Today -100: May 21, 1924: Of diabolical rays, klunerals, chlorine gas, and Jewish dissection

Headline of the Day -100:  

Grindell Matthews, less a Mad Scientist Extraordinaire than a British con man with a history of “inventing” devices that he won’t explain and can’t demonstrate, claims to have invented a Diabolical Ray (It’s not a death ray or an ice beam, that’s all Johnny Snow) that can direct (somehow) an electric current that can destroy enemy planes, making them burst into flames, and paralyze warships (and their crews) within a radius of 4 miles.

In Long Island, NY, the Ku Klux Klan hold a large funeral for a Southampton constable killed in a shootout with bootleggers.

Pres. Coolidge, still suffering from a cold/hay fever, is put in an airtight room into which chlorine gas is pumped for 45 minutes. Sure, why not.

There have been pogroms in Transylvania, with a dozen Jews allegedly killed. Students government officials and secret police are said to have been involved.

At Budapest University, med students demand, maybe not seriously, that 4 Jewish med students be killed and dissected. The complaint is that the Jewish students have benefited from the dissection of dead Christians but Jewish communities bury their dead poor rather than making them available to med schools.

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