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Why the Hallmark Card Company Owns Thousands of Priceless Artworks
While visiting a Brooklyn church whose subterranean tunnels were part of the Underground Railroad, I came across an arresting painting. It was a copy of an 1860 oil painting by Eastman Johnson called...
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Meyers Ace Hardware in Chicago, Illinois
It looks almost like any other neighborhood hardware store now, but a few aesthetic giveaways reveal this shop's former life as "Chicago's Brightest Pleasure Spot," the heart of the Windy City's jazz...
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Nairobi Railway Museum in Nairobi, Kenya
The construction of the so-called "lunatic line," or Uganda Railway, began in 1896 from Mombasa on the Kenyan coast and finally reached Kisumu on the eastern shore of Lake Victoria in 1901, costing an...
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Is There Such a Thing as Too Many Blueberries?
Cultivated blueberries. (Photo: Steven DePolo/CC BY 2.0)The wild blueberry harvest, up in the blueberry barrens of Maine, starts in July and goes to early September. In these parts of the state, north...
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Kostel Svatého Jiří Ghost Church in Manětín, Czech Republic
Kostel svatého Jiří (St. George's Church) in Luková, Czech Republic, has been neglected for more than 40 years. Believing it to be haunted, the congregation refused to set foot into the church, which...
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India’s Deadly, Flexible Whip Sword Takes Years to Master
A martial artist uses a multi-bladed Sri Lankan variation of a traditional urumi. (Photo: Angampora/CC BY-SA 3.0)Whips are the coolest weapon, just ask Indiana Jones. Of course, someone like Ned Stark...
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The Neon Museum in Warsaw, Poland
After the death of Joseph Stalin in 1953, the Eastern Bloc went through the so-called Khrushchev Thaw that saw a relaxation of social and cultural repression. In Poland, one consequence of this shift...
View ArticleWatch These Awkward Elevator Rides From an Old Episode of Candid Camera
Elevator rides can be awkward. The tiny space forces passengers into close quarters as they slowly scale up and down buildings. In this clip from a '60s episode of the American hidden camera show...
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The Spacecraft Rosetta Died to 'Go Out Now in True Rock 'n' Roll Style'
An artist's rendering of Rosetta just before impact. (Photo: ESA)Over 11 years ago, the European Space Agency launched the Rosetta spacecraft, which was sent about 350 million miles into space to study...
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Obsidian Butte on the Salton Sea in Thermal, California
California's ghostly Salton Sea was once a popular tourist spot, but now is so salty it can't sustain life. This deadly lake makes for some strange environments. Bodies of birds and fish that can't...
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The Battle Over Where 'Uncle Tom's Cabin' Was Written
The house in Brunswick, where the owners claim that Stowe wrote Uncle Tom's Cabin. (Photo: David Jester)When Harriet Beecher Stowe penned Uncle Tom’s Cabin, her residence was a drafty, colonial style...
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The Warren's Occult Museum in Monroe, Connecticut
Paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren operated for decades as the preeminent voices in the believer community, and their strange career of ghost-hunting and demon-busting is on display in...
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How 20 Stolen Van Gogh Paintings Were Recovered 35 Minutes After a Heist
Van Gogh's "The Potato Eaters," one of the works that was stolen. (Photo: Public domain)Officials said Friday that two Van Gogh paintings—stolen in 2002 in a brazen robbery at the Van Gogh Museum in...
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The Not-Quite Incorruptible St. Bernadette of Lourdes in Nevers, France
The undeniably beautiful 130-year-old body of Bernadette Soubirous is displayed in a purpose-built crystal coffin, housed in a chapel at the abbey where she served as a nun. Her uncannily lifelike...
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7 Not-So-Secret Homes of Super Secret Societies
In clandestine corners of the world, the elite come together in secrecy. Some of them don’t mind that we know of these society meetings, while others maintain that they do not organize at all.Yet...
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Prometheus Statue at Vidraru Dam in Comuna Arefu, Romania
The Vidraru arch dam on the bank of the Argeş River in Romania is an engineering jewel. Built in 1966 to create hydroelectricity, it was the fifth largest dam in Europe at the time. It required 42...
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Freedom Bell in Berlin, Germany
The Freedom Bell (Freiheitsglocke) was a gift given by the American people to the people of West Berlin in the early days of the Cold War as a show of solidarity. Commissioned by the National Committee...
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Binghamton Clothing Factory Fire Monument in Binghamton, New York
It was hot the afternoon of July 22, 1913. The fire started after lunch, when a careless worker at the Binghamton Clothing Co. tossed a lit cigarette down a stairwell.Some of the ladies had stripped to...
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H.G. Wells Hid A Sick Burn Inside 'The War of The Worlds'
The image of three-legged Martian attack tripods and rivers covered in strange red weeds, are now iconic symbols of alien invasion, thanks to H.G. Wells’ influential science fiction novel, The War of...
View ArticleA Dearly Departed Istanbul Cat Gets a Commemorative Statue
Cats in Istanbul are kind of a big deal, but even among Istanbul’s famous cats, Tombili stood apart. An unusually portly cat, Tombili rose to social media fame after being caught on camera leaning a...
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