CIMRMAN'S LIFE

1857 - 1867 The most probable time of Cimrman's birth in Vienna. According to (ss), the handwriting of Franz Duschek, a notary of the 4th Viennese parish, was rather shaky, due to the fact that he was making most of the records in the state that today could best be described as "writing while intoxicated". Hence, we cannot definitely say, whether Jara Cimrman was born on a freezing February night in 1857, 1864, 1867 or even 1892 or 1893. Because some Cimrman's activities, subsequently found, predate 1892-93, it is safe to assume, that 1857-1867 is the most likely time window in which JC was born. More conservative cimrmanologists (js), however, consider a slightly wider window 1850-1870 as a good starting point. Finally, while on the subject of Cimrman's birth and before we embark on a long journey through his dramatic life, let us briefly introduce his parents: his father, Leopold Cimrman (men's and women's tailor of the Czech origin) and his mother, Marlene Jelinkova-Cimrmanova (originally a seamstress, later on a choir singer affiliated to the "An der Wien" theater), both lived in Vienna and begat two children, a boy Jara and a girl Luisa. The legend has it that young Jara had to wear his older sisters' clothes since his thrifty parents did not want to spend money on boy's clothes. It was only when he was in his early teens that his malevolent classmates from girls boarding school finally disclosed his true sex to him. Well, off on the wrong foot!

1871

• On October 10, Cimrman left Trieste on board of the German steamboat Ludendorff heading for America (his first visit to the New World). His mission was to write a report for the Viennese firemen's newsletter "Das Feuer", on the world-famous Chicago fire that had broken out the day before. After 32 days at the sea, he took a train from NYC to Chicago and upon arrival at the former Chicago railway station noted that the fire was out (js)
• On its way to New York Ludendorff encounters bad weather and docks in Edinburgh for a few days. Cimrman wastes no time and heads for the Medical School, where, by coincidence, he meets its Dean, Hamish Ravelston-Orr, who immediately recognizes his talents and invites him to stay in his home. Cimrman is introduced to Scottish cuisine and culture and, upon seeing men in skirts, reminisces on the years he spent wearing his sister's clothes [al]
• In Ravelston-Orr's home Cimrman meets many prominent people and, while experimenting with bagpipes, delineates many later advances in technology, notably, the principles of the rocket engine, refrigeration and pneumatic tyre. He also contemplates on heredity and certain aspects of civil engineering. It is very likely that Ravelston-Orr confided in him about the secrets of the Rossllyn Chapel, a supposed resting place of the Holy Grail [al]

1872

• Cimrman meets a blacksmith Wolfgang Jirsa (ss)

1877

• Cimrman and his sister Luisa won the best mask competition at a masquerade organized by the Taylor's Society of Vienna. Their winning creation was called "Luisa and her tiger" [jr]

1879

• Prof. Fiedler claims that it is this year that Cimrman enters the world of operetta (Erich Fiedler from Vienna is an Austrian cimrmanologist, whose controversial opinions about JC caused much discomfort among Czech cimrmanologists) (ss)

1882

• Cimrman builds a piano elevator for the "Theater an der Wien" (ss)

1883

• JC composed his first couplet "I sedlak se nasyti" (Even a Peasant Will Be Fed), as a part of his operetta "Avars"; it was also apparently included in his high-budget musical "Asians" (ss)
• JC suggests that the French geologist Barrand and he should jointly found the Prague quarter Barrandov (ss)
• In summer, Cimrman works at the farm of a Bohemian peasant Kruzbera. He suggests building a pyramid for Kruzbera's pig "Pasik" in order to preserve at least a sample of pork meat for future generations. The pyramid is never finished due to problems with subcontractors [jr]
• Cimrman's first book of poems, entitled "Kalamita" (Emergency), is written (ss)

1884

• Old files in the garrison registry in Pisek (South Bohemia) show that certain "Cimrman J." was serving here from October 1884 till February 1885. Of the many deeds recorded in memoirs of his fellow soldiers, we mention his attempt to crossbreed a fresh-water counterpart of a seahorse that resulted in the drowning of several heavily armored horses belonging to nearby cavalry. This could very well be a manifestation of Cimrman's deeply felt pacifism [jr]
• Cimrman suggested a planetary beauty contest with the tentative title "Miss Universe". The competition, aimed at finding the most beautiful planet of the Solar System, degenerated into measurements of the waist-to-hip ratio. Thanks to jury's anthropocentrism and due to certain practical difficulties in measuring other planets, Earth won the first year hands down [mh]

1885

• In order to read his own notes, Cimrman develops a metalanguage to help him organize the layout of his scribbles and to recognize the epoch-making discoveries amidst various stains, blotches and burnt holes that his notebooks were beset with. This metalanguage later evolved into HTML [jg]
• Cimrman built a snake farm, where he studied the problem occupying minds of many prominent European herpetologists at the time, namely, whether snakes get sexually aroused by watching insect [jr]

1886

• Cimrman accepts a position in the circus "Krakowiak" and immediately leaves for a big tour of the Middle East and North Africa (ss)
• In Vienna, Cimrman finishes his essay "The essence of existence" , which later became the basis of the so-called "cimrmanism", sometimes also called "non-existentialism". Its main thesis can be expressed by Cimrman's dictum "the existence cannot non-exist" [jg]

1887

• Cimrman confided in his log that he had discovered a new animal species. According to his notes, the caught individual had 2 pairs of limbs, walked sideways, and when left on its own, positioned itself so that its muzzle faced west, while its excretory ducts, naturally, faced west. The facial part of the animal was not pronounced and the animal itself changed expression according to the lighting. No definite name was given to it [mh]
• Cimrman disseminates his poetic correspondence with a female inmate of the Alcohol Abuse Center, Filomena A., which reveals his interest in alcohol as a sociological phenomenon [jg]
• Having had his first experiences with the Austro-Hungarian bureaucracy, Cimrman comes to the conclusion that most of people are morons and is devastated by this discovery. After a few weeks he fully recovers and, as a self-taught psychiatrist, solemnly pledges to rid humankind of this pernicious disease [jr]

