Students of American history learn that European explorers, conquerors, and settlers brought diseases that ravaged the Americas in the 14th and 15th centuries. However, the absolute devastation those pathogens wrought wasn't fully understood for a long time. The ability of relatively small armies to conquer entire civilizations on their home turf wasn't due to superior force, strategy, or technology as much as it was due to microscopic invaders -and it wasn't limited to smallpox, either.

After 12,000 years of separation, Native Americans met Europeans on unequal terms. Almost all the major species of domesticated livestock were from Eurasia, and the livestock that tend to live closest to humans (cow, sheep, goat, pig, and horse) had been living with Europeans for thousands of years. These provided plentiful opportunities for diseases to pass from animal to human and vice versa, and to spread across Eurasia, from eastern China to western Spain. When Christopher Columbus arrived in the Caribbean for the second time, in 1493, he planned to settle. He arrived with 17 ships, 1,500 people, and hundreds of pigs and other animals. As soon as they landed on December 8, the pigs, which had been isolated in the very bottom of the boat, were released.

The next day, the Europeans began to fall ill, Columbus included. Native Americans began to die. This was probably swine flu, to which Native Americans had no prior exposure. Twenty-three years later, in 1516, the Spanish historian Bartolomé de las Casas wrote of the island that is now Haiti and the Dominican Republic: “Hispaniola is depopulated, robbed and destroyed … because in just four months, one-third of the Indians [the Spaniards] had in their care have died.” Two years later in Memorial on Remedies for the Indies, he wrote that “of the 1,000,000 souls there were in Hispaniola, the Christians have left but 8,000 or 9,000, the rest have died.” But worse was to come.

Without the diseases that drastically reduced the population of the Americas, the world's history and demographic makeup might be quite different today. At the same time, the trade routes between the Old World and the New World suddenly globalized the food we eat. Europeans making their way to the Americas changed everything in a short span of time, bringing together what continental drift took millions of years to separate. Imagine at some distant point in the future, archaeologists (or even paleontologists) who cannot read our written records found evidence of these massive changes taking place suddenly in the physical record. Read about those changes and what they meant at The Atlantic.

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Hobos have been around since the railroad system made traveling across America possible. Itinerant workers rode the rails to where jobs were available, as best they could. Their numbers grew when unemployment did, and they developed a system leave messages for each other. Or did they? Historians know that the "hobo code" we've all read about is not what we've been told before. -via Kottke

Barbara Lamarr as one of the early vamps of Hollywood, with a public life of glamour and gossip, and a real life that is somewhat of a mystery, due to her habit of making up interesting stories. Lamarr came from a vaudeville family, went to California to perform a burlesque act with her sister, then moved to writing screenplays for film, and eventually starred in several movies herself, one in which she convinced Benito Mussolini to appear. Offscreen, there was also a kidnapping, four marriages, and endless partying.    

She was the toast of the town, often sleeping no more than two hours a night to fit in all of her merrymaking. The five years following her big break were filled with a lot of joy, but also a lot of drugs, tapeworm-filled crash diets, and a struggle to prove herself a capable mother. She had to stage the adoption of her own son, Marvin, years after his birth as she’d had him out of wedlock.

Read about the outrageous life of Barbara Lamarr at Messy Nessy Chic.

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Take a stroll down memory lane with a compilation of snippets from the biggest song of each year from 1940 to last year. That's 78 songs! No problem, it's easy to skip around and find the years you want to hear. But how do you define the biggest song of the year? In this case, it's the song that stayed at the top of Billboard's pop music chart the longest. In some cases, it wasn't the biggest-selling song, but if you were around, you no doubt remember it. Some of those #1 hits may surprise you (see 1974). If you want to see the UK version of the same idea, you'll find that video at Laughing Squid.  

Sunday, August 26, is National Dog Day. It's only appropriate that it would fall in the dog days of summer. With that in mind, give your dog an extra hour in the park today, or an extra game of ball in the back yard. But don't compare your dog to the most notable dogs in history, like Laika or Hachiko or Sergeant Stubby.

The military title in this pit bull mix’s name isn’t just there to be cute; it’s a well-earned honor. During World War I, the former stray served with the 102nd Infantry alongside his owner, John Robert Conroy, who had smuggled him into France when he was deployed. But Stubby’s keen sense of smell and hearing proved to be quite valuable to the unit; he would alert the men to incoming gas attacks and helped rescue many wounded soldiers. But it was by sniffing out a German spy that Stubby earned the rank of sergeant.

