🇺🇸 United States
Oddlets from United States.
The Viking of Sixth Avenue
What happens when a blind composer in a Viking helmet stands on the same Manhattan corner for thirty years and becomes more famous silent than playing?
The Witch of Wall Street
What kind of woman eats cold oatmeal for lunch, sleeps with a revolver tied to her hand, and gets a personal visit from J.P. Morgan asking for financial advice?
The Shoemaker Who Became a Bear
A grizzly attack left him with a silver-dollar-sized hole in his skull — and that bear ended up on the California state flag.
The Man Nobody Could Find
The FBI sent the fastest plane ever built to find him, and it was defeated by clouds.
The Woman Who Thanked the Taxi Driver
She was in a taxi crash at seventy-five and discovered she could now sing a higher F than ever before. She did not sue. She sent cigars.
The Man Who Could Not Fail
He shipped coal to Newcastle during a miners' strike and sold every piece at a premium.
The Man Who Moved a Castle for a Girl Who Never Came
He never let anyone watch him work.
The Woman Who Built a Maze
Every child who has ever ridden the Haunted Mansion passed through her grief and never knew.
The Man Who Drank the Plague
He built a small closet, filled it with the vomit of the dying, and sat inside breathing deeply — all to prove yellow fever wasn't contagious.
The Man Who Died Facing West
He delivered three-hour speeches that left grown legislators pale and silent, in a voice that never finished puberty.
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 Woman Who Warmed the World
She discovered that carbon dioxide traps heat in 1856, and then history erased her name for 154 years.