1888

• Cimrman becomes a deputy for the non-animal programme in the circus Krakowiak (ss)
• The Journal of Austro-Hungarian Obstetricians features Cimrman's "periodic table", dedicated to his friend, baroness Nella von Auersbach, whose slightly irregular cycles inspired its composition. The table laid the foundations for a newly formed scientific discipline called "sexuology" [jg]

1889

• According to Professor Fiedler, this is the year in which Cimrman wrote his aforementioned (see 1883) couplet "Even a Peasant Will Be Fed" (ss)
• On October 17, an unknown voice is recorded on one of Edison's first phonograph cylinders. The language is later identified as Czech, and since Cimrman was the only Czech who worked for Edison (from July to November), it is believed to be his voice (js)
• Cimrman submitted a proposal for building a public transportation system across the Sahara desert. To this effect he had devised a "desert train" propelled by an engine using compressed vacuum. Even though the first prototype passed all the tests with flying colors, the project was cancelled, due to exaggerated concerns of ecological groups of local bedouins [jg]

1890

• Cimrman maintains correspondence with Ladislav Stroupeznicky, the artistic director of the Czech National Theater, who refuses to accept copious manuscripts of dramatic works that Cimrman is sending to him both under his own name and under the pseudonyms of Adalbert Kolinsky or Eliska Kutnohorska. Stroupeznicky terminates their correspondence with the famous exclamation "Don't write to me and, if possible, don't write at all!" (ss)
• Cimrman finishes his rural drama "Uplavice" (Dysentery), in which he illustrates the way he spoke to his neighbors - in improvised verses. The ease with which he could come up with an instant rhyme reveals quick thinking and his nascent genius [jg]

1891

• Cimrman wrote the play "Dumb Bobes" (ss)
• In Toronto, Cimrman obtains a patent for a typewriter with a round cylinder that moves from right to left (ss)
• While studying an interesting genus of phosphorescent frogs, Cimrman was attacked by "all four limbs" of a dog. This prompted him to intensify his research in the field of self-defense against various breeds of dogs, exotic predators, apes and persons in various degrees of inebriation [tk]
• At his experimental kennel in Libochovice, Cimrman cross-bred a new breed of dog, a "Cesky Darmoslap" (Czech Bum). While regular cross-breeding, aimed at strengthening certain specific features, usually leads to overall degeneracy, Cimrman's goal was to produce a dog whose specific physical characteristics would vary, but whose overall health and intelligence would be outstanding [jg]
• Cimrman's ignition organ, built in the St. Ignaz church in Varnsdorf and propelled by a mixture of air and petrol, caught the attention of the American entrepreneur Henry Ford, who later became Cimrman's generous sponsor. The mixture was forced into the organ's tubes where it burnt and while being blown out made an appropriate sound. According to its manual, Cimrman's organ could play up to 160 bars of music per gallon [jr]
• On December 5th, members of Cimrman's itinerant acting company went out to play Nikolaus (a sort of Santa Claus) and never came back (ss)

1892

• Cimrman's portable and inflatable bunker, an important instrument for his self-defense, was punctured by a deranged seamstress from Liberec, who later became known as "Joanna the Ripper" [jr]
• On September 15, JC writes in his diary: "I am such a complete atheist that I am afraid that God will punish me" (ss)
• Cimrman stages his own romantic drama "Nestastnik aneb adjunktova smrt" (Tough Luck or Adjunct's Death) that was inspired by dire memories of a summer stroll through deep woods, when, accompanied by his female friend O. Schmoranzova, he found a corpse in an advanced state of decomposition [jg]
• In December, thanks to architect Jimmy Cervenka, a crematorium originally conceived by Cimrman upon seeing burnt-out Chicago was finally opened to the public. The first cremated person was its cofounder, a baker named Beranek (js)

1893

• JC studies practical philosophy at the University of Istanbul (ss)
• Cimrman renames the Liptakov society for neighborly help in livestock production from "Culture-Enlightenment-Meat" to "Cimrman-Enlightenment-Meat". In this association, Cimrman served first as a meat taster and later on as the main ideological deputy [jg]
• In order to facilitate the advent of computer games, Cimrman developed a compressed maryash (maryash is a bridge-like card game common in Bohemia), in which the card color and value were reduced to the point of elimination, while most of the transferred information focused on the bidding [mh]
• A fall fashion show in Paris featured Cimrman's "arm-pit wig". This invention was later used by French police to mask their detectives' characteristically fuzzy arm-pits during occasional "hands-up!" surprises by the chased criminals [jr]

1894

• at the beginning of the year, Cimrman enters the drainage basin of the Vlcava river with his set of dental tools (ss)
• JC writes a letter to Ferdinand Lesseps (the builder of the Panama canal) (ss)
• JC receives a letter from the Czech composer, Zdenek Fibich (ss)
• The magazine "Tidy Apartment" publishes first drafts of Cimrman's household utilities (ss)
• Cimrman becomes acquainted with the philosophy of solipsism (ss)
• Cimrman accepts the position of bandmaster at the Royal Gard in Stockholm (ss)

1895

• Stage props for Cimrman's monumental operetta "Proso" (Millet) are made in Lyon (ss)
• In his correspondence with Lumiere brothers, Cimrman extols the art of pantomime and beseeches the brothers to invent only a silent movie, so as to preserve pantomime's natural habitat [jr]
• In September, Cimrman is invited to a sightseeing flight on board of his friend, count Zeppelin's, chaser airship "Karel" (ss)

