Old Fall River Road: Fill & Download for Free

This is a super long answer that will take you on a photo tour of history.1.Charming Einstein. CNN article, Einstein and sandals.2.In 1974, a child who first heard a sound with a hearing aid.3.In 1920, U.S. border inspectors stopped refugees from fleeing to Mexico.4.On Sweden's first day of changing traffic rules to right in 1967, all drivers were at a loss what to drive.5.In 1920, a tramp asked King George V of England for money.6.Slimming machines in the 1930s in the United States.7.In 1956, 3.75MB hard disk was removed from Pan Am aircraft.8.In 1955, a father prepared a surprise for the child.9.Austrian children receiving new shoes during World War II.10.One of the earliest photos of the Sphinx in Egypt, taken in 1880.11.In 1944, 18-year-old Norma Jane Mortensen worked in a California factory. Later, she changed her name to "Marilyn Monroe".12.In 1979, Obama took photos with other basketball team members at his alma mater.13.In 1969, Hillary Rodham, who had just graduated from college, changed her name to Hillary Clinton after she got married.14.1958: Elvis Presley in the army.15.In 1944, British distilleries used fighter planes to transport barreled beer to officers and soldiers on the front line.16.In 1975, Vietnam War Orphans were shipped to Los Angeles.17.In 1998, Sudan's civil war killed at least 100 people a day. In MSF's camp, the scrawny boy lines up to get his food, but at this moment is snatched by another man, then strides away…18.In 1932, construction workers rested on steel beams during construction of RCA buildings in New York City.At that time, in the era of the great depression, the unemployment rate was very high, many college students became construction workers, and even six Harvard graduates interviewed for an elevator operator position.19.Hitchcock served tea for the MGM lion. Yes, the one who often appeared at the beginning of a movie.20.On June 17, 1991, a small truck fled from the foot of the eruption of Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines. This is the second largest eruption in the 20th century.21.Soldiers share bananas with lambs during the war, 194422.Tomb of women and husbands of different religions, 1888.23.French little girl kisses American soldiers on Valentine's day, 1945.24.In 1992, Michael vs. Michael. Michael Jordan and Michael Jackson.25.In 1990, Michael Jackson was invited to attend an opening ceremony. The owner who invited him became president of the United States 26 years later. His name is Donald Trump.26.In 1955, customers at the London record store auditioned for records in a soundproof room.27.In 1911, the diving suit developed weighed 250 kg, which was the ancestor of diving suit later.28.In 1994, Bill Gates sat on 330000 pieces of paper with a CD in his hand and told the world:The CD can record more than 330000 pieces of paper.29.Little girl with penguin in zoo, 1937.30.Blind women swimming with guide dogs, 196631.Black kitten waiting for milk, 195432.In 1964, a hotel owner poured sulfuric acid into a swimming pool because he could not tolerate black people swimming in a "clean" pool.33.The last kiss of World War II soldiers before going to sea.34.In 1956, Grace Kelly and Audrey Hepburn were backstage at the Oscars.35.In September 1960, Chiang Kai Shek, who had always been serious in front of the media, put out his tongue to make a face.36.Courts of the Qing Dynasty in China.37.In 1923, the British tested the new bulletproof vest.38.In 1958, elephants were surfing.39.Nuns and children dancing.40.On May 29, 1974, Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai finally shook hands and said goodbye, and Zhou was admitted to the hospital that night.41.A group photo of Mei Lanfang, a master of art in the East, and Chaplin, a master of art in the West.42.In the winter of the late Qing Dynasty, Empress Dowager Cixi enjoyed the snow.43.Pu Yi, the last emperor of China, was being renovated at the Fushun war criminals Management Institute and was sewing his own clothes.44.Girls on the streets of Kabul, Afghanistan in the 1970s45.During the cold war, a West Berlin man kicked the East Berlin police46.The statue of liberty in 1970s47.Former US President Ford, playing traditional games with Japanese Geisha in Tokyo.48.A soldiers of the Royal Guard fainted during a review by Queen Elizabeth II.49.Princess Elizabeth, who served in the army in World War II, later the queen of England.50.The imperial garden of the Qing Dynasty in the 19th century -- Yuanmingyuan.It will soon be destroyed by the British and French invaders.51.In 1944, in order to prevent Hitler from running away in disguise, the Allied forces released this set of pictures of "Hitler's possible disguise".52.Iran, 1960, women in fashion. It's very different from today.53.In 1960, ruby bridges was the first African American to enter a white primary school in the south of the United States.54.In 1947, the 23-year-old woman jumped from the 86th floor of the Empire State Building and smashed into the roof of a car on the street. Strangely, she didn't suffer too much shock. Her death was quiet and elegant, just like sleeping.55.In 1952, the paramount theater in Hollywood, the first color 3D film in history, Bwana devil.56.It was on April 18, 1955, when Einstein left the office with the table set, he died that night.57.In the early 1990s, when AIDS was spreading, a father was comforting his dying son in his hospital bed. The photo, published in the November issue of life in 1990, is widely believed to have changed public awareness of AIDS.58.In Arlington, Texas, in 1991, then President H.W. Bush kicked off for major league baseball.59.In 1963, Arnold Schwarzenegger was in his first bodybuilding competition when he was just 16 years old.60.In 1945, after the capture of Berlin, a Soviet soldier held a statue of Hitler.61.During the first World War, a British photographer shot a trench battle. What was on the night sky was not fireworks, but the light track formed by the mutual firing of mortars.62.Anthony Biddle, a famous Colonel, is a master of unarmed combat. In this picture, he ordered his trainees to stab him with bayonets, but they never did, because he was able to disarm them by himself.63.Many people forget the impact of war on nature and human beings. In this photo, a Russian Reindeer is watching as Hurricane fighters bombard a hillside in Murmansk.64.A group photo of the legendary fighter Ali and the Beatles.65.This photo was taken by Fortune magazine in 1981 and is being discussed by two technology leaders. What are they talking about? Maybe it's the future of technology.66.Titanic before sinking, 705th survivor photographed by RMS Carpathia photographer on board.67.Mark Zuckerberg started Facebook in his dorm when he was a sophomore at Harvard. He looks like he's drunk, and no one knows that the social software will bring him tens of billions of dollars.68.The picture of 1862 shows for the first time the actual operation of the metro train at edgewell Road Station in London. It is only composed of wooden train carriages.69.Stalin made funny moves between the documentary.70.American astronaut Buzz Aldrin may not be the first man to land on the moon, but he is the best self portrait ever taken. Completed the selfie at the Gemini space ship in 1966.Although the length of this answer will be too long, I will continue to add some historical photos, you can choose to continue reading~71.Dubai 22 years transformation.72.1912, test football helmets.73.In 1940, after the London air raid, a young man read in the ruins, the title of the book is "the history of London". Churchill and Rufus were in chatterwell in 1950.74.On August 23, 1989, two million Lithuanians,Latvians and Estonians joined hands to form an adult wall to protest peacefully against Soviet rule.75.1981 LEGO ad.76.In 1965, Hawking married Jane Wilde.76.In 1885, the statue of Liberty was completed in Paris.77.In 1961, Fritz, a TV star bulldog.78.On August 28, 1963, Martin Luther King Jr. made a speech on "I have a dream". it looked at the Washington Monument from the Lincoln Memorial.79.The B-29 bomber flew over Mount Fuji.80.The 14-year-old signed for Manchester United.81.In the 1960s, London, the classic red double decker bus, the little boy crossing the street and his "mini double decker bus".82.In November 1963, de Gaulle attended Kennedy's funeral.83.In 1966, George Lincoln Rockwell, the leader of the US Nazi party, gave a speech in Lafite square near the White House to support the US Army in Vietnam.84.In 1946, the cemetery of Henry chapel in Belgium, where 7992 American soldiers died in World War II were buried.85.In 1968, IGBO soldiers in Nigeria's civil war.86.On May 1, 1919, Lenin gave a speech on International Labor Day in red square.87.In 1918, in front of Grand Central Station in New York, a pyramid was made of helmets of German soldiers.88.In 1965, the man skated in New York Central Park.89.In 1948, the redecorated White House.90.In 1942, the Ukrainian city of Kerch was slaughtered by the Nazis.91.In 1972, Americans were in Vietnam.92.On April 29, 1945, American soldiers found a boxcar full of corpses in DAHAO concentration camp.93.In 1970, old Truman was in his hometown,independence city.94.When Nixon visited China in 1972, he was thinking about how to use chopsticks.95.On September 12, 1953, the Kennedy couple married.96.In 1957, in Berkshire, Elizabeth II drove by herself, carrying Prince Charles and Princess Anne on the road.97.In 1960, the Sydney Opera House was under construction.98.In 1965, the pageos balloon satellite was tested in a airship hangar in North Carolina. It looks like an alien spaceship or a product of the future, with a strong sense of technology.99.In 1971, the men of the Corleone family.The welcome of this answer surprised me!At the same time, a photo causes controversy, and I will replace it.The choice of these photos is random. You can see that they can be "big" or "small". You may find that a picture of a person who influences the world is a life scene. This is what I think of as history - these people, regardless of their influence, are part of history. They will all live in the memory of some people.I am willing to share those most precious memories, and I choose to continue this answer and finally complete it.100.The little actors in the movie Harry Potter, Emma and Rupert.101.The Empire State Building after it was hit by B-25 on July 28, 1945.102.Theodore Roosevelt, the US president who took part in boxing at Harvard.103.In 1956, the Hungarian Revolution.104.In 1992, when the "Rodney king" uprising in Losangeles, South Koreans were defending their homes.105.In 1944, the Royal Albert Hall in London, "a salute to the Red Army".106.Goering in the Nuremberg trial.107.Halloween, 1925.108.In September 1997, outside Kensington Palace, people gave flowers to Princess Diana.109.John browning and his m1917 water-cooled machine gun.110.Kennedy and Johnson were at Cape Canaveral Air Base during the Cuban missile crisis.111.In the spring of Prague in 1968, Soviet tanks entered Czechoslovakia.112.Fidel Castro and the world's first astronaut Yuri Gagarin warmly embraced.113.Castro laid a wreath for Lincoln in Washington.114.In 1980, Spielberg examined the model at the scene of the shooting of "the Raider.".115.Star Wars, Millennium Falcon cockpit.116.Hitler examined the 800mm Gustav super heavy rail gun.117.On the wedding day of Joseph Goebbels, Hitler was his best man. Hitler walked behind the bride and groom in his coat and hat.118.The first picture in space, 1946 after World War II, was taken by some soldiers and scientists with a German V2 rocket equipped with a camera.119.Henry Ford.(Ford founder), Edison(phonograph, camera, light bulb inventor), Warren Harding(29th president of the United States) and Harvey Firestone (founder of Firestone)chat together.120.During World War II, the B-29 super fortress bomber, the "little boy", was hurled over Hiroshima.121.The quagga, a subspecies of the common zebra, died out in the late 19th century. It is the only live burro photographed, London Zoo, 1870.122.This is the cover photo of the Beatles' famous album Abbey Road, right? No, this is a picture of them coming back to the opposite side of the street in the opposite direction.123.In 1962, F1 pilots launched at ultra-low altitude. The pilots survived but suffered multiple fractures.124.Manhattan, 1908.125.On April 12, 1963, Martin Luther King Jr. was arrested in Birmingham for an unauthorized demonstration.126.Before NASA had PowerPoint.127.Fallen man, World Trade Center, 9.11, 2001.128.In 1945, Mona Lisa returned to the Louvre after World War II.129.Memphis, Tennessee, the first Piggly wiggly, opened in 1916, which is the first truly self selected supermarket.130.Around 1930, Mussolini and the Italian Fascist Party headquarters.131.At the end of World War II, the Soviet sniper Lyudmila pavrichenko, who had killed 309 enemies, was the most capable female sniper in history.132.In 1963, John Lennon was at Abbey Road studio.133.In 1943, German soldiers took a break and played with a kitten.134.Staff canteen of Disneyland in 1961.135.The first McDonald's uncle, Willard Scott.136.A steamboat on the Mississippi River in 1907.137.On September 11, 2001, there was no airliner over the United States. They landed at the airport nearby. Many small airports have a lot of large wide bodied airliners parked, and they are waiting for instructions to resume.138.A Japanese plane that was killed in the battle of Saipan in 1944.139.In 1909, Tolstoy told his granddaughter a story.140.California loggers cut redwoods.141.Japanese samurai probably photographed between 1860 and 1880.142.Osama bin Laden, 14, second from the right.143.In 1999, Google employees.144.Churchill went swimming.144.In 1868, a Native American looked down on the newly built first transcontinental railway. Build the statue of Christ in Rio de Janeiro.145.1911 Times Square, New York.146.Che Guevara.147.1944, London, Ronald Dahl and Hemingway.148.1870s, Fiji mountain warrior.149.In 1942, Erwin Rommel, known as "Fox of the desert", was in the western desert of the North African battlefield.150.On April 22, 1970, the first World Earth Day, more than 7000 people gathered in Philadelphia's Independence Square.continue151.In 1947, when the prisoners of war returned to Vienna, a mother was asking for information about her son.152.A worker lies on the arm of a mercury statue at Grand Central Station in New York.153.In 1891, the old Bismarck and his two dogs.154.1940 anti war protesters in Washington, D.C.155.In 1974, a Chinese martial arts delegation visited the United States. Kissinger shook hands with a young man. He later became a Chinese martial arts superstar, Jet Li.156.The crew of the Soviet cruiser "red Caucasus" and its pet bear.157.On May 3, 1963, in Birmingham, the United States, these children were arrested for violating the apartheid law.158.On November 1, 1952, the first nuclear fusion weapon, "Ivy Mack".159.March may 