1960s TECHNOLOGY IN A STAR TREK UNIVERSE

Although Star Trek was supposed to portray the incredible advances which would be available 300+ years in the future, the first pilot episode (which is not redundant, by the way, as there was a second pilot episode) was remarkably non-prescient in several respects. It featured, for example:

1. A bulky 23" cathode-ray tube cabinet-style television set in the captain’s quarters.

2. Crewmen with thick plastic-framed eyeglasses.

3. Bound paper books in bookshelves.

4. Various orders, reports, and other paper documents affixed to clipboards.

5. Husky and cumbersome communication devices (i.e. cell phones) the size of thick paperback books which looked like they were assembled from 1964 Radio Shack kits.

6. A captain who apologizes for snapping at a female junior officer because he "still has trouble accepting the concept of having a woman on the bridge."

Treckies (but no one else) will also marvel at the following items in this initial show. Spock had a pasty green complexion; he tittered with glee upon finding a pretty plant on a planet; and he expressed angst when members of the crew disappeared. The sets were remarkably primitive, and in some scenes, you can even see the nails in the paper-mache rock formations. Finally, and most amazingly, the captain made no effort at any point to threaten to blow up his own ship using the auto-destruct sequence.

The original filmstrip for this episode, which was made in 1965 and called The Cage, was cut up to be incorporated, in part, as flashbacks in a later episode during the regular series called The Menagerie. As a result, it was never broadcast or released in its original format until 1988, after a film archivist found a copy of it in stored in a photo lab.

CAPTAIN CHRISTOPHER PIKE FROM THE MENAGERIE
Copyright Paramount Pictures 1966

WOMEN IN REFRIGERATORS SYNDROME

View image | gettyimages.com

The "Women in Refrigerators" syndrome was first noted by writer Gail Simone in 1999. It refers to the fact that it is far more likely for a female heroine (I know, "female heroine" is a little redundant) in a comic book to be killed, maimed, or lose her superpowers (if any) than a male character. Usually, the victim is the girlfriend or coworker of a male superhero and suffers the violence at the hands of an archvillain who just happens to be the superhero's nemesis. 

Unlike male superheroes, whose deaths, injuries, or loss of powers are often only temporary, the women are rarely restored to their original condition.

A partial list of the relevant females and their fates can be found here.  

The term was originally coined in reference to Alexandra DeWitt, the girlfriend of the Green Lantern. She was murdered and stuffed into a refrigerator in 1994.

STAMP PHOTO COURTESY OF WWW.USSTAMPGALLERY.COM.  THE IMAGE  IS THE PROPERTY OF THE UNITED STATES POSTAL SERVICE®. © UNITED STATES POSTAL SERVICE. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

THE LOUSIEST MOVIE EVER MADE?

View image | gettyimages.com

Many movie critics name Edward Wood's Plan 9 from Outer Space, starring Bela Lugosi, Tor Johnson, and Vampira as the worst picture ever made, notwithstanding the fact that I can think of some Jack Nicholson examples which should by all rights be tied for this honor. Plan 9, turned loose on the world in 1959, was the last movie starring Lugosi, even though Wood did not even conceive of the picture until after Lugosi's death in 1956. Wood used some stock footage he had earlier shot of Lugosi in a vampire cape and then employed Wood's wife's chiropractor as a stand-in for Lugosi for the rest of the film. Because the chiropractor bore little resemblance to Lugosi, the chiropractor was filmed in all of his sequences holding his cape in front of his face.

The Lugosi dubbing was only a very small problem with the feature, which was also a quintessential example of poor acting, paper-plate-on-a-string flying saucer special effects, contrived dialogue, rampant continuity errors, illogical plot lines, boom mikes captured in shots, and just plain weird stuff, such as a commercial airliner whose cockpit appears devoid of any instruments.

It clearly is one of those movies worth seeing because it is so bad.

Incidentally, it is quite possible that the 2008 release of The Machine Girl may have been a valiant attempt to seize the worst-picture-ever-made title away from Plan 9. Watch the trailer at your own risk. It is gory. You have been warned. I do have to admit, however, that its "drill bra" concept is rather intriguing.

