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Jul 17, 2023Cloughoughter Castle, County Cavan, Ireland

Cloughoughter Castle sits on a small island in the middle of Lough Oughter, a huge complex of lakes and waterways in County Cavan in Ireland. Its first stones are thought to have been laid in the early 13th century by the Anglo-Norman de Lacy family, but the O"Reilly clan took possession of the area in 1233 and completed the castle"s construction. They retained control of Cloughoughter Castle for centuries, but by 1653, it had been bombed and abandoned. Since then, it has been in ruins, resplendent in a sort of tattered grandeur. It can only be visited by boat but, as a symbol of Ireland"s medieval heritage, it is a must-see for history and castle enthusiasts alike.Desktop Version

Jul 7, 2019Traffic jam on the caribou highway

Today we"re in Kobuk Valley National Park in Alaska to witness one of the world’s great annual migrations. Every spring, a quarter million caribou come together to form the Western Arctic Herd and pass north through the 1.8-million-acre park to their summer calving grounds in the Brooks Range and its foothills. Then in the fall, the caribou make the reverse trip, heading south back through the park to where they spend the winter in the Nulato Hills and the Seward Peninsula. One of the best spots to see the herd on the move is where it crosses the Kobuk River at Onion Portage. This area is a major archaeological site too. For thousands of years, the crossing has drawn native groups that rely on caribou meat, a tradition that continues to this day.Desktop Version

Mar 10, 2022Bobbio, Italy

Between the metropolis of Milan—the fashion and design capital of Italy—and the fabled seaport city of Genoa, you"ll find this small river town in northern Italy. People have resided here since ancient times, at least as far back as the Roman era, but the town really began to flourish when the abbey was constructed in the 7th century. For much of the Middle Ages, the Bobbio Abbey and its vast library made the town a center of religion, culture, and learning.Desktop Version

Sep 22, 2018Time for brass bands and beer

Our photo today shows the crowds at an Oktoberfest parade reflected in the bell of a brass horn. In Munich, Germany, the 16-day festival will include many brass bands marching and playing celebratory Bavarian folk music, while other bands will play for the beer drinkers in the tents and beer halls that dot the festival grounds. Why call it ‘Oktoberfest’ when it begins in September? The original Oktoberfest began on October 12, 1810, as a massive one-day royal wedding celebration open to the public. On October 12 the following year, Munich citizens commemorated the wedding with another party, and an annual tradition was born. The festivities grew longer and longer each year over the course of two centuries, and Oktoberfest eventually extended into the weeks before the original date. Organizers supported the earlier start to take advantage of better weather in late September, but the party will forever be known as Oktoberfest.Desktop Version

Jul 26, 2020A path to access

Here"s an example of cutting-edge form meeting practical function. This snakelike bridge, the brainchild of famed architect Frank Gehry, provides a meandering and safe path over a busy thoroughfare that separates Millennium Park and Maggie Daley Park in downtown Chicago. With a gentle 5% slope, the 935-foot bridge is accessible for people who use wheelchairs or have trouble navigating stairs, and that"s the main reason why we"re featuring it on our homepage today. Thirty years ago to the day, President George H.W. Bush signed the Americans With Disabilities Act. This sweeping civil rights bill prohibits discrimination against people with disabilities at work, in school, and in public spaces. The resulting law meant that much of the country"s physical infrastructure, like this elegantly curving bridge, was required to accommodate people with disabilities.Desktop Version

Apr 4, 2022Norway s Kjeragbolten boulder

If you have nerves of steel, you"d enjoy the precarious, one-of-a-kind photo op that is the Kjeragbolten boulder. Visitors climb up Kjerag, a mountain on the southwest coast of Norway, for the chance to clamber onto the stranded rock and have their daredevil pic snapped for posterity. Indeed, Kjeragbolten is so popular that you might have to wait up to an hour for your turn—plenty of time for second thoughts and jitters.Desktop Version

Feb 13, 2023El Valle de la Luna, Chile

El Valle de la Luna (the Valley of the Moon) is located in the Atacama Desert of northern Chile. The Achaches Lookout, seen here, offers breathtaking views of volcanoes in the distance. In 1982, El Valle de la Luna was declared a nature sanctuary for its stunning, untouched habitat and its peculiar lunar-like terrain.Desktop Version

May 7, 2018Happy 300th, NOLA!

