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For years, Mary Lumpkin was forced to bear her enslaver’s children and help him run his jail, but when he died and left the property to her, she helped turn the prison into a school for Black students. Library of CongressAn 1860s photograph of an unknown woman standing outside a slave jail in Alexandria, Virginia. Around 1840, an enslaved child named Mary was sold to a man named Robert Lumpkin. He forced her to bear his children and help him run a slave jail in Richmond, Virginia....

From the one that’s immortal to the one that’s longer than a blue whale, these jellyfish facts will show you the strangest of the bunch. Even among the one million ocean species we know of and the nine million we don’t, jellyfish truly are the ancient aliens of the sea. They’ve been swimming Earth’s oceans for over 500 million years — and that’s just the beginning. Discover more wonderfully weird jellyfish facts below:...

New Mexico recently joined the dozen states and several dozen cities and counties around the U.S. that have abolished Columbus Day and adopted Indigenous Peoples’ Day instead. David McNew/Getty ImagesDancers prepare to begin their demonstration during an Indigenous Peoples’ Day celebration in Los Angeles in 2017. In a historic legislative move, New Mexico passed a bill in April 2019 that officially replaced Columbus Day with Indigenous Peoples’ Day. After Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham signed the bill into law, New Mexico joined several other U....

The hunt for alien life has gained serious traction with a new project funded by Stephen Hawking and Russian billionaire Yuri Milner. Their project, Breakthrough Starshot, is a philanthropic endeavor that focuses on space exploration and hopes to eventually lead us to extraterrestrial life. Mark Zuckerberg will join Breakthrough’s board. “Earth is a wonderful place, but it might not last forever,” Hawking said in a statement. “Sooner or later, we must look to the stars....

In 20th-century Scotland, roving gangsters punished each other by carving the sides of a victim’s mouth into a demented grin known as the “Glasgow smile.” But this bloody practice didn’t end there. Mitchell Library, GlasgowGlasgow razor gangs like the Bridgeton Team popularized the Glasgow smile, an eerie set of scars on either side of a victim’s mouth. Humans are unusually creative when it comes to dreaming up novel ways to inflict pain, and a few such methods are so gruesome that they have warranted an enduring place in history all their own....

The visuals behind celebrations for the Day of the Dead are dazzling, but its rich traditions are just as fascinating. Like this gallery?Share it: Share Flipboard Email And if you liked this post, be sure to check out these popular posts: 1 of 34Young women in face paint celebrate the Day of the Dead in Hidalgo, Mexico.Chris Jackson/Getty Images 2 of 34A girl in costume on the Day of the Dead in Hidalgo, Mexico....

In the age of high-definition and LED, people have grown incredibly accustomed to the neon colors and artificial brightness that infuse our world. That’s why when we see technicolor macaws flying among tree canopies or slugs coated in pepto bismol pink, we’re reminded that nature can offer just as many stop-what-you’re-doing-and-check-this-out sights as your latest mobile app. A beautiful look at the world’s most incredibly colorful animals you’ve (probably) never seen:...

Zodiac Killer’s cipher solved, doomed Arctic explorer’s fate revealed, new clues about Roswell UFO incident uncovered. Infamous Cipher Written By The Zodiac Killer Solved After 50 Years Wikimedia CommonsThe “340 cipher” that the Zodiac Killer sent to the San Francisco Chronicle on Nov. 8, 1969. Between 1968 and 1969, the Zodiac Killer murdered at least five people in the San Francisco Bay Area before vanishing into the fog of history, leaving only a few ciphers behind....

Prehistoric “sea dragon” unearthed in England, Roman-era coins found by a badger, and the truth about Vikings’ helmets. Researchers Make ‘Unprecedented Discovery’ Of A Prehistoric Sea Dragon In The English Midlands Matthew Power Photography/BBCIts head alone is about twice as heavy as a grizzly bear while its entire body is longer than a school bus. Enormous predators that swam the seas while the dinosaurs walked the Earth, ichthyosaurs are described as prehistoric mega-dolphins that could swallow up anything in their path....

Ancient Ho-Chunk canoe found in Wisconsin, Byzantine mosaic uncovered in Gaza, Bronze Age opium unearthed in Israel. Archaeologists In Wisconsin Just Pulled A 3,000-Year-Old Ho-Chunk Canoe Out Of Lake Mendota Wisconsin Historical SocietyDating back to 1000 B.C.E, this is the oldest canoe ever uncovered in the Great Lakes region by a margin of approximately 1,000 years. Archaeologists in Wisconsin just pulled a Native American canoe from 1000 B.C.E. out of Lake Mendota....

