Author: Ms. R.

Off a seemingly sleepy exit on Interstate 5 in Oregon sits a trippy theme park. Enchanted Forest, which has occupied 20 acres on a hill in the woods between Portland and Eugene for 49 years, is what Disneyland might look like if it had been designed by Ken Kesey and filled with 1960s-era sculptures and animatronic relics of fairy tale characters. It’s unpolished, charming, non-corporate. To some, it’s a beloved family attraction in an otherwise rural area; to others,……

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St. Canute’s Cathedral is a Gothic, red brick building constructed in the 1300s. The church is named after Danish King Canute IV, who was murdered at this location. He ruled Denmark from 1080 to 1086 and was later canonized. According to legend, Canute was murdered in the cathedral when he tried to force the Jutland peasants to form a war party and attack England. With him was his brother, Benedict, and 17 hirdmen (followers). They were killed in front of……

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The Devil’s Gate is a rock formation located in Natrona County. Crafted by the Sweetwater River, the limestone formation is a narrow passage stretching 1,500 feet from end to end  As a noticeable feature of the frontier, Devil’s Gate served as a landmark for fur traders and the westward emigrant trails of the 1800s. The Oregon, Mormon, and California Trails all came through the area. Although the canyon was too narrow for most wagons to pass through, pioneers would……

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This sculpture is from a series entitled “First Crew” by Russian artist Denis Prasolov. The monkey depicted in the sculpture is known as “Sam” and is a tribute to the animals who died during spaceflight survival tests. The former Soviet Union used a variety of animals for space missions during 195os and 1960s. During this period, it’s believed 42 animal cosmonauts were rocketed into the stratosphere. Practically all died during these tests either from fear and stress, or asphyxiation. ……

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Scotland is home to between 2,000 and 4,000 castles. The vast discrepancy in the margins is due to the fact that some are just crumbling ruins, while others make the assertion to sound more grandiose than they are in reality. Still, a few thousand are either popular tourist attractions or stately homes passed down through the generations. The city of Edinburgh lays claim to an impressive number of nearly a dozen of these legitimate fortresses. The vast majority of……

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In photography, as in life, sometimes a new perspective makes all the difference, and can make the mundane seem more special. Since photography was first introduced in the 19th century (the earliest surviving photograph was taken with a camera obscura in 1827 by Nicéphore Niépce in France), there have been daring and adventurous photographers who took this idea to heart and took to the air for a new point of view. The first successful aerial photograph (which is now……

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The Old Town section of Alexandria, Virginia is packed with significant sites and artifacts, as echoes of the past dot the streets of this historical section. One intriguing vestige of this city’s past often overlooked is nestled in a suburban tract, several blocks removed from the hustle and bustle of King Street. At the corner of Wilkes Street and Royal Street is the entrance to a former railroad tunnel that belonged to Orange & Alexandria Railroad completed in 1856. It……

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Nestled between the Alleghany River and Alleghany State Park in Western New York’s Southern Tier, is a sprawling museum dedicated to the Seneca-Iroquois Nation. Named after a prominent Seneca singer and teacher, the 33,000 square foot Onöhsagwë:de’ Cultural Center opened in 2018.  The Seneca Nation, or more appropriately Onödowáʼga (“Great Hill People”), is one of six nations comprising the Iroquois Confederacy, which includes the Oneida, Mohawk, Cayuga, Onondaga, and Tuscarora tribes. The Senecas have a rich culture and complex……

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This glass has a secret. It’s encoded in the images inscribed around the bowl: a blazing star, an oak leaf, a rose blossom, and two delicate buds sprouting from a thorny stem. They may seem like mere decoration, but to the right eyes, they were a message, and a dangerous one at that. The original owners of this glass must have been careful who they let see it. In England, circa 1745, toasting with it could constitute treason. Taken……

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This story originally appeared on The Public Domain Review, and is reproduced here under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 license. In the late 1860s, Jules Verne’s fictional Captain Nemo cruised the ocean deep, discovering new underwater worlds and creatures. In the same decade, the non-fictional Eugen von Ransonnet-Villez pursued his fascination with zoology by developing the technology to produce the first underwater pictures: seascapes drawn as he sat beneath the waves in his diving bell. Ransonnet-Villez was born in……

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