Weird Universe

Lorene Bynum didn't want to sit on the bathroom at the hospital where she was visiting her husband because she thought it looked dirty.

Dorothy Andree appeared in a number of movies, though mostly in uncredited roles.

As a young woman in high school, back in 1915, Lorraine Collett was spotted by a Sun-Maid executive and became the model for the Sun-Maid Raisin Girl.

Pack your own life-saving apparatus if you go on a cruise.

Corporate gifts usually take the form of fruit baskets, or perhaps a gold watch.

Unfortunately, not all of the humor songs of Irving Taylor can be found online.

I thought it was a principle of American law that criminal responsibility is not transferable to someone else.

I recently went to a pigeon show—the first time I've ever been to one—and saw the strange-looking bird below.

A "fat stock show beauty queen" refers to a young woman crowned as a queen or rodeo princess during historical agricultural exhibitions and livestock shows in Texas, such as the Fort Worth or Houston Fat Stock Shows.

Oct 1980: Unsatisfied with the service she had received at a jewelry store, Lola Chambers returned to the store, asked to see a $7000 diamond, then put it in her mouth.

Aug 1977: 17-year-old Joe Hayden hoped to set a world record for playing the most simultaneous games of chess.

Mar 1974: Glenn Moore went to a bar that was offering an all-the-beer-you-can-drink-for-a-dollar deal.

"Kitten hips?"

St.

The early winner from 1964 wears the sash "Miss London Airport."

Back at the beginning of the 20th Century, Georg Fingerling of Germany worried that ship horns were ineffective in dense fog since the fog bounced the sound around.

Why don't we have truly colorful characters like this fellow in politics anymore?

Why did our distant ancestors start to walk upright?

A game that encourages you to bulldoze beautiful primeval forest, clear the land down to the soil, and then develop it.

It was never determined how Lattie, an 8-year-old Labrador retriever, managed to swallow a 10-inch socket wrench.

Text source.

Beginning in the 1950s, Hallmark sold regionally customized versions of the Snoopy poster below.

The UPI story below ran in many papers, but it got one central fact wrong.

I am envisioning what happens when the horse is spooked.

At a recent art exhibition a collector bid $4000 for what he thought was a work of contemporary art.

Arizona Daily Sun - Mar 26, 1981 Springfield Leader and Press - Mar 27, 1981 Arizona Republic - Sep 25, 1981

Full patent here.

Apr 1958: Newspapers reported that Pope Pius XII had said that it was "advisable for women to wear hats in church."

What the heck are we looking at here?

I think this couple was hoping that their "Acme Worry Service" would turn into a pop-culture fad like pet rocks.

Back in 1885, Gustav Jaeger was granted a British patent for a "hair scent extract" taken from "the hair of healthy females possessing good digestion."

Back in the 1920s, Asa Schaeffer, professor of zoology at Kansas University, observed that amoebas tend to move in spiral patterns.

Full patent here.

In the future our food will come from plastic.

Odd but true astronomical fact.

This volume (readable at the Internet Archive) is filled with droll and strange doings of the 18th century.

Back in 2017, we posted about Fishbowl Fashion.

Most fans of the weird know about the Winchester Mystery House, whose owner, it was said, believed that she must build continuously, or perish.