CategoryOn the Cover

Lord Howe Island was uninhabited until the late 1700s when the British navy claimed it and other nearby islands. The remote island’s thriving ecosystem includes rare endemic species such as the Lord Howe Woodhen, a flightless bird, and the Lord Howe Island Phasmid, the world’s largest stick insect. Soaring mountain peaks formed by an underwater

In the spring of 1992, the world’s eyes were on Los Angeles, as the verdict in the Rodney King trial sparked massive social unrest and a national debate about police brutality, racial discrimination and economic inequality. In its aftermath, Ikeda Sensei delivered his poem “The Sun of Jiyu Over a New Land” on January 27,

For almost 25 centuries, the Acropolis of Athens has survived wars, earthquakes and fires, adapting to different uses and civilizations. Original fortifications on the hilltop site date back to the 13th century BCE. The Acropolis—which stands as the most complete monument of Greek antiquity—was built in the 5th century BCE alongside other great architectural achievements,

Koutammakou is home to the Batammariba people of northeastern Togo. This living cultural landscape is characterized by takienta—tower-shaped houses built out of mud and straw. The site’s outstanding architecture and its integration of the forests, sacred rocks, springs and other elements of the environment in its construction express the close relationship that the Batammariba have

Tenochtitlàn, the capital of the Aztec Empire, was founded on an island in Lake Texcoco around the year 1325. The location was chosen when the ancient people found an eagle eating a snake atop a cactus, a scene believed to be a sign from the god Huitzilopochtli. It became the center of the most powerful

The previous SGI-USA Las Vegas center didn’t provide enough space for the growing membership. As members formed a committee to search for a new castle of kosen-rufu, there were many false starts and dead ends. But the members weren’t defeated. They refreshed and deepened their resolve each time and took action by conducting chanting sessions

The medieval town of Carcassonne, located in the Occitania region of France, was originally a Gaulish settlement that the Romans transformed into a fortified town in the third century. It is most famous for its nearly two miles of walls interspersed with 52 towers that surround the area, making it the largest walled city in

The Hiroshima Peace Memorial, also known as the Genbaku Dome, was almost completely destroyed by the heat waves and blast wind of the atomic bomb dropped on Aug. 6, 1945. It was one of the only structures left standing near the hypocenter of the explosion.  An exact figure of casualties of the bomb is unknowable,

Located in Northern New Mexico, Taos Pueblo is thought to be the oldest continuously inhabited community in the United States. Parts of the adobe settlement have been dated back more than a thousand years. The Taos people still use the adobe structures for religious ceremonies and rites, with about 150 people living in the Pueblo

Ikeda Sensei visited the former SGI-USA Boston Center in 1991—a much smaller center on Harcourt Street—and noticed a large clock in the main Gohonzon room. He encouraged the members to develop the fortune to have a big community center befitting the clock. Three decades later, that clock is now displayed prominently in the main Gohonzon

Gunung Mulu lies just below the equator on the Malaysian island of Borneo.  Covered by thousands of miles of tropical rainforest, the park teems with life and unique natural phenomena. Several millenia of heavy rain have carved formations in the park’s limestone. Jagged spires called the Pinnacles of Gunung Mulu jut out from Borneo’s jungles.

The ancient city of Petra was the capital of the Nabatean kingdom, a desert oasis and nomadic epicenter along major trade routes between Arabia, Egypt and the Mediterranean Sea. Its elaborate structures were carved by hand directly into sandstone cliffs. Rock-cut channels, webbed throughout the surrounding mountainous desert, connected natural springs to the city’s canals

For more than three millennia, people have inhabited the magnificent natural landscape of Salzkammergut, taking advantage of its salt deposits. Iron Age trade routes across Europe testify to the flourishing society that became known as Hallstatt Culture. After a fire destroyed the town in 1750, it was rebuilt in Baroque style. The landscape has escaped

Ikeda Sensei once gave this guidance at the opening of a new SGI center: Soka Gakkai culture centers are not idle palaces of luxury; they are bastions of kosen-rufu. Bastions are a base from which a struggle is carried out. So the most fitting way to mark the completion of a new bastion is with

The Amphitheatre of El Jem, located in central Tunisia rivals the Colosseum in Rome. Composed of stone bricks and supported on a flat plain by a complex system of arches, the amphitheatre is an impressive display of Roman architecture. It was constructed around 238 BCE in the small city of Thysdrus, present day El Jem.

The Iguazu Falls stand between the border of Argentina and Brazil, including some 275 waterfalls and cataracts that cascade more than 250 feet. Aptly named, iguazu means “great water” in the native Mbyá-Guaraní language. Two sister parks in Argentina and Brazil cover a combined area of nearly 1,000 square miles. The magnificent landscape is home

Known as Pamukkale, or “cotton palace,” the ancient “holy city” of Hierapolis is an ethereal landscape of mineral forests, petrified waterfalls and terraced basins. Its cliffside hot springs 650 feet high have served as spas since 200 BCE, when the town of Hierapolis was founded in what is now southwest Turkey. Throughout the ages, civilizations

When the time came to open a new center in Phoenix, the search for a location led to a property in a residential neighborhood on East Myrtle Avenue. People in the community pass through the eastern edge of the property to hike, bike or ride horses in the Phoenix Mountains Preserve. However, when vacating it

A symbol of the American ideals of freedom, inspiration and hope, the Statue of Liberty has welcomed millions of immigrants to the United States since 1886. She stands proudly within view of Ellis Island, the U.S.’s most famous immigration center, at the entrance of New York Harbor. A gift from France, designed by sculptor Frederic

Constructed in the early 15th century, the Changdeokgung Palace (literally the Palace of Prospering Virtue) is one of the Five Grand Palaces built by the kings of the Joseon Dynasty. The complex, which occupies nearly 143 acres in northern Seoul, Korea, distinguishes itself from conventional palace architecture by its clever adaptation to the uneven topography.