Monday links

That time Columbus tricked Jamaicans into providing supplies using knowledge of an upcoming eclipse. Related; Columbus has been cleared of importing syphilis from the Americas to Europe.

Why Are Plastic Army Men Still from World War II?

Painting 'Zebra Stripes' on Cows Wards Off Biting Flies.

Physiognomy of eyebrows: everything you wanted to know about eyebrow interpretation from the 16th century.

The Behind-the-Scenes Quest to Find Mister Rogers’s Signature Cardigans - his mother knitted them for him, and he wore those for another 10 years after his death. They were not easy to replace.

Scientists Try to Make a Knife out of Frozen Human Poop.

ICYMI, most recent links are here, and include how ancient Greeks dig a 4000-foot tunnel from both ends and met exactly in the middle (200 years before Euclid), the invention of rock, paper, scissors (and how to win), awkward Russian food art, typewriter evolution, and the ownership of the North Pole.

Friday links

This 1983 episode of The Family Feud pitted the cast of Gilligan's Island vs the cast of Batman.

Jazz was America’s “Secret Sonic Weapon” Against Communism.

South Indian frog oozes molecule that inexplicably devastates flu viruses.

April 22 is Earth Day: here's the story of the co-founder who killed, then composted, his girlfriend.

The Science Behind Your Cheap Wine.

The Coffee Revolt of 1674: Women Campaigned to Prohibit “That Newfangled, Abominable, Heathenish Liquor".

ICYMI, Tuesday's links are here, and include the history of women pirates, the 1906 earthquake and fire that destroyed 80% of San Francisco, the 8 year long McDonald's Monopoly Fraud, and some history - T'was the eighteenth of April in seventy-five (the midnight ride of William Dawes and Samuel Prescott (and Paul Revere))

1983 episode of The Family Feud: the cast of Gilligan's Island vs the cast of Batman

The cast of Gilligan's Island plays against the cast of Batman for charity in this 1983 episode of The Family Feud. It's interesting in a glimpse of history sort of sense, too - the number one answer to "Name something you bring into the bedroom for the day when you're sick in bed." is "a television", and another answer is "the phone". 

via Laughing Squid