People and experiences

Stories in “People and experiences”.

Too much salt? Just cancel it with sugar.A poster recalls hearing their mother worry that a simmered dish was too salty. As a child, they thought addi…
One building. One company.A poster recalls assuming that a company occupied a whole building. Sharing one office block with several com…
She raced a fictional round-the-world traveller.Journalist Nellie Bly travelled around the world in 72 days, inspired by the journey in Jules Verne’s novel.
Alone on an Arctic island. Then rescue.Ada Blackjack joined an expedition to Wrangel Island. After the other members left or died, she remained on t…
He asked to be left ashore. The wait lasted years.Alexander Selkirk was marooned on an uninhabited Pacific island, initially at his own request. His isolation…
Titanic was not her only ship disaster.Stewardess and nurse Violet Jessop survived the sinkings of Titanic and Britannic. She had also been aboard O…
A teenager survived a crash and the rainforest.Juliane Koepcke survived an airliner crash in Peru in 1971 and made her way through the rainforest to help. S…
Around the world, collecting plants.Jeanne Baret was an eighteenth-century botanist and explorer. Her travels, including Bougainville’s expeditio…
Japan in 1878, through a traveller’s eyes.British traveller Isabella Bird recorded her journey through Japan in 1878. Her account describes roads, lodg…
The coast held an older ocean.Mary Anning collected and sold fossils from the cliffs at Lyme Regis. Her discoveries of ancient marine life…
A dishwasher before the electric kitchen.Josephine Cochrane invented and manufactured a successful hand-powered dishwasher in the nineteenth century.
A film star with a second kind of invention.Hedy Lamarr was both an actress and an inventor. During World War II, she co-invented a radio-guidance system.
To learn to fly, she crossed an ocean.Bessie Coleman trained in France and earned her international pilot’s licence in 1921 after facing racial and…
Bicycle parts, scrap and a working wind turbine.William Kamkwamba built a wind turbine in Malawi using timber, bicycle parts and materials from a scrapyard.…
He carved a shortcut through a hill.Dashrath Manjhi cut a path through a rocky ridge in India using a hammer and chisel. The work is reported to…
A postman’s palace, 33 years in the making.French mail carrier Ferdinand Cheval spent 33 years building the Palais idéal in Hauterives, an extraordinary…
A round-the-world voyage. A crew of one.Joshua Slocum became the first person to sail around the world single-handedly. He later described the journe…
A meteorite struck her inside her home.In Alabama in 1954, a meteorite fragment entered a house and struck Ann Hodges. She was injured but survived.
The warning said attack. He judged it a false alarm.In 1983, Soviet early-warning equipment reported American missile launches. Officer Stanislav Petrov judged t…
Around the world, without stopping or a crew.British sailor Ellen MacArthur set a new record for the fastest solo non-stop circumnavigation in 2005.
“I can pitch a 24-person tent by myself.”A former soldier in South Korea made the claim online. People doubted him, so an event was arranged to put it…
A goose, a swan, and their unusual family.Thomas the goose lived alongside Henry, a male black swan, for years in New Zealand. When a female swan joine…
The Marine Corps dog was demoted.Chesty VI, a bulldog mascot of the U.S. Marines, tore up a military punching bag and disobeyed an order to st…
An elephant dropped a log on the electric fence.At Auckland Zoo in 2004, Burma disabled an electric fence with a log, broke through an outer gate and wandere…
A cactus in a coffee can became a 44-year mystery.A cactus found in a coffee can on a Mexican hotel windowsill was documented in 1952. The plant died, and its…
People kept falling ill at a TV-license hearing.During a 1950s U.S. hearing over a TV license, an engineer collapsed on the stand, another bidder had food po…
They looked for tractor keys and found ancient coins.In 2023, two detectorists searched Dutch fields for a farmer's lost tractor key. In a neighboring field they…
An 11-year-old Prince was in a strike report.While revisiting footage of a 1970 Minneapolis teachers' strike, a TV station identified a child speaking in…
The losing coach suited up and scored the winner.In a 1944 football game, coach Ed Storm came out of retirement mid-game. He intercepted a pass and eventually…
An emu kept knocking over the camera.At a Florida hobby farm, Emmanuel the emu repeatedly interrupted his caretaker's videos and pecked at the cam…
He became a father around age 100.Henry, a New Zealand tuatara thought to have hatched around the turn of the twentieth century, became a fathe…
