Curio Cabinet / Person, Place, or Thing

It inspired Abraham Lincoln’s most famous speech, countless documentaries, and even quite a few ghost stories. The Battle of Gettysburg, which ended on this day in 1863, is one of the most famous battles in American history and by far the bloodiest of the American Civil War with more than 50,000 estimated casualties. It was also a military campaign that didn’t go the way anyone was expecting it to. In fact, the Battle of Gettysburg became the war’s crucial turning point, unforeseen by both the Union and the Confederacy.
 
On May 6, 1863, Confederate General Robert E. Lee won his greatest military victory in the Battle of Chancellorsville, in Spotsylvania County, Virginia. Although Lee’s forces had been badly outnumbered, he triumphed thanks to his sharp tactical skills, leading many to believe that the Confederacy would win the war. In high spirits, Lee decided to lead his army northward into Pennsylvania to launch an invasion in Union territory, north of the Mason-Dixon line. Lee believed that a successful invasion of the North would cause panic in cities like New York, demoralize the Union, and pave the way for the Confederacy to take control of Washington D.C., bringing the war to a quick end. Meanwhile, Union Major General Joseph Hooker was relieved of his command after his defeat at Chancellorsville, and Major General George Gordon Meade was placed in charge of around 90,000 Union troops. Under Meade’s leadership, they began moving to block Lee’s route to Washington, drawing very close to Lee’s troops in the process. Though both sides knew that the other could be nearby, they had no idea just how close they were as they both neared the town of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. The situation was a powder keg.
 
On the morning of July 1st, Confederate Major General Henry Heth disobeyed orders from Lee and led a division into Gettysburg on a supply run. To his surprise, he ended up bumping right into a group of Union cavalry, and a skirmish broke out immediately. If not for Heth’s blunder, the Battle of Gettysburg might never have taken place, or might have ended differently. When later confronted about his ill-advised trip into town, Heth claimed that he and his troops desperately needed shoes, and he had no choice but to disobey Lee in order to get them. In any case, the relatively small fight took a grave turn when Union reinforcements under the command of Major General John F. Reynolds arrived in town. Reynolds was killed in the fighting, and both sides began calling for more reinforcements. Soon, tens of thousands of troops had taken to the battlefield. By nightfall, the Confederates appeared victorious. Outnumbered Union troops withdrew to an area south of town to wait for daybreak.
 
The Confederacy gained more ground on the battle’s second day by attempting to encircle Union troops who were defending hills and ridges south of Gettysburg. However, despite heavy losses, the Union successfully defended most of their positions, including a hill called Culp’s Hill and a ridge called Cemetery Ridge. These positions gave them advantageous high ground, with Culp’s Hill functioning as the Union’s right defensive flank. On the morning of July 3, Lee was determined to drive the Union from their high ground. This culminated in what became known as Pickett’s charge. Under orders from Lieutenant General James Longstreet, Lee’s second-in-command, around 12,5000 Confederate troops charged up the center of Cemetery Ridge, attempting to take it from the Union through sheer force. About half of them were under the command of Brigadier General George Pickett. Though one Confederate brigade did make it to the top of the ridge, Lee’s hopes of a successful, all-out assault were quickly dashed. The charge was a disaster for the Confederacy. From their position atop the ridge, Union troops picked off a critical number of Confederates. Having lost around 60 percent of his men, Lee was forced to retreat from Gettysburg, through Maryland, and then back to Virginia with wagons full of gravely injured soldiers. In fact, the ambulance wagon train stretched for around 15 to 20 miles.
 
Although the Civil War continued for almost two more years, the Battle of Gettysburg gave the Union a much-needed morale boost and ended the Confederacy’s long-held plan to invade the North. Just think, the U.S. might look very different today if General Heth hadn’t been so desperate for new shoes.

 
[Image description: Monument to Battery B, a stone monument and two cannons near Gettysburg, Pennsylvania] Credit & copyright: indiesilver, Pixabay

Happy birthday, United Nations! On this day in 1945, the United Nations Charter, the organization’s founding document, was signed in the hopes that an international body could help nations resolve disputes and promote world peace. Since then, the U.N. has doubled in size and grown in influence. In fact, the U.N.’s top court recently ordered Russia to end its invasion of Ukraine. But just how much power does this international organization have? The answer is complicated.
 
The story of the United Nations begins with the outbreak of World War I, in 1914. Upset by the massive loss of life caused by the war, influential world leaders, most notably President Woodrow Wilson, began calling for an international body to promote peace between nations. He believed that such an organization could prevent another world war. By 1918, the idea had taken off, and the League of Nations was officially established in 1920, at the Paris Peace Conference, which established the terms of peace after World War I. The League had 42 founding members. Over the following decades, some nations were added via elections, while others withdrew or were expelled. In fact, the Soviet Union was expelled in 1939 for invading Finland. Strangely, even though a U.S. President was influential in establishing the League, the United States never joined due to strong isolationist sentiments among American lawmakers at the time.
 