Today, Jackson Square and other places in New Orleans will be full of revelers. No, it’s not a Mardi Gras do-over, it’s the city’s 300th birthday celebration. Sometime in the spring of 1718, ‘La Nouvelle-Orléans’ was founded by French investors. Since then, residents of the Big Easy have chosen May 7 as the day to celebrate the birth of New Orleans. Really, this city doesn’t need an excuse to throw a party, but this one’s going to be big.Desktop Version

Feb 1, 2022Black History Month

To mark the beginning of Black History Month, we"re paying tribute to one of the few all-Black combat regiments in World War I, true heroes who were instrumental in achieving the Allied victory. The storied 369th Infantry Regiment, famously known as the Harlem Hellfighters, served in frontline trenches for 191 days—longer than any other American unit in the war—and suffered 1,500 casualties, the most losses of any American regiment. They fought under the 16th Division of the French army, because many white Americans refused to go into combat alongside Black soldiers.Desktop Version

Aug 2, 2019An uncommon look at an American icon

The tallest building in the world when it was completed in 1884, the Washington Monument was meant to capture the respect and gratitude American citizens have for our first president. The journey to build the obelisk was long and arduous, including a 23-year gap in the construction. According to Mark Twain, the incomplete monument looked like ‘a factory chimney with the top broken off.’ On this day in 1876 the Washington Monument was accepted into the National Park System, and today it’s one of the most recognizable buildings in the US.Desktop Version

Sep 9, 2018Welcome to ‘Hollywood North’

Today our travels take us to Toronto, the vibrant urban powerhouse of Ontario, Canada. Our photo shows the 2007 addition to the Royal Ontario Museum, a building known as The Crystal. The museum may not be terribly busy today, as the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) is in full swing right now. If we’ve inspired you to cash in some frequent-flyer miles, bring some sensible walking shoes for the museum, and maybe something red-carpet worthy for TIFF.Desktop Version

Feb 15, 2023Hippo family in Chobe National Park, Botswana

It"s World Hippo Day, time to celebrate one of Earth"s heaviest land animals! These African herbivores are scattered across the continent south of the Sahara Desert but, despite their wide range, hippos are listed as a vulnerable species due to habitat loss. While they spend their lives in and around water, hippos aren"t good swimmers and can"t float. They move about in deep water by bouncing off the bottom. Hippos can live up to 40 years in the wild and possess the largest mouth of any land animal in the world, so smiling for the camera comes naturally.Desktop Version

Jun 23, 2022Stari Most in Mostar, Bosnia and Herzegovina

For 427 years the Mostar Bridge stood strong, despite the belief that its original mortar was composed of egg whites. Truth is, not much is known about the 16th-century construction of this bridge in what is now known as Bosnia and Herzegovina. All that remains in historical records are memories and legends and the name of the bridge"s builder, Mimar Hayruddin. He was charged by Suleiman the Magnificent to build an unprecedentedly wide arch, and threatened with death if the structure failed. Hayruddin is said to have been so unsure of his creation that he made funeral preparations before the scaffolding was removed.Desktop Version

Jun 11, 2021An island in the Highlands

Here in the Scottish Highlands, there"s something about the rugged environs of Glen Etive that has tickled the imaginations of both ancient and modern storytellers. A glen is a long, narrow valley and this one is especially beautiful. It has strange footnotes in both Irish and Scottish folklore. The name itself translates to "little fierce one" and was given in honor of Etive, the Gaelic goddess long associated with Loch Etive.Desktop Version

Jul 20, 2019Bringing the moon to Earth

It was 50 years ago that Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin became the first humans to feel an alien gravity tugging at them. By landing on the moon on July 20, 1969, a mere 66 years after the first powered flight by the Wright brothers, the two astronauts met the challenge set by John F. Kennedy seven years earlier to land men on the moon before the end of the decade.Desktop Version

May 25, 2020Here we mark the price of freedom

Today the United States marks Memorial Day, a day set aside to honor those members of the US armed forces who have died while serving their country. While it was celebrated independently by various towns across the country in the aftermath of the Civil War, Union General John A. Logan was the first to call for a national day of remembrance on May 30, 1868. Originally called Decoration Day, it was a day set aside for the public to offer prayers and honors for those lost to battle and to decorate their graves with flags and flowers. On the first national Decoration Day, over 5,000 widows, orphans, and other mourners attended a ceremony in Arlington National Cemetery, and placed flowers on the graves of Union and Confederate soldiers interred there. Originally only a commemoration of those soldiers killed in the Civil War, by the end of WWI it had come to be a holiday honoring all American war casualties from the Revolutionary War onward.Desktop Version

