“The Continental Salamander”

In the year 1826, one Monsieur Chabert … performed the following feats at the White Conduit Gardens: Having partaken of a hearty meal of phosphorus, washed down with a copious draught of oxalic acid in a solution of arsenic, he drank off a jorum of boiling oil, and with his naked hand helped himself to a serving of molten lead by way of dessert. On another occasion he walked into a fiery furnace, stayed in some considerable space of time, and came out whole and unburned. He represented the furnace as hotter than it really was, though, as a matter of fact, he took in with him a raw beefsteak and brought it out broiled to a turn.

— Albert Plympton Southwick, Handy Helps, No. 1, 1886

| Oddities

“The Keats of Chess”

Rudolf Charousek had been playing chess for only four years when he found himself facing this position against Jakob Wollner at Kaschau in 1893:

charousek-wollner, kaschau 1893

He found one of the most immortally pretty finishes in chess history — to discover it, read Kester Svendsen’s 1947 short story “Last Round,” which the game inspired.

Three years afterward, Charousek defeated Lasker at Nuremberg. “I shall have to play a championship match with this man someday,” the master remarked, but it was not to be — the Hungarian died of tuberculosis in 1900, at only 26.

| Entertainment · Literature

Twice-Tolled Tails

Mottoes on English bells, collected by John Potter Briscoe in Curiosities of the Belfry, 1883:

  • Fear God and obeai the Qwene. (Artlingworth, Northamptonshire, 1589)
  • Arise and go about your business. (St. Ives, Cornwall)
  • I ring at six to let men know/When too and from thair worke to goe. (Coventry, West Midlands, 1675)
  • A trusty friend is harde to finde. (Passenham, Northamptonshire, 1585)
  • Bee not wise in your owne conceits. (Yardley Hastings, Northamptonshire, 1723)
  • Labour overcometh all things. (Glentham, Lincolnshire, 1687)
  • Rejoice with them that do rejoice and weep with them that weep. (Orlingbury, Northamptonshire, 1843)
  • When you die/Aloud I cry. (Owmby, Lincolnshire, 1687)
  • I call the quick to church and dead to grave. (Calstock, Cornwall, 1773)
  • When you hear this mournful sound/Prepare yourselves for underground. (Hough-on-the-Hill, Lincolnshire, 1683)

And “Mankind, like us, too oft are found/Possessed of nought but empty sound!” (Bakewell, Derbyshire, 1798)

| Death · Society

Newcomb’s Paradox

Flamdor McSqueem is a superintelligent wombat from the planet Zortag. He shows you two boxes. You can choose to take the contents of Box A or the contents of both boxes. He has privately predicted what you will do.

If Flamdor predicted you would choose Box A only, then Box A contains $1 million. If he predicted you’d choose both boxes, then Box A contains nothing. Either way, Box B contains $1,000. What should you do?

Some people reason that Flamdor is very intelligent and his predictions are usually accurate, so it would seem best to choose Box A. Others note that Flamdor has already made his prediction and can’t change the contents of the boxes now, so it seems best to take both boxes.

There’s no correct answer — decision theorists are still arguing about it. What would you do?

| Science & Math

Late Arrival

In 1933, a lifeboat was found drifting in Barkley Sound on Vancouver Island.

It was marked Valencia — the name of a passenger liner that had run aground there 27 years earlier.

It was still in good condition.

| Oddities

Tecumseh’s Curse

“Tecumseh’s curse” refers to an odd coincidence in U.S. history: Every 20 years, we elect a president who dies in office:

  • William Henry Harrison, elected in 1840, died of pneumonia in 1841.
  • Abraham Lincoln, elected in 1860, was assassinated in 1865.
  • James Garfield, elected in 1880, was assassinated in 1881.
  • William McKinley, elected in 1900, was assassinated in 1901.
  • Warren G. Harding, elected in 1920, died of a heart attack in 1923.
  • Franklin D. Roosevelt, elected in 1940, died of cerebral hemorrhage in 1945.
  • John F. Kennedy, elected in 1960, was assassinated in 1963.

The curse was supposedly invoked by a Native American chief’s mother as he died. Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush, for some reason, seem to have escaped.

| History

“De Groote Meid”

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

In June 1625, Frederick V of Bohemia, having heard tales of a “9-year-old being miraculously tall,” summoned young Trijntje Keever to the Hague. The tales, he found, were true — Trijntje was already 6 foot 6, and she would reach 8 foot 4 before dying of cancer at age 17.

She was probably the tallest woman who ever lived — judging from an anonymous portrait in her hometown of Edam, her shoes were 16 inches long.

| Oddities