A visiting cat became an official castle lord.After the 2018 floods in Japan, a friendly cat appeared at Bitchū Matsuyama Castle in Okayama. Adopted as the…
He took over a hotel with a borrowed $20 fee.Wine entrepreneur Armand Ceritano took over a struggling Philadelphia hotel in 1976. The $20 filing fee was b…
The show debated a resignation two days after it happened.An American public TV station initially could not receive live network programs. Its manager recalled airing…
A dog visited Pompeii almost every day.Argo started visiting the Pompeii ruins as a puppy and learned their opening hours. He was often first in and…
Opera captions came from a film subtitler.After decades subtitling films, Sonya Friedman tried projecting translated words above the stage at a Canadia…
A cat-book illustrator lived with ten cats.Mary Chalmers wrote and illustrated children's books about cats. By 1967 she had ten cats and a Pomeranian at…
Her album cover misspelled her name.St. Louis singer Jeanne Trevor's 1965 album printed her name as “Jeannie.” The cover did not show her photogr…
Real birds arrived. He stayed with a concrete one.Nigel was the only gannet living on New Zealand's Mana Island for much of his life. He nested beside a concre…
Time bought Elvis photos. It printed the one with a dog.Photographer Alfred Wertheimer sold Time exclusive rights to his Elvis Presley work. The magazine used just o…
National-team players helped build their stadium.Laos's baseball team used to rent soccer fields for practice. When the country's first baseball stadium was b…
At 15, her first event became a world record.Canadian ski jumper Isabel Coursier set a women's world record of 26 metres during her debut at Mount Revelst…
Cups and coins keep time. A whistle joins the song.Bangladeshi singer Abanti Sithi is known for performing with rhythms made from plastic cups, foil, and coins,…
His roster included cats, a dog, and a rainbow-trailing cat.Ben Lashes worked as a meme manager for Keyboard Cat, Grumpy Cat, Nyan Cat, Doge, and other internet phenomen…
A world-class trampolinist who fears heights.Ryusei Nishioka broke a trampoline difficulty record in 2021 with seven triple somersaults in one routine. Ye…
He beat a team, joined it, then faced his old team.In 1934 Red Weiner starred for the Eagles against the Reading Keys. After leaving the Eagles in November, he…
A 1926 TV demonstration. The face was just 9 by 5 cm.At John Logie Baird's public television demonstration in January 1926, viewers saw the live face of his colle…
Discarded plastic became shelter for street dogs.At 16, Paraguayan activist Diana Vicezar started an animal-welfare group in 2017. Its project built shelters…
Six weeks at school. University at sixteen.Irish classical scholar Robert Tyrrell was taught mostly at home by his brothers and spent just six weeks at…
He helped care for over a thousand children.Japanese social worker Soda Kaichi and his wife ran an orphanage in Korea under Japanese rule from 1921 to 19…
From a bomb laboratory to a pipe-organ workshop.Charles Fisk worked as an electronics technician at Los Alamos during World War II, initially unaware of the…
He acted like a game character and found a live audience.After a period of homelessness, Malik Ambersley began public livestreams in 2023 dressed as Miles Morales. He…
Her first reporting assignment was a riot.Bea Hines became the Miami Herald's first Black woman reporter in 1970. On her first day in the role, she was…
Ballpark massages. About 7,000 by 2006.Sister Rosalind Gefre began offering massages at St. Paul Saints baseball games in Minnesota in 1993. Initial…
She feared childbirth. Then taught 17,000 couples.Facing her first delivery, Flora Hommel worried about childbirth. She studied the Lamaze method in Paris in 1…
Forced from Ohio. Back 22 years later to protect her culture.Wyandot woman Margaret Grey Eyes Solomon was forced from Ohio to Kansas in 1843. She returned near her former…
About 10,000 notes a year. Each with a red-pencil greeting.American magazine publisher Arthur Motley clipped news about people he knew and mailed it to them with a brie…
He qualified for the Olympics. Then chose a law exam.Belgian athlete Philippe Housiaux competed in sprinting and long jump at the 1968 Mexico City Olympics. He qu…
Budget cuts threatened a newscast. Students offered their own time.At university station KRWG-TV in New Mexico, the student-produced News22 faced budget cuts in 1997. Students…
A gale sent a tree into the studio. The radio stayed on air.During Oregon's Great Coastal Gale of 2007, a large elm tree crashed into the building housing community radi…
About 4,000 tiny newspaper portraits. Sorted into a yearbook for 2008.In 2008, US artist Rutherford Chang collected about 4,000 ink-dot portraits from The Wall Street Journal and…
