Category:
1940s

Music Out of the Moon

I was very excited to discover that the first album of Les Baxter--prince of space-age exotica--had been digitized for our enjoyment. From 1947, before there even was a Space Age!

Wikipedia entry here.









Posted By: Paul - Tue Apr 25, 2023 - Comments (1)
Category: Debuts, Christenings, Launches and Reboots, Space-age Bachelor Pad & Exotic, 1940s

The Morrison Table Shelter

The Morrison Table Shelter was a steel bomb shelter that could double as a dining room table. During the Blitz, the British government distributed thousands of them.

The idea of your dining room table also being a bomb shelter seems a bit odd nowadays, but apparently they saved many lives. So they were weird, but practical.

More info: No Tech Magazine



London Daily Telegraph - Feb 12, 1941

Posted By: Alex - Sun Apr 23, 2023 - Comments (3)
Category: War, 1940s

G.I. Hamlet

During WWII, Shakespeare's HAMLET was adapted for soldiers in the Pacific theater. As TIME magazine revealed:


The Theater: Hamlet in Hawaii
Monday, Nov. 27, 1944

The Army, taking the Bard by the horns in Hawaii, has come up with a G.I. Hamlet. Moreover, it has come up smiling. With Major Maurice Evans bossing the job and playing the introspective Prince for the first time since 1940, the effect on the dogfaces has been, for Evans, "simply staggering." They even rise above normal behavior by refraining from hollering or whistling when performers go into a clinch. Commented one G.I.: "They certainly must have done a lot of rewriting to bring that play so up to date."

A blue pencil, not a pen, helped do it: a third of the play has been hacked off.

The modernish costumes helped, too: Hamlet wears trousers instead of tights, delivers "To be, or not to be," in a dinner jacket with silver-brocade lapels. No help at all were the unpoetic sergeants who inevitably shattered the high-tragic mood of the soldier cast's rehearsals, with such prose passages as "Hey, Polonius, you and those other guys get some brooms and clean up the theayter."




Wikipedia reveals:

[the] highly truncated version of the play that he played for South Pacific war zones during World War II...made the prince a more decisive character. The staging, known as the "G.I. Hamlet", was produced on Broadway for 131 performances in 1945/46.


This interesting article has more details, and another picture.

Regarding the quote below, I can just picture Hamlet in a fistfight with his stepfather.

Evans’s romantic, extroverted, unneurotic, virile, and soldier-like Hamlet suggested Lord Byron.


Posted By: Paul - Mon Mar 27, 2023 - Comments (1)
Category: Theater and Stage, War, Adaptations, Reworkings, Recastings and New Versions, 1940s

A comparison of teflon and plastic

From the Hagley Archive's collection of DuPont Product information photographs.

Definite industrial chemist as dominatrix vibe.

source (1945)


An explanation:

From a boiling bath of hot sulfuric acid, a laboratory technician lifts two rods of plastic. One has charred and deteriorated. The other-a rod of DuPont's new Teflon tetrafluoroethylene resin-is not affected at all by the highly corrosive hot acid. Teflon resists the most corrosive acids and solvents to a degree unequaled by any other plastic. It is not attacked even by aqua regia which dissolves gold and platinum.

A photo of another chemist doing the same thing, but it doesn't have the same vibe to it:

source (1945)

Posted By: Alex - Sun Mar 26, 2023 - Comments (3)
Category: Mad Scientists, Evil Geniuses, Insane Villains, Photography and Photographers, Science, 1940s

Dr. Walker’s Paste-Pump Toothbrush

How the hell could this be any less work than just squeezing a stripe of toothpaste from the tube onto your brush?

Source of article.




Posted By: Paul - Mon Mar 20, 2023 - Comments (2)
Category: Hygiene, Inventions, Chindogu, 1940s

Belt ‘em one

Help beat Germany and Japan by... buying a belt?



Life - Nov 1, 1943

Posted By: Alex - Sun Mar 19, 2023 - Comments (0)
Category: War, Advertising, 1940s

The Great Starvation Experiment, 1944-1945

I wrote this brief article a number of years ago. It used to be posted on another site, which no longer exists. So I'm relocating it here. . .

One of the greatest killers of World War II wasn't bombs or bullets, but hunger. As the conflict raged on, destroying crops and disrupting supply lines, millions starved. During the Siege of Leningrad alone, over a thousand people a day died from lack of food. But starvation also occurred in a more unlikely place: Minneapolis, Minnesota. It was here that, in 1945, thirty-six men participated in a starvation experiment conducted by Dr. Ancel Keys.

Group photo of the participants


The Purpose of the Experiment
starvation subject

Dr. Ancel Keys

Keys ran the Laboratory of Physiological Hygiene at the University of Minnesota. He had already achieved some fame as the designer of the army's K-rations — the portable combat food rations carried by American troops. (Rumors persist to this day that the "K" in K-rations stands for Keys, though the army has never confirmed this.)

