Author: Bess Lovejoy

Admit it: You’ve read at least one book written by a celebrity, politician, or business tycoon in the past year, if not the past month. You’re no fool, though. You know that people like Keith Richards, Snooki, and Donald Trump often have help writing their memoirs. But what exactly does ghostwriting a book for someone else entail? How much of the book does the ghostwriter write and how much does the “author” contribute? What’s the ghostwriter-author relationship really like? We tapped a handful of professional ghostwriters to find out.

1. COACHING THE AUTHOR IS A BIG PART OF THE GIG.

Researching, outlining, writing, and revising are only part of what ghostwriters do. The job also entails a certain amount of handholding, especially when working with a first-time author who may not know how labor-intensive book writing is.

“Just because they can tell a story at the bar, doesn’t mean it’s going to look good on the page,” says Mike Edison, a New York‑based author, editor, and ghostwriter who’s worked on a number of food and music memoirs. “Some people think that sex and drugs are what’s really going to sell the book, and they push too hard on that.”

On the flip side, some authors are more circumspect, requiring the ghostwriter to draw them out lest they have no material to work with. “Some people are brash in the public light but get skittish when the writing starts,” Edison says. He’s repeatedly seen larger-than-life rock stars clam up upon realizing that their spouse and family will probably read their book.

“They might freak out about their girlfriend if they’re talking about having sex with someone who’s not their girlfriend, even if happened 25 years ago,” Edison says. Here’s where that hand-holding comes in: “When you’re writing a memoir, honesty is the currency you trade in,” Edison reminds his clients. “If you don’t have that, you don’t have anything.”

2. GAINING ACCESS TO AUTHORS CAN SUCK UP A LOT OF TIME.

It may sound counterintuitive that a public figure who’s hot to “write” a book would disappear the moment they get a publishing contract, but it happens a lot. This means ghostwriters can spend a decent chunk of their time trying to get on the schedule of the authors who’ve hired them.

“I know one writer who builds a certain number of author-access hours into each contract,” says Judy McGuire, a New York‑based author and ghostwriter. “It’s an excellent idea because your publisher doesn’t care if your author is too busy on Broadway or fulfilling her Real Housewife obligations—they still want the book on schedule.”

3. GHOSTWRITERS GET TO KNOW THEIR AUTHORS REALLY WELL.

Being a people person is a must for ghostwriters, who can spend several weeks, months, or years working with an author on their book. “People have to feel comfortable with you and they have to like you,” says Stephanie Krikorian, a New York‑based journalist and New York Times best-selling celebrity ghostwriter. “They’re trusting you with their life story or their life’s work. And most people only get one book, so I take that responsibility very seriously.”

McGuire agrees. “You get so close to someone,” she says. “You hear all their dirt. You’re like their shrink. It’s a very one-sided relationship, but it can be very intense. And then it’s over. That can be good (if they’re annoying) or a little sad.”

4. THE AUTHOR GETS THE FINAL SAY, NOT THE GHOSTWRITER.

“A lot of times when people read back their words, they say, ‘Oh, I would never say that,’ or, ‘That doesn’t sound like me,’” Krikorian says of her authors. This happens despite Krikorian recording and transcribing each conversation she has with them.

But if an author doesn’t like a turn of phrase, they don’t like a turn of phrase, and Krikorian will make a tweak. “Every author I work with signs off on every single word in their book, so I’m not putting words in anybody’s mouth,” she explains. “They’ve read it five times before it goes into print.”

5. THE PAY VARIES WILDLY.

A book’s length, complexity, and deadline all factor into the fee the ghostwriter negotiates. Ghostwriters can get paid anything from $15,000 to $150,000, even hundreds of thousands if the author is a household-name celebrity. In addition to their flat fee, some negotiate a percentage of royalties.

Take Tony Schwartz, the ghostwriter behind The Art of the Deal, Donald Trump’s 1987 New York Times best-selling memoir. Schwartz earned half of Trump’s $500,000 book advance for his efforts, along with half the book’s royalties on the back end, eventually netting him millions of dollars.

6. GHOSTWRITERS TURN DOWN FAR MORE WORK THAN THEY ACCEPT.

Almost everyone has a book idea in them. Many people, upon meeting a ghostwriter at a party, will share their idea in hopes that the ghostwriter will provide feedback or even take on their project for a cut-rate fee. (“I’ll pay you on the back end if the book makes any money.”) This is not how professional ghostwriters work. Most carefully vet the books they take on, based on budget, the viability of the project, and whether they’re the right wordsmith for it. Often the projects they accept have been vetted by a literary agent, publishing company, or mutual contact first.

“Most people do have a book in them,” Krikorian says. “But the economics of publishing don’t allow for all those people to hire a writer to do their book.”

7. GHOSTWRITING IS ONE OF PUBLISHING’S WORST-KEPT SECRETS.

Many ghostwriters will tell you—sometimes even on the record—that at least 60 percent of celebrity books are ghostwritten. The most obviously ghosted books bear both the author and ghostwriter names on the cover. Sometimes the ghostwriter or “collaborator” credit is a bit more subtle: on the back cover, inside the back flap of the book, or in the acknowledgments.

Take Edison. “The books that I’ve worked on, it’s generally an open secret that I’ve worked with the authors,” he says.

8. SOME AUTHORS GHOST THEIR GHOSTWRITER POST-PUBLICATION.

Despite how close ghostwriters can get to their authors, the relationship is primarily transactional—the ghostwriter is merely a service provider easily dismissed once the transaction ends.

“Most of my clients have been generous and easy, but I know some authors won’t acknowledge that they had any kind of help—it’s a struggle just to get listed on the acknowledgments page—because they’ve built this fiction that they have actually written the book themselves,” McGuire says.

She recalls one ghostwriting project where she never met or had direct contact with the author: “He never emailed, never called—all he contributed was having his assistant send one academic journal article per chapter. These weren’t even necessarily journal articles he’d written. It was very strange, but a contractor handled the whole thing. I doubt he’d even read the book before he went on 20/20 to discuss it. But as long as the check clears, who cares? You need to be ego-less in this profession. Or at least a little thick-skinned.”

9. THEY’RE OFTEN SWORN TO SECRECY.

Tony Schwartz, who shared a cover credit with Donald Trump for The Art of the Deal, infamously told The New Yorker last year how much he regrets ghostwriting the president’s book. But many ghostwriters wouldn’t dream of spilling the beans on an author or project. Plus, some are legally bound to take the secret of having written someone else’s book to their grave, no matter how well the project goes and how good their relationship is with the author.

Krikorian’s friends and family know not to ask what author she’s working with at any given moment. Instead they just ask if she has work, end of story. “I really strongly believe that my job is to keep the secret,” Krikorian says. “There’s a reason it’s called ‘ghost.’”

All photos via iStock.

It’s no coincidence that the word sumptuary sounds like sumptuous and consumption. Those words sum up the intent of most sumptuary laws: regulating what people could consume, for instance, by limiting the number of dishes at a feast. Often sumptuary laws focused on what people could and could not wear—limiting the use of fine fabrics, adornments, or even the kinds of necklines that could be worn, with a particular focus on extravagance.

Whatever their stated intent, these laws made it easier to identify which individuals had power in a society and thus helped to maintain the social order. They often prohibited poorer people from wearing finery that might confuse an observer about their station in life, and also forbade women from dressing like men (and thus perhaps enjoying their freedoms).

1. ANCIENT ROME: NO PURPLE, NO SAFFRON, NO TOGAS.

A series of laws in ancient Rome attempted to rein in extravagance in dress and codify clothes by rank. One law dictated that only citizens could wear the toga, with the color and bands on the garment determined by rank. During the period of Roman empire, the emperor was the only person who could wear the imperial color purple (the costly dye extracted by boiling thousands of snails), while only official seers could wear purple and saffron combined (saffron being another color created using costly dye).

Roman women’s clothing was also subject to law. Around 215-213 BCE the Lex Oppia dictated that, among other things, no woman could wear a dress of more than one color. Passed during the Second Punic War to curb excess, it was repealed a mere two decades later, in part because it proved difficult to enforce.

2. KOREA: COLORS THAT OFFER A CLUE TO ROYAL RELATIONSHIPS.

In most cultures, sumptuary laws helped distinguish nobility from commoners, but in some places they also helped define royal relationships. During Korea’s Joseon dynasty (1392- 1897), when kings had multiple wives and many children, the colors royal women wore helped define their relationship to the king. For example the colors of the wonsam, the ceremonial overcoat worn by royal and high-ranking married women, were strictly codified, with the empress wearing yellow, the queen wearing red, and the crown princess and concubines donning a purple-red color. A princess born to a king and a concubine (or women of a noble family or lower) wore green. These colors made it easier to determine rank from a distance.

