You used to be able to send children through U.S. mail.
You can send a lot of things in the mail, but you can’t send a person — at least not anymore. There was nothing preventing people from mailing their own children in the early days of the U.S. Postal Service’s parcel post service, though, and at least seven families took advantage of it. That includes the Beagues, an Ohio couple who in 1913 paid 15 cents in postage to mail their newborn son to his grandmother’s house a mile down the road. Beyond the novelty of it — when the parcel post service began on January 1, 1913, some were eager to see which packages they could get away with sending — it was a surprisingly practical way of getting one’s kiddo from point A to point B.

To start with, many people in rural areas knew their postal carriers fairly well, which meant the children were simply walked or carried on often-short trips. In other instances, children traveled on trains as Railway Mail, but with stamps instead of (usually more expensive) train tickets. The longest known trip of a child through the mail occurred in 1915, when a 6-year-old was sent 720 miles from Florida to Virginia — a lengthy trip that cost just 15 cents. Fortunately, there are no reports of children being injured by being sent through the mail. (Pictures of children in literal mailbags were staged.) The practice ended, as so many do, when certain higher-ups became aware of the loophole and decided to close it, also around 1915.

Sunglasses used to be for something else entirely

Some of the earliest sunglasses were used by judges in court to hide their facial expressions.
Long before they became fashionable accessories for sunny days, some of the earliest sunglasses served a far different purpose: In Chinese courtrooms, judges used dark-lensed glasses to hide their facial expressions. Eyeglasses became popular in Chinese society during the late 13th century and early 14th century, and around the same period, rudimentary sunglasses featuring dark lenses made from smoky quartz were invented. While they protected against glare, they were also intended to provide judges with an air of impartiality during trials by obscuring their eyes — and thus their emotional responses.

It wasn’t until the 18th century that an early precursor to modern sunglasses, explicitly designed for dealing with sun and glare, became popular in Europe. “Goldoni’s eyeglasses” were developed circa 1700 in Venice, Italy, and were nicknamed for playwright Carlo Goldoni, who fashionably wore a pair. These green-tinted spectacles were primarily worn by Venetian gondoliers as well as high-society women and children in an effort to shield their eyes from the glare that bounced off the canal water. In 1752, British optician James Ayscough unveiled a new invention to serve a similar purpose: blue-tinted glasses that he believed protected eyes against harmful light better than white glass.


Wooden “sunglasses” date back to the first century CE.

While traditional sunglasses featuring glass lenses and metal frames are a more modern invention, the world’s first known sunglasses were made of wood. Around 2,000 years ago, ancient Siberians and Inuits in the North American Arctic region donned these wooden goggles to protect from snow blindness — a painful condition caused by UV rays reflecting off the snow. These simple shades featured a piece of wood carved to fit around the eyes and tied around the head using twine. Thin slits were carved directly above each eye, allowing the wearer to maintain their vision while limiting sun exposure. In addition to wood, these devices were also made from bone or walrus ivory. Archaeological digs have uncovered pristine examples of these early sunglasses from regions throughout Alaska, Canada, Greenland, and Russia.

U.S. figure skating team killed in plane crash.

On February 15, 1961, the entire 18-member U.S. figure skating team is killed in a plane crash in Berg-Kampenhout, Belgium. The team was on its way to the 1961 World Figure Skating Championships in Prague, Czechoslovakia.

Among those killed in the crash was 16-year-old Laurence Owen, who had won the U.S. Figure Skating Championship in the ladies’ division the previous month. She was featured on the February 13, 1961, cover of Sports Illustrated, which called her the “most exciting U.S. skater.” Bradley Lord, the 1961 U.S. men’s champion, also perished in the crash, as did Maribel Owen (Laurence’s sister) and Dudley Richards, the 1961 U.S. pairs champions, and Diane Sherbloom and Larry Pierce, the 1961 U.S. ice dancing champions. Also killed was 49-year-old Maribel Vinson-Owen, a nine-time U.S. ladies’ champion and 1932 Olympic bronze medalist, who coached scores of skaters, including her daughters Maribel and Laurence. Vinson-Owen also coached Frank Carroll, who went on to coach the 2010 men’s Olympic gold medalist Evan Lysacek U.S. champion Michelle Kwan.

