Curio Cabinet / Person, Place, or Thing

Over 60 Americans find themselves at the mercy of Iran's militant Ayatollah Khomeini.

The final straw is often something (relatively) trivial. President Jimmy Carter learned this cutting lesson on January 20, 1981: the day the Iran hostage crisis finally concluded. The 444-day ordeal, in which 66 Americans were abducted from Iran's American embassy by revolutionary Islamists, resulted in Carter losing the 1980 election. Caused by a seemingly innocuous humanitarian decision, it resolved just hours after his successor President Ronald Reagan was sworn into office.
 

But the roots of the conflict lie in the Western corporations that had long controlled Iran's petroleum reserves, rather than Carter. In 1951, Iran elected a European-educated nationalist named Mohammad Mossadegh as its prime minister. Mossadegh planned to nationalize his homeland's oil industry, but the C.I.A. and the British intelligence service quickly deposed and replaced him with the pro-Western Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi.
 

Unfortunately, the Shah was a brutal, impetuous man. He tortured and murdered thousands until the Iranian people overthrew him in the '70s and elected radical Islamic cleric Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini as their new leader. The Shah, sick with cancer, was permanently exiled and left for dead. But on October 22, 1979, President Jimmy Carter extended the olive branch, admitting the former despot into the U.S. for medical treatment. Naturally, Iranians were bristling.
 

Soon after the Shah reached New York, pro-Ayatollah students stormed the U.S. embassy in Iran's capital of Tehran, seizing 66 hostages. The Ayatollah lauded the student's aggression and sought to exploit the publicity and exercise his new leadership on cable TV. Days later, he had his followers released 13 hostages—all of them women and African Americans—who Khomeini claimed were already victims of "the oppression of American society." Meanwhile, the American public demanded Carter take action.
 

The president quickly cut diplomatic ties with Iran, and talks of sanctions arose. As the hostages were blindfolded, paraded around, and generally denied the right to change clothes, Carter set in motion Operation Eagle Claw. An elite rescue team was meant to extract the remaining hostages, but the mission royally backfired. A fearsome sandstorm caused technical malfunctions; a helicopter collided with a transport plane upon takeoff, resulting in the deaths of eight American servicemen.
 

Ronald Reagan, who was running against Carter in the 1980 presidential election, pointed the finger of blame at his opponent. Either way, he had it made; Carter was so mired in damage control, he shirked his campaign duties and lost the race in a landslide. To really rub salt in Carter's wound, the Ayatollah released the remaining hostages just hours after Reagan's inaugural address. Politicians—they can be as petty as middle schoolers!
 

Image credit & copyright: Express / Getty Images
 

The black gold rush.

If one location can be said to have brought the U.S. into the 20th century, it's Spindletop Hill. In less than two years, the Texan locale brought about the Age of Oil and managed to fuel not just the engines of the future, but the dreams of prospectors looking to strike it rich in the American West.
 

Spindletop Hill and its neighboring town, Beaumont, were part of the agriculture and lumber industries in the 1800s when interest grew significantly in the location's natural oil and gas reserves. It's said that nearby Native tribes knew about petroleum in the land for centuries; in the 1500s, Spanish conquerors caulked their ships with oil from Sabine Pass near the Gulf of Mexico.
 

After the Civil War, Confederate commander Dick Dowling attempted to drill a well in nearby Sour Lake to no avail. The next serious attempt to find oil was by amateur geologist Patillo Higgins, who convinced himself there was "black gold" to be had at the salt dome formation on Spindletop. (Salt domes are made of sedentary salt forced upward from the ground, sometimes trapping oil or gas.) Higgins formed the Gladys City Oil, Gas, and Manufacturing Company in 1892; after three failed drilling attempts at Spindletop, he left the company a few years later.
 

With momentum and investor money still behind him, Higgins made a lease agreement with Captain Anthony Lucas, a Croatian-American oil explorer and engineer. Lucas made more attempts at plunging into Spindletop Hill, though even more impasses would hinder his work: at 200 feet, a layer of sand impaired drilling; at 900 feet, the new and very expensive hydraulic drill collapsed. But at 1,210 feet, Lucas finally struck black gold. On the morning of January 10, 1901, a stream of crude oil erupted out of the ground and shot over 200 feet into the air. The eruption lasted nine days until it was contained, but the effects of the "Lucas Gusher" would last for over a century.
 

The oil rush hit Beaumont hard. In just a year, the population swelled from 8,000 to 60,000. About 285 wells were operating on Spindletop, with over 600 oil companies established in the area, many of which would evolve into contemporary companies like Texaco (The Texas Company), Humble (Exxon), and Sun Oil. In a land grab anecdote that puts contemporary housing price spikes to shame, a man whose Beaumont land had been worth $150 the previous year sold his lot for $20,000, which was sold again not 15 minutes later for $50,000. Because of the great wealth and losses incurred—not to mention the prevalence of con artists—the location quickly earned the nickname "Swindletop Hill." In total, an estimated $235 million was invested in oil between 1901 and 1902, and Spindletop made the U.S. a leading producer of oil in the industrialized world.
 

In 1902, Spindletop produced over 17 million barrels of oil; by 1904, that number had dropped to 10,000. A second boom happened in 1925, though with far higher prices for land, which prevented the normal rush of wealth-seekers and con artists. The salt dome eventually subsided and mining of sulfur and brine took over. But the importance of Spindletop's oil production forever changed the landscape of eastern Texas, and the oil-fueled 20th century.
 

Below: a photograph of Spindletop's eruption and a portrait of Anthony F. Lucas.
 

Image credit & copyright: Texas Energy Museum
 

A young blind man finds inspiration in a Napoleonic War veteran.

