So many of the conventions that ruled how men and women interacted were "unwritten rules" that everyone understood, but were not legally codified. Conformity came from social pressure from the majority of people who just knew that "that's the way it is." Such was the dress code for the U.S. Senate that expected women to wear dresses long after those in other professions were wearing pantsuits, uniform pants, or jeans to work.

As the upper house in the U.S. legislature, the Senate has always been more formal and reserved than the House. Even during the 1980s, pants on women were apparently too much for that august chamber to handle. Individual Senate offices had their own rules, but on the floor, women wearing pants were verboten, which could necessitate quick changes. "We've heard from women staff that in the 1980s, if they came in to work—if they were called in on an emergency basis—they needed to keep a dress to put on quickly or they had to borrow one if they had to appear on the Senate floor," Richard A. Baker, Senate historian from 1975 to 2009, told The Washington Post in 2002.

While the dress code for the Senate was never officially codified, the norms were enforced by Senate doorkeepers, who controlled access to the chamber and served partly as security guards, partly as protocol monitors. Even today, they assess each person seeking entry, making sure they are supposed to be there and are dressed appropriately. The problem is that "dressed appropriately" has historically been up to the discretion of the doorkeeper on duty: Doorkeepers made determinations based on personal opinion or instructions from their boss, the sergeant at arms.

What did it take for the doorkeepers to back down over enforcing that dresses be worn by women senators? It took a critical number of concurrent women senators (six), and one breaking the unwritten rule in order to bring the entire subject up for discussion. Read how that finally happened in 1993 at mental_floss. 

"You know, when junior scrunches his eyes up like that, he looks just like (insert famous movie actor)!" Yes, he does. The internet has an unlimited supply of baby pictures from proud parents, plus a revolving door of celebrities, so it stands to reasons that people will see an occasional uncanny resemblance.

Check out an entire class of infants who are doomed to grow up and be compared to a famous person in this gallery. -via TVOM

It's happened to all of us. A family member, friend, or co-worker says something wrong, so you point out their error. But they are convinced you are the one who is wrong. We should just let it go at that point, but every once in a while, the argument escalates into something the two of you think is important, when it's not important at all. It's just dumb.

Are these examples of overthinking it, or just over-caring? Even if you manage to dial it back, those arguments and their aftermath will stay with you, so you can share it years later.

A reddit post asked the question "What's the most pointless argument you've been passionately involved in?" and 22 Words selected the 30 funniest of those dumb arguments to illustrate. -via Metafilter

The tree genus called Paulownia has several species, mostly native to Asia, that grow fast on difficult soil. They tend to thrive after forest fires, which kill its enemy fungus. It's also called the Princess Tree.

The genus, originally Pavlovnia but now usually spelled Paulownia, was named in honour of Anna Paulowna, queen consort of The Netherlands (1795–1865), daughter of Tsar Paul I of Russia. It is also called "princess tree" for the same reason.[1]

The tree also has a sweet tradition.

Paulownia is known in Japanese as ‘kiri’ and as ‘Princess Tree’ because it was once customary to plant a tree of this kind when a baby girl was born, and then to make it into a dresser as a wedding present when she married.

Before you run out and find a princess Tree to welcome your little princess, consider whether you will realistically have the time and skills to actually build a dresser, or the money to pay a carpenter to do it. -via Nag on the Lake

(Image credit: Fanghong)

There's a miniature stone village in Prospect Hill, North Carolina, consisting of 27 buildings and other small-town structures. It was all hand-made by one man: Henry Warren. When Warren retired from farming, he gathered white flint rock and lovingly crafted each building over the last nine years of his life. He decorated the buildings with flea market finds, such as jewelry, gemstones, colored tile, and anything he thought would make Shangri-La look good. Heather gives us her impression of the village after visiting.

Now this is just my opinion, but I believe Shangri-La is sacred. Henry, a retired tobacco farmer with no history in art or architecture, devoted his retired years to creating art; and this art was meant to simply make people happy. There’s power in that. For nearly a decade he poured love and creativity into these buildings, with the nothing more than the intention of making the world more beautiful. You can feel that energy there. You can feel that these buildings were made for you, simply to make you feel good.

Warren died in 1977, but his family maintains the village, and welcomes visitors who want to enjoy his work. -via Metafilter, where you'll find more links to explore Shangri-La.

(Images credit: Flickr user Joel Haas)

Redditor CircleAddict works at Starbucks and had a customer encounter that didn't go quite right. He said, "A woman came through the drive through yesterday and got a little irritated with me because we didn't have drink carriers. Today, she came back and handed me this." In case you can't read the writing, it says:

Greetings Starbuck Barista! Yesterday at your drive through we had a less then cheerful encounter. At no fault of yours, you were out of carriers & said you could not take my empty cup (trash). I was less then understanding and my manner was curt.

