Being the paper of record brings with it some odd responsibilities. On March 10, 1975, the New York Times inadvertently published the wrong dateline in its Late City editions, officially dating the day’s news “March 10, 1075.”

Modern readers would understand that this was a simple typo, of course, but the editors grew concerned that future historians might be confused to discover a Times issue from the Middle Ages. So the following day’s issue contained a historic correction:

In yesterday’s issue, The New York Times did not report on riots in Milan and the subsequent murder of the lay religious reformer Erlembald. These events took place in 1075, the year given in the dateline under the nameplate on Page 1. The Times regrets both incidents.

Paradoxically, a shadow can go even faster than light! We can [cast a shadow] first at one star and then toward another star. We can take two stars more or less the same distance from Earth, such as Acrux in the Southern Cross and Bellatrix in Orion (both are 360 light-years away from us). We point the flashlight at Acrux and then we make the beam slide slowly toward Bellatrix. Three hundred sixty years later, the shadow … (which will at this point have become huge and very fast) will reach Acrux, and just a few seconds later it will be at Bellatrix, after having crossed one quarter of the vault of the sky far faster than the speed of light. Can shadows do things that are physically impossible?

— Roberto Casati, Shadows, 2000

The residents of East Union, Ohio, several miles east of Wooster, are considerably worked up over the discovery of a cave near the village. J.M. Davis, Will S. Grady and Alexander Hunter, while out hunting, chased a rabbit into a burrow on a hill near the line of the Cleveland, Akron & Columbus railway. Determined to secure the game, they procured a mattock and shovel and proceeded to dig it out. After excavating the earth to a depth of about four feet they uncovered a curiously shaped stone, upon which were the evident marks of human workmanship. … The stone itself closed the opening into a subterranean chamber, which, with the aid of a ladder and lantern, was found to be in the form of a cubical cistern (perfectly dry), ten feet high, ten feet wide and ten feet long, carved in solid sandstone, with exquisite precision, and containing a few arrow-heads, stone pestle and mortar, the remains of a fire, and in the northwest corner, sitting in an upright position, a human skeleton, in a good state of preservation, with circlets of copper about its neck, wrist, and ankle bones. Its eyeless sockets were turned toward the entrance, and looked sad and ghastly. Upon making the discovery Coroner Huntsberger was summoned, but, viewing the skeleton, refused to hold an inquest. Crowds of people are visiting the cave daily since the discovery.

— The American Antiquarian and Oriental Journal, May 1891

See Home for Good.

“Armless Wonder” Charles B. Tripp and “Legless Wonder” Eli Bowen share a bicycle, from a publicity shoot in the late 19th century.

Each man spent more than 50 years in the circus world — Tripp could write, paint, cut paper, and do carpentry with his feet, and Bowen trained himself to tumble and do stunts on a long pole. But apart from this photo, there’s no clear evidence that the two worked as a team.

On April 12, 2006, numismatist Scott A. Travers bought a pretzel in Times Square and paid for it partly with a 1914 penny worth $350.

In the same week he spent a 1908 penny worth $200 and a 1909 one worth more than $1,000. “I’m planting a seed,” he told the New York Times, “and I hope that a new generation of people will come to appreciate the history that coins represent.”

In the weeks that followed, seven people came forward claiming to have found the $1,000 penny. “The coins were real, but none of them was mine,” Travers said.

In January 2009, the New York Daily News reported that all three of Travers’ coins were still unclaimed. That doesn’t mean they’re still circulating — but they might be.