3. ELIZABETHAN ENGLAND: APPAREL PROCLAIMS SOCIAL STATUS.

Recognizing who to bow down to was also at least partially the rationale behind sumptuary laws in Elizabethan England. Queen Elizabeth I decreed that only people above certain noble ranks could wear such luxurious textiles as silk, satin, and velvet. The queen’s law also regulated the size of neck ruffs and other fashionable fripperies. Such decrees were passed, the queen declared, to keep young men from falling into debt after buying luxurious clothing, but a growing middle class who could afford to dress like (and confuse) their betters may also have inspired the decrees.

4. PURITANS: NO FANCY CLOTHES FOR PEOPLE OF “MEAN CONDITION.”

Sumptuary laws surfaced briefly in colonial America, with some settlers wanting to legislate personal luxuries. The Puritans’ Sumptuary Code declared an “utter detestation and dislike that men or women of mean condition, educations and callings should take upon them the garb of gentlemen, by the wearing of gold or silver lace, or buttons, or points at their knees, to walk in great boots; or women of the same rank to wear tiffany hoods or scarves, which though allowable to persons of greater estates; or more liberal education, yet we cannot but judge it intolerable in persons of such like condition.” Fancy clothing was considered improper when worn by persons of “mean condition, educations and callings.” For the Puritans, it was important to both know your place and dress like it.

5. THE MIDDLE AGES: WEARING YOUR FAITH ON YOUR SLEEVE.

Throughout history, laws have been enacted to mark people who did not adhere to the majority religion. Such regulations have affected Christians, Jews, Hindus, and Muslims alike. Although not necessarily designed to restrain excess, they meet a broader definition of sumptuary laws that includes restrictions designed to enforce the social order.

In 8th century Baghdad, laws stated that Christians had to wear blue and Jews had to wear yellow. In 1005, Jews living in Egypt were told to wear bells on their clothes. During the Middle Ages, communities of Jews living in Europe often proactively wore drab clothing because they did not want to appear ostentatious or incite jealousy among their Christian neighbors. Jewish leaders issued sumptuary guidelines that included avoiding clothing that might cause them to stand out. However, a series of medieval laws also required that Jews and Muslims wear their faith—sometimes literally—on their sleeves.

The Fourth Lateran Council, convened by Pope Innocent III in 1215, decreed that Jews and Muslims must wear clothing that set them apart. This decree resulted in a variety of laws in France, Italy, Spain, and England requiring visible identification such as a badge, a hat, or a band. For Jews it was usually a badge, most often yellow, but also white or red.

In 1275, after England’s Edward I issued the Statute of the Jewry [PDF], Jews had to wear a yellow badge in “the form of two Tables joined” to symbolize the Tables of the Law.

Some of the discriminatory fashion dictates could be quite specific. In 1397 Queen Maria ordered Barcelona’s Jews to wear only pale green clothes with a circular patch of yellow cloth that had a red circle in the center.

6. THE RENAISSANCE: FASHION DEFINES RESPECTABILITY.

During the Renaissance, European sumptuary laws regulated many aspects of a woman’s dress—from the cut of her sleeve to size of her buttons, as well as the body parts she had to cover. According to a law passed in the Italian city of Orvieto, a woman’s décolletage could not descend past a certain point—“two fingers’ breadth below the suprasternal notch on the chest and the same in the back.” There was naturally some controversy about the best way to measure this.

Women were generally admonished to dress modestly and cover their hair, whether it be with a caul, a henin, or a wimple. Yet the time period’s fashionable elaborate headgear—sometimes a few feet tall—was designed to attract attention.

Prostitutes were not subject to sumptuary laws in the same way that governed extravagant clothing, as their profession relied on their ability to lure clients, but they were often assigned colors, specific items of clothing, and adornments as a way to distinguish themselves from other women. Such rules could differ from city to city, which may have created some confusion for travelers. In Venice in the 1300s, prostitutes had to wear yellow. In Milan, they wore a black cloak, and in Florence, they were required to attach bells to their hats.

Prostitutes also generally had to abstain from one fashionable item. In 12th century Arles (modern France) prostitutes were not allowed to wear a veil, the sign of a respectable woman. In some cities, tearing off a woman’s veil was tantamount to accusing her of being a prostitute. Doing so could result in a serious fine and possibly a duel to defend the woman’s honor.

All images via Getty unless otherwise noted.

Wedding photographers are by your side nearly every moment of your wedding day. They’re snapping away at your most intimate moments: your first glance at the person you plan to be with forever, your smile as you’re finally wed, and your initial step onto that dance floor. But how much do you really know about how they work—and why they’re so expensive?

1. THEY WISH YOU’D ASK FOR THEIR HELP.

Especially when it comes to the timeline for the big day. “I’d add in more time for photos,” says Gina Cristine, owner and photographer with Gina Cristine photography in the Chicago area. Many times, the bride and groom assume the photographers just need 15 minutes for family photos, she says. But those family photos could easily take 30 minutes, because a family member is always missing. “We need to make sure we have enough time, and that we’re not rushed and hectic,” Cristine explains.

2. THEY ALSO WISH YOU ACTUALLY ASKED ABOUT EXPERIENCE …

This sets apart the amateurs from the professionals, Eva Ho, owner and photographer for Eva Ho Photography in Chicago, says. Her perfect question: “How do you deal with XX situation?” Ho explains that since every wedding is unique, you need to find a photographer that’s perfect for you—and asking about experience will help you make that decision. It will also help you understand the reason you’re hiring a professional wedding photographer, rather than someone who just dabbles in photography, for your big day.

3. … AND ABOUT THEIR STYLE.

Jason Brown, owner and photographer of J. Brown Photography in Chicago, says couples always ask about his price and his availability. But he loves it when the conversation turns to his overall style and approach, and they get to know him as an artist. “Then we can understand if we’re a good match,” Brown says. “Not a lot of clients go there, and I wish more clients would ask me about my approach.”

4. FEEL FREE TO ASK WHY THEY CHARGE AS MUCH AS THEY DO.

Sure, wedding photographers may charge a few thousand dollars for what seems like eight hours of work. But they also met with you countless times before the wedding. And do you realize how many times you emailed? Then there’s the editing process. Those photographers put many more hours of work into those pictures than you ever imagined. Also, that camera equipment wasn’t free (and it needs to be upgraded every couple of years). Stacy Able, an Indianapolis-based wedding photographer with Stacy Able Photography, says she loves it when couples ask why she charges so much, because it offers her the opportunity to really explain everything that goes into shooting a wedding.

5. THEY’RE WATCHING YOUR CHEMISTRY.

When the couple first sees each other at their wedding and they relax instantly, it’s a sign that they’re going to last, Cristine says. “They really enjoy the day together.”

“I shoot 20 to 30 weddings a year, and I can tell when a couple has really great chemistry,” Brown says. “It’s when they’re in sync with each other and when they’re fun-loving with each other.” Once in a while, though, there’s the bride and groom who aren’t really into each other, and don’t really hang out at the wedding. That’s a red flag—as is the couple who are worrying incessantly about everything being perfect during their wedding instead of simply relaxing and enjoying their big day, Cristine notes.

6. THEY LOVE THE PHOTO BOOTHS JUST AS MUCH AS YOU DO.

Sure, the quality of the pictures in there may not be totally amazing, but those photo booths are so much fun. And they even help the photographers do their jobs. “During the reception, we go around and take candid shots, but it’s hard for us to get a group shot because people are dancing,” Cristine says. “We like to know that the photo booths are there.”

7. HOWEVER, THEY DON’T LOVE THOSE TABLE SHOTS.

Going from table to table to interrupt your dinner and make you pose for a photo is the worst part of shooting a wedding, Ho says.

8. WHEN IT’S TIME TO POSE, LOOK AT THEM, NOT AT ANYONE ELSE.

At weddings these days, everyone is taking pictures with their phones, and it’s getting harder and harder to compete for the attention of the bride and groom. If wedding photographers don’t get those key shots, however, they’ve failed at their jobs. So look at them when they’ve got the cameras up, not at the phones.

9. ONCE THE WEDDING IS OVER, THEY AREN’T DONE.

Being a wedding photographer is a full-time job, and photographers work nearly every day of the week, writes photographer Lauren Lim on PhotographyConcentrate.com, a site dedicated to all things photography. When not actually shooting weddings, wedding photographers are editing photos, meeting with clients, creating photos, sending invoices, and marketing their business. And because it is a business, after all, they’re also dealing with the accounting end of things.

“You are now the bookkeeper, the accountant, the marketing department, the graphic designer, the customer service department, the secretary, and pretty much any other title you can think of,” Lim writes. “There’s a dangerous myth that floats around suggesting that [wedding photographers] only have to work one day of the week and they make tons of cash.”

In reality, wedding photographers work a normal five-day week, plus meetings and engagement shoots in the evenings, and weddings on weekends. They are some of the hardest working people you’ll ever meet.

