The World's Largest Model Railway System is "Miniatur Wunderland" in Hamburg, Germany.

Frederik and Gerrit Braun, brothers, set out to build the largest model railway system in the world. They established the "Miniatur Wunderland" in 2000. 

Take a look at what 20 years of non-stop design and construction work accomplished in the videos below.

Official Miniatur Wunderland Video. [04:54]

Miniatur Wunderland World’s Largest Model Railway. [04:07]

Miniatur Wunderland Hamburg, May 2020. [1:30:20]

This video takes you to all the theme worlds.

THEME WORLDS:

AUSTRIA

• Santa Fu - The Austrian prison is home to the Wunderland’s most evil villains.
• Schauertal Bridge
• St. Wendelberg - A Train Track Complex Matrix 
• Ski Lifts

CENTRAL GERMANY

• Arminius Monument - The monument was constructed between 1838 and 1875 to commemorate the Cherusci War Chief Arminius (Hermann, in German) and his victory over Rome at the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest in 9 AD.
• Bungee Jumper
• FUN FAIR [Amusement Park]
• I.C.E. High-Speed Train - The maximum speed reaches 175mph.
• Open Air Theater - Complex wheelwork, made of leverages, winches, and small engines, creates the most harmonious movement of tiny men and women on stage.
• UFO - Reports of an Unidentified Flying Object in Central Germany. The UFO, obviously navigated by aliens beings, is said to hover over a field of sunflowers every now and then. 

HAMBURG

• Davidwache - Police Station.
• Elbphilharmonie - Concert Hall.
• Köhlbrand Bridge
• St. Michael's Church
• Speicherstadt; largest warehouse district in the world.
• Transrapid Maglev Train
• Volksparkstadion - Football {Soccer} Stadium

ITALY

• Colosseum
• Mount Vesuvius
• Pompeii
• St. Peter's Basilica

KNUFFINGEN

• Castle on Fire
• Fire Department
• Red Light District
• Speed Trap

KNUFFINGEN AIRPORT

• Terminals - 45 different aircraft, from A380 to Cessna
• Catapult
• Neuschwanstein Castle
• Ship Hoist
• Arrival Schedules - Knuffingen Airport
• Departure Schedules - Knuffingen Airport

MONACO

• The last inaugurated section of Venice

SCANDINAVIA

• Egeskov Castle
• Real Water Basin
• Ship Control System
• Snow Landscape
• The Storebælt Bridge

SOUTH AMERICA

SWITZERLAND

• Biogas Plant
• Cement Plant
• Chocolate Factory
• DJ Bobo Open Air 
• Montebello
• The Hammetschwand Lift
• The Matterhorn

UNITED STATES

• Area 51
• Christmas Village
• Grand Canyon
• La Vegas
• Mount Rushmore
• USA-Hamburg Tunnel

VENICE

• Carnival
• Doge's Palace
• Procuratie
• St. Mark's Basilica

Google Maps 'Streetview' of the World's Largest Model Railway System. 

Don't miss this unique look at the Miniatur Wunderland.

Compiled by Neil Gale, Ph.D.

The Flying Cars. The Craziest Amusement Park Ride I've Ever Seen!

The Flying Cars were a German-made ride built for Chicago's great Riverview Park in 1954. 

Riders were strapped into a small car inside a large rotating barrel. The barrel had a track inside for the cars to ride freewheeling. The cars were held onto the drum by a rail and floating clamp system. As the drum would spin the 1 person car would follow the track and eventually begin to go upside down. 

The Flying Cars

The Flying Cars

The drum steadily increases its speed and the cars let it roll beneath their wheels as they follow the track. The cars' brakes are then applied to cause them to quickly accelerate up to the speed of the drum's surface which is around 30 mph causing the cars to go 360°. The operator of Flying Cars would spin the drum for two minutes and then release the brakes causing the cars to come to a complete stop while the drum also slows to a halt. 

It sounds like fun! Unfortunately, someone failed to properly fasten their safety belt and was killed after falling out. That was the end of the Flying Cars.

Compiled by Neil Gale, Ph.D. 

Why Unescorted Women Were Banned from Restaurants and Saloons — A Shocking Slice of American History.

The front window is empty now — a pale rectangle where words once ruled who could enter and who could not.

The absence speaks louder than the message ever did. It's a silence that asks readers to look closer, to remember how ordinary places once carried extraordinary exclusions. This image doesn't accuse; it invites. It lets the viewer feel the chill of history before the warmth of understanding.

A "proper" dining room of the era — spotless linens, polished service, and not a single woman allowed unless escorted by any man.

Imagine walking into a restaurant today and being told: "Sorry, ma’am — no man, no meal." Absurd. Infuriating. And Unthinkable.

Yet for most of the 19th century, that was the rule across the United States.

