A member of Club Taurino practicing humane bullfighting without bulls in a park near Woldingham, Surrey. 1963. One member played the bull while the others improved their cape work.
"The target of the rolling pin is a life-size dummy of a husband and the contestants are 30 women trained by Miss Ann Beggs of the home economics department of the university."
The Salem News (Salem, Ohio) - Aug 17, 1928
Winners of a 1932 rolling pin contest (via NCSU Libraries):
The experts predicted that the man vs. horse tug-of-war organized in Waterloo, Oregon back in 1947 would be no contest at all. The man, 225-pound Chester Fitzwater, was lying on the ground, his feet braced against a wood block. To win, he simply had to remain in place for three minutes. The horse, Big Baldy, was said not to have a chance.
Scientists Favor Man
Dr. Raymond T. Ellickson, physics professor at Reed College in Portland, estimated 1900-pound Baldy would have to exert about 16,000 pounds worth of effort to up-end Fitzwater.
Ellickson figured it would take a 3000-pound pull just to get the long rope taut, and then Baldy would have only an angle of 1 degree from the horizontal to pull against.
Other scientists advised about the same, and an even more discouraging report—for old Baldy—came from rope dealers. They said the one-inch rope would break at approximately 9000 pounds of pull—far short of the 16,000 Dr. Ellickson believes necessary.
It took about a second for Big Baldy to prove the experts wrong. As soon as the rope tightened, "Fitzwater lurched into the air, knocked over a photographer and some spectators, and crashed into the mud."
Several other brawny men subsequently challenged the horse to the same contest, believing they would last longer. They didn't.
A Detroit man has come up with a hybrid sport he hopes folks will enjoy on evenings out. A cross between football and bowling called fowling which seems to be fun looking at the video at the link. The name leaves something to be desired though, any ideas for a catchier one?
Posted By: Alex - Sat Jul 25, 2015 -
Comments (6)
Category: Sports
"AN ELEPHANTINE HAZARD — Driving a golf ball from the ear of Jenny, a 12-year-old circus elephant, constitutes real sport for Billy Drews, above, as he shoots a game of miniature golf in New York."
Watch model and competitive eater Nela Zisser eat a 2 lb burrito in one minute and 44 seconds. As I watched, all I kept thinking was, "she's gonna bite off her fingers!"
MATCHING FIGURES — Shapely actress Monique Van Vooren is all set to match strikes and spares with Victoria, the bowling kangaroo, at the opening of a huge new bowling alley in New York. The bowling palace is the newest and largest of its kind in the East.
Paul Di Filippo
Paul has been paid to put weird ideas into fictional form for over thirty years, in his career as a noted science fiction writer. He has recently begun blogging on many curious topics with three fellow writers at The Inferior 4+1.