“What happened to your second wife?” an interviewer once asked Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard.

He was referring to Sara Northrup, the woman who’d been at Hubbard’s side while he developed Dianetics and who later divorced him in a messy, public scandal. The whole world had watched their divorce fill the headlines of every paper. But still, when the question came, Hubbard just smirked and told the interviewer: “I’d never had a second wife.”

It’s an incredibly brazen lie—and a sign of just how much damage Sara Northrup could do to him. Her life is a story that the Church of Scientology is still trying to cover up because the amount of suffering she endured at Hubbard’s hands is nothing short of heartbreaking.

10 She Met L. Ron Hubbard In A Sex Magick Cult

Sara Northrup’s life was difficult from the start. When she met Hubbard, she was living at the home of physicist and occultist Jack Parsons. Both she and Hubbard were members of Aleister Crowley’s sex magick cult.

Northrup’s life was already filled with sexual abuse. She’d been molested by her father from a young age, a trauma that likely explains why she was already sleeping with Jack Parsons by age 13. However, he wasn’t just twice her age, he was her sister’s husband.

When Hubbard showed up, he must have seemed like a savior. Granted, he was every bit as strange as Parsons was. In fact, the two worked together to summon a Babylonian goddess, believing they could bring her to life by chanting, dabbing runes with animal blood, and masturbating on magical tablets.

But Hubbard was a war hero, injured in battle, or so he claimed. He won Northrup over by spinning stories about his heroism that most of the cult members wrote off as “tall tales.” But the young Northrup bought into them completely.

“I believed everything he said,” Northrup later said. “It just never occurred to me he was a liar.”^[1]

9 She And Hubbard Stole Jack Parsons’s Life Savings

Jack Parsons believed in free love. Bound by his own principles, he couldn’t do a thing but watch as his new friend, L. Ron Hubbard, started sleeping with his girlfriend, Sara Northrup. Parsons had to pretend to be okay with every bit of it.

Other lodgers at his house, though, could tell just how angry it made him. “There [Hubbard] was, living off Parsons’s largesse and making out with his girlfriend right in front of him,” one would later recall. “The hostility was almost tangible.”

Still, when Hubbard proposed that the two start a business together, Jack Parsons readily agreed to give him $20,000 to get things off the ground. Perhaps he just wanted to keep up appearances and pretend like it didn’t bother him. Either way, he was the only one who was surprised when Hubbard and Northrup took off to Florida with the $20,000 and a brand-new yacht, bought with Parsons’s money.

“He has given away both his girl and his money,” Karl Germer, one of Parsons’s friends, reported in a letter to Aleister Crowley. “It is the ordinary confidence trick.”^[2]

Parsons tried to sue them but quickly dropped the case. He accepted a few dollars of payment and, in exchange, let Hubbard and Northrup keep the yacht. It was a bad deal for Parsons, but he didn’t have much choice. If he didn’t comply, he was warned, Hubbard and Northrup would let the world know that Parsons had had sex with Northrup when she was 13.

8 Hubbard Was Still Married To His First Wife When They Got Married

Sara Northrup married L. Ron Hubbard because he threatened to kill himself. He’d asked her multiple times already, but she had refused every time until he made it clear: If she said no, his death would be on her conscience forever.

What Hubbard hadn’t told her, though, was that he was already married. Thirteen years earlier in 1933, he’d married Polly Grubb. She was the mother of his two children, and in exchange, Hubbard had taken off to New York to cheat on her with other women.

At this point, the two were so estranged that they hadn’t seen each other in about two years. But they were still married at Hubbard’s insistence. Polly had repeatedly asked for a divorce, but he kept turning her down.

Hubbard only agreed to a divorce after he’d been married to Sara for a good year and a half. But he still kept his marriage to Polly a secret. Instead, he took Sara with him to Polly’s house without explaining a thing, which forced her to try to figure out why these people were so hostile toward her.

