1261. "Holy grottoes of Cappadocia once housed the largest community of monks in Asia Minor. From here missionaries spread the Christian faith as far as Ethiopia. Some 300 beautifully frescoed churches and dwelling spaces for 30,000 were carved from the soft volcanic pinnacles between the 4th and 14th centuries."
　　—From "The Byzantine Empire: Rome of the East," December 1983, National Geographic magazine
　　

<img src="http://lava.nationalgeographic.com/pod/pictures/lg_wallpaper/NGM1983_12p737.jpg"> <TABLE cellSpacing=0 width="100%" bgColor=#f5f9fa border=0><TR><TD vAlign=bottom align=right width=100></TD><TD><FONT color=green size=-1>
</FONT></TD></TR></TABLE>

　1262. "Uplifted by song, Sneha, an Untouchable eighth grader, leads classmates in a hand-clapping rehearsal of a patriotic anthem to be performed at a concert celebrating India‘s Republic Day. Kasturba Balika School in New Delhi provides education to some 700 under-privileged girls, most of them Untouchables. It is named for the wife of Mahatma Gandhi, the man who fought and failed to end the practice of Untouchability."
　　—From "Untouchable," June 2003, National Geographic magazine
　　

<img src="http://lava.nationalgeographic.com/pod/pictures/lg_wallpaper/NGM2003_06p22-3.jpg"> <TABLE cellSpacing=0 width="100%" bgColor=#f5f9fa border=0><TR><TD vAlign=bottom align=right width=100></TD><TD><FONT color=green size=-1>
</FONT></TD></TR></TABLE>

　1263. Fishermen tending their nets after a day on the sea. This can be a daunting task with the extensive amount of netting used by these particular fishermen, which can be seen in bags resting on the boat.
　　(Text adapted from "Santorini: Greece‘s Sensuous Daughter of Cataclysm," September/Octocber 1997, National Geographic Traveler magazine)
　　
　　

<img src="http://lava.nationalgeographic.com/pod/pictures/lg_wallpaper/Traveler1997_09p71UP.jpg"> <TABLE cellSpacing=0 width="100%" bgColor=#f5f9fa border=0><TR><TD vAlign=bottom align=right width=100></TD><TD><FONT color=green size=-1>
</FONT></TD></TR></TABLE>

　1264. "Crowds gather at Jerusalem‘s Wailing Wall, or Western Wall, sacred to Jews [and the last remnant of the Second Temple]. The Dome of the Rock, an Islamic mosque, gleams beyond."
　　
　　Text from the National Geographic book Exploring Your World: The Adventure of Geography, 1989

<img src="http://lava.nationalgeographic.com/pod/pictures/lg_wallpaper/05275_17.jpg"> <TABLE cellSpacing=0 width="100%" bgColor=#f5f9fa border=0><TR><TD vAlign=bottom align=right width=100></TD><TD><FONT color=green size=-1>
</FONT></TD></TR></TABLE>

　1265. The Turners, a local gospel-bluegrass band, perform on the grounds of the tax assessor抯 office in Mountain View, Arkansas.
　　(Photograph shot on assignment for, but not published in, "The Long Run: Best of the Heartland," September 2004, National Geographic Traveler magazine)
　　

<img src="http://lava.nationalgeographic.com/pod/pictures/lg_wallpaper/MT3566_Musicians.jpg"> <TABLE cellSpacing=0 width="100%" bgColor=#f5f9fa border=0><TR><TD vAlign=bottom align=right width=100></TD><TD><FONT color=green size=-1>
</FONT></TD></TR></TABLE>

　1266. A Chipaya Indian helps his daughter with her math homework inside their patuca, a sod shelter used by Chipaya when they are out tending their sheep.
　　
　　(Photograph shot on assignment for, but not published in, "Vanishing Cultures," January 1999, National Geographic magazine)

<img src="http://lava.nationalgeographic.com/pod/pictures/lg_wallpaper/06546_76.jpg"> <TABLE cellSpacing=0 width="100%" bgColor=#f5f9fa border=0><TR><TD vAlign=bottom align=right width=100></TD><TD><FONT color=green size=-1>
</FONT></TD></TR></TABLE>

　1267. "Once the world‘s largest church, now a museum, Hagia Sophia was dedicated 1,446 years ago by Justinian, who built it on the foundation of an earlier church that had been destroyed, along with much of Constantinople, during riots that nearly deposed him. Muslim minarets rose after the city fell to the Ottoman Turks in 1453."
　　—From "The Byzantine Empire: Rome of the East," December 1983, National Geographic magazine
　　

<img src="http://lava.nationalgeographic.com/pod/pictures/lg_wallpaper/NGM1983_12p724-5.jpg"> <TABLE cellSpacing=0 width="100%" bgColor=#f5f9fa border=0><TR><TD vAlign=bottom align=right width=100></TD><TD><FONT color=green size=-1>
</FONT></TD></TR></TABLE>

1268. "Day-trippers explore the raw lava of the Nea Kameni. Eruptions began building this island in A.D. 1570 long after ash from the Bronze Age explosion entombed a wealthy city at Akrotiri, on what is now [the island] Thera."
　　—From "Santorini: Greece‘s Sensuous Daughter of Cataclysm," September/October 1997, National Geographic Traveler
　　

<img src="http://lava.nationalgeographic.com/pod/pictures/lg_wallpaper/Traveler1997_09p76LO.jpg"> <TABLE cellSpacing=0 width="100%" bgColor=#f5f9fa border=0><TR><TD vAlign=bottom align=right width=100></TD><TD><FONT color=green size=-1>
</FONT></TD></TR></TABLE>

1269. A Yakima tribesman is adorned in traditional dress

<img src="http://lava.nationalgeographic.com/pod/pictures/lg_wallpaper/EC001_220.jpg"> <TABLE cellSpacing=0 width="100%" bgColor=#f5f9fa border=0><TR><TD vAlign=bottom align=right width=100></TD><TD><FONT color=green size=-1>
</FONT></TD></TR></TABLE>

　1270. Apparently preferring level ground near the sea, a group of king penguins bunches on rocky flats. A king penguin colony may contain anywhere from tens to thousands of birds.
　　
　　(Photograph shot on assignment for, but not published in, "Shackleton: Epic of Survival," November 1998, National Geographic magazine)

<img src="http://lava.nationalgeographic.com/pod/pictures/lg_wallpaper/06571_23.jpg"> <TABLE cellSpacing=0 width="100%" bgColor=#f5f9fa border=0><TR><TD vAlign=bottom align=right width=100></TD><TD><FONT color=green size=-1>
</FONT></TD></TR></TABLE>