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Located in Bend, Oregon, the last Blockbuster location on Earth is continuing to compete with Netflix and making changes to weather the COVID-19 pandemic. Wikimedia CommonsThe Bend, Oregon store became the world’s last Blockbuster in July 2018. In the land of movie rentals, Blockbuster Video once reigned supreme. The colossal corporation had 9,000 stores and 60,000 employees at its peak in 2004. As time passed, however, it became clear that Blockbuster was built for an era that was quickly fading....

George Washington’s teeth weren’t made of wood. The truth was actually much worse. Washington’s dentures were in fact made of animal bone and human teeth. Some records suggest that those teeth came from the mouths of slaves.Wikimedia Commons John Adams’ last words are thought to be, “Thomas Jefferson survives.” Adams believed that Jefferson, his great political rival, had outlived him. However, Jefferson himself had actually died just hours earlier. What’s more, the date was July 4, 1826, exactly 50 years after the Continental Congress approved the Declaration of Independence....

A thermopolium was a fast-food stand meant for the lower class Pompeiians who didn’t have cooking tools or amenities of their own to eat, drink, and socialize. Wikimedia CommonsA thermopolium with jars used to hold dried meats. It might seem as though our modern-day appreciation of food trucks and portable snacks is entirely contemporary. As it turns out though, even residents of Pompeii were grabbing meals on the go. According to The Guardian, archaeologists have just discovered around 150 thermopolia, or snack bars, littered throughout the ancient Roman city of Pompeii....

Mystery of ancient Greek code solved, rare Picasso work discovered, millennia-old shaman’s snake staff unearthed. The 4,000-Year-Old Code On The Ancient Greek Phaistos Disc Has Finally Just Been Cracked Wikimedia CommonsThe Phaistos Disc on display in Greece’s Heraklion Archaeological Museum. When archaeologist Luigi Pernier unearthed the Phaistos Disc at a Minoan palace on Crete in 1908, the 4,000-year-old artifact was in such good condition that many were convinced it was a hoax....

We know all about the Little Mermaid and Homer’s sirens. However, as these famed explorers tell us, mermaid sightings aren’t just relegated to works of fiction. Wikimedia CommonsA depiction of mermaids on an 18th century map. Something strange began happening in the seaside town of Kiryat Yam, Israel in 2009. It started with one person, but soon dozens of other people reported seeing the same astonishing sight: a mermaid frolicking in the waves near the shore....

Back to the Future II showed us what the world would look like on October 21, 2015. And now we’re here. What did they get right and wrong? It is the 21st of October, 2015. At 4:29 PM Pacific Daylight Time, to be precise, Marty McFly is landing in his DeLorean in Hill Valley, California. This time, he is not alone. He is traveling with his girlfriend, Jennifer Parker, and Doc Brown, his longtime friend and the crazy scientist who already sent him on a trip through time before....

Police are trying to piece together a timeline of the four-person murder-suicide. Henrico PoliceKatie and Steven Pladl. A father and daughter from North Carolina who were arrested for incest in January 2018, have been found dead along with two others in an apparent murder-suicide. Forty-two-year-old Steven Pladl and his 20-year-old daughter Katie Pladl were arrested after Katie gave birth to their son. Now, in a shocking update, Steven Pladl allegedly shot their infant son, Katie, and Katie’s adoptive father, before turning the gun on himself....

Caused by a lightning strike in a forest in New South Wales, over 50 bushfires have spread throughout the region, threatening the last 43,000 koalas in Australia. YouTubeVideo of the harrowing rescue of a koala who was trapped in an Australian bushfire has captured the world’s attention this week. Much like the wildfires that have ravaged California this year, the bushfires in Sydney, Australia, have been devastating for both human residents and the surrounding animal populations....

Paddleboarders in California received a terrifying helicopter warning when police spotted 15 great white sharks swimming nearby. “You are paddleboarding next to approximately 15 great white sharks,” the loudspeaker announcement boomed over the water off the coast of Orange County, California. “They are advising you exit the water in a calm manner,” the man with the microphone, Deputy Brian Stockbridge, added. “The sharks are as close as the surf line.”...

Though all witnesses have been dead for decades, historians and sleuths have put these Jack The Ripper suspects at the top of their list for the infamous murders. Wikimedia CommonsAn illustration of the discovery of the body of Catherine Eddowes, one of Jack the Ripper’s victims, as depicted in The Illustrated Police News circa 1888. Since the terrible Whitechapel Murders of 1888, speculation as to who was Jack The Ripper have run rampant, with dozens of names being thrown in the ring....

