Martin Scorsese brought us a movie in 2002 about organized crime in New York City. That sounds like a lot of his films, but Gangs of New York was different because it was set in the 1860s. How authentic was it? That’s hard to tell, even when you know the source material.

1. IT WAS 32 YEARS IN THE MAKING.

Martin Scorsese read Herbert Asbury’s 1928 nonfiction book The Gangs of New York: An Informal History of the Underworld in 1970 and immediately thought it would make a good movie. He didn’t have any money or clout yet though, so he had to wait. He bought the movie rights to the book in 1979, and even got a screenplay written around that time, then spent the next 20 years trying to get the project off the ground before finding a willing financial partner in Harvey Weinstein at Miramax Films.

3. THE BOOK THAT INSPIRED MARTIN SCORSESE WASN’T ALL THAT ACCURATE.

A modern historian named Tyler Anbinder, who wrote Five Points: The 19th-Century New York City Neighborhood That Invented Tap Dance, Stole Elections, and Became the World’s Most Notorious Slum and gave Scorsese input on the Gangs screenplay, said Asbury’s book from the ‘20s exaggerated how dangerous the neighborhood was. Anbinder had access to statistics that Asbury did not, and he said, “Other than public drunkenness and prostitution, there was no more crime in Five Points than in any other part of the city.” Asbury had written that “there was one tenement where there was a murder a day,” but in fact, Anbinder said, “there was barely a murder a month in all of New York City” at that time.

Still, many of the roles were based on real people. Read about them, and who Scorsese envisioned in the roles for those three decades, plus trivia behind the production of Gangs of New York, all in a list at mental_floss.

You really can’t know what it’s like to play a game until you actually play it, which most of the time requires payment ahead of time. Maybe even before the game is ready for retail. And even if you like it, it will be obsolete by the time you master it -or pay it off.

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In the latest of their Honest Ads series, Cracked gives us the lowdown on video games and how they sell them to you. You have to wonder what the complete series will do to their ad revenue. -via Viral Viral Videos
 

There’s no universal rule that says prisons have to be horrible facilities. Some prisons place their focus squarely on rehabilitation, because the majority of inmates will re-enter the world sooner or later. And there’s a variety of ways to do this, as you’ll see in a roundup of innovative prisons from all over the world. Some them are even in the US.

Located in West Mahanoy Township, Pennsylvania, The Mahanoy State Correctional Institution is a medium-security, all male facility. Inside, the nonviolent offenders enjoy every amenity from outdoor football fields to lounge furniture in common areas. Offenders have the opportunity to work in the correction industries program which is a distribution center for commissary items. Other jobs include road crew to collect garbage along the interstate. Inmates can also participate in apprenticeship programs which teach them new marketable skills such as electrical wiring, masonry, culinary, carpentry and painting.

While the facilities may be pretty nice, the inmates are still prisoners, and you won’t find anyone going to these places voluntarily. Some of these rehabilitation programs have research showing that convicts with better accommodations have a lower recidivism rate. See all ten prisons at Money Inc.

Real disasters happen all the time, but rarely are they global. That doesn’t stop us from thinking about how we would deal with the end of the world, whether it come by zombies, disease, nuclear fallout, overpopulation, or war. And those disasters make for many a rip-roaring movie. Nandini Balial looks at some of the better-known apocalypse films to rate the actions of the survivors. Whether the things they do make any sense at all has little to do with how good the movie is.

The characters of On the Beach use several methods that I would like to endorse in advance of the apocalypse: They fish, swim, throw parties, and conduct a Grand Prix in which many men (who have nothing to lose) die in gruesome accidents. The alternative is euthanasia: The government issues suicide pills, and the scene where Holmes’ wife Mary administers them to their baby daughter and herself is particularly heartbreaking. Captain Peck leaves Moira in order to commandeer his men back to the United States; they want to die at home.

Conclusions: Fishing, swimming, partying — good! Self-administered euthanasia — some people will probably want it!

Verdict: Most practical advice for the apocalypse.

If you can’t put away some good advice from the five movies analyzed, maybe at least you’ll find something you can watch and enjoy in this article at Pacific Standard. -via Digg

The following article is from the book Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader Nature Calls.

Most people think biological warfare is a modern phenomenon created by scientists in a laboratory, but it’s actually been in use for centuries. From ancient times, whenever humans needed help defeating their enemies, they drafted Mother Nature into their army.

YOU CATCH MORE ENEMIES WITH HONEY

When the ancient Greeks besieged the town of Krissa in the sixth century BC, they poisoned the local wells with the toxic hellebore plant, a flowering perennial. The enemy was knocked out with extreme stomach distress, diarrhea, and in strong enough doses, death.

