NAZI GERMANY'S ONLY DECLARATION OF WAR

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Nazi Germany declared war officially on only one nation--the United States. This declaration was issued on December 11, 1941--four days after the attack on Pearl Harbor and over two years after World War II officially started on September 1, 1939. Germany's mutual defense treaty with Japan did not obligate Germany to declare war against America. The treaty required Germany to assist Japan only if Japan had been attacked--not when Japan was the aggressor.

Hitler was actually an admirer of the USA with its vast areas for living space and its massive industrial base. He believed that America on the whole was comprised of a Nordic master race largely in proper control of its "undesirable" minorities through racial segregation, eugenics laws, and Indian reservations. On the the other hand, he was convinced that this vision of a "pure" America had been corrupted by Roosevelt and his "Jewish ruling elite" (which is fairly ironic, considering that the Roosevelt administration was actually rather anti-Semitic).

Hitler also realized that America's entry into WWI was a pivotal element in the defeat of Germany, and he had no real desire to repeat the same scenario.

Why then did Hitler nonetheless declare war on the United States? Many theories abound, but one factor certainly was the fact that Roosevelt was already clearly supporting the Allies in the ongoing conflict in numerous ways, including sending millions of tons of materials through Lend-Lease and engaging German warships on the oceans. A formal declaration of war meant that the Germans were free to turn their U-boat wolfpacks loose on the Atlantic seaboard to disrupt totally the movement of supplies to Europe--a tactic which came dangerously close to succeeding. An additional popular theory is that Hitler naively believed that the Japanese would quickly defeat the Americans and would then open a second front against the Soviet Union in the Far East. Finally, there is simply the issue of Hitler's ego. If there was ultimately going to be war between American and Germany anyway, Hitler did not want Roosevelt to beat him to declaring it.

Hitler himself set forth in detail his purported justifications for taking on the USA.

Many historians believe that Hitler originally had no territorial ambitions against the continental United States and that had America practiced strict non-interventionism, der Führer would have been content merely with sharing the Eastern Hemisphere with his Japanese and Italian allies (at least for a while).

THE TOTO DISPLACEMENT

The original stage play of The Wizard of Oz did not feature Dorothy's canine, Toto. That role was instead filled by Imogene, a cow. It was much easier to use live actors in a spacious bovine costume than trying to train a live dog.

Imogene did appear in some of the Oz books which were sequels to the original adventure. Her milk production depended on her mood--when she was contemplative and ruminating--chocolate. When she was contented--normal whole milk. When she was excited--butter.  When she was mad--sour cream. When she was gloomy--skim. She could also produce a magic golden healing elixir in the event of a medical emergency.

THANKSGIVING CHRONOLOGICAL ANOMALIES

In 1621, the Pilgrims at Plymouth Colony celebrated the first Thanksgiving along with their guests from the Wampanoag Tribe, who contributed five deer to the communal meal.

Well, actually, it was not really the first Thanksgiving. On September 8, 1565, Don Pedro Menendez de Aviles from Spain landed at what is now St. Augustine, Florida, and was peacefully greeted by the Timucua Tribe. He celebrated a Thanksgiving Mass in gratitude for his safe arrival in the New World and broke bread with the natives (most likely, hardtack, along with chickpeas, wine, and salted pork from the Spanish supplies and fish, game, beans, corn and squash from the locals).

But what about the French? On June 30, 1564, over a year before the Spanish gluttony, French explorer Rene Goulaine de Laudonnière organized a Thanksgiving feast for his crew and the Timucuas near what is now Jacksonville, Florida. The French provisions had been pretty well depleted, but the natives saved the day by providing a variety of grains, fruits and game--including barbecued alligator. 

So, was the 1621 shindig at least the third Thanksgiving? Maybe not. There were numerous other explorers who provided thanks when they safely arrived in America, and, no doubt, some of these occasions involved the Europeans sharing food with the Native Americans who greeted them (or, more likely, accepting food from the Native Americans who greeted them). However, the passage of time has obfuscated what actually went on in these other encounters, so we cannot say for sure how many Thanksgivings preceded 1621.

So, why do U.S. families normally count the Pilgrims' dinner party as the first Thanksgiving? Well, duh. The victors get to write the history, and the English and their descendants eventually elbowed the French and Spanish out of what became the USA.

Speaking of Thanksgiving, do not forget that you should NOT wash your turkey.

