Hollywood has no shortage of talented and successful actors. But, sometimes, talent and quality do not exactly go together, and, as a result, Hollywood also has a number of popular stars who (more often than not) consistently end up delivering bad projects. However, despite their subpar filmography, most people still agree that the talent of these actors cannot be disputed, and it is a shame when these performers fall in a strange pocket of forgotten and overlooked abilities. Whether it be because of bad choices, bad agents, or a literal lack of care, let’s take a look at 10 extremely talented actors who always find themselves in terrible movies:

10 Movie Scenes That Predicted Tragic Moments In Actors’ Lives

10 Gerard Butler

Zack Sneider’s “300” is the movie that revealed Gerard Butler to the world in 2006. He played the main role of Leonidas, king and leader of the Spartans during their vicious war against the terrifying Xerxes. The movie became an instant classic, and Butler became a household name overnight. People were very excited to find out where he would go next, but, unfortunately, it doesn’t look like his seemingly bright future played out the way everyone had hoped.

People often say that Butler’s only good movie to date was “300”, and it is quite hard to argue with that. He is now known to settle for mediocre films and throwaway B-movies, mainly thanks to major flops like “Machine Gun Preacher”, “Geostorm” (which lost Warner Bros over $100 million), and the awfully dreaded “Gods Of Egypt” (which lost its studio over $90 million). He did manage to secure himself a critically panned trilogy in the sequels to “Olympus Has Fallen”, which earned him the title of “Hollywood’s weirdest action hero”. The last entry in the trilogy, 2019’s “Angel Has Fallen”, became his first #1 movie since “300” was released 13 years prior.

His one true acclaimed success since 2006 has been the animated “How To Train Your Dragon” franchise, in which he voiced the character of Stoick, but every single one of his other outings has been mocked and largely forgotten, resulting in most people forgetting that Butler is actually a very talented actor.^[1]

9 Milla Jovovich

Some people will argue that, despite a lengthy career, Milla Jovovich has only ever been in one good movie: Luc Besson’s 1997 “The Fifth Element”, in which she gave an incredible performance that was praised by audiences and critics alike. They wouldn’t be completely wrong. Aside from that movie, Jovovich is mostly known for playing the main character Alice in the fallen “Resident Evil” franchise, which is mostly made of highly disliked films. Milla is one of those actresses who always gives great performances to her roles, no matter how bad the movie is.

The major problem most people point to is the fact that Jovovich seems to only be interested in starring in movies directed by her husband, Paul W.S. Anderson, who happens to be one of the least respected directors in Hollywood. Anderson is behind duds such as “Mortal Kombat”, “Alien vs Predator”, the 2011 remake of “The Three Musketeers”, the widely forgotten “Pompeii” and, of course, the critically panned “Resident Evil” movies.

Milla Jovovich has starred in most of these, including the 2020 bomb “Monster Hunter”, and outside of her husbands movies, the last 10 years have seen her appear in a non-stop series of flops, including “Cymbelline”, “Zoolander 2”, Alice Waddington’s “Paradise Hills” and the notoriously awful “Hellboy” reboot released in 2019. Somehow, she cannot seem to find a good movie to be in, or doesn’t care to find one. Over the years, Jovovich’s popularity slowly faded, despite being an extremely talented actress.^[2]

8 Chris Hemsworth

Now, yes, Chris Hemsworth is Thor. As a result, he has appeared in a number of popular Marvel movies. And even then, the first two Thor movies are considered by many to be some of the weakest entries in the franchise. But, what else has he been in that was critically acclaimed or popular with the public? Most people will point out that he was in the modern horror cult classic “The Cabin In The Woods”, which came out a decade ago, but that’s about it. A shame, because Chris Hemsworth has proven himself to be an insanely talented actors capable of playing darker roles as well as funnier ones.

However, since taking on the role of Thor in 2011, Hemsworth has only been in subpar movies that performed terribly on every front. He attempted to star in a number of failed franchises, including the cancelled Huntsman trilogy, the horrible and the infamous 2016 “Ghostbusters” reboot with Melissa McCarthy, Kristen Wiig and Leslie Jones. He also took part in a number of action thrillers like “Blackhat”, “12 Strong” and “Extraction”, which all failed to interest critics and audiences. It seems that, despite his talent, Chris Hemsworth has simply not been able to score a genuinely successful film outside of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.^[3]

7 Eva Green

Eva Green is a quite the interesting case. Compared to other actors of her time, she has not appeared in a lot of projects, even though she also appears in French films. She debuted in 2003’s “The Dreamers”, and appeared in 2 other films before making her way to the James Bond franchise and becoming a household name. But what makes her so fascinating is that, despite the fact that an overwhelming majority of the movies she has appeared in are known to be bad, most people agree that her talent is a true force to be reckoned with. In 17 years, she has simply never given a single bad performance.

Since her critically acclaimed role in 2006’s “Casino Royale”, Eva Green’s career has been an absolute rollercoaster of weird choices and promising projects that somehow couldn’t stick the landing. She became a Tim Burton muse, starring in his most recent duds “Miss Peregrine’s Home For Peculiar Children”, “Dark Shadows” and the disappointing live action remake of “Dumbo”. She also appeared in widely despised sequels, with 2014’s “300: Rise Of An Empire” and “Sin City: A Dame To Kill For” under her belt. She did have some mildly successful projects, but, aside from one sleeper hit show, “Penny Dreadful”, Eva Green’s career has been a bit of a bumpy ride.^[4]

6 Michael Fassbender

Many people consider Michael Fassbender to be one of the greatest actors of our time. He is undeniably a powerful performer, one who disappears seamlessly in every single one of his roles. He is a highly popular figure in Hollywood and people generally get excited when he is announced to be in a new movie, be cause he is just that good. Which is ironic, because most of the films he is in are known for being very bad.

In the last few years, Fassbender has not been able to catch a break with the continuous failure his projects. The “X-Men” franchise ended on a series on flops, Ridley Scott’s “Alien: Covenant” sequels got cancelled after it crashed at the box office, the 2016 “Assassin’s Creed” movie adaptation was an absolute disaster that lost its studio millions of dollars and also saw its sequels axed, and his murder mystery flick “The Snowman” ended up being one of the biggest box office bombs of 2017.

He did manage to get a few wins that were few and far between, such as his Oscar-nominated role in the Oscar-winning “12 Years A Slave” in 2013, or his critically acclaimed performance as Steve Jobs in the 2015 biopic that won him a Golden Globe for best actor. But, despite those successes, most of Michael Fassbender’s entries have been notoriously bad films, even if he always delivers fantastic performances in them.^[5]

10 Shocking Weight Transformations By Actors For Films

5 Lucy Hale

Lucy Hale is probably one of the most talented actresses of this new generation. The range she has been able to show in the last few years is on a level that most of her peers cannot match. Unfortunately, while being one of the most talented, she also appears to be one of the most unlucky. With her incredible talent, Lucy’s career as an actress has been plagued by terrible projects, from movies to television.

While she has appeared in a number of things in her early years in the industry, Lucy finally became a star in 2010 with the teen mystery series “Pretty Little Liars”, in which she played the role of Aria Montgomery, a young high school student trying to solve the disappearance of her best friend. “Pretty Little Liars” is widely regarded as being a bad show, but one that was insanely popular at the time, going on to deliver 7 seasons. At its close, people were extremely excited to see where Lucy Hale would go, as her award-winning performances in the show foretold what people expected to be a bright future in better, more mature projects.

Things did not go as planned. Since the end of “Pretty Little Liars”, Hale has been stuck in a cycle of mediocre movie flops and cancelled TV shows. She also found herself trapped by her former success, seeming to only find roles in teen projects — she starred in the failed horror movie “Truth Or Dare” in 2018, the critically panned “Dude” and the awful remake of “Fantasy Island”, which crashed and burned at the box office early in 2020. During that time, Lucy also got main TV roles in the CW’s “Life Sentence” and Riverdale spinoff “Katy Keene”, both of which were cancelled after one season.

Despite being a gifted performer, Lucy Hale’s name has very unfortunately become synonymous with bad cinema and mediocre television, and people now expect a movie to be awful as soon as they find out that her name is attached to it.^[6]

4 Jennifer Aniston

Jennifer Aniston is easily the biggest star to come out of “Friends”. The iconic sitcom ran for a whole decade, ending its run in 2004, and during its run, Aniston starred in the highly successful “Bruce Almighty” with Jim Carrey, showing huge potential for the future of her career. She was one of the biggest celebrities in Hollywood, and fans could not wait to see what was coming next for her. So… the disappointment was real when what came after (and during) “Friends” was a never-ending series of outdated romantic comedies no one remembers.

From “She’s The One”, “Picture Perfect”, “The Good Girl” and “Love Happens”, to “The Switch” and the oh-so-despised “Mother’s Day” (amongst a good dozen more), Jennifer Aniston got stuck in a tornado of forgettable flicks for well over a decade. She eventually got some hype back when she announced her return to television in “The Morning Show”, a highly anticipated drama on Apple TV+ that came out in 2019 and reunited her with Reese Witherspoon. However, the show turned out to be a massive disappointment for critics and audiences, and while Aniston’s performance was praised, it wasn’t enough to keep people interested.

Since then, Jennifer Aniston has appeared in the Adam Sandler comedy “Murder Mystery”, a Netflix flop that unfortunately solidified the deplorable state of her post-Friends catalog in the eyes of general pop culture. But, at the end of the day, Aniston is way too big of an actress, and there is no doubt that she is not going anywhere anytime soon.^[7]

3 Alden Ehrenreich

Alden Ehrenreich is an absolute nuclear plant of talent, but he isn’t a name that is universally known — at least, not amongst general audiences. Although, his face has become much more recognizable since he played the role of Han Solo in 2018’s “Solo: A Star Wars Story”, which notoriously became the first Star Wars film to lose money. Nevertheless, his talent has been a true revelation in Hollywood, mainly because “Solo” wasn’t Alden’s first crack at popular franchises. But unfortunately, despite a number of promising projects with potential, things never quite worked out for him.

