Author: Bess Lovejoy

The Taj Mahal, built to commemorate a Mughal emperor’s favorite wife, isn’t the only architectural marvel with a romantic (if tragic) backstory. Throughout history, people have expressed their love with large-scale construction projects—because sometimes flowers and a box of chocolates don’t quite cut it. Here are eight monuments to love in its various forms.

1. BOLDT CASTLE // NEW YORK

Boldt Castle, located on Heart Island in Alexandria Bay, New York, is a beautiful building with a tragic story. In 1900 George Boldt, proprietor of New York City’s famous Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, commissioned a team of over 300 workers to build a 120-room castle as a gift to his wife, Louise. George’s love for his wife was so great that he spared no expense in the design, which included tunnel systems, Italian gardens, and a drawbridge.

In 1904, Louise Boldt died of “apparent heart failure” (although there are rumors of a drug overdose) and George ordered that construction stop immediately. Unable to imagine living in the meticulously planned house without the love of his life, Boldt abandoned the project. He never returned to Heart Island.

For 73 years the castle sat as an unfinished memorial to his lost love, falling into disrepair. In 1977 the Thousand Islands Bridge Authority acquired the site and opened the castle to the public, using funds earned from tours to restore the building to its intended glory.

2. MYSTERY CASTLE // ARIZONA

In the foothills of South Mountain Park in Phoenix, Arizona, sits the Mystery Castle, built in the 1930s by a man named Boyce Luther Gully. Originally from Seattle, Gully had a daughter, Mary Lou, whom he often entertained with tales of castles and dragons. He’d even promised to one day build her a castle. But when Mary Lou was 5, Gully received a diagnosis of tuberculosis, a fatal disease back then. Gully dealt with the news by setting off for Arizona without telling his daughter—or the rest of his family—where he was going.

But in 1945, when Mary Lou was 22, she received a letter from her father. He wrote from his deathbed to tell her he’d built her a castle. Despite everything, he’d kept his word: Employed part-time as a shoe salesman to afford building materials, Boyce had labored alone to build an assortment of towers and rooms out of stone, cement, car parts, and other salvaged materials. He also made frequent trips over the border to Mexico to shop for decorations.

Shortly after receiving the letter, Mary Lou and her mother relocated from Seattle to Arizona to take up residence in the amazing architectural curiosity—an 18-room multi-level stone mansion full of secret compartments stuffed with coins, jewelry, and even gold nuggets. The Mystery Castle had no electricity or running water when they moved in, so Mary Lou and her mother had to shower at a nearby gas station.

Boyce also installed a trap door that he instructed was not to be opened until 1948. When the day arrived, Mary Lou found a time capsule of sorts—complete with a picture of her father, a note he’d written to Mary Lou, two $500 bills, and a Valentine’s Day card that she’d given to him as a child.

Mary Lou lived in the Mystery Castle until her death in 2010, and often gave guided tours. Today, the castle is open for tours Thursday through Sunday.

3. DOBROYD CASTLE // ENGLAND

The couple behind Dobroyd Castle in Todmorden, England, may have been doomed from the start.

John Fielden was the son of a wealthy mill owner who fell in love with a working-class weaver named Ruth Stansfield. When he asked her to marry him, she said yes, but reportedly only on the stipulation that he build her a castle.

Most men would probably have taken the hint, but Fielden called her bluff and agreed. They married in 1857, and in 1866 Fielden hired architect John Gibson to design and built the castle. With 66 rooms, stables for 17 horses, and the monogram “JFR” carved in a dozen locations around the building, you could hardly say it was a subtle gesture of love.

However, it wasn’t exactly an enduring love. John soon decided that in order to climb the social ladder, he ought to send his wife to a finishing school in Switzerland. That evidently didn’t sit well with Ruth, since upon her return she became more and more alienated from her husband until her death in 1877. John, who had been crippled by a horse in 1873, remarried soon thereafter (this time to a lady of higher social standing) and remained in the castle until his death in 1893.

Since then, Dobroyd Castle has served as a boys’ school, a Buddhist centre, and most recently an activity center for school groups.

4. CORAL CASTLE // FLORIDA

A sign carved in stone at the entrance to Coral Castle reads “You Will Be Seeing Unusual Accomplishment.” It’s an accurate statement, but it certainly doesn’t tell you the whole story.

Edward Leedskalnin was 26 years old in 1913 and living in Riga, Latvia, when he got engaged to the love of his life, Agnes Scuffs, who was then 16. One day before their wedding, however, Agnes called the whole thing off. A heartbroken Edward spent a few years moving between Canada, California, and Texas before settling in Florida in 1918. There he decided to start building a monument to his unrequited love—something that would become a lifelong project.

He began building huge coral rock sculptures in his Florida City home, but in 1936 bought 10 acres of land in nearby Homestead and relocated the entire project himself. By 1940, he had single-handedly created an incredible structure complete with towers, fountains, ornate furniture, and sculptures. In all, it’s estimated he sculpted around 1100 tons of coral rock using only rudimentary tools and a series of pulleys and levers. The feat is particularly impressive considering he was only a little over 5 feet tall and weighed around 100 pounds—and reportedly worked only at night to maintain his privacy.

5. SWALLOW’S NEST CASTLE // CRIMEA

Like something from a gothic horror, the castle known as Swallow’s Nest looms over a cliff edge overlooking the Crimean Sea. The original building on the site was a wooden structure, constructed in 1895 and named “The Castle of Love.” But it’s unclear whether it was built for the love of a woman, love of country, or simply as a place for romantic escapades.

The Castle of Love’s second owner was A.K. Tobin, the doctor to the tsar, who gifted the castle to his wife. She sold it in 1903 and the property changed hands a few more times until 1911, when German oil man Baron von Steinhel became the owner. The homesick Baron had the wooden structure demolished and a new stone structure built in its stead. Evoking his love of the Neo-Gothic architecture of his homeland, the impressive building still hangs over the edge of the cliff today, having even survived an earthquake in 1927. Its striking aesthetic even made appearances in several Soviet films.

Since the ’70s though, it’s been operated as an Italian restaurant—surely the setting for many a romantic evening.

6. THE PETIT TRIANON // FRANCE

You may have noticed a pattern with many of these romantic structures: they rarely turn out according to plan. The Petit Trianon is no exception.

Designed in 1762 by Ange-Jacques Gabriel at the request of Louis XV, the Petit Trianon was originally built for the king’s mistress, Madame de Pompadour. Destined for Versailles park, it was meant to mirror the pre-existing Marble Trianon (subsequently renamed The Grand Trianon) building already on the estate, and was greatly influenced by the “Greek Style” then sweeping Europe.

Sadly, Madame de Pompadour died four years before the building was finished, and upon its completion in 1768 it was given to her successor, Madame du Barry. She occupied and decorated the home until Louis XV’s death in 1774.

Louis XVI then took the throne and gifted the Petit Trianon to his young wife—and arguably the most famous inhabitant of the palace—Marie-Antoinette. During the French Revolution, the Trianon became a hostel, before none other than Napoleon Bonaparte had the palace restored for his sister, Pauline.

In 1867, Empress Eugénie (wife of Napoleon III and a Marie-Antoinette fanatic) converted the Petit Trianon into a museum dedicated to the life and memory of Marie-Antoinette. It continues to serve that function to this day.

7. ASHTON MEMORIAL // ENGLAND

Known locally as the “Taj Mahal of the North,” the Ashton Memorial sits on top of a hill in Williamson Park in Lancaster, England. Local millionaire and industrialist Lord Ashton (sometimes called “the Lino King of Lancaster”) had the 150-foot structure built in memory of his second wife Jessie, who died in 1904.

Designed by Sir John Belcher and built using Portland stone with a copper dome, the memorial has been open to the public since 1909 and provides incredible panoramic views of the nearby bays. The memorial also hosts occasional art exhibitions, concerts, and, of course, weddings.

It’s perhaps worth noting that despite spending the equivalent of about $9 million in today’s money on the memorial, Lord Ashton remarried a few months before the building was opened to the public.

