Funeral rites were held in Sedalia, Missouri, in 1890 that no one present would forget for the rest other lives. Mrs. John Peterson had passed away from dropsy. Her final arrangements were complicated by the fact that Mrs. Peterson was around 300 pounds at the time of her death. From a contemporary newspaper account:

Immediately after Mrs. Peterson's death arrangements were made for the funeral. The largest casket that could be procured in the city was the exact measure required at the time of her death, but as it was not delivered until Friday morning the corpse had swollen so much that it was crowded into the narrow case with difficulty. The lid was screwed down and the remains left in that condition for burial.

The funeral services were set for Saturday afternoon, and, as is customary, a number of neighbors acted as watchers on Friday night. Just as the stillness of midnight was approaching, the watchers were startled by a loud report in the parlor, where the coffin was placed. The women screamed and ran out of the house. but the men plucked up enough courage to go into the parlor.

Yes, the coffin had exploded. Read the rest of the horrifying details, including a burial where the word "dropsy" might apply again, at Strange Company.

The Mississippi River bisects the United States and separates the East from the West. It has figured prominently in much of the country's history. But it was here long before any people were. Research in just the last few years has revealed that the river is much older than the previously thought 20 million years. It appears the river was born 70 million years ago!

Still, 70 million years ago the Mississippi was nowhere near as large as it would become. [Geologist Michael] Blum has detailed how the waterway grew as it added tributaries: the Platte, Arkansas and Tennessee rivers by the late Paleocene, then the Red River by the Oligocene. Around 60 million years ago, the Mississippi was collecting water from the Rockies to the Appalachians; by four million years ago, its watershed had extended into Canada, and the Mississippi had grown to an enormous size, carrying four to eight times as much water as it does today, Cox and colleagues have found. “This was a giant river, on the order of the Amazon,” said Cox.

Learn how the mighty Mississippi was born, and how it has changed, at Smithsonian.

(Image credit: NASA/Jesse Allen)

I don't know where this video came from, but some recognize the setting as Italy. It's pretty old, but joyously funny. -via reddit

If you wander through various corners of the internet, you've seen memes based on Steamed Hams, a wacky Simpsons skit where one minor character has another minor character over for dinner and things get out of hand. As wildly popular as the sequence is now, you might be surprised to learn it was originally aired in 1996! And it wasn't even written to be a main story. Writer and showrunner Bill Oakley tells how it came about.

Midway through Season Seven, when Josh and I were the showrunners, we realized we were never going to be able to do any of those little shorts. One of us, Josh or me, had the idea of, “Let’s do a whole episode of nothing but those things.” This was just around the time Pulp Fiction had come out and there were a couple of other things that were little bits and pieces that were intertwined like that, so wewere like, “What if we did a whole episode like that, but with all the characters in Springfield?” We fell in love with the idea immediately, so that was the genesis of it.

We had to figure out how we were going to do this, so we decided that we were going to have everybody on staff get a chance to write for their favorite character. To make it fair, it was basically like a football draft and everybody got to pick a number and go in order and call dibs on their favorite characters to write a little segment for. My very first choice was Superintendent Chalmers and Principal Skinner. It might’ve just been Chalmers, but I think Skinner came along with the package.

So the ridiculous vignette came about as one of a collection of writing experiments. But how did Steamed Hams become such a viral meme all these years later? Read the history of both the Simpsons scene and the meme beginning with how it vexed an Australian grocery chain at Mel magazine.

In his professional life, geology professor Kevin McCartney can tell you all about iron. As a collector, he can tell you all about irons, the ones you press your clothing with. Or at least some people do. McCartney has a collection of around 500 antique irons from the days before electric appliances.

Electric irons arrived in the 1890s. McCartney does not collect these. Again, from the perspective of the 21st century, you’d be forgiven for concluding that once electric irons arrived, it must have been game-over for coal, liquid fuel, and natural gas irons, right? In fact, initially, electric irons were perceived to be more dangerous than irons filled with billowing flames and potentially explosive fuel tanks in their handles. That’s because it wasn’t until 1928 and the invention of the thermostat that electric irons had more than one heat setting—high. As counterintuitive as it might seem today, for almost 40 years, electric irons were more deadly than ones heated with actual fire.

