The World’s First Car Accidents Ever

If you are a car lover you have probably asked yourself many times: “When, where and how was the first accident ever?”

If we talk about the first steamed engine it happened in 1869 when Irish scientist Mary Ward and a woman was driving and when she rounded a curve on the road she felt off of her seat, was hit by engine’s wheel which broke her neck and killed her.

First gasoline powered car accident happened in Ohio in 1891. The engineer James Lambert was driving himself and his friend when the car hit a tree root sticking out of the ground. Lambert lost control and the vehicle hit the hitching post leaving both men with minor injuries.

Portrait of John W. Lambert and view of Lambert and two passengers posing in a Lambert car. Handwritten on front: "J.W. Lambert, 1909. Buckeye Mfg. Co. J.H. [undecipherable], 1908. J.H.C. in Lambert friction drive en route to Bay City. 30 + 3 clincher tires. Removable toneau [sic]." Handwritten on back: "Lambert, John W."

In 1896 there was a first recorded pedestrian involved in a car accident. Bridget Driscoll step out on the road and was struck and killed by a gas powered car driven by Arthur Edsall. The car was driving on top speed of 4 miles per hour and Driscoll was frozen in place because of what she was seeing so the collision was inevitable.

The first driver death in car accident happened in1898 when a man and his son were driving from Brighton to London. Near the end of their trip, father lost his control while driving down a hill. They crashed through the fence and the driver was thrown from the seat and injured his leg. The surgeons had to amputate his leg while his son was not even injured. After the operation he remained unconscious and died the next day.

(via More fun, more information!)

The Hidden Secrets of the Moai: The Famous Easter Island Heads Also Have Bodies Too!

Practically everyone has seen the iconic images of the Easter Island heads. What you may not have known is that those Easter Island heads actually have hidden buried bodies. Archaeologists have uncovered the bodies associated with the heads and found interesting discoveries that further our knowledge of the Easter Island civilization and how they created the monoliths.

The Easter Island heads are known as Moai by the Rapa Nui people who carved the figures in the tropical South Pacific directly west of Chile. The Moai monoliths, carved from stone found on the island, are between 1,100 and 1,500 CE. A bit of an aside, but CE refers to the "Common Era" and sometimes replaces the use of AD in historical and archaeological communities.

The reason the bodies have been hidden underground for so long is that the statues were build on the side of a volcano, which helpfully erupted all over the statues and buried them up to their necks.

Archaeologists have studied the statues on the island for about a century, and have actually known about the hidden bodies since the earliest excavations in 1914. The first photographs of the hidden torsos emerged in 2012, two years after Jo Anne Van Tilburg, director of the Easter Island Statue Project, began excavating the monoliths with the help of local Rapa Nui people. These amazing pictures below show moment archaeologists discovered Easter Island statues were covered in tattoos:

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Did Nikola Tesla Actually Work as a Swimming Instructor?

Nikola Tesla was many things: a pool hustler, a gambling addict, a eugenicist, and a legendary genius. But despite what you may have seen recently in this miscaptioned photo, Nikola Tesla was never a swimming instructor.

The photograph purportedly showing the famous inventor at the beach has been shared with a variety of captions over the years. According to the Museum of the City of New York, this image was taken in 1898, and shows a man (identified as a “swimming instructor”) and a woman (identified as a “bather”) at Midland Beach in Staten Island.

The man in this image does bear a passing resemblance to the famed inventor. However, Tesla was about 42 years old in 1898 (when this photograph was taken), while the man in the image appears to be quite younger.

Here’s a portrait photo of Nikola Tesla in 1896

It is also highly unlikely that Tesla had the time, inclination, or financial need to secure a job as a swim instructor around that time. Tesla already had several successful patents and was operating several laboratories around New York City by 1898.

The Earliest Known Photograph of White House Was Taken by an Immigrant in 1846

A Welsh immigrant named John Plumbe, Jr., who was one of the country’s first prominent professional photographers, took the daguerreotype in January 1846.

