How do you celebrate the Fourth of July in Maine? In the seaside town of Cutler, it's by running over fifty lobster crates strung between two docks. 

Cutler isn't the only town to engage in this traditional Maine sport. There's an upcoming race in Rockland on August 2. Run as fast as you can across the crates without falling into the water.

It appears to be a sport for children, although I don't see what adults can't try it. Orthopedists would certainly appreciate your efforts.

-via Rural Maine

Pleasant Rowland developed American Girl dolls to teach children about history. The dolls each had a name and a story, and each had a series of books that put the children who read them into a different era of history so they could see it through the eyes of a concrete character about their age. Even then, few could afford the dolls, but the books brought history alive for many kids. Gradually, people became aware that the American Dolls were a way to get a doll that looked like their daughter, and for some, that became more important than the historical stories. After all, who could afford the whole series?

Then Mattel bought the company. The lineup of dolls expanded, became more diverse, and the prices rose. Certain decisions by the company made people angry. The most recent change might infer that the company has completely abandoned the original purpose of teaching history to children. Weird History takes us through the history of American Girl dolls and why they are they way they are today.    

Arresting officers called it karma.

Police in Howard County say that a man parked his truck, left the keys inside, and then robbed a Verizon store across the street. When he got back to his getaway vehicle, it had gotten away from him. Someone stole it in the brief time that he was distracted by the robbery.

So he called 911.

Police came and interviewed him. He had a bloody hand. Yahoo! News reports that one of the store's windows was broken. Security cameras inside the store showed him pillaging it, so the officers arrested him and mocked him for his bad luck.

Chris Garrett of Phantom Surf is a master craftsman of surfboards in Australia. He made this unique board for the Gage Roads Brewing Company. It has an internal resevoir that can hold up to 10 liters (2.6 gallons) of beer.

So if you're hot and thirsty after a long day of hitting the waves, you can install a tap into the board and drain the contents. Watch a video about the construction of the board here.

-via Toxel

On October 25th, 1881, María Picasso gave birth to a son who would later be christened Pablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno María de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad Ruiz y Picasso. We know him as a the surrealist painter Pablo Picasso. But he almost didn't make it out of the room he was born in. 

The midwife noticed that the newborn was not breathing and was not responsive. This wasn't all that shocking, considering the neonatal mortality rate at the time, so she turned her attention to María. but there was a doctor on hand, Salvador Ruiz Blasco, who was also the baby's uncle. He stepped into action, using a method that we consider an old wive's tale, but his quick thinking managed to bring the infant back to life. Some babies do need stimulation to make them start breathing- after all, they'd never taken a breath before. In the 20th century, this stimulation was usually a gentle spank. Find out what made Picasso first begin to breathe after birth at Dangerous Minds. 

The extreme stunts crew at Nitro Circus is back with another blending of the ordinary and the extraordinary. Everyone likes dining with friends, right? Some wine and fine good set a convivial mood, even if you're being dropped out of an airplane at the time.

The dishes are attached to the table, but the food remains in motion and partially eaten as these skydivers plunge to Earth. Eventually, they stand up, move way from the table, and open their parachutes.

-via The Awesomer

You know some funguses. We've been arguing over the plural for many years, and both fungi and funguses are correct outside of science papers. Fungi include yeast, mushrooms, athlete's foot, mildew, and a few others you're familiar with, but scientists estimate there are millions, maybe hundreds of millions, of species we don't even know about yet. Biologists know what they have in common, but to the rest of us, they just aren't plants, animals, bacteria, or the other kingdoms. Different types of fungus exist everywhere, from the Arctic to nuclear waste to inside other species. The species we know about do so many different things that the world we know couldn't exist without them. And they've come up with some pretty strange superpowers, like helping trees talk to each other, consuming radiation, and inducing hallucinations. And that's just the beginning! This TED-Ed lesson tells us more of what we know and don't know abut fungi. 

In 1855, the city of Omaha was designated the capital of the Nebraska Territory. But then the territory became a state in 1867. That was just the opportunity that citizens needed to name a new capital city, since the movers and shakers of Omaha were known to be corrupt, often getting their way by bullying and intimidation. A bill was proposed to select a new capital, but those who were opposed to moving the capital out of Omaha added several poison pill amendments. One of them was that whichever city was named the state capital would be renamed Lincoln. Omaha proponents knew that would enrage citizens in the South Platte region, who tended to side with the Confederacy in the recent war.

The scheme did not work. Neither the name nor the other amendments kept legislators from voting to move the capital, and the tiny village of Lancaster, population 30, was renamed Lincoln. 

This story came from a list at Mental Floss that looks at the history of seven patriotically-named towns. There, you'll learn how Independence, Liberty, Libertyville, Freedom, Justice, and Flagstaff got their names. 

(Image credit: Steve Shook) 

While reading a biography of Zachary Taylor by John S.D. Eisenhower (yes, the son of Dwight Eisenhower), I came across this interesting fact: Taylor was the first officer in the US armed forces to receive a brevet promotion.

A brevet rank is a temporary promotion given in honor of meritorious service. It is temporary until confirmed through regular procedure.

Zachary Taylor was President of the United States from 1849 through 1850. Prior to that, he was a long-service officer in the United States Army who achieved fame during the Mexican War.

