Platypus

When he received the first duck-billed platypus from Captain John Hunter in Australia, naturalist George Shaw thought it was a hoax. “Impossible not to entertain some doubts as to the genuine nature of the animal, and to surmise that there might have been practised some arts of deception in its structure,” he wrote in the journal Naturalist’s Miscellany.

Surgeon John Knox agreed: “Aware of the monstrous impostures which the artful Chinese had so frequently practised on European adventurers … the scientific felt inclined to class this rare production of nature with eastern mermaids and other works of art.”

| History · Science & Math

The Chase Vault

It’s bad enough that the Chase family of Barbados had to inter six members between 1808 and 1819.

But each time they opened the family vault, they found that the coffins had been rearranged into awkward positions.

After the last instance, the island’s governor pressed his personal seal into fresh cement in the vault’s door. The seal was intact when the vault was opened the next year — but the coffins had been rearranged again, with one thrown up against the door.

Finally the coffins were buried separately in the Christ Church graveyard. No explanation was ever found.

| Oddities

Thumbs Up

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Colosseo_at_night,_Rome.JPG

Whenever a death sentence is commuted or a death-row inmate is released, anywhere in the world, the Colosseum’s nighttime illumination is changed from white to gold.

It’s a gesture against the death penalty, which Italy abolished in 1948.

| Trivia

“Trunko”

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Trunkowhale.JPG

On Oct. 25, 1924, witnesses reported a three-hour fight between two whales and a “giant polar bear” off the coast of Margate, South Africa. The creature attacked the whales using its tail, lifting itself out of the water by as much as 20 feet, but eventually succumbed.

When its body washed up on shore, residents reportedly saw a 47-foot fishlike animal with snow-white fur 8 inches long, an elephant’s trunk, a lobster’s tail and a carcass drained of blood. No head was visible; the trunk extended directly from the body.

Strangely, though the body remained for 10 days on Margate Beach, no scientist investigated and no photographs were taken. Most likely it was a whale whose decay made it appear furry, but we’ll never know.

| Oddities

Down, Over, Up

If you start at the North Pole and walk one mile south, one mile east, and one mile north, you’ll find yourself back at your starting point.

The North Pole is not the only point with this property on Earth’s surface. In fact, there are any number of such points. Where are they?

Click for Answer
| Puzzles

Landmarks in Medicine, #3

From John Aubrey, Miscellanies Upon Various Subjects, 1696:

Mr. Schoot, a German, hath an excellent book of magick: it is prohibited in that country. I have here set down three spells, which are much approved.

— To cure an Ague. Write this following spell in parchment, and wear it about your neck. It must be writ triangularly.

A B R A C A D A B R A
A B R A C A D A B R
A B R A C A D A B
A B R A C A D A
A B R A C A D
A B R A C A
A B R A C
A B R A
A B R
A B
A

With this spell, one of Wells, hath cured above a hundred of the ague.

— To cure the biting of a Mad-Dog, write these words in paper, viz. “Rebus Rubus Epitepscum”, and give it to the party, or beast bit, to eat in bread, &c. A Gentleman of good quality, and a sober grave person, did affirm, that this receipt never fails.

— To cure the Tooth-Ach: out of Mr. Ashmole’s manuscript writ with his own hand.

“Mars, hur, abursa, aburse”.
Jesu Christ for Mary’s sake,
Take away this Tooth-Ach.

Write the words three times; and as you say the words, let the party burn one paper, then another, and then the last. He says, he saw it experimented, and the party “immediately cured.”

| History · Literature

Der Giftpilz

http://www.calvin.edu/academic/cas/gpa/thumb.htm

Yes, it’s a Jewish toadstool.

In 1938, fanatical Nazi Julius Streicher published a children’s book called Der Giftpilz (The Poisoned Mushroom), which compared perfidious Jews to poisonous fungus.

“Our boys and girls must learn to know the Jew,” a mother warns her children. “They must learn that the Jew is the most dangerous poison mushroom in existence. Just as poisonous mushrooms spring up everywhere, so the Jew is found in every country in the world. Just as poisonous mushrooms lead to the most dreadful calamity, so the Jew is the cause of misery and distress, illness and death.”

Disturbingly, Streicher had worked as an elementary school teacher before joining the German army in 1914. He published propaganda for Hitler, and after Nuremberg he was the only sentenced Nazi to declare “Heil Hitler” before being hanged. At least he was consistent.

| History · Oddities

Who?

Identities assumed by virtuoso impostor Stanley Clifford Weyman (1890-1960):

  • U.S. consul representative to Morocco. Arrested for fraud.
  • Military attaché from Serbia and U.S. Navy lieutenant (so the two could use each other as references).
  • “Lt. Cmdr. Ethan Allen Weinberg, consul general for Romania.” He inspected the U.S.S. Wyoming and invited its officers to a dinner at the Astor Hotel. On being arrested, he was heard to complain that they should have waited until dessert.
  • “Royal St. Cyr,” a lieutenant in the U.S. Army Air Corps. Arrested on an inspection tour of the Brooklyn armory.
  • Company doctor in Lima, Peru. Threw parties until arrested.
  • State Department naval liaison officer. Introduced himself to Princess Fatima of Afghanistan and promised to arrange a meeting with the president. She gave him $10,000 for “presents” to State Department officials. Weyman got appointments with Secretary of State Evans Hughes and with Warren G. Harding. Indicted for impersonating a naval officer.
  • U.S. secretary of state. Interviewed Queen Marie of Romania for the Evening Graphic newspaper.
  • Personal physician to Pola Negri, Rudolph Valentino’s grieving lover. Established a faith-healing clinic and issued regular press releases.
  • Arrested during World War II for telling draft dodgers how to feign various medical conditions.
  • Journalist for the United Nations. Caught when he asked the State Department whether he could remain a U.S. citizen if he became the Thai delegation’s press officer.

Ironically, Weyman’s most honest act may have been his last: He was shot trying to stop a robbery in a New York hotel. “One man’s life is a boring thing,” he once said. “I lived many lives. I’m never bored.”

| Crime · Hoaxes

Rocket Mail

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Missilemail.jpg

In 1959, the U.S. Postal Service tried delivering mail with a cruise missile — they replaced its warhead with two mail containers and fired it from Virginia to Florida.

When it hit the target, the postmaster general announced a new era. “Before man reaches the moon,” he said, “mail will be delivered within hours from New York to California, to Britain, to India or Australia by guided missiles. We stand on the threshold of rocket mail.”

But the program went no further. “The post office has a great charm at one point of our lives,” wrote Jane Austen. “When you have lived to my age, you will begin to think letters are never worth going through the rain for.”

| Technology