Horror stories thrill just about everyone. From monsters to demons and from serial killers to stalkers, nothing gets the blood curdling like a good scary story. But one aspect of horror that churns the stomachs of most people is cannibalism. The thought of eating another human drives fear into nearly everyone.

Throughout history, though, cannibalism wasn’t just a thing from the cinema. It was something that happened in many different ways. One scenario comes straight from the minds of the greatest horror fanatics: The legend of Sawney Bean is one of Scotland’s most disturbing tales and has stood the test of time, having made its mark in history.

Some claim that the story of Sawney Bean is hearsay and myth, while others say that it’s a tale of true horror. Was this legend a dig at the Scots, or was there really a raving, cave-dwelling, incestuous cannibal living in Scotland?

Either way, Sawney Bean is a disturbing figure in the realm of horror.

10 Sawney Bean As A Family Man

Very little is known about the early years of Alexander “Sawney” Bean. Information about his youth is vague until the time of his marriage. Supposedly, Bean was born in the county of East Lothian on the outskirts of the Scottish city of Edinburgh during the reign of James I of Scotland.

His father was a hard worker—a hedger and ditcher—and raised Sawney to be the same. However, Sawney did not care for work. Early on, he took off into the deserted part of the country.

On his way out of Lothian, Sawney took a wife, who would prove to be as rancid as he was. His wife was named Agnes Douglas. Accused of being a witch in her hometown, she supposedly conjured demons and sacrificed humans.

The lovely couple then set up a modest yet useful home in Bennane Cave, located by Ballantrae in Ayrshire, Scotland. The cave was wonderful for the newlyweds as it contained many side passages and hideaways.

Each day, the cave’s entrance would flood for several hundred meters, isolating the couple. The Sawneys decided to have children and, boy, did they proliferate. Fourteen children were born out of the loving relationship of Sawney and Agnes. But that’s about as lovely as their family life gets.^[1]

9 A Family Built On Love And Incest

The Sawney parents had 14 children. During this time in 15th-century Scotland, it’s unbelievable that they were able to bear and keep alive that many children. Diseases like typhus, smallpox, and tuberculosis killed many kids. Child mortality rates averaged 14 percent in the first year of life.

The Sawney clan beat the odds and successfully raised eight sons and six daughters. Cave living meant that the Sawneys weren’t out courting, so love found a way. The clan was rampantly incestuous. The Sawney children had sex with each other as well as their parents, producing 18 grandsons and 14 granddaughters.^[2]

All these offspring needed to be fed. So what is a derelict, cave-dwelling family of outcasts supposed to do? The first and best solution was obviously cannibalism.

8 The Family That Slays Together Stays Together

To stay fed, the clan began preying on travelers who passed by the Sawney cave. Sawney himself would ambush and rob them, taking their goods and money. Not wanting to let fresh meat go to waste, Sawney began to drag the bodies home to be butchered and eaten. This tradition of cannibalism lasted 25 years within the clan.

As the clan grew and more bodies were needed to provide sustenance for the 48 family members, an increasing number of people were murdered and eaten. The cannibal cuisine nearly became an art form as generations of Beans learned to save body parts, pickling and salting the human meat for later consumption.

The Beans murdered so many people that there was sometimes too much human meat around for eating. So the many rooms of their cave dwelling became storage facilities stacked full of human limbs and skulls. When the rooms were full and food was too plentiful, the Beans just kept murdering and threw the body parts in the ocean. They would wash up on the shores of local beaches and scare the inhabitants.^[3]

7 Suspicious Locals Are Spooked

For nearly 25 years, the Bean clan killed and ate nearly 1,000 people. When that many individuals go missing, people notice and rumors start to fly. Many townsfolk in local cities began to turn on each other, accusing their neighbors, friends, and often family members of being murderers.

The stories of what happened to these people ranged from the ordinary to the extraordinary. One of the most common rumors was that innkeepers in the area were robbing and killing all the individuals who had gone missing. This led to many innkeepers just up and leaving the profession to prove their innocence and stay out of the murderous limelight.

On the wilder side of the rumor mill, locals claimed that evil beasts of various sorts were roaming the area villages. The most common monster was the redcap, an evil, goblin-like creature that lived in old castles where blood was said to have been shed.^[4]

Redcaps were known for preying on travelers who were passing through their areas, killing them, and then dragging their bodies away to the redcaps’ abodes. Though a monster of lore, the redcap fit all the suspicions of the locals. Still, some had their doubts.

Over the years, the missing persons list continued to grow without anyone knowing that the bodies of those missing people were being eaten by the Bean clan only a cave away. Although mass searches were conducted frequently, the locals were not concerned with what was in the cave because daily flooding made it inaccessible.

6 All Good Things Must End

Sawney Bean and his clan of cannibal love children went on a killing spree for nearly 25 years. Like all good things, however, it came to an end. The Sawney army was finally busted thanks to a slew of witnesses and a failed attack.

One fateful night, the Sawney army tried to kill a husband and wife who were on their way back from a local fair. The Sawney women jumped the woman, pulled her from her horse, and then stripped and disemboweled her. As the husband was being attacked by the Sawney men, he watched in horror as his wife was murdered and eaten before his eyes.

Fueled by rage, the man was able to evade his attackers long enough to drive his horse over some of his foes. Luckily, at the apex of the fight, a group of 20–30 fairgoers arrived on the scene. The Beans had been caught in the act, and knowing they had been busted, they returned to their beloved cave.^[5]

The testimony of the witnesses along with the desecrated corpse of the wife provided the needed evidence to go after the Bean clan.

5 King James I To The Rescue

The witnesses to the attack and the husband of the slain woman were quickly brought in to inform the local authorities of the horrors that were seen on that infamous night. The chief magistrate of Glasgow listened to their tale and created the longest missing persons list ever.

Shocked by the attack and the number of missing persons, the magistrate took the list to the top of Scottish parliament, King James I. After gathering information about the infamous clan, King James I was out for revenge. He arrived in the area of the attack with an army of 400 men, bloodhounds, and local volunteers who were ready to end the reign of the clan.

At the time, it was one of the biggest manhunts ever conducted in Scotland. They searched for days until the dogs picked up the scent of decay in the entrance to the cave of the clan. The reign of Bean terror was ending.^[6]

4 A Cave Of Horrors

Finally, the clan was apprehended. But nothing could have prepared the searchers for what they would discover within the cave. Beyond the stench of decay and blood, mutilations were found in every nook and cranny.

The limbs of men, women, and children were hung and dried throughout the cave like dried beef. Limbs, fingers, and other pieces of victims were pickled in various corners of the cave. Masses of gold and silver, watches, rings, swords, and pistols were discovered in various locations within the cave.^[7]

Clothes from the victims were hung about the cave, covering openings and decorating the walls of the Bean clan’s humble abode in a macabre fashion.

3 The Execution Of A Cannibalistic Dynasty

After the raid of their cave, the Bean clan, who had been hiding in the woods, gave up without a fight. Knowing they were out of action, they willingly surrendered with all members of the family accounted for.

Bound in chains, the clan was brought to Edinburgh to be executed. Having been terrorized by the Beans for so long, the public demanded a grand punishment. There was no forgiveness for the clan’s heinous deeds, and all family members were treated as the monsters they were.

The men of the Bean clan were slowly dismembered and disemboweled. This was to emphasize the cruelty of the lives they had lived. Hung on stakes while the men were executed, the women and children were forced to watch as their men were killed. When the executioners were satisfied with their staking, they set the women and children on fire.

During the entire process of execution, none of the Bean clan showed remorse for that they had done. Instead, they heckled and shouted obscenities at their captors. Legend states that, until his final breath, the patriarch of the family, Alexander “Sawney” Bean, continually shouted, “It isn’t over, it will never be over.”^[8]

2 The Sawney Bean Vacation

Centuries have passed since the infamous Bean clan ravaged Scotland with their cannibalism, but it doesn’t mean that people have forgotten. Though the story is now part legend and part history, the Beans are still intriguing people as they and their story have become a tourist attraction.

In Edinburgh, you can take a tour of the infamous cave of the Bean clan and discover all the remains of humans and other various leftovers. Known as the Edinburgh Dungeon, this tourist attraction puts visitors right in the Sawney Bean action by using actors, theatrical effects, stages, scenes, and rides to recreate the Sawney Bean experience (as well as many other dark tales of Scotland).^[9]

If going to a theatrical Sawney Bean recreation isn’t your thing, you can visit the actual cannibal cave! Though the cave is off the beaten path, adventurous souls can take a treacherous climb down a rock face near the waterline to reach the Bennane Cave and explore the hideout of the notorious family. The place is marked by a sign dedicated to Snib Scott, a recent inhabitant who lived in the cave until 1983.