It was his son, L. Ron Jr., who told her. Sara was devastated. She rushed out of the house crying and tried to get onto the next ferry that would take her as far away from Hubbard as possible.^[3]

In the end, she didn’t leave. Her new husband begged and pleaded until she stayed.

7 L. Ron Hubbard Brutally Abused Her

L. Ron Hubbard started beating his wife during summer 1946. It began when Sara’s father died. Despite her complicated feelings toward the man, Sara was overwhelmed with grief and sadness.

To Hubbard, her sadness was nothing more than an annoyance. When she cried, he would beat and strangle her into silence, complaining that she’d distracted him from his work.

Hubbard was losing his mind. He wrote a letter to Veteran Affairs (VA), begging them to help him pay for psychiatric treatment. But the VA never responded, and Hubbard got increasingly worse.^[4]

One morning, he woke up his wife by pistol-whipping her across the face. She’d been smiling in her sleep, he told her, and he was sure it was because she was thinking of someone else. Northrup fled into the night, nearly escaping her abusive husband again. But once more, she came back.

She felt sorry for him because she knew he was losing his mind. She later said, “I kept thinking that he must be suffering or he wouldn’t act that way.”

Staying only made it worse. By the time Northrup really did file for divorce, she’d gone through what the divorce proceedings described as “repeated” and “systematic torture.” He strangled her regularly. He threw her out of a moving car. He once kept her awake for four days straight and then tried to force her to overdose on sleeping pills.

Some of those scars would never heal. On Christmas 1950, Hubbard broke into such a rage that he deliberately ruptured her left eardrum. Her hearing would be impaired for the rest of her life.

6 Hubbard Tried To Beat Her Into A Miscarriage

None of those beatings, though, could compare to what he tried to do to her when she got pregnant.

One night, after Hubbard had gone into one his mad rages, he threw his pregnant wife onto the ground. They would not bring a child into this world, he had decided, and he would make sure of it. L. Ron Hubbard tried to make his wife miscarry by repeatedly stomping on her stomach.

By some strange miracle, the child survived. But this was hardly the first time that Hubbard had tried to beat an unborn baby to death.

His eldest son, L. Ron Hubbard Jr., claims that, as a child, he had caught his father standing over his mother with a coat hanger in his hand. And Hubbard Jr. says that his own birth, nearly three months premature, was the result of a failed late-term abortion:

“I wasn’t born. This is what came out as a result of their attempt to abort me.”^[5]

Hubbard admitted to some of the abortions himself. In his private memoir, he wrote that he and Polly’s marriage had resulted in “five abortions and two children.”

5 He Reported Her To The FBI As A Communist

As Dianetics started to take off and Hubbard became worth a small fortune, his eye started to wander. As he’d done with his first wife, Hubbard started to cheat on Sara with a young woman: Barbara Klowden, his 20-year-old PR assistant.

Sara didn’t take it lying down. After Hubbard forced her to go on a double date with Klowden, Sara started a revenge affair with one of his employees, Miles Hollister.

But nobody could bite back as hard as L. Ron Hubbard. He wrote the FBI a letter reporting his wife and her lover as “active and dangerous” Communists, calling Hollister “outspokenly disloyal to the US.”

J. Edgar Hoover actually answered Hubbard’s letter and invited him to meet with an FBI agent—which Hubbard did. He told them that Hollister had brainwashed his wife and driven her insane. Then Hubbard went into a mad rant about how Dianetics could bring an end to communism and how people said he was crazy but he definitely wasn’t.

The agent nodded politely, quietly making a little note in his book that just read: “Mental case.”^[6]

They never tried to bring in Northrup or Hollister. Perhaps, in part, it was because this was hardly the first time that Hubbard had tried to turn someone in. The FBI’s dossiers were full of letters from L. Ron Hubbard, reporting every German person he saw as an undercover Nazi and a “menace to the state.”

