What We Loved This Week, May 15 – 21

Published May 20, 2016
Updated May 19, 2016

The Unique Beauty Of Patagonia

Patagonia Trail

Trekkers hike atop Perito Moreno Glacier in Los Glaciares National Park on November 27, 2015, in Santa Cruz Province, Argentina. Mario Tama / Getty

As you inch deeper into South America toward the pole, temperatures start dropping and your surroundings begin to stun. When you start to see the penguins and the aquamarine glaciers, you’ll know you’ve arrived in Patagonia.

Encompassing parts of Chile and Argentina, the sparsely populated region is more or less a sampling of the world’s topographies in one spot: Deserts and rivers, mountains and steppes, grasslands and glaciers dot the 4.5 million square kilometer expanse.

Getty photographers recently ventured to Patagonia — whose name derives from the word Magellan used to describe the natives he encountered there, patagón, in 1520 — to document the region’s wonder. If you can’t make it down to see for yourself, the photos housed at the AtlanticThe Atlantic make for a decent substitute.

Patagonia Penguins

Magellanic penguins walk in single file at the El Pedral penguin colony near Punta Ninfas, in the Patagonian province of Chubut, Argentina. Juan Mabromata / AFP / Getty

Patagonia Mountains

The Cuernos del Paine. Martin Bernetti / AFP / Getty

Cambodian Genocide Portraits Help Shed Light On A Forgotten Nightmare

Beaten

Patrick Aventurier/Getty Images

When Cambodia’s Khmer Rouge regime took power in 1975, they launched a genocide against anyone that was thought to be incompatible with their political vision, including intellectuals, ethnic minorities, religious figures, and city-dwellers. Over the following four years, millions were imprisoned, tortured, and killed.

At Tuol Sleng prison alone, nearly all but seven of the 20,000 inmates were killed. These portraits taken of prisoners upon their arrival to Tuol Sleng help us understand what life was like in one of the most brutal parts of the Cambodian genocide:

Boy

The Killing Fields Museum of Cambodia

Handcuffed

The Killing Fields Museum of Cambodia

author
All That's Interesting
author
A New York-based publisher established in 2010, All That's Interesting brings together subject-level experts in history, true crime, and science to share stories that illuminate our world.
editor
John Kuroski
editor
John Kuroski is the editorial director of All That's Interesting. He graduated from New York University with a degree in history, earning a place in the Phi Alpha Theta honor society for history students. An editor at All That's Interesting since 2015, his areas of interest include modern history and true crime.