House Committee on Un-American Activities

Today I found out the Cincinnati Reds were once renamed the “Redlegs” due to the second “Red Scare”.

The Cincinnati Reds name was originally inspired by a previously existing team, the Cincinnati Red Stockings, which was the first fully professional baseball team.  This former team had ten men on salary for eight months to play baseball for the Red Stockings.  It was organized by Harry Wright, who also played center field for the team and managed the defensive positioning, which was something that typically wasn’t done at that time.  The Cincinnati Red Stockings were wildly successful early on, going 57-1 (wins-tie) in their first season while touring the United States.  They followed this up by winning 24 straight games the next season before losing 8-7 in 11 innings to the Brooklyn Atlantics, which resulted in their attendance declining substantially and the team ultimately being disbanded, even though they only lost 6 games throughout that season.

In any event, the present day Cincinnati Reds’ name was inspired by the Cincinnati Red Stockings, even though they have no real connection with the Red Stockings other than being from the same town and initially naming themselves the same thing (the Cincinnati Red Stockings).  However, when this latter organization moved from the American Association to the National League, they shortened the name to just “Reds”.

This name stuck until 1953 when the association of the term “Reds” with communism caused the Reds to change their name to the “Redlegs” in order to avoid the social stigma.  Further, for a four year stretch from 1956-1960, the name “Reds” was removed from the team’s logo and no longer appeared on the team’s uniforms.  Despite the continued use of the changed logo, the name “Cincinnati Reds” was restored after the 1958 season.

If you’re wondering where the term “Redlegs” came from, this was once a derogatory term used to refer to a specific group of poor white people living on various islands in the Caribbean (generally originally from Ireland and Scotland).  They were also commonly known as “white slaves”.  Some were in fact actual white slaves, having been taken by press gangs and transported to Barbados to be sold.  Others were simply indentured servants, agreeing to work more or less as slaves for a time in exchange for transportation.  It’s estimated around 50,000 of these Redlegs were transported from Ireland alone during the mid-17th century.

So, apparently, the Reds preferred to associate themselves with slavery, rather than communism.  Although, this is marginally fitting given the reserve clause that was in place at the time, which forbid a player from being able to play for any team but the one who owned the rights to him when his last contract expired, unless he was released or traded.  This resulted in teams getting to set salaries nearly as low as they pleased and to completely control the careers of their baseball players. The only real negotiating tactic the players had at their disposal was to refuse to play baseball at all, which resulted in them not getting paid anything when they didn’t play and obviously wasn’t a good tactic for players who weren’t stars.

Bonus Factoids:

• After the Cincinnati Red Stockings were disbanded as a professional club, Harry Wright was hired by Ivers Whitney Adams to organize a new professional club in Boston with the first professional league.  In 1871, he put together the Boston Red Stockings, bringing over three of the members of the former Cincinnati Red Stockings.
• The Boston Red Stockings eventually became the Boston Braves, which are now the Atlanta Braves.  The Boston Red Sox were not established until much later in 1901.
• Frank Robinson was the Rookie of the Year for the National League, in the first year the Reds were called the Redlegs (1953).
• The Second Red Scare also saw Hollywood blacklist certain writers, directors, and actors that were associated with communism.  The first such blacklist by Hollywood was put in place on November 25, 1947 after a group of Hollywood writers and directors were held in contempt of Congress, “The Hollywood Ten”: Alvah Bessie (writer), Herbert Biberman (writer/director), Lester Cole (writer), Edward Dmytryk (director), Ring Lardner Jr. (writer), John Howard Lawson (writer), Albert Maltz (writer), Samuel Ornitz (writer), Adrian Scott (producer/writer), and Dalton Trumbo (writer).  What they did to earn this charge was refuse to testify to the House Committee on Un-American Activities, which is possibly one of the most hypocritical of all U.S. government committees to date.  Rather than refuse to testify, perhaps all those asked to testify should have just held up large mirrors to reflect the committee’s faces back at them in order to help them find “Un-American Activity.”
• One such blacklisted individual, Lionel Stander, did this verbally when he was asked to testify, throwing it back in the committee’s faces: “I know of a group of fanatics who are desperately trying to undermine the Constitution of the United States by depriving artists and others of Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness without due process of law…. I can tell names and cite instances and I am one of the first victims of it…. These people are engaged in a conspiracy outside all the legal processes to undermine the very fundamental American concepts upon which our entire system of democracy exists.”
• All total there were forty three that were asked to testify at the time the “Hollywood Ten” refused to do so.  Most were willing to testify, but there were 19 that had refused to give any evidence to the Committee with 10 of the 19 being called.  These ten refused to answer such questions as: “Are you now or have you ever been a member of the Communist Party?”
• Following this charge, executive members of 48 movie companies met at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York and wrote up the “Waldorf Statement”, that, among other things, stated: “We will forthwith discharge or suspend without compensation those in our employ, and we will not re-employ any of the 10 until such time as he is acquitted or has purged himself of contempt and declares under oath that he is not a Communist… On the broader issue of alleged subversive and disloyal elements in Hollywood, our members are likewise prepared to take positive action… We will not knowingly employ a Communist or a member of any party or group which advocates the overthrow of the government of the United States by force or by any illegal or unconstitutional methods.”
• All members of the Hollywood Ten ended up being given one year prison sentences for contempt of Congress when the Supreme Court refused to hear their case.  One of the ten, Edward Dmytryk, ultimately decided to give names and as a result, his prison sentence was shortened and he was removed from the blacklist.
• Ultimately the witch hunt continued after the Hollywood Ten and numerous other movie industry employees were blacklisted, including 84 of the 204 that signed a brief supporting the Hollywood Ten.  Actor Larry Park was one of those blacklisted after he stated to the committee: “Don’t present me with the choice of either being in contempt of this committee and going to jail or forcing me to really crawl through the mud to be an informer. For what purpose? I don’t think it is a choice at all. I don’t think this is really sportsmanlike. I don’t think this is American. I don’t think this is American justice.”  He did ultimately testify, but was added to the blacklist anyways.  Further, anyone who used the Fifth Amendment to get out of naming names also was added to the blacklist.
• In the late 1950s, several people previously blacklisted began finding work in various places in Hollywood, such as Norman Lloyd in 1957, hired by Alfred Hitchcock.  The major blow to the blacklist supporters came when Dalton Trumbo, one of the members of the original Hollywood Ten, was shown to be one of the writers of the movie Exodus.  He was also announced to be one of the writers of Spartacus.
• The owner of RKO Pictures supposedly decided to get out of the movie business largely as a result of the Red Scare and the witch hunt it produced in Hollywood.  What makes this notable is that this allowed Howard Hughes to get into the film industry when he purchased RKO Pictures.  This subsequently resulted in Hughes playing a critical role in ending the Hollywood studio system that had been in place for a few decades.
• The First Red Scare occurred in the U.S. from 1919-1920 and was centered around socialist radicalism.  The Second Red Scare ran for a decade around 1947-1957, give or take a few years.  This was centered around communists supposedly infiltrating the U.S. and subtly manipulating national opinion and policy.

Sources and Further Reading:

• Red Scare: Memories of the American Inquisition, by Griffin Fariello
• Odd Man Out: A Memoir of the Hollywood Ten, by Edward Dmytryk
• Cincinnati Reds
• Cincinnati Redlegs’ Roster
• Cincinnati Redlegs
• Redlegs
• The First Professional Baseball Team
• Odd Man Out, A Memoir of the Hollywood Ten
• Hollywood Blacklist
• Red Scare
• The Studio System
• Lionel Stander
• Remnants of an Indentured People
• Image Source

Like most, I’ve known that the Americas were named after Amerigo Vespucci since my early education. However, the story behind why this is the case is somewhat more interesting and quite a bit less well known. Vespucci was a navigator that traveled to “the new world” in 1499 and 1502. Being a well educated man, he realized that this new world was not part of Asia, as some had initially thought. Vespucci chose to write about his travels and his books were published in 1502 and 1504. Being both entertaining and educational, his accounts of the new world were reprinted in almost every European language.

In 1507, a German cartographer, Martin Waldseemüller, chose to make a new map that included the new world. He and two scholarly partners were aware of Vespucci’s writings and were ignorant of Columbus’s expeditions. As such, they mistakenly thought Vespucci was the first to discover this new land and so named it after him, stating:

But now these parts (Europe, Asia and Africa, the three continents of the Ptolemaic geography) have been extensively explored and a fourth part has been discovered by Americus Vespuccius (the Latin form of Vespucci’s name), I do not see what right any one would have to object to calling this part after Americus, who discovered it and who is a man of intelligence, and so to name it Amerige, that is, the Land of Americus, or America: since both Europa and Asia got their names from women.

