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“What we put in the water can end up in the mouth of a whale.” Robbie Johnson/FacebookThe beached infant sei whale. A 17-foot baby sei whale washed ashore on a Wilmington, N.C. beach on Jan. 6 and the University of North Carolina Wilmington’s Marine Mammal Stranding Program had no choice but to euthanize the animal. Program coordinator William McLellan reported that not only was the whale unusual for the area and must have traveled a long distance before landing on the North Carolina Island of Masonboro....

In the midst of the Austro-Turkish War, the Austrians engaged in a deadly battle in the town of Karansebes — against itself — all because of one bottle too many of Schnapps. The Austrian-Turkish War. In September of 1788, the Ottoman Army arrived in the town of Karansebes after several days struggling to overtake it. There they found their enemy, the Austrians, in a state of utter disarray and destruction, after having fired at themselves in a case of mistaken identity and a drunken brawl....

In 1867, a poor Irish immigrant named Bridget Deignan was put to death for the murder of her boss, Mary Ellen Coriell — but here’s why some modern historians think she may have been unfairly blamed. The curious case of Bridget Deignan is a shocking but true story of murder — and potentially justice denied. Deignan was only 22 years old in 1867 when a judge in Middlesex County, New Jersey, sentenced her to death for the murder of her employer, Mary Ellen Coriell....

“It wasn’t exactly how I imagined the trip of a lifetime to go. The whole experience was surreal and strange.” James Michael/SWNSJames Michael spent three months in the hospital before relying on crutches for four months afterward. When 32-year-old James Michael visited Southeast Africa with his friends, he thought it was the “trip of a lifetime.” But the Londoner ended up contracting schistosomiasis — a parasitic blood infestation — when a parasite crawled up his penis and laid eggs inside of his body....

“I don’t think it’s ever been so bad in Delhi. I’m very angry that we’ve had to come to this.” Public health officials in Delhi, India have declared a public health emergency because toxic smog levels have reached absurd heights. How absurd? Well, it turns out that inhaling the air in Delhi over a 24-hour period is the equivalent of smoking 45 cigarettes per day. City officials closed all schools on Tuesday and advised that children should stay indoors....

As the first shots of World War I were being fired, Egyptian culture was changing forever. For the preceding 40 years, Egypt had lived as a free state – ruled, on paper, by the British government, but in practice allowed to live under the rule of its own leaders and to practice its own faiths. Share Flipboard Email This Egypt, at the dawn of the 20th century, was a wildly different place from the one we know today....

In a time when the women’s suffrage movement relied on patience and polite speeches, Emmeline Pankhurst paved her own path with action. “I incite this meeting into rebellion.” With those words, British activist Emmeline Pankhurst changed the way that the suffragette movement conducted itself. The suffragette movement is often conjured with images of peaceful protests, handmade signs, and groups of women marching in the streets. It doesn’t usually call to mind militant tactics and physical acts of defiance, but that’s exactly what Emmeline Pankhurst encouraged....

Eunice Foote’s amateur experiments were the first to outline the relationship between greenhouse gasses and atmospheric warming, but a male scientist with a similar experiment took credit for the find three years later. NOAAEunice Foote’s work has received renewed attention after a private collector stumbled upon a sample of it in Scientific American. Climate science is a crucial branch of scientific study and is perhaps even more so now than ever with the growing concern for global climate change....

Dylan Chidick’s family left Trinidad when he was 7. They’ve struggled through homelessness and prejudice, but Chidick will be the first in his family to attend college. Jersey City Youth WorksDylan Chidick has a pretty good reason for that smile — 17, at the very least. A New Jersey high school student who not only moved to the United States as a seven-year-old, but survived grave financial concerns, prejudice, and literal homelessness, has just been accepted into 17 of the 18 colleges he applied to....

In the jungles of Vietnam where order and discipline hung by a thread, some officers faced a danger greater than the Viet Cong: their own men. NATIONAL ARCHIVES/AFP/Getty ImagesMore incidents of fragging occured in the Vietnam War than in either World War. What Was Fragging? As the Vietnam War dragged on, soldiers began to see the war as unjust and unwinnable, leading to openly mutinous behavior. By way of a “fragmentation grenade,” from which the term “fragging” was derived, a soldier could effectively do away with an officer without leaving any evidence....

