A cabinet of lovable weirdos
Weird science, forgotten history, and human quirks โ each one true, each under a minute, each a little stranger than youโd expect.
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Empress Sissi (Elisabeth of Austria)
What does a 19th-century empress do in a room called the Toilette- und Turnzimmer?
She walked ten hours a day, fenced twice some days, and kept gymnastic rings rigged in her bedroom doorway. At fifty-six she weighed 96 pounds and had been diagnosed with edema of hunger. Empress Elisabeth of Austria, the Hofburg's hungriest athlete.
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What kind of man asks his colleagues to poke him awake if he stops breathing, and considers a perforated eardrum a social asset?

She was exchanged man-for-man for a Confederate major, and that wasn't even the strangest thing about her wedding.

Why would the man who invented the bit build a unicycle that bobbed up and down on purpose?

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Why did the most meticulous explorer who ever lived climb into a prototype flying boat to rescue a man he openly despised?