When a Dutch schoolteacher named Paul van den Heuvel began gathering materials for a history lesson on Anne Frank, he probably had no idea that he'd make a bit of history himself. As he was looking through some of his father's old books, he discovered an old postcard displaying a Christmas bell and signed with one very famous name: "Anne Frank".

Curators at the Anne Frank Museum in Amsterdam have already confirmed that the card is genuine, stating that this card resembles another already in the museum's collection. The card was apparently sent in 1937, eight years before Anne Frank's death.

The Diary of Anne Frank is still the world's top-selling book about the Holocaust, documenting the months Anne and her family spent hiding from the Nazis during World War II.

More here.

Located in Amsterdam, the Sandton Hotel de Filosoof (Philosopher's Hotel) is one of the more high-minded theme hotels in the world. The thirty-eight rooms are all dedicated to well-known philosophers, including Nietzsche, Spinoza, Confucius, and Thoreau (pictured).

The Thomas Hobbes room, I've heard, is a little "nasty", while Plato's room apparently has a lamp and a wall for perfect for making shadow puppets. Socrates' room looks nice in the photos, but I'd avoid sampling any leftover drinks you find. Kudos to you if you got those references.

Check out some of the rooms here.

[Hat tip: Tyler Cowen]

What strange things have been found on planes?

Click the image to read the bizarre story...

Back in September, we brought you the news that one-third of Amsterdam's red-light district will be shut down and transformed into housing. Now it seems the transformation will be even more drastic than previously thought. A wide swatch of the district will be replaced by "chic apartments, upmarket shops, galleries of high-quality hotels, and restaurants."

The clean-up apparently has the full backing of the city, right up to the mayor. He said the city doesn't want to completely ban prostitution; they just want to make it more discreet and limited to a couple of blocks. But it sounds like this could be more than just the usual back-and-forth on prostitution. As part of the plans, Amsterdam wants to "restore a number of historic buildings and reverse the decline of a large central area where brothels, sex clubs, and the coffee shops that sell marijuana line the city's canals."

On the upside, now the city wants to devote resources to restoring historic buildings, which is at least better than putting up more drab public housing or such. I may be reading too much into this, but looks like they want to take the Amsterdam out of Amsterdam.

Citing concerns regarding overcrowding and rising sea levels, the Dutch Parliament recently announced it is seeking to build a tulip-shaped island in the North Sea, just off the country's coast. (Check out Brett's post on that subject here). Artificial islands have already been constructed in places throughout the world, with probably the most famous being the Palm Islands in Dubai. This all seems to beg the question, just how do you build an island?

Samantha Henig, Slate's resident Explainer, has posted an informative video answering just that question. Apparently, dumping large amounts of sand and gravel into the ocean is a good place to start.

Of course, there's always the method that Richie Sowa employed in constructing his Spiral Island off the Mexican coast-- round up 250,000 plastic bottles and simply float. Come to think of it, anyone wanting to build their own island might be better sticking with the sand and gravel method-- Spiral Island was destroyed by a hurricane in 2005.

Okay, you can bet I was disappointed to not have my fix of Amazing Race tonight. Particularly after enjoying Martha's recap of last week. I missed the show because I was having my white knuckle drive back from Kentucky. Tonight, I was all set to take notes on who said what and did what for my own recap, but no. Amazing Race was not on. Instead, there was a two-hour Survivor: China. While I watched Survivor, a show I have never seen before, I thought about what makes Amazing Race such an interesting show--and why Survivor gets on my nerves.