Editor Ruby is here today to connect some odds and ends:

Did you know we’re on TikTok? By which I mean Content Creator Megan is on TikTok, and tells the rest of us via other platforms when she makes a video? If you like the Friday Know-It-All, you’ll love Megan’s videos. Particularly this one about how the Seven Wonders of the World is basically the original listicle.

You’ve heard of the gold standard: how about the gold penny? In the 1200s, England briefly minted a pure gold penny worth 20 pence. This was a bad idea for many reasons and quickly discontinued. Almost all pennies were melted down (they were made of gold!) but eight survived. “Normal guy who lives in Devon” Michael Leigh-Mallory found the eighth one with a metal detector this January. He sold it at auction for a record-breaking £648,000 and intends to use the money for his children’s education. Aw! Feel good!

While writing a round about plagiarism, Editor Ira happened to be listening to a Ronnie Milsap Greatest Hits record, as one does, and found this song that simply is, musically, “Octopus’s Garden.” Bold!

Born in 1912, Viola Smith was one of the first women in the United States to be a professional drummer. She kept performing into her 90s, and passed away at the age of 107 in 2020. While looking into an op-ed she wrote in the 1940s to encourage band leaders to allow women musicians to fill the seats of men who had been drafted into WWII, I found this fantastically titled book on the “all-girl” bands of the 1940s, “Swing Shift.”

While fact-checking a reference to the Washington Monument as the world’s tallest obelisk, Editor Sophie found a very angry person in the comments of the Guinness Book of World Records entry. Some people are very passionate about the definition of “obelisk,” which reminds you that life is a rich tapestry.