In court, as Judge Gary L. Lancaster delivered the guilty verdict, a stunned jury, lawyers and members of the public gaped as McArthur Wheeler blurted out... “But I wore the lemon juice!”

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The Breezer - the joyride for a curious mind: A weekly newsletter from Steve Winduss at the Batting the Breeze podcast. Spend a few minutes with me discovering historical snippets and fascinating facts related to the forthcoming week. Add to that updates relating to the podcast, a touch of humour and a dash of "lots more". 20th April 2025.

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Happy Sunday!
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Last Monday I was picking up a couple of friends to pop out for a drink and a catch-up. Unusually, I was on time and the road was quiet. Perfect…. and then I hit stationary traffic. Twenty-five minutes later, I was now well behind time as the cars in front started to crawl forward.
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I edged towards the scene of yet another local accident. Two cars blocking the road had clearly driven straight into each other. The police were dragging bumpers and other various car parts off the road to let the traffic through.
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“Heads on ‘em like mice”, my father would have said. Maybe one of them was driving too fast past the T-junction, or perhaps the other didn’t look before pulling out.
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As I passed the wreckage, I mumbled under my breath something about crappy drivers, shouldn’t be allowed on the road, ought to attend a driver’s awareness course, that kind of thing.
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Ah well, luckily I am a better driver than most, so - touch wood - I should avoid getting into this unfortunate situation myself.

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In October 2024, Business Insider quoted some statistics from research published by the American Automobile Association. The research concluded that 73% of all drivers believed their driving was ‘above average’.
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To put that another way, most drivers believe they are better than most drivers… which, of course, is impossible.
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Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
In 1994, 45-year-old Pittsburgh resident Clifton Earl Johnson strayed on the wrong side of the law when he participated in two local bank robberies. He hadn’t been caught so, invigorated, he decided to have another go.
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This time he teamed up with McArthur Wheeler from McKeesport, a suburb of Pittsburgh. Wheeler had not previously tried his hand at robbing banks, but thought it sounded like a good idea.
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Johnson would lead the operation as he had previous experience. After meticulous planning, on 6 January 1995, at 2:47 p.m. in broad daylight, the pair stormed the Swissvale branch of Mellon Bank in Pittsburgh.
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Wheeler, 5 feet 6 inches tall and 275 pounds, brandished a semi-automatic pistol, jumped the queue and confronted the bank tellers. He was so confident he even found time to smile at the CCTV cameras bearing down on him.
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Johnson had quietly joined the orderly queue without a weapon. I’m not clear what his role was other than keeping an eye on his mate. Wisely, the tellers handed over $5,200 to Wheeler, and the pair ran out of the bank with their booty.
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High on adrenaline from the heist, Johnson and Wheeler repeated the exercise the same afternoon at the Fidelity Savings Bank, Brighton Heights, a short twenty-minute drive across the city. A good day’s work, the pair reflected. They had followed the plan and hadn’t been caught.
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Within a few days, Johnson was in police custody. He negotiated a plea bargain to reduce his sentence to five years by ratting on his buddy. However, McArthur had gone to ground.
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Three months later, Pittsburgh Crime Stoppers, a collaborative initiative where law enforcement, media and local citizens work together to fight crime, broadcast footage of the heists on the late-evening news.
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Thirty years ago today, in the early hours of 20 April 1995, Wheeler was identified and arrested within an hour of the program airing.
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As he sat in his cell awaiting trial, Wheeler couldn’t work out where the two of them had gone wrong. They had followed the plan. How had the police tracked them down so easily? They hadn’t worn masks but had rigorously tested the innovative disguise.
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It didn’t make sense.

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Do you remember, as a child, being shown the lemon juice invisible ink trick? Using a straw with a pointy end, you dipped the tip in lemon juice and started writing.
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The only way to reveal what you had written was to gently hold a candle under the paper. The heat caused the lemon juice to oxidise, which turned it brown, not that you cared too much about that at the time. Magic.

