Tons more are here; they’re also mirrored on Flickr.

(Via Boing Boing.)

Some residents in the Upper Midwest were surprised to be shaken by an earthquake last night.

The United States Geological Survey reported that the earthquake, which had an estimated magnitude of 4.3, was centered near Virgil, about 50 miles northwest of Chicago, at a depth of about three miles. There were no immediate reports of aftershocks… Amy Vaughan, a geophysicist with the agency, said that the tremor was only the second notable earthquake in more than 30 years to rattle the area. Even though the quake was relatively small, it was felt by residents as far away as southern Wisconsin…

One of the best sources for information on earthquakes is the U. S. Geological Survey; the map above shows that earthquakes are common along the Pacific coast, but in just the past week they have also been recorded near the New Madrid fault and in New Jersey, Tennessee, Texas, and the Rockies. A comparable map of world earthquakes is available at the same link.

News link. USGS link.

The “Three Kings of the Blues Guitar” are Albert, B.B. and Freddie King (no relation). The three of them are among the greatest bluesmen and most influential guitarists of the late 20th century and are veritable American institutions (just as, if not more, important than barbecue and baseball). For each of the Kings, we’ve got three performance videos and a guitar lesson.

Albert King

Nicknamed “The Velvet Bulldozer,” Albert King stood 6′ 4″ and weighed in at 250 lbs. He played his Gibson Flying V (“Lucy”) left-handed, upside-down and backwards. In 1966, he signed with the Stax record label and began recording with Booker T. & the MGs. A year later, he released Born Under a Bad Sign, the title track of which would become his best known song. He continued to record (working with Isaac Hayes’ backing band, The Movement, during the 70s) and tour for the next few decades and was planning an overseas tour when he died of a heart attack in 1992.

Born Under A Bad Sign

Albert’s most well known song, from a 1981 concert.

Why Are You So Mean to Me

Live with John Mayall & The Original Bluesbreakers 1982.

Don’t Lie To me

Live with Stevie Ray Vaughn in 1983.

The Albert King Box

Here’s a lesson from riffeo.com on playing in the “Albert King box,” an area of the fret board where Albert tended to improvise during solos.

B.B. King

B.B. (a nickname, shortened from “Beale Street Blues Boy”) King has been called “worldwide ambassador for the blues” by the Blues Foundation and the 3rd greatest guitarist of all time by Rolling Stone. He began his musical career after meeting T-Bone Walker, saying that after that, “I knew I’d have to have [an electric guitar] myself. Had to have one, short of stealing!” His version of Rick Darnell and Roy Hawkins’ song “The Thrill Is Gone,” released on 1969’s Completely Well, became his biggest hit (#3 on the R&B chart and #15 on the Pop chart) earned him a Grammy for Best Male R&B Vocal and became his signature song. For a large part of his career, B.B. performed some 300 concerts a year. In 2006, the year he turned 80, he launched his “farewell tour” and gave some thought to retiring. This spring, he’s touring North and South America again adding to the 15,000+ concerts he’s performed in his career.

The Thrill Is Gone

B.B.’s signature song, live at the Montreux Jazz Festival in 1993.

Sinner’s Prayer

Live with Billy Preston on organ and Bruce Willis on harmonica at a tribute to Ray Charles.

Key to the Highway

A little less guitar playing here, and a little more acting like somebody’s grandfather telling a story.

B.B.’s guitar tips

A guitar lesson from the man himself done in something of a Q+A format.

Freddie King

Freddie King, nicknamed “The Texas Cannonball,” forged his own finger-picked (a plastic thumb pick and a metal index-finger pick, a technique he picked up from Jimmy Rogers) style of playing based on the Texas- and Chicago-style blues he heard growing up. While maybe not as well-known as the other Kings, Freddie was no less influential on the next generation of blues guitarist and has been cited as an inspiration by Stevie Ray Vaughan, Eric Clapton and Peter Green. Freddie King died from heart failure in 1976 at the age of forty two.

