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These horrific war crimes reveal a humanity that isn’t good or bad, but absolutely sadistic. Xinhua/Getty ImagesA victim of Japan’s infamous Unit 731. Human nature is an amorphous thing: Optimists and pessimists can look at the same human history and present diametrically opposed assessments of the human spirit. The optimist will point to acts of selflessness and historical displays of a collective will toward waging progress in making their case that human nature is essentially “good....

Before Marilyn Monroe, there was Norma Jeane Mortenson: a curly-haired brunette who never imagined she would be more than a housewife. While Marilyn Monroe took America by storm with her glitz and glamor in the 1950s, this Hollywood icon had previously lived a tragedy-filled early life under her birth name, Norma Jeane Mortenson. To this day, few fans of the acting legend know the full story of Norma Jeane Mortenson and how Monroe’s troubled youth impacted her entire life....

From their 1950s origins to their 1980s farewell, this is the story of the Rat Pack — onstage and off. Like this gallery?Share it: Share Flipboard Email And if you liked this post, be sure to check out these popular posts: Captivating Kennedy Photos That Capture The ‘Camelot’ Era In All Its Glory Tom Petty’s Heyday, In 23 Captivating Photos 33 Captivating Photos From The Battle Of Guadalcanal, America’s First Offensive Of WWII...

The site in the Harlaa region of Ethiopia suggests a long history of trade and communication in North Africa and the Middle East. Archaeologists working in Ethiopia have discovered an ancient city that may be more than a thousand years old and sheds new light on the history of trade between East Africa and Asia. The lost city was uncovered in the Harlaa region of Ethiopia, located just outside Dire Dawa, the second largest city in the country....

“I would have done it again. I have carried out the most sophisticated and spectacular political attack committed in Europe since the Second World War.” LISE ASERUD/AFP/Getty ImagesAnders Behring Breivik, the perpetrator of the 2011 Norway attacks, makes a Nazi salute as he enters the court room in Skien prison on March 15, 2016. Silje Tobiassen was a teenager when her friend convinced her to join the Workers’ Youth League (AUF), the youth organization of the Norwegian Labour Party....

Discovered by mere chance, the fossilized creature is the largest millipede ever found — and would have grown to weigh 110 pounds with a body spanning nine feet. Neil Davies et al.A resourceful research breaking off parts of the Northumberland boulder containing the Arthropleura fossil. For those afraid of creepy crawlers, the Carboniferous Era would’ve been overwhelming. About 100 million years before the dinosaurs, that period of time saw giant millipedes spanning up to nine feet roam around Earth....

Tap dancer Arthur Duncan was first introduced to national audiences by Betty White in 1954 before making history as the first Black performer on The Lawrence Welk Show. Wikimedia CommonsArthur Duncan became the first Black regular on a televised American variety show. A tap dancer with remarkable skill, Arthur Duncan was the first African American to be hired as a series regular on the variety shows of early television. He entertained thousands of viewers each week with his performances and dazzled thousands more with his live performances....

Richard “Money Rich” Porter was pulling in $50,000 a week selling crack in New York City in the late 1980s — until he was murdered by his partner Alpo Martinez in 1990. For users and innocent bystanders caught in the crossfire, the 1980s crack epidemic was an apocalyptic hellscape. For 25-year-old Rich Porter and his Harlem crew, it was heaven on Earth. While the New York Police Department considered him a middle-level crack dealer, Porter was raking in $50,000 — per week....

First opened in 1970 and shut down in 2011, the Élan School was the “last resort” for parents of teens with behavioral problems — and allegedly a site of systemic abuse. For some, the idyllic woods of Poland, Maine led to hell. There, the infamous Élan School promised to rehabilitate troubled teens. But many of its alumni claim that the school’s methods amounted to abuse. Remembering the school as a “hellhole,” they say that school administrators humiliated, restrained, and isolated students....

Danny Trejo’s roles in movies like “Heat” and “Con Air” have nothing on his early years of drug dealing in Los Angeles and boxing in San Quentin prison. Charley Gallay/ CineVegas/Getty ImagesDanny Trejo spent 11 years in prison before shooting a single scene. Clad in leather with a muscle-bound body covered in tattoos, Danny Trejo looks to be ripped right out of a crime story. The permanent lines on his face certainly suggest a harrowing past, but the Hollywood superstar’s criminal record confirms it — in fact, young Danny Trejo nearly died in prison....

