The phrase ‘the peaceful use of nuclear weapons’ might sound like the ultimate oxymoron. While nuclear reactors are widely used to peacefully generate electricity and medical isotopes, it is difficult to imagine a peaceful use for atomic bombs on account of the whole, you know, radioactive BOOM. But incredibly, between 1961 and 1989, both the United States and the Soviet […]

If you’ve ever heard of Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua, Mexico at all, it’s probably because for a time the densely populated town next to El Paso, Texas was known as “the most dangerous city in the world”. But it turns out that at one point a bizarre sequence of events led to a rather odd nuclear disaster occurring there. Now, you […]

If we were to ask you to list a few things about former U.S. President Abraham Lincoln, it’s likely that many of you would mention things like his role in the abolition of slavery in the U.S., his assassination, his hat and beard (which incidentally the latter was grown because a little girl suggesting he’d get more votes that way), […]

Free samples are generally considered to be one of the most reliable ways to bolster sales of a product, sometimes to an insane degree if it’s done correctly. You see, free samples don’t just work because they give customers a chance to try something without the barrier of cost stopping them- which is an effective marketing trick in and of […]

The SS-Sturmbrigade Dirlewanger, better known to historians as simply the Dirlewanger Brigade, holds the dubious distinction of being amongst the most reviled units of the Nazi war machine. Infamous for its brutality and the open sadism displayed by its commanding officer, a man previously imprisoned for raping a young teen girl, the unit and their actions were so detested that […]

The ancient Olympics are littered with spectacular stories of athleticism and peculiar characters, like Melankomas of Caria, an ancient boxer who won several Olympic wreaths by reportedly doing nothing but avoid his opponents punches until they gave up. Perhaps the most bizarre Olympic story of all, however, is that of Arrichion of Phigalia, who once won an Olympic wreath despite […]

Marleen K asks: Did Amazon women really ever exist? They are mentioned time and again by the ancient Greeks in both their history and mythology, going all the way back to around the 8th century B.C. They were described as formidable warriors who were so dedicated to their craft that they cut off one breast to be better archers. They […]

Johnny Pope asks: Why do people on death row get whatever meal they want right before they die? If you happen to ever find yourself slated to have society as a whole decide it would be best if they killed you, the silver lining is that in many parts of the world where this is still a thing, the last […]

PandaGuy5 asks: Were people ever really tortured in Iron Maidens? The people of the Middle Ages have a reputation for wanton brutality and, as supposed evidence of this, countless instruments of torture sit in museums around the world, arguably the most famous of which being the Iron Maiden. This hellish contraption supposedly caused unthinkable pain and anguish for those unlucky […]

The origin of the keyboard starts, unsurprisingly with the first typewriters. There were a variety of type-writer-like devices around going back the 18th century, before one Christopher Latham Sholes, with some help from a few other guys, came up with one that would become the first commercially successful typewriter in the 1870s. Much like many typewriters since, Shole’s device used […]