Death – Listorati https://listorati.com Fascinating facts and lists, bizarre, wonderful, and fun Sat, 28 Dec 2024 03:07:16 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.7.1 https://listorati.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/listorati-512x512-1.png Death – Listorati https://listorati.com 32 32 215494684 10 Creepy Things Bodies Can Do After Death https://listorati.com/10-creepy-things-bodies-can-do-after-death/ https://listorati.com/10-creepy-things-bodies-can-do-after-death/#respond Sat, 28 Dec 2024 03:07:16 +0000 https://listorati.com/10-creepy-things-bodies-can-do-after-death/

The period soon after death can seem like a strange thing. During this time, the body undergoes various changes, shifting from living to being completely dead. While some of these changes—such as stiffening and changing color—are seen on crime TV shows, others seem a bit far-fetched for even the human body.

SEE ALSO: Top 10 Ways To Dispose Of Your Body After Death

Still, the things corpses can do are shocking and a bit creepy. From giving birth to an awareness that it’s dead, the changes that occur in the body after death seem almost too unrealistic to be true. The following list is not for the faint of heart—or stomach.

10 Move


Stories of dead bodies sitting straight up have been told for many years—yet the probability of such drastic movement occurring is slim to none. The body can, however, make slight movements after death. Though the movements do not resemble ones that a person would do while alive, they can still be startling for those around them.

Cadavers can do such things as twitch, move, and even clench muscles. This occurs because the body’s muscles are still receiving nerve signals to contract or even relax, causing the corpse to appear as if it is moving despite being dead.[1] Once the adenosine triphosphate (ATP) is depleted, the body will make its final movements, which can be seen in fingers clenching, hands moving, toes wiggling, and muscles twitching. Another factor in strange movements is how the person died. If there is excess calcium, a temperature change, or, in some cases, violent death or even electrocution, the body can demonstrate such movements.

This process normally occurs between the time of death and rigor mortis, so if anyone tells you they’ve seen a body sit up, they’re probably just trying to get a rise out of you.

9 Give Birth


Unfortunately, death does not have a moral compass, and anyone, even those who are pregnant, can fall victim to its embrace.

Giving birth while alive is a beautiful experience; giving birth after one has died is the complete opposite, especially for those dealing with the dead body. These “births” are referred to as “coffin births” due to them happening inside coffins. Basically, the pressure of gases building up within the deceased pushes the fetus out. The fetus has to be positioned in just the right (or wrong) way for this to occur.[2]

Even though most of these cases of coffin birth occurred during times without the benefits of modern medicine, they still happen to this day. In January 2018, a woman in South Africa, who had died suddenly ten days prior, shocked people at the funeral home when they saw that she had given birth inside her coffin. The woman had been nine months pregnant at the time of her death, and all arrangements for her funeral had been made when the staff made the spine-chilling discovery that her body had expelled the fetus after death.

8 Eliminate


During the process of death, the body goes through various changes. One of these is the relaxation of every muscle, including those which control certain bodily functions, such as the elimination of urine and feces.

Postmortem elimination is due to the sphincter muscles in the body relaxing. As the brain dies, it no longer sends the signals to keep these muscles contracted, and the contents left in the bowels and bladder will end up being released. [3]

These bodily functions do not always happen after death; it depends on how you die and how much food and liquid are in your bladder and bowels before death. In the case of ill patients, there may not be as much food in their system due to the lack of appetite that can accompany illness. However, in cases of sudden death, bodies are more likely to release whatever was left in their system.

The process can take a few hours, though, so it’s best to let nature take its course on this one.

7 Make Noise


Most depictions of dead bodies moaning and groaning focus on zombies rather than the actual dead. However, while corpses aren’t likely to scream or yell, they are likely to make noises such as moans, groans, hisses, and grunts.[4]

These bodies aren’t making this noise voluntarily, of course. When cadavers are moved after death, the air still left inside the windpipe will escape and vibrate the vocal cords, making noises similar to grunts and moans. These sounds have spurred the horror stories of dead bodies making noise, though the reality is less horrifying. The sounds can often happen when coroners or morticians are prepping or turning the body over; the air will escape, causing what appears similar to human sounds but are just the simple result of the rest of the lungs’ contents leaving.

Another way these noises can occur is when the gases in the body begin to build up. They can escape through the windpipe, causing squeaks, hisses, and sometimes lower groaning.

6 Illusions Of Growth


Even though someone has been ruled dead, it may take time for the body to fully cease functioning. Once the brain shuts down, the body follows, but some have claimed that though the body is no longer alive, the hair and nails continue to grow.

As horrifying as that sounds, the truth is that the hair and nails only appear to have grown. When a body dies, it no longer has a supply of oxygen, making it impossible for glucose, which stimulates nail and hair growth, to be produced. What actually occurs is that the skin around the nails and hair begins to retract due to dehydration, making it appear that the nails and hair have grown longer, when in reality, they’re the same as they were before death. This also applies to men with stubble and hair on their chest; as the skin shrinks, the hair looks more prominent, making it seem as if the body has developed more stubble after death.

Goosebumps after death due to contractions of the muscles in the skin can also impact how hair can appear.[5] In some circumstances, it will give the effect that the hair has grown longer, but once the contractions end, the hair will return back to its normal state.

Those of you with hair, such as men with beards, shouldn’t worry. Funeral staff will moisturize bodies to decrease the look of dry skin.

5 Self-Digestion

After death, the body begins to decompose. It goes through a process in which it begins to digest itself—yes, essentially feeding on itself to aid in decomposition—through a process called autolysis. We still know very little about human decay, but the growth of forensic research facilities, or “body farms,” together with the availability and ever-decreasing cost of techniques such as DNA sequencing, now enables researchers to study the process in ways that were not possible just a few years ago.

Soon after the heart stops beating, cells become deprived of oxygen, and their acidity increases as the toxic by-products of chemical reactions begin to accumulate inside them. Enzymes start to digest cell membranes and then leak out as the cells break down. This usually starts in the liver, which is enriched in enzymes, and in the brain, which has high water content; eventually, though, all other tissues and organs begin to break down in this way. Damaged blood cells spill out of broken vessels and, aided by gravity, settle in the capillaries and small veins, discoloring the skin.

This is when the bacteria in our bodies come into play. Our bodies host huge numbers of bacteria, with by far, most residing in the gut, which is home to trillions of bacteria of hundreds or perhaps thousands of different species. Most internal organs are devoid of these microbes when we are alive. Soon after death, however, the immune system stops working, leaving them to spread throughout the body freely. This usually begins in the gut, at the junction between the small and large intestines. Left unchecked, our gut bacteria begin to digest the intestines and then the surrounding tissues from the inside out, using the chemical cocktail that leaks out of damaged cells as a food source.[6]

4 Explode


Tall tales have been told of bodies exploding from the inside out. Though this may seem a bit far-fetched, it isn’t too far from the truth—in a way.

Spontaneous human combustion has been an explanation for many of these tales, but the reality is a bit different. When a body dies, its temperature usually drops. In some cases, the temperature actually increases, which is referred to as “postmortem hyperthermia.” This continuous increase in temperature can be caused by different things, from drugs to trauma to even signals in the brain before death. The body can continue to grow hotter, but the likelihood of actual combustion is low, as the temperature will begin to drop back down as the corpse goes into the regular stages of decomposition.

Still, there have been cases of bodies exploding—although spontaneous human combustion isn’t responsible. What happens is that, as a body begins to break down after death, the gases inside (the same ones that can cause moaning and groaning) have to escape. The gases’ continuous buildup can lead to an “explosion” of bodily remains.

This rarely happens. In January 2013, however, a corpse did explode in a mausoleum in Melbourne.[7] Those visiting the mausoleum bore witness to the event—and the smell. The experience was enough to traumatize witnesses and ensure that better precautions were taken to avoid another such incident.

3 Appear Aroused


Responding to certain stimuli when alive is natural and occurs even in the most inopportune of times. While it can be embarrassing if the moment isn’t right, it’s nothing near as creepy as a dead man getting an erection.

Once the heart stops beating, all of the blood that was previously circulating begins to trickle down and collect at the lowest part of the body available. In some cases, depending on how the man died, such as those who have suffered a spinal injury or passed facedown, this can be in the genital area. The continuous pooling of blood is only natural, as is the reaction it causes in the dead man’s penis, referred to as priapism.[8]

While this is uncommonly seen now, it can also happen with women. When a woman dies similarly, her labia can become enlarged, and her clitoris can swell.

2 Orgasm


Even though this sounds a lot like necrophilia, it thankfully isn’t. In corpses that no longer have oxygen pumping through them, this is unlikely ever to happen, but for those that are clinically dead but being used as beating-heart cadavers or as organ donors, the possibility of the body having an orgasm is there.

This isn’t done on purpose. Doctors who work with these bodies sometimes have to trigger parts of the spine electrically. In some cases, when the sacral nerve root in the base of one’s spine is stimulated, it causes a reflexive reaction by the autonomic nervous system. Again, this only works because the bodies are still receiving oxygen, despite being clinically dead. When the doctors trigger this part of the spine, the reflex it causes in the system can result in an orgasm.

However, because the body is clinically dead, no actual enjoyment or pleasure comes from this experience. The brain is no longer sending out signals, and while the body may react, it’s only doing so out of pure reflex.[9]

1 Know They’re Dead


There are countless stories of those who have come back from near-death experiences and have given their interpretation of what they believe the afterlife is like. While many are left to wonder what happens after we die, scientists may have at least part of an answer.

Scientists have found that after death, the brain can retain some semblance of awareness. This means that after one has passed, they might actually be aware they’re dead. In a study of 2,060 cardiac arrest survivors who had been declared legally dead, meaning that they no longer had identifiable brain function, around 40 percent claimed they were still aware of their surroundings and conversations going on around them.[10]

The period doesn’t seem to last long, research has found. As death is a process, the time between oxygen leaving the system and the brain sending its last signals can leave room for awareness. Scientists believe that there is an average time of 10–20 seconds of awareness after death. A severed head, for example, still produces EEG waves even after death, though a portion of these seconds have lead scientists to believe the brain enters a stage of unconsciousness.

Still, the idea that a body may be aware that it’s dead is nothing short of unsettling.

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10 Answers To Strange Questions About Life And Death https://listorati.com/10-answers-to-strange-questions-about-life-and-death/ https://listorati.com/10-answers-to-strange-questions-about-life-and-death/#respond Sat, 14 Dec 2024 03:05:26 +0000 https://listorati.com/10-answers-to-strange-questions-about-life-and-death/

Whether we refer to the act of living or to all sentient beings in this world, life has always been a difficult concept for humans to understand. Even when life has preceded us on this planet for 3.5 billion years—and we ourselves have roamed Earth for plenty of millennia—there are many questions about it that we still cannot answer. What is the meaning of life? Is there life after death? These, among many others, are typical questions of any philosophical debate, questions as old as humankind itself.[1]

But then we have strange questions, unconventional doubts about life that do not usually come to our minds on a normal day. Have you ever wondered what Earth would be like if it were devoid of all life? Then this article is for you. If not, keep reading anyway; some of the answers, or the questions themselves, exposed here will certainly not leave you indifferent.

10 How Much Life Has Ever Existed?


Currently, the human population is slowly approaching eight billion people. That is certainly quite a number, but it does not even compare with the 100 trillion ants under our feet. And it is estimated that, at any given time, there are five nonillion bacteria in the world—that’s a “5” followed by 30 zeros. There is no doubt that there are so many living organisms on Earth that trying to count them all would be an unachievable task. And again, all this is just about the currently existing life-forms. But what about all the life that has existed in the past?

Determining how many creatures could have inhabited Earth throughout the history of the planet is extremely difficult. It is believed that complex life has been around in this world for at least 570 million years. And the fossils we have managed to recover are a minimum percentage compared to the prehistoric remains that are either out of our reach or have been destroyed by geological processes. But using their ingenuity, scientists have come up with a correlation between the number of fossils and the currently known species to estimate the total of life that has ever existed. Today, the experts are pretty convinced that 99.9 percent of all species on Earth are extinct.

