great historical eccentrics

[ed miliband]

popped into the wellcome collection in london yesterday, a cool museum of medical science and history that veers into art and anthropology in an interesting way. i saw a portrait of this fella:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/5/5f/William_Price_painting_%282%29.jpg

and i had to find out more. check him out:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Price_%28physician%29
http://www.llantrisant.net/price.htm

chartist, druid, and the man who introduced cremation to the uk, amongst many other things. a true hero.

[Deicide]

Rasputin was pretty eccentric..

[ed miliband]

yeah but not great

[Railyon]

Diogenes (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diogenes_of_Sinope) for sure.

http://sadpanda.us/images/953694-NWNBOUC.jpg

Also one of the first idealist reactionaries

[Bronco]

Idi Amin

[The Young Pioneer]

Tesla.

[Luc]

Dr. Franz Lipp, Foreign Affairs Deputy of the Bavarian Soviet Republic


Dr. Franz Lipp (who had been admitted several times to psychiatric hospitals), declared war on Switzerland over the Swiss refusal to lend 60 locomotives to the Soviet Republic.[5] He also claimed to be well acquainted with Pope Benedict XV[6] and he informed Vladimir Lenin via cable that the ousted former Minister-President Hoffmann had fled to Bamberg and taken the key to the ministry toilet with him.[7]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bavarian_Soviet_Republic#Ernst_Toller_government

see section Ernst Toller Government

[Zealot]

Maybe not that long ago but... definitely John Nash (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Forbes_Nash,_Jr.); a mathematician who ended up winning a Nobel Prize for his insights. The eccentric side? He believed that Communists were establishing a government inside the US and attempted to warn everyone about this. He was admitted to hospital for paranoia and after he was released he tried to renounce his US citizenship and seek political asylum in.... East Germany, of all places. There was a film made about him called A Beautiful Mind.

[Deicide]

^ Yeah.. he was a schizophrenic..

[hatzel]

Rasputin was pretty eccentric..yeah but not great

Lies. Rasputin was, is and always will be the absolute epitome of humanity. It's all downhill from there, bro...

[Red Commissar]

One that comes to mind is the astronomer Tycho Brahe. Among other things he:

-At the age of two he was abruptly taken by his uncle as his own son. His family apparently didn't care seeing as they had promised him one of their children, but never followed up on it.

-In college he got into a fight with another noble over a mathematical formula. This spun out of control into a duel where Brahe got his nose damaged. He had to use a prosthetic nose for the rest of his life, and to that end had different noses fashioned for different occasions.

-Through his inheritance from his uncle/foster father, Brahe became very influential and used that to be granted an island all for himself and his observatory. Brahe mostly kept himself to that island and threw extravagant parties involving all sorts of odd things, like performing bears. He was also known for getting very drunk in these events.

-Brahe was very precise in his calculations in predicting the movement of astral bodies, and spent much of his days through naked eye observation to achieve that. His observations were accurate enough for the Danish government at the time to allocate nearly 5% of Denmark's economy to Brahe's research.

-He is believed to have partook in a lot of experimental medicine, including the use of mercury.

-Brahe kept a dwarf jester who he thought was psychic. During dinner parties he dressed it up as a clown, and kept the dwarf under the table for some reason during the duration of the meal.

-Brahe had a pet elk who he managed to domesticate and kept it around during parties at his castle. The elk reportedly died after falling down a flight of stairs after somehow getting drunk on alcohol (that Brahe probably gave it), which put Brahe into depression for sometime.

-Brahe ran afoul of the new Danish king towards the end of his life for unknown reasons, with speculations wild as to why, including that Brahe may have had an affair with the king's mother.

-Brahe eventually ended up in the court of the Holy Roman Emperor as his chief astronomer until his death. According to his apprentice, Kepler, Brahe had refused to use the bathroom in a party while he was drinking copious amounts of alcohol, possibly causing a bladder rupture from holding it in. Later evidence found indicates that Brahe may have died from mercury poisoning, either due to his own medication of it, the materials on his prosthetic nose, or possibly assassination by Kepler, the Danish king, and other rivals.

[Left Leanings]

Lorna Garman. And her sisters.

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/SPwishartL.htm

I have a book about them, The Rare And The Beautiful:

http://images.harpercollins.co.uk/hcwebimages/HCCOVERS/055900/055937-FC222.jpg :) :star:

[Lobotomy]

From the wikipedia page on adam smith:


Smith, who is often described as a prototypical absent-minded professor,[47] is considered by historians to have been an eccentric but benevolent intellectual, comically absent-minded, with peculiar habits of speech and gait, and a smile of "inexpressible benignity".[48] He was known to talk to himself,[41] a habit that began during his childhood when he would speak to himself and smile in rapt conversation with invisible companions.[47] He also had occasional spells of imaginary illness,[41] and he is reported to have had books and papers placed in tall stacks in his study.[47]

Various anecdotes have discussed his absent-minded nature. In one story, Smith took Charles Townshend on a tour of a tanning factory, and while discussing free trade, Smith walked into a huge tanning pit from which he needed help to escape.[49] Another episode records that he put bread and butter into a teapot, drank the concoction, and declared it to be the worst cup of tea he ever had. In another example, Smith went out walking and daydreaming in his nightgown and ended up 15 miles (24 km) outside town before nearby church bells brought him back to reality.