Few have the resiliency to turn a tragedy into a miracle, but Louis Braille did. The French educator and inventor of Braille, who died on January 6, 1852, lost his eyesight as a young boy but invented his unprecedented language at just 15 years old to counteract his disability. Many of his fellow teachers would decry the language of Braille as a parlor trick, but with time, they would come around.
 

Braille, who was born in Coupvray, France, on January 4, 1809, displayed the tendencies of a profoundly curious mind. As a toddler, he frequently explored his father's saddle-making workshop and the many tools therein. It was there that tragedy struck. At just three years old, Braille accidentally gouged his right eye with a cobbler's tool while poking holes through leather. An infection grew and spread to his other eye; by the age of five, Braille was totally blind.
 

Braille's interest in the world around him endured, though, and his parents fought to get him educated. At the age of 10, he enrolled at Valentin Haüy's National Institute for Blind Youth in Paris, the first school of its kind. It was in 1821 that Braille's teacher, Dr. Alexandre François-René Pignier, invited French war veteran Charles Barbier to speak before his class. During the Napoleonic Wars, Barbier had been tasked with creating "night writing": a way for soldiers to communicate silently in the pitch black of night. His script proved too complicated, and was deemed a complete failure by the military; but Braille saw promise in it.
 

He quickly pared down Barbier's system, using paper, a slate, and a stylus to devise text from small punctures. The success of his language came down to simplicity; while "night writing" used 12 raised dots to denote phonetic speech, Braille devised a language that used just two columns of three dots to represent letters and punctuation. A single matrix of dots fit neatly beneath a fingertip and could represent one of 64 symbols. Braille published his system in 1829, which Dr. Pignier quickly championed and implored his students to adopt.
 

Braille's intellectual endeavors garnered him a full professorship at the institute, where he taught geometry, algebra, and history. In his spare time, he applied his exceptionally sensitive ears to music, performing as an accomplished cellist. He also served as organist at the Church of Saint-Nicolas-des-Champs and the Church of Saint-Vincent-de-Paul. But still, his new language remained out of use until after his death at 42 in 1852—largely due to public skepticism that something so miraculous could ever work.
 

It wasn't until 1854 that the blind pupils at the institute overwhelmingly pushed for Braille's language to become mandatory curricula. Naturally, as class after class of blind students were trained in it, the language became accepted and diffused across the world. In 1952, the French Government finally recognized the achievements of Braille. Nowadays, World Braille Day is celebrated annually on his birthday. It just goes to show that sight is not necessary for vision.
 

Image credit & copyright: Popperfoto/Getty Images
 

Welcome to our Top 18 of 2018 countdown! As the year comes to an end, we're looking back at this year's most loved Curios across all categories. Enjoy the walk down memory lane in your entire Curio Cabinet.
 

Over 30 years of beautiful days in the neighborhood.

Hi there, neighbor! When Fred Rogers first encountered "people throwing pies at one another" on television, he thought it was a terrible form of entertainment. In response, he dedicated his life to offering quality educational television to children young and old.
 

Born on March 20, 1928, in Latrobe, Pennsylvania, Rogers took an early interest in music, theology, and puppetry as a child. After graduating with a bachelor's in Music Composition, he took a job at NBC's music department in 1951. Unsatisfied with the vacuous nature of commercial television, he left NBC and began developing children's programming at WQED, Pittsburg's public television network. There, he worked as the puppeteer of fictional characters who would later make it into the "Neighborhood of Make-Believe" segment of his own show. Rogers also swapped out of his work shoes for sneakers—to be able to move around the set more quietly.
 

In the following years, Rogers continued his studies at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary, and took courses on Child Development and Child Care at the University of Pittsburgh's graduate studies program. Early versions of Mister Rogers' Neighborhood made it onto Canadian public television, where Rogers was encouraged to emerge from behind the puppets and become a star. When the show premiered nationwide in the U.S. on February 19, 1968, kids found a gentle father figure who chatted with them about the day's theme, then took them to visit important friends. His trolley whisked the show away to the puppet-filled "Make-Believe" land.
 

In spite of his gentle mannerisms, Rogers often took on heavy subjects. He wrote and co-wrote entire episodes dedicated to supporting children through difficult issues, like dealing with new siblings, divorce, and death. Together with Sesame Street, Mister Rogers' Neighborhood ushered in a new era of entertainment, one where early childhood development studies were coupled with playful songs, games, and characters who captured children's imaginations.
 

Fred Rogers' advocacy didn't end when he took off his mother's hand-knitted sweaters and the lights went down. He testified in front of Congress in support of public television funding in 1969, and a 1998 Esquire profile revealed his graceful nature and lifelong correspondence with fans. It was as if him asking "Won't you be my neighbor?" at the top of his show wasn't so much a question, but an invitation to be awed by the kindness he brought into the homes and lives of his viewers.

 

Image credit & copyright: PBS
 

Welcome to our Top 18 of 2018 countdown! As the year comes to an end, we're looking back at this year's most loved Curios across all categories. Enjoy the walk down memory lane in your entire Curio Cabinet.
 

A small-town banker's passion project grows into a national sensation.

Mother Nature and a Wisconsin banker certainly made a good team. After years of crafting furniture in his free time, John Krubsack tackled his most ambitious project: growing a chair out of live trees. It took several years and more than two dozen saplings, but eventually Krubsack's magnum opus was completed, becoming popular around the country and inspiring future generations of treeshapers. (Who knew that was a job title?)
 
Though Krubsack spent his days counting money, his real passion was the outdoors. Born 160 years ago this year, Krubsack often searched riverbanks for large pieces of wood to fuse together into chairs, tables, and benches. But he wasn't satisfied. "Dammit, one of these days I am going to grow a piece of furniture that will be better and stronger than any human hands can build," he told a friend.
 
