That headline might sound like a game of Mad Libs or even Cards Against Humanity, but it happened. Benjamin Franklin was known as a really good swimmer who could do tricks in the water. The Founding Father was on a boat on the Thames near Chelsea, accompanied by a man who boasted about Franklin's talents. Franklin was not shy, and it took only a little encouragement for him to strip down and demonstrate his abilities in the Thames. He swam alongside the boat, showing off for about three miles. His movements were akin to what we would later call water ballet, and is now known as synchronized swimming.    

It was an impressive feat because few people actually knew how to swim at the time. Ancient people up through the Roman era were swimmers, but during the Dark Ages, it was seen as sinful, both because of the pleasure it brought and because of the exposure of one's body. Franklin was quite an advocate for bringing back the custom of swimming. Read about the incident, and about Franklin's athletic abilities at LitHub.

By the way, before you get an unwanted image in your head, this happened in 1726, when Franklin was 19 years old. -via Nag on the Lake

This video contains NSFW language. There is so much documentation about the struggle for the American colonies to separate from British rule, but for some reason we focus on one quip in a letter from John Adams to his wife about celebrating independence with "bonfires and illuminations." This custom quickly settled into fireworks, because if there's anything Americans love, it's blowing things up.

Roger Horton is back to get honest with us about the Fourth of July, which was supposed to be the Second of July. We tend to just ignore that, as we do the fact that many of the things our country was founded on were compromises that made no one happy, but got the document out that started the Revolutionary War. The way we celebrate today has little to do with the actual events that gave us the holiday, but at least we have a good time. Still, be careful out there.  

George Frandsen has been collecting coprolites since he was 14. Those are fossilized turds, or dinosaur poop. It's a subject that may not appeal to everyone, but we've learned a lot about dinosaurs by the things they left behind, so to speak. Frandsen has the world's largest coprolite collection, despite giving them away regularly to museums. In 2014, Frandsen launched the Poozeum as a virtual and traveling exhibit, hosted by various museums around the country. But as of May, the Poozeum has a permanent home in Williams, Arizona. The displays include the largest dino coprolite ever found, so big it got its own name, Barnum. There's also a statue of a T. rex on the toilet, reminiscent of Rodin's sculpture The Thinker, which has become the Poozeum's most iconic image.



You could say the Poozeum is a crappy museum, but that's kind of the point. The museum doesn't smell; after all, these are fossils that are millions of years old. They also have a gift shop where you can buy all kinds of poop-related souvenirs. The Poozeum is open every day except Monday, and admission is free. Be sure to check it out the next time you are in Arizona. -via Boing Boing

In the latest episode of Ze Frank's True Facts series, he learn about five very strange species of eel. There are more than a thousand species of eel, so you probably haven't seen anywhere near most of them. Still, all eels are fish, but not like other fish. or example, the ribbon eel is born male -all of them. But you can't reproduce like that, so some turn into females as they mature. Moray eels have a second set of jaws like a xenomorph, and some can hunt prey on land. The pelican eel is called that because of its terrifying mouth. American eels and European eels don't even have sex organs until late in life, when they grow a pair (literally), and meet up to have an orgy in the ocean, right before they die. But those facts are just a tiny taste of the weird things you will learn about eels. Expect double entendres, snide remarks, and juvenile humor, as always. This video has a 70-second skippable ad at 6:23.

See Also: Previous True Facts videos.

Woolly mammoths died out around 12,000 years ago, except for a couple of populations that were stranded by rising seawater on St. Paul Island and Wrangel Island off Siberia. These small herds flourished for much longer, thanks to plenty of vegetation and no predators. The Wrangel Island mammoths became very much inbred, and they died out around 4,000 years ago, the last of the woolly mammoths.

The assumption was that the Wrangel Island mammoths died from genetic diseases due to inbreeding. One specimen's genome showed multiple disabilities, but is that what killed the last mammoths? A new study released this week suggests not. Scientists analyzed the DNA of 14 Wrangel Island mammoths and compared their DNA to seven mainland mammoths that lived much earlier. While some anomalies were found, they weren't enough to cause extinction. Mutations can arise in a limited population, but those are often eliminated when the affected animal doesn't breed. The scientists conducting the study say that the Wrangel Island mammoths were doing just fine breeding within their small population. When they suddenly disappeared, it must have been from an environmental disaster or a disease. Read about this research that throws a new light on the extinction of the woolly mammoth at Smithsonian.