The League wasn’t as functional as Woodrow Wilson might have hoped. From the offset, it was hampered by issues ranging from infighting to the United States’ refusal to join, and a general unwillingness among members to actually enforce the League’s resolutions. The final nail in the coffin came in 1939, with the outbreak of World War II—the very thing the League had been created to prevent. In 1943, allied powers agreed to dissolve the League once the war ended, and replace it with a more active, effective international organization. President Franklin Roosevelt coined the name “United Nations” in 1941, and many of the new organization’s rules and goals were outlined, debated and revised in various meetings throughout the remainder of the war.
 
On June 26, 1945, the United Nations was formed with the signing of the Charter of the United Nations, which had taken two months to fully draft. 50 countries signed, and the document was ratified on October 24. U.N. members had no time to celebrate and take it easy, though. In 1947, the U.N. approved a resolution to create the state of Israel by partitioning Palestine, a move that remains controversial to this day, but that effectively demonstrated the new organization’s power. Over the next decade, the escalation of the Cold War between the U.S. and the Soviet Union caused tensions in the U.N. Some resolutions had to be passed without the U.S.S.R. present, including a 1950 resolution that agreed to let U.S. forces stop the North-Korean-led, U.S.S.R.-supported invasion of South Korea. Still, the U.N. immediately proved more effective than the defunct League of Nations. Unlike the League, The U.N. took a very active role in global peacekeeping, approving resolutions for certain nations, like the U.S., to send humanitarian aid, military troops, or both into war-torn areas in an attempt to calm tensions. So far, the U.N. has conducted over 70 peacekeeping missions, at least 12 of which are still ongoing.
 
The modern U.N. includes 193 member states and functions via six principal organs: the General Assembly, the Security Council, the Trusteeship Council, the Economic and Social Council, the Secretariat, and the International Court of Justice (ICJ). The ICJ recently made headlines by ruling that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is illegal under international law, and that Russia must withdraw. Of course, since no international government exists, the U.N. can’t actually force Russia to comply. But that doesn’t make the ICJ’s ruling useless. In fact, the ruling makes it easier for other nations to justify harsh sanctions against Russia, and makes it much more difficult for Russia to deny the illegality of its invasion. It also serves as a subtle reminder of the U.N.’s policy of collective security: an attack against one U.N. nation will lead to military resistance from all of them. Certainly something for any country to keep in mind before tangling with the U.N.

 
[Image description: The blue-and-white United Nations flag] Credit & copyright: padrinan, Pixabay

It's Flashback Friday! In honor of World UFO Day, enjoy these curios all about mankind’s fascination with the mysteries of space. Take us to your leaders! If extraterrestrials ever did land on Earth, the government probably wouldn't host them at Area 51. The location in Lincoln County, Nevada, was the source of much speculation during the second half of the 20th century, and for good reasons—though, not the ones we would expect.
 

In April of 1955, the CIA scouted locations near the Edwards Air Force base seeking a testing ground for new weapons and aircraft. President Eisenhower had recently approved a secret counterstrategy to address the Soviet Union's aggressive air force expansion, and it needed a venue. Groom Lake was chosen because of its flat, plane-accessible field and Emigrant Valley's sight-obstructing mountain ranges. Once Project OXCART began in 1959, so did decades of classified testing. Pilots were trained to fly U-2 jets and search-and-rescue helicopters; anti-radar stealth materials were tested; and captured Soviet fighter planes were analyzed for structural weaknesses. All of the military secrecy combined with higher flight restrictions around Groom Lake led locals to suspect something fishy (or alien-y) was going on.
 

Some of the earliest UFO sightings near Area 51 came from commercial pilots who had never seen an aircraft fly as high as the air force's new prototypes. Air Force officials knew about the reports, however their need to protect classified projects led to stories of "high-altitude weather research" or "natural phenomena" as the source of all the "nothings" to see at Groom Lake. Conspiracy theories were stoked in 1989 when Bob Lazar claimed to have reverse engineered alien spacecrafts in a clandestine, underground lair at Area 51. He also claimed the as-yet-undiscovered element 115 (moscovium) was the main fuel source for the vehicle. Lazar's allegations and MIT degree have yet to be verified by outside sources.
 

Area 51's shroud was finally cleared in 2013 when a Freedom of Information Act request was granted, forcing the CIA to publicly acknowledge the existence of the classified base. Detailed records of the base's history and purpose have also been released, but conspiracy theorists remain skeptical. These days the Extraterrestrial Highway surrounding Edwards Air Force base is a hotbed of kitschy UFO tourism where visitors of the terrestrial kind can see the Alien Research Center, or grab a room at the A'Le'Inn. Just don't expect to wake up to spooky theremin music and a neon gravity beam pulling the inn up to the mothership!

 

Image credit & copyright: MartinStr, Pixabay
 

It's Flashback Friday, and the anniversary of the Watergate scandal. As such, enjoy these curios all about government; it’s procedures and some of the shenanigans it gets up to.  

When a government official must publicly declare that they aren't a criminal, it's usually a bad sign. But Richard Milhous Nixon, the 37th President of the United States, did just that on November 17, 1973, during a now-infamous speech. The address came on the heels of a government wiretapping scandal which had cemented Nixon's place as an extremely controversial President. On August 9, 1974, Nixon became the first and only U.S. President to ever resign from office, leaving behind a strange governmental legacy.
 

