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The Scheme to Hook Up a King With the Wasp Woman and Other Wild Plans

Khalid Elhassan August 31, 2020 34 min

Susan Cabot - Hussein of Jordan — Susan Cabot and King Hussein. Veja

27. Isaac Newton: Crime Buster

William Chaloner’s criminal career was going great, but unbeknownst to him, he had acquired a relentless new nemesis: Sir Isaac Newton. The famous scientist was appointed Master of the Mint – a position intended as a sinecure. However, Newton took the job seriously. He zeroed in on Chaloner, and devoted himself to building an airtight case against him.

Having one of mankind’s greatest geniuses devote himself to bringing you down is bad news for anybody, and so it was for Chaloner. Newton used a network of spies, informants, and investigators, who raked through Chaloner’s past to dig up dirt. They found plenty. Sir Isaac then had Chaloner tried before a hanging judge. The judge lived up to his reputation, and after Chaloner was found guilty, he was sentenced to hang. William Chaloner was unable to come up with another scheme to save his neck this time. He met his end on March 22^nd, 1699, at the end of a noose on the gallows at Tyburn.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.