Month: December 2016

In 1860, an ailing East Coast hat maker named John Batterson Stetson headed west to mine for gold. He didn’t strike it rich, but he ended up with something much more valuable: the design for the first commercially successful cowboy hat. In the decades that followed, the John B. Stetson Company defined the look of the American cowboy. And as the country’s sartorial tastes evolved from ten-gallon hats to homburgs and fedoras, the company evolved along with it. Hard times followed, but the company rebounded, and today is experiencing a most unlikely resurgence. Here are a few facts about Stetson worth keeping under your hat.

1. IT ALL STARTED IN NEW JERSEY.

The man who pioneered the cowboy hat wasn’t a cowpoke or a former farmhand. Up until adulthood, he’d never traveled west of Ohio. Born in Orange, New Jersey, in 1830, John Batterson Stetson [PDF] was the seventh of 12 children born to Stephen Stetson, a well-known hat maker (the family reportedly made hats for George Washington). After spending his teenage years working for his father, John Stetson developed tuberculosis and decided to head west to recuperate—and while he was at it, try his hand mining for gold.

While mining and hunting around Pike’s Peak in Colorado, Stetson used the felting technique his father had taught him to make waterproof blankets. He also made a hat with a high crown and a broad brim that could protect the wearer from the sun and rain, probably inspired by the hats of the Mexican vaqueros. After Stetson sold the hat for $5 to a passing rider, he got the idea to turn his utilitarian design into a business.

2. STETSON TURNED $60 INTO AN EMPIRE.

Stetson returned east in 1865 penniless but determined to make money off the hat he’d created. He borrowed $60 from his sister Louisa, rented a small workshop in Philadelphia, and hired two workers to turn out more prototypes of the hat, which he called “Boss of the Plains.” Stetson then sent letters, along with a sample hat, to dealers in the West, asking for an order of a dozen. The savvy move roped in droves of customers, many of them ranchers fanning out across the west during the postwar cattle boom. By 1915, Stetson had become the world’s largest hat company, with 5400 workers turning out more than 3 million lids annually.

3. THE BOSS OF THE PLAINS WAS THE COWBOY HAT.

Cowboys didn’t always wear broad-brimmed hats. Before Stetson’s design came along, Westerners donned a motley assortment of headwear, “from formal top hats and derbies to leftover remnants of Civil War headgear to tams and sailor hats,” according to Ritch Rand and William Reynolds, authors of The Cowboy Hat Book. With its sun-blocking, rain-repelling capabilities, the Boss of the Plains was a useful accessory that quickly became the de facto work wear. Every morning, legions of cowpokes put on their Stetsons, and didn’t take them off until they went to bed.

4. EARLY CELEBRITY WEARERS INCLUDED ANNIE OAKLEY AND “BUFFALO BILL” CODY.

From film stars like Tom Mix and John Wayne to crooners like Bing Crosby and Bob Dylan, Stetson has long relied on celebrities to sell its image. This extends back to the company’s early days, when the likes of Annie Oakley, William “Buffalo Bill” Cody, and Calamity Jane donned Stetsons. Buffalo Bill, who did more than anyone to fashion the image of the Wild West, wore a broad-brimmed Stetson while sharp-shooter Oakley wore a ribbon-trimmed Stetson purchased by her brother-in-law in Wyoming. In 2012, Oakley’s iconic hat sold at auction for nearly $18,000.

5. BACK THEN, AS NOW, THE HATS WEREN’T CHEAP.

Stetson’s cowboy hats today range from around $50 for basic models to just shy of $400 for the intricately made Boss Raw Edge. More than 150 years ago, Stetsons were a not-insignificant investment, as well. The original Boss of the Plains sold for $5 in 1865, while a beaver fur version sold for as much as $30—more than most people made in a month. Today, you can get a Boss of the Plains hat for $135.

6. THEY WERE MORE THAN JUST HEADWEAR.

A big reason for the Boss of the Plains’s popularity was its versatility. Indeed, users found that the hat doubled as a fan, as a place for stashing valuables, and even as a bucket. Early advertisements showed a cowboy using his hat to water his horse. As the Texas State Historical Association notes, “Texas Rangers adopted the hat and found that it could be used to drink from, to fan a campfire, to blindfold a stubborn horse, to slap a steer, to smother grass fires and to serve as a target in gunfights. It could also be brushed for dress wear.”