Born January 9, 1913, Nixon started making waves early in his career. In 1946, after some time in the navy, he won a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives at the age of 33. But it was during the "Red Scare" of the late 1940s and early 1950s, in which everyone from government officials to Hollywood actors were accused of being communists, that Nixon truly made a name for himself. He became known as a fervent anti-communist when he sat on the rather dystopian-sounding (and later disgraced) "House Un-American Activities Committee" and aggressively questioned former State Department official Alger Hiss, who was accused of being a communist spy.
 

Nixon gained a seat in the U.S. Senate in 1950. In 1952, he won the nomination to run as Vice President to Dwight D. Eisenhower, but soon the New York Post reported that Nixon was improperly using political contributions, which he kept in a secret "slush fund." In response, Nixon gave a now-famous address—the "Checkers" speech—in which he insisted that the only political gift he had ever received was his daughter's cocker spaniel, Checkers. Nixon was allowed to run with Eisenhower, and became Vice President later that year.
 

Nixon first ran for President himself in 1960, but lost to Democratic opponent John F. Kennedy. He didn't launch another Presidential campaign until 1968. His biggest campaign promise was to end the Vietnam War and the draft, which were hugely unpopular. This helped propel him to a narrow victory. During his first term, Nixon focused on easing tensions with China and Russia. Ending the Vietnam War proved difficult for a number of logistical reasons, and a treaty wasn't signed until 1973, during Nixon's second term. It was around this time that the scandal for which Nixon is best remembered came to light, thanks to a secret informant.
 

According to the source, Nixon's administration had burglarized and wiretapped the Democratic Party National Headquarters at the Watergate complex in Washington, D.C., during his re-election campaign. Government investigations revealed that the five men connected with the burglary had been hired by the Republican Party's Committee to Re-elect the President, and that Nixon had tried to hide his involvement by paying the burglars hush money. He was even caught on tape discussing how to block the FBI's investigation.
 

In 1973, at the height of national outrage over the Watergate scandal, Nixon gave his now-infamous speech, saying "...people have got to know whether or not their president is a crook. Well, I am not a crook. I have earned everything I have got." The majority of the U.S. government didn't agree, however. By 1974, it became obvious that Nixon would be removed from office. He resigned from the Presidency on August 9, 1974.
 

When Gerald Ford assumed the Presidency in Nixon's place, he pardoned Nixon of all crimes he had committed while in office. Nixon largely remained out of the public eye for the remainder of his life. He passed away from complications from a stroke in 1994. No one can deny that the legacy "Tricky Dick" left behind isn't unique...though surely not in the way he had hoped for!
 

Below: footage of Nixon's "I am not a crook" speech.
 

Image credit & copyright: White House Photo Office, General Services Administration, National Archives and Records Service, Office of Presidential Libraries, Office of Presidential Papers, Wikimedia Commons, Public Domain
 

It's Flashback Friday! In honor of National Marriage Day, enjoy these curios all about weddings. 
A literary great gets some seriously cold feet.

If anyone objects to this union, write a novel! Acclaimed author Jane Austen famously critiqued 19th-century gentry and lamented the pressures society put upon women to marry for wealth. Born on this day in 1775 in Hampshire, England, she almost accepted an unfeeling marriage, herself—one that would have wrecked her mental health and doomed her uncompleted novels.
 

Austen began writing at age 12 with fiction, plays, and poems. By 23, she had written the first drafts of her novels Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice, and Northanger Abbey. But her career faced a looming threat; though her father's position as parish rector had provided her with the comforts necessary to write so assiduously—she was now of age to marry. For Austen, marriage would've meant an end to her dream of writing and a monotonous life tending to a household.
 

The aspiring writer had a lot to fret over, and not just her freedom or her career. Her father was growing older, and who would take care of the family after he passed? An answer came one day when Austen and her sister visited old friends in nearby Manydown Park. A longtime friend of Austen's family, a Mr. Harris Bigg-Wither, spontaneously proposed to her in 1802.
 

Austen said, "yes". She couldn't overlook the fact Bigg-Wither had just graduated from Oxford and had professional prospects: he could provide for her family. But by morning, Austen realized she'd made a horrible mistake. Despite all his perks, Bigg-Wither wholly lacked tact and was both plain-looking and awkward. And there was just no way she was going to marry a lummox while three uncompleted, ground-breaking novels sat idle on her writing desk. That morning she retracted her offer, writing later, "nothing can be compared to the misery of being bound without love." The situation was so cringeworthy, Austen immediately fled Manydown.
 

She focused on her writing from there, publishing Sense and Sensibility in 1811 at age 35. She ultimately published all six of her books anonymously to avoid sexist critique. When she died in 1816 from Addison's disease, her brother posthumously revealed her as an author; by the 20th-century, Austen finally achieved recognition for her unflinching depictions of 19th-century England and the phenomenal mechanics of her prose. In particular, Austen's use of free indirect discourse in third-person narratives and her dabbling in realism predated both Leo Tolstoy and Charles Dickens by decades. Talk about an Ausome legacy!
 

