Assorted History

The Great Smog of London

Julia Martinez. "Great Smog of London." Encyclopedia Britannica.

“Your Memories of the 1952 Great Smog.” The Guardian. 

“70 Years Since the Great London Smog: 1952 Air Quality in a Modern Context.” Public Liaison Unit, Greater London Authority.

Laura Robson-Mainwaring. “The Great Smog of 1952.” The National Archives (UK).

Christopher Klein. “When the Great Smog Smothered London.” History. 

“Anticyclone.” Encyclopedia Britannica.

“The Great Smog of 1952.” The Met Office.

Disoriented in the thick, sulfurous smoke that had filled London, a 10-year-old Teresa walked with her friends as they made their way to school, holding each other’s hands and staying close to the hedges that lined the sidewalk so they didn’t get lost in the soupy smog. Even the streetlights seemed to be swallowed by the darkness; it must have seemed like the end of the world. When they got to class, Teresa took off the scarf she had wrapped around her mouth and nose to help her breathe - and it was covered in soot. This wasn't your average foggy London morning; this was the Great Smog of 1952, a five-day catastrophe that choked the city and killed thousands of people. 

London, a city famous for its smog, had been dealing with industrial pollution for a century by 1952 - but the Great London Smog was an entirely different beast. Coal smoke from the chimneys of factories and homes, providing jobs and warmth in the cold month of December, had been accumulating in the air for some time when the weather shifted to lock the pollution in place like a lid on a pot of boiling water. With no breeze to clear the air and a high pressure system keeping it from rising, the smoke and fog settled to cover London in a thick, acidic smog so dense that some people reported they couldn’t see their own feet as they walked. With visibility so low, trains, boats, and buses stopped operations, leaving the streets eerily quiet except for the coughs and wheezes of those walking to school, work, and home. 

But this smog wasn’t just inconvenient - it was a killer. People started showing up to hospitals with soot-blackened faces and blue lips, wheezing as their lungs struggled to bring in enough oxygen. Still, London had seen smog before. According to some sources, many people didn’t really understand just how serious things were until the florists and undertakers started to run out of flowers and caskets. Initial estimates put the death toll at 4,000, but research in the years since has put that number closer to 12,000 when considering the longer-term deaths from the smog. 

In the wake of the Great London Smog and the thousands of deaths that came with it, the public pushed the government to act. Things like this just couldn’t be allowed to continue happening; how many people would die next time it got this bad? Within a few years, the British government passed a clean air act to reduce the emissions that led to dangerous smog. And although smaller smogs occurred in the following years, nothing on the scale of the Great Smog has happened since - at least not in London. 

EGYPTIAN CAVES in the Grand Canyon?

Don Lago. “‘Looks Like a Mulhatton Story’ The Origins of the Grand Canyon Egyptian Cave Myth.” The Ol’ Pioneer. (Vol. 20, No. 2)

Jesse Rhodes. “175 Years of the Smithsonian’s Most Untrue Stories.” Smithsonian Magazine. 

Alex Orlando. “No, Egyptian Artifacts Were Never Found in the Grand Canyon.” Discover Magazine. 

“The 1909 Grand Canyon Newspaper Hoax.” Primary Sources Recorded by Jason Colavito.

In the spring of 1909, the Arizona Gazette captivated its readers with a sensational story. Among the cliffs of the Grand Canyon, explorer G.E. Kinkaid, having scaled the cliffside to a stairway 2,000 feet from the riverbed, had discovered a hidden stairway which led to a cavern so massive that the Smithsonian said it could have housed more than 50,000 people. The walls were covered in hieroglyphs, and earthenware, gold, and copper artifacts, even an idol of the Buddha, littered the site. But perhaps most astonishingly, Kinkaid reported that, on shelves carved into the stone walls of the cave, he had found dozens of mummified warriors. With the recent arrival of a representative from the Smithsonian, the Gazette reported that more discoveries within the cave were sure to follow… but there was never another report about the discovery. In fact, no other publication picked up the story either, with one exception - another paper who reported about the “discovery” with the title, “Looks Like a Mulhatton Story.”

At various points in his life, Joe Mulhatton was a traveling salesman, an institutionalized alcoholic, and even a miner in the western US - but across all of these professions and hobbies, he was always a storyteller. In 1880, he had a story published about a girl who had tied one too many balloons to her waist at a fair, pulling her into the sky.  Thankfully, as Mulhatton reported, a nearby hunter was able to shoot the balloons and bring her slowly down. In another one of Mulhatton's famous stories, he discovered a magnetic cactus in the Arizona desert which had such an attractive force that it frequently impaled birds, calves, and even young colts on its massive spikes. If you couldn’t tell, Mulhatton was definitely a *creative* author. In fact, he often bragged about how willing newspapers were to print his hoaxes! But more than any of his other tall tales, he really loved telling stories about caves. Whether in Glasgow or Litchfield in Kentucky or under the entire city of Boston, Mulhatton loved crafting stories about lost civilizations and what they had left behind in imaginary caves. Now, even at the time, it was well known that these Mulhatton stories were works of fiction, but people enjoyed them so much that newspapers kept printing them anyway. Some of the papers even made jokes about the hoaxes as they printed them, like the paper that referred to the author as “Joe Mulhatton the truthful.” In fact, his work was so prevalent that at least one newspaper reporting an actual cave discovery felt it was necessary to report that the discovery was “not a Mulhatton story.”

And while we can’t be certain that the Kinkaid’s adventure was one of these “Mulhatton stories,” it certainly lines up with his known work. In fact, it’s almost identical to a story he told about a Kentucky cave - down to the mummies and the hieroglyphics. It makes sense that Mulhatton would repeat these kinds of sensational hoaxes, as many people have referred to this period as the golden age of Egyptian archaeology - and stories like these fed into the Orientalism of the time and the west’s intense fascination with all things Egypt. It also played into popular racist ideas on the origins of indigenous groups, who were often said to be some inferior leftover of a more advanced civilization as an excuse for the taking of their land. It was the perfect story at the perfect time. But as journalism and American culture changed, it became widely forgotten… That is until 1992, when pseudo-scientists discovered a copy of the original newspaper and began using it to claim that there was a government cover-up of a lost advanced civilization. They argued that the reason there was no evidence of the site, the Smithsonian’s representative, or Kinkaid’s existence was because the government had destroyed it as part of the cover-up. Since that author's claims more than 30 years ago, the story has been told by many people and in many different ways involving conspiracies from Atlantis to Area 51 - all as fantastic and fabricated as the initial discovery.

The Inflatable “Ghost Army”

“Ghost Army: The Combat Con Artists of World War II.” The National WWII Museum.

“D-Day’s Parachuting Dummies and Inflatable Tanks.” Imperial War Museums UK.

Vimal Patel. “Ghost Army, a World War II Master of Deception, Finally Wins Recognition.” The New York Times.

Kellie B. Gormly. “How the Ghost Army of WWII Used Art to Deceive the Nazis.” Smithsonian.

Christopher Klein. “The Top-Secret WWII Unit That Fooled the Nazis.” History.

Have you heard of the “Ghost Army” that helped defeat the Nazis in WWII? Despite its name, the “ghost army” wasn’t made up of ghosts… or an actual army. It was really a small American military group of artists, engineers, and creative minds who used their talents to outsmart the Nazis with inflatable tanks and fake radio broadcasts - and it worked. 

The idea was that this ghost army, using sound effects and military arts and crafts, could trick the Nazis into believing entire divisions were moving around Europe - all while the real Allied divisions prepared in secret. They would mimic troop movements using inflatable tanks and wooden models covered in tarps, broadcast fake radio chatter, and even play the recorded sounds of an army making camp or marching around outside of various towns and cities. Then they’d send regular soldiers dressed up as officers into town, just to reinforce the locals’ belief that the Americans were there in full force. While these fake battalions might not have fooled anyone who got too close, though, that wasn’t the point. Rumors about the American’s locations got back to the Nazis and reinforced what they had seen in their missions flying around to track the American movements - and they fell for it hook, line, and sinker, diverting resources and unknowingly opening themselves to defeat. 

Over the last few years of the war, the Ghost Army was repeatedly used to make these diversions before major battles like the D-Day invasion of Normandy and the Battle of the Bulge, saving an estimated fifteen to thirty-thousand lives across more than twenty missions. 

Despite their success, though, the members of the Ghost Army didn’t come home to celebrations of their great work. After the war, their missions remained classified for decades, and members weren’t even allowed to tell their families what they had done during the war. With the Cold War looming, the government didn’t want to risk losing the option to bring back a Ghost Army if they needed to. 

As the Cold War cooled down, the Ghost Army became somewhat known throughout the 1980s and 90s, but many people still haven’t heard about their service. Thankfully though, in 2022, the U.S. government finally recognized their efforts, awarding the members of the Ghost Army the Congressional Gold Medal for their unique and highly distinguished contribution to the defeat of the Nazis. It just goes to show that sometimes, a little creativity can be the most powerful weapon. 

Prisencolinensinainciusol

Interview by Guy Raz. “It's Gibberish, But Italian Pop Song Still Means Something.” National Public Radio.

Have you heard the “English” song where the lyrics are just gibberish?

The English language can be an absolute mess, and even native speakers within the same country can often struggle to understand each other. And that just makes Adriano Celentano’s Italian song, “Prisencolinensinainciusol,” even better. The whole thing is written in gibberish to sound like English, and it was such a successful song that it reached #1 in the charts all across Europe. The artist says there’s a deeper message about the nature of communication, but honestly it’s just really fun to listen to… and to mess with people by asking them if they can understand it. There is exactly *one* English word in the song though - see if you can figure it out. 

Watch Here: Prisencolinensinainciusol Remastered

Perpetual Stew

Michael Sullivan. “Soup's On! And On! Thai Beef Noodle Brew Has Been Simmering For 45 Years.” National Public Radio.

Massimo Montanari. “Medieval Tastes: Food, Cooking, and the Table.” Columbia University Press.

Maria Trimarchi. “The Stew You Brew (and Eat) for Years: Perpetual Stew.” How Stuff Works.

Ligaya Mishan. “The Novel Taste of Old Food.” New York Times.

Grimod de La Reynière, Alexandre-Balthazar-Laurent. “Almanach des Gourmands:

Servant de Guide Dans Les Moyens de Faire Excellente Chère, Par un Vieil Amateur.” (1803) 

Reay Tannahill. “Food in History.” 

Arthur Prager. ‘From a Pot-Au-Feu, Many Happy Returns’. The New York Times.

Quinn Myers. “Turn Your Fall Chili Into A Medieval 'Perpetual Stew’ And Eat It Until You Die.” Mel Magazine. 

Andrew Sun. “How Hotpot, A Chinese Food Favourite, Started With Genghis Khan…” South China Morning Post.

Would you be brave enough to try a perpetual stew?

Perpetual stew, which has also been called “hunter's stew" or "hunter's pot," is a stew that is always kept warm and added onto every day for weeks, years, or even – allegedly – centuries. 

According to food historian Reay Tannahill, homes in medieval Europe would maintain a pot or cauldron that was always on the fire. And every day, people would throw in whatever they had, whether it was vegetables, meat, or grains. That way, a tasty bit of meat or herbs could still add a little bit of oomph on a day where you only had cabbage. And because the stews were kept on the fire, they didn’t spoil.

But perpetual stew wasn’t just a European thing. Around the world, people have embraced variations of the concept. For example, a variety of cultures in Asia have versions of a master stock, where broths are used, strained, and kept simmering for decades. Even less perpetual stews, like the Chinese “hot pot,” utilize the idea of multiple ingredients adding to the base flavor of a dish, even after they’ve been removed.

Now I do have to say that even though I checked my state library, university library, and a variety of public archives, I haven’t been able to find any records from the Middle Ages which specifically describe perpetual stew. And that’s not super uncommon with medieval food, because our records of food in the European Middle Ages are kind of pitiful. The earliest reference to a perpetual stew that I could find and was written about while it was happening was an 18th-century restaurant in France that allegedly kept a batch of perpetual chicken stew for a little more than a century. Others have said there are restaurants that kept stews even longer than that, but I wasn’t able to find any evidence for it. I did find several articles like this one, where they said that perpetual stew was “probably a myth” because it didn’t make sense to them... which I personally think is a terrible way to decide what’s true and false, especially when we have records of people keeping perpetual stew in more recent history. 

Fast forward to today, though, and perpetual stews are still around. But it's no longer just about necessity; instead, it’s a celebration of flavors, tradition, and culinary creativity. Professional chefs and home cooks alike have embraced the tradition, like Wattana Panich, a family restaurant in Bangkok which has been serving the same batch of beef broth in its soups for nearly half a century. Or Le Central, a West-Coast American bistro that’s been simmering the same stew for 48 years. 

The “Night Witches” of World War II

Douglas Martin. “Nadezhda Popova, WWII ‘Night Witch,’ Dies at 91.” The New York Times. 

“The Soviet Night Witches.” Wright Museum of WWII. 

Brynn Holland. “Meet the Night Witches, the Daring Female Pilots Who Bombed Nazis By Night.” History. 

D’Ann Campbell. “Women in Combat: The World War II Experience in the United States, Great Britain, Germany, and the Soviet Union.” The Journal of Military History.

In the early days of the Second World War, with the Soviets facing a siege and mounting casualties, a group of courageous young women took to the skies to fight the Nazis in a truly groundbreaking way. In fact, these women and their nighttime attacks were so deadly and efficient that the Germans began calling them the “Nachthexen,” the Night Witches.

