Stories I Live For

Yes, dear reader, I love weird tales, especially if they're TRUE.  For example:

Moby Dick was based on a real whale named Mocha Dick.

In 1839 Jeremiah N. Reynolds, an American newspaper editor, lecturer, explorer, and writer, published a curious tale of a famously fierce bull whale. The article, published in The Knickerbocker; or, New-York Monthly Magazine, claimed this cetacean had foiled the murderous attacks of many whalers over the years and was notable not only for his size and pugnacity but also for his coloration: “He was white as wool!”

Herman Melville read the account and the rest is literary history...

Also, rope: "Each of a whaleship’s whaleboats carried upward of two thousand feet of rope in one or more tubs. And since each ship carried three to five whaleboats, the amount of rope needed just to conduct whaling operations on one whaleship was as much as ten thousand feet." (That's about 2 tons in the hold, BTW.) And those are whaling ships; the Royal Navy, everyone's navies, required miles and miles and miles of rope. (LINK)  

"The Deadliest Fireworks Accident in the World Happened at Marie Antoinette's Wedding"

All was going well, when suddenly a gust of wind blew down among the crowd some rockets only partially exploded. Fireworks, like so many inventions of Italian origin, were still, to the mass of the French public, a comparative novelty; and this, together with the positive inconvenience and even danger of a fall of blazing missiles in the midst of thousands of excited and closely-packed spectators, was quite enough to account for the terrible confusion, resulting in many hundreds of fatal accidents, which now ensued."

"As panic descended upon the crowd, there was a rush towards the Rue Royale, and many were trampled as the crowd forced its way down the narrow street. Sutherland notes that the official government death toll was listed as 133, but many citizens felt that total massively underestimated the true number of casualties." 

(LINK)

No wonder the Parisians were never thrilled by their new Queen.  In fact, they're still not thrilled by Marie Antoinette…

The Earth's Largest Waterfall is in the Ocean

Specifically, it's beneath the Denmark Strait:

(LINK)

Cats helped the Persians win a battle against Egypt

"Even the most dedicated ailurophile will admit that felines can be vicious when tested, but cats didn’t help the Persians win an ancient battle because of their sharp claws. Rather, the Persians emerged victorious against Egypt in the 525 BCE Battle of Pelusium by using cats, ibises, and other animals the Egyptians considered sacred as hostages. According to the Greek historian Polyaenus, the Egyptians dared not fire their arrows when their Persian opponents held cats aloft in front of them, allowing the latter to take the city of Pelusium with relative ease. This decisive victory led the First Persian Empire (also known as the Achaemenid Empire) to take the pharaoh’s throne for Cambyses II, beginning the 27th Dynasty of Egypt under Achaemenid rule."

From Cats to Cowboys:

Read more at the link about why cowboys preferred bowler hats (not stetsons), the Great Molasses Flood in Boston, 1919, and the "Sacred Cod" that hangs in the Massachusetts State House.

Butch Cassidy, in a Bowler

(LINK)

And Back to the Middle Ages:

"Skeletal remains of Queen Elisenda, one of the most powerful rulers in medieval Europe, unearthed in Barcelona — along with several others who bore unexplained stab wounds."

And, being always in love with a good line, instantly thought of "The Lion in Winter".  Eleanor of Aquitaine:  "Of course he has a knife, he always has a knife, we all have knives! It's 1183 and we're barbarians!" 

The sarcophagus of Queen Elisenda

in the Royal Monastery of Santa Maria Pedralbes.

(Image credit: Culture Institute of Barcelona)

Anyway, Queen Elisenda (who died in 1364 CE) wasn't stabbed, but apparently Sobirana Olzet, the monastery's first abbess, was stabbed in the face, either before or after her death.

And then in the (supposed) tomb of Francesca Saportella, the second abbess of Pedralbes and the queen's niece, researchers found the bones of at least nine people who were placed in the tomb in different time periods, including four male skulls - all stabbed - and the mummified torso of a woman with the remains of a 20- to 23-week fetus in the birth canal.  (LINK)

Well, s*** happens. If you want a really lurid tale of conventual life, read about Littlemore Priory, England, on Wikipedia.

The sole remaining monastic building of Littlemore Priory, now a Pub

Well, Prioress Katherine would appreciate this.

I wonder if her ghost is occasionally having a pint on the house...

Speaking of the Middle Ages, an 800 year old notebook, in a leather case, was discovered in a medieval German latrine.  Now a few facts that we know, even without knowing who the owner is:  they could read and write, and they used old silk for toilet paper.  In other words, they had money, honey.  (LINK)

And Now On to the Future!

Don't race to the Teleporter!  "Human teleportation through quantum principles raises questions about identity:  Through quantum entanglement, particles have been "teleported" by measuring their state in one location and effectively transferring that state to a new location.  Doing so for the particles that make up humans would destroy the state of the original particles, killing the person, and effectively creating a clone."  (LINK)

Gee, science fiction writers figured this out years ago:  the 1960 novella "Rogue Moon" by Algis Budrys, included in The Science Fiction Hall of Fame, Volume Two, edited by Ben Bova, wrote about this - a mercenary, hired to clone and die his way over and over through an alien artifact.  I read it when I was about 12 or so, as I did all the stories in both Volume One and Two.

BTW, in The Science Fiction Hall of Fame, Volume One, there's a story by Cyril Kornbluth called The Marching Morons, available here on Gutenberg, that I think may have inspired Douglas Adams' Golgafrichans...  And it has two of my all-time favorites, Vintage Season, by "Lawrence O'Donnell," (Catherine L. Moore and Henry Kuttner) and The Ballad of Lost C'Mell by Cordwainer Smith.  

Zombies of the Pleistocene!

700,000 years ago, these Zombies of the Pleistocene fed on "mammoths, bison, horse and other megafauna, as well as rodents, bats and birds; invertebrates, including parasitic worms; and plants such as grasses and sedges, and North American cheetah (Miracinonyx trumani)... or pumas (Puma concolor)."  And what were these savagely hungry zombies?  (LINK)

Ground squirrels.

And they still live among us.  Going into torpor for up to 8 months at a time.  Coming out with an insatiable appetite for flesh...  Coming soon to a theatre near you, "The Night of the Zombie Squirrels!  Be afraid!  Be very afraid!"

Whatever Happened to Ötzi?

More proof that, like all scientists, nerds, and history buffs, archaeologists are different:

 the Iceman, reconstructed

"Ötzi the Iceman's body is covered in ancient yeast — and scientists just used it to make a sourdough, and 'It was very very good'":

A new study cultivated four strains of cold-adapted yeasts that had colonized Ötzi's body shortly after his death 5,300 years ago in the Alps. "It worked," study first author Mohamed Sarhan, a microbiologist at the Eurac Research Institute for Mummy Studies in Italy, told Live Science. "As a dough, it was very very good."
These yeasts could be cultivated by fermentation industries in the future, such as for making bread or beer, he added.

Don't get me wrong, I'm all in for the information, but I am NOT interested in drinking the beer...  Ötzi Pale Ale...  No.  No.  No.   (LINK)  

Have a great rest of the week, keep reading, and make sure you don't teleport anywhere!  And check the yeast source of your beer...