MORE FUN THAN A BARREL OF WELL, YOU KNOW...

In the ubiquitous toy Barrel of Monkeys, which features a plastic barrel containing a bunch of plastic monkeys, any single pair of the monkeys can be joined together in over 80 different combinations.  As a result, biochemists for nearly fifty years have used the monkeys to help them visualize how the molecules in complex proteins and viruses could be constructed and linked together. 

One of the original creators of the Barrel of Monkeys, Leonard Marks, was inspired to make the toy when he was standing around in a store aimlessly playing with replacement links for snow chains for tires.

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DIRTY BIRD--DON'T WASH THAT TURKEY!

 

According to the USDA, you should NOT rinse raw poultry or other meats in an attempt to wash off the bacteria. There will still be plenty of germs imbedded in the flesh, while the remaining salmonella, listeria, or E. coli will become suspended in a cloud which will settle over every square inch of your kitchen and any exposed utensils—similar to the toothbrush-contaminating fecal mist which you generate every time you flush the toilet. Instead, you should get the fowl straight into the oven with the minimum amount of handling possible. Heat is the only way you will get your turkey sterile.

The fact that your grandmother washed her turkeys for years and never got sick from the process is not proof that she was right--only that she was lucky.

For further tips on preparing a healthy Thanksgiving turkey, check with Food Safety News.

THE VERDANT DMZ

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One of the most dangerous de facto wildlife preserves in the world is the Demilitarized Zone consisting of a 2.4 mile (4 km) wide strip running along the 155 mile (250 km) border between North and South Korea. It was farmland for over 5,000 years, but it has reverted to its natural state ever since 1953, when most human activity was eliminated from the area with certain narrow exceptions--some covert and illegal, some not.

Despite the presence of minefields, thousands of species of plants, birds and mammals now thrive in the zone, including possibly the rare Korean tiger and the Amur leopard (pictured above).

Naturalists are very concerned that any political reunification of the Koreas would result in the immediate "development" of the area. These naturalists will probably have a long time before actually having to address this issue.

WHAT WOULD YOU PAY FOR A WIDOW'S MITE?

Numismatists who have collected American coins for a while are aware that there are many examples which can bring prices in the five, six, seven, or even eight figures. These collectors are sometimes gobsmacked to learn that numerous Roman and other ancient coins can easily be obtained for something like ten dollars or even less. Logic would dictate that the passage of thousands of years would mean that the coins would be scarce, hard to find, and very expensive. Logic would be wrong in this situation.

There are certainly ancient coins of extreme value, especially those made of gold or silver. However, brass and copper coins of the same time period were so common that they were sometimes used as ship ballast. Furthermore, due to the scarcity of banks, paper money, and electronic financial transactions, most citizens hid their coins in a concealed clay pot or the like for safekeeping. Disease, civil unrest, and invading armies often meant that the owners would never recover their treasures, and the hoarded coinage pops up centuries later in excavations and the like.

As an example, the coins pictured above were given to an American Army officer in 1944 by Italian street urchins in exchange for chocolate and other luxury items. The boys had apparently found them in the rubble of a building which had been shelled. They are today probably worth a total of about $500.

On the other hand, there is the tale of David Crisp, the British chef who uncovered in 2010 a hoard of over 52,000 Roman coins in Somerset worth several hundred thousand pounds.

The bottom line is, regardless of the value or lack of value of the coin, it is still cool to be able to own something minted thousands of years ago which may have been handled by someone like Cicero, Pompey, or even Jesus himself.

KHRUSHCHEV'S EXCELLENT RETORT

In 1956, Nikita Khrushchev, as First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, commenced the process of de-Stalinization. De-Stalinization was the systematic eradication of the policies and personality cult of Joseph Stalin, who died in 1953. One small example of the process was the renaming of "Stalingrad" to "Volgograd."

During one speech of Khrushchev when he was discussing the program, an anonymous person in the crowd shouted out the question, "Why didn't you, when you were an official in Stalin's government, oppose Stalin when he was in power instead of waiting until after his death before attacking his policies?" Khrushchev in a bellicose tone demanded that the heckler step forward and identify himself. When the heckler failed to do so, Khrushchev smirked and smugly stated, "Now you know why."

For more information on Khrushchev, go to the History Channel website.

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"AND ON HIS FARM HE HAD SOME CADAVERS..."