4 Scientologists Tried To Brainwash Her Into Staying With Hubbard

In their own ways, Hubbard and Northrup tried to make the marriage work. Northrup went to a psychiatrist and tried to convince Hubbard to get treatment for the paranoid schizophrenia that was destroying his life. But he wouldn’t listen.

Hubbard told her that she was in league with devils. Then he put two of his men, Richard de Mille and Dave Williams, to work at brainwashing her. As John Sanborne, one of Hubbard’s former confidants, recalls:

“He made this stupid attempt to get Northrup brainwashed so she’d do what he said. He kept her sitting up in a chair, denying her sleep, trying to use Black Dianetic principles on her, repeating over and over again whatever he wanted her to do. Things like, ‘Be his wife, have a family that looks good, not have a divorce.’ ”^[7]

It didn’t work. Northrup still wanted a divorce. In the end, Hubbard told her that he didn’t want to be with her, either. He was just worried about his reputation. There was only way out.

“If you really love me,” Hubbard told her, “you should kill yourself.”

In November 1950, Sara Northrup tried to do just that. While L. Ron Hubbard was out, she downed a bottle of sleeping pills and lay down, hoping never to wake up again.

It didn’t work. She woke up alive in a hospital bed, registered under a fake name.

3 Hubbard Kidnapped Her Baby

It was 1:00 AM on February 24, 1951, when L. Ron Hubbard and two of his friends dragged Sara Northrup out of her bed, still dressed in her nightgown. Hubbard had taken her baby. “We have Alexis,” Hubbard told her, “and you’ll never see her alive unless you come with us.”^[8]

They threw Sara into the back of a car and drove her to Yuma, Arizona. Not long after, Hubbard had a change of heart. He kicked her out, forced her to go back home, and kept the baby with him.

She tried begging Hubbard to give her back the baby, but Hubbard refused time and time again. Then, out of the blue, he called her and told her the worst thing imaginable: Alexis was dead, and he had killed her.

“He had cut her into little pieces,” Sara says he told her, “and dropped the pieces in a river and that he had seen little arms and legs floating down the river and it was my fault. I’d done it because I’d left him.”

Hubbard was lying. But Sara must have felt unimaginable pain when he said it. A little while later, he sent her a letter. He admitted that Alexis was alive and tried to blackmail Sara into giving him full custody.

“My will is all changed. Alexis will get a fortune,” he wrote, “unless she goes to you as she would then get nothing.”

He signed his blackmail note: “Goodbye. I love you. Ron.”

2 Polly Hubbard Had Gone Through All The Same Things

Sara publicized everything on the advice of a lawyer, who told her that she couldn’t keep all of this a secret any longer. “Tell the truth,” he told her, “for the truth will bring back [your] baby, if alive.”

She filed for divorce, and the papers became filled with horror stories about the man who had tortured her and taken her baby. Yes, she’d put it off too long. But now, it was clear that there was no other way to ever see her child again.

Polly Hubbard, Ron’s first wife, contacted Sara for the first time after reading about the divorce. Every word written by Sara was terrifyingly familiar to Hubbard’s first wife. Polly wrote Sara a letter of complete support:

“If I can help in any way, I’d like to. You must get Alexis in your custody. Ron is not normal. I had hoped that you could straighten him out. Your charges sound fantastic to the average person. But I’ve been through it—the beatings, threats on my life, all the sadistic traits you charge—twelve years of it.”^[9]

“Please do believe,” she wrote. “I do so want to help you get Alexis.”

1 Sara Had To Absolve Hubbard Of All Guilt To Get Her Baby Back

In June 1951, Sara Northrup got to see her baby again. For months, Hubbard had been hiding their child in Cuba, but now they were back in Wichita. Ron was willing to talk.

He’d completely given into his paranoid delusions. There was no sense of reality for him. Sara had no choice but to play along. In her words:

“He told me that I was under the influence of this communist cell. And that they were dictating to me what to do, and that I was in a state of complete madness. I told him, ‘Yep, I think you’re right. The only thing I can do is to work through it and do whatever they say.’ ”

He made her sign a paper absolving him of all blame. It was the only way that he would give her back her child.

