Futility Closet

Edmond Rostand's hit play Cyrano de Bergerac met an unexpected obstacle in 1898 -- a Chicago real estate developer who claimed that it plagiarized his own play. In this week's podcast we'll review the strange controversy and the surprising outcome of the lawsuit that followed. We'll also hear an update on the German author who popularized an American West that he had never seen and puzzle over a Civil War private who refuses to fight. Sources for our feature on Cyrano de Bergerac and The Merchant Prince of Cornville: "Gross-Rostand Controversy," in George Childs Kohn, New Encyclopedia of American Scandal, 2001. Edmond Rostand, Cyrano de Bergerac, 1897. Samuel Eberly Gross, The Merchant Prince of Cornville, 1896. Jay Pridmore, "Recalling 'Merchant Prince' of the 1880s," Chicago Tribune, Feb. 28, 1992. "Chronicle and Comment," The Bookman, November 1910. The Critic, February 1899, p. 116. "Samuel Gross's Cyrano," New York Times, June 1, 1902. "Rostand Indignant," The Pittsburgh Press, June 1, 1902. "Rostand's Champion," The Carroll Herald, June 4, 1902. "'Cyrano de Bergerac' a Plagiarism," Boston Evening Transcript, May 21, 1902. "The Law and the Nose," Pittsburgh Press, Sept. 10, 1902. "Dollar Is Spent," The Milwaukee Journal, Sept. 17, 1902. Listener mail: Wikipedia, Hadschi Halef Omar (retrieved July 8, 2015). Dschinghis Khan's disco song "Hadschi Halef Omar" is here. Translated lyrics are here. Listener Krisztián Vida sent links to some pages and a video on "American Indians" in Central Europe. Wikipedia, Emilio Salgari (retrieved July 8, 2015). This week's lateral thinking puzzle was contributed by listener Jackie Speir. You can listen using the player above, download this episode directly, or subscribe on iTunes or via the RSS feed at http://feedpress.me/futilitycloset. Please consider becoming a patron of Futility Closet -- on our Patreon page you can pledge any amount per episode, and all contributions are greatly appreciated. You can change or cancel your pledge at any time, and we've set up some rewards to help thank you for your support. You can also make a one-time donation via the Donate button in the sidebar of the Futility Closet website. Many thanks to Doug Ross for the music in this episode. If you have any questions or comments you can reach us at [email protected]. You can also follow us on Facebook and Twitter. Thanks for listening!

In 1876 London was riveted by the dramatic poisoning of a young barrister and the sordid revelations that emerged about his household. In today's show we'll review the baffling case of Charles Bravo's murder, which Agatha Christie called "one of the most mysterious poisoning cases ever recorded." We'll also get an update on career possibilities for garden hermits and puzzle over how the police know that a shooting death is not a homicide. Many thanks to Ronald Hackston for his evocative photo of The Priory, Balham, the site of Charles Bravo's unsolved 1876 poisoning. Sources for that feature: James Ruddick, Death at the Priory: Sex, Love, and Murder in Victorian England, 2001. Chirag Trivedi, "Victorian Whodunnit Solved," BBC, Jan. 13, 2003 (accessed June 28, 2015). "The Bravo Inquiry" and "The Theory of Suicide in the Bravo Case," Medical Times and Gazette, Aug. 19, 1876. Joyce Emmerson Muddock, Pages From an Adventurous Life, 1907. Listener mail: Amanda Williams, "Wanted: 'Outgoing' Hermit," Daily Mail, May 5, 2014 (retrieved July 3, 2015). Greater Manchester News, "Hermit Wanted for Historic Gardens," July 3, 2009 (retrieved July 3, 2015). "Hermit Wanted for 'Ivory Tower'," BBC, July 1, 2009 (retrieved July 3, 2015). This week's lateral thinking puzzle was contributed by listener Sam B., who sent this corroborating link (warning: this spoils the puzzle). You can listen using the player above, download this episode directly, or subscribe on iTunes or via the RSS feed at http://feedpress.me/futilitycloset. Enter coupon code CLOSET to get $5 off your first purchase at Harry's. Please consider becoming a patron of Futility Closet -- on our Patreon page you can pledge any amount per episode, and all contributions are greatly appreciated. You can change or cancel your pledge at any time, and we've set up some rewards to help thank you for your support. You can also make a one-time donation via the Donate button in the sidebar of the Futility Closet website. Many thanks to Doug Ross for the music in this episode. If you have any questions or comments you can reach us at [email protected]. You can also follow us on Facebook and Twitter. Thanks for listening!

In 1915 San Diego hired "rainmaker" Charles Hatfield to relieve a four-year drought. After he set to work with his 23 secret chemicals, the skies opened and torrential rains caused some of the most extreme flooding in the city's history. In this week's podcast we'll discuss the effects of "Hatfield's flood" and ponder how to assign the credit or blame. We'll also puzzle over why a flagrant housebreaker doesn't get prosecuted. Sources for our feature on "moisture accelerator" Charles Hatfield: Garry Jenkins, The Wizard of Sun City, 2005. Cynthia Barnett, Rain: A Natural and Cultural History, 2015. "Hatfield Made the Sky Fall (and Fall)," Kingman [Ariz.] Daily Miner, Nov. 14, 1978. "Hatfield Again Gambling Upon Making of Rain," Berkeley [Calif.] Daily Gazette, Jan. 29, 1926. "Rainmaker Wins Bet With Farmers," Ellensburg [Wash.] Daily Record, July 28, 1921. "With the Rainmaker," Dawson [Yukon] Daily News, July 4, 1905. "Rainstorms at $50 Each," St. John [New Brunswick] Daily Sun, March 8, 1904. This week's first lateral thinking puzzle was contributed by listener Hanno Zulla, who sent these corroborating links (warning: these spoil the puzzle). The second puzzle is from Edward J. Harshman's 1996 book Fantastic Lateral Thinking Puzzles. You can listen using the player above, download this episode directly, or subscribe on iTunes or via the RSS feed at http://feedpress.me/futilitycloset. Please consider becoming a patron of Futility Closet -- on our Patreon page you can pledge any amount per episode, and all contributions are greatly appreciated. You can change or cancel your pledge at any time, and we've set up some rewards to help thank you for your support. You can also make a one-time donation via the Donate button in the sidebar of the Futility Closet website. Many thanks to Doug Ross for the music in this episode. If you have any questions or comments you can reach us at [email protected]. You can also follow us on Facebook and Twitter. Thanks for listening!

The discovery of the gruesome remains of a human body buried in a doctor's cellar shocked London in 1910. In this week's podcast we'll recount the dramatic use of the recently invented wireless telegraph in capturing the main suspect in the crime. We'll also hear a letter that Winston Churchill wrote to Winston Churchill and puzzle over why a sober man is denied a second beer. Sources for our feature on the telegraphic nabbing of Edwardian uxoricide Hawley Harvey Crippen: Erik Larson, Thunderstruck, 2006. Associated Press, "Wireless Flashes Crippen and Girl Aboard Montrose," Los Angeles Herald, July 29, 1910. "Captain Sure Suspects are Pair Police Seek," Los Angeles Herald, July 29, 1910. Proceedings of Crippen's 1910 trial at Old Bailey Online. "Crippen Mystery Remains Despite DNA Claim," BBC News, Oct. 18, 2007 (accessed June 16, 2015). Mark Townsend, "Appeal Judges Asked to Clear Notorious Murderer Dr. Crippen," Guardian, June 6, 2009 (accessed June 16, 2015). Here's Winston Churchill's June 1899 letter to American author Winston Churchill: Mr. Winston Churchill presents his compliments to Mr. Winston Churchill, and begs to draw his attention to a matter which concerns them both. He has learnt from the Press notices that Mr. Winston Churchill proposes to bring out another novel, entitled Richard Carvel, which is certain to have a considerable sale both in England and America. Mr. Winston Churchill is also the author of a novel now being published in serial form in Macmillan’s Magazine, and for which he anticipates some sale both in England and America. He also proposes to publish on the 1st of October another military chronicle on the Soudan War. He has no doubt that Mr. Winston Churchill will recognise from this letter — if indeed by no other means — that there is grave danger of his works being mistaken for those of Mr. Winston Churchill. He feels sure that Mr. Winston Churchill desires this as little as he does himself. In future to avoid mistakes as far as possible, Mr. Winston Churchill has decided to sign all published articles, stories, or other works, ‘Winston Spencer Churchill,’ and not ‘Winston Churchill’ as formerly. He trusts that this arrangement will commend itself to Mr. Winston Churchill, and he ventures to suggest, with a view to preventing further confusion which may arise out of this extraordinary coincidence, that both Mr. Winston Churchill and Mr. Winston Churchill should insert a short note in their respective publications explaining to the public which are the works of Mr. Winston Churchill and which those of Mr. Winston Churchill. The text of this note might form a subject for future discussion if Mr. Winston Churchill agrees with Mr. Winston Churchill’s proposition. He takes this occasion of complimenting Mr. Winston Churchill upon the style and success of his works, which are always brought to his notice whether in magazine or book form, and he trusts that Mr. Winston Churchill has derived equal pleasure from any work of his that may have attracted his attention. From Richard M. Langworth, The Definitive Wit of Winston Churchill, 2009. This week's lateral thinking puzzle appeared originally on NPR's Car Talk, contributed there by listener George Parks. You can listen using the player above, download this episode directly, or subscribe on iTunes or via the RSS feed at http://feedpress.me/futilitycloset. Please consider becoming a patron of Futility Closet -- on our Patreon page you can pledge any amount per episode, and all contributions are greatly appreciated. You can change or cancel your pledge at any time, and we've set up some rewards to help thank you for your support. You can also make a one-time donation via the Donate button in the sidebar of the Futility Closet website. Please take our five-minute survey to help us find advertisers to support the show. Many thanks to Doug Ross for the music in this episode. If you have any questions or comments you can reach us at [email protected]. You can also follow us on Facebook and Twitter. Thanks for listening!

In 18th-century England, wealthy landowners would sometimes hire people to live as hermits in secluded corners of their estates. In today's show we'll explore this odd custom and review the job requirements for life as a poetic recluse. We'll also meet a German novelist who popularized an American West he had never seen and puzzle over some very generous bank robbers. Sources for our feature on ornamental hermits: Gordon Campbell, The Hermit in the Garden, 2013. Alice Gregory, "Garden Hermit Needed. Apply Within," Boston Globe, May 19, 2013. Robert Conger Pell, Milledulcia: A Thousand Pleasant Things, 1857. Edith Sitwell, The English Eccentrics, 1933. John Timbs, English Eccentrics and Eccentricities, 1875. Allison Meier, "Before the Garden Gnome, The Ornamental Hermit: A Real Person Paid to Dress Like a Druid," Atlas Obscura, March 18, 2014 (accessed June 9, 2015). Graeme Wood's article "The Lost Man," describing the latest efforts to identify the Somerton Man, appeared in the California Sunday Magazine on June 7, 2015. The case concerns an unidentified corpse discovered on a South Australian beach in December 1948; for the full story see our Episode 25. University of Adelaide physicist Derek Abbott's Indiegogo campaign to identify the man runs through June 28. There's also a petition to urge the attorney general of South Australia to exhume the body so that autosomal DNA can be extracted. Sources for Sharon's discussion of German author Karl May's fictional Apache chief Winnetou: Michael Kimmelman, "Fetishizing Native Americans: In Germany, Wild for Winnetou," Spiegel Online, Sept. 13, 2007 (accessed June 11, 2015). Rivka Galchen, "Wild West Germany: Why Do Cowboys and Indians So Captivate the Country?", New Yorker, April 9, 2012 (accessed June 11, 2015). Winnetou is so popular in Germany that the death this month of French actor Pierre Brice, who played him in the movies, was front-page news. (Thanks, Hanno.) This week's lateral thinking puzzle is from Edward J. Harshman's 1996 book Fantastic Lateral Thinking Puzzles. You can listen using the player above, download this episode directly, or subscribe on iTunes or via the RSS feed at http://feedpress.me/futilitycloset. Please consider becoming a patron of Futility Closet -- on our Patreon page you can pledge any amount per episode, and all contributions are greatly appreciated. You can change or cancel your pledge at any time, and we've set up some rewards to help thank you for your support. You can also make a one-time donation via the Donate button in the sidebar of the Futility Closet website. Please take a five-minute survey to help us find advertisers to support the show. Many thanks to Doug Ross for the music in this episode. If you have any questions or comments you can reach us at [email protected]. You can also follow us on Facebook and Twitter. Thanks for listening!

In 1916 an American circus elephant named Mary was hanged before a crowd of 3,000 onlookers. In this week's episode of the Futility Closet podcast we'll review the sad series of events that led Mary to a Tennessee railroad crane. We'll also get an update on a very inventive bank robbery and puzzle over the escalators in London's Tube stations. Our feature on Mary was based chiefly on Charles Edwin Price's 1992 book The Day They Hung the Elephant. Our first lateral thinking puzzle this week was contributed by listener Paul Sophocleous. The second is from Kyle Hendrickson's 1998 book Mental Fitness Puzzles. Here are two links with more information about the bank robbery described in Episode 58's puzzle. (Warning -- spoilers!) Enter coupon code CLOSET at Harry's to get $5 off a special Father's Day razor set. You can listen using the player above, download this episode directly, or subscribe on iTunes or via the RSS feed at http://feedpress.me/futilitycloset. Please consider becoming a patron of Futility Closet -- on our Patreon page you can pledge any amount per episode, and all contributions are greatly appreciated. You can change or cancel your pledge at any time, and we've set up some rewards to help thank you for your support. You can also make a one-time donation via the Donate button in the sidebar of the Futility Closet website. Many thanks to Doug Ross for the music in this episode. If you have any questions or comments you can reach us at [email protected]. You can also follow us on Facebook and Twitter. Thanks for listening!

