A wall, fossilized mud, a piece of pottery—they all have the potential to be pages in history. Some were colored and carved on purpose. Others were marked by accident but revealed dramatic information to archaeologists no less.

The most valuable are the rare, even unique, glimpses back in time. From natural disasters to prehistoric hunts, secret messages, and one strange-looking Jesus, ancient surfaces are the books to read.

10 Burgundy’s First Paleolithic Art

The Paleolithic marked mankind’s earliest cultural development. In France, such communities dwelt in the Burgundy region where they possibly even mingled with Neanderthals.

The last 150 years turned up plenty of evidence that Paleolithic humans lived in the Saone-et-Loire district, but there was a glaring lack of painted caves. This was odd. Across Europe, concentrated Paleolithic sites always came with rock art.

In 2018, archaeologists took equipment to scan two caves suspected of harboring hidden decorations. Called Grottes d’Agneux, they certainly did not lack foot traffic. Throughout the 16th to 19th centuries, visitors appreciated the wonderful nature views offered by the caves. However, these people also left so much graffiti behind that the original cave walls were obscured.

Incredibly, the scans found something underneath the centuries-old names, dates, and pictures. The first Paleolithic paintings of the region depicted a deer and a horse. Analysis determined that the images were around 12,000 years old.^[1]

9 Ancient Game

The ancient Middle East played a mysterious game. The original name and rules were lost, but the board game is now referred to as “58 Holes,” or when the Egyptians took it up, “Hounds and Jackals.”

Most recently, archaeologists found a game set in a cave in Azerbaijan. The cave floor was pockmarked with holes where nomadic herders would have played the game. Incredibly, the stony playing field was around 4,000 years old. This made it about as old as a set found in a pharaoh’s tomb from the 18th century BC. (The latter came with the trademark canine playing pieces of the Egyptians.)

The Azerbaijan game was a classic version of its kind. Archaeologists recognized the distinctive pattern of the round holes, their different sizes and markings, and even the lack of dice.^[2]

No set ever came with a device that called a player’s next move. Some believe that “58 Holes” is the ancestor of backgammon, but this is a myth. Backgammon developed from a much younger game, Tabula, which was invented by the Romans.

8 A Secret Message

Around 50 years ago, a piece of pottery was found at Tel Arad. This site used to be an ancient fortress near the modern-day Israeli city of Arad. The front of the 3,000-year-old artifact contained writing about military finances. The rest of the shard was blank.

In 2017, archaeologists noticed marks on the back. By then, the technology had arrived to detect things invisible to the human eye. During renewed testing, researchers used multispectral imaging to see if the marks meant something.

As it turned out, they were more than just accidental etchings. The scans revealed 17 hidden words. Humorously, the secret message was far removed from the professional financial tone of the shard’s front. The writer, most likely a soldier stationed at the fort, asked for wine and, in turn, promised to help the recipients with any demands of their own.^[3]

A more cryptic request followed, requesting “a certain unnamed commodity to a certain unnamed person.” It finished by mentioning someone named Ge’alyahu who carried a specific amount of wine.

7 Oldest Modern Reference To Jerusalem

In 2018, archaeologists were called to clear an area. The location was earmarked for a new road, and builders needed to make sure that nothing historical would get destroyed. Amazingly, the team found an ancient ceramic workshop.

But that was not the exciting part. The Roman building had been raised in part with building material salvaged from other structures. One of the poached pieces was a column. Analysis placed it somewhere in the reign of Herod the Great (37–4 BC), but it also carried an inscription that was a little younger.

Carved around the first century AD, the inscription read in Aramaic, “Hananiah son of Dodalos from Jerusalem.” It remains anyone’s guess who these two people were. The third name, that of the ancient city, was an exceptional find.^[4]

Usually, ancient writings and artifacts use the shorthand version or spell it “Yerushalem” or “Shalem.” The column name was written exactly as one would find in Hebrew today, “Yerushalayim,” making it the oldest ever found. There is only one other example from the first century. The name was stamped on a coin dated to AD 66–70.

6 Hunger Stones

In recent years, drought lowered a river in the Czech Republic. Located near the village of Decin, the dropping water levels revealed large stones with inscriptions. Some hailed from the 1600s, and none of the rocks bore happy tidings.

Numbering over 12, the artifacts recorded the Elbe River’s dropping water levels and lamented the hardships that the drought would bring. They were soon given the apt name of “hunger stones.”

One person wrote about a failed harvest, high prices, little food, and the fact that the poor were abandoned to hunger. The same stone carried a sentence in German: “When you see me, weep.”^[5]

The oldest boulder was dated 1616, making it one of the most ancient water-related landmarks in Central Europe. Together with the others, the rocky record showed the continent’s long history with droughts.

Though modern droughts are among the most extreme, they are still outclassed by those that ravaged Europe during the last few centuries. When the water levels dropped in the Elbe River, the villagers knew from past experience that life was about to turn harsh.

5 Life Of A Priest

Among the best Egyptian treasures to rise in 2018 was the tomb of a royal priest. What made the site so spectacular was that the two-level wonder had not been looted and was filled with statues and colorful images.

The surfaces of the walls and artifacts told the story of Wahtye, the priest, and showed his family and the world in which he lived. For one, he adored his mother. Her name was found almost everywhere the archaeologists looked. He served King Neferirkare during the Fifth Dynasty, which lasted from 2500 BC to 2350 BC.

The 4,400-year-old building was also in pristine condition. Measuring 10 meters (33 ft) long, 3 meters (10 ft) wide, and 3 meters (10 ft) high, images were everywhere. They depicted people making ceramics, wine, and funerary furniture. Other scenes showed hunting and sailboats as well as musical and religious themes.

The tomb, located south of Cairo, still needs to be fully explored. As it was not looted, it might yield more great finds, including the body of Wahtye himself.^[6]

4 A Unique Handprint

In Scotland, archaeologists face a serious challenge. Pictish sites are valuable because almost nothing is known about the culture (300 BC–AD 900). One site with a history of producing artifacts and ruins is slowly being claimed by the sea.

During recent rescue excavations at Swandro, the team focused on a smithy. The building had once been underground and had a swinging stone door, circular room with a hearth, and two large anvils. The latter were big beach stones.

During the cleaning process, one anvil showed a dark handlike print. Initially, researchers thought the excavators left the smudgy image. However, it soon became clear that the marks were ancient. Also, they were indeed somebody’s digits. Around 1,500 years ago, the person came into contact with black carbon and performed a move that left behind marks from his hand and knee.

Thus far, the shadowy remnants of the coppersmith have no equal in the archaeological record. Apart from being unique, they also provide a personal connection to a civilization so ghostly that Picts are often referred to as “Europe’s lost people.”^[7]

3 A Sloth Hunt

In 2017, fossilized human footprints turned up in the White Sands National Monument park in New Mexico. A 2018 study examined the steps and found what appeared to be a hunt in progress. This conclusion was drawn from the surprising discovery of human footprints inside the larger, kidney-shaped sloth tracks.

The footprints were around 11,000 years old. Their age and lack of other evidence made the full event hard to piece together. However, there were clues. Finding human prints inside the animal’s meant that the humans had followed a fresh trail and they did so with dogged persistence.^[8]

At one point, the sloth’s footprints showed that the animal had reared up and flailed. This suggested that it made a stand and took swipes at the hunters. Modern tree sloths are vulnerable creatures that cannot fight. The giant ground sloth was deadly. Upright, it stood 213 centimeters (7’0″) tall.

This one used its muscular body to swing long limbs armed with sickle-shaped nails. It is doubtful that stone weapons could have killed the beast, but the find proved that humans interacted with ground sloths, a species that went extinct during this time.

2 Ice Age Trigger

Millennia ago, humanity suffered a mini ice age. Called the Younger Dryas, it lasted about 1,000 years. Researchers long suspected that a comet caused the disaster, but no evidence supported this theory.

In 2017, archaeologists studied symbols at Gobekli Tepe in Turkey. Considered the world’s oldest temple (9000 BC), one of its pillars appeared to commemorate the terrible event. This column, known as the Vulture Stone, bore carvings of animals and showed Earth being slammed by a shower of comets. The meaning of the panel remained elusive—until the recent study.

Remarkably, the animals’ positions matched constellations in the sky. This allowed scientists to pinpoint the date with a margin of error of around 250 years. The comet theory strengthened considerably when the date matched the time that the Younger Dryas began.^[9]

An ice core from Greenland suggested that the frosty millennium began around 10,890 BC, and the Vulture symbols depicted the sky around 10,950 BC. This also changes the long-standing belief that Gobekli Tepe was just a temple. It was likely also an observatory.

1 A Beardless Jesus

In the 1920s, archaeologists excavated an ancient church in Israel. Near the ceiling in the baptismal area, they found a faint painting. Its near-invisibility prevented deeper interest.

In 2018, an archaeologist happened to be standing near the image when the light hit it in just the right manner to reveal a pair of eyes. With effort, the faded lines were examined to reveal the rest of the face. Unexpectedly, it was a beardless Jesus.

Unlike the bearded, long-haired icon most people are familiar with, the clean-shaven man also came with a long nose and a head full of curls. The figure’s unusual looks were not the main reason that archaeologists became excited. The Holy Land has few old paintings of the baptism of Jesus. There are none showing baptismal scenes that are pre-iconoclastic.

The painting’s earliest age is around 200 years after the crucifixion. This makes it old enough to be the first. Its location in the church and the presence of a larger figure suggested that this was a baptismal scene. Later baptismal scenes show John the Baptist with Christ, but John is nearly always the bigger of the two.^[10]

The world is an enormous place, and while thanks to technological advances and the fascination with the unknown held by most all of us at least to some extent, the majority of our planet’s land has been thoroughly explored. With that said, there remain places unseen to a great majority of human eyes, sites which rival the beauty of our most well known natural and man-made wonders of the world. Such locations, despite their great beauty and mystery often see little tourist activity, and are preserved in a state that makes them seem as if taken directly from the work of some fanciful author. The entries on this list are ten such locations, some more well known and well traveled than others.