Image credit & copyright: James Andrews, Wikimedia Commons, Public Domain
 

Aliens, monsters, totalitarian governments, oh my! American author Ray Bradbury, who passed away on this day in 2012, was known for his speculative fiction—stories that imagine what various futures might be like. His most famous work, Fahrenheit 451, is considered one of the best speculative works about government censorship…though Bradbury claimed it wasn’t actually about censorship. Some fans might be surprised just how quirky Bradbury’s opinions about his own writings and the world at large were.
 
Born August 22, 1920, in Waukegan, Illinois, to Swedish immigrants, Bradbury was interested in writing, theater, and movies from a young age. He was greatly inspired by stage magic and acting performances as a child. Once, when he was three, a circus performer called Mr. Electrico touched Bradbury’s nose with an electrified sword, shouting, “Live forever!” Because he was so young, Bradbury believed that the magic was real, and was inspired to write every day. He later said that he had written every day of his life since Mr. Electricio’s performance. When he was 14, Bradbury’s family moved to Los Angeles, where he made a hobby of roller skating through Hollywood to spot celebrities. This paid off when Bradbury managed to meet George Burns, of the popular Burns and Allen radio show. Bradbury convinced Burns to let him be an audience member for the show, and then to use one of his scripts for a performance. Just two years later, another influential but far less pleasant event took place for Bradbury: he witnessed a fatal car crash in which six people died. The crash was so horrifying to Bradbury that he later said, in an interview with Playboy, “I walked home holding on to walls and trees. It took me months to begin to function again.” As a result, Bradbury never learned to drive, and developed a lifelong fear of cars. In that same Playboy interview, Bradbury said, “The automobile is the most dangerous weapon in our society—cars kill more than wars do.”
 
Since Bradbury came of age during the Great Depression, he couldn’t afford to attend college. Instead, he spent much of his time at the library. Bradbury considered libraries to be equalizers between the rich and poor, and he stressed their importance throughout his career. Bradbury began publishing science fiction short stories, mostly in limited-run fanzines, in 1938. His first officially published story was Hollerbochen's Dilemma, about a man named Hollerbochen who can stop time to escape danger, but who explodes when he encounters too much danger at once. Years later, Bradbury admitted that he didn’t like the story, even though it was the first he managed to publish. World War II broke out when Bradbury was a young man, but he was rejected from military service due to his bad eyesight. In the 1940s, he became a regular contributor to several literary, science fiction, and film magazines, including Rob Wagner’s magazine, Script.
 
By the 1950s, Bradbury was a respected writer with two successful short story collections, 1950’s The Martian Chronicles and 1951’s The Illustrated Man. 1953 saw the publication of Bradbury’s most celebrated work, and the one which earned him a Pulitzer Prize: Fahrenheit 451, a speculative fiction novel about a future in which books are banned and burned by the government. In this world, most people are only interested in shallow conversions and watching T.V. The story follows Guy Montag, a “fireman” who burns books for a living. His life is turned upside down when a teenage girl shows him the value of books and intellectualism. After his new friend is killed, Montag rebels against his work, and ends up in exile with other intellectuals, who together survive a nuclear war and are tasked with rebuilding society. The novel rocketed Bradbury to stardom, but the author had an unusual take on his own work. Though most people consider government censorship to be one of the main themes of Fahrenheit 451, Bradbury firmly stated that it was actually about the dangers of television, and his fear that television would kill books as a medium. He felt that the apathy of common people in Fahrenheit 451 was the true tragedy—not their government. Bradbury felt so strongly about his position that he once walked out of a class at UCLA when students insisted that the book was actually about censorship.
 
Bradbury was undoubtedly quirky, but his works have inspired generations of writers. He spent much of his later life talking and teaching about writing. In honor of his many stories about Mars, NASA named the Martian landing site of their Curiosity rover Bradbury Landing. A fitting tribute for a lover of space, science, and magic.

 
[Image description: A black-and-white photo of Ray Bradbury raising his hands as he speaks into a microphone.] Credit & copyright: MDCarchives, Wikimedia Commons, image cropped for size, image is hereby distributed under the same license linked here

It's Flashback Friday! On this day in 2001, the musical The Producers won a record-breaking 12 Tony Awards. In honor of this achievement, enjoy these curios all about theater.  A dying school of puppetry seeks to reinvent itself.  

Are those dolls breathing? The old Japanese art of Bunraku puppet theater combines stage performance, narrative, and music to create Shakespearean experiences. A week from now, 78-year-old Japanese national treasure Komanosuke Takemoto will narrate one of these Bunraku productions. The tradition symbolizes a vestige of old Japanese culture but is unpopular among youth. Bunraku could die out with Takemoto and her dwindling generation.  

Bunraku is the common name for ningyo joruri, or chanted puppet narration, which became popular during the Edo Period (1600-1868). In Bunraku, a musician plays a 3-stringed instrument called a shamisen, while a narrator like Takemoto chants the narration and dialogue. After 60 years of studying Bunraku narration, Takemoto says only in the last 20 did her performances become stage-worthy.  

