History

The Dodge Challenger has become a huge hit with MOPAR lovers in the short time it has been on the market. What is even better is that Dodge has decided to design a Challenger package that is a straight throw-back to the muscle car days and unleash it on the unsuspecting pavement.

If what they say about fashion being thrown into a barrel that gets turned over every half-century or so is true, does the same also apply to legendary aircraft? Well, a Russian company specializing in airships certainly thinks so, and is planning to build a zeppelin (hard-shelled) that will be capable of lifting 18 tons at a time, which is a record no modern cargo plane could ever hope to exceed. Read on for the uplifting details.

Chinese scientists claim that they have discovered the world's largest dinosaur fossil site in the eastern province of Shandong. This is a most interesting development for a country that up until recently has been a relative latecomer to the field of archaeology. Read on for more details.

A special space of one's own, where you can rest, meditate, create... is what Japanese architect Asao Sakamoto was after when he created the Hako-Ie. Literally, "room in a box," Hake-Ie won a 2008 international Good Design Gold Award for Sakamoto's do-it-yourself pre-fabricated room for your home. Like Japanese food, clothing, and cars, the Hako-Ie can be exported and enjoyed all over the world.

The British Royal Mail picked a panel of prominent designers to choose which designs Great Britain should commemorate in a design series of stamps for 2009. There were no rules for this panel; they chose designs from furnishings, fashion, transportation and even graphic design. Here are the 10 design icons that were chosen....

Tokyo Tower notched an important milestone this past December 23 by celebrating its 50th anniversary. In tribute, Ginza Tanaka is offering a 26.4 inch tall replica made of 24-carat gold for the towering sum of 50 million yen - about $510,000.

With capitalism taking it on the chin of late, will communism prove to be fertile fodder for the downtrodden masses? Maybe so - a new, fictionalized manga version of Marx's "Das Kapital" is a hit in Japan today... tomorrow the world!

...perhaps it's fitting that Enzo Mari designed "Timor," a perpetual calendar displayed in many of the world's modern art galleries and museums... and one that's being produced by the Italian design store Danese.

Rising from the ashes, like a phoenix from the fires of Mao’s cultural revolution of the 1970s, China has emerged as a mega consumer-oriented nation. This is an amazing trend considering that for 35 years its primary items were limited to cigarettes from Albania! Read on and be amazed at this story of economic growth and development.

The ancient Egyptians, with their magnificent pyramids designed to last forever, made memory one of the cornerstones of their culture. Now a strikingly beautiful USB flash drive evokes the glory of the pharaohs to store your vital data.

The Los Angeles designer of adorable hand-made stuffed animals and toys, I Golfini della Nonna, also creates some of the most detailed sets of finger puppets you'll find. This year, in addition to its precious animals, monsters, dinosaurs, and bugs, IGolfini della Nonna has created a grouping of six finger puppets of famous persons who passed away in 2008.

I consider myself reasonably intelligent and well-educated. But I had no idea what an Advent Calendar was. And when Lego started producing an Advent Calendar set, I had to dig in and do some research. Let's just say that my tiny brain can't quite wrap around the concept...

A strange, long-necked, waddling herbivore with enormous arms and claws that once waddled across China has been formally named Suzhousaurus by a team of Chinese and American paleontologists. Its full name is Suzhousaurus megatherioides, which translates from Chinese into “giant sloth-like reptile from Suzhou.” Read on for details, but avoid eating green things until finished.

It has always been a moot point as to how the first humans arrived on the North American continent. Scientific findings now strongly suggest that the vehicle definitely was a temporary land bridge that spanned the Bering strait, connecting Siberia to the continent. What is the truth? Will we ever know? Read on and wonder.

It looks like that mean little plant known far and wide as wackey tabackey, is even older than previously imagined. Archeologists have dug up a 2,700 year-old tomb of a shaman near Tupan (far west Xinjiang province) that reveals a few secrets about the ancient Chinese that might surprise the modern world. Then again, they might not. Read on and decide for yourself.

What do vodka, samovars and matryoska all have in common? Don’t they all sound like innocuous and very proper Russian souvenirs? Well, beware, as many Russian souvenirs in the past have led double lives as cunning spy gadgets. Read on, but check over your shoulder.

Exactly a decade ago on November 20, 1998, a Russian Proton rocket blasted off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, initiating the world’s most ambitious space project, which is due for completion in 2011. Read all about its amazing history.

Paper cutting is an an ancient Chinese art, and a very intricate art form. Prolific artist, designer, and architect, Yu Jordy Fu, may have the gene for mastering this art, because her talent is hard to beat. In her new Cloud Lamps, she creates lovely, peaceful dreams from paper, and she even makes them accessible to us.

Mammoths roamed Europe, Asia and North America in the second half of the Pleistocene era and died out about 10 thousand years ago during last ice age. Until recently, many scientists blamed ancient hunters for their extinction. What really killed them and why? Read some answers to this ancient mystery, albeit you walk away with even more questions.