MONOPOLY--REALLY GET OUT OF JAIL FREE

During World War II, the British licensee of Parker Brothers Monopoly game put out a special edition for use by Allied POWs in Germany. Prisoners knew to look for a small red dot on the "Free Parking" space, which would identify the game as one which would have silk maps, a compass, a steel file, and genuine foreign currency concealed within the board.  The British Secret Service devised a fake charity to distribute these games, as it did not want the Red Cross to be involved and ultimately blacklisted by the Germans in the event one of the boards was discovered. Unfortunately for World War II paraphernalia collectors, the manufacturer destroyed all remaining copies of the game after the war was over.

Embed from Getty Images

DON'T SELL YOUR OSCAR

View image | gettyimages.com

All Oscar statuettes issued since 1950 do not really belong to the recipient. If a recipient or the heirs of a recipient wish to sell such an Oscar, they are obligated by contract to offer the Academy of Performing Arts and Sciences the right of first refusal and to transfer it to the Academy in exchange for the payment of one dollar.

Pre-1950 Oscars have no strings attached against the recipients and have great value on the open market or at Beverly Hills garage sales--often in the six figures. The one issued for Best Picture in 1940 (Gone With the Wind) was purchased by Michael Jackson in 1999 for $1.5 million.

GEORGE WASHINGTON'S SALARY

George Washington's Presidential salary was $25,000 a year, which would be about $700,000 in today's money. He led a lavish lifestyle, including spending on liquor about 7% of his net earnings (which was the same as his gross salary, as back then there were no income taxes or Social Security withholding). He also pimped his ride by buying leopard-skin robes for his horses.

HONGEO

View image | gettyimages.com

One of the most highly-prized food delicacies on the Korean peninsula is "hongeo." Hongeo is specially prepared skate (a fish similar to a ray). The preparation consists of letting the fish rot in a refrigerator for two months or so and then eating it raw. Prior to the invention of refrigerators, the fish was stuffed in a pile of hay during its period of fermentation.

Cartilaginous fish (i.e. rays, sharks, and skates) do not excrete uric acid through a bladder like most critters. Instead, it seeps out through their skins. Hongeo, therefore, is essentially fish which has been pickled in its own concentrated urine. Diners who have eaten this stuff in a restaurant report that the stench of ammonia is burning and overwhelming, follows them home on their clothes, and infiltrates their houses. The ammonia level is so dense that it can cause intoxication. Perhaps the only substance which is more vile is hongeo juice, which is the liquid which seeps out of the fish when it is decomposing. It is collected for drinking by truly devoted conno-sewers. 

Hongeo is not readily available in grocery stores in the USA. Please do not accuse me of xenophobia if I assert that this is not necessarily a bad thing.

THE SAGA OF THE APOLLO 13 CAPSULE

View image | gettyimages.com

Oldsters among us as well as connoisseurs of Tom Hanks movies will recall the saga of the Apollo 13 lunar mission of 1970, which was crippled by an oxygen tank explosion 200,000 miles from earth (which is a bad place in general to have explosions on your vessel). Through incredible ingenuity, resourcefulness, and courage on both the part of Mission Control and the Apollo 13 astronauts, the crew finally was able to safely return to earth four days later after orbiting around, but not landing on, the moon. The only injury suffered was that of astronaut Fred Haise, Jr., who developed a dehydration-provoked urinary tract infection resulting from the necessity to severely ration drinking water after the explosion.

You would think that this mission would have been a source of pride for NASA, considering the heroic rescue of the astronauts against overwhelming odds. However, NASA was embarrassed by the fact there was an explosion in the first place and a failure to complete the mission's objective to land on the moon. NASA therefore refused to allow the display of the Apollo 13 capsule within the United States. As a result, the main part of the capsule itself (named "Odyssey") resided for many years in the Musée de l'Air et de l'Espace in Paris, while some 80,000 sub-components were sent all over the world for research or for display. Finally, however, NASA relented. The Cosmosphere (Hutchinson, Kansas's leading aerospace museum--and one definitely worth visiting) acquired the Odyssey through the Smithsonian Institute and, after a 12-year long quest for the 80,000 sub-components and a subsequent restoration, now has it on display.