“The things I have said about L. Ron Hubbard in courts and the public prints have been grossly exaggerated or entirely false,” the paper said. “L. Ron Hubbard is a fine and brilliant man.” That was what he cared about—not his child and not his wife, just his reputation.

But all Sara cared about was getting her child back. She signed the papers, and in exchange, he drove her and Alexis to the airport.

Hubbard stopped the car a few feet away from the airfield. He’d had a last-second change of heart. Shaking his head, he told her: “I’m not going to let you go.”

Sara clutched her child, got out of the car, and ran. She left her suitcase and all her things behind. Alexis’s shoe fell off, but Sara didn’t stop. She just kept running toward the airplane, toward freedom, with her child in her arms for the first time in four months.

“It was the 19th of June,” Sara later said, “and it was the happiest day of my life.”^[10]

Magic and superstition have been present in human societies since the dawn of our species, and ancient Rome was no exception. Some of us would like to believe that the advancement of education and scientific knowledge should be enough to keep superstitious beliefs in check, but many signs around us tell us that superstition is here to stay. Fortune-tellers, cult leaders, horoscope writers, and casino owners (to name a few) know this very well.

This list is about the powerful effect that magic and superstition had on some of the beliefs of ancient Roman society.

10 Magic, Superstition, And Medicine

Some of the medical knowledge in ancient Rome was strongly linked to magic and superstition. Pliny the Elder records a number of health tips that few of us would take seriously. Here are some examples. Do not try this at home without medical supervision. We take no responsibility for the outcome of the following recipes:

Drinking fresh human blood was believed by some to be an effective treatment for epilepsy:

“It is an appalling sight to see wild animals drink the blood of gladiators in the arena, and yet those who suffer from epilepsy think it is the most effective cure for their disease, to absorb a person’s warm blood while he is still breathing and to draw out his actual living soul.” (Natural History, 28.4)

For treating bruises and strains:

“Strains and bruises are treated with wild boar’s dung gathered in spring and dried. This treatment is used for those who have been dragged by a chariot or mangled by its wheels or bruised in any way. Fresh dung also may be smeared on.” (Natural History, 28.237)

If you want to enhance or suppress sexual performance:

“A man’s urine in which a lizard has been drowned is an antaphrodisiac potion; so also are snails and pigeons’ droppings drunk with olive oil and wine. The right section of a vulture’s lung worn as an amulet in a crane’s skin is a powerful aphrodisiac, as is consuming the yolk of five dove eggs mixed with a denarius of pig fat and honey, sparrows or their eggs, or wearing as an amulet a rooster’s right testicle wrapped in ram’s skin.” (30.141)

9 Magic, Superstition, And Pregnancy

Pregnancy in ancient Rome was the cause of considerable anxiety. It is estimated that the number of women who died as a result of childbirth was higher to the number of men who died at war. As a result, a deficit of women suitable for marriage was always an issue in Rome. It is therefore not surprising that there were a few tips on pregnancy circulating around Roman society. Pliny the Elder tells us that:

“[ . . . ] if someone takes a stone or some other missile that has slain three living creatures (a human being, a wild boar, and a bear) at three blows, and throws it over the roof of a house in which there is a pregnant woman, she will immediately give birth, however difficult her labor may be.” (Natural History 28.33)

“If one wishes a child to be born with black eyes, the mother should eat a shrew during the pregnancy.” (Natural History 30.134)

8 Shapeshifters

Many stories circulated among ancient Romans about people changing their shape into animals and other beings. Here is one of these tales. If you think the werewolf legend is relatively new, think again:

“We came to the tombs, and my friend went to do his business among the gravestones, while I moved off singing and counting the stars. Then, when I looked back at my companion, he had taken off all his clothes and laid them at the roadside. My heart was in my mouth; I stood there practically dead. He pissed in a circle around his clothes, and suddenly turned into a wolf. Don’t think I am joking: nothing could induce me to tell lies about this. [ . . . ] He began to howl and ran off into the woods. [ . . . ] then I went to pick up his clothes, but they had all turned to stone.” (Petronius Satyricon 62)

It would not be surprising if at least some people in Rome believed stories like this one.

