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The Texan Who Invented Chili Powder Also Accidentally Created the American Taco
An American hard shell taco. (Photo: Luca Nebuloni/flickr)For many Americans, a taco looks like this: a U-shaped deep-fried corn tortilla shell filled with seasoned ground beef, shredded iceberg...
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Fleeting Wonders: The World's Biggest Pinball Museum Is Open This Weekend
A very small section of Banville, California's Museum of Pinball. (Photo: Museum of Pinball)Still sore at the Fireball pinball machine that stole all your quarters in 1979? You just may get your chance...
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FOUND: The World's Largest Canyon, Hidden Under Antarctic Ice
Antarctica (Photo: NASA)There are few places left on Earth that have not been thoroughly mapped and explored, and one of them is a spot in Antarctica called Princess Elizabeth Land. It's a...
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Beylerbeyi Palace in Üsküdar, Turkey
As with many centuries-old palaces, much of Beylerbeyi's best stories have undoubtedly been lost in the mists of antiquity, but it does have a few claims to fame beyond its proximity to the first...
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Flyting Was Medieval England's Version of an Insult-Trading Rap Battle
Flyting from Norse folklore and Old England should be incorporated into American politics. (Photo: Public Domain/WikiCommons)Imagine a world that had swapped its guns for puns and its IEDs for...
View Article100 Wonders: The Secret City of the Cosmonauts
From the 1940s to the 1990s, the secretive USSR created a massive constellation of ghost geography. Hundreds of cities. Over a million people living off the map. Not "off the grid"—towns were literally...
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Perithia at Corfu in Perithia, Greece
If you're looking for Perithia, you'll have to be clear on which Perithia you're looking for...the new one, or the abandoned one?On the Greek island of Corfu, the "new" Perithia can easily be located...
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The Grand Old Man of Dentistry in Chicago, Illinois
Green Vardiman Black, known to friends and colleagues as G.V., really was a giant in the creation of modern dentistry. In addition to setting the standards for preparing cavities, he wrote the first...
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Tumblr's Newest Target Is Jon Arbuckle, Garfield's Horrible Owner
The new face of Internet shame: Jon Arbuckle. (Courtesy of Tumblr)Over the past couple of days, a new meme has been rocketing through Tumblr. It seems that the internet pitchforks have been raised...
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Fairy Meadows in Diamer District, Pakistan
Nestled in the Raikhot valley high in the Himalayas, it's not hard to guess why this lush green mountain pasture at the foot of a majestic snowy peak was named Fairy Meadows.Known as "Joot" among...
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Inside the Angola Prison Hobbycraft Sale, Where Inmates Sell their Creations
Art on display at Louisiana State Penitantary's hobbycraft sale. (Photo: Courtesy The Angolite)Chances are, you've heard of Angola, The Louisiana State Penitentiary. It's the largest maximum security...
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Chicken Farmer Rock in Newbury, New Hampshire
A New Hampshire folk legend has grown up around a crudely painted piece of graffiti on a stone outcropping near a rural highway roadside.Newbury, New Hampshire is a small town, home to a little over...
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New Evidence of Mammoth Hunting Puts Humans in the Arctic 10,000 Years Before...
Sergey Gorbunov excavating the mammoth (Photo: Pitulko et al., Science (2016))More than 40,000 years ago, in the Arctic reaches of what’s now Russia, the population of mammoths was at a peak. This was...
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The Oaks in Tuskegee, Alabama
Booker T. Washington was born into slavery, but he grew up to become a well-known African-American educator, author, orator, and presidential adviser, and eventually lived in this splendid home that...
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Dialogo in Chicago, Illinois
A spectre is haunting the University of Chicago—the spectre of communism. At least, that's what the campus tour guides tell bright-eyed prospective students as they walk past the brutalist artwork,...
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These Beautiful Images of Algae Were the First Photos to Illustrate Any Book
From Anna Atkin's Photographs of British algae: Cyanotype Impressions. (All photos: New York Public Library)In 1843, the first book ever to be illustrated with photographs was published. Photographs of...
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Haunting Photos of Europe's Abandoned Buildings, From Steel Plants to Castles
The main hall of a steel plant office in France. "The most painful thing in this is to watch it crumble", says Hans. (All Photos: Hans van Vrouwerf)This photo essay is one of a five-part series with...
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Why Did 'Share a Coke' Blacklist These 24 Countries?
A map detailing all of the countries with which you can and cannot Share a Coke. (Image: Atlas Obscura)At this point, you’ve likely seen billboards, subway posters, or television commercials...
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Stomatol Sign in Stockholm, Sweden
Stomatol! It might not be a household name in the states, but the toothpaste brand is known in Sweden where it is from, due in large part to the historic illuminated sign that has graced the Stockholm...
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Vines Are the Hipsters of Tropical Forests–Fast Increasing And Pushing Out...
A twisted liana in Hawai'i (Photo: David Eickhoff/Flickr)Lianas, says Dr. Geertje van der Heijden, are “marvelous but strange.” A category of plant like trees or bushes, lianas are thick vines,...
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