He was renovating his basement and found an underground city
In 1963, a Turkish resident who simply wanted to expand his house ended up making an unexpected and monumental discovery. While knocking down a wall in his basement, he found a mysterious room—then another, and another. Without realizing it, he had uncovered the entrance to Derinkuyu: an underground city capable of housing up to 20,000 people beneath Cappadocia. The part that extends below ground level is, on average, between six and 10 times deeper than the height of the above-ground buildings of the ancient city that used to be there. Derinkuyu means "deep well," and the name is no exaggeration. Scientists say Derinkuyu’s origins may date back to around the eighth century B.C. The result is a vast underground complex with rooms, stables, cellars, tombs, schools and even churches with refectories. Some of these spaces continued to be used until the 19th century before Derinkuyu fell into oblivion. (via History.com)
In the early 1900s Britain was obsessed with this game featuring a giant ball
A search of the patents registered in the second half of the 19th century by Moses G Crane of Massachusetts reveals a man who was never short of ideas. Crane had three sons who played football at Harvard, but he was not a fan of the sport. Apparently he believed that “to the average person without a college education it is incomprehensible, dull, cruel”, and he was particularly irritated at how hard it was to follow the progress of a small brown ball. And so Crane donned his thinking cap. “If the ball were only made large,” he said, “yes, large enough so that a player on one side could not see who was on the other, you would then have a chance to interest spectators.” In 1894 he found someone who could make his monster ball, at a cost – for materials alone – of some $175, about $4,500 in today’s money, and after several months of experimentation his son Edwin produced some rules. And so the sport of Pushball was born. (via The Guardian)
The dark legacy of the atomic age is still playing out in New Mexico
Lucy Benavidez Garwood was 13 years old when the Trinity atomic bomb test was detonated at the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico, 50 miles from her home. A prototype for the plutonium bomb that would be dropped a few weeks later on Nagasaki, Japan, it was the culmination of years of research at the top-secret Manhattan Project. Half a million people — including Nuevomexicano, pueblo and Navajo communities — lived within a 150-mile radius of that atomic bomb test. In the decades that followed, Benavidez Garwood lost both of her parents, three of her 10 siblings and one of her own daughters to cancer, along with many other close relatives, who all grew up in Tularosa and believed that their illnesses were linked to the atomic bomb test. Over 80 years later, Trinity’s dark legacy endures in the ongoing rates of cancer and illness in nearby communities. The locals, many of whom call themselves “downwinders,” commonly say, “We don’t ask if we’re going to get cancer; we ask when.” (via High Country News)
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.
Every GPS satellite is launched with a clock that is slow because of space-time relativity
Every satellite in the GPS constellation carries atomic clocks, and before launch those clocks are deliberately set to tick at the wrong rate. They are adjusted to run slightly slow. The reason is relativity. Once a GPS satellite is in orbit, its onboard clocks run fast relative to clocks on the ground. Left uncorrected, that drift would make accurate navigation fail within hours. The 38-microsecond figure often quoted is not a single effect. It is the net result of two relativistic effects working against each other. The first comes from special relativity. A GPS satellite moves fast, several kilometres per second relative to the ground. Special relativity says that a moving clock, observed from the ground, ticks slow. The second comes from general relativity. A GPS satellite orbits roughly 20,000 kilometres up, where Earth’s gravity is weaker than at the surface. General relativity says that a clock in weaker gravity ticks fast. On its own, this effect would make the satellite’s clock gain about 45 microseconds a day. (via Space Daily)
How an African-American soldier became a national hero in Greece
James Jakob Williams was an African-American from Baltimore, Maryland, in United States. He served as a Marine in the U.S. Navy. In this capacity he participated in the war between the United States and Algeria that took place in 1815. After completing his military service in the U.S. Navy, his superior suggested that he go to Greece, where slavery had been abolished. Williams arrived in Greece in January 1827 and was appointed assistant to Admiral Thomas Cochrane, and remained in Greece after the admiral left and took part in various battles. In many cases, he secretly infiltrated the enemy ranks to collect and convey to the Greeks valuable information, risking his life. During military operations to liberate Nafpaktos, Williams was seriously injured. At a critical moment of the conflict, he led a group of Greek fighters and took control of a Greek ship, attracting enemy fire. This saved the boat from being captured. This brave African-American offered his life in the struggle of the Greeks. (via the Society for Hellenism)
The 100-meter race at the Enhanced Games was won by a runner who didn't take anything
Acknowledgements: I find a lot of these links myself, but I also get some from other places 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 and Why Is This Interesting by Noah Brier and Colin Nagy. If you come across something you think should be included here, feel free to email me at mathew @ mathewingram dot com
