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Illustration by Mike Padilla
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Arizona Daily Wildcat
Tuesday, March 1, 2005
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Things you always never wanted to know
Charles Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection owes much to his grandfather, Dr. Erasmus Darwin, who was one of England's outstanding physicians and the author of a poem called "Zoonomia," which was written both as a medical textbook on the subject of disease and an explanation of life. Erasmus Darwin's theories on the subject of man's origin were widely translated in the early 19th century.
Albert Einstein's last words will never be known. He spoke them in German and the attending nurse did not understand German.
In 1913, Teddy Roosevelt sued Iron Age magazine for libel after it accused him of public drunkenness. He demanded and won a fine of 6 cents from the magazine.
Freud never learned to read a railway timetable. He almost always had to be accompanied on a journey.
Louis Pasteur, whose work on wine, vinegar and beer led to the development of pasteurization, had an obsessive fear of dirt and infection. He refused to shake hands, and he carefully wiped plates and glasses before dining.
At the height of his power, the Roman gladiator Spartacus, who led a slave revolt in 73 B.C., had 90,000 men under his command and controlled almost all of southern Italy.
The cigarette lighter was invented before the match. In 1816, a German chemist, J.W. Dobereiner, devised a way of automatically igniting a jet of hydrogen. The only problem was that it required powdered platinum to act as a catalyst, so it was not very practical.
A German inventor placed an engine on an aircraft in 1900 and flew it successfully - three years before the flight of the Wright brothers. The inventor was Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin, but the aircraft was not heavier than air. Von Zeppelin had invented the dirigible - the Zeppelin.
The poems and plays of the perhaps the greatest writer in English literature have been attributed to more than 20 persons, according to some theorists. William Shakespeare would have been startled by the names of those who are supposed to have done his writing for him - Francis Bacon, Sir Walter Raleigh and yes, Queen Elizabeth.
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