7 Witchcraft

Long before medieval times, witchcraft was known to the Romans. There is a famous passage in Roman literature describing a grotesque ritual performed by witches who were looking to brew a love potion. They intended to use the potion to gain the heart of a man named Varus, who had resisted the love spells cast by the witches so far.

The details of this ritual are described by the Roman poet, Horace (Epodes 5), who lived during the first century BC: A boy of high birth was kidnapped by a clique of witches. They buried the boy in the ground up to his chin, and they placed some food in the ground close to him, but he was unable to reach it. The witches hoped to starve the boy to death and make his liver grow as a result of the hunger. The boy’s liver was a key ingredient to brew the love potion.

This account is fictional, but it shows the place that witches and their dark arts had in the imagination of some Romans.

6 Interpretation Of Dreams

Like almost all other cultures, some Romans firmly believed in the idea that dreams could forecast the future. In the second century AD, Artemidorus of Daldis wrote a work named The Interpretation of Dreams, compiled in five books. Some of the ways in which he interpreted the meaning of dreams are both specific and curious:

“Dreaming about turnips, rutabagas, and pumpkins presages disappointed hopes, since they are massive [vegetables] but lack nutritional value. They signify surgery and wounding with iron implements for sick people and travelers, respectively, since these vegetables are cut into slices.” (1.67)

“Dreaming that one is eating books foretells advantage to teachers, lecturers, and anyone who earns his livelihood from books, but for everyone else it means sudden death.” (2.45)

5 Reading Animal Entrails

Hundreds of techniques to foretell the future are recorded in ancient Roman documents. We know, for example, that sacrificing animals and trying to read the future by interpreting their entrails was practiced not only in ancient Rome, but also in many other cultures. This magical art was known to the Romans as haruspicy, and a person trained in this art was a haruspex.

Cicero (On Divination: 2.52) claims that Hannibal, the renowned Carthaginian commander who defied Rome in the Second Punic War, was an expert in this technique. While he was still a military advisor (before he became commander), he used to give advice to his superiors based on the messages he could read on the organs of sacrificed animals.

4 Astrology

Trying to predict events based on the position of the celestial bodies was also widely practiced in the Roman world. Some Roman emperors, including Tiberius, Domitian, and Hadrian, believed in divination and astrology and even had some degree of training in these arts. Cassius Dio (Roman History 57.15) claims that Tiberius had a man executed after he had a dream in which he was giving money to that same man. Tiberius believed that he had that dream under the influence of some sort of enchantment.

However, there is evidence that not everyone was persuaded by the astrologer’s claims:

“I am amazed that anyone could continue to put their trust in such people, when the falseness of their predictions is every day made clear by what actually happens.” (Cicero, On Divination: 2.99)

The love-hate relationship that Rome had with astrologers was expressed by Tacitus with his typical directness:

“Astrologers are treacherous to the powerful and unreliable to the merely hopeful; they will always be banned from our state, and yet always retained.” (Histories 1.22)

3 The Shield Of Mars

The Romans believed that the god Jupiter gave the very shield of the god Mars to Nula Pompilius (the second king of Rome). This relic was known as the Ancile. It was believed that if the Ancile was harmed in any way, so would the nation of Rome. In other words, the prosperity of Rome was dependent on the integrity of the Ancile. Therefore, it was decided that the safest place to keep this relic was the Temple of Mars.

The nymph Egeria advised the king of Rome to create eleven identical copies of the shield in order to confuse potential thieves and keep the shield safe. A body of priests known as the Salii were responsible for protecting the Ancile and, ultimately, the prosperity of Rome.

