It was 1784. A twice-widowed woman named Maria Fitzherbert, just came out of mourning and entered English society. Here, the then 27-year-old woman met a man who was six years younger — the Prince of Wales (the future George IV), who was immediately enthralled by her.

Never mind that she was both a Catholic and a commoner, two big strikes against her ever being accepted by his father, King George III. The prince was defiantly infatuated and ardent in his pursuit of marriage, even threatening suicide if she would not have him. Fitzherbert, for her part, thought it was best to flee the country when her relentless admirer proposed.

Soon after Fitzherbert fled the country, she would receive a letter from the prince himself. Along with the letter that says “if you have not totally forgotten the whole countenance. I think the likeness will strike you,” Fitzherbert also received something else: it was a miniature painting of the prince’s right eye. Shortly after this event, Fitzherbert would then return to England and secretly marry the prince, and she would later give him a miniature painting of her eye.

Their marriage was not considered valid due to the lack of royal consent, but the lore around the eye paintings endured, inspiring a fashion for such tokens. While miniature portraits were already popular in eighteenth-century England, they were often private objects viewed solely by the wearer. Yet an eye portrait could be worn boldly on a bracelet, ring, stickpin, pendant, or brooch, with the identity of the subject a mystery.

Similar to exchanging locks of hair, the eye portraits helped keep a person close, even when separated by distance or the decorum of Georgian courtship, which limited public romantic gestures. They also channeled a desire to be seen. Art historian Marcia Pointon explores this context in The Art Bulletin, noting that the “word gaze in this period denotes a fixity of looking or staring that implies a degree of self-consciousness on the part of the looker and the looked at.” So the eye miniatures are not only standing in for an absent person like a miniature portrait would, they’re evoking that charged act of looking. Painted with incredible detail in watercolor on ivory, they also evoked a vigilant stare to remind the wearer to be faithful while their beloved was away.

What are your thoughts about this one?

(Image Credit: The Met/ JSTOR Daily)

Consisting of mayonnaise, ketchup, relish, and seasonings, we find this classic salad dressing in our sandwiches, our Big Macs, and our tacos. This salad dressing is called Thousand Island.

Where did this sauce come from? How did it come to existence? Despite having one place of origin (that is, the Thousand Islands region of Upstate New York), there have been differing legends on who really made the dressing.

Mental Floss tells three of these accounts. Learn them all over at the site.

(Image Credit: Hennem080/ Wikimedia Commons)

The coronavirus has indeed done a lot of things to our world. It has silenced and filled the whole world with fear. Places are locked down, and all kinds of events are cancelled, including sports events.

Since pro racers right now cannot hit the road in the real world because of the ongoing coronavirus outbreak, they decided to hit the road in the virtual world by competing with gamers through online sim racing competitions. What does this mean, then?

The first few of these substitute sim races, held last weekend, were successful in ways that surprised even the organizers. Now, many of the people who put them on have spent the intervening week trying to figure out how to use that momentum to fill the gap left by real world racing, as fans around the world hole up at home in a collective attempt to slow the spread of a global virus.

It likely won’t be that difficult, though. The success of these first few replacement races was a testament to how far sim racing has come during the rise of esports (and the era of Twitch), but it also sheds light on a truth that a lot of motorsports fans have become familiar with: that a new age of competitive, virtual motorsports is already upon us.

What happened at the virtual race? Find out over at The Verge.

(Image Credit: PodiumeSports/ Twitch/ The Verge)

Lockdowns are in place all over the world. Hundreds of thousands of people infected, and tens of thousands of lives taken away. These are the things that the coronavirus has brought into the world.

In the current reality we have at this very moment, where we are forced to stay inside our homes, it is not surprising to see alleys, streets, avenues, and highways empty. Still, it is still a sight to behold.

Amusing Planet compiled pictures of empty streets from all over the world. Check them out over at the site.

(Image Credit: Amusing Planet)

What do you get when a science fiction and fantasy writer ventures into the realm of children's books? Sometimes, just sometimes, you get introduced to a fierce and fluffy warrior bear that leads you on an epic adventure.   

Spark and the League of Ursus by Robert Repino follows Spark, a cuddly toy bear by day, and protector of children at night. Spark is a member of a secret society of stuffed animals. This society's mission is to protect children from monsters. 

When a child goes missing and her owner is threatened, Spark and her stuffed animal friends, put aside their own fears to solve the mystery and secure the return of the missing children.  

