Modern society worships superheroes in literature, television, and blockbuster movies. We get a kick out of seeing good triumph over evil. We relish the idea of a savior protecting the innocent. But the moral frameworks of these characters are as fictional as the superpowers they are imbued with.

Sometimes we forget, however, that true heroes walk among us. They may not wear capes or shoot webs from their wrists, but their feats are far more impressive. The danger they experience is genuine, the stakes far higher. They go beyond the call of duty, often risking their own lives to help others.

While the 24-hour news cycle can sometimes make the world seem like a dark and cruel place, there is plenty of good to be found. With that in mind, we take a look at just ten extraordinary real-life heroes.

10 The Hero Of The Montecito Mudslides

In January 2018, Southern California was struck by a series of deadly mudslides. The storm-related disaster claimed the lives of nearly two dozen people and hospitalized 163 others. A mudflow in Montecito was so powerful that it dislodged a number of houses from their foundations. Reaching speeds of up to 32 kilometers per hour (20 mph), the debris-filled wave laid waste to vehicles, trees, power lines, and buildings.

Since heavy rain had been forecast, rescue teams were already mobilized along the coastal town when the storm hit. Fortunately, firefighter Maeve Juarez was on hand to coordinate the rescue efforts.

Maeve was inspecting the San Ysidro Creek Bridge in the early hours of the morning. Moments after leaving, an enormous gas explosion completely destroyed the bridge and set fire to neighboring houses. She rushed back to the scene, just in time to see one couple jumping from the second floor of their burning home. The woman had broken her feet during the escape. Maeve clothed the half-naked woman and carried her over 400 meters (1,300 ft) to safety.^[1]

Maeve continued working through the night with her colleagues and is credited with saving over 100 lives. She was presented with the first Medal of Valor award in the history of the Montecito Fire Department, along with her colleague Andy Rupp.

9 The Man With The Golden Arm

James Harrison’s entire outlook on life changed at a very young age. At the tender age of 14, the Australian underwent a surgical procedure that required a series of blood transfusions. Seeing as his life was saved by the kindness of others, Harrison decided to “pay it forward.” Four years later, in 1954, he started giving blood. Even his own fear of needles could not deter him.

Doctors soon discovered that James had a very rare type of antibody—the anti-D antibody—in his blood plasma.

Researchers established that the anti-D antibody could be administered to combat a condition called rhesus disease. In rhesus disease, a pregnant woman’s immune system recognizes certain markers on her baby’s blood cells as foreign. The mother’s immune system then starts churning out antibodies that target and destroy her baby’s red blood cells. This unwanted process can cause serious complications during pregnancy, potentially resulting in the baby’s death. But James’s blood plasma was used to devise a treatment that could stop the mother’s immune system from becoming primed in this way.

James was the very first donor of what would become Australia’s Anti-D Program. James (aka “the man with the golden arm”) has donated blood plasma a staggering 1,173 times. He gave blood every two weeks for 60 years.

The Australian Red Cross estimates that the 81-year-old’s donations have helped save over two million babies. “Every ampule of Anti-D ever made in Australia has James in it,” explained Rhesus Program Coordinator Robyn Barlow.^[2] It is no wonder, then, that he was awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia for his noble deeds.

8 Tragedy On The Water

In August 2018, a passenger boat carrying 24 people slammed into an object in the waterways of Rivers State, Nigeria. The boat capsized, throwing its occupants overboard. Without hesitation, Joseph Blankson dove into the waters. As soon as the 36-year-old had rescued one person, he would go back to save another. One by one, Blankson pulled 13 people to safety.^[3] Sadly, while attempting to rescue a 14th soul, he succumbed to fatigue and drowned. Joseph’s incredible sacrifice meant that he was the only fatality that day.

Blankson leaves behind his wife and three children. Mercy Blankson described her husband as a loving father who, “put people first, before himself.” The president of the Nigerian Senate, Bukola Saraki, offered the following words:

Every now and then we hear amazing stories of Nigerian heroes. Joseph Blankson gave his life to save 13 people. I salute this Nigerian hero who by his last great act, showed us, once again, that we have remarkable people across this nation. His memory will be writ in gold.

The Rivers State government has organized an endowment fund to provide for Joseph’s grieving family.

7 Arnaud Beltrame

In March 2018, an ISIS gunman went on a rampage across the French town of Carcassonne, shooting at off-duty police officers. The attacker then drove to the commune of Trebes and stormed the local Super U market.^[4] The attack had suddenly turned into a hostage situation.

A brave police officer, Lieutenant Colonel Arnaud Beltrame, did not hesitate to take the place of one of the frightened hostages. Beltrame entered the building and secretly placed an active cell phone on a nearby table. This act gave his colleagues an opportunity to listen in.

Lieutenant Colonel Beltrame spent over two hours in the presence of his Moroccan captor. Upon hearing the sound of gunfire, French officers went into the supermarket and killed the terrorist. Three people were killed during the rampage, while 15 others were hurt.

A badly wounded Beltrame was transported to a hospital. Knowing his injuries were life-threatening, Arnaud married his partner from his hospital bed. Mere hours later, Arnaud died from his injuries.

A state funeral was held to honor Beltrame’s sacrifice. His mother said she was not surprised to learn of her son’s heroism:

He’s always been like this. He would tell me, “I am doing my job, Mom, that’s all.”

6 The Angel of Nanjing

Over a stretch of the Yangtze River lies the Nanjing River Bridge. This colossal road-rail bridge took eight years to build and was completed in 1968. It boasts a four-lane highway, a 6,772-meter-long (22,218 ft) railway track, a viewing tower, and a series of piers.

While a remarkable feat of Chinese engineering, the structure has turned into a major suicide hot spot. Around 2,000 people have used the Nanjing River Bridge to take their own lives between 1968 and 2006.

In 2003, a vegetable seller named Chen Si started his daily walk along the bridge. Much to Chen’s shock, he saw a man readying himself to jump. Chen Si acted quickly and dragged the man back across the steel railing. From that day forth, he made it his life’s mission to save others.

Every weekend, Chen Si uses his free time to patrol the bridge. Riding along on his motorbike, the Nanjing resident keeps a lookout for the telltale signs of depression. “Their way of walking is very passive with no spirit, or no direction. I’ll go and talk to them,” explained Chen.^[5] He even hands out suicide prevention pamphlets that list his own cell phone number as an emergency contact.

Watching over the bridge for more than a decade, Chen Si has now saved hundreds of lives. An award-winning documentary, Angel of Nanjing, provides the audience with just a glimpse of Chen’s selfless work.

5 The Human Shields

In 2017, a shooter attacked innocent men, women, and children at a Las Vegas music festival. The attack was the deadliest mass shooting in the history of the United States, leading to 58 deaths and hundreds of injuries.

From the horror emerged stories of great courage. One of the night’s survivors, Jonathan Smith, went to considerable lengths to help fellow concertgoers. The 30-year-old ushered dozens of people to safety, putting himself in the line of fire. Smith was eventually struck in the arm and neck. “It was like a heavy punch to my arm. At that point my whole body spun around. I hit the gravel,” explained Smith.^[6]

Smith was himself saved by an off-duty cop. San Diego police officer Tom McGrath rushed to Smith’s aid and stemmed the bleeding. “He’s somebody who inspires me,” said Officer McGrath. “I know he might not want to give himself all the credit, but he definitely did a wonderful job, and I was just happy to be there to help him towards the end, and get him out of there when he was hit.”

A GoFundMe page was set up to cover Smith’s medical bills. The campaign raised over $80,000.

In quite an extraordinary display, ordinary people throughout the Strip set to work helping each other. Lindsay Lee Padgett used her truck to ferry the wounded to the hospital. Carly Krygier used her own body as a human shield to protect her young daughter. And US Army veteran Rob Ledbetter tended to the injured.

4 Predicting A Tsunami

In 2004, 10-year-old Tilly Smith was vacationing on a beach in Phuket, Thailand, when she made a lifesaving discovery. According to Tilly, the sea was bubbling “like on the top of beer.” To many, this may seem like a trivial description. But Tilly knew that something much greater was at play.

Weeks before, Tilly was learning about tsunamis in one of her geography classes. An educational video showed some of the early warning signs: frothing water and a suddenly receding tide.

Tilly pleaded with her family to abandon the beach. Her father, Colin Smith, trekked back to the hotel to warn the staff. But the Surrey girl had a much harder time convincing her mother, Penny, of the impending danger.

“I said ‘There’s definitely gonna be a tsunami,’ and my mum didn’t believe me. She didn’t react,” recalled the British youngster. “And then I said, ‘Right, mum, I’m going. I’m definitely going. There is definitely going to be a tsunami.’ And she just [said] ‘Bye, then.’ ”^[7]

Tilly’s father alerted an on-duty security guard, and the authorities quickly evacuated the beach. The Smith family sought refuge at their hotel, just minutes before the tsunami hit.

The tsunami was triggered by an earthquake just off the coast of the island of Sumatra, Indonesia. An ensuing barrage of tsunamis devastated vast areas of Southeast Asia and killed nearly 230,000 people.

Tilly’s persistence saved the lives of every person on the beach that day. She was awarded the Thomas Gray Special Award from the Marine Society.

3 Hookers For Jesus

Annie Lobert has not had an easy life. During her teen years, she started out working as an escort and exotic dancer. In a bid to make even more money, Lobert moved to Sin City with her boyfriend. Then everything changed.

After she returned home from a job, Lobert’s boyfriend demanded all of her money. “I told him, ‘No,’ so he took me into the backyard and [beat me].”^[8]

Lobert’s boyfriend took away her ID and cell phone. She quickly found herself trapped in the sex-trafficking industry and ended up taking drugs. After five grueling years of abuse, Lobert escaped her pimp boyfriend.

In 2003, Lobert was taken to a hospital after a cocaine overdose. The incident forced Lobert to take stock of her life. She vowed to use her belief in God to help other sex workers find a new path.

Lobert, now 51, went on to establish the nonprofit “Hookers for Jesus.” Former working girls and sex trafficking victims are given counseling, emergency supplies, and a place to stay. Lobert’s Christian ministry also aims to protect the women from their former pimps. “Our house in Henderson, we had pimps show up with guns,” said Lobert.

Sex trafficking in the United States is a multimillion-dollar enterprise. The International Labor Organization estimates that 4.5 million people are trapped in forced sexual exploitation worldwide.

2 The Poisoned Village

When Phyllis Omido started working at an iron-smelting factory in Kenya, little did she know that her own health was at risk.

The African nation’s booming solar panel industry has created considerable demand for lead. The EPZ refinery, where Omido worked, used to extract lead from old car batteries.^[9] Operating as the plant’s community relations manager, Omido was tasked with producing an environmental impact report. The news was dire. The plant’s chemicals posed a potential danger to those living nearby. Although Omido recommended the factory’s immediate relocation, her pleas were ignored. Instead, she was removed from the project.

Three months on, Omido’s son became ill. Doctors soon discovered the cause: elevated levels of lead within the boy’s bloodstream. Because Omido was breastfeeding at the time, it is believed the lead was passed on via her breast milk.

Phyllis quit her job and began investigating health concerns within Owino Uhuru—the slum where the EPZ refinery was based. Through Phyllis’s efforts, it was discovered that many residents had suffered miscarriages and respiratory disease. Mounting pressure forced the closure of over a dozen smelting factories across Kenya.

In 2015, Omido was the recipient of the Goldman Environmental Prize. The young mother has now brought a class-action lawsuit against the Kenyan government. Meanwhile, the senate health committee has agreed to organize relief efforts in Owino Uhuru.

Omido’s campaign has not been without incident. In 2012, gunmen launched an attack on her home. She lives in constant fear of being abducted by vigilantes and must carry a panic button.

1 Rick Rescorla

September 11, 2001, was the day that countless heroes made themselves known to the world. Step forward, Rick Rescorla.

Ever since the first World Trade Center attack back in 1993, Rescorla was convinced of the need for better evacuation plans. The security expert argued that the World Trade Center, owing to its economic importance and symbolism, would remain a target of Islamist terrorism. He even predicted that the next potential terrorist attack could involve a cargo plane, loaded with bombs or chemical and biological weapons.^[10]

Rescorla worked for Morgan Stanley Dean Witter. The company occupied 22 floors of the South Tower. The military man warned his bosses of the possibility of more terrorist attacks and recommended the company move its offices to a different location. But the company still had a lease for the building that would remain in effect until 2006. Rick Rescorla understood the danger, though. So he devised detailed evacuation plans for the tower. He also made sure that mandatory drills were carried out twice a year, despite resistance from management.

When the first plane hit, Rick issued an evacuation order. The workers knew exactly what to do. As thick, black smoke billowed from the North Tower, Rick led thousands of men and women to their safety.

While the evacuation was still in its infancy, Rick phoned his longtime friend, Dan Hill. Rescorla told Hill that the Port Authority had ordered the building’s occupants to remain where they were. Hill recalls what his friend told the Port Authority:

Everything above where that plane hit is going to collapse, and it’s going to take the whole building with it. I’m getting my people the f—k out of here.

That decision likely saved thousands of lives.

Rescorla was born in Cornwall, England. He served as a police officer and fought for the British Army. A staunch anti-communist, Rescorla moved to the United States to fight in the Vietnam War. Rick would go on to achieve many things. He was a writer, teacher, security expert, war veteran, and cancer survivor.

Rescorla was last seen going back into the South Tower to look for remaining workers. His body was never found.

We take a lot for granted in terms of medical care today. Whilst we still get ill sometimes, there is a range of medicines and treatments available. Our doctors have a huge body of knowledge and experience to call upon, and we can usually rely on having modern and clean facilities. It wasn’t always like this. This list is in honor of all of the people who have improved the knowledge and practice of medicine.

