Children's menus in restaurants are handy because they offer smaller portions at lower prices than the rest of the menu. They also have options for picky kids, which can save a family night out for parents who want to visit a specialty restaurant. But it wasn't always so.  

Depending on where you stand vis-à-vis childrearing, the golden age of youth dining in America either began or ended with the Volstead Act. ​In the century leading up to the dry laws, children rarely ate out. A child had to be relatively well-off in order to dine in public, and a guest at a hotel to boot. (Restaurants not attached to hotels didn’t tend to serve children, reasoning that they got in the way of boozy grown-up fun.) But the lucky boy or girl who could tick these boxes was assured of a pretty good time. When the English novelist Anthony Trollope toured the United States in 1861 (his two volumes of crotchety travelogue were later published as North America), he was astonished to see 5-year-old “embryo senators” who ordered dinner with sublime confidence and displayed “epicurean delight” at the fish course.

Prohibition spelled the end for 5-year-old epicures. Taking effect in January 1920, the dry laws forced the hospitality industry to rethink its policy on children: Could it be that this untapped market could help offset all that lost liquor revenue? The Waldorf-Astoria in New York thought so, and in 1921 it became one of the first establishments to beckon to children with a menu of their very own. But even as restaurants began to invite children in, it was with a new limitation: They could no longer eat what their parents ate.

What is notable about those first children's menus are the weird, bland offerings, based on what was considered proper food for kids in those days -and it was so different from what adults ate, and extremely different from what we consider nutritional (or even palatable) today. Those first menus seem almost designed to punish a child, or at least deny him any pleasure. Of course, what we consider "good for kids" and what appears on children's menus now are two totally different things, but that's marketing! Link -via mental_floss

The USS Indianapolis was torpedoed by a Japanese ship after it delivered atomic bomb parts to Tianan Island in July of 1945. Almost 300 men died in the attack, but 900 were left floating in the water. The ship had no escort, and intercepted Japanese reports of the sinking were considered to be a ruse.

The first night, the sharks focused on the floating dead. But the survivors’ struggles in the water only attracted more and more sharks, which could feel their motions through a biological feature known as a lateral line: receptors along their bodies that pick up changes in pressure and movement from hundreds of yards away. As the sharks turned their attentions toward the living, especially the injured and the bleeding, sailors tried to quarantine themselves away from anyone with an open wound, and when someone died, they would push the body away, hoping to sacrifice the corpse in return for a reprieve from a shark’s jaw. Many survivors were paralyzed with fear, unable even to eat or drink from the meager rations they had salvaged from their ship. One group of survivors made the mistake of opening a can of Spam—but before they could taste it, the scent of the meat drew a swarm of sharks around them. They got rid of their meat rations rather than risk a second swarming.

But the sharks weren't the only danger for those stranded in the sea. Of the 1,196 men on the Indianapolis, only 317 were rescued alive. Read the rest of the story at Smithsonian. Link

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Yoga is always more fun with someone else, so this guy pairs with his chihuahua. The dog is not only pretty good at yoga, he's a great listener! -via Tastefully Offensive

The San Bernardino County Sexual Assault Services office suffered a burglary on July 31st. Thieves took several desktop computers and a laptop. It appears that the perpetrators did not realize at the time that the office was a nonprofit that helps sexual assault victims, but they figured it out, possibly from the computer contents, or possibly from street talk. That became apparent the very next night, when police were called about suspicious activity at the building again. Executive director Candy Stallings was roused about 4:30 AM.

This time when Stallings arrived, she was astonished by what she found.

"All my stuff was in front of the door," Stallings said. "There was a shopping cart, and there were the PCs that were taken, there was the laptop - everything was there."

An investigator who was about to dust the laptop for fingerprints opened it and found a note tucked inside.

"We had no idea what we were takeing. Here your stuff back we hope that you guys can continue to make a difference in peoples live. God bless," said the note with misspellings.

"We were all pretty shocked," Stallings said. "You've got to be kidding me. I was in disbelief, I got chills, I got very emotional."

Police kept the note as evidence. Link -via Boing Boing

(Image credit: Candy Stallings)

The Missed Connections section of Craiglist is mostly short notes from people hoping to find a date. One man saw it as a chance to publish a short story, albeit fitting for the category.  

I saw you on the Manhattan-bound Brooklyn Q train.

I was wearing a blue-striped t-shirt and a pair of maroon pants. You were wearing a vintage red skirt and a smart white blouse. We both wore glasses. I guess we still do.

You got on at DeKalb and sat across from me and we made eye contact, briefly. I fell in love with you a little bit, in that stupid way where you completely make up a fictional version of the person you're looking at and fall in love with that person. But still I think there was something there.

Several times we looked at each other and then looked away. I tried to think of something to say to you -- maybe pretend I didn't know where I was going and ask you for directions or say something nice about your boot-shaped earrings, or just say, "Hot day." It all seemed so stupid.

This beautiful prose takes a turn for the weird shortly after this snippet, and you'll want to read the whole love story. Link -via Uproxx

(Image credit: Gary H. Spielvogel)

A family in canoes were watching a dolphin play in the waters off Combe Martin, Devon, UK. Lucy Watkins grandparents took her out on the sea because she loves dolphins and had never seen one in the wild. One dolphin splashed and played about the boats for a couple of hours, as if he wanted to be friends.  

But to their astonishment the friendly animal then dived down and dropped a massive cod next to Lucy Watkins, 14.