8. KODAI-JI TEMPLE // JAPAN

The oldest structure on this list—Kodai-Ji Temple in Kyoto, Japan—is also the only one masterminded by a woman.

Built in 1606 and officially named Kodaiji-jushozenji Temple, the ornate structure was established by Kita-no-Mandokoro in memory of her husband, Toyotomi Hideyoshi, who died in 1598. Kita-no-Mandokoro later became a priestess at the temple and assumed the name Kodaiin Kogetsuni. She stayed at the temple until her death in 1624.

The temple today consists of an ornate garden (said to have been designed by the legendary landscape artist Kobori Enshū), a main building that was rebuilt in 1912 after extensive fire damage, and the Otama-ya—a sanctuary with shrines dedicated to both Toyotomi Hideyoshi and Kita-no-Mandokoro. The temple also houses a Jinbaori (a coat worn over armor) that once belonged to Hideyoshi, woven with gold and silver thread.

The temple gardens are a nationally designated historic site and many of the items in the shrine are considered by Japan to be important cultural assets. Fittingly, both Toyotomi Hideyoshi and Kita-no-Mandokoro are also buried onsite.

In the 20th century and beyond, several research programs explored the ability of apes to communicate with human sign language, including primate celebrities such as Washoe the chimpanzee, Nim Chimpsky, and Koko the gorilla. Charles Darwin himself wondered if human language might have evolved from the musical cries of our ape-like ancestors, asking in one of his Notebooks: “Did our language commence with singing … do monkeys howl in harmony?”

But before Washoe, Nim, and Koko—and even before Darwin—the famed British explorer, ethnographer, and writer Sir Richard Francis Burton made an eccentric attempt to bridge the communications gap by starting a residential school for monkeys and trying to learn the language of their calls and cries.

Burton owed the success of many of his explorations to an extraordinary ability to learn foreign languages. During a life of military adventure and travel in the far reaches of the British Empire, he is said to have learned to speak more than 20 languages with fluency, including Turkish, Persian, Hindustani, Gujarati, Punjabi, and Pashtu. He famously staked his life on his Arabic in 1853, when he entered the Muslim holy cities of Mecca and Medina (then forbidden to Europeans) in disguise as a pilgrim on the hajj.

In the 1840s, Burton was a junior officer in the army of the British East India Company, stationed in the province of Sindh, now in Pakistan. According to his wife, Isabel (née Arundell), who published a version of his journals after his death in 1890, Burton was drawn to the chatter of the wild monkeys in the streets of the city and decided to try and learn what they were saying.

In The Life of Captain Sir Richard F. Burton [PDF], Isabel described how Burton moved into a house with a troop of monkeys and set about trying to learn their language. “He at one time got rather tired of the daily Mess, and living with men, and he thought he should like to learn the manners, customs, and habits of monkeys,” she wrote, “so he collected forty monkeys, of all kinds of ages, races, species, and he lived with them.” His goal, Isabel wrote, was “ascertaining and studying the language of monkeys, so that he used regularly to talk to them, and pronounce their sounds afterwards, till he and the monkeys at last got quite to understand each other.”

Burton also issued the monkeys with honorary titles and monkey-sized costumes that he thought suited their characters: “He had his doctor, his chaplain, his secretary, his aide-de-camp, his agent, and one tiny one, a very pretty, small, silky-looking monkey, he used to call his wife, and put pearls in her ears,” Isabel explained.

The dinner table provided opportunities for teaching etiquette: Burton presided over the meals, all served by Burton’s servants. “They all sat down on chairs at meals, and the servants waited on them, and each had its bowl and plate, with the food and drinks proper for them,” Isabel wrote. “He sat at the head of the table, and the pretty little monkey sat by him in a high baby’s chair … he had a little whip on the table, with which he used to keep them in order when they had bad manners, which did sometimes occur, as they frequently used to get jealous of the little monkey, and try to claw her.”

Burton repeated the monkeys’ sounds over and over until he believed he understood some of them. According to Isabel, Burton learned to identify up to 60 monkey “words,” which he recorded in a “monkey vocabulary.” But around 1845, he moved on from Sindh and his monkey school, on his way to what became more famous adventures: visiting the forbidden city of Harar in what is now Ethiopia; getting speared through the cheek by Somali warriors (surviving with the scars to prove it); and seeking the source of the Nile in East Africa. Although Burton had hoped to one day return to his animal language research, his journals of his time in Sindh and his monkey vocabulary were destroyed in 1861 after a fire at a London warehouse where his belongings were being stored. Sadly, many of the details of his experiments have been lost to history.

Burton’s experiments seemed fairly bizarre to his contemporaries, but they might seem less so today. More than 150 years after his efforts, scientists look to our primate relatives for clues to the origin of human language. One recent study found that macaque monkeys have all the physical organs necessary to produce human-like speech; what they lack is our brainpower. “If they had the brain, they could produce intelligible speech,” Princeton neuroscientist Asif A. Ghazanfar told The New York Times. No doubt Sir Richard Francis Burton would have been among the first to try and write it down.

Tidying up is currently trendy, but professional organizers have long promoted the benefits of getting rid of unnecessary possessions and organizing your space. Whether they’re tackling a messy car, chaotic closet, or cluttered bedroom, professional organizers help people simplify and unclutter—and no, they won’t judge you while they’re doing it. We spoke to a few professional organizers about the realities and misperceptions of the job.

1. THEY’RE NOT TRYING TO MAKE YOU GET RID OF ALL YOUR STUFF.

People often think organizers want you to pare down your possessions to as few items as possible. While some people subscribe to extreme minimalism—and challenge themselves to limit their belongings to just 100 items, for example—most organizers care more about how your stuff complements your life than how many items you have.

“Some people believe that an organizer is going to come in and make them get rid of everything,” professional organizer and productivity consultant Jennifer Lava tells mental_floss. “The truth is I just want people to be able to not be overwhelmed and to get to a level of stuff that is right for them.”

2. HOARDERS ARE THE EXCEPTION, NOT THE RULE.

According to Lava, people with hoarding tendencies make up only two to five percent of the population. “Many people seem to think all we do is work with people who have a hoarding disorder, when in fact, it is only a small part of the population,” she tells mental_floss.

Rather than wade through ceiling-high piles of old magazines and mounds of dirty clothes, most professional organizers work with non-hoarders who are simply overwhelmed by their possessions. “Americans tend to have a lot of stuff and feel like they don’t have a lot of time. But by reducing the stuff they have to what they need, use, or love, and then creating an effective system to manage these things, they spend less time dealing with their stuff and more time doing the things they want to do,” Lava explains.

3. THEY BURN A LOT OF CALORIES.

Organizing is a physically demanding job. As professional organizer Rachel Seavey of Collector Care tells mental_floss, organizers spend a good chunk of their time lifting, bending, carrying heavy items, and building cabinets or shelves. “New organizers are always exhausted when they first start out. Clients are usually tuckered out as well! It’s not easy work,” Seavey says.

Suzanne O’Donnell of My LA Organizer echoes Seavey, adding that organizers can expend a lot of calories. “I’m constantly moving during a session, and because I track my heart rate and calories burned, I know I am getting a great workout,” she says.

4. DRAWERS ARE THEIR NEMESIS.

No matter how neat your home may appear, you probably have a few messy drawers where you stash random trinkets that you’re not sure where else to put. Because drawers help people conceal messiness, organizers detest them.

To keep drawers orderly, organizers suggest that you clear out unnecessary stuff and insert drawer dividers. “Whatever tool you use to divide the drawer, put like things together in those dividers. If you need extra help getting things back in the right divider, you can label them too,” Lava suggests. That way, drawers have designated spots for specific items, and you’ll be able to quickly locate what you need.

5. THEY’RE NOT JUDGING YOU.

According to professional organizer June Bell, most people think their homes are messier than they actually are. “It’s kind of funny, but every time I enter a new client’s home or business for our first appointment, they always say, ‘Oh, my home/office must be the worst you’ve ever seen. I’m so embarrassed because it’s so messy!’” she says in a Reddit AMA. But good organizers leave their judgments at the door, so don’t feel bashful about your messy home on their account.