When the large new map, approximately 8 feet by 4 feet, was unveiled by Waldseemüller, it had the large title “AMERICA” across what is now present day Brazil. Waldseemüller used Vespucci’s travelogues as a reference for his drawing and so his map had South America as the only part of this new western hemisphere. When North America was later added, the mapmakers of the time retained the original name. In 1538, The famous geographer Gerard Mercator chose to name the entire north and south parts of America as one large “America” for the entire western hemisphere.

Christopher Columbus might well have had the new world named after him, had it not been for two shortcomings. The first was that Columbus was under the mistaken impression that he had found a new route to Asia and was not aware that America was an entirely new continent. The second was that he never wrote publicly about it so the masses were not aware of his discovery. Had he done this, Mr. Waldseemüller and his colleagues might have named it Columba! As it happened, Vespucci did write about it and was the first to call this land the “Novus Mundus” (Latin for “New World”).

Bonus Factoids:

• Waldseemüller’s 1507 map was lost to scholars from 1538-1901 when it was discovered inside a German castle. Once found, it was recognized as the earliest map to record the use of the name “America”. Today, that map is on permanent display in the Library of Congress.  They purchased it in 2001 for $10 million.
• Christopher Columbus and Vespucci were actually good friends. Vespucci was sent to Spain in 1490 by his employers to help in their business venture of fitting out new ships. In that role, he became involved in fitting out Columbus’s fleet for his second voyage and Columbus later wrote the he trusted Vespucci and held him in very high esteem.
• Vespucci was also credited for inventing a system of computing longitude. This system was so accurate that he was able to calculate the circumference of the earth, at the equator, to within 50 miles of the actual measurement.
• Vespucci was born in March 9, 1454 in Florence. He was baptized, “Amerigho”, named after his grandfather. Remarkable to think that when his parents were picking a name for this baby, they were also picking a name for the Americas.  He died February 22, 1512.
• Vespucci is thought to have taken four voyages to the new world. His first voyage from 1497-98 has been called in to question, and many scholars believe it might not have taken place. However, there is significant evidence that his second and third voyages in 1499-1500, and 1501-1502 actually took place. It is believed that he might have taken another voyage to the Americas in 1503-04.
• Vespucci’s writings, while scholarly, also entertained the masses by his descriptions of the new world. For instance, he wrote in one of his letters about the natives of the land how they would have sex with anybody, including “Mom”.
• The first people to inhabit the western hemisphere did so approximately 19,000-23,000 years ago. Mitochondrial evidence shows that all Native Americans come from a single population group around the time of the last ice age, during what is known as “the last glacial maximum”, probably having migrated over from Asia. Over the next 5-8 thousand years there was a large population boom. DNA evidence suggests that this population spread quickly throughout all of the America’s via a Pacific Coast route.
• In 1508, Vespucci was appointed “Chief Navigator” also known as “Pilot Major” for Spain. He was in charge of examining and licensing all Spanish ships and voyages. He also made the official maps of the newly discovered lands and the routes that future captains were obliged to take. He maintained this title of distinction until he died.

References:

• Why America Was Named After Amerigo Vespucci
• Why Its Called America Not Columbusia
• History Of The Naming Of America
• Mitochondrial Population Genomics
• Image Source (warning, 97 MB in size)

A 25 year old Julius Caesar was sailing the Aegean Sea when he was kidnapped by Sicilian pirates.  The pirates who captured him initially asked for a ransom of 20 talents of silver (which is about 620 kg of silver or $600,000 by today’s silver prices).  According to Plutarch, rather than send his associates off to gather the silver, he instead laughed at the pirates and demanded they ask for 50 (1550 kg of silver), as 20 talents of silver was too small of a ransom for himself.

The pirates, of course, agreed and Caesar sent some of his associates off to gather the silver, which took 38 days to accomplish.  Now nearly alone with the pirates (only keeping two servants and one of his friends), rather than cower, he instead took the route of treating them as if they were his subordinates.  He even went so far as to demand they not talk whenever he decided to take a nap or go to sleep for the night.  He spent most of his time with them composing and reciting poetry, as well as writing speeches.  He would then recite the works to the pirates.  He also joined in with playing various games with the pirates and participating in their exercises, generally acting as if he wasn’t a prisoner, but rather, their leader.  The pirates quickly grew to respect and like him and allowed him the freedom to more or less do as he pleased on their island and ships.

While he was friendly with them, he also didn’t appreciate being held captive.  As such, he swore to them that he would hunt them down and have them crucified, once the ransom was paid.  Despite the fact that at that time he was just acting as a private citizen, once he was free, he manage to quickly raise a small fleet which he took back to the island the pirates had held him at.   Apparently they hadn’t taken his threats seriously, because they were still there when he arrived.  He captured them and took back his 50 talents of silver, along with all their possessions.

He next delivered the pirates to the authorities at the prison at Pergamon and then traveled to meet the proconsul of Asia, Marcus Junius, to petition to have the pirates executed.  The proconsul refused, wanting to sell the pirates as slaves and take the spoils for himself.  Unhappy with this outcome, Caesar traveled back to Pergamon where the Sicilian pirates were being held and ordered that they be crucified under his own authority, which was subsequently done.  Once again, the adage “Never go against a Sicilian when death is on the line” was proven false….

Bonus Factoids:

• Caesar Salad was not, as is sometimes stated, named after Julius Caesar.  It was actually named after its inventor, Caesar Cardini.  You can read more on this here: Caesar Salad Was Named After Caesar Cardini, Not a Roman Emperor
• The original Caesar salad was not eaten with forks, but rather eaten with your fingers. Cardini would use whole Romaine lettuce arranged on a plate so that the stems were facing out and he would put all the ingredients on each leaf. You’d then just pick up the leaf and eat it that way with your hands. The original recipe also used coddled eggs and Italian olive oil.
• Another false “word origin” connected to Julius Caesar is that his name was given to him because he was born via a caesarian section.  This is thought to be false though as this would have almost certainly been fatal to his mother (women didn’t survive caesarian sections in ancient times), yet she actually didn’t die until he was around 46 years old. Also, Gaius Plinius Secundus, better known as Pliny the Elder, stated that Caesar’s name came from “caesaries”, meaning “head of hair”.
• Julius Caesar and Cleopatra of Egypt were lovers for 14 years, but were unable to marry because Roman law stipulated Roman citizens were only allowed to marry other Roman citizens.
• The group that sought Caesar’s assassination was no small one, as is sometimes depicted.  Rather, it consisted of around sixty senators, most notably Gaius Cassius Longinus and Marcus Junius Brutus.  The group proposed many ways in which they might kill him, but ultimately decided to do it when he was in the Senate, because only Senators were allowed in, so he would not have any guards with him.  Their plans were soon in earnest because Caesar had decided to leave in late March for an extended period to try to conquer the Parthian Empire.  Because the group was so large, whispers that an assassination attempt might occur reached Caesar and many of his friends and even his doctors told him not to go to the Senate on the day of his death. Unfortunately for him, one of his closest friends, Brutus, convinced him he should go.  When he arrived, one of the senators pushed him to the ground and several of the conspirators sprang on him, stabbing him 23 times.
• Contrary to popular belief, Caesar did not say “Et tu, Brute?” (“You too Brutus?” or “And you, Brutus?”) before he died, as was penned by Shakespeare.  That assertion has no basis in historical fact.  Both Plutarch and Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus state that Caesar said nothing after the attack started.
• After the murder, those involved thought the people would be happy that a tyrant had been removed and now the Republic would be restored.  Instead, most people were outraged, as Caesar had been extremely popular.  In the end, rather than achieve their goal of restoring the Republic, their act spurred a series of civil wars that ended with the creation of the Roman Empire.
• While Caesar’s 18 year old grandnephew Gaius Octavian, later Augustus Caesar, was Julius Caesar’s named heir, Caesar actually had a son with Cleopatra, named Caesarion.  Because his son was an Egyptian, though, he picked a different heir.  It seems he picked well, as Augustus soon became one of the great rulers in history, creating an empire that would endure for around fifteen hundred years.
• The Rubicon that Julius Caesar famously crossed (which was an illegal act for a General to do, taking his soldiers into Italy proper) got its name from the fact that the water had a reddish hue from the mud in that region.  Specifically, the name derives from the Latin “rubeus”, meaning “red”.
• Interestingly, despite the Rubicon once signifying the boundary between Cisalpine Gaul and Italy proper, the exact location of the river was lost to history until quite recently.   The river’s location was initially lost primarily because it was a very small river, of no major size or importance, other than as a convenient border landmark. Thus, when Augustus merged the northern province of Cisalpine Gaul into Italy proper, it ceased to be a border and which river it was exactly gradually faded from history.  You can read more on this here: Julius Caesar Crosses the Rubicon
• Julius Caesar was born around July 13th (the exact date is somewhat up for debate) in 100 BC in Rome.
• Some have speculated that Marcus Junius Brutus, one of the leaders of the group that assassinated Caesar, might have actually been his son.  Brutus’ mother, Servilla Caepiones, was Julius Caesar’s mistress for a time.

