From Hastings, on the English shore, to the French cliffs, is more than fifty miles, and they are of course hid from each other by the convexity of the earth. On the evening of the 26th of July, 1798, the coast of France was visible at Hastings to the naked eye for several leagues, as though only a few miles off. Every spot was distinctly seen from Calais, Boulogne, as far as Dieppe. With the aid of a telescope, the fishing boats were seen at anchor, the different colors of the land upon the heights were distinguishable, and the sailors pointed out the places they were in the habit of visiting. The account of the phenomenon was drawn up by Mr. Lanham, a fellow of the Royal Society, who was an eye witness.

— The Thomsonian Recorder, Aug. 30, 1834

In 1969, John Rendall and Anthony Bourke bought a 35-pound lion cub at Harrods department store in London and raised him in a local furniture store. They loved their new pet, but within a year “Christian” had grown to 185 pounds and the cost of keeping him was becoming prohibitive. So conservationist George Adamson took Christian to Kenya and introduced him into the Kora Nature Reserve, where eventually he led a pride.

One year later, Rendall and Bourke traveled to Africa hoping to visit their old friend. The lion hadn’t been seen in nine months, but on the day of their arrival, he appeared outside the camp. Even so, Adamson warned them, he might not recognize them if they approached. Here’s what happened:

What’s special about this 1882 Danish birth record?

Its owner, Christian Mortensen, was still alive in 1997.

He was looking forward to being declared the world’s most ancient person when he was told that a slightly older woman had been discovered in Canada.

“They just did that to spoil my birthday,” he said.

Prospector William Schmidt was overjoyed when he struck gold on California’s Copper Mountain, but he faced one problem: He was on the north side of the mountain, and the road to the smelter was on the south side.

So he dug a tunnel.

He started in 1906, at age 35, working with a pick, a 4-pound hammer, a hand drill, and dynamite. When he finally broke into daylight on the mountain’s south side, it was 1938 and he was 66 years old. He had single-handedly dug a tunnel 1,872 feet long, displacing 2,600 cubic yards of granite.

Alas, success had to be its own reward. While Schmidt had been digging, rail and road links had been built around the mountain — so the tunnel was unnecessary.

The largest city in human history is modern Tokyo, with a population of around 35 million. That’s a pretty big mammal colony, but it’s nowhere near the record.

In 1901 scientists discovered a “town” of 400 million prairie dogs in Texas. It covered more than 23,000 square miles — an area larger than Costa Rica.