South view of the President's House looking north and east: earliest known photograph of the White House, c. January 1846, President Polk's first year in office. The cast of the shadows indicates that the photograph was taken in early morning light. Notice the barren trees, the patch of snow in the foreground and the piles of snow at the base of the staircase.
(Image: John Plumbe, Jr./Library of Congress, via White House Historical Association)

The White House as it stands today is a very different building than when it was first constructed. While its essential features—the classically inspired columns, large, airy windows, and rooftop railings—have stayed the same, it has gone through all sorts of renovations since it was rebuilt after the War of 1812. Luckily, the reason historians still know what the president’s residence originally looked like is thanks to an 1846 photograph by a civil engineer, entrepreneurial photographer and immigrant named John Plumbe, Jr.

Plumbe was born and spent his early years in Wales, but immigrated to the United States with his parents in 1821. First landing in Pennsylvania, and later retiring in Dubuque, Iowa, Plumbe originally trained to become a civil engineer—and by all accounts was a good one, at that. He quickly found work out west surveying routes for new railroads and soon became one of the earliest advocates for building a transcontinental railroad to connect the country’s two coasts. But it was his work as a photographer that he is best known today.

Photography was in its infancy when Plumbe saw his first daguerreotype in 1840, but it inspired him to take it up himself. While waiting for the U.S. government to award him a commission to survey routes for a transcontinental railroad, Plumbe took up the art and became one of the first people to open a photography gallery. Starting in Boston, Plumbe opened branches in 13 other cities, including the first in Washington, D.C., in 1846, according to the Getty Museum, becoming one of the most well-known of the country’s early photographers.

The White House photograph isn’t Plumbe’s only image of the nation’s capital in 1846. That year he systematically journeyed around the city, capturing its official buildings with the new photographic technique. The Library of Congress — which has a collection of Plumbe’s daguerreotypes, including of the United States Capitol, the United States Patent Office, and the General Post Office — notes that the photographer opened his Washington, DC, studio the year before. On January 29, 1846, around the time of the White House picture, the United States Journal reported, “We are glad to learn that this artist is now engaged in taking views of all the public buildings which are executed in a style of elegance, that far surpasses any we have seen.”

The United States Capitol, photographed by John Plumbe, Jr., in 1846 (note the early Charles Bulfinch dome) (via Library of Congress)

The General Post Office, photographed by John Plumbe, Jr., in 1846 (via Library of Congress)

The United States Patent Office, photographed by John Plumbe, Jr., in 1846 (via Library of Congress)

20 Things Pa Wouldn't Want You to Know About 'Little House on the Prairie'

Little House on the Prairie and its spin-off Little House: A New Beginning aired from 1974 to 1983, based on the classic series of children’s books written by Laura Ingalls Wilder. Set back in the late 1800s, the show was about average daily life of a pioneer family and the townspeople in Walnut Grove, Minnesota, but behind the scenes things were anything but average. If you think it was all wholesome family values, read on.

1. THE CAST AND CREW WOULD DRINK ALCOHOL ON SET

Alison Arngrim spotted Michael Landon enjoying some whiskey one morning, and then found out that the crew would go through two cases of Coors each day. More stressful days were called “three-case days.” After filming wrapped they would bring out the harder stuff. Michael Landon was a chain smoker and a heavy drinker and even Melissa Gilbert struggled with drugs and alcohol after the show wrapped. In her memoir Prairie Tale, Gilbert wrote, “As a kid, I didn’t know [Landon] sipped vodka from his coffee mug … but I’m sure he’s one reason why, as a young adult, I almost always picked men who smelled like alcohol.”


2. MELISSA SUE ANDERSON WAS THE COLDEST ACTOR ON THE ‘PRAIRIE’

Melissa Sue Anderson, who played eldest sister Mary, never really opened to anyone or built the friendships that the rest of the close-knit cast shared. They suspected her aloofness came from the fact that she had overprotective parents who divorced when she was 13. In Allison Arngrim’s memoir, Confessions Of A Prairie Bitch, she said Anderson was a “prom queen type” and a “frenemy” to the other girls in the cast. Melissa Gilbert described Anderson as way too serious and stuck up.