Mount Erebus is Antarctica’s second largest volcano and has been observed to be continually active since 1972. Atop the mountain are a number of ice towers formed as a result of steam emissions from volcanic activity. Many of the ice towers constantly emit steam giving them the appearance of chimneys jutting out of the icy volcano’s frozen sides. In addition to these chimney-like pillars the volcanic mountain is home to a variety of ice caves, formed naturally in a number of ways, all resulting in glowing blue, eerily cavernous subterranean chambers.

New Mexico’s Kasha-Katuwe tent rocks were formed around seven million years ago as a result of ash deposited by pyroclastic flow from a volcanic explosion. As is the case with most rock formations, weathering and erosion can be credited with creating the area’s remarkable geography. The markedly pointy phallus-like stones receive their interesting name from the area’s native language and means “white cliffs”. The rocks vary in height from only a few feet to over ninety feet tall.

One of the more well known of these little-known locations, Lechuguilla cave is yet another location found in New Mexico. The cave is the seventh longest explored cave in the world, with a known length of 134.6 miles. The cave is most famous for the fascinating crystal formations of gypsum and aragonite located within. Prior to its discovery in 1986 the cave sat untouched for hundreds of millions of years, making it one of the world’s most pristine ecosystems.

Krubera cave, located within the Arabika Massif in Abkhazia, Georgia (the country not the state). Krubera is the deepest known cave on Earth, dropping a startling 2,191 meters from its entrance. The cave is also known as “Voronya Cave” meaning “crow cave” because it was full of nesting crows when first discovered.

Valley of Flowers Natonal Park in India is one of my personal favorites on this list. There is just something incredible about the soaring peaks rising into the clouds and the steep inclines on the interior completely covered in luscious greenery and unique flora. As well as being a site of grandeur and great natural beauty, the area is home to a number of rare, endangered animals such as the Asiatic black bear, snow leopard, brown bear, and blue sheep.

Located at the northern tip of Scotland, Glen Coe is a narrow glen which is often considered one of the most spectacular sites in the country. If you’re a traveler like myself, or enjoy nature photography and lists similar to this one, you’ll know that says a lot given some of the incredible areas in Scotland. The glen is home to a stunning array of flora, as well as towering peaks on either side and a crystal clear river running through its heart.

Another of my favorites, the Initiation Well located at Quinta da Regaleira in Sintra, Portugal contains a descending spiral staircase which leads to a variety of exits. The well gets its name from the belief that it was home to masonic initiation rituals. At the well’s bottom is a compass rose atop a Knight’s Templar cross. The symbolism of the well relates to life and death, a common theme for initiation rituals.

The Plivitice Lakes national park is home to spectacular views of perfect blue waters and waterfalls which look rather like the lakes are overflowing. The contrast of the deep blues to vibrant greens makes for an incredible view. The park is no less spectacular when viewed in the winter. To visit the lakes you must visit beautiful Croatia.

Home to over three-thousand of the enormous sandstone pillars pictured above, many of which tower over two-hundred meters in height, Wulingyuan, China, is one of the world’s most stunning natural sites. The towering pillars are composed of quartzite and sandstone and are karst formations (rock formations created as the result of the dissolution of soluble rock). The incredible area is located one-hundred and seventy miles northeast of Changsha and was dedicated a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1992, however it still remains relatively unknown by much of the world’s population.

Ki Monastery or Key Gompa is a Tibetan Buddhist monastery which stands spectacularly upon a hill overlooking the small Indian village of Kibar. The monastery stands at 13,668 feet above sea level and the village below is said to be the highest in India. Founded in the 11th century, Ki has not had a peaceful history. The monastery has been attacked many times over the long course of its existence, ravaged by Mongol armies and devastated by fires and earthquakes. The constant destruction and reconstruction has resulted in the monastery being built in a box-like fashion.

Please note: some images here contain partial nudity. Mario Gerth is probably better know for his black and white photographic series of Africa and her people. And while those photographs are some of the most incredible you will see . . . something is lost when the color is removed. Africa is one of the most colorful continents in the world and this is most evident in the dress and body ornamentation of her people. This list looks at twenty of the most incredible examples of the diversity of the African peoples as seen through the color lens.

Gerth is an interesting photographer in that he holds down a full time job as a banker in between his photo shoots—not unlike American composer Charles Ives who worked as an insurance dealer in-between composing some of the most significant classical pieces of the twentieth century. He is based in Germany but has travelled to over sixty-five countries on his photographic journeys. His work is found in countless magazines and international photographic exhibitions.

All of these images are copyright Mario Gerth. You can find many of his black and white photos on his Flickr page. I cannot recommend it enough.

Rather than commenting on each image I have merely noted the name, tribe, or region of each person.

For most of us, getting an X-ray, ultrasound, angiogram, CT, or MRI means walking into a windowless room that has more in common with a dungeon than a clinic. The technologist gives us a flimsy garb and contorts us in painful positions. We almost expect to find torches on the wall and an iron maiden in the corner. Here are 10 images that might make these procedures a little less scary.

10Bertha Roentgen’s Wedding Ring

In November 1895, physics professor Wilhelm Conrad Roentgen of Worzburg, Bavaria, was studying electrical rays when he discovered that they penetrated objects and projected their images on a fluorescent screen. When he put his own hand in front of the rays, he noticed that the image showed a contrast between his bones and his translucent flesh.

Roentgen realized the implications immediately—doctors could see a person’s anatomy and anything wrong with it without evasively opening the skin. He replaced the fluorescent screen with a photographic plate and captured the first X-ray image on November 8, 1895. The X-ray was of his wife Bertha’s left hand and her wedding ring (as pictured above).

The world was initially dubious about Roentgen’s discovery. The New York Times spurned it as a simple photographic technique that had already been discovered. Just a week later, however, the Times began to run reports about how Roentgen’s X-rays were in fact beneficial for surgical purposes. One of those reports were of a British doctor named John Hall-Edwards who was the first to use X-rays to diagnose a problem—a needle lodged in a hand. Roentgen received the 1901 Nobel Prize in physics, and his findings are now considered “one of the greatest discoveries in the history of science.”

9Moving X-Rays Of The Heart And Digestive System

Things moved quickly after Roentgen’s discovery. Almost immediately, scientists worked to merge X-rays with cinematography—essentially moving X-rays. The first to produce one was John Macintyre, a throat surgeon and electrician at the Glasgow Royal Infirmary. Macintyre already had the distinction of setting up the world’s first X-ray department, and his unit would later be the first to X-ray a foreign object (a halfpenny lodged in a child’s throat). That unit also was the first to detect a kidney stone with an X-ray.

In 1897, Macintyre presented a short film at the London Royal Society demonstrating what he called a cinematograph. He had X-rayed a frog’s leg since it required less energy to penetrate than a human leg. He then X-rayed it every 300th of a second as he flexed and extended the leg. He then spliced them together. Later, he filmed a human’s beating heart. He also fed a patient bismuth and filmed his stomach as he digested it (see video above).

These X-ray movies are now called “fluoroscopy” and are used to film the placement of heart catheters, the digestive and urinary systems at work, and surgical procedures. In 2013, 1.3 million fluoroscopic procedures were performed in the United Kingdom alone.

8Major Beevor Hunts For Bullets

Within months of Roentgen’s discovery, X-rays were used on the battlefield. They were first used during the Abyssinian War when Italy invaded Abyssinia in 1896. Lieutenant Colonel Giuseppe Alvaro used an X-ray machine to locate bullets in the forearms of Italian soldiers. Those X-rays have since been lost to history.

A year later, X-rays were again used in the field during the Greco-Turkish War. Those films have also been lost. Despite multiple successes, the military was slow to appreciate the use of X-ray for their wounded.

In June 1897, war broke out between India and Afghanistan. Britain sent soldiers to the Tirah plateau to open the mountain passes. Major Walter Beevor purchased X-ray equipment and set it up at a field hospital at Tirah. He took more than 200 X-rays in the field including the one above of an Indian soldier’s elbow with a bullet lodged in it. Beevor even located a bullet lodged in General Woodhouse’s leg.

The next year Beevor made a presentation at the United Services Institution—from then on, Britain brought field X-ray units onto the battlefield. Other countries slowly followed suit.

Like many other technologies, X-ray imaging benefited from its use in war. One of those advances was in portable units. Marie Curie and her daughter Irene drove 20 X-ray units in the back of vans to the battlefront during World War I.

Today, mobile X-ray machines are brought to a patient’s bedside, taking radiographs of them when they are too sick to be moved to the hospital’s radiology department.

7Proof Of The Damage Caused By Metal Corsets

In one of the earliest known uses of medical imaging to raise public awareness of a problem, French doctor Ludovic O’Followell X-rayed the torsos of several women with and without corsets. The films clearly show that tight metal corsets narrowed the ribcage and displaced internal organs. O’Followell did not advocate the banning of corsets—merely the development of more flexible ones.

And that’s exactly what happened. O’Followell’s films, along with the opinions of other physicians of the time, influenced the industry and society to adopt less-restrictive corsets.

The question that later experts asked was whether O’Followell should have used X-ray radiation to prove his point. Back then, X-ray units required the subject to be exposed to radiation for lengthy periods of time. In 1896, an X-ray of a man’s forearm required 45 minutes of exposure. The first dental X-ray took 25 minutes.

The women in the X-rays above were exposed twice—both with and without a corset—and in the most radiation-sensitive parts of their body: the chest (breasts and sternum) and the abdomen (reproductive organs).

