THE INEFFECTIVE SCAREWASP?

One popular urban legend is that hanging a small brown paper bag will drive away wasps. The theory is that wasps are highly territorial and view the bag as an established competing wasp nest whose area they dare not enter.

One problem with this theory is that there are over 30,000 known species of wasps, all presumably with varying concepts of territory and nests. It may be unreasonable, for example, to figure that a yellow jacket, who lives underground, would be horrified by the fact that there appeared to be a brown nest from a totally different species hanging off of the eaves of a house.

Nonetheless, because of a plethora of paper wasps each summer in our neighborhood, I decided to try an experiment to see how bags worked against this ubiquitous insect with the very unpleasant rating of 3.0 on the Schmidt Sting Pain Index. Less than a week after putting up the sack, I noted a paper wasp diligently building its nest approximately two inches from the bag.

Does this conclusively establish that there is nothing to the theory? Not necessarily. As we noted, there are a lot of species of wasps. Maybe the bag would have repelled, for example, bald-faced hornets instead. Maybe the bag was the wrong size or shape. All I can say for sure is that if you are allergic to wasps, you should not throw away your epinephrine pen just because you put paper sacks around the outside of your house.

WHAT SEX IS YOUR BIMMER?

Most electronic devices which speak to you, such as Siri, have a female voice. This discrimination probably originated for several reasons, including the fact that most persons, according to studies, find the female voice more pleasing. In addition, people old enough to have dealt with telephone operators were used to a disembodied voice belonging to, in most cases, a woman. 

However, according to Dr. Clifford Nass (who wrote The Man Who Lied to His Laptop: What Machines Teach Us About Human Relationships), BMW had a rude awakening in the 1990s when it released its 5 Series Model with a female voice on the GPS system. Male German drivers were outraged at the prospect of taking directions from a girl. Besides being offended (or perhaps highly insecure in their masculinity), the drivers considered women to be less than knowledgeable and could not conceive that the directions would be reliable, even when informed that the car and the directions were constructed by males. As a result of the revolt, BMW recalled the cars to install a man's voice.

For more information on this example of Teutonic male chauvinism, please click here.

By IFCAR (Own work) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

THE BIENNIAL NAZI TRIBUTE

One of the most iconic traditions of the Olympic games is the torch relay carrying the fire from Olympia to the site of the competition to light the Olympic Flame. This bit of theater originated as a Nazi propaganda stunt for the 1936 games in Berlin.

Adolf Hitler originally was opposed to hosting the Olympics--he considered them a decadent invention of "Jews and Freemasons." However, he did love showmanship, and his myrmidon Joseph Goebbels, Minister of Propaganda, convinced him in 1934 of the golden opportunity the games would provide to demonstrate German superiority. Hitler and Goebbels were thus very receptive to the suggestion of Carl Diem, the secretary general of the organizing committee for the games,  that a 1500 mile (2400 kilometer) torch relay from Greece to Germany would be the cat's meow.

Parenthetically, although Diem was a Nazi, he lobbied to allow German Jews the opportunity to compete in the Olympics. His efforts in this regard were less than successful.

So, whenever you watch the dramatic sequences of an Olympic torchbearer bringing the fire to the games, just remember that you are being subjected to a Nazi-inspired ritual.

For further information on the origin of the torch relay, see this article in The Atlantic.

View image | gettyimages.com

THE UNREPENTANT SAFECRACKER

The Christ Church Burial Ground in Philadelphia is an old hoary cemetery, full of weathered marble tombstones, with a substantial number of them eroded to illegibility. Many of them are over two centuries old. The graveyard includes as its occupants several military heroes and five signers of the Declaration of Independence--Benjamin Franklin being one of them.

In the middle of this solemn aura of antiquity is the discordant note of a shiny modern granite headstone engraved "GERALD J. CONNELLY JR... SON OF ANNIE LAURIE WEBB OF VIRGINIA... SEAMAN... SOLDIER... SAFECRACKER... DEC. 5, 1927 -- AUG. 21, 1991". Also included on the stone are sigils representing each of the three occupations listed.

