Thursday links

It's the anniversary of the death of Genghis Khan: founder of the Mongolian Empire, prolific spreader of DNA, Conan the Barbarian inspiration, and climate change hero.

The History Of Mac And Cheese.

Like 18th century CNN, only much cooler: European Printmakers Had No Idea What Colonial American Cities Looked Like, So They Just Made Stuff Up.

Davy Crockett, hero of the Alamo, was born on August 17.

I have a secret. My father is Steve Jobs.

A brief history of posthumous executions.

ICYMI, Friday's links are here, and include the anniversary of the battle of Thermopylae, an Amish man's Uber-esque horse and buggy ride-sharing, the 1776 plot (from within) to murder George Washington, and predicting weather with bug sex.

Awkward Russian glamour photos

There are thousands of these available on the interwebs; I had a really hard time choosing the most awkward and eventually ran out of time/energy to search for them. At any rate, here's a selection - feel free to link to more in the comments.  

By the way, if you know someone who likes awkward photos so much that you want a related Christmas/birthday/whatever present, there's also a book full of them called, appropriately enough, Awkward Family Photos, and a day-to-day calendar version which provides you with, presumably, 365 awkward pictures.

Related posts:

Awkward pregnancy photos.

Creepy photos of Easter Bunnies with kids

Awkward Christmas photos

Awkward glamour photos