There have been seven other body farms created in the United States since the first one was established in Tennessee in 1981. All are run by universities. In addition to the one in Tennessee, there are two in Texas and one each in Colorado, North Carolina, Florida, Virginia, and Illinois. Similar facilities have also been established in Australia, India, Canada, and the United Kingdom. 

In a body farm, donated corpses are left to rot in a variety of controlled conditions, and the rate and circumstances of each decomposing body provides baseline data for homicide investigations. The farms are also used for training homicide investigators and carrion-detecting dogs.

The body farm in Illinois, located near Carbondale and run by Southern Illinois University, uses both pig and human remains in its studies. It has achieved significantly different results from some of its sister farms, due to the region's lower temperatures. low elevation, highly acidic soil, high average wind speed, and poor soil drainage. This farm is also investigating what effects various postmortem treatment of the corpses (consistent with what a murderer might do) have on the remains.

There are currently 1,300 persons who are on the list to donate their bodies (once they are no longer using them) to the Tennessee facility.

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"...WHERE IS THY STING?"

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In 1983, Dr. Justin Schmidt established the famous "Schmidt Sting Pain Index." This index measures the amount of pain inflicted by the stings of different Hymenoptera (including wasps, bees and ants) on a scale from zero to four.

Dr. Schmidt, from the Southwest Biological Institute in Tucson, Arizona, has been stung over 1,000 times by over 150 species of insects. His scale is subjective and based on the level of pain he perceived as a result of each encounter.

He also provides vivid descriptions for various stings--almost like a wine snob discussing a particular vintage. For example, a bullet ant--one of the few arthropods who has earned the coveted 4.0+ rating on the scale: “Pure, intense, brilliant pain. Like walking over flaming charcoal with a three inch nail embedded in your heel.” Another high roller at 4.0, the tarantula hawk wasp (pictured above): “Blinding, fierce, shockingly electric. A running hair drier has just been dropped into your bubble bath.” For the lowly sweat bee, who scored only a wussy 1.0 on the scale: "Light, ephemeral, almost fruity. As if a tiny spark has singed a single hair on your arm." The paper wasp, a strong contender at 3.0: "Caustic & burning. Distinctly bitter aftertaste. Like spilling a beaker of hydrochloric acid on a paper cut."

It is always refreshing to encounter someone who so obviously enjoys his work.

THE BARBIE-COOKIE CONFLATION

We have already learned about "Growing Up Skipper" and "Slumber Party Barbie." There is still yet another disaster in the Barbie pantheon. In 1997, Mattel teamed up with Nabisco and produced "Oreo Barbie." You would have thunk that someone in these two companies, before they released the African-American version of the doll, would have realized that "Oreo" is a modern derogatory term for what used to be called an "Uncle Tom" and refers to a person who is black on the outside but white on the inside.

Oreo Barbie copyrighted by Mattel.
Image via Wikimedia

WERE VIKINGS HORNY?

Despite numerous cartoons and other depictions to the contrary, there is no evidence that Vikings ever wore helmets with horns on them. While some pre-Viking cultures possibly had individuals who sported headgear with antlers or horns attached thereon, the wearers were generally priests who donned such a cap for ceremonial occasions and not a warrior who would prefer to avoid having his helmet catch on tree branches or other objects when he is running or fighting an opponent.

The horned helmet stereotype sprang primarily from the minds of creative Scandinavian artists in the 19th Century. The imagery became ubiquitous as a result of the costumes used in Richard Wagner's  “Der Ring des Nibelungen” opera in the 1870s.

For more information on Norsemen cerebral fashions, please click on the History Channel website.

RATTLESNAKE LUNCHTIME RITUALS

A rattlesnake, like other pit vipers such as the cottonmouth and copperhead, has pits on the sides of its head which detect infrared radiation which is produced by potential warm-blooded prey. Normally, when dealing with a juicy rat or other mammal, the snake will strike, inject its venom, and then withdraw so that the animal can go through its death throes without biting or scratching the serpent. Once the victim has shuffled off this mortal coil, the reptile will leisurely ingest it.

Birds, however, are another problem. If the snake bites the bird and then releases it, the bird could easily fly an inconvenient distance far away before it dies. Therefore, if the snake has struck avian prey, it will hold onto it firmly for dear life (or more accurately, for dear death) until the bird is deceased and ready for swallowing.

