Author: Ms. R.

In 1633, the black plague had descended on Europe, killing people by the thousands. In a tiny town in Germany, Oberammergau, the people turned to prayer in the time of crisis. Spare us, they prayed, and they would show their gratitude by putting on a play about Jesus. According to legend, from that day, no one else in Oberammergau died from the plague. So for the last 400 years the people of the mountain town have put on a……

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Halley’s Comet and its clockwork 76-year orbit may be the most famous of its kind, but in July 2020, comet C/2020 F3, known as NEOWISE, has been dazzling skywatchers in the Northern Hemisphere, with a once-in-many-lifetimes appearance. We won’t see it again for another 6,800 years. No one knew this celestial phenomenon would make an appearance until NASA’s Near-Earth Object Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (NEOWISE) mission first spotted it in late March. Measuring approximately three miles wide, the comet……

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Reportedly established around 771, Tsuki Shrine in Urawa, Saitama, is notable for its association with rabbits. Instead of the typical komainu statues—a pair of lion-like dogs (or sometimes foxes) guarding the shrine—this one has stone bunnies manning the entrance. The shrine is believed originally to have been a sacred storehouse, where the tribute to the gods was kept. In Japanese, such tribute is called mitsugimono, archaically chōmono. The shrine was eventually named Tsuki Shrine, after another pronunciation of the……

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Big Mine Run Geyser is the only geyser on the East Coast of the United States. In Ashland, Pennsylvania, just outside the ghost town of Centralia,  you can find water being expelled from the earth with immense pressure. When the mines in the area were abandoned in the 1930s, the empty mine shafts filled with water. When the water had nowhere else to go, it found an escape through an old ventilation hole. The geyser experiences different pressure depending……

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Years of civil war in Japan ended when Tokugawa Ieyasu defeated all his rivals becoming the Shogun or leader of Tokugawa Shogunate in 1600. He ruled from a sleepy village on the east coast, a city that would become the sprawling metropolis of Tokyo. One of the first things the city created was a place to execute criminals, political prisoners, and Christians, a banned religion in Japan at the time.  One of three sites used to execute prisoners, the……

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For decades, an ornamental vase with gilded, dragon-shaped handles sat in an open cupboard in a central European country home. Four cats roamed freely around it. Cats may have nine lives, but delicate Chinese porcelain vases have only one. So it is fortunate indeed that this fragile 18th-century specimen, which may have been crafted for a Qianlong emperor, survived to sell for $9 million at a Sotheby’s Hong Kong auction. The vase surfaced to the public after its elderly……

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