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Always Look Up Everybody’s Mom

Ada Palmer | Ex Urbe | 12th February 2025

Two Renaissance cardinals claimed rags-to-riches stories, but Franscesco della Rovere was more like "a son of the 1% climbing to join the 0.01%" as Pope Sixtus IV. (One historical tip for identifying hidden nepotism: consider people’s mothers, not just their fathers). By contrast, Jorge da Costa’s farming family was truly dirt poor; as such, his slow grind to success required living to age 102 (4,000 words)

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Nomido is the Browser's daily word game. Play today's before it's gone!

Magnet Fishing Has Beef

Robbie Armstrong | Glasgow Bell | 1st March 2025

"Lobbing high-powered magnets on ropes into waterways to retrieve discarded metal objects" might seem like wholesome fun, but legally it's considered "unauthorised work on a scheduled monument." A group in Glasgow skirts the law and irks the regulators at Scottish Canals. "I don’t like backstabbing and I’m no keen on authority figures telling me what tae dae, especially wi ma hobby" (2,700 words)

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