On October 1, 1958, the world’s first civilian space agency opened for business as an emergency response to the Soviet Union’s launch of Sputnik a year earlier. Within a decade, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, universally known as NASA, had evolved from modest research teams experimenting with small converted rockets into one of the greatest technological and managerial enterprises ever known, capable of sending people to the Moon aboard gigantic rockets and of dispatching robot explorers to Venus, Mars, and worlds far beyond. In spite of occasional, tragic setbacks in...

Under the burning Tuscan sun roll marvelous hills, vineyards, and olive groves—all postcard-perfect landscapes nestling centuries-old towns, rural villas, and contadino farmhouses. We’ve tracked down the best examples of such havens to paint a warm-hued picture of the look and feel of Tuscan living. Follow in Michelangelo’s footsteps to the Eremo Santa Maria Maddalena, a medieval hermitage nestled in the steep Arezzo hillside. Take a dip in the California-style pool of Roberto Budini Gattai, the architect who turned a modest winegrower’s house into a dazzling homage to David Hockney....

Nestled in the south of France, bordering the Mediterranean Sea, is a land renowned for its lavender fields, fine cuisine, golden sun, and dreamy landscapes. The region of Provence has inspired such masters as Alphonse Daudet and Vincent van Gogh. So enthralled was Paul Cézanne by the Mont Sainte-Victoire that he immortalized it in a series of paintings. We enter his Provence studio, which still looks the same as it did over a century ago, as well as the house where Frédéric Mistral, 1904 Nobel Prize winner, lived and wrote. We also admire the wrought-iron staircase and embroidered...