The dangers of X-ray radiation exposure was already well-known. In the first year of testing X-rays, a Nebraska doctor reported cases of hair loss, reddening and sloughing off of skin, and lesions. Clarence Dally, while working on X-rays for Thomas Edison, repeatedly exposed his hands to radiation for at least two years. He had both arms amputated before dying of cancer in 1904. One by one, the pioneers of the field—John Hall-Edwards, Marie and Irene Curie, and Wilhelm Roentgen—all died of radiation-induced diseases.

But the world was slow to realize the dangers of unnecessary X-rays. Women had their ovaries irradiated as a treatment for depression. Radiation was used to treat ringworm, acne, impotence, arthritis, ulcers, and even cancer. Beauty shops irradiated customers to remove facial hair. Water, chocolate, and toothpaste were spiked with radiation. Between the 1920s and the 1950s, many shoe stores had fluoroscopes—called Foot-o-scopes or Pedoscopes—that X-rayed customers’ feet to show how well their shoes fit.

While X-rays are much safer today and are almost never used for non-medical purposes, unnecessary medical X-rays still pose some risk. One study showed that 18,500 cases of cancer worldwide are the result of medical X-rays, and in America 0.5 percent of cancer deaths are attributable to X-rays.

6The Very First Catheter

While working as a surgeon at the August Victory clinic, Werner Forssmann developed a theory that a flexible tube (catheter) could be inserted in the groin or arm, through the veins that feed blood to the heart, and directly into the heart’s atrium. Forssmann believed that the heart’s volume and the blood’s flow rate, pressure, and oxygen content could be measured with this catheter. Medicine could also be directly injected to the heart in an emergency.

Most experts believed the catheter would get tangled among the surge of blood and the beat of the heart. Therefore, his superiors at August Victory would not sanction experiments conducted by the rookie doctor.

Undeterred, Forssmann convinced a fellow resident to insert a needle into his left arm. Then, Forssmann advanced the catheter up the resident’s cephalic vein, through the bicep, past the shoulder, and into the heart. It took a total of 60 centimeters (2 ft) of tubing. He then walked down to the X-ray department and took a picture to prove the catheter was in the resident’s heart. He later performed the procedure several times on himself.

Unfortunately, Forssmann’s colleagues derided this procedure as a mere circus stunt. Discouraged, Forssmann moved on, becoming an urologist. He was unaware that his contribution was gradually being recognized for its importance (by 2006, 3.7 million heart catheterizations were performed annually in the United States alone). So he was quite puzzled when he received a phone call in October 1956, informing him that he’d won the Noble Prize in Physiology and Medicine. He simply responded, “For what?”

5Hyperphonography

One of the drawbacks of X-ray technology is that it only images dense anatomical structures such as bones and foreign bodies (like bullets). Another drawback is that it uses radiation that could harm a baby in the womb. The medical world needed a safer way to image less-dense structures in the body.

The answer came from a tragedy: the sinking of the Titanic in 1912. In order to better detect icebergs, Reginald Fessenden patented devices that emitted directed sound waves and measured their reflection in order to detect distant objects. His sonar was capable of detecting icebergs from a couple miles away.

World War I erupted at the same time, and German U-boats threatened Allied shipping. Physicist Paul Langevin developed a hydrophone that used sound waves to detect submarines. On April 23, 1916, a UC-3 U-boat became the first submarine detected by hydrophone and sunk. After the war, the technology was used to detect flaws in metals.

In the late 1930s, German psychiatrist and neurologist Dr. Karl Dussik believed that sound could measure the brain and other parts of the body inaccessible by X-rays. Dussik became the first to apply sound diagnostically. Unfortunately, much of his work was performed in Austria—it wasn’t until after the war, when he repeated and expanded his work, that the world heard of what he called “hyperphonography.”

A decade later, Scotland obstetrician Ian Donald borrowed an industrial ultrasound machine and tested it on various tumors. Donald was soon using the machine to detect tumors and monitor fetuses.

4The First CAT Scan

One limitation of X-ray images is that everything between the X-ray tube and the film appears on the image. Pathologies such as tumors can be hidden by tissues, organs, and bones that lie above or below it.

The 1920s and ’30s saw the development of tomography. This took an X-ray at a certain level of the body, blurring anything above and below it. It did this by moving the X-ray tube (and film) while exposing the image. It could cut across all three planes of the body: sagittal (left to right sides), coronal (front to back), and axial or cross-sectional (feet to head).

In 1967, Godfrey Hounsfield, a scientist working for EMI (Electric and Musical Industries), thought up an axial tomographic scanner. EMI was also the record company that sold 200 million Beatles records. Using their Fab Four funds, EMI funded Hounsfield for the four years it took for him to develop a prototype.

His scanner used sensors instead of film, and the patient was slid through moving tubes and sensors at a proscribed pace. A computer then reconstructed the anatomy. Hounsfield’s invention was thus dubbed a computed axial tomographic scan or CAT scan (now simply CT scan).

On October 1, 1971, Hounsfield used his invention for the first time. He located a woman’s brain tumor as seen here. The oval on the left side of the film (her right frontal lobe) is the tumor. Later, after the surgeon removed the tumor, he remarked that it “look[ed] exactly like the picture.”

3The First MRI Scan

In a Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) scan, the machine creates a static magnetic field that aligns all of the patient’s protons in the same direction. Short bursts of radio waves then misalign the protons and, once the radio waves are shut off, a computer measures the time it takes for the protons to realign. The computer then uses these measurements to reconstruct the image of the patient’s body.

While CT and MRI machines look similar, they are very different. CT scans use potentially hazardous radiation while MRI does not. An MRI can also visualize soft tissue, organs, and bones better than CT. It is used especially when the doctor wants to see the spinal cord, tendons, and ligaments. On the other hand, CT is better to see bone, organ, and spine damage.

Physician Raymond Damadian first conceived of a whole-body MRI scanner in 1969. He began testing his theories and published an article in Science Magazine in March 1971. In September of that year, Paul Lauterbur, a chemist at State University of New York, had an epiphany about the very same thing, and even bought a notebook to document his “invention.” Lauterbur later admitted that he had watched a graduate student reproduce Damadian’s experiment, but did not believe it would work.

In March 1972, Damadian filed a patent for his idea. That same month, Lauterbur’s scanner produced an image of test tubes. A year later, Lauterbur published his findings and his image in Nature. He did not refer to Damadian’s critical contributions. In 1974, Damadian’s patent was accepted.

Then on July 3, 1977, Damadian and his team took the first scan of a human. None of his staff wanted to climb into the machine, so Damadian did it himself. When it didn’t work, they speculated that the doctor was too big. One of his graduate students, Larry Minkoff, was thinner and climbed in. The above image is of Minkoff’s chest.

A fight then erupted between Lauterbur and Damadian over who invented the MRI. Despite the fact that Damadian held the patent, was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame in 1988, and was acknowledged as the inventor by President Ronald Reagan, the 2003 Nobel Prize went to Lauterbur. Despite the Nobel committee being able to name up to three recipients of the prize, Damadian was snubbed. His supporters claim he was ignored because he was an outspoken Christian and advocate of creationism which was frowned upon by academia.

2Laparoscopic Surgery

Surgeons have been removing things from people’s abdomens for centuries, but the entire abdomen always had to be opened. This made the patient susceptible to infections and required long recovery times. But in 1901, a Russian gynecologist introduced laparoscopy—surgery done not through a large opening but through one or more small slits or holes. This came to be called “key-hole” or “Band-Aid” surgery.

Laparoscopes allowed the surgeon to use one eye to look directly into the abdomen or chest with a device that resembled a small telescope. Instead of using their hands, they utilized scissors, forceps, clamps, and other tools on long rods that were inserted through adjoining holes in the abdomen.

Unfortunately, this meant that the surgeon had to contort his body in order to view the laparoscope. One surgeon remembered he had to lie on the patient’s thigh in order to remove her gallbladder. After 2.5 hours, he was physically exhausted. For that reason, laparoscopy saw only limited use.

In the late 1970s, Dr. Camran Nezhat, an obstetrician and gynecologist, attached video equipment to laparoscopes and operated watching a television monitor. The equipment was initially big and bulky, but Nezhat embraced technology that streamlined equipment and magnified the images. This allowed everyone in the operating room to watch what the surgeon was doing. As Nezhat put it, surgery went from a “one-man band” to an “orchestra.” Nezhat’s early videos are not available, but the above video is of a laparscopic removal of a gallbladder by another surgeon.

Nezhat believed that most surgical procedures could be done laparoscopically rather than with huge evasive holes in the patient’s body. Many others could not believe that complicated surgeries could be done this way and were hostile to Nezhat’s claims. His procedures were called “bizarre” and “barbaric.” When others embraced laparoscopy, they too were ridiculed. But by 2004, when the New England Journal of Medicine recommended laparoscopy, Nezhat had officially ushered in a revolution in surgery.

13-D And 4-D Ultrasounds

For 30 years, ultrasounds were limited to two dimensions, where equipment would send a sound and then measure the echo. Millions of parents have tried and failed to glean from these black-and-white images just what their baby looks like. This is because 2-D scans go right through the baby’s skin, visualizing their internal organs instead.

Since the 1970s, investigators had been working on 3-D ultrasound for babies. This sends the sounds in different directions and angles, catches the facial features and skin of the baby, then reconstructs the echoes in much the same way CT scanners do. In 1984, Kazunori Baba at Tokyo’s Institute of Medical Electronics was the first to obtain 3-D images of a baby in the womb. But the quality of the image and the amount of time that it took to reconstruct the image (10 minutes) made it unsuitable diagnostically.