This number is understandable, considering that the Earth’s biosphere has suffered five mass extinctions during the last 400 million years. On average, more than 80 percent of all living beings were erased from the face of the Earth in each of these five events. And a significant part of the scientific community believes that today, we are facing a sixth mass extinction. Estimates say that species disappear 100 times faster today than before our existence, and in the last 50 years, humans have eliminated 60 percent of animal life. So, unfortunately for us, death is much more common than life in this world.[2]

9 Is Life On Earth Of Alien Origin?


Today, most scientists are sure that all life on Earth comes from a common ancestor. This primal being would have been nothing more than a unicellular organism, created by random chemical reactions in the early Earth. However, what scientists do not yet understand is exactly how these processes took place. And all their attempts to replicate the origin of life have failed so far. Perhaps the answer to this mystery could be found in a theory called lithopanspermia.

The theory of panspermia suggests that early life-forms were brought to Earth from somewhere else in the universe, such as nearby planets. Within the same idea, lithopanspermia states that rocky fragments of another world containing microbial life were ejected into space after some kind of planetary impact. Millions of years later, those rocks reached Earth, and the life they carried inside began its evolutionary cycle here. The concept behind panspermia appeared several centuries ago in France, and since then, it has been an object of scientific study, although other theories generate more interest nowadays.

Nevertheless, there are several indications supporting the possibility that lithopanspermia really occurred. Using collision simulations, researchers at Pennsylvania State University have concluded that it is statistically possible that a space rock containing microbes can travel from one planet to another by ejection.[3] Of course, there is the problem that space is too hostile to allow the survival of life, due to factors such as radiation and extreme temperatures. But we know that there are multiple bacterial species capable of resisting the harshest environments, from the hottest places on Earth to the nothingness of outer space.

In addition, a recent study shows that the main elements that make up life on Earth are common in stars, existing more abundantly toward the center of our galaxy than in our planetary region. In short, the matter we are formed from literally comes from another region of the universe. So life may not be so special across the cosmos after all.

8 Is It Possible To Be Dead And Alive At The Same Time?


The answer to this question has nothing to do with some kind of quantum theory, where someone can be in two states at the same time. Nor does it refer to whether we can be like zombies, the classic description of the “living dead.” We can say that, yes, some creatures seem to be alive and dead at the same time. But everything has to do with the inability of scientists to agree on what exactly differentiates a living being from dead matter.

Some scientists understood that all life-forms must share immutable similarities in their nature and behavior. So in 1997, they proposed a list of seven conditions that something must meet to be considered a living being. Every living organism must have a complex chemical composition and be made up of basic structures called cells. It must be able to grow, reproduce, and respond to external stimuli. The creature must also have a metabolism to produce its own energy and be able to adapt to the environment.

Now let’s consider the case of viruses. Generally, and even from the scientific point of view, viruses are considered to be biological entities—that is, they are living beings. A virus has complex genetic material inside and definitely adapts to the environment. But a virus cannot grow or produce its own energy. (It feeds on the energy already produced by its host.) It also does not reproduce but replicates itself using the cells of the host. In fact, a virus is not even made of a single cell, and it remains to be seen if it responds immediately to external stimuli.[4] So we know that a virus is alive, but it does not meet most of the requirements to be alive, sharing more similarities with a machine instead.

It happens that many inert objects partially fulfill several of those conditions, too. Even fire could once have become a tricky phenomenon when it came to differentiating it from a true living being. As our knowledge of the elemental processes of life increases, we will be able to make the difference clearer.

7 How Much Does All Life Weigh?


Compared to the rest of our solar system, anyone who sees the Earth from space can quickly notice that it is a planet covered in life. More than 30 percent of the continents of our world are covered by green vegetation. This, along with the blue of the oceans, makes Earth look like a living oasis in the midst of emptiness. But then one might wonder what the real, physical weight that life exerts on our planet is. For obvious reasons, until recently, it was very difficult to estimate the total mass of life on Earth. But studies conducted in 2018 show that even all living creatures put together are negligibly small in comparison to the vastness of our world.

In May 2018, American scientists published a report containing measurements of the mass of all carbon-based life on Earth.[5] Since all known life-forms are carbon-based, and carbon is an abundant element inside every living being, using it to estimate the total biomass seems appropriate. The results showed that in total, life on this planet weighs at least 550 gigatons of carbon, or, to simplify, 550 billion tons. Considering that the whole Earth weighs approximately 6.57 billion gigatons, that means that all living beings combined account for about one ten-millionth of the total mass of the planet.

As we can see, living nature is just a tiny portion of everything that makes our world. In this estimate, plant life represents more than 80 percent of the total biomass. Meanwhile, humans only represent 0.01 percent among all life. This is surprising, considering that our cities and buildings cover at least three percent of the Earth’s land surface, a huge proportion compared to the effect of other species. That means that although we are few, we are good at what we do, whether it’s something good or bad.

6 Is The Universe Itself Alive?


There are several philosophical theories that point out that the universe is in itself a living entity. For example, hylozoism holds that all matter is alive, while panpsychism is the idea that every object in the cosmos has a certain degree of consciousness. Over time, these theories were left aside, after the acceptance of new concepts such as evolutionism. But now, new discoveries and theories have allowed the idea of a sentient universe to gather strength again.

First, we have the case of some experts who have hypothesized about how consciousness could be an intrinsic part of any existing structure.[6] British physicist Roger Penrose theorized that human consciousness is the product of quantum processes within small regions of our brain cells. Taking this into account, astrophysicist Bernard Haisch conceived the possibility that “quantum fields”—the elementary structures that make up the universe—are capable of producing consciousness. In other words, any structure in the universe (be it a person or a star) can be sentient, since quantum properties are part of its own nature.

On the other hand, both its very structure and behavior serve as possible evidence that the cosmos really is a thinking entity. According to a 2005 study, the intricate structure of the material universe looks strikingly similar to the neural network in our brains. In addition, it has been known for a long time that the structure of an atom is similar—even in proportional distances—to the planetary arrangement of our solar system. And as if that were not enough, new studies show that certain stars make unexpected corrections in their orbits across the galaxy. More information will be needed to confirm if the latter behavior is common in the rest of the universe, but the idea of a living cosmos is captivating science now more than ever.

5 Is It The Same To Die As To Stop Living?


The short answer is no, it is not the same. Here comes the long answer: The concept of death has constantly changed over the centuries, becoming more accurate as our knowledge and technologies advance. For example, in the 19th century, a person was pronounced dead after simply ceasing to breathe. A hundred years ago, someone was officially dead once their heart stopped beating. And today, we believe that death occurs when our bodies suffer irreversible cell damage—that is, our vital functions can no longer be reactivated.

But even after a person dies and their body begins to decompose, that does not mean he or she is entirely dead. In fact, new research indicates that some processes occurring in a corpse challenge our understanding of death. A group of American and European scientists discovered in 2017 that after certain animals die, many of their cells are still fighting to survive. And they not only remain alive for days after death, but in some types of cells, their activity increases.

Everything points to the fact that, in an attempt to repair themselves, the cells in a dead body accelerate the process by which they transform DNA into instructions to make new proteins. And stem cells in particular are able to continue living not for hours or days but for weeks after the death of the creature. It is understandable if we take into account that every animal is a being composed of multiple populations of different cells. For this reason, some cells are more resilient than others, even after the apparent death of the body. And the same researchers state that this behavior occurs in all multicellular beings, including us.[7] So it is clear that the line between life and death is much more blurred than we thought.

4 Why Is Life So Diverse?


So far, scientists have discovered and studied nearly two million different living species. Among these, humans are part of a handful of 5,000 known species of mammals. In comparison, we know 360,000 species of plants and one million different types of insects. However, our knowledge about Earth’s biodiversity is very limited, and today, the scientific community believes there could be up to two billion life-forms on this planet. Knowing this and that, as previously mentioned, at this point, almost all life on Earth is extinct, one cannot help but wonder, why is there so much diversity of living beings?

We can say that life has a tendency to continue to multiply, no matter what, even if that means to radically change its nature. Since the emergence of life, the Earth has undergone multiple mass extinctions, hundreds of minor ice ages, and constant fluctuations in the sea level (on the order of hundreds of meters). Yet here we are, and studies indicate that in our time, biodiversity has expanded more than ever, at an exponential scale.

This is primarily due to the fact that every time a cataclysm erases much of life on the planet, survivors tend to adapt to the new environment, resulting in new species.[8] A clear example is the explosive increase of mammal species after the Cretaceous extinction event, 66 million years ago. It is also well-known that in order for an ecosystem to survive, its different life-forms will have to specialize and help each other. The air we breathe and the food we eat, for example, are conditioned for our consumption thanks to the work of other living beings such as plants and insects. Even forests are more resistant to disasters when they are composed of multiple tree species. So in a few words, try to erase life, and it will grow even more instead.

3 Which Organisms Have The Shortest And The Longest Life Spans?


As we have just seen, life-forms on Earth are so diverse that the concept of a long life varies between species. What can be synonymous with longevity for one creature is only a fleeting moment in time for another. So in the following point, it will be more appropriate if we see some life spans of organisms very different from each other.

Let’s start by looking at the life spans of bacteria. As they do not grow in the way other living beings do, it is difficult to determine the age of a bacterium. But we do have a fairly precise estimate of its reproduction, the generation time. This term refers to the time that passes before a cell multiplies. If we presume that a bacterial population remains stable over time, then a bacterium will live at least as long as its generation time. In this case, the shortest-lived bacterium is the microbe Clostridium perfringens. It is estimated that its generation time is just 6.3 minutes. In the time it takes you to read four points of this list, a Clostridium perfringens has already lived and died.

In the animal world, the mayfly Dolania americana is surely one of the animals that lives the least. If we only consider the adult stage of its life in which the insect is fully developed, D. americana emerges, reproduces, and dies in 30 minutes or less. On the other hand, a clam found in Iceland in 2006 had lived for 507 years and could have lived longer if it hadn’t been killed as a result of being collected.[9]

Of course, we can’t leave out plants, which we know are among the most perdurable beings in the world. In fact, the oldest-known individual tree is a bristlecone pine from California that is more than 5,060 years old. When the humans of antiquity were beginning to develop writing, this tree was a youngling in its early years. On the other hand, the shortest-lived plants are believed to be the so-called ephemeral plants. Among these, plants of the genus Boerhavia can complete their entire life cycle in less than four weeks.

2 What Would The Earth Be Like If Life Did Not Exist?


So it is true that, in quantitative terms, life is a tiny part of what makes our planet. But it’s one thing to measure living beings according to their mass or volume and quite another to determine the effects these beings produce on Earth. So, what would happen to the Earth if life did not exist? Well, we can be pretty sure that without life, our good blue planet would no longer be good or blue.

The Earth’s atmosphere is 21 percent oxygen, an essential element for life-forms like us. But oxygen is an unstable gas that tends to combine quickly with other elements. Plant life on the surface is what replenishes the atmosphere with oxygen, filtering the gas constantly. If life on Earth did not exist, only small traces of oxygen would remain in the environment, while the atmosphere would be mostly composed of carbon dioxide. By this process, the temperature on the Earth’s surface would end up rising drastically.

In turn, higher temperatures would cause the melting of the polar ice caps and the subsequent rise in the sea level by tens of meters. Without life on the planet, the landmasses would suffer rapid erosion, and the mountainous regions would be seriously affected. After a long time, it is believed that the Earth’s temperature would rise to at least 290 degrees Celsius (554 °F). At this point, the oceans would end up boiling, leaving the planet completely uninhabitable. In a period of millions of years, a thick layer of clouds would cover the planet, aggravating the greenhouse effect and making the Earth look more like Venus.[10] If this sounds crazy, scientists believe that Venus—the same planet that today is pretty much Hell—once had liquid water and a pleasant temperature on its surface.

1 When Do We Start To Die?


The aging process occurs, in broad terms, because the number of new cells in our bodies is not enough to replace the number of cells that are dying. So when too many cells have died or no longer function, and therefore our organs can no longer function properly, we finally die. In short, we do not begin to age and die as long as our body can maintain a balance in the vitality of its cells. And even in fewer words, death happens when aging becomes too much for us. But then, when do we begin to age?

