Archaeological Park of PompeiiArchaeologists excavate the skeleton of one of the two equids that was found amid the ruins of Pompeii.

The devastating eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 C.E. killed untold thousands of people in Pompeii. But it wasn’t only humans who lost their lives. Countless animals were killed too, as the recent discovery of two equid skeletons has illustrated in tragic detail.

Uncovered amid the ruins of a Pompeii bakery, the equids — likely horses or donkeys — perished during the early stages of the eruption. Using these remains, archaeologists have made new insights about both the role of animals in this ancient city, and the stories of how some of them died during the disaster that unfolded here 2,000 years ago.

The Two Equids Found Amid The Ruins Of Pompeii’s House Of The Chaste Lovers

According to the Archaeological Park of Pompeii, the equids were discovered amid the ruins of a site known as the House of the Chaste Lovers, which is so named for its famous “chaste kiss” fresco. A sprawling bakery complex that also includes living quarters and a stable, the House of the Chaste Lovers is an important site that has been excavated before. The two equids were unearthed during a recent effort to clean and re-examine areas of Pompeii that were initially excavated in the late 20th century.

Archaeological Park of PompeiiThe room at the House of the Chaste Lovers where the equid skeletons were recently unearthed.

During this endeavor, a team of archaeologists came across “a mound uncovered by previous investigations, which quickly proved both complex and exciting to re-excavate.” There, they came across the two equid skeletons. One, RP1, was estimated to be 10-12 years old when it died. The other, RP2, was younger, between three and a half and six years old.

One of the two animals, RP1, was found near a set of iron rings connected to a harness, as well as three glass-paste beads, one blue and two white. Though the animals were likely used for labor in the bakery, this decorative harness found near RP1’s neck suggests a close relationship between this equid and its human caretakers.

The animals had seemingly been moved into a temporary space — a room of 6.3 by 3.45 meters — because earthquakes had damaged other parts of the complex. Renovations were ongoing at the House of the Chaste Lovers when, in 79 C.E., Mount Vesuvius began to rumble nearby. The subsequent eruption would kill these doomed animals — and freeze their final moments in time.

What The Equids Reveal About Pompeii And Its Destruction During The Eruption Of Mount Vesuvius

Archaeological Park of PompeiiArchaeologists excavating the two equids that were found in Pompeii’s House of the Chaste Lovers.

As archaeologists excavated the equid skeletons, they noted the absence of pumice stones, known as lapilli, in the vicinity of the animals. These stones rained down on Pompeii during the early stages of the eruption of Mount Vesuvius, so their absence here suggests that the equids were killed before volcanic debris began to accumulate in the room.

Indeed, the presence of a large maple beam above the equid skeletons suggests that earthquakes in the early moments of the eruption may have caused the structure around them to collapse. The two animals inside were seemingly crushed to death before the volcanic eruption intensified.

Undiscovered for almost 2,000 years, the remains of these animals help paint an illustrative picture of life in the final moments of Pompeii, a Roman resort town of more than 10,000 people before it was destroyed when Mount Vesuvius erupted in 79 C.E. Pompeii was a thriving ecosystem of both humans and animals, including horses. The recent discovery of the equids offers new clues about how such creatures fit into daily life here.

Wikimedia CommonsA 19th-century depiction of the eruption of Mount Vesuvius.

“[Studying Pompeii] is the chance to learn about the human lives that were cut short during the eruption… but also the lives of animals,” Archaeological Park of Pompeii Director Gabriel Zuchtriegel remarked in a statement.

Zuchtriegel continued: “In this case, an equine — a horse or a donkey — which was found inside a house containing beautiful frescoes, the House of the Chaste Lovers… This means more research into not only the human victims, but also the animals, to understand how animals and humans lived and worked together in society some two thousand years ago.”

After reading about the two equids that were found amid the ruins of Pompeii, look through these eerie photos of Pompeii bodies whose final moments were frozen in time by the falling ash of Mount Vesuvius. Then, go inside the colorful history of this collection of Pompeii frescoes.

The post Archaeologists In Pompeii Just Uncovered The Skeletons Of Two Work Animals Who Died Tragically During The Eruption Of Mount Vesuvius appeared first on All That's Interesting.

Public DomainThe destroyed neighborhood of Grbavica in March 1996, just after the Siege of Sarajevo came to an end.

For four years in the 1990s, the residents of Sarajevo lived under the constant threat of bombardment or sniper fire. The Bosnian Serb army had surrounded the capital of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and they killed soldiers and civilians with equal ruthlessness. By the time the military blockade came to an end 1,425 days after it began, the Siege of Sarajevo had become the longest siege of a capital city in modern history.

The conflict sprang from the collapse of Yugoslavia. Bosnia and Herzegovina had declared independence, but the Bosnian Serbs wanted their own territory. Their aim was to establish a new Bosnian Serb state called the Republika Srpska that was ethnically homogenous. To achieve this goal, they encircled Sarajevo with a force of 13,000. The subsequent loss of life was unimaginable.

The Siege of Sarajevo lasted from April 1992 until February 1996, and at least 14,000 people were killed, including more than 5,400 civilians. Merely crossing the street could mean certain death. Sarajevo had become a hellscape — and the defining symbol of the Bosnian War.

This is the shocking true story of the Siege of Sarajevo, the 500,000 bombs that were dropped, and all the horror that ensued.

How The Siege Of Sarajevo Began

Before the Bosnian War started on April 6, 1992, Sarajevo was among the most multicultural capital cities in Europe. It had hosted the 1984 Winter Olympics just eight years earlier. Regional unity crumbled when Yugoslavia did, however, sparking the untold violence of the Yugoslav Wars.

Public DomainSarajevo residents established a graveyard in what was once a sports complex built for the 1984 Winter Olympics. June 1995.

These conflicts began when Slovenia and Croatia declared independence in June 1991. Bosnia and Herzegovina followed suit in 1992, but remaining factions of communist Yugoslavia — Bosnian Serbs, backed by Serbian nationalist leadership and the Yugoslav People’s Army — flat-out rejected the independence referendum.

The Yugoslav Wars were essentially fueled by nationalism, division among the various ethnic groups in the region, and unbridled ambition from dejected militants. Before the wars, Muslims, Serbs, Croats, and Jews lived together in Sarajevo. When Bosnia and Herzegovina declared independence, however, the city was ominously encircled.

The strategic advantage on the side of Bosnian Serbs was overwhelming: Sarajevo was surrounded by hills and mountains that the Serbs quickly occupied, stationing tanks, snipers, and artillery cannons on the high ground overlooking the city. There, they could observe the movements of every innocent civilian below.

Christian Maréchal/Wikimedia CommonsResidents of Sarajevo collect firewood from tree branches for warmth during the winter of 1992.

The Siege of Sarajevo officially began on April 5, 1992. What followed was not conventional warfare between two armies, but a campaign of terror. The Serbs didn’t have enough manpower to storm the city outright, so they opted for relentless bombardment and sniper warfare in hopes of slaughtering civilians into submission.

The Brutality Of The Military Blockade

The Siege of Sarajevo saw Bosnian Serbs launch an average of 300 artillery shells every single day, according to a United Nations report. Targets included public transportation hubs, town squares, markets, homes, hospitals, and schools. Civilians were trapped with nowhere to go.

Christian Maréchal/Wikimedia CommonsYoung children play in a damaged car on the streets of Sarajevo.

People were targeted at random by snipers stationed on the surrounding hills and abandoned high-rise buildings. “Sniper Alley” became infamous as images and reports about the war began to emerge across the rest of the world. These exposed boulevards were deadly for anyone who had to cross them.

Their struggle was made worse by the fact that international arms embargoes left people in Sarajevo with a dangerously low supply of weapons. Those trapped in the city would soon face even harsher conditions, as former mainstays of everyday life — electricity, water, and food — began to disappear.

Locals were forced to collect rainwater and burn their furniture for heat. Untold thousands regularly hid in their darkened basements as artillery shells destroyed their homes above. These blasts left countless buildings without windows.

While this type of siege would cause many people to give up hope, the people of Sarajevo never did.

Mikhail Evstafiev/Wikimedia CommonsThe people of Sarajevo line up for water during the siege.

They continued operating schools underground. Artists performed plays or sang songs in the safety of basements, with candlelight replacing electricity. Journalists never stopped documenting what they saw. Even soccer matches were held, exhibiting nearly impossible courage in the face of death.

But as the Siege of Sarajevo went on, it became clear that residents weren’t going to survive without outside assistance.

A Tunnel Of Hope And Mounting Deaths

In 1993, hundreds of volunteers and soldiers of the Army of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina built the Sarajevo Tunnel — also known as the Tunnel of Hope — beneath the United Nations-held airport to link the besieged city to Bosnian-controlled territory outside of the blockade.

A literal lifeline, it allowed food, medicine, fuel, and weapons to be smuggled in. It was designed by Bosnian civil engineer Nedžad Branković, with construction supervised by General Rašid Zorlak. The Kolar family in the war-torn Butmir neighborhood allowed their house to serve as the secret entry point.

Athena Lao/Wikimedia CommonsA reconstructed portion of the Tunnel of Hope.

Still, even with the construction of the tunnel, the death toll from the Siege of Sarajevo continued to rise. Among the casualties were Boşko Brkić and Admira Ismić, a couple of mixed ethnicity known as the “Romeo and Juliet of Sarajevo.” They were killed by sniper fire in 1993 while trying to flee the city.

Their bodies were left lying in the street for days, as attempting to move them would have been deadly.

The Markale marketplace, meanwhile, became the site of two of the most brutal massacres of the entire war. Dozens of civilians were blown apart by a mortar attack on Feb. 5, 1994, prompting outrage from an international community that had yet to intervene on behalf of Sarajevo. Another shelling followed 18 months later. At least 111 people were killed during the bombings, and more than 200 others were injured.

One of the victims of the second attack was 16-year-old Amerisa Ahmetovic, who spoke to the Sarajevo Times about the incident in 2023.

Mikhail Evstafiev/Wikimedia CommonsWomen mourn the grave of a loved one killed during the siege. 1992.

“I looked at my hands,” Ahmetovic recalled, “I saw there was no damage. Everything was black from the gunpowder. I look down, and I move my skirt to see. One leg is where it is supposed to be, but a piece of meat is hanging from the other, my leg is gone… A man was lying without legs, without a head, just a torso.”

This second shelling spurred NATO to finally intervene in the Siege of Sarajevo.

The End Of The Siege Of Sarajevo

Operation Deliberate Force, carried out by NATO in August 1995, was an extensive bombing campaign against the Bosnian Serbs in their most strategic positions. With the enemy forces increasingly under siege themselves and international pressure mounting, peace negotiations began, and the Siege of Sarajevo came to an end shortly after.

Mikhail Evstafiev/Wikimedia CommonsVedran Smailović plays the cello in the ruins of Sarajevo’s National Library. 1992.

The process formally began with the Dayton Peace Accords of 1995. Signed in November, they officially ended the Bosnian War. By February 1996, the Bosnian Serbs had vacated their positions, and the devastating Siege of Sarajevo concluded. The development naturally sparked joy and relief — but this was tinged by an unimaginable loss of life and trauma.

More than 14,000 people had been killed during the years-long siege, which was nearly twice the length of the 872-day siege of Leningrad by the Nazis during World War II. As reported by the Andolu Agency, 1,601 of these deaths were children. In addition, tens of thousands of people were wounded, and nearly every building in the city was damaged.

Hedwig Klawuttke/Wikimedia CommonsMuch of the city of Sarajevo was destroyed during the four-year siege.

The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia later concluded that the Bosnian Serbs had committed war crimes. Among them were military leaders Ratko Mladić and Radovan Karadžić, who were convicted of crimes against humanity and genocide.

Before the Siege of Sarajevo, the capital city had a population of roughly 400,000. By the end, at least 100,000 people had died, fled, or been displaced.

Today, Sarajevo still bears the scars of its past — both physically and figuratively. So-called “Sarajevo Roses,” or red resin that fills the damage from mortar blasts in the pavement, commemorate the lives lost during the siege. The bobsled track used during the 1984 Winter Olympics — and as an artillery position by the Bosnian Serbs — now stands covered in bullet holes.

Superikonoskop/Wikimedia CommonsRed resin fills in damaged pavement from the Feb. 5, 1994 shelling at the Markale marketplace.

Perhaps most ominously of all, modern-day investigations have probed claims that wealthy foreigners took part in “sniper safaris” during the siege as an opportunity to hunt people. These “tourists” allegedly paid Bosnian Serb forces to shoot civilians for sport.

In a way, the Siege of Sarajevo never truly came to an end for those who survived it. Their memories are still held captive by the horrors they witnessed and the loved ones they lost.

After learning about the Siege of Sarajevo, go inside the story of the legendary Siege of Troy and fabled Trojan Horse. Then, read about Kathryn Bolkovac, the woman who uncovered a pedophile ring among international peacekeepers following the Bosnian War.

The post The Siege Of Sarajevo, The Military Blockade That Lasted Four Years And Left Thousands Of Civilians Dead appeared first on All That's Interesting.

Tilman2007/Wikimedia CommonsThe Stonehenge Altar Stone is located in the middle of the circle.

Some 5,000 years ago, the first stones of Stonehenge were laid down in Salisbury Plain, England. Since then, it’s become one of the world’s most famous and intriguing prehistoric monuments. But many questions surround Stonehenge to this day, including how it was constructed and how its builders gathered and transported its enormous pieces. Now, a new study has offered answers for at least one part of Stonehenge: its central Altar Stone.

Building on previous research, this new study has offered insights about where exactly the Altar Stone came from, as well as theories about how it was transported some 400 miles to its final resting place.

New Insights About The Stonehenge Altar Stone

As detailed in their new study published in the Journal of Quaternary Science, researchers focused their work on Stonehenge’s Altar Stone, a megalith in the center of the circle that dates to roughly 2600 B.C.E.

Journal of Quaternary ScienceStonehenge’s Altar Stone, seen in green, is located near the center of the stone circle.

Recent studies have suggested that the Altar Stone originated in Scotland’s Orcadian Basin, located in the northeast corner of the country. By studying zircon minerals in the sandstone, they found that the Altar Stone most closely matches deposits in Caithness, part of the basin’s mainland section. These mineral deposits are located more than 400 miles from Salisbury Plain, meaning that the Altar Stone had to somehow be transported across a great distance.

Given the speculation that glaciers helped move Stonehenge’s stones, the researchers then tried to determine whether glacial movements could have brought the Altar Stone from Caithness to Salisbury Plain. They found that while most glaciers moved towards the northeast, “a localized south-eastward pathway” also flowed toward Dogger Bank in the North Sea.

But even if the Altar Stone was transported via glacier to Dogger Bank, it would still need to travel an additional 250 miles to Stonehenge.

So how did prehistoric people do it?

How Prehistoric People Transported The Altar Stone From Scotland To England

Curtin UniversityA close look at Stonehenge’s Altar Stone, which came from a site in Scotland that’s more than 400 miles away.

As study co-author Anthony Clarke noted in a statement from Curtin University, transporting the Altar Stone would have been no easy task — especially if prehistoric people did it without glacial assistance.

“Rather than being carried naturally by ice, the evidence points to a deliberate, carefully planned movement across a challenging and varied landscape,” he stated. “Our modelling shows glaciers may have transported rocks part of the way during the last Ice Age — potentially as far as Dogger Bank in the North Sea — but not into southern England, meaning the stone would still have needed to be moved hundreds of kilometres by people.”

At this point, the Altar Stone was likely moved “in stages.” Prehistoric people may have used rivers or the sea where possible, and otherwise moved the stone over great stretches of land. Such an enormous undertaking would have almost certainly required planning and coordination.

“Transporting a stone of this size over such a long distance would have required planning, coordination and a deep understanding of the landscape – not to mention tremendous determination,” Clarke remarked.

The study has thus offered new insights about Stonehenge, and demonstrated the potential of computer modeling to answer questions about this famous prehistoric monument. But many questions about Stonehenge — and the Altar Stone itself — still remain.

Further research is needed to determine where exactly in Scotland the Altar Stone came from, and researchers are eager to learn more about which transportation routes prehistoric people may have used to transport it.

Questions like these, especially when approached with modern techniques such as geological analysis and computer modeling, may be answered someday soon. But other parts of Stonehenge’s history remain elusive. Why was the monument built? What purpose did it serve? And who built it? Answers to questions like these may be lost to the ages.

After reading about the origins of the Stonehenge Altar Stone and how it may have gotten from Scotland to England, learn about how the pyramids of Egypt were built who once roamed the world. Then, learn about Göbekli Tepe, the fascinating Neolithic temple in Turkey that predates Stonehenge by more than 6,000 years.

The post New Study Reveals Where Stonehenge’s Altar Stone Came From — And How Ancient People May Have Transported It 450 Miles Across Ancient Britain appeared first on All That's Interesting.

Library of CongressAnthony Crawford was murdered by a lynch mob in 1916.

By the time he was in his 50s, Anthony Crawford was one of the wealthiest men in Abbeville, South Carolina. He was a successful farmer and landowner, and the father of 13 children. But Crawford’s wealth was resented by his white neighbors. And on one bloody October day in 1916, a mob brutally lynched him after Crawford argued with a white store owner.

In the aftermath, no one faced charges for Crawford’s brutal murder. And the town voted to drive his family out of Abbeville, depriving them of their valuable land holdings.

This is the tragic story of Anthony Crawford, the wealthy Black businessmen who was murdered by a lynch mob.

The Wealthy Black Landowner Of Abbeville

Anthony Crawford was born in 1865, the year that the Civil War came to an end. He grew up on his father’s farm outside of Abbeville, South Carolina, and when his father died, Crawford inherited the land.

Slowly but surely, Crawford added to his land holdings until he owned more than 400 acres. This made him a very wealthy man — one of the richest in Abbeville — with an estimated net worth of more than $700,000 today. As Terrance Finnegan reported in the 1998 essay collection Men and Violence, Crawford’s wealth was well-known in town, and one local paper even reported on Crawford’s “six horses, 12 heads of cattle, 18 hogs, two wagons, a McCormick rake, a new top buggy, and a substantial bank account.”

Crawford familyAnthony Crawford was a wealthy landowner in Abbeville, South Carolina.

Crawford was rich and successful, and proud of what he had built. The son of slaves, he had built up his family’s wealth, and even sent some of his sons to college. But this drew the ire of many of his white neighbors.

They resented Crawford’s wealth, and saw his pride as insolence. But Crawford had worked hard for what he had, and would make no apologies for it — although he realized that this stance could be dangerous.

“The day a white man hits me,” he told his family, “is the day I die.”

Tragically, his words were prophetic.

The Lynching Of Anthony Crawford

The lynching of Anthony Crawford occured on Oct. 21, 1916. Crawford had brought cotton and cottonseed into town that day, and while waiting to use the cotton gin, Crawford went into W.D. Barksdale’s store to sell his cottonseed. As a longtime farmer, Crawford knew that cottonseed fetched 90 cents a bushel. But Barksdale offered Crawford just 85 cents.

As a South Carolina paper noted a few months later: “As to just how the dispute started, no one knows but Mr. Barksdale.” But it was alleged that Crawford told Barksdale he’d already received a better offer for his cottonseed. Barksdale purportedly responded by calling Crawford a liar, after which Crawford supposedly cursed at him and stormed out of the store.

Public DomainA postcard of Abbeville, South Carolina, from around 1910, just a few years before Anthony Crawford was violently lynched.

A clerk from the store then raced after Crawford and struck him with an ax handle. This altercation drew the attention of the sheriff, who put Crawford under arrest. But it had also drawn the attention of a growing white mob, outraged at the news that Crawford had cursed at Barksdale.

When Crawford posted his bail and emerged from the Abbeville jail, the mob was waiting. They chased him to the boiler room of a nearby cotton gin, where Crawford tried to fight off his attackers with a hammer. The mob then pulled Crawford from the building and beat him until the sheriff was able to intervene. He whisked Crawford back to jail for his own safety.

By then, Anthony Crawford was fatally injured. But the bloodlust of the mob — which had grown to more than 200 men — was unsated. As rumors spread that Crawford might die, or that the sheriff planned to sneak Crawford out of town on a train, they attacked the jail. After overpowering the sheriff, they dragged Crawford into the street and beat him further.

They spit on him, jumped on his body, dragged him through town, and — though Crawford was likely already dead by this point — hanged him at the local fairgrounds. Then, they riddled his body with bullets.

But though Anthony Crawford had been brutally killed, the mob was still unsatisfied. In the aftermath of his murder, the white residents of Abbeville took a “vote” and expelled Crawford’s family from town. This deprived them of their land holdings, and forced the family to start over in the North.

The Legacy of Anthony Crawford Today

None of Anthony Crawford’s killers ever faced justice — the county coroner recorded that Crawford had been murdered “at the hands of parties unknown.” But he was not forgotten.

In 2016, hundreds of people — including more than 100 of Anthony Crawford’s descendents — gathered in Abbeville. As the Equal Justice Initiative reported at the time, Crawford’s family collected soil from where he had been lynched, and celebrated the unveiling of a new historical marker which told the story of his death.

Equal Justice InitiativeDescendants of Anthony Crawford gathered in 2016 for the unveiling of a historical marker in Abbeville, South Carolina.

Together, they marked the 100th anniversary of Anthony Crawford’s lynching.

“You have all of this Confederate memorabilia, but nothing that talked to the Black experience. So we wanted to do something big and bold and outdoors,” Crawford’s great-great granddaughter, Doria Johnson, told the Philadelphia Tribune. “He was a strong Black man who through hard work was becoming quite rich and I think that bothered a lot of people. He was killed because he was too successful. That is unconscionable in America.”

The Crawford family still doesn’t know what happened to Anthony Crawford’s body. But, together, they celebrated his memory — and made sure that his story would not be forgotten.

After reading about the brutal lynching of Anthony Crawford, discover the inspiration stories of civil rights leaders that you didn’t learn about in school. Or, look through this stunning collection of photos from the 1963 March on Washington.

The post Anthony Crawford, The Wealthy Black Businessman Who Was Brutally Lynched In 1916 appeared first on All That's Interesting.

South Tyrol Museum of ArchaeologyA trove of prehistoric microbes have been found in the mummified body of Ötzi the Iceman.

Ötzi the Iceman may have died 5,300 years ago, but the mummy is still bringing forth new life today. A recent study of the microbes in and on Ötzi’s body discovered four strains of yeast that scientists believe have been part of his corpse for millennia.

They were able to cultivate the yeast — and they even made “very good” sourdough bread with it. What’s more, the study of Ötzi’s microbiome is providing rare insight into the diets of people who lived during the Copper Age.

Discovering Yeast In Ötzi The Iceman’s 5,300-Year-Old Corpse

The body of Ötzi the Iceman was discovered by two German hikers in northern Italy’s Ötzal Alps in 1991. The mummified corpse had been frozen in a glacier for more than 5,000 years, and it was remarkably well preserved.

Getty ImagesTwo German hikers observe Ötzi in the glacier where they found him before he could be removed.

Scientists have been studying Ötzi ever since. They’ve determined that he was in his 40s when he died around 3230 B.C.E. — and he was seemingly murdered by someone who shot him in the back with an arrow.

In 2019, a team from Eurac Research Institute for Mummy Studies began analyzing Ötzi’s microbiome, swabbing his skin and glacial water that had melted inside his body over the years. They identified various types of bacteria, but one discovery surprised them: “What we didn’t expect to find was yeast,” lead study author Mohamed Sarhan told the Agence France-Presse (AFP).

The scientists discovered at least four different strains of yeast that have adapted to survive in cold environments, like the refrigerator where Ötzi is kept. Some of these strains are typically found in frigid areas like Antarctica, so researchers believe that they came from the glacier where Ötzi was found, entered his body shortly after his death, and have lived within him ever since.

Eurac Research InstituteThe yeast cultivated from Ötzi’s corpse.

“We see continuity here,” study co-author Frank Maixner said in a statement released by the Eurac Research Institute. “These yeasts have accompanied Ötzi on his long journey through the millennia.”

This discovery also raised unexpected questions. “If you tell anyone you have yeast,” Sarhan told the AFP, “they immediately ask: can we use it for bread?”

So, the scientists decided to find out. “We tried to make a sourdough starter with it,” Sarhan explained in the Eurac statement. “At first, the yeast hadn’t yet adapted to the flour environment, so nothing happened at all… Eventually, we obtained a completely normal dough that rose within 24 hours — basically just like ordinary yeast. We made some really good dough with it.”

The researchers then transformed Ötzi the Iceman’s yeast into sourdough bread. “I’ve never baked bread before,” said Sarhan, “and it showed. So the result definitely had room for improvement.”

Next, they hope to make beer from the prehistoric microbes. But in the meantime, the results of their study — recently published in the journal Microbiome — are contributing to research in other areas.

The Implications Of This Microbial Analysis Of Ötzi

To preserve Ötzi’s body over the decades, scientists have applied a chemical called phenol to stop fungus from growing. However, three of the yeast strains found in Ötzi’s body have seemingly been eating the phenol.

This discovery has implications for far-flung fields: This specific yeast could potentially be used in the future to break down highly toxic phenol after lab accidents or environmental spills.

Eurac Research InstituteMohamed Sahran studies the microbes from Ötzi the Iceman.

What’s more, an analysis of Ötzi the Iceman’s gut microbiome revealed similarities to the guts of modern humans who live in remote societies, like the Hadza people of Tanzania and tribes in northern Madagascar. This suggests that their diets were fairly similar.

A previous study found that Ötzi’s last meal consisted of ibex, deer, and an ancient wheat called einkorn. Like today’s non-Westernized cultures, he ate more fiber and whole grains than people in industrialized civilizations. Knowing what Copper Age humans consumed tells scientists how prehistoric people fueled themselves and provides insight into how our diets have changed over time.

Together, researchers say, these discoveries reveal that Ötzi the Iceman “is not a biologically ‘frozen’ time-capsule but rather a complex ecosystem.”

After reading about the yeast found in the body of Ötzi the Iceman, learn the stories of nine of history’s most chilling mummies. Then, discover how Ötzi the Iceman helped researchers learn new information about HPV.

The post Scientists Just Used Yeast From Ötzi The Iceman’s 5,300-Year-Old Corpse To Make Sourdough Bread appeared first on All That's Interesting.

Dorthea Lange/Library of CongressA family of Dust Bowl migrants from Oklahoma stands by the side of the road after their car broke down. 1936.

In the 1930s, dust storms moved across the Plain states like a Biblical plague. Crops withered. Cattle choked on dust. And 2.5 million Dust Bowl migrants poured out of the American heartland in one of the largest mass migration events in U.S. history.

But in fleeing an ecological disaster, many Dust Bowl migrants found themselves mired in new crisis. They faced difficult, lonely journeys, as well as hostile welcomes in their adopted states. Dust Bowl migrants were derisively called “Okies,” no matter where they’d originally come from, and often faced discrimination and even violence from their fellow Americans.

This is the story of the Dust Bowl migrants, the 2.5 million people who fled the Dust Bowl in the 1930s.

The Dust Bowl, One Of The Worst Ecological Disasters In U.S. History

U.S. Department of AgricultureDust storms across the Great Plains buried farms. Migrants abandoned their farm equipment to flee the storms.

The United States was still reeling from the start of the Great Depression when another disaster struck the American heartland. In the 1930s, the Dust Bowl — one of the greatest man-made ecological disasters in U.S. history — began to grow in scope.

The seeds of the disaster had been sown in the 19th century, when thousands of settlers poured into the Plains states following the Homestead Act of 1862. Farmers uprooted the native prairie grasses, and used the land to grow wheat or graze cattle. Without native grasses to hold the topsoil in place, high winds created massive dust clouds.

And a long period of drought made these conditions even worse. In 1932, there were 14 “dust storms.” The next year, there were 38.

National Archives and Records AdministrationKnown as the “Black Sunday” dust storm, this massive storm of April 14, 1935 blacked out the sun.

Dust storms spread across the American heartland, from New Mexico and Colorado to Oklahoma and Texas. These “black blizzards” buried livestock and crops, and caused farms to fail. Many farmers could not afford to wait until the disaster — dubbed the Dust Bowl — came to an end.

And so, 2.5 million Americans made the heartbreaking choice to abandon their homesteads. These Dust Bowl migrants poured out of the Plains states, and some 200,000 of them decided to make the journey to California.

The Dust Bowl Migrants’ Difficult Trek To California

With no other choice, Dust Bowl migrants packed their families, possessions, and life savings into their cars and trucks. After abandoning their dust-choked homes, many headed west to California, where they had heard about job opportunities and generous unemployment relief. They traveled along Route 66, which they called “Mother Road.”

As the State of California Capitol Museum reports, some 70,000 Dust Bowl migrants settled in the San Joaquin Valley, where there was a wealth of agricultural jobs. Another 100,000 settled in Los Angeles.

But the Dust Bowl migrants did not receive a warm welcome.

Library of CongressDust Bowl migrants piled all of their belongings into cars and drove away from the storms.

Viewed with disdain, Dust Bowl migrants were derisively called “Okies.” Locals viewed them as a competition for jobs (which were already scarce during the Great Depression) and looked down on them because of their dependence on government programs. In 1936, Los Angeles even sent 125 policemen to the state’s border to keep “undesirables” out.

“California’s relief rolls are overcrowded now. No use to come farther,” a man at California’s border called out to migrants in 1935 according to PBS. “There really is nothing for you here.”

But the migrants ignored the warning. “So?” one of them replied. “Well, you ought to see what they got where I come from.”

The Difficult Life Of Dust Bowl Migrants

Not only did Dust Bowl migrants face discrimination, but they also faced harsh conditions in their newly adopted states. Many migrants lived in shanty towns or alongside ditches, and worked low-paying, back-breaking jobs.

Picking grapes and cotton, farm workers made as little as 75 cents per day. A portion of this money — 25 cents — went to renting shacks with no floors or plumbing. Meanwhile, angry locals attacked migrant camps, beat up workers, and burned their shacks. The migrants, they declared, were “Communists.”

Dorothea Lange/New York Public LibraryMigrant farmworkers in California often lived in shacks with no running water or electricity.

The harsh conditions that Dust Bowl migrants endured was famously captured by writer John Steinbeck, who described their plight in his 1939 novel “The Grapes of Wrath.”

“This here fella says, ‘I’m payin’ twenty cents an hour,'” one character exclaims in the novel. “An’ maybe half a the men walk off. But they’s still five hunderd that’s so goddamn hungry they’ll work for nothin’ but biscuits.”

Competition meant farms could cut wages and exploit workers. “The more fella’s he can get, less he’s gonna pay. An’ he’ll get a fella with kids if he can.”

Dorothea Lange/Library of CongressFlorence Owens Thompson, the Dust Bowl migrant from Dorothea Lange’s famous photo “Migrant Mother.”

Those who couldn’t find jobs built their own shanties, where they lived with no plumbing or electricity. These “Okievilles” faced outbreaks of tuberculosis, malaria, typhoid, and smallpox. And though the federal government began building resettlement camps in California to house the Dust Bowl migrants in 1935, these camps held only 75,000 people.

Meanwhile, local children bullied migrant children, calling them “maggots” instead of “migrants.” Even teachers mocked the children’s’ accents.

“We ain’t people,” one migrant child lamented. “We are sharecroppers.”

Dorothea Lange/Library of CongressThe children of Dust Bowl migrants faced harsh conditions and were targeted by locals.

Another sadly stated, “No one likes me, I’m an Okie.”

The Legacy of the Dust Bowl Migrants

In 1939, rainy weather returned to the Plains states. This helped bring an end to the Dust Bowl, and the start of World War II improved the national economy. But few Dust Bowl migrants returned home.

Instead, many left farm work for defense jobs in Los Angeles or San Francisco, where shipyards and aircraft factories were hiring at a healthy clip to support the war effort. They replaced their shacks with homes, and settled permanently in the west. Meanwhile, works of art like Steinbeck’s 1939 novel, or Woody Guthrie’s 1940 song “Dust Bowl Refugees” helped build sympathy for the Dust Bowl migrants.

U.S. Department of AgricultureDust Bowl migrants experienced extreme poverty, discrimination, and violence. Yet for many, that was preferable to the ecological disaster they’d fled at home.

But though the crisis had passed, the Dust Bowl revealed how precarious life could be. Unsustainable farming practices coupled with drought and depression had left millions on the brink of starvation. The Dust Bowl migrants were left with little choice than to pack up their possessions and start over somewhere new.

That said, escaping an ecological disaster wasn’t enough. The migrants still had to weather discrimination from locals, and frequently faced disease, violence, and deep, terrifying poverty.

After reading about the Dust Bowl migrants, the 2.5 million Americans who fled the Dust Bowl in the 1930s, discover the stories of Hoovervilles, the shanty towns which were built out of desperation during the Great Depression. Or, learn about the true story behind Dorothea Lange’s famous “Migrant Mother” photo.

The post Dust Bowl Migrants, The 2.5 Million People Who Fled The Dust Bowl In The 1930s appeared first on All That's Interesting.

Nash et al., Quaternary (2026)The cave painting found at Bacon Hole. The panel on the left shows the original painting, while the image on the right has been enhanced.

More than a century ago, a group of researchers came across a set of red markings in Bacon Hole, a cave in South Wales. They postulated that the markings were cave art, but others scholars disagreed. Over time, most agreed that the markings were natural formations. However, a recent study of the markings has now revealed that the original theory was correct.

Using modern-day technology to study the markings, a new set of researchers has concluded that they are, in fact, cave art. What’s more, the markings in Bacon Hole were made roughly 17,000 years ago, making them the oldest known rock art ever found anywhere in the British Isles.

The Cave Markings Found In Wales That Proved To Be The British Isles’ Oldest Rock Art

According to a new study published in Quaternary, the story of the prehistoric cave markings began back in 1912, when a group of researchers first discovered them. These researchers believed that they were cave art, but their conclusion was largely dismissed. It took a new set of researchers, who returned to the cave in 2022, to finally prove the original theory correct.

Nash et al., Quaternary (2026)The entrance of Bacon Hole cave in Wales, where the cave markings were first documented in 1912.

These researchers returned to Bacon Hole cave, which is set deep in the limestone cliffs of the Gower Peninsula in South Wales. After rediscovering the markings — their exact location had been lost to time — they applied modern-day technology to determine whether the markings were part of a natural formation or a rare example of Upper Paleolithic cave art.

They found that the markings, which appear as ten horizontal lines, contained hematite, an iron-rich mineral that prehistoric people are known to have used to make art. The researchers also concluded that the markings were far too uniform to be a natural formation, and the traces of pigment splashes and finger marks within the cave suggest that prehistoric people handled the pigment. The markings, thus, appear to be rock art.

What’s more, the markings appear to represent an incredibly old instance of rock art. Using uranium-thorium dating, researchers determined that the drawings were between 18,300 and 15,700 years old, making it the oldest known rock art in the British Isles.

Nash et al., Quaternary (2026)Researchers studied the cave markings and determined that they’d been made in a uniform pattern, using a pigment that prehistoric people used elsewhere to make art.

But why was this art created here, what does it mean, and how did prehistoric people make use of Bacon Hole cave?

The Long And Murky History Of Bacon Hole Cave

At the time that the cave paintings were made, Wales looked very different than it does today. According to the researchers, the red horizontal markings were left in Bacon Hole shortly after a “severe cold phase.” At this time, the climate was “shifting from a near-uninhabitable frozen landscape to a treeless periglacial environment with sparse vegetation.”

Nash et al., Quaternary (2026)Bacon Hole Cave was seemingly occupied, on and off, for thousands of years.

Given these conditions, Bacon Hole cave likely served as “suitable habitation sites for hunter-fisher-gatherer groups,” though no strong evidence of their presence, aside from the rock art, has been found. Nor are researchers sure what the rock art could symbolize. The ten horizontal lines left deep within the cave could have been a form of communication, a way of recording an event, a system of marking visits, or something else entirely.

But what is clear is that Bacon Hole was used by a variety of people as time marched on. Past archaeological excavations at the cave have turned up evidence of Iron Age ceramics, a Roman-British bone pin, an Irish brooch from the 7th century C.E., and “several Saxon-style beads,” as well as artifacts from the Norman period and the Middle Ages.

Now, the cave markings at Bacon Hole cave can be counted as part of this heritage. Dismissed as a natural formation for more than a century, it’s now clear that the red marks were purposefully made by prehistoric people. While their meaning remains murky, they offer a faint link between our present day and the lives of prehistoric people some 17,000 years ago.

After reading about the 17,000-year-old cave paintings found in Wales, look through these photos of some of the world’s most stunning caves. Then, go inside Hang Son Doong cave, the largest cave in the world.

The post Archaeologists Just Identified 17,000-Year-Old Cave Drawings That Are The Oldest Rock Art Ever Found In The British Isles appeared first on All That's Interesting.

Public DomainA mural of Queen Calafia at the Mark Hopkins Hotel, San Francisco, which was painted in 1926.

Her story contains themes of religion, conquest, gender dynamics, and more. So why was California named after this figure from 16th-century fiction?

This is the story of Calafia and the origin of the name “California.”

The Spanish History Behind Calafia, The Black Woman Warrior Of Fiction

The story of Calafia comes from Las sergas de Esplandián (“The Adventures of Esplandián), which was written by Garci Rodríguez de Montalvo around 1510. It was part of a larger series of chivalric romances (Amadís de Gaula) which follow the adventures of King Amadís. Las sergas de Esplandián is a sequel to these books, which follow the life of Amadís’ son, Esplandián.

Public DomainA cover of Las sergas de Esplandián.

Montalvo was a soldier during the Reconquista, the struggle by Christian leaders to push out Muslim Moors from the Iberian Peninsula. The Reconquista ended in 1492 with the Christian conquest of Granada, and it seemingly influenced Montalvo as he developed the character of Calafia.

In fact, the Los Angeles Times reports that she may even be based on a real Muslim queen: Sayyida al Hurra, who had been driven out of Spain during the Reconquista, and sought revenge through a network of pirates. Indeed, even her name “Calafia,” may come from the word “Khalif” or “Khalifa” which means “successor” in Arabic and is used to describe a leader of Muslims.

That said, it’s also possible that Montalvo might have gotten the name “Calafia” and her island “California” from the 11th-century poem the “Song of Roland,” which includes a reference to place known as “Califerne.”

But who was Calafia?

The Many Adventures Of Queen Calafia

Calafia, Montalvo wrote, lived on an island called California, “very near to the region of [the Garden of Eden], which was populated by Black women.”

According to Montalvo, these women were similar to Amazons. They were “of vigorous bodies and strong and ardent hearts and of great strength.” They lived on the island with tamed griffins, who were fed male children — or any man who happened upon the island’s shores. And they were ruled by Queen Calafia, the most beautiful of them all.

League of Women Voters of California LWVC/Wikimedia CommonsA mural by Lucile Lloyd which includes Calafia, depicted as a Mayan warrior-priestess.

“There ruled on that island of California, a queen great of body, very beautiful for her race, at a flourishing age, desirous in her thoughts of achieving great things, valiant in strength, cunning in her brave heart, more than any other who had ruled that kingdom before her… Queen Calafia,” Montalvo wrote.

In his novel, Calafia and her women warriors travel to Constantinople to fight on the side of the Muslims against King Amadís and his Christian allies. Calafia releases her griffins, but they attack Christian and Muslim men indiscriminately, forcing her to call them back. Ultimately, the Christian forces prevail. Calafia then converts to Christianity, marries a Christian knight, and returns to California, where men are newly welcome.

Montalvo’s novel, with its themes of conquest and Christianity, was a smash hit. A victim of its own success, Las sergas de Esplandián was even included as one of the books blamed for Don Quixote’s madness in Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes. In the novel, Las sergas de Esplandián is burned.

But one of its readers was the Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortès.

The Naming Of The State Of California

As USC Libraries reports, Hernán Cortés sought an island “rich in pearls and gold… populated by women, without a single mate” when he set sail in the 1530s. This island sounds an awful lot like Montalvo’s island of California and, indeed, Cortés soon arrived along the coast of Baja California.

According to California Frontier, the region — thought to be an island until the dawn of the 17th century — was widely known as “California” by the 1540s. That said, it’s not clear if Cortés or one of his men gave it its name.

Vinckeboons, Joan; Library Of Congress/Wikimedia CommonsThis early map of California depicts the region as an island.

“Numerous theories exist as to the origin and meaning of the word ‘California,'” a California state legislative document from 2017 states, according to The New York Times. “All that is known for certain is that someone, presumably a Spanish navigator, applied the name to the territory that now comprises the State of California sometime before the year 1541.”

Indeed, it is possible that California was not named for Calafia. The state’s name may come from the Latin phrase “calida fornax,” meaning “hot furnace” or from the Native American phrase “kali forno” which means “high hill” or “native land.” However, as The New York Times notes, scholars largely agree that California state was named for Calafia and her island of California.

And her legacy in the state has not been forgotten.

The Legacy Of Calafia In California Art

Though the story of the connection between Calafia and the state of California is little known today, it has not been forgotten in the state of California itself.

In 1935, muralist Lucile Lloyd painted a mural called California’s Name in the California State Building in Los Angeles. In it, she included Calafia, depicted as a Mayan warrior-priestess. In the early 2000s, Disney also produced an epic film about California’s history called Golden Dreams: A Cinematic California Adventure. The film was narrated by Queen Calafia, as voiced by Whoopi Goldberg.

YesterlandA depiction of Queen Calafia at Disney’s Yesterland.

As such, Calafia remains an important part of California history. Though she was a fictional character, and though historians can’t say with 100 percent accuracy that the state was named after her, her story has endured throughout the ages. Tales of this warrior queen, her tamed griffins, and her women warriors, seemingly left an impression among the Spanish conquistadors, who carried her tale all the way to the New World.

After reading about Calafia, the Black warrior queen of fiction who may have inspired the name of the state of California, discover the story of Tomyris, the warrior queen who beheaded Cyrus the Great. Or, discover the stories of women warriors from history, from Cleopatra to Joan of Arc.

The post How Did California Get Its Name? Inside The Story Of Calafia, The Black Warrior Queen Of Spanish Legend appeared first on All That's Interesting.

Public DomainKate Florence Phillips and her daughter, Ellen.

On April 15, 1912, Kate Phillips lost everything. During the sinking of the RMS Titanic, she lost her lover, Henry Morley, who perished, as well as the dream of their new life together in California. But as Phillips boarded a lifeboat, she left the Titanic with two things — a child in her womb, and a blue sapphire necklace that Morley had gifted her as a token of his love.

For fans of the 1997 film Titanic, this story of lost love may sound familiar. And indeed, Kate Phillips and her sapphire necklace — later called the “Love of the Sea” — is believed to have inspired the character of Rose DeWitt Bukater, and her necklace, the “Heart of the Ocean.”

This is the true story of Kate Florence Phillips, the “real-life Rose” who survived the Titanic.

The Love Affair Of Kate Phillips And Henry Morley

Born in Worcestershire, England, on Jan. 1, 1893, Kate Florence Phillips’ life changed after she started working as a shop assistant at a local confectionary store. There, she crossed paths with Henry Samuel Morley, a senior partner at L. Morley Confectioners — and Phillips’ boss.

Though Morley was married — and 20 years older than Phillips — the two began an affair. As Titanic Encyclopedia reports, their relationship soon intensified, and Morley decided to abandon his family for Phillips.

Public DomainHenry Samuel Morley in an undated photograph.

The couple agreed to escape Britain — and Morley’s marriage — and to start anew in Los Angeles. Morley told his family and friends that he needed to travel for his health, then purchased two second-class tickets for himself and Phillips on the RMS Titanic.

Kate Phillips and Henry Morley boarded the doomed ship at Southampton on April 10, 1912, traveling under joint ticket number 250655. To escape detection, they used the pseudonyms of Mr. Marshall and Mrs. Marshall.

But they would never make it to California.

The Sinking Of The Titanic In April 1912

Public DomainThe Titanic leaving Southampton, England, on April 10, 1912.

At first, Kate Phillips’ and Henry Morley’s voyage went as planned. The Titanic was large, luxurious, and thought to be “unsinkable.” As second class passengers, Phillips and Morley would have enjoyed meals like baked haddock, chicken and rice, and American ice cream, slightly better fare than the rabbit pie and baked potatoes served to passengers in steerage.

As RMS Titanic Inc. reports, the couple enjoyed themselves aboard the ship. They no longer had to hide their love, and could live openly as a couple. During the voyage, Morley gifted Phillips with a beautiful sapphire necklace as a token of their love and to mark the start of their new life together.

But on the night of April 14, 1912, the Titanic catastrophically collided with an iceberg and started to sink.

As women and children were ushered into lifeboats, Kate Phillips escaped the sinking wearing only a nightgown. But Morley did not. According to Encyclopedia Titanica, his body was never recovered.

Public DomainAn illustration of the sinking of the Titanic, which occured in the early morning hours of April 15, 1912.

However, in a way, Morley did live on. Not only did Kate Phillips have the necklace he’d given her, but she gave birth to a baby, Ellen, in January 1913. For the rest of her life, Phillips would swear that the baby was Morley’s.

Kate Phillips, The Real Life ‘Rose’ Of The Titanic

After the Titanic sinking, Kate Phillips lived an unhappy life. She had a contentious, perhaps even abusive relationship with her daughter Ellen, suffered from deteriorating mental health, may have tried to die by suicide, and was ultimately abandoned by her husband. Phillips died in 1964.

She had never been able to prove that her daughter Ellen was Morley’s child. Nor could Ellen, who died in 2005, prove it. But in 2020, a DNA test finally established that Ellen was the child of Kate Phillips and Henry Morley.

By then, some aspects of Kate Phillips’ tragic life had allegedly made their way to the silver screen.

In the 1997 film Titanic, the character of Rose, played by Kate Winslet, is gifted a sapphire necklace by her cruel fiancé, which she later wears while posing nude for the character of Jack, her love interest played by Leonardo DiCaprio. Decades later, Rose drops the necklace into the ocean.

Paramount PicturesThe character of Rose in the 1997 film Titanic, played by Kate Winslet, is gifted a sapphire necklace which was purportedly inspired by Kate Phillips’ necklace.

Rose’s necklace, the “Heart of the Ocean,” is said to be inspired by Phillips’ necklace, the “Love of the Sea.”

“This pendant is from the Titanic and was the inspiration for [Titanic director] James Cameron to write the love story that he included in his film with Kate Winslet,” David Scott-Beddard of the Nomadic Trust told the BBC in 2007, when Phillips’ necklace went on display in Belfast.

Scott-Beddard, who explained that the necklace had been sold by Phillips’ daughter, Ellen, described it as “quite small, only about an inch long,” with an “oblong sapphire surrounded by diamonds and attached to a very simple thin chain.” In other words, Phillips’ necklace is quite a different piece than Rose’s enormous sapphire. It has since been displayed around the world.

But while the story of Rose and Jack from the Titanic is well-known today, the story of Kate Florence Phillips and Henry Samuel Morley has all but been forgotten. In 1912, the couple took a risk. They tore up their lives, and set out to start over in the United States. Sadly, things took a tragic turn.

That said, Phillips left the Titanic with two valuable reminders of her lost lover: their daughter, Ellen, whose paternity was proven in 2020, and Morley’s sapphire necklace. Today, the necklace is a valuable Titanic artifact, and an enduring reminder of their doomed romance.

After reading about Kate Florence Phillips, the real-life “Rose” of the Titanic, discover the harrowing stories of other Titanic survivors. Or, go inside the sad story of Ida and Isidor Straus, the couple on the Titanic who chose to die together on the ship rather than be separated.

The post Kate Phillips, The Titanic Survivor Whose Story Of Love Aboard The Doomed Ship May Have Helped Inspire The Classic 1997 Film appeared first on All That's Interesting.

Institute of Culture of BarcelonaResearchers study the remains of Queen Elisenda, who was buried in a wooden coffin.

In 1326, Queen Elisenda of Montcada founded the Monastery of Santa Maria de Pedralbes in Barcelona. Now, an archaeological project launched to celebrate the monastery’s 700th anniversary is revealing more than ever before about the people who once lived and died there.

Archaeologists have uncovered eight medieval graves along with the remains of 25 individuals and a trove of burial goods. From a woman who died during pregnancy to the body of Queen Elisenda herself, these discoveries illustrate “the internal dynamics of a center of female power in the 14th century.”

The Story Of Queen Elisenda And The Monastery Of Santa Maria De Pedralbes

Elisenda de Montcada was part of one of medieval Catalonia’s most powerful families, a legacy that was secured when she married King James II of Aragon in 1322. When Elisenda raised the idea of building a monastery in Barcelona, James agreed to fund it, and construction began in 1326.

Because her husband’s health was declining, Elisenda also had a small palace constructed next to the monastery. James died in November 1327, and the queen moved into the new residence, where she lived until her own death in 1364.

Institute of Culture of BarcelonaThe tomb of Queen Elisenda, the 14th-century founder of the Monastery of Santa Maria de Pedralbes.

She was buried within the monastery, and archaeologists examined her tomb as part of this 700th anniversary project. According to a statement released by Barcelona’s Institute of Culture, they discovered that the tomb was divided into two sections by a low wall, indicating “a double representation of the queen’s figure: as a sovereign, next to the church, and as a penitent, next to the cloister, a duality that reinforces her political and spiritual role.”

Elisenda was seemingly buried in a traditional monastic habit, but her grave also contained bits of silk with metallic thread. What’s more, archaeologists found pieces of rosemary and myrtle that were seemingly part of the queen’s burial rites.

While Elisenda’s grave revealed a wealth of information about medieval funerary rituals in Catalonia, the other tombs in the monastery held even more fascinating discoveries.

Uncovering 25 Medieval Burials In This Barcelona Monastery

Elisenda’s remains matched historical records about the queen, but not all of the tombs at the Monastery of Santa Maria de Pedralbes contained what archaeologists expected to find within them. For instance, a grave that has long been linked to a knight named Artau de Foces held no male remains at all. Instead, researchers found the skeletons of three children and two women — one of whom still had a long ponytail attached to her skull, eerily intact after 700 years.

Institute of Culture of BarcelonaOne of the most unusual discoveries was a skull with a centuries-old ponytail still attached.

The monastery’s first abbess, Sobirana d’Olzet, was discovered with a facial injury. It was seemingly inflicted with a sharp object like a knife shortly before her death, and archaeologists are still trying to determine what happened and whether it contributed to her demise. Her grave also contained the remains of candles and cords that were “initially interpreted as possible disciplines,” according to archaeologists.

But perhaps the most fascinating burial was that of Francesca Saportella, Elisenda’s niece and the second abbess of the monastery. The remains of at least nine individuals from various time periods were found in her tomb, suggesting that it was repeatedly reused over the course of many years.

These remains included four male skulls with stab wounds, as well as the mummified torso of a woman who was pregnant when she died. The fetus, estimated to be between 20 and 23 weeks of gestation, was lodged in her birth canal.

