The following articles are from the New York Times:
��� “Insurance Murder Charged to Five” (May 13, 1933, page 28, column 2).
��� “Murder Plot Seen in Another Death” (May 14, 1933, page 27, column 3).
��� “Substitute Victim in Murder Found” (May 26, 1933, page 7, column 1).
��� “Murder Testimony Ends” (October 18, 1933, page 44, column 3).
��� “Four Men to Die for Bronx Killing” (October 20, 1933, page 38, column 2).
��� “3 Die at Sing Sing for Bronx Murder” (June 8, 1934, page 44, column 4).
��� “New Murphy Evidence Heard” (June 20, 1934, page 5, column 7).
��� “Murphy Goes to the Chair” (July 6, 1934, page 10, column 2). These articles are from the New York Herald Tribune:
��� “Insurance Plot Inquiry Told of 2 More Victims” (May 13, 1933, page 26, column 4).
��� “5 Are Indicted as Murderers for Insurance” (May 17, 1933, page 36, column 4).
��� “Witness Called Insurance Plot Substitute Held” (May 26, 1933, page 3, column 5).
��� “Hired as Killer for $150, Taxi Driver Admits” (October 11, 1933, page 3, column 2).
��� “Jury Told Gas Extinguished Durable Malloy” (October 12, 1933, page 3, column 6).
��� “Bastone Called Stage Manager in Malloy Death” (October 14, 1933, page 3, column 6).
��� “Plotter Relates Gas Tube Exit of Durable Malloy” (October 18, 1933, page 3, column 1-next to the equally important article showing Albert Einstein arriving in the United States!).
��� “Gas Verdict Stuns 4 Who Gassed Malloy” (October 20, 1933, page 3, column 1).
��� “Malloy Slayers Doomed to Die Week of Nov. 20” (October 21, 1933, page 3, column 4).
THE ROOSTER BOOSTER
Web Links:
The first site that you should check out is “The Straight Dope” column on this topic written by the one and only Cecil Adams. It is not the most authoritative work on the subject, but it appears to be quite accurate (http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a5_l70b.html).
“Duck! Incoming!” by Tech Sergeant Pat McKenna discusses the Air Force’s firing of both fake and live chickens to test aircraft components. A discussion of methods used to scare birds away during real-life flights is also presented. Well written and very informative (http://www.af.mil/ news/airman/0296/duck.htm).
A November 14, 1985, article from the Chicago Tribune is titled “Feathered Friends: Man Pits His Wits Against Birds That Bash into Planes.” This short summary, written by Edward Humes, discusses the use of the chicken cannon at Arnold Air Force Base in Tennessee (http://home.xnet.com/-warinner/chickref.html).
Check out an excellent discussion on the accuracy of the frozen chicken story at “Thaw Before Use!” This site includes several links to “thaw before use” stories (http://www.xnet.com/-warinner/ chickens.html).
Additional Resources:
Try to get your hands on the December 9, 1997, episode of Public Eye, which was hosted by Bryant Gumbel. This show was broadcast by CBS and showed actual footage of the Rooster Booster in action.
BALLOONING
Web Links:
An excellent discussion on Larry’s flight can be found in the story “Up, Up, and Away!” on the Urban Legends Web site (http:// www.snopes2.com/spoons/noose/balloon.htm).
Additional Resources:
George Plimpton has written the excellent article “The Man in the Flying Lawn Chair,” which is perhaps the best summary available on Larry’s life and flight (The New Yorker, June 1, 1998, pages 62-67).
The December 13, 1993 (page 54), issue of People magazine features an article on Larry’s death.
PART 2: OOPS!
THE GREAT BOSTON MOLASSES TRAGEDY
Web Links:
One of the best sources online is titled “The Molasses Flood of January 15, 1919” and is actually a reprint of John Mason’s article that originally appeared in the January 1965 issue of Yankee Magazine. The story is an excellent overview of the disaster and its aftereffects (http://www.mv.com/ipusers/arcade/molasses.htm).
Another excellent source is the Mining Co.‘s Urban Legends and Folklore section. David Emery’s December 31, 1997, story titled “Molasses Clocked at 35 mph … in January!” (http:// urbanlegends.tqn.com/libTary/weekly/aa]23197.htm) discusses the event and provides additional links on the Net.
