The Treaty of Versailles contains a macabre clause:

ARTICLE 246. Within six months from the coming into force of the present Treaty, … Germany will hand over to His Britannic Majesty’s Government the skull of the Sultan Mkwawa which was removed from the Protectorate of German East Africa and taken to Germany.

Mkwawa was a tribal leader in German East Africa who opposed colonization. After his defeat in battle, the Germans had sent his skull to Berlin. When the United Kingdom inherited the colony after World War I, the British sought to return the skull to the Wahehe people, but there was some confusion as to its whereabouts. It wasn’t actually returned until 1954, when Tanganyika governor Sir Edward Twining tracked it down in the Bremen Museum. It now resides at the Mkwawa Memorial Museum in Kalenga, Tanzania.

(Thanks, Jon.)

As the 19th century advanced, the White House began to seem increasingly cramped. In 1889, the centennial of the U.S. presidency, First Lady Caroline Harrison suggested adding an art wing to the east and an administrative wing to the west, with glass-enclosed palm gardens, plant conservatories, and a lily pond completing the quadrangle, creating a private inner courtyard (top). Congress shot it down.

In 1900 Army engineer Colonel Theodore Bingham offered his own plan, which would add a massive two-story cylindrical wing at each flank, with domes and lanterns patterned after those at the Library of Congress (middle and bottom). The project stalled with McKinley’s assassination.

In 1902 the architectural firm McKim, Mead and White finally renovated the mansion, doubling the size of the family living quarters and providing a new wing for the president and his staff. The modern White House still largely reflects this design.

Related: In 1947, when Harry Truman proposed building a balcony on the south face of the White House, critics raised a unique objection:

Some quarters in Washington are wondering, half in fun, if President Truman’s controversial balcony on the White House will make $20 bills inaccurate and outmoded. The $20 bill bears a picture of the south portico of the White House, where Mr. Truman has announced he wants to build his balcony. If that structure is added, the currency will be pictorially incorrect.

That’s from the Chicago Tribune, Feb. 1, 1948. “Treasury officials scoffed at the idea that the balcony might make it necessary to print a new issue of $20 bills. They agreed that the bureau of engraving and printing is proud of the accuracy of its currency engravings, but said there is a limit to accuracy.” But subsequent issues of the bill were quietly updated to reflect the new addition.

On Feb. 23, 1950, a railroad signal worker discovered the badly mangled body of a man in a tunnel south of Salzburg, Austria. Among its torn clothes police found the diplomatic passport and service identification of U.S. Navy captain Eugene S. Karpe, who’d been returning to the United States after serving for three years as naval attaché in Rumania.

It appeared that Karpe had fallen from the door of the Arlberg-Orient Express as the train sped around a curve in the dark of night. The train car had very small windows, and the doors had been locked automatically before the train had entered the tunnel. A student testified that he’d had breakfast and lunch with Karpe on the day he was killed; Karpe had had an ordinary breakfast and only a bottle of mineral water for lunch, eliminating the theory that he’d been drunk.

Karpe was the second-highest-ranking American mysteriously killed in Austria since the end of World War II. The first had been found stabbed and beaten to death after having been seen in the company of four men wearing Russian uniforms. Karpe was a close friend of Robert Vogeler, who had just been convicted as a spy and saboteur in Bucharest and sentenced by a people’s court to five years in prison.

The Austrian police contended that Karpe’s death was not a suicide and didn’t appear to be an accident. Formally the case remains unsolved.

(From Scott Baron and James Wise Jr., Dangerous Games: Faces, Incidents, and Casualties of the Cold War, 2013.)

Argentina had a surprise on July 10, 1945: The German submarine U-530 turned up at Mar del Plata and surrendered. Commander Otto Wermuth said that he’d received orders on May 8 to cease hostilities and proceed to the nearest United Nations port for surrender. He’d thought this was an enemy trick and decided to intern his submarine and crew in a neutral country. He chose Argentina thinking that it had not declared war and turned up there two months after the German surrender.

That created a fertile field for speculation that the sub had been transporting Nazi gold or leaders to South America — Wermuth was blamed for sinking the Brazilian cruiser Bahia (later disproven), and one reporter even claimed that he’d seen a mysterious sub putting ashore an officer and a civilian who might have been Adolf Hitler and Eva Braun.

“In answer to questions, WERMUTH said that he did not know of any other submarines which were headed for Argentina, that he had been in touch with no other submarines,” read the intelligence report. “He added the somewhat enigmatic remark, however, that if any more were coming they would arrive within a week of his arrival. The reason for this statement was not given.”

The Statue of Liberty’s disembodied arm stood in Madison Square from 1876 to 1882. It had been agreed that Frédéric Bartholdi would create the statue while the United States paid for the pedestal. Americans were a bit behindhand in offering donations, so Bartholdi sent along the arm and torch to help inspire contributions.

It took six years of benefit concerts, auctions, souvenir photos, and other mementos, but the full statue was finally dedicated on Liberty Island on October 28, 1886.

Preparing to visit the Dardanelles in July 1915, Winston Churchill sealed a message in an envelope marked “To be sent to Mrs. Churchill in the event of my death”:

Do not grieve for me too much. I am a spirit confident of my rights. Death is only an incident, & not the most important wh happens to us in this state of being. On the whole, especially since I met you my darling one I have been happy, & you have taught me how noble a woman’s heart can be. If there is anywhere else I shall be on the look out for you. Meanwhile look forward, feel free, rejoice in Life, cherish the children, guard my memory. God bless you.

The trip was canceled at the last moment.

(From Geoffrey Best, Churchill: A Study in Greatness, 2001.)