The first real monument to George Washington was a statue commissioned to stand in the Capitol Rotunda. The artist selected was one of America's first professional sculptors, Horatio Greenough. Greenough was American, but studied classical sculpture in Europe, so American movers and shakers expected some classical influence. What they didn't expect was a semi-nude Father of our Country. It was certainly not the image most people had of the president.

It didn’t help that Washington himself was seen as a prude, with Hone claiming Washington would never have “expose[d] himself” in such a way publicly and Rep. Henry Wise said that no human had ever looked upon the general’s skin (sorry, Martha!) and so to keep the head but throw the rest in the Potomac. Architect Charles Bullfinch summed it up, pointing out it would “only give the idea of entering or leaving a bath.” (The best explanation I read for why Greenough’s statue conceptually was just so wrong is this essay by none other than Garry Wills.) As Savage notes in Monument Wars, it went "down in the annals of American art history as the most reviled public statue ever erected."

The 12-ton statue only stood in the rotunda for a few months, then was moved outside. It eventually ended up in the Smithsonian American History Museum. Read the story of how the nude Washington came about at The DailyBeast.

(Image credit: Wknight94)

Viola Smith was born in 1912, into a family that included seven sisters. Their father, who ran a dance hall, taught each sister to play a different musical instrument so he could have a house band without paying musicians. Viola was assigned to play drums, which she delighted in. When her sisters, and then later bandmates, got married and left music, Viola kept on drumming.

A quick internet search told me Viola is considered the first professional female jazz drummer and one of the oldest renown living jazz musicians. In 1939, she was widely dubbed “The Fastest Girl Drummer.” In the following years, she received endorsement deals with Ludwig, WFL Drum Company, and Zildjian. Viola cut her teeth playing with the jazz drummer Billy Gladstone at Radio City Music Hall and went on to drum in Broadway’s original 1966 run of Cabaret.

Now 107 years old, Viola Smith is part of the Piecemaker community of Costa Mesa, California. Writer Emma Starer Gross wanted to find out more.

I found this all baffling. How did a Midwestern-raised New York City drummer wind up in a conservative Southern California suburb with a gang of law-breaking, Jesus-loving arts and crafters?

Gross went to visit Viola Smith and get her thoughts on her drumming career, her current life, and whatever else was on her mind. It's well worth a read, at the LAnd magazine. -via Metafilter

Between 1450 and 1700, mermaids and mermen were a sensation in Europe. The teachings of the Church, ancient writings, and strange new discoveries all fed into the belief in merpeople. Explorers to Africa and Asia had brought back tales of strange creatures such as tigers and giraffes, so why wouldn't they also find a fish-human hybrid?

One might wonder whether such obsession fueled, or was fueled by, Westerners’ push into unknown worlds in the 15th century. In many ways, this “chicken or egg” conundrum is critical, as two developments—local belief and far-off sightings—created a legitimized belief in merpeople during the Renaissance. It made sense to early modern Europeans that such creatures as mermaids and tritons would reside in the furthest, strangest and most “savage” corners of the globe. Europeans thus found merpeople in every new land they explored, thereby fueling the Christian Church’s centuries-old narrative surrounding these monstrosities, while also validating Westerners’ interest in them.

Europeans not only wanted to “see” merpeople at home and abroad—they expected to, even needed to. Early modern Europeans’ deep-seated acceptance of mermaids and tritons cannot be discounted in investigations of this ground-breaking era. As is still the case today, when humans presume the legitimacy of a belief, they often adjust their worldview to fit these supposed realities. This confidence, moreover, is contagious, as surrounding individuals also begin to believe in those same alleged truths. Perception, in short, is everything.

When explorers began to plumb the vastness of the New World, it was a small stretch to believe the tales of mermaids brought back by sailors. After all, even Christopher Columbus told of seeing them! Read about the rise and fall of merpeople during the Renaissance at LitHub. -via Strange Company

Humans hunted the Dodo to extinction in the late 1600s, leading us to believe it was the first example of human-driven species extinction. But it was only the first that was well-documented. Long before written records, people have hunted other species into oblivion, and all it takes to know that is to compare the records of human migration since homo set out  from Africa 125,000 years ago to the rise and fall of animal populations.  

"As [hominids] migrated out of Africa, you see this incredibly regular pattern of extinction," said Felisa Smith, a professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at the University of New Mexico, who studies how animals' body sizes have changed over the course of history. As she and her colleagues explained in a 2018 study published in the journal Science, each time our ancestors set foot in new places, fossil records show that large-bodied species — the humongous prehistoric relatives of elephants, bears, antelope and other creatures — started going extinct within a few hundred to 1,000 years, at most. Such rapid extinction timescales don't occur at any other point in the last several million years (not since the non-avian dinosaurs were wiped out by an asteroid about 65 million years ago.) "The only time you see it is when humans are involved, which is really striking," Smith said.

But what about the time before that big human migration? There are clues that hominids had quite an effect on other African species long before we ventured out into the greater world. Read about human-driven species extinction at LiveScience. -via Damn Interesting

(Image credit: Ballista)

This first-person action short Everywhere from Alex Schauer is all the more ominous because of the things it doesn't tell us. We don't know who is confronting our protagonist here, but she comes across as some kind of Terminator or something.

