Karen Hill

The Dutch were among the first Europeans to settle in America. They established communities in the East, including one that became New York,early in the seventeenth century. From 1820 until 1975, another 360,000 people from the Netherlands came to America. Today, there may be more than 1.5 million Americans with some Dutch blood, even though … Read more

When you think of wooden shoes, you probably think of the Netherlands. For centuries, the Dutch have worn wooden shoes called klompen when working in the damp fields, although they would never enter a house without first removing their klompen. But the Netherlands isn’t the only country where wooden shoes were common. For many centuries, … Read more

Rotterdam is located in the delta of the Rhine River, one of Europe’s most important waterways. Many of the barges that ply the Rhine, and seagoing ships that reach Rotterdam through a channel linking it with the North Sea, load and unload their cargo at Rotterdam. All these barges and ships make this Dutch city … Read more

You have probably never heard of a language called Frisian. But of all the languages in the world, this tongue may be the closest language to English! Frisian is spoken in the region of Friesland and in the Frisian Islands. Friesland is a province in the northern part of the Netherlands. The Frisian Islands are … Read more

The “Low Countries” is a term often used to describe the Netherlands, Belgium, and Luxembourg. The Netherlands is the “lowest” country of the three. Much of the land in this nation is below sea level, and in most of the Netherlands an altitude of more than 150 feet is rare. The highest point in Belgium … Read more

The Netherlands is a small nation, about 190 miles long and just 100 miles wide in most places. The country’s total area is 15,892 square miles, about twice the size of New Jersey. If the Netherlands were in the shape of a square, it would be just 126 miles on a side. But the Netherlands … Read more

The monastery of the Cistercian monks in the town of Alcobaca, Portugal, was completed in 1222. During the Middle Ages, it was one of the largest and wealthiest monasteries in Europe. The monks who lived at the monastery did not have to go very far for water or fresh fish. A branch of the Alcoa … Read more

In 711, Moors from Africa captured a small peninsula that juts out from Spain into the Mediterranean. It is an important place because it is there that the Mediterranean meets the Atlantic Ocean. The Moorish leader, Tariq, built a fortress on the mountainous peninsula, which became known as Jebel Tariq, or “Tariq’s Mountain”. Jebel Tariq … Read more

Jai alai, pronounced hi-lie, is a game similar to three-wall handball. It’s played not with the hand but with a basket-like racket, called the “cesta”, that is strapped to a player’s wrist. Jai alai is an ancient game of the Basque people, who live in Spain and France. The game is known as pelota in … Read more

Our name for Spain comes from the Latin name “Hispania”, which also produced the Spanish people’s own name for their country, Espana. The Latin word was based on an older Greek name, “Spania”. And that name was taken from the name of the region in the language of the people of Carthage. What did that … Read more

Andorra is a very small nation located high in the Pyrenees Mountains on the border between Spain and France. During World War I, Andorra was officially at war with Germany. When the peace treaty ending the war was signed, no mention was made of Andorra. At the time it hardly mattered, since Andorra had an … Read more

For centuries, much of Spain was ruled by Muslims from North Africa. Today, the reverse is true, two enclaves in North Africa are actually ruled by Spain. One of these enclaves is Melilla, on the Mediterranean coast of Morocco. This territory of just a few square miles has been held by Spain since 1470. The … Read more

Of the largest islands in the Mediterranean Sea, Sicily and Sardinia belong to Italy, Corsica belongs to France, Crete belongs to Greece, and Cyprus is independent. Only the Balearic Islands belong to Spain. The Balearics consist of four large islands and a number of smaller islets, lying about 120 miles off the Spanish coast. The … Read more

In the United States, there are about 95 television sets for every 100 persons. Only one other nation has more TVs, in relation to its population, than the United States. In Monaco, there are about 97 TVs for every 100 persons! This tiny country on the Mediterranean also leads the world in the number of … Read more