Takemoto's extreme modesty and intense work ethic are all part of the job. Puppeteers typically train for 30 years to achieve Bunraku mastery. Bunraku puppets are so complex, each one requires three handlers: one for the head and right arm, one for the left arm, and one for the legs. The puppets must become human on stage, dance in step to music, and mouth the narrator's words. Some puppets even transform from maidens into demons with a flip of a switch.  

Bunraku plays customarily focus on the tragic interplay between societal obligations and human emotions. Chikamatsu Monzaemon (1653-1724), without any contact with the West, wrote plays remarkably similar to Shakespeare's. His masterpiece Love Suicides at Sonezaki parallels Romeo and Juliet despite showing a century later. Authorities outlawed suicide by lovesickness because Chikamatsu's play made the grisly act so popular.  

Given Bunraku's outdated feel and extreme demands, Japan's teens find little interest in continuing the custom. Recent attempts at humor have drawn small crowds, but humor alone can't save the tradition; the extreme demands of Bunraku isolate it from the influence of contemporary entertainment. We at Curious remain hopeful of the possibilities: imagine Bunraku stand-up, or Bunraku nightly news—these talented puppets could take any stage!)  

Below: excerpts from Bunraku productions.

[Image description: Description ] Credit & copyright: Pilar Aymerich i Puig, Wikimedia Commons, this image is hereby distributed under the same license linked here.
 

It's Flashback Friday! This week we’re throwing things waaay back with these curios all about ancient times and practices.
 

Nothing to see here but a lighthearted sibling rivalry. According to ancient Roman tradition, mythological twins Romulus and Remus founded Rome on today's date in 753 B.C.E. as the culmination of an epic family feud started by their twisted great-uncle. Their legend, which originated in the third or fourth century B.C.E., was once taken as fact, and with so many theatrical ups and downs, it's easy to see why the story jibed with the masses. Even if it stretches the truth… just a smidge.
 

The legend of Romulus and Remus begins with their grandfather, King Numitor, who ruled the ancient Latin city of Alba Longa until he was usurped by his brother, Amulius. Amulius forced Numitor's daughter Rhea Silvia to take a sacred vow of chastity, to ensure that none of Numitor's progeny could seek revenge. She was sealed within a convent, but the wily god of war Mars impregnated her.
 

When Amulius caught wind that Rhea had given birth to twins, he ordered their death, and the two babies were left to perish on the shores of the Tiber River. But a generous she-wolf came across the twins and nursed them. Eventually, a shepherd named Faustulus encountered the feral children, too, and raised them as his own. Romulus and Remus matured with no knowledge of their origins, though their godly blood made them just, charismatic leaders in their village community.
 

By this time, King Amulius was loathed by his citizens. When Romulus and Remus involved themselves in a local dispute between rival supporters of Numitor and Amulius, Remus was imprisoned and whisked away to Alba Longa. There, both Numitor and Amulius suspected Remus' true identity. Romulus, meanwhile, gathered a mob of supporters to rescue his brother. During the ensuing quarrel, fiendish uncle Amulius died. Numitor revealed to the twins that he was their grandfather, and was then reinstated as king of Alba Longa.
 

The boys were delighted to have all that nasty business behind them. They set out from Alba Longa to establish a new kingdom. Only, they couldn't agree on a location for it. Romulus argued that Palatine Hill was the perfect site. No way, scoffed Remus; it was definitely Aventine Hill. To settle their dispute, they consulted augury, or the practice of interpreting omens from the flight of birds. When Romulus saw more auspicious birds than Remus, the latter flew into a rage. In an act of anger and mockery, Remus leaped over a meager wall that Romulus had been building on his hill of choice. Fed-up Romulus, in turn, slew Remus for his contempt. So Palatine Hill, it was.
 

After gloating over his senseless act of fratricide, Romulus went on to found Rome. Well, not really. According to modern dating of ancient Roman walls and pottery, some of the artifacts and structures of Rome actually predate the legend of Romulus and Remus by 100 years. Sure, the tale's happenings could have transpired further back in time, but we're not betting on it. After all, who in their right mind would choose to live under the king of a hill, no less one who gutted his brother?
 

Image credit & copyright: Benutzer:Wolpertinger, Wikimedia Commons, Public Domain
 

It's Flashback Friday! Enjoy these creepy curios in honor of Friday the 13th!
 

Reader beware—you're in for a scare!

Read if you dare…. Before Harry Potter dominated young adult fiction, a much darker series held America's young bookworms within its death grip: Goosebumps. Written by quirky author R.L. Stine, Goosebumps brought evil cuckoo clocks, try-on werewolf skin, and phantom dogs to the young masses—and they loved it.
 

But at first, Stine was opposed to writing horror for children. He worried it would ruin sales for his teenage-geared Fear Street series. Regardless, co-owner of Parachute Press, Joan Waricha, felt the children's horror genre had unactualized promise and convinced Stine to give it a chance in July 1992.
 