Institute of Culture of BarcelonaThe tomb of Francesca Saportella contained the skulls of four unidentified men with stab wounds.

Saportella’s tomb also contained various documents and pieces of parchment with handwritten musical notations. Experts hope that these will reveal new information about daily life inside the monastery.

In all, archaeologists identified the remains of 11 women, seven children, four men, as well as three bodies that are still awaiting analysis. Some were wrapped in textiles, others were deposited directly into the tombs, while Queen Elisenda herself was buried in a wooden coffin — all “various forms of burial… that had not been studied with this level of detail until now.”

Institute of Culture of BarcelonaScientists used radiography, 3D scanning, radiocarbon dating, and textile analysis to study the graves and their contents.

The archaeological project is expected to continue until 2027. Archaeologists write that “the challenge for the coming year will be to transform these first findings into a complete historical reading that allows us to better understand not only who these people were, but also how they lived, how they died, and how they were remembered.”

So far, they’ve found more than they ever could have expected: “The first results of the research: a new look at life, death, and rituals in the monastery.”

After reading about the graves found in a medieval monastery in Barcelona, take a walk through the Meteora Monasteries of Greece. Then, look through 33 stunning photos of Barcelona’s Sagrada Familia cathedral.

The post Mysteriously Macabre Burials Found At A Spanish Monastery Include A Medieval Queen And A Ponytail That’s Still Intact After 700 Years appeared first on All That's Interesting.

Public DomainEtta Place and Harry Longabaugh, aka the Sundance Kid, in 1901.

She appeared beside some of the Wild West’s most infamous outlaws, fled the United States for South America, and vanished so completely that historians still wonder who she really was. More than a century later, Etta Place remains one of the greatest mysteries of the American frontier.

Place was elegant, beautiful, and skilled with a gun. She was close with outlaws, particularly Harry Longabaugh, the “Sundance Kid” of the Wild Bunch gang, to whom she may have been married.

But her real name is debated to this day. And no one knows what happened to Place, as she vanished from the historical record sometime after 1909.

This is everything we know about Etta Place, the mysterious outlaw companion of the Sundance Kid.

The Mysterious Woman Who Rode With The Wild Bunch

Very little is known for certain about Etta Place’s early life. Most historians believe she was born around 1878, though even that remains uncertain. Some theories claimed she came from Texas, while others suggested she was born in Pennsylvania, New York, or elsewhere in the West.

Even the name “Etta Place” name may have been fake. The surname “Place” likely came from Harry Longabaugh’s mother, whose maiden name was Place. The Sundance Kid himself occasionally used the alias “Harry Place,” leading many historians to believe Etta adopted the name while traveling with him. And, indeed, Pinkerton detectives in the 1990s referred to Place by several different names, including Ethel, Rita, Eva, and Betty Price.

Public DomainThe Wild Bunch gang. Front row, left to right: Harry Longabaugh, the Sundance Kid; Ben Kilpatrick, the Tall Texan; Robert Leroy Parker, Butch Cassidy. Back row: Will Carver and Harvey Logan, Kid Curry.

They didn’t know her name, but the detectives described Place as having “classic good looks,” brown hair, and a refined appearance. She reportedly handled firearms well, rode horses skillfully, and moved comfortably through both outlaw camps and high society with ease. Because of this, Pinkerton detectives suspected she was originally from Texas. (Longabaugh too described Place in a letter as a “Texas lady.”)

And while many details of her life remain unknown, it is clear that Etta Place was part of the Wild Bunch, the notorious Wild West gang led by Butch Cassidy.

Etta Place Became Linked To Butch Cassidy And Sundance

By the late 1890s, the Wild Bunch had become one of the most notorious outlaw gangs in the American West. The gang, which included several outlaws including the Sundance Kid, robbed banks, trains, and payroll shipments across several states while repeatedly escaping law enforcement.

And at some point, the Sundance Kid crossed paths with Etta Place.

Historians believe the two met around 1899. One long-standing rumor claims Cassidy rescued Etta from a Texas brothel when she was still a teenager. Others believed she may have worked as a schoolteacher before joining the outlaws. Neither story has ever been proven. But it’s believed that once she met the gang, Place assisted the Wild Bunch by handling getaway horses and helping to scope out potential targets.

Public DomainSome believe that Butch Cassidy, pictured here in an 1894 mugshot, rescued Etta Place from a brothel in Texas.

By the turn of the century, however, the Wild Bunch gang was increasingly pursued by Pinkerton Detectives. Despite the risk, Etta Place and the Sundance Kid made an appointment to have their picture taken together in February 1901 at Joseph B. De Young’s photo studio in New York City. In the photo, the couple appear respectable — a far cry from notorious outlaws.

Indeed, after obtaining the photograph, Pinkerton detective William Pinkerton reportedly complained to his brother: “It shows how daring these men are, and while you are looking for them in the wilderness and mountains, they are in the middle of society.”

But Place and Longabaugh understood the risks. Shortly after their picture was taken, Etta Place, Harry Longabaugh, and Butch Cassidy left the United States. Sailing under false names, they made their way to South America.

The Outlaws Who Escaped To South America

In February 1901, the trio boarded the Herminius in New York City and sailed to Argentina. Sundance and Place posed as Mr. and Mrs. Harry Place — and may have indeed been married by this point — while Cassidy traveled separately under the alias James Ryan.

The group hoped South America would offer a fresh start far away from Pinkerton detectives and growing pressure from American law enforcement. For a time, the plan appeared to work.

The outlaws purchased a ranch in Patagonia and attempted to live quietly as cattle ranchers. They were even able to escape detection and travel back and forth from Argentina and the United States. Place and Longabaugh purportedly traveled back to the United States in 1902 so Place could seek treatment for an unknown illness, and Salt Lake Magazine reports that Place and Longabaugh may have even attended the 1904 World’s Fair.

Rowanda/Wikimedia CommonsButch Cassidy’s ranch in Argentina.

However, reports soon linked Cassidy and Sundance to robberies in Argentina and Bolivia. Pinkerton detectives continued tracking the fugitives internationally, while rumors spread that the gang remained active despite their attempts to disappear.

Then, Etta Place did disappear.

Etta Place Vanished From History

The final years of Place’s life remain as mysterious as her origins. Some historians believe she permanently separated from Sundance Kid around 1906. Two years after that, the Sundance Kid and Butch Cassidy were reportedly killed during a shootout with Bolivian soldiers — though speculation about their deaths continues to this day.

But Place had quietly slipped out of the historic record.

In 1909, a woman matching her description reportedly visited a U.S. diplomat in Chile seeking a death certificate for Sundance Kid. The woman was never positively identified, and she never returned to pick up the certificate. But from here, Place’s trail goes cold.

Some rumors claimed she moved to Paraguay and married a wealthy man, or that she returned to Texas or New York under another identity. One theory suggested she became Fort Worth brothel owner Eunice Gray, though later researchers rejected the idea after comparing photographs.

According to various rumors, Place died during the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, committed suicide in Argentina during the 1920s, or spent her later years quietly working as a schoolteacher in Colorado or Oregon. Some even believe that the Sundance Kid escaped death in Bolivia, and that he and Place lived out the rest of their days together in peace.

None of those claims have ever been proven, however.

In fact, some historians believe that “Etta Place” was actually Ann Bassett, a cattle rustler who had close ties to Butch Cassidy and the Wild Bunch.

The Theory That Etta Place Was Ann Bassett

At first glance, the theory that Etta Place was actually Ann Bassett seems convincing. Both women were born around 1878. Both were described as intelligent, attractive, skilled with horses, and independent for the era.

Denver Public LibrarySome historians have suggested that Etta Place was actually Wild Bunch associate Ann Bassett, though conflicting timelines have cast doubt on the theory.

Pinkerton records also describe Place as closely matched Bassett’s physical appearance. And as the Utah Historical Society, Dr. Thomas G. Kyle of Los Alamos National Laboratory made a surprising discovery when he conducted computer-based photo comparisons between Place and Bassett: he found that the women shared nearly identical facial structures. They even shared the same unusual scar or cowlick near the top of their foreheads.

Kyle thus concluded that Etta Place and Ann Bassett were one in the same.

But not everyone agreed with these findings. For one, Bassett was married to another man in 1903. For another, she was arrested that same year, during a period when Place was believed to be in South America. However, like with many things about Etta Place, historians remain divided on the topic.

One Of The Wild West’s Greatest Mysteries

Campanile Productions, Inc.Katharine Ross portrayed Etta Place in the 1969 film Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.

Unlike most famous figures from the Wild West, Etta Place left behind very little evidence of her existence. There are only a handful of confirmed photographs of her. None of her letters seem to have survived, and even basic details like her birthplace, family, and real name remain uncertain.

While Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid remain icons of the Wild West, Etta Place remains far harder to pin down. Even the 1969 film Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid offered only a sanitized interpretation of her life, portraying her as a quiet school teacher rather than a woman who escaped a brothel to join a gang of outlaws.

Today, we don’t know her real name or her fate. Etta Place managed to evade both the Pinkerton detectives who sought to track her down, and the historians of today who’ve sought to decipher the facts of her life.

After reading about Etta Place, the mysterious companion of the Sundance Kid, learn about Laura Bullion, the “Thorny Rose” of the Wild Bunch. Then, look through these stunning colorized photos of the Wild West.

The post The Mysterious Story Of Etta Place, The Romantic Companion Of The Sundance Kid appeared first on All That's Interesting.

Public DomainA portrait of Anne Boleyn, the doomed second wife of Henry VIII.

Almost 500 years after her tragic death, Anne Boleyn remains one of the most famous women in English history. King Henry VIII tore apart his kingdom to be with her, divorcing his first wife, Catherine of Aragon, and forcing an historic split between England from the Catholic Church. Then, when she failed to give him a male heir, the king sent Anne Boleyn to her death in 1536. But despite her fame, portraits of Anne Boleyn made during her own lifetime remain exceedingly rare.

But now, a group of researchers have applied A.I. facial recognition technology to a set of drawings by Hans Holbein the Younger, a noted German portraitist in the Tudor court. Their findings suggest that one sketch, long believed to depict Anne Boleyn, actually portrays her mother, Elizabeth Howard. Meanwhile another drawing, known only as “Unidentified Woman,” may actually be a portrait of Anne Boleyn.

The Supposed Anne Boleyn Portrait That May Depict Her Mother, Elizabeth Howard

As a study in npj Heritage Science reports, researchers began with a collection of portraits by Hans Holbein, who sketched the likenesses of many members of King Henry VIII’s court in the 16th century. Though 85 of Holbein’s works survive, only 30 have been confidently identified. Others were only labeled centuries later, raising questions about the accuracy of those labels.

Using facial recognition technology, which looks at bone architecture and geometric features, researchers made surprising conclusions about two of Holbein’s works. The first sketch’s subject, which had been identified as Anne Boleyn, seems to in fact be her mother.

Historians had long speculated about this portrait. Contemporaneous accounts and paintings have depicted Anne Boleyn as slight, with dark hair. However, this newly-analyzed Holbein portrait presents a more heavyset woman with blond hair.

Royal Collection TrustThis portrait’s subject, identified as Anne Boleyn, may actually be her mother, Elizabeth Howard.

What’s more, though historians long assumed that this alleged Anne Boleyn portrait was meant as a token for the king, the woman in the portrait seems to show signs of illness — which an artist would probably not include in a romantic portrayal. However, Boleyn’s mother, Elizabeth Howard, was “diseased with a cough,” near the end of her life, and the study’s authors wrote that the subject’s “full or doubled chin [may be] evidence of illness” — specifically, tuberculosis.

Meanwhile, another one of Holbein’s drawings, given the label of “Unidentified Woman,” may actually depict Anne Boleyn.

Is Holbein’s “Unidentified Woman” Actually A Portrait Of Anne Boleyn?

In other words, though the Holbein sketch labeled as Anne Boleyn may be her mother, Elizabeth Howard, researchers found that another Holbein work, labeled as “Unidentified Woman,” may actually be Anne Boleyn.

Royal Collection TrustResearchers believe that this portrait, labeled as “Unidentified Woman,” may actually depict Anne Boleyn.

Unlike the drawing that may portray Elizabeth Howard, this other sketch’s subject bears a strong resemblance to Anne Boleyn. Contemporaneous sources described her — like the woman in the drawing — as being dark-haired, slender, and with a “little neck.” What’s more, Holbein’s notes suggest that the sitter wore luxury fabrics, including samat (velvet) and damask. Furthermore, the pink-preparatory paper matches the material that Holbein was known to use during Anne’s courtship with Henry, and her short time as queen before her husband had her beheaded in 1536.

Researchers also believe that this illustration was created and handled with special care.

“The drawing’s extraordinary preservation treatment — precise silhouetting and professional remounting on prepared paper—is shared with only two other Holbein drawings,” the researchers explained in their study. “This rarity is significant: the careful preparation indicates deliberate valuation, not routine handling… [it suggests] sustained recognition of its importance through mechanisms now lost to the historical record.”

The study’s findings offer a fascinating window into the story of Anne Boleyn, arguably the most famous of King Henry VIII’s six wives. It was in pursuit of Boleyn that Henry broke up both his first marriage and England’s connection to the Catholic Church. Anne Boleyn was thus one of the most important women in English history, and the new study’s findings offer a revealing look at her momentous life.

That said, the study’s authors noted that their results should be seen as a data point — not necessarily a firm conclusion. The data should be taken alongside other information, including historical records, new analyses, and, first and foremost, contemporaneous identification.

“In this sense,” the researchers concluded, “facial recognition serves not as an arbiter of identity, but as a rigorous and transparent tool for reassessing long-standing attribution problems where traditional evidence alone has proved insufficient.”

After reading about these possible portraits of Anne Boleyn, go inside the mystery of sweating sickness, the horrific and mysterious illness that terrorized Tudor England. Then, discover the stories of Henry VIII’s children — and how they each changed English history.

The post Researchers May Have Just Identified A Rare Portrait Of Anne Boleyn That Was Hiding In Plain Sight For 500 Years appeared first on All That's Interesting.

The Kray twins, Ronnie and Reggie, in 1966.

Ronnie and Reggie Kray, better known as the Kray twins, remain perhaps the most infamous criminals in London’s rogue gallery of historical gangsters. During the 1960s, they ruled the streets of London’s rough-and-tumble East End.

And while some crime lords kept their heads down and went about their business, the Kray Twins never kept a low profile as they carried out everything from armed robberies to arson while hobnobbing with politicians and celebrities — as portrayed in the 2015 film Legend — before they were finally brought to justice.

The Early Years Of The Kray Twins

Ronnie and Reggie Kray were born within ten minutes of each other on Oct. 24, 1933, in Hoxton, London. From a young age, the twins had both a taste for violence and an apparently insatiable desire to become somebody.

17-year-old Reggie (left) and Ronnie (right) with their mother, Violet Kray, in 1951.

As VICE notes, like their grandfather Jimmy “Cannonball” Lee before them, the Kray brothers got their schooling in taking and giving a beating early on when they took up boxing. Both became amateur champions.

Meanwhile, they displayed some of the differences in character that would inform their future lives as criminals. Reggie was a calmer, more disciplined boxer, while Ronnie showed early signs of his rabid desire to win no matter the cost.

And soon, the Kray twins took their fighting into the streets — and got themselves into trouble. They started getting involved in gangland activity on the streets of the East End.

As Reggie recounted in his memoir Born Fighter, when the Krays were 16, the cops charged them with grievous bodily harm after they attacked a rival gang outside of a dance hall.

Two years later, they were called for National Service. Instead, in 1951, they assaulted a police officer and ended up spending a month in prison.

While there, they acted so violently and rambunctiously — including dumping a latrine bucket on a sergeant, handcuffing a guard to the prison bars, and setting their own beds on fire — that they were dishonorably discharged from the army soon after being conscripted.

FlickrThe Kray brothers in boxing gear as young men.

But soon, they would take their criminal activities to even greater heights. While making a name for themselves thanks to armed robbery and hijacking, they also got into the nightclub business, starting out by turning a small, rundown club in Bethnal Green into a respectable joint.

And so they started their ascent of the London underworld.

Ronnie And Reggie Kray: Kings Of Gangland London

The Kray twins were equal parts celebrity and gangster.

As up-and-coming gangsters, the Kray brothers had a particular role model: the stylish “boss of Britain’s underworld,” Billy Hill, who according to the Guardian, controlled Soho in the 1950s.

Like Hill, the Kray twins bought and paid for their more legitimate businesses with the proceeds from their criminal activities. As they expanded into protection rackets, arson, armed robbery, and sales of black market cigarettes, they also expanded their nightclub empire by purchasing a string of clubs in the East End as well as central London.

But although the Krays had a semi-legitimate approach to making money, violence was still integral to how they operated. While both were capable of extreme violence, Ronnie’s angry flare-ups grew uncontrollable. In 1954, members of a Maltese gang tried to collect protection money from the twins in their newly acquired Regal Billiard Hall. Ronnie’s response was to attack them with a cutlass.

Meanwhile, to legitimize their appearance despite their criminal activities, Ronnie and Reggie Kray maintained an elaborate façade by organizing donations to charity, building a reputation as generous philanthropists.

But Ronnie’s erratic behavior began to erode any notion of their respectability. According to the British Newspaper Archive, in 1956, he received three years in prison after slashing and stabbing a man with a bayonet.

While Ronnie was away, Reggie developed their business and criminal interests. By 1957, he had opened the Krays’ signature club, the Double R, and established their gang called “the Firm.”

Meanwhile, in prison, Ronnie was struggling with his mental health. In 1958, he transferred to an asylum in Surrey, where doctors diagnosed him with paranoid schizophrenia and administered sedative drugs. Eventually, Reggie was declared sane and transferred back to prison.

But upon his release in 1959, Ronnie no longer bore an identical resemblance to Reggie. Prison had taken its toll on Ronnie. He became thickset in face and body and was perhaps even more prone to violent outbursts.

Rulers Of Swinging Sixties London

Early mugshots of the Kray twins.

With Ronnie out of prison and their gang established, the Kray twins became criminal celebrities who owned around 30 popular nightclubs, bars, and restaurants. In his autobiography, My Story, Ronnie recalled:

“They were the best years of our lives. They called them the swinging sixties. The Beatles and the Rolling Stones were rulers of pop music, Carnaby Street ruled the fashion world… and me and my brother ruled London. We were fucking untouchable.”

With their network of nightclubs established, the Kray brothers were in their element and free to be who they wanted to be.

In 1960, the Kray twins acquired Esmeralda’s Barn, a club in the West End. Ronnie felt more comfortable being open about his bisexuality in this part of London. Soon he began hobnobbing with a number of high-society gay men that included politicians, actors, and businessmen.

While accounts vary, it’s generally reported that both twins were bisexual, though Ronnie identified more as gay and Reggie more so exhibited interest in women, according to the Mirror. In 1960, Reggie started a relationship with Frances Shea, the teenage sister of Firm member Frank Shea. Ronnie became Reggie’s best man at the wedding five years later.

Ronnie’s love life, meanwhile, didn’t proceed so smoothly. The Kray twins’ friends included influential Conservative Lord Boothby. Scotland Yard became aware of a relationship between Ronnie and Boothby and developed a dossier on the pair. By the summer of 1964, authorities planned a major operation against them. 

But when news of the scandalous relationship (homosexuality was a crime in 1960s Britain) between Ronnie and Boothby broke in the Sunday Mirror, Boothby threatened to sue the newspaper. The paper backed down, and after a £40,000 out-of-court settlement, newspapers buried any further stories linked to the Krays.

The Kray Brothers And The American Mafia

For years, Ronnie dreamed of turning the Kray twins’ empire into a version of the New York Mafia’s infamous killing factory known as Murder, Inc. And in the 1960s, he got his wish. As reported in the book The Kray Files: The True Story of Britain’s Most Notorious Murderers, the American Mafia advised Ronnie on how to adopt its principles for London gangs, and an important transatlantic criminal alliance was born.

But this connection with the Mafia ratcheted up tensions with the Richardson gang, also prominent in London. The Kray twins wanted to expand their gambling interests with the Mafia’s help, but Ronnie felt the Richardson gang was beginning to encroach on their turf. To make matters worse, George Cornell, a Richardson henchman, reportedly called Ronnie a slur at the Astor Club in December 1965. A gang war broke out.

Things escalated on March 7, 1966, when someone killed Firm member Dickie Hart in a shootout and Cornell was believed to be responsible.

Then, on March 9, 1966, the Krays learned Cornell was drinking at the Blind Beggar, a pub on the Krays’ turf in the East End. An incensed Ronnie entered the pub — and calmly shot Cornell in the head right in front of everyone.

Wikimedia CommonsReggie Kray (second from left) in 1968.

Though the cops arrested Ronnie, intimidation from The Firm ensured that no one snitched on him. And when the barmaid was questioned as a witness, she failed to identify Ronnie. Ronnie walked free.

A year later, Reggie too would be in trouble for murder. Though they kept evading justice, the Kray twins’ downfall was on the horizon.

The Kray Twins’ Trial And Incarceration

By 1967, Reggie’s two-year-old marriage had taken a turn. In her diary, Frances Shea claimed Reggie came home drunk every night and verbally abused her, and that she tried to get her marriage annulled because it was never consummated. On June 7, feeling trapped in the couple’s Marble Arch flat, Shea tragically died by suicide via a drug overdose at the age of just 23.

The resulting emotions may explain why, just a few months after his wife’s death, Reggie viciously murdered Firm member Jack “The Hat” McVitie after McVitie failed to kill Leslie Payne, a former associate of the Kray twins.

When McVitie showed up at a party in northeast London that October, Reggie tried to shoot him, but the gun jammed. After a struggle, Ronnie reportedly held McVitie down as Reggie killed him in brutal fashion, stabbing McVitie in the face, stomach, and chest before impaling him through the throat to the floor with a carving knife. No one ever found McVitie’s body.

The murders were the turning point in Scotland Yard’s ongoing investigation into the Ronnie and Reggie Kray. Under more pressure than ever, members of the Firm finally began to snitch on the twins. On May 8, 1968, the police arrested both Krays at their mother’s flat. A year later, the twins received life behind bars for the murders of Cornell and McVitie.

FlickrThe grave of Ronnie and Reggie Kray.

Even in prison, though, they never strayed from their scheming ways. They operated a bodyguards-for-celebrities business from behind bars, with Frank Sinatra reportedly one of their clients.

Ultimately, Ronnie died of a heart attack in March 1995, aged 61. In 2000, Reggie was released on compassionate leave after being diagnosed with terminal bladder cancer. Within weeks, Reggie too was dead, and the story of the Kray twins had finally come to an end.

After this look at Ronnie and Reggie Kray, read up on the Teddy Boys who terrorized 1950s Great Britain. Then, discover the stories of history’s most famous gangsters.

The post How The Kray Twins Ruled The Underworld Of Mid-20th Century London In Style appeared first on All That's Interesting.

ETH LibraryA photograph of Mileva Marić and her husband Albert Einstein in 1912.

In 1896, a young Albert Einstein walked into the Polytechnic Institute in Zurich. The 17-year-old student was beginning a four-year program in the school’s physics and mathematics department. Of the five scholars admitted to the department that year, only one of them — Mileva Marić — was a woman.

Soon, the two young physics students were inseparable. Mileva Marić and Albert Einstein conducted research and wrote papers together, and soon began falling in love. “I’m so lucky to have found you,” Einstein wrote to Marić in a letter, “a creature who is my equal, and who is as strong and independent as I am! I feel alone with everyone else except you.”

But Einstein’s family never approved of Mileva Marić. And when their relationship soured, Einstein turned against his wife, and may have robbed her of crucial credit for her work on “his” groundbreaking discoveries.

Who Was Mileva Marić?

Mileva Marić was born in Serbia (then Austria-Hungary) on December 19, 1875. A bright student from her early years, she quickly moved to the top of her class. According to Scientific American, in 1892, Marić became the only woman allowed to attend physics lectures at her Zagreb high school after her father petitioned the Minister of Education for an exemption.

According to her classmates, Marić was a quiet but brilliant student. Later, she became just the fifth woman at the Polytechnic Institute to study physics.

Bernisches Historisches MuseumA photograph of Mileva Marić from 1896, the year she began studying physics in Zurich and met Albert Einstein.

At the end of their degree program in 1900, Mileva Marić posted higher grades than Albert Einstein. While Einstein received a one in applied physics, Marić scored a five, the highest possible grade. But during the oral exams, she fell short. The male professor gave each of the four men in Marić’s class an 11 out of 12, she received a five. Einstein graduated. Marić did not.

Although he received a degree, Einstein did not have a job. The couple conducted research together, hoping it would lead to a degree for Marić and a job for Einstein. “How proud I will be to have a doctor for my spouse,” Einstein wrote to Marić.

Yet their first article only listed Einstein’s name.

Einstein told Marić he could only marry her once he had a job. But his family also strongly opposed the relationship.

“By the time you’re 30, she’ll already be an old hag,” Einstein’s mother wrote — because Marić was nearly four years older than him. The Einsteins did not want a Serbian intellectual with a limp joining their family.

Mileva Marić’s Unplanned Pregnancy

In 1901, Albert Einstein and Mileva Marić were working on a stunning research project. According to the Washington Post, Einstein wrote to his partner, “How happy and proud I will be when the two of us together will have brought our work on the relative motion to a victorious conclusion!”

That work — which would become Einstein’s theory of special relativity — would transform him into one of the most famous physicists in history.

But an unplanned pregnancy derailed Marić’s role as Einstein’s research partner. And Einstein still refused to marry her until he landed a job.

ETH LibraryAlbert Einstein and Mileva Marić with their first son, Hans Albert, circa 1904.

Desperate, Marić took her oral exam again. And again, a male professor failed her. She dropped out of school and returned to Serbia to give birth. Her child, Lieserl Einstein, would vanish from historical records. Most likely, Lieserl died or the couple put her up for adoption.

Finally, Einstein landed a job in a Swiss patent office in 1902 and agreed to marry Marić the following year.

Between 1904 and 1910, Marić gave birth to two sons, Hans Albert and Eduard. She worked at her husband’s side on his research. And Einstein published five articles in 1905, his “miracle year.”

Behind the scenes, Mileva Marić calculated figures, argued theories, and wrote lectures for her husband. When he began teaching in Zurich, Marić wrote his lecture notes. When physicist Max Planck reached out to Einstein with a question, Marić wrote back.

As her husband grew more famous, Marić confided to a friend, “I only hope and wish that fame does not have a harmful effect on his humanity.”

Life As Albert Einstein’s Wife And Overlooked Partner

By 1912, Einstein had given up on his marriage. He started an affair with Elsa Einstein Lowenthal, his cousin whom he would later marry. Writing to Lowenthal, Einstein called Mileva Marić “an unfriendly, humorless creature.” He also admitted, “I treat my wife as an employee whom I cannot fire. I have my own bedroom and avoid being alone with her.”

Einstein and Marić discussed a separation. The New York Times reports that, with their marriage on the line, Einstein proposed a compromise in 1914. He would continue the marriage if Marić agreed to his conditions.

“A. You will see to it (1) that my clothes and linen are kept in order, (2) that I am served three regular meals a day in my room. B. You will renounce all personal relations with me, except when these are required to keep up social appearances.”

Einstein also demanded, “You will expect no affection from me… You must leave my bedroom or study at once without protesting when I ask you to.”

The pair finally divorced in 1919. Marić insisted on a clause in the divorce document stating that if Einstein won a Nobel Prize, she would receive the money.

Six years later, Einstein tried to go back on his promise. Marić objected, hinting that she could prove her contributions to his research. Einstein wrote to his ex-wife, “When someone is completely insignificant, there is nothing else to say to this person but to remain modest and silent. This is what I advise you to do.”

The Death of Mileva Marić And Her Legacy Today

Mileva Marić struggled to support herself in the decades after her divorce, even though Einstein ultimately followed through on his promise to give her the Nobel Prize winnings, around $500,000 in today’s money.

In Marić’s final years, she devoted herself to caring for her son Eduard, who struggled with schizophrenia. After Marić’s death, Einstein lamented that Eduard was alone in a mental institution.

“If only I had known,” Einstein wrote, “he would never have come into this world.” When Eduard died, his father had not seen him in over 30 years.

Hebrew University of Jerusalem, IsraelMileva Marić and her two sons, Hans Albert and Eduard, circa 1914.

Marić made it possible for Einstein to launch his career. But to do so, she had to give up her aspirations of working as a scientist. And once Einstein grew tired of his first wife, he cast her aside.

While Mileva Marić never received credit during her life, after her death scholars have pointed to Einstein’s first wife as a critical contributor to the scientist’s legacy.

After reading about the life of Mileva Marić, Albert Einstein’s first wife, discover 25 facts you might not have known about Albert Einstein. Then learn about other brilliant but overlooked female scientists.

The post The Little-Known Story Of Mileva Marić, Albert Einstein’s First Wife And Tragically Overlooked Partner appeared first on All That's Interesting.

Get a glimpse of this chaos in the Woodstock 99 photos below, then discover the full story behind recent history’s most infamous music festival:

Woodstock 99 was held July 22 to 25 at Griffiss Air Force Base in Rome, New York. More than 220,000 people attended, temporarily making Rome the third-largest city in the state. But organizers left them to combat 100-degree temperatures atop a tarmac runway virtually on their own. And $4 water bottles led to fiery tempers.

As chronicled in the HBO documentary Woodstock 99: Peace, Love, and Rage, the music itself had changed from the acid-induced psychedelia of the '60s to the rage-fueled resentment of the '90s. Multiple sexual assaults and rapes went unchecked as 700 people suffered heat exhaustion. Crowd members overturned cars and set them on fire.

In the end, outnumbered security and state troopers had to wrangle festival-goers across the charred remains of a what looked like a battle ground. And, as the Woodstock 99 photos in the gallery above showcase, while groups like Korn and Limp Bizkit scored the pandemonium, some security simply gave up.

How Woodstock 99 Went From Rock To Riots

Before the first note was played, Woodstock 99 already seemed like a cynical endeavor. Event organizers set ticket prices at the high price of $157 to see a lineup of acts with no obvious relationship to each other. Among them were Limp Bizkit, Alanis Morissette, The Offspring, The Dave Matthews Band, Sheryl Crow, James Brown, Kid Rock, and DMX.

Frank Micelotta/ImageDirect/Getty ImagesFred Durst performs atop a piece of plywood that has been ripped from the venue walls and used to crowd surf.

It was a stark contrast to the cohesive lineup of the original 1969 Woodstock Festival.

This was no unified bastion of anti-war artists who united their fanbases. And John Entwistle, the bassist for The Who and one of the only performers who had actually played the original Woodstock, was relegated to the "Emerging Artists" stage.

Few attendees has prepared for the heat wave. With bottled water priced out of reach for many and few public water stations, drinking fountain lines took hours. There was a 1.5 mile walk between the two main stages across sweltering tarmac, during which many people fainted from heat exhaustion. Even the most harrowing images from Woodstock 99 could never capture the oppressive intensity of the heat. And with temperatures only going up, tensions rose rapidly.

And the actions of Woodstock 99 performers didn't help. Insane Clown Posse caused a frenzy by throwing $100 bills into the crowd. Kid Rock had to end his set early after he told the audience to throw anything they could in the air and they began pelting him with water bottles.

Female artists, meanwhile, were met by chants to "show us your tits." On the ground, the scene was even more sinister. Festival volunteer David Schneider recalled seeing a 100-pound girl being pulled into a mosh pit — and violated by two men.

"Due to the congestion of the crowd, she felt that if she yelled for help or fought, she feared she was going to be beaten," the police report read.

Andrew Lichtenstein/Sygma/Getty ImagesPandemonium on July 25, 1999, as captured in one of dozens of disturbing photos from Woodstock 99.

Even some musicians who have since positioned themselves against the misogynist chaos of the festival were less critical of the atmosphere at the time.

"In the dance area, where there were no rock bands, the vibe was terrific," said Moby, who performed at 1 a.m. on Saturday morning. "Unfortunately, I didn't get laid."

The True Anarchy That Even The Photos From Woodstock 99 Didn't Capture

The 10,000 Woodstock 99 staff members, including 3,000 security guards, were aided by 500 New York State Troopers, although they proved largely unable to manage the crowd. Only 44 people were arrested. And by the end of the weekend, only half the security staff remained, many of whom had joined the rioting crowd. One person even drove a truck through the audience during Fatboy Slim's set.

It was during the festival's closing set by the Red Hot Chili Peppers that things turned into anarchy. Their cover of Jimi Hendrix's "Fire" saw aggravated fans light bonfires that turned into several infernos. People ransacked and looted vendor booths, tearing down merchandise and walls before burning the wreckage. These blazes quickly made for some of the most intense photos from Woodstock 99.

The riots weren't quelled until dawn on July 26, when reinforcements of state troopers were called in and formed a police wall. But by then, the damage was done. When city officials took stock, the site was a 1.5-mile long cesspit of mud, burnt plywood, human waste, and trash as far as they could see.

And the air, according to one MTV report, "smelled of burning garbage, as well as urine and feces."

Browse the gallery above to see the shocking Woodstock 99 photos that tell the behind-the-scenes story of "the day the '90s died."

After seeing some of the most outrageous photos of Woodstock 99, read about the Altamont Speedway Free Concert that helped bring an end to the hippie era. Then, check out 55 photos from history's most iconic music festivals.

The post The Woodstock 99 Disaster, Captured In 33 Photos Of Chaos And Destruction appeared first on All That's Interesting.

Lionsgate FilmsTimothy Treadwell spent 13 years filming, observing, and interacting with brown bears in Alaska.

Timothy Treadwell had a passion for bears. After surviving a drug overdose in the late 1980s, he began spending his summers among the wild bears of Alaska, and he attributed his recovery from addiction to the creatures.

But Treadwell didn’t just observe the animals. He regularly interacted with the coastal brown bears of the Katmai coast, swimming with them and even playing with their cubs. Rangers repeatedly warned him that he was getting too close to the bears, but he dismissed their concerns, believing he had a special connection to them.

Then, in October 2003, he was camping in Alaska with his girlfriend, Amie Huguenard, when he was attacked. Huguenard trained in vain to save him, but the brown bear that had mauled Treadwell turned on her, too. By the time help arrived, they had both been partially eaten.

Audio from the gruesome attack was captured on a video camera that was rolling at the time. It was so disturbing that Treadwell’s loved ones destroyed it, ensuring that nobody else would have to endure the chilling final moments of the “Grizzly Man.”

How Timothy Treadwell Became Known As The ‘Grizzly Man’

Timothy Treadwell was born Timothy William Dexter in the Long Island town of Mineola on April 29, 1957. He developed a fondness for animals from an early age, and he even had a pet squirrel. His childhood was fairly typical, and he had a promising future. As the star diver on his high school’s swim team, he earned a college scholarship — but then things went downhill.

During his time at Bradley University in Illinois, he seemingly had some sort of mental break. He began claiming that he was an orphan and dropped out after just two years. He then moved to Los Angeles with hopes of becoming an actor. He auditioned for the role of Woody Boyd on the sitcom Cheers, but he lost the role to Woody Harrelson.

At this point, he officially changed his last name to Treadwell and became estranged from his family. He spiraled into drug and alcohol abuse, and he nearly overdosed on heroin in the mid-1980s. He realized that something had to change, and he confided in his friend, Terry Tabor. As Treadwell wrote in his 1999 memoir, Among Grizzlies, Tabor asked him what he wanted to do with his life. Treadwell replied: “Well, this might seem crazy, but when I was young I used to pretend I was a grizzly bear. I’ve always wanted to see bears, Terry.”

Discovery UK/YouTubeTimothy Treadwell became known as “Grizzly Man” due to his encounters with bears.

Tabor encouraged Treadwell to travel to Alaska to fulfill his dream. So, a year later, he did just that. He hopped on his motorcycle and rode thousands of miles to Wrangell-St. Elias National Park, where he had his first encounter with a wild bear. Treadwell later recalled:

“[A] row of thick vegetation and shrubbery next to me began to rustle and then sway violently. I froze in my muddy tracks, eyes bulging as I watched the brush. I broke out in a cold sweat as the weeds thrashed and an enormous fur-clad animal bounded out onto the path. A grizzly!… I gazed into the face of a kindred soul, a being that was potentially lethal, but in reality was just as frightened as I was.”

Treadwell returned to Alaska the following year and had additional close encounters with bears. By the end of that trip, he wrote, he “truly felt at one with the grizzlies.”

Living With The Wild Bears Of Alaska

Timothy Treadwell spent 13 summers in Alaska, often camping along the Katmai coast. The coastal brown bears there are technically the same species as grizzly bears — Ursus arctos — but grow even larger, with males regularly topping 1,000 pounds due to their rich marine diet.

Reweaver33/Wikimedia CommonsA coastal brown bear fishing for salmon in Katmai National Park.

Treadwell set up his camp in an open, grassy area that he referred to as the “Grizzly Sanctuary.” There, he closely interacted with the bears, sometimes touching them and playing with their cubs. He named the creatures that he saw repeatedly, dubbing them “Booble,” “Cupcake,” and “Mr. Chocolate.”

He had to use bear mace once after a dangerous encounter, but he felt so guilty about it that he vowed never to carry it again. This concerned the park rangers who had been keeping an eye on him.

According to a report by the National Park Service, “Treadwell had a long history of engaging in behavior that is considered dangerous while bear viewing, filming, and camping on the Katmai coast.”

Discovery UK/YouTubeTimothy Treadwell swims with a brown bear.

Between 1994 and 2003, Timothy Treadwell reportedly received six citations for safety violations ranging from improper food storage to wildlife harassment. However, Treadwell believed that he had an “intimate connection” with the bears. When he wasn’t spending his summers in Alaska, he was traveling across the country to teach schoolchildren about the creatures and promote environmental activism.

Treadwell even credited bears with helping him recover from his drug and alcohol addiction, stating, “As long as I drank, it was impossible for me to truly be a responsible defender of bears.”

But in October 2003, Treadwell’s overconfidence with the animals resulted in tragedy.

The Horrific Death Of Timothy Treadwell

In the summer of 2003, Timothy Treadwell invited his girlfriend, Amie Huguenard, to travel to Alaska with him. While Huguenard also loved bears, she was wary of how closely Treadwell interacted with them. By the end of the trip, she was reportedly ready to return home.

The two were meant to fly back to California on Sept. 26, but after they ran into trouble with their travel arrangements, they decided to stay another week. An air taxi was scheduled to pick them up on Oct. 6. That morning, pilot Willy Fulton arrived at their campsite — but Treadwell and Huguenard were nowhere to be found. Instead, a large male bear was stalking the perimeter.

Fulton called park rangers, who flew to the scene to find a gruesome sight. According to the official NPS report, “[T]he campsite… consisted of two tents that were collapsed and miscellaneous camping equipment. Lying near the pile was what appeared to be a bodily organ, possibly a kidney. Extending out of the dirt pile we observed a human hand.”

National Park ServiceThe trampled remnants of Timothy Treadwell and Amie Huguenard’s tent.

After searching the area, they also located Treadwell’s severed head and arms, as well as Huguenard’s head. While they were at the site, a male bear — believed to be the same one that killed Treadwell and Huguenard — charged at the rangers, who fatally shot it in defense. Human remains were later found in its stomach.

Perhaps most chilling of all, the rangers also found a video camera that had captured audio of the beginning of the attack. As the Los Angeles Times reported in 2003, the tape recorded Treadwell shouting, “Come out here! I’m being killed out here!”

Huguenard urged him to “play dead,” and he asked her to hit the bear with a can. Much of the tape is inaudible, but screams could be heard in the background.

The death of Timothy Treadwell was the first recorded bear-related fatality in the history of Katmai National Park. Amie Huguenard’s was the second.

In the end, Treadwell died the way he lived. “Grizzly Man” was aware of how dangerous his lifestyle was, but his passion for bears outweighed the risks. “I’m sure he knew all along that he was playing with fire,” Alaska State Trooper public information officer Greg Wilkerson told the Los Angeles Times, “and that was probably part of the appeal.”

After reading about the grisly death of Timothy Treadwell, learn about Hugh Glass and the bear attack that inspired The Revenant. Then, go inside ten of the worst deaths in human history.

The post The Grisly Story Of Timothy Treadwell, The Bear Enthusiast Who Was Mauled In Alaska appeared first on All That's Interesting.

The taste for human flesh persists to the modern day, and it's not confined to far-off nations. Serial killers like Jeffrey Dahmer have admitted to eating pieces of their victims, and drug-fueled rampages have resulted in grisly cannibalistic acts.

Sometimes, survivors of disasters are forced to resort to cannibalism if they want to live another day. Plane crashes, shipwrecks, and blizzards have all left people desperate enough to dine on their companions who have already perished.

Then, there are the curious people who simply want to know what humans taste like — and find voluntary victims willing to fulfill their desires.

Above, look through the disturbing stories of 17 cannibal attacks. And below, learn the chilling details of some of the more unbelievable cases.

The Mysterious Disappearance And Alleged Disappearance Of Michael Rockefeller

In November 1961, 23-year-old Michael Rockefeller vanished off the coast of Dutch New Guinea. The great-grandson of oil magnate John D. Rockefeller had joined an expedition to the territory to collect Indigenous art for his family's collection and study the culture of the region's tribes. But the trip soon took a tragic turn.

Rockefeller was traveling on the Arafura Sea with anthropologist René Wassing when their boat overturned. The outboard motor flooded, and they were stranded at sea for a full day. Although they were nearly 14 miles from shore, Rockefeller decided to swim for help — but he was never seen again.

Jan Broekhuijse/Harvard University Peabody Museum of Archaeology & EthnologyMichael Rockefeller during his expedition to Dutch New Guinea in 1961.

Investigators initially assumed that he'd drowned, but as more people started asking questions, a terrifying story emerged.

Journalist Carl Hoffman interviewed several people involved in the investigation for a 2014 article published in Smithsonian magazine, including a Dutch missionary named Hubertus von Peij who traveled to the village of Omadesep the month after Rockefeller vanished.

According to von Peij, he spoke with two men from nearby Otsjanep who claimed that Michael Rockefeller had indeed made it to shore — where he'd been murdered and eaten by members of the Asmat tribe. They'd turned his bones into fishing spears and hung his head in a tribesman's house.

The men stated that Rockefeller had been killed to avenge the deaths of five Otsjanep residents at the hands of Dutch soldiers several years earlier.

The true fate of Michael Rockefeller remains unknown, but if von Peij and the men he spoke with were telling the truth, he didn't drown at all — he died in a cannibal attack.

Armin Meiwes And His Cannibal Attack On A Willing Victim

While Michael Rockefeller surely tried to fight off his attackers — if he was indeed killed and eaten by Asmat tribesmen — there's at least one cannibalism victim who died willingly. His name was Bernd Brandes, and he responded to a bizarre online ad written by German computer repair technician Armin Meiwes in 2001.

Meiwes had posted in a cannibalism fetish forum seeking a voluntary victim to kill, butcher, and eat. Brandes had his own fetish — castration — and he agreed to fulfill Meiwes' desires if Meiwes would castrate him first.

The two men met at Meiwes' house in March 2001, and Meiwes led Brandes to the attic. He had transformed the room into a slaughterhouse, complete with six knives, a hatchet, a meat grinder, and a manual for butchering a human body.

Public DomainBernd Brandes, the man who agreed to be killed and eaten by Armin Meiwes.

After feeding Brandes sleeping pills and cough syrup, Meiwes cut off his genitals. The men tried to eat Brandes' penis together, but they found it too "chewy," so Meiwes instead fried it up with salt, pepper, garlic, and wine.

At some point during the night, Brandes became unconscious from blood loss, and Meiwes proceeded with his macabre plan. He hung Brandes' corpse on a meat hook and started cutting off slices of his flesh, which he stored in a freezer and feasted on over the next 10 months.

It wasn't until October 2002 that someone reported one of Meiwes' ads and the police uncovered the truth of his cannibal attack. They didn't have to search hard for evidence, as Meiwes had filmed the entire crime. He was ultimately convicted of murder and sentenced to life in prison.

Not all cannibal attacks stem from murder, though. Some are simply a last resort in a desperate situation of life or death.

The Tragic Story Of Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571

On Oct. 13, 1972, 45 passengers boarded Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571 to fly to Santiago, Chile, for a rugby match. Due to poor visibility, the plane crashed as it was flying through the Andes Mountains. Thirty-three people survived the accident — but the worst was yet to come.

The rugby players and their friends and family members were stranded in the Andes for 10 weeks in frigid temperatures and with little to eat but candy bars. Within a week, their food supplies were depleted, and more people started dying from injuries and exposure. When an avalanche claimed eight more victims, the 16 survivors who were left made a deal.

Bettmann/Getty ImagesA frozen body lies outside the wreckage of Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571.

"We shook our hands and we say, 'If I die, please use my body. So at least you can get out of here,'" Nando Parrado, one of the passengers, told ABC News in 2023.

"It's a very, very humiliating thing to eat a dead body," said Roberto Canessa, another survivor.

However, the desperate act of cannibalism proved to be their saving grace. It gave Parrado and Canessa enough energy to walk down the mountain until they found help. Eight days later, they met some rural farmers who traveled 10 hours on horseback to deliver a note to the authorities.

After 72 days in the Andes, the remaining 14 passengers were rescued by helicopter. If the survivors hadn't cannibalized the bodies of their companions, it's likely that none of them would have lived.

After reading about 17 horrific cannibal attacks, go inside the most infamous act of cannibalism in American history: the Donner Party. Then, read about the cannibalism that took place during the siege of Leningrad.

The post 17 Grisly Cannibal Attacks, From Starving Plane Crash Survivors To The Man Who Ate A Voluntary Victim appeared first on All That's Interesting.

YouTubeSerial killer Rodney Alcala during his infamous 1978 appearance on The Dating Game that took place in the middle of his string of grisly murders.

For most people, September 13, 1978 was an ordinary Wednesday. But for Cheryl Bradshaw, the bachelorette on the TV matchmaking show The Dating Game, that day was momentous. From a lineup of “eligible bachelors,” she chose handsome bachelor number one, Rodney Alcala.

But at that very moment, Rodney Alcala was keeping a deadly secret: he was a vicious murderer soon to be known as “The Dating Game Killer.”

If not for a healthy jolt of women’s intuition, Bradshaw would almost certainly be remembered today as one of Rodney Alcala’s victims. After the show ended, she conversed with Alcala backstage. He offered her a date she’d never forget, but Bradshaw got the feeling that her handsome potential suitor was a little off.

“I started to feel ill,” Bradshaw told the Sydney Telegraph in 2012. “He was acting really creepy. I turned down his offer. I didn’t want to see him again.”

Another one of the episode’s bachelors, actor Jed Mills, recalled to LA Weekly that “Rodney was kind of quiet. I remember him because I told my brother about this one guy who was kind of good-looking but kind of creepy. He was always looking down and not making eye contact.”

Had the popular dating show performed background checks on their bachelors, they would have discovered that Rodney Alcala, this “kind of good-looking but kind of creepy” guy, had already spent three years in prison for raping and beating an eight-year-old girl (he’d done the same to a 13-year-old too), which landed him on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted Fugitives List.

Public DomainDuring his grisly string of murders that left at least eight dead, serial killer Rodney Alcala made a 1978 appearance on “The Dating Game” — and won.

But sometimes a background check can’t even uncover the whole story. In Rodney Alcala’s case, the whole story consisted of at least four prior murders that he hadn’t been definitively linked to yet.

As one can imagine, Cheryl Bradshaw‘s rejection likely only fueled Alcala’s fire. In total, before and after his television appearance, the “Dating Game Killer” claimed that he killed between 50 and 100 people.

This is the chilling story of Rodney Alcala, “The Dating Game Killer.”

The Disturbing Murders Of Rodney Alcala

Bettmann/Contributor/Getty ImagesRodney Alcala in 1980.

Rodney Alcala was born in San Antonio, Texas on August 23, 1943. His father moved the family to Mexico when Alcala was eight years old, only to abandoned them there three years later. His mother then moved Alcala and his sister to suburban Los Angeles.

At age 17, Alcala entered the Army as a clerk, but after a nervous breakdown, he was medically discharged due to mental health issues. Then, the intelligent young man with an IQ of 135 went on to attend UCLA. But he wouldn’t stay on the straight and narrow for long.

Like many serial killers, Rodney Alcala had a style.

His signatures were beating, biting, raping, and strangling (often choking victims until the point of unconsciousness, then once they came to, he’d start the process over again). On his first known attempt at killing, he was successful at only two of these things. The victim was Tali Shapiro, an eight-year-old girl he lured into his Hollywood apartment in 1968.

Shapiro barely survived her rape and beating; her life saved by a passerby who reported a tip to police on a possible abduction. Alcala fled his apartment when the police arrived and remained a fugitive for years afterward. He moved to New York and used the alias John Berger to enroll in film school at New York University where, ironically enough, he studied under Roman Polanski.

After being recognized thanks to an FBI poster, Alcala was finally identified as the perpetrator in the rape and attempted murder of Tali Shapiro. He was arrested in 1971 but only sent to prison on charges of assault (Shapiro’s family kept her from testifying, making a rape conviction unattainable). After spending three years behind bars, he soon spent another two years in prison for assaulting a 13-year-old girl.

Then, authorities regrettably let Alcala travel to New York to “visit relatives.” Investigators now believe that within seven days of his arrival there, he killed a college student named Elaine Hover who was the daughter of a popular Hollywood nightclub owner and goddaughter of both Sammy Davis Jr. and Dean Martin.

Soon after all of this, Alcala somehow got a job at the Los Angeles Times as a typesetter in 1978 under his real name, which was now attached to a substantial criminal record. A typist by day, by night he lured in young girls to be part of his professional photography portfolio — some of them never to be heard from again.

Now go back and listen to Rodney Alcala tell bachelorette Bradshaw, “The best time is at night.”

How The Dating Game Killer Was Finally Caught

The year after the Dating Game appearance, 17-year-old Liane Leedom was lucky enough to walk away unscathed from a photoshoot with Rodney Alcala, and she remarked how he “showed her his portfolio, which in addition to shots of women included spread after spread of [naked] teenage boys.”

Public DomainKnown as “The Dating Game Killer” for his 1978 appearance on the popular game show, Rodney Alcala murdered at least eight victims between 1971 and 1979.

Police have since released parts of Alcala’s “portfolio” to the public to aid in victim identification (the photos are still available to view). Over the years, a few have stepped forward to reveal their horrifying moment with this predator.

The case that would finally break Rodney Alcala’s killing spree was that of 12-year-old Robin Samsoe. She’d disappeared from Huntington Beach, California on her way to ballet class on June 20, 1979.

Samsoe’s friends said that a stranger approached them on the beach and asked if they’d want to do a photoshoot. They declined and Samsoe left, borrowing a friend’s bike to hurriedly get to ballet. At some point between the beach and class, Samsoe disappeared. Nearly 12 days later, a park ranger found her animal-ravaged bones in a forested area near the Pasadena foothills of the Sierra Madre.