Hippocrates was a physician in Ancient Greece. He is thought by many to be the Father of Western Medicine. He was an incredibly forward thinking man who developed ideas that were ahead of his time. He was outspoken in his belief that illness was not caused by the displeasure of the gods, but had actual physical causes. He acknowledged that lifestyle, diet and environmental factors all affected physical health. It sounds obvious to us now, but that is because we have over 2,000 years of his influence to thank. At the time this was an incredible belief, that questioned both the authority of the gods, and other physicians of the time.

At this point in history people did not understand the internal workings of the human body in the same way that we do now. It was a great taboo to dissect the dead, so the nervous and circulatory systems had not been studied. The accepted theory of was that illness was caused by the four “humors” or different types of fluid that inhabited the body being out of balance. All treatments were prescribed on this assumption, and Hippocrates himself believed this.

Hippocrates treated patients and taught his knowledge to others. He had a dedicated following of people around him, who helped treat others according to his principles and thus increased his renown. He is credited with writing the Hippocratic Corpus. This is a collection of over 70 documents which describe the symptoms, and progression of diseases. This has been passed down over the millennia since his death, and has informed medical practice right up to the present day.

He believed in the importance of observing the patient to see the progression and development of symptoms, and to review how effective the treatment was in combating these. He was also a founder in the practice of taking medical and family histories from patients. These are routine practices for any medic today, but they originated with Hippocrates.
Hippocrates is probably best known as the creator of the Hippocratic Oath. This is a statement of moral and professional ethical standards that physicians were expected to abide by. This is still sworn on graduating medical school in some areas (in an updated form).

Florence Nightingale is possibly the most famous nurse in history, she is known as “the Lady with the Lamp”. The facts that are known about her are often shrouded in exaggeration and legend.

She was born to an upper class British family, and was highly educated. She felt that she was called by God to become a nurse; a move which her family felt was beneath her. She went to the Crimean front in Eastern Europe to tend to soldiers in 1854, where hospitals had an appallingly high death rate. At the time diseases such as cholera and typhoid fever were rife, with soldiers being seven times more likely to die after admission to hospital than they were on the battlefield. The importance of sanitation was not fully understood at the time, and patients were housed in dirty conditions, surrounded by the human waste of those with infectious diseases. It is widely thought that she improved the hygiene conditions in the hospital during the war, causing the death rate to drop. This is not accurate, or a claim that she ever made. In fact the British government sent the sanitation commission to the area. They cleaned the sewage out of the military hospitals, after which the mortality rates dropped.

Nightingale was a talented mathematician, with a passion for statistical analysis. She was the first female member of the Royal Statistical Society. Following her return from the Crimea she did analysis into the rate of death and what had affected it, and found statistical evidence that it was the improvement of sanitation and cleanliness that had made the biggest changes in improving the survival rates. She used the irrefutable statistical data to lobby politicians and influential committee members, persuading them to make major changes to the hospital systems, both at home and for the military.

She set up a nurse training college in St Thomas’ Hospital in London in 1860. Prior to this, nurses had a poor reputation of being rough and crude women with little training, loose morals and regular drunkenness. It was not considered a suitable profession for well brought up ladies. Nightingale schools had strict regulations about behavior and sobriety, and had a curriculum for student nurses to follow. They also emphasized the importance of clinical training on wards. Nightingale herself continued to write textbooks of nurse education. International Nurses Day is still celebrated on her birthday every year, 12th of May.

The changes that she influenced in healthcare caused a major transformation in patient care and nurse training. These have had a major impact on the way that medical care is given today, and it is this level of influence that has set her apart from other nurse innovators of the time.

Archibald McIndoe was a doctor from New Zealand. In 1938 he was made the consultant plastic surgeon to the RAF. When the Second World War started he found himself treating pilots who had been shot down during military action. They were often horrendously burnt due to the aviation fuel igniting. Reconstructive plastic surgery was still in its infancy, and McIndoe was one of only four plastic surgeons in the UK at the time.

The conventional methods of using acid to remove damaged skin and then waiting two months before trying to perform surgery meant that the pilots had to spend long periods in agony. It also resulted in a great deal of scar tissue. McIndoe decided to operate immediately, cutting away damaged tissue so that skin grafts could be placed straight away. This greatly increased the chances of healing, resulting in less scarring and much more mobility. He also developed new skin graft techniques which resulted in lower infection rates and more successful grafts. The men who were in his care became known as The Guinea Pig Club as the methods McIndoe tried were so ground-breaking.

It is not just the pioneering physical care that McIndoe gave which marks him as an exceptional man. He also recognized the incredible value of psychological rehabilitation for the servicemen who were in his care. It was usual for burn victims who had disfiguring injuries to shun the public eye. He felt that it was important for them to remain part of their community, and to have pride in what they had done for their countries. Many of the men were in hospital for a number of years, having multiple reconstructive surgeries, and so their local community became East Grinstead, where the burns unit was. He encouraged them to wear their service uniforms instead of hospital gowns, to maintain their professional pride, and he encouraged the community to engage with and support them. It became an honor to have them over to their homes, and they attended film openings and events. This side of McIndoe’s legacy has been slow to catch on, but people are now realizing the importance of maintaining support and integration for those who have been injured.

Freud was an Austrian neurologist and psychiatrist, although he is better known as the Father of Psychoanalysis. He treated patients with “hysterical” illnesses and neurosis. At the time society, including the medical establishment was incredibly sexist. The majority of Freud’s patients were women suffering from hysterical illnesses and neurosis. This included female “willfulness”. Although there are still a higher proportion of women that suffer from anxiety related symptoms than men, the treatments for them at the time could be extreme. One popular treatment was the use of an “electrical vibrator” to stimulate orgasm, as this was felt to be a cause of hysteria. Bear in mind that not all of these women will have been treated willingly, particularly those in the asylums of the time. This left many women in a position where they were treated for willfulness and anxiety by medically sanctioned rape. Other treatments include applying dung to the genitals, leeches, arsenic treatment, and surgical destruction of the clitoris.

Freud felt that these treatments were not effective, and failed to address the root of the problem. He was one of the first to consider that these illnesses may have a psychological, rather than physical cause. He developed a treatment which was unheard of at the time, which basically involved listening to the patient. He was a pioneer of the “Talking Cure”. He initially tried hypnosis, and later used his method of psychoanalysis. This involves exploring the symbolic meaning of the patients’ symptoms and memories to try to identify repressed memories. He felt that if they could be confronted the troubling symptoms would stop. Freud was one of the first people to scientifically acknowledge that “hysterical” illnesses could be due to traumatic memories which were repressed.

Freud also developed theories about sexuality, and stated that the development of a healthy functioning person was due to successful transition through stages of sexual development. He gave us the idea of the Oedipus complex. This is where a male child sees his mother as his main focus and falls in love with her. He feels threatened by the presence and dominance of the father and worries that he may be castrated. He described a similar phase in females, where the focus is on the father, and he describes penis envy, stating that women feel incomplete due to the lack of this appendage. He also described the oral, anal and phallic stages of childhood development, where the primary sexual urge is related to each of these three areas in turn. Freud felt that problems in progressing through these stages were the main cause of neurosis and anxiety in adults. His focus on symbolism of dreams and conversation led to the term “Freudian Slip” being coined, to mean an error in speech which is symbolic of our true desires or meaning.

Although many people feel that Freud’s theories overvalue sex, he also had a societal impact in bringing the subject of sex and individual sexuality to the forefront. It is important to remember that when Freud was developing his theories, sex was not discussed in the way it is now, and Victorian values reigned. Although Freud’s theories were made from a male perspective and have been widely criticized by feminists, he himself acknowledged that the female perspective needed further investigation.
Currently psychoanalysis is in decline, and is not widely used as a treatment. It is, however, the precursor for modern psychological treatment. The vast majority of treatment of anxiety based disorders is now with verbal therapy, allowing people to discuss and explore their problems and the reasons for them. Prior to Freud this would have been impossible. He has allowed the area of psychology and the related area of psychiatry to advance dramatically. His theories have become widely known outside of the medical field, and have encouraged the consideration of psychology to become popular. This has made a huge impact in helping to reduce the stigma of mental illness.

Marie Curie was a Polish born scientist, although she moved to France to study and stayed there after meeting her husband. She researched and experimented with radioactive substances, and invented the word “radioactivity”. Her husband, also a scientist, assisted with her research and in 1903 they were both awarded the Nobel Prize in physics for their research into the “radiation phenomenon”. Curie is the discoverer of both Radium and Polonium and in 1911 she was awarded the Nobel Prize for chemistry for her discoveries. She was the first women to be awarded a Nobel Prize, and was the first person to win multiple Nobel Prizes. She remains the only woman to have won the award twice. At the time much of the French government and scientific establishment were very negative towards her because of her gender, refusing to acknowledge a female scientist among their ranks.

Curie’s research helped to develop radiation as a therapeutic tool. Curie’s research identified that it can do localized damage to a targeted area of the body, and could be useful in treating cancerous tissue. This is still the foundation of radiotherapy today, although the methods have changed. At the time she filled small glass tubes with Radon (a radioactive gas) that could be inserted into the area of the tumor, causing it to shrink.

During World War One, Curie and her daughter used their findings to help soldiers injured on the front lines. They fitted x-ray machines to vehicles and drove them directly to field hospitals. They were able to show the location of bullets, shrapnel or broken bones, and were a great assistance in providing appropriate medical care.

Unfortunately, at the time the harmful effects of working with radioactive materials were not known, and both Curie and her husband suffered ill health due to their high levels of exposure. They both exhibited sores on their fingers from handling the materials directly, and Curie herself eventually died of leukemia. Her research notebooks have such high levels of radioactivity that it is still not safe to handle them without protective equipment. Belatedly, the French government ensured that both of the Curie’s remains are now at the Panthéon in Paris. She is currently the only woman to be there on her own merit. The effect of radiotherapy, and later chemotherapy, and on-going research into cancer and leukemia cannot be overestimated. The result of Curie’s work has saved countless lives.

Blundell was a British obstetrician. At the time it was common for women to die in childbirth. He wondered if women who bled heavily after giving birth (and usually died) may be able to be given someone else’s blood. He experimented to find a way to safely transfuse blood from one person to another. He invented equipment specifically for this purpose, some of which is still in use today.

Prior to this, people had experimented with orally feeding blood to another person but this had been unsuccessful. Experiments were also made giving the blood of animals to humans. Some survived, although it appears that this was due to only receiving such small amounts of the blood that they only had a minor allergic response. Blundell identified that for a human to successfully receive a blood transfusion of any significant quantity and survive, it needed to be from a human. He identified that blood that was stored would coagulate and realized that for his work to be successful the transfusions needed to be made on site. He eventually performed the first successful human blood transfusion from a husband to his wife when she started to hemorrhage following the birth of their child.

Not all of Blundell’s patients survived, but at the time they were also not aware of blood typing and the problem of immune rejection. Research into this was done later and further innovations have been made in this field, but Blundell should be acknowledged for pioneering the human blood transfusion. In the UK alone there are currently 8,000 units of blood used daily, and the World Health Organization reports that in 2007, 85.4 million units were collected. Transfusions save the lives of millions. Whether through accident, surgery, or chronic illness, people survive today who otherwise would not have.

Joseph Lister was a British surgeon and professor of surgery. He is known as the Father of Asepsis. At the time people did not understand that germs exist, and how many illnesses are carried through the transfer of infected particles. They thought that illness was spread by miasmas (bad air), and used fragrant herbs and flowers as a way of warding off disease. Lister noticed that many of the people he operated on survived the surgery, but later died from what were known as “ward fevers”. In fact the rate of death from post-operative infection at the time was huge.

Around this time the first research was being done into microorganisms, and Lister was aware of this. He proposed that the reason for post-operative infection was that organisms were flourishing in the wounds. He noted that doctors often went from one surgery to another without washing their hands, dealing with infected tissue before doing an invasive procedure on another patient and introducing the infection into the wound.

He decided to try using carbolic acid as a disinfectant. He encouraged his surgeons to wash their hands in a solution of it prior to surgery, and to wear clean gloves. He also used it on his surgical equipment, had assistants spray a solution of it in the operating theater during surgery and used it to clean wounds and dressings. The rate of infection fell dramatically following the implication of these measures, and Lister was able to influence others at the time to acknowledge his techniques.

Lister’s findings are still relevant today. This is the point at which improvements in sterilization and asepsis started, and this is important to consider in the age of MRSA and other hospital acquired infections.

Joseph Murray was originally a plastic surgeon. He operated on injured WWII servicemen. He was regularly using skin grafts to repair injured tissue, and became interested in the phenomenon of tissue rejection. At the time, research was being done which showed that there was an immune response which caused rejection. He wondered whether there was a way to overcome this and began his own research into rejection of tissue and organs.

He decided to look at the possibility of a kidney transplant. At the time a person with kidney failure would not have had much of a chance. An attempt had been made by a Ukrainian surgeon in the 1930s to transplant a kidney, but the patient had died because of the immune system rejecting the new organ. They needed to find a way to see if the operation could be done without the immune system rejecting the new organ. In 1954 Richard Herrick needed a new kidney, and his identical twin brother Ronald offered his. As the tissue of each twin was identical, the immune response should be avoided. Murray and his team operated on the Herrick brothers, successfully transplanting a kidney with no rejection. It was the first successful human organ transplant.

Murray continued his work in transplantation, later performing the first transplant from an unrelated person with immunosuppressant drugs. In 1990 Murray was honored, along with E. Donnall Thomas, with a Nobel Prize for medicine for their work in organ and cell transplantation.

