NON-SUICIDAL LEMMINGS

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Lemmings do not commit mass suicide by stampeding over a cliff into the sea. This legend acquired legs in 1958, when Disney released a film called White Wilderness. The director imported some lemmings which had been captured by Inuit children, drove them off of a cliff (the lemmings, that is), and used trick photography to vastly increase their numbers in the movie. According to the film, the lemmings were not intentionally committing suicide, but merely died from exhaustion and drowning in a futile attempt to swim to the opposite shore of the ocean.

However, as revealed by Snopes, these much-maligned mammals do not hurl themselves by droves into the water for any reason, although a few may fall in accidentally.

Lemmings do have large fluctuations in numbers, but so do many wild animals. Lemmings handle the problem of overpopulation through the more traditional means of starvation, epidemics, being eaten by predators (including other lemmings), and migration. 

THE ELEVATED BABY CAGE

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In 1922, Emma Read invented the baby cage. This handy device simplified the lives of urban apartment dwellers by providing them a way to stash their infants in pens hanging in the fresh air outside the window while freeing up valuable floor space. This was at a time when outside air was considered a panacea for all sorts of diseases and an alternative to miasma.

A parent could also put a child in one of these cages for "time out" punishment, where it literally would be a suspended sentence.

Eleanor Roosevelt acquired one of these pens in 1923 to imprison her daughter, Anna. Mrs. Roosevelt was gobsmacked when she was threatened with child abuse charges if she were to actually employ the enclosure.

The cage was popular in some English cities but lost its appeal when the air became filled first with German bombs and then later by killer smog.

The cage was just what every mother needed--a device to teach her toddler to climb out of a window.

THE NOTORIOUS HANS ULRICH-RUDEL

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Hans Ulrich-Rudel was a German pilot in World War II who flew 2,530 combat missions at a time when most airmen failed to survive 25. He piloted primarily Stukas, which had powerful cannons but which were slow and unwieldy. He nonetheless destroyed 11 aircraft, 519 tanks, 4 armored trains, 70 landing craft, 150 artillery pieces, several bridges, over 1,000 trucks, 2 cruisers, 1 destroyer, and, with the assistance of another Stuka pilot, the Soviet battleship Marat. He was shot down 32 times by anti-aircraft fire, often behind enemy lines.  In the middle of the war, one of his legs was shot off, but he continued to fly in combat.

The only German more decorated than Rudel was Herman Goering; however, Rudel was the only person ever to receive the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross with gold oak leaves, swords, and diamonds. Ironically, for nearly the first two years of the war, he was in a non-combat role because his superiors thought him to be a poor pilot.

After the war, Rudel went to Argentina and played tennis and climbed mountains while hobnobbing with the Perons and Joseph Mengele. He returned to Germany in 1953 and became a successful businessman until his death in 1982.

Purportedly, Rudel provided technical advice on the development of the American A-10 aircraft.

I wish I could tell you that Rudel was not a rabid Nazi and that he eventually had regrets about serving Hitler's agenda. Unfortunately, there does not appear to be any evidence available which would support such assertions.

For further information about Hans Ulrich-Rudel, check out his biography at the Badass of the Week website. This site, which is one of my favorites, features extremely colorful accounts of extremely colorful people (or sometimes animals), both good and evil, doing extremely dangerous things without regard to personal safety.  Be prepared, however, for a little profanity.

DIREWOLVES AS PETS

The extremely (and rightfully so) popular Game of Thrones on HBO features feuding kingdoms in a dark and bloody medieval fantasy world. The sigil of House Stark (who are the good guys in the series--although there aren't that many of them left by now) is that of a direwolf. In the show, a direwolf is essentially a gray wolf on steroids and is renowned for its strength, intelligence, and ferocity. Each of the five Stark children was given a direwolf puppy who grew up to protect loyally its respective master and who could be relied upon to rip out the throat of an attacker—a service which has to be rendered on a frequent basis.

Early in the series, the direwolf named Lady, who was the pet of Sansa Stark, was put to death. However, the actress portraying Sansa (Sophie Turner) grew so fond of Lady during the brief time that Lady was on set that she adopted Lady in real life.

Lady (whose real name is Zunni) and her associates in the show are not actually direwolves. They are Northern Inuit dogs who look like wolves. However, Northern Inuits cannot be relied upon to rip out throats whenever necessary. They are one of the most loveable and gentle breeds around, and it is unlikely that one would ever harm a human. That does not mean, however, that they cannot be incredibly stubborn and try to be the alpha dog over their owners, and they need masters who can devote a lot of time to them along with opportunities for a lot of daily exercise. Ironically, because it is possible that there is some wolf blood in their recent lineage, some local governments have sought to ban ownership of them.

