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The prison is surprisingly light and airy.
Sado, Japan

Aikawa Prison

A wooden prison doesn't sound like a good idea, yet this abandoned 1950s detention center still stands today.
The inset map of Utopia, with the accompanying Utopian script (and Latin translation just below it).
books

For Sale: Sir Thomas More’s Utopian Alphabet

The humanist scholar fudged a language into existence.
Isaac Schultz March 2, 2020
The unfinished Beirut City Center Complex, known locally as the Egg, in December 2019.
abandoned

How an Abandoned Modernist Cinema Became a Revolutionary Symbol in Lebanon

The Beirut Egg is riddled with bullet holes and covered in graffiti. Protesters recently reclaimed it.
Justin Higginbottom February 26, 2020
According to the origin story of the Tseshaht people, retold by the archaeologist Denis St. Claire, “Kwatyaat was the creator of the world we can see around us. He had a son called Kapkimyis, and in this story Kapkimyis is here with a shaman. Standing here, they cut with a mussel shell knife the thigh of Kapkimyis. The blood was scooped up and blown into. One version says the first woman emerges, the other says the first man...."
national parks

A First Nation, a Fight for Ancestral Lands, and an Unlikely Alliance

The Tseshaht people are working with archaeologists to write a new chapter in a fraught history.
Lorraine Boissoneault May 8, 2025
performances

The History of Race, Performance, and Drag Intersect in a Rare Photo of Thomas Dilward

Dilward performed with all-white minstrel troupes that otherwise excluded black people.
Sabrina Imbler February 21, 2020
The house sits on a thin sandbar off the Florida coast.
Stuart, Florida

Gilbert’s Bar House of Refuge

In a time before lifeguards, this house was a sanctuary for the shipwrecked.
A festoon from a fresco by Cristofano Gherardi in Palazzo Vitelli detailing ancient fruit and vegetable varieties.
art

The Archaeobotanist Searching Art for Lost Fruit

Renaissance paintings can hide botanical secrets.
Vittoria Traverso February 21, 2020
Some of the buildings which form the Palace Green Library
Durham, England

Palace Green Library

This library dates back to the late 17th century and was one of the first public lending libraries in England.
A young woman stands near the barricades of the U.N. buffer zone in the Greek-Cypriot part of Nicosia.
islands

Life Along the Border That Cuts Cyprus in Two

In Nicosia, physical barriers separate the Greek and Turkish communities—but many residents don't seem to mind.
Rachel Button February 20, 2020
Edinburgh, Scotland

Death Cell Door of Calton Jail

Many of Edinburgh's more unsavory characters spent their final days behind this door while awaiting their executions.
The chubby, moss-colored, papaya-scented kākāpō.
islands

How One Man and His Dog Rowed More Than 700 Kākāpōs to Safety

In the late 19th century, Richard Henry laid a blueprint for modern conservation in New Zealand.
Sabrina Imbler February 19, 2020
Axmouth Bridge
Axmouth, England

Axmouth Bridge

The oldest standing concrete bridge in England was also constructed as a work of art.
Locals sometimes give the kappa a cucumber, its favorite food.
Tokyo, Japan

Oiteke Bori

This water goblin statue represents a 19th-century urban legend about a haunted canal that became a Japanese idiom.
Armstrong Nugget
Baker City, Oregon

The Armstrong Nugget

This 80.33 troy ounces of solid gold is believed to be the largest nugget from Oregon still in its original form.
Before the Civil War, the Middletown area was home to a network of abolitionist Quakers. This image shows modern-day Middletown, with the Great Miami River in the background.
caves

The Legend of a Cave and the Traces of the Underground Railroad in Ohio

In 1892, a newspaper described a cave that sheltered 21 formerly enslaved people. Ohioans are still looking for it.
Kevin Williams February 14, 2020
Servian Wall at McDonald's
Rome, Italy

Servian Wall at McDonald's

Inside this McDonald's you can dine on your Big Mac and fries next to a 2,500-year-old Roman wall.
Column of the Goths
Istanbul, Turkey

Column of the Goths

This column celebrates Rome's victory over the Goths, and may be the oldest Roman monument in Istanbul.
The picturesque Bath Abbey sits in the center of town. Just next to it, a king of England may have been crowned.
ruins

Found: The First Anglo-Saxon Building in Bath

The discovery, in a city famed for its Roman ruins, may mark the site of England’s first coronation.
Isaac Schultz February 11, 2020