Upon questioning Samsoe’s friends, a police sketch artist drew up a composite and Alcala’s former parole officer recognized the face. Between the sketch, Alcala’s criminal past, and the discovery of Samsoe’s earrings in Alcala’s Seattle storage locker, police felt confident that they had their man.

But beginning with the trial in 1980, Samsoe’s family would have to follow a rather long and winding road to justice.

The jury found Alcala guilty of first-degree murder and he received the death penalty. However, the California Supreme court overturned this verdict due to the jury being prejudiced, they felt, by learning of Alcala’s past sex crimes. It took six years to put him back on trial.

Ted Soqui/Corbis via Getty ImagesImages of Rodney Alcala’s victims (including Robin Samsoe, bottom right) are projected during his 2010 trial in Santa Ana, California. March 2, 2010.

At the second trial in 1986, another jury sentenced him to death. This one didn’t stick either; a Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals panel overturned it in 2001, LA Weekly wrote, “in part because the second trial judge did not allow a witness to back up the defense’s claim that the park ranger who found Robin Samsoe’s animal-ravaged body in the mountains had been hypnotized by police investigators.”

Finally, in 2010, 31 years after the murder, a third trial was held. Just before the trial, Orange County Senior Deputy District Attorney Matt Murphy told LA Weekly, “The ’70s in California was insane as far as treatment of sexual predators. Rodney Alcala is a poster boy for this. It is a total comedy of outrageous stupidity.”

It is indeed true that Rodney Alcala was one of many California serial killers who ran rampant in the mid-to-late 20th century.

Rodney Alcala’s Long Road Toward Facing Justice

During the years he spent incarcerated, Rodney Alcala self-published a book called You, the Jury in which he proclaimed his innocence in the Samsoe case.

He hotly contested the DNA swabs done on prisoners periodically for the police department’s evidence bank. Alcala also brought two lawsuits against the California penal system; one for a slip and fall accident, and another for the prison’s refusal to provide him with a low-fat menu.

Alcala announced to much surprise that he would be his own lawyer in his third trial. Even though now, 31 years after Samsoe’s murder, investigators also had concrete evidence against him on four different murders from decades past — thanks to the prison’s DNA swabs. The prosecution was able to combine these new murder charges along with Robin Samsoe in the 2010 trial.

Ted Soqui/Corbis via Getty ImagesRodney Alcala sits in court during his 2010 trial in Santa Ana, California. March 2, 2010.

During the 2010 trial, the jurors were in for a bizarre ride. Rodney Alcala, acting as his own attorney, asked himself questions (referring to himself as “Mr. Alcala”) in a deep voice, which he would then answer.

The peculiar question and answer session continued for five hours. He told the jury that he was at Knott’s Berry Farm at the time of Samsoe’s murder, played dumb on the other charges, and used an Arlo Guthrie song as part of his closing argument.

Rodney Alcala simply stated that he didn’t remember killing the other women. The only other witness for the defense, psychologist Richard Rappaport, offered the explanation that Alcala’s “memory lapse” could be equated to his borderline personality disorder. The jury, not surprisingly, found Alcala guilty of the four DNA-backed charges, and also found him guilty of killing Samsoe.

A surprise witness at his sentencing was Tali Shapiro, the girl that Alcala had raped and beaten within an inch of her life about 40 years before.

Shapiro was there to witness as justice for Robin Samsoe, 12; Jill Barcomb, 18; Georgia Wixted, 27; Charlotte Lamb, 31; and Jill Parenteau, 21, had finally been achieved. The court handed Alcala the death penalty again — for the third time.

Since that trial, investigators have continued to link the “Dating Game Killer” to many other cold case murders, including two to which he pled guilty in New York in 2013. The full extent of his crimes may never be known.

The Death Of The Dating Game Killer

While still sitting on death row in California, Rodney Alcala died of natural causes at the age of 77 on July 24, 2021.

Immediately, some of his victims spoke up, expressing their relief that the “Dating Game Killer” was finally, truly gone. “The planet is a better place without him, that’s for sure,” said Tali Shapiro. “It’s a long time coming, but he’s got his karma.”

Investigator Jeff Sheaman, who had been working on a cold case involving Alcala in Wyoming in recent years, was even more blunt, saying, “He’s where he needs to be, and I’m sure that’s in hell.”

Sheaman recalled that, during interviews with police, Alcala would trace his finger along the faces of his victims in the photographs put before him, perhaps in hopes that it would irritate and even enrage the detectives. Throughout his investigation, Sheaman was overcome with just how cold Alcala was and ultimately came to believe that he may have taken untold scores of victims that we’ll never know about.

“Hell, there might be a ton of other victims out there,” Sheaman said after Rodney Alcala’s death. “I have no idea.”

After this look at Rodney Alcala, the “Dating Game Killer”, check out serial killer quotes that will chill you to the bone. Then, discover some of modern history’s most prolific serial killers. Finally, meet Ed Kemper, the killer whose crimes will keep you up at night.

The post The Horrifying Story Of Rodney Alcala, The Serial Killer Who Won ‘The Dating Game’ During His Murder Spree appeared first on All That's Interesting.

British LibraryThe woman in this photograph from the 1920s has often been identified as Queen Genepil, but it seems to be a different Mongolian noblewoman.

In 1923, Mongolia celebrated a royal wedding. The emperor Bogd Khan had married Queen Genepil.

But neither the groom nor the bride wanted the union. The emperor, blind, ill, and near the end of his life, was still mourning the loss of his beloved wife. Meanwhile, Genepil had been selected to be queen without her consent, abducted from her village, and brought to the royal court.

What’s more, serving as Mongolia’s last queen consort would put a target on Genepil’s back. Ultimately, it would cost the queen her life.

The Changing Political Forces In Mongolia

Genepil, the future queen consort of Mongolia, was born as Tseyenpil in 1905. When she was around the age of six, her future husband Bogd Khan declared Mongolia independent from China’s Qing Dynasty.

Bogd Khan was more than Mongolia’s last emperor. He was also considered to be the 8th Jebtsundamba Khutuktu, the third most important person in Tibetan Buddhism. But the political and religious landscape changed rapidly during his life.

Public DomainBogd Khan, the last ruler of Mongolia.

Though Mongolia had declared independence, China still sought to retain its influence. Meanwhile, the Soviet Union also sought to exert its influence. Though Chinese forces overthrew Bogd Khan in 1919, Soviet forces drove out the Chinese in 1921 and restored Bogd Khan to the throne in a limited monarchy.

As the Soviet Union exerted more and more influence over the country, Bogd Khan became more of a symbolic leader. But he was still emperor. And when his wife Tsendiin Dondogdulam died, this advisors pressured him to remarry.

That’s where Queen Genepil came in.

How Tseyenpil Became Queen Genepil

Royal officials began searching for a woman from the Khalkha ethnic group who shared a birthday with Bogd Khan. They soon gathered a group of 15 women between the ages of 18 and 20 and, from this group, selected 19-year-old Tseyenpil.

But Tseyenpil had little choice in the matter. In fact, National Geographic reports that she was already married at the time.

This made little difference to Bogd Khan’s advisors. Tseyenpil was abducted, informed of her new role, and dubbed Queen Genepil. But the advisors assured Genepil that she would probably only have to serve as queen for a short time, as Bogd Khan was ill and unlikely to live long. Once he died, she could return to her previous life — and her previous husband.

Wikimedia CommonsWomen at the court of Bogd Khan.

In the end, Bogd Khan’s royal advisors were right. Queen Genepil had been in the royal court for only about a year when Bogd Khan died on May 20, 1924, at the age of 54.

In the aftermath of his death, Queen Genepil returned to her village. Some accounts claim she went back to her husband; others say she married a warrior and had five children.

But her role as Mongolia’s last queen consort would haunt Genepil. And it made her a target as the Soviets tightened their control over the country.

The Execution of Queen Genepil In 1938

Around the same time of the Stalinist purges in the Soviet Union, Mongolia suffered from Stalinist purges of its own. Between 1937 and 1939, as many as 35,000 “enemies of the revolution” were executed. They included soldiers, citizens, state leaders, Buddhists, nationalists, intelligentsia, and one former queen: Genepil.

By 1938, Queen Genepil had been out of power for more than a decade. She was seemingly living a quiet life far from the circles of power with her family. Yet Mongolia’s government accused her of treason.

Specifically, she was accused of attempting to organize a rebellion to overthrow the Soviets and return the khans to power. These were serious charges, and Genepil was arrested and tortured to try to wrest a confession.

“They took her away at night,” Genepil’s daughter remembered. “She did not wake us, only left a piece of sugar on our pillows. I still remember the joy of a sudden discovery of that rare delicacy in the morning.”

YouTubeIdentified online as a photograph of the execution of Queen Genepil, this image actually comes from a movie made decades after Genepil’s death.

Though it’s unknown whether or not she confessed to anything, National Geographic reports that Genepil was brutally tortured and forced to spend hours in the freezing cold as a special commission decided her fate. She was ultimately found guilty of conspiring with Japan to restore Mongolia’s monarchy — and executed at the age of 33.

Mongolia’s reluctant queen, the country’s last queen consort, was five months pregnant at the time of her death.

Today, her story is not well-known outside Mongolia. Indeed, Queen Genepil left few traces of herself behind. But she may have left one lasting impact on popular culture.

The Inspiration for Padmé Amidala?

Despite being the last queen consort of Mongolia, verified photos of Genepil are difficult to find. Alleged photos of Genepil that have circulated on the Internet are actually other Mongolian noblewomen.

Similarly, a photo that claimed to depict Genepil’s execution was found to be false. As Reuters fact checkers noted in 2022, the image actually came from a Mongolian movie released in 2000.

But the real-life Queen Genepil does have an alleged connection to the movies. Her elaborate, traditional Khalkha dress purportedly inspired Star Wars costume designers as they created the Senate gown worn by Queen Padmé Amidala in Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace.

Lucasfilms Ltd/20th Century FoxQueen Amidala’s formal robes were seemingly inspired by Mongolian noblewomen like Queen Genepil.

The costume closely mirrored images of early 20th century Mongolian noblewomen. Amidala’s gown had long, wide sleeves like a Mongolian deel. And her striking headdress resembled the headdresses worn by Khalkha women.

As explained in the Secret History of the Mongols, written after the death of Genghis Khan, the headdress was meant to represent cow horns. According to tradition, the Khalkha Mongols traced their heritage back to a “love affair between a nature spirit and a cow.”

But while Queen Genepil’s direct connection to Queen Padmé Amidala is somewhat tenuous, her own story is very real. Swept into royal life at a young age, Genepil became the last queen consort of Mongolia. Though she had never sought power, and though she had returned to her simple life after the death of Bogd Khan, her brush with royalty haunted her. In the end, she became a Soviet scapegoat, and many details of her life are lost to time.

Queen Genepil of Mongolia is just one of many queens in history who suffered tragic ends. Next, learn about the fate of Russia’s last queen, Alexandra Feodorovna, and then read about the overthrow of Hawaii’s last queen, Queen Liliuokalani.

The post The Tragic Story Of Genepil, The Queen Consort Of Mongolia Who Was Tortured And Executed While Five Months Pregnant appeared first on All That's Interesting.

YouTubeKonerak Sinthasomphone, the youngest victim of serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer.

In 1979, a toddler named Konerak Sinthasomphone fled Laos with his family in search of a better life in America. The family settled in Milwaukee, Wisconsin — eight children living with their parents under one roof in the city’s Laotian community.

Unfortunately, the family’s hopes for a happy future were cut short by one of the world’s most infamous serial killers: the Milwaukee Cannibal, Jeffrey Dahmer.

Dahmer sexually assaulted Konerak’s older brother Somsack in 1988 and spent a short time in prison for the crime. However, tragedy struck once again in May 1991 when the serial killer murdered 14-year-old Konerak.

Perhaps the most disturbing part of Konerak Sinthasomphone’s story is that he almost managed to escape. He was found wandering the streets of Milwaukee, naked and in a daze — but police sent him right back into Dahmer’s apartment, sealing his fate.

This is the heartbreaking tale of Jeffrey Dahmer’s youngest victim.

The Sinthasomphone Family Immigrates To America

Konerak Sinthasomphone’s father, Sounthone, was a rice farmer in Laos when communist forces overthrew the country’s monarchy in the 1970s, according to The New York Times. When the government tried to seize his land, he decided to leave for the safety of his family.

Late one night in March 1979, Sounthone put his family on a canoe and sent them across the Mekong River to Thailand. Konerak was around two years old at the time, and his parents drugged him and his siblings with sleeping pills so their cries wouldn’t attract the attention of soldiers. Sounthone swam across the river himself several days later.

In Thailand, the Sinthasomphone family lived in a refugee camp for a year. An American-based Catholic program then helped them relocate to Milwaukee, where they settled in 1980.

Life in the United States wasn’t always easy for the Sinthasomphones, but over the next several years, most of the family learned English and assimilated into American culture. Everything was going well — until Somsack Sinthasomphone met Jeffrey Dahmer in 1988.

Jeffrey Dahmer Lures In The Sinthasomphone Brothers

Konerak Sinthasomphone’s brother Somsack was just 13 years old when he met Jeffrey Dahmer, who had already killed at least four boys and young men by 1988. Though Somsack escaped with his life, Dahmer sexually assaulted the teenager after convincing him to participate in a nude photo shoot in exchange for money.

As reported by People, Dahmer was initially sentenced to eight years in prison for the assault, but he was released after less than a year behind bars when he wrote the judge on the case a letter expressing his regret.

Curt Borgwardt/Sygma/Getty ImagesJeffrey Dahmer was arrested several times for various offenses before he was finally charged with murder in 1991.

Jeffrey Dahmer was still on probation for his crimes against Somsack three years later when he lured 14-year-old Konerak in the very same way.

On May 26, 1991, Dahmer met Konerak in a Milwaukee mall. The Sinthasomphone family was struggling for money, so when Dahmer offered the boy payment for a photo shoot, Konerak reluctantly agreed. He accompanied Dahmer to his apartment, where his attempt to earn money for his family quickly turned into a nightmare.

Konerak Sinthasomphone Almost Escapes Dahmer’s Clutches

Early in the hours of May 27, 1991, Dahmer’s neighbor Glenda Cleveland placed a call to the Milwaukee police. According to court documents, she told the dispatcher, “I’m on 25th and State, and there is this young man. He’s buck naked. He has been beaten up… He is really hurt… he needs some help.”

Konerak Sinthasomphone was naked and bleeding in the street outside Dahmer’s apartment. Unbeknownst to Cleveland — and to the police who responded to her call — Dahmer had already begun torturing the boy. The killer later confessed that he drilled a hole into Konerak’s skull at that point, “just enough to open a passageway to the brain,” and injected hydrochloric acid that induced a “zombie-like state.”

Glenda Cleveland with her daughter, Sandra Smith. Cleveland called the police multiple times to tell them about Dahmer, but her warnings went unheeded.

However, the officers that arrived at the scene thought that Konerak was just drunk. The teen had escaped when Dahmer stepped out of his apartment to go buy liquor, but the deranged serial killer returned home while the police were attempting to question Konerak.

Dahmer told the officers that Konerak was his adult homosexual lover who had simply had too much to drink. They believed him and escorted Konerak back into Dahmer’s apartment — and to his ultimate death.

“Despite the vigorous protestations of several African-Americans on the scene,” the court documents read, “the officers and Dahmer led Sinthasomphone back to Dahmer’s apartment, where the body of one of Dahmer’s victims lay unnoticed in an adjoining room.”

Thirty minutes later, Konerak Sinthasomphone was dead, the 13th victim of the Milwaukee Monster.

The Aftermath Of Konerak Sinthasomphone’s Murder

Jeffrey Dahmer was finally arrested on July 22, 1991, when another potential victim — Tracy Edwards — managed to escape from his lair and flag down the police. In the killer’s apartment, authorities found the remains of 11 separate victims, including Konerak.

In the wake of Dahmer’s capture, many were left wondering how his crimes had gone on for so long despite plentiful evidence against him and numerous reports that he was up to no good.

TwitterJohn Balcerzak and Joseph Grabish, the police officers who returned Konerak to Jeffrey Dahmer the night he was murdered.

When the nature of the killer’s crimes ultimately came to light, Milwaukee Police Chief Philip Arreola fired John Balcerzak and Joseph Gabrish, the two officers who had responded to Glenda Cleveland’s call about Konerak on May 27, for not doing their jobs properly. Arreola said the officers failed to positively identify Konerak, thoroughly listen to witnesses, or call their superior officers for advice. A court order later reinstated the men.

Recordings also show that one of the officers joked about needing to be “deloused” after leaving Dahmer’s apartment and that they refused to listen to Cleveland, who called six times insisting that Konerak was in danger after they left.

“I wish there had been some other piece of evidence or information available to us,” Gabrish later said. “We handled the call the way we felt it should have been handled.”

Gabrish also said they didn’t bother to look into Dahmer’s background because of how “cooperative” he was during the incident. If they had, they would have found that he was on probation for child molestation.

EUGENE GARCIA/AFP via Getty ImagesJeffrey Dahmer was ultimately sentenced to 957 years in prison, but he was killed by a fellow inmate named Christopher Scarver just two years into his sentence.

The Sinthasomphone family filed a lawsuit against the City of Milwaukee and the police department, claiming that their failure to protect Konerak was based in racism. In 1995, the city settled the suit for $850,000.

The Sinthasomphone family struggled greatly with their son’s death. Many of them described feeling numb. Sounthone even questioned why he had ever come to America in the first place: “I escaped the communists and now this happens. Why?”

After learning the story of Jeffrey Dahmer’s youngest victim, read about the killer’s mother, Joyce Dahmer, and his father, Lionel Dahmer. Then, read about David Dahmer, the reclusive brother who changed his name.

The post Inside The Tragic Death Of Konerak Sinthasomphone, The Youngest Victim Of Jeffrey Dahmer appeared first on All That's Interesting.

Alderon Games-Path of TitansA depiction of Tylosaurus Rex, the “T. rex of the ocean.”

As most people know, Tyrannosaurus rex was perhaps the most fearsome dinosaur to walk the prehistoric Earth. But T. rex’s reign of terror was of course limited to land. Now, a group of paleontologists have just identified a new species of aquatic reptile, Tylosaurus rex, that they’re calling the “T. rex of the ocean.”

A massive species of mosasaur, Tylosaurus rex was a powerful and aggressive predator who ruled the seas some 80 million years ago.

How Tylosaurus Rex Was Identified By Paleontologists

To date, multiple fossils of the Tylosaurus rex have been found. But as a recent study published in the Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History explains, these were long grouped together with another species of mosasaur, T. proriger. It wasn’t until paleontologists took another look at the samples that they realized they had a different species on their hands.

Perot Museum of Nature and Science/American Museum of Natural HistoryA Tylosaurus rex fossil on display at the Perot Museum.

According to a statement from Southern Methodist University, which collaborated on the study alongside the American Museum of Natural History and the Perot Museum of Nature and Science, the disparity between T. proriger and T. rex was first noticed by the study’s lead author Amelia Zietlow. While working with a set of fossils, she noticed a mosasaur that seemed to be misidentified as T. proriger. This fossil was larger than the others and had “finely serrated teeth.”

What’s more, paleontologists realized that a group of similarly oversized fossils had been found in Texas, whereas most of the T. proriger specimens had been found in Kansas. This Texas set was also younger than the Kansas fossils by about 4 million years.

In fact, these researchers were not the first to notice the unusually-sized Texas fossils. Paleontologist John Thurmond had also suggested in the 1960s that these oddly large mosasaur fossils could in fact come from a new species, and so he nicknamed it “Tylosaurus thalassotyrannus,” or “sea tyrant.”

Perot Museum of Nature and ScienceLead study author Amelia Zietlow with the Tylosaurus rex fossil.

“Everything is bigger in Texas and that includes the mosasaurs, apparently,” Zietlow remarked in the statement.

Indeed, the newly-discovered species — known as Tylosaurus rex, “king of the Tylosaurs,” or simply T. rex — could grow up to 43 feet long. Some 80 million years ago, it would have used its imposing size to terrorize the prehistoric oceans.

Tylosaurus Rex’s Reign Of Terror In The Seas Of Prehistoric Earth

The Tylosaurus rex was not just large. It was powerful and aggressive, with sharp teeth and strong jaw and neck muscles that would have made it one of the most fearsome predators in Earth’s prehistoric oceans.

But while Tylosaurus rex would have targeted fish, turtles, and long-necked marine reptiles known as plesiosaurs, paleontologists also believe that its aggressive tendencies could sometimes be directed at its own species.

One T. rex fossil, known as the “Black Knight,” has a fractured lower jaw and is missing part of its snout. Paleontologists believe that this is evidence of an attack — from a fellow T. rex.

Alderon Games-Path of TitansThe Tylosaurus rex could grow up to 43 feet long, or roughly as large as a school bus.

“Besides being huge, roughly twice the length of the largest great white sharks, T. rex appeared to be a much meaner animal than other mosasaurs,” said study co-author Ron Tykoski of the Perot Museum. “Through our study and examination of well-preserved fossils collected throughout the north Texas region, we have evidence of violence within this species to a degree not previously seen in other Tylosaurus specimens.”

Though it’s been extinct for millions of years, the T. rex of the ocean seems to have been just as terrifying as the T. rex on land. Monstrous in size, powerful, and aggressive, with a strong jaw and teeth, Tylosaurus rex likely dominated the Cretaceous seas.

Despite this, the species went undiscovered until recently, which goes to show how much there is still to learn about the prehistoric world.

After reading about the newly discovered species known as the T. rex of the ocean, discover the stories of some of Earth’s most fascinating prehistoric animals. Then, learn about the Terror Bird, the fearsome prehistoric predator that went extinct some 65 million years ago.

The post The ‘T. Rex Of The Ocean’: Scientists Just Identified A Predator The Size Of A Bus That Ruled Earth’s Seas 80 Million Years Ago appeared first on All That's Interesting.

Houston Police DepartmentCharles Harrelson, Woody Harrelson’s father, in a mugshot from 1960.

Woody Harrelson’s dad disappeared from Woody’s life in 1968 when the future actor was just seven years old. Afterward, Charles Harrelson received a 15-year sentence for killing a Texas grain dealer. Somehow, he got out early for good behavior. That was in 1978.

The hitman’s freedom didn’t last long.

How Charles Harrelson Became A Hitman

Woody Harrelson’s dad, Charles Voyde Harrelson, was born in Lovelady, Texas, on July 24, 1938. Charles was the youngest of six, and many of his family members worked in law enforcement. But Charles Harrelson chose a different path for himself.

According to The Houston Chronicle, Charles Harrelson briefly served in the U.S. Navy in the 1950s. But after he was discharged, he turned to a wayward life of crime. He was first charged with robbery in 1959 in Los Angeles, where he worked as an encyclopedia salesman. But it was just the beginning of his criminal career.

Four years after Woody Harrelson was born in 1961 (also on July 24, the same as his father), Charles Harrelson was living in Houston and gambling full-time. According to prison memoirs he later wrote, he claimed to have been involved in dozens of murder-for-hire plots during this time before he left his family in 1968.

That year, Harrelson was arrested three times, including twice for murder. He was acquitted of one murder in 1970. But in 1973, he was convicted of killing a grain dealer named Sam Degelia Jr. for $2,000 and sentenced to 15 years behind bars, though he was released after just five years for good behavior.

Yet Charles Harrelson’s time in prison didn’t seem to affect his criminal livelihood. Within months of his release, Woody Harrelson’s dad would be contracted to carry out his biggest hit ever: a sitting federal judge.

Charles Harrelson’s Assassinates John H. Wood

In the spring of 1979, Texas drug lord Jimmy Chagra hired Charles Harrelson to kill someone who stood in his way: U.S. District Judge John H. Wood Jr., who was scheduled to preside over Chagra’s drug trial. Defense attorneys nicknamed Wood “Maximum John” because of the harsh sentences he handed down to drug dealers.

Bettmann/Getty ImagesU.S. District Judge John Wood Jr. was known as “Maximum John” for the extremely harsh sentences he gave to drug dealers.

But the judge’s reputation proved to be his tragic undoing. Chagra forked over $250,000 to Harrelson because he faced a life sentence for narcotics smuggling.

A single bullet to Wood’s back on May 29, 1979, felled the tough-as-nails judge. According to The Washington Post, Chagra was originally scheduled to go before the judge that very day in El Paso, Texas.

Charles Harrelson used a high-powered rifle and a scope to kill Wood outside his San Antonio home as the judge went to get into his car. It was the first time in U.S. history that a sitting federal judge was assassinated.

An intense manhunt ensued, and the FBI finally caught Charles Harrelson and arrested him in September 1980 for murder after a six-hour standoff during which Harrelson was high on cocaine and made increasingly erratic threats before surrendering.

Woody Harrelson had no idea about his father’s checkered occupation until he was listening to the radio one day in 1981. The actor heard a news broadcast discussing the murder trial of Charles V. Harrelson. Curiosity got the better of the young man, and he asked his mother if the elder Harrelson was any relation.

His mother confirmed that the man on trial for murdering a federal judge was indeed Woody’s father. Woody followed his father’s trial intensely from that point on. Then, on December 14, 1982, a judge handed down two life sentences to Charles Harrelson, sending him away for good.

How Woody Harrelson’s Dad Reconnected With His Son

Even though Woody Harrelson had been estranged from Charles Harrelson for most of his life, the actor said he tried to have a relationship with his father beginning in the early 1980s. Rather than see the convicted assassin as a father, Harrelson saw his elder as someone he could befriend.

Bettmann/Getty ImagesCharles Harrelson (far right) in court on October 22, 1981, after his conviction for being a felon in possession of a gun. He would be convicted of murdering Judge John H. Wood Jr. a year later, in December 1982.

“I don’t feel he was much of a father. He took no valid part in my upbringing,” Woody Harrelson told People in 1988. “But my father is one of the most articulate, well-read, charming people I’ve ever known. Still, I’m just now gauging whether he merits my loyalty or friendship. I look at him as someone who could be a friend more than someone who was a father.”

At least once a year after Charles Harrelson’s conviction, Woody Harrelson visited him in prison. In 1987, he even stood in for Charles when he married a woman on the outside by proxy who he met while incarcerated.

Perhaps more astonishing, the Hollywood A-lister said he easily spent $2 million in legal fees trying to get his father a new trial, according to The Guardian.

Chagra, the drug lord, was acquitted of conspiracy charges in connection with the assassination. He supposedly entered the witness protection program after helping the feds on other drug cases. It helped that Chagra’s brother was a defense attorney who made a lot of money. The theory was that if Chagra himself was innocent, shouldn’t Harrelson also be not guilty of murder?

A judge didn’t agree with Harrelson’s lawyers, and Charles Harrelson spent the rest of his days behind bars.

The Hitman’s Final Years In Prison

At one point during his incarceration, Charles Harrelson made the audacious claim that he assassinated President John F. Kennedy. No one believed him, and he later recanted, explaining that the confession was “an effort to elongate my life,” according to a 1983 Associated Press article published in The Press-Courier.

However, Lois Gibson, a well-known forensic artist, identified Woody Harrelson’s father as one of the “three tramps,” who were three mysterious men photographed shortly after the JFK assassination. Their involvement in JFK’s death has often been linked to conspiracy theories.

Wikimedia CommonsActor Woody Harrelson attempted to get his father a new trial after Jimmy Chagra recanted his statement that Charles Harrelson was guilty of Judge John H. Wood Jr.’s murder.

Charles Harrelson died of a heart attack in prison in 2007.

When The Guardian asked Woody Harrelson if his father, the convicted assassin, influenced his life, he said, “Quite a bit. I was born on his birthday. They have a thing in Japan where they say if you’re born on your father’s birthday, you’re not like your father, you are your father, and it’s so weird when I would sit and talk with him. It was just mind-blowing to see all the things he did just like me.”

In the end, Woody said he and his father got along despite his time in prison for being the first person in history to assassinate a U.S. federal judge.

After learning about Woody Harrelson’s dad, Charles Harrelson, check out Abe Reles, the hitman who mysteriously died in police custody. Then, read about Susan Kuhnhausen, the woman who had a hitman hired to kill her, so she killed him instead.

The post The Story Of Charles Harrelson, Woody Harrelson’s Dad Who Worked As A Hitman For A Texas Drug Lord appeared first on All That's Interesting.

Deborah Bradley/Wikimedia CommonsWhen Lisa Irwin’s father came home from his night shift, his wife was asleep and baby Lisa was nowhere to be found.

Lisa Irwin was only 10 months old when she disappeared without a trace from her home in Kansas City, Missouri, in 2011. And despite her tragic story making national headlines as police frantically searched for “Baby Lisa,” after more than a decade, no one has been able to find her.

Although the police initially suspected her mother, Deborah Bradley, of being involved with her disappearance, they have not found evidence to charge her formally. Bradley believes that a random intruder quietly slipped baby Lisa out of her crib and absconded into the night, never to be seen again.

There are more questions than answers surrounding the disappearance of Lisa Irwin. But the main question remains: where is baby Lisa Irwin?

How Lisa Irwin Disappeared Without A Trace

Find Baby Lisa Irwin/FacebookJeremy Irwin holds baby Lisa Irwin.

Lisa Renée Irwin was born in Kansas City, Missouri, on November 11, 2010, to Jeremy Irwin and Deborah Bradley. They described her as a sweet and happy baby who loved being with her five- and eight-year-old brothers. Then one night, just weeks before her first birthday, Lisa Irwin disappeared.

According to Jeremy Irwin, he returned home from work at about 4:00 a.m. on Oct. 4, 2011, to find his door wide open and all the lights on. When detectives questioned Lisa’s mother, Deborah Bradley, she initially claimed that she checked on the baby at about 10:30 p.m. the night before.

However, Bradley later admitted that she had been drinking with a friend and couldn’t remember exactly when she last saw Lisa. The only time she could recall definitively seeing baby Lisa was around 6:30 p.m., before she started drinking. Bradley said that little Lisa was then in the crib and sound asleep.

But by the time Jeremy Irwin went to check on Lisa before joining his wife in bed, she was gone.

“We just got up and started screaming for her, looking everywhere, she wasn’t there,” Bradley said to news reporters.

Initially, investigators ran with the theory that a stranger kidnapped her. FBI investigators worked overtime to test the idea but couldn’t prove it one way or another. And it was the uncertainty surrounding her disappearance that began sparking the theories that persist to this day.

Inside The Theory That Baby Lisa Was Killed

On Oct. 19, 2011, cadaver dogs were dispatched to the house. There, the dogs came up with a “hit” — that is, the dogs picked up the scent of a dead body — in Bradley’s bedroom, near the bed.

Google MapsThe home of Deborah Bradley and Jeremy Irwin in Kansas City where baby Lisa Irwin was last seen.

When confronted with this evidence, Bradley claimed she initially didn’t look for her daughter because she was “afraid of what she might find.”

Investigators also accused Deborah Bradley of failing a lie detector test, though she claims they never showed her the results. At one point, investigators claimed that they knew Bradley was guilty but that they didn’t have enough evidence to arrest her for the crime.

“They said I failed,” Bradley told the Associated Press. “And I continued to say that’s not possible because I don’t know where she’s at and I did not do this.”

Then, Deborah Bradley’s former friend, Shirley Pfaff, began speaking to the press. According to Pfaff, Bradley had a “dark side,” one that could be predisposed to murder under the right circumstances.

“When the story broke, it was a normal morning in my house. I got up, put on a pot of coffee and turned on Good Morning America like usual and I… heard ‘Deborah Bradley.'” Pfaff told The Huffington Post.

“I immediately thought, ‘This can’t be the Debbie I know.’ It just seemed unreal until I walked back into the living room after hearing her voice. I just about collapsed. It just made me sick because I just wouldn’t put this girl Debbie past anything crazy.”

Further Investigations Into Baby Lisa Irwin’s Disappearance

Despite her ex-best friend’s proclamations and accusations from law enforcement, Deborah Bradley has never been formally charged with the disappearance or the murder of her daughter, Lisa Irwin. What’s more, the most popular theory today is that baby Lisa was kidnapped by someone who wasn’t related to her or her family — which means that she’s most likely still alive.

Indeed, in the week after Lisa Irwin’s disappearance, two witnesses came forward and said they had seen a man carrying a baby down the street where Lisa Irwin lived. And surveillance video shows a man dressed in white leaving a wooded area nearby at 2:30 a.m.

Find Lisa IrwinEvery three years, the Center for Missing and Exploited Children releases an age progression image of what Lisa Irwin might look like.

But when investigators found someone they believed matched the witnesses’ descriptions, only one of them said it could be him. However, when the police looked into it further, his alibi held up, and they have never been able to identify another possible suspect.

Another lead came when Jeremy Irwin discovered that three cell phones were missing from the house. He believes whoever took the cell phones has Lisa. And one of the phones made a mysterious 50-second call around midnight on the night of her disappearance. Both Irwin and Bradley deny making it.

When investigators looked into it, they discovered that the call was made to a Kansas City woman named Megan Wright, although she denied that she was the one who answered the phone. But Wright was the ex-girlfriend of a person of interest in the case, a local transient who lived in a nearby halfway house.

“This whole case hinges on who made that call and why,” Bill Stanton, a private investigator hired by Lisa’s parents, told Good Morning America. “We firmly believe that the person who had that cell phone also had Lisa.”

Today, Lisa Irwin is still classified as a missing person, and the case is still open and active.

After reading about the mysterious disappearance of Lisa Irwin, learn about Emanuela Orlandi, the 15-year-old who vanished from the Vatican. Then read about Kyron Horman, the seven-year-old whose disappearance sparked the largest manhunt in Oregon history.

The post The Disappearance Of Baby Lisa Irwin, The Infant Who Vanished From Her Crib While Her Mother Slept Down The Hall appeared first on All That's Interesting.

Wikimedia CommonsLina Medina, the youngest mother in history, pictured with her son.

To the parents’ shock, the doctor discovered that Lina Medina was seven months pregnant. And on May 14, 1939, Medina gave birth via C-section to a healthy baby boy. At five years, seven months, and 21 days of age, she became the youngest mother in the world.

Medina’s case took pediatricians by surprise and attracted international attention that she and her family never wanted. To this day, Medina has never told authorities who the father was, and she and her family still shun publicity and avoid any opportunity for a tell-all interview.

Despite the mystery that continues to surround the case of the world’s youngest mother, more insight has come to light on how Lina Medina got pregnant — and who the father may have been.

Lina Medina’s Case Of Precocious Puberty

YouTube/Anondo BDThe youngest mother in the world likely had a rare condition called precocious puberty.

Born on September 23, 1933, in one of the poorest villages in Peru, Lina Medina was one of nine children of Tiburelo Medina and Victoria Losea. Her pregnancy at such an early age obviously came as a disturbing shock to her loved ones — and the public. But to pediatric endocrinologists, the idea that a five-year-old child could get pregnant wasn’t entirely unthinkable.

It’s believed that Medina had a rare genetic condition called precocious puberty, which causes a child’s body to change into that of an adult too soon (before age eight for girls and before age nine for boys).

Boys with this condition will often experience a deepening voice, enlarged genitals, and facial hair. Girls with this condition will typically have their first period and develop breasts early on. It affects about one in every 10,000 children. Roughly 10 times more girls than boys develop this way.

Oftentimes, the cause of precocious puberty can’t be identified. However, recent studies have found that young girls who were sexually abused may go through puberty faster than their peers. So there are suspicions that precocious puberty might be accelerated by sexual contact at an early age.

In the case of Lina Medina, Dr. Edmundo Escomel reported to a medical journal that she had her first period when she was only eight months old. However, other publications claimed that she was three years old when she began menstruating. Either way, it was a shockingly early start.

Further examination of 5-year-old Medina showed that she had already developed breasts, wider-than-normal hips, and advanced (that is, post-pubescent) bone growth.

But of course, even though her body was developing early, she was still very clearly a young child.

Who Was The Father Of Lina Medina’s Baby?

Wikimedia CommonsLina Medina never told authorities who the father of the child was. Sadly, it’s possible that even she didn’t know.

Precocious puberty partially explains how Lina Medina got pregnant. But of course, it doesn’t explain everything.

After all, somebody else had to get her pregnant. And sadly, given the 100,000-to-1 odds against it, that person probably wasn’t a little boy with the same condition that she had.

Medina never told her doctors or the authorities who the father was or the circumstances of the assault that led to her pregnancy. But due to her young age, she might not have even known herself.

Dr. Escomel said that she “couldn’t give precise responses” when questioned about the father.

Tiburelo, Medina’s father who worked as a local silversmith, was briefly arrested for the suspected rape of his child. However, he was released and the charges against him were dropped when no evidence or witness statements could be found to hold him responsible. For his part, Tiburelo Medina strenuously denied ever raping his daughter.

In the years following the birth, some news agencies speculated that Medina may have been attacked during unspecified festivities that took place near her village. However, this was never proven.

The Media Swarms The World’s Youngest Mother

YouTube/Ileana FernandezAfter Gerardo Medina was born, Lina Medina and her family quickly retreated from the public eye.

Once Lina Medina’s pregnancy became generally known, it garnered attention from all over the world.

Newspapers in Peru unsuccessfully offered the Medina family thousands of dollars for the rights to interview and to film Lina. Meanwhile, newspapers in the United States had a field day reporting on the story — and they also attempted to interview the young mother.

Offers were even made to pay the family to come to the United States. But Medina and her family declined to speak publicly.

It was perhaps inevitable, given the astounding nature of Medina’s condition and her aversion to scrutiny, that some observers would accuse her family of hoaxing the whole story.

In the over 80 years that have passed, this seems unlikely to be the case. Neither Medina nor her family have tried to capitalize on the story, and medical records from the time provide ample documentation of her condition during her pregnancy.

Only two photographs were known to be taken of Medina while she was pregnant. And only one of those — a low-resolution profile picture — was ever published outside of the medical literature.

Her case file also contains numerous accounts by doctors who treated her, as well as clearly defined X-rays of her abdomen that show the bones of a developing fetus inside her body. Blood work also confirmed her pregnancy. And all papers published in the literature passed peer review without a hitch.

That said, every request for an interview has been refused by Medina. And she would go on to avoid publicity for the rest of her life, refusing to sit for interviews with international wire services and local newspapers alike.

Medina’s aversion to the spotlight apparently continues to this day.

What Happened To Lina Medina, The Youngest Person To Ever Give Birth?

YouTube/The DreamerMuch of Lina Medina’s later life remains a mystery. If she’s still alive today, she would be in her late 80s.

Lina Medina seems to have gotten good medical care, especially for the time and place in which she lived, and she gave birth to a healthy baby boy.

Delivery was by Cesarean section because, despite Medina’s prematurely widened hips, she probably would’ve had a difficult time passing a full-sized child through the birth canal.

Lina Medina’s child was named Gerardo, after the doctor who first examined Medina, and the infant went home to the family’s village of Ticrapo after he was released from the hospital.

Two years after the birth, a specialist in child education at Columbia University named Paul Kosak got permission to visit the Medina family. Kosak found that the youngest person to give birth was “above normal intelligence” and that her baby was “perfectly normal.”

“She thinks of the child as a baby brother and so does the rest of the family,” Kosak reported.

An obstetrician named Jose Sandoval who wrote a book about the Medina case said that Medina often preferred to play with her dolls rather than her child. As for Gerardo Medina himself, he grew up thinking that Medina was his older sister. He found out the truth when he was about 10.

While Gerardo Medina was healthy for most of his life, he sadly ended up dying relatively young at age 40 in 1979. The cause of death was bone disease.

As for Lina Medina, it is unclear if she’s still alive today or not. After her shocking pregnancy, she went on to live a quiet life in Peru.

In her young adulthood, she found work as a secretary for the doctor who attended the birth, which paid her way through school. At roughly the same time, Lina managed to put Gerardo through school as well.

She later married a man named Raúl Jurado in the early 1970s and gave birth to her second son when she was in her 30s. As of 2002, Medina and Jurado were still married and living in a poor neighborhood in Lima.

Given her lifelong attitude toward publicity and the prying eyes of curious outsiders towards history’s youngest person to give birth, it may be for the best that Lina Medina’s life remains private. If she’s still alive, she would be in her late 80s today.

After learning about Lina Medina, the youngest mother in history, read about the 11-year-old who was forced to marry her rapist. Then, discover the story of Gisella Perl, “the Angel of Auschwitz” who saved the lives of hundreds of women imprisoned during the Holocaust by aborting their pregnancies.

The post The Story Of Lina Medina, The Youngest Mother In The World appeared first on All That's Interesting.

Roy Cohn’s big break came in the 1950s, though his legacy spanned well into the 2010s. He first made a name for himself, albeit a rather shady one, as a prosecutor in the Rosenberg trial.

Later, as chief counsel to Senator Joseph McCarthy, he was instrumental in ramping up the fear and bullying linked to the Red Scare. The registered Democrat strategically tied himself closely to the Republican Party moving forward, showcasing his opportunism.

Bettmann/Getty ImagesRoy Cohn at the Army-McCarthy hearings in 1954.

Cohn was a closeted gay man — one who would fall victim to the AIDS epidemic in 1986. Nonetheless, he used his fear-mongering ways and inquisitory methods to purge any suspected homosexual employees from the government.

From McCarthyism to mob ties and the tutelage of Donald Trump, Roy Cohn was an unscrupulous bastard by any objective measure. To understand how he so deftly navigated American politics throughout the decades, an in-depth look is imperative.

The Early Years Of Roy Cohn

Born Roy Marcus Cohn on February 20, 1927, in New York City, the future lawyer was raised on Park Avenue. His father, Albert Cohn, was a judge in the Appellate Division of the State Supreme Court and wielded quite a bit of power.

His mother, Dora, doted on her gifted young son, who admittedly showed a strong intellect for his age. By the time he was 20, Cohn had graduated from both Columbia University and Columbia Law School.

“He was a precocious, brilliant, arrogant young man,” one of his peers later recalled, as reported by The New York Times in 1986, “but he performed ably and energetically on such cases as the William Remington perjury trial, the Rosenberg spy trial, and the big New York trial of top Communist leaders.”

Arthur Schatz/The LIFE Images Collection/Getty ImagesRoy Cohn sits in his 1961 Chevrolet Impala convertible while talking on the phone with a client in front of his Madison Avenue office. 1963.

Cohn was admitted to the New York bar at 21 and immediately used his familial connections to snag a job as an Assistant U.S. Attorney. He quickly established himself as a sharp prosecutor focused on subversive activities. This would soon cement his legacy.

It was during the trial of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, two American citizens accused of Soviet espionage and selling atomic secrets, that Cohn emerged as a fearsome force to be reckoned with.

The Espionage Trial Of Julius And Ethel Rosenberg

In March 1951, the Rosenbergs went to trial on federal espionage charges. Cohn was one of the prosecutors on the case.

With the Red Scare in full effect, the trial became a political flashpoint. During the Cold War, the hysteria over Communist subversives infiltrating U.S. positions of power was at its peak.

Hal Mathewson/NY Daily News Archive/Getty ImagesRoy Cohn is surrounded by autograph seekers in the Astor Ballroom after a dinner held in his honor by the Joint Committee against Communism. July 28, 1954.

There was no direct physical evidence that the Rosenbergs were guilty, so the prosecution relied heavily on testimony from alleged co-conspirators to secure a conviction. And it was Roy Cohn’s direction examination of Ethel Rosenberg’s brother, David Greenglass, that secured the couple’s conviction — and subsequent execution.

Greenglass had worked as a machinist at the secret Los Alamos Laboratory in New Mexico, which was established by the Manhattan Project to build the first atomic bomb.

He testified that Julius Rosenberg had asked him to hand over classified documents and sketches about the weapon that later made it into the hands of the Soviets. Greenglass also incriminated Ethel, claiming that she was the one who typed up the handwritten notes before they were passed on.

The U.S.S.R. detonated its first atomic bomb in 1949 — supposedly based on information obtained from spies. As such, Greenglass’ testimony sealed the fates of the Rosenbergs. It was only in 2003 that the story changed.

Public DomainDavid Greenglass was sentenced to 15 years in prison. He later claimed that Roy Cohn had pressured him to incriminate his sister as a Soviet spy.

In an interview with 60 Minutes, Greenglass admitted that he lied under oath. He never saw his sister type or share any such notes. He also revealed that it was Roy Cohn who convinced him to commit perjury if he wanted to protect his wife and children.

The famous trial revealed Cohn’s nefarious methods for the first time. His tactics were justified by their efficacy, even if they sent people who may not have been guilty to die in the electric chair.

Hot off the Rosenberg trial, 26-year-old Roy Cohn was hired as chief counsel for Joseph McCarthy. It was then that the mask really came off.

Roy Cohn’s Role In The McCarthy Hearings

As part of McCarthy’s Subcommittee on Investigations, Cohn aggressively questioned suspected Communist sympathizers, particularly during the Lavender Scare. This panic stemmed from allegations that Soviet agents were blackmailing closeted U.S. government employees by threatening to reveal their homosexuality if they didn’t commit espionage.

Cohn and McCarthy supported these claims with little evidence, and their fear-mongering campaign was so successful that President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed an executive order in April 1953 that essentially banned homosexuals from working for the federal government.

During this time, Cohn also became friends with G. David Schine, an anti-Communist propagandist who joined McCarthy’s staff as a consultant.

When Schine was drafted into the U.S. Army in 1953, Cohn made every effort to secure him preferential treatment. According to a 1954 report in The New York Times, Cohn even threatened to “wreck the Army” if they didn’t follow his demands.

George Skadding/The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty ImagesG. David Schine (left) and Roy Cohn (right) share a laugh as Senator Joseph McCarthy questions U.S. information officer Theodore Kaghan. 1953.

It was this belligerence and aggression — as well as McCarthy’s stunning claim that Communists had infiltrated the Defense Department — that led to the Army-McCarthy hearings of 1954. What should have been a major accomplishment for Cohn and McCarthy quickly turned against them, and they instead found themselves on the defensive.

Both men were accused of improperly pressuring the Army regarding Schine. McCarthy and Cohn, in turn, charged that the Army was holding Schine “hostage” to quell McCarthy’s investigation of suspected Communists in the force.

One of the more egregious moments came when the Army’s special counsel, Joseph N. Welch, credibly accused Cohn of falsifying a photograph depicting Schine with Army Secretary Robert T. Stevens. Then, there was McCarthy’s bullying of a young prosecutor hired by Welch. Welch couldn’t help but respond in defense: “Until this moment, Senator, I think I never really gauged your cruelty or your recklessness.”

Bettmann/Getty ImagesRoy Cohn watches as Senator McCarthy holds up a letter purportedly written by FBI director J. Edgar Hoover warning that a Fort Monmouth employee had a “direct connection with an espionage agent.”

An estimated 20 million Americans were watching this broadcast, and up until that day, most citizens weren’t familiar with McCarthy’s personality or tactics. They simply believed he was fighting the dangers of Communism.

Cohn motioned for McCarthy to pull back, but he failed to stop McCarthy’s aggressive questioning. Welch finally interrupted, cutting down McCarthy with his now-famous words:

“Let us not assassinate this lad further, Senator. You’ve done enough. Have you no sense of decency?”

Public opinion shifted dramatically at this juncture, and the Senate quickly pivoted back. McCarthy’s colleagues censured him by the end of the year — not for destroying lives, but for jeopardizing the reputation of the Senate and faith in the democratic process.

Bettmann/Getty ImagesRoy Cohn (right) covers both microphones and whispers to Senator McCarthy while Army Secretary Robert Stevens testifies on the second day of the Army-McCarthy hearings in 1954.

Roy Cohn, meanwhile, slipped through the cracks. He left Washington, D.C., and returned to New York City to continue his work as a lawyer. During this next phase in his legal career, he represented everyone from the Catholic Church and George Steinbrenner to the owners of Studio 54, mob bosses, Rupert Murdoch, and — perhaps most famously — Donald Trump.

Becoming ‘The Single Greatest Influence In Donald Trump’s Life’

Though Cohn was trained as a lawyer, his true skill was as a fixer for anyone worth befriending in the long term. The web of people he counted as clients was remarkable.

For instance, he acted as a mentor for political consultant and lobbyist Roger Stone, who in turn became a highly resourceful advisor for Richard Nixon — before working to get Donald Trump elected president.

Sonia Moskowitz/Getty ImagesRoy Cohn and Donald Trump attend the Trump Tower opening in New York City in October 1983.

Trump first met Roy Cohn at a New York City nightclub in 1973. At the time, Trump was in his 20s and battling lawsuits for his alleged violation of Fair Housing Act laws.

In one interview, as reported by The Atlantic in 2019, Cohn recalled Trump telling him, “I’ve spent two days with these establishment law firms, and they’re all telling us, ‘Give up, do this, sign a decree and all of that.’ I’ve followed your career and you seem — you’re a little bit crazy like I am, and you stand up to the establishment. Can I come see you?”

Cohn’s response won Trump over immediately. “My view is tell them to go to Hell,” said Cohn. “And fight the thing in court.”

Cohn was an excellent charmer of the elite and amassed a wide circle of celebrity friends-turned-clients. For them, his no-holds-barred behavior in the courtroom was the catch — they wanted a pit bull on their side.

Charles Ruppmann/NY Daily News Archive/Getty ImagesStudio 54 co-owner Steve Rubell (right) and Roy Cohn (left) casually read the Daily News coverage of the nightclub’s raid by federal agents in December 1978.

“Roy would always be for an offensive strategy,” said Stone. “These were the rules of war. You don’t fight on the other guy’s ground; you define what the debate is going to be about. I think Trump would learn that from Roy. I learned that from Roy.”

Cohn’s FBI files, released in 2019, revealed that Donald Trump once reportedly uttered “Where’s my Roy Cohn?” when he needed legal assistance.

The files also showed just how corrupt Cohn really was. From representing mobsters Carmine Galante and “Fat Tony” Salerno to being disbarred in 1986 for defrauding his clients, he seemingly had no limits. His homosexuality, perhaps, was the only thing he was ashamed of.

Bettmann/Getty ImagesDonald Trump, then owner of the New Jersey Generals of the U.S. Football League, with Roy Cohn. October 1984.

“My cousin Roy Marcus Cohn — counsel to Senator Joe McCarthy, consigliere to Mafia bosses, mentor to Donald Trump — had almost no principles,” David Marcus wrote for Politico in 2019. “He smeared Jews even though he was Jewish. He tarred Democrats even though he was a Democrat. He persecuted gay people even though he was gay.”

In 2008, Roger Stone stated in an interview with the New Yorker, “Roy was not gay. He was a man who liked having sex with men. Gays were weak, effeminate. He always seemed to have these young blond boys around… He was interested in power and access.”

Even after Cohn was diagnosed with AIDS, he insisted that he was actually suffering from liver cancer. He died from the disease on August 2, 1986, at age 59. He had been disbarred for unethical conduct just weeks earlier.

