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The object discovered by Matthew Decker looks like an intricately carved wooden ax — but it’s actually a quirk of nature. Matthew Decker/RedditThe ax discovered by Matthew Decker. After sitting with a strange find he unburied in his yard for over a week, Matthew Decker decided to share it with the world. On Reddit, he posted a picture of what looked like an elaborately designed ax — but what actually turned out to be an old hatchet head with a tree root through it....

On February 21, 1965, Malcolm X was killed while speaking at the Audubon Ballroom in New York City. To this day, the truth about his assassination remains unresolved. On February 21, 1965, Malcolm X was assassinated at the Audubon Ballroom in the Washington Heights section of New York. As he was preparing to give a speech, a disturbance broke out in the crowd. In the confusion, three assailants rushed the stage and shot him multiple times....

The road was built some 2,000 years before McDonald’s workers uncovered it during construction. A unique McDonald’s restaurant opened up in Italy this past Tuesday with an ancient Roman road built underneath it. Calling it the first “restaurant-museum” in the world, McDonald’s Italia coughed up more than $300,000 to restore the road before completing the restaurant. Hidden underground for centuries, the road was discovered in 2014 when workers first started building the new restaurant in Frattoachie, not far south of Rome....

The cruise ship company Hurtigruten hopes to become completely carbon-neutral by 2050. HurtigrutenHurtigruten cruise company will start using fish waste to create eco-friendly fuel. It’s been shown that massive cruise ships contribute to a significant portion of today’s air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions. In fact, a cruise ship emits almost as many fine particles daily as one million cars. But one Norwegian cruise line, Hurtigruten, is working to combat this problem by using fuel from dead fish....

How Petrus Gonsalvus made it into the French royal court and married Lady Catherine to live out the real Beauty and the Beast story. Wikimedia CommonsPetrus Gonsalvus Everyone knows the story of Beauty and the Beast. Historians have collected 23 variations from around the world, along with an astonishing 162 versions of the archetypal “Animal Bridegroom Story.” However, the modern version of the classic tale — written by French novelist Gabrielle-Suzanne Barbot de Villeneuve in 1740 and made famous by the 1991 Disney film — may actually be based on a real man and his family....

Lilias Adie was accused of having had sex with Satan and terribly mistreated in prison. Those who abused her were so afraid she would “reanimate” that they buried her under a large slab of stone. Her remains are missing to this day. University of DundeeLilias Adie was in her late 50s or early 60s when she committed suicide. In the late 19th century, parts of her coffin were turned into walking sticks, one of which was gifted to Andrew Carnegie....

The flash flood of ash comes on the heels of a fire that scorched 119,000 acres of mountain land. Official Pima County/TwitterA flash flood of ash and debris barreled through the roads in Pima County catching officials off guard. Between the pandemic, the Australian wildfires, and the arrival of Asian giant hornets to the U.S., it is starting to feel as if we’re living in a true doomsday scenario. At least, that’s likely the sentiment felt by officials in Pima County, Arizona when they witnessed a mass of steaming black sludge rip through their local landscape....

Colleen Stan became known as the “girl in the box” after she was held prisoner by Cameron and Janice Hooker inside their California home between 1977 and 1984. YouTube Colleen Stan, “the girl in the box,” before her abduction in 1977. In 1977, 20-year-old Colleen Stan was hitchhiking from her hometown of Eugene, Oregon to northern California. She considered herself an expert hitchhiker and on that day in May, she had already turned down two rides....

As it happens, music isn’t “magic” after all. Kurt Vonnegut once wrote that music was the only proof he needed for the existence of God. But if science has anything to say about it, the way we respond to music has a bit less to do with the heavens above than it does the very workings of the human body. Indeed, whether it’s a compulsion to dance or a song cementing itself in your brain, humanity’s love of music can be explained not by God, but by some basic science....

After staging a two-day lock-in of King and the other trustees of Morehouse College in 1969, Jackson ended up on the FBI’s watchlist. Samuel L. Jackson/Hollywood ReporterJackson proudly wears a shirt emblazoned with the face of Civil Rights activist Angela Davis in 1969. In the last three decades, Samuel L. Jackson has turned himself into a household name. But before becoming a box office marvel, Jackson was a fledgling civil rights activist....

Ancient volcanic eruptions left a hidden wealth of water beneath the lunar surface, according to new research. Milliken Lab/Brown UniversityMap of several areas of the moon containing especially elevated water content, with blue representing the lowest water content and red representing the highest. While many of us are surely aware that NASA announced the conclusive discovery of water on the moon back in 2009, few of us are likely aware of just how little water was actually found: just 32 ounces per ton of the moon’s surface....