In 1764 a French engineer on a tiny African island claimed that he could see ships beyond the horizon. In today's show we'll review the strange story of Étienne Bottineau and consider the evidence for his claims to have invented a new art. We'll also ponder a 400-year-old levitation trick and puzzle over why throwing a beer can at someone might merit a promotion. Sources for our feature on nauscopie, the purported art of apprehending ships below the horizon: Rupert T. Gould, Oddities: A Book of Unexplained Facts, 1928. Sir David Brewster, Letters on Natural Magic, 1832. J. Gregory Dill, "The Lost Art of Nauscopie," Ocean Navigator, January/February 2003 (retrieved May 17, 2015). Mike Dash, "Naval Gazing: The Enigma of Étienne Bottineau," Smithsonian Magazine, Oct. 13, 2011 (retrieved May 17, 2015). Chicago Tribune, "The Science of Nauscopie," Nov. 7, 1869. Greg's post on Samuel Pepy's "lifting experiment" appeared on Futility Closet on March 22, 2008. Further sources for that segment: Sir David Brewster, Letters on Natural Magic, 1832. The Diary of Samuel Pepys, July 31, 1665. Robert Conger Pell, Milledulcia: A Thousand Pleasant Things Selected from "Notes and Queries," 1857. Notes & Queries, July 3, 1852 (the original query). Notes & Queries, July 24, 1852 (Brewster offers his impressions). "Non-Wist," "Phenomenon of Levity in the Human Subject," The Zoist, January 1852. Two YouTube videos illustrate the modern technique: one, two The YouTube discussion mentioned in this week's lateral thinking puzzle is here (warning -- this spoils the puzzle). You can listen using the player above, download this episode directly, or subscribe on iTunes or via the RSS feed at http://feedpress.me/futilitycloset. Please consider becoming a patron of Futility Closet -- on our Patreon page you can pledge any amount per episode, and all contributions are greatly appreciated. You can change or cancel your pledge at any time, and we've set up some rewards to help thank you for your support. You can also make a one-time donation via the Donate button in the sidebar of the Futility Closet website. Many thanks to Doug Ross for the music in this episode. If you have any questions or comments you can reach us at [email protected]. You can also follow us on Facebook and Twitter. Thanks for listening!

In 1855 Pedro Carolino decided to write a Portuguese-English phrasebook despite the fact that he didn't actually speak English. The result is one of the all-time masterpieces of unintentional comedy, a language guide full of phrases like "The ears are too length" and "He has spit in my coat." In this episode of the Futility Closet podcast we'll sample Carolino's phrasebook, which Mark Twain called "supreme and unapproachable." We'll also hear Hamlet’s “to be or not to be” rendered in jargon and puzzle over why a man places an ad before robbing a bank. Sources for our feature on Pedro Carolino's disastrous phrasebook: English as She Is Spoke: Or, A Jest in Sober Earnest, 1883. (This edition, like many, incorrectly names José da Fonseca as a coauthor. Fonseca was the author of the Portuguese-French phrasebook that Carolino used for the first half of his task. By all accounts that book is perfectly competent, and Fonseca knew nothing of Carolino's project; Carolino added Fonseca's name to the byline to lend some credibility to his own book.) The Writings of Mark Twain, Volume 6. Carolino's misadventure inspired some "sequels" by other authors: English as She Is Wrote (1883) English as She Is Taught (1887) As long as we're at it, here's Monty Python's "Dirty Hungarian Phrasebook" sketch: Hamlet's "to be or not to be" soliloquy rendered in jargon, from Arthur Quiller-Couch's On the Art of Writing (1916): To be, or the contrary? Whether the former or the latter be preferable would seem to admit of some difference of opinion; the answer in the present case being of an affirmative or of a negative character according as to whether one elects on the one hand to mentally suffer the disfavour of fortune, albeit in an extreme degree, or on the other to boldly envisage adverse conditions in the prospect of eventually bringing them to a conclusion. The condition of sleep is similar to, if not indistinguishable from, that of death; and with the addition of finality the former might be considered identical with the latter: so that in this connection it might be argued with regard to sleep that, could the addition be effected, a termination would be put to the endurance of a multiplicity of inconveniences, not to mention a number of downright evils incidental to our fallen humanity, and thus a consummation achieved of a most gratifying nature. This week's lateral thinking puzzle was contributed by listener Lawrence Miller, who sent this corroborating link (warning -- this spoils the puzzle). You can listen using the player above, download this episode directly, or subscribe on iTunes or via the RSS feed at http://feedpress.me/futilitycloset. Please consider becoming a patron of Futility Closet -- on our Patreon page you can pledge any amount per episode, and all contributions are greatly appreciated. You can change or cancel your pledge at any time, and we've set up some rewards to help thank you for your support. You can also make a one-time donation via the Donate button in the sidebar of the Futility Closet website. Many thanks to Doug Ross for the music in this episode. If you have any questions or comments you can reach us at [email protected]. You can also follow us on Facebook and Twitter. Thanks for listening!

Eight decades after Jules Verne's death, his great-grandson opened a family safe and discovered an unpublished manuscript. In this episode of the Futility Closet podcast we'll review some of Verne's remarkable predictions for the 20th century and consider why he never published the novel. We'll also discuss listeners' ideas about the mysterious deaths of nine Soviet ski hikers in 1959 and puzzle over how a man's breakfast turns deadly. Sources for our feature on Jules Verne's Paris in the Twentieth Century: Arthur B. Evans, "The 'New' Jules Verne," Science-Fiction Studies, March 1995. Brian Taves, "Jules Verne’s Paris in the Twentieth Century," Science-Fiction Studies, March 1997. Jules Verne, Paris in the Twentieth Century, 1863. Sources for listener mail: "'Partially Digested' Human Head, Leg Found Inside Shark Caught by Filipino Fishermen," Fox News Latino, Nov. 12, 2014 (accessed May 8, 2015). Donnie Eichar, Dead Mountain: The Untold True Story of the Dyatlov Pass Incident, 2013. Jason Zasky, "Return to Dead Mountain," Failure Magazine, Feb. 1, 2014. Greg's article on animal infrasound appeared in the January-February 2004 issue of American Scientist. This week's lateral thinking puzzle comes from Jed's List of Situation Puzzles, suggested to us by listener David Morgan. You can listen using the player above, download this episode directly, or subscribe on iTunes or via the RSS feed at http://feedpress.me/futilitycloset. Please consider becoming a patron of Futility Closet -- on our Patreon page you can pledge any amount per episode, and all contributions are greatly appreciated. You can change or cancel your pledge at any time, and we've set up some rewards to help thank you for your support. You can also make a one-time donation via the Donate button in the sidebar of the Futility Closet website. Many thanks to Doug Ross for the music in this episode. If you have any questions or comments you can reach us at [email protected]. And you can follow us on Facebook and Twitter. Thanks for listening!

Here are six new lateral thinking puzzles to test your wits! Solve along with us as we explore some strange scenarios using only yes-or-no questions. Many were submitted by listeners, and most are based on real events. A few associated links -- these spoil the puzzles, so don't click until you've listened to the episode: Puzzle #1 Puzzle #3 Puzzle #4 You can listen using the player above, download this episode directly, or subscribe on iTunes or via the RSS feed at http://feedpress.me/futilitycloset. Please consider becoming a patron of Futility Closet -- on our Patreon page you can pledge any amount per episode, and all contributions are greatly appreciated. You can change or cancel your pledge at any time, and we've set up some rewards to help thank you for your support. You can also make a one-time donation via the Donate button in the sidebar of the Futility Closet website. Futility Closet listeners can get $5 off their first purchase at Harry's -- enter coupon code CLOSET at checkout. If you have any questions or comments you can reach us at [email protected]. And you can finally follow us on Facebook and Twitter. Thanks for listening!

On February 1, 1959, something terrifying overtook nine student ski-hikers in the northern Ural Mountains. In this episode of the Futility Closet podcast we'll recount what is known about the incident at Dyatlov Pass and try to make sense of the hikers' harrowing final night. We'll also hear how Dwight Eisenhower might have delivered the Gettysburg Address and puzzle over why signing her name might entitle a woman to a lavish new home. Sources for our feature on the Dyatlov Pass incident: Donnie Eichar, Dead Mountain: The Untold True Story of the Dyatlov Pass Incident, 2013. "Yuri Yudin," Daily Telegraph, April 30, 2013, 25. Here's the investigators' description of the hikers' tent as it was discovered: "Tent site is located on the Northeastern slope of mountain 1079 (Kholat Syakhl official term) meters at the mouth of river Auspiya. Tent site is located 300 meters from the top of the mountain 1079 with a slope of 30°. Test site consists of a pad, levelled by snow, the bottom of which are contains 8 pairs of skis (for tent support and insulation). Tent is stretched on poles and fixed with ropes. On the bottom of the tent 9 backpacks were discovered with various personal items, jackets, rain coats, 9 pairs of shoes. There were also found men's pants, and three pairs of boots, warm fur coats, socks, hat, ski caps, utensils, buckets, stove, ax, saw, blankets, food: biscuits in two bags, condensed milk, sugar, concentrates, notebooks, itinerary and many other small items and documents, camera and accessories to a camera. The nature and form of all (...) lesions suggest that they were formed by contact with the canvas inside of the tent with the blade of some weapon (presumably a knife)." This is the final exposure in hiker Yuri Krivonishchenko's camera. Possibly the image was exposed on the final night, or possibly weeks afterward, inadvertently, by technicians. Lead investigator Lev Ivanov wrote that the hikers' cameras gave him "abundant information based on negative density, film speed ... and aperture and exposure settings," but that they did not "answer the main question -- what was the reason of escape from the tent." Here's journalist Oliver Jensen's rendering of the Gettysburg Address in "Eisenhowese." Jensen provided his original to Dwight Macdonald for his 1961 collection Parodies: An Anthology. "The version below is the original as given me by Jensen, with two or three variations in which The New Republic's version [of June 17, 1957] seemed to me to have added a turn of the screw": I haven’t checked these figures but 87 years ago, I think it was, a number of individuals organized a governmental set-up here in this country, I believe it covered certain Eastern areas, with this idea they were following up based on a sort of national independence arrangement and the program that every individual is just as good as every other individual. Well, now, of course, we are dealing with this big difference of opinion, civil disturbance you might say, although I don’t like to appear to take sides or name any individuals, and the point is naturally to check up, by actual experience in the field, to see whether any governmental set-up with a basis like the one I was mentioning has any validity and find out whether that dedication by those early individuals will pay off in lasting values and things of that kind. Well, here we are, at the scene where one of these disturbances between different sides got going. We want to pay our tribute to those loved ones, those departed individuals who made the supreme sacrifice here on the basis of their opinions about how this thing ought to be handled. And I would say this. It is absolutely in order to do this. But if you look at the over-all picture of this, we can't pay any tribute -- we can't sanctify this area, you might say -- we can't hallow according to whatever individual creeds or faiths or sort of religious outlooks are involved like I said about this particular area. It was those individuals themselves, including the enlisted men, very brave individuals, who have given this religious character to the area. The way I see it, the rest of the world will not remember any statements issued here but it will never forget how these men put their shoulders to the wheel and carried this idea down the fairway. Now frankly, our job, the living individuals’ job here, is to pick up the burden and sink the putt they made these big efforts here for. It is our job to get on with the assignment -- and from these deceased fine individuals to take extra inspiration, you could call it, for the same theories about the set-up for which they made such a big contribution. We have to make up our minds right here and now, as I see it, that they didn’t put out all that blood, perspiration and -- well -- that they didn’t just make a dry run here, and that all of us here, under God, that is, the God of our choice, shall beef up this idea about freedom and liberty and those kind of arrangements, a

In 1943 three men came up with an ingenious plan to escape from the seemingly escape-proof Stalag Luft III prison camp in Germany. In this episode of the Futility Closet podcast we'll learn about their clever deception, which made them briefly famous around the world. We'll also hear about the chaotic annual tradition of Moving Day in several North American cities and puzzle over how a severely injured hiker beats his wife back to their RV. Sources for our feature on the escape from Stalag Luft III: Eric Williams, The Wooden Horse, 1949. The Wooden Horse, British Lion Film Corporation, 1950. Oliver Philpot, Stolen Journey, 1952. Here's the movie: It became the third most popular film at the British box office in 1950. The book's success led Williams to write The Tunnel, a prequel that described his and Michael Codner's earlier escape from the Oflag XXI-B camp in Poland. Sources for listener mail: Ian Austen, "When a City Is on the Move, With Mattresses and Dishwashers in Tow," New York Times, July 1, 2013. Localwiki, Davis, Calif., "Moving Day" (accessed April 16, 2015). Samara Kalk Derby, "Happy Holiday or Horror Story? Moving Day Hits UW," Wisconsin State Journal, Aug. 15, 2011. City of Madison Streets & Recycling, "August Moving Days" (accessed April 16, 2015). This week's lateral thinking puzzle was contributed by listener David White and his daughter Katherine. This episode is sponsored by our patrons and by The Great Courses -- go to http://www.thegreatcourses.com/closet to order from eight of their best-selling courses at up to 80 percent off the original price. You can listen using the player above, download this episode directly, or subscribe on iTunes or via the RSS feed at http://feedpress.me/futilitycloset. Please consider becoming a patron of Futility Closet -- on our Patreon page you can pledge any amount per episode, and all contributions are greatly appreciated. You can change or cancel your pledge at any time, and we've set up some rewards to help thank you for your support. You can also make a one-time donation via the Donate button in the sidebar of the Futility Closet website. Many thanks to Doug Ross for the music in this episode. If you have any questions or comments you can reach us at [email protected]. And you can finally follow us on Facebook and Twitter. Thanks for listening!

