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Suborbital space tourism finally arrives | FCC prepares to run public C-band auction | The big four in the U.S. launch industry — United Launch Alliance, SpaceX, Blue Origin and Northrop Grumman — hope to be one of two providers that will receive five-year contracts later this year to launch national security payloads starting in 2022. | China’s launch rate stays high | The International Space Station is the largest ever crewed object in space.

 
India’s Ancient Sites Are Under Threat From...
Every evening, after archaeologist Shanti Pappu and her colleagues head home for the night, two watchmen patrol the team’s excavation site—a plot of dry scrubland near Sendrayanpalayam village, about a two-hour-drive from Chennai in southern India. Without such vigilance, the site could easily be disturbed. To the left of the carefully dug trenches, for instance, lies a bulldozed pit, dredged to remove sand and gravel for a public works project before the researchers started their excavation in 2019, says...

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Springkällan (The Spring) in Rättvik V, Sweden
Due to a massive meteor impact several millions of years ago, the land inside the Siljan Ring is rich in resources and potentially oil in the lower layers. This was known by petroleum companies as far back as the late 19th-century. Many locals were hired to drill for oil in various places inside the crater. This was a physically demanding, but lucrative job. It’s said it wasn’t uncommon for drillers to pour kerosene in their boreholes to keep up...

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Eat Like You’re in the USSR With...
The 1939 cookbook of Soviet cuisine, The Book About Delicious and Healthy Food, opens with a Stalinesque slogan: “Towards abundance!” Earlier that decade, famines had devastated the Soviet countryside, and the memory of food shortages was not far off. But these realities appeared nowhere in the Communist Party-issued cookbook. Instead, it served up a utopian future. The Book was intended to both feed and propagandize. After the 1917 revolution, which ended the Russian Empire and established the Soviet Union,...

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George Bush Statue in Fushë Kruje,...
In the tiny town of Fushë Kruje’s main square surrounded by a few cafes, stores, and a local bank, stands a nearly 10-foot tall statue of George W. Bush. His sleeves are rolled-up and he gives a casual wave to onlookers.  Bush was the first president of the United States to set foot in post-communist Albania and certainly the first to grace this tiny town with his political presence. Albanians were pro-American long before Bush came to visit in...

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Taconic Mountain Ramble Zen Gardens in Castleton,...
The Taconic Mountain Ramble is just a few miles from the Hubbardton Battlefield, the site of the only Revolutionary War battle in the state of Vermont.  The 204-acre property was a labor of love for Carson “Kit” Davidson, a New Yorker who acquired the property in 1966 and spent his days blazing trails and designing the site’s Japanese gardens. The Ramble is home to waterfalls, ponds, bridges, meadows, sheer rock cliffs, and views of the rolling hills. Its centerpiece...

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Barkin’ Springs in Austin, Texas
Located immediately downstream from the spillway current that comes out of Barton Springs, Austin’s big, spring-fed, municipal swimming hole, Barkin’ Springs just might be regarded as a direct rebellion against its bigger neighbor, and its admission fees, lifeguards, and no-dogs policy.  The visitors from all walks of life who congregate at this swimming hole seem to share one common value: their love for dogs. This canine-lover’s paradise is almost always filled with life and activity, from owners playing fetch,...

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El Palmar de Troya in Utrera,...
In 1968, in the rural district of El Palmar de Troya in Utrera, near Seville, some girls picking flowers saw a vision of the Virgin Mary. As word of the sight spread, the area began to attract both seekers and seers, among them a layman from Seville, Clemente Domínguez.  Domínguez reported visions of his own and capitalized on the religious fervor around him. According to his visions, the Catholic Church had become progressive and heretical. Upon the death of...

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How Historical Societies Are Bringing Their Recipes...
Kayla Chenault and Dean Nasreddine had spent months planning a murder-mystery experience inside the Detroit Historical Museum. As the Detroit Historical Society’s education-programs coordinator and community-outreach coordinator, respectively, they had imagined a party, set at the height of Prohibition in 1926, where guests in period attire would enjoy cocktails and hors d’oeuvres while learning about Detroit’s wild and wooly bootlegging days. But on the day the event was meant to take place, the state of Michigan handed down a...

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Staff Sgt. Reckless Monument in Triangle, Virginia
Forever frozen in time, the mare struggles up a steep incline in her ill-fitting tack and pack saddle. Her head bows, and her tail lifts in the wind. Strapped to her back are four canisters of live explosives. The life-size bronze statue is called The Uphill Battle, and Staff Sergeant Reckless, the mare it depicts, was a United States Marine. The 10-foot-tall, 1,200-pound equine monument sits at the end of a corridor of trees in the Semper Fidelis Memorial Park...

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Meet the United States’s Only Female Lighthouse...
“Do you believe in past lives?” asked Sally Snowman. I hesitated, and she changed the subject. Later, she mentioned it again. “When I asked you about past lives,” she said, “I feel as if I’ve done this before, and that I came home. For the past 17 years, Snowman has served as the keeper of Boston Light, a centuries-old lighthouse, out on a freckle of treeless land in Boston Harbor, in Massachusetts. It’s a lifelong love story—at 10, she...

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Ethnographic Museum of Krüje in Krujë,...
Located on the grounds of Krüje Castle, this original house was constructed in 1764 by Ismail Pashë Toptani as his family home. Built on the mountainside with fantastic views from the windows, this traditional house reflects the Ottoman style that was brought to Albania when the region was ruled by the Ottoman Empire several hundred years before.   The ground floor contained a stable for animals and a workshop where tools were sharpened, olive oil was made, and flour was...

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The Blaxhall Stone in Blaxhall, England
Laying a stone’s throw from the appropriately named Stone Farm in Blaxhall is a large boulder with an ever-growing tale to tell. Local legend claims the Blaxhall Stone has been swelling to an ever-greater size since at least the 19th-century. Legend tells how a plowman, after hitting the rock while working his field, moved the stone outside his house to avoid it inconveniencing his daily fieldwork. At the time, it was apparently only the size of his two fists...

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Monumento ad Ayrton Senna in Imola, Italy
On May 1, 1994, the history of Formula One racing changed forever. On that unforgettable day Ayrton Senna, one of the greatest F1 drivers, and three times World Champion crashed and died against the concrete wall of the Tamburello curve during the San Marino Grand Prix.  It was a terrible conclusion to a damned weekend. Just days earlier, driver Rubens Barrichello crashed rounding the Variante Bassa curve. Roland Ratzenberger also crashed during the race and died attempting to navigate the...

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Haneda Ōtorii in Ota City, Japan
Established in 1804, a shrine by the name of Anamori Inari Shrine originally stood on the western part of what is now Haneda Airport. Its main subject of worship was Toyoukebime, goddess of agriculture, who was syncretized with Inari Ōkami, the fertility deity (kami). After hot springs were discovered right in front of it, the shrine became quite popular from the late 19th-century to the early 20th-century. During the Allied occupation of Japan following World War II, General Douglas...

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The Roman Baths of Toledo in Toledo,...
The Roman Baths of Amador de los Rios, also known as the Roman Baths of Toledo, once covered nearly 25,000 square feet in the city’s historic center. They served as a kind of social club where legal agreements and businesses of all kinds were closed.  The thermal baths were used until the sixth century. In 1500 they were partially destroyed by the people of Toledo, who took stone from the baths to use in other construction. Today marble and...

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