The change in Alabama law that helped set him free was made more than a decade ago — but he’s only just seeing his release now. Ivana HrynkiwAlvin Kennard in the courtroom during his resentencing hearing. On Jan. 24, 1983, 22-year-old Alvin Kennard walked into the Highlands Bakery in Bessemer, Alabama and stole approximately $50. He was soon caught, convicted, and sent to prison — where he’s been for the last 36 years....
Researchers found the largest supercolony ever observed among an ant species in its native habitat, spanning more than 24 miles in length. Tired of their life among the trees, an African ant supercolony has begun expanding its borders — and humanity had better watch out. The ant species in question, Lepisiota canescens, originates in the preserved forests surrounding Orthodox Christian churches in Ethiopia but could soon spread around the world and become a global pest....
“The Elephant Man” was a tragic Victorian sideshow act. His skeleton was kept for research upon his death but the location of the rest of his remains was unknown until now. Jo Vigor-Mungovin/TwitterJo Vigor-Mungovin lays flowers on an unmarked grave suspected to belong to Joseph Merrick, also known as “The Elephant Man.” A biographer for Joseph Merrick, better known as “The Elephant Man,” believes that she has discovered the infamously deformed man’s remains 130 years after his death in an east London hospital....
The Boy Scouts of America has been a U.S. institution since 1910 — and has been hiding sexual predators in its ranks for nearly as long. Wikimedia Commons‘The Ideal Scout’ statue by R. Tait McKenzie in front of the Cradle of Liberty Council building. Philadelphia. According to a group of lawyers, the Boy Scouts of America (BSA) have allegedly been covering up a “pedophilia epidemic within their organization” that has victimized some 800 boys and identified 350 predators in question, among them scoutmasters and volunteers....
Cassie Bernall was supposedly killed at Columbine for refusing to renounce God, but she had actually been mistaken for fellow student Valeen Schnurr. WikimediaCassie Bernall The Columbine High School massacre of 1999 sent shockwaves across America and forced an entire nation to try to wrestle with unanswerable questions. How could two teenage boys commit such horrific acts of violence? Where did we go wrong? Is the world a chaotic pit with no fundamental meaning, or God-given direction?...
From Elisa Lam to Richard Ramirez, the Cecil Hotel’s history has been filled with bizarre horrors since it opened in 1927. Nestled within the busy streets of downtown Los Angeles lies one of the most infamous buildings in horror lore: the Cecil Hotel. Since opening its doors in 1927, the Cecil Hotel has been plagued with unfortunate and mysterious circumstances that have given it a perhaps unparalleled reputation for the macabre....
In 1976, French-American singer Claudine Longet fatally shot Olympic skier Vladimir “Spider” Sabich with a .22-caliber pistol. She only spent 30 days in jail for it. Aspen, Colorado in 1976 was a fun, wealthy, picturesque town. But all of that changed when singer Claudine Longet was arrested for shooting her boyfriend, beloved Olympian Vladimir “Spider” Sabich, to death. Sabich was a wealthy and adored athlete at the peak of his skiing career while Longet was a divorcé with a dwindling résumé....
Cleopatra’s perfume was so legendary that Marc Antony could supposedly smell the queen from miles away before her ships even arrived on the shores of his kingdom. Wikimedia CommonsMarc Anthony meeting Cleopatra. After centuries’ worth of paintings and sculptures, we have a pretty good idea of what Cleopatra, the storied ruler of ancient Egypt, looked like. But now, we may also know what she smelled like. After years of excavations and study, a group of researchers believe they’ve solved this mystery and actually recreated Cleopatra’s perfume....
For years, Ed Gein holed up inside his dilapidated home in Plainfield, Wisconsin as he carefully skinned and dismembered his victims in order to fashion everything from a chair to a bodysuit. Most people have seen classic horror films like Psycho (1960), The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974), and The Silence of the Lambs (1991). But what many may not know is that the terrifying villains in these three movies were all based on one real-life killer: Ed Gein, the so-called “Butcher of Plainfield....
While the Florida water snakes that led to this parkland area’s closure are non-venomous, some said they saw deadly water moccasins slithering about. Lakeland City Parks And Recreation DepartmentCity officials cordoned off an area of the park near Lake Hollingsworth to protect citizens while let the snakes’ mating season run its course. It’s mating season for the Florida water snakes of the genus Nerodia. That means a tangled web of cold-blooded reptiles getting hot and heavy in a public cuddle puddle with concerned citizens looking on in fear....