7. CREASES AND BRIMS TOLD A WEARER’S IDENTITY.

As Stetson hats spread across the country, people began altering them in ways that became indicative of wearers’ occupations, where they were from, and so on. Various bends in the brim and creases in the crown gained creative names, like the Carlsbad Crease (a back-to-front crease started by cowboys from Carlsbad, New Mexico), the Montana Peak (four creases in the crown that created a point) and the Bar Room Floor (a front crease large enough to have been created by a drunken tumble). As Rand and Reynolds note: “With a subtle adjustment to the brim and a couple extra dents in the crown, a man could indicate he was from the northern regions of Nevada or the rough plains of Texas, the wind-whipped ranges of the Rockies or the low deserts of New Mexico.”

8. STETSON TURNED HAT MAKING INTO A RESPECTABLE TRADE.

The phrase “mad as a hatter,” which referred to the unstable personalities of haberdashers supposedly brought on by the use of mercury nitrite in their trade, was in its heyday in the mid-19^th century (although the precise etymology is up for debate). Not all hat makers were thus afflicted, of course, but the profession had a reputation for inefficiency, and for attracting unreliable eccentrics. Stetson did much to change that image by instituting a large-scale, assembly-line production facility that bested other industries for efficiency. Stetson paid his workers well, offered them lots of perks, and made sure they stayed on for years. Before Ford, GE, and other companies were employing ranks of loyal, long-serving workers, Stetson operated a self-sufficient community for his factory workers in Philadelphia, complete with a bank, restaurants, a library, and even a hospital.

9. STETSON DISCOURAGED ESPIONAGE.

During World War II, Stetson put out a series of ads telling people to keep America’s secrets safe. “Loose Talk Can Cost Lives,” exhorted one. “Keep It Under Your Stetson,” said another, Stetson’s riff on the older, well-known phrase “keep it under your hat.” In addition to its advertisements, Stetson also supplied Allied troops with parachutes, safety belts and, of course, hats.

10. SALES PEAKED IN THE ’40s.

As popular as Stetson’s cowboy hats were, the company had to eventually diversify. In the early 20th century, Stetson branched out and began making dress hats and caps. In the ’30s, the company began making women’s hats—pillboxes, tricornes, berets, and cloches. In the ’40s, the company’s fedoras, homburgs, and Panama hats were all the rage. In 1947 Stetson had its biggest sales year, bringing in $29 million, equal to $300 million today. For nearly a century, the company had kept pace with the changing tastes of hat-loving Americans.

11. …AND THEN TANKED IN THE ’60s.

Many Americans know the story: Beginning in the late ’50s, hats began to go out of style as an everyday accessory. Many, including Stetson, point to a single event that seemed to usher in this new lidless era: John F. Kennedy’s 1961 inauguration, in which the newly minted president turned down the top hat that every president before him had worn during the ceremony. Others cite the rise of driving culture, the counter-culture movement, and a simple lack of good designs. Whatever the reason, Stetson’s sales plummeted, and in 1968 the company took in just $8 million—a 70 percent drop from the company’s peak 20 years prior.

That same year, Ira Guilden, a majority stockholder, wrested control of the company from the Stetson family and eventually shut down the hat maker’s manufacturing facilities. From that point forward, Stetson was a licensing company only.

12. INDIANA JONES AND URBAN COWBOY GAVE THE BRAND A MUCH-NEEDED BOOST.

After Urban Cowboy came out in 1980, lots of people wanted to emulate John Travolta’s Stetson-topped look (and ride mechanical bulls, naturally). Likewise with whip-cracking, sable-colored fedora-wearing Harrison Ford in the Indiana Jones films. To coincide with the release of 1984’s Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, Stetson came out with an Indy-licensed hat that sold like hotcakes. It was a bright spot for a company struggling to stay relevant.

13. THEY’VE BRANCHED OUT INTO BOURBON AND BELTS.

Beginning in the ’80s, Stetson (known officially as Stetson Worldwide) licensed its name to accessory and apparel manufacturers keen on borrowing the brand’s image of Western cool. This included eyeglasses, luggage, and a popular cologne. These days, you can still buy Stetson cologne, along with Stetson wallets, belts, sunglasses, boots, jeans, and shirts. There’s also a Stetson brand bourbon that’s gotten some love from aficionados—”a pleasant combination of complexity, barrel expression, and approachability,” as Bourbonblog.com puts it.