1896

• On February 9, Cimrman acknowledges that the whole Europe has been obsessed with chess and vows to learn the rules of this game (js)
• On April 19, having played 79 games against himself, Cimrman finishes his study of the game of chess and its tactics with the single observation "the strongest chess piece is the king", which becomes the basis for his strategy (js)
• On July 25, Cimrman writes in his diary: "in oder to shorten the course of chess-games that will be won inevitably, I crush the opponent psychologically. I disturb him by wiping my forehead with a handkerchief, dropping it on the chessboard and apologizing for it at length. By stretching my legs, I can easily kick his shin and then repeatedly ask for forgiveness. I also bother him by questions in languages that I don't speak" (js)
• Ten years before the Theory of Relativity, Cimrman recognizes the genius of his friend, Albert Einstein [jr]
• Cimrman wrote the literary essay "Poetry on Demand" that turned into the cornerstone for his theory of collective incremental verse. This theory, based on the development of a given idea into several distinct directions by several distinct authors became, together with his Theory of the Absolute Rhyme, one of the mainstays of modern poetry [jg]
• Cimrman's "polarization converter" revolutionizes accounting. This device, operating on the basis of Ohm's Law and using two voltaic cells replaces assets with liabilities and vice versa, using only electrodes, sodium chloride solution, liquid eraser and blotting paper. Changing the polarity of annual balances, it was more effective than Cimrman's earlier "Wechsel-Operator" [mh]
• On November 14, between 10:30pm and 10:32 pm, Cimrman was spotted in Svitavy (East Bohemia). Despite the effort of many cimrmanologists, it is still unclear what his business in Svitavy was [jr]
• Cimrman serves as a surgeon on board the Swedish merchant ship "Bjornson" (until 1897) (ss)

1897

• on March 6, Cimrman defeated the reigning chess champion Emanuel Lasker. His modesty, however, prevented him from accepting the title even though he was already considered to be the best (js)
• Cimrman survives a famine in Tibet thanks to his spoon "Hladomorka" (Famina) (ss)
• The Royal Botanical Society of Scotland publishes a series of papers authored by Jara Cimrman and a Scottish biologist Patrick Geddes and entitled "On diminished cognitive abilities of parsnip roots". It is believed that the negative results of their research brought about the British expression "fine words butter no parsnips" [jr]

1898

• Cimrman accidentally invented a sheet for breaking falls. In June, he was a witness to a fire in the department store Gauss in Vienna. He saw a familiar face in a window of the fifth floor and shouted "Jump!". The person obeyed and fell down onto the awning of a little store below (js)
• Cimrman initiates the creation of the incremental poetic hymn "Atlantis", on which many outstanding poets of the time were working in relays, using postal pidgeons as carriers of the manuscript [jg]
• Cimrman builds a poppy seed mill in Nelahozeves to provide enough poppy seeds for his record breaking extra large cake [jr]

1899

• Cimrman constructed a "Cimrcycle" for English cyclist Robert Cripps, who won a number of trophies with it; for instance the Silver Cup of Sahara, the Golden Kettle of Sultan Fawouki-bej, the non-stop race along the Dutch canal Nijmwegen-Utrecht, and others (js)
• Sigmund Freud had his coat altered at Leopold Cimrman's tailor's shop. Here, he met and befriended his son Jara (js)
• In June, Cimrman visits Znojmo (South Moravia) and, thanks to his acquaintance with architect A. Graf, initiates construction of a permanent theater, that was built after its Viennese counterpart [tk]
• In summer, Cimrman made a short trip to Spain, where he met young Pablo Picasso, 16. He showed him his "Still life with dice" and Picasso was quite fascinated by the expressive potential of little cubes. Alas, Cimrman never took to cubism and his own paintings seldom transcended the esoteric bounds of parallelopipedism [jr]
• Cimrman founded a theater Hrand Hihnol in Scikasovo (Kharkov district). Its repertoire was mostly apocalyptic (taking place in quagmires, volcanos or morgues), so that the poor Ukrainian muzhiks would realize that someone was even worse off than they were. Censors cancelled the drama "Goose bumps" as mocking the Russian winters, even though the plot was set in the Pyramid of Cheops, and featured a group of mad masons bricking themselves in (js)
• In autumn, under the pseudonym JACI, Cimrman works in the Parisian circus Apollo as a partridge tamer (js)
• In autumn, while moving throughout Southeast Asia as an agent of a Canadian furniture company "Sleep smiling", Cimrman learns that the chief of the military musical academy in Tibet is inviting applications for the position of Percussion Advisor. Without hesitation, Cimrman heads for Lhasa, where, in fierce competition, wins the position and the right to eat in the officer's dining room and to attend evening classes of yoga (js)
• At the turn of the century, more exactly between December 31st, 1899, 10pm and January 1st, 1900, 4am, Cimrman invented "mood-music". His first opus, named "Vesele rozpustilosti" (Merry Frivolousness), consisted only of one note, which, nevertheless, took up the whole page of music manuscript paper (kv)

1900

• Cimrman is getting more and more nervous, as he is expecting something important to happen (ss)
• JC sent out his application for the 2nd Olympic Games in Paris, where he wanted to participate in the long jump, sprint, weight-lifting, discus-throwing and marathon. His plans were thwarted by a multiple infection (ss)
• On March 4, Cimrman's life-vest was publicly demonstrated to journalists on Spreva river, near Berlin. The inflatable jacket could support the body for 18 minutes and came with a bottle and a farewell-message, in case the drowning man did not survive for as long as the jacket lasted (js)
• Cimrman's 3-speed semihydraulic nutcracker is patented in French Guayana. Its manual, read backwards, contains chapters 6, 7, 19, 20 and 23 of Cimrman's military fairy-tale "Little Green Riding Hood", featuring Lieutenant Snowhite, seven very blood thirsty dwarves of various ranks, Major Cinderella and other familiar characters. But not to worry, the fairy-tale ends with a decisive victory, Good 9 - Evil 2 (halftime 3-0) [jr]
• Cimrman suggests to Franz Joseph I, the Austrian emperor, that he should either abdicate or die. He also prompts Lenin to start publishing the magazine "Spark". The reason for Cimrman's poking his nose into someone else's affairs was that he strongly believed that all epoch-making events should take place in round-number years, such as 1900, 1910 and so on, so that later on pupils would have less difficulty memorizing them in history classes (ss)
• In Fall, a cabaret "Minim's" for a Czech minority in Vienna opens. Its name clearly suggests that Cimrman had to lower his usual quality standards. Nevertheless, or maybe because of that, the joint became very popular even among Austrians. In order to preserve its Czech character and to secure enough seats for his countrymen, Cimrman started selling the tickets only to people who were able to read aloud some Czech slogans written over the box office (js)
• In November, Cimrman was working as a butcher's apprentice in Berlin. Curiously, on November 16, someone attempted to assassinate the German emperor Wilhelm II., by throwing a butcher's axe at him (js)

