🇩🇪 Germany
Oddlets from Germany.
The Man Who Found Troy
What does a man who made three fortunes — in indigo, saltpeter, and Sacramento gold dust — do for an encore at forty-eight?
The Spider That Was Named After Her
At fifty-two, a divorced naturalist sold every painting she owned and sailed to a malarial jungle to paint a spider no one believed existed.
The Abbess Who Hid the Grave
What does a twelfth-century abbess do when an archbishop orders her to exhume a body she has decided to keep?
Minding the Heavens
What does it take for an 18th-century woman, raised in a kitchen, to become the first person ever paid by the British Crown for science?
The Woman Who Stole the Car
Why did a woman in 1888 push an automobile down an alley at dawn while her husband slept upstairs?
Hugo Ball and the Lobster Bishop
What happens when a man in a cardboard lobster suit accidentally starts chanting Catholic mass?
The Liar's Liar
What happens when a wanted gem thief decides he's the right person to publish someone else's tall tales?
The Man Who Translated Everything Wrong
He translated the hieroglyphics on a famous Roman fountain. They are complete nonsense, chiseled in stone, and tourists photograph them every day.
The Knight Whose Insult Became a Mozart Composition
He had a second, fancier iron hand built for Sundays.
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.