Hottest Inhabited Place on Earth: Dallol, Ethiopia
The Afar Region of Africa, named for the people who call it home, encompasses Djibouti, Eritrea, and the northeast corner of Ethiopia. A notable...
Turkmenistan’s Door to Hell
Turkmenistan is seventy percent desert – the Karakum Desert, to be exact. The nation is divided into five provinces, the second largest being the...
The Ground is Smoking in Centralia, Pennsylvania
Centralia was incorporated as a borough in 1866 when coal was discovered in the area. Coal mining gave birth to the town and it...
Medical Firsts: The Story of Phineas Gage
The year was 1848, and 25-year-old Phineas Gage was earning wages as a railroad worker in Vermont. His task was to blast rock to...
Abandoned coal mining town in Siberia: Kadykchan, Russia
Deep in the Magadan region in remote Siberia, a coal mining town known as Kadykchan was built by Gulag prisoners during World War II. At...
The Island Shaped Like a Battleship: Hashima
Populated from 1887 to 1974, Hashima was originally purchased by Mitsubishi to be run as a coal mining facility. Just off the coast of...