Ain`t No Sunshine When She`s Gone

Performing Bill Withers’ 1971 hit, which Withers recorded while he was still working a day job at a factory that made toilet seats for 747s.

Sweet Home Chicago/Let the Good Times Roll

This footage comes from a 13 minute video shot and edited by Ric Sternberg (part of the video crew at Woodstock) in the 1976. According to Ric, Freddie was in Austin, TX to play a show and the Jail Arts & Education Project got a hold of him and asked him to come down and play for the inmates at the Travis Co. Jail. Freddie agreed, and it appears everyone had a pretty good time.

Whole Lotta Lovin’

Live in LA in 1970.

Freddie King Guitar Lesson

Andy Aledort from Truefire Guitar Lessons (who kind of talks like a guy I took lessons from in high school), give some tips on the basics of Freddie’s style, including pick attack, equipment and a few licks.

(Image of Machu Picchu courtesy of Martin St-Amant – Wikipedia.)

Airing tonight (February 2, 2010) at 8pm on PBS stations: NOVA’s Ghosts of Machu Picchu. Set your DVRs now! If you miss the program, it will be streaming online starting February 3.

Machu Picchu is an Inca engineering marvel: located 8,000 feet above sea level, it contains 200 stone structures placed on a complex set of roughly 700 terraces. What’s most surprising is not its buildings, though — it’s all about what was built underneath the structures. Underground, complex engineering has allowed the site to withstand 76 inches of rainfall per year (that’s 2.5 times what Chicago gets) for over 500 years. Machu Picchu is all about water: it is constructed to last, using complex engineering to manage and divert water. Within the complex, more than 100 drains divert rainfall down the mountain; a system of 16 fountains (flowing at between 6-30 gallons per minute depending on the time of year) provided drinking water for a population of up to 1,000 people; and complex soil engineering allowed the terraces to withstand the pressures of rain and earthquakes. So how did the Inca — lacking steel tools and the wheel — make this place? How could people live in such a remote place, and how did they grow so much corn — a “royal food” of the time? This week’s NOVA explains.

Included after the video is an interview with Ken Wright, a hydrologist who appears in the documentary. Click on through to check it out!

Interview With Ken Wright, Hydrologist

Ghosts of Machu Picchu features the work of Ken Wright, a hydrologist who has worked on the site for 15 years, in cooperation with National Geographic. Wright and his wife Ruth wrote several books on Machu Picchu including, Machu Picchu: A Civil Engineering Marvel and The Machu Picchu Guidebook: A Self-Guided Tour. Together, the Wrights have garned incredible accolades for their work (check out this image showing their collection of awards, including honorary professorships). I was able to ask Mr. Wright a few questions after previewing tonight’s NOVA episode — read on for his answers!

mental_floss: As a modern hydrologist, were you surprised to discover the hydraulic engineering sophistication of the Inca?

Ken Wright: Both my field research colleagues and I were surprised to discover the level of hydraulic engineering performed by the Inca. Field evidence leaves no doubt about what they knew and how they accomplished their engineering feats.

m_f: Do you have a sense of what tools were available to the Inca — how might they have determined a level surface, or measured a precise grade over distance?

KW: Yes, we do know what tools they had. The Inca had a variety of hammerstones, bronze levers, bronze knives, plumb bobs, rope and string. They used clay models for conceptualization and for determining a precise grade, they had nice pottery and stone basins, about 18 inches in diameter, that they filled with water to use as levels.

m_f: What first drew you to study Machu Picchu?

KW: I was first drawn to Machu Picchu by the then-unanswered question: where did the Inca get their water for Machu Picchu?

m_f: This is a slightly silly question, but it nagged me a bit while watching the documentary. The terraces appear to be covered by grass today (though perhaps in the past they were planted with corn). The grass looked very tidy. Do you know if someone mows the grass?

KW: The trimmed grasses on the terraces of Machu Picchu are maintained by free-range llamas and alpacas. For the steep terraces like Huayna Picchu, where the animals can’t get, the Peruvian government hires macheteros (laborers with machetes) to keep the grasses under control.