Alexander Fleming was a renowned biologist and pharmacologist. He is also known as the Father of Antibiotics. He is credited with the clinical discovery of Penicillin. This was an accidental discovery. Fleming had a messy lab, and had forgotten to put away all of the influenza samples he had been working on before going on holiday. On his return he found that mould had grown on some of the infected petri dishes. Where this mould had come into contact with the influenza cultures, it had been destroyed. Fleming did further research into this unexpected mould and found that it could safely be given without observing any ill effects (the allergy reactions that are sometimes seen were not noted in these tests). However, he found that it was very difficult to obtain enough of the penicillin to be effective, and found that growing it on a larger scale was very difficult and time consuming, so he did not progress any further with it.

Ten years later his research was continued by Howard Florey and Ernst Chain at Oxford University. They found a method of mass producing Penicillin, and in 1944, after clinical trials, obtained funding from the US and UK governments to produce it on an industrial scale. Both governments were very keen to have this “wonder drug” available to troops fighting in occupied Europe, and at risk of infection from battle wounds. In 1945 Fleming, Florey and Chain were awarded the Nobel Prize for medicine for the discovery and production of Penicillin.

Prior to the discovery of antibiotics as we know them today, there were few effective treatments for infection. Even a minor wound could become the site of a major infection that killed the patient. Arsenic and other damaging and toxic substances were used, but they caused further damage to the body. People died en mass of influenza epidemics, tuberculosis, scarlet fever, meningitis, pneumonia, and diphtheria. Gonorrhoea and syphilis were common sexually transmitted diseases. All of these diseases can be fatal, and if they are survived, can cause an incredible amount of chronic damage. The discovery of Penicillin and the development of new antibiotics over the years have allowed us to treat illnesses that blighted humanity for millennia. They can still be serious if they are caught, but now people have a chance of survival that our ancestors did not have.

Edward Jenner was a British doctor. He is considered to be the Father of Immunology. At the time there was no preventative medicine in the form that would be recognized today. There was no vaccination against illness, and epidemic was rife, devastating whole communities. Smallpox was a particularly virulent disease which was thought to have been contracted by around 60% of the population of countries where it was endemic, killing around 20%. This wiped out whole communities, leaving millions dead every year. There was, and still is, no known cure for smallpox, so the only hope is not to catch it. It is the disease responsible for devastating the Native American, Incan and Aztec populations when colonized by Europeans. It was no respecter of age or rank, wiping out royalty and common people alike. It results in fever, and a rash which transforms into fluid filled pustules. People who caught it were not expected to survive, and those who did were scarred for life by the pustules. Survivors were also often left blind. People were so scared of this disease that they tried to inoculate themselves against it by inhaling the scabs from smallpox sores. Unfortunately, this often lead to the person contracting the full blown disease.

In the midst of this, Jenner noted that milkmaids who frequently caught a less extreme version of the illness called cowpox, never seemed to catch smallpox. Cowpox caused blisters on the skin, similar to smallpox, but was not fatal. He theorized that cowpox might give the person immunity to smallpox and, amazingly, managed to get a local farmer to allow him to try an experiment on his son, James Phipps. In 1798, he drained some pus out of the blisters of a milkmaid with cowpox, and injected it into the arm of Phipps, and repeated this over a few days. He then injected him with smallpox. Phipps became unwell, but did not develop full blown smallpox and recovered within a few days with no scarring or other ill effects.

Jenner began vaccinating locals, and always offered his vaccine for free. He was adamant that he did not want it to only be available to the rich. He persevered to get his ideas accepted as there was a lot of defiance, particularly from the church, who felt that it went against God to give diseased animal material to humans. As the number of people who had been vaccinated increased the immunity became evident, with people who were protected failing to catch smallpox. His theories were accepted and within 30 years it was made compulsory to have the vaccination in England and Wales, and it was provided free to all.

Smallpox is now a non-existent illness, having been declared extinct by the World Health Organization in 1980. This was after a concerted and worldwide vaccination policy. This virulent and deadly disease has been wiped out, following work that was started by one man. However, it is not just smallpox that has been affected. Routine vaccination for major infectious illness has drastically reduced the number of cases of measles, rubella, diphtheria, tetanus, mumps, polio and meningitis C. All of these diseases are potentially fatal, and cause chronic and devastating effects in those who survive them. Jenner’s work has given us the ability to protect ourselves against contracting them. He is considered to have been ultimately responsible for saving more lives than any other person in history.

Over the course of history, people have often wanted each other dead. The annals of the past are full of conflicts between different people, factions, and countries, and as such, advances in weapons technology have long been a vital way for armies to keep a leg up on their rivals.

Along the way, people have come up with very interesting ways to fight one another. Despite their novelty and ingenuity, these weapons have remained relatively obscure. In this list, we’ll explore 10 weapons that deserve that little additional attention—even if they fell into obscurity for a good reason.

10Plumbata

When people think of Roman hand-to-hand weapons, centurion shields, spears, and gladiator equipment usually come to mind. One of the lesser-known weapons the Romans used was called the plumbata, also known as a martiobarbalus.

The plumbata was simple in its design: a spear or dart head on the end of a small weight. Attached to a wooden shaft laced with feathers, it became a small ranged weapon that was effective if thrown either underarm or overarm.

How effective were they? In order to gauge that, all one has to do is take a look within The Military Institutions of the Romans, known in its native language as De Re Militari, a military book written in AD 390.

“The exercise of the loaded javelins, called martiobarbuli, must not be omitted. We formerly had two legions in lllyricum, consisting of six thousand men each, which from their extraordinary dexterity and skill in the use of these weapons were distinguished by the same appellation. They supported for a long time the weight of all the wars and distinguished themselves so remarkably that the Emperors Diocletian and Maximian on their accession honored them with the titles of Jovian and Herculean and preferred them before all the other legions. Every soldier carries five of these javelins in the hollow of his shield. And thus the legionary soldiers seem to supply the place of archers, for they wound both the men and horses of the enemy before they come within reach of the common missile weapons.”

9Trident Main Gauche

The trident main gauche was a type of dagger called a parrying dagger, which was a small blade held in the left hand to parry sword blows. There were many different types of parrying daggers, but the trident main gauche had one special feature that kicked all the others to the curb: spring-loaded arms.

At the press of a button, this dagger would sprout two arms that came out from either side, giving the dagger a trident-like look. The arms were designed in a way so that the stabbing potential of the dagger was kept, meaning it had enhanced defensive capabilities without completely sacrificing its offensive ones. Should the dagger be needed in the main hand, the arms could be tucked away so that it had its full offensive potential.

8The Man Catcher

One problem with fighting enemies who are on horseback is that it’s hard to get a solid blow in when your opponent is higher than you. One invention that was used to help even the playing field was the fearsome man catcher.

The man catcher consists of a hoop with spikes around the inside. Man catchers were used to snag riders around the neck and drag them off of their horses, making them easier to kill. The device saw its fair share of use during the wars of the 1500s.

The man catcher also had a secondary use. During war, it was sometimes used to capture important enemies (such as nobles) in a way that kept them alive. It was also useful in times of peace for catching criminals, making it a more terrifying version of modern-day handcuffs. The capturing end of the pole was spring-loaded so that a neck could slip in easily, while the spikes kept the neck from getting out.

7Gauntlet Daggers

During World War I, soldiers got a nasty taste of trench warfare. Due to the cramped, claustrophobic situations the troops often found themselves fighting in, they sometimes had to resort to a medieval mindset just to stay alive. It was a dirty, bloody conflict, and close-quarters trench weapons had to be simple and ruthlessly efficient if they were to be effective at all.

Some of these simplistic trench weapons were standard military equipment, such as the trench club, a simple wooden weapon meant for melee combat. There are also examples where makeshift weapons were crafted by the soldiers themselves. One such weapon was the gauntlet dagger, a gauntlet made out of crudely arranged light armor with a knife sticking out of the fist. It even came with a bar for you to hold and straps to attach the thing to your forearm. Even though the gauntlet essentially took up a whole hand, it was thought that holding such a weapon would have raised a soldier’s morale, so the pros and cons sort of balanced out.

Unfortunately, there aren’t many records of its origin. A 1920 listing of the item calls it a “spiked gauntlet, German?,” while another record labels it as Anglo-French. Neither of the listings mention any evidence for their claims of country of origin. Regardless, it shows the lengths soldiers would go to in order to maintain peace of mind in the trenches.

6Key Guns

The problem with keeping rowdy prisoners in check is that jailers often have to put themselves into potential danger to perform their duties. During the 17th century, some locksmiths had the ingenious idea of empowering jailers to help keep prisoners in check. Given that it was hard (if not impossible) for a jailer to hold a weapon and unlock a cell door at the same time, the solution was to make the key itself a weapon.

Key guns were just that—keys that contained single-shot pistols within their bodies. Despite their seemingly high novelty value, key guns went through several iterations. Some key guns required the jailer to light the gunpowder with a match in order to set off the gun, but other models came with flintlock mechanisms that were easier to fire in a pinch. The trigger was often around or inside the key’s handle itself, which meant that jailers had to take special care when they opened cell doors.

5Lantern Shields

Some of the more inventive experiments in history weren’t necessarily about changing weapons. Sometimes, people put in the effort to modify defensive items so that they could perform a more offensive role. This was the case with the lantern shield, which sports so many features that calling it a “shield” doesn’t do it justice.

The lantern shield’s base was a rounded shield. Attached to the shield was an iron gauntlet, which was worn to equip the shield. On the gauntlet were two serrated blades for snapping an opponent’s blade. If that wasn’t enough, parallel to the gauntlet was a longer blade attached to the shield itself that could be used as an offensive stabbing weapon. Spikes also studded the shield’s surface.

The best feature—and the one that gives this weapon its name—is the secret weapon hidden within it. Behind the shield, the wielder would place a lit lantern. A small leather flap on the front of the shield could be lifted up to reveal the lantern behind it. The idea was that if someone attacked you, you could open the flap. The sudden light from the lantern would “dazzle and confuse” your opponent.

The idea of waving a lantern at someone to dazzle them may seem ineffective and somewhat silly to us, but given how fencers also carried lanterns to blind their opponents, the idea probably stems from some proven techniques at the time.

4Goedendag

During the 13th century, people were trying to discover interesting ways to tackle armored knights. Heavy weapons such as maces were effective at caving in armor, while bladed weapons were better at harming the person within it. When the Flemish were faced with the problem of French knights, they decided to go with both strategies at once.

The goedendag was a wooden club reinforced with iron rings that had a spike set at the top. Its weight allowed it to be swung like a mace, but the point allowed for piercing attacks as well. Why the name goedendag? Well, there are two theories: The first says that it originated from the Flemish goed dagge, meaning “good dagger.” The second claims that it stems from the Flemish word for “good day,” the story being that those who wielded the weapon would say goedendag to people as they passed by. If the reply came back in French, the passer-by would be bludgeoned on the spot.

As for its effectiveness, it did very well for a brief period. It was cheap, easy to make, and effective to boot. The Battle of the Golden Spurs in 1302 saw 500 French knights falling to the weapon, and rumors spread that one goedendag could take out two mounted knights. It kept its fearful reputation until the Battle of Roosebeke in 1382, when French battle axes and maces outdid the humble stick, pushing the goedendag into an early retirement.

3The Enouy Revolver

One of the most iconic movie quotes regarding revolvers comes from Dirty Harry, where the titular character asks, “Did I fire six shots or only five?” If Harry had been packing an Enouy revolver, that question would have been a little more ridiculous, because this historical oddity could hold 48 bullets in its cylinders.

The revolver was created by Joseph Enouy in England in 1855. More details of its interesting design can be found in its patent listing:

“Two or more revolving breech-pieces are connected in a frame attached to the stock in such a manner that when the charges in the chambers of one breech-piece have all been fired, the breech-piece may then be removed and others ready charged by successively substituted in its place.”

The end result was something akin to a wheel of revolver chambers, which is exactly how the gun got its nickname, the “Ferris Wheel.” Unfortunately, while its easy-access chambers and its impressive bullet count were revolutionary at the time, its usability left a lot to be desired.

For one, the weight of the chambers made the piece very heavy, and the gun itself was tricky to hold. That made aiming the weapon in the first place a chore. If that wasn’t bad enough, its design meant that there was no way to effectively holster it, meaning you’d have to carry around a very heavy revolver in your hand wherever you went.

As creative as the piece was, it flopped and didn’t see mass production.

2The UP Rocket Launcher

Some of the deadliest weapons used during World War II were mines, which were so feared that special mine-sweeping tanks had to be invented to clear the explosives before they harmed any infantry. One of the ideas that came out of World War II was to take the ground-based terror that minefields gave and put it into the air.

The unrotated projectile (UP) rocket launcher was a large anti-air gun designed to go hand-in-hand with other AA guns. The idea was that the UP rocket launcher would fire a salvo of 10 rockets into the sky. At 300 meters (1,000 ft), the rockets would explode and scatter mines supported by parachutes with cables up to 120 meters (400 ft) in length. Planes would hopefully then fly into the mines, but the abnormally long cables were designed so that a plane could snag the parachute or the wires instead and drag the mine into itself, making it easier for the mines to hit their target.

How did it fare? Not very well. The key element of a mine in the ground was that it was hard to spot. Enemy planes could easily dodge the floating bombs with their conspicuous parachutes. Even worse, should the rockets explode a little too close to the ship, the crew would find themselves under attack by their own weapon as the mines floated back down.

1Wall Guns

When it comes to performance, guns have always had to carry two traits: power and accuracy. The art of a perfect gun comes from a fine balance between these two, packed into a system that can be held and carried by a single soldier. The wall gun, an invention that spanned the 15th–19th centuries, was an example where the demand for power and accuracy was taken to the extreme.

