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10 Elisha Otis Despite a series of jobs in various businesses, Elisha Otis (1811–1861) never met with much success until 1853, when he thrilled onlookers during an event described as “a dramatic demonstration.” Riding an open platform up a scaffold resembling the framework of a gigantic guillotine, Otis stood, among barrels and crates, gazing down at the crowd that had assembled to watch the show. People were suspicious of the safety of elevators, fearing that such contraptions might fall, injuring or killing their occupants....

Whatever the “reason,” such killings are, of course, unjustified. Not only do they cost the lives of renters, but they also cost the murderous landlords time in prison or even their own lives since some are sentenced to execution. The actions and fates of these 10 landlords who murdered their tenants show, once again, that crime often does not pay. 10 Stanley Jensen As reported in the Ocala Star-Banner, Stanley Jensen’s defense attorneys told jurors that, as a landlord, their client had had a right to visit his Ocala, Florida, rental property and that Jensen had shot his tenant, Marc Bruss, when Bruss threatened him....

10The List Of 12 Who Escaped Templars were famously burned at the stake after being convicted of heresy in the beginning of the 14th century, rounded up and slaughtered wholesale. Less popularly known is the story of the French Templars who escaped. Even the Templar organization as it exists today isn’t sure what the whole story was. According to the popular story, all the Templars were arrested on Friday the 13th, in October 1307....

Of all the remote and forbidding places on Earth, the Gobi Desert is perhaps the remotest and forbidding. Temperatures swing between Death Valley hot and Antarctica-cold, 90mph winds blast across the landscape, and giant acid-spitting murder worms lurk in wait for unwary travelers. Wait, what? According to cryptozoologists, the Gobi is home to the Mongolian Death Worm—a 5 foot monster that can spit face-corroding acid and fire electricity. It’s said their venom can eat through metal and just touching their skin is enough to kill you....

Today, we know a lot more about risks from notorious volcanoes like Vesuvius, Mount Rainier, and Pinatubo in the Philippines, but they aren’t the only ones to threaten cities. Scientists and urban planners are also worried about a number of lesser-known volcanoes, which could be potentially just as dangerous. 10Harrat Rahat, Saudi Arabia The Arabian city of Medina is one of the holiest places in Islam, second only to Mecca....

With so many variations of the classic vampire tale, many misconceptions have arisen concerning the original lore and the characters portrayed in the book. Here are 10 common myths surrounding the story of Dracula debunked. 10 Sunlight Isn’t Fatal To Dracula This popular vampire weakness was not conceived until the 1922 silent film Nosferatu. In Stoker’s novel, Dracula’s supernatural abilities were weakened in the day, but he was not killed by sunlight....

We don’t know much about his murders, the events in his house of horrors, or his modus operandi. But we are aware that this brutal man killed and cannibalized dozens of travelers and vagrants in the early 1900s. Perhaps this lack of concrete facts is why Denke has been banished to the recesses of history, although his crimes deserve more thorough scrutiny. Based on the information we have, let’s take a look at one of the most bizarre serial killers in history....

10In Search Of Lost Time’s Opening Writing a great opening line is a skill all by itself. Sentences like “Call me Ishmael” and “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times” are almost as famous as the novels that contain them. The opening line of Proust’s In Search of Lost Time, on the other hand, isn’t. In English, it simply reads: “For a long time I used to go to bed early....

Depending on where you live, the first week of 2018 was either a gentle start to the new year or the most unbelievably cold week of misery you’ve ever experienced. The majority of the US spent the last seven days in the grip of a deep freeze that broke all sorts of records, while chunks of Europe were battered by destructive storms. In a metaphorical sense, though, politics was where the greatest number of squalls were as entire nations were battered by the winds of protest and change....

This week, the main story exploding the news waves seemed to be the terrible, horrible, no good week Donald Trump has been having. The House voted to rebuke him, his Vietnam summit with Kim fell way short of expectations, and Michael Cohen delivered testimony that amounted to several hours of sustained (and possibly deserved) character assassination. But fear not, those who hate politics! There were other stories out there, too....

