From The Free Press: “This is a story that ends with my own assisted death in Switzerland.” That is how the suicide note began. Allan Kassenoff was standing in the driveway of his Westchester home on Saturday, May 27, 2023, when he read it. His wife, Catherine, had emailed it to dozens of people—including judges, attorneys, journalists, police, friends, and even staff at Allan’s law firm—but she hadn’t sent it to her husband. A colleague had forwarded it to him. Allan and Catherine had spent the previous four years fighting in court over the custody of their three young daughters. After millions of dollars, and over 3,000 court filings, the divorce still hadn’t been finalized. In four single-spaced pages, the email accused Allan of “ruining the lives of my children, me,” and so many other “parents (mostly mothers) who have tried to stand up against abuse.”
How the Industrial Revolution led to the creation of the S’more, America’s favorite camping snack
From Scientific American: “This summer, millions of marshmallows will be toasted over fires across America. Many will be used as an ingredient in the quintessential summer snack: the s’more. Eating gooey marshmallows and warm chocolate sandwiched between two graham crackers may feel like a primeval tradition. But every part of the process – including the coat hanger we unbend to use as a roasting spit – is a product of the Industrial Revolution. The oldest ingredient in the s’more’s holy trinity is the marshmallow, a sweet that gets its name from a plant called, appropriately enough, the marsh mallow. The modern marshmallow looks much like its ancient ancestor. But for hundreds of years, creation of marshmallows was very time-consuming. Each one had to be manually poured and molded, and they were a treat only the wealthy could afford.”
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Secrets of an ancient Egyptian crocodile cult are revealed by a mummified specimen
From IFLScience: “Life was a wild ride for crocodiles in Ancient Egypt. As the Nile’s most iconic predator, the scaly beasts were the focus of a bizarre cult that saw them worshipped, spoiled rotten, and sacrificed, although it has taken thousands of years for researchers to figure out how the revered reptiles were lured from their natural habitat. The mystery of this ancient religious practice has now finally been solved thanks to a new analysis of a mummified Egyptian crocodile that had been sitting in a museum in the UK. A series of scans revealed the presence of a fish hook alongside an undigested fish inside the creature’s belly, indicating that the croc was wild-caught and killed almost immediately after being captured. The ancient Egyptians venerated crocodiles as avatars of Sobek, Lord of the Nile and of the primeval swamp from which the Earth was created.”
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The French boy who was abandoned and raised by an Australian aboriginal tribe
From Amusing Planet: “On April 11, 1875, a pearling schooner named Bell anchored off the coast of Queensland, Australia. The captain, Joseph Frazer, sent some of his men ashore to find water. Upon landing, they encountered a group of Aborigines and noticed a white man among them. Believing the man was being held against his will, they reported the situation to the captain. Captain Frazer quickly organized a rescue. He sent his men back to barter with the natives, offering valuable goods in exchange for the white man. The natives accepted the trade and released the man. Frazer took him aboard and transported him to the Government outpost at Somerset, located at the tip of Cape York. Although the man did not understand English, he spoke some broken French, and the sailors learned his name was Narcisse Pelletier.”
Mountaineers are finding ancient objects in melting glaciers
From Business Insider: “Hikers and mountaineers are stumbling on mysterious ancient objects in the Swiss Alps, and their discoveries are keeping archaeologists busy. From the Iron Age to ancient Rome to the Middle Ages, people traveled across the Alps’ icy mountain passes with cows, mules, oil, wine, skis, weapons, and more. Their lost or abandoned belongings are now surfacing as the mountains’ glaciers melt, providing clues about past civilizations and eras. A wooden statue, for example, hung on a mountaineer‘s living-room wall for nearly 20 years before Pierre-Yves Nicod, a museum curator, saw an old email about it and reached out. The mountaineer found the statue soaked in meltwater in 1999 and wiped it down with modern cleaning products, which could have damaged the ancient object. Still, after he donated it in 2018, archaeologists managed to date the wood to the first or second century BC — the Iron Age.”
The Tower of London used to hold a menagerie of wild beasts for the King
From Historic Royal Palaces: “In 1235, Henry III (1216-72) was delighted to be presented with three ‘leopards’ (probably lions but referred to as leopards in the heraldry on the king’s shield) by the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II. These inspired the King to start a zoo at the Tower of London. Over time the collection of animals grew: the lions were joined by a polar bear in 1252 and an African elephant in 1255. Edward I (1239-1307) created a permanent new home for the Menagerie at the western entrance to the Tower, in what became known as the Lion Tower. The terrifying sounds and smells of the animals must have both impressed and intimidated visitors. By 1622, the collection had been extended to include three eagles, two pumas, a tiger and a jackal, as well as more lions and leopards, which were the main attractions.”
A water balloon explodes in ultra-slow motion
Acknowledgements: I find a lot of these links myself, but I also get some from other newsletters that I rely on as “serendipity engines,” such as The Morning News from Rosecrans Baldwin and Andrew Womack, Jodi Ettenberg’s Curious About Everything, Dan Lewis’s Now I Know, Robert Cottrell and Caroline Crampton’s The Browser, Clive Thompson’s Linkfest, Noah Brier and Colin Nagy’s Why Is This Interesting, Maria Popova’s The Marginalian, Sheehan Quirke AKA The Cultural Tutor, the Smithsonian magazine, and JSTOR Daily. If you come across somethin