Being buried prematurely is one of the most terrifying of all fears. Edgar Allan Poe wrote about it and it has been the subject matter of many horror movies. Surprisingly real life cases of this terrible mistake are more common than one might think. Years ago when embalming wasn’t as common and because of inferior medical equipment to detect life there are numerous cases where people have had the terrifying experience of regaining consciousness in their own coffin. This list includes 10 such cases. Some sources for the list are from newspaper articles or journals and include the exact text which gives you a feeling of the time period. Another main source used for this list is a book written in 1905 called Premature Burial and How it May be Prevented which includes several actual cases of premature burials.

Virginia Macdonald lived with her father in New York City and became ill, died, and was buried in Greenwood Cemetery, Brooklyn. After the burial, her mother declared her belief that the daughter was not dead when buried and persistently asserted her belief. The family tried in vain to assure the mother of the death of her daughter. Finally the mother insisted so strenuously that her daughter was buried alive the family consented to have the body taken up. To their horror, they discovered the body lying on the side, the hands badly bitten, and every indication of a premature burial.

Interesting Fact: When the Les Innocents cemetery in Paris, France was moved from the center of the city to the suburbs the number of skeletons found face down convinced many people and several doctors that premature burial was very common.

When Madam Blunden was thought to be dead, she was buried in the Blunden family vault at Holy Ghost Chapel in Basingstoke, England. The vault was situated beneath a boys’ school. The day after the funeral when the boys were playing they heard a noise from the vault below. After one of the boys ran and told his teacher about the noises the sexton was summoned. The vault and the coffin were opened just in time to witness her final breath. All possible means were used to resuscitate her but it was unsuccessful. In her agony she had torn frantically at her face and had bitten the nails off her fingers.

Interesting Fact: A large number of designs for safety coffins were patented during the 18th and 19th centuries. Safety coffin were fitted with a mechanism to allow the occupant to signal that he or she has been buried alive. You can see one of the variations here.

“WOODSTOCK, Ontario, Jan. 18- Recently a girl named Collins died here, as it was supposed, very suddenly. A day or two ago the body was exhumed, prior to its removal to another burial place, when the discovery was made that the girl had been buried alive. Her shroud was torn into shreds, her knees were drawn up to her chin, one of her arms was twisted under her head, and her features bore evidence of dreadful torture.”

Interesting Fact: In the 19th century, Dr. Timothy Clark Smith of Vermont was so concerned about the possibility of being buried alive that he arranged to be buried in a special crypt that included a breathing tube and a glass window in his grave marker that would permit him to peer out to the living world six feet above.

“GRENOBLE, Jan. 18- A gendarme was buried alive the other day in a village near Grenoble. The man had become intoxicated on potato brandy, and fell into a profound sleep. After twenty hours passed in slumber, his friends considered him to be dead, particularly as his body assumed the usual rigidity of a corpse. When the sexton, however, was lowering the remains of the ill-fated gendarme into the grave, he heard moans and knocks proceeding from the interior of the ‘four-boards.’ He immediately bored holes in the sides of the coffin, to let in air, and then knocked off the lid. The gendarme had, however, ceased to live, having horribly mutilated his head in his frantic but futile efforts to burst his coffin open.

Interesting Fact: The Fear of being buried alive is called taphephobia. The word “taphephobia” comes from the Greek “taphos” meaning “grave” + “phobia” from the Greek “phobos” meaning “fear” = literally, fear of the grave, or fear of being put in the grave while still alive.

“TONNEINS, Dec. 30- A frightful case of premature interment occurred not long since, at Tonneins, in the Lower Garonne. The victim, a man in the prime of life, had only a few shovelfuls of earth thrown into his grave when an indistinct noise was heard to proceed from his coffin. The grave-digger, terrified beyond description, instantly fled to seek assistance, and some time elapsed before his return, when the crowd, which had by this time collected in considerable numbers round the grave, insisted on the coffin being opened. As soon as the first boards had been removed, it was ascertained beyond a doubt, that the occupant had been interred alive. His countenance was frightfully contracted with the agony he had undergone, and, in his struggles, the unhappy man had forced his arms completely out of the winding sheet, in which they had been securely enveloped. A physician, who was on the spot, opened a vein, but no blood flowed. The sufferer was beyond the reach of art.”

Interesting Fact: In The Complete Worst-Case Scenario Survival Handbook, one of the worst case scenarios listed in the book is how to survive if you are buried alive in a coffin. If anyone finds themselves in the same predicament as the people on this list you can read some life saving information here.

“December 8- It appeared from the evidence that some time ago a woman was interred with all the usual formalities, it being believed that she was dead, while she was only in a trance. Some days afterwards, the grave in which she had been placed being opened for the reception of another body, it was found that the clothes which covered the unfortunate woman were torn to pieces, and that she had even broken her limbs in attempting to extricate herself from the living tomb. The Court, after hearing the case, sentenced the doctor who had signed the certificate of
decease, and the mayor who had authorized the interment, each to three months’ imprisonment for involuntary manslaughter.”