Only 34 seconds to go. The band's laptop was not ready.At a BBC Radio 1 show in Halifax in November 2024, British band South Arcade found its click-track laptop was…
For a golf anime, the lead actor brought a club to the studio.Voice actor Rika Hayashi took her first starring role in the 2024 golf anime Tonbo!. Early in recording, she…
An injury changed the pair. The new partners won a world title.Hikaru Mori and Megu Uyama won synchronized trampoline gold at the 2018 World Championships. They had trained…
From the race grid to leading her own team.Misato Haga became interested in motorsport after watching races as a teenager in Japan. She worked as a race…
Tooth pain halted the session. The singer went for emergency treatment.My Chemical Romance was recording a demo of Vampires Will Never Hurt You in 2002 when singer Gerard Way's too…
A Tokyo silversmith travelled to the US. A Lakota family welcomed him as kin.Goro Takahashi travelled through the United States to learn silversmithing. In 1979, while spending time at P…
They could have invited musicians to the capital. Instead, they travelled for four years.From 1981 to 1985, Gustavo Santaolalla travelled across Argentina with León Gieco to document folk music. Gie…
A guide-dog program could not take him. So he trained his own dog.John Boyer was born blind and lost his hearing before age ten. After college, he trained his own guide dog be…
A corner kick went straight past him. His team still won the league.Czech goalkeeper Radim Novák conceded a goal directly from a corner in the opening match of the 2011–12 secon…
Correct answers, almost no steps. The mystery lasted about a decade.An account called Cleo posted 39 answers to difficult integrals on a mathematics forum between 2013 and 2015,…
His family name was Carlsen. A teacher wrote Carlson; he kept it.American football player Wes Carlson grew up with the family name Carlsen. A primary-school teacher misspelle…
He borrowed a college star's identity. After one NFL game, he vanished.In 1923, a man claiming to be a celebrated Princeton player joined a St. Louis team and was later sold to Gre…
A college sent him away for refusing shoes. He walked north barefoot anyway.New Zealand conservationist Stephen King was expelled from Bible College after six months because he refused…
He beat a legendary runner. The next morning, he brought him flowers.Finnish runner Frej Liewendahl ended Paavo Nurmi's long winning streak in a 1,000-metre race in the 1920s. Th…
He wanted to make a video mystery game. The budget made him learn programming.British composer Tim Follin built the live-action mystery game Contradiction on a budget of about £6,000. He…
He trained to become a teacher. Then he chose to pave streets.Born in Minsk, in present-day Belarus, in 1862, Shmuel Hurvits trained as a teacher but left the field becaus…
A pastor watched a movie. Then he asked to buy the theater.After watching a film at New York's 175th Street Theatre in 1969, Reverend Ike was taken with the building an…
She wrote Punjabi advice columns. Then she advised a British food chain.Kailash Puri wrote about cooking, family life and sexual questions in Punjabi-language magazines. After movin…
He played one pro game that season. A writer still named him All-Pro.Obe Wenig played just one game for the Rock Island Independents in 1920. Sportswriter Bruce Copeland neverthe…
She studied paramedicine. She also carried type for a secret press.While studying in Saratov in the Russian Empire, Anna Weisman smuggled literature and printing type in 1902 t…
His name moved on and off rosters. At last, he reached an NFL game.Wide receiver Brandon Smith signed and was waived by several teams after 2021, repeatedly returning on practi…
The sonata was finished in 1939. Its score appeared in 1945.Paul Creston completed his saxophone sonata in 1939, with publication planned for 1940. Wartime staffing shor…
The siege dragged on. Soldiers started stealing watermelons.During the 1853 siege of Ak-Mechet in what is now Kazakhstan, the slow advance left some troops bored. Accoun…
He interviewed a writer. He was accidentally high during it.One episode of the American Longform podcast featured host Max Linsky interviewing writer Sam Fragoso while u…
He began with hair clips. Then he sold records others avoided.Korean immigrant Wan Joon Kim started trading at Los Angeles swap meets and opened a stall at the Compton Swa…
People kept misspelling his surname. He legally changed it.American football player Ray Jennison was born with the surname Jenison. He said people repeatedly added an e…