1871, roadblocks in the Paris Commune Movement.160.On July 21, 1937, during the Spanish Civil War, Marina ginesta, a 17-year-old girl who is a member of the Youth Federation of the Communist Party of Spain, overlooks the chaotic Barcelona.161.On New Year's Eve in 1977, Shah of Iran and Jimmy Carter met. Shortly afterwards, a revolution broke out in Iran.162.In 1911, East London police disguised themselves as dockmen in an investigation into drug smuggling.163.Oswald Mosley, leader of the British Federation of fascists, East London, October 4, 1936.164.In 1925, stuntmen Gladys Roy and Ivan Unger played tennis on a flying plane.165.In 1963, Shi Guangde burned himself in South Vietnam to protest against the religious oppression of the South Vietnamese government and the United States.166.In 1914, Brooklyn bridge builders.167.In April 1954, the West Germans released balloons full of propaganda materials to the East.168.In 1935, “big” cats and “small” cat at the zoo in Tacoma, Washington.169.In October 1927, the fifth Solvay conference was held in Brussels, Belgium. This is the most complete photo of the world's heavyweight scientists.the photo includ:The Nobel Prize winners in physics are Lorentz 1902, Curie 1903, Bragg 1915, Planck 1918, Einstein 1921, Bohr 1922, Compton 1927, Heisenberg 1932, Schrodinger 1933, Dirac 1933, Pauli 1945, born 1954. The Nobel Prize in chemistry was awarded to Madame Curie in 1911 and Debye in 1936.170.The three giants of Yalta: Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin.171.Life magazine published on December 2, 1957 has a humorous animal column. At that time, the picture title was "high-income Alpaca in big cities". The note is "Alpaca Linda is driving home on Broadway. She just finished filming a TV show on ABC New York, and now she can relax and stretch her neck to enjoy the lights on the most famous street in the world. "172.It's hard to imagine Soviet soldiers and American soldiers doing so well. After the anti fascist victory in 1945, the Soviet Union and the US army got together.173.In 1985, the guerrillas attacked the Ministry of justice of Bogot á, and even the tanks entered!174.Moscow, 1977. The lights on the tall building make up the "CCCP", which is very spectacular.175.Soviet fashion women in the 1970s.176.In 1961, ham, the first chimpanzee in space, returned to earth.177.Kennedy played "Princess and Prince" with his daughter.178.Around 1935, Ferdinand Porsche showed Hitler the Volkswagen Beetle.179.During the London bombing, St Paul's Cathedral remained intact after an air raid.180.During the 1973 oil crisis, people had a picnic on the highway.181.In 1939, people entered the temporary air raid shelter in Chongqing.182.In 1958, a car theater in the United States broadcast "Ten Commandments".183.In 1943, native people in the Pacific Ocean appreciated the F4U pirate fighter.184.1989, the fall of the Berlin Wall.185.In 1963, American pilots watched a napalm bomb attack from the cockpit in Vietnam.186.In 1990, when Eastern Europe was in chaos, a 106 year old Armenian man defended her house with a gun.187.Windows 95 is available.188."The Last Jew of Vinica," Ukraine, 1942.189.One of the best representatives of the great depression was "wandering mother" in Oklahoma in 1936. Florence Owen Thompson, 32, has seven children.190.In 1945, two Soviet soldiers held up the Soviet flag on the roof of the German parliament building in Berlin.191.In the Nanjing Massacre, which began in 1937, Japanese soldiers killed 300000 people by cruel means.192.In the 2008 Wenchuan earthquake, Chinese soldiers rescued a child from the ruins. This famous picture is called "unite as one, hold up life".193.The opening ceremony of the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games is known as the grandest opening ceremony in history.194.In 1956, an apartheid ice cream shop in Alabama.195.On July 16, 1969, the rocket carrying Apollo 11 broke through the sound barrier.196.In 1945, allied soldiers jeered at Hitler's Nazi gestures on the balcony of the German Chancellor's office.197.In the 1950s, Soviet soldiers fed polar bears in armored vehicles.198.1970s, Los Angeles, the bus to the beach.199.In 1938, Tibetan noble soldiers drinking tea in Suozi armour.200.In 1950, a steam engine passed the Detroit highway.This picture gives us the illusion that two times are combined.201.At the 1936 Berlin Olympic Games, the Hindenburg airship flew over the main venue.202.In 1916, Diana Manas, 24, was called "the beauty of the century".203.In 1924, Lenin and Stalin.204.The cover of Time, May 19, 1980.205.On August 1, 1971, Apollo 15 members placed an aluminum sculpture "fallen astronauts" on the moon in memory of 14 American and Soviet astronauts who died in space flight or training.206.In 1944, the Soviet Union took action in baghlakion.207.On December 7, 1941, after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, New York citizens snapped up newspapers.208.In 1957, the first computer of Norwich City government was transported to the office of the financial department.209.In 1972, IRA fighters opened fire on British troops in Northern Ireland.210.In 1965, a civil rights activist was arrested during a protest in front of the Los Angeles government building.211.In the 1950s and 1960s, American real estate companies began to advertise nuclear bomb hole.212.The Kalinan diamond (star of Africa), discovered in South Africa on January 26, 1905, is the largest natural diamond raw stone to date.Top: raw stone;middle: 9 diamonds after cutting;bottom: glass imitation.213.On December 15, 1941, a week after the Pearl Harbor incident, Ruth Lee, a waitress in a Chinese restaurant, planted the flag of the Republic of China on the beach in Miami to avoid being recognized as a Japanese.214.In 1994, in Rwanda, more than 1.5 million people died in the Holocaust in three months.215.Khmer Rouge, an organized "self extinction".216.Chernobyl in 1981, the most serious nuclear accident in history. Soviet helicopters are throwing sand to bury radioactive dust.217.Tagore, an Indian poet, was the first Asian to win the Nobel Prize for literature.218.Nehru and Gandhi.219.In 1994, friends began broadcasting.220.In January 2007, the first generation of iPhone was released, which opened the "Apple mobile era".221.On July 8, 2011, during the sts-135 mission, the space shuttle Atlantis lifted off, marking the end of the space shuttle era, which lasted for 31 years.222.It's the first picture ever taken in France in 1825. It took eight hours to exposure.end

.Previous answerers have strayed from the conditions of the question, that being facts “about yourself”, thereby eliminating themselves, though I must give honorable mention to those who went all the way to 1000. (Still eliminated.)I’m just narcissistic enough to attempt to answer this question.I am Deputy to the Chief Outlaw of the Bottom Writers™.I’ve been writing on Quora for 15 months.I have 662k answer views.I have 611 answers on Quora.I have 82 questions on Quora.Enough about Quora…more about me! I thought I was a human being.Gigi J Wolf, however, brought it to my attention that I am, in fact, an iguana. At least, I think I am.I did not choose to become an iguana.I had iguananess thrust upon me.I’ve learned to live with it. (Thinking I am an iguana)Udo Andre's answer to When did you realize you were an iguana?Life as an iguana is not so bad, actually. I kinda like it. ‘Course, I like lots of things.I have friends who are raccoons.I am easily distracted.I type with two fingers.Oh I have 10 fingers alright (eight and two thumbs) but I type with two.I also have 10 toes, but they’re useless for typing.Maybe I shouldn’t say that ’cause I’ve never really tried to type with my toes. I just assumed they would be useless.I often assume too much.My 20th fact and already I’m bored. I can only imagine how you must feel.Oh! There’s a mouse! I like mice.I once had a deer mouse steal half a Hershey bar from me up on a mountain.I like mountains.When I was 17 I got arrested for indecent exposure.I told the story in one of my answers…something to do with ‘Were you popular in high school’, or something. You can look it up.I can recite “The Raven” verbatim, from memory. That’s 18 stanzas, 1100 words.I like my Boss, Gigi. She’s a kindred spirit and fellow iguana.I’m scared of spiders.I never jumped out of an airplane, even though I signed up for the 82nd Airborne.Yeah, I was in the service, 1972- 1975.I was put in the ASA (Army Security Agency)Then they booted me out after 15 months ’cause I couldn’t get a Top Secret Security Clearance ’cause I was born in Germany.I was born in Germany.It took the Army 15 months to figure out I was born in Germany thus ineligible for a Top Secret Security Clearance, while all the while doing a job which required it. So I got shipped to Georgia and ran a gym.I got brown eyes.I had an alligator snap at me while I was low-crawling through a swamp in Louisiana during basic training.Oh, yeah, I did my basic training and AIT in Ft. Polk, Louisiana.I didn’t like Louisiana.I didn’t like the Army.I don’t have a favorite color.I lost 300+ pages of a manuscript I was writing years ago when they auctioned off my storage.My storage was auctioned off.See, now that’s 2 different facts, there, OK? I often feel the need to point out the obvious.I wear a size 7 1/2 shoe.I understand German.I can speak German. (See, there again, 2 diff…)I can read German fairly well, but have real trouble writing it.Did I say I was born in Germany? I came to the U.S. when I was just a little kid, is why I have no accent. (I just say that ’cause I know a lot of you are wondering why I have no accent.)I could have gotten 2 facts out of that! I mess up a lot and am too lazy to fix it.Did it again! Two…never mind. I like dogs.I got bit by a squirrel once.I have a picture of my Dad in his uniform. (He fought in WWll)I have a moustache.I didn’t always have a moustache. Duh.I’ve been on a roller coaster.I’m right-handed.But I got a left hand too.I use my left hand exclusively when blowing my nose.I put my pants on one leg at a time.I put my left leg in first. (See, I got 2 out of that one!)I live in a mobile home.I own the mobile home I live in.This mobile home is so hot right now…I’m sweating.I know how to prune roses.I have felled trees.I fell asleep at the wheel once.I woke up behind the wheel bouncing off a guard rail at 60 MPH!I have a red shirt.I’ve had a beard and shaved it off. More than once.(Damn, coulda got 2 on that one!) I like orange juice.I could slalom ski when I was 11 years old.I could run a slalom course at 33 mph, and touch both shoulders to the water. (One at a time at each turn, of course.)I never learned how to turn snow skiing, so I was just a downhill racer. Straight, fast, drop to my side to stop.I really enjoyed water skiing, but was scared shitless most of the time snow skiing- flying down the steep runs.Brussel sprouts make me gag.Oysters make me gag.Gagging makes me hurl sometimes.I loved the high dive.I could do a beauty 1 1/2 off the high dive.I once did a 1 1/2 off a 30 foot cliff. (I used to say it was a 40 foot cliff, but it was really only 30)I’m no big fan of swimming.Most of the swimming I’ve ever done in my life was from where I hit the water back to the diving board.I like rope swings too. (Where you end up in the water.)I jumped off a third story balcony once on a dare.I sprained both my ankles jumping off a third story balcony once.(See what I did there?) I swallowed a goldfish once on a dare.I chugged a half bottle of rum in one breath on a dare.I don’t do dares anymore…I’ve been to Moscow….(Idaho)I’ve gone to rock concerts at George, Washington.I went to Black Sabbath at the Portland Coliseum.I saw Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young in 1969. (My first concert)I saw them again, 30 years later, in 1999. (My last concert.)I like jam sandwiches.I like peanut butter sandwiches.I don’t like peanut butter and jam sandwiches.I put equal amounts of tossed green salad and mashed potatoes on my fork and eat them together.I’ve had my tonsils out.I caught my Dad drinking a beer with Santa Claus.I think anyone who has read these last 100 facts is nuttier than I am.I need to shorten these up some. I’m 5′ 4″ tall.I make up my own short jokes.I am single.I am divorced.I had a wife and I had a best friend. Now they have each other.I have been non-functional for a period of time.I have spent a few days in the psyche ward at Harborview.I have had my .38 revolver confiscated by the police.I got it back.They took it again…I got it back a second time.I’ve seen Bald Eagles up close.I like ice cream.I’m willing to pay the extra to get real German beer.I’ve been stuck in the mud.I sleep sometimes, but not a lot.I’m 63 years old.I’ll be 64 in October. (Wait, that’s not a fact, is it?) If I live til October, I’ll be 64.I may not live ’til October.I am in end stage COPD.I’m on oxygen 24/7.I smoked cigarettes for over 40 years.I quit smoking 4 years ago.I wish I had never started. (smoking)I can quote “Hamlet’s Soliloquy” verbatim.I pee standing up.I’ve peed in the woods.I’ve peed in the ocean.I’ve peed in places I shouldn’t have peed.I used to run. Not anymore.As the weeks go by, it gets harder to breathe.I use my nebulizer 3 or 4 times a day.I fill it with Ipatropium Bromide and Albuterol Sulfate solution.I take Theophylline every day.I take Amlodipine every day.I take Metformin every day.I take furosemide every day.I take Potassium CL every day.I take Incruse Ellipta every day.I take Advair every day.I don’t have as fun much as I used to have…every day.A bear shit in my campfire pit one time.I am guilty of involuntary bear-bopping.I drink milk.I once got drunk and ate a batch of chocolate covered smelt.I once threw up chocolate covered smelt.I no longer cover my smelt in chocolate.I smell smells.I hear sounds.I used to hold my breath underwater for one minute.Have come to the conclusion that being on oxygen sucks.Tried to go without for a while…sucked waaay more.I have written several poems.I was elected “Mr. Firefly” in high school.I was also ASB Vice-President, Kelso High.I headed the project to construct a giant “K” on Starlight Hill in Kelso in 1972. It’s still there. You can see it from I-5.