In the 19th century, pumpkin pie ignited a culture war. | Continue reading
Collectors swapped ads featuring pretty pictures, demons, and chefs bursting out of giant pickles. | Continue reading
In Xinjiang, the living process dairy the way 4,000-year-old mummies did. | Continue reading
It took the power of the internet to crack it. | Continue reading
It is a subtle art and an even subtler science. | Continue reading
A new catalogue attempts to figure out what we're telling the rest of the universe about ourselves. | Continue reading
This American deli snack doubles as political satire. | Continue reading
The Paradise institution honored the town's mining days. | Continue reading
It took almost three decades. | Continue reading
Only now do scientists fully understand just how strong a 1972 solar storm was. | Continue reading
Show us the surprising items you've been keeping to yourself. | Continue reading
Roll for incredible adventure maps. Natural 20. | Continue reading
One monk bred a "superbee." | Continue reading
Feast your peepers on these artistic interpretations of a colonized cosmos. | Continue reading
A new book collects 33 routes that went off the rails. | Continue reading
The fake news that took the former Soviet Union by storm. | Continue reading
Gravity and entropy are cruel, but sometimes hilarious, sculptors. | Continue reading
Access is in honor of Veterans Day. | Continue reading
For centuries, senders used folds, slits, and wax seals to guard correspondence from prying eyes. | Continue reading
The blinking light atop the iconic landmark has been sending secret messages for decades. | Continue reading
In Japan, the labor-intensive practice of apple stenciling is slowly fading. | Continue reading
Why astronomers keep putting them in the same places. | Continue reading
They offered bathroom-goers some raunchy entertainment. | Continue reading
Researchers have recreated the acoustic atmosphere of the ancient Mosque–Cathedral of Córdoba. | Continue reading
You basically had to sell a castle to the enemy. | Continue reading
2018 was a terrible year for Swiss glaciers. | Continue reading
Atlas Obscura readers share their personal favorites. | Continue reading
8,600 bottles and counting. | Continue reading
From above, the textured landscape can be almost abstract. | Continue reading
In 1955, Deben Bhattacharya traveled from London to Calcutta in a milk van and recorded over 40 hours of music. | Continue reading
Sea burial is a way to save space in a dense city, but runs counter to funeral traditions. | Continue reading
New laser imaging shows Izapa's suburbs were like mini-capitals. | Continue reading
An idea imported from Australia, they helped enable the "secret" part of secret ballots. | Continue reading
Who knew fungi could be so creepy? | Continue reading
"Stone babies"—or lithopedions—are incredibly rare. | Continue reading
Woolly worms may not be the greatest meteorologists, but they sure are entertaining. | Continue reading
How folk tales and traditional life snuck into avant-garde kids' books in the 1930s. | Continue reading
An ingenious solution to a tricky engineering problem, this circular bridge takes drivers for a dizzying spin. | Continue reading
They were fashionable and functional, used for dining and self-defense. | Continue reading
The barely edible container was the progenitor of pie. | Continue reading
Enslaved people used codes to mark graves on plantation grounds. | Continue reading
It even works like its predecessor. | Continue reading
Climate change is causing trouble on Herschel Island. | Continue reading
There are several to keep track of, some scarier than others. | Continue reading
Ships and submarines have their own unique recipes. | Continue reading
Transgressors had to pay a heavy fine. | Continue reading
For a time, eating and relaxing among the dead was a national pastime. | Continue reading
For now, anyway. | Continue reading