1 Sawney Bean In Cinema

Sawney’s story has also become a cinematic tale. In 1977, director Wes Craven was seeking to make another movie. He heard the tale of Sawney Bean and adapted it into the horror classic The Hills Have Eyes. Though based on the story in Scotland, Craven changed the location of the tale to the American West.^[10]

The Hills Have Eyes was so popular that it was remade in 2006 and was still shocking audiences. In 2013, Sawney: Flesh of Man was released. In this new take on the Sawney clan, a long-lost relative is carrying on the tradition of murder and cannibalism. The film is noted as being “gruesome, visceral, and blackly funny.”

Sawney and his family will continue to intrigue well into the future.

Hi! I’m Theta! I am a full-time librarian with a penchant for writing, animals, and all things obscure.

History teaches us about ourselves. It tells us what man has done, how his follies have hurt him, and how his virtues and risen him up, and it shows us the path to follow.

Usually, anyway. We can’t really learn anything from history if we don’t get the stories right. Some of the most famous historical stories have little details that are usually left out. Sometimes, these little details change the whole story—and ruin the whole point.

10 The Titanic Had More Lifeboats Than Required

The sinking of the Titanic is a classic fable of the hubris of man. Confident that they’d built an unsinkable ship, the developers only included 20 lifeboats. Their bravado sent hundreds to their deaths.

The thing is, by 1911 standards, the Titanic didn’t skimp on the lifeboats at all. Legally, they were only required to have 16. Those extra four were actually the company being abnormally cautious. Lifeboats were only meant to ferry people to another ship, so they weren’t expected to have enough for everyone.

Obviously, there was a problem with that standard, but that doesn’t mean there wasn’t any logic behind it. After the Titanic sank, the law was changed, and ships were so overloaded with lifeboats and safety gear that they could barely move. One, the Eastland, was so weighed down that it capsized, killing 844 people.

9 Johnny Appleseed’s Apples Were Inedible

Every American child learns the story of Johnny Appleseed, the US hero who journeyed through the western frontier, planting apple trees so that children could enjoy the sweet flavor of a delicious Granny Smith. Johnny Appleseed was a real person—but he wasn’t planting apples for kids. In fact, the apples he planted were almost entirely inedible.

The real Johnny Appleseed planted sour apples that could only be used for hard, alcoholic apple cider. Early settlers were hard drinkers. Johnny was just trying to help those people get drunk. He didn’t do it for free, either. Johnny ran ahead of settlers planting apple orchards on the land in order to sell the land for profit.

The US government wasn’t as fond of him as its people were. Johnny was promoting cheap and easy alcoholism. When prohibition came into effect, the FBI went out and chopped down every tree Johnny Appleseed planted.

8 Solomon Northup Was Sold Back Into Slavery

Since 12 Years A Slave hit theaters, Solomon Northup has been a household name. His story of being forced into slavery and his long, hard fight for his freedom are known around the world. More happened after the credits rolled, though. A couple of years after being reunited with his family, Northup went to Boston to deliver a few speeches—and never came back.

No one knows for sure what happened to him, but the popular belief is that a mob of people who didn’t care for the idea of a freed black man giving lectures gathered. They lured him into a trap, grabbed him, and sent right back into slavery. “It is said that Solomon Northup,” the newspapers of the time reported, “has been again decoyed South, and is again a slave.”

7 The Battle of the Alamo Was A Huge Mistake

The brave US soldiers who fought and fell to an onslaught of Mexican soldiers is a major moment in US history. It’s a story of heroism, of patriotism, and of men who bravely stood up against a larger army for a greater cause.

Except that it was pretty much pointless. The Alamo wasn’t a key strategic location. US Army commander Sam Houston tried everything he could to convince the people to focus on more important places, telling them that they didn’t have the munitions to win there, but they didn’t listen.

The Alamo helped as a piece of propaganda. Houston spread the words “Remember the Alamo!” as a battle cry that rallied the people to avenge the fallen who’d heroically died behind its walls—but if they’d just listened to Houston in the first place, they never would have died.

6 John Nash Went Off His Meds

A Beautiful Mind told the heart-wrenching tale of mathematical genius John Nash’s struggle to overcome the symptoms of schizophrenia. In the end, he credits his recovery to two things: the love of his wife and newer medications.

The real John Nash wasn’t happy about that “newer medications” line. He’d handled his schizophrenia in the exact opposite way—by ceasing to take meds entirely. Antipsychotic medication, he felt, blunted his mind. He threw them out in 1970 and never went back on them again.

Nash isn’t the first schizophrenic to convince himself he’d do better off his meds. He’s just a rare case where it actually worked, which is exactly why the screenwriter of A Beautiful Mind fudged that little detail. He didn’t want anyone in the audience following Nash’s bad example and trying to go without their meds.

5 Stephen Hawking May Have Been Beaten By His Wife

It used to be that people would think about Stephen Hawking without thinking about his sex life—until The Theory of Everything changed all that. That story, though, left out what happened after Hawking’s marriage with Jane Wilde ended—which is a bit less touching.

Hawking married a woman named Elaine Mason in 1995. After five years of matrimony wore their toll, reports started to come out that Hawking was covered in “mysterious injuries,” which he refused to explain. Then he was found with a broken arm and a split lip. He even missed his 60th birthday, which he explained by claiming that he’d “crashed into a wall.”

Eventually, people became worried enough that the police tried to investigate Mason for spousal abuse. Hawking, however, wouldn’t let them do it and refused to press any charges against her, so they never got the chance to find out for sure.

4 Darwin Tried To Ride The Galapagos Tortoises

Darwin’s trip to the Galapagos Islands changed the way we see the world. Because of his work there, he’s become a symbol of the scientific method—a fastidious, dedicated man who tested his theories through rigorous and systematic scrutiny. It helps that we usually leave out the part where Darwin tried to ride a tortoise.

When Darwin saw the massive Galapagos tortoises, some weighing as much as 270 kilograms (600 lb) and stretching 1.4 meters (4.5 ft) across, he knew what he had to do: see if he could ride them. The father of evolution hopped onto a tortoise’s back and tried to make it giddyup, rapping on the back of the shell to make it go.

The tortoise kept throwing him off, though, so Darwin just ate them instead, until they were an endangered species. Thus, the father of evolution provided a great example of his own principle: If the Galapagos tortoises had just let him ride them like ponies, they wouldn’t be on the brink of extinction today.

3 The French Revolutionaries Slaughtered Thousands Of Peasants

When the French revolutionaries rose up against the aristocracy in the name of liberty, fraternity, and equality, it got bloody. The mass slaughter of royalty under the blade of the guillotine is pretty well-known, but we usually envision the revolutionaries picking on the ruling class. As it turns out, they actually killed more peasants than aristocrats.

A huge chuck of those deaths came from Vendee, where the people weren’t particularly thrilled about the revolution. They revolted against the new French government—and were beaten back by the French army. Before marching on Vendee, a French general asked the government to “pronounce in advance on the fate of the women and children” and was told to slaughter every one. The response read, “Exterminate the brigands to the last man.”

They did just that. Afterward, another general boasted that he “trampled children under horses’ feet and massacred women.” He told Paris, “I have no prisoners to worry about. I have exterminated everything.”

2 The Pyramid Builders Were Treated Pretty Well

Every film we see about Egypt shows slaves building the pyramids, struggling through whippings and pain, moving the great blocks of the tombs of selfish kings into place. These images are reminders of how the Jews suffered in slavery and symbols of how one powerful man can put his vanity above the lives of countless others.

Except it turns out that the pyramids weren’t built by Jewish slaves. They weren’t built by slaves at all; they were built by paid laborers working in three-month shifts, who even had health care plans. Archaeologists have even found Egyptian construction workers buried inside the pyramids with jars of beer and bread, so they can still get drunk and chow down on carbs in the afterlife.

1 The Catholic Church Strongly Supported Astronomy

The Catholic Church gets a bad rap. We usually picture them as people who insisted the world was flat and fought against all scientific progress. They are, after all, the people who locked Galileo up in house arrest. According to Berkeley University, though, from the Middle Ages to the Enlightenment, the Roman Catholic Church actually gave more financial aid to astronomy than any other institution.

Their cathedrals were often built to work as solar observatories and were the best at the time. With that little painful exception of Galileo, most of the important figures in science were Catholic. Isaac Newton was devout, and Nicholas Copernicus, who first placed the Sun at the center of the universe, was a cleric.

It doesn’t stop there. Gregor Mendel, the founder of genetics, was an abbot. Georges Lemaitre, who proposed the expansion of the Universe, was an ordained priest. The list goes on.

We like to imagine that we learn from our tragedies—that when the worst moment comes, people change their ways and start working together to make things right.

But sometimes, even after the catastrophe is over, the tragedy continues. People get swept up in the havoc and chaos of the moment and do things that make history’s worst moments even worse. And in the aftermath, some of our darkest moments are left with details too bleak to make it into the history books.

10 Tiananmen Massacre
China Billed The Victims For The Bullets

In 1989, after the death of the controversial figure Hu Yaobang, Chinese students marched out to Tiananmen Square and tried to force real change in China. They made a list of demands and led a hunger strike, hoping to bring an end to corruption and forge the first steps toward democracy.

