Underwater airport
At Barra Airport, in Scotland’s Outer Hebrides, you cannot land at high tide.
Recent Posts
Feminist utopias
The late 19th and early 20th centuries saw many feminist utopias that portrayed a society run by women: by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Irene Clyde, former New Zealand prime minister Julius Vogel, and the influential Bangladeshi author Begum Rokeya.
Left snail
The shells of almost all common garden snails coil to the right. Almost all.
First Olympic marathon
The first Olympic marathon was pretty wild: an Australian competitor collapsed and then punched a spectator, the third-place runner was disqualified for riding in a carriage, and a woman prevented from entering ran the same course the next day.
Featured category: Theatre
Ayn Rand’s choose-your-own-adventure play, the magician in the oven, the shortest play in history, and the cross-eyed kabuki pose.
From the archives: A bridge too far
The ingeniously twisted canal bridge; the first bridge of iron; the “bridge” to Sri Lanka; and folding, curling, tilting, swinging, and submerging bridges.
McDonald’s vs. H. R. Pufnstuf
The creators of the cult children’s TV show H. R. Pufnstuf once sued McDonald’s for plagiarism – and won big.
Dragon blood island
Socotra, the alien island wedged between the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Aden, is home to the dragon blood tree: a source of dye, paint, medicine, varnish, and magic.
Football war
In 1969, Honduras and El Salvador went to war while their football teams faced off in a World Cup qualifier.
Cat poetry (Part 2)
The famed Romantic poet Thomas Gray wrote a verse about his friend’s cat drowning in a goldfish bowl. [2 of 2]
Cat poetry (Part 1)
Cat poetry has a long history: Christopher Smart wrote a Romantic religious poem featuring his cat Jeoffry while confined in a mental asylum in the 1760s. [1 of 2]
Featured category: Language
An international alphabet, the tongue-twisters of click languages, language chains across continents, and the five million dollar comma.
From the archives: The West in the East
Mongolia’s answer to the Beatles, the Soviet Union’s answer to cowboy films, the Russian adaptation of The Hobbit, and Western music etched onto old x-ray film to get through the Iron Curtain.
Largest caves
Gruta Casa de Pedra in Brazil has the largest cave mouth in the world – it is higher than the Great Pyramid of Giza. But the largest cave chamber in the world is larger still.
Best beer
Some of the best beers in the world (according to aficionados) are also among the rarest beers in the world.
Cycling around the world
Between 1894 and 1895 Annie Londonderry cycled around the world – the first woman to do so.