1901

• Cimrman's "Elastic Geography" is written (ss)
• On March 6, another attempt to assassinate Emperor Wilhelm II., this time in Bremen. Interestingly, Cimrman was again nearby, supervising the construction of the steamboat "Bismarck" in Bremen's docks (js)
• Participated in the expedition of meteorologists to Antarctica (ss)
• Cimrman's design for a luxury cabin for airplanes remained pinned to his drawing board, since no aeroplanes at the time could accommodate it. It was realized only much later, in 1921, in the Swedish aeroplanes SAAB L-42 (js)
• Cimrman submitted a project for a tram-car with beds to the City Council in Vienna, so that even immobile citizens could admire the city's proverbial charm. A poll in local hospitals showed, however, that recumbent patients were not interested in sightseeing tours and Cimrman's idea was never put into practice (js)
• On June 18, Cimrman made a long-distance flight with an airship "Patria" from Dresden to Leipzig and back. The crew consisted of Egon Dachstein, an on board mechanic, Dieter Jens, a steersman, Gerd Kollwitz, a navigator and Thomas Schlagwort, a helium inflater (js)
• In summer, in order to present the human side of Albert Einstein to the general public, Cimrman opened the Museum of Einstein's Socks. Later on, Einstein became famous for not wearing any. Indeed, all his new socks were sent to Liberec, where they were catalogued and neatly folded in Cimrman's museum. In particularly harsh winters, Einstein's socks were lent to poor children. After the winter passed, they were collected, washed and re-exhibited [jr]
• On September 21, Cimrman empirically studies large crowds. In his diary, he notes that a throng of peasants weighs more on average than a throng of mailmen without mailbags (with mailbags the crowd is even thinner and weighs an extra 32 kg/m^2 less). He also observed that a throng of tyrolian peasants with enlarged thyroid gland weighs more on average than an equivalent crowd of peasants from the plains around Danube (js)
• In autumn, Cimrman composes a song "O mlady, o mlada", whose tune bore uncanny resemblance to Beatles' "Obladi-Oblada". The song was sung in his cabaret "Minim's" (js)
• Cimrman published a booklet "Upbringing of a Healthy Sportsman", mostly for elementary school teachers (ss)
• In November, he takes a trip from Prague to Vienna to see if his parents are still alive (ss)
• Practised as an itinerant dentist in Lower Austria and nearby Pelhrimov in South Bohemia (continued till 1902) (ss)

1902

• On January 28, Cimrman studies the chemical composition of dirt and filth and comes to the surprising discovery that dirt and filth are in fact made out of the same material components as "clean" matter. Thus he concludes that "dirt" is just common matter that happens to be in the wrong place, such as under our nails or ears, on shoes, under a bed, or figuratively on our characters or in politics (js)
• On April 5, the Russian Interior Minister Sipjagin was assassinated in St. Petersburg. At that time, Cimrman was in St. Petersburg's Russian Marine Academy, lecturing on the history of caviar (js)
• On April 6, Cimrman's appointment book says: "11.30 am - a rendezvous with Julie B.; 12 noon - visit Julie B. and reschedule the date for tomorrow; 1 pm - lunch with Mr. T., repay the debt and borrow more money; 4 pm - a blind date from my "seeking conversation in Portuguese" ad; 6 pm - a walk along the river; use this time to think about acts" (js)
• Cimrman moved from Vienna to Liptakov (a small village in North Bohemia); later on Liptakov became Cimrman's favorite resort, as exemplified by his dictum "New York and Liptakov - my dearest villages) (ss)
• Cimrman distributed his paper "The philosophy of nonexistence" in which he had outlined his metaphysical system. The article had three main parts, "Nonbeing", "Nonexisting" and "Irrelevancy". The manuscript of the fourth part, "Unnaturalness" was confiscated by the Austro-Hungarian police [jg]
• Cimrman considers extending the right to vote to some domesticated animals. Surprisingly, in simulated elections in Liptakov, cattle voted more responsibly on the whole than citizens [jr]
• At Christmas, Cimrman decides to compare safety at Christmas with Easter. He notes that during Christmas, 37 buses fell into an abyss in Bosnia, which is 17 more than at Easter. Likewise in the jungles of Midwest Africa, 28 travellers were lost on Christmas, whereas 7 were found during Easter. In Belgium, 15828 families with two children fell apart, whereas at Easter the same number of families with only one child broke up. His conclusion: replace Christmas by Easter (js)