This incredible collection of wildlife photography will transport you to the gorgeous plains of Africa, and bring you face to face with countless creatures. As the calamities of global warming grow more frequent and severe, some claim that technology is at odds with nature. The more our gadgets can do, these critics say, the less we value the natural world and the more we degrade its offerings. Wildlife photographer Will Burrard-Lucas, however, uses technology to do the opposite: to raise awareness of the fragile splendor living and breathing all around us....

The Naki Sumo or Nakizumo Crying Baby Festival celebrates the belief that crying babies bring good health and fortune to their futures as well as ward off evil spirits. Like this gallery?Share it: Share Flipboard Email And if you liked this post, be sure to check out these popular posts: Indian Farmer Finds 800-Year-Old Lord Ganesh Statue — On The Eve Of Festival Honoring The Deity How The Yakuza Became One Of History’s Most Successful Organized Crime Groups...

The 21-inch staff was found at the Järvensuo archaeological site almost perfectly preserved — and researchers believe it was used to commune with the spirit world. Satu KoivistoThe staff is 21 inches long and was carved from one piece of wood. Archaeologists have just unearthed a 4,400-year-old wooden staff at a prehistoric wetland site in Järvensuo, Finland. With the site occupied by Neolithic peoples between 4,000 and 6,000 years ago and one end of the staff shaped like a snake’s head, researchers believe the item was used in rituals — by Stone Age shamans...

From the shanty town in Central Park to the crime-plagued slums of Lower Manhattan, these vivid images allow you to inhabit the streets of New York as they were a century ago. Like this gallery?Share it: Share Flipboard Email And if you liked this post, be sure to check out these popular posts: 47 Colorized Old West Photos That Bring The American Frontier To Life Colorized Civil War Photos That Bring America’s Deadliest Conflict To Life...

From cocaine to heroin and beyond, here’s what we once considered medicine. Universal History Archive/ Contributor/Getty ImagesCigars de Joy, a patent remedy to be smoked to relieve shortness of breath in Asthma and Bronichitis. Could you imagine taking cocaine for your sore throat? What about heroin for your cough? Well, if you lived as recently as the early 1900s, that’s just what you may have done. Certain drugs that we consider illicit, illegal, and dangerous today, were once used as miracle cure-alls and treatments for common ailments....

Like rubbernecking at a grisly highway accident, people find it hard to resist reading horrifying news stories. Media coverage of murder, child abuse, natural disasters, and the like surrounds us on a daily basis. We lament that there is no good news in the world, but the real truth is that there is, yet nobody wants to read it. You’ve likely heard that bad news sells, or the journalism adage, “if it bleeds, it leads....

After the British discovered the Nazis’ meth-like secret weapon in a downed German plane, they decided to develop their own performance-enhancement program. Thirteen Productions LLCGen. Dwight D. Eisenhower himself ordered half a million Benzedrine tablets to be supplied for American troops deployed to North Africa in 1942. Pictured: U.S. troops approaching Omaha Beach on D-Day. A number of reports have come to light in recent years about the widespread use of methamphetamines and similar substances in Nazi Germany....

Archaeologists found the ship filled with hundreds of intact jars under just 6 feet of water off one of Mallorca’s most popular beaches. Arqueomallornauta-Consell de Mallorca, Universitat de Barcelona, Universidad de Cádiz, Universitat de les Illes Balears The shipwreck was buried below the sand until 2019, which prevented damage by sealing it off from the elements for hundreds of years. Almost two millennia ago, a Roman ship carrying hundreds of jars full of food and wine capsized and sank in the shallow waters of the Bay of Palma in Mallorca, Spain....

He was an arctic explorer, a scientist, and a humanitarian who saved upwards of 7 million people. The biography of Fridtjof Nansen almost defies belief. Wikimedia CommonsFridtjof Nansen. Few historical figures present a resume as varied and magnanimous as Fridtjof Nansen. He was the first to traverse Greenland, ventured further into the Arctic than any man yet before him, and was an 11-time cross-country skiing national champion. When he wasn’t completing a feat of human endurance, he wrote scientific accounts of his adventures and became deeply involved in the global humanitarian crises in Russia and Armenia....

The Georgia Guidestones contain instructions for humans in a post-apocalyptic world, but nobody knows who put them there. Sometimes called the “American Stonehenge,” the Georgia Guidestones are just as mysterious as their name suggests. These massive slabs arranged into a monument in rural Georgia have confounded writers and tourists for decades. And what we do know about the origins of the Georgia Guidestones hardly makes the picture any clearer. The man called himself Robert Christian....