Interesting Fact: Today, when a definition of death is required, doctors usually turn to “brain death” to define a person as being clinically dead. People are considered dead when the electrical activity in their brain ceases.

“DAYTON, Feb. 8.-A sensation has been created here by the discovery of the fact that Miss Hockwalt, a young lady of high social connections, who was supposed to have died suddenly on Jan. 10, was buried alive. The terrible truth was discovered a few days ago, and since then it has been the talk of the city. The circumstance of Miss Hockwail’s death was peculiar. It occurred on the morning of the marriage of her brother to Miss Emma Schwind at Emannel’s Church. Shortly before 6 o’clock the young lady was dressing for the nuptials and had gone into the kitchen. A few moments afterward she was found sitting on a chair with her head leaning against a wall and apparently lifeless. Medical aid was summoned in, Dr. Jewett who, after examination, pronounced her dead. Mass was being read at the time in Emannel’s Church and it was thought best to continue, and the marriage was performed in gloom. The examination showed that Anna was of excitable temperament, nervous, and affected with sympathetic palpitation of the heart. Dr. Jewett thought this was the cause of her supposed death. On the following day, the lady was interred in the Woodland. The friends of Miss Hockwalt were unable to forget the terrible impression and several ladies observe that her eyes bore a remarkably natural color and could not dispel an idea that she was not dead. They conveyed their opinion to Annie’s parents and the thought preyed upon them so that the body was taken from the grave. It was stated that when the coffin was opened it was discovered that the supposed inanimate body had turned upon its right side. The hair had been torn out in handfuls and the flesh had been bitten from the fingers. The body was reinterred and efforts made to suppress the facts, but there are those who state they saw the body and know the facts to be as narrated.”

Interesting Fact: In 1822 Dr Adolf Gutsmuth was buried alive several times to demonstrate a safety coffin he had designed. Once he stayed underground for several hours and ate a meal of soup, sausages and beer delivered to him through the coffin’s feeding tube.

Seventeen year old Mary Norah Best was the adopted daughter of Mrs. Moore Chew. Mary was pronounced dead from cholera and entombed in the Chew’s vault in an old French cemetery in Calcutta. The surgeon that pronounced her dead was a man who would have benefited by her death and had tried to kill her adopted mother. Before Mary “died” her adoptive mother fled to England after the second attempt on her life and left Mary behind. Mary was put into a pine coffin and it was nailed shut. Ten years later, in 1881 the vault was unsealed to admit the body of Mrs. Moore’s brother. On entering the vault, the undertaker’s assistant found the lid off of Mary’s coffin on the floor. The position of her skeleton was half in and half out of the coffin. Apparently after being entombed Mary awoke from the trance and struggled violently till she was able to force the lid off of her coffin. It is surmised that after bursting open her casket she fainted from the strain and while falling forward over the edge of her coffin she struck her head against the masonry shelf killing her. It is believed the surgeon poisoned the girl and then certified her death.

Interesting Fact: Some believe Thomas A Kempis, a German Augustinian monk who wrote The Imitation of Christ in the 1400’s was denied canonization because splinters were found embedded under his nails. Canonization authorities determined that anyone aspiring to be a saint would not fight death if he found himself buried alive.

“ASHEVILLE, N.C., Feb. 20.–A gentleman from Flat Creek Township in this (Buncombe) County, furnishes the information that about the 20th of last month a young man by the name of Jenkins, who had been sick with fever for several weeks, was thought to have died. He became speechless, his flesh was cold and clammy, and he could not be aroused, and there appeared to be no action of the pulse and heart. He was thought to be dead and was prepared for burial, and was noticed at the time that there was no stiffness in any of the limbs. He was buried after his supposed death, and when put in the coffin it was remarked that he was as limber as a live man. There was much talk in the neighborhood about the case and the opinion was frequently expressed that Jenkins had been buried alive. Nothing was done about the matter until the 10th inst., when the coffin was taken up for the purpose of removal and internment in the family burying ground in Henderson County. The coffin being wood, it was suggested that it be opened in order to see if the body was in such condition that it could be hauled 20 miles without being put in a metallic casket. The coffin was opened, and to the great astonishment and horror of his relatives the body was lying face downward, and the hair had been pulled from the head in great quantities, and there was scratches of the finger nails on the inside of the lid and sides of the coffin. These facts caused great excitement and all acquainted personally with the facts believe Jenkins was in a trance, or that animation was apparently suspended, and that he was not really dead when buried and that he returned to consciousness only to find himself buried and beyond help. The body was then taken to Henderson County and reinterred. The relatives are distressed beyond measure at what they term criminal carelessness in not being absolutely sure Jenkins was dead before he was buried.”