He signed with the Packers. Then he played against them.George Seeman signed with the Green Bay Packers in April 1940. Before joining their training camp that August…
She kept returning to the rope. Her last act came at age 76.French performer Madame Saqui continued tightrope work into her seventies. At her last appearance in 1862, ag…
She had trained for only days. Then she qualified for competition.Solfrid Koanda entered weightlifting in 2020 after a CrossFit coach recruited her. Within days she qualified…
His pursuer sat in a café. He paid the man's coffee bill.In 1945, anti-Franco guerrilla Marcelino Massana visited a café frequented by a Civil Guard captain who had v…
The new team went 8–0. Two seasons later, it was shut down.Gannon College began its football programme in 1949 and finished the first season unbeaten, shutting out six…
The FBI's acting director? A website listed the wrong man.In 2025, Brian Driscoll was expected to serve as acting deputy director. The White House website instead list…
Auditions on weekdays. Luxury dog food on weekends.British actor Darcy Grey sold premium dog food while pursuing auditions. The company hired actors because the…
He practised tricks after an online video. Then a baseball star followed him.Shlomo Levinger began practising magic after watching a card-trick video. In 2021, baseball star Mike Trout f…
From the mountain to the temple, a monkey comes to see a nun.Xing Xing, a Tibetan macaque in China's Zhejiang province, lost an arm and came under the care of a temple. S…
Meet the pope at the White House? The priest clicked delete.American priest James Shea received an email inviting him to meet Pope Benedict XVI at the White House. Think…
Film school, then alchemy classes. Suddenly: a medieval studies minor.While studying film at New York University, director Jeff Baena took several classes related to his interest…
'Maybe I'm a jinx. Send me to the other team.'American football player Tom Farris told the Packers coach that he might be a jinx because he had never playe…
Ottawa on Friday. Winnipeg on Sunday.Canadian football player Leon Hatziioannou appeared for Ottawa on October 14, 1988. He learned the next day t…
Two games in, he boarded a bus home. The coaches drove to the next stop.In 1995, Xavier basketball player Lenny Brown felt he did not fit in and boarded a bus to leave. University s…
He was close to giving up. Then the call came before the final game.Kicker Curtis Burrow heard from Green Bay several times during the 1988 NFL season without joining the team.…
The nearest bank was seven miles away. He opened one in town.Sheldon Toomer of Auburn, Alabama, grew tired of making an almost full-day round trip to a bank seven miles a…
The referees were snowed in. Two players took their places.At a January 1983 NHL game in Hartford, a snowstorm kept a referee and linesman from arriving. Active players…
He first saw snow as a student. Six years later, he skied for Fiji.Rusiate Rogoyawa moved from Fiji to Norway to study electrical engineering in 1982 and saw snow for the first…
His next rival was a train. He reportedly arrived eight hours ahead.After competing at the 1924 Paris Olympics, Ecuadorian distance runner Alberto Jarrín challenged a train trav…
A teenage weightlifter. Ninety-eight records in a year.Zoe Smith was invited to try weightlifting while training as a gymnast. In 2008 she set British national reco…
Run a marathon as a rhino. Then do it 112 more times.Britain's Chris Green began running in a roughly 10-kilogram rhinoceros costume named Spike to support rhino…
No catch for 402 days. Then an NFL team called.After being cut, Don Summers sold cars. A local paper reported that he went 402 days without catching a footb…
He wanted pasta to hold more sauce. He spent three years redesigning it.Food podcaster Dan Pashman worked with a US pasta maker from 2018 to 2021 on a new shape. The result, cascate…
He sent out an irreverent photo of the president. Then came the uranium mines.Czechoslovak photographer Jindřich Marco supplied a foreign agency with an irreverent photograph of President…
A college choir went on tour. Its earnings helped build a dorm.Facing financial trouble, Hampton Institute formed a touring choir in 1872 under Thomas P. Fenner. Its concer…
She escaped occupied Hong Kong. Then kept nursing across Asia.US-born Elsie Chin nursed the wounded during the 1941 battle for Hong Kong. After the Japanese occupation, sh…
She thought her film was gone. It resurfaced 35 years later.A 1973 short film of singer Zeinab Shaath was among cultural materials seized by Israeli forces during the 19…
Punishments did not work on her. Teachers called her a 'female tiger'.Taiwan-born scholar Jing Tsu recalled being a difficult primary-school student. Her teachers nicknamed her 'f…