10. PHOTOSHOPPING ISN’T EASY.

Many people will ask photographers to make them skinnier, taller, younger—and to add people into photos, Able says. But, she explains, “People do not realize what that entails.” Yes, she can do that. Just not for every photo.

11. FORGET TRYING TO MAKE IT LOOK LIKE IT DOES ON PINTEREST.

Pinterest is getting really annoying to wedding photographers, and they’re sick of trying to re-create what you saw there. Spoiler alert: It never looks like the perfect shot you saw on there. Chances are, that was a once-in-a-lifetime shot or a freak of nature. That photographer got lucky because their groomsman happened to be an Olympic gymnast and could be flipped upside down, or something. Not going to happen at your wedding.

12. IT’S HARD TO PAY THE BILLS.

Since weddings are seasonal—most people get married between May and September— many wedding photographers find themselves out of work from October to April, according to PhotographyConcentrate.com. “No surprise that that makes it difficult to pay the bills,” Lim writes. “You can either try to make enough in the wedding season to get yourself through the rest of the year, or find ways to keep bringing in money when the weddings stop.” That may include shooting photos for holiday cards and taking pictures for birthday parties.

13. THEY USE A BLEND OF PHOTOGRAPHY STYLES.

Wedding photography is a blend of different types of photography—often used all at the same event. “We’re a blend of a product photographer, a documentary photographer, and fashion photographer,” Brown says. Able agrees, saying she might use landscape photography, portrait photography, and even macro photography to capture a wedding.

14. STAYING FOCUSED IS KEY.

Wedding photographers have to stay mentally and creatively sharp for a really long time, Brown says. Able notes that they also deal with a multitude of challenges, including weather that can change in an instant and drastically affect lighting. “You have to be skilled at adjusting quickly on the fly,” she notes. And, she adds, the pressure is heightened because you have limited time to capture countless moments.

15. SOMETIMES, THAT’S SCARY.

“Each wedding may have a completely different dynamic, and you do not know what you are walking into,” Able says. Sometimes, you can step into a very tense situation, and other times, the mood might be jovial revelry. You never know. “There is a certain level of stage fright as you have to be on your best game for 12 hours,” she says. “Every work day for us is someone’s biggest day of their lives.”

16. THEY DON’T LIKE COPYING OTHER PHOTOGRAPHERS.

Lori Sapio, photographer with Lori K Sapio Photography in Chicago, hates hearing the dreaded question: “Can you make my pictures look like …” That’s because she has her own style and her own touch, she says. “They usually want images they like re-created exactly,” Sapio explains. “[But] each photographer has their own style and voice and most, like myself, tend to shy away from recent trends and approach each wedding in a unique manner.”

17. WHEN IT’S OVER, STOP BUGGING THEM FOR THE PICTURES.

Ask them once, and then wait for the process to happen. Your photographer should explain the process to you, and most will take about 4 to 6 weeks, Brown says. “Trust the process,” he says. Now that he’s married himself, Brown understands how emotional you are and how excited you are to see those photos. But the photographer needs time to edit them, and if you keep bugging him, it gets annoying.

All images via iStock.

When talking about women’s suffrage in the United States, we usually focus on the efforts of first-wave feminists who worked to get women the vote from the mid-19th century until the passage of the 19th Amendment in 1920. But during colonial times and in the earliest days of the nation, a small number of women managed to vote despite circumstances stacked against them. Below, we’ve collected four very early stories about women who voted, or demanded to vote, under English and later American law, as well as one popular myth about an early female voter.

All of these stories concern women in a particular category—they weren’t married. Under the legal tradition of coverture [PDF], married women did not exist as legal persons separate from their husbands. This English common law tradition was imported into the United States along with English colonists. Under coverture, a single woman could own property and exercise legal rights, like entering into contracts and suing or being sued, but upon marriage, a woman’s legal existence disappeared into that of her husband—she became a feme covert. Her husband took control of her property and she could no longer act on her own behalf in legal matters, which included voting. So while we have scattered instances of women voting in the United States before women’s suffrage was granted, the voting women were primarily widows—married women didn’t legally exist, and young single women usually didn’t own property. (The various colonies and early states each set their own voting laws, but all required the possession of a certain amount of land, personal property of a certain value, or payment of a certain amount of taxes, though the amount of property that was required varied by jurisdiction [PDF].) States began eliminating property requirements for voting in the early 19th century.

1. MARGARET BRENT DEMANDS A “VOTE AND VOYCE.”

Margaret Brent immigrated to the colony of Maryland in 1638 with several siblings. Though the Brent family was descended from British nobility [PDF], they were Catholic and so faced persecution in Anglican England [PDF]. Taking refuge in the colony established by fellow Catholic Cecil Calvert (Lord Baltimore), Margaret Brent accumulated significant wealth and became a prominent citizen [PDF], developing a close relationship with Maryland’s governor, Leonard Calvert, the brother of Lord Baltimore. Margaret Brent never married, and thus retained complete power over her extensive property. She also became a frequent presence in colonial court, representing herself, her brothers, and family acquaintances in legal suits over 130 times.

Despite being a woman, Margaret Brent was a forceful presence in Maryland society, both economically and legally, and when her friend Governor Calvert lay dying in 1647, he appointed her the “sole Execquutrix” (sic) of his estate, instructing her to “Take all, & pay all.” But settling Calvert’s debts turned out to be quite complicated.

A Protestant ship captain named Richard Ingle had led an insurrection against Maryland’s colonial government and its Catholic leaders two years before Calvert’s death. Calvert had struggled to put down the rebellion, but eventually defeated the rebels with a group of mercenary troops, whom he had pledged to pay out of his own estate or that of his brother, Lord Baltimore, which he controlled. When Governor Calvert died, however, these troops had still not been paid, and his estate did not have enough available funds to compensate them.

Under English law, as executor, Brent could not easily sell Calvert’s land, so she found another way to get the money. Before his death, Governor Calvert had possessed power of attorney over the Maryland possessions of his brother, Lord Baltimore, who lived in England. On January 3, 1648, Brent asked the Maryland General Assembly to transfer the power of attorney to her, as Calvert’s executor—a request the General Assembly granted.

Now Margaret Brent had two options: liquidate some of Lord Baltimore’s property to pay the mercenaries, or convince the General Assembly to levy a tax on the colony. To resolve the matter quickly, she would have had to sell the property without Baltimore’s permission, which would likely have angered him. Meanwhile, holding his power of attorney gave her the chance to serve as his proxy in the General Assembly, and thus try to push through a tax. On January 21, 1648, Brent appeared before the Maryland General Assembly and appealed for the ability to vote in their council, requesting “to have vote in the howse for her selfe and voyce also … as his [Lordship’s] Attorney” [PDF]. Brent was demanding that she receive two votes: one as a landowner in her own right, and another as the legal representative of Lord Baltimore. Acting Maryland Governor Thomas Greene rejected her request, and Brent furiously protested against the Assembly’s proceeding without her.

Without an official voice in the General Assembly, Brent was unlikely to convince them to pass a tax to pay the mercenaries, and thus she decided to sell some of Lord Baltimore’s cattle and use the money to compensate the soldiers. But since Lord Baltimore lived in England and Brent needed to move fast, she made the sale without his permission—a move he angrily protested in a letter to the Maryland General Assembly. The Assembly, however, recognized that Brent had taken a necessary step to placate the grumbling mercenaries, who otherwise might have decided to obtain their compensation by plundering the countryside. The Maryland legislature defended Brent to Lord Baltimore, writing, “We do Verily Believe and in Conscience report that [your estate] was better for the Collonys safety at that time in her hands then in any mans else in the whole Province.” Lord Baltimore was not convinced, and became hostile to the Brent family.

Exasperated with Maryland’s leaders, Brent moved to Virginia with her siblings, even though that colony did not offer religious freedom for Catholics. In 1650, she wrote to Maryland’s new governor from Virginia, “[I] would not intangle my Self in Maryland because of the Ld Baltemore’s disaffections to me and the Instruccons he Sends agt us.” Gradually selling off her Maryland property, Margaret accumulated land in her new home, and by her death in 1671 she and her siblings reportedly owned almost 10,000 acres in Virginia.

2. JANE GOODENOW AND MARY LOKER MAKE THEIR VIEWS KNOWN ON GRAZING RIGHTS.

In a Massachusetts town in 1655, groups of men arguing over land use ended up empowering two women to vote—in what may be the earliest instance of women voting in the colonies.

When the town of Sudbury was established in the mid-17th century with a land grant from the Massachusetts Bay Colony, each head of household received a 4-acre house lot as well as a portion of meadow land—but the allotted portions of meadow were not equal. Sudbury’s founding committee ranked each settler in a financial hierarchy and determined the amount of land he would receive based on that ranking [PDF]. This hierarchy was self-perpetuating, because each man’s initial meadow grant would determine the amount of land he could claim each time the town divided more land among its inhabitants.