Roy Cohn left behind a legacy of uninhibited opportunism. His thoughts on Donald Trump, shared in a 1984 interview, are eerily prescient:

“Donald Trump is probably one of the most important names in America today,” Cohn said. “What started off as a meteor mounting from New York and going upward is going to touch this country and parts of the world. Donald just wants to be the biggest winner of all.”

After learning about the controversial life and career of Roy Cohn, read about Donald Trump’s mother, Mary Anne MacLeod Trump. Then, go inside the immigrant history of the president’s grandfather, Frederick Trump.

The post America’s Fixer: How Roy Cohn Worked With Joseph McCarthy, The Mob, And Donald Trump appeared first on All That's Interesting.

Florida Keys History Center/FlickrMaria Elena Milagro de Hoyos was known as a Key West beauty before she died of tuberculosis at age 22.

Maria Elena Milagro de Hoyos was a Cuban-American beauty who lived in Key West in the 1920s. When she was 21, her life took a tragic turn: She was diagnosed with tuberculosis.

During her treatment, Elena met a radiology technician named Carl Tanzler. He became obsessed with her, showered her with gifts, and attempted to prolong her life with a wide variety of remedies.

Despite these efforts, Elena passed away in October 1931 at age 22. But death couldn’t put a damper on Tanzler’s affections. He had an elaborate mausoleum built for Elena and serenaded her grave every evening. Still, it wasn’t enough for him.

After months of these nightly visits, Carl Tanzler exhumed the corpse of Maria Elena Milagro de Hoyos and attempted to “resurrect” her with silk, wax, piano wire, and perfume. Then, he slept beside her — for the next seven years.

The Early Life Of Maria Elena Milagro De Hoyos

Maria Elena Milagro de Hoyos was born in Key West in 1909 to Aurora Milagro and Francisco “Pancho” Hoyos, a cigar maker. She had an older sister, Nana, and a younger sister, Celia. According to Ben Harrison’s book Undying Love: The True Story of a Passion That Defied Death, Elena was known for her beauty, and a friend once described her as “full of life.”

In February 1926, she married Luis Mesa, but their newlywed bliss didn’t last long. During their first year of marriage, Elena had a miscarriage, and Luis left her for another woman soon after. He moved to Miami, though the two never officially divorced.

Florida Keys History Center/FlickrMaria Elena Milagro de Hoyos in 1926.

When Elena fell ill in the late 1920s, her family assumed that she was still grieving from losing both her child and her husband. But when her health continued to deteriorate, they feared the worst. Tuberculosis was spreading through the city, and a visit to the doctor confirmed that Elena had fallen victim to the vicious disease.

At the time, tuberculosis was essentially a death sentence. The first truly effective medications were still more than a decade away — and Maria Elena Milagro de Hoyos didn’t have that much time.

Still, she underwent the treatments that were available at the city’s Marine Hospital. And it was there that she met a radiology technician named Carl Tanzler in April 1930.

Carl Tanzler, The Eccentric ‘Count Von Cosel’

Carl Tanzler was born in Germany in 1877. He wasn’t actually a count, but he’d had dreams as a child of a long-dead ancestor named Countess Anna Constantia von Cosel, so he later adopted the title. The countess had allegedly shown him the face of his true love — and he was shocked when he walked into Maria Elena Milagro de Hoyos’ room to take a blood sample and saw the woman from those visions staring back at him.

Florida Keys History Center/FlickrCarl Tanzler, the German radiology technician who lived with the corpse of Maria Elena Milagro de Hoyos for seven years.

Tanzler was a married man himself. He’d immigrated to the United States with his wife and two children in the 1920s, but he wasn’t going to let that interfere with fate. Besides, his family was living in Zephyrhills, Florida, nearly 300 miles away. Nothing could stand in his way. Nothing, that is, except for tuberculosis.

Although Tanzler was more than 30 years older than Elena, he fell madly in love with her. There is no evidence that she returned his affections, but he still showered her with gifts and brought medical equipment to her home in an attempt to treat her.

Of course, this was useless, and Maria Elena Milagro de Hoyos died on Oct. 25, 1931, at age 22. To the astonishment of Elena’s family, Tanzler commissioned an opulent mausoleum in Key West Cemetery for her remains. After her body was placed inside, Tanzler visited the tomb almost every night, serenading her corpse and dreaming of what could have been.

Florida Keys History Center/FlickrThe mausoleum in Key West Cemetery that Carl Tanzler had built for Maria Elena Milagro de Hoyos.

Then, some 18 months after Elena’s death, Tanzler was in the cemetery one evening when he thought he heard a tapping noise coming from the mausoleum. As he recalled in his memoir, The Secret of Elena’s Tomb, he placed his ear against the door and heard Elena’s voice saying, “I wish you would take me with you to your home. I want to stay with you.”

So, in April 1933, Tanzler brought a toy wagon to the cemetery, exhumed Elena’s corpse, and dragged her off. He was determined to be with her — dead or alive.

The Chilling Fate Of Maria Elena Milagro De Hoyos’ Corpse

Carl Tanzler brought Elena’s body back to his makeshift laboratory. There, he opened her coffin for the first time in well over a year.

Florida Keys History Center/FlickrCarl Tanzler often lived with Elena’s corpse on a wingless airplane that he dubbed “Elena’s Airship.”

“I looked into the deep fallen cavities of the eyes, like deep, empty black holes, I saw her dried up lips, slightly parted with her white teeth gleaming between them,” Tanzler wrote. “By further examination I was not surprised to discover small maggots of the gnat-larvae type which were feeding on blood around her head and ears and on the surface of the abdomen.”

To “resurrect” Elena, Tanzler filled her sunken abdominal cavity with sterile packing, pumped her corpse full of fluids, washed her with fragrant soap and cologne, and laid oiled silk coated with beeswax over her skin to preserve it. “She looked as beautiful as ever,” Tanzler said, “and it looked like her own skin.”

Then, Carl Tanzler began living with the corpse of Maria Elena Milagro de Hoyos. He wrote in his memoir:

“Often I kissed her rosy lips… I dressed her in silken garments again, with her bridal dress and veils and the crown of gold and adorned her with all her jewels and white gloves. I kept her thus, lying in state in her large bed, with flowers about her head… To guard her day and night I slept right along side of her.”

This continued for seven years. Then, in 1940, someone purportedly spotted Tanzler dancing with Elena’s corpse through an open window. Word spread quickly, and Elena’s sister Nana ordered Tanzler to open her mausoleum, as he had the only key. Elena wasn’t inside.

On Oct. 5, the police confiscated the body of Maria Elena Milagro de Hoyos from Tanzler’s home. He was accused of “wantonly and maliciously destroying a grave and removing a body without authorization.” However, the statute of limitations on the crime had expired, so Tanzler was never convicted.

Florida Keys History Center/FlickrElena’s corpse on display at a Key West funeral home in 1940.

Elena, meanwhile, was put on display for curious onlookers. Her story had made headlines across the nation, and some 7,000 people filed by over the course of several days to catch a glimpse of her mutilated corpse.

In later years, two physicians who were present at the autopsy of Elena’s remains stated that Tanzler had inserted a tube into her vagina to engage in necrophilia, but no true evidence has ever emerged to support their claims.

Today, Maria Elena Milagro de Hoyos lies at rest once more — this time in an undisclosed location.

After learning about the disturbing story of Maria Elena Milagro de Hoyos, read about Anatoly Moskvin, the Russian grave robber who stole female corpses and dressed them up like dolls. Then, go inside the stories of Carl Tanzler and nine more of the world’s weirdest people.

The post Maria Elena Milagro De Hoyos, The Woman Whose Corpse Was Exhumed By A Man Who Was Obsessed With Her appeared first on All That's Interesting.

Google EarthAn aerial view of a cluster of prehistoric enclosure burials in Sudan’s Atbai Desert.

In the far reaches of the eastern Sahara, archaeologists have uncovered hundreds of prehistoric burials that suggest an unknown culture once thrived in what’s now Sudan — long before the ancient Egyptians built their monumental pyramids just to the north.

A recent study of the Atbai Desert used satellite and aerial imagery to identify 260 previously-unseen burials between the Nile River and the Red Sea. While a few similar sites have been excavated previously, the discovery of these additional mass graves is rewriting the history of northern Africa in the era before the pharaohs.

Uncovering The Prehistoric Enclosure Burials In The Atbai Desert

In a study published in the African Archaeological Review, archaeologists from Macquarie University, France’s History and Sources of Ancient Worlds laboratory, and the Polish Academy of Sciences carried out an extensive survey of satellite and aerial imagery in the Atbai Desert of eastern Sudan.

As the study authors wrote in a statement released by Macquarie University, “Our team… wanted to tell the story of this desert region between the Nile and the Red Sea, without having to excavate.”

Piotr Osypiński/Cooper et al., African Archaeological Review (2026)An enclosure burial at Wadi Khashab. These mass graves consist of a circular wall surrounding the remains of humans and livestock.

Across roughly 600 miles of desert, the researchers identified 260 burials enclosed by round or oval walls, some stretching 260 feet in diameter. Just 20 similar sites were previously known to exist, such as Wadi Khashab, Wadi el-Ku, and Bir Asele. Prior excavations revealed human remains within these enclosures, as well as the bones of cattle, sheep, and goats.

The presence of the animals suggests that the enclosures were built by a nomadic culture that raised livestock across the region. Analysis of artifacts found at the previously-known sites dates them to between 4000 B.C.E. and 3000 B.C.E. — centuries before the first Egyptian pyramid was constructed.

So, who were these people? And what can their burials tell us about their culture?

The Prehistoric Nomadic Herders Of Northeastern Africa

While none of the recently discovered enclosure burials have been excavated yet, sites like Wadi Khashab and Bir Asele give researchers a good idea of what these newly-found graves likely contain. The burials there sometimes featured a central figure — perhaps a chief or key member of the community — surrounded by additional remains in a seemingly meaningful pattern. This implies that the nomadic society had some sort of social structure.

“For archaeologists,” the study authors wrote in the statement, “this is important data for discerning class and hierarchy in prehistoric societies.”

Between 4000 B.C.E. and 3000 B.C.E., northern Africa was undergoing a change in climate known as the “African Humid Period.” The Sahara — which was once much greener than it is today — was beginning to dry up, making it difficult to maintain large herds of livestock.

As such, nomadic herders may have been buried with their animals as a display of status. The researchers likened it to “showing off an expensive and rare possession — a prehistoric nomad’s equivalent to having a Ferrari.”

Indeed, the vast majority of these enclosure burials are located near former water sources, such as rock pools and ancient lakebeds, suggesting the nomads had moved into areas that could sustain their herds as vegetation grew scarce.

Museo Castiglioni/Cooper et al., African Archaeological Review (2026)Prior excavations of the enclosure burial at Wadi el-Ku.

It also seems that nomads returned to these enclosures for thousands of years, reusing them as burial plots well into the first millennium B.C.E. But the original graves stand as some of the earliest examples of monuments honoring deceased leaders. The first Egyptian pyramid — the Pyramid of Djoser — wasn’t built until around 2670 B.C.E., and Sudan’s Nubian pyramids didn’t appear until the eighth century B.C.E.

But these emblems of a prehistoric culture are under threat. Unregulated gold mining in the deserts of Sudan has brought damaging heavy machinery and looters to the region, and the burials may be destroyed before archaeologists have a chance to study them further and learn more about the nomadic societies that roamed Sudan 6,000 years ago.

“Our discovery reshapes the story of the Sahara deserts and the prehistory of the Nile,” wrote the study’s authors. “They provide a prologue for the monumentalism of the kingdoms of Egypt and Nubia, and an image of this region as more than pharaohs, pyramids, and temples.”

After reading about the prehistoric enclosure burials discovered in the Atbai Desert of Sudan, discover who really built Egypt’s famous pyramids. Then, learn how North Africa’s Berbers have preserved their culture for millennia.

The post Archaeologists Just Found 260 Mysterious Burial Monuments Across The Sahara That Were Built Before The Egyptian Pyramids appeared first on All That's Interesting.

Marshall University Special CollectionsNearly all of the members of the 1970 Marshall University football team and coaching staff died in a plane crash while traveling home from a game at East Carolina University.

On a foggy autumn night in 1970, the Marshall University Thundering Herd football team was reeling from a nail-biting 17-14 loss against the East Carolina University Pirates. When players, coaching staff, and athletic boosters boarded a small Southern Airways plane to travel back to Huntington, West Virginia, spirits were low.

“We should have won the damn game,” Red Dawson, part of the coaching staff for the Marshall team, later told ESPN. “That’s what everybody was thinking.”

But that loss is now the last thing anyone remembers about that night.

On Nov. 14, 1970, the Marshall team’s plane crashed nose-first into a hillside just one mile from the Huntington Tri-State Airport, setting the whole area ablaze.

All 75 people on board were killed in what the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) called an “unsurvivable” crash. To this day, many still consider the accident “the worst sports-related air tragedy in U.S. history.”

The Marshall plane crash would later inspire the 2006 Matthew McConaughey film We Are Marshall, which explored how Marshall University recovered following the sudden loss of so many beloved community members. But the true story of We Are Marshall is more tragic than anything in the film.

Inside The Conditions Causing The Marshall Plane Crash

Visibility was low that night as the plane attempted to make its descent.

“I thought the visibility was remarkably good when I [made my report], but about 10 or 15 minutes after that the fog formed very rapidly, and that’s when the visibility came down,” An NTSB official who surveyed the conditions said in the crash report. “It was right over the field. It just seemed like it formed very rapidly and it just actually sank right over the whole field.”

This low visibility certainly contributed to the crash; the pilots likely couldn’t see the lights of the airport and runway, and the plane plummeted hundreds of feet past the minimum altitude it needed to start its descent. The fog may have also caused the plane to make incorrect height readings, leading the pilots to believe they were higher up than they actually were.

“The probable cause of this accident was the descent below Minimum Descent Altitude during a nonprecision approach under adverse operating conditions, without visual contact with the runway environment,” the NTSB report stated. “The Board has been unable to determine the reason for this [greater] descent, although the two most likely explanations are (a) improper use of cockpit instrumentation data, or (b) an altimetry system error.”

The plane skimmed trees as it went down before crashing just about a mile from the runway, bursting into flames on impact and killing all 75 people on board.

Ironically, the team had almost canceled their flight, thinking it might be safer to drive back home instead — but decided to charter the larger, “safer” Southern Airways DC-9 at the last minute.

West Virginia State ArchivesAll 75 people onboard the Southern Airlines flight from Kinston, North Carolina, to Huntington, West Virginia died in the crash.

What Happened After The Marshall Plane Crash

Word spread quickly about the Marshall plane crash, as a small crowd had gathered to watch the plane land and welcome the team home. A local reporter showed up at the scene to find the wrecked plane ablaze.

“The fuselage was still burning, but you could see the ‘E-R-N’ on the end of it,” said Jack Hardin, the Huntington Herald-Dispatch reporter who first responded, according to Rivals. “One of the firefighters — a friend of mine — said… ‘Jack, the Marshall team was coming in on a Southern plane.’ I thought, ‘Oh my God.'”

The few members of the team who, for various reasons, didn’t fly on that fateful Southern Airways Flight 932, suffered from immense survivor’s guilt, not fully comprehending what had happened.

“Shock, total shock,” said Red Dawson, a Marshall football coaching staff member who had given up his seat on the flight to drive to another local college for recruitment efforts. “I don’t know where we were or even what time it was. I just know we stopped the car and sat there and stared at each other. Neither one of us could say a word. We just stared. I couldn’t tell you how long. It seemed like forever.”

Nate Ruffin, a co-captain of the 1970 Marshall team, hadn’t even made the trip to East Carolina due to an injury. He had the horrific job of calling his teammates’ families to tell them what happened.

“Why them? Why not me? It makes no sense but you tell yourself: I should have been on that plane,” Ruffin said in an interview with Mississippi Today.

Members of the East Carolina (ECU) football team that had defeated the Marshall team just hours earlier also experienced shock upon hearing the news.

“A lot of us were downtown trying to find a beer like most college kids. We were celebrating. We didn’t win many games that season,” said Richard Peeler, a player for the 1970 ECU team, in an interview with ESPN in early 2023. “When [ECU] Coach McGee finally got us all together that night, we went to pieces.”

“The Whole Town Was Aboard”

While the Marshall plane crash is often referred to as “the worst sports-related air tragedy in U.S. history,” it was an immense personal tragedy for the close-knit community of Huntington. Seventy children lost a parent in the crash, and 18 children were orphaned altogether.

Along with players and coaching staff, several prominent boosters and citizens of Huntington died in the accident, including a state legislator, a city councilman, and a few local physicians. Family members showed up in droves to the local hospital, praying that there would be some semblance of good news. But there was none.

“I didn’t think I would ever get these four words out of my mind,” said Mary Plyde Ward Bell, whose husband was a Marshall booster onboard the plane. “[Our minister] said, ‘I need for you to just look at me and think about what I’m saying. There are no survivors.'”

“The whole fabric, the whole heart of the town was aboard,” said a citizen of Huntington, according to the History Channel.

A mass memorial was held at the team’s field house, and many of the victims were buried in a cemetery on a hill overlooking Marshall University. Six of the victims’ bodies were never identified.

“I think I went to 27 funerals,” Dawson said. “You can’t imagine that kind of pain, seeing all those families who lost the people they love the most.”

East Carolina University AthleticsA memorial at the East Carolina University campus reads in part, “Their flight to eternity forever changed the lives of those who dearly loved them…. They shall live on in the hearts of their families and friends forever.”

Memorials for those who lost their lives in the Marshall plane crash were established at both the Marshall and East Carolina campuses, and the street between the Marshall football stadium and the cemetery where many of the dead were buried was renamed Marshall Memorial Boulevard.

Remembering The 1970 Marshall Team 50 Years Later

In the wake of the Marshall University plane crash, the university considered canceling its football program altogether, torn as to how to proceed after losing most of its team and coaching staff.

Instead, as dramatized in the 2006 film We Are Marshall, Jack Lengyel, played by Matthew McConaughey, was brought on as the new head coach and took up the daunting task of rebuilding the team. In the end, he helped to lead the Thundering Herd to its first victory since the crash.

FRANK MASI/WARNER BROS. PICTURES
The True Story Of We Are Marshall is even more heartbreaking than anything in the film.

The Thundering Herd is going strong today. In September 2023, at a football game between Marshall and East Carolina, the teams held a memorial ceremony commemorating the 50-year anniversary of the Marshall plane crash. The event had originally been planned for 2020, the actual 50-year anniversary, but was rescheduled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

More than 30 of the players from the 1970 East Carolina team returned to their home stadium for the memorial game.

“I’m still not over it, not sure I ever will get over it,” said George Whitley, a senior co-captain on the 1970 East Carolina team. “I think I’ve been back here for a game maybe one other time, but I wasn’t going to miss this one.”

Former Marshall coach Red Dawson also made the trip for the game. It was the first time Dawson had been back to the East Carolina campus since that fateful night in 1970.

“It was hard coming back here. I didn’t know if I ever could,” Dawson said. He had quit coaching about a year after the crash.

During a time out in the first quarter, players from the 1970 East Carolina team presented a football they had all signed to Dawson and Keith Morehouse, the son of Marshall announcer and sports information director Gene Morehouse, who died in the crash.

Marshall University ended up winning the game 31-13, thanks in large part to a 75-yard touchdown reception — a fortuitous tribute to the 75 who lost their lives that cold November night over 50 years ago.

After reading about the true story of “We Are Marshall,” read about the plane crash that killed Buddy Holly on “the day the music died.” Or, read about the chilling story behind the Lockerbie bombing that killed all 259 people onboard Pan Am Flight 103.

The post The Heartbreaking Story Behind The Marshall University Plane Crash, The ‘Worst Sports-Related Air Tragedy In U.S. History’ appeared first on All That's Interesting.

She told the group that she would be back by midnight, but she was never seen again. Although it had been a clear, warm day, that night, the temperatures dropped into the 40s. It was also the day after a new moon, and although she had packed a knife, compass, and matches, she had no flashlight.

Skamania County Sheriff’s DepartmentMaureen Kelly had been talking to her friends about taking a “spiritual quest” for months before she finally did it.

The few leads that have been found have led to dead ends, and police have conflicting theories on what could have happened to her, and why. To this day, no trace of Maureen Kelly has ever been found.

The Chilling Disappearance Of Maureen Kelly In Washington State

Born on September 26, 1993, Maureen Leianuhea Kelly was raised by a single mother, Mapuana, in Vancouver, Washington. Known as Anu to her friends, she graduated from Lewis and Clark High School and was an aspiring singer and songwriter, often posting ukulele videos on YouTube.

According to her friends, she had long talked about doing a spiritual quest in the woods. So when a group decided to go camping in the Gifford Pinchot National Forest near Mount St. Helens, she was eager to join.

John Russell/FlickrMaureen Kelly disappeared in Gifford Pinchot National Forest in southern Washington State.

So around 5 p.m. on June 9, 2013, Kelly stripped naked, tossed a knife, compass, and matches into a fanny pack, and walked out of the Canyon Creek Campground. No one tried to stop her. The day had been mild with highs in the 70s and sunny.

“The folks that she was with, they felt that this was something she needed to do,” Skamania County Undersheriff Dave Cox told ABC News at the time.

But as the night continued on, temperatures dropped to the 40s, cold enough for her to succumb to hypothermia without any clothes. And when Kelly still hadn’t returned by midnight, her friends called the sheriff’s department to report her missing.

How “The Naked Hiker” Most Likely Met Her End

Family PhotoMaureen Kelly was an aspiring singer and songwriter who often posted ukulele videos on YouTube.

Investigators launched a search into Maureen Kelly’s disappearance on the morning of June 10.

Several crews of investigators and volunteers were dispatched to look for Kelly, where they discovered a deep, unforgiving terrain filled with heavy timber and brush.

After a day of searching, searchers found footprints that matched Kelly’s size and shape of her foot, and the trail led them to Forest Service 54 road. But when they hit the paved roads, her tracks suddenly stopped, and K9 units were unable to pick up a scent thereafter.

“Where she entered the creek is amazingly steep. It’s called Canyon Creek Campground for a reason,” said Sharon Ward of the Pacific Crest Search Dogs, a collective of volunteers dispatched to find Maureen Kelly. “It’s very, very steep. So how she got down there barefoot is a wonder. And how she came up out of the bottom is a wonder.”

KPTVThe Canyon Creek area of Gifford Pinchot National Forest where Maureen Kelly disappeared in June 2013.

What’s more, Undersheriff Cox said, because there’s so much underbrush, “A searcher could literally walk right on top of somebody if they’re rolled under a log” and never know it.

Despite their best efforts, the search for Maureen Kelly turned up empty. The official search was suspended after just two days. It resumed briefly after her family and friends protested, but to no avail.

To this day, police have not recovered Maureen Kelly or her remains. Nor did they find evidence of foul play — or that she was under the influence of drugs or alcohol at the time. The most likely explanation, according to Cox, is that she succumbed to the elements the night of her initial disappearance, and most likely had her body scavenged by wildlife.

But her family and friends have a different theory. According to her friend Yazmin, “She may not want to be found.”

After learning about the strange disappearance of Maureen Kelly, read the bizarre story of Bryce Laspisa, who vanished without a trace while visiting his parents in California. Then, learn about the disappearance of Emanuela Orlandi, the 15-year-old daughter of a Vatican official who was suspected of being trafficked by the Catholic Church.

The post The Chilling Case Of Maureen Kelly, The Naked Hiker Who Vanished During A ‘Spiritual Quest’ appeared first on All That's Interesting.

Public DomainA cartoon from Harper’s Weekly depicting a would-be arsonist from the Confederate Army of Manhattan.

Seeking revenge for Union destruction in the South, the Confederates planned to burn the most important city in the North. But their plot fizzled fast. Not only did they fail to inflict any real damage on Manhattan, but their attempted attack roused the ire of the North, even among northern “Copperheads” who opposed the war and advocated for a peace agreement.

But the Confederate Army of Manhattan’s failed plot did have an impact. It led to the final execution of a Confederate soldier during the Civil War, Robert Cobb Kennedy. And it led to a bitter row between brothers Edwin and John Wilkes Booth, after John Wilkes professed support for the attack.

This is the full story of the Confederate Army of Manhattan and the forgotten — and failed — plot to burn the city to the ground during the Civil War.

The Plot To Burn New York City During The Civil War

From the beginning, the Confederate Army of Manhattan’s plot to burn New York City to the ground didn’t go as planned.

Enraged by Union attacks in the South, particularly the destruction of farms in Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley, the Confederate Secret Service devised a plan to move the conflict northward. The Gotham Center For New York City History reports that the Confederacy hoped to strike multiple northern cities on Election Day, Nov. 8, 1864, in hopes of demoralizing the North, and forcing the Union to negotiate for peace and end the Civil War.

Library of CongressUnion troops burning farms in Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley, an attack which outraged the Confederacy.

However, rumors of the plot spread across the North — and in New York City, more than 3,500 Union troops arrived to protect the election. Thus, though a group of eight Southern operatives had already arrived in the city via Canada, they decided to hold off on their plan until after Election Day.

Instead, the so-called Confederate Army of Manhattan decided they would attack New York City on Evacuation Day, November 25. This once-popular holiday — all but forgotten today — marked the departure of British troops from the city during the American Revolution.

How The Confederate Army Of Manhattan Attacked The City

Before they could attack, the Confederate Army of Manhattan needed their weapon. They acquired an incendiary concoction from a local chemist — either phosphorus or “Greek Fire” made from sulfur, naphtha, and quicklime — and set about testing it out to make sure they hadn’t been scammed. The Confederates tossed the glass vials onto boards in Central Park, which successfully burst into flames.

Next, they put their plan into action. The Confederates targeted almost two dozen hotels, most of which were located up and down Broadway. Starting around eight p.m. that night, the Confederates piled their hotel beds with clothing and furniture, tossed their glass vials, and slipped out into the city.

Wikimedia CommonsA rendering of the Astor House in 1862, one of the Confederate Army of Manhattan’s targets.

At 8:45 p.m., a fire was reported at the St. James hotel. Next, at the United States hotel. Smoke and fire was then witnessed at the St. Nicholas, the Lafarge House, the Belmont Hotel, and the Astor House. One of them Confederate operatives even tossed his glass vial into a stairwell at P.T. Barnum’s American Museum, where a number of “freak shows” performed.

Meanwhile, the smoke caused a brief panic at the nearby Winter Garden Theater, where actor brothers Edwin, Junius, and John Wilkes Booth were appearing on stage for the first time. Edwin calmed the nervous audience, and the show went on.

Public DomainJohn Wilkes, Edwin, and Junius Booth were on stage together for the first and only time when fires broke out at nearby hotels.

Indeed, the Confederate Army of Manhattan’s plot had all the spark of a wet log. Only six of the eight men showed up. Most of their fires didn’t catch. And the ones that did were easily extinguished.

Part of the reason why their attack didn’t work was that the conspirators had left the windows in their targeted hotel rooms firmly closed. Without a draft, their fires quickly went out. Instead of burning to the ground, New York City briefly smoldered — then moved on.

But the story of the Confederate Army of Manhattan didn’t end there.

The Aftermath Of The Failed Arson Attack

Though the Confederate attack had failed, Northern newspapers reacted with outrage. The New York Times called it “one of the most fiendish and inhuman acts known to modern times,” and Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper dubbed the failed plot “The most diabolical attempt at arson and murder of which there is any record in the history of our country.”

Even some Southern newspapers condemned the attack. The Richmond Whig suggested that Boston or Philadelphia were better targets, but that New York should “be spared” because of its economic connection to the South and antipathy toward President Lincoln.

Meanwhile, though most of the conspirators escaped, Federal authorities succeeded in arresting one plotter, Robert Cobb Kennedy. At a military trial, Kennedy was sentenced to death and hanged the next spring. He was the last Confederate soldier executed during the Civil War.

Public DomainRobert Cobb Kennedy was the only member of the Confederate Army of Manhattan who was arrested, put on trial, and executed.

And the actions of the Confederate Army of Manhattan also rippled into a family drama. In the aftermath of the attack, Edwin and John Wilkes Booth had a terrible fight about the would-be plot to destroy the city. John Wilkes claimed that the Confederate operatives were heroes which, according to Ford’s Theatre National Historic Site, outraged Edwin. He told John Wilkes “he should go elsewhere to make such sentiments known; that he was not at liberty to express them in the house of a Union man.”

The brothers never spoke again. And just months later — just weeks after Kennedy was hanged — John Wilkes Booth assassinated Abraham Lincoln.

As such, the Confederate Army of their Manhattan quickly became a footnote to the Civil War, an overlooked event subsumed by the drama of the presidential assassination and the end of the conflict.

Indeed, the plot failed. But had a window or two been left open, or if the Confederates had better organized their attack, it could have ended quite differently. Had New York City burned, perhaps it would have changed the tide of the Civil War itself.

After reading about the Confederate Army of Manhattan and the failed plot to burn New York City to the ground, discover the stories of some of the bloodiest battles of the Civil War. Or, learn about Andersonville Prison, the most infamous prisoner-of-war camps from the conflict.

The post The Confederate Army Of Manhattan, The Southern Operatives Who Tried To Burn New York City To The Ground appeared first on All That's Interesting.

The young group was coerced into confessing to a crime they didn’t commit, demonized by the press, and imprisoned. It took 12 years for the true culprit to come forward: Matias Reyes.

Getty ImagesMatias Reyes was serving a 33.5-year sentence for an unrelated crime when he admitted to being behind the Central Park Jogger case.

A first-generation Puerto Rican, Matias Reyes was living out of his van when he attacked Meili. A Harlem bodega clerk by day, Reyes was a serial rapist by night. He was eventually convicted of an unrelated murder, and while serving life in prison, confessed to the rape of Meili, exonerating the Central Park Five after some of them had served over a decade behind bars.

Netflix’s When They See Us docuseries chronicles how the standardization of DNA evidence and the confession of Matias Reyes paved the way for the 2002 exoneration of the five teenager.

When asked why he finally came clean, Reyes responded, “It was the right thing to do.”

The Heinous Crime Matias Reyes Initially Got Away With

Sometime between the hours of 9 and 10 p.m. on April 18, 1989, Trisha Meili was raped and almost beaten to death in Central Park. Her half-naked and blood-soaked body was found by passersby over four hours later.

Doctors initially claimed that she would almost certainly die of her injuries. Her skull was fractured, she was hypothermic, and she had lost 75 percent of her blood.

Meanwhile, 14-year-olds Raymond Santana and Kevin Richardson were detained for “unlawful assembly” at the Central Park police precinct during the hours in which Meili was attacked. According to authorities, a group of 30 to 40 teenagers had been found harassing and assaulting people in the park, with Santana and Richardson arrested in the chaos.

John Pedin/NY Daily News Archive/Getty ImagesKorey Wise in court on October 10, 1989.

They were still detained when Meili was found near death hours later.

The media frenzy surrounding her death was instantaneous, and the NYPD knew the case would explode at dawn, so they sought to make a series of promising arrests. On April 20, they detained 15-year-olds Yusef Salaam, Antron McCray, and 16-year-old Korey Wise.

Santana later recalled being threatened with life in prison if he didn’t confess to attacking Meili, even though he said he didn’t even know who she was nor what happened to her. After 14 and 30 hours of sleep deprivation, the teens were forced to confess to a crime they knew nothing of.

Their own words were used to levy the following charges against them: attempted murder, first-degree rape, first-degree sodomy, first-degree sexual abuse, two counts of first-degree assault, and riot in the first degree.

While the five teenagers immediately retracted their statements, it was too late. It would take another 12 years for them to be freed from this criminal trap.

His Violent Crimes Across New York City

William LaForce Jr./NY Daily News Archive/Getty ImagesMatias Reyes being escorted for booking on August 6, 1989.

The life of Matias Reyes was fraught with trauma from the very beginning. According to an interview between him and a prison psychologist, he was born in Puerto Rico in 1971, and he moved to New York City with his mother as an infant.

He was then allegedly sold to his father for $400 when he was two years old. When he was seven, he claimed two older kids sexually molested him and threw him into a river.

“Even as a child growing up in the school system, he exhibited violent behavior,” said Richard Siracusa, Reyes’ attorney. “To the average person, he would seem perfectly normal, but he was far from normal.”

YouTubeMatias Reyes in a 2002 interview with authorities in which he confessed to being the Central Park rapist.

Matias Reyes was barely 17 years old when he first attempted to rape someone. He was talked out of it by his 27-year-old target, Jackie Herbach, who he was holding at knifepoint. His next known rape attempt fell on April 17, 1989 — two days before Trisha Meili’s fateful jog — and in the same park.

Reyes attacked an unsuspecting 26-year-old woman and beat her into a prone position to sexually assault her, but he fled when a passerby spotted him. Then, he attacked Meili that April night in 1989.

The Central Park Five, meanwhile, were brought to two separate trials that culminated in their imprisonment in October 1990.

Determined to lay low as a result of the enormous spectacle his attack on Meili had caused, Reyes didn’t assault anyone again until June when he resumed his spree.

Public DomainMatias Reyes in custody in 2010.

This was his only known murder victim, a 24-year-old mother of three named Lourdes Gonzalez. Matias Reyes invaded her apartment, forced her into the bedroom, and shut the door behind them. She was pregnant when he raped her and stabbed her in the belly.

The woman’s three children listened to the entire ordeal through the bedroom door before Reyes fled. Lourdes called 911 but died on the way to the elevator. She had been stabbed nine times, once in the face. One of her sons later recalled hearing Reyes say:

“I’ll take your eyes or your kids.”

On August 5 of that same year, four months after he assaulted Meili, Reyes attacked a woman known only as “Meg” by invading her apartment on East 91st Street. Fortunately, she managed to escape to the building lobby in nothing but a towel and receive help.

At last, Matias Reyes was apprehended after two Good Samaritans held him down in the hallway as they waited for the police.

The Confession That Freed The Central Park Five

While booked for the attempted rape and murder of “Meg,” Matias Reyes confessed to the murder of Lourdes Gonzalez.

According to the detective who interrogated him for six hours, Mike Sheehan, Reyes denied raping Gonzalez and instead chillingly claimed that “We made love.” Later, two other victims came forward and confirmed that Reyes had stabbed them superficially in the face before letting them go.

Though Sheehan had more than 20 years of homicide interviews under his belt by this point, he described Reyes as one of the “top five lunatics” he ever sat across from.

Reyes was offered a plea bargain of 33.5 years to life with parole eligibility in December 2002, which he accepted. He was sentenced on Nov. 7, 1991.

Miraculously, he met the Central Park Five’s Korey Wise while incarcerated at two different prisons. They had even gotten into a fight over a prison TV set once.

Though Reyes had kept silent about assaulting Meili during his confession with Sheehan, it appeared as though his encounters with Wise had nudged his conscience. Finally, after 12 years of harboring his secret — Reyes provided investigators with the truth.

“I know it’s hard for people to understand, after 12 years why a person would actually come forward to take responsibility for a crime,” he said. “At first I was afraid, but at the end of the day I felt it was definitely the right thing to do.”

His confession appeared legitimate to authorities. He knew intimate details of the crime scene that only a perpetrator could, and there also the matter of DNA at the scene, which hadn’t matched any of the Central Park Five.

Following Reyes’ confession in January 2002, his DNA was tested against that of the semen collected at the scene. It was a match and finally identified Meili’s attacker for good. Unfortunately, however, the statute of limitations had expired on that crime so he was never formally charged with it.

With his confession and DNA, New York Supreme Court Justice Charles J. Tejada exonerated the Central Park Five on Dec. 19, 2002. Because they had all already served their sentences, Wise having spent the longest time behind bars at 12 years, the only upside was having their criminal record expunged.

Additionally, the Central Park Five successfully sued the city of New York for malicious prosecution, racial discrimination, and emotional distress ⏤ for a $41 million settlement ⏤ bringing a just ending to the otherwise harrowing story of Matias Reyes and the Central Park Jogger case.

After learning about Matias Reyes, read about 11 serial killers you’ve never heard of. Then, learn about the world’s deadliest serial killer, Luis Garavito.

The post The Crimes Of Matias Reyes, The Career Criminal Whose Confession Exonerated The Central Park Five appeared first on All That's Interesting.

Saudi Arabia Ministry of CultureThe gold jewelry that was found along an ancient hajj route in Saudi Arabia.

During excavations at the Diriyah archaeological site in Saudi Arabia’s Al-Qassim region, archaeologists came across a stunning hoard of jewelry from more than 1,000 years ago. These ornate gold pieces featuring colored stones were tucked away at the site of a former permanent settlement that one sat along a hajj route between Iraq and Mecca.

The jewelry is dated to the Abbasid period (750-1258 C.E.), a golden era of monumental advances in science, literature, and art in the Islamic world.

The 1,100-Year-Old Trove Of Gold Jewelry Found At Diriyah

According to a statement from the Saudi Ministry of Culture, this set of gold jewelry was found during excavations at the Diriyah archaeological site, where the Saudi Heritage Commission has been at work for the past four seasons.

Saudi Arabia Ministry of CultureThe jewelry set that was found at Diriyah in the Al-Qassim region.

Though roughly 1,100 years old, the jewelry remains in surprisingly good condition. It includes about 100 pieces, which range from floral pendants to necklaces to beads to disc-shaped items. Some pieces include floral motifs while others are adorned with colorful stones, which suggests that the jewelry’s designers had access to a sprawling trade network.

What’s more, the jewelry shows signs of advanced craftsmanship. The pieces were expertly hammered into thin gold sheets, after which craftsmen pressed decorative patterns into the surface, or placed stones into the frames.

So who owned the jewelry? Some clues about the owner may be gleaned from where the jewelry set was found. The excavation site once sat along a prominent hajj road that travelers used to get from Iraq to Mecca.

Diriyah’s Place As A Permanent Settlement Along The Basran Hajj Route

Some 1,100 years ago, this gold jewelry set was lost, abandoned, or hidden at the present-day Diriyah archaeological site in Al-Qassim. There, archaeologists found evidence of a permanent settlement, which would have once abutted the Basran Hajj route between Iraq and Mecca.

Matt BiggA map showing hajj routes, including the northern portion of the Basran Hajj road.

There, archaeologists also found the foundations of stone buildings, mud walls, fire hearths, and plastered rooms, as well as pottery, glass fragments, and metal tools. Such findings indicate a permanent settlement — not a temporary camp — and suggest that the site was once a place of “strategic importance” along pilgrimage and trade routes.

As such, it’s possible that the owner of the gold jewelry had some connection to this nexus of trade and pilgrimage. Perhaps they were an affluent resident or a merchant, or maybe they were simply a wealthy traveler that was just passing through.

But while the identity of the jewelry’s owner is a mystery, the jewelry itself is a clear symbol of its time and place. Hajj routes like the Basran Hajj path were not only frequented by pilgrims, but also by traders and travelers, who brought with them news and new ideas from afar.

During the Abbasid period, there was an abundance of new ideas in the realms of science, literature, and art, which surely traveled along the Basran Hajj route.

Xristoph/Wikimedia CommonsRuins in Diriyah, once a stopover for pilgrims on their way to and from Mecca.

And the newly-uncovered gold jewelry set stands as one of the most stunning collections of artifacts from this historic era. While many questions about the jewelry remain — including who owned it and how it was left behind — the set stands as a stunning window into the golden days of the Abbasid period.

“This discovery at Diriyah reflects the abundance of the Kingdom’s cultural heritage and its longstanding role as a crossroads of trade routes and cultural exchange,” said Dr. Jasir Suliman Alherbish, CEO of the Saudi Heritage Commission.

He continued: “It underscores the Heritage Commission’s commitment to research, documentation and preservation, further strengthening understanding of the Kingdom’s history and safeguarding its cultural legacy.”

After reading about the 1,100-year-old set of gold jewelry that was found along a hajj route in Saudi Arabia, discover the story of Hegra, the ancient city in Saudi Arabia that sat untouched for 2,000 years. Then, learn about some of the hottest places on Earth.

The post Archaeologists In Saudi Arabia Just Unearthed An Expertly Crafted Collection Of More Than 100 Pieces Of Gold Jewelry That Date Back 1,100 Years appeared first on All That's Interesting.

Thanks to high mortality rates and the rampant spread of disease, death was everywhere during the Victorian era. So many people came up with creative ways to remember the dead — including Victorian death photos. While it may sound macabre today, countless families used post-mortem photos to memorialize their lost loved ones.

"It is not merely the likeness which is precious," said Elizabeth Barrett Browning, a Victorian-era English poet, as she gazed upon a post-mortem portrait, "but the association and the sense of nearness involved in the thing... the very shadow of the person lying there fixed forever!"

For many people of the Victorian era, a post-mortem portrait might be their first experience with photography. The relatively new technology presented an opportunity to retain a permanent image of their deceased relatives — many of whom had never been photographed while they were alive.

Today, Victorian death photos may seem disturbing. But for people in the 19th century, they provided comfort during times of grief. You can see some of the most striking examples of this practice in the gallery above.

Why Did People Take Post-Mortem Photos?

Beniamino Facchinelli/Wikimedia CommonsThe Italian photographer Beniamino Facchinelli took this portrait of a deceased child around 1890.

In the first half of the 19th century, photography was a new and exciting medium. So the masses wanted to capture life's biggest moments on film. Sadly, one of the most common moments captured was death.

Due to the high mortality rates, most people couldn't expect to live past their 40s. And when disease spread, infants and children were especially vulnerable. Illnesses like scarlet fever, measles, and cholera could be a death sentence for young people in an era before vaccines and antibiotics.

Photography offered a new way to remember a loved one after death — and many Victorian death photos became family portraits of sorts. They often depicted mothers cradling their deceased children or fathers watching over their children's deathbeds.

One photographer recalled parents who carried a stillborn baby to his studio. "Can you photograph this?" the mother asked, showing the photographer "a tiny face like waxwork" hidden away in a wooden basket.

The concept of creating a post-mortem portrait long predated photography. But in the past, only the very wealthiest families could afford to hire artists to create an illustration of their loved one. Photography allowed people who were less wealthy to get a post-mortem image as well.

Death photographers learned how to pose children to give the appearance of peaceful slumber, which brought comfort to grieving parents. Some photographers edited their daguerreotype — an early form of photography that produced a highly detailed picture on polished silver — by adding a tint and bringing a bit of "life" to the subject's cheeks.

These images were deeply comforting to grieving family members. Mary Russell Mitford, an English author, noted that her father's 1842 post-mortem photograph "has a heavenly calm in it."

The Creation Of Post-Mortem Photos

National TrustThe tradition of preserving images of deceased children existed long before photography. In this 1638 painting, the artist memorializes the brother of the Duke of Devonshire.

Photographing dead people may seem like a ghastly task. But in the 19th century, deceased subjects were often easier to capture on film than living ones — because they weren't able to move.

Due to the slow shutter speed of early cameras, subjects had to remain still to create crisp images. When people visited studios, photographers would sometimes hold them in place with cast-iron posing stands.

As you might expect, Victorian death photos are often easy to identify because of their lack of blurring. After all, subjects in these portraits did not blink or shift suddenly.

Unlike many portraits, which were taken in photo studios, post-mortem photos were usually taken at home. As the trend of death portraits took hold, families put effort into preparing their deceased relatives for the photoshoot. That could mean styling the subject's hair or their clothes. Some relatives opened the dead person's eyes.

Photographers and family members sometimes decorated the scene to make the purpose of the photograph clear. In some images, flowers surround the deceased. In others, symbols of death and time — like an hourglass or a clock — mark the portrait as a post-mortem photograph.

By capturing the dead on film, Victorian death photos gave families the illusion of control. Although they had lost a beloved relative, they could still shape the portrait to emphasize a sense of calmness and tranquility.

In some cases, post-mortem photographs actively created the impression of life. Families could request makeup to mask a deathly pallor. And some photographers even offered to paint open eyes on the final image.

Beyond Victorian Death Photos: Masks, Mourning, And Memento Mori

Bain News Services/Library of CongressThe creation of a death mask in New York. 1908.

People in the Victorian era mourned deeply after the death of a loved one — and this mourning certainly wasn't limited to photos. It was common for widows to wear black for years after their husbands died. Some even clipped hair from their dead loved ones and preserved the locks in jewelry.

As if that wasn't dark enough, Victorians often surrounded themselves with memento mori, or reminders of death. The literal meaning of that phrase is "remember you must die." To Victorians, this phrase meant that the dead should be honored — and that the living should never forget their mortality.

The practice of creating death masks was another way that Victorians remembered the dead. According to the 19th-century collector Laurence Hutton, a death mask "must, of necessity, be absolutely true to nature."

To capture the likeness of a dead person, a mask maker would spread oil over the face before pressing plaster over the person's features. Sometimes the process left a seam down the middle of the face or exaggerated beards and mustaches since the hair was slicked down.

The Victorians did not invent death masks — the practice dates back to the ancient world — but they were notable for their obsession with creating and possessing the masks.

Families placed death masks of loved ones atop mantels. Some doctors offered to make death masks after pronouncing a notorious criminal dead. And the booming phrenology industry — a pseudoscience that studied bumps on the skull to explain mental traits — used death masks as a teaching tool.

Fake Victorian Post-Mortem Photos

Today, some Victorian death photos shared online are actually fakes — or they're photographs of the living mistaken for the dead.

Charles Lutwidge Dodgson/National Media MuseumAn 1875 portrait of the author Lewis Carroll, often incorrectly described as a post-mortem photograph.

Take, for example, a commonly shared image of a man reclining in a chair. "The photographer posed a dead person with his arm supporting the head," many captions claim. But the photograph in question is a picture of the author Lewis Carroll — taken years before his death.

Mike Zohn, the owner of Obscura Antiques in New York, offers a handy rule of thumb when studying Victorian death photos: "As simple as it sounds, the big general rule is if they look alive — they're alive."

Although some Victorians tried to breathe life into photographs of the dead — with the addition of color on the cheeks, for example — the vast majority of them simply sought to preserve the image of a lost loved one.

While many of us couldn't imagine doing this today, it's clear that this practice helped the Victorians with their grief during a time of great strife.

After learning about Victorian death photography, check out these fascinating Victorian portraits. Then, read about the trend of spirit photography in Victorian England.

The post 27 Victorian Death Photos And The Disturbing History Behind Them appeared first on All That's Interesting.

Public DomainWilliam Poole, the 19th-century criminal known as “Bill the Butcher.”

New York City was a very different place in the mid-1800s.

It was the kind of city where an egotistical, knife-wielding pugilist could win a place in the hearts — and tabloids — of the masses. As the leader of the Bowery Boys street gang, Poole’s vicious exploits frequently appeared in local newspapers, earning him a reputation as a notorious figure in the city’s burgeoning criminal underworld.

However, Poole met his match in bare-knuckle boxing champion John Morrissey. While he beat Morrissey in a fight in 1854, the Irishman didn’t go down quietly. It’s widely believed that he ordered his cronies to shoot Poole in a saloon several months after their brawl.

Bill the Butcher clung to life for nearly two weeks after the incident, but he took his final breath on March 8, 1855, bringing an end to the reign of one of early New York City’s most infamous criminals.

William Poole, The Brutal Son Of A Butcher

It should be noted that Bill the Butcher’s history is steeped in lore and stories that may or may not be true. Many of his major life events — including his fights and his murder — have yielded conflicting accounts.

What we do know is that William Poole was born on July 24, 1821, in northern New Jersey. His father was a butcher, and the family moved to New York City when Poole was around 11 to open a shop in Washington Market in Lower Manhattan. Poole ultimately took over his father’s trade, but he also joined a local volunteer fire company.

Public DomainA 19th-century butcher, often misidentified as Bill the Butcher.

In the 1840s, these fire departments were closely linked to street gangs who battled over which company could extinguish a blaze first. This sometimes resulted in buildings burning to the ground, as the firefighters were too busy fighting in the streets to put out the flames.

It was during his time with the fire company that Poole started the Washington Street Gang, which would ultimately transform into the Bowery Boys. It was also during this time that he earned the nickname “Bill the Butcher.”

Bill the Butcher was six feet tall and weighed 200 pounds, a fearsome figure in the streets of New York at the time. He was also tempestuous. According to his obituary in The New York Times, William Poole was known as a “habitual ‘rough-and-tumbler.'”

Public DomainBill the Butcher on a boxer profile card from a box of cigarettes. Circa 1880s.

“He was a fighter, ready for action on all occasions when he fancied he had been insulted,” wrote the Times. “And while his manners, when he was not aroused, were generally marked with much politeness, his spirit was haughty and overbearing… He could not brook an insolent remark from one who thought himself as strong as he.”

Poole’s dirty fighting style made him widely admired as one of the best pugilists in the country. He was reportedly particularly keen on gouging out his opponents’ eyes, and he was known to be very skilled with knives due to his line of work.

But it was Bill the Butcher’s role with the Bowery Boys that truly secured his spot in history.

The Rise Of Bill The Butcher

The Bowery Boys were a nativist, anti-Catholic, anti-Irish gang in antebellum Manhattan. They were associated with the xenophobic, pro-Protestant Know Nothing political movement, which flourished in New York in the 1840s and ’50s.

Public DomainA depiction of a Bowery Boy from the 1850s.

The public face of this movement was the American Party, which maintained that the droves of Irish immigrants fleeing famine for the United States would ruin America’s democratic and Protestant values.

Poole, for his part, became a lead “shoulder-hitter,” enforcing the nativists’ rule at the ballot box. He and other Bowery Boys would engage in frequent street fights and riots with their Irish rivals, like the Dead Rabbits.

But Bill the Butcher’s archnemesis was John “Old Smoke” Morrissey, an Irish immigrant and bare-knuckle boxer who won a heavyweight title in 1853.

Public DomainJohn Morrissey, the Irish boxer who was Bill the Butcher’s main rival.

A decade younger than Poole, Morrissey was a prominent shoulder-hitter for the Tammany Hall political machine that ran the Democratic Party in New York City. Tammany Hall was pro-immigrant; by the mid-19th century, many of its leaders were Irish-American.

Both Poole and Morrissey were arrogant, violent, and bold, but they occupied different sides of the political coin. Partisan differences and bigotry aside, a deadly conflict between them seemed inevitable due to their inflated egos. And indeed, their rivalry came to a head in late July 1854 when the two crossed paths at the City Hotel.

The Dirty Fight Between Bill The Butcher And John Morrissey

As reported by Daily Evening Star at the time, Morrissey approached Poole at the hotel on the night of July 27 and boasted, “You dare not fight me for $100 — name your place and time.”

Poole set the terms: 7 a.m. the following morning at the Amos Street Docks. At daybreak, Poole arrived in his rowboat, met by hundreds of people clawing for some entertainment on a Friday morning.

Old Smoke and Bill the Butcher circled each other for 30 seconds until Morrissey thrust his left fist forward. Poole ducked, seized his enemy by the waist, and threw him to the ground.

