Uncle John’s 24-Karat Gold Bathroom Reader® (65 page)

How He Died:
Crossing the finish line

Details:
On February 27, 1923, Hayes and his horse, Sweet Kiss, were a 20–to-1 long shot in a race at New York’s Belmont Park. Good news: Hayes won. Bad news: When the owner ran over to congratulate him, Hayes was dead, killed by a heart attack. Only the reins and stirrups had kept him from falling off the horse. Some bookies balked at paying off on a race won by a dead man, but the rules made no mention of the winning jockey having to be alive at the end of the race, so the bets were paid in full.

BRIAN WELLS (1956–2003)

Who He Was:
A pizza delivery man from Erie, Pennsylvania

How He Died:
Killed by a time bomb

Details:
On August 28, 2003, Wells robbed a bank in Erie. This was no ordinary heist: Wells had a bulky metal object shackled to his neck, and when police caught up with him a short time later, he told them the device was a time bomb that three assailants had attached to his neck a few hours earlier, after luring him to a remote area to deliver some pizzas. The assailants gave him a list of tasks to complete (including robbing the bank), and warned him that if he didn’t finish in time, the bomb would go off. Wells was waiting for the bomb squad to arrive when the device exploded, killing him. His story was profiled on
America’s Most Wanted
three times. The mystery remained unsolved for nearly four years. Then in 2007, two of Wells’s associates, Marjorie Diehl-Armstrong, 58, and Kenneth Barnes, 53, were arrested and charged with involvement in the incident. Wells was named as an “unindicted co-conspirator” in the plot that resulted in his own murder. Prosecutors allege that he was in on the scheme, but
did not realize until just before the bomb was attached to his neck that it was real and that the other conspirators had planned from the beginning to kill him to prevent him from talking. Diehl-Armstrong received a life sentence plus 30 years for her part in the crime; Barnes got 45 years. A third suspect, Bill Rothestein, 59, who’d died a few years earlier, lived just steps away from where Wells delivered the pizzas. He was named as an unindicted co-conspirator for allegedly building the bomb.

First construction site where workers were required to wear hard hats: the Hoover Dam.

THE JAMES ROBINSON & CO. CIRCUS BAND (1870)

Who They Were:
Musicians traveling with the circus

How They Died:
Eaten by lions

Details:
As the circus was pulling into Middletown, Missouri, the management told the band to climb on top of the horse-drawn lion wagon and perform there as the circus paraded through town. The bandleader complained that the roof wasn’t strong enough to support the weight of 10 musicians, but he lost the argument, and the band climbed up to the roof and began to play. As the wagon turned a corner on its way through town, the driver tangled the reins, sending the horses into a gallop. They pulled the wagon to the side of the road, where it crashed into a large rock. The impact caused the roof to collapse, dumping the musicians on top of the lions. Three musicians were killed and four were badly mauled before bystanders pulled the survivors to safety.

SIGURD THE MIGHTY (9th century)

Who He Was:
Ruler of the Viking settlement on the Orkney Islands off the northern coast of Scotland

How He Died:
Bad karma and bad teeth—not
his
bad teeth, but bad teeth just the same

Details:
In 892 Sigurd challenged his enemy, Máel Brigte the Bucktoothed, to a battle limited to 40 men on each side. Sigurd then brought 80 of his own men to the fight and won handily. His victory was short-lived, though: Claiming the dead Máel Brigte’s head as a war trophy, Sigurd fastened it to his saddle with the buckteeth facing inward, toward him. On the ride home the teeth scraped repeatedly against his leg, giving him a nasty gash that got infected and killed him a few weeks later.

During WWII, the German submarine
U-1206
sank following a “toilet operator error.”

HAIL TO YOUR CHIEF

Regardless of what Americans think about them or what history books say about them, some presidents are beloved in surprising places overseas
.

