conversations.from: human
conversations.value: a title for a book about Imagine, History, Boring with the genre: History, Historical Study & Educational Resources
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: A title for this book could be 'History Without the Boring Bits'
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Give me the first two paragraphs for this book.. Start with the sentence 'History Without the Boring Bits
  The Gandillon family of the Jura Mountains were convicted of lycanthropy and burned, their confessions having been extracted by torture'.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: History Without the Boring Bits
  The Gandillon family of the Jura Mountains were convicted of lycanthropy and burned, their confessions having been extracted by torture. Only five years later a court in Bordeaux found that Jean Grenier's belief that he was a werewolf was a delusion. In the period 1520–1630 some 30,000 trials of supposed werewolves were held in Europe.
  The comic actor Will Kemp danced a morris dance all the way from London to Norwich. He called it his Nine Days' Wonder—although the nine days of his dance were in fact spread out over a number of weeks.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Give me five more paragraphs.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: After his execution for the murder of several people whose cadavers he sold to Edinburgh's Anatomy School, William Burke was handed over to his former clients. A purse made out of his skin can still be seen in the museum of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh.
  William IV, having recently succeeded to the throne at the age of 64, was not prepared to change his ways, and would sometimes walk around the streets of London unaccompanied. To the shock of his stuffier contemporaries, on one such occasion he was embraced and kissed by a prostitute in St. James's Street. He had acquired his nickname "Silly Billy" after visiting an insane asylum, where one of the inmates had pointed at him and shouted, "Silly Billy! Silly Billy!" William not being the brightest button in the box, the nickname stuck, but after he succeeded to the throne he had the pleasure of asking his privy council, "Who's the Silly Billy now?"
  The notoriously fidgety Richard Whately was appointed as Anglican archbishop of Dublin. On one occasion, while at a meeting of the privy council, Chief Justice Doherty, needing to blow his nose, put his fingers into his pocket to locate a handkerchief, only to find that the archbishop's foot was already in residence. Whately appears to have treated religion with some circumspection, holding it to be tainted by superstition. His practical approach to this and other matters is demonstrated by his method of testing whether someone had criminal tendencies: if one placed a handful of peas on top of the subject's head, and only some of them rolled off, then "tell the butler to lock up the plate," for a flat head was a strong indicator of dishonesty. He had, according to one biographer, "a wholly uncontrollable love of punning," a failing not unknown among men of his period and station.
  A certain James Cleland conducted an experiment in County Down, Ireland, to see whether it was the natural environment rather than St. Patrick that had made the island inimical to snakes. When some of the half dozen English grass snakes he released were discovered by the locals, they were taken for eels, but when their reptilian nature was established by the distinguished naturalist Dr. J.L. Drummond, wild rumors spread that with the return of snakes to Ireland the end of the world was surely nigh.
  Settlers in a small area between Quebec and New Hampshire declared themselves an independent nation, the Republic of Indian Stream (named after a small river in the territory). The area was claimed both by British Canada and the United States, and the settlers objected to visits by tax collectors from both countries. In 1835, after some Streamers (as the settlers were called) had "invaded" Canada to free a fellow countryman who had been seized for an unpaid debt, the Indian Stream Congress voted that their republic be annexed by the USA. Britain happily relinquished its claim the following year. The area now comprises the township of Pittsburg, New Hampshire.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Swap the first and the last sentence.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: The area now comprises the township of Pittsburg, New Hampshire. A purse made out of his skin can still be seen in the museum of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh.
  William IV, having recently succeeded to the throne at the age of 64, was not prepared to change his ways, and would sometimes walk around the streets of London unaccompanied. To the shock of his stuffier contemporaries, on one such occasion he was embraced and kissed by a prostitute in St. James's Street. He had acquired his nickname "Silly Billy" after visiting an insane asylum, where one of the inmates had pointed at him and shouted, "Silly Billy! Silly Billy!" William not being the brightest button in the box, the nickname stuck, but after he succeeded to the throne he had the pleasure of asking his privy council, "Who's the Silly Billy now?"
  The notoriously fidgety Richard Whately was appointed as Anglican archbishop of Dublin. On one occasion, while at a meeting of the privy council, Chief Justice Doherty, needing to blow his nose, put his fingers into his pocket to locate a handkerchief, only to find that the archbishop's foot was already in residence. Whately appears to have treated religion with some circumspection, holding it to be tainted by superstition. His practical approach to this and other matters is demonstrated by his method of testing whether someone had criminal tendencies: if one placed a handful of peas on top of the subject's head, and only some of them rolled off, then "tell the butler to lock up the plate," for a flat head was a strong indicator of dishonesty. He had, according to one biographer, "a wholly uncontrollable love of punning," a failing not unknown among men of his period and station.
  A certain James Cleland conducted an experiment in County Down, Ireland, to see whether it was the natural environment rather than St. Patrick that had made the island inimical to snakes. When some of the half dozen English grass snakes he released were discovered by the locals, they were taken for eels, but when their reptilian nature was established by the distinguished naturalist Dr. J.L. Drummond, wild rumors spread that with the return of snakes to Ireland the end of the world was surely nigh.
