Today, on the first day of Native American Heritage Month, we"re visiting Bailick Park in County Cork, Ireland. Why come to the Emerald Isle on a day meant to honor the contributions of Native Americans? The answer lies in a tale of shared humanity that begins in the 19th century.
If you"ve ever been in Mexico during Day of the Dead festivities, then you"ve no doubt come across the beautiful orange flowers you see here. Marigolds are one of the main symbols of this festive, two-day celebration. The flowers are native to North America, and were deemed sacred by the Aztecs, who likened their bright colors to the sun. According to legend, those colors and the flowers" sweet aroma have the power to lure the souls of the dead back to this world from beyond.
Today we"re celebrating World Jellyfish Day—even though these creatures are best described as otherworldly. Despite their alien qualities (not to mention their inability to vocalize), jellyfish have a lot to say to us about the history of life on Earth.
Diwali is a five-day celebration of the symbolic victory of light over darkness, good over evil, and knowledge over ignorance. Though Diwali is one of the most important festivals of the Hindu faith, it is also embraced by Sikhs, Jains, and even some Buddhists. Celebrants often decorate their homes with oil lamps called diyas and create colorful patterns on the floor known as rangolis. Streets, markets, temples, and other public spaces are also illuminated with hanging lanterns like those seen in our homepage photo.
When the Pont Rouge (Red Bridge) of Sainte-Agathe-de-Lotbinière was built over the Palmer River in 1928, covered bridges were already commonplace here in Quebec. Simple designs imported from the United States allowed relatively untrained workers to quickly construct crossings like this. "Ponts rouges" (often called this whether or not they were painted red) popped up wherever rural French Canadians required a convenient river crossing—as many as 1,500 were built between the late 1800s and the 1950s. Today fewer than 100 still stand, and some—like this one—are protected by local and provincial agencies for historic preservation.
OK, you might be asking: World What Day? Meet the nifty numbat! Though it"s one of many marsupials found here in Western Australia, the numbat is unique, sharing no relation to any living species. It"s also critically endangered: This cute specimen is one of fewer than 1,000 of its kind left in the wild.
Much of the Oregon coast is characterized by colossal rock formations, known as sea stacks, jutting dramatically out of the Pacific. The sea stacks you see here run next to a grassy promontory in the southern part of the state that overlooks a mostly inaccessible stretch of coastline.
Welcome to Churchill, Manitoba, population 899 (if you don"t count the bears, or the many human visitors who come around this time each year to glimpse the world"s largest land carnivore).
Among the remains of the ancient Anatolian port city of Kaunos are these carvings in the sheer rock walls above the Dalyan Çayı River. Overlooking the modern-day city of Dalyan, Turkey, what appear to be ornate cliff dwellings are really the weathered facades of tombs for the elite of a once-forgotten society.
Along the southernmost stretch of Georgia"s Atlantic coast are several barrier islands, and Cumberland is the largest. The US National Park Service (NPS) protects 9,800 acres of the island"s wilderness, a place where, as the NPS says, nature and history meet. Human occupation on Cumberland Island touches on numerous milestones in the story of America.
For Veterans Day today, we"re featuring a moment captured back in 2016 of US sailors on the amphibious assault ship USS Iwo Jima. It was Veterans Week in New York City, and the ship was sailing across the Hudson River on its way to participate in the events. Every year on November 11 we celebrate Veterans Day and honor all service members living or dead, including these sailors. There are currently around 19 million living veterans and 1.3 million active service members in the US.
To take in these incredible fall colors, we"ve come to Beavers Bend, a 1,300-acre state park and resort in the southeast corner of Oklahoma. It"s a scene that may confound your expectations for the wilds of the "OK" state. The "bend" referenced in the park"s name is a nearly 180-degree turn in Mountain Fork, the river that runs through the park.
Today we"re visiting the mountaintop town of Ronda in the Málaga province of Andalusia, in the south of Spain. First settled by the Celts and later inhabited by the Romans and Moors, this dramatic cliffside setting is split in two by the El Tajo gorge, a rocky drop plummeting nearly 400 feet to the Guadalevín River. There are three bridges that span the gorge, the largest and newest of which features in the center of our homepage image and is—appropriately enough—called Puente Nuevo (New Bridge). Despite its name, the bridge is more than a couple of centuries old—it was completed in 1793 and connects the Moorish old town, La Ciudad, with the new town, El Mercadillo.
When it comes to breathtaking mountain scenery, it"s difficult to top the village of Grindelwald in the center of the Swiss Alps, flanked as it is on all sides by towering peaks such as the Mannlichen, Faulhorn, and Wetterhorn. In winter, Grindelwald is home to one of the biggest ski resorts in Switzerland"s Jungfrau region, and even in the offseason there"s still plenty of adrenaline-inducing activity to be found here.
Today we wish this gentle giant of Florida"s warm waters a safe and happy Manatee Awareness Month. Closer cousins to elephants than to fellow sea mammals such as whales and dolphins, manatees follow a fully herbivorous diet of sea grasses and other marine plants—so these fish hanging out with our buddy here needn"t fear becoming a manatee"s lunch.
Muggles from around the world flock to this iconic scene at the top of Loch Shiel in the West Highlands of Scotland to marvel at the 21-arched Glenfinnan Viaduct, also known as the "Harry Potter bridge." The curving structure was made famous in the film adaptations of J.K. Rowling"s novels as part of the route taken by the Hogwarts Express, which carries students to and from the wizarding boarding school at the start and end of every term. And today is a reason to celebrate for Potterheads, as we are marking the 20th anniversary of Harry Potter"s big-screen debut.
