The mystery of the purple seal
When a bright purple elephant seal turned up on a Northern California beach this year, the internet feared the worst. The truth was far less dramatic….
Category: Briefs
The Shot Heard ‘Round the World — October 3, 1951
Bobby Thomson hit the Shot Heard ‘Round the World to win the National League pennant for the New York Giants, 75 years ago.
A golf hazard with an appetite
Charl Schwartzel’s tee shot on the 134-yard seventh hole landed on the green, spun backward, and trickled into the pond. Golfers lose balls to water every…
The first long-distance call came with receipts
When the telephone finally traveled a real distance, nobody believed it. So the inventor kept a transcript. On October 9, 1876, Alexander Graham Bell sat…
The barrel worked, the business plan didn’t
Annie Edson Taylor did not go over Niagara Falls for the thrill. She went for the money. Taylor was a 63-year-old widowed schoolteacher from Auburn, New…
The night British-held New York burned
Less than a week after British troops marched into New York in September 1776, a quarter of the city they had just captured went up…
The famous last words no one wrote down
American patriot Nathan Hale, facing a British noose, declared that he regretted having but one life to lose for his country. Thing is, no one…
Bumblebees solve a puzzle no one taught them
A challenge long thought to separate humans and a few clever vertebrates from the rest of the animal kingdom has a new and unlikely contender:…
How Texas lost a 10-foot giraffe for two weeks
It is not easy to hide a giraffe. Gracie, who stands 10 feet tall and weighs at least 1,200 pounds, managed it for nearly two…
Town’s mayor is a very good boy
The western Minnesota township of Cormorant, population about 1,400, has held honorary mayoral elections since 2014 — and a human has never won. The first…