High above Salzburg’s Alstadt (Old Town), the stark, impregnable, 11th-century stronghold of Fortress Hohensalzburg looms over a city long ruled by mighty prince-archbishops—Catholic prelates who wielded both spiritual authority and secular power within the Holy Roman Empire, which lasted from 800 to 1806. Below, amid glittering domes and ornate courtyards, visitors stream through the Salzburg…
UNESCO has called the Mogao Caves the “largest, most richly endowed and longest-used treasure house of Buddhist art” in the world. The caves are located outside Dunhuang, an oasis city in northwest China at the edge of the Gobi Desert in Gansu province. Filled with vivid murals and statues depicting Buddha and Buddhist paradise, as…
Seven-year-old Goku Alexander stood on one leg, like a stork, raising his right knee to waist level. His gloved fists hovered just above his eyes as he peered intently at his taller opponent, a Thai boy named Pingkong. Anticipating one another’s every move, the pair began cautiously, trading light jabs. Then Pingkong, in blue trunks,…
On the eve of America’s 250th birthday, this country can sometimes feel like it is coming apart at the seams. Voices shout past each other to beg the question whether this grand experiment in democracy can hold. So, in the spirit of both escape and inquiry, I decided to step into a time machine and…
By Kerrick James America’s greatest writer, Samuel Clemens, who wrote under the pen name Mark Twain, grew up on the western shore of North America’s greatest river, the mighty Mississippi. Abraham Lincoln called it the Father of Waters. I prefer to think of this wide, muscular river as America’s Nile, since it drains 1,125 million…
By Christine Loomis Jason Younis y Delgado, fifth-generation tinsmith, sits at a table off the sunbaked plazuela of Casa San Ysidro in Corrales, New Mexico. The Casa is part of an historic adobe complex affiliated with the Albuquerque Museum. Surrounded by pieces of tin and rows of tools, he’s fabricating traditional tin works to sell…
The British Army was on the move and the American militia was scattered across the New York countryside. What followed were nights of courage and defiance that helped shape the outcome of the Revolution. Through midnight rides, strategic river control, and decisive battles from Long Island and Fort Ticonderoga to Saratoga, New York emerged as a true battleground that determined America’s fate. Join writer Mark Orwoll as he traces the battles, landscapes, and forgotten heroes that made New York the linchpin of America’s fight for independence.
By Cynthia David By the thousands they came, between 1880 and 1920, fleeing poverty and starvation in Southern Italy to power America’s factories, build roads and dig tunnels. Like every wave of newcomers, the hard-working Italians found comfort in recreating the familiar recipes and cooking techniques they’d left behind. Little did they know la pizza,…
By Teresa Bitler Most visitors to Dachau Concentration Camp Memorial Site arrive today just as the prisoners did in the 1930s, by train. But instead of marching under the watch of SS guards, visitors board a city bus that takes a residential route past steep-roofed homes, a spattering of businesses and restaurants, and a school.…
By Matt Johanson Keep your footing on the steep and slippery granite. Fight for breath in the thin air. Navigate a tight passage packed with hikers on the exposed mountainside. Above all, grip the cables like cold death, because that’s what awaits those who falter. Half Dome has more than a dozen climbs leading atop…