In 1979, a Tcxas man named Stanley Stillsmoking was jailed for tying to steal cigarettes.
Corfe Castle ib Dorset, England is one of the windiest places in Great Britain. In 2003, researchers set out to measure the exact wind speed and what effect it has on the castle. The study had to be postponed because it was too windy to set up the wind-speed recording instrument.
In 2002, firefighters were called to put out the flames at a factory in Neuruppin, Germany. The factory made fire extinguishers but workers were unable to put out the fire as the extinguishers they made were filled with flame retardant at another facility.
In the late 1990s, Golden State Fence, a California company, was contracted to build a 14-mile fence in San Diego to prevent illegal immigrants from sneaking in. In 2006, Golden State was fined $4.7 million when 10 of the people hired to build the fence were discovered to be illegal immigrants.
The legendary library of ancient Alexandria, Egypt was burned to the ground by the invading Roman army in the 4th century. In 2002, a new $150 million library opened on the exact same site. Five months later, a short citcuit started a fire that destroyed the fourth floor.