On New Year’s Day 1963, two bodies were discovered on an Australian riverbank. Though their identities were quickly determined, weeks of intensive investigation failed to uncover a cause or motive for their deaths. In this week’s episode of the Futility Closet podcast we’ll tell the story of the Bogle-Chandler case, which riveted Australia for years.
We’ll also revisit the Rosenhan study and puzzle over a revealing lighthouse.
After a severe fever in 1776, Rhode Island farmer’s daughter Jemima Wilkinson was reborn as a genderless celestial being who had been sent to warn of the coming Apocalypse. But the general public was too scandalized by the messenger to pay heed to the message. In this week’s episode of the Futility Closet podcast we’ll tell the story of the Public Universal Friend and the prejudiced reaction of a newly formed nation.
We’ll also bid on an immortal piano and puzzle over some Icelandic conceptions.
“The actual building of roads devoted to motor cars is not for the near future, in spite of many rumors to that effect.” — Harper’s Weekly, Aug. 2, 1902
“That the automobile has practically reached the limit of its development is suggested by the fact that during the past year no improvements of a radical character have been introduced.” — Scientific American, Jan. 2, 1909
I just liked this — during World War I, the British painted false bow waves on the sides of their transport ships to deceive German submarines as to their speed.
From The Times History of the War, 1917.
Following a series of shipwrecks in the 19th century, the government of New Zealand began to establish huts on remote subantarctic islands for the use of castaways, who otherwise might die of starvation or exposure.
The depots were stocked with firewood, rations, clothing, hunting and fishing equipment, medicine, and matches. Some included boat sheds, and steamers visited each island twice a year. To discourage opportunistic thieves, the government posted warnings on the provisions; one read, “The curse of the widow and fatherless light upon the man that breaks open this box, whilst he has a ship at his back.”
The project was discontinued after about 1927 as radio technology improved and the old clipper route fell out of use, but the depots were proving their value as late as 1908, when 22 crewmembers from the French barque President Félix Faure were shipwrecked in the Antipodes Islands. A depot there helped to sustain them until they could signal a passing warship.
In 1942, Manitoba chose a startling way to promote the sale of war bonds — it staged a Nazi invasion of Winnipeg. For one gripping day, soldiers captured the city, arrested its leaders, and oppressed its citizens. In this week’s episode of the Futility Closet podcast we’ll describe If Day, which one observer called “the biggest and most important publicity stunt” in Winnipeg’s history.
We’ll also consider some forged wine and puzzle over some unnoticed car options.
Exploring the caves above the 53-meter statue of Gautama Buddha in the Bamyan valley of Afghanistan in the 1930s, a French archaeological delegation found this message scrawled on a wall:
If any fool this high samootch explore
Know Charles Masson has been here before.
This is almost comically American: Between 1830 and 1836, a bald eagle lived at the Philadelphia Mint. Named Peter, he would roam the city by day and roost in the mint at night. Fatally injured in a coining press, he was stuffed and mounted and is currently on display in the lobby.
He is said (uncertainly) to have been the model for the eagle on U.S. silver dollars issued between 1836 and 1839 and the Flying Eagle cents of 1856-1858.
In the 1870s, new farmsteads on the American plains were beset by enormous swarms of grasshoppers sweeping eastward from the Rocky Mountains. The insects were a disaster for vulnerable farmers, attacking in enormous numbers and devouring everything before them. In this week’s episode of the Futility Closet podcast we’ll describe the grasshopper plagues and the settlers’ struggles against them.
We’ll also delve into urban legends and puzzle over some vanishing children.