Interesting Fact: Because of the concern of premature burials a Society was formed called Society for the Prevention of People Being Buried Alive. They encouraged the slow process of burials.

In 1901 a pregnant Madame Bobin arrived on board a steamer from Western Africa and appeared to be suffering from yellow fever. She was then transferred to a hospital for those affected with contagious diseases. There she became worse and apparently died and was buried. A nurse later said she noticed that the body was not cold and that there was tremulousness of the muscles of the abdomen and expressed the opinion that she could have been prematurely buried. After this was reported to Madame Bobin’s father, he had the body exhumed. They were horrified to find that a baby had been born and died with Madame Bobin in the coffin. An autopsy showed that Madame Bobin had not contracted yellow fever and had died from asphyxiation in the coffin. A suit against the health officials resulted in £8,000 ($13,000) damages against them.

Interesting Fact: Historical records indicate that during the 17th century when plague victims often collapsed seemingly dead, there were 149 actual cases of people being buried alive.

In scholastic philosophy, writing is known as a sign – it is a sign of another sign (the spoken tongue) and it was created because man lived in communities and needed a means to provide knowledge to people far away (in distance and in time). Plotting the evolution of writing is fascinating and curiously virtually all lead back to one all-encompassing alphabet – as you will find out by reading this list!

Braille stands out as being the only tactile writing system on this list. It was invented in 1821 by a blind Frenchman, Louis Braille, who was inspired by the “night writing” code of embossed dots used by the French military. Up to that point he had been able to read books with raised letters, but this was largely impractical, especially when it came to writing. Clearly a better system was needed, but as he found night writing to be too complicated (it could take as many as 12 dots to represent one letter) Braille invented his own system using a mere six dots. It never gained much popularity during his lifetime, but since his death Braille’s system has transformed written communication for the blind and visually impaired. Today it has been adapted to a vast number of languages around the world.

In the 9th century AD the Greek brothers Saint Methodius and Saint Cyril invented two alphabets, Glagolitic and Cyrillic, as a writing system for the Old Church Slavonic language. Cyrillic, based on the Glagolitic and Greek alphabets, ultimately became the preferred system for writing the Slavic languages. It is today used to write many of the Slavic languages (most notably Russian, Bulgarian, Belarusian, Ukrainian, and Serbian) as well as a number of non-Slavic languages who fell under the influence of the Soviet Union. Throughout its history, Cyrillic has been adapted to write over 50 languages.

Cuneiform’s significance comes from the fact that it’s the earliest known writing system in the world. It first appeared in the 34th century BC amongst the Sumerians, located in what is today southern Iraq. It was adapted to write a number of languages (including Akkadian, Hittite, and Hurrian), and further served as an inspiration for the Ugaritic and Old Persian alphabets. For over 3,000 years these scripts had a massive influence in the Near East, but cuneiform was gradually replaced by the Aramaic alphabet until it was extinct by 100 AD.

Egyptian hieroglyphs are generally believed to have come into existence shortly after Sumerian cuneiform, around 3200 BC. Alongside the well-known hieroglyphs, there existed two other Ancient Egyptian scripts: Hieratic (used mainly for religious purposes) and Demotic (for most other purposes). Outside of their significance as the writing systems for a massively important civilization for thousands of years, Ancient Egyptian’s most lasting influence was that it served as the inspiration for the first alphabet.

Chinese script, aside from its immense number of users, is noteworthy for being one of the world’s oldest continuously used writing systems, having been in use from the 2nd millennium BC up to the present day. The characters were originally pictographs (each one bore a resemblance to its meaning) and represented one monosyllabic word. Chinese characters were adapted to write other languages due to the enormous influence China had in East Asia, such as Korean and Japanese (based on the characters’ meanings) as well as Vietnamese (based on either sound or meaning). Korean and Vietnamese have since replaced Chinese with other writing systems, but the characters still exist as a component of written Japanese, kanji. In the 20th century Chinese branched into two basic forms, traditional and simplified, after the Chinese government simplified many of the characters to promote literacy.

The numerous writing systems used in South Asia today can be traced back to the Brahmi script. This abiguda (a writing system in which the letters are all consonants and vowels are written as obligatory diacritics) emerged in the 5th century BC and was used to write Prakrit and Sanskrit. Over the next thousand years or so, Brahmi developed into dozens of regional scripts, which came to be associated with the languages of their respective region. These descendants could broadly be classified as Northern and Southern, and with the expansion of Hinduism and Buddhism, the Southern group spread to Southeast Asia while the Northern scripts spread to Tibet. Today, the Brahmic scripts are used throughout much of Asia (most notably India), and are also used for religious purposes in areas with large Buddhist populations.