Bell admits that even some of her friends worry that their homes aren’t orderly enough for her to come over for a social visit. “I tell [my friends] that when I visit them, I’m there to see them. I value them for who they are, not the tidiness of their stuff.”

6. THEY STRIKE A BALANCE BETWEEN PRACTICALITY AND STYLE.

Unlike most interior designers, who focus more on aesthetics than function, professional organizers put more emphasis on their clients’ specific lifestyle needs. For example, organizers may put commonly used items in shelves that are easily accessible and stash bulkier or rarely used items out of reach.

But while function is key, organizers don’t completely ignore design. As professional organizer Jeffrey Phillip explains, making a room stylish yet also practical requires a balancing act. “I bring in my influence of blending style and efficiency, so everything has the right flow and function and sings as one cohesive space,” he tells Brit + Co.

7. THEY HAVE A VARIETY OF SPECIALITIES, SOME OF WHICH YOU MIGHT NOT EXPECT.

While some organizers are generalists who work in typical home and office spaces, others specialize in emergency preparedness, genealogy research, digital clutter, or collections and memorabilia. Some organizers also get extra training to help clients who suffer from physical disabilities, ADHD, OCD, or hoarding. Still others—who often refer to themselves as productivity consultants or time-management coaches—help people organize and manage their time more effectively. These professionals encourage their clients to avoid procrastination, plan their tasks for the next day, and take enough breaks.

8. THEY OFTEN HELP PEOPLE UNDERGOING MAJOR LIFE CHANGES.

Many people hire professional organizers during times of stress and upheaval, such as a divorce, death in the family, or move to a new residence. Even positive life changes—a child moving away for college, the arrival of a new baby, or someone losing a large amount of weight—can be stressful times that prompt people to call on a professional organizer. Good organizers are empathetic and encouraging, knowing that in some cases clients may be grappling with feelings of frustration, shame, or anxiety. As they help clients tackle an empty bedroom or redo a closet, organizers also help clients sort through their emotions and adjust to life changes.

9. CAMERAS HELP THEM DO THEIR JOB.

While organizers certainly use their keen eye for detail to assess a space and figure out how to improve it, they rely on cameras more than you might think. Cameras come in handy in a variety of organizing situations, from encouraging people to donate old stuff to making shopping trips easier. For example, organizers may encourage clients to take photos of sentimental items (and then donate them) rather than keep them in a closet. Additionally, some organizers take photos of the space they’re working on. Referring to the photos while shopping for boxes and bins helps organizers pick the right size and quantity of organizational tools.

10. THEY CAN HELP YOU SAVE MONEY.

Because of their insider knowledge and relationships with vendors, professional organizers can save you dollars on everything from junk pickup to closet shelving. They can also help you find reputable appraisers for the paintings in your attic or the coin collection in your closet. Organizers may even help you find forgotten cash. When Bell and a client were organizing files in her office, they found a forgotten bank account worth $7000!

11. THEY WISH YOU’D HOLD OFF ON BUYING STORAGE CONTAINERS.

At the beginning of a big organizing project, most people rush to a store to buy containers, bins, and dividers. While these tools are useful, organizers wish you’d wait to purchase tons of containers. Their advice: Before bringing more stuff into your home, first go over the stuff you currently have and determine what you can get rid of. Once you know how much stuff you want to keep, you can shop for the appropriate number (and size) of containers.

12. WHEN THEY BECOME CERTIFIED, THEY’RE CALLED CPOs.

Forget CPAs and CFOs. CPOs—Certified Professional Organizers—are professional organizers who have completed 1500 hours of paid work and passed the Board of Certification for Professional Organizers exam. CPOs must also renew their credential periodically by participating in continuing education courses or attending conferences. Four thousand professional organizers and CPOs belong to The National Association of Professional Organizers (NAPO), an organization that provides education, networking, and professional development opportunities to organizers across the U.S.

13. YOU PROBABLY WON’T FIND THEM WITHOUT A LABEL-MAKER.

Because electronic label-makers are lightweight, portable, affordable, and versatile, they’re a must-have tool for the majority of organizers. Label-makers also print labels quickly, making them a handy tool for labeling boxes, office supplies, and items in kitchen cupboards. Besides label-makers, organizers often travel with soft tape measures so they can easily determine the dimensions of the space in which they’re working.

14. THEY LOVE HELPING PEOPLE.

Although organizing a space gives them a sense of satisfaction, organizers ultimately love working with people and helping them achieve greater productivity and peace of mind. “I love seeing the relief on my clients’ faces at the end of a session. They are already feeling more at ease in their home or office knowing that they can find their stuff,” Lava says. Good organizers also teach people the skills and knowledge to be able to organize their stuff on their own. “There is nothing like doing something that I enjoy and comes easy to me, and sharing all the wonderful benefits with others,” Lava adds.

All photos via iStock.

San Diego is famous for its mild weather and laid-back lifestyle, but locals also know the city has a particularly complex web of neighborhoods and sub-neighborhoods. In fact, the city has so many nabes that even life-long San Diegans never discover some of them. Here’s a selection of some of the districts with names that have the most interesting origin stories.

1. BANKERS HILL

Take stroll through the stately, mansion-lined streets of Bankers Hill and you’ll get a hint about how it got its name. The hilly neighborhood, which contains some of San Diego’s most beautiful historic homes, seemed so rich that early San Diegans apparently assumed a bunch of bankers lived there, and a name was born.

2. BARRIO LOGAN

 
Barrio Logan only recently got an old-school-style neighborhood gateway sign, but it’s been a distinct neighborhood since the 1880s. The Logan part pays tribute to Congressman John Logan, an Illinois senator who became popular in the city because of legislation he wrote that was intended to create a transcontinental railroad from Texas to California. The railroad was never completed, but when the land for the planned railroad was sold for development in 1886, one of the main streets was named Logan Avenue in honor of Logan’s efforts (incidentally, Logan was also instrumental in creating Memorial Day nationwide). The neighborhood that bore his name became home to a large concentration of Mexican-Americans over the years, and “barrio” (“neighborhood” in Spanish) became a formal part of the neighborhood name in the 1960s when Logan Heights, as it was once known, was split in two by a freeway. Today, Logan Heights is the northern part of the area and Barrio Logan is the southern.

3. BIRDLAND

Blame a clever city planner for Birdland’s name: Most of the neighborhood’s streets are named after bird species, like the blue jay and starling.

4. NORMAL HEIGHTS

 
You may think the “normal” in “Normal Heights” refers to the neighborhood’s everyday feel, but the name actually comes from the teachers college, San Diego Normal School, that later became San Diego State University (even though, rather oddly, the school was actually located in a nearby neighborhood).

5. CITY HEIGHTS

The “Steiner, Klauber, Choate and Castle Addition” doesn’t have much of a ring to it, but such was the original name of what’s now known as City Heights, which was once unincorporated land purchased by developers named Klauber, Steiner, and Castle (a man named Daniel Choate helped them subdivide the land). In 1912, City Heights temporarily ceased to exist when it became its own city named East San Diego. But East San Diego didn’t last long, and in 1923 it was annexed by San Diego, with the City Heights name in use once again. The bigger neighborhood of City Heights is actually comprised of a collection of smaller neighborhoods with names like Teralta, Bay Ridge, and Fairmount Park; however, they’re all called City Heights by the City of San Diego and most residents who aren’t in the know.

6. CLAIREMONT

Thank a pair of developers for Clairemont’s name. In the late 1940s, Lou Burgener and Carlos Tavares put down money on a bunch of cattle land and decided to turn their acres into tract housing to accommodate the postwar influx of San Diegans. Tavares’s wife, future philanthropist and legendary arts patron Claire Tavares, suggested a family-friendly design for the new community, which had a “village within a city” concept, and they named it in her honor.

