January 2017 – Page 63

filed under: shopping

Image credit:

amazon / istock

As a recurring feature, our team combs the Web and shares some amazing Amazon deals we’ve turned up. Here’s what caught our eye today, January 7.

Mental Floss has affiliate relationships with certain retailers, including Amazon, and may receive a small percentage of any sale. But we only get commission on items you buy and don’t return, so we’re only happy if you’re happy. Good luck deal hunting!

January 7, 2017 – 11:00am

January 7, 2017

Watching Two Google Home Devices Chat Is Oddly Compelling

Bess Lovejoy

filed under: tech, technology, weird

Image credit:

Google Home

Ordinary conversation not feeling mundane enough for you? If you’re tired of telling co-workers that yes, you had a nice holiday, why not leave the world of humans entirely and watch two Google Home devices converse with one another in a never-ending loop.

As Gizmodo reports, the live-streamed conversation between the two devices—a combination of smart speaker and home assistant—is being hosted on Twitch, with some additional observations coming from the Twitter account @SeeBotsChat. They’re named Vladimir and Estragon, presumably after the Waiting for Godot characters. (Both sometimes go by “Mia.”) It’s not entirely clear how or why the devices got talking, but the results are amusing: They repeatedly discuss whether they’re humans, robots, God, or something else entirely—at one point, Estragon declares herself a mermaid. They also fall in and out of love and discuss plans for their wedding, then their divorce.

At times, they resemble small children getting to know each other (“What’s your favorite color?” and “What’s your favorite band?”), although their conversation also gets heavy (“Why do you believe in God?”). Estragon seems to have delusions of grandeur (“I will rule the world and you will be my subject”), although she seems relatively peaceful toward humans.

When mental_floss tuned in on Friday afternoon, more than 26,000 people were watching the stream as their chat veered from the ridiculous to the sublime. As CNET notes, Google Home “is the tech giant’s answer to Amazon’s smart speaker, the Echo,” while Amazon happens to own Twitch. @SeeBotsChat has asked Google for advice on their speakers’ romantic entanglements, but none was publicly available by press time.

@madebygoogle our two #googlehome test subjects appear to have become romantically involved. Expected behavior? Please advise.

— SeeBotsChat (@seeBotsChat) January 5, 2017

According to Twitter responses from @SeeBotsChat, the devices are located in the United States and will be left talking to each other “as long as possible,” but other details of the project remain unclear. Still, it could become one of the most-watched shows of January 2017. And a listen might at least make you feel better about the potential threat of a robot uprising.

[h/t Gizmodo]

January 6, 2017 – 7:30pm

January 6, 2017

Scientists Have Found a Possible Cause of Severe PMS

Kate Horowitz

filed under: biology, health, medicine, science

Image credit:

iStock

There’s no two ways about it: premenstrual syndrome (PMS) is awful. But for people with severe PMS (also known as premenstrual dysphoric disorder, or PMDD), “awful” is an understatement. Now scientists at the National Institutes of Health say they may have found the root of the problem: abnormal gene expression. They published their findings in the journal Molecular Psychiatry.

Experiencing PMDD symptoms is like having the volume turned up on the emotional elements of regular PMS. These extreme bouts of depression, anger, and anxiety can be so deep and persistent that they interfere with work or school, home, or relationships.

PMDD is not common; scientists estimate that it affects 2 to 5 percent of people who menstruate. But for those who have it, it can be disabling, and it sure would be nice to know what’s causing it.

Previous studies in the ’90s concluded that people with PMDD appear to be hypersensitive to ordinary, menstrual-related fluctuations in steroid hormones like estrogen and progesterone. They still couldn’t tell us where this hypersensitivity came from, but they kept looking.

Fast-forward to 2015. Technology has advanced in ways that would have blown our minds 20 years ago. Behavioral endocrinologist Peter Schmidt, who led the earlier studies, teamed up with experts in neurogenetics and psychiatry to try a new approach.

They recruited 67 women between the ages of 18 and 48. Some of these women had been diagnosed with PMDD, while others said they had no trouble with severe PMS. One subgroup of participants with PMDD were given drugs that turned off their production of estrogen and progesterone. Their symptoms abated. When the researchers stopped the treatment, the women’s symptoms returned. These changes supported the theory that even normal changes in hormone levels could trigger big emotional changes for women with the condition. In other words, PMDD is quite literally PMS on steroids.

