The remarkable story of a woman who preserved over 30 years of TV history

Cactus candy, Amazon burials, and green oysters. Email not displaying correctly? View in your browser. May 01, 2019 Television Archive Between 1975 and 2012, Marion Stokes recorded thousands of hours of television on about 71,000 VHS and Betamax tapes. The cassettes, now sitting in the Internet Archive’s physical storage facility in California waiting to be digitized, are the only comprehensive collection preserving this period in television media history. Read More → Cactus Candy After an Italian immigrant in Arizona helped spark a nationwide craze for cactus candy in the early 20th century, the barrel cactus almost became extinct. Read more → Atlas Obscura Trips Alabama’s Sloss Furnaces Join us on a five-day workshop this August for a deep dive into image composition, exposure, and black and white photography as we explore the imposing industrial remains of the historic Sloss Furnaces after dark, camera in hand. Learn more → Amazon Burials In the Llanos de Moxos region of the Amazon rainforest in northern Bolivia, a team of researchers may have found one of the oldest burial sites ever discovered in southwest Amazonia. The graves are estimated to be more than 6,000 years old. Read More → Green Oysters North Carolina is home to green oysters, a product of equally vibrant algae in the state’s waters. For decades, diners didn’t care to try green seafood. But thanks to local chefs and oyster harvesters, they’ve begun to be seen as a delicacy rather than trash. Read more → ŚWIDNICA, POLAND Peace Church One of Europe's largest timber-framed churches, this centuries-old wooden wonder was built in less than a year and takes its unusual name from the international peace treaty that ultimately paved the way for its creation. Read more → Wheeling, West Virginia Sweeney Punch Bowl The five-foot tall and 225-pound Sweeney punch bowl adorned a grave for 75 years before becoming the shining star of a West Virginia glass museum. Read more → From our friends at Quartz Saving the Banana The destructive Panama disease is wiping out banana plants and threatening the $44 billion industry. Scientists are scrambling to save the banana—but history tells us it can be done. Read more → Visit AtlasObscura.com · View in Browser · Unsubscribe · See All Newsletters 61 Greenpoint Ave #622, Brooklyn, NY 11222