Fort Carroll: Secure Bird Sanctuary?
Giethoorn, Netherlands: the Town with No Roads
When thinking of traveling by water throughout a city, Venice is usually the first City name that springs to mind. What if waterways were the only way to get around town?
Such is the case for Giethoorn, Netherlands, a small town of about 2,600.
Beach’s First Subway: Pneumatic Transit System
Alfred Beach was an inventor and editor of Scientific American magazine. He was also a visionary for subterranean rapid transit. By 1849, New York was already a bustling hub of activity. Beach saw a need to ease the congestion on the city streets, so he penned a piece proposing an intricate system of underground tunnels for transit.
When he learned of the advances being made in pneumatics, Beach adopted the technology for his underground transport concept. It was an innovative concept, but ultimately costs would be too high for it to be practical. The concept would ultimately be little more than an attraction, and it would quickly be forgotten when the novelty wore off.
Byblos, Lebanon: Oldest City in the World
The holder of this title incurs more debate among archaeologists and historians than one might think. However if we are to define the metric as meaning “being established as a city and inhabited from it’s founding, continuously, until present day,” the lines are a little more clear. Carbon-dating tests have set the earliest age of settlement at Byblos around 7000 BC, however it was not officially established as a city until sometime around 5000 BC.
Ultimate Remote Tourist Destination: Tristan da Cunha
If you wanted to get away from it all, where would you go? Previously Sometimes Interesting featured Bouvet Island, the most remote island in the world. Bouvet Island is not inhabitable, however, so what is the most remote inhabited location?
Tristan da Cunha would fit the bill, a small island of 37.8 square miles located 1,240 miles away from nearest land. Don’t think you’ll fly there, as there is no airstrip on the island; this one is accessed via boat.The Largest Underground Lake in the World: Lake Vostok
There are more than 140 lakes underneath the glaciers in Antarctica. The largest is Lake Vostok, located 13,100 ft (4,000 m) beneath the Russian Vostok Weather Station in the central East Antarctic Ice Sheet. The lake measures 160 miles (250 km) long by 30 miles (50 km) wide, covering over 6,060 square miles ( 15,690 km). What makes Lake Vostok so interesting is the unmolested habitat beneath the ice shelf; scientists believe the lake was sealed under an ice cap 15 million years ago.
World’s Largest Aircraft: Antonov An-225 Mriya
Bigger than a Boeing 747 and Airbus A380, longer and heavier than the Hughes H-4 “Spruce Goose”, The Antonov An-225 Mriya is a strategic airlift cargo aircraft developed by the Antonov Design Bureau in the Ukraine and stands as the largest aircraft in the world. Known for its immense carrying capability, the An-225 can carry 550,000 lbs. internally or 440,000 lbs. on the upper fuselage. A behemoth with the sole mission to carry cargo, the An-225 requires six turbofan engines to keep its payload in the air.
Bouvet: One of the Most Remote Islands in the World
In 1739 a French captain named Jean-Baptiste Charles Bouvet de Lozier discovered a remote island in the South Atlantic Ocean. Named for the French Captain, Bouvet Island is located 1,568 miles (2,525 km) South-Southwest of South Africa and only occupies 19 square-miles (49 km2). Sitting alone in the South Atlantic, Bouvet Island is for all practical purposes a glacier on top of a dormant volcano. The closest land is Queen Maud Land, Antarctica, 1,090 miles (1,750 km) away. Queen Maud Land is a part-time weather station; the closest continuously-inhabited area to Bouvet Island is Cape Town, South Africa, 1,600 miles away.