Tony Sakalauskas has prepared a great story titled “The Boston Molasses Flood of 1919” (http://maxpages.com/truetales/ The-Boston-Molasses-Flood).
Additional Resources:
The great article “In Boston, Jan. 15 Always Sticks Out” by John Larrabee is on page 6 of the January 14, 1994, issue of USA Today.
An article titled “12 Killed When Tank of Molasses Explodes” can be located in the January 16, 1919, issue of the New York Times (page 4, column 3) and is based on preliminary reports of the disaster.
And, lastly, you can find an excellent interview with one of the survivors in the transcripts of the January 15, 1994, National Public Radio broadcast. The interview, titled “Memories of Boston’s 1919 Great Molasses Flood,” occurred on the seventy-fifth anniversary of the accident.
CITICORP TOWER
Web Links:
Be sure to check out the excellent Web site on this story titled “William LeMessurier: The Fifty-Nine Story Crisis; A Lesson in Professional Behavior” (http://onlineethics.org/moral/LeMessurier/ lem.html).
Additional Resources:
The best reference on the Citibank crisis can be easily be found by watching the excellent ARE program titled Investigative Reports”Fatal Flaw: A Skyscraper’s Nightmare.” This program, hosted by Bill Kurtis, features interviews with all of the key players in the crisis, except the New Jersey college student whose name is lost to history.
Be sure to read the excellent article “The Fifty-Nine-Story Crisis” by Joe Morgenstern, which appears on pages 45-53 of the May 29, 1995, issue of The New Yorker magazine.
THE LAKE PEIGNEUR DISASTER
Web Links:
George Hollier has prepared a very nice story on Lake Peigneur and the aftereffects of the disaster. “Domes on the Range” can be found at fittp://www.newoT]eans.com/lalife/17.4.-DOMESON.htmi.
Additional Resources:
The Times-Picayune (New Orleans) is an excellent source for information on the salt dome collapse:
��� “Collapsed Salt Dome Swallows Lake, Land” (November 21, 1980, section 1, page 1, column 1).
��� “Hole Gobbles Everything in Sight” (November 21, 1980, section 1, page 1, column 3).
��� “Mine Gurgles, Belches Noise” (November 22, 1980, section 1, page 1, column 1).
��� “Mine Collapse a `Freak; Experts Say” (November 22, 1980, section 1, page 15, column 1).
��� “Description of Cave-In Difficult” (November 22, 1980, section 1, page 15, column 1).
��� “Islander Grieves for Lost Gardens, Trapped Pet Dogs” (November 22, 1980, section 1, page 15, column 5).
��� “Crater: Cave-In Happened Slowly, but Full Force Not Yet Felt” (November 23, 1980, section 1, page 1, column 2).
��� “Barges Pop Up as Lake Refilled” (November 24, 1980, section 1, page 1, column 2).
��� “Flooded Mine Is Probed for Danger of Collapse” (November 25, 1980, section 1, page 14, column 3).
��� “Flooded Salt Mine Throwing Fits” (November 26, 1980, section 2, page 3, column 1).
��� “Texaco Sues in Cave-In” (November 27, 1980, section 1, page 27, column 1).
��� “Salt Dome Bubbles but Stands Steady” (November 29, 1980, section 1, page 20, column 1).
��� “U.S. Experts Leave Dome Cave-In Site” (December 6, 1980, section 1, page 26, column 1).
��� “Suit Claims Woman Was Trapped in Salt Mine” (June 20, 1981, section 1, page 23, column 1).
��� “Life Changed When the Lake Went Down the Drain” (September 29, 1981, section 2, page 8, column 1).
��� “Piercing of Salt Dome to Cost Texaco, Company Millions” (July 7, 1983, section 1, page 18, column 3).
��� “Life Returns to Normal on the Edge of the Abyss” (November 15, 1981, section 1, page 37, column 1).
��� “Gardens Swallowed by Lake to Blossom Anew” (August 21, 1983, section 1, page 22, column 1).
The Chicago Tribune featured these stories:
��� “Salt Mine Cave-ins Peril Area” (November 22, 1980, section 1, page 6, column 1).
��� “Barges Pop Back Up as Lake Refills” (November 23, 1980, section 1, page 16, column 1).
��� “Lake Survives `Vanishing Act”’ (December 14, 1980, section 3, page 21, column 3).
��� “Freak Accident” (Editorial, December 16, 1980, section 5, page 2, column 1).
