Great Brink’s Robbery
The Great Brinks Robbery was the biggest armed robbery in U.S. history at the time. Thieves vanished after stealing $2.7 million, leaving few clues.
Gérard de Nerval
Gérard de Nerval was a man with a pet lobster.
Nat Tate
In 1998, Boyd published Nat Tate: An American Artist 1928-1960, which presents the paintings and tragic biography of a supposed New York-based 1950s Abstract Expressionist painter named Nat Tate, who actually never existed and was, along with his paintings, a creation of Boyd's. When the book was initially published, it was not revealed that it was a work of fiction, and a number of prominent art critics were duped by the hoax; it was launched at a lavish party, with excerpts read by David Bowie (who was in on the joke), and a number of prominent members of the art world claimed to remember the artist. It caused quite a stir once the truth was revealed.
Edward Lear
He was known mostly for his literary nonsense in poetry and prose and especially his limericks, a form he popularised.
Rollie Free
Rollie Free was a motorcycle racer who broke the American motorcycle land speed record in 1948. He was prone to wearing a bathing suit.
The Moscow Puzzles
This book has been a classic in the former Soviet Union since it was first published in 1956, and it remains just as entertaining today. A master at making math fun for his high school students, Boris Kordemsky loaded this clever collection with a wide variety of math and logic related games and puzzles dealing with magic squares, tricky weights and measures, properties of numbers, mathematical tricks, and more.
Luther Blissett
Luther Blissett is a multiple-use name, an "open reputation" informally adopted and shared by hundreds of artists and social activists all over Europe and South America since 1994. In Italy, between 1994 and 1999, the Luther Blissett Project (an organized network within the open community sharing the "Luther Blissett" identity) became an extremely popular phenomenon. An example: January 1995, Harry Kipper, a British conceptual artist, disappears at the Italo-Slovenian border while touring Europe on a mountain bike, allegedly with the purpose of tracing the word 'ART' on the map of the continent. The victim of the prank is a famous missing person's prime-time show on the Italian state television. They send out a crew and spend taxpayers' money to look for a person that never existed. They go as far as London, where novelist Stewart Home and Richard Essex of the London Psychogeographical Association pose as close friends of Kipper's. The hoax goes on until "Luther Blissett" claims responsibility for it.
Charles Ribart
In 1758, Charles Ribart planned an addition to the Champs-Élysées in Paris, to be constructed where the Arc de Triomphe now stands. It consisted of three levels, to be built in the shape of an elephant, with entry via a spiral staircase in the underbelly. The building was to have a form of air conditioning, and furniture that folded into the walls. A drainage system was to be incorporated into the elephant's trunk. The French Government, however, was not amused and turned him down.
Abe Hirschfeld
Abe Hirschfeld was a Polish-born New York real estate developer known for his eccentric endeavors, love for publicity, $2 neckties, strong Yiddish accent, and murder-for-hire plot against a former business partner.
D. B. Cooper
D. B. Cooper is the name attributed to a man who hijacked a Boeing 727 aircraft in the United States on November 24, 1971, received US$200,000 in ransom, and parachuted from the plane.