3. MICHAEL CRUSHED MELISSA WHEN HE CHEATED ON HIS WIFE

Just like Half Pint and Pa, Melissa Gilbert and Michael Landon had a close bond. Melissa has said, “He was very much like a ‘second father’ to me. My own father passed away when I was 11, so, without really officially announcing it, Michael really stepped in.” Towards the end of the series, Michael and his wife Lynn separated because Michael fell for (and eventually married) the on-set makeup artist Cindy Clerico, who was 20 years his junior. Melissa had gotten very close to Michael’s family and stopped socializing with him outside of work after that went down.


4. LANDON WAS A BOTTLE BRUNETTE

Those rich and lustrous curls cascading from Pa’s crown were the product of a dye job – Clairol Medium Ash Brown to be precise. Michael Landon went prematurely gray in his twenties, so he touched things up himself. Eventually he used a professional colorist as his own efforts took on an odd violet hue out in the bright sun.


5. PEOPLE WOULD PASS OUT ON SET

The outside shots of the show were filmed at the Big Sky Ranch in Simi Valley, California, which means that it was hot. The women had to wear a lot of layers of clothing to be in costume, which made things sweaty and uncomfortable. On the first day alone, Alison Arngrim, who played Nellie Oleson, and an assistant director both passed out from the heat.

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The Empire State Building Was Constructed Incredibly Fast, It Was Built In Just 13 Months!

There aren’t many buildings more famous than the Empire State Building. It’s been featured in many movies over the years; it’s one of the most photographed buildings on social media, and 110 million people have visited its observation deck.

In the late-1920s, as New York’s economy boomed like never before, builders were in a mad dash to erect the world’s largest skyscraper. The main competition was between 40 Wall Street’s Bank of Manhattan building and the Chrysler Building, an elaborate Art Deco structure conceived by car mogul Walter Chrysler as a “monument to me.” Both towers tried to best each other by adding more floors to their design, and the race really heated up in August 1929, when General Motors executive John J. Raskob and former New York Governor Al Smith announced plans for the Empire State Building.

The speed with which they built the Empire State Building.

Upon learning that the Empire State would be 1,000 feet tall, Chrysler changed his plans a final time and fixed a stainless steel spire to the top of his skyscraper. The addition saw the Chrysler Building soar to a record 1,048 feet, but unfortunately for Chrysler, Raskob and Smith simply went back to the drawing board and returned with an even taller design for the Empire State Building. When completed in 1931, the colossus loomed 1,250 feet over the streets of Midtown Manhattan. It would remain the world’s tallest building for nearly 40 years until the completion of the first World Trade Center tower in 1970.


It was modeled after two earlier buildings.

When he drew up its plans in 1929, architect William Lamb of the firm Shreve, Lamb and Harmon is said to have modeled the Empire State Building after Winston-Salem, North Carolina’s Reynolds Building—which he had previously designed—and Carew Tower in Cincinnati. The two earlier Art Deco buildings are now often cited as the Empire State’s architectural ancestors. On the Reynolds Building’s 50th anniversary in 1979, the Empire State Building’s general manager even sent a card that read, “Happy Anniversary, Dad.”

North Carolina’s Reynolds Building. (Credit: Gabriel Benzur/The LIFE Images Collection/Getty Images)

The building was finished in record time.

Despite the colossal size of the project, the design, planning and construction of the Empire State Building took just 20 months from start to finish. After demolishing the Waldorf-Astoria hotel—the plot’s previous occupant—contractors Starrett Brothers and Eken used an assembly line process to erect the new skyscraper in a brisk 410 days. Using as many as 3,400 men each day, they assembled its skeleton at a record pace of four and a half stories per week—so fast that the first 30 stories were completed before certain details of the ground floor were finalized. The Empire State Building was eventually finished ahead of schedule and under budget, but it also came with a human cost: at least five workers were killed during the construction process.

An odd photographic trick placed this steelworker's finger on the lofty pinnacle of the Chrysler Building, September 29, 1930. This view was taken from the Empire State Building, the world's tallest building, which is now rising on the site of the old Waldorf-Astoria in New York City. A mooring mast for dirigibles will cap this 1,284-foot structure." (Bettmann/Corbis)

Its upper tower was originally designed as a mooring mast for airships.

