Strangely, fights to the death staged between gladiators weren't invented in Rome at all. It was an imported custom that was first launched in Rome in the year 264 BCE. That was when Brutus Pera, a powerful member of the Brutus family who ran the Roman Republic, died. His sons held a lavish wake, called a munus, where they distributed meat and wine to the public. They also had six slaves fight each other to the death for entertainment. That began a custom in which the funeral rites of prominent people often included a bloody battle that took more, although less important, lives.
These battles changed and evolved over time. They became so elaborate and popular that the excuse of a funeral became stretched and finally abandoned. The tradition was tweaked to make the fight more horrific, and slaves were trained for the fights. Read the origins of gladiator fights and what they led to at Atlas Obscura.
(Image credit: Carole Raddato)
Trader Joe's is a grocery stores known particularly for their natural and organic products sold under their store brand. A few years ago, I read that the companies Aldi and Trader Joe's were founded by two German brothers and the family still owns both grocery chains. That was not true, but a confusion of the story of Aldi, which was founded by two brothers and then split into two companies, and the fact that Aldi Nord bought Trader Joe's in 1979. Trader Joe's was already an established grocery chain with an interesting story and a founder named Joe.
Joe Coulombe built his business on the back of alcohol and a slightly exotic vibe that was just perfect for its time and place. The only thing you might notice that Trader Joe's and Aldi have in common is a limited selection of items compared to huge supermarkets, which helps control expenses. Weird History Food brings us up to speed on the story of Trader Joe's.
Oddity Central introduces us to the astonishing career of Carmen Dell'Orefice. Although there are fashion models who are older than her, they began their careers later in life. Ms. Dell'Orefice, on the other hand, was discovered at the age of 13, began working at 15, and has continued as a fashion model until the present. She's the longest-working runway model.
How does she look so young at 92? Last year, she told The Sun that she eats right, starting the day with only water, lemon juice, and a priobiotic yogurt. Dell'Orefice also walks regularly for exercise and uses little makeup to ensure that her skin can breathe. Let us follow her example and perhaps we will more like her and less like Yoda as we age.
Photo: Carmen Dell'Orefice
You may have guessed that Bum Farto wasn't his real name. He was born Joseph Farto. Farto was the Chief of the Key West Fire Department from 1964 until he disappeared in 1976. He was a well-known local character as well as a skilled firefighter, wearing bright red leisure suits and driving a lime green car with a Santeria shrine on the hood. Farto was also a drug dealer. He would sell marijuana and cocaine right in front of the fire station, and no one thought much about it. After all, that was Key West in the 1970s.
But the law finally caught up with Farto, and between his conviction and his sentencing, he just disappeared. In doing so, he became more famous than ever, sparking the sale of t-shirts like the one seen above. Farto is now a legend in Key West, and there was even a musical written about him as recent as 2022. Read what we know about Bum Farto and where he went at Mental Floss.
(Image credit: Jenni Konrad)
The trend in institutional dining has been toward pre-processed, pre-packaged, and even pre-cooked food, for schools, colleges, hospitals, and prisons. Sure, it saves kitchen space and the expense of personnel, but at what cost? The Mountain View Correctional Facility in Charleston, Maine, initiated a pilot program to reverse all that and grow their own food on farms near the prison. What they got was more home-style dinners that are fresher and more nutritious, plus both the farm and the kitchen serve as training programs, because the inmates are producing the food themselves. The kicker is that the program saved money over contracting with outside suppliers, like Sysco, Aramark, or Sodexo. Too bad elementary school children and hospital patients can't work their own farms and kitchens. -via Damn Interesting
Renaissance mathematician, astronomer, physician, economist, and clergyman Nicolaus Copernicus, or MikoĊaj Kopernik in his native Poland, published the theory that the earth revolves around the sun. That is merely the most memorable of his many accomplishments. When Copernicus died in 1543, he was buried under Frombork Cathedral, along with about 100 other people (although not at the same time). In the centuries since, the floor of the cathedral has been replaced several times, and the few grave markers that survived the renovations ended up in the wrong places. No one knew where Copernicus was buried, although searches were conducted a few times.