It's been called America's oldest mystery: A group of 100 English colonists vanished from North Carolina's Roanoke Island shortly after settling there in 1587. But was their disappearance really so mysterious? In this episode of the Futility Closet podcast we'll trace the history of the "lost colony" and consider what might have happened to the settlers. We'll also visit an early steam locomotive in 1830 and puzzle over why writing a letter might prove to be fatal. Sources for our feature on the lost colony at Roanoke: James Horn, A Kingdom Strange: The Brief and Tragic History of the Lost Colony of Roanoke, 2011. Karen Ordahl Kupperman, Roanoke: The Abandoned Colony, 2007. Giles Milton, Big Chief Elizabeth: The Adventures and Fate of the First English Colonists in America, 2011. Lee Miller, Roanoke: Solving the Mystery of the Lost Colony, 2013. Fanny Kemble wrote of her encounter with an early locomotive in a letter dated Aug. 26, 1830 ("A common sheet of paper is enough for love, but a foolscap extra can alone contain a railroad and my ecstasies"). It appears in her 1878 memoir Records of a Girlhood. She sat alongside engineer George Stephenson, who explained his great project and with whom she fell "horribly in love." At one point on their 15-mile journey they passed through a rocky defile: You can't imagine how strange it seemed to be journeying on thus, without any visible cause of progress other than the magical machine, with its flying white breath and rhythmical, unvarying pace, between these rocky walls, which are already clothed with moss and ferns and grasses; and when I reflected that these great masses of stone had been cut asunder to allow our passage thus far below the surface of the earth, I felt as if no fairy tale was ever half so wonderful as what I saw. This week's lateral thinking puzzle was contributed by listener Blaine, who sent this corroborating link (warning -- this spoils the puzzle). This episode is sponsored by our patrons and by The Great Courses -- go to http://www.thegreatcourses.com/closet to order from eight of their best-selling courses at up to 80 percent off the original price. You can listen using the player above, download this episode directly, or subscribe on iTunes or via the RSS feed at http://feedpress.me/futilitycloset. Please consider becoming a patron of Futility Closet -- on our Patreon page you can pledge any amount per episode, and all contributions are greatly appreciated. You can change or cancel your pledge at any time, and we've set up some rewards to help thank you for your support. You can also make a one-time donation via the Donate button in the sidebar of the Futility Closet website. Many thanks to Doug Ross for the music in this episode. If you have any questions or comments you can reach us at [email protected]. And you can finally follow us on Facebook and Twitter. Thanks for listening!

For centuries, May 1 brought chaos to New York, as most tenants had to move on the same day, clogging the streets with harried people and all their belongings. In this episode of the Futility Closet podcast we'll review the colorful history of "Moving Day" and wonder how it lasted through two centuries. We'll also recount some surprising escapes from sinking ships and puzzle over a burglar's ingenuity. Sources for our feature on Moving Day, New York City's historic custom of changing residence on May 1: Kenneth A. Scherzer, The Unbounded Community: Neighborhood Life and Social Structure in New York City, 1830-1875, 1992. Elizabeth Blackmar, Manhattan for Rent, 1785-1850, 1991. William Shepard Walsh, Curiosities of Popular Customs ... Illustrated, 1897. "Expressmen and Cartmen's Charges -- The Laws Relative Thereto," New York Times, April 14, 1870. "Rich Are Homeless This Moving Day," New York Times, Oct. 1, 1919. "Rain Adds to Gloom of City Moving Day," New York Times, Oct. 2, 1919. "May 1 Moving Rush a Thing of the Past," New York Times, May 2, 1922. In 1890 the New York Times published a list of the maximum prices that city ordinances permitted cartmen to charge: Sources for our feature on oddities in maritime disasters: "Andrea Doria Tragedy Recalled by the Survivors," Associated Press, July 24, 1981. "A Remarkable Maritime Disaster," Scientific American, Nov. 24, 1888. "A Remarkable Collision," New Zealand Herald, July 26, 1884. This week's lateral thinking puzzle was contributed by listener Ken Murphy. You can listen using the player above, download this episode directly, or subscribe on iTunes or via the RSS feed at http://feedpress.me/futilitycloset. Please consider becoming a patron of Futility Closet -- on our Patreon page you can pledge any amount per episode, and all contributions are greatly appreciated. You can change or cancel your pledge at any time, and we've set up some rewards to help thank you for your support. You can also make a one-time donation via the Donate button in the sidebar of the Futility Closet website. Many thanks to Doug Ross for the music in this episode. If you have any questions or comments you can reach us at [email protected]. And you can finally follow us on Facebook and Twitter. Thanks for listening!

In this week's episode of the Futility Closet podcast we'll look at the strange phenomenon of poet doppelgängers -- at least five notable poets have been seen by witnesses when their physical bodies were elsewhere. We'll also share our readers' research on Cervino, the Matterhorn-climbing pussycat, and puzzle over why a man traveling internationally would not be asked for his passport. Sources for our feature on poet doppelgängers: John Oxenford, trans., The Autobiography of Wolfgang von Goethe, 1969. G. Wilson Knight, Byron and Shakespeare, 2002. Julian Marshall, The Life & Letters of Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, 1889. Jon Stallworthy, Wilfred Owen, 2013. W.E. Woodward, The Gift of Life, 1947. The stories are recounted in the corresponding posts on Futility Closet: Goethe, Byron, Shelley, Owen, Powys. Listener mail: Little House of Cats has a photo of Cervino, the (purported) Matterhorn-scaling kitty cat of 1950. The Daily Mail has photos of Millie, Utah mountaineer Craig Armstrong's rock-climbing cat. More at Back Country. Further data on cat rambles: BBC News, "Secret Life of the Cat: What Do Our Feline Companions Get Up To?", June 12, 2013 (accessed March 26, 2015). National Geographic, "Watch: How Far Do Your Cats Roam?", Aug. 8, 2014 (accessed March 26, 2015). This week's lateral thinking puzzles are from Kyle Hendrickson's 1998 book Mental Fitness Puzzles. You can listen using the player above, download this episode directly, or subscribe on iTunes or via the RSS feed at http://feedpress.me/futilitycloset. Please consider becoming a patron of Futility Closet -- on our Patreon page you can pledge any amount per episode, and all contributions are greatly appreciated. You can change or cancel your pledge at any time, and we've set up some rewards to help thank you for your support. You can also make a one-time donation via the Donate button in the sidebar of the Futility Closet website. Many thanks to Doug Ross for the music in this episode. If you have any questions or comments you can reach us at [email protected]. And you can finally follow us on Facebook and Twitter. Thanks for listening!

In this week's episode of the Futility Closet podcast we'll follow the dramatic 14,000-mile clipper ship race of 1866, in which five ships competed fiercely to be the first to London with the season's tea. We'll also track the importance of mulch to the readers of the comic book Groo the Wanderer and puzzle over the effects of Kool-Aid consumption on a woman's relationships. Jack Spurling's 1926 painting Ariel & Taeping, China Tea Clippers Race, above, depicts two of the front-runners in the closely contested 1866 race to carry the season's first tea from China to London. The winner remained uncertain throughout the 14,000-mile course; the Shipping and Mercantile Gazette declared it "the closest run ever recorded ... an event of unprecedented occurrence." Our sources for that segment: Basil Lubbock, The China Clippers, 1914. Mike Dash, "The Great Tea Race of 1866," smithsonian.com, Dec. 15, 2011 (accessed March 16, 2015). The Shipping and Mercantile Gazette, Sept. 12, 1866. John T. Irwin, Hart Crane's Poetry, 2011. Filing Cabinet of the Damned reports on the significance of mulch to Groo the Wanderer. This week's lateral thinking puzzle was submitted by listener Nick Madrid. This episode is sponsored by our patrons and by The Great Courses -- go to http://www.thegreatcourses.com/closet to order from eight of their best-selling courses at up to 80 percent off the original price. You can listen using the player above, download this episode directly, or subscribe on iTunes or via the RSS feed at http://feedpress.me/futilitycloset. Please consider becoming a patron of Futility Closet -- on our Patreon page you can pledge any amount per episode, and all contributions are greatly appreciated. You can change or cancel your pledge at any time, and we've set up some rewards to help thank you for your support. You can also make a one-time donation via the Donate button in the sidebar of the Futility Closet website. Many thanks to Doug Ross for the music in this episode. If you have any questions or comments you can reach us at [email protected]. And you can finally follow us on Facebook and Twitter. Thanks for listening!

In 1950 newspapers around the world reported that a 10-month-old kitten had climbed the Matterhorn, one of the highest peaks in Europe. In this week's episode of the Futility Closet podcast we'll wonder whether even a very determined kitty could accomplish such a feat. We'll also marvel at a striking demonstration of dolphin intelligence and puzzle over a perplexed mechanic. My own original post about Matt, the kitten who climbed the Matterhorn, appeared on Dec. 17, 2011. Reader Stephen Wilson directed me to this page, which rehearses the original London Times story (from Sept. 7, 1950) and adds a confirming account from a Times reader that appeared on Sept. 10, 1975. Further sources: "A Cat Climbs the Matterhorn," Miami News, Oct. 19, 1950 (reprinting an editorial, I think, from the San Francisco Chronicle). "Cat-Climbing on the Matterhorn," Sydney Morning Herald, Sept. 9, 1950. "Mere Kitten Conquers Matterhorn," Spokane Daily Chronicle, Sept. 7, 1950. Here's a photo of the Solvay hut at 12,556 feet, where the kitten reportedly spent the first night of its three-day climb: Sources for our feature on porpoise trainer Karen Pryor: Karen Pryor, Lads Before the Wind, 1975. Thomas White, In Defense of Dolphins: The New Moral Frontier, 2008. This week's lateral thinking puzzle was submitted by listener David White. This episode is sponsored by our patrons and by The Great Courses -- go to http://www.thegreatcourses.com/closet to order from eight of their best-selling courses at up to 80 percent off the original price. Also by Loot Crate -- go to http://www.lootcrate.com/CLOSET and enter code CLOSET to save $3 on any new subscription. You can listen using the player above, download this episode directly, or subscribe on iTunes or via the RSS feed at http://feedpress.me/futilitycloset. Please consider becoming a patron of Futility Closet -- on our Patreon page you can pledge any amount per episode, and all contributions are greatly appreciated. You can change or cancel your pledge at any time, and we've set up some rewards to help thank you for your support. You can also make a one-time donation via the Donate button in the sidebar of the Futility Closet website. Many thanks to Doug Ross for the music in this episode. If you have any questions or comments you can reach us at [email protected]. And you can finally follow us on Facebook and Twitter. Thanks for listening!

In 1935 a shark in an Australian aquarium vomited up a human forearm, a bizarre turn of events that sparked a confused murder investigation. This week's episode of the Futility Closet podcast presents two cases in which a shark supplied key evidence of a human crime. We'll also learn about the Paris Herald's obsession with centigrade temperature, revisit the scary travel writings of Victorian children's author Favell Lee Mortimer, and puzzle over an unavenged killing at a sporting event. Sources for our feature on the shark arm affair: Andrew Tink, Australia 1901-2001: A Narrative History, 2014. Dictionary of Sydney, "Shark Arm murder 1935," accessed March 5, 2015. "Arm-Eating Shark Bares Weird Killing," Pittsburgh Press, July 9, 1935. "Shark Gives Up Clue to Murder," Milwaukee Journal, July 9, 1935. "'Shark Arm' Murder Mystery Still Baffles Australian Police," Toledo Blade, Dec. 14, 1952. The 1799 episode of the Nancy's forged papers appears in (of all places!) Allan McLane Hamilton's 1910 biography The Intimate Life of Alexander Hamilton (Hamilton appeared for the United Insurance Company in the case). It's confirmed in Xavier Maniguet's 2007 book The Jaws of Death: Sharks as Predator, Man as Prey. Apparently both the "shark papers" and the shark's jaws were put on public display afterward and are now in the keeping of the Institute of Jamaica; I gather the case made a sensation at the time but has largely been forgotten. Sources for our feature on James Gordon Bennett and the "Old Philadelphia Lady": The International New York Times, "Oct. 5, 1947: Old Philadelphia Lady Said It 6,718 Times," Oct. 14, 2013. James B. Townsend, "J.Gordon Bennett, Editor by Cable," New York Times, May 19, 1918. Mark Tungate, Media Monoliths, 2005. This week's lateral thinking puzzle was submitted by listener Lily Geller, who sent this corroborating link (warning -- this spoils the puzzle). This episode is sponsored by our patrons and by Loot Crate -- go to http://www.lootcrate.com/CLOSET and enter code CLOSET to save $3 on any new subscription. You can listen using the player above, download this episode directly, or subscribe on iTunes or via the RSS feed at http://feedpress.me/futilitycloset. Please consider becoming a patron of Futility Closet -- on our Patreon page you can pledge any amount per episode, and all contributions are greatly appreciated. You can change or cancel your pledge at any time, and we've set up some rewards to help thank you for your support. You can also make a one-time donation via the Donate button in the sidebar of the Futility Closet website. Many thanks to Doug Ross for the music in this episode. If you have any questions or comments you can reach us at [email protected]. And you can finally follow us on Facebook and Twitter. Thanks for listening!