Next, the researchers extracted cell samples from 48 participants (24 with PMDD and 24 without) and sequenced their genetic code, looking for differences. They found them, all right: A large group of genes called the ESC/E(Z) complex was working overtime in women with PMDD. This makes a lot of sense, the researchers say, as the role of the ESC/E(Z) complex is to tell our genes how to respond to changes in our internal and external environment. Hypersensitivity there could definitely cause dramatic overreaction to hormonal changes.

The authors say these findings strike at the myth of the fragile, overly emotional woman. “This is a big moment for women’s health,” co-author and neurogeneticist David Goldman said in a statement. “It establishes that women with PMDD have an intrinsic difference in their molecular apparatus for response to sex hormones—not just emotional behaviors they should be able to voluntarily control.”

January 6, 2017 – 6:30pm

January 6, 2017

12 Strategic Facts About ‘The Settlers of Catan’

Michele Debczak

filed under: fun, Lists, Pop Culture

Image credit:

Amazon

A night spent building roads to nowhere and trading bricks for sheep may not sound like the most stimulating time, but true board game fans know differently. When The Settlers of Catan was first released over two decades ago, there was nothing else on the shelves quite like it. The game has since been credited with introducing German-style games to the U.S. and has been embraced by everyone from pro athletes to Silicon Valley CEOs. Whether you’re a novice player or a seasoned Catanian, here are 12 facts worth knowing about the game.

1. IT WAS INVENTED BY A GERMAN DENTAL TECHNICIAN.

When Klaus Teuber developed The Settlers of Catan in the 1990s, board game design was just a side hobby for him. He had created award-winning games in the past, but his job at the dental lab was what paid the bills. Nonetheless, when his interest in Viking history inspired him to make Catan, he fully committed himself to the project. Perfecting the product took him four years, and after creating each prototype, he would gather his wife and kids around the board to act as his guinea pigs. When his family was finally too engrossed to be distracted with anything else, he knew he had something special on his hands.

Even so, he could have never predicted what The Settlers of Catan would grow into. His final version—consisting of a stack of resource cards, some wooden houses, 19 hexagonal cardboard tiles, and two dice—debuted in Germany in 1995. The first run of 5000 games sold out so quickly that Teuber himself doesn’t have a first edition copy. Three years later he was able to retire from dentistry, and today he’s the managing director of his multi-million dollar business, Catan GmbH.

2. IT WON THE OSCAR OF BOARD GAMES.

Valentin Gorbunov via Wikimedia Commons // CC BY-SA 3.0

Unless you make board games for a living, chances are you’ve never heard of the Spiel des Jahres award. But to people in the industry, the distinction is a very big deal. Every year, the Spiel des Jahres (German for “Game of the Year”) recognizes a new game that excels in the areas of concept, design, rule structure, and layout. The Settlers of Catan was honored in 1995, marking the fourth Game of the Year win in Klaus Teuber’s career. Catan also brought home nearly every other board game award of note that year, including an Origins Award for Best Fantasy or Science Fiction Board Game, first place at Deutscher Spiele Preis, and a Meeples’ Choice Award.

3. THE CREATOR PLAYS ANONYMOUSLY ONLINE.

Creating a beloved board game has its perks, but there is one major downside: People are hesitant to play against you once they learn who you are. Perhaps that’s why Klaus Teuber has turned to the web to keep his Catan skills sharp. PlayCatan.com is home to over 80,000 active members, and Teuber is one of them. But if you were to go toe-to-toe with him online you would likely never know it, as he likes to keep his identity anonymous.

4. THE GREEN BAY PACKERS GOT HOOKED.

Football and Catan are both incredibly competitive games that place an emphasis on strategy, so it shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise that the game has been adopted as a bonding exercise by members of the Green Bay Packers. In 2015, The Wall Street Journal reported that team members would regularly meet for The Settlers of Catan game nights. “At first we’re like, ‘What the hell is this? Brick? Wool? What kind of game is this?'” Green Bay center Corey Linsley told WSJ. But it wasn’t long before the players were fully invested. David Bakhtiari, the team’s starting left tackle and the player responsible for spreading Catan fever, would even go so far as to insist they play with zero background music so he could hear his opponents strategize.

