He was in a vegetative state for a decade and came back to life

From Wikipedia: "Martin Pistorius is a South African man who had locked-in syndrome and was unable to move or communicate for 12 years. When he was 12, he began losing voluntary motor control and eventually fell into a vegetative state for three years. He began regaining consciousness around age 16 and achieved full consciousness by age 19, although he was still completely paralysed with the exception of his eyes. He was unable to communicate until his caregiver noticed that he could use his eyes to respond to her words. His parents then gave him a speech computer, and he began slowly regaining some upper body functions. In 2008, he met his wife Joanna, and in 2009 they married. By that time, Pistorius had regained limited control over his head and arms, but still needed his speech computer to communicate with others. In 2018, it was announced that the couple were expecting a child, and Pistorius was wheelchair racing."

This guy is making millions by losing at every game he plays

From Slate: "At a private baccarat table near the back of the El Cortez Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas on a chilly January afternoon, a crowd of fans gathered to watch one of the world’s most famous gamblers at work. Some had come all the way here just to watch him play. They savored every detail—how he cut chips, ruffled his cash, bantered with the dealer. He was dressed for the job. His gray hair was molded into a tight crew cut, and he wore a knitted gold necklace low across his collarbone and a Super Bowl–sized ring with a Ruby 777 jackpot dangling from his hand. The scene was impressive, except in one way: This man absolutely sucked at gambling. I’d been with Vegas Matt — the YouTube tycoon whose millions of followers salivate over his every bet — for only a few hours. He’d already lost close to $30,000 and was set to lose even more."

A rare Merlin manuscript from the 1300s was found inside the binding of a different book

From Cambridge University: "A fragile 13th century manuscript fragment, hidden in plain sight as the binding of a 16th-century archival register, has been discovered in Cambridge and revealed to contain rare medieval stories of Merlin and King Arthur. The manuscript, first discovered at Cambridge University Library in 2019, has now been identified as part of the Suite Vulgate du Merlin, a French-language sequel to the legend of King Arthur. The story was part of the Lancelot-Grail cycle, a medieval best seller but few now remain. There are less than 40 surviving manuscripts of the Suite Vulgate du Merlin, with each one unique since they were individually handwritten by medieval scribes. This latest discovery has been identified as having been written between 1275 and 1315. The manuscript had survived the centuries after being recycled and repurposed in the 1500s as the cover for a property record from Huntingfield Manor."

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 Republic of Ireland had its own time zone for more than 35 years

From the BBC: "Imagine waking up in Belfast to discover you were in a different time zone from Dublin. It might sound ridiculous, but for a few years in the middle of the 20th century that was exactly what happened. Even more surprisingly, from 1880 to 1916 someone travelling on the Holyhead to Dublin ferry would have to move their watch back by 25 minutes when they arrived in Ireland. The reason? Ireland had its own time zone, which was 25 minutes and 21 seconds behind Greenwich Mean Time (GMT), the local time in the rest of the United Kingdom. In 1916 Ireland switched to GMT to fall into line with the rest of the UK. There were also two different time zones within the island of Ireland from 1941-47 (with the exception of 1946). To save energy during World War Two the UK adopted double summer time, but the Irish Free State did not follow suit, meaning it was an hour behind Northern Ireland all year round."

An 1800s remedy called Doctor Buckland's Scotch Oats Essence had a secret ingredient

From Quack Doctor: "The name of Dr Buckland’s Scotch Oats Essence evokes wholesome scenes; a warming bowl of porridge perhaps, prescribed by a kindly Highland doctor. The Scotch Oats Essence was introduced in the 1880s by Dr Henry Hubbell Kane. A genuine graduate of Long Island College Hospital, he had started out in regular practice. For a couple of years, Kane ran an addiction treatment sanatorium, but the patent medicine trade proved more profitable. Early ads pitched the medicine as a cure for insomnia, alongside a list of disorders related to the nervous system – sciatica, headaches, neurasthenia, hysteria, ovarian neuralgia, epilepsy and more. Kane called his medicine’s active ingredient avenesca, and it was supposed to tone up the little grey cells of the brain and nervous system. But an analysis found that more than a third of the Essence was alcohol and there were two grains of morphine per bottle."

This is how long it takes for a firefighter to put on their protective gear

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