A cyclist drives past a flowering rapeseed field not far from the small Bavarian village of Schoengeising, near Munich, during a nice, warm sunny weather day on May 17, 2017. (Photo by Christof Stache/AFP Photo)

A moon light illuminates the sky through the clouds over a large line of grass between some home houses in the small village of Tafalla, northern Spain, Tuesday, May 1, 2018. (Photo by Alvaro Barrientos/AP Photo)

A visitor looks at a Soviet-made «Zaporozhets» retro car, which was converted into an aquarium at a small and medium business exhibition in St. Petersburg, Russia on December 5, 2018. (Photo by Anton Vaganov/Reuters)

A girl from Newar community is pictured with vermillion powder on her forehead as she takes part at the Ihi ceremony in Bhaktapur, Nepal on December 6, 2019. The two-day ceremony begins with purification rituals and ends with “Kanyadan” (giving away the virgin) of the girl by her father. A Newari girl gets married thrice in her life, first with Bel, the fruit of a wood-apple tree, secondly with the sun, and lastly with her future husband. (Photo by Monika Deupala/Reuters)

A small series by illustration Alex Solis remembering those things that used to rule the world.

A bully greenfinch (left) got its comeuppance when a small but fiery dunnock (right) defended itself with its talons in Suffolk, United Kingdom on April 18, 2022. The smaller bird was perched peacefully before the finch burst onto the scene and aggressively squared up to the dunnock. But as the finch tried to peck at the dunnock, the small brown bird expertly used its foot to slam its mouth shut. (Photo by Paul Sawer/Solent News & Photo Agency)

This photo provided by the McKinney Fire Department shows officials at the site of a crash involving a small plane and a vehicle near Aero Country Airport, Saturday, November 11, 2023, in McKinney, Texas. Authorities say a small plane overshot the runway while trying to land at a Texas airport and struck a car that was driving along a nearby road, injuring one person. (Photo by McKinney Fire Department via AP Photo)

Afghan girl athletes perform Wushu on the top of a hill in Kabul, capital of Afghanistan, January 18, 2017. In the conservative Afghan society where people especially in the countryside deeply believe in the old traditions and don't allow their girls and female members of the family to go out of home, exercising sport in open is extremely risky, but a group of girls are broken the taboo and exercising Wushu on a hilltop where the temperature is minus 2 Celsius degrees. (Photo by Rahmat Alizadah/Xinhua/Barcroft Images)