I need to apologize. The thought of leaving a trail of unkindness like that is so not the path i want to reflect. Not for you, Not for me. You are a young man, clearly working hard to build a future & you should be commended. Keep up your attitude of cheer & hope. Stay hopeful no matter what kind of people cross your path (or drive thru :) )

Surly, God has good blessing in store. You taught this ole lady something yesterday about, Kindness, Compassion & staying humble. I thank you! Debbie

God Bless you today & all your todays.

Debbie was most likely affected by other things going on in her life, but she realized that didn't make it okay to lash out at a stranger. Good on her. The discussion below the post was full of commenters who were sorry about ruining someone's day and stories of strangers who went out of their way to apologize for rudeness. The world could use more of that.

The active ingredient in catnip that gives such pleasure to our kitties is nepetalactone. It doesn't have much effect on other species, but cats go wild -or at least some cats do. If you've had multiple cats, you've probably noticed at least one that didn't react to catnip at all. You have to feel sorry for those cats, while their housemates are enjoying a catnip-fueled high. However, there are some other substances, such as silver vine, Tatarian honeysuckle, and valerian root, that can stimulate cats. Molecular biologist Sebastian Bol performed an experiment to see how cats would react to these plants.

With 100 different cats, he rubbed the plant matter on a sock or a square of carpet, and set the material in the cats’ line of sight. Then he waited. If the cat approached and backed away, he considered that a denial. “Animals tend to move towards things they like, and back away from things they consider threats,” says Buffington. After each success or denial, he’d wait about five minutes for the cat to relax, then try again with another plant type. The response rate was striking: Almost 80 percent of the cats responded to the silver vine (a higher response rate than even nip, which got less than 70 percent of the cats high), and roughly 40 percent each for valerian root and honeysuckle.

The kicker is that these other plants do not contain nepetalactone. Read about research into cat euphoria at Wired. -via Metafilter

Neatorama presents a guest post from actor, comedian, and voiceover artist Eddie Deezen. Visit Eddie at his website or at Facebook.

It was 1937 and the Marx Brothers were back with their seventh motion picture A Day at the Races. A Day at the Races was the follow-up to the boys' biggest and most popular film, their previous effort, 1935's A Night at the Opera.

A Day at the Races was their second film for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. It was also their second film post-Zeppo, the youngest Marx Brother, their wooden straight man, having retired as an actor after 1933's Duck Soup.

Trying to duplicate the successful formula of A Night at the Opera, before beginning filming, Groucho, Chico and Harpo took a live version of A Day at the Races on the road. Before live crowds, jokes and gags were gauged and either kept or discarded.

Most of the A Day at the Races screenplay and gags were written  by Al Boasberg, who was also a major contributor to A Night at the Opera. But Boasberg demanded full credit as the film's screenwriter, a request MGM was not willing to grant, thus a furious Boasberg requested his name be erased from the film's credits altogether. Final writing credits went to Robert Pirosh and George Seaton.

A Night at the Opera director Sam Wood returned to the helm. Irving Thalberg, MGM's "boy genius," was the film's producer, but sadly, he died unexpectedly of pneumonia just two weeks into production. Groucho was later to claim he "lost all interest" in film-making after the death of Thalberg.

Thalberg loved the Marx Brothers and being the head of MGM, he made sure they were protected and their films were kept at a grade A level. After his passing, the production, writing, and general caring and interest level of Marx Brothers movies took a massive drop, never to return to the A Day at the Races high level again.

Meet Context 958. That's just his scientific designation. We don't know his name, but we have some idea of what the man looked like when he was alive during the 13th century, thanks to a facial reconstruction done on a skeleton excavated from a medieval cemetery at St. John’s College in Cambridge, England.    

He was just slightly over 40 years old when he died. His skeleton showed signs of considerable wear-and-tear, so he likely lead a tough and hard working life. His tooth enamel stopped growing during two occasions in his youth, suggesting he likely lived through bouts of famine or sickness when he was young. The archaeologists found traces of blunt force trauma inflicted to the back of his head, which healed over before he died. The researchers aren’t sure what he did for a living, but they think he was a working-class person who specialized in some kind of trade.

There's more to learn about Context 958 at Gizmodo, and also about the project that brought him to us in almost photographic detail.    

(Image credit: Dr. Chris Rynn, University of Dundee)

The top of the trailer is removable. Flip it over, and there's your fishing boat! It's a 1954 Ford Courier with a matching Kom-Pak Sportsman Travel Trailer. The 16' boat doubles as the trailer roof. Yeah, that means you can only go boating when it's not raining, but duh. This particular model is quite rare, and wouldn't look this good if it were used for real camping and boating, inside of showing off at classic car shows. See a 1952 model, too. -via reddit

Those who have the honor of naming a new species can put a lot of thought into it, to come up with a wonderfully evocative name like Tyrannosaurus rex. Or they can go the easy route, like whoever named Allosaurus -it means "different lizard." And then there are names that make us want to know the story behind it, like Pantydraco.