Due to the large number of Arabic speakers and the extensive influence of Islam, the Arabic alphabet is the second-most widely used alphabet in the world, found mostly in Northern Africa and Western and Central Asia. More technically, it is an abjad, a writing system in which the letters are all consonants (Arabic script does, however, have optional vowel diacritics). The alphabet arose around 400 AD (about 200 years before Islam), but the rise of Islam and the writing of the Qur’an brought about significant changes for the writing system, such as the vowel diacritics. The strong association with religion is further evident in the widespread adoption of the Arabic alphabet by non-Arabic speaking Islamic populations, including Farsi, Urdu, Punjabi, Pashto, and Kurdish speakers, along with dozens more in the past and present.

The Greek alphabet marked a huge leap in the development of alphabets, especially since it was the first to include vowels as individual letters. It has existed from 800 BC through to the present day, and over its long history has been used to write Hebrew, Arabic, Turkish, Gaulish, and Albanian, among other languages. Written Greek had previously been attempted in Mycenaean Greece, but the alphabet as we know it was the first successful attempt, which was created right before the rise of Ancient Greece. Besides its obvious significance concerning the literature and records of Ancient Greece, its influence on other writing systems has been immense, most notably because it is the origin of the Cyrillic and Latin alphabets. The alphabet’s importance has since diminished—its primary functions are now the writing system for Modern Greek and mathematical symbols—but if it were not for the Greek alphabet, much of the world’s writing would bear little resemblance to what it is today.

The Latin alphabet is on this list for obvious reasons. Besides being the alphabet of the global lingua franca, English, it is also the most widely used alphabet in existence. Derived from a variant of the Greek alphabet around 700 BC, it rapidly spread first throughout Europe, and then throughout the world. It followed with the expansion of the Roman Empire to Western Europe, and then to Central and Northern Europe with the spread of Christianity in the Middle Ages. Some Slavic languages also began to use the alphabet as the speakers converted to Catholicism. European colonization then brought the Latin alphabet to the Americas, Africa, Oceania, and Asia along with the languages of the colonizers. It became widely adopted and adapted, both among languages using other writing systems and languages that had previously had none.

Proto-Sinaitic script was the first alphabet, and therefore the parent of nearly all the alphabetic writing systems to have existed since its emergence. It arose in Egypt and Sinai around 1900 BC and, as previously mentioned, was inspired by Egyptian hieroglyphs. The influence it’s had is incredible: everything from Hebrew, to runes, the Latin alphabet, Cherokee syllabary, and Ethiopic can trace their origins to this alphabet. Phoenician script is a direct descendant of Proto-Sinaitic and differs little from it, but, spread by Phoenician merchants throughout the Mediterranean, it became a very widely used alphabet for a number of languages. Because of this, Phoenician branches off into many of the major families of writing systems.

The Error: The former Soviet Union celebrated the October Revolution in October.

Although the Bolsheviks took control over October 25-26, 1917, this was under the Old Style (Julian) calendar. One of the first things the Communists did was to modernize their calendar to the Gregorian Calendar – thereby pushing the day ahead 13 days (into November). This was a major holiday in the Soviet Union, mostly because with the official ban on religion the biggest holidays were civil holidays such as May Day and the October Revolution.

The Error: The British king George I of Hanover used English or German when speaking with his cabinet.

I don’t know that this is so much a misconception as “it’s obvious” that a British monarch would speak English. Those who know history and realize George I was a German prince who spoke no English may then think that “it’s obvious” he and his advisors spoke German. The reality is that since his cabinet did not speak German, the lingua franca in the meetings was French.

The Error: The Titanic was the first ship known to use the distress code “SOS”?

Although British ships preferred the traditional distress call “CQD”, most of the other European countries used the International Conference on Wireless Communication at Sea standard set in 1908 of “SOS”. The French ship Niagara is known to have used “SOS” well before the Titanic did. Incidently, in CQD, the CQ was a general call on a telegraph line with the D standing for Distress. In James Cameron’s “Titanic”, he did get it right that the radio operator tried both CQD and SOS after the new distress call was suggested to him.

The Error: John Kennedy was the first to say “Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country.”

Yes, the misconception is American but the backstory is international. American politicians are renowned for plagiarizing their best lines from foreign sources. For example, Abraham Lincoln took the phrase “a government of the people, by the people and for the people” from the preface of John Wycliff’s 1384 edition of the Bible and current Vice-President Joe Biden cribbed a few speeches while in the Senate from Labour Party MP Neil Kinnock. This quote thought by many Americans to be pure Kennedy was actually from Lebanese writer Khalil Gibran in an article advocating his Lebanese brethren to rebel against the occupying Ottoman Turks.

The Error: Alexander Fleming invented the antibiotic “penicillin”.

