The World’s Most Inland Lighthouse
Kaushik Patowary
Mar 13, 2019
Of all the lighthouses in the world, none was built further from the body of water it lit than the one on top of Bidston Hill, on the Irish ...
Salt Domes And Salt Glaciers of Iran
Kaushik Patowary
Mar 12, 2019
Million of years ago, the Persian Gulf was a much larger body of water than it is today, inundating large sections of the Arabian peninsula...
The Cactus That Crawls Across The Desert
Kaushik Patowary
Mar 12, 2019
The narrow peninsula of Baja California Sur, sticking into the central Pacific off Mexico’s west coast, is home to a unique species of cactu...
The Arsonist Who Set Fire to an Ancient Wonder of The World So That People Would Remember Him
Kaushik Patowary
Mar 9, 2019
On the night of July 21, 356 BCE, two important events took place in the Mediterranean Basin. One created history, the other erased it. On ...
Stolpersteine: The ‘Stumbling Stones’ of Holocaust Victims
Kaushik Patowary
Mar 8, 2019
With hundreds of things to see in Berlin, few tourists pay attention to what lies under their feet. The barely four inch by four inch blocks...
The Catholic Church Built by a Muslim Emperor
Kaushik Patowary
Mar 7, 2019
The city of Agra on the banks of Yamuna is a historical city full of monuments from the Mughal period, of which the Taj Mahal is one of the ...
Earthquake Rose
Kaushik Patowary
Mar 7, 2019
On February 28, 2001, an earthquake of magnitude 6.8 rocked the US state of Washington cracking sidewalks, toppling buildings, and causing s...
Lunatic Express: The Railway That Gave Birth to Kenya
Kaushik Patowary
Mar 5, 2019
More than a hundred years ago, before Europeans had set foot on what is now Kenya, a tribal prophet named Kimnyole spoke of a vicious “iron...
The Roadside Shrines of Greece
Kaushik Patowary
Mar 4, 2019
Roadside shrines erected in memory of those who lost their lives in road accidents are a common sight across Greece. They are found next to ...
How The Soviet Helped Vulcan, An American Town, Get a Bridge
Kaushik Patowary
Mar 2, 2019
In south West Virginia, near the border with Kentucky, the United States, is a small unincorporated community named Vulcan. Vulcan was onc...
The Last Gas Streetlights
Kaushik Patowary
Mar 1, 2019
For much of human history, people have lived in the dark. The sun shines for only half the day, or less—lesser still during winter. So ever...
Bone Records: Soviet-Era Bootlegged Music on X-Rays
Kaushik Patowary
Feb 28, 2019
During the Cold War, Soviet Russia was a very restrictive place. The media was heavily censored, foreign radio and television station waves...
Cat Ladders of Bern
Kaushik Patowary
Feb 28, 2019
Cats love climbing, and they certainly need no human help to navigate precarious-looking structures. But in the Swiss city of Bern, cat owne...
Buchette Del Vino: The Wine Windows of Florence
Kaushik Patowary
Feb 27, 2019
A unique architectural curiosity found only in the Italian city of Florence are tiny decorated openings on the outside walls of many sumptuo...
Qinngua Valley, Greenland’s Only Forest
Kaushik Patowary
Feb 25, 2019
Greenland is actually quite white and blue, due to all the glaciers that cover the world’s largest island like frosting on a cake. But near ...
Sergei Krikalev: The Man Who Went Up a Soviet And Came Down a Russian
Kaushik Patowary
Feb 25, 2019
Late in the spring of 1991, Soviet cosmonauts Sergei Krikalev and Anatoli Artsebarski, along with Britain's first astronaut, Helen Shar...
What a 7-Year-Old Russian Boy Doodled in The 13th Century
Kaushik Patowary
Feb 22, 2019
Fifty years ago, a trove of manuscripts written on birch bark was discovered in the Russian city of Novgorod, situated some 200 kilometers...
Mauritania’s Iron Ore Train
Kaushik Patowary
Feb 21, 2019
At one million square kilometers, Mauritania is not a small country, but a very small percentage of it is habitable. The rest is covered by...
Witch Windows of Vermont
Kaushik Patowary
Feb 19, 2019
Photo credit: Larry Lamsa/Flickr An architectural oddity found only in the US state of Vermont is the so-called “witch window”. These are ...
Water Powered Funiculars
Kaushik Patowary
Feb 19, 2019
Funiculars are an odd mode of transport, but at the same time, they are one of the most energy-efficient one. The system consist of two coun...