What is she, the mysterious woman in leather pants? A robot? A witch? A robot-witch? Is she even real or is this all just a dream? Am I dreaming?
These are all questions we have to answer for ourselves.

-via Geeks Are Sexy

Every state has numerous places that will give you bad vibes, whether from its sad history, gloomy looks, or scary legends. The creepiest have all three, plus the experiences of others who have visited and tell of supernatural observations. These places include houses, hotels, hospitals, prisons, bridges, toads, cemeteries, and even a tree. That would be the Devil's Tree in Basking Ridge, New Jersey.

Out of context, the tree’s silhouette alone is enough to inspire nightmares: a warped, half-dead oak looming in the middle of a lonely field, with dozens of ax marks lining its trunk. Then there’s the gruesome history. A purported meeting place for the KKK, notorious suicide site, and rumored gateway to the depths of hell, the Devil’s Tree is infamous among locals and has evolved into a chilling tourist attraction. Legend has it, anyone who harms the tree will suffer swift and violent retribution—so naturally, it has become a tradition for ballsy teens across the Garden State to pee on its trunk. But do so at your own risk—you might just lose your life (or your manhood) to the tree's sinister curse. Also, that's just unsanitary. —AS-N

Or consider the Wyoming Frontier Prison in Rawlins.

Wyoming’s first state penitentiary was about as miserable as you’d expect a stone prison on a cold, whistling prairie to be. It didn’t have hot water until 1978. It did have something called the “punishment pole,” to which prisoners were handcuffed, then whipped with rubber hoses. It’s been closed since 1981, but guided tours allow you to get up close and personal with the “death house” (which housed inmates on death row), the gas chamber, and offices left exactly as they were. October is the best time to visit, when the prison hosts midnight tours in the days leading up to Halloween. —MM

You may think you know the creepiest place in your own state, but reading through the list, I was surprised that Georgia's was not in Savannah, and Kentucky's was not Waverly Hills Sanatorium, so you are liable to read about places you haven't heard of before. And the list has bonus links to other notable haunted sites. Read up on a possible future road trip to some really creepy places at Thrillist. -via Digg

(Image credit: Maitane Romagosa/Thrillist)

There are plenty of fossil footprints in White Sands National Park in New Mexico, human and animal alike. What is astonishing is how scientists have identified one individual's path and what happened along the way, all from the footprints left behind.  

The footprints were spotted in a dried-up lakebed known as a playa, which contains literally hundreds of thousands of footprints dating from the end of the last ice age (about 11,550 years ago) to sometime before about 13,000 years ago.

Unlike many other known footprint trackways, this one is remarkable for its length – over at least 1.5km – and straightness. This individual did not deviate from their course. But what is even more remarkable is that they followed their own trackway home again a few hours later.

Each track tells a story: a slip here, a stretch there to avoid a puddle. The ground was wet and slick with mud and they were walking at speed, which would have been exhausting. We estimate that they were walking at over 1.7 metres per second – a comfortable walking speed is about 1.2 to 1.5 metres per second on a flat dry surface. The tracks are quite small and were most likely made by a woman, or possibly an adolescent male.

But that's just the beginning. This person was carrying a child, probably around three years old, who was set down occasionally and then picked back up. A sloth and a mammoth came by, but only the sloth noticed a human had been there. We don't know the whole story, but what scientists have found is quite amazing, and you can read about it at The Conversation. -via Damn Interesting

It's a story we've all read in the news at one time or another: an unmarried young woman, not knowing she was pregnant, went to the toilet and gave birth. Frightened, she hid the baby and went about her business. The body was found, and the young woman was arrested. This was the story of Anna Greene of Oxfordshire in the year 1650. Despite testimony from midwives that the infant was premature and stillborn, Anne was convicted of infanticide. She was hanged on December 14.

At her own request, several of her friends pulled Anne’s legs as she hung to hasten her death. A soldier assisted by hitting her several times with the butt of his musket. After thirty minutes or so, the Sheriff pronounced her dead and her body was cut down, placed in a coffin, and taken to a local house to await dissection.

In this period, local by-laws stipulated that the body of any person executed within twenty-one miles of Oxford became the property of the University’s Reader in Anatomy. When, however, the University physicians turned up to prepare the body for dissection (this too was to be done in front of a crowd, albeit a smaller one, that included Anne’s family and friends), someone heard a sound in Anne’s throat. Her pulse was checked and she was found to be alive, just.

While others took pains to avoid being the subject of an anatomy class, it saved Anne's life. But what about her conviction? Read the story of Anne Greene at These Islands.  -via Strange Company

(Image credit: W. Burdet)

For the music video for "Who Dat" by Emmit Fenn, Patrick Jean created a dancing pigeon who struts through the streets like the proudest peacock. His footwork gets pretty fancy after the two minute mark! -via Everlasting Blort

Due to some quirks of both nature and human interference, there is an area of sand dunes in Maine called the Desert of Maine. Naturally, it was made into a tourist attraction early in the 20th century. A freshwater spring was found on the property in the 1930s, which was fortunate for thirsty tourists. However, just because you can own it and profit from it doesn't mean you can control it.

