In 1935, during the depths of the Great Depression, frustration was growing in the small towns and the large ranches of the Great Plains. The wildly-scattered populations of northern Wyoming, southern Montana, and western South Dakota all felt ignored by their state governments. They were only getting the dregs of New Deal money, and the lack of infrastructure made them feel quite neglected. So they began planning to secede. Not from the United States, but from their states, to form a new, 49th state of their own named Absaroka.

The reason you haven't heard of Absaroka is because the process for carving a new state out of existing states was too difficult, but the campaign got that area, centered around Sheridan, Wyoming, a lot of attention from their respective state capitals. And that's why the idea resurfaced again in 1939 (when a Sheridan city commissioner appointed himself governor of Absaroka), and then again in 1977. Of course, Alaska became the 49th state, and Hawaii the 50th. Read about Absaroka, the state that never was, at Smithsonian.

(Image source: Wikipedia)

Americans learn that the Battle of Gettysburg in July of 1863 was the bloodiest battle of the Civil War. Hundreds of thousands took part, and 50,000 soldiers died or were seriously injured over three days of fighting. We also learn that the site became a cemetery, and at its dedication, President Lincoln gave a speech that was short enough for students to memorize. But what was it like to be there during the fighting? To answer that question, Weird History brings us the stories of individual soldiers who fought and witnessed the carnage and the accounts of officers who kept track of the action, plus those of support teams, journalists, and the civilians who lived in the area, whether they hid from the battle or joined in to offer whatever help they could. They say that history is written by the victors; at Gettysburg there was a lot of history written by those who were lucky enough to survive.

When I was a kid, I always missed the first week of school because my elementary school started the same time summer school ended at the college where my dad worked. So we would take a week to go to the beach just before Labor Day. When I became a parent, I was aghast that school started the first full week of August! That always caused problems because that was the week of the local festival, as well. After decades of a useless three-day first week of school, they have changed the schedule locally (the school, not the festival -priorities, ya know).

Meanwhile, schools in New York City begin the school year after Labor Day, and continue until the second half of June. One percent of schools in the US start the year in July! Why is there so much variation in the American school year? In the United States, K-12 schools are under state and local control, so there's not a one-size-fits-all rule. While we are sure that part of the variation is because "that's the way it's always been done," there are real reasons for the regional school year start times. 

(Image credit: MassDOT)

Arrowhead Golf Club in Littleton, Colorado, is a picturesque course at the foot of the Rocky Mountains. David Townshend and his wife Lynn of David Lynn Photography were there on August 6th shooting video and still photos of a golf tournament. As they approached the 13th hole, they could see some animals on the fairway, and as they got closer, they recognized it was a family of bobcats!

Four bobcat kittens were playing with golf balls, as children do. The couple started shooting while they were far enough away to not disturb the family, and captured these adorable pictures of the kittens having a great time. The pictures were so good that they were featured on a local news report that you can see here. The mother cat was just barely in the rough, keeping a close eye on the action. She's not visible in the cropped Instagram photos, but you can see her at 1:42 in the video.

By the way, there is no penalty if your golf ball is removed from play by an animal. Bobcats don't follow rules, but they have no stake in the outcome, either. You just have to replace your ball.

We know that macaroni and cheese became popular in America because of Thomas Jefferson, but you might not know that Kraft got a real break on their boxed macaroni and cheese during World War II rationing. I would suspect the dish's popularity got another break when the government made surplus milk into processed commodity cheese and gave that away for a while. But it's not only the United States government that worked to promote certain foods among Americans. The dish we call Pad Thai is not an ancient recipe; it was created by the Thai government, right about the time it became the Thai government instead of the Siamese government.

You surely want to know about those stories, and you'll find the full versions, plus the government interference that boosted the popularity of risotto and Chinese restaurant food, at Cracked. Not that we really mind, because all those things are delicious.   

(Image credit: Andy Li)

Species that employ sexual reproduction have two basic schemes to ensure the survival of their genes. Some spread their gametes widely and indiscriminately to produce great numbers of offspring, like plants and many animals. Others produce fewer offspring, but take care of them to boost their chance of survival. Most sea stars use the former technique, but six-rayed sea stars (Leptasterias hexactis) are different. They are different because this sea star looks like a snowflake, with an extra "leg" that other sea stars lack, and it protects its offspring.  