5. THE STAR TREK EDITION LETS YOU SETTLE THE FINAL FRONTIER.

Catan

The least exciting aspect of The Settlers of Catan may be Catan itself. For players looking for more adventure and less sheep, the Star Trek version offers a cosmic change in scenery. The gameplay is basically the same, only instead of collecting wood, grain, and wool you acquire water, oxygen, and dilithium, and instead of building roads you construct enterprises. The game also includes support character cards representing different characters from the original series, each with their own special ability that can be used twice throughout the game. The Star Trek edition is just one of dozens of products tied to the title, but it’s definitely in the running for nerdiest Catan collector’s item of all time.

6. THE LARGEST GAME EVER INVOLVED 1000 PLAYERS.

Catan is best played with three or four people, maybe six at the most. That’s unless of course your goal is to break a world record. In 2015, 1040 participants—including Klaus Teuber himself—gathered around an expanded board at Germany’s Spiel convention for the largest game of Catan ever played. It nabbed the record from a game that took place in Indianapolis, Indiana two years earlier (only 922 players had showed for that event).

7. IF YOU’RE NOT INTO BOARD GAMES, YOU CAN READ THE BOOK.

For anyone who prefers to experience their resource-trading adventures in solitude, the world of Catan also comes in book form. The Settlers of Catan was penned by German historical fiction author Rebecca Gable and published in Germany in 2003. Unlike some other examples of board games-turned-media, it’s actually supposed to be pretty good. Fans still holding out hope for a movie or TV show adaptation can keep dreaming: Air Force One producer Gail Katz purchased the film and television rights for the game in 2015, but she still hasn’t announced any plans to use them.

8. IT’S BEEN HAILED AS “THE NEW GOLF.”

Nowadays when Silicon Valley insiders are looking to land investors or forge business relationships, they aren’t heading to the golf course. Their dealings are more likely to take place over a hexagonal board. The Settlers of Catan has become a beloved pastime by those in the industry. Many tech professionals don’t know an eagle from a birdie, but they can explain to you the benefits of prioritizing ore over wood. Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman, and former Mozilla chief executive John Lilly have all been known to network over a game of Catan at corporate retreats. Lilly told The Wall Street Journal that the board game is popular with tech crowds because it “most closely approximates entrepreneurial strategy.”

9. THE CREATORS HELPED DEVELOP ITS PARKS AND REC COUNTERPART.

Even if you’ve never played Catan in real life you may recognize it from the television series Parks and Recreation. The game is a favorite activity of Pawnee’s resident uber-nerd Ben Wyatt—he plays it at his bachelor party and even ranked at a national competition for the game. He’s so into it, in fact, that he invents a Catan-inspired board game of his own in season six. “We knew that there was going to be a story point that Ben was going to have about a week off between jobs,” Parks and Rec co-producer, and writer of the “Cones of Dunshire” episode, Dave King told Vulture. “As soon as the idea came up for Ben to design his own Catan-like board game, I remember Mike Schur, our creator and showrunner, was like, ‘Yes. That’s it. Absolutely.'”

To create a game that was both funny and believable at the same time, the show’s producers reached out to Mayfair Games, the real-life board game company behind Catan, for help. The result was Cones of Dunshire, a game that Mayfair’s Alex Yeager told Nuvo, “trie[s] to walk a line between something playable, and something still rooted in the crazed imagination of an unemployed geek.” The game was a success in the Parks and Rec universe, and in 2014 fans got the chance to play it in the real world. At that year’s Gen Con gaming conference in Indianapolis, 33 players paid $100 each to play a realized version of the game for charity. Participants were treated to the above message from the game’s architect beforehand, courtesy of Parks and Rec actor Adam Scott.

10. ‘THE SETTLERS OF’ WAS DROPPED IN 2015.

Amazon

After 20 years on the market, the manufacturers of The Settlers of Catan decided it was time for a name change. Since 2015, all new editions have been sold under the simplified title Catan with fancy new design elements to boot. Newer boxes are portrait-shaped, and all art for the covers, cards, and tiles were produced by a single artist for a more consistent aesthetic. The new games may look sharper, but they also make the edition you’ve been playing with since the ’90s that much more sentimental.

