Tuscany is home to a Pinocchio-themed park

Parton opened the Dollywood theme park in 1986

The theme park, situated in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee, offers roller coasters, games, and other family-friendly activities alongside Parton-themed exhibits, including a replica of her childhood home.

Explore the world's most famous leaning towers and structures

Pisa gets all the fame, but the quirk of a tilt adds precarious charm to dozens of famous buildings around the world. There are Pisa replicas, but also old castle towers, crooked houses and tilted churches and mosques.

Florence as it was: a digital reconstruction of a medieval city

Florence, Italy, is widely considered the birthplace of the Renaissance in Europe, where artists, poets, architects, and entrepreneurs renewed interest in ancient cultural forms. Using data from primary works, researchers have created a digital reconstruction of the city where users can explore buildings, artworks, and more.

Disney World's Magic Kingdom includes an underground utilidor

Walt Disney viewed everything happening in his parks as a performance and didn't like it when that performance was disrupted by necessary aspects of the park's maintenance, like trash collection. With Florida's Disney World, the company corrected that problem by building a massive area underneath the park to be used as a "backstage."

One roadside attraction invented modern mini-golf

Garnet Carter and his wife Frieda owned and operated Fairyland, a roadside attraction on Lookout Mountain in Georgia. While other mini-golf courses tried to mimic the regal courses of its parent game, the Carters built obstacles and decorations from items they had around Fairyland, effectively inventing the leisure-minded version of the game.

Explore Pompeii with an interactive map packed with 60+ key sites

This tool provides detailed information on major landmarks—from the Villa of Mysteries to the House of the Tragic Poet—and suggests themed walking routes based on visit length. A companion app adds virtual reconstructions and a full audioguide.

The Tony statue features tragedy and comedy masks

The twin masks, one smiling and one frowning, represent the dual worlds of comedic and dramatic theatrical productions. Their roots go all the way back to ancient Greece, where they were used to cue the audience in on character emotions, no matter how far back from the stage they were seated (and to hide the real faces of men playing female characters).

Tombaroli steal precious items from ancient people's tombs in central Italy

The tombaroli, or tomb-robbers, raid ancient Etruscan tombs in the dark hours of the night to recover vases, statuettes, mirrors, ornaments, jewellery, and other objects in gold, bronze, and terracotta. Read a firsthand account of a tombarolo who made a living handing stolen items to middlemen who sold them to wealthy buyers abroad. The lives and practices of tombaroli are also explored in the 2023 film "La Chimera."

The world's first geothermal power plant was built in 1913 in Devil's Valley

In Tuscany, Italy, Prince Piero Ginori-Conti of Trevignano established the plant nine years after creating a generator that powered five light bulbs using steam vents in the area. Within three years, a second plant was built with two generators, each with 10 times the energy output of the first.

Some people in Italy enjoy a cheese with live maggots in it

From squeaky Wisconsin cheese curds to the squirmy Sardinian casu marzu, cheese around the globe comes in myriad forms. Exploring the work of seven cheesemakers in seven countries, this video shows each cheese has traditions and flavors unique to its part of the world.

One graffiti artist turned a train tunnel into his gallery

Chris Pape, also known as Freedom, began exploring a tunnel under Manhattan's Riverside Park when he was a kid. As he grew more involved with graffiti, he turned its walls into a massive art project, one that reflected both the history of graffiti and the people who made the tunnel their home.

Revisiting the short-lived 1960s space race theme park in Alabama

In 1964, a Huntsville, Alabama, entrepreneur announced a $5M space-themed park amid the burgeoning space race—just as Walt Disney was quietly planning a similar futuristic park outside Orlando. Space City USA collapsed by 1966, leaving only concrete ruins in a housing development.

Watch a video about Greenfield Village, Henry Ford's recreation of an ideal American town

Henry Ford designed Greenfield Village, an open-air museum with restorations of historic buildings, that represented Ford's idealization of what a simple American life should look like. Among the most notable buildings in the village are Ford's childhood home and a recreation of the one-room country schoolhouse Ford attended through the sixth grade.

Take a tour of Mark Twain's Connecticut mansion

Twain and his family lived in a three-story, 25-room mansion in Hartford, Connecticut, from 1874 to 1891. Today, the home is a Twain museum, which includes several interesting artifacts, like his annotated books.

'Tin Toy,' the predecessor to 'Toy Story,' was the first fully computer-generated film to win an Academy Award

Before it was acquired by Disney, Pixar was a small studio exploring the possibilities of computer animation. "Tin Toy," a 1988 short film that would inspire 1995's "Toy Story," was one of its most successful experiments, earning Pixar's first Academy Award for best animated short film and becoming the first fully computer-generated film to win an Oscar. Although you won't find Woody or Buzz, it's fascinating to observe the seeds for what would come later.

The myths around London's tiniest sculpture

The Philpot Lane mice have been considered London's smallest sculpture for decades, delighting visitors and locals alike. But there's a common story told for why the unusual sculpture—which features two mice fighting for a piece of cheese—was placed there, saying it commemorated the death of a construction worker fighting over a lunch in the 1800s. The author of this article argues the evidence for such a story is lacking. Dive into the obscure history here.