(Those three only count as one) I have a pulse.I know CPR.I watched Mt. St. Helens erupt from the roof of my house. (It didn’t erupt from the roof of my house, that’s just where I watched it from.)I met Pres. Jimmy Carter when he came out here after the eruption to see what all the hub bub was about. (Well, met for like 3 seconds)I have a cell phone.I used to collect the eggs from my Dad’s chicken coup.A couple times he let me chop off a chicken’s head and watch it run around headless.It was fun, but then I had to pluck the damn thing before Mom would take over.I like a good Mai Tai.I’ve climbed to the top of Diamond Head. More than once.I have smoked pot. A lot of pot. A whole…what was I saying?First time I smoked pot I was 15 years old.I have smoked pot that came from Columbia, Mexico, Thailand, Jamaica, Afghanistan, U.S.A. and my own grow room. (Geez, I could have gotten a lot out of that one!)I’ve been busted for smoking pot.Best pot I ever smoked was Kentucky Bluegrass I got from an Army buddy back in Georgia, ‘74. Second best- the real Kush from Kush mountains in Afghanistan. [before the California green bud started the American market] Right close behind that would be the original Hawaiian Sinsemia. Oh so sweet and…hey…I got carried away!Should I be telling you all this? I’m a night owl.I love hiking through the woods at night with a flashlight, looking for ‘eyes’.One night my son and I spotted what we thought might be a deer, but when we got closer, we saw it had 3 eyes! Never saw the ‘thing’, just the 3 eyes….spooky.He and I once had Bigfoot throw rocks at us. (Hey, I know, you want facts. But this is very likely a ‘fact’) See: Udo Andre's answer to Do you believe that Sasquatch still exists? Well, something threw rocks at me.I have volunteered for a staff position at Hempfest for the last 5 years running. Gonna do it again, one last time, if physically able. 8/17–19.Damn, 2 again! I used to climb trees.I’ve taken showers.I wear socks when I have to.I have eaten bananas.I know how to count.I can keep my answers short if I really apply myself. But I gotta really make an effort ’cause sometimes it just takes words and then more words to make myself understood. Understand?I’m really straining under the conditions of this question.I drink water.I can make bacon and eggs.I’m bigger than I was when I was little.Still, I cannot dunk a basketball.I played football.I play guitar.I can play “The Ballad of John and Yoko.”I have studied philosophy.I have studied psychology.I have studied history.I have studied comparative religions.I have studied physics.I have studied math.I have studied English.I had a dog named Yoda.I sang in a choir.I watch TV.After every 200 facts about myself that I type out I need a break. Oooooooh, I need a break.zzzzzzzzzz. I’ve worn a Stetson.I prefer coconut leaf headbands. I weave them myself.I have woven hundreds and hundreds of headbands and given them away.I’ve been to Hawai’i over 20 times.I was the self-appointed Beach Master of Waikiki.I would lay on the beach for a month at a time.I would build sandcastles and sand beach signs every day.I have broadcast NFL playoff games on the beach. Hawaiian style.(Changing the number on my beach signs after each score.)I have broadcast over 10 Super Bowls from Waikiki Beach.I know how to talk.I know how to ride a bike.I saw a wolverine in the wild.I use underarm deodorant.I am the unofficial World Record holder, having picked up 20,001 cigarette butts off the beach in 30 days.I have picked up an average of about 700 cigarette butts off Waikiki Beach every day for a month.I have picked up over 300,000 cigarette butts off Waikiki Beach.There are 1000’s of pictures of me and my beach signs on every continent in the world, except Antarctica. (Maybe Antarctica, too,…no I doubt it.)218. I get free boat rides on the Kepoikai II.219. I get free Mai Tai’s on the boat.220. I swam with a shark.221. I swam with a sea turtle.222. I swam with a rubber ducky.223. I have picked my nose.224. I’ve seen the world famous ‘Wolphin’. (A cross between a killer whale and a dolphin.)225. I have never dyed my hair.226. I have had a bat in my hair.227. I have batted at a hairy bat.228. I have sneezed more than once.229. I have hidden quartz crystals all around the base of Manoa Falls and watched the kids find them. (For years)230. I was dared to surf the big waves at the Pipeline, North Shore. (Took one look and said, “You fuckin’ crazy!”)231. I’ve been to the Polynesian Cultural Center many times. (It’s where I learned to weave headbands from coconut leaves.) Doh! 2!232. I took Ukulele lessons.233. I took Hula lessons with my son.234. I decided to keep my day job.235. I know and am known by most of the street performers on Kalakaua Ave.236. I’m an inch taller than Nikita Khrushchev was.237. I’m an inch shorter than Vladimir Lenin was.238. I found a trumpet fish in the surf one day.239. I had a trumpet fish on my beach display for most of a day. (Until I got complaints about the smell.)240. I spread my Dad’s ashes on Waikiki Beach.241. I spread my Mom’s ashes on Waikiki Beach.242. I have smelt-dipped in the Cowlitz River.243. I have stacked a 17 rock totem.244. I can recite Nietzsche’s “Genius of the Heart” verbatim.245. I I have picked strawberries for a living. [When I was just a kid.]246. I have done some ‘cow-tipping’.247. I went on a volcano tour on the Big Island.248. I’ve seen Rainbow Falls.249. I’ve seen Kilauea.250. I have caved the Thurston Lava Tube.251. I have hiked far enough into the tropical jungles to get lost.252. I have been happier coming out of a tropical jungle than going in.253. I have fallen asleep floating on an air mattress and wound up almost in the shipping lanes.254. I was rescued by the K-II catamaran but not allowed on board. Got towed in as punishment. (another 2, grrr.)255. I have been to more than 10 NFL Pro Bowls.256. I have met dozens and dozens of All-Star NFL players.257. I caught a pass thrown by Dave Krieg on the beach.258. I retrieved a volleyball and handed it back to Thurman Thomas.259. I like iced Frappuccino.260. I had a praying mantis named Rabbi Bob.261. I kept Rabbi Bob in a cage with a mirror which I labeled‘The Wailing Wall.’262. I bought my 1st house in 1976.263. I paid $38,000 for my 1st house.264. I lost a shoe once.265. I was on a liverwurst and pickle sandwich kick for a while.266. I hated spinach as a kid, now I love it.267. I walked from Manoa Falls to the Royal Kuhio, once.268. I found a sea urchin in the surf at Waikiki Beach.269. I had a sea urchin on my beach display.270. A rogue wave took my sea urchin away while I was out getting a shave ice one time.271. I used to sit behind my beach display and throw seashells into the surf so I could watch the tourists chase after them.272. I made palm trees out of twigs and seaweed for my beach display.273. I made faces out of shells.274. Every “Last Day” before going home I would turn over my beach display to a new worthy ‘Beachmaster’. (The kid would have the biggest smile on the beach, every time.)275. My main job was to ‘spread the Aloha’. And I took my job seriously.276. I came in 2nd place at a Hawaiian food eating contest one time.277. I go barefoot whenever I can.278. I believe in ‘Grounding.’279. I fell asleep standing up once.280. I woke up falling down once.281. I woke up at 3:00 A.M., in the passenger seat of my truck once, crashing through small trees going down over a cliff…my wife asleep behind the wheel.282. I ate half a watermelon once.283. I used to roller skate.284. I’ve played “Mensch Argere Dich Nicht.”285. I would find the best shells for my beach display way down by the Hilton at my secret spot.286. While down there I would feed the little fishies in the lagoon that contained ‘Gilligan’s Island.’287. I had to cancel a trip to the Big Island once, ’cause it was flooded.288. Each time I went to Hanauma Bay, I would go to the pkg. lot at 1:00, wait for the Japanese tour bus, then when they came off the bus and tossed their meal containers in the trash, I would ferret some out. Most never ate the fish. I would gorge myself before returning to the bay.289. I had more fun at the restricted area known as the ‘Toilet Bowl’ than at the Bay itself.290. Rode all the way to Hanauma Bay from Waikiki on a moped once, only to have to turn around and go back. Bay closed due to jellyfish.291. I’ve been to Sea Life Park on the North Shore more than once.292. I have pulled my own teeth when I was a kid. Later on, I had an adult do it.293. I prefer roll-on underarm deodorant to the spray kind.294. I shave with a 4-blade razor.295. I had more hair when I was younger.296. And it was blonder. (Blonder?) Aw, you know what I mean.297. I’m far-sighted and need reading glasses.298. I buy reading glasses at the Dollar Store.299. I’ve changed my pants.300. I’m gonna need to cut my fingernails before I get to #1000.Thought I would start over counting after every 300 so it won’t seem like so much. I play games in my own mind, with my own mind.When asked to come up with a joke on my own, never having heard it before, I thought for a minute then said, “What does 3 day old Crack look like? Answer: No one knows.”When asked to use the word ‘pathos’ in a sentence, I wrote:”Pathos oythers, Ma, them’s good!”I graduated from Kelso high in 1972.I got an A.A. degree 13 years later.I got married on Waikiki Beach.I was together with my wife for 20 years.I have a 38 year old son…wait…38? OMG!I was 38 years old.When I was 38 years old I owned my own business.Life was good. (at 38) [For a year.]I’ve seen a rainbow.I’ve seen a double rainbow.I know a rainbow does not have purple in it. Nope.I like rainbows anyway.I got up at 4:15 A.M. to start building my last beach sign of the year. It was 20 feet long.I put 10 plumeria leis on the sign.I put 10 of my best headbands on the sign.I left 30 ‘Homies’ on the sign, all for the next Beachmaster.I spent over 5 hours making the sign. It said, “New Beachmaster Wanted” and “I gotta go. Aloha and Mahalo”.I took video of the ritual of me turning over Beachmaster duties to this 13 year old kid from Australia.I got a sitting ovation and cheers from the Malahinis present for the ceremony.The K-II crew kept replenishing my Mai Tai’s to the point that I was sloppy drunk by the time I hit the airport.I had encounters with 4 separate security guards over 4 separate incidences at the airport before my flight.I have video of 3 of them.I was escorted onto the plane by an overly friendly female security guard.I haven’t been back since.I saw 2 mongooses (mongeese?) trapped in a bunker on top of Diamond Head.I crawled through the opening and dropped 4 feet to the floor to get better pictures of them.After my wife stopped screaming, I decided it probably wasn’t such a great idea. I scrambled out.Didn’t get a scratch from the mongooses but had some bruises from the inevitable domestic violence attack I suffered.I snuck into a restricted area along a razor-back ridge on Diamond Head and had my picture taken standing on a small cement platform, arms outstretched, hundreds of feet down on three sides, Waikiki in the background.I had a poster made from the picture.Probably should have wrote this good stuff earlier, by now there’s only two people still reading this. I know how to read.(See what I did there? Still got my fact in!) I have a knife.I like smelt ’cause you don’t have to clean them.I eat turkey on Thanksgiving.I eat horse at Christmas.In between, I eat whatever is available.I like lentils soup.I dislike pea soup.I gag when I eat pea soup. And you know what happens when I gag, if you’ve been paying attention.My mom had a sister that I called Tante. Yeah, Tante Trudy.I have a cousin named John. (Tante Trudy’s kid.)I considered John my best friend growing up together.Did I mention, I’m an only child?I’m not going back through to see if I mentioned that. I know how to dance.I have a black leather jacket.I’ve been bitten by a Hobo spider.I don’t wear most of the clothes I have in my closet.I’ve never realized how tiring it is to talk incessantly about myself.I do now….I have a scar.I got 3 stitches in my head from a bike wreck when I was 10.I got 5 stitches in my head from a car wreck when I was 16.I totaled by beautiful 1958 Triumph TR-3.I had a ’69 Mustang Mach 1.I build square campfire pits, just to be different.I got stranded on what turned out to be a small island during a flash flood.I got stuck climbing a rock wall. Had to back down as it starting raining.I almost died on that wall more than once.I camped under a mountain lion high up in a tree.Found out a mountain lion was high up in a tree when, after several hours, after dark, it leaped down and ran through our campsite. I learned I could scream like a schoolgirl.I learned 4-part schoolgirl screaming harmony with my fellow campers one night.I collect turds. Udo Andre's answer to What is something unusual that you collect as a hobby?I have watched “The Wizard of Oz” more than once.I like French cut green beans.I can make sound come out of my mouth.I used to customize my cell phone ringer. Now…not so muchI use Germ X hand sanitizer.When I was in Junior high I wore ascots.And Beatle Boots.And tight stretchy jeans.I can do that, right? List different apparel separately? I have a belly button.I sometimes wear a belt below it.I write on paper with all capital letters.I have never been in a helicopter.My hat size is the same as my shoe size- 7 1/2.How ’bout that? I think too much.I thought I knew what I thought…now I’m not so sure.I have a large DVD collection.I never watch DVDs anymore.I have shoes I never wear anymore.I know if I throw them away, the next day I will have occasion to wear a pair…and they’ll be gone.I have a sneaky suspicion that I will be the only one reading this.Still, I refuse to proof read this for editing purposes.My veins are blue.My blood is red.Why is that? I cough sometimes.I am having second thoughts about this endeavor.But I am stubborn.I have been to St. Francis hospital twice this year.My dog had puppies once.I have been so hopelessly lost in the woods I ended up spending the night huddled under a tree in the rain.Next day I found out I was only about 100 feet from a trail that would take me out.I have been both happy and pissed at the same time.I have a sliding glass door that sticks sometimes.I never used to lock my doors at night, now I do.I had an hysterical girl burst through my door one night and run to my bathroom and wouldn’t come out.I have roses that are blooming right now.I need to take another break…My nose itches sometimes.zzzzzzzzzz. I usually don’t hear my alarm lock.I had a ’67 Camaro RS.I blew the transmission doing cookies at the beach at my graduation party.I drove from Long Beach to Kelso in a ’67 Camaro RS in first gear.I got a flat tire on a mountain road, then blew out my spare a couple miles later.I drove almost 10 miles on the rim and took pictures when I got back to civilization.I had a tire come off completely on a Subaru one time.I had a landscape trailer come unhitched going down a hill once. It passed by me and crossed an intersection. Good times.I have used Comet cleanser for over 50 years.I really miss plain flavored Doritos tortilla chips.I like marshmallows roasted over a campfire.I drink one cup of coffee a day.I used to drink a pot of coffee a day.I like toilet paper. I think it comes in handy.I think 5-Hour Energy drinks are better than Meth.I’ve had Morphine and was glad to have it.I have a football helmet autographed by Matt Hasselbeck, meh.I used to have a red ’69 Triumph GT 6+. Can’t remember what happened to it…I painted a roadrunner on my Dad’s ’58 VW. with house paint!I used to burn incense.I had a pamphlet of poetry called “Moments in the Life of” printed and copyrighted back in 1974.I had a kitten named ‘Socks” (For