The Apache — A 19th Century Personal Protection Gadget

Posted by John in Gadget, Weapons & War on April 21, 2009 at 9:33 pm


The Apache was a combination dagger, pepperbox, and knuckle duster manufactured and sold in the United States from 1870 through 1900. More pictures and history of this unique pocket weapon at the link.

Link

Al Capone’s Prison Cell

Posted by Miss Cellania in Crime & Law on April 17, 2009 at 10:56 am

When notorious gangster Al Capone was incarcerated at Eastern State Penitentiary in Philadelphia, he was treated with deference by guards, and maintained powerful connections from behind bars. I don’t know about the walls, but I’d commit a crime for that furniture! Link -via J-Walk Blog

(image credit: Mike Graham)

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10 Smart people that died in really stupid ways

Posted by Queuebot in Everything Else, Funny on April 9, 2009 at 6:40 am

Darwining oneself isn’t limited to toothless rednecks who want you to hold their beer so you can watch this… plenty of smart, talented people have met their end in incredibly dumb ways as well. Here’s 10 of them, in alphabetical order.

Link

From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by cbz3000.

A Few Facts About Napoleon

Posted by Stacy in Neatorama Only on April 11, 2009 at 1:09 pm

Last week marked the anniversary of the date that Napoleon abdicated and was then exiled to the Island of Elba. Thanks to high school history, we know plenty about Napoleon’s military campaigns and political dealings, but maybe not so much about the dude himself. Here are a few tidbits about him you probably didn’t learn in your fifth period History of the World class.

Little Nabulio

He was born Napoleone di Buonaparte and his parents called him Nabulio.

When he was a schoolboy, royal inspectors examined each child on how his studies and personal development were coming and then recommended a future career. One of Napoleon’s reviews said he was distinguished in mathematics, but “very poor in social accomplishments” and said he should become a naval officer. Go figure. Another one reported that he was domineering and stubborn, and a third one said he should look to the army for a job.

All in the Family

Napoleon did well by his siblings once he was in the position to give them titles and properties and privileges. Here were the titles of his seven siblings:

• Joseph, his only older sibling, was made King of Naples and Sicily, King of Spain and the Indies, Comte de Survilliers.

• Lucien, the brother who came immediately after Napoleon, was Prince of Canino and Musignano. His male heirs received the same title, but it was really a pretty fluff title and was never legally recognized in France. Lucien and Napoleon clashed a lot, so it’s no surprise that Napoleon didn’t do as well by this brother.

• Elisa, his first sister, became an Imperial Highness of France, the Duchess of Lucca and Princess of Piombino, Grand Duchess of Tuscany, Comtesse de Compignano.

• Louis, the fourth Buonaparte son, was styled the Prince of France, King of Holland and Comte de Saint-Leu.

• Pauline was Napoleon’s favorite sister (that’s her on the left). He made her a Princess of France and a Princess and Duchess of Guastalla. She was kind of a wild child and had numerous affairs and trysts. Eventually, she married into the rich Italian Borghese family and furthered her ego by using her ladies-in-waiting as footstools.

• Caroline was a Princess of France, Grand Duchess Consort of Berg and Cleves, Queen Consort of Naples and Sicily, Princess Consort Murat, Comtesse de Lipona. Caroline hated Josephine with a passion and arranged for him to have an affair. When he married Marie-Louise, she was horribly jealous and mean to her as well.

• Finally, Jerome, the French Prince, King of Westphalia, 1st Prince of Montfort (his father-in-law gave him the latter title).

Because of his heirs and his illegitimate children and the plethora of children from his many siblings, there are lots of Napoleonic descendants floating around out there. Among them:

• Charles Joseph Bonaparte, the grandson of Napoleon’s brother Jerome, the United States Secretary of the Navy and the United States Attorney General under Teddy Roosevelt. He also founded the Bureau of Investigation in 1908, which later turned into the FBI.

• René Murat Auberjonois, whom you might know as Father Mulcahy from the M*A*S*H movie, Odo from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine or Paul Lewiston from Boston Legal. His mother was the great-great granddaughter of Napoleon’s sister Caroline.

• Marie Bonaparte was a French author and pscyhoanalyst who had close ties with Sigmund Freud. Her great grandfather was Napoleon’s brother, Lucien. She was very vocal about her sexual “frigidity” and helped conduct experiments that would have impressed Kinsey himself (I’ll let you decide if you want to read up on those or not). She was also a noted Edgar Allan Poe scholar.

