Today, we think of Rome as an empire. But in reality, Rome came to dominate the ancient world as a republic then slowly went into decline after its transition to an imperial dictatorship. The Roman Republic was an extraordinary state: bustling, powerful, and seemingly capable of anything. Here are the men who killed it.

10Marius

Gaius Marius is almost forgotten today, but he arguably did more than anyone to ensure the overthrow of the Republic. He was one of ancient Rome’s greatest generals, famous for his victory over nomadic German tribes that threatened Italy.

But to defeat the Germans, Marius had to change Roman society forever. Rome’s legionaries were traditionally small landowners, who served for a short term before returning to their farms. However, Rome’s overseas conquests required legionaries to be away from their farms for long periods, plunging many into poverty. Wealthy aristocrats bought up small estates and merged them into huge plantations.

This meant that Rome struggled to find enough soldiers. Marius’s solution was to allow the urban unemployed to join up. This turned the legions into a full-time profession, with paid solders serving for up to 25 years. The manpower allowed Marius to defeat the Germans, but it also created a dangerous new political force.

9Sulla

Marius may not have realized the implications of his reforms, but one of his subordinates did. Lucius Cornelius Sulla distinguished himself under Marius and then took overall command against an Italian revolt. In 88 BC, he was chosen to lead the war against Mithridates of Pontus. However, Marius jealously had the command transferred to himself.

The war against Mithridates promised to be extremely lucrative, and Sulla’s legions weren’t willing to miss out. A civil war broke out, which ended when Sulla’s professional soldiers took Rome after bloody fighting. Sulla was declared dictator, and the River Tiber ran red with the blood of his enemies.

In 79 BC, he announced he was satisfied with his reforms and retired, restoring democracy to Rome. It didn’t matter—-it was now clear that the legions were more loyal to their generals than Rome. The path to dictatorship had been established. The only question was who would take it next.

8Lucius Licinius Lucullus

In fact, while Sulla was still dictator, a threatening youth appeared at the gates of Rome. His name was Gnaeus Pompeius, but he was extraordinarily vain and relished the title of Pompey the Great. After inheriting an army from his father, he had defeated Marius’s loyalists in Sicily. Now, he demanded Rome celebrate him with a triumph.

Sulla refused, but Pompey informed the aging dictator that “more people worship the rising than setting sun” and declined to disband his legions. Unnerved, Sulla gave in and allowed the triumph.

Later, an aristocrat called Lucullus was chosen to lead a war against Mithridates. He was a good general, but too arrogant to recognize the new reality and bribe his troops with plunder. Soon, an officer named Clodius began stirring discontent, pointing out that Pompey richly rewarded his soldiers, while Lucullus gave his nothing. Before long, the legions mutinied and Lucullus had to be replaced with Pompey.

7Crassus

Pompey won great victories in the east, which were watched jealously by his rival Marcus Licinius Crassus. A key supporter of Sulla, Crassus helped execute the dictator’s enemies, then snapped up their property for a nominal fee. Some wealthy landowners were marked for death simply because Crassus wanted their land. With the profits, he got into moneylending and tax-farming. Before long, he was the richest man in Roman history.

But Crassus still lacked military glory and respect. Although he had ensured Sulla’s victory outside Rome, Pompey had stolen his thunder. Then, Crassus defeated Spartacus’s slave uprising, only to discover that Pompey had arrived at the last minute, massacred some stragglers, and taken credit for putting down the whole revolt.

Unsurprisingly, the two men became deadly enemies and conflict between them seemed inevitable. As Pompey prepared to return from the east, all Rome trembled.

6Julius Caesar

But everyone reckoned without a rising politician named Julius Caesar. Born to an ancient but impoverished noble family, Caesar had made a good name for himself and was elected to a string of offices. He was heavily in debt and had survived by becoming a close supporter of Crassus. But he was also on good terms with Pompey and remained popular with the people.

Caesar realized that, while Crassus and Pompey hated each other, their goals weren’t actually mutually exclusive. Pompey wanted land for his veterans, while Crassus wanted a glamorous military command and legislation that would help his business interests.

Arranging a meeting, Caesar pointed out that Crassus and Pompey risked destroying themselves in a clash. But by working together, Rome’s richest man and its greatest general would be unstoppable. The three men agreed to form an alliance, with Caesar as the political frontman in the senate. Together the three men would be known as the First Triumvirate.

5Cato

By this time, Rome was a sea of corruption, with bribery and intimidation commonplace. But one man stood above it all. Marcus Porcius Cato was a man of iron integrity who openly held his fellow Romans in contempt. This won him the admiration of the Romans, who agreed that they were a pretty contemptible bunch.

However, Cato’s refusal to compromise his beliefs would have disastrous consequences. It was Cato who prevented Pompey from giving his veterans land grants. Pompey then offered to marry Cato’s niece, but received a furious response: “Cato is not to be captured by way of the women’s apartments.” The arrogant general felt humiliated and couldn’t understand why the Romans supported Cato over him.

Caesar and Crassus also tried to reach out to Cato, but the senator wouldn’t consider any deal with those he considered immoral. This relentless opposition was a key reason why the three men felt the need to form the Triumvirate.

4Clodius

Although the Triumvirate dominated Rome, senators like Cato and the famed orator Cicero continued to resist. However, the Triumvirate soon got its way: Pompey’s veterans got land, Crassus took command of a glamorous war against the Parthians, and Caesar received his own war on Gaul.

Meanwhile, a dangerous new force arrived on the political scene. Clodius, the officer who incited mutiny against Lucullus, had returned to Rome, where he continued his rabble-rousing antics. He sensationally gave up his aristocratic status and declared himself a plebeian. He began to whip up the Roman poor into armed mobs, who rampaged through the streets attacking his enemies.

The Triumvirate soon formed an alliance with Clodius to get rid of their enemies. First, he used his position as Tribune of the Plebs to get Cato sent to govern Cyprus. Then, he sent his gang after Cicero. With his life under threat, the senator fled Rome as Clodius’s mob burned his house down and built a temple to liberty from the rubble.

3Milo

Clodius was triumphant and ensured his popularity among the lower classes by securing free wheat for the poor (Rome’s version of welfare). Meanwhile, with Cato and Cicero gone, the Triumvirate began to splinter. Crassus’s old dislike of Pompey (pictured) emerged and he encouraged Clodius to turn on the general.

To his horror, Pompey found himself jeered in the street. In the forum, one of Clodius’s gangsters pointedly dropped a dagger while walking toward the general. Pompey was forced to beat a hasty retreat, with Clodius’s laughter ringing in his ears.

But Pompey the Great was no pushover. He had a supporter named Milo elected tribune and brought in gladiators and hired toughs to back him up. Milo’s professional fighters clashed with Clodius’s larger gangs and soon the whole city was a war zone.

Things came to a head when Milo and Clodius accidentally ran into each other on the road and one of Milo’s gladiators killed Clodius with a javelin. Mad with grief, the mob placed Clodius’s body in the senate and burned the building down on top of him.