He played the role of Ethan Wate in the 2013 adaptation of “Beautiful Creatures”, which was total failure that saw its sequels cancelled. He also appeared in the failed Nicole Kidman mystery “Stoker”, the Warren Beatty period piece “Rules Don’t Apply”, and he even got a main role in the Coen Brothers’ 2016 flop “Hail, Caeser!”. All of these amazing opportunities have allowed Alden to prove his next level talent as an actor, and despite receiving great acclaim for his work on screen, all of his projects ended up being missteps. After the failure of “Solo” in 2018, Alden turned to television, starring in the 2020 sci-fi epic “Brave New World”… but it was cancelled after one season.^[8]

2 Nicolas Cage

Let’s be honest here: while most people on this list have made bad project choices, got stuck in a typecasting whirl or simply have terrible agents, none of those unfortunate short comings apply to Nicolas Cage. Nicolas Cage just gave up. Plain and simple. It’s crazy to remember that, at one point, Nicolas Cage was the biggest actor in Hollywood. He was the ultimate A-lister, a God amongst men. He was in “The Rock” and “Face/Off”, he was the original Ghost Rider, he almost played Superman… Nicolas Cage was a beloved actor and a defining facet of 90’s pop culture. But, somewhere along the line, he stopped caring, and became the king of movies that are “so bad they’re good”.

It is hard to pinpoint exactly when Cage went bonkers with his career, but the mid-2000’s were definitely a turning point he never came back from. From weird movies like “The Wicker Man”, “Left Behind” and “Knowing” to blockbusters like “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice” and 2020’s hilarious “Jiu Jitsu”, his movies all turned out to be absolute flops that made critics scratch their heads and ask “How did he get here?” It seemed like Cage was just saying yes to any scripts that came his way, and while his career’s 180 has become a meme, people still seem to love him just as much as before.

As a cherry on top, Netflix recently released a trailer for an original docu-series titled “History of Swear Words”, in which Nicolas Cage will be receiving a number of guests in each episodes to teach audiences the origin of various swear words. Well…at least he’s having fun!^[9]

1 Johnny Depp

It seems like something shifted for Johnny Depp as soon as he appeared as Captain Jack Sparrow in “Pirates Of The Caribbean” in 2003. He was already considered to be a Hollywood legend, and was known for being a highly versatile actor, but it didn’t stop him for being typecast after the movie came out. For well over a decade, Depp only appeared in awkward comedies in which he would portray brainless characters that were essentially pale copies of Jack Sparrow. He seemed to be playing the same character in every film, and it became a bit too obnoxious for everybody with the release of 2015’s “Mortdecai”, which was blasted by critics as being the last straw.

After being kicked out of the Pirates franchise by Disney, following the financial failure of its fifth instalment “Dead Men Tell No Tales” in 2017, Depp attempted a franchise comeback to reshape his broken image and regain his status of legend. He then donned the role of evil wizard Gellert Grindelwald in “Fantastic Beasts 2”, which was awful, performed poorly and created an absolute uproar amongst fans of the Harry Potter franchise. And while he was going to come back for a future instalment that shows potential, Warner Bros kicked him out of the franchise over his ongoing lawsuits with his ex-wife, Amber Heard.

Aside from major franchises, Depp’s recent resumé is mostly composed of ignored movies with terrible reviews and voice over work for failed animated movies, such as 2018’s “Sherlock Gnomes”. His only win in the last few years was his minor role in Kenneth Branagh’s 2017 adaptation of “Murder On The Orient Express”, which reminded people that he is indeed an extremely talented actor.^[10]

10 Famous Props And The Actors Who Stole Them

Everyone knows Hitler, Stalin, Mao, and Pol Pot. But there have been plenty of other kings, emperors, military dictators, generalissimos, presidents-for-life than just them. Typically, the world doesn’t care as long as these guys are nice enough to keep their genocidal and repressive policies within their own borders. And luckily for everyone except those within their poor countries, most of the men on this list were more interested in amassing personal fortunes or hiding from perceived threats than by conquering their neighbors. Unfortunately, that means they stayed in power far longer than they deserved and didn’t always face justice. But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t know about them. Let’s take a look at some of history’s nastiest but most obscure dictators. 

10. U Ne Win 

U Ne Win, the enigmatic Burmese military leader, tormented his native Myanmar as its dictator from 1962 to 1988. Often characterized by his eccentricity, he implemented a series of bizarre economic policies, including the infamous decision in 1987 to demonetize most of the country’s currency overnight, leading to widespread chaos known as the “8888 Uprising.” Despite his autocratic rule, Ne Win’s peculiar actions and unpredictable behavior created a certain magnetic mystique around him. 

For example, he loved numerology and famously selected the number nine as his lucky digit. He also consulted astrologers regularly and even changed the country’s driving laws to be in alignment with his superstitions. U Ne Win’s blend of authoritarianism and quirkiness makes him a more captivating leader than most. But it doesn’t change the fact that he was a brutal, merciless autocrat. As is almost universally the case, U Ne Win’s policies led to widespread poverty and chaos in his country. But unlike almost every other dictator, he actually resigned because of this in 1988. 

9. Jean-Bedel Bokassa 

As if Africa hasn’t been through enough, the poor, neglected, historically exploited continent has also suffered under more than its fair share of authoritarians. Jean-Bédel Bokassa called himself Emperor of the Central African Republic and brought nothing but chaos, cruelty, and death. He emerged as one of Africa’s most flamboyant and eccentric dictators in the 20th century. Rising to power through a military coup in 1966, Bokassa later crowned himself in a lavish coronation ceremony that bankrupted his already impoverished nation. 

Infamous for his extravagant lifestyle, Bokassa was rumored to have kept a personal zoo featuring rare animals, including white tigers and elephants. Additionally, his claim to fame includes allegations of cannibalism, a sensationalized accusation that may or may not be backed up by the facts. Bokassa’s reign came to an end in 1979 when France intervened, toppling his empire and reinstating the republic. Despite his oppressive rule, the peculiarities of Bokassa’s imperial escapades contribute to his unique status among the pantheon of eccentric dictators.

8. Francisco Macias Nguema

Francisco Macías Nguema, the self-styled “Unique Miracle” and first President of Equatorial Guinea, seized power in 1968 via coup d’etat. Macías transformed his country into a one-party state. Nicknamed the “African Idi Amin,” Macías’s eccentricities became a hallmark of his reign. His erratic behavior ranged from ordering the execution of perceived enemies to instituting bizarre policies, like banning the use of lubricants for vehicles to save money.

Like many autocrats, Marcías was known for his paranoia and unleashed a reign of terror marked by arbitrary arrests, executions, and a pervasive culture of fear. His obsession with personal security reached insane heights, as he reportedly believed that enemies were plotting against him from within his own party and even his shower. The extent of his eccentricity and brutality culminated in a reign that left Equatorial Guinea economically devastated and socially fractured. Thing is, he wasn’t entirely wrong about being targeted by other power hungry groups. But he was too blind to see that his own paranoia and brutality contributed to his downfall. Either way, Macías was overthrown in a 1979 coup, bringing things full circle. We suppose it’s true what they say – those who live by the sword will die by it, too. 

7. Saparmurat Niyazov

Coming to power in 1985, Saparmurat Niyazov, brutalized Turkmenistan as its first President for Life with a blend of authoritarian rule and eccentric personal cultism. Niyazov maintained an iron grip on his impoverished nation until his death in 2006. Often referred to as “Turkmenbashi,” or “Father of the Turkmens,” he pursued an extravagant personality cult, saturating public spaces with statues and portraits of himself and renaming months and days of the week after his family members. You know, like a normal, well adjusted man who can be trusted with power. 

Niyazov’s eccentric decrees reached new heights of absurdity, including banning ballet, opera, and gold teeth, and renaming the months to honor historical and cultural events. His rule was marked by delusions of grandeur and a financially reckless series of idiosyncratic infrastructure projects, such as a massive artificial lake in the Karakum Desert that Turkmenistan could in no way afford. While his regime did bring a small degree of stability to Turkmenistan, Niyazov’s eccentricities and cult of personality made him one of the worst, and weirdest, authoritarians to ever rule a Central Asian country with an iron grip. 

6. Alberto Fujimori

Alberto Fujimori, the former president of Peru, took office in 1990 and quickly gained popularity for implementing economic reforms that stabilized Peru’s hyperinflation and tackled corruption. However, his presidency also became synonymous with authoritarian practices and human rights abuses.

In a surprising turn of events in 1992, Fujimori dissolved the Peruvian Congress, claiming it was rife with corruption, and took control of the judiciary. This move was met with both support for cracking down on corruption and criticism for undermining democratic institutions. Fujimori’s eccentricities were apparent in his unorthodox governing style and at times flamboyant behavior, but his administration also successfully combated terrorism, most notably capturing the leader of the Shining Path guerrilla group.

Ultimately, Fujimori’s presidency ended in scandal in 2000 when a corruption scandal involving his intelligence chief, Vladimiro Montesinos, came to light, leading to his resignation and subsequent exile in Japan. He wasn’t the most brutal dictator on our list, but he doesn’t exactly deserve statues built in his honor, either. 

5. Hissene Habre

Hissène Habré, the former President of Chad, is a controversial figure whose rule was characterized by brutality and widespread human rights abuses. Seizing power in 1982, Habré governed Chad until he was ousted in 1990. His regime employed torture, political repression, and ethnic violence to maintain control.

Habré’s eccentricities were often overshadowed by these grave human rights violations. His political opponents were subjected to harsh treatment, and the notorious secret police, the Documentation and Security Directorate (DDS), was implicated in numerous human rights abuses. Habré’s government was accused of executing thousands of political prisoners and committing atrocities against specific ethnic groups, contributing to a legacy of fear and mistrust.

In 2016, Hissène Habré was convicted by a special court in Senegal for crimes against humanity, war crimes, and torture during his rule. His trial marked a significant moment in international justice, as it was the first time a former African head of state was held accountable for human rights abuses by the legal system of another country. 

