Aleutian Islands
The Aleutian Islands are a chain of more than 300 small volcanic islands forming part of the Aleutian Arc in the Northern Pacific Ocean.
Arapaima
The arapaima is a South American freshwater fish. It is a living fossil and one of the largest freshwater fishes in the world. Because the arapaima produces large, boneless steaks, it is considered a delicacy. Commercial fishing of the arapaima has been banned by the Brazilian government.
African Wild Dog
The African wild dog typically roams the open plains and sparse woodlands of sub-Saharan Africa. These long-legged canines have only four toes per foot, unlike other dogs, which have five toes on their forefeet.
Abe Hirschfeld
Abe Hirschfeld was a Polish-born New York real estate developer known for his eccentric endeavors, love for publicity, $2 neckties, strong Yiddish accent, and murder-for-hire plot against a former business partner.
Albert C. Barnes
Albert C. Barnes was an American inventor and art collector. With the fortune made from the development of the antiseptic drug Argyrol, he founded the Barnes Foundation, a museum created from his private collection of art. Barnes was known as an eccentric, larger-than-life figure who had a passion for educating the underprivileged. He created a special relationship with Lincoln University, a historically black college in the area.
À la Belle Poule
The Belle Poule was a French frigate of the Dédaigneuse class, designed and built by Léon-Michel Guignace, famous for her duel with the English frigate HMS Arethusa on 17 June 1778, which began the French involvement in the American War of Independence. One of the most fashionable hairstyles of the eighteenth century, À la Belle Poule, commemorated the victory of a French ship over an English ship in 1778. À la Belle Poule featured an enormous pile of curled and powdered hair stretched over a frame affixed to the top of a woman's head. The hair was then decorated with an elegant model of the Belle Poule ship, including sails and flags.
Apicius
Apicius is the title of a collection of Roman cookery recipes, usually thought to have been compiled in the late 4th or early 5th century AD. the recipes are geared for the wealthiest classes and a few contain what were exotic ingredients at that time, e.g. flamingo.
Apsley Cherry-Garrard
Born on this day in 1886, the explorer was only in his twenties when in 1910 he volunteered to go to the Antarctic with explorer Robert Falcon Scott and his men. Their mission: to be first to make it to the South Pole. That expedition did not go as planned—at all. But it led to the writing of his book, which chronicled his adventure seeking emperor penguin embryos and of being a part of the search party that found the body of Scott and his two companions, Lt. Henry Bowers and Edward A. Wilson, the expedition’s chief scientist.
Angel Falls
The height of the fall is so great that before getting anywhere near the ground, much of the water is evaporated or carried away as a fine mist by the strong wind.
Ada Blackjack
Ada Blackjack was an Iñupiat woman who lived for two years as a castaway on uninhabited Wrangel Island north of Siberia. She never asked for adventure, but it found her nonetheless. By 1921, the young Iñupiat woman found herself widowed with a young son. In order to earn money to care for him, she joined a dangerous expedition to a frozen island north of Siberia. After two tragic years, she was alone once more, trapped with ferocious bears amid a sea of ice.