Yesterday was Nikola Tesla’s birthday: here’s a bio, some Tesla coil music, and a Tesla vs Edison rap battle.

Brussels sprouts, English Muffins, French toast – How 9 Site-Specific Foods Got Their Names.

The strange and righteous history of the equals sign.

Correlation is not causation: charts of weird things that correlate with each other.

How Barbed Wire Changed the West.

The Japanese soldier who lived in the hills and refused to surrender for 29 years.

ICYMI, most recent links are here, and include Independence Day speeches from Lincoln (1858), Coolidge (1926), and Reagan (1986), how the first news reports of independence were disseminated, the science of fireworks and of barbecue, and Independence Days from science fiction.