Explore 1266 Features Collections - Atlas Obscura
Places near me Random place

1266 Items Tagged

Features

Share
Shrew mummy skulls.
mummies

The Reclaiming of the Shrew

A biologist solves the mystery of two dozen missing animal mummies.
Sarah Laskow November 2, 2017
Police search the Deans' garden in Winton.
murder

Was Minnie Dean Really the Wickedest Woman in New Zealand History?

Revisiting the case of the only woman ever executed on its shores.
Natasha Frost November 1, 2017
31 days of halloween

Welcome to Your Worst Nightmares

We asked you to tell us about them, and they are chilling.
Sarah Laskow October 30, 2017
The cover of the paper boasted features on dating, celebrities, and sex.
sex

The Dramatically Different World of '70s Dating Ads

Before Tinder, there was "Singles News."
Natasha Frost October 27, 2017
The oldest reading room at the Bodleian Library, in Oxford.
libraries

The Oldest Treasures From 12 Great Libraries

We asked some of our favorite libraries: What's the oldest item in your collection?
Sarah Laskow October 26, 2017
Live frogs, readied for shipment.
farms

The Giant Frog Farms of the 1930s Were a Giant Failure

The get-rich-quick scheme couldn't fill the world's appetite for frogs' legs.
Sarah Laskow October 25, 2017
You’re awake now, don’t worry.
31 days of halloween

Tell Us About Your Most Terrifying Nightmare

What haunts your sleep?
Sarah Laskow October 23, 2017
<em>The Nightmare</em>, Henry Fuseli, 1781.
31 days of halloween

The Original ‘Nightmare’ Was a Demon That Sat on Your Chest and Suffocated You

Maere, mara, mahr, mahrt, mårt—by any name, it was and still is a terrifying visitor.
Sarah Laskow October 23, 2017
A 1716 portrait of Catherine I by French painter Jean-Marc Nattier.
objects of intrigue

What Happened to the Severed Head of Peter the Great's Wife's Lover

Don't believe the hype.
Natasha Frost October 20, 2017
These apples all have the same parents.
genetics

Every Apple You Eat Took Years and Years to Make

"Feel free to spit."
Sarah Laskow October 20, 2017
St. George’s Club cricketers, 1861.
sports

The Battle Between Baseball and Cricket for American Sporting Supremacy

We could have had a very different World Series.
Daniel Crown October 19, 2017
A scene from Rocket Ship MDX, one of the films made in Rocaterrania.
outsider art

One Artist's Lifelong Quest to Create a Hidden Kingdom Called Rocaterrania

Its full history, which is being told for the first time in a new book, doubles as autobiography.
Sarah Laskow October 19, 2017
What does fear sound like?
31 days of halloween

Inside the World of a Halloween Sound-Effects Artist

Spooky sound effects haven't changed much since we first began rattling chains and crunching leaves.
Eric Grundhauser October 18, 2017
aviation

The Brief, Wondrous, High-Flying Era of Zeppelin Dining

The Hindenburg’s fattened ducklings and caviar were essentially German propaganda.
Natasha Frost October 18, 2017
A contractor attaches a new wire at 56th Street and 11th Avenue.
hidden

The Wire That Transforms Much of Manhattan Into One Big, Symbolic Home

The eruv, a nearly invisible holy boundary, must be intact every Friday.
Michael Inscoe October 16, 2017
Photographer Blaine Dixon befriended activist Pat Carey, who was, he says, "a tireless Mother Teresa to the runaway teens" of the area in the late 1970s and early 1980s. This image, of three men in makeshift loincloths on Polk Street, dates from 1980.
31 days of halloween

See Two Decades of San Francisco’s Wildest Queer Halloween Parties

The rise and demise of the night of the living dead.
Natasha Frost October 16, 2017
Living candelabras sat or stood unflinching as hot wax dripped onto their bodies, forming incredible sculptures and shapes.
cemeteries

A Dispatch From the Other Side of the Veil

In Brooklyn's Green-Wood Cemetery, Atlas Obscura's "Into the Veil 2017" was a night of sublime contradictions.
Natasha Frost October 16, 2017
"Energy Flux," data source: National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, September 2000.
maps

For as Much as We Know About the World, There Are Still Dark Spots on the Map

A new atlas aims to surprise.
Sarah Laskow October 16, 2017