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Happy Fourth of July!
Happy Independence Day weekend! As you kick back and relax to celebrate the ol' red, white, and blue, take a look at our pieces celebrating the weird and wonderful corners of America's landscape and...
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The Real Life Tragedy Behind Othello's Tower
A photograph from the 1900 of the fortress walls and tower in Famagusta. (Photo: Travelers in the Middle East Archive) Unstable stones in the tower had to be removed and reinforced. The 500-year-old...
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London's Hidden Memorial to a Nazi Dog
The small and hidden grave of Giro. (Photo: Atlas staff)At 9 Carlton Terrace in London sits a stately building. It’s a reserved white structure, appointed with columns within hailing distance from...
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Before Radios, Pilots Navigated by Giant Concrete Arrows
The remnants of Transcontinental Air Mail Route Beacon 37A, which was located atop a bluff in St. George, Utah. (Photo: Dppowell/Wikipedia)Across the United States, from Los Angeles to New York, lies a...
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FOUND: A German WWII Tank Hidden in a Basement
A Panther tank in action in 1944. (Photo: Bundesarchiv Bild/Wikimedia)In a wealthy suburb of the German city of Kiel, not far from the border with Denmark, German police found a 1943 Panther tank...
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The United (And Divided) States Of Jennifer
Similarly colored states mean similar baby name preferences. (All images and videos: P. Barucca, J. Rocchi, E. Marinari, G. Parisi, and F. Ricci-Tersenghi/PNAS)Say you’re an alien trying to figure out...
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Morbid Mixtape: 7 Obscure Memorials to Dead Musicians
Saint Coltrane (Photo: flykr/Flickr)Musicians have a way of leaving a mark on places that often inspire intense devotion. There are the spectacular venues that have inspired album art and when a...
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The Freakiest TV Hack of the 1980s: Max Headroom
Max Headroom himself. (Photo: Ingrid Richter/Flickr)Hacker. According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, the word means “a person who secretly gains access to a computer system in order to get...
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Dalton, GA: How a Bedspread Fiefdom Became A Carpet Kingdom
Needlepunch embroidery, 1946. (Photo: Courtesy The Bandy Heritage Center for Northwest Georgia) This is the first installment of the Other Capitals of the World, a series where we'll look beyond the...
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Found: The Man Who Inspired William Carlos William's Most Famous Poem
(Photo: Kris WUHS_Mom)In 1923, William Carlos Williams wrote the short poem he is best remembered for today, "The Red Wheelbarrow": so much dependsupona red wheelbarrowglazed with rainwaterbeside the...
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Object of Intrigue: The Devil's Bible
The Codex Gigas, captured in a stereoscopic image in 1906. (Photo: National Library of Sweden)One book at the National Library of Sweden stands out among the rest: the Codex Gigas. Bound in wood,...
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The Rise and Suspiciously Rapid Fall of Freedomland U.S.A.
Freedomland brochure cover. (Photo: Mike Virgintino collection)Freedomland U.S.A., an American history-themed amusement park in the East Bronx, was demolished 50 years ago this summer. But fond...
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FOUND: The Nerves That Spiders Use During Sex
The copulatory organ of a different species of spider (Image: Journal of Insect Science/Animalparty/Wikimedia)Do spiders enjoy sex? Up until now, scientists thought they probably did not, since their...
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The Tallest Freemason of All Time Owned The World's Largest Secret Ring
Robert Wadlow at a family picnic at Roodhouse circa 1939. (Photo: Alton Museum of History & Art)This story was sponsored by the fine folks of Enjoy Illinois.Robert Wadlow was born in 1918 as an...
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Dorothy Arzner, Hidden Star Maker of Hollywood's Golden Age
Dorothy Arzner (left) and Clara Bow on the set of The Wild Party (1929). (Photo: Public domain/Wikipedia)Type the name "Dorothy Arzner" into Netflix's search bar and you'll get zero results.It's an odd...
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In North Carolina, It's Been Shark Week All Summer. Why?
A large tiger shark - one of the species that frequents the North Carolina coast, and a likely culprit for the bites. (Photo: Albert Kok/WikiCommons CC BY SA 3.0)Who doesn’t love the beach? With...
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In The Good Old Days, Anatomy Drawings Were Full of Whimsy
Cat and dog skeletons. Ferocious. (All images: William Chesleden's 'Osteographia, or The anatomy of the bones', Courtesy of the National Library of Medicine)Born in 1688, William Cheselden was a...
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100 Wonders: The Color of Control
Colors are powerful. You can have the blues, see red, or feel green with jealousy.Colors can feel like perfect representation of emotions. What if it could work the other way? What if just looking at a...
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This Is What Happens When You Link Up Four Rat Brains
The many connections of a rat Brainet. (Image: Katie Zhuang/Nicolelis Lab, Duke) You may remember Pinky and the Brain, the classic 1990s Steven Spielberg TV show about two laboratory mice whose “genes...
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