The Mellon Arena is home to the NHL’s Pittsburgh Penguins and more importantly was the setting for the 1995 Van Damme “classic” – Sudden Death. The arena was even on the movie poster along with an exploding helicopter. The “radio…

This is the Barringer Meteor Crater, outside Flagstaff, Arizona. It’s the result of a 300,000 ton meteor coliding with the Earth around 50,000 years ago. The crater is about 1.5 kilometers in diameter and 170 metres deep. It was the…

One of more than 1,700 parks in New York City, Washington Square Park is probably one of the best known (after Central Park obviously). In 1889, to celebrate the centennial of George Washington’s inauguracy as president, a large plaster and…

Dedicated in 1927, the Clarence Buckingham Fountain was a gift to the city of Chicago by somebody I’ve never heard of, to her brother Clarence. Apparently. Much more interesting is that it’s the fountain featured in the opening credits of…

In Los Angeles’ Griffith Park sits the Griffith Observatory. Opened in 1935 the observatory has featured in numerous movies such as ‘Bowfinger’, ‘Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle’, ‘Dragnet’ and the climax of James Dean film ‘Rebel Without a Cause’. Thanks: Scott…

This is Biosphere 2 in the Arizona desert. Constructed between 1987 and ’89, the ill fated ‘self-contained environment’ experiment was supposedly intended to explore the possible use of closed biospheres in space colonisation (you know, like in Total Recall!). The…