Polish archaeologists began a new quest to find Copernicus' remains in 2005. This time, they had information that narrowed the search. They exhumed 13 skeletons, one of which was the right age to be Copernicus, but skeleton 13/5 was the most badly damaged of them. And how would they confirm Copernicus' identity, anyway? He left no heirs, neither did his brother, for DNA comparison. A lucky find and DNA tests led to the conclusion that skeleton 13/5 was indeed Nicolaus Copernicus. Read how that happened at the Conversation.
An article in Polish shows an image of the facial reconstruction of skeleton 13/5, done by an artist who had no idea that it might belong to anyone in particular. -via Metafilter
(Image credit: Jan Matejko)
Mickey Mouse starred in a short film called Steamboat Willie in 1928 and became a legend. The mouse character was not Walt Disney's first popular character, nor even his first anthropomorphized critter rendered in rubber hose animation, but something about him resonated with audiences so much that he became the symbol of Disney for the next 95 years. In fact, Steamboat Willie wasn't even Mickey's first cartoon! As we celebrate the mouse entering the public domain this year (at least the original version), it might do to look back and try to figure out what made Steamboat Willie such a special cartoon. After all, Mickey was just another of the many cartoon characters of the era that looked pretty much the same. Phil Edwards takes us back to 1928 to show us how it wasn't the character that was a breakthrough, but the technical wizardry of the short itself, helped by some serious public relations work. (via Digg)
Commander Deanna Troi, a main character on Star Trek: The Next Generation, was known for her sex appeal. One of her early, decidedly casual uniforms, showed a fair amount of cleavage until Captain Jellico brought her up to regulation standard. And in one famous scene, actress Marina Sirtis was most definitely not wearing a bra.
Gene Roddenberry, who created both Star Trek and Star Trek: The Next Generation was a man that, shall we say, was in touch with his libido. When developing The Next Generation, he wanted Troi to have four breasts instead of the more commonly encountered two.
Patrick Stewart mentioned this fact in his recently-published memoir Making It So. I've confirmed it in the 1994 book Star Trek Where No One Has Gone Before: A History in Pictures. The great Dorothy Fontana herself had to talk Roddenberry out of the idea (110).
Today's romantic and sexual relationships often don't fit into the classic terms we have for courting, like "dating," "going steady," "boyfriend," or "girlfriend." Even the more modern terms like "friends with benefits" and "friendzone" don't cover all situations, so the word "situationship" has arisen for what Facebook used to call "it's complicated." Often even those involved don't know how to define it because they're not sure how the other feels, or else both are just not all that committed.
When life gives you lemons, you make lemonade. That's exactly what Sweethearts Candy is doing for the upcoming Valentines Day holiday. They are making use of their rejected conversation hearts -meaning those that didn't print right and came out blurry- and marketing them as Sweethearts® Situationships, with the tag line "Messages as blurry as your relationship."
A gift of these candies might spark a conversation about what this relationship is and where it is going. After all, they are conversation hearts. And it's a great idea for using candy that would otherwise be wasted. But how many misprints could they possibly have saved? The situationship candies went on sale this morning and are already sold out. But they'll make more before Valentines Day, even if they have to deliberately misprint them. -via Boing Boing
Rodney Holbrook of Builth Wells in Wales has a work bench in his shed where he often leaves a project out at night, intending to take up where he left off the next day. But when he returns to it, he finds that the bits and pieces he left out are mysteriously put back where they belong! This happened almost every night for two months. Did he have a brownie living in his shed? Holbrook got a clue when he found birdseed stashed in a shoe, and set up a camera to find out who was tidying up at night. It was a mouse!