Rischgitz/Getty ImagesA mid-19th-century bare-knuckle brawl.

Bill the Butcher then fought as dirty as one might imagine. Atop Morrissey, he bit, tore, scratched, kicked, and punched until Morrissey shouted, “Enough!” According to the Evening Star, he was so badly disfigured that “he was scarce recognized by his friends.” Morrissey was then shuttled away while his opponent enjoyed a toast and absconded on his rowboat.

Some accounts hold that Poole’s supporters attacked Morrissey during the fight, thus giving Bill the Butcher a cheated victory. Others maintained that Poole was the only one who touched Morrissey. We’ll never know the truth.

Either way, Morrissey was a bloody mess. He retreated to lick his wounds — and to plot his revenge.

‘I Die A True American’

Poole and Morrissey met again several months later, according to a February 1855 report in the New York Daily Tribune. Around 10 p.m., Morrissey was at Stanwix Hall, a saloon on Broadway, when Poole entered. Morrissey cursed at him, and a small scuffle broke out.

Morrissey was removed from the saloon by police officers, but a few hours later, several of Morrissey’s cronies showed up at Stanwix Hall. The group included Jim Turner and Lewis Baker, who were both enforcers for Tammany Hall.

Chaos erupted. As the Tribune reported:

“Turner advanced, pistol in hand, when Poole said, ‘Don’t murder me!’ Turner then fired at Poole, hit him in the knee, and Poole fell instantly. Baker then jumped upon him, and drawing a six-barreled revolver, said, with an oath, ‘Now I have you, and will put you out of the way.’ He then fired in quick succession twice at the prostrate man — the balls entering his left breast near the region of the heart.”

Bill the Butcher didn’t die immediately. He suffered for 11 days before succumbing to his wounds on March 8, 1855, at age 33. His last words were reportedly: “Goodbye, boys; I die a true American.”

Thousands of people attended Poole’s funeral at Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn. The murder had made quite a stir, and fellow nativists saw Poole as an honorable martyr to their cause.

The New York Herald dryly commented, “Public honors on a most magnificent scale were paid to the memory of a pugilist — a man whose past life has in it much to condemn and very little to commend.”

Public DomainAn 1874 illustration of the murder of William Poole.

After a manhunt, Poole’s murderers were arrested, but their trials ended in hung juries. Morrissey went on to serve as a New York state senator and a member of the U.S. House of Representatives.

Today, Bill the Butcher is mostly remembered by the portrayel of Daniel Day-Lewis in Gangs of New York. The film is loyal to the spirit of the real Bill the Butcher — his cantankerousness, his charisma, his xenophobia — but diverges from historical fact in other aspects. For instance, while Poole’s character is 47 years old in the film, the real Bill the Butcher died at age 33.

In such a short time, he ensured his name would be remembered in infamy for generations to come.

After reading about William Poole, the real-life “Bill the Butcher,” check out these 44 colorized vintage photos of New York City. Then, look through New York’s gangs through the centuries.

The post Bill The Butcher, The Gangster Who Terrorized The Streets Of Mid-1800s New York City With The Bowery Boys appeared first on All That's Interesting.

By the end of what has become known as the Mỹ Lai massacre, the Vietnamese government estimates that American soldiers killed at least 504 people, mainly women and children.

The troops also burned the village and Sơn Mỹ’s surrounding hamlets to the ground and slaughtered the livestock.

U.S. ArmyHugh Thompson in his Army uniform, c. 1966.

And the Army company only stopped because Thompson literally put himself between the soldiers and the civilians — and threatened to shoot them if they didn’t end the killings.

But despite Thompson’s heroic actions, the Army tried to cover up the massacre. And when Hugh Thompson testified against William Calley, the officer who ordered the massacre, Thompson received death threats.

Why An Army Officer Ordered The Mass Killing Of Civilians In Vietnam

The Mỹ Lai massacre started when the U.S. Army declared everyone in a broad region of Vietnam either part of the Viet Cong or sympathizers. Charlie Company arrived in Mỹ Lai with orders to destroy the village.

On the morning of March 16, 1968, the people of Mỹ Lai were making breakfast when soldiers stormed in.

U.S. ArmyWilliam Calley, the officer who ordered the slaughter at Mỹ Lai.

William Calley, the officer in charge of Charlie Company, ordered American soldiers to round up the villagers and open fire. As children ran for safety, soldiers gunned them down.

“I saw them shoot an M79 [grenade launcher] into a group of people who were still alive,” said Sgt. Michael Bernhardt, who was at Mỹ Lai. “But it was mostly done with a machine gun. They were shooting women and children just like anybody else.”

The villagers offered no resistance as U.S. soldiers shoved them into a ditch and opened fire with machine guns.

While the massacre took place, helicopter pilot Hugh Thompson and his crew flew over the jungle, offering air support.

“We kept flying back and forth,” Thompson recalled, “and it didn’t take very long until we started noticing the large number of bodies everywhere. Everywhere we’d look, we’d see bodies. These were infants, two-, three-, four-, five-year-olds, women, very old men, no draft-age people whatsoever.”

From the air, Thompson and his two-person crew quickly realized American soldiers were slaughtering innocent civilians.

“We started thinking what might have happened, but you didn’t want to accept that thought,” Thompson said in a 2000 interview, “because if you accepted it, that means your own fellow Americans, people you were there to protect, were doing something very evil.”

How Hugh Thompson Stopped The Mỹ Lai Massacre

From his helicopter, Hugh Thompson could not communicate with Charlie Company on the ground.

“When Hugh realized it was our people doing this killing, he knew he had to take drastic measures,” recalled Larry Colburn, a gunner on Thompson’s crew.

Thompson landed his helicopter next to a ditch that contained 150 people — many dead, but many others wounded and trying to escape. A sergeant stood by the ditch. Thompson ran over and said, “These are civilians, we got to help them out.”

Ronald L. Haeberle/U.S. ArmyThe bodies of massacred villagers at Mỹ Lai, as captured by a U.S. Army photographer.

The sergeant waited until Thompson left and then fired on the helpless civilians.

Furious, Hugh Thompson landed again, this time in front of a bunker where civilians were hiding. Nearby, a squad of soldiers approached with weapons drawn.

“These people are going to die,” Thompson said to his crew. “I’m not going to let this happen, we’ve got to do something. Are you guys with me?”

“To see people herded up like so many animals, marched into a ditch and machine-gunned?” Colburn said.

“I’d never seen nor heard of anything like that before, except in World War II. Hugh told me that was what was going through his mind, he was thinking of Nazi Germany, people digging trenches, forced to march into those trenches, mass graves.”

Thompson and his crew stood in front of the bunker, protecting the civilians. The squad leader ordered Thompson and his men to get out of the way.

Thompson told his crew, “I’m going to go over to the bunker myself and get these people out. If they fire on these people, or fire on me while I’m doing that, shoot ’em!”

Thompson and his crew managed to evacuate the civilians and stop the massacre. Back at the base, Thompson threw his flight helmet on the ground. “I’ll never fly again,” he vowed.

“This is not what I’m here for. This is not how this military organization is supposed to conduct operations. I’ll have no part of this, I’ll tear these wings off and never fly again!”

And when Thomson reported the horrific actions, the Army tried to cover up the Mỹ Lai massacre.

Hugh Thompson’s Testimony Against The Culprits Of The Mỹ Lai Massacre

Hugh Thompson reported the massacre to his commanding officer. Then he assumed the Army initiated an investigation. Instead, the Army hid the slaughter of hundreds of innocent people, including 182 women and 173 children. Among those numbers were 17 pregnant women and 56 infants.

The truth of the Mỹ Lai massacre did not come out until a year and a half later when a soldier who had seen reports on the massacre contacted a journalist.

Finally, the Army launched an inquiry. They interviewed Hugh Thompson and his crew, and they recommended charging 28 officers for the massacre and coverup.

Bettmann/Getty ImagesHugh Thompson on his way to testify against William Calley on November 23, 1970.

In November 1970, the Mỹ Lai trials started and Hugh Thompson testified against William Calley. But many in the Army — and the public — supported Calley over Thompson. The hero received death threats for speaking out about the massacre.

“It was denial on the part of the public,” said Colburn. “Hell, I didn’t want to believe it, either, but I had no choice because I saw it.”

Calley was the only person found guilty out of the 14 charged. He received a life sentence in 1971 for premeditated murder — which was later reduced to 10 years. Calley was paroled just three years later, in 1974, after Richard Nixon commuted his sentence.

After the trial, Hugh Thompson received death threats.

“I’d received death threats over the phone,” Thompson said in 2004. “Dead animals on your porch, mutilated animals on your porch some mornings when you get up. So I was not a good guy.”

HOANG DINH NAM/AFP via Getty ImagesHugh Thompson returned to Mỹ Lai in 1998 and met some of the people he saved. Thompson spent the rest of his life wondering if he could have saved more lives.

Thompson left the Army in 1983 and became a private helicopter pilot in the South. And although he lived with post-traumatic stress disorder, alcoholism, and nightmare disorder for decades, he eventually became a veterans’ counselor for the Louisiana Department of Veterans Affairs.

Then, in 1998, the Army awarded him the Soldier’s Medal for heroism. And on the 30th anniversary of the massacre, Hugh Thompson returned to Mỹ Lai.

“One of the ladies that we had helped out that day came up to me and asked, ‘Why didn’t the people who committed these acts come back with you?'” Thompson recalled.

“And I was just devastated. And then she finished her sentence: she said, ‘So we could forgive them.'”

After learning about the heroism of Hugh Thompson Jr. during the Mỹ Lai Massacre, read about the Gulf of Tonkin incident that started the Vietnam War. Then, take a look through these declassified Vietnam War photos.

The post Meet Hugh Thompson, The Hero Who Stopped The Mỹ Lai Massacre — And Was Branded A Traitor For It appeared first on All That's Interesting.

Chernobyl today is indeed a place long since abandoned, yet it is still full of relics of its past. Pripyat, the town forged next to the nuclear plant, was meant to be a model nuclear city, a testament to Soviet strength and ingenuity.

Now it's known only as the Chernobyl exclusion zone, forcibly devoid of humans and since retaken by animals and nature itself.

As documentarian Danny Cooke said upon taking footage of the area just a few years ago, "There was something serene, yet highly disturbing about this place. Time has stood still and there are memories of past happenings floating around us."

Welcome to Chernobyl today, an empty shell haunted by its disastrous past.

How The Chernobyl Disaster Unfolded

SHONE/GAMMA/Gamma-Rapho via Getty ImagesView of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant after the explosion on April 26, 1986.

The trouble started on the evening of April 25, 1986. Several technicians began running an experiment that started with a series of small mistakes which compounded into a cataclysmic disaster.

They wanted to see if they could run reactor Number 4 on very low power so they shut off both the power-regulating and emergency safety systems. But with the system running at such a low power setting, the nuclear reaction inside became unstable and, just after 1:00 a.m. on April 26, there was an explosion.

A large fireball soon burst through the reactor lid and huge amounts of radioactive material were unleashed. Some 50 tons of highly hazardous material shot into the atmosphere and drifted far and wide via air currents while the fire ravaged the plant below.

IGOR KOSTIN, SYGMA/CORBIS"Liquidators" preparing for cleanup, 1986.

Emergency workers toiled inside the deadly reactor while officials organized an evacuation of the surrounding area — albeit one that didn't take effect until the following day due to poor communication and an attempted cover-up of the cause. That cover-up saw Soviet authorities attempt to flat-out hide the disaster until the government of Sweden — which had detected high levels of radiation all the way within their own borders — inquired and effectively pushed the Soviets to come clean on April 28.

By then, some 100,000 people were being evacuated, the Soviets made an official announcement, and the world was now aware of what had quickly become the worst nuclear disaster in history. And the mistakes and mismanagement that both caused the disaster and compounded that disaster in the immediate aftermath left Chernobyl in ruins.

Workers risked their lives in those ruins for more than a week afterward to eventually contain the fire, bury the mountains of radioactive debris, and enclose the reactor inside a concrete and steel sarcophagus. Dozens of people died horribly in the process, but the plant was contained.

The lingering effects, however, had only begun to reveal themselves and shape Chernobyl today.

A Nuclear Ghost Town

The levels of radioactivity inside Chernobyl after the disaster were far too great for any human to stand. Dozens of emergency workers become seriously ill due to the radiation and, over the course of years afterward, untold thousands would follow in their footsteps.

The disaster had released several times more radioactive material into the air than Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined (with harmful radiation drifting as far away as France and Italy). Millions of acres of surrounding forests and farmlands were crippled and anyone even close to ground zero was in serious danger.

So Chernobyl was left all but abandoned. The Chernobyl exclusion zone, encompassing 19 miles around the plant in all directions, soon became a ghost town with buildings left to rot and almost all humans fleeing for their lives.

Surprisingly, perhaps, the other reactors of the plant were soon able to remain online, with the last one even staying operational until 2000. With that, Chernobyl became more of a ghost town than ever — though it has since entered an unexpected new chapter in the years since. Indeed, Chernobyl today perhaps isn't quite what you'd imagine.

The State Of Chernobyl Today

While Chernobyl today is indeed a kind of ghost town, there are various signs of life and recovery that say a lot about its past and its future.

For one, even in the immediate aftermath of the disaster, some 1,200 natives simply refused to leave their home. The government was able to forcibly get most everyone out but, over time and as people who were kicked out just kept illegally returning, authorities eventually resigned themselves to the inevitable: Some people just wouldn't be kicked out.

Over the years since the disaster, the number of those who've stayed has decreased but has remained in the hundreds and there are likely still well over a hundred people in Chernobyl today (estimates vary).

SERGEI SUPINSKY/AFP/Getty ImagesMykola Kovalenko, a 73-year-old resident of the exclusion zone, poses near his homemade tractor.

And, lingering health risks aside, it's apparently not quite the apocalyptic wasteland one might expect. As Hamburg Museum of Art photography expert Esther Ruelfs said about Russian photographer Andrej Krementschouk's images captured inside Chernobyl in recent years:

"We look onto a tranquil, peaceful world, a positively paradise-like, apparently pre-industrial idyll. Humans live in close symbiosis with animals, slaughtering takes place at home, apples ripen on the windowsill."

But Chernobyl today is of course not simply bucolic at all. The ever-present effects of the disaster, even after 30 years, are stark and unmissable.

"The water in the calm stretch of river is black as ink," said Ruelfs. "And the toxic yellow of the water in a big pool where children are playing likewise acts as a dire warning of the doom lurking just behind the beatific calm."

Nevertheless, dozens upon dozens of residents remain in Chernobyl today — along with those who sneak in to carry out illegal activities like poaching and logging, the researchers and journalists who get special permission to temporarily visit the area, the tourists who likewise have some limited access, and the recovery workers still toiling away after all these years.

VIKTOR DRACHEV/AFP/Getty ImagesWild horses walk the fields as a worker of the Belarussian radiation ecology reserve measures the level of radiation inside the exclusion zone.

And the humans aren't all that's left in Chernobyl today. Animals — from horses to foxes to dogs and beyond — have begun to flourish in this abandoned area with no humans to keep them in check.

Despite high radiation levels in the area, wildlife populations are free to grow in the absence of human hunting, territory encroachment, and other interference. Experts disagree on the extent to which any populations can weather the radiation in the long run, but for now, the animals are thriving.

Nearly four decades after such an apocalyptic event, life in Chernobyl today has found a way.

Enjoy this haunting look at what Chernobyl looks like today? Check out our posts on beautiful abandoned structures and photographs of abandoned Detroit.

The post What Does Chernobyl Look Like Now? Inside The Disaster Zone In Northern Ukraine appeared first on All That's Interesting.

Hulton Archive/Getty ImagesTo this day, questions remains about how Frida Kahlo died. Though Kahlo’s official cause of death was pulmonary embolism, some are convinced that the real cause was covered up.

Frida Kahlo’s personal style and distinct artwork have made her one of the most recognizable artists of the 20th century. Kahlo’s art deftly blended her personal reflections and her deepest insecurities with a vivid and surreal imagination. But tragically, Frida Kahlo died young on July 13, 1954, at the age of just 47.

Frida Kahlo’s cause of death was officially listed as pulmonary embolism, but no autopsy was performed — and some suspect she died from an overdose. As with many famous figures, conspiracy theories around Frida Kahlo’s death quickly accumulated, fascinating the public almost as much as her life.

This is the true story of how Frida Kahlo died.

Inside Frida Kahlo’s Celebrated Career

Getty ImagesA young Frida Kahlo as she paints one of her earliest pieces.

Frida Kahlo was born as Magdalena Carmen Frieda Kahlo y Calderón on July 6, 1907. She had a comfortable upbringing in Mexico as the third of four daughters.

Her mother, Matilde Calderón, was a devout Catholic of mixed Indigenous and Spanish heritage. Her father, Guillermo Kahlo, was a German immigrant. Frida Kahlo shared an incredibly close bond with her father who readily encouraged her creativity — including her penchant for photography and gender-bending fashion.

At six, Frida Kahlo was diagnosed with polio. The disease withered her right leg and stunted her right foot, but she still enjoyed a fairly active life through sports, until a terrible accident that occurred when she was 18.

A bus collided with a streetcar and Kahlo was impaled by a steel handrail during the crash. The rail went straight through her body near her hip resulting in horrendous physical injuries. Her spine and pelvis were shattered.

In her grueling recovery, she was unable to sit up straight for months and was required to wear a stabilizing corset made out of hard plaster.

“I paint self-portraits because I am so often alone, because I am the person I know best.”

Although she was eventually able to walk again, the severe injuries Kahlo sustained impacted her for the rest of her life. The physical and emotional toll of the accident heavily influenced her art.

Other influences in Kahlo’s work include her mother’s native background — evident in the Indigenous elements infused within her paintings — and her turbulent marriage with Diego Rivera, the famed Mexican muralist who was 20 years her senior.

Wallace Marly/Hulton Archive/Getty ImagesFrida Kahlo’s tumultuous relationship with the famous Mexican muralist Diego Rivera influenced much of her art.

Their famous relationship was strained by their strong personalities, rampant infidelities, and issues of infertility — possibly a result of Kahlo’s extreme injuries. During their marriage, Kahlo had affairs with Leon Trotsky, Josephine Baker, and Georgia O’Keefe.

The couple met in 1928 and were married the next year. Though the two divorced in 1939, they reconciled and remarried in 1940 and remained together until Frida Kahlo’s death.

During her life, Frida Kahlo produced an estimated 200 paintings using her distinct style of natural surrealism. Among her most esteemed works are The Two Fridas (1939), Self-Portrait With Thorn Necklace and Hummingbird (1940), and Broken Column (1944), all of which are self-portraits.

“The only reason I go on living is to paint and to love,” she once said. Despite her fragile health, Kahlo produced incredible artwork and continued her involvement in political causes up until her death.

How Did Frida Kahlo Die?

Getty Images“I don’t paint dreams or nightmares, I paint my own reality,” Kahlo said of her unique surrealist style.

In 1953, Kahlo’s leg was amputated from the knee down due to complications from one of her countless surgeries. Her health worsened as she aged — and Kahlo’s heavy use of pain medication and drinking habits didn’t help.

Kahlo’s health declined rapidly during her last days. Hints of her fading vitality are reflected in her final painting Self-Portrait Inside a Sunflower (1954) which lacks the meticulous brushstrokes that typically distinguish her work.

Yet Kahlo remained active up until the end. A few days before her death, Kahlo mustered the strength to attend a rally in her wheelchair to protest the CIA-backed coup d’état against the democratically-elected Guatemalan President Jacobo Árbenz. Shortly after the rally, on July 13, 1954, Kahlo died at the age of 47.

How did Frida Kahlo die? Although a pulmonary embolism was listed as the official cause of Frida Kahlo’s death, suspicions remain. The lack of a proper autopsy and a rushed cremation created intense skepticism surrounding her true cause of death.

Some suspect the artist actually died of a suicide from overdosing. The suicide theory is further fueled by a diary entry she wrote in which she confessed frustration over her deteriorating health, punctuated with a drawing of a black angel. The entry was dated a few days before her death:

“They amputated my leg six months ago, they have given me centuries of torture and at moments I almost lost my reason. I keep on waiting to kill myself. I hope the exit is joyful and I hope never to come back.”

Those who believe that suicide was the cause of Frida Kahlo’s death point to the fact that Kahlo, known for her immense zest for life, was struggling at the end.

“She was unable to paint as before…she was not able to hold her paintbrush steady enough or long enough to finish it. So she destroyed her own creation, and with it she took her own life,” wrote playwright Odalys Nanin.

The mystery of the cause of Kahlo’s death inspired Nanin — who, as a queer Mexican artist, feels a kinship with Kahlo — to write the play Frida: Stroke of Passion which premiered in February 2020. Nanin’s show centers around Kahlo’s eccentric life and the uncertainty of her death.

“I explored her pain, fears, and lovers, her fervor for Diego Rivera and her paintings. But most of all I revealed the cover-up behind her death,” Nanin wrote of the play.

Still, such theories remain only suspicions.

After Frida Kahlo’s Death, Her Artistic Legacy Lives On

Dan Brinzac/New York Post Archives /(c) NYP Holdings, Inc. via Getty Images“I recommend her to you, not as a husband but as an enthusiastic admirer of her work, acid and tender, hard as steel and delicate and fine as a butterfly’s wing,” Diego Rivera once wrote to a friend.

Frida Kahlo’s bold surrealism conveyed her deepest insecurities — including her inability to conceive a child, the paralyzing pain from her disability, and her queerness — and was considered groundbreaking work. Perhaps this is why her work continues to resonate after her mysterious death.

Kahlo’s enchanting artwork has also found its way into 21st-century pop culture. Her distinct style and unibrow, which she intentionally kept ungroomed to challenge perceptions of femininity, adorn various commercial items from serving plates to pillowcases. The 2002 film Frida starring Mexican actress Salma Hayek was an international box office success.

IMDBThe 2002 film Frida starring Salma Hayek is just one of the many ways the artist’s life and work have been immortalized.

The adoration Frida Kahlo’s work receives today is something that many artists deeply desire themselves. But when does adoration turn into commodification?

The obsession around Kahlo’s image has spawned discussions around the artist’s legacy which some argue has been spun into an egregious form of capitalism — a system that Kahlo opposed during her life.

How Frida Kahlo died remains a mystery. But it’s clear that while alive, she created an impressive body of work, so uniquely her own, that will never be forgotten.

After this look at how Frida Kahlo died, hear Frida Kahlo’s voice in what is believed to be the only known audio recording of her speaking. Then, see captivating photos of Frida Kahlo’s life.

The post How Did Frida Kahlo Die? Why The Renowned Artist’s Death Remains Shrouded In Mystery appeared first on All That's Interesting.

Sethapanichsakul et al., Scientific Reports (2026)An artist’s rendition of Nagatitan Chaiyaphumensis, a massive sauropod that lived 113 million years ago.

In 2016, a man named Thanom Luangnan spotted some odd rocks on the shore of a pond in Thailand’s Chaiyaphum Province. Paleontologists excavated the site — and soon realized that Luangnan had discovered the largest dinosaur ever found in Southeast Asia.

The newly-identified species, dubbed Nagatitan chaiyaphumensis, was a long-necked sauropod that roamed Thailand around 113 million years ago. While the dinosaur isn’t the largest known sauropod, its size is revealing how prehistoric changes in climate and vegetation set the stage for even more massive beasts to develop.

The Discovery Of Nagatitan Chaiyaphumensis

As Sita Manitkoon, a paleontologist at Thailand’s Mahasarakham University, told National Geographic, the fossilized remains of Nagatitan chaiyaphumensis were discovered by chance when Thanom Luangnan stumbled upon them in 2016.

“He observed what he described as strange-looking rocks on the banks of a public pond,” said Manitkoon. Luangnan reported his find to the Department of Mineral Resources, and paleontologists soon began excavating the site. The initial dig took place between 2016 and 2019, but it was then delayed until 2024 due to a lack of funding. When scientists finally uncovered the last of the fossils, they were stunned by what they saw.

“Initial measurements of the bones excavated suggested that this could be the largest dinosaur ever found in Southeast Asia,” Manitkoon said.

The colossal prehistoric creature was named after the Naga — a legendary giant serpent from Southeast Asian folklore — and the Titans of Greek mythology, in addition to the region where its remains were unearthed.

While paleontologists didn’t find the full skeleton of Nagatitan chaiyaphumensis, they did unearth enough vertebrae, ribs, and hip and limb bones (one of which was nearly six feet long) to estimate that this sauropod was more than 88 feet long and weighed 30 tons — three times more than a Tyrannosaurus rex.

Thitiwoot Sethapanichsakul/University College LondonLead author Thitiwoot Sethapanichsakul stands next to a replica of the upper front leg bone of Nagatitan.

These findings were recently released in a study published in the journal Scientific Reports. In a statement released by University College London, lead study author Thitiwoot Sethapanichsakul, a Thai doctoral student at the university, explained, “We refer to Nagatitan as ‘the last titan’ of Thailand. That is because it was discovered in Thailand’s youngest dinosaur-bearing rock formation.”

Sethapanichsakul continued, “Younger rocks laid down towards the end of the time of the dinosaurs are unlikely to contain dinosaur remains because the region by then had become a shallow sea. So this may be the last or most recent large sauropod we will find in Southeast Asia.”

At the same time, Nagatitan is revealing more about how exactly dinosaurs grew so large during the Cretaceous Period.

How Prehistoric Environmental Changes Led To Supersized Beasts

As Sethapanichsakul told NPR, “One of the many features that we’re kind of excited about is the size of this dinosaur… It gives us an understanding of the potential kind of evolutionary trends that are beginning to occur.”

The Nagatitan fossils were found in rocks that dated back 113 million years. At that time, Thailand was closer to the equator and likely covered in open, dry shrublands that were conducive to large sauropods, which could easily travel across the land to eat plants.

“Savannah-like ecosystems are known to favor the development of megaherbivore faunas,” Pedro Mocho, a paleontologist at Portugal’s Universidade de Lisboa, told National Geographic, “and it would not be surprising if environmental factors were related to sauropod gigantism.”

Mahasarakham University Thailand/FacebookThitiwoot Sethapanichsakul and Sita Manitkoon examine the bones of Nagatitan.

It’s seemingly counterintuitive that large creatures like Nagatitan could survive in such high temperatures, but their long necks actually provided more surface area through which they could shed heat and cool their bodies. Indeed, even larger sauropods — like Patagotitan mayorum — developed under similar conditions later in the Cretaceous Period.

“In the Middle Cretaceous,” Sethapanichsakul told NPR, “we find dinosaurs in China, South America, and probably Africa that are super giants. They are the biggest of the biggest.” And Nagatitan “essentially represents that kind of on-ramp towards that kind of supersizing.”

While this study has obvious scientific significance, it also marks a key milestone in Sethapanichsakul’s career. “I’ve always been a dinosaur kid,” he said. “This study doesn’t just establish a new species but also fulfills a childhood promise of naming a dinosaur.”

After reading about the discovery of the largest dinosaur ever found in Southeast Asia, learn 31 surprising facts about dinosaurs. Then, step into another moment in Thailand’s history: the 2018 cave rescue.

The post Paleontologists In Thailand Just Revealed The Nagatitan, An 88-Foot Behemoth That’s The Largest Dinosaur Ever Found In Southeast Asia appeared first on All That's Interesting.

German Federal ArchivesIn their quest for total elimination of Jews, the Nazis carried out a mass pillaging operation to seize every item that once belonged to a Jewish person.

After the Nazi invasion across Europe forced Jewish people out of their homes, a systematic operation called Möbel Aktion or “Furniture Operation” set about looting thousands of personal possessions from their abandoned houses and apartments.

The seizure of these everyday items such as linens, photo frames, and even saucepans may appear banal on the surface. But it was all part of a deliberate Nazi plan to completely eliminate the Jewish population.

They gutted Jewish homes and stole every last household item in an attempt to make it appear as if the Jewish owners of these objects never existed in the first place. And they didn’t just steal these objects — they also forced Jewish prisoners to sell them.

Nazi officers could browse these stolen goods for themselves at the four-story Parisian department store Lévitan. The famous storefront not only served as an “exhibit” for these plunders, but it was also a Nazi labor camp housing hundreds of Jewish prisoners.

‘Furniture Operation’ Of The Nazis

German Federal ArchivesA staged furniture setup made of household furnishings looted from Jewish families.

A key component to the capture, torture, and mass killing of the Jewish population by the Nazis during World War II was the seizure of artwork and valuables.

The looting was carried out under the name Möbel Aktion or ‘Furniture Operation’ and it was exactly what it sounds like: a methodical and widespread operation to take all items found in the emptied dwellings of Jewish residents, who were either kidnapped to labor camps or had fled for their lives.

German Federal ArchivesGoods that were considered of higher value like fine linens and porcelain were kept for the Nazi officers in charge of the looting operations.

More than 70,000 dwellings across Europe were abandoned with belongings still inside ripe for looting. In France alone, 76,000 Jewish people were deported and less than a third of them ever made it back after the war. Roughly 38,000 Parisian apartments were emptied out by the Nazis.

They stripped every residence formerly occupied by Jews and transported the stolen goods, ranging from dishware and tools to cabinets and clocks. A number of warehouses were converted into work camps where hundreds of prisoners were forced to go through the mass of plundered goods. Some prisoners in these camps even came across their own stolen items.

German Federal ArchivesUnlike some of the pricey art stolen by the Nazis, these household goods remain lost to time. Some may even be sitting in plain sight in houses across Europe.

The stolen goods were divided into two categories: personal belongings and damaged items, which were set on fire at a daily bonfire on Quai de la Gare by the Germans, and things deemed fit to sell, which were sorted into categories and distributed across Nazi territories.

Lévitan, a famous four-story Parisian department store that once sold furniture, was taken over during the Nazi occupation of Paris. The storefront was converted into a labor camp where nearly 800 Jewish prisoners were detained and forced to organize and repair plundered goods under the Möbel Aktion.

Plundered Possessions At Lévitan

German Federal ArchivesRoughly 800 Jewish men and women were forced to work at the Lévitan labor camp.

Before it was occupied by Nazis, Lévitan had been a giant furniture shop owned by a Jewish entrepreneur named Wolf Lévitan.

The shop became a hub for processing and showcasing stolen goods during the war. Officers browsed and picked out looted items to send home to their families as if they were shopping for manufactured goods at IKEA.

The “staff” at Lévitan were Jewish prisoners transferred from the Drancy internment camp just outside Paris, and many of them were later sent to Auschwitz.

German Federal ArchivesA Jewish prisoner assembles packets of goods at Lévitan.

The first three stories of the Lévitan building were used as showrooms for the Nazi’s stolen goods while the top floor was the prison where Jewish laborers ate and slept. Jewish prisoners at the Lévitan labor camp who had vocational skills in sewing or handiwork were tasked with repairing items that were slightly damaged.

The items “sold” at Lévitan were of little value; cheap items that could easily be purchased at any regular store, unlike the priceless artworks that were also famously plundered by the Nazis across Europe. But the banality of Möbel Aktion was very much the point.

German Federal ArchivesThe stolen goods were stripped of their Jewish owners’ identities, rendering them meaningless as a way to eliminate even the memory of the Jewish population.

As noted by sociologist and author of Witnessing the Robbing of the Jews: A Photographic Album, Paris, 1940-1944 Sarah Gensburger, some of Hitler’s closest confidantes including Hermann Göring questioned the operation due to the cost of seizing and transporting millions of common objects. But it carried on anyway.

“If the project endured nonetheless,” Gensburger posits, “it’s because one of its fundamental objectives was to destroy all trace of the Jews’ very existence.”

German Federal ArchivesJewish prisoners with sewing and handiwork skills were tasked to repair items that were slightly damaged.

Not much about the Furniture Operation was left after the war, except an album of 85 photographs documenting the stolen goods that were “resold” at Lévitan.

The album was recovered by a member of the special task force called the Monuments Men, who were tasked to recover art pieces looted by the Nazis. The album of rare photographs is now kept in the German Federal Archives in Koblenz, Germany.

Although the objects sold at Lévitan may not have been as valuable as the priceless artworks that were also stolen by the Nazis, they nevertheless depict the magnitude of the lives that were stolen under Hitler’s regime.

Today, the former labor camp storefront still stands on Rue Faubourg Saint Martin. A small plaque on the building — now the office of an advertising agency — is the only trace of the atrocities that took place inside.

Now that you’ve read about the Nazis’ department store of stolen goods, learn about the tragic life of Czeslawa Kwoka, who died at the hands of the Nazis, though her powerful portrait at Auschwitz lives on. Then, check out the 75-year-old diary of an SS officer that could lead to 28 tons of stolen Nazi gold.

The post Inside Lévitan, The Nazi Department Store Where Jewish Prisoners Were Forced To Sell Their Own Belongings appeared first on All That's Interesting.

Ennis, who provided his father with endless material for jokes and helped inform the character of Theo Huxtable on The Cosby Show, was on vacation in L.A. when he got a flat tire. As he worked to change it, 18-year-old Mikhail Markhasev tried to rob him and shot him instead.

George SchoolEnnis Cosby lived with dyslexia until it was formally diagnosed when he was an undergraduate. From then on, he sought to help other students with learning disabilities.

In the tragic aftermath, The Cosby family lay the blame for his death in two places. Markhasev had pulled the trigger and ended Ennis’s life, they said, but American racism had fueled the deadly attack.

This is the story of the life and death of Ennis Cosby, the only son of the disgraced man once known as “America’s Dad.”

Growing Up As Bill Cosby’s Son

Archive Photos/Getty ImagesBill Cosby feeds one of his children in a high chair, c. 1965. Just like on The Cosby Show, Cosby had four daughters and one son.

Born on April 15, 1969, Ennis William Cosby was the apple of his father’s eye from the beginning. Bill Cosby, an established comedian, and his wife Camille already had two daughters — and Bill fervently hoped that his third child would be a boy.

Delighted to have a son, Bill frequently used his experiences with Ennis in his comedy routines. And when he co-created The Cosby Show, which ran from 1984 to 1992, Bill based the character of Theo Huxtable on his own son, Ennis Cosby.

According to The Los Angeles Times, Bill wove Ennis’s struggles with dyslexia into the show, depicting Theo Huxtable as a lackluster student who eventually overcame his learning disability.

That directly paralleled Ennis Cosby’s life. After being diagnosed with dyslexia, Cosby started taking special classes. His grades soared, and he went on to study at Morehouse College in Atlanta followed by the Teachers College at Columbia University in New York City.

Jacques M. Chenet/CORBIS/Corbis via Getty ImagesBill Cosby with Malcolm Jamal Warner, who played his TV son, Theo Huxtable, on The Cosby Show.

According to The Los Angeles Times, Bill Cosby’s son intended to get a doctorate in special education, with an emphasis in reading disabilities.

“I believe in chances, so I do not give up on people or children,” Ennis Cosby wrote in an essay, as reported by The Washington Post.

“I believe that if more teachers are aware of the signs of dyslexia and learning disabilities in the class, then fewer students like me will slip through the cracks.”

Cosby, handsome and athletic, also had his father’s sense of humor. Bill Cosby once happily related a story in which he told Ennis that he could have his dream Corvette if he got his grades up. According to Bill, Ennis responded, “Dad, what do you think about a Volkswagen?”

But tragically, Ennis Cosby’s life was cut short when he was just 27 years old.

The Tragic Murder Of Ennis Cosby

Howard Bingham/Morehouse CollegeEnnis Cosby was working toward his Ph.D. when he was shot and killed in Los Angeles.

In January 1997, Ennis Cosby flew to Los Angeles to visit friends. But around 1 a.m. on Jan. 16, he suddenly got a flat tire while driving his mother’s Mercedes SL convertible on Interstate 405 in the Bel Air neighborhood.

According to OK! magazine, Cosby called the woman he was seeing, Stephanie Crane, for help. She pulled up behind Cosby and tried to convince him to call a tow truck, but Ennis was adamant that he could change the tire himself. Then, as Crane sat in her car, a man approached her window.

His name was Mikhail Markhasev. An 18-year-old immigrant from Ukraine, Markhasev and his friends had been hanging out at a nearby park-and-ride lot when they saw Ennis and Crane’s cars. According to History, Markhasev was high when he approached the cars, hoping to rob them.

He went first to Crane’s car. Alarmed, she drove away. Then, he went to confront Ennis Cosby. But when he was too slow to hand over his money, Markhasev shot him in the head.

STR/AFP via Getty ImagesPolice investigate the scene where Ennis Cosby died. It took a tip from one his killer’s former friends to close the case.

The news struck the Cosby family — and the world — hard. “He was my hero,” a tearful Bill Cosby told television cameras. Meanwhile, CNN received significant criticism for airing footage of Ennis Cosby’s body lying on the side of the road.

But it took time — and a crucial tip — for police to track down Ennis Cosby’s killer. After the National Enquirer offered $100,000 for any information on Ennis Cosby’s death, a former friend of Markhasev’s named Christopher So reached out to the police.

According to the Associated Press, he accompanied Markhasev and another man as they looked for the gun Markhasev had used, then discarded, in Ennis Cosby’s murder. So told police that Markhasev had bragged, “I shot a nigger. It’s all over the news.”

Police arrested the 18-year-old in March and later found the gun he discarded, wrapped in a hat that contained DNA evidence pointing back to Markhasev. He was found guilty of first-degree murder in July 1998 and later sentenced to life in prison.

Though the Cosby family released no statement on Markhasev’s sentence, Ennis Cosby’s sister Erika did speak to reporters as they left the courtroom. According to The Washington Post, she was asked if she was relieved, to which she responded, “Yeah, finally.”

But in the years to come, Ennis Cosby’s death would strike his family as an open wound — in more ways than one.

Mikhail Markhasev’s Confession To His Racist Killing

After Mikhail Markhasev murdered Ennis Cosby, Cosby’s family struggled to make sense of the senseless tragedy. His mother, Camille, poignantly wrote an op-ed in USA Today in July 1998 that lay the blame for Ennis’s death at the feet of American racism.

Mike Nelson/AFP via Getty ImagesMikhail Markhasev was 18 when he shot and killed Ennis Cosby in Los Angeles.

“I believe America taught our son’s killer to hate African-Americans,” she wrote. “Presumably, Markhasev did not learn to hate black people in his native country, the Ukraine, where the black population was near zero.”

Camille added, “All African-Americans, regardless of their educational and economic accomplishments, have been and are at risk in America simply because of their skin colors. Sadly, my family and I experienced that to be one of America’s racial truths.”

Adding to the Cosby family’s pain was the fact that Mikhail Markhasev refused to accept the blame for Ennis Cosby’s death. Until 2001, he denied that he pulled the trigger. But in February of that year, Markhasev finally admitted his guilt and declared he would stop appealing his sentence.

According to ABC, he wrote, “Although my appeal is in its beginning stages, I don’t want to continue with it because it’s based on falsehood and deceit. I am guilty, and I want to do the right thing.”

Markhasev added, “More than anything, I want to apologize to the victim’s family. It is my duty as a Christian, and it’s the least I can do, after the great wickedness for which I am responsible.”

Today, decades after Ennis Cosby’s death, Bill Cosby’s life has changed dramatically. His star has fallen mightily since the 1990s, as multiple women have accused the comedian of sexual assault. Bill was found guilty of aggravated indecent assault in 2018 — before his conviction was overturned in 2021.

However, he seemed to have kept his son Ennis Cosby in his thoughts all the while. As the comedian prepared to go to trial in 2017, Bill acknowledged all his children in an Instagram post. He wrote:

“I love you Camille, Erika, Erin, Ensa & Evin — keep fighting in Spirit Ennis.”

After reading about Mikhail Markhasev’s murder of Ennis Cosby, go inside the shocking death of comedian John Candy. Or read about the tragic final days of Robin Williams’ life.

The post Inside The Tragic Murder Of Ennis Cosby, Bill Cosby’s Son Who Was Killed In Cold Blood appeared first on All That's Interesting.

In 1891, explorer Robert E. Peary outlined the eastern coast of Greenland and mapped a channel separating what he believed to be an island he called Peary Land from the mainland, allowing America to make a claim on the island. This led determined Danish sailors on a fatal voyage to dispute that claim in 1907 — and Ejnar Mikkelsen on a quest to find them.

Wikimedia CommonsEjnar Mikkelsen in 1907, two years before his fateful voyage to Greenland.

But in August 1909, Mikkelsen’s ship would get trapped in Arctic ice some 200 miles from where he believed his predecessors had died. According to his autobiography Two Against the Ice, Mikkelsen began the journey with six men but would be abandoned by all but one novice crewmate — and endured two winters in the Arctic.

Since adapted into the Netflix movie Against the Ice, the book attempted to convey some semblance of how harrowing the world of exploration in the early 1900s was. From frostbite and scurvy to predatory wildlife, Ejnar Mikkelsen and Iver Iversen endured terrifying hardship to survive.

The Seafaring Youth Of Ejnar Mikkelsen

Born on December 23, 1880, in Vester-Brønderslev, Denmark, Ejnar Mikkelsen gravitated to the seas since he was a child. Raised by generations that had risked their lives in treacherous expeditions, he grew up with tales of Arctic adventure and unprecedented discoveries. It soon became a lifelong passion to do the same.

Wikimedia CommonsFrom left to right: Ernest de Koven Leffingwell, Ejnar Mikkelsen, G.P. Howe, and Ejnar Ditlevsen in 1906.

Mikkelsen was only 14 years old when he set sail for the first time on his own. While invigorating, he would not be satisfied until he became a true sailor. In 1896, he purportedly walked 320 miles from Stockholm to Gothenburg to convince Swedish explorer Salomon August Andrée to take him on his Arctic balloon flight.

Ejnar Mikkelsen wouldn’t know it yet, but he was lucky to be rejected. Andrée’s perilous journey ended fatally in October 1897 when the hydrogen balloon failed to reach the North Pole, and all three of its passengers died. In 1900, however, Mikkelsen was welcomed aboard Sir George Carl Amdrup’s expedition to eastern Greenland.

Mikkelsen and four others, including U.S. geologist Ernest de Koven Leffingwell, ended the 500-mile trip in 1902 by surveying a famously inaccessible coastline for the first time. The following year, he served as the cartographer on Evelyn Baldwin’s expedition to Franz Josef Land, an Arctic archipelago used only by the Russian military today.

In 1906, Leffingwell’s father sponsored an Arctic expedition to map land that whalers had reportedly spotted in the Beaufort Sea north of Point Barrow, Alaska. With $5,000 and an engine-less schooner, they set out to find it — but were forced to stop at Flaxman Island 200 miles from their goal.

Ullstein Bild/Getty ImagesEjnar Mikkelsen during the the Anglo-American polar expedition of 1906-1907.

Fortuitously befriending the local Inuk Sachawachiak people, they learned how to drive dogs across the ice and set out in February 1907. After traversing 120 miles over 60 days, the duo believed the route fatal and returned — only to find their ship had sunk. While Leffingwell stayed behind to study the ice, Mikkelsen had other plans.

Taking his chances to make it back home, Mikkelsen trekked all 2,300 miles on sled and by foot. Passing through Point Barrow and Nome, he continued through Fairbanks, Valdez, and the Gulf of Alaska. His return heralded the arrival of a truly seasoned explorer — although Ejnar Mikkelsen’s biggest challenge was yet to come.

The Expedition To Recover Lost Maps In Greenland

The ill-fated Danmark expedition of 1907 saw Ludvig Mylius-Erichsen, Niels Peter Høeg-Hagen, and Jørgen Brønlund set out to prove that Greenland was a single unified island that belonged exclusively to Denmark.

Wikimedia CommonsEjnar Mikkelsen’s ship Alabama in the summer of 1909.

But in doing so, they relied on Robert E. Peary’s maps of northeast Greenland, which included the hypothetical “Peary Channel” dividing the region in two. Misled by the incomplete maps, even as they sought to disprove them, the men became lost in the Arctic and were soon trapped in the ice.

While Brønlund’s body was found in 1908 with his maps and diary, Mylius-Erichsen and Høeg-Hagen’s never were. As a Dane and fellow explorer, Ejnar Mikkelsen couldn’t decline when British newspaper magnate Lord Northcliffe offered to finance a 1909 expedition to locate them.

Patriotic to the core, however, Mikkelsen demanded that the trip be financed with Danish money. His government agreed to fund half the cost and let the public raise the rest. Mikkelsen chose a crew of six men and a 45-ton sloop named Alabama that ran on a 15-horsepower engine. It departed Copenhagen on June 20, 1909.

While Lieutenants Vilhelm Laub and C.H. Jørgensen, shipmates Hans P. Olsen and George Poulson, and carpenter Carl Unger were suited for the job, Mikkelsen’s mechanic turned out to be an incompetent alcoholic. En route to Greenland, the Alabama stopped in Iceland where a young mechanic named Iver Iversen volunteered to replace him.

Ullstein Bild/Getty ImagesEjnar Mikkelsen (left) and Iversen (right) were hailed as heroes when they finally returned to Copenhagen in 1912.

When they arrived in the Faroe Islands, the expedition suffered a setback. They had planned to board dogs that would allow them to drive across the ice in Greenland, but the animals they had contracted were infected with rabies. While they found replacements on Ammassalik Island, their arrival in Greenland was delayed until late August.

At the tail-end of summer, the wooden sloop became trapped in the ice of Shannon Island. On Aug. 27, 1909, Mikkelsen was forced to have his crew establish their quarters on land. Ominously, they were now 200 miles from the Danmarkshavn site where Mylius-Erichsen had reportedly wintered before dying.

On Sept. 25, Ejnar Mikkelsen and Iver Iversen set out while the rest of their crew stayed behind. After finding information that the other crew members had made it some 500 miles farther north, they returned to the Alabama for the winter, determined to set out the following spring.

How Ejnar Mikkelsen And Iver Iversen Battled Against The Ice

As chronicled in his 1913 book Lost in the Arctic, Ejnar Mikkelsen and Iver Iversen left the ship once again in March 1910. By May, they had found the diary of Mylius-Erichsen and confirmed that Peary Channel did not exist, however, their struggles had just begun.

Arktisk Institut/Public DomainEjnar Mikkelsen in 1912, shortly before he and Iver Iversen were rescued.

Summer had arrived, and the ice they had traversed by sled to get to the site was melting fast. It took them eight months to return to the ship. Along the way, they’d resorted to eating their sled dogs to survive and suffered daily hallucinations after the last of their dogs died.

When they finally made it back to the Alabama, they found they had been abandoned by their shipmates, who found passage home aboard a sealing vessel.

Ejnar Mikkelsen and Iver Iversen would be forced to endure two further winters in Greenland — surviving on abandoned rations from previous expeditions and evading predatory wildlife.

The explorers used their quarters on Shannon Island as long as they could, but it would prove insufficient for the long winter ahead. So they used timber and planking from Alabama wreckage to construct a small cottage. When it appeared as though all hope was lost, the two men were rescued on July 19, 1912, by Norwegian steamer Sjøblimsten.

Not dissuaded from adventure, the Danish explorer led an expedition to the Sermersooq municipality in eastern Greenland in 1924. Then, he settled what became one of the most remote inhabited places on Earth, which was henceforth known as Scoresbysund and had no more than 345 residents in 1920.

NetflixNikolaj Coster-Waldau (left) as Ejnar Mikkelsen in Two Against the Ice.

In 1932, he led a crew of eight on the “Second East-Greenland Expedition” to clarify the geological area between Cape Dalton and Kangerdlugsuak.

And wherever Mikkelsen went, he recounted his harrowing adventures in numerous books, one of which has now become a Netflix film about his winters stranded in Greenland. Called Against the Ice, the film stars Nicolaj Coster-Waldau as Mikkelsen and premieres March 2, 2022.

On Ejnar Mikkelsen’s 90th birthday in 1970, he was given a national tribute by the Danish government. He died mere months later, on May 1, 1971. With a Danish patrol vessel and Greenland mountain range named after him, the explorer had truly become the kind of famed adventurer he dreamed of as a child.

After learning about Ejnar Mikkelsen, read about the lost Franklin Expedition that ended in cannibalism. Then, take a look at these incredible 100-year-old Antarctic exploration photos.

The post Meet Ejnar Mikkelsen, The Danish Explorer Who Survived Two Brutal Winters Stranded In The Arctic appeared first on All That's Interesting.

Gina van Hoof/Matthew Shepard FoundationMatthew Shepard was just 21 years old when he was viciously beaten and left to die alone.

On a crisp October evening in 1998, a young man was riding his bike along the rural roads outside of Laramie, Wyoming, when he noticed something unusual on a fence. At first, he thought it was an abandoned scarecrow — but then he realized it was a person. Matthew Shepard was bloody and beaten, but he was still breathing.

Nearly 18 hours earlier, Shepard had been attacked by Aaron McKinney and Russell Henderson, two local roofers. When 21-year-old Shepard died from his injuries several days later, the two men were arrested for his murder.

As McKinney and Henderson were interrogated by the police, a disturbing story unfolded. They claimed that they’d only intended to rob Shepard, targeting him because he was gay and they saw him as an easy victim. The men reportedly pretended to be gay themselves to lure Shepard into their vehicle, but when he made a sexual pass at McKinney as they drove, McKinney began to beat him in a blind rage.

A decade after the senseless murder, President Barack Obama signed the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act into law, marking a key milestone for gay rights in America. But in the years since, some people have questioned whether Shepard’s murder was a hate crime after all.

Who Was Matthew Shepard?

Born on Dec. 1, 1976, Matthew Wayne Shepard grew up in Casper, Wyoming. When he was in high school, his family moved to Saudi Arabia after his father was hired by an oil company there. Shepard finished his schooling at the American School in Switzerland, where he was a beloved student whose friends selected him to act as a peer counselor.

But during a class trip to Morocco in 1995, Shepard was raped. “He was never the same after Morocco,” his mother, Judy, told Vanity Fair in 1999, “and neither were we. We were always worried about his physical safety and his mental state — that he would despair and hurt himself. It seemed to him it was taking forever to feel safe.”

National Museum of American HistoryFrom a young age, Matthew Shepard stood out for his kindness toward his classmates.

After graduation, Shepard returned to the United States for a fresh start, eventually enrolling at the University of Wyoming. But his trauma followed him. He struggled with depression and was hospitalized on multiple occasions for suicidal ideations. He also began using recreational drugs.

Still, Shepard did his best to get involved on his new campus. On Oct. 6, 1998, he attended a planning meeting for the school’s upcoming Gay Awareness Week. He invited some friends to go out drinking with him afterward, but he ended up at Laramie’s Fireside Bar & Lounge alone that evening.

There, he met Aaron McKinney and Russell Henderson — two men in their early 20s who would soon be known as his killers.

The Tragic Death Of Matthew Shepard

According to Kristen Price, McKinney’s girlfriend at the time of the murder, McKinney and Henderson started plotting against Matthew Shepard as soon as they saw him at Fireside. As she told Vanity Fair, the men told each other, “‘Let’s pretend like we’re gay and… we’ll rob him and take his money.'”