How did this modern person of possibly questionable virtue come to share eternity near some of the most iconic historical figures of America? 

Well, you should know, first of all, that although Connelly was an extremely competent safecracker, he plied his trade for good, not evil. He was a renowned locksmith who advised the government on security issues and opened up the safes of scalawags after they had been seized for evidence in criminal investigations. He also served in the Merchant Marine and was an infantryman in WWII and the Korean War. 

The second thing you should know is that Connelly served on the Christ Church board of directors and was able to research records contained therein dating back to 1695. He was thus able to discover that there was a two person plot still available in the cemetery, which he acquired for use by himself and his wife.

Third, you should know that Connelly had a sense of humor. He wore a coat and tie to the church meetings but included a Mickey Mouse label pin as part of his sartorial elegance. He requested that he be buried in a tuxedo and cowboy hat with a pack of Kent cigarettes while holding a Bible in his right hand. As a final departing gesture, he dictated what he wanted on his tombstone.

For more info about Connelley's grave situation, click here.

POST NO BILLS (OR CHARLIES OR SYLVIAS OR....)

The US Postal Service (formerly known as the US Post Office) did not accept packages for mailing until January 1, 1913. At the time there were few restrictions, and you could, for example, mail a rifle to somebody by writing the recipient's name and address on the stock and slapping on the appropriate postage stamps.

Creative parents quickly took advantage of this service by posting their children. If you wanted to send little Joey out of town over spring vacation, it was a lot cheaper to mail him than to buy him a train ticket. For example, six-year old May Pierstoff's parents in Idaho sent her by parcel post to her grandparents for the princely sum of 53 cents. When Mr. and Mrs. Jesse Beauge mailed their son in Ohio, they took the extra precaution of insuring him for $50.

As a practical matter, only small children or infants could be sent by this method, as there was a 50-pound (23 kilograms) weight limit for parcel post. 

Eventually, Postmaster Albert Burleson established regulations forbidding the mailing of humans, although the practice continued for about two years after his edict. 

For the benefit of you bleeding hearts out there, the children were not sealed up in boxes. Their parents would attach the appropriate amount of postage and the relevant address to the clothing of the child, and he or she would then be shepherded by postal employees with the more normal packages along the route.

For more information about the practice of mailing children, click here.

Photo from Smithsonian's National Postal Museum Blog at
http://postalmuseumblog.si.edu/2013/02/very-special-deliveries.html,
which is not affiliated with Henry's Daily Factoids

TYPECASTING

Why are capital letters called "upper case" and non-capital ones "lower case?" I always just presumed that it was because the capital letters were often taller and thus more "up" than their small brethren. Actually, however, the term arose in manual typesetting days, and the true explanation is elegant in its simplicity. Namely, printers (i.e. people who printed, not the little electronic paper-spewing boxes connected to computers which cost $75 while their ink refills cost twice as much) traditionally kept the capital type in the top of their storage cases while the small letter type would go into the lower.

THE TOWN WHERE YOU CANNOT DIE

In the town of Longyearbyen, with a population of approximately 2,600, you cannot paint your house without first getting the color approved by the local authorities. In a world where many people now live in granny states where governments impose their aesthetic standards on their subjects, this type of  requirement is by no means unique or, by itself, even all that noteworthy. However, Longyearbyen has some other peculiarities which can give one pause. It is illegal to die in Longyearbyen. Pregnant mothers do not give birth in Longyearbyen. There are no cats in Longyearbyen. Liquor, although not prohibited altogether, is highly rationed in Longyearbyen. And, it is illegal to venture out of Longyearbyen without carrying, or being accompanied by someone carrying, a high-power rifle chambered for a .308, .30-06, or similarly-sized cartridge. 

