The Heart-Wrenching Story Behind Charlie Brown's 'Little Red-Haired Girl'

While some might try to completely erase the painful memories of unrequited love, others, like Peanuts cartoonist, Charles Schulz, hold on to that bittersweet feeling for the rest of their lives. In fact, over decades, Schulz shared messages via his very public comic strip to the one who got away: The Little Red-Haired Girl.

A recent Vanity Fair piece by Darryn King explores the this releationship in depth. It all began when Charles Schulz, whose friends knew him as “Sparky,” met Donna Mae Johnson while working as an instructor at a Minnesota art school. He was 27 at the time, and his career as a cartoonist was picking up. Donna, at 21, had flaming red hair and worked in the accounting office. Sometimes he’d sneak up and sketch a cartoon or “hello” on her desk. She joined the school’s softball team so she could be around him more; after practices, whenever he’d drop the girls off at their homes one-by-one, he’d wait to bring Donna home last. Soon she became his best friend.

Finally, Sparky, notoriously shy around girls, got up the nerve and asked her out on a date. They went to an ice skating show, and he gave her a music box. And soon, every Monday they were going on a date and sometimes even “necking” at the movies. They took a road trip from their homes in Minneapolis to swim in the St. Croix River and made pancakes over a campfire. Schulz would often tell Donna he wished he had a “diamond ring in my pocket to give to you now,” and she’d reply she wasn’t ready to get married.

In June 1950, Schulz went on a trip to New York, four months after the two started dating, to meet with United Feature Syndicate in hopes of getting a cartoon deal. He returned with a five-year contract to bring Charlie Brown to newspapers across the country and went directly to Donna’s house and proposed. Instead of requiring an answer, he gave her a ceramic white cat and said that when she had finally made her decision to marry him, to place it on his desk when he wasn’t around.

Schulz wasn’t the only person courting Donna, though. For several years, she had been on again, off again with a firefighter named Al Wolz. It was only when Sparky started pursuing Donna that Wolz realized his true feelings for Donna. Just a few weeks after Sparky proposed to Donna, so did Al. After taking some time to deliberate, she chose Al. And, just 19 days after Schulz’s cartoons began running in daily papers, Donna and Al married in October of 1950.

Yet, Sparky, who spent a lifetime battling depression, never forgot about Donna. Sparky first included mentions of the Little Red-Haired Girl in his cartoons in 1961 and would include inside jokes and small references of events between him and Donna in the strips. Donna read the cartoons from the very beginning and knew immediately who the Little Red-Haired Girl was when she popped up in Peanuts. “It was just like reading an old love letter…It was so very nice to be remembered,” Donna once said.

Though the Little Red-Haired Girl can be seen in the 1970s and 80s Charlie Brown movies, Schulz never actually drew her in the comic strips. In reality, he called the red-headed girl the animators created in the movies a “sell out” and swore that she would never be revealed in the comic since some things should stay in a person’s daydreams. The closest one ever comes to seeing her is her silhouette dancing with Snoopy, when Charlie Brown realizes he missed out again on talking to the Little Red-Haired Girl.

Sparky never got over Donna. Though he married twice and had children of his own, he kept Donna in his life as much as he could. Though it never interfered with Donna’s marriage to Al, the two phoned each other over the years, wrote letters and their families even met up for vacation. While Schulz went on to make millions upon millions, Donna and Al settled down to a quiet life in Minneapolis where they had three children of their own, adopted one child and fostered 40 after her own children grew up. But Donna’s kept memories of her relationship with Sparky alive. She still has the music box, the white cat and clippings of Peanuts comic strips that include references to either the Little Red-Haired Girl or some of their own inside jokes.

Schulz died in 2000 after battling cancer, but he was able to talk to Donna a few days before he passed. Donna, now 86-years-old, lives in Minneapolis at a nursing home, where Al comes to visit her every day.

While we’ll never know if Schultz will appreciate the Little Red-Haired Girl in The Peanuts Movie, Donna hopes Charlies Brown gets the courage to talk to her so the Little Red-Haired girl can finally tell him she loves him.

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How Misreporting Kitty Genovese's Murder Turned New York into a 'Heartless' City

On November 17, 2015, officials denied 80-year-old Winston Moseley’s 18th parole request, reminding him of the horrific way he murdered 28-year-old Kitty Genovese in 1964. They also chastised him for “minimizing the gravity of his behavior.” The public hadn’t forgotten what Moseley had done to Genovese that night in New York City, even if he had. Hers was a brutal murder that stayed in the public’s mind, not just for the horrific way Moseley had killed Genovese, but also because of the lack of care shown by over three dozen neighbors. The tale spiraled into American crime mythology as soon as the  New York Times reported it and has staunchly remained there ever since, seeping into high school psychology curriculums as a classic example of bystander effect. But is it true?

