The hunt for the Mad Bomber captivated New York in the '40s

From NPR: "Beginning in 1940, a man named George Metesky hid 33 pipe bombs in public spaces in New York City. Twenty-two of those bombs exploded, injuring 15 people. Until he was captured in 1957, Metesky was known to the press, the police and an increasingly anxious populace as the "Mad Bomber." Metesky hid his bombs in phone booths or public restrooms, terrorizing the city in a way that is echoed in today's terrorism threats. Why did it take so long to catch him? He became very adept at melting into society and kind of cruising under the radar; one of his lawyers referred to him as someone who could pass as your next-door neighbor. In the photos of him, Metesky — under arrest and often surrounded by police officers — grins inexplicably. Those photos graced the cover of newspapers like the Hearst-owned New York Journal-American, whose publisher, Seymour Berkson, played a significant role in the manhunt."

An English surgeon in the 1700s blinded both Johann Sebastian Bach and Georg Handel

From La Brujula Verde: "Despite being a royal surgeon, John Taylor had a huge failure rate, with hundreds of people who not only failed to heal but were blinded forever. A good example of this could be his two most famous patients. Bach suffered from serious health problems, including a progressive blindness that made his work difficult and practically impossible. Current experts believe that this was due to diabetes, although he also had considerable blepharitis. Taylor was hired to try and fix his vision, operating on him in March 1750 in Leipzig. He considered that it was cataracts, so he opened his eyeball and crushed his lens. Bach did not recover his vision for the rest of his life. Händel also suffered from vision problems in one eye. It was thought to be due to an accident he suffered while travelling by carriage in Holland in the summer of 1750. He underwent a cataract operation performed by Taylor and lost his vision completely."

The native American polymath who invented a written version of the Cherokee language

From Wikipedia: "Sequoyah, also known as George Gist, was a Native American polymath and neographer of the Cherokee Nation. In 1821, Sequoyah completed his Cherokee syllabary, enabling reading and writing in the Cherokee language. One of the first North American Indigenous groups to gain a written language, the Cherokee Nation officially adopted the syllabary in 1825. Within a quarter-century, the Cherokee Nation had reached a literacy rate of almost 100%, surpassing that of surrounding European-American settlers. Sequoyah's creation of the Cherokee syllabary is among the few times in recorded history that an individual member of a pre-literate group created an original, effective writing system. It inspired the development of 21 scripts or writing systems used in 65 languages in North America, Africa, and Asia."

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 beginnings of Roman London have been discovered in an office basement

From the BBC: "A discovery underneath the basement of an office block has been described as one of the most important pieces of Roman history unearthed in the city of London. Archaeologists have found a substantial piece of the ancient city's first basilica - a 2,000 year old public building where major political, economic and administrative decisions were made. The excavation has so far revealed sections of stone wall that formed the base of the basilica, which would have been two-and-a-half storeys high. The site was discovered at 85 Gracechurch Street, an office building that's about to be demolished and redeveloped. Earlier archaeological investigations revealed the ancient basilica's approximate location, so the team created several small test pits to see what was hidden beneath the concrete floor. On the third attempt they got lucky."

Theres's a gravestone in a New York City cemetery for someone who didn't exist

From Atlas Obscura: "In the historic Trinity Churchyard in lower Manhattan, just off Wall Street, lies the grave of a woman who never existed. But two centuries ago, any American in the habit of reading novels would have known the name engraved on the slab: Charlotte Temple. The sight of the tomb might have evoked sighs or even tears in the tender-hearted readers of Susanna Rowson’s 1791 novel Charlotte, A Tale of Truth, who would have recalled how Miss Temple, a naive 16-year-old British girl, had been seduced by the villainous rake Lord Montraville, brought to America, and then abandoned as he went off to marry another woman and fight in the Revolutionary War. The book was hugely popular—it was the bestselling novel in America for half a century, right up until the release of Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Heartstrings across the new nation were pulled by the ending of the tale, in which Charlotte dies penniless in wintry New York City after giving birth, her father arriving too late to save her."

An attempt to build a Feynman motor — an engine that can fit through the eye of a needle

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