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Your Weekly Escape

Extraordinary people, discoveries, and places

PHOTOGRAPH BY CHRIS YOUNG, PA/AP

Why do we know so little about the Druids?

Were they peaceful priests or dangerous prophets? Did they worship nature or foment rebellion? The powerful Celtic social class posed a threat to the Roman Empire before being subsumed by Christianity, but their origins remain shrouded in the past.

IMAGE BY SCIENCE HISTORY IMAGES, ALAMY STOCK PHOTO

The U.S. once set off a nuclear bomb in space

It was 1962. Spectators held "watch-the-bomb parties" in Hawaii, and photographers debated the best camera settings for capturing a thermonuclear explosion in outer space. They needn't have bothered: Operation Starfish Prime wasn't exactly subtle.

PHOTOGRAPH BY JEFFREY GUSKY

Many of them didn't survive trench warfare. But their art did.

Stuck underground during the Great War, these soldiers left behind names, images of women, religious symbols, cartoons, and more. See a gallery of this extraordinary art, which remains relatively unknown beyond a circle of World War I scholars and enthusiasts.

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IMAGE BY NIDAY PICTURE LIBRARY / ALAMY STOCK PHOTO

An earthquake lasted 32 years, and scientists want to know how

The slow-motion quake—the longest ever recorded—ended in disaster in 1861. But "it's not just one isolated event in the 1800s," experts warn. "We're seeing this happen right now."

PHOTOGRAPH BY ADAM FERGUSON

Your dog might actually be a genius

But according to a recent study of gifted and talented dogs, these canine Mozarts or Einsteins are likely rare—just like human geniuses.

QUOTE

Our headlamps reveal an extraordinary time capsule of the war: passageways strewn with countless bottles, shoes, shell cases, helmets, beds made of rusted chicken wire, even an entire cooking range with pots and pans still in place.

Evan Hadingham, writer

From: World War I soldiers created underground art in the trenches.

PHOTOGRAPH BY REBECCA HALE

Re-creating 2,000-year-old bread found in Pompeii, post-Vesuvius

The volcanic eruption in A.D. 79 carbonized buildings’ organic contents, including bread loaves. Now a culinary archaeologist has reinvented the recipe.

SUBSCRIBER EXCLUSIVE

PHOTOGRAPH BY JEREMIE SOUTEYRAT, LAIF/REDUX

The secret life of sake, Japan's national obsession

From boisterous bars in Tokyo to bucolic breweries in the hinterlands beyond the capital, sake is intertwined with this island country’s cultural and spiritual life.

MORE GREAT READS

The strange race to track down a missing billion years (BBC) ››

The return of the formal dining room (Washington Post) ››

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