“Electricity was the nuclear power of its day in the sense that people were not thinking rationally about it,” McCartney says. “It was bad. People got electrocuted, and there was no temperature regulation in those irons. You’d plug it in until it got really, really hot, then you’d unplug it and do your ironing. When it cooled off, you’d plug it in again, unplug it, use it again, and so on. And if you plugged it in and the baby started crying and you got distracted and forgot to unplug it, you’d lose your house. These things were fire hazards.”

You might wonder how "coal, liquid fuel, and natural gas" irons worked, which McCartney tells us about at Collectors Weekly. Learning how the chore was done back then will make you appreciate electric irons, tumble dryers, and permanent press clothing.

Just look at this door! How utterly fabulous! The quality of construction of the church and all of the carved detailing is extremely (and unusually) high, and some think it may have been built as a chantry chapel for Robert de Tattershall. pic.twitter.com/3AVEm8HNim

— Jay Hulme (@JayHulmePoet) August 20, 2020

Jay Hulme got an invitation to go see an old church in the English countryside, but he received no address. Just the coordinates (latitude and longitude). It turns out the church is so far out in the middle of nowhere, it doesn't have a street address. Or a street. Hulme had to hike the last half a kilometer or so.  

St. Leonard's is around 800 years old. Before the pandemic, it had services only once a month. No one had been there for six months when Hulme visited. He got to see the beautiful architectural details and even explored a tiny staircase leading to the roof. Take a tour of St. Leonard's with plenty of pictures posted at Threadreader. -via Metafilter

Human beings have changed the earth in many ways, from driving other species to extinction to plundering natural resources to building massive cities. What would happen if all the humans suddenly were gone? We got a taste of that when scientists noticed wildlife moving into the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone after the 1986 nuclear accident forced humans out. We've also heard stories of animals returning to places where they had been crowded out by tourists after the pandemic restricted travel. But there is a lot more to consider when everyone is gone. Author and journalist Alan Weisman tells us more.   

In Weisman's own research, this question took him firstly into cities, where some of the most dramatic and immediate changes would unfold, thanks to a sudden lack of human maintenance. Without people to run pumps that divert rainfall and rising groundwater, the subways of huge sprawling cities like London and New York would flood within hours of our disappearance, Weisman learned during his research. "[Engineers] have told me that it would take about 36 hours for the subways to flood completely," he said.

Lacking human oversight, glitches in oil refineries and nuclear plants would go unchecked, likely resulting in massive fires, nuclear explosions and devastating nuclear fallout. "There's going to be a gush of radiation if suddenly we disappear. And that's a real wildcard, it's almost impossible to predict what that's going to do," Weisman said. Similarly, in the wake of our demise, we'd leave behind mountains of waste — much of it plastic, which would likely persist for thousands of years, with effects on wildlife that we are only now beginning to understand.

But that's just the beginning of the story. Nature will find a way to deal with our planet without humans, as laid out at LiveScience. -via Strange Company

(Image credit: Zenithwhy)

Beachcombers and urban explorers flock to the shores of Dead Horse Bay in Brooklyn to explore the amazing stash of vintage trash. The beach is strewn with broken glass and intact bottles, ceramics, and rusty metal from a bygone era, but not all that much in the way of plastic. Or at least they did up until this year. The beach is now closed to the public due to radiation.