In the autumn of 1941, the world was at war. The German “Blitzkrieg” was well underway, France had fallen, and Leningrad was under siege. And it was at this critical moment that Major Marina Raskova, known as the "Soviet Amelia Earhart," stepped into the fray. Raskova, who was already a well-known pilot, used her connections to petition Soviet leader Joseph Stalin to let her form a combat squadron made up entirely of women, an idea which met with widespread skepticism from military leaders who believed that women couldn’t add anything of value to the war effort. However, the pressure of the encroaching Nazis left the Soviets with no choice, and they soon approved the formation of three all-female night bomber regiments. 

However, the plywood biplanes that they were given had never been intended for combat, were so underpowered that the pilots couldn’t even afford the extra weight of parachutes, and offered virtually no protection from the harsh elements. But with their limited resources and outdated equipment, they braved bullets and frostbite to drop bombs on Nazi targets. Even as they entered the war, though, these women held on to their own sense of identity, painting flowers onto their planes and living by rules like “Be proud you are a woman.” 

And despite their limitations, the women’s outdated planes turned out to be a great tool, as their light weight allowed them to easily take off and land from various locations and their slow speed actually made them more difficult targets for German fighters who couldn’t slow down enough to engage in a dogfight. But they were most famous for how they’d attack: idling their engines and gliding silently to their targets as they approached, so the only warning the Germans had was the whooshing noise their wooden planes made, like a witches’ broom flying through the night sky - and that’s how they got their name: the “Night Witches.”

Throughout the war, the Night Witches remained a thorn in the side of the Nazis, relentlessly harassing them on the Eastern Front and helping to push them back to Berlin. By 1945, the unit had flown more than 30,000 missions and dropped tens of thousands of bombs. Despite their incredible successes, though, the Night Witches never saw much recognition. They were disbanded immediately after the end of the war, and only a couple dozen received any awards for their exemplary service. And when it was time for the victory parades after the war, they weren’t able to participate, as leaders said their planes were just too slow. Still, their legacy far outpaces the recognition they received during their lives and service, and their fight remains an incredible example of triumph over adversity. 

“They Couldn’t Hit An Elephant…”

Robert U. Johnson & Clarence C. Buel. “Battles and Leaders of the Civil War.”

Famous people’s ‘last words’ are hardly ever the last thing they actually say, but I think Major General John Sedgwick got the closest anyone could - and in the worst way possible. 

About a year before the end of the Civil War, Sedgwick was organizing the lines as he prepared his Union soldiers for battle. Despite warnings from his troops, Sedgwick walked around in the open, even as Confederate sharpshooters took their shots at the Union forces, causing his men to throw themselves to the ground as they took cover. With his characteristic swagger, Sedgwick scoffed at their caution, exclaiming, "They couldn't hit an elephant at this distance." Sedgwick's comment was meant to reassure his troops, but what happened next didn’t really set them up for success. Just moments later, a bullet whizzed by Martin McMahon, Sedgwick’s chief of staff, who turned to warn his commander that he believed the Confederates were using explosive bullets. But before he could say anything, Sedgwick turned to face McMahon, revealing a bullet wound just below his left eye. Sedgwick never joked about his soldiers ducking for cover again, because, well… he never said anything again. 

Waterloo Teeth

“Meeting of the Western Dental Society.” American Dental Review, pp. 98-108. (August 1858)

Paul Kerley. “The Dentures Made from the Teeth of Dead Soldiers at Waterloo.” British Broadcasting Corporation.

“Waterloo Teeth.” British Dental Association.

Julia Armfield. “Smiling With Dead Men’s Teeth.” Untold Lives, British Library.

“Waterloo and Its Dental Legacy.” British Dental Journal.

“Dentistry.” Encyclopedia Britannica.

After the Battle of Waterloo in 1815, scavengers and even surviving soldiers scoured the battlefield for a ghoulish harvest – the teeth of the dead. 

By the 19th century, sugar had become a lot more common in Western diets. Combined with the fact that Western dental care was really minimal at best, (even a barber or a jeweler could just decide to be a dentist) even the wealthy were often losing their teeth to rot and decay. And while some dentists were making dentures out of ivory and animal bone, those fake teeth would rot and reek even faster than the teeth they replaced. Dentists had known for some time that human teeth made the best dentures, but apparently it was pretty difficult, but not impossible, to get someone to give up their teeth while they were still attached. So as thousands of young, mostly healthy young men started dying by the thousands in the Napoleonic, Crimean, and American Civil Wars, dentists were happy to pay for their freshly-plucked chompers. In fact, there was such a high demand for human teeth in England alone that they were reportedly sent from the U.S. by the barrel during the American Civil War. And when the teeth of dead soldiers weren’t enough, grave robbers known as “resurrectionists” would dig up the dearly departed for their pearly off-whites.

Thankfully, these “Waterloo Teeth,” as they’ve become known, fell out of favor by the early 1900s as dentistry became more regulated and scientifically advanced.

The American Turtle

“David Bushnell.” Encyclopedia Britannica.

Brenda Milkofsky. “David Bushnell and His Revolutionary Submarine.” Connecticut History.

“The Submarine Turtle: Naval Documents of the Revolutionary War.” U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command.

"H.L. Hunley." Encyclopedia Britannica,

“Development of the Submarine: Early Underwater Devices.” San Francisco Maritime National Park Association.“Development of the Submarine: Early Underwater Devices.” San Francisco Maritime National Park Association.

Beneath the waters of New York Harbor, a secret weapon emerged in the American Revolution, destined to change the course of naval warfare forever… If it had worked. 

In 1776, the American colonies were locked in a struggle for independence against the mighty British Empire. In their quest to gain an edge in the fight, two brothers devised a seemingly impossible plan – to create the world's first war-time submarine.

Fresh out of Yale, David Bushnell imagined a vessel that could approach enemy ships unseen and underwater as it delivered a deadly blow. And with his brother, Ezra, David made that dream a reality… mostly. Their creation, named the Turtle for its odd appearance, was a marvel of engineering and innovation. This one-person submarine was made of wood, reinforced with iron bands, and equipped with pumps which allowed it to submerge and resurface as needed.

But the Turtle's most *exciting* feature was a detachable mine, a small barrel filled with gunpowder and affixed to the hull of the enemy ship. The idea was that the operator, using hand-cranked propellers, would pilot the Turtle into position beneath a British ship, drill into the hull, and attach the mine, which would explode when the Turtle was at a safe distance.

After some back and forth and the support of George Washington, Sergeant Ezra Lee was chosen to pilot the Turtle, which was brought to New York Harbor after two weeks of training. In the Turtle’s first mission, though, nothing seemed to go right. Rough currents made the Turtle almost impossible to pilot, Lee was unable to attach the mine, and British sailors actually saw and attempted to stop the Turtle as it escaped. In the end, the Turtle made several more attempted attacks before being retired, but none were successful. In fact, the first successful submarine attack wouldn’t occur for another 88 years, when the CSS Hunley sank a Union ship during the American Civil War.

Still, the Turtle had demonstrated the potential of underwater warfare, and Bushnell’s trial and error - even if there was a lot of error - earned him the title of the father of submarine warfare. 

The "Fu-Go" Bomb of World War II

“Japanese Balloon Bombs ‘Fu-Go’.” The Atomic Heritage Foundation.

Linton Weeks. “Beware Of Japanese Balloon Bombs.” National Public Radio.

Francine Uenuma. “In 1945, a Japanese Balloon Bomb Killed Six Americans, Five of Them Children, in Oregon.” Smithsonian Magazine.

Lee Juillerat. “Balloon Bombs.” Oregon Encyclopedia.

“Mitchell Monument Historic Site.” U.S. Forest Service.

Have you heard of the Japanese balloon bombing of WWII? 

In the spring of 1945, pastor Archie Mitchell and his pregnant wife, Elise, were planning to have a picnic with their young Sunday school students. It was a gorgeous day in the small town of Bly, Oregon, and when you get the opportunity to enjoy some peace and quiet while the world is at war - well, that’s just a perfect afternoon. The Second World War had been dragging on for years, and unknown to the Mitchells, the German surrender was only two days away. But Elise wouldn’t live to see it. 

While Archie looked for a place to park, Elise and her five Sunday school students got out of the car to search for a picnic spot. But as they walked around, they stumbled upon an odd balloon on the ground. No one knew it, but this balloon was part of a Japanese “Fu-Go” bomb, which had been created to fly above the Pacific Ocean and destroy random targets in the US. 

Someone pushed, maybe even kicked the bomb - And Elise and her five Sunday school students became the only fatalities of the Fu-Go Bomb. The war against Japan ended only four months later. 

In the years since, a memorial has been placed at the site of the explosion and Japanese civilians have donated cherry trees in Bly as a symbol of apology and peace. 

Nessie: Unveiling the Surgeon’s Photograph

Stephen Lyons. “Birth of a Legend.” PBS.

“Loch Ness Monster.” Encyclopedia Britannica.

Craig Cessford. “Pictish Art and the Sea.” University of Cambridge.

Joe Nickell. “Nessie Hoax Redux.” The Skeptical Inquirer.

Beth Murray. “Loch Ness Monster: New Sonar Images Capture Deep Water Activity.” The Scotsman.

Mary Kay Linge. “‘Loch Ness Monster’ Spotted Again! This Time on Drone Footage.” New York Post.

The Loch Ness Monster, a legendary creature said to inhabit the depths of Scotland's Loch Ness, has been the subject of rumors and alleged sightings for over a thousand years. As long ago as the 8th century, Celtic peoples were leaving Nessie-like carvings on local stone slabs. But it was all hearsay… That is until 1934, when Dr. Robert Wilson came forward with photographic proof - the first real evidence of the Loch Ness Monster.

Dr. Wilson, a renowned London surgeon, was said to have been traveling through the Scottish highlands when he heard a splash coming from the loch. As he turned with his camera in hand, Dr. Wilson was shocked to see a prehistoric leviathan cutting through the water. Hardly believing his eyes, the good doctor quickly snapped a picture. After developing the photo, Dr. Wilson sold it to the Daily Mail, and it exploded in popularity from there. Although there were occasional claims that the photo had been faked, nothing stuck - and for decades the Surgeon’s Photograph, as it became known, was the most famous piece of evidence for the existence of the Loch Ness Monster.

But 60 years after the Surgeon’s Photo was first taken, two Nessie enthusiasts realized Dr. Wilson’s story just didn’t add up and began investigating the photo. After a good amount of research and a confession from a family member, the truth finally came out. There had been something in the loch, alright - but it was no monster. Instead, the iconic photo showed a model made of wood putty and attached to the top of a toy submarine.

The debunking of the Surgeon’s Photograph spread just as quickly as the picture had decades before, but it hasn’t seemed to limit people’s belief in Nessie. Despite an overwhelming lack of verifiable evidence to support the monster’s existence, witnesses still regularly claim sightings of the prehistoric beast, and many people continue to scan the loch with sonar, underwater cameras, and even drones.

Guidotti's Real-Life Sword in the Stone

Rory Carroll. “Tuscany's Excalibur is the Real Thing, Say Scientists.” The Guardian.

“Prose Merlin.” Edited by John Conlee.

Antoni Romuald Chodyński. “The 12th Century Sword Of San Galgano In The Hermitage Of Montesiepi In Tuscany. A Transmission Of The Arthurian Legend?” Fasciculi Archaeologiae Historicae.

Luigi Garlaschelli. “The Real Sword in the Stone.” Skeptical Inquirer.

Almost everybody knows the legend of King Arthur’s sword in the stone… But did you know that story might be based on a real sword in a stone? 

In many versions of Arthurian legend, most recognizably the Disneyfied version, King Arthur must pull a sword from a stone to assert his rightful place as the king of Britain. But the real-life version of the sword in the stone is a little different. 

Galgano Guidotti was born in the mid-12th century to an Italian feudal lord, and as a young man, he became a mercenary knight - happily shedding the blood of others for money and glory. Galgano was arrogant and selfish, selling his services to the highest bidder and rejecting his mother’s repeated pleas to just come home after the death of his father. But one day, as he was riding down a winding road, his horse suddenly startled and threw him from the saddle. Dazed, Galgano looked up - only to be blinded by a bright light. A voice called out, “Galgano, give up your life of sin and turn to God.” Galgano moved to stand, but suddenly found himself alone on an abandoned hillside. “Here you will turn to the Lord,” the voice thundered. Gasping, Galgano woke up - it had been a dream. But weeks later as he traveled the countryside, Galgano’s horse stopped in its tracks. Nothing he did could convince the horse to continue along the path, and that’s when Galgano realized where he was: the hillside from his vision. Overcome, Galgano unsheathed his sword and thrust the blade into the stone, giving up his life of violence and debauchery for a life as a Christian hermit. 

Although there are many versions of this story, Galgano was a real person, and the sword in the stone has been repeatedly tested and verified. And, just like in the Arthurian legend, people have tried to pull the sword from the stone - but there was no King Arthur this time. In the 1960s, the sword snapped at the hilt, proving rather permanently that no one was worthy to pull the sword from its centuries-old home. In the years since, authorities have partially repaired the sword (and secured it behind glass) so visitors to Galgano’s hermitage can still see what so many have admired over the last 800 years.

In the Bog: The Tollund Man

Christian Fischer. “Moselig - Tollundmanden og Ellingkvinden.” Silkeborg Museum.

Christian Fischer and Nina Helt Nielsen. “Tollundmanden – en Oversigt Over det Fantastiske Fund.” Silkeborg Museum.

Jarrett Lobell and Samir Patel. “Bog Bodies Rediscovered.” Archaeology.

P.V. Glob. “The Bog People; Iron Age Man Preserved.”

Nora McGreevy. “What Did Tollund Man, One of Europe’s Famed Bog Bodies, Eat Before He Died?” Smithsonian Mag.