Astronaut John Swigert was a last-minute addition to the crew after one of the other astronauts had to be scrubbed for medical reasons. Swigert, in his rush to get ready, failed to file his tax returns prior to embarking on the mission. When the capsule splashed down on April 17, the crew was transported to nearby American Samoa, where Swigert was handed a 1040 form with instructions to complete same.

For the official NASA description of the events which occurred on the Apollo 13 mission, please click here.

THE SCANDAL OF CAPTAIN JACK

View image | gettyimages.com

Those of you who are either codgers or fans of "TV Land" are familiar with Leave it to Beaver. Depending on your viewpoint, Leave it to Beaver, first appearing in 1957, was either a wonderful heartwarming window into a unparalleled era of peace and prosperity in America or instead simplistic soporific suburban white-bread pap which totally ignored important social issues and reality.

In any event, it would be grossly unfair to say that the program was not cutting-edge in addressing in at least one of society's sacred cows. Specifically, the first regular episode filmed ("Captain Jack") was initially banned by the censors and was only grudgingly later released by them. It seems that it featured a brief shot of the young brothers Wally and Beaver hiding a baby alligator in a toilet tank at a time when potties were considered far too risque to be displayed on television.

Actually, not only were toilets totally taboo at the time, it was forbidden even to show a bathroom. Although the censors in this instance eventually bent this previously rigid policy, they did insist that only a toilet tank could be displayed--not the bowl itself.  

Once this cultural barrier was breached, it did not take TV long to sink into its current miasma of bad taste where anything and everything prurient goes and where NBC almost broadcast a Fear Factor episode showing contestants drinking mugfuls of two different types of bodily fluids from a donkey (including one fluid which was golden in color and another which could be obtained only from a male version of the animal). The release of the donkey event in the U.S. market was cancelled at the last minute by Comcast, NBC's parent company, after a description of the upcoming broadcast leaked out and controversy ensued as a result.

WHEN THE GENERALS FREED THEIR SLAVES

Confederate General Robert E. Lee freed all of his family's slaves in 1862 upon the death of his father-in-law. Lee observed that, "There are few, I believe, in this enlightened age, who will not acknowledge that slavery as an institution is a moral and political evil."

Union General Ulysses S. Grant manumitted in 1859 a slave that he owned. However, the slaves belonging to his wife, a Missouri resident, did not receive their liberty until 1865, when Missouri legally abolished slavery in that state. Mrs. Grant did not have to comply with the provisions of the Emancipation Proclamation and free her slaves in 1863, as the Proclamation applied only to those states officially in rebellion at that time--which did not include Missouri.

#78--MING--THE LORD OF THE RINGS

View image | gettyimages.com

The eldest documented living individual animal in the world was a 507-year old ocean quahog clam dredged up from the waters of northern Iceland in 2006. The clam was named "Ming" for the Ming Dynasty, which was in existence when the mollusk was born in 1499.

Zoologists calculated the age based on the number of annual rings on the shell which, in the case of clams, is a very reliable indicator. Unfortunately and ironically, in Ming's case, the scientists shellfishly froze him* to death before they counted his rings and discovered his hoary age. It is quite possible that Ming could have lasted a good deal longer if he had been left unmolested. Of course, considering the quantity of quahogs which are harvested by fishermen each year who do not bother to count their rings, there may well have been even older individuals caught whose advanced years were never suspected.

Some colony animals like coral or sponges may live much longer than a half of a millennium, and there is a weird jellyfish which achieves a type of immortality by cycling between an adult and polyp phase over and over again. However, for single individual creatures which start out small, grow to adulthood, and then eventually die, Ming at the moment has the record for longevity of all the animals on the earth.

If you wish to read more about Ming as well as see an actual photo of him (the picture above is just your ordinary run-of-the mill generic quahog), please click on the ScienceNordic webpage.