In 1987, Olaf Von Ramm and Stephen Smith patented the first high-speed 3-D ultrasound that increased the quality and reduced the processing time. Since then, there has been an explosion in ultrasounds, especially with the addition of 4-D versions where the parents can see their baby move. Boutiques have even sprung up that offer 3-D and 4-D video keepsakes—for a hefty price tag naturally. While there are no documented negative effects from these ultrasounds, a debate now rages over whether a diagnostic tool should be used in such a recreational way.

Steve is the author of 366 Days in Abraham Lincoln’s Presidency: the Private, Political, and Military Decisions of America’s Greatest President.

On April 26, 1986, an explosion occurred at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in the northern part of Soviet Ukraine, an event which today is widely known as the Chernobyl disaster.

During the evening of April 25, engineers made several fatal mistakes, including disconnecting Reactor No. 4’s emergency safety systems and its power-regulating system. At 1:23 AM, the reactor’s power levels surged, and the events that followed led to an explosion which released more than 50 tons of radioactive material into the atmosphere.^[1]

In the days that followed, 32 people died at Chernobyl, and many more suffered radiation burns. Nearly 8.4 million residents of Belarus, Ukraine, and Russia were exposed to the radioactive cloud that was released. The calamity is considered the most disastrous nuclear power plant accident in history, and the area itself is still suffering in its aftermath.

10 Radiation After The Explosion Was Off The Scale

Hours after the explosion, helicopters were flown over Reactor No. 4 to evaluate radiation levels. Experts were unable to make an exact reading, as 200 meters (656 ft) above the reactor, radiation levels had reached 1,500 rems, but the counters were not capable of reading any higher than 500 rems.

In an attempt to contain the disaster, helicopters dumped lead slabs weighing 40 kilograms (88 lb) each on the reactor, followed by several tons of radiation absorbing-sand. However, the operation was flawed, as the scale of the disaster was like nothing ever seen before. Pilot Alexander Petrov, who responded to the scene, recalled, “It took us more than 24 hours to get things going. [ . . . ] At first, our commanders didn’t know what to do. We flew out to see what was happening, then returned and flew back in the morning.”^[2]

9 A Late Evacuation

The amount of radiation the Chernobyl disaster released into the atmosphere was 50 million curies—equivalent to around 500 Hiroshima bombs. Police roamed the streets wearing gas masks, but the residents were kept in the dark and only heard rumors. Armen Abagian, who was the director of one of the Moscow nuclear power research institutes at the time, advised the Soviet government to evacuate Pripyat immediately. Abagian recalled, “Children were running in the streets; people were hanging laundered linen out to dry. And the atmosphere was radioactive.”^[3]

Residents started to panic when there was a “metallic smell” in the air, and the atmosphere appeared different. It was close to midnight at the end of April 26 when an evacuation was ordered; 1,200 buses and 200 trucks relocated 47,000 residents of Pripyat. The locals thought they would later be returning to their homes, but this was never the case.

8 Contamination Spreads To Other Countries

The buses which escorted the residents out of Pripyat spread the radiation to wider areas. It took 3.5 hours to evacuate. One resident recalled, “Queues of jammed buses left the city. One after the other, like giant beetles, kilometre after kilometre. The traffic was insane. Only a Second World War survivor can imagine a similar scene.”^[4]

Just days after the initial disaster, the wind changed direction and began blowing high levels of radiation in the direction of the Ukrainian capital, Kiev. The city held its annual May Day parades as the government assured citizens everything was normal. Finally, 11 days after the disaster, officials warned the residents of Kiev that they should avoid eating leafy vegetables and to stay indoors.

Later in May, the Russian first deputy health minister also issued a warning that vodka and red wine were not a cure for radiation exposure—despite popular belief. More than 500,000 residents in Ukraine were ultimately forced to leave their homes.

7 Military Reserves Made Their Own Protective Clothing

More than 600,000 civil and military personnel have been given the honorary status of “Chernobyl liquidators” since the cleanup began in 1986. Originally, robots from West Germany, Japan, and Russia were used to help clean the debris, but they could not operate due to the high levels of radiation. Instead, the job was handed over to humans, who could not be exposed for any longer than 40 seconds.

Most of the liquidators were military reserves, and the army did not have enough uniforms suitable for working in radioactive conditions. Instead, reserves made their own protective clothing using lead sheets up to 4 millimeters thick as aprons to help protect the spine and bone marrow. Photographer Igor Kostin recalled, “The clever ones also added a vine leaf for extra comfort.”^[5]

Many of the liquidators have since suffered from severe health problems—some of which were fatal.

6 Doctors Facing Mortality

Dr. Robert Peter Gale, known as “the Chernobyl Doctor,” was one of the many physicians and scientists brought in from 15 nations to help with the aftermath of the disaster. Dr. Gale treated patients who had suffered such a high exposure to radiation that even a bone marrow transplant could not save them. Without functioning bone marrow in the body, a patient will usually die within four weeks. It was also difficult to assess how much radiation patients had been exposed to, as the gradual loss of hair and some darkening of the skin were the only visible signs.

In 1986, Dr. Gale and the director of the Soviet Union’s Central Institute for Advanced Medical Studies signed an agreement to monitor the 100,000 people who were residents in the “danger zone”—a 30-kilometer (18.7 mi) radius surrounding the site which ultimately became the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone. He said, “A physician deals with life and death every day. Yet, with us, death is a biological event. We don’t think of our own death. The events of Chernobyl made me focus on my own mortality—on all our mortality. Unfortunately, it takes these tragic events to impress this on us.”^[6]

5 The Buried Villages

The village of Kopachi lies 7 kilometers (4.3 mi) from the site of the Chernobyl disaster. This is an eerie and deserted location, as the homes of Kopachi were completely bulldozed and buried by the Soviet Army. However, this plan only did more harm than good.

Chernobyl guide Yuri Tatarchuk explained, “Kopachi was very badly contaminated and so it was decided to bury it, house by house. It seemed a good idea at the time, but it wasn’t. The digging only pushed radioactive material deeper into the soil and closer to the water table, so that contamination spread even further.”

Today, only two buildings are left standing, one of which is the former kindergarten, where children were not evacuated until 36 hours of exposure. Tatarchuk said of the aftermath, “It was criminal. [ . . . ] At least 5,000 people were badly affected at the time, while women who were pregnant were simply told to have abortions. It was a cruel time.”^[7]

4 Puppies Of Chernobyl

There is a myth that no life can survive in Chernobyl, which is simply not true. It’s estimated that more than 900 stray dogs live in the Exclusion Zone. Many can be found playing inside the abandoned cooling tower at the former power plant. The puppies are believed to be descendants of the pet dogs that were left behind by their owners; residents were granted only a few hours’ notice before they were evacuated and advised to only take vital personal belongings and a certain amount of food.

The dogs have been driven out of the woods by the wild wolves that habitat the area. Now, volunteers, including veterinarians and radiation experts, have formed the nonprofit charity Dogs of Chernobyl. The dogs are tagged and their radiation exposure studied. They are also used for research on diseases including rabies. Some dogs have been fitted with radiation sensors and GPS receivers, which help to map the radiation levels across the exclusion zone.^[8]

3 Birth Defects Among The Children Of Chernobyl

Following the disaster, citizens in the city of Kiev were advised by authorities to take regular warm showers, keep their windows closed, and regularly wash their furniture. The precautions were not enough, as, since 1986, physicians have reported a rise in birth defects. Belarus shares a border with Ukraine, and the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant is quite close to said border; in 2010, UNICEF reported that 20 percent of adolescents in Belarus suffer from chronic illnesses or disabilities caused by birth defects.

There are many charities that support facilities which help babies who were born with severe birth defects, including neurological difficulties and heart conditions. Another common birth defect in this region is microcephaly, in which a baby’s head is smaller and not in proportion with the rest of their body.

In 2014, Michael Donnelly, chairman of Chernobyl Children’s Appeal, said, “These children are forced to suffer through no fault of their own. [ . . . ] It’s no better now than it was 28 years ago. The level of radiation in the Chernobyl zone is still the same today as it was in 1986.”^[9]

2 Contaminated Wildlife

Months after the Chernobyl disaster, the radioactivity had spread to Galsjo Forest in Sweden. Elk were contaminated, and the moment their bodies were thrown in a quarry after being stripped of their heads and fur was captured on camera.

A 10-square-kilometer (4 mi²) area of forest that surrounds the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant has become known as the “Red Forest” after the contamination caused the trees to die and their leaves to turn a deep red color. After the humans evacuated, wildlife grew rapidly with limited predators to hunt them down—wild boar multiplied eightfold in the two years following the disaster. Radioecologist Sergey Gaschak explained, “Animals don’t seem to sense radiation and will occupy an area regardless of the radiation condition.”^[10]

The Red Forest is now one of the most contaminated sites in the world, with more than 90 percent of the radioactivity found in the soil. Mice embryos used for research have dissolved in the conditions, and horses left that lived within 6 kilometers (3.7 mi) of the power plant died due to their thyroid glands disintegrating.

1 Chernobyl Directors Sentenced To Labor Camp

In July 1987, Chernobyl’s plant director Viktor P. Bryukhanov, chief engineer Nikolai M. Fomin, and deputy Anatoly S. Dyatlov were sentenced to two to ten years at a labor camp.^[11] They were found guilty of gross violation of safety regulations which led to an explosion. Judge Raimond Brize declared in the courtroom, “There was an atmosphere of lack of control and lack of responsibility at the plant.” The plant officials were also heavily criticized for not evacuating the town of Pripyat sooner.

Nowadays, an old sarcophagus covers the damaged fourth reactor at the nuclear power plant, and the New Safe Confinement (NSC) structure sits above that. Although it has been more than three decades since the Chernobyl disaster, there are many still suffering the consequences today.

