The car of the future runs completely on electricity. No more dependence on gas. No more choking the atmosphere with fumes. Whenever the possibility of electric cars is raised, the media and other commentators ooh and ahh over potential. But this technology isn't futuristic-it's positively retro. Cars powered by electricity have been on the scene since the 1800s and actually predate gas-powered cars.
A blacksmith in Vermont-Thomas Davenport-built the first electric motor in 1833 and used it to power a model train the next year. In the 1830s, Scottish inventor Robert Davidson rigged a carriage with an electric motor powered by batteries. In his Pulitzer-nominated book Taking Charge, archaeology professor and technology historian Michael Brian Schiffer writes that this "was perhaps the first electric car."
After this remarkable achievement, the idea of an electric car languished for decades. In 1881, a French experimenter debuted a personal vehicle that ran on electricity, a tricycle (ie, three wheels and a seat) for adults. In 1888, many inventors in the US, Britain, and Europe started creating three-and four-wheel vehicles-which could carry two to six people-that ran on electricity. These vehicles remained principally curiosities until May 1897, when the Pope Manufacturing company- the country's most successful bicycle manufacturer-started selling the first commercial electric car: the Columbia Electric Phaeton, Mark III. It topped out at fifteen miles per hour, and had to be recharged every 30 miles. Within two years, people could choose from an array of electrical carriages, buggies, wagons, trucks, bicycles, tricycles, even buses and ambulances made by numerous manufacturers.
New York City was home to a fleet of electric taxi cabs starting in 1897. The Electric Vehicle Company eventually had over 100 of them ferrying people around the Big Apple. Soon it was unleashing electric taxis in Chicago, Philadelphia, Boston, and Washington DC by 1900, though, the company was in trouble, and seven years later it sputtered out.
As for cars powered by dead dinosaurs, Austrian engineer Siegfried Marcus attached a one cylinder motor to a cart in 1864, driving it 500 feet and thus creating the first vehicle powered by gas (this was around 25 years after Davidson had created the first electro-car). It wasn't until 1895 that gas autos-converted carriages with a two-cylinder engine-were commercially sold (and then only in microscopic numbers).
Around the turn of the century, the average car buyer had a big choice to make: gas, electric, or steam? When the auto industry took form around 1895, nobody knew which type of vehicle was going to be the standard. During the last few years of the nineteenth century and the first few of the twentieth, over 100 companies placed their bets on electricity. According to Schiffer, "Twenty-eight percent of the 4,192 American automobiles produced in 1900 were electric. In the New York automobile show of that year more electrics were on display than gasoline or steam vehicles."
In the middle of the first decade of the 1900s, electric cars were on the decline, and their gas-eating cousins were surging ahead. With improvements in the cars and their batteries, though, electrics started a comeback in 1907, which continued through 1913. The downhill slide started the next year, and by the 1920s the market for electrics was "miniscule," to use Schiffer's word. Things never got better.
Many companies tried to combine the best of both approaches, with cars that ran on a mix of electricity and gas. The Pope Manufacturing Company, once again in the vanguard, built a working prototype in 1898. A Belgian company and a French company each brought out commercial models the next year, beating the Toyota Prius and the Honda Insight to the market by over a century. Even Ferdinand Porsche and the Mercedes Company got in the act. Unfortunately, these hybrids never really caught on.
Didik Design- which manufactures several vehicles which run on various combinations of electricity, solar power, and human power-maintains an extensive archive on the history of electric and electro-fuel cars. According to their research, around 200 companies and individuals have manufactured electric cars. Only a few familiar names on the list (although some of them aren't familiar as car manufacturers): Studebaker (1952-1966), General Electric (1901-1904), Braun (1977), Sears, Roebuck, and Company (1978), and Oldsmobile (1896 to the present). The vast majority have long been forgotten: Elecctra, Pfluger, Buffalo Automobile company, Hercules, Red Bug, and Nu-Klea Starlite, to name a few. Henry Ford and Thomas Edison teamed up on an electric car, but, although some prototypes were built, it never was commercially produced. Though they have faded from mass cultural memory, electric cars have never been completely out of production.
The reasons why electrics faded into obscurity while gas cars and trucks became 99.999 percent dominant are complex and are still being debated. If only they hadn't been sidelined and had continued to develop apace, the world would be a very different place.
Wednesday, May 13, 2015
Tuesday, May 12, 2015
The Board Game Monopoly was Swiped From Quakers
Monopoly, according to it's manufacturer, has been played by over 500 million people. Translated into 26 languages, as well as Braille, it's sold 200 million copies as of 1999 (the latest figures the maker has announced). Over 5 billion of these green houses have been stamped, and each year countless dead trees are turned into 500 billion dollars of rainbow-hued money.
In other words, it's a popular game. The most successful board game ever.