1903

• In the Spring, Cimrman organizes diving shows in Pest, Hungary, during which he lets out lots of bubbles in order to attract the support of the Count Esterhazy for his planned soda water factory. (ss)
• Still in the spring, Cimrman arranges for diving shows in Sydney (ss)
• On June 3, Cimrman made friends with Sir Malcolm Greggs, a famous English crocodile hunter. Cimrman was later given a crocodile as a token of this friendship. Being an animal lover, Cimrman set the crocodile free and, a week later, the poor animal bit off part of Sir Greggs' leg (js)
• Cimrman solved the problem of transporting the Dutch round cheese Gouda. His container prevented rolling by tightening the cargo space, which at the same time cut down on the number of blind passengers, being smuggled to Belgium (js)
• In August, Cimrman finished construction of a round chimney built over a deep well in Southern Bohemia. After it was filled with water, the chimney and well constituted a narrow body of water with the total depth of 114 m. Together with his younger colleague Auguste Piccard, Cimrman used it to set the new record in deep diving. Not being sure about the effects of excessive pressure on the human organism, they submerged a plush bear first.
• In the Autumn, Cimrman is spotted in the Ukraine, near Lvov, where he starts digging a basement for his soda water factory. The suspicious monarchy immediately accuses him of underground activities. He tries in vain to explain the principles of the siphon to the uneducated gendarmes. (ss)
• In October, when splitting some old tree stubs, Cimrman conceived the idea of total European disintegration. He realized that most wars are caused by big nations wanting to be even bigger and concluded that a Europe consisting of tiny little microscopic countries would be absolutely safe [jr]
• Cimrman wins the trophy for the best sports picture, awarded by the French magazine L'Equipe. His winning shot depicts Belgian princess Liliana on a sporty wheelbarrow, designed by her gardener Laon Mabelaise when she were only four. The picture caused a scandal among European monarchs (js)

1904

• French motorcycle racer, Renee Pajout, signed a contract with the PUCH company allowing him to use their new model with Cimrman's carburetor (js)
• In Prague's theater Malostranska beseda, Cimrman's live picture "Patriots are seeing Johann Amos Comenius off to his exile" is prepared. Live pictures were a popular form of entertainment at the turn of the century. They consisted of configurations of many human characters, so that most people could participate (ss)
• Cimrman wanted to surprise the Saint Louis Olympics with a pole vault. Unfortunately, bureaucratic clerks at Tanvald's railway station refused to load his pole on the grounds that it exceeded the length of the railway carriage. Desperate Cimrman took his wooden pole and ran to a nearby station in Liberec. On his way, he was shot by a gamekeeper Schmoranz, who thought that Cimrman was stealing wood from his forest (ss)
• Cimrman actively participates in spying against the monarchy. He develops several gadgets for an agent Konrad Weixlschmidt, such as a micropencil, a primitive, but functional cell phone with a range of over 10 meters, a pocket shredder and a pocket knife with 96 different tools attached to it [jg]
• On July 28, another Russian Interior Minister, Vyacheslav Konstantinovich Pleve was assassinated at the exhibition of Cimrman's paintings. Cimrman was present (js)
• Cimrman marked out the track for one of the most difficult autocross race of this year "Circuit d' Cimrman" near the town of Auvergne. In order to make it even more demanding, Cimrman used to drive two or three cows along the road (js)
• To expedite production of French fries in the Russian fast food chain McVolodya, Cimrman constructs a system of mirrors to transmit images of orders from one place to another. Clearly the first FAX machine [jr]
• There is a review in a local paper "Rokycansky Kuryr" of Cimrman's theatrical piece "Posviceni v rasovne" (Feast in the Boneyard) (ss)
• Cimrman's expedition to Australia aims at bringing home some kangaroos for mail delivery. In Australia, however, the 5-member team is captured by cannibals, Lieutenant Lukas is eaten and his brains are sucked out. In his book "Cannibal's guide to someone else's body" (published in 1906), Cimrman describes this horrifying experience as "mental abortion" [jr]
• Cimrman sits around the pub "U Sirotka" in Liptakov, escorts drunks home and embellishes the pub's walls with graffiti (they are in between the layers 34 and 36) (ss)
• On November 12, Cimrman writes in his diary: "What kind of person am I? In the past, I tried to avoid this question for the fear of underestimating or overestimating myself. This time, however, I want to learn the truth even if I should subsequently collapse". To this effect, Cimrman eavesdropped on a conversation about him from behind curtains in his friend's apartment (js)

1905

• On February 17, there is a bomb attack on the Czar's uncle, Count Sergey, the governor of Moscow. By a strange coincidence, Cimrman was fixing the Kremlin's clockwork at this time (js)
• In his letter to Klara Senovska, Cimrman complains: "Prague folks won't come to a theater, they frolic either on water or on skates" (ss)
• On July 14, Cimrman loses the springboard diving competition in Plovdiv, Bulgaria, to Jean Haguet of France by only 2 points (js)
• Cimrman puts out the scandalous brochure "Degeneration", directed against nobility. It turned out, however, that this pamphlet was in fact written by Cimrman's friend, a young and decadent baroness Nella von Auersbach. The influence of Cimrman's thoughts on her was apparent though, and Cimrman in turn used her observations about adverse effects of aristocratic intermarrying on the genetic code in his late cross-breeding experiments with dogs [jg]
• In autumn, there is a record potato harvest in Ukraine. Cimrman, at that time working on his first semiautomated computing machine MANIAC, utilizes the surplus for mass-production of potato micro chips [jr]
• In October, Cimrman published massive poetry collections "Hong-Kong" and "The Critical Degree of Compression", both conceived, written, printed and bound on his poetic assembly line in Jablonec. Cimrman, no doubt inspired by a visit in Ford's company, gathered several specialized artists and linguists along a conveyor belt carrying a roll of blank paper, thus cutting the production time by 50-70% [jr]
• Cimrman's almost complete expedition to the North Pole reached the Franz Joseph Land, where its members refused to continue, despite Cimrman's arguments that it would be a pity to return if they had made it so far. The stumbling block of their negotiations was Cimrman's proposal of daily wages, which, considering the length of an average polar day, infuriated the crew. Cimrman's suggestion of eating three meals per day wasn't very welcome either [mh]