Two weeks after the murder of Kitty Genovese in Kew Gardens, Martin Gansberg broke the story in his article 37 Who Saw Murder Didn’t Call the Police. According to the piece, at around 3:20 a.m. one night in March 1964, the 28-year-old bartender was walking from her car to her home when Winston Moseley ran up, grabbed her and stabbed her twice in the back. She screamed, and a startled neighbor turned on his lights and shouted down for the man to leave the woman alone. The figure backed away from Genovese and returned to his car.

But once the neighbor’s light turned back off, Moseley returned, hunted down a wounded Genovese and stabbed her again. When lights popped on again and windows opened, Moseley ran back to his car and drove away. A bus returning from the airport drove past the buildings without stopping to help the injured woman. Genovese’s neighbors went back to sleep without going down to check on her, who by then had managed to crawl through one of the apartment building’s back doors. Though inside a building, she wasn’t safe. Moseley returned, found her in the apartments and stabbed her to death before fleeing once more.

Police received their first phone call some 30 minutes after the attack began and, arriving just two minutes later, found Genovese dead at the bottom of the stairs. Thirty-seven of the people in the surrounding homes heard the attack but didn’t call the police, citing they “didn’t want to get involved,” “thought it was a lovers quarrel,” “were too tired,” and even “didn’t know” why they didn’t call the police. Even the man who did eventually get authorities to the house said he first called a friend asking for advice if he should call the police, then went to a neighbor’s house to get the elderly woman to phone authorities because he “didn’t want to get involved.”

At least, that’s what The New York Times said happened.

In years following, people, including Genovese’s younger brother, have done their own investigation into what happened that terrible night and uncovered a very different story. Yes, two repugnant neighbors did hear and ignore Genovese’s cries for help, but other neighbors acted. As reported in the article, one person yelled out of their window to get the man away from Genovese, and Moseley later said the action scared him into running back to his car. Another woman ran down to Genovese and held her in her arms as she died; meanwhile several other people called the police. In addition, the district attorneys weighed in that there never were 38 witnesses, saying they “only found about half a dozen that saw what was going on, that we could use.” Ultimately, officials have never even released a list of 38 people.

There’s another big issue too: the article made it seem like people watched the entire horrific scene play out, but no one could have actually seen the entire attack unless because Genovese moved from the street into the stairway of an apartment building. The person would have needed to be following her to actually see what happened.

Despite running the article two weeks after Genovese’s murder and having plenty of time for fact-checking, The New York Times got other issues incorrect. Genovese was attacked two times, not three, as the paper reported. The story also excluded that the second time Moseley attacked Genovese, he raped her and then left her to die.

One author says that mythical 38 witnesses number came information incorrectly relayed to the police commissioner to New York Times editor Abe Rosenthal. Rosenthal then assigned the story with the facts he’d been told to Gansberg. Others say it was just too good of a story to pass up. Whatever the reason, because of this fact-checking error, New York received a worldwide reputation as being a cold, callous city that stands idly by as innocent women are attacked. It’s a terrible stigma its held ever since, some say unjustly.

Despite the picture painted of Genovese’s death is incorrect, the article and its effects changed American laws and society for the better. In response to the horrific story, authorities codified things like the 911 system and passed “Good Samaritan” laws that legally protect anyone that helps someone in trouble. Genovese’s death also spurred research and the discovery of the bystander effect, which says the more people witness a crime, the less they are inclined to act because they think someone else will. But perhaps the most long-lasting legacy of Kitty Genovese’s murder is the symbolic death of New York’s social decency, a badge the city has carried ever since.

Robert Johnson: The Blues Genius Who Sold His Soul to the Devil

A newly found photo has the music world buzzing with excitement. Could this be a picture of the legendary music genius Robert Johnson? Even though bands including The Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin and The White Strips have covered Johnson’s music, there are only two other confirmed photos of the musician in existence. But who exactly is this guy?

Though his impact on the music industry is unquestionable, we actually know very little about Robert Johnson. Of the few things we know, Johnson was born in 1911 to impoverished parents on a plantation in the Mississippi Delta. And from there, much is legend. The stories go that Johnson loved to play music but was so terrible he’d annoy anyone in the vicinity of his playing. When Johnson was a teen, he ran away to Arkansas for six months, and when he returned, was suddenly a master of the guitar. Though it’s most likely that he devoted himself to learning the intricacies of the guitar from various teachers or mentors while he was away from home, a much more alluring myth has sprung up to explain the transformation.

