The Dolly Sods Wilderness Area in West Virginia is almost 72 square kilometers of protected lands. The ecology is unique — much of the area is between 2,000 and 4,000-foot elevation, and is filled with high-altitude marshy bogs, red spruce forests, and windswept boulders. But it did not look like this 100 years ago.In the […]
West Virginia’s Dolly Sods Wilderness Area Read More »
It fits that the grave of Carl Bosch in Heidelberg is overgrown with the competing green textures of the jumble of plants collecting at his tombstone. Plants were something Bosch understood more than most people — and that, combined with his engineering skills, got him the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1931. A just reward,
Carl Bosch and the Haber-Bosch Fertilization Process Read More »
You are looking at vistas along the Long Pond Trail, an isolated and somewhat arduous trek through some of the loveliest mountainous paths that make up the Green Ridge State Forest in western Maryland. Like so much of the Atlantic seaboard states, the forests of the Green Ridge were all but eliminated around the late
Long Pond Trail Vistas in Maryland Read More »
This image looks very old, but it was taken in 1984 — it is a picture of a sacred pillar in the religious shrine, or “terreiro,” called the Ilê Axé Iyá Nassô Oká. It is the oldest shrine in Brazil of the syncretic religion Candomblé. And if you’ve never heard of Candomblé, that’s not very
Terreiro – The Oldest Religious Shrine in Brazil Read More »
Maybe because this was my first post-COVID museum, or maybe because I have a thing for eccentric homes built by ultra-rich early 20th-century Americans, but I have only superlatives to say about Fonthill Castle in rural Doylestown Pennsylvania.Henry Chapman Mercer, an independently wealthy archaeologist and tile manufacturer, had this palace made between 1908-1912. Influenced by
Henry Mercer’s Fonthill Castle Read More »
And from whence does this Ancient Roman-style barrel vaulted ceiling appear, you might be asking? Not from Italy, but rather from the imagination of the talented and bizarre brain of the American aristocrat Henry Champman Mercer, who had it built in 1914 to house his vast collection of tools and artifacts from before the Industrial
Henry Mercer Museum and Artifacts Read More »
Princeton University is one of the world’s greatest — wandering around this campus, I felt humbled thinking about the intellectual giants that made this place their home over the last century: Toni Morrison, Albert Einstein, Woodrow Wilson . . . The list is long.Princeton began in 1746 as the College of New Jersey and didn’t
Princeton University Read More »
“The Great City of Benin,” at one time called Edo, is a place I wish I could time-travel back to. It was completely destroyed by Bristish armies in the late 19th century, but in pre-colonial times it was one of the largest Medieval cities in the world, the capital of the Benin Empire.The walls of
The Great City of Benin Read More »
This is a divination tray, or “opon ifá”, dating from the early twentieth century. Used for hundreds of years by the Yoruba peoples of west Africa, the opon ifá belonged to a diviner-priest called a “babalawo” who would consult the Gods and ancestors in order to help someone make an important decision or find a
Divination Trays of 20th Century West Africa Read More »
Today’s post is about the history of a symbol — one which appeared in numerous civilizations across time and whose meaning reflected the concerns of each culture it appeared in. I’m talking about the snake that eats its own tail — the ouroboros.In Ancient Egypt the ouroboros appeared in the 13th-century tomb of “King Tut”
Ouroboros Symbol Through History Read More »
For some reason I thought Virginia’s First Landing State Park evoked a _The Pirates of the Caribbean_ vibe. With its dense canopy of bald Cyprus trees emerging from the swamps, the forest’s beauty was accompanied with the sounds of frogs, birds, and cicadas.First Landing, like so many other spots of preserved forest in this country,
Virginia’s First Landing State Park Read More »
A lovely chapter in human history was undertaken with the formation and development of south-eastern Virginia’s Back Bay Natinal Wildlife Refuge. Formed in 1938 to provide a safe migration zone for migratory bird species, the Back Bay NWR was doubled in size to include over 9,000 acres in the 1980’s as the Virginia Beach area
Virginia’s Back Bay National Wildlife Refuge Read More »
The lunar crater you see here is Aristarchus, and we’re not going to be be able to get any closer than that to an accurate portrait of the eponymous Ancient Greek astronomer because most of his writings — as well as any contemporary sculpture or paintings of the man — are lost to the sands
Aristarchus’s Model of the Universe Read More »
This is Polly Matzinger, and even though this is a history Instagram post, she is an active scientist. But her discoveries about the way the immune system works have changed how scientists think about the ways living things fight off harmful pathogens, thus ensuring Matzinger a place in humanity’s historical records.Before I say anything about
Dr. Polly Matzinger Read More »
“I’m gonna have to science the shit out of this,” says the main character of Andy Weir’s _The Martian_, and proceeded.to use every bit of his resourcefulness to harness the power of knowledge to save himself. That movie is fictional, but actual scientists have done this (Hello, COVID-19 vaccination developers, I’m talkin’ to you there).
Clair Patterson and Lead Poisoning Read More »
Fowler’s State Park is another example of the good work done to heal clearcut land and create wild spaces during the Great Depression. Located in south-central Pennsylvania, it is a 104-acre state park now, but was leveled in the first decade of the 20th century by a lumber company. Thanks to the Works Progress Administration,
Fowler’s State Park and the Works Progress Administration Read More »
Wanna know a crazy thing that a lot of British and American people were interested in during the late 19th and early 20th centuries?: masturbation. Moralists and medical writers freaked the heck out over “onanism,” a term that Victorians liked using for wanking, jerking off, sailing the taco, flicking the bean, etc, etc.Anti-masturbation diatribes have
Anti-Masturbation Movements and Practices Read More »
In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, almost the entire continent of Africa was taken over by various European states and business entrepreneurs. Among this area was the eastern state of Tanganyika, modern Tanzania. The two men featured here in chains are reflective of many who rose up against the German colonialist government in
Maji Maji Uprising of Tanganyika Read More »
These are the white-capped rapids of the Youghiogheny River in the Pennsylvania State Park called “Ohiopyle.” One of the guides from our rafting trip there this weekend said the name came from a time when folks from the flat-land state of Ohio drove their cars too fast down one of the many mountainous roads and
Ohiopyle of the Youghiogheny River Read More »
Here is the banner from the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, one of the two major powers that engaged in China’s civil war between 1851 to 1864. While accurate records of casualties are impossible to tally, the Taiping Rebellion resulted in the worst civil war in terms of deaths: upwards of 20 million people — as many
Banner of Taiping Heavenly Kingdom Read More »
