Why we can thank women for beer. Women were the first beer brewers. On the list of things women don’t get enough credit for, being the first to brew beer might not seem like the most important. But fermented beverages have played a vital role in human culture for perhaps almost as long as society has existed, providing nutrients, enjoyment, and often a safer alternative to drinking water before the advent of modern sanitation. Scholars disagree over exactly when beer was first introduced — although the earliest hard evidence for barley beer comes from 5,400-year-old Sumerian vessels that were still sticky with beer when archaeologists found them — but one thing has never been in question: “Women absolutely have, in all societies, throughout world history, been primarily responsible for brewing beer,” says Theresa McCulla, who curates the Smithsonian’s American Brewing History Initiative. Just look to the Babylonian Code of Hammurabi, a set of 282 laws written in 1750 BCE that gave women exclusive jurisdiction over brewing and even tavern ownership. Among the societies likely governed by those rules was ancient Sumer (modern-day southern Iraq), where The Hymn to Ninkasi (the Sumerian goddess of brewing) was composed approximately 50 years before the Code of Hammurabi. Including lines such as “Ninkasi, you are the one who pours out the filtered beer of the collector vat; it is [like] the onrush of the Tigris and Euphrates,” as well as a beer recipe, the song of praise is the first — but far from the last — known text devoted to the praise of beer. The world’s bestselling beer is almost exclusively sold in one country. And that country is China, the world’s largest beer market by far — the nation accounts for about a quarter of global beer sales, which is why the bestselling beer there is also the bestselling beer in the world. Snow, which costs as little as 49 cents U.S. per can, is made by SABMiller and China Resources Enterprise. Some 101 million hectoliters (about 86 million U.S. beer barrels) of the inexpensive brew were sold in 2017, more than twice as many as its closest competitor for global beer dominance: Budweiser, which sold 49.2 million hectoliters (nearly 42 million U.S. beer barrels) the same year. Despite — or perhaps because of — its ubiquity, Snow isn’t highly regarded among beer aficionados.

Bugs Bunny Is Celebrating His 85th Birthday at the Symphony. He’s appeared in over 150 movies, starred in commercials, and received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame — and on July 27, he’s celebrating his 85th birthday. We’re talking about Bugs Bunny, the speedy, carrot-chewing cartoon hare who’s also the iconic Warner Bros. mascot. ​ An early iteration of Bugs made an appearance in the 1938 animated short Porky’s Hare Hunt, but the bunny we recognize today was officially born in Brooklyn, New York, in 1940, when he starred in A Wild Hare and quipped, “What’s up, Doc?” for the first time. ​ Fast-forward to the present, and Eric Bauza, the current voice behind the beloved bunny, tells us he loves using that signature phrase to “instantly put a smile on peoples’ faces.” This Friday and Saturday, Bauza will take to the stage at the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles as part of Bugs Bunny at the Symphony, a film-and-live-orchestra touring concert in its 35th year. ​ As for what Bauza loves most about voicing Bugs Bunny? “Having the opportunity to give back to a character that entertained and inspired me as a child growing up,” he says, “and who ultimately shaped who I am today.

July 9th, 1996. A family is brutally attacked on a walk in England. Dr. Lin Russell, her two daughters, Josie and Megan, and their dog, Lucy, are all brutally attacked by a man wielding a hammer on their way home to Nonington Village, Kent, England, after a swimming gala. Forcing them to sit down in the woods, the attacker blindfolded and tied up his victims with their torn towels, and then bludgeoned them one by one. Nine-year-old Josie, the sole survivor of the vicious assault, had to relearn to speak after surgeons inserted a metal plate into her head to cover the area where her skull had been smashed. Some of her brain tissue was so damaged that it had to be removed. Finally, on July 17 of the following year, Michael Stone, who had a record of burglary and robbery, as well as a history of drug abuse and mental illness, was arrested. He had been recognized after the broadcast of aBBC television special that included his picture and description. Asked by detectives where he was on the day of the murders, Stone replied, “I can’t remember for two reasons. One, I was badly on drugs, and two, it was so long ago.” During the trial, several witnesses testified against Stone. One maintained that the defendant’s stepfather often beat young Michael with a hammer; several prison inmates (Barry Thompson, Damien Daley, and Mark Jennings) claimed that Stone had confessed to the murders on separate occasions; and a couple, Sheree Batt and Lawrence Calder, alleged that Stone had come to their house the morning after the murders wearing blood-splattered clothing. On October 23, 1998, the 38-year-old Stone was convicted and given a triple life sentence, despite his repeated claims of innocence. Immediately thereafter, Barry Thompson contacted a daily newspaper to retract his testimony. Based on Thompson’s admission that he lied, a Court of Appeals threw out Stone’s conviction. At a second trial, which ended in early October 2001, he was again convicted and sentenced to three life terms, which he began serving on October 5. Despite the second conviction, there are some who still believe Stone is innocent.