1906

• In February, Cimrman participated in the Conference on Hydrogen Atom, held in Horni Zabovresky, Austria-Hungary. He didn't deliver his talk though, since the lectures turned into a fracas [jr]
• On March 18, Cimrman organizes a contest in human stability at the Issy-les-Moulineaux airport. The winner, women's gloves mender Pascal Zissou, was able to withstand the windforce of a rotating blade for 3 minutes and 24 seconds, before being thrown to the ground. An American journalist Guinness was fascinated by this contest and started collecting material for his own Book of Records (js)
• From April 17 to May 29, a Belgian observer Schiminwerp and an aviation pioneer Manton were the first to try Cimrman's zoom lens for aerial photography. Their activities caught attention of the Belgian Counter-Intelligence Service who confiscated all their negatives.
• On April 26, a little power plant in Chernobyl, Ukraine, malfunctions due to drunkenness of the main coal dispatcher. The resulting outage melts Cimrman's frozen super-crystals that were being tested for superconductivity. Luckily, Cimrman notices the amazing properties of liquid crystals and records them in his notebook [jr]
• On May 11, according to his diary, Cimrman loses patience in trying to measure the speed of a fly. He confides to Albert Einstein, who suggests to exercise patience by trying to evaluate the constant "pi=3.14" to 300 decimal places and then return to the fly experiments. Cimrman follows his advice and eventually estimates fly's speed at 1-1.3 kilometers per minute, which is about that of an express train (js)
• 62 copies of Cimrman's children's book "Male malery" (Little Troubles) were privately printed (js)
• Cimrman takes a public stand against handshaking. In a series of popular lectures, he emphasizes the risk of spreading infectious diseases and relates his own experiences of contracting salmonellosis this way. His lecturing crusade was aimed at improving the hygienic standards and decreasing the number of epidemics in the monarchy [jg]
• Cimrman invented his 4-cylinder engine Emilie Weberova, named after his friend, a local hairdresser. This engine was known for its perfect combustion that allowed usage of less conventional fuels, such as old Eau de Cologne from his friend's hair salon. It was reported that even on stale beer, it could accelerate to 30 mph (ss)
• On October 15, Cimrman's amateur theatrical group "Lipany" stages his experimental version of Sheakespeare's "Hamlet" without Hamlet in Kopidlno. During their performance, the disappointed pharmacist Hoffman sets up a search party (ss)
• in December, JC organizes the first ski-disco in Vysoka nad Jizerou (ss)

1907

• Cimrman's engine Emilie Weberova was prevented from being installed in cars. Various fishermen's organizations protested that their supercharges had a negative effect on fish (ss)
• Cimrman's two-way locomotive was used in Mexico (ss)
• A local paper "Nove Jicinsko" reports on an interpretation of two fairy tales by Cimrman's ensemble (ss)
• JC got almost engaged to Alice Echtnerova. Despite this single incident, most of cimrmanologists agree that Cimrman was very shy towards women (ss)
• Cimrman's presentation at the City Hall in Tanvald (Northern Bohemia) aims at adding the extra day of a leap year to July rather than February. In his proposal, he argues that most people would welcome the change, since February 29 is usually cold, dark and dreary, while July 32 would be nice, warm and relaxed [jr]
• During a flight in his airship "Karel" Cimrman dropped his pocket knife, which fell through several layers of atmosphere and cut into the ground near the German village of Grunbach. After finding it completely corroded later on, Cimrman took precaution and invented stainless steel [jg]
• On the eve of his Arctic expedition, Cimrman decides to keep a multidiary in all languages known to him and cuts out a number of printing stamps from potatoes donated by a sponsoring farm in Polna. Thanks to the multitude of Chinese and Japanese characters, his potato stamps sustained the explorers all the way back to Gottenburg. Being almost home, JC used the leftovers of ASCII characters to print out the second act of his new opera "Greek village" [mh]
• While returning from the Arctic expedition, Cimrman's fellows convinced him to make a potato soup out of vowels, on the grounds that they don't carry any information anyway and exist only so that consonants could be more easily pronounced. Cimrman didn't lose his literary appetite though, and wrote a novel "Vrt" using only consonants (yes, in the Czech language you can legally make sentences like "Pln skvrn, vlk vtrhl v tvrz skrz vrch") [jr]
• On the occasion of his initiative "Merry Railwayman", Cimrman made disposable dentures from white plaster for all despatchers of Austro-Hungarian Railways, so they could display white and shining teeth to the passing Emperor Franz Joseph I., who always liked healthy and happy state employees (ss)

1908

• In California, Cimrman finished a movie picture whose original title was "Kaskader" (Stuntman), featuring an automobile driver on a steep ramp. During the production of the movie, however, its name was changed to more descriptive "Srot" (Junk) (js)
• Jara Cimrman met Sigmund Freud in Vienna (ss)
• On February 8, Cimrman won a "Man, who is ahead of himself" competition and was awarded a unique pocket-watch made by a Prague watch-maker Jan Zilavsky. The fine clockwork was placed in a cognac bottle and instead of winding it, one simply shaked the bottle [js]
• the Russian Czar sent out messengers with a thank you note to Cimrman (ss)
• On March 9, the Czech daily "Narodni politika" published a short article by Cimrman thanking the paper for its indispensable service above the Arctic Circle. Cimrman explained how their expedition had kept warm by stuffing their coats and gloves with sheets of the newspaper (ss)
• Cimrman arrived in London as a shoe-salesman. His running shoes were a big hit at the Summer Olympic Games (ss)
• On September 6, Finnish multi-instrumentalist Leino Pekkari performs Cimrman's Fugue for guitar and bombardon in Koskenkorvo Hall in Helsinki. Cimrman made him a special stand, so that Pekkari could handle his bombardon using foot pedals (js)
• Cimrman is in Vienna as an assistant in the Department of Economic Psychiatry (ss)
• Cimrman publishes his memoirs "S desem utikam lesem" (Running Through The Woods With Terror), in which he describes his experiences as an itinerant dentist. He recalls terryfied peasants from remote settlements running away from him and his notorious dental pliers. The respect that Cimrman's painful, but eventually healing mission acquired turned him into a hero of many folklore legends and fairytales, making him look like a bogey man of sorts [jg]
• In December, Cimrman tests his electric dishwasher in the grand hotel Pupp in Karlovy Vary (West Bohemia). Some 120 pieces of crockery were taken out after the last rinse, despite the fact that only 15 pieces were put in to begin with. Needless to say, the project was cancelled [jr]
• On December 9, at 1pm, a Czech polar expedition leaves Prague. Cimrman later described their adventures in his play "Conquering of the North Pole by an Expedition of the Prague Polar Bear Club" (ss)