She began a campaign online. Then moved to Samoa to grow it.US-raised Doris Tulifau launched Brown Girl Woke online in 2014 to support women and girls and challenge dome…
A band practice at age nine. The venue belonged to her teacher.British singer Erin LeCount learned music without formal lessons. Her primary-school music teacher let her an…
He visited friends for three days. Then signed to play basketball there.American basketball player Barry Leibowitz stopped in Israel for a three-day visit with friends during a vaca…
He was hired to demolish it. After seeing it, he called city officials.A Frank Lloyd Wright house in Arizona faced demolition for redevelopment in 2012. Landscaper Alexander Malate…
A former soldier was injured by a car. Dance classes helped her move again.LaTasha Barnes worked in satellite communications in the US Army and later at the White House Communications…
A gymnastics coach saw too much height. A swim coach saw potential.Taiwan's Chang Wei-chia started gymnastics in fourth grade but left after her coach judged her too tall. That…
She won a Broadway role. The theater shut after three rehearsal days.Elizabeth Teeter was cast as Lydia in Broadway's Beetlejuice in March 2020. After three days of rehearsals, t…
Football stickers had failed to sell. He packed them four at a time.Italian entrepreneur Giuseppe Panini bought unsold football stickers in 1960 and began selling them in packs…
He was studying law. The next day he flew to New York to act.Dabney Coleman was struggling at law school when actor Zachary Scott, a friend of his wife, visited for about…
An otter escaped the zoo. Almost a month later, she was found on an island.Jin escaped Auckland Zoo in New Zealand in June 2006 by digging through walls and climbing a barrier. After s…
A publisher was 92. He still rode his bike to work.German publisher Hans Dieter Beck, who headed the legal side of C. H. Beck, usually cycled to work. His last…
Headaches led to brain surgery. The next season he returned to play.US college football player Chad Brinker developed severe headaches and blurred vision in 2001. Doctors found…
He was not looking for new species. One flower still got his name.Colorado botanist Harold Harrington collected unusual plants and sent them to specialists rather than hunting…
To draw the neighborhood, the director reportedly spent a night there.The 1981 animated film Jarinko Chie is set in working-class Osaka. Director Isao Takahata reportedly stayed o…
She could not pay for her final semester. She later earned an unprecedented law degree.Unable to afford her last semester at Howard, Mabel Dole Haden transferred to Virginia State College and comp…
A keeper said Hanako the elephant helped save his marriage. How?A keeper at Tokyo's Inokashira Park Zoo said Hanako seemed sensitive to people's moods. After arguments with…
He doubted a cerebral palsy football team. Joining it changed his mind.English footballer Jake Brown, who has cerebral palsy, grew up playing on mainstream teams. Invited to the En…
A longtime gravedigger turned memories of war into an album.Domingo Chalá spent much of his life as a gravedigger in Bojayá, Colombia, and buried victims of the 2002 mas…
The performer took a different role at Christmas: Santa for children in hospital.Paraguayan drag artist Usha Didi Gunatita performed on stage and television, and offered shelter at home to L…
A clay scientist invented one of the early industrial nanomaterials.Hungarian-born mineralogist Barbara Neumann studied the structures of clays, then developed the synthetic cla…
A nuclear-fission scientist and his wife sheltered a Jewish musician during the war.German chemist Fritz Strassmann helped discover nuclear fission. During World War II, he and his wife Maria h…
A stage and TV actress has another role inside hospitals.Lebanese actress and singer Cynthya Karam also volunteers as a clown doctor. Her hospital work includes visit…
He left school to help his family, then led Colorado's state House.Ruben Valdez dropped out of high school at 15 to work in a brickyard as his family struggled financially. He…
Two opera stars shared a connection long before they shared a stage.Soprano Mirella Freni and tenor Luciano Pavarotti grew up in Modena, Italy, and had the same wet nurse. Years…
A bald eagle incubated a rock. Then rescuers gave him a real chick.At a Missouri sanctuary in 2023, Murphy the bald eagle began incubating a rock and guarding it from other eag…
A wetland project stalled for years. Then beavers built the dams.Czech conservation officials had planned small dams in the Brdy area since 2018, but the project was delayed.…
The runner ahead of the champion existed only in her imagination.Lieke Klaver won the women's 400 metres at the 2025 European indoor championships in the Netherlands. Afterwa…
