That Wonderful Summer
On July 4, 1988, FIFA awarded the 1994 World Cup to the United States. At the time, there was no top-flight professional league in the U.S., and it had been 38 years since the country had participated in a World Cup. As a condition for awarding the tournament, FIFA required the United States to create a new professional league.
The Curse Of The Ship Of Gold
How Tommy Thompson, a brilliant scientist, went from discovering a mother lode of treasure at the bottom of the sea to fleeing from authorities with suitcases full of cash.
The Forgotten Tiger King Of Harlem
Antoine Yates spent three years living peacefully inside his New York City apartment with his ‘roommate’ — a 450-pound Siberian tiger named Ming. Until, that is, Ming’s animal instincts kicked in and he mauled Yates in the middle of their kitchen.
The Doomsday Glacier
Thwaites Glacier in West Antarctica is so remote that only 28 human beings have ever set foot on it. In the farthest reaches of Antarctica, a nightmare scenario of crumbling ice – and rapidly rising seas – could spell disaster for a warming planet.
Real Estate For The Apocalypse: My Journey Into A Survival Bunker
Doomsday luxury accommodation is a booming business, offering customers a chance to sit out global pandemics and nuclear wars in comfort – as long as they have the money to pay for it.
How Vacation Became Just Another Thing We’re Working On
Something’s up with retreats. Isn’t this supposed to be the age of burnout? Don’t people deny themselves vacation days and spend all their leisure time working on their side-hustles? How are retreats so popular when regular, no-frills relaxation is elusive for so many people? Maybe retreats are the future of vacations.
How TripAdvisor Changed Travel
The world’s biggest travel site has turned the industry upside down – but now it is struggling to deal with the same kinds of problems that are vexing other tech giants like Facebook, Google and Twitter. The future of TripAdvisor and similar enterprises seems less certain than it once did.
How Space Tries To Kill You And Make You Ugly
Outer space is the most noxious of substances: devoid of air and filled with a soup of deadly particles in the form of high-energy photons and energetic bits of atomic nuclei. The lack of gravity there affects every element of your being, as even the proteins in your body can’t figure out which way is up.
“It’s Bullshit”, Inside The Weird, Get-Rich-Quick World Of Dropshipping
In Bali, western immigrants are selling products they’ve never handled, from countries they’ve never visited, to consumers they’ve never met. Welcome to the world of dropshipping. Dropshipping is a “fulfillment” method.
Rising Tides, Troubled Waters: The Future Of Our Ocean
Ninety percent of the large fish that were here in the 1950s are now gone. One metric ton of plastic enters the ocean every four seconds. But the biggest problem, thanks largely to our insatiable appetite for fossil fuels, is that the ocean is heating up fast.
Inside The Failure Of Google+, A Very Expensive Attempt To Unseat Facebook
Create a social network or risk everything. That was the original pitch for Google’s Facebook rival, Google+, a refrain hammered over and over by the social network’s chief architect, Vic Gundotra, in meetings with the company’s top brass.
How Mormons Built The Next Silicon Valley While No One Was Looking
Unglamorous, rapidly scalable businesses that play into a theme investors affectionately refer to as “the consumerization of enterprise.” Unsurprisingly, most of these companies are also headed by a young, white, Mormon guy.
Underground Photos From New York’s Seediest Years
The “Poet of Radical Photography”, Miron Zownir, captures the provocative energy and aggressive hedonism of New York City in the 80s.
What Ever Happened To Waterbeds?
After a heyday in the late 1980s in which nearly one out of every four mattresses sold was a waterbed mattress, the industry dried up in the 1990s, leaving behind a sense of unfilled promise and thousands upon thousands of unsold vinyl shells.
100 Years Ago In Photos: A Look Back At 1919
A century ago, the Treaty of Versailles was signed, as much of the world was still recovering from the devastation of World War I. Rebuilding was just beginning, refugees were returning home, orphans were being cared for, and a global influenza outbreak was being battled.
Larry Krasner’s Lonely, Radical Crusade To Solve America’s Gun Problem
Unlike traditional prosecutors, Krasner does not measure success by accumulating convictions and toting up lengthy prison sentences. Instead, he has promised to address abuses by the criminal justice system and imprison fewer people for less time. And he thinks all of that can drive down gun crime.
Everything You Know About Obesity Is Wrong
Nearly half of 3- to 6- year old girls say they worry about being fat. For decades, the medical community has ignored mountains of evidence to wage a cruel and futile war on fat people, poisoning public perception and ruining millions of lives. It’s time for a new paradigm.
History Remembers These People, Just Not Their Names
Throughout history, people have made a name for themselves without anyone actually knowing their name, from the protestor who stood up to a tank in Tiananmen Square in 1989, to notorious successful hijacker D.B. Cooper (almost certainly not his real name).
How A Volcano In Hawaii Became A Battleground For Astronomy
Native Hawaiians are protecting the mountain of Maunakea, at the heart of Hawaii’s Big Island, from the construction of the Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT) at its summit, where the facility would join venerable observatories like the twin Keck domes and NASA’s Infrared Telescope Facility.
Inside X, Google’s Top-Secret Moonshot Factory
Within Alphabet, Google’s parent company, it is grouped alongside Deepmind in “Other Bets”, although in that metaphor, X is more like the gambler. Its stated aim is to pursue what it calls “moonshots” – to try to solve humanity’s great problems by inventing radical new technologies.
The Case Of The Empty Frames Remains Art World’s Biggest Mystery
What happened at the Gardner Museum has become the most famous art heist ever, not only because of the money involved—$500 million, making it the largest art theft in history—but also because of the countless FBI agents, private detectives and art dealers who’ve tried and failed to solve it.