28 articles found
Portugal's Oldest Places: A Guide to the Ancient Sites Every Visitor Should See
Portugal is one of the oldest nation-states in Europe — its borders have remained essentially unchanged since 1139 AD — and its physical landscape tells a much longer story. Here are the ancient and historic sites that every visitor seriously interes...
Why Is It Called Budapest? The History Behind the Name of Hungary's Capital
The name Budapest is one of the most immediately logical city names in Europe — and one of the least known in terms of its actual history. The short answer: Budapest was formed in 1873 by the administrative merger of three separate cities: Buda, Óbud...
What Was LoDo? The Remarkable History of Denver's Lower Downtown District
LoDo — Lower Downtown Denver — is the roughly 25-block area bounded by the South Platte River to the west, Larimer Street to the north, 20th Street to the east, and Speer Boulevard to the south. It is today Denver's most densely packed dining and nig...
Denver Union Station: From Wild West Railroad Hub to the Heart of a Modern City
Denver Union Station opened in 1881 and immediately established itself as one of the most important railroad junctions in the American West. At its peak, 80 trains a day passed through its platforms. Today, after a $500 million regeneration, it's the...
Where Americans Loved to Travel in the 1960s
The 1960s were the golden age of American travel. The Interstate Highway System was brand new. Jet passenger service had just become mainstream. America was prosperous, optimistic, and eager to explore. Here's where people actually went — and why it ...
The Church Nightclub Denver: A History of the Most Iconic Venue in the Mile High City
At the corner of East 22nd Avenue and Champa Street in Denver's Capitol Hill neighbourhood stands one of the most visually arresting nightclubs in the United States. The Church — formally styled The Church Nightclub — occupies a late-19th-century Got...
The Odessa Catacombs: Ukraine's Vast Underground World
Every great port city has its secrets. In Ukraine's largest Black Sea city, Odessa, the secrets are buried — literally. Beneath the limestone bluffs and wide boulevards of this famous city lies the largest catacomb network in the world: an estimated ...
Sana'a: Capital of Yemen, Cradle of One of the World's Oldest Cities
At an elevation of 2,300 metres above sea level and with a recorded history stretching back over two and a half millennia, Sana'a is among the most remarkable capital cities in the world. It is the capital of Yemen — a country that sits at the southw...
The Underground Tunnels of Provins: A Medieval World Beneath France
About 77 kilometres southeast of Paris, the medieval market town of Provins rises from the plains of Seine-et-Marne like a perfectly preserved feudal postcard. Its fortified walls, round towers, and timber-framed high streets earned it a place on the...
Canal Street: The Grand Thoroughfare of New Orleans in the 1900s
Canal Street at the turn of the 20th century was one of the most impressive commercial boulevards in the United States. At 171 feet wide — one of the widest streets in the country, a width that required two sets of streetcar rails and still left room...
Laramie, Wyoming in the 1940s: Why People Came — and Why You Should Go Now
Laramie sits at 7,165 feet above sea level on the high plains of southeastern Wyoming, flanked by the Laramie Mountains to the east and the Medicine Bow Range to the west. It is a place of extraordinary open sky, hard winters, and a stubborn frontier...
How People Got Around Los Angeles in the 1940s — And How It Explains Everything About the City Today
Everyone knows Los Angeles as a car city. Five-lane freeways, parking minimums, the 405 at rush hour, the assumption that no one walks anywhere. But this wasn't always the case — and the story of how Los Angeles transformed from one of the world's be...