Wall guns weren’t too mechanically different from regular rifles. They loaded bullets the same way and fired the same way. What set them apart was the fact that the minimum barrel length of these guns was an extreme 1.5 meters (5 ft).

The incredible length had a purpose. Such a long barrel meant that the bullet would come out faster and with more accuracy than it would from a regular rifle. While this gun’s counterparts had trouble shooting someone at a distance of 30 meters (100 ft), wall guns could take out a target at 180 meters (600 ft), making them early versions of sniper rifles. Their length did mean that they had to be fired off a tripod or a wall, which is how they got their name. Carrying a wall gun from one point to another took several soldiers, sometimes even a cart.

Who used them? The idea was kicked about in Asia during the 15th century, but the British ran with it during the 17th century and began producing these guns for naval fleets. The Chinese had their own variant used from the 1700s up until World War II, which was nicknamed the “Jingal” by the British. It was eventually outshone by advancements in technology, but its near-comical length makes it a much sought-after piece for gun collectors around the world today.

S.E. Batt is a freelance writer and author. He enjoys a good keyboard, cats, and tea, even though the three of them never blend well together. You can follow his antics on Twitter over at @Simon_Batt or on his fiction website, sebatt.com/.

With the recent suspected poisoning of former Russian spy Sergei Skripal along with his daughter, Yulia, the death of former Russian intelligence agent Alexander Litvinenko has come back into the spotlight. After all, current events appear to be unfolding in a very similar way to the eventual death of Litvinenko over a decade ago in 2006.

It is still too early to know if this recent case is indeed an assassination attempt by Russian authorities. Or perhaps it was an attempt to “frame” them by other parties for other movties. Regardless, the details surrounding the death of Litvinenko aren’t only darkly interesting, but they may prove to be only one in a list of similar, and perhaps still to come, untimely deaths.

10 Fatal Meeting With Former KGB Agents

On the day he first became ill, November 1, 2006, Alexander Litvinenko attended a prearranged meeting with two former members of the KGB, Andrei Lugovoy and Dmitry Kovtun.^[1] This would take place at the Pine Bar in the Millennium Hotel in Mayfair, London. Shortly afterward, while dining with a friend, Mario Scaramella, Litvinenko began to experience intense nausea and even the loss of the use of his legs. Knowing something was wrong, he would enter a London hospital, where severe burns in his throat were indicative of poisoning of some kind.

While we will look at it in more detail a little later, evidence at the scene of the meeting with Lugovoy and Kovtun would suggest a poison was administered in the Pine Bar. Although it is not entirely clear why the meeting had taken place, Lugovoy had known Litvinenko since the 1990s and had worked “advising” Russian investors interested in the United Kingdom. Furthermore, the eventually successful attempt on Litvinenko’s life by the agents was not the first. Investigations would reveal that they had attempted to murder him previously during a meeting in a casino boardroom by lacing a glass of water with polonium. On that occasion, Litvinenko declined the drink.

9 Boris Berezovsky

A person connected to both Litvinenko and Lugovoy was Boris Berezovsky, a Russian oligarch who also found refuge in the United Kingdom and had even sponsored Lugovoy upon his arrival.^[2] Litvinenko had crossed paths with Berezovsky during his time working for the FSB (Russian Intelligence following the “demise” of the KGB) and would claim that he received orders from his Russian superiors to murder the billionaire. When he refused and even told of the dark commands to the world’s press, he was fired and would ultimately seek sanctuary in the United Kingdom.

Berezovsky was the target of several assassination attempts, one of which was uncovered and documented by the BBC’s Newsnight program in 2008. He would, at least according to the official report, take his own life in March 2013, although many believed the circumstances surrounding his death to be suspicious at best and criticized the sheer quickness with which the verdict of suicide was reached.

8 False Flag Claims

Following his resettlement in the UK, Litvinenko launched several blistering attacks on the Russian regime and Vladimir Putin—among them accusations of organizing several false flag events for political gain. He did this in regular articles and Internet blogs, as well as in his book, Blowing Up Russia: Terror from Within.

Specifically, Litvinenko pointed to various bombings in apartment blocks in 1999.^[3] He was sentenced in absentia to three and a half years in prison following the claims, officially for “corruption.”

He would also claim the hostage situation in 2002 in a Moscow theater which ended in bloodshed when authorities stormed the building was a false flag, and he laid the Beslan school massacre in 2004 at the feet of the Russian authorities. He even made claims that Putin and other high-ranking Russian officials were involved in the trafficking and smuggling of drugs. According to Litvinenko, all of these deadly situations and activities were planned, organized, and carried out by those loyal to Vladimir Putin.

7 Aerosol Device

A lot of information about the meeting attended by Litvinenko that fateful November day would come from the manager of Pine Bar, who we will look at in more detail shortly. Perhaps the most eye-opening detail, and certainly one that would aid intelligence in the future, was the detection of a liquid residue on the wall behind where Litvinenko was sitting.

This would prove to be polonium (which we will look at later) and suggested that the poison, at least in part, had been administered through some kind of aerosol device, possibly under the guise of something else.

Such “radioactive aerosol devices” have been utilized in intelligence circles and result in a “large collective dose.”^[4] Assuming the poison was sprayed into the teapot, this collective dose would have been contained within. At the time he died, Litvinenko had almost 100 times the lethal dose of polonium in his system.

6 The Chilling Words Of Sergey Abeltsev

It is perhaps easy to see why people would automatically think Russia had been involved in the death of Litvinenko, even if all they had to go on was the words of Russian representative Sergey Abeltsev. Following the announcement of Litvinenko’s death, Abeltsev would state, in no uncertain terms, that, “The deserved punishment reached the traitor.” Furthermore, he would state it was his sincere hope that “this terrible death will be a serious warning to traitors of all colors.”

Perhaps most chilling were Abeltsev’s comments for Boris Berezovsky, especially given that he would die in what some believe to be suspicious circumstances seven years later. Abeltsev said, “In Russia, we do not pardon treachery. I would recommend citizen Berezovsky to avoid any food at the commemoration for his accomplice Litvinenko.”^[5] Whether Abeltsev was merely voicing his own personal opinions or whether the words were a genuine warning is open to interpretation.

5 Paul Joyal

Abeltsev’s words would take on an even darker tone when US analyst Paul Joyal declared on television that he believed the death of Litvinenko was down to Russian intelligence, who he believed had carried out a “professional assassination” in order to “silence its critics.” Joyal would also go on to remind his audience that Litvinenko was investigating the death of journalist Anna Politkovskaya, who was highly critical of Vladimir Putin. We will look more at her a little later.

Joyal stated that, in his opinion and expertise, “A message has been communicated to anyone who wants to speak out against the Kremlin: ‘If you do, no matter who you are, where you are, we will find you, and we will silence you—in the most horrible way possible.’ ” Shortly after voicing this view, whether or not it was pure coincidence, he was shot outside his Maryland home and severely injured.^[6]

4 Noberto Andrade

It was Noberto Andrade, the manager of the Pine Bar where Litvinenko and the two former KGB agents met, who first noticed strange goings-on.^[7] He would claim to have found a “gooey, yellow” substance left in the bottom of the teapot the men had been using. Not suspecting anything untoward at the time, he scooped the substance out and flushed it down the sink. Only pure luck prevented Andrade from accidentally placing his fingers near his mouth. He was, however, quite sick for several weeks afterward with a severe throat infection and temperature. Quite ominously, doctors would also inform him that his likelihood of getting cancer later in life had increased.

Following the Pine Bar being a place of interest, Andrade unwittingly offered investigators a little insight into how the aforementioned aerosol device may have been used. The manager remembered a little bit of commotion shortly after the drinks arrived at their table. It is theorized this was likely a staged diversion to draw Litvinenko’s attention away from the table, during which time, the aerosol was utilized to place the poison in the teapot.

Incidentally, the substance was also found in the pipes, dishwasher, and sinks of the Pine Bar.

3 Polonium

The poison in question was eventually revealed to be polonium-210.^[8] Investigators would trace the deadly substance to both of the agents who had met with Litvinenko in November 2006. Further investigations would reveal it had originated from a nuclear power plant in Ozersk in Russia.

After publicly offering their proof, the UK government would request that Lugovoy be extradited from Russia in order to stand trial for the murder of Alexander Litvinenko, which the Russians flatly refused. The second agent, Dmitry Kovtun, was in Germany at this time and was under investigation from the German authorities due to suspicion of smuggling plutonium. The UK authorities would wait for the German investigation to come to a close before requesting his extradition. However, by 2009, the potential charges had mysteriously vanished, and Kovtun was safely back in Russia.

Incidentally, Lugovoy would speak publicly from Russia in 2007, stating that he didn’t kill Litvinenko but also adding with no regret that, “He was a British spy.”

2 The Murder Of Anna Politkovskaya

Only a month before the poisoning of Litvinenko, respected Russian journalist and Putin critic Anna Politkovskaya was shot to death as she left an elevator in the reception area of the apartment block where she lived. Her death had all the hallmarks of a contract killing, and her family and colleagues were convinced that was what happened.

She had received numerous death threats following her many articles that were highly critical of Vladimir Putin as well as the Chechen wars, a subject on which she wrote several books.^[9] Perhaps it was her book Putin’s Russia that may have been the final straw, in which she made many of the same statements that Litvinenko had made previously.

Incidentally, three Chechens would eventually be arrested for the murder and found not guilty. However, the Russian authorities ordered a retrial, eventually striking a deal with former policeman Dmitry Pavliutchenkov, who was sentenced to 11 years in prison for the murder in return for “exchanged evidence” for a lenient sentence. Five other men were also sentenced for their involvement in the killing in 2014. Many remain suspicious of the sentences, believing them to be a convenient “drawing of the line” under the authority’s involvement of Politkovskaya’s death.

1 Alexander Perepilichnyy

While there is no direct and specific connection to the Litvinenko case, the death of a Russian businessman, Alexander Perepilichnyy, shares some similarities, not least the fact that Perepilichnyy had ended up in the United Kingdom after disclosing alleged secret documents that put many high-ranking Russian officials at the center of a grand fraud conspiracy.^[10] He would collapse and die while jogging in 2012, and due to his background, many people would urge the UK government to investigate his death despite it being ruled an unfortunate and sudden heart attack.

By early 2017, calls were growing for a second and fully transparent investigation to be conducted, with evidence offered to the court suggesting that Perepilichnyy may have been poisoned. It also came to light that in the months prior to his death, and following his claims linking Russian officials to fraud, he was assisting a private investment firm into their investigations into money-laundering activities involving Russian suspects to the tune of over $230 million.

Comic Books. Since the days of World War II, people have been obsessed with them. From the first Action Comics to blockbuster events such as Infinity Wars and Endgame, fanboys and girls across the globe have commented, complained, and compared superheroes and superhero stories. Everyone is an expert these days.

With that in mind and with all due respect to the millions of avid comic book readers out there, it is impossible to know everything about this ever-expanding medium. While many facts are well-known, we have researched and now present the ten most obscure facts about comic books to you.

Related: Top 10 Movies You Didn’t Know Were Based On Independent Comics

10 The Indiana Jones Boulder Scene

Many people are familiar with the Disney TV show Duck Tales featuring the character Scrooge McDuck. Equally, many people are familiar with the opening boulder scene in Raiders of the Lost Ark. Fans of the former may remember that in Duck Tales the Movie: Treasure of the Lost Lamp, there is a parody scene with a boulder. That scene has been parodied in countless movies and television programs over the years and is assumed by most to come from the Indiana Jones movie.

However, the scene originated from a comic book featuring none other than Scrooge McDuck. In Carl Banks’s seventh issue of his Uncle Scrooge comic series from 1954, The Seven Cities of Cibola, Uncle Scrooge, Donald Duck, and their three nephews embark on a new adventure, in which the original “Boulder Scene” occurs. Stephen Spielberg paid homage to his favorite childhood comic in his iconic film, leaving many to believe it was his idea.^[1]

9 An Original American Art Form

It is the consensus among most Americans that jazz is the only truly original American art form. However, according to David Jay Gabriel, executive director at the New York City Comic Book Museum, that is not entirely true. His research has turned up five purely American art forms: jazz, musical comedy, the mystery novel, the banjo, and comic books. While the first ever comic book was published in England in 1897, it was a compilation of children’s comic strips that had appeared in newspapers. The Yellow Kid in McFadden’s Flat coined the term “comic book,” but this was the first step in the art form’s evolution.

The superhero-based comic book did not exist until just before WWII and was created in the U.S. By the late 1930s and early ’40s, characters like Captain America, Superman, and Wonder Woman began to emerge as propaganda for the war. Considered to be the Golden Age of comics, these early titles still exist today and are more popular than ever, thanks to the movie industry. The NYC Museum of Comic Books contends that comics are an original American art form.^[2]

8 Copyrights

Throughout the history of comic books, there have been many copyright battles, especially between the two giants of the industry, Marvel and DC. The most famous of these conflicts was over the name Captain Marvel. While it is a long and convoluted story, the result is relatively simple. Even though DC’s Captain Marvel first appeared in 1939, he was usually referred to by his magic word “Shazam.”

Marvel’s Captain Marvel, who didn’t appear until the late ’60s, has kept the name. The original Captain Marvel is now known solely as Shazam. If for no other reason than to make it less confusing at the box office since both these characters have had recent major motion pictures, and we all want to get to the right movie.^[3]

7 Elvis Loved Comic Books

Elvis Presley loved reading comic books, and his favorite was Captain Marvel Jr. (a DC title). He discovered the superhero when he was 12 and quickly became obsessed. “It is reputed he got the original inspiration for his jet black hair with the curl hanging down in the middle of his forehead was inspired by the superhero. Presley’s childhood Lauderdale Court Apartment has been historically preserved, and a 1949 issue of Captain Marvel Jr. #51 lays on his old desk.

