The native fauna of Crete included pygmy hippo, pygmy elephant, dwarf deer (Praemegaceros cretensis), giant rodents and insectivores as well as badger, beech marten and a kind of terrestrial otter. Large carnivores were lacking. Most of these animals died out at the end of the last ice-age. It is still not sure if man played a part in this extinction, which is found on other big and medium size Mediterranean islands as well, for example on Cyprus, Sicily and Majorca Up to now, no bones of the endemic fauna have been identified in Neolithic settlements.

I thought it was pretty cool that Crete was once home to pygmy hippos and elephants. But they forgot to mention the minotaurs.

The sisters agreed that Chelsea has suffered more than its share of tragedy, starting in December 1993 when Chelsea High School science teacher Stephen Leith shot and killed school Superintendent Joe Piasecki and wounded the high school principal and a teacher.

Since then, Chelsea has coped with two car crashes that killed three young people each in 2000 and 2001, and the tragedy of a mother who shot and killed two of her children and wounded a third before killing herself in 2000.

“When I tell people outside Chelsea about it, they are really shocked,” Martin said as she and Brennan sat in the busy Zou Zou’s Cafe and Coffee Bar on Main Street in downtown Chelsea.

Translation: Chelsea is a deathtrap.