For more from Ken Wright check out this excellent interview on the NOVA website.

Images From The Documentary

Images courtesy of Ricardo Preve, showing some scenes from Ghosts of Machu Picchu.

Blogger Disclosure

Thanks to WGBH for providing an advance copy of the episode, the images above, and access to Ken Wright. I was not paid or otherwise compensated to review this episode of NOVA — I wrote about it because it’s awesome, and you should watch it!

1. If things had been just a little bit different, she could have been Oprah Ebert. Doesn’t have a great ring to it, does it? The talk show host and the film critic went on a few dates in the ‘80s before deciding they worked better as friends. It’s Ebert who convinced Oprah she should syndicate her talk show, though. During a date at the Hamburger Hamlet (“My treat,” Ebert said) she asked his advice. He told her what he was making to do his syndicated show, then told her to double it, since she wouldn’t be using a co-host, then told her to double it again, because her show would be an hour instead of 30 minutes, then told her to multiply that by five since she would be on all week, then told her to double everything because her ratings would be better than his. That’s when Oprah decided to syndicate.

2. You’ve probably heard the story that Oprah’s name was supposed to be “Orpah” after a character in the Book of Ruth, but it was spelled wrong on her birth certificate, and so she became Oprah. Well, that’s not entirely true. According to Oprah herself, her birth certificate really does say “Orpah,” but no one could pronounce it. Somehow the “R” and the “P” always got switched, and eventually “Oprah” was just easier.

3. Even Oprah’s theme song boasts a rich history. Musical heavyweights who have composed lyrics or music for her opening tune include Paul Simon, Quincy Jones and Patti LaBelle. In 1999, Oprah took voice lessons so she could sing her own theme song, “Run On.” She made a music video for the song as well.

4. Only one author has ever turned down the opportunity for his book to be featured as one of Oprah’s Book Club books – Jonathan Franzen. Oprah chose Franzen’s novel The Corrections to be featured in 2001, and initially he accepted. Then he decided that having Oprah’s logo on his cover might alienate him from a male audience and rather insulted the intelligence of the people who read the books featured in her club by saying, “It’s a hard book for that audience.” Ouch.

5. She won the Miss Fire Prevention Contest when she was 17. She claims she was the only African-American in a pageant full of fair-skinned girls with auburn hair, so she wasn’t really banking on winning. When they got to the Q&A portion of the contest, she wasn’t really concerned about giving the cliché “world peace” answer. She responded to the question, “What would you do with a million dollars?” by saying, “I would be a spendin’ fool. I’m not quite sure what I would spend it on, but I would spend, spend, spend. Spendin’ fool.” Apparently the judges liked her humor and candor, because Oprah won. And now she has a million dollars many times over.

6. But not all critically-acclaimed authors shun the power of Oprah: in 2007, she was granted the first-ever onscreen interview with the notoriously private Cormac McCarthy when she chose The Road as one of her Book Club books.

7. Oprah’s idea of heaven? “A great big baked potato and someone to share it with.”

8. When Oprah opened her own studio, she was only the third woman in history to do so. The two before were Mary Pickford and Lucille Ball, so it had been quite a while since a woman had the pull and capital to do so.

9. The Oprah studio might be haunted. In the early 1900s, the land her studio complex in Chicago occupies today obviously wasn’t a television studio – it was Chicago’s Second Regiment Armory. When the SS Eastland overturned in the Chicago River in 1915, nearly 850 people died. The Armory was turned into a makeshift morgue where the hundreds of recovered bodies were brought for identification. These days, employees of Harpo Studios report seeing an apparition they call “The Gray Lady” and hearing phantom laughter at night.

10. The first-ever “The Oprah Winfrey Show” was called “How to Marry the Man or Woman of Your Choice.” Ironic, considering the fact that she says she and longtime boyfriend Stedman Graham will never marry, despite dating since 1986. Although they were once engaged, they later decided that they would rather have a “spiritual union” and that a traditional marriage would never work with the craziness of their lives.

