Harry's Gang: Accidental discoveries

Sydney J. Harris was a columnist I read as a kid in the Duluth News Tribune. One of my favorite recurring columns was his “Things I Learned En Route to Looking Up Other Things.” I suppose a newspaper columnist, like a personal injury and divorce lawyer like me, is often looking up things and accidentally discovering interesting facts. Here’s some of mine from the past year or so:

• The city of Minneapolis, due to the occupational hazards associated with milling, became a national powerhouse in the artificial limb industry. By the 1890s there were six businesses set up to make prosthetic limbs,...