August 15, 1916. On this date, Fanny the octopus refused surgical treatment for piles, against her doctors’ wishes. Fanny, a local favorite from the National Aquarium in Washington, D.C., tried to explain via elaborate pantomime that she was an octopus and therefore did not have and could not get piles, a painful condition involving swollen and inflamed veins in the human rectum. Still, the doctors persisted, and on the 16th, Fanny escaped from her aquarium home, laying waste to half of Washington, D.C. in a successful bid to reach the ocean.
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