If you’ve ever heard the song “The Rain in Spain,” from the musical My Fair Lady, then you know the rain in that country falls mainly on the plain. But does it really? The Meseta is a large plateau in the center of Spain, occupying about half the peninsula that includes both Spain and Portugal. … Read more

History begins around 3500 B.C., the date of the oldest surviving written records. But long before written history began, man was leaving his mark on earth in other ways. We know, for instance, that a group of prehistoric men lived in a village in France some 120,000 years ago! In 1965, the remains of this … Read more

Monaco is surrounded by France on three sides. But unlike France, Monaco does not tax its citizens, and the people of Monaco would like things to stay that way. But Monaco could someday lose its freedom from taxation and its independence, not through war or invasion, but by an accident of birth. Monaco has been … Read more

Of all the megaliths, or “great stones,” erected thousands of years ago by the prehistoric people of Europe, few are more impressive than those at Carnac, in the Brittany region of France. About 3,000 upright stones stand near Carnac, many of them arranged in neat rows. Some of the stones are almost 18 feet tall! … Read more

Provin, a town about 50 miles from Paris, is built over a much older town. This old village consists of underground corridors and chambers, some of which were built during the Middle Ages. At the time these rooms were built, no one knew that just underneath them lay an even older town, built long before … Read more

The city of Strasbourg in France boasts a large cathedral that was begun in the eleventh century. Its 466-foot spire is one of the tallest medieval towers still standing in Europe. But the Strasbourg Cathedral is equally noted for its amazing astronomical clock, one of the largest and most elaborate time-keeping devices ever built. This … Read more

The name of a village in France has the least number of letters of any place name on earth, just one! This village is called simply “Y”, a word that means “there” in French. There are villages called A in Denmark and Norway, and a cape in the Caroline Islands is called U. While these … Read more

Where would you expect to find a region called Brittany? The British Isles would be a good guess. But Brittany is actually the name of a region in northwestern France! This region is called Brittany because it was inhabited by Britons, the Celtic people who lived in England before that land was invaded by Anglo-Saxons … Read more

Near the English town of Cerne Abbas, the immense figure of a man can be seen outlined on a green hillside. It looks as if it was drawn by a giant with a huge piece of chalk. The human figure is formed by trenches, up to two feet wide, dug into the grassy surface of … Read more

Before French King Louis VII left to fight in the Crusades, he married Eleanor of Aquitaine. Aquitaine is a district in southern France. Since Eleanor was the heiress to this district, Louis came to rule that part of France, too. When Louis returned from the Crusades in 1152, he left one thing behind, his beard. … Read more

Tap o’ Noth is a 1,850-foot hill near the village of Rhvnie in Scotland. On the flat top of this hill there once stood a fort, built by the ancient inhabitants of the British Isles. Scientists have been puzzled by the construction of this fort and many similar forts found in Scotland. For the walls … Read more

The circles of standing stones found in many parts of western Europe, including the famous stones at Stonehenge, have long been a puzzle. We still don’t know for sure why these stone structures were built by the prehistoric people of Europe. Some scientists have suggested that the stones may have been set up to tap … Read more

The ancient Romans built many aqueducts, or water-carrying structures, throughout their empire. Most of these aqueducts consisted of underground pipes, just like modern water-carrying systems. But when the Romans had to build an aqueduct over a valley or across a low-lying area, they constructed huge arched bridges to carry the water pipes. The best example … Read more

One day in 1940, five young boys were hunting for rabbits in the hills near the town of Montignac, France. The dog that they had brought along with them, named Robot, suddenly disappeared. The boys began searching for him on a hill called Lascaux. They heard Robot’s barks and followed them to a small hole … Read more

On June 12, 1954, rain fell on the English city of Birmingham. People fled for cover and hurriedly opened umbrellas. Suddenly, visitors to a Birmingham park heard what sounded like the patter of very heavy raindrops beating against their umbrellas. And then they noticed that the rain consisted of not just water, but frogs as … Read more