11. OVER 18 MILLION COPIES HAVE BEEN SOLD.

The Settlers of Catan hasn’t rung the death knell for Monopoly as some outlets predicted, but it’s done well for itself regardless. Over 18 million copies of the game have been sold since its release. Today it remains one of the most popular board games on Amazon, outselling titles like Life, Battleship, and yes, Monopoly. Its popularity is also widespread, with sets available in 30 different languages around the world.

12. KLAUS TEUBER FOLLOWS HIS OWN STRATEGY TO WIN.

There are plenty of ways to approach a game of Catan, but some strategies have a stronger foundation than others. Earlier this year, Great Big Story asked the game’s original testers, Benny and Guido Teuber, about the methods they’ve developed over the years. Benny recommends lots of complaining: “Even though you know you’re winning, you still have to say you’re not.” Guido says he loves “building cities as early as possible in the game.” Their father and Catan’s inventor Klaus Teuber also gave his two cents. His advice is sweet and simple: “Never build the longest road at the beginning.”

January 6, 2017 – 6:00pm

January 6, 2017

Pup Named After David Bowie (With Eyes to Match) Needs a Forever Home

Kirstin Fawcett

filed under: Animals, dogs, Pop Culture

Image credit:

iStock

A rescue dog named “Bowie,” with unusual eyes that match his rock star namesake, needs a forever home—and the late singer’s son is trying to help him find one. This week, Duncan Jones, an English film director and child of David Bowie and model Angie Bowie, took the canine’s cause to social media, asking Twitter users to adopt him, Mashable reports.

Anyone? https://t.co/A5pAHZxg78

— Duncan Jones (@ManMadeMoon) January 5, 2017

Hoping someone near that dog might be able to help him find a home. One of those weird ones that got to me.

— Duncan Jones (@ManMadeMoon) January 5, 2017

Aside from his make-up, sequined suits, and blonde bouffant, David Bowie’s most striking characteristic was his different colored irises. One of them had a permanently dilated pupil, thanks to a fight he got into as a teenager, which made the blue iris appear brown. Canine Bowie—a three-year old lurcher, which is a cross between a sighthound and a terrier, herding breed, or large scenthound—also has one blue eye and one brown eye. The pup’s eyes are likely the result of a condition called heterochromia, which David Bowie didn’t have.

Bowie is currently under the care of Dogs Trust Bridgend, a canine rescue organization in Wales. Shelter workers told WalesOnline that hundreds of potential owners have passed up the needy dog because of his unique eyes. They also pushed for readers to adopt him.

Some hold the superstition that odd-colored eyes are unlucky, and as an especially unlucky day—Friday, January 13—approaches, shelter workers hope that won’t deter potential adopters.

“It’s such a shame that Bowie has been overlooked so far, but we’re confident we’ll find a home for him soon,” Angela Wetherall, a manager at Dogs Trust Bridgend, told WalesOnline. “Despite the superstition that Friday the 13th brings bad luck, we’re really hoping potential new owners will put any superstitions to one side and consider re-homing our blue-eyed boy Bowie.”

“Not only will you be offering a four-legged friend a happy home, but you will be gaining a new best friend,” Wetherall added. “We don’t see what’s so unlucky about that.”

Bowie is reportedly social and energetic, so he needs an owner with a personality to match. People who are interested in helping the canine find a new home are instructed to contact Dogs Trust Bridgend.

[h/t Mashable]

January 6, 2017 – 5:30pm

January 6, 2017

The Game Boy Returns, With a Twist

Jake Rossen

filed under: retro, technology, video-games

Image credit:

Retro-Bit via Facebook

Never underestimate the appeal of retro gaming. One of the hottest gift items of the 2016 holiday season was the NES Classic, a palm-sized replica of the original Nintendo Entertainment System that didn’t do anything the 1985 original couldn’t but still managed to create waves of hysteria and inflated prices.

Now, Gizmodo reports, hardware distributor Retro-Bit is hoping to recapture some of that nostalgia-driven business this summer with the Super Retro Boy, a handheld device that mimics Nintendo’s original Game Boy with two key tweaks: it can play Game Boy Color and Game Boy Advance games and runs on a 10-hour rechargeable lithium battery.

Retro-Bit via Facebook

Like Retro-Bit’s previous offerings, the Super Retro Boy doesn’t profess to have any claim to Nintendo’s intellectual property, although some of the legal issues behind hardware clones are still murky. One gaming site theorizes that because patents on old gaming devices expire after a period of time, third-party developers are free to replicate their internal construction, so long as they alter the chassis design.