Captain Marvel Jr.’s alter ego is Freddy Freeman, Billy Batson’s (Captain Marvel) foster brother. He transforms by using the magic words Captain Marvel, the name of his hero, as opposed to Captain Marvel, who uses the word Shazam. While it may be a bit convoluted, it was Elvis’s favorite title, and he had a massive collection.^[4]

6 Guest Stars

Over the years, a barrage of real-life celebrities and politicians has appeared in comic books. Here are a few examples. There was a time when Muhammed Ali fought Superman to save the world from mind-controlling aliens (Ali won). During the 2009 inauguration of Barack Obama, Marvel put out a Spider-Man comic in which the villain Chameleon had taken the form of the president-elect so he could be sworn in as president. The Secret Service didn’t know what to do when two identical Obamas appeared. Spidey is on the scene and questions both of them. When one fails to remember Barack’s high school basketball team nickname (Barry O’Bomber), the Chameleon is found out and arrested.

In a special issue of The Punisher, Frank Castle gets knocked out by rapper Eminem. Other notable people who have appeared on the pages of Marvel and D.C. comics include John F Kennedy (Superman), Anderson Cooper (Black Widow), David Letterman (The Avengers), and Stephen Colbert (Spider-Man). Additionally, Charles Barkley fought Godzilla in a Nike-produced comic series, and Geraldo Rivera appeared in a Count Duckula comic.^[5]

5 Original Words and Phrases

Believe it or not, some everyday words and phrases originated in the funny pages. While the term “Brainiac” apparently did not come from a Superman comic, it was made famous by it. The word was initially used for a DIY computer kit, and consequently, the supervillain became a computer personality. The Popeye character “Alice the Goon” is presumably why the term goon has been subsequently used to describe hired thugs or henchmen.

Not surprisingly, “security blanket” comes from Charles Schultz’s character Linus from the Peanuts series. “Back to the drawing board” comes from a literal drawing board used by cartoonist Peter Arno in 1941. Shazam was the first to speak the phrase “holy moly.” Other words and phrases that cartoonists and comic writers coined include “McCarthyism,” “for crying out loud,” and “Jeep.”^[6]

4 The First Female Superhero

While many believe it was Wonder Woman, the first female superhero was Sheena, Queen of the Jungle. Her first appearance was nearly four years before Wonder Woman’s. She was the “Guardian of the Jungle,” and she possessed an array of superpowers. Sheena wasn’t the only superpowered lady to appear before Wonder Woman; there were nearly a dozen.

Many say Fantomah of Jungle Comics was the first; others say it was Miss Fury (created by a woman). Marvel’s Black Widow and Black Cat appeared before DC’s Amazonian Princess. While Wonder Woman is arguably the most successful and popular female superhero of all time, she was far from the first.^[7]

3 Real-Life Inspiration

It has been said that the most significant fictional characters in literature are based on real-life people. The most notable comic book example of this can be seen in X-Men. Stan Lee and Jack Kirby created the iconic series in the early 1960s at the height of the civil rights movement. The series is a famous commentary on that movement as the mutants’ plight parallels that of people of color in America.

With that in mind, it should come as no surprise that the peaceful and tolerant Professor X (Charles Xavier) was based on the Reverand Dr. Martin Luther King Jr and his counterpart, the intimidation advocating Magneto based on Malcolm X. Other notable examples include Ironman (Tony Stark), based on Howard Hughes, and the Joker, based on the German actor Conrad Veidt, specifically for his role in the classic The Man Who Laughs. Conversely, the Famous actor Nicholas Coppola, not wanting to use his famous uncle’s name to make it in Hollywood, adopted the stage name Nic Cage from his favorite comic book series, Luke Cage.^[8]

2 The Spider-Verse

Anyone who reads comics is familiar with the 2018 animated blockbuster Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. In this movie, the audience is introduced to a group of alternate-version Spider-Men. Everything from Spider-Ham (not Spider-Pig from The Simpsons), aka Peter Porker, to Spider-Gwen (Gwen Stacy) and even Spider-Man Noir.

However, some versions of Spider-Man are even more obscure, such as Sheep-Boy. Yes, in a parallel universe, Peter Parker was bitten by a radioactive sheep, turning him into the super-powered Sheep-Boy… with all the powers of a sheep. Spider-Man was arguably Stan Lee’s favorite of all the characters he created. In both cartoons and comics, the two met and had an adventure together. He wrote himself into the strip just as he made movie cameos. Spider-Man is currently the most popular superhero in the world, all told.^[9]

1 The Lie Detector

William Moulton Marston is one of three men credited with creating the lie detector, but that was far from Marston’s only claim to fame. While Marston only lived to be 53 years old, he had an extensive list of accomplishments. He was a lawyer, a psychologist, the creator of the DISC system of personality classification, and the creator of the comic character Wonder Woman.

Born on May 9, 1893, William grew up in Massachusetts and attended Harvard University. Then, he taught at American University and Tufts University and developed his version of the polygraph machine. However, it is not the same type of machine used today. Marston became a somewhat famous public figure in the 1930s, using his device to endorse name-brand products like Gillette.

In 1940, he began work as an educational consultant for All-American Publications, which later merged with another company to form DC Comics. The following year, he wrote his own comic and created Wonder Woman for issue #8 of All-Star Comics. It seems only fitting that the creator of the “Lasso of Truth” would also invent a lie detector machine.^[10]

The universe is full of tantalizingly strange places and things. But some of them are so extraordinary that they push the limits of everything that we thought possible.

From plasma waves that dance to tiny stars that put the Sun to shame with surprising power and real-life “water worlds” infinitely more extreme than anything dreamed up by Hollywood, these discoveries run the spectrum of the seemingly impossible.

10 Ganymede’s Unrivaled ‘Chorus Waves’

Space seems to be mostly empty, but there are loads of charged particles zipping about. And under certain conditions, they can “dance,” or move in rhythmic waves.

This is happening around Ganymede as particles are whipped by Jupiter’s magnetosphere, which is 20,000 times more potent than Earth’s. It’s amplified by Ganymede’s own magnetic field, creating an intense region of chorus waves, or low-frequency plasma waves.

The plasma waves create trippy phenomena like auroras, destructive “killer” electrons, and chirping, whistling sounds (when properly converted for human ears).

Due to the insane magnetic orgy, Ganymede’s electromagnetic “whistle” (chorus wave intensity) is a million times greater than anything in the solar vicinity, including big Jupiter itself.^[1]

9 A Giant Blue Asteroid That Transforms Into A Melted Metal Hellscape

Asteroid 3200 Phaethon recently proved itself even weirder than astronomers had hoped. Phaethon is an anomalous asteroid-comet hybrid with an eccentric comet-like orbit that takes it from the Sun’s doorstep to beyond Mars.

It’s a bit lighter than charcoal, and it’s blue because it’s been baked at 815 degrees Celsius (1,500 °F). This baking action turns the 5-kilometer-wide (3.1 mi) asteroid into a molten wasteland that turns metal to “goo.”

To top it off, Phaethon potentially birthed the annual Geminid meteor shower that dazzles every December.^[2]

8 Red Dwarf Neighborhoods Scorched By Apocalyptic Flares

Three-quarters of our galaxy’s stars are red dwarfs, like our nearest solar neighbor Proxima Centauri. They’re only 7.5–50 percent the mass of the Sun, but they unleash much crazier, UV-heavy solar flares that our much larger star can’t match.

The strongest flares come from younger red dwarfs. The ones observed by Hubble were just 40 million years old and spewed flares 100–1,000 times stronger than their elders.

One event, known as “Hazflare,” was stronger than anything our Sun’s dished out in a century of observation. During that period, it only once or twice approached Hazflare’s enormous energy. And that was captured after a single day of red dwarf–watching, suggesting that these flares may occur daily or even multiple times a day.^[3]

7 Water Clouds . . . On A Failed Star

Brown dwarfs are failed stars that can be unbelievably cold—like WISE 0855, the coldest-known object outside the solar system. Located 7.2 light-years away, it’s -23 degrees Celsius (-10 °F) and five times more massive than Jupiter.

WISE 0855 is so cold that it’s at the threshold of visibility for the biggest infrared telescopes on Earth. And its discovery in 2014 made it the faintest thing ever discovered at that wavelength by ground-based spectroscopy.^[4]

Though WISE 0855 may look like Jupiter, spectral analysis revealed a wet, cloudy world dominated by “water vapor and clouds.”

6 A Baby Star Enshrouded In The Building Blocks Of Life

Most of the universe apparently lacks the conditions for life. But in 2015, astronomers found the first evidence of “building blocks” around the baby star MWC 480.

Located in Taurus, a vast star-birthing region 455 light-years away, MWC 480 is so young that it’s still in its bib—surrounded by a protoplanetary ring of dust and gas.

It’s grander than our Sun, shining 10 times as brightly at twice the mass. And its environment is rich with organics like methyl cyanide. With these complex elements present in interstellar clouds, this proves that these substances can survive (and in greater quantity) the formation of a solar system and that they probably surround other stars as well.^[5]

5 A Galaxy That Can’t Stop Making Stars

COSMOS-AzTEC-1 is a “monster” starburst galaxy at the edge of the universe, 12.4 billion light-years away. And it’s shocking astronomers with its stupendous rate of star formation, about 1,000 times greater than the Milky Way.

In birthing galaxies, gas collapses inward due to gravity, causing star birth. Then stars die, and the resultant supernovae create outward pressure, striking a balance between collapse and expansion.

But COSMOS-AzTEC-1 is unbalanced and unstable. Gravity is crunching the gas and causing an unstoppable runaway star formation effect in two massive debris clouds (unexpectedly) located away from the galactic center, where violent star birth usually takes place.^[6]

4 Jupiter’s Infernal Geometric Storms

The billion-dollar Juno spacecraft has sent back a treasure trove of new Jupiter data, including images of tantalizing storms on the planet’s previously unexplored poles.

On the north pole, Juno’s infrared eyes spied a central Earth-size cyclone surrounded by eight smaller storms ranging in size from 4,000–4,700 kilometers (2,500–2,900 mi) in diameter and spinning at 354 kilometers per hour (220 mph). Juno found a similarly gigantic cyclone on the south pole, surrounded by five storms up to 6,900 kilometers (4,300 mi) across.

Mysteriously, these cosmic category 5 storms are not migrating across the poles or merging into larger vortexes, as would be expected from a gassy, rapidly spinning storm-ball.^[7]

3 Europa’s Chemical Mixer

Jupiter’s moon Europa is arguably the best bet for finding ET. It was known that the Galilean moon hid a globe-encompassing, 100-kilometer-deep (62 mi) ocean beneath its crust. But now astronomers have evidence that the ocean exchanges chemicals with the surface as well as its sibling moon Io.

Spectrometry shows the unexpected presence of epsomite, a magnesium sulfate salt, on Europa’s surface. Its formed with the addition of sulfur, irradiated from the solar system’s most volcanic body, Io.^[8]

The sulfur mixes with magnesium salts seeping from Europa’s ocean, making Europa an even richer, more Earthlike stew of substances than previously believed.

2 A Brown Dwarf’s Sand And Metal Rain

The brown dwarf 2MASS J21392676+0220226, 47 light-years away, is as unique as the tedious name suggests. In fewer than eight hours of observation, astronomers saw its brightness vary by 30 percent, unprecedented for a brown dwarf.

One explanation is that deeper, hotter layers are peeking through an atmospheric hole. However, according to researchers, the gnarliest, best explanation is that we’re seeing an otherworldly storm, a “grander version” of Jupiter’s triple-Earth-sized Great Red Spot.

And it’s deadlier, too. The turbulent storm clouds are made of rock and metal as silicates and metals condense and rain down on the failed star.^[9]

1 Scorching ‘Water Worlds’

New research suggests that watery planets are ridiculously common. Studying 4,000 known exoplanets, models showed that those with 1.5 times the Earth’s radius are rocky and those with 2.5 times the Earth’s radius are stupid with water.

But it’s crazy outer space water. A layer of vapor surrounds the planet. Then, as you descend, you may encounter liquid oceans with consistencies dictated by insane pressures and temperatures that near 538 degrees Celsius (1,000 °F).^[10]

Overall, 35 percent of the known exoplanets larger than Earth should be abundant with water. Many of them should also be up to 50 percent water weight, compared to Earth’s relatively piddly 0.02 percent.

I knew that British food had a somewhat dubious reputation abroad but always thought it was a bit of a joke. Then I mentioned to someone that my favorite food is boiled bacon, meaning a gammon joint, and they refused to believe that we really do boil meat. Nothing beats a few slices of boiled bacon, served with English mustard, in a warm buttered roll. So in defense of Britain’s food, here is a list, in no particular order, of some British dishes which are definitely worth a try if you ever come across them.

The Bakewell tart is a shortcrust pastry filled with jam and almond sponge (frangipane). The result is the perfect accompaniment to a cup of tea. The tart originates from the town of Bakewell. Local legend has it that the Bakewell tart (or pudding, as it is known in Bakewell) was created when a cook misunderstood her mistress’ instructions and layered frangipane on a simple jam tart. Whatever the truth the tart has been popular since at least the early 19th century.

Like the Bakewell tart, the pork pie comes in a variety of forms. Cheap ones are perfect for lunch boxes, more expensive ones can almost be a meal in themselves. The pork pie likely originated as a snack for hunting parties. It is usually small, round, a crust of brittle brown pastry and a filling of chopped pork. When made in the village of Melton Mowbray, it is one of the foods of the UK with a protected name to ensure quality. A topping of fruit can be applied to make a picnic pie, or a boiled egg put in the filling to make a gala pie.