The official story is that a toy tinkerer named Charles Darrow from Germantown, Pennsylvania, created this billion-dollar game out of whole cloth in 1934. However, the official story is what's made from whole cloth.
When economics professor Ralph Anspach cooked up a parody game called Anti-Monopoly, the goal is to bust trusts, not build them-Parker Brothers, not surprisingly, took him to court. While researching the game's history for the lawsuit, Anspach stumbled upon the hidden truth. Using dogged detective work, he assembled the suppressed history of Monopoly.
Greatly simplified, it goes like this. The roots stretch back to the Landlord's Game, a Monopolyesque game patented in 1904 by a cross-dressing Bohemian and game-inventor named Lizzie Magie. This game mutated into a folk-game called "monopoly." As charmingly quant as it may seem, people used to spend hour after hour playing board games with each other; they would even handmake their own copies of a game's board, cards, and pieces. From 1910 to the early 1930s, this is what happened with monopoly, mainly in the Northeastern US.
While visiting her hometown of Indianapolis, in 1929, a Quaker teacher named Ruth Hoskins was introduced to the game by a childhood friend. She made a copy, which she took back to Atlantic City, New Jersey. Her friends and colleagues, themselves Quakers, soon decided to redo the game using places from their neck of the woods-Pacific Avenue, Park Place, the Boardwalk, etc. They also added the little hotels in addition to houses. In a crucial rule change, they removed the property auctions and gave each piece of pretend real estate a fixed value, making the game so simple that even little kids could play.
Eventually, a Quaker couple invited another couple to play the game. That's how Charles Darrow was introduced to monopoly. He showed great interest, pressing his hosts to explain all the fine points of the game. When he asked them to type up the rules and make board for him, they thought he was a demanding bastard, but they complied. Next thing you know, Darrow is selling it as a game he "created." He had lifted the Quakers' Atlantic City version wholesale, making only some superficial changes to the game board (such as putting a colored stripe across the top of the squares instead of the original triangles in the bottom left corner).
He then sold it to Parker Brothers, still pretending to have invented it. The company soon discovered the ruse but went along with it, omitting and suppressing evidence of the game's true origins when they patented it under Darrow's name.
In it's ruling against Parker Brothers' effort to torpedo Anti-Monopoly, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals officially agreed with the facts Anspach unearthed, declaring the "reference to Darrow as the inventor or creator of the game is clearly erroneous." The Supreme Court upheld the decision.
Even today, Hasbro-which assimilated Parker Brothers-won't acknowledge the origins of their cash cow. They have, however, craftily modified their so-called history of Monopoly. The game's website now coyly refers to the "legend" of the game's birth, which commences when Darrow "showed" the game to the suits at Parker Brothers. They don't say that he created it, although that's the impression you'd get if you didn't know the real story.
In other words, it's a popular game. The most successful board game ever.
The official story is that a toy tinkerer named Charles Darrow from Germantown, Pennsylvania, created this billion-dollar game out of whole cloth in 1934. However, the official story is what's made from whole cloth.
When economics professor Ralph Anspach cooked up a parody game called Anti-Monopoly, the goal is to bust trusts, not build them-Parker Brothers, not surprisingly, took him to court. While researching the game's history for the lawsuit, Anspach stumbled upon the hidden truth. Using dogged detective work, he assembled the suppressed history of Monopoly.
Greatly simplified, it goes like this. The roots stretch back to the Landlord's Game, a Monopolyesque game patented in 1904 by a cross-dressing Bohemian and game-inventor named Lizzie Magie. This game mutated into a folk-game called "monopoly." As charmingly quant as it may seem, people used to spend hour after hour playing board games with each other; they would even handmake their own copies of a game's board, cards, and pieces. From 1910 to the early 1930s, this is what happened with monopoly, mainly in the Northeastern US.
While visiting her hometown of Indianapolis, in 1929, a Quaker teacher named Ruth Hoskins was introduced to the game by a childhood friend. She made a copy, which she took back to Atlantic City, New Jersey. Her friends and colleagues, themselves Quakers, soon decided to redo the game using places from their neck of the woods-Pacific Avenue, Park Place, the Boardwalk, etc. They also added the little hotels in addition to houses. In a crucial rule change, they removed the property auctions and gave each piece of pretend real estate a fixed value, making the game so simple that even little kids could play.
Eventually, a Quaker couple invited another couple to play the game. That's how Charles Darrow was introduced to monopoly. He showed great interest, pressing his hosts to explain all the fine points of the game. When he asked them to type up the rules and make board for him, they thought he was a demanding bastard, but they complied. Next thing you know, Darrow is selling it as a game he "created." He had lifted the Quakers' Atlantic City version wholesale, making only some superficial changes to the game board (such as putting a colored stripe across the top of the squares instead of the original triangles in the bottom left corner).
He then sold it to Parker Brothers, still pretending to have invented it. The company soon discovered the ruse but went along with it, omitting and suppressing evidence of the game's true origins when they patented it under Darrow's name.