In the spring of 1950, a small family was collecting peat for fuel in a Danish bog. But as she dug up the peat, Grethe Højgaard noticed something odd in the bog. While her husband and brother-in-law insisted it was nothing, Grethe was determined, digging away at the peat with her fingers until she found what she had been looking for - and her hand brushed up against the face of a dead body. 

Grethe and her family immediately called the police, worried that they had just found the body of a young boy who had recently gone missing. Even with the body only partially uncovered, it was clear that there was a rope tied around its neck - an obvious sign of foul play. But when police arrived, things didn’t quite add up. The body had been found more than 8 feet underground with no signs of recent disturbance, both signs that this suspected murder might be a lot older than anyone had originally thought. 

So the police called in renowned archaeology professor P.V. Glob to take a look at things. With Glob’s help, a team of experts made a type of coffin around the bog body, hammering planks into the soft ground so that it could be transported without any more disturbance. Then it was off to Denmark’s Silkeborg Museum, where it was discovered that this murder was a very very cold case.

Despite his well-preserved state, the Tollund Man, as Glob called him, turned out to have been dead for about 2,400 years.  However, thanks to the acidity, temperature, and moisture content of bogs, they are really great at creating natural mummies. That’s why the Tollund man was so well preserved that even his stubble was visible millenia after his death. Still, the question everyone wanted to know hadn’t been answered: What happened to the Tollund man, and how did he end up in a Danish bog? 

While we can never be certain, scientists and historians believe that the Tollund man was, in fact, murdered with the very noose found around his neck. But local peoples at the time burned their dead - why would the Tollund man have been placed in a bog? Well, we do have a pretty good archeological record of sacrifices - human and otherwise - being made in Western European bogs. Based on this, Professor Glob actually believed that the Tollund Man and other bog mummies like him were sacrificed as part of local Iron Age rituals, and there’s evidence of this in the Tollund Man. Although the Tollund Man was killed, his killers seemed to care for his body after death, closing his eyes and gently placing him in a sleeping position in the bog, the noose that killed him still around his neck as if to mark the manner of death. 

Today, the Tollund Man can still be found in the Silkeborg Museum in Denmark, where he continues to provide insight into Iron Age life in Northwestern Europe.

Pedestrian Catchers on Cars

“This Roller Safety Device Sweeps Away Fallen Pedestrian.” Modern Mechanix. (March 1931)

“Auto Met Koeienvanger Voor Voetgangers / Car With Shovel For Pedestrians.” Nationaal Archief van Nederland. Paris. (1929)

“Pedestrian Catcher - Colour.” Associated Press Archives. (1972)

“A Safety Fender for Street Cars.” Scientific American. (February 3, 1894)

Andrew McFarlane. “How The UK's First Fatal Car Accident Unfolded.” British Broadcasting Corporation.

“Road Traffic Injuries and Deaths—A Global Problem.” U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

“Car Catcher, AKA Motor Device.” British Pathé. (1939)

Thousands of people die in car accidents every day, but that wasn’t always the case. Back in the early 1900s, automobile deaths were a rare occurrence - but so were automobiles. However, as more and more cars found their way onto the roads, it became increasingly clear that pedestrians and cars sharing the same space was a recipe for disaster. And as deaths increased, inventors looked for ways to make the automobile experience safer for everyone. So how do you keep a pedestrian safe when confronted with a 1500-pound mass of machinery tearing down the street at 40 miles an hour? 

Well, in the 1920s and 30s, inventors built on older ideas like the cow-catcher, which had been put on the front of locomotives to keep cattle and other obstacles from derailing the trains.  Instead of pushing pedestrians out of the way, though, these early people-scoopers served more to catch than push, as they were made of strong nets or metal grates affixed to the front of vehicles and bent so they would catch a pedestrian rather than run them over. A similar invention had popped up for streetcars in the late 1800s, but it’s unclear, at least from what I’ve been able to find, if the two are related. 

By the late 1930s, engineers had expanded on the idea to create a collapsible, spring-loaded canvas people-catcher, almost like a reverse, non-automatic airbag for a slightly gentler experience. Despite these advancements, though, the idea never really caught on. There was at least one attempt to create a similar safety device in the 1970s, but it doesn’t appear to have seen any widespread release. Instead, the automotive industry spent decades vilifying and criminalizing “jaywalkers” as cars got faster, streets got wider, and pedestrians were left behind.

The Affair of the Poisons 

Anne Somerset. “The Affair of the Poisons: Murder, Infanticide and Satanism at the Court of Louis XIV.” 

Benedetta Faedi Duramy. “Women and Poisons in 17th Century France.” Golden Gate University School of Law.

Frantz Funck-Brentano. “Princes and Poisoners: Studies of the Court of Louis XIV.” Translated by George Maidment.

Hugh Chisholm. “Françoise-Athénaïs de Rochechouart, Marquise de Montespan.” Encyclopedia Britannica, 11th Ed.

Jean-Christian Petitfils. “L'affaire des Poisons : Psychose à la Cour de Louis XIV.” National Geographic Histoire et Civilisations.

Lynn Wood Mollenauer. “Scandal, Conspiracy And The Affair Of The Poisons: Inside The Court Of Louis XIV.” History Extra.

“Madame de Montespan.” Château de Versailles.

Part I: Marie de Brinvilliers

There are some people from history you just wouldn’t want to mess with… like the serial murderer Marie de Brinvilliers. 

Marie Madeleine d'Aubray was born into the French aristocracy in 1630, but as a woman with brothers, she was unable to inherit her family’s wealth. Instead, she was expected to marry into a wealthy family in order to maintain her social status. That’s how, at the age of 21, she became married to the Marquis de Brinvilliers, with whom she had three children. But as time dragged on, Marie became bored with her husband, who was described as “weak as water and unstable as sand,” and sought other ways to *entertain* herself. As luck would have it, her husband the Marquis introduced Marie to his friend, the cavalry captain Gaudin de Sainte-Croix. Marie quickly fell in love (or something else) with Sainte-Croix, and they began a rather public affair. And while such affairs were kind of popular in France at the time, Marie’s father saw it as utterly humiliating. But he had a solution. Marie’s father used his position to have Sainte-Croix arrested without trial, seemingly ending the scandal once and for all. Marie would go back to her boring husband (who was having his own affair), and things would quiet down. 

However, real life is never quite as simple as we’d like it to be. During his time at the famous French prison, the Bastille, Sainte-Croix learned the ins and outs of the creation of what were known as “inheritance powders” - but you might know them by another name: poisons. Upon his release, Sainte-Croix became a licensed apothecary, allowing him to discreetly acquire the ingredients for his poisonous potions - and of course, he went right back to his old fling, Marie. As they continued their affair, more quietly this time, Marie learned the art of poison-making, a skill she would soon put to use.

You see, Marie had been volunteering at a local hospital, which gave her the perfect opportunity to test her poisons as she gave out biscuits and wine. No one would suspect anything if the already-ill kicked the bucket. So after perfecting her recipe to ensure she wouldn’t be caught, Marie turned her anger toward her family. First her father, then her two brothers mysteriously died - but no one suspected Marie, even though she stood to gain a lot of inheritance with her brothers out of the way. That is, until Sainte-Croix died in an apparent poison experiment gone wrong. As the authorities went through his possessions, they found a trove of letters detailing Sainte-Croix and Marie’s illegal exploits. Marie was brought to trial, found guilty, tortured, publicly beheaded by sword, and burned. But just before her execution, Marie declared, “Out of so many guilty people, must I be the only one to be put to death? I could ruin half of Paris if I were to talk."

But was Marie telling the truth? Or was it just a last-ditch effort to escape her imminent execution? Over the next few years, the truth would come out, and it would be more sensational and scandalous than anyone could have expected.

Part II: La Voisin

So Marie - along with a handful of hospital patients, her lover, father, and brothers - was dead. But with her dying accusations still echoing in the minds of Paris, fears of poisonings began to spread throughout the French aristocracy. If someone from the French elite has succeeded in killing so many, what was to keep anyone else from doing the same? Rumors began to spread like wildfire. Every suspicious death was believed to be a poisoning, and a note detailing a plot to poison the king was found in a French church. So Louis XIV, the king of France, began a full inquiry in what became known as “The Affair of the Poisons,” appointing investigators and eventually creating a special court for the proceedings. The investigations tore into French society, going after apothecaries, fortune-tellers, and alchemists, the police finding poisons and cauldrons seemingly everywhere they went. But poisoner after poisoner kept leading police in the same direction - to an alleged sorceress named La Voisin. 

La Voisin was born as Catherine Deshayes in 1640 to a poor mother who quickly brought her into the world of sorcery. By nine, La Voisin had learned the art of fortune-telling, but as she grew older, she abandoned that part of her upbringing to try and fit into French society. She married a businessman and had several children - things should have been going great! But her husband's businesses failed over and over again, contributing to his alcoholism and reported domestic violence against La Voisin. So with a family to support and an abusive, alcoholic husband to be independent of, La Voisin returned to her roots and began a business of her own. 

In a secret room hidden at the back of her garden on the outskirts of Paris, La Voisin began offering fortune-telling, abortions, poisons, and potions. As one Frenchman said at the time, La Voisin “could make a lady's bosom more bountiful or her mouth more diminutive, and she knew just what to do for a nice girl who had gotten herself into trouble." Despite her affiliation with sorcery, though, La Voisin was known as a devout Christian, telling people that her powers were a gift from God. 

With the wealthy people of Paris on her side, La Voisin’s criminal enterprise went undetected for years. But after the execution of Marie de Brinvilliers in 1676, authorities began to close in. In March of 1679, La Voisin was arrested as she left Sunday mass at her local parish. Authorities tore her home apart, and they found more than enough to make La Voisin look guilty - magic powders, potions, black books, poisons, black candles, and even little pieces of infants' bones in the ashes of her oven. But the icing on the cake? The authorities also found a long list of her clients, many of whom were high-ranking members of Paris society. 

After her arrest, La Voisin was questioned for months as they tried to get every bit of information they could from this master poisoner. The police completely disassembled the network of midwives and potion-makers she had built up over the years, and they went after many of La Voisin’s clients. But one person kept coming up in La Voisin’s questioning, and eventually, her torture: the Marquise de Montespan - the mistress of King Louis XIV.

Part III: The Marquise de Montespan

While La Voisin denied having anything to do with the mistress of the king, Louis XIV, her associates weren’t so tight-lipped. Over and over again, La Voisin’s accomplices and clients alike named the Marquise de Montespan as a member of the poisonous Paris underground. At one point, Montespan was even accused of trying to poison the king in a fit of jealous rage! 

But who was this Marquise de Montespan, and how did an alleged poisoner get so close to the king of France?

Well, first, you need to understand that Louis XIV really, really loved women. Physically, at least. Um, and just like he wanted to be surrounded by the opulence of Versailles, he liked to be surrounded by women who weren’t his wife. And if you think I’m exaggerating, the affairs of Louis XIV have their own Wikipedia category.

Now, Françoise de Rochechouart, on the other hand, was a lot more boring. Françoise, known to us at Madame de Montespan, had grown up largely in a convent and was outwardly, at least, very religious. She regularly participated in sacramental Christian worship and appeared almost unfashionably monogamous. 

But when Françoise was appointed lady-in-waiting to the Queen, she saw her chance… or fell in love - it depends on who you asked. 

Within a year, Françoise was hard at work trying to elevate herself within the court and win the honored role of mistress to the king. Like I said when we talked about Marie de Brinvilliers, public affairs were in vogue in France at the time, so this wasn’t really out of the ordinary. What WAS unusual, though, was that Montespan didn’t feel like things were moving quickly enough, so she allegedly sought out the services of our favorite seventeenth-century sorceress - La Voisin. 

According to a group of witnesses including a witch, a sorcerer, and a personal assistant, Françoise wasn’t shy about doing whatever she believed was necessary to win the love of the king. Sacrifice an infant in a so-called “Black Mass”? Check. Didn’t work? Why not try it again… twice? Throw in some love potion, give it a few years, and out with the old, in with the new - you’re the king’s brand new mistress. 

In her… position, Françoise gave Louis XIV seven children, six of whom survived. And so as not to cause a stir with this little league of illegitimate lads, Louis had all six of his tiny tots declared his legal children. Interestingly, their legitimacy came without naming a mother, perhaps to keep Françoise from trying to accumulate power in her own name. 

Françoise and the king were on-again, off-again for the better part of a decade, but their relationship still continued, at least somewhat, even after Françoise’s reign as the king’s official mistress came to an end. However, things really took a turn with the Affair of the Poisons. Sure, La Voisin didn’t talk, but with witness after witness linking La Voisin to Françoise? Things weren’t looking good for the mistress of the king. 

Now, there are a lot of reasons people might have accused Françoise, among them the fact that she was really rude to the queen of France. And while everybody knew the king was *making new friends* pretty regularly, it was still really unacceptable to speak poorly of the queen… especially if you were the king’s featured “friend.”

Luckily for Françoise, though, she had nothing to worry about. While La Voisin was burned at the stake, Françoise was never even questioned by the French police. As is often the case with the rich and powerful, they stay rich and powerful. By decree, King Louis XIV closed the poison court to the public and imprisoned each of Françoise’s accusers for the rest of their lives. Louis XIV then went on to legalize witchcraft in France, under the assumption that there was no such thing as witchcraft so it couldn’t be illegal. 

As a result of the king’s intervention, Françoise got to live happily ever after and moved to a convent. Her family and children were promoted to positions of power all across France, and as part of her “retirement,” Françoise got a massive pension from the king, which, aside from being used to keep her home nice and aristocratic, she used to support hospitals, the church, and the arts. Françoise died peacefully at the age of 67, an end Madame de Brinvilliers and La Voisin would have been terribly jealous of… if they had lived to see it. 

