The 1933 double eagle is a United States 20-dollar gold coin. Although 445,500 specimens of this Saint-Gaudens double eagle were minted in 1933, none were officially circulated, all but two were ordered melted down. However, 20 more are known to have been rescued from melting by being stolen and found their way into the hands of collectors before being recovered. Nine of the recovered coins were destroyed, making this one of the world's rarest coins, with only 13 known specimens remaining—only one of, owned; the two intentionally spared coins are in the U. S. National Numismatic Collection, ten others are held in the United States Bullion Depository at Fort Knox, the one remaining recovered coin was sold in 2002 to an anonymous private owner who paid US$7.59 million for it—the second-highest price paid at auction for a single U. S. coin In 1933, in an attempt to end the 1930s general bank crisis, U. S. president Franklin D. Roosevelt issued Executive Order 6102, which provisions included: Section 2.

All persons are hereby required to deliver on or before May 1, 1933, to a Federal Reserve bank or a branch or agency thereof or to any member bank of the Federal Reserve System all gold coin, gold bullion, gold certificates now owned by them or coming into their ownership on or before April 28, 1933, with the exception of the following: Such amount of gold as may be required for legitimate and customary use in industry, profession or art within a reasonable time, including gold prior to refining and stocks of gold in reasonable amounts for the usual trade requirements of owners mining and refining such gold. Gold coin and gold certificates in an amount not exceeding in the aggregate $100.00 belonging to any one person. Gold coin and bullion earmarked or held in trust for a recognized foreign government or foreign central bank or the Bank for International Settlements. Gold coin and bullion licensed for the other proper transactions including gold coin and gold bullion imported for the re-export or held pending action on applications for export license.

Congress additionally passed the Gold Reserve Act in 1934, which outlawed the circulation and private possession of United States gold coins for general circulation, with an exemption for collector coins. This act declared that gold coins were no longer legal tender in the United States, people had to turn in their gold coins for other forms of currency; the 1933 gold double eagles were struck after this executive order, but because they were no longer legal tender, most of the 1933 gold coins were melted down in late 1934 and some were destroyed in tests. Two of the $20 double eagles were presented by the United States Mint to the U. S. National Numismatic Collection, they were on display in the "Money and Medals Hall" on the third floor of the National Museum of American History; these two coins should have been the only 1933 double eagle coins in existence. However, unknown to the mint, a number of the coins were stolen by the U. S. Mint cashier, found their way via Philadelphia jeweler Israel Switt into the hands of collectors.

The coins circulated among collectors for several years before the Secret Service became aware of their existence. The matter came to the attention of mint officials when an investigative reporter looked into the history of the coins he had spotted in an upcoming Stack's Bowers coin auction and contacted the Mint as part of his research; as a result, an official investigation into the matter was launched by the Secret Service in March 1944. Prior to the investigation, a Texas dealer sold one of the coins to a foreign buyer, it left the U. S. on February 29, 1944. During the first year of the investigation, seven coins were seized or voluntarily turned in to the Secret Service and were subsequently destroyed at the Mint. In 1945, the investigation identified the alleged thief and his accomplice, who admitted to selling the nine coins, but said he could not recall how he obtained them; the Justice Department tried to prosecute them. A ninth coin was recovered and destroyed in 1952. In contrast, the 1933 Eagle was issued before Roosevelt's withdrawal order, so they may be owned by private citizens.

However, it is estimated that no more than 40 exist, the rest having been melted, making them exceptionally rare. The missing double eagle was acquired by King Farouk of Egypt, a voracious collector of many things, including imperial Fabergé eggs, antique aspirin bottles, postage stamps—and coins, of which he had a collection of over 8,500. In 1944 Farouk purchased a 1933 double eagle, in strict adherence with the law, his ministers applied to the United States Treasury Department for an export license for the coin. Mistakenly, just days before the mint theft was discovered, the license was granted; the Treasury Department attempted to work through diplomatic channels to request the return of the coin from Egypt, but World War II delayed their efforts for several years. In 1952, King Farouk was deposed in a coup d'etat, many of his possessions were made available for public auction – including the double eagle coin; the United States government requested the return of the coin, the Egyptian government stated that it would comply with the request.