Krubsack kept his word, though his human hands were plenty involved. In the early 1900s, he planted seeds for 32 boxelders, a type of maple trees. Krubsack began shaping their growth in 1908, when the trees were about six feet tall. For the next seven years, he trimmed, tied, and grafted the delicate trees so they formed each component of a single chair. When some trees grew faster than others, he snipped their stems so the slowpokes might catch up. For centuries, Native Americans had made musical instruments out of boxelders; now Krubsack was showing the species' pliability and durability made it a great material even before being chopped down. By 1914, each joint had become solid. The chair was ready to be harvested.
 
The Chair That Grew debuted at the 1915 World Fair in San Francisco and also made the rounds of major furniture trade shows. It was featured in Robert Ripley's "Believe It Or Not!" column, and an interview with Krubsack explaining how he shaped the tree played in movie theaters around the country. Several buyers offered up to $5,000 for the chair (around $120,000 in today's money). But Krubsack couldn't put a price tag on his labor of love; he gave the chair to his son, who kept it in the family tree. Today, tree shaping (or arborsculpture) is a thriving industry in the U.S., Germany, Thailand, and Australia. We can only imagine how proud Papa Krubsack would be.
 

Below: examples of modern day arborsculpture influenced by The Chair That Grew.
 

Image credit & copyright: Memory Lag via Imgur and Make Magazine
 

Welcome to our Top 18 of 2018 countdown! As the year comes to an end, we're looking back at this year's most loved Curios across all categories. Enjoy the walk down memory lane in your entire Curio Cabinet.
 

A Seattle suburb hides war secrets.

Don't be fooled by the sunbathing women, orderly roads, and trimmed lawns. Though it had all the trappings of the average suburb, this town was anything but. During World War II, the idyllic space protected thousands of workers busily drilling airplane parts together right underneath it, inside Boeing Plant No. 2.
 
The seed was planted in Washington, D.C., in 1940; Congress had just approved funding for manufacturers to churn out 50,000 new military planes a year, anticipating U.S. involvement in World War II. The Boeing company had provided the military with seaplanes during the First World War; this time around, it was asked to produce 17,000 B-17 fighter planes. Enter Boeing Plant No. 2. Situated on a former shipbuilding site near the Duwamish River, it was nicknamed "The Fortress Factory" and measured eight football fields long. Its sheer size made it the perfect place to set up an airplane-building operation requiring thousands of employees working double shifts. Many were women in their first manufacturing jobs—much like Rosie the Riveter herself.
 
Each B-17 cost about $200,000, the equivalent of a whopping $3.4 million today. As the war raged on, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers came up with creative ideas to prevent the factory from becoming an air strike target. The Army Corps took inspiration from actual suburbs near the plant when designing their fake town, which was built on a grid exactly like that of neighboring communities.
 
Not a single detail was missed. Trees were crafted from chicken wire and feathers, while large wooden slabs were nailed together to look like cars. Houses appeared real from the point of view of an enemy plane scouting the area from above; a closer examination revealed some were shorter than potential homeowners! Though aware of the seriousness of their task, the Army Corps wasn't above humor; signposts appeared at street corners with names like "Burlap Boulevard" and "Synthetic Street."
 
The fake town certainly did its job: the plant survived the war, having produced almost all of the commissioned B-17s, as well as B-29 Superfortress planes—the most technologically advanced American military aircraft at the time. After the war, it produced commercial planes before being demolished in 2010 to make way for ecological restoration to the area. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers had some strange ideas—but they sure took flight!
 

Below: further images of Boeing Plant No. 2.
 

Image credit & copyright: Boeing / Seattle Times Archive
 

Women capture the vote—for all the wrong reasons.

Decades before the 19th Amendment passed in 1920, women like Esther Morris, shown above, were serving as judges and voting in the Wyoming territory. Before it even became a state, Wyoming's legislature enacted laws to give women the vote and other rights unheard of in the U.S. in the 1860s. Were they ahead of their time? The answers aren't quite so simple.
 

Wyoming itself was in a precarious place by the late 1860s. The land that became the territory was acquired in parts through the 1803 Louisiana Purchase, the 1846 Oregon Treaty between Britain and the U.S., and the 1848 Mexican Cession following the Mexican-American War. In July of 1868, President Andrew Johnson signed the Organic Act, which took land from Dakota, Idaho, and Utah territories to form Wyoming—a name taken from the Wyoming Valley in Pennsylvania and the Munsee Indian word for "near the big river flat," or prairie region. To add to the location's identity crisis, the Union Pacific Railroad landed in Cheyenne in 1867. What should have been a celebration of railroad jobs arriving in the region was marked by the scarcity of working bodies—or any bodies, for that matter—nearby. Wyoming had a population problem, and its governing body knew that.
 

As if attracting and keeping settlers in the region wasn't a hard enough task, the Wyoming Territorial legislature wasted no time picking a political fight over the task ahead of them. In 1868 President Grant appointed General John Campbell as governor of the Wyoming territory, hoping to establish Republican favor in the region. But as elections were held in September, Confederate-sympathetic Democrats won all 22 seats of the territorial legislature. In an effort to undermine the Republican governor's efforts at unification, President of the Council William H. Bright introduced the female suffrage bill; it was meant to pit Republicans vs. Democrats and abolitionists vs. suffragists, all while boosting publicity for the state. Despite all the ulterior political motives, the hopes of luring women to head out west were indeed genuine, as men outnumbered women in the region six to one.
 

The suffrage bill passed in a seven-to-four vote in the House and was ultimately approved in December 1869 by a hesitant Governor Campbell. As a result, an unprecedented number of gender-equality firsts occurred within the next year. The city of Laramie become the first location to include women in a public jury in March, Martha Symons Boies was appointed the first female bailiff there, and Louisa Swain cast the first women's vote in a general election in September. Over in Cheyenne, Esther Morris became the first justice of the peace and a figurehead for women's suffrage across the nation.
 

