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114 YEARS AGO, THIS HEIRESS VANISHED

Thursday, May 30, 2024

In today’s newsletter, we swashbuckle with ancient pirates, gumshoe a Gotham mystery ... and let science tell us if first-born kids are bossy and the youngest ones are big babies.

Black and white portrait of a woman from the shoulders up. She is wearing a bonnet with a bow and has short, dark hair.

PHOTOGRAPH BY FAY 2018, ALAMY

One icy morning in 1910, heiress Dorothy Arnold (above) set out to buy a dress and take a stroll in Central Park. She never returned.

That prompted a hunt—and headlines—for years, and an unsavory backstory surfaced. The family, close-mouthed for more a century, is finally talking. Can New York’s coldest case be solved?

DID SHE FLEE? WAS SHE PREGNANT? KIDNAPPED?

Related: A thriving society vanished into thin air. Historians are finally piecing together the clues.
Also: Will we ever solve these 5 ancient mysteries?

STORIES WE’RE FOLLOWING

Silhouette of three boys from the side standing in line

PHOTOGRAPH BY HANS NELEMAN, GETTY IMAGES

Does your birth order (pictured above, three boys ages five to eight) actually influence your personality? Recent studies may have an answer.

Epidurals can do more than relieve pain

Has the food industry applied lessons learned from Big Tobacco to make ultra-processed foods as addictive as cigarettes?

Why are tuberculosis cases rising in the U.S. after years of decline?

The Sonoran Desert toad can get you high—and poachers have taken notice

Will this summer be even hotter than the last? Here’s how extreme heat can be deadly.

What is ‘Ozempic Face’?

The world’s oldest sport is still the best cardiovascular workout. Here’s why.

Why are these pelicans starving to death?

The best compression socks for travelers

WHAT IN THE WORLD?

Merchant ships, such as that on the left of this sixth-century B.C. Greek bowl, were targets of pirates in antiquity. Naval warships, such as the one on the right, were periodically deployed to squash piracy.

BRITISH MUSEUM/RMN-GRAND PALAIS

Pirates existed thousands of years before Blackbeard. In fact, they were raiding ships in the ancient Mediterranean so far back that they kidnapped an early luminary. Who was it?

A. Cleopatra
B. Jesus
C. Julius Caesar
D. Muhammad

MEDITERRANEAN PIRATES

Related: How a quake flattened a pirate capital—the ‘wickedest city on Earth’

LAST GLIMPSE

Picture of blue blubber with yellow arms ending with stars.

PHOTOGRAPH BY GUIDO MOCAFICO

Over a century ago, a father-son duo crafted nearly 10,000 models of 700 species of sea creatures. With the 19th-century’s fascination for all things under the sea, these many models were used as teaching tools as well as objects of art. Which sea creature does the glass model above depict?

A. Coral
B. An anemone
C. A sea pansy
D. A sea urchin

Related: How bioluminescence may have evolved in Earth’s oceans

Today’s soundtrack: Colors, Black Pumas

Tomorrow: Don’t miss our Top 10 stories of the week (now on Fridays)!

We hope this brightened your Thursday. It was curated by David Beard, Nancy San Martín, and Nishita Naga.

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