14. THE COMPANY NOW HAS LESS THAN 10 EMPLOYEES.

One hundred years after Stetson employed nearly 6000 workers at its sprawling, 9-acre factory in Philadelphia, market forces have whittled the company down to a small staff that occupies a modest space in New York’s Garment District. The manufacturing of Stetson hats, meanwhile, has traded hands over the past few decades, and now resides with Hatco, an operation based in Garland, Texas that also makes hats for competing brands like Resistol, Dobbs, and Charlie 1 Horse.

15. THEIR TARGET MARKET THESE DAYS? HIPSTERS.

The company that began by outfitting cowboys now has its sights set on well-heeled urbanites. The fedoras, newsboy caps, homburgs, and porkpie hats that have recently come back into style are bestsellers for Stetson. In place of pricey advertising, the brand, now led by fashion industry veteran Izumi Kajimoto, gives out free hats to celebrities like Bradley Cooper and Madonna in exchange for a promise they’ll wear the lids in public. Stetson’s classic Western hats have also become quite fashionable of late. Vogue magazine, for one, recommends wearing a cowboy hat with high-waisted jeans, a sweater, and a bomber jacket.

To err is human, and we’ve all done it, especially in the form of a typographical error. But different types of typos can have hugely varying consequences—there’s a big difference between spelling your coworker’s name wrong in an email and committing an error in a book that will be preserved in print for all history to refer to. Typos can be profitable, too, of course—according to legend, the name Google is derived from a misspelling of “googolplex.” But useful or embarrassing, sometimes typos are forever, perhaps even more in the age of the internet. Here are some of publishing’s most memorable blunders.

1. AN AMERICAN TRAGEDY

Theodore Dreiser’s 1925 classic has a handful of small typos, of the “to/too” and “if/it” persuasion, but perhaps the cutest is the place where characters are referred to as “harmoniously abandoning themselves to the rhythm of the music—like two small chips being tossed about on a rough but friendly sea.” One can probably assume he meant “ships,” but there’s always a chance that he was talking about a sea of pico de gallo.

2. THE GOOD EARTH

 
One can tell the first, second, and third printings of Pearl S. Buck’s 1931 novel apart from later printings by a blooper on page 100, line 17, wherein a wall against which people set up their huts is being described. “It stretched out long and grey and very high, and against the base the small mat sheds clung like flees to a dog’s back.” Editions of the book that include the misspelling can go for as much as $9500.

3. CRYPTONOMICON

 
The original hardcover edition of Neal Stephenson’s 1999 sci-fi thriller famously contained a number of simple typos (“a” instead of “at,” “that” instead of “that’s”). There is also a switch-up on page 700—the word “factitious” is used in place of “fictitious.” However, many fans maintain that Stephenson did this deliberately and that the typos comprise a hidden message, per one of the themes of the book—cryptographers attempting to crack World War II-era Axis codes.

4. HARRY POTTER AND THE PHILOSOPHER’S STONE

 
The first book in the beloved Harry Potter series would be treasured by muggles even if it didn’t carry a typo, but a selection of copies are valued at a small fortune for this reason. The mistake is found on page 53, in a list of school supplies that young wizards are expected to bring to Hogwarts: “1 wand” is listed at both the beginning and at the end. That said, the typo did reappear in a few later printings even after it was caught in the second round, so it’s only the true first editions that are worth beaucoup bucks.

5. TROPIC OF CANCER

 
It’s almost like Henry Miller wasn’t even trying here—or that his publisher wasn’t even trying to hire a proofreader. His 1961 novel about general debauchery in Paris led to over 60 obscenity lawsuits and features a whole mess of typographical errors, such as “He listend to me incomplete bewilderment” (page 271), and “Even after he has slept with one of these mythical cratures he will still refer to her as a virgin, and almost never by name” (page 91). One might even suspect that Miller wasn’t … altogether sober while he was writing it.

6. “THE WICKED BIBLE”

 
This 1631 edition of the King James Bible by Robert Baker and Martin Lucas included an accidental new twist on the 7th Commandment, informing readers that “Thou shalt commit adultery.” This managed to incense both King Charles I and the Archbishop of Canterbury—its publishers were hauled into court and fined £300 (a little over $57,000 in today’s U.S. dollars) for the oversight and they had their printing license revoked. Most of the copies were subsequently burned, and the book picked up the sobriquet “The Wicked Bible” or “The Sinners’ Bible.” Only about 10 copies remain today—one was put up for sale by British auction house Bonhams just last year.