The Outrageous Logic of the Era

When restaurants first appeared in America in the 1820s and 1830s, they weren't the democratic, everyone‑welcome spaces we know today. They were designed as male sanctuaries — polished, candlelit temples of oysters, beefsteak, cigars, and business deals.

And women?

If a woman dared show up alone, the assumption was immediate and brutal:

She must be a prostitute.

Not "maybe."

Not "possibly."

Automatically.

Respectable women were expected to stay home, eat at home, and exist in public only when attached to a man like a decorative accessory.

Marshall Field & Co. established its first tearoom in 1890. Two decades later, the store operated seven separate dining facilities. The South Grill Room, seen here in 1909, featured Circassian walnut paneling, crystal chandeliers, and a marble fountain. It was later renamed the Walnut Room and still operates today in Macy's State Street Store.
  

Marshall Field's — Ahead of the times. 

 

In 1890, Mrs. Hering shared her homemade Chicken Pot Pie with a hungry customer so she wouldn't leave to go home for lunch. She said she would bring some friends the next day to try the Chicken Pot Pie and shop. Marshall Field opened a small tearoom with 15 tables on the 3rd floor to keep women in the store, shopping, instead of leaving for lunch. "The South Tearoom" for ladies became Chicago's first full-service dining establishment within a department store and was a runaway hit. This was parlayed into Marshall Field's Walnut Room in 1937.

The “Solutions” Were Even More Ridiculous

Hotels, forced to deal with the occasional woman traveling alone, invented a workaround that sounds like satire today:

• Special ladies-only dining rooms
• Separate entrances so men wouldn’t have to see them
• Private rooms for groups of women, as long as they stayed out of sight

Some restaurants even had private rooms where men could bring “companions” — a polite 19th‑century euphemism for sex workers — for dinner and whatever “after-dinner activities” followed. But a respectable woman wanting a bowl of soup by herself?

Absolutely not.

Women Fought Back — and Built Their Own Spaces

 

By the late 1800s, American cities were changing. Women were:

• Shopping downtown
• Working in offices
• Traveling independently

And they needed places to eat that didn’t treat them like contraband. So women created their own culinary world:

• Candy shops
• Ice cream saloons
• Tea rooms

These started as sweet, dainty refuges — the only public spaces where women could sit, talk, and eat without male supervision. Restaurateurs assumed women wanted “light” foods: salads, pastries, delicate sandwiches, and absolutely no alcohol.

Why no alcohol?

 

Because banning booze kept out the men who wanted to drink — and therefore kept out trouble.

These women‑centered eateries became the first safe public spaces for women in American cities. They were proto–coffee shops, proto–cafés, proto–third places.

Even in the 1900s, the Rules Stayed Absurd

 

Even as the 20th century dawned, many fashionable restaurants still refused to seat unescorted women — especially at night. A woman dining alone after dark was still considered suspicious, improper, or immoral.

It took decades of protest, lawsuits, and cultural change before women could simply walk into a restaurant alone and be treated like a normal human being.

Why This History Still Shocks Us

• Because it wasn't ancient history.
• It wasn't medieval.
• It wasn't "the distant past."

It was your great‑grandparents' world.  

A world where a woman eating a sandwich alone or with female friends was a scandal.

And that's why this story belongs in The History of Cool Stuff:

 

It's a reminder of how bizarre, restrictive, and downright unbelievable everyday life used to be — and how much courage it took for women to claim something as simple as a seat at the table.

                                                             Compiled by Neil Gale, Ph.D.

How Labor Day Became a National Holiday.

Labor Day is observed on the first Monday in September to pay tribute to the contributions and achievements of everyday working families. The first Labor Day holiday was celebrated on Tuesday, September 5, 1882, in New York City, in accordance with the plans of the Central Labor Union. The Central Labor Union held its second Labor Day holiday just a year later, on September 5, 1883.

A national economic downturn had begun in 1893 (The Panic of 1893), and the Pullman Company was suffering, along with many other businesses. George Pullman slashed the wages of his workers by 25% or more – but didn’t commensurately reduce their rents or the price of food. Discontented workers joined the American Railway Union (ARU), led by Eugene V. Debs, which supported their strike by launching a boycott of all Pullman cars on all railroads. ARU members across the nation refused to switch Pullman cars onto trains. When these switchmen were disciplined, the entire ARU struck the railroads on May 11, 1894. Within four days, 125,000 workers on twenty-nine railroads had quit work rather than handle Pullman cars. 

Workers leave the Pullman Palace Car Works, 1893.

Despite its size, the strike failed. Violence erupted from strikers and police some of whom were given orders to shoot and kill any demonstrator found destroying property. President Grover Cleveland deployed some 2,000 federal Army troops to Chicago and other areas (the mail wasn’t moving, so the strike had become a national issue). By the end of July, without broader support from other unions, the strike had fizzled and been defeated. During the strike, 13 workers were killed and 57 were wounded.

