Did John Wilkes Booth get away?

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On April 26, 1865, Sergeant Boston Corbett shot and killed John Wilkes Booth, Lincoln's assassin who was hiding out in the barn of a tobacco barn in Caroline County, Virginia. Or did he? Some historians have suggested that the man in the barn wasn't Booth, and that he lived for several more decades under assumed names before committing suicide. — Read the rest

Obscura Day, March 20: visits to wondrous, curious, and esoteric places

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Hi everyone! Pleased to be back on Boing Boing again. Last time I was here with Dylan Thuras we announced the launch of the Atlas Obscura, a user-generated compendium of the world's "wondrous, curious, and esoteric" places.

Dylan and I are excited to let everyone know about the upcoming real-world manifestation of the Atlas: International Obscura Day, taking place on Saturday, March 20th, 2010. — Read the rest

A Young Person's Guide to the Pathological Sublime

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Mark Dery is guest blogger du jour until August 17. He is the author of Culture Jamming, Flame Wars, Escape Velocity, and The Pyrotechnic Insanitarium. He's at work on The Pathological Sublime, a philosophical investigation into the paradox of horrible beauty and the politics of "just looking."Read the rest

Ann Magnuson and John Dillinger's Johnson

At her Paper magazine blog, the amazing Ann Magnuson posts about the myths and reality of the Walter Reed Army Medical Center's National Museum of Health and Medicine. Sadly, and contrary to widespread elementary school belief, the Museum is not home to John Dillinger's penis. — Read the rest

Curator of human oddities museum remembered

Very few places have impressed me as deeply as Philadelphia's Mütter Museum, the College of Physicians' permanent pathology museum, build on the collection of a Victorian pathologist, since expanded and improved upon.

The Mütter's collection is devoted to preserved remains of human oddities. — Read the rest