The surprisingly pretty trash spews from the site of an old landfill. Casually capped by the 1950s, it is now eroding, unpacking its contents onto the beach. “It’s easy to imagine [the trash] being brought in by the tide, but it’s the opposite,” says Miriam Sicherman, author of Brooklyn’s Barren Island: A Forgotten History. “It’s getting almost burped by the land where the reeds are, and moving toward the water.” Named for the foul-smelling factories on Barren Island that once made glue, fertilizer, and more from horses and other animals (and then discarded their carcasses in the water), Dead Horse Bay is a popular place for urban archaeology enthusiasts with strong stomachs and closed-toed shoes. Part of the Gateway National Recreation Area, it is managed by the National Park Service, which means that visitors have been able to look but not take. But as of August 2020, even gawking is off limits. After detecting chemical contaminants back in 2002 and gamma radiation in 2019, the Park Service recently declared part of the area closed to everyone but authorized personnel.

Read what is causing the radiation and how dangerous it could be at Atlas Obscura.

(Image credit: Flickr user edwardhblake)

Keeping ourselves safe from coronavirus is having all kinds of unexpected effects on our daily lives. Comedian Karan Menon considered how social distancing is affecting your local school bullies, for schools that are opening in-person. The normal obnoxious activities of these two aggressive young men are suddenly quite complicated. Contains NSFW language.  -via Mashable

Despite the fact that he was never president of the United States, Benjamin Franklin is arguably the most interesting of the Founding Fathers. Or at least the most fun to study. Franklin had a varied career which made him a wealthy man. In his will, he bequeathed his various properties to many family members and organizations. An addendum to the will also laid out an investment plan for two cities close to his heart.  

Less than a year before his death on April 17, 1790, Benjamin Franklin added a codicil, or addendum, to his will. In it, he bequeathed 1000 pounds sterling, or what would have been the equivalent of $4000, to the cities of Boston and Philadelphia. (Franklin had been born and raised in Boston but left for Philadelphia when he was 17, making both cities near to his heart.)

The money, he wrote, was to be handled in a very particular way. For the first 100 years, each of the 1000 pounds sterling would accrue interest and be used to fund loans for young tradesmen starting out in business. Franklin, who had become a printer as the result of a loan given to him, valued resources for apprentices.

At the end of the 100 years, the cities could take 75 percent of the principal and spend it in public works. Boston, he suggested, should invest in a trade school. Philadelphia could possibly pay for water pipes connected to Wissahickon Creek. The remaining 25 percent would be left until another century had passed, at which point the cities and their respective states could spend the funds in whatever way they wished. But after 200 years, would the economic needs of the modern world match up with Franklin’s wishes?

The legacy of that money makes an interesting story, as changing customs, government bodies, and laws have affected how the money was handled. Read what happened to Franklin's bequests over two centuries at Mental Floss.

(Image credit: David Martin)

Who needs a farmers tan when you can get a @cavs Finals hat burn? pic.twitter.com/rIUXldi4nz

— Mark (@MarkdFL) June 23, 2016

It only takes a few months of school, work, or winter to make you forget the power of the sun. When the sun is high overhead, be sure to protect those parts of your body not covered by clothing by applying sunscreen. Also, consider the reason that baseball caps have visors before you decide to just wear yours backwards. Below is an example of what happens when you sit in a kayak all day without sunscreen.

(Image credit: BustersHotHamWater)

If he had known what was going on, he could have adjusted those rolls for a more even burn. See a ranked gallery of 40 people who learned the value of sunscreen the hard way at Bored Panda.

What's more fun than a barrel of monkeys? A wheelbarrow of orangutans! These youngsters live at the Borneo Orangutan Survival Foundation. They are rescued orphans taking part in Orangutan Jungle School, where they are taught the skills they will need to live in the wild on their own when they are old enough. After a day of jungle activity, they catch a ride back to the shelter in wheelbarrows!

The school is the subject of a TV series, aired on different platforms in different countries. You can see clips from Orangutan Jungle School at YouTube, and here's a full introductory episode if you want to learn about the orangutans. -via Metafilter

Big fish each the smaller fish, who eat the even tinier fish, and so goes the circle of life. It's not only fish, but extinct sea creatures, too. A 240-million-year-old fossil found in China turns out to be a rare find- a fossil with the recognizable contents of its last meal inside.