By far the most unusual aspect of the Empire State Building’s design concerned its 200-foot tower. Convinced that transatlantic airship travel was the wave of the future, the building’s owners originally constructed the mast as a docking port for lighter-than-air dirigibles. The harebrained scheme called for the airships to maneuver alongside the building and tether themselves to a winching apparatus. Passengers would then exit via an open-air gangplank, check in at a customs office and make their way to the streets of Manhattan in a mere seven minutes. Despite early enthusiasm for the project, the high winds near the building’s rooftop proved all but impossible for pilots to negotiate. The closest thing to a “landing” came in September 1931, when a small dirigible tethered itself to the spire for a few minutes. Two weeks later, a Goodyear blimp dropped a stack of newspapers on the roof a part of a publicity stunt, but the airship plan was abandoned shortly thereafter.

Goodyear blimp flies near the Empire State Building, October 01, 1931. (New York Daily News Archive)

It was initially considered a financial flop.

The Empire State Building was primarily designed to house corporate offices, but it got off to a rocky start thanks to the 1929 stock market crash and the onset of the Great Depression. Less than 25 percent of the building’s retail space was occupied upon its opening in 1931, earning it the nickname the “Empty State Building.” The building’s owners were reduced to engineering publicity stunts to draw renters—including hosting a 1932 séance that tried to contact the ghost of Thomas Edison from the 82nd floor—but the skyscraper’s upper half remained almost entirely vacant for most of the 1930s. At times, workers were even told to turn on lights on the higher floors to create the illusion that they were occupied. It wasn’t until World War II that the building finally became profitable.

Postcard view of the Empire State Building, early 1930s.

The Mysterious Deaths of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid: Uncovered Manuscript Says They Didn't Die in a Bolivian Gunfight

Butch Cassidy waited along the trail, hidden in the bushes. He knew the banker, with a thousand dollars in his pocket, would be coming his way shortly. He didn’t have to wait long. The banker approached in a buggy, and, as luck would have it, stopped right in front of Cassidy’s hiding place to count his money. Cassidy stepped out of the bushes, six-shooter in hand, and said, “I’ll take those.”

This image is known as the "Fort Worth Five Photograph." Front row left to right: Harry A. Longabaugh, alias the Sundance Kid, Ben Kilpatrick, alias the Tall Texan, Robert Leroy Parker, alias Butch Cassidy; Standing: Will Carver & Harvey Logan, alias Kid Curry; Fort Worth, Texas, 1900.

There’s nothing unusual about Butch Cassidy robbing a banker. What makes this story unusual is that it allegedly happened several years after he and the Sundance Kid were supposed to have died in a famous gunfight in Bolivia.

According to Lula Betenson, Cassidy’s youngest sister, Cassidy and the Sundance Kid didn’t die in Bolivia. Betenson is the author of "Butch Cassidy, My Brother." She wrote the book in 1975. The information in her book came from a meeting she said she had with her brother in 1925, when Betenson was 41 and Cassidy was 59. Betenson died in 1980.

The childhood home of Robert Leroy Parker, alias Butch Cassidy, outside of Circleville, Utah. (Photo: Steven Law)

Cassidy was the leader of the Wild Bunch gang, a group of 10 outlaws famous for their train and bank robberies throughout the West. According to the legend, Cassidy and Harry Longabaugh (better known as the Sundance Kid) escaped to Bolivia in 1901 to escape the increasing pressures of being pursued by the Pinkerton Detective Agency.

In 1908, two outlaws were killed during a gunfight with Bolivian police. The two bodies were identified as Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.

A marker near San Vicente, Bolivia, which claims to be the final resting place of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.

So if Cassidy and Sundance didn’t die in a Bolivian gunfight, how did that rumor get started? Betenson says in her book, quoting from Cassidy, that the rumor was started by a man named Percy Seibert. Seibert was a native Bolivian living in Bolivia in 1908 and a friend of Cassidy and Sundance. It’s true that in 1908 two armed bandits died in a gunfight with Bolivian police. It was Seibert who identified the bodies as Cassidy and Sundance, even though he knew it wasn’t them.