They approached Shepard and offered him a ride, but instead of taking him home, they drove to a remote area outside of town. When he was questioned by officers at the Laramie Police Department three days later, McKinney admitted that he’d given Shepard a ride, but he insisted that he’d intended to take him home — until Shepard made a pass at him.

“He said he… lived on Palomino Street,” McKinney stated. “We got over there and he starts grabbing my leg and grabbing my genitals and was, I don’t know what the hell he was trying to do but I beat him up pretty bad.”

Associated Press/YouTubeAaron McKinney, one of Matthew Shepard’s killers, later stated that he had “hatred for homosexuals.”

In reality, McKinney and Henderson did far worse than simply beat Shepard up. They pistol whipped him nearly two dozen times, crushing his brain stem and fracturing his skull in four separate places. Then, they tied him to a fence in freezing temperatures, stealing his wallet and even his shoes so he wouldn’t be able to walk back into town if he managed to free himself.

“They just wanted to beat him up bad enough to teach him a lesson,” Kristen Price later told Vanity Fair, “not to come on to straight people and don’t be aggressive about it anymore.”

But McKinney and Henderson didn’t stop there. They planned to burglarize Shepard’s house, but when they returned to Laramie, they got into a fight with two teenagers, Jeremy Herrera and Emiliano Morales. The police were called to the scene, and though McKinney and Henderson fled, officers searched the vehicle they’d left behind and discovered Shepard’s credit card and a bloody gun.

However, Matthew Shepard himself wouldn’t be found for another 18 hours.

The Trial Of Aaron McKinney And Russell Henderson

When Aaron Kreifels stumbled upon Shepard the evening after the attack, he was barely clinging to life. His face was completely covered in blood except for the paths where his tears had trickled down. He was rushed to a hospital in Fort Collins, Colorado, where his parents even had trouble identifying him due to the extent of his injuries.

Matthew Shepard died on Oct. 12, 1998, without ever regaining consciousness.

Matthew Shepard FoundationMatthew Shepard’s friends dressed up as angels at his funeral to block protesters from the Westboro Baptist Church.

McKinney and Henderson were swiftly charged with first-degree murder. Henderson pleaded guilty and was sentenced to life in prison, but McKinney decided to go to trial.

In a jailhouse letter addressed to Henderson and later printed in the Coloradoan, McKinney tried to set up a “gay panic” defense. “At no time did we know he was gay until he tried to get on me,” McKinney wrote. “And I didn’t kidnap him or attempt to rob him.”

Likewise, McKinney’s defense team claimed at trial that McKinney had beaten Shepard in a “five-minute emotional rage” when Shepard’s advances triggered memories of homosexual abuse McKinney had undergone in his youth, as reported by The New York Times in 1999.

The jury ultimately found McKinney guilty of murder, but not premeditated murder. Like Henderson, he was sentenced to life in prison.

In the years since his murder, Matthew Shepard has become a tragic figure of the gay rights movement. But not everyone agrees that his death was a hate crime.

How The Death Of Matthew Shepard Spurred Hate Crime Legislation

In 2013, journalist Stephen Jimenez published The Book of Matt: Hidden Truths About the Murder of Matthew Shepard. In the book, Jimenez claimed that Shepard and McKinney had previously had sexual encounters, and the murder stemmed not from discrimination but from a drug dispute gone wrong. Henderson himself confirmed this in 2018.

However, according to a 2009 article in the Denver Post, McKinney said in an interview with New York’s Tectonic Theatre Project — which produced a play about Shepard’s murder called The Laramie Project — “The night I did it, I did have hatred for homosexuals.”

“[Shepard] was obviously gay,” McKinney continued, speaking about why he and Henderson decided to target him. “That played a part. His weakness. His frailty.”

“Matt Shepard needed killing,” said McKinney. “I don’t have any remorse.”

Matthew Shepard FoundationJason Marsden, the executive director of the Matthew Shepard Foundation, wrote on the 21st anniversary of Shepard’s death: “Never in my life have I seen a person — who has been gone almost as long as he was alive — change the course of a movement and a country.”

Despite this enduring debate, Matthew Shepard’s death played a major role in the passing of the Hate Crime Prevention Act in 2009. The new federal criminal law expanded the government’s ability to prosecute violent crimes committed based on traits like race, religion, sexual orientation, and gender.

In 2018, Matthew Shepard’s ashes were interred at Washington National Cathedral.

As reported by NPR at the time, the cathedral said in a statement, “While Matthew died too young, his death nonetheless gave life to a new generation of activists and allies who are committed to proclaiming God’s love for all of God’s children — no exceptions or exclusions.”

After reading about the death of Matthew Shepard, discover how the Stonewall Riots launched a nationwide movement. Then, learn about the tragic death of Brandon Teena and the true story behind Boys Don’t Cry.

The post Inside The Murder Of Matthew Shepard And The Controversial Trial Of His Killers appeared first on All That's Interesting.

United States Marine CorpsChuck Mawhinney in an undated photo taken during the Vietnam War.

As one of the most prolific snipers of the Vietnam War, Chuck Mawhinney was a lethal sharpshooter who racked up the most confirmed kills in the history of the United States Marine Corps and the second-most confirmed kills of any American soldier in the country’s history. In one incident alone, Mawhinney had 16 confirmed kills in a mere 30 seconds — all of them headshots.

But when the war ended, Chuck Mawhinney simply retired from the Marine Corps and spent his days working in the U.S. Forest Service, telling no one — not even his wife — about his career in Vietnam.

This is the amazing true story of Chuck Mawhinney, the legendary sniper who was as deadly as he was humble.

Why Chuck Mawhinney Was Destined To Be A Sniper From The Very Beginning

Born on February 23, 1949 in Lakeview, Oregon, Charles Benjamin Mawhinney was the son of a World War II Marine Corps veteran who hoped his son would follow in his footsteps. And that’s exactly what he did: Shortly after the deer-hunting season was over in June of 1967, the younger Mawhinney graduated high school and enlisted in the Marines.

But before he could be sent off to war, Mawhinney enrolled in Scout Sniper School at Camp Pendleton in California and graduated in April 1968. The allure of being a sniper also came naturally to the younger Mawhinney, who had spent most of his life doing what formal sniper school had trained him to do anyway.

“My father was a Marine during World War II,” Chuck Mawhinney told American Rifleman in 2012. “I started shooting at a very young age, and he taught me to shoot like the Marines taught him, so there wasn’t any big transition from hunting in Oregon to becoming a sniper.”

With his formal training out of the way, Mawhinney was dispatched to Vietnam, where the war was in the middle of one of its bloodiest stretches.

Becoming A Deadly Legend In Vietnam

Chuck Mawhinney was initially dispatched as a rifleman to Lima Company 1st Battalion, 5th Marines, 1st Marine Division — and he hit the ground running as a deadly shot. However, after only three months in the battalion, he was transferred to several different battalions, before ultimately landing with the Delta Company.

But it was his time with the Delta Company that proved to be the most lethal, and where he racked up his confirmed 103 kills. He later said of the Vietnam War, “It was the ultimate hunting trip.”

Chuck MawhinneyThroughout the Vietnam War, no sniper had more known kills than Chuck Mawhinney.

In perhaps his most astonishing moment, on Valentine’s Day 1969, Chuck Mawhinney was set up at a base near Da Nang when he got word that a large North Vietnamese Army platoon was advancing toward them. A monsoon made air support an impossibility, so Mawhinney volunteered to sneak forward and cover a river that the enemy was sure to cross.

But the first wave of North Vietnamese never crossed the river. Mawhinney took position with just his spotter, as well as his trusty Remington M40 and M14, and waited until the entire contingent waded into the river — then he started shooting. In the span of just 30 seconds, Mawhinney fired 16 shots, every one of them a dead-on headshot, single-handedly bringing the enemy attack to a screeching halt.

“I got 16 rounds off that night as fast as I could fire the weapon,” Mawhinney said, according to Business Insider. “Every one of them was headshots, dead center. I could see the bodies floating down the river.”

This moment was no exception: Throughout the entire war, only one enemy ever entered Mawhinney’s scope and managed to survive — and Mawhinney always said that this was his one regret from his time in the war. It happened during one particularly intense battle when an armorer was adjusting his rifle as he spotted an enemy combatant. He grabbed the rifle and fired off 16 shots, but all 16 of them missed their intended target.

“It’s one of the few things that bother me about Vietnam,” he said to The Los Angeles Times. “I can’t help thinking about how many people that he may have killed later, how many of my friends, how many Marines.”

Chuck Mawhinney’s Legacy As The Deadliest Sniper In The History Of The Marines

Mark Pellegrin/Wikimedia CommonsChuck Mawhinney’s M40 rifle is on display in the United States Museum of the Marine Corps.

After Chuck Mawhinney retired from the Marine Corps in 1970, he returned to his hometown of Lakeview, Oregon, and got married before beginning a career with the U.S. Forest Service, where he would stay for more than 20 years. In the late 1990s, Mawhinney retired and probably thought he was going to live the rest of his life in quiet anonymity, protected by the woods of his native rural Oregon.

That all changed, however, in 1991. At that time, Joseph Ward’s best-selling book, Dear Mom: A Sniper’s Vietnam, hit the shelves, and it went into extensive detail about the legend of Chuck Mawhinney in the jungles of Vietnam. Initially, Ward’s claim was hotly contested, because Carlos Hathcock — who also served in Vietnam in the Marine Corps — was believed to have held the record with a confirmed total of 98 kills.

However, subsequent investigation proved that Mawhinney did indeed hold the most confirmed kills in the Marine Corps history, and the second-most kills in the American armed forces history (behind Adelbert Waldron of the United States Army, who held a confirmed total of 109 kills). It’s believed, too, that Mawhinney actually killed more than 200 combatants, but not all of those deaths have been confirmed by the armed forces.

His M40 rifle is on display in the National Museum of the Marine Corps. He was also the subject of a History Channel special called Sniper: The Anatomy of the Kill, in which an “astounding” headshot by Mawhinney was recreated for the special. And if asked, he only has one piece of advice for aspiring snipers.

“I give them Chuck Mawhinney’s three rules of becoming a good sniper: Practice, practice, and more practice,” he said to the South Florida Sun-Sentinel.

Now that learned about Chuck Mawhinney, read about Hiroo Onoda — the soldier who kept fighting World War II for nearly 30 years after it ended. Then, read all about Adrian Carton de Wiart, the soldier who fought four wars in six decades — and simply could not be killed.

The post Meet Chuck Mawhinney, The Deadliest Sniper In The History Of The Marine Corps appeared first on All That's Interesting.

Wikimedia CommonsShanda Sharer, the 12-year-old girl who was murdered by four teenagers because of a love triangle gone wrong.

In the fall of 1991, 12-year-old Shanda Sharer walked into her new school in New Albany, Indiana. She soon met a classmate named Amanda Heavrin, and they quickly became romantically involved. This innocent middle school relationship would ultimately end in Sharer’s murder.

Heavrin was also dating an older teen named Melinda Loveless. When Loveless found out about Sharer, she started sending the girl death threats — and in January 1992, she followed through on her chilling warnings.

Loveless enlisted three other teenage girls to help her abduct Sharer, torture her for eight hours, and then burn her alive. Afterward, they went out to breakfast and laughed about what they had done.

All four girls were ultimately arrested and imprisoned, but the disturbing case continues to haunt everyone who was involved, from Shanda Sharer’s loved ones to the police who investigated the murder. As one of the defense attorneys at Loveless’ trial put it: “Stephen King couldn’t come up with a plot like this.”

The Events Leading Up To Shanda Sharer’s Murder

In 1991, Shanda Sharer moved to New Albany, Indiana, after her mother and stepfather got divorced. She started seventh grade at Hazelwood Middle School, where she met Amanda Heavrin. The two girls started exchanging romantic notes, sparking the jealousy of Heavrin’s girlfriend, Melinda Loveless.

In retaliation, Loveless began dating someone else. But when Sharer and Heavrin went to a school dance together that October, Loveless showed up and confronted the girls, slapping Heavrin and threatening Sharer.

Family Photo/Find a GraveShanda Sharer shortly before her murder

Shortly after, according to the 1994 true crime book Cruel Sacrifice by Aphrodite Jones, Heavrin wrote Sharer a note that read: “I don’t think I would ever tell Melinda we are going out together. She would probably kill you.”

Shanda Sharer and Amanda Heavrin continued dating throughout the fall, and Melinda Loveless ramped up her threats. She once told Sharer, “If you even try to talk to Amanda again I’m going to f—ing kill you.”

The threats became so concerning that Sharer’s mother transferred her to a new school. Tragically, it wasn’t enough to save her.

Unthinkable Torture At The Hands Of Four Teenage Girls

On the evening of Jan. 10, 1992, 16-year-old Melinda Loveless invited her friend, 17-year-old Laurie Tackett, to her house in New Albany. Tackett lived in Madison, Indiana, about an hour away. She brought two other girls with her: Hope Rippey and Toni Lawrence, who were both 15.

Rippey and Lawrence had never met Loveless or Sharer, but when Loveless told them that she wanted to scare Sharer for being a “copycat” and “stealing” her girlfriend, they went along with the plan.

The four teenagers drove to Sharer’s father’s house, and Loveless sent Rippey and Lawrence to the door, telling them to introduce themselves as Amanda Heavrin’s friends. The girls told Sharer that they were going to meet up with Heavrin at the “Witch’s Castle,” an abandoned stone house not far from town.

Shanda Sharer’s killers, clockwise from the top left: Melinda Loveless, Laurie Tackett, Hope Rippey, and Toni Lawrence.

Sharer’s parents had banned her from seeing Heavrin, so she told the girls to come back later that night, after her father had gone to bed, so she could sneak out. Loveless, Tackett, Rippey, and Lawrence left and went to a concert before returning around 12:30 a.m.

Loveless hid under a blanket in the back seat while two other girls went to get Sharer. Once the car was moving, Loveless revealed herself and held a knife to Sharer’s throat as she interrogated her about her sexual relationship with Heavrin.

When they arrived at the Witch’s Castle, the four teens bound Sharer’s hands and feet with rope and threatened her. Then, they put her back in Tackett’s car and drove to a dense forest near Tackett’s house in Madison. Lawrence and Rippey stayed in the car while Loveless and Tackett took Shanda Sharer into the woods, stripped her down to her underwear, beat her, and tried to slit her throat.

When they realized that their knife was too dull, Rippey exited the car to hold Sharer down while Loveless and Tackett stabbed her in the chest and strangled her with a rope until she was unconscious.

The girls then threw Sharer into the trunk and went back to Tackett’s house. They were drinking soda inside when they heard Sharer screaming.

Tackett went back out and stabbed Sharer several more times. Then, Loveless joined her for a ride to the countryside. When the two teenagers stopped the car, they beat Sharer with a tire iron and then repeatedly sexually assaulted her with the weapon.

WLKY News Louisville/YouTubeMelinda Loveless in handcuffs after she masterminded the murder of Shanda Sharer.

They returned to Tackett’s house just before dawn and showed Lawrence and Rippey what they’d done. According to Cruel Sacrifice, Rippey sprayed Sharer with Windex and laughed, “You’re not looking so hot now, are you?”

Finally, all four girls went to a gas station, filled a two-liter Pepsi bottle with gasoline, drove to a rural area north of Madison, carried Tackett into a field, poured the fuel on her, and lit her on fire. Sharer was still alive and crying for her mother at the time.

Loveless, Tackett, Lawrence, and Rippey then went to McDonald’s for breakfast and joked that their sausage looked like Shanda Sharer’s charred corpse.

Later that morning, two brothers stumbled upon Sharer’s body and called the police. Around the same time, Sharer’s father reported her missing. But it wasn’t until Toni Lawrence and Hope Rippey turned up at the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office that night that investigators connected the two cases.

The Conviction Of Shanda Sharer’s Killers

Loveless, Tackett, Lawrence, and Rippey were all charged as adults for the murder of Shanda Sharer. Lawrence and Rippey — who were younger, less involved in the torture, and more forthcoming with authorities — received lighter sentences. Rippey spent 14 years behind bars, while Lawrence was imprisoned for just eight years.

Tackett was sentenced to 60 years in prison, but she was released in 2018 after 26 years. Loveless, the ringleader, also received a 60-year sentence but was released in 2019.

Everyone who heard about the case had one question: How did a simple dispute over a girlfriend end in torture and murder?

It was later revealed that all four teenagers had troubled pasts. Rippey’s parents had an on-and-off relationship, and she was known to engage in self-harm. Lawrence had been raped at age 14 and attempted suicide shortly after. And Tackett was molested as a child and spent time in a psychiatric hospital for her borderline personality disorder.

Chiliad22/Wikimedia CommonsA memorial to Shanda Sharer in the field where she died.

Loveless, meanwhile, was sexually abused by her own father. In a 1998 interview with WISH-TV, Loveless said, “It turns into anger if you keep that hurt and don’t let it go… That hurt can turn into anger and hate and make you do things that you would never really do.”

Laurie Tackett had different thoughts on the matter. In 2011, she released a statement from prison for an episode of Dr. Phil:

“Let’s say, for instance, I know a couple of people who kill simply for the fear that they see in their victim’s eyes, and for the sight of blood on their bodies… [M]y opinion is that they do it to feel superior, or high on the victim’s fear, and they’re thirsty for the spill of blood.”

Today, a small memorial to Shanda Sharer sits in the field where she was brutally murdered. It’s easy to miss, but it marks the spot of one of the most chilling crimes in the state’s history — one that was carried out by four young girls.

After reading about the murder of Shanda Sharer, go inside the stories of nine teenage serial killers. Then, learn about Alyssa Bustamante, the high schooler who murdered a nine year old.

The post Shanda Sharer, The 12-Year-Old Who Was Tortured For Eight Hours Before She Was Burned Alive By Four Teenage Girls appeared first on All That's Interesting.

LaPlante, a notorious local burglar, had carefully initiated a reign of psychological terror throughout Townsend and its surrounding neighborhoods.

Then came the Gustafson murders of Dec. 1, 1987, consigning LaPlante to prison for the rest of his life.

The Traumatic Early Years Of Daniel LaPlante

Barry Chin/Boston Globe StaffDaniel LaPlante was just 17 when he committed one of the most horrifying murders Massachusetts had ever seen.

Daniel LaPlante was born on May 15, 1970, in Townsend, Massachusetts, and he allegedly suffered traumatic sexual and psychological abuse during his childhood at the hands of his father and then as a teen at the hands of his psychiatrist.

LaPlante’s environment was no less chaotic. His family’s house and surrounding grounds were reportedly a mass of junk and old cars. LaPlante attended St. Bernard’s High School in Fitchburg, where he was described by students and faculty as a loner and not particularly friendly.

By the 1980s, a neighbor had grown concerned over LaPlante’s many solo excursions into the woods behind his home, according to the Boston Globe. “You’d see him walk out there by himself. That’s the only place you would see him, the woods.”

Diagnosed with hyperactivity disorder by the psychiatrist who allegedly sexually abused him, LaPlante became a neighborhood thief by 15. He broke into Townsend homes during the evenings, stole occupants’ valuables, and then he graduated to mind games.

LaPlante began leaving things behind and moving things around in his neighbors’ houses to scare them. In 1986, his mind games turned to pure terror when he became obsessed with 15-year-old Tina Bowen.

They attended the same school, and LaPlante had taken her on a date over the Easter break. When Bowen returned to school, some students told her that LaPlante was facing rape charges and according to her father, Frank Bowen, that was that. Or so he thought.

Becoming The Boy In The Walls

Steve Bezanson, Tom LaneA police sketch of Daniel LaPlante’s hiding place in the Bowen residence.

Over the course of several weeks in late fall 1986, Daniel LaPlante gained entry to the Bowen home at 93 Lawrence Street, in Pepperell, near Townsend. From a small crawl space no wider than six inches, he initiated psychological torment on the family.

After watching Tina and her sister try to contact their recently deceased mother on a ouija board, LaPlante began impersonating a ghost. TV channels were changed, items were rearranged, milk mysteriously consumed. He even emptied bottles of alcohol without drinking them and scrawled disturbing messages like “marry me” and “I’m in your room. Come and find me,” on the walls in mayonnaise and ketchup. A knife was found pinning a family photograph to the wall.

Though Frank Bowen believed his daughters were messing with each other, he soon learned the truth was far worse. On Dec. 8, 1986, the girls returned home to find someone had used their toilet. After a search by Frank Bowen, LaPlante was discovered in a wardrobe, face painted, wearing a Native American-style jacket and ninja mask — and brandishing a hatchet.

LaPlante hustled them into a bedroom before disappearing somewhere in the house. Tina Bowen escaped through a window and contacted police, who found LaPlante two days later in the cellar of the house.

Hiding in a triangular space in a corner, bounded on two sides by the concrete foundation and an inner wall, LaPlante had clearly been living there for weeks.

Following his arrest at the Bowen home, LaPlante was held in a juvenile facility until October 1987 when his mother remortgaged her house ensuring his $10,000 bail. Two months later, he committed his worst crime yet.

The Harrowing Gustafson Murders

National Organization of Victims of Juvenile MurderersPriscilla Gustafson with her two children, Abigail and William.

While awaiting trial, LaPlante moved home and continued his daytime burglary spree. On Oct. 14, 1987, he stole two .22 Caliber firearms from a neighboring house. On Nov. 16, 1987, LaPlante burglarized the home of the Gustafson family, which included pregnant nursery school teacher Priscilla Gustafson, her husband Andrew, and their two children, five-year-old William and seven-year-old Abigail.

But this wouldn’t be the last time LaPlante broke into their home. On Dec. 1, 1987, LaPlante walked through the woods separating his house from the Gustafson’s armed with a .22 firearm. He later claimed he didn’t expect Priscilla and her children to come home. What happened next is every family’s worst nightmare.

According to retired Pepperell Lieutenant Thomas Lane, LaPlante considered jumping out the window and escaping. Instead, he confronted Priscilla with the gun and led her and her son to the bedroom, putting William in the closet and tying Priscilla to the bed using makeshift ligatures and gagging her with one of his socks.

After raping Priscilla, Laplante shot her twice in the head. He then took William into the bathroom and drowned him. As he was leaving, he encountered Abigail Gustafson, who had returned home on the school bus. He lured Abigail into another bathroom where he drowned her as well.

Then, LaPlante simply returned home and attended his niece’s birthday party that evening.

A Life Sentence For Daniel LaPlante

YouTubeDaniel LaPlante is still serving his three consecutive life sentences.

Meanwhile, Andrew Gustafson had been calling his wife all afternoon. Returning to an eerily quiet house with no lights on, Gustafson feared the worst. He first found his wife dead, lying face down on the bedspread. Then, he fled the house and called police. He later reported that he refused to look for the children because, “I was afraid I would find them dead.”

According to court documents, LaPlante was easily implicated in the scheme using forensic evidence. Police even found the shirt and gloves he wore to drown the children in the woods behind the Gustafson house, still wet.

With the scent of the shirt, dogs tracked through the woods to within three to four feet of LaPlante’s home. The evening after the Gustafson murders, LaPlante was interrogated. Lacking enough evidence to arrest him there, police planned to return the following day, but LaPlante fled and a massive manhunt ensued.

After another burglary spree in Pepperell, LaPlante was found hiding in a dumpster and arrested on the evening of Dec. 3, 1987.

Daniel LaPlante went on trial for the Gustafson murders in October 1988 and a jury found him guilty of murder. He was convicted on three life sentences.

Chillingly, that wasn’t the end to his story. LaPlante appealed for a reduced sentence in 2017, but the judge found that he was not remorseful for his crimes. Instead, the judge affirmed LaPlante’s sentence of three consecutive terms of life imprisonment.

He will not be up for parole for another 45 years.

After learning the horrifying story of Daniel LaPlante, read about how serial killer Richard Ramirez was captured by his teeth. Then, learn about the grisly Keddie Cabin murders.

The post The Chilling Case Of Daniel LaPlante, The 17-Year-Old Who Raped And Murdered A Pregnant Mom — Then Drowned Her Two Kids appeared first on All That's Interesting.

Take the rhyme about Humpty Dumpty, who is often depicted as an egg who falls off a wall. Though the origins of the Humpty Dumpty story are murky, some historians believe that it has to do with public drunkenness, while others think that it’s a reference to the English King Richard III’s death.

Meanwhile, the Muffin Man may have been a murderer, and “London Bridge Is Falling Down” might be about a torturous execution method. And though the backstories of many nursery rhymes remain mysterious, these ominous rumors show that jaunty tunes can hide the dark meanings of lyrics.

King, Egg, Or Cannon? The Mystery Behind The Humpty Dumpty Nursery Rhyme

Christopher Wood/Wikimedia Commons“Humpty Dumpty” is a well-known nursery rhyme, but its origins are something of a question mark.

In Lewis Carroll’s Through the Looking-Glass (1871), the character Alice encounters Humpty Dumpty as an egg. This image has stuck in our modern imagination, but Carroll was the first person to describe Humpty Dumpty that way. In the earliest iteration of the rhyme in 1797, it simply said:

Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall,
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall.
Four-score Men and Four-score more,
Could not make Humpty Dumpty where he was before.

There’s no mention of an egg at all. So what does “Humpty Dumpty” mean?

Historians have a couple of theories. The first is that the Humpty Dumpty rhyme is a cheeky ditty about public drunkenness. As History Daily notes, people in the 17th and 18th centuries used the term “humpty dumpty” to refer to someone who was overweight and clumsy, and a “humpty dumpty” was also an 18th-century drink made by boiling brandy and ale.

Public DomainLewis Carroll was the first to describe Humpty Dumpty as an egg in 1871.

But it’s also possible that the character of Humpty Dumpty is a reference to one of two events from English history. Some historians believe that Humpty Dumpty’s name refers to a cannon that was used during the English Civil War, which took place between 1642 and 1651. As the story goes, a cannon dubbed “Humpty Dumpty” fell off a wall in the city of Colchester, which was known to be loyal to the English king, and promptly shattered.

“The king’s men” couldn’t put the cannon back together.

Then again, the origins of the nursery rhyme could be even older. Some believe that the Humpty Dumpty rhyme is a reference to King Richard III of England, who reigned between 1483 and 1485. “Humpty Dumpty” may have been a cruel nickname for Richard, who allegedly had a hunched back. He was defeated by Henry Tudor at the Battle of Bosworth Field in 1485, during which Richard fell from his horse, which may have been named “Wall.”

So the fictional “egg” falling from a “wall” might have actually represented a real-life monarch tumbling from his steed, irrevocably defeated.

The Dark Potential Meaning Behind The Muffin Man Nursery Rhyme

Public DomainThe nursery rhyme about the Muffin Man might have a surprisingly dark meaning.

At first glance, the Muffin Man seems like an uncontroversial figure. The nursery rhyme gives scant details, suggesting only his gender (man), occupation (muffin seller), and home address (Drury Lane). But an odd internet theory has recently suggested that the Muffin Man was a serial killer.

This rumor has percolated in strange corners of the web in recent years, appearing in places like TikTok and Uncyclopedia, which is a parody of Wikipedia. There, it’s claimed that the Muffin Man was a 16th-century muffin seller and a vicious murderer named Frederick Thomas Lynwood.

Lynwood allegedly used his muffin business to kill. These sources state that he would tie a muffin to a string, then lure an unsuspecting victim close enough for him to beat them to death with a spoon. Lynwood himself purportedly avoided arrest all his life, and died after choking on food.

Public DomainSome have claimed that the Muffin Man was actually a 16th-century serial killer named Frederick Thomas Lynwood.

But when it comes to nursery rhymes with secretly dark meanings, does this one stand up? Was the Muffin Man really a violent serial killer?

According to Snopes, this claim is unproven.

Theories about the Muffin Man being a serial killer are pure speculation. Though people on TikTok have claimed that Lynwood was London’s first known serial killer, that title actually belongs to Mary Ann Cotton, a Victorian woman who killed 11 of her children and three of her husbands to collect insurance payments.

Rather, it’s most likely that the nursery rhyme about the Muffin Man is a simple reference to 19th-century food vendors. The tune was first documented in 1820, and around that time, Londoners often bought food from vendors on the street. They worked long hours and often had no kitchens, so it was easiest to pick up a muffin (which would have been more like an English muffin than a sweet American muffin) to eat.

The post A Serial Killer, The Bubonic Plague, And Human Sacrifice: The Chilling Backstories Behind Seven Nursery Rhymes appeared first on All That's Interesting.

That seedy underbelly of the West Hills neighborhood in the San Fernando Valley consisted of high school dropouts and impressionable youths. And at its center was a man with the name of an outlaw and temperament of a bully, Jesse James Hollywood, who delegated drug deals and always collected his debts. Ben Markowitz owed Hollywood $1,200 when he began to distance himself.

Left: Wikimedia Commons; Right: New Line CinemaNicholas Markowitz (left) was portrayed in Alpha Dog (2006) by Anton Yelchin.

Frustrated he couldn’t muscle Ben back into the fold and determined to save his reputation, Hollywood abducted Nick Markowitz to spur his brother’s repayment on August 6, 2000. But when he realized kidnapping could land him in prison, Hollywood took drastic measures — and had the 15-year-old murdered.

Ben was shocked. He knew his old acquaintances liked to talk tough, but he never considered they would do something like this. “In my worst nightmares,” he said, “I never would have thought that that would have happened.”

The Abduction Of Nicholas Markowitz

Nicholas Samuel Markowitz was born on September 19, 1984, in Los Angeles, California. The summer before his sophomore year at El Camino Real High School, he spent most days going for walks, hanging out with his older brother, and preparing to get his driver’s license.

But on August 6, 2000, he was abducted at 1 p.m. after sneaking out of his house to avoid arguing with his parents, Jeff and Susan.

Left: Wikimedia Commons; Right: New Line CinemaJesse James Hollywood (left) and Emile Hirsch depicting him in Alpha Dog (right).

A fellow West Hills resident, Jesse James Hollywood came from a family of means. He had excelled at high school baseball but was expelled during his sophomore year. When a later injury turned the 20-year-old drop-out’s athletic dreams into dust, he began to sell drugs.

His amateur crew consisted of former school pals like 20-year-old William Skidmore, 21-year-old Jesse Rugge, and 21-year-old Benjamin Markowitz — who still owed him money. Hollywood had only been a dealer for a year when he went to collect his cash from Ben, only to happen upon Nick walking down the street.

Hollywood pulled over his van and dragged Nicholas Markowitz inside with the aid of Rugge and Skidmore. A neighbor witnessed the incident and called 911 with the license plate, but police couldn’t find the van. Markowitz was bound with duct tape and had his pager, wallet, valium, and weed confiscated.

Over the next two days, Markowitz was shuttled between various homes with the promise that he would soon be freed. At Rugge’s Santa Barbara house, he played video games with his captors and smoked and drank with them. Markowitz even attended their parties, making friends with 17-year-old Graham Pressley.

“He told me that it was okay because he was doing it for his brother, and that as long as his brother was okay, he was okay,” said Pressley.

Brian Vander Brug/Los Angeles Times/Getty ImagesA rock at the murder scene, commemorated by locals.

Markowitz even declined an offer to run when Pressley drove him around town, stating he didn’t want to complicate a seemingly temporary matter. Hollywood even told Rugge that Markowitz would be free soon, spurring a Lemon Tree Motel pool party on August 8.

“I’m going to take you home,” Rugge told Markowitz that night. “I’ll put you on a Greyhound. I’m going to get you home.”

The Tragic Murder That Inspired Alpha Dog

Unbeknownst to his crew, Jesse James Hollywood had spoken to his family lawyer and gotten lethally paranoid about a potential kidnapping charge. He became convinced that murdering Nicholas Markowitz was his only way forward and asked Rugge to do his dirty work for him. Rugge declined, leading Hollywood to contact 21-year-old Ryan Hoyt.

“We got a little situation,” said Hollywood. “You’re gonna take care of it for me. And that’s how you’re gonna clear your debt.”

Boris Yaro/Los Angeles Times/Getty ImagesThe funeral procession of Nicholas Markowitz.

Like Ben Markowitz, Hoyt owed Hollywood money. When he arrived to meet him, Hollywood handed him a TEC-9 semi-automatic pistol and offered to wipe the slate clean with an additional $400 payment if he killed Markowitz. In the early morning hours of August 9, Hoyt and Rugge duct-taped Markowitz’s mouth and hands.

With Pressley, they drove Markowitz to the Lizard’s Mouth Trail near Santa Barbara in the early morning hours of August 9. They walked the terrified 15-year-old to a shallow grave at a remote campsite 12 miles away. Hitting him over the head with a shovel, Hoyt dumped him in the hole — and shot him nine times.

Then they covered his grave with dirt and branches and drove away. Nicholas Markowitz was found by hikers on August 12, after which many who befriended him during captivity came forward. Police arrested Rugge, Hoyt, and Pressley within a week — while Hollywood fled to Colorado before his trail went cold on August 23.

Hollywood remained a fugitive for almost six years until he was arrested in Rio de Janeiro in 2005. Police found him living under the alias of Michael Costa Giroux by tracing his father’s phone calls. While his friends and family painted a glowing picture at trial, he was sentenced to life in prison.

Hoyt was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to death. Rugge was convicted of kidnapping and served 11 years, while Skidmore was convicted of the same but sentenced to nine years via plea deal. Pressley, underage at the time, was sent to a juvenile facility for eight years.

After learning about Nicholas Markowitz, read about the chilling mystery of Natalie Wood’s death. Then, learn about the sudden death of Britanny Murphy.

The post The Disturbing Story Of Nicholas Markowitz, The Teenager Who Was Murdered Over His Brother’s Drug Debt appeared first on All That's Interesting.

Times Square is perhaps the most recognizable place in New York City. Yet, as iconic as the intersection of Broadway, West 42nd Street, and 7th Avenue is today, it had humble beginnings.

In the early 20th century, the area was known as Longacre Square, and it was the center of New York's horse and carriage trade. Then, in 1904, The New York Times set up its headquarters in the skyscraper that's known as Times Tower today. The city officially changed the name of the square to mark the occasion.

With the advent of the subway system, foot traffic in Times Square increased dramatically, drawing more businesses to the neighborhood. But the Great Depression forced many of them to close their doors — and more salacious attractions moved in.

It wasn't until the 1990s that Times Square was revitalized, and it's now the most popular tourist attraction in the United States, drawing in more than 50 million visitors each year.

Below, read more about the history of Times Square. And above, look through 30 vintage photos of the "Crossroads of the World."

The Early History Of Times Square

When New York was first settled by Europeans, the area that's now Times Square was used as farmland. But as the city rapidly grew, businessman John Jacob Astor purchased large swaths of the land and sold it off to developers. In the 19th century, it became the center of the city's carriage industry and was dubbed Longacre Square after London's Long Acre, the street where many coach makers ran their businesses.

Then, in 1900, construction began on New York's subway system. The New York Times moved its headquarters to a newly-built skyscraper in Longacre Square in 1904, and publisher Adolph Ochs convinced the city's mayor to build a subway station at the intersection of Broadway, West 42nd Street, and 7th Avenue.

Public DomainLongacre Square shortly before it became known as Times Square, circa 1904.

It quickly became one of the busiest stations in the city, and Times sales skyrocketed due to the increased foot traffic. Other companies took note and moved to the neighborhood, which was officially renamed Times Square on April 8, 1904. While the Times outgrew Times Tower and moved once more less than a decade later, the name stuck.

On Dec. 31, 1904, Ochs hosted Times Square's first New Year's Eve party, and the first ball was dropped atop Times Tower three years later — a tradition that continues to this day.

Over the next two decades, Times Square continued to grow. New Yorkers gathered there to learn the latest news, such as the score of the 1919 World Series and updates on World War I. But after the stock market crash of 1929, the Great Depression took hold of the city, and many businesses had to close their doors — and cheaper forms of entertainment moved in.

How The Heart Of New York Fell Into Depravity

World War II also had a diminishing effect on Times Square. In May 1942, Mayor Fiorello La Guardia ordered all exterior lights turned off at night to protect the city from potential air and naval attacks. Frank Powell, one of the workers who maintained the electric news ticker on Times Tower, told The New York Times in May 1942, "All I want is to start it up again the night Hitler gets killed. That would tickle me to death."

Powell wasn't the only person celebrating at the end of the war. When Japan announced its surrender in August 1945, crowds flocked to Times Square to party in the streets, leading to the famous photo of a sailor kissing a complete stranger.

But as the years went on, Times Square became a vestige of what it once was. As theaters and stores closed, seedier businesses moved in. At first, these were simply movie theaters and penny arcades. But as time went on, peep shows and sex shops popped up. Sex workers roamed the streets, initially drawn to the area by soldiers returning from Europe.

vaticanus/FlickrAn advertisement for a sex show in Times Square in the early 1980s.

By the 1980s, the crack cocaine epidemic had reached New York City, and Times Square became a center of the drug trade. Crime rates and homelessness surged, and the streets were littered with trash, human waste, and drug paraphernalia.

What was once known as the "Crossroads of the World" had become gritty and crime-ridden. It was clear that something had to change.

The Revitalization Of The 'Crossroads Of The World'

Revitalization efforts began in the late 1980s. Mayor Ed Koch used eminent domain to condemn buildings that had fallen into disrepair, and rezoning laws were passed that allowed the government to shut down certain sex shops in the neighborhood.

When Rudy Giuliani took office in 1994, he utilized his connections with real estate developers to lure in upscale hotels and family-friendly stores.

Nielsoncaetanosalmeron/Wikimedia CommonsThe Disney Store is one of the most popular businesses in Times Square.

Some critics have referred to this as the "Disneyfication" of Times Square — but it worked. The area is once again a hub for entertainment, shopping, commerce, and tourism. Historic theaters have been restored, and crime rates have dropped due to a heightened police presence.

The neighborhood still has its issues — from naked cowboys to sanitation complaints — but it's a far cry from what it once was, for better or for worse.

After looking through these vintage photos of Times Square, see these images of New York City before it was developed. Then, discover what the Big Apple was like during the Roaring Twenties.

The post 30 Historical Photos Of Times Square, The ‘Crossroads Of The World’ appeared first on All That's Interesting.

Jess Rand/Michael Ochs Archives/Getty ImagesOn the night of December 11, 1964, Sam Cooke was shot dead at age 33 by Bertha Franklin, manager of the Hacienda Motel in South Central Los Angeles.

On the night of December 11, 1964, singer Sam Cooke burst into the main office of the Hacienda Motel in Los Angeles. He was wearing nothing but a jacket and one shoe.

Cooke demanded that the motel manager, Bertha Franklin, tell him where the young woman he had arrived at the motel with had gone. The shouting turned into a physical confrontation and, afraid for her life, the motel manager pulled a gun and fired three shots at the singer.

At least, that is the story that Bertha Franklin later told the LAPD. In short order, Sam Cooke’s death was ruled a “justifiable homicide.”

Getty ImagesSam Cooke’s body is removed from the office of the Hacienda Motel soon after his death.

But as those closest to him learned more about how Sam Cooke died, they began to question the official report. Even decades later, some refuse to accept the official story about Sam Cooke’s death.

What really happened that December night at the Hacienda Motel? This is the full story of who killed Sam Cooke and how he died suddenly at the age of just 33.

How Sam Cooke Became One Of America’s Most Celebrated Singers

Library of CongressSam Cooke singing in the studio in 1964, the year of his death.

Sam Cooke began his musical career as a gospel singer. He was, after all, the son of a Baptist minister.

Young Cooke craved an audience. His brother, L.C., recalled Cooke lining up popsicle sticks and saying to him, “This is my audience, see? I’m gonna sing to these sticks.”

He was just seven years old at the time when he voiced his life’s ambition, “I’m gonna sing, and I’m going to make me a lot of money.”

As a teenager, Cooke joined a gospel group called the Soul Stirrers and they signed onto the label Specialty Records. Cooke made an impression with this label and by his mid-20s, had earned the moniker King of Soul.

Wikimedia CommonsFor years before Sam Cooke’s death, he ranked among the most popular soul singers in the United States.

His chart-topping hits included “You Send Me” (1957), “Chain Gang” (1960), and “Cupid” (1961), all of which helped cement his star power. But Cooke wasn’t just a performer — he also wrote his hit songs.

By 1964, the year Sam Cooke died, the singer had founded his own record label and publishing company. And just as he’d promised his brother, Cooke had become a successful, influential musician.

The Fateful Hours Leading Up To Sam Cooke’s Death

On December 10, 1964, Sam Cooke spent the evening in Martoni’s Italian restaurant, a Hollywood hot spot. Cooke was a 33-year-old star with a new hit album and he was instantly recognizable to many at the restaurant.

The evening of Sam Cooke’s death, he wandered away from dinner with his producer to visit the bar where he bought drinks for friends in the music business, apparently flashing thousands in cash.

While chatting, Cooke caught the eye of 22-year-old Elisa Boyer. A few hours later, the pair hopped into Cooke’s red Ferrari and headed to P.J.’s nightclub. However, trouble soon brewed.

The Hollywood Garage/Facebook Sam Cooke’s red Ferrari he drove the morning of his murder.

“We had a little incident at P.J.’s,” Boyer said. “We were sitting at the very entrance, and some people came over and Mr. Cooke started talking with them. I was just sitting there. A gentleman sat next to me and started talking to me and Mr. Cooke got quite angry and wanted to hit the man. That’s why we left.”

Boyer later testified that she told Cooke to take her home, but he had other plans. Instead, he took the freeway back toward downtown. “He was going very fast in his car,” Boyer stated.

Getty ImagesElisa Boyer awaits questioning at police headquarters in Los Angeles following Sam Cooke’s death.

Cooke and Boyer ended up at the Hacienda Motel around 2 a.m. Known for its $3-an-hour rates, the motel catered to short-term visitors. Boyer claimed that Cooke seemed familiar with the layout of the motel as if he were a regular customer there.

At the front desk, Cooke asked for a room under his own name. Seeing Boyer in the car, the motel manager, Bertha Franklin, told the singer he’d need to sign in as Mr. and Mrs.

Within the hour, Sam Cooke was dead.

“Lady, You Shot Me”: How Sam Cooke Died At The Hacienda Motel

Daily NewsSam Cooke died at age 33 when he was shot by Hacienda Motel manager Bertha Franklin in Los Angeles on December 11, 1964 — but there may be more to the story.

According to Elisa Boyer, Sam Cooke forced her into their room at the Hacienda Motel. She reportedly asked the singer to take her home, instead, he rented the room and pinned her to the bed.

“I knew he was going to rape me,” Boyer told police.

In the motel room, Boyer tried to escape through the bathroom but found the window painted shut. When she left the bathroom, Boyer found Cooke undressed on the bed. She waited until he went to the bathroom and then, wearing just her slip, Boyer grabbed a pile of clothes and fled.

A block away, Boyer pulled on her clothes, abandoning Cooke’s shirt and pants on the ground. When Sam Cooke left the bathroom he found his clothes gone. Wearing a sports jacket and a single shoe, Cooke pounded on the door of the motel office where Bertha Franklin worked.

Bettmann/CORBISBertha Franklin claimed that she had been warned previously on the telephone by another motel resident that there was a prowler on the premises the night of Sam Cooke’s death.

“Is the girl in there?” Cooke yelled.

Bertha Franklin later told police that Cooke rammed down the door and charged into the office. “Where is the girl?” Cooke demanded as he grabbed Franklin by the wrist.

As the singer demanded answers, Franklin tried to push him away, even kicked him. Then, Franklin grabbed a pistol. “I shot… at close range… three times,” Franklin told police.

Dirty City ChroniclesFranklin alongside the gun she used to kill Cooke.

The first two shots missed. But the third bullet hit the singer in the chest. He fell back, exclaiming, “Lady, you shot me.”

Those were his last words. Right then and there, Sam Cooke died at the age of just 33.

Investigating Cooke’s Mysterious “Justifiable Homicide”

Barry King/Alamy Stock PhotoThe former Hacienda Motel where singer Sam Cooke was murdered at 9137 S. Figueroa Street in Los Angeles.

When police arrived at the scene of the shooting, they found Sam Cooke dead. Within a week, the police declared the shooting a “justifiable homicide.” Both Elisa Boyer and Bertha Franklin both spoke at the coroner’s inquest where Cooke’s lawyer was reportedly only allowed to ask a single question.

The evidence showed that Cooke’s blood-alcohol level was 0.16. His credit cards were gone, but he had over $100 in cash in his sports jacket, leading the police to conclude that Cooke hadn’t faced a robbery attempt. In Boyer’s purse, police only found a single $20 bill. Both Boyer and Franklin passed polygraph tests.

To the police, it was an open and shut case, but friends and supporters wondered if there was more to the story of how Sam Cooke died.

Getty ImagesElisa Boyer testifies in disguise during the coroner’s inquest on how Sam Cooke died.

At Cooke’s open-casket funeral on December 18, 1964, friends like Etta James and Muhammad Ali were shocked to find Cooke’s body badly beaten. James didn’t see how motel manager Franklin could have caused such injuries that seemed absent from Sam Cooke’s cause of death.

“His head was nearly separated from his shoulders,” James wrote. “His hands were broken and crushed, and his nose mangled.”

Franklin did admit to police that she beat Cooke with a broom following the shooting, but many still doubted whether this was enough to inflict the level of damage Cooke’s body had sustained.

Getty ImagesThrongs gathered to mourn Sam Cooke’s death.

A month later, police arrested Elisa Boyer for prostitution. Then, in 1979, she was found guilty of the second-degree murder of her ex-boyfriend. Based on this record, some posit that Boyer had attempted to rob Cooke and it went horribly awry.

Who Killed Sam Cooke? Why The Answer May Not End With Bertha Franklin

Another theory suggested that Sam Cooke’s death was planned and staged by his enemies. By the 1960s, Cooke had become a prominent voice in the civil rights movement and frequently ruffled the feathers of bigots when he refused to perform at segregated venues.

Sam Cooke’s obituary in The New York Times even noted his 1963 arrest for trying to register at a “whites only” motel in Louisiana.

Wikimedia CommonsFollowing Sam Cooke’s death, he was buried at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale, California.

As one of Cooke’s friends declared, “He was just getting too big for his britches for a suntanned man.”

Meanwhile, in Chicago and Los Angeles, 200,000 fans lined the streets to mourn Sam Cooke’s death. Ray Charles performed at his funeral and his posthumous hit “A Change is Gonna Come” became the anthem of the civil rights movement.

After reading about the controversial circumstances surrounding Sam Cooke’s death, check out more strange deaths of other famous people. Then, see some of the most powerful photos of the civil rights movement.

The post The Death Of Sam Cooke And The Conflict Details Of His Final Hours appeared first on All That's Interesting.

The Mob MuseumEnoch “Nucky” Johnson played a significant role in the development of Atlantic City, New Jersey, especially its vice industry.

Atlantic City rose to popularity by becoming “The World’s Playground” in the early 20th century. During the Prohibition era, prostitution, gambling, alcohol, and any and all other vices could be readily found in the New Jersey coastal town, provided guests had the money to pay for them. And that’s largely thanks to one man: Enoch “Nucky” Johnson.

Because of Johnson, Prohibition never really made it to Atlantic City. It was a place where people could go to drink away their troubles and gamble away their money — which proved extremely lucrative for Johnson and the men in his circle.

The wealth and influence Johnson acquired as a result of his bootlegging operations and casinos also gave him tight control over the political landscape of Atlantic City. Through bribery and favors, Johnson all but ran the local Republican machine and kept law enforcement and politicians alike in his pocket.

And with the power he gained, Johnson went on to establish his Boardwalk Empire.

Nucky Johnson’s Early Life And Rise To Power

Born Enoch Lewis Johnson on Jan. 20, 1883, Nucky Johnson was the son of Smith Johnson, an elected Sheriff in Atlantic County.

In 1905, at the age of 19, Nucky — derived from his first name, Enoch — decided to follow in his father’s footsteps, becoming his undersheriff.

In 1906, Johnson married his childhood sweetheart, Mabel Jeffries. For a time, he attended the New Jersey State Normal School (now the College of New Jersey) before abandoning his studies in favor of his political career. Then, Nucky Johnson, like his father before him, was elected Sheriff of Atlantic County in 1908. A year later, he was appointed to the position of executive secretary of the Atlantic County Republican Executive Committee.

In 1911, Louis “Commodore” Kuehnle, then the head of the Atlantic City political machine, and several others were charged with corruption — including Johnson. While Kuehnle was ultimately convicted and sent to prison, Johnson was acquitted, leaving him free to take over the city’s Republican party.

Wikimedia CommonsLouis “Commodore” Kuehnle.

In 1914, Johnson took a position as county treasurer, which granted him unparalleled access to Atlantic City’s funds. He began to grow the local vice tourism industry, promoting prostitution and permitting the service of alcohol on Sundays, all the while accepting kickbacks and corrupted government contracts.

Although he never ran for an elected political office, Nucky Johnson’s money and city government influence meant he held a lot of sway in Atlantic City politics. He is credited with helping to get multiple New Jersey governors elected.

By 1920, Johnson was already relying heavily on prostitution and gambling to drive the Atlantic City economy, making himself very rich in the process. But when Prohibition hit, Johnson saw an opportunity for Atlantic City – and himself.

How Prohibition Turned Atlantic City Into A Bootlegging Empire

Atlantic City rapidly became a major port for illegally importing alcohol on the East Coast, and it was largely thanks to Nucky Johnson and his bootlegging operations. Johnson was able to provide booze to speakeasies and clubs across the city, and before long, it became a national tourist destination for prostitution, gambling, and alcohol.

Meanwhile, Johnson took a cut of every illegal activity that took place in Atlantic City, reportedly making over $500,000 a year in the process — the equivalent of roughly $8 to 12 million today. And he used the wealth he accrued from the vice industry to exert even tighter control over the city’s politics.

But his reach extended far beyond the confines of New Jersey. As a prominent racketeer and criminal boss, he regularly did business with the Mafia, forming close ties to some of its leading members. And soon, he was exerting his influence over the mob, too.

Following the bloody St. Valentine’s Day Massacre in the spring of 1929, Johnson reportedly hosted the historic Atlantic City Conference. During this meeting, organized crime leaders like Al Capone, Bugs Moran, Lucky Luciano, and Meyer Lansky gathered in Atlantic City to settle territory disputes, consolidate and regulate bootlegging operations throughout the country, and put an end to inter-gang violence.

While much of what transpired during the conference remains a mystery, some historians say that the National Crime Syndicate was founded during these discussions.

Wikimedia CommonsNucky Johnson and Al Capone on the Atlantic City boardwalk.

The Fall Of Nucky Johnson

The repeal of Prohibition brought new troubles for Nucky Johnson. Bootlegged alcohol, one of Atlantic City’s main sources of income, was no longer necessary. The Great Depression also took a toll on the city’s tourism industry. Meanwhile, Johnson was facing increased scrutiny from the federal government.

