The first contribution I ever made to Neatorama was a blurb that mentioned Floyd Collins. Collins was a native of western Kentucky, an area known for its many caves, most notably Mammoth Cave. Long before it became a national park, Collins had walked -and crawled- many miles through Mammoth, Crystal, and Sand Caves, among others. He eventually became known as the greatest cave explorer ever. In 1925, Collins became the subject of a rescue attempt when a cave-in brought down rocks that trapped Floyd Collins' lower body, deep in Sand Cave. He spent more than a day alone underground before his brother Homer was able to reach him. But getting him out would be a particularly difficult task. The passage that led to him was so narrow that men could only crawl headfirst, and then had to wiggle out backward.     

Worse yet, Collins blocked his own rescue. Pinched from the chest down, his hands and feet were out of view. Homer called up to have some food brought into the cave and fed his brother by hand, pouring a pint of coffee down his throat and bringing nine sausage sandwiches to his lips. Immediately, he began trying to remove the loose rocks clamped around Collins’s body, but new rocks tumbled to take their place.

Homer emerged hours later shivering violently, skin dangling from his fingers. As he recuperated near the cave's mouth, dozens more men attempted to navigate Sand Cave. All failed. Nobody would reach Collins until Homer re-entered at midnight.

Many others tried, and for more than two weeks experts across the country came up with ideas for rescuing Collins. Newspapers nationwide carried constant updates, and the area around the mouth of Sand Cave became a circus. Read the story of Floyd Collins' life, his time trapped in the cave, and his legacy at Mental Floss.

(Image credit: Flickr user Don Sniegowski)

It has never been easy to conduct archaeological digs in Alexandria, Egypt. The city founded by Alexander the Great has been continuously occupied, and now has a population of more than five million people. But in the 21st century, some amazing finds have been unearthed under the city streets, like the University of Alexandria. Just recently, in the Sidi Gaber district, a huge black granite coffin was uncovered. It has been sealed shut for 2,000 years. 

The ancient sarcophagus was found by local authorities during standard archaeological excavations conducted before the construction of a new building on Al-Karmili Street. It was found approximately 16 feet below ground. A rough alabaster bust of a man, likely a depiction of the body in the coffin, was also discovered in the tomb, which is believed to date from the era of the Ptolemies, the Greek royal family dynasty that ruled for roughly three centuries from 305 to 30 B.C.E.

According to the Ministry of Antiquities, the tomb is about 8.6 feet long and more than 5 feet wide. Mostafa Waziri, general secretary-general of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, says it is the largest sarcophagus ever excavated in the city.

Who could be buried in such a substantial -and expensive- burial vault? Commenters at reddit are of the opinion that it's either Alexander the Great himself, or some unspeakable evil that will unleash a curse on the entire earth when the sarcophagus is eventually opened.

(Image credit: Egyptian Ministry of Antiquities)

Television industry producers and network execs don't like to part with the money flooding in, they'd rather drown in a deluge of cash if they could, so they're not going to take a chance on strange or crappy TV shows.

So it's safe to say shows like Lancelot Link: Secret Chimp, Clutch Cargo and David Cassidy: Man Undercover would not have made it on the air if they were pitched to the TV execs of today.

That being said Clutch Cargo is stupid funny, and Lancelot Link is one of my favorite TV shows of all time because it stars chimps, and who doesn't love chimp actors?

(YouTube Link)

A security camera at a South Korean zoo caught a scary incident when a baby elephant fell into the deep end of the pool. Its mother went right into panic mode as another elephant runs up to help.  

(YouTube link)

Both adult elephants rush around to the ramp, and walk the baby back to the shallow end. All's well that ends well. This goes to show that elephants are great parents, and not only to their own offspring. -via Tastefully Offensive

Romantic movies have been made as long as they've been making movies. From cheesy chick flicks to epic love stories, this Good Housekeeping article features the best romantic movie from each year since 1930 so you can identify the best one from your birth year. For me it's Terms of Endearment, which I admit, I've never seen. How about you guys, what's the movie from your birth year, and did you like it?

See the whole list here.

V for Viking by Bomdesignz

The legacy of Ragnar Lothbrok will live on for eternity thanks to his courage and bravery in the face of the unknown, and now he drinks and feasts for eternity in the great dining halls of Valhalla. But Ragnar's legacy is seen as unworthy of Odin's honor by some, and they work to strike his name out of the folk tales and replace it with their own. Thankfully, there are plenty of brave men and women who remember the name Ragnar Lothbrok with pride, men like Floki and Björn and the brave warrior queen Lagertha. They will ensure his legacy lives on, until they breathe their last as the doors to Valhalla open up and accept them all...

