On October 17, 1814, a wooden beer vat burst at Meux & Co.’s Horseshoe Brewery in London. The force of…
What in the world?!
Secrets of the Sargasso Sea
I’ve always thought it’d be neat to visit a point in the ocean where there’s absolutely no land in sight.…
The Friday That Never Was
Some years ago, Samoa skipped Friday. In 2011, Samoans lived through Thursday, December 29 (just like everyone else in the…
Where in the world is Genghis Khan?
Here he is in a 14th century silk portrait. He’s also on Mongolian banknotes, on Mongolian vodka bottles, atop this…
On an Island Far, Far Away
Want to get away from it all? Yeah, me too. And I know just the place. The most remote uninhabited…
On the 38th parallel
Heavily armed military zone? Tourist attraction? Why not both! The Korean Demilitarized Zone runs right across the Korean peninsula, on…
Basking in Sunlight and Forced Worship
What’s the world’s best monument featuring a rotating dictator? Is it the Arch of Neutrality in Turkmenistan? Of course it is!…
Save Me Some Whisky, Please
Like whisky? How about whisky that’s been buried in Antarctic ice for over a century? Well, good news! That exists.…
The Four Burials of Pope Formosus
When Pope Formosus died in 896, after a five-year jaunt as pope, he was interred in St. Peter’s Basilica, where…
Who’s Your Favourite Soviet Naval Officer?
It’s probably this guy: Vice admiral Vasily Arkhipov. During the Cuban Missile Crisis, Arkhipov commanded a flotilla of Soviet submarines.…
Ghost Town in Paradise
Varosha in North Cyprus was once the hottest tourist spot in the region. It had all the makings of a Mediterranean…
The Very Long Story of Oliver Cromwell’s Head
Most human heads have a pretty simple story. They spend a few decades on top of a body and then,…
Looking for Gold at the Top of the World
I live by the ocean. Just a few feet above sea level. Sea-level living is all right, I guess —…
To the Depths of the Great (Freshwater) Blue!
Obviously, the best kind of swimming is lake swimming. Nothing like floating around the middle of a lake, imagining the…
The Most Successful Slave Revolt in History
Here’s an interesting bit of trivia. The only really successful slave rebellion in history was the Haitian Revolution. Other slave…
The Thirty Years’ War … But Different
This is a picture of Hiroo Onoda, an imperial Japanese soldier during World War II. In 1944, Onoda was sent to…
The Bone Church
I like a good centuries-old building. But sometimes these old structures can get a bit dank and gloomy inside. So…
Michelle Kaeser 