🪙 The penny drops for good

After 232 years, the U.S. Mint has printed its last one-cent coin.

It’s tough to imagine, but the literal act of printing money can be a money-losing venture, at least when the money in question is the penny.

Trite clichés rush in (a penny for your thoughts, the penny drops, etc.), but what I can’t stop thinking about is this: we’re heading into a world without the little copper cent. As Erik Barnes reports, after over two centuries in circulation, the U.S. Mint has officially stopped making pennies. They’ll stay in use, but no new ones are coming.

The why is simple: it costs 3.69 cents to make a single penny. That’s nearly four times its value. The Treasury estimates that ending production could save $56 million annually. With 300 billion pennies already floating around, they figure we’ll survive.

Though I’m struggling to remember the last time I held a penny in my hand, the end of the penny isn’t without its issues. Cash-only businesses are being forced to round prices, and critics argue that could quietly cost consumers, especially those who rely on cash, the most.

Image of the day

And what did we learn?

Yesterday, we took a military-grade look at the marketing buzzwords that are all sizzle and no steak. I wanted to know how GOOD readers would market themselves, and about a third of you are All Natural.

• Premium (18.8%)

• Artisanal (22.9%)

• Natural (35.4%)

• Up to 100 percent effective (16.7%)

FeliciaBiggins chose “Up to 100% effective” and gave us the fine print. ““Up to 100% effective" because, when I've had at least seven hours of uninterrupted sleep, I've hit my daily fiber goal, under optimal weather conditions, and when Mercury is not in retrograde, I can hit 100% effectiveness.”

🕳️ Lost chambers, ancient mosaics, and a church with secrets

Archaeologists crack open an ancient architectural Easter egg beneath one of Istanbul’s oldest churches.

There’s a feeling you get during an Indiana Jones movie. Beneath the fun and adventure is a little voice whispering, “secret passages and hidden tunnels are all well and good, but no one just forgets entire sprawling portions of important places”. Then again, sometimes they do. Archaeologists at Istanbul’s Saraçhane Archaeology Park just uncovered a mosaic-lined tunnel and hidden chambers beneath the 1,500-year-old St. Polyeuctus Church.

The chambers likely connected to the church’s prothesis, basically the backstage prep zone for Byzantine rituals. Princess Anicia Juliana built the church in the 520s to quietly flex on Emperor Justinian and Theodora, and the underground craftsmanship shows it.

And the whole thing has shrugged off fifteen centuries of earthquakes. Mahir Polat of the Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality calls it a structural masterclass, while King’s College London archaeologist Ken Dark hopes the find finally gives this overlooked site the spotlight it deserves.

🎯 $24 million in the laundry pile

Jimmie puts the pro in procrastination.

It is said (and we checked the math!) that you’re more likely to get hit by lightning twice than to win a lottery jackpot. So when Jimmie Smith bought a ticket on a regular afternoon in New York, he didn’t exactly sprint home to check the numbers. The 68-year-old retired security guard had a system. Buy the tickets. Toss them in a pocket. Get to them later.

My guess is he really enjoyed that daydreamy moment before the inevitable letdown. If you’re not going to win, that’s the best way to increase your ROI. If you’re not going to win…

Cut to a year later, and the New York Lottery goes public with a plea for the mystery winner to step forward. Jimmie saw the announcement and finally went hunting for his old tickets. One shirt. One pocket. One crumpled slip he barely remembered buying.

As Adam Albright Hanna reports, the numbers matched, but the ticket was set to expire in two days.

It’s November 14th, 1889, and Around the World in Eighty Days has been sparking imaginations since its debut seventeen years before. At the time, 136 years ago, it was absurd high adventure. Nobody could circumnavigate the globe in so short a time.

Enter Nellie Bly, a 25-year-old reporter… who packed a single gripsack, tucked her money belt under her dress, and stepped onto a steamship to turn fiction into fact. In a world where women couldn’t vote and were told to stay put, Nellie Bly showed the planet how fast a woman could move.

Her plan was simple and audacious: beat Phileas Fogg’s imaginary 80 days using real timetables, telegraphs, and nerve. The New York World turned it into a spectacle, complete with a “Guess Her Time!” contest, while a rival magazine launched Elizabeth Bisland in the opposite direction that very evening. Bly rode ocean liners, trains, rickshaws, and canal steamers; detoured to Amiens to meet Jules Verne; and filed crisp dispatches that made the world feel suddenly connected.

Seventy-two days after she left, she returned to a thunderous welcome, having proven that the planet had quietly shrunken, that information (and a determined woman) could outrun expectation, and that adventure no longer belonged only to storybook gentlemen.

And today? You can do it in 44 hours, 33 minutes, 39 seconds on scheduled commercial flights for about $3,000–$6,000 in economy like Cham-Kai Yip, Ricky Li, and Hanson Wen did last year, setting the current world record. Or… join NASA: astronauts on the International Space Station loop the planet roughly every 90 minutes, about 16 times a day

Do you have something GOOD to share?

We’re always on the lookout for uplifting, enlightening, and engaging content to share with readers like you. If you have something you think should be featured in the Daily GOOD, let me know!

💬 From the group text…

It’s Friday and I want to send you into your weekend with a smile. Let’s see what I’ve got here… Oh, this’ll do! A dancing dog so talented it’ll make you want to take up lessons. Happy Friday!

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