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The operation’s mastermind, Johnson, presumably had recalled his childhood writing experience and concluded that if you lacquered your face with lemon juice, you would be invisible to surveillance cameras.
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He had clearly misunderstood the expression, “When life gives you lemons...”
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Wheeler was initially sceptical, but after testing the idea on himself by massaging his face with lemon juice and taking a Polaroid selfie, he was convinced*.
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In court, as Judge Gary L. Lancaster delivered the guilty verdict, a stunned jury, lawyers and members of the public gaped as McArthur Wheeler blurted out...

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Sergeant Wally Long, investigating officer on the case, testified that...

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Since Wheeler was the one wielding the gun, he was sentenced to 24½ years in prison plus three years of probation. It could have been worse, but the Brighton Heights case had been dropped.

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*Police later concluded that Wheeler probably pointed the camera in the wrong direction.

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Psychologist David Dunning, professor of social psychology at Cornell University at the time, read a brief summary of the McArthur Wheeler prosecution the following year. He was intrigued by Wheeler’s overconfidence in his own competence.
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Dunning discussed the case with his graduate student, Justin Kruger, and the pair decided to investigate the phenomenon further.
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Their 1999 paper, “Unskilled and Unaware of It: How Difficulties in Recognizing One’s Own Incompetence Lead to Inflated Self-Assessments” outlined the foundation of what is known today as the Dunning-Kruger Effect.
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Dunning and Kruger concluded that people who carry out a skill or task with low competence experience a ‘dual-burden’: That is, not only do they suffer from the incompetence itself, but they are unable to recognise and - by extension - improve on it.

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Dunning wrote…

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He went on to explain…

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Dunning and Kruger also concluded that while people with low competence tend to overestimate their capability, the inverse can also be true; people with high competence often underestimate theirs.

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The duo were not the first to recognise this trait. Over a hundred years earlier, in his 1871 book The Descent of Man, Charles Darwin wrote…

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More recently in 1933, polymath Bertrand Russell wrote in his essay ’The Triumph of Stupidity’…

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In the early 4th century BCE, Plato wrote ‘Apology’ shortly after his mentor Socrates’ death. He told the story that a friend of Socrates visited the Oracle at Delphi to ask if there was anyone wiser the Socrates himself.
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The Oracle responded that there wasn’t.
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This mystified Socrates as he considered the politicians, craftsmen and poets to be wiser. After questioning these wise men, the philosopher understood the message from the Oracle. He realised that wisdom ‘is not the possession of knowledge but in the recognition of one’s ignorance’.

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Now, where’s that number for the driver's awareness course I read about?

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Dates with History

Wednesday…

George of Lydda was born in the 3rd century CE and rose to become a high-ranking officer in the Roman army.
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George would later be remembered as a Christian martyr, executed for refusing to denounce his faith at a time when Emperor Diocletian was systematically persecuting Christians.
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George’s chivalry, courage and dedication to his faith brought him to the attention of many nations across Europe. His name gained traction in England when knights returning from the early Crusades would tell stories of George’s prowess.
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When King Edward III founded the Order of the Garter in 1348, he declared St. George as its patron (the ’St’ added for good measure).

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As an English patron saint, George is a bit of a fraud. He was actually born in modern-day Turkey and never even visited England. In addition, he is the patron saint of at least 15 other countries and, as for slaying dragons, I’m afraid that is a myth propagated as a metaphor for good triumphing over evil.
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This reality helps to explain why the English won’t enthusiastically celebrate St. George’s Day this Wednesday, 23 April. Interest in George declined around the time of the Acts of Union 1707, when the kingdoms of England and Scotland united, and has continued to drift ever since.
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Also, the red cross of St George has been conflated with far-right nationalism since the 1970s, as groups such as the National Front and British National Party adopted the flag.
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On the other hand, Scotland’s St Andrew, Wales’ St David and Ireland’s St Patrick are as celebrated today as they have ever been.

Out of Curiosity…

William Shakespeare died on St George’s Day, 23 April 1616. The exact date of his birth is not recorded, but it is widely believed that he was born on 23 April 1564... in other words, he died on his birthday.