obvious reason)I performed surgery on an iguana for a local pet shop back in the ’80’s. Also nursed other lizards back to health.I invented the extraordinary drink I coined, The Mai Papaya Tai.I have a cordless mouse.I occasionally use “Mane ’N Tail” horse shampoo. I find it works better than the stuff meant for humans.I have used stale beer as a conditioner.I have more Tee-shirts than regular shirts.Most of my Tee-shirts were bought in Hawai’i.My favorite juice is grape juice.I like pineapples. Especially soaked in Mai Tai’s.Luddens Honey-Licorice cough drops are my favorite.I have ridden a horse.I have ridden a mule.I have been attacked by a beaver. (True story!)I have encountered many bears in the wilds. Only bopped one. (On the nose)I have caught trout.I have caught salmon.I have caught steelhead.I have caught sharks. (Dogfish)I have caught flounders.I have caught bass.I have caught many snags.I have caught cold.I have dug razor clams.I have dug giant gooey-duck clams.I have dug oysters.I have dug steamer clams.I have dug holes.I have found starfish.I have found crabs.I have found wallets.I found a gun.I found a robin’s nest.I found my Mom’s keys in her freezer.I found a ten dollar bill in the surf.I found an unexplored cave. (Now known as the Udo Tube.)I found a Sand Boa at Mt. St. Helens.I found scorpions at Mt. St. Helens.I found a silver dollar on a Reno street.I found many a lost hiker.I found a six pack of beer in a dumpster.I found a a pair of sunglasses once.I found a map showing the way to Bat cave while out in the lava flows….looking for Bat cave!I found a neck chain with a crystal on it that the guy I was digging crystals with had lost the year before!I found a baby deer hunkered down in the brush.I found another baby deer not 20 feet away. No Mama in sight.I found a camcorder at the bottom of a cave sinkhole.I found the skull of a cougar hanging in a tree.I found a nest of ground hornets…and wish I hadn’t.I found my hemp wristband in the surf after having lost it in the ocean the day before.I found a broken fin from a surfboard and stuck it in the sand by my beach sign. Looked just like a shark fin.I even found a foundry. (Or the remnants of one) deep in the woods at Snoqualmie Pass.Looking for more filler…I still have a record album collectionI have the original Beatles ‘Butcher Cover” album.I have the original 1st Beatles album, “Please Please Me” on Parlophone , 1963.I have the “With the Beatles” album, ‘63.I have the “Beatles for Sale” album, ‘64.I have the “Help” album.I have the “A Hard Days Night” albumI have the “Rubber Soul” album.I have the “Revolver” album.I have the ‘Magical Mystery Tour” album.I have the “Sgt. Pepper’s” album.I have the “Yellow Submarine” album.I have the “White Album”.I also have the “White Album” in white vinyl.I have the “Abby Road” album.I have the “Let It Be” album.I have the Beatles’ “Red Album”.I have the Beatles’ “Blue Album”.I have the “Beatles at Hollywood Bowl” album.I have the 3 “Anthology” albums.I have the “Let It Be…Naked” album.Now, let’s see…Paul McCartney albums…oh hell, I got a shitload of Paul McCartney albums.I got a bunch of John Lennon albums. (His 1st 3 were the best.John Lennon was my favorite Beatle.I got a couple George Harrison albums.I have 1 Ringo Starr album.OMG, I’m only halfway thru! You know, let’s just split this in half. This was the first half…like the “A” side. Now for the 2nd half, the “B” side. Just flash scroll through the next 500 to the end. (See I’m optimistic that I’ll make it to the end.) so…I’m optimistic.That little fish dangling from my headband is a water finder. I made them for headbands and programmed them to find water. Just align it directly ahead in front of you and follow it in a straight line. It is guaranteed to lead to water, no matter what direction you go. (You are, after all, on an island!)I taught many kids (and adults) how to weave coconut leaf headbands on Kalakaua Ave.I can say “Peggy Babcock” five times fast. (Can you?)I have spit in the ocean.I like bananas.I snorkeled in Hanauma Bay.I swam with a moray eel.I got sunburnt on a cloudy day.I saw whales spouting.I have used palm fronds to guide the boats in.I know how to play “Hands and Foot”.I’ve gone to church.I’ve gone to Temple.I’ve gone to an Ashram.I’ve been an agnostic atheist for as long as I can remember.I know how to peel an orange.I’ve traveled on a bus.I’ve traveled on a train.I’ve been trained to kill.And I’ve bussed tables.I have worked at “Skippers”.I used to have a hedgehog.I have thrown a grenade.I have been homeless.I have lived in my truck.I have lived in the woods.I have fired a belt-fed M-1 machine gun.I have planted trees.I have tended my own garden.I have raised praying mantis’ from the egg.I can take an M-16 completely apart and put it back together…blindfolded.I used to raise Pythons. (From the eggs.)I used to raise Boas. (From the pups)I used to raise a variety of snakes.I have helped build a fireplace, brick by brick.I used to have a Fiat Spyder.I used to have a Lincoln Continental with suicide doors.I drove a Lincoln Continental from Massachusetts to Georgia.I have raised iguanas. My favorite was a 4-footer named Gandalf.I had a Nile Monitor named Alice.I had a Burmese Python named Fluffy.I had a Reticulated Python named Monty.I have raised Tokay Geckos.I have raised Legless Lizards.I had a Legless Lizard named Legolas.I used to have a 1-ton truck with a hydraulic lift.I’ve had several chameleons over the years.Chameleons were my favorite lizards.I would take a chameleon on a stick out to the yard and let him pluck spiders right out of their webs.Did I mention I’m afraid of spiders? I had a roommate who had a tarantula.I had an opossum. It ate my roommate's tarantula.For a long time, my opossum was my favorite pet.I’ve been gassed.I’m a good pool shooter.I played pool in a league.I know how to hop on one foot.I used to raise rabbits to feed my snakes.I used to raise guinea pigs. Sometimes to feed my snakes.I used to raise chinchillas. (NO, not to feed my snakes!)I had a Degu named Frodo.I have been to Reno.I have been to Lake Tahoe.I have set up tent cities in IndianaI have been to New York city 3 times.I have raised skinks.I used to have a millipede named Sauron.I have had walking sticks. (Phasmatodea)I have carved walking sticks for various people.I know how to bowl.I know how to play foosball.I have picked beans.I can run a forklift.I operated an inductive welder for the Weyerhaeuser High Tech Center.I have worked in a warehouse.I have mowed lawns for a living.At one time the business I owned ran three landscaping crews.I worked in a grocery store as a checker.I was a Produce Manager.I worked in a Pres-to log plant.I chew my food.I don’t like sipping through a straw.I can stand on my head.I have had an earache.I was a pirate for Halloween once.I have sold portraits, door to door.I worked with the developmentally disabled for 5 years.I played clarinet in junior high.I had an Amway business.I played ‘kick the can’ when I was a kid.I move through the air when I walk.I have seen the moon through a telescope.I have seen Jupiter through a telescope.I have seen 4 moons of Jupiter through a telescope.I have seen Mars through a telescope.I have seen Venus through a telescope.I have seen a telescope get run over by a truck backing up.I like Whoppers. (the hamburger)I like Whoppers. (the candy)I tried playing the mandolin, without much success.I need to take another break. I like lemon-aid.zzzzzzzz. I try blowing my nose while squeezing it tight in order to pop my ears.I like broccoli when it’s cooked right.I have smiled in the past.I have had sex probably around 10,000 times.After never having seen an episode for 14 years I binged watched 14 years of ‘Grey’s Anatomy’.I have never seen an entire episode of “Friends”.“St. John Green” is one of my favorite albums.I was spanked as a child.I have a C,S,N,&Y record collection. (And, no, I will not list them all, Tsk.)I have Led Zeppelin albums.I have Grand Funk albums.I have Jimi Hendrix albums.I have Janis Joplin albums.I have Doors albums.I have 4 Black Sabbath albums. (1st 4, the rest, meh.)I have an extensive Simon and Garfunkel album collection.I have an extensive Paul Simon album collection.I have 1 Art Garfunkel album.I have The Animals albums.I have Edgar Winters and White Trash albums.I have James Gang albums.I have Eva Cassidy albums.I think Eva Cassidy’s version of “Over the Rainbow” is one off the best.I love Eva’s blues songs. Such heartfelt vocals.I still mourn her loss. To die in her 30’s from cancer when she was just starting a promising career is so tragic.I’ve played marbles.I can open my mouth without even trying. (Yawn…)I have a reflection in a mirror.I have a left hand at the end of one of my arms. Did I mention that before? I can do pull-ups.I once threw out an anchor whose rope was not attached to the boat.I was once yelled at by my Dad. (For throwing out an anchor that was not attached to the boat.)I get excited when that little bell on the fishing pole rings.I don’t eat at Taco Bell.I have fasted…involuntarily.I have climbed mountains and slid down the other side.I have climbed up Rockhound Gulch in the snow in just under 4 hours.I have slid down Rockhound Gulch in the snow in just under 6 minutes.I have seen things no one else has ever seen.I can close my eyes.I have a brain that I have never seen.My fingernails are not really nails.I have eyelashes.I have eyebrows which I do not pluck.I have many Ivan Rebroff albums.Ivan Rebroff is my favorite vocalist. I believe he had the greatest vocal range of any singer, ever. From F1 to A5, that’s 4 1/2 octaves!I have Ozark Mountain Daredevils albums.I have Arlo Guthrie albums.I have Traffic albums.I have Yes albums.I have Nilsson albums.Harry Nilsson is one of my favorite singers. (What a voice!)I have The Bobs albums.I have Steppenwolf albums.I have gotten lost in Boston.Oh, I have Boston albums.I have Bob Dylan albums.I have Pete Seeger albums.I have The Who albums.I have The Guess Who albums.One of my favorite songs is “Friends of Mine” by The Guess Who.I have National Lampoon albums.I have Pink Floyd albums.I have The Rolling Stones albums.One of my favorite albums is “Also Sprach Zarathustra” by Eugene Ormandy and the Philadelphia Orchestra.I have B.B. King albums.I have Howling Wolf albums.I have Stevie Ray Vaughan albums.I have Silver Apples albums.I have Ted Hawkins albums.I have Leonard Cohen albums.One of my favorite songs is “Hallelujah” by Leonard Cohen. Although, Jeff Buckley’s version certainly rivals it.I have Jeff Buckley albums.I have Joni Mitchell albums.I have Linda Ronstadt albums.I have Billie Holiday albums.I have Etta James albums.I have Black Fooss albumsI have Fever Tree albums.I have Sonny and Cher albums. (Yes, I have Sonny and Cher albums…Got a problem with that?)I have The Monkees albums.I have Ted Nugent and the Amboy Dukes albums.I have 1 Olivia Newton John album.I have Beach Boys albums.I have Little Feat albums.I have many, many Grateful Dead albums.I have Stephen Stills albums.I have Neil Young albums.I have Joe Walsh albums.I have The Eagles albums.I have Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention albums.I have Lynyrd Skynyrd albums.I have Doobie Brothers albums.I have Allman Brothers albums.I have the Zombies albums.I have Zager and Evans albums.I have Ten Years After albums.I have Pacific, Gas and Electric albums.I have Emerson, Lake and Palmer albums.I have Frijid Pink albums.I have Iron Butterfly albums.I have It’s A Beautiful Day albums.I can float.I have Queen albums.I have Randy Newman albums.I have Rick Wakeman albums.I have Cazimero Brothers albums.I have The Band albums.I have Jerry Garcia albums.I have The Turtles albums.I have Lydia Lunch albums.I have Uriah Heep albums.I have The Youngbloods albums.I have The Rascals albums.I can touch my ear with my index finger.I have Bob Marley albums.I have 1 Badfinger album.I have Chicago albums.I have Dion albums.I have Country Joe and the Fish albums.I have The Cowsills albums.I have Cream albums.I have Eric Clapton albums.I have Electric Light Orchestra albums.I have many Cat Stevens albums.I have Elton John albums.I have Peter, Paul and Mary albums.I have Smothers Brothers albums.I have David Bowie albums.I have David Essex albums.I have The Electric Flag albums.I can burp.I have 1 John Denver album.I have 1 Genesis album.I have 1 10,000 Maniacs album.I have 1 Kansas album.I have 1 Rush album.I have 1 Montrose album.I have 1 Metallica album.I have 1 Thunderclap Newman album.I have 1 Michael Jackson album. (Yeah, Thriller)I have 1 Hayseed Dixies album.I have 1 Tiger album.I have 1 AC/DC album.I have 2 knees….and they both bend.I can close one eye at a time. Or both at once.I can blink. You see, that’s different. No? Oh, I have cleaned my ears.I used to put together models of dinosaurs.I like doing crossword puzzles.I like putting together jig saw puzzles.I have dusted the furniture before.I waxed and buffed floors in the Army.I can bluff when playing poker.I often win at Blackjack.I have won money on a slot machine.I have been escorted out of a pizza parlor.I have painted a house.I have mixed cement.I have mixed paint and painted cement.