4. Islam Karimov

Islam Karimov, the first President of Uzbekistan, held a firm grip on power from the country’s independence in 1991 until his death in 2016. Known for his authoritarian rule, Karimov maintained control through a combination of political repression and a carefully cultivated personality cult.

Karimov’s eccentricities were evident in his efforts to shape a cult of personality around himself, portraying an image of a strong and wise leader. His policies, however, were often criticized for human rights abuses, including censorship, torture, and the suppression of political opposition. The notorious Andijan massacre in 2005, where government forces violently dispersed protesters, might be the most notorious episode here. 

Despite these controversies, Karimov’s administration did manage to maintain stability in Uzbekistan and pursue economic reforms. The country experienced relative economic growth during his tenure, but this came at the expense of political freedoms and human rights. Following Karimov’s death, Shavkat Mirziyoyev succeeded him as president, bringing some cautious reforms and signaling a departure from the repressive tactics of the past.

3. Nicolae Ceausescu

Nicolae Ceau?escu, the General Secretary of the Romanian Communist Party and President of Romania, held power from 1965 until a dramatic and humiliating downfall in 1989. Initially gaining popularity for his opposition to the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968, Ceau?escu’s regime gradually evolved into one marked by increasing repression, a cult of personality, and economic mismanagement.

Ceau?escu’s eccentricities became apparent in his later years. He pursued grandiose projects like the People’s House, a massive palace in Bucharest, which became a symbol of his opulence amid widespread poverty. His regime enforced policies that severely restricted personal freedoms, including strict censorship, widespread surveillance, and the ban on contraceptives. The Securitate, the secret police, played a significant role in suppressing dissent.

The 1980s saw Ceau?escu implementing austerity measures to pay off foreign debts, leading to extreme shortages of basic goods. This, coupled with his efforts to increase the country’s population through a pro-natalist policy, further strained the economy and deepened public discontent.

In December 1989, a wave of protests brought Ceau?escu’s regime to a brutal end. Ceau?escu and his wife, Elena, were captured, hastily tried, and executed on Christmas Day 1989. 

2. Mobutu Sese Seko

Mobutu Sese Seko, born Joseph-Désiré Mobutu, was the president of Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of the Congo) for over three decades, from 1965 to 1997. His rule was, like most dictators on this list, characterized by brutal authoritarianism, corruption, and the systematic looting of the country’s resources.

Mobutu rose to power through a coup in 1965, overthrowing the government of Patrice Lumumba. Once in control, he quickly established a one-party state and consolidated power, adopting a policy of “Zairianization” that involved replacing colonial-era names with African ones.

Under Mobutu’s rule, Zaire became synonymous with corruption and mismanagement. He amassed immense personal wealth while the country’s economy deteriorated. His leadership style was characterized by a cult of personality, exemplified by his leopard-skin hat and an eye-rolling self-bestowed title, “The Guide.” He maintained control through the military and a pervasive intelligence apparatus.

Despite early support from the West during the Cold War, Mobutu’s international standing declined as allegations of human rights abuses and corruption intensified. In 1997, rebels overthrew Mobutu, marking the end of his rule. Mobutu fled into exile, and he died of cancer in Morocco in 1997. 

1. Enver Hoxha

Enver Hoxha was the leader of Communist Albania from the end of World War II in 1944 until his death in 1985, making him one of the longest-serving heads of state in the 20th century. His leadership was marked by a rigid Stalinist ideology, extreme isolationism, and a fervent commitment to building a socialist utopia. Unsurprisingly, it didn’t work. 

Hoxha initially rose to power as the head of the partisan resistance against the Italian and German occupiers during World War II. After the war, he became the leader of the People’s Assembly and later the Prime Minister. In 1946, Albania officially became a People’s Republic, and in 1948, Hoxha severed ties with Yugoslavia, marking the beginning of his country’s isolation from both Western and Eastern blocs.

Hoxha brought extreme repression, censorship, and a pervasive surveillance apparatus to the country. He ordered the collectivization of agriculture and the industrialization of the country, often at the expense of personal freedoms and economic efficiency. Perhaps one of the most distinctive aspects of Hoxha’s rule was the construction of thousands of bunkers throughout Albania, reflecting his obsession with perceived external threats. 

Hoxha’s death in 1985 led to the fall of the Albanian communist regime by 1992.

Photos dominate the modern world as they never have before. We’re saturated with professional pictures, selfies, and everything in between. We’re used to plenty of mundane images; any social media profile can provide those. And we’ve all seen the sensational pictures embedded in every meme and news report.

Yet it’s the combination of the mundane and the terrible—once you know it’s there—that is most arresting. Some photos’ stark simplicity becomes haunting when you realize the true story underneath.

10 The Fredericksburg Ice House

This image seems to be merely a pastoral view from the 19th century. It’s only marginally more interesting to hear that this is a view of the famous Fredericksburg battlefield, a couple of years after thousands of Union soldiers fell there during the US Civil War. It seems unremarkable—after all, the soldiers are all gone.

Or are they?

After the fighting, Union troops were in a rush to dispose of their dead comrades during a brief truce. The cold December weather made digging hard, and eventually, the gravediggers got tired. They looked around for any other place they could stash the bodies. Their eyes settled on the abandoned icehouse of a Mr. Wallace. That’s the long, low building in the right foreground.

With little ceremony, the burial details began dumping their deceased brethren inside. The sight sickened several onlookers. One soldier described the scene:

[They would] drag the bodies to the pit of an old ice house, 15 feet deep, and cast them, all turned and twisted and doubled; the feet of one sticking up, the head of another, the arms and back of another; the upturned faces, beside the protruding entrails. Hundreds were to be thrown in, and what a horrid spectacle the whole mass would present, the imagination must picture.

An officer recalled:

The most sickening sight of all was when they threw the dead, some four or five hundred in number, into Wallace’s empty icehouse, where they were found—a hecatomb of skeletons—after the war.^[1]

After that, the armies eventually moved on. The populace had fled. The city remained a ghost town for the rest of the war—in more ways than one. No one remembered what lay behind the icehouse’s rickety door.

When the photographer took this image two years after the battle, he had no idea how many decomposing corpses were right there under his nose.

9 The Lawson Family Portrait

Nearly everyone’s been in a family portrait at some point. This photo looks quite run-of-the-mill. Most of the family members look fairly wooden—though the father standing at right has a certain far-off look in his eye. His name was Charles Lawson. And he was already planning on murdering everyone around him.

The Lawsons were a poor family, eking out a meager living as tobacco farmers in North Carolina. Their poverty must have weighed heavily on Charles’s mind. Another factor in his disquiet was that he had incestuously impregnated his daughter Marie (back row, second from left)—and she’d started confiding that fact in the neighbors.

A week before Christmas 1929, Charles finally decided to pay for a family portrait, because he knew he wasn’t going to need the money.^[2] On Christmas afternoon, the father hid in the barn with a 12-gauge shotgun and lay in wait for his daughters Carrie (front row, far right) and Maybell (front row, second from left) as they walked to their uncle’s house. He blasted them at point-blank range, then finished them off with the butt of the gun. Stalking back to the house, he gunned down his wife Fannie (back row, standing far right) on the front porch. The he charged into his own home as an invader.

As Marie screamed, he shot her in cold blood, along with his unborn child/grandchild. The small boys James (front row, far left) and Raymond (front row, second from right) ran for cover, but Charles hunted them down in a macabre game of hide and seek. Last was baby Mary Lou (in Fannie’s arms, top right). He finished her off without wasting a bullet and then killed himself in the woods shortly thereafter. The only survivor was son Arthur Lawson (rear row, far left), who was out of the house at the time.

Within seven days, a standard portrait had become the last record of a family about to be destroyed by its deranged patriarch.

8 A Doomed Expedition

All expeditions to the far corners of the Earth are fraught with peril. Many of them, especially in the early days, never even reached their destinations. The Terra Nova Expedition, led by British captain Robert Falcon Scott, was one that did. He and four others had set out to reach the South Pole in late 1911 and succeeded. The photo should be recording a moment of triumph, yet there is no elation. Instead, the men look haggard. Despair settles on their furrowed brows.

They are haggard from their rough journey. They are joyless because they know it was a race between British and Norwegian teams to reach the pole first, and they’d lost. They are hopeless because the return trip seemed an insurmountable obstacle.

It was. The Norwegians were long gone and could be of no help. The group had already endured punishing blizzards and food shortages on the southward journey; returning north would mean similar hardships, with less energy and fewer supplies to sustain them. Each man in this photo had little to look forward to in his short time remaining, just cold, misery, and the real possibility of death.

They marched on for weeks, slowed by multiple cases of severe frostbite. Poor weather hampered their progress even further, as did time-consuming searches for pre-established supply dumps that were far too well-hidden. Two men died along the way; the last three made it within 18 kilometers (11 mi) of a resupply camp before perishing. What’s more, they knew how close they were but were unable to reach it. As Scott wrote in his diary’s final entry:

Every day we have been ready to start for our depot 11 miles away, but outside the door of the tent it remains a scene of whirling drift. I do not think we can hope for any better things now. We shall stick it out to the end, but we are getting weaker, of course, and the end cannot be far.

It seems a pity but I do not think I can write more.

R. SCOTT.

For God’s sake look after our people.^[3]

When a belated rescue team found the last campsite eight months later, the corpses of the polar team still lay in their sleeping bags. Their camera was with them. It surrendered this photograph only after all its subjects were long dead.

7 A Storm On The Mountain

The photo quality here looks awful, like the above images were shot on an early flip phone. At first glance, it seems nothing more than someone’s grainy camping photography, perhaps depicting some bad weather. In reality, the camera was top-notch, and it was capturing some of the worst “weather” in Washington state history.

