The serial killer known as Baba Anujka must have seemed like little more than a sweet old lady who was always ready to help her neighbors. Besides her generosity, she was also known for her healing potions, which she sold throughout her village. As a widow who lived to be 100 years old, it was …
Gilles de Rais was a French nobleman who murdered over 100 children before being imprisoned and executed on October 26, 1440. His evil deeds made him the inspiration for the dark French fairytale Bluebeard, a story about a nobleman who uses his power and privilege to seduce and kill a series of wives. In the fairytale, …
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Marilyn Vos Savant may be the world’s smartest person. With an IQ of 228, she remains the Guinness world record-holder for the highest score ever. She’s led an extraordinary life, worked at an investment business, written screenplays, and married a world-famous inventor and surgeon. But her extremely high IQ has also made her the target …
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Nikola Tesla may not have gained the wealth and recognition of Thomas Edison, but his work on alternating current technology has earned him a spot among America’s most renowned inventors. Near the end of his life, he began working on a project that came to be known as the “death ray.” He claimed it was …
Frankenstein may have had a kindred spirit with Soviet scientist Vladimir Demikhov. In 1954, Demikhov successfully grafted the head of a smaller dog onto the neck of a larger one, essentially creating a two-headed dog. A few years later, in 1959, LIFE magazine visited Demikhov to document what would be the 24th of his creative experiments on …
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Regarding Native American tribes in the United States, some are far more popular than others. For example, most people have heard of the Cherokee, Cheyenne, and Comanche tribes, along with many others. However, there are hundreds of Native American people groups that are far less famous and mostly unknown to the general public today. The …
According to the Gospel of Luke, three women visited Jesus’ tomb very early on the Sunday morning after his crucifixion. They brought spices with them and were planning to anoint his body before burial. They were shocked, however, to find that the giant stone that had been used to seal the entrance had been rolled …
It is said to be the finest sword ever made by the master swordsmith Gorō Nyūdō Masamune. A blade whose cutting edge is so razor-thin that it’s no thicker than an atom. Created over 700 years ago, it was passed down from one shogun to the next for generations. Then came World War Two. The …
When travelers started disappearing near Osage Township, close to the southeastern corner of Kansas, no one took much notice at first. It was the 1870s, and the frontier could still be a wild, hostile place. Near the border with the Indian Territory (which became the state of Oklahoma in 1907), criminals roamed beyond the reach …
In the late 1930s and early 1940s, the bloody trauma of World War I was still lingering in Europe’s collective memory. It should be no surprise, then, that many countries wanted nothing to do with another conflict. Switzerland, Sweden, Belgium, Norway, Denmark, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and the Netherlands declared their neutrality to keep the war …