7. GASLAMP QUARTER

 
Today, the Gaslamp is home to some of San Diego’s most vibrant nightlife. But at the beginning of the 20th century, it was called “New Town” as opposed to “Old Town” a few miles away. The neighborhood’s thriving red-light district got the nickname “Stingaree,” a play on “stingray” (probably in reference to the rays in San Diego Bay as well as the dangers of the area), and over the years it developed a reputation for crime, prostitution, gambling, and unsavory characters. In the 1970s and 1980s, the city of San Diego decided it was time to clean up the area’s act, renamed it the Gaslamp Quarter, renovated it, and sold it as a historic district once filled with Victorian gems and flickering gas lamps. (The city also added new gas lamps to encourage the feel.) The neighborhood is now packed with shops, hotels, and pricey eateries that belie the neighborhood’s gritty roots.

8. GOLDEN HILL

Golden Hill got its name not from the rich residents whose houses once lined its streets, but from nature. The area was originally named Indian Hill, but in 1887 a developer named Daniel Schuyler successfully petitioned city trustees to rename the area with the help of a poem that celebrated the neighborhood’s “golden light.” What that golden light was, however, has been subject to debate, with the main guesses being that the sun made Indian Hill shine like gold [PDF] or that the area was once covered with gold-blooming acacias.

9. HILLCREST

 
Speaking of hills, the origin of Hillcrest’s name is pretty simple—it’s at the crest of a hill. A woman named Mary Kearney originally owned the land, but from the 1870s through the early 1900s it changed hands multiple times. The name was supposedly suggested by the sister-in-law of a developer long before the neighborhood became the LGBT center of the city.

10. KEARNY MESA

Remember Mary Kearney? She’s not the Kearny in Kearny Mesa. The community was named for a former military base—Camp Kearny—which was later renamed Miramar. And that camp was named after Stephen Watts Kearny, the U.S. Army Brigadier General who helped conquer California during the Mexican-American war.

11. KENSINGTON

 
Known for its luxurious homes, Kensington is said to have been named after a similarly ritzy London neighborhood. The neighborhood was initially called Kensington Park, but the “Park” part was dropped at some point over the years. One of the neighborhood’s subdivisions, Talmadge, has a connection to one of San Diego’s lesser-known roles—as a pre-Hollywood film center. It was named after the Talmadge sisters, a group of silent film stars who opened a real estate development there in the late 1920s (in no small part because Norma Talmadge’s then-husband, studio executive Joseph Schenck, helped finance the development).

12. LINDA VISTA

With its vistas over San Diego Bay and Mission Valley, it’s no mystery why the Spanish name for “pretty view” became Linda Vista’s name. As San Diego’s population boomed during World War II, the southern part of Kearny Mesa was named Linda Vista by housing officials and slated as a place for dense military housing—despite the fact that there were no schools, sidewalks, bus routes, shops, or other accommodations nearby. Eventually it was built out into a proper neighborhood, with a name that keeps its view top of mind.

13. LITTLE ITALY

 
Italian fishermen were once part of a thriving tuna industry along San Diego’s waterfront. The “Italian Colony” that built up in what is now Little Italy is responsible for its name, though today the neighborhood is better known for its food and festivals than its fishermen.

14. NORTH PARK

You can thank lemons—and a man named James Monroe Hartley—for North Park’s name. Hartley bought the land that is now North Park in 1893 to create a lemon grove. It was part of a parcel of land known as Park Villas, but was renamed “Hartley’s North Park” because of its new owner and its location north of Balboa Park. Eventually, San Diego grew enough that Hartley’s lemon grove became desirable home-building territory. All the better, since Hartley apparently had to truck in water due to a drought that was then hitting the area.

15. OLD TOWN

 
As its name implies, Old Town has some serious history. It’s where the first non-native settlers of California dug in, building first a Spanish mission, then Mexican pueblos, and finally an American city. However, Old Town was simply known as San Diego until an upstart developer named Alonzo Horton started a nearby settlement he called “New Town” (built on an earlier attempt at a New Town that failed dramatically). That new New Town became Downtown, and Old Town got its present-day name.

16. POINT LOMA

Speaking of old: Point Loma’s name dates from long before California was populated by Europeans. In 1542, an explorer named Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo made the first landing in California, in San Diego Bay, and named its east peninsula “la punta de la loma,” or “hill point.” It took another couple of hundred years for the area to be colonized, but the name Point Loma stuck.

17. SCRIPPS RANCH

 
Suburban Scripps Ranch doesn’t seem like the kind of place where people would undertake a utopian social experiment, but that’s what happened in 1891 when an up-and-coming newspaper mogul named Edward Willis (or Wyllis) Scripps began building his dream home. He named it “Miramar,” or “sea view,” after the one-time Mexican Emperor Maximilian I’s palace. The entire family moved in to try out communal, idealistic living. Unfortunately, Scripps’ social experiment ended [PDF] when his brother Fred was indicted for sleeping with a 14-year-old girl, but Miramar Ranch—later renamed Scripps Ranch—eventually became a popular place to live. The name would later stick and become attached to the surrounding neighborhood.

18. TIERRASANTA

Tierrasanta’s name—it means “holy land” in Spanish—is a testament to its holy roots, though the community wasn’t founded until the 1970s. Before that, it was part of the Mission San Diego de Alcála Ranch. There, thousands of indigenous people were enslaved by Franciscan friars, including Junípero Serra, the controversial mission leader who became a Catholic saint in 2015. Allegations that the mission and its ranch were the site of virtual slavery or even genocide aren’t the only explosive things in Tierrasanta: The community was once a military training base and has experienced several issues related to unexploded ordnance.

19. RAMONA

Ramona technically isn’t part of the City of San Diego—rather, it counts as one of the county’s “unincorporated places.” But it gets an honorary inclusion on this list because of the strange origin of its name. “Ramona” wasn’t a historical figure but a fictitious one, the heroine of Helen Hunt Jackson’s novel by the same name. The 1884 book follows the woes of the mixed-race Native American/Scottish Ramona as she navigates racial tension and romantic tragedy in old Southern California; the book was so popular that some have credited it with largely creating the tourism industry in Southern California.

Standing stones, stone circles, and megaliths have been discovered across the world, but scientists and historians continue to debate their purpose, construction, and meaning. Many theories have been put forward for these creations, from astronomical sites to places of ritual and worship. But perhaps even more puzzling than the meaning of their creation is how they were built with enormously heavy stones long before the creation of the wheel, let alone other modern technology. Below are seven of the world’s most mysterious stones.

1. CARNAC // MEGALITHIC STANDING STONES IN FRANCE

Around the small village of Carnac in Brittany, France, thousands of ancient menhirs (single upright monoliths) and other types of megaliths stand arranged in rows. The stones have been dated to the Middle Neolithic period (around 3000 BCE) but an exact date has yet to be proposed. There are over 3000 of them, measuring as much as 20 feet high and stretching on for a total of more than four miles. The site includes groupings of megaliths, burial mounds, and enclosures, representing an extraordinary feat of construction for Neolithic peoples. The arrangements are long thought to have served some magical or religious purpose but no one is quite sure what (one popular legend has it that when the Roman army was marching on Brittany the wizard Merlin appeared and turned them to stone). Historians studying the site have proposed that the lines of stones in fact delineate a sacred space, perhaps leading people toward an area of worship.

2. COSTA RICA // MYSTERIOUS STONE BALLS

In the 1930s, employees of the United Fruit Company were clearing the jungle of Diquis Delta in Costa Rica when they discovered a series of perfectly spherical carved stones, some just a few inches across, others up to 6 feet wide. Hundreds of the mysterious spheres have since been identified across the region, and many have been adopted as decorations for official buildings.

The exact origin and purpose of the stones is debated by archaeologists. Some excavation around the stones still in their original position hs revealed pre-Columbian pottery, linking their existence to ancient pre-conquest cultures, but so many have been moved from their original sites that analysis of their origin and pin-pointing their date of creation has become difficult. Some of the stones were discovered in seemingly astronomically significant alignments, leading some archaeologists to propose that they may have been used for astronomy or navigation.