“Who Pulled the Plug on Lake Peigneur?” by Michael Gold is an excellent summary of the events that took place (Science 81, November 1981, pages 56-63).
THE RAINMAN
Web Links:
The San Diego Historical Society has a biography on Charles Hatfield at http://edweb.sdsu.edu/sdhs/bio/hatfield/hatfield.htm. An excellent photograph of Hatfield mixing up his brew accompanies the story.
The Discovery Channel’s excellent Wayback Machine featured the story “What a Day! Not a Cloud in the Sky” on September 15, 1997. Go to http://www.discovery.com/area/wayback/wayback970915/ wayback.html for the story and several excellent photographs.
The music magazine An Honest Tune dedicates a good portion of its Web site to the story about Hatfield. The index to their Hatfield material can be found at http://www.anhonesttune.com/hatfield/ hatfield_idx.htm and helps to explain the meaning of the song “Hatfield” performed by the band Widespread Panic.
if you would like to read more about Hatfield’s Alaskan rainmaking, be sure to check out the About.com article “The Klondike Rainmaker” at http://arcticculture.about.com/culture/arcticculture/library/yafeatures/ bl-rainmaker.htm.
Additional Resources:
Clark C. Spence does an excellent job of summarizing Hatfield’s career in a book appropriately titled The Rainmakers (1980, Lincoln, Neb.: University of Nebraska Press, pages 79-99). There is an excellent list of sources in the back of the book for additional research.
Be sure to check out the story “The Rainmaker,” which appears on pages 644-47 of The People’s Almanac #3 by David Wallachinsky and Irving Wallace (1981, New York: William Morrow).
The book Investigating the Unexplained by Ivan T. Sanderson (1972, Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, pages 211-28) contains an entire chapter on rainmaking and cloud-busting. Included in this chapter is an excellent article on Hatfield reprinted from the National Enquirer.
The March, 1998 issue of A��tE’s Biography magazine (volume 2, issue 3, page 112) contains the article “The Rain King” by David Lindsay.
The New York Times contains the following stories:
��� “Farmers Offer RainMaker $3,000 an Inch for a Shower” (July 27, 1927, page 1, column 2).
��� “Rainmaker Dies at 82” (April 15, 1958, page 40, column 3).
��� The editorial “Rain Making” (May 15, 1905, page 8, column 4).
PART 3: INVENTIVE GENIUS
KITTY LITTER
Web Links:
Check out the “Edward Lowe Biography” at (http:// www.lowe.org/history/edbio.htm) for a brief overview of his invention. This page also includes photographs of a young Ed in his Navy uniform, his 1943 Chevy coupe, and an old-time Kitty Litter point-ofpurchase display.
Additional Resources:
An excellent story on this topic is the article “Cat Litter: The Inside Scoop,” which can be found in the trade journal Pet Business (July 1996, page 48).
The National Public Radio transcript “inventor of Kitty Litter Had Humble Beginnings” features an interview with Ed’s daughter Kathy Petersen just shortly after her father’s passing.
The January 19, 1995, edition of the Los Angeles Times features the article “The Environmental Scoop on Kitty Litter; It’s Dusty, It’s Dirty, but If You Use Some Clumping Brands Correctly, It Can Be Less of a Mess. But You Still Can’t Flush It” by Richard Kahlenberg (page J-24).
EINSTEIN’S REFRIGERATOR
Web Links:
Be sure to check out Gene Dannen’s home page at http:// www.dannen.com, which is devoted to his research on Leo Szilard. Dannen is the foremost authority on the Einstein-Szilard refrigerators and devotes a good portion of his Web site to this subject.
The Exploration Network, which is the Canadian Discovery Channel, has an excellent article written by Naela Choudhary titled “Einstein’s Fridge Put on ice.” You can see this story at http:// www.exn.ca/Stories/ 1997/03/20/02.cfm.
Andrew Delano’s Ph.D. thesis, “Design Analysis of the Einstein Refrigeration Cycle,” can be found on the Georgia Institute of Technology’s Web site at http://www.me.gatech.edu/energy/andy/ index.html.
The transcript of the series Engines of Our Ingenuity has a nice summary of Einstein’s inventive genius. Titled “Einstein: inventor,” this short summary can be found at http://www.uh.edu/engines/epi524.htm.
