Emperor Norton

Here’s something you won’t come across often – the kind of thing you’ll find on Wikipedia:

Joshua Abraham Norton was a famous, impoverished and highly eccentric citizen of San Francisco, California in the mid-to-late 19^th century. Among his many celebrated and curious activities, he most famously anointed himself as “Emperor of the United States” in 1859, becoming Emperor Norton Ⅰ. Other notable activities include his ordering the dissolution of the United States Congress and his numerous (and prophetic) decrees that a bridge be built across San Francisco Bay. The King in Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is reportedly modeled after him.

Go and read the article. It makes for some great reading. (It’s also one of those things you can tell your friends to impress them.)