Chess Hawk

[Archaeo - Histories @archeohistories]

In 1991, Soviet cosmonaut Sergei Krikalev launched from Kazakhstan on a routine space mission. While he orbited Earth, the USSR collapsed. Stranded for 311 days because Russia couldn’t afford to bring him back, he returned to a different country earning the nickname “The Last Citizen of the USSR.”

He embarked on what was meant to be a standard mission aboard the Mir space station. He launched from Kazakhstan as a citizen of the Soviet Union. But as he orbited the Earth, the country that sent him up dissolved beneath him.

The USSR collapsed, and the newly formed Russian Federation found itself in economic turmoil—so much so that it couldn’t afford to bring him home.

Krikalev ended up spending 311 days in space—twice as long as planned—becoming known as “The Last Citizen of the USSR.”

When he finally returned to Earth in March 1992, he landed in a country that didn’t exist when he left. The flag, anthem, and leadership had all changed.

He wasn’t bitter. In fact, Krikalev went on to fly six space missions and rack up more than 800 days in orbit—one of the longest totals in human history.

#archaeohistories

[Sama Hoole @SamaHoole]

Iceland has a breed of sheep that nobody breeds for meat, because for a thousand years it has been bred for one quality only. Judgement.

They are called forystufe. Leader sheep. Taller, longer in the leg, narrower through the body, oddly marked, and always at the front, with their heads up while the rest of the flock has its head down. When they move, the flock moves. Nobody votes.

A proven leader sold for two or three times the price of a good sheep. Bloodlines became famous. When a great one died, the farm kept the head.

And the claim attached to them sounds like folklore until you read the records. They know the weather is coming, sometimes a full day out. If the leader will not leave the barn on a morning that looks perfectly fine, you do not move the flock. Farmers arranged their winters around the opinion of a sheep, and wrote it down as fact.

Autumn round-up, 1884. A large flock is being driven across the interior when a blizzard comes down on open sand and rock. Every landmark goes. You cannot pitch a tent on that ground and turning back is worse than going on.

At the front is a ram called Surtur, from Svinavatn, already known as a superior leader. The fjallkongur, the man running the round-up, makes a decision. He hands the whole thing to the sheep and tells his men to stay together.

A third of the way across, Surtur stops, turns, and walks back down through the flock to find the men. His face is packed solid with ice and he cannot see. They clear it. He returns to the front and walks back into the weather.

He comes back for the same service several more times that night. Nobody has to fetch him.

Then he stops and will not move at all. The men feel about and find grass under their boots, which tells them they are off the desert and nothing else whatsoever.

At dawn the storm eases and they work out where they are.

They are standing on the exact spot the round-up stops every year after crossing the sands. Surtur had halted there since he was a lamb. Afterwards the fjallkongur told his owner that without the ram, men would have died out there as well as sheep.

There are fewer than 1,500 leader sheep left, all of them descended from one district in the north east. Iceland recognised them as a breed of their own in 2017. There is a small museum out there, run by a local teacher, with the heads of the great ones on the wall and a coffee blend named after the animals. The saying on the wall is that if you wear clothes made from their wool, you will always find your way home.

Genetic work has since confirmed they really are distinct from every other Icelandic sheep. The folklore was right. Folklore usually is, out where the weather kills people.

No laboratory. No pedigree software. No genome. Just farmer after farmer, century after century, watching which animal was at the front when the light went, and breeding from that one.

A thousand years of selecting a sheep for its judgement, and at the end of it they built it a museum.

And here we are, in the country that calls them stupid.

[the Sports ON Tap @thesportsontap]

In 2013, Mariano Rivera announced it was his last season.

Every team in baseball lined up to give him retirement gifts. A gold record. A rocking chair made from broken bats. A fire hose nozzle from the FDNY.

He accepted all of it.

But at every single ballpark, he asked for something else first.

He wanted to meet the employees.

Not the executives. Not the owners. The ushers, the ticket sellers, the custodians, the grounds crew. The people who show up at 6 a.m. and leave at midnight and never get thanked by anybody.

The Yankees' media relations director helped coordinate it, working with each team to pull together a group.

And Rivera did it at stop after stop, all season long, in his final year, at 43 years old, while still closing games.

Here's what he told about 20 Rangers employees in Arlington:

"We would never have a chance to see you guys, and that's why I wanted to do this. That was important to me, to make sure to thank those that work behind the scenes. No one sees them."

In Cleveland, he sat down with 25 staff members for half an hour before a game.

And partway through, he stopped and asked a question.

"Where's the drummer?"

For forty years, a man named John Adams had sat at the top of the bleachers in Cleveland with a bass drum, pounding out a beat to start rallies. Every home game. Four decades. He bought his own ticket for the seat next to him so the drum could sit there.

Adams raised a drumstick from the back of the room so Rivera could find him.

Rivera's response: "Hey, you the man. Being loyal, being there day in and day out. I really respect that."

At Fenway, he finally met a man named Baz who had been a fixture in that ballpark for decades. Baz afterward: "Pretty special. I've got tears in my eyes."

In Anaheim, where Rivera made his major league debut in 1995 and got his first career save in 1996, he sat with longtime Angels staffers and listened to their stories.

At every one of these, he took a photo with every single person and handed each of them a signed baseball.

His explanation of the whole thing:

"I want to be remembered as a player that gave for others. It's not that I'm better than anyone else; that's not true. I have been blessed and treat everybody the same because I wanted to be treated like that. With respect."

And this wasn't a farewell lap by a guy limping to the finish.