Cheish Merryweather is a true crime fan and an oddities fanatic. Can either be found at house parties telling everyone Charles Manson was only 5’2″ or at home reading true crime magazines.
Twitter: @thecheish

A modern wonder is imaging and our ability to share pictures globally within seconds. People alive today can surf the web and see the most incredible scientific sights without ever having to step inside a laboratory.

Pictures showing freshly solved mysteries and violent things in space are fascinating, but they pale next to unusual world firsts. In recent years, photographers have captured extinct animals, shock waves, and the most powerful light in the universe flashing right here on Earth.

10 The Dutch Shipwreck

In 2019, metal salvagers searched for shipping containers that had been recently lost in the North Sea. They snapped a sonar image of something near the Dutch island of Terschelling. Hoping that the anomaly was a steel container, the crew sent down a retrieval arm. Instead of scrap metal, the grab returned with ship timbers and 5 tons of copper sheets.

Incredibly, the salvagers had snagged a piece of what could be the oldest ship discovered in the region. The wood belonged to a 500-year-old vessel. Measuring 30 meters (100 ft) long, it carried a cargo of copper. The sheets were likely destined for Antwerp to become some of the Netherlands’ earliest copper coins. Indeed, their chemical signature was identical to copper coinage introduced in the 1500s.

The vessel was also tentatively called a “missing link” in the history of Dutch shipbuilding. The hull displayed an intermediate structure used when builders started to abandon an old style called “clinker” for the more successful “carvel” style that strengthened Dutch ships and allowed them to trade globally.^[1]

9 A Colombian Weasel

The Colombian weasel is known from only six animals and had never been photographed alive. In 2011, an architect stumbled upon the rarest carnivore in South America by accident. It was not a glorious moment, as befitting for the first encounter with a long-lost creature. The black weasel was perched on top of a toilet.

When Juan M. de Roux, an amateur naturalist, saw the creature at his parents’ house, he initially thought it was the common long-tailed weasel. He took several snaps before releasing the frantic animal. It had become trapped after slipping into the bathroom through the roof or flooring, both of which were being renovated.

After de Roux uploaded the images to the iNaturalist app, a database for citizen scientists, the truth emerged. He learned of the existence of the Colombian weasel, and experts confirmed that it was a living specimen.

Considering that some believed the species was extinct, this came as a welcome surprise. The de Roux house was near Colombia’s National Natural Park Farallones de Cali. The discovery suggested that a big population of Colombian weasels live in the park.^[2]

8 The Ghost Plane

Late in 2018, Robert Morton found something on Google Earth. At the coordinates 55 degrees 57 minutes 26 seconds north latitude and 3 degrees 05 minutes 35 seconds west longitude was a plane. The image showed what appeared to be an airliner in the sea near Edinburgh in Scotland.

He reported it to the Mirror Online, and the tabloid published the weird image. A Google spokesperson stood ready with an easy explanation. The ghostly plane was not a real aircraft.

Sure, when the original photograph was taken, the subject was a nuts-and-bolts airliner. However, Google uses a blend of several images in a composite technique that gives the sharpest resolution.

The images are drawn from satellites and aerial photography. Sometimes, one of them captures a passing object—like a plane. The latter got a bit shuffled, blurred in Google’s patching process, and ended up looking like a flight disaster.^[3]

7 Biggest Underwater Eruption

Geologists have grappled with a mysterious event since May 10, 2018. A seismic occurrence was detected near the island of Mayotte in the Indian Ocean. Its nature was epic enough to cause rumbles and earthquakes that were felt around the world. The source was unknown, but scientists figured the culprit was a monster volcano that had lost its temper somewhere on the seafloor.

When a research vessel sailed for the coast of Mayotte, it was not just to gather data. The island was inhabited and continued to experience disturbances. To solve the mystery and safeguard the locals, scientists studied the area.

Incredibly, they found a volcano that had not been on the seabed six months before. It was not a tiny hill, either. The thing was 800 meters (2,624 ft) high and 5 kilometers (3.1 mi) wide.

Tellingly, its location matched the hot spot where the shakes and rumbles were coming from. Estimates now credit the still-active feature with the biggest underwater eruption ever recorded. In 2019, a remarkable sonar image captured the volcano in a colorful way.^[4]

6 A Star Battle

R Aquarii is a binary star system consisting of a red giant and a smaller white dwarf. The two companions are at the end of their lives. A star’s death is never a subtle event, but a binary star has the potential to be extraordinarily violent. This is because its partner often interferes—with volatile results. R Aquarii is a good example of how two stars’ death throes can destroy each other.

In 2018, a stunning photo was taken of the system. It showed the red giant shedding its outer layer and the dwarf star cannibalizing it. It was a dangerous meal. The material consumed by the dwarf repeatedly led to thermonuclear explosions on the smaller star’s surface. The blasts flung the dwarf’s own material out into space alongside the red giant’s outer layer.^[5]

Taken by the European Southern Observatory, the image highlighted the devastation in the shape of swathes of matter surrounding the stars. Located around 650 light-years from Earth, the system will probably terminate with a mind-blowing explosion classified as a Type Ia supernova.

5 Hidden Amazonian Tribe

There are around 19 hidden tribes in the Brazilian state of Amazonas. Their isolation is not because they think the world is a giant rain forest. It appears that they chose not to contact “civilization.”

This is understandable. Several tribes have been massacred by mercenaries employed by colonists, miners, and farmers who want the land but not the natives. This is because indigenous communities come with rights, and these rights interfere with financial opportunities.

Those fighting to safeguard the tribes must also keep their distance. Some tribes are aggressive and can also die from communicable diseases carried by outsiders.

In 2017, an expedition produced the first photographs taken by a drone of an Amazonian community. The chosen group had been known for years to Brazil’s National Indian Foundation (Funai), which also operated the camera. The photos showed a clearing and a few individuals. They seemed unaware of the drone, which was a good thing. Researchers want to learn their ways but discreetly so.^[6]

4 Albino Panda

In 2019, a camera trap was activated. Such devices are used by researchers to take photographs of animals with a tendency to hide deep in the wilderness. Usually, an animal’s movement triggers an automatic photo session. This particular trap was located in a forest in the Wolong national nature reserve in China.

When the image was viewed for the first time, it must have been a heart-stopping moment. It showed a rare wild panda. There was no sign of the species’ trademark black body bands, ears, or eye patches. In fact, the bear was entirely white. A close analysis of the image showed the creature had reddish eyes. This explained the unusual coat color—the creature was an albino.

It also appeared to be a strong, healthy individual around one or two years old. The giant panda is already the rarest bear on the planet, but finding an albino is exceptional. Managing to take a photo of one is even more remarkable, and indeed, the Wolong image appears to be the first of its kind.^[7]

3 First Terrestrial Gamma Rays

When it comes to what type of light holds the most energy, nothing beats gamma rays. They explode from bursting suns and colliding stars and even radiate from black holes. These rays glow with such intensity that all other light in the vicinity dims into obscurity.

Naturally, scientists are keen to study gamma rays. The good news is that sometimes they appear on Earth. However, the most powerful flashes in the universe are also exceptionally brief. As they last about a millisecond, their locations can be difficult to catch or predict. At least, researchers know that they appear in massive thunderclouds due to electron interactions, but the exact science remains mysterious.

In 2017, an ambitious project launched a special observatory to the International Space Station. The aim was to catch the elusive phenomenon by viewing storms from space.^[8]

On June 18, 2018, a thunderstorm loomed over Borneo, an island in Southeast Asia. In a world first, a gamma ray that erupted from the storm was captured as an image. The observatory also showed that the flashes happen frequently on Earth. During the project’s first year, astronomers captured over 200 bursts.

2 Supersonic Shock Waves

One of the most breathtaking images recently came from NASA, where scientists have spent years trying to photograph shock waves. Researchers want to silence airplanes because their noise and sonic booms are undesirable over residential areas.

Sonic booms happen when a plane goes so fast that molecules cannot move out of the way quickly enough. They gather in front of the craft, and when the latter exceeds the speed of sound, the barrier snaps loudly. This change in pressure is called a shock wave.

To capture the waves, NASA spent over a decade developed an imaging system. In 2019, it was placed aboard a NASA B-200 King Air and photographed T-38 US Air Force jets flying below. In a world first, scientists caught shock waves streaming off supersonic jets and saw how the waves influenced each other.

One plane was in the wake of the other, and they were about 9 meters (30 ft) apart. The rear T-38’s shock waves were curvier due to the leading jet’s related forces. The high quality of the images could help unravel the nature of shock waves and, perhaps, even find a way to silence them.^[9]

1 The Roosevelt Objects

In 2014, the aircraft carrier Theodore Roosevelt arrived at the East Coast. Aboard was a squadron training for deployment in the Middle East. The planes had decades-old radars, and after an upgrade, the screens started showing false trails.

The pilots soon realized that the “glitches” were physical things—especially after one jet’s missile locked onto an object. The same pilot also experienced another blip on his radar and decided to maneuver his plane beneath it. He should have been able to see it, and radar confirmed the presence of something. But there was nothing there.

They remained invisible except for remarkable performances on radar recordings. For example, supersonic speeds reached heights of 9,144 meters (30,000 ft) and showed no visible engine or infrared exhaust trails.

The objects arrived on most days and performed maneuvers fatal to human pilots—like sudden stops while flying at a great speed. At some point, one nearly collided with a jet. It zipped past the cockpit so closely that it became visible. It looked like a cube with a sphere inside it.^[10]

The pilots who went public could not explain the experience but also refused to link it to extraterrestrials. The sightings stopped when the Roosevelt sailed for the Persian Gulf in 2015.

Neil Armstrong once said, “I think we’re going to the Moon because it’s in the nature of the human being to face challenges. It’s by the nature of his deep inner soul. We’re required to do these things just as salmon swim upstream.”