Direwolves are not just fantasy creatures. Real dire wolves (generally spelled as two separate words when not used in a Game of Thrones context) actually existed. Most became extinct about 10,000 years ago, although some paleontologists believe that a population may have existed in Arkansas as late as 2000 BC.

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THE DARK SIDE OF DR. LUKE BLACKBURN

Dr. Luke Pryor Blackburn was a Kentucky physician renowned for his compassionate and caring treatment of yellow fever victims during a Bermuda epidemic in 1864 as well as during earlier outbreaks within the United States. Several of his nurses and fellow physicians called him a saint.

No one questioned why Blackburn, during the Bermuda outbreak, would carefully gather up the bed linens and clothes of the yellow fever victims. If they had, they possibly would have realized that he was packing them up in trunks and shipping them to cities in the northern United States, where he expected that the contents of the trunks would be distributed and would cause extensive yellow fever epidemics in the population centers of the Union. He also prepared a valise containing contaminated fine linen shirts which he attempted to have delivered to Abraham Lincoln.

His scheme was discovered around the time of Lincoln’s assassination, and Blackburn fled to Canada, where he was charged with, but acquitted of, violating Canada’s Neutrality Act.

Although he realized that more serious charges could await him in the USA, he nonetheless returned to Kentucky in 1868. He so endeared himself by again saving the sick that he ran as a Democrat for the governorship in 1879 and won. He used his office to make numerous prison reforms, which did not sit well with his political party. 

The 1864 yellow fever terrorist plot turned out to be a bust. Blackburn did not realize (nor did anyone else until 1900) that the disease was spread by mosquitoes and could not be transmitted via contact with contaminated bedding or clothing.

HOW WE ALMOST LOST LT. UHURA

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In 1966, Nichelle Nichols was the first African-American woman to be given a major part in a TV series which did not involve the portrayal of a subservient or highly racially stereotyped character. She played Lt. Uhura, which was a significant role in Star Trek. However, NBC was afraid of angering its southern affiliates if it were to officially sign her on as a regular, so she was hired as a "day worker," even though she appeared in almost every episode. Ironically, this system paid her more than any of the regular actors, who were kept uninformed about this fact. Her high wages were not enough to compensate her for NBC studio officials constantly trying to minimize her part, uttering racial comments in her presence, and withholding her fan mail, and she planned on quitting after the first season. However, she was persuaded not to do so by Dr. Martin Luther King, who pleaded with her not to abdicate her position as the leading positive black role model on television.

THE "RONSON" TANK

The US-made Sherman tank, deployed by the various Allied nations in World War II, was nicknamed by its users as the "Ronson" after the Ronson cigarette lighter's advertising slogan of "a RONSON lights every time." It was also known by the British as "The Tommycooker" and by the Poles as "The Burning Grave." These terms of endearment were references to the fact that the Shermans' thinner armor, anemic cannons, poorly protected ammo storage, and gasoline (not diesel) engines made their crews particularly vulnerable to being incinerated in their machines in action against their German counterparts. Part of the problem was that the original version of the Sherman was not designed to fight other tanks but instead was intended only for infantry support and to provide the soldiers with a base of fire. Unfortunately, no one told the Germans that they should not engage these Shermans with their own stout and well-designed Panzers. 

Nonetheless, their numerical superiority and the immense courage of their crews, as well as ongoing improvements and modifications to the original design, eventually enabled the Shermans to prevail in the European theater. They also did well in the Pacific, as the Japanese tanks were even flimsier.

Later in the war, there were actual Ronson Shermans, which were outfitted with flamethrowers made by the Ronson company.

The above photo showing a Sherman at the moment of firing its main gun was taken by my father, who served in the 103rd Infantry Division. He wrote on the back the succinct caption "Tank in Action." He most likely snapped the picture in southern Germany in early 1945.

ÅLE'S WELL

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In August of 2014, Tomas Kiellman of the Swedish fishing village of Brantevick invited some friends over for a crayfish party.  His guests requested to see Åle, who was a European eel who had lived in the well on Kiellman's property since prior to the purchase of the real estate by Kiellman's father in 1962. Lamentably, Kiellman discovered the corpse of Åle at the bottom of the well, and it smelt pretty bad. 