Earlier in his career, during the War of 1812, he held a fort in the wilderness of Indiana against a Native American attack. With only 20 effectives, he was outnumbered 30 to 1, but nonetheless prevailed. President Madison awarded Captain Taylor the brevet rank of major--the first in American military history.

Navigating online is becoming harder all the time. The concept of a CAPTCHA was introduced to keep robots from spamming websites and spying on users. But then the bots improved, so the CAPTCHAS had to be made more difficult. And more frustrating. As the bots got better at fooling the software into believing they are human, we started to confront multiple CAPTCHAS tests, and it's often so annoying that we give up completely. 

Now there's a video game that captures the frustration of CAPTCHAS, called CAPTCHAS Hell. Since we've all been there, it seems completely counterintuitive that gamers would want to recreate that misery on purpose, but some folks look at it as a challenge. Can you get through a maze of CAPTCHAS in order to purchase concert tickets online? Even if you don't want to try, you'll get a kick out of vicariously witnessing someone else try their luck in this game trailer. -via Geeks Are Sexy 

What is the most American animal?https://t.co/qh3ir6fSWu

— Occam Was Right (@OccamWasRight) July 1, 2026

In 1782, an illustration of a bald eagle by Charles Thompson became the Great Seal of the United States. The eagle became the symbol of the new country, although it held no official designation until it was named the national bird more than two centuries later in 2024. Meanwhile, we almost drove the bald eagle to extinction, although its numbers are recovering. Could some other animal represent the United States even better?

The most logical choice would be the bison, which was designated the national mammal in 2016. Like the eagle, the bison was almost wiped out, and made a recovery with much effort in the late 20th century. Along the way, prominent people have suggested the moose or the beaver, but those are Canadian symbols. Other nominees would be the eastern gray squirrel, the rattlesnake, or the coyote, which are everywhere. Or maybe a non-native species like the starling would represent a land of immigrants. Benjamin Franklin's choice, the turkey, would be the animal that brings us together for the most American of holidays, laid out on a table for Thanksgiving. Read about each of these creatures and more, and how they all symbolize America in one way or another, at CNN. -via Fark 

The United States traces its official birthday to the issuing of the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776. That was 250 years ago. This weekend, we will celebrate the founding ideals that the US stands for: liberty, democracy, and equality, as the Founding Fathers broke with the British monarchy. But while those ideals are still worth celebrating, they weren't always adhered to. Our elementary history classes used to teach about the more undemocratic episodes of our nation's story as justified. Then they were taught as "just the ways things were back then," and now they are often skipped completely because there's a lot of history to cover and the unsavory parts are just too difficult- and it's sometimes seen as frankly unpatriotic. PBS fills in some of the pieces you didn't learn about in school. 

Niche Museums is a website that catalogs unusually specific musems around the world. It directs us to the Vincent and Ethel Simonetti Historic Tuba Collection in Durham, North Carolina. If you're into tubas, this your pilgrimage site!

Vincent Simonetti, one of the two founders, began building his collection of over three hundred tubas in 1965 when he encountered an unusual specimen. He and his wife, Ethel, operated a tuba business until 2011, when he sold it and offered his personal collection to interested viewers.

Would you like to see it? You can visit by appointment only on Tuesdays and Thursdays between 3 and 6 PM. A tour is free, but Mr. Simonetti does suggest a donation.

-via David Thompson

As European settlers traveled to the New World, the Irish were ahead of the curve when it came to escaping the British Empire. Ireland was also a British colony, and its citizens were treated terribly. They were converted to Christianity, then a few hundred years later, non-Anglican religions were outlawed. Irish land was confiscated, their trees were cut down, and their priests executed. In the wake of this treatment, many Scots-Irish, particularly Presbyterians, fled to America to breathe freely. 

By the time of the American Revolution, people of Irish heritage made up about 10% of the white colonial population. But they comprised between 25 and 50% of the Continental Army! They were serious about freedom from Britain. They filled roles from cooks to spies to officers to Founding Fathers. John Barry immigrated to Philadelphia as a teenager, and rose to be the first commissioned officer in the US Navy. Lydia Barrington Darragh served as a spy for the patriots. John Dunlap printed hundreds of copies of the Declaration of Independence within a day of its adoption. Nine of Washington's generals and eight signers of the Declaration were Irish. Read about these and other ethnic Irish patriots who served valiantly in the American Revolution, at Smithsonian. 

(Collage credit: Sonja Anderson) 

The history of Long John Silver's turns out to be way more local to me than I realized. Growing up in Kentucky, I knew Jerry's restaurant was a treat because they had hot fudge cake and strawberry pie. My parents knew that after eating a meal, I couldn't do a whole dessert, so we split one among the family. I had no idea that Jerry's was related to Long John Silver's, but here we are. 

Long John Silver's was the second fast food restaurant in my childhood town, going up right as the interstate highway was built (KFC was the other, of course). In high school I discovered that they would sell you a basket of crunchies (the batter that floated away from the food) for a quarter, which was important when you had limited lunch money. It was a way to skip the real food and just get the greasy batter they were known for, cheap.

My current town still has a standalone Long John Silver's without the rebranding. I don't eat there because these days I cannot deal with a meal that's all deep-fried, even if it does include hushpuppies. Weird History has the tale of a fast food chain that's time has come and gone.