ACCORDING TO AN ANCIENT LEGEND…..If the ravens ever leave the Tower of London….bot the tower and the British monarchy will fall….to prevent this, at least six ravens are always kept inside the fortress…..under the care of an official Raven master….their wings are carefully managed so they remain nearby…..this centuries-old tradition continues today….blending history, superstition and royal symbolism into one fascinating story.
HE WARNED OF AN INVASION OF “IDIOTS” ONLINE….Umberto Eco spoke in 2015 while receiving an honorary degree in Turin….where he warned of what he called an “invasion of idiots”….driven by social media….the philosopher argued that digital platforms allow unfiltered opinions to spread widely….placing them on equal footing with informed voices….he believed this shift removed traditional gatekeepers who once helped maintain quality and context in public discourse…..as a result, responsibility for truth moved to individuals navigating vast information online…..a concern that still resonates today.
HE TOOK THE STAGE NAME OF A SILENT FILM ACTRESS….He’d never met….and spent decades explaining why…..Louis Francis Cristillo was born in Paterson, New Jersey in 1906…..to an Italian immigrant father and a mother of French and Irish descent….he was a gifted athlete who once held the state foul-shot record…..he headed west hoping to break into the movies…..while working as a studio carpenter and stuntman at MGM and Warner Bros…..he drifted into burlesque and vaudeville as a comic….taking his professional name from actress Helene Costello….in 1931, while performing in Brooklyn….his usual straight man fell ill….and the theatre cashier Bud Abbot filled in for the night….their pairing worked instantly and the two of them built a comedy team throughout the 1930’s….across burlesque, minstrel shows and vaudeville houses…..national exposure came in 1938 through the Kate Smith Hour radio show…..followed by a Universal contract and their film debut in One Night in the Tropics in 1940…..their routine “Who’s on First?” became one of comedy’s most enduring bits….Abbot and Costello were the highest paid entertainers in the world during World War II…..Lou Costello died of a heart attack on March 3rd, 1959….just three days short of his 53rd birthday.
IN 1988…..Roboticist Hans Moravec predicted human level AI would arrive in 40 years….by 2028….he estimated that the human brain performs about 10 trillion operations per second…..then calculated when computers would reach that level…..almost nobody believed him….today, Moraves says AI remains on track….he expects machines to improve themselves, outcompete humans and inherit the world as our “mind children”….when asked about humanity’s future, he gave two possibilities….. “50/50 oblivion….or the wildest thing imaginable.”
IN 1837….The poet Robert Southey printed the story of the Three Bears….and there was no sweet little girl in it….at all…..the intruder who broke into the bear’s house….ate their food and slept in their beds….was a foul ugly old woman….a vagrant….and Southey’s was the gentle version….six years earlier….in a handmade book written for a little boy….the old woman was caught by the bears…..who tried to burn her….tried to drown her…..and finally flung her into the steeple of St. Paul’s Cathedral to die.
THE CHILDREN’S HEROIN (1898-1910)…..The pharmaceutical giant Bayer synthesized a new chemical…..and aggressively marketed it globally as a soothing, non-addictive cough syrup…..specifically for infants and children’s….they trademarked in under the name “Heroin”…..corporate executives quickly realized it was highly addictive and lethal…..but continued selling it anyway….knowingly hooking a generation of children on hard narcotics…..simply to boost quarterly earnings.
EVERYONE KNOWS…..The whimsical tale of the girl falling down the rabbit hole….but few know the man who wrote it was a 30-year old mathematician…..who photographed the real Alice nude….at the age of 11-years old…..he kept hundreds of images of naked children and had his diaries destroyed after his death…..in 1865 Charles Lutwidge Dodgson…..Lewis Carroll published Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland for Alice Liddel…..the daughter of his Oxford colleague….he had befriended the family, taken the children on boat trips….and photographed Alice…..without clothes.
IN 2012….A Brazilian prison started an unusual policy…..inmates could reduce their sentence by four days….for every book they read and wrote a report on….up to 48 days per year…..one prisoner took it more seriously than expected….he read every book available…..and then began teaching 23 illiterate inmates in his cell…..he created makeshift classrooms, sourced books through the prison library….and ran daily reading sessions for months….by the time he was eligible for release….he had collectively helped reduce the sentences of his entire group…..the system designed to reduce one person’s sentence….created a teacher who changed 23 lives.
IN 1911……The world was shocked when the Mona Lisa vanished….and what’s crazier is Pablo Picasso was actually questioned as a suspect.