All that came to an end, though, when the army marched in. Soldiers and tanks advanced on Tiananmen Square, right in the heart of Beijing. At least 300 people were gunned down by their own government, with some estimates putting that number as high as 2,700.

Usually, the story ends there—but there’s an extra little detail that makes it that much worse. After the massacre, some sources reported that the government billed the victims’ families for the cost of the bullets. The families of the protesters were charged the equivalent of 27 cents for each bullet used to kill their children.

The Chinese government has never admitted to it. But we know for a fact that they charged other dissidents for the bullets that killed them. There’s a lot of reason to believe that the reports are true that the government did it here, too.

9 My Lai Massacre
Nixon Pardoned The Man Responsible

The worst incident in the Vietnam War was the My Lai Massacre. In 1968, American soldiers slaughtered more than 350 unarmed civilians in South Vietnam. They gang-raped women, mutilated children—and met absolutely no consequences.

Of everyone involved, only one soldier was actually charged: William Calley. The courts found Calley guilty of killing 22 innocent people and sentenced him to life in prison.

He never actually served the time, though. Instead, they just put him on house arrest, and he didn’t do that for very long. Calley hung around at home for three years and then got a full presidential pardon from Richard Nixon.

That doesn’t mean that everyone got off easy. One person suffered: Hugh Thompson. He was the man who reported the massacre and testified against the people who did it.

Thompson risked his life trying to save as many Vietnamese people as he could from his own men. He was rewarded for his bravery and heroism with death threats. People left mutilated animals on his porch each morning, and he suffered PTSD for the rest of his life.

8 Pompeii
A Nearby Town Got So Hot That People’s Heads Exploded

The destruction of Pompeii is one of the most infamous natural disasters in history. An entire city was leveled under a sea of volcanic ash that killed thousands.

Compared to the people in Herculaneum, though, Pompeii got off easy. After the volcano erupted in AD 79, a witness described the scene: “A fearful black cloud, bent by forked and quivering bursts of flames, . . . sank down to the earth and covered the sea.”

That black cloud hit Herculaneum and covered the whole city. It was incredibly hot—over 500 degrees Celsius (932 °F). It burned the tops of buildings off completely and then touched on the people below. At such incredible temperatures, their teeth cracked, their skin burned off, and their bones turned black. Then their heads literally exploded.

7 9/11
Fallout Led To More Cancer And Car Crashes

On September 11, 2001, when the planes flew into the twin towers in New York City, 2,996 innocent lives were brought to an end. It was a horrible moment and the worst terrorist attack on US soil. Over the next few years, though, that death toll would become even higher.

People were so afraid of flying after 9/11 that airline use went down by 20 percent. As a result, a lot more people were going greater distances in cars instead—which is a lot more dangerous. In the 12 months following the attacks, an estimated 1,595 more Americans died in car accidents because they were afraid to fly on planes.

Worse, though, was the increase in cancer. The twin towers were built with 400 tons of asbestos, which spread through the city when the towers collapsed. That cloud of asbestos affected an estimated 410,000 people, and cancer in New York City has spiked because of it.

The responders suffered the worst. About 70 percent of the recovery personnel who helped on that day now suffer from lung problems. Approximately 1,400 responders died in the 10 years after the tragedy. Another 1,140 responders have developed cancer since that tragic day.

6 The Irish Potato Famine
Queen Victoria Forbade People From Donating Too Much

When the people of Ireland started to starve from the Irish Potato Famine, Abdul Medjid Khan, the sultan of the Ottoman Empire, wanted to help. In 1847, he prepared ships full of food and offered to send Ireland £10,000 to help them through the crisis.

British diplomats, though, ordered him not to. British royal protocol, they explained, said that no one should contribute more than Queen Victoria herself. At their order, the sultan reduced his donation to only £1,000 instead.

The Irish were thrilled with his donation anyway. They called the donation an “act of regal munificence” and said, “For the first time, a Mohammedan sovereign, representing multitudinous Islam populations, manifests spontaneously a warm sympathy with a Christian nation.”

The sultan, though, may have revealed a little regret at the compromise when he wrote back, “I would have done all in my power to relieve their wants.”

5 Black Death
The Plague Led To A Jewish Genocide

The Black Death wiped out between 75 and 200 million people in the mid-1300s. It killed an estimated one-third of the population of Europe. It was a terrible tragedy—and like most tragedies, Europe dealt with it by blaming the Jews.

Many Europeans believed that the plague was a Jewish conspiracy. According to the story, the Jews had gone around the country poisoning wells to make good Christian people suffer. At first, it was a conspiracy theory. Then the Inquisition rounded up Jewish people and tortured them until they agreed to say they’d done it. Then it was, in the eyes of the people, a full-blown fact.

Mobs rose up and dragged people out into the streets. Jewish babies were pulled from their parents. Whole communities of people were tied to stakes and burned alive. In one case, more than 2,000 people were incinerated at once.

The Black Death, of course, was not a Jewish conspiracy. It affected Jews and Gentiles alike. That didn’t save anyone, though. In the city of Strasbourg, it became law that no Jew should enter the city for 100 years.

4 Hurricane Katrina
A Neighboring Town Turned Away Refugees At Gunpoint

When Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans in 2005, countless people lost their homes. In a desperate bid for survival, people fled to neighboring towns for safety. The police of New Orleans helped them, pointing the way to the bridge that led to the town of Gretna.

But instead of a welcoming party, these people found a barricade on the bridge. Four police cruisers blocked the lanes, and eight officers were waiting for the refugees with shotguns. They yelled, “We don’t want another Superdome!” and chased the people off. According to some reports, the officers even stole the refugees’ food and water before chasing them away.

Arthur Lawson, the Gretna chief of police, didn’t even deny it. He confirmed that he sealed off the bridge, saying, “There was no place for them to come on our side.”

3 Wounded Knee
20 Soldiers Were Given Medals Of Honor

In 1890, US troops attacked an innocent Lakota camp. Most of the people were unarmed, but the troops ran as many down as possible, slaughtering approximately 200 innocent men, women, and children. It was an outrage, and the men who did it were murderers. And for doing it, 20 of them were given Medals of Honor.

More people were given awards for the Wounded Knee Massacre than for most real battles. The government actually wanted to give out 25, but a man named General Miles fought it, calling it “an insult to the memory of the dead.” Even with his protests, they still handed out 20.

One man, Sergeant Toy, was cited “for bravery displayed while shooting hostile Indians.” In the full report, though, it was made clear that he shot Native Americans who were running away. Another man, Lieutenant Garlington, was awarded for blocking off the escape of fleeing victims. He forced them to hide a ravine, and Lieutenant Gresham was awarded for going into that ravine to kill the victims.

At least one Medal of Honor recipient seems to have felt the guilt of what he did. Two years later, Sergeant Loyd killed himself just a few days before the anniversary of the massacre. For his part at Wounded Knee, he had been given the Medal of Honor for “bravery.”

2 The Great Fire Of London
The Town Hanged A Mentally Handicapped Man

Robert Hubert was described as “not well in the mind” by everyone who knew him. He was very likely mentally handicapped or at least mentally ill. He could barely speak a word of English, and his limbs were constricted by palsy. But despite all that, he was hanged for firebombing London in 1666.

Hubert wasn’t actually in London when the fire happened. He showed up two days later and walked around repeating the word “Yes!” In 1666, that was enough evidence to a form a lynch mob, drag him off the streets, and pull him into the police station.

There, he was interrogated until he said “Yes!” that he’d been paid a shilling by a Frenchman to burn down London. He changed his story every time he told it, but they hanged him anyway.

Fifteen years later, the captain of the ship that took Hubert to London finally stepped forward and told everyone that Hubert wasn’t even in London during the Great Fire. By then, though, it was far too late.

1 The Titanic
They Billed The Families Of The Victims

The White Star Line was nothing if not frugal. Due to a clause worked into their contracts, every employee aboard the ship was fired the second that the Titanic began to sink. The company would not, after all, pay wages for employees who were wasting their time drowning.

Afterward, the families of the dead were informed that they would have to pay the freight cost if they wanted their loved ones’ bodies. Most couldn’t afford it, of course, and so today, many of those who died have memorials instead of graves.

Things were far worse for the musicians. The band who heroically played on while the ship sank were completely abandoned. They were registered as independent contractors, which meant that White Star Line legally didn’t have to do anything for them. The other crew members’ families got survivor benefits, but the families of the band didn’t get a penny.

That doesn’t mean they got nothing, though. The families of the band were sent one memento: a bill for the cost of the uniforms.

While watching It Follows, have you noticed how there is no clearly defined time period in which the movie is set? Or during Michael Myers’ escape in Halloween 2018, did you happen to see him skulking around in the background during the gas station scene, attacking employees? How about Linda Blair’s awesome cameo in Scream?

Some filmmakers love scattering small details throughout the film, either to allude to important plot points or simply as ‘easter eggs.’

Have you noticed all the ones on this list?