What we know for sure is that the stones are made of hard igneous (solidified from lava or magma) rock such as granodiorite, and were shaped by humans rather than nature. Unfortunately, many of the balls have been damaged or moved by trophy hunters and so today very few remain in their original position—two have even been transported to the U.S., one at museum of the National Geographic Society in Washington, D.C. and the other at a courtyard near Harvard’s Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnography in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

3. STONEHENGE // NEOLITHIC STONE CIRCLE

Stonehenge in Salisbury, England, is one of the most iconic megalithic sites in the world. The circle of stones was built starting around 3000 years ago by Neolithic peoples, and the blue stones that make up the ancient monument have been traced to quarries in Pembrokeshire, Wales, hundreds of miles from where the circle now stands. Historians have theorized that the stones were transported the long distance on rafts down rivers and then pulled along on wooden sleighs using rollers, a process that must have involved months of hard work. The stone circle is just part of a series of ancient structures across the landscape of Salisbury Plain, with earthworks, ditches, and Bronze Age burial barrows. The site has long been a sacred space and even today pagans gather there to celebrate on the winter and summer solstices.

4. MONGOLIA & SIBERIA // DEER STONES

The deer stones are a series of over 1200 ancient standing stones scattered across Mongolia and Siberia, given their name because many of them include elaborate carvings of flying deer. The stones range in height from about 3 to 13 feet and are often grouped together, sometimes associated with ancient burial sites. Scientists believe they were erected over 3000 years ago by Bronze Age nomads. The carvings include not just deer but elk, people, and representations believed to be the sun and moon. The intricate carvings would have taken a lot of skill and so historians think the stones may have been dedicated to great warriors or chiefs, but their exact purpose can only be guessed at.

5. AVEBURY // THE WORLD’S LARGEST STONE CIRCLE

The world’s largest prehistoric stone circle is found in the quaint English village of Avebury, not far from Stonehenge. The circle originally contained some 100 stones and encircled two smaller stone rings. The stones are thought to form part of a wider ritual landscape, which was built and altered from about 2850 to 2200 BCE; archaeologists think that the circles, henges, and avenues of stones formed part of a public space for religious ceremonies, but their exact use or the nature of these ceremonies remain a mystery. In the 1930s, an excavation by archaeologist Alexander Keiller revealed a grisly secret when a skeleton was discovered crushed underneath one of the stones. The body did not belong to one of the Neolithic builders, but rather a man from the fourteenth century who was crushed to death when trying to move the pagan stones.

6. SOUTH KOREA // GOCHANG DOLMEN SITE

A huge prehistoric burial site in South Korea spread across the areas of Gochang, Hwasun, and Ganghwa contains hundreds of ancient dolmens—tombs built from large stone slabs. These Neolithic and early Bronze Age structures are made from two or more stones, topped with a large capstone, forming a marker for a burial site. The sheer number of dolmens is the most surprising aspect of this World Heritage Site, with thousands dotted across the Korean landscape—the highest concentration of dolmens in the world.

The story of slavery in the United States is one of brutality, splintered families, and erasure. For many descendants of enslaved people, genealogies and other family histories can break down, severed by the missing links that resulted when families were broken up and sold to separate masters. An artifact in the Smithsonian’s new National Museum of African American History and Culture preserves a tiny attempt to fight back against that erasure. It’s known as “Ashley’s sack.”

The unbleached cotton sack is the canvas for 56 words of embroidery—words with a tragic tale to tell. “My great grandmother Rose mother of Ashley gave her this sack when she was sold at age 9 in South Carolina,” it reads. “It held a tattered dress 3 handfulls of pecans a braid of Roses hair. Told her It be filled with my Love always she never saw her again Ashley is my grandmother Ruth Middleton 1921.”

The story of Rose, Ashley, and Ruth was common among millions of enslaved African Americans. It’s been estimated that one-quarter of all enslaved people who crossed the Atlantic were children, and 48 percent were put to work before they turned 7 years old. Though slaves did manage to form family units, those families were generally disregarded by masters, who viewed them as chattel. Thus, slaves always ran the risk of being separated from their families—even children as young as 9-year-old Ashley.

When the sack—incredibly rare to have survived both slavery and the centuries—was purchased at a flea market in Tennessee in 2007, its origins were murky. As the Associated Press reports, the woman who discovered the sack realized it was valuable, but decided not to sell it on eBay. After some online research, she determined that the sack might have been connected to Middleton Place, a South Carolina plantation that is now a National Historic Landmark and museum and where African Americans were once enslaved. Museum officials purchased the sack and put it on display.

Reactions to the powerful story told on the bag were immediate and complex. Some volunteers felt overwhelmed or uncomfortable discussing the object. “Some volunteer guides complained that the sack, and the powerful reactions it engendered, distracted from the core mission of the tour: to highlight the wealth, political leadership, and cosmopolitanism of the white Middletons,” writes anthropologist historian Mark Auslander.

Intrigued by the bag, Auslander set out on a quest to discover the identity of Rose, Ashley, and Ruth. He used slavery records as well as bank, court, and census data to research the women. But he faced a number of obstacles: slave records often involve mass sales of unnamed women and children, many records have been destroyed, and Rose was a very common name for enslaved women.

The name Ashley, however, was not. His answers aren’t definitive, but Auslander did find intriguing evidence of a child named Ashley owned by a South Carolina planter named Robert Martin in the 1850s, who also owned a woman named Rose. Using 1920 census records, Auslander was also able to find an African-African woman named Ruth Middleton who had family roots in South Carolina, and who died in Philadelphia in 1988. Her possessions likely ended up being given away, which is how the sack found its way to the flea market, Auslander theorizes.

No matter how the bag got to that flea market, it’s near-priceless evidence of what slavery did to families and what they suffered both together and apart. Middleton House lent the bag to the NMAAHC, where it—and its story—is now displayed across from a block used in slave auctions.

[h/t: KUOW]

In 1879, one of the most popular speakers on the East Coast of the United States was a young Native American woman who would eventually help earn several important “firsts” for herself and her people.

Susette La Flesche was born in 1854 in Bellevue, Nebraska and given the name Inshata-Theumba, or Bright Eyes. Her father, Joseph La Flesche—also known as E-sta-mah-za, or Iron Eye—was the last traditionally recognized chief of the Omaha tribe, and the year Susette was born, he and other tribal leaders signed a treaty with the federal government giving up traditional Omaha lands and moving their people to a small reservation in what is now northeastern Nebraska, near a related tribe called the Ponca.

Like many Native American children of that era, Susette and her siblings attended a mission school, where she learned English as well as domestic skills such as sewing and cooking (several of the La Flesche siblings would also go on to illustrious careers, including Susette’s sister Susan La Flesche Picotte, who became the first Native American woman to earn a medical degree). Susette attended college at New Jersey’s Elizabeth Institute for Young Ladies, where she studied art and excelled at writing, and after she graduated, she decided to return to the Omaha reservation to teach. In the late 1870s, however, her life took a turn.

Around 1875, after decades of conflict with both the U.S. government and Sioux tribes that had been relocated to their land, the Ponca nation considered an offer to move to Indian Territory in Oklahoma, about 500 miles away. But when Ponca leaders visited potential settlement sites in early 1877, they rejected all of them as uninhabitable, with “stony and broken land” and poor, dispirited residents [PDF]. The government agents who were trying to find a resettlement point were unable to get further instructions from Washington and refused to transport the leaders back home, so the Ponca leaders walked back to Nebraska (except for two elders who were too frail to make the trip), arriving footsore and hungry in March 1877.

Although the specifics are debated, many historians think what happened next was due to a poorly translated deal that the Poncas thought would allow them to move to Omaha land but actually committed them to move to Indian Territory. The majority of the tribe was eventually made to walk to Baxter Springs, Kansas in the spring of 1877, an echo of the Cherokee Trail of Tears of the 1830s and the Long Walk of the Navajo in the 1860s, and with similarly devastating results. As many as one-third of the Ponca nation died of disease and starvation during the march and their first year in Indian Territory, including the son of Chief Standing Bear. After a miserable winter, the remainder of the tribe walked to a new reservation on the Arkansas River, in what is now Oklahoma. In January 1879, Standing Bear and a small party of Ponca set out for Nebraska again so that Standing Bear could bury the bones of his son on ancestral land. Once back in Nebraska, Joseph La Flesche and his daughter helped shelter them in the Omaha village. But after a confrontation with the U.S. government, Standing Bear and his companions were arrested and tried in 1879 in a federal district court in Omaha.

