Packed tighter than a sardine in the one-man Freedom 7 capsule, 37-year-old Alan Shepard couldn’t wait any longer. His mission – which originally was going to make Shepard the first human in space – had already been delayed weeks, allowing Yuri Gagarin and the Russians to beat him in blasting off for the stars. Now, in his fourth hour sitting […]

History is filled with stories of eccentric people whose lives were littered with astonishing and sometimes improbable stories. Edward Hughes Ball Hughes (that was his real name) was one such individual- a man who spent money so erratically that he came to be known by the rather fitting moniker of Golden Ball Hughes or more simple, The Golden Ball. Born […]

56 men signed the Declaration of Independence in the summer of 1776. Among them were many of the most notable figures in American history, including John Adams, Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin. While there are certainly names on that list that the average American wouldn’t recognize (like Stephen Hopkins, who’s less famous than his cousin Benedict Arnold), there is at […]

The following is an article from Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader Stories of children who end up on their own in the wild and survive by their wits—or with the help of wild animals—have been around for as long as recorded history. Most of the stories are hard to believe, and a lot harder to confirm, but there are a few […]

Thanks mostly to his famously explosive temper and natural affinity for the culinary arts, Gordon Ramsay has become a household name in the States and his native Britain. However, few people know of Ramsay’s extremely humble beginnings and that prior to becoming a multiple Michelin star holding chef and one of the wealthiest people in the world, he had a […]

At the turn of the 13th century, Eustace Busket fought, raided, killed, embezzled, betrayed, revenged, impersonated and prayed his way across France, Spain and England. Although better known as Eustace the Monk, this younger son of a county lord spent little time in a monastery, choosing instead to live the life of a steward, mercenary and pirate. Born in 1170 […]

The following is an article from Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader What did Roger Babson do with the fortune he made on Wall Street in the early 1900s? He devoted a considerable chunk of it to defeating what he called “Our Number One Enemy”—gravity. THE FORCE One afternoon in August 1893, a young woman named Edith Babson drowned while swimming in […]

In the world of professional gambling, there is a well documented hot streak of near-mythical status referred to by many as “The Run”. During this streak, a man known as Archie Karas turned $50 into $40 million by primarily shooting pool and playing poker in Vegas. What makes this run so infamous is that, after winning more money than most […]

During the first five years of Prohibition in New York, there was one name that struck fear in the hearts of every bootlegger- Isadore “Izzy” Einstein. A man who a 1922 edition of The Literary Digest noted was the “master hooch-hound, alongside whom all the rest of the pack are but pups.” This hooch-hound was a Prohibition agent with a […]

The records of William Buckley’s early life are vague at best. Even Buckley himself stated that he did not remember much of it. What is known is that Buckley was born sometime in 1780, most likely in Marton, Cheshire, England. His parents had three other children, two girls and another boy, and his maternal grandfather was raising Buckley by his […]