According to a popular story, a resident of Mechelen, Belgium, emerged unsteadily from an inn one foggy night in 1687, looked up at St. Rumbold’s Cathedral, and raised an alarm — the tower was on fire.

Residents flung open their windows and saw the same reddish glow. The rumor raised an uproar, and the mayor organized a chain of volunteers to pass buckets of water up the tower stairway.

Before they reached the top, though, the fog cleared and the alarm was called off. The red glow had been only the moon’s light shining through the tower’s red bell windows.

Ever since, residents of Mechelen have been known as Maneblussers, or moon extinguishers.

On May 19, 1914, G. Howell Parr of Baltimore lay down and rolled three continuous miles to win a bet of $1,000. Details, from the New York Times:

Wagered $1,000 he could roll three miles.
Made the time limit June 1.
Started at 8 o’clock last night from the Elk Ridge Kennels.
Finished at 11:10 A M. to-day at Charles Street and University Parkway.
Rolled fifteen hours and ten minutes, with intermissions for rest.
Covered approximately 15,840 feet, or about three miles.
Took about four feet to a roll.
Made about 3,960 rolls.
Won the $1,000.
Every time he rolled he won about 25 cents.

He wore football gear and turned with every fourth revolution into a pillowed chair positioned by his friends, where he’d rest for 30 seconds. “At times the wife approached him solicitously and asked how he felt. He always looked up at her, and smiled and said: ‘Feel fine.'”

Indeed, he felt well enough afterward to go to the racetrack, “where several of his horses were on the day’s programme.” “When asked where he felt the strain of the rolling most, he said, ‘At my wrists; I put so much weight on them.'”

An optical illusion. These circles are concentric.

(Baingio Pinna and Richard L. Gregory, “Shifts of Edges and Deformations of Patterns,” Perception 31:12 [December 2002], 1503-1508.)