{"id":285519,"date":"2026-03-02T09:54:54","date_gmt":"2026-03-02T14:54:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mathewingram.com\/work\/?p=285519"},"modified":"2026-03-03T09:44:03","modified_gmt":"2026-03-03T14:44:03","slug":"he-found-stalins-daughter-living-in-a-wisconsin-retirement-home","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mathewingram.com\/work\/2026\/03\/02\/he-found-stalins-daughter-living-in-a-wisconsin-retirement-home\/","title":{"rendered":"He found Stalin’s daughter living in a Wisconsin retirement home"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Svetlana, who was then eighty-one years old, lived in a senior citizens\u2019 center in Spring Green, Wisconsin. When we met, she was dressed in baggy gray sweatpants and sunglasses. She was short and compact, and her once red hair had turned white and had started to thin. Scoliosis had given her a hunch, and she used a cane. She showed me her one-bedroom apartment, and the little desk by a window where her typewriter stood. Her bookshelf included the Russian-English dictionary that her father had used. Svetlana was welcoming, and spoke with the energy of someone who hadn\u2019t told her story in a long time. After a few hours, she wanted to take a walk. We headed down a quiet street, to a garage sale, where a man in a Harley-Davidson T-shirt was selling a small cast-iron bookshelf. He asked Svetlana if she wanted to buy it. She couldn\u2019t, she said. She had only twenty-five dollars until her welfare check came. (via the New Yorker<\/a>)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She discovered 35 forgotten Rembrandt etchings while cleaning out an old desk<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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Charlotte Meyer is a Dutch woman who made a life-changing discovery in 2020, when she decided to sort through a drawer of heirlooms that had long gone untouched. Years before, when Meyer\u2019s grandfather died, he left her a folder of prints that had been in the family for roughly a century. When Meyer finally opened the folder, she found 35 etchings created by the Dutch master Rembrandt van Rijn, whose 17th-century paintings and prints are renowned as some of the greatest visual art to come out of the Western world. Meyer\u2019s grandfather collected the etchings between 1900 and 1920. They were small, with some measuring only a few centimeters in length. At first, Meyer wasn\u2019t sure if the artworks were truly by Rembrandt. She felt sheepish calling experts at the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, but when the experts arrived at Meyer\u2019s home and went through the etchings, the full weight of the find sank in. (via the Smithsonian<\/a>)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Note<\/strong>: This is a version of my When The Going Gets Weird newsletter, which I send out via Ghost, the open-source publishing platform. You can\u00a0see other issues\u00a0and sign up here<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

A Spanish inventor built a radio-controlled vehicle in the early 1900s<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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No one knows exactly when the vehicles we drive will finally wrest the steering wheel from us. But the age of the autonomous automobile isn\u2019t some sudden Big Bang. It\u2019s more of a slow crawl, one that started during the Roosevelt administration. And that\u2019s Theodore, not Franklin. His name was Leonardo Torres Quevedo, a Spanish engineer born in Santa Cruz, Spain, in 1852. It was called the Telekino, a name drawn from the Greek \u201ctele,\u201d meaning at a distance, and \u201ckino,\u201d meaning movement. The Telekino transmitted wireless signals to a small receiver known as a coherer, which detected electromagnetic waves and transformed them into an electrical current. This current was amplified and sent on to electromagnets that slowly rotated a switch controlling the proper servomotor. Quevedo could issue 19 distinct commands to the systems of an airship without ever touching a control cable. By 1904, he was using the Telekino to direct a small, three-wheeled vehicle from nearly 100 feet away. (via Ars Technica<\/a>)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hi everyone! Mathew Ingram here. I am able to continue writing this newsletter in part because of your financial help and support, which you can do either <\/em>through my Patreon<\/em><\/a> or by upgrading your subscription to a monthly contribution. I enjoy gathering all of these links and sharing them with you, but it does take time, and your support makes it possible for me to do that. I also write a weekly newsletter of technology analysis called <\/em>The Torment Nexus<\/em><\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Emus faced down the Australian army and won<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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n November 1932, the harsh southern sun beat down on an empty paddock in Western Australia. The soil is red and strewn with rocks. Three soldiers emerge from the haze: An officer and two gunners, their backs straight, their uniforms immaculate. Then, their leader holds up a hand and bids his charges halt. He\u2019s seen the cloud of dust on the horizon; a cloud that can mean only one thing. The officer barks orders. The gunners salute and then dig themselves in as best they can, readying their machine guns against the onslaught to come. These three brave men have come to fight for the future of Australian agriculture, to face down a foe the Australian army has never faced before. Screw your courage to its sticking place, dear reader, for they have come to battle\u2026 the emu. As an Australian, I can confirm that my country once fought a war against an army of large, somewhat comical flightless birds. And we lost<\/em>. (via Popular Science<\/a>)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She was the sultry voice on the radio playing music designed to convince Germans to give up<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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\u201cHello, boys. Here I am again, your Vicky With Three Kisses.\u201d Even on nights when the radio was filled with noise as Allied and Axis forces attempted to jam their enemies\u2019 broadcasts, the woman\u2019s meaning was unmistakable. She pursed her lips and sent a trio of smooches across the airwaves. A German sailor listening to Vicky might imagine this was his girlfriend waiting at home, as she had been for years while the war stretched through 1944. For those with no one to return to, the voice belonged to a blonde-haired and blue-eyed dream. When the music faded, Vicky returned. \u201cWe don\u2019t have much time left. And who knows when and where we will see each other again?\u201d In a radio studio north of London, the dark-haired, dark-eyed, half-Jewish actress playing the role of Vicky stepped away from the microphone. She had fled from the Nazis once before. Now she was fighting back with the war\u2019s newest weapon. (via The Smithsonian<\/a>)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He taught his fish to drive a remote-control tank<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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