La Flesche was fluent in English and French as well as the Omaha and Ponca languages. Though she was incredibly shy, she became translator for Standing Bear, testifying during the trial in 1879 and writing for newspapers about the plight of Nebraska’s native peoples. At last, Judge Elmer Dundy issued a narrow but consequential ruling in favor of the Ponca: “An Indian is a person within the meaning of the law, and there is no law giving the Army authority to forcibly remove Indians from their lands.” Standing Bear v. Crook marked the first time Native Americans were recognized as people, entitled to protections under U.S. law.

As a result of the trial, the Ponca were allowed to return to a portion of their land in Nebraska. La Flesche, however, was only just getting started. With Standing Bear, her half-brother Francis, and an Omaha newspaperman named Thomas Tibbles—a lifelong reformer who had been instrumental in raising awareness of the Ponca’s plight and whom she later married—La Flesche went on a speaking tour back East. She wore a deerskin dress and presented herself using her translated tribal name, Bright Eyes, speaking out about conditions on reservations and calling for overhauls of federal Indian policies. By 1887, she was touring England and Scotland during Queen Victoria’s Jubilee Year, lobbying for the rights and fair treatment of Aboriginal peoples in Canada. “Bright Eyes” had become an international sensation.

La Flesche also testified before Congress, met with President Rutherford B. Hayes and the first lady at the White House, and gained the admiration of poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. She embarked on a distinguished writing and journalism career, one that would take her to the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in in southwestern South Dakota to report on both the Ghost Dance movement and the massacre at Wounded Knee. She also wrote about Native American life for children’s magazines, and illustrated at least one book. For her efforts, she has been called the first published Native American writer and artist. She was also deeply involved in the Populist Party (a group that championed agrarian interests and industrial workers against bank and railroad titans), writing for papers like the American Nonconformist and the Lincoln Independent.

La Flesche died on May 26, 1903, at the age of 49. She was inducted into the Nebraska Hall of Fame in 1983. “Peaceful revolutions are slow but sure,” she once wrote. “It takes time to leaven a great unwieldy mass like this nation with the leavening ideas of justice and liberty, but the evolution is all the more certain in its results because it is so slow.”

Whether they’re working at a wedding, birthday party, or corporate event, caterers do more than simply cook food and serve drinks. They also devise menus, shop for ingredients, plate the food, and clean up everyone else’s messes. We spoke to several caterers to get a behind-the-scenes look at what it’s like being responsible for the most important part of any event: the refreshments.

1. THEY DON’T MAKE EVERYTHING FROM SCRATCH.

Depending on the size of the event, caterers may be responsible for feeding and serving anywhere from 5 to 5000 people. For big events, caterers simply don’t have the time to make everything from scratch. So don’t be surprised if you see a caterer using store-bought items such as sauces, tapenades, or cookies. Caterers may also use other kitchen shortcuts such as powdered (rather than whole) eggs—a hack that can save time, hassle, and money.

2. THEY’RE PROBABLY TYPE A PERSONALITIES.

Wedding caterer Jerry Baker tells Entrepreneur that catering is a stressful job that requires long hours and difficult work. “There are very few businesses that have as much pressure to perform on time as a wedding caterer. You have to be very type A to succeed at a high level,” he says. Baker also emphasizes that caterers need to be flexible and willing to do any task that’s required of them. “Sometimes I’m the fastest prep cook we have and I’m chopping vegetables, and sometimes I’m hauling trash at 2 a.m. after 15 hours on my feet in order to help us get out [of the venue],” he says.

3. THEY’RE VERY AWARE OF TEMPERATURES.

Temperature is always a concern for caterers, whether they’re using ice to keep food chilled before serving it or ensuring that entrees are served hot. To control the temperature of foods, most caterers travel to events with bags of ice, multiple coolers, and portable burners. And to come up with a suitable menu for an event, caterers must carefully consider whether the event will be outdoors or indoors and plan accordingly to avoid food contamination (think mayonnaise that sits outside in the sun for hours).

4. THEY NEED TO BE GOOD AT MATH.

If a party has a guest list of 75 people, how many bread rolls, cheese cubes, forks, napkins, and ice cubes should a caterer bring? Having too few items can be disastrous, but having too many can be a waste of money. As New Jersey-based caterer Cheri Scolari explains to Good Housekeeping, most people overestimate how much food their guests will eat. But caterers follow a few time-tested rules of thumb for getting the amount of food and drink just right. “We usually say that a half pan of salads or entrees can serve 10 to 12 people,” Scolari says. As for drinks, most caterers plan to serve roughly one drink per person per hour.

5. OFFSITE WORK CAN BE A BIG CHALLENGE.

Tanya Gurrieri of Salthouse Catering in Charleston, South Carolina tells mental_floss that being an off-premise caterer (as opposed to one who works for a specific venue) is particularly challenging, because of the ever-changing environments in which they work. “We might be smiling on the outside and crying on the inside,” she says. For each new event, caterers must set up kitchens in unfamiliar spaces and work within the venue’s power, lighting, and equipment constraints. And because both client and caterer have high expectations for the food and service, caterers can face tremendous pressure to pull off every event smoothly. “Folks don’t care that they’re sitting under a tent in the middle of a field—they expect their dinner to be served promptly and perfectly,” Gurrieri says.

6. FOOD AND DRINKS ARE JUST THE BEGINNING.

Caterers can go beyond cooking and serving food. Some provide clients with plates, bowls, cups, utensils, napkins, tablecloths, and decorations, as well as rented tents, canopies, and chairs. According to Jasmine Williams of farm-to-table catering business A Fork Full of Earth, some caterers are food-focused while others are more all-encompassing. “We are a ‘food-focused’ catering company, so we do mostly food, and then refer our clients out to our preferred network of subcontractors for their other needs,” she explains to mental_floss.

7. THEY’RE PREPARED FOR THINGS TO GO WRONG.

Although caterers generally know ahead of time what food they’ll be cooking and how many people they’ll be feeding, they’re always prepared for the unexpected. Whether a batch of biscuits gets burned in the oven, a glass pan shatters, or several guests are unexpectedly gluten-free, caterers can deal with surprises. “Nothing replaces having years of experience. Once you’ve seen things go wrong, you plan ahead to protect against it happening again,” Williams says. “The best thing you can do is have a mindful policy in place to correct the issue after it occurs.”

8. THEY MAY USE YOU AS A TASTE TESTER.

If you insist on having yuca root pancakes or cotton candy Rice Krispies treats at your event, don’t expect your caterer to be in familiar territory. While most caterers are able to apply their culinary knowledge and skills to make a suitable version of any dish you request, they may not have any experience making more unusual recipes. That means your event might be the first time they serve a particular dish—but that shouldn’t be cause for concern if you trust your caterer’s experience and knowledge. Just be aware that you might be something of a guinea pig.

9. FOODBORNE ILLNESSES MAKE THEIR BUSINESS RISKY.

Due to food safety laws and the risks inherent in running a kitchen and serving food to strangers, catering isn’t a profession that most cooks enter on a whim. “Catering is in a high-risk category because you’re making something that’s being consumed by individuals and handled by multiple people,” Michelle Bomberger, an attorney who represents caterers, tells the National Federation of Independent Business. Although professional caterers needn’t necessarily attend culinary school, they must adhere to health and building codes, get a business license, pass local health department inspections, and buy insurance to cover food poisoning and kitchen fires.

10. THEY TRAVEL WITH GARBAGE BAGS GALORE.

While it’s not as glamorous as plating caviar-topped salmon or serving tuna tartare appetizers, garbage is an essential component of catering. Depending on the venue, some caterers may be off the hook for cleaning up the trash, but most caterers who work on-site at a home or event space need to deal with the dumpster.