2 The King Of The Wood

A shocking ritual was recorded at the grove of the goddess Diana at Aricia, south of Rome along the Via Appia (the road connecting Rome with Capua), by the shores of Lake Nemi. The grove of Diana had a priest, known as Rex Nemorensis. Those who held the position were always fugitive slaves who became priests by murdering the acting priest. This was the accepted norm of succession for the priesthood of Diana. As a result, the Rex Nemorensis was always on alert, carrying a sword, waiting for the next candidate to challenge him, and fearing for his life. (Strabo, Geography 5.3). This practice is summed up by T. Macaulay:

“From the still glassy lake that sleeps
Beneath Aricia’s trees—
Those trees in whose dim shadow
The ghastly priest doth reign,
The priest who slew the slayer,
And shall himself be slain”

The exact justification for this succession rule is not fully understood, and it has sparked the imagination of many historians and writers. Nobody has explored this issue in more depth than Sir James George Frazer, who used the institution of the Rex Nemorensis as a starting point of his colossal anthropological work The Golden Bough: a Study in Magic and Religion, published in 1890.

1 Imaginary Beasts

Ancient Roman writers left a number of accounts describing several imaginary animals. Interestingly, most these beasts were exotic, coming from remote locations.

Pliny (Natural History 8.75) describes a half-human, half-horse animal named the hippocentaur. According to his doubtful account, he personally saw one of these beasts shipped from Egypt to the emperor Claudius, preserved inside a container filled with honey.

Aelian also describes some peculiar species of one-horned donkeys and horses found in India. Drinking vessels made out their horns had a unique property: If poison was poured into them, the horns would cancel the effect of the poison, acting as an antidote. (On Animals 3.41).

Aelian (On Animals 9.23) reports the existence of the amphisbaena, a snake with one head at both ends:

“When it is going forward, it uses one head as a tail, the other as a head, and when it is going backward, it uses its heads in the opposite manner.”

Aelian fails to explain what relevance the terms “forward” and “backward” may have when applied to a being with a head at both ends, but we get his point.

Considering the Vietnam War was one of the most controversial conflicts in recent history, there is a lot we don’t know about the war. Many of us have heard either only the basics of the war, or we have heard misconceptions about the war. There really is more than meets the eye. In fact, the Vietnam War was filled with many little-known details that never truly reached the public eye, with many details either hidden or distorted by the myths that arose during this time.

10CIA Abandonment Of The Hmong During The ‘Secret War’

In 1965, the CIA began fighting what would later be known as the “Secret War” under the airline Air America, which was owned secretly. By 1961, 9,000 Hmong guerrillas had been recruited to help the airline with its goals. Laos, where these Hmong men were from, claimed to be neutral during the war, but the NVA (North Vietnamese Army) had influence in the country. In 1965, the number of Hmong guerrillas had increased to 20,000, and the true reason for the “Secret War” was fully put into place.

The Hmong were to destroy NVA supply depots, ambush trucks, disrupt supply lines, and generally harass the NVA. When America began to leave Vietnam, Air America was forced to leave Laos, and on June 3, 1974, the last Air America aircraft left Laos, but the Hmong guerrillas were abandoned. Shortly after, the Laos government began to charge the Hmong guerrillas for fighting alongside the CIA, and many fled to the jungle where they have lived since the end of the Vietnam War. Many of these Hmong guerrillas claim that they are still hopeful that the US will one day come rescue them from the jungle, but many still remain in hiding to this day.

9Most Men Volunteered For Service

We often hear stories of men resisting the draft, and even fleeing the country to avoid being drafted. While the draft certainly was a real issue, it was nowhere near what the media and stories from the time make it seem. Three-quarters of all American soldiers had volunteered to be enlisted. More specifically, 9,087,000 military personnel served during the entire war, but only 1,728,344 men were drafted. This was a very low number of draftees compared to other wars.