The ability to distinguish between the best methods for swallowing mammals and birds is instinctive, not learned. Rattlesnakes raised from birth in captivity, on the first time they encounter a fowl, display the same savvy behavior as their companions in the wild.

If you like rattlesnakes (and how could you not!), you have got to make the trek to Albuquerque sometime in your life to see the American International Rattlesnake Museum. It is definitely cool.

Oh, and with respect to the attached image? Don't try this at home. It isn't very sanitary.

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THE STAR WARS HOLIDAY SPECIAL--AND YOU THOUGHT THAT JAR JAR BINKS WAS BAD...

Chewbacca from Star Wars has a wife named Malla (short for "Mallatobuck"), a son named Lumpy (short for "Lumpawarrump") and a father named Itchy (short for "Attichitcuk").  

These intimate personal details of Chewbacca's life were revealed to the world in the infamous November 17, 1978 TV broadcast of the two-hour Star Wars Holiday Special, which featured Harvey Korman, Bea Arthur, Art Carney, and all of the principals of the first Star Wars movie, including "Darth Vader and his Raiders." You get a whole new perspective on the Star Wars universe when you see a Dark Lord of the Sith and his Imperial Stormtroopers prancing around the stage in a song and dance number. My wife and I watched the show over 45 years ago on our little Zenith black-and-white portable, and I still have flashbacks to that traumatic experience.

David Hofstede, who authored the scholarly treatise of  What Were They Thinking?: The 100 Dumbest Events in TV History ranks this program as "the worst two hours of television ever." Nathan Rabin, noted film and music critic, opined that it may have been "ultimately written and directed by a sentient bag of cocaine."

The show was mercifully never rebroadcast and never released on any recorded media. Any copies available to the public are the pirated products of nerds who had access to what would have been very expensive videotaping equipment at the time. Carrie Fischer (Princess Leia) compelled George Lucas to give her a copy in exchange for her narration of a commentary for a DVD of Star Wars films. She played the tape of the Holiday Special at the end of parties at her house when she wanted to hustle the guests out to go home.

Photo via Wikimedia

ALL DEEP SPACE MISSIONS BEGIN WITH A PORKCHOP

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A "pork chop plot" is used by aeronautical engineers to compute when a given spacecraft should be launched to intersect a particular planet or other destination in space at a specific time. It requires consideration of multiple factors including the time required for the mission, the consumption of fuel, and the depth and angle of orbit required to complete the tasks of the spacecraft at its arrival point. For reasons beyond my ken (no, I am in fact definitely NOT a rocket scientist), the shortest and most direct way to the destination is not necessarily the one which consumes the least fuel. 

The plot is called a pork chop because the resulting graph is shaped, well, like a pork chop, as can be seen within pages 8  through 10 of this analysis of a pork chop plot for a Mars landing.

The Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California is the facility which does most of the brainwork for NASA in planning NASA's deep space missions. In planning a trajectory for one of the Voyager missions, JPL ran over 10,000 porkchop plots and finally settled on about 100 possibilities. 

A major consideration in the planning was to insure that no planetary encounters occurred near Thanksgiving or Christmas. Perhaps the motivation for this restriction was so that members of the public could appreciate a planetary flyby without a major holiday competing for their attention. A far more likely reason is that the space agencies did not want hordes of employees having to come to work on December 25 voicing opinions concerning the ancestry or sexual habits of supervisors who would schedule a flyby on Christmas.

The photo is, of course, of Pluto, the smallest and outermost PLANET (up yours, International Astronomical Union!) in our solar system, and was taken by NASA's New Horizons spacecraft.

POT PARTIES IN THE OLD SOUTH

During the American Civil War, one popular social event of patriotic Southern belles was the urine drive. They would go from house to house and collect hundreds of gallons of "chamber ley," also known as "pee." The liquid gold was refined to make saltpeter, which, along with charcoal and sulphur, is one of the three components of gunpowder.

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THE SUPERMAN SARTORIAL STAGNATION

In the 1950s TV series The Adventures of Superman, each principal actor wore the same costume throughout each whole season in order to save production costs. The segments of each show would be shot out of sequence, where one week of production might be spent just shooting all of the scenes in a season which were set in a particular location. For example, one week would be consumed doing the scenes which took place in Editor Perry White's office at The Daily Planet for a season, while the next week might be expended filming a season's worth of scenes which occurred in Inspector Henderson's cubicle at police headquarters. This process sped up production, saved the costs of using multiple sets at any one time, and sometimes enabled the insertion of the same scene in different episodes, such as the standard clip of Perry White yelling on the phone for Jimmy Olsen to come to his office.
  