Read 12 such stories of honorable dogs at Mental Floss.

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This 5-year-old is feeling good after her first hair cut, and she tries her best to explain it to us. She's very good at describing the ultimate happiness, as she relates it to her experiences so far in life. No one has felt such joy since Navin Johnson saw his name in the new phone book. -via Digg

In Germany, when highway traffic slows to a walking speed or stops completely, all vehicles are obliged to move to the side to create an open lane in the middle. This free lane, or Rettungsgasse, is for emergency vehicles only, and must be wide enough for a firetruck or snowplow. While regular traffic may be partially off the shoulder, they aren't moving anyway. Meanwhile, ambulances and wreckers can speed along on the pavement. An English translation of German Wikipedia explains how Rettungsgasse works, as well as traffic jam rules for other countries.  -via TYWKIWDBI

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The Stanley Hotel in in Estes Park, Colorado, is famous for inspiring Stephen King to write his novel The Shining. But the evil spirits from King's imagination are not the only intruders bringing notoriety to the hotel. A black bear wandered into the hotel lobby Wednesday night, possibly looking for a room, while 300 guests slept through the invasion. The bear climbed on the furniture while a desk clerk stayed very still and recorded part of the encounter. After a while, finding the service unacceptably slow, the bear left on its own. -via Boing Boing 

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Ever since home video became a thing, kids have wanted to remake Star Wars. This group actually did it. Byron Ruf and friends remade the whole movie on their own, although they skipped a few scenes you really don't need, so it comes in at barely over an hour. The attention to detail meant even having a Stormtrooper knock his head during an entrance. There are a few improvements, such as Luke not looking straight down into a lightsaber, Han shot first, and in the end, Chewie gets his medal. Incidentally, I love that the shortest kid played Chewbacca. It's awesome. (via reddit)

You know John Muir as the adventurer who helped create America's national park system. In 1897, Muir wrote about his 1880 exploration of Alaska, a trip during which he found a new best friend, a dog named Stickeen. The dog was not demanding; rather he was independent and aloof, giving no benefit to the team, yet he followed Muir everywhere. That included a solo exploration of a glacier during a storm.

The weather was now making quick changes, scattering bits of dazzling brightness through the wintry gloom at rare intervals, when the sun broke forth wholly free, the glacier was seen from shore to shore with a bright array of encompassing mountains partly revealed, wearing the clouds as garments, while the prairie bloomed and sparkled with irised light from myriads of washed crystals. Then suddenly all the glorious show would be darkened and blotted out.

Stickeen seemed to care for none of these things, bright or dark, nor for the crevasses, wells, moulins, or swift flashing streams into which he might fall. The little adventurer was only about two years old, yet nothing seemed novel to him. Nothing daunted him. He showed neither caution nor curiosity, wonder nor fear, but bravely trotted on as if glaciers were playgrounds. His stout, muffled body seemed all one skipping muscle, and it was truly wonderful to see how swiftly and to all appearance heedlessly he flashed across nerve-trying chasms six or eight feet wide. His courage was so unwavering that it seemed to be due to dullness of perception, as if he were only blindly bold; and I kept warning him to be careful. For we had been close companions on so many wilderness trips that I had formed the habit of talking to him as if he were a boy and understood every word.

On the way back, the snow worsened, and the original path was lost. Muir found himself on an ice island, with wide crevasses surrounding. There was one small ice bridge, so Muir carefully chipped handholds and footholds in it until he could cross, although he was well aware that it might be his last adventure. But what about Stickeen? It was at that moment that the dog seemed to realize that ice was slippery. Read the adventures of John Muir and Stickeen at Longform. It is a beautifully-written story. -via Metafilter

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Have you ever wanted to dance like a professional? Of course! New motion capture software developed by a team at Berkeley can transfer body moves from one person to another- on video. You can read the particulars in their paper here. Sure, it's a breakthrough in video technology, but you can see right now that this will be used to produce big musical production numbers without hiring a full set of dancers. And it won't be limited to dancing. Someone, somewhere, will produce videos of people going places and doing things that they never did in real life. -via Digg

Biddy Mason was born into slavery in Georgia. A Mormon family named Smith took her along when they moved to Salt Lake City, then San Bernardino, then Los Angeles. Mason was technically free when she crossed into California in 1851, but was probably not informed of her rights, and kept working for the Smiths. Five years later, the Smiths intended to move to Texas, where Mason would again be a slave. California law only allowed such a move for adults who volunteered to return to slavery. Mason's free friends came to her rescue.