7. THE ROAD

 
In the first edition of Cormac McCarthy’s postapocalyptic The Road, page 228 reads, “A moment of panic before he saw him walking along the bench downshore with the pistol hanging in his hand, his head down.” The rest of the paragraph talks about being on the beach, though, so it’s safe to imagine that’s what McCarthy meant. Unless it was a bench down the shore. Presumably a long one that you can walk along?

8. THE ADVENTURES OF HUCKLEBERRY FINN

 
As with The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Mark Twain took great creative license when he was writing about Huck Finn, and the book is full of things like “spos’n” in place of “supposing” and “gwyne” in place of “going to” to illustrate the Southern dialect the boys speak. But among the intentionally flawed bits of spelling and grammar, there is a legitimate error hidden in first edition of Huck Finn: “I took the bag to where it used to stand, and ripped a hole in the bottom of it with the was.” (It should be “with the saw.”)

9. A DANCE WITH DRAGONS

 
The entire Song of Ice and Fire series—the books that the HBO show A Game of Thrones is based on—is rife with typos and consistency errors, but Book Five arguably has the most. For instance, on page 854, where Queen Cersei descends a staircase and muses: “’I am beautiful,’ she reminded himself.” The word “wroth” is consistently misused in this book as well—e.g., page 53: “Even in the north men fear the wroth of Tywin Lannister.” (Wroth is an adjective, meaning angry—author George R. R. Martin should have used “wrath,” the noun form.)

10. GRAVITY’S RAINBOW

 
The 1973 novel, Thomas Pynchon’s best-known, contained a handful of typos, including: “Over croissants, strawberry jam, real butter, real coffee, she has him running through the flight profile in terms of wall temperature and Nusselt heart-transfer coefficients …” It should be “heat-transfer,” of course.

11. THE QUEEN’S GOVERNESS

 
Karen Harper regularly receives major props for accuracy when it comes to historical detail in her popular, mostly Tudor-themed novels, but the same can’t be said for lexical detail. In her 2010 hit The Queen’s Governess, Harper made a small but memorable slip. When heroine Kat Ashley, lady-in-waiting to Anne Boleyn, is awoken in the night by ruffians who demand to see Princess (later Queen) Elizabeth, she remarks: “In the weak light of dawn, I tugged on the gown and sleeves I’d discarded like a wonton last night to fall into John’s arms.” Okay, to be fair, folks in Tudor England probably didn’t have a lot of experience with Chinese food, but even so, you’re not supposed to unwrap wontons before you eat them (the word she was looking for, of course, was wanton).

12. PLAGUE SHIP

 
There’s a weird one in Clive Cussler’s joint novel with Jack Du Brul, where a character finds himself in an overturned ATV: “He goosed the throttle and worked the wheel, using the four-wheeler’s power rather than moist his strength to right the six-hundred-pound vehicle.” Sort of makes sense—in an emergency, you gotta reserve all your juices for later.

13. FREEDOM

 
It was lauded as “the book of the century” after being released in the U.S. in 2010, but when Freedom, Jonathan Franzen’s follow-up to 2001’s The Corrections, was published in the UK, an early, unproofed version of the manuscript was mistakenly used, resulting in a final print that was absolutely riddled with typesetting errors. The misprints in the British version numbered in the hundreds. HarperCollins ended up recalling thousands of copies of the novel and let fans exchange their tainted books for new, corrected copies, going as far as to set up a “Freedom recall hotline.” Maybe Franzen should have saved the title “The Corrections” for this book instead.

14. THE PASTA BIBLE

 
In 2010, Penguin Group Australia had to ditch about 7000 copies of The Pasta Bible when it was discovered that a recipe for spelt tagliatelle with sardines and prosciutto told cooks to “add salt and freshly ground black people,” rather than pepper. The gaffe was blamed on a spellcheck error and the company’s head of publishing brushed it off as “a silly mistake,” but it ended up costing the company a not-silly 20,000 Australian dollars (about $14,900 USD in 2016).

