Author: Ms. R.

On one recent Tuesday night, I texted my friend Katie and asked her to come over to make some fortune-telling flatbread. When she showed up, wary but game, I explained a bit more. We were going to bake a dumb cake. The name, by the way, isn’t meant to describe a poorly-thought-out pastry. Instead, it was the main event of a baking ritual conducted by young, unmarried women across the United Kingdom and North America from the 1700s up……

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In 1560, Cardinal Innico D’Aragona commissioned the construction of Palazzo D’Avalos in Procida to architects Benvenuto Tortelli and Gianbattista Cavagna. This palace was to become his residence, and as such it was meant to be an impregnable fortress as well as an elegant Renaissance residence.  In 1734 the Borbone took possession of Procida, turning it into a hunting site. Towards the end of the 18th century, after the proclamation of the Neapolitan Republic, the Palazzo D’Avalos was closed and……

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Enter this grand old building, a convent built in the 1600s by permission of King John IV of Portugal, and slip behind the curtain into Lisbon‘s only museum dedicated to the history of puppetry.  Visitors are transported across the world and throughout the ages while traversing this building’s dark corridors. The lights illuminate the tableaus of puppets, their expressions formed from every conceivable material. Even without puppeteers, they appear life-like, their faces full of action and intention. Along the way, pause……

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It was around midnight when biologist Paola Muñoz awoke to the sounds of children laughing as pots and pans clattered to the kitchen floor. She listened from her room to an adult voice scolding the mischief-makers. It was followed by the whack of a broom and the barking of Alaska, the resident dog of the field station where she was staying, high in the Talamanca Mountains of Costa Rica. In the morning, she asked the station’s caretaker about the……

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St Neot, was a Saxon monk thatsettled in the Cornish village of Hamstoke (later named after him), in hopes of an isolated life of prayer. According to legend, approving of Neot’s devotion to the faith, God sent an angel to the solitary saint to share that, to support Neot’s isolated existence, God would provide for his needs. The angel informed Neot that he could find three fish at all times within the local well. Neot was told that each……

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At Washington and Lee University, not far from where Robert E. Lee and his famous war horse are interred, is the original brick structure that served as Traveller’s final, post-war stable. Often referred to as the most famous horse from the Civil War, Traveller was a 16-hand, gray saddlebred known for his remarkable speed and endurance. Confederate General Robert E. Lee purchased Traveller in 1862 and they were inseparable until Lee’s death in 1871. When Lee served as President……

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Charles Lowndes was an English merchant who arrived in Maryland in the 1930s as a representative for Liverpool merchants Henry and Edward Trafford. Lowndes established himself as a prominent figure in the early days of Bladensburg, scooping up several of the 60 lots, one acre each, purchased by the Town Commissioners in 1742. His estate, the Bostwick House, was constructed on the property. Lowndes had numerous business interests, including his own trading company, and a shipyard. He also took……

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Deep in the northern Arabian Desert, in a sleepy farming community, huge red boulders rise out of the sand. The farmers already knew that the boulders abutting their fields were something special. When they looked closely at the towering rock edifices, they could just make out enormous, life-sized carvings of camels and hooved, horse-like animals. For millennia, the site has sat largely undisturbed, except for the occasional rooster crowing or dog barking on a nearby farm. In 2010, the……

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