Sources and Further Reading:

• Roman History: From Romulus and the Foundation of Rome to the Reign of the Emperor Tiberius, by Velleius Paterculus
• The Life of Julius Caesar, by Plutarch
• Caesar, Life of a Colossus, by Adrian Goldsworthy
• Julius Caesar
• Julius Caesar, by Philip Freeman
• Julius Caesar
• Julius Caesar Facts
• Etymology of Caesarean
• Origin of Caesar Salad
• Marcus Junius Brutus
• Assassination of Julius Caesar
• Augustus
• Aurelia Cotta
• Talent
• Image Source

The first typewriter was introduced to the United States in 1868 by Christopher Latham Sholes. His first attempt to build a typing device consisted of a crude and sluggish machine that was far from perfect. The design of the first typewriter used letters and characters on the ends of rods which were called typebars.  When a key was struck, the typebar would swing up and hit the ink-coated tape which would transfer the image onto paper.

The original design of the keyboard positioned keys in alphabetical order in two rows. Makes sense, right?  Well, this arrangement caused the typebars of the most commonly used combination letters of the alphabet (ie. TH and ST) to be positioned close together, so when the keys were hit right after the other with a speed faster than a snail, the keys would jam. The attempt to solve this malfunction resulted in a rearrangement of keys. In 1868, in collaboration with educator Amos Densmore–the brother of Sholes’ chief financial backer–Sholes arranged the letters on the keyboard for better spacing between popular keys used in combination and not-so popular keys, making it difficult for people to find the letters they needed to type efficiently. Some people assumed Sholes did this to slow typists down so they wouldn’t jam his sluggish machine. However, his motive was the opposite.  Someone who mastered this new key arrangement would actually be able to type faster because the keys wouldn’t jam. This was the beginning of the QWERTY keyboard, which first appeared in 1872.

The first typewriter machine found its way on the market in 1874 through Remington & Sons. The device was called the Remington No. 1. You’re probably thinking it sold out in minutes since it was the latest and greatest technological device to be mass-produced. Truth is, most people ignored it.  Sure, the machine still had some quirks and Sholes had yet to figure out ideal customers for his invention, but in the late 1870s, the idea of “mechanical writing” was just plain strange for most people. The accepted norm was to write letters in legible longhand and many people found mechanical writing offensive. Sholes figured his device would appeal to clergyman and men of letters first and then he’d branch out to the general public; he didn’t even consider its use in business. All of these factors probably played a part in the typewriter’s initial lack of sales.

Four years later, after modifications to the arrangement of the keyboard, Remington & Sons produced the new Remington No. 2 model. The Remington No. 2 included the arrangement of keys we use today along with the ability to type both capital and lowercase letters (the first model of the typewriter only typed capital letters) by using the shift key. The shift key received its name because it caused the carriage to shift position in order to type either a lowercase or capital letter which were on the same typebar. Although the shift key we use on our keyboards today does not cause the machine to shift mechanically, the name stuck.

As the typewriter rose in popularity, people stopped complaining about the weird arrangement of keys and started memorizing the keyboard and learning how to type efficiently. Although other alternate keyboards tried to break onto the market, most people decided to stay with the QWERTY board, and none of the other type-writing machines proved successful. Then, in the early 1930s Professor August Dvorak of Washington State University set out to develop a more user-friendly keyboard. He redesigned the keyboard so all of the vowels and the five most commonly used consonants were arranged on the home row (AOEUIDHTNS). Although the design required a typist to alternate hands to type most words, with the Dvorak keyboard, a person could type approximately 400 of the English language’s most common words just by using the keys of the home row, compared to 100 words on the QWERTY keyboard. In addition, using the Dvorak keyboard, a typist’s fingers would not have to travel as far as they did on Sholes’ keyboard to type the majority of words.

Dvorak set out to prove his machine superior to Sholes’, but his keyboard never caught on. Many of the studies used to test the effectiveness of his keyboard were flawed or were deemed a conflict of interest since Dvorak conducted them himself. A U.S. General Services Administration 1953 study of Dvorak’s keyboard determined it didn’t matter which keyboard was used, a typist could either type fast or they couldn’t. Therefore, the majority of people didn’t want to commit the time or resources it would take to be trained on a new keyboard, so Dvorak’s typewriter never really appealed to the majority of consumers and the QWERTY keyboard persevered through today and for the foreseeable future.

Bonus Factoids:

• E. Remington & Sons, the company that mass-produced the first typewriter, was best known for their firearms.
• What kind of a word is QWERTY? It looks like a bunch of random letters thrown together to me; a made-up word by an elementary school kid who had not yet learned the rule that U follows Q in the majority of words. And what kind of name is QWERTY for a keyboard, anyway? Well, turns out the name isn’t so random and the lack of the U makes sense…considering. The name QWERTY comes from the first six letters of the first row of keys on the standard keyboard.
• Some speculated that another reason the original typewriter met resistance when it was first introduced to the world was because poor spellers could no longer hide their ignorance by poor handwriting.
• Using the QWERTY keyboard, you can type the word ‘typewriter’ using only the top row of keys.
• Author Mark Twain was one of the first people to purchase the early typewriter and is probably the first author to submit a typed manuscript to his publisher.
• The least expensive typewriter, produced in the late 1800s, cost only $1, and was appropriately named, “The Dollar Typewriter”.
• Sholes’ first attempt to create a typewriting machine was a crude piece of work made with part of an old table, a circular piece of glass, a telegraph key, a piece of carbon paper, and piano wire. An improved prototype of this device resembled a toy piano and is now in the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History.
• Frank McGurrin, a court stenographer from Salt Lake City, is considered the first person to memorize the QWERTY keyboard and master touch-typing, as opposed to the hunt-and-peck method.  He rose to fame when he participated in typing contests and demonstrations across the country and caused people to take interest not only in the QWERTY keyboard, but in mastering the touch-typing method.
• The alphanumeric keypad used on many cellphones today is called a half QWERTY keyboard.
• A quote from Dr. August Dvorak: “Changing the keyboard format is like proposing to reverse the Ten Commandments and the Golden Rule, discard every moral principle, and ridicule motherhood.”

Sources:

• QWERTY
• QWERTY  KEYBOARD
• Path Dependence 
• Consider QWERTY…
• Why are the keys arranged the way they are on a QWERTY keyboard?
• Was the QWERTY keyboard purposely designed to slow typists?
• THE FABLE OF THE KEYS
• Image Source

William Burke's Skeleton on Display at the Edinburgh Medical School Anatomy Museum

Today I found out about William Burke and William Hare: two men who murdered 15 people (though sold 16 bodies overall) over the course of a year to make extra money, selling the bodies as cadavers for university students to dissect.

These murders took place starting in November of 1827 to October of 1828.  At the time, it was very difficult for universities to get human bodies for students to dissect.  The only ones that could legally be acquired by universities were those from executed convicts.   This had once been an adequate supply, but thanks to certain legal changes that resulted in a drastic reduction of executions and thanks to the fact that the study of anatomy had become more popular as medical science progressed, there began to exist a huge shortage of human bodies.

In order to get around this problem, college professors and private tutors would sometimes pay under the table for bodies, no questions asked.  It was not uncommon for people known as “resurrectionists” or “body snatchers” to watch cemeteries and, when a fresh body was buried, they would dig it up. They’d then take any valuables that may have been left with the person.  Finally, if the body was fresh enough, they’d take it to sell.  This practice became bad enough that relatives of a deceased loved one would often stand in shifts over the grave for several days to keep the body safe from being stolen while it was still fresh.  As author Hugh Douglas noted: “(Resurrectionists) could open a grave, remove a body and restore the soil between patrols of the night watch….  Relatives of the subject could mourn by the grave the following day, unaware that their loved one was gracing some anatomy slab in Edinburgh.”

William Burke and William Hare took this practice a step further.  Rather than wait for people to die, they began a year long killing spree, providing a steady stream of bodies for Dr. Robert Knox who was a private lecturer, teaching anatomy classes to University students.

The murder spree started relatively innocently enough.  At the lodging house that Hare operated they had an elderly gentlemen named Donald who owed Hare £4 in rent when the old man died.  Knowing that one could sell a body to universities, they decided to fill the coffin with bark and steal the body to sell to make up for the loss of the rent money the dead man owed.  They originally intended to sell the body to Professor Alexander Munro of Edinburgh Medical College, but after making inquiries were re-directed to Dr. Robert Knox, a private lecturer, whose assistant instructed them to bring the body after nightfall.   When they arrived with the body, it was inspected by Dr. Knox’s assistants and Burke and Hare were offered £7.10s, which would be around £730 today, or around $1100.