The Boundary Stones of Washington, D.C.

Kurt Kohlstedt. “Boundary Stones of D.C.: The Oldest National Monuments in the United States.” 99% Invisible.

Tim St. Onge. “Modest Monuments: The District of Columbia Boundary Stones.” US Library of Congress.

Vicky Hallett. “D.C.'s Historic Boundary Stones Are Being Preserved.” The Washington Post. 

Washington D.C. is surrounded by dozens of stones just like this one, and they've been there for hundreds of years, forming a perfect diamond around the perimeter of the district. But who put them there - and why? 

In 1790, Congress passed a law mandating the creation of a diamond-shaped chunk of land taken from both Virginia and Maryland for the U.S. capital. So President George Washington, who had actually been a surveyor before his military career, chose the southernmost point of the district from which the mapping of the 100 square-mile territory was to begin. 

Over the next two years, surveyors placed a total of forty stones to mark the territory of Columbia, now known as Washington, DC. And today, those stones are considered the oldest federal monuments in the United States’ history. Unfortunately, though, many of the boundary stones are in terrible condition or missing altogether, as they have been buried, broken, eroded, or otherwise damaged by both humans and the elements over the last 230 years. 

But in 1906, one man decided that these boundary stones were a part of history worth saving. Fred Woodward walked the old perimeter of the district, checking for each and every stone and mapping their location and condition. Following his assessment of the stones, he called for the remaining stones to be protected from further harm by erecting fences and coverings, a suggestion that has spurred decades of conservation and rediscovery of the stones. Today, BoundaryStones.org and the Nation's Capital Boundary Stones Committee maintains a listing of every remaining stone, along with a photograph and its precise location. So next time you’re in Washington, D.C., don’t miss this odd collection of centuries-old monuments - you just need to know where to look!

Tattoos for the end of the world

American Experience. “Race for the Superbomb.” Public Broadcasting Service.

Liza Yeager. “Atomic Tattoos.” 99% Invisible.

Elizabeth Wolf and Ann Laumann. “The Use of Blood-Type Tattoos During the Cold War.” American Academy of Dermatology.

JoAnne Brown. "A Is for Atom, B Is for Bomb": Civil Defense in American Public Education, 1948-1963.” The Journal of American History.

Mary Kate Hamilton. “Some Hoosiers Carry Permanent Reminder Of 'Operation Tat-Type'.” Indiana Public Media.

John Kelly. “Duck and Cover: Did D.C. School Students Get Dog Tags During The Cold War?” The Washington Post.

John Kelly. “Sharp Needles for the Cold War: Yes, Some Kids Got Tattooed With Their Blood Type” The Washington Post. 

In the years following World War II, a new fear gripped people across the United States: nuclear war. The USSR had developed nuclear weapons by 1949, and the relationship between the Soviet Union and the USA was famously chilly at the time. So the United States government - and its people - began taking measures to protect themselves in the event of a nuclear attack. People built atomic fallout shelters in their basements and a turtle taught everyone to duck and cover. But after the U.S. entered the Korean War in 1950, the nation quickly began to deplete its blood banks. And in a time when nuclear war seemed to many not just possible, but likely, insufficient blood reserves were a serious risk. 

So the government began planning “Operation Tat Type,” the creation of a national “walking blood bank” in case disaster struck. Pilot programs were rolled out in Indiana and Utah where everyday citizens had their blood types tattooed below the left armpit. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, which was and is the dominant religious organization in Utah, even went so far as to make an allowance to their “no tattoos” policy so members could participate in this program. The idea was that in the event of a nuclear attack, these tattooed individuals could be quickly identified for rapid blood donations. And the program proved so popular with adults that it was soon expanded to include local schoolchildren. 

Young students were lined up by the dozens in school hallways to receive their tattoos. Annella Petkovich-Dixon recalls, “a day… when kids were screaming at school, and it really frightened me... [Then] it was my turn… I felt this really bad sting, and then I cried and cried and cried." But it was worth it. As Bill Lowery, who got his blood type tattooed at age 11, said, “Everybody was worried about the atomic threat.” And this was just such a small sacrifice for the good of the country. Despite the program’s popularity though, it never caught on outside of Utah and Indiana. It had never been especially popular with doctors who said they would test peoples’ blood with or without the tattoo, and when the Korean War ended, demand at blood banks rapidly decreased. Still, the memory of Operation Tat Type lives on as a tiny reminder of the time that the U.S. government tattooed thousands of children at school.

North Korean Monuments in Africa

“Independence Memorial Museum.” Museums Association of Namibia.

Julia Tatiana Bailey. “North Korean Murals from Namibia to Syria.” Espionart.

Ryan Brown. “Monumental Diplomacy.” 99% Invisible.

David McKenzie. “Statues and Ammunition: North Korea’s Africa Connections.” CNN.

Jeremy Silvester. “Re-Viewing Resistance in Namibian History.”

Benjamin R. Young. “Guns, Guerillas, and the Great Leader: North Korea and the Third World.”

James Pearson. “U.N. Decapitates North Korea's Statue Export Business.” Reuters. 

There are North Korean monuments all over Africa. But how did they get there - any why?

In the years following the Korean War, North Korea was doing everything it could to appear legitimate on the world stage because, at the time, only a handful of countries recognized it as a valid state. So North Korea began offering military and financial assistance to anti-colonial revolutions in the developing world, especially in Africa. But they didn’t stop there - North Korea also began providing artistic outreach by giving gifts of statues and monuments throughout the recently decolonized world. 

However, North Korea found itself unable to sustain this gift-giving  after the 1980s, as the collapse of the USSR ended Soviet support to the North - and they found out pretty quickly they couldn’t afford to throw away money like that. Still, North Korea had a well-established relationship with these countries, so as many African nations began looking for monuments to commemorate their independence in the early 2000s, they reached out to Mansudae. With their past relationships and Mansudae’s unbeatable prices, it was an easy choice. So over the last few decades, Mansudae projects have sprouted up in over a dozen African countries, building monuments, museums, and various government buildings throughout the continent,* of which the African Renaissance Monument in Senegal, the Agostinho Neto Cultural Center in Angola, and the Independence Memorial Museum in Namibia are just a few of many notable examples.

Now, you might have noticed that these monuments of African achievement often fail to reflect the styles of local artists, and that’s because Mansudae works in a style called socialist realism, a utopic artistic style that was born in the USSR but lives on as a cultural export of North Korea today. And while they may not be identical, it’s easy to see the similarities when you look at some of these African Mansudae projects beside other examples of socialist realism.

This break from traditional artistic styles and values, along with the fact that African governments have given millions of dollars to foreigners instead of employing their own talented and qualified citizens, has actually caused some controversy. That African Renaissance Monument, which is the tallest statue in all of Africa, actually caused massive protests for these very reasons. And with increasing United Nations sanctions against North Korea, Mansudae has outright abandoned several of their workshops in Africa. With all of that controversy and chaos, it’s unlikely we’ll see many Mansudae projects outside of the “hermit kingdom” any time soon.

* Mansudae Overseas has also built works in Germany and Cambodia. 

Murder Ship: The Mary Russell

Alannah Hopkin. “​​The Ship Of Seven Murders: A True Story of Madness and Murder.”

Rev. William Scoresby. “Memorials of the Sea: The Mary Russell.” (1850)

Helena Kelleher Kahn. “‘Forced From This World’: Massacre On The Mary Russell.” History Ireland.

On a misty summer morning in 1828, the Mary Russell broke through the fog off the Irish coast. But when the ship docked, it was immediately clear that something truly terrible had happened. The seven bodies aboard the Mary Russell told a tale of brutal murder - the scene so violent and bloody that it made one minister question the will of God. So what turned the Mary Russell into the Murder ship?

The Mary Russell, captained by William Stewart, left Cork, Ireland in the winter of 1827 with a sturdy crew and cargo of mules set for Barbados. After successfully unloading their cargo on the island a few months later, the men aboard the Mary Russell began making their way back to Ireland with goods from the colony and an extra passenger, Captain James Raynes. Captain Raynes had been relieved of his duties and abandoned in Barbados for his drunkenness on another voyage, and Stewart, realizing Raynes had no way home, had kindly agreed to take him aboard on the return journey. But as the months went by, things started to go terribly wrong. One morning, Captain Stewart confided to his first mate, Mr. William Smith, that he had a dream that Captain Raynes would lead a mutiny. Captain Stewart’s paranoia only grew from that supposed vision - to the point that he believed the entire crew was trying to steal his command of the Mary Russell and its cargo. 

Over the next few days, Captain Stewart threw the ship’s navigation tools overboard and began walking around with a harpoon and two pistols. But that wasn’t enough for Stewart, who went on to bind his men and bolt their restraints to the floor. After securing all of the men but one, who had escaped after Stewart shot him, Captain Stewart flew a flag of distress, hoping someone might rescue him from the supposedly mutinous crew. But no help came. “It must be a sign from God,” Stewart thought, “that the mens’ death should be their punishment.” With that, Stewart took a crowbar, a harpoon, and an ax and burst into the brig screaming, “God’s curse is upon you!” One by one, he bludgeoned the men to death. Stewart then attacked Smith, the first mate, only stopping when he believed Smith was dead. By some miracle, however, Smith would go on to recover from his injuries. Of the eight men who were attacked, he was the only survivor.

Eventually, a passing ship, seeing Stewart’s distress signal, stopped to help. But when the crew of the other ship boarded the Mary Russell to assist Captain Stewart, he grew suspicious of *them* and jumped overboard three times. Before the men could fish Captain Stewart out of the water for the third time, another passing ship picked him up and sailed away. Rather than flee, though, Captain Stewart returned to Ireland. It was at this time that Captain Stewart’s episode of suspected mania came to an end and he turned himself in for the murders which had so shocked the people of Cork when the Mary Russell finally came ashore. And in what may have been the first such verdict in Irish history, the jury found Captain Stewart “not guilty” by reason of insanity.* Upon hearing the verdict, Captain Stewart expressed his profound relief that his true self had not murdered his men, saying “I have great reason to bless God; for if I had committed the murder willfully, I would not have wished to live myself, but I did not!” Despite the technical language of “not guilty,” however, Captain Stewart never sailed again.** He instead spent the remainder of his life between several Irish Asylums before dying in 1873.

* Until 2006, defendants were traditionally found “guilty but insane” rather than “not guilty by reason of insanity.”

** Stewart did suffer from one additional manic episode after the death of his primary doctor, during which he killed an attendant.

Pykrete

Henry Hemming. “The Ingenious Mr. Pyke : Inventor, Fugitive, Spy.”

Jamie Hyneman. “Can you Build Ships Out of Ice? The Mythbusters Investigate.” Popular Mechanics.

Nicolai Vasiliev and A.D.C. Pronk. “Ice composites as construction materials in projects of ice structures.”  23rd International Conference on Port and Ocean Engineering under Arctic Conditions.

“Rationing.” The National WWII Museum.

Can you really make a warship out of frozen sawdust? The Allied countries of WWII certainly thought so.

As WWII dragged on through the early 1940s, the demand for war materiel was causing shortages of all sorts of goods. To address these shortages in the creation of British warships, Mr. Geoffrey Pyke proposed an ingenious - or insane - idea. Pyke’s proposition was for the Allies to begin creating warships out of the only freely available they had left: water. But when tests with an ice ship didn’t go as well as planned - for obvious reasons - Pyke made an adjustment and an entirely new material: pykrete. Pykrete, named after its inventor and concrete, was a mixture of wood pulp and ice, and early tests showed that it was very strong, cheap to make, and most importantly, slow to melt. Even Winston Churchill was personally impressed by the invention when Lord Mountbatten dropped a block of the stuff into the Prime Minister’s bath. It’s unclear whether Churchill was about to get in the bath or already bathing when this stunt occurred, but it worked! Churchill was sold, and other Allied nations would soon join in the quest to make a warship out of pykrete. 

One of the most famous examples of pykrete’s strength was a demonstration in front of high-ranking military personnel where blocks of both ice and pykrete were brought out and shot with a pistol. The ice unsurprisingly shattered into a million pieces, but the pykrete was so strong that it easily deflected the bullet, sending the projectile toward a visiting officer’s leg before embedding itself in the wall. Despite these early successes, the mission to make a warship was soon abandoned, as keeping a warship at -15ºC was rather difficult and the war was already starting to turn safely in favor of an Allied victory. Nonetheless, pykrete lives on in Mythbusters episodes and modern scientific experiments as we keep trying to better understand and use this odd invention. 

The Light Has Gone Out of My Life

“The Light Has Gone Out of My Life." Ford Library Museum.

Wendi Maloney. "New Online: Theodore Roosevelt Papers." Library of Congress.

We often think of US Presidents as strong, if not controversial figures, and few Presidents outside of the founding fathers have left legacies of strength and tenacity like Theodore Roosevelt. A soldier, outdoorsman, and conservationist, Teddy Roosevelt redefined the presidency in the United States. But even he wasn’t immune to the feelings of sorrow and despair that often come with the human experience. In one terrible day, Roosevelt lost both his mother and his wife. His wife, Alice, had given birth only two days earlier. And in his journal, Roosevelt expressed his profound grief, marking the entry with a large “X,” then writing below, “The light has gone out of my life.”   

Recycling Penicillin

Mariya Lobanovska and Giulia Pilla. “Penicillin’s Discovery and Antibiotic Resistance: Lessons for the Future?” Yale Journal of Biological Medicine.