For ten years, this system worked reasonably well, but in 1649, the Massachusetts General Court (the colonial legislature) granted the town an additional 6400 acres at its western boundary. By that time, Sudbury was home to many young men who had been children when the town was founded, or who had only recently moved there. They were thus not part of the original list of meadow grantees, and pushed the older town selectmen toward an egalitarian division of the new territory. The conservative selectmen attempted to block this change, but after much political jockeying, the youngsters flooded a town meeting with their supporters and passed a motion awarding each townsman an “equal portion” of the new land. The town selectmen, angry at being overruled and worried about a wave of liberal changes to Sudbury, decided to use their power over the town’s common areas to reassert the primacy of the town’s established elite.

The town commons had served as unrestricted grazing area for residents’ livestock, but the town selectmen reserved the right to “size” the commons—i.e., determine how many animals each person could graze on the land—whenever they judged fit. They presented a new proposal that would allow only those who owned meadow acreage to graze livestock on the common, and would tie the number of animals allowed to the amount of meadow a person owned. The young men saw this as retaliation, so in preparation for a vote on the proposal at the next town meeting, they recruited as many supporters as possible, and the old guard did likewise. In their search for votes, each side enlisted a propertied widow.

Jane Goodenow and Mary Loker were both widows of men who received land in the original division of the meadow. As their husbands’ heirs, each had a stake in this question of sizing the commons. Jane Goodenow owned 25 acres of meadow land, and thus benefited from any policies that favored those with a large acreage. Mary Loker, on the other hand, only owned 5 acres of meadow, and she recognized that tying grazing rights to meadow acreage would disadvantage her. As landowners, both women were theoretically eligible to vote in Sudbury, where the access to the franchise depended on property, though according to custom, women did not vote. But on January 22, 1655, Goodenow and Loker packed into the Sudbury meeting house with over 50 other people to determine how the town commons would be sized.

Acting for herself and as a proxy for a (male) neighbor, Goodenow issued two votes in favor of tying grazing rights to meadow ownership, while Loker issued two votes against the measure (it’s unclear if she was also acting as a proxy) [PDF]. When the town clerks counted all the votes, they quickly realized there was a tie: 27 to 27.

Immediately, people on each side began questioning certain opponents’ right to participate in the vote, arguing that the vote of a man who owned meadow land but did not live in town should be discounted, and that another man claiming to be a proxy did not have the consent of the man he was supposedly speaking for. Interestingly, the historical record shows no evidence that the townsmen disputed the widows’ right to weigh in—perhaps because their opposing views canceled each other out.

In the end, the townspeople could not agree on how to size their common land, and had to petition the colonial legislature to decide the matter for them. The Massachusetts General Court concluded that the town could base grazing rights on property ownership, but not just meadow ownership: they had to take a person’s entire estate into account [PDF]. But even after it was resolved, the conflict over the commons had continuing effects on the town. A few months later, the old guard of town selectmen were voted out of their posts. Then, in 1657, a group of young men who were still dissatisfied with matters in Sudbury left to start their own town—which survives today as Marlborough, Massachusetts.

As far as town records show, neither Jane Goodenow nor Mary Loker ever voted again.

3. PROPERTIED SINGLE WOMEN VOTE IN EARLY NEW JERSEY.

In 1776, New Jersey rewrote its constitution upon transitioning from colony to state. The new constitution defined eligible voters as “all inhabitants” over 21 years old who owned property worth £50 and had resided in their New Jersey county for at least 12 months [PDF]. The language “all inhabitants” reflects a situation unique to New Jersey at the time: single women, both black and white, could vote, provided they satisfied the property requirement. While only five states’ early constitutions explicitly limited voting to men, New Jersey was the only state in which women actually voted (at least from 1776 to 1807, after which the first enfranchisement of women took place in what was then the Wyoming Territory in 1869). The unique extension of voting rights to women in New Jersey was likely due to the state’s large Quaker population, as the Quakers had a much more egalitarian vision of gender roles than other Christian sects at the time.

Initially, very small numbers of women participated in New Jersey elections. In Burlington County, for instance, just two women’s names appeared on poll lists in 1787, though the county had a population of 18,095 in the 1790 census. But in 1790, a law was passed regarding seven New Jersey counties that explicitly used the language “he or she,” and in 1797 a statewide law used the same phrase to reinforce women’s right to the franchise. And women first made a real mark at the ballot box that year in Essex County.

In October 1797, Essex County held an election for the New Jersey legislature. A Federalist candidate, William Crane, faced off against a Democratic-Republican, John Condict (or Condit, sources vary), for a seat in the upper house. Federalists reportedly went to great effort to bring voters to the polls, and as voting was nearing the end, while worried Crane was losing, they “had recourse to the last expedient; it was to have women vote […] They scurried around collecting them,” according to an eyewitness. The Newark, New Jersey newspaper The Centinel of Freedom reported that 75 women voted in the election—most of them seemingly for the Federalist candidate. Condict, the Democratic-Republican, ultimately won the legislative seat by just 93 votes.

The Federalist Party’s embrace of the women in Essex County was not unique: the growth of the first political parties seems to have caused a massive increase in women voting in New Jersey, as party leaders wooed the female electorate. In their history of women’s suffrage in New Jersey, Reclaiming Lost Ground, social studies professor Margaret Crocco and history teacher Neale McGoldrick estimate that as many as 10,000 women voted in New Jersey between 1790 and 1807. It’s even reported that women voted in the 1804 presidential election, after the state switched from legislative selection to a popular vote. Some newspapers and public figures celebrated women’s electoral participation and many joked about it, composing humorous poems about the “government in petticoats.” But other men were concerned women weren’t voting for the right reasons—or for the right candidates.

New Jersey elections were often close, so while women voted at a much lower rate than men, their votes still could make the difference between winning and losing. The Democratic-Republicans had, by this point, realized that white women tended to vote Federalist, as did African American men and women. After the state legislature passed a gradual slave emancipation law in 1804, the Democratic-Republicans grew worried about the growing number of free blacks, and thus Federalist-leaning black voters. Then, in early 1807, an election over the location of a new Essex County courthouse led to an explosion of fraudulent voting. One township of 350 eligible voters recorded nearly 1900 votes. Some men, reportedly, dressed in drag in order to vote more than once.

An investigation found that more votes had been cast across the county than eligible voters existed—indeed, in the town of Elizabeth, turnout was 279%— and accusations flew about illegal voting by married women, slaves, underage men, nonresidents, and people who could not meet the property requirement. The election results were thrown out and the matter received widespread press. Democratic-Republicans took this opportunity to submit a bill to the legislature altering the state’s election laws to allow only free white men to vote. Both houses passed his bill by significant margins. Beginning on November 16, 1807, only taxpaying white men could vote in New Jersey.

4. “TWO OLD WIDDOWS” VOTE IN QUEENS COUNTY, NEW YORK.

In the colony of New York, beginning in 1699, the law defined voters as “people dwelling and resident” in the colony who owned “Land or Tenem’ts” with a value of at least £40. Local sheriffs were assigned the responsibility of announcing and conducting the elections for the state General Assembly, and were given the power to verify that each voter satisfied the property requirements. While election law referred to voters as “he,” it didn’t explicitly disqualify women. Under coverture, married women, of course, could not vote, but single women and widows who owned enough property potentially could—if they had the guts to try and the local sheriff allowed it. But those women who tried to vote were few and far between, as doing so flew in the face of strong social norms.

In June 1737, the New York Gazette reported that “Two old Widdows […] were admitted to vote” in a recent election for the General Assembly held in the town of Jamaica in Queens County. A man named Adam Lawrence was then the sheriff of Queens County, and he either had no problem with these women voting or did not want to go up against two rich (and thus likely socially powerful) widows. The Gazette quipped, “It is said, these two old Ladies will be chosen Constables for the next year.” Unfortunately, without access to poll books or other voting records, we can’t learn the identities of these gutsy women—or discover whether they voted on more than this one occasion.

5. AN EARLY VOTING MYTH: LYDIA CHAPIN TAFT

Lydia Chapin Taft is often cited as the first woman to vote in what would become the United States. In 2004, the Massachusetts state legislature even dedicated a highway “in recognition of Mrs. Taft’s unique role in American history as America’s first woman voter.” Unfortunately, available evidence suggests that the story of Taft’s voting in a town meeting in Uxbridge, Massachusetts in 1756 is simply a myth.