15. TWILIGHT

 
The first edition of Twilight is festering with typos, which is perhaps unsurprising, seeing as it was written in just three months and was sent to press in a similar hurry. Most of the blemishes are of the “whose/who’s” and “though/through” variety, but there are a few funny ones, including “I ate breakfast cheerily, watching the dust moats stirring in the sunlight that streamed in the back window.” One can imagine that Stephenie Meyer, who went from being a stay-at-home mom to finding herself on Forbes’ list of the world’s highest-paid celebrities in the space of just a few years, probably didn’t lose too much sleep over it.

The start of the winter season is marked by holiday carolers, hot cocoa, and in some parts of the world, blustery weather. Whether you enjoy bundling up in your coziest gear or are already counting down the days until spring, here are 15 facts about what’s happening outdoors this time of year.

1. IT SOMETIMES SNOWS WHERE YOU LEAST EXPECT IT.

You wouldn’t be shocked to see snow on the ground of Siberia or Minnesota when traveling to those places during the winter months. But northern areas don’t have a monopoly on snowfall—the white stuff has been known to touch down everywhere from the Sahara Desert to Hawaii. Even the driest place on Earth isn’t immune. In 2011, the Atacama Desert in Chile received nearly 32 inches of snow thanks to a rare cold front from Antarctica.

2. SNOWFLAKES COME IN ALL SIZES.

The average snowflake ranges from a size slightly smaller than a penny to the width of a human hair. But according to some unverified sources they can grow much larger. Witnesses of a snowstorm in Fort Keogh, Montana in 1887 claimed to see milk-pan sized crystals fall from the sky. If true that would make them the largest snowflakes ever spotted, at around 15 inches wide.

3. A LITTLE WATER CAN ADD UP TO A LOT OF SNOW.

The air doesn’t need to be super moist to produce impressive amounts of snow. Unlike plain rainfall, a bank of fluffy snow contains lots of air that adds to its bulk. That’s why what would have been an inch of rain in the summer equals about 10 inches of snow in the colder months.

4. YOU CAN HEAR THUNDERSNOW WHEN THE CONDITIONS ARE RIGHT.

If you’ve ever heard the unmistakable rumble of thunder in the middle of a snowstorm, that’s not your ears playing tricks on you. It’s likely thundersnow, a rare winter weather phenomenon that’s most common near lakes. When relatively warm columns of air rise from the ground and form turbulent storm clouds in the sky in the winter, there’s potential for thundersnow. A few more factors are still necessary for it to occur, namely air that’s warmer than the cloud cover above it and wind that pushes the warm air upwards. Even then it’s entirely possible to miss thundersnow when it happens right over your head: Lightning is harder to see in the winter and the snow sometimes dampens the thunderous sound.

5. SNOW FALLS AT 1 TO 6 FEET PER SECOND.

At least in the case of snowflakes with broad structures, which act as parachutes. Snow that falls in the form of pellet-like graupel travels to Earth at a much faster rate.

6. IT DOESN’T TAKE LONG FOR THE TEMPERATURE TO DROP.

Don’t take mild conditions in the middle of January as an excuse to leave home without a jacket. Rapid City, South Dakota’s weather records from January 10, 1911, show just how fast temperatures can plummet. The day started out at a pleasant 55°F, then over the course of 15 minutes a wicked cold front brought the temperature down to 8 degrees. That day still holds the record for quickest cold snap in history.

7. THE EARTH IS CLOSEST TO THE SUN DURING THE WINTER.

Every January (the start of the winter season in the northern hemisphere) the Earth reaches the point in its orbit that’s nearest to the Sun. Despite some common misconceptions, the seasonal drop in temperature has nothing to do with the distance of our planet to the Sun. It instead has everything to do with which direction the Earth’s axis is tilting, which is why the two hemispheres experience winter at different times of the year.

8. MORE THAN 22 MILLION TONS OF SALT ARE USED ON U.S. ROADS EACH WINTER.

That comes out to about 137 pounds of salt per person.

9. THE SNOWIEST CITY ON EARTH IS IN JAPAN.

Aomori City in northern Japan receives more snowfall than any major city on the planet. Each year citizens are pummeled with 312 inches, or about 26 feet, of snow on average.

10. SOMETIMES SNOWBALLS FORM THEMSELVES.

Something strange happened earlier this year in northwest Siberia: Mysterious, giant snowballs began washing up on a beach along the Gulf of Ob. It turns out the ice orbs were formed naturally by the rolling motions of wind and water. With some spheres reaching nearly 3 feet in width, you wouldn’t want to use this frozen ammunition in a snowball fight.