Another case of mass poisoning took place in the first century BC. Knowing that rhododendron was poisonous and that when bees made honey from rhododendron nectar, the honey contained alkaloids that could severely sicken humans, the Heptakomotes (who lived in what is now Turkey) used it to defend themselves against the Roman legions led by Pompey the Great. They left batches of the toxic honey near the path of Pompey’s advancing troops, and the soldiers, who thought they’d found abandoned spoils of war, ate it all. The fierce Roman soldiers— now suffering from delirium, vomiting, and diarrhea— were easily defeated by the weaker Heptakometes.

SNEAKY TRICKS WITH SNAKES

In the fifth century BC, Scythian archers (who lived in what is now the Crimea near the Black Sea) dipped their arrows into viper venom mixed with blood and animal dung. They were crack shots, the Scythians, and already famous because each archer could fire off about 20 arrows per minute, but the arrow mixture made them even more formidable. The venom contained toxins that destroyed red blood cells and caused a lot of pain; a wounded man would suffer until his eventual death from heart failure or respiratory paralysis. If, by chance, the venom didn’t work, the infection caused by the blood/ feces combination would do the job.

That is one fat ‘possum. Redditor P_bryant562 has a friend who works at a pet store and had to snap this customer. If it wasn’t a marsupial, you’d call this a Rodent Of Unusual Size. She’s obviously raised this opossum from a very young age, or else it would be skinny, bitey, and would not be wearing a tutu. In the discussion under this picture, there are many tales of more common, yet funny, encounters with yard vermin.

The Insectarium in Montreal is the largest deliberate collection of bugs in North America, with over a quarter-million insects, from butterflies to cockroaches, from scarabs to centipedes. Some are dead and mounted for study, while others are alive and on display for observation. There are even hands-on exhibits! Mike Powell and Jeurgen Horn went on a cold weekend, when the Insectarium was full of children. Even so, they had a wonderful time.  

Perhaps I liked the stick-bug village best; I had been searching through this big enclosure, trying to locate the bugs, until realizing I had been staring at them the entire time. And then, I was able to see dozens. I also had the chance to hold an Orchid Mantis, which, when it stands still, resembles a flower petal almost exactly.

There were so many bugs… big ones, small ones, cute ones, ugly ones, coughing and sneezing ones, some that were crying, and one that cleverly dodged all my attempts to smash it underfoot… oh wait, I’m talking about the kids again. Actually, the truth is that the exhibits are so engaging that we were able to ignore the chaos and concentrate on the insects. And it was fun to watch kids interact with them. I waited by the tarantula cage while one little girl searched for its hiding spot. When she finally found the monster, she nearly jumped out of her skin

To get up close and personal with these insects, you can visit the Insectarium in Montreal, or see pictures and video at For 91 Days.

Some are expecting a free-for-all at the Republican National Convention this July in Cleveland. Honestly, that may seem unusual to younger people, but party nominations used to be much more public fights. Even in my lifetime, there have been political conventions in which we had no idea who the eventual nominee would be as they began. Yes, little kids watched the conventions because 1) we wanted to find out what happened and 2) there wasn’t anything else on TV. But even those were tame compared to the 1912 Republican convention. Former president Teddy Roosevelt challenged incumbent president Howard Taft for the nomination. Two presidents fighting for a nomination? No party would allow that to happen today.

When Donald Trump told CNN, “I think you’d have riots,” if the Republican Party’s leaders denied him the nomination, people were understandably disturbed. But on the eve of the 1912 convention, Roosevelt told his nephew that his supporters were prepared to “use roughhouse tactics” to “terrorize” the party’s leaders if they denied him the nomination. His delegates included men who were used to barroom brawls, including several who had been with his Rough Rider brigade in the Spanish American War. When the proceedings started, Roosevelt’s managers flooded the Chicago Convention Center bleachers with rugged supporters who were prepared to use their voices and even their fists to fight for their demand that Roosevelt be selected.

The plans for taking over the convention were even messier than what really happened. You know that Roosevelt went on to run on the Bull Moose ticket and both he and Taft lost to Woodrow Wilson. But you might not know about the extremely contentious 1912 Republican National Convention, which you can learn about at the Atlantic. -via Digg

The season six premiere of Game of Thrones is tonight on HBO. Jon Snow is dead, but we know he won’t stay that way. Bringing someone back someone from the dead isn’t as unbelievable in Game of Thrones as it would be in other shows because there’s plenty of supernatural stuff going on in the series. Meaning, it won’t be as stupid as having the last season be a dream. While everyone associated with the show has confirmed that Jon Snow is really, really dead, George RR Martin has been quoted everywhere:

“If there’s one thing we know in A Song of Ice and Fire is that death is not necessarily permanent.”

So what will happen in season six? Fans are not ready to say goodbye to Jon Snow, but are speculating on how he will be resurrected. If you're reading this from the front page, scroll past the poll and hit "continue reading" to take a look into some of the theories, and then make your prediction. Possible spoilers, but only if you’re not current on the show and the news stories about it. The books are no help at this point.

