I’m experimenting with a new format - a weekly post with the links and other delightful marginalia I’ve come across during the week. Enjoy :)

• Two centuries, not a single labor strike - the Italian barrel making company, Garbellotto S.p.A, survived two years without work coming in. What‘s more impressive is that they did it without a single layoff. The thing that stood out the most to me - they haven’t had a single labor strike in their two and a half centuries of operation.
• The venerable Bede - for a guy who lived in the same town his entire life, he achieved quite a bit. The BC/AD date convention for history was his idea; he wrote about the English as one people, despite the island being a fractured mess of tribes and kings who frequently went to war with each other.
• A social history of rhubarb - Did you know that rhubarb originates in China? Or that it grows wild in the South Gobi desert? The author traces a history of the plant, interweaving it with her own family history.

This work is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0