Stories

In 1899, Lenna R. Winslow of Ohio filed a patent for a groundbreaking voting machine that separated ballots based on the voter’s gender. Designed to address partial suffrage for women, the machine used doors labeled “Ladies” and “Gents” to activate mechanisms displaying gender-specific ballots.

In 1884, LaMarcus Adna Thompson, dismayed by the rise of saloons and brothels, sought to create a wholesome alternative for entertainment. His answer was the Switchback Gravity Railway, a gravity-powered roller coaster at Brooklyn’s Coney Island. Riders paid five cents for the experience.

In 1890, Cedar Key, Florida, was ruled by Mayor William “Billy” Cottrell, whose drunken rampages terrorized the town. Armed and volatile, he bullied residents, forced a black man to attack another at gunpoint, and used his power to threaten and harm those who opposed him.

In October 1962, during the Cuban Missile Crisis, Vasily Arkhipov served as a senior officer aboard the Soviet submarine B-59, near Cuba. The submarine carried nuclear torpedoes and was detected by U.S. naval forces, which dropped practice depth charges to force it to surface.

Pauline Cushman, born Harriet Wood in 1833, transitioned from acting to espionage during the American Civil War. Originally pursuing an acting career in New York, she later moved to Louisville, Kentucky. It was here, under Union control yet rife with Confederate sympathizers, that her life took a dramatic turn.

In 2006, casino mogul Steve Wynn agreed to sell Pablo Picasso’s 1932 painting Le Rêve to hedge fund manager Steven Cohen for $139 million, a record-breaking price for an artwork at the time.

In May 1944, weeks before the D-Day invasion, British intelligence noticed unusual activity in the Daily Telegraph crossword. Key codenames like “Utah,” “Omaha,” “Overlord,” and “Neptune,” crucial to the Allied invasion plans, appeared as answers in the puzzles.

On March 11, 1970, British Rail engineer Charles Osmond Frederick filed a patent for a revolutionary concept: a flying saucer powered by nuclear fusion. The patent, GB1310990, outlined a craft designed for supersonic speeds and vertical takeoff and landing.

In 1895, Jessie Allan, a librarian in Omaha, died of tuberculosis. Her death fueled fears that contaminated library books could spread deadly diseases like tuberculosis and scarlet fever. This panic, known as the “great book scare,” gripped the public in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

In 2003, the New Zealand government proposed a tax targeting methane emissions from livestock to combat greenhouse gases. Methane, a potent greenhouse gas, accounts for nearly half of New Zealand’s emissions due to its vast agricultural sector, particularly sheep and cattle farming.