Longyearbyen is the seat of government and principle settlement in the archipelago of Svarlbard, which contains the northernmost towns in the world, unless you also count purely scientific stations. It is in the Arctic circle about halfway between the North Pole and the most northern part of mainland Norway. Although under Norwegian jurisdiction and administered by a Norwegian governor, other nations are allowed by treaty to maintain settlements there.

This unique geography explains some of the basis for the strange laws of Longyearbyen. Its graveyard has been closed to additional burials for the past seventy years, after it was discovered that bodies don't decompose normally in the permafrost and that their pathogens live on in stasis--including those of victims from the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic. Consequently, residents with terminal illnesses are required to go to the mainland to die, and those persons who expire unexpectedly are buried off of the islands. Although there are a few physicians in the town, there are no specialized facilities to deal with unusual childbirth issues, and mothers retreat to mainland Norway instead to have their babies. Cats are banned because of the risk they pose to the local bird population. Liquor is rationed because of the increased risk of alcoholism posed by living in an isolated frigid area which sees no sunlight six months of a year. Rifles are required as necessary protection against polar bears, although it is illegal to shoot one except in self-defense. And the house colors? The authorities want the buildings to be cheerful and consistent with the natural colors of the sky, moss, flowers, and sun. 

For a more in-depth look at life in Svarlbard, watch the TV series Fortitude, a drama set in a fictitious town based on the real Longyearbyen. 

By Bjørn Christian Tørrissen
[CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)
 or GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html)], via Wikimedia Commons

THE THUNDER HOUSE

As part of his studies on the phenomenon of electricity, Benjamin Franklin invented the lightning rod in 1749. The lightning rod is, of course, a staff of highly conductive material (such as copper) which sits on the top of a building and which is connected to the ground through a wire. A lightning bolt will normally strike the highest object in the area, which would be the rod, and the current will harmlessly go into the ground through the wire as the path of least resistance. Without the presence of the rod, the bolt can pass directly through the building materials themselves and cause fire, explosion, and electrocution.

Franklin needed a simple way of demonstrating this principle, and he, as a result, developed the "thunder house." The thunder house was a simple model of a building with loosely connected walls or roof panels as well as a lightning rod on the top and a small amount of gunpowder concealed in the interior. Franklin would first run a metal chain from the rod to the ground (a metal panel on which the house was mounted) and then touch an electrical charge to the rod, Nothing would appear to happen, as the current would pass uneventfully through the chain into the ground. Franklin would then remove the chain and repeat the experiment. This time, the charge would pass through the house itself, set off the gunpowder, and "destroy" the dwelling, much to the awe and delight of the onlookers.

When I was a youth, most homes had grounded television antennas mounted on the roof which served very nicely as lightning rods. Now that external antennas are for the most part extinct, what protects a modern house from the effects of a lightning strike? As far as I can tell, nothing except luck.

To see Ben Franklin demonstrate his thunder house, click here.

THE PITFALLS OF BIRDWATCHING

By Dominic Sherony [CC BY-SA 2.0
 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)],
 via Wikimedia Commons

The prothonotary warbler is a perky little yellow bird found nesting in cavities in trees over water in swampy areas in the southeastern USA. Actually, "found" is the incorrect term, as the birds, being reclusive, small, and skittish, usually are not found at all. A sighting of one of these gorgeous creatures is a red-letter date in the life of any ornithologist and evokes the same type of excitement experienced by a golfer who shoots a hole-in-one. The prothonotary (named after clerks in the Roman Catholic Church who sported a bright yellow robe) warbler is not only eye candy to birdwatchers; it also played a pivotal role in modern US history.