(Potential spoilers ahead!)

10 Awesome Easter Eggs You Missed In Your Favorite Movies

10 The Mist

The Mist will forever be remembered as the horror movie with the most heartbreaking ending. Stephen King’s disturbing imagination is on full display in the book, but it seems even he couldn’t conjure up the final scenes of the film. The unforgettable scene in the car and what followed was the brainchild of Frank Darabont, who ‘envisioned a darker ending compared to the book.’

The movie provided a lot of other memorable moments, including Mrs. Carmody’s over-the-top fanatic religiousness and people being ripped in half by monsters hidden in a thick band of mist. David Drayton, played by Thomas Jane, is a movie poster artist who later causes viewers to be traumatized as mentioned above. Early in the film, before the horror takes hold, Drayton can be seen painting a movie poster featuring a character wearing a hat.

Eagle-eyed viewers at the time immediately recognized the painting as being a reference to Stephen King’s very popular Dark Tower series, as it depicted the gunslinger, the rose and the tower.

Audiences have also noticed paintings in the background of John Carpenter’s The Thing, Pan’s Labyrinth and The Shawshank redemption.^[1]

9 Child’s Play

In 2019, the Child’s Play franchise got a reboot with a high-tech version of everyone’s favorite creepy doll, Chucky. The movie received several favorable reviews for its dark humor and 80s nostalgia.

There is no shortage of fun details and hidden ‘easter eggs’ in the new film. An awesome nod went to Steven Spielberg’s E.T. in the form of Andy’s red hoody and Chucky’s glowing finger antics. Andy, who is Chucky’s new ‘owner’, sports a host of horror movie posters against his bedroom wall including Poltergeist III, which was released in 1988, the same year as the first Child’s Play movie.

There is also a more sinister tribute to the classic horror film, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, with Chucky skinning an unfortunate guy’s face.^[2]

8 Bird Box

For many fans (and critics), 2018’s Bird Box was a swing and a miss in the horror department. It was a massive success for Netflix however, becoming the platform’s biggest hit at the time. Some viewers called it a ‘rip-off’ of A Quiet Place and mocked the ending relentlessly. The movie inspired the Bird Box challenge in which people tried to go about their lives blindfolded for 24 hours.

During the film, Malorie (played by Sandra Bullock) and her sister discuss Malorie’s latest painting. Malorie says the painting is filled with people who are together but unable to connect. This foreshadows Malorie’s inability to connect to the two children she cares for later on. Her other paintings also seem to indicate impending horror in the form of an unrecognizable spectre hovering over a wolf and a deer.

Malorie is pregnant during the film and as the terrifying events start taking place and her world starts falling apart, many viewers drew parallels between her experience and how scary and tough life can be for a new parent.^[3]

7 A Quiet Place

Rule #1: Don’t make a sound.

This might seem like a simple enough instruction, until you see a heavily pregnant Evelyn Abbott and you realize that nothing in the movie, A Quiet Place, is going to be easy. Humans making the slightest sounds are rewarded by monsters hunting them down within seconds. The Abbott family experiences this first-hand when one of their own is snatched by a Demogorgon-looking creature.

The family tries to protect themselves, not only by being quiet, but also by using a warning system of red lights strung on their lawn. While the lights work to warn that the monsters are close, a small high-pitched sound also emanate from them once switched on. The sound is meant to distract the monsters from any human-made noises and lure them away from the house itself.^[4]

6 Scream 2

Those who weren’t fans of the first Scream movie, also weren’t fans of the sequel. Some, however, thought that Scream 2 was quite brilliant in its use of ‘a film within a film’ tactic. The movie was also filled to the brim with cameos by celebrities who would go on to star in hit movies and series, including Joshua Jackson and Portia de Rossi as well as Sarah Michelle Gellar.

There is some foreshadowing in Scream 2, for instance when Maureen’s boyfriend Phil heads to the bathroom during a trip to the cinema to watch ‘Stab’. He encounters two fellow movie-goers dressed up in Ghostface outfits. This scene is a heads-up to the fact that there are two killers in the movie.

What’s more, as Scream 2 ends, protagonist Sidney and reporter Gale are left standing alongside Cotton Weary. Weary dies at the beginning of Scream 3. This bit of foreshadowing was carried on from the first film, during which Sidney and Gale end up standing alongside Randy at the end.
Randy ends up dying in Scream 2.^[5]

10 Real Easter Eggs Hidden Around The World

5 I Still Know What You Did Last Summer

Much like the first movie, I Still Know What You Did Last Summer was never going to win any awards especially given its dismal rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Not an award it could be proud of anyway. But it has inevitably gained a cult following and still retains its cult horror movie status to this day.

Starring Jennifer Love Hewitt and Brandy Norwood, the movie picks up one year after the events of the first film and things soon turn deadly.

What some viewers may not have noticed the first (or only) time they watched the movie is that Julie and Karla (played by Hewitt and Norwood) answered the radio quiz question incorrectly, but still won the trip to the Bahamas. They were asked what the capital of Brazil is and answered “Rio.” The correct answer is Brasilia.

This clever Easter egg was meant to give viewers a clue about the Bahamas vacation being a set-up.^[6]

4 Pet Sematary

The cat came back in Pet Sematary 2019, much as it did in the original movie and, before that, the novel. Church looks arguably better in the modern version; before the whole coming-back-from-the dead-thing that is.

When the Creeds’ daughter, Ellie, sees the cat in the street after he died, she runs after him, her little brother Gage in tow. Louis Creed realizes in horror that a truck is bearing down on his children, and he runs after them, grabbing Gage just in time. However, the truck comes apart, killing Ellie. This is a departure from the original story in which Gage is killed.

Alongside this twist are a host of cleverly inserted details, adding to the movie experience. In the original 1989 film, the man driving the truck that kills Gage is listening to the song Sheena Is A Punk Rocker by The Ramones. In the 2019 film, the truck driver that ends up hitting and killing Ellie was distracted by his ringing phone. The person who called him happened to be called… Sheena. The Ramones also wrote a song called Pet Sematary for the 1989 film.

There are some great nods to Stephen King’s other stories, including IT—when the characters drive past a road sign saying “Derry – 20 mi”—and when Jud talks about a rabid Saint Bernard, referring to Cujo.

There is also a portrait of two girls wearing two very familiar dresses, in Rachel’s parents’ house. The dresses are frilly, blue, and identical.^[7]

3 Lake Mungo

Using mockumentary-style storytelling alongside found footage elements allowed the makers of Lake Mungo to freak out viewers worldwide. This Australian horror film was released in 2008 and centres around a teenager who dies and then haunts her family after her death. Cue several secrets being revealed.

The story about the double life of Alice Palmer was a hit with audiences and critics alike. And while the events unfold quite slowly, there are chilling details at the end that linger after the last name has rolled up the screen. Interspersed with the credits are several shots made up of prior footage of Alice’s ghost throughout the film, that went unnoticed. There is a particularly eerie scene in which the Palmer family stands in front of their house with a shadow watching them from the window.

At the very end of the credits, Alice (or her doppelganger) stands at Lake Mungo in complete darkness while lightning strikes overhead.^[8]

2 The Ritual

In Netflix’s The Ritual, a group of old friends on a hike find themselves face to face with a mythological creature. And not the friendly mermaid-under-the-sea type of creature, but the terrifying rip-your-guts-out-and-feed-it-to-your-friends kind.

Two of the group make it out alive and end up taking refuge in a house in which an elderly woman is praying to a stone with what seems to be the resident monster on it. The stone turned out to be a replica of the Loki Stone that can be found in Kirkby Stephen Parish Church in Kirkby Stephen, England. The stone is believed to depict Loki while bound and chained.

The film also features a cult that offers human sacrifices. The cult members chant the word blót, a Norse pagan term for ‘sacrifice.’ Nordic paganism revolved around sacrifices featuring rituals including human sacrifice. Those who participated would drip the blood of the deceased over their own bodies as they believed it would strengthen them for the coming year.^[9]

1 Friday the 13th

While some horror movie fans are terrified by mythical creatures such as the monster from the above-mentioned The Ritual or the ugly alien-looking things from A Quiet Place, others shake at the sight of scary movie villains such as Michael Myers and Jason Voorhees.

Friday the 13th is one of the go-to franchises when it comes to scary-movie-marathons. And with good reason. There are a whopping 12 movies featuring the hocky-mask-wearing killer. And with so many movies, it is just inevitable that there would be quite a few details that went unnoticed by viewers (for a while, at least.)

One of the best examples of this can be seen In Jason Goes to Hell, when a crate with the words “Ship to Horlicks University via Julia Carpenter. Arctic Expedition June 19, 1834” makes an appearance. This crate was used in the movie Creepshow in which a monster had been trapped inside since 1834. Creepshow’s plot was based on a short story by Stephen King.

