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Bungle Bungle Range in Kimberley, Australia
Rising out of the landscape of the Purnululu National Park, the terrifically named Bungle Bungle Range are beehive-shaped rock formations that are thought to have been caused by the erosion of a very...
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Ai-Petri Bridges in Yalta, Crimea
While Crimea is a bit too contentious for casual tourism, that doesn't mean that there aren't wonders to be found among the turmoil. For instance the peak of Ai-Petri where high winds buffet a handful...
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Terror Threats Force Museums To Rethink The Role Of Gallery Guards
A guard is illuminated by James Turrell's "The Light Inside" at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. (Photo: Ed Schipul/Flickr)As public cultural centers become terrorist targets, museums are struggling...
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Old Tjikko in Dalarna Province, Sweden
Growing high atop Sweden's Fulufajallet Mountain is a Norway Spruce that sure doesn't look like much – except that it's an estimated 9,550 years old and goes by the name of Old Tjikko.Located in...
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Victorian Cookbooks Were Stuffed with Costumed Roosters and Sphinx Cakes
An "artistic centre piece for a supper table." If you're interested in re-creating this masterpiece: "Neptune, dolphins, horses, moulded in tinted fat. Car either natural shell or of fat. Falling water...
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Fleeting Wonders: Be A Crew Member On A Modern-Day Viking Ship
This could be you. (Image: Draken Harald Hårfagre/YouTube)Everyone knows someone who is always bragging about how, given the chance, they would make a fantastic Viking. "I would be truly excellent at...
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FOUND: One Planet, Rocky, Relatively Close, Potentially Habitable
Part of Ophiuchus (Image: Rogelio Bernal Andreo/Wikimedia)At the rate that astronomers are finding potentially habitable exoplanets, the universe is starting to feel almost neighborly.A team in...
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'What a Christmas Present! Deportation!': The Revealing History of Ellis...
Children at Ellis Island in the early 1900s, displaying their Christmas gifts. (Photo: AP Images)In 1931, Sam Lee traveled 7,000 miles from his native China to begin a new life in New York City. On the...
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Cheer Up, The Saddest Day of The Year Is A Hoax
Is one Monday in January the most depressing day of the year? Probably not. (Photo: SevenLittleThings/Flickr)The days are getting shorter, the nights are getting longer, and it is seriously bumming out...
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Reindeer May Not Be Able to Fly, But They Do Have Ultraviolet Vision
What do those eyes really see? (Photo: Alexandre Buisse/WikiCommons CC BY-SA 3.0)Glen Jeffery started getting curious when people started sending him reindeer eyeballs. The eyeballs were being sent to...
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Calico Ghost Town in Yermo, California
Calico in Southern California is the ghost of an Old West mining town that boomed in the 1880s, and went bust only 12 years later when the price of silver plummeted. At its height, this town in the...
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The First Woman to Publish a Book in English Lived in One Room, Walled Off...
A statue of Julian of Norwich (Image: rocketjohn/Wikimedia)In 1413, Margery Kempe was embarking on a dangerous quest. She and her husband had agreed to be celibate: she was going to begin to live her...
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Vorontsov Palace in Alupka, Ukraine
Built between 1828 and 1848, this magical palace near the town of Alupka has enchanted visitors for almost 200 years.During the early 1800s, the newly-annexed Crimean seaside was the place to summer if...
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The Old Leiden Belltower in Leiden, Netherlands
In 2014, a long-lost piece of the Dutch city of Leiden was recovered. The remains of a medieval bell tower - the core of the old city - were found in the basement of a perfectly ordinary jewelry...
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Crimean Trolleybus Line in Simferopol, Crimea
Despite its political troubles, Crimea has always had a place of relaxation and beauty–the Crimean Peninsula along the Black Sea.The seaside resort of Yalta has been a desirable vacation destination...
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Porter Sculpture Park in Montrose, South Dakota
Cruising down I-90 in South Dakota, motorists will come upon a massive 60-foot bull's head, rising out of the ground like some pagan effigy and guarded by a pair of skeletal minotaurs. Assuming that...
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The Bones of the Wawel Dragon in Krakow, Poland
Poland's Wawel Cathedral holds the remains of a number of Polish royals as well as some of the country's most famous religious art, but the real attraction at the massive religious compound is the...
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Northeasterners Were Always Snobs–And These Maps Prove It
A decorative wall hanging in a Massachusetts home. (Photo: Tao Tao Holmes/Atlas Obscura)According to a 1928 map called “A Bostonian’s Idea of the United States of America,” Bostonians suspect that...
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The Real-Life Christmas Grinches Who Steal Lights, Ornaments, Trees—Even Baby...
A house decorated for Christmas. (Photo: Nickolay Khoroshkov/shutterstock.com) Every year plastic Santa Clauses, wooden reindeer and other novelties are extracted from storage and arranged on lawns to...
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The Reading Pagoda in Reading, Pennsylvania
Originally the centerpiece of a planned luxury resort, the Pagoda in Reading, Pennsylvania has become the symbol for the entire town.Built atop Mount Penn in 1908 by local quarry owner, William A....
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