Legend has it that one evening after fleeing home, Johnson met the devil at the crossroads of U.S. Highways 49 and 61 in Clarksdale, Mississippi at midnight. Wanting nothing more than to have the sharpest skills possible, he traded his soul to the devil in return for musical genius on the guitar.   From that moment on, Johnson had an uncanny talent that allowed him to travel around the U.S. as an itinerant musician, playing on street corners and crummy joints. In 1936, he finally recorded an album in San Antonio and then another in Dallas the following year. In total, he recorded only 29 songs, but he laid so many of the foundations for rock ‘n’ roll as it would become.

Part of Robert Johnson’s revolutionary impact was the way he played the guitar, making it sound like he was actually playing two guitars instead of one. He did so by partially playing the driving rhythms on the guitar’s lower strings and the melodic chords on higher strings. His hallmark technique was the turnaround but he also used up-the-neck chords, chromatic movement, melodic fills between vocals and a host of others. Johnson was versatile, using both classical methods and twangy improvisations of his own in order to create the haunting sound that influenced everyone from Jimi Hendrix to Jack White. His tunings, though, continue to create the strongest fodder for debate. Because Johnson’s records were sped up when they were first released, it makes it impossible to truly analyze Johnson’s tunings and capo positions, but that doesn’t stop continued fierce debate.

During his lifetime only one of his songs, “Terraplane Blues,” caught anyone’s attention. It was only in 1961 when Johnson’s first LP was reissued that his music took flight. The driving force behind releasing the LP was John Hammond, the same talent scout who discovered Billie Holiday in the early ’30s. In 1938, Hammond sought out the genius blues player to participate in his “Spirituals to Swing” concert at Carnegie, a show comprised of all black musicians and some of the greatest blues and jazz musicians of the time. Tragically, Johnson died right before, at the young age of 27. Unfortunately, just like so much of Johnson’s life the details of his untimely death remain mostly a mystery.

Despite Johnson’s death, Hammond didn’t forget Johnson’s talent.  As he pushed for Johnson’s music to be released over 20 years after the blues musician’s death, Hammond ensured that Johnson’s legacy live on. As that LP was played on the radio, it inspired an untold number of artists and eventually landed Robert Johnson the number five position in Rolling Stone’s 100 Greatest Guitarists.  Many would agree with Eric Clapton who said, “Robert Johnson to me is the most important blues musician who ever lived…I have never found anything more deeply soulful than Robert Johnson. His music remains the most powerful cry that I think you can find in the human voice.”

Take a minute to listen to Johnson’s twangy blues, and see if you can spot his influence on your favorite rock ‘n’ roll artist. Pay special attention to “Cross Roads Blues,” “Sweet Home Chicago” and “I Believe I’ll Dust My Broom,” which Rolling Stone  says are among the most popular blues songs of all time.

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Billie Holiday's Dark Days Before Jazz

Had it not been for the chance cancellation of a performer one night, Billie Holiday’s life might have taken a very different turn. Born on the heels of the World War I, Holiday’s life was once scarred by abuse, discrimination and addiction. We tend to think mostly about her iconic voice and style, not so much about the pain and disappointment that permeated her life before she became famous, and that would likely haunt her after as well.

Aspects of Holiday’s life are mysterious, mostly because she liked to blur the line between truth and a good story. But we do know she was born on April 7, 1915 as Eleanora Fagan. In her autobiography, Lady Sings the Blues, Holiday wrote that her mom, Sadie, was 13 and father, Clarence, was 15 when they had her, though other historians say it’s more likely that her mom was 19 and her dad 17. Though Sadie lived in Baltimore, her parents sent her to Pennsylvania to give birth to the illegitimate child, but soon returned home with her daughter. Holiday’s father, Clarence Holiday, was a jazz guitarist in Fletcher Henderson’s band and quickly abandoned the child and her mother.

While Holiday was still young, Sadie moved to New York to find better work, leaving Holiday behind with her grandparents and cousins. Holiday’s cousin Ida beat her while Ida’s son, Henry, made fun of her. One day Henry hit Holiday in the face with a bat. Fed up with the abuse, Holiday turned around, grabbed the bat, supposedly beat him so badly she sent him to Johns Hopkins Hospital. Holiday then dropped out of school in the fifth grade and started cleaning peoples’ doorsteps for nickels. More formative, though, was her job with a local madam. She ran errands for the prostitutes in a local Baltimore brothel so she could listen to the house’s Louis Armstrong and Bessie Smith records.

When Holiday was just 10-years-old, a man named Mr. Dick sexually molested her. Though he ended up going to jail for his crimes, Holiday, too, was punished and sent to The House of the Good Shepherd, a Catholic home for misbehaving girls. After she was released when she was 12, she decided to leave Baltimore behind and move to Harlem to be with her mother. Her mother found her a room at Florence Williams’ house. Holiday later said her mom didn’t know she’d sent her daughter to live in the popular madam’s home, but when Williams approached Holiday to work, she jumped on it. “I had a chance to become a strictly twenty-dollar call girl and I took it,” she recounted in her autobiography. Her life as a prostitute didn’t last long, though.

