On August 10, 1945, after deciding that two atomic bombs was enough, the Japanese government, using rather obtuse language, indicated a willingness to surrender. On August 14, Japan formally expressed this sentiment to the United States through Swiss intermediaries. On August 15, Emperor Hirohito made his first public radio broadcast to inform his people of the surrender. The actual ceremony would take place on board the USS Missouri on September 2.

For the United States and the other Allied powers, August 15 is accepted as Victory over Japan Day. As the last major belligerent surrendered, it was the end of the war and thus a time of great celebration.

WPRI News notes that V-J Day is not a federal holiday. In fact, only the State of Rhode Island designates it as an official holiday--a decision made in 1948. Although Arkansas has celebrated V-J Day in the past, it dropped the holiday in 1975.

Rhode Island marks this great victory on the second Monday of August, which is today.

-via Kiel James Patrick | Photo: Victor Jorgensen/US Navy

When you hear of a celebrity who "dropped off the face of the earth," that usually means they stopped getting work, or fell out of favor, or maybe retired. This list means it literally, in that these people were rather well known and suddenly they disappeared even from their friends, family, and co-workers, never to be seen again. That doesn't mean the disappearance was a mystery, or is "unsolved." The sudden disappearance of Glenn Miller is pretty well established to be a plane crash at sea. The reason for the disappearance of a war correspondent can be assumed, even when no witnesses and no remains are found. But others are inconclusive- they may have been murdered, or they could still be alive somewhere, living under an assumed identity. 

You would expect a list like this to have Jimmy Hoffa and Amelia Earhart, and indeed they are here. But you'll also learn about many celebrities whose disappearances flew under your radar, or were famous in another country, or who vanished a long time ago. Read about 30 of them at Bored Panda. 

The 2002 movie Bend It Like Beckham inspired little girls to play soccer, made soccer players feel represented, and introduced the rest of the world to women's soccer (which outside of the US is just called football). It was Gurinder Chadha who wrote, produced, and directed that film, and she has announced that she's making a sequel. Why did it take so long? Chadha said she didn't have a story for another football movie, but now she has one. The script has yet to be written. The stars of the original, Parminder Nagra and Keira Knightley, are open to returning, but want to see a script before they commit. 

In the 23 years since Bend It Like Beckham was released, women's soccer has gone from an amateur sport with few fans to a global juggernaut. Many of today's players credit the film for some of the sport's rise. Emma Hayes, head coach of the U.S. women’s national soccer team, is one of them. Years after being inspired by the movie, she is collaborating with Chadha to make the sequel as up-to-date and successful as possible. Chadha plans to have the movie ready in 2027. Read more about the Bend It LIke Beckham sequel at Deadline.  -via kottke 

The annual Star Trek convention in Las Vegas is ending today. Many Trekkies have gathered at the Rio Las Vegas hotel to meet their favorite stars, buy merchandise, and, most importantly, dress as their favorite characters.

Cosplayer Michelle Hughes attended as Klingon version of Barbie. Hot pink replaces the traditional black and grey and her bat'leth is especially sparkly. I like the floofy grips.

Photo: Brian K. Nguyen

There's an old saying that you can't unscramble an egg. It means that there are some actions that cannot be reversed, like speech. Sure, you can "take it back," but the damage has already been done. But like many old adages, science looked at it and said why can't you unscramble an egg? Because of entropy. Well, that clears things up. 

But Leonard Hayflick responded to a 1990 article in the journal Science by explaining how you can unscramble an egg. Think about it, and see if you can come up with a better answer than his.

Show Answer

The 2004 movie Van Helsing had all the Universal monsters together being pursued by a monster hunter played by Hugh Jackman. The movie was a moderate success, panned by critics, but was a big influence on young Emily Zarka, who grew up to be an expert on monsters. She tells us about the real monster hunters from history that date back to the beginnings of civilization. They were everywhere in the Middle Ages, or maybe they were just better documented then. More likely, death and disease sparked panic in populations that didn't understand what they were up against, and reached out for help with a rash of undead vampires. A few of these supernatural investigators were rather famous, and became the basis for one enshrined in Bram Stoker's Dracula, and the character type thereafter served as a handy hero for monster movies. Dr. Zarka explains how the historical monster hunters inspired fictional heroes like Van Helsing.   

British prime minister Winston Churchill loved collecting exotic animals for his menagerie, and decided he wanted six platypuses. Australia did not export platypuses, because they knew they rarely survived any kind of travel. But this was 1943 and they needed Britain's help to repel the encroaching Japanese. So arrangements were made to send Churchill one platypus, which they named Winston Churchill. The animal was to be delivered without fanfare, which was all for the good because Winston the platypus died en route.  

Churchill, the man, had Winston Churchill stuffed, and the whole incident was kept from the press. But leaks occurred, and eventually the story became known that a German U-boat attacked the delivery ship and the platypus was shaken to death. Was there any truth to that story? Last year, a team in Britain and another team in Australia went to work to uncover the truth. Read what they learned, plus the story of three platypuses that made it to Brooklyn a few years after the war at BBC.  -via Strange Company 

(Image credit: Charles J. Sharp) 

Kiki was born paralyzed, due to a mosquito-borne virus. She was rejected by her mother, but was taken in by Don’t Forget Us…Pet Us, a sanctuary for neglected or disabled farm animals in Massachusetts. There she was pampered with plenty of attention, walks in a stroller, toys, music, and even a TV in the barn! Kiki showed how intelligent she is by learning to work the controls on her electronic toys, so they built her an electric cart with a joystick she can control. Kiki has since become an ambassador for the sanctuary and for those with disabilities of any species. Kiki has developed a special bond with the sanctuary owner's mother, Barbara, who suffers from Alzheimers disease. 

