-------oOo------
Snippets from various recent websites . . .
-------oOo------
From Amusing Planet
Feb 10, 2023
Miss Belvedere and the Time Capsule:
In 1957 the good citizens of Tulsa, Oklahoma were celebrating the state’s 50th anniversary with a week-long festival named “Tulsarama”. To make things more interesting, the committee in charge decided decided to bury a time capsule filled with various items to show future citizens how life was like in the 1950s.
This, however, was no ordinary time capsule, it included a brand-new desert gold and sand dune white two-tone 1957 Plymouth Belvedere sport coupe with only 4 miles on its odometer, selected (according to the event chairman) to illustrate “an advanced product of American industrial ingenuity with the kind of lasting appeal that will still be in style 50 years from now.” The car came to be known as Miss Belvedere.
As part of the festivities, a contest was organized where citizens were invited to guess what the population of Tulsa would be in the year 2007, the year the time capsule would be opened. The person, or its descendent, whose guess came closest to the actual number would eventually win the car. In addition, a saving account was opened with a deposit of $100, which would also be awarded to the winner.
The Plymouth Division of Chrysler and a group of Plymouth car dealers from the Tulsa area donated the car. The car’s boot and glove box was filled with various items that included a woman’s purse, several photographs, a case of Schlitz beer, and a five-gallon container of gasoline and a case of motor oil, to help start the car in case fossil fuels became obsolete in the future.
Miss Belvedere was interred in a concrete vault in the front lawn of the county courthouse, advertised as being strong enough to withstand a nuclear attack It (she?) was covered with a wax-like corrosion-proof substance and then wrapped in layers of sealed plastic. Finally, a huge one-piece concrete lid was placed on top of the structure and the vault was sealed shut. Over this, a metre (three feet of dirt) was poured and a bronze marker donated by a local cemetery was placed on the spot, which seems fitting for a burial.
Burying the car
As the grand reopening of the vault approached, there was speculation on what would be revealed. According to Forrest Brokaw, a former news director for Tulsa Channel 2, “whoever gets the car is going to have a pristine automobile, 50 years old, highly classic and worth a lot more than the $2000 that cars were worth then.”
Alas, it was not to be. Lifting the lid of the tomb was only slightly better than lifting the Ark of the Covenant in Raiders of the Lost Ark. It revealed:
- The car was standing in 1.2 metres (four feet) of muddy water, there being indications that in the past the vault had been filled to the brim.
- Miss Belvedere did not look her best. She was streaked with mud and grime, her windows were rimmed with corrosion and the whole of the exterior and interior was covered with rust.
- All moving parts were jammed in place.
- The contents of the woman’s handbag, that was in the glovebox, which included 14 bobby pins, lipstick and a bottle of tranquilizers, appeared to have fused together into a lump of rotten leather.
Miss Belvedere in 2007 after exhumation.
So what happened next?
- The winner of the contest was Raymond Humbertson who, in 1957, made the closest guess of Tulsa's population half a century later. He speculated that in 2007, there would be 382,457 people living in the city. The actual figure was 384,743. However, Humbertson had died in 1979 and his wife in 1988, and the couple did not have any children. The car and the savings account, now $700, were awarded to Humbertson's surviving sisters and nephew.
- The new owners transferred the car to Dwight Foster, who owned a rust removable and restoration firm. For more than two years, Foster worked on the vehicle spending $15,000 of his own money, until most of the rust was gone. At this point, Foster halted further restoration effort knowing the futility of the project. There was no possibility the car would ever run. Foster’s goal was only to stabilize it and make it presentable from the outside.
- Miss Belvedere lived with Foster for nearly ten years before she was acquired by the Historic Auto Attractions Museum in Roscoe, Illinois, where you can still see the partially restored car.
Miss Belvedere after restoration
-------oOo------
From Smithsonian Magazine
February 10, 2023
Superbugs risk:
The United Nations (U.N.) is sounding the alarm about drug-resistant superbugs—pathogens that are on track to kill millions of additional people around the world.
In a new report Wednesday, the U.N.’s Environment Program warned that antimicrobial resistance—an umbrella term for bacteria, viruses, parasites and fungi that are evolving to evade our medicines—could be responsible for an additional ten million deaths each year by 2050.
Already, drug-resistant infections directly kill millions of people around the world—1.27 million in 2019—and contribute to millions more deaths, per a 2022 study. In the U.S., more than 35,000 people die each year from antimicrobial-resistant infections, which can number 2.8 million annually, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Doctors, farmers, livestock producers and others routinely use antimicrobials—which include antiparasitics, antibiotics, antifungals and antivirals—to prevent and treat infections in humans, animals and crops. But microbes have been adapting to overcome these treatments essentially since their introduction—and now, environmental conditions might be increasing the risk of such superbugs, per the U.N - climate change, pollution, changes in our weather patterns, more rainfall, more closely packed, dense cities and urban areas, of this facilitates the spread of antibiotic resistance.
-------oOo------
Fr0m Bored Panda
February 9, 2023
50 Interesting Snapshots Of History Shared By This Instagram Page That Aims To Surprise And Educate:
The following is a selection of interesting history pics and items taken from an Instagram site called “History in Pictures”. According to Bored Pabda, it offers a collection of the most brilliant, rare, and forgotten moments in the past captured on camera.
_________
In 1955, Playboy ran a story that depicted a future where homosexuality was the norm, heterosexuality was outlawed and anti-straight mobs marched the streets:
Outraged letters poured in. Hefner responded “If it is wrong to persecute heterosexuals in a homosexual society, then the reverse is wrong, too.”
_________
In 1960, David Latimer planted a garden inside of a giant glass bottle and sealed it shut. Latimer only opened the bottle once in 1972 to add a bit of water. The self contained ecosystem has flourished for 60 years:
_________
Iran in the good ole’ days:
_________
This is how Marlene Dietrich showed up in Paris in 1933 after being told not to wear pants upon arrival:
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.