The suggestion to try American football came from a burger-shop owner.Samoan-born, Australian-raised Laki Tasi grew up playing rugby. A family friend who owned a burger shop sugge…
With no proper helmet, a photographer improvised with kitchenware.While documenting a protest near Gaza's border in 2015, photographer Samar Abu Elouf used a cooking pot as an…
Three Japanese governors went to work wearing weighted pregnancy vests.In 2016, the governors of Saga, Miyazaki and Yamaguchi wore vests weighing about 7.3 kilograms as part of a c…
A steeplechase runner went back to help an injured rival.In a heat at the 2022 European Championships, Andorra's Nahuel Carabaña helped injured Danish runner Axel Van…
She trained in wartime Sarajevo and reached the Olympic start line.Bosnian runner Mirsada Burić was held in a camp during the 1992 war and later released. She trained while nav…
An apology after two fans were ejected helped start a baseball tradition.In 2000, security removed a lesbian couple from a Los Angeles Dodgers game for kissing. The club apologized.…
Her window recordings helped expose traffickers and corrupt officers.Around age 80, Brazil's Joana da Paz began filming criminal activity near her home. The footage became eviden…
A U.S. college recruited a German player it had never seen play.In 2020, American football player Leander Wiegand was offered an athletic scholarship by the University of Ce…
He did not make the baseball team, but later led the university's sports department.Graham Rossini tried out for Arizona State's baseball team but accepted a student-assistant role suggested by…
No reservations, cash only, four shared tables—and a Michelin star.Mexico City's Expendio de Maíz has no fixed menu. Cooks ask about diners' preferences and serve maize-based d…
A new TV station made its employees' paychecks part of the promotion.WMT-TV, which began broadcasting in Iowa in 1953, paid employees in unusual two-dollar bills as a promotional…
After being drafted by the NFL, a player wanted to find the judge who sent him to reform school.Ralph Jarvis began playing football at a juvenile reform school, continued in college, and was drafted by the…
After a film about abduction opened, its director received threats against his own daughter.Akira Kurosawa's High and Low opened in 1963. Amid concern about kidnappings in Japan, callers threatened to…
A found brooch helped a teacher decide whether to become a headmistress.In 1898, Elizabeth Wilhelmina Jones was hesitant about taking charge of Harrogate Ladies' College. While walk…
He fenced in Berlin, then judged another fencing match.Bernardo de la Guardia, Costa Rica's first Olympic athlete, competed in men's sabre at the 1936 Berlin Games.…
At Beijing's Winter Games, this flag bearer wore no shirt.Nathan Crumpton, American Samoa's only athlete at the 2022 Winter Olympics, carried the flag shirtless in tra…
They moved into a Frank Lloyd Wright house and sat on cardboard boxes.The Freemans initially could not afford furniture for their Los Angeles house, designed by Wright, so they sa…
She spent years championing a concert hall and saw its cornerstone laid at 101.Czech organist Alena Veselá chaired an association working for a new concert hall in Brno. She was present wh…
The wanted man was his own sonBass Reeves escaped slavery and became a deputy U.S. marshal in 1875. His career eventually brought a painful…
Soldier Robert was DeborahIn 1782 Deborah Sampson enlisted under a male name during the American Revolution. A doctor discovered her id…
A battlefield hotel built around foodJamaican-born Mary Seacole established the British Hotel in Crimea in 1855. Despite its name, the business ce…
He bought a ship to become a pirateIn 1717 wealthy Barbadian landowner Stede Bonnet turned to piracy with little sailing experience. He bought h…
The pirate leader negotiated retirementAfter her husband died, Zheng Yi Sao led a pirate confederation off China’s coast. In 1810 she negotiated sur…
His baseball uniform had a question markFormer player Max Patkin became a comic performer at baseball grounds across North America. His baggy uniform…
Woodstock had a “Please Force”At the original Woodstock festival in 1969, Wavy Gravy and the Hog Farm collective helped with preparations a…
He performs with cards and tests how they feelCard expert Richard Turner developed his performance skills despite losing his sight. A playing-card company…
The upper half chased the escaping legsIn a 1937 stage illusion, Johnny Eck and his twin brother helped add a twist to the familiar sawing act. Subs…
The show continued after her husband diedAdelaide Herrmann had played many roles in her husband’s magic shows. When he died in 1896, she decided to co…
