Historical oddities: from the Amish to a 1901 light bulb

Oddities that History forgot to record

In 1981, someone at the Italian Ministry of Defence decided it was a good idea to pit F-104 Starfighter jets against Formula 1 cars in a 1,000-metre standing-start race on parallel runways at an air base. The Starfighters were already aging and had a terrible fruta for their accident record. The stunt, which sounds like a script for an absurd comedy, is one of the many pieces that make up a collection of historical oddities that has been growing for almost three years and has surpassed 479 contributions.

The material is neither an essay nor a thesis: it is a collective archive of anomalies. From the centennial light bulb at the Livermore fire station, burning since June 18, 1901, with more than a million hours of incandescence by 2015, to the Cabaña Verónica shelter, built from a fragment of an American aircraft carrier high up in the Picos de Europa. The logic of the whole thing is simple: if a historical fact seems made up, it probably deserves to be told.

The Amish and relentless growth

One of the phenomena that draws the most attention is demographic. The Amish population grew from 5,000 people in 1920 to 383,565 in 2023, according to the statistical series cited in the discussion. Sustained growth of 3% to 5% a year for a century, with no significant external conversions. The birth rate and member retention explain almost all of the increase.

Some see in that curve a statistical anomaly, others interpret it as a sociological exception: a community that rejects modern technology but multiplies its population with an efficiency many developed economies would envy.

The Lycurgus Cup and the tonalidad that changes

The Lycurgus Cup, a Roman piece from the 4th century AD, changes tonalidad depending on the light. Seen in normal light, it glows an intense green; backlit, it shines red. The effect is due to gold and silver nanoparticles embedded in the glass, a technology the ancient world mastered without knowing what a nanoparticle was.

The fact is unsettling because it breaks the timeline: the Romans were making materials with optical properties that modern science took centuries to explain. It is not the only case. The cup is preserved and has become one of the most cited objects when it comes to unwitting ancient technology.

The camouflage that fooled the planes

The German battleship Tirpitz was disguised as a block of houses during its fitting-out in 1940. The Dutch minesweeper Abraham Crijnssen dressed up as a jungle-covered island to escape Japanese aircraft in Java in February 1942. The Swedish cruiser Göta Lejon also appears in the series of images with camouflage that looks like a joke today.

The military logic was the same: if you cannot hide, make the enemy unable to recognize what it sees. How effective these tricks were is debatable, but the visual archive they left behind is priceless.

From World War II to immortal cells

The repertoire jumps across eras without warning. HeLa cells, obtained from Henrietta Lacks's cervical cancer, have been reproducing nonstop for more than 70 years. An estimated 20 tonnes of these cells have been produced, and they can be bought without any trouble for research.

The contrast with the wartime oddities is total: from technology built to kill to biology that refuses to die. And in between, the story of the Jaguar company, which started out as Swallow Sidecars and dropped that name during the World War II years because its logo was a problem.

The detail that stuns

The Livermore light bulb is still burning. A camera films it 24 hours a day in case it goes out. It is the perfect counterpoint to an archive that celebrates the unclassifiable: while the industry plans obsolescence, a 60-watt bulb from 1901 refuses to burn out.