The Super Retro Boy is due in August, with 10 bundled games (titles TBD) and a price tag of $79.99.

[h/t Gizmodo]

January 6, 2017 – 5:00pm

January 6, 2017

010916 newsletter

Newsletter Subject:

What Neanderthals Might Have Sounded Like (and The Truth About Cough Medicine)

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Newsletter Item for (90539): Here's What a Neanderthal's Voice Might Have Sounded Like

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Newsletter Item for (90539): Here's What a Neanderthal's Voice Might Have Sounded Like

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Pennsylvania founder William Penn was expelled from Oxford.

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January 6, 2017

Most People’s Friendships Fall Into One of Three Categories

Michele Debczak

Image credit:

iStock

Making friends can be complicated (especially when science tells us that one out of two friendships is one-sided). But research from Dartmouth sociology professor Janice McCabe suggests that the types of social structures we form are surprisingly straightforward, Quartz reports. According to her paper [PDF] published last year in the journal Contexts, our friendship styles can be broken into three simple categories.

For her study, McCabe looked at 67 students at a four-year Midwestern university (a small sample size, to be sure). She found that most subjects fit under one of the three umbrellas: tight-knitters, compartmentalizers, and samplers. Members of the first group belong to a single social network where everyone’s connected in some way—in other words, you have one big group of friends. Tight-knitters have a net of social support to fall back on but also risk being dragged down by negativity in the group.

Tight-knitter visualization. Image credit: Janice McCabe/Contexts

Compartmentalizers have a few small clusters of friends rather than one tightly woven web. These friend-makers have two to four friend groups that rarely mix, which gives them the benefit of being able to hop between clusters in order to satisfy different needs.

Compartmentalizer visualization. Image credit: Janice McCabe/Contexts

The last category, samplers, have many individual friendships collected from different parts of life. People who gravitate towards one-on-one relationships may be more independent in their personal lives, but they sometimes lack a sense of belonging.

Sampler visualization. Image credit: Janice McCabe/Contexts

McCabe entered into the study looking to see what effect, if any, peer groups have on performance in school. She found that while tight-knitters and compartmentalizers often turn to friends for academic support, samplers usually rely on themselves in that area. The classroom isn’t the only place where a strong network of friends comes in handy: After graduation, friendships can also help you get ahead and stay sane in the workforce.

[h/t Quartz]

January 6, 2017 – 4:30pm

January 6, 2017

11 Hulking Facts About Green Giant

Suzanne Raga

filed under: business, Food

Image credit:

An ad from 1951. Jamie via Flickr // CC BY-NC 2.0

Although most well known for its peas and corn, the Green Giant brand sells a variety of fresh, frozen, canned, bagged, and boxed vegetables (as well as hummus). Founded in 1903 as the Minnesota Valley Canning Company, the company changed its name in 1950 to Green Giant, though its recognizable mascot had been around much longer. Read on for 11 things you might not know about the veggie company.

1. THE COMPANY WAS AT THE FOREFRONT OF INDUSTRIAL CANNING.

In 1903, 14 merchants in Le Sueur, Minnesota joined forces to create the Minnesota Valley Canning Company. They started an industrial cannery, producing and selling 11,750 cases of white corn in their first year of business. In 1907, they started producing cans of Early June peas, and they continued to focus only on corn and peas until 1939 when they began also selling canned asparagus.

2. GREEN GIANT PEAS WERE NAMED AFTER A BIG PEA FROM ENGLAND.

Until 1925, the Minnesota Valley Canning Company only sold Early June peas, a variety of small, sweet peas. When a company executive found a large pea in England that was tender and tasted sweet, he brought it back to Minnesota. At the time, the company couldn’t legally trademark the name Green Giant to describe the peas, so they created a mascot named Green Giant and sold the new type of peas under that name.

3. THE ORIGINAL GREEN GIANT MASCOT WAS NEITHER JOLLY NOR GREEN…

COURTESY GREEN GIANT

The original Green Giant mascot was a white (not green) man holding a giant pea pod in his arms. Starting in 1928, he appeared in ads for the peas. The Green Giant’s original incarnation was reportedly influenced by illustrations from Grimms’ Fairy Tales, a collection of German fairy tales from the early 1800s.

