Clik here to view.
FOUND: The World's Largest Sunken Treasure
An artist's depiction of the battle that sunk the San Jose (Image: Samuel Scott/Wikimedia)More than 300 years after British war ships sunk the San Jose galleon—a majestic Spanish ship packed with...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Fleeting Wonders: Send Holiday Cheer To an Island-Bound Schoolboy
The Out Skerries post office is facing some busy days. (Photo: Dr. Julian Paren/Geograph CC BY-SA 2.0)Aron Anderson has been called "Britain's Loneliest Schoolboy." The only adolescent on the tiny...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The Interstate Highways That Don’t Follow the Rules
Interstate 180 in Pennsylvania, in winter. (Photo: Nicholas A. Tonelli)A version of this post originally appeared on the Tedium newsletter. If you've had a chance to ride on Interstate 180 in Cheyenne,...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Want To Become An Astronaut? Applications Open In a Week
Astronauts Neil Armstrong and David Scott. (Photo: SDASM Archives/flickr)If you ask kids “what do you want to do when you grow up?” many of them will answer “an astronaut!” The dreamy wonder of...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The Amateur Radio Obsessives Who Send Messages from the Ends of the Earth
Bob Allphin's DXpedition's Main Operating tent on Peter I Island, Antarctica, with six 1 kilowatt stations. (Photo: Peter I DXpedition Archives)In 1993, Bob Allphin and a team of 11 other men took a...
View ArticleClik here to view.
How Microsoft Created a Revolution in Soviet Computing
The Cyrillic alphabet, dot matrix-style. (Photo: Albo003/shutterstock.com)In 1990, as computers started to become a common sight in homes around the United States, a particular problem developed. Call...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Fleeting Wonders: All The Soviet Monuments In Poland
People celebrating the 65th anniversary of the Red Army's victory over Germany at the Soviet War Memorial in Berlin. The Mielec monument was a smaller version of this one. (Photo: Bernd...
View ArticleClik here to view.
LOST: Russian Spacecraft
Luna 9, an unmanned Soviet spacecraft from 1966. (Photo: NASA/Wikimedia)The Canopus ST, a Russian satellite, had a lot going for it. It had been 10 years in development, Al-Jazeera reports, and was...
View ArticleClik here to view.
How Candid Camera Spied On Muscovites At The Height Of The Cold War
Allen Funt pulls his infamous reading-over-the-shoulder gag on a Muscovite in 1961. (Photo: Candid Camera/Youtube)In 1961, Candid Camera ruled American television.The proto-reality show, in which...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Meet the Most Famous Michigander in Kazakhstan
Louis Albertini's time in Kazakhstan has brought with it unexpected fame. (Photo: Louis Albertini)Twenty-six year-old Michigander Louis Azamat Albertini has been interviewed by Kazakhstan’s Esquire...
View ArticleClik here to view.
FOUND: The Walls of a 12th-Century Castle, Buried Beneath a Prison
The castle dig (Photo: Cotswold Archaeology/Mark Price)While digging in the exercise yard of a defunct jail, construction workers in Gloucester, England, unexpectedly unearthed a castle wall from the...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The Tribeca Fire Station That Got a Starring Role in Ghostbusters
The Ghostbusters Firehouse or Hook and Ladder 8 (Photo: Philip Ritz/Wikipedia)Who ya gonna call? Ghostbusters!But where ya gonna call them? At their iconic firehouse headquarters, of course. In the...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The Labyrinthine 'Underground Flower Garden' Caves Beneath Budapest
The caverns and chambers of the Molnár János cave are large, larger than inactive caves in Budapest and are still being formed. (Photo: Laszlo Abel)Beneath the city of Budapest lies a hidden...
View ArticleFleeting Wonders: A Bus-Sized Polar Bear, Powered By Activists
Giant polar bear right now with @kuminaidoo@Greenpeace. "We must not fail." #COP21pic.twitter.com/2fpFLdEtHK— NZYD (@NZYD) December 9, 2015The newest face at the COP21 climate conference in Paris is...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Passports Were Once Considered Offensive—Perhaps They Still Are
A passport belonging to Russian-born American ballet dancer Adolph Bolm. (Photo: Library of Congress)A passport is one of the most powerful documents you can possess. It is also one of the more...
View Article100 Wonders: Battleship Island
A miniscule slip of land sitting of the coast of Nagasaki, Japan has seen a long and troubled history. Hashima, a less than one square kilometer island, was once the most densely populated place on the...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Freaks, Geeks, and Obliques: Nonconformist Gyms For People Who Hated Dodgeball
Minneapolis-based YogaQuest leads a costumed yoga session at a science fiction convention. (Photo courtesy of YogaQuest)Are you dreading the upcoming resolution season because you want to start being...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Fleeting Wonders: A Siberian Cat is Running for Mayor
Кто, если не я? #ЗаБарсика #БарнаулЗаБарсикаA photo posted by Кот Барсик (@barsikbarnaul) on Dec 10, 2015 at 12:59am PSTThe year of the political outsider has reached its scruffy apex. When asked who...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Why Every Kid in America Learns to Play the Recorder
Some of the world of classroom wind instruments. From top to bottom: Yamaha soprano recorder, Swanson Tonette, Conn-Selmer Song Flute, Grover-Trophy Flutophone, Suzuki Precorder. (Photo: Phil Wink, CC...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The Poisonous Beauty Advice Columns of Victorian England
A woman applies lipstick in Joseph Caraud's La Toilette, 1858. (Photo: Public Domain/The Athenaeum)Glass and tin bottles hide snug in a case, waiting for a woman’s daily ritual. She reaches for a...
View Article