The jeans, which may have been made by Levi Strauss, were auctioned off as part of a collection featuring items from the sunken “Ship of Gold,” the S.S. Central America. TwitterThe pants have similarities to early designs made by Levi Strauss, but any connection is only speculative. How much would you pay for a pair of jeans? The answer may vary depending on your budget and sensibilities, but it’s likely that $114,000 far exceeds whatever number comes to mind....

Lepa Radic died at just 17 in her fight against the Nazis, but they were never able to break her heroic spirit. Wikimedia CommonsLepa Radic stands still as a German official prepares the noose around her neck just before her execution in Bosanska Krupa, Bosnia on Feb. 8, 1943. Lepa Radić was just 15 years old when the Axis powers invaded Yugoslavia in 1941. Nevertheless, this brave young woman joined the Yugoslav Partisans in the fight against the Nazis — a fight that ended in her execution at just 17....

Though Italian smuggler Marc Feren Claude Biart made sure to hide his face in the videos, authorities recognized his distinctive tattoos. YouTubeBiart had been living quietly in Boca Chica, Dominican Republic for five years before his arrest. An Italian mobster who was on the lam in the Dominican Republic was caught and extradited last week after posting videos of himself giving cooking tutorials on YouTube. According to The Guardian, Marc Feren Claude Biart is a member of the Cacciola family within the ‘Ndrangheta Mafia, which has long overshadowed the Cosa Nostra of yesteryear in terms of reach and destructive influence....

The rare operation was meant to stabilize the man’s irregular testosterone levels, make his genitals feel more comfortable, and allow him to have biological kids. Elise Amendola/Associated PressDr. Dicken Ko, who helped perform the first penis transplant in the U.S. in 2016, was part of the team that performed the testicle transplant. A team of international surgeons in Serbia performed a rare testicle transplant between identical twins, since one of them was born without any....

The crusaders likely died sometime around the 13th century after losing control of the city of Sidon. C. Doumet-Serhal/DGAThe grave contains at least 25 skeletons, all male. Between 1096 and 1291, waves of Europeans took up arms and marched to the Middle East. They hoped to “retake” the Holy Land. But a great number of these Christian crusaders never came home, and a mass grave discovered in Lebanon offers gruesome proof of their violent deaths....

Also known as the “French Angel,” wrestler Maurice Tillet was stricken with acromegaly which caused his hands, feet, and facial features to swell to enormous proportions — and is rumored to have inspired Shrek. Public DomainA 1940 portrait of Maurice Tillet, better known as “The French Angel” and sometimes later referred to as the real-life Shrek. During his lifetime, Maurice Tillet enjoyed a relatively successful career in professional wrestling. He won two heavyweight titles and was considered a box office draw at the peak of his career in the 1940s....

From an A student to a hippie drifter, Paul Watkins thought he’d found meaning at the Spahn Ranch with the Manson Family — until Manson tried to kill him. RXSTRPaul Watkins While Charles Manson has cemented his permanent place in American history, less is known about most of his faithful, murderous cult, the Manson Family. This ragtag band of hippies and social outcasts boasts a few recognizable names, but what about the lesser-known members of this notorious cult?...

Officials found the poaching suspect with two tusks. Approximately 100 elephants in Hwange National Park have died due to a single poacher, the Chronicle reported. On Wednesday, police in the area arrested Tony Maphosa on suspicion that he used cyanide to fatally poison the Zimbabwe park’s elephants, apparently for their ivory tusks. “A man from Tsholotsho was arrested on Wednesday with two elephant tusks,” Zimbabwe Parks spokesperson Tinashe Farawo said....

After nearly three years of suspicion, Saugerties police were able to obtain a search warrant for the home of their most likely suspects — and found the missing girl hidden in a secret compartment. Saugerties Police DepartmentPaislee Shultis was found in this makeshift hiding space beneath her father’s staircase. When Paislee Shultis disappeared from Cayuga Heights near Ithaca, New York, on July 13, 2019, her family was inconsolable. While police suspected that the four-year-old had been kidnapped by her biological parents who had lost custody of her, Kimberly Cooper and Kirk Shultis Jr....

For nearly a century until 1694, thousands of enslaved Africans escaped from Portuguese plantations to the rebel kingdom of Palmares, where fugitives ruled. Wikimedia CommonsIn this 1647 map of the Brazilian state of Pernambuco, the Palmarians are represented in the right corner. For over three centuries, millions of Africans and their descendants were held in captivity throughout the Americas and forced to provide the labor that would generate vast fortunes for their captors....