It also takes a lot of confidence and a lack of guilt to lie, cheat, and manipulate people into giving away everything they have. And some con artists, such as Victor Lustig, took their craft to a whole other level. He became famous for selling the Eiffel Tower twice. Even though Victor Lustig might be the most famous example, he was neither the first nor the last person to sell something he did not own....
While fans everywhere mourn the loss, it’s a good time to look back on the fascinating life of this unique visual artist. Here are 10 cool facts about the life of filmmaker and special effects artist extraordinaire Douglas Trumbull. 10 It Runs in the Family Douglas Trumbull was born on April 8, 1942, in Los Angeles, California. Growing up near Hollywood surely gave him a leg up for eventually breaking into the industry—as did a family connection....
Blanco is remembered for many things—her power, her bloody tactics, her coldheartedness, and her ability to amass a staggering net worth of $2 billion in a field that has always been dominated by men. 10 She Committed Her First Murder At Age 11 Born in 1943 in Cartagena, Colombia, Blanco was surrounded by poverty from birth. The shantytown where she grew up had such a high murder rate that children would pass the time on the streets by digging holes for the bodies that littered the roads....
10Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini Was A British Adventurer’s Son We’ve previously talked about how some Iranian conspiracy theorists have tagged the British as the malevolent force controlling Iran’s affairs behind the scenes, including the 1979 revolution. This conspiracy theory takes one crazy step further and holds that the British supported the firebrand Islamic leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini because he was actually the son of a British national named William Richard Richardson. According to the theory, Williamson was a 19th-century adventurer who traveled across the world before settling in Iran and becoming affiliated with the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company....
10Night Hunting Love can make boys do crazy stuff, like sneaking up into a girl’s room in the dead of night—all the while risking arrest or a shotgun to the face by an angry father. For the men of Bhutan, this tradition has been ingrained in their culture for the longest time—a form of courtship known as “night hunting.” Formally known as “bomena,” night hunting started in the eastern rural areas of Bhutan, and involved a man who would sneak up into a girl’s room and spend the night there....
There are many such sightings on record. And what’s more, they span decades, from the start of the modern UFO era to our contemporary times. Here are ten of the most intriguing and bizarre railroad UFO encounters. 10 The 1702 Incident: UFO Drags Train Along Tracks in the Soviet Union Without a doubt, one of the most fascinating encounters involving a moving train occurred on the evening of February 17, 1985, on the Petrozavodsk to Suoyarvi section of the Oktyabrskaya Railway in Soviet Karelia (now the Republic of Karelia)....
However, there are crazier facts that no one ever told us about Apollo 11. Like the bureaucratic red tape that the crewmen had to go through to bring Moon rocks back to Earth and Neil Armstrong’s action on the Moon that might annoy today’s environmentalists. Read on to find out about these surprising facts . . . and many more. 10 The Crew Filled Out US Customs Forms On Their Return US Customs made the Apollo 11 astronauts—Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and Michael Collins—fill out a form for importing Moon rocks and dust into the United States on July 24, 1969, the same day they landed in the Pacific Ocean around Hawaii....
It goes without saying that these differences are largely physical. In fact, if you knew a guy who had any of the abilities below, then you could rightly assume that something went horribly wrong at birth. Yet for these creatures, their bodily workings are the norm and help them to survive in the environments they were born into. 10 Chinese Softshell Turtle We humans have strict beliefs about where waste material should come from, but the Chinese softshell turtle cares nothing for our expectations....
10 Orson Welles Prank Broadcast Was Psychological Warfare The infamous Halloween Eve radio broadcast of War Of The Worlds has long been part of pop culture folklore. That night in 1938, Orson Welles panicked the nation with a mock news broadcast depicting a deadly alien invasion, and the power of the media was revealed to the world. But, according to one conspiracy theory, the panic was no accident. It is known that the Princeton University Radio Research project—funded by the Rockefeller Foundation, in order to study the effects of media on society—published a study on the broadcast....
For most people, the idea of murdering someone over a condiment is insanity personified, but below, you’ll find 10 cases of arguments and confrontations over food that ended in disaster. 10 Hold the Mayo On June 27, 2022, Melvin Williams walked into an Atlanta Subway restaurant in the evening to order a sandwich. Williams then began complaining that the sandwich he ordered had too much mayonnaise on it. Just after 6:30 pm, the police were called to the establishment because gunshots were fired....
