On Feb. 2, 1799, 42-year-old Elizabeth Woodcock was returning from market to her home in Cambridge when she was overcome with fatigue and lay down in a field. A heavy storm had overtaken her, and she came to her senses under six feet of snow, in which she remained buried for eight days.

Her cries went unheard, but she managed to tie a handkerchief to a stick and thrust it through the snow, where a passing farmer finally noticed it and went for help. When shepherd John Stittle pulled her free, she said, “I have been here a long time.” “Yes,” he said, “since Saturday.” “Ay, Saturday week,” she replied. “I have heard the bells go two Sundays for church.” She’d been lying only half a mile from her home.

Woodcock lost her toes to frostbite and lingered until the following July, when she died. “We are sorry to add,” notes the Gentleman’s Magazine, “that too free indulgence in spirituous liquor is supposed to have been the cause both of the accident which befel Elizabeth Woodcock, and its fatal consequences.”

In January 1819, in the neighbourhood of Burntisland, a gentleman completely succeeded in taming a Seal; its singularities attracted the curiosity of strangers daily. It appeared to possess all the sagacity of the dog, and lived in its master’s house, and eat from his hand. In his fishing excursions, this gentleman generally took with him, upon which occasions it afforded no small entertainment. When thrown into the water, it would follow for miles the track of the boat, and although thrust back by the oars, it never relinquished its purpose. Indeed it struggled so hard to regain its seat, that one would imagine its fondness for its master had entirely overcome the natural predilection for its native element.

— Pierce Egan, Sporting Anecdotes, Original and Selected, 1822

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.

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.