Top Hackernews posts from www.atlasobscura.com

1. A brief history of the U.S. trying to add backdoors into encrypted data (2016) (www.atlasobscura.com)
   550 points by whatever3 8 months ago | 193 comments
2. A street snack that has baffled botanists (www.atlasobscura.com)
   484 points by periya about 3 years ago | 194 comments
3. The origins of ‘horn ok please,’ India’s most ubiquitous phrase (2016) (www.atlasobscura.com)
   353 points by tontonius almost 3 years ago | 365 comments
4. People in 1920s Berlin nightclubs flirted via pneumatic tubes (2017) (www.atlasobscura.com)
   321 points by jakobdabo about 1 year ago | 125 comments
5. An ancient method that keeps Afghanistan's grapes fresh all winter (www.atlasobscura.com)
   295 points by CapitalistCartr over 3 years ago | 149 comments
6. The Humble Brilliance of Italy's Moka Coffee Pot (2018) (www.atlasobscura.com)
   294 points by BerislavLopac almost 3 years ago | 308 comments
7. Appalachian Apple hunter who rescued 1k ‘lost’ varieties (2021) (www.atlasobscura.com)
   277 points by mooreds over 1 year ago | 87 comments
8. The humble brilliance of Italy's moka coffee pot (2018) (www.atlasobscura.com)
   272 points by BerislavLopac 8 months ago | 252 comments
9. For centuries, English bakers’ biggest customers were horses (www.atlasobscura.com)
   271 points by pepys about 2 years ago | 120 comments
10. Soviet children’s books became collectors’ items in India (www.atlasobscura.com)
    244 points by Thevet over 3 years ago | 102 comments
11. ‘Perpetual broths’ that simmer for decades (www.atlasobscura.com)
    241 points by drdee almost 2 years ago | 173 comments
12. Why we picture bombs as round black balls with a burning wick (2016) (www.atlasobscura.com)
    235 points by leohonexus almost 3 years ago | 185 comments
13. A Swedish skier was basically frozen, but lived (2016) (www.atlasobscura.com)
    223 points by Anon84 over 2 years ago | 130 comments
14. India’s “plantain man” has traveled widely to collect unusual banana varieties (www.atlasobscura.com)
    220 points by fortran77 over 3 years ago | 78 comments
15. Cincinnati is home to the largest unused subway system in the world (2016) (www.atlasobscura.com)
    203 points by respinal over 3 years ago | 223 comments
16. The saga of the cannibal ants in a Soviet nuclear bunker (2019) (www.atlasobscura.com)
    200 points by mkotowski almost 3 years ago | 49 comments
17. A 'scam manual' written to help immigrants not become victims (www.atlasobscura.com)
    196 points by BerislavLopac 7 months ago | 135 comments
18. Tuned Mass Damper of Taipei 101 (www.atlasobscura.com)
    195 points by warent about 2 years ago | 82 comments
19. Slovenia’s beautiful beehives turn apiaries into art (www.atlasobscura.com)
    191 points by Thevet 12 months ago | 30 comments
20. The once-extinct aurochs may soon roam Europe again (www.atlasobscura.com)
    190 points by CapitalistCartr over 2 years ago | 147 comments
21. How the Commodore Amiga powered cable systems in the 90s (www.atlasobscura.com)
    187 points by rbanffy over 3 years ago | 71 comments
22. Butterflies Full of Wasps Full of Microwasps Are a Science Nightmare (2021) (www.atlasobscura.com)
    171 points by nxobject 6 months ago | 98 comments
23. The Real-World Locations of 14 Sci-Fi Dystopias (2014) (www.atlasobscura.com)
    170 points by BerislavLopac 7 months ago | 77 comments
24. A self-trained Italian blacksmith built himself an amusement park (www.atlasobscura.com)
    167 points by abrax3141 about 2 years ago | 41 comments
25. How did the chess pieces get their names? (www.atlasobscura.com)
    162 points by Brajeshwar over 1 year ago | 78 comments
26. A broken man's homemade, seaworthy ship rests in the Canadian prairie (2015) (www.atlasobscura.com)
    150 points by cwillu over 1 year ago | 60 comments
27. Cities with their own psychological disorders (www.atlasobscura.com)
    150 points by l3x about 1 year ago | 118 comments
28. Sri Lanka’s ancient, almost lost martial art (www.atlasobscura.com)
    148 points by samizdis about 3 years ago | 110 comments
29. Are the Great Lakes really inland seas? (www.atlasobscura.com)
    148 points by sohkamyung over 2 years ago | 217 comments
30. Food Grammar: Unspoken rules of cuisine (www.atlasobscura.com)
    148 points by pseudolus over 3 years ago | 126 comments
31. Malaysia Has Turned Lion Dancing into a Gravity-Defying Extreme Sport (www.atlasobscura.com)
    147 points by clockworksoul over 3 years ago | 23 comments
32. The Last Mustard Maker in Dijon (www.atlasobscura.com)
    147 points by bookofjoe over 1 year ago | 110 comments
33. When did dogs become our best friends? (www.atlasobscura.com)
