50 years after a teen’s murder police arrest an ex-schoolmate

From The New York Times: "The last time Dawn Momohara’s mother heard from her daughter, she told her she was going to meet friends at a shopping center in Honolulu.Hours later, after Dawn, 16, didn’t return home that Sunday afternoon in 1977, she was reported missing, The Honolulu Star-Advertiser later reported. The next day, March 21, 1977, just before students began Monday morning classes at McKinley High, Dawn was found dead on the second floor of what was then called the English building. She was partially clothed and an orange cloth was tightly wrapped around her neck. The police determined at the time that she had been strangled and possibly sexually assaulted, but a suspect would not be identified for decades. Nearly a half-century after Dawn’s body was found, Gideon Castro, 66, was arrested and charged with murdering her."

These seven thrift store finds turned into small fortunes in 2024

From Artnet: "Discovering a hidden treasure in an unexpected place is a thrill like no other. In 2024, artworks and valuable artifacts didn’t just turn up in the most surprising locations—from thrift stores to musty old attics—some of them made quite the mint on the auction block. A tiny painting by British artist John Constable was found in a cupboard during a renovation. Bought for $37 at an auction years ago, the authenticated work could now be worth $315,000. A sealed vintage Lego set, discovered in a donated jewelry box at Goodwill, sold for $18,000 at auction. The set included a rare 14-karat gold Bionicle Hau mask, making it a dream find for collectors. A Victorian brooch bought for just $25 at an antiques market was identified on BBC’s Antiques Roadshow as a rare treasure by William Burges and sold for $15,000 at auction."

Why the ancient Chinese tradition of footbinding persisted for almost a thousand years

From The Smithsonian: "Early evidence for footbinding comes from the tomb of Lady Huang Sheng, the wife of an imperial clansman, who died in 1243. Archaeologists discovered tiny, misshapen feet that had been wrapped in gauze and placed inside specially shaped “lotus shoes.” On camera, I balanced a pair of embroidered doll shoes in the palm of my hand, and made some comment about the silliness of using toy shoes. This was when I was informed that the miniature “doll” shoes had in fact been worn by a human. Foot-binding is said to have been inspired by a tenth-century court dancer named Yao Niang who bound her feet into the shape of a new moon. From the start, foot-binding was imbued with erotic overtones. Gradually, other court ladies—with money, time and a void to fill—took up foot-binding, making it a status symbol."

Hi everyone! Mathew Ingram here. I am able to continue writing this newsletter in part because of your financial help and support, which you can do either through my Patreon or by upgrading your subscription to a monthly contribution. I enjoy gathering all of these links and sharing them with you, but it does take time, and your support makes it possible for me to do that. I also write a weekly newsletter of technology analysis called The Torment Nexus.

The World Monuments Fund has put the moon on the list of at-risk sites

From the New York Times: "For years, the World Monuments Fund has sought to draw attention and resources to endangered cultural heritage sites including Machu Picchu in Peru, temples in Cambodia and the old city of Taiz in Yemen. But this year’s list of at-risk sites goes much further afield: to the moon. Concerned that the new space race could exacerbate space debris and expand tourism in orbit and beyond, the group named the moon as one of the 25 endangered sites on its 2025 World Monuments Watch. With a growing number of wealthy people going to space and more governments pursuing human spaceflight, the group warns that more than 90 important sites on the moon could be harmed. In particular, some researchers are worried about Tranquillity Base, the Apollo 11 landing site where Neil Armstrong first stepped onto the moon’s surface."

This whale ancestor crawled out of the sea 400 million years ago then crawled back in

From IFLScience: "Surprisingly, the closest living relative to whale is the hippopotamus, even though they look nothing alike and have pretty different habitats, diets, and distributions. Hippos are thought to have evolved from a non-aquatic group called the anthracotheres about 15 million years ago. Whales, on the other hand, evolved over 50 million years ago from creatures that lived on land. Somewhere way back in evolutionary history, hippos and whales would have shared a common ancestor that was also terrestrial. One of the earliest terrestrial whale ancestors was an animal known as Pakicetus, known as the “first whale” or one of the first cetaceans. This was a creature that walked on four limbs, and is thought to have eaten both meat from land animals and fish. The fossil revealed that it has a similar ear bone to modern-day whales, with a unique structure that could even have led Pakicetus to be able to hear underwater."

What it looks like when a giant cargo ship releases its anchor

Acknowledgements: I find a lot of these links myself, but I also get some from other newsletters that I rely on as "serendipity engines," such as The Morning News from Rosecrans Baldwin and Andrew Womack, Jodi Ettenberg's Curious About Everything, Dan Lewis's Now I Know, Robert Cottrell and Caroline Crampton's The Browser, Clive Thompson's Linkfest, Noah Brier and Colin Nagy's Why Is This Interesting, Maria Popova's The Marginalian, Sheehan Quirke AKA The Cultural Tutor, the Smithsonian magazine, and JSTOR Daily. If you come across something interesting that you think should be included here, please feel free to email me at mathew @ mathewingram dot com