On Aug. 17, 1896, 44-year-old Bridget Driscoll was crossing Dolphin Terrace on the grounds of London’s Crystal Palace when she was struck and killed by a car belonging to the Anglo-French Motor Carriage Company.
The car had been traveling at 4 mph, “a reckless pace, in fact, like a fire engine,” according to one witness.
After a six-hour inquest, the jury returned a verdict of accidental death. Coroner Percy Morrison said he hoped such a thing “would never happen again.”
In February 1943, hundreds of German women joined in a spontaneous protest in central Berlin. They were objecting to the roundup of some of the city’s last Jews — their husbands. In this week’s episode of the Futility Closet podcast we’ll describe the Rosenstrasse protest, a remarkable example of civil disobedience.
We’ll also ponder whether a computer can make art and puzzle over some unusual phone calls.
In 1911 William Howard Taft escaped the White House:
In the face of a driving rain the president and Mrs. Taft at 4:30 o’clock this afternoon left the White House, dodging the guardian, Major Butt, and the secret service men, and for two hours tramped together through the streets, dropping in at the homes of friends to wish them the compliments of the season.
Reportedly Calvin Coolidge also walked Washington with a single Secret Service guard in the 1920s, his identity “often … never suspected”:
One story had it that on an icy Winter’s day pedestrians on a downtown street noticed a thin man without an overcoat, gazing intently into a restaurant window where a girl was busily turning griddle cakes. As one passerby was pitying him for his apparent cold and hunger, the man turned and walked rapidly away, followed by another man in a greatcoat. The thinly clad one was the President.
(From Richard J. Ellis, Presidential Travel, 2008.)
In 1871, while the Great Chicago Fire was riveting the nation’s attention, a blaze six times as deadly was ravaging a desperate town in northeastern Wisconsin. In this week’s episode of the Futility Closet podcast we’ll tell the story of the Peshtigo fire, the deadliest wildfire in American history.
We’ll also watch an automated western and puzzle over some discounted food.
In 1816 the United States built a fort on Lake Champlain to guard against attacks from British Canada.
Too late the planners discovered that they’d chosen a site north of the border — they’d built their fort in Canada.
It’s now called “Fort Blunder.”
To pass the time while waiting in the trenches of the Argonne, French infantryman Hippolyte Hodeau engraved the names of his daughters in chestnut leaves.
More at Europeana.
On its first day of service in 1882, a horse-drawn tram in Wilmington, Calif., broke its wooden rails, forcing the male passengers to push the car to the next sound section of track. After this it was known as the Get Out and Push Railroad.
A steam engine three years later did little better: “The little engine was a very primitive affair. It was so constructed that it had to be started with a metal bar, and was covered with a wooden jacket which used to catch fire when the boiler was hot enough to make a good steam. Then, since the water in the boiler had to be used to extinguish the fire, the steam would go down and the engine refuse to run … It ran fairly well on level ground, but on a rise it was apt to stop entirely till the male passengers got out and applied the iron bar with considerable force.”
So the line kept its name. “When the railroad is completed,” carped the Los Angeles Weekly Mirror, “some of the citizens suggest that the horse rail-way be continued in operation for the benefit of those who may be in a hurry.”
(Franklyn Hoyt, “The Get Out and Push Railroad,” Historical Society of Southern California Quarterly 33:1 [March 1951], 74-81.)
In 1903, French physicist Prosper-René Blondlot decided he had discovered a new form of radiation. But the mysterious rays had some exceedingly odd properties, and scientists in other countries had trouble seeing them at all. In this week’s episode of the Futility Closet podcast we’ll tell the story of N-rays, a cautionary tale of self-deception.
We’ll also recount another appalling marathon and puzzle over a worthless package.
When the Allies secured New Guinea’s Goodenough Island in October 1942, they left a small Australian occupation force to hold this important position against the Imperial Japanese. They succeeded through deception: The Australians built dummy structures (including a hospital), pointed logs at the sky to suggest anti-aircraft guns, wove jungle vines into barbed wire, lighted numerous “cooking fires” at night, and sent messages in easily broken code that suggested that a full brigade occupied the island.
It worked. The small force held the island until December 28, and a new garrison arrived the following year.
In 1799 two Royal Navy ships met on the Caribbean Sea, and their captains discovered they were parties to a mind-boggling coincidence that would expose a crime and make headlines around the world. In this week’s episode of the Futility Closet podcast we’ll tell the story of the shark papers, one of the strangest coincidences in maritime history.
We’ll also meet some Victorian kangaroos and puzzle over an expedient fire.
