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About 460 km north of Moscow, in the Vologda province, a small lake rests among a sprawling woodland. The lake is called Novozero and its middle stands an island called Ognenny Ostrov. Despite its name meaning “Fiery Island” or “Fire Island”, it is surrounded by ice most of the year, connected to the mainland only by a narrow bridge.
The Mediterranean is home to many mysteries and wonders. Both natural beauties and human made shipwrecks lay at the bottom of the sea, awaiting to be discovered. As the famous poem [TA1] puts it: “Right here on the ocean floor Such wonderful things surround you What more is you lookin’ for? Under the sea We got the spirit You got to hear it Under the sea”
In 2011, Japan was ravaged by a magnitude 9 earthquake, followed by a massive tsunami. In Fukushima prefecture, TEPCO’s Daiichi Nuclear Reactor exploded and exposed the surrounding area to radiation. Now, this radioactive material is seeping into the Pacific ocean, and it has made the surrounding areas into a post-apocalyptic nightmare. Few people outside of Japan know what really happened at Fukushima, or how the consequences of this one disaster could potentially affect the whole world. On today’s Geographics, we bring you the story of Fukushima.
Every city has many layers. Under its grand monuments, museums and Churches, real life goes on. Under its roofs and buildings, the passions, stories and secrets of its inhabitants, move, undetected. In the city we are visiting today, you can peel another layer and look under the surface. You will discover a parallel city, a labyrinth of galleries, chambers, pits and underground lakes, unique in Europe
Life is sweet, if you are not a slave, if you are a Roman Citizen. The Empire extends from Spain to the Black Sea, from Britannia to Egypt. After the year of four emperors, 69 CE, Rome has been under the firm and stable rule of Emperor Vespasian for ten years. The Emperor has just started building the Flavian Amphitheatre, which will be known as Colosseum. For the moment, you are content with your own local gladiatorial shows in an Arena that can sit half the population of your rich and beautiful town.
For the moment, join me in a visit to the Nevada Desert and let’s find out what the fuss is all about. Where exactly is Area 51 and how it looks like? What are the speculations flourished around its existence? And finally: what classified activities have actually been happening, as recently acknowledged by the US Government?
Siberia, Russia, 30th of June 1908. We are in a woodland area surrounding the Tunguska river, not far from modern day Krasnoyarsk. Simply known as Tunguska. One of the most desolate areas of the most desolate region of the Russian Empire.
Seattle, Washington, is known for being the home of two of the biggest tech companies in the United States- Microsoft, and Amazon.com. With all of its modern charm, few people would ever notice that there is an entire hidden underground city beneath the streets. This is known as the “Seattle Underground”, and it still contains shops and buildings that once served as the city’s businesses. So...Why did the city of Seattle build an entire new town on top of the old one, and how did they do it? Find out on today’s Geographics.
Over four billion kilometers away from us lies a distant, frigid world. On its barren surface, nitrogen falls as snow. Vast plains of frozen methane lie in the shadow of ice water mountains. From the surface of this hostile place, the sun appears nothing more than a star, a single pinprick of light among millions. The name mankind gave this silent world? Pluto.
Spanish author and journalist Arturo Perez-Reverte once defined the Vatican City as the smallest, yet more powerful State on Earth. This tiny City State, nested inside Rome, measures only 0.17 square miles, with a population of 840 inhabitants. Yet its ruler, the Pope, holds spiritual, moral and sometimes even political influence over a community of 1.4 Billion Catholics worldwide.
It’s the land at the edge of the world. A howling emptiness of jagged mountains, broken icebergs, and endless snow. It’s a song of ice and, well, more ice. A land that’s the coldest, driest, windiest, and most uninhabitable of anywhere on Earth. Those who went there knew it as the Great White Silence, the Southern Land, the end of the world. But you know it by its far more ancient name: Antarctica.