Spark and the League of Ursus is Robert Pepino first children's book. Some of you may know Robert Repino from his previous works. He is also the author of Mort(e), Culdesac, and D'Arc. 

Stuck at home? Don't feel blue. A good book is always there for you. 

We gave this book to our 10-year-old NeatoBambino (a 5th grader) to read and she gave it two thumbs up. She said it was a must read if you are a stuffed animal lover. 

Spark and the League of Ursus by Robert Repino has a suggested age of 9-12 years old. The book is scheduled to be on sale April 21, 2020 and is published by Quirk Books. 

Soft things include kittens, pillows, and sweaters right out of the dryer, but also clouds, ice cream, and airplane landings. When Gizmodo came up with their latest Ask Giz column, they consulted different experts and mainly got a discussion as to how the question is impossible to answer. John E. Hayes of the Sensory Evaluation Center at Pennsylvania State University said,

Softness is fundamentally a perception (a percept). This implies it occurs in the brain, which in turn means that it can only be measured with a human assessor. With any human sensory system, there are limits of detection, both at the high end and low end, and outside these limits, we cannot tell (perceive) a difference, even if a machine or instrument might. Consider the hardness of cut glass and a cut diamond—when we touch them with our fingertip, they each depress our skin (and the mechanoreceptors in our skin) by roughly the same amount, so we cannot tell them apart, even if a lab instrument could.

But still, most came up with a possible answer, depending on how you define the question. Read their thoughts at Gizmodo.

(Image credit: Benjamin Currie/Gizmodo)

We know that cats can drive you insane. In 1895, Miss Lillie James was admitted to the psychiatric ward at Bellevue hospital. She was known as a "crazy cat lady" with at least a dozen cats. And she knew who was to blame.  

Miss James agreed to being admitted–on one condition. The two cats that she brought with her to the hospital would also have to be committed to the asylum. After all, she said, it was the cats who were insane. She was perfectly sane and clear of mind.

“It is their conduct that has placed me in my present condition,” she told the doctors. “These cats and nine others have conspired against me and affected my health, with the idea of getting possession of my property. Are these guilty cats to go free while I am locked up?”

Although the hospital refused to admit the cats, one most wonder if they were allowed to stay on the grounds. By 1899, there were more than three dozen cats living at the large Bellevue Hospital complex. And in 1904, there was at least one feline in residence that we know about for sure: a white kitten named Red Cross.

The article at The Hatching Cat is not about Lillie James nor any other cat lady. It is about the adventures of the Bellevue hospital kitten known as Red Cross.

(Unrelated image credit: L. Prang & Co.)

Sheldrick Wildlife Trust in Kenya is primarily an elephant orphanage, but they take in wildlife babies of other species who need help. This little zebra is named Diria. He was orphaned when a lion killed his mother.

Little Diria - named after the ranch where he was rescued - arrived into our care at the end of February, fluffy and sporting brown and white stripes (Zebras are famous for their black and white striped appearance, however when they are born they are in brown and white). Since then we have provided Diria with the constant company (and milk feeds) he would have received from his mother, with our keepers even wearing a specially made coat when they are caring for him.

Zebra foals imprint on their mother’s striped pattern and the coat allows Diria to imprint as nature intended, without him becoming too attached to any one individual. A technique we have successfully employed over the years with other rescued zebras, who are now living wild.

Diria appears to be adjusting to his new caretakers quite satisfactorily. -via Bored Panda

(Image credit: Sheldrick Wildlife Trust)

As the Coronavirus pandemic dominates the news, people practice social distancing, and supermarket shelves are picked clean, numerous people have found ways to react to the crisis - and in particular the panic buying of toilet paper - with humor.

twin babies chatting about coronavirus pic.twitter.com/3AH3Jk3v5f

— valeska (@iatemuggles) March 21, 2020

These unidentified twin toddlers are most likely not in an official quarantine, but have learned the terms already as their parents explained germs. They also know about batteries and spring time!  

their memory of this will be so different from ours lol death, panic, hoarding for us VS mom and dad at home all day forever!

