The public school in College Corner, Indiana, straddles the border with Ohio — the state line runs right through the gymnasium. So at the opening tip of a basketball game, players jump from different states.
Until 2006, when the Hoosier State began observing daylight saving time, a ball thrown from Ohio would hit the net in Indiana an hour earlier.
In 1750, Jacques Ferron was caught having sex with an ass and sentenced to death.
To add insult to injury, the ass had a character witness:
The prior to the convent … and the principal inhabitants of the commune of Vanvres signed a certificate stating that they had known the said she-ass for four years, and that she had always shown herself to be virtuous and well-behaved both at home and abroad and had never given occasion of scandal to any one, and that therefore ‘they were willing to bear witness that she is in word and deed and in all her habits of life a most honest creature.’
The ass was acquitted, and Ferron hanged.
From Edward Payson Evans, The Criminal Prosecution and Capital Punishment of Animals, 1906.
Throughout Europe geologists have found ancient hill forts whose walls have apparently been fused by fire. An intense heat has partly melted some stones and left others encased in a glassy coating. In some cases an entire wall has been merged into a solid mass.
No one knows who did this, how, or why.
With others of our fellow-citizens, I have been highly interested in the discovery of human bones in a solid sandstone rock, of a quarry near Cusick’s mill, about six miles from the city, and with the assistance of Mr. Charles Bobbins and Dr. Ball have taken steps thoroughly to investigate this highly interesting subject. … The bones submitted to my inspection are the bones of an adult female, they were contained in a cavity of the solid sandstone rock, perfectly close, having no communication whatever with any fissure or crack of the rock. The cavity represents the shape of the body, invested with flesh; the leg, thigh, hip and part of the back are moulded with beautiful exactness, and would, if filled with plaster of Paris, give a mould, preserving all the graceful curves of the entire body.
— John G.F. Holston, Zanesville [Ohio] Courier, quoted in Mining Magazine, November 1853
Abraham Newland slept in the Bank of England every night for 25 years.
He retired as chief cashier in 1807.
On Feb. 2, 1799, 42-year-old Elizabeth Woodcock was returning from market to her home in Cambridge when she was overcome with fatigue and lay down in a field. A heavy storm had overtaken her, and she came to her senses under six feet of snow, in which she remained buried for eight days.
Her cries went unheard, but she managed to tie a handkerchief to a stick and thrust it through the snow, where a passing farmer finally noticed it and went for help. When shepherd John Stittle pulled her free, she said, “I have been here a long time.” “Yes,” he said, “since Saturday.” “Ay, Saturday week,” she replied. “I have heard the bells go two Sundays for church.” She’d been lying only half a mile from her home.
Woodcock lost her toes to frostbite and lingered until the following July, when she died. “We are sorry to add,” notes the Gentleman’s Magazine, “that too free indulgence in spirituous liquor is supposed to have been the cause both of the accident which befel Elizabeth Woodcock, and its fatal consequences.”
In January 1819, in the neighbourhood of Burntisland, a gentleman completely succeeded in taming a Seal; its singularities attracted the curiosity of strangers daily. It appeared to possess all the sagacity of the dog, and lived in its master’s house, and eat from his hand. In his fishing excursions, this gentleman generally took with him, upon which occasions it afforded no small entertainment. When thrown into the water, it would follow for miles the track of the boat, and although thrust back by the oars, it never relinquished its purpose. Indeed it struggled so hard to regain its seat, that one would imagine its fondness for its master had entirely overcome the natural predilection for its native element.
— Pierce Egan, Sporting Anecdotes, Original and Selected, 1822
In January 1950, senator Victor Biaka-Boda of French West Africa was touring his homeland when his car broke down in a region with a history of cannibalism.
His charred bones were found in November. Apparently he had been eaten by his constituents.
In a quarry at Baalbek, in modern Lebanon, lies “the stone of the south” — a single hewn stone weighing 1500 tons. It’s not surprising that the ancients abandoned it; if they’d got it out of the quarry it would have been the largest stone ever moved.
But a retaining wall nearby contains a row of three stones weighing 750 tons apiece. Somehow they were raised 22 feet into position. No one knows how.
Hiram de Witt, of this town, who has recently returned from California, brought with him a piece of the auriferous quartz rock, of about the size of a man’s fist. On thanksgiving day it was brought out for exhibition to a friend, when it accidentally dropped on the floor, and split open. Near the centre of the mass was discovered, firmly embedded in the quartz, and slightly corroded, a cut-iron nail of the size of a sixpenny nail. It was entirely straight, and had a perfect head. By whom was that nail made? At what period was it planted in the yet uncrystallized quartz? How came it in California? If the head of that nail could talk, we should know something more of American history than we are ever likely to know.
— “Springfield (U.S.) Republican,” quoted in The Latter-Day Saints’ Millennial Star, March 1, 1852