For every ten people they serve, caterers plan to bring one large garbage bag. And to save time during an event, they line a few bags in each garbage can before the party starts.

11. FLUCTUATING FOOD PRICES CAN AFFECT THEM DEEPLY.

The USDA Economic Research Service expects grocery prices to rise between 0.5 and 1.5% in 2017. Stormy weather, droughts, and diseased crops are responsible for the higher prices of foods, particularly coconuts, olive oil, vanilla, and oranges. While a roughly 1% increase might not sound like much, fluctuating food prices can greatly impact a caterer’s bottom line, forcing them to raise the prices they charge or opt for less expensive ingredients. Zapher Dajani of The Abbey Catering says that he looks at food prices over the past three years to anticipate future inflation. “We also try to limit our proteins to enjoy huge economies of scale pricing discounts,” he tells mental_floss.

But some food price fluctuations are simply seasonal in nature—and that doesn’t necessarily mean they’ll cost you more. Kim Behnam, the event manager at San Diego-based catering company Toast, explains that she usually doesn’t increase prices on foods that cost more because they’re out of season: “For example, if strawberries are not in season, then their prices will be more expensive. Since this is temporary, we don’t go to the trouble of increasing our prices.”

12. THEY LOVE THE ART OF FOOD AND SERVICE.

Whether they serve sophisticated dishes including flaked sea salt and truffle oil or put fun twists on homespun recipes, many caterers ultimately feel grateful to share their love of food and drinks with people. “We love the art of producing great food, and I personally love serving people,” Behnam says. Dajani echoes that sentiment, adding that food is usually the biggest, most important part of any special event: “We love how food is the element that brings everyone together for a memorable moment at the event.”

All photos via iStock.

Many women writers have chosen to hide or disguise their identities by adopting a pseudonym—consider J. K. Rowling (who has written as Robert Galbraith), George Eliot, or the Brontë sisters, for example. However, the true identities of these gender-bending writers often became known in their lifetimes, while the same cannot be said for the pioneering British science fiction author Katharine Burdekin and her alter ego, Murray Constantine.

Burdekin began her writing career in the early 1920s, publishing a couple of realist novels under her own name before beginning to write books with a distinctly science fiction theme. Her first in the genre, The Burning Ring in 1927, explored the theme of time travel. In those days, a woman writing science fiction was unusual, and Burdekin gained some notice as well as some famous fans such as the prominent lesbian writer Radclyffe Hall, who wrote to Burdekin in praise of her work.

As political turmoil in Europe grew in the years before World War II, the themes of Burdekin’s writing became darker and more political. In 1934 she began publishing under the pseudonym Murray Constantine. No one knows for sure why she adopted the male name, but it seems likely that the pseudonym allowed Burdekin greater freedom to create more overtly political works and explore gender with less scrutiny. Some scholars, such as Robert Crossley, have suggested that Burdekin may have been influenced by the fate of contemporary writer Naomi Mitchison, a Scottish feminist who spent years battling to get her radical work, We Have Been Warned, published. When that book was finally released in 1935, its open discussion of sexuality and gender politics horrified many, in part because it had been penned by—gasp—a woman.

Freed from the constraints of writing under her own identity, Burdekin began to explore dystopian futures and themes of gender fluidity. In 1937, her most acclaimed work, Swastika Night, was published. Considered one of the first dystopian novels ever written, the book imagined the continuation of Nazism in an alternate future where women were reduced to lesser beings, kept like cattle and used only for breeding. Such was the power of the nightmarish future imagined in the book that during World War II a special edition was published with a note from the publisher, saying that the author “has changed his [sic] mind about the Nazi power to make the world evil … he further feels that Nazism is too bad to be permanent.” Swastika Night has since come to be seen as a significant work of literature, one whose dark imaginings of a fascist future presage George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four, published more than a decade later.

Burdekin ultimately published four novels as Murray Constantine, the last in 1940. Though she continued writing, she published nothing from that year on and remained obscure, known only for the novels she wrote as Katharine Burdekin early in her career. In 1955 she suffered an aneurysm and came close to death. She survived, but remained bed-ridden until her death in 1963.

In the 1980s the academic Daphne Patai [PDF], now of the University of Massachusetts Amherst, became interested in the work of Murray Constantine while researching utopian and dystopian novels. Patai was familiar with Burdekin’s earlier novels and began to note the similarity in style between Burdekin and Constantine. Patai contacted the original publishers of Swastika Night, Victor Gollancz, persistently questioning Constantine’s real identity. The publishers finally confirmed what Patai had suspected—Burdekin and Constantine were one and the same, a fact that had remained secret for some 50 years.

Patai knew that after Burdekin’s marriage had crumbled in 1922 the writer had gone on to form a life-long partnership with a woman. The scholar managed to contact Burdekin’s partner, who was happy to share her memories of the author as long as she remained anonymous. The pair began a correspondence that revealed much about how Burdekin had worked—at great speed, never spending longer than six weeks writing any one novel. Before starting a project, Burdekin would become withdrawn and stop eating, then enter a sort of frenzy, which her partner described as almost like automatic writing, whereby the words seemed to spill unbidden from Burdekin’s pen. After she had completed a book, Burdekin would fall into a depression.

In 1986, Patai visited Burdekin’s partner at the house they had shared in Suffolk. While there, Burdekin’s partner retrieved from the attic a trunk full of Burdekin’s unpublished writing. As Patai read through the material, she was excited to find a complete manuscript that seemed to have been written in the 1930s. The novel, The End of This Day’s Business, serves as a counterpoint to Swastika Night, presenting a world in which peace-loving women ruled while men have lost all sense of their power and history.

In 1985, after Patai had revealed Burdekin’s true identity, Swastika Night was reissued by the Feminist Press under her real name. In 1990, The End of This Day’s Business was published, introducing the world to a fascinating feminist utopia, although the author points out that a world that subjugates any group of its citizens can never be free. Writing years before the contemporary trend for dystopian sci-fi, Katharine Burdekin was a woman well ahead of her time. Today, she is remembered as a pioneer whose genre- and gender-bending anticipated contemporary movements, and whose dark imaginings still have the power to chill.

When Catherine Cortez Masto was sworn in to Congress on January 3, she became the first Latina senator. A Democrat, the two-term former Nevada Attorney General assumed the seat previously held by outgoing minority leader Harry Reid. Read on for nine facts about this dedicated freshman senator.

1. SHE COMES FROM AN IMMIGRANT FAMILY WHO WORKED THEIR WAY UP.

Cortez Masto’s paternal grandfather, Edward Cortez, was born in Chihuahua, Mexico and immigrated as a young man to the United States, where he met Mary Tapia, of New Mexico. The two got married and started a bakery in Las Cruces, New Mexico. Edward built his own oven from earthen bricks. In 1939, Cortez Masto’s father, Manuel “Manny” Cortez, was born, and in 1940, Edward was naturalized as an American citizen. He served in the army during World War II, and when he returned home, the Cortez family moved to Las Vegas. Edward worked in a bakery and Mary spent her days as a sales clerk, while Manny attended the local public schools.

After graduating from Las Vegas High School in 1956, Manny spent three years in the army before returning to Las Vegas and marrying Joanna Musso in 1960. Cortez Masto’s sister, Cynthia, came along two years later, and Catherine herself was born two years after that. Meanwhile, Manny was attending Nevada Southern University as a pre-law student and working nights parking cars on the Strip. He eventually left college and continued working on the Strip, but in 1969, wanting to move up in the world, he got a job working as an investigator at the District Attorney’s office. In a few years, he moved on to the Public Defender’s office, where he was trained to administer polygraph tests.

