Einstein's Refrigerator: And Other Stories from the Flip Side of History Read online

  AND OTHER STORIES

  FROM THE FLIP SIDE

  OF HISTORY

  by s t e u e siluerman

  contents

  INTRODUCTION … vii

  part 1: you’ue got to be kidding! … 1

  MIKE, THE HEADLESS CHICKEN

  He really was a chicken running around with his head cut off … 3

  FARTMAN

  You can really earn a living releasing foul-smelling gas! … 7

  THE COLLYER BROTHERS

  But where was Langley? … 10

  MICHAEL MALLOY

  Possibly history’s most bizarre murder scheme … 16

  THE ROOSTER BOOSTER

  The feathers will be flying! … 24

  BALLOONING

  Up, up, and away in my beautiful lawn chair … 28

  part 2: oops! … 33

  THE GREAT BOSTON MOLASSES TRAGEDY

  History’s stickiest disaster … 35

  CITICORP TOWER

  Watch out for the Leaning Tower of Citibank … 38

  THE LAKE PEIGNEUR DISASTER

  And away goes the lake down the drain! … 45

  THE RAINMAN

  Don’t wish for too much of a good thing … 49

  part 3: inuentiue genius … 55

  KITTY LITTER

  What’s the scoop? … 57

  EINSTEIN’S REFRIGERATOR

  He really did design modern iceboxes … 60

  THE FOOT THINGY

  Whatchamacallit? … 64

  AMERICA’S FIRST SUBWAY

  It was one big secret … 67

  VASELINE

  It’s yummy for your tummy! … 75

  HEDY LAMARR

  Not exactly your typical nerdy inventor with a pocket protector … 78

  THE ZIPPER

  Hey! Your fly is open! … 85

  NIKOLA TESLA

  He makes Thomas Edison look like a dummy … 91

  part 4: hmmm … 99

  GEORGE WASHINGTON

  He was really the ninth president of the United States! … 101

  EMPEROR NORTON 1

  The U.S.A:s first and only emperor … 105

  PENNIES FOR COLLEGE

  A college education for just pennies … 110

  FU-GO

  The strangest weapon of World War 11 … 113

  BAT BOMBS

  The other top-secret weapon … 119

  part 5: incredible stories of survival … 125

  THE TITANIC

  The curse of Violet Jessop … 127

  POON L1M

  How did he manage to survive? … 132

  MOUNT PELEE

  How an election killed the entire electorate … 138

  part 6: unbelievable! … 143

  GADSBY

  An E-less novel … 145

  NIAGARA FALLS-PART 1

  The day the falls actually went dry … 148

  NIAGARA FALLS-PART 2

  An unusual contest … 151

  THE AL-KUWAIT

  How Donald Duck helped save the day … 153

  THE BABY DERBY

  How many babies can a woman have in ten years? … 155

  REFERENCES … 159

  introduction

  Welcome to my book! 1 am well aware that most people want to breeze right through the Introduction, so 1 will keep this short.

  What you are about to read is the very best of my Useless Information Home Page. 1 started the Web site just prior to the explosion of the Internet while people were still holding to the steadfast rule that the Net was not a place for commercial exploitation. Intended solely as an exercise to learn the newly invented HTML coding, 1 never thought that anyone would ever see my work. Without any idea of what to place on a Web page, 1 turned to a few of the crazy stories that 1 had e-mailed to a friend. Just a bit of cutting and pasting, coupled with some basic Web page coding, and the site was born. The title Useless Information was thrown on for lack of a better idea.

  As 1 had expected, no one initially looked at the Web site. My_ total number of visitors during the first two years was just over thirteen thousand. 1 then went to visit my parents over one July Fourth holiday and came back three days later to find that my readership had doubled. 1 found out through one of my e-mail messages that Yahoo had chosen my Web site as their pick of the week. That just started the ball rolling. Millions of readers and many awards later, traffic to the Web site continues to grow exponentially each year.