The infamous Necronomicon from Evil Dead can also be seen in the movie.^[10]

10 Real Life Things That Would Be Easter Eggs in a Video Game

History can be a hard sell. There are a lot of dates to memorize, and it wasn’t all as edge-of-your-seat exciting as Hollywood has led us to believe. But amid the dusty old books and droning historians, a few gems are waiting to turn the black-and-white world of the past into a Saturday morning cartoon.

Freaky funerals, Tootsie Rolls on the battlefield, and even a prank from outer space; I challenge you to tell me history is dull after checking out these forgotten tales of bygone silliness.

10George Washington’s Insult Comedy

The painting of General George Washington crossing the Delaware River with his men is right up there with the Statue of Liberty as a symbol of freedom, dignity, etc. However, as is usually the case, the story behind the piece is considerably less noble. It’s funny, though.

Having planned a surprise attack on the enemy-controlled city of Trenton, Washington watched as his plan fell apart. The frigid temperatures were made worse when sleet began pelting his starving, battle-worn troops. Morale was at an all-time low as the army began crossing the icy river. Then, as he boarded his boat, Washington turned to the overweight artillery chief Harry Knox and delivered an inspirational gem for the ages: “Shift your fat ass, Harry, but don’t swamp the damned boat!”^[1]

Shock and disbelief rippled through the gathered men, followed by contagious laughter. Their spirits lifted, the troops went on to capture Trenton without losing a single man.

9Santa Anna’s Freaky Funeral

General Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna, the self-proclaimed “Napoleon of the West,” is widely known as the villain in the legend of The Alamo. His story extends a bit farther than that though, and it gets much weirder.

Just a few short years after wiping out the defenders of the Texas mission, Santa Anna led a force against the invading French at Veracruz, Mexico. During the battle, he took cannon fire to his leg, leaving him seriously wounded. Eventually, doctors were forced to amputate the mangled limb, which Santa Anna buried on his estate.

There it remained for several years until the General assumed the Mexican presidency in 1842, after apparently developing Mad Hatter-level dementia. Not content with the pedestrian burial it had received, Santa Anna had his decomposed leg exhumed and laid to rest beneath a huge, ornate monument. Of course, this only happened after a lavish parade through Mexico City complete with military honors, poetry readings, and cannon fire.^[2]

8The Korean Candy Crisis

In November of 1950, the Korean War was in full swing, and US troops found themselves horribly outnumbered during the Battle of Chosin Reservoir. Frigid temperatures made a bad situation worse, and running out of mortar shells was just the icing on the cake. Luckily, that last problem was easily fixed.

After radioing for a supply drop, the eager troops ran to collect their munitions and get back to the fight. They wrenched open the crates, looked inside, and immediately questioned their sanity. Thousands of Tootsie Rolls stared back at them, a picture of innocence sorely out of place on a battlefield.^[3] Apparently, one piece of military code worked a little too well: “Tootsie Rolls” was the nickname given to mortar shells.

Ever resourceful, the soldiers did what they could with what they had. They warmed the candies with body heat and used them to patch bullet holes in vehicles and hoses. The extreme cold then froze them into a surprisingly reliable weld.

7The Unlikely Fate of the Lonely Tree

For roughly three centuries Niger’s Sahara Desert sported what was widely believed to be the most isolated tree on the planet. This lonely acacia, the “Tree of Tenere,” was the only tree for 250 miles (402 km). It was used as a much-needed landmark by countless desert caravans for generations.

Then it got hit by a truck. In 1973 a—likely drunk—driver managed to plow into the only object for hundreds of miles while following an old caravan route. The spindly tree was snapped in half, a bizarrely unlikely victim of drunk driving.

The acacia’s dried trunk is now on display in the Niger National Museum, and a statue memorializing the natural wonder has taken its place in the remote desert.^[4] There is a silver lining though; it is now officially impossible to be accused of bad driving because, hey, at least I didn’t kill that tree.

6Ecuador’s Medicated Mayor

After a long election season, having run the gauntlet of childish attack ads and petty bickering, most of us are ready to vote for literally anything other than the talking heads that have filled our TV screens for months. For instance, we may joke about writing in our dog’s name. Or a dead celebrity. Or, in the case of the Ecuadorian village of Picoaza, a medicated foot powder.

The manufacturers of Pulvapies saw a unique marketing opportunity during the election season of 1967. Their new slogan—“Vote for any candidate, but if you want well-being and hygiene for your feet, vote for Pulvapies”—was slapped on every available surface prior to the election. Then, in a final burst of creativity, pamphlets resembling election papers and reading “For mayor, honorable Pulvapies” were distributed to voters.

Pulvapies won a landslide victory, officially becoming mayor of Picoaza, Ecuador.^[5]

5The Dreadnought Hoax

In February of 1910, the crew of the English warship HMS Dreadnought received a telegram announcing that they would soon be hosting the Emperor of Abyssinia—modern-day Ethiopia. Unwilling to offend the visiting dignitary, the sailors aboard the pride of the English fleet pulled out all the stops to roll out a royal welcome. Upon his arrival, he and his entourage were greeted with full military honors and given a lengthy tour of the vessel. It was a diplomatic home run for the British Royal Navy.

At least, it would have been had any foreign leaders actually been there. It turns out the Emperor and his companions were really a group of ambitious pranksters, including novelist Virginia Woolf.^[6] They had painted their faces, donned ridiculous costumes, and spoke in a combination of Latin and complete gibberish; the telegram had also been a forgery. The following day they sent an anonymous confession to the newspapers, making the Navy the national laughingstock for months.

4A Close Encounter of the Jolly Kind

It’s December of 1965. Cold War tensions are intensifying and the Space Race is in full swing. Two US astronauts, Walter M. “Wally” Schirra Jr. and Thomas P. Stafford, are performing a routine operation aboard the Gemini 6 space capsule when they report an unknown object orbiting Earth.

A shaken Stafford’s voice crackled through the radio to Mission Control, describing a bizarre craft traveling southward over the Arctic Circle. Most disturbingly, it seemed the ominous object would be entering the atmosphere any moment. Could this be a secret Russian space project? An alien vessel? Something else entirely?

Stafford further described the UFO to increasingly panicked NASA staff, reporting that what he assumed was one, were actually nine craft flying in close formation; he even caught a glimpse of a red-clad humanoid within the largest module. Technicians frantically scrambled to crack this unsettling anomaly until Stafford and Schirra broke into a rendition of Jingle Bells with a harmonica and a set of sleigh bells.^[7] These instruments, the first ever played in space, are now on display in the Smithsonian.

3The Kettle War

This one-battle war took place on October 8, 1784, between the Holy Roman Empire and the laughably outmatched Northern Netherlands. After a series of political upheavals and rebellions, the Northern Netherlands seceded from the Empire and cut them off from some pretty important trading harbors. None too pleased, Emperor Joseph II sent three warships to remove the blockade.

The Northern Netherlands sent only one ship, the Dolfijn. Silly, perhaps, but nothing compared to what was to follow. After a standoff, the Dolfijn fired a single shot, which hit no one. It did, however, hit a kettle of soup on the deck of enemy ship Le Louis, spraying its passengers with the thick liquid. Whether astounded by the accuracy of the shot or terrified of their apparently insane enemies, the sticky Empire forces immediately surrendered.^[8]

2The Almost Really Clever Vikings

The Vikings were a pretty nasty bunch. Making their living by stealing yours, these thugs were the scourge of the ancient world. They preyed primarily on smaller settlements, but an ambitious group of seafaring scoundrels set their sights on an all but impossible target: Rome.

Viking brothers Bjorn and Hastein sailed their fleet to the massive city, but rather than storm the walls, they sent a messenger. He explained to the terrified residents that they had not come to fight, but rather that their leader had converted on his deathbed and wished to receive a Christian burial. Suspicious but determined to do their Christian duty, the Romans allowed the “dead” Hastein and a few of his men into the city.

During the ceremony, Hastein erupted from his coffin, his men pulled concealed weapons, and the Vikings easily took the city. After demanding the residents bow and proclaim him the new ruler of Rome, a single voice offered up a vital bit of info: he was actually in the city of Luna, just north of Rome.^[9]

1The Tomb of the Unknown “Soldier”

In 1917, during WWI, Colonel George S. Patton found himself in the French village of Bourg. One day the mayor approached him, teary-eyed and distraught over the discovery of an American soldier’s grave. He asked why he had not been informed of the death so that he could pay his respects. Having no knowledge of any buried US dead in the village, a baffled Patton asked to be led to the site.

The colonel soon found himself standing before the “grave.” Apparently, some of his men had filled in an old latrine pit—that is, improvised toilet—and had placed a sign to warn others from the putrid mound. “Abandoned Rear” was scrawled on a few rough bits of wood that resembled a crucifix, leading the villagers to assume it had been placed to mark a grave. Patton was relieved but never corrected the confused mayor.

Returning to Bourg during World War II, General Patton once again discovered the final resting place of Abandoned Rear, which had been reverently maintained by the townsfolk for nearly 30 years.

