In January 1950, senator Victor Biaka-Boda of French West Africa was touring his homeland when his car broke down in a region with a history of cannibalism.
His charred bones were found in November. Apparently he had been eaten by his constituents.
Author: Greg Ross
Unquote
“If the triangles made a god, they would give him three sides.” — Montesquieu
The Trilithon
In a quarry at Baalbek, in modern Lebanon, lies “the stone of the south” — a single hewn stone weighing 1500 tons. It’s not surprising that the ancients abandoned it; if they’d got it out of the quarry it would have been the largest stone ever moved.
But a retaining wall nearby contains a row of three stones weighing 750 tons apiece. Somehow they were raised 22 feet into position. No one knows how.
Penny Wise
A currency curiosity discovered by Lewis Carroll:
Write down any number of pounds not more than 12, any number of shillings under 20, and any number of pence under 12. Under the pounds figure write the number of pence, under the shillings the number of shillings, and under the pence the number of pounds, thus reversing the line.
Subtract. [If you need to make exchanges, 1 pound = 20 shillings = 240 pence.]
Reverse the line again.
Add.
“Answer, 12 pounds 18 shillings 11 pence, whatever numbers may have been selected.”
True Enough
We have heard of the fall of Lucifer, and the fall of Cromwell, and the fall of Wolsey, but one of the pleasantest tumbles upon record was that of a Mr. John Fell, who, when he removed from one part of the metropolis to another, wrote over his door—I Fell from Holborn Hill.
— A Collection of Newspaper Extracts, 1842
David and Goliath
Oops
At Honolulu on Dec. 12, 1794, the American merchant sloop Lady Washington fired a 13-gun salute to greet the English schooner Jackal.
The Jackal returned the salute — instantly killing the other ship’s captain and several crewmen.
One of its cannon had been loaded with real grapeshot.
Up to You
A puzzle by Isaac Asimov:
“Name a common English word that contains somewhere in it, at the beginning, end, or middle, the three letters U-F-A in that order.”
I’ll withhold the answer. There’s no trick — it’s an ordinary English word.
Heated Prose
Marie Curie’s laboratory papers are still so radioactive that they’re kept in lead-lined boxes.
Researchers who consult them must agree to work at their own risk.
Lost and Found
Hiram de Witt, of this town, who has recently returned from California, brought with him a piece of the auriferous quartz rock, of about the size of a man’s fist. On thanksgiving day it was brought out for exhibition to a friend, when it accidentally dropped on the floor, and split open. Near the centre of the mass was discovered, firmly embedded in the quartz, and slightly corroded, a cut-iron nail of the size of a sixpenny nail. It was entirely straight, and had a perfect head. By whom was that nail made? At what period was it planted in the yet uncrystallized quartz? How came it in California? If the head of that nail could talk, we should know something more of American history than we are ever likely to know.
— “Springfield (U.S.) Republican,” quoted in The Latter-Day Saints’ Millennial Star, March 1, 1852