Author: Ms. R.

Every hour, the 12 apostles appear in one of the towers of the huge Neo-gothic Expiatory Temple. The monumental clock was donated to the temple in 1969 by the German philanthropist Pablo Horn. Inside the tower, a 25-bell chime was installed that played ecclesiastical hymns, but in 1972 it stopped ringing. The clock was silent for 30 years until it was fixed in 2005. Now, every hour when the bells ring, some doors open and a parade begins where……

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As money from the Gold Rush began to change California and the world, this area was home to a landfill in the 1850s and the Friedlander’s Building in 1869. Like many others, that building was destroyed in the Great Earthquake of 1906. It was replaced by the Alaska Commercial Building in 1908. Designed by Henry H. Meyers and Clarence Ward, the building was known for its unusual features. The company had exclusive rights to sell seal hunting leases in……

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Deep in the dimly lit recesses of Oregon State University’s Weniger Hall, more than 26,000 garter snakes lie in wait. Coiled and crammed into jar after jar of yellowing alcohol, this assemblage of pickled snakes is more than an ophidiophobe’s nightmare. Part of the university’s reptile and amphibian collection, this is the world’s largest assemblage of garter snakes. For several species, more specimens are housed here than in every museum in the world combined. This is no dusty collection……

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Sandwiched between two clothes shops is a shrine to an iconic moment of Brighton history. In May 1964, masses of mods and rockers descended from London onto Brighton Beach resulting in a mass fight that shocked the nation. It ended with people throwing bins, deckchairs, and stones. Several people were jailed after the incident, many of them were arrested and put in cells under Brighton Town Hall, now the Old Police Cells Museum. This riot was the inspiration for……

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The Gruta del Palacio (“Palace Cave”) is an ancient rock formation located in Central Uruguay, near the small town of Trinidad. This wonderful geological feature is composed of sandstone and sedimentary rock. The natural wonder formed around 70 million years ago during the Late Cretaceous period, later solidifying into its current appearance during the Paleocene. The peculiar cave is formed by an upper shell of sandstone sustained by multiple 6.5 feet (2-meters) tall natural columns that create a structure……

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Héctor Calderón was 19 in 1965, when he was hired to help compile what would later become the Archive of Healing. He had entered the University of California Los Angeles hoping to become an accountant. That all changed when he started working for Professor Wayland Hand, the Director of UCLA’s Center for the Study of Comparative Folklore and Mythology, who had just launched an ambitious project compiling folk remedies from around the world. The remedies ranged from folktales and……

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