April 4 | Lady Be Good

Lady Be Good was an American bomber in the US Air Force during World War II. The plane disappeared on April 4, 1943 after a bombing raid on Naples. Nothing was known of what happened until 15 years later, when a British oil surveyor found the wreckage of the plane deep in the desert — the crew had overshot the base by 400 miles.

The plane was broken into two pieces, but otherwise in good shape. There was a working radio, food, and water on board. There was even a thermos of tea. What there wasn't, was any sign of a human being. Nor were there any parachutes. It seemed that the men had bailed out, but it was not clear why: the final log entry was written while the plane was still in Naples.

It wasn't until some of the bodies were recovered two years later, at the end of a trail of footwear, parachute scraps, and other discarded articles that the probable story became clear (although much is still mysterious).

The day of the raid presented severe winds all over the Mediterranean. As a result, the bomber was separated from the squadron and the crew uncertain as to their course. They probably flew very close to the base at around midnight: near this time, another base nearby received a voice call from the pilot of Lady Be Good requesting a position report and indicating that their direction finder had malfunctioned.

At about the same time, the staff at Soluch heard the engines, and sent up flares, but the crew missed them. They continued to fly — for two more hours. At that point, running out of fuel, they put on their parachutes and bailed. They were not aware how far inland they had flown: the winds had been heavy all day, there was no moon (April 4, 1943 was a new moon), and with a protocol of radio silence (for fear of drawing the attention of enemy planes). What happened next was recorded in the diaries of two crew members and pieced together from the wreckage and the bodies found.

The first to die was the bombardier: his parachute didn't open properly and he died on hitting the ground (his body was found miles from where they landed). The others, however, didn't know that, and spent some time calling out for him in the darkness. When they couldn't find him, they discarded what they didn't need and set out to the northwest, hoping to come across him on the way. It was 2 a.m. but they had little water and no food; they needed to travel as far as they could before the desert sun rose.

They didn't realize that they were fully 400 miles from the base. Had they known, they could have reached food, water, and a working radio in the wreckage, just a few miles southeast.

They moved northward for 5 days, sharing one canteen of water. At that point five of them gave up: they had walked 78 miles and could see tall dunes ahead. Three had enough strength to continue and, hoping that the base would be just beyond the dunes, promised to send help. It was futile: the base was still hundreds of miles away, and within three days all the crew members were dead.

Sources: ladybegood.com, Wikipedia

March 19 | Alexander III of Scotland

September 4, 1241 - March 19, 1286: Age 44

Alaxandair mac Alaxandair was the only son of King Alexander II (by his wife, and thus the only one that counted). He became king at the age of 8 and, typically, his early years as king were dominated by power struggles between factions struggling for control of the regency, which included at one point Alexander being kidnapped by one of the factions.

When he turned 21 he took charge decisively, and proved to have a good understanding of power. He married the daughter of the King of England but managed to rebuff Henry III's attempts to extract homage from him. He played the King of Norway for a fool, laying claim to the Western Isles and then stringing out negotiations until the Norwegian king lost patience and attempted an invasion during the storm season...in sea-to-land battles, storms fight on the side of the defender. The fleet was defeated and the king died on the way home. Later Alexander married his daughter to the new King of Norway.

Alexander was unlucky in one important matter, though: all three of his children predeceased him, leaving him with one three-year-old granddaughter as sole heir. In the 1200s that meant, to many, no heir at all. He was on his way to visit his new, pregnant wife when he fell from his horse in the dark while riding to visit his new queen. He had become separated from his companions, so nobody actually saw it happen, but he was found dead on the shore below a steep rocky embankment the following morning.

His wife later delivered a stillborn son, and a group of Earls took over governance of the realm until a husband could be found for Alexander's granddaughter, who lived in Norway. Four years later, she was on her way back to Scotland when she herself died. By this time the kingdom was seething with rebellions by opportunistic nobles, and Edward I of England turned a covetous eye northward. His designs on Scotland resulted in a 300-year struggle in which the Scots, though overmatched, fought back ferociously. It ended in 1603 when King James VI of Scotland ascended the English throne as heir to the childless Elizabeth.

Source: Wikipedia

February 15 | Kevin Smith

March 16, 1963 - Feburary 15, 2002: Age 38

Kevin Smith was a New Zealand actor best known to most people for his role as Ares on Xena and Young Hercules.

On February 6, 2002 he was in China working on a martial arts fantasy called Warriors of Virtue 2. He decided to explore the Central China Television studio while waiting for a ride back to his hotel. He climbed up on a prop tower of another film set, lost his footing, and fell three stories, suffering head injuries on the way down.

He was rushed to the local hospital, then transferred to a hospital in Beijing. He lapsed into a coma and never regained consciousness. His family discontinued life support and he died on February 15.

Source: Wikipedia

The Boy King | Tutankhamun

1341 BC - 1323 BC: Age 18

Tutankhamun is the most famous pharaoh today, but this is so by virtue of his obscurity: his tomb was robbed only two or so times before being forgotten. It was buried by stone chips from subsequent tombs, either dumped there or washed there by floods, and eventually some workers built their huts over the entrance, oblivious to the riches beneath. Within two hundred years, at a time when all the tombs in the Valley of the Kings were being dismantled, his was overlooked, and possibly even his name was forgotten.