Due to the lack of continuity, the actors generally had no idea of the story lines behind any of the scenes they were shooting nor why their characters would be uttering any particular segment of dialogue. These limitations purportedly resulted in less than stellar performances. However, as part of the target audience for this program, I can assure you that I found the portrayals of Superman and his myrmidons to be authentic, witty, and riveting.

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THE WANDERING WOMB

For thousands of years in various societies, women had been considered by many non-women to be crazy. In fact, during that time, "female hysteria" was the general diagnosis for a wide variety of symptoms on the part of women, including, but not limited to, nervousness, emotional outbursts, and sexual urges (after all, normal healthy women were not supposed to have libidos). For centuries, physicians believed that  female hysteria was caused by a "wandering womb" which did not remain fully affixed in one place in the body. It is not coincidence that Hippocrates coined the term "hysteria" from the Greek word "hystere," which means "uterus."

The cure for the form of female hysteria which resulted in sexual urges was for the physician to massage the pelvic area of the patient until she achieved a "hysterical paroxysm," a phenomenon now known today as an orgasm. Doctors in the Victorian era made fortunes by masturbating their female patients. The first vibrators were developed as a medical tool for this purpose.

We now live in more enlightened times (or at least some of us do), and the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), which is the handbook of mental illnesses used by health care professionals in the United States and much of the world, dropped hysteria as a diagnosis in 1980.

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FIN-ISHING TOUCHES

The tail fin craze with automobiles started out with demure little bumps in 1948, reached its zenith with the 1959 Cadillac (pictured below), and petered out in 1962. Although used by most manufacturers, the fins were specifically marketed by Chrysler as a safety feature as they allegedly provided "directional stability" to help keep the car on a straight path down the road.

Bicyclists who accidentally impaled themselves on the fins (at least those who survived) had slightly more colorful descriptions for them than "safety feature."

Photo by Christer Johansson via Wikimedia

A SENSELESS WAY TO END A WAR

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The Armistice which terminated World War I was officially signed on November 11, 1918 at 5 AM Paris time; however, it did not take effect until 11 AM--perhaps in order to be "cute" to end the war on the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month. Most combatants saw no point in persisting in the slaying during this arbitrary six hour period and just hunkered down until 11:00. One who did not was an artillery captain named Harry S. Truman (pictured above), who continued to fire his guns until 10:45 AM. Another was the German sniper at Mons who decided that it would be cool to kill Canadian soldier George Price at 10:58 AM. 

Approximately 11,000 men were killed, wounded, or became missing between 5:00 AM and 11:00 AM on November 11, 1918. For a further analysis of the background and stated rationale for this needless tragedy, please see the  historynet website.

If you are ever in Kansas City, you should visit the National WWI Museum for further insight into the depravity which was that conflict--a conflict that is still shaping events over 100 years later.

WHAT ILLINOIS ALMOST LOOKED LIKE

The northern border of Illinois originally was going to be 41 miles south of its current location, which meant that thirteen counties currently in Illinois, including the one containing Chicago, would have ended up belonging to Wisconsin. However, prior to Illinois achieving statehood in 1818, Nathaniel Pope (a delegate to the U.S. Congress from the Illinois territory) successfully argued that the state line should be moved to what is its present site. Pope correctly believed that most of the Illinois population was pro-slavery, and he thought that it would be desirable to include within the state a port on Lake Michigan so that there would be intensive trading with North through the Great Lakes and the influx of Northern ideas, sentiments, and sympathizers.

Had Pope not succeeded, probably Illinois would have been a border state (if not an outright Southern one) in the Civil War, Richard Nixon would have won the 1960 election, and the state debt of Wisconsin would awe-inspiring (in a bad way).

THE LLOYD'S BANK COPROLITE

One of the most beautiful cities in England (or so I have been told; I have not yet had the privilege of going there) is York. Settled over 2,000 years ago and nestled by the Ouse and Foss rivers, it is full of picturesque buildings and quaint cobblestone streets.