Were there really any good intentions on Bright's, or any of the legislature's parts, in introducing the women's suffrage bill? In 1871, a new session of the Wyoming Territorial legislature did attempt to repeal the bill to no avail. Stories circulated about how the whole thing had been intended as a joke in the first place, yet the bill was treated with all the seriousness of any other item of legislation. The person who may have had the most eloquent explanation of exactly what happened with women's suffrage in Wyoming was none other than Esther Morris' husband William, who stated, "It is a fact that all great reforms take place, not where they are most needed, but in places where opposition is weakest; and then they spread."

 

Below: the text of the Wyoming Territorial legislature's women's suffrage bill.
 

Female Suffrage
Chapter 31
An Act to Grant to the Women of Wyoming Territory the Right of Suffrage, and to Hold Office
Be it enacted by the Council and House of Representatives of the Territory of Wyoming:
Sec. 1. That every woman of the age of twenty-one years, residing in this territory, may at every election to be holden under the laws thereof, cast her vote. And her rights to the elective franchise and to hold office shall be the same under the election laws of the territory, as those of electors.
Sec. 2. This act shall take effect and be in force from and after its passage.
Approved, December 10, 1869.
 
Image credit & copyright: Adam Procter

A president's proclamation paves the way for aggressive foreign policy in Latin America.

For almost two centuries, the United States has asserted itself as the "big brother" of the Western Hemisphere, thanks in part to a bold assertion by President James Monroe. On December 2, 1823, the fifth president stood before Congress and declared that the U.S. would no longer tolerate European aggression in North or South America. This proclamation, known today as the Monroe Doctrine, has drastically influenced the United States' foreign policy ever since.
 

Monroe's announcement came with good reason. In the early 1800s, the Russian czar voiced ambitions of colonizing Alaska, as well as much of the Pacific coast. Even worse, Spain and France sought to undermine freshly independent countries in Central and South America. If America was to strengthen its economic ties and expand its influence, these Latin American countries needed protection.
 

But drawing a line in the sand wasn't America's first option. In 1823, British Foreign Minister George Canning approached the U.S. with a proposition; since Britain also sought to undermine Spain and France's' colonial holds in the Western Hemisphere, why not team up? Most Americans balked at the idea of partnering with the British, who had gone to war with the U.S. just a decade prior and razed the White House to the ground.
 

Instead, Monroe affirmed to Congress that the Americas were no longer subjects for further European colonialism. Moreover, European attempts to colonize independent nations in the Americas would be considered acts of aggression towards the U.S. In return, the U.S. would not meddle in domestic European affairs, nor interfere with any pre-existing European colonies in the West.
 

Ironically, the U.S. lacked an adequate navy to enforce the Monroe Doctrine, and Britain became its unintentional enforcer, using an immense Royal Navy to scare other European kingdoms away from the Americas. But as the United States grew in size and military might, presidents began to liberally interpret the Monroe Doctrine, using it as justification for war and expansion. When President John Tyler used it to warrant his 1842 annexation of Texas, a Venezuelan newspaper said to other Latin American countries, "Beware, brothers, the wolf approaches the lambs."
 

In 1898, President Theodore Roosevelt invoked the Monroe Doctrine in support of the Spanish–American War, which resulted in the liberation of Cuba from a despotic Spain. It was a seemingly noble usage of the doctrine, but the U.S. would later restrict Cuba's autonomy up until the Castro revolution of 1959. The U.S. would also permanently barrack American troops at the Guantanamo Bay naval base, located on the island.
 

From there, the U.S. would invade the Dominican Republic in 1965 to forestall a "communist dictatorship." In the 1980s, President Ronald Reagan referred to the Monroe Doctrine and affected the outcomes of revolutions in El Salvador and Nicaragua. By the time George Bush intervened in Panama in 1989, Reagan had set a precedent; Washington could respond to and remove any Latin American government it deemed unsuitable—with or without invoking the Monroe Doctrine. North and South America's big brother had become their big bully.
 

Image credit & copyright: Courtesy the Library of Congress
 

A pragmatic engineer overcame gender bias to drastically improve train travel.

We can all thank Olive Wetzel Dennis for footrests and reclining, stain-resistant chairs. One of the earliest women to complete a civil engineering degree, Dennis's tenure at B&O Railroad left a lasting impression on the train travel experience for the average American. Dennis made introductions that were later mimicked by other railroads and, eventually, buses and airplanes. And she did all this while being one of the few female engineers in the industry.

 
Born on November 20, 1885, and raised in Baltimore, Dennis showed an early penchant for mechanics and locomotion; when her father gave her a woodworking set at age 10, she used it to make a model streetcar for her brother. It included folding seats, moving stairs, and poles in the center much like the actual streetcars that careened through her hometown of Baltimore. When presented with dolls, Dennis often chose to build furniture and houses for them, rather than playing with them outright.
 
Those traits would come in handy in the 1920s, when Dennis joined Baltimore & Ohio Railroad. Just a year into her tenure, the head of the railroad announced a new initiative: making trains somewhat livable rather than the simply functional spaces they had been previously. The first person charged with the task was Dennis, who had already proven herself by successfully designing bridges and laying out railroad lines. "I was told to get ideas that would make women want to travel on our line," Dennis later said of her surprise appointment.
 
Dennis threw herself into the role with gusto. Her hours spent traveling up and down the mid-Atlantic yielded some genius ideas. She created larger dressing rooms for female passengers, as well as ceiling lights that could be brightened or dimmed. Upholstery throughout the B&O trains was made stain-resistant. She even designed — and later patented — special ventilators to help prevent train cars from getting stuffy.
But it wasn't always easy getting the respect she merited. Once, when Dennis asked for a pass to go aboard a competitor's train, it was made out to "Oliver Dennis." When she asked them to correct it to "Miss Olive Dennis," they sent it back to her as "Miss Olive Dennis, daughter of Engineer Oliver Dennis." The incident came as no surprise to Dennis; as she'd walked across the stage to receiver her master's degree from Cornell in 1920, one of her classmates had called out: "What the heck can a woman do in engineering?"
 
