Soon after the end of World War I, the US ratified the 18th Amendment, ushering in Prohibition. Returning US soldiers weren't all that enthusiastic about it, to say the least. Alcohol had been a part of military life since the American Revolution. As the 1920s dragged on, the army seemed to react to the alcohol ban the same way the rest of the country did: by ignoring it.

Observance of Prohibition in the breech was also common amongst junior officers. While commanding tank battalions and living next door to one another in renovated barracks at Camp Meade, Maryland, Dwight Eisenhower and George Patton avidly partook in the new American pastime of making their own bootleg alcohol. Eisenhower distilled gin in an unused bathtub, while Patton brewed beer, storing it in a shed outside his kitchen. One summer evening there was a sudden noise outside the Pattons’ barracks that sounded like a machine gun, followed by a series of soft booms. As their cook began screaming, Patton instinctively dove for cover. When they realized it was merely the beer bottles exploding from the heat, he rose, sheepishly explaining how much it had sounded like hostile fire. His wife Beatrice “laughed and laughed and called him ‘her hero’ and he got very red.” Omar Bradley commanded an infantry battalion in the 27th Infantry Regiment in the 1920s and took advantage of the Hawaii Division’s leisurely pace of duty to play golf several times a week. At the end of one round, the 33-year-old teetotaler drank his first glass of whiskey, which he liked enough to make “a habit of having a bourbon and water or two (but never more) before dinner” for the rest of his life.

Enforcement of Prohibition in the military varied from place to place during the thirteen "dry" years, just as it always did. Read about Prohibition and alcohol regulations in the military at Real Clear Defense. -via Strange Company

Luna wanted to be an astronaut ever since she was a little girl. The story, however, turns out to be about shoes. This is the first project released from Taiko Studios, which was formed last year by a group of ex-Disney animators.

Neatorama regulars know we love the opportunity to post videos of Pallas's cats, because they look so awesome. You might want to learn more about these small wild cats of the Asian highlands. Like stuff about their ears.

2. Its scientific name means "ugly-eared."

Later on, the cat's scientific name was changed from Felis manul to Otocolobus manul—not exactly the most flattering moniker, since Otocolobus is Greek for “ugly-eared.”

3. Its unusual ears come in handy.

Some may consider the Pallas’s cat’s ears to be ugly, while others might think they’re adorable. Arguments aside, the cat’s round ears—which sit flat on the sides of its head—are one of the feline's most distinguishing features. As Crystal DiMiceli, a former wild animal keeper at Brooklyn's Prospect Park Zoo, explains in the above video, having low-positioned ears helps the cat conceal itself—they don’t poke up to reveal the animal's position while it's hiding or hunting.

Read about the rest of the Pallas's cat at Mental Floss.

(Image credit: Albinfo)

The above video, with added Yakety Sax, is only one portion of the low-speed police chase that led cops through Garland, Mesquite, and Dallas, Texas. Stoffon Lorains Cooper was stopped for speeding through a school zone, and fled when the officer discovered warrants against him. The loops through a parking lot were not the craziest part of the chase.

Cooper's most daring maneuver, caught on video by Texas Sky Ranger, was to thread the vehicle through a car wash, turn around and drive right past police, over a curb and back onto the street.

Dallas police handed Cooper over to Garland police, who charged him with the original warrants plus evading arrest. -via reddit

Art can really bring people together. Gaddafo's mom painted an egret and thought no one would like it. Gaddafo thought differently and posted it to reddit. It was a real hit!

Then k__z painted the mom and the painting.

Then lilyofthenight jumped in and painted the guy who painted the mom.

Then Sketch_Study did a quick digital painting of all of them! This all happened in two days. We shall wait to see how much deeper this will go.  

Minute Earth explains the science behind fingerprints: how they are formed, why they develop their individual patterns, and the math on why they don't replicate in nature. It's pretty detailed, and makes you wonder how they discovered all this. -via Digg

A few months ago, Chris Hallbeck began a story about a house monster at his webcomic Maximumble. That story was spun off into its own comic called Pebble and Wren. Pebble is the shape-shifting house monster and Wren is the little girl he belongs to. To set up the comics shown here, they were playing an antigravity game when Pebble's horns pierced the ceiling. If you enjoyed these, you have 127 comics to catch up on.  