Don't dress like an actual viking, wear this V for Viking t-shirt by Bomdesignz and show the world you're a civilized savage!

Visit Bomdesignz's Facebook fan page, Twitter, Tumblr and official website, then head on over to his NeatoShop for more mighty geeky designs:

View more designs by Bomdesignz | More TV T-shirts | New T-Shirts

Are you a professional illustrator or T-shirt designer? Let's chat! Sell your designs on the NeatoShop and get featured in front of tons of potential new fans on Neatorama!

Alaska's Lituya Bay had been used for many years as a temporary shelter for boats traveling the eastern Pacific, but no one lives there permanently. In fact, the local Tlingit people told the legend of a monster at the mouth of the bay who shook the ocean to send huge waves. They knew what was going on. The unique geography of the bay amplifies waves to a terrifying extent. Travelers were there when the largest tsunami wave in recorded history blew through Lituya Bay in July of 1958. It reached about a third of a mile up the shore, destroying everything in its way. It started with a magnitude 8 earthquake.

The earth shook for anywhere from one to four minutes—eyewitness reports varied. When the fault finally came to rest, the foamy water of Lituya Bay settled back into something resembling its ordinary lazy waves, and a new quiet blanketed the bay. Despite the cessation of shaking, Orville and Mickey Wagner on the Sunmore—the boat headed for the bay exit—continued their retreat toward the open ocean.

After a minute or so of apparent calm, a crash described as “deafening” rattled the atmosphere. One of the unnamed mountain peaks that stood at the inland end of Lituya Bay had broken off, dropping ninety million tons of rock into the water with the force equivalent to a meteor strike. The resulting impact shook loose other rocks on the slopes, and chunks of adjacent glaciers, and these plunged into the water practically all at once. Millions of cubic yards of displaced water heaved upward and formed a wave traveling outward at about 110 miles per hour (180 km/h).

Within about a minute, the approaching wave became visible to the boats still at anchor, and the occupants looked on in awe as the wide skyscraper of water traversed the length of the bay towards them. When it reached Cenotaph Island another minute or so later, the proportions of the wave became clear. The center of the wave was almost as high as the highest point on the island, 300 feet in the air. On the two opposite shores, the plowing saltwater reached over 1,700 feet (over 500 meters) onto land, twisting even the most massive trees from their roots and scraping the bedrock nearly clean.

Read the story of the Lituya Bay megatsunami, gleaned from eyewitness accounts and the geologic record, at Damn Interesting. -via Digg

How a bizarre 1970s black comedy turned the soap opera inside out.

Mary Hartman was mopping her kitchen floor, staring intently at the TV, when outside, sirens began to wail. Her neighbor Loretta barged through the door with terrible news: The family around the corner—along with their two pet goats and eight chickens—had been murdered. And that’s just the beginning of Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman, one of the most inventive and funny—yes, funny—television programs to grace the small screen.

The short-lived ’70s sitcom is remembered as a soap opera parody. But it was more than that: It was a sardonic take on modern life. The titular character, a sexually unfulfilled blue-collar suburban housewife from Fernwood, Ohio, played by Louise Lasser, is consumed by television, to the point of being numb to the world. She swallows advertising as wholesale truth, firmly believing TV commercials are there to improve her life. She’s so focused on finding the right homemaking products that when her neighbors are shot and killed, Mary is preoccupied instead with the “waxy yellow buildup” on her kitchen floor.

The show is populated with equally peculiar characters—Mary’s mother talks to plants, while her grandfather is a serial flasher. Her neighbor Loretta is a God-obsessed country-western singer. And the storylines are typical soap opera tropes—adultery, murder, intrigue—dressed in oddball black humor: At one point, a high school basketball coach drowns in a bowl of chicken soup; an 8-year-old evangelist is electrocuted when a television wire falls into the bathtub. The line between funny and dark is cheerfully blurry.

And at a time when television was in practically every home, Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman was doing something revolutionary: It was using television to criticize the medium itself.

Inky the Octopus was a popular exhibit at the National Aquarium in Napier, New Zealand, since 2014. But Inky no longer lives there, as the aquarium has revealed that he made his escape earlier this year. One day, staff noticed that there was only one octopus in the tank instead of two. The lid to the enclosure had had been placed loosely, leaving a small gap, and the octopus took the opportunity to climb out. Octopus tracks led to a small floor drain, only 150 millimeters (6 inches) wide.