*It is hard to tell the sex of clams, and sometimes they even change gender during the course of their lives. Thus, the use of the masculine pronoun for Ming is somewhat arbitrary.

THE JOY OF GUNCOTTON

View image | gettyimages.com

Nitrocellulose essentially consists of cotton exposed to nitric acid and sulfuric acid. It was discovered around 1845 by Christian Friedrich Schönbein when he used a cotton apron to wipe up an acid spill. His curiosity became piqued when the apron spontaneously disappeared in a ball of flame after drying out. Fortunately, he no one was wearing it at the time.

Nitrocellulose, a high explosive, is also called "guncotton," as it has been a significant ingredient of many formulas for smokeless gunpowders and other stuff which goes boom since the 19th century. It is fairly inert when wet but extremely unstable and unsafe when dry. 

It is still used in the manufacture of guitar picks and  paint for guitars. Until the EPA stepped in, it was also a component of lacquer paints used on automobiles.

X-rays, movie films, and photo negatives were for several decades made from plasticized nitrocellulose (also called "nitrate" film). As anyone who watched the 2009 movie Inglourious Basterds or the Simpsons parody thereof knows, nitrate film is extremely inflammable and will continue burning intensely even under water. After several hospital and movie theater disasters, safer alternatives were introduced for X-rays in the 1930s and for movie, negative, and slide film in the late 1940s. If you look at a photo negative from about 1950 or later, it will probably have "SAFETY FILM' printed on it, which denotes that it is not nitrate film and is thus unlikely to burn down your house. The government now has extreme safety protocols, including asbestos projection booths and special film projectors containing holes in which to insert fire extinguisher spray, imposed on anybody who will actually be showing movies on nitrate stock.  If you would like to see film archivist Geoffrey Rayle perform a nitrate burn, please click here.

Even if it does not catch fire, nitrate film will decompose unless stored under very controlled conditions. Many early movies are no longer available as a result.

Photo courtesy of  Library of Congress

For a while, nitrocellulose was used in the manufacture of artificially ivory for billiard balls. However, this practice died out after players made complaints about being distracted by their balls exploding during the course of a game.

View image | gettyimages.com

TSUTOMU YAMAGUCHI--"THIS REALLY SUCKS"

View image | gettyimages.com

Tsutomu Yamaguchi had a bad week in August of 1945 when he went on a business trip to Hiroshima and was severely burned by the first atomic bomb. He made his way back to his home in Nagasaki in time to endure yet another A-bomb blast. In both cases, he was within two miles of ground zero but still survived.

Yamaguchi, for understandable reasons, became an advocate for nuclear disarmament. He died from cancer, probably as a result of his exposure to radiation, in 2010 at age 93.

You can read more about Mr. Yamaguchi at the "Today I Found Out" website.

NEBRASKA--WHAT WERE YOU THINKING?

A look at a map of the USA will reveal that the northeast portion of Colorado cuts a rectangular chunk out of southwestern Nebraska. Originally, Congress intended that this quadrilateral parcel be incorporated as part of Nebraska, not Colorado. The resulting shape for Colorado would have been similar to Utah--not the basic rectangular shape Colorado has today--and Nebraska would have been configured much like Kansas. However, the Nebraska representatives successfully resisted the inclusion of this area as part of their future state, as it was full of rich gold-bearing ore. The representatives did not want the presence of mining camps with their collateral confluence of con artists, saloon keepers, gamblers, and whores to sully Nebraska's fair reputation.

Finally, in 1867, Nebraska achieved a high enough population to gain admission to the Union. The bulk of this growth was attributable to the Union Pacific running the Transcontinental Railroad line through the middle of the state with numerous towns springing up along the line to service the railroad construction as it advanced westward. Many of the initial inhabitants of these towns were con artists, saloon keepers, gamblers, and whores.

The building of the Transcontinental Railroad is, of course, the inspiration for the excellent, albeit gritty, AMC TV series Hell on Wheels.

