The Surprising Adventures of Baron Munchausen
In this book, the Baron's astounding feats included riding cannonballs, travelling to the Moon, and escaping from a swamp by pulling himself up by his own hair.
Timothy Dexter
Timothy Dexter was an American eccentric businessman who was peculiarly lucky and never bothered to learn to spell. Dexter bought a huge estate in Chester, New Hampshire. He also bought a new house in Newburyport and decorated it with minarets, a golden eagle on the top of the cupola, a mausoleum for himself and a garden of 40 wooden statues of famous men, including George Washington, William Pitt, Napoleon Bonaparte, Thomas Jefferson and of course, himself. It had an inscription "I am the first in the East, the first in the West, and the greatest philosopher in the Western World." People flocked to gawk at this collection. Dexter also had his own way with household staff. He had a black and protective housekeeper called Lucy, whom he claimed to be a daughter of an African prince. Other servants included a large idiot, a fortune teller and his "poet laureate" Jonathan Plummer. At the age of 50 he decided to write a book about himself - A Pickle for the Knowing Ones or Plain Truth in a Homespun Dress. He wrote about himself and complained about politicians, clergy and his wife. The book contained 8,847 words and 33,864 letters, but absolutely no punctuation, and capital letters were sprinkled about at random. At first, he handed his book out for free, but it rapidly became popular and ran into eight editions in total. When people complained that it was hard to read, for the second edition he added an extra page - 13 lines of punctuation marks - asking readers to "peper and solt it as they plese."
George Sitwell
George Sitwell was an unusual man. It’s tempting to dismiss the designer of a small pistol for shooting wasps as either a madman or a joker. The ever-serious Sir George was neither. He had a lot of time on his hands, that’s all. At a loss for something to do, Sir George began to compile a family history. When he wasn’t writing about his own family’s history, he was writing about the history of almost everything else, from Acorns As an Article of the Medieval Diet, The History of the Fork, and, The Errors of Modern Parents. He was careful, however, not to get too into writing, as he believed that novel writing had an ill effect on one’s health.
Bedaux Canadian subarctic expedition
The Bedaux Canadian subarctic expedition has been described as one of the strangest journeys in the history of modern exploration. The brainchild of Charles Bedaux, a French-born naturalized American millionaire, it centred on an implausible scheme to drive five Citroen half-tracks and fifteen tonnes of supplies--including bottles of champagne and candied fruits--through the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific Ocean, following a trail that had not been attempted since Alexander Mackenzie in 1793. Bedaux was to be accompanied by an eclectic entourage that included: his wife, Fern; an Italian countess thought to be his mistress; an Academy-award winning Hollywood cameraman; a Swiss skiing instructor; a host of wranglers and cowboys; a dental student; an unemployed bush pilot; guides; geologists; and a British Columbia provincial surveyor.
Hetty Green
Hetty Green nicknamed "The Witch of Wall Street", was an American businesswoman, remarkable for her frugality during the Gilded Age, as well as for being the first American woman to make a substantial impact on Wall Street. There are many tales about Hetty Green's stinginess. She never turned on the heat nor used hot water. She wore one old black dress and undergarments that she changed only after they had been worn out. She did not wash her hands and rode an old carriage. She ate mostly pies that cost fifteen cents. One tale claims that she spent half a night searching her carriage for a lost stamp worth two cents. Another asserts that she instructed her laundress to wash only the dirtiest parts of her dresses (the hems) to save money on soap.
Athanasius Kircher
Athanasius Kircher was a Jesuit priest and scholar, sometimes called the last Renaissance man, important for his prodigious activity in disseminating knowledge. To illustrate his belief in the magnetic relationship between the sun and the vegetable kingdom, Kircher designed this heliotropic sunflower clock by attaching a sunflower to a cork and floating it in a reservoir of water. As the blossom rotated to face the sun, a pointer through its center indicated the time on the inner side of a suspended ring.
Frederick Courteney Selous
The life of Frederick Courteney Selous was filled with extraordinary adventures, from elephant-hunting and diamond-prospecting, to an early expedition to found Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) in the European scramble for Africa.
Daniel Tammet
Daniel Tammet is a writer with high-functioning autistic savant syndrome. Tammet can learn new languages very quickly. To prove this for a documentary film, Tammet was challenged to learn Icelandic in one week. Seven days later he appeared on Icelandic television conversing in Icelandic, with his Icelandic language instructor saying it was "not human".
Alan Turing
Alan Turing was an English mathematician, logician, cryptanalyst and computer scientist. He was highly influential in the development of computer science, providing a formalization of the concept of the algorithm and computation with the Turing machine, which played a significant role in the creation of the modern computer.
John Aspinall
John Aspinall was born in Delhi, India, but was a United Kingdom citizen. He was a zoo owner and a gambler. He was also a self-declared misanthrope and reputed co-plotter of an extreme right-wing conspiracy against Britain’s Labour government.