Born in Mendon, Massachusetts in 1711 (Julian calendar), Lydia Chapin married Josiah Taft in 1731, and the couple took up residence in the nearby town of Uxbridge. Given a swath of farmland by his father, Josiah Taft became a wealthy man who was prominent in local politics and also served as Uxbridge’s representative to the Massachusetts General Court. He died in September 1756, leaving his land to his wife, who was also named the executor of his estate. That year, the colonies were embroiled in the French and Indian War, and—legend has it—the town of Uxbridge held a vote on October 30, 1756 to appropriate funds for the war effort. Josiah Taft had been one of the largest landowners in the town, and since his widow was the legal representative of his estate, the town selectman allowed her to vote on whether to tax the local citizens to pay for the war. Lydia Taft voted in favor of the tax—casting the tie-breaking vote, per historical legend.

But according to records from Uxbridge’s town meetings, there wasn’t any meeting on October 30, 1756, and the town did not appropriate any funds that year for the war or for unspecified colonial purposes. (They did vote to raise money for the local schools, to repair the roads, and to pay the town minister’s salary.) Further, even if Lydia Taft had voted, we’d have no way of knowing, since the official minutes for the town meetings do not list the names of people voting or their votes. The minutes simply state when a vote happened and that a given measure passed or failed.

The myth about Lydia Taft seems to have first arisen in the 19th century. In 1864, a man named Henry Chapin gave a speech about his family history during which he told the tale of the “widow Josiah Taft,” who supposedly voted in a town meeting after her husband’s death. Henry Chapin stated that Lydia voted because “The estate of Josiah Taft paid the largest tax in Uxbridge, and his son Bezaleel was a minor,” so it went against the town’s “sturdy sense of justice” to have “taxation without representation.” While Henry Chapin is correct that Bezaleel Taft was a child in 1756, Lydia and Josiah had two other sons who were older: Josiah Jr., who would have been 23, and Asahel, who would have been 16. Josiah Jr. had gotten married in Uxbridge in 1755, where he and his wife owned property; he died in the town in 1761. Unless he was away fighting in the war, we’ve no reason to believe Josiah Jr. wouldn’t have been in Uxbridge in the fall of 1756, able to vote on behalf of his father’s estate, and we haven’t been able to find his name on any colonial muster rolls.

Sometimes it’s reported that Lydia Taft voted three times in town meetings, but that claim seems to have appeared in the 20th century, and looks to be based on times her name appears in town meeting records—for any reason—rather than on times the record says she voted. Available historical documents make no mention of Lydia Chapin Taft voting, to support the French and Indian War or for any other purpose.

Additional sources:

“Democracy and Politics in Colonial New York,” New York History, 1959; “Election Procedures and Practices in Colonial New York,” New York History, 1960; “‘The Petticoat Electors’: Women’s Suffrage in New Jersey, 1776-1807,” Journal of the Early Republic, 1992; The Centinel of Freedom, Oct. 18, 1797.

Although Japan’s cuisine is complex and diverse, for most Americans, Japanese food is synonymous with sushi. There are nearly 4000 sushi restaurants across the United States today, grossing over $2 billion annually. But 50 years ago, most Americans had never heard of sushi; if they ate Japanese food at all, it was more likely to be sukiyaki (beef and vegetables cooked hot-pot style in a soy-based broth) or tempura. If fact, many Americans would have thought the idea of consuming raw fish appalling. It took a smash-hit TV show and a boom in immigration from Japan to turn sushi into an everyday “American” food.

In the 1950s many Americans were somewhat resistant to Japanese food and culture, in part because they had lived through World War II and still perceived Japan as “the enemy.” But by the 1960s, the tide had started to turn: Food journalist and restaurant critic Craig Claiborne, writing for The New York Times dining section during that decade, was excited by international dining and kept tabs on the city’s numerous Japanese restaurants. He declared Japanese food a trend in New York after two establishments opened in 1963, noting that “New Yorkers seem to take to the raw fish dishes, sashimi and sushi, with almost the same enthusiasm they display for tempura and sukiyaki.” However, he admitted, “sushi may seem a trifle too ‘far out’ for many American palates” [PDF].

According to The Story of Sushi: An Unlikely Saga of Raw Fish and Rice by Trevor Corson, Los Angeles was the first American home of authentic Japanese sushi. In 1966, a Japanese businessman named Noritoshi Kanai brought a sushi chef and his wife from Japan, and opened a nigiri sushi bar with them inside a Japanese restaurant known as Kawafuku in LA’s Little Tokyo. The restaurant was popular, but only with Japanese immigrants, not with American clientele. However, as more sushi spots opened in Little Tokyo, word got back to Japan that there was money to be made in America. Young chefs, tired of the rigorous and restrictive traditional culture of sushi making in Japan, struck out on their own in LA.

The first sushi bar outside of the Little Tokyo neighborhood popped up in 1970, next to the 20th Century Fox studio. Named Osho, it began attracting a fashionable, celebrity clientele—including Yul Brynner, a lunchtime regular. As Hollywood began to embrace sushi throughout the 1970s, the food also got a boost as Americans were encouraged to eat more fish for better health. According to Corson, “In 1977, the U.S. Senate issued a report called Dietary Goals for the United States, that blamed fatty, high-cholesterol foods for the increasing incidence of disease. The report recommended greater consumption of fish and grains. Around the same time, health experts also began to promote the benefits of omega-3 fatty acids, abundant in fish. Many Americans discovered sushi as a healthful alternative.”

And then came Shōgun, an epic television event that would change America’s cultural relationship with Japan. Based on James Clavell’s 1975 novel, Shōgun is a work of historical fiction depicting the story of a British sailor’s rise as a political player in 17th century Japan. The Shōgun miniseries, which aired over five evenings in mid-September 1980, was a smash hit—watched by more than 30 percent of American households and earning three Golden Globes and three Emmys. The show was also notable because it was filmed entirely in Japan and all the Japanese roles were actually played by Japanese actors. (Previously in American films and television, Asian roles were often played by American actors in yellowface—think Mickey Rooney in Breakfast at Tiffany’s.) Shōgun depicted Japanese dress, culture, and food with a level of authenticity that was previously unparalleled on the American screen. A surprising amount of academic research has since been done of Shōgun and its cultural influence, and the series was required viewing in many high school history curriculums throughout the 1980s. Corson credits the show with sparking “a nationwide interest in all things Japanese, including sushi.”

The launch of the Shōgun series coincided with an economic boom in Japan that brought many Japanese businesses to the United States in the late ’70’s and early ’80s. This, in turn, encouraged a new wave of Japanese immigration. The combination of gastronomically homesick Japanese and Americans enraptured by Japanese culture created a wave of interest in Japanese food, particularly sushi.

In 1984, what is probably the oldest continually operating sushi restaurant in New York, Hasaki, opened. The eatery was founded on East 9th Street in the Little Tokyo section of the East Village by a Japanese immigrant named Bon Yagi, who wanted to avoid the unfocused, pan-Japanese restaurants that had been more common in America’s past. Hasaki was the result of the boom in Japanese immigration—it provided a comforting dose of home for expats. But it survived and thrived because of the growing American interest in Japanese cuisine.

Yagi capitalized on Hasaki’s success by opening over a dozen other restaurants within a few blocks, all focusing on Japanese specialties—including a soba noodle restaurant with soy-soaked dashi broths, a ramen joint, a casual curry place, and a small shop for takoyaki fried octopus balls, among others. His restaurants became the heart of the Little Tokyo neighborhood, which still attracts Japanese immigrants as well as curious Americans with roots in other cultures.

Outside of New York, it can be hard to find the varied Japanese specialties Yagi has brought to the East Village—but it’s very easy to find a sushi restaurant. Sushi has become as ubiquitous in America as Chinese take-out, and has experienced much of the same transformative evolution as Chinese-American food. It’s changed as a result of being made by Americans without Japanese heritage, and also while its creators focused on local, American ingredients.

Corson credits the invention of the California roll with making sushi accessible to Americans. The roll evolved in Los Angeles in the 1960s, and used local avocados paired with crab meat to replace hard-to-find fresh, fatty tuna. But its real innovation came many years later, when a chef decided to make the roll “inside out”—with the seaweed hidden in the middle. (The first genius to make an inside-out roll is unknown.) The California roll used ingredients familiar to Americans and hid the seaweed, which was seen as foreign and challenging.

Another classic example, the spicy tuna roll, was invented in Los Angeles in the early 1980s by mixing tuna scraps with chili sauce and rolling the result with seaweed and rice. Today, the tuna roll is usually sauced with sriracha, which is produced in the nearby suburb of Irwindale, California. The result is a mix of Japanese and “American” flavors.

In the past half-century, it’s not just Americans who have become fascinated with Japanese culture; the feeling is often mutual. As a result, American-style sushi has begun to make its way back to Japan. According to an article in The Asia-Pacific Journal, “The sushi that is served in these new-wave American sushi restaurants (mostly roll sushi with ingredients other than raw fish) is both similar to, and distinctively different from most sushi available in Japan.” In one restaurant in Tokyo, Genji Sushi New York, the signage and menu are partly in English and they serve California rolls; Philadelphia rolls with salmon, cream cheese, and cucumber; and Rainbow rolls, a variation on a California roll that is wrapped in multicolored sashimi. All are American creations. The Journal explains the Japanese consumption of these hybrid-sushi rolls is both playful and ironic, and seen as something cool and hip.