Stine came up with the name, wrote the first six Goosebumps novels—and waited. The books sat on the shelves for roughly three or four months, and sales were stagnant. Stine feared that the first book in the series, Welcome to Dead House, was too scary for children. "I didn't have the formula then, to combine funny and scary," said Stine, who admits he would soften the book if given a chance to rewrite it.
 

Then, out of nowhere, Goosebumps was a household name. Books started flying off the shelves, and soon Stine was given a deal to write a book a month. To keep pace, he devised a routine: first, he chose the title and built the plot around it. For example, Stine thought up Say Cheese and Die and knew it had to be about a sinister camera of some sort. Once Stine conceived the basics of a plot, he sent a short summary to illustrator Tim Jacobus, so Jacobus could paint the covers as he wrote. Typically, it took Stine anywhere from six days to three-and-a-half weeks to finish a Goosebumps novella. Between the years of 1992 and 1997, he pumped out 62 books!
 

Today, 350 million Goosebumps have sold worldwide in 32 languages. Following Harry Potter, Goosebumps brags the highest ever sales for a children's book series, spawning a television show, six other book series, and a movie in 2015. Recently, Goosebumps has experienced a bit of a renaissance. Nevertheless, Stine's son Matt has never read a single of the books. "He does it just to make me crazy," says Stine. We'd be interested to see how Goosebumps written by a nowadays "crazy" Stine would turn out!
 

Image credit & copyright: William Tung, Wikimedia Commons, image cropped for size, this image is hereby distributed under the same license linked here.

Here’s an activist whose work spans the better part of a century. In celebration of Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month, we’re honoring Grace Lee Boggs, a fierce fighter in the battle for American racial and class equality. Though Boggs passed away in 2015 at the age of 100, she was involved in racial, feminist, labor and environmental activism up until the time of her death. In fact, the final of her five books, 2011’s The Next American Revolution: Sustainable Activism for the Twenty-First Century, was published when Boggs was 95.
 
Born in 1915 in Providence, Rhode Island, Bogg’s parents were immigrants from Taishan, Guangdong, China, and her Chinese given name was Yu Ping. Bogg’s father, Chin Lee, was a restauranteur, while her mother, Yin Lan, was a feminist role moel to Boggs. Born poor, Lan had been sold into slavery by her own uncle in China, but escaped. Lan taught her six children, including her daughters, the importance of independent thinking and education. At a time when it was common for U.S. universities to be segregated by race and gender, Boggs earned a scholarship to Barnard College of Columbia University, and eventually received a Ph.D. in philosophy from Bryn Mawr College.
 
Unfortunately, Boggs wasn’t immune from the prejudices of 1940s America. Despite her education, she struggled to find work. According to NPR, she recalled to a group of students, “Even department stores would say, 'We don't hire Orientals.'” Eventually, she took a low-paying job at the University of Chicago’s philosophy library. Due to her low wages, her living conditions in the city were poor, and Boggs soon found herself connecting with local activists who led protests against such conditions. Many of these activists were Black, and Boggs identified with their struggle against racial injustice. Boggs’ education and mastery of language served her well as an activist, as her pamphlets helped rally more people to causes of labor and race. She began translating Karl Marx’s early letters into English and joined the far-left Workers Party, which had formed from the Socialist Workers Party. Both groups believed that progress could only come from a well-read and organized working class. She then joined the Johnsonites, a group that believed that the working class had the power to emancipate itself.
 
In 1953, after making a name for herself publishing articles for the Johnsonite publication Correspondence, Boggs moved to Detroit. The city was the epicenter of Johnsonite philosophy, and Boggs made fast friends with other working-class organizers there, including a Black Johnsonite autoworker from Alabama named James Boggs. Soon, the two fell in love and managed to get married, despite inter-racial marriage being illegal in much of the U.S. By this time, the F.B.I. had begun monitoring Boggs for her links to communism and involvement in the Black Power movement. Her official F.B.I. file incorrectly described her ethnicity as “probably Afro Chinese” simply because of her marriage to James Boggs and her work fighting for Black Americans’ civil rights. Grace Lee and James formed a powerful activist alliance, organizing protests, and helping to found the National Organization for an American Revolution (NOAR), which published literature about inequality related to class, race, and gender. Both Grace Lee and James believed that labor rights were inextricably tied to other civil rights for Asian Americans, Black Americans, and women of all races.
 
In 1970, Boggs helped found the Detroit Asian Political Alliance, which aimed to help Asian Americans in their struggles against racism. In 1992, she founded Detroit Summer, a youth program that aimed to get young people actively involved in improving their communities. Grace Lee and James Boggs remained married until James’ death in 1993. Beginning in 1998, Boggs published five books, including her autobiography. Her final book, The Next American Revolution: Sustainable Activism for the Twenty-First Century Boggs wrote about the need for social changes in the face of modern problems, from internet misinformation to climate change. Clearly, she was not an activist who believed in falling behind the times…or taking time off from work, for that matter.

