10Going So Soon, Mr. Twain? In the late 19th century, witty writer Mark Twain and serious scientist Nikola Tesla became surprisingly good friends. Along with some of the most famous writers, actors, and musicians of their day, they often attended dinner parties filled with stories and laughter at poet and editor Robert Underwood Johnson’s New York home. Not wanting these evenings to end, some guests like Twain would return with Tesla to his laboratory to marvel at his electrical inventions....

Not every government will own up to having such a list. For the ones that do, they deny that these are hit lists and call them other names. Even then, they will rarely discuss the topic. Here are 10 governments that currently have hit lists or had them in the past. 10 United States The US government has a not-so-secret hit list, the “disposition matrix,” that contains the names, locations, and preferred methods of killing people the government considers enemies of the United States....

10Plague Art It is impossible to understate the effect that the Black Death had on medieval society. Peaking in Europe somewhere between 1348 and 1350 with additional outbreaks in 1361 and the 1430s, the plague was a bacillus that could be contracted by the bite of an infected flea or rat or through the air, depending on the variety. The first wave of the Black Death killed an estimated 25–50 percent of Europe’s population....

10Tiger Bench China really hates the practitioners of Falun Gong, a sort of spiritual discipline first introduced in 1992. Since the beginning, many Falun Gong followers have been brutally punished. One form of torture used on them is a device called the tiger bench. This works by placing a prisoner on a long bench with a board against their back and head. The prisoner is then tied down, so their back is secured to the board, and their feet and legs are secured to the bench....

It is in this broad sense of the meaning of the term that the artists on this list are included. Each of them, whether a painter, a novelist, or a poet, is not only famous but also shares the rather surprising experience of having had one or more of their works inspired by a hallucination. 10 Futuristic Images Dr. Jean Kim believes Yayoi Kusama’s art teaches us how to live....

10Fred Zain Recklessly Lied About Rape And Murder Cases For 13 Years Fred Zain’s academic record does not reveal the makings of a person fit to wield a beaker, let alone work in a forensics lab. A graduate of West Virginia State College, Zain had only managed to pass some of his chemistry courses by the skin of his teeth, while utterly failing in others. Somehow, these flashing signs of inability didn’t prevent him from landing jobs as a police chemist for the state of West Virginia and chief of physical evidence in Bexar County, Texas....

10Blackbeard’s Reign Of Terror Lasted Only 15 Months Nearly 300 years after his death, Blackbeard’s name is still synonymous with piracy. Everything from his terrifying appearance to his romantic outlaw status continues to influence how we imagine pirates. Without him, we’d have no Treasure Island or Pirates of the Caribbean. (On the plus side, we’d also have no Pirates of the Caribbean sequels.) Yet Teach’s career wasn’t exactly distinguished by longevity....

10Jata In Hinduism, rishis and sadhus wear matted locks called “jata” as a sign of commitment to escaping the cycle of rebirth. These matted locks signify a covenant between the wearer and Shiva, the god of destruction and regeneration. They are part of a larger commitment to aesthetic life including renunciation of worldly possessions and celibacy. Jata are often worn up, in a bundle that resembles a turban. Maintenance is more challenging than most assume....

This wasn’t something that just happened to Japanese people in the United States and Jews in Germany. Nearly every country that fought in the war locked up innocent civilians purely because of their ancestry. And some of the stories that don’t get told are even more horrifying than the ones you’ve heard. 10 Canadian Internment Camps Were Worse Than The American Ones While Japanese Americans were being rounded up and forced into internment camps in the US, the exact same thing was happening north of the border....

Even stranger, guests are willing to pay excessive amounts for these services. However weird and wild the offering may be, guests can be certain that they’ll receive a genuinely memorable experience and some seriously unique stories to pass along. 10 Happy Guest Lodge The name really says it all. At the Happy Guest Hotel in Warrington, UK, the staff just wants to please their guests. They are willing to go the extra mile to make that happen, even if it means accommodating the lonely customer....