Napoleon and Josephine

Josephine’s real name was Rose (Marie Josèphe Rose Tascher de la Pagerie, to be exact) but Napoleon didn’t like it. He renamed her Josephine and she went with it.

Josephine was the older woman - she was 32 when she married 26-year-old Napoleon. She already had two children by her first husband Alexandre François Marie de Beauharnais. Their daughter, Hortense, actually married Napoleon’s brother Louis. Napoleon, of course, had requested it, and the marriage was an unhappy one.

Napoleon and Josephine ended up divorcing not because of the affairs, which both of them were having, but because Josephine was unable to produce an heir to the throne. She agreed to a divorce so Napoleon could marry his mistress, Archduchess of Austria Marie Louise, in the hopes that she would be able to have his son, and indeed she did. Another fun fact: Marie Louise was the grand-niece of Marie Antoinette.

Despite the divorce, and despite the fact that he told a friend that he truly loved her but didn’t respect her, Napoleon’s last words were, “France, armée, tête d’armée, Joséphine.”(”France, army, head of the army, Joséphine.”)

Napoleon’s Traveling Body Parts

It’s believed that four real copies of Napoleon’s death mask exist, and one of them managed to find its way to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Here’s how that happened, according to the school. Dr. Antommarchi, one of the doctors present when Napoleon died, made copies of the death mask originally cast by Dr. Francis Burton. Antommarchi traveled to the U.S. in 1834 and presented a bronze copy to the city of New Orleans and a plaster copy to a colleague there. When the colleague died, the plaster copy was handed down to friend and UNC alum Francis Bryan, who in turn donated it to his alma mater. The UNC President liked to keep Napoleon’s likeness on his desk (paperweight?); eventually it ended up in the library. It’s still in the UNC collection today. Photo via UNC University Libraries.

Strangely, Napoleon’s penis can also be found in the United States. Or at least, an object purported to be Napoleon’s penis is here somewhere. Along with all of the doctors present for Napoleon’s last breath was a priest named Vignali. Vignali apparently removed some of Napoleon’s organs during the subsequent autopsy, the family jewels among them. Vignali’s descendants held on to this gem until 1916, when they sold all of their Napoleonic artifacts to a British book firm. In 1977, several auctions later, John K. Lattimer, a former chairman of urology at the Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons, bought the shriveled sea horse (that’s seriously how it was described) for a cool $3,000. As of 1987, he still had it, but it’s not really been mentioned since then.

10 Examples of Royal Weirdness

Posted by Jill Harness in Neatorama Only, Politics on April 13, 2009 at 8:05 am

I’m sure this isn’t the first time you’ve been told that certain members of the ruling classes are weird, but this might be the first time you’ve heard some of these exceptionally strange tales of royal weirdness.

1. The Cucumber King of Burma

In 931, King Theinhko of Burma ate the cucumbers of a local villager without asking first. The angry farmer murdered Theinhko and then took over the throne as King Nyanng-u Sawrahan. The queen welcomed him, in an effort to prevent political unrest. Nyanng-u was forever after known as ‘The Cucumber King.’ He reigned over Burma for 33 years until he was overthrown.

2. Nine Months of French Bastards

King Philip Augustus of France was married to his second wife, Ingeborg of Denmark, in 1193. Sadly, Augustus found Ingeborg to be absolutely revolting and filed for a divorce on the grounds that the marriage was not yet consummated. His wife, however, argued that they had consummated the marriage. As a result, Pope Celestine III refused to grant the king a divorce.
Philip was not easily defeated. He ignored the decision and went on to marry Agnes of Marania.

The pope ordered him to return to Ineborg and to make his point, he imposed an interdict on December 12, 1199. During this time, all churches were closed and the pope determined that as long as the king wasn’t sleeping with his wife, his subjects were not allowed to sleep with theirs. As a result, all children born in this period were deemed illegitimate. The interdict continued until September 7, 1200 –resulting in nine months of bastards born in France. Augustus eventually did return to Ineborg, but not until 1213.

3. A Dead Woman Crowned Queen

Ines de Castro was a loving mistress to Dom Pedro, heir of the Portuguese throne. Unfortunately, the current ruler, King Alfonso, was paranoid that the pair was plotting against him and ordered Ines to be assassinated in 1355.