2Gaius Claudius Marcellus

In panic, the senate turned to Pompey, who put down the remains of Clodius’s gangs and restored order. Then, word arrived that Crassus had been killed fighting the Parthians. Things were looking up for Pompey, but there was a complication. Caesar had been unexpectedly successful in the north, conquering all of Gaul.

Suddenly, Caesar was a real rival to Pompey, enormously wealthy from his conquests and commanding the loyalty of a battle-hardened army. As the senate became increasingly nervous of Caesar’s power, they turned to Pompey as the one man who could stop him.

The issue came to a head in 50 BC, when the consul Gaius Marcellus recklessly ordered Caesar to give up his command and return to Rome. Without the protection of his army, Caesar was sure his enemies would have him prosecuted for exceeding his authority. In January 49 BC, he took his legions across the Rubicon river and marched on Rome.

1Pompey The Great

As insurance against Caesar, Marcellus had appointed Pompey commander of the legions in Italy. But Pompey realized that his green recruits were no match for Caesar’s veterans and decided to abandon Italy. This was a pragmatic move, but it handed the initiative to Caesar.

In fact, Pompey’s whole campaign was dogged by a curious timidity. Pompey was still a great general, and he consistently outmaneuvered Caesar, but he also seemed intimidated by the younger man’s bold moves. First, he lured Caesar into modern Albania, but he failed to attack before Caesar’s reinforcements arrived. An attempt to starve the enemy into submission failed. Finally, he defeated Caesar at Dyrrhachium but failed to press the advantage.

Finally, Caesar’s innovative tactics won a crushing victory at Pharsalus. Pompey fled to Egypt, where the Pharaoh had him murdered. Although Caesar himself would later be murdered by his opponents, it didn’t matter. The Republic was dead, and his heir Octavian would become the Emperor Augustus.

Life for the Inuit, the natives of Canada’s Arctic, has never been easy. They have built up their lives in a frozen part of the world where permafrost keeps most life from growing from under the earth.

Things didn’t get any better when they made contact with the outside world. From the moment they first met the Europeans, the Inuit have gone through tragedy after tragedy. They have been taken from their homes. Their culture has been crushed, and countless lives have been ruined—all in ways that still affect them today.

10 First Contact With Europeans Ended In A Kidnapping

Martin Frobisher was one of the first European faces the Inuit saw. Frobisher met and talked with the Inuit—and then kidnapped three of them.

Frobisher dragged a man, his wife, and their infant child into his boat and brought them back to England to show them off. There, they displayed their talents, demonstrating how they made kayaks and hunted animals.

The European didn’t think highly of the Inuit. “They were savage people and fed only upon raw flesh,” one man wrote. His entry abruptly ends: “They died here within a month.”

Unprepared for European diseases, the Inuit man fell ill and died nearly as soon as he arrived. His wife died the next week and their baby shortly after. The family was buried with only a short obituary left behind. “Burials in Anno 1577,” it read. “Collichang, a heathen man, buried the 8th of November. Egnock, a heathen woman, buried the 13th of November.”

9 They Were Put In Human Zoos

By the 1800s, Europeans had started gathering up all the exotic people they’d met in the New World and showing them off in human zoos. Some were kidnapped, and others were lured into it—but none of it went well.

A man named Johan Adrian Jacobsen lured a group of eight Inuit, who started performing in European zoos on October 15, 1880. They didn’t last long. The first, a boy named Nuggasak, got sick and died within two months.

The troupe went on, but 13 days later, Nuggasak’s mother died. “The husband is very sad,” Jacobsen wrote in his diary, “and expressed his wish to be able to accompany his wife.” Jacobsen denied his request. The show went on.

Two days later, the man’s daughter died. The heartbroken father fought with Jacobsen to stay with his dying girl, but Jacobsen didn’t let him. They had to go to Paris. When they reached France, though, the last five Inuit were sick and had to be rushed to the hospital. By January 8, all five had died.

“Everything went so well in beginning,” Jacobsen wrote as he watched the last of the Inuit die. He briefly mused over accepting the tiniest hint of responsibility: “Should I be indirectly responsible for their deaths?”

8 An Entire Tribe Was Wiped Out

At the turn of the 20th century, European whalers met a new tribe. They were called the Sadlermiut and lived on three islands in Hudson Bay.

The Sadlermiut lived in complete isolation from the Inuit. They didn’t build igloos. Instead, they lived in stone houses. They had their own religion and their own language. They appeared to have been influenced by Inuit culture, but they were their own people with their own beliefs and their own lifestyle.

Then, within a couple of years, the entire population was wiped out. European diseases spread among them quickly. By 1903, every single one of them had died.

7 The Canadian Government Gave The Inuit Numbers For Names

The first missionaries to the North couldn’t pronounce the Inuit’s names, and they weren’t particularly interested in learning. Instead, the missionaries gave the Inuit new names taken from the Bible, like “Noah” and “Jonah.”

The Inuit soon lost their family names, too. The Canadian government labeled each Inuit with an Eskimo Identification number that doubled as their last name. Their numbers were used as their last names on all government documents. The Inuit were also forced to wear their numbers around their necks like dog tags.

By the 1940s, the Inuit went by names like Annie E7-121. They kept those names until disturbingly recently. The Inuit people weren’t officially allowed to use their own names (instead of numbers) until 1978.

6 People Were Forcibly Moved Farther North

In the 1950s, the Canadian government decided that it was time to tackle “The Eskimo Problem.” They told the Inuit that the government wanted to improve their lives by taking them to a new home with better game to hunt and fish to catch. It was supposed to be an easier life.

Instead, the government relocated the Inuit to places like Grise Fiord and Resolute Bay, where the temperature on a winter night drops to -40 degrees Celsius (-40 °F) and the darkness of night lasts for five months straight. For the first year, people had to live there in tents without enough food or other supplies.

Hunting was also much harder there. Most Inuit wanted to go home immediately, but they weren’t permitted to return to their homes for another 35 years. As it turned out, the government didn’t want to help the Inuit. The Canadian government just wanted the people living in the North to cement their claim to the Arctic against the USSR.

The Inuit were moved north for “the strategic interests of Canada’s great neighbor to the south.” That’s not a conspiracy theory; that’s a quote from a government document.

5 The RCMP Slaughtered Sled Dogs

Before the 1950s, many of the Inuit still lived off the land. When the government tackled the “Eskimo Problem,” though, that changed. Every Inuit they could find was moved into new government-created settlements.

The government promised the Inuit that this would lead to a new flood of wealth into their territory, but it didn’t really pan out that way. Instead, the Inuit lived in abject poverty in these settlements.

It was worse now, though, because the Inuit couldn’t sustain themselves by hunting as they had before. Now they had to follow Canadian government laws that limited how much the Inuit could catch. These laws weren’t intended for people who lived off the land.