In 1980, Mount St. Helens in the southwestern part of the state was a slumbering volcano that had decided to stop hitting “snooze.” It rumbled and smoldered ominously for months on end. Yet some people remained in harm’s way. Local residents refused to evacuate, including a famously cantankerous old innkeeper. Geologists and volcanologists, despite their misgivings, stayed close by to monitor activity. And some photographers, eager to document the foreboding phenomenon, crept closer to the stirring giant. One of these was Robert Landsburg.

A freelancer supporting National Geographic, Landsburg was on the latest of numerous trips to the mountain. His morning on May 18 began like any other. Waking in his serene campsite, he found a good vista and started snapping photos. But at 8:32 AM, everything changed. A 5.1-magnitude earthquake sent a terrifying landslide down the side of the mountain. Moments later, an eruption of magma, volcanic gas, and ash followed, a one-two punch of rapidly approaching terror.^[4]

Simultaneously enthralled and horrified, Landsburg kept shooting. It didn’t take long for him to realize that he could never outrun the onrushing blast. Resigning himself to his fate, Landsburg calmly finished his work, dismounted the camera from the tripod, stuffed it into his backpack, and then laid down atop his equipment. His body would protect the precious film.

Fifty-seven people died that day, Landsburg among them. But his jaw-dropping final photographs survived.

6 Tropical Tranquility

This image looks like mottled old-time footage, perhaps an old VHS tape of a seaside vacation. Beachgoers wade in the shallows, a familiar sight on any coastline. A second look shows that the breakers beyond the shallows look rather . . . large. They are. When these waders ventured out, they didn’t know they were wading into the path of destruction.

Indonesia’s and Thailand’s western coasts in 2004 were densely populated, chock full of everyone from native fishermen to foreign sightseers. Christmas passed peacefully and uneventfully. The following day, however, a gargantuan offshore earthquake unleashed a terrifying tsunami. Experts estimate that the tsunami’s energy was double that of all the bombs used in World War II, combined.

As often happens, the tidal wave was preceded by a drainage effect, as water was sucked away from the beach to feed the growing wall offshore. Tragically, many people on the coast mistook this for a sort of benign natural occurrence. Hundreds stuck around to watch. Some even reveled in the unusual circumstance, walking out onto the former seafloor and picking through old junk or stranded fish.

When the water returned, it swept all before it. An approximate death toll climbed to nearly a quarter of a million people.^[5] Some of the first were the folks in this picture, who had only minutes or seconds to live when it was taken.

5 A Skyline’s Last Morning

September 11, 2001, has passed into the history books, but each living witness has had the day’s events burned into his or her memory. The world changed for many. Western countries awoke to modern realities of terrorism, and nations the world over would be shaped by their response. Approximately 3,000 lives ended, and the loss reverberated throughout countless families, friendships, and workplaces. Most visibly, New York City’s iconic skyline was forever altered.

Photographer David Monderer loved that skyline, and he’d been waiting nearly a month to do it justice with a good photo. The sunny Tuesday morning offered the perfect opportunity. He strode out onto the Manhattan Bridge walkway, aimed, and took this shot.^[6]

The photo above is one of the very last to show the Twin Towers as they were. Looking at the image, it is easy to imagine the activities inside—people beginning their daily routines, fortifying themselves with coffee for the first morning meetings. They had no idea that the cloudless blue sky above already held two airliners winging their way closer, bearing a deadly destiny.

4 An Alaskan Vacation

The man in this photo looks scruffy but perfectly at ease. Behind him is an abandoned Fairbanks bus, signifying the location as Alaska. One might think he’s a local goofing off, or maybe a tourist who found a good photo op. One would not guess that he was slowly starving to death.

His name is Christopher McCandless. The unassuming man is actually rather famous as a free spirit, being the subject of a book and film called Into the Wild. Proclaiming his desire to throw off the shackles of modern society and live authentically, he struck off into the Alaskan hinterlands in spring 1992. There, he could commune with nature.

Unfortunately, nature showed no desire for communion. Without adequate training or supplies, McCandless was in over his head from the start. He managed to forage for some edible plants and was occasionally successful in hunting attempts, but even these were of limited use to someone who had no idea how to properly preserve the food he gathered. After three months, he tried to hike back to civilization but found the trail blocked by a swollen river. Defeated—and unaware of another viable crossing point less than 1.6 kilometers (1 mi) away—he returned to the bus and settled in to meet his fate.^[7]

When a hiker found McCandless, the man had been dead for approximately three weeks. His emaciated body weighed only 30 kilograms (66 lb). Stashed away amid his meager possessions was an undeveloped roll of film, from which the above image was recovered.

3 More Northern Serenity

Staying in Alaska, we fast-forward to 2003. Here, we see a happy couple perched on the pontoon of a seaplane, obviously ready to enjoy a wilderness adventure. They got more than they bargained for.

The man’s name is Timothy Treadwell, a zealous environmentalist. He had traveled to Katmai National Park with his girlfriend, Amie Huguenard, for a pet project: documenting grizzly bears. Treadwell held a strong affection for the beasts and felt them to be kindred spirits. It amounted to a more extreme version of Christopher McCandless’s desire to be one with nature—while McCandless was willing to hunt to survive, Treadwell expected to coexist peacefully with all the animals he encountered. Previous visits had convinced him that the bears would become used to his presence, see him as nonthreatening, and leave him alone.

He was tragically mistaken. On October 6, 2003—scant days after this picture was taken—Treadwell and Huguenard’s campsite was invaded by a hungry brown bear. First Treadwell, then his girlfriend were mauled by the remorseless attacker. They may have been still alive when the animal began devouring them.^[8]

This image is the last known picture of the couple. But it’s not the last record. Treadwell’s video camera was still running when the attack took place. Only audio was captured—a flurry of agonized cries and dying screams.

2 An Army’s Last Exercises

Here, we see quite an archaic throwback: cavalry. These horse soldiers look like they hail from the 19th century. However, this picture was taken in 1939. The men are Polish soldiers, and they unknowingly stand on the precipice of disaster.

As part of regular military exercises, all Polish servicemen would practice maneuvers and operations. The cavalry’s role was to act as scouts and skirmishers, fighting on foot when necessary. Many of the men here might have been nervous about rising tensions with Germany but felt confident that Britain and France, Poland’s allies, would swiftly send aid to counter any aggression.

They were sadly mistaken. The crushing blitzkrieg would strike within a few weeks, and the Western allies would not react in time to stop it. The Polish army would stand alone, fall alone, and then cease to exist. These cavalrymen would be swept away by a tide of tanks and mechanized infantry.^[9] In that way, they are emblematic of all the doomed forces of their country—dandelion ghosts staring down a hurricane.

1 Fleeting Goodwill

A handshake is the simplest means we have for signaling peace and friendship. Intended originally to show you weren’t holding a weapon, handshakes evolved into a minimum standard for mutual respect. Here, Archduke Franz Ferdinand warmly grasps the hand of one of his subjects. The date is June 28, 1914.^[10]

He could not know that, within hours, he and his wife would be dead by an assassin’s bullets. He could not know that their deaths would ignite festering tensions throughout Europe, eventually plunging the continent (and the world) into war. And there’s no way he could have known the effects of that war: the rise of fascism and Comumnism, another world war, widespread societal breakdown, cultural collapse, atomic standoffs, and terrific new tensions that are still rippling through history.

As The New York Times put it in 1915: “Those two shots brought the world to arms, and the war that followed has brought devastation upon three continents and profoundly affected two others, and the tocsin has sounded in the remotest islands of the sea.”

The reverberations of 1914 remain with us today. It is hard to know what might have happened had June 28, 1914, gone differently; perhaps some flashpoint was inevitable. But the world would surely have been better off if the handshakes had prevailed.

David F. Ellrod lives in Maryland with his wife, three daughters, and one very excitable dog. He can be reached on Twitter @DavidEllrod.

How would you choose to die if you could? Homer Simpson seemed to believe he would die either by “too much happiness”—sounds okay, right? He also predicted he may die in a “naked girl avalanche” (“Treehouse of Horror XV”—S16E01). Sound good, lads? When you think about it, probably not…

Such choices are beyond our control. Well, most of us. Who knows what Elon’s final plans are? We’ll mostly die from age-related illnesses, cancer, or unfortunate accidents on the road. But there are some ways of dying that are more elaborate, crueler, and, mercifully, rarer. It is these terrible ways of kicking the bucket that we discuss in this list—pray these fates never befall you. After you read, try some happy thoughts. We suggest thinking about a puppy. Not a rabid one, though.

Related: Top 10 Ways To Dispose Of Your Body After Death

10 Falling to Your Death at a Popular Beauty Spot

Or, for that matter, any unintentional fall from a great height, really. However, falling to your death from, say, a viewing station at the Grand Canyon might be slightly worse given the unexpected nature of your sudden plunge. Bungee jumping or skydiving accidents, as awful as they must be, have the individual already in a state of excitement, given the activity itself—the slight chance of death is part of the thrill. Smiling for a selfie or lining up your viewfinder to catch the perfect sunset doesn’t usually include the thought of a possible fall onto some jagged rocks hundreds of feet below.

The odds of dying at one of the USA’s most world-famous natural attractions is 1 in 400,000. But these types of probabilistic statements don’t mean that one person per 400,000 people who visit will die. It means “on average.” So if you try and take that perfect sunset selfie too close to an edge, slip, and take that last plunge, you will be that one in 400,000.

It’s behavior-driven, not a numerically bound phenomenon. Take one case recounted on mygrandcanyonpark.com: these cases of unexpected falls are tragic, “including a 38-year-old father from Texas pretending to fall to scare his daughter, who then really did fall 400 feet [122 meters] to his death” back in 2015. As the title of this list suggests—awful.^[1]

9 Radiation Poisoning

Given a quick scan of this listicle’s title and that of this entry, you may be forgiven for uttering a gloriously ’90s “Well, duh!” But are you fully aware of what acute radiation poisoning entails?