Aug 6, 2019Storks ready for takeoff

It’s migration season for white storks, shown here tending to a nest at Los Barruecos Natural Monument in central Spain. This destination is known for large, granite boulders intermixed with sculptures created by local artists—and it’s a favorite stork nesting spot. When the storks arrive here in springtime for their nesting season, the area can be filled with the sound of the storks’ loud bill-clattering, a tap-tap-tapping that can be heard from great distances. In August and September, white storks depart their nests for a 25-day trip south to their African wintering grounds, where they gather in large flocks. The species returns to Europe again nine months later—hence its unique role in folklore, giving parents a low-stress way to answer the question ‘where do babies come from?’Desktop Version

May 3, 2021It s Teacher Appreciation Week

Twelve-year-old Seattle student Caroline Holt knows that teachers play a pivotal role in her life, and that"s why she created this sign for Teacher Appreciation Week and posted it outside her school. Teachers everywhere could use a sign of our appreciation, this week and every week—but perhaps especially now. Despite more than a year of staggering challenges presented by the pandemic, teachers still manage to inspire a lifelong love of learning in their students and provide a foundation for young people"s future well-being and happiness.Desktop Version

Dec 10, 2019Congratulations, 2019 Nobel Prize laureates!

This opulent room is the Golden Hall, a banquet hall in Stockholm City Hall, which will be one of the venues for today"s Nobel Prize award proceedings. The room, which is completely covered in mosaic tiles, includes representations of Swedish history and culture. Swedes refer to their capital as Mälardrottningen—the Queen of Lake Mälar—and our image depicts the queen with the city of Stockholm in her lap (the city lies between the lake and the Baltic Sea).Desktop Version

Jun 10, 2019Ponta da Piedade rock formations in Portugal

Today we’re featuring the Ponta da Piedade rock formations in the Algarve region as a nod to Portugal Day, a celebration of the Portuguese nation and its people. Observed throughout the Portuguese diaspora, the main festivities are military ceremonies, exhibitions, concerts, pageants, and parades on June 10, the anniversary of the death of Portuguese poet Luís de Camões. Camões was an incredibly colorful character whose poem ‘Os Lusíadas’ chronicled the discovery of the sea route to India by Portuguese explorers and the development of the Portuguese Empire. It is regarded as the national epic poem, much like Virgil’s ‘Aeneid’ was to the ancient Romans, and his influence is so great that Portuguese is often referred to as “the language of Camões.”Desktop Version

Mar 26, 2022Spring awakens

No flower better signals the start of spring than crocuses, early bloomers that come in Easter egg colors such as purple, lavender, orange, pink, and yellow. Crocuses are perennial, flowering bulbs that are built for toughness. As you can see, the plants are able to endure frost and even snow because their flowers and leaves are protected by a waxy cuticle. That"s why the first blooms you see in spring are often crocuses. They can grow in a variety of environments, even in the high elevations of the alpine tundra above the tree line.Desktop Version

Nov 22, 2021Irohazaka road

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!Desktop Version

Feb 24, 2022Glacier cave in Iceland

The Land of Fire and Ice is home to countless natural wonders, like this brilliant blue cave formed within the ice of a glacier. (Glacier caves are often called ice caves, but the term "ice cave" is properly used to describe a bedrock cave that contains year-round ice; a glacier cave is formed entirely within the ice of a glacier.) The majority of Iceland"s glacier caves are in Vatnajökull glacier, which covers about 8% of the island nation and is one of the largest glaciers in Europe.Desktop Version

Aug 9, 2021A tribute to the ancestors

To celebrate International Day of the World"s Indigenous Peoples, we"re on New Zealand"s North Island, looking at the Ngatoroirangi rock carving by Māori artist Matahi Whakataka-Brightwell in Mine Bay. This artwork is part of a larger collection of carvings on the edge of Lake Taupo and has become a big tourist attraction despite being accessible only by boat. Four years in the making, the work is a tribute to Māori ancestors and guardians, and the integral roles they play in the Indigenous Māori culture.Desktop Version

Aug 21, 2021Ambassadors of the airwaves

Today we"re visiting the Petit Minou Lighthouse on the coast of northwest France to mark the relationship between lighthouses and the 20th-century technology of amateur radio, commonly known as "ham" radio. The International Lighthouse and Lightship Weekend (ILLW) is an event set up every August by a group of amateur radio operators from nearly 100 countries. Activities for this ILLW weekend are organized online with individual events held at various lighthouses around the world, where ham radio operators gather to broadcast and engage with fellow enthusiasts. The aim of these gatherings is to not only foster goodwill for ham radio around the world, but also to promote awareness of lighthouse preservation and restoration, and to honor the legacy these solitary structures have had on our collective maritime heritage.Desktop Version

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