When Pedro was crowned as king in 1357, his love for Ines had not yet faded. He sought revenge on the assassins and made them suffer through horrendous tortures. That wasn’t enough though, Pedro was still determined that Ines should take her seat beside him as queen. He had her body exhumed, dressed in proper royal attire and the entire candlelit coronation ceremony proceeded as usual. Ines’s body was anointed and crowned, the subjects were made to swear allegiance to her, and the nobles were required to kneel and kiss her cold, two-years-dead hand.

4. The Ghastly Death of Mary Queen of Scots

If you ever played Bloody Mary in the mirror as a youth, you know that it is quite a terrifying ghost story. While there are many proposed “Marys” that could be referenced in the story, Mary Queen of Scots has a terrifying ghost story thanks to her botched execution.

On February 8, 1587, Mary was led to the execution block. The executioner, likely drunk, failed to knock off her head on the first blow. Instead, he hit the back of her head, at which time, her servants reported that she muttered “Sweet Jesus.” He managed to remove her head on the second blow and he lifted her head up by the auburn hair on her head, right then, her head fell from his hands, revealing that she actually had short gray hair covered by thick wig. Also strange, her lips continued moving for the next fifteen minutes, likely caused by a nerve damaged during the first execution attempt.

As if all this wasn’t enough, Mary’s dog was discovered to be hiding under her skirts. When the pet was pulled out, it insisted on lying between the shoulders and decapitated head of her body. Eventually, Mary’s servants took the dog, but not until it was thoroughly soaked in its dead master’s blood.
Even for the people of the time, jaded from by frequent public executions, Mary’s beheading was full of exceptionally terrifying surprises.

5. A Strange ‘Divine Right’

Normally a king’s “divine rights” seem to include things like violating virgins and taking food and money, however, in 1627, Charles I decided to declare rights of a much different nature. He ordered all of his subjects to turn in their urine to official collectors once a day in the summer and once every other day in the winter. These collections were to help the country create saltpeter, a component of gunpowder.
Charles also claimed rights to all soil loaded with animal waste. The so-called ‘Saltpeter Men’ were permitted to dig up the floors of stables, slaughterhouses and other areas without permission of the property owners.

6. Louis The XIV’s Enema Obsession

Imagine trying to hold a conversation with someone receiving an enema. Now imagine that someone was King and he was holding court throughout the experience. King Louis XIV was known for performing this type of activity regularly. The enema was a quite popular medical procedure at this time, but few people seemed to love the activity nearly as much as the king who is said to have received over 2,000 enemas throughout his lifetime – many of them in public.

7. The King of Debt

King Theodore of Corsica wasn’t much of a king. For one thing, he wasn’t nobility by birth, he was merely a soldier who asked to be king in exchange for helping aid the Corsicans in a revolt. When the revolt had proven to be ineffective and a the Genovese government put a price on his head, Theodore started to lose popularity amongst his people. He decided that he would be better off ruling overseas.

Unfortunately, once he left the country, he was never able to return to his kingdom. Eventually, he ended up in debtors prison in Amsterdam, and later, London. He was freed from Holland’s prison easy enough, but the only way he could earn release from the London jail was by giving Corsica to his creditors.

When he died in London in 1756, his epitaph read:

Theodore this moral learned ere dead:
Fate poured its lessons on his living head,
Bestowed a kingdom, and denied him bread.

After his death, an opera was made from his tale in 1784. Additionally, ‘King Theodore of Corsica’ started to be used as a nickname for gin, joining the ranks of ‘Cuckold’s Comfort’ as a slang for the drink.

8. Madness Doth Not A Kingdom Make

Nouvelle France was a South American territory also called the Kingdom of Araucanìa and Patagonia. The area’s first (and only) king, elected in 1860, was Orelie-Antoine de Tounens, a French lawyer. He supported the local people’s efforts to resist takeover by Chile and Argentina. The people of the area, called Mapuche, thought that Tounens may help aid their cause as he was a skilled European negotiator. He helped the locals draft a constitution and mint coins, but Chile largely ignored him. Tounens tried to convince France to come to his aid and after a short investigation, they determined him to be crazy.

He was arrested by the Chilean government within two years of becoming king. France managed to secure his release from prison by convincing his jailers that he was insane. After his release, he was deported back to France and Tounens then spent the rest of his life trying to take over his kingdom again. In 1869, he made it back to the country, but soon returned to France to gather more money. Tounens attempted to return two more times afterward, but both times he was captured by Chilean authorities and deported. He eventually died in squalor in France in 1878.

