Author: Ms. R.

Stora Gatan, or the large street, is a quaint little pedestrian street not unlike many others that can be found in old city centers. However, this street is special because its layout has not changed for nearly a millennium.  Sigtuna was the first true city in Sweden, established by King Erik the Victorious. He wanted to make the city the country’s capital, but this was not an easy task. However, King Erik was a masterful diplomat and excellent at……

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Jeux sans frontières (Games Without Borders) was a very popular television game show in Europe during the 20th-century. Every year, a different city hosted the games and in 1990, Vrnjačka Banja played host to the show. The mascot for these games was the Vrabac Gočko (Gočko The Sparrow) and this statue was erected to decorate the Vrnjačka Banja promenade. It eventually became the most well-known symbol of the spa-town and for much of Serbia. The statue is a popular……

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To believe the legends, Thomas Jefferson was as much a chef as a statesman, the architect of the modern American diet and the person behind such modern European-American classics as vanilla ice cream, steak and fries, and mac and cheese. The truth is that Jefferson’s connection to the kitchen was decidedly hands-off. At Monticello, his vast Virginia plantation, the third president entered the room only to fix the clock. And while Jefferson did take an active interest in culinary……

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Mary Anning had a knack for finding fascinating pieces of the distant past. In the 19th century, Anning regularly scoured the beaches of Lyme Regis, in the English county of Dorset. Her many expeditions turned up some fascinating and high-profile finds from millions of years ago, including fossils of plesiosaurs and ichthyosaurs, marine reptiles that prowled the waters of the Triassic and Cretaceous periods. Anning also collected some less-sexy specimens—particularly, coprolites. From the Greek for “dung stone,” coprolites are……

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Utqiagvik sits at the very tip of the United States, saddled against the Arctic Ocean. The Alaska Native Iñupiat are set apart from other Indigenous peoples by their subsistence hunting of the bowhead whale. Even today, this unique, centuries-old practice determines the social structure, reflects community values, and supplements the people’s nutrient-rich diet. Nearly all of Utqiagvik’s roughly 5,000 residents, the majority of whom are Iñupiat, rely on hunting to support their way of life. Which is why Harry……

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The 13-foot-tall granite and bronze monument stands on Oak Ridge at the Gettysburg National Military Park in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. It is close to the site of the right flank of the First Corps on July 1, 1863. A bronze statue of a Union soldier stands atop the monument, facing in the direction of the advancing enemy. On the front of the monument, near its base, is a granite ledge holding the bronze likeness of a small dog, her head……

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