Rob Yarrall​ from the National Aquarium said Inky was about the size of a rugby ball but octopuses could stretch themselves to extremes, allowing them to squeeze through almost any space.

"As long as it's mouth can fit," Yarrall said.

"Their bodies are squishy but they have a beak, like a parrot."

Since his disappearance aquarium staff have missed Inky, who was popular with staff and visitors, but they were pleased to see him return to the ocean, Yarrall said.   

While we learned that “all drains lead to the ocean” is not universally true, in this case the drain does lead to the ocean. Inky had toys and games and regular meals at the aquarium, but nothing beats freedom.-via Uproxx

(Image credit: National Aquarium of New Zealand)

The final Hunger Games movie, Mockingjay Part 2, opened nationwide last night, so it’s perfect timing to see Katniss in a rap battle in Whitney Avalon’s Princess Rap series. Her opponent: Hermione Granger, played by Molly C. Quinn.  

(YouTube link)

Who’s tougher, smarter, and hotter? You decide. All I know is that they rhyme well. -via Viral Viral Videos

Well, this is kind of fun. The Visited States Map Generator is an application to record what states you’ve been to, color-coded to indicate how much time you’ve spent there. Canada is included, but I’ve never been there. The color coding is an indication of how familiar you are with each state.

Red means I've just passed through, maybe seen a thing or two.

Amber means I've at least slept there and seen a few things. I have a first-hand idea of what the state is like.

Blue means I've spent a good amount of time in that state.

Green means I've spent a lot of time in that state, weeks at at time on multiple visits—or lived there.

You can also use the map to generate a particular trip, places you’d like to go, or just make a map with pretty colors. The map pictured shows you where I’ve been, at least in the U.S. I reserved green only for places I've lived. Flyovers don’t count, in my opinion, but you do your map however you want. -via Fred Bradbury

Poor Lassie can have no more puppies because it made someone think about sex. Rod Serling talked to Mike Wallace about censorship on TV in 1959. Not much has changed -you can still lose sponsors if someone complains.

(YouTube link)

A commenter pointed out how Serling was a genius at getting around such censorship, and how it contributed to the art of television.

The irony here is that the format of "The Twilight Zone" was created as a way to get around censorship. If social commentary was disguised as tales about aliens and monsters then it was easier to get past execs and sponsors; we might not have "The Twilight Zone" if not for Serling having to find a way to work around them.

-via Boing Boing

For Rod Serling, TV was the perfect landscape to battle bigotry and corporate censorship. But was the nation ready for it?

In the late 1950s, Rod Serling found himself sitting in a London airport tired and ready to go home. As he waited to board his flight, he spotted something eerie. Across the room stood his doppelgänger: a man who looked to be his same height, sporting the same coat and carrying the exact same cowhide briefcase. It blew his mind. As the award-winning TV writer tried to catch a glimpse of his double’s face, a strange thought hit him: What if, through some glitch in the universe, he was watching another version of himself?

“I kept staring and staring,” Serling recalled, “with this funny, ice-cold feeling that, if he turns around and it’s me, what do I do?” Eventually, the gentleman did turn around. He was a decade younger and, Serling joked, far better looking. But the experience was too uncanny to forget.

As a writer, Serling made his name toying with unsettling concepts, which made him a critical darling. His 1956 teleplay, Requiem for a Heavyweight, had garnered numerous awards, an Emmy among them. But corporate sponsors didn’t find his work appealing. Always looking to skirt controversy, they preferred to work within the confines of formulaic Westerns and bland sitcoms. Serling wanted none of that. He thought TV should probe deeper, believing it could address big concerns: social injustice, bigotry, mortality. In 1959, he got the chance to do just that, using that strange airport experience as the kindling for his legendary science fiction TV series, The Twilight Zone. The series would be a double itself, a serious exploration of politics and ethics disguised as harmless sci-fi. The question was whether he could get away with it.

Even as a teenager, Serling had been a social activist. Growing up in Binghamton, New York, he was editor of the high school newspaper, injecting social commentary in between box scores. Fighting in World War II only galvanized his mission. Stationed in the Philippines with a demolition platoon, he witnessed horror firsthand. Serling left the island consumed by a hatred for war, and he brought back a souvenir: a piece of shrapnel in his knee that bled spontaneously for the rest of his life.

At home, Serling struggled for direction.