Certain literary authors and prominent figures have said over time that we begin to die from the moment we are born. That may be a thought-provoking reflection (and a good phrase, of course), but science would say that is not entirely true. For a child to become an adult, countless billions or even trillions of body cells will have to be formed, multiplied, and replaced in the meantime. And during such time, the person does not show tangible signs of aging but becomes more capable both physically and mentally.

In fact, we now know that until around the age of 25, the new cells outnumber or at least equal the number of cells that die in the body.[11] It is from the age of 25 that the cells begin to die faster than they can regenerate, thus causing our aging. In addition, studies show that at the age of 24, the brain also starts to lose cognitive speed. So aging, the process that eventually worsens to an unsustainable degree and causes our death, begins in our mid-twenties.

Economy student, passionate about Graphic Design, an avid enthusiast of the art of writing.

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10 Chilling Accounts From Survivors Of World War II Death Marches https://listorati.com/10-chilling-accounts-from-survivors-of-world-war-ii-death-marches/ https://listorati.com/10-chilling-accounts-from-survivors-of-world-war-ii-death-marches/#respond Tue, 26 Nov 2024 23:45:46 +0000 https://listorati.com/10-chilling-accounts-from-survivors-of-world-war-ii-death-marches/

At the end of World War II, the death marches, which claimed the lives of countless people, were considered among the worst atrocities. Some were simply done to kill prisoners or to keep them from being freed by the advancing Allies, while some were marched for later use as hostages. Survivors were witness to the cold-blooded murder of family, friends, adults, and children. They lived to tell of some of the darkest days of World War II.

10 David Friedmann

Blechhammer Death March

Before the Holocaust, David Friedmann was one of Berlin’s most important and prolific portrait artists. Although he and his family escaped to Prague in 1938, they were deported to Lodz’s Jewish Ghetto in 1941. Friedmann was ultimately sent to Gleiwitz I and was a part of the death march to Blechhammer. His family died at Auschwitz.

Friedmann and the other prisoners left on January 21, 1945, and marched the 100 kilometers (60 mi) to the next camp. Friedmann wrote of the execution of those too weak to walk and remembers that he was nearly one of those people. Friedmann gave credit to a doctor named Orenstein and two friends for saving his life and getting him to Blechhammer, where they were liberated days later by the Soviets.

After the war, Friedmann continued to paint and immortalized scenes from the concentration camps he was in as well as the death march.

9 Salvator Moshe

Death March to Dachau

Salvator Moshe was born in Greece, where his family had settled generations before, fleeing persecution by the Spanish Inquisition. Moshe and the other Jewish residents of Salonika were deported to German concentration camps in 1943.

Moshe and his brother-in-law were a part of the 4,000-person death march from the Warsaw Ghetto to Dachau in 1944. The march went on for days. On the third day, they were told to stop alongside a river, where the escorting officers told them they could finally have a drink. As they went to the water, Moshe recalled, “[A] fellow next to me, he was drinking water, but I heard bullets. They shooting. Zzz, zzz, zzz. Coming.”

The officers shot their charges as they kneeled to drink, and when the survivors made it back to the road, he saw another officer shooting those who couldn’t continue. Moshe and his brother-in-law survived and were liberated by US troops outside Seeshaupt.

8 William Dyess

Bataan Death March

A US fighter pilot, William Dyess was one of the soldiers who survived the Bataan Death March. He escaped in 1943 and made his way back to the States.

Dyess published an account of the horrors he witnessed, starting with the first murder. He described an Air Force captain being searched by a Japanese private, who found a handful of yen. As soon as the private, who Dyess described as a giant, saw the yen, he stepped to the side and beheaded the captain.

Dyess also talked about the so-called “Oriental sun treatment,” where captives were forced to sit in the blazing sun for hours on end, with no protection or water. The marchers were followed by a “clean-up squad” of Japanese soldiers who killed those who fell behind.

Once at San Fernando, Dyess and the other survivors found themselves in conditions so dire that they couldn’t even bring themselves to protest.

7 Eva Gestl Burns

Auschwitz Death March

When Soviet forces approached Auschwitz and the surrounding labor camps, those being held there were forced to walk. Eva Gestl Burns was working at an ammunition factory when they were told to start walking, and she later recounted a courageous escape.

The prisoners were clad in winter coats, and each coat was marked with a striped square. The women, many of whom were carrying scissors and thread, were able to remove the striped squares, cover the hole with a piece of plain material from somewhere else on the coat, and then replace the striped piece until they saw their chance for escape.

For Eva and a single companion, that chance came as they were being assembled into rows. When no one was paying attention, they ran, tore the striped fabric off their coats, and ultimately joined a group of German refugees heading to Sudentenland.

6 Stanislaw Jaskolski

Stutthof Death Gate

In January 1945, prisoners at the Stutthof camp system were herded from their camps. Around 50,000 people were scattered. Around 5,000 were marched to Baltic Sea, ordered into the water, and shot. Others headed into Eastern Germany.

Stanislaw Jaskolski later described the march. He remembered freezing cold temperatures and the small bag of supplies they were handed. It included shirts, long johns, half a loaf of bread, and some margarine. They were given a scattering of blankets that were meant to be shared and were herded onto the road.

As they marched, Jaskolski thought of what they were leaving behind—the gallows, the gas chambers, and the crematorium. They were freezing, he remembered, but he also remembered thinking that they were, at that moment, doing pretty good.

5 Jack Aizenberg

Jack Aizenberg

Jack Aizenberg was one of 60 people (out of 600) who survived the 160-kilometer (100 mi) death march from Colditz Castle to the Theresienstadt concentration camp. The 16-year-old boy was already starving, and he marched for a week with no food. Those alongside him were so hungry they were eating grass.

When they stopped to spend the night at a factory, Aizenberg found a single pea. He wanted to boil it over a fire they had started, and he was terrified that someone was going to try to steal it. He cut it into four pieces to make it last longer, and it was the only food he had for the entire march.

Aizenberg made it to Theresienstadt, and he knew he was dying—but he no longer cared. Soviet forces liberated the camp days later, and he would be taken to Britain as part of a resettlement program for the war’s orphans.

4 John Olson

Bataan Grave

Colonel John Olsen survived the Bataan Death March and the horror that came after it—Camp O’Donnell.

When survivors arrived at the camp, locals were granted permission to give them food. They were also given a welcome speech by a Japanese captain who made it clear that his only regret was that the code of honor to which he had to abide forbade him from killing the prisoners outright.

As personnel adjutant, Olson kept a meticulous record of what went on every day in the camp and would later use his notes to write a book. His journal records things like an increase in daily sugar rations (to 10 grams each) and the daily death toll. He also wrote about the burial detail and how men would volunteer for the task in order to make sure that their friends could at least have a proper burial.

3 Ingeborg Neumeyer

Brno Death March

After World War I, around three million ethnic Germans were living in the area that became Czechoslovakia. By the time World War II rolled around, those Germans were no longer considered racially pure and became subject to the wrath of the Third Reich.

Ingeborg Neumeyer was 15 when she and her family were dragged from their apartment on May 31, 1945, and herded into the streets to join what would be known as the Brno death march. Later, she would recall seeing people shot for falling behind as well as her mother’s attempt to make sure her daughter at least had clothing. She was wearing three dresses when they started the march, but when she tried to discard two of the dresses, she was seen. She was beaten bloody, her clothes were taken, and her shoes were thrown away.

2 Marie Ranzenhoferova

Brno Death March 2

Marie Ranzenhoferova was 24 years old when she walked from Brno to the Austrian border. She was offered the chance to stay by a would-be suitor who promised that if she and her baby went to live with him, she would be safe. She refused, and he would later force her at gunpoint to join the march.

Marie talked about families forced to leave homes they had been in for generations, dropping priceless family heirlooms as they walked, unable to carry them anymore. She remembered being supervised by guards from concentration camps, who were nowhere near as cruel as the men from the Zbrojovka arms factory. Those men were violent drunks, and she remembered one grabbing a baby from a woman’s arms and throwing it into a field because it would not stop crying.

When they reached the border, Marie left the march, and around 700 people followed her into the village of Perna. She stayed there for a while and eventually moved to Mikulov.

1 Keith Botterill

Sandakan Survivors

Keith Botterill (pictured above on the right) is one of only six people who survived the Sandakan death march. He and the other survivors only lived because they were able to escape their Japanese captors on the march from Sandakan Camp.

Botterill would later remember the camp itself as decent enough for the first 12 months they were there. As the war dragged on, the beatings and starvation got worse. As he and his companions planned for their escape, they were caught stealing rice in preparation. Botterill’s friend, Richie Murray, stepped forward and confessed to the theft. He was bayoneted.

After their escape, another companion, weakened by dysentery, slit his own throat to keep from slowing them down. The other survivors were Owen Campbell, Nelson Short (pictured left above), Bill Moxham, Bill Sticpewech (pictured center above), and James Richard Braithwaite. All Australian, they had been warned to escape by a sympathetic Japanese officer who knew about an upcoming slaughter.

Botterill died in 1997, just after the completion of a book about the remarkable story of the Sandakan Six.

+Further Reading

war
Here is a small selection of lists from the archives based around World War II.

10 Bizarre World War II Weapons That Were Actually Built
10 Little-Known Alternative Plans From World War II
10 Amazing Untold Stories From World War II
10 World War II Soldiers Who Pulled Off Amazing Feats



Debra Kelly

After having a number of odd jobs from shed-painter to grave-digger, Debra loves writing about the things no history class will teach. She spends much of her time distracted by her two cattle dogs.


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10 Conspiracy Theories That Tupac Faked His Own Death https://listorati.com/10-conspiracy-theories-that-tupac-faked-his-own-death/ https://listorati.com/10-conspiracy-theories-that-tupac-faked-his-own-death/#respond Tue, 05 Nov 2024 21:51:41 +0000 https://listorati.com/10-conspiracy-theories-that-tupac-faked-his-own-death/

Tupac Shakur was only twenty-five years old when he was ambushed while he sat in a parked car on a Las Vegas strip on 7th September 1996. The attack came following the Mike Tyson-Bruce Seldon fight which Shakur had attended. He died in hospital six days later on 13th September.

See Also: 10 Crazy Conspiracy Theories Clouding The Music Industry

Conspiracy theories almost immediately began to fly. Many claimed that he was killed by fellow rapper, Biggie Smalls, who himself would be gunned down several months later. As time went on though, the theories strayed into “Elvis” territory, with claims that the rapper and actor had faked his own death, theories that still circulate today. Here are ten reasons some people firmly believe Tupac Shakur is alive and well . . . somewhere . . .

10 Lock Down At The Hospital


After he was admitted to hospital following the shooting, it is claimed only his mother, very close friends and certain designated medical staff were allowed to see Shakur. Perhaps because of this lock down, people began to speculate there was possibly more going on behind the scenes.

The rapper spent six days fighting for his life, during which time it was said he had to be revived several times, eventually succumbing to internal bleeding as a result of his gunshot wounds.

Perhaps the most controversial statement came recently from author Michael Carlin who claimed that the rap star was likely “finished off” in hospital by persons unknown. Carlin has worked closely with Los Angeles Police Department in researching Tupac’s killing. One thing he claims he is certain of is that the police and medical records regarding the rapper’s death are “bogus!”[1]

9 The Person Who Performed His Cremation Disappeared


Perhaps one of the most mysterious parts of the Tupac Shakur murder is that the person who performed his cremation has apparently since vanished from the face of the planet.

Close friend of Tupac, and the person who was in the car he was riding in when he was ambushed and shot, Marion “Suge” Knight, reportedly claimed that he paid for the rapper to have a private cremation. Not only has the person in question allegedly disappeared, but the amount that Knight claimed he handed over for his services is also questionable given that it was $3 million. Was this part of the “missing millions” as they came to be known?[2]

8 Tupac’s Missing Millions


It is claimed that Tupac Shakur was worth a little over $100,000 when he died, which doesn’t make him a pauper by any stretch of the imagination, but when considering the immense wealth he had accumulated from his music and his acting career, it is a drop in the ocean of the money he would, at one time, have surely had.

Furthermore, he had no property in his name when he died and his only possessions appeared to be two cars. There seemed to be concerns about the rapper’s contract with his record label, and exactly how much money he was actually paid, while his record company, the infamous Death Row Records, claimed it was Tupac’s own lavish lifestyle that had left him (relatively speaking) destitute.

