When Joseph Smith, the founder of the Mormon faith, died in 1844, his successor Brigham Young took most of Smith's followers to Utah territory. But not all of them. Others were led by James Jesse Strang, who dreamed of a community for his followers. Responding to orders from an angel that appeared to him, he took those followers to Beaver Island, Michigan. They quickly built roads, farms, schools, and businesses, and established a government with Strang as its head. He even declared himself king! Within a few years, almost all the non-Mormon residents of Beaver Island had left.

Strang enacted some questionable practices, like public punishment for transgressors, and polygamy, which he had earlier rejected. He had both supporters and enemies, which makes tracking down the truth about him difficult. A reputation for piracy grew up around the island, and it was said that Beaver Island residents were eager to rob any passing ship. Others say that was blown out of proportion. Strang was also said to have poached wives from other men. He was eventually killed in 1856 by two of his own followers, and his home was burned to the ground. Almost 200 years later, people still can't agree on whether Strang was an upstanding founding father of the community or a deranged cult leader. Read of the rise and fall of King Strang at Atlas Obscura.

In the 1960s, Clint Eastwood made a name for himself starring in a trilogy of Westerns directed by Italian filmmaker Sergio Leone. These "spaghetti Westerns" were filmed in Spain. For the third film, The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, a huge cemetery was built in the Castilla y León region out in the country, five kilometers from the nearest village. The Spanish military created more than 5,000 fake graves with markers or crosses for the film's climax, which takes place at Sad Hill Cemetery. After filming, the crew left the cemetery as it was and never returned. The set was forgotten and was reclaimed by nature.

But in 2015, a group called the Sad Hill Cultural Association went on a quest to find Sad Hill Cemetery. It wasn't easy, and when they located the cemetery, restoring it to its 1966 appearance was also a chore. Spanish filmmaker Guillermo de Oliveira heard about the project, and made a documentary about finding and renovating Sad Hill, and included interviews with everyone from the locals who worked as extras to Clint Eastwood himself. The restored cemetery is now in the Spanish heritage register, and it's a tourist attraction. Read the story of Sad Hill Cemetery at Amusing Planet.

(Image credit: Mijnmedia)

The all-you-can-eat buffet all but disappeared during the first years of COVID-19, but have sprung back up all over America. This video from Mashed explains the tricks that restaurants serving those buffets use to profit on unlimited food by filling you up quickly, before you down three plates of roast beef. Well, that's in the first half. The rest of the video is to help you select healthier foods when you are confronted with a cornucopia of choices. It's true that people often approach a buffet with the idea of getting the most for their money, and this video will help, but that's not always the best strategy.

Instead of trying to game the system by eating too much, or eating the more expensive food, maybe you should focus on the overall experience. First, consider what kind of food the place has, and is that something you will enjoy. Find out how much the all-you-can-eat meal costs before you go, so you won't feel challenged or disappointed when you get there. Take into account that you won't be taking home leftovers as you would from regular sit-down restaurant. If you are still psyched up for the experience, go for it.

Also, be aware that there are other benefits from an all-you-can-eat buffet. When my kids were young enough to eat free, a buffet was the perfect place for them to try a tiny bit of many new foods, without the risk of preparing a recipe that they would hate. It was also a cost-effective way to feed my husband, who was 6'6" and could easily eat enough for three people. My strategy was to select foods I liked that were difficult to recreate at home. But now that I live alone, I prefer ordering from a menu, knowing that I will take half of my dinner home for another meal. -via Digg

August is almost gone, which means that stores are loading their shelves with products of all kinds, flavored or scented with pumpkin spice. Now that wonderful scent comes to your butt, too! Dude Wipes, a company that caters to men pooping, has a website full of hilariously intimate content, but also sells wet wipes for men in a variety of scents. The newest is called DUMPkin Spice. Yes, it's the scent of fall, with cloves, nutmeg, and other fall spices. Well, we hope it's just the scent; that's the last place we'd want to put real cinnamon and ginger. But if you want to feel clean and ready for autumn, you can accomplish that with one wipe. The first review gives the product five stars.

Don't know how i ever enjoyed fall before these wipes. This year, I'm ready. Now, my whole body can smell like fall, including my butt.

