Angkor Wat is one of the largest religious buildings in history. It was built between A.D. 1113 and 1150 and covers 500 acres (200 hectares). Its name means "Temple City."
A. At first, Angkor Wat was a Hindu temple dedicated to the god Vishnu. Later, in the 14th century, it became a Buddhist temple, and statues of the Buddha were added. Over time, its purpose changed. First, it served as a Buddhist temple, and later, it was used for military defense. Today, Angkor Wat is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and experts are working hard to preserve it. The temple has a 213-foot (65-meter) tall tower in the center, surrounded by four smaller towers and walls. This design represents Mount Meru, a sacred mountain in Hindu mythology where the Gods live.
B. Angkor Wat is in Cambodia, in the city of Angkor, which was once the capital of the Khmer Empire. Prior to the Industrial Revolution, Angkor had many temples and was home to over one million people. At that time, no other cities were as large. A "lost city" called Mahendraparvata, which is a short distance of 25 miles (40 km) north of Angkor Wat, was detected when scientists used laser scanning (LiDAR) to study Angkor. This discovery helped experts understand how large and advanced the Khmer Empire was.
C. Angkor Wat has a wide moat (a large ditch filled with water around the temple) that is 650 feet (200 meters) wide and 3 miles (5 km) long. The moat is 13 feet (4 meters) deep and helps protect the temple by controlling groundwater levels. This moat not only served as protection against invaders but also helped manage the water supply, which was essential for the temple’s stability. The main entrance is to the west, across a stone bridge, where lion statues stand guard. Recently, archaeologists discovered the remains of eight old towers near this entrance. These towers may have been part of shrines used before the temple was finished. There is also a smaller entrance on the east side.
D. The most important part of Angkor Wat is the central tower with a steep staircase leading to the top, where a statue of Vishnu once stood. Researcher Eleanor Mannikka suggests that this tower was both the religious and political center of the Khmer Empire.
E. In 2010, experts found hidden paintings inside the central tower. One painting shows a Khmer orchestra playing instruments like gongs, xylophones, and flutes. Another painting shows people riding horses between two temples. In total, experts have found 200 hidden paintings inside Angkor Wat. These paintings provide new insights into the daily life, culture, and beliefs of the Khmer people who built Angkor Wat.
The Bermuda Triangle is a part of the Atlantic Ocean. It is located between Miami, Bermuda, and Puerto Rico. Many ships and airplanes have disappeared in this area. Some accidents are strange. For example, a group of U.S. Navy planes flew over the Triangle and got lost. They were never found. Some boats and planes disappear without calling for help. Many theories try to explain these mysteries, but none prove that more accidents happen here than in other busy parts of the ocean. People travel through this area every day without problems.
The Bermuda Triangle, also called the Devil’s Triangle, covers about 500,000 square miles near Florida. When Christopher Columbus made his first trip to the New World, he saw a bright light—maybe a meteor—fall into the sea at night. A few weeks later, a strange light appeared far away. He did not know if the two events were related, but they added to the mystery of the area. He also noticed that the compass readings were unusual because the Bermuda Triangle was one of the few places on Earth where true north and magnetic north are the same.
William Shakespeare’s play The Tempest might be based on a real shipwreck in Bermuda and added to the mystery of the area. However, people did not pay much attention to the disappearances there until the 20th century. In March 1918, a famous accident happened when the USS Cyclops, a large Navy cargo ship with over 300 men and a large amount of manganese ore, sank between Barbados and the Chesapeake Bay. The Cyclops could send an SOS signal but did not do so, and after a long search, no parts of the ship were discovered. "Only God and the sea know what happened to the big ship," said U.S. President Woodrow Wilson.
This was not the only strange case. Years later, two of the Cyclops’ sister ships disappeared in a similar way. In 1941, both ships followed nearly the same route as the Cyclops and were never seen again.
People began to notice that ships crossing the Bermuda Triangle either disappeared or were found empty. In December 1945, five Navy planes with 14 men took off from Fort Lauderdale, Florida, to practice bombing nearby sandbars. But the leader of the mission, called Flight 19, lost his way because his compasses were not working. All five planes kept flying in circles until they ran out of fuel and crashed into the sea. No wreckage was ever found. On the same day, a rescue plane also disappeared with 13 people on board. After weeks of searching, no one found any clues. The Navy said in a report that it was "like they flew to Mars."
