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Ritualistic Cat Torture Was Once a Form of Town Fun
Are you an evil omen? (Photo: Ralph Daily/flickr)If you’re fond of cats, you should probably stop right here and switch to looking at photos of kittens wearing tiny hoodies. Because in medieval times,...
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The Exquisite 19th-Century Infographics That Explained the History of the...
"Humboldt’s Distribution of Plants in Equinoctial America, According to Elevation Above the Level of the Sea"–from Black's General Atlas, engraved by George Aikman.(Image: Geographicus/WikiCommons...
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Verdura Plantation in Tallahassee , Florida
Verdura Plantation was once one of the largest examples of early antebellum plantation style. Situated on 9,000 acres of land, the house was a three-story, 13-room, 10-columned mansion. Benjamin...
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Photos of Japan’s Abandoned Amusement Parks, in All Their Ghostly Glory
Nara Dreamland amusement park in Japan. (All Photos: Jordy Meow)Urban exploration—visiting and often photographing abandoned locations—is a huge global force of discovery. In the U.S., we call it...
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Finding Brooklyn's Ghost Streams, With Old Maps and New Technology
An illustration of Vechte's house, with the brook highlighted (Image: Courtesy of Eymund Diegel) On a chilly Sunday morning, Eymund Diegel stands at the intersection of 5th Avenue and 2nd Street in...
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Unite d'Habitation in Marseille, France
When post-World War II Europe was faced with an urban housing crisis, France turned to a demigod in their midst who happened to be fluent in the matters at hand: Charles-Édouard Jeanneret-Gris, known...
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FOUND: Voices Recorded On Tiny Cassettes
Treasure trove (Photo: Scott Schiller/Flickr)Chicago composer Olivia Block has a thing for micro cassettes, those tiny tapes that used to go into answering machines.As NPR reports, her fondness for the...
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Fleeting Wonders: A Floating Forest in New York City
Some trees hang in Queens. (Photo: Michael Neff/Suspended Forest) Always trying to go to a park when your friends want to check out museums (or vice versa)? Finally, an answer. This weekend and through...
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National Electronics Museum in Linthicum Heights, Maryland
The brainchild of a Westinghouse engineer from Baltimore, the National Electronics Museum was first dreamed up by Robert Dwight as an opportunity to show off his company’s best engineering bells and...
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The Pair of American Politicians Who Fought the 19th Century's Silliest Duel
Henry Clay, left, and John Randolph of Roanoke, both deeply unimpressed. (Photos: Clay, Library of Congress; Randolph, Library of Congress)In 2006 Vice President Cheney shot his friend Harry...
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Seattle Meowtropolitan Cat Cafe in Seattle, United States
Not every feline fanatic can make it to Cat Island, but if they can make it to Seattle, there is cat-themed coffee and kitty cuddles to be had.Feline-friendly cafes have been popping up all over Asia,...
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How Intermarriage Created One of the World's Most Delicious Foods
Laksa is said to get its name from the Sanskrit word "lakh," which means 100,000. (Photo: InterContinental Hong Kong/Flickr)A few things are definitive of an afternoon on the coasts of Southeast Asia:...
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Long John Jamboree in Yellowknife, Canada
Stir-crazy? Shack-wacky? Cabin fever? No matter which euphemism you favor, the experience itself is very real. But depending on the moment, that doesn't have to be a bad thing.This is key piece of...
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Ski Dubai in Dubai, United Arab Emirates
Just because you are in one of the hottest cities in the world doesn't mean that you shouldn't be allowed to have a nice ski. Of since snow is kind of hard to come by in Dubai, they went ahead and just...
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This 19th-Century Map Shows that Beaver Dams are Built to Last
Map from Lewis Henry Morgan's The American Beaver and His Works, 1868. (Photo: Internet Archive)Lewis Henry Morgan did not like the way beavers looked. “The animal has a ratlike appearance about the...
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Animals Are the Earth's Sensors. Here's How Scientists Track All Their Data
A female lion crosses the Kenyan savanna wearing a tracking collar. (Photo: Roland Kays)Until recently, if researchers wanted to track quarry in the wild, they had to catch them, affix them with...
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Willamette Falls in Oregon City, Oregon
The Willamette River flows north through some of the most fertile and abundant land in the Pacific Northwest. So rich is the land around the Willamette that two thirds of all Oregonians live within the...
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Yeni Camii in Thessaloniki, Greece
Completed a mere decade before the city came under Greek rule, Yeni Camii was the last mosque built in Thessaloniki while it was still an Ottoman port. The "New Mosque" (as its name means in Turkish)...
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How the Oxford English Dictionary Went from Murderer's Pet Project to...
A 1989 edition of the Oxford English Dictionary, which contains 59 million words. (Photo: Cofrin Library/flickr)A shot rang out into the cold night air in Lambeth Marsh, a notorious London slum. Police...
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Volcanic Rocks of Lemnos in Limnos, Greece
The Greek island of Lemnos is the mythic location of the forge of Hephaestus, god of blacksmiths, metallurgy, and all things fire.According to legend, Hephaestus landed here after Zeus hurled him off...
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