Hey you: Take a hike! And we mean that in the nicest possible way. After all, what"s nicer on a crisp November day than lacing up those hiking boots and hitting the trail? (Especially when that day happens to be Take a Hike Day!) Of course, there might be no trails to hit were it not for state and national park rangers, foresters, nonprofit employees, volunteers, and others who forge them through the wilderness. Or in some cases build them, as with this boardwalk in the Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary near Florida"s Gulf Coast.
Today we rhapsodize about the beautiful region called Bohemian Switzerland, but we"re hundreds of miles from Switzerland. The name for the area originated with Swiss painters visiting the Kingdom of Bohemia, now the western half of the Czech Republic. They were reminded of their homeland by this region"s dramatic sandstone formations. Turns out the acclaimed artist named Mother Nature finds inspiration here, too, turning the Bohemian Switzerland’s pockets of thick forest into a canvas of warm oranges and yellows every autumn.
Today, we"re celebrating the 102nd anniversary of southwest Utah"s Zion National Park with a visit to its Subway slot canyon. Zion is defined by its breathtakingly steep red cliffs, its maze of sandstone canyons, and its waterfalls with colorful hanging gardens. Visitors here can trek for miles, ducking into crevices and resting in canyons once occupied by the Ancestral Puebloans.
For World Children"s Day, we"re featuring an aerial view of a larger-than-life painting on the summit of the Moléson in the Swiss Prealps. The 16,000-square-foot fresco is titled "Un Nouveau Souffle" (A New Breath) and depicts a child blowing clouds toward the horizon. It was created by French-Swiss artist Saype—real name Guillaume Legros—who is known for his grassy graffiti around the world. The eco-friendly artist uses biodegradable paints made from natural pigments such as coal and chalk, so by the time you read this, his land art will have already disappeared into the soil.
Was this photo taken in a peppermint forest? This rare and delicate hoarfrost may look like a confectioner"s coating, but it"s just the ice that forms when the Scottish Highlands" fog mixes perfectly with a sharp cold snap.
If you"ve ever wanted to learn written Japanese, a joy ride on this undulating road offers an unexpected tutorial. The hairpin turns in our photo are just a few of the 48 curves you"ll negotiate on your way up one part of Irohazaka road and down another—together they make a scenic loop in the highlands outside the city of Nikkō. That"s one switchback for each of the 48 hiragana symbols in an ancient Japanese writing system, with each marked by a sign showing one symbol. Not a bad visual aid for the still-learning visitor!
It"s a bit of a fib that Fibonacci, the 13th-century Italian math whiz, was the first to sketch out a number sequence in which each number is the sum of the two preceding numbers: 0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, and so on forever. In fact, scholars in India described the sequence centuries before Fibonacci, and they probably weren"t the first to figure it out either. But in any case, each November 23—that is, 11/23—we celebrate the infinite series known as the Fibonacci sequence.
In late November, the dry season arrives in the Bohol province of the Philippines to create a magical confection: The green grass that covers these rolling, conical mounds begins to turn brown, transforming the area into what looks like endless hills of chocolate. At least 1,260 of these "Chocolate Hills" are spread across about 20 square miles. The unusual landscape has become a robust tourist attraction, leading the regional government to construct a viewing complex amidst the hills in the town of Carmen.
For this food-centric holiday, we"re featuring two small but prodigious eaters, a pair of Eurasian red squirrels. These cheerful omnivores dine on the rich menu of available offerings in the forests of the UK, primarily Scotland, where our friends today were photographed noshing.
While our photo today focuses on the colorful dress and jewelry of the Zuni Olla Maidens, people who"ve been lucky enough to see these women perform traditional songs and dances might have been distracted by their "ollas"—that’s the name for the large clay jars that the women balance on their heads as they dance. The unusual prop has practical origins. The Zuni people have thrived in the Zuni River Valley in New Mexico for 4,000 years, and their handmade clay ollas have long been used to store food and water. A practical—if tricky—way for a Zuni woman to carry a heavy jar of water back home was to balance it on her head. Over time, the women began incorporating this skill into their dances, thus the formation of the Zuni Olla Maidens.
If this image of New York City"s Pennsylvania Station seems straight out of a classic film noir, it"s for good reason. The photo was taken in the 1950s, just a few years before the city"s beloved Beaux-Arts style masterpiece was dismantled and then demolished so that Madison Square Garden could be built atop its warren of walkways and train lines.
What do you get when you cross historic feats of engineering with unmatched natural beauty? Answer: This photo of a suspension bridge in a rainforest. Or more generally: Panama, where the photo was taken.
Even to the huge bummer that is glacial melting, there are bright sides: The radiant colors of Vinicunca (aka Rainbow Mountain) might have gone unseen had rising temps not melted the peak"s glacial caps beginning in the 1990s. Rainbow Mountain"s streaky sediment layers, multicolored like a wildflower bloom, were revealed by the 2010s. Since then, it"s become the most visited natural attraction in the lofty Peruvian Andes of the Cusco region. At more than 17,000 feet above sea level, Rainbow Mountain isn’t the tallest peak in the area—towering Ausangate is nearly 21,000 feet in elevation—but most visitors will need time to acclimatize before attempting the trek to the summit.
Social structure in elephant herds is surprisingly complex. The adults in the herd exhibit what scientists call "reciprocal altruism." That means that elephants will act in ways that give them no direct benefit—say, protecting or feeding a calf that isn"t theirs. They do that because the other elephants in their herd will do the same for them. Maybe the elephant is a good role model for Giving Tuesday?