— valeska (@iatemuggles) March 21, 2020

Did I say they were unidentified? Their beds are labeled A and B. -via The Daily Dot

Ren Nakamura asked Dos Toros, a taco chain, on how many likes he needed to get free burritos for a year. The taco chain said 10,000 likes was all he needed. Nakamura achieved what they asked for and more, with the help of @newyorknico, who asked his followers to help the 17 year old out. Dos Toros gave Nakamura a black card that lets him order the most expensive item in the menu once a week for 52 weeks, as Oddee detailed: 

The next afternoon he posted a picture of himself standing outside of Dos Toros saying: “@dostoros promised me free burritos for a year if this post gets 10,000 likes. U KNO THE F***ING DRILL (2 handshaking emoji’s) Like and share! (2 burritos emoji)

Half an hour later @newyorknico shared it via Instagram Stories, with his 305,000 followers. He said ‘help him out. I don’t know why but I wanna see this kid win real bad. Maybe I identify because I was once a high schooler who loved burritos. Please like his post so he can get free burritos for a year. I figured Dos Toros was betting against him hitting 10k likes, so I felt obligated to help him out. I also love the idea of a community coming together to help a kid beat the odds and win a free year of burritos. If that’s not what social media is for, I don’t know what is,” Nicolas Heller, who runs the @newyorknico Instagram account, said. 

image via Oddee

A customer gave birth inside a Missouri Walmart store. The woman’s water broke in the toilet paper aisle and had to undergo 30 minutes of labour with the help of another customer (who was a labor nurse), and Springfield firefighters. The mother and child were taken to a local hospital after the delivery, as UPI detailed: 

Jessica Hinkle, store manager at the Walmart store on Sunshine Street in Spingfield, said the woman's water broke in the toilet paper aisle of the store Wednesday and the expectant mother warned employees her last child had been born after only 30 minutes of labor.

Hinkle said customers clapped and cheered for the woman as she was being taken out of the store on a gurney.

The manager said she spoke to the woman Thursday and both mother and baby are doing well.

The Springfield Walmart is currently operating on reduced hours to allow customers to clean the store and restock shelves amid the coronavirus pandemic.

image via wikimedia commons

Fine dining restaurants, such as Merienda, a restaurant in Edinburgh, are now accepting “social distancing deliveries”, where they bring award-winning cuisines to the customer’s doorstep. However, orders had to be made a day in advance, unlike fastfood. Home deliveries are unusual to Merienda, but they have to come up with ways to survive, as Yahoo details: 

"Delivering a meal in a foil container is not something I would normally consider but these are unusual times," Mickel says of the slump in business caused by the coronavirus outbreak.

"Business has been wiped out. We don't get bookings, we only get cancellations. So we have had to come up with a way of surviving and do things that we weren't prepared to do before," he told AFP.

Later in the day, the First Minister of the devolved government in Edinburgh, Nicola Sturgeon, announced there were 227 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in Scotland, with three deaths.

Shortly before lunchtime, orders for roast salmon with lobster sauce, beef bourguignon and chicken chasseur with bottles wine to accompany have already come in.

Unlike fast-food, orders need to be made a day in advance and the service is for people who want to stock up with "a few meals at one time".

Assistant chef Robbie Probert says the challenge is making sure meals prepared by the restaurant, arrive looking as mouth-watering as they would in the restaurant.

"It is about making things simple for people," Probert says.

image via Yahoo

A lot of shops are ordered to close down due to the COVID-19 outbreak. In California, to everyone’s surprise, cannabis shops are still open. California governor Gavin Newsom deemed these marijuana dispensaries are “essential services” that should remain open, along with pharmacies and food stores. The Huffington Post has more details: 

Popular dispensary MedMen, which operates 33 stores in nine states including 12 in California, says it is operating with modified hours, but all stores remain open (except for one in Monterey Bay, Calif. which is closed due to local jurisdiction).

“As of now, we have been deemed an essential business in the markets that have established protocol,” Christian Langbein, the company’s spokesperson says. “We are closely following recent guidelines released by each state and local jurisdiction, plus that of the CDC and the WHO in the best interest of our customers and employees and have adopted the recommended safety protocol.”

image via wikimedia commons

Twitter user wastelandwolf’s pet bird, Toto, is perched on Nintendo Switch, singing along to the music of Animal Crossing as wastelandwolf plays Animal Crossing: New Horizons. Make sure to tell Toto that he did a good job after you watched the video! The pet bird fell asleep on the gaming console after singing along, so he really did his best! 

Toto has been trying to sing along to the animal crossing music all afternoon pls tell him he’s doing a good job pic.twitter.com/VWP2Yfbz5z

— 𝐣𝐨𝐡𝐧𝐧𝐲 ☆ (@wastelandwolff) March 21, 2020

image via Twitter