In fact, in World War II alone, 8,895,135 men were drafted. This made up two-thirds of the entire American World War II military personnel, which is considerably larger than the amount of Vietnam War draftees. So, while the draft was fought and there was a large number of draftees, it was nowhere near as bad as the media and stories from this time make it seem. It’s just one more thing your grandparents exaggerated about.

8Draft Inequality

One of the other issues that was blamed on the draft was social inequality. Most of us have likely heard of this inequality, hearing that the draft was unfair to certain races or certain social classes. Despite this misconception, the draft was completely randomized. Men were chosen based on 366 blue capsules, each containing a day of the year. The very first capsule drawn had the date September 14 inside, so men born on September 14 in the years 1944 to 1950 were all assigned the number one in the lottery, meaning that the draft was fully randomized. Despite this method of drawing, many still believe that the draft was skewed.

This simply wasn’t the case, as 88.4 percent of men who served in the Vietnam War were Caucasian. Additionally, 86.3 percent of the men who died were Caucasian, meaning that the myth of minorities being “cannon fodder” simply isn’t true. Seventy-nine percent of men also had high school diplomas, higher than any other war, and three-quarters of all men were above the poverty line, disproving this social inequality. If anything, it was said that the men who came from wealthier backgrounds were much more likely to die, as they were trained for the most dangerous jobs.

7Payment Of Spies

South Vietnamese spies were important to the United States, but their work was dangerous. The challenge in recruiting these spies was that many came from barter societies, where money did not exist. This led to the use of rice and other commodities as payment, which worked for a while. However, the spies themselves were not getting all of the rice, and there was no need for some of the other commodities. There was a need for a new form of payment.

The solution? Let potential spies browse through the Sears catalog and pick what they wanted. The first order was six red velvet blazer vests with brass buttons, each in exchange for a 20-day mission. The spies would go on to order other garments, such as a large bra used to harvest fruit, and the program only came to a stop when the work became too dangerous.

6Not All Men Were Young

While the Vietnam War was unpopular for many reasons, one of the main criticisms was that it was sending young men to die. While it is true that many men were young when they enlisted, many older men enlisted as well. In fact, the oldest man known to have died in Vietnam was Kenna Clyde Taylor, who was 63 years old at the time of his death. There were also many pairs of father and son who fought in the war, with three of these pairs on the Vietnam Memorial Wall.

Additionally, there wasn’t an enlisted grade with an average age under 20, and the average soldier was 22 years old. Other categories of military personnel held higher averages. For example, the average age of an officer was 28 years old. While some of these men were certainly very young to be enlisted, they weren’t nearly as young as many of us may believe.

5Super Glue

Most of us have heard of the horrible injuries that occur on the battlefield. For the medics tending these wounds, quick thinking was often all that could save a life, as many of these wounds would result in a soldier bleeding out if not treated immediately. So, what did doctors turn to in these situations? Super glue.

The glue was accredited to saving many lives during the Vietnam War, as it was able to quickly stem bleeding as soldiers awaited surgery. While super glue isn’t recommended for quick fixes anymore, unless it’s an emergency, this shows contrast to the advancements made during this time. Essentially, the military had numerous advancements, but was unable to come up with a better quick fix than super glue. It was certainly effective considering the lives it was able to save, and some of us can probably thank super glue for our parents or grandparents being around today.

4Life After The War

There is a common misconception that Vietnam Veterans were treated poorly upon returning home. We’ve all heard the stories of protesters greeting them at the airport to throw garbage or spit on the veterans as they went to greet their families. While this seems way too outrageous to be real, rest assured, it isn’t. However, this wasn’t the case for the overwhelming majority. Some veterans simply stopped mentioning the war, as there was very little reaction to the veterans returning home, making it no different than any other military deployment.

Those who were greeted with a large reaction typically did not find a negative one. In fact, 87 percent of all Americans hold these veterans in high esteem, and many Veterans went on to live successful lives despite the misconception that many resented them. At least 85 percent of all of these veterans successfully transitioned back to civilian life, and are both less likely to be unemployed and have an 18 percent higher personal income compared to non-veterans. They’re also less likely to be imprisoned. In fact, only around .5 percent of all Vietnam veterans have served jail time.

