Author: Ms. R.

Above the gorge of Kalarytikos River in Greece‘s Tzoumerka mountains, a monastery dedicated to the Virgin Mary stands at the entrance of a cave in a vertical cliff. The sharp cut of the rock hides the Monastery of Kipina, a monument of Christianity built using materials from the surrounding mountains. In the early 13th century, a group of monks from the nearby Vyliza Monastery set out to establish a new order after a disagreement with their abbot. While looking for……

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Above the gorge of Kalarytikos River in Greece‘s Tzoumerka mountains, a monastery dedicated to the Virgin Mary stands at the entrance of a cave in a vertical cliff. The sharp cut of the rock hides the Monastery of Kipinas, a monument of Christianity built using materials from the surrounding mountains. In the early 13th century, a group of monks from the nearby Vyliza Monastery set out to establish a new order after a disagreement with their abbot. While looking for……

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On June 4, 1871, Sara Baines hopped down from a wagon at Fort Bridger, a remote military and trading outpost at the crossroads of several pioneer trails in what would one day become Wyoming. Baines, a 24-year-old seamstress from Louisiana, had just spent several months traveling 1,500 miles through road-less territory, alone. But she wouldn’t be alone for long—she’d come to Fort Bridger to get married. The groom was Jay Hemsley, a 48-year-old farmer who’d left Ohio some years……

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Wolji is an artificial pond that was originally located near the Silla palace called Banwolseong. The pond was part of the complex, constructed on the orders of King Munmu in 674. The pond measures 200 meters from east to west and 180 meters from north to south. When viewed from above, it has an unusual shape that some say represents the outline of the country at the time of construction, acting as a kind of watery map of Korea. The pond……

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This hacienda is the location where the Battle of Santa Rosa took place, an encounter between William Walker’s filibusters and the Costarican civil army. Walker was in Nicaragua looking to conquer the Central American provinces. In 1856, Costa Rica‘s president Juan Rafael Mora Porras declared war on Nicaragua. He asked civilians to join him on the battlefield. The commute from the capital to Guanacaste was an eight-day trek, from March 4th to March 12th. By March 20th, the army arrived at……

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The Boulder Bank is an eight-mile (13 kilometers) stretch of boulders in the Nelson Harbour. The geological origins of this unusual natural formation are not well understood, but it was likely caused by longshore drift. Boulders were pulled off nearby headlands and formed the current structure over thousands of years. This unique formation is composed of granodiorite, the same type of rock from Mackay Bluff. This structure creates a natural harbor, which was later cut to provide access for larger……

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In a small church graveyard in the village of Hardingstone, a wooden cross marks the final resting place of an unknown man, who was the unfortunate victim of another man’s elaborate scheme to fake his own death. In the early hours of November 6, 1930, two young men spotted a fire in the distance while walking to Hardingstone from a Bonfire Night event. They began heading towards the fire, and passed a neatly dressed man carrying a briefcase. The……

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Along the beautiful coast of Cilento, in Southern Italy, the town of Castellabate is a renowned tourist destination. From the beaches of Santa Maria di Castellabate, if visitors look south, they may notice a small island just off the coast of a large promontory, this is Licosa Island. Near the small island, the clear waters reveal the remains of a town dating back to the Greek colonization of Magna Graecia and a 2,000-year-old Roman villa under the sea. Other……

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