defiance
People who were told no and heard it as a dare.
Peter the Hermit and the Donkey
What kind of person gets caught deserting during a famine, weeps, is pardoned, and then gets promoted to diplomat?
The Dog Got Clean Too
What happens when a woman who holds thirty-six patents and hates cleaning drags a garden hose into her kitchen?
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 Man Who Buried His Car
What kind of person buries a 1927 Hudson in their backyard and denies owning a car?
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 Woman Who Built a Hospital Out of Driftwood
Florence Nightingale's team rejected her, so she set up three and a half miles closer to the front lines than Nightingale ever got.
The Man Nobody Could Find
The FBI sent the fastest plane ever built to find him, and it was defeated by clouds.
The Man Who Died in a Meeting
He grafted a human tooth onto a rooster's head to see what would happen. It grew.
The Man Who Found a Taste for Digging
When the council rehoused him on the top floor of a tower block, it was specifically to discourage tunnelling.
The Nun Who Signed in Blood
She chose a convent over marriage — not for God, but for the library.
The Woman Who Rewrote French Opera With a Sword at Her Hip
She broke a woman out of a convent by stealing a dead nun's body, and then went back to singing.
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.