According to one account, Holiday refused to provide services to a wealthy client who became so enraged, he had her arrested to get back at her. Another account says she was arrested alongside her mother and 23 other women in a raid on the home. Holiday, who told authorities she was 21, was sentenced to 100 days imprisonment on Welfare Island, a well-known jail that prostitutes and drug addicts were often sent to. After she was released, she worked briefly again as a prostitute before finally declaring she was done and started focusing on singing and dancing. It was then that Eleanora Fagan became Billie Holiday, naming herself after her favorite actress, Billy Dove, and then taking on her father’s last name.

Like so many great artists, Holiday was discovered by accident. One night, when she was 17, she replaced a singer that had called out at show at Monette Moore’s, a New York speakeasy. John Hammond, one of the most important talent-scouts in 20th-century music, came to the bar that evening to see the promised headline singer only to find Billie as her replacement. When she opened her mouth and began belting her sultry notes, Hammond was swept away. Hammond introduced Holiday to great jazz musicians like Benny Goodman, Teddy Wilson, Duke Elington and Lester Young, who later gave her the famous nickname “Lady Day.” Hammond  eventually signed Holiday to Brunswick Records, and she officially hit it big on her own with her 1939 “Strange Fruit,” a haunting song about the lynching of a black man.

In the early 1940s, Holiday turned to drugs. As the years progressed, she leaned heavily on drugs and alcohol, which eventually led to her downfall. Faced with a fierce heroin addiction as well as liver and heart problems, Billie died in the hospital in 1959 when she was just 44.

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German Museums Are Hiring Refugees to Share Their History

As millions of refugees flee embattled Syria and Iraq from violence of ISIS, they find themselves with little to nothing of what they once called home. While refugees struggle to regain some sort of normalcy and establish themselves in new countries, they also wrestle with maintaining their cultural identity. Now some museums in Germany have stepped in with a small but admirable way to help bridge a tiny piece of that gap.

About two months ago, Berlin’s Museum of Islamic Art started a program to train and hire refugees from Syria and Iraq to lead tours of the Middle Eastern artifacts, something that would allow refugees to both earn a wage and allow them to stay connected with their history and culture. The refugees learn more about the intricacies of their own ancient cultures and share the story of their homeland with foreigners, something that could also pave the way for mutual understanding as Germans adjust to the influx of immigrants.

Officials at the museum  quickly began the search for funding for the project and found it in state sponsorship and private funds. Robert Winkler, the product manager for the initiative, told Modern Notion that the program was specifically designed to give refugees a new career trajectory, but also pay them equal wages as any other worker. The workers’ status as refugees made it complicated for the museum to pay them, but after a brief stint navigating German bureaucracy, the museum found a way to make it work.

Right now the program is in its fifth week, and out of a total of 25 people initially interested in the program, there is a team of 19 people at the Berlin museum, 18 from Syria and one from Iraq. They come from a whole host of backgrounds, from classically trained experts you’d expect in a museum, like archeologists and historians, to lawyers, artists, architects and engineers. Winkler told Modern Notion that so far the program has been a success, “They all have a very unique way of seeing and talking about the museums objects, and we all learn from each other. It’s great.”

Though a new initiative four museums in Germany have already committed to the training program. As Stefan Weber, the Museum of Islamic Art’s director, told the AP, “They have to start right at the bottom rung of the ladder to find a way into Germany society. When you’ve lost everything, you shouldn’t lose your cultural identity as well.”

Hopefully, it’s the first of many initiatives that will help the millions of refugees adjust to a new life in a new land.

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The Horrible Reason Squanto Already Knew English When He Met the Pilgrims

Practically every American elementary school kid can rattle off the story of the first Thanksgiving: that the Pilgrims, fleeing from persecution in England, sailed to the New World aboard the Mayflower, hoping for a new life where they could worship freely; that instead of landing closer to the southern coast, they came ashore in Cape Cod Bay, Massachusetts; that in their first year, half of the immigrants died from sickness and starvation; that the rest would have followed had it not been for the kindness of nearby Native Americans exhibited through Squanto, who, in English, taught them how to fish, hunt and grow crops. Finally, in 1621, during their first harvest together, the Native Americans and Pilgrims joined together in a feast to celebrate God’s provision.

Squanto literally saved the Pilgrims’ lives with skill and knowledge. But just how did a Native American man learn to speak English before actually meeting the Pilgrims?