Others though have speculated that the “missing millions” may have been discreetly “moved” elsewhere – remember the $3 million paid for the cremation?— in anticipation of a life to be lived out in secret.[3]

7Detective Claims He Was Paid To Help The Rapper Fake His Death


In September 2015 a former detective, David Myers, made the claim that Tupac Shakur had faked his own death, and what’s more, he had been paid $1.5 million to help the rapper achieve it. Myers made the announcement from his death bed while in critical condition in hospital, stating that he “could not die without letting the world know” and that he was “ashamed” of his involvement. According to Myers, a body double was even arranged to be taken to the morgue in place of Shakur.

It should be noted however, that while this story appeared on several well-known web sites, there does not appear to be a definite source. Myers, if indeed he did exist, also didn’t state why the rap star wished to have the world believe he had died. One thing of interest though is the claim of a body double, particularly when inconsistencies concerning the mortuary records came to light.[4]

6 Different Height and Weight Records


According to official records there was some discrepancy regarding Tupac’s height and weight as recorded by the mortuary. His driver’s license, as well as various celebrity “measurements” sites, listed Shakur’s height at 5” 10 and his weight at 168 pounds. But the mortuary records showed him to be two inches taller at a straight six feet and at a weight of 215 pounds – considerably heavier.

Could this simply have been sloppy record keeping at the mortuary? It’s certainly a possibility and realistically most likely, but nevertheless it has been a talking point for those who believe there is something being hidden about the rapper’s alleged death.[5]

5 Alleged Last Photograph Inconsistencies


One of the most famous photographs of the Tupac Shakur murder, was said to be taken in the immediate minutes before his death. It shows him in the passenger seat of a car, with none other than larger than life, Suge Knight driving.

However, eagle-eyed fans and researchers quickly spotted that the date on the photograph was incorrect, and appeared to have been taken on the 8th of September – the day after the shooting had taken place. While in all likelihood the camera was just set to the wrong date in error, some believed the photo had been “set up” to circulate to the media following the rapper’s “death”.

Furthermore it was also pointed out that there didn’t appear to be any keys in the ignition of the car. There were automatic-start cars in 1996, albeit not as widespread as they are now, but to some this was further proof that the photo was staged.[6]

4 No Bulletproof Vest The Night He Was Shot


Since his shooting in New York several years earlier, Shakur had become increasingly paranoid. He had suspected Biggie Smalls and people close to him to have been behind the shooting on the east coast, and was increasingly convinced that people wanted him dead. So much so that he had taken to wearing a bullet proof vest everywhere he went.

However on this evening, with the “East Coast-West Coast War” in full swing, and despite being in a very public place, he suddenly decided not to wear one. It was rumoured by some that Knight had told the rapper to remove his vest because “it was hot” inside the arena where the Tyson-Seldon fight was being contested – there is said to be footage of this conversation although it certainly doesn’t appear to be widely available. There also appears to be confusion as to whether the rapper had a bulletproof vest on at all that evening, with some sources that Knight and others close to Shakur had tried to insist he wear one that evening but he declined.[7]

3The Makaveli Conspiracy


Tupac was known to be a huge fan of Italian renaissance man Machiavelli, and was particularly enthralled by his line, “To fool your enemies, fake your death.” For his last album, “The Don Killuminati – The 7 Day Theory” Tupac changed his on-stage moniker to Makaveli and, as he had done in many of his songs before, spoke of how he would fake his own death and then return to enact his vengeance on those that had wronged him.

When Biggie Smalls was himself gunned down only six months later, conspiracy theories began to circulate that perhaps Shakur was making good on his promise. Incidentally, Smalls’ death also remains unsolved.[8]

2 Tupac Is Alive and Well, and Living In Cuba


This particular theory would be regarded as complete nonsense by even the most enthusiastic conspiracy theorists, particularly the claims that he was “seen” partying with Rihanna recently, were it not for the fact that the rapper does have a genuine connection to the country of Cuba.

His aunt, Assata Shakur, was a political activist and former Black Liberation Army member. She had fled to Cuba in 1979 following her conviction for the 1977 murder of a New Jersey State Trooper and sought political asylum there. Given Shakur’s political awareness, he almost certainly would have been very much aware of his aunt’s situation and possibly her whereabouts.

As Cuba is one of the few countries that the United States (at the time) had no access to, it is an ideal place for anyone who is looking to disappear.[9]

1 Scores Of “New” Songs Released After His Death


Since his death there has been a litany of new material released by the rapper. This has fuelled speculation from some that Tupac is alive and well and recording new material from afar. It is true that a wealth of new material has seen the light of day in the years following Shakur’s death. What’s more is that these new releases have arguably netted as much profit, if not more, than the rapper managed to while he was alive.

While the theory sounds plausible, the fact is that Tupac was well known for being a seriously hard worker in the studio, sometimes recording several songs in a session – sessions that could last for days at a time. It is not at all beyond the realms of possibility that he would have had hundreds of unreleased tracks waiting in the wings when he died. His estate and any royalties from his music were in the control of his mother, Afeni, until her death in early 2016.[10]

About The Author: Marcus Lowth—writer at Me Time For The Mind—http://www.metimeforthemind.com/
Me Time For The Mind on Facebook—https://www.facebook.com/MeTimeForTheMind/



Marcus Lowth

Marcus Lowth is a writer with a passion for anything interesting, be it UFOs, the Ancient Astronaut Theory, the paranormal or conspiracies. He also has a liking for the NFL, film and music.


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10 Facts About The Horrific Death Of George Washington https://listorati.com/10-facts-about-the-horrific-death-of-george-washington/ https://listorati.com/10-facts-about-the-horrific-death-of-george-washington/#respond Sat, 28 Sep 2024 17:58:42 +0000 https://listorati.com/10-facts-about-the-horrific-death-of-george-washington/

A towering figure in American history, General George Washington will forever be remembered for the bravery, principles, and integrity that led him to become the first President of the United States. The following facts focus on Washington’s excruciating demise that he endured in his final hours and the events that transpired following his passing.

10Diagnosis And Treatment

1

Since 1799, speculation has arisen as to whether or not Washington fell victim to medical malpractice. In an article written in The New England Journal of Medicine, Dr. David Morens states that accusations of malpractice “were very much in the air during and immediately after the great man died.” Morens goes on to state, however, that he would not consider it malpractice in context of today’s usage. What remains troubling is that of the three doctors providing Washington’s care, no two agreed about the means of treatment.

Morens hints that the doctors were perhaps protecting their reputation to avoid potential charges. Washington’s diagnosis was also subject of debate and to date. It remains unclear as to what he truly succumbed to, be it an acute infection, malpractice, or a combination of both.

9Vile Concoction

2

It’s hard to imagine the pain Washington endured as the hours passed and his infected throat became more red and inflamed. To lessen the swelling in the early morning hours, Washington’s personal secretary, Col. Thomas Lear, provided the president a tonic of molasses, butter, and vinegar.

Washington had labored breathing and could barely speak, let alone drink a vile concoction that he could not swallow. His attempts to do so were met with choking, distress, and convulsions. If that alone didn’t notify the reaper, Washington was advised to gargle with vinegar and sage tea, followed by bouts of suffocation and expectorating phlegm. His difficulty grasping his breath substantially worsened as the hours passed and did so until 10 minutes prior to his passing, when his breathing became less strenuous, slowly letting go.

8Punctuality

3

Following Washington’s retirement, he spent much of his time working outside on the lands of his estate at Mount Vernon. Even through the intolerable winter conditions of snow, rain, hail, and high winds, Washington pushed through for five long hours, seeing to it that his work was completed for the day.

Priding himself on his punctuality, he remained in his damp clothes throughout dinner. The following day, Washington subjected his immunity to the harsh outdoors yet again even though he had developed a painful sore throat throughout the night. This would be the last day Washington would roam his estate, retiring for the evening with worsening symptoms that would awake him in agony around 3:00 AM. Had it not been for his fixated and stubborn ways, Washington would have lived to see spring. Instead, three physicians were summoned, undoubtedly sealing his fate.

7Infertility

4

From endocrine disorders to STDs, historians have long speculated the possible causes of Washington’s infertility. One theory was his extensive exposure to mercurous chloride, which he received in his twenties for treatment of abdominal pain and chronic bloody diarrhea.

Even on his deathbed, Washington’s physicians were prescribing him the toxic substance in combination with potassium tartrate, which causes intense nausea and vomiting. In layman’s terms, America’s founding father was inadvertently being poisoned by perilous medical remedies.

When these failed to produce beneficial results, Dr. Dick suggested a tracheotomy. A debate ensued between him and Dr. Craik, who ultimately vetoed the suggestion. Dr. Dick had only recently been trained in the procedure, leaving the outcome awfully uncertain.

6Criticism And Irony

5

News traveled much slower in the late 18th century, and in December 1799, it took four full days for word of Washington’s passing to reach Congress in Philadelphia. In fact, Congress was in session when notified, while Washington’s funeral was taking place hundreds of miles away at Mount Vernon.

As Washington was lowered into the ground, so was the harsh criticism he had faced in life. He had been viewed by many as a sell-out to the British, but this was overshadowed by the loss of the country’s founding father and dignified hero. Interestingly enough, the Union Washington so courageously fought to establish would be threatened nearly 69 later by Robert E. Lee, the son of the man who had spoken the infamous words, “First in War, First in Peace, First in the Hearts of His Countrymen.”

5Spanish Fly

6

As Washington’s condition worsened, his discomfort reached new heights upon the tortuous application of Spanish Fly. This powdered concoction was applied to the very source causing Washington’s agony, his throat.

Spanish Fly (cantharides) is a poisonous extract from the dried bodies of the beetle Cantharis vesicatoria. It causes blistering and has been used criminally as an aphrodisiac, often with dire consequences. In fact, it has been known to poison African cattle via contaminated drinking water, causing excitement, diarrhea, and inflammation of the kidneys.

It was assumed that the “treatment” would draw out the toxins plaguing Washington’s haggard body, not knowing the blistering pain was further exhausting his immunity. This senseless and excruciating false remedy continued throughout the day.

4Burial Dispute

7

Washington instructed in his will that his remains be buried in a new family mausoleum, unaware of the obstacles his request would face throughout the following century.

Despite his wishes, the House and Senate appealed to the Washington family to transfer his remains from Mount Vernon to the Capitol to be entombed under a marble monument. Martha Washington chose not to oppose the wishes of the public. However, disagreements arose over the type of monument, and funding stalled the project for years. Approaching Washington’s centennial in 1832, John A. Washington, owner of Mount Vernon, rejected any further plans to transfer the patriarch’s remains, effectively settling the issue that had spanned 33 years.

3Dehydration

8

In the late hours of Washington’s suffering, he was subjected to throat swabs of salve followed by an enema. This not only further incapacitated him but reduced him to a debilitated and vulnerable soul. The complications lead to a serious loss of body water, not including the noxious mineral imbalance in his blood. These, in turn, often lead to grave illnesses of the kidneys and heart. In addition, abdominal pain and cramping with persistent dizziness and nausea is often noted for those who have abused enemas.

In Washington’s case, where his perceived treatments were deemed beneficial, his soul was inadvertently being siphoned under a degrading set of circumstances.

2Washington’s Will

9

For a momentary respite from the agonizing details of Washington’s final hours, let us focus on one positive aspect of December 14, 1799: the last will of America’s founding father. It was written five months prior, on July 9, and Washington instructed Martha to retrieve his will hours just before his passing.

She handed her husband the two revisions, and in his frail and gravely ill state, he asked Martha to burn one and safeguard the other. Of the notable provisions made, Washington laid out instructions for freeing his slaves as well as the support for those who were too old, ill, or young to support themselves. In addition, Washington provided stocks to finance a school for orphaned children. His concern for the future of the United States and the well-being of those who had served him, all the while clinging to life, is a testament to the nobility of his character.

1Bloodletting

10

Washington’s physicians postulated that his airway obstruction was due to inflammation of the tongue, upper trachea, and larynx. In accordance with medical professor William Cullen’s recommended treatment, Washington was bled over a period of 9–10 hours with a quantity of blood estimated around 3.75 liters.