    146 points by diodorus 6 months ago | 229 comments
34. Null Island is one of the most visited places on Earth, and it doesn’t exist (www.atlasobscura.com)
    141 points by pncnmnp over 1 year ago | 87 comments
35. The strangely successful history of people mailing themselves in boxes (2015) (www.atlasobscura.com)
    139 points by IAmGraydon over 2 years ago | 112 comments
36. Poland’s ‘anti-vampire’ graves (www.atlasobscura.com)
    139 points by Vigier about 1 year ago | 121 comments
37. Poe’s best-selling book during his lifetime was a guide to seashells (www.atlasobscura.com)
    138 points by pseudolus over 3 years ago | 38 comments
38. How A Bedouin Tracker Sees the Desert (www.atlasobscura.com)
    138 points by Thevet about 2 years ago | 59 comments
39. The valley of the cheese of the dead (www.atlasobscura.com)
    138 points by AaronM 9 months ago | 18 comments
40. Remembering When Only Barbarians Drank Milk (2018) (www.atlasobscura.com)
    137 points by miduil about 3 years ago | 105 comments
41. Plants, heavy metals, and the lingering scars of World War I (www.atlasobscura.com)
    137 points by bcaulfield about 3 years ago | 55 comments
42. The Alternate Universe of Soviet Arcade Games (2015) (www.atlasobscura.com)
    136 points by SerCe about 3 years ago | 45 comments
43. A 13th-century Arabic cookbook reveals the culinary life of al-Andalus (www.atlasobscura.com)
    135 points by apollinaire 8 months ago | 23 comments
44. Reconstructing the Menu of a Pub in Ancient Pompeii (www.atlasobscura.com)
    134 points by diodorus over 3 years ago | 22 comments
45. The Gates of Hell (www.atlasobscura.com)
    133 points by joak over 2 years ago | 65 comments
46. The Echidna Is Australia’s Most Delightfully Different Mammal (www.atlasobscura.com)
    132 points by sohkamyung about 2 years ago | 44 comments
47. Sul Ross Desk (www.atlasobscura.com)
    131 points by benbreen 6 months ago | 13 comments
48. The most radioactive spot in New York City can also fix your muffler (www.atlasobscura.com)
    130 points by jaboutboul over 1 year ago | 49 comments
49. 'Glacier mice' baffle scientists (www.atlasobscura.com)
    126 points by janandonly 9 months ago | 28 comments
50. Sauce that survived Italy’s war on pasta (www.atlasobscura.com)
    125 points by prismatic over 1 year ago | 128 comments
51. The fight between cataphiles and police in the Paris catacombs (www.atlasobscura.com)
    125 points by dave1010uk 11 months ago | 42 comments
52. The mysterious dodecahedrons of the Roman Empire (www.atlasobscura.com)
    124 points by diodorus over 1 year ago | 100 comments
53. Zwentendorf Nuclear Power Plant: Finished in 1978 but never used (www.atlasobscura.com)
    124 points by onnimonni 4 months ago | 143 comments
54. The Masters pimento cheese sandwich scandal (www.atlasobscura.com)
    122 points by ecliptik over 3 years ago | 85 comments
55. A blue mineral that grows on buried bodies and confuses archaeologists (2016) (www.atlasobscura.com)
    121 points by mmastrac 5 months ago | 74 comments
56. The curious case of Norway’s demon wall (2021) (www.atlasobscura.com)
    119 points by Petiver almost 2 years ago | 28 comments
57. The cyanide tooth is a cold war fairy-tale (2018) (www.atlasobscura.com)
    118 points by paulpauper almost 2 years ago | 146 comments
58. Most states start school too early in the morning (www.atlasobscura.com)
    116 points by jseliger 9 months ago | 206 comments
59. What Does the Title ‘Esquire’ Mean, Anyway? (www.atlasobscura.com)
    115 points by pseudolus over 3 years ago | 172 comments
60. The 1980s Media Panic over Dungeons and Dragons (2016) (www.atlasobscura.com)
    114 points by jedwhite over 2 years ago | 156 comments
61. When Every Ketchup but One Went Extinct (www.atlasobscura.com)
    114 points by dynm about 2 years ago | 120 comments
62. John Muir's Alarm Clock Desk (www.atlasobscura.com)
    114 points by cratermoon about 2 years ago | 13 comments
63. A librarian and a food historian rediscovered the recipes of Moorish Spain (www.atlasobscura.com)
    113 points by benbreen almost 3 years ago | 36 comments
64. The U.S. Army tried portable nuclear power at remote bases 60 years ago (www.atlasobscura.com)
    111 points by bcaulfield about 3 years ago | 151 comments
65. Why Japan's rail workers can't stop pointing at things (2017) (www.atlasobscura.com)
    111 points by tosh over 2 years ago | 50 comments
66. A cartographer drew a freehand map of North America (2019) (www.atlasobscura.com)
    111 points by Tomte 9 months ago | 46 comments
67. Qurt: The ancient road snack of Central Asian nomads (www.atlasobscura.com)