P
resident:
Rutherford B. Hayes (1877–81)
Popular in:
Paraguay
Story:
Hayes is one of the more obscure U.S. presidents, most often cited in history books for the 1876 election that brought him to the Oval Office, in which his opponent, Samuel Tilden, actually won the popular vote. President Hayes’s foreign policy mainly had to do with South America. From 1864 to 1870, most of the continent was involved in the War of the Triple Alliance, in which Argentina and Brazil (along with Uruguay) fought tiny Paraguay over ownership of two regions of land, including one inside Paraguay named Gran Chaco. Most of Paraguay’s adult male population died during the war, which Argentina and Brazil ultimately won. Those countries negotiated for years on how to properly divide up Gran Chaco, but all talks ended in stalemate, and the issue was still unresolved when Hayes took office in 1877. Hayes volunteered to arbitrate the conflict, and he came up with a plan that essentially negated the bloody War of the Triple Alliance: He awarded Gran Chaco back to Paraguay.

Hail to the Chief!
Paraguay showed its appreciation when, in making Gran Chaco a state, it named part of the region Department Presidente Hayes. The region’s capital city, formerly the Argentine-occupied Villa Argentina, was renamed Villa Hayes.

President:
Woodrow Wilson (1913–21)

Popular in:
Czech Republic

Story:
The countries that are now the Czech Republic and Slovakia were part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire in the late 1800s. An independence movement began in the 1880s, led by Czech activist Tomas Masaryk, who was elected to represent the region in the empire’s parliament in 1891. He advocated for Czech and Slovakian independence for years, but got nowhere until after World War I, when the Allied forces of England, France, Russia,
and Italy defeated the Austro-Hungarians, and the empire was dissolved. In 1918 President Woodrow Wilson invited Masayrk to come to the White House and discuss an independent Czechoslovakia. After a meeting that lasted just under an hour, Wilson publicly called for independence for Czechoslovakia. Result: When the Versailles Treaty divvied up Europe, Czechoslovakia became an independent nation.

Only two women in
Rolling Stone
’s 100 Greatest Guitarists list: Joan Jett & Joni Mitchell.

Hail to the Chief!
The Czechs showed their appreciation by renaming Prague’s main railway station Wilsonovo nádraží (Wilson Station) in 1919 and erecting a statue of Wilson there in 1928. The statue was destroyed by the Nazis during World War II; the train station was renamed in 1953, during the Soviet occupation.

President:
Franklin D. Roosevelt (1933–45)

Popular in:
Norway

Story:
Time
magazine reporter Leland Stowe was on assignment in Oslo, Norway, on April 22, 1940, the day the Nazis invaded the city. As German troops marched through the streets, Norwegian citizens looked on, shocked and horrified. Stowe misinterpreted their reaction as indifference and wrote an editorial (widely reprinted) decrying Norway for its reluctance to fight back. Result: a growing anti-Norwegian sentiment in the United States. In September 1942, the U.S. Navy gave the ship the
King Haakon VII
to Norway for the war effort. Roosevelt spoke at the event at the Washington Navy Yard, calling attention to the active Norwegian Resistance and other anti-Hitler forces in the country. Roosevelt remarked: “If there is anyone who still wonders why this war is being fought, let him look to Norway. If there is anyone who doubts the democratic will to win, again I say, let him look to Norway.”

Hail to the Chief!
Norway showed its appreciation by erecting a statue of Roosevelt in Oslo, where it still overlooks the town hall and the Nobel Peace Centre.

“We forfeit three-fourths of ourselves to be like other people.”

—
Arthur Schopenhauer

Did they forget the words? Mountain lions whistle.

ODD BASEBALL STORIES

Why is baseball our favorite sport? Because it’s full of oddball stuff like this
.

F
OUL PLAY
September 19, 1940: Luke Appling of the White Sox was batting against Red Ruffing of the Yankees with two men on base. Appling fouled off the first pitch. Then he fouled off the second, third, and fourth pitches before taking pitch #5 for a ball. Then he fouled off the next six pitches before taking the 12th pitch for a ball, making the count two balls and two strikes. Ruffing was getting ruffled. He threw another pitch. Appling fouled it off...as he did 13 more times before finally getting a walk on the
28th pitch
to load the bases. The next batter hit a grand slam. “Ruffing cussed me all the way to the plate,” said Appling.