In it's ruling against Parker Brothers' effort to torpedo Anti-Monopoly, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals officially agreed with the facts Anspach unearthed, declaring the "reference to Darrow as the inventor or creator of the game is clearly erroneous." The Supreme Court upheld the decision.
Even today, Hasbro-which assimilated Parker Brothers-won't acknowledge the origins of their cash cow. They have, however, craftily modified their so-called history of Monopoly. The game's website now coyly refers to the "legend" of the game's birth, which commences when Darrow "showed" the game to the suits at Parker Brothers. They don't say that he created it, although that's the impression you'd get if you didn't know the real story.
Monday, May 11, 2015
Smoking Causes Problems Other Than Lung Cancer And Heart Disease
The fact that smoking causes lung disease and oral cancer isn't exactly news, and only tobacco industry executives would express (feigned) shock at being told. But cigarettes can lead to a whole slew of problems involving every system of your tar-filled body, and most people aren't aware of this.
The American Council on Science and Health's book Cigarettes: What the Warning Label Doesn't Tell You is the first comprehensive look at the medical evidence of all types of harm triggered by smoking. Referencing over 450 articles from medical journals and reviewed by 45 experts- mainly medical doctors and PhDs-if this book doesn't convince you to quit, nothing will.
Among some of the things cancer sticks do:
Besides cancers of the head, neck, and lungs, butts are especially connected to cancer of the bladder, kidney, pancreas, and cervix. Newer evidence is adding leukemia and colorectal cancer to the list. Recent studies have also found at least doubling of risk among smokers for cancers of the vulva and penis, as well as an eight-fold risk of anal cancer for men and a nine-fold risk for women.
Smoking trashes the ability of blood to flow, which results in a sixteen-fold greater risk of peripheral vascular disease. This triggers pain in the legs and arms, which often leads to an inability to walk and, in some instances, gangrene and/or amputation. Seventy-six percent of all cases are caused by smoking, more than any other factor, including diabetes, obesity, and high blood pressure.
Smokers are at least two to three more likely to develop the heartbreak of psoriasis. Even if that doesn't happen, they'll look old before their time. The American Council tells us, "Smokers in their 40s have facial wrinkles similar to those of nonsmokers in their 60s."
Smokers require more anesthesia for surgery, and they recover much more slowly. In fact, wounds of all kinds take longer to heal for smokers.
Puffing helps to weaken bones, soft tissue, and spinal discs, causing all kinds of musculo-skeletal pain, more broken bones and ruptured discs, and longer healing time. "A non-smokers leg heals an average of 80 percent faster than a smoker's broken leg."
Smoking is heavily related to osteoporosis, the loss of bone mass, which results in brittle bones and more breaks.
Cigarettes interfere with your ability to have kids. " The fertility rates of women who smoke are about 30 percent lower than those of nonsmokers." If you're an idiot who continues to smoke while you're expecting-even in this day and age, some people, including stars Catherine Zeta-Jones and Courtney Love did-you increase the risks of miscarriage, stillbirth, premature birth, low birth weight, underdevelopment, and cleft pallet. If your child is able to survive outside the womb, it will have a heavily elevated risk of crib death (SIDS), allergies, and intellectual impairment.
Smoking also does a serious number on sperm, resulting in more deformed cells, less ability of them to swim, smaller loads, and a drastic decrease in overall number of the fellas. The larger population of misshapen sperm probably increases the risk of miscarriages and birth defects, so even if mommy doesn't smoke, daddy could still cause problems. What's more, because smoking hurts blood flow, male smokers are at least twice as likely to be unable to get it up.
Besides shutting down blood flow to the little head, smoking interferes with the blood going to the big head in both sexes. This causes one quarter of all strokes. It also makes these strokes more likely to occur earlier in life and more likely to be fatal.
"Depression-whether viewed as a trait, a symptom or a diagnosable disorder-is overrepresented among smokers." Unfortunately, it's unclear how the two are related. Does smoking cause depression, or does depression lead to smoking? Or, most likely, do the two feed on each other in a vicious cycle?
"Smokers experience sudden hearing loss an average of 16 years earlier than do never
smokers."
Smokers and former smokers have an increased risk of developing cataracts, abnormal eye movements, inflammation of the optic nerve, permanent blindness from lack of blood flow, and the most severe form of macular degeneration.
Lighting up increases plaque, gum disease, and tooth loss.
It also makes it likelier that you'll develop diabetes, stomach ulcers, colon polyps, and Crohns disease.
Smoking trashes the immune system in myriad ways, with the overall result being that you're more susceptible to disease and allergies.