The fry-up may be a more famous British breakfast but nothing beats a good kedgeree. Kedgeree is a dish of curried rice, flaked fish, parsley and boiled eggs. Kedgeree is one of those dishes brought back from India in the days of the Raj, and was wildly popular with the Victorians. It is not as popular as it once was, something about fish for breakfast seems to put people off, but it’s a dish to be ordered whenever you get the chance. If you make it for yourself be generous with the butter to make it decadently rich.

The custard tart does have international variants but none to compare with the Egg Custard Tart. Custard tarts must be an ancient invention, given the wide spread of variations across the world. Like all the best foods, the custard tart is simplicity itself. All you need is a shortcrust pastry, a well made egg custard, and a sprinkling of nutmeg. The custard tart can be eaten hot from the oven, but eaten at room temperature improves it immensely.

Yorkshire pudding is not a pudding. Yorkshire puddings are an accompaniment to Sunday roasts; some would say the best part of the meal. Miniature Yorkshire puddings with a morsel of beef and horse radish make a great canapé. Made well, Yorkshire puddings are light and crisp; made badly, they can resemble pucks. Whether or not your Yorkshire puddings rise is the true test of your cooking ability.

Reestit mutton is a delicacy of Shetland. The mutton is prepared by soaking it in a saturated salt solution for three weeks, and then taken out and dried. If kept dry, the meat will be good for years. Originally, the meat would be dried in the smoke of a peat fire. It can be hard to source reestit mutton outside Shetland, but it is well worth the effort. It’s best used as the base of a soup with potatoes, swede and cabbage, and served with oatcakes or hot, fresh bread.

Kippers are one of those quintessentially English foods that leave us open for mockery. A kipper is a herring, sliced in half before being salted and smoked. It was once a common breakfast food, especially for the lower classes in the cities where fresh fish would be rare and expensive. Kippers can be enjoyed at any time though, and make a great item to throw on a barbecue.

Chips were apparently first made in the UK in the 1860s. The English chip is much larger than French fries, and so it has a much different texture. Although a recent vogue for chips fried three times has given us a much crisper chip, those served in Fish and Chip shops usually have a much softer texture. Almost as soon as chips appeared in England they were paired with battered fish, and a cultural icon was born. With the over-fishing of cod, other fish are being used more commonly so there’s all the more excuse to keep revisiting the chip shop.

It is not Christmas without mince pies. The history of the mince pie may have contributed to its unusual reputation. It seems the recipe of the original mince pies was brought back by the crusaders and has been evolving ever since. They were banned by puritans as part of the celebration of Christmas; defying puritans only adds to their flavor. The mince pie used to contain meat, hence the filling being called mincemeat, but now is a mixture of dried fruits, spices, fat and brandy. Mince pies are best made fresh and eaten hot from the oven, but a cold pie is never unwelcome. Pair with a dollop of clotted cream.

“Fair fa’ your honest, sonsie face,
Great chieftain o’ the puddin-race!”

Even though haggis didn’t originate in Scotland, it is certainly where it is most enjoyed these days. Scotland’s adopted national dish has a fearsome reputation, but it is undeserved. Haggis is made from the less popular parts of a sheep – that’s true, but the taste makes you forget your preconceptions. It has a gamey flavor and should be peppery on the tongue. Haggis should be served with mashed neeps and tatties (swede and potatoes). Whisky sauce complements it beautifully. Don’t let this Burns Night go by without giving it a try.

If you wish to combine haggis with fish and chips, then visit any Scottish chip shop where you will find slices of it battered and deep-fried.

Prehistory, the time before written records emerged, ended at different times in different places, but it dwarfs written history everywhere. For a historian, that’s frustrating, since it means that most of the past is beyond typical research. However, prehistory doesn’t have to be an entirely closed book. Thanks to careful study and analysis, historians and archaeologists have retrieved some truly amazing stories previously lost to us in the modern world.

10The Last Stand Of The Pharaoh

Around 3,600 years ago, a pharaoh handled his horse skillfully as he led his soldiers on an expedition far from home. He had spent most of his life on horseback, permanently altering the muscles of his femur and pelvis. This was a break with tradition—horses had only recently been introduced to Egypt and were still uncommon in warfare along the Nile. But Pharaoh Senebkay needed every advantage he could get. The mighty empire of Ancient Egypt had broken apart as the invading Hyksos took over the northern part of the country, leaving Senebkay, the self-declared ruler of Upper and Lower Egypt, confined to a rump state around Abydos. Threatened by the Hyksos, Egyptian rivals in Thebes, and at least one major Nubian invasion, the pharaoh had spent most of his life at war.

Around 1600 BC, Senebkay was riding out against his enemies when he found himself under attack. He must have fought back. Tissue recovered from a related mummy revealed a muscular man who built strength by performing repetitive arm motions, probably in the form of combat drills, demonstrating that the Abydos pharaohs were trained to be warriors. The position of Senebkay’s wounds indicate that he fought on horseback, giving him a substantial advantage as he slashed down at his enemies. However, he was surrounded by multiple assailants who stabbed him repeatedly in the knees, hands, and lower back. A powerful cut almost severed his foot entirely. Then he was pulled down. An enemy soldier stepped forward, hefting one of the curved battle-axes common in Egypt at the time. He delivered three massive blows to the pharaoh’s head.

Senebkay’s body wasn’t mummified for several weeks, indicating that he died a long way from Abydos. His people may also have had trouble recovering his body. He was laid to rest in a painfully modest tomb, revealing the poverty of his dynasty. Even his sarcophagus had to be stolen from the tomb of an earlier ruler. In fact, Senebkay’s dynasty was so obscure that historians only learned of its existence in 2014, when his tomb was unearthed. The University of Pennsylvania’s Josef Wegner led the study of the pharaoh’s skeleton, revealing the dramatic details of his death.

9A Druid’s Deadly Game

In 1984, a worker cutting peat near Manchester Airport tried to pick up a lump of soil and realized he was holding a human foot. He had discovered Lindow Man, one of the most perfectly preserved “bog bodies” in British history. Thanks to extensive study, we now know a great deal about Lindow Man, including the dramatic details of his last day.

Lindow Man died around 2,000 years ago, deep in Celtic Britain. He was young (30 or younger) and handsome. His hands were perfectly manicured, and he was well-nourished, suggesting that he was a man of wealth or power. He had no old scars or injuries, so he probably wasn’t a fighter. Unlike Celtic warriors, who sported only mustaches, Lindow Man had a full beard of red hair. Historians think he was a druid, a priest of the ancient Celts.

On the day he died, Lindow Man and his fellow druids played a game. A thin, flat barley cake was cooked over a griddle, with one end allowed to burn until it was black. The druids then broke the cake into pieces and hid them inside a leather bag. They passed the bag around, each taking a piece and eating it. Lindow Man drew the burned one. It was still in his stomach 30 minutes later, when they sacrificed him.

The use of a “burned bannock” to choose a sacrificial victim is referenced in Celtic lore, but Lindow Man’s stomach contents were the first solid evidence for its historical use. Was Lindow Man dismayed when he drew the burned piece? If so, he didn’t show it. Analysis of his facial muscles indicate that he went to his death with an expression of calm serenity, outwardly willing to die for the gods. He was naked except for a strip of fox fur around his left arm. To propitiate three gods at once, his fellow druids subjected him to the so-called “Triple Sacrifice.” For Tarainis, they smashed his skull in. For Esus, they strangled him with a cord and cut open his windpipe. And for Teuttates, they drowned him in the bog, where his body would be preserved for the next two millennia.

8A Dinosaur Death Match

As it darted across the sand dunes, the velociraptor was hungry. The deserts of Mongolia were a harsh environment during the Upper (Late) Cretaceous, with small herds of dinosaurs eking out an existence around gradually evaporating ponds refreshed by seasonal flooding. Seasonal clouds still hung in the air as the velociraptor navigated the now treacherously sodden landscape. It was small and birdlike, not much bigger than a turkey, with a vicious, curved claw on the second toe of each foot. Its feathers moved in the breeze.

The velociraptor was heading into the territory of a protoceratops, a medium-sized herbivore with a ridged head, like a small triceratops without the horns. From other fossils, we know that protoceratops was a good source of food for Mongolian velociraptors. The small carnivores stole eggs, scavenged protoceratops corpses, and probably hunted them as well. Perhaps our velociraptor attacked the protoceratops, or perhaps the territorial protoceratops charged the raptor as it scavenged for eggs. Either way, they fought.

It was a brutal battle. The protoceratops threw the raptor to the ground and caught the predator’s right arm in its jaws, biting down hard enough to break it. Shrieking in pain, the raptor desperately seized the herbivore’s head with its left arm. Bringing up its deadly toe-claw, it slashed into the protoceratops’s neck, probably severing an important blood vessel.

There are competing theories as to what happened next. Most likely, a nearby sand dune, soaked through by the torrential rain, collapsed and buried the combatants as they struggled together. Such dune collapses were common after rains in the area, helping to make Mongolia one of the richest sites for fossil-hunting. Another theory suggests that the raptor was unable to free itself from beneath the dead protoceratops and starved to death, with the pair being covered by a later dune collapse or sandstorm. Either way, the fossils of the two ancient enemies were uncovered in 1971, frozen in combat for 80 million years.

7The Earliest Known Viking Raid

In June 793, the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle reported that “the ravages of heathen men miserably destroyed God’s church on Lindisfarne.” The Vikings had arrived in written history.

With almost no written sources about the region, the history of Scandinavia before the Lindisfarne raid remains shrouded in mystery. A possible breakthrough came in 2008, when two Scandinavian ships were found at Salme, on the Estonian island of Osel, each filled with dead bodies. Archaeologists believe that the ships belonged to a group of “proto-Vikings,” buried in Estonia after a fierce fight at some point between AD 700 and 750. Thanks to years of careful analysis, we can now go some way toward reconstructing their doomed voyage.

The group buried at Salme were warriors, large for their time and bearing the scars of past battles. They were led by a small group of nobles bearing beautiful, decorated swords. The most elaborate sword was found next to a skeleton with an ivory game piece in its mouth. Perhaps the piece was a king. Perhaps the skeleton was, too.

They brought at least two Scandinavian ships, probably from an area in modern Sweden. One was old, built some time before 700, and heavily patched. It lacked sails but could be rowed between islands. The seven bodies in the ship had few goods or decorations buried with them, suggesting a lower class. The second ship was newer and more technologically advanced, large enough to hold 33 bodies. It probably had sails. Similar ships would later allow the Vikings to spread terror across Europe.

It’s likely that the Salme group came to Estonia on a raid or to collect tribute, but things didn’t go according to plan. Perhaps they were ambushed by rival Vikings; perhaps the Estonians fought back. There was a terrible slaughter. One man had his arm cut in half as he tried to ward off a massive blow. Another warrior had the top of his head chopped off. Arrowheads were inside the skeletons and even where the wood of the ships had rotted away, suggesting that the boats themselves had been attacked.

Despite the ferocity of the assault, it’s likely that members of the Scandanavian group survived. The boat burials were done quickly, probably in just a few hours, but the bodies were treated with great care. The warrior who lost an arm even had his severed limb placed next to him. The priceless swords were ceremonially bent, and valuable grave goods were left in the ships.

So who exactly were the Salme bodies? We don’t know, although later Norse sagas claim that the legendary king Ingvar was overwhelmed by a powerful force of Estonians while raiding there. However, Salme wasn’t a heavily settled area at the time, leading archaeologists to question why anyone would bother raiding it. It has even been suggested that the raiding party might have encountered a rival group at sea, leading to a fierce ship-to-ship battle. Perhaps the raiders slipped away from their enemy and briefly landed on Osel’s isolated shore to bury their fallen comrades.

6The Bronze Warrior’s Last Fight

In 1989, a 4,000-year-old skeleton was unearthed near the village of Racton in Sussex. Swinging into action, British archaeologists promptly left it in storage for 23 years. Then, a chance comment led to an examination by Bronze Age metalwork expert Stuart Needham, who realized that the corpse had been buried with perhaps the oldest bronze object ever found in Britain—a magnificent dagger. With research funding secured, we now know a great deal more about the dagger and the dramatic death of its owner.

“Racton Man,” as he was soon dubbed, was around 1.8 meters (6 ft) tall, making him a giant for his time. He also lived a long life for the period, reaching the ripe old age of 45. He was clearly a fighter (he had an old sword injury to one shoulder) and must have been a powerful figure to own a beautiful weapon like the dagger. A significant improvement over the copper weapons common in Britain at the time, it was sharpened to a deadly edge and would have gleamed in the sunlight when new.

Interestingly, analysis of Racton Man’s teeth indicate that he wasn’t raised near Racton but probably came from further west, toward the West Country or even Ireland. But he seems to have been buried with respect and care, suggesting that he wasn’t a raider or a stranger to the area. We know so little about Bronze Age Britain that it’s impossible to say why Racton Man might have traveled from his home or what adventures he might have had along the way. Certainly, his age was beginning to catch up with him. His bones show signs of spinal degeneration and arthritis, and he seems to have had a chronic back problem.

Perhaps his age betrayed the old fighter when faced with a younger opponent. In any case, Racton Man seems to have died in combat. There are clear signs of a brutal cut to his upper right arm, probably sustained when he raised his hand to try to deflect a blade. This wound shows no signs of healing, indicating that it happened immediately before his death. The same blow might have severed an artery in his armpit, although it’s hard to be sure from the surviving remains. He was buried shortly afterward, holding his precious dagger clasped in front of his face.

5The Cowboy Wash Massacre

In the 1150s, a small community of 65–120 people lived in a scattered settlement around Cowboy Wash, near the Ute Mountain in what is now Colorado. The settlement was only about 15–20 years old, and the style of pottery found there suggests that the inhabitants were immigrants from the Chuska Mountains. Since the settlement’s pit houses were all built at roughly the same time, the Chuskans probably arrived as a group, perhaps seeking relief from drought and crop failure in their homeland.