Six-rayed sea stars don't have to feed their babies, because they've evolved to carry their nutrients with them, like birds with a yolk. But they grow temporary appendages to hang onto their mother until they are big enough to fend for themselves. On the sea floor, where it's eat or be eaten, this gives them a leg up, so to speak, on other sea creatures. Meet this sea star in a video from PBS's Deep Look series. -via Aeon

Every claw machine has that one prize that's really intriguing, but almost impossible to extract. One machine at Meadows Family Fun Mini Golf in Duncansville, Pennsylvania, had a groundhog inside. Not a plush groundhog, but an adorable young groundhog that wandered about among the pile of plushie toys up for grabs. The critter somehow made his way inside, probably through the retrieval bin, but couldn't figure out how to get out.

Employees of the business called the game warden's office, and State Game Warden Salvadore Zaffuto responded, but he couldn't get the critter out, either. They had to call in the vending machine company, who sent someone to unlock the machine and let the groundhog out. Meanwhile, they had time to take plenty of pictures, some of which which you can see at the state game commission's Facebook post. The groundhog was unharmed. It was released on its own recognizance. -via Boing Boing

(Image credit: Pennsylvania Game Commission-Southcentral Region)

In a previous "What If" video, we confronted the theoretical scenario in which the oceans were drained. As an aside in that video, Randall Munroe explained the lack of water in a throwaway manner, saying it was sent to Mars. But that made viewers wonder what that would do to Mars. We know that Mars once had plenty of water, and still may have a significant amount, but the surface is almost all dry. So let's look at that scenario, even though it will never happen. We have enough trouble sending robots to Mars.

See, Mars is very cold, has no atmosphere, and the geology of the surface is very different from that of earth. But if we sent enough salt water, the red planet would start to display continents and islands. Eventually the water would freeze, maybe. Or maybe not. Maybe we could send some atmosphere to Mars, too, while we're in the shipping business. Like we have enough to spare.  -via Laughing Squid

Sometimes you search for the word you want, and it's right there on the tip of your tongue, but you can't reach it for some reason. Sometimes you remember the word you want after the conversation has moved on, or maybe you put some other words together so someone will help you. When my daughter asked for a laundry rope, it took me a bit to figure out she wanted a clothesline. If you ask for a wet salad, someone else may step in and suggest soup. But what is the word for when you can't think of a word?

That is "lethologica." The word is made from two Greek terms that mean forget and word. Mental Floss goes over the history of lethologica and what scientists think may cause it. Another term is "lethonomia," which applies specifically to someone's name that you can't recall.

Then there's "loganamnosis," a somewhat related term that I strangely found in another article from a different source just minutes after reading the Mental Floss article. Loganamnosis is a term for when you experience lethologica or lethonomia, and then become so obsessed with remembering the word or name that you can no longer enjoy what you were doing when it happened. Has that ever happened to you?

It's nice to know that there are terms for such forgetting, but no one expects you to remember them all.    

(Image credit: OERDesign) 

Throughout human history, we have vented our anger and frustration over bad luck and injustices by destroying something or someone who has nothing to do with it. That is how the word "scapegoat" came about. The catharsis of heaping all sins on one or a few people figured in human sacrifice, witch burning, public hangings, and mob lynchings, not to mention fiction like The Wicker Man. However, this can be done in a less harmful way, with an effigy burned instead of a person, which could have easily been the case in The Wicker Man.

Every Labor Day weekend, the city of Santa Fe, New Mexico, holds that kind of ritual, when they put all their "glooms," meaning sorrows, anxieties, and negativity, inside a huge effigy called Zozobra. A play is performed to tell the legend of Zozobra, and the effigy is burned with great celebration. The ceremony kicks off the nine-day Fiesta de Santa Fe. You might assume that Zozobra is a figure from an ancient religion, and the burning is a long tradition. On the contrary, the ritual was made up by a Santa Fe artist in 1924, with a mythology to accompany it. It apparently works, as Santa Fe residents and those who travel to the festival see it as a renewal, a chance to destroy all their bad feelings and start afresh. Read how the burning of Zozobra came about, and how it's done every year, at Smithsonian. This year's 100th anniversary burning will be on August 30th, with a 50.5-foot Zozobra.    