Hisashi Ouchi, a 35-year-old worker at a fuel enrichment plant near Tokai-mura, Japan, found out in 1999. After a critical event that prompted mass evacuations in the surrounding area, Ouchi was among several technicians that were treated for the effects of radiation burns and sickness. Ouchi spent 83 days in a Tokyo hospital with a white blood cell count so low that he effectively ceased to have an immune system. Despite this awful situation, the effects were initially hidden from observers at the hospital—one nurse noted that she believed he could go home on the day of his transfer, only showing what seemed like severe sunburn and some swelling. But with only 10% of the normal levels of white blood cells, every pathogen imaginable could now prey upon the helpless man.

And many did.

His skin began to crack and slough away. He began to secrete 3 liters (3 quarts) of diarrhea a day, began to bleed from his orifices, and needed to be heavily bandaged due to ever spreading, weeping, and bloody sores on his body. His eyelids fell off almost completely. He eventually died of multiple organ failure, despite the best efforts of the medical team and his family. They insisted on having him revived each time his heart stopped (which may have contributed to his eventual death).^[2]

8 Being the Victim of a Serial Killer

People often focus far too much on killers in our society—”true crime” is a massive area of interest. In and of itself, this isn’t a bad thing. This sort of focus can lead to greater scrutiny and knowledge, aiding in prevention and encouraging situational awareness. All too often, unfortunately, the victims get all but forgotten. Many documentarians, YouTubers, and journalists don’t fall into this trap, but plenty do—even to that point of a gross sort of anti-hero worship for sociopathic monsters develops.

Instead of seeing it from the killers’ perspective (deeds and patterns of behavior), consider the experience of the victims. The horror. The helplessness. The pain. There are plenty of examples to highlight here, but given the glory-seeking nature of many of these degenerate murderers, perhaps it’s better for you to do your own “research” in this instance. But keep it academic, less the lurid draw of these crimes become a bit too entertaining. And when you really think about it, does that not make this way of dying all the worse? If a person becomes the victim of a serial murderer today, will they not have thoughts of who would play them and, more bleakly, their killer in the movie? Zac Efron played Bundy…^[3]

7 Getting Attacked or Eaten by a Bear

We forget that humans were prey for most of our history. With all our inventions—guns, secure houses, barbed wire—around 200 people a year still die from some animal-related incidents in the U.S. alone. In India, around 300 people die each year just due to… elephant attacks. Remember, they also have tigers, snakes, and bears over there.

It is this last predator that should strike the most acute fear in us. Sure, other big toothy mammals still roam the Earth, but none tend to kill as cruelly as our Ursine cousins. Large felines, for instance, opt to quickly kill by means of crushing suffocation. Bears don’t care about “quick” or “painless.” They take their time.

Often, they’ll eat you alive.^[4]

6 Exposure

Exposure to the elements is no fun, as anyone who has forgotten an umbrella on a rainy day will attest to. The “exposure” found in official documents regarding missing persons, however, is more than an annoying inconvenience and the resulting sniffy nose.

“Death from/by exposure” may be a conclusion that leaves readers of news stories saddened but also with a sense of “well, there we go then.” The person died by being outside, “that’s why we remain terminally online in our mancaves/ladylounges.” The human body has an in-built will to survive. Unless one attempts suicide by refusing nutrition and hydration in the wilds, most lost (inexperienced/injured/unprepared) people will still strive to stay alive, prolonging their suffering and inevitable demise.

In cold or high-altitude environments, for instance, you’ll probably die from hypothermia. Uncontrollable shivering is followed by amnesia, confusion, and slurred speech. Then the fun really begins. You’ll stop shivering, hallucinate, and may engage in strange behaviors like paradoxical undressing and terminal burrowing—two strange symptoms that tend to hasten your frozen demise. Add in a dose of malnutrition and frostbitten limbs and digits, and you have a truly miserable end. In the desert, however, it’s a good deal slower. Dehydration will kill you quicker than in more temperate climates. Still, the pain from sunburn and the hastened organ failure, sunstroke causing puking, and general confusion guarantee your death will be awful.

In the deep woods, well, it can take months.

Take the case of Christopher McCandless. He died 113 (or so) days after trying to live closer to nature in the wilds of Alaska. He seems to have starved to death or slowly poisoned himself by eating the wrong berries. He recorded most of his experiences and thoughts in his journal. That’s a long, lonely death.^[5]

5 Contracting This Cruel Disease

One of the main fears that mankind holds (alongside snakes, spiders, the dark, death and heights) is that of “losing one’s mind.” Iris Murdoch, the great Anglo-Irish author and philosopher, once said, “At the moment I’m just falling, falling… just falling, as it were, I think of things, and then they go away.” Poignant and terrifying to consider. She had Alzheimer’s disease.

A similar cruel illness is frontotemporal dementia. Unlike other disorders that fall into the brackets of dementia, this illness that affects the brain’s frontal lobes tends to begin around two decades sooner than the other forms—from 45 onward (typically, other forms tend to begin aged 65 and above). The commonly known symptom (namely, memory loss) doesn’t occur until late in the condition’s cruel progress. Before this, erratic and profound behavioral changes, disordered and slurred speech, and general loss of mental acuity come first. Sufferers can get easily distracted, engage in risk-taking behavior, and undergo profound personality changes.

Then the memory begins to go.

The condition starts to look more like conventional dementias (like Alzheimer’s). This illness provides a bitter, horrid starter before an equally appalling main course.^[6]

For more info, check out the International Society for Frontotemporal Dementias.

4 Explosive Decompression

This is probably the least likely death the average Listversian will suffer from all the entries on this list. Unless our data analysis hasn’t picked up that over 50% of you work on oil rigs…

The effects of rapid decompression—the near-immediate change of pressure in the gasses and fluids inside your body—are painful enough on their own. Look out for hypoxia, burst lungs, trauma from objects flying around, and if at altitude, extreme frostbite and rapid onset of altitude sickness. But if you happen to work under an oil rig and the proper procedures are not followed in the diving bell, you may not live long enough to suffer these symptoms. During the Byford Dolphin diving bell accident in 1983, for instance, four divers died due to the effects mentioned above.

One did not.

Norwegian diver Truls Hellevik, 34, was bisected, his body fragmented. All the internal organs in his chest cavity (except his trachea and a section of the small intestine) were forcibly expelled as he was dragged through a 60-cm (24-inch) gap caused by a jammed door in “decompression chamber 1” by the extreme pressure change. Viscera was found 9 meters (30 feet) above the exterior pressure door.^[7]

3 Rabies

Animal attacks are bad enough—as discussed above—but the aftereffects if one manages to survive the initial onslaught can be just as bad. The effects of rabies are simply terrifying, both to witness and to suffer.

The mania and aggression, the frothing mouth, the painful and involuntary muscle spasms, the hallucinations, and the strange, violent aversion to water—hydrophobia—that leads to profound dehydration that worsens each of the other symptoms, are chilling to see in those unlucky enough to contract this illness. Luckily, good prophylactic treatments are available, driving worldwide deaths down quite a bit. But you must get treated before these serious symptoms manifest. If you don’t, rabies is fatal in almost every case.^[8]

2 Ingesting Water Hemlock

A walk in the woods can be a wonderful way to relieve stress. You’ll come across so much fun stuff to look at and interact with—babbling brooks, all manner of fascinating birds, ancient trees, and pretty flowers. You may also want to gather some wild mushrooms, berries, nuts, or edible leaves. How about making a quick lunch for yourself? Some pecans toasted on your campfire, spread over a bed of foraged wild garlic and dandelion leaves, drizzled with the juice of some wild raspberries, and sliced wild turnip sound good?

Yeah, you’re probably going to die in extreme pain… unless you know exactly what you’re looking for.

Water hemlock is very close in smell and form to wild turnip/carrot. It’s also one of the most poisonous plants found in both Europe and North America. It can cause death as quickly as 15 minutes if ingested. It can even kill you with prolonged contact with your skin, a death that includes excessive drooling, nausea and explosive vomiting, profuse sweating, dizziness, stabbing stomach pains, extreme lethargy, delirium, and uncontrollable bowel movements. Then, before you die, trouble breathing, convulsions, heart problems, kidney failure, and coma. So, only sniff flowers you recognize, people! Daisies and dandelions only…^[9]

1 Being Boiled

This doesn’t happen all that often anymore, thankfully. At least not as a specific punishment for nabbing your neighbor’s goat. It is true, however, that many cultures have historically indulged in dipping their naughty-doers into hot liquids.

People do, however, succumb to scalding and burns from industrial accidents. Take the tragic case of 25-year-old chef Issa Ismail from 2021. He was preparing a huge vat of chicken soup for a wedding he was catering in the Zakho district of Iraq. After sustaining third-degree burns to 70% of his body, he was rushed to the hospital, dying after five agonizing days.^[10]

At the end of the 1970s, merchandise from the Star Wars trilogy sent the toy market into a spin. Using characters from the movies, action figures took on a whole new money-making life of their own. Once large doll-like objects, primarily with military themes, these scaled-down characters were a fresh new take. This led to an action-figure frenzy.

From galactic warriors to hulking fantasy barbarians, it seemed like every month heralded the arrival of a new line. With movie and animation tie-ins, plastic maquettes flooded the shelves for the next decade. But, while some defined our childhood, not all were wanted and sat lingering in shops for some time.

Related: 10 Terrifying Toys From The Past

10 Teenage Mutant Turtles—Toon Burne

The array of Turtles figures released to capitalize on their initial success was huge. However, it followed a simple, rough formula. This included taking an anthropomorphic character, much like the Turtles themselves, and giving it some kind of gimmick. At one point, the consumer demand for new figures was so high new characters came that had not even been featured in the animated series. These included crazy concepts like a Shakespeare-loving lion and a firefighting dalmatian dog.

But none of these was as uninspired as Toon Burne. Part of a toon line that aimed itself at a younger audience, Burne was the boss of the Channel 6 news station that often-covered stories about the Turtles. A bedraggled, overweight, middle-aged man, it is quite unknown why someone assumed this would attract younger buyers. Just to make sure, they packaged him with an exciting array of items. Sandwich and typewriter, anyone?^[1]

9 WWF Space Domination—Marc Mero

There are several lines and individual figures that WWE, or its former company name WWF, could have on this list. From Bret the Hitman Hart dressed as a 1930s gangster to the hideous Maximum Sweat line (yes, action figures that sweat), some true abominations have existed in the name of sports entertainment. However, none has been as boring as Marc Mero in space.

