Author: Ms. R.

The modernized version of the Thanksgiving holiday is a blend of myth and fact. Although Plymouth Pilgrims did celebrate the harvest with members of the local Wampanoag tribe in 1621, a holiday called Thanksgiving wasn’t celebrated until the 1830s and wasn’t made official until 1863. By that point, European colonizers had committed countless atrocities against Indigenous communities, casting a dark shadow over the cross-cultural bread-breaking associated with the holiday. Instead of leaning into rosy, revisionist history, why not use……

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When Tsitakakoike, one of the largest Grandidier’s baobab trees in Madagascar, with a circumference of almost 90 feet, split and collapsed in 2018 after years without rain, it was a huge loss. Not only are the fruit and bark of this species, also known as the “mother of the forest,” useful as food and rope-making material, but Tsitakakoike was estimated to be 1,400 years old and sacred to the residents of nearby Andombiro village. The villagers believed that the……

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In front of a striking mural at the center of the sun-baked town of Anenecuilco stands the ruins of a house in which the iconic revolutionary Emiliano Zapata was born and grew up. Born in 1879 to a mestizo (mixed Indigenous and Spanish ancestry) and campesino (rural peasant) family, Zapata was orphaned at a young age. His early life was marked by misery, poverty, and exposure to the brutality and injustice of the hacienda system.  At the time, Mexico‘s hacienda system……

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Cappella Suardi is an ordained place of worship that belongs to a private individual. The chapel itself is surprisingly small – just over nine meters in length and four meters in wide. Already in existence in the 15th-century, the chapel was located on a major artery connecting Bergamo to the rest of Europe. To appreciate the themes in the fresco, it is necessary to contextualize them in historical terms. The 16th-century was characterized by the turmoil caused by the……

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Located in central Alabama, just 24 miles southwest of Birmingham and 40 miles northeast of Tuscaloosa, Tannehill Ironworks Historical State Park sits right in the heart of McCalla… otherwise known as the boonies. Although some might consider the surrounding area of the park to be desolate, the environment makes for a truly immersive experience with the nature and well-preserved history of the park.  Tannehill is home to some of the best-preserved historical furnaces in the American South. Originally, the……

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Running underneath the Bluff in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, there is a twin-bore tunnel with an unusual feature: a 45-degree bend near the northern portal. Built between 1926 and 1927, the Armstrong Tunnel was named after Joseph Armstrong, former County Director of Public Works, Commissioner, and Mayor of Pittsburgh. It was designed with a bend halfway through it to line up at a 90-degree angle with streets that run parallel, but are positioned diagonally. There are many local stories to explain the……

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Alexey Korolyov has some strong feelings about where to find wonder. “I am absolutely sure you do not need to travel far distances to capture a once-in-a-lifetime shot,” says Korolyov, a photographer based in Russia. “Just around the corner you can find inspiration.” Korolyov’s Instagram is full of unexpected close-ups that play with expectations: Frosty clumps of fallen leaves look like a satellite image of snow-dusted mountains, and stands of trees beside a pond transform into an Impressionist painting…….

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The Falls of Leny are a series of cascading waterfalls that force their way through a narrow gorge before tumbling down the boulder-strewn ravine. The waterfalls are on the course of the Garbh Uisge (which means “rough water”), otherwise known as the River Leny, which drains Loch Lubnaig in the Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park. They occur where the river crosses the Highland Boundary Fault. The name Leny may be of Gaelic origin, and it is thought to have derived from the word……

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A short drive west from Trieste and just above the town of Duino, in the Italian region of Friuli-Venezia Giulia, there is a Roman Mithraeum that dates to the first century B.C. A Mithraeum is a temple sacred to those who worshipped the god Mithras and followers of the Mithraic mysteries. Most Mithraeae are found in what was the Ancient Roman Empire. Although Mithras derives from the Zoroastrian divinity Mithra, the Roman mystery religion has its own separate imagery……

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