Author: Ms. R.

Air travel is often something to be endured, not enjoyed, especially when it comes to the food. In the United States, we’ve all gotten grimly accustomed to gritty Biscoff cookies and overpriced boxes of shelf-stable jerky and rubbery cheese. That’s why air-travel enthusiast Nik Sennhauser says that many Americans don’t understand his current project at all: devoting his Instagram feed to recreating the most glorious meals of air travel. Sennhauser, a business-support manager living in Scotland, grew up between……

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Near the railway line is the amazing but little-known field, where abandoned anti-tank obstacles nestle in the Kent countryside. These structures are presumably a relic of the nearby Bekesbourne World War I airfield, which was abandoned around 1940, although there is not much information available about how they ended up here. Many of them are marked with a letter and number and now lie in the field with trees and weeds growing between them. A completely unexpected, slightly spooky……

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Above the main door of the Palazzo Aldegatti in Mantua, there is a natural size cat’s head that has watched over the building’s comings and goings since 1540. The cat’s head is a joke on the family’s surname, in Italian gatti means “cats,” and the portal decoration is an unofficial family crest. The story behind the cat claims that the head comes alive during the night, trying to escape from its stone jail and it sometimes meowing to try……

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One of the most remarkable architectural features in the Nation’s Capitol belongs to our neighbors to the north. Adorning the Embassy of Canada‘s southeast corner is a striking rotunda featuring a domed roof supported by 12 pillars. Each is topped with a crest representing one of the 10 provinces and two territories that existed at the time of its construction. There is a seal above the rotunda’s entrance that represents Nunavut, the third Canadian territory, which was established in……

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Sego Canyon, Utah, is just west of the Colorado border along U.S. Route 70. During the early twentieth century, a coal-mining town sprang up in the area. When the mining operation failed, the boomtown went bust. Thousands of years before, Indigenous people painted and carved images onto the canyon walls. Those ghostly forms are still on display today, provocative, mysterious, and enduring reminders of the people who lived here long ago. Rock art on the walls of Sego Canyon……

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This tragic story begins with an earth-shattering explosion big enough to shake the windows of homes 88 kilometers away. Three young lives were lost, and an Outback mystery remains to this day. On the morning of August 30, 1972, three young men set off from Stonecroft Station on an everyday job, their truck laden with a delivery of ammonium nitrate. They had barely reached the public road when the truck combusted with such force that it left a two-meter……

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Do you love cavorting with snakes, frogs, salamanders and other reptiles and amphibians? Would you like to explore the natural habitats of these creatures and observe their behavior as they migrate between their winter lairs and summer playgrounds? Well then, the “Snake Road” in southern Illinois should be your destination during the semiannual closure of the road to protect the animals. Snake Road, which lies between the shear cliff faces that long ago helped contain the Mississippi River (one……

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When the Republic of China general Chiang Kai-Shek retreated to Taiwan in 1949 and began plotting an eventual takeover of China, he wanted a place where he could impress his guests and host foreign dignitaries. So his wife Soong Mei-ling commissioned the Grand Hotel—a stunning 12-story building and one of the finest classical Chinese buildings in the world. Established in 1952, the hotel became a Taiwanese landmark with its gilded tiles and red vermilion columns. Standing at 87 meters……

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This tower was constructed in 1281 by the Acerbi family for private purposes then sold to the Bonacolsi family.  In 1328, the Bonacolsi family were defeated by the Gonzaga family who took control of the city. The tower was left to slowly decay. In 1576, Duke Guglielmo Gonzaga decided to use the tower as an open-air jail. He constructed an iron cage intended to expose criminals as a warning to the public. In 1798, the municipality asked the owner to……

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This series of artificial islands constructed in a widening of the Luan River were meant to be an ode to international culture, and an escape for the wealthier residents of Qian’an. The problem though, it would seem, is that those people became wealthy, they didn’t want to remain in the somewhat industrial city. Five star-shaped islands are linked to a sixth, central, flower-shaped one, each with its own architectural theme. One island is filled with sleek, modern buildings, all……

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Southern California’s beaches bustle with year-round activity—tourists taking selfies, surfers waiting for the perfect wave, seagulls on the prowl for scraps. Beyond the surf, however, sand gives way to mud, and lots of it, on a narrow band of mostly empty continental shelf that stretches some 250 miles along the coast. Scavengers such as crabs and burrowing worms dominate this dull mudscape, which is often obscured by swirling sediment. The culprit behind this wasteland? Cows, says Susan Kidwell, a……

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