The Fugate family of rural Kentucky has an odd trait — since the early 1800s, some members of the family have been blue.
Not depressed — literally blue. The family share a genetic blood disorder that has left generations of Fugates with blue-hued skin.
The family’s inbreeding has diminished with time, and today’s members are mostly pink, but a blue Fugate was reported as recently as 1975. Somebody should write a song.
French postman Ferdinand Cheval (1836-1924) tripped on a stone in April 1879 and was never the same again. Claiming he’d been inspired, he began collecting stones during his daily rounds, carrying them home in huge quantities and assembling them at night by the light of an oil lamp.
After 20 years he’d completed the outer walls of his palais idéal (“ideal castle”), combining styles suggested by the Bible and Hindu mythology. But when Cheval finished the project after 33 years of work, authorities refused to let him be buried in it. So he built his own mausoleum.
His dedication was rewarded — he was interred there the following year.
Like Carl Herman Unthan, Prince Randian (1871-1934) achieved more without limbs than most of us do with them.
Born in British Guiana, Randian was discovered by P.T. Barnum in 1889, and he toured American sideshows in the 1930s as the Living Torso, “the human caterpillar who crawls on his belly like a reptile.”
In reality Randian could shave, write, paint, and roll cigarettes unaided. He spoke English, German, French, and Hindi and was reportedly a skilled carpenter, joking that he would someday build his own house.
He married and fathered four children and ultimately lived to age 63, touring American carnivals and museums for 45 years.
Inspiration can strike anywhere. Born in 1884, “arborsculptor” Axel Erlandson made living trees into works of art for more than 40 years, eventually even opening a “Tree Circus” in 1947 in California’s Santa Clara Valley.
Actors who appeared in The Conqueror (1956) and subsequently died of cancer:
Director Dick Powell died of cancer in 1963. The movie, in which Wayne played Genghis Khan, was shot in St. George, Utah, downwind of Nevada open-air nuclear testing, and producer Howard Hughes had 60 tons of dirt shipped back to Hollywood for use in reshoots.
By 1981, 91 of the 220 cast and crew had developed some form of cancer, and more than half of them were already dead.
“With these numbers, this case could qualify as an epidemic,” said University of Utah biologist Robert Pendleton. “In a group this size you’d expect only 30-some cancers to develop. … I think the tie-in to their exposure on the set of The Conqueror would hold up in a court of law.”
Bandleader Glenn Miller vanished over the English Channel in 1944 while flying from England to France to play for soldiers who had recently liberated Paris. His disappearance has never been explained, but here’s one possibility: In foggy conditions, Miller’s plane may have been bombed out of the air by the Canadian Air Force, which was disposing of unused bombs after an aborted attack on German positions.
“There is no rest, there must be no rest for a fellow when he is successful,” Miller once said. “He has got to keep right on going.”
In August 1660, an Englishman named William Harrison disappeared while walking from his home in Campden to Charingworth, about two miles away.
His manservant and son set out to find him, but Harrison’s bloodstained hat, shirt, and collar were soon discovered on the main road between Chipping Campden and Ebrington. There was no body.
In the furor that followed, the manservant accused his own mother and brother of killing Harrison for his money. He convinced the jury by acknowledging that the idea had been his own, and thus he was putting himself in jeopardy by admitting it. Why would he lie about such a thing?
All three were hanged in 1661. The following year, the missing man reappeared. He said he’d been abducted by pirates, sold into slavery, and escaped.
Why did the manservant lie, bringing a death sentence on himself and his family, if all were innocent? His confession has never been explained.
Stretch out this image by Erhard Schön …
… and you’ll see images of Charles V, Ferdinand I, Pope Paul III, and Francis I:
Big deal, you say, anyone with a computer can make a compressed image.
Well, Schön made this one 1535, as a wood carving. Beat that.
Larry Walters had always dreamed of flying, but bad eyesight kept him out of the Air Force. So in July 1982 he bought 45 weather balloons, filled them with helium and tied them to a lawn chair, hoping to float 100 feet above his backyard.
It didn’t work out that way. When his friends severed him from his Jeep, Walters rose to 16,000 feet and began to float toward Long Beach airport. Desperate to get down, he began shooting the balloons with a pellet gun, eventually descending into a power line and causing a local blackout. The FAA fined him $1,500.
After the flight, a reporter asked Walters why he’d done it. “A man can’t just sit around,” he said.
Prague’s “Dancing House” is nicknamed “Fred and Ginger,” for obvious reasons.
Such a controversial design would normally be denied, but former president Václav Havel is a strong supporter of avant-garde architecture … and he owns the building next door.