Will you be devastated when Oprah goes off the air next year? Or will you not even notice? I’m in the latter category – although I’m very impressed with Miss O as a businesswoman and a person, I’ve never really gotten into her show.

Take a look at seven historic Chicago locations. Some were notorious hangouts of the Prohibition-era gangsters of Chicago. You may have even been to some of them without knowing the colorful background of these placces.

The speakeasy, 1920’s icon. When prohibition began, outlawing the sale of alcohol in the United States paved the way for criminals like Al Capone to come to fruition. And if you think prohibition stopped alcohol, well, then… the word naive comes to mind. Alcohol, if anything, was more rampant in the 1920’s. Want to make something that’s already fun even more popular?? Make it taboo. The “speakeasy” was the slang term for an establishment that illegally sold alcohol during these times. Some were seedy bars, others were extravagant nightclubs filled with the rich and famous. The Green Mill Jazz Club, still open today, was a popular speakeasy back during prohibition and at one point even owned by Jack McGurn, a right hand man of Al Capone.

Link

From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by digimouse.

1. The Ghost and The Darkness

Over nine months in 1898, two maneless, male lions allegedly attacked and killed over 140 workers building a British rail bridge across the Tsavo River in eastern Africa. Nicknamed “The Ghost” and “The Darkness” by the superstitious natives, the two beasts were said to be the angry souls of ancient tribal leaders protesting the destruction of their kingdom.

As the attacks became more frequent, employees refused to work. So, chief engineer Lt. Col. John Henry Patterson took it upon himself to hunt down the beasts. Using a series of scaffolding-like structures made of trees and branches (called “manchas”), he was able to hide from the two beasts, shooting them both a few weeks apart. Patterson had the animals’ skins made into rugs, and eventually sold the remains to the Chicago Field Museum. The animals were expertly reconstructed and are still on display today. [Image courtesy of Jeffrey Jung.]

However, modern science has to some extent diminished the legend of the Lions of Tsavo. Recent chemical tests on hair samples have revealed that the animals did eat people in the months before they died, but that the combined number was probably closer to 35—a far cry from the original count of 140.

2. The Man-Eater of Mfuwe

This cocky, 10-foot long lion terrorized the people of Zambia in 1991. After his sixth kill, the lion strutted through the middle of town carrying the victim’s laundry bag, daring anyone to confront him. A California man on safari waited in a hunting blind for 20 nights before finally shooting and killing the monster. This man-eater is currently neighbors with The Ghost and The Darkness at Chicago’s Field Museum.

3. The Champawat Tigress

In the early 1900s, a female tiger allegedly killed 200 people in Nepal before she was driven across the border into the Kumaon Province of India. Once there, she continued her murderous spree by killing another 236 people, bringing her total to 436 over an eight year period.

Determined to end the killings, British hunter Jim Corbett roamed the countryside for days searching for the tigress, but came up empty. Finally, news of a new victim led him to the scene and he tracked the animal as she dragged her latest kill through the dense jungle. Corbett recruited the men of Champawat, a nearby village, to form a line of banging drums in an attempt to drive the animal towards him. The plan worked, and he killed the tigress with two shots. After examining the body, Corbett noticed that her right canine teeth had been damaged by a previous gunshot, which he believed prevented her from hunting her natural prey and forced her to rely on food that was easier to catch.

4. The Tigers of Chowgarh

This mother and son duo were responsible for the deaths of at least 64 people during a five year period in India. In 1930, Jim Corbett shot and killed them both as well. When the mother died, Corbett saw that her claws and one canine tooth were broken, and that her front teeth had completely worn down. Like the Champawat Tigress, these deficiencies probably made hunting its natural prey difficult.