From Alexander the Great being buried alive to one man paying to watch a little girl be cannibalized, these true horror stories go way beyond Rated R. Anatoly Moskvin was a history buff. He spoke 13 languages and worked as a journalist in Russia’s fifth-largest city, Nizhny Novgorod. His parents believed they had a healthy and successful son on their hands, but it turned out he was a living horror story....

How cannibalism, torture, rape, and murder came to inspire the folklore known the world over today. Alexander Zick/Wikimedia CommonsHansel and Gretel enter the woods. Legends have always played an important role in the human experience. Some serve to remind us of our history. Some help to teach us proper morals. Then, of course, there are also legends that just help to send a tingle down our spines. The very best legends, the ones that get passed down across the centuries, do all three....

In 1964, Ken Kesey, author of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, traveled across America in a tie-dye school bus with nothing but a few friends and enough LSD to get an entire country high. Share Flipboard Email He drove around America challenging people to take his “acid tests” — and thus helped start the entire hippie movement. Strange though it may seem, this was all inspired by the CIA. Kesey had a part of their MKULTRA program, in which the CIA fed LSD and other psychedelics to citizen guinea pigs in order to see what would happen....

A private art collector said they paid a furniture restorer $1,350 to clean up a copy of a 17th-century artwork by Bartolomé Esteban Murillo. Public Domain/Private Collection/Europa Press 2020The Virgin Mary figure on a copy of a 17th century painting was destroyed after two failed restoration attempts. Art experts are calling for a reform of current Spanish laws after a disastrous restoration job left a painting of the Virgin Mary’s angelic countenance completely distorted....

Joe Fig makes art of artists making art. Have a headache yet? The artist’s studio is akin to the scientist’s laboratory. It is a space for ideas to take physical form; it is a place for innovation and–pending the occupant’s mental state–alchemy. It is also deeply personal, simultaneously reflecting and shaping the artist’s creative process. Knowing this, American sculptor Joe Fig utilized his own talent to create miniature dioramas of famous artists’ studios and workspaces, recreating in great detail whole rooms in which they allowed their genius to germinate....

At eight feet long and 500,000 years old, this tusk is not only one of the biggest fossils of its kind found in the Near East but also one of the best preserved. MENAHEM KAHANA/AFP via Getty ImagesThe elephant tusk, found by Dr. Eitan Mor, is the largest complete fossil tusk ever found in Israel or the Near East. Researchers working near Kibbutz Revadim in southern Israel made an extraordinary discovery when they unearthed an immaculately well-preserved elephant tusk — that’s half a million years old....

Giant goldfish are wreaking havoc in Minnesota and across the country because people dump their pets in lakes and ponds. City of Burnsville, Minnesota – Municipal Government/FacebookA giant goldfish found in Keller Lake in Minnesota. Goldfish seem harmless — and a bit boring — when trapped in a fishbowl. But it only takes the freedom of a lake or a pond for these popular pets to grow to astounding sizes. After finding a number of giant goldfish in a local lake, officials in Minnesota are reiterating warnings about dumping goldfish in the wild....

One of the best ways to prepare for life on Mars is to spend an extended period of time at Concordia Station in Antarctica. Source: European Space Agency Where do you go to prepare for life on Mars? One option is Antarctica. Concordia Station is a small research base in Antarctica that houses around a dozen scientists. Its handful of buildings rests atop a 10,000-foot mountain of ice in the middle of Antarctica, which due to its dry climate is the largest desert in the world....

The mysterious deaths of those who unearthed his tomb have long been attributed to the infamous King Tut curse. When King Tutankhamen’s tomb was opened, Howard Carter was beside himself. His discovery had launched the world into the modern era of Egyptology, and he was riding high on one of the most amazing discoveries in history. Share Flipboard Email However, his joy would be short-lived. Within 10 years of opening the tomb, 9 of the archeologists on Howard’s team would be dead, leading many to wonder if the famed “Pharaoh’s Curse” was real after all....

Experts weren’t sure whether to believe Hernán Cortés’ reports of an Aztec temple with a wall featuring 130,000 human skulls — until a 2017 excavation revealed the chilling truth. Beneath Mexico City lies what the Aztecs believed to be the center of the universe: Templo Mayor. It was obliterated by Spanish invaders in 1521 and has remained dormant beneath the bustling streets of the city above. Only recently has the world begun to understand the hidden history of the Aztec’s “Main Temple,” where a wall with thousands of skulls was said to be buried....