Showing posts from January, 2017

The Oil Rig Graveyard of Cromarty Firth

Jan 31, 2017

In a remote sheltered harbor guarded by two precipitous headlands, in the North of Scotland, dozens of oil rigs are sitting idle, some for m...

The Lost Island of Ferdinandea

Jan 31, 2017

Once upon a time, in the waters not far off the coast of Sicily, there was an island called Ferdinandea. It was located right where the Medi...

Batagaika Crater, Siberia

Jan 30, 2017

In the heart of Siberia’s boreal forest, a massive crater the locals call the “gateway to the underworld” has been growing for the last fift...

A Blast From The Past: Episode 32

Jan 29, 2017

From the archives of Amusing Planet. Parting of the Sea in Jindo The Jindo county is an archipelago of 250 islands, of which Jindo Island ...

The World’s Smallest Mountain And Mountain Range

Jan 28, 2017

That little bump ahead, just beyond the fork in the road, is the world’s smallest registered mountain. Located in Australia’s low-lying Terr...

The Zion Curtains of Utah

Jan 27, 2017

A source of confusion among many first time visitors to the US state of Utah are the bars. Like any regular bar, there are stools lining the...

The Chemical Valley of Sarnia

Jan 27, 2017

These tall chimneys billowing thick, toxic smoke stand on the banks of the Saint Clair River, on the outskirts of the Canadian city of Sarni...

The Floating Bridges of Seattle

Jan 25, 2017

A bridge of concrete and steel that floats may seem highly unusual, if not impossible, but there are twenty such bridges around the world, f...

Playgrounds From The Space Age

Jan 25, 2017

The rocket holds a special place in history. It’s an icon of technological progress that’s both revered and feared at the same time. During ...

The Execution Dock on River Thames

Jan 24, 2017

Travellers to early modern London, while approaching the port city up the river Thames, were greeted by a ghastly sight. The riverbank was l...

The House Where Hitler Was Born

Jan 23, 2017

Braunau am Inn, on the south bank of the Inn river, close to the border with Germany, is a charming little town in Austria. But it carries a...

The Terrifying Beauty of Melting Icecaps

Jan 23, 2017

Every summer, as the air warms up and the sunlight beats down on the ice sheets of Greenland and Antarctica, pools of brilliantly blue melt ...

The House Made of Newspapers

Jan 21, 2017

If you go to Rockport someday, in Massachusetts, the United States, take some time to drive down Pigeon Hill Street and look out for a sign ...

Ecce Homo: The Botched Painting That Saved a Town

Jan 20, 2017

Eighty-three year old amateur artist Cecilia Giménez had nothing but good intentions when she turned her attention towards a deteriorating f...

A Hanging Tree, Graves And Hemingway: The Colorful History of Captain Tony's Saloon

Jan 19, 2017

There appears to be nothing remarkable about Captain Tony's Saloon housed in a yellow, two-storied building at 428 Greene Street in Key ...

Kitsault: The Ghost Town Where Lights Are Still On But No One’s Home

Jan 18, 2017

Think ghost town and you’ll probably imagine ruins —roofless houses, dirty broken windows, rotting floors, but at Kitsault, on the North Coa...

The Infamous Mauthausen Stairs of Death

Jan 16, 2017

The Mauthausen concentration camp, situated about 20 kilometers east of the city of Linz in Upper Austria, was the hub of one of the largest...

La Pascualita, The Corpse Bride

Jan 16, 2017

Peering out from behind the glass window of a small bridal shop in Chihuahua, Mexico, stands a tall, slender figure dressed in bridal costum...

The Second Life of Wind Turbine Blades

Jan 12, 2017

As the world pushes towards renewable energy, the wind energy industry comes to the forefront as a clean and a genuinely green energy. And l...

The Frankincense Trees of Wadi Dawkah

Jan 11, 2017

For more than 5,000 years, the Arabs have traded two highly prized fragrances —frankincense and myrrh— obtained from trees that grow exclusi...

Semaphore: The World’s First Telegraph

Jan 11, 2017

Smoke signals and beacons have been used to relay messages over short distances since ancient times, but the only reliable way to send messa...

Rosalia Lombardo: The Mummy That Blinks

Jan 10, 2017

Rosalia Lombardo was only two years old when she died from pneumonia in 1920. Her premature death left her father so heartbroken that he app...

The Museum of Bad Art

Jan 7, 2017

On rare occasions, a thrift store or a pawnshop can yield items of extreme value, but these are hardly the places you can expect to bump int...

London Necropolis Railway: The Train For The Dead

Jan 6, 2017

It was a difficult time to be alive in 1848 London, and worse still to be dead. A cholera epidemic had just swept through the city killing n...

The Anti-Communist Dwarves of Wroclaw

Jan 4, 2017

Scattered throughout the city of Wroclaw, Poland, are hundreds of small bronze statues of dwarves. They began appearing in the streets in 20...

Casey: The Small Town of Big Things

Jan 3, 2017

At just over two square miles and with less than 3,000 inhabitants, the town of Casey in Illinois might be among the smaller towns of the Un...

The World's Smallest Monuments

Jan 3, 2017

The Russian city of Tomsk is home to the smallest public monument in the world —a tiny bronze frog, sitting on top of a smooth rock. The scu...

Venice Minus Water

Jan 2, 2017

For the second year in a row, low tides in Venice have sunk to such record levels that it has left the city almost entirely without water. V...

The Swing of Casa Del Arbol, Ecuador

Jan 2, 2017

For the past few years, Carlos Sanchez, a volunteer with the Military Geographical Institute, has been assisting a group of a volcanologists...