Watch a Strange Miniature Automaton of Marie Antionette Play a Dulcimer Music...
Hundreds of years after her death, Marie Antoinette lives on—as an automaton. For most of her time, she sits idle in a dark room at the Musée des Arts and Métiers in Paris. It's only when a hand cranks...
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When Giant Sequoias Were Sacrificed for Traveling Sideshows
During the second half of the 19th century, when traveling sideshows were all the rage, the so-called wonders of the world were taken from city to city to be gazed upon by spectators aching to see...
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Five Landmarks of Atomic Nevada
When the threat of nuclear weapons loomed during the 1950s, a whopping 928 atomic tests were performed in Nevada, mostly in Yucca Flat, a desert drainage site set aside by the U.S. government as the...
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You Can Apply Now to Be an Apprentice Globe Maker in London
If you have a steady hand, an eye for detail, and a love of latitude and longitude, Bellerby and Co. would like to hear from you. The London-based company is one of the world’s few remaining...
View ArticleA Lot of Money Has Been Raised to Build a Statue for a Supermarket Cat in...
In Saltney, which lies on the northwest border of England and Wales, there was, until recently, a cat that might greet you in the aisles of the local Morrisons, part of a chain of British supermarkets....
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Found: Tiny Grains of Rock That Reveal a Lost Continent
By the standard of land on Earth, the island of Mauritius is quite young. Rocks found on the island are no more than 9 million years old, a fraction of the age of rocks on large continents, which date...
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Feral Bunnies Are Taking Over Las Vegas
In early 2015, Dave Schweiger, a longtime Las Vegas resident, came home from work to find his teenage daughter sitting on the lawn, surrounded by six bunnies. These weren't the dun-colored jackrabbits...
View ArticleWatch Two Guys in China Duel With Fireworks
Not a scene from @HarryPotterFilm: Two guys launch firework fight during the Spring Festival pic.twitter.com/mJqye2QoxV— People's Daily,China (@PDChina) January 31, 2017We're living in crazy times, and...
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Exit Interview: I Was a Black, Female Thru-Hiker on the Appalachian Trail
The first person to hike the full length of the Appalachian Trail, a white man named Earl V. Shaffer, wanted to “walk the Army out of his system.” That was in 1948. Since the 1970s, when 775 hikers...
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Officials Have Given Up Looking for an Escaped Bobcat in D.C.
When Ollie, a seven-year-old female bobcat housed at the Smithsonian's National Zoo in Washington, D.C. escaped on Monday, there was some alarm.Bobcats are not known to be aggressive to humans, but 13...
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When the NSA Thought Mind Control Would Be an Actual Military Concern
A version of this story originally appeared on Muckrock.com and Glomar Disclosure.Last week, we looked at the early days of the CIA’s foray into extrasensory espionage. Today we’ll be following up with...
View ArticleWatch a Lot of Giant Chimneys Collapse Around the U.S.
Some people just want to watch the world burn. Others are happy to look at chimney demolition videos online.Controlled Demolition, Inc., an implosion subcontractor based in Phoenix, Maryland, maintains...
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Marie Duval, the Pioneering 19th-Century Cartoonist That History Forgot
In the late 1800s, London was swept up in the new craze of visual, satirical journalism. When Judy magazine, a twopenny serio-comic, debuted a red-nosed, lanky schemer named Ally Sloper who represented...
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Punxsutawney Phil's Greatest Hits
A 1915 cartoon demonstrating how Phil's image has been co-opted for various rhetorical purposes. (Image: Jena Fuller/Flickr)This morning, Punxsutawney Phil, America's most beloved forecasting...
View ArticleA Portland Teen's Pet Snake Got Stuck in Her Earlobe
Ah, teens and their snakes—always getting into mischief.Last week, Portland, Oregon, resident Ashley Glawe was hanging out with her pet ball python, Bart, when he decided to try something new. Quick as...
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Found: Two Mysterious Signatures on the Wing of a WWII Plane
AirCorps Aviation, in Bemidji, Minnesota, has a very particular business: they restore, maintain and rebuild vintage planes, from the World War II era. All sorts of amazing aircraft come through their...
View ArticleWatch a Massive Swirling Tornado of Tuna
A couple of times a year in the waters of Mexico's Sea of Cortez, a colossal column of tuna churns slowly in an underwater fish vortex. The tunnel of over 100,000 Jack Tuna, or bigeye trevally, is...
View ArticleA Good Man Removed a Cereal Bowl From This Blinded Squirrel's Head
Someday in life you will encounter a blinded squirrel with a single-serve cereal bowl stuck on its head and you will be confronted with a choice: Is today the day you will be a hero? Or is today the...
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Why the London of British Literature Barely Changed for 200 Years
Erik Steiner is a geographer, and in his field people trying to understand how places worked in the past tend to look at census records and old maps. But in a recent project, Steiner, the creative...
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Were Colonial Men Obsessed With Their Calves?
A couple of weeks ago, at an event in Manhattan, I found myself in conversation with a George Washington impersonator. Even as we chatted about our 21st-century lives, he had an enviable commitment to...
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