Today in 1928, the Chillicothe Baking Company in Missouri began publicly selling something new: bread that had been sliced by a multi-bladed machine, and the world gained a new way to measure greatness. Plus: today in 2017, a meteor found a way to use Earth as a “slingshot” so alter its orbit and eventually orbit Jupiter.

‘Home of Sliced Bread’: A small Missouri town champions its greatest thing (Washington Post's Retropolis)

One express ticket to Jupiter, please (Phys.org)

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Today is the birthday of Roger Babson, who once hired stonecutters to carve giant motivational slogans into a series of boulders in Massachusetts during the Great Depression. Plus: a research team from Harvard and MIT has announced a new high-tech face mask with disease-spotting biosensors. It can spot germs more or less in real time! 

Babson’s Boulders: A Millionaire’s Odd Dogtown Legacy (New England Historical Society)

Face masks that can diagnose COVID-19 (Harvard)

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When most of us get wrong number phone calls, we get off the line pretty quickly. But new research finds Maasai herders in Tanzania often strike up a conversation, and get to know the person who accidentally called them. Plus: on this day in 1294, the cardinals of the Catholic Church respond to a letter from a hermit monk in a way that may have made the monk wish he hadn't written them at all. 

‘Wrong number? Let’s chat’ Maasai herders in East Africa use misdials to make connections (The Conversation)

A History of Papal Resignations (History.com)

Saint Celestine V (Britannica)

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The new book “Hyphens and Hashtags” looks at where all our punctuation marks have come from. Some of them, like the highly versatile asterisk, have been around for thousands of years. Plus: if you've had a week that made you want to scream, Japan has a Screambulance that may help. 

A Star Is Born (Lapham's Quarterly)

Japan’s Screambulance, is a haunted house delivery service that scares you anywhere, anytime (Luxury Launches)

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Today in 1963, the US Postal Service officially started using ZIP codes as a way to quickly sort huge amounts of mail and get it to where it needed to go. How did they get Americans to adopt ZIP codes? A mascot named Mr. Zip and a jingle sung by Broadway legend Ethel Merman. Plus: for Canada Day, the story of a runner in Ontario who ran a moose-shaped route through downtown Toronto. 

The ZIP Code Turns 50 (TIME)

Ethel Merman (National Postal Museum)

Toronto cyclist rides 101km to make the most Canadian Strava art (Cycling Magazine)

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Our high-tech devices are amazing but also kind of fragile. But a team at Virginia Tech has a solution: “soft electronics” that can not only keep working when they’re damaged, they can heal themselves. Plus: NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and Caltech have been using high-altitude balloons to measure seismic activity, and they're hoping to send those balloons someday to monitor Venusquakes! 

Unbroken: New soft electronics don’t break, even when punctured (Virginia Tech)

NASA Balloon Detects California Earthquake – Next Stop, Venus? (NASA)

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Today was the birthday of Ray Harryhausen, a pioneer of special effects in movies in the days before computers. And while special effects are more high tech now than in his day, his influence is still all over the world of movies in our time. Plus: a veteran flier from World War II gets to take another flight, some 75 years later. 

Ray Harryhausen: The Father of Stop-Motion Animation - The Spread (Cinema Jam)

A Fascinating Top Ten Compilation of Creatures by Stop Motion Pioneer Ray Harryhausen (Laughing Squid)

WWII bomber pilot experiences B-17 flight for the first time since 1945 (KPRC 2 Houston)

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It's the birthday of the guy who took two sports and fused them into one: Ed Headrick, known today as the Father of Disc Golf. Here's some of his story. Plus: it's Pride Day, part of Pride Month, and there's still time to see the original rainbow Pride Flag at San Francisco’s GLBT Historical Society Museum.

The Father of Disc Golf (Disc Golf Association)

History of disc golf (part 1): the early days (Murray Ledger)

The Original Pride Flag Is Now on Display in a San Francisco Museum (Travel and Leisure)

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This week we're replaying some of our favorite episodes about our favorite TV shows. In this episode from September 2020, we marked the 60th  anniversary of the first broadcast of that landmark cartoon show from the town of Bedrock, which aired in the 1960s, stayed on in reruns for  decades, and continues to sell cereal and vitamins to this day. Plus: a man in England gets so lonely he starts putting ads in the paper so someone will email or call him - and fortunately he gets some good responses.

15 Solid Facts About The Flintstones (Mental Floss)

Lonely Widower Puts Up a Poster Asking For Friends—And is Flooded With Messages From New Pals (Good News Network)

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This week we're replaying some of our favorite episodes about our favorite TV shows. In this episode from November 2019, we look at an episode of the Twilight Zone that proved the show was a dimension not only of sight and sound but of canned laughter?!? Plus: anybody want to fly in an airplane where the whole interior looks like a giant window?

Dimensions Behind the Twilight Zone: A Backstage Tribute to Television’s Groundbreaking Series by Stewart Stanyard

The Twilight Zone: A 60th Anniversary Celebration

Windowless planes: is this the future of flying? (The Telegraph via YouTube)

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