Many Inuit kept hunting anyway—until the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) slaughtered their sled dogs. Claiming that these dogs were dangerous, the RCMP killed them by the thousands. Without sled dogs, it was impossible for the Inuit to hunt the way they had before. They were left to rely on their work as laborers.

“I never understood why they were shot,” an Inuit man named Thomas Kublu later related. “I thought, was it because my hunting was getting in the way of my time as a laborer?”

4 Children Were Separated From Their Parents

Once in the settlements, the children were sent to schools. Most of these towns, though, didn’t have schools of their own yet. So the kids were taken from their parents and sent to other provinces.

Many parents believed that they would lose any financial support from the government if they didn’t send their kids off. These families were newly impoverished and unable to hunt as they had before, and so the parents let their kids go.

In their new schools, the children were forced to speak English. Some have related that they were beaten if they spoke their own language, Inuktitut. They were taught a curriculum based on Southern values and languages.

By the time they were sent back to their parents, they barely remembered their own culture. “I thought I was a Southerner,” one man related. “I didn’t want to come back. I didn’t like the tundra and the house.”

3 Children Were Abused

The children were sent to residential schools that were horrible. This is seen as one of the low marks in Canadian history, and it really was. At least 3,200 natives died in these schools, many from abuse and neglect.

They were physically abused. If they spoke Inuktitut, one student recalled, they “had to put their hands on the desk and got 20 slaps.” If they didn’t stand during the nation anthem, they were beaten.

Worse still, they were sexually abused. According to one student, a group of Catholic priests at one school made students “touch their penis for candy.” Another has said that she “was thrown into a cold shower every night, sometimes after being raped.”

People reported the sexual abuse, but an active government campaign worked to block all investigations. Their staff was mostly volunteers, missionaries who were barely paid a dime. They were hard to replace—and so the government turned a blind eye to the abuse.

2 Substance Abuse

The Indian Act made it illegal for the Inuit to buy alcohol. In 1959, though, immediately after pulling the Inuit out of the lives they knew, the government decided to make an exception and let them drink.

It wasn’t the best time to do it. The Inuit were going through an incredibly hard time and adjusting to a new sort of life. They didn’t quite know what to do with themselves in their homes and with their new lifestyles. They spent most of their time bored. So when liquor was introduced, they drank it.

“Back then, the whole town would be drunk for a whole week,” one man recalled. “Everyone was hurting inside, not living as they should. People growing up with a lot of pain. I don’t want my grandchildren to grow up with that kind of pain and end up like us.”

1 The New Cost Of Living Is Unbelievably Expensive

Since then, things have improved. The Nunavut Land Claims Agreement has given the Inuit some autonomy, and the Canadian government has issued apologies for the past. Life in the North, however, is still far from ideal. The Inuit territory of Nunavut is the poorest in the country, and 60 percent of the people there can’t afford to feed their families.

The average Inuit makes one-third the wage of the average Canadian, and the Inuit cost of living is significantly higher. Much of the Arctic is covered in permafrost, meaning that most food has to be imported from the South. That leads to some incredibly high prices.

The people of Nunavut started taking pictures of the prices at their grocery stores, and they’re absurd. A cabbage can cost $28.54. A slice of watermelon goes for $13.09, 18 pieces of fried chicken fetch $61.99, and a 24-pack of bottled water goes for $104.99.

Worse, though, is the lingering impact of everything that’s happened. Among the Inuit, the suicide rate for teenage boys is 40 times higher than it is in the rest of the country—a symptom of a culture that has been systematically destroyed.

Moviemaking is a serious business, and it’s not uncommon for a studio to gamble a ton of cash on a project. Most movies don’t make as much money as people think, and they often result in significant financial losses for a studio.

For example, 2017’s Justice League raked in $657.9 million at the global box office but ended up losing Warner Bros. money, as the break-even point was $750 million.^[1]

Fortunately, WB survived the $60 million loss, but several studios throughout Hollywood history haven’t been as lucky. Some have had to sell off assets while others have closed entirely.

Amounts in parenthesis are adjusted for inflation to 2020.

Top 10 Ways Hollywood Ruined Your Favorite TV Shows

10 Cutthroat Island (1994)

Carolco Pictures was once best known for creating hits, including Terminator 2: Judgment Day and Basic Instinct, but these days, it’s remembered for something else. In 1994, the studio was in a bit of a financial pickle. It invested around $98 million ($172 million) on a film called Cutthroat Island.

While that’s about what a big tentpole picture costs these days, in the early ’90s, it was a make it or break it amount of money, and for Carolco Pictures, it definitely broke it.

Cutthroat Island was one of the biggest financial flops in film history. The movie had a plethora of problems, requiring the rebuilding of sets, the reshooting of scenes, the replacement of actors, and everything else that can go wrong on a film set.

Cutthroat Island’s theatrical run only made around $10 million ($17.5 million) at the global box office. The financial loss utterly destroyed Carolco Pictures. The studio sold some of its film rights to the foreign market and filed Chapter 11 bankruptcy only weeks after the movie’s release.^[2]

9 The Golden Compass (2007)

New Line Cinema was certainly familiar with gambling on a film, as it put everything on the line to make Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings trilogy. That gamble paid off, and it wasn’t long before New Line Cinema was throwing caution to the wind on another project.

The next big film to come the studio’s way was an adaptation of Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials saga with The Golden Compass. New Line threw $180 million ($225.9 million) at the project, which was meant to be the first of three films.

That was a lot of money, as the studio had only invested $200 million on the three films of The Lord of the Rings, but The Golden Compass was idealized to be bigger and better. Unfortunately, it was neither of those things, and the film flopped upon release.

The Golden Compass made $372 million ($466.9 million), but that was far below the studio’s break-even point. Within a year, New Line was forced to restructure, sell off its foreign rights, and ultimately, it was sold to Warner Bros. Studios.

The studio still exists as a separate media company from Warner Bros., but its films are the property of WB, which also distributes everything with a New Line Cinema logo.^[3]

8 Heaven’s Gate (1980)

For years, United Artists was a studio associated with some of the biggest and best pictures, including Raging Bull, Annie Hall, and Apocalypse Now. The company was originally founded by film legend Charlie Chaplin, so it had some history.^[4]

Following his critically acclaimed 1978 hit The Deer Hunter, director Michael Cimino began developing Heaven’s Gate. The movie features John Hurt, Jeff Bridges, Christopher Walken, and many more high-profile players, but when the movie was released in 1980, it was a box office bomb.

It was labeled as one of the worst movies ever made upon release but has since been elevated to the point of critical acclaim. Unfortunately, that didn’t help United Artists’ bottom line. The studio spent $44 million ($138.9 million) on Heaven’s Gate, and it only made $3.5 million ($11 million) at the box office.

United Artists was unable to recover its costs, and it filed for bankruptcy. Metro-Goldwyn-Meyer purchased the remnants of the studio in 1981 for $350 million ($1 billion). UA’s TV interests were revived via a media merger in 2014, but it was folded into MGM the following year. By the studios’ 100th anniversary, it was revived by MGM once more as United Artists Releasing.^[5]

7 Raise the Titanic (1980)

Raise the Titanic was based on the 1976 book of the same name, and it was an ambitious project, to say the least. The film was released in 1980, which was long before James Cameron made well over a billion on a Titanic film, and it was definitely a gamble for ITC Entertainment.

