The Francis Trigge Chained Library in Grantham, England
Founded in 1598, the Francis Trigge Library is the oldest public library in England, and was founded by a local clergyman who was concerned about access to knowledge by the average citizen.Trigge left...
View ArticleSan Pedro Prison in Our Lady of Peace, Bolivia
San Pedro is the biggest prison in La Paz, Bolivia, but not all of the residents are criminals.The government only funds basic food for the inmates at San Pedro; beyond that, the inmates have to earn...
View ArticleThe Sphere in New York, New York
"The Sphere," by Fritz Koenig, was originally designed as a work of art that was situated between the Twin Towers in Manhattan in 1971.The work was inspired by the Kaaba at The Grand Mosque of Mecca...
View ArticleHell Grottoes in Baar, Switzerland
The aptly named Hell-Grottoes consist of twisted, tangled stone formations and murky subterranean lakes that take hours to fully explore.The Swiss location has become such a legendary draw, the caves...
View ArticleSalt Lake City Public Library in Salt Lake City, Utah
Thoughts of a public library inevitably turn to rows of bookcases, shushing librarians, and little plastic chairs for quiet contemplation.But the Salt Lake City Public Library is something else...
View ArticlePalace of Winds in Jaipur, India
The 953 windows covering the lace-like facade of the Palace of the Winds were designed to allow the ladies of the royal court to watch the drama of the streets unobserved behind their delicate...
View ArticleBallandean Pyramid in Ballandean, Australia
Standing about 45 feet tall, the stone pyramid folly of Ballandean was built of local granite chunks left over from a construction project.Said to be the result of a local man asking the property owner...
View ArticleTrou de la Fée - Protected Bat Cave in Desbiens, Canada
A bat cave means a lot of things to a lot of people. Echo-filled chamber of horrors to some, home of superheroes to others, the reality is far less intimidating.The first thing you notice about about...
View ArticleThe Bog Bodies at the Schleswig-Holstein Landesmuseum in Schleswig, Germany
Thousands of years ago, unfortunate souls met unusually grisly deaths in peat-drenched bogs, often condemned for some unknown sins or used as sacrifices. These bodies' gruesome ends kept them uniquely...
View ArticleWest Side Cow Tunnels in New York, New York
The legend of the West Side Cow Tunnels have always been an urban myth, repeated by someone who heard, but never from someone who knew. The story goes that sometime in the 1870s, the need to alleviate...
View ArticleWilliam Thompson's Scalped Scalp in Omaha, Nebraska
Scalping is often depicted in old-timey cowboy-and-Indian movies with lots of quavering music and dramatic pauses. But then you see the real scalp under a bell jar and it isn’t so melodramatic...
View ArticleHierve el Agua Stone Waterfalls in Mexico
Spanish for "the water boils", Hierve al Aqua is comprised of two cliff sites with white formations cascading down the cliff face like waterfalls transformed into stone. There are two man made swimming...
View ArticlePalomar Observatory in Palomar Mountain, California
The Palomar Observatory was once the world's largest astrological observatories, and remains one of the world's finest.Nestled in the dusty hills of the California desert north of San Diego, the...
View ArticleHobbiton in Matamata, New Zealand
Once an unassuming farm, this hillside will never be seen the same way again after being chosen to act as a set for the Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit films.Even before it was retrofitted with...
View ArticleChimbarazo Medical Museum in Richmond, Virginia
Certainly, the victor’s story in any conflict is most often told. This is no more true than in memories of the American Civil War, in which the North is valorized and the South demonized. More accurate...
View ArticleFour Corners in Kingston, New York
The Four Corners, as it's referred to by locals, is the only intersection in America where the buildings on all four corners were built pre-Revolutionary War.Much of the architecture in Kingston is...
View ArticleDeath by Ketchup in Lucknow, India
The world has no shortage of awful ways to perish, but succumbing to a relentless torrent of an otherwise delicious and much-loved condiment must be chief among them.That's exactly what happened at the...
View ArticleThe Hallucinations of Pont-Saint-Esprit in Pont-Saint-Esprit, France
The residents of a small french village called Pont-Saint-Esprit were having a meltdown. A sudden and severe mass hallucination seemed to be gripping the villagers, who reported seeing fire and...
View ArticleThe London Beer Flood in London, United Kingdom
As far as drowning goes, drowning in a tidal wave of free booze probably isn't the worst way to go, but only the seven victims of the London Beer Flood could tell us for sure.On October 14th, 1813,...
View ArticleGreat Boston Molasses Flood Plaque in Boston, Massachusetts
At the intersection of Foster and Commercial Street in Boston’s industrial North End is a curious historical site. Marked by a small, easily missed plaque is the location of a moment in Boston history...
View Article