(Damn, there was 2 again!) I sit on the toilet when I think I have to.I do not believe in your God.I am extremely doubtful that anyone has read all the prior facts about myself, yet continue on. (Did I mention I was stubborn?) I can write words.I am alive. And just hope I can say the same a year from now.I have had a pimple.I have had a zit.I have had a rash.I swam across the Cowlitz river.I have soaked in the Goldmeyer Hot Springs.I can whistle.I can whistle “Winchester Cathedral.”I can play a kazoo.I can play “Deal” by Jerry Garcia on the guitar.I like coleslaw.I have a specimen of coal in my rock/mineral collection.I turn bananas upside down to peel them.I can make soft boiled eggs.I can make hard boiled eggs.Sometimes, when I make soft boiled eggs, I wind up making hard boiled eggs. Go figure.I like scrambled eggs.I like scrambled egg sandwiches.I like scrambled egg sandwiches with mayonnaise. (Does that count?) No?I drink tea.I have jumped into a quarry.I got bit by a goose.I have had a black eye.In first grade I sang “Oh Tannenbaum” in German in front of the whole school. I was a rock star.I have peed my pants without even intending to.I have rappelled over 100 feet.I gave money to a beggar.I have begged for money.I have been bit by a dog.I have been bit by a cat.I have never been bit by a snake.I know some Roman numerals.I have been to the Kehlsteinhaus, (Hitler’s ‘Eagles Nest’) in Berchtesgaden.I have seen the ‘Spear of Destiny’ in the Hofburg museum in Vienna.I have seen the Eiffel Tower.I have strolled the ‘Champs Elysees’.I have seen the castles along the Rhine river.I have walked the spiral stairs to the top of Cologne’s Kolner Dom.I was an honorary member of the Rhein Armee.I got drunk in a bar in Dusseldorf.I have passed through Berlin.I have seen Mozart’s tomb. (More than one of them.)I have gotten drunk in the biggest beer hall in the world. (In Munich)I have worn Lederhosen.I have a picture of me standing in front of the biggest free swinging bell on earth.I rode a donkey to the top of the Drachenfels.I have smoked a real Cuban cigar on a train.I went to a carnival in Vienna.I have had my head shaved.I used to be 18 years old. My whole life ahead of me.I have been to a zoo in Germany.I have been to a zoo in Portland, Oregon.I have been to a zoo in Honolulu, Hawai’i.I have been to a zoo in Tacoma, Washington.I much prefer Northwest Trek Wildlife Park, where the people are in cages and the animals run free.I have chewed gum in my life.I saw two porcupines up in a tree once.I came face to face with a porcupine in a tight crawlway in a cave once. I crawled backward and did a somersault coming out. (Got video.)I have seen a Nene goose in the wild.I have both an upper lip AND a lower lip. (I know, huh?)I can bounce a basketball.I played ‘army’ when I was a kid, then later on, for real…not much fun.I recovered my own fumble in a junior high football game.I have gone deep into the woods for days on end, by myself.I have never tasted a simple cheeseburger as good as one after coming out of the woods for days on end.I have laughed in my life.I have seen ‘treeples’.I have squished a cockroach.When playing baseball I catch with my left hand, but I throw with my right. (I think it has something to do with the mitt.)I got laid at my high school graduation party.I like popcorn.When I have an itch, I scratch it if I can.I have scratched another person’s itch before.I had a truck catch on fire before.I had a girlfriend once who took off her pants so that she could fill them with concretions to get them back to camp. (True story)I can recite “Behold the Hippopotamus” by Ogden Nash, verbatim.I was in a few plays in high school. Even played the lead in one. As ‘Malvin Larkfield’ in “Caught in the Villain’s Web.” Yeah.I have fallen off a riding lawnmower.I have fallen off a roof with a backpack blower on my back.I have fallen on my butt trying to learn how to ice skate.I have fallen off a tree.I have fallen into trees, from off a cliff. (Yeah, Rambo style)I have fallen into sleep without even trying.I have fallen for more than one girl. (Again, without even trying)I have explored over 70 caves (lava tubes) on Mt. St. Helens. I will not list them all here.I have explored Ape Cave.I have explored Ole’s Cave.I have explored Lake Cave.I have explored Little Red River Cave.I have explored Gremlin Cave.I have explored Little People’s Cave.I have explored Flow Cave.I have explored Spider Cave.I have explored Bat Cave.I have explored Beaver Cave.I have explored Prince Albert Cave.I have explored Dollar and a Dime Cave.I have explored Hunter’s Cave.I have explored Trail Cave.I have explored The Pillars of Hercules Cave.I have explored Indecision Cave.I have explores Thermal Cave.I have explored the Power Line Caves.I have explored Surprise Cave.I have explored Railroad cave.I have explored Helium Cave.I have explored Salal Cave.I have explored Christmas canyon Cave.I have explored Twenty-Four Cave.I have explored Breakdown Cave.I have explored Moss Cave.I have explored Arch cave.I have explored Lava Spring Cave.I have explored Wram Spring Cave.I have explored Perseverance Cave.I have explored Blue Ribbon Cave.OK, 30 is enough filler. I know how to work a clutch.Knowing how to work a clutch, I can drive a car with a manual transmission. That’s right. A manual transmission!I know how to wrap a present.I like Gouda cheese.I can make up names for stuff.I have an IQ.I have a Wishbone Ash album.I have battled a relative over a wishbone and won.I have battled a relative over a wishbone and lost.My mind wanders. For example: The two sentences on wishbones have the same words except for the last word. Now the first sentence has a 3 letter last word, and the second sentence has a 4 letter last word. And yet, the first sentence takes up more space than the second, which has more letters. My mind wandered and marveled over this seeming paradox until finally admitting that I need to take a break and simply acknowledge the power of the “w”.I know when something is sour.I have seen the Statue of Liberty.I like having my back massaged.I have been lost in an underground maze for more than 10 hours.I have run an obstacle course….more than once.I have left Reno with more money than I came to Reno with. (And that’s saying something!)I have been to Lake Tahoe and passed off my hangover as altitude sickness.I have cut my foot on coral.I thought I was finally dying once but turned out my oxygen hose was just crimped. Tsk.I have stayed up past my bedtime.When asked, “What are you against?” I reply, “Whadda ya got?”I know how to turn the water main off outside my house.I know where my fuse box is.This is my 900th fact. (Yes, I know you think it’s only my 400th, but it is really my 900th…do the math.) I cry sometimes.I can make a ring out of a dollar bill. Through the power of origami.I don’t get paid for writing on Quora. Not even for 1000 facts!I’ve been told, “Boy, You got some balls!” But I really only have 2.I am a male. But I check the box marked “sex” with ‘OK’.I quit eating white bread. Wheat and multi-grain only now.Sometimes I look at my phone even when it’s not ringing.I have broken into more than one vug.I have spent hours cleaning out a vug, collecting hundreds of crystals and dozens of plates.I have found some of my best crystal specimens just laying on the surface.I have crawled through a tunnel over 40 feet long, dug by my crystal hunting buddy.I have found a pocket of Singers (Diamantine crystals) in that tunnel.I have broken hard rock and extracted many an Amethyst Scepter.I have over 1000 double-terminated crystals in my collection.I have dozens of ‘free-floater’ clusters of crystals in my collection.I have dozens and dozens of crystal plates in my collection.I have climbed to the top of Katie Belle Ridge.I have sat on top of Katie Belle Ridge and thrown the smaller crystal scepters over the edge, yelling, “Decadence!”I have raided the claims at Pedro Pipe.I have raided the claims at Spruce Ridge.I have raided the claims at the Garden Slug.I have received a phone call from a detective telling me to quit raiding claims. (true story)I have given away 1000’s of crystals.I have a jar filled with nothing but crystals found in parking areas.I gave a clear crystal to a girl who had breast cancer. She wore it around her neck and within a week it turned dark.I have ‘planted’ crystals in holes and directed kids to the ‘hot spots’ and watched the kids find them. Their excitement was heartwarming.I lost over 300,000 crystals when my storage was actioned off.I have crystals with air bubbles inside them that move as you turn them.I have crystals with various inclusions, from pyrite to what may very well be gold.On my way down a steep section from the ‘purple pit’ one night, carrying a 3/4 full 5-gal. bucket of crystals, I slipped, took a tumble, and sent hundreds of crystals flying. I picked up some, but just left the vast majority of them spread all over the slope. Meh.I have traded crystals for pot at Hempfest.I have left a trail of crystals over 100 feet long leading to the edge of cliff.I have spelled my name in crystals at the entrance to a good hole. (Needless to say, they were gone the next day.)I have hung crystals from trees to mark a trail.I have placed nice crystal specimens behind people busy digging and then while passing them on my way up, getting their attention and pointing out, “Hey, you missed one!”I have crawled out of a crystal digging hole and within less than one minute witness it completely collapse.I had a tree fall over my crystal digging hole and bury some of my choice specimens under tons of rock and boulders.While raiding a claim one time, I had to dive for cover when a blast from above sent a wave of debris flying down slope.I have many crystal ‘dumbells’- with scepter heads on each end.Tired of hearing about crystals? I could go back to my album collection, you know! I have had a nosebleed.I collect these fanciful shaped rocks called concretions. I’ve glued these ‘crazy eyes’ on some making them look like creatures.Over the years I have piled up my rejected concretions at one spot in the woods.I have kept count of those rejects, and to date there are 50,500 of them!I find most of my concretions either in the water or along the gravel banks.I have found that the better concretions have to be dug from out the clay banks along the river.I have had a crawdad latch onto my toe while I was hunting concretions.I have 10’s of 1000’s of concretions.I have created borders along walkways with my concretions.I have created mosaics with my concretions.I have drilled through select concretions and made workable pipes from them.I listen to the radio, but only when it’s on.I firmly believe that everybody has a right to my opinion.I have read most all of Nietzsche’s published works.I have read the “Lord of the Rings” trilogy, more than once.I have the hard copy of “Yale Shakespeare- The complete works”, but have read pitifully few of it’s 1,517 small print pages.Jack Herer’s “The Emperor Wears No Clothes” is still one of my favorite books.I have been stung by a bee. I survived…the bee didn’t.I have sprayed a hornet’s nest.I lost my red ball when I was 5.I have squeezed through a 14″X14″X14″ inch triangular orifice and free fall rappelled 85 feet to the bottom of Hellhole Cave.I have rappelled into and made it to the end of Danger Cave on Mt. Snoqualmie.I have dropped onto and slid down a 20 foot stalactite in Cascade Cave.I have never made it to the end of Newton Cave, despite rappelling more than one drop.I have had more than one toothache.My last name now is not the one I was born with.I have read Julian Jaynes’ “The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind.”I have my own private copies of “Dave Barry’s Guide To Life” and “Dave Barry Turns 40”.Yeah, I know I could have gotten two out of that. But I like to splurge.I’m getting confident that I can finish this ordeal, barring a computer glitch. I have had computer glitches.I suddenly feel an anxiety attack coming on…something to do with computer glitches. I have elbows.I can focus on unfocussed objects.I can make a square out of two triangles.I can make a Mobius strip.I have food that I will never eat.I have drooled on my pillow before.I have seen ‘the wolves’ rise up on Snoqualmie Falls.I have gone ‘skinny-dipping’.I can lay down on a floor when I’m not standing up.I have used a metal detector.I have gotten an 8-ball break more than once.I have been exempted from jury duty.I have been arrested more than once.I have had my house raided by over a dozen cops and FBI agents over a bank robbery that I knew Nothing about.I am a good ‘Spades’ player.I have thrown a dart. (More than once!)I worked at a bar for a while.I traded an SKS for a shotgun.I broke a lamp one time.I spent over an hour blowing down leaves one day, the wind picked up and blew enough leaves off the trees to cover everything I had done.One of my boa constrictors escaped one summer and after two months, I found him up in the gutter of my garage.I can’t think of any more facts, I’m just gonna quit….Ha! Just joking. I like to joke.I slipped and fell one time before reaching a banana peel that I was going to pick up. How ironic.I have the same face that I had when I was two years old, only, somehow…it looks different!I can stick out my tongue, but only when I want to.I cannot lick my elbow. I know, ’cause I’ve tried.I know I can lick someone else’s elbow even though I’ve never tried.I have had more than one haircut.I have a box full of red clown noses.I have water skied on New Year’s Day in freezing temperatures.I have kissed a pig.OMG, OMG, OMG…for all of you (And that’s probably all of you) who have flash scrolled to the end of this thinking I’ve only written 500 facts- Wrong! I had a problem with the automatic numbering function on my laptop and had to resort to improvisation. Just do the math.And those of you who are sticklers and point out these have to be interesting facts- phooey! It’s a judgment call. They are interesting to me. So fact #1000-I got way, I mean waaaaay too much time on my hands!Thought I should add one more just in case there is a dispute over a previous one. Doesn’t hurt to be redundant. 1001- I believe in redundancy.MIC DROP…..WALK AWAY…………….

The Roman emperor Caligula, who ruled from 16 March 37 AD until his assassination on 24 January 41 AD, is undoubtedly one of the most notorious Roman emperors. Unfortunately, over the centuries, a tremendous mythology has grown up around him and many of the things that are popularly believed about him are simply not true.Caligula is best known to the general public as an insane, sexually depraved emperor who thought he was a living god, murdered a little boy for coughing too much, had sex with all three of his sisters, murdered his sister who was pregnant with his child and ate the fetus, turned his palace into a brothel, drank expensive pearls dissolved in vinegar, made his horse a senator, and waged war against Neptune to collect seashells as “loot.”These are all stories that have accumulated over the years. Most of them are definitely or probably false; others are based on historical facts but have been greatly misrepresented. Caligula was many things—including a jerk, a narcissist, a sadist, and a tyrant—but he probably wasn’t really insane.Some sources of popular misconceptions about CaligulaDoing historiography is especially difficult when it comes to Caligula, since he began to be mythologized while he was alive and this mythologization has only proliferated over the course of the past two thousand years since his death. Exaggerated and colorful stories have piled on top of exaggerated and colorful stories and, as a result, Caligula seems to have grown even more insane with each passing generation.There probably is at least some truth to Caligula’s sordid reputation. The surviving contemporary accounts of his reign unanimously portray him as a cruel tyrant. The Jewish Middle Platonist philosopher Philon of Alexandria (lived c. 20 BC – c. 50 AD) gives a first-hand account of his experience with Caligula in his Embassy to Gaius. The account is far from flattering. Philon came to the emperor as a member of a group of Jewish ambassadors; he claims that the emperor persistently belittled and insulted them and refused to listen to their concerns.It is probably true that Caligula was something of a sadist. The Roman Stoic philosopher Seneca the Younger (lived c. 4 BC – 65 AD) describes Caligula’s sadism in his treatise On Anger, which he probably wrote in around 45 AD, only a few years after the end of Caligula’s reign. He writes in On Anger 3.18, as translated by Aubrey Stewart:“Why do I pry into ancient history? quite lately Gaius Caesar flogged and tortured Sextus Papinius, whose father was a consular, Betilienas Bassus, his own quaestor, and several others, both senators and knights, on the same day, not to carry out any judicial inquiry, but merely to amuse himself.”