The Maya were a native people of Mexico and Central America who inhabited the lands comprising modern-day Yucatan, Quintana Roo, Campeche, Tabasco, and Chiapas. Their civilization stretched well beyond current-day Mexican borders, southward through Guatemala, Belize, El Salvador and Honduras. The overall time span of the Maya extended from 7000 BCE to 1524 CE. But their civilisation reached its apex of maximum splendor during the so-called ‘Classic Period’, from 250 to 900 CE.
In the heart of central Europe, in the middle of a deep, dark forest, lies a mountain range that changed the world. It’s smaller than the Alps, less dramatic than the Dolomites, and far less romantic than the Carpathians. And yet, its place in modern European history is so vast, so great, that its reputation could dwarf even the Himalayas. Known as the Sudetes, this borderland between the forests of Germany and the hills of the Czech Republic may not be famous. But the region around it is. In 1938, the Sudetenland helped plunge Europe into war.
It’s the city where East meets West. On Ferhadija street in the heart of Sarajevo, the grand Austro-Hungarian architecture of Christian Europe suddenly gives way to the low roofs and timber frames of the Muslim Ottoman Empire. For centuries, this was the multicultural epicenter of Europe, a city where Catholics, Jews, Muslims, and Orthodox Christians all rubbed shoulders.
It’s been called the last great adventure of the 19th Century. In 1896, prospectors in Yukon Territory fished a thumb sized nugget of gold out Rabbit Creek. The find triggered a human tsunami not seen since the days of the California Gold Rush. Across the US, tens of thousands abandoned their homes to take their chances in the northern wilderness. At a time when a city like Seattle might have a population of only forty thousand, one hundred thousand people converged on Klondike, hoping to strike it rich. Instead, what many of them found was death, disease, and destitution.
Imagine, if you will, a city of eternal night. A place so intensely crowded that sunlight never penetrates its alleyways. Overhead, wires dangle from the ceilings. Neon signs fizz in doorways. All around you, 33,000 people are crammed into self-built apartments barely 10m square, while overhead great airships rumble through sky. Is this a vision from the future? The setting, perhaps, for some dystopian sci-fi novel?
In the annals of world history, there are a handful of prisons whose very names are guaranteed to send a shiver down your spine. Alcatraz is one, Devil’s Island another. But even these can’t hold a candle to the most notorious prison of them all. We’re talking, of course, about the Tower of London.
To many, this marked the beginning of the Cold War. Churchill’s ‘iron curtain’ may have been a figure of speech, but across many borders in Europe this division took the form of physical barriers: walls or structures to prevent capitalist infiltration of the ‘paradise on Earth’ that was real socialism. More likely, these barriers were to prevent citizens of Eastern Europe from fleeing repressive regimes and police states.
Originally constructed as a 16th Century City Hall, the Hotel de Ville has stood at the epicenter of the wildest events in history. It was on its doorstep that the French Revolution ignited, in its opulent rooms that Robespierre tried to commit suicide, and in its vast corridors that a radical anarchist sect siezed Paris at the end of the Franco-Prussian War.
On January 1st, 1892, Anne led her two younger brothers off their boat, still gasping at the sight of the colossal statue raising the torch of Liberty over New York City. Anne was met by a party of serious-looking but smiling officials, who welcomed her with gifts, and even some gold coins! Anne was a teenager from Ireland, and probably thought of herself as being just an ordinary girl, another one of the many Europeans in search of a new life and a brighter future in the New World. But Anne was special. She was the first passenger to disembark at the newly opened Federal immigration station in New York harbor.
If a Nation’s wealth and power were to be measured in stubbornness, resilience, and inventiveness, rather than GDP, Scotland would be a top-5 Superpower. The people that brought to you televisions, refrigerators, penicillin, and gin & tonic have gone through many a rough patch throughout their history. Very often, hard times were related to their rocky relationship with their Southern neighbours, the English.
Technically speaking, the Suez Canal is the artificial waterway running north to south across the Isthmus of Suez in Egypt, connecting the Mediterranean Sea and the Red Sea. The Canal separates the African continent from Asia, while providing the shortest sea route between Europe and the Indian and western Pacific oceans.