For many, naming one of these ancient beasts is serious business. “To me, choosing a name for a new dinosaur species has always been a heavy task,” says North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences paleontologist Lindsay Zanno. Not only are names necessary for scientific communication, but dinosaurs—like planets—have their own pop culture pull that makes naming a new species a way to excite the public. “If wisely chosen, a name can become a vector for connecting nature and humanity through shared culture, for inspiring curiosity, or for awakening a long dead species in our collective imaginations,” Zanno says.

But now that new species are found more often, names get pulled from every corner of society. Read about dinosaur naming conventions and how they have changed at Smithsonian. By the way, the "panty" in Pantydraco is a Welsh word.

(Image credit: Nobu Tamura)

Neatorama presents a guest post from actor, comedian, and voiceover artist Eddie Deezen. Visit Eddie at his website or at Facebook.

Change of Habit was Elvis Presley's 31st and final film. Although Elvis was to appear later in two documentaries- Elvis: That's the Way It Is (1970) and Elvis On Tour (1972), Change of Habit was Elvis's last appearance in a movie as an actor.

Change of Habit was originally planned as a Mary Tyler Moore vehicle, Mary was then under contract to Universal Studios. Doris Day was just winding up her film career, starring in With Six You Get Eggroll (1968), coincidentally, at the same time, and the studio was grooming Mary to take her place (kind of) as "America's sweetheart." Mary had  finished her career in the iconic tv series The Dick Van Dyke Show in 1966 and made a movie, the box office smash Thoroughly Modern Millie (co-starring with Julie Andrews) the following year.

When Elvis Presley signed on to be Mary's leading man in Change of Habit, of course, everything changed. The formula "Elvis movies" all made money, but the law of diminishing returns had finally set in and the profits from the King's films was growing mighty thin by this time.

Elvis had made his classic "Christmas special" the previous December (which would later become batter known as "the Elvis Comeback Special") and being cast in Change of Habitwas actually part of a package deal his manager Colonel Tom Parker had made for Elvis. Elvis was paid $1.25 million for the Christmas special and Change of Habit combined. This allowed Parker to be able to boast that he had procured his usual salary of "a million dollars a film" for his client.

In the 1930s, the Graf Zeppelin made its first airmail delivery to the Americas. It was a spectacular sight, somewhat akin to aliens landing on earth. The German airship company was proud of the world's largest zeppelin, but were confronted from the beginning with what would eventually be the downfall of all such airships: how to make them profitable?

Instead, the Graf’s parent company, German Zeppelin Airship Works, decided to recoup costs by commissioning special stamps from the countries on the tour route. Only letters with these stamps on them would be accepted onto the airship, which would then deliver them to their destinations. This was the only commercial transatlantic air mail option available at the time, and was days faster than sending a letter by boat. Brazil, Bolivia, Germany, and Spain all made the Zeppelin stamps, and 93 percent of the proceeds from each stamp was funneled back into German Zeppelin Airship Works.

After some debate, the U.S. Post Office decided to get in on the game as well, designing and printing a run of Graf Zeppelin stamps in a matter of weeks. They called this a gesture of goodwill toward Germany, and pledged to also contribute 93 percent of the revenue to the Airship Works. Secretly, though, they expected that an enthusiastic population of American collectors would snap up most of the stamps, keeping them out of circulation, and ensuring that the Post Office held onto most of the money.

Well, as we know from the short-lived era of zeppelins, the scheme didn't work out in the long run. Read the story of the zeppelin stamps at Atlas Obscura.

A safari into cheetah country got more than they bargained for when a curious cheetah climbed into a tourist-filled vehicle. This cat apparently had some contact with people before, probably in previous safaris, but he still wanted to check them all out. This video is a compilation of several such encounters, with different cheetahs.  

(YouTube link)

If you were in that position, you' be stuck between the impulse to pet the kitty and terror at confronting an apex predator who could chew your face off if he so desired. -via Laughing Squid

Yeah, you can tell this is a big chicken. When he finally squeezes his whole body through the door of the coop, you'll see he's even bigger than you thought! Wait, how big is he really? We can only tell when a hen shows up in the background.

Am I the only person wondering why this chicken is so damn big pic.twitter.com/ZIWmEL2h2w

— LifesBook_Ceo (@LifesBook_Ceo) March 19, 2017

It's like Big Bird crossed with Foghorn Leghorn! This is a Brahma rooster. They are bred to be big, but the sight of one emerging from a regular-sized chicken house is just too funny to resist.  -via Metafilter