Romantic-movement author Samuel Taylor Coleridge hired strong men to keep him out of opium dens.
Lee Harvey Oswald never learned to drive a car.
Phil Collins is one of the world’s foremost experts on – and collectors of artifacts from – the Alamo.
Edwin Booth, brother of John Wilkes Booth, once saved the life of Abraham Lincoln’s son Robert Todd Lincoln. It took place in a crowded Jersey City train station when Lincoln almost fell into the crack between the train and the platform. Booth yanked him out.
The mad Roman emperor Caligula’s real name was Gaius Julius Caesar Augustus Germanicus. Gaius accompanied his father on campaigns in Germany, and the soldiers were amused that he wore a miniature uniform. They gave him his nickname Caligula, or “little boot.”
This article appears in January 28 • 2011.