MAJOR CORRECTION: AUTHOR IS M. MORRIS. We listed Arnaldo by mistake. Our personal apology to Morris
The journey to the Express was not a simple one. For upper class travellers to enjoy a luxury, non-stop train ride across seven nations, it would take the dream of a lovesick Belgian engineer, with his rather interesting supporting cast: an American industrialist, the inventor of US tabloid journalism, the Prince of Wales, and one of the most prolific mass murderers of the 19th and 20th Centuries.
The Panama Canal
Rovaniemi is the capital of Lapland, in Northern Finland, and it is placed just a smidge over the line of the Arctic Polar Circle. Unsurprisingly, the climate is positively freezing during the winter months. The average temperature recorded in February 2018 was 13 degrees Celsius below zero. In the Fahrenheit world, this is more or less Alaska.
The place I am describing is one of the Easternmost regions of Russia and was almost entirely uninhabited until the start of the 20th Century, when prospectors first found precious metal. In any other place, or at any other time, it could have become a land of plenty and opportunity; instead, it became a sprawling region of despair and meaningless death, home to hundreds of thousands of slaves, forced to toil in labour camps.
Our very first Geographics video was about a Russian prison, Pyatak, made famous by its remote location and by the regime of isolation to which its inmates are sentenced. In today’s Geographics, we will explore another prison, which in a way is the radical opposite of Pyatak. This correctional facility is located in one of the most densely populated districts of a great European capital. Its residents are unlikely to complain about being left alone … if anything, overpopulation is more of a problem. So, welcome, or should I say Bienvenues to La Santé Prison in Paris, France.
In the middle of the Ob River in Siberia lies a forgotten island. Never officially named, it’s known after the nearest village: the hamlet of Nazino. But people who live in this desolate region know the island has another, secret name; a name you will never find on Google Maps. Over seventy years ago, dark things happened on this strip of earth surrounded by icy waters, things so horrifying they were kept hidden for decades. Things which resulted in this nameless place becoming known as Cannibal Island.
It’s one of the most iconic sights in Australia, perhaps in the world. In the Central Desert, a vast sandstone monolith rises from an endless flat plain, its red walls changing color with the shifting sunlight. Taller than the Eiffel Tower, older than the Himalayas, and covering more area than the entire nation of Monaco, it goes by the ancient name of Uluru. Today, it is one of the most sacred places in the entire world.
What’s that landscape of idyllic valleys nestled on the Pyrenees mountain range? Is it a Spain? Is it a France? No, it’s the 16th smallest country in the world, the Principality of Andorra. Join me in Today’s Geographics, as we explore some useful and pointless facts about this charming country. We will learn about Andorra’s unique system of government, its history and about that one time when a con artist became its King …
Out on the vast plains of the Kazakh steppe lies a place with an eerie secret. Covering an 18,500 square km stretch of wilderness, it looks to all intents and purposes like just another swathe of endless grassland. Yet this quiet exterior hides a sinister past. During the years of the Soviet Union, this area was strictly off-limits.Those who could get close enough witnessed blinding flashes, watched in awe as mushroom clouds expanded across the sky. This place’s name was the Semipalatinsk test site, also known as the Polygon. Today, we know it as the most-nuked place on Earth.
In today’s Geographics, we’re headed for downtown Los Angeles, to the area known as Skid Row. At the intersection of South Main and 7th Street stands the Cecil Hotel, which infamously became known as ‘the deadliest hotel in LA’, or ‘LA’s tower of terror’, or even as ‘the most haunted hotel in Los Angeles.’
The Pyramids of Giza:
Great Wall of China History’s Biggest Barrier in the world
In the 1970s, Cambodia's Khmer Rouge ran a horrifying prison camp called S21 that was at the heart of one of the worst genocides ever recorded. Fewer than 1% of those who stayed there made it out alive.