(Image credit: Lou.gruber)

LeBron James and Bronny James become the first father and son duo to be in the NBA at the same time.

Now they are teammates on the Lakers! pic.twitter.com/dITQ4WQ9RA

— NBA (@NBA) June 27, 2024

On Thursday, Bronny James of the USC Trojans made history when he was drafted into the NBA. He was pick #55 (out of 58), and went to the Los Angeles Lakers. That means he and his father, LeBron James, will be teammates. It is the first time that a father and son have played in the NBA at the same time, much less on the same team. That's because athletic careers usually do not last that long. LeBron James has been in the NBA for 21 years. Within minutes, everyone on Twitter came up with the same joke.    

Savannah James, LeBron's wife, took the jokes in stride. But the real punch line came from Grok, the Twitter chatbot available to premium members. The AI program summarizes news and trends on Twitter to present to users. Due to overwhelming "evidence," it took the story seriously.

Those who know have been telling us that artificial intelligence can have a sense of humor, but it appears that AI has a long way to go in detecting when people are telling a joke. -via Uproxx

This falcon head is a pretty good work of taxidermy, except it isn't. It's not just a simple recretion, either. Look closely, and you'll see this is a construction of found objects, specifically non-recyclable trash, placed in just the right position to make something totally different at just the right angle. This is the work of Thomas Deininger, whose work highlights environmental concerns. The intricate assemblage shows us the massive variety of trash we produce, but also shows us the wildlife it affects. The falcon head was made quite some time ago, but after an accident trashed it, the buyer came back and Deininger repaired and reworked it into this masterpiece. Let's see another one of his illusions.

The ruby-throated hummingbird is part of an exhibit of Deininger's works called Apocalyptic Ornithology at the Bernice Steinbaum Gallery in Coconut Grove, Florida. See more of Deininger's art at Instagram.  -via Everlasting Blort

The first human flight in a hot air balloon was. in 1783. The development of a parachute seems to have followed soon after. It makes sense that if a balloon will descend slowly because of the air inside, even when it's no longer hot, a similar piece of fabric can slow a falling person. However, the first parachutes were not all fabric, but were made of fabric stretched over a frame to keep its shape, like an umbrella.

Robert Cocking was a British artist, and a big fan of hot air balloons. He was in Paris in 1797 to watch André-Jacques Garnerin demonstrate a parachute that brought him to the ground after he released the hot air balloon it was attached to. Cocking wanted to do that, and spent years designing his own parachute. It was also supported with struts like an umbrella, but the fabric was cone-shaped to hold more air. It was honestly a good idea, but was not as thoroughly tested as it should have been before Cocking tried it out in 1837, at 5,000 feet above the ground with a crowd watching. Read what happened the day Robert Cocking became the first death attributed to a parachute at Amusing Planet.  -via Strange Company

Some experiments tell us that monkeys can count to three, but not to four. Is there some cognitive function that keeps them from counting higher? After all, monkeys have five fingers on each hand, and ten toes as well, so you'd think they could count at least as high as five. And how do scientists construct these experiments, anyway? You might be amused to find that they do it with magic tricks, because a monkey will display dismay and confusion when a number of objects does not match their expectations. However, it turns out that what we know as counting, and math as a whole, isn't the same for animals as it is for humans. Once scientists figured that out, the way monkeys and other animals calculate amounts makes perfect sense. Human are the weird ones here, and it doesn't have as much to do with our understanding of math as it has to do with our language.  -via Laughing Squid

More pics direct from @MBTA HQ. This is the greatest timeline to be a MBTA rider. pic.twitter.com/NMscmXEiqm

— ariloo 🌱 (@ariellelok) June 26, 2024

The Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA), often called "the T" by locals, is responsible for mass transit in Boston and 176 nearby communities. That's a lot of people to service, and the MBTA has suffered criticism for a long time. However, getting the system fixed would cost $24 billion dollars. So this past April, a group of protesters organized a rally to ask for a smaller goal: to put googly eyes on the trains. The group called Googly Eyes MBTA said, "If the trains can’t be reliable, at least they can be fun and bring a smile to the faces of over a million people per day."