In addition to the skaters, 16 people accompanying them, including family, friends, coaches and officials, were killed. The other 38 passengers and crew aboard Sabena Flight 548, which left New York on the night of February 14, also died when the plane went down around 10 a.m. in clear weather while attempting to make a scheduled stopover landing at the Belgian National Airport in Brussels. One person on the ground, a farmer working in the field where the Boeing 707 crashed in Berg-Kampenhout, several miles from the airport, was killed by some shrapnel. Investigators were unable to determine the exact cause of the crash, although mechanical difficulties were suspected.

The tragedy devastated the U.S. figure skating program and meant the loss of the country’s top skating talent. Prior to the crash, the U.S. had won the men’s gold medal at every Olympics since 1948 (when **** Button became the first American man to do so), while U.S. women had claimed Olympic gold in 1956 and 1960. After the crash, an American woman (Peggy Fleming) would not capture Olympic gold until 1968, while a U.S. man (Scott Hamilton) would not do so until 1984.

The incident was the worst air disaster involving a U.S. sports team until November 1970, when 37 players on the Marshall University football team were killed in a plane crash in West Virginia.

Shortly after the 1961 crash, the U.S. Figure Skating Memorial Fund was established; to date, it has provided financial assistance to thousands of elite American skaters. In 2011, the 50th anniversary of the tragedy, the 18 members of the 1961 figure skating team, along with the 16 people traveling with them to Prague, were inducted into the U.S. Figure Skating Hall of Fame in Colorado Springs, Colorado.

There are thousands of miles of internet cables under the ocean.

Water has a way of disrupting Wi-Fi connections, so it may come as a surprise that there are hundreds of thousands of miles of internet cables along the ocean’s floor. In fact, our ability to communicate globally is thanks to nearly 750,000 miles of fiber optic cables that crisscross underwater. While it’s commonly believed that our phones and computers connect us through satellites, about 95% of all voice and data transmissions are routed through these cables. The first such cable connected the United States, U.K., and France in 1988, but the concept dates back more than 150 years — the first transatlantic communications cable was a simple copper wire used to transmit telegraphs between the U.S. and Great Britain. First used in 1858 following two years of planning and line laying, the cable worked for just a few weeks — but would inspire a world of communication for years to come.

These little candies started out as medicine.

Conversation hearts can trace their roots back to medical lozenges.
Conversation hearts — also known as Necco hearts, candy hearts, or Sweethearts — are considered Valentine’s Day iconography, but their origins are far from romantic. In fact, they were originally created by a pharmacist who got his start making medical lozenges.

In 1847, pharmacist Oliver Chase was working on building his lozenge business after making his way from England to Boston. The production process was slow: Chase hand-rolled ropes of dough made from peppermint, brown sugar, and gum arabic and cut them into individual tablets; he then sold them to apothecaries where customers sought them out for sore throats, coughs, and other minor ailments. To speed things up, the enterprising Chase invented a machine that cut the lozenges mechanically. Recognizing the potential, he shifted focus from medicine to confections, founding what became the New England Confectionery Company, or Necco, and introducing its namesake candy, the Necco Wafer.

It was still a while before the colorful, chalky candy became heart-shaped and adorned with their trademark messages, though. In 1866, Oliver's brother Daniel Chase devised a way to press words onto the round candy wafers using a felt roller pad and red vegetable dye. The conversation candies — or motto lozenges, as they were known — were shaped into baseballs, horseshoes, and kites, and featured much more elaborate messages than those we see today, including “Married in white, you have chosen right,” and “How long shall I have to wait? Please be considerate.” In 1902, the candies took on their now-famous heart shape, and the phrases evolved into classics such as “Be Mine” and “Kiss Me.” Each year, about 80 different sayings circulate, including around 20 that are new for that holiday season.

Many popular sodas started as medicine.

In the 19th century, carbonated water was considered a medicinal aid. Pharmacists began mixing it with various herbs, extracts, and syrups to create drinks marketed as remedies for a range of ailments. One of the most famous examples is Coca-Cola, invented in 1886 by Atlanta pharmacist John Pemberton. The now-ubiquitous soft drink was originally marketed as a cure for headaches, fatigue, and other common ailments. It contained small amounts of cocaine, extracted from coca leaves, which was legal at the time and common in medicine. (It was later removed from the beverage around the turn of the 20th century.) Pepsi, Dr. Pepper, and 7Up also started out as medicinal drinks, the latter of which was formulated to treat depression. The Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906 placed more regulations on ingredients used at soda fountains, and by the 1950s, soft drinks were no longer marketed as “miracle elixirs,” but remained popular as bottled and canned treats.