5. The Jaws of Jersey

During the first six days of July in 1916, two men were killed while swimming at resorts on the coast of New Jersey, by what witnesses said was a 9-foot long, 500-pound shark. These sensational deaths made front-page news across the country, prompting experts to reassure Jersey Shore tourists that the attacks were a once-in-a-lifetime event and didn’t expect to see another like them for 1,000 years. In reality, the next attacks came less than a week later.

On July 12, in Matawan, New Jersey, 12-year old Lester Stillwell was swimming in the river when he was pulled underwater by a shark. Stanley Fisher, a local dry cleaner, selflessly dove in to find Lester, only to have the shark strip his right thigh of an estimated 10 pounds of muscle and skin. About 30 minutes later, young Joseph Dunn was swimming with friends by a dock when they faintly heard someone yell, “Shark!” Dunn was last in line for the ladder to safety when, after putting one foot on the bottom rung, the shark latched onto his other leg and yanked him back into the water. The other boys were able to free him from the monster’s grasp, but not before it had cut his lower leg to ribbons.

Stanley Fisher died that day just as he was going into surgery. Lester Stillwell’s body floated up a few days later, with much of the flesh missing from his left leg, part of his shoulder, and across his chest. Only Joseph Dunn survived the Jersey man-eater and, thanks to medical attention, walked out of the hospital on both legs.

For weeks, a frenzy of amateur shark hunters killed many of the big fish around New Jersey. On July 14, a seven foot Great White was snared—its stomach was said to contain “suspicious fleshy material and bones.” The attacks stopped, but to this day, there is debate if that Great White really was the killer. While there haven’t been any similar, large-scale shark attacks on the Jersey Shore since, the events of 1916 were immortalized when they became the inspiration for the novel (and movie) Jaws.

6. The Goonch Catfish

Another man-eater with gills is the Goonch, a species of 6-foot long, 150-pound catfish that swims the Great Kali River in the foothills of the Himalayas. This giant has reportedly pulled a handful of people underwater over the last 20 years, drowning them and feasting on the body. It has been theorized that the fish has acquired a taste for human flesh after dining on funeral pyre remains dumped into the river.

7. Old Two Toes

The story of Old Two Toes, a man-eating grizzly bear that rampaged through Montana, starts in 1898 when a prospector name Johnny Graham set out a bear trap near his claim. The next morning, the trap was gone and a blood trail led into the woods. Graham followed the trail and found a gigantic grizzly lying quietly among the trees. Thinking it dead, the miner set his rifle down and pulled out his knife, to skin the bear for its valuable fur. As he got closer, the bear lunged, mauling Graham to death. Later, a friend came to check on the miner and found the trap with three bear toes still in its jaws—they were chewed off by the determined grizzly, leaving the bear with only two toes on one foot.

Pat Welsh, a wagon train driver, became Old Two Toes’ next victim. The bear happened upon the train’s camp and began eating the food out of Welsh’s wagon. Two Toes killed Welsh while the other members of the wagon train fired Roman candles to chase him away. Another victim, Frenchy Duret, captured the bear in a trap and shot it. But Two Toes simply snapped the chain holding the trap in place and charged at Duret. His body was found later that day, partially devoured.

How Old Two Toes died is a bit of a mystery. Some legends say that Frenchy’s shot was enough to mortally wound the bear. Others say Two Toes attacked a man named Dale, knocking him into a ravine. When Two Toes came down the valley to finish the man off, the bear fell on its back. Dale quickly fired three shots into the exposed underside, puncturing the grizzly’s lung, breaking its neck, and hitting it in the head. Another story involves government wagon drivers who placed dynamite under some food and waited for the big bear to come by for a free meal. The men set off the explosives and Old Two Toes lost a lot more than just a couple of claws.

8. The Sloth Bear of Mysore

The Indian Sloth Bear is a fairly small but very aggressive bear found exclusively on the Indian subcontinent. For unknown reasons, one bear attacked at least 36 people, killing 12. Some of his victims were partially eaten and had their faces ripped from their skulls. Those who survived didn’t fare much better, as they usually lost eyes and noses. Big game hunter Kenneth Anderson finally ended the bear’s rampage with a single shot to the chest.

