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The frescoes at the temple in Esna, Egypt, were made some 2,200 years ago, and the temple itself was used for four centuries. Egyptian Ministry of Tourism and AntiquitiesOne of the colorful frescoes revealed by the restoration project. For centuries, dirt, soot, and bird poop accumulated on the walls of the Temple of Khnum at Esna. But now, a team of German and Egyptian archaeologists is working to painstakingly clean the site, exposing the stunning and vibrant frescoes of goddesses that long lay beneath....

For more than 200 years, treasure hunters have flocked to Oak Island in search of pirate gold — which is said to be buried in the “Money Pit” on the Nova Scotia isle. Hundreds of years ago — as the story goes — someone buried treasure on Oak Island. Speculation has run wild ever since. Could Oak Island’s “Money Pit” contain Shakespeare’s original manuscripts? The Holy Grail? Tons of gold?...

The Ustaše brutalized and massacred upwards of 300,000 Serbians, 30,000 Jews, and 29,000 Romani people throughout their four-year reign of terror in Croatia. Wikimedia CommonsUstaše founder and leader of the Independent State of Croatia, Ante Pavelic, gives the Nazi salute. “The KNIFE, REVOLVER, MACHINE GUN and TIME BOMB; these are the idols, these are bells that will announce the dawning and THE RESURRECTION OF THE INDEPENDENT STATE OF CROATIA.” — Ante Pavelic, writing the first editorial in the Ustaše newspaper, 1931....

Take a tour of Earth’s weirdest natural places, from the roof of the world to the cave of crystals to the home of the dragon’s blood tree. Image Source: I Started Something We often let our imaginations run wild, dreaming up some pretty surreal stuff that could surprise even the most well-seasoned of acid trippers. But we can’t compete with nature. From pink water to 50-ton crystals to the biggest cave in the world, here are six places around the globe that come by their “could be from a Salvador Dalí painting” vibe completely naturally....

Whimsical. Dreamy. Imaginative. We know you’ll adore French photographer Laurent Chehere’s photography project “Flying Houses.” Source: Gag Daily Parisian architecture and a fantastical fairytale world collide in Laurent Chehere’s collection of flying homes. The whimsical series plucks ordinary suburban residences–eroding hotels, circus tents, trailers, and graffiti-covered structures–from their urban settings and places them in midair. Source: Studio Ang Source: Zeynep French photographer Laurent Chehere creates each of the flying houses using a mixture of photographs and digital manipulations, composed on a large scale so as to capture the most minute details....

After a childhood of abuse and abandonment, Aileen Wuornos went on a killing rampage that left at least seven men dead across Florida in 1989 and 1990. In 2002, the state of Florida executed the 10th woman to ever receive the death penalty in the United States since the 1976 reinstatement of capital punishment. That woman’s name was Aileen Wuornos, a former sex worker who had killed seven men she picked up while working the highways of Florida in 1989 and 1990....

On January 22, 1941, a group of young people went out into a cabin in the woods of Maryland and tried to kill Adolf Hitler. Share Flipboard Email Their weapons were a dressmaker’s dummy, a Nazi uniform, a few axes, a box of nails, plenty of rum, and a strong faith in the dark powers of voodoo magic. Today, it’s one of the stranger stories in American history, centered around some of American history’s stranger characters....

The three-quarter-inch piece is 8,500 years older than similar artworks of its kind found in the region. Zhanyang et alThis figurine was first found with a cache of other discarded ancient artifacts in 2005. A tiny bird figurine discovered in a refuse heap in the Henan province of China is changing what historians thought they knew about prehistoric art. The 13,500-year-old sculpture is now considered to be the oldest three-dimensional prehistoric artwork found in East Asia....

“Why these sites were chosen as the final resting place for the jars is still a mystery.” Australian National UniversityArchaeologists found 15 new sites with 137 of these giant stone jars which researchers believe were used as graves. For years, researchers have been puzzled by the discovery of giant jars filled with dead bodies spread across hundreds of square miles in the unexploded mine fields of southeast Asia. According to a press release, a group of researchers from the Australian National University (ANU) have recently discovered 15 more sites in Laos containing more than one hundred 1,000-year-old jars....

Stories village elders told of the temple buried in the dunes inspired younger people to pick up their tools and start digging. YouTubeNageswara Swamy was built at least 200 years ago, and was entirely buried in sand around 1940. Nageswara Swamy temple in India has officially been rediscovered after 80 years buried in sand. Experts believe that the 200-year-old structure in Perumallapadu started to be swallowed up with the massive floods of 1850 — and was completely filled and covered with sand and sediment by 1940....

