Author: Ms. R.

Mellon Fountain is a beautiful tribute in bronze, granite, and quartz to Andrew Mellon, a wealthy industrialist, statesman, and founder of the National Gallery of Art. The gallery sits across Constitution Avenue just a short walk from the fountain. Sculpted by Sidney Waugh, the fountain features three nested bronze basins that allow water from a 20-foot spouting jet to cascade from the smaller center basins into larger circular basins below—and ultimately into a fourth granite basin at the bottom…….

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Also known as “Parkway Man,” this statue of a steelworker is situated just off a pathway through Bowden Housteads Woods in Handsworth.  As travelers drive into Sheffield along the Parkway, the major dual carriageway that runs between the city of Sheffield and Junction 33 of the M1, the statue is just past a large supermarket at the Handsworth junction. The cast-iron statue stands nearly 10 feet tall and weighs more than three tons. The statue was commissioned by the……

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This article is adapted from a special edition of the July 6, 2021, Gastro Obscura newsletter. It always surprises me that more people don’t know that pad Thai was invented by a dictator. I don’t mean that the authoritarian prime minister of Thailand, Plaek Phibunsongkhram, got creative in the kitchen one day. But he made pad Thai—then an unknown noodle dish without a name—the country’s national dish by fiat. Phibunsongkhram was a military officer who took power in a……

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One of the best—and least known—museums in Valencia. Inside the lobby you will see a scale relief model of the remains of the ancient Roman city of Valencia, known then as Valentia Edetanorum, hanging on the wall. Valencia was founded by the Romans in 138. The museum exhibits explore the city’s origins and architectural elements of different periods including the Visigoths and the Islamic fort. The fun comes when you walk downstairs and enter the ruins. You walk amongst them……

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A stylish Parisian apartment rented by an impassioned novelist with democratic leanings, a violent uprising leading to a power grab by a despot-in-the-making, the clandestine fleeing of said writer dressed as a working man—these elements make for a great book, possibly one written by French literary titan Victor Hugo. But in fact, these are the details of the author’s own life when he lived in Paris from 1832 through 1851. Today, the apartment that he lived in during those……

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When Portuguese colonizers came to Sri Lanka in the early 16th century, it set off decades of warfare. Prominent in these battles were local warriors who practiced angampora, a traditional martial art that had been used to protect the island for millennia, involving unarmed combat, weaponry, and incantations. The Portuguese came to occupy part of the island and were followed by the Dutch and then the British, who finally conquered what was then known as Ceylon in 1815. Following……

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