And let's not forget that second-hand smoke has horrible effects on the estimated 42 percent of toddlers and infants who are forced to inhale it in their homes:
According to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), children's "passive smoking," as it is called, results in hundreds of thousands of cases of bronchitis, pneumonia, ear infections, and worsened asthma. Worse yet, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that 702 children younger than one year die each year as a result of sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS), worsened asthma and serious respiratory infections.
It's very surprising to note that smoking can have a few health benefits. Because they zap women's estrogen levels, cigarettes can lead to less endometriosis and other conditions related to the hormone. Smoking also decreases the risk of developing osteoarthritis in the knees, perhaps because the pliability of thin bones takes some pressure off the cartilage. And because it jacks up dopamine levels, it helps ward off Parkinson's disease. Of course, these benefits seem to be side effects of the hazards of smoking, so the trade-off hardly seems worth it.
The American Council on Science and Health's book Cigarettes: What the Warning Label Doesn't Tell You is the first comprehensive look at the medical evidence of all types of harm triggered by smoking. Referencing over 450 articles from medical journals and reviewed by 45 experts- mainly medical doctors and PhDs-if this book doesn't convince you to quit, nothing will.
Among some of the things cancer sticks do:
Besides cancers of the head, neck, and lungs, butts are especially connected to cancer of the bladder, kidney, pancreas, and cervix. Newer evidence is adding leukemia and colorectal cancer to the list. Recent studies have also found at least doubling of risk among smokers for cancers of the vulva and penis, as well as an eight-fold risk of anal cancer for men and a nine-fold risk for women.
Smoking trashes the ability of blood to flow, which results in a sixteen-fold greater risk of peripheral vascular disease. This triggers pain in the legs and arms, which often leads to an inability to walk and, in some instances, gangrene and/or amputation. Seventy-six percent of all cases are caused by smoking, more than any other factor, including diabetes, obesity, and high blood pressure.
Smokers are at least two to three more likely to develop the heartbreak of psoriasis. Even if that doesn't happen, they'll look old before their time. The American Council tells us, "Smokers in their 40s have facial wrinkles similar to those of nonsmokers in their 60s."
Smokers require more anesthesia for surgery, and they recover much more slowly. In fact, wounds of all kinds take longer to heal for smokers.
Puffing helps to weaken bones, soft tissue, and spinal discs, causing all kinds of musculo-skeletal pain, more broken bones and ruptured discs, and longer healing time. "A non-smokers leg heals an average of 80 percent faster than a smoker's broken leg."
Smoking is heavily related to osteoporosis, the loss of bone mass, which results in brittle bones and more breaks.
Cigarettes interfere with your ability to have kids. " The fertility rates of women who smoke are about 30 percent lower than those of nonsmokers." If you're an idiot who continues to smoke while you're expecting-even in this day and age, some people, including stars Catherine Zeta-Jones and Courtney Love did-you increase the risks of miscarriage, stillbirth, premature birth, low birth weight, underdevelopment, and cleft pallet. If your child is able to survive outside the womb, it will have a heavily elevated risk of crib death (SIDS), allergies, and intellectual impairment.
Smoking also does a serious number on sperm, resulting in more deformed cells, less ability of them to swim, smaller loads, and a drastic decrease in overall number of the fellas. The larger population of misshapen sperm probably increases the risk of miscarriages and birth defects, so even if mommy doesn't smoke, daddy could still cause problems. What's more, because smoking hurts blood flow, male smokers are at least twice as likely to be unable to get it up.
Besides shutting down blood flow to the little head, smoking interferes with the blood going to the big head in both sexes. This causes one quarter of all strokes. It also makes these strokes more likely to occur earlier in life and more likely to be fatal.
"Depression-whether viewed as a trait, a symptom or a diagnosable disorder-is overrepresented among smokers." Unfortunately, it's unclear how the two are related. Does smoking cause depression, or does depression lead to smoking? Or, most likely, do the two feed on each other in a vicious cycle?
"Smokers experience sudden hearing loss an average of 16 years earlier than do never
smokers."
Smokers and former smokers have an increased risk of developing cataracts, abnormal eye movements, inflammation of the optic nerve, permanent blindness from lack of blood flow, and the most severe form of macular degeneration.
Lighting up increases plaque, gum disease, and tooth loss.
It also makes it likelier that you'll develop diabetes, stomach ulcers, colon polyps, and Crohns disease.
Smoking trashes the immune system in myriad ways, with the overall result being that you're more susceptible to disease and allergies.
And let's not forget that second-hand smoke has horrible effects on the estimated 42 percent of toddlers and infants who are forced to inhale it in their homes:
According to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), children's "passive smoking," as it is called, results in hundreds of thousands of cases of bronchitis, pneumonia, ear infections, and worsened asthma. Worse yet, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that 702 children younger than one year die each year as a result of sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS), worsened asthma and serious respiratory infections.