  1 assurl you that every story contained in this book is absolutely true. Mankind is a very unusual beast and has created a history that is full of the wonderful and the truly bizarre. My research into each of the topics has been very time consuming due to the obscure nature of every story. Many times the most often told version of a story is not always the correct one. When sources have been contradictory or sketchy, 1 have chosen what 1 felt was the best inference that could be made. Readers have also been very kind about pointing out minor errors and sources of additional information.

  My process of selecting story topics is nearly always the same. When 1 come across a tidbit that fascinates me, 1 then present it to my students. Having taught high school science students for so many years, 1 can testify to the fact that they are the toughest of all audiences to please. Some of the stories prove to be duds and are quickly dropped. Those that fascinate my students are added to a long list of possible subjects. As information is gathered, a file folder is started. The final stage is the hardest part: the actual writing of the stories.

  Thanks must go to all of the people whom you have probably never heard about: my family, friends, students, and readers for their constant support and words of wisdom. In particular, 1 need to personally thank my best friends Barbara Roosevelt and Jamie Keenan for all of their helpful suggestions and editing of my writing.

  1 doubt that any one of these stories will make any difference in your life. These are certainly not the inspirational type of stories that Oprah would ever choose to do a show on. Yet, if in the end you have a smile on your face, then 1 will know that 1 accomplished my goal. So, sit back, get some milk and cookies, and relax. Enjoy this journey through the other side of history.

  PRAT 1:

  you’ve got

  tn hii tiiiding!

  mike, the headless chicken

  he really was a chicken running around with his head cut off

  The e-mail message seemed innocent enough. A reader simply asked “Ever heard of the story posted here at this link?” and offered a hyperlink to another Web page. 1 clicked and came across a story that 1 was sure had to be pure fiction. The only problem is that the story appears to be totally true.

  This is the story about Mike the Chicken. Mike, of course, was not your ordinary chicken. No, not ordinary at all. You see, Mike was a headless chicken. If you want to be really specific, Mike was actually a headless wyandotte rooster.

  1 should point out that Mike wasn’t always a headless bird. In fact, he was born 100 percent normal, complete with a head in Fruita, Colorado.

  On September 10, 1945, Mike’s short five-and-a-half-month life was about to take a turn for the worse. On this day, Mike received a death sentence. His owners, Lloyd and Clara Olsen, decided that it was time to slaughter a group of birds, sell some, and prepare others for themselves. Out to the hen house they went.

  Watch out, Mike!

  As you can probably imagine, Mr. Olsen was the one whacking the heads off while Clara plucked and cleaned the birds.

  Bash! Down came the ax and off went Mike’s head.

  Mik
e’s head was surely dead. Mike’s body was not.

  Now 1 know what you are thinking-it is well known that chickens will run around frantically when their heads are chopped off. That’s probably where that old expression comes from. And, everyone knows that a headless chicken just can’t survive more than a few moments.

  Apparently, Mike forgot to read the rulebook for playing the game of Life. His head may have been lying on the floor, but he had no problem standing up and strutting around as if nothing had actually happened. The next day, Mike was still flopping around, so Lloyd decided to feed him to see how long he could keep the bird alive. Through his open esophagus, Mike was fed a mixture of ground-up grain and water with your typical eyedropper. Little bits of gravel were dropped down his throat to help his gizzard grind up the food. Day after day he continued to gain weight.

  Mike the Headless Chicken with his supposed head. (Waters collection photograph, http:// miketheheadlesschickenbook.com)

  Mike could easily balance himself on the highest perches without falling. His crowing consisted of a gurgling sound made in his throat. Mike even attempted to preen his feathers with his nonexistent head. It seems that Mike could do just about anything that any other chicken could do, if you excluded all of the functions of his head. Apparently he never noticed that he was missing a major body part.