The film had a massive budget for the time, costing $40 million ($126 million) to produce. That cost put the studio in a bit of a bind, as it was a sink or swim movie, and it sank. Raise the Titanic bombed at the box office, managing to make only $7 million ($22 million) off its budget.

The financial losses were too much for the production company to handle, and the film’s failure resulted in the sale of the film division, Associated Film Distribution, to Universal Pictures.

The film’s producer, Lord Grade, retired from moviemaking following Raise the Titanic’s utter failure. At the time, he remarked that “it would have been cheaper to lower the Atlantic.”

The remaining assets of ITC focused on television, but financial issues and other problems ultimately resulted in the closure of ITC, which became defunct in 1998.^[6]

6 Titan: A.E. (2000)

The 1990s saw the rise of several studios’ attempts at creating new animation outfits, and 20th Century Fox was one of them. The studio founded Fox Animation Studios in 1994 to break into the animated film market, and it hired veteran animator Don Bluth and Gary Goldman to oversee it.

The studio’s first film, Anastasia, was a hit. The small profit seen from that venture led Bluth to create the second film in the Fox Animation library, Titan A.E. The film was co-written by Joss Whedon, and it was given a budget of $30 million ($45 million) for pre-production.

The budget was boosted with an additional $55 million ($83 million), and when Titan A.E. hit theaters, it absolutely bombed at the box office. All told, the $85 million movie only made a meager $9.4 million ($14 million) at the box office.

Once all the bills were paid, and Fox was left counting its losses, the studio saw a total loss of $100 million ($181 million) from Titan A.E. Ten days after the movie’s release, Fox Animation Studios was shut down, and eventually replaced with Blue Sky Studios.^[7]

Top 10 Things Hollywood Still Gets Wrong About Society

5 Cleopatra (1963)

When 20th Century Fox greenlit the production of Cleopatra, it set aside $44 million ($374 million) for the film, which was, at the time, the largest movie budget ever. That’s a massive amount of money, and the crew and costume department used every penny, creating gigantic sets and beautiful costumes.

Cleopatra’s production was fraught with problems, which saw its original $30 million budget increase by $14 million. The director was swapped out, and so were members of the cast. Additionally, the production switched filming locations twice, requiring expensive set reconstruction.

There was also a scandal involving Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton, so the film has earned a level of infamy for its problematic production. Cleopatra was actually the highest-grossing movie of 1963. Still, its box office pull of $57.7 million ($490 million) paled in comparison to its production and marketing costs.

20th Century Fox was nearly bankrupt, but the studio survived. To do so, it was forced to cease all production and sell off 300 acres of its lot. Several Fox executives’ careers were destroyed, and the studio was nearly closed. It survived, but it took a lot of damage from Cleopatra.^[8]

4 The Right Stuff (1983)

The Ladd Company was founded by Alan Ladd, Jr., a man who is cemented in the history of Hollywood for being the one who greenlit Star Wars while working at 20th Century Fox. The company’s goal was to pursue ambitious projects, which it did with The Right Stuff and Twice Upon a Time.

The Right Stuff is a critically acclaimed film about the earliest days of the American Space program. While its status as a critical success cannot be understated, it failed to find an audience at the box office, resulting in a loss for the company.^[9] Around the same time, the Ladd Company released another ambitious project, Twice Upon a Time.

Twice Upon a Time was an animated film with George Lucas on as an executive producer. Still, like The Right Stuff, it cost a lot of money but made very little. Both movies were released to a limited audience due to the studio’s financial problems. Neither helped bring it out of the hole.

The Right Stuff and Twice Upon a Time were the final nails in The Ladd Company’s coffin. The studio effectively died in 1985, when Ladd took over United Artists. Its label was revived in partnership with Paramount in 1995 for Braveheart. It also co-produced The Phantom and A Very Brady Sequel.^[10]

3 One From the Heart (1982)

In the early 1980s, Francis Ford Coppola decided to try something new when he co-wrote and directed a musical called One From the Heart. The movie was an ambitious project, and over the course of production, its budget went from $8 million ($21.5 million) to $26 million ($70 million)… for a musical… in 1982.

Describing the movie as a box office failure doesn’t seem harsh enough, considering how badly this movie performed. According to Box Office Mojo, One From the Heart made $636,796 ($1.7 million) at the global box office.^[11] That was its worldwide gross, which saw it released in only 41 theaters for 46 weeks.

To make the movie, Coppola bought the rights himself when MGM’s budget was too low for him. He produced it through his company, Zoetrope Studios, and raised money through a pre-sales loan from Chase Manhattan Bank.

Paramount pulled distribution of the movie, and Coppola was in a financial nightmare. He was forced to personally declare Chapter 11 bankruptcy over a $71 million ($191.5 million) debt he personally owed.^[12] Coppola suffered a decade of financial problems over the film, and while he did manage to save Zoetrope, it cost him… a lot.

2 Battlefield Earth (2000)

Battlefield Earth was the passion project of John Travolta. It is based on the L. Ron Hubbard book of the same name, and he threw in $5 million ($7.5 million) of his own cash to make it. The film is infamous for being one of the worst movies ever made. It has been criticized for its bad acting, ridiculous premise, and a plethora of other issues.

The movie was terrible. It only managed to make just under $30 million ($45 million) off its $73 million ($110 million) budget, but that was only part of the problem for Franchise Pictures. The studio found itself embroiled in legal issues over claims it had fraudulently padded the movie’s budget by $31 million ($46.8 million).

Because of this, a lawsuit was brought by German distributor, Intertainment, which ultimately won its court case. Intertainment successfully proved that Franchise Pictures had effectively stolen the inflated amount due to its prior agreement to fund most of the film.

The court-ordered payment came to $77 million ($116 million), which resulted in the bankruptcy of Franchise Pictures. The movie was bad, and it would have ended the studio regardless, but the lawsuit made sure that happened, no matter what.^[13]

1 It’s a Wonderful Life (1946)

These days, most people think of It’s a Wonderful Life as one of the greatest movies of all time, and it’s shown repeatedly leading up to Christmas. The film may be beloved today, but it was a massive failure when it was released in 1946.

Capra’s signature film wasn’t cheap, as it cost Liberty Films around $3.2 million ($42.7 million) to produce. That’s a lot of money for a movie with little to no special effects, and it amounted to a significant expense for the studio.

The movie’s break-even point was $6.3 million ($84 million), but it only managed to pull in a little more than its budget at the box office. An American classic was a financial failure, and the losses resulted in the demise of Liberty Films, which was founded by Frank Capra and Samuel K. Briskin only a year before the movie’s release.