Squanto, also known as Tisquantum, was from the Patuxet tribe who lived around modern-day Massachusetts and Rhode Island. We’re not sure when Squanto was born, but we do know that around 1605, Captain George Weymouth, who was exploring the New England territory for Sir Ferdinando Gorges, came across Squanto and a couple of other Native Americans and kidnapped them, thinking Gorges and other investors might want to see the people of the New World. When Squanto arrived in England, though, Gorges took him into his home, taught him English and hired him as an interpreter and guide for his company.

After almost 10 years away from his homeland, Squanto returned from England with John Smith (yes, of Pocahontas fame), probably working as a guide, while Smith mapped the harbors around Cape Cod. When he was finished with the project, Smith went back to England but left one of his men, Thomas Hunt, to continue trading with the Native Americans. Smith ultimately hoped the relationship would be the building block of a new colony. However, when Smith left, Hunt decided to jump on a get-rich-quick scheme. Promising to trade luxurious goods, Hunt invited 24 Indians onto his ship, but instead of sharing treasure with them, he kidnapped them. The malicious captain set off for Malaga, Spain, where he began selling the Native Americans as slaves. When local friars heard that Native Americans were being sold, they rushed to the market and quickly took the foreigners under their protection. The friars brought the Native Americans to their monastery where they gave them shelter and taught them about Christianity.

Though we’re not told how, Squanto somehow made his way from Spain to London, where he eventually moved into the home of John Slaney, the treasurer of the Newfoundland Company. Seeing Squanto’s experience as a great asset, Slaney hired him, probably as an interpreter and eventually sent Squanto back to America on a ship with a captain named Thomas Dermer, who had actually worked with Captain John Smith in the past. Finally, in 1619, now having been gone almost 15 years, Squanto arrived back to his homeland expecting to find his tribe warm and welcoming; instead, he found desolation. His people had been wiped out from smallpox just one year before. With his tribe gone, Squanto went to live with a neighboring people, the Wampanoag.

A year later, the Pilgrims arrived and Massasoit, the Wampanoag Chief, quickly called Squanto to his side to act as interpreter for the two peoples. The Pilgrims and Native Americans quickly entered into an alliance, and the rest is history. Well, kind of.

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Why Is Japan Revisiting the Verdicts of the Tokyo War Crime Trials?

Japan has been revisiting the outcomes of World War II recently. In October, the government rewrote the constitution to allow Japan to use military force outside of their national boundaries for the first time since its 1945 defeat. And now, the government has decided to re-evaluate the guilty verdicts passed down by international officials at the 1946-1948 Tokyo War Crimes Trials, essentially the Japanese equivalent to the Nuremberg Trials, in a move that seems to blatantly re-write history.

After Tokyo finally raised a white flag to the United States on August 14, 1945, General MacArthur, the Supreme Commander of the Allied Powers in occupied Japan, established the International Military Tribunal for the Far East (IMTFE). Unlike the Nuremberg Trials which covered the six-year time period between 1939 and 1945, IMTFE expanded their focus to start with Japan’s 1931 invasion of Manchuria.

In total, the international courts charged 28 Japanese officials ranging in rank from premiers, foreign ministers, war ministers, ambassadors, advisors and military leaders with crimes against humanity, crimes against peace or war crimes. Some of the offenses included mass murder; rape; torture of prisoners of war and civilians; plundering public and private property; indiscriminate destruction of cities, towns, and villages; and forced labor. In the years since the trials, we’ve learned of even more atrocities, including horrific medical experimentation akin to those performed by their Nazi allies and capturing women as sex slaves, though the Japanese government was never tried for, or officially recognized them.

Much like the Nuremberg Trials, the Tokyo War Crimes Trials have been pegged from the beginning as being an example of victors’ justice. However, they weren’t the only trials to take place. there were many more trials against the Japanese that weren’t publicized. According to PBS, Asian countries that fell victim to Japanese aggression prosecuted around 5,000 people and executed an estimated 900 of them. Half of the remaining prisoners received life in prison. In comparison, the Tokyo War Crimes Trials seem tame. Two of the offenders died in prison during the trial and one was acquitted because he went insane. The rest of the officials were convicted, seven of them got the death penalty, 16 got life in prison, and two others received lesser terms. Three of the 16 convicted men died in prison in the year after they were sentenced. However, the surviving 13 men were paroled and released to freedom by 1956.

However, it seems Japan’s Liberal Democratic Party, who now control government, are intent on re-examining the veracity of the guilty verdict. Some say Japan is trying to reframe the country’s entire reason for fighting in the war. Hiromichi Moteki, secretary general of the Society for the Dissemination of Historical Fact, told The Telegraph, “It goes without saying that the trials did not deliver fair judgements,” and that “Those guilty rulings did not conform to international law as was prevalent at that time and I do not believe that Japan waged a war of aggression.” Moteki summarized his entire argument with: “The war of aggression was initiated by America and Japan had no choice but to fight back.”

