Author: Ms. R.

February 18, 1959, was just an ordinary day for road workers in Lyon, France, tasked with building a tunnel under Croix-Rousse Hill in a bid to reduce traffic congestion. While drilling, they stumbled upon an old well. That wasn’t unusual. Though Lyon lay across two major rivers, access to drinking water was poor, and the city was peppered with wells. On closer inspection, however, the road workers discovered that this well didn’t simply descend vertically. Branching off from the……

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California boasts many historic sites that pay homage to the Gold Rush of 1849, but this is the site of the actual first discovery of gold in 1848 that brought the so-called “49ers.” This monument to the discoverer, James Wilson Marshall, sits on a hill overlooking the Marshall Gold Discovery State Historic Park. One of the statue’s hands points to the spot where he found the gold. Marshall, who helped design and construct a sawmill at the site, never……

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Just off the R512 roadway in County Limerick sits an unassuming gem. It’s the largest stone circle in Ireland. Visitors could easily drive by this hidden wonder. There are no fees and no barriers and everyone is free to walk right into the circle. There is a locked metal box at the entrance if you wish to donate.   The national monument consists of 113 contiguous standing stones set in a near-perfect circle at 150 feet (46 meters) in……

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In the mid-1950s, with the Cold War raging, Thiokol Corporation, a chemical company then well-known for its synthetic rubber, was becoming involved in the development of solid fuels for rocket motors. The company acquired a large piece of land at this remote site in the Utah desert to use as a rocket proving ground. Since then, Thiokol has been known by various legal names over the years. It became notorious as Morton-Thiokol at the time of the Challenger disaster……

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George “Buddy” Guy was born on July 30, 1936, in Lettsworth, Louisiana. Guy started playing music on a diddley bow, a small stringed instrument that he made himself using wire, a piece of wood, and his mother’s hairpins. His parents were sharecroppers, and though they had little money, Guy’s father bought a guitar from another fieldhand so he could keep learning. As a teenager, Guy began performing in Baton Rouge, then moved to Chicago at the age of 21. He……

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Japan is no stranger to purported UFO sightings, early cases date all the way back to the Middle Ages. The city of Hakui in western Japan has turned to this history of sightings to revitalize its tourism industry. Local texts from the Heian period (794-1185 CE) mention frequent sightings of sōhachibon, unidentified flying objects named after Buddhist cymbals. The city’s tourism committee promoted this legend nationwide to attract visitors at the height of Japan’s UFO fad in the 1980s, and it……

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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 only remaining operational rotary jail, which shows visitors how inmates were once locked within the building’s walls. 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……

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