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WHEN HISTORY WALKS THE PLANK

Monday, May 9, 2022

In today’s newsletter, we learn two new COVID variants are coming and quick work is needed to help millions of pandemic orphans, find out why many Americans should thank a man named Wong Kim Ark ... and discover real pirates were nothing like Long John Silver.

IMAGE COURTESY OF BRIDGEMAN IMAGES

Ahoy there! Popular portrayals of pirates—with eyepatches, colorful clothing, peg legs, hook arms, or walking the plank—bear little resemblance to fact.

Turns out, writers had been getting it all wrong long before the popular tales of Treasure Island and Peter Pan. We examine how pirate myths began, and how they took hold.

“Common pirate phrases—such as ‘Arrrrr me mateys!’ and ‘Shiver me timbers!’” writes Jamie L. H. Goodall, “are not legitimate things a pirate would actually have said.”

Yo ho ho—here’s the full story.

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STORIES WE’RE FOLLOWING

Two even more transmissible COVID variants may drive new U.S. surge

How the Ukraine war is propelling Germany’s energy transition from Russian gas and oil

A new method delivers life-saving drugs to the brain using sound waves

Holy bat superpower! They can mimic hornets to avoid getting eaten

The 10 best U.S. national parks

4 eco-friendly ways to keep pests out of the yard

IN THE SPOTLIGHT

PHOTOGRAPH BY TANGO IMAGES/ALAMY

A fight that helped millions: He was born in San Francisco and lived most of his life there. When officials, backed by nativists, tried to take away his American citizenship and force him to China when he was returning from a trip, Wong Kim Ark fought back. The Supreme Court’s ruling in 1898 that American-born residents are citizens, even if their parents are not, protected generations of American-born residents who followed his path, Amy Briggs writes for Nat Geo History.

PHOTO OF THE DAY

PHOTOGRAPH BY KAREN KASMAUSKI

A life together: This bride and groom stroll at a traditional Vietnamese wedding in Virginia. This image, from a 2001 story on documented immigrants settling in the United States, was recently featured in our Photo of the Day archival collection. “There are many ways to be American, just as there are many ways to be Asian,” Elaine Teng wrote last year for Nat Geo.

SEE VINTAGE PHOTOS

LAST GLIMPSE

PHOTOGRAPH BY MUHAMMAD FADLI

Quick work needed: An estimated 10.4 million children worldwide have lost a parent or caregiver to COVID-19. Many of them have seen their family fortunes decline sharply. It is “an orphanhood crisis unprecedented in modern history,” Amy McKeever writes for Nat Geo. Public health officials say only strong cooperation among nations and health officials can stem long-lasting effects on kids, whose brain architecture can even change with the profound loss. (Pictured above, 14-year-old Yuni Folani, who lost her dad to COVID last summer, with her mom, Nisma, at her father’s grave in Indonesia.)

Read the full story here.

‘AN ORPHANHOOD CRISIS’

Today's newsletter was curated and edited by David Beard, Jen Tse, and Monica Williams. Have an idea or feedback for us? Let us know at [email protected]. Thanks for stopping by!

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