Hare soon had another sick tenant on his hands, Joseph the Miller.  While Joseph wasn’t necessarily sick enough to die, the two decided they thought that he was going to eventually die.  Because he was in pain, they reportedly rationalized that if he was going to die anyways, they ought to put him out of his misery sooner, rather than later, and sell his body after the deed was done.  They did so by first getting him really drunk to the point that he passed out.  Next, one of them pinched his nose and held his mouth shut, while the other laid on his body and held Joseph’s arms and legs down, in case he should struggle.  By doing it this way, they left no mark of violence on the body, which might arouse suspicion.  It also made it appear the person had died either of illness or over-intoxication.

The two decided to repeat this process whenever sick tenants popped up.  However, they soon found that Hare’s tenants remained annoying healthy.  Being short on any other sick or dying tenants, the Burke and Hare decided to simply lure people in from the streets, initially people who wouldn’t be terribly missed; specifically targeting old people who they could easily overpower and would be more likely to be thought to have died of natural causes.

While exact details of all their murders are hard to discern, due to differing accounts of events by the two and Hare’s wife and Burke’s mistress, as well as the scant amount of direct evidence,  from here, it is generally thought their murders went as follows (reportedly receiving between £8-£14 per body):

• Abigail Simpson:  In February, the two invited this elderly woman to spend the night at Hare’s lodging house, rather than return home directly.  She was in Edinburgh temporarily to collect her pension money.  They subsequently got her drunk, but made the mistake of getting too drunk themselves, at which point they passed out and slept the night through.  The next morning, Simpson awoke and was preparing to leave, but was first offered some whiskey to cure her hangover.  They soon got her very drunk again and she passed out and was subsequently smothered in the same fashion as Joseph the Miller was.  This time Dr. Knox inspected the body personally and was pleased to find it extremely fresh, paying £10 for it.
• An Englishmen:  This man was a match salesman who became ill while lodging at Hare’s.  Burke and Hare subsequently “put him out of his misery” and sold his body.
• An old woman: This woman was lured in by Hare’s wife, Margaret, who later claimed to be ignorant of her husband’s deeds.  Nonetheless, on this occasion, she lured the woman in, got her very drunk, and then sent for Burke and her husband, leaving them alone with the passed out woman.  It would appear from this that she was fully aware of what Burke and Hare were doing.
• Mary Patterson:  on April 9, 1828, eighteen year old Patterson and her friend Janet Brown, who were prostitutes and fairly well known around town, were invited to breakfast at Burke’s brother’s house.  Soon Patterson passed out, but Brown held her liquor better.  Burke then invited Brown to a tavern to get her further drunk.  She till didn’t get drunk enough to pass out, so he once again invited her back to his brother’s house intending to get her more drunk.  Helen McDougal, Burke’s mistress, showed up and was upset at Burke having prostitutes in the house and an argument ensued.  He eventually got rid of Helen, but she remained outside screaming at the house, so Brown decided to leave, despite Burke trying to get her to stay.  This argument ultimately saver her life.  Patterson was not so lucky and was murdered and sold to Dr. Knox.  Brown decided to return after becoming concerned for Patterson and asked after her.  Brown was told she had left with Burke and would be returning soon, so Brown decided to wait, which nearly cost her life.  However, her landlady became concerned about her after learning of the missing Patterson and that Brown was alone waiting and so sent her servant to fetch Brown from the house.  Despite the fact that many of the students recognized Patterson, having previously hired her services, her body being sold and dissected was kept quiet and Brown was not told by anyone what had happened to Patterson, despite her frequently inquiring around town.
• Effie:  This woman was an acquaintance of Burke’s and a beggar who he occasionally bought leather from when he worked as a cobbler.  When she offered to sell some leather scraps to Burke, he invited her to drink at the lodging house’ stable.  She was murdered after their standard modus operandi and sold for £10.
• A drunk woman: This woman was in the process of being arrested and taken to jail until she sobered up when Burke claimed to the police that he knew her and would take her home.  The two subsequently murdered her in their normal fashion and sold her body for £10.
• An old woman and her deaf grandson:  In June of 1828, Burke had been attempting to lure an old man home, promising him free whiskey, but while walking home with the man, an old woman with her deaf grandson asked Burke for directions.  Burke then told them he’d take them where they needed to go and left the old man, who was none too pleased at the loss of the promised free whiskey.  Rather than take her directly where she wanted to go, he invited her to stop for a rest at his home. The grandmother was made drunk after their normal fashion and smothered while the boy was entertained in another room by Helen and Margaret.  Once she was dead, they argued on whether they should simply let the boy go, as they didn’t think he’d drink whiskey and they didn’t want to make it obvious the boy had been murdered.  In the end, though, because they were afraid the boy might return with authorities looking for his grandmother, they decided to kill him.  Rather than get him drunk and smother him, they instead broke his back.  The two bodies together sold for  £16.
• Mrs. Ostler:  She came to the lodging house and stayed briefly before being murdered and sold.
• Ann McDougal:  She was a relative of Helen McDougal’s, Burke’s mistress.  While in Edinburgh, she decided to stay at the lodging house, to her doom.  Burke supposedly didn’t take part in this murder, asking Hare to do the smothering, as Ann was a friend.  Her body went for £10.
• Mary Haldane: Like Mary Patterson, she was a prostitute, albeit and old one.  Hare invited her back to his lodging house and got her drunk and he and Burk smothered her in the stable.
• Peggy Haldane:  She was Mary’s daughter and, unfortunately, she learned that her mother had gone to Hare’s lodging house, so went their looking for her. Initially the two denied the Mary had been there, saying they didn’t take in prostitutes.  Eventually, they admitted she stopped by and invited Peggy in for a drink and subsequently got her drunk and murdered her as they had just done to her mother.
• James Wilson:  Wilson was an 18 year old mentally retarded person who also was somewhat crippled with a bad foot.  He was fairly well known around town due to the fact that he often lodged with various people (whoever would take him in).  He was also known for his kind-hearted disposition and for entertaining children on the streets.  In October of 1828, Hare decided to target Wilson.  Hare approached Wilson, who asked him if Hare had seen his mother.  Hare replied he knew where she was and Wilson should follow him.  Soon Burke joined them, but they couldn’t manage to get “Jamie” to drink much.  Despite this, they attempted to kill him anyways, but Jamie almost proved a match for the two.  In the struggle, he managed to throw them off him and pin Burke down, but was eventually smothered.  They were given £10 for the body. After he was murdered, his mother began inquiring after him.  When Jamie’s body was recognized by students of Dr. Knox, Knox quickly began dissecting the cadavers’ face as well as cut off the head and feet in order that no one could positively identify the body (one of Wilson’s feet was deformed and easily recognized).
• Mary Docherty (some say Mary Campbell):  She was lured into the lodging house by Burke.  Docherty was an Irish woman and had a thick accent, as did Burke.  When he learned her name, he told her his mother was a Docherty and they were probably relatives.  She was not murdered directly, due to the fact that there were other lodgers present at his home, James and Ann Gray (Burke and Helen no longer lived with Hare, for more on that, see the Bonus Factoids below).  He then convinced the Gray’s to leave and stay at the Hare’s lodging house.  However, Ann Gray returned the next day to retrieve her stockings she had left near a bed (some accounts say potatoes that were stored near the bed, which seems odd).  Initially she was not allowed to retrieve them, but later they managed to get into the room and found Docherty’s body under the bed and subsequently alerted the police, though not before being offered £10 a week by Helen to keep quite.  Burke and Hare did manage to remove the body before the police arrived, but not without witnesses observing them carrying a large tea chest from the house.  The porter of Dr. Knox also later confirmed that the body in question was brought in a tea-chest.  In any event, initially this was not known and the police had little direct evidence.  However, when interrogated, Burk and Helen’s stories as to when Docherty left didn’t match (one said 7am, one said 7pm), so they were arrested.  The police soon discovered Docherty’s body in Dr. Knox’s classroom.

When the story of this last murder became well known publicly, others came forward and began to connect disappearances with people coming in contact with Burke and Hare shortly before their disappearance.  However, because there was very little direct evidence that the two had actually murdered anyone (no actual witnesses), the case against them surprisingly wasn’t a good one.  It was also unclear at the time whether Helen and Margaret had actually been involved directly or even knew what had been going on.  With the lack of direct evidence, the Lord Advocate decided that Burke had been the leader and so offered Hare full immunity if he would just confess and give evidence against Burke.  Hare accepted the deal and also implicated Helen.  Burke soon cleared her, claiming she knew nothing of the murders (though this is obviously very likely false).  While it was still thought that Helen had been involved, because it could not be directly proven, the jury was forced to let her off, but convicted Burke.  When the verdict was read, Burke was reportedly overjoyed that Helen was free.

