A cabinet of lovable weirdos
Tiny true stories,
lovingly odd.
Weird science, forgotten history, and human quirks — each one true, each under a minute, each a little stranger than you’d expect.
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Queen Christina of Sweden
The Queen Who Took the Art
She quit the throne, converted to the religion that was illegal for her to hold, and left Sweden in men's clothing — but she didn't leave empty-handed.
Queens marry, produce heirs, and stay. This one abdicated at twenty-seven, converted to the religion that was illegal for her to hold, and rode out of Sweden in men's clothing. She also took the imperial art collection. It had already crossed Europe once. Meet Queen Christina of Sweden, the most ungovernable monarch who ever governed.
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More oddlets
The Chemist Who Tasted Everything
He discovered oxygen two years before the man history credits with discovering oxygen.
The Man Who Stabbed a Bible
A century before the Civil War, a four-foot-seven cave-dweller in a military coat walked into a Quaker meeting and sprayed fake blood on every slaveholder in the room.
The Man Who Plucked the Chicken
Plato defined a human being as a featherless biped, and someone showed up with a chicken.
The Man Who Walked Into His Own Secret
He kept his route secret so no rival could reach the city first. More than a hundred people have since died trying to find him.
The Woman Who Walked to Lhasa
At fifty-five, she disguised herself as a beggar pilgrim and walked into the most forbidden city on earth.
The Man Who Couldn't Stop Walking
He left home for a sixteen-month pilgrimage and came back twenty-four years later.
The Woman Who Destroyed Her Own Discovery
She found exactly what she was looking for, then ordered it smashed and thrown into the sea.
The Chemist Who Tasted Everything
He described hydrogen cyanide as having a 'pleasantly sharp acidulous flavor,' the way someone else might describe a good Riesling.
The Man Who Boiled His Own Urine and Found Light
He boiled 1,500 gallons of urine looking for gold and accidentally discovered the first new element since antiquity.
The Woman Who Practiced Madness in a Mirror
Nellie Bly spent one night practicing insanity in a mirror, then fooled every doctor who examined her.
The Man No One Could Stop
Burton pulled a javelin through his own face and kept fighting, but his wife burned forty years of his writing to save his soul.
The Woman Who Warmed the World
She discovered that carbon dioxide traps heat in 1856, and then history erased her name for 154 years.
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