“He knew this was the only way we could go straight,” Cassidy says in Betenson’s book. Cassidy had saved the lives of Seibert and his wife on a previous occasion. Seibert saw this — the false identification of the two bodies — as a way to pay Cassidy back. And with that, word was out that Cassidy and Sundance were dead, and the heat was off.

Harry Longabaugh (the Sundance Kid) and Etta Place, just before they sailed for South America.

They could come out of hiding. They were free to travel. They could finally go home. They could live out the rest of their days in relative peace if they did it under the radar and under an alias. And, Betenson writes, that’s exactly what they did.

Cassidy was born in Beaver, Utah, in April 1866 and grew up in Circleville. His real name was Robert LeRoy Parker. Sit down in a cafe in just about any town in Garfield, Piute or Iron county and ask about Butch Cassidy and it isn’t hard to find someone who has a Butch Cassidy story. Cassidy stories drift about here like cotton from the cottonwood trees. But verifying the truth of any of these stories is difficult to do this far after the fact. Anyone who knew Cassidy is long-since dead. Like the respectable outlaw that he was, he’s still a hard man to track down.

Wyoming State Penitentiary mugshot of Robert LeRoy Parker, AKA Butch Cassidy, 1894. (Photo: Wyoming State Archives)

One starts to feel like they’ve entered the realm of Sasquatch, Elvis and the Loch Ness Monster. A Butch Cassidy story often starts like this, “I heard this story from my dad/grandpa/grandma who heard it from his dad, who used to hang out with Butch Cassidy.” It’s folk hero meets conspiracy theory meets six degrees of Kevin Bacon.

Dale Hollingshead, a resident of Beaver and owner of Arshel’s Cafe, admits this is true. “So much of it is conjecture and mystery, but that adds to the intrigue of it all.”

The special car of the Union Pacific Railroad for the mounted rangers organized by UP Special Agent Timothy Keliher to stop the Wild Bunch Gang led by Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, late 1890s.

The most reliable source for what truly happened to Cassidy is Betenson, who says she heard the stories and information straight from her brother.

The story of Cassidy robbing the banker on the side of the road is recorded in Betenson’s book, and the story is a favorite of residents of Butch Cassidy country. The rest of the story goes like this: Cassidy walked into a store (Betenson didn't give its location) to pick up some supplies. It was run by a widow, and Cassidy saw that she was “looking glum.” He asked her what was the matter. She told Cassidy that the mortgage on the store was due, she didn’t have the money and the banker was coming to take her store.

“A thousand dollars,” she said. “I just can’t make ends meet with my husband dead and gone.”

Cassidy told her to stop worrying and that he’d help her. Cassidy left the store and a short time later returned with ten $100 bills and told her to make sure she got a signed receipt for it, marked paid in full.

That’s when Cassidy went a ways out of town, hid in the bushes and waited for the banker to come along. And when the banker passed by, Cassidy robbed him and took his money back. Betenson quotes Cassidy as saying, “This was so successful that I paid off more than one mortgage in the same way.”

According to Betenson’s book, Cassidy spent very little time in southern Utah after he returned from South America, likely less than a few months. She wrote that he spent most of his remaining years in Wyoming, Oregon and California, moving often to maintain his cover, and always under an assumed name.

After word got around that Betenson was writing a book about Cassidy not dying in Bolivia, friends and acquaintances of Cassidy started sending her letters telling of times they had seen or worked with her brother. In her book she records more than a dozen of these letters coming from all over the West.

Loading the horses into one of the special cars of the Union Pacific Railroad for the mounted rangers organized by UP Special Agent Timothy Keliher to stop the Wild Bunch Gang led by Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, late 1890s.

So the big question is: where is Cassidy’s grave? And where are the letters that people sent Betenson claiming to have seen Cassidy? Cassidy is rumored to be buried in California, in Oregon, in a Salt Lake City cemetery and somewhere on a hillside outside of Circleville.

But Betenson writes in her book that “Robert Leroy Parker died in the Northwest in the fall of 1937. Where he is buried and under what name is still our secret. All his life he was chased. Now he has a chance to rest in peace and that’s the way it must be.”