    110 points by CapitalistCartr over 3 years ago | 30 comments
68. When the CIA spied on American citizens using pigeons (www.atlasobscura.com)
    109 points by prismatic over 1 year ago | 69 comments
69. Digging through the archives of Scarfolk (www.atlasobscura.com)
    109 points by worik over 2 years ago | 33 comments
70. Iberian Citadel of Calafell, Iron Age Village (www.atlasobscura.com)
    108 points by CapitalistCartr over 3 years ago | 31 comments
71. A farmer’s hunch led to a lost monastery and a Neolithic surprise (www.atlasobscura.com)
    108 points by pepys about 2 years ago | 27 comments
72. Italian streets that don't exist on any map (2022) (www.atlasobscura.com)
    108 points by fanf2 3 months ago | 39 comments
73. Thomas Edison's Concrete Houses (www.atlasobscura.com)
    107 points by adrian_mrd 11 months ago | 87 comments
74. The world’s largest bee and the cautionary tale of its rediscovery (www.atlasobscura.com)
    106 points by Petiver over 2 years ago | 29 comments
75. India’s Mini-Craze for Bicycling Around the World (www.atlasobscura.com)
    105 points by CapitalistCartr over 3 years ago | 48 comments
76. The Great Hanoi Rat Massacre of 1902 Did Not Go as Planned (2017) (www.atlasobscura.com)
    105 points by turtlegrids over 3 years ago | 85 comments
77. In the 1800s, Jersey Island Was Covered With 12-Foot-Tall Kale (www.atlasobscura.com)
    105 points by netgusto over 2 years ago | 61 comments
78. Women Who Ran Genghis Khan’s Empire (www.atlasobscura.com)
    105 points by bryanrasmussen over 2 years ago | 105 comments
79. Volkswagen Originalteil (www.atlasobscura.com)
    105 points by CaptainZapp almost 2 years ago | 92 comments
80. The Beautiful Network of Ancient Roman Roads (2015) (www.atlasobscura.com)
    104 points by wglb over 2 years ago | 41 comments
81. Spotted water hemlock: the most toxic plant in North America (2017) (www.atlasobscura.com)
    104 points by PaulHoule 8 months ago | 132 comments
82. One of the most famous Victorian dishes is a hilarious lie (www.atlasobscura.com)
    103 points by pepys over 2 years ago | 83 comments
83. World War I dangers in France's red zones (www.atlasobscura.com)
    103 points by sohkamyung 5 months ago | 64 comments
84. The Kakhovka Dam Disaster Revealed an Archaeological ‘Goldmine’ (www.atlasobscura.com)
    103 points by Brajeshwar 12 months ago | 98 comments
85. How Early Megacities Emerged from the Jungles of Cambodia (www.atlasobscura.com)
    102 points by pseudolus over 3 years ago | 15 comments
86. Antarctic Explorers Wrote Cute, Funny Stories to Hide Dangerous Stunts (www.atlasobscura.com)
    102 points by Brajeshwar 6 months ago | 27 comments
87. Paris's Catacomb Mushrooms (2017) (www.atlasobscura.com)
    101 points by jihadjihad 4 months ago | 46 comments
88. The Quest to Recreate a Lost and 'Terrifying' Medieval Mead (www.atlasobscura.com)
    98 points by rwmj 11 months ago | 39 comments
89. Europe fell in love with long pepper before black pepper (2016) (www.atlasobscura.com)
    97 points by Petiver over 3 years ago | 41 comments
90. The quest to recreate a lost and ‘terrifying’ medieval mead (www.atlasobscura.com)
    97 points by kwhitefoot about 3 years ago | 76 comments
91. Cows Destroyed an Entire Marine Ecosystem in California (www.atlasobscura.com)
    97 points by Caiero over 1 year ago | 79 comments
92. Elite Romans decorated their floors with garbage (www.atlasobscura.com)
    96 points by ivanech about 3 years ago | 40 comments
93. Ghost subway station in Paris where films come to life (www.atlasobscura.com)
    96 points by CaptainZapp over 3 years ago | 17 comments
94. Does this medieval fresco show a hallucinogenic mushroom in the Garden of Eden? (www.atlasobscura.com)
    95 points by prismatic about 3 years ago | 106 comments
95. The perils and pleasures of bartending in Antarctica (2017) (www.atlasobscura.com)
    95 points by zdw 9 months ago | 26 comments
96. Vietnam’s ancient whale temples (www.atlasobscura.com)
    94 points by Petiver almost 2 years ago | 13 comments
97. In medieval Germany, a “schandmaske” was a punishment for social transgression (www.atlasobscura.com)
    94 points by Vigier over 1 year ago | 53 comments
98. Researchers are studying the cooking traditions of the FARC (www.atlasobscura.com)
    93 points by samizdis about 3 years ago | 15 comments
99. The lost saga of Fossil Cycad National Monument (2017) (www.atlasobscura.com)
    93 points by robg about 1 year ago | 69 comments
100. The harrowing journey to Elephant Island by Ernest Shackleton and Endurance crew (www.atlasobscura.com)
     90 points by CapitalistCartr over 2 years ago | 44 comments