Portrait of a male author with glasses standing against a concrete wall, wearing a green shirt and jacket.

Edward C.

Baikonur Cosmodrome: The Secret Spaceport That Hid Rocketry's Worst Disaster

Baikonur gave humanity the stars. It also buried rocketry's worst disaster for 29 years — and lied about its own name.

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Relive the global tension of the Cold War. Documenting the Iron Curtain, nuclear bunkers, and the geopolitical standoff that divided the world.

Vilnius Genocide Museum: The KGB Prison That Erased Lithuanians

Vilnius Genocide Museum: The KGB Prison That Erased Lithuanians

For fifty years the Soviet KGB tortured and shot Lithuanians in this Vilnius basement — about 1,000 killed in a room marked 'kitchen.'

Portrait of a female author standing against a brick wall, wearing a green jacket and grey shirt.

McMurdo Station: Antarctica's Largest Settlement and the Nuclear Reactor It Buried at the Bottom of the World

Antarctica's largest base ran on a leaking nuclear reactor for a decade — until cleaning it up forced the U.S. to ship a contaminated mountain home.

Teufelsberg: The American Spy Dome on Top of 75 Million Cubic Yards of Buried Berlin

Eighty meters of broken Berlin cover a Nazi building the Allies couldn't destroy. The Americans put a listening station on top.

Menwith Hill: The Largest American Spy Base on British Soil

The British government has refused to publicly discuss what happens at Menwith Hill for seventy years. Edward Snowden forced part of the answer into the open.

Edward C.

Semipalatinsk: The Soviet Nuclear Polygon That Poisoned a Million People in Secret

Tragedies & Disasters

Semipalatinsk: The Soviet Nuclear Polygon That Poisoned a Million People in Secret

The Soviet Union detonated 456 nuclear bombs on the Kazakh steppe while 1.5 million people lived downwind. A secret clinic studied them instead of warning them.

Beelitz-Heilstätten: Germany's Largest Abandoned Sanatorium That Treated Hitler and the Soviet Army

The German sanatorium that healed Hitler in 1916, hid Honecker in 1991, and held a closed Soviet city in the pines for 50 years — still standing in the forest.

Željava Air Base: Tito's $6 Billion Underground Fortress That Its Own Army Destroyed

The $6 billion underground airbase built to survive a nuclear strike — destroyed in three days by the army that spent 35 years defending it.

Uranium City: Canada's Atomic Ghost Town on the Edge of the World

Canada built a model city in the subarctic to mine uranium for the Cold War. On December 3, 1981, a man in a corporate jet told 5,000 people it was over.

Portrait of a male author wearing a cap and backpack, smiling with a city skyline at sunset in the background.

The 38th Parallel: The Most Militarized Border on Earth

Two colonels, one map, thirty minutes — and Korea was split in half. The story of the line that started a war, killed millions, and still divides a nation today.

Pyramiden: The Soviet Utopia at the Edge of the World

Why does the world’s northernmost grand piano sit silent in the freezing High Arctic? Step inside Pyramiden, the abandoned Soviet "utopia" on Svalbard where time stopped in 1998.

Sillamäe: The Soviet Nuclear City That Vanished from Every Map

For 43 years, a city on Estonia's coast didn't appear on any map. Its residents couldn't say where they lived. Now it's one of the strangest places in the EU.

Narva: The Most Russian City in the European Union

An Estonian city where 96% speak Russian, a third hold Russian passports, and Moscow runs separatist campaigns to tear it from NATO. The story of Narva.

Vozrozhdeniya Island (Aralsk-7): The Soviet Union's Secret Bioweapons Lab

Discover Aralsk-7, the secret Soviet lab that tested anthrax, plague, and smallpox on a vanishing Aral Sea island.

Camp Century: The Secret U.S. Nuclear Base Rising from Greenland’s Ice

Explore the dark history of Camp Century, a secret US nuclear city buried under Greenland's ice. Discover how climate change is unearthing a Cold War toxic legacy.

The Nevada Test Site: The Most Bombed Place on Earth

928 nuclear blasts. 800 man-made craters. One poisoned desert. Step inside the Nevada Test Site, the world’s most irradiated workspace.

Sophia R.

Trending Now

These articles draw the greatest curiosity and attention.

Baikonur Cosmodrome: The Secret Spaceport That Hid Rocketry's Worst Disaster

The Cold War

Vilnius Genocide Museum: The KGB Prison That Erased Lithuanians

McMurdo Station: Antarctica's Largest Settlement and the Nuclear Reactor It Buried at the Bottom of the World

Teufelsberg: The American Spy Dome on Top of 75 Million Cubic Yards of Buried Berlin

Menwith Hill: The Largest American Spy Base on British Soil

Semipalatinsk: The Soviet Nuclear Polygon That Poisoned a Million People in Secret

Beelitz-Heilstätten: Germany's Largest Abandoned Sanatorium That Treated Hitler and the Soviet Army

Željava Air Base: Tito's $6 Billion Underground Fortress That Its Own Army Destroyed

Uranium City: Canada's Atomic Ghost Town on the Edge of the World

The 38th Parallel: The Most Militarized Border on Earth

Pyramiden: The Soviet Utopia at the Edge of the World

Sillamäe: The Soviet Nuclear City That Vanished from Every Map

Narva: The Most Russian City in the European Union

Vozrozhdeniya Island (Aralsk-7): The Soviet Union's Secret Bioweapons Lab

Camp Century: The Secret U.S. Nuclear Base Rising from Greenland’s Ice

The Nevada Test Site: The Most Bombed Place on Earth

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Danvers State Hospital: The Birthplace of the Lobotomy and the Inspiration behind Arkham Asylum

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