Burke was subsequently executed via hanging  just over a month later on January 28, 1829.  Seats with a view of the gallows apparently went for an extremely high price over normal executions.  When he witnessed the angry crowd constantly screaming at him, Burke reportedly rushed to the noose in an attempt to speed up the process.  He did not die immediately upon being dropped, but kicked about for around one to two minutes before finally going still. He was then left to hang for around a half hour.  After he was taken down, many in the crowd attempted to grab pieces of the rope, shavings of the coffin he was placed in, etc. as souvenirs of the event.

In the interim between his conviction and hanging, Burke wrote a detailed account of the murders, including Hare’s part in them.  After being hung, his body was sent to be dissected at Edinburgh Medical College.  This dissection was done publicly, led by Professor Alexander Monro.  In the end, Burke was the only one punished for the crimes with Hare and his wife, Margaret, and Helen McDougal getting off more or less scot-free.  Burke also swore that Dr. Knox had not known anything about where the bodies were coming from, so he too was not convicted of any crime. Although, evidence suggests he encouraged Burke and Hare to keep bringing him bodies as quick as they could acquire them.

All total, it is estimated that Burke and Hare took in approximately £160 (close to £17,000 today or around $26,000) over the course of the year for their victims’ bodies.

Bonus Factoids:

• Being raised religious, Burke was asked how he came to commit such terrible acts of evil.  Burke blamed his fall on his addiction to drinking, which ultimately lead to a life lived in adultery, as well as resulted in him becoming acquaintances with all manner of evil people.  He stated that it soon hardened him and he became indifferent to many things he formerly would have thought horrifying, such as murder.
• Helen McDougal at one point became a potential target, despite being the mistress of Burke.  However, supposedly Burke refused to let her be murdered.  Probably due to concern over Helen’s safety after this, Burke and Helen moved out of Hare’s lodging house directly after this was suggested. Although the Burke and Hare continued their scheme, despite no longer living together.  However, in an attempt to appear more the victim, McDougal also claimed that Burke and Hare had decided that should they ever be short on money, they’d simply murder both women, with McDougal to be the first.  Given that neither woman showed any signs of wanting to leave their men until after they were arrested, it seems unlikely that this latter story is actually true.
• The method Burke and Hare typically used to kill their victims, namely smothering or strangling a person, eventually became known by the slang term “burking”.
• Burke’s skeleton and tanned skin are currently on display at Edinburgh Medical College in their museum.  The Police Information Center in Edinburgh also has a card case made out of Burke’s skin.
• When Professor Monro led the dissection of Burke, he took some of the blood to use as ink and wrote with it: “This is written with the blood of Wm Burke, who was hanged at Edinburgh. This blood was taken from his head.”
• Burke was originally from Ireland where he apparently lived a pretty normal, non-criminal life, working in the military as a servant to an officer.  He also had a wife and two children.  Unhappy with his situation, he decided to move to Scotland, but his wife refused to follow, so he left her and the kids and moved to Scotland where he took a variety of jobs, such as a general laborer, a weaver, a baker, and a cobbler.  Hare also was born in Ireland and immigrated to Scotland, working as a Union Canal laborer.  The two met when Burke moved to the West Port region of Edinburgh, into Tanner’s Close, where Hare owned a lodging house that Burke lived in for a time.
• Helen McDougal, when she was released, was attacked by a mob and was only saved from being killed by the police.  She then fled to England, but was again attacked by a mob and saved by the police.  What happened to her next isn’t known, but it is thought that she moved to Australia.
• Margaret Hare also met a mob upon her release, encountering a mob both in Glasgow and Greencock, before fleeing to Ireland.  It is not known what happened to her next.
•  Hare himself was released from prison in February of 1829 after being cleared thanks to his aid in convicting Burke.  He was initially to be set free immediately, as per the deal he had struck.  However, it was discovered that an old law allowed that a person might be detained until they could pay the cost of their prosecution, so he was kept for two months until he could do so.  Little is known of what happened to him after, though it’s thought he did not rejoin his wife in Ireland.  He disappeared shortly after being trapped in The King’s Arms Inn with a mob having chased him into the building, attempting to stone him.  He was allowed to stay at the Inn until well into the night when the crowd dispersed.  Once they were gone, he fled and was not heard from again.
• In the aftermath of these murders, the Anatomy Act of 1832 was passed, which greatly expanded the supply of cadavers through legal means, which subsequently killed the black-market for cadavers.  Specifically, this act allowed doctors, medical teachers, and medical students the right to legally dissect donated bodies, not just executed felons.  The Act stood until 1984 when it was repealed with the Anatomy Act of 1984 replacing it, followed by the Human Tissue Act of 2004.
• Dr. Knox also was not immune to the mob’s wrath.  He continued to teach, but had the problem of frequently having his lectures interrupted by crowds yelling that he should have been strung up with Burke.  His home was also frequently vandalized.  Eventually, students stopped wanting to take his classes and he lost his primary source of income.  He then tried to get an official position at the University, but failed.  He was also soon forced to resign his position as curator at a museum he himself had founded.  After the Anatomy Act passed, many more bodies were made available and he also lost that advantage (he had continued to buy bodies in the interim, making his classes one of the few a student could attend and actually get to work on a real body).  After a time, he moved to London, working at a Cancer Hospital and publishing various works.
• A common misconception was the Burke and Hare were also grave robbers, but Burke denied that they’d ever done this in his official confession:  “No, neither Hare nor myself ever got a body from a churchyard. All we sold were murdered, save the first one… We began with that: our crimes then commenced. The victims we selected were generally elderly persons. They could be more easily disposed of than persons in the vigour of youth.”  Given that he was already going to be executed and seemed to have no qualms confessing to all the murders (even ones to which he was not tried for), it seems likely enough he was telling the truth on this point.
• Finally, I leave you with a 19th-century Edinburgh skipping rhyme: “Doun the close and up the stair, But an’ ben wi’ Burke and Hare, Burke’s the butcher, Hare’s the thief, Knox, the boy that buys the beef.”

Sources:

• Burke and Hare, the Resurrection Men, by Jacques Barzun
• William Burke
• Dr. Robert Knox
• William Burke and William Hare
• Burke and Hare
• The Resurrectionists
• Burke and Hare (2011 Film)
• Burke and Hare (1972 Film)
• Burke and Hare Film Facts
• Burke and Hare, Behind the Scenes
• Anatomy Act of 1832
• William Burke Bio
• Burke’s Skeleton Image Source

The rumor that they were not was actually started by the company who made them originally, the Curtiss Candy Company founded by Otto Schnering. They claimed it was named after Ruth Cleveland, the granddaughter of President Grover Cleveland. Ruth Cleveland supposedly visited their plant and, while there, inspired the name for the candy bar.

There are a quite a few problems with the official line, but the main problem is that Ruth Cleveland died in 1904 at the age of 12 years old, some 17 years before the Baby Ruth candy bar was created and about 15 years before the Curtiss Candy Company was created. Further, Grover Cleveland hadn’t been President for 24 years and had been dead for 13 years when the candy bar was named, so there doesn’t seem to be a good reason they’d have randomly picked his granddaughter to name a candy bar after.

In addition to the above stated bits in the company’s official story, the Curtiss Candy Company also went on to discuss the fact that Babe Ruth wasn’t even famous in 1921 when the candy bar was named, so why would they name it after some random baseball player? Here’s another problem with the official story, Babe Ruth was incredibly famous by 1921.

In that year, Babe Ruth hit 59 home runs, had a .378 batting average, and a .512 on base percentage. The year before that, he had his breakout year with the Yankees hitting 54 home runs with a .376 batting average and a .533 on base percentage. From 1919-1921, he hit an astounding 142 home runs and was well on his way to revolutionizing the game of baseball. This all resulted in Babe Ruth’s fame skyrocketing from what it had been only a few years before serving primarily as a pitcher and pinch hitter for the Red Sox. Babe Ruth was a national celebrity in 1921.

Further, the original version of the “Baby Ruth” candy bar was actually called the “Kandy Kake” and was coincidentally renamed to “Baby Ruth” directly after Babe Ruth had become a national celebrity. The Curtiss Candy Company also tried to get Babe Ruth to endorse their product after its launch, which he refused to do. Not only that, but the Curtiss Candy Company was headquartered very close to Wrigley Stadium and, in 1932, they setup a giant lit advertising sign near the spot where Babe Ruth’s supposed “called shot” landed, advertising Baby Ruth candy bars, fully visible from Wrigley Stadium. This sign remained there for four years.