Victorian children's author Favell Lee Mortimer published three bizarre travel books that described a world full of death, vice, and peril. In this week's episode of the Futility Closet podcast we'll sample her terrifying descriptions of the lands beyond England and wonder what led her to write them. We'll also review the movie career of an Alaskan sled dog, learn about the Soviet Union's domestication of silver foxes, and puzzle over some curious noises in a soccer stadium. Favell Lee Mortimer's travel books for children are all available online: The Countries of Europe Described (1850) Far Off, or, Asia and Australia Described (1852) Far Off, or, Africa and America Described (1854) In 2005 Todd Pruzan published a collection of the most xenophobic passages, titled The Clumsiest People in Europe: Or, Mrs. Mortimer's Bad-Tempered Guide to the Victorian World. Listener mail: Here's a BBC documentary on 1925 serum run to Nome: Fast Company has an article about the breeding of friendly foxes by Russian researchers. And National Geographic goes into greater depth regarding the genetics and evolutionary aspects of domestication in this 2011 article. This week's lateral thinking puzzle was submitted by listener David White, who sent these corroborating links (warning -- these spoil the puzzle). You can listen using the player above, download this episode directly, or subscribe on iTunes or via the RSS feed at http://feedpress.me/futilitycloset. Please consider becoming a patron of Futility Closet -- on our Patreon page you can pledge any amount per episode, and all contributions are greatly appreciated. You can change or cancel your pledge at any time, and we've set up some rewards to help thank you for your support. You can also make a one-time donation via the Donate button in the sidebar of the Futility Closet website. Many thanks to Doug Ross for the music in this episode. If you have any questions or comments you can reach us at [email protected]. And you can finally follow us on Facebook and Twitter. Thanks for listening!

In 1925, Nome, Alaska, was struck by an outbreak of diphtheria, and only a relay of dogsleds could deliver the life-saving serum in time. In this week's episode of the Futility Closet podcast we'll follow the dogs' desperate race through arctic blizzards to save the town from epidemic. We'll also hear a song about S.A. Andree's balloon expedition to the North Pole and puzzle over a lost accomplishment of ancient civilizations. Our segment on the 1925 serum run to Nome was based chiefly on Gay Salisbury and Laney Salisbury's excellent 2003 book The Cruelest Miles. Here's the statue of Balto, who led the final sled into Nome, in Central Park: The inscription reads "Dedicated to the indomitable spirit of the sled dogs that relayed antitoxin 600 miles over rough ice, across treacherous waters, through arctic blizzards, from Nenona to the relief of stricken Nome." "The Ballad of Knut and Nils," Yann and Cory Seznec's song honoring S.A. Andrée's disastrous 1897 attempt to reach the North Pole by balloon, is on Yann's blog. You can find more of the brothers' music here. This week's lateral thinking puzzle is from Paul Sloane and Des McHale's 1998 book Ingenious Lateral Thinking Puzzles. Sloane invites interested readers to his Lateral Puzzles Forum, where visitors can set and solve these puzzles interactively. This week's episode is sponsored by our patrons and by Harry's -- go to Harrys.com now and they'll give you $5 off if you use the coupon code CLOSET with your first purchase. You can listen using the player above, download this episode directly, or subscribe on iTunes or via the RSS feed at http://feedpress.me/futilitycloset. Please consider becoming a patron of Futility Closet -- on our Patreon page you can pledge any amount per episode, and all contributions are greatly appreciated. You can change or cancel your pledge at any time, and we've set up some rewards to help thank you for your support. You can also make a one-time donation via the Donate button in the sidebar of the Futility Closet website. Many thanks to Doug Ross for the music in this episode. If you have any questions or comments you can reach us at [email protected]. Thanks for listening!

When Ewart Grogan was denied permission to marry his sweetheart, he set out to walk the length of Africa to prove himself worthy of her. In this week's episode of the Futility Closet podcast we'll find out whether Ewart's romantic quest succeeded. We'll also get an update on the criminal history of Donald Duck's hometown, and try to figure out how a groom ends up drowning on his wedding night. Sources for our segment on Ewart Grogan's traversal of Africa: Ewart Scott Grogan and Arthur Henry Sharp, From the Cape to Cairo: The First Traverse of Africa From South to North, 1902. Edward Paice, Lost Lion of Empire: The Life of Cape-to-Cairo Grogan, 2001. Julian Smith, Crossing the Heart of Africa: An Odyssey of Love and Adventure, 2010. Norman Wymer, The Man from the Cape, 1959. Martin Dugard, The Explorers, 2014. Brian O'Brien, "All for the Love of a Lady," in The Best of Field and Stream: 100 Years of Great Writing from America's Premier Sporting Magazine, 2002. "One Incredibly Long Church Aisle," Times Higher Education, June 15, 2001. "A Man Who Did Derring-Do," Telegraph, March 31, 2001. Listener Ed Kitson directed us to this letter from Jane Baillie Welsh to Thomas Carlyle, dated May 7, 1822, in which she writes, "I am not at all the sort of person you and I took me for." And listener Alex Klapheke sent us a copy of Swiss criminologist Karl-Ludwig Kunz's 2004 paper "Criminal Policy in Duckburg," from Images of Crime II: Representations of Crime and the Criminal in Politics, Society, the Media, and the Arts, edited by Hans-Jörg Albrecht, Telemach Serassis, and Harald Kania. This week's lateral thinking puzzle was contributed by listener Price Tipping. You can listen using the player above, download this episode directly, or subscribe on iTunes or via the RSS feed at http://feedpress.me/futilitycloset. Please consider becoming a patron of Futility Closet -- on our Patreon page you can pledge any amount per episode, and all contributions are greatly appreciated. You can change or cancel your pledge at any time, and we've set up some rewards to help thank you for your support. You can also make a one-time donation via the Donate button in the sidebar of the Futility Closet website. Many thanks to Doug Ross for the music in this episode. If you have any questions or comments you can reach us at [email protected]. Thanks for listening!

In 1897, Swedish patent engineer S.A. Andrée set out in a quixotic bid to reach the North Pole in a hydrogen balloon, departing from Norway with two companions and hoping to drift over the top of the world and come down somewhere in the Bering Strait. Instead the expedition vanished. In this episode of the Futility Closet podcast we'll learn what happened to the Eagle and its three brave passengers, and consider the role of hindsight in the writing of history. We'll also learn what the White House planned to do if Neil Armstrong became stranded on the moon, and puzzle over why seeing a plane flying upside down would impact a woman's job. Sources for our segment on S.A. Andrée's attempt to reach the North Pole by balloon: Henri Lachambre and Alexis Machuron, Andrée and His Balloon, 1898. George Palmer Putnam, Andrée: The Record of a Tragic Adventure, 1930. Swedish Society for Anthropology and Geology, Andrée's Story, 1930. Swedish Society for Anthropology and Geology, The Andrée Diaries, 1931. Alec Wilkinson, The Ice Balloon: S.A. Andrée and the Heroic Age of Arctic Exploration, 2011. Here's the Eagle after its downfall, as recorded by Nils Strindberg's cartographic camera. Even if he'd succeeded, Andrée's bid would have tested the limits of balloon flight: 750 miles separated Spitzbergen from the pole, and the three men would have had to cross another thousand miles to reach the Bering Strait. To get to the pole and then safely back to land in almost any direction would have meant traveling 1,500 miles aloft, and a balloon must travel almost always directly to leeward. Here's the eulogy that William Safire prepared for Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin in the event they became stranded on the moon in July 1969: Fate has ordained that the men who went to the moon to explore in peace will stay on the moon to rest in peace. These brave men, Neil Armstrong and Edwin Aldrin, know that there is no hope for their recovery. But they also know that there is hope for mankind in their sacrifice. These two men are laying down their lives in mankind’s most noble goal: the search for truth and understanding. They will be mourned by their families and friends; they will be mourned by the nation; they will be mourned by the people of the world; they will be mourned by a Mother Earth that dared send two of her sons into the unknown. In their exploration, they stirred the people of the world to feel as one; in their sacrifice, they bind more tightly the brotherhood of man. In ancient days, men looked at the stars and saw their heroes in the constellations. In modern times, we do much the same, but our heroes are epic men of flesh and blood. Others will follow, and surely find their way home. Man’s search will not be denied. But these men were the first, and they will remain the foremost in our hearts. For every human being who looks up at the moon in the nights to come will know that there is some corner of another world that is forever mankind. The last line is an allusion to Rupert Brooke's 1914 poem "The Soldier": If I should die, think only this of me: That there's some corner of a foreign field That is for ever England. There shall be In that rich earth a richer dust concealed; A dust whom England bore, shaped, made aware, Gave, once, her flowers to love, her ways to roam, A body of England's, breathing English air, Washed by the rivers, blest by suns of home. And think, this heart, all evil shed away, A pulse in the eternal mind, no less Gives somewhere back the thoughts by England given; Her sights and sounds; dreams happy as her day; And laughter, learnt of friends; and gentleness, In hearts at peace, under an English heaven. This week's lateral thinking puzzle was contributed by listener David White, who sent these related links (warning -- they spoil the puzzle). You can listen using the player above, download this episode directly, or subscribe on iTunes or via the RSS feed at http://feedpress.me/futilitycloset. Please consider becoming a patron of Futility Closet -- on our Patreon page you can pledge any amount per episode, and all contributions are greatly appreciated. You can change or cancel your pledge at any time, and we've set up some rewards to help thank you for your support. You can also make a one-time donation via the Donate button in the sidebar of the Futility Closet website. Many thanks to Doug Ross for the music in this episode. If you have any questions or comments you can reach us at [email protected]. Thanks for listening!

As a young man, Benjamin Franklin drew up a "plan for attaining moral perfection" based on a list of 13 virtues. Half a century later he credited the plan for much of his success in life. In this episode of the Futility Closet podcast we'll explore Franklin's self-improvement plan and find out which vices gave him the most trouble. We'll also learn how activist Natan Sharansky used chess to stay sane in Soviet prisons and puzzle over why the Pentagon has so many bathrooms. Sources for our segment on Benjamin Franklin's 13 virtues: Benjamin Franklin, Autobiography, 1791. Gordon S. Wood, The Americanization of Benjamin Franklin, 2005. Dinah Birch, ed., The Oxford Companion to English Literature, 2009. Here's Franklin's list of virtues: Temperance. Eat not to dullness; drink not to elevation. Silence. Speak not but what may benefit others or yourself; avoid trifling conversation. Order. Let all your things have their places; let each part of your business have its time. Resolution. Resolve to perform what you ought; perform without fail what you resolve. Frugality. Make no expense but to do good to others or yourself; i.e., waste nothing. Industry. Lose no time; be always employ'd in something useful; cut off all unnecessary actions. Sincerity. Use no hurtful deceit; think innocently and justly; and, if you speak, speak accordingly. Justice. Wrong none by doing injuries, or omitting the benefits that are your duty. Moderation. Avoid extreams; forbear resenting injuries so much as you think they deserve. Cleanliness. Tolerate no uncleanliness in body, cloaths, or habitation. Tranquillity. Be not disturbed at trifles, or at accidents common or unavoidable. Chastity. Rarely use venery but for health or offspring, never to dullness, weakness, or the injury of your own or another's peace or reputation. Humility. Imitate Jesus and Socrates. And here's a sample page from his "little book": Related: As an exercise in penmanship, the teenage George Washington copied out "110 rules of civility and decent behavior in company and conversation," and Thomas Jefferson once sent a "decalogue of canons for observation in practical life" to the new father of a baby boy. Listener mail: Human rights activist Natan Sharansky's use of mental chess to keep himself sane in Soviet prisons is detailed in his 1988 memoir Fear No Evil and in this BBC News Magazine article. Greg's research queries: The authority on jumping up steps at Trinity College, Cambridge, seems to be G.M. Trevelyan, who became Master there in 1940. In his Trinity College: An Historical Sketch (1972), he writes: It is a well-authenticated Trinity tradition that Whewell, when Master, jumped up the hall steps at one leap, a feat that is very seldom accomplished even by youthful athletes. Sir George Young told his son Geoffrey Young that he had actually witnessed this performance; Sir George said that the master, in cap and gown, found some undergraduates trying in vain to accomplish the feat. He clapped his cap firmly on his head, took the run, and reached the top of the steps at one bound. In a letter to the Times on March 16, 1944, he writes, "On a recent visit to Cambridge, General Montgomery, on entering the Great Court at this college, pointed to the hall steps and said to me, 'Those were the steps my father jumped up at one bound.' The general's father, Henry Hutchinson Montgomery, afterwards Bishop, was an undergraduate at Trinity from 1866 to 1870. He came here from Dr Butler's Harrow with a great reputation as a runner and jumper." He adds, "Now we have a fully authenticated case of which I had not heard. Bishop Montgomery himself told his son the general, and the story was often told in the family. The general has asked me to send the facts to you in the hope that publication may elicit further facts." I don't know whether he ever received any. As far as I can tell, Swiss criminologist Karl-Ludwig Kunz's essay "Criminal Policy in Duckburg" was published only in a 2009 collection titled Images of Crime 3: Representations of Crime and the Criminal, which I can't seem to get my hands on. The fullest discussion I've been able to find in English is this brief 1998 article from the Independent. The program to distribute bananas to Icelandic children in 1952 is mentioned in science writer Willy Ley's 1954 book Engineers' Dreams. The credit "Diversions by Irving Schwartz" in the 1966 movie The Sand Pebbles is mentioned (but not really explained) in this 2007 Telegram obituary of character actor Joseph di Reda. MIT historian T.F. Peterson's 2003 book Nightwork: A History of Hacks and Pranks at MIT says that the legend IHTFP ("I hate this f---ing place") "has been unofficially documented in both the U.S. Air Force and at MIT as far back as the 1950s." This MIT page traces it as far back as 1960 and gives dozens of euphemistic variants. This week's lateral thinking puzzle was submitted by listener Paul Kapp. You can listen using the player above, download this episode