Despite these challenges, Dennis soldiered on; she stayed with B&O Railroad into the 1950s, retiring just a few years before her death in 1957. Profiled by her hometown paper later in her life, she had a few pithy words to sum up her career and the challenges she faced: "There is no reason that a woman can't be an engineer simply because no other woman has ever been one."
 

Below: another image of Dennis at work; a china set Dennis designed for B&O Railroad's centenary; a train that Dennis worked on.

Image credit & copyright: B&O Railroad Museum
 

Gone and anonymous, but not forgotten.

Every Veteran's Day, the U.S. President ceremoniously lays a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia. As war monuments go, the tomb's simplistic design belies its significant part in remembrance ceremonies for those who died serving our country.
 

The first Tomb of the Unknown Soldier wasn't an American affair; instead, the tradition began across the Atlantic. World War I's staggering death toll of (at least) nine million soldiers devastated the Allied Forces. While on duty, the Reverend David Railton came across a makeshift grave with the title "An Unknown British Soldier" written in pencil on a cross; this became his inspiration for requesting a ceremonial burial for an unidentified soldier at London's Westminster Abbey. After the war, the French Parliament also debated whether to bury an "ignored soldier" at the Panthéon in Paris, though eventually settled on the Arc de Triomphe as the location. Both the U.K. and France first conducted services for their nameless soldiers on November 11, 1920—the day traditionally celebrated as Armistice Day, and the anniversary of the end of World War I in 1918.
 

Word of France and Britain's ceremonies reached U.S. shores, and on March 4th the next year, Congress approved the burial of an unidentified soldier at the Memorial Amphitheater in Arlington National Cemetery. But how to ensure the inaugural soldier would really remain unknown years after WWI? The U.S. turned to France once again, requesting four caskets of anonymous American soldiers be exhumed from their overseas gravesites and lined up at city hall in Chalons-sur-Marne, France. On October 24, 1921, U.S. Army Seargent Edward F. Younger randomly chose the third from the left by laying a spray of white roses atop the casket. The first person to be buried at the American Tomb of the Unknown Soldier was transported home aboard the USS Olympia, with the remaining three returned to Meuse Argonne Cemetery.
 

The unknown soldier arrived in Washington, D.C., and was on display for the public at the Capitol Rotunda, with an estimated 100,000 visitors coming to pay their respects. The casket then traveled to its final destination; on November 11, 1921, President Warren G. Harding officiated the induction ceremonies at Memorial Amphitheater in Arlington. Since the initial ceremonies, an unidentified soldier from every major U.S. war has received the U.S. Medal of Honor and burials under marble slabs at the Tomb of the Unknowns—with the exception of a Vietnam vet, who was identified in 1998 through DNA testing as Lt. Michael Joseph Blassie, and reinterred at Jefferson Barracks in Missouri.

 

In 1926, architect Lorimer Rich and sculptor Thomas Hudson Jones won a competition to place a monument above the tomb. With the aid of the Piccirilli Brothers—who famously worked on the Lincoln statue at the Lincoln Memorial—work was completed in 1931. The rectangular cube featured north and south panels with three wreaths each, representing the six major battles WWI soldiers faced in France. The east panel features three Greek figures representing Peace, Victory, and Valor. On the western panel lies the inscription "Here rests in honored glory an American Soldier known but to God." Their names may be lost to us, but their deeds certainly are not.
 

Below: the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at the Arc de Triomphe in Paris, France, the British tomb in Westminster Abbey, and a view of the three Greek virtues and wreaths at Arlington.
 

Image credit & copyright: Today I Found Out, Find a Grave, American Society of Landscape Architects, Dena Kennett
 

From its unlikely origins, Australia's first hospital weathered several storms.

Taking care of thousands of convicts is no small order. Starting in the late 1700s, the British government sent 162,000 convicts to penal colonies in Australia. Making up most of the region's settler population, the emigrants were largely convicted on petty crimes like stealing and brawling. Forced to serve their sentence by doing manual labor, they also struggled with illness like scurvy, smallpox, or dysentery. And until this hospital came along, they were receiving their treatment in makeshift tents set up near Sydney's busy streets.
 

But an unlikely solution wasn't far off. In the early 1800s, the region's newly-appointed governor schemed up a deal to finance the first proper hospital in the land down under—a legendary complex that would house thousands of sickly convicts as well as two other governmental institutions, and in the ensuing decades, bear witness to Australian history.
 

It wouldn't have happened without booze. Rebuffed by the British government when he asked for funding, Governor Lachlan Macquarie struck a deal with three businessmen this week in 1810: build the hospital in exchange for reduced import taxes on 60,000 gallons of rum as well as free convict labor to build the hospital. The agreement effectively gave the businessmen a monopoly on rum imported into Australia's rapidly growing market.
 

But the businessmen had to nurse their fair share of headaches related to the project. Construction of the hospital's three standalone wings lasted six years; one even had to be rebuilt after it collapsed. When noted architect Francis Greenway was brought in, he noticed dry rot, problems with structural beams, and weak foundations. It "must soon fall into ruin," he said. Despite these issues, the buildings stood on their own for a few decades; the main building was torn down in the 1880s to make way for a renovation. One wing hid several faults for decades, only discovered during restoration in the 1980s.
 

When the hospital first opened its doors in 1816, Australia's convicts were ready to leave the streetside makeshift tents where they had previously been treated. (Though, their stays would be far from pleasant; because bloodletting was used to treat many ailments, the hospital earned the nickname "Sydney Slaughter House.") By the 1850s, the hospital's two smaller wings were being used as a Royal Mint and as the home of the state legislature of New South Wales. Who knew rum could pave the way for something like this?
 