Alger Hiss was an aristocratic official in the US State Department as well as the United Nations. In 1948, an unctuous and self-proclaimed Red journalist named Whittaker Chambers accused Hiss of being a Commie and of conspiring with Chambers to further the cause of Marxism. These accusations made their way to the House Un-American Activities Committee, who interrogated Hiss concerning their veracity. Hiss had pretty well convinced the Committee members that he was not acquainted with Chambers and that Chambers's claims that he knew Hiss and that he had even briefly lived with him were poppycock. One freshly-elected junior congressman, however, a Californian named Richard M. Nixon, was still unsure about Hiss's version and convinced the HUAC to appoint a sub-committee, headed by Nixon, to determine whether it was Hiss or Chambers who was lying. 

This did not appear to be an easy task, as many of the details about Chambers's purported relationship with Hiss could have been fabricated based upon public information which Chambers, as an experienced journalist, could have unearthed. However, on August 7, 1948, while testifying before an executive session of the Committee unattended by Hiss, Chambers was asked if Hiss had any hobbies. Chambers replied, "Yes, he did. They both [Alger and his wife, Priscilla] had the same hobby--amateur ornithologists, bird observers. They used to get up early in the morning and go to Glen Echo, out the canal, to observe birds. I recall once they saw, to their great excitement, a prothonotary warbler."  

The Committee laid its trap. On August 16, 1948, Hiss testified again. Nixon innocently asked him, "What hobby, if any, do you have, Mr. Hiss?" Hiss indicated that he favored tennis and amateur ornithology. Congressman John McDowell, an amateur ornithologist himself, interjected, "Did you ever see a prothonotary warbler?" Hiss, believing that he was now engaged in an innocent and informal conversation with a fellow birdman, eagerly responded with "I have--right here on the Potomac. Do you know that place?"

Believing that there was no reasonable way that Chambers would have known that Hiss had seen a prothonotary warbler unless Chambers in fact had had a close relationship with Hiss, the Committee reversed its initial impression of Hiss's innocence and maintained a full-court press against him. Hiss sued Chambers  for libel when Chambers repeated his accusations outside of the Committee room. Chambers responded by saying that Hiss was not merely a Communist but was also a Communist spy. Eventually, when all the smoke had cleared, after it was apparent that both men had uttered various lies along the way, and after a dramatic search of a pumpkin on Chambers's farm yielded films of State Department documents purportedly originally obtained by Hiss, Hiss was charged with and convicted of perjury (the statute of limitations had run on the possible espionage charges) and was sentenced to five years in the federal pen on January 25, 1950.

Hiss was released in 1954. He was a stationery salesman for awhile but, in 1975, he was allowed to rejoin the Massachusetts bar and was authorized to practice law. He died in 1996 at the age of 92. Chambers continued to work as a journalist until his death in 1961 at the age of 60. Ronald Reagan posthumously awarded him the American Medal of Freedom in 1984, and Chambers's pumpkin farm was designated a historical landmark in 1988.

The downfall of Hess placed Nixon squarely in the public eye where he won election to the Senate in 1950, achieved the Vice-Presidency in 1952 and was ultimately elected President in 1968--only to resign as a result of scandal in 1974. 

The Hiss revelations also fueled the anti-Communist campaign of Senator Joseph McCarthy and the Red scare in America generally.

As for the particular prothonotary warbler who ultimately knocked Hiss off of his perch? He remains a recluse and his ultimate fate is still shrouded in mystery.

ALGER HISS

WHY WE LIKE SYMMETRY

Many, if not most, humans find symmetry to be aesthetically pleasing. In fact, during the 19th century, it was fashionable to have the left side of a room appear to be a mirror image the right side, even to the point of having the same pictures hung on each side. The dining room in George Washington's home in Mt. Vernon is a classic example of this practice. In a similar vein, cars, planes, boats, and trains are usually designed to be bilaterally symmetrical, at least on the outside, with the left side a reverse image of the right. Those few examples which are not, such as the German Blohm & Voss BV 141 aircraft (pictured below), simply look bizarre to most people (you were warned that the Third Reich produced some weird airplanes).

