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San Francisco, California A psychedelic labyrinth on the San Francisco bay. PEOPLE STUMBLE ABOUT THE LABYRINTH, arms outstretched. Even so, they sometimes find themselves smacking headfirst into their own reflection. Shrieking and giggling...

Forman took up astrology in mid-life, and between 1596 and 1603, he averaged 2,000 consultations every year. That means he had an impact on huge number of Elizabethan lives, and since he documented them—and himself—in such detail, he is one of the...

Carl Linnaeus was an 18th-century botanist who developed a system of classification and taxonomy that we still use today. He saw similarities that allowed plants and animals to be grouped into categories, and he believed in a lot of mythical creatures that...

Imagine, if a bold explorer had pioneered the sea route from Europe to India centuries before Bartolomeu Dias and Vasco da Gama. Well, that’s exactly what the brothers Vadino and Ugolino Vivaldi attempted to do in 1291. The...

In 1503, the Portuguese courtier Vasco Corte-Real equipped two ships for an expedition to what is now Northeastern Canada. His goal was to search for his younger brother Miguel, who had vanished off the coast of Newfoundland while searching for his even...

Joseph Bologne, Chevalier de Saint-Georges, was one of the best swordsmen in Europe in the late 18th century. Born on the Caribbean island of Guadeloupe, which was under French rule at the time, he was an illegitimate son of a plantation owner...

Ogres don’t exactly look like Shrek. Or at all like Shrek. In mythology they are described as being extremely large, with even larger heads that sprout abundant hair, off-colored skin and a strong appetite for humans, especially children. Ogres have appeared as...

Gargoyles, those terrifying-looking creatures squatting on the corners of many old European buildings, were popular in Gothic architecture between the 12th and 16th century as spouts that allow water to drain away from buildings. They were so popular, in fact, that they...

Источник http://www.bbc.com/culture/story/20170920-the-extraordinary-life-of-the-19th-century-lady-gaga She was said to walk around Venice at night with her pet cheetahs, naked but for a fur cloak: Luisa Casati was both an eccentric and a pioneer, the author of a new biography tells Fiona Macdonald. In April 1917, three years into World War 1, Pablo Picasso attended a...

The crystal skulls are human skull hardstone carvings made of clear or milky white quartz, claimed to be pre-Columbian Mesoamerican artifacts by their alleged finders; however, none of the specimens made available for scientific study has been authenticated as pre-Columbian in origin. The results of these studies demonstrated that those...