Romanticism

Pale Male

Pale Male was a red-tailed hawk that resided in and near New York City's Central Park from the 1990s until 2023. Birdwatcher and author Marie Winn gave him his name because of the unusually light coloring of his head. He was one of the first red-tailed hawks known to have nested on a building rather than in a tree and is known for establishing a dynasty of urban-dwelling red-tailed hawks. Each spring, bird watchers would set up telescopes alongside Central Park's Model Boat Pond to observe his nest and chicks at 927 Fifth Avenue.

Dancing elephant helicopter

Some forty years ago, a “flying jumbo“ in royal regalia used to regale spectators gathered at the imposing Rajpath in New Delhi with its deft antics. But this caparisoned jumbo was no ordinary pachyderm. It was a small helicopter, modified to resemble a “dancing elephant“ and flew over the Rajpath during the Republic Day parade.

Cornfield Bomber

The "Cornfield Bomber" is the nickname given to a Convair F-106 Delta Dart, operated by the 71st Fighter-Interceptor Squadron of the United States Air Force. In 1970, during a training exercise, it made an unpiloted landing in a farmer's field in Montana, suffering only minor damage, after the pilot had ejected from the aircraft. From his parachute, the pilot watched incredulously as the now-pilotless aircraft descended and skidded to a halt in a farmer's field near Big Sandy, Montana.

Star Dust Mystery

The passenger manifest for British South American Airlines (BSAA) flight CS-59 might have made a perfect character list for a murder-mystery. Aboard were two businessman friends touring South America on the lookout for trade opportunities: a fun-loving Swiss and a self-made English executive. Also travelling were a Palestinian man who was rumoured to have a diamond stitched into his jacket, and a South American agent of the Dunlop tyre company who had once been the tutor to Prince Michael of Romania. The oldest passenger was in her seventies, a widow of German extraction returning to her Chilean home after an inconvenient World War had unexpectedly extended her stay abroad. And to add a whiff of espionage, a member of a select corps of British civil servants known as King’s Messengers joined the flight, carrying a diplomatic bag bound for the UK embassy across the border. The date was August 2nd, 1947, and the flight was scheduled to depart from Buenos Aires, Argentina, bound for Santiago, Chile. The intrepid voyagers were to fly in the Star Dust, a shiny Lancastrian aircraft derived from the legendary Avro Lancaster World War II bomber. Its aircrew were ex-Royal Air Force to a chap, and the machine was captained by an experienced and decorated wartime flyer named Reginald Cook. Traversing the Andes Mountains in atrocious winter weather was an undertaking that would demand all his knowledge and skills, yet the journey should have been well within the capabilities of both man and machine. The dependable airliner could fly at speeds of 310 miles per hour and at altitudes of well over 20,000 feet— higher than most aircraft of the time and sufficient to clear the tallest peaks in the area. Reginald Cook had been recruited to the airline from the elite RAF Bomber Command Pathfinder Force, and like all BSAA pilots had received additional navigational training. The crew maintained Morse-code radio contact with the ground for the duration of the flight, and just before it was scheduled to arrive they signalled their approach. But then a mysterious signal was received at Santiago airfield—comprising the letters “S-T-E-N-D-E-C”. Aware of no such Morse abbreviation, the radioman at Santiago requested a repeat of the signal, and the same cryptic message was received twice more. This inexplicable message was the last one received from flight CS-59; it answered subsequent signals with silence, and it never arrived at its destination. Mount Tupungato Mount Tupungato An extensive aerial search was mounted, while the Chilean and Argentine armies combed the area on foot. No trace of Star Dust was found. For over fifty years the disappearance ranked as one of the greatest unsolved mysteries of the aviation world, and a lively and inventive mythology grew up around the incident.

Yabusame

Yabusame originated as a way of training samurai in preparation for warfare, but it has always had close connections with Japan’s Shinto religion, and so is usually performed at Shinto shrines. Yabusame itself is very simple. An archer on horseback starts at one end of a roped-off track around 255 metres long, and gallops down it at high speed. Without stopping or slowing down, he fires three arrows in succession, each at one of three wooden targets placed about 70 metres apart on one side of the track.

Elche

In the city of Elche, in Spain, there is a large grove of palm trees that’s the only one of its kind in Europe, and one of the largest palm groves in the world. Elche has more palm trees than people. According to some estimates, there are between 200,000 and 300,000 trees here distributed across hundreds of orchards.

Air racing

Air racing is a highly specialized type of motorsport that involves airplanes or other types of aircraft that compete over a fixed course, with the winner either returning the shortest time, the one to complete it with the most points, or to come closest to a previously estimated time.

Hreinn Fridfinnsson

In 1972, Hreinn Fridfinnsson created gates for the South Wind at a lonely spot on the southern coast of Iceland. He constructed them in such a manner that the South Wind could open the leaves of the gates. On one rainy day, when he had just finished constructing the gates and was taking a photograph of them, the wind blew from the north; the leaves remained closed and the artist never again returned to that place.

Abebe Bikila

Abebe Bikila won the 1960 Summer Olympics marathon, in record time, running barefoot.

Chapel-Oak, Allouville-Bellefosse

In 1669, two priests decided to build a chapel in a 500 years old oak tree made hollow by a lightning bolt. The priests built a small altar to the Virgin Mary. Later on, a second chapel and a staircase were added.

Opus

Encyclopædia of the sublime