Mwahahaha…
Who doesn’t love a mad scientist? The renegade intelligence, the hubristic plans, the disheveled attraction…
The good folks at LiveScience have compiled a helpful list of the top ten real mad scientists of the modern era. Consider, e.g., Jack Parsons:
When Jack Parsons wasn’t busy co-founding the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, he was practicing magic and calling himself the Antichrist. This mysterious bad boy of the space program had no formal education, yet still managed to develop a rocket fuel that would guide the United States through WWII and into space. Tragically yet appropriately dramatic, Parsons blew himself up during a lab experiment at his home in 1952.
See them all here.
As we launder our lab coats, we might fire a two-gun birthday salute for Phoebe Anne Oakley Moses (or Mozee)– better known by her stage name, Annie Oakley– who was born on this date in 1860 in Drake County, Ohio. An extraordinary sharpshooter, Ms. Oakley performed feats of marksmanship in Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show from 1885; she was partially paralyzed in a train wreck in 1901, but continued in the show for another 20 years. As a measure of her fame, readers might consider that she was the inspiration for Irving Berlin’s hit 1946 musical, Annie Get Your Gun.
Happy International Left-Handers Day!