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At its peak in the 1950s and ’60s, the kuru epidemic nearly decimated the Indigenous Fore people of Papua New Guinea. Until the 1930s, no outsiders knew that the Fore people of Papua New Guinea even existed. In one of the world’s least-explored regions, the Fore had lived independently for years, developing a distinctive culture with traditions unknown even to their fellow islanders. One of these traditions was ritual cannibalism, which led to a widespread disease called kuru....

Simón Bolívar freed South America’s slaves — but he was also a wealthy descendent of Spaniards who believed in the interests of the state over the interests of the people. Wikimedia CommonsSimón Bolívar was a Venezuelan general who led the South American rebellion for independence. Known across South America as El Libertador, or the Liberator, Simón Bolívar was a Venezuelan military general who led South America’s fight for independence against Spanish rule in the early 19th century....

Located near the Arctic Circle, the city of Oymyakon, Russia is the coldest inhabited place on Earth. Winter temperatures average around -58°F — and only 500 residents brave the chill. No matter how chilly it gets where you live, it probably can’t compare to Oymyakon, Russia. Located just a few hundred miles from the Arctic Circle, Oymyakon is the coldest city in the world. Like this gallery?Share it: Share Flipboard...

Whether it’s Godzilla’s citizenship or the unexpected origins of geishas, these interesting facts about Japan shine a light on the “Land of the Rising Sun.” Like this gallery?Share it: Share Flipboard Email And if you liked this post, be sure to check out these popular posts: 29 Facts About Muhammad Ali That Reveal The Truth About ‘The Greatest’ Oda Nobunaga — The Ruthless Samurai Who Reunified Japan 27 Statue Of Liberty Facts That Bust The Myths And Reveal The True History...

Despite their 255-year age difference, not to mention the fact that one of them is dead, Teague claims the marriage is as normal as any other union. NewsweekAmanda Teague, the woman who married a 300-year-old ghost. An Irish woman named Amanda Teague made headlines last week, after revealing that she had married the ghost of a 300-year-old Haitian pirate. Amanda Teague, 45 years old and unbothered by the 255 year age difference, married the ghost of Jack Teague, a Haitian pirate who allegedly sailed the seven seas in the early 1700s....

In the 1600s, many Italian housewives had no hope of escaping bad marriages. So hundreds of them turned to poison to kill their husbands — and collect their inheritance. Public DomainAqua Tofana was often disguised as “Manna of St Nicholas of Bari,” an ointment for blemishes. The deadly poison Aqua Tofana came in a pretty bottle. It was colorless, odorless, and tasteless. And for almost 20 years in 17th-century Italy, hundreds of women used it to stealthily kill their husbands....

Beside the stone box was a wooden one, which contained the pharaoh’s inscription. Andrzej Niwiński/Warsaw University’s Institute of ArchaeologyThis wooden box contained the inscription of Pharaoh Thutmose II which suggests that he was buried nearby. The tomb of Pharaoh Thutmose II has long eluded archaeologists. But a recent discovery may finally help them to uncover it. Archaeologists at the Deir el-Bahari site have found a 3,500-year-old stone chest alongside which was a wooden box believed to have ties to Pharaoh Thutmose II....

Researchers believe it is the oldest geoglyph that has been found among the hundreds of giant carvings that make up the ancient Nazca Lines. Jhony Islas/APA 2,000-year-old giant etching in the shape of a cat was found at the famous Nazca Lines site in Peru. Aside from Machu Picchu, the ancient Nazca Lines are Peru’s largest tourist attraction. A collection of larger-than-life geoglyphs that were etched into the ground by Indigenous people thousands of years ago, the Nazca Lines have just gained a new attraction....

The words “Could only have been painted by a madman” were written atop the paint in pencil near the corner of the frame. Edvard MunchThe message had baffled experts ever since it was first found in 1904. Curators have finally identified the author of a mysterious message inscribed into Edvard Munch’s iconic painting “The Scream.” Turns out, it was Munch himself. The note, faintly scrawled in the top left corner of the painting in old-fashioned Norwegian, reads: “Could only have been painted by a madman!...

People have been going to space since 1961, and since then, one question has lingered: Can you have sex in space? And has anyone done it? The Mile High Club is old news. Thanks to today’s technological advances and the soon-to-be commercial trips outside the atmosphere, it’s the 64-mile-high club people should really be shooting for. But that begs the big question: Is it even feasible to have sex in space?...