After taking all of these factors into account, the following ten cities stand out as the most important cultural capitals of the ancient world. 10 Cuzco Cuzco, now a city in Peru, was once the capital of the Inca Empire, which reached its apex during the 15th century. Using Cuzco as a base, the Inca conquered territory all the way from Quito to Santiago—making their empire the largest in the world at the time....
10Western Diamondback RattlesnakeCrotalius Atrox There aren’t a lot of snakes that prey on humans—rattlesnakes certainly don’t. These guys prefer to eat things they can swallow whole like small rodents, birds, lizards, and even other snakes. The problem arises when a person just happens to come a bit too close making them nervous, and they will stand their ground if they feel threatened. Rattlesnake venom is a specific type of cytoxin that begins to digest the cells of the bite-victim to make swallowing prey just a bit easier....
This is the first list of many more to come, which will explore books that our readers may not have read. The aim is for us all to increase our literary knowledge. If you would like to suggest books that may be worthwhile including in future lists, tell us in the comments. Day One Under the rule of Pampinea, the first day of story telling is open topic. Although there is no assigned theme of the tales this first day, six deal with one person censuring another and four are satires of the Catholic Church....
Even in the midst of the country’s burgeoning opioid crisis, alcohol remains the third most prevalent cause of preventable death in the United States. With 88,000 alcohol-related deaths annually, only poor diet/physical inactivity and tobacco use rank as more lethal. And while many will argue that alcohol is only more fatal than other drugs because it is more ubiquitous, a cohort of British researchers believe it’s a more dangerous intoxicant than crack or heroin....
10 The Moving Virgin Mary Of Ballinspittle There are many Virgin Mary statues that are said to have mysterious properties. However, most of them are limited to crying or bleeding. In 1985, a particular Irish statue of the Holy Mother showed some special abilities stronger than that: It started moving. The moving Virgin Mary statue of Ballingspittle was first witnessed by a retired police sergeant who saw it begin levitating in the grotto of the church....
10 Edwin Davis Hanging is grim business. The drop from the gallows is meant to break the neck and make death instantaneous, but it usually doesn’t happen that way. Before succumbing to asphyxiation, the condemned can twist in the air for 10 or 20 minutes—gasping, choking, and wetting themselves. In the late 1800s, the state of New York adopted electrocution to end all that unpleasantness. On August 6, 1890, the first execution in an electric chair took place in New York’s Auburn Prison....
10 Louis Congo United States Louis Congo, a freed black man, became Louisiana’s official executioner in 1725 and served in that capacity for a dozen years. As the only one in the colony officially sanctioned to conduct executions and torture, Congo delivered punishments such as hanging, chopping off body parts, whipping, and the breaking wheel. In one case, he broke eight slaves on the wheel; in another, he whipped a Frenchman who was accused of assaulting a man with a knife....
10Death Row Marriage Even though men and women on death row will most likely never again live a white-picket-fence existence, tying the knot is more common among them than one might think. In fact, dozens of these services are performed yearly in America alone. One difference between a conventional ceremony and a death row ceremony (other than the bleak environment and the added chains) is the absence of the words “till death do us part” in the vows....
10Walter Keane The talent behind those big-eyed-kid paintings hanging up in your grandma’s home, Walter Keane lived a life of debauchery, alcoholism, and group sex. At least, the second half of that sentence is true. In reality, the person responsible for the paintings was Keane’s wife, Margaret. In the early 1950s, Margaret was making ends meet selling her paintings outside one of San Francisco’s many beatnik clubs. At some point, she started up a relationship with Walter....
Hotel Attraction was to be the tallest building in New York at the time and was designed by architect Antoni Gaudi. The planned total height was 360 meters / 1181 ft and was probably unrealistic for its time. Little is known about the origins of Hotel Attraction and was unknown until 1956, when a report called “The New World Called Gaudí” was published. Interesting Fact: The drawings by Gaudi of the Attraction Hotel had actually been proposed as a basis for the rebuilding of the Ground Zero project in Manhattan....