The billionaire gave money away in secretChuck Feeney built a fortune through duty-free retail and spent years giving anonymously. His lifetime donati…
A karaoke pioneer did not patent the machineDaisuke Inoue developed a machine that let customers sing without live accompaniment. He did not patent that…
A shipboard spring suggested a toyIn 1943 Richard T. James worked on springs for supporting sensitive instruments aboard ships. Watching a drop…
She did not describe her cookie as an accidentRuth Graves Wakefield’s Toll House cookie is sometimes explained as a mistake involving chocolate that failed…
The childhood ice-pop story has a complicationFrank Epperson is associated with a story about a childhood drink freezing around a stirring stick. Later rep…
Eight days after winning, she lost the titleRosie Ruiz was initially declared the women’s winner of the 1980 Boston Marathon. Eight days later, she was s…
The Japanese keepsake turned out to be a customs formDuring the 1912 Stockholm Olympics, Shizo Kanakuri received help from a local family. An account of his 1967…
Four leaders fell, and the trailing skater took goldIn the men’s 1,000-metre short-track final at the 2002 Winter Olympics, Steven Bradbury was behind the other…
He won his Olympic heat with nobody beside himAt Sydney 2000, Equatorial Guinea’s Eric Moussambani swam his 100-metre freestyle heat alone after the other…
An Olympic halfpipe run without the big tricksRepresenting Hungary in 2018, Elizabeth Swaney completed women’s halfpipe runs without the tricks spectators…
He left a failing aircraft and entered a thundercloudIn 1959, US pilot William Rankin ejected after his aircraft’s engine failed. His parachute opened inside a th…
Rain arrived, but his promised payment did notSan Diego approached self-described rainmaker Charles Hatfield in 1915 about filling a reservoir. Heavy rain…
Another game on the mound bought him a fishing breakAfter winning a seventeen-inning game for Milwaukee in 1900, Rube Waddell was offered a three-day fishing vac…
A major-league uniform carried the number one-eighthEddie Gaedel appeared for the St. Louis Browns on August 19, 1951, wearing number 1/8. Four consecutive balls…
Four zebras pulled his carriage to Buckingham PalaceWalter Rothschild, a keen zoologist, drove a carriage harnessed to four zebras to Buckingham Palace. The demo…
Her drawings helped establish who designed the machineMargaret Knight developed a machine to make flat-bottomed paper bags automatically. After someone else patent…
A windshield-wiper patent did not quickly find a buyerMary Anderson patented a window-cleaning device in 1903, operated from inside a vehicle by a lever. In 1905,…
A skating problem became an ear-protector businessAccounts of Chester Greenwood describe him wanting to protect his ears while skating at fifteen. His grandmot…
A damaged instrument helped reveal an adhesiveA material examined by Harry Coover’s team was rejected as too sticky for another purpose. In 1951, a chemist…
An early zipper predecessor began with shoesWhitcomb Judson’s clasp-locker was a predecessor of the modern zipper, first intended for shoes and high boot…
She handed out wire to explain a nanosecondGrace Hopper distributed pieces of wire about thirty centimetres long to represent how far light travels in a…
The writer brought a gibbon in a little dinner jacketAccounts of writer Emily Hahn’s life in 1930s Shanghai describe her taking her pet gibbon, Mr. Mills, to dinn…
Her climbing trousers became a public talking pointAnnie Smith Peck climbed the Matterhorn in 1895 wearing a tunic, climbing boots and knickerbocker trousers. H…
He went looking for a supposedly surviving giant slothA newspaper commissioned Hesketh Hesketh-Prichard to investigate reports of a hairy beast in Patagonia. It wa…
A dictionary and a typewriter went around the world with herAlma Karlin left on a world journey in 1919 carrying a typewriter and a multilingual dictionary. She financed…
A household job led to a job classifying starsWilliamina Fleming worked as a maid in the home of Harvard’s observatory director. She began helping with obs…
He automated a skilled bottleneck in shoemakingSuriname-born Jan Matzeliger worked in the American shoe industry and developed an automatic lasting machine.…
His toilet paper carried his own watermarkJoseph Gayetty marketed toilet paper in the United States in 1857. It came as separate sheets rather than a r…
A clockmaker used wooden mechanismsJohn Harrison brought a joiner’s skills to clockmaking. His early clocks used wooden movements made with mate…
His waterproof fabric hid its useful layer insideCharles Macintosh’s waterproof fabric bonded two layers of cloth with natural rubber. The useful barrier lay…