Last year, archaeologists discovered huge earthen pits dug by humans some 15,000 years ago in an area just north of Mexico City. Inside those pits were the remains of more than a dozen woolly mammoths, some of which showed signs of being butchered. This discovery led researchers to hypothesize that these pits were in fact traps laid by human ancestors to capture huge, prehistoric prey. In 2020, another mammoth graveyard has been found just six miles away, though archaeologists so far see no signs of human involvement in the demise of the roughly 60 mammoths that have been unearthed.
Norwood Penrose "Pen" Hallowell (April 13, 1839 – April 11, 1914) was an officer in the Union Army during the American Civil War. One of three brothers to serve with distinction during the war, he and his brother Edward Needles Hallowell both became commanders of the first all-black regiments. He is also remembered for his close friendship with and influence upon future Supreme Courtjustice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., who was his classmate at Harvard and his comrade during the war. Hallowell's fervent abolitionism led him to volunteer for service in the Civil War, and he inspired Holmes to do the same. He was commissioned a first lieutenant on July 10, 1861, joining the 20th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry with Holmes. Hallowell fought in the Battle of Ball's Bluff on October 21, 1861, in which he distinguished himself by leading a line of skirmishers to hold off Confederate forces.
Peche Di, a Thai beauty queen who studied at New York University, spent five years booking occasional modeling gigs and looking for an agency to represent her. "They didn't understand me," she says, "so I struggled to find work." Finally she decided to do something about the lack of opportunities for her and other transgender models. The 26-year-old walked into the county clerk's office downtown in Manhattan and filed the paperwork for Trans Models, creating New York City's first transgender modeling agency—and one of only three in the country, and perhaps the world.
Kenneth Felts spent his entire life in the closet. But at 90 years old, he felt ready to come out. Since the age of 12, when he first knew he was gay, Felts said, he had been living a double life, battling between dueling identities. There was Ken, his outward-facing straight self, and then there was his alter ego, whom he referred to internally as Larry, a gay man he spent nearly eight decades stifling. “I learned from the Bible not to be gay. I was planning to take this secret to the grave with me,” said Felts, who lives in Arvada, Colo., and grew up in a religious Christian family. “I could not reconcile these two parts of me,” Felts said. “For a long time, Ken did a pretty good job of keeping Larry at bay.”