Futility Closet

Here are six new lateral thinking puzzles -- play along with us as we try to untangle some perplexing situations using y... Read more

In 1957, 14 boys from Monterrey, Mexico, walked into Texas to take part in a game of Little League baseball. What follow... Read more

In 1896, Norwegian immigrant Helga Estby faced the foreclosure of her family's Washington farm. To pay the debt she acce... Read more

In 1932, Yorkshireman Maurice Wilson chose a startling way to promote his mystical beliefs: He would fly to Mount Everes... Read more

When Maria Marten disappeared from the English village of Polstead in 1827, her lover said that they had married and wer... Read more

In 1942, Manitoba chose a startling way to promote the sale of war bonds -- it staged a Nazi invasion of Winnipeg. For o... Read more

As a young man, Benjamin Franklin drew up a "plan for attaining moral perfection" based on a list of 13 virtues. Half a ... Read more

After a severe fever in 1776, Rhode Island farmer's daughter Jemima Wilkinson was reborn as a genderless celestial being... Read more

In 1939, an ocean liner carrying 900 Jewish refugees left Nazi Germany seeking sanctuary in North America, but it was tu... Read more

In 1947, the price of a candy bar in British Columbia rose from 5 to 8 cents, and the local teenagers organized a surpri... Read more

In 1935 a shark in an Australian aquarium vomited up a human forearm, a bizarre turn of events that sparked a confused m... Read more

In 1926, a woman named Lillian Alling grew disenchanted with her life as a maid in New York City and resolved to return ... Read more

The American bomber Lady Be Good left North Africa for a bombing run over Italy in 1943. It wasn't seen again until 15 y... Read more

In the 1920s Bata Kindai Amgoza ibn LoBagola toured the United States and Europe to share the culture of his African hom... Read more

In 1896 a strange wave of airship sightings swept Northern California; the reports of strange lights in the sky created ... Read more

In 1872 the British merchant ship Mary Celeste was discovered drifting and apparently abandoned 600 miles off the coast ... Read more

On New Year's Day 1963, two bodies were discovered on an Australian riverbank. Though their identities were quickly dete... Read more

Early one morning in 1912, the residents of Villisca, Iowa, discovered a horrible scene: An entire family had been bruta... Read more

Here are six new lateral thinking puzzles to test your wits and stump your friends -- play along with us as we try to un... Read more

In 1932 a quartet of Bronx gangsters set out to murder a friend of theirs in order to collect his life insurance. But Mi... Read more