Today, meeting friends for sushi is almost as American as going out for a beer and a pizza. It’s proof positive that when we leave our hearts—and plates—open to other cultures, good things often come of it.

Films such as Apollo 13, Armageddon, and The Martian depict NASA’s Mission Control Center as a place of high stress and nail-biting suspense. But what’s it really like to work there? We got the inside scoop from several current or former flight controllers at the Johnson Space Center’s (JSC) Mission Control Center in Houston, Texas—NASA’s primary Mission Control Center for human spaceflight. (You might know it by its radio call sign “Houston.”) There, flight controllers are responsible for ensuring the safety of astronauts and spacecraft, monitoring the International Space Station (ISS), and providing constant operational support from the ground.

1. “FLIGHT CONTROLLER” IS A GENERAL TERM.

There are a variety of roles that are essential to making Mission Control run smoothly, and “flight controller” is an umbrella term that encompasses many of them. For each mission, a group of engineers, scientists, managers, technicians, biomedical engineers, quality control inspectors, and designers all work together to ensure the safety of astronauts and spacecraft. According to Ben Honey, a NASA ADCO (Attitude Determination and Control Officer) flight controller, team sizes vary from a skeleton crew—the minimum is six people—to more than a dozen individuals.

“A busy day (say, a vehicle docking or spacewalk) could have a full team of at least a dozen people in the front room and many more in support rooms,” Honey tells mental_floss. A skeleton crew, meanwhile, consists of six roles: Flight Director, Ground Control, ETHOS (Environmental Control Systems), SPARTAN (Power Systems), ADCO (Navigation Systems), and CRONUS (Data and Communications Systems), Honey says. But no matter how many people work in Mission Control at any given time, the ultimate responsibility is in the hands of the flight director, who manages the team of flight controllers.

2. THEY’RE YOUNG.

According to NASA Vehicle Systems Engineer Holly Griffith, who worked as a flight controller for the Space Shuttle Electrical Power System at the Johnson Space Center from 2004 until 2012, people are often surprised to learn how young most flight controllers are. “I was 25 when I started, and the majority of my colleagues were similar ages,” she tells mental_floss. Even during Apollo 11—the 1969 NASA mission that landed the first two humans on the moon—the average age in the control room was just 28 years old.

That youth can be a big asset when it comes to working the long hours required of the job. As Griffith points out, young flight controllers who lack the added responsibilities of marriage and children are often more willing (and able) to work nights, weekends, and holidays. (It’s not so much that NASA specifically recruits young people for the job, interviewees say, as that young people are more likely to apply.)

3. GETTING THEIR JOB IS NO EASY FEAT.

Flight controllers at NASA come from a variety of educational backgrounds, but most earn degrees in STEM fields (science, technology, engineering, or mathematics). Some flight controllers earn additional degrees in business or communications, which may help prepare them for the job’s high level of cooperation and demanding team management responsibilities. After completing their education, grads who want to work in Mission Control may apply to a NASA internship or work for a NASA contractor that provides personnel to NASA.

Once they get their foot in the door at NASA, aspiring flight controllers must complete up to a year of rigorous training. Depending on the team they want to join, most new hires take classes, get tested on what they’ve learned, and take part in simulations that help them practice how they would respond to surprises such as malfunctioning equipment, a debris strike, depressurization, or a fire. They’re also observed by supervisors while they learn to carry out tasks. The end result of the training process is certification, which is highly individualized depending on which role a flight controller is aiming toward. Once certified, the flight controller is responsible for carrying out their job duties without a supervisor watching over them.

4. COMMUNICATION SKILLS CAN MAKE OR BREAK THEM.

Forget the stereotype of a nerdy scientist who doesn’t speak or interact well with others. While flight controllers are first and foremost engineers, responsible for applying an enormous amount of technical knowledge, good communication skills are equally important.

“For a job in engineering, communication was just as much a part of the job as technical knowledge,” Griffith explains. “We were set up in the room by our systems, and if something in the power system fails that cuts power to a fan in the environmental system, I may need to be able to explain higher-up electrical concepts to the environmental person and they will need to tell me why it’s important that we get the fan back ASAP.” The ability to communicate accurately and succinctly with colleagues, especially under pressure if a major failure occurs, is vital. “Much of our training is spent on good communication and our communication skills are a huge part of our feedback and could even fail you in the certification flow if not good enough,” Griffith says.

5. THEY SPEND A LOT OF TIME DOING PAPERWORK.

“Much of a flight controller’s job is paperwork and the integration and coordination that go along with that paperwork,” NASA flight controller Robert Frost writes on Quora. When Space Shuttle missions were still running (the Shuttle retired in 2011), that paperwork could start years before a mission. Even today, tiny changes in the technology or software used aboard the ISS can involve multiple international stakeholders, all of whom need to be kept informed via paperwork.

Once a mission begins, flight controllers are also “sitting console”—being perched at a large desk with multiple monitors receiving data from equipment in space. Their job is to continuously monitor that data, and make sure each piece of equipment is working as it should be. That way, Mission Control on the ground stays connected to what’s going on up above.

Even then, “we’re always doing paperwork—we’re constantly keeping a log,” Griffith says. “We have a Word template that logs MET (Mission Elapsed Time) and GMT of every call/action from/to the crew, other flight controllers, the Flight Director, etc. We log everything and the other team reads this during handovers.”

6. THEY DON’T GET MUCH VITAMIN D.

Because the ISS is a 24/7/365 operation, Mission Controllers are used to working in a dark room, seeing only the artificial light emitted by their monitors. “Most of us have engineering degrees so are already used to working nights during college or in labs doing research, so this part [of the job] doesn’t really take much adjustment,” Honey says.

But while they might miss seeing sunlight stream through the windows, Mission Controllers do have ways to get some Vitamin D. “We don’t have to sit inside Mission Control for our nine hour shift without leaving,” explains Honey. “On most shifts (but not all), there are times we can take a break, and I will often go for a short walk outside to get some sun if it is a day shift.”

7. BAD WEATHER IS ONE OF THEIR BIGGEST CHALLENGES.

If a hurricane or other natural disaster strikes Houston and shuts down power to Mission Control, NASA has a backup control center at the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. According to ISS flight controller Pat Patterson, who works at Marshall but is part of the Mission Control team in Houston, one of their greatest challenges is dealing with weather. “Since our control room operates around the clock, 365 days a year, and we are in Alabama, even snow and ice can result in issues getting to and from work,” he reveals in a Reddit AMA. “When hurricanes shut down Mission Control at JSC in Houston, key flight controllers came here to use a backup control room.” And if that backup center in Huntsville loses power or undergoes major maintenance, flight controllers have yet another backup location in Huntsville they can head to. “It’s small and only has enough space for a bare-bones team, but it works,” Mason Hall, another ISS flight controller, writes on Reddit.

8. COFFEE AND SNACKS KEEP THEM GOING.

With limited breaks and long shifts, people who work in Mission Control turn to caffeine and snacks to help them stay alert. “As with any 24/7 ops facility, food and coffee are a big part of what keeps us going,” Honey says. “People often bring in lots of goodies for big events. Sometimes we will have a special cake for a crew’s undocking day, for example. But we also just like to stock snacks at the consoles to get us through the night shifts.”

9. THEY’RE INTIMATELY ACQUAINTED WITH ACRONYMS.

To work in MCC at NASA, you’ve got to be good with acronyms. Flight controllers speak (and think) in abbreviations, such as FDO (Flight Dynamics Officer), EECOM (Electrical, Environmental, and Consumables Manager), PDRS (Payload Deploy Retrieval System), and MMACS (Maintenance, Mechanical, Arm, and Crew Systems). Flight controllers even have acronyms on their consoles, which describe the function they’re associated with (and sometimes the call signs by which they’re known).

Do all the acronyms ever confuse laypeople? As Hall says: “I have a friend who misreads my ‘ISS’ tweets as ‘ISIS’ every now and then, and it makes me laugh!”

10. GENDER IS LESS OF AN ISSUE THAN IT ONCE WAS.

All flight controllers at NASA were male until 1972, and all flight directors were male until 1991. But today NASA makes an effort to be diverse. According to Griffith, who has had four female managers, gender was fairly mixed during her time at mission control. “I feel like I’ve been so lucky at NASA—at one point our group was 50/50 men/women.”

“Could we be doing better?” she asks. “Yes, but that brings up another question—overall fewer women tend to go into things like mechanical engineering (in the U.S.). When I graduated women were 20% of engineering grads … that number isn’t much different now.”

