Robert Liston, considered a pioneering British surgeon (and noted for his skill in an era prior to anaesthetics, when speed made a difference in terms of pain and survival) once accidentally amputated an assistant’s fingers along with a patient’s leg. The patient and the assistant both died of sepsis, and a spectator reportedly died of shock, resulting in the only known procedure with a 300% mortality.
Found on Wikipedia.
The Thirsty Beaver Saloon in Charlotte, NC is an astonishingly low-key place. So low-key, in fact, that one of the world’s most recognizable men, Mick Jagger, came in for a beer and literally nobody noticed him.
“I wasn’t there. I missed it. I was putting my little girl to bed,” he says. He left the Beaver around 5, and came back around 11:45 at night. There was no buzz or gossip or talk about Mick Jagger. At all. When asked about his regulars that missed Jagger, he said, “They’ll pay $400 for a ticket on the floor, but they don’t recognize Mick Jagger when he walks in the door.”
The tiny 13-year-old dive bar rose quickly to local legend status after the building owner declined multiple offers from a real estate developer to sell to make room for apartments. But they wouldn’t sell. So they built the apartments around the saloon instead.
Full story found here.
In 1871, a woman from Quebec hired a hearse with the sole intention of riding around town smoking in the coffin-bed while enjoying the view
Very little is known about her, but a newspaper article published after the incident reads: “What will women do next to distinguish themselves, we wonder! A female in Quebec, the other day, perpetrated a ghastly joke, mocking death in His own domain by lying down in a hearse and smoking a pipe as the funeral chariot was driven through the street. If this exhibition had been made in the United States, our neighbors at the North would have made it the subject of very strong animadversions.”
Found on Twitter.
“At the prompting of a marketing friend, I was advised to title this book, My Intensely Madcap, Lebanese/Cajun, Jesuit-Schizoid, Terminally Narcissistic, Food-Focused, East Coast/West Coast, Georgetown/Yale, Career-Changing, Cross-Dressing, Runaway Catholic Italophile, Paradoxically Dramatic, Linguistically Neurotic, Hollywood Academic, ADD-Overcompensating, Niche-Abhorring, Jocoserious Obit. But when my designer pointed out that title wouldn’t fit on the spine, much less on any public display list, I changed my mind. Again! The story of my life.
Which this is at least the first volume of. I hope it makes you laugh, spares you some of my grief, and leads you to insist on telling your story to anyone who will listen.”
