A French Prisoner in Norman Cross Barracks, had recourse to the following stratagem to obtain his liberty:–He made himself a complete uniform of the Hertfordshire Militia, and a wooden gun, stained, surmounted by a tin bayonet. Thus equipped, he mixed with the guard, (consisting of men from the Hertford Regiment,) and when they were ordered to march out, having been relieved, Monsieur fell in and marched out too. Thus far he was fortunate, but when arrived at the guard-room, lo! what befel him. His new comrades ranged their muskets on the rack, and he endeavoured to follow their example; but as his wooden piece was unfortunately a few inches too long, he was unable to place it properly. This was observed, and the unfortunate captive obliged to forego the hopes of that liberty for which he had so anxiously and so ingeniously laboured.

— The Soldier’s Companion; or, Martial Recorder, 1824

The first escape from [Dartmoor Prison] took place five days after the first draft arrived. Sevegran, a naval surgeon, and Auvray, a naval officer, having observed that a guard of fifty men marched into the prison every evening to assist in getting the prisoners into their respective halls if required, made themselves glengarries and overcoats, and strips of tin looking like bayonets at a distance, and fell in at the rear of the detachment as it marched out. Favoured by the rain which was falling heavily at the time they passed all the gates unquestioned, and as the company wheeled towards the barracks, they left it, and went on through the village towards Plymouth. Speaking English fluently and being well provided with money, they had no difficulty in booking seats for London on the coach.

— Basil Thomson, The Story of Dartmoor Prison, 1907

By 1910, Valentine Tapley was claiming to have the longest beard in the world, at 12 feet. His congressman in Missouri would even boast about the achievement and defend Tapley against other claimants. (It’s sometimes said that Tapley was a Democrat and had vowed never to shave again if Abraham Lincoln won the election.)

But it appears that the real record was held by a contemporary, North Dakota farmer Hans Langseth, who’d begun growing his beard in 1865 as part of a contest. By the time of his death in 1927, it measured 17.5 feet, and it’s now held by the Smithsonian Institution.

I can’t find any record that these two even knew of one another.

Rabbit Hash, Ky., has been governed by dogs since 1998. The hamlet’s first elected mayor was a dog “of unknown parentage” named Goofy Borneman-Calhoun, who was inaugurated in 1998 and died in office in July 2001. He was succeeded by Junior Cochran, a black Labrador elected in 2004. When Junior also died in office, a special election installed Lucy Lou, a border collie and the town’s first female mayor, who was named Best Elected Official in 2013 by Cincinnati CityBeat magazine and reportedly considered a presidential run in 2015.

The 2016 election went to a pit bull named Brynneth “Brynn” Pawltro, and the town’s historical society also recognized the runners-up, an Australian shepherd and a border collie, as ambassadors who might step in if Brynn were unable to make an appearance.

The current mayor, a French bulldog named Wilbur Beast, took office last year, with a beagle and a golden retriever joining the border collie as ambassadors.

Wilbur’s human, Amy Noland, told NBC News that she ran his campaign because of “all of the negative media that’s out there surrounding America, and the election, and COVID-19, so I guess I wanted Wilbur to be something positive in the news. … He’s done a lot of interviews locally, he’s had a lot of pets, a lot of belly scratches and a lot of ear rubs.”