11. THEY HAVE MIXED FEELINGS ABOUT THE MOVIES THAT DEPICT THEM.

Mission Controllers are divided about movies that depict them and their colleagues, arguing that some films are accurate in their portrayals while others are laughably inaccurate. “Honestly it depends. The Martian was fantastic and Andy Weir did an amazing job researching before he wrote the book. Apollo 13 was also great,” Griffith says.

Her take on Armageddon? “Nah. I mean I liked the film but if what you’re going for is realism I wouldn’t pick that one,” she says.

12. THEY HAVE THEIR OWN CREED.

Given the huge responsibilities they shoulder, flight controllers take their job seriously. So seriously, in fact, that they have their own creed, which is posted in Mission Control. Besides pledging to strive for discipline, teamwork, and toughness, the flight controller’s creed acknowledges the privilege (and burden) of holding people’s lives in their hands; they pledge “To always be aware that suddenly and unexpectedly we may find ourselves in a role where our performance has ultimate consequences.”

13. THEY MARVEL AT HOW INCREDIBLE THEIR JOB IS.

Working for NASA is a normal job with coworkers, bosses, and a paycheck, but the surreal nature of supporting space missions does hit flight controllers from time to time. Besides helping to advance our understanding of science, technology, and space exploration, flight controllers have the privilege of communicating with humans who live and work approximately 250 miles above the surface of Earth.

“Sometimes, it’s really crazy to think about what we actually do for a living,” Hall writes. “Sometimes we go outside and watch the ISS fly over at dusk. We see it soar across the evening sky like a really bright star, and then we can go inside our control center and watch live video from inside that bright point of light and see the astronauts floating around and performing science experiments. It really blows your mind!”

LoDo. RiNo. Like many cities, Denver, Colorado has its fair share of neighborhood names that have been made up for business and gentrification purposes. But several of the city’s neighborhoods have much deeper histories—and connections to the city’s long-ago status as a mining boom metropolis. Here are the stories behind eight of Denver’s most notable neighborhood names.

1. AURARIA

You might think that Auraria got its name from the school that’s in its midst, the Auraria Higher Education Center, but you’d be wrong. Auraria is older than Denver itself. The neighborhood was originally a mining town named after the founders’ hometown of Auraria, Georgia, itself named after the Latin word for gold, aurum. The town was founded in 1858 after gold was found in Cherry Creek, but a competing boom town, Denver, was founded just weeks later. Denver survived, and Auraria was incorporated into it in 1860, after which it became more commonly known as West Denver. It’s been a part of the city ever since.

2. BELCARO

At first, Belcaro wasn’t a neighborhood, it was a mansion owned by Colorado Senator Lawrence Phipps (the name broadly means beautiful dear one in Italian). Weirdly, the 33,000-square-foot mansion was commissioned during the Great Depression as a way of creating jobs. The mansion became an icon and sparked a neighborhood name—it even has a variety of broccoli rabe named after it.

3. BAKER

Baker isn’t named after the people who founded it. It’s the land originally homesteaded by Elizabeth and William Byers, who settled there in the 1850s. However, the general area had several names, such as “Broadway Terrace,” until the 1970s, when the City of Denver named it after Baker Junior High. In turn, the school was named after James Hutchins Baker, a famous Denver educator who never lived in the neighborhood.

4. FIVE POINTS

Back in the day, Five Points marked the start of Denver’s suburbs. It got its name for the spot where the original Denver ended and the suburbs began—a place where Denver’s diagonal grid meets Washington Street, 26th Avenue, Welton Street, and 27th Street. (The roads still get slightly wonky at that convergence.) The name was first popularized by the Stout Street Herdic Coach Company, a horse-powered bus company that used the name as one of its destinations. However, the designation apparently incensed Denverites who worried that its similarity to an infamous New York neighborhood would make visitors think it was a slum. Five Points went on to become a historically black neighborhood known as “The Harlem of the West” and remains one of the city’s oldest neighborhoods.

5. CAPITOL HILL

Capitol Hill is even older than Five Points, but it wasn’t always known for the golden state capitol dome that now graces its titular hill. In fact, it was also called “Quality Hill” because of the large number of mining millionaires who chose to make their homes there. Though the neighborhood is now known for its hustle and bustle, it used to be tightly controlled by its rich residents, who fought for its tidiness and exclusivity.

6. CHERRY CREEK

Named after the creek that runs through Denver, much of Cherry Creek was once its own town called Harman (sometimes misspelled as Harmon). Named after Edwin P. Harman, a Southern landowner who owned much of the original area, the town was apparently formed “because irrigation for crops and trees was needed for protection against tramps, bums, bummers, and the liquor traffic.” The town lasted for fewer than ten years and was annexed into Denver in 1895.

7. GLOBEVILLE

Like its namesake globe, Globeville was once international in flavor. It was named after the Globe Smelting and Refining Company, which attracted a wide variety of European workers to the area. By the 1920s the area had residents of more than 50 nationalities, according to the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment. Too bad all the smelting there left a Superfund site behind.

8. HIGHLANDS

The Highlands neighborhood (also called Highland) got its name because it was on higher ground than the Platte River. It was originally its own town, called Highlands, which consisted of several smaller neighborhoods—more than 35 at one point. Highlands was only annexed to Denver in 1896, three years after the Silver Panic caused a citywide depression. The town prided itself on its clean air and water far above the city’s coal mining operations, and was home to a number of sanatoriums.

The world loves the nostalgia of a good time capsule story, but things don’t always go according to plan. In the case of Tulsa, Oklahoma, one time capsule that was supposed to yield buried treasure turned out to be a disappointment 50 years in the making.

The year was 1957, and the city of Tulsa was celebrating the state’s 50th anniversary with a competition. The prize was a brand-new Plymouth Belvedere with only four miles on the odometer. But like any big PR stunt, there was a catch: They wouldn’t announce the winner for five decades.

The car, which became affectionately known as Miss Belvedere, was designed to act as a time capsule filled with trinkets, photographs, and even a case of Schlitz beer. Why that car specifically? According to the chairman of the ’57 Tulsarama Golden Jubilee Week festivities, the Plymouth Belvedere was “an advanced product of American industrial ingenuity with the kind of lasting appeal that will still be in style 50 years from now.”

To win Miss Belvedere, the residents of Tulsa had to guess what the population of their city would be in 2007—the year of the state’s centennial. More than 800 people entered the competition, with their estimates written on postcards and placed, along with various other pieces of Tulsa memorabilia, in a sealed steel drum that would be buried behind the car. Meanwhile, buried inside the car were the original keys to Miss Belvedere, a microfilm copy of all the competition entries, and the contents of a woman’s purse—complete with bobby pins, cigarettes, tranquilizers, and an unpaid parking ticket.

A huge reinforced concrete vault was built beneath the pavement outside the Tulsa County Courthouse, and on June 15, 1957, it was sealed shut with Miss Belvedere waiting patiently inside.

As 2007 drew closer, local residents began preparations for the unveiling. A website called BuriedCar.com featured discussions and pictures of the car alongside information on where to stay if you were coming into town for the event. Needless to say, if you were a Tulsa resident, it was hard to escape talk of Miss Belvedere’s imminent reemergence.

Local news stations also helped recapture public interest in the car by interviewing people who were there in 1957. Former Tulsa Channel 2 news director Forrest Brokaw, who’d been working at the station back then, declared that “whoever gets the car is going to have a pristine automobile, 50 years old, highly classic and worth a lot more than the $2000 that cars were worth then.”

He may have been a little too confident.

When the vault was reopened on June 14, 2007, the workers were met with a heartbreaking sight: Miss Belvedere was sitting almost completely submerged in water. It seems that for all their nuclear-age optimism and forward planning, the people of 1957 Tulsa neglected to consider the horrors of stagnant groundwater, and they hadn’t made the vault waterproof. To be fair, Miss Belvedere was draped in a plastic sheet, but that proved to be of little use after being submerged in water for years.

As Miss Belvedere was raised from her watery grave, the crowd’s optimism turned to resignation. The Plymouth was loaded onto the back of a truck and driven to the nearby convention center for her official unveiling, where celebration mixed with melancholy as the 9000 Tulsa residents in attendance mourned the bucket of rust they’d been waiting 50 years to dig up.

The full extent of the damage was immediately obvious: every inch of Miss Belvedere was covered in rust. The rear suspension springs were so thoroughly rusted that the car sat low in the back as it struggled to support its own weight. The interior was now a haze of indistinguishable sludge, and the few items put in the glovebox (the microfilm, the purse contents, and the keys) were almost all completely destroyed. Whatever survived was barely recognizable. Miraculously, you could still almost make out signatures on the wheels where locals had signed their names in 1957.