(Image: Wikimedia Commons) In this episode of the Futility Closet podcast we'll tell how Spanish authorities found an ingenious way to use orphans to bring the smallpox vaccine to the American colonies in 1803. The Balmis Expedition overcame the problems of transporting a fragile vaccine over a long voyage and is credited with saving at least 100,000 lives in the New World. We'll also get some listener updates to the Lady Be Good story and puzzle over why a man would find it more convenient to drive two cars than one. Sources for our segment on the Balmis expedition: J. Antonio Aldrete, "Smallpox Vaccination in the Early 19th Century Using Live Carriers: The Travels of Francisco Xavier de Balmis," Southern Medical Journal, April 2004. Carlos Franco-Paredes, Lorena Lammoglia and José Ignacio Santos-Preciado, "The Spanish Royal Philanthropic Expedition to Bring Smallpox Vaccination to the New World and Asia in the 19th Century," Clinical Infectious Diseases, Nov. 1, 2005. Catherine Mark and José G. Rigau-Pérez, "The World's First Immunization Campaign: The Spanish Smallpox Vaccine Expedition, 1803-1813," Bulletin of the History of Medicine, Spring 2009. John W.R. McIntyre, "Smallpox and Its Control in Canada," Canadian Medical Association Journal, Dec. 14, 1999. Pan-American Health Organization: The Balmis-Salvany Smallpox Expedition: The First Public Health Vaccination Campaign in South America (accessed Jan. 18, 2015). Listener Roger Beck sent these images of the memorial and propeller from the Lady Be Good in Houghton, Mich.: And listener Dan Patterson alerted us to ladybegood.net, an impressive and growing repository of information about the "ghost bomber," including the recovered diaries of co-pilot Robert Toner and flight engineer Harold Ripslinger and some ingenious reconstructions of the lost plane's flight path after the nine crewmen bailed out. This week's lateral thinking puzzle was submitted by listener David White, who sent these corroborating links (warning -- these spoil the puzzle). You can listen using the player above, download this episode directly, or subscribe on iTunes or via the RSS feed at http://feedpress.me/futilitycloset. Please consider becoming a patron of Futility Closet -- on our Patreon page you can pledge any amount per episode, and all contributions are greatly appreciated. You can change or cancel your pledge at any time, and we've set up some rewards to help thank you for your support. You can also make a one-time donation via the Donate button in the sidebar of the Futility Closet website. Many thanks to Doug Ross for the music in this episode. If you have any questions or comments you can reach us at [email protected]. Thanks for listening!

The American bomber Lady Be Good left North Africa for a bombing run over Italy in 1943. It wasn't seen again until 15 years later, when explorers discovered its broken remains deep in the Libyan desert. In this episode of the Futility Closet podcast we'll review the strange history of the lost aircraft and trace the desperate last days of its nine crewmen. We'll also climb some twisted family trees and puzzle over the Greek philosopher Thales' struggles with a recalcitrant mule. Sources for our segment on the Lady Be Good: Mario Martinez, Lady's Men, 1995. Dennis E. McClendon, The Lady Be Good: Mystery Bomber of World War II, 1962. Above: The Lady Be Good as she was discovered 440 miles southeast of Benghazi, in remarkably good condition for a plane that had landed itself with one working engine and then lain in the desert for 15 years. The tires on the nose wheel and one of the main landing wheels were undamaged and fully inflated. The crew: William J. Hatton, pilot; Robert F. Toner, co-pilot; D.P. Hays, navigator; John S. Woravka, bombardier; Harold J. Ripslinger, flight engineer; Robert E. LaMotte, radio operator; Guy E. Shelley Jr., waist gunner; Vernon L. Moore, waist gunner; and S.E. Adams, tail gunner. Hatton, the leader, was probably the first to die. Five months before his posting to Libya, he had written to his mother, "There are about four places they can send me. Arizona, Idaho, and Spokane or Tacoma, Washington. I am sitting here waiting to see which one it is. I hope it isn't Arizona because I am tired of sand." Listener mail: Our Dec. 21 post "A Man His Own Grandfather," reprinting an 1868 item about a man whose stepdaughter marries his father, follows a similar post from 2009, "Proof That a Man Can Be His Own Grandfather," which includes a diagram. The song "I'm My Own Grandpa" was released by Lonzo & Oscar in 1947. This cover version includes a diagram that explains the relationships: Thanks to reader David Wright for sending a link to an article in Geneaology Magazine that traces the history of the idea, and to reader Mark Williamson for sharing his own convoluted family tree: My own mother was an only child, whose father died when she was 9 years old. Her mother then remarried an older man who had several children (and they went on to have several more together). My maternal grandmother's younger brother was in the military, and when home on leave fell in love with one of my mother's stepsisters, and they got married and had children of their own. So my grandmother's brother was my great-uncle, and his wife was my great-aunt, and their children were my second cousins, but he was also my uncle because he was married to my aunt (my mother's stepsister) and their children were my first cousins. And their father was also their great-uncle, since he was their grandmother's brother, and therefore their mother was their great-aunt since she was married to their great-uncle. And since they were their great-aunt's children, that made them their own second cousins. The first of this week's two lateral thinking puzzles was inspired by a chance encounter with N.L. Mackenzie's article "The Nastiness of Mathematicians" in the Pi Mu Epsilon Journal (vol. 9, no. 10, Spring 1994) while toiling at NC State this week. It's not certain that the story actually befell Thales; the same story is told in Aesop's fable "The Salt Merchant and His Ass." The second puzzle is drawn from Eliot Hearst and John Knott's excellent 2009 book Blindfold Chess and from Miguel Najdorf's New York Times obituary (warning: this spoils the puzzle). Hearst and Knott's website explains how Najdorf's longstanding record of 45 blindfold games played simultaneously was broken in 2011 by Marc Lang of Günzburg, Germany. Lang played 46 games and scored +25, =19, -2, as against Najdorf's astounding +39, =4, -2 in São Paulo in 1947. You can listen using the player above, download this episode directly, or subscribe on iTunes or via the RSS feed at http://feedpress.me/futilitycloset. Please consider becoming a patron of Futility Closet -- on our Patreon page you can pledge any amount per episode, and all contributions are greatly appreciated. You can change or cancel your pledge at any time, and we've set up some rewards to help thank you for your support. You can also make a one-time donation via the Donate button in the sidebar of the Futility Closet website. Many thanks to Doug Ross for the music in this episode. If you have any questions or comments you can reach us at [email protected]. Thanks for listening!

In 1872 the British merchant ship Mary Celeste was discovered drifting and apparently abandoned 600 miles off the coast of Portugal. In this episode of the Futility Closet podcast we'll review this classic mystery of the sea: Why would 10 people flee a well-provisioned, seaworthy ship in fine weather? We'll also get an update on the legal rights of apes and puzzle over why a woman would not intervene when her sister is drugged. Sources for our segment on the Mary Celeste: Paul Begg, Mary Celeste: The Greatest Mystery of the Sea, 2005. Charles Edey Fay, Mary Celeste: The Odyssey of an Abandoned Ship, 1942. J.L. Hornibrook, "The Case of the 'Mary Celeste': An Ocean Mystery," Chambers Journal, Sept. 17, 1904. Listener mail: George M. Walsh, "Chimpanzees Don't Have The Same Rights As Humans, New York Court Rules," Associated Press, Dec. 5, 2014. The opinion from the New York Supreme Court, Appellate Division: The People of the State of New York ex rel. The Nonhuman Rights Project, Inc., on Behalf of Tommy, Appellant, v. Patrick C. Lavery, Individually and as an Officer of Circle L Trailer Sales, Inc., et al. "Orangutan in Argentina Zoo Recognised by Court as 'Non-Human Person'," Guardian, Dec. 21, 2014. Coffitivity "recreates the ambient sounds of a cafe to boost your creativity and help you work better." This week's lateral thinking puzzle was submitted by listener Nick Madrid. You can listen using the player above, download this episode directly, or subscribe on iTunes or via the RSS feed at http://feedpress.me/futilitycloset. Please consider becoming a patron of Futility Closet -- on our Patreon page you can pledge any amount per episode, and all contributions are greatly appreciated. You can change or cancel your pledge at any time, and we've set up some rewards to help thank you for your support. You can also make a one-time donation via the Donate button in the sidebar of the Futility Closet website. Many thanks to Doug Ross for the music in this episode. If you have any questions or comments you can reach us at [email protected]. Thanks for listening!

Here are eight new lateral thinking puzzles that you can try on your friends and family over the holidays -- see who can make sense of these odd scenarios using only yes-or-no questions. Please consider becoming a patron of Futility Closet -- on our Patreon page you can pledge any amount per episode, and all contributions are greatly appreciated. You can change or cancel your pledge at any time, and we've set up some rewards to help thank you for your support. You can also make a one-time donation via the PayPal button in the sidebar of the website. You can listen using the player above, download this episode directly, or subscribe on iTunes or via the RSS feed at http://feedpress.me/futilitycloset. If you have any questions or comments you can reach us at [email protected]. Thanks for listening!

In 1768, Catherine the Great ordered her subjects to move a 3-million-pound granite boulder intact into Saint Petersburg to serve as the pedestal for a statue of Peter the Great. In this episode of the Futility Closet podcast we'll learn how some inspired engineering moved the Thunder Stone 13 miles from its forest home to Senate Square, making it the largest stone ever moved by man. We'll also learn whether mutant squid are attacking Indiana and puzzle over why a stamp collector would be angry at finding a good bargain. Our segment on the Thunder Stone is based on Yale linguist Alexander M. Schenker's impeccably researched 2003 history The Bronze Horseman: Falconet's Monument to Peter the Great. Here's an engraving by Louis-Nicolas van Blarenberghe, The Barge With the Thunder Rock Steadied by Two Cutters of the Imperial Navy En Route to St. Petersburg: Listener mail: Intrepid listener Dan Noland has found five newspaper articles on Indiana's oil pit squids -- his page includes background information and commentary. Wikipedia has an article on Lucian's early satirical science fiction story, which can be found in Greek and English here. This week's lateral thinking puzzle is from Paul Sloane and Des MacHale's 1994 book Great Lateral Thinking Puzzles. Please keep sending puzzles -- Sharon's becoming impossible to stump. Please consider becoming a patron of the Futility Closet podcast -- you can pledge any amount per episode, and all contributions are greatly appreciated. You can change or cancel your pledge at any time, and we've set up some rewards to help thank you for your support. You can listen to this episode using the player above, download this episode directly, or subscribe on iTunes or via the RSS feed at http://feedpress.me/futilitycloset. Many thanks to Doug Ross for the music in this episode. If you have any questions or comments you can reach us at [email protected]. Thanks for listening!

