animals
Moose, bears, pigeons, chickens, and the humans who loved them unwisely.
The Bear Went First
Sam Patch's final act opened with him shoving a bear cub off a hundred-foot waterfall in front of eight thousand people.
Up to His Neck
He walked into the North Sea at night until the water reached his neck, and sang psalms until dawn.
The Divine Sarah's Menagerie
What do you feed an alligator you keep in a Paris apartment above a bedroom draped in black velvet?
Vogel Stahrl, 34 Kreuzer
What does a composer owe a shop bird that whistles his six-week-old concerto back at him, holds a fermata he never wrote, and sharpens a single G?
The Queen of the Mist
What kind of woman test-drives a Niagara Falls barrel by sending a cat over first?
The Man Who Signed a Treaty With a Wolf
In 1220, when a wolf was eating the citizens of Gubbio, a barefoot friar walked out alone to negotiate terms.
A House for Foss
A Victorian poet built a second house identical to his first, same rooms, same floor plan, so his cat wouldn't feel disoriented.
The Milk Came Out the Neck
A Soviet surgeon coined the word transplantology, taught the man who did the first human heart transplant, and spent his afternoons sewing puppy heads onto German shepherds.
The Surgeon Who Believed
What does a royal surgeon do after publishing a forty-page pamphlet certifying that a clothier's wife gave birth to rabbits, four days before she confesses?
The Admiral and the Unicorn
A giraffe walked into the Ming court in 1414, and the Confucian scholars decided it was proof from heaven.
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 Paper Men Who Launched a Barnyard Into the Sky
The king suggested testing the balloon on condemned prisoners. The Montgolfiers had a better idea.