When the red delicious apple was developed a hundred years ago, it was supposedly the best-tasting apple around. But the variety became a victim of its own popularity, as the apple was altered to suit the industry. By the time you and I came along, we were unimpressed and made jokes about the use of the word "delicious." Oh yeah, the red declicious apple stayed popular for a long time after it lost its taste, mainly because it was all you could find at the grocery store. Then just in the last few decades, better apples were developed to replace it.

What we have in this video is really a history of apples that leads up to the rise and fall of the red delicious. A neat story altogether, but it bothers me that the host cites Charles Darwin to explain crossbreeding of plants to develop new varieties when it should have been Gregor Mendel. -via reddit

Veijo Rönkkönen worked in a paper mill in Parikalla, Finland. He was also an artist, but never sold his works. He made concrete sculptures that over time numbered about 500 figures, all secluded in the woods around his home. Rönkkönen's sculptures are not altogether lifelike, but neither are they abstract. They portray people doing all kinds of everyday activities. The biggest number of them resemble a young Rönkkönen doing yoga poses. The artist would sometimes add quirky things to the sculptures, like speakers inside so they could produce sounds, or human teeth. Rönkkönen worked on these sculptures for 50 years until his death in 2010. He never exhibited them or sought fame for his artworks. In fact, he was quite shy as well as eccentric, but if someone came to visit he would show them around.



The Veijo Rönkkönen Sculpture Garden is now open to the public. The 500 or so human figures impress up to 25,000 visitors a year as creepy, funny, scary, whimsical, mysterious, or haunting. Rönkkönen is one of five people featured in a Cracked article who went all in on hobbies that others would consider downright creepy.

When Gustave Eiffel erected his eponymous tower in Paris, the deal was that it would be the cornerstone of the 1889 Exposition Universelle, and then remain for twenty years. Yet 132 years later, the tower is still there. Finagling longevity for his creation required a bit of cunning on Eiffel's part. To make the tower useful enough to avoid demolition, he made it a radio tower. Or rather, a "wireless telegraph" tower, harnessing the new communication technology that was at first limited to the military. To make the military staff more unobtrusive, a bunker was dug beneath the tower to house the radio operations. The radio transmissions were experimental at first, but later proved to be quite important.

During World War I, its bunker took on an even more important role as a potential escape route with a complex underground network and secret tunnels. The Iron Lady’s communication infrastructure proved especially useful when French forces jammed German communications, a significant factor in winning the First Battle of the Marne. The French military were also able to decrypt enemy messages; notably, an intercepted communiqué between Germany and Spain led to the arrest of exotic dancer and spy Mata Hari.

The bunker beneath the Eiffel Tower is still there, no longer a secret, although it's not open to the public. Read the history of this facility and see what it looks like now at Messy Nessy Chic.

What's the scariest movie you ever saw? If a particular horror film keeps coming back to keep you awake at night, part of the reason may be its spooky setting. Many horror films rely on someone visiting a new and unknown place that turns out to be haunted or maybe occupied by a killer lunatic. And those places are out there, somewhere, because that's where they filmed the movie. You might even want to visit someday, maybe to relive the thrill, or maybe to reassure yourself that it's not like the movie. You can still go to the gas station featured in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (and eat barbecue), tour the lighthouse from The Fog, or climb the stairs where the priest and the demon battled it out in The Exorcist. Check out eleven iconic horror film locations and make your plans for a pilgrimage with the help of Atlas Obscura.

(Image credit: Rshao)

The Civil War consumed all of President Lincoln's time in the White House. He presided over the battle campaigns, of course, but he also worked outside the military on several fronts to bolster the Union. These schemes ranged from boosting morale on the home front to enticing southern states to leave the Confederacy with a bit of a bribe. This came in the form of the Land Grant College Act, in which the federal government pledged help to establish higher education across the country- but only in states that stayed loyal to the Union.

There was also the continued construction of the US Capitol Building. There was the Emancipation Proclamation, telegraphing the stakes of the war to the enslaved people of the rebellious states. Then Lincoln resurrected the forgotten holiday of Thanksgiving, designed to build unity and a sense of purpose. In 1863, there were actually two days of Thanksgiving.