“Lula claimed to know where Cassidy was buried,” said Bill Betenson, Lula’s great-grandson, “but if she did, she took that information with her to the grave.”

Like Cassidy himself, she was good at covering her tracks.

(via KSL.com)

12 Interesting Things You Didn't Know About Blue Jeans

Ever since Levi Strauss, a German immigrant with a dry goods store in San Francisco, teamed up with Jacob Davis, a tailor from Reno, Nevada, to make sturdy pants for miners in the 1870s, America has had a love affair with blue jeans. Here are five things you may not know about this most democratic of pants.

1. Those Rivets Had a Purpose.

It wasn't just for style that Levi's jeans have had copper rivets on the pockets since the beginning. They were originally designed to make the seams of these miners' pants more durable. An 1873 article in the Pacific Rural Press opined that this feature will become "quite popular amongst our working men," noting, "nothing looks more slouchy in a workman than to see his pockets ripped open and hanging down, and no other part of the clothing is so apt to be torn and ripped as the pockets." The small fifth pocket on a pair of Levi's, by the way, is called a watch pocket since it was originally meant for placing a pocket watch inside. In the 1930s, the pockets were sewn to the pants so that the rivets were covered because of complaints that they scratched furniture. But they were returned to view in 1947.


2. Blue Was Best.

The words "jeans" and "denim" come from two European ports that had been making similar fabrics since the Middle Ages. In Nimes, France, weavers had been trying to reproduce a cotton corduroy made famous in Genoa, Italy. They instead came up with their own sturdy fabric, called "serge de Nimes," later shortened to "denim." This was the material Strauss and Taylor used for their jeans. The threads of this fabric were dyed indigo because, unlike most natural dyes, indigo binds to cloth's threads externally. So, every time the fabric is washed, some of the dye molecules — and the thread — are stripped away. This process softens the rough fabric and makes the jeans more comfortable over time, not to mention more form-fitting. Nowadays, synthetic indigo is used.


3. Dude Ranches Made Jeans Popular with Everyday Americans.

Although people often associate jeans with cowboys, records show relatively few of them wore the fabric (farmers and miners were more likely). But by the 1930s, jeans had become popular with everyday Americans, thanks to the dude ranch craze. During the Depression era, ranchers made extra money by allowing paying customers to visit and play at being cowboys. Many an American purchased their first pair of jeans in anticipation of their dude ranch visit. But these pants were seen strictly as weekend wear.


4. Movie Stars Made Them Popular with Teens.

In 1955, James Dean made the classic teen-angst film "Rebel Without a Cause," telegraphing his rebellious ways with his uniform of blue jeans, white T-shirt and leather jacket. Marlon Brando wore the same look in the 1953 film "The Wild One" and Marilyn Monroe popularized the outfit for women (minus the leather jacket) in "The Misfits." The "cowboy" look symbolized that these young people didn't want to conform to society and longed for the open range, so to speak. In fact, jeans were banned from schools in the 1950s, seen as a symbol against authority. Nevertheless — or because of this — jeans became firmly associated with youth culture as the 1950s morphed into the '60s and beyond. And as these teens became adults, they continued wearing jeans everywhere.


5. Skinny Jeans Put the Greenback in Peril.

Money is printed on a cotton-blend paper supplied solely by the Crane Company. About 30% of the cotton Crane used to make the paper came from scrap denim. But the denim used for skinny jeans contains stretchy materials like spandex, which ruins the cotton for the bank notes. So Crane had to scramble to find an alternate source of cotton to make up the shortfall.

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#SgtPepperPhotos: A Beatles Fan Is Hunting Down All the Original Photos of People and Images on the Sgt. Pepper’s Cover

The Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band is often called the single greatest album of all time. From the start, it was a revolutionary and influential work, almost changing the pop and rock music landscapes overnight. It was a critical hit as well as a popular one, rocketing to the top of the charts all over the world when it was released at the start of June 1967.

