At the turn of the 20th century, New York City was so crowded that there could be several elementary schools in one city block. The students were the children of poor immigrants, often malnourished and suffering from lack of medical care. An astonishing number of them had no ambition to progress to high school, since they were destined to get menial jobs as soon as they were big enough to work. Adeline E. Simpson, principal of Public School 110 Florence Nightingale in Manhattan, was determined to change the fate of her students. One of her quests was to improve their health so they could flourish in their studies. The Chief Inspector for the Schools, Dr. John J. Cronin, was all for better health care for students, but wanted to hone in on one medical procedure that could give the most bang for the buck, and prove to city authorities and parents that better medical care led to better student outcomes. 

Although poorly understood at the time, adenoids are a part of the body's lymph system in the back of the throat that become inflamed during infection. This leads to clogged sinuses, poor breathing, and lack of sleep. On June 21, 1906, Cronin and a crew of doctors and nurses came to PS 110 and removed the adenoids of 83 students who had returned permission slips in a mass surgery session. Some of the children went home still bleeding from the procedure. 

A few days later, the entire neighborhood was convinced that the school was slitting their student's throats. This news didn't seem all that improbable for the Jewish immigrant community, because such abuses were why many of them had come to the US. Enraged activists and some inaccurate journalism spurred thousands of parents to rush to the schools to demand their children. The schools went into defense mode as an angry mob raged outside. Read about the school riot of 1906 at Damn Interesting. 

Is it hot wnough for you? This will only add fuel to the fire. As the US is experiencing a rare and dangerous June heatwave this week, master mixer Bill McClintock has been busy mixing songs. He calls this mashup "Hotter Than a Highway to Hell With the Devil." Most of it is a mix of "To Hell With the Devil" by Stryper, AC/DC's "Highway to Hell," and "Hotter Than Hell" by KISS. There are also appearances by Pantera, Mötley Crüe, Dokken, Def Leppard, Vixen, Blue Oyster Cult, Twisted Sister, Judas Priest, Van Halen, and another song ("Hell's Bells") from AC/DC. McClintock said he got carried away after someone requested two of the songs and couldn't stop adding more. There's a list of them at the YouTube page. You'll no doubt notice that all the songs reference fire, burning, hell, and/or the devil. And to think some folks say climate change isn't real.  

Marvel Studios has unveiled a limited edition souvenir popcorn bucket available at theaters during the run of The Fantastic Four: First Steps. This one features Reed Richards, aka Mr. Fantastic, played by Pedro Pascal in the movie. Mr. Fantastic's super power is the ability to stretch his appendages to great lengths. Um, which appendage is he stretching here to wrap around the bucket? 

His right arm, of course! I should have said, "limb" instead of "appendage," but your dirty mind would have gone there anyway. You have to wonder why they used this particular angle as a publicity photo. My bet is that they knew exactly what they were doing. 

New look at the Reed Richards popcorn bucket for ‘THE FANTASTIC FOUR: FIRST STEPS’

It will cost $39.99. pic.twitter.com/cqiKmMjPEs

— Fantastic Four Updates (@F4Update) June 18, 2025

The Reed Richards popcorn bucket will cost you almost $40, but it will include popcorn. Presumably enough so that you will have to stretch your tummy to consume it all. The Fantastic Four: First Steps will be released nationwide on July 25th.  -via Geeks Are Sexy 

See also: Other over-the-top souvenir popcorn buckets. 

Being lost at sea is not at all like Gilligan's Island. When you're out at sea on a boat, there's always the danger that the boat capsizes, crashes, or quits working. You might then be swimming, or if you're lucky, find yourself on a life raft. All you can see around you is sea, and even if you have navigational skills, you probably have no real means of propulsion. It's still happening today. Weird History has a dozen stories of people who were lost at sea relatively recently. Some made it to a desert island and others were rescued at sea. Some succumbed quickly, while others survived weeks or months before being found. Some were found dead, and some were never seen again. At least one is suspected of being a murder victim. Even if you are no longer afraid of sharks, these stories are enough to make you want to stay safely on dry land. 

The first widely publicized case of alien abduction was that of  Betty and Barney Hill in 1967. Their supposed memories of the incident were uncovered by hypnosis. It took a while for other cases to come forward, but in the 1980s and '90s, psychologists had their hands full of people seeking to explain their nagging anxieties by regressive hypnosis to retrieve experiences of alien abduction. However, the phenomena pretty much died out by the turn of the 21st century. 