Another of Lincoln's non-battlefield accomplishments was the Lieber Code, written by Francis Lieber. This military code set the standard for how to run an army that became an inspiration worldwide, and no doubt contributed to the relative cohesiveness and sense of moral superiority of the Union army that helped to win the war. Read about all these programs that, along with the fighting, took up Abraham Lincoln's time and last full measure of devotion at Military History Now.

Something really weird happens to Baxter the cat on RamsesThePigeon's security camera. Don't blame me if it gives you the willies. You'll need to watch this more than once to catch all the easter eggs, like the sampler on the wall.

Continue reading to see that scene again. You might learn a little more from this version.

At the almost-900-year-old village church in Sauherad, Norway, you'll find murals that are hundreds of years old. But look closely at one wall, and you'll see that it is covered with tiny devils and demons, crowded together like doodles in a bored student's notebook. This is the demonveggen, or demon wall. The mystery of the demon wall is not in how old it is or who did it, because those things are known. The real question is why.

Experts in historical preservation and restoration are dedicated to bringing history to life accurately. But in 1940, Gerhard Gotaas, a renowned conservator of medieval church art, completely painted over an artwork on one wall of the church in Sauherad and left it with the demons. Locals who knew the church were confused, but bowed to Gotaas' authority and reputation. It was assumed that he found and revealed what had been there for hundreds of years. Then World War II came along and the demons on the wall were ignored due to other priorities. Gotaas continued his work elsewhere with no complaints, and his alterations in Sauherad were only recently discovered. Now, Norwegian cultural heritage laws say Gotaas' demons must remain as a historical artwork of their own, despite the fact that they cover a painting that is 300 years older. Read the story behind the demonveggen at Atlas Obscura.

The article is part of Atlas Obscura's Fright Club series for the month of October.

Rapa Nui, now known as Easter Island, was first populated by Polynesians somewhere between 690 AD and 1200 AD. But that appears to be a singular event, as the culture of the island developed in complete isolation afterward, due to the distance it lay from other populated islands of the Pacific. That is, until 1722, when Europeans found their way to the island. Along the way, the people of Rapa Nui developed a system of writing called rongorongo, consisting of around 600 hieroglyphs.

Rongorongo was mainly used by the elite, and was not accessible to most of the population. Europeans had no clue about rongorongo documents etched in wood until a missionary found them in 1864. Tragically, by then there was no one left on Rapa Nui who could read the written language. Peruvian raids had taken many islanders away into slavery, and when they returned, they brought diseases that wrecked the native Rapa Nui population.

Writings in rongorongo are rare, with only 23 known examples still in existance. A new study takes a look at a wooden tablet from Rapa Nui known as the Berlin tablet. The rongorongo symbols on it are barely decipherable thanks to erosion and woodlice, but a 3D scan reveals the tablet, which is the largest rongorongo tablet ever found, contains 387 legible glyphs, and may have contained up to 5000 symbols before the wood was damaged. That would make it the longest rongorongo document ever found, if it were still a full document. The research was aimed at determining the age of the Berlin tablet by the species of wood and the history of its deterioration. Read about rongorongo and the Berlin tablet at The History Blog. -via Strange Company

(Image credit: Rafał M. Wieczorek et al/CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)

How well would you be able to spot a predator stalking you in the jungle? Or even an urban jungle? Redditor donibobes took this picture of his cat. You might assume he was taking picture of the front of the house, but the cat is there. You just can't see him because of his feline camouflage skills. I had to go to the comments for a spoiler.   

If you need to, and you probably will, you can enlarge the picture greatly here. Then imagine if this were a hungry tiger sitting in a tree you just walked by. You'd never know what hit you. 

We all know someone of whom it has been said "could drink anyone under the table." However, pushing the limits can be dangerous, and binge drinking has led to many deaths. The problem with drinking alcohol in a hurry is that you can imbibe too much before the effects show at all, and then you are suddenly too drunk to understand your limits. A competition to see who can drink more than someone else may remind you of a certain scene in Raiders of the Lost Ark, in which Marion Ravenwood not only survived the contest, but also an attempted murder and the fact that her bar burned down. Real life is not as exciting, nor as survivable.

