Author: Ms. R.

On April 23, 2019, at 9:07 PM, a meteorite struck a doghouse in rural Costa Rica. The doghouse’s resident at the time, a German shepherd named Rocky, was soundly asleep inside when the 69-pound space rock came flying through his rusty tin roof. The meteorite just barely missed the lounging Rocky, leaving a gaping seven-inch hole in its wake and destroying the doghouse’s weathered wooden floor. Professional meteorite hunters were on the scene almost immediately, having watched satellite images……

Read More

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was arrested on these steps in 1964. Charged with trespassing, his “crime” was attempting to join friends for lunch. The Monson Motor Lodge & Restaurant was a “Whites only” establishment. From a jail cell, King wrote to Rabbi Israel Dresner encouraging him to speak out against local injustice. This was also the scene of an infamous hate crime, when a motel owner poured acid into a swimming pool full of anti-segregationists. Both incidents made……

Read More

Visitors to Chinguetti have the chance to see new Chinguetti, where most accommodations are located, and old Chinguetti, the semi-abandoned, half-buried city where ancient libraries can be found. There is, however, a third Chinguetti, which has almost entirely been reclaimed by the desert. A little over one mile (two kilometers) northeast of modern Chinguetti, on the way to the village of Entkemkemt, the desert track runs through a set of unimpressive sand dunes. Buried under these sand dunes are……

Read More

Though it is now a library, this small white building in Shepherdstown, West Virginia, has had a number of other uses over the last 200 years. Constructed in 1800, this building was originally a one-story farmer’s market known as the Market House. In 1845, the Independent Order of Odd Fellows (IOOF) petitioned the town to build a second story to hold their meetings. The rituals of the IOOF required a room on the second floor with opaque windows in……

Read More

In this sculpture at Changi Beach Park, artist Lim Soo Ngee imagines what the monumental relics of Bronze Age Singapore might look like. Taking inspiration from the Colossus of Rhodes, Lim envisioned a statue that stood by the Kingdom of Singapura’s trade routes, stretching out a finger to act as a sundial and guiding vessels from all around the region into Singapura’s port. Like much of classical Singapore’s history, the bulk of the imagined Colossus had since been lost,……

Read More

This four-tiered hill in the village of St John’s on the Isle of Man is one of the island’s most distinctive and historic landmarks. The Tynwald Hill marks Isle of Man’s independence as a self-governing crown dependency. Once a year on July 5th, Tynwald Day (Isle of Man’s – National Day), an open-air meeting of the Island’s parliament is held where new laws are proclaimed from the preceding year. A military procession is conducted, as well as the singing……

Read More

After his older brother’s defeat at Waterloo and the collapse of his own government in Spain, Joseph Bonaparte fled in disguise to the United States. He briefly lived amongst other French expatriates in New York and Philadelphia before purchasing 1,800 acres in Bordentown, New Jersey. With this land located roughly halfway between Philadelphia and New York, Bonaparte planned to turn his Point Breeze Estate into the new center of high society in the United States. To entertain guests, the……

Read More