The album has a widely recognized album cover that depicts several dozen celebrities and other images. It was created by Jann Haworth and Peter Blake, who in 1967 won the Grammy Award for Best Album Cover, Graphic Arts for their work on it. Many people have speculated about the cover’s intended meaning, and asked who is on the front cover of the Sgt. Pepper.

Chris Shaw, a Beatles fan, is trying to hunt down all the original photos used to create the cover. He’s documenting his progress on his Twitter and on a blog.

“Being a bit of a Beatles obsessive, I’m excited about the 50th anniversary rerelease of Sgt. Pepper,” he says. “The legendary album cover is regularly popping up on my news feeds and I became curious as to the origins of the photos used to create the iconic sleeve.”

“My first search was for Olympic swimmer and Tarzan actor Johnny Weissmuller (the picture behind Ringo and Paul). When I eventually located the source image, with the unexpected chimp and horn, it was so bizarre and out of context it piqued my interest. I’ve now set myself the challenge of hunting down all of the original pictures on the sleeve.”

According to Nigel Hartnup, who worked for Michael Cooper during the Sgt. Pepper photo sessions, most of the cut-outs were sourced from photo libraries such as BBC Radio Times Hulton Picture Library. However, he adds: “Sometimes we had to source directly from friends or family.”

This explains why the few remaining undiscovered images in this project are so difficult to source. Several are artists, so most likely belong to Peter Blake. If anyone has any more information, or can help him locate any of the following please contact Chris: @ChrisShawEditor or via WordPress.

1. Paul McCartney’s dad’s group ‘Jim Mac’s Band’. According to singer, songwriter and actress Kate Robbins (Paul McCartney’s first cousin once removed) this photo is owned in most of the McCartney households. It’s not difficult to spot the similarity to the Sgt. Pepper cover. Jim McCartney is on the front row, third from the right.

2. Yukteswar Giri: Indian guru and inspiration for George Harrison.

3. Aleister Crowley: Occultist and also keen mountaineer (he was part of an expedition to climb K2)! Originally a second photo of Crowley was to feature on the cover of Sgt Pepper, but was removed as it closely resembled McCartney.

4. Mae West: Hollywood actress. Mae initially refused to appear on the cover, stating that she would never be in any Lonely Hearts Club. After some gentle persuasion she eventually agreed. Mae’s final movie, Sextette (1978), features Ringo playing a film director called Laslo Karolny – and includes the Beatles’ song Honey Pie. McCartney later dedicated a verse to her in his song Move Over Busker.

5. Lenny Bruce: Notorious stand up comedian. All four Beatles were said to be fans and there were plans to release Lenny’s material on the short-lived Zapple label. These plans were scuppered after poor sales of the label’s only two releases (George’s Electronic Sound and John’s Life with the Lions). Zapple was shut and the Lenny Bruce albums never appeared.

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They Did What? 15 Famous People Who Actually Married Their Cousins

In many cultures around the world, it is frowned upon to marry your cousin (and in some countries even illegal), but that hasn’t stopped people throughout history from doing it. Through history there have been many famous people who, for reasons known only to them, have married within the family. This is a list of 15 of the most famous people who have done this.

1. Jesse James

Outlaw, gangster, robber and even murderer, Jesse James just might be the most famous outlaw in American history. A Missouri native, James was a legendary figure whose actions caused him to become an incredibly polarizing icon. While some appreciate James as a hero and southern loyalist, others saw his killing sprees and robberies as acts of disorder that required the highest of justice.

Often caught in the line of fire thanks to the nature of his “work”, James was staying with his uncle while recovering from a chest wound when he fell in love with his first cousin, Zerelda Mimms, who was taking care of him. After courting for nine years, Mimms and James finally married on April 24, 1874. Together, the couple had four children including a son, Jesse Edward, a daughter, Mary Susan, and a set of twins that passed away in infancy.


2. Franklin D. Roosevelt

Often considered one of the top three greatest Presidents of all time alongside George Washington and Abraham Lincoln, Franklin Delano Roosevelt served as the 32nd President of the United States from 1933 until his death in 1945. Helping to lead the United States through World War II, FDR penned the New Deal, which proved to be instrumental in revitalizing the nation after a tragic economic depression.