The world's largest Torrey pine is in Santa Barbara County

Torrey pines are extremely rare—believed to be endemic to just two pockets of California coast. In Carpinteria, to the southeast of Santa Barbara, stands the Woodholme Torrey pine, the world's tallest at 126 feet, first planted in 1883.

The real stories behind America's national parks

The history and impact of national parks is complex. The authors of "Olmsted and Yosemite: Civil War, Abolition, and The National Park Idea" curated this list of nonfiction books examining American national parks from a variety of perspectives.

Dinosaur portrayals in film mistakenly limit them to only living in tropical climates

The ancient creatures have been brought to life in cinema by combining animatronics and CGI. However, creative liberties have created misconceptions about dinosaurs for audiences, including that the Tyrannosaurus rex could not see stationary prey.

In 2014, a Wikipedia monument was unveiled in Słubice, Poland

Created from fiber and resin, the $14,000 sculpture features four people holding the Wikipedia globe—the company's logo since 2003. An inscription on the monument pays homage to the anonymous editors who contributed to the site.

Explore the archaeological treasures of Pompeii, the city buried under volcanic ash when Mount Vesuvius erupted in 79 CE.

Illustrator Ian Falconer's 'Olivia' piglet character was based on his niece

The New Yorker illustrator first began drawing fun pictures of a young pig named Olivia in the 1990s for his niece of the same name. Now, the books have sold millions and have been turned into a TV show. Meet the real Olivia behind the character in this brief interview.

Every Halloween, one Texas bar transforms into Moe's Tavern

Nickel City, a bar in Austin, Texas, dons a costume once a year, turning itself into Moe's Tavern, the watering hole that figures prominently in "The Simpsons." The menu features themed drinks, including "The Bart vs. Australia" and "The Spicy Marge."

Some cemeteries in Mexico are known for their elaborate Day of the Dead celebrations

While most events are small and local, several cemeteries draw tourists from around the country and the world. Mexico City, in particular, is home to the graves of multiple famous artists and musicians who attract crowds.

‘Eureka Park’ is CES' startup hub at Vegas’ famed Venetian

For years, new ventures looking for funding and a network appeared alongside established bigwigs like Microsoft and Sony at CES. In 2012, CES created “Eureka Park,” a part of the convention where startups could congregate (some viewed it as being sidelined at the time). Producers of hit reality show “Shark Tank” scout new startups in the park every year.

The Canadian side of Niagara Falls has many tourist attractions

The Canadian side features Ripley's Believe it or Not, Louis Tussaud's Waxworks, tunnels behind the Falls and more. A short walk from the falls leads to Clifton Hill, packed with arcades, mini golf, haunted houses, and carnival-style attractions.

Walt Disney's early film 'Alice's Wonderland' was a groundbreaking innovation in the silent film era

The Brothers Grimm were lawyers before they were storytellers, but became interested in fairy tales as they began investigating how rules and customs had been passed down through cultures.

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

The animatronic shark from Steven Spielberg's 'Jaws,' the first modern blockbuster, was a complex underwater apparatus called 'Bruce.'

The Mona Lisa's celebrity status and repeated restorations have obscured what made the painting so revolutionary for its time

Artificial coral reefs have been 3D printed from nontoxic, biodegradable terracotta clay, which coral polyps have used as a foundation for rebuilding marine ecosystems.

Explore an interactive map built from more than 100,000 survey responses on where people find joy in their lives

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

SpongeBob exemplifies Aristotle's philosophy for living well because he understands that happiness doesn't come from external factors like money, recognition, or power.

El Niño, Spanish for 'the boy,' was named after Jesus Christ because the phenomenon resembled the weather changes observed around Christmastime.

70 years ago today, city officials in Santa Cruz, California, banned rock 'n' roll to protect its youth from corruption after witnessing a 'provocative' concert the night before.

'Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone,' a work by American painter Thomas Moran, inspired Congress to establish Yellowstone National Park.

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

Fast-casual restaurant Chili's is experiencing a resurgence, with its parent company recently reporting a nearly 32% increase in sales, thanks to passionate Gen Z fans on TikTok.

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.

'Saturday Night Fever,' the 1977 film that introduced disco to the mainstream, was based on a fabricated magazine story.

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.

The concept of phantom limbs, the perception that amputated limbs are still present, dates back to a French military surgeon in the 16th century.

Planeterrellas create artificial auroras that mimic the atmospheric displays of light by setting up an electric field between two metal balls in a jar filled with a small amount of air.

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

Famed poet TS Eliot rejected the manuscript for George Orwell's political fable 'Animal Farm,' writing that its criticism of authoritarianism was not 'the right point of view.'

Comedy legend Catherine O'Hara, star of 'Schitt's Creek' and 'Home Alone,' quit 'Saturday Night Live' after just one week to return to her old job.

The syncytiotrophoblast is the outer layer of the placenta and the largest human cell, spanning an area about twice that of a king-sized bedsheet.