Just as powerful as our urge to face challenges, we humans also have the drive to record what we’ve seen. During our earlier ages of exploration, such as the Polynesian exploration of the Pacific or the age of European sailing ships, we recorded our discoveries through stories or the written word or paintings.

But the exploration of space has been unique. During our entire venture into the heavens, we have had access to photography. We can take living pictures for every new boundary broken and every new horizon. These are 10 such images, the first of their kind, taken in and about the infinite expanse of space.

10 The Very First Image Taken From Space

In October 1946, 15 years before humans visited space in person and less than a year after the conclusion of World War II, a team of scientists and soldiers in New Mexico launched a V-2 missile 105 kilometers (65 mi) into the sky. This rocket was equipped with a 35mm camera and snapped a photo every second and a half.

It achieved a height five times higher than the previous highest photo taken. When the V-2 missile’s photos were developed, what appeared on them affected the responsible team powerfully.

“They were ecstatic, they were jumping up and down like kids,” said Fred Rulli, an enlisted man involved in the camera recovery team. “The scientists just went nuts.”

And for good reason. The photos captured a sight that no human had ever seen before—Earth as viewed from beyond our atmosphere, Earth as seen from space. Many such missile launches were conducted in the coming years, and over 1,000 Earth pictures were recorded from space between 1946 and 1950.

But those pictures taken in 1946 would forever be our first view from outside our home.^[1]

9 The First Image Taken Of The Sun

The Sun has been a constant companion for the entirety of human existence, but its very nature limited our understanding of it for much of history. The details of the Sun were often difficult to perceive because even looking at it was a strain. Features such as the corona and sunspots were usually painful to behold with the naked eye.

But in 1845 at the dawn of photography, two French physicists captured the first image of the Sun. Louis Fizeau and Lion Foucault recorded the image on a 12.7-centimeter (5 in) daguerreotype photograph. Though naked eye observations of sunspots date back to as early as 28 BC, this photo clearly depicted that day’s sunspots and allowed for a permanent record of the Sun’s cycles and changes.

In fact, by 1858, a daily record of the Sun was being kept by means of photography. Between 1858 and 1872, over 3,000 images of the Sun were captured and cataloged by Warren de la Rue at England’s Kew Observatory.^[2]

Even a solar eclipse was captured by de la Rue’s team in Spain in 1860. Today, you can check on the Sun whenever you’d like via NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory, which posts nearly live images of the Sun captured through many different means and wavelengths.

8 The First Image Taken From The Surface Of Our Moon

After a number of failed attempts, the Soviet Union succeeded in landing an unmanned spacecraft, Luna 9, on our Moon. The craft touched down on February 3, 1966, on an area of the Moon called Oceanus Procellarum (“Ocean of Storms”).

Luna 9 used airbags to cushion its rocky landing and was equipped with a turret camera that made history. This camera was the first of all time where a picture was taken on the surface of a celestial body besides Earth.

Luna 9 had limited power provided only through batteries, and it died three days after landing. But that was enough time to take and transmit a panorama from the Moon. The first image transmitted was intercepted and published in England even before the Soviet Union could publicize their success.^[3]

7 First Image Of Auroras And Lightning On Another Planet

Two of the most brilliant and luminous phenomena on planet Earth were captured on a different celestial body for the first time during the historic flyby of Jupiter performed by the Voyager 1 spacecraft on March 5, 1979. The image—a grainy window of black and white—shows the curved horizon of our massive neighbor being lit by the planet’s own powerful auroras.

Caught in the same image, which was a three-minute-and-12-second exposure with a wide-angle lens, are the bright bursts of light from lightning churned into existence by Jupiter’s planetwide storms.^[4]

The Voyager 1 flyby also found the first active volcanoes beyond Earth, the Jovian ring system, and two new moons of Jupiter. However, these images were only the beginning of its discovery.

Voyager 1 went on to visit Saturn and is the most far-flung man-made object. As of this writing, the craft is approximately 21.9 billion kilometers (13.6 billion mi) from our Sun.

6 First Image Of An Interstellar Visitor To Our Solar System

On October 19, 2017, an object (first called 1I/2017 U1) was detected by the Pan-STARRS1 telescope at the University of Hawaii, and this object defied definition. Originally, it was classified as a comet. But when no signs of comet-like activity (for example, no evidence of dust, ice, or water of any sort) were noted, it was reclassified as an asteroid.

However, that didn’t make sense, either. The object was measured to be accelerating as no asteroid would. On top of that, its brightness increased by a factor of 10 as it rotated. This was due to its shape, which was unlike anything ever seen in our solar system. It was long and cylindrical.

What was it?

Further observations determined that this object was not from our solar system. It was the first, and so far only, object confirmed to originate outside the domain of our Sun. A more fitting name was given to it—Oumuamua (pronounced “oh MOO-uh MOO-uh”)—a Hawaiian term meaning “a messenger from afar arriving first.”

Orbital calculations of Oumuamua suggest that it traveled to us by way of what is now the Vega star system. However, when Oumuamua was in that neck of the woods (300,000 years ago), Vega was not there. So its actual point of origin is still a mystery.

The image captured of Oumuamua shows only a tiny glimpse of this visitor. As it passed us, it traveled 315,000 kilometers per hour (196,000 mph), so the telescope capturing its image had to track its movement. This resulted in a picture of a small white dot surrounded by stars that were smeared by the movement of the telescope. An uninspiring picture of a very inspiring traveler.^[5]

5 First Image Of A Comet Hitting A Planet

Shoemaker-Levy 9 was a comet discovered in March 1993 by Eugene and Carolyn Shoemaker and David Levy. This group of veteran trackers had discovered many other comets before this one, but this Shoemaker-Levy comet was something special.

After watching this fuzzy celestial body for some months, it became clear that this was the first comet discovered that did not revolve around our Sun. Instead, it orbited the planet Jupiter. Though it had likely been in orbit there for decades, we found it toward the end of its adventure. A little over a year later, Shoemaker-Levy 9 collided with the planet it orbited.

Between July 16 and July 22, 1994, Shoemaker-Levy 9 broke into 21 distinct fragments that slammed into the surface of Jupiter. At that time, the Galileo spacecraft was en route to Jupiter and too far away to observe the event. But astronomers the world over were watching.

Though the collisions occurred on the far side of Jupiter that was facing away from Earth, the impact site spun into view shortly thereafter. Astronomers were able to get a view of the impact site, sometimes mere minutes after the collisions.

Shoemaker-Levy 9 left massive dark smudges painted over the arch of Jupiter’s surface that lasted for at least a month before being consumed by the planet’s ever-turning storms.^[6]

4 First Image Of An Exoplanet

We’ve always known that there must be planets outside our own solar system. Unlike the massive and luminous stars they orbit, however, these exoplanets are small and dark by comparison. They are difficult to see, even with incredibly powerful telescopes. To view an exoplanet, we needed something even better.

Enter the accurately named Very Large Telescope (VLT) array which consists of four main 8.2-meter-diameter (26.9 ft) telescopes (named Antu, Kueyen, Melipal and Yepun) and four 1.8-meter-diameter (5.9 ft) auxiliary telescopes which could work independently of each other or in unison.

Independently, these mirrors can perceive light four billion times fainter than the naked human eye can. When the equipment works as a team, astronomers can see details 25 times greater than possible with each individual telescope.

Using this incredible piece of technology, the first image of an exoplanet was captured. The technology allowed this history-making photo, although the exoplanet was primed to be discovered because it was truly gigantic.

This exoplanet, which orbits a brown dwarf 230 light-years from us, is five times the size of Jupiter. Although other exoplanets have been found, this was the first one large enough to be directly imaged. As of this writing, over 4,000 exoplanets have been discovered.^[7]

3 First Image Of An Unborn Exomoon

If exoplanets are difficult to find, you can imagine how difficult it is to see an exomoon. But an exomoon in the process of forming may be significantly easier. Using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), astronomers were able to capture an image of a ring of debris around a planet. This is known as a circumplanetary disk.

Unlike the rings around Saturn, which are icy and formed by comets, a circumplanetary disk is created in the same forge as the planet itself. Similar disks have been observed around stars. Called circumstellar disks, they give rise to planets.

This was the first such disk imaged around an exoplanet (or any planet for that matter as no circumstellar disks are in our own solar system). Given time, this disk will coalesce into one or more moons to accompany this new planet.^[8]

2 First Image Of A Black Hole

Black holes are celestial phenomena that have reached almost mythological status because of their mysterious nature and place in pop culture. These objects have so much mass and gravity that it becomes impossible for anything, including light, to escape from their unrelenting gravitational pull.

To capture an image of a black hole is impossible because no light, radio waves, or anything else can escape from its event horizon. So it is more accurate to say that this is the first image of a black hole’s silhouette—a shadow, as it were, of a black hole in contrast to the glowing hot material that it is consuming.

Capturing this image took a team of telescopes working simultaneously. Earlier, we discussed the VLT array and how its many telescopes worked in unison with each other. Capturing the image of a black hole’s silhouette took the same basic approach on a global basis.

A network of telescopes called the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) was put to work. Many telescopes from across the planet were synchronized to look at a single object in space. The two most distant from each other were located in the South Pole and in Spain. The aperture of the EHT was almost the size of the Earth’s diameter.

In total, eight telescopes from around the world were used to capture this image of a supermassive black hole (6.5 billion times more massive than our own Sun) in the center of a galaxy 53 million light-years away.^[9]

1 First Image Of A Survivor After A Supernova

Supernovae are the most powerful explosions known to exist in space. They unleash such terrifying might that a supernova, even at a huge cosmological distance away from us, can still be so bright as to be distinctly visible during daylight.