Six weeks after his passing, Dr. James Brickell expressed disgust in an article that was not made public until 1903 pertaining to the clinical wisdom of Washington’s physicians and the therapeutic modalities administered. Dr. Brickell argues that given Washington’s age and fragile state, the bleeding led to speedy and inevitable death.

In his final moments, Washington appeared calm and had stopped struggling, leading some to believe he had suffered profound hypotension that lead to shock and ultimately his death.

Adam is just a hubcap trying to hold on in the fast lane.

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10 Strange Omens That Warned Of Death https://listorati.com/10-strange-omens-that-warned-of-death/ https://listorati.com/10-strange-omens-that-warned-of-death/#respond Mon, 23 Sep 2024 19:17:31 +0000 https://listorati.com/10-strange-omens-that-warned-of-death/

Most people never have a clue when they are going to die. You might live to be a centenarian, or you might suffer a horrible accident tomorrow. There’s simply no way to know.

However, a small number of people have been lucky enough to have a preternatural warning of upcoming death—assuming, of course, that “lucky” is the right word to describe the situation. These omens of doom are sometimes attached to families and have a history. Others are single occurrences. None are generally welcomed.

10 Eglinton’s Observation


Archibald William Montgomerie, more commonly known as the 13th Earl of Eglinton and 1st Earl of Winton (1812–1861), is said to have been well-known and liked by his fellow countrymen. He’s most remembered for his attempt to revive jousting tournaments as a public spectacle in 1839. Unfortunately, heavy rains chased off the crowd of 10,000 people. When the event was reconvened a day later, most of the crowd didn’t return.

Less well-known is a tale that, on October 4, 1861, Lord Eglinton was playing a round of golf on the links of St. Andrews in Fife, Scotland, when he suddenly stopped in the middle of the game. He told his companion, “I can play no more. There is the Bodach Glas. I have seen it for the third time; something fearful is going to befall me.”

The Bodach Glas—the “dark gray man”—of Scotland was rumored to haunt certain clans. Eglinton died suddenly that very night of internal bleeding, possibly caused by a stroke, as he was handing a candlestick to a lady who was retiring to her room.[1]

9 Death Gives Hugs


In 1924, Mrs. Bliss Coleman and her husband were living out of a rented room in a house in Oakland, California, and she was in the habit of going back to her room each day when she had a 4:00 PM break at work.

One day as Mrs. Coleman was returning at 4:00, she entered the house and saw a woman who was a third-floor tenant talking to the landlady in the hall . . . and there was a 183-centimeter-tall (6′) skeleton standing next to the tenant with a bony arm wrapped around her waist. Neither the third-floor tenant nor the landlady seemed the least bit aware of the third figure in their meeting. Coleman, terrified but knowing she couldn’t explain the weird vision, rushed past the two women and took shelter in her room down the hall.

Three weeks later, the third-floor tenant died, leaving her children motherless.[2]

8 Questionable Hospitality


The English Civil War, which lasted from 1642 to 1651, upended the lives of Sir Richard Fanshawe and his wife, Ann, the Lady Fanshawe, in 1649, when they found themselves obligated to quickly vacate their residence in Cork, Ireland, before their neighbors tried to hang them. As they made their way to Spain, they stayed in the homes of a number of friends. This is how they found themselves spending a night at the castle of Lady Honara O’Brien. After dinner and some polite conversation, the Fanshawes excused themselves to their room for the night.

At around 1:00 AM, Lady Fanshawe was awoken by a voice coming from the window. She went to it and opened the curtain to discover a woman leaning into the window from outside. The woman wore white and had red hair and a “ghastly complexion”; she cried out the ancient Irish call of mourning, “ochon, ochon, ochon! and then melted away like a cloud. Lady Fanshawe immediately woke her husband to tell him what happened.

The following morning, before the Fanshawes could find a way to describe the strange event to Lady O’Brien, the latter told them that she, herself, had not slept well that night, for in a different part of the castle, she had stayed up to care for an ailing cousin of hers who had died at around 2:00 AM. She then expressed hopes that the Fanshawes slept well, for she gave them the best room in the castle . . . but forgot that a spectral woman appeared in that room’s window whenever a family member was dying.[3]

The Fanshawes didn’t stay a second night!

7 Hand Off


In 1934, author Elliott O’Donnell made note of the strange experience of a young woman of the MacKenzie family in Scotland. Said young woman had gone upstairs one morning to fetch something from her bedroom and heard something in the room fall as she was leaving. Annoyed, she looked around for source of the noise and found that an old-fashioned silver candlestick had fallen next to her dresser. She walked over to pick it up and stopped as she realized what had knocked the candlestick over to begin with.

An arm was protruding from the wall!

It was only visible from the elbow down, with very white skin and long fingers and finely finished nails that showed it belonged to a woman, but the rest of the woman wasn’t there. As the young woman stared at this unnatural sight, the limb slowly faded from view.

She immediately feared for her mother, as she had been told that a phantom hand was an omen that appeared before a death in her family, and her mother was very ill at that moment. Luckily, her mother fully recovered, but a few days after the arm was seen, a letter arrived to inform them of the untimely death of one of the young woman’s cousins.[4]

6 The Family’s Curse


The problem started with young Ewen MacClaine’s greed. In 1538, Ewen was the son and heir to the chief of the MacClaines of the Lochbuie district, and he didn’t understand why he had to wait to take his father’s wealth. Harsh words were said, and soon, the demands turned into an argument and the argument into a fight. That fight then became a split in the clan, leaving father and son to lead opposing forces into battle against each other. During the heated battle, one of the elder MacLaine’s supporters beheaded Ewen with a single stroke of his weapon . . . but Ewen’s body didn’t fall from his horse.

Instead, the corpse lashed out to the left and right, striking nearby clansmen before his horse bolted from the field of battle for home. When the horse arrived back at Ewen’s castle, the servants were horrified to see their master minus his head. The corpse was still sitting up in the saddle, twitching randomly. Convinced that only the Devil himself could be to blame for this matter, the servants decapitated the horse before burying what they had of master Ewen.

Ever since that grisly battle, the MacClaine clan of the Lochbuie district has lived in fear of encountering the headless ghost of Ewen MacClaine, still riding his favorite horse and sporting the green cape he wore to the final battle. To see his ghost has but one meaning: The unfortunate witness will soon die.[5]

5 Gwrach Y Rhibyn, The Hag Of The Mist


In Wales, stories are told of the Gwrach y Rhibyn, a profoundly ugly winged hag that comes in the dead of night to flap its wings against the window of a house in which a death will occur, while calling out the name of the doomed party. To say its visits are feared and its deadly warning unwelcome is an understatement, but it’s just a Welsh tale, a curious bit of folklore. Or, at least, that’s what Wirt Sikes thought before he started collecting tales from Welsh farmers for his 1880 book British Goblins.

One of the farmers Sikes talked to told of a strange thing that happened to him on November 14, 1878. The farmer was visiting an old friend in Llandaff when he was awoken around midnight by “a frightful screeching and a shaking of [his] window.” Startled, but mostly curious, the farmer ran to the window and threw it open. He saw a figure flying away, which looked over its shoulder back at him, and he knew it was the Gwrach y Rhibyn. The strange hag had disheveled red hair, chalky skin, wings, and teeth like tusks. She wore a long, black gown that trailed behind her on the ground. It appeared as if she had no body below her arms within the billowing material!

She screeched again at the window of a house just a little down from where the farmer was, and then she vanished. The farmer kept looking into the darkness and soon saw her again as she entered at the front door of the nearby Cow and Snuffers Inn. He waited for some time but saw and heard nothing more. The following day, the farmer found out that the man who kept the inn had died that night.[6]

4 The Abused Cat


Sometime in the early 1800s, Mrs. Hartnoll’s family were staying in a manor house which was so large that they only occupied one wing of it, keeping the rest locked up most of the time. Part of the unused manor was a hallway that had a sinister feel to it, but Mrs. Hartnoll, in her adventurous youth, decided to investigate it on various occasions. She experienced many strange things in that hallway, but the strangest was the apparent ghost of a mutilated black cat with one eye and paw missing, torn ears, and a slow, curious way of moving. Three times she encountered this strange creature.

The first time she saw the cat, it crept out of a doorway and slowly tried to reach her leg to rub against it, instead sinking into the floor. That evening, her brother died. Two years later, she found herself exploring the hallway again when something struck the small of her back. Spinning around, she found the cat again, as bloody and maimed as before and convulsing as if on the edge of its own death. Hartnoll fled the room. Her mother died that night.

Four years later, she was in the hall again, but not by her own choice. She had been sent on an errand by her father that required her to pass through the hall, and, presumably, she had not told him anything of her previous experiences there, as she was not supposed to be in that part of the house to begin with. She completed the task as quickly as possible and was on her way out when a shadow appeared in the doorway before her . . . and she once again saw the cat. Her father dropped dead that afternoon.

With the loss of his father, Mrs. Hartnoll and her remaining siblings had to leave the house and make their own way in the world. None of them ever returned to the manor.[7]

3 The Oxenhams’ Questionable Omen


In 1641, a pamphlet was published in London entitled A true Relation of an Apparition in the Likeness of a Bird, with a white breast, that appeared hovering over the deathbeds of some of the children of Mr. James Oxenham of Sale Monachorum, Gent, which tells you a lot about the pamphlet! This treatise explained how five relatives of its author, James Oxenham, were each visited by a white-breasted bird that mysteriously appeared and disappeared before their deaths in 1618 and 1635.

The story proved popular, and it soon became a well-known legend of a family omen . . . except it wasn’t. The story in the original pamphlet had been invented just to have something to sell. Three of the victims never existed, one died on a different date than mentioned in the pamphlet, and the family never lived in “Sale Monachorum,” as the title states. The witnesses named in the pamphlet also do not appear to have existed, so the whole story was a fraud to begin with, which makes what happened after its publication even stranger.

In 1743, over a century after the false pamphlet had been published, William Oxenham was in his chambers with some friends when, for reasons unknown, a white bird flew through. Oxenham, aware of the rumored death omen for his family, quipped that he was not sick enough to die and that “he should cheat the bird!” This surely brought a laugh from those in attendance. Oxenham died two days later after a short, sudden illness.[8]

2 A Castle’s Shame


Dr. Walter Farquhar (1738–1819), who was made a baronet in 1796, had an odd experience in his younger days as a physician before he settled in London in 1769. While visiting the area of Devin, he was called to assist the wife of the steward at Berry Pomeroy Castle. When he arrived, he was shown to an outer apartment and asked to wait there as they prepared the patient to see him.

As he waited, a young and well-dressed woman, who he took to be a member of the family, entered the room. He offered polite greetings, but she ignored his presence; she seemed very worried about something and constantly wrung her hands as she crossed the room to the bottom of a stairwell, where she hesitated a moment before ascending the stairs. As she climbed, a sunbeam lit up her face, and Dr. Farquhar was struck by both how beautiful she was and how fantastically sad and hopeless she looked. In a moment, she was gone, and he was called to attend to the ailing wife, whose condition required his immediate and full attention.

Farquhar returned the following morning to check on his patient, who was clearly doing much better than the day before. Now that the emergency had passed, Farquhar asked the steward about the young lady he had seen. Farquhar couldn’t have predicted the reaction he got. “My poor wife! My poor wife!,” the steward started to lament. When pressed as to why, the steward explained that the daughter of a previous baron of Berry Pomeroy had given birth to her own father’s child. The unfortunate young woman had then later strangled the child to death in the chamber above the room Farquhar had been waiting in.

The young woman Farquhar had seen was a ghost—one that only appeared to presage a death within the castle. She had appeared before the steward’s son drowned, and now the steward was sure that her presence meant his wife was doomed. Despite Farquhar’s assurances that she was recovering and that the steward’s worries were groundless, the steward’s wife died that day at noon.[9]

1 A Friendly Visit


It was a beautiful summer day in 1974, and Dr. Julian Kirchick was enjoying it to the fullest, lying back in a chaise lounge next to his pool as the day was slowly becoming the evening. A cool breeze and the sound of birds comforted him. There was a sudden noise in the bushes near the house, so he stood up to go see what it was. He stopped two steps later.