The mouse cleaned up the bench by stashing all stray objects into a wooden tray. Holbrook began leaving out larger objects to catch the mouse's limitations, but the rodent diligently cleared the bench every night. Holbrook never bothers to clean up the bench anymore, as he knows the mouse will see to it. Read more about the tidy mouse at the Guardian. -via Metafilter
Vince Taylor was the late 1950s-early '60s rock star who inspired David Bowie's concept album The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars. Except Taylor was not an alien, he was an Englishman raised in America, and his downfall was not exactly ego, it was LSD. Taylor found fame in rock-and-roll with his American accent, black leather, and scorching stage presence, fueled by amphetamines and alcohol. But in 1965, when Taylor joined his band in Paris after a trip to England where he dropped acid, he declared his name was now Mateus and he was from outer space and the son of God besides. Even worse, he set a stack of cash on fire. That started a decline that ended Taylor's musical career.
While many musicians experimented with the drug and went on with their lives, Taylor wasn't the only rock star that succumbed to LSD to the detriment of his career. There was also Peter Green and Danny Kirwan of Fleetwood Mac, Syd Barrett of Pink Floyd, and Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys. Read how LSD affected the musical careers of each of them at Messy Nessy Chic.
(Image credit: Hugo van Gelderen (ANEFO))
Look, up in the sky! It's a bird! It's a plane! It's Superman!
Chris Wolfe, the RC Geek, recently posted a New Year greeting featuring a flying Superman. He originally built this remote control Superman for the 2015 Big Jolt RC event in California. It's very lightweight, made of foam, and therefore did not break the pavement on his nose-plant landing, as the real Superman might have. Wolfe thinks this contraption looks more like one of the Beatles than it looks like Superman. Check out his post about the event, and you'll also see him flying a remote control Snoopy on his Sopwith Camel, although it look suspiciously like a dog house to us. That only makes it all the more stunning to see soaring through the air. -via Geeks Are Sexy
A fish called the Asian arowana (Scleropages formosus) is a really popular pet among those who can afford it. One fish can set you back thousands of dollars, all the way up to $300,000 for a single fish! Be warned, it is illegal to own one in the United States. The Asian arowana was once just a nondescript fish with little value found in southeast Asia, but in 1975, it was classified as a threatened species. That meant they were rare, and were suddenly a hot commodity. Talk about unintended consequences! In the years since, the price for an Asian arowana has skyrocketed, and the demand grew because owning one let everyone know you could afford it. Arowana farms thrived, and new and colorful varieties were developed, all priced on how rare they are. Globally, owners want to show off their specimens, and there are even practitioners of fish plastic surgery to improve an Asian arowana's appearance. Showing off isn't so easy in the US, where the fish are traded illegally on the black market. Read about the Asian arowana at The Hustle. -via Nag on the Lake
(Image credit: A2zphotography)
Winslow Dumaine, a comedian, writer, and artist in Chicago, tweeted that he recently made a pilgrimage to the famous Chicago Rat Hole.
This is one of the Windy City's most famous tourist attractions, second only to the Art Institute of Chicago for drawing crowds.
The origins of Chicago Rat Hole are shrouded in mystery. Legend holds that while the concrete for this sidewalk at 1918 West Roscoe Street was being poured, a rat fell in, forever marking the sidewalk with an imprint of its own body. Other Chicagoans contend that it was a squirrel, not a rat.
Either way, people come to the site to reverently venerate the departed rodent. In this way, by connecting to the past and a sense of place, they center themselves for work of the present and future.
UPDATE 1/9/24: Dumaine's tweet has gone viral and how a local news station is reporting on the Chicago Rat Hole.
A recent Tweet unveiled this amazing tattoo. It references a 1993 episode of The Simpsons entitled "Last Exit to Springfield," in which Grandpa Simpson tells a long and rambling story that goes nowhere, just as he promised. That episode was also the origin of the "onion on my belt" meme. The tattoo itself is long and rambling, and probably cost a lot of time and money to get inked. We have no information on who is living with this tat, but if you saw it in real life, you would never forget it. Oh, have you found the typo yet? -via Digg