As part of the Space Domination Stomp 3 line, some wrestlers may have sported space versions. The Legion of Doom, with their post-apocalypse armor, fit the model anyway. Even The Undertaker of the future is a cool idea. Yet quite why mid-carder Marc Mero got a figure is unfathomable.

Sporting an outfit comprised of old washing machine parts, it was one of the few action figures of the wrestler to ever exist. Oddly, his wife Sable also has a figure in the same line, with her in a bikini accompanied by very little else. Unsurprisingly, most children didn’t feel the need to send their favorite superstars into space, not least Marc Mero, and the line soon vanished.^[2]

8 G.I. Joe—The Fridge

One of the most interesting things about G.I. Joe figures was the many occupations they had. Included on the backing card, each would let you know who the character was, if they were good or bad, and their role or specialism. In the early days, this was exciting as you got jobs you would expect in the military. Yet as the line went on, these jobs became wackier and more out there. At some point, it was decided G.I. Joe needed a real-life celebrity to be their physical training instructor.

William “The Fridge” Perry played defensive tackle for the Chicago Bears. A huge man, he was the heaviest person to ever score a touchdown in a Superbowl and has the largest Superbowl ring size in history. He is also the second real-life person, after Sgt Slaughter, to get their own G.I Joe figure.

The figure was available as a Hasbro mail-away promotion in 1986, though the figures arrived in 1987. Complete with an American football on a chain, it remains to be seen how well he would fare on the battlefield against Cobra with this unique weapon.^[3]

7 Beach Spiderman

After saving the universe from Thanos and clearing the city of Kingpin’s criminal empire, even superheroes need to relax. That includes everyone’s favorite web-slinger, and while fans of Spidey may think relaxing on a rooftop with a pizza is his favorite way to chill, it is actually going to the beach. But only if you believe everything this figure tells you.

We are not sure why Spiderman wouldn’t just change to Peter Parker. Instead, he decides to wear a vest, keep his mask on and slip on some Spiderman board shorts. The figure also comes with lifeguard gear, such as a float and a handy beachball if the time comes when he wants to play volleyball with other heroes.

Part of the Adventure Hero line, it may not even be the weirdest figure. A colonial-era safari suit worn over his lycra is included with one toy, and an inline skater Spiderman is another. ^[4]

6 Masters of the Universe—Astro Lion

The Transformers are a hugely successful toy line that arrived in the eighties and was a piece of marketing genius. These toys had been licensed from existing plans for various Japanese transforming robots. Once a backstory and animation were in place, mass sales soon followed. A craze for transforming figures arrived, and you would soon find them all over.

Masters of the Universe was another popular toy line of the decade. Yet when its popularity wavered, it decided to also try this tactic. One of its new factions was The Meteorbs. Based on a series of Japanese transforming eggs known as Tamagoras, they looked extremely out of place with the bulky mass of He-Man and his companions.

Astro Lion arrived later in the line’s popularity and was an attempt to try something that would keep consumers interested. However, a scrawny lion that changed into an egg was not something fans were ready for, particularly in a line that already had the iconic and fearsome Battle Cat.

This oddity was not the only transforming figure the line would try either. Stonedar and Rokkon were in the franchise and were heroes who transformed into exciting rocks. If you think this is a boring concept, then a whole other line of toys by Tonka would try this with their “Rocklords.” ^[5]

5 Star Wars—Power Droid

Star Wars is well known to have dredged every extra and background character in the race for new action figure material. Despite not being the most exciting, most could at least interact with other figures and serve a purpose. Few of them had an existence as pointless as the power droid.

A walking battery, the toy looked nothing like it did in the movie. It had very little articulation and was essentially a box on legs. Most people knew them as gonk droids because of the familiar noise they made in the movie. This meant that when the figure was on sale, no one knew what it was at all. The only positive thing that can be said about it is that it was one of the few figures that could stand on its own feet.^[6]

4 Transformers—Beast Machines Silverbolt

The Transformers have great skill when it comes to making quite seemingly boring items cool. For example, one of its most iconic characters turns into a tape recorder. Yet occasionally, some mishaps have occurred in its long pedigree of excellent figures. One of them was the nerfing of Silverbolt.

Silverbolt was one of the Fuzors, a blend of two beast forms. In plain language, he was in the Beast Wars cartoon and was half wolf, half eagle, which made for a mean-looking toy. Coupled with his penchant for paladin-like verse, he was one of the standouts in the whole line. That was until the follow-up line Beast Machines when he would become what can only be described as a cartoon parrot.

In robot mode, Silverbolt looked bad. He had a small shapeless head, large paws, and a sword made from his translucent wings. Yet it was easy to see that this is why he was packaged in robot form, as his animal transformation was even worse. A vomit-colored cockatoo, his arms look like the last spicy wings in the bottom of the bucket.^[7]

3 Dune Sandworm

You can come to your own sordid conclusions about what the Dune Sandworm looks like. Before its modern update, Dune had an outing directed by David Lynch. With a huge budget, it was slated to be the next Star Wars but ended up as a commercial flop.

The original toy line was created by LJN, a company now retrospectively scoffed at for how bad some of their figures were. They had atrocious console games and were responsible for a line of wrestling figures with no articulation.

Yet this long, bendable sandworm has to take the crown. It is astounding how no one at the company vetoed it before its release. In the scheme of phallus-shaped toys, it comes in second only to the ET finger light…^[8]

2 Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves—Friar Tuck

One scheme crafty toy companies use to save money is to reuse the molds of previously released action figures. For example, He Man’s Battle Cat was originally a cast used with the Big Jim series of toys. Yet when it came to figures for the Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves movie, it seemed like manufacturers Kenner really couldn’t be bothered creating anything new at all.

Robin himself was recast from a Green Arrow figure used in the DC Superpowers line. Another entry was a treetop playset that was repurposed from an Ewok hideout. However, it was one of Star Wars’ most iconic figures, the Gamorrean Guard, who took the biggest insult.

All the company did was replace the head with that of a fat drunk and sell it as Friar Tuck. Not only was he one of the most uninteresting characters in the movie, but he also didn’t even get a new figure.^[9]

1 Indiana Jones—German Mechanic

Making figures for the Indiana Jones films seemed like an obvious choice. It was another George Lucas trilogy that was going to be a smash hit. Kenner, the makers of Star Wars, also had the license. What could go wrong?

The problem was that once children had Indy himself, the other characters were not that interesting after that. Where Star Wars had weird and wonderful aliens that fired the imagination, Indiana Jones just had people. Enter the German Mechanic.

This character appears in Raiders of the Lost Ark and engages in a fistfight with the main character. However, his clumsiness sees him get cut up by the propellor of a plane fairly quickly. And that is his narrative arc.

His figure is even more uninspiring. The ripped physique of the actor has turned into a flabby, balding middle-aged man who has taken his shirt off. How could it fail to prize pocket money from children?^[10]

When Grease reached theaters in 1978, it was an instant hit. The movie was an adaptation of a popular 1971 musical, but nobody expected the film to be a big hit. John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John captured the public’s hearts as leads Danny and Sandy. The supporting cast at Rydell High hit all the right buttons for moviegoers. Catchy songs and amazing costumes sealed the deal. Critics and fans alike loved the storyline.

Not long after its release, Grease became the highest-grossing musical film ever produced. By the end of 1978, its soundtrack was the second-best-selling album of the year. Even with the film’s success, it only garnered one Oscar nomination—the song “Hopelessly Devoted to You,” written specifically for the film.

Years later, the film still resonates. In 2002, the American Film Institute named Grease one of the 100 best love stories ever put on film. In 2020, the movie was picked for preservation by the National Film Registry at the Library of Congress. However, the movie’s cast hasn’t had such a smooth run after its release. So many tragedies have occurred around those who starred in the iconic film that it feels like the production was cursed. Here are ten tragic tales that happened to the stars of Grease in the years after its success changed their lives forever.

Related: Top 10 Actors Who Relived Their Worst Moments On Camera

10 John Travolta’s Terrible Losses

John Travolta enjoyed a great run in the 1970s. Saturday Night Fever and Grease made him a big star. Through the ’80s, Pulp Fiction and other films solidified his status as an A-lister. But off screen, Travolta struggled with two terrible family tragedies. In 1993, John and his wife, actress Kelly Preston, had their first child. A son that they named Jett—a sweet reference to John’s love of airplanes. Jett struggled with Kawasaki disease as a child. The disorder inflames the arteries and leaves sufferers at risk of asthma and seizures. For a long time, Jett overcame it. But in 2009, it all ended in the worst way. While the family was vacationing in the Bahamas, Jett had an unexpected seizure and hit his head on a bathtub. The fall led to his death at only 16 years old.

As bad as that tragedy was for Travolta, he suffered another horrible life-changing event a decade later. In 2018, Preston was diagnosed with breast cancer. The couple chose to keep her diagnosis a secret from the public as she worked with doctors to battle the disease. Sadly, less than two years later, it claimed her life prematurely too. In the summer of 2020, Travolta revealed on social media that Preston had succumbed to the disease. Sadly, the man made world-famous with iconic movie roles suffered two of the worst personal tragedies anyone can experience. Years before her death, Preston told a friend that she was going to marry Travolta one after seeing him on a movie poster for—ironically—Grease^[1]

9 Olivia Newton-John’s Valiant Fight

Olivia Newton-John enjoyed her status as a Hollywood “it” girl in the years after her starring role in Grease. Off screen, though, life threw her plenty of curveballs. For one, her father Brinley suddenly died of cancer in 1992. Weeks after he passed, Olivia herself was diagnosed with breast cancer. The timing was fortunate; she had been undergoing regular screenings, and doctors caught the cancer early. Days after her diagnosis, Olivia had surgery to remove the cancerous breast tissue. For years, it seemed like the surgery had been a success, and Olivia was destined to live long past cancer.

