tz
/ July 14, 2026
Teatro alla Scala, universally known as La Scala, is the opera house that put Milan on the world’s cultural map. Opened in 1778 in Piazza della Scala, it has hosted the premieres and greatest voices of Italian opera for nearly 250 years, and it remains
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tz
/ July 14, 2026
Lincoln Park Zoo sits along Chicago’s lakefront in the neighborhood that shares its name, and it has welcomed visitors free of charge since it opened in 1868. That makes it one of the oldest zoos in the United States, predating most of the country’s major
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tz
/ July 14, 2026
The Saint Louis Zoo sits inside historic Forest Park in St. Louis, Missouri, and has been a fixture of the city since its founding in 1910, growing out of a flight cage built for the 1904 World’s Fair. Spanning roughly 90 acres, the zoo has
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tz
/ July 14, 2026
Great Bear is a steel inverted roller coaster at Hersheypark in Hershey, Pennsylvania, built by Swiss manufacturer Bolliger & Mabillard with track design assistance from Werner Stengel’s engineering firm. When it opened on May 23, 1998, it became the first inverted looping coaster in the
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tz
/ July 14, 2026
Phoenix is a classic wooden roller coaster at Knoebels Amusement Resort in Elysburg, Pennsylvania, and it’s routinely named one of the best wooden coasters on Earth. Riders searching for hard numbers want to know exactly how tall it is and how fast it goes —
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tz
/ July 14, 2026
Europa-Park is a 95-hectare theme park in Rust, Baden-Württemberg, Germany, founded by Franz Mack and his son Roland and opened to its first visitors on July 12, 1975. Built as a showcase for the family’s ride-manufacturing business, Mack Rides, it grew from a modest site
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tz
/ July 13, 2026
Phantasialand is a theme park in Brühl, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany, that opened on April 30, 1967, founded by dollmaker Richard Schmidt and businessman Gottlieb Löffelhardt. What began as a puppet theater with a handful of boat rides has grown into one of Europe’s most densely
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tz
/ July 13, 2026
Kraken is a steel floorless roller coaster at SeaWorld Orlando in Orlando, Florida, built by Swiss manufacturer Bolliger & Mabillard and designed by Werner Stengel. It opened to the public on June 1, 2000, after a soft opening in late May of that year, and
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tz
/ July 13, 2026
Six Flags Over Texas opened Tormenta Rampaging Run this week, a Bolliger & Mabillard dive coaster that claims six world records and the distinction of being the first-ever “giga dive coaster” — a dive coaster standing between 300 and 399 feet tall. The ride officially
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tz
/ July 13, 2026
Daytona International Speedway opened on February 22, 1959, in Daytona Beach, Florida, built by NASCAR founder Bill France Sr. after beach racing on the sand became too crowded and unpredictable to sustain. Nicknamed the ‘World Center of Racing,’ the 2.5-mile tri-oval quickly became the sport’s
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tz
/ July 13, 2026
Indianapolis Motor Speedway, known worldwide as “The Brickyard,” opened on August 14, 1909, in Speedway, Indiana, just west of downtown Indianapolis. Built by founders Carl G. Fisher, James A. Allison, Arthur C. Newby, and Frank H. Wheeler, the 2.5-mile rectangular oval quickly became the proving
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tz
/ July 13, 2026
Empire Polo Club is the 1,000-acre former polo grounds in Indio, California that became the permanent home of the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival and the Stagecoach country festival. What started in 1987 as a working polo facility with a dozen fields is now
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tz
/ July 13, 2026
Every summer that isn’t a fallow year, a working dairy farm tucked into the Somerset countryside becomes one of the largest temporary gatherings of people in the United Kingdom. That farm is Worthy Farm, and the event it hosts is Glastonbury Festival — officially the
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tz
/ July 13, 2026
Smithsonian’s National Zoo and Conservation Biology Institute has anchored Rock Creek Park in Washington, D.C. since it was established by an act of Congress in 1889, opening to the public that May. As part of the Smithsonian Institution, the zoo has always been free to
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tz
/ July 12, 2026
NRH2O Family Water Park has been North Texas’s summer staple since 1995, when it opened as the first municipally owned water park in Texas and one of the first city-run water parks in the country. Nearly three decades later, the 17-acre park in North Richland
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tz
/ July 12, 2026
Enchanted Forest Water Safari is a water and amusement park in Old Forge, New York, tucked into the Adirondack Mountains. It opened on July 7, 1956 as The Enchanted Forest of the Adirondacks, a storybook-themed attraction built on 35 acres of reclaimed swampland, and was
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tz
/ July 12, 2026
Manta is SeaWorld Orlando’s signature flying roller coaster: riders are locked in face-down, arms and legs extended, and sent soaring belly-first over a lagoon stocked with real rays. It’s one of only a handful of Bolliger & Mabillard “flying coasters” on Earth, and the only
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tz
/ July 12, 2026
Cheetah Hunt is a steel launched roller coaster at Busch Gardens Tampa Bay in Tampa, Florida, that opened on May 27, 2011, alongside the park’s Cheetah Run habitat in the Edge of Africa section. Built by Intamin with design input from the park’s Mark Rose,
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tz
/ July 12, 2026
Tigris fires forward out of the station, falls back through it, launches backward, then rockets forward one last time — all before most coasters would finish their first hill. It’s Florida’s tallest launch coaster, and it packs that triple-launch sequence into a footprint barely the
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tz
/ July 12, 2026
Bizarro was the DC Comics-themed identity given to the towering Intamin hypercoaster at Six Flags New England, one of the most decorated roller coasters in the United States. The ride first opened on May 5, 2000 as Superman – Ride of Steel, instantly becoming the
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