For most of the 20th century, a man in black appeared each year at the grave of Edgar Allan Poe. In the predawn hours of January 19, he would drink a toast with French cognac and leave behind three roses in a distinctive arrangement. No one knows who he was or why he did this. In this episode of the Futility Closet podcast we'll review the history of the "Poe Toaster" and his long association with the great poet's memorial. We'll also consider whether Winnie-the-Pooh should be placed on Ritalin and puzzle over why a man would shoot an unoffending monk. Sources for our segment on the Poe Toaster: "Mystery Man's Annual Visit to Poe Grave," China Daily, Jan. 20, 2008. "Poe Toaster Remains a Mystery," WBAL Radio, Jan. 19, 2013. "'Toaster' Rejects French Cognac at Poe's grave," Washington Times, Jan. 19, 2004. Sarah Brumfield, "Poe Fans Call an End to 'Toaster' Tradition," AP News, Jan. 19, 2012. Liz F. Kay, "Poe Toaster Tribute Is 'Nevermore'," Baltimore Sun, Jan. 19, 2010. Michael Madden, "Yes, Virginia, There Is a Poe Toaster," Baltimore Sun, Jan. 26, 2011. Mary Carole McCauley, "Poe Museum Could Reopen in Fall," Baltimore Sun, Jan. 20, 2013. Ben Nuckols and Joseph White, "Edgar Allan Poe's Mysterious Birthday Visitor Doesn't Show This Year," Huffington Post, March 21, 2010 (accessed Dec. 1, 2014). Here's the only known photo of the toaster, taken at his 1990 apparition and published in the July 1990 issue of Life magazine: The psychiatric diagnoses of Winnie-the-Pooh and his friends appear in Sarah E. Shea, Kevin Gordon, Ann Hawkins, Janet Kawchuk, and Donna Smith, "Pathology in the Hundred Acre Wood: A Neurodevelopmental Perspective on A.A. Milne," Canadian Medical Association Journal, Dec. 12, 2000. Many thanks to Harry’s for supporting this week’s episode. Enter coupon code CLOSETHOLIDAY and get $5 off a Winter Winston set at Harrys.com. You can listen using the player above, download this episode directly, or subscribe on iTunes or via the RSS feed at http://feedpress.me/futilitycloset. Many thanks to Doug Ross for the music in this episode. If you have any questions or comments you can reach us at [email protected]. Thanks for listening!

In 1835 the New York Sun announced that astronomers had discovered bat-winged humanoids on the moon, as well as reindeer, unicorns, bipedal beavers and temples made of sapphire. The fake news was reprinted around the world, impressing even P.T. Barnum; Edgar Allan Poe said that "not one person in ten" doubted the story. In this episode of the Futility Closet podcast we'll review the Great Moon Hoax, the first great sensation of the modern media age. We'll also learn why Montana police needed a rabbi and puzzle over how a woman's new shoes end up killing her. Sources for our segment on the Great Moon Hoax: Matthew Goodman, The Sun and the Moon, 2008. The Museum of Hoaxes has an excellent summary of the hoax and its significance in media history, including the text of all six articles. Listener mail: Lauren May, "Terrified Banstead Family Confronted by 'Dark Figure' on Bypass," Epsom Guardian, Feb. 23, 2012. Michael Munro, "'The Springer' Leaps From WW2 Urban Legend to Anti-Fascist Superhero," io9, Sept. 3, 2014 (accessed Nov. 30, 2014). Eric A. Stern, "Yes, Miky, There Are Rabbis in Montana," New York Times, Dec. 4, 2009. "Body of Boy Found as Snow Melts," The Hour, March 1, 1978. You can listen using the player above, download this episode directly, or subscribe on iTunes or via the RSS feed at http://feedpress.me/futilitycloset. Many thanks to Doug Ross for the music in this episode. If you have any questions or comments you can reach us at [email protected]. Thanks for listening!

For this Thanksgiving episode of the Futility Closet podcast, enjoy seven lateral thinking puzzles that didn't make it onto our regular shows. Solve along with us as we explore some strange scenarios using only yes-or-no questions. Happy Thanksgiving! You can listen using the player above, download this episode directly, or subscribe on iTunes or via the RSS feed at http://feedpress.me/futilitycloset. If you have any questions or comments you can reach us at [email protected]. Thanks for listening!

Between 1837 and 1904, rumors spread of a strange bounding devil who haunted southern England, breathing blue flames and menacing his victims with steel talons. In this episode of the Futility Closet podcast we review the career of Spring-Heeled Jack and speculate about his origins. We also recount Alexander Graham Bell's efforts to help the wounded James Garfield before his doctors' treatments could kill him and puzzle over why a police manual gives instructions in a language that none of the officers speak. Source for our segment on Spring-Heeled Jack: Mike Dash, "Spring-Heeled Jack: To Victorian Bugaboo From Suburban Ghost," Fortean Studies 3 (1996). Sources for our segment on Alexander Graham Bell and James Garfield: Candice Millard, Destiny of the Republic: A Tale of Madness, Medicine and the Murder of a President, 2011. Amanda Schaffer, "A President Felled by an Assassin and 1880's Medical Care," New York Times, July 25, 2006. You can listen using the player above, download this episode directly, or subscribe on iTunes or via the RSS feed at http://feedpress.me/futilitycloset. Many thanks to Doug Ross for the music in this episode. If you have any questions or comments you can reach us at [email protected]. Thanks for listening!

Abraham Lincoln's eldest son, Robert, is the subject of a grim coincidence in American history: He's the only person known to have been present or nearby at the assassinations of three American presidents. In this episode of the Futility Closet podcast we describe the circumstances of each misfortune and explore some further coincidences regarding Robert's brushes with fatality. We also consider whether a chimpanzee deserves a day in court and puzzle over why Australia would demolish a perfectly good building. Sources for our segment on Robert Todd Lincoln: Jason Emerson, Giant in the Shadows: The Life of Robert T. Lincoln, 2012. Charles Lachman, The Last Lincolns: The Rise and Fall of a Great American Family, 2008. Merrill D. Peterson, Lincoln in American Memory, 1994. Ralph Gary, Following in Lincoln's Footsteps, 2002. Sources for the listener mail segment: "Lyman Dillon and the Military Road," Tri-County Historical Society (accessed 11/06/2014). Charles Siebert, "Should a Chimp Be Able to Sue Its Owner?", New York Times Magazine, April 23, 2014. This week's lateral thinking puzzle is from Paul Sloane and Des MacHale's 1994 book Great Lateral Thinking Puzzles. Some corroboration is here (warning: this spoils the puzzle). You can listen using the player above, download this episode directly, or subscribe on iTunes or via the RSS feed at http://feedpress.me/futilitycloset. Many thanks to Doug Ross for the music in this episode. If you have any questions or comments you can reach us at [email protected]. Thanks for listening!

In August 1977, Ohio astronomer Jerry Ehman discovered a radio signal so exciting that he wrote "Wow!" in the margin of its computer printout. Arriving from the direction of the constellation Sagittarius, the signal bore all the characteristics of an alien transmission. But despite decades of eager listening, astronomers have never heard it repeated. In this episode of the Futility Closet podcast we'll review the story of the "Wow! signal," which remains an intriguing, unexplained anomaly in the search for extraterrestrial intelligence. We'll also share some more nuggets from Greg's database of oddities and puzzle over why a man chooses to drive a long distance at only 15 mph. Sources for our segment on the Wow! signal: Robert H. Gray, The Elusive Wow, 2012. Giuseppe Cocconi and Philip Morrison, "Searching for Interstellar Communication," Nature, Sept. 19, 1959. Frank White, The SETI Factor, 1990. David W. Swift, SETI Pioneers, 1990. David Darling, The Extraterrestrial Encyclopedia, 2000. Michael Brooks, 13 Things That Don't Make Sense, 2008. "Humanity Responds to 'Alien' Wow Signal, 35 Years Later," space.com, Aug. 17, 2012 (accessed Oct. 31, 2014). Notes and sources for our miscellany from Greg's notes: Iowa City's web page explains that Lyman Dillon plowed a furrow from Iowa City to Dubuque in 1839. The item on oil pit squids is from George Eberhart's 2002 book Mysterious Creatures. The squids were found in "oil-emulsion pits containing antifreeze, stripper, oil, and chemicals used in manufacturing plastic automobile bumpers." Eberhart cites Ken de la Bastide, "Creature in Plant 9 Pits," Anderson (Ind.) Herald Bulletin, March 5, 1997. Thanks to reader John McKenna for letter from the ancient Greek boy Theon to his father. It's from the Oxyrhynchus papyri, from the 2nd or 3rd century: Theon to his father Theon, greeting. It was a fine thing of you not to take me with you to the city! If you won't take me with you to Alexandria I won't write you a letter or speak to you or say goodbye to you; and if you go to Alexandria I won't take your hand nor ever greet you again. That is what will happen if you won't take me. Mother said to Archelaus, 'it quite upsets him to be left behind.' It was good of you to send me presents ... on the 12th, the day you sailed. Send me a lyre, I implore you. If you don't, I won't eat, I won't drink; there now! The item on William and Henry James is from Vincent Barry's 2007 book Philosophical Thinking About Dying. According to the Encyclopedia of Fictional and Fantastic Languages (2006), Gaff's command to Deckard in Blade Runner is Monsieur, azonnal kövessen engem bitte ("Sir, follow me immediately please"). The anecdote about Alfred Lunt and the green umbrella is from the Methuen Drama Dictionary of the Theatre (2013). This week's lateral thinking puzzle comes from Paul Sloane and Des MacHale's 1998 book Ingenious Lateral Thinking Puzzles. You can listen using the player above, download this episode directly, or subscribe on iTunes or via the RSS feed at http://feedpress.me/futilitycloset. Many thanks to Doug Ross for the music in this episode. If you have any questions or comments you can reach us at [email protected]. Thanks for listening!

For 500 years of European history, animals were given criminal trials: Bulls, horses, dogs, and sheep were arrested, jailed, given lawyers, tried, and punished at community expense. In the latest Futility Closet podcast we'll explore this strange practice and try to understand its significance to the people of the time. We'll also rediscover the source of Futility Closet's name and puzzle over how a ringing bell relates to a man's death. Sources for our segment on animal trials: Anila Srivastava, "'Mean, Dangerous, and Uncontrollable Beasts': Mediaeval Animal Trials," Mosaic, March 2007. Jen Girgen, "The Historical and Contemporary Prosecution and Punishment of Animals," Animal Law Review, 2003. Esther Cohen, "Law, Folklore, and Animal Lore," Past & Present, February 1986. "Medieval Animal Trials," medievalists.net, Sept. 8, 2013 (accessed Oct. 20, 2014). James E. McWilliams, "Beastly Justice," Slate, Feb. 21, 2013. E.P. Evans, The Criminal Prosecution and Capital Punishment of Animals, 1906. The Hour of the Pig (released in the United States as The Advocate), BBC, 1993. Here's the original UTILITY sign from American University's administration building that inspired our name: (Thanks, Karl.) This week's lateral thinking puzzles come from Paul Sloane and Des MacHale's 1994 book Great Lateral Thinking Puzzles and from listener Meaghan Gerard Walsh. You can listen using the player above, download this episode directly, or subscribe on iTunes or via the RSS feed at http://feedpress.me/futilitycloset. Many thanks to Doug Ross for the music in this episode. If you have any questions or comments you can reach us at [email protected]. Thanks for listening!

Nova Scotia's Oak Island hides a famously booby-trapped treasure cache -- or so goes the legend. In this episode of the Futility Closet podcast, we review the many attempts to recover the treasure and wonder who could have engineered such a site, what might be hidden there -- and whether, indeed, it contains anything at all. We also puzzle over what a woman's errands can tell us about how her husband died. Sources for our segment on Oak Island: "The Secrets of Oak Island", Joe Nickell, Skeptical Inquirer, March/April 2000. Richard Joltes, "History, Hoax, and Hype: The Oak Island Legend", Critical Enquiry, accessed Oct. 19, 2014. Edwin Teale, "Mystery Island Baffles Treasure Hunters," Popular Science, May 1939. D'Arcy O'Connor, The Money Pit, 1978. The image above shows the dig as it existed in August 1931. Below is 27-year-old Franklin Roosevelt (third from right) at the 1909 dig: This week's lateral thinking puzzle was contributed by listener Nicholas Madrid. You can listen using the player above, download this episode directly, or subscribe on iTunes or via the RSS feed at http://feedpress.me/futilitycloset. Many thanks to Doug Ross for the music in this episode. If you have any questions or comments you can reach us at [email protected]. Thanks for listening!

In 1828, a 16-year-old boy appeared in Nuremberg, claiming that he'd spent his whole life alone in a dark cell. In the latest Futility Closet podcast we'll follow the short, sad life of Kaspar Hauser and ponder who he might have been. We'll also revisit the Pacific Northwest Tree Octopus, encounter some self-landing planes, and puzzle over why a man would bury 15 luxury cars in the desert. Sources for our segment on Kaspar Hauser: Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson, Lost Prince: The Unsolved Mystery of Kaspar Hauser, 1996. Martin Kitchen, Kaspar Hauser: Europe's Child, 2001. Links from listener mail: Being in the Shadow, Australian psychologist Kate Russo's site about the psychology of eclipse chasing. A 1997 NTSB report regarding a Piper PA-24 that "landed itself" after the pilot passed out due to a carbon monoxide leak. The "cornfield bomber," a Convair F-106 Delta Dart that landed in a Montana farmer's field in 1970 after the pilot ejected. When the local sheriff arrived, the jet's engine was still idling. This week's lateral thinking puzzle is from Paul Sloane and Des MacHale's 1994 book Great Lateral Thinking Puzzles. Corroborating links are here and here (warning -- they spoil the puzzle). You can listen using the player above, or subscribe on iTunes or via the RSS feed at http://feedpress.me/futilitycloset. Many thanks to Doug Ross for the music in this episode. If you have any questions or comments you can reach us at [email protected]. We're off next week -- Episode 30 will go up on Oct. 20. Thanks for listening!