Chemical weapons have given people nightmares for the past 100 years — those who are lucky enough to survive them, that is. Chemical weapons hold an especially dark place in the history of warfare. Bullets, bombs, and landmines all have their own terrors, but there’s nothing quite like an invisible cloud of death to spread panic and disrupt soldiers’ discipline. In a serious chemical attack, the air itself becomes hostile to life, and unseen poison seeps through every gap and crack to silently kill unprotected people....

The incident is the latest in a worrying trend among Chinese employers that take advantage of lax labor laws. A video now making the rounds across the internet shows employees of one Chinese company being made to drink water from a toilet as punishment for their unsatisfactory performance. The video clearly depicts the sickening moments when workers are forced to drink from cups filled with toilet water. According to Shanghaiist, Beijing News reports that the employees depicted in the video work at a Sichuan-based photography studio and were being disciplined for not achieving the goals set out by their supervisor....

Routinely performing surgery under the influence of cocaine and LSD, Dr. Christopher Duntsch severely injured most of his patients — and in two cases, killed them. From 2011 to 2013, dozens of patients in the Dallas area woke up after their surgeries with horrible pain, numbness and, paralysis. Even worse, some of the patients never got the chance to wake up. And it’s all because of one surgeon named Christopher Duntsch — a....

Over the course of four days, serial killer Danny Rolling terrorized the college students of Gainesville, Florida in a murderous rampage. Danny Rolling lived an unhappy life. A tortured soul since birth, Rolling, a.k.a the Gainesville Ripper, passed on the horrifying abuse he had endured onto his victims. Over the course of four days in 1990, Rolling went on a rampage where he murdered five University of Florida students in a spree that terrified the nation....

“He said his ear hurt a lot, like something was scratching or crawling inside… I discovered more than 10 cockroach babies inside. They were already running around.” AsiaWireThe mother cockroach and some of her hatched children inside Mr. Lv’s ear. When a 24-year-old man known only as Mr. Lv rushed to the hospital with a “sharp pain” in his right ear, doctors encountered far more than they bargained for. According to The New York Post, hospital stuff soon found a family of cockroaches that had hatched near the man’s eardrum and were living inside....

Not only is this the largest blue whale fossil ever uncovered, but it also indicates that the species lived 1.5 million years earlier than we thought. Wikimedia CommonsA blue whale skeleton in London’s Natural History Museum. Scientists have long known that the blue whale is the largest animal that has ever lived. What hasn’t been known until now, however, is that the ocean giant roamed the planet far earlier than previously established — 1....

Heinrich Müller carried out the attack that started WWII and helped plan the Holocaust but was never captured or confirmed dead. WikimediaHeinrich Müller Before and during World War II, Gestapo chief Heinrich Müller was one of the most feared Nazis in Europe. An integral figure in both the planning and execution of the Holocaust, Müller has been described by authors and scholars with phrases like “cold, dispassionate killer” and “utterly ruthless....

While it may go overlooked by many Westerners, the Iranian Revolution was one of the most consequential events of the 20th century. Share Flipboard Email Iran, a country that had been a longtime U.S. ally and was enacting Western-style reforms, rapidly changed course in the late 1970s to become an Islamic theocracy. This dramatic shift would set in motion many of the large-scale geopolitical issues that the world is still dealing with today....

Miyamoto Musashi abided by a strict set of 21 precepts for life to groom himself into becoming Japan’s greatest samurai. Those tenets are still studied by ambitious businessmen today. Miyamoto Musashi is Japan’s most venerated swordmaster and has since become one of Japan’s most famous cultural icons. Though won at least 60 duels by the age of 30, it was his last duel against master swordsman Sasaki Kojiro that made him truly great....

The Hermit Kingdom has carefully cultivated their public image: a pastiche of military parades, patriotic songs, and smiling faces. These rare photographs have none of those things; they reveal the harsh realities of life in North Korea. Ed Jones/AFP/Getty ImagesPeople make their way in the early morning along a road near Chongjin on North Korea’s northeast coast. Nov. 18, 2017. North Korea remains one of the nations most isolated from the larger global society — and North Korea pictures are the most elusive evidence of the harsh realities of daily life there....