To keep them safe, Mason and the other Smith “slaves” were taken to the city jail in Los Angeles. In January, 1856, all eyes were on the courtroom of U.S. District Judge Benjamin Hays as the trial began. Smith claimed that Mason and the 14 other people he had kept in the canyon were “members of his family” who voluntarily offered to go with him to Texas. Although Mason was not allowed to testify against a white person in court, Judge Hays invited her into his chambers, where she gave an entirely different account of what had happened.

“I have always done what I have been told to do,” Mason told the judge. “I always feared this trip to Texas since I first heard of it. Mr. Smith told me I would be just as free in Texas as here.” When the judge explained that, due to a state law, her minor children could not be taken to a state where they could become enslaved, Mason replied, “I do not want to be separated from my children, and do not in such case wish to go.”

On January 19, Judge Hays ruled in favor of Mason and confirmed she was free. “All of the said persons of color are entitled to their freedom and are free forever,” he wrote. He hoped they would “become settled and go to work for themselves—in peace and without fear.”

Mason went to work for a doctor as a nurse and midwife, and eventually saved enough money to buy a piece of land. And then another. This was at a time when Los Angeles had around 2,000 people, so she got in on the ground floor of a business that boomed, and Mason eventually became one of the richest women in California, and certainly the richest black woman. But Aunt Biddy was about more than real estate.

Mason’s small wood frame house at 311 Spring Street was not just a family home, it became a “refuge for stranded and needy settlers.” She also apparently ran a daycare on the property for working women and allowed civic meetings to be held there. In 1872, a group of black Angelenos founded the First African Methodist Episcopal Church at her house; the church met at the Mason home until they were able to move to their own building.

Read the story of Biddy Mason, who became "Aunt Biddy" and then "Grandma Mason," and her influence on L. A. at Curbed Los Angeles. -via Strange Company

Mother Ship

In 1959, Jackie Gleason had a home built in Cortland Manor, New York, that resembled a flying saucer. It was completely round, and everything in it was round as well: the counters, bar, fireplace, staircase, even the shower doors curved along with the building. That house, dubbed "Mother Ship," along with a guesthouse (also round) called "Spaceship," and a third house that isn't round, on eight acres is now for sale. Gleason's eight-foot diameter round bed is included. Jackie Gleason was interested in UFOs for quite some time, although he wasn't quite a believer.

Spaceship

Despite a fear of flying, Gleason developed a fascination with UFOs and flying saucers, possibly as part of his attraction to parapsychology, witchcraft, extrasensory perception, reincarnation, mental telepathy, clairvoyance and all things paranormal. An avid reader, Gleason amassed a vast library (over 1,700 titles) of paranormal books and materials which now reside in the University of Miami library and are catalogued at LibraryThing. Gleason appeared regularly on a paranormal-themed overnight radio show hosted by John Nebel, where he revealed his skepticism by offering $1 million to anyone who could offer physical proof of aliens visiting Earth.

No one ever took the million, but there is a story involving Richard Nixon that got some traction despite Gleason wanting to keep it secret. There is no evidence that it's true, but you can read the story at Mysterious Universe. -via Strange Company

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People who grew up with video games look at a pinball machine and think that there's no strategy, it's just a matter of keeping the ball in play and listening to random noises. Those of us who grew up playing pinball know better. I was never the greatest pinball player, but I managed pretty well to keep the ball in play long enough to score points, but not nearly as well as someone who had studied a machine and maximized his/her strategy. Roger Sharpe knows how to do that, and gives us some tips on the intricacies of scoring big in pinball. -via Boing Boing

The pavement fell into a sinkhole on Poplar Plains Road in Toronto. City workers placed cones around it, but months went by with no repairs in sight. Then someone planted tomatoes in it! The neighbors began taking care of the garden, providing tomato cages and water for the plants. The plants grew and began producing tomatoes. The city continued to ignore the hole, until pictures were posted at reddit. Then CBC got hold of the story. The publicity got the attention of city officials. Last week, one day after the story hit the news, city officials were out repairing the hole. The tomato plants will be transferred to a community garden. -via Mashable

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