Author: Ms. R.

These charming, colorful Victorian gingerbread houses are nestled on the shores of Grimsby Beach in the Niagara Region of Ontario. They boast every color of the rainbow and each has a unique character and theme. Originally cottages, now winterized, some of the homes are over 150 years old. In the 1840s this area was a popular summer destination for many Ontarians. The Methodist Church had a camp in the area and later built a large auditorium called “the Temple.”……

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In the years before Mickey Mouse, Walt Disney’s animation business started at a humble studio in Kansas City, Missouri. Known as Laugh-O-Gram, the very first Disney studio produced a series of short funnies and cartoon retellings of classic fairytales before going bankrupt in 1923. Broke but still determined to make it big, 22-year-old Walt sold his movie camera to make enough money for a one-way ticket to Hollywood, hopping on the train with an unfinished feel of Laugh-O-Gram’s final……

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The quest: You want to brew a decent pot of coffee, but it’s the mid-1800s and you just emigrated to a brand new state in the Midwest. There are no percolators or even drip coffee pots available, let alone specialty ground coffee that tastes good no matter how you brew it. So what do you do? Scandinavian immigrants settling in the Midwest figured out the perfect solution: egg coffee, as in coffee brewed with an egg, shells and all…….

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Perched atop one of the highest hills in Hampshire stands a striking folly that has withstood the test of time. This monument commemorates the courageous actions of a horse named Beware Chalk Pit. It was during a fox hunt in September of 1733 when the horse made a daring leap into a deep chalk pit, keeping its owner Paulet St. John safely on its back. Although the incident could have been fatal, both St. John and his loyal steed……

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From The Core of an Onion: Peeling the Rarest Common Food – Featuring More Than 100 Historical Recipes by Mark Kurlansky, on sale November 7 from Bloomsbury Publishing. Copyright © Mark Kurlansky, 2023. All rights reserved. With the exception of a few specialties such as cipollinis, small flat onions from the Emilia-Romagna region of Italy, or local varieties from certain regions, most consumers in the world know little about what onion they are eating. They choose large or small;……

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Secret Obsessions is Atlas Obscura‘s new column where we ask wondrous people to take us down a rabbit hole. This edition features Grammy Award-nominated sitar player Anoushka Shankar, as told to Associate Editor Sarah Durn. I was two years old when I saw my first dance show. My mom took me to an Indian cultural center in London, the Bhavan UK, where they were doing Mowgli. It was a dance drama of Rudyard Kipling’s The Jungle Book choreographed by……

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Also known as Florence Shaw Demonstration House, this diminutive cottage was built between 1928 and 1930 at the behest of the supervisor of teacher training at Shepherd College, Florence Shaw.  She felt the house and accompanying miniature farm would make summer school classes more interesting for students. Labor and materials were donated by local stonemason Charlie “Big Moustache” Jones, and the Potomac Edison Company. The limestone cottage with a gambrel roof favors Dutch Colonial Revival style architecture. It stands 10……

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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 the former estate of the Davies sisters, two unusually wealthy Welsh women who traveled the world, fell in love with art, served their country, and then dedicated their home to culture and community. 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……

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