Did the first human space walk almost end in disaster?

Now that the first eight years of the column are behind us, it’s time to look ahead.

Oh, I’m not looking ahead for another eight years… that’s too far.  I’m thinking more like the end of this month.  Halloween, to be precise.  And you already know I’m on the lookout for funny and unique costumes, not that I plan to go trick-or-treating or anything like that.

So if you have a funny costume idea, send it to me at didyouknowcolumn@gmail.com and I will mention it here.  Who knows?  We just might come up with a new trendsetter.

Meanwhile, let’s set trends with trivia!  Here’s this week’s installment.  Enjoy!

Did you know …

… irony finds its way into the world of art?  In 1996, Richard Versalle (1932-1996), a tenor with the New York Metropolitan Opera, was performing in the production of The Makropulos Case in the role of Vitek, a law clerk.  He was about halfway up a 20-foot tall ladder, and right after singing the line, “You can only live so long,” suffered a massive heart attack and fell ten feet to the stage.  He was pronounced dead on arrival at a nearby hospital.  (Well, he was right, wasn’t he?)

… a cheese features live maggots?  Casu marzu is a popular cheese made in Sardinia that contains live maggots.  The cheese cannot be legally imported into the United States because of the little critters.  Those maggots, by the way, can jump up to five inches when they’re exposed, so the people who enjoy the cheese usually shield their eyes when they eat it.  (Eat it?  They actually eat that stuff?)

… more than half of the workers in the U.S. don’t use all of their paid vacation time?  If that seems troublesome, consider this – about 30% don’t even use that much.  (Gee, when was the last time I took a vacation?)

… chimpanzees can build a new nest in just ten minutes?  (They don’t necessarily like to, but they can.)

… the first time a human “walked” in space almost ended in disaster?  On March 18, 1965, Soviet cosmonaut Alexei Leonov (1934-2019), aboard the Voskhod 2 space capsule, deployed an inflatable airlock, opened the hatch, depressurized the airlock, and floated out into the void of space, connected to his craft only by a 17-foot tether line.  Inside, co-pilot, Pavel Belyayev (1925-1970) kept his eye on the instruments and secretly envied his comrade.  After a twelve-minute space walk, during which Leonov attached a camera to the airlock so he could be photographed while outside the ship, it was time to come back in – but there was a problem, a very serious one.  Leonov’s space suit had ballooned out so much he could not fit back into the airlock.  After considering the problem and consulting Belyayev, Leonov depressurized his suit below safety limits, but managed to squeeze back inside.  Then it turned out that the hatch did not want to seal, due to thermal distortions caused by Leonov’s efforts to get back inside.  Once the hatch was secured and the airlock jettisoned, the two men had difficulty getting back into their seats with their space suits on.  At last, however, Voskhod 2 re-entered the atmosphere – 46 seconds late – and landed 240 miles off target.  Additional trivia note:  The craft landed in a forest near the town of Solikamsk, and the two men were forced to spend the night inside their capsule before recovery teams could get to them.  The hatch had been blown open and the temperature dropped to 23º, and the craft’s electrical system failed so the men didn’t have heat.  When recovery crews did arrive, they had to chop wood to build a fire and everyone spent a second night in the forest before skiing to a waiting helicopter.  (One small step for a man …)

… what the heaviest professional wrestling match with only two wrestlers was?  On February 23, 1959, the two largest men in professional wrestling at that time – “Haystacks” Calhoun (1934-1989), who weighed in at 640 pounds, met “Happy” Humphrey (1926-1989), who tipped the scales at 760 pounds – met in a match in New York’s Madison Square Garden.  The two wrestlers’ combined weight of 1,500 pounds set the record for the most weight in a professional two-man match – a record that stands to this day.  (The ring, however, didn’t stand very long.)

… penguins do not get frostbite?  Even though their feet are in almost constant contact with ice, they also have a special circulation system that keeps them warm in freezing temperatures.  (Cold feet, warm heart, they say.)

… hearing loss is responsible for two well-known sports practices?  The football huddle was created at Galludet University, when quarterback Paul Hubbard (1871-1946) – who, like all the other players on the team, was deaf – signaled his teammates to gather around him so he could sign the play to them without the other team reading the signs.  And the hand signals used by umpires in baseball were also created to aid a deaf player on the field.  William Ellsworth “Dummy” Hoy (1862-1961), a deaf outfielder who played for Cincinnati and other teams between 1888 and 1902, could not hear the call of balls and strikes when he was at bat, and umpires developed the hand signs now used so he would know what the pitch had been.

… ducks only lay eggs in the morning?  (They manage to duck the issue the rest of the day.)

… Grand Central Station in New York City is toxic?  It was constructed primarily of granite, and that rock holds more radioactive elements than others.  So much granite was used in the construction of Grand Central Station in Manhattan that every person who goes through it gets a dose of radiation that is higher than they would get at a nuclear power plant.  (If you’ve ever been there, you know what I mean by toxic.)

Now … you know!