Denver International Airport is the largest airport in the United States, and the third largest in the world. Conspiracy theorists crawl all over this as the secret cover for the New World Order’s underground headquarters. Their reasoning is that the base is abnormally far from Denver’s center, 25 miles. The airport is extremely expansive, and boasts a very strange architectural appearance. The main building is comprised on a tent structure, similar to a circus tent, made of white fabric, that is designed to remind the visitor of the snow-capped Rocky Mountains, which can be seen from the airport....

This has to be one of the most used clichés in the book: the hero/heroine is trapped in a nightmarish world of dreams, they’re just about to be killed/see their loved one die when they bolt upright, gasping for breath, in obvious distress. Occasionally, the director will spice up the cliché by putting the camera right in the actors face. However it’s done, virtually every horror/psychological thriller will feature at least one....

10 Brains On eBay Here’s a story with all the makings of a Gothic novel, complete with a mental hospital, human organs, and a ghoulish grave robber named David Charles. Charles didn’t actually dig up any coffins, but he did break into the Indiana Medical History Museum on several occasions. From the 1840s right up to the 1990s, the museum was the site of the Central State Hospital, a psychiatric ward that performed its fair share of autopsies....

Dowries are now uncommon in Western cultures, and they are becoming increasingly outlawed in others. While dowries and bride prices (which is where the bride’s family is paid) are usually just a simple gift of money, history has a long list of more unusual examples. Here are ten of them. 10 100 Philistine ForeskinsBride: Saul’s Daughter, Michal David, famous for slaying Goliath as well as being king of Israel, had to work pretty hard to get his first wife’s hand in marriage....

Although it is understandable that actors inevitably play roles that have some similarities with events that happen later in their real lives, the specific scenes in some movies are more like glimpsing into a crystal ball. As a result, this list will review 10 movies scenes that predicted tragic moments in actors’ lives. 10 Batman Begins Having opened on June 15, 2005, Batman Begins is remembered by many as one of the best superhero films of the 2000s....

Early on, such films tended to focus on satanic and occult groups, primarily drawing inspiration from fictional sources. Then, however, real-life started to seem stranger than fiction in the post-Manson-family and Peoples Temple world. And the ’70s and ’80s saw something of a boom in realist cult-featuring films. Today, movies about cults are going through a resurgence, often mixing fantasy and realist elements to subvert expectations. Here we’ll be looking at ten of the all-time greatest films that feature cults from the classic era to the modern....

Who was Jack the Ripper? Is Maddie McCann dead or alive? What really happened to Flight MH370? We may never know. It is just as unlikely that we’ll solve the mysteries of what happened to the Beaumont children or who The Boy in the Box was. On this list are 10 more mysteries for which we will probably never find the answers. 10 The Gurning Man In the 1970s, several women in Glasgow, Scotland, reported a strange and terrifying phenomenon....

SEE ALSO: 10 Strange Non-Sexual Ways People Have Orgasms 10 General Hooker’s Hookers Even though Joseph Hooker was a competent general in the Union Army, he is now remembered for two things—his defeat at the Battle of Chancellorsville and his name becoming synonymous with prostitution. Hooker had a reputation as a drunk and a womanizer. His soldiers were undisciplined and followed his lead. Consequently, his Union camps were so often stocked with prostitutes that they became known as “Hooker’s Brigade,” later simply referred to as “hookers....

Of course, each of them could have filed for divorce or possibly an annulment. But apparently, they were still enveloped in the warm, loving feelings that accompany recent marriages and decided to kill their new spouses instead. 10 Sachin Mishra Sachin Mishra was forced to divorce his first wife when relatives found out that the spouses were related. Sachin remarried a year later. However, he could not get over his first wife....

This list covers ten “what the hell” cases of people who have made very bizarre and sometimes disturbing discoveries within their own four walls. 10 From Russia to New York After George Davis passed away, his family sorted through his belongings only to find a mysterious box in the attic. It held a small Fabergé figurine which experts later identified as a gift from none other but the Russian Czar Nicolas II to his wife, Empress Alexandra....