By Ben Marks — During Queen Victoria’s long and productive reign, from 1837 to 1901, countless buildings, books, and pieces of furniture were erected, written, and manufactured. Though the monarch did not invent Queen Anne Revival style, pen , or decree that otherwise comfortable sofas should be crowned with unyielding rims of carved hardwood, causing untold bumps on untold numbers of unsuspecting noggins, we routinely classify this varied output as Victorian Architecture, Victorian Literature, and...

Retro Tops That Let You Float Like a Butterfly and Shine Like a Disco Ball

By Lisa Hix — In the last days of disco, everyone wanted to be that one-of-a-kind butterfly—particularly after Bionic Boogie’s 1978 mellow-disco tune “Hot Butterfly,” written by Gregg Diamond and sung by Luther Vandross, hit the clubs. Two years later, Chaka Khan covered the song, retitling it "Papillon," the French word for butterfly. "The two-sided sequined butterfly pattern let everyone at the club see you shine—whether you were shimmying toward him or fluttering away." The 1970s disco...

How a Colorado Family Built a Home for the World's Weirdest, Most Beautiful Bugs

By Hunter Oatman-Stanford — Driving along a nondescript section of Highway 115 a few miles south of Colorado Springs, it's hard not to swerve at the sight of a gigantic Hercules beetle, its horns as tall as a house, standing beside a sign for the May Natural History Museum. But this monstrous beetle isn't advertising some two-bit roadside attraction: If you continue another mile down Rock Creek Canyon Road, you’ll find yourself at a small and scholarly museum, housing one of the largest privately owned collections of...