  Settlers in a small area between Quebec and New Hampshire declared themselves an independent nation, the Republic of Indian Stream (named after a small river in the territory). The area was claimed both by British Canada and the United States, and the settlers objected to visits by tax collectors from both countries. In 1835, after some Streamers (as the settlers were called) had "invaded" Canada to free a fellow countryman who had been seized for an unpaid debt, the Indian Stream Congress voted that their republic be annexed by the USA. Britain happily relinquished its claim the following year.After his execution for the murder of several people whose cadavers he sold to Edinburgh's Anatomy School, William Burke was handed over to his former clients.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Give me the last five paragraphs.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: A Welshman swore while he was watching an England-Wales rugby match that "If Wales wins, I'll cut my balls off." They did, and so did he. He was a winner of that year's Darwin Awards, which "salute the improvement of the human genome by honoring those who accidentally kill themselves in really stupid ways."
  Police in Sweden had to disperse a herd of drunken elks surrounding an old people's home. The giant deer had become inebriated through eating fermented apples. The same year an outbreak of exploding toads occurred in Hamburg, while in Croatia a new reality TV show set sheep against sheep. The winner became the subject of poems, while the losers were barbequed. In Burma, meanwhile, a 40-year-old woman gave suck to two orphaned tiger cubs from Yangon Zoological Gardens. Finally, three houses in Newcastle, Australia, were attacked by frozen chickens. Police believe the chickens may have been fired from a "very big catapult."
  Qui Chengwei, an aficianado of online fantasy gaming, was angered when Zhu Caoyan allegedly stole his virtual sword and sold it to another player. So incensed was Mr. Qui—especially when the police refused to take any action over the "theft"—that he paid Mr. Zhu a visit and stabbed him to death. He was given a suspended death sentence.
  An artist's impression of the Mongolian death worm, sought by an expedition to the Gobi Desert in 2005.
  Mary Evans Picture Library , , , , , , , ,. Topfoto / Alinari. Topfoto / Fortean ,. Topfoto / Charles Walker. Topfoto. Corbis ,. Corbis / Leonard de Selva. Corbis / Bettmann , ,. Corbis / Hulton-Deutsch Collection. Bridgeman Art Library / Private Collection / Ken Welsh. Bridgeman Art Library / Bibliothèque des Arts Decoratifs, Paris. Bridgeman Art Library / Private Collection/ Archives Charmet. Getty Images / Rischgitz ,. Getty Images / Hulton Archive , ,. Getty Images / Pierre Jahan / Roger Viollet. Getty Images / Julian Wasser / Time Life Pictures Getty Images / Keystone. Kobal Collection / UFA. Kobal Collection / MGM.
conversations.from: human
conversations.value: Delete the last sentence.
conversations.from: assistant
conversations.value: A Welshman swore while he was watching an England-Wales rugby match that "If Wales wins, I'll cut my balls off." They did, and so did he. He was a winner of that year's Darwin Awards, which "salute the improvement of the human genome by honoring those who accidentally kill themselves in really stupid ways."
  Police in Sweden had to disperse a herd of drunken elks surrounding an old people's home. The giant deer had become inebriated through eating fermented apples. The same year an outbreak of exploding toads occurred in Hamburg, while in Croatia a new reality TV show set sheep against sheep. The winner became the subject of poems, while the losers were barbequed. In Burma, meanwhile, a 40-year-old woman gave suck to two orphaned tiger cubs from Yangon Zoological Gardens. Finally, three houses in Newcastle, Australia, were attacked by frozen chickens. Police believe the chickens may have been fired from a "very big catapult."
  Qui Chengwei, an aficianado of online fantasy gaming, was angered when Zhu Caoyan allegedly stole his virtual sword and sold it to another player. So incensed was Mr. Qui—especially when the police refused to take any action over the "theft"—that he paid Mr. Zhu a visit and stabbed him to death. He was given a suspended death sentence.
  An artist's impression of the Mongolian death worm, sought by an expedition to the Gobi Desert in 2005.
  Mary Evans Picture Library , , , , , , , ,. Topfoto / Alinari. Topfoto / Fortean ,. Topfoto / Charles Walker. Topfoto. Corbis ,. Corbis / Leonard de Selva. Corbis / Bettmann , ,. Corbis / Hulton-Deutsch Collection. Bridgeman Art Library / Private Collection / Ken Welsh. Bridgeman Art Library / Bibliothèque des Arts Decoratifs, Paris. Bridgeman Art Library / Private Collection/ Archives Charmet. Getty Images / Rischgitz ,. Getty Images / Hulton Archive , ,. Getty Images / Pierre Jahan / Roger Viollet. Getty Images / Julian Wasser / Time Life Pictures Getty Images / Keystone. Kobal Collection / UFA.