Needless to say, Japan’s move to revisit history has been hit with fierce criticism, specifically from South Korea, whose people Japan used as forced labor, soldiers and sex slaves during and before WWII. Regardless of what the review concludes, it seems the government has just reopened the topic of Japan’s brutal history to the world, whether they realize it or not.

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Museums Are Terrifyingly Inaccurate

When you walk into a natural history museum, you get the impression you’ve entered a sacred space of learning and preservation. Artifacts, plants, animals—all carefully studied by specialists and accurately detailed to communicate their importance to visitors. But unfortunately, museums aren’t as reliable as you might think. Museums are riddled with problems: mislabeled items, inaccurately identified creatures and a plethora of unstudied material, some of it found over 100 years later or never at all.

On November 16, Oxford University published a study in Current Biology saying that half of all specimens in natural history museums are mislabeled. The problem isn’t contained to one museum, though. As museums often digitize their data, this inaccurate information is disseminated around the world and integrated into other collections.

Scientists came to their conclusion after they examined 4,500 specimens of African ginger that had been the subject of an another in-depth 2014 study. They found that prior to the study, 58 percent of specimen had been inaccurately identified. They then decided to check how accurately museums identify plants they receive and found that multiple museums will often mislabel the same plant. Then they turned their attention to gauge the accuracy of online databases. They researched the plant genus Ipomoea, the family sweet potatoes belong to, and realized that out of nearly 50,000 plants, 40 percent were identified by an older synonym instead of the plant’s current name, 16 percent of the names were either unrecognizable or invalid and 11 percent weren’t even fully categorized—they just had the name of the genus but not of the species. And that’s just research conducted on one genus out of the millions we’ve collected.

And that’s just the start of it.

Remember the Brontosaurus? Yeah, what we thought for so long was a dinosaur actually never existed. Because of a famous feud between two scientists in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, we believed the Brontosaurus was a dinosaur, when in reality it was another dinosaur, the Apatosaurus, topped with the wrong head. It started when paleontologist O.C. Marsh put the head of one dinosaur onto the body of another dinosaur he’d found and called it the Apatosaurus so he could announce a new dinosaur find. A few years later, his team found what they thought was a brand new dinosaur, but in reality was just a fully intact Apatosaurus. To cover his tracks, Marsh agreed it was a new dinosaur, calling it the Brontosaurus. The mislabeled and misassembled dinosaur stayed in The Carnegie Museum until the 1970s when two scientists decided to reexamine the skeleton and determined it had the wrong head. They replaced it with another skull that had been dug up in 1910, which they believed to be the Apatosaurus’s original head. So, for almost a century, the museum had an incorrectly assembled dinosaur on display while the actual head remained in storage somewhere.

Then there are the times when scientists discover a brand new animal in their own collection. That happened in 2013 when the Smithsonian announced they’d found the first new mammal in the Americas in over 30 years. However, the newly found olinguito wasn’t new at all. Olinguitos had been found and added to collections in various museums throughout the U.S. for the past 100 years, only they were mislabeled as olingo, another similar-looking animal. In other words, the “unknown” mammal had been hiding in plain sight the entire time.

Simply because of the inundation of materials found, it’s also not uncommon for museums to leave priceless discoveries unstudied for 100 years. For instance, though scientists have only one fully intact dodo bird, it took them a century to actually study it.

Expeditions to find new objects, animals and plants are incredibly important, but items already in museums are equally important. After all, it’s always a good thing to have items correctly labeled; plus, there’s no telling what surprises they’re likely to find.

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Why American Lawyers Are Arguing 14th Century English Laws in the Gun Rights Debate

The Second Amendment has been a heated topic for decades, and people have come at it from a myriad of directions. Now lawyers are bringing in ancient British laws to beef up their arguments. That’s right. English laws dating back all the way to 1328 will soon determine whether or not people can carry concealed handguns. The Founding Fathers definitely looked to English common law when writing the Constitution, but why exactly are we referencing another country’s ancient laws in 2015?

This legal journey goes back to 2008 when the Supreme Court overturned D.C.’s complete ban on handguns, saying the ban infringed on the Second Amendment. The court ruling allowed for people to now keep handguns in their houses, but it didn’t address whether people could also carry guns outside their homes. D.C.’s current law states that people can only carry handguns if they have a specific need; like, for instance, if someone had threatened a person’s safety. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia announced that though decision overturned the overall ban on handguns, the court’s decision did not contradict “longstanding” firearms regulations that are allowed in the Constitution. However, he didn’t define what the justices meant by “longstanding.”

Though a controversial move, it’s actually not uncommon for the Supreme Court to look to current and historical foreign law for guidance in their decision-making. So, when the Supreme Court announced their decision, lawyers took to task the fact the justices didn’t define “longstanding” and hit the history books to see who could find the best legal precedent, going all the way back to medieval England. The current case, Wrenn v. D.C., sets the two arguments head-to-head.