Johnson had never kept a particularly low profile.

Known as the “Czar of the Ritz,” he rented out the entire ninth floor of the Ritz-Carlton Hotel as his home. He was fond of expensive clothing and regularly wore a red carnation as a boutonnière. His lavish parties, limousines, and other flamboyant displays of wealth drew attention — and he also didn’t put much effort into hiding how he had made his money.

“We have whiskey, wine, women, song, and slot machines,” he once said of his beloved Atlantic City, according to the Mob Museum. “I won’t deny it and I won’t apologize for it. If the majority of the people didn’t want them they wouldn’t be profitable and they would not exist. The fact that they do exist proves to me that the people want them.”

Eventually, the feds began to crack down on Atlantic City and the leaders of its vice industry.

In 1939, Johnson was indicted for income tax evasion. He was sentenced to ten years in federal prison and fined $20,000. However, he served only four of those ten years before being paroled — and reportedly avoided ever paying the fine by taking a pauper’s oath.

Following his release, Nucky Johnson returned to Atlantic City and lived a quiet life in his final years, working as an oil company salesman. In 1968, he died peacefully in a nursing home at the age of 85.

How Does Boardwalk Empire Compare To The Real Story Of Nucky Johnson?

Nucky Johnson remains an American icon, instrumental to the creation of Atlantic City. Like many icons, his story has been retold — and exaggerated — through various fictional portrayals. Most famously, he inspired Steve Buscemi’s character, Nucky Thompson, in the popular HBO series Boardwalk Empire.

Wikimedia Commons/HBOThe real-life Nucky Johnson (left) compared with Steve Buscemi’s Nucky Thompson from Boardwalk Empire.

Like the real Johnson, Buscemi’s Nucky Thompson is a flamboyant casino kingpin and crime boss who uses his wealth and power to maintain total control over Atlantic City politics. However, the show as a whole is largely fictional, taking only loose inspiration from Nucky Johnson’s life and embellishing aspects of it for dramatic effect.

And while the series makes Nucky Thompson out to be a violent mobster willing to murder those who get in his way, in real life, there’s no evidence that Nucky Johnson ever killed anyone. Despite his ties to organized crime, he was reportedly so powerful and well-respected that he never needed to exert violence in order to build his empire.

“Johnson ruled with a velvet hammer,” the New York Times wrote in 2014. “His power was such that he never needed violence to get his way.”

After learning about Nucky Johnson, meet Frank Costello, the mob boss who inspired The Godfather. Then, read about other legendary gangsters from the 1920s.

The post The Wild Story Of Atlantic City Kingpin Enoch Johnson, The Real-Life ‘Nucky Thompson’ From <em>Boardwalk Empire</em> appeared first on All That's Interesting.

Ted Soqui/Sygma via Getty ImagesThe Menendez brothers, Erik and Lyle Menendez, pictured in court in 1994.

When Jose and Kitty Menendez were killed in Beverly Hills on a summer night in 1989, their violent deaths shocked Los Angeles. But their murder was just the beginning.

Before long, the blame for their slaying was pinned on their sons, 21-year-old Lyle and 18-year-old Erik, and the story of the Menendez brothers would soon captivate America.

In a trial filled with twists and turns — which played out on the nascent Court TV — Lyle and Erik admitted to murdering both of their parents on August 20, 1989. They denied, however, that they’d killed their parents merely to inherit their millions. Instead, Lyle and Erik claimed that they’d killed Jose and Kitty after years of constant emotional, physical, and sexual abuse.

As a transfixed nation watched, Lyle and Erik Menendez described years of alleged maltreatment at the hands of their mother and father. The Menendez brothers sobbed on the stand, gave graphic descriptions of molestation and incest, and offered anecdotes of their father’s cruel personality.

This is the story of the Menendez brothers and the murder of their parents.

The Menendez Brothers’ Privileged Upbringing

Brian AndersenErik and Lyle Menendez with their father, Jose, in an undated family photo.

As children, Lyle and Erik Menendez seemed to have it all. Born in 1968 and 1970, respectively, the two boys grew up in a wealthy New Jersey suburb with their parents, Jose, a self-made Cuban immigrant, and Kitty, a former beauty queen. But the Menendez brothers later claimed that their picture-perfect childhood was all a facade — which hid some extremely dark truths.

Their father, who had climbed his way from washing dishes to becoming a successful entertainment executive, pushed both Lyle and Erik hard. According to the Los Angeles Times, Jose wanted his boys to be tennis stars and even hired private coaches for lessons. He demanded excellence from both his sons and their coaches, one of whom quit in frustration.

Jose was intense off the tennis courts, too. The Los Angeles Times reports that he expected his sons to be able to hold conversations about topics like international politics, and sometimes gave them hours-long lectures.

What’s more, the Menendez brothers also later claimed that Jose sexually abused them. One of their cousins later told ABC News that when Lyle was eight years old, and she was 17, he told her that his father had molested him. The cousin told Kitty but didn’t think that the boy’s mother believed her.

And as the years went on, cracks began to show in the Menendez family. After they moved to Southern California for Jose’s work in 1986, Erik and Lyle started getting into trouble for stealing from their neighbors’ homes. Their crime spree enraged Jose to such an extent that he allegedly amended his will so his sons would receive less. According to ABC, he was even thinking about removing his sons from his will entirely.

But before Jose had a chance, he and his wife were brutally killed.

Inside The Murder Of Jose And Kitty Menendez

Los Angeles District AttorneyThe bloodied crime scene following Jose and Kitty Menendez’s murder.

On August 20, 1989, a seemingly hysterical Lyle Menendez, then 21, called 911. “They shot and killed my parents,” he sobbed. Outside the house, his 18-year-old brother, Erik, wailed into the night as the police arrived.

As the Menendez brothers put it, they spent the evening at the movies. Because Erik needed his I.D. for their next stop that night, they returned to the family home to pick it up — and found their parents dead.

“Once we realized what had happened after we called the police,” Erik explained, according to the Los Angeles Times. “It started sinking into our heads: These aren’t just two people. These are our parents.”

Jose had been shot at least five times on the sofa, sustaining a mortal wound to the head along with wounds in the arms and legs. Kitty, who apparently tried to flee from her assailants, had been shot 10 times.

The Menendez brothers’ grief seemed so genuine that police didn’t follow protocol as they examined the crime scene. They didn’t test the brothers’ hands for gunshot residue and didn’t conduct a formal interview until two months after Jose and Kitty’s deaths. The gruesome double murder, it initially seemed, was a “gangland-style killing.”

But as time went on, the Menendez brothers started to rouse investigators’ suspicions. Lyle and Erik burned through $700,000 of their father’s $14 million fortune in six months, spending lavishly on expensive cars, watches, tennis coaches, and exotic vacations.

Detective Les Zoeller explained to Oxygen that investigators really began to suspect the brothers when they learned that Erik had written a screenplay in which a character murders his parents to inherit their money. Investigators also noted that the Menendez brothers had offered some odd details about the night of their parents’ deaths, like seeing gun smoke in the air — something that would have disappeared shortly after shots were fired.

The authorities’ suspicions were confirmed in a shocking fashion when the mistress of a therapist named Dr. Jerome Oziel — who had been treating Erik — came forward with tapes of both Erik and Lyle confessing to their parents’ murders. In March 1990, the Menendez brothers were arrested.

The Sordid Trials Of The Menendez Brothers

KIM KULISH/AFP via Getty ImagesErik and Lyle Menendez speak to each other during a hearing in 1995.

While arguments continued over whether or not Oziel’s tapes were admissible in court, Erik and Lyle Menendez’s trial captivated the nation. In 1993, the case played out on the nascent Court TV — and brought the drama of the Menendez family straight into Americans’ living rooms.

As the Menendez brothers told it, their parents’ murder had come after years and years of emotional, physical, and sexual abuse. Not only were they “punched and belt-whipped,” but both brothers also offered harrowing testimony of sexual abuse at the hands of their father, Jose.

“We would be in the bathroom, and uh, he would put me on my knees and… uh, have oral sex with him,” Lyle testified, claiming that the abuse lasted from the time he was six to the time he was eight. “He raped me.”

Erik also claimed that he’d suffered sexual abuse at his father’s hands, telling the jury: “He would have me give him oral sex, and he would stick the needles or tacks into my thighs as he was doing this.”

The brothers also claimed that they’d had an incestuous relationship with their mother, Kitty. Both said that they slept in her bed as teenagers when Jose was gone, and Lyle claimed he would touch her “everywhere.”

Despite these revelations, the prosecution maintained that the Menendez brothers had killed their parents in cold blood for their money. The California Supreme Court ruled that the taped confessions were indeed admissible in court, and investigators found that the brothers had bought the guns they used during the murder with a stolen I.D. What’s more, Lyle had told a friend that he’d deleted his father’s amended will shortly after his death.

Though both brothers’ trials ended in mistrials in 1994, they went back to court in 1995 for a retrial — where videotaping was banned — and they were each found guilty of first-degree murder in 1996. The Menendez brothers were then sentenced to life in prison, where they remain to this day.

Where Are Lyle And Erik Menendez Today?

Though Lyle and Erik Menendez were sentenced to life in prison in 1996 — they were originally in separate prisons but are now housed together in Richard J. Donovan Correctional Facility in San Diego — they’ve continued to make headlines from behind bars. Both of the Menendez brothers have married, and they’ve opened up to the media about their infamous crime.

“I am the kid that did kill his parents, and no river of tears has changed that and no amount of regret has changed it,” Lyle Menendez told ABC News in 2017. “I accept that. You are often defined by a few moments of your life, but that’s not who you are in your life, you know. Your life is your totality of it… You can’t change it. You just, you’re stuck with the decisions you made.”

He and Erik have stuck with their story that they killed Jose and Kitty because of sexual abuse and that a final fight preempted the murders.

Lyle, who said he was furious when he first learned that his father was also allegedly abusing Erik, explained, “It was like I kept my part of that sort of devil’s pact and [my father] didn’t. And my mother, you know, ‘You let your children wake up in the home of a child molester every day.'”

But some of their family members refuse to believe their allegations. Brian Andersen, Kitty Menendez’s brother, told ABC News that Erik and Lyle had acted out of greed, not because they’d been abused by their parents.

“There was certainly no indication of any kind that there was ever any abuse,” Andersen insisted. “I think the motive was strictly money.”

Whatever their motive, the case of the Menendez brothers remains one of the most captivating true crime tales of the 1990s. Theirs is a story of revenge, greed, and violence. And it offers the haunting reminder that no one knows for sure what happens behind closed doors.

After reading about the Menendez brothers, discover the story of Ron and Dan Lafferty, the Mormon fundamentalist brothers who murdered their sister-in-law and niece. Then, learn about Jeff Pelley, the teenager who allegedly killed his family — and then went to prom right after.

The post The Disturbing Story Of The Menendez Brothers And How They Killed Their Own Parents In A ‘Gangland-Style’ Murder appeared first on All That's Interesting.

Taro Yamasaki/The LIFE Images Collection/Getty ImagesRudy Ruettiger in the stands at Notre Dame in 1993 to promote Rudy, the film based on his story.

The crowd at Notre Dame went wild. On the field, a 5’6″ defensive end had just sacked the opposing quarterback — resulting in a thrilling victory for the Fighting Irish. At least, that’s how the film about Rudy Ruettiger’s unlikely college football career ends. But what’s the true story behind the classic 1993 sports film Rudy?

The real-life Rudy Ruettiger had long aspired to play football for the University of Notre Dame. The Fighting Irish was the favorite team of his father, a miner who respected hard work.

As chronicled in Rudy, Ruettiger struggled to overcome financial and physical hurdles in pursuit of his goal. Because of his dyslexia and small frame, acceptance into the University of Notre Dame seemed like a lofty dream.

But in real life, just as in the movie, Rudy Ruettiger never gave up. He studied hard and displayed intense dedication. In the end, this poor boy from the outskirts of Chicago became a Notre Dame legend and a compelling motivational speaker and author once his days on the gridiron were done.

This is the true story of Rudy Ruettiger and the real-life heroics behind Rudy.

Rudy Ruettiger’s Dream Of Playing Football At Notre Dame

RUDY International / FacebookRudy Ruettiger (bottom right) as a schoolboy in Joliet, Illinois.

Born on August 23, 1948, in Joliet, Illinois, Daniel Eugene Ruettiger grew up in a lower-middle-class family on the outskirts of Chicago.

The third of 14 children, he learned to love football from his father, a hardworking miner. His family’s weekly gatherings around the television to watch Notre Dame football not only marked a bright spot in Ruettiger’s childhood but also birthed his lifelong dream to join the team.

At Joliet Catholic High School, Ruettiger was a poor student but a promising athlete. He was a terrific cornerback during his junior and senior seasons, garnering more tackles than anyone on his team. Despite weighing a scrawny 165 pounds, his high school success made him even more determined to play for Notre Dame.

However, Ruettiger’s five-foot-six-inch frame and yet-undiagnosed dyslexia created physical and academic hurdles. After he graduated high school, his football dreams felt entirely out of reach. Instead, Ruettiger enlisted in the United States Navy in 1968. He served two tours at sea during the Vietnam War.

Returning home with his newfound G.I. Bill benefits, Ruettiger successfully enrolled at Indiana’s Holy Cross College in 1972. There, Ruettiger learned that if he got all A’s, he could try to transfer to Notre Dame after four semesters.

That’s what he did. Officially diagnosed with dyslexia, Ruettiger worked hard toward his goal. He studied to improve his grades and worked a groundskeeper job on the nearby Notre Dame campus. From his spare room in the basketball arena, he continuously applied to get in.

After three disheartening rejections, Rudy Ruettiger was accepted in 1974 and became an official Notre Dame man.

The True Story Behind The Beloved Film Rudy

Rudy Ruettiger’s life at Notre Dame would be well-documented in the uplifting 1993 Hollywood hit Rudy and complemented by his 2012 autobiography, Rudy: My Story.

But Ruettiger’s success was hard-won. Once he was accepted to Notre Dame, it took tremendous effort for Ruettiger to even get accepted onto the Notre Dame scout team, which helps the varsity team practice.

Coaches took notice. Notre Dame head coach Ara Parseghian not only encouraged walk-on players like Ruettiger but was well aware that sheer will can often triumph over lack of experience.

And Coach Merv Johnson proved essential in coaching Rudy Ruettiger from fledgling scout member to an official part of the team. During Ruettiger’s last few months as a student in his senior year the new head coach, Dan Devine, gave him a chance to shine.

Although Parseghian had promised Ruettiger an opportunity to play on the field, the coach stepped down after the 1974 season. His replacement, Devine had made no such promise. But he understood how much it would mean to Ruettiger.

On November 8, 1975, as Notre Dame battled Georgia Tech, Devine told Ruettiger to get ready. It was the first and last time that he would step onto the field during an official game.

At first, Ruettiger failed to tackle quarterback Rudy Allen — but then rammed him to the ground during the very final play.

Notre Dame/Collegiate Images/Getty ImagesRudy Ruettiger (#45) being carried off the field at Notre Dame Stadium in South Bend, Indiana.

The crowds roared as Ruettiger’s teammates carried him off the field on their shoulders. Not only had Rudy Ruettiger’s dreams been realized — but he’d become a Notre Dame legend. And Hollywood took notice.

According to Ruettiger himself, the movie (in which he appears as a fan during the last scene) was 92 percent accurate.

Notre DameAfter Rudy Ruettiger tackled the opposing quarterback on November 8, 1975, his teammates lifted him onto their shoulders and carried him off the field.

Rudy Ruettiger’s Life As An Author And Speaker After Notre Dame

After cementing his legend at Notre Dame, Ruettiger went on to launch a successful career as a motivational speaker, author, and owner of Rudy Beverage, Inc.

However, Ruettiger was charged with securities fraud in 2011 for an alleged pump-and-dump scheme. He later admitted that greed led him down the path of crime, which he regretted.

RUDY International / FacebookRudy Ruettiger and Sean Astin, star of the film Rudy, in 2021.

Ultimately, however, Rudy Ruettiger remains a beloved icon of determination and triumph to this day. He has been awarded honorary degrees from several universities, given the key to the city by numerous municipalities across the country, and was recognized by presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, and even given the chance to speak at the White House.

From his boyhood in Illinois to his heroics at Notre Dame to his speeches at the White House, Rudy Ruettiger has inspired countless people around the world and shows no signs of slowing down.

After learning about Rudy Ruettiger, read the true stories behind other real-life heroes featured in classic sports movies, like Frank Dux from Bloodsport and James J. Braddock from Cinderella Man.

The post The True Story Of Rudy Ruettiger, The Notre Dame Football Legend Behind ‘Rudy’ appeared first on All That's Interesting.

@wscevl/TikTok, @roguemarineadventures/TikTokSouth Carolina’s Morgan Island, which is home to thousands of research monkeys, is off-limits to the public.

In the relatively few cases of domestic locales that Americans are prevented from visiting, it’s usually for their own safety. For example, there are many places where military activity makes visiting both forbidden and wholly inadvisable. There are also places where nature itself has forced the area to be temporarily closed off, such as the land surrounding an active volcano.

But in the case of one South Carolina island that’s off-limits to the public, the reason is a bit strange. In short, it’s overrun with monkeys.

South Carolina’s Morgan Island has been an object of fascination and fear ever since monkeys — specifically, rhesus macaques — were introduced there in 1979. Given that tourists are barred from visiting Morgan Island, the mystery of the so-called “Monkey Island” has generated a host of rumors and conspiracies.

What Is South Carolina’s “Monkey Island”?

@roguemarineadventures/TikTokMorgan Island serves as a breeding colony for rhesus monkeys, which are owned by the National Institutes of Health.

For example, one TikTok video on the topic posted in March 2026 quickly garnered over 760,000 views. In the video, the user dubs Morgan Island “America’s deadliest island,” later calling it “the most dangerous place in America.”

“Every monkey here carries a virus that could kill you. It’s called herpes B,” user @planetshape2 says. “For them, it’s nothing. For humans, it’s lethal. One bite, one scratch. That’s all it takes. The virus attacks your brain within days. If untreated, the death rate is over seventy percent.”

“That’s why the government doesn’t just warn you to stay away,” the TikToker continues. “They’ve made it illegal. No boats allowed, no exceptions. Step foot on this island, and you’re committing a federal crime. But more importantly, you might not make it back alive.”

A Brief History Of Morgan Island And Its Rhesus Monkeys

In the mid-1900s, the La Parguera facility of the Caribbean Primate Research Center in Puerto Rico had a problem. In short, their research monkeys were misbehaving. Specifically, they were escaping, causing problems for local residents.

Making matters worse was the fact that many of these monkeys were infected with the herpes B virus. The video overplays the danger of this virus — since the virus was identified in 1932, there have only been 50 documented cases in humans, and the CDC says primate-to-human transmission of the virus is rare.

@roguemarineadventures/TikTokSome say the island’s restrictions are intended to protect the monkeys from humans, while some say it’s the other way around.

Still, the fact that monkeys were escaping made locals nervous. In response, South Carolina offered to move the monkeys to Morgan Island and establish a research facility there. This offer was accepted, and between 1979 and 1980, over 1,400 rhesus monkeys were sent to the island. Today, it’s estimated that the population is between 3,000 and 4,000 monkeys.

Ownership of the island and its monkeys is currently divided across several parties. The monkeys are owned by the National Institutes of Health, the island is owned by the state of South Carolina, and the whole operation is managed by a company called Alpha Genesis.

The island primarily serves as a breeding colony for rhesus monkeys. According to the Post and Courier, around 500 monkeys are captured from the island every year to be used in research involving vaccines, medicines, and medical devices. Most are euthanized after this testing.

Is Morgan Island Really That Dangerous?

There are certainly dangers associated with visiting an island full of diseased monkeys. However, it’s debated whether this danger is the reason why tourists are banned from visiting the island.

Wikimedia CommonsA rhesus monkey sits near the water’s edge on South Carolina’s Morgan Island.

According to one side of the debate, the island is a research station. This means that human influence could impact the research being performed. Additionally, a 2016 Charleston City Paper report claims that the ban on tourists is more related to the dangers that humans could pose to the monkeys, not the other way around.

The other side of the debate says the situation is a little more complicated. The monkeys must be protected, they say, but they also note that there is a known danger to humans on the island. As noted in the Post and Courier, an 88-page contract for the island claims that it “poses so many ‘potentially life-threatening situations’ that caretakers must bar the public and prosecute trespassers.”

Staff, however, must be present on the island 24 hours a day, seven days per week. Furthermore, the island does not allow visitors, and anyone coming to the island must prove that they are vaccinated and have completed a variety of medical tests to prevent disease transmission in either direction. While on the island, face masks must be worn at all times.

While trespassing is forbidden — “the government encourages prosecution of any individuals or groups to the greatest extent of the law to ensure the health and welfare of the colony,” per the contract — visitors can still take a boat trip by the island if they’re interested in getting a look at the monkeys. Numerous companies offer tours, and monkeys can frequently be seen relaxing on the beach.

But, for your own legal and personal safety, it’s probably best if you don’t get too close.

All That’s Interesting reached out to @planetshape2 via TikTok direct message and comment.

Interested in more islands overrun with animals? Set foot onto Ilha da Queimada Grande, an island so infested with deadly snakes that you’re not allowed to visit it. For more forbidden islands, venture to North Brother Island, the New York City island no one is allowed to visit.

The post There’s A South Carolina Island That You Are Banned From: ‘The Most Dangerous Place In America’ appeared first on All That's Interesting.

Public DomainDoris Duke, the “Tobacco Queen” who was known as the “richest girl in the world.”

Doris Duke was thrust into the spotlight from the day she was born. As the only child of tobacco tycoon James Buchanan Duke, she was dubbed the “million dollar baby.” And when her father died in 1925, Doris did indeed become a millionaire at just 12 years old.

However, Duke had no desire to be a celebrity. She spent much of her life avoiding cameras and refusing interviews, focusing instead on her charitable foundations and hobbies like surfing, belly dancing, and art collecting. Still, the media was enchanted by Duke — especially her tumultuous love life.

Her husbands included an American politician and a Dominican playboy, not to mention a long list of alleged lovers ranging from Hawaiian surfers to military generals. But perhaps the most chaotic part of Duke’s story came after her death.

In her final years, Doris Duke changed her will to leave control of her vast estate to her alcoholic butler, Bernard Lafferty. When she died in 1993, she was a billionaire — and some people believed that Lafferty had hastened her demise.

Doris Duke, The ‘Richest Girl In The World’

On Nov. 22, 1912, James Buchanan Duke welcomed his daughter Doris into the world. As the only child of the tobacco tycoon, baby Doris was dubbed “the richest little girl in the world” in newspaper headlines.

The Duke fortune went back decades. At the end of the Civil War, James’ father had started producing tobacco products, and the business grew rapidly. James and his brother, Benjamin, took over the company in the 1880s and began using an automated machine to make cigarettes. By 1890, James had merged the business with four rival companies to create the American Tobacco Company, leaving him in control of 90 percent of the U.S. cigarette market.

Public DomainJames Buchanan Duke, the father of Doris Duke.

With his riches, James established the Duke Endowment, a $40 million trust fund for various hospitals, churches, and colleges. One of these schools was Trinity College, which renamed itself Duke University to honor James Duke’s generosity. The Duke Energy Corporation is also named for the Duke family, who established its predecessor in the early 20th century. Today, the company serves more than seven million customers.

But all the money in the world couldn’t protect the Dukes from tragedy. James died in 1925 at age 68, and he left most of his $100 million fortune to Doris Duke, who was 12 at the time. His widow, Nanaline, received a moderate trust fund.

Before he passed, James reportedly warned Doris to “trust no one.”

“My father always said no one would ever love me except for my money, and to be very careful,” Duke later said, as reported by Vanity Fair in 1994.

That conviction would shape Duke’s relationships for her entire life.

The Life Of A Reclusive Celebrity

In the midst of the Great Depression, 21-year-old Doris Duke gained access to the first $10 million her father had left her. This brought unwanted media attention. While other wealthy heiresses became socialites who hosted star-studded parties and thrived in front of the camera, Duke preferred a quieter life. She often refused interviews and photos, instead focusing on her hobbies and philanthropy.

David M. Rubenstein Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Duke UniversityDoris Duke and James Cromwell in Hawaii shortly after their wedding.

But the media only became hungrier when Duke married 38-year-old James Cromwell at age 22. Cromwell was an aspiring politician, and on their wedding night, he reportedly asked her how much he would receive as an annual income from her trust fund.

Their marriage only disintegrated from there. When Duke became pregnant in 1940, rumors flew that the child wasn’t Cromwell’s. Their daughter was born prematurely and died that July, but even that didn’t stop the press from speculating on Duke’s supposed affairs.

She was romantically linked to Errol Flynn, General George S. Patton, and surfer Duke Kahanamoku, though these rumors remain unconfirmed. Duke’s connection to Kahanamoku stemmed from her years in Hawaii. She had an estate in Honolulu known as Shangri La, and she became one of the first white women on the islands to surf competitively.

David M. Rubenstein Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Duke UniversityDoris Duke in Hawaii with the Kahanamoku brothers, circa 1937.

Meanwhile, Cromwell was pursuing his political career. He was appointed U.S. Ambassador to Canada in 1940, which added another challenge to his relationship with Duke. The couple divorced in 1943, and Duke remarried four years later.

Her second husband was Dominican diplomat and playboy Porfirio Rubirosa. Doris Duke was so wealthy that the U.S. government wrote their prenuptial agreement, fearing that a foreign government could gain leverage over the nation if Duke were to die before Rubirosa.

However, the union was short-lived. Duke and Rubirosa divorced in 1951, and Duke swore that she would never marry again. According to her 1993 obituary in The New York Times, the heiress once told a journalist, “All that money is a problem sometimes. It happens every time. After I’ve gone out with a man a few times, he starts to tell me how much he loves me. But how can I know if he really means it? How can I ever be sure?”

Unfortunately, Duke would soon learn the hard lesson that interest in her money wasn’t limited to romantic partners.

An Adopted Daughter And An Alcoholic Butler

By the 1950s, Duke had thrown herself into her philanthropic efforts. She’d founded her first charitable organization at just 23, which funded various requests for financial assistance. In 1958, she established the Duke Gardens Foundation, opening public gardens at her estate in Hillsborough, New Jersey.

Vivian Bedoya/Wikimedia CommonsThe Indoor Display Gardens at Duke Farms in Hillsborough, New Jersey.

Duke also helped restore historic buildings in Newport, Rhode Island. And later in life, she funded programs for child welfare and AIDS research.

Still, her later life wasn’t without controversy. In 1966, her art curator, Eduardo Tirella, decided to move to Hollywood to work as a production designer. He told Duke of his plans at her Newport estate, and staff there overheard an argument between them. Duke and Tirella then drove off together in a car, but before they even left the property, Tirella was dead.

Duke told the police that she had accidentally hit the gas instead of the brake while Tirella was opening the gate, trapping him under the car. The death was ruled accidental, but not everyone was convinced that Duke hadn’t done it on purpose. To make matters more suspicious, Duke donated a substantial amount of money to the city shortly after, sparking rumors of a police cover-up.

That wasn’t the end of Duke’s troubles. In 1988, she legally adopted a 35-year-old woman named Chandi Heffner. Duke believed that Heffner was a reincarnation of the daughter she’d lost 40 years earlier. She bought her a ranch in Hawaii and added her to her will.

Then, in 1990, Duke mysteriously fell ill. Her butler, an alcoholic Irishman named Bernard Lafferty, convinced her that Heffner was conspiring against her. Duke left Hawaii for her home in Beverly Hills, writing Heffner out of her will in the process.

Doris Duke FoundationDoris Duke at Shangri La in the early 1960s.

As reported by The New York Times in 1993, Duke wrote in her will: “I am extremely troubled by the realization that Chandi Heffner may use my 1988 adoption of her (when she was 35 years old) to attempt to benefit financially under the terms of trusts created by my father… I have come to the realization that her primary motive was financial gain.”

In California, Duke’s health continued to deteriorate. In 1992, when she was 79, Lafferty encouraged her to undergo a facelift. The following year, she had two knee replacement surgeries. Before the second operation, she changed her will once more — and she named Lafferty the executor of her billion-dollar estate.

The Final Days Of Doris Duke

Shortly after Duke was discharged from the hospital after her second knee surgery in July 1993, she suffered a stroke. At one point during her recovery, she choked on a piece of food, and Lafferty allegedly refused to call an ambulance.

She survived, but she spent the last few months of her life in and out of the hospital. She passed away on Oct. 28, 1993, a few weeks before her 81st birthday. There was no autopsy, and she was cremated within 24 hours.

Doris Duke FoundationThe Doris Duke Foundation continues to fund charitable causes that were near and dear to its founder.

In the aftermath, Bernard Lafferty was accused of manipulating a helpless elderly woman into handing over her fortune. While she stipulated that most of her money go to her charitable foundations, the former executor of Duke’s will challenged Lafferty’s appointment, claiming that he’d conspired with a doctor to overdose Duke on painkillers during her final illness.

Prosecutors found no evidence of foul play, but the court system did deem Lafferty unfit to act as executor, and he received a hefty settlement to step aside. Heffner also received a settlement after suing Duke’s estate for $65 million, despite the fact that she was written out of the will.

In 1996, the Doris Duke Foundation was established with the remainder of her fortune. The organization provides grants for things Duke was passionate about, like medical research, education, the environment, and the Muslim community in the United States (Duke was an avid collector of Islamic art). While her life was turbulent, her legacy will benefit the country for generations to come.

After reading about Doris Duke, go inside the story of Sarah Rector, who was called the richest Black girl in America. Then, learn about Abigail Folger, the coffee heiress killed by the Manson family.

The post The Stormy Life Of Doris Duke, The Billionaire Heiress Who Left Her Butler In Control Of Her Estate appeared first on All That's Interesting.

Public DomainRoland Doe, the pseudonym of Ronald Hunkeler, the teenager whose harrowing exorcism in 1949 later inspired The Exorcist.

In the picturesque Bel-Nor neighborhood of St. Louis, Missouri, sits a beautiful, Colonial-style house on Roanoke Drive that was once the home of a boy called Roland Doe, a.k.a. Robbie Mannheim or Ronald Hunkeler.

It looks normal on the outside, with an all-brick exterior and white shutters framing the windows. Huge trees and neatly manicured bushes dot the yard. Yet one of the most extraordinary horror stories in American history transformed this house into a landmark for the macabre and provided the true story of The Exorcist.

Discovery via Getty ImagesThe St. Louis house once home to “Roland Doe” as seen in 2015.

The story began in January 1949 in Washington, D.C., where 13-year-old Ronald Hunkeler, a.k.a. Roland Doe began exhibiting disturbing behavior that left his parents baffled and terrified. He was calm and normal during the day, but at night, he would suddenly erupt into screaming fits and other wild outbursts. Meanwhile, he would enter a trance-like state, make sounds in a guttural voice, and break out in scratches and red lines all over his body.

After getting nowhere with doctors, his horrified parents brought him to where their relatives lived in St. Louis and called in Jesuit priests to carry out a harrowing series of exorcisms. As they desperately tried to wrest the demons from his body, they claimed that the boy’s bed moved on its own, slid violently across the room, and knocked them over.

Finally, on April 18, the priests laid holy relics and crucifixes upon Ronald, shouting at Satan and telling the demon that St. Michael would battle him for the boy’s soul.

Seven minutes later, Ronald came out of his trance and told them simply, “He’s gone.”

The Troubled Life Of “Roland Doe”

The true story behind The Exorcist begins in the late 1940s in suburban Washington, D.C., with a German-American family.

Their 13-year-old, believed to be named Ronald Hunkeler (later referred to pseudonymously as “Roland Doe” or “Robbie Mannheim”), was despondent over the loss of his beloved Aunt Harriet. Harriet was a spiritualist who’d taught him many things — including how to use a Ouija board.

Wikimedia CommonsFather E. Albert Hughes, the first priest who attempted to perform an exorcism on Roland Doe in Washington, D.C.

In early January 1949, shortly after Harriet’s death, Ronald Hunkeler began to experience strange things. He heard scratching sounds coming from the floors and walls of his room. Water dripped inexplicably from pipes and walls. Most troubling of all was that his mattress would suddenly move.

Disturbed, Ronald’s family sought the help of every expert they knew. The family consulted doctors, psychiatrists, and their local Lutheran minister, but they were no help. The minister suggested that the family seek the assistance of the Jesuits.

Father E. Albert Hughes, the local Catholic priest, asked his superiors’ permission to perform an exorcism on the teenager in late February of 1949. The church granted Hughes’ request.

For the exorcism, Hughes strapped the boy to the mattress and began his recitations. But he had to stop the rite when Ronald broke off a piece of mattress spring and slashed the priest across his shoulders, leaving the exorcism unfinished.

A few days later, red scratches appeared on Roland Doe. One of the scratches formed the word ‘LOUIS,’ which indicated to Ronald’s mother that the family needed to go to St. Louis, where the Hunkelers had relatives, to find a way to save their son.

More Help Arrives For Ronald Hunkeler

Public DomainWilliam Bowdern, one of two priests who performed the St. Louis exorcism of Roland Doe, a.k.a Robbie Mannheim or Ronald Hunkeler.

A cousin of the family was attending St. Louis University at the time of Ronald’s struggles. She put the Hunkelers in touch with Father Walter H. Halloran and Rev. William Bowdern. After consulting with the university’s president, these two Jesuits agreed to perform an exorcism on young Ronald with the help of several assistants.

The men gathered at the residence on Roanoke Drive in early March of 1949. There, the exorcists witnessed scratching on the boy’s body and the mattress moving violently. These were the same types of things that had happened in Maryland when the first exorcism failed.

Amid these bizarre happenings, Bowdern and Halloran, according to their reports, noticed a pattern in Ronald’s behavior. He was calm and normal during the day. But at night, after settling in for bed, he would exhibit strange behavior, including screaming and wild outbursts.

Ronald would also enter a trance-like state and start making sounds in a guttural voice. The priests also said they saw objects mysteriously flying in the boy’s presence and noted that he would react violently when he saw any sacred object presented by the attending Jesuits.

All of these details from the true story of The Exorcist made it into the film. But there were more that didn’t.

At one point during this weeks-long ordeal, Bowdern reportedly saw an “X” appear in scratches on Ronald’s chest, which the priest believed signified the number 10.

In another incident, a pitchfork-shaped pattern of red lines moved from the boy’s thigh and snaked down towards his ankle. These types of things happened every night for more than a month. Once, a red X appeared on Ronald’s chest, leading the priests to believe he was possessed by 10 demons.

The St. Louis Exorcism Of Roland Doe

Wikimedia CommonsThe Alexian Brothers Hospital in St. Louis where Ronald Hunkeler, a.k.a. Roland Doe or Robbie Mannheim, was treated.

The two priests never gave up as they continued the exorcism night after night. On the evening of March 20, the exorcism reached an unhealthy new level.

Ronald urinated all over his bed and began shouting and cursing at the priests. Now, Ronald’s parents had had enough. They took him to Alexian Brothers Hospital in St. Louis for more serious treatment.

Finally, on April 18, a “miracle” occurred in Ronald’s room at Alexian Brothers. It was the Monday after Easter, and Ronald awoke with seizures. He yelled at the priests, saying that Satan would always be with him. The priests laid holy relics, crucifixes, medals, and rosaries on the boy.

At 10:45 p.m. that evening, the attending priests called on St. Michael to expel Satan from Ronald’s body.

They shouted at Satan, saying that St. Michael would battle him for Ronald’s soul. Seven minutes later, Ronald came out of his trance and said, “He’s gone.” The teenager recounted how he had a vision that St. Michael vanquishing Satan on a great battlefield.

According to Bowdern and Halloran, the strange occurrences and behavior ceased after that. And, despite providing the true story of The Exorcist, Ronald Hunkeler went on live a completely normal life from that moment forward.

The True Story Of The Exorcist

Warner Bros.A still from the film version of The Exorcist.

No one would have ever known about the exorcism of “Roland Doe” (nor would it have become the true story of The Exorcist) if not for an article in The Washington Post, which reported in August 1949 that priests had indeed performed an exorcism.

But the article was scarce on details. It didn’t even give a name, whether Roland Doe, Robbie Mannheim, or Ronald Hunkeler. And the case wouldn’t make headlines again for more than two decades.

In 1971, an author by the name of William Peter Blatty penned the bestselling novel The Exorcist, based on the unofficial diaries kept by Halloran and Bowdern. The book stayed on the bestseller list for 54 weeks and spawned the hit movie, which incorporated the demon Pazuzu, in 1973.

The movie took many liberties with its source material, turning the teenage Roland into a 12-year-old girl named Regan. The movie’s story also takes place entirely in Washington, D.C., and the Georgetown area, which is somewhat true-to-life since Ronald was hospitalized for a week in Georgetown in late February of 1949.

Although the scratches, shouting, spitting, and cursing in the movie mimicked what Ronald had experienced, the boy’s head never turned 360 degrees like Regan’s did in the film. Similarly, Ronald never vomited green matter during his many tantrums, nor did he use a bloody crucifix to masturbate.

What Happened After The Exorcism Of “Roland Doe”

Discovery via Getty ImagesThe stairs inside the St. Louis house once home to “Roland Doe” as seen in 2015.

Following the exorcism of “Roland Doe,” his family moved back to the East Coast. Sources, which have also referred to him as Robbie Mannheim, say that he found a wife and started a family. He named his first son Michael after the saint believed to have saved his soul. If Roland is still alive today, he would be in his mid-80s.

William Bowdern died in 1983 after serving the Catholic Church for decades. Walter Halloran lived until 2005 when he died of cancer. He was the last surviving member of the team that had performed the exorcism of “Roland Doe.”

Following the St. Louis exorcism, the room in Alexian Brothers Hospital was boarded up and sealed. The entire facility was torn down in 1978. The house where the family lived in Maryland is now an empty lot after it was abandoned in the 1960s.

And while most experts believe the actual name of “Roland Doe” to be Ronald Hunkeler, only one person reportedly knows for sure.

In 1993, author Thomas B. Allen wrote a book on the story of Roland Doe’s exorcism called Possessed. In writing the book, which relies heavily on Halloran’s detailed accounts, Allen claims to have uncovered the true identity and story of “Roland Doe,” but has said that he will never reveal the person’s true name.

As for the cozy house on Roanoke Drive, it sold to new owners in 2005 for $165,000. Perhaps the buyers embraced the property’s legendary reputation that claims that Satan may have once lived in an upstairs bedroom.

After this look at “Roland Doe” and the true story of The Exorcist, read up on the exorcism of Anneliese Michel, the real-life Emily Rose. Then, read up on horror movies based on true stories.

The post Inside The Harrowing Exorcism Of Roland Doe, The True Story Behind ‘The Exorcist’ appeared first on All That's Interesting.

Archaeological Museum of the Dubrovnik MuseumsThe Greek theater mask found in Croatia’s Crno Jezero cave in Pelješac.

While excavating the Crno Jezero cave in Pelješac, Croatia, archaeologists came across a 2,000-year-old figurine wearing a Greek theater mask. Small, scowling, and made of terracotta, it likely once hung on a wall — and may have been involved in ancient rituals.

Archaeologists also found a number of wine vessels in the cave, and it’s possible that these and the figurine were related. After all, the Greek patron of theater was the god Dionysus, who was also the god of wine. Ceremonies in his honor may have been held inside this cave more than two millennia ago.

The 2,000-Year-Old Greek Theater Mask Figurine Found In Croatia

Archaeological Museum of the Dubrovnik MuseumsThe excavations took place at Crno Jezero cave, which has been used by humans since the Bronze Age.

According to a statement from the Archaeological Museum of the Dubrovnik Museums, the Greek theater mask figurine was found during excavations at Crno Jezero cave in Pelješac, which took place between April and May.

Dating to the 3rd or 4th century B.C.E., the theater mask figurine is hollow inside and has a hanging hole at the top. Archaeologists believe that it was likely hung on a wall, and that it was “undoubtedly associated with theater.”

The figurine also likely has a connection to the Greek god Dionysus, the god of wine, theater, and festivity. This seems all the more likely since archaeologists have also found a number of high-quality Greek vessels, both for storing wine and drinking wine, within the cave.

“Thanks to their location in a hidden, intact part of the cave, the finds have remained intact and almost completely preserved, almost like a frozen image more than two thousand years old,” said archaeologist Domagoj Perkić, head of the Archaeological Museum.

Archaeological Museum of DubrovnikArchaeologists found vessels for storing and drinking wine in the cave, possibly a nod to ancient rituals worshipping the Greek god Dionysus.

According to the museum, the wine vessels were not used in day-to-day life, but were “a symbol of the wealth and power of the local prehistoric community…who obviously had a need to use them in rituals unknown to us (possibly related to drinking wine).”

However, the exact significance of the wine vessels is unclear.

“We can only speculate whether we can connect Dionysus or his Illyrian counterpart with the wine vessels,” Perkić stated, “and at the same time with the aforementioned mask, and whether we can find in them the deity to whom the cave served as a sanctuary and what rituals were performed there.”

Archaeological Museum of DubrovnikA small wine vessel found in Crno Jezero cave.

But what is clear is that ancient humans used the Crno Jezero cave for a long, long time.

The Ancient History Of The Crno Jezero Cave

The Crno Jezero cave, located on the Pelješac peninsula in southern Croatia, was used by humans starting in the Bronze Age. Then, during the 2nd millennium B.C.E., it was used as a refuge. But starting in the Late Bronze Age and then into the Iron Age, it was used instead as necropolis.

Archaeological Museum of DubrovnikExcavations in Crno Jezero cave have shown evidence of human occupation for thousands of years, starting in the Bronze Age.

“According to the results of radiocarbon analyses of human bones, this is from the period between 1012 and 481 BC, so it served as a necropolis for a little over five hundred years,” Perkić explained.

Starting around the 4th century B.C.E., it was used as sanctuary, with items like amphorae, bowls, an kantharos (a Greek drinking cup) left as votive offerings, likely for religious or ritualistic purposes.

It was during this period that the Greek theater mask figurine was also left in the cave. Possibly — given the discovery of both the figurine and the wine vessels — rituals related to the Greek god Dionysus took place at Crno Jezero cave some 2,000 years ago. But many questions still remain.

Regardless, the Greek theater mask figurine is an astounding discovery — a small but vital piece of Crno Jezero cave’s long, long history.

After reading about the 2,000-year-old Greek theater mask figurine found in a cave in Croatia, discover the stories of some of the most fascinating gods from Greek mythology. Then, learn about the true history behind the Trojan War.

The post Archaeologists Just Found A Greek Theater Mask Figurine At An Ancient Worship Site Inside A Croatian Cave appeared first on All That's Interesting.

Titanic Archive/YouTubeRuth Becker speaks about the Titanic during an interview in the 1980s.

In 1982, Ruth Becker — one of the last living RMS Titanic survivors — described watching the ship break apart as it sank. Her account was doubted at the time, but she lived to see her testimony vindicated when the wreck was discovered in two pieces in 1985.

A viral TikTok by @history.on.loop with more than 1.7 million views shows two images of Ruth Becker describing the final moments of the Titanic.

The text overlay of the video claims the following: “In 1982 Titanic survivor Ruth Becker was giving an interview where she stated the ship broke in two. The treasurer of the Titanic Historical Society actually took the microphone away from her and said she had been mistaken. Three years later they found the wreck broken in two.”

The story struck a nerve, with viewers criticizing officials for doubting a first-hand account and others saying that she deserves a public apology. But did she ever get one?

Ruth Becker’s Experience On The Titanic

Ruth Elizabeth Becker was born in India to American missionaries in 1899. In early 1912, her younger brother Richard fell ill, and at the advice of physicians, her mother Nellie took Ruth, Richard, and their sister Marion back to the U.S. for treatment so he’d have a better chance of surviving. They left Ruth’s father behind in India.

The family boarded the Titanic in Southampton on April 10, 1912, as second-class passengers. Ruth recalled her mother having doubts about the voyage and asking a crew member about the ship’s safety.

Public DomainRuth Becker in 1912, the year of her ill-fated voyage on the Titanic.

On the night of the sinking, a steward told Nellie, who had noticed that the ship had stopped moving in the middle of the ocean, that there had been “a little accident” but that they were going to fix it and would be on their way shortly, Becker recalled in an interview preserved by the Titanic Archive.

Nellie Becker wasn’t convinced. She gathered the children and headed to the upper decks. It was cold, so she sent Ruth back down to get blankets, but by the time Ruth returned, her two siblings had already been loaded into Lifeboat 11. When the crew said that the boat was full, Ruth later recalled, her mother screamed, “Please let me in that boat! Those are my children!” They let Nellie in, but Ruth was still left on the ship. Nellie screamed down to her to get in another boat.

Ruth went up to the crew member loading the next lifeboat. “I asked him if I could get in the boat,” she recalled, “and he says, ‘Sure.’ And he picked me up and dumped me in. I evidently was the last one put in that boat because they started lowering right away.”

Public DomainThe Titanic leaving Southampton, England, on April 10, 1912.

From the lifeboat, Ruth said she watched the Titanic go down.

“The Titanic was going down very slowly,” she recalled. “These people were standing there at the decks, at the railing, wishing somebody, I suppose, would come and rescue them. But finally, it did go down, and all the people who were standing at the decks at the railing jumped. They jumped out, and they screamed and they yelled for help… I can still hear them jumping from the deck and screaming and yelling for help, and the boat finally went under the water. There was nothing left.”

She and the other survivors rowed from 1:00 to 4:30 in the morning, when they spotted the lights of the rescue ship Carpathia. Ruth was so numb with cold that she couldn’t hold on to the rescue swing, so they tied her in and pulled her up. She was reunited with her mother and siblings on board.

Public DomainGerman artist Willy Stöwer’s 1912 depiction of the Titanic sinking.

Ruth went on to graduate from Wooster College, become a teacher, marry, and raise three children. For decades, she refused to speak about her time on the Titanic. Even her own children didn’t know she had been on board. It was only after her retirement and her move to Santa Barbara in 1971 that she began to open up.

The Debate About The Sinking Of The Titanic

In 1982, Becker spoke at a Titanic Historical Society convention and described how the ship broke in two before it went under. According to the caption of the TikTok video, an officer of the society took the microphone from her and told the audience she had been mistaken, though there is no video footage of this incident.

However, other survivors had certainly been dismissed over the decades after claiming that the Titanic split in two.

The conventional view was that the Titanic sank in one piece. This was largely due to the testimony of Second Officer Charles Lightoller, which was believed over the word of other survivors. Lightoller was the most senior officer to survive the disaster, and passengers had given conflicting reports due to the chaos and darkness of the night.

NOAA/Institute for Exploration/University of Rhode IslandThe bow of the Titanic sits more than 2,000 feet from the ship’s stern on the floor of the Atlantic Ocean.

Then, in September 1985, oceanographer Robert Ballard located the Titanic on the floor of the North Atlantic Ocean. When his crew found the wreckage, it was in fact in two pieces, just as survivors had described.

While Becker couldn’t receive an apology for an incident that isn’t credibly documented, she did live to see her testimony vindicated. She died on July 6, 1990, at age 90. Her ashes were scattered at sea over the spot where the Titanic lies.

All That’s Interesting reached out to @history.on.loop for comment via TikTok direct message and comment.

After reading about Ruth Becker and her testimony about the Titanic, go inside the stories of 12 other survivors of the disaster. Then, read about the iceberg that sank the ship

The post <em>Titanic</em> Survivor Ruth Becker Claimed The Ship Broke In Two Before It Sank — But Nobody Believed Her appeared first on All That's Interesting.

A scion of the powerful Kennedy family, Jack Kennedy hadn’t planned on a career in politics. His father, Joseph Kennedy had long hoped that Jack’s older brother, Joe Jr., would ascend to the White House. But when Joe Jr. died during World War II, their father’s hopes and dreams fell upon Jack.

Intelligent, handsome, and charismatic, Jack Kennedy’s political rise was swift. After serving in Congress and the Senate, Kennedy was elected as the first Catholic president in the nation’s history in 1960. He, his glamorous wife Jackie, and their children, became symbols of optimism, youth, and glamor.

But John F. Kennedy’s presidency had its challenges.

He stumbled early on during the Bay of Pigs, and brought the world to the brink of nuclear war during the Cuban missile crisis. Meanwhile, the Vietnam War began to expand in scope, and Kennedy faced a number of challenges at home as the civil rights movement began to gain steam.

That said, Kennedy remained popular at home. And he had begun to lay the foundation for civil rights legislation when he was assassinated in 1963.

Below, look through these photos of the life of John F. Kennedy. And read on to learn about his childhood, entrance into politics, presidency, and death.

John F. Kennedy's Privileged Early Life

John F. "Jack" Kennedy was born on May 29, 1917, to Joseph and Rose Kennedy, the second of their nine children. The Kennedy family was wealthy, and Jack enjoyed a privileged childhood of private schools, summer homes, and luxurious vacations. According to the Miller Center, he once claimed that all he knew of the Great Depression came from books.

But Kennedy also faced hardship early on — he was frequently ill during his childhood with everything from the common cold to scarlet fever, and he was later diagnosed with an endocrine disorder known as Addison's disease.

John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and MuseumThe Kennedy family at Hyannis Port, Massachusetts in 1931.

Though his bouts of illness meant that Kennedy frequently missed school, he nevertheless enrolled at Harvard University in 1936.

While there, his father was appointed as the ambassador to Great Britain, and Kennedy later wrote his senior thesis on why Britain had been unprepared for the start of World War II. It was later published as a successful book, Why England Slept.

Then, like many young men of his generation, Jack Kennedy enlisted to fight in the war. And here his fate was decided. During the war, Jack's older brother, Joe Jr., whom their father had always wanted to be president, was killed. Meanwhile, Jack not only survived the war, but emerged as a war hero.

When Jack Kennedy returned home, he inherited his father's ambition. And over the next decade, he'd enjoy a meteoric political rise to the presidency.

The Highs And Lows Of John F. Kennedy's 'Camelot' Presidency

In 1946, bolstered by his youth, good looks, and his father's fortune, John F. Kennedy won a seat in Congress. After serving three terms, he ran for the U.S. Senate in 1956 and won. Then, in 1960, he successfully challenged Richard Nixon, the sitting vice president — and was elected that November as the nation's first Catholic president. Kennedy was just 43 years old.

But his presidency had a rocky start. In April 1961, Kennedy authorized a mission to overthrow Cuban leader Fidel Castro, but the subsequent Bay of Pigs invasion was a complete failure. Then, during the Cuban Missile crisis in October 1962, it seemed that tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union might tip into nuclear war before the two nations came to an agreement. Meanwhile, many of John F. Kennedy's domestic policies died in Congress, and the conflict in Vietnam had begun to intensify.

National Archives and Records AdministrationJohn F. Kennedy greeting Peace Corps volunteers. The creation of the Peace Corps was one of his major accomplishments.

