(Portrait by Rembrant Peale)From his youth, George Washington made a studied effort at maintaining a public persona befitting a gentleman and a leader. He guarded his conduct carefully with particular attention to his te...

(Photo by Andy Strangeway)Rockall is a tiny island...  ...Sources:Bowcott, Owen. “Who Owns Rockall? A History of Legal and Diplomatic Wrangles.” The Guar...

(Photo: Adam Kahtava)This is Mitsukejima, a Japanese island also known as Gunkanjima or “Battleship Island.” It looks the part, don’t you think?(Photo: Adam Kahtava)It’s located just south of Suzu...

(HMS Waterwitch via David S. Yetman)During the 1860s, the Royal Navy experimented with new types of warships to replace the aging generation of screw-propelled steamships. Among them was the 1,160-ton HMS Waterwitch. Thi...

After its defeat in the Crimean War (1853-1856), the victorious powers forbade Russia from operating battleships on the Black Sea. Once these restrictions ended, Russia rebuilt its Black Sea fleet with modern warships th...

(Photo: US Navy)It’s not unusual for warshi...  ...aunched in January of 1865.(Photo: A Photographic History of the American Civil War, 1911)The ship had a su...

(Map: Google)Geldrop is a town in the southern part of the Netherlands. One of the neighborhoods in that town is named for characters in J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings books.I don't see a Sauron Street. If there...

(Photo: Bob Embleton)Sea stacks are large rocks in bodies of water that have resisted the forces of erosion which have destroyed the land which connects them to the shore. This one is Dun Briste, which is located off Dow...

Mount Nyiragongo is an active volcano in the Democ...  ...ratovolcano, which Elsevier’s Dictionary of Geography defines as “a volcanic core of bedded struc...

(Photo: Torpe)A flysch is a sedimentary rock formation consisting of mostly sandstones and marls near the sea and adjacent to mountains. There’s a particularly lovely one near the town of Zumaia on the northern coa...