Illustration by Arnie Bermudez
|
|
Arizona Daily Wildcat
Friday, November 7, 2003
Things you always never wanted to know
Medical treatment, during the 17th and 18th centuries, was aimed at ridding the sick of "vile humours" by vomiting, purging and bleeding. The treatment was often the immediate cause of death. Some prescriptions called for "letting" more blood than is now known to exist in the whole body.
Twenty-one people were killed by a wave of molasses in Boston, Mass., in 1919. Over 2 million gallons of melted sugar, weighing 13,500 tons, had been stored in a tank in the harbor. The tank ruptured, for reasons never fully determined, and the wave, cresting at 50 feet, swallowed eight buildings.
Two female pirates, the English Mary Read and the Irish Anne Bonny, joined forces in 1719 when they found themselves quite by chance disguised as men on the same sloop. Together with Captain John Rackham, they took command of the ship. When their vessel was captured, after many acts of piracy, the two women were among the only three pirates who fought it out on deck rather than surrender. When Rackham was hanged, Anne told him, "If you had fought like a man, you need not have been hanged like a dog." The women were committed to prison after pleading pregnancy. Mary Read died there of a fever; she would have been hanged after giving birth. Anne Bonny's fate is not certain.
Without a parachute, a Russian survived a 21,980-foot fall from a damaged plane. Lieutenant I. M. Chisov fell on the steep side of a snow-covered mountain and slid to the bottom, breaking his pelvis and damaging his spine.
Between 1882 and 1887, Hugh L. Daly played second base and shortstop and pitched for several major league baseball teams. As a pitcher, he won 74 games, including a no-hitter, and he registered a long-standing record of striking out 19 batters in a game. Not bad for a man with only one arm.
No one has explained the Minoan art depicting the bull acrobats of ancient Crete. If we can believe this art, an acrobat would face a charging bull, grasp its horns and do a somersault over its back to the ground. The problem is that the feat appears to be impossible. No daredevil has been reckless enough to attempt it, at least not in our time.
Something to say? Discuss this on WildChat
Or write a Letter to the Editor
|