It's very surprising to note that smoking can have a few health benefits. Because they zap women's estrogen levels, cigarettes can lead to less endometriosis and other conditions related to the hormone. Smoking also decreases the risk of developing osteoarthritis in the knees, perhaps because the pliability of thin bones takes some pressure off the cartilage. And because it jacks up dopamine levels, it helps ward off Parkinson's disease. Of course, these benefits seem to be side effects of the hazards of smoking, so the trade-off hardly seems worth it.
Friday, May 8, 2015
How Do You Plead?
A Virginia law requires all bathtubs to be kept out in the yard, not inside the house.
According to a British law passed in 1845, attempting to commit suicide was a capital offense. Offenders could be hanged for trying.
Celebrating Christmas was once illegal in England.
Dueling is legal in Paraguay as long as both parties are registered blood donors.
Impotence is legal grounds for divorce in twenty-four American states.
In a tradition dating back to the beginning of the Westminster system of government, the bench in the middle of a Westminster parliament is two-and-a-half swords lengths long. This was so the government and opposition couldn't have a go at each other if it all got a bit heated.
In Alaska, it is illegal to shoot at a moose from the window of an airplane or other flying vehicle.
In Athens, Greece, a drivers license can be taken away by law if the driver is deemed "unbathed" or "poorly dressed."
In Baltimore, it is illegal to wash or scrub a sink, regardless of how dirty it is.
In Cleveland, Ohio, it is illegal to catch mice without a hunting license.
In England during Queen Victoria's reign, it was illegal to be a homosexual but not a lesbian, the reason being that when the queen was approving the law, she wouldn't believe that women would do that.
In Hartford, Connecticut, it is illegal for a husband to kiss his wife on Sundays.
In Helsinki, Finland, instead of giving parking tickets, the police usually deflate tires.
In Italy, it is illegal to make coffins out of anything except nutshells or wood.
In Jasmine, Saskatchewan, it is illegal for a cow to moo within three hundred kilometers of a private home.
In Kentucky, it is illegal to carry ice cream in you back pocket.
In Sweden, although prostitution is legal, it is illegal for anyone to use the services of a prostitute.
In Texas, it is illegal to put graffiti on someone else's cow.
In the United Kingdom, there is no Act of Parliament making it illegal to commit murder. Murder is only illegal due to legal precedent.
It is against the law to stare at the mayor of Paris.
In Singapore, it is against the law to urinate in an elevator.
In Sweden, it is illegal to train a seal to balance a ball on its nose.
In California, it is illegal to eat oranges while bathing.
In Bladworth, Saskatchewan, it is illegal to frown at cows.
It is illegal to grow or sell pork in Israel.
In Arizona, it is illegal to hunt camels.
In Malaysia, it is illegal for restaurants to substitute toilet paper as table napkins. Repeat offenders go to jail.
It used to be law in France that children's names had to be taken from an official government list.
In Iceland, it was once against the law to have a pet in a city.
I one city in Switzerland, it was once against the law to slam your door.
Mailing an entire building has been illegal in the United States since 1916, when a man mailed a forty-thousand-ton brick house across Utah to avoid high freight rates.
Pennsylvania was the first colony to legalize witchcraft.
A monkey was once tried and convicted for smoking a cigarette in South Bend, Indiana.
According to the United States Refuse Act of 1899, every industrial discharge into bodies of water since 1899 has been a crime.
Every citizen of Kentucky is required by law to take a bath at least once a year.
If you live in Michigan, it is illegal to put a skunk in your boss's desk.
In Hartford, Connecticut, you may not, under any circumstances, cross the street walking on your hands.
In Idaho, a citizen is forbidden by law to give another citizen a box of candy that weighs more than fifty pounds.
In Indiana, it is illegal to ride public transportation for at least thirty minutes after eating garlic.
In Minnesota, it is illegal for women to be dressed up as Santa Claus on city streets.
In Morrisville, Pennsylvania, women need a legal permit before they can wear lipstick in public.
In some parts of Alabama, it is illegal to carry a comb in your pocket.
In the Rhode Island legislative during the 1970s, it was proposed that there be a tax of $2 on every act of sexual intercourse.
In Oklahoma, it is against the law to hunt whale.
It is illegal for boys in ninth grade to grow a mustache in Binghamton, New York.
In Omaha, Nebraska, it's against the law to burp or sneeze in a church.
In Kansas, it's against the law to catch fish with your bare hands.
It's against the law to ride down the streets of Brewton, Alabama, in a motorboat.
Most burglaries occur in the winter.
The state legislature in North Dakota has rejected a proposal to erect signs specifically warning motorists not to throw human waste on the roadside. Maintenance workers report at least twenty incidents of road crews being sprayed with urine after rupturing urine filled plastic bottles that became swollen in the hot sun. Opponents of the measure say they're afraid the signs would discourage tourism.
Under the law of Mississippi, there's no such thing as a female peeping Tom.
in 1976, a Los Angeles secretary named Jannene Swift officially married a fifty-pound rock. The ceremony was witnessed by more than twenty people.