In 1922, more than 3,000 years after his death, Howard Carter discovered the tomb, setting off a mania for all things Egyptian that has continued to this day. By post-20th Dynasty standards the tomb was in fantastic shape, still full of treasure and many things in their proper place, relatively undisturbed. He was able to photograph things like a tiny wreath of olive leaves and flowers on one of the king's sarcophagi: flowers that had bloomed three millenia before. It took eight years to clean out the tomb, carefully recording every detail.

Tutankhamun was only nine when he became pharaoh. His parentage is uncertain, as it's not specified exactly in the writings ("king's son" — pretty vague) but it seems likely he was the son or grandson of Akhenaten. He was married to his half-sister or aunt, and they had two babies who died very young, probably stillborn. During his short rule, the spiritual innovations of Akhenaten were being reversed (they centred around elevating a single minor deity, Aten, to one-god status).

Well-fed teenagers don't generally just drop dead, even 3,000 years ago. His remains have been X-rayed three times since the tomb was opened: in 1968, 1978 and 2005 (when a CT scan was also performed). Notable findings included a great deal of physical information, especially from the CT scan, leading to the National Geographic-sponsored recreation of his face and head (shown above). He had a "slightly" cleft palate and an elongated head, both family traits, and he was 5 feet 11 inches tall, taller than originally supposed. Initial speculation was that he was murdered, as the first set of X-rays seemed to reveal a dense spot at the lower back of his skull, the spot that normally only gets knocked by bad guys with coshes sneaking up from behind. This theory is doubted now as the CT scan revealed no such spot.


So what killed him? The most likely theory is based on evidence of a severe fracture to his left leg. It was initially thought to have been caused either by embalmers or by Carter and his team (they had to do some pretty hairy things to peel that gold mummy-form sarcophaguss off him, including sawing the body into sections. The CT scan confirmed that the fracture happened before death, probably just a few or hours before. The consensus at the moment seems to be that he died of an infection after severely fracturing his leg, falling from a height. A likely cause would be a chariot accident. Which would mean that, like so many tragic teenagers today, Tut died in a car crash.

The new National Geographic exhibition "Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs" is in London now, and will be in Dallas in October.

Lots of fun extras here. Now that the tomb is open to the public, the small amounts of humidity and warmth finding their way into the tomb have been accelerating the decomposition of Tut's body. On November 4, 2007, 85 years to the day since Carter discovered the tomb, Egyptian curators lifted the linen-wrapped mummy from its sarcophagus to put it on display in a climate-controlled glass box. And YouTube has it for you to view.

The Boy King has inspired a lot of fun in recent years. When a large exhibition of his artifacts toured the world 30 years ago, it was a sensation. The brilliantly funny Steve Martin did a classic routine on it on Saturday Night Live, and you can see it...you know where.

Finally, here is Adam West as Batman, his mind destroyed by torture, forced to dance for the evil supervillain King Tut. He does the Batusi, of course. The music is fabulous, and it all ends with a classic Batman and Robin fist fight...well, have a look.

Sources: Wikipedia pages on Tutankhamun and his tomb

February 4 | Franz Reichelt

Died February 4, 1912: Age unknown

And now, from the sublime to the... well, you know.

Franz Reichelt was an Austrian tailor who designed an overcoat that would act as a parachute, floating its wearer gently to the ground. To demonstrate his invention, he planned to send it off the first deck of the Eiffel Tower, using a dummy. Having obtained the correct permissions, however, and invited the gentlemen of the press, he decided at the last minute to test it in person, himself, possibly in response to the presence of newsreel cameras.

He strapped himself in and, after modelling his invention on the ground for the cameras and assembled crowds, climbed to the the first deck. There he hesitated several moments, poised on the rail of the deck, looking down at the ground. Finally, with a little thrust forward, he launched himself. With a 60 metre drop, the results were predictable. They were also caught on film, which can be viewed on YouTube, of course.

On the film, a title in French appears: "Comme s'il eut pressenti l'horrible sort qui l'attendait, le malheureux inventeur hesita longuement avant de se lancer dans le vide." It means "As though he sensed the horrible fate that awaited him, the unfortunate inventor hesitated long before throwing himself into the void." At the end you see them take his body away, and then the police measuring the depression in the ground made by his impact.

Sources: Wikipedia, Damn Interesting

December 16 | Nina Hamnett

February 14, 1890 - December 16, 1956: Age 66

Nina Hamnett was a Welsh artist who lived a flamboyant, Bohemian lifestyle that included bisexuality, promiscuity, a bestselling autobiography, libel suits, and lots of alcohol. She once danced naked on the table of a café in Paris, a feat I personally find admirable. She hung out with the greatest and most avant-garde artists of the age, including Modigliani, Picasso, Diaghilev, and Cocteau.

Her bestselling autobiography, Laughing Torso, irritated Aleister Crowley so much that he sued her for libel over her allegation that he was a black magician. He lost the suit; the judge didn't believe that the allegation wasn't true. However it was a lose-lose situation for Hamnett: if he were not a black magician, she might lose the suit; if he were, as the judge seems to have believed, wouldn't he make a very unfortunate enemy? She did, however, outlive him (he died in 1947).

As it happens, her life went into decline after the lawsuit. She was a heavy drinker and spent a lot of the latter half of her life in bars, reminiscing about the good days. In 1956 she fell from her apartment window and was impaled on the fence 40 feet below. It is not certain whether it was a drunken accident or an attempt at suicide; if it were the latter, it was successful, as she died. Her last words were, "Why don't they let me die?"

At right: One of her works, Der Sturm, c. 1913.

Source: Wikipedia, Art and Illusion