In 1971, the Flat Earth Society announced that the world is a disc, with the North Pole at the center and a 50-meter wall of ice at the outer edge.
Strangely, that matches the flag of the United Nations.
Author: Greg Ross
Subtract Line 55 From Line 45
Judge Learned Hand on the U.S. income tax code, writing in the Yale Law Journal, December 1947:
In my own case the words of such an act as the Income Tax … merely dance before my eyes in a meaningless procession: cross-reference to cross-reference, exception upon exception — couched in abstract terms that offer [me] no handle to seize hold of [and that] leave in my mind only a confused sense of some vitally important, but successfully concealed, purport, which it is my duty to extract, but which is within my power, if at all, only after the most inordinate expenditure of time. I know that these monsters are the result of fabulous industry and ingenuity, plugging up this hole and casting out that net, against all possible evasion; yet at times I cannot help recalling a saying of William James about certain passages of Hegel: that they were no doubt written with a passion of rationality; but that one cannot help wondering whether to the reader they have any significance save that the words are strung together with syntactical correctness.
Even Albert Einstein, who died trying to find a generalized theory of gravitation, wrote, “The hardest thing in the world to understand is the income tax.”
No Calculators, Either
Excerpts from an eighth-grade final exam, Salina, Kansas, 1895:
- Write a composition of about 150 words and show therein that you understand the practical use of the rules of grammar.
- A wagon box is 2 ft. deep, 10 feet long, and 3 ft. wide. How many bushels of wheat will it hold?
- District No. 33 has a valuation of $35,000. What is the necessary levy to carry on a school seven months at $50 per month, and have $104 for incidentals?
- Find the interest of $512.60 for 8 months and 18 days at 7 percent.
- Write a Bank Check, a Promissory Note, and a Receipt.
- Show the territorial growth of the United States.
- What is meant by the following: Alphabet, phonetic orthography, etymology, syllabication?
- What are the following, and give examples of each: Trigraph, subvocals, diphthong, cognate letters, linguals?
- Name and describe the following: Monrovia, Odessa, Denver, Manitoba, Hecla, Yukon, St. Helena, Juan Fermandez, Aspinwall and Orinoco.
- Name and locate the principal trade centers of the U.S.
- Describe the movements of the earth. Give inclination of the earth.
Students were actually allowed to take it in seventh grade, and retake it in eighth grade if they didn’t pass.
Start Again
Henry Roth had writer’s block for 60 years.
He published Call It Sleep in 1934 and couldn’t produce a followup until 1994.
Geronimo!
Sam Patch (1799-1829), “The Yankee Leaper,” earned his epithet — in his 30-year lifetime he jumped from the following points:
- Mill dam, Pawtucket, Rhode Island
- Passaic Falls, New Jersey
- Miscellaneous bridges, factory walls, ships’ masts
- Niagara Falls, New York
- Upper Falls, Rochester, New York
That last one attracted a crowd of 8,000 — Upper Falls is 99 feet high. The first attempt went fine, but on the followup he dislocated both shoulders and drowned. His grave marker says “Sam Patch — Such Is Fame.”
Silbury Hill
As old as the pyramids, southern England’s Silbury Hill is even more enigmatic. It’s essentially a gigantic man-made hill, 130 feet tall and perfectly round.
It must have taken 18 million man-hours to build, but archaeologists are stumped as to its purpose.
Unquote
“A witty saying proves nothing.” — Voltaire
Overachiever
Mount Everest is getting taller.
It rises by about 2.5 centimeters each year.
Benjamin Bathurst
On Nov. 25, 1809, British diplomat Benjamin Bathurst was preparing to leave the small German town of Perleberg. He stood outside the inn, watching his portmanteau being loaded onto the carriage, stepped out of the light, and was never seen again.
A nearby river was dragged, and outbuildings, woods, ditches, and marshes were searched, but no trace of Bathurst was ever found. A reward was offered for information, but none came forth.
Bathurst had been urging Austria into war against the French, but Napoleon swore on his honor that he had played no part in the disappearance. The mystery has never been solved.
High and Dry
This is a classified photo of Mount Ararat, Turkey’s tallest mountain, taken by the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency in 1949.
That dark area is the “Ararat anomaly,” an unknown object perched on the edge of a precipice at about 15,500 feet. Biblical literalists think it’s the remains of Noah’s Ark. The U.S. government says it’s “linear facades in the glacial ice underlying more recently accumulated ice and snow.”
For now, it’s a stalemate — no one’s been able to reach it yet because the Turkish military controls the area.