Bundesarchiv, Bild 146-1980-117-01 / Stöcker / CC-BY-SA 3.0 
[CC BY-SA 3.0 de (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/de/deed.en)],
via Wikimedia Commons 

There is an evolutionary reason why the brain seeks symmetry. The bodies of most animals (over 99% of them, in fact) are bilaterally symmetrical. If you are a prey animal, you want your brain wired to alert to bilateral symmetry in order to spot predators as soon as possible. Conversely, if you are a predator, you are similarly motivated to zoom in on a juicy bilaterally symmetrical meal. 

In short, beauty is not in the eye of the beholder--it is instead in his or her DNA.

A THORNY DILEMNA

Visitors to almost any English-speaking historical touristy type of town will encounter establishments named "Ye Olde..." such as "Ye Olde Candle Shoppe" or "Ye Olde Rat Trappe Emporium." Most folks, including myself (until recently), thought that "ye" was just an archaic way of saying "your" and would translate such a sign into something like "Your Old Candle Shop."

Actually, however, when used in this context, "ye" means "the." The Old English alphabet centuries ago had a letter called a "thorn" and which was pronounced "th." The thorn was difficult to write without confusing it with "p," and people both in handwriting and in printing substituted "Y" for the thorn instead. Icelanders, however, did not give up so easily and still have the thorn letter in their alphabet.

"Ye" did also mean "you" a long time ago (although it is still employed in a few English-speaking regions) when used for more than one person or for royalty. However, it was originally spelled as "ge" and its derivation as a pronoun was free from thorns.

Embed from Getty Images

THE NOTORIOUS LAND OF LINCOLN/LONE STAR STATE VEHICLE REGISTRATION TAG COLLABORATION

Unlike most states, Illinois does not use its prisoners to make license plates. It did so from 1933 to 1935, but it then decided that it was better to award the manufacturing of the plates through competitive bidding in order to insure higher quality plates and to avoid taking jobs away from private industry.

Ironically for those Illinois plates issued from 1979 through 2002, the producer turned out to be the Texas State Prison facility located in Huntsville. The Texas prison plates made for Illinois were of very high quality and were stronger, less flimsy, and more durable than those plates issued by Illinois previously (although, admittedly, the increase in quality was no doubt due, at least in part, to the fact that Illinois converted to multi-year plates in 1979).

Considering the current financial condition of the state, Illinois may wish to revisit the concept of making its own plates in prison rather than paying outsiders to do it. However, considering the number of totally incompetent Illinois politicians serving time within those facilities, maybe it would not be such a good idea after all.

THE UGLIEST WARSHIP EVER BUILT

Boats are long and skinny for a good reason--the streamlined shape facilitates them getting from one place to another. This basic design premise was lost on Russian marine architect A. A. Popov, who decided that the perfect shape for his new design of an ironclad vessel was a circle about a hundred feet in diameter--in essence, a huge, shallow dish with guns mounted on it. It has been described as "the ugliest warship ever built."

Popov's rationale was that such a configuration would provide an extremely stable platform for heavy guns and would further allow the boat to function in shallow waters.

The Russian Navy bought his idea, and as a result, in 1874, they constructed the first "Popoffka" (named after its designer) class of warship--the Novgorod (a photo of a model of this vessel can be found below). It was launched into the Black Sea, where it was intended to dominate the Turkish Navy. For awhile, it did, as the Turks had no ironclads in the area. Later, the Novgorod, and a larger Popoffka, the Rear Admiral Popov, were incorporated into the Danube flotilla during the Russo-Turkish War of 1877-1878, where their huge design flaws become apparent. They had to be towed from one area to the next, as their propellers were inadequate for the task of moving the boat in a straight line. The slightest choppiness in the water would cause profound pitching and seriously seasick seamen. The steering was very sluggish and ineffective, and it took 45 minutes to turn the ship around. Initially, when the vessel fired its guns, the centrifugal force would spin it around in a circle; however, later modifications ameliorated this particular problem.