TOXOPLASMOSIS--HOW TO BRAINWASH RODENTS

View image | gettyimages.com

The protozoa which causes toxoplasmosis is excreted by a cat in its poop. A rat, because it is nibbling constantly on anything it can find, will ingest the cat feces. The protozoa will encyst itself in the tissues of the rat. A cat will eat the rat and start the whole process all over again.

Normally, rats do not like being eaten by cats and thus freeze in the presence of a cat in order to avoid detection. They also eschew areas containing the smell of cat urine (which is why having incontinent cats is an effective way to keep your house rodent-free). However, rats who have been infected by toxoplasmosis scamper around in the presence of cats, are affirmatively attracted to cat urine, and are thus far more likely to be spotted and eaten by a feline. Zoologists believe that the toxoplasmosis parasites rewire the rat’s brain so that these weird scampering and urine-seeking activities give the rodent sexual stimulation. In other words, the protozoa drives the rat to suicide, but the rat dies happy, the protozoa gets to reproduce, and the cat gets a yummy rat to eat. Everyone wins.

Well, not everyone, if people become involved. As revealed in The Atlantic, there is evidence that the parasite increases the risk of suicide, mental illness, and even car crashes if it is introduced into a human host. These symptoms are, of course, in addition to the devastating havoc toxoplasmosis can wreak if the host is pregnant.

LINCOLN'S DUEL

On September 22, 1842, Abraham Lincoln rowed out from Alton, Illinois to “Bloody Island” in the Mississippi River in order to fight a duel with Illinois State Auditor James Shields. Bloody Island was often the site of such activities for Illinois residents, as it was part of Missouri (where dueling was legal) and not Illinois (where dueling was not). Shields challenged Lincoln to the duel because Lincoln had written (under the false name of “Rebecca”) a letter to the newspaper condemning both Shields’s official policies and personal demeanor. 

Lincoln, as the challengee, had the right to choose the weapons and terms of the duel. Lincoln eschewed pistols because he thought that there would be a good chance that Shields would kill him with such an instrument. Instead, Lincoln chose cavalry broadswords. He also required that the combatants be separated by a wide board with the further admonition that if one of the duelers stepped upon the board, he would “forfeit his life.” Lincoln, being substantially taller than Shields, thought that he would have a great advantage both in wielding a huge sword and in being able to reach over the board much further than his opponent.

Lincoln hoped that the unfair conditions would cause Shields to call off the duel. However, although Shields was a vain popinjay (I know, “vain popinjay” is redundant), he was not a coward and had in fact exhibited considerable valor during the war with Mexico. Shields showed up on Bloody Island with every intention of fighting.

History might have been quite different had he actually done so. However, a mutual friend also rowed out to the island and talked the parties out of the combat. Twenty years later, Lincoln signed a commission appointing Shields as a brigadier general in the Union Army.

Oh—what were Shields’s policies denounced by Lincoln in his letter? Lincoln had asserted that Shields and the rest of the Democrats in the state government had driven Illinois into fiscal ruin and that they were also welshing on paying the state’s lawful debts.* 

For further information on Lincoln's duel, please see the Civil War Trust's website.

*"Those who cannot remember the past are doomed to repeat it."--George Santayana

THE DIALECT OF COWS

Cows have local dialects. Cows of one herd will low in a different fashion than cows of another herd, even if the species are identical. The reasons are the same as with people--one speaks with the same accent as his parents and other folks with whom he is raised.  

And yes, I know that strictly speaking, "cow" refers only to a mature female bovine. I am obviously using the term here in the common informal sense of describing anything which goes "moo." At least I am not portraying bulls with udders like Paramount Pictures did in Barnyard.

Embed from Getty Images

DID SLAVES REALLY BUILD THE PYRAMIDS?

View image | gettyimages.com

It has been presumed for centuries both by historians and cartoonists that the pyramids of Giza were constructed by slaves.  However, evidence discovered in 2010 suggests an alternative theory. Archaeologists uncovered nine tombs in the vicinity of the pyramids containing a dozen skeletons which were buried in a position of respect according to the Egyptian religion and which were provided with vessels of food and water for the afterlife. The remains and other evidence indicate that the individuals were well nourished in life with beef and mutton, received good medical care consistent with the time, yet underwent sustained periods of hard labor. The tombs did not contain the lavish displays of wealth usually associated with royalty.

