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William Knox D’Arcy

William Knox D’Arcy was born in England on the 11th of October, 1849. He was the son of a local solicitor, studied law as a youngster, and then moved to Australia with his family. There he joined his father’s new law business and waited for opportunity to knock.

Mozaffar al-Din Shah Qajar was the fifth Qajar King of Iran. He inherited a bankrupt Iran that was quickly deteriorating due to his predecessor’s financial debts to Russia and Britain. He didn’t do much to reverse the situation but instead spent the remaining money on luxuries and trips to foreign lands.

The Morgan brothers, Fredrick, Thomas, and Edwin, were the sons of an Englishman whose death sentence was pardoned and was instead exiled to Australia for stealing some cloth from a tailor. Thomas and Edwin Morgan grew up to become prospectors. They were hunting for silver when Edwin veered off course and decided to swing his pick at a boulder. The boulder chipped and the insides gleamed. Edwin Morgan had discovered gold.

Excited about their find as they were, the Morgan brothers were unable to raise enough capital to fully exploit their find. They needed to raise capital and they were referred to the manager of the Queensland Bank and a solicitor, William Knox D’Arcy. Together they raised 2000 pounds and then formed a syndicate to develop the mine.

D’Arcy looking sharp

The tale of the Morgan brothers ends at this point because they decided to pull out of the venture in 1884. After the mine started up, they decided to sell their shares and made a very decent 100,000 pound profit. However, the tale of D’Arcy just begins at this point. Using all his knowledge of the law, he was able to ward off claim-jumpers who tried to move in on the mine. After substantial legal battles, he was able to establish the Mount Morgan Gold Mining Co. with one million one pound shares. Shortly afterwards, the prices of the shares shot up and he became a millionaire.

Realizing that he had gained all he could in Australia, D’Arcy sold his law business and returned to England to fulfill his social ambitions. There he lived a life of luxury, living in mansions and traveling around Europe. His accomplishments were known to many members of the upper echelon of society and was soon approached by the British government to persuade him to take on another mining challenge. He was asked to find oil in Persia. Running low on cash due to his lavish lifestyle, D’Arcy accepted the challenge.

Mozaffar Al-Din Shah Qajar

Meanwhile, Mozaffar al-Din Shah Qajar had recently borrowed more money from the Russian Czars in order to visit France. He bought the cinematographe technology from the French and brought it back to Iran so he could show the movies to his poor servants. His rich life style, and lack of revenue was quite a burden on his bank account so he was always on the look out for a source of funding. This source of funding soon arrived at his door step in the form of an emissary sent by William D’Arcy. The Shah was offered 10,000 pounds cash for complete rights to “search for, obtain, exploit, develop, render suitable for trade, carry away and sell natural gas, petroleum, asphalt and ozokerite throughout the extent of the Persian Empire with the exception of five Northern provinces” for sixty years. Mozaffar accepted the deal.

This was the start of British Petroleum. In 1908, seven years after the D’Arcy Concession, huge oil reserves were eventually found in Iran and D’Arcy once again made an enormous fortune. This event was the big bang that set off a domino effect in modern history:

* The large source of oil fueled the British Military and helped determine the outcome of World War 1.
* Russian and Iranian diplomatic ties suffered because they wanted Oil concessions as well
* Russia and Britain invaded Iran during World War 2 to secure Oil reserves and supply routes
* Prime Minister Haj Ali Razmara was assassinated because he wanted to renew oil concessions to British Petroleum
* Prime Minister Mossadegh was made prime minister and he nationalized Irani oil reserves
* Britain and the United States successfully over threw the Mossadegh government using the CIA
* British Petroleum was once again granted access to Irani oil reserves by the replacement autocratic leader of Iran
* British Petroleum continued to operate until the Islamic Revolution in 1979 when religious hardliner, Ayatollah Khomeini, took control of the government by force and took complete control over all of BP’s assets in Iran and ejected BP from the country.
* Iran wants payments in Euro rather than dollars for their oil

The future of Iran is unknown but if we use history as a guide then it seems very likely that there will be many attempts by many groups to control the oil reserves for their own interests.

Sources:

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Knox_D’Arcy
• http://www.dukeswoodoilmuseum.co.uk/british_petroleum.htm
• http://www.mountmorgan.com/dArcy.html
• http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9000243/D’Arcy,%20William%20Knox
• http://www.adb.online.anu.edu.au/biogs/A080230b.htm
• http://www.mininghall.com/minerals/people/database/details.htm?id=d_arcyw
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anglo-Iranian_Oil_Company
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mozzafar_al-Din_Shah_Qajar
• http://www.mountmorgan.com/morganBros.html
• http://persepolis.free.fr/iran/history/qajar.html
• http://www.parstimes.com/history/anglo_soviet_invasion.html
• http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/economics/article1263954.ece
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ali_Razmara

William Kogut was brought to San Quentin State prison for the murder of Mayme Guthrie, a lady who ran a rooming house/gaming house/brothel. The motivation for the murder is not known but it was speculated that he killed her because of her alleged immoral ways. He mostly kept to himself and guards would notice him occasionally playing solitaire with a deck of cards that was provided to him by the prison. Nothing seemed amiss or strange about an inmate playing cards. After all, what was he going to do? Get a paper cut?

The guards remained confident that nothing was amiss until October 9th, 1930, when a large explosion was heard in Kogut’s cell. The guards ran over to his cell and found only Kogut’s dead body sprawled on the floor and a note,

“Do not blame my death on anyone, because I fixed everything myself. I never give up as long as I am living and have a chance, but this is the end.”