The studio was founded primarily to produce It’s a Wonderful Like, but it had to sell off its assets (It’s a Wonderful Life and State of the Union) to Paramount Pictures in 1947.^[14]

10 Dark Secrets That Expose The Truth About Hollywood

It is amazing how quickly a rumor can spread in today’s world of social media, but don’t be fooled into thinking urban legends are a new phenomenon. Word of mouth has always been an effective tool in flaming the fires of controversy. A juicy story always finds an audience, often with disastrous effects. Here are a list of rumors that nearly destroyed companies reputations.

10 B.S. Myths We Believe Because Of Advertising

10 Pop Rocks and Coke

Those who grew up in the 80’s will never forget the first time we heard the tale of John Gilchrist, the actor who played Little Mikey in the Life cereal commercials. For me it was my cousin while we were sitting on the swings at the playground behind my house. He told me Mikey was dead, had in fact died when his stomach exploded after he ate Pop Rocks candy and then drank a Coca-Cola. The carbonation of the soda caused the candy to expand too rapidly and the stomach just couldn’t contain it.

It was never clear where the story found its start, but it moved through the masses like wildfire. People were daring one another to try it, and children were forbidden from purchasing the crackling candy treat!

The fact that none of this was even remotely true didn’t seem to matter, and Pop Rocks sales began to feel the sting. General Mills, the parent of Life Cereal, decided it was time to take action. The launched a national ad campaign to show that little Mikey was still very much alive, a campaign that only helped to further the rumor mills as now people began to claim he was not the real Mikey but a look-a-like.

Eventually the story was discredited, but not before doing its damage. Pop Rocks candy was discontinued for a while in the mid 80’s but luckily for us it has since made a comeback.

And the safety of this fun filled candy? Well it has been thoroughly tested by the FDA and even the MythBusters took a shot at this long-lived rumor finding it to be totally without merit.

9 Bubble Yum and Spider Eggs

In 1976, Life Savers introduced the first soft chewing gum to the market. Bubble Yum! We all know it and we all love it, but there was a time when Bubble Yum was feared from coast to coast!

Bubble Yum hit the market and was an instant hit quickly becoming the number one gum in the country. But with popularity often comes concern and people began to question how they made it so soft? When the public didn’t get the answers they were looking for, well, they simply made them up.

It was 1977 when the story first found root. With such a soft texture it was inconceivable that science couldn’t have made such a breakthrough, right? Obviously, there could only be one possible explanation. The company had to be using spider eggs to give the gum that light, stringy consistency.

It was a silly rumor, but it managed to catch hold and the public began to freak! Sales took a hit as people stopped began to avoid Bubble Yum. Life Savers tried to dispel the rumors, but the tale of arachnid laced gum was moving quicker than their PR department could. In a quote to People Magazine, Life Savers’ president William Mack Morris said that, “Fighting the rumor was like punching air.”

Life Savers was in a pickle and they had to do something to keep their profits from falling. They launched a full-page ad in newspapers across the country with a headline that read “Somebody is Telling Very Bad Lies About a Very Good Product.” It was a Hail Mary, but it worked! The story was debunked, the people were relieved, and Bubble Yum continued to live to blow another day!

8 Taco Bell mixes its beef with the family pets

Who doesn’t love Taco Bell? Seriously, you’re out late, you get hit by the munchies and then you see it, a glowing bell beacon shining on the horizon.

Taco Bell has been around since 1962 but in 2011 a rumor began that nearly brought this fast food Goliath to its knees.

It is believed the rumor started because of Taco Bell itself after releasing a statement that their meat was 88% beef. In January of 2011 a class action lawsuit was brought against the company stating false advertisement. They claimed that calling their product “beef” was misleading as they used a meat mixture and that it was 65% additives, preservatives and binders.

Taco Bell fired back maintaining their product was “88% beef and 12% secret recipe”.

The story might have died there, floating in the Abyss of frivolous lawsuits had the Weekly World News not run a satirical article regarding the whole ordeal. In the article they claimed to have investigated and discovered Taco Bell was importing cat and dog meat in from China!

The restaurant released its ingredients to the public and the FDA confirmed that it consisted of beef, water, Mexican spices and other flavors, all of them Fido free. The law firm who had filed the suit dropped faster than Taco Bell could serve up a Crunch-wrap Supreme leaving its fans, once again, safe to make a run for the border.

7 Snapple and the KKK

In the mid 90’s Snapple found itself the center of a few rumors. The first I remember well as I was in high school and it was the sort of rumor that flourishes in High School. The rumor involved Snapple bottles and certain parts of the male anatomy getting stuck. While I cannot attest to the validity of these rumors, nor can I speak on the origin of them, I can talk about another rumor that befell this tasty beverage company.

It all started when Snapple released its Iced tea line featuring a portrayal of the Boston Tea Party that included a Ship in a harbor. Harmless enough, or so the company originally thought, until that is, someone decided that ship in the harbor was depicting scenes of slavery. Snapple jumped on it and began changing the images as to not offend anyone, but it was too late. Word was out and the public was out for blood. You see there was a K on the side of every Snapple bottle, and since they were proudly displaying slave ships there was only one thing that K could mean. Snapple was obviously in cahoots with Ku Klux Klan.

Snapple founders, Hyman Golden, Leonard Marsh and Arnold Greenberg, went on MTV and tried to dispel the rumors stating, “How can three Jewish boys from Brooklyn support the Klan?”

They added the words “Boston Tea Party” to their labels, and the words “Kosher Pareve” to the K, a symbol that can be found on numerous products to show that a product is Kosher.

No one really knows where these stories found their origin but thanks to some quick-thinking Snapple managed to bounce back and we are still blessed with their wonderful fruit juicy goodness today.

6 Syringes in Pepsi

In 1990, a store clerk in eastern Ontario discovered something in a Pepsi bottle he at first mistook for a straw. Upon closer inspection however, the item was revealed to be syringe. The bottle was pulled from the shelf and turned over to the offices of Health and Welfare Canada. A full investigation was launched but no official resolution was reached. It was believed the likely culprit was a disgruntled employee at the EastCan Beverages bottling company Ottawa, Ontario. The incident was never repeated but it might have been the precursor to the 1993 Pepsi syringe panic. Once again, hypodermic needles and the famous red, white and blue branded cola met up, but this time to much greater effect!

In June of 1993, stories began to flood the papers regarding syringe-laden cans of Pepsi. The first came out of Tacoma, Washington on June the 9th after an 82-year-old man claimed he looked inside his can of Diet Pepsi to see if there was a prize. More reports followed, over 50 in total, all scattered throughout the country. Most claimed they found needles but there were reports of bullets, screws and drug paraphernalia.

Product tampering was quickly ruled out by the FDA. What they discovered instead was the rumor, combined with people hoping to make a quick buck at Pepsi’s expense, had set the whole thing in motion. It was believed that Pepsi Co. would have no choice but to pay out cash to keep people from taking them to court. What the would-be con artists didn’t realize was that, aside from the case in Tacoma, all the incidents had already been proven false.