Sherlock Holmes was based on a real man, a physician who trained Arthur Conan Doyle at the University of Edinburgh. During his medical lectures, Joseph Bell regularly astonished his students with insights into his patients' lives and characters. "From close observation and deduction, gentlemen," he said, "it is possible to make a diagnosis that will be correct in any and every case. However, you must not neglect to ratify your deductions." In this episode of the Futility Closet podcast we'll meet Joseph Bell and review the stories of his legendary acuity. We'll also take a tour through Greg's database of unpublished oddities and puzzle over how having your car damaged might be a good thing. Our segment on Joseph Bell, the inspiration for Sherlock Holmes, was based on Northeastern Illinois University literature professor Ely Liebow's 1982 book Dr. Joe Bell: Model for Sherlock Holmes. Our original post on Joseph Bell ran on April 27, 2014. Harry How's 1892 Strand feature "A Day With Dr. Conan Doyle" is reprinted in the Conan Doyle Encyclopedia. Joseph Bell wrote the introduction to the 1892 edition of A Study in Scarlet -- Wikisource has a scan. Somewhat related: When Arthur Guiterman twitted Doyle for having Holmes denigrate other fictional detectives that had obviously inspired him, Doyle responded in kind. You can listen using the player above, or subscribe on iTunes or via the RSS feed at http://feedpress.me/futilitycloset. Many thanks to Doug Ross for the music in this episode. If you have any questions or comments you can reach us at [email protected]. Thanks for listening!

In September 1940 Polish army captain Witold Pilecki volunteered to be imprisoned at Auschwitz. His reports first alerted the Allies to the horrors at the camp and helped to warn the world that a holocaust was taking place. In this episode of the Futility Closet podcast we'll follow Pilecki into the camp, hear his reports of the atrocities he witnessed, and learn why his name isn't better known today. We'll also meet the elusive Pacific Northwest Tree Octopus and puzzle over how hitting a target could save thousands of lives. Sources for our segment on Polish army captain Witold Pilecki: The Auschwitz Volunteer: Beyond Bravery. By Witold Pilecki, translated by Jarek Garlinski, 2012. Timothy Snyder, "Were We All People?", New York Times, June 22, 2012. "Meet The Man Who Sneaked Into Auschwitz," National Public Radio, Sept. 18, 2010. Listener mail: The hoax site on the Pacific Northwest Tree Octopus was created by these researchers at the University of Connecticut. (Thanks to listener David Brooks for telling us about this story.) This week's lateral thinking puzzle was contributed by listener David White. Related links (warning: these spoil the puzzle) are here, here, and here. You can listen using the player above, or subscribe on iTunes or via the RSS feed at http://feedpress.me/futilitycloset. Many thanks to Doug Ross for the music in this episode. If you have any questions or comments you can reach us at [email protected]. Thanks for listening!

In 1810 someone told hundreds of London merchants that Mrs. Tottenham at 54 Berners Street had requested their services. She hadn't. For a full day the street was packed with crowds of deliverymen struggling to reach a single door -- and the practical joker was never caught. In this episode of the Futility Closet podcast we'll hear descriptions of the chaos in Berners Street and meet Theodore Hook, the man who probably planned the whole thing. We'll also revisit the mysterious corpse found on an Australian beach in 1948 and puzzle over an octopus stuck in a tree. Sources for our segment on the Berners Street hoax: Judith Flanders, The Victorian City: Everyday Life in Dickens' London, 2012. Robert Chambers, The Book of Days, 1832. Theodore Hook, The Life and Remains of Theodore Edward Hook, 1849. John Gibson Lockhart, Theodore Hook, A Sketch, 1852. John Timbs, Lives of Wits and Humourists, 1862. Satirist, or, Monthly Meteor, "The Hoax: An Epistle From Solomon Sappy, Esquire, in London, to his brother Simon at Liverpool," Jan. 1, 1811, pp. 59-61. Listener mail: The new developments in the mystery of the Somerton man are detailed in this article on The Advertiser. Here's "No E," four minutes of E-less hip-hop by Zach Sherwin and George Watsky (thanks, Jocelyn): This week's lateral thinking puzzle was contributed by listener Nick Madrid. You can listen using the player above, or subscribe on iTunes or via the RSS feed at http://feedpress.me/futilitycloset. Many thanks to Doug Ross for the music in this episode. If you have any questions or comments you can reach us at [email protected]. Thanks for listening!

On Dec. 1, 1948, a well-dressed corpse appeared on a beach in South Australia. Despite 66 years of investigation, no one has ever been able to establish who he was, how he came to be there, or even how he died. In this episode of the Futility Closet podcast we'll delve into the mystery of the Somerton man, a fascinating tale that involves secret codes, a love triangle, and the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam. We'll also hear Franklin Adams praise the thesaurus and puzzle over some surprising consequences of firing a gun. Sources for our segment on the Somerton man: Mike Dash, "The Body on Somerton Beach," Smithsonianmag.com, Aug. 12, 2011 (retrieved Aug. 31, 2014). Lorena Allam, "The Somerton Man: A Mystery in Four Acts," Radio Australia, Feb. 23, 2014. The corpse of a well-dressed, clean-shaven man, 5'11", age 40-45 and in peak physical condition, was discovered on Somerton Beach in Adelaide, South Australia, early on the morning of Dec. 1, 1948. In a fob pocket of the man's trousers the pathologist at the city morgue found a tiny slip of rolled-up paper bearing the words "Tamam Shud," the final words of the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam. This led investigators to a copy of the book, which had been thrown into a car parked near the beach. In the back of the book were these penciled lines, which have never been deciphered. More than 60 years of inquiries around the world have brought us no closer to establishing the dead man's identity. His tombstone gives only the bare facts of his discovery. Franklin Pierce Adams' poem "To a Thesaurus" appears in The Book of Humorous Verse, by Carolyn Wells, 1920. You can listen using the player above, or subscribe on iTunes or via the RSS feed at http://feedpress.me/futilitycloset. Many thanks to Doug Ross for the music in this episode. If you have any questions or comments you can reach us at [email protected]. Thanks for listening!

William McGonagall has been called "the only truly memorable bad poet in our language," responsible for tin-eared verse that could "give you cauliflower ears just from silent reading": Alas! Lord and Lady Dalhousie are dead, and buried at last, Which causes many people to feel a little downcast; And both lie side by side in one grave, But I hope God in His goodness their souls will save. In this episode of the Futility Closet podcast we'll sample McGonagall's writings, follow the poor poet's sadly heroic wanderings, and wonder whether he may have been in on the joke after all. We'll also consider a South Carolina seventh grader's plea to Ronald Reagan and puzzle over a man's outrageous public behavior. Our segment on William McGonagall, the world's worst poet, is drawn from Norman Watson's beautifully researched 2010 book Poet McGonagall: A Biography. The best online source on McGonagall is Chris Hunt's site McGonagall Online, which contains extensive biographical materials, a map of the poet's travels, and a complete collection of his poems. South Carolina seventh grader Andy Irmo's 1984 letter to Ronald Reagan asking that his room be declared a disaster area appears in Dwight Young's 2007 book Dear Mr. President: Letters to the Oval Office from the Files of the National Archives. Our post about it ran on Aug. 14, 2006. Thanks to listener Nick Madrid for this week's lateral thinking puzzle. You can listen using the player above, or subscribe on iTunes or via the RSS feed at http://feedpress.me/futilitycloset. Many thanks to Doug Ross for the music in this episode. If you have any questions or comments you can reach us at [email protected]. Thanks for listening!

On New Year's Day 1886, London grocer Edwin Bartlett was discovered dead in his bed with a lethal quantity of liquid chloroform in his stomach. Strangely, his throat showed none of the burns that chloroform should have caused. His wife, who admitted to having the poison, was tried for murder, but the jury acquitted her because "we do not think there is sufficient evidence to show how or by whom the chloroform was administered." In this episode of the Futility Closet podcast we'll learn about Edwin and Adelaide Bartlett's strange marriage and consider the various theories that have been advanced to explain Edwin's death. We'll also sample a 50,000-word novel written without the letter E and puzzle over a sure-footed American's visit to a Japanese office building. Sources for our segment on Adelaide Bartlett and the Pimlico poison mystery: "The Pimlico Poisoning Case," The Times, Feb. 16, 1886, 10. "The Pimlico Poisoning Case," The Times, March 8, 1886, 12. "The Pimlico Mystery," The Observer, March 21, 1886, 3. "Central Criminal Court, April 13," The Times, April 14, 1886, 6. "Central Criminal Court, April 16," The Times, April 17, 1886, 6. "The Pimlico Mystery," Manchester Guardian, April 19, 1886, 5. Michael Farrell, "Adelaide Bartlett and the Pimlico Mystery," British Medical Journal, December 1994, 1720-1723. Stephanie J. Snow, Blessed Days of Anaesthesia: How Anaesthetics Changed the World, 2009. A full record of the trial was published in 1886, with a preface by Edward Clarke, Adelaide's barrister. The full text of Ernest Vincent Wright's 1939 novel Gadsby: A Story of Over 50,000 Words Without Using the Letter "E", is available at Wikisource. Here's an excerpt from A Void, the English translation of George Perec's 1969 novel La Disparition, also written without the letter E. Two notable Futility Closet posts regarding lipograms: An 1866 poem written without the letter S An 1892 poem each of whose stanzas omits the letter E but includes every other letter of the alphabet (a "lipogram pangram") This week's lateral thinking puzzle comes from Mental Fitness Puzzles, by Kyle Hendrickson, Julie Hendrickson, Matt Kenneke, and Danny Hendrickson, 1998. You can listen using the player above, or subscribe on iTunes or via the RSS feed at http://feedpress.me/futilitycloset. Many thanks to Doug Ross for the music in this episode. If you have any questions or comments you can reach us at [email protected]. Thanks for listening!

On Feb. 9, 1855, the residents of Devon in southern England awoke to find a bewildering set of footprints in the newfallen snow. "These are to be found in fields, gardens, roads, house-tops, & other likely and unlikely places, deeply embedded in snow," ran one contemporary account. "The shape was a hoof." In this episode of the Futility Closet podcast we'll examine the surviving descriptions of the odd marks and consider the various explanations that have been offered. We'll also revisit the compassionate Nazi fighter pilot Franz Stigler and puzzle over how to sneak into Switzerland across a guarded footbridge. Our segment on the "devil's hoofmarks" is drawn from Mike Dash's excellent article "The Devil's Hoofmarks: Source Material on the Great Devon Mystery of 1855," which appeared in Fortean Studies 1:1 in 1994. The full text (2MB PDF) is here. The Restricted Data Blog's post on John W. Campbell and his 1941 article “Is Death Dust America’s Secret Weapon?” appeared on March 7, 2014. The comments include an extensive discussion about Campbell's exchanges with Robert A. Heinlein. You can listen using the player above, or subscribe on iTunes or via the RSS feed at http://feedpress.me/futilitycloset. Many thanks to Doug Ross for the music in this episode. If you have any questions or comments you can reach us at [email protected]. Thanks for listening!

In December 1943, American bomber pilot Charlie Brown was flying a severely damaged B-17 out of Germany when he looked out the cockpit window and saw "the world's worst nightmare" off his right wing -- a fully armed German fighter whose pilot was staring back at him. In this episode of the Futility Closet podcast we'll follow the strange drama that ensued, in which German fighter ace Franz Stigler weighed the human impulse to spare the wounded bomber against his patriotic duty to shoot him down. We'll also consider whether animals follow the 10 commandments and wonder why a man might tell his nephew that his dog will be shot. Our segment on Charlie Brown and Franz Stigler is drawn largely from Adam Makos' 2012 book A Higher Call: The Incredible True Story of Combat and Chivalry in the War-Torn Skies of World War II. The book trailer contains brief interviews with both men: Sources for our segment on Ernest Thompson Seton and the 10 commandments: Ernest Thompson Seton, "The Natural History of the Ten Commandments," The Century, November 1907. Theodore Roosevelt, "Nature Fakers," Everybody's Magazine, September 1907. Ralph H. Lutts, The Nature Fakers: Wildlife, Science & Sentiment, 2001. Paul Dickson, Words From the White House, 2013. Our post about Seton's belief that the commandments are "fundamental laws of all creation" and thus might be discovered in the animal world originally appeared on April 21, 2010. The episode in which Seton's father presented him with a bill for his rearing appears in his wife's 1967 collection of his writings, By a Thousand Fires. Our post recounting it ran on July 8, 2014. Here's Jackie Cooper crying in Skippy (1931), just after hearing that his dog has been shot: You can listen using the player above, or subscribe on iTunes or via the RSS feed at http://feedpress.me/futilitycloset. Many thanks to Doug Ross for the music in this episode. If you have any questions or comments you can reach us at [email protected]. Thanks for listening!

