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Rossend Arús Masonic Library in Barcelona, Spain
During the 19th century, the fraternal order of Freemasons had lodges in practically every European-influenced country. Spain was no different, though the traces of the Freemasons are mostly hidden...
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Troma Entertainment Inc. in Queens, New York
A garage door mural of a friendly cartoon Toxie (The Toxic Avenger) welcomes you to Tromaville as you pass by. Troma Entertainment Inc. is one of the longest running, and last existing truly...
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Six Scientists Just Emerged from a Dome After a Year Simulating Life on Mars
(Photo: Carmel Johnston)This day last year six scientists entered a dome on a mountain in Hawaii and lived as you might on Mars. They slept in tight quarters and only entered the outside world in...
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Hackberry General Store in Hackberry, Arizona
The longest continuous stretch of the Old Route 66 that still remains today is the path from Seligman to Kingman in Arizona, which, at 86 miles, passes by both Delgadillo’s Snow Cap Drive In and the...
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Why Portland-Themed Businesses Are Big in Japan
A large record collection and vintage knickknacks grace the wood-paneled interior of Paddlers Coffee. (All Photos: Amelia Ayrelan Iuvino) Tokyo is the most populous metropolitan area in the world, with...
View ArticleWatch These Performers Form an Incredible Four-Tiered Human Pyramid on...
Forty-eight performers remain poised on waterskis as they glide down a waterway in Linyi, Shandong, China. Slowly and with impressive ease, 24 of these acrobatic waterskiers climb onto each others...
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How to Keep a Zibaldone, the 13th Century's Answer to Tumblr
A page from the Zibaldone da Venice, a 14th-century hodgepodge. (Image: Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library)One day in Venice, sometime near the end of the 14th century, a busy merchant found...
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Holy Rosary Catholic Church in Cedar, Michigan
The handsome red brick church at the corner of East Gatzke and South Schomberg Roads in Isadore, Michigan, hit a major roadblock on its way to completion: the skeletons buried in the basement of the...
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A Brief History of the College Textbook Pricing Racket
(Photo: m01229/CC BY 2.0)A version of this post originally appeared on Tedium, a twice-weekly newsletter that hunts for the end of the long tail.When I recently wrote about airport stores, one of the...
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Lonely Parking Meter in Winters, California
In the small town of Winters, California there is a parking meter. It is the only parking meter in the entire town and it is surrounded by 100 free spaces.The Business District in Winters is only about...
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Home of Truth in San Juan County, Utah
Home of Truth isn’t your run-of-the-mill ghost town. These remains in the southeastern Utah desert once comprised a religious colony that set out to be a post-apocalyptic utopia, formed in 1933 by a...
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Berkeley Springs Castle in Berkeley Springs, West Virginia
Samuel Taylor Suit was many things: a successful whiskey distiller; an honorary Kentucky colonel; and a wealthy, well-connected landowner, businessman and politician. He was also unlucky in love.Samuel...
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The Tiny Amazonian City That Supplies Aquarium Fish to the World
A young piabeiro (aquarium fisherman) heads out to collect Cardinal Tetras using a simple hand net. (All photos: Mike Tuccinardi)Deep in Brazil’s Amazon rainforest, the tiny city of Barcelos stands as...
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One of the 100 Desks in the U.S. Senate Chamber is Full of Candy
Hershey products from Pennsylvania are among the sweets stashed in the candy desk. (Photo: Bev Sykes/CC BY 2.0)Here's an unusually sweet political secret: one of 100 desks in the U.S. Senate chamber...
View ArticleWatch Gene Wilder Behind the Scenes as the Original Willy Wonka
Roald Dahl's book Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory was brought to life in 1971. Chocolate rivers, candy-laden trees and edible tea cups; the film made a child's imagination explode with...
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Troglodyte Church in Haute-Isle, France
Haute-Isle has been settled since the prehistoric age, and for most of that time its inhabitants lived in caves. Right up to the 19th century, in fact, most people in this rare troglodyte (that is,...
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Found: A Huge Reef Hiding Right Behind the Great Barrier Reef
The Great Barrier Reef (Photo: Nathan Hughes Hamilton/CC BY 2.0)As it turns out, the Great Barrier Reef, might not be the only great thing sitting in that portion of the ocean. According to Smithsonian...
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After Nuclear Blasts, Scientists Say It's Probably Time to Start a New Epoch
A mushroom cloud forms after a nuclear test at Bikini Atoll in the western Pacific Ocean in 1954. (Photo: Public domain)If humans weren't trying to consciously destroy the Earth, you wouldn't really...
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There's Some Clown Hysteria in South Carolina After a Lot of Mysterious Clown...
Endless clowns. (Photo: StockSnap/CC0)Concerned citizens have been abuzz about a recent rash of clown sightings in the woods outside the Fleetwood Manor apartment complex in Greenville, South Carolina....
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Matsieng Footprints in Kgatleng, Botswana
The creation story told among the peoples of what is now southeastern Botswana involves a great hunter named Matsieng. Some versions say he was a one-legged giant; other versions say he had two legs....
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