The pictures of ngpod are really classic! Chinese website of the National Geographic's Photo of the Day!

These are very classical masterpieces of art photography, many of which are the works that are seen by the public for the first time. It is said that in order to take a precious picture, the photographer often went back and forth for many times with photographic equipment weighing several tons. Some even waited for several years just to take a single photo...

The relatively famous exploration and scientific research projects sponsored by the National Geographic Society include:

1909: The first time that human beings reached the North Pole

1912: Excavation of the lost Inca city in the Andes Mountains of Peru - Machu Picchu

1916: Discovery of the Valley of Ten Thousand Smokes in Katmai National Park, Alaska, where volcanic smoke wafts through the air creating strange scenery

1929: The first flight over the South Pole made by humans

1930: The first natural color aerial photograph was taken

1934: The first submersion of humans into the deep sea at a depth of 908 meters

1935: Humans set an altitude record of 21718 meters using a hot-air balloon

1952: Publication of the first article about the seabed

1969: Astronauts from Apollo 11 carried the National Geographic Society flag to the moon

Besides exploration activities, the Society has also been a sponsor of several major archaeological and paleontological discoveries in history. These discoveries have unraveled many mysteries surrounding the ancient Maya civilization as well as the dinosaur empire from 165 million years ago on Earth.

Other important discoveries sponsored by the Society include:

In 1974: Johanson excavated the earliest and most complete upright walking human ancestor remains;

In 1980, the discovery of the magnificent Maya civilization in Guatemala;

In 1982, the discovery of the ancient Roman town buried under the ashes when Mount Vesuvius erupted in AD 79;

In 1995, the discovery of 500-year-old frozen mummies on the mountaintop in Peru.

Through sponsorship from the Geography Society, human knowledge about animals has greatly advanced:

The Leakey family discovered three-million-year-old human ancestors in Africa;

Jane Goodall made breakthroughs in her research on wild chimpanzees;

And there were also studies on bats, grizzly bears, sharks, orangutans, monarch butterflies, and the rare Siberian tiger, all of which have given humans a deeper understanding of ourselves and our animal friends.

Founded in 1888, the U.S. National Geographic Society is a non-profit organization with the aim of "increasing and spreading geographical knowledge." As the flagship travel magazine of the National Geographic Society, National Geographic Traveler is committed to becoming a source of information for proactive travelers with a strong thirst for knowledge. Each issue of National Geographic Traveler presents "must-see" destinations around the world to more than 5.3 million readers globally, and is published in six languages including English, Chinese, Japanese, Dutch, Hebrew, and Thai, making it the most widely read travel magazine in the world.