There was nothing about the early life of Stanley Weinberg to suggest that he was destined for a degree of immortality. Born to working class parents in Brooklyn, New York, on 25 November 1890, the young Stanley expressed an interest in a career as a medical doctor. Unfortunately, his parents were unable to pay for… Read More

At 5.15am on July 17th 1938, Irish-American pilot Douglas Corrigan taxied his dilapidated Curtiss Robin OX-5 monoplane onto the runway of Floyd Bennett Field, an airfield in Brooklyn, New York City, in preparation for a flight to Long Beach, California. At a little over 2,800 miles, the journey westward across the United States would take,… Read More

If you ask someone to come up with a character from a Charles Dickens novel, the chances are the name they will choose will be Ebenezer Scrooge, the wealthy but miserly protagonist from Dickens’ classic tale A Christmas Carol, published in 1843. Indeed, such is the fame of the fictitious cheapskate, that the very name Scrooge has been subsumed into… Read More

If you were ever minded to try and steal the English Crown Jewels, you would have quite a job on your hands. Today they sit protected by bomb proof glass in the Jewel House of the Tower of London, monitored continuously by over 100 hidden CCTV cameras, and overseen by 22 Tower Guards. In addition,… Read More

On a cold April night in the North Atlantic, the largest ship ever constructed struck an iceberg on her starboard side and sank, whist approximately 400 nautical miles off of the coast of Newfoundland, Canada. Of the 2,500 passengers and crew on board the stricken vessel, only 13 survived. The leviathan, which was 800 feet… Read More

Andrew Crosse was a wealthy young man, inheriting Fyne Court, a large country house in Broomfield, Somerset, England, at the age of 21 in 1805, following the death of his parents, Richard and Susannah. After receiving his inheritance, Crosse, who had been studying law at Brasenose College, Oxford, immediately abandoned his legal studies, in order… Read More

If you ever get the chance, Winchester Cathedral in Hampshire, England, is well worth a visit. The present Cathedral dates from 1079 and replaced the Old Minster, which had been founded as early as 642. One of the largest cathedrals in Europe, it boasts the largest nave and greatest overall length of any European gothic… Read More

If you are at all familiar with the name Charles Lightoller, it is probably through his association with the RMS Titanic, which sank in the North Atlantic on her maiden voyage on 15th April 1912, with the loss of more than 1,500 lives, following a collision with an iceberg. However, the fact that he is… Read More

Next time your boss bawls you out for something that really wasn’t your fault, or your computer refuses all attempts to to make it cooperate, despite your best endeavours, spare a thought for Hugh Glass, a man who surely had one of the worst days at work of all time!   Glass was born around… Read More

As bandits go, the name of Elmer McCurdy may not be up there with the likes of Jesse James or Butch Cassidy, but for sheer incompetence, he stands alone. His life of crime was littered with bungled attempted robberies that were so inept, they have become the stuff of legend.   Born on January 1st… Read More