The archaeologists now theorize that the tomb builders were lower class Egyptians who were skilled artisans who were paid for their work and who were respected for their craft. Mere slaves would have been recycled into crocodile food upon their demise.

Of course, we are talking about twelve skeletons. It is estimated that it took 10,000 laborers thirty years to complete a single pyramid. To assert that no slaves whatsoever were involved in any part of the construction would be perhaps a little bit premature.

OUR FRIEND THE GILA MONSTER

Gila monsters, despite their unsavory reputation unfairly perpetuated by film classics such as The Treasure of the Sierra Madre and The Giant Gila Monster,* are actually quite beneficial to humanity. Sure, they can be over two feet long, are venomous, and bite tenaciously. However, their saliva (which contains a cobra-quality neurotoxin) is the source for the drug exenatide, which helps Type 2 diabetes patients control their blood sugar without the weight gain characterized by most other diabetes drugs.  Their venom is also composed of polypeptides which show great potential for treating lung cancer and Alzheimer's.

Besides, with their bright colors, corpulent tails, and beaded epidermis, they are just so darn cute!

*Please visit the website of californiaherps.com for a more complete list of Gila monsters in movies and the Turner Classic Movies website to view the relevant portion (starting at about 1:25 in the clip) of The Treasure of the Sierra Madre.

By Josh Olander (Josh Olander)
 [CC BY 4.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0)],
 via Wikimedia Commons

THE BAYONET HOE

A well-used 1943 U. Fork & Hoe bayonet cut from sixteen inches down to ten.  One wonders of the tales it could tell were it able to speak. 

A quintessential example of beating swords into plowshares was promulgated in 1943 by the Union Fork and Hoe Company of Columbus, Ohio. 

From 1905 through 1942, the U.S. War Department required bayonets with a 16-inch blade for its primary battle rifles. However, due to the inconvenience of carrying the longer blades in aircraft and tanks, as well as the fact that  modern warfare no longer required, at least on a major scale, the need to have a bayonet long enough to go through the chest cavity of an enemy horse, the War Department specified a new length of only 10 inches. 

Companies who had been making the 16-inch bayonets, such as U. Fork and Hoe, were commissioned to shorten the blades on their existing stock of 16-inch bayonets, as well as the bayonets already in the government inventory, to 10 inches. In a synergistic flash of inspiration which combined patriotic marketing with recycling, U. Fork and Hoe converted the cut-off bayonet tips into blades for both individual hoes as well as larger farm implements.

For further information on variations of American WWII bayonets, including a copy of an ad for the U. Fork and Hoe bayonet hoe, please click here.

Many collectors of these World War II bayonets have learned to their chagrin that they must be very careful in their enunciation when uttering "U. Fork and Hoe" in the presence of their wives or girlfriends.

THE FOWL BEHAVIOR OF HARRY POTTER FANS

When the Harry Potter books were being released, numerous fans in the United Kingdom obtained pet owls. Now that the series has been over for awhile, many of these same fans in Britain have grown bored with their charges. As a result, a large number of pet owls have been "escaping" out of open windows.

British officials do give a hoot and are concerned that the sudden influx of large quantities of predatory birds can have detrimental effects on local ecosystems. The officials have pledged to enforce the laws against illegal owl-releasing, which include up to six months imprisonment and up to a $7,000 fine.

Embed from Getty Images

LORNE GREENE'S MASTECTOMY BY REPTILE

View image | gettyimages.com

The rumor persists that Lorne Greene (who played Ben Cartwright on Bonanza) had a nipple bitten off by an alligator when Greene was filming one of the nature shows he hosted (either Last of the Wild or Lorne Greene's New Wilderness). Greene always refused to confirm whether or not this event actually happened, and he took the secret with him to the grave (quite literally, as an examination of his body would most likely resolve this controversial issue).

