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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Sophie Germain
Monsieur Le Blanc
What do you do when you're convinced Napoleon's army is about to kill your pen pal mid-proof?
She signed her math homework with a dead man's name, charmed Gauss by mail for three years, then sent a French general to save him from Napoleon's troops. Sophie Germain, eighteen and self-taught, became a person of the noblest courage.
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The Cure He Boiled Away
In 1747 he proved two oranges and a lemon cured scurvy. Then he spent forty years boiling the cure into a syrup that didn't work.
The Carpetbag Method
She told her relatives she was going on a pilgrimage, packed one carpetbag, and did not come back for sixteen years.
The Bait Camp Visionary
How does a shrimp seller who couldn't swim, living alone on a sandspit reachable only by boat, end up on Betty Parsons's walls beside Pollock and Rothko?
The Dancer Who Toppled a King
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