‘Haint blue’ and 7 more of our most-read stories this month

A dino-size mystery, precariously balanced rocks, and more. Email not displaying correctly? View in your browser. January 31, 2020 ‘Haint Blue’ In the Lowcountry of South Carolina and Georgia, the color "haint blue" had the power to protect enslaved Africans and their descendants from evil spirits. But it was also the source of their unspeakable suffering. Read More → The Rise and Fall of Kowloon Walled City The most densely populated city on Earth—a Chinese enclave within British Hong Kong—was anarchic, self-regulating and self-determining. It was a colony within a colony, a city within a city, a tiny block of territory at once contested and neglected. It was known as Kowloon Walled City. But locals called it something else: Hak Nam—the City of Darkness. Read more → Atlas Obscura Trips New Orleans: Music and Reinvention Beyond the Quarter This spring, we’re tracing the roles that music has played in New Orleans. Go beyond the Quarter and join us for a four-day exploration of the city’s rich soundscape. We’ll even get to meet the famous musician Guitar Lightnin’ Lee, the prince of New Orleans rhythm and blues. Learn more → Solved: A Dino-Size Mystery For the last century or so there has been a paleontological debate surrounding a single, pointy-toothed dinosaur skull that came out of the Montana rock in 1942. It looked a lot like that most famous of dinos, Tyrannosaurus rex, except much smaller. So what exactly is it? Read more → Falling for Rocks In a way, the mere existence of Balanced Rock—a 290-million-year-old red sandstone boulder naturally perched on a sloped ledge in Garden of the Gods Park—seems like a prank. But some scientists have devoted their lives to studying these enormous, silly rocks. Read more → Capturing Birds in Flight Dark, sinuous lines floating in a blue sky seem straight out of sci-fi or fantasy, but in reality, they’re dozens of cranes flying at Gallocanta Lake in Spain. Read more → 30 Spectacular Spirals From the symbols carved into a Neolithic tomb in Ireland to a dazzling staircase in a lavish 16th-century mansion, here are 30 wondrous whorls sure to set your head spinning. Read more → Nordic Walrus Hunting A new study suggests that the insatiable Norse demand for ivory is what may have done the Greenland Vikings in. Read more → New Life in an Undrowned Town In the 1950s, a new dam was going to inundate the tiny village of Celles in southern France. The residents were evicted and the dam went up, but the water stopped short of the town. Now new families are moving into ruins, and the once-abandoned village is becoming an experiment in communal living. Read more → Visit AtlasObscura.com · View in Browser · Unsubscribe · See All Newsletters 61 Greenpoint Ave #622, Brooklyn, NY 11222