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Nobody Wins The War Between Birds and Planes
It’s a bird! It’s a plane! It’s both at the same time! (Photo: Alf van Beem/WikiCommons CC0 1.0)This past Wednesday, window-seat passengers on a flight bound for Fort McMurray, Canada were met by a...
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Finally—Here's Your Jet Pack!
Time to rocket into the sky for that bird's eye view. (Photo: Steve Jurvetson/flickr)Most of us have probably spent the past few decades wondering when someone was finally going to give us an...
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The Shipwreck of Lady Elizabeth in Whale Bone Cove, Falkland Islands
Called the “Lady Liz” by locals, this three-masted rusted iron barque drifted into Whalebone Cove in February, 1936, and has remained ever since.The Lady Elizabeth was launched from Sunderland,...
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The Rutherford B. Hayes Birthplace Gas Station in Delaware, Ohio
Next to the Upper Cut Barber Shop in downtown Delaware, Ohio stands a gas station with a note, in the form of a plaque, to presidential sojourners: THIS TABLET MARKS THE BIRTHPLACE OF RUTHERFORD B....
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Verdenskortet in Hobro, Denmark
Circumnavigating the globe on foot sounds like a tall order - requiring commitment of years of one’s life, some serious logistics planning, and an unshakeable determination to put one foot in front of...
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Old Jewish Cemetery of Sarajevo in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina
This large Jewish cemetery was originally founded in 1630 and contains over 3,850 weathered tombstones. For several years, it also contained around 70 land mines.As part of the Ottoman Empire, Sarajevo...
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C.Y. O'Connor Horse and Rider in North Coogee , Australia
Charles Yelverton O'Connor was an Irish-born engineer who found his greatest achievements in Australia, before tragically taking his own life. O'Connor's life has been commemorated in monuments across...
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Partisan Memorial Cemetery in Mostar, Bosnia and Herzegovina
Built to honor the Yugoslav partisans who died during World War II, the Partisan Memorial Cemetery in Mostar is a just as much of a monument in itself as it is an actual cemetery where the dead have...
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According to this 1833 Map, Americans Lived in a Giant Eagle
The eagle map. (Image: Library of Congress, Geography and Map Division)In 1833, Americans lived in the United States of Eagle.That year, an atlas, entitled Rudiments of National Knowledge, Presented to...
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Grave of The Kneeland Maids in Gardner, Massachusetts
On March 7, 1855, the bodies of the Kneeland Sisters (Miriam, 85, and Sarah Phinney, 75) were found in the home they shared in Gardner, Massachusetts. They were apparently bludgeoned to death with a...
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LOST: A Nuclear Bomb's Worth of Highly Enriched Uranium
A biscuit of reduced uranium from the Manhattan Project (Photo: Wikimedia)One of the worst-case scenarios for a terrorist attack in a dense urban place involves stolen nuclear material.Occasionally,...
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The Bankrupt Irishman Who Created the Dollar Sign by Accident
The only known depiction of Oliver Pollock, in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. (Photo: Richard Cummins/Alamy)Wars cost money. So when the Revolutionary War broke out, the Colonies turned to a number of sources...
View ArticleThe Story Behind This Mystifying Photo of KKK Members at a Colorado Fair
(Photo: Courtesy of the Royal Gorge Regional Museum & History Center)This is the first of an occasional series called Camera Obscura, a deep dive into a photograph that is seemingly inexplicable....
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How Turducken Went From Food Of Kings To Poultry of the Populace
Four and twenty blackbirds baked in a pie–the blue-blood ancestor of the turducken. (Image: Mother Goose's Melodies/WikiCommons Public Domain)Once upon a time, you had to be royalty to be surprised by...
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Emma Crawford Coffin Race in Manitou Springs, Colorado
Every year nearly 10,000 people attend a festival commemorating the time a small town experienced what was basically an Edward Gorey cartoon come to life.The poor, dear Emma Crawford was once a real...
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The Pirate Cemetery in Ile Sainte-Marie, Madagascar
On the small island of Ile Sainte-Marie, four miles off the coast of eastern Madagascar, lie the bones of pirates who terrorized the seas during the 17th and 18th centuries.For around 100 years, Ile...
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Fleeting Wonders: This Japanese Island Ate Another Island
An eruption at Nishinoshima in October. (Photo: Japan Coast Guard)In a rough real estate market, some geological formations have all the luck. Since it first surfaced in 2013, one volcano in Japan has...
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The Clog Museum in Zaandam, The Netherlands
What’s more quintessentially “Dutch” than clogs? Maybe only windmills, but it would be a tight race.Not far from Amsterdam, in the city of Zaandam, the neighborhood known as Zaanse Schans is home to...
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Zedekiah's Cave in Jerusalem, Israel
The limestone rock quarry known as Zedekiah’s Cave under the Old City of Jerusalem has been a center of legend and ceremony for thousands of years.There are several stories about the cave that are...
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Västerbottensost Visitors Center in Skellefteå, Sweden
Odds are that if someone’s talking to you about Swedish cheeses, they’ve confused Sweden with Switzerland. Unless, of course, they’re talking about Västerbottensost (Västerbotten...
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