It took a while, but the MBTA has come through. Googly eyes have been installed on five trolleys and trains. The public reasoning for the request was to spread joy to Bostonians when they are waiting for a train, but we suspect it was also to judge whether the T was paying any attention to the desires of the public. The appearance of trains with ridiculous faces on the front shows that they do indeed listen to citizens, although they cannot fix the system without adequate funding. And googly eyes are always a good idea. -via Metafilter 

In the past few years, we've grown familiar with the term "nepo baby" (short for nepotism), referring to Hollywood stars who got their start because their parents were Hollywood stars first. Sure, they wouldn't have made the big time without talent, but they came by that talent naturally, or else were raised with it, plus they had name recognition. What you probably haven't heard of are the many stars who had notable -or notorious- parents outside of Hollywood, or even show business of any kind. Did that help them in their careers? Only for the fact that most didn't have to struggle to survive until they got noticed, for the most part. Maybe they were able to handle fame a little better than the average Joe, but acting wasn't a part of their upbringing. Weird History takes a look at the unlikely stories of ten actors and singers who had parents with surprising stories outside of the business as scientists, politicians, war heroes, athletes, and criminals. And they managed to complete the list without Woody Harrelson.

The viral photo shows the Abraham Lincoln statue's melted head and right foot, and the legs separated from its torso. #AbrahamLincon #USA #Weather #SocialDiaryMagazine pic.twitter.com/M7uJVHYm9K

— Weekly Social Diary (@SocialDiaryMagz) June 26, 2024

A 3,000-pound statue of Abraham Lincoln sits in front of Garrison Elementary School in Washington, DC. The replica of the president's statue in the Lincoln Memorial is made of wax, installed by artist and art professor Sandy Williams IV. It's titled 40 ACRES: Camp Barker. There are ten candle wicks installed in the statue, which students and visitors were encouraged to light for short periods of time.  

This all worked out fine in February, when the statue was erected. It was scheduled to stay in place until September. But last week's record-breaking heat wave did a number on Abe, melting the wax so much that his head fell back, and is now completely gone. His legs separated from his torso. And the resulting photographs became a meme. Williams has made quite a few wax statues, and has never had one fail so spectacularly. The rest of the wax mess will be removed before students return on August 26. However, the story behind the statue and the history of its location gets a boost from the unfortunate destruction, and you can catch up on all that at Hyperallergic. -via Nag on the Lake

Grandma would rather stay in bed all day, but she's got things to do, places to go, and people to see. So she takes the show on the road with her motorized bed! Grandma is just being her usual sassy self, all from the comfort of her own bed. The first two minutes of this video are just plain crazy, with Grandma showing off her decadent lifestyle in her comfy bed. The rest is how Ross Smith made her this motorized bed out of a go-cart and a bed. Ross is underneath, doing the driving. Grandma has it easy, being chauffeured around the country without having to get dressed or even get out of the bed to use the bathroom! Well, until her bed hits a ditch at an unsafe speed. I don't believe it was 80 miles an hour, but it was certainly unsafe. And, admittedly, somewhat entertaining.  -via Born in Space

Rhinoceros poaching continues to be a big problem in South Africa. Poachers take the rhinos' horns because they are used in traditional medicine in many parts of Asia. The number of rhinos killed by poachers has been growing year by year, 499 of them in 2023. Conservationists have tried to stop poaching by removing rhinos' horns, but they grow back in about 18 months. Poachers could do this, too, but it's easier to just kill the rhino and then take its horn. Conservationists have even tried poisoning the horns, but poachers don't care, since the effects come after the sale.

A new initiative called the Rhisotope Project involves tagging a rhino's horn with small radioactive chips, two in each horn. The radiation emitted is not dangerous to the animal, and should last five years. The reason behind the scheme is because international airports, seaports, and many national borders are equipped with radiation detectors as part of the fight against the smuggling of nuclear materials. Sure, the rhino would already be dead at that point, but it would help bust the smuggling rings that support the poachers. Read how this is done and what it might mean for the survival of rhinos at AOL. -via Damn Interesting

If you had to name a mime, the only name that most of us could come up with would be Marcel Marceau. After all, it's a pretty niche talent. Marceau, who was born Marcel Mangel in 1923, admired Charlie Chaplin from a young age, but the first time he used miming skills was to thwart the Germans who occupied his country. When the Nazis invaded France in 1940, Marceau was sixteen years old. He changed his name to Marceau to hide his Jewish identity, and joined the French Resistance.

Marceau's job was to lead groups of Jewish children through forests across the Swiss border. The journey required absolute silence, and Marceau would mime his instructions to the children. During downtime, he would also entertain them. And so a unique career was launched. Read about Marceau and his World War II exploits at Messy Nessy Chic. 

(Image credit: the White House)