Author: Ms. R.

This lovely old stone church dates back to 1833 and was originally created as a private chapel. In 1836, it was deeded to the Episcopalian Church. The church still remains in excellent condition today and sits on a mound surrounded by several heavy granite graves. What made the church so unique for the times was that white people and slaves were allowed to worship inside together. The very first wedding performed in the church was between two slaves. Many……

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On September 19, 1861, a steamboat caught fire and sank in the Gulf of Mexico, two nautical miles from the Yucatán port town of Sisal. There were dozens of confirmed casualties, passengers and crew alike. But the full death toll will likely never be known, because the enslaved Indigenous Maya people held on the ship were never counted in the first place—they were simply listed as cargo. Archaeologists from Mexico’s Sub-Directorate of Underwater Archaeology (Subdirección de Arqueología Subacuática, or……

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Quincy, Massachusetts, is known as the “City of Presidents,” as it is the birthplace of two U.S. presidents: John Adams and his son John Quincy Adams. The city was also the birthplace of John Hancock, the first signer of the Declaration of Independence who was also the first governor of Massachusetts. Formerly part of Dorchester, Boston, and Braintree, the town was named after John Quincy (Abigail Adams’s grandfather, for whom John Quincy Adams is named) and it became a……

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It’s only fitting that a city with a medieval castle would have several fabled creatures lurking about. Not far from this fortification’s drawbridge in Wardrop’s Court in the Lawnmarket resides a series of ornate blue dragons. These sets of ferocious beasts facing the Royal Mile are the work of J.S. Gibson, handcrafted during the latter part of the 19th-century. The two at the back facing the open cloister of Makars Court, home to the Writer’s Museum, are the work……

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More than five centuries ago, a fish in a barrel sank to a watery grave at the bottom of the Baltic Sea. The unfortunate aquatic creature was a sturgeon brought aboard Gribshunden, the 115-foot flagship of King Hans of Denmark, and it was as long as a person is tall. Archaeologists retrieved the 524-year-old animal during underwater excavations in August 2019, along with a number of other remarkable items: coins featuring the face of King Hans, an alderwood tankard……

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The Castle Chichester in Whitehead was constructed around 1604 for an English Soldier known as Sir Moyses Hill. It was built as a fortification to help protect plantation settlers from the Native Irish and other marauders who wished to stake their claim over the Whitehead area. The Castle was crafted mainly from basalt boulders and repurposed brick stone. The structure stood three-stories high and provided a commanding view of the surrounding Belfast Lough and inland area. Hill originally came to……

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On the corner between Princes Street and Elm Hill, visitors will walk past a beautiful old church and a strange imprint on the ground that resembles a keyboard. The imprint has been at this location for several decades. Some believe it’s a computer keyboard, others swear it’s an 18th-century print plate from a monastery.  The Norwich keyboard is actually an imprint of an old Amstrad PC. The most popular urban myth surrounding its creation is that a keyboard fell……

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