Fastfacts
Arizona Daily Wildcat
Monday, December 1, 2003
Things you always never wanted to know
In the late 19th century, doctors discovered a Mexican porter named Paul Rodrigues who had a bone more than 4 inches long protruding from the upper part of his forehead. The horn was divided into three principal shafts and had a circumference of about 14 inches. Rodrigues wore a special pointed cap to hide it. But that case was by no means unique. Sir W.J. Erasmus Wilson, a 19th century English dermatologist, recorded 90 cases of human horns ÷ 44 females and 46 males. Of these 90 cases, the majority of the horns were situated on the head. A few, however, grew from the face (several from the nose), thighs, back, foot and one from the penis.
The sensitivity of the human eye is so keen that on a clear, moonless night, a person standing on a mountain peak can see a match struck as far as 50 miles away. Much to their amazement, astronauts in orbit around Earth were able to see the wakes of ships.
A Harvard student on his way home to visit his parents fell between two railroad cars at a station in Jersey City, N. J., and was rescued by an actor on his way to visit a sister in Philadelphia. The student was Robert Lincoln, heading for 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. The actor was Edwin Booth, the brother of the man who a few weeks later would murder the student's father.
In July 1585, 108 Englishmen landed at Roanoke Island off the coast of North Carolina. Sponsored by Sir Walter Raleigh, the settlers built a fort and houses, planted crops and sought gold. Hurricanes and hostile American Indians forced them to return to England within a year. In 1587, another 118 colonists arrived, among them the parents of Virginia Dare, the first English baby born in the New World. The leader of the colony, John White, sailed back to England after a few weeks in order to get more provisions. When he returned to Roanoke in 1591, he found it deserted. The word "Croatoan" was carved on a tree, and no one to this day knows what happened to the settlers.