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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.

 
World's Largest Dulcinea in Quintanar de la...
Dulcinea is a fictional character in Miguel de Cervantes’ novel Don Quixote. She is the idealized and unattainable love interest of the novel’s protagonist, Don Quixote. Dulcinea only exists in his imagination, as he envisions her as a paragon of beauty and virtue, although she is never directly described in the story. In 2013, Argentinian artist Milu Correch painted the largest Dulcinea mural in the world to date. She used the rear façade of the tallest and most controversial...

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Our Favorite Cookbook Stories of 2023
This was an exciting year for cookbooks. New releases focused on a diverse variety of cuisines and included the debuts of several exciting authors. Interconnectedness was a key theme, with many books drawing from global influences or emphasizing the fusion of international traditions and groups of people. Gastro Obscura spoke with many authors about how their culture and personal experiences have shaped their goals for developing and sharing recipes. We also explored historical cookbooks and the role they played...

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Montale Tunnel in San Marino, San...
Anyone who visits San Marino City would not be surprised that getting a railway from the coast into San Marino’s mountaintop location would be difficult. Yet in 1932, a narrow gauge electric railway service was opened from Rimini on the coast of Italy to San Marino City. The railway operated the Italian one-meter gauge, typical of narrow gauge railroads in Italy, with a gap of three feet (950 millimeters) between the inner edges of the rails (1,000 millimeters between...

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Gastro Obscura’s Favorite Recipes of 2023
In 2023, Gastro Obscura shared dozens of recipes for unusual foods and dishes born out of unlikely circumstances. The recipes that stuck with our editors range from the mystical—a snacking cake that may help the baker recover lost objects—to the nostalgic—a scoop of striped tiger tail ice cream. All of them show that, whether in the middle of Cold War hysteria or amidst the decadence of 1920’s Tijuana, humans like to eat well. Eat Like an Ancient Greek Philosopher...

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A Year of Ethereal and Illuminating Photographs
Fluorescent tentacles, fiery flames, candid facial expressions—images can pack paragraphs of luminous awe into single frozen moments. Though we at Atlas Obscura love explaining marvels from around the world, sometimes you just have to see them for yourself. Luckily, when we catch the whiff of wonder, our Visuals Editor Winnie Lee finds an international photographer at the ready, armed with a camera, serendipitous lighting, and a good eye. Whether in a small Wisconsin town or an ancient site in...

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A Year-Long Trip Around the World, Through...
The best Atlas Obscura stories don’t simply transport you to unexpected places. They introduce you to people you have not had the opportunity to meet before, cultures that are at once new and surprisingly familiar. This year, we traveled from Western Sahara, where the Sahrawi people have found kinship with Cubans, 4,580 miles away, to the disappearing marshes of Iraq, home of the Marsh Arabs of Hawizeh persevere. We sampled kiviaq in Greeland and water from the 1,500-year-old fountains...

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Giant Campbell's Tomato Soup Can in Fort...
In 1981, the Colorado State University Department of Art created three giant Campbell’s Soup Cans for the opening of the “Warhol at Colorado State University” exhibit. They followed specifications provided by Warhol himself, including purchasing a soup can from a local store and copying it exactly, barcode included. In September of that year, Warhol arrived in Fort Collins with much fanfare and signed the artwork in front of an audience of thousands. Out of the three original giant soup...

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Palmer's Olde Tyme Candy Shoppe in Sioux...
Many aspiring travelers love to start their road trips with a bang. However, if you’d rather start your vacation with a Bing, you’ll need to head to the Siouxland to visit the home of Palmer Candy Company. For more than a hundred years, Palmer Candy has been making Bings, a regional chocolate, nougat, cherry, and roasted peanut treat. Like a phoenix, or a very gooey chocolate, the history of the Bing was birthed in flame. Family patriarch Edward Cook...

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'The Majestic' in Tulsa, Oklahoma
Among the Art Deco skyscrapers of downtown Tulsa, Oklahoma, you can find a massive golden angel painted onto the side of a parking lot, part of a mural known as The Majestic. But that’s only one piece of the reality–from the right angle, and with the right technology, the mural comes alive. The impetus for The Majestic, like so many downtown revitalization projects across the country, came from the city’s economic development arm, Partner Tulsa. Connecting public art and...

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The Kingdom of Books in Hay-on-Wye, Wales
The small community of Hay-On-Wye (Or simply Hay, for short) is located in the middle of the Welsh countryside, it’s a beautiful location on the edge of the Brecon Beacons National Park with a castle and tall green hills. Its history is nearly a century old, but it’s only within the last few decades this place has made a name for itself. In 1962, a local man by the name of Richard Booth, who was intrigued by books and...

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Moapa Airmail Arrow in Moapa Valley, Nevada
In the early days of flight, pilots had to follow landmarks on the ground, as radio was primitive and radar non-existent. And flying at night, as might be expected, was extremely hazardous and avoided if at all possible. The rise of airmail service in the 1920s motivated improvements in the official airmail routes by building easy-to-recognize landmarks that would also allow night flying. Officially named Beacon Stations, these were large concrete arrows, originally painted yellow, that always pointed easterly...

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Cascadia Soda Springs in Cascadia, Oregon
Cascadia State Park (recently acquired by Linn County Parks Dept) is located at the confluence of Soda Creek and the South Santiam River. This was a stage stop on the old wagon road heading east over to Sisters, Oregon. Parts of this wagon road are still in use within the current Highway 20 route. Soda Creek was a natural source of mineral spring water and in the late 1800s, George Geisendorfin built a resort around the “healing powers” of...

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This Prohibition-Era Map Is a Love Letter...
Throughout the 19th century, cartography was often used to promote sobriety. Here’s a counter-example: a map that celebrates alcohol, in various guises—published two years before the end of Prohibition. The Temperance movement, which from the early 1800s sought to reduce the consumption of alcohol in the U.S., had a curious affinity for cartography. It produced numerous ‘Temperance maps’, so called because they used fictional topographies to warn against the wickedness of drinking and promote the benefits of sobriety. Why...

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The Christmas Goblins of Greece Play Devious...
On a cold and sunny morning on January 6 on the island of Kalymnos, Greece, a priest in full regalia stands on a dock of the harbor and throws a cross into the sea. A group of locals had been standing by, watching, but this is the moment everyone had been waiting for. Springing to life, a dozen young men dive into the chilly Mediterranean waters. Swimming frantically, they all swirl and squint underwater, trying to catch the crucifix....

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Old St. Peter's Church in Tacoma, Washington
Tacoma’s oldest existing building is a small wooden church with a once-famous cedar wood bell tower. Although the original bell tower has been removed, Old St. Peter’s Church still stands as a reminder of civic life in the pre-statehood American West. Old St. Peter’s Church dates back to 1873 and the decision to make Tacoma the endpoint of the Northern Pacific Railway. Many civic institutions were built around this time, and Rev. Benjamin W. Morris, the Episcopal Bishop of...

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