Commissioned in 1971, the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant was the combined effort of General Electric (GE) and the Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO). The six boiling water reactors drove electrical generators with a combined power of 4.7 GWe, making Fukushima Daiichi one of the 15 largest nuclear power stations in the world.

On March 11, 2011, a 9.0 earthquake and subsequent tsunami damaged the reactor cooling systems that led to a release of radioactivity. The plant was decommissioned after the accident.

Since April 2011, the 20-km radius around the former plant can only be approached with government supervision.

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Located in the Anatolia region of SE Turkey, this archaeological site is one of the earliest examples of human construction.

The site is a tell (or a mound created from years of human occupation to form a cone truncated with a flat top) that is 49 ft/15 m tall and 984 ft/300 m in diameter. The excavation revealed several rooms and more than 200 massive pillars in 20 different circles, many with ornate carvings.

What boggles the mind about Göbekli Tepe was that it was constructed before the development of agriculture- an estimated 10,000 years BCE. To put that in context, the Pyramids of Giza started construction in 2584 BC.

The neolithic people who constructed this site were hunter-gatherers that used flint-knapped tools to scrape and chisel the construction. As a National Geographic writer put it in an article called "The Birth of Religion":

Discovering that hunter-gatherers had constructed Göbekli Tepe was like finding that someone had built a 747 in a basement with an X-Acto knife.

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This location was featured in the Smithnsonian Channel show "The Real Story: Indiana Jones" as a possible location of the Holy Grail.

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The Cité de Carcassonne is a medieval citadel located in the French city of Carcassonne, on a hill on the overlooking the River Aude. The town has about 2,500 years of history and has seen the Romans, Visigoths, Saracens and Crusaders.

In the early years of the 13th century, a sect of Christians called the Cathars had risen to prominence in the area. The Cathars believed in a dualistic theism, where the good god (God) created all that was spiritual and a bad god (Satan) created all that was material.

The Cathars managed to upset the Roman Catholic establishment to the point where they fled to and were laid siege upon in this fortress. For a year, local Catholics and Cathars fought against the siege of Arnaud-Amaury.

When asked how to distinguish Cathars from Catholics at the besieged town of Béziers, Arnaud replied "Caedite eos. Novit enim Dominus qui sunt eius" or "Slay them. God knows his own." This statement is often remembered as "Kill them all and let God sort them out."

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In 1718, the most famous pirate of the day, Edward "Blackbeard" Teach, was chased into a sandbar at Oracoke Inlet by Lieutenant Robert Maynard of the Royal Navy. Blackbeard's ship, the Queen Anne's Revenge, was immobile in the sand, so he boarded Maynard's ship with his crew to overtake them.

The Royal Navy crew had many sailors hiding below deck and when the pirates boarded, Blackbeard was shot several times at close range.

His head was removed and hung at the front of the ship as a warning to other pirates, as well as to collect the bounty. Legend has it that Blackbeard's body swam around the ship three times.

Today, the Underwater Archaeology Branch of the U.S. Coast Guard is excavating the shipwreck, and it has collected 280,000 artifacts including cannons and the anchor of the Revenge.

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