Kirchick was looking at a skeletal figure wearing a monk’s hood and robes, and despite the apparition’s eyes just being hollow, dark holes, he could sense the figure looking back at him. The thin skin was pulled so tight over the face that the structure of the skull was highlighted, and its visible teeth were partly open in what Kirchick felt was meant to be a friendly smile. The strange figure beckoned to Kirchick with a bony hand. Kirchick was frozen in place with fear. Eventually, this strange vision faded.

If Kirchick had wondered what the odd visit was about at the time, he felt he knew a few months later, when he was diagnosed with a terminal cancer.[10]

Garth Haslam has been digging into strange topics for over 30 years and posts his research on varying anomalies, curiosities, mysteries, and legends at his website Anomalies—the Strange & Unexplained. Check it out at http://anomalyinfo.com.

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10 Frozen Timepieces That Marked Death And Disaster https://listorati.com/10-frozen-timepieces-that-marked-death-and-disaster/ https://listorati.com/10-frozen-timepieces-that-marked-death-and-disaster/#respond Wed, 21 Aug 2024 15:27:04 +0000 https://listorati.com/10-frozen-timepieces-that-marked-death-and-disaster/

In Victorian times, people would stop a house’s clocks at the time of an occupant’s death. Although this tradition continues somewhat today, there are some death clocks that weren’t stopped on purpose. Instead, they were broken by terrible circumstance, frozen forever to mark the last moments of disaster. These clocks are chilling mementos of past tragedies.

10 The Pirate’s Pocket Watch

istock-171344376
On June 7, 1692, the town of Port Royal, Jamaica, was destroyed by a major earthquake. Shortly before noon, residents heard a thunderous cracking noise before feeling the earth shake violently and watching half their city slip into the sea. Three centuries later, historians began to explore the underwater ruins.

The most famous artifact recovered from the ruins was a pocket watch manufactured in the Netherlands around 1686. The hands on the watch were stopped at 11:43 AM, the exact time of the earthquake and the watch’s entrance into the sea. Although other records noting the time of the quake do exist, the discovery of the pocket watch was the first time that a stopped clock was used by archaeologists to date a disaster down to the minute.

9 Casey Jones’s Pocket Watch

casey-jones-pocket-watch

Railroad enthusiasts know the story of John Luther “Casey” Jones, a train engineer who heroically died saving his passengers during a collision near Vaughn, Mississippi. While approaching the station at Vaughn, Jones and his signalman noticed something on the track ahead. They realized too late that it was the tail end of another train that was too long to fit its siding. The signalman leaped from the cab (on Jones’s orders), leaving Casey to his fate. A few seconds later, Jones’s train collided head-on with the other cars.

When Jones’s badly mangled body was pulled from the wreckage later that day, it was found that his pocket watch had stopped at 3:52 AM, the exact time of the impact. Although Jones died as a result of the crash, his actions ensured that he was the only fatality. No one else involved with either train suffered more than minor injuries.

8 The Titanic’s Mantel Clock

titantic-mantel-clock

The story of the Titanic—the so-called “unsinkable” luxury ocean liner—is well-known. On the night of April 14, 1912, the ship struck an iceberg and ultimately sank into the North Atlantic during the early morning hours of April 15, taking approximately 1,500 people with it. Although there were many pocket watches and clocks retrieved from both victims and the ship itself, the most interesting one remains with the wreck.

This clock was located on the fireplace of the Straus suite, used by Macy’s founder Isidor Straus and his wife. Upon the dilapidated mantel, surrounded by sand and debris, sits a golden clock looking almost as new as it did the day it was made. Old pictures of the suite in its heyday show that the sinking did not affect the clock’s position at all. Its face, however, has seen some damage and is hard to read. The documentary Tony Robinson’s Titanic Adventure hypothesizes that the hands stopped either at 2:04 AM, when the last lifeboat was released, or 2:20 AM, the very minute the ship plunged beneath the waves.

7 John Taylor’s Pocket Watch

john-taylor-pocket-watch

Joseph Smith, founder of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, was killed on June 27, 1844, by a group of angry Illinois townspeople. After a long legal debacle that began with the destruction of an anti-Mormon newspaper’s printing press, Smith and a few other men waited in the Carthage, Illinois, jail for a trail. There, they saw a mob of around 200 men marching toward the building.

Although Smith was killed in the attack, his friend, John Taylor, miraculously survived. In the melee, Taylor tried to escape by jumping from the jail window but was pushed backward by the force of a gunshot from below. The shooter had been aiming for Taylor’s heart but instead hit his watch, which he kept in his left vest pocket. The hands of the watch were stopped at 5:16 PM, approximately the time that Joseph Smith breathed his last. Taylor later took his miracle watch to Salt Lake City, where he eventually became president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. The watch remains in the church’s archives to this day.

6 The Chernobyl Clock

chernobyl-clock

In early morning hours of April 26, 1986, the Chernobyl nuclear power plant experienced a meltdown after a safety test went catastrophically wrong. In the ensuing hours, the power plant and nearby areas were blasted with radioactive energy, heat, and fire. In 2005, intrepid photographer Gerd Ludwig ventured into the radioactive ruins of the power plant for a 15-minute photography trip. Although all the photographs of ghostly control rooms and empty hallways are stunning, there was only one scene that Ludwig truly risked his life to capture.

Deep in the heart of the reactor, where the radiation is strongest, Ludwig ventured into a room hidden behind a steel door. In the few seconds allowed to him, he saw an old clock hanging on a wall, its hands stopped at 1:23:58 AM, the exact time at which the reactor exploded. The image of the clock spoke so much to Ludwig that he begged to be allowed a few brief seconds to photograph, in his words, “the time when on 26 April, 1986, in the building that housed Energy Block #4, time stood forever still.”

5 The Train Workers’ Clock

sept-11

The entire world knows the story of September 11, 2001, in which the United States suffered the worst terrorist attack in its history. Although the US has largely rebounded from the tragedy, 9/11 hasn’t been forgotten. Each plane crash site was made into a memorial, with the largest and most elaborate filling the footprint of the Twin Towers in New York City.

In 2005, the Ground Zero Museum Workshop opened in New York to honor the dead and remind the living of that terrible day. One of the featured items in the museum is a clock found in the wreckage, its hands pointing to 10:02:14 AM, when the south tower collapsed. The clock was discovered in a break room used by local train workers alongside the remnants of their weight lifting bench.

4 The Photographer’s Pocket Watch

hiroshima-pocket-watch

On August 6, 1945, the future of warfare was changed forever. Whether truly merited or not, US military leaders decided to destroy the city of Hiroshima, Japan, with the ace they’d secretly been building: the atomic bomb. Roughly 100,000 people were killed in the attack, and everything within a 1.6-kilometer (1 mi) radius was completely turned to rubble.

In the aftermath of the bombing, 19-year-old Shinji Mikamo returned to Hiroshima to dig through the ruins of his family home. There, he found his grandfather’s golden pocket watch, which had originally been given as payment for serving as an imperial photographer. Even though the watch’s hands had been blown off, the heat of the blast had seared the time of the bombing onto the metal below, leaving the clock to always read 8:15 AM. Shinji donated the watch to the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum in 1955 and then to a museum in the United Nations Headquarters in New York. Unfortunately, the watch disappeared in 1989 and has not been seen since.

3 The Murrah Building Clock

murrah-building-clock

Masterminded by two criminals who were disgruntled with the government, the bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, was the deadliest terrorist attack in the US before 9/11. On the morning of April 19, 1995, a moving truck loaded with explosives detonated outside the building, killing 168 people (19 of whom were children under the age of six) and injuring more than 650 others. Three months later, the remains of the Murrah building were demolished so that a memorial and museum could be built on the grounds.

The idea of stopped time is heavily integrated into both the memorial and the museum. Two large structures known as the Gates of Time flank the entrances of the outdoor memorial, each inscribed with a time stamp of significance. The eastern gate reads “9:01,” which represents “the last moments of peace” before the blast. Its parallel, the western gate, reads “9:03,” called “the first moments of recovery.” Enshrined in the museum, however, is a memento that marks the exact time of the blast: a clock poised at 9:02 AM.

2 Oppau Church Clocks

oppau-explosion

Oppau (now incorporated into the city of Ludwigshafen) was a small town located in Southwestern Germany. Oppau’s BASF chemical plant was responsible for the production of ammonium nitrate fertilizer, which it stored in a large silo alongside another chemical. Unfortunately, these two chemicals had a habit of getting stuck together, a situation that was remedied with the use of dynamite charges. While this operation was dangerous, it was also commonplace.

However, Oppau’s luck ran out on September 21, 1921, when the fertilizer exploded. The huge blast left both the factory and town destroyed. What did survive were several clocks belonging to nearby churches. Every single one was found to have stopped at 7:33 AM, the exact time of the explosion.

1 The Tsunami Clock

hilo-tsunami-clock

While the Hawaiian islands are seen as a paradise by many, they still face the wrath of nature on occasion. The city of Hilo, located on the Big Island, has itself faced two major tsunamis in the last century, the second of which was on May 23, 1960. One of the area’s famous landmarks, a green clock located in the low-lying suburb of Waiakea Town, survived the first tsunami but was heavily damaged by the second. Its hands are stopped at 1:04 AM, the time at which the first massive waves hit the island.

The clock has been kept in this condition as a memorial to those who lost their lives and homes and still stands today. Waiakea Town no longer exists, its former lands having been replaced with public parks and green spaces.

The author is a Ph.D. student in agriculture who lives to read and learn.

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10 Weird Causes Of Death Through History https://listorati.com/10-weird-causes-of-death-through-history/ https://listorati.com/10-weird-causes-of-death-through-history/#respond Tue, 13 Aug 2024 16:13:15 +0000 https://listorati.com/10-weird-causes-of-death-through-history/

While we don’t often like to speak of it, death inevitably comes to us all. Most of us hope for a peaceful drift into eternal sleep in old age. For some of us, accident or misadventure sees us meeting an untimely end.

Death is always tragic, but throughout history, there have been some truly bizarre endings. From crazy accidents to cases where Mother Nature seems to have exacted her own revenge, the following unusual deaths, some of which are arguably more legend than fact, show that you never know when your time is up.

10 Defenestration

Falling, or being pushed from a window, is not a completely unheard-of cause of death. However, in Prague, defenestration, or being thrown from a window, was twice employed as form of execution. If Bohemian citizens didn’t like their politicians, they would throw them out, literally out the window. Both defenestrations marked the beginning of lengthy wars.

The first mass defenestration occurred in 1419, when a mob of angry Czech citizens stormed the town hall. The judge, burgomaster, and five other people were thrown to their deaths in the town square below. This sparked a conflict which was to last over 20 years.

In 1618, clashes between Roman Catholic and Protestant factions marked the beginning of the Thirty Years’ War. Protestants threw the Catholic regents William Slatava and Jaroslav Martinic, along with their secretary, from the windows of Prague Castle’s council room for violating the Letter of Majesty. Despite the defenestrators’ intentions, in this case, the defenestrated men survived their plunge.[1]

9 Death By Tortoise

You would think a tortoise would be the least likely animal to cause a fatal injury. However, the ancient Greek dramatist Aeschylus was said to have met an untimely end from a falling tortoise circa 455 BC.

According to legend, he had received a prophecy that he would die from a falling object. In order to protect himself, the writer was working outdoors, where he would be safe from objects dropping from above.

Unfortunately, his attempt to dodge fate was unsuccessful. Aeschylus died when a large tortoise fell from the sky onto his head. Literature through the ages suggests that a passing eagle mistook his bald head for a rock.[2] Looking for a suitable tool to break open (and eat) its prey, the eagle dropped the tortoise onto Aeschylus’s unsuspecting head, killing him instantly.

Birds of prey which feed on tortoises do exist in the region in which Aeschylus died. The massive birds will drop the reptiles onto rocks, swooping to devour the flesh as the shells crack open.

8 Self-Decapitation


A man self-decapitating while shaving was one of the macabre and bizarre sketches in the Monty Python series. However, one British man truly did self-decapitate as a unique and arguably futile protest against his impending eviction.

David Phyall’s home in a Bishopstoke apartment building was set for demolition in 2008, but he steadfastly refused housing authorities’ attempts to relocate him. After the man hadn’t answered calls for several days, family members raised the alarm. Subsequently, emergency services made a grisly find: The man had successfully decapitated himself.

