2026 12:00:00 GMT Sport Abebe Bikila's shoes didn't fit. He ran the Olympic marathon without them — and won it, under a monument to fascism. https://tomesweethome.com/story/the-pigeon-that-saved-194-men/ https://tomesweethome.com/story/the-pigeon-that-saved-194-men/ Wed, 16 Sep 2026 12:00:00 GMT History Shot through the chest, blind in one eye, one leg hanging by a tendon — and still carrying the message that stopped the artillery. https://tomesweethome.com/story/the-match-that-took-three-days/ https://tomesweethome.com/story/the-match-that-took-three-days/ Tue, 15 Sep 2026 12:00:00 GMT Sport Eleven hours and five minutes. 183 games. A final set that finished 70–68. Wimbledon's longest match broke its own scoreboard. https://tomesweethome.com/story/the-shark-that-didnt-work/ https://tomesweethome.com/story/the-shark-that-didnt-work/ Mon, 14 Sep 2026 12:00:00 GMT Movies Jaws has one of the most famous monsters in cinema history. It almost never appears on screen — because the monster was broken. https://tomesweethome.com/story/the-man-who-sold-the-eiffel-tower-twice/ https://tomesweethome.com/story/the-man-who-sold-the-eiffel-tower-twice/ Sun, 13 Sep 2026 12:00:00 GMT History In 1925 a con man gathered six scrap-metal dealers in a Paris hotel and sold them a national monument. Then he came back to try it again. https://tomesweethome.com/story/the-night-amateurs-beat-the-soviets/ https://tomesweethome.com/story/the-night-amateurs-beat-the-soviets/ Sat, 12 Sep 2026 12:00:00 GMT Sport A team of American college students against the most dominant hockey team on earth. Everyone knew the score before it started. Everyone was wrong. https://tomesweethome.com/story/nobody-knew-how-casablanca-ended/ https://tomesweethome.com/story/nobody-knew-how-casablanca-ended/ Fri, 11 Sep 2026 12:00:00 GMT Movies The cast of one of the most quoted films ever made did not know how it would finish. The ending was written while they were shooting it. https://tomesweethome.com/story/australia-declared-war-on-emus-and-lost/ https://tomesweethome.com/story/australia-declared-war-on-emus-and-lost/ Thu, 10 Sep 2026 12:00:00 GMT History Two soldiers, two machine guns, ten thousand rounds of ammunition. The emus won. https://tomesweethome.com/story/star-wars-was-built-from-junk/ https://tomesweethome.com/story/star-wars-was-built-from-junk/ Tue, 08 Sep 2026 12:00:00 GMT Movies The lightsaber is a film projector. The blaster is a radio tower. Chewbacca is a walrus. The sounds of Star Wars came from a junkyard.