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The Knowledge Back Catalogue

Things worth knowing. Stories worth rediscovering.

A growing archive of history, culture, technology, places and everyday curiosities—following the questions that lead somewhere unexpected.

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Latest from the Back Catalogue

  • City street progressing from pixels and wireframe geometry to a fully rendered game scene

    When You Play a Video Game, Who Actually Draws the Picture?

  • Two players competing at a fighting-game arcade cabinet in the early 1990s

    How Street Fighter II Invented the Modern Fighting Game

  • Family watching downhill skiing on television in a late-1970s British living room

    How Ski Sunday Taught a Snowless Nation to Love Alpine Racing

  • Track cyclist leaning through the steep banking of a wooden velodrome

    Why Velodrome Bikes Have No Brakes

  • Football transfer paperwork beside a laptop and a clock approaching eleven at night

    Why Football Has a Transfer Window — and What Happens at 11pm

  • Father and daughter walking together towards a school and city buildings

    Do Children Change Their Parents’ Beliefs?

  • Aerial view of a coral atoll, lagoon, airfield and island settlement in the Indian Ocean

    Why Do a Few Tiny Indian Ocean Islands Matter So Much?

  • A model collection being photographed and carefully packed for sale in a calm hobby room.

    Why Is It So Hard to Sell a Collection?

  • Richard Trevithick’s 1804 Penydarren locomotive hauling iron wagons through the wintry Merthyr industrial valley.

    The First Steam Railway Journey Happened in South Wales

  • Editorial illustration comparing Stephenson’s Rocket with the later Planet locomotive in an early railway works.

    Rocket Won the Race. Planet Built the Railway.

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The Knowledge Back Catalogue

Things worth knowing. Stories worth rediscovering.

A growing archive of history, culture, technology, places and everyday curiosities—following the questions that lead somewhere unexpected.

Curated and edited by Steve Davies.

© 2026 Steve Davies · About

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