Naturalist John James Audubon combined his science interests with his talent for art, and left a legacy of knowledge contained in his book The Birds of America. He had identified 25 new species and documented thousands more. Recently it came to light that he left behind a massive prank as well. Smithsonian curator Neal Woodman has been studying the notes of French naturalist Constantine Rafinesque, and found how much he had been influenced by his time spent with Audubon on a riverboat trip in 1818.

Rafinesque was an extremely enthusiastic namer of species: during his career as a naturalist, he named 2,700 plant genera and 6,700 species, approximately. He was self-taught, and the letter of introduction he handed to Audubon described him as “an odd fish.” When they met, Audubon noted, Rafinesque was wearing a “long loose coat...stained all over with the juice of plants,” a waistcoat “with enormous pockets” and a very long beard. Rafinesque was not known for his social graces; as John Jeremiah Sullivan writes, Audubon is the "only person on record" as actually liked him.

During their visit, though, Audubon fed Rafinesque descriptions of American creatures, including 11 species of fish that never really existed. Rafinesque duly jotted them down in his notebook and later proffered those descriptions as evidence of new species. For 50 or so years, those 11 fish remained in the scientific record as real species, despite their very unusual features, including bulletproof (!) scales.

You might say Rafinesque was taken hook, line, and sinker. But fish were just the beginning. Woodman has uncovered birds, plants, and mammals that Rafinesque detailed, all from information Audubon fed him two centuries ago. Read about those “species” and see pictures at Atlas Obscura.  

(Image credit: Smithsonian Institution Archives/SIA2012-6095)

In this episode of Simon’s Cat Logic, we explore the cat’s desire to always be on the other side of the door, and why they particularly want to be with you in the bathroom. As a bonus, we get the full cartoon “Let Me In.”  

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We’ve reached the point at my house where we have more cats than people now, so I’m known as “Door Opener.” The rest of the family will feed them, but no one is as responsive to their desires about going in or out. I've also noticed their ability to communicate their desires clearly depends on the cat's age and intelligence. Yes, I’m turning into a crazy cat lady.

Iron Man has been on TV and in movies for 50 years, although the first 40 years of that was in animation only -and most of them after that! The look of the character has changed yet stayed the same, usually pretty faithful to the comic book version.

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So, Robert Downey, Jr. is the only man to portray Iron Man as a live action hero? Okay, at least we have a lot of him. And a lot of Iron man incarnations you’ve never seen, in this timeline by Burger Fiction.   

See also: The Evolution of Batman in Television & Film

Thrill-seekers line up to see the latest scary movie, tour a haunted house, or ride a roller coaster. These same people would hate the idea of being the victim of an armed robbery. But some will step close to the edge of a real cliff just for the thrill of it. What makes us do these things? It’s chemistry, of course, acting on our brains. Adrenaline and endorphins are a thrill in themselves.   

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But the effect varies from person to person, and I can tell you it varies within a person’s lifetime, too. I once waited in line for the latest roller coaster or horror films, too. But at a certain point, the memories of those chemical rushes is enough. Now I am more concerned with the resulting indigestion or sleepless nights that may follow. This animated TED-Ed lesson is from Margee Kerr. -via Laughing Squid

The National Museum of American History in Washington, DC, has an exhibition called “American Stories.” A recent donation to the museum came from Minnijean Brown Trickey, who presented the Smithsonian with her high school graduation dress, a graduation program from the New Lincoln School in New York, and a suspension slip from her previous high school. And that’s where Trickey’s story begins, of how she became a part of history in 1957 as one of the Little Rock Nine.    

Although about 80 African-American students had been approved by the Little Rock School Board to transfer to Central the following year, the number dwindled to 10 after the students were told they couldn't participate in extracurricular activities, their parents were in danger of losing their jobs, and there was a looming threat of violence. The parents of a tenth student, Jane Hill, decided not to allow their daughter to return after the mob scene on the first day.

According to Trickey, her real motivation for attending Central was that it was nine blocks from her house and she and her two best friends, Melba Pattillo and Thelma Mothershed would be able to walk there.

“The nine of us were not especially political,” she says. “We thought, we can walk to Central, it’s a huge, beautiful school, this is gonna be great,” she remembers.

“I really thought that if we went to school together, the white kids are going to be like me, curious and thoughtful, and we can just cut all this segregation stuff out,” she recalls. Unfortunately, she was wrong.

It took the 101st Airborne to get the students into the high school, but staying there was just as difficult. Read Trickey’s story at Smithsonian.

Life is hard. As you age, some parts of it get better while other parts get worse. All you can control is your attitude toward those things. You have to shrug off the bad and be grateful for the good, and that’s the way to be happy. A image challenge at Cracked produced some visualizations of life ahead for young people that will make you laugh -if you don’t take it too seriously or personally. This one really struck home:

My kids, at 17 and 19, are in the valley of respect. That’s comforting in a way, because the only way to go from here is up. See all 14 charts at Cracked.