Oregon’s Black Loggers  Every summer, Gwen Trice would pack her tent and drive from Seattle, where she lived at the time, to Oregon’s northeast corner, more than 300 miles away. It was here that Trice learned about Maxville, a once-thriving community of a few hundred people. It was owned by Bowman-Hicks, a lumber company that recruited skilled loggers from the South, regardless of race and Oregon’s infamous exclusion laws. For almost 20 years, Trice has committed herself to documenting Maxville and Oregon’s Black logging history, eventually founding the Maxville Heritage Interpretive Center, located about 40 miles from the actual town site.  READ MORE → GASTRO OBSCURA Eat Like the Knights Templar This is possibly an understatement: Life was hard in the 13th century. As a result, no one was particularly expecting longevity—for even wealthy landholding males, average life expectancy was about 31 years, rising to 48 years for those who made it to their twenties. The Knights Templar, then, must have seemed to have some magical potion: Many members of this Catholic military order lived long past 60. While some might attribute this longevity to a divine gift, modern research suggests an alternative: The order’s compulsory dietary rules may have contributed to their long lives and good health. READ MORE → GASTRO OBSCURA COURSES Why Eat Bugs? While many of us in the U.S. may be quick to dismiss insects as unpalatable pests, people around the world have been incorporating them into dishes and culinary traditions for centuries. In fact, there are over 2,000 species of edible insects—and many of us have never even tried one due to a deeply rooted cultural bias. This course has been designed to challenge these societal norms, and explore the bounty of sustainable ingredients that exist on the other side of them. Course starts tonight! ENROLL NOW → WILSONS PROMONTORY, AUSTRALIA Skull Rock (Cleft Island) Skull Rock, formally known as Cleft Island, is a small, but remarkable granite island that sits among the Anser group of islands off the southwest coast of Wilsons Promontory, Victoria, Australia. Little is known about the history of the island, but it is said that more people have been on the moon than inside Skull Rock. READ MORE → FROM THE ARCHIVES North America’s Secret Forest Doug Larson was not looking for old trees. The ecologist started working on the cliffs of the Niagara Escarpment because, like the tundra where he had studied mosses and lichens, they were relatively untouched by humans. It took Larson and his students three years to discover a startling fact, hiding in plain sight—that the cliff’s small and gnarled cedar trees were hundreds of years old. No one would have imagined that there could still be an unknown old growth forest so close to a major urban area. READ MORE → FREE MEMBERS-ONLY EVENT A Celebration of Historical Mistakes Accidental Discoveries, one of Atlas Obscura's most beloved online experiences is back! History is riddled with stories of accidents and synchronicities that led to some of the world’s most influential discoveries. In this experience, get ready to head down a rabbit hole of missed targets, strange coincidences, and unexpected consequences! RSVP TODAY → BROOKLYN, NEW YORK Plumb Beach Brooklyn is famous for the trifecta of beaches at its southern end: Coney Island, Brighton Beach, and Manhattan Beach. However, just a little further east is a secluded area run by the National Park Service that offers access to the same waters and view, but without the crowds. READ MORE → MEXICO CITY, MEXICO La Nueva Viga Market The world’s second-largest seafood market is in a city that’s hundreds of miles from the nearest coastline. If you eat tuna cooked carnitas-style in a Mexico City restaurant, it is likely to have come from the Sea of Cortés, fished by crews from Sinaloa or Baja California Sur. If you have swordfish al pastor in Puebla, it could come from Pacific coastal states such as Nayarit and Oaxaca. Despite the long distances between all these cities and fishing ports, it is almost certain that your food made it through La Nueva Viga at some point. READ MORE → THE ATLAS OBSCURA PODCAST Ponyhenge Saddle up! In this episode, we visit Lincoln, Massachusetts, home to one of the strangest pony herds you’re likely to see—and it’s been growing for more than a decade. LISTEN ON OUR SITE →    LISTEN ON APPLE PODCASTS →    LISTEN ON SPOTIFY →    LISTEN ON STITCHER → FROM THE ARCHIVES Best Demon Illustrations The demons of the underworld that tempt us into sin are (theoretically, anyway) endless in number. Yet this didn’t stop the early 19th century occultist writer Jacques Collin de Plancy from trying to catalog them anyway. Like many demonologists before him, de Plancy set out to create an accounting of demonic events and forces in his book, Dictionnaire Infernal. What sets de Plancy’s work apart is his frighteningly surreal illustrations—the devils that make up his occult bestiary are some of the most evocative in the history of demonic literature. READ MORE → MEXICO Chicxulub Crater Buried beneath thousands of feet of limestone in the Yucatán Peninsula are the remains of an impact so great that it wiped out over half of the Earth’s species. The Chicxulub Crater, named after the village which lies near its center, spans over 110 miles wide, with about half of it resting below the Gulf of Mexico. READ MORE → SPONSORED BY COLORADO TOURISM Phantom Canyon Road How did Phantom Canyon Road get its name? Does it have something to do with ghost towns? Or did whoever name it have an encounter with a ghost? Whatever the “true” story may be, one thing that’s not up for debate is the road connecting the former mining districts of Cripple Creek, Cañon City and Florence is a scenic detour that climbs 9,500 feet to reveal some of the state’s most secluded natural views. LEARN MORE →