That said, there was a drinking contest in which two young, large, and wealthy men felt compelled to outdrink each other. Lord Louth, age 34, was visiting from England, and made the acquaintance of 32-year-old Albert Haller Tracy, Jr., of Buffalo, New York. Tracy was showing Louth around Buffalo, as the two were of comparable social standing and had much in common. However, both prided themselves on the ability to drink copious amounts of whiskey, and Louth challenged Tracy to a public showdown. They engaged a bartender to prepare and keep count of how many whiskey cocktails each man drank. Word got around, and spectators came and placed their bets between the British lord and the American. The contest made the papers for years afterward. While the story grew in later years, even the immediate reports had the men drinking an astonishing number of cocktails. Read the entire story of the drinking contest, plus notes on how it was researched, at The Daily Beast. -via Digg

(Image credit: Sarah Rogers/The Daily Beast)

A horror offering from Omeleto, the short film Seek follows two sisters on a road trip who stop at an apparently empty rest area. Spoiler- it's not empty. Seriously, if it were me, I would have turned around as soon as I saw the interior. I don't mind going on the side of the road if this is the alternative. The short film doesn't waste any time on special effects (or money, either), but focuses on the buildup of dread that makes a world of difference when creeping you out is the point. Seek was directed by Aaron Morgan and has won several awards. Contains NSFW language. Read more about the short at io9.

This is a spider made from an Oreo cookie. They are pretty easy to make with pretzel sticks and a dab of icing. But nature has its own Oreo spider. National Geographic wildlife photographer Joel Sartore explains.

A species of trapdoor spider, the oreo spider does not spin webs, but instead, burrows, using its hardened abdominal disc to plug the entry to its underground home. A member of the Cyclocosmia genus, these rare spiders are the smaller, less hairy cousins of tarantulas. pic.twitter.com/LNp2Lajh5N

— Joel Sartore (@joelsartore) October 13, 2021

Cyclocosmia has a pretty fancy trapdoor, if you know what I'm saying. Now we have to wonder if the cookie took its look from the spider. Nah, we know that Oreo cookies took their look (and everything else) from Sunshine Hydrox cookies. -via Fark

Psychosocial - Baby Shark Edition. Apologies to @slipknot More at https://t.co/HhcVKqo25o pic.twitter.com/IxFj1Q79xa

— There I Ruined It (@ThereIRuinedIt) October 12, 2021

The demented mashup artist known as There I Ruined It (previously at Neatorama) combined "Psychosocial" by Slipknot with "Baby Shark" in order to introduce our young children to heavy metal. At reddit, he said he made this to terrify his son for Halloween, but expects that like his other metal mashups, it may become the child's favorite song. From the YouTube page (which has since been pulled):

Sorry the comments are disabled. YouTube is rightfully confused as to whether or not this is a children's video.

I can tell you, this is not a children's video, but you might get a kick out of it. -via reddit

Sooner or later, you will run across a collection of Victorian postmortem photographs on the internet. The early days of photography overlapped a period in which families would produce numerous children, but many of them died in childhood, or even infancy. The death toll was high for every age group. We know Victorians had plenty of rituals surrounding death and mourning that seem strange to us. Arranging to have a portrait made of someone who died would often be the only photograph ever taken of them. Photographers even had special equipment used to prop up dead bodies to make them seem alive in these photographs.

Except that most of the previous paragraph is just plain bunk. It's true that pictures were made of the dead, but those are usually of a mother holding a deceased infant, or a body lying in a coffin. The vast majority of postmortem photographs you see in such galleries are either faked or real pictures of living people. They may look dead, but that is explained by how portrait photography came about in the first place. Read how postmortem photography became a thing despite evidence to the contrary at Atlas Obscura.

If you haven't seen Squid Game, it's a South Korean series on Netflix about a game show in which the stakes are very high- riches if you win, death if you don't. It's become a global sensation for its drama, violence, and social commentary... and the fact that it's available in dozens of languages. This Honest Trailer warns you of spoilers, but I doubt it gives away too much, in case you want to sign up for Netflix for Squid Game. Be warned that this Honest Trailer contains lots of violence. The entire first season of Squid Game is streaming now, and there's no decision yet on whether there will be a second season.