Additional Resources:
The best article available on this subject is “The Einstein-Szilard Refrigerators” by Gene Dannen, which appeared in the January 1997 issue of Scientific American (pages 90-95). This excellent article includes many rare photographs of the refrigerator and its cooling devices.
The Winter 1991 issue of American Heritage of Invention and Technology magazine contains the article “Einstein the Inventor” by Thomas P. Hughes (pages 34-39). In addition to his contributions to refrigeration, this article also discusses Einstein’s work in the Swiss Patent Office and his contributions to gyrocompass improvements.
THE FOOT THINGY
Web Links:
Make sure that you check out The Genuine Brannock Device Web site at http://www.brannock.com. Here you will find descriptions of all available Brannock Devices, a great article on the company’s history, and the ability to ask an expert any questions that you may have.
Additional Resources:
The history of the Brannock Device can be found in the article “It’s the whatchamacallit they use at the shoestore” by William Kates, which appeared in the May 25, 1998, issue of the Albany Times Union. This particular article is credited to the Associated Press, so it probably can be located in other newspapers published around the same time.
The book Inconspicuous Consumption by Paul Lukas (1997, New York: Random House, pages 16-17) features a two-page summary of the Brannock Device. This book is fun to read and features many objects that you probably have never thought about. Most of this particular story is reproduced on The Daily Ardmoreite (http://www.ardmoreite.com/stories/ 021797/fun/fun06a.html) Web site.
The Brannock Device has made it into the Smithsonian as part of their Modern Inventors Documentation program. You can read all about this in Berry Craig’s story “Syracuse Creation Lands at Smithsonian.” It appears on page 3 of the Business Journal published by the Central New York Business Review on August 20, 1999. He also has a story titled “Shoe-Biz Fixture Becomes a Marketing Medium,” which appears on page 2 of the April 30, 1999, issue of the same journal.
Apparently Berry Craig has been making a living writing about the Brannock Device. He also wrote the excellent story “The Brannock Device: The Quintessential Example of Inconspicuous Consumption,” which appears in the Business Journal Serving Southern Tier, CNY, Mohawk Valley, Finger Lakes, North (say that three times fast). The article is on page 10 of the May 12, 1997, issue.
AMERICA’S FIRST SUBWAY
Web Links:
Check out “Alfred Ely Beach: Beach’s Bizarre Broadway Subway�
� at http://www.klaatu.org/klaatu l l.html for a well-written story on this subject.
Another nice summary titled “Beach Pneumatic Transit” can be found at http://www.nycsubway.org/faq/earlysubway.html.
Additional Resources:
The best source out there on the pneumatic subway is Labyrinths of Iron: A History of the World’s Subways by Benson Bobrick (1981, New York: Newsweek Books, pages 169-94).
If you can locate a copy at your local library, the February 24, 1912, issue of Scientific American has an excellent story titled “New York’s First Subway” (volume 106, pages 176-77). Many great photographs accompany this article.
The Winter 1997 issue of American Heritage of Invention ��t Technology features another excellent article titled “New York’s Secret Subway,” which was written by Oliver E. Allen (pages 44-48).
The New-York Daily Tribune has an article titled “Lull in Subway Talk,” which discusses Beach’s subway (February 4, 1912, page 7, column 1).
The October 1997 issue of Scientific American features an article titled “13 Vehicles That Went Nowhere” on page 65. To no one’s surprise, Beach’s pneumatic subway is one of the unlucky thirteen.
A large number of New York Times articles can be found on this subject. Only the best ones are listed here:
��� “First Subway 40 Years Ago: Started in Lower Broadway and Trains Were to Run by Air Pressure” (February 4, 1912, page 15, column 1).
��� “Broadway Tube Proposed in ‘49: Alfred Ely Beach, Who Devised Shield Method of Subway Building, Sponsored the Project Then” (September 12, 1926, section 3, page 12, column 1).
��� “Plaque in City Hall Station to Mark First Subway Site” (September 15, 1932, page 23, column 5).
��� “The First Subway” (September 17, 1932, page 14, column 3).
��� “New York’s First Subway,” editorial (February 27, 1940, page 20, column 3).
��� “First Subway Here Was Like a Popgun: Opened 80 Years Ago, It Shot Its Car, Full of Passengers, with Compressed Air” (February 25, 1950, page 19, column 1).
Einstein's Refrigerator: And Other Stories from the Flip Side of History Page 14