According to a British law passed in 1845, attempting to commit suicide was a capital offense. Offenders could be hanged for trying.
Celebrating Christmas was once illegal in England.
Dueling is legal in Paraguay as long as both parties are registered blood donors.
Impotence is legal grounds for divorce in twenty-four American states.
In a tradition dating back to the beginning of the Westminster system of government, the bench in the middle of a Westminster parliament is two-and-a-half swords lengths long. This was so the government and opposition couldn't have a go at each other if it all got a bit heated.
In Alaska, it is illegal to shoot at a moose from the window of an airplane or other flying vehicle.
In Athens, Greece, a drivers license can be taken away by law if the driver is deemed "unbathed" or "poorly dressed."
In Baltimore, it is illegal to wash or scrub a sink, regardless of how dirty it is.
In Cleveland, Ohio, it is illegal to catch mice without a hunting license.
In England during Queen Victoria's reign, it was illegal to be a homosexual but not a lesbian, the reason being that when the queen was approving the law, she wouldn't believe that women would do that.
In Hartford, Connecticut, it is illegal for a husband to kiss his wife on Sundays.
In Helsinki, Finland, instead of giving parking tickets, the police usually deflate tires.
In Italy, it is illegal to make coffins out of anything except nutshells or wood.
In Jasmine, Saskatchewan, it is illegal for a cow to moo within three hundred kilometers of a private home.
In Kentucky, it is illegal to carry ice cream in you back pocket.
In Sweden, although prostitution is legal, it is illegal for anyone to use the services of a prostitute.
In Texas, it is illegal to put graffiti on someone else's cow.
In the United Kingdom, there is no Act of Parliament making it illegal to commit murder. Murder is only illegal due to legal precedent.
It is against the law to stare at the mayor of Paris.
In Singapore, it is against the law to urinate in an elevator.
In Sweden, it is illegal to train a seal to balance a ball on its nose.
In California, it is illegal to eat oranges while bathing.
In Bladworth, Saskatchewan, it is illegal to frown at cows.
It is illegal to grow or sell pork in Israel.
In Arizona, it is illegal to hunt camels.
In Malaysia, it is illegal for restaurants to substitute toilet paper as table napkins. Repeat offenders go to jail.
It used to be law in France that children's names had to be taken from an official government list.
In Iceland, it was once against the law to have a pet in a city.
I one city in Switzerland, it was once against the law to slam your door.
Mailing an entire building has been illegal in the United States since 1916, when a man mailed a forty-thousand-ton brick house across Utah to avoid high freight rates.
Pennsylvania was the first colony to legalize witchcraft.
A monkey was once tried and convicted for smoking a cigarette in South Bend, Indiana.
According to the United States Refuse Act of 1899, every industrial discharge into bodies of water since 1899 has been a crime.
Every citizen of Kentucky is required by law to take a bath at least once a year.
If you live in Michigan, it is illegal to put a skunk in your boss's desk.
In Hartford, Connecticut, you may not, under any circumstances, cross the street walking on your hands.
In Idaho, a citizen is forbidden by law to give another citizen a box of candy that weighs more than fifty pounds.
In Indiana, it is illegal to ride public transportation for at least thirty minutes after eating garlic.
In Minnesota, it is illegal for women to be dressed up as Santa Claus on city streets.
In Morrisville, Pennsylvania, women need a legal permit before they can wear lipstick in public.
In some parts of Alabama, it is illegal to carry a comb in your pocket.
In the Rhode Island legislative during the 1970s, it was proposed that there be a tax of $2 on every act of sexual intercourse.
In Oklahoma, it is against the law to hunt whale.
It is illegal for boys in ninth grade to grow a mustache in Binghamton, New York.
In Omaha, Nebraska, it's against the law to burp or sneeze in a church.
In Kansas, it's against the law to catch fish with your bare hands.
It's against the law to ride down the streets of Brewton, Alabama, in a motorboat.
Most burglaries occur in the winter.
The state legislature in North Dakota has rejected a proposal to erect signs specifically warning motorists not to throw human waste on the roadside. Maintenance workers report at least twenty incidents of road crews being sprayed with urine after rupturing urine filled plastic bottles that became swollen in the hot sun. Opponents of the measure say they're afraid the signs would discourage tourism.
Under the law of Mississippi, there's no such thing as a female peeping Tom.
in 1976, a Los Angeles secretary named Jannene Swift officially married a fifty-pound rock. The ceremony was witnessed by more than twenty people.
Hell Hath No Fury
One of the strangest tales in American history is recorded in the diary of Elizabeth Geer. She and her husband and their seven children set out in a covered wagon from Indiana headed for California in 1847. The wagon train with which the Geers were traveling reached the half way point by September 15. On the morning of the 16th, one of the men reported that he was having trouble.