Everyone makes mistakes, so the saying goes. The problem is that the word “mistake” doesn’t hold a lot of meaning. Sure, it means something wrong happened but you get no sense of gravity. Dropping your toast butter side down is a mistake, but so is forgetting to place a seal on a rocket ship that causes it to explode. Some mistakes can be quite a bit costlier than others. 

10. Lou Reed Got All Royalties From A Tribe Called Quest’s Hit Can I Kick It

If you don’t know Lou Reed you’re missing out on one of the greats in the history of music. The Velvet Underground frontman was a singer, songwriter, and inspiration to countless others. He was also never shy about sharing his thoughts. 

In 1990, A Tribe Called Quest released a track called Can I Kick It, which is still one of their most memorable hits. But there was a problem with it. The group sampled a lot of music in the production of the song and one of the things they sampled was Lou Reed’s bass line from the song Walk on the Wild Side. And they never asked Lou Reed for permission. 

The record label didn’t clear the rights and when Reed found out, he didn’t deny them access to it. He simply told them they’d have to pay. A Tribe Called Quest never received a dime in royalties from the song as a result, all of it going to Reed instead thanks to the label’s mistake. 

9. US Forces Accidentally Built a Fort in Canada

A lot can go wrong in the world of construction. One of the credo’s for any carpenter is measure twice and cut once. You really need to be sure what you’re doing. But you also need to make sure you have the where down as well, or all the expert craftsmanship in the world won’t save you.

The border between the United States and Canada is one of the longest in the world and, for the most part, the neighbors get along well with this arrangement. It’s almost a straight line from one coats to the other but there are a few wonky bits, especially around the Great Lakes and up to the east coast. This ended up contributing to the shameful story of Fort Blunder.

Originally called Fort Montgomery, this US military base was built in 1816 in an effort to ensure another Battle of 1812 wasn’t on the horizon. It was to have 30 foot high walls and overlook Lake Champlain where it could prevent another British invasion.

The problem was that the maps were not read correctly, and the fort was built a mile into Canadian territory instead of on American soil. It wouldn’t be until sometime in the 1840s when Britain and the US reached a firm agreement on borders that Canada lost a little land and the fort was given back to the US with a small tweak to maps. 

8. Crypto.com Accidentally Refunded Someone Over $10 Million

Remember Monopoly? One of the Community Chest cards you could get in the game awarded you $200 thanks to a bank error in your favor. As kids, many of us hoped to one day be on the receiving end of such a blessed mistake. 

In real life, bank errors are few and far between and they are rarely in your favor. Even if they seem to be in your favor, legally the money still isn’t yours and those who have benefitted from them in the past had to give it back. But what about a cryptocurrency exchange? 

A woman who was looking for a $100 refund on Crypto.com ended up having $10.5 million refunded instead. As one would expect, she immediately went out and spent a lot. She even bought a house that cost $1.35 million.

How did such a mistake occur? Following an audit a full seven months later, the website realized that someone had entered an account number in the payment section by mistake. That oversight led to an epic spending spree.

The site ended up suing the woman and the Supreme Court in Australia froze her accounts and ordered her to sell the house and return the cash. 

7. Soccer Fans Keep Mixing Up Bucharest and Budapest

Geography is not everyone’s strong suit, especially beyond the borders of where they live. Surveys have revealed geographic illiteracy is a huge problem worldwide. For the most part this may never affect you in your day-to-day life, but it might if you find yourself booking flights to places you don’t want to go.

In Europe there seems to be a pervasive issue in understanding the difference between Budapest and Bucharest. Budapest is in central Hungary. Bucharest is in Romania. They’re about 400 miles apart.

Back in 2012, over 400 Spanish fans who planned to watch their team play in a Europa League soccer game loaded up on planes and flew to Budapest to see the match. When they got there, they discovered the game was being played in Bucharest. 

In 2021, French fans did the same thing in reverse when they arrived in Bucharest for a game that was being played in Budapest, proving no one reads maps or names very well before booking plane tickets. 

6. Astronaut Alan Bean Ruined Apollo 12’s Camera

Everyone and their uncle uses a cell phone to take pictures nowadays but back in the day, you needed a “real” camera. Once upon a time that meant using film, something very rare these days. Part of the reason is that film can be a fickle media. You can’t just keep taking dozens of pictures with film because you run out. It needs to be developed, handled carefully, stored properly, all that jazz. You also want to not point any of it directly at the sun, especially if you’re in a place with no atmosphere.

When Apollo 12 was headed to the moon for our second visit, there was a lot less pressure on the whole mission. There was still interest, but it waned when everyone on Earth realized they wouldn’t be able to watch. That was all thanks to a mistake by astronaut Alan Bean.

As you can imagine, camera equipment being sent in space to document a moon landing in full color was sensitive and expensive. Bean, not fully appreciative of this, ended up pointing the camera directly at the sun. With no atmospheric filter of any kind, the sun destroyed the camera pretty quickly, reducing the trip to an audio-only affair and dampening enthusiasm the world over.  By the time crews returned for Apollo 14, networks literally cut away from coverage to put soap operas on.

5. NASA Accidentally Sold a Bag That Had Been on the Moon

One of the most exciting things that can happen on a shopping trip is finding a mis-priced item. Most stores follow a rule where they will sell it to you for the price on the label, even if the label is a mistake and you’re getting a great deal. But not every sale follows those rules.

In 2015, a government auction on eBay included a small white bag. A woman in Illinois bought it for just under $1,000. The bag was from NASA and it had been to space. But there had been a mixup and the bag that was sold had been up in Apollo 11 and had actually been used to collect the first samples of moon dust. It was supposed to have been one from Apollo 17 that went to space but never left the lander.

When the new owner of the bag sent it to NASA to confirm it was real, she trusted that they’d confirm or deny and send it back. They did not. Instead, they kept the bag and told her it was sold in error and that it “belonged to the American people.” They offered her a refund instead.

A lawsuit resulted from the disagreement and a judge ruled in the woman’s favor. She ended up selling it at auction in 2017 for $1.8 million.

4. A Boy Tripped and Punched a Hole in a $1.5 Million Painting

The comedy pratfall has been a staple of laughing at other people’s pain for generations. Everyone loves watching someone else fall down. But sometimes a person goes above and beyond in their tomfoolery and doesn’t just trip, they trip epically. Such was the case for a 12-year-old schoolboy in Taipei who was visiting the local museum.

In 2015, the Huashan 1914 creative arts center had a Da Vinci-inspired exhibit which featured a 17th-century painting called Flowers by Paolo Porpora. As the boy was approaching the painting he tripped and, as most people would, he put his hands out to try to catch himself. Unfortunately, that ended with him putting his hand right through the $1.5 million painting.

A few anxiety attacks later the boy was mostly let off the hook since insurance would cover the restoration damage, but it was a valuable lesson for all in the importance of keeping art either behind glass or at least a velvet rope.

3. Steve Rothstein Cost American Airlines $21 Million in Unlimited Flights

History is rife with tales of companies trying to run clever promos that backfired, like when Red Lobster underestimated the cost of an endless crab promo that cost the boss her job and cost the business hundreds of millions. 

American Airlines made the same mistake by offering an unlimited flight promo for $250,000. They must have thought anyone who took up the offer would not take $250,000 worth of flights, or at least not much more. But they did not see Steve Rothstein coming.

Rothstein bought his pass and proceeded to clock more than 10,000 flights. He flew friends to Europe; he flew strangers home, he’d even fly out on business trips in the morning and be home on a new flight for dinner, all first class. Sometimes he’d fly to another city just for a sandwich he liked.

The cost to American Airlines was estimated at $21 million. The company finally canceled his unlimited pass on the grounds of fraud. Because Rothstein sometimes invited strangers to fly with him, he’d book his companion seat under made up names because he didn’t know who was coming with him. The airline claimed that as the reason to terminate his ticket. 

2. William Shanks Wasted years Incorrectly Calculating Pi by Hand

Everyone’s favorite irrational number pi has been calculated to over 100 trillion digits. Thank computers for that. But before computers, mathematicians were doing it the old-fashioned way with pen and paper and it was not easy. Just ask William Shanks.

Shanks was born in 1812 when pi had only been calculated to 152 digits. By 1873, Shanks had devoted years of his life to unraveling the number and had reached 707 digits. Keep in mind that, prior to computers, calculating a new digit in pi could take days or even weeks of work.

It would be decades later when another mathematician, going over Shanks’ work, discovered he had miscalculated at digit 527. The end result was years of work being rendered useless.

1. Andres Escobar Was Killed For Scoring a Goal on His Own Team

Professional athletes are under a lot of scrutiny at the best of times and rabid fans will turn on someone at the drop of a hat if they feel they are underperforming. You can imagine how bad the reaction might be if a player were to accidentally score a point for the opposing team,then. Or maybe you can’t, since this one’s almost unbelievable.

In 1994, Andrés Escobar accidentally scored a goal against his own team during the World Cup. Escobar, previously a popular and skilled player, just screwed up. The goal cost them the match and dropped them from the competition. Colombian fans were beyond enraged. 

