Author: Ms. R.

A towering steel bear stands in Dunbar, a Scottish town that stands on the coast of the North Sea. The sculpture, officially named The DunBear, is built of structural steel and covered with stainless-steel cladding. It was built as a tribute to the naturalist John Muir, who was born just down the road. The sculpture was created in 2019 by Scottish sculptor Andy Scott, who is best known for his sculpture The Kelpies in Falkirk. He described the work as……

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This alley represents the efforts to revitalize downtown Gulfport post-Katrina. Many of the buildings and infrastructure in downtown Gulfport were badly damaged by Hurricane Katrina in 2005. While construction was underway a few years later, brick pavers from the early 20th century were discovered under the asphalt. In 2016, the pavers were used as part of a new economic development project called “Fishbone Alley.” The brick pavers underfoot in the tiny alleyway give residents and visitors a glimpse of……

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There is a well-known statue in Budapest’s City Park that ominously stares at visitors from under a hood. The statue of the anonymous notary along King Béla 3rd, and while the statue’s visage is somewhat hidden, it is very well known. The sculpture depicts the person (or persons) commonly accredited for the creation of Bitcoin and the first blockchain database that paved the way for cryptocurrency. The pseudonym Satoshi Nakamoto, has left all to wonder who the true inventors……

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Seth Bullock was the first sheriff of Deadwood, South Dakota. He first met Theodore Roosevelt in 1892, while the future president was traveling through the Dakotas. They developed a close friendship over the years: Bullock fought in the Spanish-American War and helped campaign for Roosevelt in the presidential election of 1900. After Roosevelt died in 1919, Bullock saw that his friend was honored in Deadwood. He worked with the Society of Black Hills Pioneers to change the name of Sheep Mountain……

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Born in 1838 in Bridgeport, Connecticut, Stratton ceased growing at six months, ending up with an adult height of 40 inches—a condition that is today called pituitary dwarfism. When he was five years old, Stratton was hired by P.T. Barnum and worked in stage shows at the showman’s American Museum under the pseudonym “General Tom Thumb.” Stratton learned to sing, dance, and imitate famous people of the time and regularly toured the world with Barnum, quickly becoming an international……

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Olkiluoto is a pine-covered island jutting out into the Baltic Sea, just off the western coast of Finland. Beneath the surface, there’s 2-billion-year-old bedrock made mostly of gneiss, hard as steel. It’s here that engineers are digging a facility known as Onkalo, Finnish for “cavity” or “pit.” They’re constructing a tomb, a quarter of a mile underground, to store spent uranium rods from nuclear power plants for the next 100,000 years. And depending on who you ask, future generations……

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During the final years of the 18th century, Denby Dale, then only a collection of small hillside farms and cottages, began an ever-growing culinary tradition. This tradition began in 1788 when the small village baked a communal pie to celebrate King George III’s mental health recovery. In 1815, two sheep and 20 fowl were baked in a “Victory Pie” in honor of the British success at the Battle of Waterloo. The next pie was baked three decades later in……

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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, join producer Johanna Mayer as she visits the grave of magician and escape artist Harry Houdini in Queens, New York—and goes searching for evidence of the great beyond. 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……

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THIS ARTICLE IS ADAPTED FROM THE OCTOBER 21, 2022, EDITION OF GASTRO OBSCURA’S FAVORITE THINGS NEWSLETTER. YOU CAN SIGN UP HERE. Food historian Sarah Lohman’s interest in food and cults began with a beautiful set of silverware. After spotting the case of cutlery at a thrift store in Vermont, she wondered who made them and turned the box over. The back held one word: Oneida. “I found out that Oneida was a 19th-century cult that, among other things, made……

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Tarragona is a city that’s proud of its numerous traditions and tocar ferro (“touching iron”) is one of the most popular. It simply means crossing the Rambla Nova until you reach the Balcó del Mediterrani and touch the iron railing which is on top of what was once the stone extraction quarry used by the Romans during their time in Tarraco. For many of the people of Tarragona, it is an everyday habit to walk along the Rambla and go……

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