His wife was angry at him for trying to drag her half way across the continent and refused to take another step west. Not only would she not budge, she wouldn't allow her children to go either. Her husband had his oxen hitched up to the wagons for three hours and had been coaxing her to hop aboard, bit she wouldn't stir.
Elizabeth told her husband what was taking place, and he gathered three male companions and went to consult with the recalcitrant woman. When she steadfastly refused their entreaties to join them, they grabbed her young ones and crammed them in the wagon. Her husband then drove off and let her sitting.
As the wagons rolled west, the abandoned woman got up, took the back track and traveled out of sight. Meanwhile, the husband sent his oldest son back to where they had camped to retrieve a horse that he had left. In less than an hour, having cut across a bend in the road, the wife overtook her husband. When he saw her he asked, "Did you meet Son John?"
"Yes" was the reply, "and I picked up a stone and knocked out his brains."
Her stunned husband went back to ascertain the truth, and while he was gone, she set his wagon, which was loaded with all of their store-bought goods, on fire. The cover was completely burned, as were some valuable articles. When the man saw the flames, he came running back to put them out. According to Elizabeth, when this was accomplished, The husband finally mustered spunk enough to give his wife what she needed: a good flogging."
Unfortunately, Mrs. Geer doesn't tell us what effect the whipping had on the woman, but one has to wonder if it did any good. After all, anyone who would set fire to her own wagon probably would not be deterred by a few blows from her husband.
His wife was angry at him for trying to drag her half way across the continent and refused to take another step west. Not only would she not budge, she wouldn't allow her children to go either. Her husband had his oxen hitched up to the wagons for three hours and had been coaxing her to hop aboard, bit she wouldn't stir.
Elizabeth told her husband what was taking place, and he gathered three male companions and went to consult with the recalcitrant woman. When she steadfastly refused their entreaties to join them, they grabbed her young ones and crammed them in the wagon. Her husband then drove off and let her sitting.
As the wagons rolled west, the abandoned woman got up, took the back track and traveled out of sight. Meanwhile, the husband sent his oldest son back to where they had camped to retrieve a horse that he had left. In less than an hour, having cut across a bend in the road, the wife overtook her husband. When he saw her he asked, "Did you meet Son John?"
"Yes" was the reply, "and I picked up a stone and knocked out his brains."
Her stunned husband went back to ascertain the truth, and while he was gone, she set his wagon, which was loaded with all of their store-bought goods, on fire. The cover was completely burned, as were some valuable articles. When the man saw the flames, he came running back to put them out. According to Elizabeth, when this was accomplished, The husband finally mustered spunk enough to give his wife what she needed: a good flogging."
Unfortunately, Mrs. Geer doesn't tell us what effect the whipping had on the woman, but one has to wonder if it did any good. After all, anyone who would set fire to her own wagon probably would not be deterred by a few blows from her husband.
Amelia Earhart's Private Side
In July 1937, a gallant and skillful pilot vanished over Howland Island in the Pacific. Her name was Amelia Earhart, perhaps the best known aviatrix in the history of flight. If her public thought that she was the epitome of determination, they ought to have seen her private side. The woman had icewater running through her veins.
Earhart had only been flying for two years when she set an altitude record for women by soaring to 14,000 feet, and she did it in a little open-cockpit plane powered by a three-cylinder air-cooled engine. Later she became the first woman passenger to cross the Atlantic by plane, and in 1932 she made history by being the first woman to actually fly solo across the Atlantic. The year before, she shocked the world by getting married. Would this be the end to America's dare-devil darling? Would some man tame her? Not a chance. The same iron will that she exhibited in public also reigned in her private life.
Amelia's intended was George Palmer Putnam, and while they were waiting in his mother's home for the justice of the peace to arrive, the bride handed the groom a letter. In it, Amelia let George know just what she expected out of the marriage.
At the outset. Amelia, although she did love George, expressed some reluctance to marry. She was afraid that it would interfere with her own ambitions. "In our life together," she wrote, "I shall not hold you to any medieval code of faithfulness to me, nor shall I consider myself bound to you similarly. Please let us not interfere with each other's work or play. In this connection," she continued, "I may have to keep some place where I can go to be myself now and then, for I cannot guarantee to endure at all times the confinements of even an attractive cage." In closing, Amelia exacted what she called a cruel promise. "You must let me go in a year if we find no happiness together."
Nobody knows how Amelia's marriage to George Putnam really worked privately, but one suspects that she charted her own course in the air and on the ground. She always had and she always would.
In public or in private, Amelia Earhart apparently loved her independence more than life itself.
Earhart had only been flying for two years when she set an altitude record for women by soaring to 14,000 feet, and she did it in a little open-cockpit plane powered by a three-cylinder air-cooled engine. Later she became the first woman passenger to cross the Atlantic by plane, and in 1932 she made history by being the first woman to actually fly solo across the Atlantic. The year before, she shocked the world by getting married. Would this be the end to America's dare-devil darling? Would some man tame her? Not a chance. The same iron will that she exhibited in public also reigned in her private life.