In the end some twenty people were arrested, and most the others withdrew their claims. Pepsi launched a campaign reassuring customer’s their products were safe and brought the press into the plants to demonstrate that it would be virtually impossible to place objects into cans during the bottling process.

What about that first case? There were a few unsolved mysteries, like the fact that the needle was bent in a way suggesting it came from an insulin user, as they often discard syringes in a similar fashion, but neither the man nor his wife used insulin. To further add to the confusion, the can of soda the needle was discovered in was Diet Pepsi, however, the case it originated from was regular Pepsi making this one a head scratcher for the ages.

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5 Procter and Gamble Worship Satan

On March 1, 1994, the President of Procter & Gamble appeared on the Phil Donahue Show and announced that due to the openness of society, he was coming announcing his association with the church of Satan. He shocked audiences by announcing that a portion of P&G profits were also donated to the church. Phil, obviously shocked, asked the man if announcing this on national television will have a negative effect on business. The President looks straight into the camera and replies, “There are not enough Christians in the United States to make any difference.”

The problem was, no acting President of P& G was ever on Donahue. But why let a pesky thing like facts get in the way? People began looking for clues in products. They pointed at the “man in the moon” logo claiming they saw, in the swirls of his hair and beard, devil horns and a triple 6. They also referred to the thirteen stars as more proof. The company explained that the thirteen stars were an homage to the original thirteen colonies of the United States, and the man in the moon was simply popular at the time the logo was created, but it didn’t seem to help. In 1991 they modified the logo and a few years later they dropped it altogether.

That seemed to work, at least for a while, but in 1999 the whole thing started again, only this time it was said to be the Sally Jesse Raphael Show instead of Donahue. The facts were once again put under scrutiny and found to be lacking.

It was suspected that competing company Amway, had part in the rumor and several lawsuits were filed against them, and in 2007 a jury agreed, awarding P & G over $19 million dollars in damages.

4 Glass in Girl Scout Cookies

Ah, those adorable little girl scouts standing outside of Walmart peddling those addictive culinary treats. I have assumed numerous times those cookies might be laced with something, but never anything sinister! In 1985 an incident of glass being found in these delectable delights hit the papers, and then another, and another. Before long it was a conspiracy not unlike that of Pepsi. People were claiming they were cut after biting a cookie, or they opened their boxes and found a surprise syringe inside.

The FBI was called, and the great cookie recall began but oddly enough the scandal didn’t hit the Girl Scout organization as bad as some predicted. It would seem people wanted their cookies and they didn’t care about the stories. It was predicted the organization would lose over $1 million in sales, but the actual loss was closer to $300,000.00.
No pattern of tampering was ever discovered, and it was believed the incidents were pranks or people seeking attention. The Girl Scouts changed their box design to prevent tampering and everything was business as usual. Or was it?

3 The Girl Scouts and Planned Parenthood

It would seem people weren’t quite ready to leave the Girl Scouts alone. In late 2015 a group of parents began to take umbrage with the Scouts when they heard that sales from their cookies helped to fund Planned Parenthood. Most likely this rumor found its beginnings in 2012 after, then CEO, Kathy Cloninger said on the Today Show that the Girl Scouts worked with various churches, YMCA’s and Planned Parenthood to help bring information-based sex ed programs to the girls. There was never any mention of financial support and when asked it was denied but that didn’t stop a series of viral videos from hitting the internet.

The flames were further fanned by an opinion piece that briefly ran from Fox News where it was discussed how someone had to turn away their neighbor when she came selling cookies because they supported Planned Parenthood.

The Girl Scout Organization let it be known that their affiliation with certain organizations is strictly educational and that one hundred percent of the money from cookie sales is retained by the them. Sales had taken a hit but fortunately they rebounded, however, this rumor still surfaces online from time to time.

2 KFC Chickens Are Genetically Engineered

In order to save money and increase the size of their chickens, Kentucky Fried Chicken began genetically experimenting on their livestock. They pumped them full of hormones and altered them to have no beaks, or feathers and to grow multiple wings. At least that was the story making its way around the internet.

The rumor grew fast, spreading across message boards and blogs probably because it had clout, citing a study by the University of New Hampshire. The thing is The University of New Hampshire never wrote that study, and the message board posts all seemed to track back to a few specific tech companies in China.

KFC filed a lawsuit against the companies for slander and won. They also sent a press release to inform the public that they in fact used suppliers that we all know such as Pilgrim’s Pride and Tyson’s. The University of New Hampshire also released a statement denying any involvement with the so-called study and KFC was back in business.

1 Muslim Maccas

Granted, it would take a LOT to cancel McDonald’s, but that’s not to say that some have tried (and sometimes McDonald’s really WAS in the wrong!) The manner in which McDonald’s prepared their french fries resulted in a slew of lawsuits throughout the 1990s. Many vegetarians felt tricked into believing that the fries were an entirely meat-free product.A 1993 letter from McDonald’s, which was used in one of the lawsuits, reassured a customer that the product was “cooked in 100 per cent vegetable oil.” Indeed, vegetable oil was used. However, beef seasoning had also been used, making the fries nonvegetarian.The lawsuits were finished up in 2002. McDonald’s issued an apology and agreed to pay $10 million to various vegetarian and religious groups.

There have been a number of other high-profile cases relating to misrepresentations by McDonald’s as to what’s in their food. In one instance, a Muslim family in Alabama alleged that pieces of bacon were deliberately and maliciously placed in their McChicken sandwiches. McDonald’s believes that it was an honest accident. However, it has led to a legal case.

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About The Author: Jason lives in the suburbs of Cincinnati. He is a lover of all things bizarre and everything 80’s. His first novel, Lyric, was published last year.

Destruction of cultural artifacts and heritage sites in times of war has been a norm throughout history, intentionally or otherwise. Sadly, cultural heritage is still one of the many casualties of war, often leaving a deep, lasting impact on the legacy and identity of communities caught in the crossfire. 

10. Royal Opera House, Malta

Throughout the Second World War, and especially on the European front, numerous works of art and other cultural artifacts were threatened by bombing, as cities and cultural centers became targets of warfare. The Royal Opera House of Malta was one such institution, suffering almost-complete destruction at the hands of German and Italian air bombers.

The building was damaged on April 7, 1942. While the bombers had originally intended to target the surrounding area of the capital city of Malta, Valletta, it still caused significant damage to historic buildings and cultural institutions on the island. 

Built in the 18th century, the Royal Opera House served as a venue for opera, ballet, and other theater arts. Despite the damage, however, the building was eventually restored and continues to operate to this day.

9. Old Summer Palace, China

The destruction of the Old Summer Palace in Beijing, also known as the Yuanming Yuan, was a major event in early modern Chinese history. It happened during the Second Opium War in 1860, fought between the Qing dynasty and a British-French expeditionary force for trading rights in China. 