However, the coin was not seen again in Egypt. In 1996, a double eagle surfaced again after over 40 years of obscurity, when British coin dealer Stephen Fento

Cetacean stranding known as beaching, is a phenomenon in which whales and dolphins strand themselves on land on a beach. Beached whales die due to dehydration, collapsing under their own weight, or drowning when high tide covers the blowhole. Cetacean stranding has occurred since before recorded history. Several explanations for why cetaceans strand themselves have been proposed, including changes in water temperatures, peculiarities of whales' echolocation in certain surroundings, geomagnetic disturbances, but none have so far been universally accepted as a definitive reason for the behavior. However, a link between the mass beaching of beaked whales and use of mid-frequency active sonar has been found; every year, up to 2,000 animals beach themselves. Although the majority of strandings result in death, they pose no threat to any species as a whole. Only about ten cetacean species display mass beachings, with ten more doing so. All involved species are toothed whales, rather than baleen whales.

These species share some characteristics. Body size does not affect the frequency, but both the animals' normal habitat and social organization do appear to influence their chances of coming ashore in large numbers. Odontocetes that inhabit deep waters and live in large knit groups are the most susceptible; this includes the sperm whale, oceanic dolphins pilot and killer whales, a few beaked whale species. The most common species to strand in the United Kingdom is the harbour porpoise. Solitary species do not strand en masse. Cetaceans that spend most of their time in shallow, coastal waters never mass strand. Strandings can be grouped into several types; the most obvious distinctions are between multiple strandings. The carcasses of deceased cetaceans are to float to the surface at some point. Since thousands of cetaceans die every year, many become stranded posthumously. Most carcasses never reach the coast and are scavenged or decomposed enough to sink to the ocean bottom, where the carcass forms the basis of a unique local ecosystem called whale fall.

Single live strandings are the result of illness or injury, which inevitably end in death in the absence of human intervention. Multiple strandings in one place are rare and attract media coverage as well as rescue efforts. Multiple offshore deaths are unlikely to lead to multiple strandings due to variable winds and currents. A key factor in many of these cases appears to be the strong social cohesion of toothed whales. If one gets into trouble, its distress calls may prompt the rest of the pod to follow and beach themselves alongside. Many theories, some of them controversial, have been proposed to explain beaching, but the question remains unresolved. Whales have beached throughout human history, with evidence of humans salvaging from stranded Sperm Whales in southern Spain during the Upper Magdalenian era some 14,000 years before the present; some strandings can be attributed to natural and environmental factors, such as rough weather, weakness due to old age or infection, difficulty giving birth, hunting too close to shore, or navigation errors.

In 2004, scientists at the University of Tasmania linked whale strandings and weather, hypothesizing that when cool Antarctic waters rich in squid and fish flow north, whales follow their prey closer towards land. In some cases predators have been known herding them towards the shoreline, their echolocation system can have difficulty picking up gently-sloping coastlines. This theory accounts for mass beaching hot spots such as Ocean Beach and Geographe Bay, Western Australia where the slope is about half a degree; the University of Western Australia Bioacoustics group proposes that repeated reflections between the surface and ocean bottom in gently-sloping shallow water may attenuate sound so much that the echo is inaudible to the whales. Stirred up sand as well as long-lived microbubbles formed by rain may further exacerbate the effect. A 2017 study by scientists from Germany's University of Kiel suggests that large geomagnetic disruptions of the Earth's magnetic field, brought on through solar storms, could be another cause for whale beachings.

The authors hypothesize that whales navigate using the Earth's magnetic field by detecting differences in the field's strength to find their way. The solar storms cause anomalies in the field, which may disturb the whales' ability to navigate, sending them into shallow waters where they get trapped; the study is based on the mass beachings of 29 sperm whales along the coasts of Germany, the Netherlands, the UK and France in 2016. Some strandings may be caused by larger cetaceans following dolphins and porpoises into shallow coastal waters; the larger animals may habituate to following faster-moving dolphins. If they encounter an adverse combination of tidal flow and seabed topography, the larger species may become trapped. Sometimes following a dolphin can help a whale escape danger. In 2008, a local dolphin was followed out to open water by two pygmy sperm whales that had become lost behind a sandbar at Mahia Beach, New Zealand, it may be possible to train dolphins to lead trapped whales out to sea.

