Capuchins' Catacombs located in Palermo, Italy, where there are thousands of corpses lined on the walls like paintings. The catacombs date back to the 1599 when the local priests mummified a holy monk for all to see. They wanted to pray to him after death.
The library collection is the oldest in Switzerland, and is one of earliest and most important monastic libraries in the world. It holds 2,100 manuscripts dating back to the 8th through the 15th centuries, 1,650 incunabula (printed before 1500), and old printed books. The library holds almost 160,000 volumes. The manuscript B of the Nibelungenlied is kept here.
After Admiral Kolchak's White Russian Army abandoned Tomsk and Omsk and fled eastward along the Trans-Siberian Railway, they came to a halt on the shore of Lake Baikal near Irkutsk. With the Red Army in hot pursuit, the White Army had to escape southward to China across the frozen Lake Baikal in sub-zero temperatures. About 30,000 White Army soldiers, their families and all their possessions as well as the Tsar's gold, made their way across the lake toTransbaikalia. As the Arctic winds blew unobstructed across the lake, many in the army and their families froze to death. Their bodies remained frozen on the lake in a kind of tableau throughout the winter of 1919–20. With the advent of spring, the frozen corpses and all their possessions disappeared in 5,000 feet of water.
The Asse II pit is a former salt mine used as a deep geological repository for radioactive waste in the mountain range of Asse in district Wolfenbüttel in Germany.
The Prince Philip Movement is a cargo cult of the Yaohnanen tribe on the southern island of Tanna in Vanuatu. The Yaohnanen believe that Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, the consort to Queen Elizabeth II, is a divine being, the pale-skinned son of a mountain spirit and brother of John Frum. According to ancient tales, the son travelled over the seas to a distant land, married a powerful lady, and would in time return. The villagers had observed the respect accorded to Queen Elizabeth II by colonial officials and came to the conclusion that her husband, Prince Philip, must be the son from their legends.
It is said that at all times there are 36 special people in the world, and that were it not for them, all of them, if even one of them was missing, the world would come to an end.
Project Cybersyn was a Chilean attempt at real-time computer-controlled planned economy in the years 1970–1973 (during the government of president Salvador Allende). It was essentially a network of telex machines that linked factories with a single computer centre in Santiago, which controlled them using principles of cybernetics. The principal architect of the system was British operations research scientist Stafford Beer.
Alfie Atkins is a fictional character created by the author Gunilla Bergström from Sweden in 1972. In the books Alfie experiences many ordinary everyday events that all kids can easily recognize. In his longing to grow up and be a big boy, Alfie often competes with his father on who can manage these events in the best way. Alfie's father is a nice and positive man. Women appear less frequently in the stories: Alfie has an aunt named Fifi and a grandmother, but no mother is present.
Conrad Lycosthenes was an Alsatian humanist and encyclopedist. He belongs among the numerous polyhistors of the 16th century. He mastered Latin and Greek and was particularly fond of curiosities.
A summer capital is a city used as an administrative capital during heat waves. Sadly, the concept is almost extinct, as air-conditioning systems have reduced the need to periodically relocate to a more temperate city. While artificial cooling of indoor air is a more efficient way of dealing with underarm sweat patches, it comes at the expense of the gorgeous extravagance of moving all political activity across the land you are trying to govern. Notable summer capitals include San Sebastián in the northern part of Spain and Palanga, a Lithuanian seaside town.