Many will disagree with this since it is more a question of semantics than a misconception. Although Alexander Fleming DISCOVERED that the mold Penicillium notatum has antibacterial properties, he was not a chemist and growing and culturing the mold was difficult for him. Howard Florey with the assistance of Ernst Chain was able to purify the penicillin and put it in a form for use in humans, thereby INVENTING penicillin as a true antibiotic.

The Error: Watson and Crick discovered DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid).

Again, people on Listverse will say “everyone knows that” but many people learn the simplified version that James Watson and Francis Crick discovered DNA, probably because they won the Nobel Prize for their discovery of the double-helix structure of DNA. The true discoverer was Friedrich Miescher was analyzing pus cell nuclei in 1868 when he discovered nuclein. He was able to analyze this further and discovered an acid component which he called deoxyribonucleic acid. Scientists Avery, MacLeod, and McCarty were the first to show a link between DNA and heredity in 1943 and Rosalind Franklin did the first X-ray diffraction pattern study of DNA. What Watson & Crick did was to develop a model of DNA that accounted for all of the previous research discoveries.

The Error: Mouton-Rothschild is a top-grade Chateau claret.

The five growths (classes) of red Bordeaux were determined in 1855. Four were considered First Class Lafite-Rothschild, Latour, Margaux, Haut-Brion. Mouton-Rothschild did not like being place in second class so their motto is “Premier ne puis. Second ne daigne. Mouton suis.” (First I cannot be. Second I do not deign to be. I am Mouton.) All I know is I certainly would not turn down a glass of it.

The Error: The fax machine was invented after the telephone.

Scottish inventor Alexander Bain had invented the electric clock back in 1841. In 1843 he used his work on electric clock to patent a device that could be synchronized with a twin over telegraph lines, which according to some stories he did so he could transmit a picture of a new-born calf (if true it would need to be a daguerreotype which seems very unlikely for just a cow). Frederick Bakewell patented a better fax machine in 1848, two years before Bain updated his and in 1861 an Italian Giovanni Caselli invented the first high quality fax. All of this was done before both Alexander Bell and Elisha Gray independently filed for the telephone patent on 14 February 1876.

The Error: Albert Einstein was a poor student.

The myth that Einstein was a poor student started when an American researcher mistranslated some of Einstein’s report cards by not taking into account the grading system at the time. While Einstein was in school, students were given grades 1 to 6, 1 being the best. This was reversed (1 was worst) the year after Einstein graduated. Further research has uncovered a letter from Albert’s mother to his aunt complimenting his grades, but I guess the image of Einstein going from failing school to being a top physicist is too good to be changed because of the truth.

The Error: Pandas eat only bamboo.

The reason that pandas eat so much bamboo is that it doesn’t run away. They are omnivores that have adapted to a primarily bamboo diet but they will eat anything they can catch like small animals and carrion. The problem is that they are so slow from the fact that bamboo doesn’t provide a lot of energy that it is hard to catch anything else – a vicious cycle. There are a couple of great articles by National Geographic about the pandas from the 1980’s

The Error: The United States is the only country that measures things by feet, gallons, pounds, and degrees Fahrenheit.

To demonstrate how out-of-date the U.S. is from basically everyone else in the world, it is pointed out by scientists and metricians that we still use the archaic English system. It may be true, but we are not the only ones. Liberia uses the same system which is not a surprise considering that the country was started by former American slaves who named their capital after American president James Monroe and it was only recently that Liberia’s president was not a descendent of the original American emigrants. And there is a third country that uses the system – Myanmar (pictured above). As a former British colony, they of course adopted the English system. After gaining their independence, the country changed its name from Burma but not how it measured things.

There was once an excellent collection of miniatures displayed in a Southern California themepark (not Disneyland) that was known as Mott’s Miniatures. Sadly, that marvelous collection has been auctioned out to others and all that remains is a poor substitute, by way of photos, on the Mott’s website. The readers at ListVerse have a hunger for the odd and unusual, yet there is no list here that covers the subject of miniatures. This list is a salute to the world of the tiny, both man-made and those that nature has seen fit to create.

Not to be confused with microscopic plankton and diatoms, these are indeed fully formed seashells on a minuscule scale. A great many gem and mineral societies world-wide have divisions devoted to the study and worship of these tiny homes that can be found in sand samples from around the world. And remember that impossibly tiny as these shells are, the original inhabitants were even smaller, as they had to fit within. There is no evidence, so far, of any species of hermit crab that may have used these microshells as a borrowed home.

Nanotechnology, nanorobotics, nanomachines. An ever expanding field of science and technology expected to revolutionize the world as we know it. The simplest, (though hardly simple), of nano machines are being constructed for biological study to better understand the mechanics of the cell, and all it’s natural capabilities. The hope is that humans may be able to replicate some of these functions, towards the better health of mankind in the future. Science envisions great strides in the fields of molecular biology, medicine, chemistry, physics, and nanocomputers through the development of these microscopic motors. Many of these machines are as small as 1/2 the width of a human hair and others are so small several hundred would fit in the space of the period at the end of this sentence.

