The United States officially entered World War II on December 8, 1941, but troop buildups had been going on for some time. The first group of American GIs landed in Belfast on Jan. 26, 1942, to aid the British in the liberation of Europe. Military publicity units on both sides of the pond knew this was a big story, and needed a "hero" to represent those 500 men in the papers. They had disembarked in a hurry after eleven days at sea. Despite being near the end of the line, Private First Class Milburn H. Henke found himself chosen to the the "first."  

Henke was with his company when a Colonel asked for a volunteer. Henke’s Lieutenant put his name forward and the Private expected he was going ashore to unload equipment.

“I was sitting on some barracks bags, and this colonel came up the gangplank, and there were about fifteen of us,” Henke would later recall. “There was a lieutenant there and he said: ‘I want a man from Company B, 133rd,’ and Lieutenant Springer, he turned around: ‘Henke, you go with him.’ When I got by the gangplank, General Hartle came to meet me. He said, ‘Do you think you can talk over a radio?’ And I said, ‘Well, if I have to, I think I can.’”

Henke met with Major General Russell P. Hartle, commanding officer of 34th Infantry Division. There was some surprise when Hartle discovered the ceremonial first soldier to go ashore was from Minnesota rather than his home state of Iowa. Yet Henke had the look of a typical United States doughboy, with an easygoing nature and good looks. The irony that the first American GI in Europe had a German surname was conveniently overlooked.

Henke posed for pictures for some time and gave interviews to the press. But his day in the sun stretched to weeks as his persona as an everyday soldier was harnessed for the war effort. Read the story of  Milburn Henke at Military History Now. -via Strange Company

(Image credit: War Office official photographer, Bainbridge (Lt))

Once upon a time, if you wanted to ski downhill, you had to hike uphill first. There were other ways to get people up a mountain, like trains or horse-drawn carriages, but you can see how this would be rather time-consuming and limited in the number of people served. There had to be a better way.

According to the association, German farmer and innkeeper Robert Winterhalder invented the world’s first overhead cable tow in 1906—skiers hooked handles onto the water-powered continuous cable above their heads, then glided uphill on their skis. Though it was easy to use, Winterhalder’s invention didn’t catch on elsewhere.

In America, the first surface lift—the umbrella designation for uphill transportation that keeps a skier’s skis on the ground—was a steam-powered toboggan tow built in Truckee, California, in 1910 and later adopted by skiers.

Canadian skier Alex Foster built the first working model of the rope tow—a continuous rope that skiers simply grabbed onto and held with their hands—in 1931 outside of Shawbridge, Quebec. By 1934, the tow rope technology had made its way to Woodstock, Vermont.

Meanwhile, in Europe, Swiss ski mountaineer and mechanical engineer Ernst Constam invented the world’s first J-bar in 1934 in Switzerland, followed by the two-passenger T-bar in 1935. Both technologies quickly caught on across Europe and the U.S.

Still, all these methods were designed for athletic people, and they were still limited in how many skiers they could serve at once. Meanwhile, ski resorts were opening in the Western US and needed to accommodate as many people as possible to turn a profit. So James Curran invented the ski chairlift, although he was neither a resort employee nor a skier! He didn't have a college degree, and he never profited from his invention. Read the story of Curran's chairlift at Smithsonian.

A mother parakeet was sold from a pet shop and left an egg behind. Alwyn Wils had raised many birds, most notable a quail chick called Albert you may have heard of. But he'd never hatched a newborn parakeet before, and had to do his research. Wils' hard work and dedication paid off when the egg not only hatched, but his new hatchling grew into a lovely white budgie. -via Digg

Firehouse cats are nothing new, as they are worth their weight in pest extermination and companionship. But Tootsy took her obligations to extreme, from her dedication to a fire horse named Old Babe, in whose stall she was born, to sliding down the fire pole as a regular mode of transportation. She sprang into action when an alarm went off, but was forbidden to ride along to an actual fire.

Tootsy was the beloved feline firefighter of Engine Company 27 on Franklin Street in Lower Manhattan. Born on the Fourth of July in 1895, Tootsy reportedly loved the smell of smoke as much as she treasured a fresh-caught mouse.

She was a genuine fire cat who loved riding on the fire engine, conversing with the firemen, and sleeping in her favorite horse’s harness. She was also quite beautiful, and drew much praise from the public and the press when she appeared in the National Cat Show at Madison Square Garden. According to the New York Press, the firemen adored Tootsy so much, they would have rather parted with their shields than lose their “white-fleeced feline fire fighter.”