(Image credit: Jweiss)

Someone once explained the old adage "starve a cold, feed a fever" to me as meaning that if a person with a cold doesn't feel like eating, don't make them eat. They need to rest. But if they have a fever, make them warmer if you can. They probably already have the chills despite their temperature, and they seek greater warmth. I've heard other interpretations of the adage that are so varied that it has become meaningless. But why would you stoke the fires of a fever, and how much is too much? It's a delicate balance between feeding a fever and fighting a fever, when your body just wants to kill an infection. Kurzgesagt, an organization that has explained the immune system to us a few times, explains what happens at the cellular level when your body produces a fever. This video ends at 9:40; the rest is advertising and promotional material. 

In 1994, Aeroflot Flight 593, a Russian Airlines flight from Moscow to Hong Kong crashed, resulting in the death of all 75 people aboard. There were three pilots aboard since it was such a long haul. When relief pilot Captain Yaroslav Vladimirovich Kudrinsky took over, he brought his two children, ages 12 and 15, into the cockpit and let them each sit in the captain's seat. Kudrinsky led them to believe they were really controlling the plane, but one move led the plane to disengage the automatic pilot. An indicator light came on, but Kudrinsky was used to old Soviet planes that had an audio alarm. The sequence of events as reconstructed after the fact was complicated, but it all came down to plane crash due to showing off.

No matter how good you are at flying a plane, or how long you've been doing it, there are certain risks that you just can't take. There have been several incidents in which pilots pushed their luck by showing off, making a bet, or allowing someone unqualified to do their job, leading to death by plane crash. Read about Aeroflot Flight 593 and four other crashes due to tomfoolery at Amusing Planet.

(Image credit: Anna Zvereva) 

There are some general rules in business, like 90% of new restaurants fail within a year, only invest where you have experience, and musicians can't get a loan unless they have a record contract. All those rules were upended when Zac Smith and Cheryl Roorda bought a building in Hot Springs, Arkansas, not sure what to do with it. She plays the accordion; he plays an E-flat helicon, an instrument that resembles a tuba. They raised two children by playing gigs wherever they could. The building they found was a wreck, and they spend ten years making it usable. Now it contains a pizza parlor, plus a microbrewery and a radio station, all successful. Their journey involves a lot of hard work, timing, and luck, as evidenced by their story of how they financed the project in 2007.

But this was before the collapse, when they were still going through cemeteries looking for bodies to loan money to. We were able to purchase our home as a tuba-accordion duo, and we were processing the loan, $32,000 on a foreclosure from Fannie Mae, and the strip-mall financier was all, “You know, this would be a lot easier if you took out a $100,000 loan,” and we were like, “What about tuba-accordion duo do you not understand?”

Strangely, the radio station came first, which built goodwill in the community. People will try a new locally-run restaurant, but they won't return unless it is good. Read the heartwarming story of how two musicians founded a quirky but flourishing business at Vox. -via Metafilter

(Image credit: SQZBX Brewery & Pizza Joint)

In some folklore, the Grim Reaper is a horrendous vision to be dreaded, while in others, he is only terrifying until you get to know him, and then you find out he's a kind and sympathetic escort for the journey we all must take (for example, in Jenny Jinya's comics). In the stop-motion mixed media animation Shuck, the avatar of death is based on the English legend of Black Shuck, a large and terrifying black hellhound with glowing red eyes, or sometimes just one eye in the middle of his head. There are also elements of the legendary church grim, a more benign canine spirit that guards a church.

Emerson New made this video as his graduate film in animation at Edinburgh College of Art in 2023. Shuck won the Best Animation award at the Zepstone International Film Awards in 2023. You can read an interview with New about Shuck here.

During the Constitutional Convention in 1787, our Founding Fathers hammered out the rules for running a democratic government, and it wasn't at all easy. A lot of stuff was a compromise between all the disagreeing factions. On the question of how long a president should serve, some thought it should be for life, while others suggested a six, seven, ten, or even 12-year term with no re-election. Since no one could agree, the question was sent to the “Committee on Postponed Matters,” which sounds like a good committee to be on, especially for procrastinators. However, they did come up with the four-year term with re-election possible.

As far as presidents serving two terms, that was not in the original constitution. It became a custom, though, set by Washington and Jefferson, because presidents get really tired of the job after eight years. The few who did not found that the voters got tired of them after eight years. So why do representatives and senators get to run for re-election as long as they want? Read up on what the US Founding Fathers had in mind for these offices and how our system came to be the way it is at Mental Floss.