The What You Remember About Historical Events Off Of The Top Of Your Head Game

[Jared]

The WHAT?

The work of the second-most famous murderer in British history.

Historically it was the first murder within respectable middle-class British society to be utilised as a sensation by the British mass-media thanks to the recent application of Guglielmo Marconi's [then] brand-new wireless telegraph technology, which actually turned out to be key to solving the case. Crippen and his new fiance were on a ship bound for America, disguised very convincingly as a father and his teenaged boy - but the fact that the ship carried a brand new wireless receiver meant that they could be brought to justice whereas before it would have been impossible to catch them.

Prior to this Marconi had actually been on the verge of complete bankruptcy due to multiple spates of bad publicity generated by the Post Master General, Professor Oliver Lodge, noted magician Neville Maskelyne and to a lesser extent Croatia's favourite eeeevil scientist Nikola Tesla - so the murder served to save his business. (A couple of years later the sinking of the Titanic did even more good to his business, so these became Marconi's golden years)

Notably Crippen never actually confessed to the killing and due to the paucity of remains the 'body' (or rather collection of body parts) was extremely difficult to identify. The one break was that Belle Crippen had an appendectomy scar she showed off a lot, and a scar was found in the buried mass of skin. Interesting the remains were preserved and a recent DNA test suggested that the remains weren't those of Belle Crippen at all...

The other interesting detail was that the body was buried under the floor of Crippen's kitchen, yet he continued to live there for about a week after the murder. Several accounts mention a strange smell that the Doctor put down to insufficient ventilation...

I seriously doubt that international members have even slightest clue who that american doctor was or what he did.

Well, I'm an Australian myself, so surely I am an international member?

Also, Disney was such a control freak that he made his employees clock in and out for everything. Even if they just got up to open a window or get a drink of water.

..so they all had a clock at their desks or something? I find that quite cool in it's insanity.

[Bob]

The Vikings found it first.  I forget whether it was Erik Lief or Eric the Red.  But they also discovered Greenland and Iceland and gave them names that were ironic, which confused the daylights out of the guys chasing them.