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Happy Friday, dudes.
This week’s theme: Stuff that burns and stuff that grows. The Chicago Fire finally burned out on this day in 1871, and on the other side of the world, the Sahara is out here feeding the Amazon with dust. Turns out the planet’s pretty good at breaking things and fixing them at the same time.
Oh, and it’s National Angel Food Cake Day. My mom’s thrilled.
🗓️ Today in History
October 10, 1871: The Great Chicago Fire Finally Goes Out
On this day in 1871, the Great Chicago Fire finally burned itself out after three brutal days that turned the city into a pile of smoking rubble. By the end, more than 17,000 buildings were gone, 100,000 people were homeless, and about 300 lives had been lost.
It all started on the night of October 8th in a small barn owned by a woman named Catherine O’Leary. The urban legend, popular in Chicago lore, attributes the ignition of the fire to a clumsy cow and a carelessly unattended lantern. It’s a fun image, but probably not true. The O’Learys denied it, and in 1997 the Chicago City Council actually cleared the cow of all charges. It only took them 126 years to do it.
Once the fire started, the city didn’t stand a chance. Chicago, not yet the concrete jungle it is today, was populated with wooden buildings. To add insult to injury, it hadn’t rained in weeks, turning the windy city into a tinder box. The initial flames were fanned by a prevailing wind and the rest is history. Further complicating matters, oil and grease coating the surface of the Chicago River acted as causeways, allowing the greedy flames access to both sides of the river.
The flames finally died out early on October 10th when rain moved in. Out of the ashes came a rebuild that changed everything. Chicago rose again with better building codes, steel structures, leading to the iconic skyline that, today, dwarfs other cities in comparison. The fire destroyed almost everything, but it also forced the city to reinvent itself.
So yeah, on this day in 1871, the flames finally stopped. The cow was innocent, the city was scorched, and Chicago got to work becoming Chicago again.
❓ Trivia
Chicago is famously known as what?
P.S. We’re now breaking down the answers at the end of each edition, so you get a little more insight.
How Sahara Dust Feeds the Amazon
Invoking the name of the Sahara Desert elicits images of a barren waste. Endless sand, blistering heat, the title to a sweet Matthew McConaughey movie, and not much else. But here’s the thing… that same desert quietly keeps the Amazon rainforest alive. Every year, billions of particles lift off the African dunes, cross the Atlantic, and drop into South America like some cosmic fertilizer delivery.
Yeah, the same wasteland that looks like Mars is helping the world’s greenest jungle grow. Pretty nuts.
The Desert That Gardens
Each year, about 182 million tons of dust blow out of North Africa. Roughly 27 million tons actually make the full trip across the ocean, falling across the Amazon Basin like a nutrient snowstorm. This isn’t random dirt. It’s packed with phosphorus, iron, and other minerals that rainforest soil desperately needs.
See, the Amazon rains so much that it’s constantly washing away nutrients. The trees live in a system that’s too wet for its own good. Meanwhile, the Sahara — dry, empty, and ancient — has everything the Amazon doesn’t.
The biggest contributor is a spot in Chad called the Bodélé Depression. Thousands of years ago, it was a lake, now it’s a cracked basin full of the powdered remains of tiny organisms. When the wind hits it just right, it launches plumes of dust into the sky that drift more than 3,000 miles.
How It Works
Trade winds scoop up fine dust from the Sahara and carry it high into the atmosphere. The particles ride the jet stream for days, even weeks, floating like tan ribbons that stretch from Africa to South America. NASA is able to track these plumes by satellite, and the images look like someone spilled a sand-colored latte across the ocean.
Eventually, the particles come down — gravity, rain, or both pull them back to Earth. When that dust hits the Amazon, it seeps into the soil and rivers, replacing nutrients that constant rainfall had stripped away. Scientists say the phosphorus coming in from the Sahara roughly matches what the rainforest loses every year.
The Planet’s Balancing Act
What’s wild is how precise it all is. A barren desert on one side of the world feeds a rainforest on the other, keeping the system running like it’s been scheduled for millennia. The amount of dust changes each year depending on weather patterns in Africa. And it’s not just the jungle that benefits. The same dust helps fertilize the Atlantic Ocean, feeding plankton and tiny marine life that build the base of the food chain. So the next time you eat sushi, thank the Sahara.
The Wild Part
It’s hard to imagine a stronger example of how connected the planet really is. A dry lakebed in Chad keeps trees in Brazil alive. One place burns and crumbles while another blooms and thrives. The desert and the jungle are like two halves of the same system, quietly keeping each other in check.
There’s something poetic about that. The driest place on Earth keeping the wettest place from running out of life.
TL;DR: The Sahara sends millions of tons of mineral-rich dust across the Atlantic each year, giving the Amazon the nutrients it needs to survive. A desert feeding a jungle. Pretty cool stuff.
P.S. Big shoutout to longtime Dude Stuff reader Noah Sinykin for the idea. Got one of your own? Hit reply and tell us what weird, wild, or awesome thing you want us to cover next.
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🥣 Stuff to Check Out
Few songs are as badass as this. The guitars grind like machinery coming to life, Klaus Meine growls like he’s possessed, and every riff feels like it’s carved out of steel.
Listen to this song and deadlift 1000lbs.
Give it a listen 👇
📸 Photo of The Week
This badass Russian dude chasing a bear with a bat
🍽️ Last Bite
🎰 Trivia Breakdown
Chicago’s most famous nickname is The Windy City, but no one can say with complete confidence where it came from. The story most people hear is that it had nothing to do with weather and everything to do with attitude.
In the late 1800s, Chicago was trying hard to prove itself, especially when it was competing to host the 1893 World’s Fair. New York journalists supposedly got tired of the constant bragging and started calling Chicago the “Windy City” as a dig at all the political bluster and civic pride coming out of the Midwest.
It makes sense, but here’s the catch: no one has ever found the single article that proves it. Historians have searched every archive they can, and while early references to “The Windy City” exist, none directly tie it to that insult.
Some think it actually came from the literal wind that blows off Lake Michigan, which anyone who’s walked down Michigan Avenue in January can confirm is very real. Others believe it started as booster language, describing Chicago as lively and full of energy.
The truth is probably a mix of all three. Chicago has always been a little loud, a little proud, and tough enough to earn whatever nickname it gets. Whether it started as an insult or not, “The Windy City” stuck because it fits.
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