His relatives periodically continued to claim their rightful place as ruler of the country, although the most recent heir has renounced the claim. Since the establishment of Nouvelle France, no sovereign state has ever recognized the territory as a legitimate country.

9. The Long-Lasting Legacy of Nobility

In 1888, Charles-Marie David de Mayrena elected himself Marie the First, King of the Sedang. Marie was an eccentric French adventurer and he arranged his kingdom to rule over a number of small tribes. King Marie declared the official religion of the country to be Roman Catholic although most of its residents were Muslims and he later adopted the Islamic faith himself. He awarded titles of nobility to his supporters during his two-year rule. He attempted to trade his kingdom to the French, English and Belgium governments in exchange for a trading monopoly, but he received little interest. When he tried to return to his kingdom though, the French prevented him from entering any port in Indochina. He died in 1890, and the details of this death remain a mystery –some sources claim it was by duel, others say it was poison and yet other reports argue he was bitten by a snake.

Over 100 years later, the Assembly for the Restoration of the Sedang Nobility was established in Montreal in 1995. This group consisted of descendants of those who bestowed with titles of nobility by King Marie. The organization claims it seeks to “re-establish and promote the social institutions of monarchy and nobility and practice their principles in a world which has largely forgotten them: chivalry, honor, duty, loyalty, respect, enlightenment, tolerance.” At the same time, they are glad to renounce their claims to the territory, admitting it is undisputedly part of Vietnam. Three years later, they changed their name to the Sedang Royalist Assembly. Although genealogists helped the group find an heir of King Marie, the descendant was uninterested in claiming his title. This organization is still around and is headquartered in Montreal.

10. Technicalities Galore

What happens when your country’s official constitution and other historical documents fail to mention one small town? If that unmentioned village happens to be Seborga (flag shown above), you may end up with an “independent principality” smack dab in the middle of your country. The area, that should be part of Italy, declared its independence in 1967 and elected the head of the flower growing collective, Giorgio Carbone, to be the country’s head of state or “Giorgio I, Prince of Seborga.” Giorgio is officially addressed as “Your Tremendousness” by his followers.

Giorgio and other members of the village claim that Seborga was never incorporated into Italy. Although it was sold to the king of Savoy and Sardinia in 1729, the sale was not registered. On top of that, the Congress of Vienna in 1815, the 1861 Act of Unification and the constitution written in 1946 all fail to mention Seborga. Scholars have proven that regardless, the area is still part of Italy, but Seborgians defy this logic.

The principality mints its own currency, the luigino, currently valued at $6 - meaning if it were recognized as a legitimate legal tender, it would be the most valuable currency in the world. Regardless of the area’s claim to independence, most of the residents follow the laws of Italy, pay taxes and vote in national elections.

In 2006, a woman named Yasmine von Hohenstaufen Anjou Plantagenet, who claims to be heir to Roman Emperor Fredrick II and the rightful ruler of Seborga, tried to return the ‘country’ to Italy. The majority of villagers were notably upset and Prince Giorgio commented “The girl cannot give away something she does not own.”

Sources #1, #2, #3, #4, #5, #6, #7, #8, #9 All Images come from listed sources unless otherwise noted.

It’s Not a Tumah! It’s a Tree!

Posted by Alex in Medicine on April 13, 2009 at 1:38 pm

Doctors operating on 28-year-old Artyom Sidorkin was expecting to find a tumor in one of his lungs, but they got a big, green surprise during the surgery:

Doctors x-rayed his chest and found a tumor in one of the lungs. Suspecting cancer, they made a decision to perform biopsy, but when they cut the tissue, they were amazed to see green needles in the cut.

“I blinked three times, and thought I was seeing things. Then I called the assistant to have a look,” says Vladimir Kamashev, doctor at the Udmurtian Cancer Center.

The five-centimeter branch was removed from the patient’s body. [...]

It is obvious that a five-centimeter branch is too large to be inhaled or swallowed, doctors say. They suggest that the patient might have inhaled a small bud, which then started to grow inside his body.