Recorded in 1054, one such supernova was visible during the day for almost a month and visible at night for almost two years. Sometimes, these explosions happen at the end of a star’s life cycle. Particularly interesting is the Type IIb stripped-envelope supernova which happens when most of a star’s hydrogen is stripped away prior to exploding.

The cause of a Type IIb stripped-envelope supernova?

Many stars exist in pairs or triplets (unlike our Sun which is alone). In such a system, a star can begin eating away at the hydrogen of its partner. This was the case with supernova SN 2001ig, which exploded about 40 million light-years away (and 40 million years ago) in the galaxy NGC 7424.

Over the course of millions of years, a companion star robbed its partner of its outer sheath of hydrogen, which is used to channel energy from the core outward. Without this outer shell, the star became unstable and eventually exploded in a supernova, which scientists on Earth watched.

A decade after the explosion when the light from the blast dimmed, the Hubble Space Telescope was able to capture an image unlike any before it. The picture showed a survivor of a supernova that was also the thief star that had caused its partner to explode in the first place.^[10]

There’s no denying that Alfred Hitchcock has left an indelible mark on the entertainment industry. Known as the “Master of Suspense” with the ability to sell a movie by using his name alone, the man behind classics such as Psycho, The Birds and Rear Window was as unforgettable as his movies. His knack for employing a kind of psychological suspense in his films made him a master at storytelling and keeping audiences at the edge of their seats.

Hitchcock also went to great lengths to ensure his work was enjoyed the way he intended. Marketing materials for Psycho, for example, included the message, “We won’t allow you to cheat yourself. You must see PSYCHO from the very beginning. Therefore, do not expect to be admitted into the theatre after the start of each performance of the picture. We say no one — and we mean no one — not even the manager’s brother, the President of the United States, or the Queen of England (God bless her)!”

On this list are 10 incredible images that prove the man behind the legend was a true master of his craft.

10 Fearsome focus

“The only way to get rid of my fears is to make films about them.” – Alfred Hitchcock?

For a man best known for striking fear into the hearts of audiences the world over, Alfred Hitchcock had some very strange phobias. Some, like his fear of police, more understandable than others. After all, as a young man, Hitchcock was sent to the nearest police station as punishment for some naughty thing or another. Nothing, however, explains his fear of eggs.

“I’m frightened of eggs,” Hitchcock once told an interviewer. “That white round thing without any holes … have you ever seen anything more revolting than an egg yolk breaking and spilling its yellow liquid?”

Blood, he felt, was positively ‘jolly’ by comparison. Which, I think, explains a lot. Above is a rare picture of the highly focused director at the start of his award-winning career.

9 Go big

“There is nothing to winning, really. That is, if you happen to be blessed with a keen eye, an agile mind, and no scruples whatsoever.” – Alfred Hitchcock?

Rear Window is considered by many filmgoers, critics, and scholars to be one of Hitchcock’s best; one of the greatest films ever made. The movie received four Academy Award nominations and was shot entirely on one set which, at the time, was the largest indoor set ever built at Paramount studios. One of the unique features of the set was its massive drainage system, constructed to accommodate the rain sequence in the film. Which came in handy for the next picture on this list …

8 Haha, Hitchcock

“For me, suspense doesn’t have any value if it’s not balanced by humor.” – Alfred Hitchcock

Through his quirky characters, ironic situations, whimsical settings and a complex balance of laughs and tension, the “Master if Suspense” kept his audiences spellbound. Filmmakers who attempt to use Hitchcock’s techniques often overlook the undercurrent of facetious wit in the midst of the tension and horror.

7 Larger than life

“Revenge is sweet and not fattening.” – Alfred Hitchcock?

It’s not only his movie sets that were larger than life. The man himself was at his heaviest in the late 1930s when he weighed over 300 pounds. The picture here was taken in 1942 on the set of Shadow of a Doubt.

6 Come on closer

“Some of our most exquisite murders have been domestic, performed with tenderness in simple, homey places like the kitchen table.” – Alfred Hitchcock?

Dial M For Murder is Hitchcock’s only film to be entirely shot in 3-D. Because of the cumbersome 3-D camera process, Hitchcock commissioned the construction of an enormous, four-foot tall prop telephone and giant fake finger to be used for specific closeup shots.

5 Blonde ambition

“Blondes make the best victims. They’re like virgin snow that shows up the bloody footprints.” – Alfred Hitchcock?

The Master of Suspense had an obvious penchant (or obsession, according to some) for blonde heroines because, as he said, they are less suspicious than brunettes. When a blonde does something deceitful or unexpected, he pertained, it’s a greater shock than when a dark-haired girl does the same.

Some of his most famous blondes include Grace Kelly, Kim Novak (pictured here), Janet Leigh and Tippi Hendren. Hendren, in fact, was one of Hitchcock’s favorite icy blondes. She had a different take on his obsession, though. She even went as far as to call him a sexual predator, a man with a “very weird attitude towards women.”

4 Hands on

“I never said all actors are cattle; what I said was all actors should be treated like cattle.” – Alfred Hitchcock

But apparently, he did.

Kent Jones’ 2015 documentary film Hitchcock/Truffaut revealed some of the most infamous interviews Hitchcock and fellow director François Truffaut. “Actors are cattle,” Hitchcock tells Truffaut, underlining his reputation for giving them no scope but to fulfil his artistic vision. His hands-on approach with Janet Leigh is pictured above.

3 Murderous mischief

“The length of a film should be directly related to the endurance of the human bladder.” – Alfred Hitchcock

Many view Strangers on a Train as a masterpiece of suspenseful storytelling, saying that Hitchcock’s brilliant use of mischief and misdirection makes Strangers on a Train one of his most memorable films.

And though it may sound innocuous, filming the carousel scene was, in truth, really dangerous. The operator had to crawl underneath the whirling carousel with the moving horses just inches from his head. “If the man had raised his head even slightly,” said Hitchcock, “it would have gone from being a suspense film into a horror film.”

It’s not clear whether this image was taken before or after this statement. Is Hitchcock contemplating or reflecting on the near-murder?

2 Game changer

“I have a perfect cure for a sore throat: cut it.” – Alfred Hitchcock

The iconic shower scene in Psycho is not only the central theme from which the entire movie hinges, it is also the entire reason Hitchcock made the movie. “It really was a game changer,” says filmmaker Alexandre O. Philippe, whose 2017 documentary 78/52: Hitchcock’s Shower Scene explores Psycho and its signature scene in depth. The film, released in 1960, seemed to announce to the world that murder was now going to be an acceptable form of entertainment.

In the picture above, Hitchcock directs Leigh in the voyeuristic 45-second scene that required 78 camera set-ups, 52 edits and 7 days of shooting.

1 Creatures great and small

“Always make the audience suffer as much as possible.” – Alfred Hitchcock?

There’s an old saying in Hollywood: you are only as good as your last film. So, in true Hollywood style, it was only to be expected that Hitchcock would follow Psycho with an even greater triumph: The Birds. Also known as the technical marvel against which all creature films are to be measured.

In 1963, Hollywood animal trainer Ray Berwick trained 300 birds for this Hitchcock thriller. From suspending hunks of meat just below the camera lens to wiring shut a gull’s beak for safety reasons, the bird-wrangling crew pulled out all the stops under the watchful eye of the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals and Hitchcock’s creative direction, as seen in this photo.

The Middle East was once thought of as a beautiful and exotic far-away land. But unfortunately for those of us alive in modern times, the term now conjures up images of war, terrorism, subjugation, and suffering. The vivid images of the Islamic Golden Age are now gone, and the exciting fantasies in “One Thousand And One Nights” are but a fading memory.

But those far-away lands still contain much of their original beauty and, in many cases, are building upon it to create some of the most awe-inspiring modern architecture. This list takes a tour around the Middle East focussing entirely on the beauty to be found there. Let’s take the journey together and forget—even if for but a moment—the horrible news reports confronting us daily.

15 Bahrain

Bahrain is the smallest of the Arabian states and was the first to discover petroleum in the 1930s. It is thought by some to be the site of the Garden of Eden. In 2002 women received the right to vote in Bahrain and today its constitution guarantees religious freedom. Homosexuality was legalized in 1976 (for people over 21). The incredible twin-peaked building is the Bahrain World Trade Center.

14 Egypt

Home to the ancient culture so loved by the west, Egypt is now a modern democracy (founded in the 1950s). As evidenced above, there is more to Egypt’s beauty than pyramids! Modern Egyptians are largely descended from post-islamic settlers (mid 600s AD) while the Ancient Egyptian people “[were] most closely related to Neolithic and Bronze Age samples in the Levant, as well as to Neolithic Anatolian and European populations”.^[1]

13 Iran

Iran (Persia in days gone by) means “the land of Aryans” in the Persian (Farsi) language. Iranians have managed (despite frequent invasion from outside) to maintain their identity. Even the Islamization of the country has not managed to eradicate all aspects of its ancient past.

12 Iraq

For many of us, Iraq stands out mostly due to the Gulf Wars. Enormous amounts of damage were sustained by the nation during those wars, but a strong recovery is now underway, though the area is still relatively unstable. Iraq has been a republic since the dissolution of the Iraqi monarchy in 1958.

11 Israel

The very existence of Israel is a great bone of contention for the Islamic population of the Middle East. Despite the might of the surrounding nations, Israel continues to focus on expanding the amount of land it controls. The recent move of the nation’s capital to Jerusalem has not gone down particularly well with many people and there is no telling whether the conflicts in the region will ever be truly resolved.

10 Jordan

Jordan is a constitutional monarchy and the current King is Abdullah II. Home to some incredibly historic sites, Jordan holds the distinction of having discovered the oldest known statues of humans, the Ayn Ghazal statues. Pictured are Petra, the Roman city of Jerash, Jordan Valley Dead Sea, and Wadi Rum, the red desert.

