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Copyright © 2020 by Steve Silverman
Published by Mango Publishing Group, a division of Mango Media Inc.
Cover Design: Jayoung Hong
Layout: Jayoung Hong
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The Flip Side of History: Strange News, Hard-to-Believe Headlines, and Other Curious Stories from History
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication number: 2020933909
ISBN: (p) 978-1-64250-220-6 (e) 978-1-64250-221-3
BISAC category code HUM016000—HUMOR / Form / Trivia
Printed in the United States of America
Table of Contents
The Green Parrot Murder (1942)
One of my favorite true crime stories of all time. It’s a case in which no one was talking but the green parrot.
Short Story: Sues for Canary’s Lost Love (1917)
Tender Young Alice, They Say (1949)
A sad, yet unusual, human interest story that caught the attention of newspaper readers all across the United States.
Short Story: An Unusual Chicken Thief (1925)
Just what happens when person A attempts to kill person B, who unknowingly gets person C to kill person D instead?
Short Story: Arrested for Eating Soup Loudly (1923)
Kidnapper Rides on Car Hood in Nightgown (1964))
A woman in a nightgown was seen clinging to the front of an automobile as it was being driven down the road. If your first thought was that the woman’s life was in great danger and that the car should have been stopped, well, you would be wrong.
Short Story: Woman Bites Dog (1941)
The unusual story of two high-flying aviators who attempted to pull off the perfect crime.
PART 2: Entrepreneurs & Daring Minds
She Dared to Wear Slacks (1938)
Today, we take for granted the fact that women can wear slacks any day and everywhere. Helen Hulick was one of those women who fought for their right to do so.
In the 1870s, newspapers were the blogs of the day. Almost daily, they reported on the Wheelbarrow Man as he made his way along his journey.
A King Without A Country (1893)
Just what would you do if you found a remote island that belonged to no country and that no person lived on? When James Harden-Hickey stumbled across the uninhabited Atlantic island of Trinidad, he claimed it as his own.
The Los Angeles Perfume Bombing (1948)
Some people will do anything to promote their product, even if that means bombing the city of Los Angeles with perfume.
PART 3: Inexplicable Oddness
Smokin’ Bananas (1967)
There are some stories that simply make me smile whenever I think about them. This story about people who were smoking banana peels in the 1960s is one of them. It simply borders on the ridiculous.
Short Story: Fed a Yak at Midnight (1935)
Love for Lease (1965)
The crazy true story of how an elderly millionaire attempted to rent a beautiful, young woman from her husband for a one-year period.
Short Story: Husband’s Life Is Saved by Wife’s Thigh (1939)
Hee-Haw (1954)
Every Christmas, there’s that one popular toy that every child must have. Always in short supply, such a gift is so desired by children that parents are willing to pay top dollar to get their hands on one. This is the story of a popular Christmas gift that couldn’t fit under the tree. If anything, this unusual gift was more likely to eat the tree.
Short Story: Jerry the Mule Facing Execution (1936)
The Shoe Bandit (1956)
Just