There’s an American state named New Jersey. Did you ever wonder where “old” Jersey is? Yes, it’s in England, well, not really in England. Jersey belongs to England, but the closest country to Jersey is actually France. Jersey is one of the Channel Islands, a group of islands in the English Channel between France and … Read more

Loch Ness is a long, narrow lake near Inverness, Scotland. The lake forms part of a canal that carries ships, across Scotland. Yet the fame of Loch Ness today results not from the ships that sail on it, but the creatures that may live in its waters. Since the sixth century, people in the region … Read more

Before the 1970s, Britain produced almost no oil of its own and had to buy the oil it needed from other countries. Today, Britain is the second largest producer of oil in Europe, after the Soviet Union. Yet there are still no large oil deposits in Britain, they are in the North Sea, off the … Read more

The Bible tells that when the Israelites were wandering in the desert after their escape from Egypt, they lived on food that fell from the sky. Each morning, the Israelites gathered this food, called manna, which looked like white seeds. An incident that occurred in England in 1979 might remind us of the biblical story … Read more

Today, St. Paul’s Cathedral is the most well-known church in London, and its builder, Christopher Wren, is remembered as England’s greatest architect. But if it weren’t for a great disaster, this cathedral might never have been built. A church known as St. Paul’s had stood on the site of the present cathedral since the twelfth … Read more

If you were traveling in the Wiltshire region of England, you might gaze in the distance and believe you were seeing a mirage. Near the town of Bratton, the huge figure of a horse is carved into the side of a hill. The hill is made of chalk, so the figure appears white. And this … Read more

On February 8, 1855, residents of a coastal region of Devon, England, were puzzled and frightened by a series of weird footprints left in a newly fallen snow. These hoofprints were about four inches long, and they formed a single line, as if made by a creature with one or two legs rather than four. … Read more

The first person to bicycle around the world was an American named Thomas Stevens, who left San Francisco in 1884 and returned aboard his bicycle in 1887. In 1975, a young Englishman set out to match that feat. He left England in 1975 and returned there in 1977, after a journey of some 25,000 miles. … Read more

Today, the word sterling means of high or standard quality. When applied to silver, it means an alloy, or mixture of metals, containing at least 92.5 percent silver. No one is sure of where this word came from. According to one story, a group of German merchants who came to England around the year 1300 … Read more

When roads meet, they form an intersection. Railroads are joined by switches. What happens when two canals meet? Two canal intersections in England employ most unusual solutions, a bridge and an elevator! The Manchester Ship Canal and the Bridgewater Canal meet at Barton, England. A swing bridge, the first bridge of its kind in the … Read more

The one ingredient you should surely find in a dish called Welsh rabbit is rabbit. But Welsh rabbit is actually made from cheese and beer, usually poured over toast, and has never contained rabbit or meat of any kind! According to one story, the name of this dish originated in England around 1725. It was … Read more

In the game of Chinese checkers, from two to six players move marbles over a star-shaped pattern of holes. Since many popular games and gaming implements originated in China, dominoes, Mahjong, playing cards, perhaps even chess, it seems obvious that a game called Chinese checkers also came from the Orient, right? Well, Chinese checkers isn’t … Read more

It was once said that “the sun never sets on the British Empire”. And for many years, it was true. Over the last few centuries, Britain has owned colonies in almost every corner of the world, and the empire formed by these British possessions was one of the largest the world has ever seen. In … Read more

Scotland is famous for its tweed, a kind of rough woolen fabric of two or more colors or shades. One kind of tweed is known as Harris Tweed, named after an island called Lewis with Harris that lies off the northwest coast of Scotland. But superstitious Scottish sailors will never wear a jacket or cap … Read more

The ancient Romans celebrated a feast of the Wolf-God on February 14. When the Catholic Church set out to change the old Pagan feast days into religious feast days, they made the feast of the wolf-god into the feast day of St. Valentine, an Italian priest who had been martyred in the year 270. Why … Read more

When stuck in a traffic jam, have you ever wondered what would happen if so many cars became entangled in the jam that none of them could move? It happened once in England, along a road leading to the seashore. In July, 1964, cars jammed a road between the towns of Yarcombe and Torquay until … Read more