What is the only country named after a woman? St. Lucia Is the Only Country Named After a Woman While Ireland is named after the mythical goddess Éiru, there’s only one sovereign nation in the world named for a real-life woman. That distinction lies with St. Lucia, a Caribbean island nation christened in honor of St. Lucy of Syracuse, patron saint of the blind, who died around the fourth century CE. St. Lucia was initially called Louanalao (meaning “Island of the Iguanas”) by the Indigenous Arawak people as early as 200 CE. It was in 1502 that the origins of its current name formed, when shipwrecked French sailors dubbed the place “Sainte Alousie.” It was a common practice at the time to name islands after saints, and legend has it that the sailors reached the island on December 13 — St. Lucy’s feast day. Given the date’s significance, December 13 is now celebrated in the country as the National Day of St. Lucia. The Spanish who arrived around 1511 named the island “Sancta Lucia”; the current name formed after waves of colonization by the English and French. While female namesakes are rare on a national level, one woman has lent her name to dozens of smaller locations. The name of Queen Victoria, the U.K.’s reigning monarch from 1837 to 1901, appears in the titles of locations around the globe, such as the provincial capital of British Columbia, Canada, and Zimbabwe’s breathtaking Victoria Falls. You’d be hard-pressed to find an American woman with influence so vast. Even in the U.S., only a handful of places are named for women, including Barton County, Kansas — named after Clara Barton, founder of the American Red Cross — and Dare County, North Carolina, honoring Virginia Dare, the first child of English parents to be born in the New World.

Only three countries in the world have this geographical quirk. There are only three countries in the world that are entirely surrounded by one other country. A country’s borders can take many shapes and sizes, but only three countries in the world can be considered enclave nations. An enclave is territory of one state surrounded by territory of another, and enclave nations are those that exist wholly within another country’s borders on all sides. In Europe, Italy surrounds two of these enclave nations — Vatican City, the seat of the Roman Catholic Church, and San Marino, a microstate located on the northeastern slopes of the Apennine Mountains. The world’s other enclave nation is Lesotho, a country that is completely enclosed by South Africa, and that owes at least part of its long history of independent rule to its incredibly mountainous, hard-to-conquer terrain. Enclaves are not to be confused with exclaves, which are a different territorial phenomenon. An exclave is a portion of one country that’s completely cut off from the rest of the same nation. One of the world’s most famous exclaves is also one of its most gorgeous: The county around the Croatian city of Dubrovnik, perched on the Adriatic Sea and filled with 16th-century charm, is separated from the rest of its mother country by a strip of land belonging to Bosnia and Herzegovina. An example of an exclave much closer to home is Alaska, which is completely surrounded on land by Canada. However, Alaska is technically considered a “pene-exclave,” because it can be reached via water without going through another nation’s territory. With Alaska being nearly one-fifth the size of the contiguous United States, the Vatican being home to one of the world’s most influential religious leaders, and Dubrovnik being a major filming location for Game of Thrones, it’s clear that enclaves and exclaves have been key players in world history — however confusing their geography. Up until 2015, a piece of India was inside Bangladesh inside India inside Bangladesh. Most enclaves are one country’s territory inside another — simple enough. But in some cases, a second-order enclave, or counter-enclave, can take shape. A good example of this is the United Arab Emirates (UAE) territory of Nahwa, which is encircled by an Oman territory called Madha, which is in turn encircled by the UAE. However, the story of the Indian territory of Dahala Khagrabari is even stranger. This small piece of India, stretching only about 2 acres, was inside Bangladesh’s territory, which was inside India, which was inside Bangladesh — forming the world’s only third-order enclave. Thankfully, in June 2015, after decades of confusion, India ratified a Land Boundary Agreement that officially ceded this small spit of land to Bangladesh.

Fire engulfs circus big top in Hartford, killing 167 In Hartford, Connecticut, a fire breaks out under the big top of the Ringling Bros. and Barnum Bailey Circus, killing 167 people and injuring 682. Two-thirds of those who perished were children. The cause of the fire was unknown, but it spread at incredible speed, racing up the canvas of the circus tent. Scarcely before the 8,000 spectators inside the big top could react, patches of burning canvas began falling on them from above, and a stampede for the exits began. Many were trapped under fallen canvas, but most were able to rip through it and escape. However, after the tent’s ropes burned and its poles gave way, the whole burning big top came crashing down, consuming those who remained inside. Within 10 minutes it was over, and some 100 children and 60 of their adult escorts were dead or dying. An investigation revealed that the tent had undergone a treatment with flammable paraffin thinned with three parts of gasoline to make it waterproof. Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus eventually agreed to pay $5 million in compensation, and several of the organizers were convicted on manslaughter charges. In 1950, in a late development in the case, Robert D. Segee of Circleville, Ohio, confessed to starting the Hartford circus fire. Segee claimed that he had been an arsonist since the age of six and that an apparition of an Indian on a flaming horse often visited him and urged him to set fires. In November 1950, Segee was sentenced to two consecutive terms of 22 years in prison, the maximum penalty in Ohio at the time.

