Author: Ms. R.

The historic St. Martin’s Church in Stoney Middleton, Derbyshire, was once described as the ugliest church in all of England, an observation recorded in the diary of a local cobbler named Tom Carter. Today, visitors are sure to find the remark at odds with the impressive little church. During the Middle Ages, a small well chapel was the first religious building constructed on the site. Then, in 1415, a local lady known as Joan Eyre built the original St. Martin’s……

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Born in 1868 and active between 1887 and 1915, Sissieretta Jones was the highest-paid Black performer of her time, who sang at the White House for four consecutive U.S. presidents. Met with international success, she also toured across the globe, from South America to Australia, India to sub-Saharan Africa, and even performed for the British royal family. Her international fame did not quite spare her from racism, however, and it was (as she noted in her letters) worse in……

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In 2013 this remarkable building in Birmingham, England, replaced a Brutalist concrete structure, the Birmingham Central Library (built in 1974). The exterior layer of the facade is a lattice of black metal rings, said to represent the city’s many former gas holders, almost all of which have now been demolished (Birmingham was the site of the first-ever building to be illuminated by gas). Underneath the lattice of black rings is a further lattice of silver which has gold, silver,……

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Route 66, in its heyday, stretched for over 2,200 miles from Chicago to Los Angeles. But sometimes, the road grew desolate, and maybe no stretch was more isolated than the section found in northeastern Arizona within Petrified Forest National Park. At the site, a small pullout with a rusted 1932 Studebaker recognizes Petrified Forest as the only national park to contain a stretch of Route 66. Route 66, including this stretch, was commissioned in 1926, and formed from the……

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Anyone familiar with the political rights of the LGBTQ+ community has most likely heard of the Stonewall Riots. These protests in the summer of 1969 were part of a series of events that helped to pave the way for equal rights for this community. One of those events took place three years before Stonewall, at a diner in San Francisco. Compton’s Cafeteria was a chain of 24-hour eateries in San Francisco. In the 60s, the Tenderloin was one of……

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The town of Hakone is known for its hot springs, a benefit given by the volcano that stands tall above it. While it has been a popular travel destination since feudal times, its desolate terrains and calderas were also identified as hell due to the constant bursts of smoke around them, as still seen in the Owakudani Valley. At some point in the medieval Kamakura period, some 700 years ago, locals started carving Buddhist effigies onto the face of……

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Listen and subscribe on Stitcher, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and all major podcast apps. In this episode of The Atlas Obscura Podcast, we visit an art gallery in Kansas celebrates presidential elections—with a focus on the losers. Our podcast is an audio guide to the world’s wondrous, awe-inspiring, strange places. In under 15 minutes, we’ll take you to an incredible site, and along the way you’ll meet some fascinating people and hear their stories. Join us daily, Monday through Thursday,……

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