He saved 44 games that season with a 2.11 ERA at 43 years old. He pitched a scoreless inning at the All-Star Game, which kept his career All-Star ERA at 0.00 across thirteen appearances.

He finished with 652 saves, the most in the history of baseball, and a 0.70 postseason ERA that will probably never be approached.

In 2019 he became the first player ever elected to the Hall of Fame unanimously. Every single ballot.

Not Ruth. Not Mays. Not Aaron. Mariano Rivera.

The greatest closer who ever lived spent his last season making sure the people nobody notices got to be noticed once.

For more stories like this, follow us on any platform @thesportsontap

[Iain Cameron @theiaincameron]

Kakawaie Island in Canada is about a mile long and uninhabited. It's pretty unremarkable, apart from one key aspect: it is the biggest of its kind in the world.

1/2

[Mathias Steel 🇺🇸 @TheHybridHulk]

Bush fucked up so bad, it made Obama possible.

Obama fucked up things so bad, it made Trump possible.

Trump fucked up things so bad, it made Biden possible.

Biden fucked up things so bad, it made people want Trump back.

Trump has now fucked up things so bad that AOC thinks she has a chance in 2028.

We are no longer a serious country.

[Chess.com @chesscom]

When you play too much online chess 😭

[PROTECT ALL WILDLIFE @Protect_Wldlife]

A record of the moment when an inquisitive Cape Penguin approached a man who was bodyboarding off the coast of Cape Town, South Africa, on its own initiative, climbed onto the board, and enjoyed riding the waves.

#WildlifePhotography #Penguin 🐧

��� Credit: Accu Weather.

[McGogoo @McGogoo]

🤣🤣🤣

[Chess Hawk @BernKwah]

@miles_commodore I’d think the internet/ smartphone would need to be here also

[Patrick J. Wolf @PatWolf]

Dick Proenneke was 51 when he walked into Twin Lakes, Alaska, with hand tools and built himself a cabin.

Filmed the whole thing on his own and stayed almost thirty years.

[Chess Hawk @BernKwah]

@miles_commodore It was always cheesy. Only watched if nothing else was on.

[Chess Hawk @BernKwah]

Can’t believe this was 40 years ago

[DepressedBergman @DannyDrinksWine]

When Sigourney Weaver was sent the script of "Aliens" (1986), she had no idea that a sequel was being made for "Alien" (1979) as the studio didn't inform her. After reading the script, Weaver thought it was "Magnificent" and "The Greatest script" she had ever read. She was blown away by the humour, humanity and action. Cameron was initially afraid to meet Weaver as he feared she would be as stern and intimidating as her Ripley character. After their meeting he was relieved. He said, “She was just this wonderful person, and I was so relieved that she saw some value in the script and where I was proposing to take the character.” Cameron was open to some of the changes to the script mentioned by Weaver.

However, on the first day of the shoot, there was one hiccup. The shoot was in England and the sets were built. When Weaver arrived, she told Cameron that she was Anti-Gun advocate and she wasn't touching a gun. Cameron asked her, "Did you read the script?". She replied, "I read it. I understood there were guns in it, I just didn’t think Ripley had to pick up a gun except for a flamethrower.”

Realizing that the script would require a major rewrite if he couldn’t convince Weaver to use the machine gun, Cameron took Weaver behind the studio and had her fire off the weapon a few times. Cameron said, “I’ll never forget her blasting away with this thing. And then there was this kind of sly look over to me, like ‘This is fun.'”. Weaver said, “It just shows how addictive guns are." while noting that she felt ashamed of the pleasure she took in shooting the rounds.

("James Cameron and Sigourney Weaver on Their 40-Year Collaboration", Jim Hemphill, Indiewire, 2025)

P.S: On this day, 40 years ago, "Aliens" (1986) premiered at Westwood, California, USA.

[JamesFennell MBE @FennellJW]

The last match up this big between England and Norway was at Stamford Bridge... in 1066...

We won that one, but lost to France in the final. 960 years of hurt..

[le.hl @0xleegenz]

Ethan Hawke explains why you can't see how good your own era is until it's already gone

"My kids and stuff, some of my kids are older, so 27 23 and they're like"

"Oh back in the 90s, my son showed me the other day like 5 movies that came out some weekend in 1994 something and they're all amazing"

"He said what a time I wish i lived in that time and I was like wow I remember being nonplussed that weekend
and I remember wishing it was 1974"

"So we're in this ongoing thing which make it really easy to be critical and negative about what's happening"

"Cause usually time is the great curator, time will reveal what's good about what's happening right today cause it's harder for us to see it"

[a cat out of the bag @acatoutofthebag]

alexandra eala really took rafael nadal's teachings seriously 🤯

[Chess.com @chesscom]

NM Ethan Sheehan defeats World #2 GM Hikaru Nakamura!! WOW

[🎳WizardOfDudeowski🎳 @AssusReamus]

��🏼😂👇🏼🤣👇🏼😂👇🏼🤣👇🏼😂👇🏼🤣

[Jim Kennedy @TonikJDK]

I need this shirt.

[Caitlin Flanagan @CaitlinPacific]

Hidden Valley Ranch dressing had a long journey to market but it really took off in the 70’s. Everyone was crazy for it. The recipe was replicated and the flavor became just “Ranch.” It was so tangy and tasty and we put it on everything. Ranch dressing WAS the 70’s.

[Chess Hawk @BernKwah]

Got stung by one of these evil demons when I was around 4 years old. Learned the hard way not to mess with any brightly colored animal. Lesson learned.

[Jon Bird @2002tacomasr5]

Cowkiller. You're fucked