On October 18, 1860, the palace was plundered and burned to the ground by allied forces led by Lord Elgin – the British High Commissioner to China. The palace – a lavish and expansive complex of gardens, lakes, and buildings – was used as a summer retreat by Qing emperors and considered a symbol of the empire’s culture and power. Its destruction was a huge blow to the Qing dynasty, and is still remembered as a major event in the country’s history within China. Even today, tens of thousands of visitors come from all over the country to see the well-preserved ruins, even though there have been several calls to rebuild it by scholars and other experts in the past few years.  

8. Buddhas Of Bamiyan, Afghanistan

The Buddhas of Bamiyan were two ancient statues of Buddha carved into the side of a cliff in Hazarajat, Afghanistan. Built in the sixth century, the towering structures – 180 feet and 124 feet tall – stood as examples of Buddhist art from the Gandhara period, until they were destroyed in 2001 by the Taliban. 

Having seized power in 1996, they saw all parts of the non-Islamic heritage of Afghanistan as foreign, and announced their intention to destroy the Buddhas on February 26, 2001. Over the next few weeks, explosives and artillery were used against the site, bringing them down by March 14.

The destruction of the Buddhas of Bamiyan was met with widespread international condemnation, as it was seen as a symbolic victory for Taliban’s extremist ideology. Today, only ruins remain of what was once an impressive structure from a golden age of Afghanistan, despite the previous government’s best efforts to restore them to their former shape. 

7. Winged Bull Of Nineveh, Iraq

In 2014, ancient cultural and archeological sites across Iraq were captured and targetted by the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) – a radical Islamic group that sought to…well, you know ISIS. They considered many of these artifacts to be blasphemous and seeked to completely destroy them, as they didn’t fit their specific idea of the history of the region. 

On February 26, 2015, the Islamic State released a video of the destruction of the Winged Bull of Nineveh and other artifacts in the Mosul Museum, after they had overrun the ancient site of Nineveh in Mosul, Iraq. It showed armed militants using sledgehammers and power tools to destroy the impressive stone structure, which dated back to the Assyrian kingdom in the seventh century BC, also known as one of the cradles of human civilization. 

6. Old City Of Sana’a, Yemen

The old district of Sana’a – also called the Old City – is a historic area located in the capital city of Yemen. It’s known for its distinctive architecture and ancient landmarks, including the Great Mosque of Sana’a built in the seventh century. Due to its cultural and historical significance, the Old City was recognized as a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1986.  

In 2015, Yemen became embroiled in a civil war between the government, supported by a Saudi-led coalition, and the Houthi rebel group. It’s one of the deadliest ongoing conflicts, having claimed the lives of at least 377,000 people by the end of 2021, according to reports. One of its first casualties was the Old City, which was allegedly bombed by the Saudi-led coalition in June, 2015. It destroyed a large part of it, including lasting damage to some of its landmark buildings like the Great Mosque. 

5. Benin City, Nigeria

Benin City was once the capital of the Kingdom of Benin – a powerful West African empire that flourished between the 14th and 19th centuries in modern-day Nigeria. It was known for its advanced political and social system, as well as its sophisticated art and architecture. The city was home to many important cultural landmarks, including the Royal Palace and Oba’s Palace. According to one estimate, Benin City’s walls were at least four times longer than the Great Wall of China. 

Sadly, the Benin empire found itself in the way of British colonization, and the capital was destroyed by British forces during a punitive expedition in 1897. According to eyewitness accounts, it was looted and burned to the ground, and almost all of its most valuable possessions – including its famed bronze and ivory sculptures – were taken to Europe to be sold in private auctions. While Benin still exists as a modern-day city in Nigeria, it’s nowhere close to what it once used to be.  

4. National Museum Of Iraq

The National Museum of Iraq in Baghdad housed a vast collection of artifacts and historical treasures, including ancient tablets and cuneiform texts, sculptures, and jewelry from ancient Mesopotamia. Its collection spanned a period of over 5,000 years, from the Sumerian civilization to the Ottoman Empire. Sadly, it’d also be one of the many casualties of the Iraq War, as most of its prized artifacts were looted within the first few months of the invasion. 

It began on April 10, 2003, as the collapse of the Iraqi government left the museum unguarded. While there were reports of American soldiers trying to stop it, the looting still continued for several days, resulting in the loss of many of the museum’s most valuable possessions. While more than 8,000 artifacts were thankfully removed and kept safely by the staff, around 15,000 were stolen within 36 hours, including archaeological material from some of the oldest sites in the Middle East. 

3. Mosque of Nabi Yunus/Tomb of Jonah, Iraq

The ancient mosque of Nabi Yunus – also called the Tomb of Jonah – in Mosul, Iraq was built on an archeological site dating back to the eighth century BC. It was a symbol of the region’s history of peaceful coexistence and ethnic diversity, as the site was considered holy by Muslims, Christians, and Jews. 

As you can probably guess from the general theme of this list, the tomb was targetted by Islamic State militants following their conquest of vast parts of Iraq in 2014, including the city of Mosul. It was finally destroyed with explosives and artillery on July 24, 2014, along with the ancient artifacts buried underneath it. According to locals, cultural sites near the tomb were extensively looted before the destruction, though we still don’t know the full extent of what all was stolen. 

2. Flakturm Friedrichshain, Germany

The Second World War saw the destruction of much of Europe’s cultural heritage, especially in Germany during the latter part of the war. One example was the loss of artwork at Flakturm Friedrichshain – a flak tower located in Berlin, Germany used to store valuable works for safekeeping, including works by artists like Pablo Picasso and Henri Matisse. 

It was also a defensive position, as the tower housed anti-aircraft guns and bunkers in case it was attacked. Obviously, as we all know how the war ended, that wasn’t enough, and the tower was heavily bombarded by the Allied forces advancing on Berlin in April, 1945. That resulted in a large fire breaking out in one of its chambers, leading to the complete incineration of more than three floors of paintings, sculptures, and other pieces of art from all over Europe. 

1. House Of Wisdom, Iraq

The House of Wisdom, also known as the Bayt al-Hikma, was a significant cultural institution in the Islamic world. Located in Baghdad, Iraq, it was founded in the eighth century during the reign of the Abbasid caliph, Harun al-Rashid. It was a center of learning and scholarship, and home to perhaps the largest collection of manuscripts in the world at the time, which played a key role in the flourishing of science and culture during the Golden Age of Islam. 

All that would come to a tragic end in 1258, when the city was ransacked in a Mongol invasion led by Hulagu Khan. According to survivor testimonies, so many books were thrown into the Tigris river that it turned black from the ink. It was a major event in the history of Islam, bringing an abrupt end to the golden age and setting the city back by decades, probably centuries.

Everybody is entitled to the right to privacy. It is a fundamental human right that falls under the first-generation human right—except, with technology, it’s not! Today, there is a lot of controversy surrounding privacy because its definition varies globally. Technology has many benefits, but it hasn’t helped on this front. If anything, its development has further brought confusion in understanding privacy as a fundamental human right.

