What Victorian People Sounded Like: Hear Recordings of Florence Nightingale & Queen Victoria Herself

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More than 120 years after the end of the Vic­to­ri­an era, we might assume that we retain a more or less accu­rate cul­tur­al mem­o­ry of the Vic­to­ri­ans them­selves: of their social mores, their aes­thet­ic sen­si­bil­i­ties, their ambi­tions great and small, their many and var­ied hang-ups. Some of the most vivid rep­re­sen­ta­tions of these qual­i­ties have…

Explore Burj Al Babas, Turkey’s Abandoned Town of 587 Disney-Style Castles

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Burj Al Babas might have been con­struct­ed express­ly to attract the atten­tion of the inter­net. “Sit­ting near the Black Sea, the town is full of half-fin­ished, ful­ly aban­doned mini cas­tles — 587 of them to be exact,” write Archi­tec­tur­al Digest’s Kather­ine McLaugh­lin and Jes­si­ca Chern­er. Orig­i­nal­ly “planned as a lux­u­ri­ous, state­ly urban devel­op­ment offer­ing…

Free: 356 Issues of Galaxy, the Groundbreaking 1950s Science Fiction Magazine

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Along with Astound­ing Sci­ence Fic­tion and The Mag­a­zine of Fan­ta­sy and Sci­ence Fic­tion, Galaxy Mag­a­zine was one of the most impor­tant sci­ence fic­tion digests in 1950s Amer­i­ca. Ray Brad­bury wrote for it–including an ear­ly ver­sion of his mas­ter­piece Fahren­heit 451–as did Robert A. Hein­lein, Isaac Asi­mov, Fred­erik Pohl, Theodore Stur­geon, Cord­wain­er…

Get Unlimited Access to Courses & Certificates: Coursera Is Offering 40% (or $159) Off of Coursera Plus Until December 2

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A heads-up on a deal: Between today and Decem­ber 2, 2024, Cours­era is offer­ing a 40% dis­count on its annu­al sub­scrip­tion plan called “Cours­era Plus.” Nor­mal­ly priced at $399, Cours­era Plus (now avail­able for $239.40) gives you access to 7,000+ cours­es for one all-inclu­sive sub­scrip­tion price. This includes Pro­fes­sion­al Cer­tifi­cates from lead­ing…

A New 3D Scan, Created from 25,000 High-Resolution Images, Reveals the Remarkably Well-Preserved Wreck of Shackleton’s Endurance

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Pho­tos on this page cour­tesy of the Falk­lands Mar­itime Her­itage 

Few who hear the sto­ry of the Endurance could avoid reflect­ing on the apt­ness of the ship’s name. A year after set­ting out on the Impe­r­i­al Trans-Antarc­tic Expe­di­tion in 1914, it got stuck in a mass of drift­ing ice off Antarc­ti­ca. There it remained for…