Tuesday, January 23, 2007

The Boston Molasses Disaster and other Curiosities

In 1919, a tank in a candy factory in Boston exploded, sending a large wave of molasses down the street. By the time the sticky tidal wave subsided, 21 people were dead.

In 1850, President Zachary Taylor died following five days of indigestion after gorging himself on cherries and iced milk.

A mine fire has been burning beneath Centralia, Pennsylvania since 1962.

Fucking, Austria got it's name in 1070, from a chap named Focko.

Year 10,000 problem. Y2K in is the past. We can look forward to this.

Chrysippus, a Greek philosopher, apparently died of laughter while observing a drunk donkey attempting to eat figs.

The Emerald Cockroach Wasp stings a cockroach twice to slow it down and to disable its escape reflex. It then mounts the roach and "drives" it to a secure place using the roach's antennae, where it lays an egg in the roach. The larva eats the roach from inside out.

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8 comments:

Anonymous said...

I saw the molasses thing on that disaster show. "Worst Disasters in History" or some such.

Next time I see a donkey I'll have to bring some figs with me so I can see what's so gosh darn amusing. Or maybe it's just that they didn't have tv in those days so it was a lot easier to amuse people.

running42k said...

Very interesting.

Anonymous said...

I've seen pictures of the molasses mishap, probably in a newspaper article or reference book. Seriously odd.

Anonymous said...

Okay, most of these were interesting, but the roach one? Just iewww.

Maven said...

The talk about that wasp made me think of THIS.

Me love me some parasites!

zydeco fish said...

Gross! That's disgusting.

Liz said...

anti-choice WASPs are always forcing women to have children

zydeco fish said...

Liz: that's so true.