Strange things happen. Fish sometimes fall from the sky. Unexplained lights perform strange maneuvers in the night sky. Children claim to 'remember' past lives. While all of these must be taken with more than a modicum of suspicion, there are strange occurrences in history which are without a doubt real and actual events. The Great Boston Molasses Flood of 1919 is one such event. Be careful. Though you might be tempted to laugh at the idea of a flood of molasses as  ludicrous and unbelievable, the series of tragic events that took place on January 15, 1919 left twenty-one people dead and a score of people injured. As strange and as sickeningly sweet as it sounds, Boston experienced the world's only known disaster caused by a sugar by-product.

Molasses was a staple food in colonial New England. Slave ships emptied their cargo in the West Indies and filled their holds with barrels of molasses and then headed to the colonies. Sugar was one of the most expensive staples in the colonial pantry, so molasses was a welcome and much less expensive alternative. Colonists used it in the production of beer and rum and you cannot have true New England Baked Beans, brown bread or pumpkin pie without it.

Most people are unaware that molasses had a very important role to play during wartime and it had nothing to do with food. As any home brewer will tell you, sugar and yeast together create something very powerful: alcohol. Ships from Cuba, Puerto Rico and other islands in the West Indies would dock and pump out thousands of gallons to later be carried by rail car to the Purity plant in Cambridge where it underwent the process of conversion to industrial alcohol. Then, the alcohol could be used in the mass manufacture of munitions and explosives, adding to the war effort and making a lot of money for the United States Industrial Alcohol Company. Since the outbreak of war in 1914, overseas demand for alcohol had strained domestic resources and the British, the Canadian and the French governments could not get enough. With a paltry twenty percent of the molasses shipped to American converted into rum, a whopping 80 percent of the substance was turned into a major ingredient of weaponry, especially of dynamite, smokeless powder and other explosives.

In order to facilitate the collection and distribution of the molasses, the company built a massive holding tank, fifty feet high and ninety feet in diameter capable of holding as much as 2,300,000 gallons of molasses. The tank stood in the North End, near Boston Harbor and the historic section of town that housed the Old North Church and Paul Revere's House. The tank was very to close the Copp's Hill Burying Ground and Commercial Street. It was one of the largest structures in the area and it towered over many houses and commercial buildings in the area, always in the background.

It was built the same way that metal ships like the Titanic were built at the time with sheet steel and rivets overlapping at the edges. Like the Titanic, the Boston tank had a major flaw in the steel common to all steel manufactured in the early part of the century: it was made with very little manganese, an element that strengthens steel making it capable of withstanding great pressure without cracking.

From the very beginning, people became used to seeing the dark brown stain of molasses running down from rivet holes all over the structure. Children would be dispatched with containers to visit the plant and collect as much of the run-off as they could. Though most of the people who actually lived in the area were Italian immigrants and therefore out of the mainstream of Boston life, it became a problem for the company that owned the tank. They did not want word to spread that there was a problem with it. Something had to be done.

In their wisdom, the people at the US Industrial Alcohol Company found a way to fix the issue: they ordered the structure to be painted a molasses brown, so the leaks could ea

Most states have official flags, flowers and birds, but not many can call a breed of cat their own. Maine is lucky enough to have this distinction, with the state cat breed being one of the most popular cat breeds in the world. It is the first cat breed to originate in America and it was the breed to win America's first cat show. It was once threatened by the introduction of foreign long hair cat breeds and declared extinct in the 1950s, but has rebounded and become one of the world's most popular cat breeds.

Of course, I am talking about the fluffy, personality-filled breed called The Maine Coon cat. It is one of the largest, longest and smartest cat breeds in the world. These cats will also make unusual trilling and chirping noises and while other cats will do this,this breed is famous for it. They also have thick, long fur that make them well-adapted to the cold and sometimes unpredictable climate of Maine.

But their origin is a mystery. They are described as a 'natural cat breed', implying that humans did not selectively breed these cats despite the fact that they were brought here by Europeans. Yet if this breed was not one that breeders sought to develop, how did this famous and well loved cat breed come to be? Like a cat looking for a mouse, let's go on the prowl for the truth.

After looking through the theories, there are many schools of thought on this matter. The first is the 'hybrid theory', where the origin of the cat breed is traced to a cross-breeding between a domestic cat and some wild animal.  Some theories suggest that the Maine Coon is half cat, half raccoon. Another suggests that the Maine Coon is half domestic cat and half bobcat. Both theories are most likely based on the appearance of the Maine Coon Cat itself. Like a raccoon, the Maine Coon has stripes, long and thick fur, and long, bushy tails. Like a wild cat, the Maine Coon has triangular ears and is well adapted to live by itself in the wild. Yet there is no evidence to support this and comparing the Maine Coon with the bobcat and raccoon immediately shows that this cat doesn't share much in common with these wild animals. It is also important to mention that raccoons and domestic cats do not interbreed, being two separate and distinct species.

The second theory is the 'ship's cat' theory, which assumes that the Maine Coon is a cat breed that can be traced back to cats that were taken on board ships for pest control. Most of these theories suggest that, like human sailors, these felines left the ship to enjoy 'shore leave', and naturally left behind offspring that became the long-haired cats known and loved today. Variants on these themes not only seem to be more plausible, but are also more entertaining. This is further supported by the fact that these cats are considered to be good mousers.

The most popular variation of this theory is that the Maine Coon cat is descended from one of six Turkish Angora cats who were once owned by Queen Marie Antoinette. While she did not escape the French Revolution with her head intact, her cats were taken by Captain Samuel Clough to Wiscasset, Maine, where they spent the rest of their days.

A less dramatic variation even explains the origin of the name. A man named Captain Coon supposedly the namesake for this breed. His ship had cats on board to kill rats that threatened to eat precious food and cargo, as well as damage rigging. His cats were said to have bred with other long-haired cat breeds from different parts of the world, where he acquired cargo to sell in ports across New England, where his cats enjoyed shore leave.

A final variant, however, suggests that sailors from an earlier age are responsible for this cat breed. Due to their similarity to the Norwegian Forest Cat, some people have guessed that Vikings brought their own Nordic cat breed to America, where they settled and adapted to the Maine woods after the human settlers left to return to Scandinavia.

While the ships' cat th

Gluskabe is a figure that is a literal and figurative giant in the folklore of New England and the Maritimes. This is not only because of his great height and…