European eels rarely survive past the age of seven, so it is fairly impressive that Åle was at least 52 upon his demise.

However, what is even more impressive is that Åle was actually at least 155 years old when he died. There is ample evidence that Åle was tossed into the well in 1859 by Samuel Nillson, in accordance with the custom in the 19th century for rural Swedes to keep an eel in their drinking water to eat bugs. There is further documentation that Åle was passed down through the several generations of property owners.

In addition, in 1959, the Swedish press reported Åle's 100th birthday. Throughout the years, Åle has often been the subject of various news stories and even a book.

Scientists have opined, based upon the fact that another eel lived to age 85 in an aquarium and that Åle's cold well was probably an ideal locale to practice longevity, that Åle could well have been around when James Buchanan was President. They are examining Åle's remains at the Freshwater Institute in Stockholm to seek further confirmation of his age. Their findings were expected to be available by August 25, 2014, but I have been unable to ascertain whether or not the report was ever released. Something may be a little fishy.

There is another eel in the well on the Kiellman property. However, it is only 110 years old. As all second-born children are aware, it is the first-born who hogs all of the glory and gets all of the attention. This poor guy has been around for over a century and still doesn't even have a name.

FERRET LEGGING

A sport more likely to emphasize the agony of defeat rather than the thrill of victory is ferret-legging, which originated in England but has now also taken hold in parts of Virginia and Manitoba. In ferret-legging, a male contestant dons trousers without underwear and drops in two ferrets (although some more liberal non-traditional competitions now allow just one animal). The rules require that the ferrets must be able to travel from one leg to the other inside the britches but that the waist and cuffs of the trousers must be sealed so that the ferrets cannot escape. The ferrets cannot be sedated and must have their full set of teeth and claws. The winner of the contest is the person who goes the longest without releasing the ferrets.

The natural reaction of a confined ferret is to bite tenaciously and claw viciously anything (and I mean anything--remember, there is no underwear) it encounters, so the duration of the contests was originally fairly short and was generally measured in seconds and not minutes. However, the current record now stands at five hours and thirty minutes--still short of the magic time of six hours, which is the equivalent of the four-minute mile in the sport of ferret-legging. One world champion, Reg Mellor, wore white trousers so that all of the bleeding wounds were clearly visible. According to Outside Magazine, he described ferrets as "things that live only to kill, that'll eat your eyes out to get at your brain."

Ferret-legging was parodied in the Cape Feare episode of The Simpsons, except that the contestants used squirrels instead. Parenthetically, for reasons too many to enumerate here, Cape Feare was and is clearly the best episode of The Simpsons ever.

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BOVINE COMPASSES

Scientists studying satellite images from all over the world were gobsmacked to note that, in the vast majority of instances, grazing or resting cattle line up their bodies so that they are facing either magnetic north or south. The exception to this rule occurs on pastures beneath or near high-voltage power lines which disrupt the normal electromagnetic fields of the earth.

Click here for an abstract of the study as reported in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (which also contains a PDF of the full report).

RAT BOMBS

In 1941, one of the weapons developed by the British Special Operations Executive (SOE) was the dreaded rat bomb. The rat bomb consisted of the skin of a Rattus norvegicus stuffed with high explosives and a heat-sensitive detonator so that the resulting package looked like a stiff dead rat. The rat bombs were to be thrown into German coal piles for ships and locomotives. The fireman, in the course of his duties, would shovel the rat into the firebox and the rest would be history.

Unfortunately, the Germans discovered a shipment of unexploded rat bombs early on and became extremely diligent about not incinerating rats, so the project had little direct success. On the other hand, many thousands of man-hours were expended by the Germans looking for remarkedly rigid rodent remains.

Some of the rats were to be loaded with time-delay fuses instead of heat sensitive detonators.

You may be wondering why anyone would even shovel a rat into a firebox. You are sweltering in an overheated confined space with a stinking dead rodent. You cannot leave your post. You are going to be there for several more boring hours. There is a white-hot cleansing inferno right in front of you. What would YOU do?

WHY BARNS ARE RED

Until the mid 1850s, farmers almost always made their own paint, as commercial products were not readily available. Typically, they would mix milk or lime with a base of linseed oil. They often then added powdered rust (which also acted as a fungicide for the wood) or blood from slaughtered animals, as either of these ingredients was readily available. The presence of the blood or rust (or both) produced a paint with a dark red hue, which is why barns were painted that color for centuries until it simply became a matter of tradition.

