Thread on Garry Hoy, a lawyer who had himself one of the stupidest deaths available 30 years ago yesterday (h/t: @depthsofwiki)

Garry Hoy was a lawyer at a law firm in a Toronto skyscraper (that’s relevant) with an unusual patter for showing around the new guys. Whereas you might say "there's the tea" or "try not to spend too long on the shitter or it'll come up in your review" if you're Jeff Bezos, Garry would run full pelt at the windows to show that they wouldn't break.

In 1983, a man confessed to murdering his wife, but the body turned out to be 1,600 years old.

(Thread, sources here: bit.ly/3z49sdG) In 1959, portrait artist and travel enthusiast Malika de Fernandez met the man who would become her murderer. Within two hours, Peter Reyn-Bardt, an airline employee, asked her to marry him – and she said yes. Within four days, they were married.

Short thread on how we turned Gruinard island into "Anthrax Island" in a plan to wipe out Germany's food supply with anthrax cake

(from 52 Times Britain Was a Bellend
amazon.co.uk/52-Times-Brita…) In 1942, under instruction from Winston Churchill, British scientists hatched a plan to kill Germany's cows with delicious anthrax cakes.

With all the jokes about Ukraine farmers being one of the biggest military in Europe now, here's a thread on how Pepsi briefly had the sixth biggest navy in the world. In 1989, Pepsi briefly had the sixth biggest navy fleet in the world. The beverage company had their hands on a fleet of soviet warships and didn't even take the opportunity to rid the world of Coca Cola or take out a few of the poxier lemonades.

Why do they need humanitarian aid James, you fucking thumb [punching some orphan in the face] here's a Freddo

A short thread on the batshit theories Europeans had on where birds went in the winter a few centuries ago, and the even stupider way they found out the truth.

(Sources here: ifls.online/3nRDtrn) For centuries, people in Europe didn't really know where birds went during the winter. It's not their fault, they had a lot on that kept them from investigating. It's hard to focus on "where did birb go?" when you're working on your main task of dying of the plague.

President James A. Garfield spent his final few months being fed beef via his anus

(short thread, sources here: ifls.online/3eO2NZJ) During Charles Guiteau's trial for the murder of President James A. Garfield he said “I admit to shooting the president. It was the doctors who murdered him.”

Though I'm reluctant to say "this murderer has a point" he may be right, given the deadly surgeries and rectal feeding.

I’ve hidden a signed copy on the Bakerloo line if anybody fancies it.

Had to restrain myself from saying “not a bomb” as I left it, obviously. Ok, as has been noted, I am shit at hiding things

In 1767 John Hunter took the yellowish penile discharge of a man he believed to have gonorrhea and rubbed it into a wound he'd created in his own penis.

He believed that gonorrhea and syphilis were two forms of the same disease. He was wrong.

[Very short thread] At the time, both diseases were known as "the pox", despite different and distinct symptoms. Some were beginning to believe – correctly – that the two forms of pox were actually different diseases.