The Chevalier d’Éon was born Charles d'Eon de Beaumont on October 5, 1728, and would go on to be a French soldier, spy, diplomat and in mid-life, a woman named Charlotte. D’Eon’s military exploits in the Seven Years’ War, role in negotiating the Paris Peace
“Terra nullius.” Under international law, this Latin phrase meaning “nobody’s land” describes an area of land unclaimed by any sovereign nation-state. In an age where nearly every inch of the world’s landmass has been mapped, examples of terra nullius are exceedingly rare. Along the Croatian-Serbian border, a drawn-out
Lieutenant Thomas Conrad was standing in a control room in Nashville’s new central jail when he noticed something off with one of the key rings hanging on the wall. It was midday on December 30, 2019, and in two weeks the still empty jail would take in about seven
One afternoon in March 2024, Spanish society gathered at a prestigious Barcelona business school to celebrate Isak Andic, an unassuming Turkish-born entrepreneur who used to sell embroidered blouses in a Barcelona market stand and went on to found the affordable fashion brand Mango, becoming a billionaire in the process, the
As Perardi approached the terrace, he saw that his friend, Kota Youngblood, sat at one of the tables. Youngblood was tall and imposing, with a paunch and black hair that framed pale skin. He was dressed in black, with military tattoos on his arms, and the white athletic tape that
My city’s ‘Casual Fridays’ workplace default is not a coincidence, nor an act of free will by our bosses. It is the result of an extremely successful lobbying campaign. Specifically: A coordinated 1960s–90s effort by the Hawaiian Fashion Guild to convince mainland corporations that allowing employees to dress
Among the many mysteries surrounding Jeffrey Epstein is how, exactly, a website famous for pornography and white nationalism got the scoop on his death. At 8:16 a.m. on August 10, 2019, an anonymous 4Chan user posted, "don't ask me how I know, but Epstein died
From TheForce.net: "Here's how that came about: My co-producer was Tony Bongiovi. Jon Bon Jovi was his little cousin and by little I mean we were all in our 30s and early 40s but Jon at that time was 17 years old. And we were in
From Gareth Edwards at Every: "In September 1974, Ed Roberts was sitting at the bank in a foreclosure meeting. His once-profitable calculator company, Micro Instrument and Telemetry Systems, was on the verge of bankruptcy. But Roberts was soliciting a $65,000 loan. Not to spend on calculators, he explained
From Amitha Kalaichandran for Undark: "In May, I was invited to take part in a survey by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine to better delineate how long Covid is described and diagnosed as part of The National Research Action Plan on Long Covid. The survey had
From Chris Lewicki: "Some mistakes feel worse than death. A February evening in 2003 started out routine at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, CA. I gowned up in cleanroom garb and passed into the High Bay 1 airlock in Building 179 where nearly all of NASA’
Links that interest me, and maybe you
Novartis has settled a lawsuit by the estate of Henrietta Lacks that alleged the pharmaceutical giant unjustly profited off her cells, which were taken from her tumor without her knowledge in 1951 and reproduced in labs to enable major medical advancements, including the polio vaccine. It’s the second settlement
A couple of months ago, a man arrived for his 50th dinner at Nisei, the one-Michelin-starred Japanese fine-dining restaurant in Russian Hill. As he sauntered up Polk Street in his signature white tennis shoes, jeans, blazer, and backpack, the entire Nisei staff was waiting outside to greet him with a
Svetlana, who was then eighty-one years old, lived in a senior citizens’ center in Spring Green, Wisconsin. When we met, she was dressed in baggy gray sweatpants and sunglasses. She was short and compact, and her once red hair had turned white and had started to thin. Scoliosis had given
Sean Penn always knew that rescuing Jacob Ostreicher from his years of Bolivian imprisonment would be difficult. Ostreicher, a then-52-year-old Hasidic businessman who had moved to the country from Brooklyn to manage a rice farm, got stuck there for two and a half years after he was accused of money
Ralph Neves was understandably disoriented when he woke up in the morgue. The slab was cold and the tag around his toe pressing into the skin. His heart, declared stopped an hour before, was racing so hard it was nearly beating out of his chest. The last thing Neves remembered,
Oliver Karafa and Yun Lu “Lucy” Li were a perfect match. Karafa was the consummate pretty boy: his brown hair always coiffed just so, his tennis shoes pristine. With no post-secondary education and little job experience, he told whomever would listen that he was going to be a millionaire before
When World War II came to America, baseball was one of the early victims. Many Major League players were in their early 20s and, therefore, subject to the draft. the owner of the Cubs, Philip K. Wrigley (of chewing gum fame) started the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League in 1943.
More than halfway through the crime novel he wrote, Robert Fuller describes the frustration of a detective locked in a mystery. He rubbed the back of his neck. “Now what?” he said aloud. It has been a week since someone made their way into Fuller’s assisted living apartment in
Around 2,000 strange tunnels have been found around central Europe. These aren’t like the well-known catacombs of Paris or Rome. Known as the erdstall, these passages are extremely narrow, never more than two feet wide nor high enough for an adult to walk in, and sometimes the passages
"You know that island between Mozambique and Madagascar that you visited," she said. "Was it called Anjouan? Well, there's been a coup." Actually, there had been 24 coups in as many years, the pace accelerating after 1997 and culminating with two in 2001. On
There are tears in the audience as Patrick Darling’s song begins to play. It’s a heartfelt song written for his great-grandfather, whom he never got the chance to meet. But this performance is emotional for another reason: It’s Darling’s first time on stage with his bandmates
In the delicate jargon of the fertility industry, a woman who carries a child for someone else is said to be going on a “journey.” Kayla Elliott began hers in February, 2024. Elliott already had four children, but she was intrigued by the prospect of bearing another. She’d loved