In 2013, though, the cancer returned with a vengeance. By 2017, it had metastasized. Olivia chose to keep her health burden private for years. Along the way, she underwent conventional cancer treatments to try to beat the disease again. She also used cannabis oil to manage her pain during particularly awful bouts. For five long years, she fought valiantly. Sadly, in August of 2022, she lost the battle and succumbed to the disease. Fans recalled her buoyant, bubbly personality on screen in Grease as Sandy, which made it all the more tragic to consider how hard she had to fight for her life for so many years.^[2]

8 Dinah Manoff’s Family Tragedy

Dinah Manoff earned herself loyal fans with a memorable portrayal of Marty Maraschino in Grease. She appeared in dozens of other television and movie roles throughout her long career, too, and even won a Tony Award for her theater work. But her life changed in 2017 when her son, Dashiell Mortell, died in a car accident. Dashiell had been set on following in Dinah’s footsteps into acting. He starred in theatrical productions through his high school years, including several under his mother’s direction. He even played a greaser at one point, earning rave reviews for his work in a school production of The Outsiders.

After high school, Dashiell enrolled at Washington State University. Once he got to campus, he began participating in theater productions there too. In 2017, he went home on a holiday break. Days later, he and four other students drove back to campus to prepare for the return of classes. The roads were icy from a recent snowstorm, and a prior wreck had snarled the highway. Mortell’s car collided with another vehicle that stopped suddenly amid the pile-up. A truck then collided with their car, pinning the young man. He perished in the accident. The tragedy changed the course of Manoff’s life. Heartbroken, she spent hours grieving with other families who had suffered a loss. She also poured her time into giving back by teaching acting and improv to women in prison.^[3]

7 Jeff Conaway’s Drug Downfall

Jeff Conaway was best known for playing Kenickie in the 1978 musical. He enjoyed other Hollywood successes, too, including a memorable role in Taxi. The fast life caught up with him, though. By the 2000s, he was struggling with addiction to cocaine, alcohol, and prescription pills. As his friends later explained, a back injury sustained on the set of Grease was what led to Conaway’s pain pill compulsion. Over the years, his pain worsened, and his addictions fell in line. Conaway’s habits became so bad that loved ones got him a spot on Celebrity Rehab with addiction expert Dr. Drew. Sadly, the TV appearance did little to stop the decline.

To Conaway’s credit, he battled his demons for years. The actor had multiple stints in rehab and underwent five back surgeries. He tried “so hard to get clean and sober,” his manager optimistically noted in 2011. But his back issues were so severe that he never could shake the opiate addiction that came with pain relief. In May 2011, Conaway was placed in a medically-induced coma amid a severe bout of pneumonia. Sepsis set in, likely compounded by his longtime opiate use. After 17 days in the intensive care unit, his family made the difficult decision to remove him from life support.^[4]

6 Didi Conn’s Parenting Challenge

Didi Conn played perhaps the most memorable supporting role in Grease. Her portrayal of Frenchy was perfect for the vintage feel of the film, and fans recalled her bubbly on-air persona for years after. In the 1990s, she adopted a baby boy named Danny. But soon after her life-changing foray into motherhood, challenges began. As a two-year-old, Danny started experiencing severe sensitivity to sound. Pediatricians chalked it up to a case of the “terrible twos,” but Conn didn’t buy it. Over the next few years, the sound sensitivity got worse. Eventually, a specialist determined Danny was on the autism spectrum.

That diagnosis came in 1994, years before autism was well understood by the general public. Because of that, Conn struggled to find medical experts who could help her son. Over the years, Didi and Danny both struggled through adversity while dealing with his sensory issues. Thankfully, as he grew, pediatricians and specialists found therapies that worked to manage his autism. Conn was so moved by the ordeal that she filmed a pilot for a television series about a child with autism. The show wasn’t picked up by networks, but she later released it as a short film.^[5]

5 Dennis Cleveland Stewart’s Sad Death

Dennis Cleveland Stewart was an “out” actor in New York City through the 1970s. That was a difficult time to be gay, though, and Stewart lived quietly. His acting career took off around that time too. His pock-marked cheeks earned him the nickname “Crater Face.” The memorable look brought him character actor fame. First, Stewart got moviegoers’ attention as a featured dancer in Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band in early 1978. Later that year, his star shone the brightest when he was cast as Leo Balmudo in Grease. Four years later, he took on the role once more in the musical film’s sequel. But as fast as his star rose, it waned. Stewart never found the same level of artistic success and played out a string of similar characters.

Off screen, the gay man tried to be cautious and discreet with his relationships. After a long time in New York, he moved to Los Angeles in 1993. The move west wouldn’t lead to a career resurrection; it was already too late for that. The naturally shy Stewart was seriously sick with HIV. He didn’t reveal his status to many people in his life, but close friends knew. Sadly, early in 1994, he succumbed to AIDS just a few months shy of his 47th birthday. His ashes were scattered at sea.^[6]

4 Annette Charles’s Cancer Battle

Annette Charles played the bad girl Cha-Cha DiGregorio in the iconic film. She enjoyed many successes in the theater world too. But as talented as she was on screen, film parts only came sporadically after Grease. Instead, Charles found her place in life teaching college students. The actress, also known as Annette Cardona, became a popular professor at California State University, Northridge. For years, she taught Chicano studies to eager college students in the Los Angeles area. Many of them weren’t aware of her acting background. Still, they adored her passion for academic work and responded to her desire to improve their lives. She was so successful as a professor that she transitioned beyond undergrads and worked with many Ph.D. candidates.

Sadly, in 2011, that all ended abruptly. Early that year, the beloved professor entered the hospital with what she thought was a bad case of pneumonia. Doctors ran tests and determined she had lung cancer. The disease progressed very rapidly from there. A month after she entered the hospital, Annette passed. She was 63 years old. In the aftermath, colleagues from the college mourned her sudden death. “I cannot imagine life without Annette,” said fellow CSUN professor Renee Moreno. “My life is forever changed in knowing her, and the world is a little less without her.”^[7]

3 Sid Caesar’s Long Period of Suffering

If there’s one Grease actor who was a star long before the film, it was Sid Caesar. The renowned comic actor had been a TV mainstay on Your Show Of Shows and other productions for years. But by the time Grease hit theaters, his star had begun to wane. It wasn’t so much his on-air opportunities that faltered but Caesar’s lifestyle away from cameras. In 1980, he gave a chilling interview describing himself as emotionally broken. Surrounded by hangers-on and people trying to leech away his entertainment earnings, Caesar was depressed, miserable, and in poor health. In fact, in the same year Grease was released, the comic infamously collapsed in the middle of a stand-up performance. For the star, that period right around the surge of Grease proved to be the lowest of his many lows.

After the on-stage scare, Caesar became determined once and for all to shed his addictions to alcohol and prescription pills. He cut out the drugs and jettisoned unscrupulous doctors and members of his entourage. By 1982, he was clean and released his autobiography Where Have I Been. He carried on for three decades after that, finally becoming healthy and happy. When he died in 2014 following a short illness, he was deservedly hailed as a comic legend.^[8]

2 Eddie Deezen’s Disturbing Decline

Eddie Deezen may not have had a big part in Grease, but he was memorable all the same. The character actor played the ever-nerdy Eugene Felsnic in the film. Complete with a quirky get-up, big glasses, and a bowtie, he perfectly sold the part of the high school’s nerd. Away from the cameras, though, Deezen has long struggled with mental health issues and legal troubles. In 2021, the actor caught the attention of cops in Maryland after he was arrested at a restaurant. Cops were called to deal with his disturbance, and when they arrived, he reportedly threw plates at the officers before being detained.

Sadly, Deezen was back in the news in April 2022. Cops in Cumberland, Maryland, claimed he pushed his way into a nursing facility in the city. Once there, he tried to force his way into one of the residents’ private rooms. When staffers stopped him, Deezen refused to leave. When police were called out, they recognized the actor from previous run-ins. He had apparently entered the facility multiple times in the months before. This time, he was arrested for trespassing and burglary. Deezen’s problems deepened in August when a judge ruled he was mentally incompetent to face trial on those charges.^[9]

1 Alice Ghostley’s Lonely Death

Alice Ghostley wasn’t meant to be a star. The small-town girl dropped out of the University of Oklahoma as a young woman. She claims she didn’t look the part of an actor, either. “My nose was too long, I had crooked teeth, I wasn’t blond,” she once told a newspaper reporter about how limiting her looks had been in entertainment. “But I also knew I’d find a way.” And find a way she did. Ghostley became an exceptional character actor. She won a Tony Award for her theater work and enjoyed TV turns on Bewitched and Designing Women. When she appeared in Grease, popping up in that iconic film as Mrs. Murdock, the auto shop teacher, it was icing on the proverbial cake.

For 52 years, she was married to fellow character actor Felice Orlandi. The pair had a wonderful life together, by all accounts. It ended sadly in 2003 when Orlandi died, though. Ghostley was alone for the first time in five decades. Sadly, she was also going through an awful experience with her health. In her waning days, the actor suffered a series of increasingly-severe strokes. She was also diagnosed with colon cancer. All alone and unwell from the ailments, Ghostley passed on in 2007.^[10]

We envision the history of our cities to be a step-by-step sequence of accomplishments, from small settlements to towns to the sprawling metropolises we see today. The darker parts are remembered as merely interludes – ‘dark ages’ – in the grand story, when in reality those dark ages have had a much larger impact on the course of our history than most periods of peace and prosperity.

10. Delhi

Timur, or Tamerlane, was one of the more successful Turko-Mongol rulers that swept across Asia in the aftermath of the Mongol conquests. At its extent in the 15th century, the Timurid empire stretched from Russia to the southern coast of Iran. The Timurid Renaissance – a golden age of arts, culture and science across the empire – would have a lasting impact on the region for centuries to come.