Just over a week after the game, a group of men attacked Escobar on the street, at first mocking and insulting him for what he did. Then things escalated. One of the men pulled a gun and shot him six times in his car. 

Officials believed the killer, the bodyguard for some drug traffickers, had been paid to kill Escobar because his bosses lost money on the match, but that was never proven.

People tend to remember the big picture of history they learned in school: the famous generals, the important inventions, or the impossible rescues. However, there’s a lot of stuff they don’t teach kids about those events. Maybe its too cruel, or too gross, or just makes historical figures look bad. Every kid was taught about Lincoln’s assassination or Pearl Harbor, but were they taught that…

Top 10 Terrible Jobs Boys Have Done Through History

10 The Doolittle Raid Fueled Horrific Retaliations

Following the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, the US launched the infamous Doolittle Raid- a suicidal bombing run targeting the Japanese mainland. The attack may not have caused much physical damage, but was a vital psychological victory. It gave the American public vengeance for Pearl Harbor, and it made the Japanese doubt the safety of the home islands.

Most of the time, this is where the story of the Doolittle raid ends- with an American victory. The Japanese, however, had just lost dozens of civilians. Schools had been hit in the raid, children killed, houses destroyed. The Japanese public were angry, and that anger fell upon the occupied Chinese population. The Japanese immediately set about destroying airfields and infrastructure in coastal China to stop the possibility of another raid. Towns and villages suspecting of helping rescuing bailed pilots were razed to the ground.

Nancheng, a town of 50,000 people, was reduced to little more than “charred earth”. Anyone who had helped the Doolittle raiders was tortured, often being identified by the gifts (nickels, cigarettes, parachutes) given to them by thankful US pilots. An outbreak of cholera made the situation worse, as hospitals were picked clean by the Japanese and refugees were forced to drink dirty water. In total, it is estimated that roughly 250,000 civilians died as a result of the reprisal attacks.^[1]

9 Thousands Of Dogs Were Slaughtered At The End Of The Vietnam War

The withdrawal from Vietnam is one of lowest points of American military history, and its made all the worse knowing it caused the deaths of thousands of military service dogs. They were used for a variety of purposes- scouting for ambushes, detecting booby traps and weapon caches, and guarding military bases. Roughly 4000 dogs served in total throughout the war, and are estimated to have saved upwards of 10,000 lives.

However, the end of the war raised the difficult question of what to do with them all. The US was pulling out of Vietnam, and they didn’t have the time to take all their equipment with them. Despite the pleas of many handlers, only around 200 dogs made it back to the US. The rest were either euthanized, or handed over to the South Vietnamese (who likely either let them loose or euthanized them too). One handler, Rick Claggett, offered to pay to have his dog returned to the US, but was told that the dogs were “surplus equipment” and that “If you guys keep jacking around with this thing, you’re gonna be staying here.”^[2]

8 Y2K is Breaking Computers In 2020

Over twenty years ago, the clocks ticked over from 1999 to 2000 and the world breathed a collective sigh of relief that airplanes weren’t falling out of the sky. The fabled ‘Y2K Bug’ ended up being a hoax, and everything was fine. Except, everything was only fine because of the efforts of countless IT workers across the world working tirelessly to fix the problem. However, what they did to make sure computers wouldn’t break in 2000, caused computers to break NOW, in 2020. Parking meters stopped working in NYC, cash registers seized up in Poland, and even the latest WWE game wouldn’t work if it thought the year was 2020.

But why? In very basic terms, computers stored dates as two numbers, such as 93= 1993. The fear during Y2K was that computers would interpret 00 as 1900 and not 2000. One way to fix that problem was something called “windowing”, which treated all numbers from 00 up to 20 as part of the 21st century. Every system that hasn’t been updated since has reverted back to 1920, causing global havoc.

Even at the time “windowing” was seen as short sighted and widely criticized within the industry, with a 1999 HPC Wire article suggesting “corporate executives and government bureaucrats approved using the method knowing that problems won’t resurface until after they retire or change jobs.”^[3]

7 Lincoln’s Rotting Corpse Was Paraded Across The Country

Republican president Abraham Lincoln’s death sparked a period of national mourning, and millions of Americans found a need to express their grief. The answer was a sort of traveling funeral, where Lincoln’s body went on a tour of 180 cities and seven states. The party traveled by train, stopping at every city and setting up Lincoln’s body in a public space for mourners to come and pay respects. Keep in mind that refrigeration wasn’t invented yet.

By the time the train made it to Manhattan, Lincoln’s once proud face had decomposed into a “ghastly shadow”. The New York Times at the time said that “It will not be possible, despite the effection of the embalming, to continue much longer the exhibition, as the constant shaking of the body aided by the exposure to the air, and the increasing of dust, has already undone much of the…workmanship, and it is doubtful if it will be decreed wise to tempt dissolution much further.”^[4]

6 The Nuclear Arms Race Killed A Lot of Native Americans

The arms race between the Soviet Union and the USA required significant amounts of uranium. Deposits were discovered on Navajo and Lakota lands, and between 1944 and 1989 3.9 million tons of uranium ore was extracted by Navajo workers. Most of the miners were paid less than minimum wage, and many worked with horses or handpicks. Worse, many didn’t speak English and weren’t taught how radiation could affect them, or that it even existed at all. Ninety Navajo miners were even studied to try and determine the danger of radiation without being informed of the potential risks.

Unsurprisingly, rates of cancer, kidney failure and miscarriage all rose dramatically in the area. An estimated 500-600 of the miners died of lung cancer between 1945 and 1990, and a recent study by the CDC found uranium in the urine of 27% of modern day Navajo. While the US government is now making a concerted effort to clean the abandoned mines and provide clean drinking water, the arms race will continue to kill Native Americans for years to come.^[5]

10 Historic Events That Are Creepier Than A Horror Movie

5 Gay Holocaust Victims Were Re-Imprisoned By The Allies

Before 1933, Berlin boasted over 80 gay bars, restaurants, and nightclubs. Within a month of taking power, however, Hitler outlawed LGBT publications and organizations, and famously ransacked the Institute of Sexual Science and destroyed its “degenerate” research. Thousands of gay men were sent to prison or concentration camps, where they suffered a death rate of 60%. Those that survived were starved, tortured, and sometimes used in medical experiments. By the time the Allies liberated the concentration camps, only around 4000 were left.

It quickly became apparent, however, that the Allied powers had little sympathy. Gay men had been imprisoned under Paragraph 175, a part of German criminal code that predated the Nazis. As such, the American authorities treated anyone charged under Paragraph 175 as having been justifiably imprisoned, and the holocaust survivors were forced to complete the remainder of their sentences. To make matters worse, war criminals who experimented on homosexual prisoners were largely allowed to go free. The most notorious, SS Dr Carl Værnet (who castrated and injected hormones into prisoners in an attempt to “cure” them) was allowed to escape to Argentina by British and Danish authorities.^[6]

4 The Miracle On The Hudson Lead to Goose Genocide

On January 15, 2009 Captain Chesley Sullenberger managed to safely ditch his plane on the Hudson river after an unexpected bird strike, in what became known as the “Miracle on the Hudson”. What isn’t widely known is that the incident lead to the deaths of tens of thousands of wild birds. In an effort to reduce the goose population and avoid future airstrikes, an estimated 1,235 Canada geese were gassed and 1739 eggs destroyed immediately following the incident.

The numbers since have only increased, with an estimated 70,000 birds of all types having been culled by 2017. Perhaps the policy has saved hundreds of lives by preventing bird strike from downing planes… or maybe it was a knee-jerk response that has pointlessly killed tens of thousands of animals for no reason.^[7]

3 The British Pet Massacre

At the start of the Blitz- Nazi Germany’s bombing campaign against British cities- a pamphlet was released to advise pet owners. It suggested sending beloved pets to the countryside or, failing that, having them put down. Rationing meant there wasn’t enough food to go around, and it was seen as more humane to put your dog down than let it starve to death. Many pet owners also worried that their pet would be killed in the bombing, or even that owning a pet would seem extravagant amid ration and the Blitz spirit.

The response was overwhelming. It has been estimated that between 500,000 and 750,000 pets were killed in a single week in London alone. Some owners chose to kill their own pets, but countless vets across the country were swarmed by queues of people holding cats and dogs. The influx was supposedly so high that the bodies were initially just piled in the street. 500,000 animals were buried in a single cemetery. The government itself was mostly against this hysteria, and thankfully hundreds of thousands of pets were safely re-homed in shelters and country homes.^[8]

2 Hurricane Katrina Left 600 Prisoners Trapped In Flooded Cells

As Hurricane Katrina moved closer to New Orleans, an evacuation order was announced. This order didn’t much help the inmates of Templeman III, part of the Orleans Parish Prison. They were left abandoned in their cells without food or clean water for 4 days. The generators shut off- leaving them in darkness- while the backed up sewage system left inmates trapped in chest-high waste-water. Many of these prisoners were there because of unpaid parking tickets or public drunkenness. They were left to die.

