unsung genius
Oddlets tagged unsung genius.
The Postman Who Built a Palace
He tripped on a stone in 1879 and spent the next thirty-three years building a palace out of the ones he found on the way home.
The Woman Who Dressed Like a Cathedral
She had a coffin she liked to lie in before writing each morning, to focus her mind.
The Woman Who Wrote the Future
She arrived at the Royal Society in 1666, critiqued their methods to their faces, and they used her visit as justification to ban every woman who came after her — for 278 years.
The Man Who Never Opened His Mail
When Satie died, his friends entered his apartment for the first time in twenty-seven years.
The Chemist Who Tasted Everything
He discovered oxygen two years before the man history credits with discovering oxygen.
The Man Who Stabbed a Bible
A century before the Civil War, a four-foot-seven cave-dweller in a military coat walked into a Quaker meeting and sprayed fake blood on every slaveholder in the room.
The Woman Who Walked to Lhasa
At fifty-five, she disguised herself as a beggar pilgrim and walked into the most forbidden city on earth.
The Chemist Who Tasted Everything
He described hydrogen cyanide as having a 'pleasantly sharp acidulous flavor,' the way someone else might describe a good Riesling.
The Woman Who Warmed the World
She discovered that carbon dioxide traps heat in 1856, and then history erased her name for 154 years.
The Girl Who Was Struck by Lightning
Her neighbors believed she became a genius because lightning killed three women standing next to her when she was fifteen months old.
The Mathematician Who Dreamed in Equations
A goddess wrote equations on his tongue in dreams, and when mathematicians finally checked his work, he was right.
The Doctor Who Was Right
He died of the same infection, in the same place on his body, that he'd spent his life trying to prevent.