Author: Ms. R.

Kayla Chenault and Dean Nasreddine had spent months planning a murder-mystery experience inside the Detroit Historical Museum. As the Detroit Historical Society’s education-programs coordinator and community-outreach coordinator, respectively, they had imagined a party, set at the height of Prohibition in 1926, where guests in period attire would enjoy cocktails and hors d’oeuvres while learning about Detroit’s wild and wooly bootlegging days. But on the day the event was meant to take place, the state of Michigan handed down a……

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Forever frozen in time, the mare struggles up a steep incline in her ill-fitting tack and pack saddle. Her head bows, and her tail lifts in the wind. Strapped to her back are four canisters of live explosives. The life-size bronze statue is called The Uphill Battle, and Staff Sergeant Reckless, the mare it depicts, was a United States Marine. The 10-foot-tall, 1,200-pound equine monument sits at the end of a corridor of trees in the Semper Fidelis Memorial Park……

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“Do you believe in past lives?” asked Sally Snowman. I hesitated, and she changed the subject. Later, she mentioned it again. “When I asked you about past lives,” she said, “I feel as if I’ve done this before, and that I came home. For the past 17 years, Snowman has served as the keeper of Boston Light, a centuries-old lighthouse, out on a freckle of treeless land in Boston Harbor, in Massachusetts. It’s a lifelong love story—at 10, she……

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Located on the grounds of Krüje Castle, this original house was constructed in 1764 by Ismail Pashë Toptani as his family home. Built on the mountainside with fantastic views from the windows, this traditional house reflects the Ottoman style that was brought to Albania when the region was ruled by the Ottoman Empire several hundred years before.   The ground floor contained a stable for animals and a workshop where tools were sharpened, olive oil was made, and flour was……

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Laying a stone’s throw from the appropriately named Stone Farm in Blaxhall is a large boulder with an ever-growing tale to tell. Local legend claims the Blaxhall Stone has been swelling to an ever-greater size since at least the 19th-century. Legend tells how a plowman, after hitting the rock while working his field, moved the stone outside his house to avoid it inconveniencing his daily fieldwork. At the time, it was apparently only the size of his two fists……

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On May 1, 1994, the history of Formula One racing changed forever. On that unforgettable day Ayrton Senna, one of the greatest F1 drivers, and three times World Champion crashed and died against the concrete wall of the Tamburello curve during the San Marino Grand Prix.  It was a terrible conclusion to a damned weekend. Just days earlier, driver Rubens Barrichello crashed rounding the Variante Bassa curve. Roland Ratzenberger also crashed during the race and died attempting to navigate the……

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Established in 1804, a shrine by the name of Anamori Inari Shrine originally stood on the western part of what is now Haneda Airport. Its main subject of worship was Toyoukebime, goddess of agriculture, who was syncretized with Inari Ōkami, the fertility deity (kami). After hot springs were discovered right in front of it, the shrine became quite popular from the late 19th-century to the early 20th-century. During the Allied occupation of Japan following World War II, General Douglas……

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The Roman Baths of Amador de los Rios, also known as the Roman Baths of Toledo, once covered nearly 25,000 square feet in the city’s historic center. They served as a kind of social club where legal agreements and businesses of all kinds were closed.  The thermal baths were used until the sixth century. In 1500 they were partially destroyed by the people of Toledo, who took stone from the baths to use in other construction. Today marble and……

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