Months later and hundreds of inmates were unaccounted for- either dead, escaped or simply lost in the chaos. Their families had no idea where they were, or even if they were alive.^[9]

1 Hawaiians Were Under Martial Law After Pearl Harbour

Hours after the attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii was placed under martial law by its governor, Joseph Poindexter. Unlike the US mainland, there were simply too many Japanese-Americans to incarcerate them all, so instead every single resident of Hawaii was made to live under military rule.

A curfew was introduced, and citizens were forced to dig makeshift bomb shelters and place barbed wire across the islands. Food became rationed, alcohol was banned, and hotels were occupied by the military. Any resident over the age of six had their fingerprints taken, all mail and news was censored, and banned courts that required witnesses or juries. Anyone who violated any of these new rules would face military tribunal, without appeal. For four years, what is now a US state would essentially live in a military dictatorship.^[10]

10 Pop Culture And Historical Events That Started Off As Jokes

About The Author: James is a history graduate and pop culture lover. Follow him on Twitter @TheJamesFreeth

Sometimes the details hidden throughout a film are what really elevate the overall viewing experience. Many are mere blips on the screen, while others linger for a bit longer. Some are intentional, meant to pay homage to someone or something else. Other unintentional details are missed in post-production and remain in the final cut, with fans eagerly searching for them.

On this list are just some examples of excellent details hidden in popular movies.

Related: 10 Easter Eggs From Stephen King Adaptations

10 Silence of the Lambs

Silence of the Lambs is one of the creepiest movies ever made, thanks to an insane performance from Anthony Hopkins. The movie also has one of the most recognizable posters ever made, which features Clarice’s face with her mouth covered by a death’s head hawkmoth. However, you have to look really closely at this moth to see what exactly is on its back: a tiny reproduction of the Voluptas Mors photograph created by Salvador Dali and Philippe Halsman. The photo was taken in 1951 and depicts seven nude women arranged in the form of a skull.

This film is filled with so many little details that aficionados soak up, including a hint at Buffalo Bill’s whereabouts and the odd collection of things in his house. For example, the drawing in Hannibal’s cell of Italy’s Duoma showed the view of the landmark as seen from The Belvedere, a nod to the town in which Buffalo Bill lives—Belvedere, Ohio. And while walking through Bill’s home, note the array of things he has strewn around, including a quilt adorned with Nazi swastikas.^[1]

9 Lost Highway

Lost Highway is a truly weird film that sees two separate stories intertwining, with the women in both stories played by one actress, Patricia Arquette. This 1997 neo-noir film features an excellent soundtrack, even if the scenes are somewhat incoherent.

One of the stories follows the lives of a married couple played by Bill Pullman and Patricia Arquette. Pullman starts receiving VHS tapes of himself and his wife inside their home. As they sit on the couch and watch these tapes, three paintings can be seen on the wall behind them. After Arquette’s character dies, these paintings seem to turn upside down, which indicates the transition from the real world to a nightmare realm.^[2]

8 Mortal Kombat

Many movie lovers probably sighed when the latest Mortal Kombat movie was announced. After all, the first lot of movies was not exactly great. But the 2021 outing surprised even some critics, as it is pretty decent. And it’s packed with great easter eggs and homages for hard-core fans of the classic game too. These include the commands of “Fight!” and “Finish him! ” and the declarations of “Fatality” and “Flawless victory.”

In the scene where Sub-Zero wins his first fight against Jax, graffiti can be seen on the wall as Jax hunts for the ice warrior. This graffiti is none other than the button combos for Sub-Zero’s ice ball move in which he hurls ice at his enemy to freeze them for a couple of seconds.

The infamous ‘The Pit’ fighting stage is also recreated in the film which consists of a raised platform and a pit of spikes looming below.^[3]

7 The Rocky Horror Picture Show

This cult classic features a host of famous faces, including Tim Curry, Richard O’Brien, Susan Sarandon, and Meat Loaf. Released in 1975, the movie version of The Rocky Horror Picture Show wowed audiences worldwide with its great actor performances and memorable musical numbers.

The movie is also known for having actual easter eggs hidden throughout. This was because the crew had an easter egg hunt on the set, and some of the eggs remained behind. One can be seen under Frank’s throne, another in the place of a light, and a third as the group takes the elevator to the lab.^[4]

6 Mouse Hunt

Gore Verbinski’s directorial debut was the slapstick comedy film Mouse Hunt, which was released in 1997. It was the first family film released by DreamWorks Pictures and also one of William Hickey’s final film roles before he passed away. While this is not the most talked-about film ever, it does contain an excellent easter egg that happens near the end of the movie:

A party is in full swing for the Smuntz brothers, and they are mingling with the guests. Ernie greets a couple of guests and then says “Hakuna Matata” to one of them. This phrase had gone viral just a few years earlier when The Lion King hit the big screen in 1994, and the wisecracking meerkat, Timon, explained what the words meant in the movie. Nathan Lane provided the voice of Timon and also played Ernie in Mouse Hunt.^[5]

5 Midsommar

Depending on what your idea of a freaky horror movie is, Midsommar will either bore you to tears or have you biting your nails and watching the screen through your fingers. This film is loaded with hidden details, however, that make for an interesting watch.

At the beginning of the movie, an eerie-looking tapestry can be seen that seemingly depicts the annual change from winter to summer. But it soon becomes clear that there is much more going on than just the passing of the seasons. Instead, the characters from the film can be seen in each stage, acting out their scenes that eventually play out. This means that everything happening to them is as inevitable as the changing seasons.

And some hidden details are even creepier. In the scene where the Hargas carry Dani to dinner, have a look at the trees in the background. Among them, you will see a face with a tube coming from its mouth, which is a depiction of how Dani’s sister dies at the beginning of the film.^[6]

4 Stuck on You

The 2003 comedy Stuck on You, starring Greg Kinnear, Matt Damon, and Cher, tells the hilarious story of conjoined twins who are known for being the fastest grill cooks in town. The twins’ conflicting dreams for the future make for some funny scenes, and the movie generally received favorable reviews.

What is truly unexpected, however, is the hidden detail right at the beginning of the movie when the twins get out of bed. Under the base of the bed, a human face can be seen peering directly toward the camera. While it is pretty well known that it was one of the executive producers who hid under the bed as a prank, it is a pretty jarring image, especially for a comedy film.^[7]

3 The Exorcist

For a movie released in 1973, The Exorcist is still creepy as hell. Possessed Regan still makes for a terrifying image, and the pea soup vomit is still nasty. Not to mention the frightening upside-down spider crawl down the stairs.

There are a plethora of small details throughout the film too. Some are creepier than others. For example, the banner hung over the doorway in the language lab has the word TASUKETE! written on it in red. Tasukete translates to “help me” in Japanese, and the same word is later carved into Regan’s stomach.

The demon that takes over Regan’s body is also revealed throughout, with its face superimposed over several objects and scenes for a split second. Another creepy detail reveals itself when Father Karras tumbles down the stairs, and the words “Fight Pigs” appear as graffiti to the left of the staircase. This is a clear reference to Jesus exorcising demons into a herd of pigs, and Karras does a similar thing by exorcising the demon into himself.^[8]

2 Titanic

The 1997 blockbuster Titanic might be melodramatic in parts, but it still starkly depicts one of the biggest tragedies in human history. The many “what-if” scenarios make it even worse.

The film made a big splash in cinemas and also contains a lot of details and easter eggs that not everyone caught the first time around. For instance, the scene where two men stand watching a boy play on the deck is a direct recreation of an existing photograph. In addition, rose’s bedside photographs depict all the adventures she had in honor of Jack’s memory according to the plans they made on the ship.

As the gravity of the situation sinks in after the ship hits the iceberg, several poignant scenes play out. One in particular still tugs at the heartstrings—an Irish mother realizes that she and her two children won’t make it out of steerage alive. She puts them to bed and lulls them to sleep by telling them a well-known story from Irish folklore.

“And so, they lived happily together for 300 years, in the land of Tir na nOg, the land of eternal youth and beauty”, the mother says, knowing that they are all close to death. In the folk tale, Tir na nOg can only be reached by going across the sea… or going underwater.^[9]

1 Spider-Man: No Way Home

The latest Spider-Man movie not only includes an easter egg in honor of Stan Lee’s birthday in the form of a special license plate but also sports several other great details that make it one of the best additions to the superhero multiverse to date.

After Peter Parker’s revealed to be Spider-Man, he and MJ land on the Queensboro Bridge. This is a throwback to Tobey Maguire’s outing, in which Green Goblin dropped Kirsten Dunst’s character from this same bridge.

As a nod to the four-part comic run of Spider-Man: One More Day in which Peter makes a deal with Mephisto, No Way Home includes a scene where protestors hold up signs depicting Spider-Man as the devil.

Also, when Aunt May flirts with Dr. Octavius, it is a nod to the comics as well in which she and the doctor date for a while.^[10]