  As I’m sure you can imagine, headless chickens are not an everyday event. In the tradition of that famous huckster Barnum, there was money to be made in this oddity. A promoter by the name of Hope Wade came along and convinced Lloyd that Mike would be a big draw in the sideshow circuit. Miracle Mike, as he soon came to be known, toured up and down the West Coast of the United States. The head was stored in a canning jar and traveled along with Mike. (Actually, a cat ate Mike’s head. Some other poor chicken’s head was pickled in the jar.) Just six weeks after his beheading, Mike was featured in a Life magazine article and his fame grew. Anyone could pay to get a look at Mike for just 25 cents. At the height of his popularity, Mike was raking in a cool $4,500 per month, which was no small potatoes in those days.

  And if there was money to be made, there were also copycats. Other people in Mike’s hometown began to chop the heads off their own chickens in an attempt to get in on the scheme. One copycat headless rooster was named Lucky and he managed to live for eleven days before bashing himself into a stovepipe and dying. (Lucky wasn’t that lucky after all.) Several other headless chickens lived for a couple of days.

  So how was Mike able to survive? Scientists examined him and determined that Mr. Olsen had not done a very good job of chopping Mike’s head off. Most of the head was actually removed, but one ear remained intact. The slice actually missed the jugular vein and a clot prevented him from bleeding to death. Apparently, most of a chicken’s reflex actions are located in the brain stem, which was largely untouched. Mike was also examined by the officers of several humane societies and was declared to have been free from suffering.

  One serious problem that Mike commonly experienced was that he would start to choke on his own mucus. The Olsens came up with the simple solution of using a syringe to suck the mucus out. But, one day tragedy struck. Mike was traveling back home to Fruita and was roosting with the Olsens in their Phoenix motel room. They heard Mike choking in the middle of the night and quickly realized that they had left the syringe at the sideshow the day before. Miracle Mike was no more.

  The exact date of Mike’s belated departure from this world was never recorded. Years later, it was estimated, based on Lloyd’s information, that Miracle Mike died in March 1947. Eighteen months living without a head could be considered a world’s record. Yet, Lloyd didn’t want to admit that he had accidentally killed the bird, so he claimed that he had sold the bird off. This little white lie is the reason that many of the stories printed about Mike claimed that he was still touring the country as late as 1949.

  But wait, the story is not over! Mike actually has his own holiday! On May 17, 1999, Mike’s hometown of Fruita held the first “Mike the Headless Chicken Day” in honor of one of its most famous citizens. Some of the events included the 5K Run Like a Headless Chicken race, egg tosses, Pin the Head on the Chicken, the Chicken Cluck-Off, and the classic Chicken Dance. The food offerings included-you guessed it-chicken, chicken salad, and the like. Let’s not forget the great game of Chicken Bingo in which the numbers were chosen by where chicken droppings fell on a numbered grid.

  If you are interested, Mike the Headless Chicken Day is an annual event. As peculiar as it is to describe, it actually sounds like a great time. And it’s all done in celebration of the life of one lucky bird named Miracle Mike.

  Useless? Useful? I’ll leave that for you to decide.

  fartman

  you can really earn a living releasing foul-smelling gas!

  Unemployed? Looking for a career change? Do 1 have a job for you!

  You can earn big bucks releasing farts. (Move over Howard Stern.)

  However, you better be good at it. People won’t pay to see any old amateur farter. They want a professional. A guy like Joseph Pujol, better known to his audiences as “Le Petomane.”

  Now, 1 must point out that 1 was never really sure if this story was actually true. Then, 1 was having dinner with a gentleman from France several years ago. Before 1 could even finish asking him about the story, he cut me off and confirmed that Pujol is, in fact, a very famous man in France.

  On with our story.

  Little Joey was born on June 1, 1857, in Marseilles, France, and it didn’t take long for him to discover his hidden talent. As a young boy, he went with his parents to the seashore. While swimming, he decided to hold his breath and dive down deep.

  This dive would make history. Suddenly, Pujol felt a rush of icy cold water enter his bowels and rush up inside his intestines. (Sounds like fun!) Little Joey was so frightened that he ran out of the water to his mom. All of a sudden, he felt the water rush out of him and spill all over the beach. (Ooh, the embarrassment.)