Less than a generation later, something terrible happened at Cowboy Wash. Archaeologists excavating the site found bones everywhere, all bearing the marks of cutting tools and careful butchering. Many bones had been broken at the ends, as if to get at the marrow. Others had been carefully broken into pieces small enough to fit into cooking pots. Discoloration suggests that they were stewed.

Other bones bore scorch marks consistent with body parts being roasted. Cracks and scorch marks on two skulls suggest that they were cooked on hot coals and then cracked open to get at the brains. Fossilized human feces found nearby tested positive for myoglobin, indicating cannibalism. Tests also detected an acidic protein found only in human brains. They did not detect any plant matter. A cooking vessel found at the site also tested positive for myoglobin. Human blood was detected on stone cutting tools left in the houses.

Since the deaths coincided with one of the most devastating droughts in the history of the Southwestern US, it was initially speculated that hunger had driven the Canyon Wash people to eat the dead. But hunger-induced cannibalism doesn’t fit with the terrifying intensity of the Cowboy Wash cannibalism. All of the bodies were apparently cooked and eaten in only a day or two, requiring the hearths to be cleared of ash several times. The eaters of the dead even crudely expanded one hearth so that more meat could be packed in. The skulls were mutilated far more than would be required for consumption.

Was the settlement attacked by unknown raiders? Valuables were left lying around, suggesting that profit couldn’t have been the motive. The settlement was abandoned immediately after the murders, suggesting that the Cowboy Wash people either all died or felt unable to retrieve their belongings before fleeing.

Archaeologist Brian Billman, who excavated the site, has observed that the Cowboy Wash tragedy wasn’t an isolated incident. Instead, it was part of a wave of “terroristic violence” that swept across the region between 1150 and 1175. The attacks wiped out entire settlements, leaving only mutilated remains. Yet before 1150, the Pueblo peoples of the Southwest lived a remarkably peaceful existence, with violence almost unknown. There are a number of theories to explain the attacks, including an unsubstantiated suggestion that a group of Toltec cultists had brought their violent religion north from Mesoamerica.

For his part, Billman notes that tree cores show that the great drought of the 1100s was beyond anything the Pueblo people had experienced. Life in the region had always been hard, but the many Pueblo groups had survived thanks to a strong tradition of generosity, which encouraged communities to help each other out. But as the great drought wore on and on, prompting waves of migration like the one that brought the Chuska to Cowboy Wash, these bonds were stretched to the breaking point. As Billman put it: “What happened when things fell apart?”

4The Dark Side Of The Sun God

Dubbed “the first individual in human history,” Akhenaton is well-known as the pharaoh who briefly abandoned Egypt’s traditional polytheism, elevating the Sun god Aten above all other gods and making him the focus of all state religion. Together with his powerful wife, Nefertiti, Akhenaton oversaw sweeping changes in Egyptian art and architecture, climaxing in the building of a new capital at Amarna, dedicated to the worship of Aten. To make sure it would be free of the old gods, Akhenaton ordered it built in the middle of the desert. But enough about the pharaoh; what about the ordinary people who actually built Amarna?

If you believe Akhenaton’s propaganda, their lives must have been great. The tombs of Amarna are covered with carvings of abundant food offerings to Aten. However, studies of human remains by archaeologist Gretchen Dabbs tell a different story. The ordinary people of Amarna were noticeably malnourished and had a high mortality rate for the time. Scurvy was shockingly common. A third of adults had spinal trauma (most commonly compression fractures), and almost half had degenerative joint disease, indicating the brutal toll of building a desert city from scratch in a short period.

Protesting the conditions probably wasn’t a great idea, given the brutal punishments that the government liked to dole out. At least five skeletons in Amarna’s cemetery for commoners exhibit multiple stab wounds to their shoulder blades. This gels with a wall inscription announcing a punishment of “100 lashes and five wounds” for stealing hides. A stab to the shoulder blades would be extremely painful but not debilitating, allowing punished workers to get back to their jobs in no time. Such was the unspoken reality of Akhenaton’s new religion.

3Burying A Shaman

In the 1960s, Soviet archaeologists were excavating a Siberian burial site known as Ekven on the edge of the Arctic Circle when they uncovered a magnificent wooden mask, complete with staring eyes carved from bone. Recognizing the face from their own mythology, the local Yupik working on the dig almost refused to go on, believing it would bring terrible misfortune to disturb the grave of a shaman. Lead archaeologist D.A. Sergeev declared that he would take on the consequences himself and pressed on, excavating one of the most remarkable graves of the Old Bering culture, which thrived in the area some 2,000 years ago.

The shaman died during the summer, when the Arctic permafrost had somewhat thawed. She was old (around 40–50 years) and probably passed away from natural causes. Her people hacked a deep grave into the soil, lining the floor with planks. The shaman was placed in the center with her ceremonial mask at her knees and surrounded by curved whale bones planted upright in the ground. The whale bones were also used to support a roof, which was lowered into place and then carefully covered with dirt.

Boasting the power to communicate with the spirit world, the shaman must have been a particularly powerful woman, since the grave was packed full of objects precious to the Old Bering people. Many were tools typically used by men, and the sheer number suggests that the shaman couldn’t have owned them all in her lifetime. Instead, people probably came to offer their valuables for burial with the holy woman. Despite its remote location, Ekven was likely the center of a thriving trade in iron objects, so precious to the Bering people that the shaman was buried with walrus ivory carved into the shape of an iron chain. At some point, water seeped into her grave and then froze, helping to preserve the shaman and her priceless mask for the next two millennia.

2The True Story Of The Iceman’s Death

Otzi the Iceman is perhaps the most famous prehistoric body ever found. Perfectly preserved in an Alpine glacier, the Iceman has provided us with an incredible glimpse into life in the region 5,300 years ago. We even know his health problems—Lyme disease, tooth decay, gallstones, and arsenic poisoning from working with copper. As it turned out, Otzi didn’t have to worry about any of those, since he died in a violent confrontation involving an arrow to the shoulder and a blow to the head. Until recently, archaeologists suspected that his death had followed a daring chase through the mountains, with Otzi killing two of his pursuers before being hunted down, exhausted and starving, and brutally murdered.

As it turns out, things didn’t go down quite like that. A breakthrough came when scientists realized that what they thought was Otzi’s empty stomach was actually part of his colon. His real stomach had been pushed upward under his ribs while he was in the ice. It was packed full of ibex meat, indicating that Otzi had eaten a large meal not more than an hour before his death. Clearly, the Iceman wasn’t in the middle of a dramatic chase if he decided to sit down and stuff himself full of venison.

Further evidence came in 2015, when scientists used nanotechnology to detect a blood-clotting protein called fibrin on Otzi’s arrow wound. Since fibrin vanishes quickly in a working body, its presence proves that Otzi died very quickly after being shot, contrary to earlier theories that he survived the arrow wound for days. With the new evidence, we can now safely discard the chase theory of the Iceman’s death. Instead, it seems that Otzi felt safe in the mountains and sat down for a leisurely meal. However, shortly afterward, he was ambushed and shot. He also suffered a head injury, possibly because he fell after being shot. It’s not quite as dramatic as a deadly race against unknown pursuers, but at least we can now be reasonably sure of how the Iceman died.

1A Family Takes A Walk

Roughly 850,000 years ago, a small group of early humans walked along the mud flats beside an ancient river in what is now Norfolk, England. They were probably a family group, consisting of one or two adult men, two or three adult women or teenagers, and at least three young children. They were in no rush, meandering about as they collected shellfish, crabs, and seaweed from the riverbank.

The group lived in a period where ice age conditions had temporarily abated, and the river valley was lush with greenery. Mammoths and early rhinoceroses grazed nearby, and the group must have been careful to steer clear of the hippos basking in the shallows. There were also hyenas, lions, and great saber-toothed cats lurking around, but the group didn’t appear to have felt particularly threatened near the river. For safety, they probably made their home on one of the islands in the estuary, wading ashore at low tide. They didn’t know how to make fire but had primitive flint knives and scrapers. Since winters could get cold, they might have worn clothes, and the scrapers suggest that they had at least some ability to work hides.

The group’s walk beside the river was discovered in 2013, when coastal erosion revealed their footprints near the modern village of Happisburgh. Sadly, they were destroyed by the tides in only a few weeks, but archaeologists, working at breakneck speed, were able to collect casts and 3-D images before that happened. Analysis revealed that the footprints were the oldest found outside Africa. Since the two older African finds are far less extensive, the Happisburgh footprints might be the best insight into the daily lives of our most ancient ancestors.

More often than not, buildings, islands, forests, etc. are creepy simply because they look the part and have a terrifying backstory. For instance, the Castle of Good Hope in Cape Town imprisoned slaves over 150 years ago, and terrible stories of torture and execution emerged. An article posted on a South African news website back in 2001 stated that security officers at the castle were afraid to do their rounds because they kept hearing high-pitched screams, disembodied voices, and ghostly footsteps.

Stories like these keep the interested coming. The Castle of Good Hope is part of Cape Town’s ghost tour, and people line up to experience the creepiness for themselves. But what exactly is it that makes a place creepy? Is it the (true) stories of historic incidents? Or is it because knowing what happened there makes the atmosphere change? Either way, places like those below tend to give just about everyone, well, the creeps.

10 Takakanonuma Greenland Amusement Park

While Japan is known for cool things such as samurai swords, festivals, amazing food, and technology, it is also known for terrible things. Just think dolphin slaughter and the Fukushima nuclear disaster. If that wasn’t enough, the country is often the target of terrifying natural disasters, such as massive earthquakes and tsunamis.

Inevitably, the island nation also has quite a few creepy tales surrounding it. Just one of these is the Takakanonuma Greenland amusement park in Fukushima, which was abandoned in the 1970s after being operational for only two years. Rumor has it that several people lost their lives on the rides, while others maintain that ticket sales were very low due to a lack of interest.

The park reopened in 1986, but it closed down again in 1999. It now lies abandoned in a forest. It seems that nearly every picture taken of this park shows the place enshrouded in a thick mist, making it look even more creepy. Photos also show how the forest is slowly reclaiming its territory by growing up and over the remains of the roller coasters and other rides.^[1]

The spookiest thing about the place, however, is that officially, it never even existed. It’s not listed on maps, and there is no official information to be found about it anywhere.

9 Cinco Saltos

The ghosts haunting the town of Cinco Saltos, Rio Negro, Argentina, are said to have their origins in black magic. One of the tales has it that a baby drowned in the Pellegrini Lake near Bajo Negro (where witchcraft is said to be performed). It is alleged that the ghost of the poor infant still haunts the lake. Visitors to the area have reported hearing the cries of a child, but none of them have been able to trace the source of the sound.^[2]

Stories of groups of people in black robes performing strange rituals have also made the rounds, while others have reported seeing UFOs in the area. In 2009, the intact corpse of a girl was found inside a cemetery. She had never been buried; her body was simply stuffed into a box and left inside an ossuary back in the 1930s. Naturally, after this discovery was made public, several people reported seeing a specter floating around in the cemetery.

8 Dragsholm Castle

Yet another castle that gives people the heebie-jeebies is Dragsholm Castle in Zealand, Denmark. Dragsholm is thought to be haunted by around 100 spirits. One of these used to be a royal named James Hepburn, fourth earl of Bothwell, who was imprisoned in this castle for five years until he passed away in 1576 or 1578. Being in solitary confinement drove him insane before his death. His ghost can apparently be seen riding into the castle’s courtyard on his horse.^[3]

Inevitably, there are also tales of a Grey Lady and a White Lady haunting the castle. The White Lady’s story is somewhat more creepy. She was the daughter of one of the former owners of the castle. Falling in love with a peasant or commoner was unacceptable in those days, but that is exactly what the White Lady did. Her father was so upset by this turn of events that he killed her and immersed her body inside a wall.

Today, the White Lady haunts the castle, most likely because she is unable to escape her eternal prison. It is said that when the walls of the castle were torn open in the 1930s during a plumbing job, a skeleton in a white dress was discovered inside.

7 Pelabuhanratu

Nyai Roro Kidul was the daughter of King Prabu Silwangi and Princess Kadita. She became the legend known as the Princess of the South Sea (the Indian Ocean) in Indonesia, after committing suicide by jumping off a cliff and landing in the ocean, where she subsequently drowned. Other versions of the story say that she didn’t drown but was magically transformed in a goddess of the ocean. It is said that Kidul haunts this particular part of the sea. If someone goes swimming here (wearing the princess’s color of choice: green), she will pull them under the water and drown them.^[4]

It is also believed that Kidul haunts Room 308 at the Samudra Beach Hotel in Pelabuhanratu (aka Pelabuhan Ratu). It is said that Sukarno, Indonesia’s first president, gave the instruction to leave this particular hotel room open for her spirit to inhabit. The room has been turned into a shrine for the Princess of the South Sea, sporting green furniture, a green wardrobe, and several portraits of Kidul.

6 Mount Everest

Mount Everest is a majestic example of nature at its finest. It is also the resting place of Andrew Irvine, a climber who died in 1924 trying to reach the summit, along with many others with the same goal in mind. If you ever have the inclination to climb the mountain, you might just encounter the spirit of Irvine or one of about 200 others. You’ll definitely encounter the frozen bodies of climbers. One person described the experience of seeing all the bodies on the mountain as like being in a morgue.^[5]

One tragic story is that of the unidentified corpse believed to be Tsewang Paljor, an Indian climber who lost his life on the mountain in 1996. He eventually became known as Green Boots, due to the color of the boots still on his feet. Climbers using the north side of the mountain for their expeditions all encounter Green Boots on their way up. Green Boots was reported missing in 2014 but was rediscovered in 2017.