A disgruntled Russian Navy decommissioned the ships in 1903.  They were used as storage facilities for awhile until they were scrapped in 1911 or 1912.

By Netmate (Own work) [CC BY-SA 3.0
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)],
 via Wikimedia Commons

THE PARTIALLY PROGRESSIVE FORD

Despite some serious character flaws (not the least of them being anti-Semitic and an admirer of Hitler), Henry Ford was not a total scum-sucking pig.  He affirmatively pursued hiring the disabled at a time when it was not usual to do so and did a rigorous analysis of the various positions within his company to ascertain which jobs could be done by those who were partially disabled or, according to his autobiography*, were "even women!" He also affirmatively hired African-American workers at a time when many other corporations would not.

None of the positions awarded to the disabled were charitable; he expected the employee to do the same amount and quality of work as a completely whole individual. In many cases, he found that the disabled worker actually outperformed non-disabled persons in the same position. If a worker was sincerely trying to do his job but simply could not hack it, he would be given opportunities to transfer to different positions until he was able to succeed.

Ford provided special facilities and equipment when needed to assist his disabled workers to perform, including constructing a separate building for those employees who had contagious tuberculosis.

World War I provided Ford with a large pool of disabled job applicants. By 1919, over 20% of his employees were disabled.

Ford also paid his workers $5 a day in 1914, which was double what they could have received anywhere else. Critics will assert, however, that Ford used the carrot-and-stick approach to keep his employees from unionizing or leaving to work in union shops with the high wages being the carrot and, in later decades, organized thug violence the stick.  

*a particularly appropriate term for the story of a car manufacturer

KARATE CHROMATIC CONSIDERATIONS

The particular color in a karate belt used to designate rank was originally dictated by economic concessions. A participant who did not want to buy a new belt each time he or she achieved a new rank could dye the old belt with a darker hue which obliterated the previous color. For example, the first level is white, which can then be dyed to the second level of yellow, which can then be dyed to the third level of orange, etc, until the ultimate level is reached of the coveted black belt.

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WHY DON'T HUMANS HAVE ANAL GLANDS?

View image | gettyimages.com

Most pet owners are well aware that their dogs and cats have a pair of anal glands situated, appropriately, considering the name, around the anus. These secrete a clear albeit smelly fluid that serves as the animal's individual calling card. A canine or feline sniffing another's rear end is merely trying to get better acquainted. Occasionally, the glands can get impacted or infected, in which case the pet owner at that time often wishes he or she had opted for a goldfish instead.

We've also learned about the delightful product from beaver anal glands. However, why don't humans also have anal glands? Actually, they do, although they are not as prominently displayed as in dogs and cats. Like the human appendix, they are primarily vestigial and serve little function. As with dog and cat anal glands, they can get impacted or infected. They do secrete fluid at times of stress, but what this actually accomplishes is unclear.

For more information on the fascinating topic of canine anal glands, click here. 

JUMPING THE SHARK

Caretakers at the Seattle Aquarium wanted to gussy up the shark tank by adding an octopus but were concerned that it would quickly become fish food.  They finally took the plunge and did so, on the theory that the octopus's great ability to camouflage itself and hide in tight spaces would eliminate unsavory acts of predation.

They were tragically wrong. Four to five foot long sharks began disappearing overnight, and the octopus got bigger. 

For demonstrative evidence of one of the shark assassinations, click here.

Embed from Getty Images

THE AIR DAM ANOMALY

1955 T-Bird

A hood scoop (also known as an "air dam") is provided on a high performance car (and sometimes on a not so high performance car) for usually one or more of the following reasons:

1. It forces additional cooler (and hence, denser) air into the carburetor which then supports the burning of additional fuel with a resulting increase in power.

2. It looks studly.

3. On a few models of autos, it allows cooler air to bathe the engine and reduce the chances of overheating.

On the 1955-57 Thunderbirds, the hood scoop was installed for a more prosaic purpose. Quite simply, the body stylists designed the hood so low that there was no room for the air cleaner on the top of the engine. The addition of a hood scoop provided the necessary extra few inches for the air cleaner and also, as a side benefit, achieved Reason No. 2 listed above.

