The first Black private eye in the US helped nab Al Capone

From The Atavist: "The weeks leading up to the city’s election had been marked by a frenzy of political violence. Chicago’s flamboyantly amoral mayor, William “Big Bill” Thompson, who had recently won office on the populist slogan “America First,” enjoyed the backing of local gangsters, including the infamous syndicate kingpin Al Capone. Nearly a decade into Prohibition, Chicagoans had become inured to a certain amount of murder and mayhem. But the daylight execution of a principled political reformer shocked the populace. A special prosecutor was appointed to bring the perpetrators to justice. His first task was to hire someone to lead the investigation into the killing — someone fearless and independent, free from influence by the city’s notoriously troubled police department. The prosecutor turned to an unlikely choice — a Black man, one who had been blazing an extraordinary path through the world of criminal investigation: Sheridan Bruseaux. A little less than a decade before, Bruseaux had become, by all extant records, the United States’ first Black licensed private investigator."

Actor Roddy McDowell was busted by the FBI for pirating movies and became a snitch

From Mental Floss: "In a report dated July 22, 1975, the Federal Bureau of Investigation recorded the details behind one of the biggest raids of a pirated movie collection in the agency’s history. Agents had descended on an opulent home in North Hollywood and seized more than 160 film canisters and more than 1000 video cassettes, all unlawfully copied for use in private screenings. The Bureau estimated the collection to be worth more than $5 million. Rather than face serious charges, the owner of the films agreed to inform investigators about how he acquired his library and who else he knew that might be in possession of similar goods. The source of this one-man analog pirate operation was Roddy McDowall, a former child star who gained notoriety for his portrayal of Cornelius and Caesar in the Planet of the Apes franchise. And while his criminal record would remain clean, his willingness to rat out other celebrity movie collectors would come at considerable personal cost."

He kept a list of the more than 3,500 books he read over more than 60 years

From Open Culture: "Dan Pelzer died earlier this year at the age of 92, leaving behind a handwritten list of all the books he’d read since 1962. His family had it digitized, put it online, and now it’s gone viral. He began keeping it when he was stationed in Nepal as a Peace Corps volunteer, and kept it up until the end of his reading days in 2023, long after he retired from his job as a social worker at an Ohio juvenile correctional facility. Examined together, whether in the form of a complete scan or a searchable PDF, the 3,599 books, most of them checked out from the library, that Pelzer recorded having read constitute a personal cultural history of the past six decades. Described as a devout Catholic, he certainly seems to have been consistent in his pursuit of an interest in not just the history of Christianity in particular, but the history of western civilization in general."

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.

A fish fell from the sky and started a forest fire

From the New York Times: "A brush fire and power outage in British Columbia started on Wednesday not with lightning or a careless camper, but with an airborne fish, according to fire officials.With the help from nearby ranchers and employees from the British Columbia Hydro and Power Authority, a Canadian electric utility company, firefighters were able to contain and extinguish the blaze. Then came the investigation. It wasn’t faulty equipment, according to fire officials. It was a fish.The authorities believe an osprey flying overhead dropped its catch midflight.The fish struck power lines, producing sparks that landed on dry grass and ignited the blaze, which took up less than an acre.The closest river, the likely place where the osprey caught its prey, is about two miles from the fire scene. Electricity was temporarily knocked out in Ashcroft, a village of more than 1,500 people that is about 210 miles northeast of Vancouver."

Hawaii is home to some giant petroglyphs carved centuries ago by native artists

From Scientific American: "Centuries ago, Native Hawaiians carved large human stick figures into the ground on Oahu’s western shore. Most of the time, the sandstone etchings are hidden beneath a blanket of sand and sediment. But recently, the lapping waves of the Pacific Ocean cleared away the sand to reveal the petroglyphs once again. The carvings are located on Oahu’s Waianae Coast in Pōkaʻī Bay in front of a cabin at a United States Army recreation center. They were first discovered in 2016 but hadn’t been fully exposed again until now. Experts say it’s difficult to determine exactly when the petroglyphs were carved. But they suspect the etchings are at least 500 years old. The entire panel measures roughly 115 feet long, with some of the vfigures measuring more than eight feet tall and nearly eight feet wide. Archaeologists have recorded 26 petroglyphs, including 18 human-like stick figures. Of those, eight appear to be male. Two of the figures have fingers, which experts say is unusual."

An Ohio library has created a special section devoted to the 3,500 books Dan Pelzer read

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