5 Quinta Da Juncosa

Quinta da Juncosa in Penafiel, Portugal, is an old farmhouse believed to be haunted by the Baron of Lages. The Baron was suspicious of his wife’s activities and became convinced that she was cheating on him. As a punishment, he decided to tie her to a horse. He then frightened the horse, causing it to drag his wife across the ground in a mad dash to get away. She died of her injuries.^[6]

Tragically, the Baron found out afterward that his wife did not, in fact, cheat on him. Devastated, he then killed his children and committed suicide. The Baron’s tragic figure is reportedly often seen at Quinta da Juncosa. Apparently, his guilty conscience keeps him from crossing over to the other side. His wife’s ghost has also been spied on the grounds, seemingly unable to find rest for her soul.

4 Akershus Fortress

Akershus Festning, also known as Akershus Castle, is a medieval fortress that was built around 1300. It consists of dungeons, banquet halls, and staterooms and even includes a chapel. The fortress was also used as a prison at some point.^[7]

Akershus has the distinction of being known as the most haunted place in Norway, having seven royals buried on the premises. However, it is the story of a demon dog guarding the place that often gets the most attention. It is said that a dog was buried alive at the entrance of the fortress in order to become an angry demon dog after it eventually died. The reasoning was that the demon dog would protect the area. The dog became exactly that, scaring the pants off the soldiers guarding the fort every time it made its presence known.

Several visitors to the fortress in modern times have also reported seeing the ghost of Mantelgeisten, a female in a full-length robe who has no face.

3 Hellingly Hospital

The East Sussex County Asylum was opened in 1903 as an alternative to the overcrowded Haywards Heat Asylum. It was eventually renamed Hellingly Hospital and became famous for all the wrong reasons, namely the extremely cruel treatment of its patients. They were subjected to painful treatments and suffered several outbreaks of unpleasant diseases because of a lack of basic health and safety rules.^[8]

The hospital was abandoned in 1994 and soon became the target of ghost hunters both experienced and inexperienced. Reports emerged of loud footsteps sounding up in the empty asylum, unexplained feelings of illness, strange mist filling up rooms, voices crying and shouting in pain, and even time slips. Hellingly was eventually demolished completely to make room for a new housing project, and the ghost reports seem to have died down shortly after.

2 The Reina Sofia Museum And The University Of Cordova

The Reina Sofia museum in Madrid (pictured above) started out as a hospital back in the 17th century. During that time, patients were cared for by churchgoers and religious leaders. In modern times, some tourists have reported seeing the ghosts of nuns wandering the halls of the museum, while others say that they hear voices while no one else is around. Sometimes, the elevators move by themselves, with no one near the control buttons.^[9]

The museum isn’t the only creepy place in Spain. At the University of Cordova in Andalusia, the older part of one of the buildings is reportedly haunted by a host of the undead, including the ghosts of women who lost their lives while giving birth to their children, teachers who died in the building, and the ghost of a grumpy soldier who threatens murder to those who disturb him.

1 Calcasieu Parish Courthouse

On November 28, 1942, Toni Jo Henry became the only woman to be executed by means of the electric chair in Louisiana. She had broken her husband out of jail, and together with another accomplice, they robbed, tortured, and murdered Joseph P. Calloway. They hid his body in a haystack in the eastern part of Calcasieu Parish. Henry received the death sentence after three trials.^[10] Before her execution, she spoke with her husband one last time. On her final day, she seemed jovial, only complaining when they cut off her hair.

Visitors and employees of the Calcasieu Parish courthouse are convinced that Henry’s spirit is haunting the place. They have reported unexplained electrical malfunctions, the smell of hair burning mixed with cheap perfume, equipment starting up by itself, as well as flickering lights and the sense that someone was watching them when no one else was around. Some have even reported hearing the voice of a woman in the distance, a door locking by itself, and screams echoing through a stair landing.

Estelle lives in Gauteng, SA.

Getting cast in a box office hit or a series fan favorite is a massive boost to a celebrity’s resume, which makes it crucial for actors and actresses to star in the right productions. If an artist is cast in a chart-topping movie or show, they’ll have no problem finding new ventures in the future! Unfortunately, many factors, such as flubbed auditions or hesitancies, can hinder someone from auditioning for a role.

These barriers have almost robbed us of some of our favorite movie and TV show characters, and we’re thankful that fate intervened to bring us all the iconic roles that exist in media. So, don’t change your channel as we go over 10 celebs who almost weren’t cast in your favorite movie roles!

Related: 10 Actors Who Turned Down Movie Roles and Regretted It

10 Al Pacino as Michael Corleone

Visualizing the iconic movie The Godfather is almost impossible without Al Pacino playing Michael Corleone. However, a few close calls almost robbed viewers of Pacino’s portrayal. When Pacino first auditioned for The Godfather, he kept messing up his lines. Additionally, Pacino was not well-received by the producer, Robert Evans, who was wary of Pacino’s height of 5’6″ (1.7 m).

Unfortunately, the complications did not end there. As the production progressed, Coppola did not like Pacino’s acting as “playing the role too meek and mild.” Luckily, Marlon Brando saw past Pacino’s acting approach, advocating for Coppola to keep Pacino on. And, as fate would have it, Pacino transformed his character “from a naive young man to a vicious mob boss. From that point, the movie became a smash-hit mob film sensation that is still quoted today!^[1]

9 Hugh Jackman as Wolverine

Without Hugh Jackman portraying Wolverine, we might have seen a completely different trajectory for the X-Men franchise (plus, we would have missed out on those glorious sideburns)! However, Jackman cut it pretty close when auditioning for the role. A CBR article covers X-Men screenwriter David Hayter’s experience when casting for the role of Wolverine, saying, “The first time Hugh Jackman read, he didn’t get cast. He was great, but he was the nicest guy in the world, and he was very tall and super handsome, so we didn’t think he was Wolverine.”

Instead of Hugh Jackman, actor Dougray Scott was initially cast as Wolverine. However, this didn’t come to fruition due to an unfortunate motorcycle accident, causing Scott to lose 150 pounds. Thus, Hugh Jackman was able to cement his role as Wolverine and became a fan favorite who continued to return throughout the X-Men series in major roles or cameos!^[2]

8 Aaron Paul as Jesse Pinkman

The TV show Breaking Bad is one of the most well-renowned television dramas in the United States, and it wouldn’t have gained its fame without its main two stars, Bryan Cranston as Walter White and Aaron Paul as Jesse Pinkman. It’s crazy to think that Aaron Paul was close to not being offered the role! In an interview with Medium, Paul stated, “Even after tested, no one wanted me,” but luckily, series creator Vince Gilligan put his foot down, saying that he would not do the show unless Aaron Paul was cast as Jesse Pinkman.

As Aaron Paul put it, Vince Gilligan “gave me a chance when, quite frankly, no one else would.” And we’re lucky that Vince Gilligan had this intuition because audiences cannot picture anyone else as Jesse Pinkman. Furthermore, we wouldn’t be able to enjoy the random, hilarious sightings of Cranston and Paul at Costcos nationwide handing out tequila samples!.^[3]

7 Jennifer Lawrence as Katniss Everdeen

The Hunger Games franchise took America by storm when the first movie was released in 2012, launching Jennifer Lawrence from indie movies into stardom. Her red-carpet interviews and charming clumsiness gained Lawrence a loyal fanbase and widespread recognition—but would you believe she almost turned down the role?

In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Jennifer Lawrence explains that she “almost didn’t agree to do Hunger Games because she was worried about the immense fandom that could come with it.” The actress was more interested in starring in indie films and having a more laid-back celebrity status instead. However, upon changing her mind and accepting the role, Lawrence did not lose her down-to-earth attitude after her stunning performance in the franchise!^[4]

9 Daniel Radcliffe as Harry Potter

When people think of Harry Potter, it’s hard not to picture Daniel Radcliffe immediately. However, Radcliffe’s parents almost halted the franchise’s magic due to the franchise’s high volume of films. Being only eleven years old, Radcliffe’s parents were concerned about how the workload would impact his childhood. In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Radcliffe told the interviewer, “At the time, the deal was to sign on for—I think—six films, all to be done in L.A., and my mum and dad simply said, ‘That’s too much disruption to his life. That’s not gonna happen.’”

Fortunately, Radcliffe’s parents had a change of heart after receiving a revised deal. Thus, Radcliffe was given the go-ahead to audition and brought Harry Potter’s iconic role to theaters worldwide, with the franchise becoming a smash-hit global sensation!^[5]

5 Chris Hemsworth as Thor

With his muscular, rugged demeanor, most assume that Chris Hemsworth was a shoo-in for the role of Thor. Surprisingly, Chris was almost usurped for the role by his brother, Liam Hemsworth. In a W Magazine interview, Chris reminisced on his audition process for the Marvel franchise, recalling that after his audition, Chris heard nothing except that his brother was getting called back to audition.

It’s no surprise that Chris became disheartened after hearing that his younger sibling was called back to audition while he was hearing radio silence. However, months later, after hearing that none of the people in the mix were cast as Thor, Hemsworth’s manager reached out to the Thor production team, and things were back in motion!

Hemsworth described his second audition as being very different from his initial audition, saying, “I came in kind of with a little, I guess, motivation and maybe frustration that my little brother had gotten further than me. It’s a little family, sibling rivalry sort of kicked up in me.” After that audition, Hemsworth had affirmed himself as perfect for the role in Thor, and the film proceeded quickly from that point on. Hemsworth’s experience shows that sibling rivalry can go a long way, even for A-list celebrities!^[6]

4 Leonardo DiCaprio as Jack Dawson

Titanic, the captivating movie based on real-life events, launched Leonardo DiCaprio into ultra-stardom. However, DiCaprio’s demeanor during his audition almost sunk his chances of playing Jack Dawson. A Variety interview with Titanic’s filmmaker, James Cameron, details the young actor’s audition process. In his initial screen test, Cameron recalls that DiCaprio was under the impression that he was only there to meet his co-star, Kate Winslet.

Cameron told the story from his perspective: “He said, ‘You mean, I’m reading?’ I said, ‘Yeah.’ He said, ‘Oh, I don’t read.’ I shook his hand and said, ‘Thanks for coming by.’” Despite DiCaprio’s charm and acting prowess, Cameron was prepared to disregard DiCaprio for the role, telling him, “So, you’re going to read, or you’re not getting the part.” As reluctant as DiCaprio was, the actor agreed to read. James Cameron described the process, saying, “So he comes in, and he’s like every ounce of his entire being is just so negative—right up until I said, ‘Action.’ Then he turned into Jack… Dark clouds had opened up, and a ray of sun came down and lit up Jack. I’m like, ‘All right. He’s the guy.’”

James Cameron’s premonition turned out to be correct. Still, Leonardo DiCaprio’s close call to missing out on starring in Titanic proves that no matter how good of an actor someone is, they can’t count on their previous credits to land them a role!^[7]

3 Julie Andrews as Maria von Trapp

Actress Julie Andrews has collected a wide array of credits throughout her successful career, but one of her most titular roles was the role of Maria von Trapp in The Sound of Music. However, in her autobiography titled Home Work: A Memoir of My Hollywood Years, Andrews revealed that she almost abstained from starring in the iconic role.

Before The Sound of Music, Andrews had experience with being cast in a nanny role, as she had starred in Mary Poppins shortly before. Thus, she was concerned about being typecast as a nanny if she were to take on The Sound of Music as well, stating, “It would be my second nanny role, almost on the heels of the first.” However, after encouragement from her friends and colleagues, Andrews accepted the role of Maria, blessing countless viewers with Maria’s sunny disposition and beautiful voice.^[8]

2 Chris Evans as Captain America

Would you believe it if we said that Chris Evans’s mom is why audiences can enjoy Chris Evans as Captain America? Well, believe it! Before starring in the Marvel franchise, Chris Evans enjoyed his time starring in smaller, irreverent movies. Despite his smaller-scale roles on screen, Chris Evans was offered the role of Captain America—no audition needed.

In an Esquire interview, Lisa Evans, Chris Evans’s mom, revealed that Chris initially turned down Marvel’s mouthwatering offer, fearing becoming too famous. Esquire details her experience, stating, “‘His biggest fear was losing his anonymity,’ Lisa recalls. ‘He said, ‘I have a career now where I can do work I really like. I can walk my dog. Nobody bothers me. Nobody wants to talk to me. I can go wherever I want. And the idea of losing that is terrifying to me.’”

Luckily, Evans’s mother convinced him to take the part, telling him the role would only enable his acting career, not harm it. So we have Chris Evans’s mom to thank for giving us the ability to view Chris Evans in his iconic role of Captain America!^[9]

1 Reese Witherspoon as Elle Woods

The infamous portrayal of Harvard lawyer Elle Woods in Legally Blonde, with her iconic brains and beauty, has Reese Witherspoon to thank. However, prior to Legally Blonde, Witherspoon starred in Election, a dark comedy where she played a compulsive overachiever, and unfortunately, she played her role too well.

According to an Entertainment Tonight interview, Reese Witherspoon stated, “‘They thought I was a shrew,’ she says of studio execs. ‘My manager finally called and said, ‘You’ve got to go meet with the studio head because he will not approve you. He thinks you really are your character from Election and that you’re repellent.’”

Luckily, Witherspoon trusted her acting chops and entered her audition fully in character as Elle Woods, convincing the executives that she was exactly like the character. Witherspoon reflected, “I remember a room full of men who were asking me questions about being a co-ed and being in a sorority…even though I had dropped out of college four years earlier and I have never been inside a sorority house.” Therefore, Witherspoon was cast in the role, blessing us with the iconic quote: “What, like it’s hard?”^[10]