FDR and Theodore “Teddy” Roosevelt were fifth cousins who both spent time in the Oval Office but, it was another fifth cousin, once removed, who FDR married. On March 17, 1904 and much to the disapproval of his mother, FDR married Eleanor Roosevelt in New York City as her uncle, President Teddy Roosevelt, stood in for his favorite niece. Married for 40 years and with six children, their relationship became more of a political partnership after his numerous affairs while in office led Eleanor to pursue her own ambitions.


3. Johann Sebastian Bach

Known as one of the greatest composers of all time, Johann Sebastian Bach was a German composer and organist whose exceptional talent and ability are still appreciated today. Among over three hundred cantatas and numerous other compositions, some of Bach’s classics include the Brandenburg Concertos, Overture No. 2 in B Minor, and Concerto in A Minor for 4 Harpsichords.

Shortly after taking a position as an organist at the St. Blasius’s Church in Muhlhausen, Bach married his second cousin, Maria Barbara Bach, on October 17, 1707. Though little is known about the couple’s life together, they welcomed seven children into the world, four of whom survived to adulthood and two of whom became composers like their father. Maria passed away of unexpected causes 13 years into the marriage and, just 17 months after, Bach remarried with Anna Magdalena Wilcke.


4. H.G. Wells

One of the most prolific writers in literary history, Herbert George “H.G.” Wells is considered as one of the founding fathers of science fiction. Born in England in 1866, Wells was trained as a biologist and openly supported the work of Charles Darwin whose theories inspired many of his literary works. Widely enjoyed and taught today, some of his most notable classics include The Island of Doctor Moreau, The Invisible Man, The Time Machine and The War of the Worlds.

Wells took another page out of Darwin’s scientific theory when he married his first cousin, Isabel Mary Wells, in 1891. However, as rumors spread that Wells was cheating on Mary with a student, the two called it quits and separated in 1894. Just a year later, Wells proved that the rumors were true as he and his student, Amy Catherine Robbins, married and started a family. Old habits, however, proved to die hard for Wells as he continued to have extramarital affairs though, this time, with his wife’s full consent.


5. Thomas Jefferson

Returning once again to the Presidents on our list, we focus on another founding father, Thomas Jefferson, who served as the third President of the United States from 1801 to 1809. A graduate from the College of William and Mary as well as a practicing lawyer, Jefferson was instrumental in writing the Declaration of Independence in 1776 and was elected as the second Vice President of the United States under John Adams before winning the presidency.

Jefferson married his third cousin, the newly widowed Martha Wayles Skelton, on January 1, 1772. At just 23 years old, Martha caught Jefferson’s eye as she was a frequent hostess and had previously managed his household. In what many consider as one of the happiest periods of Jefferson’s life, the couple had six children together until Martha passed away at just 33 years old in 1782.

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16 Random Facts About The Titanic That Will Send You Spiraling Down A Rabbit Hole

The Titanic always reminds us of the pain, but also motivates us to find out the facts behind it. Here is 16 random facts of The Titanic you can't stop reading.

1. A first-class ticket cost $2,560, which is more than $61,000 today.

For the price of that ticket, passenger Charlotte Drake Cardeza got a three-room suite with two bedrooms and a sitting room, plus two wardrobe rooms and a bath. She also had a private, 50-foot-long promenade deck.


2. There is an actual letter that was not only written the day the Titanic sank, but that survived the tragedy.

The letter, which was written by survivor Esther Hart and is printed on Titanic letterhead, talks about how Hart and her daughter were both set to sing in a concert on board the ship "tomorrow night."


3. The violin that was being played as the Titanic sank was auctioned off in 2013 for $1.7 million.

The auction house Henry Aldridge and Sons spent seven years proving the violin was genuine and belonged to Wallace Hartley, who was the band leader of the Titanic.


4. On April 11, 1912, three days before the ship sank, second-class passengers ate boiled hominy, grilled ox, kidneys and bacon, fried potatoes, buckwheat cakes, and more.

5. And on April 12, 1912, first-class passengers ate halibut with a shrimp sauce, fillets of duckling with green peas, caramel pudding, and more.

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