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From Ed Gein’s furniture upholstered in human skin to Edmund Kemper’s garden of severed heads, these photos reveal the true horrors of history’s worst killers. Like this gallery?Share it: Share Flipboard Email And if you liked this post, be sure to check out these popular posts: 33 Chilling Photos Of Vintage Crime Scenes At The Birth Of Forensic Photography The True Story Of John Douglas, The FBI Agent Who Profiled History’s Most Notorious Serial Killers...

From New Guinea’s poisonous hooded pitohui to the spine-snapping beak of the African shoebill, hope you never cross paths with these scary birds. PixabayIf some of these scary birds were just two to three times larger, we’d be in huge trouble. Birds are commonly associated with tranquility and freedom. But for every singing cockatiel with a cute Instagram, there’s a terrifying pelican that can crush a baby crocodile in one bite....

The Internet is filled with half truths and flat-out falsehoods about vaccines — here’s nine of the most pervasive vaccine myths and the facts behind them. Source: Shutterstock When elements of science are taken up in popular discourse, facts are often the first things to die. The same holds true for discussions about vaccines. Here are some of the more pervasive and persistent anti-vaccine myths, and why people who spout them are wrong:...

In the final battle of the English Civil War, King Richard III faced off against the rival for his throne, Henry Tudor, in harrowing man-to-man combat. Wikimedia CommonsThe Battle of Bosworth Field, as painted by Philip James de Loutherbourg in 1804. For 32 years, England was torn apart in a brutal civil war between the Lancasters and the Yorks. It was known as the War of the Roses, and in a brutally hands-on rumble between the two sides represented by King Richard III and Henry Tudor, the whole war came to an end in the bloody Battle of Bosworth Field....

Prone to feeling claustrophobic? Then perhaps you can understand the predicament of the giant Pacific octopus above. But what you won’t be able to understand is how, after finding itself stuck on a fishing boat, that octopus somehow escapes via a tiny hole in the boat’s side. When making quick escapes like that, it also helps not to have a skeleton. Octopuses (yes, that’s a correct pluralization, too) have no external or internal shell or skeleton — except for their hard, parrot-like beaks — which gives them the creepy, though useful, ability to squeeze through tiny cracks and crevices....

General Westmoreland wanted nuclear weapons sent to South Vietnam in the event of a defeat at the war’s bloodiest battle, though President Johnson swiftly axed the operation. Getty ImagesPresident Lyndon B. Johnson, left, and Gen. William Westmoreland leaving a helicopter. Documents recently declassified by The New York Times reveal that a top U.S. general planned for a nuclear response during one of the most contentious moments of the Vietnam War....

Utilizing silk thread to recreate the structures that give shape to our lives, Do Ho Suh’s fabric installations challenge our conceptions of the home. Source: Lehmann Maupin Traveling through the major modern metropolises of our world, Korean artist Do Ho Suh has recreated his own heart’s keeper in the form of silk-constructed homes. Representing memories of his prior residences, the colorful installations span all the way from Suh’s childhood to his adult life....

The glyptodon may seem like just a big armadillo, but it was the size of a car and could crush early humans with its clubbed tail. Wikimedia CommonsAn artist’s rendering of a glyptodon. In prehistoric times, it seems as though every single animal was bigger than its modern counterpart. Mammoths were taller, hairier, and heavier than elephants. Ancient sloths grew to the size of modern-day elephants. Alligators and crocodiles routinely grew to the length of a city bus....

In his memoir A Moveable Feast, Ernest Hemingway recalls what he told himself when he felt he couldn’t write: Hemingway’s determination to write simple, true sentences began in his years as a journalist. Before the novels and the Nobel Prize, he sharpened his literary tools as a reporter, first in Kansas City, then in Toronto, and finally as a European correspondent. From the High School Newspaper to the Kansas City Star One of Hemingway’s high school teachers identified the germ of Hemingway’s talent when he was sixteen years old and living in Oak Park, Illinois....

The 1957 Apalachin meeting held in upstate New York was meant to solidify and streamline underground operations. Instead, it was raided by police and brought the Mafia down. Library of CongressVito Genovese, whose 1957 Apalachin meeting heralded the end of the Mafia’s invulnerability. In 1957, newly-ascendant mob boss Vito Genovese felt on top of the world, and he wanted other mafia leaders to recognize it. So he called what is now referred to as the Apalachin meeting....

