Astronomical clocks represent the first real effort at organizing communities around the 24-hour clock, centuries before the Industrial Revolution. There are two clocks that survive in the Czech Republic, both popular tourist attractions, but only one is Communist. Located in the northern facade of the town hall, the Olomouc Astronomical...
August 6, 1928 is Andy Warhol’s birthday. He would have been 86 years old if he was still living life and stuff. Probably his most famous “artwork” (if you can call it that…I’m not much of a fan of pop art, to be honest) is Campbell’s Soup Cans. I’m sure...
Even though there are probably better teapot collections in more conventional places (Europe comes to mind), this one deserves a mention as it is one of the most random. The Teapot Museum in Trenton, Tennessee holds the world’s largest collection of Veilleuse-Theieres porcelain dating from 1750 to 1860. A gynecologist...
I have good news! In 2013 ABBA Museum in Stockholm opened to the public. I think just about everyone loves them, whether you’re like a character in Muriel’s Wedding dressing up in some outlandish costume or one of those music snobs who tells everyone you only listen to the most...
I just learned that there is a Sex Machines Museum in the world. For the sexually unadventurous, a mechanical erotic appliance is defined as a device that is used “to bring pleasure and allow extraordinary and unusual positions during intercourse”. Or something like that. So next time you’re in Prague...
Sorry Gary Lewis & the Playboys, but not everybody loves a clown. Yet apparently someone else besides Gary likes them because there are several clowns museums in existence. We’ve covered them here on the blog before; the Klown Doll Museum in Nebraska, Ortys Clownmuseum in Germany, and Grampa Jerry’s Clown...
Many of the buildings in Lisbon, Portugal are decorated with colourful and intricate tiles known as azulejos, which comes from the Arabic word az-zulayj meaning “polished stone”. So it shouldn’t come as a surprise that the city has a museum dedicated to these tiles called the Museu Nacional do Azulejo,...
October 8, 2019 will the 148th anniversary of the Great Chicago Fire. You might know the story of a cow wrongly accused of burning down the second city’s entire commercial district which resulted in 300 deaths; 100,000 people homeless; 17,500 buildings destroyed; and $222 million in damages (more than $4...
Sometimes children do things they shouldn’t do, like stick weird things up their nose or swallow non-food items. Believe it or not, there is a museum collection at Boston Children’s Hospital full of random stuff removed from young patients going all the way back to 1918. Pushpins tack the objects...
Washington's Birthday is a United States federal holiday celebrated on the third Monday of February in honor of George Washington, the first President of the United States. It's time to learn a few things about the forty-four men who got to call themselves commander-in-chief. Baltimore’s National Museum of Dentistry, an...