 
[Image description: Wearing a black sweatshirt, activist Grace Lee Boggs gestures while speaking in 2012.] Credit & copyright: Kyle McDonald, Wikimedia Commons, image cropped for size, image is hereby distributed under the same license linked here.

No wonder it’s been called “the worst kept secret in U.S. history.” On April 21, 1961, President John F. Kennedy accepted full responsibility for the Bay of Pigs Invasion, a failed attempt to overthrow Cuba’s government. To understand why the U.S. decided to secretly (not-so-secretly) organize such a risky operation, a little historical context about U.S.-Cuba relations in the 1960s is needed.
 
Fidel Castro came to power as Prime Minister of Cuba in January, 1959. He didn’t win an election; rather, he and a loyal army of guerilla fighters overthrew former Cuban leader Fulgencio Batista. Batista, a military dictator who had himself come to power through a coup, was known for widespread human rights abuses. As such, he had grown extremely unpopular with many Cubans. The then-33-year-old Castro, on the other hand, was seen as a passionate revolutionary with Cubans’ best interests in mind. The U.S. government much preferred Batista, though, due to his pro-American and anti-communist economic policies. Under his government, American companies owned a large number of profitable sugar plantations and ranches in Cuba. Castro, however, wanted Cubans to have more control of their economy. Soon, “Cuba Sí, Yanquis No”, meaning “Cuba Yes, Yankees No,” was one of Castro’s most popular slogans, and many Cubans agreed with him. As U.S.-Cuba relations broke down, Castro began establishing stronger ties with the Soviet Union, with whom the U.S. was still locked in a cold war. Fearing an alliance between the two nations, U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower began working with the CIA to attempt to remove Castro from power. This included several covert assassination attempts. Famously, the CIA even spiked a pack of cigars with botulinum toxin and attempted to have them delivered to Castro, though they never reached him.
 
Eisenhower had a backup plan, though. Castro’s rise to power had caused some Cubans still loyal to Batista’s government to flee the country. Many of them had ended up in Miami, Florida. Under Eisnenhower’s direction, the CIA recruited around 1,400 of these Cuban exiles to form Brigade 2506, a military unit that would be trained by the U.S. military and eventually sent to Cuba to wrest it back from Castro’s control. At least, that was the hope. The U.S. government began secretly training the Cuban troops in Guatemala. At the same time, John F Kennedy won the 1960 U.S. Presidential election, and was sworn in on January 20, 1961. After being briefed on the Cuban takeover mission, Kennedy continued what Eisenhower had started by continuing the funding and training of Brigade 2506. Although Kennedy worried that the Soviet Union could retaliate if they learned about the mission, he was assured that the U.S.’s involvement would remain a secret.
 
On April 15, 1961, The U.S. military sent B-26 bombers, disguised to look like stolen Cuban planes, to attack Cuban airfields. However, Castro had already moved most of the country’s planes out of harm's way. On April 17, most of Brigade 2506 was loaded onto boats which launched from Guatemala and Nicaragua. That night, despite rough coral that sank a few of their ships, they made landfall in Cuba at Playa Girón in the Bay of Pigs. For a brief time, things seemed to go alright for the U.S.-backed troops. They took down a pro-Castro militia and began advancing over land. Unfortunately, they had failed to spot a radio station on the beach, which immediately began broadcasting about the invasion. Soon, Cuba and the entire international community knew about the operation. With the element of surprise gone, Kennedy withdrew vital air support from the mission, dooming it to failure. Castro’s troops quickly overwhelmed Brigade 2506, killing 114 of its soldiers. Within three days, the invaders were forced to surrender, and 1,100 of them were taken prisoner.
 
Although the Bay of Pigs invasion had been planned under Eisenhower, it was Kennedy who was left trying to explain the U.S.’s actions to the international community. In a State Department press conference on April 21, Kennedy accepted full responsibility for the embarrassing failure. The repercussions of the Bay of Pigs Invasion were swift and very nearly catastrophic. Cuba and the Soviet Union formed a strong alliance. The Cuban Missile Crisis, a tense confrontation between the U.S. and Cuba over Soviet-supplied nuclear missiles, happened the very next year. At least World War III was avoided, if narrowly.

 
[Image description: Troops and tanks engage in fighting near Playa Giron during the Bay of Pigs invasion, in 1961.] Credit & copyright: Rumlin, Wikimedia Commons, image cropped for size, this image is hereby distributed under the same license linked here.

It's Flashback Friday, and also Earth Day! Enjoy these curios about people and innovations that are helping the environment.
 
College major changers, take heart. The mother of the modern environmental movement, born May 27, 1907, was once just like you. Halfway into her studies at the Pennsylvania College for Women, Rachel Carson switched from English to biology—shocking friends and family who assumed she was destined for a career in letters.  

In retrospect, Carson had the right idea. She went on to graduate studies in zoology at Johns Hopkins University. From there, she secured a job at the U.S. Bureau of Fisheries (now known as the Fish and Wildlife Service) as a junior aquatic biologist. She was one of two women who had secured a full-time job in the entire Bureau.  