1909

• On February 14, Cimrman, in his efforts to support the rights of minorities, called a pieceful demonstration of Prague masochists. They convened at the Karel's Square because it was the most difficult one to escape from. The assembly was brutally dispersed by the Royal Equestrian Police, causing much enjoyment among the masochists, who were enthusiastically showing each other their cuts and bruises [mh]
• Cimrman began cryogenic experiments in New York with volunteers who wanted to experience the next (i.e. 21st) century (js)
• On April 5th, the Czech expedition led by Karel Nemec conquered the North Pole. According to Cimrman, the Czechs kept mum on their achievement being afraid that it would be attributed to the hated Austro-Hungarian Empire. Only after Czechoslovakia seceded from it in 1918, an expedition member Varel Fristejnsky came out with the truth, which led to a 10 year extension of his hospitalization in a lunatic asylum (ss)
• On May 27, Cimrman designed a scene for a fairy-tale "Hansel and Gretzel" staged by the amateur theatrical society "Mastyks" during Bohemian Folklore Festival in Vienna, organized by the patriotic magazine "Viennese Czech". "The main cottage was lined with a gingerbread from Pardubice and embedded into the surrounding vegetation as if it had stood there for ever", wrote the Austrian daily Arbeiterzeitung two days later (js)
• In summer, Cimrman's assistant Rolf Pazelt, known for his masochistic tendencies, developed the theory and practice of self-attack. He perfected it by his sophisticated self-raids in the Jizera Mountains and by occasionally mugging himself. His Buddhist beliefs in reincarnation allegedly resulted in his quartering and grinding himself into salami. To the memory of his self-quartering Cimrman composed a quarter-tone Fugue with Variations [mh]
• In summer, in order to give the Czech people an edge in the coming technological revolution, Cimrman builds a gas station in Liptakov's woods and teaches primitive peasants how to use it, despite the fact that there were no cars for miles around. The pump was destroyed in 1910 by a drunk gamekeeper Kutlak, who mistook it for his arch-enemy, a poacher Jandera, and smashed it beyond recognition with his wooden club [jr]
• Cimrman laid foundations of orienteering, after a head of the Health and Sports Club in Stredoplky drowned in a sewage system of a local distillery. JC argued it would be healthier to run in the nature and organized the first orienteering competition in Tanvald, using his experiences as an itinerant dentist, when he had to chase his patients down through unknown terrains. Most of the participants were baffled though and soon got lost in deep woods [jg]

1910

• A weekly magazine CENTURY asked Cimrman to conduct an interview with the oldest man on Earth, the chieftain of the American-Indian Chipper Tribe, Gebanach Geron Wonce, 127 (the author of the famous maxim "Man is born to his own detriment") (js)
• Cimrman wrote a single act play "Amazement of Gendarme Kovanda" (later renamed "Act"); finished in 1911 (ss)

1911

• Josef Padevet, Cimrman's neighbor, borrowed a manuscript of his play "Dumb Bobes" and destroyed it (ss)
• on January 29, Cimrman writes to Frantisek Krizik, a Czech engineer and a pioneer of electrification, about the need to invent the Internet: "I feel a moral obligation to give humankind an effective tool for communication, since I am afraid that the simultaneous findings of some of my works in the future could lead to an uncontrollable information flood" [jr]
• Cimrman's first attempts at the creation of virtual reality. After a short round of negotiations with coal-baron Ulmann, he tried to appease striking miners in Ostrava with scenes from his beloved Liptakov. According to a junior mining locksmith Golombek, the Liptakov cottages were delivered in individual packets using stolen mining explosives. This form of shipping and handling is strongly suggesting a wireless transport [mh]
• Having lost his primacy over discovery of the snowman, Cimrman didn't give up and during his health-education tour "With a Trumpet against Malaria" in Colombia discovered a rain-man, named Emil. In a year Cimrman returned to Colombia, this time as a supervisor of a scythe transport, and managed to capture one specimen. Some of his experiences from this rain-man hunt are artistically rendered in his drama "Notoricky lyzar" (Addictive Skier) [jr]
• On December 11, Cimrman won the second prize at the World Championship in snow-sculpting, held in Swiss winter resort St. Gotthard. His replica of a Mercedes-Benz looked so authentic that Mercedes Corp. used its picture for advertising purposes (js)