“90 Years Since Discovery of Penicillin: Sir Alexander Fleming's Great Accident.” British Broadcasting Corporation. 

Gilbert Shama. "’Déjà Vu’—The Recycling of Penicillin in Post-Liberation Paris.” Pharmacy in History.

David P. Adams. “The Penicillin Mystique and the Popular Press (1935-1950).” Pharmacy in History.

Colin Schultz. “We Used to Recycle Drugs From Patients’ Urine.” Smithsonian Magazine.

Eric Lax. “The Mold in Dr. Florey's Coat : The Story of the Penicillin Miracle.” 

Why were WWII doctors recycling their patients’ medicine from urine?

While penicillin and its antimicrobial properties was first discovered by Alexander Fleming in 1928, the process for creating the antibiotic was so time, labor, and resource intensive that Fleming believed it would be best suited for use in the lab - not the general public. Even when other researchers tried to streamline the creation of penicillin, there was still a whole process of creating a mold broth in massive quantities, keeping it at just the right temperature, then draining and purifying that broth - it was a lot. To make matters worse for penicillin, there were already a number of successful antibiotics on the market at the time. As a result, the discovery stayed somewhat under the radar for nearly a decade. But one major event in history pushed penicillin into the mainstream - World War II. Researchers from Oxford were able to travel to the United States after the outbreak of the war, and it was in the US that these researchers were able to secure funding from both private companies and the US government. Through millions of dollars of research, these companies were able to create a method of penicillin production which was faster and more reliable, and that breakthrough allowed the Allies to begin stockpiling penicillin. At the same time, research showed that penicillin was even better than the antibiotics which were currently available, as it was less toxic to the human body while also being even more effective at treating and preventing infections. So when Allied troops stormed the beaches of Normandy, they were bringing penicillin with them. But despite the quickly increasing supply of penicillin, access to the lifesaving medication was still limited. And this is where we get into a little more biology than usual for a history page, but like a lot of medications, a large portion of the penicillin which we inject or ingest to treat an infection isn’t actually used by the body. Instead, it’s filtered by our kidneys and passed through our body as urine. So doctors dealing with limited supply in places like liberated France began to collect the urine of patients receiving penicillin treatments so the unused penicillin that had passed through their bodies could be purified and reused for other patients. 

While penicillin didn’t necessarily win the war for the Allies, it did make a huge difference. Because of the hard work of the many men and women who fought for its use and helped discover new methods of production, it’s likely that thousands of men who would have otherwise died were able to come back home after the war.

Onfim's 800-Year-Old Homework

“Writings No. 199-204, 206.” Database of the National Research University Higher School of Economics; Institute of Slavic Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

Valentin L. Yanin. “The Archaeology of Novgorod.” Scientific American (1990)

We all made little notes and drawings on our schoolwork, but what if our macaroni art became a historical artifact? Well, that’s exactly what happened to a medieval boy named Onfim. 

Almost 800 years ago, Onfim, who is thought to have been six or seven years old, scribbled little notes and doodles on his homework. But he wasn’t writing on paper like we would today - he was scratching his work into thin sheets of birch bark, a common writing material before the creation of mass-produced paper. Over the last few centuries, those doodles were preserved as the bark reacted with the unique soil of his hometown, Novgorod, Russia. And as a result, we have these fantastic drawings and notes which give us insight into the life of a medieval child. Much of Onfim’s work appears to be schoolwork, as it’s filled with sections of the cyrillic alphabet and common syllables. But when Onfim got bored writing the alphabet, he would draw himself into all sorts of situations. In one sketch, Onfim drew himself riding a horse while spearing a fallen soldier. In another, he’s fighting a massive monster with the phrase, “Lord, please help your servant,” inscribed above. Perhaps the monster was just Onfim’s idea of his teacher and their many writing assignments. Now, while we can tell from his work that Onfim was working on his writing, it’s obvious from the few and many-fingered hands of his drawings that counting wasn’t exactly his strong suit. Still, my favorite of Onfim’s drawings is this one - a terrifying, fire-breathing monster found on the bottom of a birch basket. The text in the box reads “from Onfim to Danilo.” But even though the monster appears to be alone, Onfim always drew himself into his doodles. Just below the box, Onfim wrote, “I’m a beast.” 

So be careful what you put on your homework - it might just become a part of history.

The only Surgery with a 300% Mortality Rate

Richard Gordon. “Great Medical Disasters.” (1983)

Andrew J. Jones et. al. “Time Me, Gentlemen! The Bravado and Bravery of Robert Liston.” American College of Surgeons. 

Ann R. Coll. “Saints and Sinners: Robert Liston.” The Royal College of Surgeons of England Bulletin.

Dr. Robert Liston was a renowned physician in the early 19th century, and he’s responsible for several medical tools and breakthroughs that still impact medicine today! But even the pros can make mistakes, and that’s how Dr. Liston ended up becoming the only surgeon with a 300% fatality rate. 

In the early 1800s, there were pretty much two options when an infection got out of hand: either have an amputation or die from the infection. But amputations were a lot riskier back then than they are today. In addition to the high risk of spreading infection during the surgery, the lack of effective tools to stop bleeding meant that about one in four people with an amputation would die from blood loss. But Dr. Liston had gotten amputation down to an art, completing some amputations, from initial incision to final stitches, in only 30 seconds. Between the speed of his operations and the fact that he kept an incredibly clean operating theater before germs had even been discovered, Liston had a great success rate… Mostly. 

In one famous operation, Dr. Liston was performing a leg amputation in record time, but as he rushed, the doctor got a little too close for comfort and the patient ended up losing not just his leg, but his family jewels. Still, Dr. Liston’s most famous case involves not one, but three victims. 

As Liston was performing another leg amputation to save a patient from a nasty infection, his assistant was holding down the patient’s leg a little closer than he should have been, and a flash of the knife later, well, the assistant no longer had 10 fingers. As Liston turned with his knife, an observing doctor, standing again, too close, had his jacket sliced open. Incredibly, the knife hadn’t touched the visiting doctor at all, but seeing the blood on his coat, dropped dead of shock. While there weren’t any more incidents during the surgery, the patient’s infection had already made it too far, and they died soon after the surgery. The poor assistant also went on to die from infection, allegedly because the infection had spread from the patient and into the assistant's formerly five-fingered hand. All in all, three people died, leaving Dr. Liston not just with the record for the fastest amputation, but also for the highest mortality in a single surgery.

The Dazzling Camouflage of WWI

Esri and Li Zhou. “This Map Shows the Full Extent of the Devastation Wrought by U-Boats in World War I.” Smithsonian Magazine.

“Hms Tamar Dazzles As Iconic Wartime Paint Scheme Is Revived.” The Royal Navy.

Linda Rodriguez McRobbie. “When the British Wanted to Camouflage Their Warships, They Made Them Dazzle.” Smithsonian Magazine.

Patrick J. Kiger. “The WWI 'Dazzle' Camouflage Strategy Was So Ridiculous It Was Genius.” History.com. 

When you think of camouflage, you probably think of the many patterns or methods used to make people and things more difficult to see. But in World War I, the British Royal Navy embraced an entirely different type of camouflage - one that made it even easier to see their ships.

During WWI, one of the biggest threats to the Allied forces was the German U-Boat - submarines which were able to approach Allied merchant vessels undetected before sending them to a watery grave. Over the course of WWI, over 15,000 people were killed by U-Boats, and no one knew how to defend merchant ships against this devastating threat. No one except Norman Wilkinson. While others tried to disguise British ships with paint and canvas so they would blend into the ocean, Wilkinson proposed a revolutionary idea: instead of trying to make the ships more difficult to see, make them more difficult to hit. To make his idea a reality, Wilkinson, a newspaper illustrator by trade, proposed covering the merchant vessels in high-contrast, irregular shapes. By breaking up the silhouette of the ships, this new camouflage, named “Dazzle” for its confusing patterns, was able to make it much more difficult for U-boat captains to determine a ship’s location, speed, and direction. 

As later research would show, Wilkinson was using the same methods of camouflage found in zebras. Even though zebras themselves are quite easy to spot, individual zebras become almost impossible to spot when they are part of a larger herd. Although this high-visibility camouflage seemed insane, models proved it could work, so with the approval of King George V and a slew of other high-ranking officers, the Royal Navy began painting all merchant vessels with this chaotic dazzle camouflage. And although historians argue about the effectiveness of dazzle in the real world, it was brought back to fend off U-boats once again in World War II. Though modern technologies make the use of dazzle camouflage relatively useless today, it lives on with ships like HMS Tamar, which sports dazzle camouflage to commemorate the pattern’s use in the first World War.

Castro's (Almost) Poisoned Milkshake

Anthony Boadle. “Closest CIA Bid to Kill Castro Was Poisoned Drink.” Reuters.

“How Castro Survived 638 Very Cunning Assassination Attempts.” ABC AU.

Back when Fidel Castro was the dictator of Cuba, the CIA was doing everything it could to discredit him - trying to make his beard fall out, trying to dose him with LSD before an interview - you name it. But when those plans didn’t work, the CIA decided to go a more direct route for getting rid of Castro - assassination. The CIA had settled on poisoning Castro with botulism: a toxin that essentially paralyzes whatever poor creature ingests it until it reaches the lungs and causes suffocation. But how were they going to get this awful toxin into Castro? A milkshake. Castro had a weird obsession with milk and milk products, which made a milkshake the perfect delivery for the toxin. The CIA quickly put their plan into action and shipped the toxin, which was disguised as aspirin capsules, to Cuba. So when Castro went to the Havana Libre, a waiter working for the CIA leapt into action. He prepared a chocolate milkshake just like Castro wanted, then reached into the kitchen’s freezer for that special ingredient. The waiter pinched the botulism capsule to pull it off the freezer shelf, and… it stayed on the shelf. He tried again, but it wouldn’t budge. The loose capsule of organ-melting toxin was frozen to the freezer. Panicked, the waiter tried one more time to pick up the pill - and it burst open, spilling its contents into the freezer and onto the floor. Moments later, the waiter brought out Castro’s milkshake. Castro drank it down the last drop, then… he left. The waiter hadn’t been able to save the mission. And despite an estimated total of 638 attempts to assassinate Castro, that *almost* poisoned milkshake was the closest the CIA  ever got.

The Radium Girls

Don Vaughan. “Radium Girls: The Women Who Fought for Their Lives in a Killer Workplace.” Encyclopedia Britannica.

Jerome Halperin, John Heslep. “Radium in Military Surplus Commodities.” Public Health Reports.

Jacopo Prisco. “Radium Girls: The Dark Times of Luminous Watches.” CNN.

Arlene Balkansky. “Radium Girls: Living Dead Women.” Library of Congress.

Just before World War I, a new invention changed the lives of soldiers and civilians alike. But unbeknownst to the thousands of women working in the factories to utilize this invention, it was already killing the very cells that made up their bodies. 

In the late 1800s, a new element had been discovered by Marie Curie and her husband, Pierre. This new element, radium, glowed in the dark, even when it hadn’t been exposed to sunlight. But the same properties that allowed radium to glow are what make it deadly, as radium emits a lethal assortment of radioactive rays and particles. Now, we know today that radiation is incredibly dangerous and can cause a variety of cancers and even immediate death in high doses. But in the early 1900s, radiation-and radium were considered miracle cures for almost any ailment. People wore radium-laced clothing and even drank radium tinctures. Fortunately, many of these products didn’t have high amounts of radium, and some contained none at all. However, not everyone was so lucky. 

Perhaps the worst example of the negative effects of radium comes from the so-called “Radium Girls,” who were recruited into U.S. factories to paint watches and other military instruments with radium paint. With these glowing dials, soldiers would no longer have to shine a flashlight and potentially give away their position if they wanted to check the time. Now, being surrounded by radioactive material all day is bad enough, but it only got worse for the Radium Girls. 

Because these dials needed to be so finely painted, the women working in the radioactive factories were instructed to place their paint brushes in-between their lips to form a precise point. So that’s what they did. They painted and put the brush in their mouth and painted and put the brush back in their mouth - over and over again - hundreds of times a day. Even after World War I ended, the demand for glow-in-the-dark watches and instruments remained high, so the Radium Girls continued painting and putting that paint into their mouths. But by the early 1920s, the Radium Girls had begun to die. Over the years, their repeated exposure to high levels of radiation had rotted their teeth, eaten away at their bones, and caused cancers. And in the most gruesome cases, some women's jaws simply fell off as their bones disintegrated. Although some survivors were able to successfully sue their employer, the settlements were small and many of the women died within just a few years. 

But how radioactive was this paint, really? It was ingested in such small amounts - how could it be so deadly? Well, according to some reports, the graves of the Radium Girls are still measurably radioactive today. So maybe just be a little extra careful with your great-grandfather's antique glow-in-the-dark watch. 

Bat Bombs

Jack Couffer. “Bat Bomb: World War II’s Other Secret Weapon.” University of Texas Press. (1992)

Alexis C. Madrigal. “Old, Weird Tech: The Bat Bombs of World War II.” The Atlantic. 

“Air Raid on Pearl Harbor.” Library of Congress. 

C.V. Gilnes. “The Bat Bombers.” Air Force Magazine. (1990)

During World War II, the American military spent millions of dollars creating the “bat bomb” - a metal cannister designed to deploy 1,000 live bats from a cruising airplane. But why? 

On December 7, 1941, Japanese aircraft began their devastating attack on the Naval Base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. Over 2,300 Americans were killed in the attack. But thousands of miles away, Dr. Lytle S. Adams was unaware of the attack as he traversed the breathtaking Carlsbad Caverns in New Mexico. It wasn’t until Dr. Adams returned to his car that his stereo delivered the terrible news: the United States had been attacked. But what could he do? He was a dentist - not a general. Within a month, he had an answer: he would rain fire down on the people of Japan. 

