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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.

 
7 Surprising Traditions to Celebrate the New...
How will you celebrate the new year? If you were in Sweden a century ago, you might have chosen a solo walk through a creepy, dark forest. In Chicago this year, you might go for a car rally/urban scavenger hunt (“Creative cheating” encouraged). From the medieval Feast of Fools to origins of “Auld Lang Syne,” here are some fresh ideas from the Atlas Obscura archives. Do Americans Sing ‘Auld Lang Syne’ Because of a Frat Party? by April White...

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Fearsome Frau Perchta Is an Ancient Alpine...
On the Rauhnächte, the darkest nights of the year, she leads an entourage of women on a wild hunt, accompanied by screeching demons. They fly on distaffs, wooden sticks used in traditional wool-spinning that look very much like brooms. In some tales, she appears as a crone with one webbed foot, like that of a goose or swan, trailed by spirits of unbaptized children, the smallest dragging a pitcher filled with mothers’ tears. In other tellings, she is a...

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5 of Our Favorite Podcast Episodes to...
With a new year on the horizon, we pause to take stock of all the wonder in world, including some of our favorite classic episodes from the Atlas Obscura podcast. Join us as we reacquaint ourselves with bestselling author Mary Roach, whose take on science is both funny and fascinating, and meet Amir Siraj, a young astrophysicist who may have made the discovery of a lifetime. We’ll also learn about a desert Christmas tradition, a mysterious event in Siberia,...

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In 2023, We Illustrated the Darkest Corners...
At Atlas Obscura, we’re always curious about the unusual, and that doesn’t always lend itself to photos. So we turn to an amazing army of illustrators to bring readers into our stories. This year, we noticed that many of our favorite illustrations were commissioned to depict the dark and the mysterious—pretty on-brand for us—whether it’s of menacing creatures of the spring, un-jolly characters of Christmas, or myths of the Egyptian underworld. Our artists around the globe took on the...

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Casa de Fierro in Iquitos, Peru
Iquitos is a city in the heart of the Amazon. It’s unreachable by road, and can only be accessed by water or plane. Which makes it all the more impressive that an iron house arrived in the Peruvian city from France in the late 19th century. This is the Casa de Fierro—literally, “Iron House”—purchased and imported by rubber magnate Julio H. Toots. The city was experiencing a “rubber boom” at the time, and transporting this building to Iquitos’ city...

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Panjshanbe Bazaar in Khujand, Tajikistan
In the main square of Khujand, a city once central to the Silk Road trading route, sits an elaborately designed bazaar. Across from a pair of elegant mosques, the Panjshanbe Bazaar makes itself known with an enormous powder-pink facade, a neoclassical confection accented with statues of field workers and an elaborate green dome. It’s an excellent example of the blending of architectural styles and historical present across Khujand: a blend of Soviet grandeur and Islamic detail work. The main...

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Fort Henry in Swanage, England
As the Germans stormed across Europe, fortifications were hurriedly constructed along the south coast of the United Kingdom to defend against invasion. Fort Henry was one of them. From its location overlooking Studland Bay, on a clear day, you could see for miles along the coastline and easily spot ships sailing into the West Solent. Studland Bay was also a favored location for tank training and Fort Henry was frequently used to oversee these exercises. Tanks rolled up and...

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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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