Timur was also, to change the subject a bit, extremely brutal and fanatical in his conquests, and that’s saying something for a Mongol ruler. One of Timur’s most brutal campaigns was staged against the Delhi Sultanate in 1398, ruled by the Tughluq dynasty from their capital at New Delhi. The Tughluqs were, according to Timur, too soft on their non-Muslim subjects, making them a fitting target for brutal conquest and enslavement.

The Battle of Delhi was short-lived and hardly noteworthy, as Timur’s forces soundly defeated Tughluq defenses and proceeded to sack the city. For weeks, up to 100,000 citizens were put to the sword, along with widespread looting, arson, rape and systematic destruction of Delhi Sultanate infrastructure. 

9. Herculaneum

The eruption of Mt. Vesuvius in 79 AD has come to be associated with the city of Pompeii, as its preserved artifacts and bodies give us a visual sense of the tragedy. Most of the victims died due to the thermal shock caused by the burning hot debris and lava, though the temperature wasn’t high enough to burn them. While we wouldn’t call them ‘lucky’ by any definition of the word, they certainly got off light compared to the folks over at Herculaneum.

A Roman town settled at the base of the mountain, Herculaneum was a prosperous trading center at the time, though all that (obviously) changed on the day of the eruption. The remains here are much harder to dig up, as they’re covered in about five times the amount of ash as Pompeii. There are no well-preserved bodies, either. Only bones.

One recent study on the bones suggests that the victims died due to volcanic heat, as many of the bones have signs of fracture caused by severe heat. More disturbingly, they also found fragments of skulls. Unlike the people of Pompeii, citizens of Herculaneum were hit by a much more severe burst of heat, which made their blood boil to the point that their heads exploded. 

8. Constantinople

The Plague of Justinian – named after the Byzantine emperor Justinian I, for some reason – was the first documented outbreak of the bubonic plague caused by the bacterium Yersinia pestis. It was the same disease that would return to decimate the European population in the 14th century, also known as the Black Death. It was almost as deadly, too, killing about one-third of the affected population within a few months of the outbreak. 

Constantinople – now Istanbul – was the worst affected city. At its peak, the plague was claiming more than 10,000 lives per day, which was comparable to numbers recorded during the worst phases of the Black Death. The few records we have from that time describe a scene of utter horror and destruction, with scores of bodies just lying unclaimed throughout the city’s streets for months on end. 

At one point, city officials were just throwing the bodies – which were often fully covered in infectious blood and pus and had to be tied to keep all that from disintegrating – into the sea, as the cemeteries and other burial grounds were filled to the brim. 

7. Tokyo

The firebombing raids carried out across major Japanese cities at the end of WW2 are rarely, if ever, remembered in the same vein as the atomic bombs of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The latter still provokes questions about the morality of deliberately using weapons of mass devastation against a civilian population, while the former is usually only mentioned in passing as wartime collateral damage.

Yet, the raids were as devastating and horrific as the atomic bombs – if not more so – both in scale and their intended aims: to create terror among the civilian population to force their military to surrender. The only difference was the speed of the massacre – as the atom bombs were almost instant in their execution – though that difference hardly matters to someone burning to death in the streets.

The casualty figures for the entire campaign were as high as about 387,000 civilians, out of which about 97,000 died in a matter of a six-hour period on the night of March 9, 1945. The Great Tokyo Air Raid, as it’d come to be known in the post-war period, leveled everything in a 16 square mile region of the city. Most of its structures were made up of wood and paper, intentionally chosen to inflict maximum damage to the citizenry.

A total of 1,665 tons of incendiary bombs were dropped on Tokyo that night, erupting in huge, violent walls of firestorms that trapped and burned people alive inside. People died from all sorts of reasons, too – severe burns, getting trampled under stampeding crowds, carbon monoxide asphyxiation, and even being boiled alive, as some people had taken refuge in swimming pools and other bodies of water. American pilots flying overhead reported a strong stench of burning flesh whenever they opened the hatch, along with high turbulence caused by winds generated by the firestorm. Many of the survivors that were found only managed to survive by being buried under huge piles of burning bodies, which would have been the only effective shelter against the flames at the time. 

6. Leningrad

The siege of Leningrad – now St.Petersburg – by German and Finnish forces in September 1941 was the longest siege of the war, lasting for a total of 872 days. As the previous capital of Russia, the site of the Bolshevik revolution, and the home base for the dreaded Baltic Sea fleet, the city held strategic and ideological importance for both Germany and Russia. While it was lifted by the ending stages of the war, those 872 days were perhaps one of the worst 872 days experienced by any civilian population in history.

Accurate figures are hard to come by, though even by the most conservative estimates, more than 800,000 Russians lost their lives during the siege. Extreme hunger and lack of supplies were the primary causes – it wasn’t uncommon for people to boil household items like upholstery, wood, paint off the walls or anything they could find to make a meal. Cannibalism was shockingly common, too; more than 2,000 people were arrested for eating or attempting to eat human flesh in just the first half of 1942. 

5. Jerusalem

Romans were known for their ruthlessness on the battlefield, though their most brutal campaigns were reserved for rebelling populations. The Jewish citizens of Jerusalem had the misfortune of finding that out firsthand in 70 AD – four years after the Jerusalem riots of 66 AD that overthrew the Romans and installed a revolutionary government.

The Roman response to the rebellion also happens to be one of the darkest chapters in the history of Jerusalem. Led by Titus, the city was put under an unrelenting siege for over four months, as thousands of its citizens gradually lost their lives to famine, disease, and even cannibalism. One particularly harrowing account speaks of a woman in the streets killing and roasting her own child for a meal. When the siege was lifted, the city’s citizens were murdered or sold into slavery once the soldiers got tired of killing. 

4. Sarajevo

The Bosnian War was one of the many conflicts that erupted in the wake of the dissolution of Yugoslavia. It was marked by systematic ethnic cleansing, mass rape and a degree of brutality not seen in European warfare since WW2. Tensions from WW2 also played a prominent role, as Yugoslavia saw some of the worst violence of the war in the European theater.

One of its worst episodes was the siege of Sarajevo – the capital of the newly formed republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina – by nationalist Bosnian Serb forces in April 1992. While the war was multi-faceted and rather difficult to wrap your head around without a keen study of the region’s long history, the siege itself was quite easy to understand. 

For more than three years, Serb forces – stationed in the picturesque hills surrounding the city – bombarded the city’s population with sniper rifles, artillery shells and air strikes. Their aim was to force the Bosnian government – primarily made up of Bosniak, Croat and Serb officials – to surrender and make way for a Greater Serbian empire. 

Throughout that time, the civilians were indiscriminately bombed or shot from a distance, making everyday chores like going to the market a terrifying, life-threatening affair. By the end of it in February, 1996, the siege had claimed the lives of more than 5,000 civilians, making it the longest, deadliest siege of any city in the modern era of warfare. 

3. Warsaw

When Nazi forces invaded the Polish capital of Warsaw in October 1939, Heinrich Himmler’s orders to his officers were devilishly simple – raze it to the ground and convert it to a transport hub for the Wehrmacht, or ‘no stone to remain standing’. During the course of the next five years or so – before it was finally liberated by Soviet soldiers in January 1945 – those orders were put into effect with the sort of efficiency you only associate with Germans. 

The first Red Army soldiers into the city described a scene of complete and absolute destruction. Buildings had been systematically leveled to ensure that they can’t be repaired or built upon, and that was repeated with every structure – no matter how large or small – down to the brick. It was perhaps the only city in the war that was completely destroyed – it won’t be a stretch to say that pre-WW2 Warsaw ceased to exist during the occupation. The war – or more specifically the Nazis – turned Warsaw from a multiethnic, cosmopolitan capital to a war-torn wasteland that would take decades to completely rebuilt. 

2. Baghdad

The Baghdad of 1258, by all accounts, was a city without parallel in the known world. Easily the largest and most prosperous city in the world at the time, it was the epicenter of the Golden Age of Islam – a nearly five-century-long period of renaissance in fields like medicine, military technology, philosophy, culture, and art, among others. House of Wisdom – the city’s central library – was said to be the largest repository of knowledge ever put together in one place by that time, including knowledge that was once thought to be lost after the fall of ancient civilizations like China, India and Rome. 

Unfortunately, 1258 was also the year Hulagu Khan – a feared-yet-brilliant Mongol commander – decided that he wanted to conquer the Levant, and amassed perhaps the largest Mongol army ever put together to conquer Baghdad. This proved to be rather unnecessary, however, as the siege lasted for barely 12 days. 

For about a week after the conquest, Mongol soldiers raped, murdered and pillaged across Baghdad, reducing its world-class infrastructure to unrecognizable rubble. This was the fate of most Mongol adversaries that didn’t surrender and chose to fight. The Caliph himself was rolled inside a carpet and trampled to death, bringing a brutal and sudden end to the golden Islamic age, as well as the Abbasid dynasty.

By the end of it, the House of Wisdom – like most other buildings in the city – was utterly destroyed, with all of its books burned or thrown into the river Tigris. The destruction was so complete that it would be centuries before the city was even rebuilt, let alone completely restored to its former glory. 

1. Nanking

The invasion of China by Japanese forces in 1937 didn’t come as a surprise, as they had already invaded Manchuria – or northeastern China – and installed a puppet government there back in 1931. What was surprising, however, was the sheer degree of brutality and violence Chinese civilians were subjected to throughout the length of the occupation.

The Rape of Nanking – as its worst episode would come to be known – started in December, 1937, and claimed the lives of over 300,000 civilians over the next six weeks. The victims were often bayoneted to death in various ways, though beheading, disemboweling, impaling and cutting into pieces using swords was quite common, too. Rape of women of all ages was particularly widespread, and the victims were often mutilated and violently killed in the aftermath. 

Over the course of the massacre, people were buried alive, ran over by tanks, nailed to walls or burned to death. Two Japanese soldiers were even competing for the total number of people they could behead with their swords, as their exploits were regularly recorded by a photographer and published in newspapers back in Japan.