Get a three-pack with a total of 144 DUMPkin Spice wipes for just $14.99. It would be worth it just to leave these out for guests during a party for a real conversation starter. Watch them come out of the bathroom trying to suppress giggles!  -via Geeks Are Sexy

A 64-year-old woman in New South Wales, Australia, became ill with abdominal pain, diarrhea, dry cough, fever, and night sweats. That was in 2021. By 2022, she was also suffering from forgetfulness and depression, prompting doctors to do an MRI scan on her brain. They found a mass that needed to be removed, but during surgery were shocked to find an 8-centimeter (3-inch) live roundworm!

The roundworm, still alive, was sent for analysis, and was identified as Ophidascaris robertsi, a parasite normally found in pythons. This patient was the first ever recorded as a human infection of this worm.

With the worm removed from her brain, the patient is still undergoing treatment, since the rest of her body must be scanned for other larva. Medication can be used, but it is dangerous for the brain, as inflammation can be a side effect of the treatment. Read the case of the woman with a worm in her brain at the Guardian. -via Damn Interesting

(Image credit: Canberra Health)

When I saw the headline for the video, I expected that a company's building was so crowded that someone got shifted into an elevator the way a new hire is sometimes assigned a closet for an office. But this was very deliberate, and honestly very cool. The building is the Baťa Skyscraper, in Zlín, Czechia. It was built in 1939, 16 stories of state-of-the-art architecture. The elevator office, built for the Bata Shoe company's president, is the ultimate corner office, one that can move to any floor when he wants. Yes, it has plenty of room, and is equipped with electricity, phones, and running water!

Alas, the history of the elevator office was complicated by the fact that it was completed in 1939 in Czechoslovakia. We are lucky that in 2023, the office is accessible because it is now part of the building's museum, and Tom Scott went there to show it to us.

Carl Bach threatened to kill his wife Mary in 1881. She kicked him out of the house, but he returned and indeed killed her in a most gruesome way. It's a tragic story that happens everywhere, but Carl's murder trial was the most sensational thing that had happened in Bowling Green, Ohio.

When a new courthouse was built a few years later, it included an exhibit from the trial, including the murder weapon, the noose used to hang Carl Bach, and three of Mary's fingers he had hacked off, preserved in a jar. The display stayed there for almost a century, then was transferred to the Wood County Museum in 1979. The locals had mixed feelings about the exhibit over time, but people traveled from far and wide to see the three fingers in a jar. In more modern times, the unseemliness of displaying human body parts prompted the museum to remove the exhibit in 2014, but due to popular demand, they were again displayed beginning in 2020. Read about the case, the exhibit, and the controversy over Mary Bach's fingers at Jstor Daily. -via Strange Company

If you really want to see the fingers, Roadside America covers the exhibit.

(Image credit: The Wood County Historical Society)

The production of beer goes back to the beginnings of agriculture, and there are experts who think that the desire for alcoholic beverages actually led to the development of agriculture. but while this video from Weird History Food starts off with the origins of beer, it doesn't claim to be a comprehensive history, not does it proceed in a linear fashion. Rather, it's a collection of anecdotes from the drink's extensive history, kind of like a highlight reel, which is more fun anyway. One thing that stands out is the availability of some historic recipes and beers recreated from earlier famous lagers and ales. And one ice cream. -via Laughing Squid

As soon as the United States became an independent country, the 13 existing states got really territorial. You can see on this map that six states just extended their borders westward to the Mississippi River, regardless of contiguity, while Massachusetts also claimed what is now Maine, and New York claimed what is now Vermont. Eventually that was sorted out, but Georgia, the last holdout, went through some real pains on the way.

In 1794, four companies, set up especially for the purpose, paid half a million dollars for about 40 million acres of land. Even taking into account all the bribes — another half a million — that was a ridiculously low amount: four acres to a dollar.

Georgians were furious, and state legislators, appalled to have been caught taking bribes, quickly rescinded the sale. But the contracts were signed, and the courts got involved. That set up a battle between landowners, the state of Georgia, the federal government, and US citizens in a country that was still trying to figure out how to be a working democracy. The legal case went to the Supreme Court, and established several legal precedents we still follow. It also led to the Indian Removal Act of 1830. And the establishment of Alabama and Mississippi. Read a quick overview of the Yazoo Land Scandal at Big Think.  -via Atlas Obscura
 

Beginning on August 8, wildfires spread through the Hawaiian island of Maui, destroying the city of Lahaina. The fire killed at least 115 people, and 388 people are still unaccounted for. Images of the aftermath are chilling, but what's with that one house with the red roof?  