That said, Kennedy was a hugely inspirational figure in the United States — and abroad. During Kennedy's inauguration, he had famously asked Americans to "Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country." He created the Peace Corps, called for man to go to the moon, and, though slow to react to the growing anger of the civil rights movement, declared his intention to pass a nation-changing civil rights bill.

Meanwhile, his wife, Jackie, and their children, Caroline and John Jr., brought a feeling of youth, glamour, and modernity to the White House. Jackie Kennedy would famously call the Kennedy years "Camelot."

Sadly, Camelot would come to a tragic end.

The Assassination Of John F. Kennedy — And His Legacy Today

By Nov. 22, 1963, John F. Kennedy had begun to lay the groundwork for his second term in office. Though he had not yet announced his intention to run again, he had spent the autumn speaking around the country, and the John F. Kennedy Library writes that he went to Dallas to both ease interparty tensions and to bolster his upcoming reelection.

But things would go terribly wrong.

After arriving in Dallas that morning, Jack and Jackie Kennedy joined Texas Governor John Connally and his wife, Nellie, for a drive from the airport to the Dallas Trade Mart, where the president was supposed to speak. At 12:30 p.m., however, as the car turned onto Dealey Plaza, three shots rang out.

John F. Kennedy was hit twice; John Connally was shot once. The governor was badly wounded, but Kennedy was fatally injured after being shot in the neck and the head. Though he was rushed to Parkland Memorial Hospital, the president was declared dead at 1 p.m., at the age of 46.

National Archives and Records AdministrationPresident Kennedy, in the moments before his assassination on Nov. 22, 1963.

In the aftermath, a 24-year-old man named Lee Harvey Oswald was arrested and accused of killing the president. Though some believe that Oswald had help — or that he was unfairly framed — the Warren Commission later found that Oswald had acted alone. However, Oswald was shot and killed two days later by nightclub owner Jack Ruby, so many questions about Oswald and his possible motives remain to this day.

More than 50 years later, John F. Kennedy is primarily known for the manner of his death. His assassination marked the end of Camelot, and the years that followed would be defined by assassinations, war, and violence.

But Kennedy was more than just his death. In the gallery above, look through photos of John F. Kennedy's life, from his privileged upbringing, to his political rise, to the glamorous days of the Kennedy White House.

After looking through these photos of John F. Kennedy, discover the tragic story of the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy, JFK's brother. Or learn about Dorothy Kilgallen, the journalist who mysteriously died while investigating the JFK assassination.

The post 44 Illuminating Photos Of John F. Kennedy, From His World War II Heroism To His Marriage And Family appeared first on All That's Interesting.

YouTubeKnown as the “Toxic Lady,” Gloria Ramirez emitted strange fumes that left her doctors ill.

Until 1994, Gloria Ramirez was an ordinary woman living in Riverside, California, with her boyfriend and two children. But on February 19, the 31-year-old started having trouble breathing.

Ramirez knew she was sick: she had cervical cancer. She was rushed to Riverside General Hospital, where doctors got to work to try to save her life. Within minutes, however, the medical staff started to feel ill themselves.

By the end of the night, Ramirez died from complications related to her cancer. And dozens of the medical staff who had treated her suffered from a myriad of unexplained symptoms. In the years since, Ramirez has become known as the “Toxic Lady” — but no one knows what made her so toxic.

While many theories have been floated, the reason behind Gloria Ramirez’s “toxicity” remains a mystery to this day.

How Gloria Ramirez Died — And Made Her Doctors Mysteriously Ill

On the night of Feb. 19, 1994, Gloria Ramirez began to feel ill. Her heart was beating fast, she had trouble breathing, and she had been suffering from nausea and vomiting. Ramirez was young, just 31 years old, but had been recently diagnosed with advanced cervical cancer.

Ramirez was rushed to Riverside General Hospital where doctors quickly began to treat her. As Discover Magazine reported in 1995, Ramirez was given a number of drugs as doctors attempted to resuscitate her with an Ambu-bag. When this didn’t work, they prepared to defibrillate her heart.

Riverside University Health SystemThe hospital where Gloria Rivera was treated has since changed locations. This is its location today.

But as the medical staff removed Ramirez’s shirt, they noticed a strange oily sheen on her body, and some people smelled a garlicky odor coming from her mouth.

As a nurse named Susan Kane pulled blood from Ramirez’s arm, she noticed that the blood had a “chemical” smell. What’s more, several medical staff who handled the blood sample also thought it smelled like “ammonia” and noticed that it contained strange particles.

Then Kane fainted.

She was the first of the medical staff treating Ramirez to suffer from a strange symptom, but not the last. Others then fainted, vomited, had trouble breathing, or felt a burning sensation on their skin. One passed out, and when she was awoke, she was unable to control her limbs.

Overall, 23 of the 37 emergency room staff at Riverside General Hospital suffered from at least one symptom. While some of these symptoms cleared up overnight, others lingered into the following weeks.

Meanwhile, Gloria Ramirez tragically died that night. But the investigation into her death had just begun.

The Investigation Into The Death Of The ‘Toxic Lady’

After Gloria Ramirez died, a hazmat team arrived at the hospital to collect her body. They also searched the emergency room for any toxic chemicals, but found none.

Next, the Riverside Coroner’s Office was tasked with determining Rivera’s cause of death. But given the lack of answers about her condition, this was a delicate task. Rivera’s body was placed in a sealed aluminum casket, and the coroners had to conduct their autopsy wearing airtight suits. The coroner’s office also reached out to the Forensic Science Center, at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, for additional help.

New York Times ArchivesCoroners needed to wear hazmat suits in order to conduct Gloria Ramirez’s autopsy.

“We’re dealing with the unknown,” Dan Cupido, the chief deputy coroner for Riverside County, told The New York Times, “and fear of the unknown.”

But the autopsy offered some answers. It revealed the presence of a number of drugs in Rivera’s system: Tylenol, lidocaine, codeine, and Tigan, an anti-nausea medication, which may have caused the ammonia-like smell that some doctors noticed as it broke down. It also revealed that Ramirez had unusually large amounts of dimethyl sulfone in her system.

In the end, the coroner announced that Gloria Ramirez had died from cardiac dysrhythmia, which had been triggered by kidney failure related to her cancer. But no one knew why her doctors had gotten sick too.

Why Did Gloria Ramirez Make Everyone Around Her Sick?

What caused Gloria Ramirez to become so toxic? Her family, outraged that Ramirez had been dubbed the “Toxic Lady,” argued that the hospital could be to blame. Indeed, as the Washington Post reported in 1994, the hospital had had ventilation problems. In 1991, there was a possible leak from hazardous gas. In 1992, an inspector found algae growing in the hospital’s water reservoir. And in 1993, “sewer gas” had seeped into the emergency room.

“I honestly believe my sister may have lived if she hadn’t gone into that emergency room that night,” Ramirez’s sister stated. “I don’t know what [the county] is afraid of, but we want answers.”

There is no evidence that the hospital itself was toxic. But some have suggested that the problem stemmed from the hospital staff, who could have been struck by a case of mass hysteria. But the staff denies this.

It wasn’t until the Forensic Science Center took a second look at Ramirez’s case that a new possibility emerged. They postulated that the dimethyl sulfone found in Ramirez’s system could have come from her possible use of dimethyl sulfoxide, also known as DMSO. DMSO was once seen as a wonder drug, and though the FDA has issued warnings against using it to self-medicate, many people continue to use it to treat their ailments.

FDA/FlickrDMSO cream in its somewhat diluted and less-poisonous form.

Possibly, Ramirez had used a DMSO gel, which would have given her skin its oily sheen and produced the garlicky odor that the medical staff had observed. It may have also caused her toxicity: If you add one oxygen atom to dimethyl sulfoxide, you get dimethyl sulfone, which is what was found in Ramirez’s system. But if you add two, you get dimethyl sulfate, which is highly toxic and has been tested as a nerve gas.

As a gas, dimethyl sulfate vapors destroy cells in people’s eyes, lungs, and mouth. When this vapor gets into the body, it can cause convulsions, delirium, and paralysis. And of the 20 symptoms described by medical staff that night, 19 of them match symptoms of people who have exposure to dimethyl sulfate vapors.

Thus, it’s very possible that Ramirez had used DMSO gel to treat her cancer, which, in turn, had been converted to dimethyl sulfate by the oxygen given to her by paramedics. Now a toxin, it had sickened her doctors.

However, Ramirez’s family denied that she used DMSO. And the DMSO theory simply stands as that — a theory.

Indeed, no one is entirely sure what happened to Gloria Ramirez. But she deserves to be remembered as more than the “Toxic Lady.”

At her funeral, as reported by the Los Angeles Times, she was eulogized instead as warm person, a friend who was always quick with a smile or a joke. She deserved to be remembered for that and not, as her pastor described it, “that bizarre, tragic incident in the hospital emergency room that took her life.”

After reading about Gloria Ramirez, the “Toxic Lady” who made her doctors fall ill, discover the Mutter Museum, home of some of the world’s most bizarre medical oddities. Or, learn about Jean Hilliard, the “medical miracle” who survived being frozen solid.

The post Why Did ‘Toxic Lady’ Gloria Ramirez Make Everyone Around Her Sick? appeared first on All That's Interesting.

John McDonnell/Getty ImagesSean Taylor was killed in his home, where he was resting while recovering from a knee injury.

On Nov. 26, 2007, a group of intruders broke into the Florida home of Washington Redskins player Sean Taylor while he, his girlfriend, Jackie Garcia, and their 18-month-old infant slept. The noise startled them awake; Taylor told Garcia to hide and grabbed a machete to ward off the intruders. Unfortunately, one of them shot him and fled.

Taylor was rushed to the Jackson Memorial Hospital in Miami. The bullet had severed a femoral artery, and he was losing blood fast. After hours of surgery while Taylor was comatose, he died before he could speak to detectives and help catch his killer.

Police soon arrested the four men involved in the home invasion, but it would take another seven years before his killer, Eric Rivera, received his sentence.

Sean Taylor’s Early Life And Career

Sean Michael Maurice Taylor was born on April 1, 1983, in Florida City, Florida, to Pedro Taylor and Donna Junor. As a kid, he gravitated towards football, eventually playing for Miami Killian Senior High School before transferring to Gulliver Prep School and playing for the Gulliver Prep Raiders. He also ran track and played for the school’s basketball team.

Sean Taylor as a child.

By the time he left prep school, numerous colleges had their eyes on him. He was a star athlete and honors student who, according to Pro Football History, was named the seventh-ranked prospect in Dade County.

Taylor ended up choosing the University of Miami, becoming one of a small group of freshmen who actually got to play for the Hurricanes. His sophomore year saw him spending more time on the field, and soon enough he was a household name among college football fans. His junior year was even better — so much so that he didn’t even bother moving on to his senior year and entered the NFL draft instead.

John McDonnell/Getty ImagesOct. 14, 2007: Sean Taylor catches an interception one month before he was shot.

Evidently, that bet paid off. In 2004, the Washington Redskins drafted Taylor fifth in the draft overall, offering him a six-year contract. And despite a few minor incidents early on — being summoned by police for an investigation into shots fired at a stolen vehicle, and a uniform violation — Taylor’s career was off to a strong start.

Unfortunately, his career didn’t last long.

The Botched Home Burglary That Killed Sean Taylor

As Taylor was entering his fourth season with the Redskins, he sustained a knee injury that left him temporarily unable to play. Of course, he still traveled with the team, so he was away from Florida on Nov. 18, 2007 — the first time his home was broken into.

The Miami Herald reported that in this first instance, the intruder entered the home, rifled through some drawers and a safe, and left a kitchen knife on the bed. Other than that, the incident passed without much fanfare or notice.

A week later, however, the team’s schedule brought them to Tampa, and Taylor, still unable to play, decided to spend some time at his Palmetto Bay home with his girlfriend and child while waiting to get a second opinion on his knee. Unfortunately, the group of burglars who decided to hit Taylor’s home didn’t get the memo that he was going to be at his home that night.

Joe Raedle/Getty ImagesThe crime scene at Sean Taylor’s Palmetto Bay, Florida residence the day after he was shot.

Around 1:30 a.m. on Nov. 26, Taylor and Garcia heard loud noises in their home that jolted them awake. As Taylor’s attorney Richard Sharpstein later explained, Taylor told her to get under the covers while he shut their bedroom door and grabbed the machete he kept under the bed.

Sharpstein said that Garcia had told him she couldn’t hear any voices, but “she heard a lot of noise that she related to more than one person. There seemed to be a lot of commotion.”

Before they could even figure out what was going on, their bedroom door opened, shots were fired, and Taylor fell backwards bleeding from his groin. The gunman never entered the room, but turned and fled after they fired off two shots, one hitting Taylor, the other hitting the wall.

“Nothing was stolen,” Sharpstein said. “My instincts tell me this was not a murder or a hit. It was certainly not professionally done in that two random shots were fired.”

Joe Raedle/Getty ImagesSean Taylor’s father, Pedro Taylor, sitting in a car outside his son’s home as the police investigation was underway.

Sean Taylor’s Tragic Death

By the time Taylor arrived at the Jackson Memorial Hospital in Miami, he had lost a great deal of blood. He clung to life for 24 hours, but in the end succumbed to his wound and died at 3:30 a.m. on Nov. 27, 2007.

“It is with deep regret that a young man had to come to his end so soon. Many of his fans loved him because of the way he played football. Many of his opponents feared him, the way he approached the game. Others misunderstood him, many appreciated him, and his family loved him. I can only hope and pray that Sean’s life was not in vain, that it might touch others in a special way.”

Three days later, police arrested four men for the home invasion and shooting: Eric Rivera, Charles Wardlow, Venjah Hunte, and Jason Mitchell. Rivera, 17 at the time, was the one accused of shooting Sean Taylor. And after several delays, he finally stood trial in 2013.

Eric Rivera’s Trial For The Murder Of Sean Taylor

By the time Eric Rivera went to trial, he was 23 years old — but because he was 17 on the night of the shooting, it complicated his case. Initially, ESPN reported, Rivera was charged with first-degree murder, but because he had been a minor when the incident took place, he was ineligible for the death penalty.

Instead, a jury found him guilty of second-degree murder and armed burglary. The evidence against him was significant; police even had a videotaped confession in which Rivera admitted to shooting Taylor after the football player confronted them at his bedroom door.

Eric Rivera, the man who killed Sean Taylor, in court.

Rivera also said that he and his fellow burglars didn’t know Taylor would be home at the time with a knee injury. Rather, they expected him to be in Tampa, playing with his team.

However, Rivera also later recanted his confession, saying it had been coerced out of him and that another member of the group had been the one to shoot Taylor. The gun was never found. Police said it was wrapped in a sock and discarded in the Florida Everglades.

Several witnesses at the trial also offered insight as to the motive. Taylor reportedly kept large sums of cash at his home. In fact, a few weeks earlier Jason Mitchell had gone to a birthday party for Taylor’s half-sister and noticed that Taylor gifted her a $10,000 purse.

If the young men were going to rob any house, Taylor’s seemed like the perfect target. Rivera said the group felt they could get anywhere between $100,000 and $200,000 in cash by burglarizing the home.

But murder hadn’t been part of the plan.

The Aftermath Of Sean Taylor’s Death

In a brief statement to Sean Taylor’s family, Rivera apologized for the killing, saying that Taylor was “a good man.”

Win McNamee/Getty ImagesRedskins fans standing beside a makeshift memorial for Sean Taylor.

“I live with his death every day. I’m going to have to deal with the consequences,” Rivera said. Members of his family, meanwhile, pleaded for a lenient sentence for him. In the end, he got 57 years in prison.

Assistant State Attorney Reid Rubin, on the other hand, didn’t share the family’s sentiment, calling Rivera a “sophisticated, manipulative criminal. There’s no good reason to believe he will change.”

Sean Taylor “lost his life defending and protecting his family,” Rubin said. “They kicked the door in and they shot him and killed him, for no good reason.”

After learning the story of Sean Taylor’s tragic death, learn about the death of Odin Lloyd, the man killed by Aaron Hernandez. Then, read about Randall Woodfield, the football player who became a serial killer.

The post Inside The Tragic Death Of Sean Taylor, The Rising NFL Star Killed At The Age Of Just 24 appeared first on All That's Interesting.

Bettmann/Contributor via Getty ImagesJackie Mitchell, taken on July 14, 1933.

During an exhibition game on April 2, 1931, Babe Ruth struck out in four pitches. This wasn’t all that unusual — even the “Great Bambino” whiffed sometimes. But this strikeout was particularly noteworthy because the pitcher who struck out Ruth was a 17-year-old girl named Jackie Mitchell.

Not only that, but Mitchell then struck out Lou Gehrig as well.

Though the New York Yankees won the game against her team, the Chattanooga Lookouts, newspapers focused on a different aspect. As The New York Times reported, “Ruth and Gehrig Struck Out by Girl Pitcher.”

But did Jackie Mitchell really strike out the sluggers – or was it staged?

Who Was Jackie Mitchell?

Born on Aug. 29, 1913, Virne Beatrice “Jackie” Mitchell had an ordinary childhood in Memphis, Tennessee. Encouraged by her father, an optician, Mitchell gravitated toward sports. She played baseball, basketball, and tennis, and enjoyed swimming. She also spent time with her neighbor, Dodgers pitcher and National League MVP Charles Arthur “Dazzy” Vance.

Library of CongressJackie Mitchell learned how to throw her signature drop ball from her neighbor, a National League MVP.

According to the Society for American Baseball Research, Vance taught Mitchell how to pitch. He showed her how to throw a drop ball, known a sinker, and this deceptive pitch soon became Mitchell’s signature throw.

When she was a teenager, her family moved to Chattanooga. And it was here that Joel Engel, the new owner of the minor league team the Chattanooga Lookouts, first saw Mitchell pitching.

Engel had just set up two exhibition games between the Lookouts and the New York Yankees (who were passing by after spring training) and he enlisted Mitchell to pitch in one of them. This made Jackie Mitchell the second woman in American history to sign with a professional baseball team.

And as the Lookouts prepared to face the Yankees in April 1931, speculation about Mitchell reached a fever pitch. As Smithsonian Magazine reported, one newspaper, describing Mitchell as “pretty,” quipped: “The curves won’t be all on the ball.” Another paper declared that the 17-year-old pitcher had “a swell change of pace and swings a mean lipstick.”

Yankees star Babe Ruth was even asked about Mitchell ahead of the exhibition match — and he responded by saying that he didn’t believe women should be allowed in professional baseball games.

Public DomainYankees legend Babe Ruth in 1919.

“I don’t know what’s going to happen if they begin to let women in baseball,” he told The New York Times the day of the match. “Of course, they will never make good. Why? Because they are too delicate. It would kill them to play ball every day… I don’t know what things are coming to.”

Jackie Mitchell Versus The Yankees

Mark Rucker/Transcendental Graphics, Getty ImagesBabe Ruth, second from left, and Lou Gehrig, far left, watch Jackie Mitchell demonstrate her fast ball at Chattanooga, Tennessee during a spring training stop.

On April 2, 1931, Jackie Mitchell walked to the mound before a crowd of 4,000 fans. The Lookout’s starting pitcher had given up two hits, so Mitchell had been called in to face the Yankees’ third batter: Babe Ruth.

“While most girls would have been so excited that they would have thrown the ball in the stands, Jackie was four degrees cooler than the proverbial cucumber,” reported the Chattanooga Daily Times.

Ruth tipped his hat to Mitchell, who began winding her arm “as if she were turning a coffee grinder,” according to a journalist who witnessed the exchange. Then Mitchell threw. The first pitch was a ball.

But Ruth swung hard and missed the second pitch — and then the third. With a 1-2 count, Mitchell threw a strike and the “Great Bambino” struck out, tossing away his bat, and “registering disgust with his shoulder and chin,” according to contemporaneous reporting by The New York Times.

Chattanooga Regional History Museum“Girl pitcher” Jackie Mitchell faced the Yankees lineup and came away with two big strike outs.

Though she’d struck out Ruth, Mitchell still had to face Lou Gehrig. But she made quick work of this Yankees legend as well, striking him out in just three pitches.

Mitchell was then pulled out of the game, and her team ultimately lost to the Yankees 14-4. But few remembered the score — most were stunned by the news that Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig had been struck out by a 17-year-old girl.

Or had they?

A Publicity Stunt Or A True Double Strikeout?

In the years since Jackie Mitchell struck out Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig, some have claimed that her performance was nothing more than a publicity stunt arranged by her boss, Engel.

Indeed, Engel was no stranger to stunts. Once, he traded a shortstop for a turkey (which he then cooked and served). Another time, he raffled off a house to a fan. And he had signed Jackie Mitchell just days after arranging the exhibition games against the Yankees.

Engels surely knew that the “girl pitcher” would fill the stands. And he may have even meant for Jackie Mitchell to be part of an April Fool’s joke, since the Lookout’s exhibition game against the Yankees had originally been scheduled for April 1, before cold weather delayed it until April 2.

The New York TimesThe New York Times reported that Babe Ruth was furious at the called strike.

But did Engel stage the strikeouts?

Babe Ruth certainly reacted as if Mitchell struck him out. And neither he nor Gehrig ever suggested that Mitchell’s pitching had been a publicity stunt.

And what about Mitchell? At 17 years old, she had seemingly struck out two of baseball’s most dominant hitters. But just days later, the baseball commissioner purportedly voided Mitchell’s contract. “Girl pitchers” were no longer welcome, and Mitchell, who briefly continued to play in exhibition games, ultimately went to work in her father’s optometry office.

Indeed, girls would not even be allowed to join Little League until 1970 — and no female player has ever reached the major leagues.

But Jackie Mitchell seemingly proved that women could compete at the highest levels of baseball. Even decades later, she defended her record, denying that her performance had been a publicity stunt.

“Why, hell, [Ruth and Gehrig] were trying, damn right,” Mitchell declared in 1987, shortly before she died at the age of 74. “Hell, better hitters than them couldn’t hit me. Why should they’ve been any different?”

After reading about Jackie Mitchell, the 17-year-old who purportedly struck out Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig, discover the sad story of Babe Ruth’s death at the age of just 53. Or, learn about Arnold Rothstein, the drug kingpin who fixed the 1919 World Series.

The post 17-Year-Old Jackie Mitchell Struck Out Lou Gehrig And Babe Ruth On Seven Pitches. Did It Really Happen? appeared first on All That's Interesting.

University of WaterlooAnthropologist Douglas Stenton of the University of Waterloo uncovers the skull of a sailor who perished during the Franklin expedition.

In May 1845, 129 men set out on an expedition to the Canadian Arctic led by British Royal Navy officer Sir John Franklin. They were seeking to traverse the Northwest Passage that connects the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific, but when their two ships became trapped in ice in late 1846, they all succumbed to exposure and starvation.

The remains of nearly two dozen sailors from the doomed expedition have since been uncovered, but until recently, only two bodies had been linked to specific crew members via DNA. Now, researchers have used genetic analysis to identify four more skeletons — solving a 167-year-old mystery in the process.

The Grisly Fate Of The Lost Franklin Expedition Of 1845

In September 1846, a little more than a year into the Franklin Expedition, the HMS Erebus and HMS Terror became trapped in ice off the shore of King William Island in Nunavut. John Franklin died in June 1847, and by April 1848, the 105 crew members who were still alive had grown desperate.

The men loaded two small boats, equipment, clothing, and personal items onto two sleds and dragged them across the ice, aiming to walk hundreds of miles to mainland Canada. All of them died along the way — and those who survived the longest seemingly resorted to cannibalism.

Public DomainAn 1845 illustration of the HMS Erebus and HMS Terror departing from England.

In 1859, a British team searching for the lost expedition came across the remnants of one of the sleds with at least two skeletons nearby. Two years later, a local Inuit tribe discovered the second sled alongside a dozen more corpses.

The British team also found a lone set of human remains roughly 80 miles away from the others. The man was carrying the papers of Harry Peglar, the captain of the foretop on the HMS Terror. However, he was wearing the uniform of a lesser-ranking sailor, so for decades, experts assumed that Peglar had given the documents to a steward or an officer’s servant.

Now, DNA has solved the puzzle once and for all.

Unraveling The Mystery Of Harry Peglar

In a study recently published in the journal Polar Record, anthropologists extracted DNA from the bones of the mysterious lone sailor and compared it to living descendants of the Franklin expedition’s crew members.

As it turns out, the remains were indeed those of Harry Peglar.

“It was interesting to conclusively identify this sailor because the body was found with almost the only written documents from the expedition ever found,” said Dr. Robert Park, a professor of anthropology at Ontario’s University of Waterloo, in a statement.

These “Peglar Papers” included Peglar’s seaman’s certificate, various poems, and a few notes from the expedition. However, they were difficult to decipher, as Peglar often wrote backward and in strange, spiraling patterns. Some excerpts include phrases like “tertell came swimming sloley by” and “death wheare is thy sting.”

Royal Museums GreenwichA page from the Peglar Papers revealing Harry Peglar’s unique writing style.

But why wasn’t Peglar wearing an officer’s uniform? Heaps of clothing found among the sleds suggest that there was no shortage of warm apparel. Could he have been demoted?

Dr. Claire Warrior, the senior curator of content at the Royal Museums Greenwich, told CNN, “The possibility that he was disrated while aboard now seems clear, potentially because of unacceptable conduct. Joining the archaeological and material evidence up with archives adds fuel to the fire: Peglar’s previous naval service included incidents of drunkenness and ‘mutinous conduct.'”

So far, Peglar is the only sailor from the HMS Terror to be identified. But researchers also linked the remains of three men from the HMS Erebus to living descendants.

Identifying The Bodies Of The Franklin Expedition’s Doomed Crewmen

A second study by the same researchers, published in the Journal of Archaelogical Science: Reports, compared 49 DNA samples taken from 10 sites on King William Island to samples from 31 descendants of sailors from both the Erebus and Terror.

Scientists successfully identified three men whose remains were found near the sleds discovered in the mid-19th century: Able Seaman William Orren, Boy First Class David Young, and officers’ steward John Bridgens.

Orren first went to sea at age 15, though he was 38 when he joined the Franklin expedition. Young was just 17 when he boarded the Erebus to follow in the footsteps of his father, who was also a sailor.

Diana Trepkov/Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports (2026)A forensic reconstruction of the face of David Young.

Bridgens was trained to be a hairdresser like his stepfather, but he instead joined his first voyage as a musician in 1829, when he was still a child, and eventually volunteered for the Franklin expedition at age 26. “His seaman’s ticket indicates that he was illiterate,” researchers wrote in the study, “which is further demonstrated by his marking his name with a cross on his allotment records.”

These men join just a handful of other sailors from the Franklin expedition who have been identified over the years. In the 1980s, three mummified corpses — including that of John Torrington — were found on Beechey Island. They were likely among the first expedition members to die, as they were buried in marked graves.

Then, in 2021, researchers used DNA to identify Erebus engineer John Gregory. Three years later, they officially identified James Fitzjames, the man who became captain after Franklin’s death — and who was likely cannibalized.

As Dr. Warrior told the BBC, “Once we know who the remains belonged to we can reimagine them, vital and alive before the horrors of their tragic end in the most desperate of circumstances. These were real people, who lived, were loved, suffered and died far away from home, yet traces of their existence remain.”

After reading about the identification of four additional bodies from the Franklin expedition, look through 33 images of the earliest Arctic expeditions. Then, learn about Charles Francis Hall, the 19th-century explorer who died in Greenland under mysterious circumstances.

The post Researchers Just Identified Four Sailors Who Perished In The Arctic During The Doomed Franklin Expedition appeared first on All That's Interesting.

Jessi Pena/Unsplash, @shashabao3/TikTokTikToker @shashabao3 is bringing attention to Los Angeles’ “forgotten underground city.”

A network of underground tunnels once used by streetcars, bootleggers, and corrupt businessmen sits right beneath Los Angeles. This so-called “forgotten underground city” may no longer be quite so forgotten, thanks to a recent video bringing renewed attention to it.

In a video with more than 2.3 million views, @shashabao3 presents images meant to depict the underground city beneath Los Angeles — “SubTropolis,” he calls it.

But while “SubTropolis” is just as real as the tunnels below Los Angeles, @shashabao3 has a few of his wires crossed.

SubTropolis is in Kansas City, Missouri. Meanwhile, Los Angeles certainly has its own subterranean history that most people know nothing about. Here’s the story of both.

SubTropolis: The Vast Expanse Beneath Kansas City

Kansas City sits atop a massive deposit of limestone. For decades in the early 20th century, various companies mined here to gather material for construction projects across the region. But when mining slowed down, it left behind all these empty tunnels beneath the city, KC Yesterday reported.

Making Viral/YouTubeSubTropolis in Kansas City was opened as a business complex in the 1960s.

Lamar Hunt, who founded the Kansas City Chiefs, saw the empty space as an opportunity and transformed it into a business complex, officially opening “SubTropolis” in the 1960s. What started as an old mine is now the world’s largest underground business complex. It attracted major tenants like Ford, Pillsbury, and Russell Stover. Ford, for example, used it to store unsold cars.

According to Atlas Obscura, SubTropolis covers 55 million square feet and has nearly seven miles of paved, lit roads that are wide enough for semi-trucks to roam through.

The temperature underground stays between 65 and 70 degrees year-round with no climate control needed, which makes it surprisingly good for storing a number of things.

“We’re probably using about 75 percent less electricity underground than we would in an above-ground facility,” said Joe Paris, co-founder of Paris Brothers, a specialty foods company headquartered in SubTropolis. “Whether it’s electronics or whether it’s food, you don’t have temperature and humidity fluctuations.”

The U.S. Postal Service is also a tenant, storing millions of stamp copies there. The National Archives keeps federal records underground. Millions of pounds of government cheese is similarly stored in the area. Even the original film reels of Gone with the Wind and The Wizard of Oz are kept there because the cool, stable environment preserves them better than anything above ground could.

Does Los Angeles Have A Secret Underground City Made Up Of Tunnels?

In the early 1900s, downtown Los Angeles was surrounded by steep hills that the city’s streetcar network couldn’t easily climb. According to the history channel It’s History, engineers solved the problem by going through the hills instead of around them. The Hill Street Tunnel opened in 1909 in order to let streetcars pass directly under the hill and cut roughly 15 minutes off the trip to Hollywood and Glendale.

@pwesttok/TikTokIn the 1920s, the tunnels were used by streetcars, bootleggers, and corrupt businessmen.

More tunnels followed, and by the 1920s there were an estimated 11 miles of tunnel running beneath the city.

A separate, smaller network was built around the same time for different purposes. The city’s Civic Center had tunnels connecting courthouses, jails, and banks that were used to move money, prisoners, and documents without crossing the street. The entrances were tucked into building basements, out of sight.

When Prohibition made alcohol illegal starting in 1920, the tunnels found a new use. Organized crime moved illegal alcohol through them, connecting to speakeasies hidden behind the fronts of ordinary businesses. Alcohol came in by ship, moved through Skid Row, and went underground. Police corruption kept the raids light.

The tunnels became a center of crime and corruption not just for alcohol smuggling, but also for murders, fraud, and other Mafia activity.

One of the biggest scandals tied to the tunnels was the Julian Petroleum fraud of the mid-1920s. C.C. Julian ran a Ponzi scheme that sold more than $150 million in fraudulent shares. He used the tunnels to move money discreetly, but when the scheme collapsed in 1927, Julian fled to China to avoid jail time. He died by suicide in 1934.

When Prohibition ended in 1933, the tunnels lost their purpose and were mostly forgotten. Some were sealed. Others were covered over by new construction. Urban explorers started rediscovering them in the 1980s and ’90s. Today, parts of the network near Skid Row are used as informal shelter by unhoused people.

All That’s Interesting reached out to @shashabao3 for comment via TikTok direct message and comment. We’ll be sure to update this if they respond.

After reading about Los Angeles’ underground tunnels, discover the secret tunnels beneath Disney’s Magic Kingdom — and why Walt Disney built them. Then, learn about the tunnel network discovered beneath a college campus in Arizona.

The post Inside The Hidden Network Of Tunnels That’s Been Sitting Just Beneath Los Angeles For More Than A Century appeared first on All That's Interesting.

Edouard Riou/New York Public LibraryA hypothetical rendering of Lemuria from 1893.

In the mid-1800s, a few scientists working from scant evidence theorized that there was once a lost continent in the Indian Ocean and they called it Lemuria.

On this lost continent, some even thought, there once lived a race of now-extinct humans called Lemurians who had four arms and enormous, hermaphroditic bodies but nevertheless are the ancestors of modern-day humans and perhaps also lemurs.

And as outlandish as this all may sound, the idea flourished for a time both in popular culture and some corners of the scientific community. Of course, modern science has long since debunked the idea of Lemuria altogether.

But then, in 2013, geologists discovered evidence of a lost continent precisely where Lemuria was said to have existed and the old theories started cropping up once again.

How And Why The Lost Continent Of Lemuria Was First Proposed

Wikimedia CommonsPhilip Lutley Sclater (left) and Ernst Haeckel.

Lemuria theories first became popular in 1864, when British lawyer and zoologist Philip Lutley Sclater wrote a paper titled “The Mammals of Madagascar” and had it published in the The Quarterly Journal of Science. Sclater observed that there were many more species of lemur in Madagascar than there were in either Africa or India, thus claiming that Madagascar was the animal’s original homeland.

Moreover, he proposed that what had allowed lemurs to first migrate to India and Africa from Madagascar long ago was a now-lost landmass stretching across the southern Indian Ocean in a triangular shape. This continent of “Lemuria,” Sclater suggested, touched India’s southern point, southern Africa, and western Australia and eventually sunk to the ocean floor.

This theory came at a time when the science of evolution was in its infancy, notions of continental drift weren’t widely accepted, and many prominent scientists were using land bridge theories to explain how various animals once migrated from one place to another (a theory similar to Sclater’s had even been proposed by French naturalist Étienne Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire two decades earlier). Thus, Sclater’s theory gained some traction.

Theories About The Lost Continent In The Indian Ocean Grow More Complex And Bizarre

Soon, other noted scientists and authors took the Lemuria theory and ran with it. Later in the 1860s, German biologist Ernst Haeckel began publishing work claiming that Lemuria was what allowed humans to first migrate out of Asia (believed by some at the time to be the birthplace of humanity) and into Africa.

Haeckel even suggested that Lemuria (a.k.a. “Paradise”) may have been the very cradle of humankind itself. As he wrote in 1870:

“The probable primeval home or ‘Paradise’ is here assumed to be Lemuria, a tropical continent at present lying below the level of the Indian Ocean, the former existence of which in the tertiary period seems very probable from numerous facts in animal and vegetable geography.”

Library of CongressA hypothetical map (believed to originate with Ernst Haeckel) depicting Lemuria as the cradle of humankind, with arrows indicating the theorized spread of various human subgroups outward from the lost continent. Circa 1876.

With help from Haeckel, Lemuria theories persisted throughout the 1800s and into the early 1900s (often discussed alongside the myth of Kumari Kandam, a proposed lost continent in the Indian Ocean that once housed a Tamil civilization). This was before modern science discovered ancient human remains in Africa that suggested that continent was actually the cradle of humankind. This was also before modern seismologists understood how plate tectonics moved the once-connected continents away from each other into their present forms.

Without such knowledge, many continued to embrace the notion of Lemuria, especially after Russian occultist, medium, and author Elena Blavatskaja published The Secret Doctrine in 1888. This book proposed the idea that there were once seven ancient races of humanity and that Lemuria had been the home of one of them. This 15-foot-tall, four-armed, hermaphroditic race flourished alongside the dinosaurs, Blavatskaja said. Fringe theories even suggested that these Lemurians evolved into the lemurs we have today.

Afterward, Lemuria understandably found its way into novels, movies, and comic books well into the 1940s. Many people saw these works of fiction and wondered where authors and filmmakers got these fanciful ideas. Well, they got their ideas from scientists and writers about 75 years before.

Was Lemuria Real? Scientists Uncover Surprising Evidence

Sofitel So Mauritius/FlickrIn 2013, researchers discovered some interesting evidence near the island nation of Mauritius.

Fast forward to 2013. Any scientific theories of a lost continent and land bridge responsible for the migration of lemurs is gone. However, geologists have now discovered traces of a lost continent in the Indian Ocean.

Scientists found fragments of granite in the ocean south of India along a shelf that extends hundreds of miles south of the country towards Mauritius.

On Mauritius, geologists found zircon despite the fact that the island only came into being 2 million years ago when, thanks to plate tectonics and volcanoes, it slowly rose out of the Indian Ocean as a small landmass. However, the zircon they found there dated to 3 billion years ago, eons before the island had even formed.

What this meant, scientists theorized, was that the zircon had come from a much older landmass that long ago sunk into the Indian Ocean. Sclater’s story about Lemuria was true — almost. Rather than call this discovery Lemuria, geologists named the proposed lost continent Mauritia.

Wikimedia CommonsA map indicating the supposed location of Lemuria, referred to here by its Tamil name, “Kumari Kandam.”

Based on plate tectonics and geological data, Mauritia disappeared into the Indian Ocean around 84 million years ago, when this region of Earth was still turning into the shape it holds today.

And while this generally lines up with what Sclater had once claimed, the new evidence puts the notion of an ancient race of Lemurians that evolved into lemurs to rest. Mauritia disappeared 84 million years ago, but lemurs didn’t evolve on Madagascar until about 54 million years ago when they swam to the island from mainland Africa (which was closer to Madagascar than it is now).

Nevertheless, Sclater and some of the other scientists of the mid-1800s were partially right about Lemuria despite their limited knowledge. A lost continent didn’t suddenly sink into the Indian Ocean and vanish without a trace. But, long ago, there was something there, something that is now gone forever.

After this look at the “lost continent” of Lemuria, uncover the mysteries of the legendary lost cities and sunken cities of the ancient world. Then, read up on the fear of the sea known as thalassophobia.

The post The Lost Continent Of Lemuria Was A Myth — Then Scientists Found Evidence In 2013 appeared first on All That's Interesting.

Though some have drawn a connection between the expression and domestic violence, the origins of “rule of thumb” are a bit murkier. The phrase has been in use for hundreds of years, and has long signified a kind of informal, everyday rule based on observation or conventional wisdom.

From its seemingly innocuous beginnings to its surprisingly violent interpretations, here’s everything you need to know about the origins and history of “rule of thumb.”

The Murky Origins Of “Rule Of Thumb”

The expression’s exact origins are unknown, but its earliest known use was documented in the 17th century.

According to Origins of the Specious: Myths and Misconceptions of the English Language, the phrase first appeared among the collected sermons of a Scottish preacher named James Durham. He preached in the mid-1600s that: “Many profest Christians are like to foolish builders, who build by guess, and by rule of thumb (as we use to speak), and not by Square and Rule.”

The New York Times additionally reports that the phrase was also found sprinkled throughout other 17th century and 18th century documents. In 1692, Sir William Hope wrote in his The Compleat Fencing Master that “What he doth, he doth by rule of Thumb, and not by Art.'” And Kelly’s Scottish Proverbs decreed in 1721 that “No Rule so good as Rule of Thumb.”

Public DomainOne of the first documented uses of the phrase “rule of thumb” appeared in Sir William Hope’s The Compleat Fencing Master in 1691 when Hope wrote: “What he doth, he doth by rule of Thumb, and not by Art.'”

The phrase itself is likely much older and probably emerged from a practical need. Origins of the Specious notes that people have long used body parts to measure things (a foot to measure distance, for example, or hands to measure the height of a horse). Thumbs were no different, and a “thumb’s breadth” was used to measure textiles.

“As for the ‘rule’ in ‘rule of thumb,'” Origins of the Specious explains, “think of a ruler or a measuring stick.”

Despite these innocuous origins, the expression “rule of thumb” has become associated with domestic abuse in recent years. How did that happen?

Judge Francis Buller’s Ruling On Rods

In 1982, the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights produced a report on domestic abuse of women entitled: “Under the Rule of Thumb: Battered Women and the Administration of Justice.” By then, the phrase had been interpreted as something more sinister. And it all has to do with an 18th-century English judge named Francis Buller.

Two hundred years before the “Under the Rule of Thumb” report, Buller allegedly ruled in favor of husbands beating their wives — but only if their rod or stick was no larger than their thumb. There is no evidence that Buller actually said anything of the sort, but he was mocked in the press.

National Portrait GalleryA 1782 cartoon mocking Francis Buller, an English judge who allegedly said that men could beat their wives as long as their rod or stick was no bigger than the width of his thumb.

As The New York Times notes, political caricaturist James Gillray derided Buller in a 1782 cartoon that showed a judge holding an armful of sticks with the caption: “Who wants a cure for a nasty wife? Here’s a nice Family Amusement for Winter Evenings.” In the background, a woman shouts: “Murder!” and a man shouts back: “Murder, hey? It’s Law you B—-! It’s not bigger than my Thumb!”

Thanks to Gillray, Buller was forever associated with this odd rule. But the expression also took on a new life of its own. Despite the lack of evidence that Buller had actually made his infamous ruling, at least three 19th-century American judges cited it, according to Origins of the Specious.

That said, neither Buller or Gillray explicitly used the expression “rule of thumb” in reference to domestic violence. As far as etymologists can tell, that didn’t come until about 200 years later.

How The Meaning Of “Rule Of Thumb” Become Associated With Domestic Violence

U.S. Commission on Civil RightsThe U.S. Commission on Civil Rights strengthened the link between the phrase “rule of thumb” and domestic violence when they used the expression in a 1982 report.

Though it’s unclear exactly how “rule of thumb” became linked with domestic violence, Origins of the Specious suggests that it happened in 1976, when a feminist named Del Martin used it as a pun while writing a report on violence against women.

“For instance,” Martin wrote, “the common-law doctrine had been modified to allow the husband ‘the right to whip his wife provided that he use a switch no bigger than his thumb’ — a rule of thumb, so to speak.”

In the years that followed, the phrase became linked with domestic violence. The association between the two is so strong that some have been called out as misogynists for using the expression “rule of thumb.”

But the truth is that the origins of rule of thumb have nothing to do with domestic violence.

Rather, the phrase emerged as a unit of measurement akin to “feet” or “hands.” It was only later that a judge’s ruling — which he may not have made at all — brought “thumbs” into the sphere of domestic violence. And it was centuries after that that the phrase became associated with the abuse of women.

As always, it’s a good rule of thumb to do your research when it comes to learning about the origins of common phrases.

After reading about the origin of the expression “rule of thumb,” discover the origin of another common phrase, “crossing the Rubicon.” Or, learn about the surprising history of “Let them eat cake,” a declaration often (but erroneously) attributed to French queen Marie Antoinette.

The post The Murky Origins Of ‘Rule Of Thumb’ And Why It’s Been Erroneously Associated With Domestic Abuse appeared first on All That's Interesting.

FacebookThe origins and purpose of Ksar Draa have remained mysterious for centuries.

While most people have heard of the Giza Pyramids of Egypt or Machu Picchu of Peru, Ksar Draa of Algeria is far less known. A fortress deep in the Sahara Desert, located in the Timimoun Province, this crumbling citadel is stunning but mysterious. No one knows when exactly it was built, who exactly built it, or when and why it was abandoned.

Indeed, the circular ruins of Ksar Draa have baffled historians for centuries. They rise from the desert like a structure from another planet, surrounded by oceans of dunes. Made of sand, clay, and stone, it’s clear that the fortress was once a formidable structure. But what was the citadel used for? Its original purpose remains a mystery to this day.

That said, Ksar Draa is one of Algeria’s most prized archaeological sites. Though long since abandoned, it tells a fascinating story about the ingenuity of its builders — who designed a virtual oasis in the depths of the desert.

This is the full story of Ksar Draa, from its mysterious origins to its possible uses to the mystery about its past that lingers into present day.

What Is Ksar Draa? The Mysterious History Of The Citadel

What is Ksar Draa? A hint to the answer may lie in its name. “Ksar” is a type of North African fortified village, found in territory traditionally held by Berbers, a civilization that has lived in North Africa since the beginning of recorded human history. These ksar villages normally contained attached houses as well as a shared granary. However, the word “ksar” also means castle in Arabic — and Ksar Draa certainly looks like a citadel.

Located in the Sahara Desert, the fortress looms over the surrounding dunes. As Maghreb Magazine reports, its walls — made of sand, straw, and clay — stand over 30 feet high and are more than six feet thick. Not only would this have protected it from sandstorms and heat, but the structure only has one entrance, which would have made it difficult to penetrate.

Othmani Kamel/Inside Africa/FacebookAn aerial view of Ksar Draa.

Though the interior of Ksar Draa is nothing but crumbling walls today, it likely once held houses, schools, communal kitchens, and even a large mosque.

But many questions about it remain. There are no hieroglyphs, like those found in ancient Egypt, which could offer a hint about the structure’s purpose. Even Ksar Draa’s exact age is unknown, though it’s thought to be at least 700 years old. And no one knows who built the citadel — or why.

That said, theories about its purpose have emerged over the years.

Theories About The Purpose Of Ksar Draa

What was Ksar Draa used for? Its circular shape and location makes it different from other Berber ksars, which are often located in the mountains, and look more like a series of attached houses.

Indeed, Ksar Draa doesn’t look much like other Berber ksars.

Bernard Gagnon/Wikimedia CommonsThis ksar, also located near Timimoun, has a totally different design than Ksar Drar, which was built as a simple circle around an interior village.

One possibility is that Ksar Draa was a prison. Positioned in the middle of the desert, the sprawling sand dunes might have been a deterrent to escape, if the citadel’s walls weren’t enough. Then again, it may have been a village, well-protected against the arid conditions of the surrounding desert.

It’s also possible that Ksar Draa was a “caravanserai,” a kind of roadside inn where caravans of travelers, pilgrims, and others could stop and rest. As National Geographic reports, caravanserai were known to have powerful walls, a single gate, and an interior made of storerooms and stables, as well as rooms for lodgers and prayer rooms.

Certainly, such a structure would have been an invaluable resource for those traversing the Sahara. Their journeys were dangerous, as travelers faced both the hostile environment of the desert and the possibility of attack. If it were a caravanserai, Ksar Draa would have been an important outpost.

Then again, it’s possible that Ksar Draa was a different kind of respite. Some suspect that it could have been a shelter for Jewish communities during a time of religious persecution. In the 15th century, the Islamic scholar Muhammad al-Maghili organized campaigns against local Jews, many of whom were forced to flee. Perhaps they sought shelter at Ksar Draa.

But no one knows for sure.

A Mystery That Endures Today

At the end of the day, the true history of Ksar Draa is known only to the desert that surrounds it. No one knows when it was built. No one knows who built it. No one knows exactly how it was used, or by whom. While theories about merchants, prisons, and religious persecution have been floated, nothing has been confirmed — yet.

It’s possible one day we’ll learn more. There’s never been a major archaeological excavation at the site, and perhaps such a project could unearth insightful artifacts. Beneath the sands of the Sahara, are there objects hinting at the presence of merchants, travelers, or fleeing Jews?

Fiontain/Wikimedia CommonsIn the unforgiving environment of the Sahara Desert, Ksar Draa likely offered a respite — perhaps to travelers, perhaps to Jews fleeing religious persecution.

For now, we don’t know.

But while Ksar Draa is a mystery, it’s still an incredible sight to behold. Perched in the middle of the Sahara Desert, this fortress has withstood the march of time. Though it’s hundreds of years old, and though its interior has crumbled into ruin, its walls stand as proud as ever.

Who knows what those walls may have seen. Perhaps one day they’ll tell their story. Until then, Ksar Draa remains a fascinating but elusive sight, an impressive structure that rises out of the desert like a mirage.

But this mirage, though mysterious, is very real.

After learning about Ksar Draa, the mysterious looming fortress in the middle of the Sahara Desert, discover the fascinating histories of some of the most chilling ghost towns in the United States. Or, learn about some of the world’s lost cities — and how they were rediscovered.

The post The Mysterious History Of Ksar Draa, The Citadel In The Middle Of The Sahara Desert appeared first on All That's Interesting.

Amy WayThe bones of the dingo, which was buried here somewhere between 916 and 963 years ago.

In 2000, the ancient burial of a dingo was discovered alongside a river in Australia’s Kinchega National Park. This wasn’t all that unusual, as dingo remains have been found here before. But a closer look at this particular burial revealed that the animal had been cared for by local First Nations people both after it was injured and in the wake of its death.

What’s more, the dingo was not forgotten for centuries afterward. Archaeologists found that First Nations people continued to ceremonially “feed” the dingo for years with regular offerings of mussel shells, underlining the importance of these creatures to the region’s Indigenous communities.

The Discovery Of The Ancient Dingo Grave In Australia’s Kinchega National Park

According to a study published in Australian Archaeology, the dingo grave was first documented in 2000, after roadwork cut into the edge of a burial heap in Australia’s Kinchega National Park. It was identified by an Indigenous man named Uncle Badger Bates, alongside park ranger Dan Witter. And though the dingo’s skull was lost after flooding in 2021, an excavation in 2023 set out to finally excavate its remains.

Amy WayThe dingo burial was found in Australia’s Kinchega National Park in 2000, and excavated in 2023.

The archaeologists found that this male dingo had been buried by the Barkindji people between 963 and 916 years ago. It was between the age of four and seven years old when it died — an advanced age for a dingo — and its heavily worn teeth suggested it had a long life and regular meals.

What’s more, the dingo’s bones showed signs of healed traumatic injuries. The animal had suffered from broken ribs and a broken lower leg, likely caused by a kangaroo kick, yet had seemingly survived because of human intervention and care.

A sketch of the dingo skeleton. Its ribs and legs had been broken, then healed, suggesting that local Indigenous people cared for it after it was injured.

“What stands out about Garli [the Barkindji word for dingo] is that he was old and well cared for,” said lead study author Loukas Koungoulos of the University of Western Australia. “The healed injuries, worn teeth and careful burial tell us this animal lived a long life alongside people, and that his death was marked intentionally and with respect.”

He added: “Dingoes like this garli weren’t simply tolerated around camps. They were tamed, lived with people and were embedded in daily life.”

Indeed, the dingo had clearly been cared for in life. But the archaeologists also found that the Barkindji had continued to care for it after it died.

How The Barkindji People Cared For The Dingo’s Remains After It Died

Archaeologists found that the dingo was interred in a “purpose-built” burial mound after it died — and for the next 500 years, the animal was ceremonially “fed.” Subsequent generations left small offerings at the grave, in the form of river mussel shells, as a type of “ritual feeding.”

According to Barkindji Elders, this ritual may have honored the dingo as an ancestor. And even 1,000 years later, the Barkindji remained involved in the documentation of the dingo’s grave, as archaeologists partnered with Dave Doyle, a Barkindji custodian, and Barb Quayle, a Barkindji Elder, who also helped excavate the animal’s remains.

Amy WayBarkindji custodian David Doyle picks up the first bone from the dingo burial.