Image credit & copyright: J. Bar
 

A scrappy American warship proves a young country can defend itself.

It's hard to imagine the U.S. lacking any degree of naval supremacy, but in the years following the Revolutionary War, the freshly-minted United States struggled to protect its merchant ships. Barbary pirates were kidnapping Americans in the Mediterranean, while European kingdoms broadly menaced the seas. The wooden-hulled frigate USS Constitution, aka "Old Ironsides," was the solution—and with 33 wins and no losses, it wasn't to be trifled with.
 

Launched on today's date in 1797, the Constitution was commissioned after President George Washington signed the Naval Act of 1794 into law. The bill, which provided funding for six new frigates, was a response to the widespread piracy that followed the Revolutionary War, when Britain ceased its protection of American merchants. Barbary pirates off the coast of North Africa pounced on the opportunity to raid American trade ships and ransom their crews.
 

The 1,576-ton Constitution, designed by shipbuilder Joshua Humphreys to remain sturdy for 10 to 20 years, would serve as a remedy. Armed with 60 cannons, the frigate possessed unusual features: a long keel, narrow width, and a 25-inch oak hull. And though it was smaller than European heavy frigates, its special schematics afforded it a balance of firepower, evasiveness, and durability. Named by George Washington himself, the Constitution launched from Edmund Hartt Shipyard in Boston Harbor.
 

The ship quickly saw minor engagements, but wouldn't meet a true test until the War of 1812 against Britain. On August 19, 1812, a month after the vessel managed a harrowing escape from a gang of Royal Navy ships, it sighted the HMS Guerriere off the coast of Nova Scotia at about 2 p.m. The enemy frigate quickly raised its British ensigns, an invitation to duel, and rushed forward. Wry Captain Issac Hull had the Constitution raise four American ensigns.
 

For the first four hours of the duel, the Constitution held its fire, before closing within a pistol shot of the Guerriere and firing all of its cannons. During the 35-minute maelstrom, a bewildered sailor watched 18-pound iron cannonballs bounce harmlessly off the Constitution's 25-inch oak hull. "Huzza! Her sides are made of iron!" he cried. The Guerriere sank the following day, to the horror of Brits across the Atlantic Ocean.
 

Five months later, the Constitution—now known as "Old Ironsides"—engaged the HMS Java off the coast of Brazil. The exchange of cannon fire shattered Old Ironside's helm, but the ship managed to maim the fore of its enemy. Afterward, victorious American sailors boarded the Java, stole its helm, and used it to replace Old Ironsides'. The Royal Navy, traumatized again, ordered that British warships were to only engage American ships if they outnumbered them two or more to one. But that didn't work out so well.
 

Three days after the War of 1812 officially ended—unbeknownst to most seafaring craft—the Constitution simultaneously battled two British warships, the HMS Cyane and the HMS Levant, off the coast of Spain. The 45-minute fight resulted in the defeat and capture of the two prized British vessels. Needless to say, the U.S. Navy had firmly established its presence.
 

In 1881, after 58 years of service and a circumnavigation of the globe, the USS Constitution retired from active service for use in training exercises and ceremonies. Today, the ship and its crew function to educate the public about naval history through tours of the ship and historical exhibits in the adjacent USS Constitution Museum. Old Ironsides is now the oldest commissioned naval vessel still afloat—not too shabby for a boat meant to last a few decades.
 

Below: more photos of the USS Constitution, including how it appears today, a shot of it sailing unassisted for the first time in over a century, and a look inside its haul (2015).
 

Image credit & copyright: Michel Felice Corne / Steven Senne / AP / U.S. Navy / Todd Stevens
 

A fortress at the crossroads of living and the undead.

Halloween season is all about the haunted houses, though few offer more intrigue than Bram Stoker's inspiration for Count Dracula's estate. Bran Castle sits on the border between Transylvania and Wallachia in Brasov County, Romania. But exactly what ghosts and vampiric creatures' histories lie behind these fortified walls and in the nearby region?
 

Centuries before the "v-word" was associated with the location, the site was a contentious one: early Hungarian, Germanic, Romanian populations established trade routes there, with the Ottomans making many attempts to gain a foothold in the region. King Andrew II of Hungary formally gave the land to the Teutonic Knights in the 13th century—only to have their settlement later destroyed by Mongols. Germanic Saxons of Kronstadt would rebuild in the area, with the first mention of a completed Bran Castle in 1377. At the time, the space served as a customs checkpoint and fortress against the Ottoman Empire. In 1407, Sigismund, the Holy Roman Emperor and King of Hungary would gift the region to the Romanian ruler Mircea the Elder.
 

Bran Castle's most famous resident could give Game of Thrones royalty a run for their money. Vlad III (aka Vlad Dracula or Vlad the Impaler) was the grandson of Mircea the Elder, but had little time to enjoy the prosperity his grandfather established in the region. In 1440, six years after Vlad Dracula's father, Vlad II, became the ruler of Wallachia, Vlad Dracula was taken hostage by the Ottoman Empire. Later, his father and brother were killed on the orders of Hungarian regent-governor John Hunyadi. Taking no prisoners past this point, a vengeful Vlad Dracula recruited the Ottomans to defeat Hunyadi and his own second cousin to retake Wallachia in 1456. He purged the autocratic Wallachian boyars of dissenters and tore through the Saxon villages of enemy sympathizers, impaling residents as a warning to any potential threats entering the area—hence his famous moniker. Vlad Dracula, whose title translates to both "dragon" and "devil," aided in casting Bran Castle in a foreboding light.
 