Most of us don’t want spiders anywhere near us. It’s always unsettling when they sneak up on us in the shower, while sleeping, walking into an unseen web, suddenly leaping massive distances, or appearing abruptly from a crevice. Their reputation even prompts thoughts of burning down our homes when we come across them! Some are huge, some are deadly, most are harmless, and they eat a lot of things that can harm us....

SEE ALSO: 10 Reasons Alien Life Really Is Probably Out There Somewhere 10 Methanogens In 2005, Heather Smith from the International Space University in Strasbourg and Chris McKay of NASA’s Ames Research Center produced a paper speculating on the possibility of the existence of methane-based life, or “methanogens.” Such life-forms could consume hydrogen, acetylene, and ethane and exhale methane instead of carbon dioxide. This would make it possible for habitable zones for life to exist on cold worlds like Saturn’s moon Titan....

Jupiter is the largest planet in our Solar System. Ancient Astronomers named Jupiter after the king of the Roman Gods. Jupiter is the 5th closest planet to our sun. The atmosphere of Jupiter consists of about 84 percent Hydrogen and about 15 percent helium, with small amounts of acetylene, ammonia, ethane, methane, phosphine, and water vapor. Jupiter has a mass 318 times greater than the Earth’s and a diameter that is 11 times larger....

10 Arndt Pekurinen Arndt Pekurinen, from Finland, was 20 years old when he was drafted into military service in 1926. He refused for ethical reasons, and that’s where his problems started. Although he could have chosen to avoid conscription based on religious beliefs, he chose to make his stand on moral grounds. In addition to believing that religious pacifists had every right to have their beliefs honored, he felt that those same rights should be granted to those who were pacifists for other reasons....

The Gila cliff dwellings in Southwestern New Mexico are similar to the Mesa Verde in that they take advantage of existing caves and extend them for human comfort. The Mogollon people lived in these dwellings around 1275 – 1300 AD; the reason for their abandonment after such a short time is not known. There are 46 rooms in the cave dwellings which are believed to have been home to around fifteen families....

10The Blind Movie Critic By its nature, film is a visual medium. You would think an art form intended primarily for the eyes wouldn’t interest a blind person, but you would be wrong. Not only does Tommy Edison watch movies, he reviews them on YouTube. Even though he was born without vision, Edison has always loved film, and when he started posting reviews three years ago, his videos attracted thousands of viewers....

Some of our greatest, most difficult accomplishments have been repeated. When humans put a man on the Moon, we did it 11 times after that. Even some of the craziest oddities in nature have been witnessed more than once. Did you know the Mississippi River has flowed backward three times? But occasionally, there are truly unique events—incredible things never seen again in recorded history. Here are ten. 10 Comet West Visible in March 1976, Comet West, named after astronomer Richard West, who first observed it, was a remarkable sight that reached an apparent magnitude of –3....

Inventors in the West have been responsible for creating the telephone, the discovery of electricity, the development of space travel, and incredible advances in medicine. Our modern technological culture would not exist without Western society, and the world would be a much darker and more impoverished place if Western thinkers had never transformed their dreams into reality. Yet some contend that Western society has also brought us the enslavement of blacks, the exploitation of indigenous cultures, and a global hegemony that diminishes the overall well-being of mankind....

This little wonder turned up last year in Guatemala in the wake of a tropical storm and has been growing ever since, feeding on every building in its grasp; even shoveling in rocks and miscellaneous debris has failed to plug up the swelling problem. A sinkhole is said to occur when soil layers beneath the top layer become too damp to support the inundating weight above and ultimately give way....

Some of these stories are completely insane, and if they had made it into the Bible, Christianity would be a very different religion today. 10 Baby Jesus Tames Dragons After the birth of Jesus, Herod sent men out to have the baby killed. But our Bible doesn’t go into much detail on how Jesus got away. We’re just told that Mary and Joseph hid out in Egypt for a while....