“Indeed, so impatient was he of any delay in receiving the pleasure which his monstrous cruelty never delayed in asking, that when walking with some ladies and senators in his mother's gardens, along the walk between the colonnade and the river, he struck off some of their heads by lamplight.”Seneca is probably exaggerating a bit here, but he’s probably not lying through his teeth; Caligula probably was a very brutal ruler.Unfortunately, virtually all our surviving ancient sources about Caligula were written by elite Roman men, who despised him and saw him as the prototype of a “bad emperor.” We don’t know very much about what the common people thought of him.ABOVE: Photograph from Wikimedia Commons of a Roman marble portrait bust of the Stoic philosopher Seneca the Younger, who portrays Caligula in his writings as a sadistic tyrantOne the most influential ancient sources about Caligula is a biography of him written by the Roman author Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus (lived c. 69 – after c. 122 AD), who worked as a secretary to the emperors Trajan and Hadrian. Suetonius was writing in around the year 121 AD, around eighty years after Caligula’s death, and he is a notoriously unreliable source—partly because he has a penchant for telling all kinds of crazy stories about the alleged sexual debaucheries of all the emperors he doesn’t like, including Caligula. His biographies read like modern gossip tabloids.Caligula appears as a character in the bestselling novel I, Claudius by Robert Graves, which was published in 1934. Graves revels retelling in the same sorts of bizarre and horrifying stories told by Suetonius, often exaggerating these stories to make Caligula seem even more insane.In 1976, Graves’s novel was adapted into an award-winning BBC drama, also titled I, Claudius, which is generally regarded as one of the best television shows ever made and is considered the direct precursor to modern shows like Rome and Game of Thrones. This drama, however, exaggerates the extent of Caligula’s alleged insanity even further than Graves’s original novel.ABOVE: Title screen from the 1976 BBC drama series I, ClaudiusIn 1979, the notorious pornographic film Caligula, starring Malcolm McDowell as the titular character, was released. In sharp contrast to I, Claudius, this film quickly won a reputation as one of the worst films ever made. Its notoriety, however, only contributed to Caligula’s reputation for depravity and insanity.More recently, the Netflix series Roman Empire has become another major source of misconceptions about Caligula. The series is neither a drama nor a documentary, but rather a bizarre hybrid of the two in which events are portrayed by actors in costumes, but there are experts (and some non-experts) talking the whole time, adding commentary.The third season of the show, which became available for streaming on 5 April 2019, is subtitled Caligula: The Mad Emperor and is nominally about the reign of Caligula. As we shall soon see, many of the events portrayed in the series are completely made up. Unfortunately, because the series is presented as a docudrama rather than a straight drama, many viewers have been misled to believe that everything depicted in it is historically true.ABOVE: Promotional image for Netflix’s 2019 docudrama series Roman Empire: Caligula: The Mad EmperorHis nameNow that we know where some of the misconceptions about Caligula come from, let’s talk about what those misconceptions are. We’ll start out with the fact that his real name was not Caligula, nor was he generally known by the name Caligula while he was emperor.Caligula’s full name before he became emperor was Gaius Julius Caesar (which is, incidentally, the exact same full name as the more famous Gaius Julius Caesar who conquered Gaul and was assassinated on 15 March 44 BC). As a child, Gaius was brought up among the soldiers and he wore a smaller version of the outfits they wore. Soldiers in those days wore a kind of leather boot known as a caliga.Since Gaius wore little versions of these boots, the soldiers nicknamed him Caligula, which is a diminutive form of the word caliga. In other words, his nickname literally means “Little Boots.”ABOVE: Photograph of an actual ancient Roman caliga dated to the first century BC or first century AD that was discovered at the site of Qasr Ibrim in EgyptABOVE: Photograph from Wikimedia Commons of a man wearing a modern reproduction of an ancient Roman caligaUpon ascending to the throne, Caligula took the official name Gaius Caesar Augustus Germanicus. He took the name Germanicus from his father, a popular general who had won many great victories in Germania and posthumously been awarded the title Germanicus.Ancient authors record that, after he became emperor, Gaius absolutely detested it whenever anyone called him by the nickname Caligula or by his personal name Gaius. Seneca writes in his treatise De Constantia Sapientis, which he wrote in around 55 AD, not long after Caligula’s death, as translated by Aubrey Stewart:“The same Gaius construed everything as an insult (since those who are most eager to offer affronts are least able to endure them). He was angry with Herennius Macer for having greeted him as Gaius—nor did the chief centurion of triarii get off scot-free for having saluted him as Caligula; having been born in the camp and brought up as the child of the legions, he had been wont to be called by this name, nor was there any by which he was better known to the troops, but by this time he held ‘Caligula’ to be a reproach and a dishonour.”As Peter Gainsford argues in this blog post titled “What did Caligula think of his nickname?” the name that Caligula most likely preferred to be called by was actually Germanicus. This is the name that is most prominent on Caligula’s coins and the name that Caligula gave to the month of September when he renamed it after himself.Nonetheless, all the ancient sources written within three centuries after Caligula’s death unanimously refer to him as “Gaius.” This is the name that Philon uses, the name that Seneca uses, the name that the Roman encyclopedist Pliny the Elder (lived c. 23 – 79 AD) uses, the name that Suetonius uses, and so on.It is only in around the late fourth century AD that the sources start referring to Caligula by the name Caligula. Ancient authors most likely started doing this to belittle him by calling him a childish nickname that they knew he hated. (Incidentally, the notorious later emperor Elagabalus, whom I wrote about in this article from November 2019, wasn’t generally known by the name Elagabalus during his lifetime either; instead, he was known as Avitus or Marcus Antoninus.)Even though it wasn’t his actual name, I do think the name Caligula is useful for historical purposes because it is unique and can only refer to one specific individual. Gaius, by sharp contrast, was an extremely common praenomen and the name Germanicus is far more closely associated with Caligula’s father than with the man himself. This is why, for the rest of this article, I will be calling the emperor in question “Caligula,” even though he was certainly not known by this name while he was emperor.ABOVE: Photograph from Wikimedia Commons of an ancient Roman marble portrait head of the emperor Elagabalus, who was not generally known as Elagabalus during his reignCaligula’s illnessIn the 1976 BBC television series I, Claudius, episode nine (“Zeus, by Jove!”), Caligula is portrayed as suffering from frequent headaches and hearing a strange galloping in his ears. Then he falls into a coma, which lasts for an unspecified amount of time. When he finally awakens from the coma, he is portrayed completely delusional, believing that he is the god Zeus and that his sister Drusilla is the goddess Hera.In the Netflix series Roman Empire: Caligula: The Mad Emperor, episode two (“A New Hope”), Caligula is portrayed as initially a good emperor. Then, only a few months into his reign, he suddenly and inexplicably falls into a three-month-long coma. The doctor who is caring for him tells Macro, the prefect of the Praetorian Guard, that he is probably going to die. Against all odds, Caligula finally wakes up, but, as a result of his illness, he swiftly transforms into a depraved psychopath.The ancient sources do record that Caligula did fall seriously ill early in his reign and that there were fears that he might die, but none of them say anything at all about him falling into a coma (let alone one lasting for three months), nor do any of them say anything about the illness causing him to go insane. Caligula’s contemporary, the Jewish writer Philon of Alexandria, writes in his Embassy to Gaius 14, as translated by F. H. Colson for the Loeb Classical Library:“But in the eighth month Gaius was struck down by severe sickness. He had exchanged the recent more homely and, therefore, healthier way of life which he had followed while Tiberius was alive, for one of extravagance. Hard drinking, luxurious feeding and appetites still unsatisfied when the cavities were stuffed full, hot baths, ill-timed, and acting as emetics, followed at once by renewed toping and gormandizing in its train, lasciviousness venting itself on boys and women, and everything else that can destroy soul and body and the bonds in both which keep them together, joined in the assault. Self-restraint is rewarded by strength and health, incontinence by infirmity and sickness bordering on death.”This is the most detailed description of Caligula’s illness we have. Notice that Philon says nothing about any kind of headaches, nothing about the duration of the illness, nothing about any kind of coma, and nothing about the illness making him go insane. All he says is that Caligula was very sick, that the sickness was brought on by an unhealthy hedonistic lifestyle, and that there were fears that Caligula might die. That’s it.Furthermore, not only is the whole thing about the three-month-long coma not in the ancient sources, but I genuinely don’t think it would be possible for a person in the ancient world to survive in a complete coma for three months. Coma patients generally lack a swallow reflex, meaning they cannot swallow food or drink.The only way modern coma patients are able to survive for months or even years is because modern hospitals use feeding tubes. They didn’t have those in the ancient world, which means, if Caligula really had fallen into a complete coma, he would have most likely died of dehydration or starvation after about a week or two at most. In order for him to survive longer than that, he would have to either wake up every week or so before falling back into the coma or somehow still be able to swallow food and water while in the coma.ABOVE: Screenshot of Caligula waking up from his implausible three-month-long coma in the Netflix series Roman Empire: Caligula: The Mad EmperorCaligula the GodOne aspect of Caligula that modern portrayals have especially focused on as a sign of his alleged insanity is his claim that he was a living god. In the 1976 television series I, Claudius, episode nine (“Zeus, by Jove!”), when Caligula awakens from his coma, he immediately demands to see his uncle Claudius, threatening to kill him if he doesn’t come.When Claudius comes in, Caligula tells him that he has undergone a “metamorphosis” and that he has miraculously transformed into a living god. He also declares that his sister Drusilla has become a goddess. Claudius humors him, paying obeisance to him and telling him that he can see his divine radiance. Later, though, when Caligula is no longer present, Claudius is shown laughing with his friends, declaring that Caligula is insane and that, soon, his reign will be over and the Romans will restore the republic.Throughout the rest of the episode, Caligula is portrayed as calling himself “Zeus” and Drusilla “Hera.” He starts dressing up as Zeus and he renovates the palace to make it look more like Mount Olympos. Things get even nuttier in episode ten (“Hail Who?”), in which Caligula actually performs a whole dance routine dressed as Eos, the Greek goddess of the dawn, wearing tons of makeup, a wig, and a gold bikini.ABOVE: Screenshot from the I, Claudius episode “Hail Who?” of Caligula (played by John Hurt) performing his dance dressed Eos, the goddess of the dawnAn equally bizarre take on Caligula’s divinity appears in the 1979 film Caligula, which contains a scene in which Caligula appears before the Senate to make the following declaration:“I have existed from the morning of the world and I shall exist until the last star falls from the night sky! Although I have taken the form of Caius Caligula, I am all men as I am no man and, therefore, I am… a god.”Immediately after this declaration, some senators can be heard muttering that Caligula is crazy, but he declares that he awaits “the unanimous decision of the Senate.” At first, no one says anything, but Caligula starts shouting “Aye!” so the senators start shouting “Aye!” as well. Then Caligula starts baaing like a sheep, leading all the senators to start baaing like sheep as well. In the midst of all the baaing, Caligula leaps into the air and shouts that the period of mourning is now over.At this point, Longinus, Caligula’s advisor, suddenly exclaims “He’s mad!”