Looking for April Fools inspiration? These elaborate pranks are just for you. Source: Blogspot Any idiot can soap windows or have a dozen pizzas delivered as a prank, but it takes a special kind of idiot to ruin the Rose Bowl. Fortunately, the world is full of that sort of person, and there seem to be more every day. Many are called to massively inconvenience large numbers of people, but only a few have the patience, focus, and near-total lack of regard for others to pull of a truly epic prank....

At least when compared with the Vietnam era, the anti-war movement – with its marches, protests, and “make love not war” spirit – is one that seems to have burned out in America. Share Flipboard Email It’s not that peace has been attained. The U.S. is still in the midst of military conflicts in Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, and Pakistan that have cost $4.8 trillion, created 10.1 million refugees, and claimed 370,000 lives....

The building could have housed up to 20,000 scrolls and might even be the oldest library discovered in the north-west ancient Roman provinces. Hi-flyFoto/Roman-Germanic Museum of Cologne In 2017, archeologists were conducting an excavation on the grounds of a Protestant church located in the center of Cologne, Germany when they discovered ancient walls lying beneath the church. Experts now know that the building they uncovered is Germany’s oldest public library, which dates back to the 2nd century A....

“I think this was really the most intimate piece of evidence that we have of the humanity who lived and breathed and worked and played here at our ancient city.” The mosaics found on the floor of a second-century latrine in Turkey. Hidden for thousands of years in the ruins of the coastal city of Antiochia ad Cragum was evidence that ancient Romans were just as immature as we are when it comes to bathroom humor....

Like this gallery?Share it: Share Flipboard Email And if you liked this post, be sure to check out these popular posts: The Surprising Stories Behind Nine Of Your Favorite Beatles Songs Beatlemania! In 29 Unbelievable Photos Who Was Mark David Chapman, The Man Who Killed John Lennon? 1 of 34The Beatles (including drummer Pete Best, second from right) perform at the Cavern Club in Liverpool. February 1961.Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images 2 of 34The Beatles (including drummer Pete Best, left) pose in Hamburg, Germany during their residency at the Star-Club....

Inventor Franz Reichelt had so much confidence in his homemade parachute that he tested it in front of a crowd at the Eiffel Tower — but his hopes were immediately dashed. Wikimedia CommonsFranz Reichelt poses in his infamous parachute suit. They say “pride cometh before the fall.” In few circumstances can this be applied so literally as in the case of parachute inventor Franz Reichelt. Reichelt, an Austrian-born tailor living in France at the turn of the century, watched the rapid development of early airplanes with fascination....

The written word has captivated the human mind for millennia – a fascinating historical and photographic look at history’s greatest libraries. Source: Westga Mankind’s Greatest Libraries: The Bodleian, United Kingdom Source: Blogspot If you want access to this seminal European library, you must agree to a formal declaration. While the “Bud’s” roots can be traced further than its oft-cited 1602 founding, Oxford University’s Bodleian Library has a heritage as rich as its book collection....

Depending on where you live and the crime you’ve committed, your prison experience will be vastly different from others. Here are some of the strangest. People have been at a loss for how to best handle convicted criminals throughout history. Public opinion has oscillated between favoring rehabilitation and punishment, with the only constant element being quarantine. Prisons came into existence largely as a method for isolating violent offenders from the innocent people outside....

From building a $79 million drug empire to helping dismember a federal informant, big-cat zookeeper Mario Tabraue almost makes his friend Joe Exotic look tame in comparison. Most people know the name Joe Exotic by now. As the former owner of a notorious animal park for big cats, Exotic employed homeless people and drug addicts and paid them next to nothing for what Netflix’s Tiger King: Murder, Mayhem and Madness portrays as dangerous work....

Using DNA and following a hunch, researchers have identified the earliest-known victims of the Black Death in a 14th-century graveyard in Kyrgyzstan. A.S. LeybinThe epithet on this tombstone from 1337-8 reads, in part, “This is the tomb of the believer Sanmaq. [He] died of pestilence.” For 684 years, a historical mystery has endured: Where did the Black Death originate? Now known as one of history’s deadliest pandemics, the plague wiped out an estimated 60 percent of Europe, the Middle East, and northern Africa — and now, scientists believe that they’ve traced the earliest evidence of it to a 14th-century graveyard in Kyrgyzstan....