However, in the Middle Ages and prior to modern plumbing, it was a literal cesspool. It sits on a mass of compacted sewage, rubbish and filth which accumulated over the centuries and which is about ten feet (three meters) thick. The soil is waterlogged and virtually oxygen-free, and items such as wood, bone, and other organic material, instead of decomposing in a short period of time, have lingered for over a thousand years. This includes numerous items from the time that the Vikings occupied the settlement (from 866 to 954 AD). The digging of foundations for new construction in the 20th century yielded over 40,000 Viking artifacts and led to the establishment in 1984 of the Jorvik Viking Centre in the city.

However, the item most visitors to the museum section of the Centre flock to see is not one of the coins, weapons, bone ice skates, or dice. Remember I said that "other organic material" lingered for thousands of years? The crown jewel (or should I say "crown stool") of the collection is the Lloyd's Bank Coprolite (also known as the "Lloyd's Bank Turd"), discovered in 1972 when the ground was being excavated for the York branch of  Lloyd's Bank. It is a lump of feces from a Viking and was deposited at the bank 1,200 years ago.

Weighing in at over half of a pound and nine inches long, it probably was the poop of a not just any Viking but instead of a very constipated one. According to paleoscatologist (now there's a career for you!) Andrew Jones, who appraised it for insurance purposes, it is the most exciting example of exquisite excrement ever encountered. An examination of the item revealed that its original owner had a diet rich in meat and grains but lacking much in fruit or vegetables. The specimen was also loaded with the eggs of maw-worms and whipworms and is a stark testimonial to the poor sanitation in Viking villages and the consequences of building latrines too close to the water supply.

You may well ask, why is this particular poop so special when I just told you that there is a layer of sewage ten feet thick underneath the city? The Lloyd's Bank Coprolite is unique in that it is from a single individual--not like the undifferentiated mass which constitutes most of the organic material remaining from the settlement.

The museum is very proud of its prize exhibit, and has recreated a Viking latrine, complete with the appropriate aroma, to provide the proper atmosphere. It has even recovered, through the use of glue, from the Turd Trauma Tragedy of 2003 when a visiting teacher dropped the relic and it broke into three pieces.

One can only wonder if the burly Norseman doing his business twelve hundred years ago had any suspicion that his trophy would ever be so venerated. I guess you could also wonder what he used (if anything) for toilet paper.

For more information on this precious piece of poop, click on the delightful Today I Found Out website.

By Linda Spashett Storye book (Own work)
 [CC BY 2.5 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.5)],
 via Wikimedia Commons

HEAVENLY CREATURES?

In 1954, 15-year old Juliet Hulme was best buds with 16-year old Pauline Parker in Christchurch, New Zealand. Hulme's father was a physicist (who eventually was instrumental in developing the hydrogen bomb for Great Britain) and a rector of the University of Canterbury in Christchurch; Parker came from a working-class background. Hulme suffered from tuberculosis and could not go to school, while Parker had osteomyelitis. The girls initially bonded over the fact that both had been ill and soon developed a rich fantasy world which included James Mason and Orson Welles. 

New Zealand today has been compared to the United States in the 1950s. New Zealand actually in the 1950s was not regarded a bastion for gay rights, and the practice of homosexuality was considered a serious crime and the condition of being homosexual a grave mental illness. The parents of the girls were very concerned that the relationship between the two could be sexual in nature and were determined to break the friends up. Hulme's parents separated, and Hulme was informed that her father was returning to Great Britain while Hulme would be sent to live with relatives in South Africa "for her health."

Parker tried to convince her mother to allow her to go to Africa with Hulme. Parker's mother flatly refused. Parker and Hulme thereafter plotted to kill Parker's mother and then move together to the United States to write and work on films.

On June 22, 1954, the two girls bludgeoned Parker's mother to death by hitting her twenty times with half of a brick in a stocking. Their alibi fell apart quickly, and both girls were convicted of murder and spent five years in prison--escaping the death penalty because of their age. Their story served as the inspiration for the 1994 movie Heavenly Creatures.

Parker, after serving her time, eventually moved to England, converted to Roman Catholicism, opened up a riding school and has expressed deep remorse about beating her mother to death.

As for Hulme? She became a flight attendant, moved to the United States, converted to Mormonism, and eventually moved to Scotland. She thereafter become a prolific and highly regarded writer of mystery novels and historical fiction until her death on April 10, 2023. She also deeply regretted her crime (she was outed as a murderer as a result of the movie) and said that her five years in "supposedly the toughest [prison] in the southern hemisphere" was "the best thing that could have happened." You may have heard of her by the name she acquired after her release--Anne Perry.

