WATCHING WAR UNFOLD Photograph via Kevork Djansezian/AP (via MSNBC) In this powerful image from 2006, we see two Lebanese citizens watching Hezbollah leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah speak on television as black smoke rises from Israeli attacks on the Hezbollah stronghold in the southern suburbs of Beirut, Lebanon. The 2006 Lebanon War…
Photograph via Wikipedia That’s Jeanne Calment, a French citizen who has the longest confirmed human lifespan in history at 122 years and 164 days. She was born on February 21, 1875 and passed on August 4, 1997 [Source]. She’s lived through both world wars, seen humankind land on the moon and witnessed the…
On a day marred by tragedy, an uplifting story of the human spirit emerged on the shores of Manhattan. Along with the coast guard, a group of everyday citizens worked together to accomplish the largest sea evacuation in history. Half a million people were transported in a stretch of nine hours. It was…
THE ONLY AMERICAN NOT ON EARTH ON SEPT 11 Photograph by NASA FROM NASA: Visible from space, a smoke plume rises from the Manhattan area after two planes crashed into the towers of the World Trade Center. This photo was taken of metropolitan New York City (and other parts of New…
While digital photography and image-editing software have brought about an increased awareness of the degree to which camera images can be manipulated, the practice of doctoring photographs has existed since the medium was invented. Faking It: Manipulated Photography Before Photoshop at The Metropolitan Museum of Art is the first major exhibition devoted to the…
On April 18, 1906, a devastating earthquake struck San Francisco and the coast of Northern California. Fires across the city broke out, ravaging the city for several days. As a result, about 3,000 people died and 80% of San Francisco was destroyed. The earthquake and resulting fire are remembered as one of the worst…
THE SHORTEST PEOPLE IN THE WORLD MEET Photograph via Guinness World Records on Facebbok To help promote the 57th edition of the Guinness World Records, the publisher arranged for a meet and greet with the world’s shortest man, Chandra Bahadur Dangi (54.6 cm), and the world’s shortest woman, Jyoti Amge (62.8…
The Sedlec Ossuary is a small Roman Catholic chapel, located beneath the Cemetery Church of All Saints in Sedlec, a suburb of Kutná Hora in the Czech Republic. The ossuary is estimated to contain the skeletons of about 40,000 people, whose bones were artistically arranged from 1870 onwards by a Czech woodcarver by the…
THE DEEPWATER HORIZON EXPLOSION Photograph by Unnamed Worker on Nearby Boat Deepwater Horizon was an ultra-deepwater, dynamically positioned, semi-submersible offshore oil drilling rig owned by Transocean. Built in 2001 in South Korea by Hyundai Heavy Industries, the rig was leased to BP from 2001 until September 2013. In September 2009, the…
THE POWER OF ONE SMALL STEP Photograph by NASA In the photograph above we see astronaut Neil A. Armstrong, Apollo 11 Commander, inside the Lunar Module as it rests on the lunar surface after completion of his historic moonwalk. The following is an excerpt from NASA’s obituary on Neil Armstrong: Neil…