Gioachino Rossini was born on a leap day, Feb. 29, 1792.

Because 1800 was not a leap year, he took 12 years to reach his second birthday.

This wonderful animal, of New Forest breed, early took a fancy to some pointer puppies that were being broken, and was ultimately trained as an invaluable pointer herself. She would often go out a little way with the puppies, and was gradually coaxed into doing as they did by means of a sort of pudding made of barley-meal. The puppies could be cuffed for misbehaviour, but a pocketful of stones was necessary in the case of the sow. She at length quartered her ground in grand style; backed other dogs when she came on game, and was so staunch as to remain five minutes or more on her point.

— Strand, December 1896

Tiny Point Roberts, Wash., is built on a finger of land that extends south of the 49th parallel into Boundary Bay. This means that, though it’s part of the mainland United States, it can be reached by land only by traveling through Canada.

Similarly, Minnesota’s Northwest Angle extends from Manitoba into the Lake of the Woods, and Alburgh, Vt., resides on a peninsula that extends south from Quebec into Lake Champlain.

None of these places are islands; all are part of the 48 contiguous states but are not directly connected to them by land. Among other things, this makes life difficult for students in Point Roberts, whose primary school offers classes only through third grade. From fourth grade on, students must take a 40-minute bus ride through British Columbia to attend classes in Blaine, Wash.

When Chinese herbalist Li Ching-Yun died in 1933, newspapers were hard pressed to write his obituary. Li had contended that he had been born in 1736, which would have made him 197 years old.

In 1930, Wu Chung-Chien of Minkuo University had reported finding records showing that Li had been even older, born in 1677 and congratulated by the imperial Chinese government on his 150th and 200th birthdays.

In 1928 a correspondent to the New York Times had reported that the oldest men in Li’s neighborhood insisted that their grandfathers had known Li when they were children and that he was then a grown man.

Tales told in his province held that Li had traveled widely during his first century, gathering herbs to sell, but then had switched to selling herbs gathered by others. He told one pupil that the secret of living to 250 was to “keep a quiet heart, sit like a tortoise, walk sprightly like a pigeon, and sleep like a dog.” He was credited with either 14 or 23 wives; one 1928 account said that he had 180 living descendants.

He was certainly well preserved. The New York Times noted drily that, according to its 1928 report, “many who have seen him recently declare that his facial appearance is no different from that of persons two centuries his junior.”

(Thanks, Francisco.)

Two billion years ago, in what is now Gabon in West Africa, groundwater seeped through sandstone to inundate a layer of uranium ore, initiating a nuclear chain reaction. When the deposit heated up, the water boiled away, slowing the reaction; when it cooled, the water returned and the cycle began again.

The result was a natural, self-sustaining nuclear reactor that generated 100 kilowatts of power for several hundred thousand years.

French physicist Francis Perrin discovered the phenomenon at Oklo in 1972. “As far as we know, we only have evidence of natural reactors forming and operating at the one site in Gabon,” said Jay Cullen of the University of Victoria, “but that demonstrates that it’s possible, and our calculations suggest it was much more probable earlier in Earth’s history.”

Many persons know the story of the swallow which had entangled its claw, by some means, in a piece of thread fastened to a spout on the wall of the Collége des Quatre Nations, at Paris. Its strength being exhausted, the bird hung at the end of the thread, which it kept raising in the endeavours to fly, uttering plaintive cries. All the swallows from between the Pont des Tuileries and Pont Neuf, and perhaps still further, gathered together, to the number of some hundreds, all uttering cries of pity and alarm. After some hesitation and a tumultuous conference, one of them seemed to have found a means of delivering their unfortunate companion, and no doubt communicated it to the others. They placed themselves in order, and each coming in turn, struck the thread with the beak, somewhat after the fashion of ’tilting at the ring.’ These thrusts, aimed at the same point, succeeded each other every moment, and greatly incommoded the poor captive; but in a short time the thread was severed, and the poor bird set at liberty! The flock remained till night, chattering all the time; but in a tone which had nothing of inquietude, and was expressive only of mutual congratulation.

— Ernest Menault, The Intelligence of Animals, 1869

We detect that a rhododendron flower is odorless by smelling it. But do we smell its odorlessness? We detect that tofu is flavorless by tasting it. But do we taste its flavorlessness?

— Roy Sorensen, Seeing Dark Things, 2008

In central Panama, the sun rises in the Pacific and sets in the Atlantic.

Hallucinations reported in a 1955 study of alcohol withdrawal in which subjects were allowed to drink heavily for up to 87 days, then abruptly cut off:

• “During the first night he saw a disembodied head which was shrunken and had the appearance of heads prepared by a tribe of South American Indians. The eyes of this head followed the patient as he moved in bed. On closing his eyes, he saw a dwarf who would disappear whenever he opened his eyes.”
• “During the second night he began to hear men’s and women’s voices outside his window but was unable to distinguish what these voices were saying. He heard baseball games on the radio and television, although these instruments were not turned on.”
• “When it became dark, on the evening of the fourth day, the patient became extremely agitated and screamed at other patients: ‘Get out of the way! You are standing where they are coming up!’ On being questioned he stated that snakes were coming up out of the floor and attempting to attack him.”
• “Also, during the fifth night, he gave a dramatic description of his bed flying through the air, going through dark tunnels, and so forth. … During the following morning he was still hallucinating and at times appeared to think he was in Brooklyn. He described being attacked by an imaginary animal which spat acid in his face. He would strike at the animal with his pillow and said that he had caught it several times.”
• “He thought he heard a man screaming and that the man was being killed. He jumped up and ran out into the hallway to see about this event. When it was suggested that he had misinterpreted the sound of a cow lowing, he accepted this explanation and went back to bed.”
• “He felt that members of a Sicilian gang were trying to kill him with guns that could shoot curves around corners. He insisted that he had been cut with knives and he was constantly attempting to escape from his pursuers.”

Somewhat related — from a sleep-deprivation study in 1965:

• “During the fourth day he became irritable and uncooperative; he developed memory lapses, difficulty concentrating, the feeling of a tight band around his head, and saw fog around the street lights. About 0300 that night he experienced the illusion that a street sign was a person. A short time later he imagined he was a great Negro football player and resented statements made about his ability and the Negro race. By the fifth day his equilibrium was normal, but he had intermittent hypnogogic reveries, such as seeing a path running through a quiet forest and plants in a garden.”

Isbell, H., et al. “An Experimental Study of the Etiology of Rum Fits and Delirium Tremens.” Quarterly Journal of Studies on Alcohol 16, no. 1 (March 1955): 1-33.

Ross, John J. “Neurological Findings After Prolonged Sleep Deprivation.” Archives of Neurology 12, no. 4 (April 1, 1965): 399–403.

(Thanks, Bob and Patrick.)