Did You Know, Everest isn’t the tallest mountain on Earth. When it comes to mountains, the accolade of “world’s tallest” is a matter of opinion. If you’re going strictly by height above sea level, then yes, Everest remains the reigning champion. However, if you’re going by tallest from base to summit (that is, including parts of the mountain below sea level), the clear winner is Mauna Kea, which, at 33,500 feet, is some 4,000 feet taller than Everest. However, the most compelling competitor in the “world’s tallest mountain” challenge is little-known Mount Chimborazo in Ecuador. Because (as its name suggests) Ecuador straddles the equator, it’s also farther from the center of the Earth, since the planet’s midsection actually bulges outward due to its constant rotation. This technically makes Chimborazo the farthest away a human can get from Earth while still standing on land.

The Hawaiian alphabet has only 13 letters. Less is more in the Hawaiian alphabet, which consists of just 13 letters: A, E, I, O, U, H, K, L, M, N, P, W, and the ‘okina, which represents the glottal stop consonant — a sound produced by the abrupt obstruction of airflow in the vocal tract. Known as ka pīʻāpā Hawaiʻi in Hawaiian, the alphabet traditionally lists the five vowels first and also includes the kahakō, a bar above vowels that indicates an elongated vowel sound. When British explorer James Cook made the first known European expedition to the Hawaiian islands in 1778, he spelled the islands’ name as both “Owhyhee” and “Owhyee.” Hawaiian was purely an oral language at the time; its written form wasn’t formalized until American missionary Elisha Loomis printed a primer titled simply “The Alphabet” in 1822. This written alphabet initially consisted of 21 letters before being standardized in 1826, although four of the original letters (F, G, S, and Y) were included only for the purpose of spelling foreign words. Other letters — B, R, T, and V — were excised because they were considered interchangeable with existing letters. By 1834, Hawaii's literacy rate was estimated to be between 90% and 95%, one of the highest in the world at the time. But the Hawaiian language declined in usage after 1896, when Act 57 of the Laws of the Republic of Hawaii made English the “medium and basis of instruction” for all schools, after which schoolchildren were sometimes even punished for speaking Hawaiian. The language has seen a resurgence since the 1970s, with several groups working toward preserving it.

Letters in pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis, the longest English word 45

A volcanic explosion caused a “year without a summer” in 1816 — and inspired “Frankenstein.” Difficult times can lead to great art. Case in point: the volcanic explosion that caused a “year without a summer” in 1816 — and inspired the novel Frankenstein. The eruption took place at Indonesia’s Mount Tambora, many thousands of miles away from author Mary Shelley’s home in England. In addition to a harrowing death toll, the April 1815 explosion caused mass amounts of sulphur dioxide, ash, and dust to fill the atmosphere, blocking sunlight and plunging the global temperature several degrees lower, resulting in the coldest year in well over two centuries. In part because of the volcano, Europe and North America were subjected to unusually cold, wet conditions the following summer, including a “killing frost” in New England and heavy rainfall that may have contributed to Napoleon’s infamous defeat at Waterloo. So what does that have to do with Shelley’s masterpiece? Then 18 and still going by her maiden name of Godwin, she and her lover/future husband, Percy Bysshe Shelley, traveled to Lake Geneva in April 1816, a time of extremely gloomy weather. One fateful night that July, the two were with their friend Lord Byron, the infamous poet, when he suggested, “We will each write a ghost story.” Shelley completed hers in just a few days, writing in the introduction to Frankenstein; or, the Modern Prometheus that “a wet, ungenial summer, and incessant rain often confined us for days to the house.” Who knows: If it had been bright and sunny that week, we might never have gotten the endlessly influential 1818 book, which later spawned an assortment of movies, TV shows, plays — and of course, iconic Halloween costumes. Shelley claimed the idea for Frankenstein came to her in a waking dream. After agreeing to Lord Byron’s ghostly prompt, Shelley initially struggled to come up with an idea for her tale. “I busied myself to think of a story,” she later wrote. “‘Have you thought of a story?’ I was asked each morning, and each morning I was forced to reply with a mortifying negative.” The idea eventually came to her one sleepless night, when her “imagination, unbidden, possessed and guided [her].” She then saw “the pale student of unhallowed arts kneeling beside the thing he had put together. I saw the hideous phantasm of a man stretched out, and then, on the working of some powerful engine, show signs of life, and stir with an uneasy, half vital motion. Frightful must it be; for supremely frightful would be the effect of any human endeavor to mock the stupendous mechanism of the Creator of the world.” Two years later, her book was published, leading to Mary Shelley eventually being hailed as the foremother of science fiction.