The starvation experiment developed out of Keys' interest in nutrition. He realized that although millions of people in Europe were suffering from famine, there was little doctors could do to help them once the war was over, because almost no scientific information existed about the physiological effects of starvation. Keys convinced the military that a study of starvation could yield information that would have both humanitarian and practical benefits — because knowing the best rehabilitation methods could ensure the health of the population and thereby help democracy grow in Europe after the war. Having secured his funding, Keys set out on his novel experiment.

More in extended >>

Posted By: Alex - Tue Mar 07, 2023 - Comments (5)
Category: Experiments, Nutrition, 1940s, Dieting and Weight Loss

Miss Grill of 1949

If no one is selling that hot-dog hat, someone should be.

Life - Nov 14, 1949

Posted By: Alex - Mon Feb 20, 2023 - Comments (2)
Category: Awards, Prizes, Competitions and Contests, Headgear, 1940s

Page 5 of 68 pages ‹ First  < 3 4 5 6 7 >  Last ›




weird universe thumbnail
Who We Are
Alex Boese
Alex is the creator and curator of the Museum of Hoaxes. He's also the author of various weird, non-fiction, science-themed books such as Elephants on Acid and Psychedelic Apes.

Paul Di Filippo
Paul has been paid to put weird ideas into fictional form for over thirty years, in his career as a noted science fiction writer. He has recently begun blogging on many curious topics with three fellow writers at The Inferior 4+1.

Contact Us
Monthly Archives
March 2024 •  February 2024 •  January 2024

December 2023 •  November 2023 •  October 2023 •  September 2023 •  August 2023 •  July 2023 •  June 2023 •  May 2023 •  April 2023 •  March 2023 •  February 2023 •  January 2023

December 2022 •  November 2022 •  October 2022 •  September 2022 •  August 2022 •  July 2022 •  June 2022 •  May 2022 •  April 2022 •  March 2022 •  February 2022 •  January 2022

December 2021 •  November 2021 •  October 2021 •  September 2021 •  August 2021 •  July 2021 •  June 2021 •  May 2021 •  April 2021 •  March 2021 •  February 2021 •  January 2021

December 2020 •  November 2020 •  October 2020 •  September 2020 •  August 2020 •  July 2020 •  June 2020 •  May 2020 •  April 2020 •  March 2020 •  February 2020 •  January 2020

December 2019 •  November 2019 •  October 2019 •  September 2019 •  August 2019 •  July 2019 •  June 2019 •  May 2019 •  April 2019 •  March 2019 •  February 2019 •  January 2019

December 2018 •  November 2018 •  October 2018 •  September 2018 •  August 2018 •  July 2018 •  June 2018 •  May 2018 •  April 2018 •  March 2018 •  February 2018 •  January 2018

December 2017 •  November 2017 •  October 2017 •  September 2017 •  August 2017 •  July 2017 •  June 2017 •  May 2017 •  April 2017 •  March 2017 •  February 2017 •  January 2017

December 2016 •  November 2016 •  October 2016 •  September 2016 •  August 2016 •  July 2016 •  June 2016 •  May 2016 •  April 2016 •  March 2016 •  February 2016 •  January 2016

December 2015 •  November 2015 •  October 2015 •  September 2015 •  August 2015 •  July 2015 •  June 2015 •  May 2015 •  April 2015 •  March 2015 •  February 2015 •  January 2015

December 2014 •  November 2014 •  October 2014 •  September 2014 •  August 2014 •  July 2014 •  June 2014 •  May 2014 •  April 2014 •  March 2014 •  February 2014 •  January 2014

December 2013 •  November 2013 •  October 2013 •  September 2013 •  August 2013 •  July 2013 •  June 2013 •  May 2013 •  April 2013 •  March 2013 •  February 2013 •  January 2013

December 2012 •  November 2012 •  October 2012 •  September 2012 •  August 2012 •  July 2012 •  June 2012 •  May 2012 •  April 2012 •  March 2012 •  February 2012 •  January 2012

December 2011 •  November 2011 •  October 2011 •  September 2011 •  August 2011 •  July 2011 •  June 2011 •  May 2011 •  April 2011 •  March 2011 •  February 2011 •  January 2011

December 2010 •  November 2010 •  October 2010 •  September 2010 •  August 2010 •  July 2010 •  June 2010 •  May 2010 •  April 2010 •  March 2010 •  February 2010 •  January 2010

December 2009 •  November 2009 •  October 2009 •  September 2009 •  August 2009 •  July 2009 •  June 2009 •  May 2009 •  April 2009 •  March 2009 •  February 2009 •  January 2009

December 2008 •  November 2008 •  October 2008 •  September 2008 •  August 2008 •  July 2008 •