Charles Lindbergh was a hero for his feats of aviation but ultimately lost that goodwill once he started pushing bigoted conspiracies to keep America from fighting Hitler. Wikimedia CommonsCharles Lindbergh sold plane rides and performed aerial acrobatics to pay the rent before making his solo, non-stop flight across the Atlantic. He we be remembered for a far darker period of his life. In 1927, Charles Lindbergh, 25, became an unassailable American hero as the first person to fly solo across the Atlantic nonstop....
When the ratings for NBC’s ‘Today’ show were plummeting, they looked to a non-human species for help. NBC/NBC NewsWire/Getty ImagesNBC News’ Dave Garroway, J. Fred Muggs the chimpanzee celebrate the 5th Anniversary of ‘TODAY’ on Jan. 14, 1957. It’s hard to believe that NBC’s long-running Todayshow, almost tanked after its first year of broadcasting due to low ratings. What’s more unbelievable is that a chimpanzee was hired as a co-host to save it....
“And another thing…the crotch, down where your nuts hang, is always a little too tight.” Lyndon B. Johnson is a president with a complex legacy, from his military actions in Vietnam to his support for Civil Rights, but while historians and people may disagree on exactly how he ranks among other US presidents, they can all agree that he was the one most obsessed with his dick. In this insane audio recording of a phone call made by Johnson, you can listen in on the US president talking in explicit terms about the measurements he needs for his pants when ordering slacks from the Haggar clothing company....
From marching with Martin Luther King Jr. in Selma to socking a racist cop for trying to keep her from the polls, Annie Lee Cooper fought for the rights of Black Americans with ferocity. Danny Lyon/FacebookIn 1965, Annie Lee Cooper participated in the march for Black voting rights in Selma — and decked a cop for trying to keep her from the ballot box. The 1965 civil rights March on Selma is considered one of Martin Luther King Jr....
“While these phrases may seem harmless, they carry meaning and can send mixed signals to students about the relationship between humans and animals and can normalize abuse." Andrew Lichtenstein/Corbis via Getty Images PETA is calling for the general public to stop saying common phrases that use animal- and meat-based idioms such as “bringing home the bacon” and “beating a dead horse” because they claim that they’re offensive to animals. Among the phrases that the organization cited on their list are “kill two birds with one stone,” “be the guinea pig,” and “take the bull by its horns....
The makeshift town of Slab City in the brutal Colorado Desert might not be glamorous, but over 1,000 nomads call it home during the winter. Built on an abandoned military base 200 miles east of Los Angeles in the middle of California’s Sonoran Desert, Slab City doesn’t have many modern amenities. No power lines nor pipes carry electricity or fresh water to the city. Residents have to sort out their own system for disposing of sewage or trash....
The Pilgrims landed on Plymouth Rock in 1620, but by this time the Spaniards already had a colonial experiment in action—and it wasn’t in frozen Massachusetts. St. Augustine, Florida is the oldest continuously occupied European-founded city in the United States. Existing long before the American Revolutionary War, affirmative action, and women’s suffrage, this multicultural city’s impressive history can be seen in its architecture. As a Spanish enclave in the Deep South, St....
Ted Bundy was a murderer and a sociopath, but he was also on the honor roll at the University of Washington. Wikimedia CommonsDuring his senior year of high school, Ted Bundy’s education was still very important to him. Ted Bundy was a lot of things. He was a psychotic child and a disturbed teenager. He was a murderer, executed in 1989, and most recently a media phenomenon in the biopic Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile....
Source: Ross Photography Slinky Remember the days when one of life’s biggest dilemmas centered around the decision of which high-pitched and humanized cartoon character you would watch on Saturday morning, and true happiness could be derived from thrusting a wobbly spring down the stairs? If it weren’t for the clumsiness of one naval engineer, our childhoods may very well have lacked those sweet, metallic memories. Source: Philaplace While working on developing springs that could stabilize sensitive objects stowed on boats in 1943, naval engineer Richard James’ idea for the Slinky hatched as one his springs fell....
In 1920, the two psychologists behind the Little Albert Experiment performed a study on a nine-month-old baby to determine if classical conditioning worked on humans — and made him terrified of harmless objects in the process. In 1920, psychologists John Watson and Rosalie Rayner performed what’s known today as the Little Albert Experiment. In an attempt to prove that classical conditioning worked on humans as well as animals, they trained an infant to show fear toward completely harmless objects, a concept that goes against all modern ethical guidelines....