Over and over again they attempted to associate their candy bar with Babe Ruth. The cover story told by the company was simply a way to get around having to pay Babe Ruth royalties for the use of his nickname and last name in their marketing efforts. The Curtiss Candy Company even had to use this story in actual legal proceedings when the manufacturer of the Babe Ruth Home Run Bar challenged the Baby Ruth name in court, claiming the Curtiss Candy Company were using the name without Babe Ruth’s permission, something the makers of the Babe Ruth Home Run Bar had managed to get from Ruth. The Curtiss Candy Company then successfully defended their candy bar’s name using the above “granddaughter of Grover Cleveland” story, which is full of inaccuracies and strains credibility.

Bonus Factoids:

• Seventy four years after the Baby Ruth candy bar was named after Ruth, Nestle, who now owns the rights to the Baby Ruth candy bar, finally officially acquired the rights to use Ruth’s name and likeness in Baby Ruth marketing campaigns.
• Nestle has since played this up even more when in 2007 they claimed the Baby Ruth candy bar is “the official candy bar of major league baseball”.
• In 1923, Otto Schnering, the founder of the Curtiss Candy Company, hired a pilot to fly his plane over Pittsburgh and drop several thousand Baby Ruth candy bars over the city. Each candy bar was equipped with a parachute, to avoid injuring people.

Sources:

• Baby Ruth
• Grover Cleveland
• Babe Ruth Stats
• Nestle
• Baby Ruth
• Babe Ruth

In World War I, British soldiers came up with the phrase “Chinese Landing” to describe a clumsy or bad landing.  It should be noted that this wasn’t originally meant to imply Chinese citizens couldn’t land a plane well or anything of the sort; rather, it came from the fact that, in a bad landing, the soldiers would often use the phrase “one wing low” to described this.  When said quickly, this somewhat resembled the Chinese language in sound to the British soldiers, hence, “Chinese Landing”.  This later evolved into describing any clumsy or inept landing.  Eventually, this spread to other phrases where anything done clumsily or ineptly was called a “Chinese X” where X is whatever the act was.

This phrasing  also came to mean anything done in a confused or disorganized way.  The origins of this are thought to be from the stark contrast between British and Chinese cultures where the British viewed many things the Chinese did as confusing and hard to understand from their cultural perspective.  Thus, around the time of World War I, any fire drill that was done in a disorganized or confused manner was called a “Chinese Fire Drill” by British soldiers.

In terms of the car game, where everyone jumps out of the car like the car is on fire when it is at a stop; then runs around chaotically; and then hops back in, it is unknown when and where exactly this game became common.  The first documented reference to this game, with the name “Chinese Fire Drill”, is from the early 1970s.  There are, however, accounts from people who lived as far back as the 1940s who say this game and with the name “Chinese Fire Drill” was around back then.  It is thought from this, considering there have been no accounts of the game with that name being around before the 1940s, that the name was brought back to America by soldiers fighting in WWII, who picked it up from British soldiers and at some point it got assigned to the car game, which was probably already around at that point, but either lacked a name or was under a different name.

Needless to say, this phraseology typically doesn’t sit well with Chinese citizens for obvious reasons and, for political correctness sake, most of these “Chinese X” phrases have disappeared, though some are still somewhat common in Britain.

Bonus Politically Incorrect Phrases:

• Dutch Courage (also called “liquid courage”): This is courage derived from becoming intoxicated from alcohol.  The first documented case of this idiom was in Edmund Waller’s Instructions to a Painter in 1665.  ”The Dutch their wine, and all their brandy lose, Disarm’d of that from which their courage grows.”   The origins of this term come from a Dutch doctor by the name of Franciscus Sylvius, who invented gin and prescribed it as a form of medication to British soldiers fighting in the 30 year war, particularly using it to calm the soldiers directly before battle.  When they returned to England, the soldiers brought back gin with them and the phrase “Dutch Courage”.
• Indian Summer: This one has a few distinct meanings.  Most common is a period after the first frost or when the weather has turned cold, in late autumn, where the weather warms back up for a time before once again turning cold; second is the hottest period of summer, typically in July or August; third, is where something blooms uncharacteristically later in the summer.
• Chinese Whispers (also known as Telephone when played as a game):  Where someone tells one person something, then that person tells another person, and so on, with the story getting distorted as it goes along.
• There an urban legend that states that the first usage of the phrase “Chinese Fire Drill” was during a British naval engine room fire drill.  In this drill, British officers and Chinese officers were both part of the drill (why Chinese officers were serving aboard a British vessel is a mystery, but these sorts of urban legends can’t be bound by logic).  In any event, soldiers were to form two bucket lines, one on the starboard side and one on the port side.  The starboard side was to fill their buckets and pass them along to the engine room, where they would be dumped on the fire.  The port side was then to fill their buckets with the water accumulating in the engine room from the starboard side line.  Due to confusion in language between the Chinese soldiers and British soldiers, what actually supposedly ended up happening was that the crew from the starboard side would draw the water and then run over to the port side and dump it back into the ocean.  At that point, everybody started running around doing this. <sarcasm>I don’t know about you, but to me, that story sounds extremely plausible and is very likely to have been the true origin of the “Chinese Fire Drill” phrase.</sarcasm>

Sources:

• Chinese Fire Drill
• Dutch Courage
• Indian Summer
• Chinese Whispers
• Word of the Day: Chinese Fire Drill

The massive 70 foot long albino sperm whale was named Mocha Dick and was one of the two whales that inspired the novel Moby Dick.  Mocha Dick was given his name as he was first sighted off the coast of Chile near Mocha Island; the latter “Dick” part of the name is thought to have simply been after the practice of naming certain deadly whales common names like “Dick” or “Tom”. The whalers that first spotted him attempted to kill him, but he survived the encounter.

Over the course of the next 28 years Mocha Dick earned a reputation as one of the most cunning and feared whales in the ocean.  During that span, he was spotted and attacked by at least 100 whaling ships.  He successfully destroying around 20 of those ships that attacked him and escaping all but the last.

According to famed explorer and writer Jeremiah N. Reynolds, Mocha Dick finally met his downfall after observing a mother whale whose calf had just been killed by whalers.  The mother whale first attempted to herd her calf away from the whalers after it had been harpooned, but soon the calf went belly up.  When the whale realized her calf was dead, she turned on the whalers and attempted, unsuccessfully, to destroy their ship.  Instead, she herself was harpooned and mortally wounded before she was able to strike the ship.

Upon observing all this, Mocha Dick decided to get in on the fray and also attacked the whaling ship directly after the missed hit by the mother.  Mocha Dick successfully destroyed one of the smaller whaling boats, but was injured in the process by a harpoon.  Here is the account of what happened after, according to Reynolds who collected the story from the first mate of the whaling ship that finally took down Mocha Dick:

The other whale that helped inspire Moby Dick was a huge sperm whale that destroyed the Essex in 1820 around 2,000 miles west of South America.  Herman Melville learned of the story of the Essex when the whaling ship he was on, only 100 miles from where the Essex was destroyed, encountered another whaling ship, which had the son of the Essex’s first mate, Owen Chase, aboard.

After the Essex was destroyed, the 21 man crew took refuge on three small whaling boats that had almost no supplies to sustain them.  Their choice at this point was to head for known habitable islands that they feared were inhabited with cannibals, 1,200 miles away, or head for South America 2,000 miles away, but about 4,000 miles by the quickest sailing route due to the winds that time of year.  Despite this distance, they chose South America.  Ironically, as you’ll read shortly, their choice of not choosing the much shorter route for fear of cannibals, resulted in some of them resorting to cannibalism.

During their journey, they did at one point encounter an island that they more or less stripped of its resources to help sustain themselves.  They also left three men behind there, at the time thinking likely to their doom, to help conserve supplies and increase the chances the others would make it back.

What followed was an incredibly gruesome tail. As they traveled, they steadily lost crew due to lack of nourishment. At a certain point, they were forced to give up burying their men at sea and, instead, began eating them and drinking their blood. They eventually even had to resort to not waiting for someone to die, but, rather, drew lots for who was to die and nourish the others with their body.

In the end, 95 days after their ship was destroyed, they were rescued with only five left alive aboard the two remaining small ships (one was lost along the way with the crew never heard from again). Miraculously, the three left on the depleted island, though near death when eventually found, survived the event.

Bonus Factoids:

• While Moby Dick today is considered a great work of literature, in its day, it wasn’t very successful and only earned Melville $556.37 and less than 3000 copies were sold over the next 40 years or so before Melville died.
• A common whaling nickname in the early 19th century for whales that spout blood after being harpooned (meaning they were likely soon to die) was “Dennis”.
• Mocha Dick’s body yielded around 100 barrels of oil.  Over 20 harpoons were found embedded in his body after he was killed.
• Jeremiah N. Reynolds not only helped inspire Moby Dick through one of his narratives, but also helped inspire Edgar Allan Poe’s The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket.  This was through Reynolds’ lectures on his notion that the Earth was hollow.
• While Mocha Dick was fearsome with whaling ships, he left all other ships alone, due to the fact that he rarely attacked unless he was first attacked.  He even was known to swim docilely around and along side ships at times.  As soon as the ship would try to harpoon him though, he would attack.
• Mocha Island is a small island (about 19 square miles) off the coast of Chile, which was famously used by such people as Vice Admiral Sir Francis Drake and Olivier van Noort as supply bases.  Pirates also once frequently used the island as a base.  Among other things, Drake was famous for being the second person to captain a ship all the way around the world.  Olivier van Noort also accomplished this feat, becoming the first Dutchman to sail all the way around the globe.