There’s a saying “a man’s home is his castle.” One English family can truly call a castle its home, and a big castle at that. The Royal Castle at Windsor, near London, is the official home of the kings and queens of England. It is the largest inhabited castle on earth. This huge structure, with … Read more

Many people believe that a Friday that falls on the thirteenth day of the month is an unlucky day. Have you ever wondered why? It’s easy, both Friday and the number 13 are considered unlucky. The number 13 may be considered unlucky because there were 13 people, Christ and the 12 Apostles, present at the … Read more

In 1868, long before the automobile became a common sight on city streets, the world’s first traffic light was installed in London. The light placed near the British Houses of Parliament to help pedestrians cross a busy street without the danger of being run over by a horse drawn vehicle. It consisted of a swinging … Read more

Around 1780, a workman digging in a swampy area made a most unusual discovery, a small porcelain figure that seemed to date from an ancient era. On the bottom of the figure were what appeared to be Chinese characters. Such porcelain figures are not uncommon in China. What made this one so unusual was that … Read more

In 1840, work began on a canal to link two large lakes in western Ireland, Lough Mask and Lough Corib. But the project was cursed from the beginning. First, a channel was dug for the canal on a bed of limestone, which is porous. When the canal was filled, the water quickly drained away! A … Read more

If you’re on a diet, the worst place to visit is Ireland. Agencies of the United Nations have found that the minimum number of calories the average person should consume each day is 2,600. But the average citizen of Ireland consumes 3,410 calories a day, the highest average of any nation on earth. The United … Read more

A stepping-stone causeway is a kind of “bridge” made of stones set in the water. You might use such stepping stones to cross a woodland stream. There’s a rock formation in Ireland made of “stepping stones” so large that they look as if they were designed for giants. This formation, called Giants Causeway, is off … Read more

In order to keep the calendar in line with the movement of the earth around the sun, every fourth year has 366 days instead of 365. The extra day is added after February 28. The 366 day year is called a leap year, because after February 29, a date “leaps” over a day of the … Read more

Can you think of an energy-producing fuel besides coal, oil, gas, and wood? There is another kind of fuel, called peat. Peat is not used much in the United States, but it has long been one of the most important sources of energy in Ireland. Peat is formed the same way as some coal and … Read more

Though one of the world’s smaller nations, Denmark has more books in its public libraries than all but eight nations on earth. And the people of Denmark use their public libraries more than any other people in the world. The population of Denmark is only about 5 million. But in an average year, Danes borrow … Read more

The Faroe Islands lie in the North Atlantic Ocean. Although they are about 250 miles north of Scotland, they are considered part of the nation of Denmark. There are about 18 islands, with a total area of 540 square miles and a population of 42,000. Most of the inhabitants are engaged in fishing. Irish settlers … Read more

For centuries, the residents of a small Danish town bowed reverently before a white wall outside the town’s church whenever they passed it. But no one knew the reason why they bowed, and no one remembered how the custom had begun. Then in the 1930s, it was found that underneath the white paint was a … Read more

In 1950, police in Denmark found the body of a man buried in a peat bog, a swampy area covered with decayed plant matter. They called in a scientist to investigate, fearing that the man had been murdered. And that’s exactly what the investigator discovered, except the man had been killed 2,000 years ago! The … Read more

We call a certain kind of pastry, filled with cheese or fruit, “danish pastry.” Is this pastry really from Denmark? Well, danish pastry may have come to the United States from Denmark. But its name in Denmark suggests that it did not originate there. The Danes call this pastry Wienerbrod, or “Vienna bread,” and Vienna … Read more

Finland is located in northern Europe, bordered by Norway, Sweden, and the Soviet Union. Finland is not considered part of Scandinavia, for its people are not related to the Swedes, Danes, and Norwegians. The Finns first entered their present homeland during the first century, moving there from what is now Central Russia. By the eighth … Read more

