Posts

Starting in 1916, William Pester began living in a hut, foraging for fruits and nuts in order to eat, and spending most of his time alone in the California desert. William Pester was like any other immigrant building a new life in America in the early 20th century — except that he was a nudist hermit who lived in a handmade hut in the middle of the desert. He claimed that he came to California to “study himself with untrammeled nature as his classroom....

From a 10,000-foot freefall to a grizzly bear attack, these survival stories from history show the true power of human resilience. Survival stories are both thrilling and terrifying. Many people don’t understand the full extent of their abilities until they find themselves in life-or-death situations — and they’re forced to think on their feet. Take Olympic pentathlete Mauro Prosperi, who spent 10 days lost in the Sahara Desert during the Marathon des Sables in 1994....

From the truth behind the cherry tree myth to the shocking story of his infamous dentures, these astounding facts about George Washington will change how you see America’s foremost founding father. Like this gallery?Share it: Share Flipboard Email And if you liked this post, be sure to check out these popular posts: The Painful History Of George Washington’s Teeth — And The Gruesome Truth Behind Them The Descendants Of An Enslaved Man Named West Ford Say They Have Proof That George Washington Was His Father...

From their love of kittens to their lack of horned helmets, these Viking facts reveal what few people know about their history. Children perceived to be weak would be left to die by abandoning them or throwing them into the sea. Vikings didn’t wear horned helmets, a look that was likely fabricated by 19th-century painters. They also didn’t use the skulls of their enemies as drinking vessels. However, as most of us do often imagine, Viking ships did regularly come outfitted with fearsome head posts depicting dragons and other mythical creatures....

Christine Collins spent 36 years searching for her son Walter after his mysterious disappearance. YouTubeChristine Collins On March 10, 1928, Christine Collins gave her nine-year-old son Walter money for the cinema. He never returned from the show. His mother reported him missing, but, despite the police’s best efforts, they turned up no trace of him for five months. One day in August, five months after Walter Collins’ disappearance, a boy appeared in Dekalb, Illinois, claiming to be the missing Walter....

Believe it or not, seafood and pregnancy might just go hand in hand. Public DomainSeafood may not be bad for you during pregnancy after all. For years, women who are pregnant or hoping to get pregnant have avoided seafood like the plague. Fears of mercury poisoning them or their unborn babies were backed by science, resulting in the consuming of sushi, fish, and shellfish becoming wildly taboo. Now, a new study claims that eating seafood not only is fine for pregnant women but could help couples conceive faster....

After police told him that the mafia was actually fake, one of the suspects said, “I just threw my whole life away.” WIBWAlfred “Sonny” Carpenter and Pauline Carpenter. Four carnival workers took part in the murder of an elderly couple as part of an initiation ritual for a fake “carnival mafia” that one of the suspects simply made up. Kimberly Younger, a carnival worker in Kansas, posed as a member of the fictional carnival mafia under the name “Frank Zaitchik” and told three of her coworkers to murder 78-year-old Alfred “Sonny” Carpenter and 79-year-old Pauline Carpenter as an initiation into the group, according to the Associated Press....

The Well of Hell, also called the Well of Barhout, is likely millions of years old and drops 367 feet into the earth. AFP via Getty ImagesThe “Well of Hell” sinkhole in eastern Yemen. For centuries, it’s terrified locals as a possible prison for jinn, or genies. Now, cave explorers have dropped to the bottom of Yemen’s “Well of Hell” for the first time. The sinkhole, formally known as the Well of Barhout, gapes out from the desert in the al-Mahra province in eastern Yemen....

When she was just 14-years-old, Freddie Oversteegen joined the resistance and fought against the Nazis in World War II. National Hannie Schaft Foundation The world has lost an integral member of the Dutch resistance against the Nazis during World War II, the legendary Freddie Oversteegen. On Sept. 5, a day before her 93rd birthday, Oversteegen passed away. As a teenager, she fought alongside her sister Truus to bring Nazis and Dutch traitors to justice, with her age and feminity as weapons....

James Jameson used his power and privilege to do the unspeakable — and get away with it. Universal History Archive/UIG/Getty ImagesJames S. Jameson, heir to the Jameson Irish Whiskey fortune. In the 1880s, an heir to the vast Jameson Irish Whiskey fortune bought a 10-year-old girl just so he could draw her being eaten by cannibals. James S. Jameson was the great-great-grandson of John Jameson, the founder of the famed Irish Whiskey company, and as such was heir to the family fortune....