Sources and Further Reading:

• Mocha Dick
• The Wreck of the Whale Ship Essex
• Mocha Dick, or the White Whale of the Pacific, by Jeremiah Reynolds
• Moby Dick
• Mocha Island
• Mocha Dick, the White Whale of the Pacific
• Sperm Whale
• Moby Dick
• Captain Ahab Revenged
• Essex
• Jeremiah N. Reynolds
• 7 Famous Albino Animals
• Tristin Lowe: Mocha Dick Sculpture
• Origin of the Name “Moby Dick”
• Image Source

“Tetraethyl lead” was used in early model cars to help reduce engine knocking, boost octane ratings, and help with wear and tear on valve seats within the motor. Due to concerns over air pollution and health risks, this type of gas was slowly phased out starting in the late 1970′s and banned altogether in all on-road vehicles in the U.S. in 1995.

For a more detailed explanation of why lead used to be added to gasoline, it’s necessary to understand a little bit more about gasoline and what properties make it a good combustion material in car engines.  Gasoline itself is a product of crude oil that is made of carbon atoms joined together into carbon chains. The different length of the chains creates different fuels. For example, methane has one carbon atom, propane has three, and octane has eight carbon atoms chained together. These chains have characteristics that behave differently under various circumstances; characteristics like boiling point and ignition temperature, for instance, can vary greatly between them. As fuel is compressed in a motors cylinder, it heats up. Should the fuel reach its ignition temperature during compression, it will auto-ignite at the wrong time. This causes loss of power and damage to the engine. Fuels such as heptane (which has 7 carbon atoms chained together) can ignite under very little compression. Octane, however, tends to handle compression extremely well.

The higher the compression in the cylinders a car’s motor can produce, the greater the power it can get out of each stroke of the piston. This makes it necessary to have fuels that can handle higher compression without auto-igniting. The higher the octane rating, the more compression the fuel can handle. An octane rating of 87 means the fuel is a mixture of 87% octane and 13 percent heptane, or any mixture of fuels or additives that have the same performance of 87/13.

In 1919, Dayton Metal Products Co. merged with General Motors. They formed a research division that set out to solve two problems: the need for high compression engines and the insufficient supply of fuel that would run them. On December 9, 1921 chemists led by Charles F. Kettering and his assistants Thomas Midgley and T.A. Boyd added Tetraethyl lead to the fuel in a laboratory engine. The ever present knock, caused by auto-ignition of fuel being compressed past its ignition temperature, was completely silenced. Most all automobiles at the time were subject to this engine knock so the research team was overjoyed. Over time, other manufacturers found that by adding lead to fuel they could significantly improve the octane rating of the gas. This allowed them to produce much cheaper grades of fuel and still maintain the needed octane ratings that a car’s engine required.

Another benefit that became known over time was that Tetraethyl lead kept valve seats from becoming worn down prematurely. Exhaust valves, in early model cars, that were subject to engine knocking tended to get micro-welds that would get pulled apart on opening. This resulted in rough valve seats and premature failure. Lead helped fuel ignite only when appropriate on the power stroke, thus helping eliminate exhaust valve wear and tear.

The problems with Tetraethyl lead were known even before major oil companies began using it. In 1922, while plans for production of leaded gasoline were just getting underway, Thomas Midgley received a letter from Charles Klaus, a German scientist, stating of lead, “it’s a creeping and malicious poison” and warned that it had killed a fellow scientist. This didn’t seem to fase Midley, who himself came down with lead poisoning during the planning phase. While recovering in Miami, Midgley wrote to an oil industry engineer that public poisoning was “almost impossible, as no one will repeatedly get their hands covered in gasoline containing lead…” Other opposition to lead came from a lab director for the Public Health Service (A part of the US Department of Health and Human Services ) who wrote to the assistant surgeon general stating lead was a “serious menace to public health”.

Despite the warnings, production on leaded gasoline began in 1923. It didn’t take long for workers to begin succumbing to lead poisoning. At DuPont’s manufacturing plant in Deepwater New Jersey workers began to fall like dominoes. One worker died in the fall of 1923. Three died in the summer of 1924 and four more in the winter of 1925. Despite this, public controversy didn’t begin until five workers died and forty-four were hospitalized in Oct. of 1924 at Standard Oils plant in Bayway NJ.

The Public Health Service held a conference in 1925 to address the problem of leaded gasoline. As you would expect, Kettering testified for the use of lead, stating that oil companies could produce alcohol fuels that had the benefits that were provided by lead, however the volumes needed to supply a growing fuel hungry society could not be met. Alice Hamilton of Harvard University countered proponents of leaded gasoline and testified that this type of fuel was dangerous to people and the environment. In the end, the Public Health Service allowed leaded gasoline to remain on the market.

In 1974, after environmental hazards began to become overwhelmingly apparent, the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) announced a scheduled phase out of lead content in gasoline. One way manufacturers met these and other emission standards was to use catalytic converters. Catalytic converters use a chemical reaction to change pollutants, like carbon monoxide and other harmful hydrocarbons, to carbon dioxide, nitrogen and water. Tetraethyl lead would tend to clog up these converters making them inoperable. Thus, unleaded gasoline became the fuel of choice for any car with a catalytic converter.

The requirements by the EPA, emission control mechanisms on cars, and the advent of other octane boosting alternatives spelled the end for widespread leaded gasoline use. Manufacturers soon found that cars could no longer handle such a fuel; public tolerance of the environmental and health hazards would not allow it; and it became cost prohibitive to continue producing it. On January 1, 1996, the Clean Air Act completely banned the use of leaded fuel for any on road vehicle. Should you be found to possess leaded gasoline in your car you can be subject to a $10,000 fine.

This hasn’t completely gotten rid of leaded gasoline. You are still permitted to use it for off road vehicles, aircraft, racing cars, farm equipment, and marine engines, in the United States.

Bonus Factoids:

• Since the reduction of leaded gas in the United States, the average level of lead in the blood of Americans has decreased by over 75%.
• In 1985, the EPA estimated that over 5,000 Americans died every year from heart disease caused by lead poisoning.
• In 1988, a report was given to Congress by the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry on childhood lead poisoning in America. It concluded that every year from 1970-1987, as the EPA’s phase out of lead in gasoline was taking place, 2 million children a year had their blood-lead levels reduced to below toxic levels. The report estimated that, from 1927-1987, a total of 68 million children had a toxic exposure to lead from leaded gasoline.
• Since lead is a naturally occurring heavy metal, unlike carcinogens like pesticides, waste oils and radioactive materials, it will not break down over time. It does not vaporize or disappear.
• Just because you seem healthy does not mean you do not have high levels of lead in your blood. Signs and symptoms usually don’t present themselves until the accumulation of lead has reached dangerous amounts.  These signs and symptoms include: High blood pressure, declines in mental functioning, pain, numbness and tingling of the extremities, muscular weakness, headache, abdominal pain, memory loss, mood disorders, reduced sperm count, abnormal sperm, and miscarriage or premature birth in pregnant women.
• Treatment for lead poisoning consists of treatment for symptoms and the use of Dimercaptosuccinic acid, which is an organosulfur compound, or Dimercaprol, also known as British anti-Lewisite.
• On October 27, 2011, the United Nations Environment Program announced that the global use of leaded gasoline would be eradicated by 2013. The use of leaded gasoline is still allowed in 6 nations. These nations are Afghanistan, Algeria, Iraq, North Korea, Myanmar and Yemen. The U.N. is assisting those nations in a phase-out of its use.

References:

• The Secret History Of Lead
• Mayo Clinic- Lead Poisoning
• Gasoline
• Global Eradication Of Leaded Gasoline
• 60 years of Tetraethyl Lead
• Engine Performance Facts and Fixes
• British Anti-Lewisite
• Image Source

It all started with Kutol about to go under in the late 1920s.  Cleo McVicker, just 21 years old, was tasked with selling off the company’s remaining assets, which at the time comprised mainly of powdered hand soap; once that was done, the company would be too.  Cleo, however, managed to turn a nice profit in performing his task, the result of which was that the company managed to barely stay afloat.  Cleo McVicker then hired his brother, Noah, and they set about trying to make the company viable again.

