Author: Ms. R.

On the seventh story of a Japanese tower block, an uncomfortable negotiation is underway. Behind a check-in desk, a hand extends through a heavy felt curtain and feels around for a credit card on the counter. Finding nothing, it quickly withdraws, and after a hidden, whispered kerfuffle, a receptionist emerges awkwardly into the windowless lobby. This is a love hotel, a kind of Japanese institution that rents out rooms by the hour to couples who want to be intimate……

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Richard Luke Concanen was a Catholic prelate born in Ireland in 1747. He completed his studies in Italy and served various roles in several churches. Thanks to his friendship with the Archbishop of Baltimore, he was able to secure permission to establish a Dominican province in the newly established United States. In 1808, Pope Pius VII appointed Concanen as the first bishop of the Diocese of New York. He was consecrated in Rome but due to embargoes related to……

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The skeleton of a woolly mammoth was discovered by a woman walking her dog by a nearby gravel quarry in 1986. It was one of the most complete mammoth skeletons ever discovered in the United Kingdom. The skeleton of the adult male was unearthed accompanied by partial skeletons of several juvenile mammoths. A replica of that famous creature is now the central display within the Shropshire Hills Discovery Centre at Craven Arms in Shropshire.  From time to time, the original……

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Elio Callistio, a freedman of Emperor Hadrian, would have never imagined that his then fashionable, temple-shaped sepulcher would become popular in Roman folklore. Indeed, as the sepulcher fell to ruins, it strangely started assuming the shape of a great chair or throne. Wayfarers and others who maintained seedy reputations were said to lurk in its shadows and light mysterious fires. This often gave the ruins a glowing appearance amid the night sky. According to legends from the Middle Ages,……

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An ancient imperial capital and the eastern starting point of the Silk Road, Xi’an was the first city in China to be introduced to Islam. Today, it has an estimated population of 50,000 Hui Muslims and a total of seven mosques, the most notable of which is the Great Mosque of Xi’an, perhaps the oldest and largest mosque in China. Originally constructed in 742 CE, the Great Mosque has undergone several renovations throughout its history. The majority of the……

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Before iPhones, there were DVDs. Before DVDs, there were Walkmans. Before Walkmans, there were cassette players. Before cassettes, vinyl, and before vinyl, Edison wax cylinders. But according to Nissan Cohen, owner and curator at the Nisco Museum, what came before all of these was by far more magnificent: intricate machines that played live music. These charming, beautifully crafted instruments could be called “music boxes.” But if you’re thinking of little cranked ballerinas spinning to “Happy Birthday,” think again. With its extensive collection……

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John Onyango has never been to culinary school, nor did he start his career as a chef in a recognized restaurant or hotel. Instead, he first cooked in a suburban food kiosk, where he served the wage earners who worked in the neighboring schools, market and local Nairobi City Council offices. But that was 25 years ago. Today, Onyango is a sought-after chef, cooking for K’Osewe Ranalo Foods. In the business district of Kenya’s capital city, the restaurant specializes……

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California has long been associated with fantasy, but few people know that centuries before Hollywood, it drew its very name from an imaginary kingdom—one ruled by a Black queen. Around 1530, when Hernán Cortés’s conquistadors, amid shipwrecks, mutinies, and the destruction of the Aztec Empire, arrived at the peninsula on Mexico’s western side, they christened it “California,” after a fictional island in a Spanish book published decades earlier. The name, later extended from the peninsula (now Baja California) to……

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