Thanks to Dollar Shave Club for sponsoring. Go to http://DollarShaveClub.com/geographics to get your first starter set for $5. After that, full price products will ship at regular prices. → Subscribe for new videos two times per week. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCHKRfxkMTqiiv4pF99qGKIw?sub_confirmation=1 This video is #sponsored by Dollar Shave Club. Our sister channels: Biographics - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UClnDI2sdehVm1zm_LmUHsjQ TopTenz - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCQ-hpFPF4nOKoKPEAZM_THw/ Credits: Host - Simon Whistler Author - Morris M. Producer - Jennifer Da Silva Executive Producer - Shannon Harris Business inquiries to [email protected] Further reading: Britannica: https://www.britannica.com/place/San-Andreas-Fault US Geological Survey: https://www.usgs.gov/natural-hazards/earthquake-hazards/science/back-future-san-andreas-fault?qt-science_center_objects=0#qt-science_center_objects San Andreas Fault facts: https://www.livescience.com/45294-san-andreas-fault.html Also: https://traveltips.usatoday.com/san-andreas-history-22705.html Smithsonian: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/what-will-really-happen-california-when-san-andreas-unleashes-big-one-180955432/ Southern California Public Radio’s excellent, in-depth guide to surviving the Big One: https://the-big-one.scpr.org/stories/ CNN explainer: https://edition.cnn.com/2019/07/06/us/what-is-the-san-andreas-fault-line-trnd/index.html 1906 SF quake: https://www.history.com/topics/natural-disasters-and-environment/1906-san-francisco-earthquake https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/the-great-san-francisco-earthquake Inequality in earthquakes: https://the-big-one.scpr.org/stories/wealth-gap.html Boil Water warnings: https://the-big-one.scpr.org/stories/water.html Northridge quake: https://www.history.com/topics/natural-disasters-and-environment/1994-northridge-earthquake Fort Tejon earthquake: https://www.c
Check out Squarespace: http://squarespace.com/geographics for 10% off on your first purchase. → Subscribe for new videos two times per week. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCHKRfxkMTqiiv4pF99qGKIw?sub_confirmation=1 This video is #sponsored by Squarespace. Our sister channels: Biographics - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UClnDI2sdehVm1zm_LmUHsjQ TopTenz - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCQ-hpFPF4nOKoKPEAZM_THw/ Source/Further reading: Overview of the Sieges: https://www.visit-andalucia.com/one_post.php?id=305&title=the-14-sieges-of-gibraltar New tactics used in the Big Siege: https://www.historic-uk.com/HistoryMagazine/DestinationsUK/History-of-Gibraltar/ An account of the Big Siege: https://www.britishbattles.com/war-of-the-revolution-1775-to-1783/siege-of-gibraltar/ Early History of Gibraltar: https://www.visitgibraltar.gi/history-1704-1911 A Spanish account of the history of Gibraltar: http://www.artearqueohistoria.com/DESCARGAS/REVISTA/2014/22_Historia%20de%20Gibraltar%20en%20sus%20documentos%20siglos%20XVIII-XIX.pdf Meet the Guzmans: http://dbe.rah.es/biografias/6846/alonso-perez-de-guzman http://dbe.rah.es/biografias/39302/enrique-de-guzman http://dbe.rah.es/biografias/13838/enrique-perez-de-guzman-y-meneses
Go to http://go.thoughtleaders.io/1895520200914 for unlimited access to the world’s top documentaries and nonfiction series, and for our listeners, enter the promo code GEOGRAPHICS when prompted during the signup process and your membership is completely free for the first 30 days. → Subscribe for new videos two times per week. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCHKRfxkMTqiiv4pF99qGKIw?sub_confirmation=1 This channel is #sponsored by CuriosityStream. Our sister channels: Biographics - https:/
Get your first audiobook and access to a monthly selection of Audible Originals for free when you try Audible for 30 days visit https://www.audible.com/GEOGRAPHICS or text "GEOGRAPHICS" to 500 500! → Subscribe for new videos two times per week. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCHKRfxkMTqiiv4pF99qGKIw?sub_confirmation=1 This channel is #sponsored by Audible. Our sister channels: Biographics - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UClnDI2sdehVm1zm_LmUHsjQ TopTenz - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCQ
Check out Squarespace: http://squarespace.com/geographics for 10% off on your first purchase. → Subscribe for new videos two times per week. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCHKRfxkMTqiiv4pF99qGKIw?sub_confirmation=1 This video is #sponsored by Squarespace. Our sister channels: Biographics - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UClnDI2sdehVm1zm_LmUHsjQ TopTenz - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCQ-hpFPF4nOKoKPEAZM_THw/ Source/Further reading: Lonely Planet: https://www.lonelyplanet.com/united-a
This video is sponsored by Ground News. Download Ground News for free here: http://check.ground.news/Geographics → Subscribe for new videos two times per week. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCHKRfxkMTqiiv4pF99qGKIw?sub_confirmation=1 Our sister channels: Biographics - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UClnDI2sdehVm1zm_LmUHsjQ TopTenz - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCQ-hpFPF4nOKoKPEAZM_THw/ This video is #sponsored by Ground News. Source/Further reading: 4 hr podcast on the history of the
Start learning a new language today with Babbel! Get 50% off for six months for a limited time only! Visit https://bit.ly/Geographics → Subscribe for new videos two times per week. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCHKRfxkMTqiiv4pF99qGKIw?sub_confirmation=1 Our sister channels: Biographics - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UClnDI2sdehVm1zm_LmUHsjQ TopTenz - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCQ-hpFPF4nOKoKPEAZM_THw/ This video is #sponsored by Babbel. Source/Further reading: The Temples of Hum
Check out Squarespace: http://squarespace.com/GEOGRAPHICS for 10% off on your first purchase. → Subscribe for new videos two times per week. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCHKRfxkMTqiiv4pF99qGKIw?sub_confirmation=1 Our sister channels: Biographics - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UClnDI2sdehVm1zm_LmUHsjQ TopTenz - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCQ-hpFPF4nOKoKPEAZM_THw/ This video is #sponsored by Squarespace. You can watch Norm Macdonald in arguably the most entertaining episode of Mil
Texas City: America's Worst Industrial Disaster
Le Mans: The Crucible of Speed
Windscale: The British Chernobyl
The Free State of Jones: Mississippi's Anti-Confederate Insurgency In the Heart of the Civil War
'Oumuamua: From Beyond the Stars
The Sahara: Earth’s Greatest Desert
Highgate Cemetery: Hunting for Vampires & Forgotten Graves in London's Classic Victorian Cemetery
The Exxon Valdez: Alaska’s Environmental Armageddon
Leningrad Rock Club: The Iconoclastic Venue that Rebelled Against Soviet Control
Mount Tambora: The Year Without a Summer
Wakefield Prison: The UK's Monster Mansion
Marathon: The Battle that Gave Birth to Western Civilization
The Tenerife Airport Disaster: Aviation's Worst Nightmare
Uruk: Origins and Legends of History's Earliest City
Return to Gibraltar: Strikes, Spies, Submarines, and Saboteurs
Hong Kong: Empire, Opium, and China
The Triangle Shirtwaist Fire: The Disaster that Changed the Workplace Forever
The Carrington Event: Earth's Electronic Apocalypse
The Battle of Hastings: The Birth of Modern England
Mars: Exploring The Red Planet
The Colossus of Rhodes: The World Wonder That Became History's Greatest Statue
The Eiffel Tower: Europe's Greatest Landmark
Halley's Comet: Earth's Constant Companion
Krakatoa: The First Disaster of the Modern Era
The Greenwood District: Tulsa's Lost Black Wall Street
The Paris Commune: Anarchy in the French Republic
The Hanging Gardens of Babylon: The Ancient World’s Missing Wonder
Niagara Falls: America's First Tourist Attraction
Kyshtym Mayak: The 2nd Worst Nuclear Disaster in Soviet History
Planet Nine: Our Solar System's Missing Planet?