You can find a list of her books, upcoming events, her thoughts in general, and her autobiography (although sans any reference to the murder) on her website. 

Oh, and the lesbianism which provoked the parents to try to separate the girls in the first place? According to Hulme/Perry, it never happened. She said that she and Parker were obsessive, but not in that way. 

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THE 299 PURCHASE CIRCUMVENTION

The procedure of following a preflight checklist for aircrews originated in 1935 when the prototype for the B-17 bomber (known as at the time as the Boeing Model 299) crashed after the pilot failed to disengage the "gust lock." The gust lock holds the control surfaces of a plane in a static position so that the plane does not get damaged by wind when the aircraft is parked on the ground. As the accident occurred when Boeing was demonstrating the plane for the Army Air Corps, the Army, following its long-standing policy of not purchasing aircraft which could not take off without crashing, awarded its contract for 200 bombers to a competitor. 

However, some of the brass were still impressed enough by an earlier performance of the prototype that they used a legal loophole to buy 13 examples nonetheless. This purchase led to further acquisitions until over 12,700 B-17s were sold to the Army by the end of World War II, resulting in the devastation of much of Germany and constituting a major factor in the winning of the war.

By U.S. Air Force [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

THE DIABOLICAL EXOTHERMIC STRATEGY OF THE JAPANESE HONEYBEE

Yasunori Koide, CC BY-SA 4.0
<https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

The giant Asian hornet (pictured above) is not a friend of the honeybee, and its appearance at a beehive is not greeted by the hive's occupants with approbation, especially in light of the fact that a few hornets can eliminate an entire colony of 10,000 bees in a matter of hours while seizing the bee larvae as food for the hornet children. The gargantuan size of the hornet and the thickness of its exoskeleton protect the hornet from the stings of the bees, and each hornet can sting repeatedly while a bee can only sting once before it dies. The resulting slaughter from a giant Asian hornet invasion dwarfs even the acrimonious interaction between the competing houses in Game of Thrones.

However, not all bees meekly go to their demise in the presence of these monsters. Japanese honeybees (Apis cerana japonica) eschew futile stinging and lay a trap instead. They gather around the entrance of the hive and allow a hornet to enter. They then block the entrance, cluster together, and form a ball of bees with the hornet at its center. The bees thereafter exercise briskly by buzzing their wings for twenty minutes. The resulting body heat from the bees cooks the hornet to death.

Although giant Asian hornets feed on insects, they certainly will attack humans. Their venom is powerful and can result in death, especially in the case of multiple stings, even if the victim is not allergic to the toxin.

This ill-tempered insect has been relatively recently discovered in the state of Washington and in British Columbia, much to the chagrin of apiarists and also of those folks who wish to avoid being subjected to numerous painful and potentially lethal stings.

URSINE AGGRESSION UNVEILED

A common misconception is that black bears, because they are generally timid and docile, will not molest humans except when a sow bear believes that she needs to defend her cub. In reality, however, over 70% of the black bear attacks on humans are from predatory males. "Predatory" specifically means that the bear is not defending himself or others but is instead attacking the human because he believes that the human will be tasty.

For more info on a study of the phenomenon as reported in the Alaska Dispatch News, click here. The article also provides helpful hints on determining whether a bear is acting aggressively because it is nervous about human presence or instead because it wants to eat you. 

P.S. Don't forget the bear spray when in the great outdoors.

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THE ORIGIN OF RED STATES VS. BLUE STATES

By Gage (Own work) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

The concept of "red states" for Republicans and "blue states" for Democrats in United States politics originated in 2000, when the three major networks, the New York Times, and USA Today decided, for the sake of uniformity, to institute the same system when displaying political maps showing which party won a state in the Presidential election.  

Prior to that time, there was no absolute consistency in applying the colors, although, as a general rule, most news agencies did follow the custom in Great Britain of representing the more conservative party by blue and the more liberal or revolutionary party by red. The method initiated in 2000 obviously falls contrary to this pattern.

According to the New York Times, it linked "red" to "Republican" for the simple reason that both words begin with "re." The decision purportedly had nothing to do with a fear that if the news media perpetuated the historical use of red, people would associate the Democratic Party with the crimson liberal taint of Marxism (even though that train had already long ago left the station).