At some point in the late 1930s, the then-owners of the property built a gazebo-like structure around the well-head. “For a time, visitors could go over and get a drink of water from the groundwater spring,” Smith says. And though he hasn’t seen any historic advertisements, he adds, “I would be strongly surprised if they weren’t advertising healing properties or something.”

Trouble is, dunes are always on the move. The dunes at the Desert of Maine are said to have swallowed entire trees: One visitor, recounting a 1936 ramble for a New Jersey newspaper, recalled standing on dunes that had recently overtaken an apple tree, whose branches still seemed alive and jutted out through the blanket of sand. “That’s what sand dunes do, migrate from place to place,” Smith says. And the dunes marched right over the gazebo.

The gazebo, called the Spring House, was labeled as unsafe due to encroaching sand, and by the 1960s, it was completely buried. This fall, the owners of the Desert of Maine hired Josh Smith to dig up the Spring House. Read how that is going at Atlas Obscura.

(Image credit: Josh Smith)

Timothy Dexter was born into Boston's working class in 1748. He achieved some success as a leatherworker, but became rich through marriage. He moved into a high-society area, where his neighbors included some of America's Founding Fathers, and although they found Dexter tasteless and annoying, they put up with him. But having money, he went on to make more money.

With the upward trajectory of Dexter's life in full swing, it was his ability to seemingly fall ass-backward into piles of cash despite the lack of any skill that brought him the riches he became known for. The first, and the one that set the tone for everything to follow, was his directionless speculation on American money. The Continental dollar was one of our first attempts at making money, and ... we weren't that good it turns out. A comical failure to the point of becoming a punchline at the time, Dexter made a ludicrously risky and stupid decision to hoard up the currency at its lowest possible value on the slim chance that it may one day be reinstated as the dollar of choice for this great new country. Though, of course, this never happened, Alexander Hamilton did work the constitution to allow for the trade-ins of these bills for 1% of face value and, overnight, Dexter became filthy rich. Despite having zero intention of playing the game how it worked out for him.

Dexter then built a notorious 20-room mansion and festooned it with 40 statues of prominent Americans, including himself. Later business ventures made him even richer with a combination of reckless risk-taking and unbelievably dumb luck. Read the story of Timothy Dexter in the snarky and colorful language you'd expect from Cracked. 

(Image credit: John H. Bufford)

This may look like a Halloween fright wig, but it's really a caterpillar called a puss caterpillar. If you see one, don't touch it! That fur is nothing to trifle with. And they are surprisingly common in Virginia this year.

Puss caterpillars’ fuzz hides spines filled with poison. It’s the most poisonous caterpillar found in the U.S., and its sting can cause nausea, vomiting, swelling and itching, and feelings of anxiety. Not pleasant, to say the least. In recent weeks, Virginia residents have unfortunately had a chance to experience this. A woman in the Richmond area touched one and said it felt like a “scorching-hot knife passing through the outside of my calf.” She was admitted to the emergency room to treat the sting. This is Virginia’s second outbreak of weird bugs this year. Cicadas overran the state this summer, buzzing up a storm.

Read more about the puss caterpillar at Gizmodo.

(Image credit: Virginia Department of Forestry)

Tom BetGeorge (previously at Neatorama) has unveiled his Halloween light show for 2020. It's set to the song "Enter Sandman" from Metallica. This is for BetGeorge's own home; he also does light shows for hire through his company Magical Light Shows. His personal show is a fundraiser for McHenry House, his local homeless shelter. -via Laughing Squid

Sometimes a little censorship can do wonders. The Seed Company by EW Gaze put a post about their sweet Walla Walla onions seeds on Facebook, and a week later found the ad flagged for products with "overtly sexualized positioning." Store manager Jackson McLean could hardly believe it, and finally decided that someone somewhere might have thought the onions were too round or something. He contacted Facebook and found it was no "someone," it was just an algorithm that was overstimulated by the onions.  

"We use automated technology to keep nudity off our apps, but sometimes it doesn't know a Walla Walla onion from a, well, you know," Facebook Canada's head of communications, Meg Sinclair, told BBC.

"We restored the ad and are sorry for the business's trouble."

The sexy onions are not only back on Facebook, but they've made the company go viral. Read more about the incident at BBC News. -via Digg 

Sci-Fi fan Phil Stiller spent a year building a home theater, and made it exactly what wanted. Behind these Space Invader doors is the bridge of the starship Enterprise! It has all the Star Trek details, plus four comfy recliners and ample video screens.  

Yes this room is TOTALLY my inner 12 year old and I make no apologies. I'm a total space/scifi/tech geek and it was really fun creating a cool theater room for my family to watch movies. (which we love to do) and NASA/SpaceX launches.

Stiller gives some specs on this build at the YouTube page, and you can see progress pictures at imgur. He's not an exclusive Star Trek fan; he also has a TARDIS for a front door. -via Geeks Are Sexy