Ketchup was once sold as medicine.
The ketchup we slather onto hot dogs, burgers, and fries today once had a different purpose: Doctors believed it was best consumed as a health tonic. Ketchup has come a long way from its roots in China as far back as the third century BCE, when cooks fermented seafood to create a salty, amber-colored sauce that resembles modern fish sauce (an anchovy-based condiment that adds umami flavor to many Asian dishes). By around the 16th century, British sailors had taken word of ketchup back to their home country, and British cooks tried to replicate it with their own versions made from walnuts and mushrooms. It’s not clear exactly when tomatoes came on the scene, though the first known tomato ketchup recipe appeared around 1812, published by Philadelphia horticulturist James Mease.

It wasn’t until the 1830s that some doctors began rebranding tomatoes as a 19th-century superfood. One physician, Dr. John Cook Bennett, especially promoted tomatoes as cures for indigestion and other stomach ailments, encouraging a craze for the fruit that eventually saw the introduction of ketchup pills and extracts. (One memorable jingle went, “tomato pills will cure all your ills.”) The fad lasted through around the 1850s, but soon enough home cooks focused on creating their own ketchups instead of taking the vitamin equivalents. The sauce then became an easily obtainable American dinner table staple in large part thanks to the H. J. Heinz Company, which released its first tomato ketchup in 1876.

Why people danced for two months straight in 1518.

In the “dancing plague” of 1518, hundreds of people danced uncontrollably for two months.

The phrase “dance the night away” took on a more literal meaning back in 1518, when as many as 400 people were struck by a “dancing plague” in the city of Strasbourg in modern France. The epidemic began in July with a single woman known as Frau Troffea, who spontaneously began boogying away in the middle of the street. She danced alone and continuously for an entire week before several dozen others found themselves overcome by the urge to dance as well. By month’s end, the number had grown to several hundred. The mysterious dancing eventually waned, and Strasbourg returned to normalcy in September.

Authorities were concerned by this inexplicable rise in dance fever, though ill-informed physicians attributed the ailment to “hot blood” and suggested people simply needed to dance until they no longer felt the urge. As the weeks went on, several dancers collapsed from exhaustion, and some suffered fatal heart attacks. Locals sought answers, and some feared they had been cursed by St. Vitus, the patron saint of dance. Many modern historians posit that stress, coupled with the rise of new and untreated diseases such as syphilis, likely induced this mass hysteria. There had been numerous reported outbreaks of “dancing plagues” around the Holy Roman Empire in the preceding 500 years, including a significant one in 1374. Another theory points to a fungus known as ergot, sometimes found on bread. The fungus causes convulsions if consumed, and may have been responsible for the uncontrollable dancing as well as other instances of mass panic.

A Tanzanian boarding school suffered a laughter epidemic in 1962.
Laughter really can be contagious, as attendees of a girls’ boarding school in Tanganyika (now Tanzania) discovered in 1962. In January of that year, three students at a school in the town of Kashasha began laughing hysterically out of nowhere. The epidemic soon spread to other students, as individuals suffered laughing fits that lasted anywhere from a few hours to 16 days. With doctors unable to explain the phenomenon and students unable to focus, the school temporarily closed in March, though the issue only grew from there. The girls returned home and “infected” those communities, and entire towns were suddenly overcome with insatiable laughter. Fourteen schools closed throughout the country, with each wave of laughter lasting for around a month. In the end, there were thankfully no fatalities, though more than 1,000 people were affected by this mysterious event.

Martin Luther King Jr. paid for Julia Roberts' birth.
Julia Roberts, the actress best known for her roles in Pretty Woman, Erin Brockovich, and Steel Magnolias, was born in Smyrna, Georgia, in 1967. But when it came time for her parents, Betty and Walter Roberts, to take home their new bundle of joy, there was one hiccup: They couldn’t afford the hospital bill. That’s when Martin Luther King Jr. and Coretta Scott King — friends of the Roberts’ — stepped in to help, covering the cost of the future actress’s birth.

The arts drew the King and Roberts families together. Before marrying her activist husband, Coretta Scott King had earned a bachelor’s in music education from the New England Conservatory, one of the country’s most selective music schools. By the 1960s, married actors Betty and Walter Roberts had launched the Actors and Writers Workshop, a theater school in Atlanta near the Kings’ home. With four young children and a passion for the arts, Coretta had been searching for a youth theater program, but struggled to find one that would accept Black students. She reached out to Betty to inquire about the Robertses’ school, which stood out as the only integrated children’s acting program in the area.

