Thanks to constant wars, there were plenty of widows, orphans, and excess single women in 13th-century Europe. Some of these women became nuns, but many of them teamed up to form local mutual aid groups. Wealthier women helped to keep poorer women and children sheltered and on their feet, and their numbers provided security. As these groups grew and consolidated, they became known as the Béguines. Although they were religious, they were not officially tied to the church, took no religious vows, and were free to leave any time. The Catholic church, busy attaining not only religious but political and economic power, tolerated the independent Béguines as long as they helped alleviate the church's social welfare obligations and didn't threaten the church's power.

In this environment, the Béguines were able to study, serve the poor, hold jobs, and direct their own lives. They still mostly kept to themselves, as the medieval church was known to accuse women who stepped out of line of heresy or even witchcraft. But some of the Béguines began to write religious treatises. Marguerite Porete wrote a book called The Mirror of Simple Souls that became a best seller. The church condemned the book as being full of "errors and heresies." Porete was arrested and eventually burned at the stake in 1310. That was the beginning of the end of the Béguines, although the "order" held on for several hundred more years. Read of the rise and fall of the Béguines at Messy Nessy Chic.

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Airbnb and its competitors let you rent out your house to strangers in search of a place to stay. This real estate aspect of the sharing economy is expanding. The New York Times (paywalled article) reports that new businesses let people offer up their household pools, living rooms, and backyards. The article focuses on Sniffspot, a company that turns ordinary household backyards into dog parks.

This company is thriving in suburbs outside of large cities, such as New York and Seattle. Wealthy dog owners who live in crowded apartments in the city will pay $35 an hour or more for access to fenced-in backyards. This large fee encourages hosts to make their yards especially appealing to dogs, such as adding agility equipment, play structures, and shallow pools.

-via Althouse

We see skateboarders do amazing tricks and we are impressed with their talents. But it doesn't come easy. Every trick takes endless practice, and you have to be willing to fall a lot to achieve success. In other words, it's hard and dangerous work, for just a sense of accomplishment when you succeed. Najeeb Tarazi made an experimental video titled One More Try to show how skaters practice to master a new trick, and the many falls they endure to get it right. Warning: This video might make you feel a little pain in places, but to the guys doing the falling, it's all in a day's work. -via Nag on the Lake

In the American tradition of making something impossibly sweet and calling it a salad, Watergate salad became very popular in 1974. It's a combination of pistachio pudding and Cool Whip, laden with pineapple chunks, pecans, and miniature marshmallows. It may have gained our attention because of the name, as the recipe was published in newspapers during the Watergate investigation headlines of 1974. But maybe it was just an easier version of Watergate cake, which was first published in 1973 during the Watergate hearings. People would joke that it was called Watergate cake because it has so many nuts in it. Others jokes that the whipped frosting was a coverup.

But then again, the inspiration may have come even earlier. The Water Gate Inn in Washington went defunct in 1966, but at one time served a Water Gate Ice Box Cake, even though the recipe was quite different. While the origin of the name is probably impossible to determine, pistachio pudding will always be associated with the Watergate scandal for some reason or another. Read what we know of the history of Watergate salad at Mental Floss.

On a slightly related topic, the Jell-O company will let you know that pistachio pudding debuted in 1976. However, Royal Desserts was selling pistachio pudding mix as far back as 1966, and that was the brand used in early Watergate cake and Watergate salad recipes.  

In 1976, Sesame Street aired episode 847 with guest star Margaret Hamilton, in her classic persona as the Wicked Witch of the West. It only aired once. The producers received many complaints from parents who said it was too scary for children, and left some of them traumatized. There were also a couple of complaints from Wiccans about showing witches in a bad light. The Children's Television Workshop pulled the episode from circulation, and it was never included in reruns, syndication, or home video. It was never really "lost," (hence the quote marks) as it was archived at the Library of Congress, but most of us have never had the opportunity to see it.

But now you can. This video compiles all the Margaret Hamilton sequences, which total about 15 minutes, and tells the story of how the witch from The Wizard of Oz got into a kerfluffle with Sesame Street residents over her broom. It may seem silly and contrived to us, but it was meant to help preschoolers overcome their fears. I guess it wasn't that successful in its aim. If you like, you can see the full hour here.  -via Fark   

In the mid-20th century, Las Vegas had become the place to get married in a hurry, and Reno, Nevada, was where you got a (relatively) quick divorce. But even before that, the go-to spot for a divorce was Sioux Falls, South Dakota. In the late 1800s, people traveled thousands of miles to obtain a divorce at the historic Minnehaha County courthouse.

See, back then, a divorce was almost impossible to get in many states. You had to have a valid reason, and even then a spouse could contest it. South Dakota had more lax regulations, and it took only three months to establish residency. However, living in the state for three months might make one inclined to stay and put down roots, which is what South Dakota wanted. Sioux Falls became known as a "divorce colony," with communities of people staying in the city for that reason alone, and businesses willing to accommodate them. It also became known as a place to watch the salaciously entertaining divorce trials of the rich and famous. Read about Sioux Falls' divorce colony at Alas Obscura.

(Image credit: AlexiusHoratius)

Two toothbrushes, three credit card machines, two typewriters, and a telephone give their best version of Queen's song "Don't stop Me Now." Besides selecting a great song, they do their best to render it faithfully, although they have a slight problem with the lyrics. This is the Device Orchestra (previously at Neatorama). In this performance, we get a close look at the "singing" toothbrushes and their charming jiggly eyes. You can now meet each member of the Device Orchestra at Instagram. The red-headed toothbrush is Bob Floss.  -via Laughing Squid

The summer solstice, the longest daylight of the year, is coming up on Tuesday. Our calendars mark it as the beginning of summer, no matter that we've been suffering from the heat for weeks already. Still, the solstice is referred to as midsummer in many cultures, and it's celebrated somewhat like the winter solstice and the two equinoxes, particularly in northern European countries where even in June it's not too torridly hot to enjoy a bonfire. In some countries it's an official holiday, and many stage celebrations on the nearest weekend for convenience. There are places with additional traditions, like the lore that says Icelandic cows can talk and people in Slovenia can understand what animals say. Bulgarians celebrate by walking on hot embers. And many places celebrate the solstice as St. John the Baptist Day, as another example of the Christian church rebranding pagan holidays. Read a roundup of ten midsummer celebrations at Mental Floss.