Known as the immortal jellyfish, Turritopsis Dohrnii’s can live forever — and scientists are working to see if they can apply its properties to humans. A fountain of youth exists, and a tiny species of jellyfish can be found swimming around in its eternal waters. Well, not exactly. An invertebrate capable of immortality does exist, but it doesn’t achieve endless life via its swimming location but instead through its unique biological make-up....

Said to have been the product of a bad encounter with Frank Lloyd Wright, Alex Jordan Jr.’s House on the Rock is a hoarder’s dream. Source: Roadtrippers A four-walled testament to the peculiarities of hoarding and mania, the “House on the Rock” is a tourist attraction located in Spring Green, Wisconsin. In a moment of explosive creativity–or dejected architectural aggression– Alex Jordan Jr. broke ground on a 60 foot chunk of rock to create a Japanese-style home....

The song describes a despondent and isolated teen. But who was Jeremy Delle, the 15-year-old behind the hit single “Jeremy”? Daily Mail Jeremy Delle’s school photo. In the spring of 1991, the lead singer of Pearl Jam, Eddie Vedder, was reading his morning newspaper when he came across a shocking headline about a teenage suicide. 15-year-old Jeremy Delle had inexplicably shot himself in front of his class at Richardson High School in Richardson, Texas....

Samuel “Mad Sam” DeStefano was one of the Mafia’s fiercest loan sharks — and he was so deranged that the Chicago Outfit refused to initiate him as an official member. In the 1960s, Samuel “Mad Sam” DeStefano was one of the most vicious loan sharks in Chicago. He worked closely with the mob, brutally torturing anyone who failed to pay him back on time. However, DeStefano was never an official mob member himself — because he was too unhinged even for America’s most vicious gangsters....

For centuries, humans have wondered if they are alone in the universe. In the early 20th century, the US government set out to figure it out once and for all. Universal History Archive/UIG via Getty ImagesPhotograph of the supposed Westall UFO. More than 200 students and teachers at two Victorian state schools allegedly witnessed this UFO, 1966. Project Blue Book would have sought to explain this such incident. In their new drama series, the History Channel dives into the murky world of UFO sightings and explores a very real, but now defunct, project funded by the US government known as Project Blue Book....

The funds will be put towards the creation of a paleo-genetic scientific center intended to study and eventually clone the DNA of extinct animals. The Siberian TimesThe perfectly-preserved soft tissue of a now-extinct wolly mammoth’s trunk. The Northern-Eastern Federal University (NEFU) in Yakutsk, Russia is now seeking funds for the $5.9 million construction of a “world-class paleo-genetic scientific centre,” according to The Siberian Times. And that facility will endeavor to clone extinct animals such as the woolly mammoth, woolly rhinoceros, cave lion, and particular breeds of ancient horses....

Women who gossipped in the Middle Ages faced public humiliation at the hands of their husbands when they were forced to wear the Scold’s Bridle for hours on end. The Print Collector/Print Collector/Getty Images)A 19th century depiction of a woman wearing a Scold’s Bridle. A bridle may be mostly associated with horses. But from at least the 16th century and well into the 19th, the so-called Scold’s Bridle was also used on people....

Researchers believe that one of the Whydah skeletons might belong to the legendary pirate Samuel “Black Sam” Bellamy. Whydah Pirate MuseumAn X-ray of the concretion that contains the pirate bones. The skeletal remains of six pirates have been found at the site of a historic shipwreck off the coast of Cape Cod — and might lead to the discovery of legendary pirate Samuel “Black Sam” Bellamy. The discovery was announced by the Whydah Pirate Museum in West Yarmouth, Massachusetts....

The hammer is believed to be an amulet that ancient Vikings wore around their necks. Fornleifastofnun ÍslandsThe small amulet carved out of sandstone, depicting Thor’s hammer. Archaeologists in Iceland have unearthed the Hammer of Thor — even if it’s only a tiny one. A small stone amulet in the shape of Thor’s hammer was discovered at a site in Þjórsárdalur valley in southern Iceland, according to Iceland Magazine. This discovery is particularly groundbreaking because it involves the first stone carving of Thor’s hammer to ever be found in Iceland....

“We were worried 10-12 years ago because there was a lot of debate around the MMR vaccine. Doctors were coming out with research connecting the MMR vaccine with autism." CBCEmmanuel Bilodeau When Emmanuel Bilodeau and his ex-wife decided not to give their three sons the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine, they couldn’t have predicted they’d cause a city-wide outbreak that has already had nine cases of measles confirmed in Vancouver, Canada this month alone....