The widespread security issues continue to undermine the protection of privacy. They need constant control and surveillance of what happens in this world. Given the many benefits of technology, privacy is often overlooked despite its significance. Here, we look at ten ways technology has destroyed privacy.

Related: Top 10 Alternatives To Popular Sites And Apps (That Protect Your Privacy)

10 The Untold Side of Biometric Scanners

Thanks to technology, you can now use your eyes, fingers, or face for identification. Biometric scanners are undoubtedly fast, convenient, and almost secure. Apart from unlocking your phone, checking into your workplace, and gaining access to designated areas, people continue to find ways of leveraging the services provided by biometric scanners. For instance, some hotels and fast foods use biometric scanners to scan their customers’ faces and tell who made their orders first and what they ordered.

This may seem like a normal act for unsuspecting customers and another convenient technological advancement. However, if a system can identify you based on your past movements, it shows that it can store short-term or long-term data. What happens to the stored data? While it’s true that there are policies and regulations set barring companies from using the information and data they obtain from their customers illegally, you cannot always trust people like that. As much as they help, biometric scanners remain one of the biggest privacy threats to unsuspecting users.

9 Voice Interception

Have you ever heard of Lawful Interception (LI)? Yes, it’s just as fishy as it sounds. LI allows law enforcement to eavesdrop on users of communication networks, provided they have the mandate to do so. This means a government agent can walk into a Mobile Network Carrier (MNC) and demand access to the channel and supporting data. With these, the agent can listen to conversations of the people of interest without their knowledge. While this technology can help solve crimes, it can be exploited if people with wrong intentions gain access to it, and they mostly do.

Imagine sitting in your house talking to the love of your life, talking about all the things that even the walls must not hear, only to notice that a third party is listening to your conversation. Or, you are passing critical information to a colleague or partner, only for someone else to tap your discussion. Many people have lost their properties and money through these voice interception apps. Mobile phones are perfect for communication, but users should know they risk privacy breaches while on them.

8 The Internet Doesn’t Forget, Nor Is It Ever Full

Showbiz celebrities have mostly been on the end of internet data and document leaks. However, this is only so because of their status and the positions they assume in the community. Many people have seen pictures, videos, or audio they would rather keep to themselves leak online and away from their control. Cases of bitter exes exposing the nudity of their once partners continue to rock the internet today.

Before the massive technological advancements, intimate partners, leaders, and influential people did not have the internet to worry about. At this point, they would square it out alone without airing their dirty linen in public if anyone had a problem with anybody. Undoubtedly, technology has improved communication along with other aspects of life. But in so doing, it has put most people in the mercies of other people, just to avoid having their private documents, pictures, audio, or videos surfacing online. The most devastating part is that it is very easy to “leak” content online that it almost goes untraced. Once it’s there, it’s never truly deleted.

7 Online Cookies

Have you ever been browsing the internet and started seeing emails or adverts prompting you to buy or subscribe to a newsletter similar to the content you have been surfing? For instance, if you are looking for the latest models of your preferred TV brand, you immediately start seeing ads for the best TV offers. While this is not entirely bad, how did the advertisers know your interests? Simple answer: cookies!

When you visit a website, and it asks you to “allow or reject cookies,” the page owner is simply “seeking permission” to monitor your online activities. The question remains: what more information do cookies collect? In fact, there are some pages you can’t browse without accepting the cookies—it feels like trading your privacy for something else.

6 Video Conferencing, Webinars, and Chat Apps Don’t Help Much Either

Zoom is one of the most popular teleconferencing platforms. It gained its fame when most people were required to work from home. To be fair, it helps colleagues to communicate effectively and keep companies in line with their goals. However, as you know, there is a price for everything. For this and similar apps, the price is your privacy.

So many embarrassing cases have been witnessed since these teleconferencing apps became a thing. For instance, a respectable family member and company might be busy addressing their colleague only for a family member to start twerking half naked in the background, not knowing that the camera is on. In such as case, it’s no one’s fault; one has to work, and the other has to live their best life at home.

5 GPS Tracking

GPS is an acronym for Global Positioning System. Given that it is available globally and is powered by world satellites, people rely on it to travel anywhere they want. GPS is the modern-day directory, only that it is more advanced, and anyone with a smart device can use it. We can go on all day about the benefits of this system and still not exhaust them. However, our concern comes in when privacy is thrown out the window. When using your smartphone, it is “normal” to see a prompt asking you, “app X wants to access your location,” and you wonder why.

Usually, authorities use GPS to locate people of interest and track their movements. In the same spirit, malicious people can tap their victims’ smart devices and follow them wherever. They can even track their cars and other automobiles with simple GPS trackers. Simply put, GPS and privacy doesn’t go together.

4 Internet Service Providers’ Uncontrolled Privileges

Internet Service Providers, popularly known as ISPs, provide customers with an internet connection at a cost. The clients then use the internet provided to surf, work, or entertain themselves but not without the watchful eye of the ISPs. Unsurprisingly, you can visit one site and are told you can’t access it while your internet connection is on and working on other platforms; that is probably because your ISP has blocked you from accessing it.

ISPs can tell your IP address and see the sites you visit. Who is to say they can’t access your private information if they want to? Unfortunately, to leverage the full feature of technology, it’s almost inevitable that we have to give up some degree of our privacy.

3 Remote Desktop Applications

Remote desktop applications such as TeamViewer and AnyDesk have become extremely useful, especially after the pandemic rocked the world. They allow you to access your computer remotely, providing a good internet connection. This way, colleagues can work remotely, or you can access vital files and documents even if you do not have your device with you.

As expected, you must give up some privacy for these applications to function optimally. For instance, if you pair your computer with a colleague’s for work purposes, the other person can access and alter most of the features in your computer (including those that are not work-related). Even if the person you are working with pretended not to have seen something on your computer, they would have.

2 Audio Recordings

Audio recorders are one of the biggest privacy invaders in the history of technological developments. People have had conversations with their peers or family members that they thought were confidential, only for them to find what they said in the wrong hands or rooms. Sound recorders were initially created to help journalists record news and businesses attend to their customers. However, as time passed, malicious people discovered they could use these devices to extort or threaten their victims.

The rapid technological developments now allow some communication applications such as WhatsApp to record and send voice notes. However, the recordings have often landed in the wrong hands, causing embarrassment and untold trouble for the owners. The recorded voice is different than face to face conversations in many aspects.

1 Social Media Tracking

And now to the most significant culprit; social media. As it stands, over 4.2 billion people worldwide use different social media platforms, with all demanding that users give up some level of their privacy. The minimum requirement is an email address or mobile phone number, but there is no limit to how much of your privacy they can invade.

For example, Facebook allows users to upload their pictures, post videos, and comment on other peoples’ posts. While this might seem harmless, most users usually do not realize that it becomes easier to track by providing personal details. The more they post, the more they throw away their privacy. The sad bit is that once something appears on social media, it can never be deleted, even if you get the illusion that you have done so. There is always a way through which someone can retrieve your shared content. The bottom line is that social media has no privacy; you can only limit how much you give away.