Tying a chainsaw to the leg of a pool table and setting a timer, Phyall allowed the chainsaw to sever his head. He was reportedly drunk when he died. A coroner’s report noted that this was the latest in a history of suicide attempts the mentally ill man had made.

7 Tennis Ball To The Groin


The 1983 US Open was held in New York City between August 30 and September 11 of said year. On September 10, Richard Wertheim, 60, was officiating a junior boys match. The linesman was sitting in a chair at the center line.

One of the players, Stefan Edberg of Sweden, served, but the ball went wild and struck Wertheim directly in his groin. The understandably painful impact caused him to topple backward. Wertheim’s head struck the ground hard, knocking him unconscious.[4] He remained unresponsive as he was taken to the hospital.

Unfortunately, Mr. Wertheim died on September 15. His family sued the US Tennis Association for over $2 million and were ultimately awarded $165,000, but that decision was reversed by an appeals court. Stefan Edberg went on to win multiple championships over the course of his career.

6 Crushed By A Cactus


An Arizona man got more than he bargained for when he decided to flout the state’s strict laws protecting their desert plant life. Arizona’s saguaro cacti can take over a century to grow to full height, and a combination of development, a black market trade, and vandalism has seen their numbers dwindling in recent years. Saguaros are the iconic prickly plants we see in Westerns.

One massive cactus fought to the end in 1982, ultimately taking its assailant with it. A group of friends had been engaged in a day of illegal “cactus plugging” in the Arizona desert. The 8-meter-tall (27 ft) cactus had been the subject of 27-year-old David Grundman’s target practice. The gunman stood about 3 meters (10 ft) from the cactus and shot it twice with his shotgun, which is when the cactus struck back. Its arm fell, crushing Grundman beneath it.[5]

5 Strangled By An Automobile

Dancer Isadora Duncan was an international stage sensation during the early 20th century. The world was shocked by her bizarre automobile accident in Nice, France, in 1927. Duncan was the passenger in an open-topped car when her long, glamorous, trailing scarf became caught in the vehicle’s wheel. The star was wrenched from the moving vehicle by the trapped scarf, throwing her to the ground and breaking her neck.[6]

This was one of several automobile accidents in which Duncan had been injured during her career. In a tragic coincidence, in 1913, a car being driven by Duncan’s nanny plunged into the Seine River near Paris, killing both of her children.

4 Pharaoh’s Curse

Here’s another one that treads more into legend territory. George Herbert was a philanthropist who funded Howard Carter’s archaeological expedition to Tutankhamun’s tomb in 1922.

The 5th Earl of Carnarvon died in Egypt under bizarre circumstances just six weeks after the burial chamber was opened. Herbert suffered a mosquito bite, which he cut while shaving. The wound became infected, and he died of blood poisoning.

Many still cite Herbert’s death as evidence for the curse of Tutankhamun. News reports at the time claimed Tutankhamun’s mummified body had a mosquito bite in the same place as Herbert’s fatal wound. Twelve people present at the opening of the sarcophagus died within months of each other in similarly strange circumstances, victims of King Tut’s vengeance if you believe the story.

3 Crushed By A Coffin

Pallbearing duties are a somber enough occasion. However, in 1872, they proved fatal for one unfortunate coffin-bearer.

Henry Taylor was part of a funeral cortege making its way to Kensal Green Cemetery in London. The six pallbearers were carrying the coffin along a narrow path, which was slippery after recent rain. Funeral directors asked the pallbearers to turn around so that the coffin approached headfirst, in the customary manner.

Taylor apparently slipped on a stone while they were maneuvering the coffin into the new position. When the other pallbearers dropped the coffin, it fell on Taylor, crushing him to death.[8]

2 Died Laughing

They say that laughter is the best medicine. Not so in the case of Scottish aristocrat and author Thomas Urquhart. A 17th-century courtier, Urquhart served both King Charles I and Charles II before facing imprisonment in the Tower of London and eventually being exiled to Europe. The somewhat eccentric Scottish laird reportedly died of “excessive laughter” when he heard the news that Charles II had been restored to the throne in 1660.[9]

Accounts of death by laughter are not totally unheard-of, with King Martin of Aragon and Greek philosopher Chrysippus both reported to have died in paroxysms of mirth. It is thought that in such cases, assuming they really happened, the excessive laughter actually caused either asphyxiation or heart failure.

1 Tripping On A Beard

Death from facial hair is an unlikely scenario. Nevertheless, a Renaissance-era Bavarian literally fell victim to his famous flowing beard.

St. Stephan’s Church in Braunau am Inn, which sits on what is now the German-Austrian border, has a memorial to the former town mayor who died in bizarre circumstances. Hans Steininger (sometimes spelled Staininger) was the town burgomaster during the 1560s and was known as “the man with the long beard.” Steininger had reportedly never trimmed his beard in his life. The remarkable facial hair flowing down to his feet is depicted in a bas-relief on the side of the church as well as in other locations around town.

Steininger usually kept his beard neatly rolled up in a special pouch. However, when attempting to flee a fire which broke out in the town in 1567, he tripped on his prodigiously long beard, breaking his neck. The 452-year-old beard has been preserved for posterity in the town’s museum.[10]

Lesley Connor is a retired Australian newspaper editor who provides articles for online publications and her own travel blog.

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10 Factors That Made the Black Death So Deadly https://listorati.com/10-factors-that-made-the-black-death-so-deadly/ https://listorati.com/10-factors-that-made-the-black-death-so-deadly/#respond Mon, 15 Apr 2024 04:12:38 +0000 https://listorati.com/10-factors-that-made-the-black-death-so-deadly/

The plague outbreak of the mid-1300s, known widely as the Black Death because of the black, festering sores it produced on the bodies of its victims, was a terrible pandemic. It wasn’t the first outbreak of the plague, but it was far and away the deadliest. Though history tends to focus on its devastation of Europe, the Black Death killed millions in a swath spanning three continents, from the British Isles to Egypt and all the way to China. Estimates of the death toll across the whole of Eurasia range from 75 to 200 million. It reduced the population of Europe by 30 to 60 percent and the population of the world as a whole from an estimated 450 million down to approximately 300–350 million between the 1340s and the mid-1350s.

The impact of the Black Death was so tremendous and destructive that it led Christians to believe they were being punished for their sins. It wiped out entire villages, towns, and cities. It was a depopulation event unlike anything seen before or since. Listed here are ten contributing factors to the lethality of the Black Death.

10 Easily Carried by Fleas


For most of its evolutionary history, Yersinia pestis, the bacterium responsible for the plague, was no more mobile than Ebola or tuberculosis, so outbreaks seldom occurred, were confined to small areas, and claimed lower numbers of victims. That was back when human-to-human transfer was required for the disease to spread. At some point in recent millennia, a change in the genetic landscape of Y. pestis occurred that gave it some serious wheels: It developed a resistance to toxins in the gut of the flea.[1]

This gave it the ability to spread with and thrive within fleas as they traveled the globe on the backs of rats, cats, and otherwise. With this newfound vector, the Black Death was able to spread far beyond where it had beforehand. The rest is history.

9 Filthy Living Conditions


Imagine a world with no sewers, no running water, and rats. Lots of rats. Where rats are found, fleas tend to follow. In the middle years of the 14th century, the odds were good that many of those fleas carried our good friend Y. pestis. If you were living anywhere in Europe, Asia, or North Africa at the time, the odds were also quite good that you lived in squalor and had little (if any) means of avoiding contact with the plague or anyone infected with it.

In Europe, in particular, people lived in close quarters with one another and often shared their living spaces with all sorts of vermin. They seldom washed, and they lived close to their own filth. Gone were the baths, sewers, and aqueducts of Roman times. Returning to prehistoric levels of filth left the people ripe for infection.[2]

8 The Silk Road

Named for the luxuriant threads spun by the Asian silkworm that merchants carried along its 6,400-kilometer (4,000 mi) span, the Silk Road was founded during China’s Han dynasty. Though the route was a marvel of commerce and diplomacy and allowed for the exchange of goods, languages, ideas, and customs between just about every society from the Atlantic to the Pacific, it also served as a superhighway for infectious diseases.

Historians and epidemiologists alike agree that the plague started somewhere in present-day China or Mongolia and then followed the Silk Road and had reached Crimea by 1346. Though outbreaks of bubonic plague had occurred before in recorded history, most notably in the Plague of Justinian in the sixth century, they hadn’t occurred in a world half so connected as that of the mid-1300s. With the blessings of trade and cultural exchange came the curse of microbial exchange.[3]

7 The Siege of Kaffa

Whereas the Silk Road was a peaceful means by which the Black Death made its way to Europe and Africa, the Mongol conquests of the High Middle Ages were a far more cataclysmic vector. Beginning with the rise of Genghis Khan in the late 12th and early 13th centuries, the Mongol conquests took Eurasia by storm. Within the lifetime of Genghis, the Mongols, masters of the horse and composite bow, had laid waste to an unspeakably large swath of land stretching from the Korean peninsula to Hungary. After Genghis Khan died, the empire fragmented into different factions, called khanates, held by his numerous sons.

One of these divisions, the Golden Horde, stretched from Siberia into Eastern Europe. It covered the Crimean Peninsula, in which lay the city of Kaffa. A group of Italian merchants was granted special privileges for the control of Kaffa, which proved beneficial for the Mongols in that it gave them access to European markets. After relations between the Italian merchants and the natives began to deteriorate, the Mongols laid siege to Kaffa.

During the siege, the Black Death began to make its way through the Mongol ranks. Rather than letting the disease get the best of them, they made it work for them. True to form as masters of murderous ingenuity, the Mongols loaded the plague-ridden corpses of their soldiers onto their catapults and launched them over the city walls in an early instance of germ warfare. This, of course, brought the plague into the city, just as the merchants were fleeing back to Sicily.[4] It is generally agreed that the siege of Kaffa was a watershed moment for the expansion of the Black Death into Europe.

6 Climate Change


Many experts argue that climate change, not fleas and vermin, was the preeminent culprit for the deadliness of the Black Death. Whether or not it was the foremost factor, it certainly had a part to play. The onset of the pandemic coincided with the end of the Medieval Warm Period, an era of warmer summers and milder winters lasting from about 900 to 1300. The period allowed for more bountiful harvests and made people less susceptible to illness.

Researchers have determined that this stretch of mild weather was caused by an alteration of global heat distribution through changes in pressure systems. The normalization of said systems pushed much of the Northern Hemisphere back into a cooler, rainier period, which led to lower crop yields and cold, wet conditions that left people far and wide ripe for the plague.[5]

5 Famine


When the Black Death came around, it had the proverbial red carpet rolled out for it to come in and wreak havoc, and famine had a huge part to play in that. In the early years of the 14th century, a period of hunger aptly dubbed “the Great Famine” struck the entirety of the European continent, ranging from Italy to Russia. The famine, which started in 1315, was triggered by an unusually cold winter, which gave way to an unusually cool and rainy spring and a subsequent summer, which followed suit. This, of course, decimated crop yields across the continent, and people were left starving. An estimated 10 to 25 percent of Europe’s population perished in the two years that followed.

Though the severity of the famine had abated a bit by 1317, the cooler, wetter conditions lingered through the decades leading up to the Black Death, and people were left malnourished, with weakened immune systems that could do little to stave off the ravages of Y. pestis.[6]

4 People Were Already Weak From Other Diseases

As previously mentioned, the citizens of mid-14th-century Eurasia were already weak and hungry by the time the plague rolled around. Therefore, it would stand to reason that they were often sick in the years leading up to the big show, which, of course, they were. Diseases like typhus, smallpox, and tuberculosis thrived in the confines of their immunodeficient hosts, leaving them weak, weary, and ill-equipped to resist the plague when it came around.

From studying the corpses of plague victims, researchers have determined that many of those who died from it were concurrently ill with the aforementioned diseases and more. They were killed by a terrible cocktail of contagions.[7]

3 Medieval Medicine Was Lacking

One of the foremost accounts of the Black Death was issued to King Philip VI of France by the medical council of Paris. It claimed that the Black Death was caused by an unfortunate alignment of three planets in the heavens, which caused the spreading of a “great pestilence” in the air.[8] People genuinely thought that the black, festering sores and internal bleeding wrought by the plague were brought on by bad air. One can imagine how such a society might have fared in treating a profoundly infectious disease to which it had never been exposed.