Dr. Adams, or ”Doc,” as he was known by his colleagues, had seen many bats on his visit to Carlsbad Caverns, and these bats were ultimately Doc’s idea for a weapon. Doc believed the United States military could capture thousands of bats from the American southwest and then strap a firebomb to each bat before dropping it out of a plane over Japan. After being released from the American planes, the bats would roost in the rafters of the largely wooden structures of Japanese cities before bursting into flames, taking Japanese homes and businesses with them. So Doc had a plan - he just had to get it into the right hands. Luckily for Doc, he had some powerful friends - like Elanor Roosevelt, the First Lady of the United States. So Doc wrote a letter to the President where he described the intended effect of his bat bombs: “The effect of the [bombs] would be a shock to the morale of the Japanese people… [and] would render the Japanese people homeless and their industries useless, yet the innocent could escape with their lives…” Fortunately for Doc, the President approved of his fantastical plan and research on the project began soon after. Although there were many concerns about the bat bombs, like the very small amount of weight the bats could carry (½ ounce), how to set off the firebomb, and how to even collect the bats, the project went on under the administration of the Army Air Forces. Eventually, researches decided the best way to solve their concerns was by gluing a tiny napalm bomb to the chest of each of the thousands of bats they collected. But in one of the first true tests of the bats, things went terribly wrong. Some bats at the Carlsbad Air Base escaped before being loaded into the bomb cannister, after which they nested around the base. When the napalm bombs went off, a hangar and a general’s vehicle were destroyed. After the disastrous test, the Army handed the project off to the Navy, who named it “Project X-Ray” and then gave it to the Marines, who shut down the project entirely because of its high cost - more than $30 million in 2022 USD. But the United States hadn’t given up on creating a weapon that would devastate Japan. Only one year after the end of Project X-Ray, the U.S. went on to conduct the first nuclear attack in history - and changed the future of humanity in the process.

Billy the Kid's Final Escape

“April 09, 1881: Billy the Kid Convicted of Murder.” History.com

“Billy the Kid: The Endless Ride.” Michael Wallace.

“Today in History: Billy the Kid’s Last Jailbreak.” New Mexico History Museum.

In the spring of 1881, the famous outlaw “Billy the Kid” made his most daring - and final - escape from the law. And on his way to freedom, he killed another two men, murders which only sealed the outlaw’s fate. 

Billy the Kid was being held in the Lincoln County Courthouse while awaiting his scheduled execution by hanging for murdering the corrupt sheriff, and by the end of April, his execution day was only getting closer. To make matters worse for Billy, it seemed that, unlike his past brushes with the law, there was no way out of this except for a coffin. Given Billy the Kid’s reputation for escapes, Billy was being held on the top floor of the courthouse, handcuffed and shackled to the floor while guarded around the clock by two deputies. But despite the many challenges, Billy seems to have thought to himself “If I don’t try I’ll die, so I might as well die trying.” And so Billy the Kid set his plan into motion. Around join, one of Billy’s guards left to eat lunch across the street. With one guard out of the picture, Billy realized this was his chance.  Billy, who is rumored to have been able to escape any handcuffs with his unusually small wrists, quickly slipped out of his shackles and uncovered a gun that had been hidden for him by a fellow outlaw. Hearing movement, the first guard walked into the room and found himself looking down the barrel of Billy the Kid’s revolver. Billy apologized for what he was about to do, then shot the guard dead.  Billy then took the second guard’s rifle, which had been left outside his cell, looked out the second-story window, and shot the second guard as he ran toward the courthouse.

After killing both of his guards and escaping on a stolen horse, Billy the Kid once again managed to evade death - at least for a while. Only a few months later, the new sheriff hunted him down and, well… Billy didn’t get another chance to escape after the gunfight left him six feet under. 

The Shark That *Almost* Solved a Murder

“Shark Arm Murder 1935.” The Dictionary of Sydney. 

“Murdered in Car - Principal Witness in Aquarium Mystery Inquest.” Sydney Morning Herald. (1935)

In April of 1935, an Australian fisherman caught a 13-foot tiger shark just off the coast. He thought to himself, “This would be a perfect exhibit for our aquarium,” so he decided to keep the live shark and bring it to the Coogee Beach Aquarium for display. But about a week later, the shark began acting strange. Suddenly, the shark began flailing around in its tank, drawing the attention of the surrounding crowd. As the shark continued thrashing, it suddenly revealed the reason for its distress when it vomited up an entire human arm. 

While police initially believed that the gruesome discovery was the result of a shark attack, as there have been several in the last few months, the arm was found to have been cut off not by not by jagged rows of shark teeth, but by human hands. As information of the strange case spread through the press, a man named Edwin Smith reached out to police with a hunch. Based on the tattoo which had been found on the arm, Edwin believed that the arm belonged to his brother who had been missing for several weeks, James Smith. Police were able to test Edwin’s theory by checking the mystery arm’s fingerprints, and when the results came in, they only confirmed Edward’s suspicions: the arm was his missing brother’s. 

With the victim now identified, police were able to move forward with their investigation. It was soon discovered that James Smith, a known petty criminal, had been last seen drinking in a hotel bar with a man named Patrick Brady, after which both men had gone to Brady’s oceanside cottage for the evening. But when Brady left in a cab the following morning, he wasn’t with James; he was with Reginald Lloyd Holmes, a respected businessman in the area. So what was Smith’s connection to Holmes? Well, Holmes, unsatisfied with the income he was making from his boat-building business, sought out more creative ways to build his personal wealth. To make some extra money, Holmes had begun using his fleet of boats to form a smuggling ring which brought a variety of contraband into Australia. James Smith had worked in Holmes’s smuggling operation in the past, but they had had a falling out after a scam went sideways. 

However, all of this evidence, the drinks at the hotel, the cab ride, and the business connection, were circumstantial and didn’t give police a solid case against either Holmes or Brady. Without a confession, they were stuck. But almost a month after James Smith’s arm made its explosive appearance, police had a break in the case. Holmes had been spotted making a break for the open water in one of his speedboats, and after police were alerted, they spent the next four hours chasing him down in the harbor before he surrendered. Now that he had been captured, Holmes agreed to testify against Brady for the murder of James Smith. But just hours before Brady’s trial was set to begin, Holmes was found murdered in his parked car. Without Holmes’ testimony, Brady was set free and the murder of James Smith has gone unsolved ever sense. 

The Explosive Invention of Bicycles

Encyclopedia Britannica. “Mount Tambora” and “Tsar Bomba.” 

Robert Evans. “Blast from the Past.” Smithsonian Magazine. 

Erik Klemetti. “Tambora 1815: Just How Big Was The Eruption?” Wired. 

Tom Standage. “Why Global Crises are the Mother of Invention.” The Economist. 

All around the world, people use bicycles to travel for work, to enjoy some time outside, or to get in some great exercise. But the bicycle as we know it today may not even exist if it weren’t for the catastrophic explosion of this volcano over 200 years ago. In the spring of 1815, the Mount Tambora volcano in Indonesia erupted with so much force that it is estimated to have been the largest explosion in human history. For comparison, the explosion of Mount Tambora output 660 times the power of the largest nuclear weapon ever tested, the Tsar Bomba. And as you might expect with such a brutal show of nature’s power, it brought with it great tragedy. 

The explosion itself with the fire, magma, ash, and tsunamis killed an estimated 10,000 people, but there were many more deaths to come. As volcanic debris shot into the atmosphere And spread around the world, it created a dark cloud over the planet. Over the next year, Which became known as the year without summer, temperatures throughout the northern hemisphere plummeted, and as a result, countless plants and animals died off. And as crops failed, another 80,000 people died due to food shortages. To make matters worse, these shortages were also affecting livestock, leaving an increasing number of people without transportation as horses went unfed and were slaughtered for their meat. But one German inventor had a solution, not for global starvation, but for the issue of transportation. 

Karl Von Drais worked tirelessly until he created a brand new way to get around: the laufmaschine. Von Drais believed his invention could replace horses for common travel not just in this time of crisis, but perhaps permanently. But his horseless invention wasn’t the first automobile, it was the first bicycle. As the German name of his invention implies, the laufmaschine was a machine to help you run. Unlike modern bicycles, which are propelled by the rider as they use their feet to rotate its pedals, the laufmaschine required you to kick yourself along as you went down the street. However, by 1817 harvests around the world were once again plentiful and the concern over a replacement for horses faded into obscurity. But the bicycle remained. Despite its many transformations throughout the years, Von Drais’ original and revolutionary design continues to affect our lives more than 200 years later. 

Igniting the Atmosphere

Joel Achenbach. “The Man Who Feared, Rationally, that He’d Just Destroyed the World.” The Washington Post.  

Yuen Yiu. “The Fear of Setting the Planet on Fire with a Nuclear Weapon.” Inside Science. 

Virginia Grant. “The Trinity Test.” Los Alamos National Laboratory. 

“Igniting the Atmosphere.” Atomic Heritage Foundation. 

Sarah Kuta. “With Russia Invading Ukraine, What’s the Threat of Nuclear War Right Now?.” University of Colorado, Boulder. 

On a stormy summer morning in the Nevada desert, scientists gathered before the sunrise to test the world’s first nuclear bomb. It was July of 1945, and although the Nazis had been defeated, the United States continued to develop atomic weapons as it faced ongoing war with Japan. As the nuke exploded, sending out a burst of blinding light, one scientist thought his worst nightmare was coming true: that the bomb was about to incinerate the entire earth. 

The idea that an atomic bomb might lead to the outright extinction of life on earth wasn’t a fringe idea during World War II. Both American and German scientists had raised concerns that a successful atomic bomb would create enough heat to cause a chain fission reaction - effectively igniting earth’s atmosphere and vaporizing the planet. But as scientists calculated the physics of such a reaction, they determined atmospheric ignition was nearly impossible. Nonetheless, one US scientist, Enrico Fermi, is alleged to have taken bets on whether or not the 1945 nuclear test would destroy the planet. Moments after ignition, another scientist, James Conant, believed his worst fears were coming true: that he had just seen the beginning of the end of the world. As the mushroom cloud shot thousands of feet into the desert sky, the test was declared a success and the world didn’t end. But as decades went by and other countries developed their own, more powerful nuclear weapons, the concerns of scientists like James Conant became almost prophetic. Although that first atomic detonation hadn’t led to an immediate extinction, continued conflict between nuclear nations still raises the question: was it the beginning of the end? 

The Green Children of Woolpit

Michał Madej. ”The Story About the Green Children of Woolpit According to the Medieval Chronicles of William of Newburgh and Ralph of Coggeshall.” Res Historica. 

John Clark. “The Green Children of Woolpit.” Academica.

Nearly 1000 years ago in medieval England, some farmers were harvesting their crops when suddenly, they saw movement in a wolf pit at the edge of the field. Centuries later, we’re still trying to explain what they found. 

As the farmers neared the edge of the pit, they expected to find a wolf - the biggest threat to their livestock. That’s why each field had similar pits dug around its edge. In fact, these wolf pits, which were used to trap and kill wolves, were so common in the area that it’s where the farmers’ village, Woolpit, got its name. But as the farmers cautiously looked into the pit, they didn’t find wolves, but children. And not just any children either - children of a striking and unusual green color. Shocked by their discovery, the farmers seized the children and took them into town. As the townspeople tried to understand how the green children had ended up in one of their wolf pits, they discovered that the children spoke an unknown language and wore clothes of an unknown fabric. They were like nothing the villagers had ever seen. Making matters even stranger was the fact the children absolutely refused to eat. Day after day passed and the children got closer and closer to starvation when one day, a farmer brought broad beans into the home in which the children were being kept. Upon seeing the beans, the children became unbearably excited and began ravenously eating them. Over time, as the children remained in the village, they learned to eat other foods and began to speak English. Interestingly, the more food they ate, the more they seemed to lose their green color. Before long, the two children from the wolf pit looked like any other pair of English siblings. And, having learned English, they could finally tell their story. The children said they came from a land across a great river. Their country, “St. Martin’s Land” was a dark place where the sun never rose above a mere twilight. They had been wandering through the woods when they heard the chime of church bells - and suddenly, they were trapped in the wolf pit with no way to return home. The villagers tried to make sense of the story, but no one had ever heard of such a place before. Despite the immense confusion that the villagers had of how and why the children became part of their community, they were accepted and baptized into the Christian faith. Tragically, the younger brother died shortly after his baptism, but his older sister made it to adulthood where she is said to have gotten married and lived a normal life. And that’s where our story of the green children of Woolpit ends. Both of the original versions of this tale are included in allegedly contemporary recordings of English history, with one account even claiming that the sister was still alive at the time of writing. But in the end, the story of the green children is impossible to verify. Explanations for this strange historical event include an apocryphal disease called green sickness, that the children were literal aliens who fell from the moon, or that the story was a complete fabrication – maybe even one intended to teach a lesson in English society. But whatever the original intentions or factuality of the tale, it will likely forever remain one of history’s unsolved mysteries, the truth lost to time. 

The Legend of Wan Hu

Mark Williamson. “Spacecraft Technology: The Early Years.” The Institution of Engineering and Technology.

John E. Watkins. “The Modern Icarus.” Scientific American. (1909)

“Rockets: Educator Guide.” NASA.

Louis de Gouyon Matignon. “Wan Hu, the Chinese Restaurant.” Space Legal Issues.

