The Buddhas of Bamiyan

On the cliff face of a sandstone mountain, visible from the ancient Silk Road near the town of Bamiyan in Afghanistan, are two massive voids left by two monumental statues of Buddha that once stood there.

The Unfinished Obelisk

The unfinished obelisk is the largest known ancient obelisk and is located in the northern region of the stone quarries of ancient Egypt.

Vozrozhdeniya Island

In 1948, a top-secret biological weapons laboratory, nicknamed Aralsk-7, was established here. Until its closure in the 1990s, the laboratory tested some of the deadliest pathogens known to man, including plague, anthrax, smallpox, brucellosis, tularemia, botulinum and Venezuelan equine encephalitis.

Cultybraggan Camp

The Cultybraggan camp is one of the last remaining World War 2 Prisoner of War Camp in the UK.

The Soledar Salt Mines

Some 250 million years ago, a part of Ukraine was under a shallow ocean. When the ocean dried up, it left behind a huge deposit of salt.

Project Riese

Riese is the code name for a construction project of Nazi Germany in 1943–1945, consisting of seven underground structures located in the Owl Mountains and Ksiaz Castle.

Checkpoint Charlie

Checkpoint Charlie was the name given by the Western Allies to the best-known Berlin Wall crossing point between East Berlin and West Berlin during the Cold War.

The Berlin Wall

The Berlin Wall was a guarded concrete barrier that physically and ideologically divided Berlin from 1961 to 1989.

The Kelvedon Hatch: Secret Nuclear Bunker

The Kelvedon Hatch Secret Nuclear Bunker at Kelvedon Hatch, in the Borough of Brentwood in the English county of Essex, is a large underground bunker maintained during the cold war as a potential regional government headquarters.

Excelsior Tunnel

In 1959 it was the centre of project Military Atomic Energy Authority operation orpheus investigating the possibility of masking the seismic signal given out by underground nuclear tests.

RAF Barnham

In the early l950s, RAF Barnham was selected for development as a dedicated storage and maintenance facility for nuclear weapons, in particular for Blue Danube, Britain's first nuclear bomb.

Ilha da Queimada Grande (Snake Island)

Snake Island is one of the deadliest and most restricted places on earth. The island lies off the coats of Brazil and is home to at least 4000 species of the world’s most venomous snakes alleged to possess the ability of melting human flesh. The island is banned to tourists and is only open to scientists for study and research.

Checkerboard Forest

If you pull up Google Maps and look at the forested areas of Western United States, you’ll notice strange checkerboard patterns. These patterns are the result of an agreement made...

Glass Beach on Ussuri Bay

Known as ‘Glass Beach’, for many years the coastline looked the opposite of a pristine and perfect beauty spot. It was a Soviet era tip, where truckloads of broken vodka bottles and cracked porcelain were dumped. Over many years, the waves smoothed away the sharp edges as it turned the shards of glass and china over in the water. They have now become a tourist attraction on Ussuri Bay, near the naval port of Vladivostok in the east.

Alert: The Most Northern Settlement In The World

Located just over eight hundred kilometers away from the North Pole, the community of Alert, on the northeastern tip of Ellesmere Island, in Nunavut, Canada, is the most northerly permanent settlement in the world.

Verkhoyansk

In the remote Yakutia region of Siberia, more than a hundred kilometers inside the Arctic Circle, lies the small town of Verkhoyansk. Winter temperature here regularly drops to minus fifty degree Celsius. It’s so cold that “no one can stay outside for more than 15 minutes”. The only way to protect oneself from the bitter cold is to wrap themselves up in skins and furs of animals, and keep moving.

Río de la Plata

On the southeast coast of South America, between Uruguay and Argentina, there is a tapering intrusion of the Atlantic Ocean. The funnel-shaped intrusion extends about 290 kilometer inland and terminates at the point where the Uruguay and the Paraná rivers meet. This is Río de la Plata, or the “River of Silver” in Spanish.

The Forgotten Giants

Danish artist Thomas Dambo has been building stuff using trash and recycled materials since an early age, starting with smaller sculptures such as birdhouses and furniture to bigger pieces such as the six “Forgotten Giants” he recently installed around Copenhagen.