A Dreadnought Hoax and her suicide note.

In 1910, the Bloomsbury Group (Virginia Woolf and her brother Adrian included) tricked the Royal Navy into showing its best warship: HMS Dreadnought. Or, as summarized by the Museum of Hoaxes: "A group of upper-class youths fooled the British navy into believing they were a visiting group of Abyssinian dignitaries."

It's quite an epic story, all of it - fake telegrams, skin darkener, white gloves, a substitute national anthem, invented words. So head over to Wikipedia or the Museum of Hoaxes!

BUNGA BUNGA!

On 28 March 1941, Virginia Woolf committed suicide by walking into the River Ouse with her pockets full of stones. She drowned, culminating a long history of depression. But beforehand, she wrote a note to her husband which is quite possibly one of the most beautiful notes from one person to another:

"I feel certain that I am going mad again. I feel we can't go through another of those terrible times. And I shan't recover this time. I begin to hear voices, and I can't concentrate. So I am doing what seems the best thing to do. You have given me the greatest possible happiness. You have been in every way all that anyone could be. I don't think two people could have been happier 'til this terrible disease came. I can't fight any longer. I know that I am spoiling your life, that without me you could work. And you will I know. You see I can't even write this properly. I can't read. What I want to say is I owe all the happiness of my life to you. You have been entirely patient with me and incredibly good. I want to say that — everybody knows it. If anybody could have saved me it would have been you. Everything has gone from me but the certainty of your goodness. I can't go on spoiling your life any longer. I don't think two people could have been happier than we have been. V."