Authorities say that it’s uncommon for such a large cache of World War II weapons to be buried all at once. COURTESY OF NISHITOKYO CITYThousands of swords and other weapons were discovered underneath an elementary school on the outskirts of Tokyo, Japan. About 1,400 firearms and 1,200 swords were discovered buried underneath an elementary school in Tokyo, Japan. Authorities said that they believe the weapons are from the World War II era and likely belonged to the Japanese Imperial Army....

The heroic story of Toussaint Louverture, who brought himself and his people from slavery to freedom. Library of CongressToussaint Louverture. A typical 18th-century plantation employed hundreds of slaves who worked 16 to 18-hour days in all kinds of weather. Rations were minimal and punishments were brutal. The largest, most profitable European slave colony was French-controlled Saint-Domingue, the western part of contemporary Haiti (the eastern part, Santo Domingo, was Spanish). Famed economist Adam Smith described Saint-Domingue as “the most important of the sugar colonies of the Caribbean,” and largely due to trade with the newly independent United States, production in Saint-Domingue nearly doubled between 1783 and 1789....

These gadgets from the late 18th and early 19th centuries have a definitive Steampunk look — but some had more of a lasting effect on society than others. Like this gallery?Share it: Share Flipboard Email And if you liked this post, be sure to check out these popular posts: 27 Bizarre Facts About The Victorian Era That You Didn’t Learn In School 21 Accidental Inventions That Changed Our World 43 Colorized Photos That Capture Victorian London As It Really Was...

Fans and fellow writers were shocked to learn that Susan Meachen died by suicide in 2020, but Meachen just resurfaced on Facebook and admitted that she’s still alive. Susan Meachen/FacebookSusan Meachen in an undated Facebook photo. Roughly two years ago, a woman claiming to be the daughter of romance writer Susan Meachen posted on a Facebook fan site and claimed that her mother had died by suicide. But now, in a startling twist, Meachen has come forward to say that she’s very much still alive....

From the dramatic to the hilarious and the flat out weird — these are the commercials we remember best. YouTubeThree words: puppy, monkey, baby. While not everyone’s favorite football team can make it to the Super Bowl, the game has become an unofficial American holiday that grabs the attention of the entire country: especially because of those spectacular Super Bowl commercials. Only two teams are given the opportunity to battle it out for the championship trophy, but there’s still so much more attached to Super Bowl Sunday to keep everyone entertained, like tons of snacks, the Super Bowl halftime show that always features a fantastic performance from a major musician, and of course, the commercials....

These unbelievably sexist ads from decades past and present reveal both how far society has come and how much further we need to go. As trite as it is true, sex sells. But sometimes — from our Mad Men past to our Snapchat and smartphone-filled present — advertisers take this truism a little too far, and turn shameless sex into abject sexism. Case in point? These sexist ads: Stacked: a trait microwaves and attractive women apparently have in common “Stacked” women can’t resist Thermidor microwaves, or dickey-clad men....

When Mt. Vesuvius erupted near Pompeii and Herculaneum in 79 C.E., the volcanic ash left the bodies of the victims frozen in time. Like this gallery?Share it: Share Flipboard Email And if you liked this post, be sure to check out these popular posts: Omayra Sánchez Was Trapped In A Mudflow When A Photographer Captured Her Last Moments Archeologists Just Uncovered A Remarkably Well-Preserved ‘Slave Room’ At Pompeii Roman Shrine Preserved For 2,000 Years By Ash From Vesuvius Eruption Unearthed At Pompeii...

From vanishing islands to the Snake Island filled with Golden Lancehead Vipers, these tiny islands aren’t exactly welcoming vacation spots. Tiny Islands That You’ll Never Visit: Snake Island, Brazil Off the coast of Brazil sits Ilha de Queimada Grande, or as it’s known in colloquial English, Snake Island. Comprising roughly 110 acres of trees, the island is uninhabited and travel to it is expressly forbidden by the Brazilian navy. Why? Because Queimada Grande is home to hundreds of thousands of golden lanceheads, the snake pictured above....

Ships from the Byzantine period, the Roman Empire and the Ottoman Empire were all discovered, as well as ships from a historic Mediterranean empire. Researchers in Bulgaria have discovered over 50 shipwrecks, dating back over 2,500 years. The wrecks are perfectly preserved at the bottom of the Black Sea, in what they are calling “one of the largest maritime archaeological projects ever staged.” For the past two years, researchers with the Black Sea Maritime Project have been scouring Bulgaria’s Black Sea waters looking for historic treasures buried in the ships that sunk there hundreds of years ago....