How Stuff Works

By: Lena Thaywick | Black cats, spiders and bats are all part of the Halloween spirit. TWINS DESIGN STUDIO / Shutterstock Some Halloween animals practically arrive with their own costumes. Bats swoop through the night, spiders spin elaborate webs and black cats have spent centuries appearing in tales about witches and supernatural forces. These associations didn't come from nowhere.

Fenway Park, home of the Boston Red Sox, still uses a hand-operated scoreboard. zimmytws / Shutterstock The oldest MLB stadiums span more than a century of baseball architecture, from Fenway Park's quirky dimensions to the retractable-roof ballparks that arrived near the end of the 20th century. Fenway opened in 1912, making it the oldest active Major League Baseball stadium, with Wrigley Field following in 1914. Then comes a remarkable gap.

There's a lot more to the Guinness family than a smooth pint. Alexandru Nika / Shutterstock The Guinness family story stretches from an 18th-century brewery in Dublin to aristocratic titles, public parks, philanthropy and a Netflix drama. Arthur Guinness founded the Guinness brewery at St. James's Gate in 1759, creating a family business that would grow into one of the world's best-known beer brands. Yet the family's history is about considerably more than the black stuff.

No kratom drug has FDA approval. Andrii__Ivaniuk / Shutterstock The deaths of two University of Mississippi students have brought new attention to kratom, a plant sold in products ranging from leaf powder to concentrated shots. Investigators found packaged kratom during both death investigations. They have not determined that kratom—or any other substance—contributed to either death.

We're talking about the seagrass, not the fish. Damsea / Shutterstock The oldest living thing on Earth might be a tree, an underwater meadow or an enormous colony that looks like thousands of separate organisms. The answer depends on what scientists count as one living thing. A single bristlecone pine can survive for thousands of years, but clonal colonies complicate the record books.

Satchel Paige was 59 years, 2 months and 18 days old when he started for the Kansas City Athletics against the Boston Red Sox. spatuletail / Shutterstock The oldest MLB player ever was Satchel Paige, who took the mound at age 59 in 1965. That's remarkable enough on its own, but Paige's record becomes even more impressive when you consider that baseball's color barrier prevented him from playing in the American or National League until he was already in his 40s.

The Dura-Europos house church in present-day Syria began as a house built around A.D. 232 and was adapted for Christian worship around A.D. 240. Simone Migliaro / Shutterstock Identifying the oldest church in the world sounds simple until you ask what counts as a church. Is it the earliest surviving room where Christians worshipped, the oldest building constructed specifically as a church or the oldest church that remains active today?