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To this day, Victorian death pictures remain chilling artifacts of a bygone era that’s shocking to modern sensibilities. Like this gallery?Share it: Share Flipboard Email And if you liked this post, be sure to check out these popular posts: In The Time Of Victorian Portraits, The Quickest Way To Look Like An Idiot Was By Smiling Disturbing Photos Captured Inside The Jewish Ghettos Of The Holocaust 43 Colorized Photos That Capture Victorian London As It Really Was...

The idea that Mary Toft gave birth to rabbits is ridiculous. The fact that most of Britain believed her story is even more astounding. An illustration of Mary Toft supposedly giving birth to rabbits.Wikimedia Commons What if dreaming of something could make you give birth to that thing? In the case of Mary Toft, in 1726, she convinced much of Britain that she was giving birth to rabbits. Here’s how it happened:...

Known throughout the criminal underworld as a financial genius, Meyer Lansky used Swiss bank accounts and shell companies to launder money and hide the Mafia’s vast wealth from the FBI. Hulton Archive/Getty ImagesMeyer Lansky at Mount Olive in Jerusalem with the Dome of the Rock visible in the background, August 1971. The 1920s and 1930s saw organized crime shift from a street game to a streamlined method of business. Meyer Lansky, also known as the “mob’s accountant,” was a key figure in that transition....

Stricken with paralytic polio at the age of six in 1952, Paul Alexander is now one of the last people on Earth still living in an iron lung. Monica Verma/TwitterPaul Alexander, the man in the iron lung, was placed there when he was stricken with polio at just six years old — and he’s still there today. The life of Paul Alexander could easily be viewed as one of tragedy: A man who cannot breathe on his own, paralyzed from the neck down for seven decades due to polio....

The 800-year-old text from the Suite Vulgate du Merlin contains “subtle but significant” differences from modern understandings of the legend. Leah TetherScholars determined that the text dates to around 1250 and 1275 and was likely written in Northern France. Two years ago, a librarian at the University of Bristol came across fragments of parchment stuffed inside a 16th-century book. Though the parchments were handwritten in Old French, one word immediately jumped out: Merlin....

Pablo Escobar may be the infamous name everyone recognizes, but his brother Roberto Escobar is the one still profiting from their violent ventures. thedruglords.comRoberto Escobar was referred to as “El Osito” or “Little Bear” because he was said to resemble the animal. Most people have heard of Pablo Escobar, the infamous cartel leader, and vicious drug runner. But few have heard of his older brother — Roberto Escobar. That being said, it’s safe to say that both Escobar brothers left a lasting impression on the drug world....

“You are mine, and I am yours, and we are one, and our lives are one henceforth,” the former First Lady wrote. Library of Congress/New Jersey State ArchivesRose Cleveland served as First Lady for 14 months until her brother, former president Grover Cleveland, finally married. Rose Cleveland, the sister of U.S. President Grover Cleveland, became the First Lady in 1885 after her bachelor brother appointed her. Apparently, in the 1880s, the country’s chief executive required a woman by his side to serve as White House hostess....

Physicist Sally Ride made history on board the Challenger space shuttle in June 1983. Upon her death in July 2012, it was revealed she was also the first gay astronaut in space. In 1977, a young woman noticed an ad in The Stanford Daily announcing that NASA was looking for female astronauts. Her name was Sally Ride, and five years later, she became the first American woman in space. A trailblazer, Ride’s path to outer space was nevertheless paved with sexism and doubt....

The ocean has always been full of weird marine life. But how do you explain robot arms and disembodied feet? Large Lego Sculptures Thanks to guerrilla artist Ego Leonard, giant Lego men have washed up on various beaches around the world, in places such as Florida, Brighton, Japan, and the Netherlands.@egoleonard/Twitter Millions of Dollars In Cocaine A Japanese man discovered four backpacks carrying 80 kilograms of cocaine in 2013. In total, the stash was estimated to be worth around 48 million dollars....

Somehow, ritual drunk-conversation concerning team captains for the apocalypse has become a major part of the lives of 20-somethings. Having been matured in the Grandaddy-crowned masterpiece film (put “A.M. 180” on and forget that you have a job) 28 Days Later and the best-selling Zombie Survival Guide, we’re all a little too ready to deal with the 2012 zombie apocalypse of our dreams. “The Safe House,” designed by KWK Promes, starts to get eerily close to something I could work with, if say 200 bludgeoned members of the undead army came over to eat their way into borrowing some sugar....