DOES YOUR CAT DRINK WATER NEAR HIS FOOD?

Many, if not most, domestic cats will not drink from a water bowl next to the food dish. Purportedly, this is instinctual behavior inherited from their ancestors in the wild who learned not to partake of water which could have been tainted by a nearby rotting dead animal upon which the cat had earlier fed. Consequently, if you have one of those combo cat dishes which has the food right next to the water, your feline companion may not be getting as much liquid as he should.

I was unaware of this fact until recently, but it is consistent with the behavior of our orange cat, Murray. For the first eighteen years of his existence, he had a water bowl right by his food dish downstairs where he spent the night and as well as a separate water bowl upstairs. He almost never used the downstairs bowl, and he would scurry upstairs each morning to take a long drink before starting his day. I had just thought that he was weird, but when I learned of the food connection, I moved his downstairs water bowl ten feet away from his victuals. He thereafter guzzled from it enthusiastically.

After a very long and contented life, Murray passed on a few days ago. We miss him.

THE PECULIAR NAGANT REVOLVER

Most revolvers, Hollywood and novelists notwithstanding, cannot be effectively equipped with a silencer at the muzzle, as part of the sound and fury of the explosion is expelled to each side of the handgun where there is a gap between the cylinder and the barrel, as illustrated by the following photo:

The exception is the Belgian-designed Russian-made seven-shot M1895 Nagant revolver, which has a unique mechanism which shoves the cartridge forward from the cylinder into the barrel itself. This configuration prevents any gases or flames from escaping except at the muzzle where they belong and where they can be suppressed by a silencer. It also increases the velocity of the bullet, as none of the energy from the blast is being dissipated out of the sides of the weapon. 

The Nagant was made from 1895 through 1945 and saw intensive use in World Wars I and II. It is renowned for being extremely rugged, extremely reliable, and extremely slow and awkward to reload. It also features one of the hardest triggers to pull of any sidearm made. Due to both its suitability for a silencer and the practices of the Stalin regime in general, probably more Soviet subjects were killed by the revolver than were enemy soldiers. Nagants, along with an American-made Colt M1911 and a German-made "broomhandle" Mauser, were the handguns used on the Russian royal family in 1918.

The Nagant revolver depicted below is one of many fascinating items being rotated through a three-year series of exhibits on World War II at the Eisenhower Presidential Library, Museum and Boyhood Home in Abilene, Kansas. The museum also has as part of its standard exhibits quite a few unusual and interesting small arms from that conflict.

HEADLESS MIKE

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It was a glorious day in Fruita, Colorado on September 10, 1945. World War II was over. The nation was giddy and optimistic. Clara Olsen was going to prepare her famous fried chicken to celebrate. She sent her husband, Lloyd, on a routine mission to the barnyard to invite a young and succulent Wyandotte rooster to dinner. Armed with his trusty decapitating axe, Lloyd grabbed a chicken and cut off his head. As expected, the fowl ran around like a chicken with his head cut off. And then ran some more. And then attempted to preen himself. And then pecked for food (but not very efficiently, as he had no bill). And then engaged in all of the fowlish behavior chickens normally do when they have not been decapitated.  His rooster's crow, however, sounded like a gargle.

Somewhat bemused by this turn of events, the Olsens did not transfer the chicken, now named Mike, to the skillet. Lloyd began to water Mike with an eyedropper and feed him by dropping corn directly into his exposed esophagus. Mike thrived and continued to act like a regular chicken. He eventually gained weight from the two and a half pounds of the heady days of his youth to nearly eight.  

Under the belief that Mike's condition was rather unusual, the Olsens hired a manager, and they all took Mike on the road to venues throughout the country and charged a quarter  for people to view him. Mike was bringing in $4,500 a month (almost $60,000 in 2014 dollars, which ain't chicken feed). The Olsens even obtained a $10,000 insurance policy on his life.

Lamentably, at a motel in Arizona, a piece of corn got lodged in Mike's windpipe. Lloyd attempted to pullet out in time but could not do so, as he did not have the proper tools with him. The chicken who had an amazing eighteen months of life without a head died an a-maize-ing breathtaking death. He is still revered by the people in the town of Fruita, who hold an annual "Mike the Headless Chicken Festival" the third week in May.

A photo spread of Mike in action even appeared in LIFE magazine, which you can view here.

Oh, and Mike's head?  It ended up in the belly of a barnyard cat.  The Olsens and their manager took the head of another hapless chicken with them on the road as a prop to display in place of the original.