—as though this is something he has just realized. Then soldiers come out and start whipping all the senators, just as the black curtains of mourning come falling down from the ceiling on everybody’s heads.ABOVE: Screenshot of Caligula (played by Malcolm McDowell) shouting “Aye!” to his proposition of his own divinity from the 1979 film CaligulaSo, how much truth is there behind these portrayals? There is definitely some. Philon of Alexandria records in his Embassy to Gaius that Caligula overtly tried to portray himself to the public as a god and that he even ordered for a colossal statue of himself to be erected in the Holy of Holies in the Temple of YHWH in Jerusalem.Philon describes at length how Caligula made public appearances dressed as demigods, including Herakles, the Dioskouroi, and Dionysos and how he eventually began dressing himself as full deities such as Hermes, Apollon, and Ares. He describes how this was seen as shocking and sacrilegious.Despite all this, most of what we see in I, Claudius and Caligula is made up. Philon does not record Caligula as having regularly called himself “Zeus” and his sister Drusilla “Juno,” nor does he record him as having dressed up as Zeus, nor does he record him as having renovated the imperial palace to make it look more like Mount Olympos. (As we shall see in a moment, Caligula did deify Drusilla, but only after her death.) Perhaps most disappointingly, the bikini-clad dance routine from I, Claudius is pure fantasy.Moreover, Caligula’s efforts to portray himself as a deity do not seem to have been the result of delusion, but rather part of a carefully-thought-out political strategy. This strategy ultimately didn’t pan out the way Caligula probably wanted it to, but it was well conceived nonetheless.For centuries before Caligula, Hellenistic Greek rulers in the eastern Mediterranean had claimed that they were divine. Their alleged divinity was part of what gave them legitimacy. Meanwhile, the Romans themselves had a longstanding tradition of posthumously deifying great leaders. Julius Caesar had been declared a god shortly after his death, leading his grandnephew and heir Augustus to claim the title of divi filius, meaning “son of a god.” After his death, Augustus was likewise declared a god.In claiming to be a living god, Caligula was really just trying to apply the Hellenistic model of divine kingship to the Roman Empire. The problem is that the Romans weren’t ready for that yet, so it backfired on him politically. This merely proves that Caligula was not very attuned to the political climate in which he lived—not that he was insane.ABOVE: Photograph from Wikimedia Commons of a bronze Hellenistic Greek statue of a nude king or general, bearing a scepter. Divine kings were normal throughout the Hellenistic world.Murder of Tiberius GemellusCaligula’s adopted son and presumed heir for the first part of his reign was Tiberius Gemellus. In I, Claudius, episode nine (“Zeus, by Jove!”), Gemellus is portrayed as a young child with a cough and Caligula is portrayed as having him murdered because he can’t get the sound of him coughing out of his head. When a soldier presents the emperor with Gemellus’s severed head, he declares, “I’ve cured his cough.”In historical reality, Gemellus was not a small child, but rather a young man who was around nineteen years old at the time of his death. The reason why Caligula had him killed was not because he couldn’t get the sound of him coughing out of his head, but rather because he suspected that he had been plotting to usurp his power. The Roman historian Kassios Dion (lived c. 155 – c. 235 AD) records in his Roman History 59.8, as translated by Earnest Cary for the Loeb Classical Library:“After this he [i.e. Caligula] fell sick, but instead of dying himself he caused the death of Tiberius [i.e. Gemellus], who had assumed the toga virilis, had been given the title of Princeps Iuventutis, and finally had been adopted into his family. The complaint made against the lad was that he had prayed and expected that Gaius would die; and he destroyed many others, too, on this same charge.”Finally, the real Gemellus wasn’t beheaded, but rather forced to commit suicide.The main reason why Gemellus is portrayed as younger in the series than he was in real life and the reason for his execution is portrayed as more arbitrary is to drive home the message that the fictionalized version of Caligula in the series is dangerous and insane.ABOVE: Screenshot from the I, Claudius episode “Zeus, by Jove!” of Claudius and Caligula being presented with the severed head of GemellusCaligula’s incestCaligula is famously alleged to have had sex with all three of his own sisters and to have treated his sister Drusilla as his wife. This is a story that is actually found in some ancient sources. The earliest surviving source that specifically claims these things is Suetonius’s Life of Caligula. Suetonius writes in chapter 24, as translated by R. C. Rolfe:“He lived in habitual incest with all his sisters, and at a large banquet he placed each of them in turn below him, while his wife reclined above. Of these he is believed to have violated Drusilla when he was still a minor, and even to have been caught lying with her by his grandmother Antonia, at whose house they were brought up in company. Afterwards, when she was the wife of Lucius Cassius Longinus, an ex-consul, he took her from him and openly treated her as his lawful wife; and when ill, he made her heir to his property and the throne.”“When she died, he appointed a season of public mourning, during which it was a capital offence to laugh, bathe, or dine in company with one's parents, wife, or children. He was so beside himself with grief that suddenly fleeing the city by night and traversing Campania, he went to Syracuse and hurriedly returned from there without cutting his hair or shaving his beard. And he never afterwards took oath about matters of the highest moment, even before the assembly of the people or in the presence of the soldiers, except by the godhead of Drusilla.”The problem here is that Suetonius is a relatively late, generally unreliable source. There are no earlier sources that explicitly claim Caligula had sex with his sisters, but there is some earlier evidence that scholars have interpreted as possibly supporting Suetonius’s account of Caligula’s incest.Notably, there is concrete archaeological evidence that Caligula did exalt his sisters to an unusual extent. Surviving coins minted during Caligula’s reign depict his face on the obverse and his three sisters on the reverse, clearly labeled with their own names. The fact that his sisters appear on his coins is highly unusual and seems to confirm what Suetonius says about him giving them unusually prominent positions ahead of his own wife.Of course, the fact that Caligula honored his sisters on coins doesn’t prove he was having sex with them. It is entirely possible that the real reason why Caligula honored his sisters so highly is simply because he wanted to emphasize the importance of the Augustan bloodline. All three of Caligula’s sisters were direct descendants of the emperor Augustus; none of his official wives shared this quality. By emphasizing the importance of the Augustan bloodline, Caligula may have been trying to reinforce his own legitimacy as emperor.ABOVE: Photograph from Wikimedia Commons of a Roman sesterius minted c. 38 AD depicting Caligula’s head on the obverse and his three sisters—Agrippina, Drusilla, and Julia Livilla on the reverseFurther evidence of the high esteem with which Caligula’s sisters were held during his reign comes from the fact that there are a large number of surviving portrait heads representing them. Portrait types have been identified for all three of Caligula’s sisters, including Drusilla (who died early in his reign) and Julia Livilla (who was murdered shortly after his reign ended).Once again, though, the fact that Caligula commissioned sculptures of his sisters doesn’t prove that he was having sex with them. After all, there are plenty of surviving sculptures of other imperial women, such as Livia (the wife of the emperor Augustus and mother of the emperor Tiberius) and Julia the Elder (Augustus’s daughter and Caligula’s maternal grandmother). Statues of imperial women simply aren’t very unusual.ABOVE: Photograph from Wikimedia Commons of a marble portrait head believed to represent Caligula’s sister DrusillaABOVE: Photograph from Wikimedia Commons of a portrait bust of Caligula’s sister Julia Livilla on display in the Altes Museum in BerlinSuetonius’s claim that Caligula had Drusilla deified after her death is confirmed by multiple independent contemporary sources. For instance, a dedication from the site of Caere dated to Caligula’s reign that is now on display in the Vatican Museums bears a Latin inscription that would have originally read “DIVAE DRVSILLAE SORORI CAII CAESARIS AVGVSTI GERMANICI,” which means “To the Divine Drusilla, sister of Gaius Caesar Augustus Germanicus.”ABOVE: Photograph from Wikimedia Commons of an inscription from the site of Caere on display in the Vatican Museums bearing the dedication, “To the Divine Drusilla, sister of Gaius Caesar Augustus Germanicus”Drusilla’s posthumous deification is also referenced by Seneca in his Apocolocyntosis Claudii or The Gourdification of Claudius, a satirical work making fun of the emperor Claudius and the Roman tradition of posthumously deifying emperors. In the very first section of the work, Seneca sarcastically remarks that the events he is about to describe may sound incredible, but you have to believe him because he heard it all from the same man who testified to the Senate that he had seen Drusilla ascending into heaven as a goddess. He writes, as translated by Allan Perley Ball:“Who ever demanded affidavits from an historian? Still, if I must produce my authority, apply to the man who saw Drusilla going heavenward; he will say he saw Claudius limping along in the same direction. Willy-nilly, he has to see everything that happens in heaven; for he is the superintendent of the Appian road, by which you know both the divine Augustus and Tiberius Caesar went to join the gods.”“If you ask this man he will tell you privately; in presence of more than one he’ll never speak a word. For since the day when he took oath in the Senate that he had seen Drusilla going up to heaven and in return for such good news nobody believed him, he has declared in so many words that he’ll not testify about anything, not even if he should see a man murdered in the middle of the Forum. What I have heard from him, then, I state positively and plainly, so help him!”Deifying female members of the imperial family was extremely unusual in Caligula’s time. Even Livia was not deified until the reign of Caligula’s successor Claudius. The fact that Caligula had Drusilla deified does not prove that he had sex with her, but it does demonstrate the extent of his attachment to her.ABOVE: Page from a ninth-century AD Latin manuscript of Seneca’s Apocolocyntosis ClaudiiThus, it seems that everything Suetonius says about Caligula’s relationship with his sisters is confirmed by earlier sources—except for his claim that Caligula was having sex with them. This leaves the question of Caligula’s alleged incest open for debate. It’s possible he may have really done it, but it’s also possible that it is simply a rumor invented by some senator who was annoyed that Caligula was showering extraordinary honors on his sisters while holding the Senate in the uttermost contempt.If Caligula did indeed have sexual relations with his sisters, this still would not prove that he was insane because there are perfectly rational reasons why he might have done this. I’ve already mentioned that Caligula and his three sisters were all direct descendants of Augustus. If one of Caligula’s sisters bore him a son, that son would be the child of not one but two descendants of Augustus, which would make the child’s bloodline very secure indeed.The kings of the Greek Ptolemaic Dynasty, which ruled Egypt from 305 BC until 30 BC, had been known for marrying their own sisters to keep their bloodlines pure. (As I discuss in this article from January 2020, Cleopatra VII Philopator, the last ruler of this dynasty, was the product of literally centuries of incest.) It is possible that Caligula may have simply been trying to do the same thing that the Ptolemies had done before him.As we have already seen, the contemporary ancient sources are unambiguous about the fact that Caligula sought to portray himself as a deity. It so happens that the Olympian deities in Greek and Roman mythology were known for their many incestuous affairs. Zeus himself famous had sex with his sister Demeter and married his sister Hera. If Caligula really did have incestuous relations with his sisters, he may have done so in conscious imitation of the Olympians.In other words, if Caligula really did have sex with his sisters, then it might not have been an act of depraved insanity, but rather a political maneuver that just didn’t work out the way he planned it to. (You may be sensing a bit of a theme here.)ABOVE: Screenshot from the 1979 film Caligula of Caligula (played by Malcolm McDowell) with his sister Drusilla (played by Teresa Ann Savoy)Seduced by Agrippina?As we can see, it is unclear whether Caligula ever had sex with any of his sisters at all. Naturally, though, this has not stopped popular culture from inventing all kinds of stories about the alleged relationships between him and his sisters.In the Netflix series Roman Empire: Caligula: The Mad Emperor, Caligula is portrayed as unwilling to engage in incest until his sister Agrippina actually comes to him in his bedchamber and seduces him, telling him that she will bear him a son who will serve as his heir. Caligula and Agrippina have sex for months, but she fails to become pregnant, so Caligula seduces first Drusilla and then Julia Livilla.The way this is presented makes it seem like something that we know really happened and that is recorded in the ancient sources. In reality, it’s an entirely fictional scenario based on nothing but Suetonius’s claim that Caligula had sex with his sisters and the writers of the show’s awareness of Agrippina’s extraordinary cunning and domineering personality.In fact, this scenario actually seems to contradict what Suetonius himself says in his Life of Caligula, since he makes it sound as though Drusilla was the first of Caligula’s sisters that he ever had sex with, not the second.ABOVE: Screenshot from the Netflix series Roman Empire: Caligula: The Mad Emperor of Caligula being seduced by his sister Agrippina. There is no evidence that this ever happened.Drusilla murdered?In I, Claudius, episode nine (“Zeus, by Jove!”), Caligula is portrayed as impregnating Drusilla. Afterwards, he becomes increasingly paranoid, believing that the child developing in her womb will overthrow him and become the new king of the gods. Thus, at the end of the episode, he murders Drusilla, cuts open her womb, and devours the unborn child.All of this is completely made up. Not only is it not found in any of the ancient sources, but it is not even found in the original 1934 novel I, Claudius by Robert Graves that the series is based on. In Graves’s original novel, Claudius merely says that he suspects that Drusilla was murdered by Caligula. This suspicion is never confirmed.There is nothing in any of the ancient sources to indicate that Drusilla was murdered. Instead, the sources indicate that she died of a natural illness and that Caligula was genuinely devastated by her death. The only reason why Caligula murders her and devours her fetus in the show is because the writers of the show wanted to show the sheer extent of Caligula’s alleged insanity.ABOVE: Screenshot from the I, Claudius episode “Zeus, By Jove!” of Caligula (played by John Hurt), dressed as Zeus, coming out of the room with blood all over his lips after eating Drusilla’s fetusThe emperor’s brothel?In I, Claudius, episode ten (“Hail Who?”), Caligula turns the imperial palace into a brothel, where he pimps the wives of wealthy senators to the highest bidders. His uncle Claudius regards this whole situation as a disgrace, so Caligula forces him to collect money at the door.This portrayal is based on what Suetonius says in his Life of Caligula, chapter 41. He writes, in Rolfe’s translation:“To leave no kind of plunder untried, he opened a brothel in his palace, setting apart a number of rooms and furnishing them to suit the grandeur of the place, where matrons and freeborn youths should stand exposed. Then