DOZING OFF

To motivate pitcher Roy Oswalt for Game 6 of the 2005 National League playoffs, Astros owner Drayton McLane promised the Mississippi native what he’d always wanted—a bulldozer—if he won. Oswalt beat the Cardinals 5–1. Afterward, he was presented with a $200,000 Caterpillar D6N XL (with a big red bow on top). Oswalt, who’d signed a $73 million contract a few months earlier, said he’d use it to “make a little extra money in the off-season.”

HEAD SHOT

“I’ve been telling (second-baseman Alexi) Casilla all year, ‘Quit lobbing it. Throw the ball!’” said Twins manager Ron Gardenhire while having his ear stitched up in the locker room during a September 2010 game. What happened? In pregame warm-ups, Casilla threw the ball to first and accidentally beaned his skipper in the head. “Best throw he’s made all year,” said Gardenhire.

QUICK TAKE

The fastest nine-inning game in pro baseball history took place in 1916 in North Carolina between the minor league Asheville
Tourists and the visiting Winston-Salem Twins. Every batter swung at the first pitch, and nobody tried very hard to score runs. Final score: 2–1, Twins. Elapsed time: 31 minutes. Why so fast? The Twins only had an hour to catch the last train home.

Ironically, the state of Washington was originally called Columbia, but the name was changed so it wouldn’t be confused with Washington, District of Columbia.

FUZZY MATH

In 2011 Mariners pitcher Doug Fister was pitching to the Padres’ Cameron Maybin in the fifth inning. But the scoreboard operator goofed; he typed in “3 balls, 2 strikes” when it was really only 2 and 2, and then the ump goofed, trusting the scoreboard. After he got another ball and “walked,” Maybin scored the game’s only run and the Mariners lost. Seattle skipper Eric Wedge later promised to keep a better eye on the count...but a week later the M’s gave up another three-ball walk, this time in a loss to the L.A. Angels.

CONGRATULATIONS!

In July 2010, the Marlins’ Chris Coghlan (the 2009 Rookie of the Year) celebrated teammate Wes Helm’s game-winning hit by hitting him in the face with a pie. But Coghlan tripped and landed hard on his knee and tore his meniscus. He missed the rest of the season.

BOOKENDS

The first game ever played at Atlanta’s Fulton County Stadium was Opening Day 1966. Starting for the Braves: pitcher Tony Cloninger and catcher Joe Torre. The final game played at Fulton was Game 5 of the 1996 World Series, 30 years later. The Braves lost to the Yankees, who were managed by Joe Torre. His bullpen coach was Tony Cloninger.

PLAYING CHICKEN

Baseball’s oddest curse: In 1985 fans of Japan’s Hanshin Tigers celebrated a championship by throwing a plastic statue of Colonel Sanders from a nearby KFC restaurant into the Dotonbori River. Hanshin hasn’t won another championship since. Fans blame it on the angry spirit of the Colonel, and tried several times to excavate the statue from the murky river. Portions were finally found in 2009, but the left hand is still missing. The curse continues.

DOUGH-LYMPIC
RECORDS

Is there any aroma so wonderful as the smell of freshly-baked bread? Here are some forgotten achievements that deserve honorable mentions for their contributions to humanity
.

W
ORLD’S OLDEST BAKERY
In 2002 a team of archaeologists digging in the city of Giza in northeast Egypt discovered the remains of an ancient bakery. They found shallow clay bowls used to knead dough, trays used to let dough rise, ceramic bread molds that also served as baking pans, and open air ovens for baking the bread. There’s a good chance, the researchers said, that the bakery supplied bread for the workers who built Egypt’s famous pyramids—which are only a few hundred yards away—as it dated to about 2500 B.C., the era during which the pyramids were being built. The Giza site is the oldest bakery ever uncovered.