After Vlad's death in 1477, Bran Castle changed hands over the centuries between the Germanic Saxons and Hungarian rulers, until the location eventually fell out of favor as a trade location. Major renovations came in 1920 when Queen Marie of Romania turned it into her summer residence. The queen updated the infrastructure with natural spring-piped water, electricity, and an English Park with a Tea House on the outskirts of the castle. If that all seems too rosy for such a macabre locale, don't worry: when Queen Marie passed, her heart was placed in an ornate gold box, then buried in a sarcophagus at Bran Castle.

 

After changing hands between communist leadership and the heirs of the Romanian crown, Bran Castle is currently under the rule of the Archdukes and Archduchesses of Romania. But if there's ever a desire to relive the bloodthirsty history of Vlad, or Bram Stoker's horror masterpiece, don't fret: AirBnB once offered up a contest for "A Night at Dracula's Castle in Transylvania." House rules stated no garlic or silver allowed indoors, though!

 

Below: playing up the haunting aspects of Bram Castle with dark corridors, candlelit dining spaces, and even bedrooms—with complimentary coffins to keep out the sunlight.
 

Image credit & copyright: Bran Castle, Condé Nast Traveler, AirBnB
 

A porridge competition turns comfort food into a competitive sport.

Carrbridge, Scotland, is home to the food contest we never knew we needed. Every October, the town of 700 draws thousands of people in a celebration of porridge, that classic comfort dish. The contest, which has been running for 25 years, is also a testament to the culture of Scotland—the same country that popularized shortbread, haggis, and other notoriously simple foods.
 

Oats have been a staple in Scotland for centuries. Most Scots farmed oats in the Middle Ages, and the food served as their primary source of carbohydrates until the introduction of potatoes in the 18th century. Oat flour is a primary ingredient in shortbread, and Scots are even known to drink a beverage called Atholl Brose, made from mixing soaked oats, honey, and whisky. Suffice it to say that the Scots have a long and close relationship with this hearty grain.
 

But the Golden Spurtle Contest—named after the wooden mixing stick that porridge aficionados say is the key to getting just the right consistency—takes that relationship to a whole new level. The many participants, who mostly hail from Scotland and other parts of Europe, face a hefty challenge. Allowed only three ingredients—water, oats, and salt—they must whip up something that meets judges' standards on color, taste, and consistency. Serious contenders spend months hunting for the right type of salt and often bring large jugs of their own water sourced from local springs. The purity of the oats is taken seriously. Only untreated grains are allowed; anyone who uses rolled oats or oat flakes is immediately disqualified. While most competitors enter in the traditional oatmeal category, the Golden Spurtle also includes a "specialty" category where competitors are allowed to work with a few other ingredients.
 

Despite the humble ingredients list and niche food on offer, hundreds of attendees descend upon Carrbridge to sample some of the best oatmeal in the world and listen to the sweet sound of bagpipes that accompany the kickoff parade through the village's quaint streets. For three hours, judges travel from stall to stall to sample entries in four heats. Five points are allocated for color and consistency each, with 20 points set aside for taste. Contestants are eliminated in each successive heat, until a final cookout with five finalists takes place in the late afternoon.
 

Those who make it to the final round are often passionate about porridge because it evokes special memories. The winner of the competition in 2017, a Swedish woman named Ellinor Persson, said that she first became fascinated with oatmeal as a child while watching her father prepare some before going to a forestry job every morning. "I will always remember my father for this," she said.
 

There are two ultimate winners: one in the traditional category and one in the specialty category, which features experimental dishes like sticky toffee porridge and pinhead porridge with lemon, thyme, and parmesan. The winner of the traditional category walks away with a golden spurtle; both get to take home bragging rights and get called upon by cooking blogs and shows for their oatmeal expertise. Now where can we get one of these magical spurtles for ourselves?
 

Image credit & copyright: Johnny Spence
 

It was one of the fiercest hurricanes to ever strike the U.S.—and over 400 World War I veterans were caught in its path.

It turned out to be a perfect storm in the worst sort of way. In September 1935, at the height of hurricane season, few realized that a deadly hurricane was building off the coast of the Florida Keys. When the hurricane hit land, it created 20-foot waves, blew the clothes off of people's backs, and smashed a veterans' camp to smithereens.  

It was the Great Depression, and jobless World War I veterans were demanding help from Washington. To give the men work and to provide some much-needed infrastructure in the Florida Keys, President Franklin D. Roosevelt sent approximately 400 veterans to the area to build roads and bridges. Flimsy shelters were hastily constructed near the beach to house the veterans, who were paid $30 a month plus room and board.  

In late August of 1935, a storm began developing east of the Bahamas; but it was weak at first and didn't seem to pose a threat. This was before the days of weather satellites, so tracking hurricanes was an extremely inexact science. Few realized that the storm was gathering strength until it hit the Florida Keys as a Category Five hurricane—the highest rating on the Saffir–Simpson hurricane wind scale.  

The administrators of the work camp had an emergency plan in place: in case of a hurricane, they would send for a train in Miami to evacuate the veterans. But as the hurricane was building, administrators held off ordering the train because the Weather Bureau predicted the storm was heading for Cuba. By the time administrators realized the predictions were wrong, it was too late. Precious time was lost as workers assembled the train; when it finally headed for the work camp, it was slammed by winds of 160 miles per hour and gusts up to 200 miles per hour. Train cars were tossed into the air, and only the engine was heavy enough to stay on the tracks.  

Meanwhile, the veterans at the work camp had little protection as the storm plowed through their camp. As shelters were blown apart, flying lumber speared and buried many of the men. Others were hit by raining coconuts; still others were swept away by the sea. When the storm retreated, an estimated 259 of the veterans had lost their lives.  

Many blamed camp administrators for the victims' fate, including the writer Ernest Hemingway, who wrote an article for New Masses titled, "Who Murdered the Vets?" published just a few weeks after the storm. Hemingway ended his angry piece with the question, "Who left you there? And what's the punishment for manslaughter now?" But a government investigation determined the deaths were "an act of God"—and no one was ever charged. A monument to the veterans, the Florida Keys Memorial (known locally as the "Hurricane Memorial"), was constructed to honor the victims, and ceremonies are held at the site every year on Labor Day and Memorial Day.  

