Author: Ms. R.

The Duddo Five Stones are a stone circle found in Northumberland. They date to either the Neolithic or Bronze Age. Previously, this structure was known as the Four Stones, but in 1903 a fifth stone was found nearby and re-erected to “improve” the skyline. But the five-stone layout is still not the original layout of the circle, as archaeologists have found that there were originally six or seven standing stones. An excavation in the 1890s found the empty sockets of two……

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A powerful low-pressure system moving east from Norway brought sheets of icy rain, strong winds, and 20-foot waves to the Baltic Sea on the evening of September 27, 1994. The Estonia had left her home port of Tallinn 15 minutes behind the scheduled 7 p.m. departure, and now she was slicing through the murky, frigid waters at maximum speed, her engines pushing the 510-foot ship hard as the crew tried to make up time for the morning arrival in……

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The title of Japan’s most famous dog undisputedly goes to Hachikō, whose incredible story has been passed on for generations through books and films, even getting a Hollywood adaptation. Compared to him, Chirori the Therapy Dog is more than a bit obscure, even to the general Japanese public, but pay Tsukijigawa-Ginza Park a visit and visitors will find a lifelike sculpture dedicated to the dog. A mixed-breed dog born circa 1992, Chirori was found at a garbage dump in Matsudo……

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Each evening before he goes to bed, I Wayan Gama completes a simple ritual to protect his family as they sleep. The artist walks through the tidy grounds of his family’s compound in Keliki, a jungle-draped village in Bali, Indonesia, and locks the metal doors of the stone gateway that is the sole entrance and exit. He does this not to deter criminals, but to block something less visible but just as potentially harmful. This Hindu-majority island in the……

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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 Kalatuka, the Lagos, Nigeria, home of iconic musician Fela Kuti. In 1970, he declared it an independent state. In 1977, it was invaded by the Nigerian Army. 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……

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The Halloween holiday has deep roots in Scotland. Starting out as the Celtic festival of Samhain, it marked the end of the summer and the harvest, and the coming of the dark winter. Over the years, Samhain developed into Halloween and spread around the world. But the Americanization of Halloween—through television, films, and both-ways immigration—means that Scottish children wear Toy Story costumes and carry plastic pumpkins to gather sweets from their neighbors. There is, though, still one big difference……

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Vampire lore reaches back more than a millennium, to the first known written reference to the undead bloodsuckers in an Old Russian religious text. And Dracula scholar Edward G. Petitt doesn’t think our interest in them will ever die. “That fascination is rooted in our anxiety over death,” he says. “And vampires are tied up in the way we relate to each other and how we relate to each other in intimate ways.” These five favorite Atlas Obscura stories……

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