Link (Photo: Komsomolskaya Pravda)

Waking the Baby Mammoth

Posted by Alex in Animal, Science & Tech, Video Clips on April 14, 2009 at 4:35 pm

This is pretty cool: National Geographic Channel has a fantastic feature titled Waking the Baby Mammoth, about the discovery of a well-preserved body of a baby woolly mammoth:

Only a handful have ever been found before. But none like her. Her name is Lyuba. A 1-month-old baby mammoth, she walked the tundra about 40,000 years ago and then died mysteriously. Discovered by a reindeer herder, she miraculously re-appeared on a riverbank in northwestern Siberia in 2007. She is the most perfectly preserved woolly mammoth ever discovered. And she has mesmerized the scientific world with her arrival - creating headlines across the globe.

Link | More Videos - Thanks Minjae!

Previously on Neatorama: Scientists Took CT Scans of a Baby Mammoth

20 Reasons To Love Penguins

Posted by Jill Harness in Animal, Funny, Pictures on April 14, 2009 at 3:49 pm

20 Reasons I Love Penguins is a blog post detailing exactly that. It has simple reasons why penguins are great, paired with really fantastic images of the birds. For example:

8. They’d make great punk rockers

(Photo credit: Jungleboy)

The whole post is funny and visually stunning. I highly recommend stopping by for a look.

Link

Birdcage Dress

Posted by Alex in Animal, Arts & Crafts, Fashion, Pictures on April 14, 2009 at 4:42 pm

Photo: Derek Dublin

Conceptual artist Kasey McMahon (whose works CompuBeaver and Text-o-Possum have been featured on Neatorama before) sent us her latest creation: the Birdcage Dress (yes, it’s a fully functional wearable brass bird cage - notice the birdies?)

Link - Thanks Kasey!

The King of Bling

Posted by Alex in Pictures on April 14, 2009 at 7:06 pm

Photo: Steve Bourget

A team of archaeologists co-led by Steve Bourget of the University of Texas discovered a treasure-filled tomb of the Moche Culture in Peru. They found this gem amongst the content: a 1,500-year-old funerary mask of Lord Ucupe, dubbed the "king of bling" because he was covered head to toe in shiny jewels and metals.

Kelly Hearn and Ted Chamberlain of the National Geographic News have the story: Link

Extreme Dog Houses

Posted by Queuebot in Everything Else on April 14, 2009 at 7:54 pm

What on earth possessed Rachel Hunter to create a $30,000 dog house for her pooch? From the looks of this list, she’s not alone, but seriously! There has to be some mortgage/pork barrel joke here

The size (and cost) of these canine abodes is nothing to bark about—especially considering all the thought and handiwork behind them. While we’re the first to admit that the dwellings are a bit over the top, we have to confess that we do tend to indulge in a little pet spoiling from time to time. From the über-chic French Chateau dog house to Rachel Hunter’s Mexican Hacienda dog house, this type of pampering may be outside our price range, but it’s still fun to dream. Check out the pet palaces below to discover new ways to let sleeping dogs lie.

Link

From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by ahammel.

Decriminalizing Drug Use in Portugal: 5 Years Later

Posted by Alex in Crime & Law, Politics on April 15, 2009 at 3:57 am

While people in the United States endlessly debate what should be done with the country’s drug problem, Portugal went ahead and decriminalize the use and possession of illicit drugs 5 years ago.

Here’s what the country learned:

In the face of a growing number of deaths and cases of HIV linked to drug abuse, the Portuguese government in 2001 tried a new tack to get a handle on the problem—it decriminalized the use and possession of heroin, cocaine, marijuana, LSD and other illicit street drugs. The theory: focusing on treatment and prevention instead of jailing users would decrease the number of deaths and infections.

Five years later, the number of deaths from street drug overdoses dropped from around 400 to 290 annually, and the number of new HIV cases caused by using dirty needles to inject heroin, cocaine and other illegal substances plummeted from nearly 1,400 in 2000 to about 400 in 2006, according to a report released recently by the Cato Institute, a Washington, D.C, libertarian think tank.

Brian Vastag of Scientific American has more on the story: Link

Anatomical Bed Cover

Posted by Alex in Arts & Crafts, Home & Garden, Pictures on April 15, 2009 at 3:58 am

Photo: Taiyo Onorato and Nico Krebs

This anatomical duvet cover (or is it blanket?) is titled The Hypochondriac (2004) and is the work of Taiyo Onorato and Nico Krebs of TONK. The duo are great photographers, but their website has atrocious navigation - via Who Killed Bambi?