On August 10, 1628, while Sweden was engaged in the Thirty Years War, the Swedish king and a huge crowd gathered at Stockholm harbor to watch the launching of Sweden’s greatest battleship. The Vasa was a very large ship for its time, it was armed with more than 60 guns. But the Vasa was also … Read more

When American children wait for Santa Claus on Christmas Eve, they expect him to arrive alone, without the elves who help him make his Christmas gifts. But in Denmark, children wait for the elves instead! The Danish gift-bringers are called the nissen, small gray-haired creatures who look much like elves and are supposed to be … Read more

There are about 1,800 daily newspapers in the United States, and each day 287 copies of a newspaper are sold here for every 1,000 persons. But in Sweden, 572 copies of a daily newspaper are sold for every 1,000 persons, making the Swedes the greatest newspaper readers on earth. The small African nation of Rwanda … Read more

If you ever wanted to spend some time in a city as far away as possible from the rest of the world, you couldn’t find many more remote towns than Hammerfest. This city lies on the north coast of Norway, on the Arctic Ocean. It’s the most northerly town of any size in Europe. In … Read more

Gustav Vigeland was Norway’s most famous sculptor. In 1921, Vigeland agreed to donate all his work to the city of Oslo, Norway’s capital. In return, the city built him a studio where he could live and work. After he died in 1943, the studio became the Vigeland Museum, which contains some 1,650 sculptures and thousands … Read more

Mistletoe is sometimes known as the “vampire plant” because it attaches itself to other plants and sucks their sap for nourishment. Mistletoe was sacred to some ancient religious sects and was used to make a healing beverage. The Druids, Celtic priests who lived in parts of ancient Europe, may have invented the custom of kissing … Read more

Lapland isn’t the name of a nation. Lapland is a region that includes parts of four countries: Norway, Sweden, Finland, and the Soviet Union. The region takes its name from the people who live there, called Lapps. The word Lapp means “nomad” in Swedish. The Lapps call themselves Samelats. These people, related to the Finns, … Read more

The northern part of Norway, along with the northern regions of Sweden, Finland, Canada, and other Arctic lands, is often called the “Land of the Midnight Sun.” It’s hard to imagine the sun shining at midnight, isn’t it? But there are indeed places where the sun doesn’t set for 2.5 months at a time! The … Read more

The first people to settle in Iceland arrived around the year 870. Most of them came from Norway and from Viking settlements in the British Isles. At that time, there was no such thing as an Icelandic language; the settlers spoke Norwegian. In the centuries since then, the Norwegian language spoken in Norway has undergone … Read more

A geyser is a spring from which columns of hot water and steam gush into the air every now and then. Today, we call any such spring a geyser. That name comes from a single hot-water spring in Iceland called the geysir, or “gusher.” The geysir is in a valley that contains more than 100 … Read more

The island of Kaffeklubben, off the north coast of Greenland, has little to recommend it. Its name means “Coffee Club,” but there’s no coffee or anything else on this island. It lies in the bleak, frigid Arctic region, just 440 miles from the North Pole. Until recently, the island had one claim to fame, it … Read more

Iceland is only about the size of Kentucky, but there are more volcanoes in Iceland than in nations many times as large. There are 107 volcanoes in this island nation, and 25 of them have erupted during historic times. One Iceland volcano, Mount Hekla, has erupted more than 20 times since the first settlers reached … Read more

Reykjavik, the largest city in Iceland, is almost on the Arctic Circle, as far north as Fairbanks, Alaska. So you would probably expect to find cold weather there. But Reykjavik is on the edge of a warm ocean current that washes the southern and western coasts of Iceland. The average temperature in the city is … Read more

An island is a landmass completely surrounded by water. Of course, some of the world’s continents are islands. But if we exclude Australia and the other continents, then Greenland is by far the largest island on earth. Greenland has an area of about 840,000 square miles, more than three times the size of Texas! New … Read more