Thursday…

Andrew Smith Hallidie was born in London in 1836, emigrating with his family to try their luck in the California Gold Rush in 1852. He soon realised that his talents lay more in solving engineering problems than in digging for gold.
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In Hallidie’s formative years, he had worked with his father developing the wire rope used on suspension bridges. It would be a small step to start producing wire rope in California. This was a significant innovation which replaced the previous hemp ropes used in construction and mining at that time.
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Like his father, the industrious Hallidie then applied his wire rope expertise to suspension bridges in California. Wire rope facilitated the construction of a range of bridges across the state in the 1850s and 60s.
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In the late 1860s, Andrew Hallidie nurtured the seed of an idea that would revolutionise public transport across the world. He had developed the ‘Hallidie Ropeway’, a tramway for pulling mining products across mountainous terrain. If he could design this for mines, why couldn’t it work in cities?

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Hallidie had watched horses pulling streetcars up the steep hills of San Francisco. Occasionally, horses would collapse and die hauling these dead weights up such punishing gradients. Why couldn’t he apply his ropeway expertise to solve this problem?
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The intrepid inventor and entrepreneur considered the possibility of an ‘endless’ ropeway. This ropeway would be an infinite cable loop running continuously, which cable cars could grip to move forward and release to stop.
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In 1861, Hallidie patented his ‘Endless Wire Ropeway’ system. Twelve years later, in August 1873, he drove the first run of the Clay Street Hill Railroad, San Francisco. It was the world’s first commercially viable cable-operated street railway.
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The cable car is synonymous today with San Francisco’s iconic hills. Andrew Smith Hallidie died 125 years ago this Thursday, 24 April 1900.

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On this Day

Edmond Halley was an English astronomer and contemporary of Sir Isaac Newton. Halley made a number of significant contributions to astronomy, but he is best remembered for his groundbreaking observations of comets.
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Edmond noticed that the comets observed in 1531, 1607 and 1682 were in fact the same comet, returning every 76 years. He predicted that the comet would return in 1758 and was proved correct 16 years after his death. In honour of his prediction, the comet was named Halley’s Comet the following year.
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Halley’s Comet came closest to Earth in 837 CE as it approached within 6 million km of Earth (approximately 4% of the distance to the sun).
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In 1066, the comet appeared prior to the Battle of Hastings and the Norman Conquest. It features on the Bayeux Tapestry displayed at the Musée de la Tapisserie de Bayeux in Bayeux, France.
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The most notable approach of Halley's Comet was 115 years ago today, 20 April 1910. Astronomers photographed the comet for the first time. They also used spectroscopes to analyse the gases in Halley’s tail. In particular, they detected the toxic gas cyanogen.
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Since the Earth would pass through the tail of Halley’s comet, the press sensationalised the relative danger that this might create. Headlines warning that the comet could ‘...snuff out all life on Earth’ weren’t helpful. The global panic led to a boost in sales for gas masks and ‘anti-comet’ pills.
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The most recent approach of Halley’s Comet was in 1986, an event that I can remember clearly. The next approach is due in 2061. I think I may have seen my last Halley - I would be 97.

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Out of curiosity…
The perihelion of a comet is the point at which it passes closest to the sun. That is when it appears brightest from Earth, making it the best time to observe.
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The Sun’s heat melts the comet’s ice, releasing gas and dust particles. The gases appear to glow and the sunlight reflects off the dust particles, creating that distinctive tail.

The year of the 1835 comet coincided with the birth of Samuel Langhorne Clemens, destined to become one of America’s most celebrated authors and critics.
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As a child brought up in England in the 1960s and 70s, I remember reading The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and The Prince and the Pauper, three of Clemens’ most popular stories.
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Samuel was born and raised by the Mississippi River in Missouri. At the age of 24, he obtained a riverboat pilot’s licence, navigating between New Orleans and St Louis. Monitoring the depth of water in these parts was critical. The minimum safe draft, 12 feet, was referred to as ‘Mark Twain’.
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When Samuel began writing for the Territorial Enterprise in Virginia City, Nevada, he signed off his first piece as ’Mark Twain’, on a whim. The name stuck and Samuel used the pen name Mark Twain for the rest of his writing career.
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In 1909, Twain wrote…

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Mark Twain died 115 years ago tomorrow, 21 April 1910, one day after the perihelion of the 1910 Halley’s Comet.