Following the death of the workers in June of 1894, President Grover Cleveland made reconciliation with the labor movement a top political priority and 23 more states had adopted the holiday. On June 28, 1894, President Grover Cleveland signed a law making the first Monday in September of each year a national holiday.

Compiled by Neil Gale, Ph.D.

The History of U.S. Paper Currency from the 1700s to Present Day.

Early American colonists used English, Spanish, and French money under English rule. However, in 1775, when the Revolutionary War became inevitable, the Continental Congress authorized the issuance of currency to finance the conflict.

1775 Continental Currency

Paul Revere made the first plates for this "Continental Currency." Those notes were redeemable in Spanish Milled Dollars, and the depreciation of this currency gave rise to the phrase "not worth a Continental."

Series 1886 Martha Washington One Dollar Certificate - Martha Washington is the first and only woman to grace the primary portrait of U.S. paper currency.

After the U.S. Constitution was ratified, Congress passed the "Mint Act" of April 2, 1792, which established the coinage system of the United States and the dollar as the principal currency unit. By this Act, the U.S. became the first country in the world to adopt the decimal system for currency. The first U.S. coins were struck in 1793 at the Philadelphia Mint and presented to Martha Washington.

The Government did not issue paper money until 1861. In the interim years, however, the Government did issue "Treasury notes" intermittently during periods of financial stress, such as the War of 1812, the Mexican War of 1846, and the Panic of 1857.

During this same period (1793 - 1861), approximately 1,600 private banks were permitted to print and circulate their own paper currency under state charters. Eventually, 7,000 varieties of these "state banknotes" were put in circulation, each carrying a different design!

With the onset of the Civil War, the Government - desperate for money to finance the war - passed the Act of July 17, 1861, permitting the Treasury Department to print and circulate paper money. The first paper money issued by the Government was "demand notes," commonly referred to as "GREENBACKS." In 1862, Congress retired the demand notes and began issuing United States notes, also called legal tender notes.

Series 1889 One Dollar Silver Certificate

Under the Congressional Acts of 1878 and 1886, five different issues of "silver certificates" were produced, ranging from $1 to $1,000 notes. The Treasury exchanged silver certificates for silver dollars because the size and weight of the silver coins made them unpopular. The last series of silver certificates were issued in 1923. However, the previous series of modern silver certificates produced was the 1957B/1935H $1 notes, series 1953C $5 notes, the 1953B $10 notes.

From 1863 to 1929, the Government again permitted thousands of banks to issue their own notes under the National Banks Acts of 1863 and 1864. These were called "national banknotes," but unlike the earlier "state banknotes," they were produced on paper authorized by the U.S. government and carried the same basic design.

In 1913, Congress passed the Federal Reserve Act, establishing this nation's Federal Reserve System. This Act authorized the Federal Reserve Banks to issue Federal Reserve Banknotes. In 1914, the Federal Reserve Banks began issuing Federal Reserve notes - the only currency still manufactured today is by the Bureau of Engraving and Printing.

Compiled by Dr. Neil Gale, Ph.D.

The Story of E.J. Korvette Chain Stores.

“E.J. Korvette” was not a person, but rather an acronym that stood for “Eight Jewish Korean Veterans.” Army brothers who started the chain stores after they were discharged and returned home.

THE TRUTH IS that E.J. Korvette (initially a retailer of leather goods) was founded in 1948, two years before the Korean War began, by a Jewish World War II veteran named Eugene Ferkauf and his friend, Joe Zwillenberg.

Ferkauf explained the nomenclature thusly: "I had a name picked out for the store, E.J. Korvette. “E” is for Eugene, my first name, and “J” stands for Joe Swillenberg, my associate, and my pal. As for “Korvette,” it was originally meant to be spelled with a “C” after the Canadian marine sub-destroyer, simply because I thought the name had a euphonious ring. When it came time to register the name, we found it was illegal to use a naval class identity, so we had to change the spelling to 'K'."

The history of E. J. Korvette, also known as Korvettes, was a chain of discount department stores, founded in 1948 in New York City. It was one of the first department stores to challenge the suggested retail price provisions of anti-discounting statutes. Founded by World War II veteran Eugene Ferkauf and his friend, Joe Zwillenberg, E.J. Korvette did much to define the idea of a discount department store. The Chicago area had many stores. 

It displaced earlier five and dime retailers and preceded later discount stores, like Walmart, and warehouse clubs such as Costco. The company failed to properly manage its business success, which led to the decline and its 1980 bankruptcy and closure.

NOTE: In 1953, when GM executives were looking to name the new Chevrolet sports car, assistant director for the Public Relations department Myron Scott suggested Corvette after the small maneuverable warship—the name was approved. A little start-up company vs. G.M.? Less naming restrictions 5 years later? You figure it out.

Compiled by Dr. Neil Gale, Ph.D.