Counsel from the District of Columbia argue that the 1328 Statute of Northampton, passed during Edward III’s reign, shows that weapons weren’t allowed to be carried in certain highly populated areas. The statute is actually based on an earlier 1285 law that made it illegal “to be found going or wandering about the Streets of [London], after Curfew…with Sword or Buckler, or other Arms for doing Mischief” and a 1313 law not allowing “Force [or] Armour” in Parliament. D.C. argues that guns would necessarily be included in the category of weapons banned and, therefore, shows that limited gun carry laws fit within “longstanding” legal precedent.

Gun rights advocates, however, point out that these laws were introduced before guns had even arrived in Britain. They say gun control proponents argue too narrow a view of the rule and point to the 1686 story of Sir John Knight, who was tried according to the 1328 law but later acquitted by a jury of bringing a gun into a church during service. Acquitted despite the fact Sir Knight brought the gun into a church to intentionally “terrify the King’s subjects.”

Wrenn v. D.C. now sits in front of the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, and though it deals only with the capital’s laws, experts expect it to go to the Supreme Court. This means the ruling will have far-reaching consequences, especially as nine other states have limited handgun carry laws similar to D.C.’s.

No one can argue that the Founders drew from English common law when writing the American Constitution, but the big question remains: should we be going back to medieval English law? And if we are going to go back to such old laws, why stop at medieval England? Surely the Romans had something to say about carrying weapons around cities, too.

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What Makes Female Serial Killers So Different from Their Male Counterparts?

They both murder with apparent ease, but do different male and female serial killers have different reasons for their killing sprees? As it turns out, yes.

In a study published in The Journal of Forensic Psychiatry and Psychology, University of Pennsylvania evolutionary psychology professor Marissa Harrison and a team of researchers scoured newspaper clippings dating almost 200 years ago for female serial killers (FSK), mostly because a vast majority of the women had already died, and they had little money to interview living convicts. Nevertheless, the scientists were able to compile a list of 64 female serial killers active from 1821 to 2008 which was the last year the team was able to find a FSK in the news, Harrison told Modern Notion. After surveying the information, they concluded that FSKs are incited to do evil for very different reasons from male serial killers (MSKs).

One particular difference between the genders stuck out to the scientists right away. MSKs tend to stalk their victims, who are typically strangers, and violently kill them for some sort of sexual gratification. On the other hand, FSKs target people they know, particularly family members, and they most commonly choose poison to kill. In addition, their primary goal in committing murder wasn’t sex, but money (just check out Belle Gunness, for instance).

The team also discovered that the FSKs shared a similar profile. Most were white, came from middle to upper-class backgrounds, had some sort of higher education, if not a college degree, and were married at some point. If appearance was mentioned, researchers found most women were described as attractive. As for religion, most identified as Christian.

Though the sample of FSKs’ job positions varied anywhere from teacher to prostitute, about 40 percent worked in the medical field as either nurses or aides, and 22 percent were either mothers or babysitters. Almost two-thirds were related to their victims, one-third killed their lovers and, horrifically, around 44 percent killed their own biological children. Moreover, 50 percent of FSKs killed at least one child, while about 25 percent killed the elderly or infirm. But there was one characteristic that they shared by far: 92 percent of the women knew their victims.

Clearly there’s a marked difference between MSK and FSK methods and motives. But why? Harrison believes it all goes back to evolution. She explained to Modern Notion:

In ancestral times, men were hunters and women were gatherers. When I noted that FSKs tend to kill the people around them, it reminded me of gathering. When I checked the work of Eric Hickey and others, I saw that MSKs tend to kill strangers…they are hunters. It just fits. It doesn’t mean, of course, that we evolved to be SKs, but it does make sense in terms of ancestral drives gone awry.

This study is a huge leap for scientists to understand the psychology of female serial killers, especially since there just hasn’t been that much research done on the topic. But Harrison thinks the reason for the lack of data is two-fold, “I think there is so little research on FSKs because society may not accept that women—moms, nurses, babysitters—can commit such horrible acts.”

And then there’s the newsy factor. Female serial killers tend to be less sensational. “A poisoning might not be as interesting to the public as beheaded corpses buried in a yard,” Harrison added.

Whether this information will strike the public’s fancy or not, the good news is that we’re slowly gathering together a profile on female serial killers, that will hopefully help us identify and stop them in the future.

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This Sociologist Spent a Year and a Half Researching Male Strippers and This Is What She Discovered

There is a science to male stripping, and it’s not just about the perfect hip gyrations (although, as anyone who’s seen Magic Mike would agree, there is definitely a science to that as well). Maren Scull, a University of Colorado Denver sociologist who focuses on sex work and transactional sex, spent a year and a half  researching one question: why do male strippers strip? Her finding came down to something a little surprising: self-esteem.

