A bento (弁当, bentō) is a single-portion take-out or home-packed meal of Japanese origin, often for lunch, typically including rice and packaged in a box with a lid (often a segmented box with different parts of the meal placed in different sections). Outside Japan, similar meals are common in other East and Southeast Asian culinary styles, especially within Chinese, Korean, Singaporean, Taiwanese cuisines and more, as rice is a common staple food in the region. The term bento is derived from the Chinese term biandang (便當, pinyin, biàndāng), which means “convenient” or “convenience”. read more…
Southend Pier is a major landmark in Southend-on-Sea, Essex, United Kingdom. Extending 1.33 miles (2.14 km) into the Thames Estuary, it is the longest pleasure pier in the world. The bill to build the new pier, to replace a previous timber jetty, received royal assent as the Southend Pier Act 1829 (10 Geo. 4. c. xlix) in May 1829 with construction starting in July 1829. The timber pier was replaced by an iron pier that opened to the public in August 1889. The Southend Pier Railway, opened in the early 1890s, was the first pier railway in the country. read more…
Kiruna Church (Swedish: Kiruna kyrka) is a church building in Kiruna, Sweden, and is one of Sweden’s largest wooden buildings. The church was built between 1909 and 1912, designed by the architect Gustaf Wickman. The church exterior is built in a Gothic Revival style, while the altar is in Art Nouveau. The Church was moved during two days in August 2025 a distance of 5 kilometres (3.1 mi) to the east due to the expansion of the Kiruna mine. read more…
The Great Famine, also known as the Great Hunger (Irish: an Gorta Mór), the Famine and the Irish Potato Famine, was a period of mass starvation and disease in Ireland lasting from 1845 to 1852 that constituted a historical social crisis and had a major impact on Irish society and history as a whole. The most severely affected areas were in the western and southern parts of Ireland—where the Irish language was dominant—hence the period was contemporaneously known in Irish as an Drochshaol, which literally translates to “the bad life” and loosely translates to “the hard times”. read more…
Harar (Amharic: ሐረር; Harari: ሀረር / هَرَرْ; Oromo: Adare Biyyo; Somali: Herer; Arabic: هرر), known historically by the indigenous as Harar-Gey or simply Gey (Harari: ጌይ, ݘٛىيْ, Gēy, lit.: ‘the city’), is a walled city in eastern Ethiopia. It is also known in Arabic as the City of Saints (Arabic: مدينة الأولياء, romanized: Madīna al-ʾAwliyāʾ). read more…