Ford provided these early Thunderbird owners with a metal plate to block off the hood scoop in cold weather so that the engine could achieve ideal operating temperatures as soon as possible.

Tests performed in a wind tunnel in the 1970s revealed that the Thunderbird hood scoop actually interferes with the proper distribution of air around the engine and into the carburetor and that the car ironically always runs slightly better with the scoop blocked off.

THE HELL WITH KANSAS

Many travelers speeding through the sleepy unincorporated hamlet of Stull, Kansas--located between Topeka and Lawrence--do not realize that it is more than just a wide spot in the road--it actually is rumored to be one of the seven places on earth which is a direct gateway to Hell.

Stull consists of a United Methodist Church, a bait house, a few homes, a cemetery, and not much else. No longer present is the Evangelical Emmanuel Church which had been constructed in 1867 by the German settlers in the area. That church, located on the north side of the graveyard, was abandoned in 1922 and eventually demolished in 2002 by unknown individuals or forces and without the permission of the landowners. The cemetery (pictured below) during daylight appears non-spooky and exceedingly prosaic.

Depending on the version of the story, a stairway to Hell is underneath a seal next to the site of the former church or under one of the graves in the cemetery. The seal opens only on Halloween and the vernal equinox, and the devil emerges during those times to roam the area. Some believers state that anyone who descends down the stairs never returns; others claim that the journey to the nether regions may take several days but that the person eventually re-emerges--however, without any recollection of where he was or of the passage of time.

The roof of the diabolical church caved in 1996, several years before the demolition of the building, yet rain purportedly would never fall into the structure. Pope John Paul II allegedly ordered his plane to detour around eastern Kansas during a visit to the USA in the 1990s in order to avoid flying over unholy ground. It is said that a witch was burned in Stull and buried in the graveyard (there is a tombstone with the name "Wittich" on it). There is supposed to be the ghost of a child who haunts the area born of the union of the devil and a witch. There are rumors that a large tree in the cemetery was used to hang witches.

The actual inhabitants of Stull have no trouble believing that visitors to the cemetery may in fact lose their memory of events and the passage of time while they are there; however, the Stull citizens attribute this phenomenon to the fact that many of the interlopers imbibe heavily of alcoholic beverages or pharmaceutical compounds during their visits. The people who live in Stull have grown weary of thrill-seekers, college students, and reporters invading the cemetery in the middle of the night in the hopes of seeking something supernatural and leaving behind used condoms and empty liquor bottles. The cynics among the residents point out that nobody seemed to have known that Stull was possessed or haunted until an article appeared in November of 1974 in the University of Kansas newspaper describing many well-established legends of its long supernatural history--legends which apparently no one had ever heard prior to the publication of the article.

Nonetheless, Stull is not totally without honest notoriety. In the early 1900s, a farmer accidentally killed his son by burning a field without realizing that the boy was in it, and, in a separate incident, a missing man was found hanging from a tree. 

There are numerous websites describing the infamy of Stull. An example of one can be found here.

By Ryanmetcalf (Ryanmetcalf)
[GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html),
CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/) or CC BY 2.5 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.5)], via Wikimedia Commons

  

THE LONGEST FILIBUSTER

The longest recorded speech in history was 24 hours and 18 minutes. It was rendered by U.S. Senator Strom Thurmond (D)* in 1957 as a filibuster against the 1957 Civil Rights Act.

The 1957 Civil Rights Act was designed to eliminate discrimination against African-Americans with respect to being able to vote in federal elections and to serve on federal juries. It was supported overwhelmingly by Republicans in the House and Senate but narrowly squeaked by the Democrats--many of whom were consummate racists. However, like many things coming out of Congress, it proved to be more symbolic than substantive.  