In 2007 nanotechnology was pushed to another extreme when Technion inscribed the entire Hebrew text of the Jewish Bible onto a space less than half the size of a grain of sugar. The team etched the 300,000 words of the Bible onto a tiny silicone surface less than .5 mm square by blasting the silicone with gallium ions.

The previous smallest, known, copy of the Bible measured 2.8 x 3.4 x 1 centimeters (1.1 x 1.3 x 0.4 inches), weighing 11.75 grams (0.4 ounces) and containing 1,514 pages, according to Guinness World Records spokeswoman Amarilis Espinoza. The tiny text, obtained by an Indian professor in November, 2001, is believed to have originated in Australia.

There are ancients stone tablets from the city of Ur that observe the natural flying power of the common housefly. The ancient Egyptians mused about how the housefly’s powers may provide insight to the Pharaoh’s journey into the Afterlife. Even the great Nikola Tesla had a curiosity about insect power, as excerpted here.

“His sixteen-bug-power motor was, likewise, not an unqualified success. This was a light contrivance made of splinters forming a windmill, with a spindle and pulley attached to live June bugs. When the glued insects beat their wings, as they did desperately, the bug-power engine prepared to take off. This line of research was forever abandoned however when a young friend dropped by who fancied the taste of June bugs. Noticing a jarful standing near, he began cramming them into his mouth. The youthful inventor threw up.” Adopted from “Tesla: Man out of time”, by Margaret Cheney, 1981.

Dr. Richard Brewer is given credit with manufacturing the first prototype fly powered airplane in 1949, constructed of balsa wood and the cellophane from a pack of Lucky Strike cigarettes. Reportedly Dr. Brewers prototype plane was delivered to the Smithsonian Institute’s National Air and Space Museum during the 1960’s. Insect powered aircraft have become quite a well followed hobby with many websites devoted to blueprints and instructions to construct miniature planes that utilize houseflies or flying beetles as their motors.

Called Quasihesma, these minutely small bees come from Cape York in Queensland. Known as the smallest species of bee, these little guys are only 2mm long. That’s approximately the size of the head of a pin. They come from the family Colletidae, and are often referred to collectively as plasterer bees, due to the method of smoothing the walls of their nest cells with secretions applied with their mouthparts; these secretions dry into a cellophane-like lining. Another distinction of this group of bees is that they are solitary bees. Although they have been known to build nest in groups, they do not manufacture hives.

One of the many “humble” art mediums, matchsticks have been used to create a cavalcade of various structures and masterpieces. Commonly referred to as folkart, matchstick miniatures have also been classed as another form of “prisonart”, although the creators of such hardly need to have served time behind bars. The amount of art developed in this medium is immense, with artists each having their own vision of what they would like to produce, whether it be stick carvings, match head sculptures, or homages to the engineering feats of mankind from every culture and civilization, created from minute lumber, one stick at a time.

Interesting trivia: The origin of matchsticks can well be dated back to 3500 BC. The Egyptians developed a small pinewood stick with a coating of a combustible sulfur mixture.

What to do with those pesky pits that we find in our everyday foods. For centuries those pits from peaches, plums, cherries and olives have been thrown away with the garbage. But for quite of few folks with the ache to create, and with an extremely steady hand, those very pits are the “core” of their calling. The inspiration for this list, Mott’s Miniature’s had quite a “large” collection of pit carvings that can be viewed at their website. The American artist Bob Shamey has been featured by Ripley’s Believe It or Not not just once, but twice, for his carvings. At the National Palace Museum in Taiwan there is an olive pit carving of a tiny boat, with working shutters and facial expressions on all eight passengers.

Guinness World Record for the smallest handmade chess set was awarded in 2006, and goes to M. Manikandan of Srivilliputtur, Tamil Nadu, India. His incredible creation has a chess board only 24 mm square. As for the playing pieces themselves, the largest piece is 10 mm high and the smallest is half that at 5 mm. A further search for mini chess sets revealed a beautiful solid gold set for sale on E-bay that also measured 24 x 24 mm. The owner has used slightly over 6 grams of 22 carat gold for which he is seeking 100,000 rupees. Though that may sound like a king’s ransom, converted into US dollars, the amount comes down to a less staggering $2,175, or 1560 Euros.

Long considered a symbol of wealth and prosperity throughout the Asian world, rice has always held a position of high esteem and respect, not to mention being a daily staple food source around the world. It’s only natural that respect for this most humble of grains would evolve into it’s own field of art. Rice writing originated in ancient Turkey and India, and one of the oldest known examples of this art is housed to this day in the Topkapi Palace in Istanbul. To have a grain of rice with your name written on it is still thought to be quite a lucky charm, so many companies have made a small fortune by providing such services. Most of these tiny art pieces are suspended in small glass vials filled with mineral oil, to help magnify the writing on the minuscule grain.

