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Today\u2019s subject had a multi-hyphenate name and a multi-hyphenate resume\u2013\u2013, in his 55 years of life, he was an adventurer, a geologist, a spy, a dinosaur scientist, one of the founders of paleobiology, the world\u2019s first airplane hijacker, a founder of the field of Albanian studies, a cosplay artist, and a murderer. Born in 1877 in Transylvania, the Baron Franz Nopcsa von Fels\xf6-Szilv\xe1s may have been, except perhaps as a pub quiz answer, lost to history since his death, but in his lifetime he had an outsized impact on several scientific disciplines, central European politics and nationalisms, and, unfortunately, the man who he lived with until a murder-suicide ended both of their lives.\nSubscribe to Extra Bad Gays, our monthly conversation podcast, to support the show!\n----more----\nSOURCES:\nG\xebzim Alpion, \u201cBaron Franz Nopcsa and His Ambition for the Albanian Throne,\u201d BESA Journal 6, no. 3 (Summer 2002): 25\u201332\nGareth Dyke, \u201cThe Dinosaur Baron of Transylvania,\u201d Scientific American, October 1, 2011, https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-dinosaur-baron-of-transylvania/\nRobert Elsie, \u201c1907 | Baron Franz Nopcsa: The Baron Held Hostage in the Mountains of Dibra,\u201d Texts and Documents of Albanian History, accessed April 18, 2024, http://www.albanianhistory.net/1907_Nopcsa2/index.html\nRobert Elsie, \u201cThe Viennese Scholar Who Almost Became King of Albania: Baron Franz Nopcsa and His Contribution to Albanian Studies,\u201d n.d., http://www.elsie.de/pdf/articles/A1999VienneseNopcsa.pdf\nEmily Osterloff, \u201cFranz Nopcsa: The Dashing Baron Who Discovered Dwarf Dinosaurs,\u201d Natural History Museum, accessed April 18, 2024, https://www.nhm.ac.uk/discover/franz-nopcsa-the-dashing-baron-who-discovered-dwarf-dinosaurs.html\nVanessa Veselka, \u201cHistory Forgot This Rogue Aristocrat Who Discovered Dinosaurs and Died Penniless,\u201d Smithsonian Magazine, accessed April 18, 2024, https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/history-forgot-rogue-aristocrat-discovered-dinosaurs-died-penniless-180959504/\nTraveler, Scholar, Political Adventurer: A Transylvanian Baron at the Birth of Albanian Independence: The Memoirs of Franz Nopcsa, NED-New edition, 1 (Central European University Press, 2014), https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.7829/j.ctt6wpkrc;\n"A Field Guide to the Long History of Skyjackings,\u201d CrimeReads(blog), May 10, 2021, https://crimereads.com/skyjackings/.\nOur intro music is Arpeggia Colorix by Yann Terrien, our outro music is by Dj Michaeloswell Graphicsdesigner.