King vs. monkey
Alexander, the unlucky puppet king of Greece, was killed by a monkey bite and medical incompetence in 1920.
Category: Places
Fatal television
An episode of the 1970s television series The Goodies killed a man. He died laughing.
The Church of One Tree
The Church of One Tree in Santa Rosa, California, was built in 1873 out of a single giant redwood tree.
Invisible art
The French artist Yves Klein sold empty space – an invisible “zone of immaterial pictorial sensibility.” Buyers paid in gold, half of which Klein would throw into the Seine River.
Arecibo reply
In 1974 the Arecibo message was broadcast into space. In 2001 hoaxers made a reply “from aliens” in a field next to another observatory.
The houses have eyes
The houses in the Transylvanian city Sibiu are watching you.
The universal catalogue
The Universal Decimal Classification aims to label all human knowledge, and it’s even more thorough than the Dewey Decimal system.
Religion at the poles
According to Jewish law, Shabbat begins at sundown. During Ramadan, Muslims fast from sunrise to sunset. But what do you do if the sun does not set?
Death by immortality potion
Poisoned potions of immortality caused the death of up to seven Chinese emperors – the last less than three centuries ago.
Highest unclimbed mountain
It is illegal to climb Gangkhar Puensum in Bhutan, so no-one has ever reached the top. It is the highest unclimbed mountain in the world.
For President: Convict No. 9653
Eugene Debs received more than 900,000 votes in the 1920 American presidential election – while in prison for sedition.
Rachmaninoff’s All by Myself
The Russian composer Sergei Rachmaninoff has a songwriter credit for the power ballad “All by Myself.”
Book of lonely vowels
Christian Bök’s 2001 anthology Eunoia contains five chapters that each use just one of the five vowels.
Human alarm clock
How did people wake up in the morning before alarm clocks? They paid to get knocked up.
Mary and the lamb
Sarah Josepha Hale published “Mary had a Little Lamb” in 1830. Forty-six years later, Mary Tyler claimed to be the original Mary.
Long mile
The Scandinavian mile is 10 kilometres long. It used to be longer still.