The pinnacle of handmade miniatures would have to be sculptures that are smaller than the eye of a needle. The hands down master of the art currently is Willard Wigan MBE. An artist who started his career at only 5 years old when he decided to start building homes for ants, he has continued to impress the world with his micro creations, the artist is often referred to as the “Eighth Wonder of the World”. Wigan works primarily through the night, as even traffic noise from outside can destroy a piece he is working on. Using micro tools on a microscopic work field, he must control not only his pulse rate, but his breathing, as he has inhaled a few of his masterpieces, due to a poorly timed inhale.

The Barbados Thread Snake was recently discovered in 2008. Recognized as the world’s smallest snake, the tiny reptile will only reach a maximum size of 10 cm long. (about 4 inches.), and are reported to be “as thin as spaghetti”. Due to it’s extreme tininess, females only lay one egg, which hatches out at half the size of the adult. A larger clutch of eggs would produce such small offspring that it would be near impossible for the snakelings to find sustenance.

The Holy Grail is a sacred object figuring into literature and certain Christian traditions, most often identified with the dish, plate, or cup used by Jesus at the Last Supper and said to possess miraculous powers. Conspiracy theories abound on the nature of the grail and the final location. This list looks at ten of the possible resting places of this mysterious object.

The locals of the Accokeek area claim that a Jesuit priest stowed away on board Captain John Smith’s ship, as he sailed up the Potomac River sometime around 1606-07, and that this priest had ties all the way back to the Knights Templar.

The legend states that he had the Grail for years in England and Europe, possibly taken from #7 when treasure seekers started looking for Arthur’s grave. Somehow the Grail passed down to this nameless priest, who fled for environs where few people would care about the Grail.

Its location in the Accokeek area is not known.

“The Money Pit” was discovered by three teenage boys playing on the island, in 1795, or so the story goes, and over the centuries, 6 people have died attempting to excavated the mysterious treasure everyone is sure is down there.

The longer it took to excavate, the wilder imaginations ran, until today, the Pit is no longer thought to hold merely chests of gold doubloons, but the Holy Grail itself, hidden there by the Knights Templar in the early to mid-1300s.

This is no idle assumption, since there is, in fact, an arrangement of boulders on the island that forms a perfect cross 250 meters long by 100 meters wide, oriented so that the head points due East. It is on the north side of the island in a clearing only 50 square meters larger the cross. The Pit is due south through a woodlot.

The most compelling evidence seems to be the ingenious design of the Pit, which was fitted with a water channel booby trap leading up and out to the open water.

Whatever is down there lies at exactly 100 feet and has been described as “metal in pieces.” They say the mystery will not be resolved until one more person dies in the pit.

One of the legends used by Dan Brown in The Da Vinci Code, this one centers on secret stone chambers and channels under the Collegiate Chapel of St. Matthew, on Roslin Hill, and there are tons of extremely strange carvings in and around the chapel that add ominous weight to this legend.

It was built starting in 1456 at the behest of its founder, William Sinclair, a nobleman and knight. He is rumored to have been a descendant of Knights Templar.

There are carvings of what appear to be Indian corn (maize) around the windows. Maize was unheard of in Europe at the time of the chapel’s construction.

There are carvings of “green men,” which seem to symbolize Celtic traditions regarding spring and summer (pre-Christian).

The Apprentice Pillar is the real stand-out. No one knows why it was carved as it was, and there are no other pillars like it in the chapel, or anywhere in Europe. The chapel’s carvings took 40 years to complete, so they must have been significant to the Sinclair, who died just before they were finished. The legend states that the Grail resides inside the Apprentice Pillar.

Or perhaps in the family crypt under the basement. This crypt is sealed shut. Sealed very well. The Sinclairs still own the chapel and refuse to let anyone go digging up their ancestors (who can blame them?), as this would necessitate tearing down the whole chapel.

Tor is Celtic for “conical hill,” and that is what Clastonbury Tor is. It is said to be the legendary Avalon, King Arthur’s current resting place, while he heals from wounds suffered at the hands of his evil son, Mordred, whom he killed in a duel.

It has been called “Ynys yr Afalon,” Old English for “the Isle of Avalon,” since at least 1100 AD, and tradition states that in 1191, Arthur and Guinevere’s coffins were uncovered at the top of the hill. No evidence exists to support this, but the hill did serve as a fort since the 600s AD.

The Arthurian and Templar legends are inseparable, and the legend goes that the Templars returned from the First Crusade with all the famous Biblical relics, and hid them throughout the British Isles. The Grail was buried somewhere on Glastonbury Tor, perhaps between Arthur and Guinevere’s coffins, the most poetic place.