Lyndon Johnson, the Democratic Senate Majority Leader and a consummate politician, won praise both from civil rights leaders in helping the bill pass and from segregationists for getting it so watered-down that it was largely ineffective. In doing so, he helped prevent the Democratic Party from tearing itself apart.

*Although a Democrat in 1957, Thurmond converted to Republicanism in 1964.

STROM THURMOND

MORE FUN THAN A BARREL OF WELL, YOU KNOW...

In the ubiquitous toy Barrel of Monkeys, which features a plastic barrel containing a bunch of plastic monkeys, any single pair of the monkeys can be joined together in over 80 different combinations.  As a result, biochemists for nearly fifty years have used the monkeys to help them visualize how the molecules in complex proteins and viruses could be constructed and linked together. 

One of the original creators of the Barrel of Monkeys, Leonard Marks, was inspired to make the toy when he was standing around in a store aimlessly playing with replacement links for snow chains for tires.

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THE LAST TIME US SAILORS HEARD "AWAY ALL BOARDERS!"

On June 4, 1944, sailors under U.S. Navy Captain David V. Gallery, Commander of Task Force No. 22.3, boarded and captured the German submarine U-505 off of the coast of West Africa. A seaman from the sub was the only casualty on either side. 

Captain Gallery was very pleased because he had worked very hard to devise a feasible plan where a Nazi submarine could be obtained intact with all of its code books. It was a far more difficult and risky procedure to orchestrate the capture of a sub than to simply sink it with dozens of depth charges. The Americans had to damage the U-boat only to the extent that its crew would abandon it after setting scuttling charges with the Americans then swarming onto the vessel and hopefully removing the charges before it blew up. As events transpired, the American boarding crew discovered that the Germans fortunately had neglected to set scuttling charges and merely had opened valves instead to flood the boat--valves which the Americans simply closed.

Unfortunately, no one had told Captain Gallery that the allies had already broken the Kriegsmarine codes. As a result, his capture of the vessel needlessly increased the risk that the Germans would completely redo their code books from scratch and set the Allied cryptoanalysts back five years. 

Fortunately, however, this did not happen, and probably the only reason that Captain Gallery received just a blistering dressing-down instead of a full court-martial from Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Ernest King was the need to maintain secrecy.

The German crew members were interred  at Camp Ruston in Louisiana with the same concerns about secrecy and without access to the Red Cross, contrary to the Geneva Convention of 1929. Their relatives and the German government thought that they were all dead until 1947, when they were repatriated. During their internment, the prisoners launched hydrogen-filled balloons marked with "U-505 lives!" in a futile attempt to reveal their plight.

Nothing succeeds like success. After the war, when it was clear that the Germans had not suspected a thing and the capture of the sub was not a fiasco after all, Task Force No. 22.3 received a Presidential Unit Citation and Gallery was awarded the Distinguished Service Medal. Lieutenant Albert David received the Medal of Honor as the leader of the boarding party of the U-boat, which, during its seizure, was foundering and which the Americans thought at the time was about to blow up from scuttling charges. The decorations were partial compensation to the American sailors who were chagrined when, in the interest of security,  they were ordered to turn in all of the Lugers, binoculars, and other souvenirs they managed to snag while securing the boat.

Being taken by the enemy had not been the first misfortune to befall U-505. On a prior voyage of the sub, on October 24, 1943, its previous Captain blew his brains out in the middle of a depth charge attack while standing in front of the periscope. This act demoralized the crew. Nonetheless, the surviving crew members did manage to get the U-boat back home.

The U.S. Navy donated U-505 to the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago in 1954. At the time, the interior of the sub had been thoroughly gutted of all parts and machinery. The Museum sent requests to all of the German manufacturers who had made the components originally in World War II, and they all graciously, at no cost, provided replacements. 

Go to Chicago and you can tour the sub yourself.

U-505 SHORTLY AFTER CAPTURE