What strikes you first are the red-pink sunsets, the vast open spaces, the jagged mountains, the beautifully twisted saguaro cactuses, the overwhelmingly brilliant light.

Ever since it was founded in the 1860s, Phoenix has faced the prospect of being permanently overshadowed by its natural surroundings. Here, after all, was a hot and dusty settlement whose developers long maintained a steadfast commitment to selling the concept of suburban expansion. “Forget the city,” they seemed to be saying. “Choose cheap land, open space, easy living.”
 

On a wintry day in Kallio, a bohemian neighborhood in Helsinki, a group of Finns huddle outside on wooden benches, clad only in towels, steam rising from their bodies, drinking beer, relaxed. This is the conclusion of their ritual at Kotiharjun Sauna, a wood-heated sauna built in 1928 for local factory workers.

Here and everywhere in Finland, Finns take their sauna experience seriously.

On November 25, 1963, the nation’s gaze was transfixed by the horse-drawn caisson and final burial of President John F. Kennedy. But in the shadow of this grim but stirring procession—on that same Monday—Lee Harvey Oswald was quietly buried in Fort Worth, Texas.

Oswald’s wife Marina, two daughters, brother Robert and mother Marguerite were the only mourners. The public was prohibited from Rose Hill Cemetery, and no friends or other relatives showed up. To avoid argument, the gravediggers were told they were digging a hole for “William Bobo.”

In 1942, at the New York mansion of the American industrialist John Pierpont Morgan, crowds filed past a large mural titled “Automatic Hitler-Kicking Machine,” which depicted a complex and satisfying contraption involving a cat, a mouse, a stripteaser, and the Führer. It was the first solo exhibition of the inventor and cartoonist Reuben Lucius “Rube” Goldberg, who was, by then, already famous for designing overly complicated machines that fixed everyday problems with wit and madness. A decade earlier, in 1931, the Merriam-Webster Dictionary had listed “Rube Goldberg” as an adjective, defining it as “accomplishing by complex means what seemingly could be done simply.”

This was his moment, the fulfillment of the Grand Plan. He had worked it out in his head: this would be his new beginning, a world where he could not be harmed, where workers were not treated like slaves, where there was no mother to bother him, and he could become the historical figure he knew he was. He was only twenty, a boy, a scared and lonely one, in fact, who barely left his hotel room upon landing in the capital of the Soviet Union.

It was a tiny speck in the black night sky, 560 miles from earth and traveling at a speed of 18,000 miles an hour. Sputnik 1, a shiny aluminum sphere about twice the size of a basketball and weighing just 184 pounds, rocketed into space on October 4, 1957. Launched by the Soviets, the silver satellite with four radio antennae ushered in the Space Age with a simple message: beep,beep, beep.

It was a happy moment when twelve-year-old Lee Harvey Oswald and his half-brother, John Edward Pic, met up in the streets of New York in 1952. Born in New Orleans two months after his father died, Lee hadn't seen John in the two years since the latter left to join the Coast Guard. "I was real glad to see him and he was real glad to see me," recalled John, who was seven years older. "We were real good friends."

 
 

For three months, 26-year-old Fan Meng pushed his wheelchair-bound mother nearly 3,500 kilometers from Beijing to Xishuangbanna in Yunnan province to fulfill her long-held dream of visiting the idyllic travel destination. This epic journey, widely covered last year by the Chinese media, is an inspiring tale that harked back six centuries to the beloved folk classic, The 24 Paragons of Filial Piety. Among its fables: The son who strangles a tiger to save his father and the 8-year-old who lets a swarm of mosquitoes bite him to protect his parents.

In St. Petersburg's State Hermitage Museum, it's easy to drift into a dreamscape, to be overtaken by this mysterious palace of bygone eras, once home to Catherine the Great, Alexander I and Russia's last tsar, Nicholas II. Founded by Catherine in 1764 and first made public in 1852, this imperial museum is a singular expression of Baroque architecture and design, a gilded showcase of nearly incomprehensible wealth, beauty and artistic achievement.

He was the most famous man in Russia, the author of War and Peace, whose ornate life traversed a complex path from lustful aristocrat to spiritual leader. By 1882, the last thing 54-year-old Leo Nikolayevich Tolstoy wanted was to live in Moscow and join his wife Sonya at fancy soirees. In a capital city defined by its grand scale and lively society, Tolstoy sought simplicity and quiet.

As I gaze in the distance, a hot blast of wind and dust whips across my face, clouding my vision. My eyes tear up as I strain to see. What is that scrawny creature tucked into the shadow? The blistering desert sun doesn’t help. I move closer, then watch a gangly coyote emerge from the underbelly of an airplane fuselage and amble away. For just a moment, this seems like his natural habitat. A typical desert scene. Until I look around and regain my senses.