This was the period that also brought us the satanic ritual panic, which was also discovered through repressed memories brought out under hypnosis or other therapies, aided by the power of suggestion over vulnerable witnesses such as children. But the common alien abduction story was less stigmatizing and certainly more entertaining, giving us movies such as Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977) and Communion (1989), not to mention the X-Files TV series. It also gave us one great lamp. Read about the rise and fall of alien abduction experiences at Aeon. -via Nag on the Lake 

Everyone wants to be part of the Rebel Alliance, but not everyone can be an X-wing pilot or a Jedi warrior. There are plenty of other jobs for those without extraordinary talents. How would you like to be assigned as a tower guard on Yavin 4? If you don't make your way into the Rebellion, you might end up being Jabba the Hutt's masseuse. It's the same for those everyday guys who are caught in the employment of the Empire. Some jobs, even on the Death Star, are quite specialized and therefore boring.  

In an animation made with Unreal Engine, we get a glimpse at what we might be doing in the Star Wars universe. AFK brings us this short as part of their For the Empire series (previously at Neatorama). You can see all the videos in this series in a playlist. This video is only 2:40 long, the rest is an ad. -via Geeks Are Sexy 

Over the last hundred years or so, zoos have evolved from animals in small cages to large parks that give animals space to roam and environmental elements to mimic their natural habitats, while paying customers are more likely to be confined as they observe. While it's not freedom, it's often less dangerous than their shrinking home territories. This innovation is largely the work of German businessman Carl Hagenbeck, who opened the modern Tierpark Hagenbeck in Hamburg in 1907. It took a lot of time and money for his idea to spread to cities across the globe, and they are still not universal. But before you laud Hagenbeck for his humane thinking, you should know how he got there.

Hagenbeck's father was an animal trader who had a private menagerie that people could pay to see. Hagenbeck grew his father's business and founded zoological gardens all over. In 1874, he enhanced a display of Scandinavian reindeer by expanding their enclosure and importing Sami reindeer herders to live with and take care of them. Yes, this was the beginning of "human zoos," in which visitors could observe indigenous people from all over on display with their traditional homes and livestock. He repeated these displays with native people from Africa, North America, South America, and Asia. 

The idea of human zoos is repugnant to us now, but Hagenbeck's human displays were actually a step up from what had gone on before. Read about Carl Hageneck and the evolution of zoos at Smithsonian. 

(Image source: Wikimedia Commons) 

A group of friends in California grew up watching the original Star Trek in reruns and cosplayed as the starship Enterprise crew. As college students in 1985, they made a Star Trek fan film, years before such things became common on the internet. Stan Woo had always admired the character Lieutenant Sulu for bringing Asian representation to TV, and decided to shoot the moon and ask actor George Takei to appear in their movie. Takei agreed! We don't know (yet) why the film wasn't seen for so many years, but the 24-minute film Yorktown: A Time to Heal was finally released in 2022. You can see it at YouTube. 

The story of how Yorktown: A Time to Heal came about 40 years ago and took so long to be seen is the subject of a new feature documentary, featuring Eugene Roddenberry, Jr. as executive producer. Beam Me Up, Sulu will premiere at the Raindance Film Festival on June 25th and then will play in select theaters. 

Samuel Langhorne Clemens was born in Missouri in 1835, but the name Mark Twain didn't exist until years later. After working as a printer, typesetter, riverboat pilot, and a miner, Clemens got a job at a newspaper, the Territorial Enterprise in Virginia City, Nevada, in 1862. The newspaper was influential and the staff was young and daring. They often wrote stories that played hard and loose with the facts and rubbed readers the wrong way. Later in life, Clemens made up stories to make a point, but printing hoaxes in a newspaper made him enemies. 

Authors often work under a pseudonym to keep their professional and private lives separate. We don't know if this was the reasoning behind Clemens using the name Mark Twain, but it happened while he was at the Territorial Enterprise. It didn't work, as people hated what Twain published as much as they hated what Clemens wrote, and he was pretty well known on sight. By 1864, an exchange of insults with a rival publisher led Twain to challenge the man to a duel. Read about those days, and how Twain left Virginia City in disgrace, at The American Mind. As an aside, don't get discouraged by the first two paragraphs, which are incomprehensible compared to the rest of the article. -via Strange Company 

Three girlfriends are checking their baggage. At an airport? Well, it looks like an airport, but things are not at all ordinary here. The people in line for inspection are warned to dispose of all bottles, but one woman has a bottle hidden deep inside that she'd honestly be better off without. We tend to cling to what is familiar, even when it holds us back. This wordless story seems scary, but in the end, what is exposed and discarded leaves the characters in a better place. I'm not going to reveal any more of the plot, but do read the signs and small print as you watch this.  