Legend states that since the Holy Grail was NOT the Holy Chalice, which is correct, it was buried with Jesus somewhere near his Crucifixion site. This site is believed by some to have been a fissure between two rocks, one of which has since eroded away, the other of which is still there to be visited, at the top of the hill on which the Dome of the Rock now sits.

It is sacred to all three monotheistic religions: Judaism holds that Abraham almost slew Isaac on this rock; Christianity holds that Jesus’s cross was planted between this rock and another; Islam holds that Mohammed sprang to Heaven on a horse from this rock.

The Holy Grail is, properly, the cup, bowl, or plate that happened to be near the Cross and catch the blood of Jesus as he died. It was then buried with him, by one of his Disciples, or by his mother, or Joseph of Arimathea, in his tomb. The location of his tomb is not known, but is described in the Bible as nearby, which likely means somewhere on or around the hill.

The Grail may not be lost, but found, and on display to the public for free at the Cathedral of St. Lawrence, in Genoa. This relic is a bowl made of green glass, which was thought to be emerald, until it was broken in the time of Napoleon.

No one knows where it came from, but William of Tyre, in 1170, writes that it first turned up in a mosque in Caesarea, Israel, in 1101. It has not been carbon dated.

Another contender is on display at the Cathedral of St. Mary in Valencia, and this is considered the most likely. Skeptics claim that IF the Grail even exists, the Valencia Chalice is the best bet. It was carbon dated in 1960 to a date of somewhere between the 300s BC and the 100s AD, manufactured in the Middle East, so it is possible. Even if it isn’t the Grail, its age makes it extremely valuable.

It is made of dark red agate, and set in a gold stem, with another, upturned bowl of chalcedony as the base. It is the official Chalice of the Roman Catholic Church.

This legend ties in with the German Grail legend of Munsalvaesche, which is another name for Corbenic, the castle where the Fisher King lived, and where Sir Galahad was born.

“Munsalvaesche” is German for the Latin phrase “mons salvationis,” “the mount of salvation.” “Montserrat,” however, is Catalan for “jagged mountain.” The monastery and abbey are nestled in the mountain, and the Grail is said to be hidden somewhere under the church grounds, or elsewhere on the mountain. If so, it may well never be found, as the terrain is extraordinarily rugged and the mountain is gigantic. The peak, at 4,055 feet, is called
Sant Jeroni, “Saint Jerome,” who features prominently in several Grail legends. He may have traveled to the area in the late 300s AD and hidden the Grail there.

Not the same legend as that of #6, this legend states that the Knights Templar, of the First Crusade, never found either the Grail or the Ark of the Covenant, because the sewer system provided the finest hiding place on Earth at the time. Jerusalem has been attacked many times, and the Jews living at the time of the Ark’s disappearance from the Bible are sure to have lowered it into the sewers to protect it from Nebuchadnezzar, in 586 BC.

The Disciples may have known the location of the Ark and hidden the Grail with it, deep in the sewers, since the Ark had escaped notice for almost 600 years by then. Digging is expressly forbidden except for those professional archaeologists intent on uncovering sites of antiquity, not relic hunters. Digging may undermine the buildings above.

Yes, you read that right. This legend is based on the premise that the Bullion Depository is probably the single most secure place on the planet. Some of its security measures are a mystery, but it is known that no one, not even the President, is allowed on the property, except the U. S. Mint Police stationed inside.

The closest anyone can get to it is Highway 31, about 400 yards from the building. The security consists of multiple fences, the innermost electrified, alarms, cameras, armed guards, and the nearby Fort Knox units: 30,000 active troops who train every day with Apache helicopter gunships, M-1 Abrams tanks, armored personnel carriers and heavy demolition.

This doesn’t account for the unknown security measures, which probably include motion-activated minigun turrets, landmines, pressure sensors, snipers, and that’s before you even get inside.

Awful lot of security for some gold bricks, wouldn’t you say? Unless there are other things inside. The combination to the vault is not known by any one person, but is comprised of 10 combinations, each known by only one official working in the building. There are pistol ranges inside, a gym and dojo, and the vault is lined with solid granite. The gold resides in separate, small rooms each fitted with a solid steel door.

The main vault door is 22 tons of steel and can withstand a direct hit from a 2 kiloton nuclear warhead. The Depository has housed a copy of the Magna Carta, the Hungarian crown jewels, the Crown of St. Stephen, the U. S. Constitution, the Declaration of Independence, and various other historical documents from all over the world.

The legend states that there is a special room somewhere in the vault that does not house gold or artifacts such as cited above, but houses, instead, the Holy Grail, the Ark of the Covenant (complete with a “Do Not Touch” sign), satellite pictures proving that the Ararat Anomaly is Noah’s Ark, and the True Cross, complete with dried blood that has been analyzed as consisting of several strains of DNA, one of them encoded not on a double helix, but a triple helix.