Though police only connected him to three murders, Joseph Roy Metheny claimed to have slaughtered a total of 13 victims, some of whom he allegedly turned into patties that he sold to unwitting customers on a Baltimore roadside. When the police arrested Joe Metheny for assault in December 1996, they expected him to put up a fight. The 6’1″, 450-pound lumber worker apparently had a tendency to fly off the handle....

At its peak, the newly discovered civilization probably held about 10 million people, and was roughly double the size of medieval England. National GeographicThe megalopolis discovered using LiDAR technology. In what they’re calling a “major breakthrough,” researchers have uncovered more than 60,000 houses, causeways, elevated highways and man-made structures, belonging to the ancient Maya Empire. The remains of the civilization, which have been hidden under the canopy and plant life of the Guatemalan jungle for thousands of years, were finally unearthed due to a groundbreaking light-based imaging technology....

Not only did he lie about his H.I.V., he was also married and had infected his wife as well. KPRCKarim Zakikhani. A 34-year-old Houston man charged with aggravated assault was sentenced to 30 years in prison. Waiving a jury trial, Karim Zakikhani pleaded guilty to knowingly infecting his former girlfriend with H.I.V., according to court records. In April 2014, Sarita Anderson came down with flu-like symptoms. From there, her hair started falling out and she began rapidly losing weight....

At 8 feet, 11 inches tall, Robert Pershing Wadlow was the tallest man in the world. But sadly, this “gentle giant” didn’t live long. The tallest man in the world was born happy, healthy, and seemingly normal in size. On February 22, 1918, Addie Wadlow gave birth to an 8.7-pound baby named Robert Pershing Wadlow in Alton, Illinois. Like most babies, Robert Wadlow began to grow over the course of his first year of life....

Neanderthals lived from about 400,000 to 40,000 years ago before they were replaced by modern human ancestors. People today can still have Neanderthal in their genes. Once upon a time, well, 400,000 to 40,000 years ago to be more exact, a superbly adapted cold weather human occupied all the land from Africa to Scandinavia called Neanderthal. The Neanderthal was not a direct ancestor of modern human, at one point, Neanderthals and modern humans even coexisted....

In conducting research for her new book, professor Alexis Peri came across some disturbing new information about the siege of Leningrad. It’s always been known that the 872-day Nazi blockade of Leningrad caused famine, widespread suffering and millions of deaths. But recently uncovered diaries shed a disturbing new light on this horrific chapter of history — describing in wrenchingly personal detail the desperate lengths people would go to keep from starving....

More than 50 years have passed since Yale psychologist Stanley Milgram conducted several highly controversial experiments to determine just how far people would go in the name of following orders. Now, a new study has built on Milgram’s experiments and come to a terrifying conclusion: 90 percent of participants would electrocute an innocent person simply because they were told to do so. The Milgram studies found a large proportion of participants willing to obey such instructions way back then, and the same apparently holds true after all these years....

Take a wrong turn on Twitter, and the idea of parting ways with modern technology for good becomes all the more appealing. While living off the grid is a passing thought for many, it’s actually a reality for some living just outside of London, England. In some disused woodland 20 miles west of the city (and quite close to the place where the Magna Carta was signed) is an area known as Runnymeade, which also features an eco village that has been under the care of squatters since 2012....

The fires were set during a heat wave that saw temperatures soar to 124 degrees Fahrenheit in parts of the country. TiktokIn a video that’s since been deleted, TikTok star @DollyOfficiall is seen walking in front of a flaming forest. In the video, a dark-haired woman struts in a silver dress as the hills behind her burn. Her caption reads: “Fire erupts wherever I am.” Now, she’s one of several Pakistani TikTokers accused of purposefully starting fires to create dramatic backgrounds for their videos....

From the trenches to the apocalyptic battlefields, these World War I photos capture the tragedy of the conflict that was unlike anything the world had ever seen before. World War I was not, as it’s commonly known, “the war to end all wars.” It was just the beginning of the kind of modern mass violence that would come to define the 20th century. For the first time, the armies of Europe used such tools of slaughter as the flamethrower, poison gas, the tank, and war planes....