A 1972 bid for local assemblyman was unsuccessful, but caught the eye of Nevada Governor Mike O’Callaghan, who appointed Manny administrator of the Nevada Taxicab Authority the next year. Then, in 1976, Manny ran for a seat on the Clark County Commission and won, eventually serving four terms. As part of his duties as commissioner, he served on a number of boards, and became chairman of the board of the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority (LVCVA) [PDF]. In 1991, he became LVCVA president, a role he held for 13 years. Manny had a very successful career in the Vegas tourism industry—in fact, he was responsible for greenlighting the city’s most famous slogan, “What happens here, stays here.” Upon his death in 2006, he was honored in both houses of Congress.

Reflecting on her family’s journey from an immigrant grandfather with a grade-school education to a father who became an important figure in Nevada’s political and business community, Cortez Masto told Mother Jones, “That, to me, is the American Dream.” She and her sister became the first in their family to graduate from college. In an interview with Fusion, Cortez Masto said, “Can you imagine my grandfather if he were alive today and saw his granddaughter who was the attorney general for eight years in the state now running to be the first Latina ever elected to the United States Senate? That’s incredible.”

2. SHE’S HAD MANY ROLE MODELS.

Cortez Masto grew up in Las Vegas, watching her parents and grandparents work hard. “Wow, my grandmother was tough,” she told Latina Magazine of her father’s mother, Mary. “You couldn’t put anything past her. She was a sales clerk and went home to work just as hard. I realized the work ethic, and I knew I had to work hard because of her.” Cortez Masto’s own mother was a bookkeeper, while her father, as previously noted, worked his way up from parking attendant to county commissioner. Cortez Masto told the Reno Gazette-Journal in 2005, “Obviously, he’s always been a role model.”

Cortez Masto attended the University of Nevada, Reno, graduating with a bachelor’s in science in 1986, then went on to law school at Gonzaga University in Washington state. She moved back to Nevada, passing the bar exam in 1990 and spending a year clerking for Judge Michael J. Wendell. The judge, who had been on the bench for two decades, also served as a role model for Cortez Masto: “He had great judicial temperament,” she told the Gazette-Journal. “I just learned from him how to be an attorney … how to deal with people.”

She took her first step into politics in 1995, joining the staff of Nevada’s then-governor, Democrat Bob Miller. She was familiar with Democratic politicians: Her father had been a Democrat during his time as county commissioner and he brought prominent Democrats into his family’s life. “Gov. [Mike] O’Callaghan was larger than life and had a big impact on my family,” she told the Gazette-Journal. “My father went to school, and went into the Army with Congressman [Jim] Bilbray. Sen. [Richard] Bryan went to school with my parents.” Cortez Masto found herself thriving in the political environment, and became Miller’s chief of staff in 1998.

3. SHE MARRIED A SECRET SERVICE AGENT.

While serving as chief of staff for Miller in the late 1990s, Cortez Masto was given the assignment of coordinating the logistics of President Bill Clinton’s visit to Las Vegas. The point person on the president’s side was Paul Masto, a Secret Service agent. She later recalled, “He asked me out on a date and he said, ‘Like a good attorney, I asked you out for dinner and you negotiated for lunch.’”

4. SHE RAN FOR ATTORNEY GENERAL BECAUSE “IT WAS TIME TO STEP UP.”

Cortez Masto spent 1999 to 2001 living in Washington, D.C. and working as an assistant U.S. attorney, focusing on drug and victims’ rights cases. In 2002, she moved back to Nevada, becoming assistant county manager of Clark County (where Las Vegas is located), while her husband Paul joined the Secret Service’s Las Vegas office. In 2005 Nevada’s Republican Attorney General Brian Sandoval was nominated for a federal court judgeship, creating a vacancy, and Cortez Masto started to consider her future.

With the support of her parents and Nevada Democratic leaders like Harry Reid, she resigned from her job with the county and began campaigning to become the Silver State’s top prosecutor. “There was never any [political] position I was interested in other than being attorney general,” Cortez Masto told the Gazette-Journal. She had been watching Nevada deal with a methamphetamine crisis, widespread domestic violence, and prevalent elder abuse. She told Remezcla, “For me, those are areas—particularly when it comes to domestic violence prevention and sexual assault—that I had worked in before. I thought it was time to step up and take a leadership role and steer the ship to bring attention to those issues and find solutions to the problems. That’s when I decided to run for Attorney General for the first time in 2006.” She went on to serve two consecutive terms, the limit under Nevada law.

5. PERSONAL EXPERIENCE MADE HER PASSIONATE ABOUT PROTECTING SENIORS.

Cortez Masto had watched her own grandparents “become targets of fraud,” an experience she told Gonzaga University’s law blog was “heartbreaking.” As a result, she said, “Elder protection became my first priority as Attorney General.” Upon taking office in early 2007, she pushed the Nevada legislature to give her office jurisdiction to investigate elder fraud and abuse cases. In May 2007, the governor signed into law Assembly Bill 226 [PDF], creating a special unit within the Nevada Attorney General’s office to prosecute crimes against seniors.

6. SHE CREATED A TASK FORCE TO STUDY DOMESTIC VIOLENCE.

From 2004 through 2012, Nevada was the state with the highest rate of women murdered by men. As attorney general, Cortez Masto created a 15-person team to review the domestic-violence fatality rate and provide recommendations to reduce deaths. On the team, she and members of her office worked alongside police officers, representatives from the Division of Child and Family Services, and a member of the UNLV School of Social Work. In 2013, they released a report recommending specific actions for law enforcement, district attorneys, and local legislators in order to combat intimate partner violence. Since 2013, the domestic homicide rate against women has dropped in Nevada, but it remains nearly double the national average.

7. SHE WORKED TO COMBAT SEX TRAFFICKING.

During her two terms as Attorney General, Cortez Masto introduced over 40 state bills that were voted into law and signed by the Republican governor. She told Elle that her proudest accomplishment came in 2013 with the passage of Assembly Bill 67 [PDF], which defined the specific crime of sex trafficking (replacing previous statues on pandering) and is aimed at punishing pimps. The bill lengthens prison sentences for those convicted, requires that they register as sex offenders, and allows victims of trafficking to bring civil action against the perpetrators. Governor Brian Sandoval signed it into law in June 2013. The same day, he also signed a companion bill setting up a fund for victims of human trafficking. Masto’s office also produced a series of trafficking-awareness PSAs that aired on television in Nevada.

8. SHE’S BEEN ATTACKED FOR NOT SPEAKING SPANISH …

Though Cortez Masto became the first-ever Latina elected to the Senate, during the campaign allies of her Republican opponent, Joe Heck, argued that she wasn’t Latina enough. A former political director for Heck’s campaign quipped on Twitter that Cortez Masto’s ethnicity was only relevant to her when applying for scholarships or running for Senate, and questioned whether she speaks Spanish. Another former Heck aide criticized Cortez Masto’s campaign, calling it “Hispandering at its finest.”

Cortez Masto responded to the attacks, telling Politico: “It’s a criticism for me and other Mexican-Americans. It is an attack on all of us who come here and have worked hard in Nevada to make it home.” Cortez Masto does not speak Spanish fluently, though she can often understand it. Her mother’s family is Italian by heritage, while her father was a second-generation Mexican immigrant who only occasionally spoke to her in Spanish. Cortez Masto noted to Latina Magazine that when her father and his parents moved to Las Vegas in the 1940s, there were very few Hispanic families in the area. “[I]t was about being more American for them,” she said, “that is why my generation doesn’t speak as much Spanish. During that time, it was about assimilating.”

9. ….BUT HER MEXICAN HERITAGE IS AN IMPORTANT PART OF HER IDENTITY.

Cortez Masto identifies significantly with her Mexican heritage, and she argues that it makes her better able to represent a state whose population is 28% Hispanic. She told Remezcla, “I’ve always felt, particularly as the Attorney General of the state, that the people that served in my office should be just as diverse as the community we are representing. I think that should be true of Congress.” She also argues that, as someone with a different background than most people in Congress, she brings “a different perspective” and promises to focus, in particular, on passing comprehensive immigration reform and advocating for Dreamers (undocumented immigrants brought to the U.S. as children). “We’re working on a future for everyone,” she told Remezcla, “and we’re bringing families out of the shadows.”