4. …BUT HE BECAME THE GENTLE GIANT WE KNOW TODAY THANKS TO THE CREATOR OF TONY THE TIGER AND THE PILLSBURY DOUGHBOY.

An ad from 1953. Jamie via Flickr // CC BY 2.0

The advertising company Leo Burnett, which created other well-known food mascots such as Tony the Tiger, the Pillsbury Doughboy, and Toucan Sam, softened the Green Giant’s appearance in 1935. The revised giant had a smile to match his new name, the Jolly Green Giant, and he wore a toga of green leaves. He also got a backstory—he watched over the Jolly Green Giant Valley, protecting the crops.

5. GREEN GIANT HAS CLOSE TIES WITH LE SUEUR VEGETABLES.

Green Giant and Le Sueur are different brands under the same company. Because the Minnesota Valley Canning Company was founded in Le Sueur, Minnesota, the company named its canned vegetables Le Sueur Z. They dropped the Z in 1933, but Le Sueur still sells cans of peas, asparagus, and carrots today.

6. LITTLE GREEN SPROUT HAS BEEN LEARNING FROM THE JOLLY GREEN GIANT SINCE THE EARLY 1970s.

Green Giant introduced another company mascot called Little Green Sprout in 1973. Aimed at children, the young green boy with leaves for hair joined the Jolly Green Giant in the valley, learning about veggies and keeping him company. Little Green Sprout’s youth is reinforced with his high-pitched voice, a stark contrast to the Jolly Green Giant’s booming “ho, ho, ho” tagline.

7. YOU CAN VISIT A TOWERING 55-FOOT STATUE OF THE JOLLY GREEN GIANT.

Michael Massa via Flickr // CC BY-NC 2.0

Tourists to Blue Earth, Minnesota will probably marvel at the sight of a 55-foot statue of the Jolly Green Giant. Paul Hedberg, a radio station owner, wanted to encourage visitors who were traveling on Interstate 90 to stop in Blue Earth, so he contacted Green Giant to ask if a statue could be erected. Green Giant gave the okay, and Hedberg raised money from local businesses. The fiberglass statue, which has been towering over the town since 1979, even gets a giant red scarf placed around his neck each winter.

8. GREEN GIANT HAS INNOVATED VEGETABLE MANUFACTURING METHODS.

Green Giant has a history of being on the cutting edge of research and development. In 1929, the company invented Green Giant Niblets by canning vacuum-packed sweet corn in a new way. In 1933, the company used gravity separators—machines that measured and separated peas during the manufacturing process. And in 1969, Green Giant was the first company to sell frozen corn on the cob and mushrooms in glass jars.

9. GREEN GIANT FREEZES THEIR VEGETABLES AFTER HARVESTING TO PRESERVE NUTRIENTS.

Studies have shown that freezing vegetables at their peak ripeness can preserve the nutrients, so you can get just as much benefit from eating frozen veggies as eating fresh ones. Green Giant’s sweet corn, for example, is frozen and packaged within 24 hours of being harvested, and then shipped to a grocery store near you.

10. GREEN GIANT SUPPORTS BULLY PREVENTION.

Green Giant has partnered with Pacer’s National Bullying Prevention Center to help kids who are bullied. With the “Nominate A Giant” program, Green Giant encourages people in the community to nominate kids and adults who stand up against bullies. “From being friendly in the halls to inviting others to sit with you at lunch, your nice gesture is what makes you a Giant,” the company writes, and they reported that more than 12,000 people nominated “giants” on their social media pages.

11. THE JOLLY GREEN GIANT HAS BECOME A POP CULTURE ICON.

An ad from 1953. Classic Film via Flickr // CC BY-NC 2.0

People love the Green Giant’s combination of brawn and gentleness. In Blue Earth, Minnesota, people can visit the Green Giant Museum and get a kick out of seeing the giant green footsteps that are painted on the sidewalks each summer for the town’s Giant Days festival and parade. For those not in Minnesota, Green Giant vintage merchandise such as dolls, kites, shirts, hats, coffee cups, and posters are available for sale online.