The fossil, found at a quarry in Guizhou province of southwestern China, appears to show a 15-foot-long (5-meter) ichthyosaur (pronounced “ick-thee-oh-sore”) shortly after feasting upon a 12-foot-long (4-meter) thalattosaur. Regrettably, the ichthyosaur probably died shortly after its meal, having bitten off more than it could handle.

Ichthyosaurs were dolphin-like aquatic reptiles that emerged during the Triassic. This particular specimen belonged to an ichthyosaur species known as Guizhouichthyosaurus tangae, which grew as long as 33 feet (10 meters). Its presumed prey, a thalattosaur species called Xinpusaurus xingyiensis, was more lizard-like, with four limbs that it used to paddle through the water. The new fossil is the first direct evidence to suggest at least some species of ichthyosaurs were apex predators, similar to orcas today.

Read about the find, and the clues that hint at what happened all those years ago, at Gizmodo.

(Image credit: Jim Cooke/Gizmodo)

Back in the 1980s, my then-husband and I joined a Mac users group. It was based in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, and the meetings were a real nerd-fest. Everyone was so excited about new programs that were being shared that they were all surprised when I asked a question and they realized there was a woman in the building! After that, I was treated like a queen. A good time was had by all. It's hard to imagine groups like that meeting in person today, even before social distancing. But computer user groups were a real thing from the 70s to the 90s.

Once upon a time, using a computer was difficult. The documentation was obscure (if any existed), nothing was pre-assembled, and if you had a problem you were on your own. You might find some answers by dialing into an early electronic bulletin board system (BBS), but nothing beats having someone look over your shoulder and say, “You plugged it in upside down!”

Computer user groups were (and to some tiny degree still are) all-volunteer organizations, usually non-profits. They were organized in small towns and in big cities, with 25 members or 2,500. Services varied, but early user groups largely had two essential elements: a monthly general meeting and a printed newsletter.
Some user group magazines were of professional caliber. This 32-page newsletter attracted subscribers from 28 countries.

For small groups, the meeting presentation might be a member’s show-and-tell. Larger and better-connected user groups attracted vendors, who (rightly) saw them as early adopters worth courting.

Younger folks can learn about tech history, and older folks can wallow in nostalgia in an article tracing the history of computer user groups at Ars Technica. -via Digg

It may seem awfully small, but a home with a front measurement of 20 feet is not unusual in New York City. However, a home measuring 20 feet across that boasts a living space of over 8,000 feet is a real head-scratcher! The mansion at 108 8th Avenue in Brooklyn is 83 feet front-to-back and comprises five floors, plus a full-size cellar and a roof deck. Built in 1900, it retains the original style and craftsmanship of that era.

The current owner renovated and modernized the home – including the electrical, plumbing, all bathrooms & kitchen, and added multi-zoned air conditioning & acoustic stereo sound systems. At the same time, the details were painstakingly preserved by master craftspeople. The list of lavish original details is endless: filigreed mahogany woodwork, an abundance of stained-glass windows, fretwork screens, Corinthian columns, carved newel posts, wainscoting, original inlaid parquet floors, 15′ coffered ceilings on the dining room floor, stunning millwork, and 6 lavishly detailed mantled fireplaces (3 converted to gas). Much of the spacious interior is devoted to communal living, including a music room/performance space with ideal acoustics, a library room that boasts the classic ladder, a dining room with original tapestries, a huge game room, a duplex kitchen that features custom stained-glass windows from the studios of Frank Lloyd Wright, a Juliet balcony for sipping a glass of wine while cooking, and a lower-level multi-windowed breakfast room that opens out onto a covered deck.

Considering the size, condition, and location of this home in Park Slope, you won't be surprised that the asking price is $7.3 million, but you could probably get it for an even seven. Yeah, you've seen this house in movies and TV shows, and you can see plenty of pictures of this beautiful mansion at Captivating Houses. -via Messy Nessy Chic, where you'll see more interesting properties available around the country.