Tootsy would have loved nothing more than responding to a real fire along with the firemen and the horses. She managed to do that, twice, despite the disapproval of her human overseers, when she was still a kitten. Read about Tootsy, the famous firefighting cat of Manhattan, at the Hatching Cat.  -via Strange Company

How many times have you read someone correcting pop culture errors and reminding you that you will never see penguins and polar bears in the same place? It's because polar bears live in the Arctic and penguins live in the Antarctic. Last week, the two species kind of met in the middle in St. Louis. The king and gentoo penguins of the St. Louis Zoo went on a field trip to visit the polar bears. Lucky for the penguins, the polar bears were kept behind the glass wall. -via Boing Boing

Genghis Khan founded the Mongol Empire in 1206 CE. When he died in 1227, he was at the height of his power and reportedly healthy for a man in his 60s. He had made arrangements ahead of time to be buried in an unmarked grave at a location that would remain secret. Genghis Khan's grave has never been found.

While the conqueror's influence is well known, his death is shrouded in mystery. Genghis Khan's family and followers were instructed to keep his demise as their most hidden secret, since it happened during a vital stage of their war against the Western Xia, an empire the Mongols had fought for more than 20 years, the researchers said.

To honor or sully Genghis Khan's memory, both friends and foes of the Mongols told a number of legends about his death, the scientists said. One story claims he succumbed to blood loss after getting stabbed or castrated by a princess of the Tangut people, a Tibeto-Burman tribe in northwest China. Others suggested he died of injuries sustained after tumbling from his horse, fell in battle against the Chinese or died of an infected arrow wound during his final campaign against the Western Xia.

In the new study, the researchers suggested that all of these legends were likely invented well after Genghis Khan's death.

So how did he die? A new study can't say for sure, but research gives us the most likely scenario, which you can see at Real Clear Science.

(Image credit: Иван Коржев)

Elmer McCurdy wanted to be an Old West outlaw, but he was particularly bad at it. He and his gang once used too much nitroglycerin during a train robbery and destroyed the safe they tried to break into -and its contents. A bank robbery failed when they couldn't open a safe. And for his last robbery, he targeted the wrong train, which had no money. McCurdy was eventually shot and killed by police in 1911, and that's when his adventures really began.

McCurdy’s body was taken to the Johnson Funeral Home in Pawhuska, Oklahoma. He had no immediate kin to claim the body, so it was preserved in hopes that someone would claim it. Several weeks elapsed, and still, no one showed up to claim the body. The funeral homeowner decided to embalm the body and dress him in a suit. He put up the body for public exhibition, charging people 5 cents just to take a look.

For five long years, Elmer’s body remained in the Oklahoma funeral home, till one day it was claimed. Two men, James, and Charles Patterson showed up at the funeral home and requested the body. They identified themselves as Elmer McCurdy’s long-lost brothers. The funeral director was a bit suspicious of the two, but since the attraction fell out of favor, he decided to let go of the body. He also felt that McCurdy deserved a decent burial after an extended stay in the funeral home.

McCurdy did not get a decent burial until 1977. Read the story of Elmer McCurdy's restless corpse at Sometimes Interesting. -via Strange Company 

(Image credit: W. G. Boag)

What we have here is a lesson in flatulence in the animal kingdom. We'll meet a snake that draws in air to make scary noises, insects that kill with farts, and fish that can die if they don't break wind properly. But which farts are the worst? It depends on how you define "worst." -via Digg

Every once in a while, you comes across a name listed as "John Doe, Esquire," or something like that. What does it mean? The short answer is that it means John Doe is a lawyer. However, that pretty much only pertains to American lawyers, and there is no codified rule as to the word's use. The custom descends from British titles of nobility, and to understand it, you have to go back to how other titles came about, such as that of "knight." In medieval Europe, every knight had a "squire."

This is where esquires come into play. The word itself derives from Old French, and in turn from Latin, where it means something like “shield-holder.” In the 1200s and 1300s in England, a variety of languages were used, so such figures might be referred to as the Latin armiger (“arms-holder,”) or scutifer (“shield-bearer”), or the French escuier, which became “esquire.” These terms all refer to roughly similar people. This role was generally considered moderately prestigious for young men of some wealth, but at its core it was a service job. You carry a knight’s stuff, tend to his horses, that kind of thing. “Esquire” and “squire” were names for the same gig for a few hundred years.

In 1363, the esquire’s place as a respectable social rank was codified in the Sumptuary Laws, which were essentially a huge list of what different groups of people could and could not wear. That list included esquires as a social group, alongside gentlemen and anyone else below the level of knight who actually had money and land. This was the same time that the idea of a gentry emerged in England: People who are not noble, but certainly not peasants, either. They were people worthy of being ranked above somebody in the social hierarchy.

But how did "esquire" come to mean lawyer? For the rest of the story, you'll need to go to Atlas Obscura.

(Image credit: Kenneth C. Zirkel)

My favourite species of birds are the ones named by people who clearly hate birds. (thread) pic.twitter.com/81Ztls7B2O

— Stu Royall (@stu_bot3000) February 3, 2021

There are about 10,000 known species of birds, so it stands to reason that some of them will end up with less-than-noble names. Yeah, we know about tits and boobies, but that only scratches the surface of weirdly-named birds. Stu Royall has been collecting the most head-scratchingly awful names for birds, which he presents in a Twitter thread.  