The dolphin then resurfaced and began nudging the whopping 10lbs fish towards the stunned teenager.

Lucy and her grandparents wondered whether they should pick up the floating offering in case the dolphin wanted it for himself.

But the dolphin then resurfaced seconds later with his own fish - this time a seabass – and began tucking in.

The family gratefully scooped up the cod, which weighed a massive 10lbs, before taking it home to nearby Combe Martin in Devon to cook for their tea.

Now that's a fish story! Link -via Arbroath

(Image credit: SWNS)

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NBC news anchor Brian Williams has a clear, well-regulated voice and a huge archive of recorded words. In the hands of a skillful editor, he can say anything and make it sound good. That's just what happened when Jimmy Fallon's crew made Williams do Young MC's 1989 classic "Bust a Move." Too bad they didn't go ahead and do the entire song. -via Laughing Squid

Not actual size.

A team at the Georgia Institute of Technology has "painted" the world's smallest replica of the Mona Lisa. It is 30 microns wide, which is one-third the width of a human hair! They used heat to manipulate molecules into different concentrations for the different shades.

They have called their nanoscale painting the "Mini Lisa".

"By tuning the temperature, our team manipulated chemical reactions to yield variations in the molecular concentrations on the nanoscale. The spatial confinement of these reactions provides the precision required to generate complex chemical images like the Mini Lisa," said Jennifer Curtis, an associate professor in the School of Physics and the lead author of the study.

Read more about the project at Nature World News. Link -via the Presurfer

(Image credit: Georgia Institute of Technology)

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A group of women hook Colonel Sanders up to a lie detector and give him the third degree, hoping he'll reveal his secret recipe in this Kentucky Fried Chicken ad. It doesn't work. This one of a set of KFC ads from 1967 posted at Dangerous Minds. The others feature Lady Godiva, Cleopatra, and housewives escaping from the imprisonment of their kitchens. Link -via Buzzfeed

Lieutenant Walter Koessler was a German officer in World War I who took hundreds of photographs during his service. They were kept in a personal photo album for nearly 100 years, until his great-grandson Dean Putney began scanning them for posterity. As they are prepared, Putney is publishing them online. These pictures give us a rare opportunity to see the daily life on the "other side" of that war. Link -via Boing Boing

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

(Image credit: Jim Summaria)

Written by Robert Plant (lyrics) and Jimmy Page (melody), "Stairway to Heaven" is not only Led Zeppelin's signature song, it may well be the most beloved rock song of all time. If not, it is definitely on almost every rock critic's, expert's, and fan's list of greatest and/or favorite songs. It was voted in 2000 by VHS as the #3 song on its list of "Greatest Rock Songs" and landed the #31 spot on Rolling Stone magazine's "Greatest Songs of All Time" list.   

"Stairway to Heaven" was the most requested song on FM radio in the 1970s. Interestingly, "Stairway to Heaven," for all its popularity, was never released as a single. Radio stations did, however, receive promotional singles, which are now collector's items.

It was released on November 8, 1971, as a song on the untitled fourth Led Zeppelin album (usually referred to as Led Zeppelin IV). The song was recorded from December 1970 to March of 1971.

One of the most discussed and dissected facets of "Stairway to Heaven" is its actual meaning. Robert Plant has touched on the subject on more than one occasion. Supposedly, the composition of the song took on an almost eerie, other-determined process. According to Plant: "My hand was writing out the words 'there's a lady is sure (sic) all that glitters is gold and she's buying a stairway to heaven.' I just sat there and looked at them and almost leapt out of my head."

But what do those strange lyrics mean?

Look who the zombies have treed on top of the Mystery Machine! A photo series by Jeff Zoet Visuals puts the Scooby-Doo gang in a zombie apocalypse. Getting out of this one won't be as easy as exposing someone who fakes ghosts to scare people away! You'll have to admit it's unsettling to see Shaggy with a gun. See the rest of the series at Unreality. Link

(Image credit: Jeff Zoet Visuals)

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Russian artist Ruslan Khasanov mixed four colors of ink with oil and water to produce the hypnotic video Pacific Light. -via mental_floss

Daft Punk was supposed to be the guest on The Colbert Report last night, but pulled out of the engagement.

Instead Stephen found out a few days before that MTV/Viacom was pulling the plug on his special event because Daft Punk is scheduled for a surprise appearance at VMAs and it was just too much exposure for them. As Stephen correctly points out when covering for the band, it is not exactly in French DNA to work twice in one month. Still, major bummer… Or not.

Because of course Colbert decided to dedicate the entire show to the snubbing and produce what I’m 100% certain was the superior episode, complete with MTV exec shaming, another song of summer performance, and — of course — leading a “Get Lucky” dance party bonanza with guest appearances Bryan Cranston, Hugh Laurie, Matt Damon, Jeff Bridges, Jimmy Fallon, Henry Kissinger (yes, Henry Kissinger!) and many, many more.

Well, I guess the MTV appearance won't be a surprise now! Uproxx has the story of what happened, complete with more videos and gifs. Link

A sequel to Snakes on a Plane? No, because this is just one shark, spotted in New York this morning on the N train to Queens. Plenty of riders snapped pictures of the dead dogfish, including one guy who used props. At the Queensboro Plaza stop, MTA workers herded riders off the subway car and later disposed of the shark. Link -via reddit

(Image credit: Mary M.)