Occupational Hazard

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Lloyd_Kenyon,_1st_Baron_Kenyon_by_William_Davison.jpg

In his 1874 Lives of the Chief Justices of England, John Campbell tells this anecdote of Lloyd Kenyon, Chief Justice of England and Wales from 1788 to 1802:

In those days retiring-rooms for the use of the Judges were unknown, and a porcelain vase, with a handle to it, was placed in a corner of the Court at the extremity of the bench. In the King’s Bench at Guildhall the students’ box (in which I myself have often sat) was very near this corner. One day a student who was taking notes, finding the ink in his little ink-bottle very thick, used the freedom secretly to discharge the whole of it into my Lord’s porcelain vase. His Lordship soon after having occasion to come to this corner, he was observed in the course of a few moments to become much disconcerted and distressed. In truth, discovering the liquid with which he was filling the vase to be of a jet black colour, he thought the secretion indicated the sudden attack of some mortal disorder. In great confusion and anguish of mind he returned to his seat and attempted to resume the trial of the cause, but finding his hand to shake so much that he could not write, he said that on account of indisposition he was obliged to adjourn the Court.

Happily for Kenyon, “As he was led to his carriage by his servants, the luckless student came up and said to him, ‘My Lord, I hope your Lordship will excuse me, as I suspect that I am unfortunately the cause of your Lordship’s apprehensions.’ He then described what he had done, expressing deep contrition for his thoughtlessness and impertinence, and saying that he considered it his duty to relieve his Lordship’s mind by this confession. Lord Kenyon: ‘Sir, you are a man of sense and a gentleman — dine with me on Sunday.'”

| History · Humor

Podcast Episode 189: The “Wild White Man”

https://cv.vic.gov.au/stories/immigrants-and-emigrants/william-buckley/buckley-ran-away-from-ship/

In 1835, settlers in Australia discovered a European man dressed in kangaroo skins, a convict who had escaped an earlier settlement and spent 32 years living among the natives of southern Victoria. In this week’s episode of the Futility Closet podcast we’ll review the extraordinary life of William Buckley, the so-called “wild white man” of colonial Australia.

We’ll also try to fend off scurvy and puzzle over some colorful letters.

See full show notes …

| History · Podcast · Society

Podcast Episode 188: The Bat Bomb

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Bat_Bomb_Canister.jpg

During World War II, the U.S. Army experimented with a bizarre plan: using live bats to firebomb Japanese cities. In this week’s episode of the Futility Closet podcast we’ll describe the crazy history of the bat bomb, the extraordinary brainchild of a Pennsylvania dentist.

We’ll also consider the malleable nature of mental illness and puzzle over an expensive quiz question.

See full show notes …

| History · Oddities · Podcast · Technology

Podcast Episode 187: A Human Being in the Bronx Zoo

https://books.google.com/books?id=H7NJAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA1377

The Bronx Zoo unveiled a controversial exhibit in 1906 — a Congolese man in a cage in the primate house. The display attracted jeering crowds to the park, but for the man himself it was only the latest in a string of indignities. In this week’s episode of the Futility Closet podcast we’ll review the sad tale of Ota Benga and his life in early 20th-century America.

We’ll also delve into fugue states and puzzle over a second interstate speeder.

See full show notes …

| History · Podcast · Society

Podcast Episode 186: The Children’s Blizzard

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Scenes_and_Incidents_from_the_Recent_Terrible_Blizzard_in_Dakota_(Schoolhouse_Blizzard).jpg

In January 1888, after a disarming warm spell, a violent storm of blinding snow and bitter cold suddenly struck the American Midwest, trapping farmers in fields, travelers on roads, and hundreds of children in schoolhouses with limited fuel. In this week’s episode of the Futility Closet podcast we’ll describe the Children’s Blizzard, one of the most harrowing winter storms in American history.

We’ll also play 20 Questions with a computer and puzzle over some vanishing vultures.

See full show notes …

| History · Podcast

Footwork

https://books.google.com/books?id=mpdFAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA596

Miss Alice E. Lewis sent this curiosity to the Strand in 1903:

These false horseshoes were found in the moat at Birtsmorton Court, near Tewkesbury. It is supposed that they were used in the time of the Civil Wars, so as to deceive any person tracking the marks. The one on the left is supposed to leave the mark of a cow’s hoof, the one on the right that of a child’s foot.

The same idea has been used by moonshiners and patented at least twice. Does this really work?

| History · Technology

Intrepid

The only surviving exchange between Ulysses Grant and his wife is dated May 22, 1875.

She wrote, “How many years ago to day is that we were engaged? Just such a day as this too was it not?”

He responded, “Thirty-one years ago. I was so frightened however that I do not remember whether it was warm or snowing.”

| History · Society

A Gettysburg Reunion

William Milford of Company H, Twenty-third Pennsylvania, while lying in the breastworks at Culp’s Hill, on the morning of July 3d [1863], picked up the head of a penny which some one had cut out, probably to make a stickpin. Some months afterwards while on reserve picket under Lieutenant Vodges of F Company, talking over campaigns, told of a relic he found at Gettysburg, and pulling it out showed it to the lieutenant.

‘Why, Milford, you are the man I have been looking for,’ and pulling out of his pocket a ring or rim of a penny, it was found the two pieces fitted together. The lieutenant stated that he had found the ring when the regiment went over from Culp’s Hill to the left of Meade’s headquarters, on the afternoon of July 3d. He gave the relic to Milford, and when the regiment erected its monument at Culp’s Hill, Gettysburg, in 1886, Milford had the relic go in with others that are now in the box sunken in the lower base of the monument.

— History of the Twenty-Third Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry, Birney’s Zouaves, 1904

| History · Oddities

Teamwork

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Blackbuck.operation.png
Images: Wikimedia Commons

During the Falklands War in 1982, the RAF airfield closest to the action was on Ascension Island near the equator, thousands of miles away. Tasked with destroying the runway at Port Stanley, the RAF organized a complicated relay in which 11 tankers accompanied a single bomber (mauve), refueling it and each other in midair to support its journey of 3,400 nautical miles to the target. The attacking Vulcan bomber was refueled four times on the way out and once on the way back, using more than 220,000 gallons of aviation fuel altogether.

At the time this was the longest-ranged bombing raid in history — the return journey alone took 16 hours. It put one crater in the runway, which was repaired within 24 hours, but it discouraged the Argentinians from using it more heavily.

See The Jeep Problem. (Thanks, Tom.)

| History · Technology