Since Kiki learned to drive her own vehicle, other barnyard animals have joined in, like Kashu, a goat who is also learning to steer with a joystick. You can keep up with Kiki and the other animals at Instagram and Facebook. -via Boing Boing 

The best thing about reddit is that there's a subreddit for everything.* There's even a subreddit dedicated to outhouses.

While browsing it, I came across this post about a lovely outhouse in Sweden, or, as they say in Swedish, "utedass."

Herbert Hoover was a highly accomplished mining engineer, businessman, and humanitarian before he had the bad luck to be inaugurated as President of the United States shortly before the outbreak of the Great Depression. He then had a long post-Presidential career, living all the way until 1964. 

Hoover married well. Lou Henry Hoover, First Lady of the United States, met her future husband while they were students at Stanford University. She had a sharp mind and became the first woman to graduate from that institution with a degree in geology.

Lady Hoover was a polyglot and, like her husband, had an education in the Latin language. Together, they translated De Re Metallica, a historically important Sixteenth Century Latin text by Georg Bauer about mining and metallurgy. After several years of labor, Herbert and Lou Hoover created the first English translation of the work, making use of their expertise of both geology and Latin. It remains the definitive English translation to this day. 

Astronaut James Arthur Lovell Jr. was the oldest living former astronaut for a couple of years. He died Thursday at the age of 97. 

While Neil Armstrong is the most famous astronaut for being the first person to step onto the moon, he was just doing his job. Lovell, on the other hand, never walked on the moon, despite traveling there twice. But he commanded the Apollo 13 mission in 1970. When an oxygen tank exploded, the mission was scrapped and the world thought the three astronauts aboard were doomed. But Lovell, along with Jack Swigert and Fred Haise, moved into the Apollo Lunar Module and cobbled together the technology they would need to survive and return to earth. The fact that they did makes Lovell a hero of the space program.

Lovell also flew on the Gemini 7, Gemini 12, and the Apollo 8 missions. Lovell's total time in space flight was 715 hours and five minutes, a record that stood until space stations were developed. Along with Haise and Swigert, Lovell traveled further from the earth than any other human beings.   

In 1994, Lovell wrote the book Lost Moon: The Perilous Voyage of Apollo 13. A movie came from it, but the book is so much more, and I highly recommend it. Before Apollo 13 was filmed, Lovell thought Kevin Costner should play him. Costner looked more like Lovell, but Tom Hanks did a fine job. Lovell appeared in the movie as the captain of the ship that picked up the returning astronauts. Hanks posted a tribute at Instagram. Rest in peace, space hero.     

-via Metafilter 

Since 1876, the Heinz company has advocated for its products in creative ways. Last year, the firm offered a Barbie-flavored sauce inspired by the Barbie movie.

Now, the company is pushing the limits of what would normally be considered food. Heinz has teamed up with Smoothie King to offer, for a limited time, ketchup-flavored smoothies. USA Today says that it contains Acai sorbet, apple juice, strawberries, raspberries, and, of course, tomatoes. Selected Smoothie King restaurants in Atlanta, New York City, Denver, Miami, and New Jersey will offer it.

Should this smoothie be made sweet or savory? I don't normally associate tomatoes with sweetness.

-via Dave Barry

Indian weddings can be grand, glorious spectacles that are a delight to attend, even if you don't know the couple getting hitched. BBC reports that they're so much fun that some entertainment venues are throwing fake weddings and selling tickets to people who like a good wedding party.

At the center of this trend is the sangeet--a music and dance party traditionally held before the actual wedding. This is what people enjoy, whether or not there's a couple getting married. 2,000 people attended a recent staged sangeet in Bengaluru. It was so popular and financially successful that similar events are now being planned across the country.

-via Marginal Revolution | Photo: 8Club

We are all familiar with things that our distant ancestors considered true that were later proven to be just myths, mainly because we developed science to explain things. The sun doesn't revolve around the earth, even though it looked that way to ancient people. Illness doesn't happen because the body's humors are out of line- but that was the best explanation they had before germs were discovered. 

But the inverse also happens. Many things that ancient folks didn't believe turned out much later to be true! These are things that people couldn't believe because it was so outlandish, or because they didn't trust the source, or because they thought their own ancestors were less capable, or because they lacked context. Chill Dude Explains tells us about eight such "myths" that were eventually proven to be real. It will make you question the things we believe today. As you should. 

The last one is so wild, you might want to read more about Heinrich Schliemann. 

-via Laughing Squid 

I'm not that surprised. My Pomeranian barks at everyone and everything (including me, even though she's known me her entire life) and has no idea that she's actually small and ill-suited for combat.

Global News reports that Scout, a Pomeranian, lives in black bear country in West Vancouver, British Columbia. When a bear entered the home through an open door, Scout sent the bear scurrying for its life out of the home and then off the property. All six pounds of fury ran at the bear as fast as his feet could carry him in pursuit of the intruding bear.

-via NEXTA