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1. First birth. We’ll start with Little Ricky’s debut, of course. I Love Lucy was a national phenomenon, so when Lucille Ball became pregnant in real life, it was immediately written into the storyline and achieved the series’ highest ratings ever. On January 19, 1953, Little Ricky appeared for the first time on the show – just 12 hours after the real-life Lucy gave birth via Caesarian section to Desi Arnaz, Jr. The episode received higher ratings than Eisenhower’s inauguration the next day and Queen Elizabeth II’s coronation six months later. Lucy never was referred to as “pregnant,” though – merely “expecting.”

2. First toilet. Sort of. Even though networks had decided to allow a television birth more than four years earlier, apparently a toilet on television was just still too risque. In a 1957 episode of Leave it to Beaver, Wally and the Beav ordered an alligator from the back of a comic book. They decided to keep it in the toilet tank because simply keeping it in the bathtub would surely scare the crap out of the next person to hop in the shower, who would then make the kids get rid of it. The problem? The network refused to allow the toilet to be shown on T.V. It was basically impossible to shoot the episode without showing the toilet – it was kind of the whole point of the plot – but eventually a compromise was reached. The toilet tank would be shown, but the bowl would remain a mystery.

3. First gay couple. You may not remember the show Hot l Baltimore – it’s one-season run was hardly memorable. Based on an off-Broadway show by the same name, this Norman Lear production featured the first openly gay couple to appear on the small screen. It also featured a couple of main characters who were prostitutes. These elements, which were quite controversial in the early ‘70s, also makes the Hot l Baltimore…

4. …the first program to require a “mature themes” warning at the beginning of the opening credits. Perhaps the public wasn’t ready for such mature themes during primetime, because the show was canceled after just 13 episodes. In case you’re curious, that’s “Hotel Baltimore” not “Hot Eye Baltimore.” The name indicated a neon hotel sign with a burnt-out letter.

5. First married couple to share a bed. This happened a lot sooner than most of us think – after years of seeing Rob and Laura Petrie retire to their respective single beds at the end of the night during the ‘60s it seems like we didn’t actually see a real-life couple hit the hay together until several years later on The Munsters and Bewitched. However, the first couple to share a bed happened nearly 20 years before on the early sitcom Mary Kay and Johnny. In 1947, the married title couple hopped into the same bed in their New York apartment. Why the networks shied away from such normal married behavior for the next 20 years is a mystery to most of us – as far as we know, there was no public outcry against Mary Kay and Johnny for sharing the sheets… especially since the pair were married in real-life.

6. First interracial kiss. Score one for the Shat – on November 22, 1968, William Shatner and Nichelle Nichols locked lips on Star Trek. Pathetically, some stations in the South refused to air the episode.
7. First uncensored usage of the word “shit.” As far as we know, that occurred on the October 14, 1999 episode of Chicago Hope. Mark Harmon used it when he uttered the classic phrase “Shit happens.”

8. First commercial. Commercials have been around since nearly the beginning.The first one appeared during a Dodgers and Phillies game on July 1, 1941 – it was a 10-second ad for Bulova watches. The first marketing company to use the brilliant idea of advertising toys on T.V. did so for Mr. Potato head in 1952.

9. First religious service. Likewise, religion on T.V. is hardly a new invention. The first-ever televised service took place on March 24, 1940, and showed the Protestant Easter Services on NBC in New York. An hour later, the Roman Catholic Easter Services aired on the same network.

10. First abortion. The first illegal abortion occurred on Another World in 1964, when a character’s boyfriend talked her into aborting their baby. The character later killed her boyfriend. One of the most famous instances of abortion discussed on television, however, happened just two months before Roe v. Wade made abortion legal. The controversial topic was approached by Maude in a two-part episode in 1972. When Bea Arthur’s title character found herself pregnant at the age of 47, she and her husband decided against keeping the baby. Response was mixed, and many stations ended up dropping the show entirely.

What T.V. firsts do you remember?