For those of you who have never heard this story, it is fascinating and bizarre. I have read a couple accounts of it, which are all consistent. This is rather long but worth the read. As it starts to get strange, don't worry--it will get stranger--and then, just when you think it can't any more crazy, it gets downright bizarre. https://www.findagrave.com/mem...21805622/mary-e-roff
This message was last edited by the GM at 07:24, Fri 18 June 2021.

Wow. That was a super weird story!

I almost got teary-eyed at some parts, because it was also really wholesome, in a way.

From the same website:

https://www.findagrave.com/mem...oshua-abraham-norton

Neil Gaiman included the story of Emperor Norton in his Sandman comics
This message was last edited by the GM at 05:02, Sat 19 June 2021.

I think I've heard of that one before, though i've never read the story.

The shortest war in history lasted 38 minutes. When the sultan of British-protected Zanzibar died and a new one took over without British approval in 1896, the Brits were not happy. Tension escalated when Sultan Khalid bin Barghash refused to step down, but the British warships spent less than 40 minutes bombarding the palace before Khalid fled, marking the (very quick) end of the Anglo-Zanzibar War.

A cat served as the mayor of an Alaska town for 20 years, re-elected until his death in 2017.

Cats cannot taste sugar

If you live to 70 years old, you will have lived 10 years of Mondays.

That's one of the two reasons why I plan on dying when I'm 69.

I think the worst way a royal ever had to die was King Charles II of Navarre, also known as "Charles the Bad:"

Charles the Bad, having fallen into such a state of decay that he could not make use of his limbs, consulted his physician, who ordered him to be wrapped up from head to foot, in a linen cloth impregnated with brandy, so that he might be enclosed in it to the very neck as in a sack. It was night when this remedy was administered.

One of the female attendants of the palace, charged to sew up the cloth that contained the patient, having come to the neck, the fixed point where she was to finish her seam, made a knot according to custom; but as there was still remaining an end of thread, instead of cutting it as usual with scissors, she had recourse to the candle, which immediately set fire to the whole cloth. Being terrified, she ran away, and abandoned the king, who was thus burnt alive in his own palace.

I never understand why anyone would want to be a medieval king, though?

Better to use a stanard flush toilet, than do your business over a golden chamber pot, I say.

TBH, we have a better standard of living in the modern world than any world leader ever had before the industrial revolution.

Basically our standard comfort > our ancestor's most exquisite luxuries

The only part of your reflection you can lick is your tongue.

You can high-five yourself in the mirror

This may or may not make you feel better about yourself

You have seen more of the surface of the moon than you have of the earth.

You can make grape soda from plastic gloves

You can make moonshine from toilet paper

In light of the state of American dental health, the U.S. Army took a keen interest in the mouths of its men during the mid-19th century: “Recruits were turned away if they did not have six opposing upper and lower front teeth with which to bite off the end of the powder cartridges used with muzzle-loaded weapons.”

Charondas was a Greek lawgiver from Sicily who issued a law that anyone who brought weapons into the Assembly must be put to death. One day, he arrived at the Assembly seeking help to defeat some brigands in the countryside but with a knife still accidentally attached to his belt. In order to uphold his own law, he committed suicide.

Being a flatulist was a real job in some countries: https://gonejobs.wordpress.com/2017/05/03/flatulist/

In the 19th Century, professional rat catchers would cover themselves in oils to attract rats, and then they would kill them with their bare hands.

Kids these days never had to oil themselves up and strangle rats to make a living smh

Spoiled millennials...

Hardly, most aren't even near their expiration date.

There is probably a tree out there somewhere that is right now growing the wood for your future coffin.

The hand and footprints in front of Los Angeles’s Chinese Theater tradition started accidentally when silent film actress, Norma Talmadge stepped on wet cement.

Yes. Red oak. Sixty three rings. Seeded in Oklahama by a woman to commemorate the loss of her firstborn son.

But still, you die.

In 2028, the lumber is used to build your coffin.

It was June. It was a Car accident.

The lumber is ordered by the funerary home and lacquered to halt decay.

Fifteen broken ribs. Punctured lung. Two hours of emergency aid applied.

Death en route to hospital in capital city via helicopter.

Having not started your will, your belongings are inherited by the government.

Funeral is attended only by a few close work colleagues.

Your name is forgotten for the last time, four years layer.

You become dust.

And in some time, so does your coffin.

That's dark, man...

The object of golf is to play the least amount of golf.