After years of apartment living, Trip Millikin of Lahaina and his wife took the plunge and bought a house in 2021. It was built in the 1920s and needed extensive renovation. The neighbors were glad someone was going to live in the historic house and try to save it. The Millikins had five layers of asphalt shingles removed and installed a red metal roof. They also removed shrubs around the foundation and replaced them with rock as a barrier against termites. These are just some of the improvements they completed in 2022, but they proved to be the most crucial when the wildfire leveled the rest of the neighborhood.

The Millikins were in Massachusetts when the fire raged through, and were devastated to hear of the destruction. They were shocked to hear that their home survived, and have pledged to use it as a headquarters for the rebuilding efforts. Read about the Lahaina "miracle house" at NPR. -via Nag on the Lake

House cats love fish, but they rarely have to catch their own. That's what the fishing cat does on a regular basis. This threatened species is a relatively small wildcat that lives in the wetlands of Asia. A mother fishing cat has to teach her two cubs how it's done in this clip from the BBC miniseries Big Cats. They've never been to the water before, and mama can't help but show off a little. After all, she's helping them learn how to catch their own fish. The kittens make their best attempts, but their "catch" serves as a punch line for this video. -via Digg

You can see lots more cute cats at Supa Fluffy.

Science is looking into the early history of language, which is difficult because spoken words left no trace before the 19th century, and written words are only a few thousands of years old. But when we look into the ancient history of counting, we actually have physical evidence of prehistoric numbers. A South African cave held skeletons dated to the Middle Stone Age, some 42,000 years ago. In the 1970s, a baboon bone was found there, with 29 deliberate markings, evenly spaced but made at different times with different tools. This was a tally stick, used to record a number of something. This stick is not only evidence of human counting, but the earliest known use of an external object to record information.

Human counting appears to have arisen naturally and independently, because it is so useful for keeping track of allies, enemies, threats, and possessions (not to mention children). Different cultures came up with different numerically-based systems. The most obvious is base ten, because we have ten fingers. But there are also systems based on five, for one-handed counting, or twenty when you include toes, or other numbers based on handy body parts. It is believed that ancient Sumerians, who bought and sold goods, developed writing as an extension of keeping accounting records, which began with numbers. Read how these early tallying methods came about at Lapham's Quarterly. -via Damn Interesting

(Image credit: Roger McLassus)

Dustin Ballard has a particular talent for taking iconic musical masterpieces and showing us how common they really are by presenting them in a completely different and nonsensical musical genre. Since he discovered artificial intelligence programs, this has been made easier and even seems strangely more authentic. The band Nine Inch Nails had a depressing song called "Hurt" that was famously covered by Johnny Cash in 2002. If you liked the song, you thought of it as deep. If you didn't, it was pretentiously angsty. Ballard, as YouTuber There I Ruined It, does just that by having The Beach Boys render the song in their good time surfer rock style. The results are completely ridiculous.  -via Laughing Squid  

When you try to determine superlatives, the first thing is to define your terms. Are we looking for the world's oldest language that is still in use? The world's oldest written language? Or the first spoken language? Actually, all three are being studied, but not yet determined. Linguists and historians are fairly sure that spoken language is much older than written language, and should be old enough that no one uses it anymore. It's even possible that the first representative language was gestural. And all that makes finding it very difficult.

But linguists are searching. They are working backwards to find the point in history where a language splits into two or more in different populations who no longer understood each other. Human migration and cultural changes also figure in. For example, Hebrew and Aramaic have written records going back 3,000 years, but both belong to the Afroasiatic family of languages, which may stretch back 10,000 to 20,000 years. But some Asian languages may be just as old, we just don't have the evidence. And there is the possibility that all humans once spoke the same language and every language is descended from that one. Read how this research is being carried out and some of the contenders for the title at Scientific American. -via Digg

(Image credit: Metropolitan Museum of Art)

WRCB channel 3 news anchor Cornelia Nicholson was recording some promo clips for the 11 o'clock news last weekend when a story popped up on the teleprompter that she hadn't read. She almost lost it when she saw the image of herself and her boyfriend, reporter Riley Nagel, on the screen. Nagel had arranged a surprise proposal to be taped for posterity. His initial idea was to do it during the live newscast, but his supervisors decided a taping session would be better in case anything went wrong. Nothing went wrong, outside of both broadcasters being visibly nervous, and the recorded proposal was shared with the television audience on the late news that night.

The two had met while working together in Billings, Montana, and when Nicholson landed a job at the Chattanooga, Tennessee, TV station, Nagel followed her, taking a job at FedEx until he was also hired at WRCB. -via Fark