For millennia, humans have looked to the moon with both awe and terror. But hundreds of years before U.S. astronauts made “one giant leap for mankind,” one man made it his mission to go to the moon by whatever means necessary. Wan Hu was a 16th-century inventor and Chinese official who was fascinated with the sky above, especially our diminutive nighttime neighbor: the moon. But Wan Hu had a solution for this deep passion. He would travel to the moon and investigate it for himself. To accomplish his goal, Wan Hu constructed a winged chair with a base of 47 rockets, which had 47 fuses to be simultaneously lit by 47 servants. After securing himself on the moon throne, Wan Hu gave the order and the 47 servants lit the 47 fuses before running for cover as the rockets began to spit fire and smoke. Suddenly, an explosion shook the courtyard. When the smoke cleared, Wan Hu was nowhere to be found and was never heard from again. Some say that his journey was successful and Wan Hu lives on the moon to this day. You may have even heard of him as the man in the moon. It’s a delightful story, but it would be even better if it was true. Despite many publications alleging that the story of Wan Hu is an old or even ancient Chinese legend, the story seems to be a Western fabrication from the early 1900s. But why set the story in China? Well, Orientalism - a generally uniformed fascination with “the East” - was especially common during the early 1900s and framing such a story as a Chinese legend lent both an aura of exoticism and credibility. Anyway, it’s great to share folklore and legends from history, but it’s also important to know where they’re coming from. Ironically, the falsified legend of Wan Hu has become so popular that it’s been adopted in various forms by the Chinese government, so while it wasn’t originally a Chinese legend… I guess it qualifies as one now? 

The British Invasion of Benin

James D. Graham. “The Slave Trade, Depopulation, and Human Sacrifice in Benin History.” Northwestern University. 

Philip A. Igbafe. “The Fall of Benin: A Reassessment.” The Journal of African History.

In 1862, a British traveler wrote of the “bloody customs“ and “gratuitous barbarity which stinks of death“ which he allegedly found in the kingdom of Benin. Although this account was in stark opposition to many of the accounts that preceded it, it was widely publicized and contributed to a negative perception both of the kingdom of Benin and of Africa as a whole. As a result of this negative perception, future expeditions into Benin were able to present as humanitarian efforts despite their true motivations of exploitative economic gain. And such missions continued for decades. But in 1892, a British official arrived in Benin and forced the king of Benin, the  “Oba,” into a treaty. Like other British treaties with indigenous people, the Benin treaty was one-sided and inaccurate, forcing the Oba to give up almost all economic control of his kingdom. It was simply more than the Oba was willing to allow. However, the Oba was not really given a choice when faced with the military strength of the British operation. So to show his discontentment with the treaty, the Oba refused to sign the treaty himself but allowed an advisor to sign the document with an “X” in the place of his signature. 

This simple act of protest would turn out to be indicative of a larger disrespect toward the British, as the Oba ignored the treaty and continued to run Benin’s economy according to Beni tradition. Now in addition to tightly controlling trade, the Oba continued to demand taxes from the merchants who traded with the British, which hurt British profits. As a result, the British began to incite insubordination from the Oba’s subjects, encouraging them to disobey his orders and avoid paying taxes. But the British were becoming increasingly intolerant of the Oba’s reign. By 1896, a newly appointed British council, James Phillips, wrote to the British War Office that only the removal of the Oba could truly open the kingdom to British trade. Phillips further argued that a peaceful approach was “useless.” His solution? Outright war. In the same letter to the British war office, Phillips wrote that the ivory of the palace would pay for the military expedition. Two months later in January 1897, the War Office denied Phillips‘s request – but it was too late. Phillips had already left. As Phillips made his way toward Benin, messengers from the Oba told Phillips and his party that the Oba could not see them or any outsiders for the next month as the Oba was participating in a religious ritual. Despite the warning, Phillips continued. The next day, he was warned again to stop by the Oba’s messengers, but again, he ignored them. On the third day of his travels, Phillips and his party did not receive a warning but an ambush, and all but two of the party, including Phillips, were killed by the Beni army. Without considering the fact that Phillips had ignored repeated warnings to stay out of Benin and gone against government orders, the British War Office decided to make an example of Benin through a “punitive expedition“ intended to punish Benin and remove the Oba. In reality, the deaths of British citizens had given the War Office exactly what it wanted: an excuse to assume control of this prosperous African kingdom. By February 18, British soldiers had defeated the kingdom’s capital by firing rockets into the city. After taking the city, the British looted ivory, bronze, and many other cultural artifacts of religious, ceremonial, and cultural value from the palace and surrounding buildings. After their looting was complete, the British intentionally burned Benin city to the ground over the next three days. And the British had decimated yet another civilization for economic gain.

Bonus: Returning the Bronzes

Peggy McGlone. “Smithsonian to Give Back its Collection of Benin Bronzes.” The Washington Post. 

Alex Marshall. “This Art Was Looted 123 Years Ago. Will It Ever Be Returned?” New York Times. 

During the 1897 British invasion of Benin city, British soldiers committed to an extraordinary level of physical and cultural destruction. But one act remains a primary concern for the descendants of the Benin kingdom: the looting of the so-called “Benin Bronzes.” These stolen “bronzes“ are actually a collection of brass, ivory, and wooden artwork, and in contrast to the contemporary records which accused the Beni of being “uncivilized,” these African works of art have been described as equals to the pinnacles of European sculpture. In fact, the former Director of the British museum praised them with the highest regard, calling the brass pieces “triumphs of metal casting.“ Nonetheless, despite the immense cultural value of these artifacts, the looted bronzes were placed in museums, gifted to the queen, sold at auction, and even kept as personal loot by the soldiers that had stolen them. Thousands of these artifacts were spread around the world, but the people of Benin city, now located within Nigeria, want them back. Although there have been limited and specific attempts to return a handful of the bronzes, many have remained in American and European museums – far out of reach of the descendants of their creators. But, in a groundbreaking move, the Smithsonian announced just last week (March 8, 2022) that it is giving up all 39 of its bronzes and will fully cover the cost of shipping and to the national Museum of Benin in Benin city, Nigeria. Although the Smithsonian‘s donation only represents a fraction of the original collection, it sets a precedent for how other museums should handle stolen artifacts, giving dignity both to the items and the cultures from which they have been removed. As the Director of Nigeria’s national commission for museums and monuments said of receiving the bronzes, “What is more important than being in control of how your heritage, your artifacts, are displayed?“

Operation Bernhard

Lawrence Malkin. “The Improbable Tale of Krueger’s Men.” Columbia College Today.

Erin Blakemore. “The Nazis Planned to Bomb Britain with Forged Bank Notes.” Smithsonian Magazine.

Just two weeks after WWII began on the European front, the Germans created a plan to collapse Great Britain. But the plan wasn’t to attack with tanks and planes - it was to create a flood of counterfeit cash. 

While the British were keeping calm and carrying on, the Nazis continued their attempts to ruin the British economy. In a plan conceived by Hitler himself, the Nazis were supposed to create millions in counterfeit banknotes, then use the German air force to drop the cash into unsuspecting British cities. Hitler hoped that this influx of phony money would cause enough inflation and panic to cripple the British economy, making the nation much easier to invade. However, the first plan fell apart and the idea was abandoned until 1942, when a Nazi officer began, Bernhard Krüger, using prisoners from concentration camps to create masterful forgeries. Before the end of the war, the Germans were able to produce about 132 million British pounds - about 6 billion pounds or 8 billion US dollars today. But only a small amount was ever actually used. Instead of following Hitler’s initial plan to airlift the cash, Krüger used only the most convincing banknotes - maybe 10-15% of the total made - to pay spies and neutral suppliers. At the time, British pounds were a standard currency around the world, so no one suspected that the Nazis were paying with counterfeit cash. As the Allied forces closed in around Germany, Krüger was forced to abandon large amounts of the money in a remote Austrian lake, but the operation continued right up until the Nazis were forced to flee as their prisoners were finally liberated by Allied forces on May 5, 1945. 

Arsenic Green

Kat Eschner. ”Arsenic and Old Tastes Made Victorian Wallpaper Deadly.” Smithsonian Magazine. 

Lidia Plaza. “An Update on Arsenic Green: When the World Was Dying for Color.” Maryland Center for History and Culture. 

Ada Ruiz. “Poisonous Pigments: Scheele’s Green.” Los Angeles Academy of Figurative Art.

In many cultures, green symbolizes nature, rebirth, and life. But in 1775, it became the world's most dangerous color. Despite the prevalence of green in the world around us, attempts to create effective green dyes have plagued artists and textile makers for centuries. However, this all changed in the late 18th century when Carl Wilhelm Scheele created a green pigment from an arsenic derivative. Unlike the pigments of the past, this emerald green was delightfully vibrant and didn’t fade over time. By the early 1800s, other color chemists had further improved Scheele's work, creating an even more vibrant “Paris Green.” Importantly though, Paris green still used arsenic to create its signature color, and for any of you who don’t know, arsenic is incredibly poisonous. When ingested, arsenic can cause diarrhea, vomiting, and eventually, death. Nonetheless, this arsenic green found its way into all sorts of products in everyday life, including baby carriages, carpets, dresses, and even children’s toys. While the dangers of arsenic were well known at the time, the popularity of the color won people over. “It’s not like I’m going to eat my carpet,“ people reasoned. What they were blissfully ignorant of, though, is the fact that over time, the arsenic in the pigment was breaking down to form an arsenic gas. The effects were especially noticeable from a popular decoration at the time: wallpaper. In time, green wallpaper became known for giving people headaches and making them nauseous, or in some cases, even killing them. As more people realized just how dangerous their emerald cities were, the color fell out of popularity. Rumors spread that Napoleon’s green wallpaper had been the true cause of his death, and concerns about arsenic green became so prevalent that Queen Victoria had all of the green wallpaper removed from Buckingham Palace. As a result, arsenic green, like some of its victims, was dead by the mid-1800s. 

The Great Wall of Benin

Graham Connah. “Archaeological Research in Benin City 1961-1964.” Journal of the Historical Society of Nigeria. (1963)

Graham Connah. “Archaeology in Benin.” The Journal of African History. (1972)

Graham Connah. “New Light on the Benin City Walls.” Journal of the Historical Society of Nigeria. (1967)

Elena Korka (Editor). "The Protection of Archaeological Heritage in Times of Economic Crisis.” Cambridge Scholars Publishing.

Elena Korka (Editor). "The Protection of Archaeological Heritage in Times of Economic Crisis.” Cambridge Scholars Publishing.

“Great Wall of China.” Encyclopedia Britannica.

What if I told you that Africa used to have its own “Great Wall” - and that it was even longer than the Ming Dynasty’s Great Wall of China? 

The walls of the Benin kingdom in Africa used to stretch nearly 10,000 miles around the kingdom, but they weren’t walls in the way you and I might think of them. Because of the heavy rains in southern Nigeria, clay brick walls just don’t hold up well over time. To solve this problem, the kingdom of Benin created earthwork walls: massively tall and thick walls made up of clay and surrounded by the resulting ditches. Based on carbon dating of charcoal found beneath the walls, it’s believed that they date all the way back to the 1300s CE (AD). However, if you travel to modern-day Benin City in Nigeria, you might have some trouble locating this once vast network of walls, as much of the centuries-old earthworks were largely destroyed by a British expedition in 1897. Later expansion and urbanization of Benin city has further contributed to the deterioration of the walls, as locals have taken earth from the damaged mounds to create homes and roads. But if you know where to look, you can still find pieces of this incredible achievement.

Cochineal Red

J. Müller Maatsch, C. Gras. “The ‘Carmine Problem’ and Potential Alternatives.” Handbook on Natural Pigments in Food and Beverages.

Peter Shoemaker. “Red All Over: How a Tiny Bug Changed the Way We See the World.” National Endowment for the Humanities.

Mary Elizabeth Haude. “Prickly Pear Blood:The Mesoamerican Red Colorant Cochineal.” Library of Congress.

All around the world, people eat bugs - sometimes with a little salt, other times covered in candy or chocolate. But what if I told you that you might be eating bugs without even knowing it?

Throughout history, this little beetle, the cochineal, has played a massive role in human life. In fact, it was once so valuable that the Mexica used them as a currency required for tribute to the emperor! But what’s so special about this cactus bug? Well, when its crushed, it creates a deep, vibrant red which was unmatched for thousands of years. While the Mexica and other pre-Colombian Americans used crushed cochineal to dye their fabrics, color their maps, and to stain their teeth, the Old World was left with subpar dyes. That’s why, after the arrival of the Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés in Native American territory, he was immediately awestruck by the quality of cochineal dye. Soon, cochineal became one of the largest exports from the Spanish colonies, and cochineal spread throughout the world as a colorant for fabric and paint. Over time, cochineal has been widely replaced by man-made colors, but it’s still prominently used today in cosmetics and food dyes. So the next time you put on lipstick or eat a slice of red velvet cake, just remember that you might be getting a little closer to Mother Nature than you thought.

Ranking Anesthesia Throughout History

Edward M. Breecher. “The Consumers Union Report on Licit and Illicit Dr[u]gs.” Consumer Re/ports. (1972)

Sung Tae Kim and Taehwan Park. “Acute and Chronic Effects of Cocaine on Cardiovascular Health.” National Institute of Health. 

Alfred D. Nelson and Michael Camilleri. “Opi[oid]-Induced Constipation.” National Institute of Health.

“Ether and Chloroform.” History.com.

“History of Anesthesia.” Wood Library-Museum of Anesthesiology.

Throughout history, we’ve used a lot of weird things to numb the pain of surgeries, so today I’m ranking my top 7 forms of historical anesthesia. 

In last place, we’ve got biting the bullet. It’s generally believed that this form of pain distraction was the origin of the English phrase to “bite the bullet,” but it was a last resort when the alternative, a leather strap to bite down on, wasn’t available. Either way, it just sounds like a way to end up breaking a tooth and choking on a chunk of lead. 