Even though waking up is the least enjoyable event of the day, humans sure have come up with a lot of ways to summon it. At times, people may appear more divided than thy are united, but one universal truth has stood the test of time: getting out of bed in the morning sucks. Today, we have iPhone alarms, flying alarm clocks, and even alarms that won’t shut up until you solve a puzzle, all to help us with the most unpleasant daily ritual....

The Gibson Girl first appeared in the 1890s illustrations of artist Charles Dana Gibson and helped inform the beauty standards for American women of the time — for better and for worse. Like this gallery?Share it: Share Flipboard Email And if you liked this post, be sure to check out these popular posts: Early 1900s Photos Of “The Old Paris” Just Before It Was Lost To Modernization American Anarchy: Intense Photos Of The Early 1900s Reign Of Radicalism In The U....

Over the course of 500 bloody years, the Native American genocide carried out by both European settlers and the U.S. government left millions dead. Library of CongressU.S. soldiers bury Native American corpses in a mass grave following the infamous massacre at Wounded Knee, South Dakota, in 1891 when some 300 Lakota Native Americans were killed. The years-long controversy and protests over the Dakota Access Pipeline that started in 2016 shed new light on the issues that have plagued Native Americans for hundreds of years — and sadly still continue....

The commonplace Halloween object has roots in 17th century Irish folklore — not pumpkins and candy. Jack-o’-lanterns are among the items that most immediately come to mind when we think of Halloween or even pumpkins in general. And yet, historically, the “jack” in question nothing to do with either the holiday or the orange gourd. As with so many practices woven into the American canon, the Jack o’ Lantern is a cultural import, one whose origins stem back to 17th century Ireland....

Marita Lorenz was one of the more unique ways the United States government attempted to assassinate Fidel Castro. FlickrLorenz and Catro Few, if any, people in history have had more attempts made on their life than former Cuban dictator Fidel Castro. From exploding cigars to an infected diving suit, just about every kind of method had been used or conceived against him, including a woman – Marita Lorenz, a scorned lover turned anti-Communist militant....

The circumstances surrounding Nelson Rockefeller’s final hours were highly contested in the days following his death. Wikimedia CommonsNelson Rockefeller hanging off the back of a car while on the Presidential campaign trail. On January 26, 1979, at 12:20 AM, former Vice President Nelson Rockefeller died from a heart attack while sitting at his desk at Rockefeller Center, working on a book about his personal art collection. At least, that was what the papers said....

Scientists used to believe that the massive Nombe nombe was a relative of Australia’s prehistoric kangaroos — but now they know it was a genus all its own. Flinders UniversityFlinders University paleontology researcher Isaac Kerr with an Australian kangaroo jaw bone, and the fossil jaw used in the study. Paleontologists studying the Chimbu Province region in the mountains of central Papua New Guinea have made a gargantuan discovery — a fossil of a genus of giant kangaroo that went extinct 42,000 years ago....

Archaeologists excavating the city’s former agora have unearthed a bone workshop with tools and an oil lamp shop with intact lamps. Kütahya Dumlupinar UniversitySome of the tools made from thousands of bone fragments discovered at Aizanoi’s ancient workshop. The Ancient Greek city of Aizanoi in what’s now western Turkey has long proven itself an archaeological treasure trove. From one of the best-preserved temples to Zeus and a theater-stadium complex to statues of Greek deities, Aizanoi is invaluable....

The world’s largest image of the Andromeda Galaxy shows the impressive size and scope of the star system. Source: Jon Christensen There are moments when it seems as if the world truly does revolve around us. Yet when we step back and put life in perspective, our smallness quickly becomes evident; we are merely a fraction of a speck in an infinite picture. At this year’s meeting of the American Astronomical Society in Seattle, NASA released the world’s largest photo of the Andromeda Galaxy....

Thousands of poorly trained kamikaze pilots were asked to sacrifice their lives for Japan’s collapsing war effort, but the letters they left behind reveal they weren’t all eager volunteers. Like this gallery?Share it: Share Flipboard Email And if you liked this post, be sure to check out these popular posts: Dramatic Footage Of Kamikaze Pilots In Action [VIDEO] The True Story Of Hattori Hanzō: From 16th-Century Japan To ‘Kill Bill’...