Amelia's intended was George Palmer Putnam, and while they were waiting in his mother's home for the justice of the peace to arrive, the bride handed the groom a letter. In it, Amelia let George know just what she expected out of the marriage.
At the outset. Amelia, although she did love George, expressed some reluctance to marry. She was afraid that it would interfere with her own ambitions. "In our life together," she wrote, "I shall not hold you to any medieval code of faithfulness to me, nor shall I consider myself bound to you similarly. Please let us not interfere with each other's work or play. In this connection," she continued, "I may have to keep some place where I can go to be myself now and then, for I cannot guarantee to endure at all times the confinements of even an attractive cage." In closing, Amelia exacted what she called a cruel promise. "You must let me go in a year if we find no happiness together."
Nobody knows how Amelia's marriage to George Putnam really worked privately, but one suspects that she charted her own course in the air and on the ground. She always had and she always would.
In public or in private, Amelia Earhart apparently loved her independence more than life itself.
Wednesday, May 6, 2015
College Football's Worst Moment
Every member of the Georgia Tech football team was poised to decimate their opponents on that crisp October afternoon in 1916. Their coach had instructed them to show no mercy, and the players followed his instructions with relish. When the whistle finally blew, ending the game, the score stood at 222 to 0. Normally a coach who would allow such a massacre would become a pariah to the game. In this case, however, he became a national hero.
The high-scoring game was played between Georgia Tech and Cumberland College. No one really expected Cumberland to win, but neither did they expect such a rout. From the very first, Georgia's running backs scored at will. By half time, Georgia had scored 19 touchdowns and led by 126 points.
Both teams went to their respective locker rooms to plan their strategies for the second half. The record is silent about what transpired in the Cumberland shower room, but the Georgia coach's admonition to his players is well known.
Leading 126 to 0, he said, "Men, we might be in front, but you never know what those Cumberland players have up their sleeves." He went on to urge them to continue fighting as if they were behind in the game. "Show them no mercy," he intoned. The Georgia players stormed back on the field and ran up another 96 points in the second half.
It had been a bruising embarrassment for the Cumberland players and one should have sent the Georgia coach home, hanging his head in shame. The Georgia running backs rolled up 528 rushing yards, 220 on kickoff returns, and another on punt returns. Not a single pass was thrown by Georgia.
One would have thought that the Georgia coach would have been vilified, but the contrary proved to be the case. In spite of the unconscionable drubbing his team gave Cumberland, he went on to become a football hero, and as such, he left such an impact on the game that his name has become a household word.
The fact that football games are divided into four quarters can be traced directly to the Georgia Tech coach. He invented the center snap to the quarterback and came up with the "T" and "I" formations. Then in 1935, his name was immortalized.
Football officials decided that an annual trophy should be given to the most outstanding collegiate player in the country. In time it became the most prestigious award in football. They named it the Heisman Trophy after Coach John Heisman , that same Georgia Tech coach who once shut the gates of mercy on little Cumberland College. Apparently in this case, "might did make right."
The high-scoring game was played between Georgia Tech and Cumberland College. No one really expected Cumberland to win, but neither did they expect such a rout. From the very first, Georgia's running backs scored at will. By half time, Georgia had scored 19 touchdowns and led by 126 points.
Both teams went to their respective locker rooms to plan their strategies for the second half. The record is silent about what transpired in the Cumberland shower room, but the Georgia coach's admonition to his players is well known.
Leading 126 to 0, he said, "Men, we might be in front, but you never know what those Cumberland players have up their sleeves." He went on to urge them to continue fighting as if they were behind in the game. "Show them no mercy," he intoned. The Georgia players stormed back on the field and ran up another 96 points in the second half.
It had been a bruising embarrassment for the Cumberland players and one should have sent the Georgia coach home, hanging his head in shame. The Georgia running backs rolled up 528 rushing yards, 220 on kickoff returns, and another on punt returns. Not a single pass was thrown by Georgia.
One would have thought that the Georgia coach would have been vilified, but the contrary proved to be the case. In spite of the unconscionable drubbing his team gave Cumberland, he went on to become a football hero, and as such, he left such an impact on the game that his name has become a household word.
The fact that football games are divided into four quarters can be traced directly to the Georgia Tech coach. He invented the center snap to the quarterback and came up with the "T" and "I" formations. Then in 1935, his name was immortalized.
Football officials decided that an annual trophy should be given to the most outstanding collegiate player in the country. In time it became the most prestigious award in football. They named it the Heisman Trophy after Coach John Heisman , that same Georgia Tech coach who once shut the gates of mercy on little Cumberland College. Apparently in this case, "might did make right."
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