This week in 1945, a fascinating fact for anyone who didn’t have to live it firsthand: wartime airplane mechanic Margaret Horton accidentally ended up airborne on the tail of a plane. Plus: today is National Umbrella Day, so you could head to Portland, Maine and the Umbrella Cover Museum.

Riding a Spitfire: the story of Margaret Horton (Royal Air Forces Association) 

The Umbrella Cover Museum 

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Football fans will be watching this weekend for some of those spectacular passes that can change the course of a game. Amazingly, there was a time when the forward pass was against the rules of the sport. Plus: tomorrow in Morristown, New Jersey, it’s Mac & Cheese Mayhem.

How the Forward Pass Saved Football (History.com)

Mac & Cheese Mayhem

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There’s new research that shows just how powerful music can be: it found that classical music can have a positive physical effect on a baby before it’s born. Plus: a guy lost his watch, but four years later another guy found it and got it back to him.

Music can touch the heart, even inside the womb (EurekAlert)

Fratello Exclusive: Rolex Submariner Found By Australian Surfer In Pacific Ocean Is Reunited With Its Original Owner (Fratello Watches)

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Today in 1969 was the premiere of Turn-On, a show that the ABC network more or less turned off during its first episode. Plus: today in 1974, a really big game for a teenage basketball player in Sweden. 

Turn-On’s Turning Point (Tedium)

Facts, Oddments for the Book (Los Angeles Times)

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Today in 2004, an important historic designation for a historic district in Wichita Falls, Texas. One of the buildings that makes that district so historic is the Newby-McMahon Building, also known as the "world’s littlest skyscraper." Plus: the story of an 18-foot tall statue of a hand holding a Cheeto.

Legend of the World’s Littlest Skyscraper (Texas Co-op Power) 

Cheetos statue unveiled in Canada, an homage to Cheetle, the orange dust's official name (Boing Boing)

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Today in 1932, the start of a road trip you don’t see too often: a nine year old and his horse set off through Australia by themselves for more than 600 miles. Plus: around this time in 2020, an artist in Berlin decided to do a high-tech trick of sorts on Google Maps.

The nine-year-old who rode a pony 1000km to Sydney (Sydney Morning Herald) 

Man Uses 99 Phones and a Handcart to Create a "Virtual Traffic Jam" on Google Maps (Interesting Engineering)

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The birth of André-Jacques Garnerin, a man who helped bring about the modern parachute. And his vision came to him at a very unusual time. Plus: tomorrow in Scottsdale, Arizona, it’s the Parada del Sol Parade & Trail’s End Festival.

1797 - The modern world's first parachute jump (Fédération Aéronautique Internationale)   

Scottsdale Parada del Sol 

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This week in 1819 was probably the first European sighting of Antarctica. It’s different from all the other continents in so many ways - including how, from a certain point of view, a big chunk of Antarctica is “ruled” by a guy who’s never even been there. Plus: today in Tomah, Wisconsin, it’s the annual Freeze Fest.

How a Pennsylvania man started an imaginary country in Antarctica and got 2,300 people to join him (The Times Leader) 

Freeze Fest 

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First responders in Kent, England have a powerful new tool: a remote-controlled robot for fighting fires. This is a slowly growing trend in firefighting, sending devices into a fire scene so there are fewer human firefighters at risk. Plus: starting tomorrow in Richmond, Indiana, it’s the Meltdown Winter Ice Festival.

Britain’s firefighting robot that can spray 2,000 litres of water a minute enters service (Interesting Engineering)

Meltdown Winter Ice Festival    
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We’re learning more about how bees do what they do, and it’s thanks to a new study from Penn State that used bee-friendly QR codes. Plus: today in 1957, TIME Magazine reported on a newspaper in Ontario that put typos in the copy on purpose.

Scientists Strapped QR Codes Onto Thousands of Bees to Learn How Far They Actually Fly (Gizmodo)

Miscellany, Jan. 28, 1957 (TIME)

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