Free for Editorial Use Ballerinas from The Royal Ballet School perform on December 2, 2025 under Covent Garden's first festive snowfall to launch the destination's daily December snow flurries. (Photo by Paul Grover/Covent Garden)

Soma-Nomaoi is a festival that recreates a battle scene from more than 1,000 years ago. It is annually held for 4 days from July 22 to 25 in Haramachi City, Fukushima Prefecture, in the eastern part of Japan. In this historical event, 600 mounted samurai in traditional Japanese armor, with long swords at their side and ancestral flagstaffs streaming from their backs, ride across open fields. Soma-Nomaoi has been designated an Important Intangible Folk Cultural Property.

Photo: A young woman (C) clad in samurai costume leads other local poeple as she rides her horse during a parade at the annual Soma Nomaoi festival in Minamisoma, Fukushima Prefecture, on July 28, 2012. The traditional full-scale festival kicked off for the first time after the accident of the Fukushima Dai-ichi Nuclear Power Plant following the massive earthquake and the tsunami on March 11, 2011. (Photo by Toru Yamanaka/AFP Photo)

A fox runs out onto the pitch before the start of the second half. Celtic League 2012/13, Round 19, Leinster v Ulster, RDS, Ballsbridge, Dublin, March 30, 2013. (Photo by Paul Mohan)

Tsukimi Ayano steps out of her house in the village of Nagoro on Shikoku Island in southern Japan February 24, 2015. Tsukimi Ayano made her first scarecrow 13 years ago to frighten off birds pecking at seeds in her garden. The life-sized straw doll resembled her father, so she made more. Today, the tiny village of Nagoro in southern Japan is teeming with Ayano's hand-sewn creations, frozen in time for a tableau that captures the motions of everyday life. (Photo by Thomas Peter/Reuters)

Cemetery overcrowding is an issue that resonates around the world, particularly in its most cramped cities and among religions that forbid or discourage cremation. The reality of relying on finite land resources to cope with the endless stream of the dying has brought about creative solutions... (Photo by Rodrigo Abd/AP Photo)

The Northern Lights glow green in a spectacular light show above a field of trees frozen solid with snow. (Photo by Jaak Sarv/Solent News & Photo Agency)

Chinese hostesses, who serve the delegates of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference and National People's Congress, have souvenir photos taken in front of the Great Hall of the People during sessions of the CPPCC and NPC held in Beijing, China Tuesday, March 4, 2014. (Photo by Andy Wong/AP Photo)