The famous astronomer also designed the world’s first diving bell
Although best known for his proof that comets — and in particular Halley’s Comet — followed regular orbits around the sun, Edmond Halley was a scientific prodigy. In addition to applying Newtonian mathematics to comets, he charted the stars of the southern skies, searched for a method to allow sailors to calculate longitude, and attempted to calculate the age of the earth by studying the rising levels of salt in the seas. He translated Greek and Latin scientific texts into English, and when he became interested in the writings of Apollonius, taught himself Arabic to translate those treatises. …
Did socialite Florence Burns kill her lover?
A winter evening in Brooklyn, February 1902. John Earl, the night man at the Glen Island Hotel, watched as the front door opened and a young couple walked in from the cold night. The man was handsome, six feet tall, and retained the solid musculature of a varsity high school athlete. His companion, slightly younger and shorter, was a beautiful blonde with a slender build.
They wanted a room. Earl was in the business of renting rooms. He pushed the ledger across the counter to the man, who recorded their names as “J. Wilson and wife, Brooklyn, NY.” A key and cash changed hands. …
Flotsam Files III
Welcome to the Flotsam Files, a weekly digest of odd stories from the past that have washed up on my desk.
In this installment, we travel back to the early twentieth century to learn why women were better armed when they wore hats; we receive timeless dieting advice that demonstrates there truly is nothing new under the sun; and finally, we meet the millionaire who found the perfect gift for a wife who has everything.
Woman Skewers Police Officer With Hatpin
Although Mrs. Otto Tosch’s name would suggest that she was not of Greek descent, the vengeful spirit of Electra ran through her veins.
She was not the sort of wife to leave violence done her husband unavenged. Our story opens on February 8, 1909, with the Chicago matron standing on the corner of North Avenue waiting for her spouse to arrive. As the streetcar approached the stop, she could see a policeman through the windows, Harry P. Stack, beating her husband, Otto, with his billy club. Much to her dismay, after a series of blows, Otto slumped to the floor of the trolley. …
Could this homegrown California aircraft eclipse the Wright Flyer?
The Wright brothers were wrong — Professor J. S. Zerbe of Los Angeles, California was convinced of it.
Yes, they had been the first to launch a human into powered flight, but they had gone about the task in a completely misguided way. The Wrights had modeled the Flyer on a bird, an idea that the good professor found risible:
To pattern a flying machine on the lines of a bird, furnishing it with wings and legs and a tail, and then supplying nothing in place of the brains or of the instinct which the bird possesses, is a most ridiculous attempt at solving a problem by similarity of suggestion, asserted Zerbe. …
Nevada legislators plan to tax bachelors while a husband fakes death to punish his wife.
Welcome to another installment of the Flotsam Files, an eclectic arrangement of the historical tidbits that washed across my desk this week. For no good reason, today’s edition celebrates the possibilities and potentialities of the wedded state: we encounter an early use of remote technology to facilitate long-distance nuptials; travel to Nevada to read about ambitious plans to fine bachelors; and finally, round off our tour with a marriage gone wrong.
Enjoy!
Remote Weddings now Possible!
Enthusiastic technology evangelist, L. W. Buckley, announced plans to orchestrate the world’s first remote wedding in Seattle. The city had decided to host an exposition in 1909, and Buckley, wanting to crown the event with a special attraction, realized that the telephone would allow a couple to do what had never before been: enter into wedded bliss remotely. …
Inspired by his hero, teenager outsmarts criminal
A cold Chicago evening, three days after Christmas, 1908. Sixteen year old Albert Beck, a messenger for the A. D. T. Company, slipped between the cold sheets of his bed. His mother snored softly in the next room of the apartment. Outside, a bone-frosting wind blew off Lake Michigan, rattling the panes in Beck’s window. A long day behind him, another ahead — Albert hoped for a quiet night.
He fell asleep.
Unfortunately, he was not to enjoy the uninterrupted sleep that nature often grants a tired teenager. At 2:00 A.M., Albert woke to an unusual sound. He heard stealthy steps as a large man moved in his bedroom. …
Was the shooting of Norman Cook justifiable homicide or a brutal murder?
A small farm, glowing like bronzed topaz in the fading light of an August evening. Anna Bankert — mother of two boys, wife of Sylvester — was canning tomatoes in the wash shed with her hired girl, Sadie Smay. As the hands of the clock ticked toward 7:00 PM, the shed lost its sunlight and the interior darkened.
“There’s a lamp on the dresser in my bedroom,” said Sadie. “I could bring it down so that we could see better.”
Anna patted her arm. “You keep working. I’ll fetch it.”
The farm wife strode across the yard. She could hear her husband cutting wood. A typical Saturday night, Aug. 12, 1905. A decade earlier, she would have been dancing instead of stuffing tomatoes into jars for the coming winter. …
Pornographic postcards, Methodists on betting, and a crusading newspaper leads a crackdown on Seattle’s “automaniacs”
Obscene Postcards Vex the Postmaster
What would you sacrifice for true love?
It was a story right out of a fairy tale.
In 1905, Count Francis Erasmus von Erbach-Erbach was riding through the woods of his ancestral estates in Germany, when he chanced upon a young woman, Dora Fischer, who was gathering sticks in the forest. Fischer, when not collecting firewood, assisted her mother in the estate’s laundry.
The young woman was stunning, a perfect German rose. The young count — twenty-two years old at the time — was pierced by Cupid’s shaft. After finding opportunities to see the washerwoman, he declared his interest and was gratified to learn that his passion was reciprocated: Dora loved him as well. …
Saint Cuthbert’s Way, Part Eight: Lindisfarne
Our pilgrimage reaches its end on Lindisfarne, possibly the holiest site in Britain. Like Cuthbert, we have crossed the hills of the Scottish Borders, and reached the island where Aidan and his Celtic brethren from Iona settled.
The ancient monastery that Cuthbert would have known was fairly insignificant. Like Melrose Abbey, the ruins of the monastery that one finds on the island dates from the high medieval period. After the Viking danger had faded, monks from Durham recolonized Lindisfarne, building a monastery and a large priory church. This monastery became a prize during the border wars between Scotland and England, and ultimately, the monks constructed a fortified wall around the compound, enclosing land to the south of the church and the monastery buildings. …
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