Italian stonemason Alceo Dossena (1878-1937) knew he had a knack for imitating the great sculptors of the past.
What he didn’t know was that his dealers were making a fortune by marketing his creations as originals.
Dossena was already 50 when he recognized some of his own sculptures in “ancient” museum collections. He had got only $200 for each sale. He won a suit against his dealers but died poor in 1937.
ecdemomania
n. abnormal compulsion for wandering
Marilyn Monroe was Miss Artichoke of 1948.
Dutch prime minister Jan Peter Balkenende is nicknamed Harry Potter.
Guess why.
No functioning democracy has ever suffered a famine.
Kidnappers don’t always target humans. On Feb. 8, 1983, a group of men abducted the Irish racehorse Shergar, winner of the 1981 Epsom Derby.
A local radio station received a ransom demand for £1.5 million, but the horse was never recovered, and to this day his fate is still unknown.
03/04/2018 UPDATE: In 2008, Telegraph reporter Andrew Alderson found the answer. (Thanks, Paul.)
If you’ve taken introductory psychology you know Rubin’s vase, which illustrates the principle of figure and ground: In the image on the left you can see two faces, or you can see a vase, but you can’t see both simultaneously.
A number of people have noticed the same thing in Canada’s modern flag, adopted in 1965 (below). Is this a symbol of Canada’s proud natural heritage or of two people bickering?
And what does that say about Canada?
The average American has 1 chance in 3,000 of being struck by lightning during his lifetime.
“For 40 years I’ve been an actor on the American stage. My entire family is well represented in the entire field of show business. I’ve played this very city of Cincinnati for 30 or 40 years. I’ve never had a decent reception here. I’ve been waiting all this time, ladies and gentlemen, to say to you that you, the people of Cincinnati, are the greatest morons, the most unintelligent, illiterate bastards I have ever appeared before in my entire life. Take a good look at me, because you’ll never see me again.”
— Vaudeville performer Richard Bennett finally gives up
After a snowstorm at Cornell, inveterate prankster Hugh Troy (1906-1964) once used a wastebasket to make “rhinoceros tracks” across campus. He directed the tracks to a lake that supplied drinking water for the area and cut a hole in the ice.
The police had to drag the lake in the middle of a snowstorm, and many residents stopped drinking the water until Troy revealed the prank through an anonymous letter.