Phileas Fogg's Lost Day

The climax of Around The World In Eighty Days is an unexpected, but logically sound, argument: that if you travel in the same direction as the Earth is turning, you'll eventually 'lap' the planet and gain a day.  It turns out that somebody went through the mathematical effort to prove that Phileas Fogg didn't really gain a day, so Passepartout's watch didn't really mess up the plan.  Blame Poe, though: a short story of his, no doubt, planted the seed in Verne's mind of this date conundrum.

Gold Mining, 1855

In 1855, a Scottish man headed to the goldfields of Ballarat during Australia's 19th century gold rush. Recently, that miner looking for his fortune brought a small fortune to an antiquarian book dealer. The miner's diary was sold to the Gold Museum for $50,000, and will be on display there. The book had already been loaned to the museum, in anticipation of financing, so there was little to wonder if the book would end up anywhere else. The Courier also offers some excerpts from the diary, for those of you curious about the daily life of a gold miner.