The keyhole of the Priory of the Knights of Malta in Rome presents a perfectly framed view of Saint Peter’s Basilica.
It’s not clear whether this is a happy accident or a deliberate design. The property lies in the piazza Cavalieri di Malta, which was designed in 1765 by the supremely imaginative Giovanni Battista Piranesi — who imagined the Aventine Hill as a sacred ship that would sail to the heavens.
In 1917, two young cousins carried a camera into an English dell and returned with a photo of fairies. When Arthur Conan Doyle took up the story it became a worldwide sensation. In this week’s episode of the Futility Closet podcast we’ll tell the story of the Cottingley Fairies, a curiosity that would remain unexplained for most of the 20th century.
We’ll also remember a ferocious fire and puzzle over a troublesome gnome.
The September 1918 issue of Popular Science Monthly describes an amusement introduced at Coney Island by Minnesota inventor Otto Fritsche: a horse made of double-walled aluminum. The patron wears a pair of shoulder straps and a gasoline engine drives the thing forward.
Aside from the fact that the contraption is supported in the rear by a pair of large wheels, that the front is supported by a human being, that a periscope protrudes from the head, and that exhaust gases puff from its ears, Otto believes it will be mistaken for a real animal.
“We would like to interview any man who has tried this form of amusement and has survived.”
New Zealand’s Egmont National Park is pleasingly circular. Created in 1881, the reserve was specified to cover a 6-mile radius surveyed from the summit of Mount Taranaki, one of the most symmetrical volcanic cones in the world. The result is an almost perfect circle of 33,500 hectares — and it’s surrounded by pasture, which makes the boundary visually distinct.
Recently I came across a letter sent to me some years ago by a cousin and addressed in the curious manner here shown. The tune is taken from part of an old round called ‘Big Ben.’ In spite of the quaint address the letter was promptly delivered. — Mrs. Andrew Wall, Edinburgh
— Strand, February 1911
A discovery made yesterday near the towns of Colliers, W. Va., clears up a mystery of thirty-two years’ standing.
The skeletons of four human beings were found in an abandoned coal mine a mile east of the place. The men were supposed to have been killed many years ago.
David Snyder was exploring the old mine, which had not been worked since the early ’60s, when he discovered the human bones. One of the skeletons was sitting upright against a ledge.
Beside the skeleton was found a flask containing notes that explained the mysterious disappearance of John Ewing, Ben Ayers, Tom Ackelson and Joe Obney, who were known here thirty-two years ago. The notes were written with a pencil, but were well preserved. It read as follows:
Nov. 2, 1863. — Should this ever reach the outside world, let it be known that we are prisoners here, owing to the caving-in of the mine. We are deserters, and were in hiding here when the mine caved in. Food and water are all gone. We are doomed, as no one outside is aware of our whereabouts. This is the eighth day of our imprisonment.
Nov. 4. — John Ewing and Tom Ackelson have just killed Ben Ayres, and are eating him. I have already eaten my bootlegs. The water in the mine is terrible. Our oil is getting scarce, and the air is becoming foul. I only know the day of the month by my watch.
Nov. 6. — Ewing has just killed Ackelson, cut off one of his feet and is eating it, and dancing around and flourishing his dirk-knife like a maniac.
Nov. 7. — I am now alone with the dead. I had to kill Ewing in self-defense. I have just eaten my other bootleg. Am sleepy. Good-bye. I inclose this note in this flask to preserve it, if possible, so that if ever found our sad fate will be known.
Joseph Obney
Several of the old residents hereabouts remember these men. It is believed that they had been killed in battle. As no relatives of the dead men could be found their bodies were buried by the town poormaster.
— Eagle River [Wis.] Review, March 12, 1896
(The story is doubtful — Obney seems to have had three legs — but it was widely retailed: I find 103 instances in American papers in February and March 1896.) (Thanks, Deryck.)
Until 1934, Peñón de Vélez de la Gomera was a Spanish island off the coast of North Africa.
But then a thunderstorm washed enough sand into the channel to create an isthmus to the Moroccan shore.
So now the island is a Spanish exclave on a peninsula, and the two nations share the world’s shortest border.
The last duel in France took place in 1967. During an argument in the National Assembly, Gaston Defferre shouted “Taisez-vous, abruti!” (“Shut up, stupid!”) at René Ribière. Ribière demanded an apology and, receiving none, insisted on satisfaction by duel. He lost the contest, with two minor wounds.
A variation on the grandfather paradox … is the Hitler paradox. In this one you travel back in time to murder Hitler before he starts the Second World War, thus saving millions of lives. But if you murder Hitler in, say, 1938, then the Second World War will never come about and you will have no reason to travel back in time to murder Hitler!
— J.H. Brennan, Time Travel: A New Perspective, 1997
(The fourth is due to Mick Tully, the fifth to David Armstrong.)