Pods of killer whales, predators of dolphins and porpoises rarely strand. It may be that heading for shallow waters protects the smaller animals from predators and that killer whales have learned to stay away. Alternatively, killer whales hav

The Lindell Hotel in the American city of St. Louis opened in 1863, on Washington Avenue, it was destroyed by fire in 1867, was reconstructed on the same site, re-opening in 1874. It was one of the largest and best-appointed hotels in the city, with 270 bedrooms, had its own barber shop and Turkish bath; the Laclede Hotel Company of St. Louis was established on March 5, 1855 by a charter from the Missouri Legislature. A lot was selected for the new hotel bounded by Washington Avenue and Green Street and Sixth and Seventh Streets. Brothers Jesse G. and Peter Lindell contributed this lot in exchange for eighty thousand dollars in Laclede Hotel Company stock and contributed ten thousand dollars to the endeavor beyond that. Although work on the hotel was to begin earlier, an economic crisis in 1857 forced work to be delayed. In 1859, another act was approved by the Legislature to build an larger structure than was planned, at a cost of five hundred thousand dollars, it was at this point that the hotel was renamed in honor of its benefactors.

Construction on the Venetian style hotel was completed in 1863. The building was six stories high and consisted of two parallel buildings with two courts in between. In 1882, guests could stay at the Lindell Hotel for $2.50 to $4.50 per day. A grand opening ball was held on November 25. A piece composed expressly for the grand opening ball was written and performed by Waldauer & Vogel's Orchestra; the organizers sold four thousand tickets, although they were wary of inviting women for fear that some improper characters might be admitted. An article in the Missouri Republican newspaper reported on the event the next day. A mob gathered to view the guests arriving for the ball, a rumor spread that a Chicago woman would arrive in a gown of spun glass. Over the course of the evening, guests dined on twelve hundred quail, more than two hundred turkeys, one thousand pounds of cake; the party continued until five in the morning. When the hotel opened, Frank Roberson, a successful African-American barber, leased space in the basement to open his tonsorial parlor, or barber shop.

Roberson was one of many free blacks in St. Louis at that time. Roberson renovated the hotel space at a cost of eighteen thousand dollars and hired thirty employees; the barber shop was advertised in a creative way, as Roberson had a Turkish man in a turban drive through St. Louis city streets in a gig with a bathtub mounted on top. Roberson was credited with introducing the popular Turkish bath to the Western country. Only a few years after opening, the Lindell Hotel succumbed to fire. On March 30, 1867, a fire erupted on the upper story and spread through the roof and all sides of the building. Although the fire department arrived without delay, the height of the hotel prevented firemen from throwing water on the roof; the top of the hotel was engulfed in flames, which spread downward throughout the structure. Luckily, because the fire started around 8:30 pm, many of the hotel's four hundred guests had not yet gone to bed, it became clear that the hotel would not be saved, so furniture and other items were taken out, many were saved.

As the fire grew worse, firemen abandoned efforts to save the Lindell Hotel and focused their efforts on saving the surrounding buildings. Around midnight, the walls of the hotel fell resulting in about nine hundred thousand dollars of damage to the building and between two and three hundred thousand dollars of furniture lost. Stones from the remains of the original Lindell Hotel made their way to St. Louis' Tower Grove Park; the hotel fire occurred shortly before Henry Shaw deeded the land that would become Tower Grove Park to the City of St. Louis. Shaw saw potential for the limestone blocks; the limestone was brought to the park and restacked to resemble ancient ruins, according to a plan drawn up by Shaw and horticulturist James Gurney. This type of arrangement modeled on ancient ruins was common at the time, as European grand tours gained popularity. After the fire, citizens began assembling to discuss rebuilding the hotel, it was debated whether the building should stand on the hotel's old site or to the west, on the same street.

Mrs. Vincent Marmaduke resolved to rebuild the hotel on its original site. George I. Barnett was selected as the architect for the new building and work began on September 1, 1872, with the clearing of rubble from the fire. Construction took two years, the new hotel was opened on September 28, 1874; the new hotel had two hundred and seventy guest rooms, with more room devoted to public use than the old structure. The Lindell Hotel offered some unique amenities for the late 1870s, including steam heat, lace curtains, an electric massage bath. Guests could choose from cold water, Russian, or Turkish baths; the barbershop in the hotel was popular and employed a dozen premier barbers. One barber working there made $2,000 a month in 1870s dollars and served 600 regular customers from all over the city