It wasn’t all doom and gloom, though. The steel capsule buried with the car had perfectly preserved its contents, which now emerged as pristine pieces of Americana. The most vital items to have survived among the 10 gallons of leaded gasoline, five quarts of oil, 48-star American flag, and other items from Tusla’s past were the 821 postcard entries that would determine the rightful owner of the hunk of historic junk as well as the $100 savings account (which, with 50 years of interest, was now worth $700).

The entries were examined. They included guesses from people born as far back as 1888 and estimates of the population anywhere “from zero to north of 2 billion.” The winner was the lucky Raymond Humbertson, who guessed 384,743, just a few thousand over Tulsa’s actual population on June1, 2007—382,457. (Tulsa’s 1957 population had been around 250,000.)

One problem: Raymond had been dead for 28 years. As per the rules of the competition, Miss Belvedere would go to Raymond’s closest relative—his wife. Unfortunately, she’d been dead for 19 years. The couple didn’t have any children, so Raymond’s sisters, 95-year-old Catherine Johnson and 86-year-old Levada Carney, were left with the honor of dealing with Miss Belvedere.

Thankfully for them, Dwight Foster of New Jersey-based rust removal company Ultra One turned out to be their knight in shining (or at least de-rusted) armor. He had the car shipped to New Jersey with the promise of a partial restoration. In an interview with The New York Times, Foster admitted it was hardly an altruistic act: “This was a promotion stunt for me,” he said. “It’s the most famous rust bucket in the world.”

Foster’s goal, he said, was just to make the car presentable—making it drivable was out of the question. After two years and an estimated $20,000, Miss Belvedere was far from pristine, but the results were still astounding. For the first time in over 50 years, Miss Belvedere’s original paintwork was visible, albeit still pockmarked with spots of rust. The remarkable restoration turned Miss Belvedere into something that once again actually resembled a car, as opposed to a car-shaped hunk of rust.

With the partial restoration complete, it was time to find a home for Miss Belvedere. Foster set his sights on the Smithsonian, which rejected the idea due to the car’s condition. Miss Belvedere sat in limbo until 2015, when the Historic Auto Attractions Museum in Roscoe, Illinois added the car to its collection.

It seems that Tulsa can’t get enough of putting vehicles in time capsules. In 1998 they buried a Plymouth Prowler in an above-ground pressurized vault (presumably they learned their lesson about underground chambers). The vault is due to be opened in 2048. In 2007, just five months after the unveiling of Miss Belvedere, they interred a Harley-Davidson motorcycle, to be unearthed in 2057.

A little further afield in Seward, Nebraska, sits the “World’s Largest Time Capsule,” which was buried in 1975 and contains 5000 items, including a then-brand-new Chevy Vega—and allegedly a second car that nobody can really remember. We only have to wait ’til 2025 to see what’s inside that one.

If, after an exhausting day of parenting, you’ve ever wondered how people in decades past managed to juggle their jobs, housework, and crying children without things like iPads, microwave ovens, or Amazon Prime, well … it turns out they had a few childcare shortcuts of their own. Here are some of the stranger tricks of the parenting trade that people once used when their kids were acting up. (Or just when they needed to get things done.)

1. BABY CAGES

Invented in the 1920s for the purpose of “airing your baby” in order to “renew and purify the blood,” baby cages came into vogue in 1930s London among apartment-dwelling parents who didn’t have a yard for their kids to play in. The contraption was literally a cage made of wire with a flat base attached to the outside of a window, like an air conditioner or a flower box. Purified blood aside, they may have also caught on when people realized that you could just put your kid in there and go about the rest of your day—all in the name of good parenting.

2. MORPHINE-LACED SYRUP

 
Mrs. Winslow’s Soothing Syrup was a favorite babysitter of Victorian mothers, possibly because its primary ingredients were morphine and alcohol. Turns out, if you want your kids to be quiet, morphine works really well. That said, it’s a little unfair to only call out Mrs. Winslow here, because opium was also the secret ingredient in at least 100 other over-the-counter syrups, tonics, and medications of the era, some of which were sold as late as the 1930s.

3. CHILD SAFETY HARNESSES

 
In case you’re not familiar, this is just a harness and leash for your child, like the kind you’d use to walk a dog. Child harnesses saw their heyday in the 1980s, but they go back a lot earlier than many people realize: Although the original patent was filed in 1920, the future Louis XV of France is depicted wearing one in an early 18th-century painting. They’re still used today too, of course, although overall parents try harder to avoid the impression they’re treating their children like pets.

4. COCAINE

 
Like opium, cocaine was used in hundreds of pharmaceutical products in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and it certainly wasn’t confined to adult use. Cocaine toothache drops were aimed at parents, particularly for use with teething babies, and the package included instructions on dosages for kids. Even coca wine (the wine-cocaine beverage popular in the 1800s) was sometimes marketed specifically at children.

5. MUSTARD NIPPLES

In some areas of medieval Europe, when faced with the task of weaning a reluctant child from its mother’s (or wet nurse’s) breast, doctors sometimes advised women to apply mustard to their nipples, for the same reason that nasty-tasting fingernail polish might deter a nail-biter. Bitter aloes—a genus of the aloe plant—was also sometimes used.

6. CAUTIONARY TALES

 
Cultures around the world have cooked up a multitude of tales meant to scare kids into behaving. In the mid-1800s, Germans had Der Struwwelpeter (or Shockheaded Peter), an illustrated children’s book wherein a girl burns herself to death after playing with matches, a boy dies of starvation when he refuses to eat his soup, and a menacing tailor cuts a kid’s thumbs off as punishment for sucking them. Meanwhile, since the 13th century, tales of the giantess Grýla have terrified Icelandic kids into behaving, lest they become her afternoon snack. In Brazil, every kiddo knows about Cuca, the anthropomorphic crocodile lady who will snatch them up if they’re not good. And just about every culture has some kind of boogeyman, including Mètminwi in Haiti (a slender giant with long, thin limbs whose name is a play on the French for “Master of Midnight”) and the namahage in Japan (a demonlike being), to name a few.

“At 22:00 precisely the windows open and the screaming begins,” says an Uppsala University webpage covering “academic traditions.”

The line is referring to a local phenomenon that’s been taking place in a specific area of the Flogsta neighborhood of Uppsala, Sweden, since at least the ’80s, and possibly as early as the ’70s. The locals call it the Flogsta Scream, and it’s pretty simple: At the same time every night, a bunch of people lean out of their windows and scream.

The Scream isn’t restricted to only students, of course—or even to Flogsta, for that matter. The Lappkärrsberget residential area near Stockholm University has a neighborhood scream as well, known as the Lappkärr Cry, while Lund University students in the Delphi neighborhood of Lund, Sweden, participate in the Delphi Roar. (Other names include the Tuesday Scream—Lappkärrsberget screams on Tuesdays only—and Elvavrålet, or “the eleven roar,” for the version in Lund, which happens at 11 p.m.) Vuvuzelas (the plastic horns often found at South African soccer games) are incorporated in some versions as well. The screams generally last between one and two minutes, but they vary on a case-by-case basis. Some can last up to 10 minutes.

The lore behind this strange tradition varies as well. Some say that—at least in the case of Flogsta—the practice was started by students in the physics department at Uppsala who needed to let off stress and angst during exam season; others say it was begun as a memorial to a student who killed himself.

It doesn’t necessarily happen every night, either. Arvid Cederholm, who lived in Flogsta in the early 2000s, told mental_floss, “I don’t remember it being every evening, but rather if someone started it, others joined in. The angst wasn’t a very pronounced part of it, I feel. It was more of a fun thing than an angsty thing.”

Experienced the Flogsta scream for the first time tonight, I’m a true Uppsala student now

— Marion is a loser (@MultiSuperM) January 28, 2017

I always forget about the flogsta scream and I’ll just be watching netflix or studying or w/e and just hear people screaming and freak out

— indy (@indyea) February 15, 2017

Back in late 2014, the Flogsta scream received a small burst of attention on the internet thanks to a Reddit thread and a subsequent post on MTV’s website. Amid the swirl, the story somehow changed from “people collectively scream out of their windows at 10 p.m. in certain areas in Sweden” to “you can scream out of your window anywhere in Sweden and people will scream back.” There was so much misinformation circulating surrounding the Flogsta scream that Snopes finally wrote a piece about it in order to set the facts straight. (They also noted that similar practices aren’t unknown on U.S. campuses.)

So just to be clear: This doesn’t happen everywhere across Sweden, only in Uppsala, Lund, or Stockholm, and only on specific university campuses. You can’t just show up in, say, downtown Gothenburg, start screaming, and expect folks to join you. You will just annoy the Swedes. Definitely don’t do this.

But if you happen to find yourself at the right Swedish university around 10 (or 11) at night and you’re feeling brave, it might be worth a shot. Maybe wait for someone else to start screaming first, though. Just in case.