Today in 1945, the Seattle Daily Times newspaper revealed a great wartime hoax: for several years, a key military factory had been cosplaying as a neighborhood! Plus: Hyve is an autonomous off-road rover that hosts a colony of live bees and lets them sort of go on a pollination tour.

Boeing made an entire fake neighborhood to hide its bombers from potential WWII airstrikes (Seattle Times)

nicolas nielsen designs self-driving HYVE beehive to pollinate cities (designboom)

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Today in 1966, a ground technician in the UK was doing some ground testing of an English Electric Lightning fighter jet… when suddenly the test was no longer on the ground. Plus: today is the start of The Great Montreal Poutine Fest.

How a RAF Ground Engineer Accidentally Took Off in a Fighter Jet (Interesting Engineering)

The Great Montréal PoutineFest (Tourisme Montreal)

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A research study out of the University of Cambridge finds that putting the right level of physical pressure can essentially double the lifespan of an electric vehicle battery. Plus: today in 1987, Guns 'n' Roses released the album "Appetite for Destruction," and a music video shoot for one of the songs proved the band was living the title.

Physical pressure could make EV batteries last twice as long and reduce environmental impact (University of Cambridge)

Guns N' Roses Video History: Behind the Scenes of the 'Appetite' Clips (Rolling Stone via Archive.org)

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It's International Chess Day. In Japan, there’s a popular chess-like game known as shōgi, and one of the variants of that game is played on a scale that’s hard to even describe. Plus: designer Pierre Cardin celebrated the moon landing (on this day in 1969) with a moon dress.

Armageddon (Futility Closet)

Pierre Cardin’s Moon Dress (Weird Universe)

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We're replaying more of our favorite baseball-themed episodes this week. In this one from March 2020, a look at how baseballer Keith Comstock managed to engineer a baseball card in which he’s being hit in, shall we say, a very sensitive place. Plus: Atlanta-based salon owner Heidi Oley had to close her shop during the pandemic, so she practiced her skills on her boyfriend and posted the results on Instagram.

‘You’re the guy with the ball to the crotch’: The inside story behind the funniest baseball card ever made (ESPN)

This Hairstylist Can’t Work So She’s Giving Her Boyfriend a New Daily Hairdo Instead (Twisted Sifter)

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We're replaying more of our favorite baseball-themed episodes this week. In this one from October 2019, a sports tech company develops a high-tech compression sleeve for pitchers with sensors, to track whether a pitcher’s arm is getting tired as a game goes on, or if that arm is at risk of a more serious injury. Plus: a pitcher who called himself “Phenomenal” Smith irritates his teammates and gets some less-than-phenomenal backup as a result.

Smart Sleeve Tells Baseball Pitchers When to Get Off the Mound (IEEE.org)

How Smith became “Phenomenal”  (Bob Lemke)

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We're replaying more of our favorite baseball-themed episodes this week. In this one from June 2020, we look at the time when sports mascot drama almost left us all talking about the Atlanta Chicken instead of the San Diego Chicken. Plus: we'll explain why is at the Gerald Ford Presidential Library in Michigan as well as the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York.

Profiles in Plumage: The San Diego Chicken (Society for American Baseball Research)

A look back at the ‘Grand Hatching’ of the San Diego Chicken (ESPN)

Found at the Presidential Libraries Dr. Seuss, Air Force One, and the San Diego Chicken (Prologue Magazine)

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We're replaying more of our favorite baseball-themed episodes this week. In this one from July 2020, the Charleston, S.C. RiverDogs got some extra attention for holding a "Nobody Night," long before the pandemic prompted major league teams to play games in front of zero attendees. Plus: Muscotah, Kansas pays tribute to its local celebrity, early baseball star Joe Tinker, by building a giant baseball.

RiverDogs’ “Nobody Night” Promotion Recalled on Today’s ESPN’s “First Take” (MILB.com)

Muscotah, Kansas: World’s Largest Baseball (Roadside America)

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We're replaying more of our favorite baseball-themed episodes this week. In this one from September 2021, Willie Mays made one of the most improbable plays in baseball history, known today as “The Catch," though really, that was only one amazing part of this amazing play. Plus: Belfast has a statue of Alec the Goose, who they say a century ago used to walk young children to and from school.

The true ‘Catch’ story (ESPN)

Goose Day – ‘Alec the Goose’ (Atlas Obscura)

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Today is National Piña Colada Day. This drink was already famous when Rupert Holmes put together his song about it - which is good, because originally he had a very different pair of words at the center of the song. Plus: the sitcom The Goldbergs found a way to get laughs from a real life story involving this hit song.

Rupert Holmes ("Pina Colada Song") (Songfacts)

Rupert Holmes' 'Escape (The Pina Colada Song)' gets caught in the ... car stereo ... in an all-new 'The Goldbergs' (Niagara Frontier Publications)

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