Below: the relief train sent to rescue the veterans was derailed by the hurricane.
 

Image credit & copyright: Bettman, Getty Images; Wikimedia
 

Have Pilgrims, will travel.

The Mayflower may not have been a warship or party yacht, yet the merchant ship managed to sail its way into history when it transported the Pilgrims to the American colonies in September of 1620. Stepping aboard the vessel's history gives us a unique perspective on how that fateful trip came to be, and how the crew survived the treacherous journey.
 

About 26 English vessels bore the Mayflower name in the early 17th century. Records for Captain Christopher Jones' Mayflower indicate the boat was about 90 ft long by 25 wide, with three masts and a cargo capacity of 180 tons—or more than enough weight capacity to serve as a merchant vessel. In its early voyages, the ship traversed Europe and Northern Africa to transport wine, salt, and hemp across various countries. But in 1620, it was contracted with its most precious cargo: Protestant Separatists and English investors, otherwise collectively known as the Pilgrims to the New World.
 

The voyage of the Mayflower is often associated with the Pilgrims seeking religious freedom—maybe because their first attempts to do so actually backfired. In 1608, the Protestant separatists sailed for the Netherlands with the expectation of religious tolerance in their future. What they found in the city of Leiden was actually too much tolerance: the Dutch were free to work on Sundays, join local guilds, and prosper among a wealth of economic opportunities. The Separatists returned to England and made preparations to sail to America.
 

The Mayflower and Speedwell ships initially departed on the River Thames in July of 1620 with approximately 60 merchants and non-denominational passengers accompanying the 40 Protestants in travel. There's a good reason we don't hear about the Speedwell in history books: it sprung leaks. As it became clearer that the Speedwell would not make the journey, the Mayflower took all but a few passengers aboard, where they would stay for the 66-day journey. Since the layout of the Mayflower was designed for non-human cargo, about 100 Pilgrims were stuffed in a cramped below-ground gun deck. There was no onboard latrine, and sailing in storm season meant that hanging out on deck was a rare option. To add to the misery, the Mayflower's square-rigged design was meant to save the crew and cargo in harsh weather; yet those same features caused horrible delays while sailing against the wind—which was precisely the direction they'd travel toward American colonies. It's a wonder only one passenger, by the name of William Butten, passed away during the entire voyage, and just three days before reaching Cape Cod off the coast of New England.

 

Landing in the New World on November 9, 1620, alone makes the Mayflower a historically important ship. Once the weather cleared and Captain Jones' crew were doing well again, the Mayflower returned to England in May of 1621. In the next few years, Jones died at sea and the Mayflower was retired. It was likely taken apart and used as timber for the Mayflower Barn in Buckinghamshire, England—no doubt where its life is much more, ahem, stable than its previous life at sea.
 

Below: a cross-section view of the Mayflower's ship design, and two views of the Mayflower Barn.
 

Image Credit: Art.co.uk, Pete's Walks, Mayflower History
 

After surviving a turbulent childhood, Elizabeth navigated several hurdles to lead England towards prosperity.

Ambitious young women could learn a thing or two from Queen Elizabeth I. Born September 7, 1533, the queen successfully led her country through religious strife, defended England from a Spanish invasion, and encouraged the development of the arts. (Many young playwrights benefited from her love of theater, including William Shakespeare.) A powerful public speaker, Elizabeth shrewdly cultivated popular support and was mourned by many fans upon her death. But good fortune did not fall into her lap; in fact, the queen faced upheaval and scandal years before her coronation.
 
Elizabeth lost both her parents before her teenage years: her mother was beheaded by her father, King Henry VIII, who then died when Elizabeth was 13. She then dealt with the turbulence of being moved from home to home and the suspicion of nobles who viewed her as a competitor to her half-brother, the heir apparent. She eventually landed at the home of her stepmother, Catherine Parr, with whom she had a good relationship—seemingly a welcome respite. But not soon after she moved in, circumstances took a dark turn: Elizabeth's 40-something stepfather began paying too much attention to her, entering her chambers before she was fully dressed, tickling and slapping her inappropriately—and at one point even holding her down and cutting up her dress. Only months later did his wife finally put her foot down, sending Elizabeth away and displacing her once more.
 
The incident with her stepfather may have shaped young Elizabeth's decision to remain a virgin queen. During her 44 years in power, Elizabeth received several bids for her hand in marriage. But she rebuffed each of them. "At present it is not convenient; nor never shall be without some peril unto you and certain danger unto me," she told Parliament in 1566, somewhat quelling the pressure from her advisers.
 
Though Elizabeth's decision to remain single may have been motivated by personal reasons, it was also a shrewd political move. Without a spouse, royal power was centralized in her hands. Those hands turned out to be quite capable, especially in dealing with Protestant-Catholic strife early in her reign. King Henry's decision to break with the Catholic church in order to divorce his first wife had prompted religious conflict that continued to fester for many years. Elizabeth formulated a proposal that protected Protestant interests without harshly punishing Catholics, restoring some sense of stability to the country.
 
Over the years, the virgin queen successfully managed other challenges, leading Britain through a crucial period in which it began to develop a national identity and look outwards to begin exploring other parts of the world. In times of war, her strong oratory skills came in handy. During the Spanish Armada, Elizabeth arrived at the scene wearing a suit of armor in a symbolic gesture of solidarity with the defending troops. "I know I have the body of a weak and feeble woman; but I have the heart and stomach of a king—and of a King of England too," she said. Despite her turbulent childhood—or maybe because of it—Elizabeth I managed to handle the ups and downs of queendom and leave behind a powerful legacy.
 

Image credit & copyright: Royal Museums Greenwich