Between the iron grip of the Catholic Church on the scientific community, the loss of medical advancements made by prior civilizations such as the Romans and Greeks, and a general inclination toward superstition, medieval medicine was no match for the Black Death.

2 It Had Three Different Forms

As deadly diseases went, the Black Death was something of a Swiss Army knife. It didn’t just go after the blood or the lungs or the lymphatic system—it went after all three, in various forms and stages. Scientists have identified the plague as having three different types: bubonic, the most common and best-known, which caused lymph nodes all over the body to turn into bulbous, black pustules; septicemic, which infected the blood; and pneumonic, which ran the lungs afoul.[9]

All three forms were accompanied by acute fever, and victims often vomited blood. It’s no surprise that a virulence so versatile had such a prodigious kill rate.

1 No Natural Immunity

Ever catch a case of the plague? Smallpox? Tuberculosis? The answer for just about everyone reading is almost certainly no. You probably don’t know anyone who’s been infected, either. You can thank immunization and, in some cases, eradication for that. However, circa 1350, there was no plague vaccine, and the disease was so novel that most people had essentially no natural resistance to it. If people had been exposed to it intermittently over thousands of years, as was the case with afflictions like smallpox, their immune systems might have been better prepared, and the lives of millions could have been spared.

As it stood, no such luxury was afforded, and all but those who avoided infection altogether and a lucky few who bore beneficial mutations that gave them a greater degree of resilience to Y. pestis were doomed to perish. The genetic legacy of the Black Death is evident today, as researchers have discovered that roughly ten percent of Europeans are immune to HIV, a benefit that they believe to be a genetic relic of the mutation that saved their ancestors from one of the closest things to an extinction event that modern man has ever seen.[10]

Trevor Graydon is just your run-of-the-mill grad school dropout trying to make sense of the post-academic world.

 

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Top 10 Unsettling Facts About The Death Of Jim Morrison https://listorati.com/top-10-unsettling-facts-about-the-death-of-jim-morrison/ https://listorati.com/top-10-unsettling-facts-about-the-death-of-jim-morrison/#respond Mon, 26 Feb 2024 22:25:17 +0000 https://listorati.com/top-10-unsettling-facts-about-the-death-of-jim-morrison/

Bearded, bloated and on a downward spiral, Jim Morrison of The Doors fled America to find a respite in Paris in the spring of 1971. He would never return. The following ten detail the rock legends sad and untimely death on July 3, 1971.

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10 Heirs

 

As one would imagine, Morrison’s estate became a contentious topic for years to come. Having drafted a simplistic and poorly-written will two years before his death, Jim left everything to Pamela. Three years later, however, Pamela joined Jim after overdosing on heroin at the age of 27. Having died without a will, Morrison’s fortune passed on to Pamela’s heirs, her parents. Seeing as the Courson’s were receiving Jim’s entire estate, the Morrison’s sued contesting their son’s will as well as the legitimacy of Jim and Pam’s common-law marriage. Arguing that Jim was on narcotics at the time his will was drafted, the Morrison’s claimed his lack of competency made the document invalid. Following years of legal battle, the Morrison’s and the Courson’s split everything 50/50. In the end, two parties that Jim loathed ultimately received the fruits of his success; a success that was criticized and belittled in life.

9 Iceman

 

Hours after his passing, Jim’s corpse remained in the tub. At one point in the evening on July 3rd, a small mortician in a dark suit arrived at the apartment. With him was a plastic bag in which Morrison’s body would be wrapped along with twenty-five pounds of dry ice for preservation. “Believe me,” said the mortician “I’ll do my best but the heat is against us.” As he proceeded to leave, Pamela expressed her desire to sleep next to Jim’s body to which the mortician strongly advised against. The following night, the mortician returned warning that decomposition would be impossible to sustain two more days due to the heat wave Paris was enduring. Meanwhile, Pamela was content living beside Jim’s corpse claiming it made her feel “secure” and if she could, they “would live like this forever.” On the afternoon of the fifth, undertakers arrived dressing Jim in a “too-large dark suit, and stuffed him into a too-small wood-veneer coffin.” Pamela commented that she had never seen Jim in a suit before and that he looked “kinda cute.” Before the coffin was sealed, she gathered all the pictures of herself and placed them with Jim to be buried with forever.

8 Piteous and Miserable

 

Jim’s funeral on July 7th was unceremonious to say the least. As one would imagine it being national news with thousands of fans flocking to Pere Lachaise, the actual burial was bleak and uneventful. According to a woman who was visiting the nearby grave of her husband, “Everything was done in a hurry. No priest was present, everybody left quickly. The whole scene was piteous and miserable.” The funeral itself was small with less than six in attendance including the band’s manager Bill Siddons. Following the burial, Siddons stated to Rolling Stone magazine, “There was no service, and that made it all the better. We just threw some flowers and dirt and said goodbye.” When asked by Doors bandmate Ray Manzarek if Siddons actually viewed Jim’s body—which Siddons had not—Manzarek became irate spawning a heated argument between the two. “How do you know it wasn’t one hundred fifty pounds of fucking sand? You buried a sealed coffin, man. We’ll never know the real truth now.” As Manzarek predicted, the lack of physically identifying Jim’s corpse kick-started the conspiracy as to whether or not the Lizard King was truly gone.

7 Poet’s Corner

 

Securing a grave in Père Lachaise – the largest and most famous cemetery in Paris – had to be kept quiet given Jim’s rock star reputation. Thus, in order to be buried among the likes of Oscar Wilde, Edith Piaf and Chopin, Pamela had the death certificate inscribed “James Morrison, poet.” As previously mentioned, Jim’s funeral in the cemeteries “Poet’s Corner” was short and hasty with few mourners and even lacked the presence of a Priest. As the $75 wooden casket – the cheapest possible model ordered by Pamela—was lowered into the ground, few words were said before the party dispersed. The grave would remain unmarked for years with subsequent plaques continuously stolen. In 1981, a sculpted bust was defaced and ultimately lifted as well. As of today, 24-hour security guard Jim’s grave which now houses a permanent marble headstone with a Greek epitaph that reads, “True to his own spirit.”

6 Natural Causes?

 

Nearly 72 hours after his passing, Jim Morrison’s death certificate was finally signed. The doctor who arrived at the apartment listed the official cause of death as heart failure. Due to this, no autopsy was ever conducted given that ‘poor health’ was cited as the leading cause. This open-and-closed approach did not sit well with Jim’s band mates and family who had lingering questions with no answers. Why was there no police investigation or autopsy? Why weren’t Jim’s parents notified? Who was the examining doctor and what were his credentials? Interestingly enough, the doctor’s signature on the death certificate was later deemed illegible in addition to Pamela conveniently forgetting the doctor’s name. To further complicate matters, Pamela lied to the American Embassy informing them that Morrison had no immediate family allowing for a “quick, no-questions-asked burial.” The day after Jim’s burial – five days after his death—Pamela and Doors’ manager Bill Siddons returned to L.A. with Siddons stating to the press, “I have returned from Paris where I have attended the funeral of Jim Morrison. I can say he died peacefully of natural causes.”

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5 Cover Up and Lies

 

When Pamela returned to L.A., Doors’ second manager Danny Sugerman pressed her for exact details as to how Jim died. According to Sugerman, Pamela had told him numerous contradictory versions of what occurred, oftentimes blaming herself and going as far as saying that she killed Jim. According to Alain Ronay—Jim’s close friend who arrived at the apartment shortly after—upon finding Jim in the bathtub, Pamela “nodded off” instead of phoning for medical help. What’s even more disturbing is that 20 years after Jim’s passing, Ronay confessed that he helped her cover up the circumstances of his “friends” death. By lying to police who responded to the scene, he corroborated Pamela’s deposition that Jim never once took drugs. This ultimately added to the narrative that Jim had poor health and simply died of heart failure negating the fact that he overdosed on heroin after a night of drinking.

4 Eviction Notice

 

Père Lachaise cemetery in north-east Paris attracts millions of visitors every year, most of who flock to one particular grave, the Lizard King. Such notoriety, however, has been a continuous nuisance for cemetery staff. From litter, graffiti and at times unorthodox tributes by fans – taking drugs and having sex – groundskeepers have had enough. Christian Charlet, who is responsible for the cemetery, went as far as creating a petition to evict the rock star stating, “We’d like to kick him out, because we don’t want him, he causes too many problems,” Charlet told Reuters news agency. “If we could get rid of him, we’d do it straight away.” Though a security guard has been hired to watch over the singer’s plot, vandalism in the area continues. In fact, relatives of neighboring graves created their own petition for Morrison to be exhumed and sent home. “People come here not to worship the dead, but think they can do what they want, as if it was a rave party,” said Charlet. Interesting note: Aside from Morrison, the second most-visited and vandalized grave is that of Oscar Wilde.

3 Break On Through…

 

In 1997, rock historian Brett Meisner ventured to Pere Lachaise with the sole intention of visiting Jim’s grave. While standing beside the singers plot, Meisner had his picture taken. Five years would pass until he reexamined the snapshot when he discovered something unsettling; a white figure in the background with its arms seemingly stretched out. The ghostly apparition is uncanny to a famous photograph of Morrison in the same pose, prompting stir among believers and skeptics. Following analysis, it came as a shock to many when researchers deemed the photo authentic stating that it was “in no way manipulated.” Furthermore, any possibility that the blur was merely a trick of the light was ruled out with researchers concluding the image is simply “unexplainable.” As for Meisner, he claims that he’s been plagued by eerie events ever since his visit to Pere Lachaise. From the breakdown of his marriage to losing a close friend from a drug overdose, his life hasn’t been the same. To date, Meisner is haunted by people who approach him to say that “Morrison’s ghost is haunting them, too,” stating, “At first it was sort of interesting to see how many people felt a spiritual bond with Jim and the photo, but now the whole vibe seems negative.”

2 Nightclub Theory

 

As rumors circulated, one that has stood the test of time is that Jim did not die in his bathtub but was moved there as a part of a cover-up. According to journalist Sam Bernett, he found Jim’s lifeless body slumped over the toilet of a nightclub’s bathroom after scoring heroin 30 minutes prior. “We were certain he’d been snorting heroin because there was foam coming out of his lips as well as blood,” Bernett says. Moments later Bernett brought in a customer who was a medic who proclaimed the Lizard King was dead. With the insistence by Jim’s dealers that he was still alive, albeit passed out, they carried the singer out of the club to an awaiting car. Later that evening, Bernett claimed to have received a phone call by someone representing the club’s owner warning him not to tell anyone what occurred. Bernett went on to state that singer Marianne Faithfull was also present in the club that evening and that she too was sworn to secrecy. “Marianne never mentioned Jim again. She won’t talk about what happened in the club to this day.” As for Barnett, he has chose to come forward simply to “get rid of my heavy load. At least everything is now out there to be discussed. I’ve said what I have to say.”

1 Murder

 

Ever since Jim’s lifeless body was found in his Parisian bathtub, numerous conspiracy theories emerged and continue to this day. Of all the far-fetched speculations, perhaps the only one that may hold merit is Marianne Faithfull’s account. English singer/songwriter known for her hit single “As Tears Go By” claimed to Mojo magazine that Jim’s death was in fact a murder involving her ex-boyfriend Jean de Breteuil. According to Faithfull, de Breteuil – a heroin dealer with several high-profile celebrity clients – stopped by Jim’s apartment on July 3rd after picking her up from the airport. “I could intuitively feel trouble. He went to see Jim Morrison and killed him.” As she eagerly waited for her beau, her anxiety became overwhelming leading her to take “a few Tuinal” and conking out.” Never witnessing what occurred, Faithfull remains adamant that de Breteuil is to blame given that the “smack” provided to Jim was too strong. “I mean I’m sure it was an accident. Poor bastard. And he died. And I didn’t know anything about this. Anyway, everybody connected to the death of this poor guy is dead now. Except me.” Jean de Breteuil—who Faithfull described as a “horrible guy, someone who had crawled out from under a stone”- died of an overdose in Morocco that same year.

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