Author: Ms. R.

You know how you can sometimes view something you love through such a nostalgic lens that you begin to lose track of whether it still exists or may have tiptoed out of fashion? That’s how Kalu Downey felt about la once, or Chilean tea time. It was 2017, and the Santiago resident wanted to find out if Chileans still gathered around a table each afternoon for their so-called “fourth meal.” Was la once dying off with grandmas, she wondered?……

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Sweden is home to scores of mighty oaks, many of them ancient, twisted, and, in some cases, dying. The reason there are so many is due to a centuries-old law that forbade the felling of oaks because of their value for shipbuilding. All Swedish oaks were considered to be the property of the crown. Though these days, this law is no longer upheld, many old oaks still fall under the natural monument law. As a byproduct of their impressive……

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Along the winding lanes of Bandra, a coastal suburb of Mumbai with a history of Catholicism, lime-washed crosses can be found near busy intersections. They are markers of a plague that ravaged the city more than a century ago, when this metropolis was still known as Bombay. Mumbai was shaped by a catastrophe it has largely forgotten. At the turn of the 20th century, the bubonic plague killed 10 million people in India. It was carried on ships from……

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Greenwich is a wonderland of technological history, from the maritime workings of the Cutty Sark, to John Harrison’s timepieces at the Royal Observatory. The Fan Museum, however, is singularly dedicated to a device that has been in use for more than five millennia. Originally founded in 1991 by Dicky and Hélène Alexander to display their collection, the museum is said to be the first museum dedicated to handheld fans. It does not include any mechanized or electrical fans and……

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During the night of Labor Day, September 2, 1935, the hurricane made landfall and crossed the Florida Keys before curving northward up the west coast of Florida, leaving a 40-mile wide path of destruction in its wake. It was the strongest storm in United States history at the time of landfall, and set a national record for the lowest barometric sea-level pressure. Because of forecasting errors by the U.S. Weather Bureau, there was insufficient time for evacuation; many people did not……

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Last summer, for the 50th birthday of Nenette the Bornean orangutan, one of the oldest in captivity, her keepers at Jardin des Plantes zoo in Paris presented her with a strawberry layer cake crowned with tropical fruit. Adelaide, a short-beaked echidna at Illinois’ Brookfield Zoo, also got a cake when she turned 50 last spring, although her gooey treat was frosted with wax worms. Henry, an Aldabra tortoise with a decade on both dames, celebrated his 60th birthday with……

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First issued in Kan’ei 13 (1636), the square-holed Kan’ei Tsūhō coins instantly became standard currency during the Edo period in Japan, and later a cultural symbol of sorts. Several samurai clans and shrines adopted its design as part of their coats of arms. Visitors to the country might still spot such coins if you wander through certain historic districts, such as Asakusa in Tokyo. On the Ariake Beach in Kan-onji, there is a massive sandpainting (sunae) of a Kan’ei……

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As humans fill the world’s waters with microplastics, the tiny synthetic shards are making their way through food webs. But one insect is making the most of the pollution—to its own detriment. Instead of noshing on the little bits of plastic, a species of caddisfly called Lepidostoma basale is hunkering down beneath them. The larvae—which are found across Europe, including Germany, the United Kingdom, Spain, and elsewhere—live inside cone- or tube-shaped cases that they build themselves. Typically, the insect……

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“Europeans looked down their noses at post-colonial Americans for just about everything—our fashion sucked, our music sucked, and our paintings sucked,” says culinary historian Sarah Lohman. “So, we really didn’t give a shit if they thought we were drinking swill, too.” Indeed, many early American beverages boasted all the refinement of enterprising yet unsupervised children, perhaps none more so than the Hot Ale Flip, a tavern favorite of the 1700s. The recipe called for frothing rum-laced dark ale with……

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There comes a time in every kid’s quarantine when the outside world starts to look awful irresistible. Maybe it’s the familiar warmth of springtime, or perhaps the stir craze that has come with being cooped up in the accrued months of social distancing. Whatever the cause, most kids right now are unable to hang with friends on the nearest (temporarily closed) playground and get their hands dirty. “What can you do if you’ve got a bunch of kids with……

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In the seaside city of Newport, Rhode Island, the corner where Farewell and Warner streets cross is sacred ground. Here, inside the city’s oldest public cemetery, is the area known as God’s Little Acre, the country’s oldest and largest collection of burial markers of both free and enslaved Africans. During the summer months, when tourists flock to the seaport, lush green blades of grass surround the markers. And when cold winds replace the blustery summer breeze, the stones defiantly……

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