Scull first became interested in the subject while working on a class paper at Indiana University’s Kinsey Institute for Sex, Gender and Reproduction. She found that while a number of studies detail the social psychology of female strippers, not many discuss that of male strippers who dance for women. Do men also suffer from a gradual self-esteem downturn like women? Scull decided to research that question for her Ph.D. dissertation.

For that year and a half, Scull hung around an anonymous strip club, which she refers to as Dandelion’s, somewhere in the non-specific American west. She visited the joint almost every Friday and Saturday night and ultimately watched a total of 42 men perform. During that time she had over 60 casual conversations with both dancers and staff at the club, but always remained a “peripheral member” who “did not actively engage in stripping or tipping.” She did, however, have 22 in-depth interviews with various male strippers which lasted anywhere from half an hour to four hours and were conducted in variety of private locations, including hotels rooms and offices. Slowly, as male strippers got to know and trust her, they opened up about why they do what they do.

Scull explained to Modern Notion that for men, dancing isn’t about the money, it’s about enhancing their self-esteem, which is quite different from typical female dancers. Female strippers make considerably more money per shift, but after an initial jolt of self-esteem when they begin their dance career, ladies tend to lose their confidence, and ultimately continue their exotic dancing work just so they can pay the bills. They don’t usually get any joy out of it.

On the other hand, the men she talked to rarely made more than $100 a shift, but they still enjoyed themselves. Scull ultimately concluded, “My research finds that men who dance for women generally experience positive feelings of self-worth. So much so, that men will continue to strip even when it is no longer financially lucrative.”

Scull told Modern Notion that conducting the study was a particularly educational experience for her, specifically because she had never been in a strip club before beginning her research. She continued:

What was interesting was that once I had spent a few months at the club, it didn’t feel like a “deviant” environment (even though I know society considers it to be). In fact, it felt very normal because I was so used to being there. By the end of the study, it felt like a second home.

Scull argues that the reason men garner self-esteem as they strip has to do with their view of objectification. Men, as it turns out, enjoy being sexually objectified. Scull says they don’t experience it as much as women do, and therefore don’t think of it as a bad thing.

Go figure.

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Newly Recovered Film Confirms Hitler's Fate During His Last Days Alive

In 1945, after everyone believed World War II was over, Joseph Stalin started rumors that Adolf Hitler hadn’t actually died in Berlin but had escaped to freedom through an underground bunker. One man decided to squash these rumors by filming interviews with the people who had been with him until the end. Those interviews, lost for decades, will now be shown for the first time to the English-speaking world on November 16 in the Smithsonian Channel’s program, The Day Hitler Died.

Despite testimony at the Nuremberg Trials and official reports from various government officials, rumors that Hitler had escaped held weight with many around the world, especially as Stalin fueled them. Michael Musmanno, a Navy attorney at one of the Nuremberg Trials, determined to put a stop to the rumors. It took him over two years, but Musmanno successfully interviewed 22 survivors, including Traudl Junge, Hilter’s  personal secretary; press secretary Heinz Lorenz; Hitler Youth leader Artur Axmann; Eric Kempta, Hitler’s personal driver; Bernd Freytag von Loringhoven, a military general and Hitler’s aide-de-camp, and over a dozen others close to the Führer. Each interview gives a glimpse into the erratic dictator’s mind, jumping from elation at the news that President Franklin Roosevelt had died, to sinking depression when his generals refused to engage in a suicide mission against the Allies. That depression permeated the stronghold and, as Von Loringhoven told Musmanno, “The bunker became a mortuary and the people in it living corpses.”

Musmanno ultimately wrote a book called Ten Days to Die, which he based on the interviews and published in 1950. He returned to his native Pennsylvania and later became one of the state’s Supreme Court Justices. All the while this incredible footage remained untouched in storage. When he died, the film and his personal papers went to two of his nephews who gave them at a local Catholic school where Musmanno, who was lauded as a local hero, could be remembered. The school was trying to preserve the film and papers when Spiegel, a German production company, found out about the footage. Spiegel used the footage to create the 2010 documentary Witnesses of Doom: The Lost Interviews. That, however, only aired in Germany. Delayed because of rights agreement issues on the film footage, The Day Hitler Died will be the first time people outside of Germany have heard the interviews.

If you ever wanted a glimpse into the last few days of Adolf Hitler’s life, make sure to check it out. And, if you believe Hitler escaped, as some still do, perhaps this footage will convince you that, as Musmanno concludes in the documentary, “There can be no doubt that Adolf Hitler, the Führer of Germany, the master criminal of the world, the greatest gangster who ever disgraced the human race, is dead.”