9 Kuwait

Kuwait is a constitutional monarchy governed by an Emir. Until 1961 when it gained independence, Kuwait was a British protectorate. It was the invasion of this small nation in 1990 by Saddam Hussein’s Iraqi military that led to the gulf war.

8 Lebanon

Lebanon is the oldest country name in the world at 4,000 years of age. It has a unique political system called confessionalism in which the parliament is shared by all religions operating in the country. More peculiarly, the president must be a Maronite Christian, the Prime Minister a Sunni Muslim and the Speaker of Parliament a Shiite Muslim. Lebanon has a 40% Christian population—the largest of any Middle Eastern country.

7 Oman

Oman has natural beauty, from the dry Wahiba Sands to the verdant city of Salalah, and historic beauty in the Sultan Qaboos Grand Mosque, and the Nizwa Fort. Oman is one of the oldest inhabited places on earth having been peopled for over 100,000 years. Mountain Dew is the most popular drink in the nation, so much so that Coca Cola products are virtually nowhere to be found. It is also virtually crime-free. Coincidence? I’ll let you decide. Unlike some Islamic nations, alcohol is allowed but you must be licensed to buy it and can spend no more than 10% of your monthly income on it.

6 Qatar

Qatar, like Kuwait, was a British protectorate. Independence was declared in 1971, and from 1995 women were allowed to vote. Qatari men traditionally wear a long white shirt (called a thoub) over white trousers or shorts and women wear a black cloak. The National Museum of Qatar (top image) opening was attended by David and Victoria Beckham and KAWS and Johnny Depp. Homosexuality is illegal in Qatar and punishable by death.

5 Saudi Arabia

Saudi Arabia contains virtually no rivers or lakes but has many wadis which are valleys that fill with water during certain times of the year. Pictured above (third image) is the Kingdom Center which is the third tallest building with a hole in the world. Work is underway to build the Kingdom Tower which will be one kilometer tall (0.62 miles) and the tallest building in the world.

4 Syria

Pictured are the Umayyad Mosque, Citadel in Aleppo, and City of Palmyra before its destruction by ISIS in 2015. There are currently troops from over thirty countries fighting in Syria due to its civil war against ISIS. It is the Syrian war that has led to the migration crisis in Europe.

3 Turkey

Turkey is home to some of the most beautiful places in the world. Troy (of the Trojan wars) is located in Western Turkey and many ancient monuments are to be found there due to its important position in Western history. Its capital (Istanbul) was once Constantinople, the capital of the Roman Empire from 330–395 AD and then the Eastern Roman Empire (Byzantium) to 1453. Pictured above are Cappadocia, Pamukkale, Safranbolu,and Hagia Sophia.

2 United Arab Emirates

United Arab Emirates is a collection of emirates: seven provinces governed by constitutional monarchs called Emirs. The seven emirates are Abu Dhabi, Ajman, Dubai, Fujairah, Ras al-Khaimah, Sharjah, and Umm al-Quwain. Abu Dhabi is the capital city and the federation as a whole is governed by a President who is also the ruler of Abu Dhabi. Additionally, the ruler of Dubai is also the Prime Minister of the Emirates. Confused? Me too.

Seen here are Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque, the amazing Yas Waterworld and the Al Ain Oasis (the first UNESCO world heritage site in United Arab Emirates).

1 Yemen

Pictured here are Socotra, the old town of Sana’a (the capital city), Aden, and Ibb. Socotra is an island with a great variety of alien looking plants and wildlife (as you can see from the picture). It evolved into this bizarre landscape due to being isolated from the African continent six or seven million years ago. It is a UNESCO natural heritage site.

It is very easy for us in the west to ignore life in remote places. We are, particularly these days, so focussed on our social media driven adrenaline shots (and sometimes our jobs I guess) that we simply have no time to pause. It seems the more technology frees up our time, the less of that time we seem to be able to find.

See Also: 60 Stunning Images of The Middle East That Will Make You Forget Its Violent Past

In September I compiled a list of stunning images of the Middle East (linked right above this paragraph) and a reader (“Aman” to be exact) asked for a list on South Asia. Unlike the Middle East which is dominated by Islam, South Asia is a real hodge podge of religions, peoples, and environments. Nevertheless, it still manages to sometimes attract something of a bad name for itself due to unrest in the region (I’m looking at you Pakistan and India!)

But that aside, it is also a magical region of the Asian continent filled with some of the greatest wonders known to man—both natural and manmade. This list looks at a bunch of them, whilst giving a little background on each country. There are actually only eight nations in South Asia, so I have split the two biggest into two items each to give us a total of ten. They are ordered by size: smallest to largest.

10 Maldives

Pictured: Male City, Maldives Resort, Huvafen Fushi, Raffles Maldives, Radisson Blue, Hurawalhi Resort Restaurant

Maldives is the smallest Muslim country in the world. It was part of the British commonwealth from 1982 to 2016 when it withdrew because of criticisms about its bad record with human rights and political corruption. It has a small population of only 390,000 people (Maldivians) descended from the earliest settlers most likely from India and Sri Lanka. The name of the country means Necklace Island.

9 Bhutan

Pictured: Paro Taktsang, Punakha Dzong, Dochula Pass, Thimphu Chorten, Phobjikha Valley x2

First off, if you want to visit the beautiful sights above, you can’t without lots of money. Bhutan is virtually shut to tourists except through expensive state-run tours costing upwards of $250 a day. The name Bhutan means thunder dragon and the same appears on their national flag. Bhutan has a king (Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck) and an elected parliament. The dominant religion is Buddhism with Hinduism a distant second. The country has banned all public use (including sale) of tobacco products and Internet and TV was made legal in 1999. Homosexuality is illegal. Perhaps unique in the world, Bhutan has an official dress code for its citizens which allows easy recognition of social class.

8 Sri Lanka

Pictured: Yala National Park, Dambulla Cave Temple, Sigiriya Fortress, Anuradhapura, Kurunegala Buddha, Polonnaruwa

Sri Lanka was known as Ceylon until it became a republic in 1972. Its recent history has been rather dominated by a 26 year civil war which ended in 2009 when the government forces won against the Tamil Tigers. 70 percent of Sri Lankans are Buddhist with Hinduism second and Roman Catholicism comprising around 7% of the population of roughly 21 million people. Sri Lanka is the oldest continuously Buddhist nation in the world. The government is a semi-presidential republic.

7 Nepal

Pictured: Pokhara, Langtang Valley x2, Nar Phu Valley Trek, Durbar Square, Kathmandu x2

Nepal, the only country with a non-quadrilateral shaped flag, is mostly Hindu with a population of 28 million. It is home to eight of the tallest mountains in the world (including Mount Everest, the highest spot on Earth). The country is, by election, Communist in that its current president (Bidhya Devi Bhandari) was the leader of the Communist party up to her election in 2015.

6 Bangladesh

Pictured: Ratargul Swamp, Paharpur Vihara, Gaur, Barisal Floating Market, Shiva Temple Puthia, Rajbari Palace

Bangladesh is one of the most densely populated countries on earth with a population of 161 million people in an area of 147,570 square kilometres (56,980 square miles). It is the world’s fourth largest Muslim majority nation. Bangladesh is plagued with many problems: genocide, child slavery, terrorism, corruption, and severe pollution due to it being exempt from all international requirements for climate change due to being so impoverished.

5 Afghanistan

Pictured: Mazar-I-Sharif Mosque, Band-I-Amir, Wakhan Corridor, Bamyan, Minaret of Jam, Kabul

Afghanistan is 99.7% Muslim and ranks as one of the worst for terrorism, child labor, and general human misery. Homosexuality is punishable by death and nearly half of journalist deaths (which is common there) were perpetrated by the government. There are a few Western anchors who might want to consider that next time they clutch pearls over being criticized by politicians and independent media in the US. Up to 16% of the nation’s wealth comes from the Opium industry. Fortunately many of the citizens who fled war are beginning to return and they are bringing much needed business development to the country. Perhaps its future will be less bleak as a consequence. Afghanistan’s national sport is Buzkashi in which men on horseback have to score a goal with a goat’s carcass.

4 Pakistan—Nature

Pictured: Hunza Valley, Neelum Valley, Swat, Concordia, Fairy Meadows, Shimshal Lake

Like its neighbor, India, Pakistan is a nuclear power. Conflict between the two nations is ongoing due to religious and cultural differences, with Pakistan being largely Muslim and India Hindu. It is a nation bereft with problems of illiteracy, poverty, terrorism, and corruption. Nevertheless, it is also home (unbeknownst to many) to some of the most beautiful natural landscapes in the world. Pakistan has a population of 200 million people and has a constitutional republican form of government.

3 Pakistan—Man

Pictured: Pakistan Monument, Lahore Fort, Badshahi Mosque, Faisal Mosque, Noor Mahal, Katas Raj Temple

2 India—Nature

Pictured: Loktak Lake, Valley of Flowers, Jaisalmer Sand Dunes, Great Rann of Kutch, Lonar Crater Lake, Borra Caves

India must be considered one of the richest in the world in terms of cultural color and diversity. Its pagan religion is filled with golden icons, exotic animals, epic tales, and mystical wonders. India is home to both the wettest place on earth (Mawsynram) due to the highest rainfall, and the 17th largest desert, the Thar desert. India’s food is as diverse as its landscape with offerings of highly spiced curries to wonderfully subtle sweets. Entire lists could be dedicated to the beautiful locations in this wonderfully mysterious far away land.

1 India—Man

Pictured: Khajuraho Monuments, Jaisalmer City, Akshardham Temple, Taj Mahal, Golden Temple, Meenakshi Amman Temple