The Red Planet has mystified astronomers for millennia. After you read about the Mars landscape, it’s pretty easy to see why. Source: Wikipedia More than any other planet beyond Earth, more than any other heavenly body discovered since the rapid expansion of telescopes, Mars has made a multi-millennia-long career out of taunting humanity. Named for the Roman god of war, Mars is usually visible to the naked eye as a red, flickering pinhole in the night sky....

Tom and Eileen Lonergan went on a group scuba diving trip to the Coral Sea in January 1998 — before they were accidentally abandoned and never seen again. On January 25, 1998, Tom and Eileen Lonergan, a married American couple, left Port Douglas, Australia by boat with a group. They were off to dive St. Crispin’s reef, a popular dive site in the Great Barrier Reef. But something was about to go terribly wrong....

On Monday, Japanese artists made major gains in freedom of expression when an artist who prominently features vaginas in her work was found not guilty of obscenity (though she still had to pay a fine). 42-year-old artist Megumi Igarashi’s case successfully challenged how Japanese law limits artistic freedom — and highlights the gendered lens through which Japanese officials often evaluate art considered to be “decent” for public consumption. But Igarashi’s fight to justify her vagina-inspired work isn’t over yet....

A common criticism of the selfie is that the photo doesn’t really transport the viewer anywhere–save for the filtered, idealized “reality” that the portrait-taker wants viewers to see. And generally speaking, that’s a really boring destination. The same cannot always be said, however, about travel selfies. Love them or absolutely hate them, these photos have taken the travel photography world by storm, and in June BBC Travel invited readers to submit their own travel selfies for review....

From Nashville to Hollywood, these Dolly Parton pictures prove that this one-of-a-kind icon has remained amazing throughout her 50 years in the spotlight. Like this gallery?Share it: Share Flipboard Email And if you liked this post, be sure to check out these popular posts: Bullets And Booze: 31 Vintage Photos Of Outlaw Country 33 Photos Of Segregation That Show A Country Divided By Race How Did Patsy Cline Die? Inside The Plane Crash That Killed A Country Music Icon...

Source: Opinionated Bastard The world has been about to end for a long time. In fact, if there’s a single philosophical idea that runs like a connecting thread through thousands of years of history, it’s that we definitely don’t have thousands of years left to live. People have been predicting the end of the world – any day now – since before we started smelting iron. The study of humanity’s indecent eagerness to see the world end is so common, it has its own name: eschatology....

The permafrost of Siberia has the perfect conditions to preserve biological specimens for tens of thousands of years. Though nowadays we associate lions with Africa, millions of years ago, ancient lions traipsed across Europe, Asia, and North America. One of these ancient lions, a young cub, was recently unveiled after being found frozen in the Siberian tundra of Russia by a Abyisky district resident in September, reported The Siberian Times....

These Frida Kahlo photos prove that the renowned Mexican artist lived a painful yet profoundly influential life. Like this gallery?Share it: Share Flipboard Email And if you liked this post, be sure to check out these popular posts: Listen To The Only Known Recording Of Frida Kahlo’s Voice, Uncovered 60 Years After Her Death Embolism, Overdose, Or Suicide: Inside The Mysterious Death Of Frida Kahlo The Haunting Story Of Dorothy Hale, The Socialite Whose Suicide Was Immortalized In A Frida Kahlo Painting...

“It’s a known legend, people know that it’s still out there in deep water. Everyone will be after it, won’t they?” SWNSThe anchor of the Merchant Royal being taken ashore. When the Merchant Royal sank in 1641, it took a payload of 100,000 pounds of gold and 400 bars of Mexican silver down with it. The British vessel hasn’t been seen since, but a UK fishing crew near Cornwall recently found a trace stuck in its nets: the ship’s big, rusty anchor....

The collection of jewelry was discovered at the Tell El-Amarna necropolis by a team of Egyptian and English archaeologists. Egyptian Ministry of Tourism and AntiquitiesThe necropolis is located in modern-day Minya and was constructed in 1346 B.C.E. Researchers working at the Tell El-Amarna necropolis along the eastern bank of Egypt’s Nile River recently uncovered a collection of ornate gold jewelry dating back 3,500 years in the grave of a young adult woman....