11. WIND CHILL IS CALCULATED USING A PRECISE FORMULA.

When the weatherman reports a “real feel” temperature of -10 degrees outside, it may sound like he’s coming up with that number on the spot. But wind chill is actually calculated using a complicated equation devised by meteorologists. For math nerds who’d like to test it at home, the formula reads: Wind Chill = 35.74 + 0.6215T – 35.75(V^0.16) + 0.4275T(V^0.16).

12. CITIES ARE FORCED TO DISPOSE OF SNOW IN CREATIVE WAYS.

When snow piles up too high for cities to manage, it’s usually hauled away to parking lots or other wide-open spaces where it can sit until the weather warms up. During particularly snowy seasons, cities are sometimes forced to dump snow in the ocean, only to be met with criticism from environmental activists. Some cities employ snow melters that use hot water to melt 30 to 50 tons of snow an hour. This method is quick but costly—a single machine can cost $200,000 and burn 60 gallons of fuel in an hour of use.

13. WET SNOW IS BEST FOR SNOWMAN-BUILDING, ACCORDING TO SCIENCE.

Physics confirms what you’ve likely known since childhood: Snow on the wet or moist side is best for building your own backyard Frosty. One scientist pegs the perfect snow-to-water ratio at 5:1.

14. SNOWFLAKES AREN’T ALWAYS UNIQUE.

Snow crystals usually form unique patterns, but there’s at least one instance of identical snowflakes in the record books. In 1988, two snowflakes collected from a Wisconsin storm were confirmed to be twins at an atmospheric research center in Colorado.

15. THERE’S A DIFFERENCE BETWEEN FREEZING RAIN AND SLEET

Freezing rain and sleet can both have scary effects on driving conditions, but their formations differ in some key ways. Both types of precipitation occur when rain formed in warm air in the sky passes through a layer of cold air near the ground. Thicker layers of cold air create sleet, a slushy form of water that’s semi-frozen by the time it reaches the Earth. Thinner layers don’t give rain enough time to freeze until it hits the surface of the ground—it then forms a thin coat of ice wherever it lands.

Winter weather can be unpredictable, which is why GEICO’s Emergency Roadside Service is available 24/7 via the GEICO mobile app. If you need a tow, a jump start, help fixing a flat tire, or if you lock your keys in the car, help can be dispatched with just a few taps of the finger.

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Whether it’s a lost purse or an entire galaxy, the thing you’re looking for is almost always the last place you look. Read on to learn about some amazing finds that were right under our noses the whole time.

1. AN OVERLOOKED AVANT-GARDE PAINTING

When an art historian settled in to watch movies with his young daughter, he expected to relax and tune out. Instead he was shocked back into work mode when a long-lost avant-garde painting appeared onscreen behind the human parents of a certain talking mouse. The rare and expensive painting had been missing since 1928; the film’s set designer later said he’d bought it at an antique store for a mere $500.

2. A LITTLE WHALE

The 24-foot-long whale that washed up on an Alaska beach looked familiar to biologists. It also looked … different. The animal resembled a species called the Baird’s beaked whale, but it was far too small and its skin was a strange color. DNA tests revealed that the specimen belonged to an entirely new species. But it turns out that wasn’t the only one; the same genetic code was found in a whale skeleton that had been hanging up in a nearby high school gym.

3. PREHISTORIC EARTHWORKS

Historians believed a 42-foot mound in East Yorkshire, UK, had been constructed by the Normans in the 11th century. But when archaeologists began excavating, they soon realized the site was much, much older—by about 1,500 years.

4. AN ASTRONAUT’S PURSE

Movie stars aren’t supposed to keep their costumes or props, and astronauts aren’t supposed to keep their equipment. But sometimes they do it anyway. The first man on the Moon passed away in 2012. Not long after, his widow was cleaning out their house when she found a white bag containing a camera, mirrors, clips, and other equipment. She brought it to experts, who immediately realized that the bag was the same one the astronaut had supposedly left on the lunar surface during his mission. Whoops.

5. A MISSING MASTERPIECE

A legendary surrealist painter pulled the ultimate art prank when he made one of his masterpieces vanish into thin air. Art historians had long given up on locating the artist’s beautiful nude painting when it appeared—or part of it, anyway. X-rays of several of the painter’s other works revealed that he had cut the nude portrait into pieces and stuck it to other canvases before painting over it.

