Matthias Hempins, the representative from the third district of West Virginia rarely needed to speak in House debates to make his opinions known on certain topics. When a Delaware representative suggested a special tax might be levied on coal to help fund medical care for orphans of mineworkers, the gentleman from West Virginia stood up, walked across the gallery, and brought the head of his cane down upon the other man's hand with such force as to separate three of his fingers from their hand entirely. Hempins then glared around the gallery, wiped off his cane, and returned to his seat. The gentleman from Delaware declined to press charges, and an amendment was passed exempting West Virginia coal from any further "special taxes."

She decided to give herself a lovely seashell on her first birthday on the island. She never thought it would become two, then three, and by the time her great grandchildren, with exceptional tenacity and at considerable expense, managed to trace her doomed flight to that island, all that remained of the world's greatest solo hot air balloonist was a pile of shells and bones.

Nobody was sure how, but the Houghton Alabaster Mine of Tawas City, Michigan was able to predict the winners of every city council election with remarkable accuracy. The day before an election, miners would head into the mine and emerge with likenesses of the winners, mysteriously etched into the stone. It got so locals didn’t even bother voting, they just trusted in the wisdom of the stone; a truly calcified political system.

Marty delighted in showing the nutcracker off to his friends on poker nights. The “reminds me of my wife” joke never seemed to get old until one particularly boozy evening when he came to bed stone drunk and didn’t wake up until Maxine was working on his fourth finger. Wasn’t so funny then.

We most strongly recommend against thinking of this mask before you fall asleep. It feeds on dreams, and once it’s in yours it will never leave.

No one was sure where Mister Curliss went, but the Buffalo City Council thought it appropriate to honor him with a memorial near the park bench where he always sat. He would call out predictions prognostications might be a more accurate word to passersby in the park. At first it seemed like lunatic ramblings, but when he told Mrs Jackson where she would find her missing wedding ring, consoled George Perrin the morning he would be laid off, and precisely recounted the score in every quarter of the high school basketball semifinals two days before it happened, people began to take him seriously. The police were able to prevent the assassination of Governor Leeds when he told them the exact day, time, and location from which the bullet would be fired.

The night service bell was all that survived the horrific 1903 fire that destroyed the beloved Western Majestic Lodge, although it may have been better if it hadn’t. Each of the three times the lodge was rebuilt and subsequently burned to the ground, the bell had been rung for service the evening before.

While here at Bally's, be sure to visit Real Bodies across the hall! Produced by Imagine Exhibitions.

When it was time to move on to new hunting grounds for the season, Amka Itee knew it meant leaving some things behind. She wanted her yup’ik to find a new home, so before the tribe broke camp, she fashioned a small bark boat and set the doll out onto the water of the Nunatuk Fiord, which emptied into Yakutat Bay and, eventually, the North Pacific. 628 days later, the doll was retrieved by Adi Ram on the Samoan island of Upolu.

The bust of Verdi scowled down at Marco Limigni. His original pitch was a modern day homage to La Traviata, a dramatic musical miniseries full of incisive commentary on how the pressures of social media blurred the lines between exploitation and love. The network execs suggested less "thinky-stuff" and more singing competitions and hooking up in jacuzzis, and thus was Who Wants to Make Out with a Pop Star born.