Étienne-Jules Marey was a cardiologist and a scientist, but he ended up being a pioneer in photography and cinematography, too. Marey was always looking for data, and to get it he invented several instruments to measure heartbeats, muscle movements, respiration, and other physical phenomena. He studied movement in animals as well as humans, and once posited that a galloping horse had all four feet off the ground at one point in its stride. The arguments that ensued from this opinion led to Edweard Muybridge's famous 1878 film of a horse galloping.

Marey developed the chronophotographic gun in 1882, which could capture 12 images per second, overlaying them in one picture, in order to study movement.  

One of Marey's more famous studies was one in which he declared that falling cats always landed on their feet. Did no one notice this before? Or was it just that Marey could prove it with his chronophotographic gun? Marey's 1894 photographs of a falling cat were easily assembled into a one-second film, or later video, of a cat falling, and in the last frames expressing his indignity at such an experiment. If only Marey could see how far cat videos have come in the 128 years since. -via Nag on the Lake

In a mere seven years, between 1346 and 1353, the Black Death swept across Europe and parts of Asia and Africa and killed off 75–200 million people, changing the course of history. This bubonic plague pandemic is now thought to have its origins in Kyrgyzstan in 1338 and 1339, according to a new study. Two cemeteries, Kara-Djigach and Burana, had quite an excess mortality in those two years according to dated tombstones, ten of which actually mentioned a pestilence.

One of the cemeteries had been excavated in the 19th century, so the remains had to be traced to St. Petersburg, Russia. DNA sequencing revealed the presence of Yersinia pestis, the bacteria that causes bubonic plague, on some of the deceased's teeth. It was a very early strain that was an ancestor to the various strains of Y. pestis found in the Black Death pandemic. Other evidence from the cemeteries show that the region was a Silk Road trading spot. Traders could very well have carried plague from Kyrgyzstan into Europe via fleas and rats. War also played a part, as the first large outbreak of the Black Death pandemic was recorded as the Mongol army attacked Crimea in 1346. Read more about this research at Nature. -via Real Clear Science

The Barter Theatre building in Abingdon, Virginia dates back to at least 1876. But it got its current name during the Great Depression. When it reopened its doors under new management in 1933, guests could purchase tickets to see plays by bartering with farm and garden goods, such as pickles and eggs. Paying in cash was an option, but, Atlas Obscura reports, 80% of guests paid in trade.

The Barter Theatre became a media sensation and has thrived ever since, drawing famous actors to its stage, including Gregory Peck and Ernest Borgnine. It has an active show schedule and sees 160,000 visitors every year, although one can no longer buy tickets with chickens.

Photo: Steven C. Price

Mothers Day has been celebrated officially since 1914 in the US, but Fathers Day took much longer to become a thing. It wasn't an official US holiday until 1972! One of the reasons it took that long for Fathers Day to achieve anything near the status of Mothers day is because men thought the entire idea seemed effeminate. They didn't need flowers and cards- especially when they had to pay for them! But eventually retailers found ways to make Fathers day something worth promoting.

The real push to get Fathers Day off the ground came from Sonora Smart Dodd, who knew that fathers were important and should have a holiday of their own. She wanted to honor her own father, William Jackson Smart, who raised six children alone after his wife died. Dodd's campaign took off in Spokane, Washington, in 1910, but took decades to achieve the status of a real holiday. Read how all that came about at Almanac.  -Thanks, WTM!

Reminder: Fathers Day is this Sunday, June 19.

(Image source: Find-a-Grave)

The original Star Trek had a rather small budget, and therefore a small cast of characters. There were the officers of the bridge: Kirk, Spock, Uhura, Sulu, and Chekhov, plus Dr. McCoy, engineer Scott, and nurse Chapel. Then there was a never-ending supply of red shirts, security officers who rarely had lines and only appeared in one episode because they were always killed off. It was a simple way to show that the crew was in danger without harming the core cast. It eventually became a trope farmed for humor even today, more than 50 years later. In California, there are old men all over who can put Star Trek on their resume for that one appearance and death scene. They should form a club.

John DiMarco has given us several Star Trek supercuts already; his latest looks at the fate of the original series' red shirts and their swift and not-so-gruesome deaths early in their sole episode. -via Laughing Squid

You heard the joke about the grandma who thought "LOL" meant "lots of love," and then added it to her social media posts when announcing someone's death. There is value in all of us being on the same page when we create internet shortcuts. And people take those shortcuts all over the world, to make their typed interactions seem more personal and real. If you ever dive into a website in a language you're just learning, or one you thought you were fluent in when speaking, it might be good to know how other people react. This map lays out how people laugh online in other languages.

In English, it's good to know LOL and ROFLMAO, but in actual use, more people type "haha". The actual sound of laughter is spelled differently in other languages, such as “jajaja” in Spanish. But that can change to denote different meanings behind the laughter. In Ukraine, “ахахахах” is a regular laugh, while “азаза” is sarcastic laughter. And in Indonesia, a laugh written as “wkwkwk” has a story behind it that has to do with the layout of a keyboard. Read up on all these methods of laughing in type at Preply. -via Boing Boing