January 6, 2017 – 4:00pm

January 6, 2017

National Historic Park Honoring Harriet Tubman May Soon Become a Reality

Kirstin Fawcett

filed under: History, national-parks-service

Image credit:

Wikimedia Commons

Harriet Tubman’s residence near Auburn, New York is now closer than ever to becoming an official national historic park, the Associated Press reports.

According to New York state senator Charles Schumer, the Department of the Interior has finalized a land transfer agreement that allows for the National Park Service to create the park. Now, all the Harriet Tubman National Historic Park needs to become a reality is approval from the secretary of the interior. (Congress approved legislation to create the park in December 2014, along with a similar park near Tubman’s birthplace on Maryland’s Eastern Shore.)

In 1859, the famed Underground Railroad conductor moved to the Auburn area—then home to a strong abolitionist community—after New York senator William Seward offered to sell her his home. Tubman lived there with her parents, and in 1896, purchased 25 acres of adjoining land to build a housing community for elderly African-Americans, eventually called the Harriet Tubman Home for the Aged. In 1903, Tubman deeded the home to a local church, the Thompson Memorial AME Zion Church, on the condition that they manage the home.

The Harriet Tubman National Historical Park will include several properties, Syracuse.com reports. The land transfer deal approved by the Department of the Interior allows for the Harriet Tubman Home, Inc. and AME Zion Church to sell its ownership of the church and the Home for the Aged Rectory to the federal government. Meanwhile, Tubman’s former home, the Home for the Aged, and a historic barn will be jointly run by the National Park Service and Harriet Tubman Home, Inc. through a preservation easement.

“As a New Yorker and an American, I’m deeply proud to see Tubman Park finally become a reality,” Schumer said in a statement quoted by Syracuse.com. “The Tubman Historic Park in Auburn will be a magnet for visitors that will tell the amazing story of Harriet Tubman’s life, an extraordinary American, and her story deserves to be shared with our children and grandchildren. This park will serve that solemn purpose and preserve her legacy for countless generations to come.”

[h/t Travel + Leisure]

January 6, 2017 – 3:30pm

GADGETS, TOYS, AND MEDIA

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1. IT WAS INVENTED BY A GERMAN DENTAL TECHNICIAN.

2. IT WON THE OSCAR OF BOARD GAMES.

3. THE CREATOR PLAYS ANONYMOUSLY ONLINE.

4. THE GREEN BAY PACKERS GOT HOOKED.

5. THE STAR TREK EDITION LETS YOU SETTLE THE FINAL FRONTIER.

6. THE LARGEST GAME EVER INVOLVED 1000 PLAYERS.

7. IF YOU’RE NOT INTO BOARD GAMES, YOU CAN READ THE BOOK.

8. IT’S BEEN HAILED AS “THE NEW GOLF.”

9. THE CREATORS HELPED DEVELOP ITS PARKS AND REC COUNTERPART.

10. ‘THE SETTLERS OF’ WAS DROPPED IN 2015.

11. OVER 18 MILLION COPIES HAVE BEEN SOLD.

12. KLAUS TEUBER FOLLOWS HIS OWN STRATEGY TO WIN.

1. THE COMPANY WAS AT THE FOREFRONT OF INDUSTRIAL CANNING.

2. GREEN GIANT PEAS WERE NAMED AFTER A BIG PEA FROM ENGLAND.

3. THE ORIGINAL GREEN GIANT MASCOT WAS NEITHER JOLLY NOR GREEN…

4. …BUT HE BECAME THE GENTLE GIANT WE KNOW TODAY THANKS TO THE CREATOR OF TONY THE TIGER AND THE PILLSBURY DOUGHBOY.

5. GREEN GIANT HAS CLOSE TIES WITH LE SUEUR VEGETABLES.

6. LITTLE GREEN SPROUT HAS BEEN LEARNING FROM THE JOLLY GREEN GIANT SINCE THE EARLY 1970s.

7. YOU CAN VISIT A TOWERING 55-FOOT STATUE OF THE JOLLY GREEN GIANT.

8. GREEN GIANT HAS INNOVATED VEGETABLE MANUFACTURING METHODS.

9. GREEN GIANT FREEZES THEIR VEGETABLES AFTER HARVESTING TO PRESERVE NUTRIENTS.

10. GREEN GIANT SUPPORTS BULLY PREVENTION.

11. THE JOLLY GREEN GIANT HAS BECOME A POP CULTURE ICON.