6. A BRAND-NEW CRAB

China’s booming pet trade has turned many in the fishing business into exotic animal spotters. Because of this, scientists have begun to visit pet markets in search of strange species. In early 2016, they found one: a grumpy-looking freshwater crab that no one had ever seen before. The orange crustacean they dubbed Yuebeipotamon calciatile was so different from others that it was declared not only a new species, but an entirely new genus.

7. A WHOLE BUNCH OF BEETLES

Victorian naturalists used to go out into the field with a net and a collecting jar and scoop up any interesting organism they could find. Scientists are a bit more methodical in their investigations these days—a fact that may result in some missed opportunities. One biologist doing some old-fashioned exploring on the side of a Hawaiian volcano in 2015 discovered 74 new species of predatory beetles.

8. AN ANCIENT MONUMENT

The desert city of Petra, Jordan, sees more than half a million visitors each year, and archaeologists have been digging there for centuries. Yet until 2016, nobody had spotted the enormous structure laying less than a mile outside the city. Drone photography and satellite images revealed a monument as large as an Olympic-sized swimming pool just under the sand. Pottery found at the site suggests that the monument is a staggering 2150 years old.

9. SURPRISE REEFS

Scientists mapping the seafloor near Australia’s Great Barrier Reef were astounded to discover fields of enormous circular mounds beneath the coral. The donut-shaped mounds were Halimeda bioherms, or reef structures made of calcified green algae.

10. SOME VERY ANTIQUE JEWELRY

Two young archaeologists had popped into a shop in Dabene, Bulgaria, to buy cigarettes when they saw something very unusual: a local woman wearing a striking gold necklace. The woman said her husband was a farmer, and that he’d found the jewelry while plowing his field. Examination of the necklace revealed that it dated back to the Bronze Age, and subsequent excavations in the village have uncovered a huge hoard of Thracian gold.

11. AN ACTUAL DINOSAUR

Scientists at a South African museum were startled to learn that a familiar specimen was not what they thought it was. The fossilized remains of a 200-million-year-old herbivore had been sitting in the museum since the 1930s, labeled as an Aardonyx. But when researchers took a closer look they realized the bones belonged to an entirely new species, which they christened Sefapanosaurus zastronensis.

12. A ROYAL TREE

The Wentworth elm was extinct, or so botanists thought—wiped out in the 1980s and ‘90s by Dutch elm disease. Then they paid a visit to the queen’s house. Experts conducting an inventory of the flora on the grounds of the queen of England’s home in Scotland discovered two enormous living Wentworth elms, each more than 100 feet tall, existing happily on the royal grounds. Experts hope to use cuttings from the trees to restart the population.

13. A RARE BIRD

How they missed this one is anyone’s guess: A loud-mouthed bird with bright feathers was recently identified in the bustling city of Phnom Penh. The Cambodian Tailorbird naturally makes its home on the lowland scrub of the floodplain. As urbanization spreads and the floodplain disappears, the bird moved further toward the city, until eventually someone spotted it.

14. A SNEAKY WORK OF ART

It was a nice enough painting: a lovely little still life of poppies and wildflowers in a jar. Its owner, an antique dealer, enjoyed it for decades until his death. When it came time to evaluate the worth of the man’s estate, art appraisers became very suspicious of the painting’s provenance. The artist’s monogram, originally believed to read “PS,” was eventually deciphered as “PG”—the initials of a very famous French painter known for his beautiful still life paintings.

15. GALAXIES

What look like clouds of glowing dust may in fact be clouds of stars upon stars upon stars. Earlier this year, astronomers using a high-powered space telescope reported finding numerous bright but distant galaxies hidden in plain sight in an area of the sky previously thought to contain only a single galaxy.

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Christmas trees outnumber people in Oregon. The state is the nation’s largest supplier of the festive evergreens—and Holiday Tree Farms in Corvallis, Oregon, is one of the largest Christmas tree farms in the world. The serene, 8000-acre farm sells over a million trees a year, and come Christmas season, its workers only have six weeks to harvest them. To expedite the process, they rely on helicopters, which load the chopped trees into trucks. Listen to Mark Arkills, Holiday Tree Farms’s senior production manager, explain the labor-intensive process to the folks over at Great Big Story.

[h/t Great Big Story]

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