DAMN INTERESTING

May Have Settled

Announcement #33 • written by Alan Bellows

It was early in the morning on the 1st of May 1832 in New York City. The ordinarily gentle horse-drawn traffic of the up-and-coming metropolis seemed a bit more dense than usual, and as the morning progressed the avenues and boulevards became increasingly crowded. At 9:00 AM, almost as if on cue, thousands of doors on thousands of buildings burst open to vomit humans, furniture, and other sundries out into the bright morning sun. Within moments the streets of New York were a jangling amorphous pandemonium.
English author Frances Trollope happened to be in New York City to witness this peculiar spectacle:

On the 1st of May the city of New York has the appearance of sending off a population flying from the plague, or of a town which had surrendered on condition of carrying away all their goods and chattels. Rich furniture and ragged furniture, carts, wagons, and drays, ropes, canvas, and straw, packers, porters, and draymen, white, yellow, and black, occupy the streets from east to west, from north to south, on this day.

All over New York, tenants along with their belongings abandoned their abodes to criss-cross the city in mass migration to fresh dwellings. This was Moving Day. Owing to a quirk in New York law, nearly all rental contracts expired every year on May 1st at 9:00 AM, resulting in the simultaneous relocation of a multitude of persons and property. For over a century, from colonial times until shortly after the Second World War, it was the custom for the city to spend every May 1st as a scarcely navigable morass of humans, carts, and livestock.
We here at Damn Interesting headquarters (i.e., my residence) have recently performed our own interpretation of Moving Day, having spent an exhausting morning, noon, and night shuttling furniture, appliances, and corrugated cardboard cubes from one structure to another. The preceding packing and subsequent reorganizing have unavoidably disrupted our normally abnormal posting schedule. Next week, however, our jangling amorphous pandemonium will be over, and we shall be back to posting new articles.

interesting articles

We’ve been bringing you everything from the bizarre to the beautiful for over three years now–and often writing at length about some of our more fascinating findings all the while. And just in case you’ve missed some of them, here’s a quick way to catch up! Without further ado, here are the best All That Is Interesting articles that you haven’t read yet:
Viewing note: clicking on a post title or image will open a new window to the article.

The World’s Most Remote Places

Internet surfing can serve many purposes, ranging from informing yourself of current events to stalking your ex to scouring for a Portuguese dish to make for a pretentious dinner party. Each of these activities are united by one thing, though: you are absolutely alone while you do them. But if that cyber solitude isn’t enough to get your introvert on, you might peruse our list of the world’s most remote places and jet off to an uninhabited archipelago smack between South Africa and South America or a scenic roadless province in Tibet. Or, at the very least, daydream about it.

Interesting Articles: Incredible Natural Phenomena

If you’re anything like us, the enjoyment of nature is often translated as “admiring its beauty from the insect-free comforts of your computer screen”. That rings especially true in the case of natural phenomena, which when they’re not found at a prohibitively far distance from your home are potentially quite dangerous. For those of you with a naturalist’s heart but an agoraphobic’s mind, check out the world’s most mind-blowing natural phenomena.

99 Interesting Facts About The World To Blow Your Mind

When Twister was first introduced, many referred to it as sex in a box. Otters sleep holding hands. Twenty percent of coffee mugs contain fecal matter (gross). If you’re on the prowl for awesome party trivia, look no further than this handy list of interesting facts that we’ve compiled for you. Great news: we’ve got 99 of ‘em.

The Astounding Origins Of English Idioms

Given our familiarity with the language, it’s quite easy for us to assume that the English language, much unlike its more “exotic” and “colorful” linguistic counterparts, lacks rich and imaginative idioms. If you’re one of those who thinks that your mother tongue is rather bland, fear not! We’re here to remind you of seven idioms with bizarre–and fascinating–origins.

42 Staggering Photos Of Abandoned Detroit

The Motor City has certainly seen some brighter days. Declaring bankruptcy in 2011, Detroit is one of the many–yet most visibly–suffering cities in the wake of the Great Recession. The industrial metropolis once served as home to around two million people, but today the numbers hang just over 700,000. Truly a dying city, these photos of an abandoned Detroit are incredibly sobering.