I’ll see your Sherlock Holmes bare-knuckle boxing and raise you Edgar Allan Poe as a crime-fighting detective:
ABC has ordered a crime drama where Edger Allen Poe solves mysteries.
I know. It sounds like some kind of dream within a dream. But here’s the official description for Poe: “Crime procedural following Edgar Allan Poe as the world’s very first detective, using unconventional methods to investigate dark mysteries in 1840s Boston.” [Inside TV]
Um, I hate to split hairs when we’re already making gigantic leaps through B.S. to get “depressed alcoholic author solves crimes,” but I think detectives existed before the 1840s. (Update: a commenter confirms this.)
Anyway, if you’re anything like me, you’re thinking, “Hey, wait. Wasn’t Poe from Baltimore?” But no. He was born in Boston and raised in Virginia, and although he was married (to his 13-year-old cousin) and died in Baltimore, he did spend a fair amount of his old life in Beantown. DO NAWT DISRESPECT A MEMBAH OF RED SAWX NATION!
Here’s who did this best:
And while we’re on the subject of old-timey Boston, I wanted to bring up the Boston Molasses Disaster, which is probably my favorite event in American history. From the Wikipedia page:
The Boston Molasses Disaster, also known as the Great Molasses Flood and the Great Boston Molasses Tragedy, occurred on January 15, 1919, in the North End neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts in theUnited States. A large molasses storage tank burst, and a wave of molasses rushed through the streets at an estimated 35 mph (56 km/h), killing 21 and injuring 150. The event has entered local folklore, and residents claim that on hot summer days, the area still smells of molasses.
The disaster occurred at the Purity Distilling Company facility on January 15, 1919, an unusually warm day for January (40˚ F, 4.4˚ C). At the time, molasses was the standard sweetener in the United States. Molasses can also be fermented to produce rum and ethyl alcohol, the active ingredient in other alcoholic beverages and a key component in the manufacturing of munitions at the time…
Near Keany Square, at 529 Commercial Street, a huge molasses tank 50 ft tall, 90 ft in diameter and containing as much as 2,300,000 US gal collapsed. Witnesses stated that as it collapsed, there was a loud rumbling sound, like a machine gun as the rivets shot out of the tank, and that the ground shook as if a train were passing by.
Two-point-three MILLION gallons of molasses! So metal.
The collapse unleashed an immense wave of molasses between 8 and 15 ft (2.5 and 4.5 m) high, moving at 35 mph (56 km/h), and exerting a pressure of 2 ton/ft² (200 kPa). The molasses wave was of sufficient force to break the girders of the adjacent Boston Elevated Railway’s Atlantic Avenue structure and lift a train off the tracks. Nearby, buildings were swept off their foundations and crushed. Several blocks were flooded to a depth of 2 to 3 feet (60 to 90 cm).
The Boston Globe reported that people “were picked up by a rush of air and hurled many feet.” Others had debris hurled at them from the rush of sweet-smelling air. A truck was picked up and hurled into Boston Harbor. Approximately 150 were injured; 21 people and several horses were killed — some were crushed and drowned by the molasses. The wounded included people, horses, and dogs; coughing fits became one of the most common ailments after the initial blast.
Anthony di Stasio, walking homeward with his sisters from the Michelangelo School, was picked up by the wave and carried, tumbling on its crest, almost as though he were surfing. Then he grounded and the molasses rolled him like a pebble as the wave diminished. He heard his mother call his name and couldn’t answer, his throat was so clogged with the smothering goo. He passed out, then opened his eyes to find three of his sisters staring at him.
In conclusion, nothing awesome ever happens any more.