South America is shaped somewhat like an ice-cream cone, and Argentina forms most of the “cone.” Slender Chile occupies the western side of the long, narrowing end of South America, while much larger Argentina occupies the eastern side. With an area of more than 1 million square miles, Argentina is the eighth largest country on … Read more

During the 1860s, Paraguay tried to settle a boundary dispute with Brazil by invading that country. The war that followed was called the “War of the Triple Alliance” because Paraguay had to fight not only Brazil, but Argentina and Uruguay, too. When the war ended in 1870, Paraguay had suffered more, in relation to its … Read more

On a map, some nations are easily recognized by their shape, but probably none as easily as Chile. This icicle-shaped country in South America stretches about 2,600 miles along the Pacific Ocean. Its average width is just 110 miles, and nowhere is Chile more than 250 miles wide! Though only about the size of Texas … Read more

If you’ve ever seen Niagara Falls, you know the tremendous amount of water that tumbles over the edge of the falls each second. Could you believe there’s a waterfall with a flow more than twice as great as Niagara? This waterfall, known as Guaira, is on the Parana River, on the border between Paraguay and … Read more

You might guess that the driest place on earth would be found in the Sahara, the world’s largest desert. But there are places in the Sahara that could seem wet compared to a region of South America that can rightly claim to be the driest place on earth. The Atacama Desert is in the northernmost … Read more

The highest mountain in the United States, and in all of North America, is Mount McKinley in Alaska, 20,320 feet high. But there was once a house in South America that stood at a higher altitude even than the peak of Mount McKinley! Llullaillaco is a 22,057-foot peak in the Andes Mountains, between Chile and … Read more

A pilot recently flew over the bleak Atacama Desert region of northern Chile in search of a “giant. He was looking for a man much larger than the yeti, or Abominable Snowman, and older than the nation of Chile itself. This-giant isn’t a living creature, though, but the representation of a man carved onto the … Read more

Antimony is a hard, silvery-white metal. It’s been known since ancient times, and its use was mentioned in the Old Testament. Today, antimony is used to strengthen alloys containing other metals. It is also used in pigments, medicines, and fireproofing materials. About 70,000 tons of antimony are produced around the world each year. Bolivia is … Read more

Since ancient times, silver and gold have been major sources of wealth in Europe and other parts of the world. Most of the silver deposits in Europe had already been mined by the time the New World was discovered. One of the reasons for Spain’s interest in America during the early days of exploration and … Read more

Near Lake Titicaca in Bolivia, at an altitude of 13,000 feet, lie the ruins of an ancient city that has been a puzzle ever since it was discovered. The city, called Tiahuanaco, was built by a people who lived in the region before the Incas came to rule there. But who the builders of Tiahuanaco … Read more

In most places, if you were at an altitude of 12,500 feet, you would probably be close to the top of a lofty mountain. But in South America, you might be on the surface of a lake. That lake is Titicaca, the highest large lake on earth. Lake Titicaca covers about 3,200 square miles, with … Read more

A tributary is a river or stream that flows into a larger river. One of the tributaries of the Amazon River is the Ucalayi, which joins the Amazon in Peru. One of the tributaries of the Ucalayi is the Apurimac. This river rises in the mountains of Peru, about 120 miles from the Pacific Ocean. … Read more

The Inca civilization was flourishing in South America when the first Spanish explorers reached the New World. The greatest city of the Incas was Cuzco, in what is now the nation of Peru. After the arrival of the Europeans, it was learned that another great Inca city was located somewhere in the Andes Mountains. But … Read more

If you’re looking for giant plants, there’s no better place on earth to find them than Brazil. A palm tree that grows in Brazil, the Amazonian bamboo palm, has the largest leaves of any plant on earth. The fronds, or leaves, of this palm can be close to 70 feet long and 19 feet wide! … Read more

The largest football stadium in the United States in the 1980s was the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, California, which could hold 106,721 people. Imagine a stadium so large that it can hold almost twice as many spectators as even the largest American football field! One soccer stadium in Rio de Janiero, one of the largest … Read more