  Pujol eventually grew up and was called into military service. While there, he got into one of those typical all-male grosseach-other-out-type conversations. He mentioned his boyhood experience, and of course, they asked for a demonstration.

  On their next furlough, Pujol took a trip to the sea and tried it again.

  It worked!

  Pujol eventually started to perfect this skill. Using a basin of water, he practiced this great art in private. He controlled the rate of intake and outflow by flexing his anal and abdominal muscles. He could shoot a stream of water to a distance of four or five yards.

  Soon he was able to advance to the next stage-using air instead of water. The art of the fart had begun!

  After leaving the Army, Pujol went to work in the family bakery. In the evenings he moonlighted at local music halls by singing, playing trombone, and doing comedy routines. In private, he entertained his friends using his other wind instrument, so to speak. They suggested that he add it to his act.

  He perfected his act and rented a space in Marseilles in which to perform. They did heavy promotion, making the show a sellout every night.

  Pujol began his act by walking out dressed elegantly in silks and starched white linen. Once the opening monologue was complete he leaned forward, hands on his knees (of course with his butt facing the audience), and started a whole series of imitations. He managed to keep a straight face the whole time. The audience couldn’t. They laughed so hard that many women in tight corsets passed out. The theater was forced to hire nurses for each show.

  He would imitate a little girl by emitting a delicate little fart. He would release a long slide to imitate his mother-in-law. Let’s not forget cannon fire, machine guns, and thunder. He even could play musical scores. His act lasted an hour and a half.

  Quite the talented guy! I’m quite envious of his fine skill.

  For his finale, he invited the audience to fart along at the appropriate times. It was one big fart-a-thon. (It must have smelled gr
eat.)

  Of course there were skeptics. Pujol was forced to submit to medical examinations to prove that he was for real.

  Pujol was France’s highest-paid entertainer at the time, but he eventually retired from the profession and returned to the world of baked goods. He raised his family and died in 1945 at the age of eighty-eight. The medical faculty at the Sorbonne offered 25,000 francs for the right to examine his body when he died, but his family refused the offer.

  And so ends the life of the world’s greatest farter. It was a gas.

  Useless? Useful? I’ll leave that for you to decide.

  the colluer brothers

  but where was Langley?

  Move over Frasier and Niles Crane. You’ve got company. There actually were two brothers who were more eccentric than you could ever hope to be.

  The two brothers that I’m talking about were born into the very best of circumstances. They were descendants of one of New York City’s oldest families. Their ancestors came to America aboard the Speedwell way back in the Mayflower days. Their father, Dr. Herman L. Collyer, was a wealthy and well-known Manhattan gynecologist. Susie, their mom, was an educated woman who had a great interest in the classics. In 1881, the couple was blessed with the birth of their first son Homer, who eventually went on to get a degree in engineering. Next came Langley, who was born in 1885 and as an adult received a degree from Columbia University and became an admiralty lawyer.

  Then, in 1909, the boys’ bubbles burst. As unlikely as it sounds for that time period, the couple decided to separate. Dad moved out and the two siblings, both in their twenties, chose to continue living with Mom. Life wasn’t too bad for them. At the time, they were living in a luxurious three-story mansion at Fifth Avenue and 128th Street.

  But times change. Their mom died. The Harlem neighbor hood started to decay. Poverty was the norm. Crime was rampant. The Collyer brothers, as a result, retreated deeper and deeper into seclusion from the rest of the world.

  But, let’s face it. Lack of interaction with the rest of the world can make people very strange. It’s the kind of weirdness that brings people like Homer and Langley fame.

  Over time, the brothers boarded up their windows. They placed booby traps all over their home to ward off intruders. They even had the gas, water, and electricity turned off in their mansion. For a while, Langley tried to produce his own energy using an automobile engine. Water was fetched from a park four blocks away. They cooked and heated their big home with a small kerosene heater. When Homer went blind in 1933, Langley formulated a “cure” that consisted of a steady diet of one hundred oranges per week, black bread, and peanut butter. (Sounds as if it would work to me.)