In 1944, fully a year before the first successful nuclear test, Astounding Science Fiction magazine published a remarkably detailed description of an atomic bomb. The story, by the otherwise undistinguished author Cleve Cartmill, sent military intelligence racing to discover the source of his information -- and his motives for publishing it. In this episode of the Futility Closet podcast we'll follow the investigation that ensued, which involved legendary editor John W. Campbell and illuminated the imaginative power of science fiction and the role of censorship in times of war. We'll also hear Mark Twain's advice against being too clever and puzzle over the failure of a seemingly perfect art theft. Sources for our segment on Cleve Cartmill: Cleve Cartmill and Jean Marie Stine, Deadline & Other Controversial SF Classics, 2011. Albert I. Berger, "The Astounding Investigation: The Manhattan Project's Confrontation With Science Fiction," Analog, September 1984. Robert Silverberg, "Reflections: The Cleve Cartmill Affair" (in two parts), Asimov's Science Fiction, September and October–November 2003. Mark Twain appended the poem "Be Good, Be Good" to a letter to Margaret Blackmer on Nov. 14, 1907: Be good, be good, be always good, And now & then be clever, But don’t you ever be too good, Nor ever be too clever; For such as be too awful good They awful lonely are, And such as often clever be Get cut & stung & trodden on by persons of lesser mental capacity, for this kind do by a law of their construction regard exhibitions of superior intellectuality as an offensive impertinence leveled at their lack of this high gift, & are prompt to resent such-like exhibitions in the manner above indicated — & are they justifiable? alas, alas they (It is not best to go on; I think the line is already longer than it ought to be for real true poetry.) Listener mail: The observation that a letter might be addressed to Glenn Seaborg by listing five chemical elements was made by Jeffrey Winters in "The Year in Science: Chemistry 1997," Discover, January 1998. I don't know whether any such letter was ever delivered successfully. Jeff Van Bueren's article "Postal Experiments" appeared in the Annals of Improbable Research, July/August 2000. Many thanks to Doug Ross for the music in this episode. If you have any questions or comments you can reach us at [email protected]. Thanks for listening!

In 1898, 19-year-old W. Reginald Bray made a thorough study of British postal regulations, which laid out rules for mailing everything from bees to elephants and promised that "all letters must be delivered as addressed." He resolved to give the service "a severe test without infringing its regulations." In this episode of the Futility Closet podcast we'll review the antics that followed, in which Bray sent turnips, bicycle pumps, shoes, and even himself through the British post. We'll also sympathize with Lucius Chittenden, a U.S. Treasury official who had to sign 12,500 bonds in one harried weekend in 1862, and puzzle over the worrying train journey of a Wall Street banker. Our segment on W.R. Bray, the Edwardian postal experimentalist, is based chiefly on John Tingey's 2010 book The Englishman Who Posted Himself and Other Curious Objects. Tingey maintains a website with an extensive catalog of the curios that Bray sent through the post. Also David Leafe, "The Man Who Posted Himself," Daily Mail, March 19, 2012. In an article in the Royal Magazine in 1904, Bray noted the usefulness of the Post Office's offer to conduct a person "to any address on payment of the mileage charge": What mothers know that, if they like, they can send their little ones to school as letters? Possibly, as soon as the 'mother-readers' see this, the Post Offices will be crowded with toddling infants, both in and out of 'prams,' all waiting to be taken to schools, or out for a day in the country. 'But I should not like my child to be carried with postage stamps, and arrive at the school black with postmarks!' That is what I expect some mothers will say. Oh, don't be alarmed, nothing like this will happen! All that you need to do is to take the child to the Post Office across the road, pay a small fee, and a messenger boy will escort the little one to the very door of the school. However Post Office officials do not appear anxious to gain fame as nurse providers to infants. Miscellaneous postal mischief on Futility Closet: Torturing the Post Office Post Haste Riddling Letters Sources for our segment on L.E. Chittenden, the iron-wristed Register of the Treasury under Lincoln: Lucius Eugene Chittenden, Recollections of President Lincoln and His Administration, 1891. Joseph F. Tuttle, "Abraham Lincoln, 'The Perfect Ruler of Men,'" Historical Register of the Colorado Society of the Sons of the American Revolution, Nov. 1, 1906. William Juengst, "In Ruffles and Starch Cuffs: The American Jews' Part in Our International Relations," The American Hebrew & Jewish Messenger, Sept. 30, 1921. Arthur Laurents wrote a piece for the New York Herald Tribune in 1957 that discusses the development of West Side Story. You can listen using the player above, or subscribe on iTunes or via the RSS feed at http://feedpress.me/futilitycloset. Many thanks to Doug Ross for the music in this episode. If you have any questions or comments you can reach us at [email protected]. Thanks for listening!

In 1942 Navy lieutenant Ernest Cody and ensign Charles Adams piloted a blimp out of San Francisco into the Pacific, looking for Japanese subs. A few hours later the blimp drifted back to land, empty. The parachutes and life raft were in their proper places and the radio was in working order, but there was no trace of Cody or Adams. In this episode of the Futility Closet podcast we'll follow the events of that strange day and delve into the inquest that followed. We'll also sample some unpublished items from Greg's trove of Futility Closet research and puzzle over a drink of water that kills hundreds of people. Sources for our segment on the L-8 blimp mystery: Mark J. Price, "60 Years Later, Pilots' Fate Still a Mystery -- 2 Men Aboard Navy Blimp Vanished," Seattle Times, Aug. 18, 2002. Darold Fredricks, "Airships and Moffett Field," San Mateo Daily Journal, July 22, 2013. United Press International, "Goodyear Blimp Retires," July 9, 1982. Some inquest records are available online here. Links mentioned in listener mail: Thad Gillespie explains how George Washington came to have two different birth dates in this blog post. This Gizmodo page, sent by Brian Drake, includes artists' renditions of Pyke's envisioned aircraft carrier and the Sagrada Familia made of pykrete; photos of students and professors from Eindhoven University of Technology in the Netherlands using pykrete to make the world's largest ice dome, with a span of 98 feet; and a link to a video of the making of the dome. You can subscribe on iTunes or via the RSS feed at http://feedpress.me/futilitycloset. Many thanks to Doug Ross for the music in this episode. If you have any questions or comments you can reach us at [email protected]. Thanks for listening!

In 1943 German submarines were devastating the merchant convoys carrying supplies to Britain. Unable to protect them with aircraft or conventional ships, the resource-strapped Royal Navy considered an outlandish solution: a 2-million-ton aircraft carrier made of ice. In this episode of the Futility Closet podcast we follow the strange history of the project, which Winston Churchill initially praised as dazzling but which ended in ignominy at the bottom of a Canadian lake. We'll also discover a love pledge hidden for 200 years in the heart of a Yorkshire tree and puzzle over the deaths of two men in a remote cabin. Our segment on Project Habbakuk is based chiefly on L.D. Cross' 2012 book Code Name Habbakuk. In the photo above, research workers cut ice and form it into beams on Lake Louise near the Chateau Lake Louise resort hotel in 1943. Our post on the Yorkshire inscription appeared on Dec. 18, 2009. Sources for the podcast segment: John Lindley, The Theory and Practice of Horticulture, 1855, citing the Gardener's Chronicle of 1841. "Redcarre, a Poor Fysher Towne," in the Journal of Horticulture and Practical Gardening, Aug. 4, 1870. "Local Writers and Local Worthies: William and Cholmley Turner," in William Hall Burnett, Old Cleveland: Being a Collection of Papers, 1886. Kazlitt Arvine, Cyclopaedia of Anecdotes of Literature and the Fine Arts, 1856. Here's the illustration from Lindley: The inscription reads: THIS TRE LOVNG TIME WITNES BEARE OF TOW LOVRS THAT DID WALK HEA RE Thomas Browne's poem "The Lovers to Their Favourite Tree" appears in his Poems on Several Occasions, from 1800: Long the wintry tempests braving, Still this short inscription keep; Still preserve this rude engraving, On thy bark imprinted deep: This tree long time witness bear, Two true-lovers did walk here. By the softest ties united, Love has bound our souls in one; And by mutual promise plighted, Waits the nuptial rite alone-- Thou, a faithful witness bear, Of our plighted promise here. Tho' our sires would gladly sever Those firm ties they disallow, Yet they cannot part us ever -- We will keep our faithful vow, And in spite of threats severe, Still will meet each other here. While the dusky shade concealing, Veils the faultless fraud of love, We from sleepless pillows stealing, Nightly seek the silent grove; And escaped from eyes severe, Dare to meet each other here. Wealth and titles disregarding (Idols of the sordid mind), Calm content true love rewarding, In the bliss we wish to find.— Thou tree, long time witness bear, Two such Lovers did walk here. To our faithful love consenting (Love unchang'd by time or tide), Should our haughty sires relenting, Give the sanction yet deny'd; 'Midst the scenes to mem'ry dear, Still we oft will wander here. Then our ev'ry wish compleated, Crown'd by kinder fates at last, All beneath thy shadow seated, We will talk of seasons past; When, by night, in silent fear, We did meet each other here. On thy yielding bark, engraving Now in short our tender tale, Long, time's roughest tempest braving, Spread thy branches to the gale; And, for ages, witness bear, Two True-lovers did walk here. Browne writes, "There are likewise other letters, which seem to be the initial of the Lover's names, who appear to have frequented the solitary spot where the tree has grown, to vent the effusions of their mutual passion, and to enjoy the pleasure of each other's conversation sequestered and unobserved." The other writers don't mention this. Frances Cornford's triolet "To a Fat Lady Seen From the Train" appeared in her volume Poems in 1910: O why do you walk through the fields in gloves, Missing so much and so much? O fat white woman whom nobody loves, Why do you walk through the fields in gloves, When the grass is soft as the breast of doves And shivering-sweet to the touch? O why do you walk through the fields in gloves, Missing so much and so much? G.K. Chesterton's response, "The Fat Lady Answers," appeared in his Collected Poems of 1927: Why do you rush through the field in trains, Guessing so much and so much? Why do you flash through the flowery meads, Fat-head poet that nobody reads; And why do you know such a frightful lot About people in gloves and such? Many thanks to Doug Ross for the music in this episode. If you have any questions or comments you can reach us at [email protected]. Thanks for listening!

In 1864 Nevada mining merchant Reuel Gridley found a unique way to raise money for wounded Union soldiers: He repeatedly auctioned the same 50-pound sack of flour, raising $250,000 from sympathetic donors across the country. In this episode of the Futility Closet podcast we'll discover the origins of Gridley's floury odyssey. We'll also hear H.L. Mencken's translation of the Declaration of Independence into American English and try to figure out where tourism increases the price of electricity. Sources for our story on Reuel Gridley and the flour auction: Ralph Lea and Christi Kennedy, "Reuel Gridley and a Sack of Flour," Lodi [Calif.] News-Sentinel, Sept. 30, 2005. Mark Twain, Roughing It, 1872. Here's his monument, in the Stockton Rural Cemetery in California: Image: Wikimedia Commons The empty flour sack is in the collection of the Nevada Historical Society. "The Declaration of Independence in American," by H.L. Mencken, from The American Language, 1921: When things get so balled up that the people of a country have to cut loose from some other country, and go it on their own hook, without asking no permission from nobody, excepting maybe God Almighty, then they ought to let everybody know why they done it, so that everybody can see they are on the level, and not trying to put nothing over on nobody. All we got to say on this proposition is this: first, you and me is as good as anybody else, and maybe a damn sight better; second, nobody ain't got no right to take away none of our rights; third, every man has got a right to live, to come and go as he pleases, and to have a good time however he likes, so long as he don't interfere with nobody else. That any government that don't give a man these rights ain't worth a damn; also, people ought to choose the kind of goverment they want themselves, and nobody else ought to have no say in the matter. That whenever any goverment don't do this, then the people have got a right to can it and put in one that will take care of their interests. Of course, that don't mean having a revolution every day like them South American coons and yellow-bellies and Bolsheviki, or every time some job-holder does something he ain't got no business to do. It is better to stand a little graft, etc., than to have revolutions all the time, like them coons and Bolsheviki, and any man that wasn't a anarchist or one of them I. W. W.'s would say the same. But when things get so bad that a man ain't hardly got no rights at all no more, but you might almost call him a slave, then everybody ought to get together and throw the grafters out, and put in new ones who won't carry on so high and steal so much, and then watch them. This is the proposition the people of these Colonies is up against, and they have got tired of it, and won't stand it no more. The administration of the present King, George III, has been rotten from the start, and when anybody kicked about it he always tried to get away with it by strong-arm work. Here is some of the rough stuff he has pulled: He vetoed bills in the Legislature that everybody was in favor of, and hardly nobody was against. He wouldn't allow no law to be passed without it was first put up to him, and then he stuck it in his pocket and let on he forgot about it, and didn't pay no attention to no kicks. When people went to work and gone to him and asked him to put through a law about this or that, he give them their choice: either they had to shut down the Legislature and let him pass it all by him-self, or they couldn't have it at all. He made the Legislature meet at one-horse thank-towns out in the alfalfa belt, so that hardly nobody could get there and most of the leaders would stay home and let him go to work and do things as he pleased. He give the Legislature the air, and sent the members home every time they stood up to him and give him a call-down. When a Legislature was busted up he wouldn't allow no new one to be elected, so that there wasn't nobody left to run things, but anybody could walk in and do whatever they pleased. He tried to scare people outen moving into these States, and made it so hard for a wop or one of them poor kikes to get his papers that he would rather stay home and not try it, and then, when he come in, he wouldn't let him have no land, and so he either went home again or never come. He monkeyed with the courts, and didn't hire enough judges to do the work, and so a person had to wait so long for his case to come up that he got sick of waiting, and went home, and so never got what was coming to him. He got the judges under his thumb by turning them out when they done anything he didn't like, or holding up their salaries, so that they had to cough up or not get no money. He made a lot of new jobs, and give them to loafers that nobody knowed nothing about, and the poor people had to pay the bill, whether they wanted to or not. Without no war going on, he kept an army loafing around the country, no matter how much people kicked