Carson's peers quickly recognized her talent for acting as an intermediary between trade workers, scientists, and the lay public. (Her unique track of studies may have helped!) She started out producing radio segments and went on to manage all publications for the Bureau—sometimes submitting her best work to periodicals like The Atlantic Monthly and The New Yorker.  

Her style was sometimes poetic, sometimes journalistic, always with a strong sense of perspective. While she already had some literary renown thanks to her serialized novel, Under the Sea Floor, Carson became a household name with the publication of 1962's Silent Spring, which explored the dangers of pesticides.  

Despite massive campaigns to discredit her work, Carson stayed strong. She won out eventually; President John F. Kennedy cited Silent Spring as the impetus for a review of DDT use in America. The substance was banned in 1972 by the newly-formed Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), a federal organization that once called itself "the extended shadow of Rachel Carson."  

Carson did not survive to see the new legislation enacted, having passed away only two years after the publication of Silent Spring. But we're guessing she was at peace, regardless: death was just another change serving the "the balance of nature." In a letter to a friend written in her final days, Carson described watching a kaleidoscope of butterflies: "We had felt no sadness when we spoke of the fact that there would be no return [for the butterflies]. And rightly—for when any living thing has come to the end of its life cycle we accept that end as natural." We're wondering what she would have to say about climate change!

Bunnies, baskets, eggs, chicks, candles, and a name of disputed origin; Easter has a lot of symbols associated with it. While we’ve already written about the origin of the Easter Bunny, and his roots in German folklore, the origins of Easter’s other symbols are just as interesting…and sometimes confusing.
 
First off, there’s Easter’s name. The word “Easter” doesn’t have any obvious attachment to any of the biblical characters associated with this Christian holiday, so where did it come from? In recent years, rumors began circulating online, sometimes in meme form, that Easter’s name originated from Ishtar, the name of a Mesopotamian goddess of war and love. Historians disagree. They point instead to the ancient goddess Eostre, who was first described by the 8th-Century English monk, Bede. Also known as Saint Bede or the Venerable Bede, he described Eostre as a goddess of spring worshiped by some English Anglo-Saxons. These people referred to April as “Eostremonath”, or Eostre’s Month. Still, Bede was a secondary source. No writings about Eostre have been found from her supposed worshipers themselves. Jacob Grimm, one of the two famous Brothers Grimm, claimed that he heard stories about Eostre in Germany, but he also found no original writings about her, and she isn’t mentioned in any known German folklore. In her paper titled The Goddess Eostre: Bede’s Text and Contemporary Pagan Tradition(s), Carole Cusack of the University of Sydney explains, “It has been established that within medieval studies there is no one authoritative interpretation of Bede’s mention of Eostre in DeTemporum Ratione. It is not possible to say, as it is of Woden, for example, that the Anglo-Saxons definitely worshipped a goddess called Eostre, who was probably concerned with the spring or the dawn.” This means that, even though Easter’s name likely came about because of Bede’s writings about Eostre, we’ll never know for certain whether some Anglo-Saxons actually worshiped her.
 
Dyed eggs are another Easter symbol that, at first glance, seem to have no relation to Christianity. Yet, they actually do. In addition to being a symbol of fertility and springtime for obvious reasons, eggs became associated with Easter in medieval Europe due to Lent, a 40-day fast observed by many Christians. On the Saturday before fasting began, children would go from home to home and church to church begging for eggs. For extra fun, eggs were sometimes boiled with flowers, dyeing them springtime colors. Even after some German protestants stopped fasting for Lent, they continued the tradition of dying eggs during Easter—usually red, as a symbol of Jesus’s blood. Later, the idea of children receiving colored eggs at Easter carried over into folk tales about the Easter Bunny, or Osterhase, as he was called by Protestant German immigrants in the U.S. Children dutifully made nests for the Easter Bunny (these nests were the precursor to modern Easter Baskets) where he was said to place colored eggs and candy if they had been good. Baby chickens also came to be associated with Easter because of Easter eggs, and because baby chicks symbolized new life.
 
In much of the world, candles are an important Easter symbol. This is due, at least in part, to the tradition of the Paschal candle, a large white candle lit every Easter in some Christian churches. The candle’s name relates to the Paschal Mystery, a Catholic concept regarding Jesus’s life, death, resurrection, and ascension to heaven as a divine mystery. Traditionally, Paschal candles are taller than all other candles in a church space. Today they normally stand around four inches tall, but in medieval times they were positively huge, with some supposedly reaching heights of over 30 feet. Paschal candles are white, sometimes decorated with symbols such as crosses to represent biblical events. Paschal candles are often lit during services on the Saturday before Easter, also known as Holy Saturday. The candle’s flame is meant to be a symbol of new life and of the bible’s resurrection story. In Europe, worshipers sometimes bring their own candles to light from the flame of the Paschal candle, which is considered sacred. Such a solemn practice may seem a far cry from bunnies, chocolates, and eggs, but then again, just about all of Easter’s symbols are linked to centuries-old traditions. Don’t foget to make a nest for the Easter Bunny!

 
[Image description: Egg-shaped candles, wooden bunnies, and pink tulips against a light green background.] Credit & copyright: stux, Pixabay