he sent his pages about the fora and basilicas, to invite young men and old to enjoy themselves, lending money on interest to those who came and having clerks openly take down their names, as contributors to Caesar's revenues.”Suetonius’s claim that Caligula turned a portion of the palace into a brothel, however, is not supported by any earlier sources and it represents exactly the sort of story some senator might have made up just to show how depraved the emperor was. Although prostitution was legal in the Roman Empire, prostitutes and pimps alike were widely looked down upon as lower-class scum. For the emperor, a man of the highest possible office, to literally act as a pimp would have been the utmost scandal.Suetonius also claims that Caligula pimped his own sisters Agrippina and Julia Livilla, but, once again, there is no earlier evidence to substantiate this and it seems like the sort of thing a disgruntled senator would make up to discredit the emperor.We can’t definitively say that Caligula did not turn the palace into a brothel and pimp his sisters to wealthy men, but it is probably a good idea to be skeptical of such stories. Furthermore, even if Caligula really did do these things, this wouldn’t necessarily make him insane, since a person does not have to be insane to be a pimp.Indeed, Suetonius does give a rational explanation for why Caligula supposedly openly his brothel; according to Suetonius he did it because he was desperate for money to fund his outlandish lifestyle.ABOVE: The Romans in their Decadence, painted in 1847 by the French Neoclassical painter Thomas CoutureThe so-called “Plot of the Three Daggers”The last part of the third episode of Roman Empire: Caligula: The Mad Emperor focuses extensively on the so-called “Plot of the Three Daggers,” which it turns into a elaborate conspiracy by Agrippina, Julia Livilla, and Aemilus Lepidus to murder Caligula and seize the throne.In the show, Agrippina is supposed to lure Caligula into a bedroom so that the other conspirators can murder him, but, instead, she double crosses them, alerting Caligula to the conspiracy and leading him in with a troop of armed guards. Caligula then double crosses Agrippina by having her exiled along with the other conspirators.Unfortunately, virtually everything the show says about the so-called “Plot of the Three Daggers” is completely made up. Basically all we really know about the supposed plot is that Agrippina, Julia Livilla, and Aemilius Lepidus were accused of adultery and conspiracy, Lepidus was executed, and the emperor’s sisters were sent into exile. Suetonius describes the entire alleged plot in just one sentence in his Life of Caligula, chapter 24:“The rest of his sisters [i.e. Agrippina and Julia Livilla] he did not love with so great affection, nor honour so highly, but often prostituted them to his favourites; so that he was the readier at the trial of Aemilius Lepidus to condemn them, as adulteresses and privy to the conspiracies against him; and he not only made public letters in the handwriting of all of them, procured by fraud and seduction, but also dedicated to Mars the Avenger, with an explanatory inscription, three swords designed to take his life.”The later historian Kassios Dion gives us a little bit more information about the alleged plot, writing in his Roman History 59.22.6–7:“Another of his victims was Lepidus, that lover and favourite of his, the husband of Drusilla, the man who had together with Gaius maintained improper relations with the emperor's other sisters, Agrippina and Julia, the man whom he had allowed to stand for office five years earlier than was permitted by law and whom he kept declaring he would leave as his successor to the throne. To celebrate this man's death he gave the soldiers money, as though he had defeated some enemies, and sent three daggers to Mars Ultor in Rome.”“He deported his sisters to the Pontian Islands because of their relations with Lepidus, having first accused them in a communication to the senate of many impious and immoral actions. Agrippina was given Lepidus' bones in an urn and bidden to carry it back to Rome, keeping it in her bosom during the whole journey. Also, since many honours had been voted earlier to his sisters manifestly on his act, he forbade the awarding of other distinctions to any of his relatives.”This is basically all the information we find about the so-called “Plot of the Three Daggers” in the ancient sources.Notice that Suetonius seems to doubt that there was ever a conspiracy among Caligula’s sisters at all and instead seems to believe that Caligula just made the whole thing up as an excuse to send his sisters into exile. The only reason why the supposed conspiracy occupies such a pride of place in the Netflix series is because the makers of the series are desperate to spice things up with a little intrigue.ABOVE: Screenshot of Agrippina, Julia Livilla, and Aemilus Lepidus coming up with the so-called “Plot of the Three Daggers,” as portrayed in the Netflix series Roman Empire: Caligula: The Mad EmperorCaligula’s profligacySuetonius spends a lot of time in his Life of Caligula ranting about the emperor’s profligacy. In chapter 37, he famously writes:“In reckless extravagance he outdid the prodigals of all times in ingenuity, inventing a new sort of baths and unnatural varieties of food and feasts; for he would bathe in hot or cold perfumed oils, drink pearls of great price dissolved in vinegar, and set before his guests loaves and meats of gold, declaring that a man ought either to be frugal or Caesar. He even scattered large sums of money among the commons from the roof of the basilica Julia for several days in succession.”It’s almost certainly true that Caligula was a profligate spender, but the extent of his profligacy as reported by Suetonius is probably greatly exaggerated. Ancient Roman writers often focus on profligate spending as an indication that a ruler is foolish and morally degenerate. Thus, when Suetonius talks about Caligula wasting money, the point is to convey that he was a bad emperor.The claim that Caligula drank “pearls of great price dissolved in vinegar” is especially suspect because it is a standard canard that the Romans often told about anyone they didn’t like. The story first appears in Horace’s Satires 2.3.239–42, in which the person who dissolves and drinks the expensive pearls is the unnamed son of the famous orator Aesopus. Another version of the story is told by Pliny the Elder in his Natural History 9.119–21, but this time the pearl-dissolver is none other than the famous Queen Cleopatra VII Philopator of Egypt.In each iteration of the story, all that changes is the person who is doing the pearl-dissolving. Essentially, Suetonius is recycling an age-old folktale about profligacy and turning it into a story about Caligula.ABOVE: The Banquet of Cleopatra, painted in 1653 by the Flemish painter Jacob Jordaens. The exact same story is told about both Cleopatra and Caligula and, in all likelihood, never happened with either of them.Seeing an emperor about a horseProbably the most famous story about Caligula is the one about how he supposedly made his horse Incitatus a senator. This certainly never happened and there are no surviving ancient sources that say he actually did this. Suetonius does, however, claim that Caligula lavished an unusual amount of attention on Incitatus and that he was alleged to have talked about making him a consul. Suetonius writes in his Life of Caligula 55, as translated by Rolfe:“He used to send his soldiers on the day before the games and order silence in the neighbourhood, to prevent the horse Incitatus from being disturbed. Besides a stall of marble, a manger of ivory, purple blankets and a collar of precious stones, he even gave this horse a house, a troop of slaves and furniture, for the more elegant entertainment of the guests invited in his name; and it is also said that he planned to make him consul.”Notice that, in Suetonius’s version, making his horse consul is only something that Caligula talked about doing, not something he ever actually did.The story about Caligula allegedly planning to make Incitatus a consul also appears in Kassios Dion’s Roman History 59.14.7. Dion writes, as translated by Earnest Cary:“One of the horses, which he named Incitatus, he used to invite to dinner, where he would offer him golden barley and drink his health in wine from golden goblets; he swore by the animal’s life and fortune and even promised to appoint him consul, a promise that he would certainly have carried out if he had lived longer.”Dion was writing around a hundred years after Suetonius, however, and most likely used Suetonius’s Life of Caligula as a source, so he probably can’t be considered an independent witness.ABOVE: Screenshot of Caligula (played by John Hurt) with his horse Incitatus from the 1976 television series I, ClaudiusAll we really have to support this story is Suetonius’s word, which, frankly, isn’t worth a whole lot, especially since Suetonius seems unsure about the story’s veracity himself. It is entirely possible that this whole account about Caligula planning to make his horse a consul is fabricated. Even if the story is true, there are still a couple different ways we can interpret it that don’t entail Caligula being completely bonkers.The first interpretation is that Caligula really did shower attention on his horse and talk about making him consul, but it was all an elaborate mockery of the Senate. As I’ve noted a few times already, one of the best-attested facts about Caligula’s reign is that he held the Senate in total disdain. It’s possible that he may have joked about making his horse consul, with the implication that the people who actually were serving as consuls were so terrible that even a horse could do the job better than them.The second interpretation is that Caligula really did lavish attention on Incitatus, but that he didn’t really have plans to make him a consul. In the same way that some people today lavish attention on their dogs, it is easy to see how Caligula might lavish attention on his horse. It is also easy to see how senators might have gotten annoyed by Caligula paying so much attention to his horse while treating the Senate with disdain and therefore started joking about how Caligula loved his horse so much that he was probably planning to make him a consul.ABOVE: Photograph of a Roman marble sculpture in the British Museum depicting a nude young man riding on horseback, widely suspected to represent the notorious emperor Caligula on his horse IncitatusThe alleged “war on Neptune”Another famous story holds that Caligula was so crazy that he once declared war on Neptune and made his soldiers attack the sea and then gather seashells as “loot.” This story originates from what Suetonius writes in his Life of Caligula 46:“Finally, as if he intended to bring the war to an end, he drew up a line of battle on the shore of the Ocean, arranging his ballistas and other artillery; and when no one knew or could imagine what he was going to do, he suddenly bade them gather shells and fill their helmets and the folds of their gowns, calling them ‘spoils from the Ocean, due to the Capitol and Palatine.’”There are no sources earlier than Suetonius that mention anything about this alleged incident and it is entirely possible that Suetonius may have just made it up. If there is any truth to the story, it is possible that Caligula may have intended this as a humiliating punishment for his soldiers, who, according to Suetonius himself, had just been on the brink of mutiny. The idea behind it may have been that, because they had made him feel foolish on his campaign, he would make them feel foolish as well.ABOVE: Screenshot of Caligula’s soldiers pouring out the “loot from old Neptune” in the 1976 television series I, ClaudiusCaligula’s murderThe ancient Roman historical sources record that Caligula was assassinated by members of a conspiracy led by a man named Cassius Chaerea on 24 January 41 AD while he was passing through a narrow covered passage. Afterwards, the assassins murdered his wife Milonia Caesonia and their one-year-old daughter Julia Drusilla.Caligula’s uncle Claudius supposedly hid from the assassins behind a curtain in the imperial palace until he was discovered by loyal members of the Praetorian Guard, who escorted him to their camp, where they proclaimed him emperor. It is unclear why the Praetorian Guard declared Claudius emperor, but it is possible that they may have believed that he was feeble-minded and that he would be easy to control.As usual, though, the Netflix series Roman Empire: Caligula: The Mad Emperor is absolutely desperate for something juicier. For them, a conspiracy and an assassination isn’t enough; Claudius has to be in on it all too. Thus, in the series, Claudius is not only portrayed as the real mastermind behind Caligula’s murder, but as being present at the scene of the crime itself. In the show, the soldier who stabs Caligula immediately turns around to pledge his undying loyalty to Claudius.There is very little evidence to support the idea that Claudius had anything to do with Caligula’s assassination. Regardless of whether or not he was involved, though, he was certainly not standing there when Caligula was actually murdered. None of the ancient sources claim that he was there and we know that, throughout his reign, he was not perceived as having had anything to do with Caligula’s assassination. If he had been there when Caligula was murdered, it’s hard to see how he could have possibly kept his image so clean.It is also worth noting that Caligula wasn’t just stabbed once by a single soldier; the ancient sources record that he was stabbed repeatedly by several different conspirators. They even draw explicit comparisons to the murder of Julius Caesar.ABOVE: Proclaiming Claudius Emperor, painted in 1867 by the Dutch painter Lawrence Alma-TademaConclusionPutting all of these stories aside, the contemporary sources do unambiguously claim that Caligula was insane. Philon asserts in his Embassy to Gaius, chapter thirteen, that Caligula gave in to “madness and frenzy” and that he was “utterly insane.” Seneca exclaims with regard to Caligula in his On Anger 1.20, “How great was his madness!” Suetonius claims in his Life of Caligula, chapter fifty, “He was sound neither of body nor mind.”Nonetheless, we should take all these descriptions with a grain of salt, since all of these sources are biased and it is common for people to describe political leaders they don’t like as insane, even though those leaders rarely ever meet the clinical definition of insanity. Indeed, I think I myself have described Donald Trump as insane more than once, but yet I don’t think he would meet the clinical definition of insanity and I don’t think Caligula would either.(NOTE: I have also published a version of this article on my website titled “Was Caligula Really Insane?” Here is a link to the version of the article on my website.)