Becky Little

Jan 8, 2025 | nationalgeographic.com | Becky Little |Rebecca Hale

The ancient art of bonsai may look deceptively simple, but its practice requires care, contemplation, and consistency over long periods of time—especially if you’re growing an entire miniature forest, like the famous living artifact known as Goshin (pronounced go-SHEEN). This bonsai was started more than 70 years ago, when Japanese American bonsai artist John Naka cut the top off a mature juniper tree and planted it in a pot.

Jan 7, 2025 | flipboard.com | Becky Little

I spent $20K renting out a whole hotel for one night so riff raff wouldn’t disturb me — it was worth every pennyThat’s one way to avoid inn-beciles. Everyone’s fantasized about having a whole hotel to themselves, but this Florida businesswoman made the dream a …

Sep 3, 2024 | nationalgeographic.com | Becky Little

In one of the most memorable scenes from James Cameron’s 1997 film Titanic, Leonardo DiCaprio stands on a recreation of the famous ship’s bow and declares “I’m the king of the world!”Yet in August 2024, the U.S. company RMS Titanic, Inc. produced new pictures showing that a 15-foot-long section of the real bow’s railing had collapsed, marking a significant milestone in the disintegration of the historic wreckage.

Aug 11, 2024 | nationalgeographic.com | Becky Little

Would you fly to Turkey for a hair transplant or trek to a natural thermal spring for a therapeutic dip? Medical tourism may seem like a modern trend, but people have been traveling long distances to receive health care for thousands of years. In the ancient Greek and Roman worlds, ailing people made pilgrimages to special sanctuaries called asklepieia dedicated to the physician-demigod Asklepios (or Asclepius), in the hopes of finding healing.

Jul 29, 2024 | history.com | Becky Little

The first U.S. presidential poll to use modern statistical methods was a Gallup poll in 1936. But the first known presidential straw polls date to 1824—over a century before. These early straw polls were regional and informal. Newspapers reported the results as information about local opinions rather than possible predictions about how the national election might play out. Local straw polls continued throughout the 19th century. Then in 1916, The Literary Digest launched a national presidential poll.