Sherwood Forest: Robin Hood, The King's Game, Haunted Abbeys, And More
Luxembourg: How a Country of 600,000 Resisted Germany Twice (And Planned to Resist the Soviets)
Olympia: Exploring the Origins of the Olympics
Cahokia: America’s Forgotten Ancient Mega-City
Bastøy Prison: How "Devil's Island" Became the Most Pleasant Prison in the World
The Colosseum: Triumph and Decline of the World's Greatest Amphitheatre
The Pentagon: America's Modern Military Fortress
Hurricane Katrina: A Modern American Disaster
Europa: Is There Life on Jupiter's Frozen Moon?
Cliff Palace: Colorado’s Pre-Columbian Marvel
The Chernobyl Exclusion Zone: Ukraine’s Nuclear Eden
Nauru: Environmental Apocalypse in the World’s Smallest Republic
Vinland: North America's Viking Colony
Sutton Hoo: Britain's Valley of the Kings
Transnistria: The Micronation Where the USSR Never Died
The Windsor Castle: 40 Sovereigns, 25 Ghosts and 1 Big Fire
Hypogeum: Malta's Ancient Subterreanean Mystery
The Great European Famine: The First Catastrophe of the 14th Century
Port Royal: The Earthquake that Destroyed the Infamous Pirate Den
The Nazca Lines: Mysteries of the Giant Geoglyphs
The Theatre of Epidaurus: The Architectural Marvel With Perfect Acoustics
Cocos Island: A Real Life ‘Treasure Island’
Hotel de Mille Collines: A Bastion of Humanity in the Rwandan Genocide
The Lake District: Romance and War in England's Greatest Wilderness
The Moon: Earth's Celestial Cousin
Somaliland: The Tragedy of Africa's Secret State
The Mystery Eruption of the 15th Century: The Quest for an Elusive Harbinger of Doom
Sagittarius A*: The Milky Way's Supermassive Black Hole
Annapurna: High Peaks and Dangerous Treks on the World's Deadliest Ascent
Hiroshima: Ground Zero, Before and After
Sverdlovsk Anthrax Leak: The USSR’s Deadly Lab Leak
HMP Belmarsh: The 'Guantanamo Bay' of the UK
The Taj Mahal Mausoleum: A Teardrop on the Cheek of Time
Ceres: Earth's Mysterious Frozen Neighbor
Lockerbie: The Disaster That Changed the Way We Fly
Rikers Island: Trash Paradise
The Conch Republic: The Micro-Nation that Seceded from the USA
Port Arthur: Australia's Infamous Penal Colony
Taos Pueblo: New Mexico’s 1,000 Year Old Masterpiece
Titan: Saturn’s Eerie Earth Like Moon
Bosworth Field: The Climactic Final Battle of the Wars of the Roses
2010 Haiti Earthquake: the Western Hemisphere’s Deadliest Quake
Enceladus: Saturn’s Incredible Ocean Moon
The Lake Nyos Disaster: The Silent Death That Killed Hundreds
The Principality of Sealand: Stories of Pirate Radios, Coups d’état, and Helicopter Raids
Harlech Castle: Wales' Mighty Medieval Fortress
Camp O'Donnell: The Bataan Death March
Planet Uranus: Probing the Ice Giant
Shoemaker Levy 9: Jupiter's Apocalyptic Comet
Mponeng Gold Mine: Inside the World’s Deepest Mine
Mausoleum of Halicarnassus: The Ancient World’s Most Fabulous Tomb
Ganymede: The Solar System’s Largest Moon
Original Title: Milky Way: Earth's Celestial Home
The Statue of Liberty: A Troublesome But Enduring Gift
Wall Street: Corruption in America's Financial Capital
The Tigris–Euphrates River System
The Boston Tea Party: One Of History’s Greatest Protests
Alcatraz: America’s Most Infamous Prison
