LoDown recently came across a book by American essayist Evan Connell which is full of wonderfully obscure historical and scientific references.
One essay, my favourite, is titled Gustav's Dreadnought. It's about a little-known, unfortunate incident in the otherwise illustrious career of the great 17th-century Swedish king Gustavus Adolphus who commissioned the building of a humongous but badly designed man-of-war.
His would-be signature warship sank less than an hour after setting sail from the Stockholm harbour in August 1628. Fifty people drowned, not counting sailors who were crushed to death by cannons that came loose.
An official commission of inquiry - oh yes, they had invented this bureaucratic animal way back then - was set up to find out how this could happen and who was to blame. Bear with me; I will get to the point in a minute.
It was soon revealed that everyone who was anybody in the Swedish navy and in Adolphus' court knew from the start that the Vasa - for this was the name of the warship - was top-heavy and would probably sink.
Why did no one tell the king, you ask? Keen students of human nature will already know the answer. In any case, too many inconvenient questions led straight to the doorsteps of good old Gustav and other powerful men who knew something about the ship's design. So you would not be surprised that the commission found no one was at fault, its report was buried and forgotten, and no one remembered the Vasa a generation or two later.