While the Actors and Writers Workshop was successful and molded several actors who pursued the craft into adulthood, it wasn’t free from monetary issues. By the time Julia (the youngest of three children) was born, the Roberts family was struggling financially. However, the Kings and Robertses had developed a friendship that helped the family through a rough patch; Martin and Coretta graciously covered the expense, forever linking the two families.

Why Australia gave email addresses to 70,000 trees.

Melbourne, Australia, gave email addresses to 70,000 trees.
It began as a bit of creative problem-solving. Some trees in Melbourne, Australia, had dangerous branches that needed to be trimmed and other issues, prompting city officials in 2013 to give 70,000 of them ID numbers and email addresses where people could report problems. As an “unintended but positive consequence” of the program, according to Councilor Arron Wood of Melbourne's Environment Portfolio, people began writing their favorite trees whimsical letters. “I have exams coming up and I should be busy studying,” one reads. “You do not have exams because you are a tree. I don’t think that there is much more to talk about as we don't have a lot in common, you being a tree and such. But I’m glad we’re in this together.”

That one, addressed to Green Leaf Elm, Tree ID 1022165, even received a response: “I hope you do well in your exams. Research has shown that nature can influence the way people learn in a positive way, so I hope I inspire your learning.” The initiative’s website (the program is still going strong) features a map of every tree as well as links to their email addresses, should you feel like writing a love letter of your own. The responses are actually crafted by employees at the City of Melbourne — and as of 2018, the trees had received more than 4,000 emails from all over the world.


The U.S. has more trees now than it did 100 years ago.

When it comes to trees, the more the merrier. So while it may come as a surprise to learn that there are more trees in the U.S. today than there were a century ago, at least it’s a pleasant one. Forest growth has exceeded harvest since the 1940s, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization, and by 1997, growth exceeded harvest by a full 42%. Quantity isn’t always the same as quality, as old-growth forests contain the most biodiversity and are generally the best for the environment, but conservation efforts (including good old fashioned tree-planting) have been remarkably successful.

Which came first: lighters or matches?

Lighters were invented before modern matches.

Lighters seem, on the surface, to be a little more advanced than your standard pack of matches. But lighters were actually invented before matches as we know them today. Until the early 19th century, “matches” were flammable sticks made to carry fire from one place to another, not make fire on their own. Early self-igniting matches were too dangerous to be practical. The earliest, invented in 1805, involved dipping potassium chlorate into sulphuric acid. Another, created in 1816, was a sulfur-tipped match scraped inside a phosphorus-coated tube.

Some of the earliest lighters, meanwhile, date back to the 17th century and were modified versions of flintlock pistols, but instead of igniting gunpowder (and launching a bullet), they ignited tinder. In the 18th century, Italian chemist Alessandro Volta created an “inflammable air” (hydrogen) lighter that used water to force hydrogen past a striker, where it was lit by a spark. But Volta’s lighters required scientific knowledge to use. The Döbereiner’s lamp (also called a “tinderbox”), a table lighter invented in Germany in 1823, also used hydrogen gas, but could be used easily by anyone. More than 20,000 of these more practical lighters were sold that decade. Lighters, of course, continued to advance from there: Zippo lighters emerged in the mid-1930s, and Bic disposable lighters hit the market in 1973.

The first friction matches, which were tipped in potassium chlorate-antimony sulfide paste and ignited with sandpaper, were invented in 1826. Phosphorus gained popularity in the 1830s, as did the widespread use of white phosphorus, a deadly chemical that led to the death and disfigurement of many match factory workers. Phosphorus sesquisulfide, a less toxic alternative, emerged at the turn of the 20th century, and it’s still in the classic Diamond Strike Anywhere matches we use today.

Mirrors were used to start fires in ancient China.
You’ve probably heard of setting leaves on fire with a magnifying glass, and indeed people have been using this basic principle — concentrating sunlight into a small, focused point — to start fires for millennia. As far back as 3,000 years ago, concave mirrors made out of bronze called yang sui were used to start fires in China. Chinese philosopher Confucius even wrote of boys attaching the mirrors to their belts when they got dressed so they could start fires later in the day.