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Illustration by Arnie Bermudez
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Arizona Daily Wildcat
Wednesday, November 19, 2003
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Things you always never wanted to know
In 1970, an Arizona lawyer named Russel H. Tansie filed a $100,000 damage suit against God. The suit was filed on behalf of Mr. Tansie's secretary, Betty Penrose, who accused God of negligence in His power over the weather when He allowed a lightning bolt to strike her home. Ms. Penrose won the case ÷ when the defendant failed to appear in court. Whether or not she collected has not been recorded.
An average of 140 tornadoes occurs every year in the United States. But there were a record 90 in one day alone, in a region extending from Ohio to Georgia, in the spring of 1974.
A dwarf 18 inches high served as a captain of cavalry in the British army. His name was Jeffery Hudson and lived from 1619 to 1682. He made his first recorded appearance when he was served inside a pie at the table of the Duke of Buckingham. Later, when he was about 30 years old, he grew to more than twice his earlier adult height ÷ to 3'9".
Humans are susceptible to a disease aptly called the "laughing sickness." People stricken with this disease literally laugh themselves to death. The disease is known in only one place in the world, among the understandably somber Kuru tribe of New Guinea.
Toward the end of her life, the French actress Sarah Bernhardt had a wooden leg and often wore it on stage. The "Divine Sarah" slept in a coffin, owned her own railroad car and played Juliet when she was 70 years old.
At 23, George Custer was the youngest American officer ever to become a general in the United States Army.
William Evans, a giant in the retinue of Charles I of England who was reputed to have been over eight feet tall, carried a dwarf in his pocket whenever he came to court. The combination of giant and dwarf, it is recorded, amused the king.
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