GAULT DISCS

At the start of the American Civil War, citizens on both sides of the conflict quickly lost confidence in paper money and started hoarding coins. In the North, coins were generally worth 20% more than the equivalent federal currency; in the South, the discrepancy was far greater with respect to Confederate notes. This situation, coupled with the fact that there were no federal bills smaller than $5 and the fact that most transactions were for less than that amount (remember, the average salary was about $12 a week, and a northern Army private earned $13 a month), threatened to grind the economy to a halt, since there were no coins in circulation to complete basic simple transactions.

To help remedy this, people in the North started using postage stamps for money. However, it was far more problematic to carry wads of gummed paper stamps in a sweaty pocket than coins. In response, John Gault invented a coin-shaped brass disc with a mica window on it which would hold a stamp and protect it from the abuses of circulation. Gault also sold advertising on the back of the disc at the rate of two cents per disc.

Gault's invention was so highly successful that it resulted in a postage stamp shortage. Eventually, the government abandoned the fiction that most of its postage stamps were being issued to be used on letters and surprisingly arrived at the very practical solution of printing durable currency with pictures of postage stamps on it. These bills were known, appropriately enough, as "postage currency" and came in denominations of 5, 10, 25, and 50 cents.

When things settled down after the end of the war, people regained confidence in paper money, coins trickled back into circulation*, and most individuals with Gault discs in their dresser drawers tore them apart to use the stamps contained therein to mail letters. Consequently, very few examples now still exist, and they command a hefty premium on the collector's market.

*Coins were also still supplemented by "fractional currency," which was regular paper money, not related to postage, in denominations less than a dollar. Fractional currency replaced postage currency and was issued until 1876.

THE SORDID TRUTH ABOUT KRYPTONITE

It is axiomatic among nerds that the least heroic of the comic superheroes is Superman. In that he is virtually indestructible, is capable of flying through outer space, and has unlimited strength, Superman's apprehension of any but the most innovative of villains does not really require a great deal of courage or effort on his part. The introduction to the mythos of kryptonite, a substance which can render Superman helpless, aids in making his conquests a little less boringly one-sided and introduces the possibility of personal risk to him into the story lines.

However, the origins of kryptonite are far more prosaic. Bud Collyer portrayed Superman on the radio program of that name in the 1940s. His voice was extremely versatile, and he could switch with ease from a booming bass for the caped hero to a wispy high squeak for Clark Kent. In either role, however, his voice remained unique and quite recognizable. As the programs were recorded all year long, Collyer was doomed never to go on a vacation or work on other projects, as no one could take his place. Kryptonite was thus introduced to create a series of shows where Superman was reduced to a weakened, whispering husk--a husk whose voice could be provided by an actor other than Collyer, who would then achieve his freedom for a couple of weeks.

Embed from Getty Images

DUELING WITH ENDOPARASITES

View image | gettyimages.com

One of the most venerated tales about an intellectual using his brains to triumph over a blowhard bully concerns the aborted duel between Rudolf Virchow and Otto Bismarck. 

Rudolf Virchow  was a leader in medicine and pathology in 19th Century Germany. He was also a public health activist, social reformer, politician, and anthropologist. Otto Bismarck was the Minister President of Prussia  at the time. In 1865, he challenged Virchow to a duel after Virchow had publicly criticized Bismarck's military budget. Virchow, as the challengee, got to choose the weapons. Virchow obtained two identical-looking raw sausages--one normal and one filled with deadly trichinosis worms--and offered Bismarck his choice to pick one to eat while Virchow would eat the other. Bismarck wussed out of the duel.

At least, that has been the story for over a hundred years. Unfortunately, the Skulls in the Stars blog has a pretty convincing argument that the sausage portion of the duel was fabricated in 1893 by a journal devoted to homeopathic medicine, and it has been accepted as the truth ever since. What apparently did happen was that Virchow (very wisely) apologized to Bismarck and was actually the one who evaded the challenge.

Truth is not always stranger than fiction, nor is it necessarily more entertaining.

View image | gettyimages.com