After further investigation, It turned out that Kogut was never playing solitaire with his pack of cards. He was secretly cutting out the red hearts and diamond shapes and hiding them. He would then take those shapes to his room. Back in the 1930s, the red dye used on the pack of cards was made from nitrocellulose, an explosive chemical made from nitrate and cellulose. Kogut took off a hollow leg from his bed and stuffed all the hearts and diamonds cut outs into the bottom. Next he filled the hollow leg up with water from cell’s sink or toilet. Nitrocellulose reacts with water to create explosive energy. He then clogged up both ends of the make shift pipebomb and left it sitting there by the heating vents to speed up the reaction. After a little while, the bomb, the cell and Kogut all exploded, thus, ending his prison and death sentence.

Some believe that Kogut acted out of remorse for his murderous act. Others believe that he was merely trying to die on his own terms and was too arrogant to let any one else kill him. Whatever his reasons, he definitely chose a very clever and unique way to get the results that he was looking for.

Maybe he was an ancestor of MacGyver?

Mongolia’s Bao Xishun is no longer the world’s tallest man. His title has been replaced by Leonid Stadnyk who stands tall at 8ft 5 inches. That makes him 8 inches taller than Bao Xishun. He may be taller han Bao Xishun but has he saved any choking dolphins lately?

Leonid Stadnyk did not come forward earlier because he hates his height and doesn’t even look in the mirror. He believes that his height is “God’s biggest punishment for me”. Despite persistent attempts by the Guinness Book of Records to officially measure him over the last three years, Stadnyk had always refused until he met London growth expert, Professor Michael Besser.

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Flash based 3D Panorama of a Library. Be sure to look at the roof. This may make you a bit dizzy though.

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A million dollar gold coin that weighs 100 KG (220 lbs) is being auctioned over TeleTrade. The winner will receive this coin on August 16. One side shows Queen Elizabeth and the other has a picture of three maple leaves.

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Jim Leftwich’s design proposal for not-yet-constructed San Francisco Transbay Tower.

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Here is a list of some famous incorruptibles:

1. St. Bernadette Soubirous
   At the age of fourteen, Bernadette was out collecting firewood when she had a vision of a young lady. The stranger informed Bernadette about an underground spring that had miraculous healing powers. Apparently, Bernadette tasted the water from the spring but it had no apparent special effect on her. She told the Bishop and the bishop spread the news that Bernadette had talked to the Holy Virgin Mary. While the hidden spring became a famous pilgrimage location, Bernadette could not bring her self to believe that the spring had any magical powers. Bernadette died at the age of thirty-five in the year 1879 after many years of service to the convent of St. Gildard in Nevers. This is a photograph taken on the day she was buried:

   

   And this is what she looks like today:

   

   She appears to be in the exact condition that she was on the day that she died even after being buried in a damp grave for over 100 years. She was originally exhumed in 1909 because she had become eligible for sainthood. Despite not being embalmed, she remains in near perfect condition. Elaborate hoax? Natural preservation? Miracle Water? or Divine Intervention?

   Unfortunately, the church has not allowed for any independent tests to prove the authenticity of the body. Skeptics have noticed a wax layer on the body and face and this could show that her decomposed features may have been “repaired”. However, a Doctor Comte was asked to examine the body in 1925 and he stated,

   “What struck me during this examination, of course, was the state of perfect preservation of the skeleton, the fibrous tissues of the muscles (still supple and firm), of the ligaments, and of the skin, and above all the totally unexpected state of the liver after 46 years. One would have thought that this organ, which is basically soft and inclined to crumble, would have decomposed very rapidly or would have hardened to a chalky consistency. Yet, when it was cut it was soft and almost normal in consistency. I pointed this out to those present, remarking that this did not seem to be a natural phenomenon.”

2. Hambo Lama Itigelov Dashi-Dhorzho Itigilov was a Buddhist Lama who lived in Russia. Well versed in medicine and philosophy, he set out to help people in need by setting up hospitals, tending to the sick and taking part in many charitable undertakings. When he turned 75, he told his students to meditate with him because he was to die soon. He gave them specific instructions to bury him in a cedar box while he was still sitting in the lotus position. He also told him to exhume him after many years. He died soon after and his disciples did what they were told. He was buried in 1927.

   

   In 2002, members of his monastery exhumed Itigelov’s body and were surprised to find that he was remarkably preserved. Some Buddhists believe that he asked to be exhumed because he knew that his body would have been preserved. Now the body sits in his original monastery and still shows no sign of decomposing.

   

   Although Itigilov’s body was never embalmed or mummified, it is said that his corpse still bleeds if punctured. The Buddhist monks approach him as a living person and shake hands with him. Some devotees even claim that Itigilov is still alive, only immersed in a hibernation- or nirvana-like state. “Buddhists say that only the most advanced masters can fall into some particular condition before death and purify themselves so that his dead body could not decay” [2]. Some scientists explain the state of Itigilov’s body by abnormal quantities of bromine discovered in tissues and muscles.

   On 23 April 2003, the Buddhist conference recognized the body of Dashi-Dorzho Itigilov as one of the sacred Buddhist objects of Russia. At that time, they laid the foundation stone for a temple entitled Itigel Khambyn ordon and consecrated to Dashi-Dorzho Itigilov. As of 2005, Itigilov’s body was kept outdoors, in contact with other people, without preserving any temperature or humidity regimens.

3. Catherine of Bologna

   Catherine was both on September 8, 1413 and died March 9th, 1463. She was a talented artist and writer and claimed to have seen several visions of Mary, God and Satan. She was exhumed 18 days after her death after multiple reports of miracles around her grave. Her apparently unembalmed body is still on display in the chapel of Poor Clares in Bologna.

   

4. For more stories about Catholic Incorruptibles, you may wish to purchase the following book. The book is fairly one sided since it is written by a person who believes that there is irrefutable proof of the authenticity of all the Incorruptibles.