In 1933, Cleo was at a meeting with Kroger grocery stores when they asked if he made wallpaper cleaner.  Wallpaper cleaner was a hot commodity as, at the time, coal was the leading way to heat one’s home, being much more efficient and cheaper than wood.  This had the negative side effect of leaving soot everywhere, which was difficult to clean off of wallpaper as you couldn’t get it wet (this was before vinyl wallpaper).

In a bold stroke, Cleo told them they could make the wallpaper cleaner for them, even though no-one at Kutol knew how just then.  Kroger subsequently ordered 15,000 cases of it from Kutol with a $5,000 penalty if Kutol didn’t deliver on time, which was more than Kutol had available to pay, if they failed. Luckily for the brothers, Noah McVicker was able to figure out how to make the commonly used wallpaper cleaner and the compound that ultimately would become Play-Doh was born.

Unfortunately for the brothers, though, while this provided the staple income for about a decade, after WWII, sales began to slowly dwindle thanks to the fact that coal heat was slowly being replaced by oil and gas furnaces.  These furnaces obviously didn’t produce the soot problem, so cleaning wallpaper regularly wasn’t something that was needed.  The sales further dissipated shortly thereafter when vinyl wallpaper became available.  This type of wallpaper could be cleaned with nothing but soap and water, so the McVicker’s product was now virtually obsolete.

To make matters worse, Cleo McVicker died in a plane crash in 1949 and Joe McVicker, Noah McVicker’s nephew who was hired to replace Cleo, found out he had  a rare form of cancer at the age of 25 and wasn’t expected to survive.  *spoiler alert* He did, in fact, survive thanks to a new experimental radiation treatment.  Although, even after treatment, the doctors deemed it unsuccessful and told him he would die shortly (in reality he didn’t die until 1992, though his ending was pretty sad all the same, see the Bonus Factoids below for more).

In any event, enter Kay Zufall in 1954, the unsung hero of Play-Doh history and the sister-in-law to Joe McVicker.  Kay was running a nursery school and needed cheap materials to have her kids make Christmas decorations.  In the process of searching for said cheap decoration materials, she read in a magazine that you could use wallpaper cleaner for this task.  Knowing the trouble her brother-in-law’s company was in, she went out and bought a bunch of Kutol’s wallpaper cleaner, to see if it would work for this application.  After not only observing that it worked, but that the kids had a blast playing with the wallpaper cleaner, she called Joe and told him they needed to make their now obsolete wallpaper cleaner into a toy. Joe then took a look at the Christmas ornaments made by the kids and agreed it was a great idea.  They simply removed the detergent from the dough and added an almond scent and some coloring, as it was originally white.

Joe decided to re-christen the compound which would now be a toy: “Kutol’s Rainbow Modeling Compound”.  Enter Kay Zufall to once again save the day, assuring him that that was a horrible name for their product.  Her and her husband, Bob, then set about trying to think up a better one.  In the course of their discussions, Kay came up with “Play-Doh”, which they both loved and suggested the name to Joe, who also liked it.

Thanks to some connections to school board members formed from selling soap, they initially sold their new product to schools all throughout Cincinnati.  They then began trying to market it to stores, with only a small amount of success locally.

While at this point it had saved the company, without money for major advertising, Play-Doh initially seemed to be destined for very slow growth.  Joe McVicker though, one day managed to talk his way into an audience with Bob Keeshan, better known as Captain Kangaroo.  He showed Keeshan the Play-Doh and explained to him that Kutol had no money for a national advertising campaign nor money to have the product put on the show.  However, if Keeshan would agree to use the product once a week on Captain Kangaroo, they’d give the Captain Kangaroo production company 2% of the sales generated, so long as he continued to show it.  The Captain agreed and Play-Doh quickly became a national hit, even appearing on other children’s shows thanks to the Captain Kangaroo exposure.

With the national exposure, Play-Doh quickly had about 116 months worth of orders to fill, even with the factory at their then max capacity.  Further, even though they still sold the wallpaper compound for 34 cents for a can, they were able to get $1.50 per can on Play-Doh, for the same amount of compound,  even though the two products were virtually identical, save the cleaning compound was white and had a small amount of detergent added.

Bonus Factoids:

• Joe McVicker’s marketing brilliance apparently didn’t extend to other matters of business.  Within a few years of Play-Doh’s debut, with the company grossing $3 million per year and a large amount of profit in that gross and sales still rising at an extremely rapid rate as they began to expand to other countries, he agreed to sell “Rainbow Crafts”, which was the subsidiary of Kutol that made Play-Doh, for just $3 million to General Mills (for reference, that would be $18 million today).  Because of the fact that the company was annually grossing that already and was still rapidly growing, this was viewed as a huge mistake by his employees, who tried to raise the money to out-bid General Mills, but failed. His former partner Bill Rhoedenbaugh also tried to convince him what a huge mistake that would be to sell for that small amount, but Joe didn’t listen to him either.  This very quickly showed itself for the mistake it was when, a mere eight years later, Play-Doh had grown to a global children’s toy staple and shipped its 500 millionth can at that $1.50 per can price.
• Joe McVicker ultimately squandered the $3 million he made in the sale of Rainbow Crafts and Play-Doh and died near broke in 1992.
• Rhoedenbaugh no longer had any say in the matter of the sale of Rainbow Crafts and Play-Doh because he had been forced out by McVicker, with McVicker using his 51% ownership of Kutol to force him to take the still struggling Kutol in exchange for Rhoedenbaugh’s 49% stake in Rainbow Crafts, which made Play-Doh (though the two remained at least business friends, despite McVicker’s actions, after the split).  It was at this time that McVicker filed the patent for Play-Doh, listing only himself and his uncle Noah McVicker as the creators, even though there were apparently around six total people that helped create it, including Rhoedenbaugh and Dr. Tien Liu.
• On the bright side, despite the fact that Kutol itself, without Play-Doh, was still struggling, Rhoedenbaugh managed to turn it around and today it’s one of the largest industrial and institutional hand soap manufacturers in the world.  Rhoedenbaugh eventually retired, leaving the thriving company to his sons.
• Far from being upset about not getting any official credit or money for the idea of making Kutol’s wallpaper cleaning compound into a toy and subsequently giving that toy a name, basically saving the company, Kay is actually even today quite happy she could help:  “People ask us, You gave the name away?  Well who knew it would sell anything?  Joe did the hard work, we had a part in it for sure, but if it hadn’t been sold, it wouldn’t have been anything.”
• Kay and her husband Bob, who is a doctor, run a clinic for the poor.  The clinic gets around 12,000 patients a year, cared for by around 20 volunteer doctors, including Bob.  The clinic is in Dover, New Jersey.
• The Play-Doh formula was somewhat refined in the late 1950s by chemist Dr. Tien Liu, to make it so that it wouldn’t dry out as quickly as the original wallpaper cleaner formula.  His tweaks to the ingredients also made it so it wouldn’t turn white after drying out, which it did in the original formula.
• The original Play-Doh came in one gallon cans, in colors of red, blue, and yellow.  They sold it in such large amounts per container because they felt their best bet was to sell it to schools, rather than try to sell it to home consumers.
• The wallpaper compound that would eventually become Play-Doh was actually quite common before Kutol started making it.  The proportions were different, depending on whom you talked to, but the basic recipe was known by many a home-maker, which is how Noah McVicker learned how to make it in the first place.
• When it was released, Play-Doh had the huge advantage over popular modeling clay of the day, in that it didn’t stain, like modeling clay did.
• You might read certain places that Play-Doh was originally sold under the name “Magic Clay”, but this is not true.  It was Play-Doh from the beginning.
• Play-Doh was purchased from General Mills by the Tonka Corporation and later bought by Hasbro, who still owns it today.  Hasbro says that Play-Doh is primarily made of wheat flour, salt, and water.  Other ingredients include preservatives, petroleum additives (to improve the texture), and borax, to prevent mold from growing on it.
• You can make your own Play-Doh type compound at home easy enough using 2 cups of flour, 2 cups of warm water, 1 cup of salt, 2 tablespoons of vegetable oil, 1 tablespoon cream of tartar, liquid food coloring, and scented oils.  For exactly how to make this, go here: How to Make Play-Doh
• Due to the extremely high amounts of salt in the compound, it is important not to let animals (or kids) eat Play-Doh.  The amount of salt is high enough per unit volume that, if they ate enough of it to fill their stomachs (which isn’t so much a risk with kids as it is dogs), their sodium levels could rise to very dangerous, possibly even fatal, levels.
• Today, an average of nearly 100 million cans of Play-Doh are sold annually.
• National Play-Doh day is September 18th.

Sources:

• Timeless Toys: classic toys and the playmakers who created them, by Tim Walsh
• How to Make Playdough
• History of Play-doh, Timeline
• 10 Accidental Discoveries that Generated Great Wealth
• The History of Playdoh
• Who Invented Playdoh
• Play-dough
• Patent for Play-Doh