Baggage is a stop-motion short written and directed by Lucy Davidson at The Aardman Animation Studio Academy. After a round of film festivals, which won this short some awards, the rest of us finally get to see it. -via Nag on the Lake 

The movie Jaws opened on June 20, 1975. Directed by 27-year-old Steven Spielberg, Jaws was filmed on location at Martha's Vineyard, Edgartown, Chilmark, and Menensha, all in Massachusetts. The 50th anniversary is bringing tourists to all those places, with a huge celebration taking place in Martha's Vineyard. Hotels and events for this weekend are sold out, but events will continue through the summer.

Unlike other films at the time, Jaws opened nationwide in 409 theaters at once and made $7 million in its first weekend. It was the first movie to reach $100 million at the box office, and that only took 59 days. Jaws' success is often attributed to the fact that the monster shark wasn't actually seen for most of the movie, raising the suspense factor. That was because the mechanical shark prop rarely worked, forcing Spielberg to work around the problem. A lot of credit must also be given to John Williams' musical score featuring that familiar two-note motif. 

Jaws was based on the novel by Peter Benchley, who came to regret writing the book because of the shark frenzy that it sparked. Great white sharks were not only feared, but mercilessly hunted. Benchley spent the rest of his life advocating for sharks and for other marine conservation projects. -via Metafilter 

(Image credit: Roger Kastel) 

We read about TikTok challenges in which everyone tries to outdo each other in something outrageous and sometimes dangerous. But that's not really new, because children have been doing this kind of thing forever. I remember when kids were dared to chew on cinnamon toothpicks. In the 1990s, it was Warheads. It seems that Warheads were the result of a candy manufacturing challenge to make the sourest candy on earth, since those types of candy were growing more popular all the time. Warheads lent themselves readily to a schoolyard dare. How many could you eat before they burned a hole in your tongue? No one found out, because you gave up before that happened. But are Warheads really as dangerous as they are rumored to be? Tom Blank of Weird History Food explains how Warheads came about, what they are made of, the controversies they sparked, and why kids are both attracted to and frightened by them. -via Geeks Are Sexy 

These lovely handmade glass vessels get their distinctive color from crushed quagga mussel shells. Quagga mussels are an invasive species in the US and most of Europe, having originated in Ukraine. The mussels tend to clog pipes and must be removed, but they aren't fit to be eaten, so they end up in landfills by the ton.  

Glass artist Lulu Harrison has spent years studying and experimenting with waste products in order to turn them into beautiful new objects. Her Thames Glass project uses artifacts removed from pipes in and out of the River Thames such as quagga shells, local sand, wood, and metal to make glassware and tiles. She collaborated with glass blowers Sacha Delabre and Rosie Power to make the Thames Glass collection, which will be shown at the Design Museum in London June 24th through August 25th. The museum has recently awarded Harrison the Ralph Saltzman Prize for the project. 



See more of the Thames Glass project at Harrison's website and at Instagram.   -via Nag on the Lake  

A truly ridiculous scenario was submitted to the What If? series (previously at Neatorama). What would happen if you tried to send all the water going over Niagara Falls through a straw? That's 50,000 to 100,000 cubic feet of water per second! Randall Munroe and Henry Reich gamely explain why you can't do this with some of the finer points of fluid dynamics, and how this attempt would trigger some bizarre effects, like water "boiling" under pressure in a pipe. 

Most of that went over my head, but I wondered how they knew that the flow was 50,000 to 100,000 cubic feet per second. It turns out that's the mandated minimum amount of water regulated by treaty. A lot more Niagara River water is diverted for power generation. The preservation of Niagara Falls is overseen by at least five different organizations- or else the falls could be dry a lot of the time. You can learn a lot from a stupid question. 

Jaws was the movie that gave us the word "blockbuster" in 1975. Of course, they made Jaws 2, without Steven Spielberg. Producers David Brown and Richard Zanuck thought making another sequel after that would be stretching things unless they came up with a different idea. How about a comedy? They approached National Lampoon, which had a hit in 1978 with Animal House. National Lampoon writers John Hughes and Tod Carroll started working on a script for Jaws 3, People 0. 

The premise of the film was that a Jaws sequel was being filmed at a beach when an executive producer was eaten by a real shark. The shark continued attacking the cast and crew, while the movie executives fought amongst themselves. Oh yeah, and the shark was from outer space in at least one version of the script. The film was announced and the roles were cast, but Jaws 3, People 0 was never made. The reason it was canned varies depending on who you ask, but there could have been many reasons. Ultimately, there were two other Jaws sequels released (Jaws 3D and Jaws: The Revenge) that were not intentional comedies. Read the story of Jaws 3, People 0 at Mental Floss.