Author: Ms. R.

Paddy the Pigeon was raised as a carrier pigeon by Andrew Hughes of Carnlough village in County Antrim. During World War II, thousands of trained messenger pigeons were enlisted by the Royal Air Force (RAF) to help military service personnel by carrying secret coded messages between the Allies from the war front back home to Britain. Paddy the Pigeon was trained at the air force’s Hurn Base, where the officers became impressed with his abilities during Air-Sea rescue operations. Paddy was later……

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Just a hundred meters off Pantelleria’s main road, and just under ten minutes south from the island’s main settlement, a round stone mausoleum represents the most impressive evidence of an ancient civilization. These structures were crafted by a group that inhabited the island 5,000 years ago. The so-called Sese Grande, (sese is a local island term for a pile of rocks) is an impressive funerary monument reaching almost 20 feet (six meters) high. The 12 cells inside the structure can……

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Steel remnants of the former Franklin Street Bridge between Peoria and East Peoria, Illinois, now make up a unique sculpture along the banks of the Illinois River. The monument stands near the spot where the steel truss and bascule (drawbridge) structure spanned the river for eight decades. The Franklin Street Bridge was built in 1911, after an earlier concrete span collapsed into the river soon after it was opened. Engineers said the structure failed when the concrete piers were……

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On a dark night early in the 17th century, a group of men gathered atop the seaside cliffs outside of Castlehaven, a small village on the southwestern coast of Ireland. The flickering light from their lanterns revealed a hidden stairway cut directly into the rock, which they carefully descended down to the sea. Placing their lanterns into two small niches that had also been hollowed out of the rock, the men waited. From the darkness, a ship slowly emerged……

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Artist Freeman Vines was captivated for a long time with an unforgettable sound he once heard from a gospel musician’s guitar. At his home near a tobacco field in the small rural town of Fountain, North Carolina, Vines then spent over 50 years hand-carving guitars out of found wood, in a relentless search for that special tone. Despite decades of creating guitars, he never found that sound again. But he found other revelations. In the new book Hanging Tree……

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Once, for a job, Janice Poon had to consider how she would go about cooking a human leg. Poon is the food stylist you call when you need fantastical food on film, for scenes ranging from gory to gourmet. Though, sometimes, it’s both simultaneously. In one episode of the television series Hannibal, Dr. Hannibal Lecter, fiction’s most epicurean cannibal, methodically slices a victim’s leg with a bandsaw to the soaring tunes of Beethoven’s Ninth, dusts it with flour, and……

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For those driving on the Autopista del Sur on the island of Tenerife, a huge cross can be spotted in the distance near the ocean. Those who venture closer will realize that the cross belongs to a skeleton of a church surrounded by decrepit buildings in an unnamed and abandoned village by the Atlantic Ocean. An eerie and macabre vibe can be felt as the ghost town extends beyond the empty church, with structures where broken beds, bathrooms, and ceramic tiles mingle……

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Constructed over 150 years ago, Barn Attic’s unassuming exterior announces little of the experience awaiting all who step inside. It began as The Barn Auction, a joint venture between Mary Lou Richards and her father, Marvin Knechel. But in the early 1970s, Richards began building what is now a four-story marvel, attracting visitors from all over the world. The Barn Attic is far more than just another vintage and antique shop. Sitting side by side with the abundance of……

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The “Lupi di Toscana” (“Wolves of Tuscany”) brigade was an infantry division composed of two regiments of the Italian Army. Active since 1862, the Tuscany division became known as the “wolves” in 1915 during World War I. The name was first used to refer to the brigade by the enemy Austrian army. Between 1916 and 1917, the division was active on the Asiago Plateau front, and then most notably, on the mountains of the Karst frontline around Trieste. They……

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Standing near the entrance to Hampton University in Hampton, Virginia, is a large specimen of a Southern live oak tree (Quercus virginiana) estimated to be between 150 and 200-years-old. Impressive in size and stature, it stands 50-feet tall and has branches that extend almost 100-feet in diameter around the tree. This venerable old oak is considered a “Witness Tree” for its presence during several significant historical moments.  In the years preceding the Civil War, the tree occupied land near……

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