Eye of the Storm

My next Fun Fact was going to be from Norse mythology but because your username is 'smokeyloki' I don't want to risk you already knowing it. So. Hm.

Today You Learned:

Alright so I learned this from an episode of Mythbusters in which they were testing conspiracy theories about the Kennedy Assassination.

Because John F. Kennedy was shot in the head, obviously the brain was a part of the autopsy. The man wasn't buried with a brain in his head because it was removed in the autopsy to be examined, and the brain was afterward moved to the National Archives.

Thing is, even if you had government clearance, you wouldn't be able to see it.

Because JFK's brain is missing.

And no one knows where it went.

Today You Learned about the Piasa Bird.

Alright so the Piasa Bird, isn't actually a bird, as such. It's a... this dragon thing:

It's a carving above the Mississippi River in Illinois. The above image isn't the original; I think the original has been destroyed or worn away, and image was redrawn, and it's been retouched a few times since. The original art may have been contemporary with Cahokia, the old mound city that was long uninhabited by the time Europeans arrived in the Americas.

Jesuit Father Jacques Marquette was the first European to write of it in 1673. He, and the next recorded description, don't mention wings at all, so some think it was meant to be another Native American mythological creature, like the underwater panther. We don't know!

In any case in the 1800's Professor John Russell gave an account in which he said it was called the Piasa, which meant something like 'the Bird that Devours Men.' It terrorized the local peoples until the Chief Ouatoga was given a dream by the Great Spirit on how to kill it. He and his men hid by the monster's lair and the Chief used himself as bait. When the creature flew out, the men from their hiding spots killed the Piasa with poisoned arrows.

There are... a lot of people who think that John Russell made up this story, because again, earliest accounts and sketches don't mention wings, and we don't have any other records of this story. And let's be real, it does sound a bit like the kind of thing white people make up as 'an old Indian story'. There are a few of those floating around. But we don't know.

Saint Pier Giorgio Frassatti

1901 - 1925

Feast day: July 4

Pier Giorgio Frassati was a handsome, fun-loving, athletic, courageous and devout Catholic born into a prominent Italian family. He died at the young age of 24 and has since become the model for lay people all over the world. Beatified in 1990 by Pope John Paul II and named "The Man of the Eight Beatitudes," Pier Giorgio teaches us that holiness is for everyone. Canonized by Pope Leo XIV in 2025.

It would not! I'll give you a quick one, though. Today You Learned about Andrew Jackson's regrets!

President Andrew Jackson was famously temperamental, and on his last day in office, he was asked if he had any regrets about his presidency. His response was that he had two: that he had not shot Henry Clay, and that he had not hanged John C. Calhoun.

For reference, Henry Clay was a Senator from Kentucky during that time, and John C. Calhoun was Jackson's Vice-President.

And Jackson admitted he wanted him dead.

Nuts.

FRIDAY

I'm talking

Greenland sharks

Strawberry squids

Pallas cats

Strawberry squids

Mola molas

bonuses (which probably fall under the ‘fuck off’ category):