There are many thousands of videos online that begin with the line “hold my beer.” In fact, people often deliberately do dangerous things and pull truly mind-numbingly ill-conceived pranks just to get those all important “clicks” and become internet famous. But if you think that is all a trend of the digital age, well, no it isn’t. In fact, perhaps one of the most ambitious stunts held just to get attention occurred all the way back in 1896, and, as is often the case, it didn’t exactly go as planned.
In 1906, a famed explorer saw something on the horizon that would lead an expedition of men to search for a magnificent land they hoped would be full of new and undiscovered treasures for science.
One famous dolphin lived near the shores of New Zealand in the late 1800s, and swam alongside hundreds of ships, becoming a beloved figure to locals and foreigners alike, and described as ”the best known fish in the world.”
It was relatively common in the middle ages for Kings, royals, and various other titled men to die in combat, and they were at least usually expected to fight personally. Despite the dangers of medieval combat and the expectations of nobility, however, many at the highest levels of aristocracy died in less than noble mundane accidents, and even in embarrassing circumstances.
Its uses are vast and varied, but its risks are greater than some understand. It has been embroiled in politics and even war. It is, perhaps, the most interesting pharmaceutical in history.
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Of the 374 graduates of the US Military Academy class of 1942, seventy-nearly one in five- would not survive the war. Their names are engraved on a marker at the academy. Their stories deserve to be remembered, and I am committed, so far as my meager voice can, to tell the stories of all seventy.