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Out of Curiosity…
A fathom is a nautical standard which signifies a depth of 6 feet. The word ’twain’ is an Old English term meaning ‘two’. It has been in use since the 12th century, though the first example in literature didn't appear until Shakespeare’s Hamlet in 1603...

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On a Mississippi riverboat in the 19th century, the leadsman would regularly measure the depth of water with a lead line and call out the depth to the pilot.
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When the depth reached 12 feet, i.e. two fathoms, he would call out "Mark Twain", meaning 'the mark on the lead line has reached two fathoms'.

Question of the Week

The famous painting, The Fighting Temeraire, depicts the final journey in 1938 of the HMS Temeraire, a 98-gun warship that played a significant role in the 1805 Battle of Trafalgar 32 years earlier.
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As Lord Nelson was fatally shot on the deck of HMS Victory, his flagship was locked in brutal close-quarters combat with the French warship Redoutable.
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At the moment when Nelson fell, the Victory was immobilised and in trouble. The French were preparing to board…
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Out of the smoke appeared the HMS Temeraire. She unleashed a devastating series of broadsides against Redoubtable before ramming her to prevent the imminent boarding of the Victory.
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The heroic rescue earned her the epithet The Fighting Temeraire and immortalised the warship as a national treasure.

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In the painting, HMS Temeraire is being hauled up the River Thames to Rotherhithe to be broken up for scrap. The ghostly Temeraire is towed by an industrial tug with a striking sunset as the backdrop.
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The sunset, the fading Temeraire and the bold-coloured tug poignantly represent the end of the great age of sail and the arrival of steam-powered vessels.
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Who painted The Fighting Temeraire?
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And Finally…

The ANZACS were the troops of the Australia and New Zealand Army Corps who landed at Gallipoli, Turkey, 110 years ago this Friday, 25 April 1915. They were linking up with other Allied forces to capture the Gallipoli Peninsula and take control of the Dardanelles Strait.
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Eight months later, the Allied offensive ended in dismal failure. Of the 75,000 ANZACS who went to war in Gallipoli, 11,500 would not return home.
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The ANZACS’ commitment to World War I was especially poignant. Australia and New Zealand had become self-governing dominions in 1901 and 1907. Although they were still under British constitutional authority, this was their first chance to stand as independent forces among the Allied nations.

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Although the battle was lost, the ANZACS fought with great bravery and are remembered today in their countries with a deep sense of pride. Their sacrifice was instrumental in paving the way for the new dominions to achieve greater autonomy and, ultimately, independence from Britain later in the 20th century.
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This Friday, 25 April, the ANZACS will be remembered again. Anzac Day will also remember those countrymen and women who have fought in all wars, conflicts and peacekeeping missions since.
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Steve

HOST & CHIEF STORY HUNTER

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P:S: Incidentally, I am always keen to receive your feedback to help me continuously improve this newsletter and the podcast. Just hit reply to this email and...... let it rip! I respond to every email that I receive.

Question of the week… answer

The Fighting Temeraire, was painted by J.W.M. Turner in 1839.
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​Joseph Mallory William Turner was born on St George’s Day 250 years ago this Wednesday, 23 April 1775, and is ranked by many as Britain’s greatest painter. He became quite eccentric and reclusive in later life and died at the age of 76. He is buried in St Paul’s Cathedral.
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Much of Turner’s work is on display at Tate Britain in London. The Fighting Temeraire and J.W.M. Turner also feature on the current English £20 note.

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​Footnote: Turner was born four days after the outbreak of the American War of Independence (Revolutionary War), 19 April 1775. The Battles of Lexington and Concord marked the beginning of open conflict between the Thirteen Colonies and Great Britain.