Bonnie and Clyde took over an abandoned house for their last hideout. Full story here. More pix here. Source link
Weird Universe
416 posts
1941: Carl Hutzmann, hair tonic salesman, sued a wig supplier on account of late delivery of a wig. “Hutzmann said that he had to appear before his prospective customers with a receding hair line, so the wig was of no use to him later.” Brooklyn Daily Eagle – Mar 27, 1941 Source link
Les Djinns were a French choir with a distinctive singing style, composed of sixty girls[1] between the ages of nine and eighteen years, conducted by Paul Bonneau. In 1959, the French government organized a ‘Master School’ for the instruction of girls in musical subjects in order to ensure a supply of performance talent for the country’s radio and television industry. The Master School set a course […]
Nov 1946: In a contest of old vs. new technology, the abacus beat a calculator in a contest of speed in all categories (addition, subtraction, and division) except multiplication. I’m assuming a modern computer should now be able to outperform an abacus, though I suppose it would depend on how quickly one can input the numbers. More info: Abacus vs. the Electric Calculator The Californian – […]
While browsing old newspapers, I’ve come across multiple reports of a book titled How to Train Your Dog being returned to libraries, chewed. These reports span thirty years, and specify different locations where this happened, but the stories are otherwise identical. So I figure that the chewed dog training book must be an urban legend of libraries. Wausau Daily Herald – Feb 14, 1940 Indianapolis Star […]
This is what the passengers would see on a 1990s amusement park ride dubbed “Space Race.” It’s intriguing to compare state-of-the-art then to now. Contemporary article on the ride here. Source link
I was unaware that Brigham Young created a new alphabet for his followers. “However, the alphabet failed to gain wide acceptance and was not actively promoted after 1869.” Here is a page at the official Mormon site that tells of it. Here is an encyclopedia entry with the full alphabet. Source link
Madeline Robertson was recently granted a patent for a pillow with a foam hand sewn onto it. She explains that the hand (or ‘tactile object,’ as she refers to it) “provides tactile sensory feedback to the user designed to comfort the user.” It reminds me of that robotic hand for people who have no one to hold their hand on walks we recently posted about. Patent […]
The Russian artist Alexei Kruchenykh invented the Zaum language in 1913. He described it as “a language which does not have any definite meaning.” From what I can gather, it was gibberish sounds strung together. Dyr bul shchyl, also written by Kruchenykh, was the first (but not last) poem written in Zaum. Dyr bul shchyl ubeshshchur skum vy so bu r l ez You can hear […]
1941: Patrick Gunn, 46, left a note in the church collection plate challenging the priest, Monsignor Edmund J. Reilly, to a fight in the street. I found a photo of the Monsignor. He doesn’t look like the fighting type. Wilmington News Journal – Mar 24, 1941 Monsignor Edmund J. Reillysource: FindAGrave.com Source link
Part of the ‘Farrah mania’ of the late ’70s. In 2011, it became part of the Smithsonian’s popular culture history collection. Source link
The Great Pantyhose Crafts Book (1982) explains how to make all kinds of things out of used pantyhose. For the Thanksgiving table, it offers instructions for a pantyhose turkey ornament. I imagine a pantyhose turkey would add a touch of class to any Thanksgiving gathering. You can read the entire book for free via archive.org. Source link
In 1866, cobbler James S. Coward opened a store in New York City. He named it after himself, and he referred to the shoes he sold as “Coward shoes”. Despite the odd name, his business did extremely well. In fact, it endured almost to the present. As of 2014, the company had both a twitter and facebook page. But their website now redirects to Old Pueblo […]
A BBC slideshow here. Essay here. This is an original vintage post-mortem photograph from the 1930s. I believe it shows a very rare glimpse into traditional Igorot funeral customs. The man in this photo is deceased and bound in a sitting position. A customer who has spent time with the Igorot had this to say, “I can explain why the man is placed in the seated […]
Odd job: the FDA employs people to smell fish in order to determine if it’s decomposed. They refer to this as “organoleptic analysis”. There are four categories with fish. “The first is fresh. That’s the way fish are right after they are caught. Then there is number one. That’s the commercial grade. Most seafood should be number one. It may not smell fresh, but it’s not […]
The model looks slightly out-of-it as the “Accu-Ray” machine deposits an endless supply of cigarettes into her hand. Perhaps, like James Bond, she had a 70-cigarette-a-day habit that had to be constantly fed. Life – June 13, 1955 Source link
Note: after preparing this post, I realized that Paul had posted about the same thing two years ago. So consider this a repost. Soylman Brown (1790-1876) was a Connecticut dentist who achieved prominence in his profession for a number of reasons. According to Wikipedia, he founded the first dental school, the first national dental society, and the first US dental journal. Plus, he became known as […]
Ida Helen Jarvis came up with the idea of making pictures out of feathers. She would travel around the world, visiting zoos and aviaries to add to her feather collection. Then she would arrange the feathers to form pictures of landscapes, gluing or stitching the feathers onto a cardboard mat. She was so taken with this idea that she decided to patent it (Patent No. 1,395,575, […]
This was not a mere statue, but served a purpose. What did it do? The answer is here. Or after the jump. Source link
Symphony orchestra, or the Harmonicats? Your choice. The second movement, the one played by the Harmonicats, begins more or less at the one-minute mark in the first video. The Wikipedia entry. Source link
During the 1920s, chlorine gas (the same stuff used as a chemical weapon in World War I) briefly became popular as a cure for the common cold. The Rushville Daily Republican – Mar 26, 1926 Jennifer Ackerman explains what was going on in her book Ah-Choo! The Uncommon Life of Your Common Cold: The use of chlorine gas to cure the common cold was suggested by […]
The theme of this 1920’s ad campaign was that if your kid didn’t eat Ralston Purina breakfast cereal, then he/she was going to die. A child’s life is a fight! Danger Days are always ahead. Danger Days — the days when little lives hang in the balance — may come next year, next month, or perhaps — tomorrow. Your children must meet these Danger Days. Are […]
“Today, Ms. Maria Kalinowska, the greatest Poznań (Polish, and probably the largest in the scale of the universe) cinema lover, has passed away today,” wrote the employees of the cinema to which Maria regularly visited her husband. A married couple wrote down each screening in a notebook – they could spend whole days in the cinema, equipped with sandwiches. People from Poznań who regularly visit the […]