In second place, we’ve got chloroform. Chloroform is a sickly-sweet liquid with vapors that send you right to Morpheus, and it was such a breakthrough anesthetic that it was used for almost everything from tooth removals to birth. However, if you keep inhaling the chloroform for too long, your little nap becomes a lot more permanent. 

In third place is Ether. This colorless, odorless liquid is a lot like chloroform, and that's how it was used for a long time. One major issue is that, unlike chloroform, ether is stupidly flammable and I don’t want to go all Ghost Rider in the middle of a surgery.

Coming in at number 5 is Opium - the oldest form of anesthetic on this list with use dating back to the Sumerians circa 4,000 BCE. As anyone who’s been prescribed opioids can tell you, they’re powerful stuff. But opium and its derivatives are also frighteningly addictive. And even if you don’t get addicted, that little poppy flower can still tear you a new one as there’s about a 50/50 chance they’ll make you destructively constipated. 

In 6th place is just getting choked out or what the people in white coats call “compressing the carotid artery.” This technique was used by the Assyrians and Egyptians over 2,000 years ago before performing super-fun procedures like circumcision or cataract surgery. I don’t like it because cutting off blood-flow to the brain is long-term and short-term dangerous.

In 4th place, we’ve got cocaine - the secret ingredient in Santa’s favorite soda. Apparently, cocaine is really good at blocking nerve receptors when injected by medical professionals. You, on the other hand, should not do that because your heart might explode. 

So what’s the number one pick? Laughing gas, also known as nitrous oxide. This combination of two gasses, nitrogen and oxygen, was first discovered all the way back in the late 1700s. Unlike many of the other contenders on this list laughing gas is very effective and relatively safe. In fact, laughing gas was a common recreational drug in the early 19th century, as it provided a sense of lightness and, as the name suggests, easy laughing. Today, you’re likely to find laughing gas in your dentist’s office, as it remains a great way to take the edge off the pain.

Final Rankings

Mini Golf and the Great Depression

“The Zany History of Mini Golf.” Mentalfloss.com.

Thomas Calder. “Asheville Archives: Miniature Golf Craze…” Mountain Xpress.

Kat Eschner. “The Brief 1930s Craze for ‘Tom Thumb Golf.” Smithsonian Magazine.

“Mini Golf, A Depression-Era Delight.” The Jacksonville Historical Society.

The Great Depression is known for the stock market crash, bread lines and… the invention of mini golf? While miniature golf goes back to 1867, it wasn’t until the Great Depression that we got the mini golf we see on family vacations and 15th dates. The original form of mini golf was just that - miniature golf with a green and sand traps and everything else - just smaller. But in 1926, Garnet Carter created his own form of the sport with affordable garbage, like hollowed out logs and sewer pipes as challenges. This new form of mini golf, which was trademarked as “Tom Thumb Golf,” swept the nation as an affordable and wholesome activity. As one paper put it, it was a much better exercise for “young girls” than “parking along the road sides.” But the popularity couldn’t last forever. Although mini golf has seen surges in popularity over the last few decades, it’s still not as popular as it once was during the early years of the Depression when tens of thousands of courses dotted the United States. 

How the U.S. Got Texas

“Keeping Secrets: Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, 1848.” U.S. Capitol Visitor Center.

“Mexican-American War” and “Alamo.” Encyclopedia Britannica.

Denial, Katherine. “Texas and Mexico: Centers for Cultural Collision.” TeachingHistory.org.

Millions of people of Mexican descent live in the American Southwest. But how did they get there? The reason so many Mexican-Americans live in these states is because these states used to be Mexico! So why are they a part of the United States? It all goes back to Texas. Back in the early 1800s, Mexico actually invited Americans to settle modern-day Texas, promising land and tax breaks to potential settlers. However, the free land and lower taxes came with 3 conditions: become a Mexican citizen, practice Catholicism, and follow Mexican laws - like the ban on slavery. Within a few years, many Anglo Americans had settled Texas - but they hadn’t become Mexican citizens, they weren’t Catholic, and they illegally brought slavery to the territory. By 1835, war had broken out between the Mexican government and the Anglo settlers, but Mexico maintained some control of the territory… for a while. In 1845, the United States annexed, or took, Texas after its illegally-settled Anglo leaders asked to be admitted to the Union. As Mexico tried to secure its border and the US continued to seek expansion, the United States declared war on Mexico. By the end of the fighting, the US got what it had wanted for decades with the Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo: the entire upper half of Mexico. For only $15 million, the United States now stretched from sea to shining sea - and included many Mexican-Americans who had been living in the territory for generations. And that’s why the Mexican-American population remains higher in these areas than anywhere else in the nation - they didn’t cross the border, the border crossed them.

Eleanor Roosevelt's Disgusting Dinners

"Eleanor Roosevelt Radio Television: Mrs. Eleanor Roosevelt's Own Program, Episode 14, June 13, 1940," The Eleanor Roosevelt Papers Digital Edition. 

Laura Shapiro. “The First Kitchen.” The New Yorker. 

Erin Blakemore. “Why FDR’s White House Served Such Terrible Food.” History.com. 

Jane Ziegelman and Andrew Coe. “FDR’s Steady Diet of Depression.” HistoryNet.

If you’re disappointed in your family’s meals this holiday season, just be glad you aren’t at the White House with Eleanor Roosevelt. Eleanor was the First Lady during much of the Great Depression, and in order to show solidarity with the common people, Eleanor took great pride in making the most disgusting dinners possible. Meals included cold jellied chicken broth, cow pancreas, and Milkorno - a combination of dried skim milk and cornmeal. The dinners were so unappetizing that visitors to the White House began eating before they arrived so they could avoid the First Lady’s menu. But Eleanor’s decision to serve nutritious, affordable food at the peak of American society was a calculated move. By showing that even the leader of the free world wasn’t above such cuisine,  Eleanor’s example empowered women across the country to help provide for their families, even as they conformed to the gender norms of the day.

Lewis and Clark's Mercurial Excrement

Gregory J. Higby. “Rush's Bilious Pills.” Lewis and Clark Trail Heritage Foundation. 

Marissa Fessenden. “How to Reconstruct Lewis and Clark’s Journey: Follow the Mercury-laden Latrine Pits.” Smithsonian Magazine. 

Meriwether Lewis and William Clark are famous for mapping the Western territory of the United States. So why are archeologists fascinated with their poop? The two-year expedition through the wilderness meant that the men were frequently faced with food of questionable quality and safety. Combined with other natural illnesses, there were many ways for a man to become sick. But not to worry! One or two of Dr. Rush’s Bilious Pills would flush you right out… literally. One of the main ingredients in this medicine was calomel, a pleasant name for a mercury-based compound which was used to treat everything from constipation to syphilis.  The thing is, mercury doesn’t decompose. So when Lewis, Clark, and their men used these mercury-laced pills, they unintentionally left behind little archeological nuggets. By testing soil samples along the expedition route for high levels of mercury, archeologists have been able to identify specific campsites from the Lewis and Clark expedition. 

Garden Hermits

Gordon Campbell. “The Hermit in the Garden: From Imperial Rome to Ornamental Gnome.” 

In the 1700s, the British aristocracy found a new way to flaunt their wealth: keeping “garden hermits’ on their large estates. These hermits, ungroomed and dressed as druids, served mainly to entertain guests, reciting poetry and giving sage advice when requested. But where did these mystical hermits come from? They were just regular men trying to get a job, albeit an odd one. Job postings in local newspapers said the position of “Garden Hermit” forbade the cutting of hair, beard, or nails and in some cases, even bathing wasn’t allowed. However, the job did come with some perks: limitless supplies of books, room and board, and a salary. Garden hermits had fallen out of fashion by the early 1800s, but they were soon replaced by a new (but unrelated) bearded garden-dweller: the garden gnome.

The Potato King

Editors of Encyclopedia Britannica. "Potato." Encyclopedia Britannica.

“Der Preußische ‘Kartoffelkönig’” Die Welt.

Jon Guttman, “Ask MHQ: King Frederick II of Prussia.” HistoryNet.

Matt Robinson, “Did Frederick The Great Introduce The Potato To Germany?.” Berlin Experiences.

The grave of this 18th century king is almost always covered in potatoes. But why? To find out, we’ll have to go back more than 500 years. Before the Age of Exploration, the potato only existed in South America, where the Inca often used them to create a dried substance called chuño. It wasn’t until the Spanish colonizers arrived in the early 1500s that the potato made its way to Europe. But despite the fact that potatoes are easy to grow and provide more calories than grain, they were slow to catch on in Europe due to their bland taste and mealy texture. But one king had some tricks up his sleeve. King Frederick the Great of Prussia was having trouble convincing his subjects to grow potatoes, so he *allegedly* came up with some Enlightenment-era reverse psychology. The “potato king,” as he’s sometimes known, started planting potatoes in the royal gardens. To make the potatoes seem even more exclusive, he put the potatoes under light guard. In fact, he told the guards to ignore any thieves because the whole thing was for show. And it worked! Peasants began stealing potatoes and planting their own, leading to the spread of the potato crop throughout modern-day Germany. And that’s why...

A Brief History of Lobster in the U.S.

Ben Kageyama. “When Lobsters Were Poverty Food (And Why They’re So Expensive Now).” Medium.

Megan Willet-Wei. “The Remarkable Story Of How Lobster Went From Being Used As Fertilizer To A Beloved Delicacy.” Insider Magazine.

History.com Staff. “A Taste of Lobster History.” History.com.

How did lobster go from being a common fertilizer to a staple of fine dining? It’s all about supply and demand. When colonizers arrived in what is now the Northeast United States, the bay areas were absolutely packed with lobsters. Because lobster was plentiful and cheap, it soon developed a nasty reputation as the food of the poorest people and was often used as fertilizer, fish bait, and prison food. In fact, lobster was so over-served to inmates that the Massachusetts colony passed laws making the over-serving of lobster a “cruel and unusual” punishment. So what happened to make lobster popular? Cans and trains.

In the late 1800s, canning technology allowed the Northeastern US to export their lobster all over the country, limiting the local supply. And the growth of railways drew people to travel to coastal cities, increasing demand for the coastal food. Suddenly, lobster was popular! By WWII, lobster in the US was considered a delicacy, and it’s remained a staple of decadent dining ever since.

Lobster Bonus Fact

History.com Staff. “A Taste of Lobster History.” History.com.

So you know the little rubber bands that we put on lobsters? I’ve always thought that we put rubber bands on lobsters’ claws so that they can't pinch people, but that’s not why. While I was researching my last video, I was reading about the history of lobster trapping and I saw this little nugget of information - We put bands on lobsters’ claws so they don’t eat each other! When you put multiple lobsters in a tank, they get really territorial and turn into little cannibals.

When Europeans Ate Mummies

Maria Dolan. “The Gruesome History of Eating Corpses as Medicine.” Smithsonianmag.com.

Mariel Carr. “Mummies and the Usefulness of Death.” Science History Institute.

Warren R. Dawson. “Mummy as a Drug.” National Center for Biotechnology Information.

From the twelfth to the seventeenth centuries, wealthy Europeans were practicing cannibalism - and it wasn’t because they were hungry. Europeans at the time were finding Egyptian mummies, grinding them up… and eating them for their supposed health benefits. Well, sometimes drinking them but either way they were ingesting dead people as medicine. The earliest medicinal mummy, called “mumia,” that I saw referenced was a drink of crumbled mummy dissolved in another substance, such as milk. It was supposedly meant to stop internal bleeding and it must have worked because the European practice of eating mummia continued for about 600 years. In fact, European demand for mummies was so high that, in the later years of the trend, the mumia were just random corpses taken by merchants and sold as mummies. Perhaps the most ironic part of this story is that, especially in the 16th and 17th centuries, European nobles, priests, and scientists were practicing cannibalism while simultaneously demonizing Native Americans for allegedly doing the same. Just… peak hypocrisy. Although the practice began to decline after the 1600s, there are records of mumia being sold in a German medicinal catalog as recently as the early 1900s.

Mummy Bonus Fact

“Mummy Brown.” Florida State University Department of Art History, 2019.

Mariel Carr. “Mummies and the Usefulness of Death.” Science History Institute.

Europeans didn’t just eat mummies - they painted with them too! “Mummy Brown,” a pigment made from pulverized mummies, became popular in Europe during the 1500s. The pigment was adored by artists for its ability to capture incredibly realistic shadows, and rather ironically, flesh tones. But despite the name “mummy brown,” many artists were unaware of the pigment’s origins. In fact, the paint became unpopular as more artists became aware that their prized pigment came from the deceased. Edward Burne-Jones, who allegedly used mummy brown in this painting, is said to have buried his supplies of Mummy Brown after he discovered how it was made. Production of Mummy Brown finally ended in the 1900s as supply, much like the mummies from which it was made, dried up. 

Victorian Death Photos

Bell, Bethan. “Taken From Life: The Unsettling Art of Death Photography.” British Broadcasting Corporation.

Linkman, Audrey. “The Victorians: Photographic Portraits.”

Clint, Edward. “Myths of Victorian Post-Mortem Photography.” Incredulous.

Between disease, infections, and bad luck, it was pretty easy to end up dead in Victorian England. But what did the English do to remember their lost loved ones? They took photos of their corpses. Because of the high cost and difficulty of photography at the time, many families had no photos of their family members while they were still living, so these Victorian death photos were normally the only opportunity many people had to take a photo of a lost sibling, parent, or child. However, as medical care improved life expectancy and photography became easier and more affordable, these death photos fell out of popularity. Now they only exist to haunt my nightmares.