Whether you call it duck tape or duct tape, you are correct. The original name is duck tape, and now it's the brand name. But people call it duct tape because it is used to repair ducts as well. This video from Insider traces the history of duct tape and the process of making it. Don't miss the roll of duck tape that's several feet wide!  -via Geeks Are Sexy

Britain's worst ice skating accident occurred on January 16, 1867, at Regent's Park in London. It must have been a fine day, as hundreds of people were skating on the lake.

At about a quarter-past four, when a large number of persons were skating and sliding on the western side of the lake upon an area of water probably of six acres, the ice suddenly, and without the least warning, gave way and broke into thousands of pieces. From one to two hundred persons were immersed.

It's difficult enough to save one person from an icy lake, let alone hundreds. In the end, 41 people died that day, ranging from wealthy businessmen to park workers to mothers and children. The British Newspaper archive has eye-witness accounts of the carnage and its aftermath.  -via Strange Company

The Greeks had a story for everything. You've heard "Pandora's box" all your life as a term for opening up something you shouldn't because you don't know what's in there. The original story is a cautionary tale about curiosity and temptation. Pandora gets the blame for all the evils of the world, yet it was Zeus who set her up to take the fall. This TED-Ed lesson from Iseult Gillespie has the story. -via Laughing Squid

Some people get tattoos to cover up scars from burns, cuts, birthmarks, amputations, and other injuries. Others use tattoos to incorporate those scars into art! It's a way of celebrating the skin's history, and often the person's sense of humor, too. In the image above, tattoo artist Charlotte Glatt turned Linnea's scar into the tractor beam of an alien abduction!   

Tattoo artist Eric Catalano did a bang-up job giving fingernails to a man who had lost parts of two fingers. Bored Panda has a gallery of 68 clever tattoos that incorporate body anomalies.

In 2014, Matt Bray posted a video he called 100 Days of Dance in which he learned the Napoleon Dynamite dance in 100 days. The next year, we posted his followup, 100 Places of Dance, in which he danced in 100 different locations. Bray has been busy since then. He's traveled the world to dance with people- at least a thousand of them.

"This video was literally just me flying to a country by myself, walking up to strangers in a cool spot I wanted to film at, and asking them if they would be willing to dance with me," said Bray, explaining the process. "There was no big production behind this or any organization."

Despite having never traveled outside the country before, Bray pushed through feeling "nervous or uncomfortable" when walking up to strangers to film a complex dance, and came out the other end with "by far, the most rewarding video."   

The video will leave you smiling, even if it's just on the inside. Read more about Bray's dance odyssey at Mashable.

Tony Beckham was leaving for work Monday morning when he spotted a man looking into a window of his house in Wellington, Florida. That window led to his 14-year-old daughter's room, in which she was dressing for school.

"I screamed, 'Hey what are you doing?! Then he took off running," Beckham said.

Beckham, a former cornerback for the Tennessee Titans, chased after the man and tackled him to the ground. He held him there until deputies with the Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office arrived.

Beckham also played for the Detroit Lions. Geoffrey Cassidy was taken to a hospital for treatment of facial fractures, then was charged with lewd and lascivious behavior.  -via Fark

(Image credit: Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office)

via Gfycat

When a sign says "Please Don't Touch," some people will be bound and determined to do just that. Once you stop laughing at the instant karma in this .gif, you might wonder what a kūkupa is. Like the sign says (and you should believe this sign), the bird is also known as the New Zealand wood pigeon. It is also called kereru. For pigeons, they grow pretty big, up to 22 inches long! That's big enough for a resident to throw his weight around. -via reddit

Check out your ear. Do you see this little bump? That’s called Darwin’s tubercle. It used to help you move your ears around. Now that we have super-flexible necks, we don’t need these anymore. (3/8) pic.twitter.com/2OlVWEu6gT

— Dorsa Amir (@DorsaAmir) January 15, 2019

Evolutionary anthropologist Dorsa Amir shares some parts of the human body and some human reflexes that serve no purpose for us now. However, these vestigial body parts were once important for things like moving our ears and climbing trees. See, the process of natural selection doesn't make us shed organs just because we don't use them, unless getting rid of them actually helps us survive. But if the body part is no longer important, it doesn't need to be maintained at full strength over generations. Amir also mentions some body parts we once thought were vestigial, but turn out to be possibly useful to us even now. Read Amir's Twitter thread here. -via Boing Boing