Welcome to Mid-Afternoon Map, our exclusive members-only newsletter that provides a cartographic perspective on current events, geopolitics, and history from the Caucasus to the Carolinas. Subscribers can look forward to interesting takes on good maps and bad maps, beautiful maps and ugly ones — and bizarre maps whenever possible.***Arctic balloon tragedies are a timeless subject, but they seem particularly compelling in the late summer Washington heat. No one wants to be marooned on an ice floe eating uncooked seal meat following the predictable failure of a poorly made polar balloon. Still, it sounds better than stepping outside right now.In 1897, Swedish aeronaut Salomon August Andrée set off