An artist recreated Stonehenge as a bounce house in 2012

See images of modern Druids who visit Stonehenge to celebrate the solstice

At the summer solstice, crowds at Stonehenge range from white-robed modern Druids with staffs and antler crowns to revelers with ox-horn trumpets or hula hoops—scenes regularly documented by photographers.

Stonehenge was part of a continent-wide "henge" boom

While Stonehenge is the most famous, it was one of roughly 1,300 henges built across prehistoric Europe. This piece from the British Museum situates Stonehenge within the broader ceremonial tradition.

Explore Stonehenge up close with photos and a 3D model

This Google Arts & Culture gallery brings Stonehenge into sharp focus through Life magazine archives, Getty Images, and a rotatable Google Earth model—plus a virtual tour that is close enough to spot lichen on the 30-foot sarsen stones.

Stonehenge has produced wild origin stories

Built before the wheel was invented, Stonehenge inspired increasingly fantastical explanations—from a 12th-century tale of Merlin and Nephilim giants to 1960s claims that aliens built it alongside the pyramids.

See how Stonehenge was built

This short animation shows how human beings managed to lug 30-ton stones over miles of prehistoric English countryside and stand them up The Stone Age engineering involved using giant wooden rollers and carving precisely interlocking tongue-and-groove joints to hold the heavy stones in place.

Hear the story of the police crackdown on a Stonehenge festival in 1985

This documentary revisits the 1985 police crackdown on a massive free festival at Stonehenge, when the UK government under Margaret Thatcher blocked access and deployed 1,300 riot police—an event that reshaped public access to the site.

Stonehenge produces concert-hall-like acoustics

Acoustics researcher Trevor Cox discovered that Stonehenge acts like a concert hall, reflecting and amplifying sound. This video shows Cox demonstrating the effect using a scale model inside a soundproof studio.

Black Rock City is a remarkable portable town

While Burning Man hosts many impressive and unique architectural feats, these buildings also have notable issues of safety, accessibility, and reliability.

Banksy turned graffiti into high art

The anonymous artist is renowned for his puckish, often stenciled street art. He's also known for the eye-popping sales those works command once they're up for auction. This podcast dives into the history of the singular artist, exploring how a British graffiti artist became a cultural icon.

A German town transforms its entire city hall into a massive Advent calendar

Gengenbach turns its 18th-century town hall into a 24-window Advent calendar attracting up to 220,000 visitors each December. Each night reveals new art, reviving winter tourism in the town.

Renaissance Faire's provide an escape into the late medieval world

These cultural events (roughly 300 distinct fairs in the US) stem from the original festival in Los Angeles in 1963. Long viewed as a hippie festival, the fests attract eclectic fans—historians, craftworkers, dramatists and drinkers. Listen to a quick survey of the festival's surprising origins.

Watch Daft Punk's legendary set

Coachella's main stage is known for attention-grabbing performances, but one of the festival's most momentous was on the smaller Sahara stage. That's where Daft Punk brought their huge LED pyramids and played an inventive mix of their past hits—resulting in a reimagining of dance music's approach to live performances.

The Times Square New Year's ball has been redesigned 8 times

The first iteration was made of iron and wood, weighing in at 700 pounds. The 2025 version is made of 5,280 crystals and 32,256 LED lights and weighs a whopping 12,350 pounds.

'The Wizarding World of Harry Potter' brought the books to life in theme parks

Opened in 2010 at Universal Orlando, the immersive attraction recreates Hogwarts, Hogsmeade and Diagon Alley. Additional Wizarding World lands now operate at Universal parks in Japan, Hollywood, and Beijing.

The spiralling structure of the Guggenheim Museum in New York is itself a work of art

The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum is a UNESCO World Heritage Site in Manhattan's Upper East Side. The contemporary art museum, known for its unique spiral structure, was Frank Lloyd Wright’s final work.

The White House still has its original stone walls

Construction of the White House began in 1792 and continued even after 1800, when John Adams moved in. Despite being burned by British troops in 1814 and repeatedly renovated since, the White House's original Virginia sandstone walls remain intact.

A group claims a man is trapped inside Chicago's 'Cloud Gate'

Although they appear to be performance artists, the group claims they're earnestly protesting the captivity of a man inside the iconic public art piece designed by Anish Kapoor. City officials say there is no man inside the object.

Horse diving was a popular attraction for 50 years

The event, which took place in Atlantic City, is exactly as it sounds: horses, directed by (sometimes scantily clad) riders, would jump from diving boards into pools. Although it was a popular spectacle for decades, it fell out of favor by the late 1970s.

'Labyrinth' initially flopped

The fantasy movie, directed by Henson and starring David Bowie, exited theaters less than a month after its release. Later, though, the movie would become a cult classic and would inspire many writers and artists to create similarly whimsical worlds.

Pepsi uses augmented reality to prank people at a bus shelter

Commuters at a London bus stop have seen alien invasions, monsters from the sewers grabbing pedestrians and tigers running down the street as part of an elaborate advertising campaign.

Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre burned down

During a June 1613 performance of “Henry VIII,” a theatrical cannon misfired and sent sparks into the theater’s straw roof, forcing the 3,000 attendees to evacuate. No one was killed, though the theater burned down in roughly an hour.

The Shed at Dulwich was a fake restaurant that became the top-rated eatery in London

In 2017, freelance writer Oobah Butler conducted an experiment in which he created a website claiming that his south London garden shed offered a unique fine-dining experience. Butler asked friends to write glowing reviews on Tripadvisor, made the restaurant open only by appointment, and allured audiences with mystery. As a result, hordes of people called and emailed to make a reservation at a restaurant that didn't exist.

Richard Hamilton's iconic pop art collage inspired the set of 'Barbie' (2023)

Ken's Mojo Dojo Casa House in Greta Gerwig's "Barbie" was inspired by Hamilton's jumbled vision of a home in "Just what is it that makes today's homes so different, so appealing?" Set designers cited the work as inspiring the mishmash of Americana imagery in the man cave.

Graffiti dates back to at least ancient Pompeii, where citizens scrawled messages to one another on public walls

Meet the bowerbird, the bird world's greatest architect

There are roughly 20 species of bowerbird in and around Australia. It is a remarkable species known for its sophisticated nests. From what experts can tell, the bird has one thing in mind when building its elaborate abode: attracting a mate. See the variety of structures each bird makes in this well-written blog accompanied with incredible photos of bowerbird constructions.

Some of the most notable Guy Fawkes Day effigies in recent years

Lewes, East Sussex, has a long tradition of politically themed effigies burned during Bonfire Night celebrations. One year, effigies of Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond drew criticism and were withdrawn by organizers. In the past, effigies have depicted figures like Vladimir Putin, Pope Paul V, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, Kim Jong Un, Angela Merkel, Muammar Gaddafi, David Cameron, Nick Clegg, George W. Bush, and Charles Clarke.

Massive 3D printers have been used to build homes by stacking layers of 'concrete toothpaste,' a fire-resistant material that effectively insulates against outside noise.

A 2019 Facebook event called on attendees to "Storm Area 51, They Can't Stop All of Us," resulting in countless memes, the creation of a music festival, and eventually the arrests of those who did try to approach the area.

Before the current East Wing ballroom project, only two White House renovations in the past 100 years cost more than $10M.

In 1963, a basement renovation in Turkey revealed a passageway to a hidden, multilevel underground city that once housed as many as 20,000 people

Legendary architect Frank Lloyd Wright designed the SC Johnson headquarters in Wisconsin, aiming to make a cathedral-like workplace

See these 16 pieces of art evoking phobias of snakes, flying, spiders, and more. 

See photos of Meteora, a mountainous site in central Greece, home to 14th-century monasteries perched atop soaring outcroppings.

The first image of a black hole was captured by creating an Earth-sized virtual observatory from a network of eight radio telescopes.

The 1987 Nintendo video game 'Stadium Events' isn't known for being particularly fun, but its scarcity has made it a highly sought-after item that has sold for up to $35K at auction.

Hotels in Cannes, the glamorous city on the French Riviera, hire hawks to ward off seagulls during the city's famous film festival.

Poison ivy was sent to Europe in the 1600s as an exotic, ornamental oddity, where it was purposefully grown in the English royal gardens at Kew, the Faculty of Medicine in Paris, and a few other locations.

In 2009, the nation was gripped by the story of a missing young boy who was believed to be floating over Colorado in a homemade balloon, until it was revealed that he was at home the whole time.

See how Budweiser's famous Clydesdales spend their days at Warm Springs Ranch, where roughly 70 to 80 of the beer brand's giant horses can be found at any given time.

Take a 3D tour of the Hajj, Islam's annual pilgrimage to Mecca, undertaken by over 1.5 million Muslims.

'Silent' fireworks have gained more interest in recent years as a quieter celebratory option.

Dorothy's famous entrance into Oz in 'The Wizard of Oz' relied on analog tricks, including a body double and sepia-toned paint, as much as it did on technology

American dance legend Martha Graham, sometimes called 'the Picasso of dance,' refused to perform at the 1936 Olympics in Berlin and conceived the piece 'Chronicle' in response to the experience.

NBA superstar Victor Wembanyama spent the 2025 summer training with monks in central China to enhance his body and mind.

Before writing 'Walden,' transcendentalist Henry David Thoreau nearly burned down his hometown with a campfire that grew out of control.

All rainbows are 'raincircles' caused by water droplets separating white sunlight into a spectrum of colors, but Earth's surface blocks the bottom half of the circle from our line of sight.

Waves off the coast of Nazaré, Portugal, can reach over 100 feet and are caused by the area's deep underwater canyon geography

Meet the 56 signers of the Declaration of Independence—most of whom didn't put pen to paper until August 2, 1776—and see their original signatures.

For centuries, it was common to sleep in two shifts: a few hours at the beginning of the night, and a longer period beginning around midnight

Explore chaos in this simulation of two double pendulums, where small differences in the release angles produce wildly different outcomes.