1912

• On January 8, the musical journal "Musikalische Rundschau" criticizes Cimrman's one-act opera "The Success of the Czech Engineer in India" (ss)
• On an impulse from Jara Cimrman, Voluntary Parent Association of an elementary school in Vysoka nad Jizerou built a snowman (ss)
• Cimrman tried to persuade organizers of the Summer Olympics in Stockholm to have programming included as one of the disciplines. This proposal was probably spurred by recent successes of Cimrman's own programming language C+++ into which he successfully translated a number of Czech fairy-tales [jr]
• At Easter, Cimrman's play "The Plum Tree" had its opening night (ss)
• Cimrman writes a letter to Stanko Milosevic, an orthodox monologist (ss)
• On his way to an orphanage in Traun near Linz, Austria, Cimrman met Professor Sajner, a gerontologist, who became so close to him that, during the course of their train ride, he infected him with an Asian flu. Cimrman didn't want to transfer his newly-acquired disease to poor innocent children and stayed with Prof. Sajner in his senior citizen's home in Frymburk, where he studied the phenomenon of begging. He made several contributions to its theory (ss)
• Cimrman organizes an expedition to equatorial Africa. He meets Kasenga tribe and manages correctly to diagnose the chief's only son by carefully observing and recording the frequency of his winking. Cimrman is rewarded with a recipe for a mushroom stew [jr]
• Cimrman hired R. Cespiva, a professional painter, to design new symbols for integers 1, 2, 3 and so on. The usual number systems (binary, decimal, hexadecimal) were all repetitive, while Cimrman was convinced that each and every number deserved a unique special symbol, rather than a combination of a finite set of digits. Cespiva's design work was terminated in 1914 by the First World War, when he was sent to the front while working on a symbol for 3790361 [jr]
• Cimrman's electric stove serves as a blueprint for his electric chair (ss)
• A conservative South Bohemian daily "Strakonicky vodak" (Water Sportsman) criticizes Cimrman's disruptive behavior on local ponds and lakes. Apparently, Cimrman and his friends were riding on ironing boards propelled by bedsheets (quite possibly a predecessor of windsurfing) and terrifying older ladies [jr]
• Edison Studio produces three movies directed by Jara Cimrman: "The Step Husband", "Mummification" and "The Placeholder". The movies were never released because they were too good for an average viewer, but not good enough for an artsy crowd (js)
• In autumn, at 4.38 pm, Cimrman arrived in Prague by an express train from Vienna (ss)
• On September 12, a classical drama "Marysha" was staged in New Olomouc, Illinois. In order to obtain funds for props and costumes, Jara Cimrman, who was guest-directing the play, inserted a few commercials directly into the text, where appropriate. The performance was a big success and Cimrman was given an offer to present the piece on Broadway as a musical. Needing money for a return trip to Europe, Cimrman accepted (js)
• On September 15, Cimrman's motion picture about the assassination of President Theodore Roosevelt is finished. Three weeks afterwards, the President is shot and Cimrman destroys the copy of the movie, fearing that he may be associated with the plot. Later, it turned out that the screen-play was written by Zoltan Bihary, a clairvoyant of Hungarian origin (js)
• Cimrman on a field trip to Patagonia (ss)
• The opening night of Cimrman's epic musical "Maryshow", staged in the Palladium theater on Broadway (most likely in December). The show caused many traffic jams, especially in front of the Waldorf-Astoria hotel, where Cimrman was staying under the pseudonym Emma Destinova. New York Herald Tribune exclaimed: "Columbus discovered America, America discovered Cimrman" (js)

1913

• City Council in New York terminated Cimrman's cryogenic experiments, because the relatives of hibernating people refused to pay the increased rent for freezing boxes in New York's Central Morgue (js)
• William N. Selig produces Cimrman's sci-fi horror "Halali", in which a group of high state officials go on a human hunt that turns against them. The movie stars Susan Randolph, Bibi Norman, Ben Cruizer, Lester Olsen, David H. Remnitz, Claus Varaday and others (js)
• The only performance of Cimrman's play "Amazement of Gendarme Kovanda" on the occasion of the opening the restaurant "Labut" in Tanvald (ss)
• Vienna was agitated by the theft of an expensive golden pendant, a birthday present for the Austrian Arch-Duke Ferdinand. At first, JC wasn't interested in the case, thinking that it served the arrogant monarch-to-be right. His attitude changed when Ferdinand announced that he was going to donate the pendant to charity and would the thief, please, send it to an orphanage at St. Barbora. That not having been done, Cimrman stepped in and solved the case (ss)
• In June, JC organizes a festival of monotone choirs in Bergen, Norway (ss)
• In June, while Europe was caught in a wave of gigantism, Cimrman aced his contemporaries by a Giant Wickerwork Bottle, presented at the International Exhibition of Basketmakers in Prague (js)
• Cimrman delivered a lecture entitled "Windows'12 - Where will they go tomorrow?" at the Annual Conference of Filing Cash Desk Users in Old Jersey. His premise: computers need windows so that their overheating circuits can be cooled directly by a flood of water. He had also improved on a keyboard by including the CTRL, ALT and DEL keys and remarking that "one day they may come in handy" [mh]
• Cimrman registered a domain "www.graveyard.com", where he intended to collect all the dead links that he found on his newly invented Internet [jr]
• Cimrman's theater was visited by a pioneer of electrical engineering, Frantisek Krizik, and his wife. This resulted in cancellation of Cimrman's play "Tma jako v pytli" (Complete Blackout), which insinuated that Krizik had had an extra-marital affair. This play was performed, in the event of power cuts, in complete darkness and became a progenitor of radio shows (ss)
• On October 10, Cimrman writes in his diary: "I don't want to be captured through lenses as a single concept (wie ein Einzelbegriff), since I feel a part of humanity" (ss)
• On October 15, the National Theater of Jara Cimrman in New Olomouc, Illinois, burned down after a performance of J. K. Tyl's classical piece "Palicova dcera" (Arsonist's Daughter) (js)
• On December 3, the Los Angeles News movie critic, Christian Markowitz, labels Cimrman as "an eternal beginner". Cimrman retorts that "it's better to begin eternally than to finish once and for all" (js)

1914

• The production of Cimrman's "cabin for beginning violinists" was suspended because of insufficient supply of the African grass (ss)
• Cimrman was ranked 16th in the Most Handsome Man competition in Liptakov [jr]
• Last verified presence of Jara Cimrman in Liptakov (ss)
• On July 28, as the Archduke Ferdinand is assassinated, Cimrman operates in Sarajevo as a marketing agent for Browning Inc. (kv)

1914 - ?? Cimrman's demise, just like his birth, has been shrouded in mystery. It seems (ss) that sometime during 1914, he simply disappeares and is not heard of again. Keep in mind though that some experts place his disappearance a little bit further into the 20th century. At any rate, there are tens of theories and conjectures as to his fate, including UFO abduction, emigration, assassination and so on. Since none of the theories has gained universal acceptance, we will end our journey through Cimrman's colorful life here, at the onset of the First World War.

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