Deep in the middle of Yemen lays a town nearly two-thousand years old that is best known for pioneering skyscrapers. Shibam, a town of about 7,000 people, was founded sometime around the 3rd century AD. The town was built in a unique format to help protect residents from regional Bedouin attacks. Huge clay walls were built around the city, and residences were built upward rather than outward. Shibam is often called “the oldest skyscraper city in the world,” and is one of the oldest examples of vertical urban planning. Read more…
Imagine being seated in the back of a plane that, while flying at 33,330 feet, blows up in mid air. Imagine that after being knocked unconscious, you later wake up on the ground and in much pain – but alive. That is precisely what happened to Vesna Vulović, who holds the Guinness Book of Records for having survived the highest fall without a parachute*. Read more…
Mount Everest has claimed the lives of over 216 known mountain climbers in recorded history. The area above 26,000 feet is called “the Death Zone”, where breathing fresh oxygen from canisters is necessary for all but the most experienced climbers. The atmospheric pressure is about a third of that at sea level, so there is about one third the amount of oxygen to breathe. The air is so thin, recovery of bodies is impossible. As such, many victims lay where they took their last breath.
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The village of Klomino (located in northwestern Poland) is the only “official” ghost town in Poland. Originally known as Westfalenhof, it was a large garrison and training ground of the German Wehrmacht. After World War Two, the village – then renamed Grodek – was a base of the Red Army and for many years it existed only on Russian military maps. Since 1993, when the Red Army withdrew its forces from Poland, it has lain empty. Read more…