Excuse me? pic.twitter.com/bvFk5GRh64

— Stu Royall (@stu_bot3000) February 3, 2021

It gets weirder.

If you hate *birdsong* maybe find a different hobby idk pic.twitter.com/k5zMtF9zbe

— Stu Royall (@stu_bot3000) February 4, 2021

And those are just a few of the unflattering bird names Royall shows us. Replies came in with hilarious names for birds, fish, reptiles, and other species. Translations, too, like the Swedish buttdork. Read the whole thread here. -via Digg

You already knew that tardigrades are weird creatures, but you'll get way more weirdness when Ze Frank explains them. For example, they come in all shapes and colors, including transparent. In this video, we get to watch them eat diatoms and poop crystals, come back to life after being dehydrated, and reproduce by various means. Because that's how tardigrades do.

Among the wild ducks of Lake Merritt, Oakland residents noticed and soon became fans of two that really stuck out from the crowd. He was tall, dark, and handsome, with a green head and a proud stance. She was a white duck with a plume of poufy feathers on her head. And they were devoted to each other. The two ducks became social media favorites, as people shared images and videos. But those who know ducks were worried.

“When you see a duck that looks a little different, it’s probably not supposed to be there,” says Kira Kiesler, who, along with her family, runs a Bay Area animal rescue organization called Genevieve’s Gentle Hearts Rescue.

This was the case for the Lake Merritt ducks, whom some in the community call Ebony and Ivory. Both are domestic breeds, not wild like the others around them. Ebony, the black duck, is a male Cayuga. Ivory, the white duck, is a female crested duck.

“They weren’t supposed to be at Lake Merritt, which is why they were so friendly,” Kiesler adds. “Someone actually hand-raised them. And unfortunately, they dumped them there, which is a very common story.”

Read the story of how Ebony and Ivory charmed Oakland and were finally rescued and given a proper home, at the Bold Italic. Do not miss the video of Ivory taking a bath surrounded by rubber duckies. -via Metafilter

(Image credit: bentonboy)

We've heard the deepest voice from a man, now let's hear from a cat! You'll be surprised at Jack's meow. I really thought this was overdubbed at first. But there's an explanation.

Jack has a very rare form of laryngeal paralysis and his voice changed after his first surgery.  

(via Fark)

Sure, he's adorable, but having a Force-sensitive child can throw a wrench into everyday parental activities. TJ Howard, who is a physics teacher and a woodworker, also manages to draw wonderful scenes featuring the characters in The Mandalorian. For example, if Mando and Grogu were a middle class family on earth, it would be a struggle to make the child do anything he doesn't want to, like brush his teeth.

Continue reading to see more.

If one were to make a movie about the life of Eugene Jacques Bullard, it would run into two problems. First, it would appear implausible, likened to Little Big Man or Forrest Gump, except Bullard's is a true story and he drove the narrative instead of merely being there. Second, it would have to be a miniseries, because feature films aren't long enough.

Bullard was born in Georgia, but ran away from home and made his way to Scotland, where he became a professional boxer. After a bout in Paris, he stayed and made his home there. He joined the French Foreign Legion and became a highly decorated hero of World War I. Then Bullard learned to fly.

Already viewed as a hero, he was able to pull the necessary strings to enter flight school, and became the first Black American fighter pilot in history.
He flew a SPAD VII C1 with a distinctive alteration to its appearance. Painted on the outside of the fuselage was a red heart with a dagger through it. Above the heart was his personal slogan, one he would later use for the title of his unpublished memoir: Tout Le Sang Qui Coule Est Rouge; roughly, in English: “All Blood Runs Red.”
He flew with honor and distinction until his career in the air came to an abrupt halt. The Americans had entered the war and the involvement of a certain Dr. Gros, a US Army Major with racist attitudes, led to the end of the Black Sparrow’s career as a pilot.
 
But the French continued to celebrate him. He ended this part of his military career with the Military Medal, Croix de Guerre, Volunteer Combat Cross, Medal for Military Wounded (twice), World War I Medal, Victory Medal, Voluntary Enlistment Medal, Battle of Verdun Medal, Battle of Somme Medal, and the American Volunteer with the French Army Medal.
And that is when his life got interesting.

Oh yes, that was just the beginning of his story. Bullard turned to the business of the Jazz Age and made a name for himself in Paris all over again in the 1920s, and the '30s, and the '40s. Read about the amazing life of Eugene Bullard at the Jax Examiner.  -via Fark

(Image credit: U.S. Air Force)

Update: Regarding the post title, the Jax Examiner calls Bullard the Black Sparrow, but he was actually known as the Black Swallow.