In 1964, Vincent Gaddis named the area the "Bermuda Triangle" in a magazine article. More strange accidents happened there, like three passenger planes that crashed after saying, "All's well." In 1974, Charles Berlitz, a relative of the founder of Berlitz language schools, wrote a bestseller that made the legend famous. Since then, many writers have suggested that the dangerous triangle is caused by aliens, Atlantis, sea monsters, time warps, or strange gravity. Scientists, however, suggest more natural explanations, such as magnetic problems, waterspouts, or methane gas from the ocean floor. But it is likely that no single idea explains it. One skeptic said that looking for one cause is like trying to find one reason for every car crash in Arizona. Also, storms, rocks, and the Gulf Stream can make sailing difficult, but Lloyd’s of London and the U.S. Coast Guard do not see the Bermuda Triangle as especially dangerous. The U.S. Coast Guard said, "After checking many aircraft and boat losses there over the years, nothing shows that the accidents were caused by anything other than physical reasons. No unusual explanations were ever found."
Is higher education in trouble? Maybe it has already reached its height. Some famous schools like Harvard and Yale are fine, but others are not. Regional public schools used to grow for many years, but now they have big money problems. Small private colleges are very expensive and not many students want to go there anymore.
People sometimes say that colleges will have a big problem like the housing market did in 2008, and they will face a drop soon. Maybe it won’t happen suddenly, but slowly, and it has already started.
In 2013, Bryan Alexander, a former English teacher, began thinking about “peak higher education,” similar to ideas like “peak oil.” At that time, universities seemed to be having problems. Fewer students were joining colleges, around 450,000 fewer than before, and more teachers were working part-time. Also, many people were worried about the high costs of college and whether getting a degree was really worth it. Alexander thought that after many years of growth, higher education might have reached its largest size ever. He believed it would only get smaller from then on.
Five years have passed, and he says the 'depressing' prediction is becoming true. In spring 2013, 19,105,651 students were in higher education. This spring, the number was 17,839,330, according to new data from the National Center for Education Statistics. This is a drop of about 7 percent, mainly due to fewer students in for-profit and community colleges, and not much change in non-profit public and private colleges. The trend of fewer students in higher education might continue, he thinks, because of a few reasons. The birth rate is going down, so there will be fewer young people starting college, and there will be fewer students from other countries to fill these spaces.
Why is fewer enrollment worrying? Basically, many colleges rely on students enrolling. If fewer students join, colleges earn less money, meaning less funding for buildings, teachers, and courses. This causes more problems as colleges cut courses, making it harder to get new students. For small private liberal-arts colleges, this might mean they have to join with others or even close down. Some examples are Marylhurst University in Oregon, Wheelock College in Massachusetts, and St. Gregory’s University in Oklahoma. Other colleges might change what kind of students they try to attract and focus on more adult students, like the University of Memphis in Tennessee.
If fewer students enroll in college, there might be fewer professors who do research. Teachers might have to work more, and there might be more part-time teachers. Colleges have not treated part-time teachers well, and this could be a big problem. Alexander says colleges knew this could happen since the 1990s, but they did not change anything. They continue to produce many Ph.D. graduates, and most of these people may leave teaching or have bad working conditions. Some colleges will not have many problems, like famous universities such as those in the Ivy League or the University of Texas at Austin. But most other colleges will have to change, or they might close.
Maybe this is just a temporary problem caused by fewer students in profit-making schools that might fix itself. Or it could be because the economy is getting better, so more people choose to work instead of going to school. A hopeful idea is that higher education will find a solution. State governments might start giving more money to colleges. Some colleges have already adapted, welcoming more adult students as well as recent high-school graduates, and offering more classes online to reach more students and cut campus costs. It's a bit funny, he says, that 'we are living in the best time ever to be a student,' with so much good stuff available online. But still, the schools that are known for teaching face big problems.