A race is on to save this world heritage site that straddles the border of Togo and Benin. It’s home to remarkable earth tower homes called Takienta, and the Batammariba people, whose existence is threatened by climate change and migration.
READ MORE IN THE ATLAS: https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/koutammakou-batammariba
We go to Sweden, where some people are intent on making a woman a permanent symbol of resistance, whether or not she would have wanted it.
READ MORE IN THE ATLAS: https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/woman-with-the-handbag-statue
We go to Statesboro, Georgia to the US National Tick Collection to learn what ticks, often thought of as little monstrosities, can teach us.
READ MORE IN THE ATLAS: https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/us-national-tick-collection
The Flagg Grove School in Brownsville, Tennessee has become a museum dedicated to its most famous student.
READ MORE IN THE ATLAS:https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/tina-turner-museum
Take a trip to Micropia, the world’s only museum dedicated to microscopic organisms, and learn about our invisible life companions.
READ MORE IN THE ATLAS: https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/micropia
The story of the unimaginable destruction of the American Chestnut tree and the group of scientists, academics and tree lovers who are desperately trying to bring them back from the edge of extinction.
LEARN MORE: Visit https://acf.org/ to find out more about this massive conservation effort
A spinning furnace tucked under the football stadium at the University of Arizona is building giant telescope mirrors.
READ MORE IN THE ATLAS:
https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/richard-f-caris-mirror-laboratory
Sun cannons have been around since the 1600s. But as far as we know, there’s only one left that’s still up and running. We pay it a visit.
READ MORE IN THE ATLAS: https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/atvidaberg-sun-cannon
Habaneros! Jalapenos! Green! Red! These days, an appreciation for chiles is pretty mainstream. But that wasn’t always the case. We head to New Mexico to learn how this food became such a huge part of our culture, and visit an institute dedicated to its continual improvement.
READ MORE IN THE ATLAS: https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/chile-pepper-institute
A North Carolina town has become a draw for people who want to see the wreckage of the train wreck from the movie “The Fugitive.” But a more interesting – and true – story happened just a pistol shot away.
READ MORE IN THE ATLAS: https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/the-fugitive-train-wreck-sylva-north-carolina
A once-blacklisted Hollywood star created a magical theater in Topanga Canyon, California, that still endures and inspires today.
READ MORE IN THE ATLAS: https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/theatricum-botanicum
One of the oldest books in the world is also the most misunderstood. A medievalist tells us about the Voynich, which is in the collection of the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Yale.
READ MORE IN THE ATLAS: https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/beinecke-rare-book-manuscript-library
She’s about 8 feet wide and 500 pounds. And her history spans all the way from the stockyards of Chicago... to a nuclear test during the Manhattan Project...to a stadium at the University of Texas at Austin.
READ MORE IN THE ATLAS: https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/big-bertha-drum
We dig through more than 1,000 years of dirt, history, colonialism, and myth on the Swahili Coast.
Read more in the Atlas: https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/kilwa-kisiwani-ruins
Where can you find the smoothest, most scrumptious edible art? If you ask our host, Dylan, it’s in the Minnesota State Fair butter sculpture room. He’s joined in this episode by Gastro Obscura writer Sam O’Brien, who got the scoop on the yummy centerpieces.
We all dream of the perfect vacation when everything goes right. This episode is about the opposite. Hear stories of people having near death travel experiences.
TELL US YOUR STORY: We want to hear your stories too! Give us a call at (315) 992-7902, and leave a message telling us your name, and about your own near-death travel experience. You can also record a voice memo and email it to us at hello@atlasobscura.com. Looking forward to hearing from you.
Elusive patches of land in America’s Midwest can show us what the environment was like 150 years ago and tell us about the future.
We spend time with the world’s foremost poo enthusiasts, who operate a museum in England where poo is elegant, elevated and celebrated.
READ MORE IN THE ATLAS https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/national-poo-museum
A walk through this scale model has you feeling like a giant, and striding from Baton Rouge to Omaha in an hour. LEARN MORE about the model and the group trying to revive it, here: https://friendsofmrbm.org/
The next time you go out on a road trip, keep your eyes peeled for a peanut-shaped car that got its start as an advertising play during the Great Depression
Nestled in a hospital courtyard in Kumasi, Ghana, you’ll find the strength of the Asante people: the sword of Okomfo Anokye, planted in the ground over 300 years ago.
READ MORE IN THE ATLAS: https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/sword-of-okomfo-anokye
We go on a bumpy ride with the Hurricane Hunters – the government’s team of scientists who fly into storms so the rest of us can have accurate info and research about massive weather events. Our guide is Nick Underwood, of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
At a food truck in Austin, tried and true barbecue favorites meet unexpected spices and flavor profiles. Here, chef Damien Brockway’s journey into family history led him to weave the flavors of the African diaspora into his food. This episode was produced in partnership with Travel Texas.
LEARN MORE about Distant Relatives and Travel Texas.
In 1986 an unknown natural disaster at Lake Nyos in Menchum, Cameroon left more than 1700 people dead in one night - and puzzled scientists. Listen to learn how they solved the mystery.
READ MORE IN THE ATLAS: https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/lake-nyos-the-deadliest-lake-in-the-world
How far would you go to find the largest island in the largest lake on the largest island in the largest lake on the largest island in the largest lake in the United States?
READ MORE IN THE ATLAS: https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/moose-boulder-debunked
The variety of apples we enjoy today have a common ancestor that lies in the forests of Kazakhstan, where scientists are studying the wildest version of the fruit.
Welcome to the Judith A Basset Canid Education & Conservation Center, where a California couple has dedicated their lives to showing folks man has even more best friends than previously thought.
READ MORE IN THE ATLAS: https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/the-jab-canid-education-and-conservation-center-jabcecc
Jonathan Carey and Michelle Cassidy of the Atlas Places Team bring us stories about the trees that have witnessed history.
READ MORE IN THE ATLAS: Read the story of Emancipation Oak in Hampton, VA and the Travel Log from California.
It’s easy to dismiss Bigfoot, the yeti, the Loch Ness monster, and other cryptids as far-fetched X-Files fodder. But the International Cryptozoology Museum in Portland, Maine aims to show that when investigations into unknown creatures are done right, they involve real science, and have real scientific value.
READ MORE IN THE ATLAS: https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/international-cryptozoology-museum
In the Adirondacks of northern New York sits John Brown's Farm, a monument to the famous abolitionist, and the last vestige of Timbuctoo, an ambitious but failed settlement that some hoped could help African Americans secure the right to vote.
READ MORE IN THE ATLAS https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/john-brown-farm
