Kryptos: The Mystery Sculpture At CIA’s Headquarters

Jul 13, 2018

For the past 17 years, a cryptographic puzzle has stood on the grounds of the CIA’s headquarters in Langley, Virginia, taunting cryptograph...

The Marsh Arabs of Iraq

Jul 12, 2018

The two great rivers of ancient Mesopotamia—Tigris and Euphrates—rises in the Taurus mountains in southern Turkey, and after flowing through...

Roger Babson: The Man Who Tried To Fight Gravity

Jul 11, 2018

Throughout history humans have learnt to live with gravity despite its innumerable inconveniences, accepting it as a physical fact of the un...

Trinity Bridge: The Orphaned Bridge of Crowland

Jul 9, 2018

In the heart of Crowland, a small town in Lincolnshire, England, is a unique attraction—a 14th century stone arch bridge standing by the sid...

Hallsands: The Village That Fell Into The Sea

Jul 9, 2018

The island of Great Britain is shrinking. Every year several feet of land is washed away by the pounding waves of the Atlantic Ocean. Every ...

The Fuggerei: The World’s Oldest Housing Complex Where Rents Haven’t Gone Up For 500 Years

Jul 7, 2018

In the 15th and 16th centuries, a certain German family of merchants known as the Fuggers rose to become one of the richest and the most pow...

How A Single Cat Hunted to Extinction The Entire Species of Stephens Island Wren

Jul 6, 2018

David Lyall held his breath as he made the first incision straight down the belly of a little mouse-like olive brown bird that lay on his de...

The Dogon Villages of Bandiagara Escarpment

Jul 5, 2018

In central Mali, about 90 km to the east of Mopti, rises a dramatic sandstone cliff with a high plateau above and sandy semi-desert plains b...

Bullfrog County: How an Empty County Tried to Prevent Nevada From Becoming The Nation’s Nuclear Waste Dump

Jul 2, 2018

Deep in southern Nevada’s Nye County, in the harsh, sun-drenched desert, there was once a small county named Bullfrog. It was one of the mos...

America’s Doomsday Bunkers

Jun 29, 2018

Far into the unforeseeable future, when nuclear war and biological warfare had decimated the human population, killed most living beings and...

Mail Delivery By Rockets

Jun 28, 2018

The history of the postal system is inextricably tied to the history of transport. Advances in transportation technology have not only allow...

The House Built From Tombstones

Jun 26, 2018

This humble two-storied marble-clad house in Petersburg, in the US state of Virginia, has more than 150 years of Civil War history embedded ...

The Japanese Museum With The Most Flexible Opening Times

Jun 26, 2018

Ichimura Mamoru stands in front of his museum in Kyoto. Photo credit: thornet_/Flickr In a quiet residential street in Kyoto, Japan, just ...

Britain’s User Worked Level Crossings

Jun 25, 2018

The United Kingdom has some 6,500 level crossings on their sprawling railway network, out of which an astounding number of them—5,000—are us...

Dubai’s Encroaching Sandstorms

Jun 23, 2018

Living in the UAE is a constant battle with dust, sand and sandstorms, especially during summer, but they can occur in any seasons of the ye...

America’s Last Log Flume

Jun 23, 2018

Log flume rides are staple for any amusement park, but before they became thrilling fun rides, log flumes were used in the lumber industry t...

The Sacred Crocodiles of Bazoule

Jun 22, 2018

Bazoule, in Burkina Faso, is a sprawling lakeside village around 30 kilometers from the capital Ouagadougou, with a very unique tradition—fo...

River Farset: Belfast’s Forgotten River

Jun 21, 2018

The city of Belfast in Northern Ireland looked very different when it was a thriving industrial city in the 18th century. A large river flow...

Providence Canyon: The Man-made Natural Wonder

Jun 20, 2018

Approximately 150 miles southwest of Atlanta, in the US state of Georgia, is a network of gorges and massive gullies lovingly called Georgia...

The Oldest Bridge In The World

Jun 19, 2018

The ancient Sumerian city of Girsu, located approximately midway between the modern cities of Baghdad and Basrah, in southern Iraq, is one o...