3Cloud Seeding

When we think of the fighting itself, sabotage isn’t our first thought. However, this was something that the United States Army used to its advantage. One of the biggest ways they hoped to sabotage the NVA was through the practice of cloud seeding. The cloud seeding was first practiced in Project Popeye, where over 50 of these experiments took place, and the project had an 82 percent success rate. The cloud seeding would cause additional heavy rains and would effectively stop military movement in the affected areas.

It was also intended to flood specific areas, damage crops, and, in some areas, drastically change the weather. This was also seen as an alternative to bombing, as both would have the same effect on military movement, as the rain would simply make certain roads unusable. However, this project tended to kill fewer people, so it was used in place of bombings.

2The United States Was Not Alone

When we hear of the Vietnam War, we mainly hear of American involvement. While the United States had the highest number of soldiers in Vietnam, troops had backup from South Korea, the Philippines, Thailand, Australia, and New Zealand. South Korea alone sent 312,853 soldiers to Vietnam between September 1963 and April 1975.

South Korea was also among the deadliest of these “backup” forces, killing 41,000 North Vietnamese soldiers and causing 5,000 civilian casualties. Only 4,687 South Koreans were killed during the war, with estimates of more than 5,000 wounded. The South Koreans had an overall kill ratio of 11 to 1. While South Korea sent the most troops, second only to the US, a large amount of troops came from other countries, such as the 60,000 military personnel from Australia, or the 3,000 from New Zealand during the conflict. It’s too bad the United States keeps hogging the spotlight.

1The Death Card

It’s likely we’ve all seen the ace of spades in the context of the Vietnam War. While Hollywood has taught us a thing or two about how these cards were used, many of us have no idea as to the true story behind this famous symbol. The ace of spades was left on dead Viet Cong soldiers as a warning. The Vietnamese are very superstitious people, and when American troops found out that they were scared of the card, it became widespread.

The only flaw was that it had little to no effect on the Vietnamese. In fact, this psychological warfare was only seen as a campaign by the soldiers: There were no headquarters, intelligence, or Psychological Operation experts behind this campaign. It was actually three lieutenants that asked for the first “Bicycle Secret Weapons,” while none of them had any psychological operation authority. The cards only spread in popularity due to their use as calling cards, which made fellow soldiers want them. So, while it was said that the cards would cause other Viet Cong soldiers to leave, the fear was more likely linked to fear of nearby Americans than of the cards themselves.

On January 1, 1917, the body of Grigori Rasputin, the advisor to the rulers of Tsarist Russia, was found trapped under the frozen surface of the Neva River. He’d been shot three times and horribly mutilated; his killers, it seemed, had even gouged out his right eye.

Everyone was a suspect. Rasputin was seen as a sorcerer and a corrupting influence on the tsar. He was hated by the Tsarists and the Bolsheviks alike. Even outside Russia, he’d made powerful enemies. Prince Felix Yusupov took the credit for Rasputin’s death, claiming that he and four co-conspirators had killed him together. And to this day, Yusupov’s story is the one that usually appears in the history books.

But Yusupov’s confession didn’t fit a single one of the facts. Every single detail in his story contradicted the autopsy and the evidence—and to this day, no one really knows for sure how Grigori Rasputin met his grisly end.

10 The Death Threat The Morning Before He Died

On the morning of December 29, 1916, Rasputin received a strange phone call. The voice on the other line, he told his daughter Maria, wasn’t one he recognized. The message, though, was clear: Rasputin’s days were numbered.

It was a death threat, though by no means the first one Rasputin had received.^[1] At this stage in his life, Rasputin was used to getting multiple death threats every day. They would come in the mail or through the phone, always warning him that he deserved to die for the greater good of Russia.

This one, though, deeply unsettled him. Multiple sources described Rasputin as “nervous” and “agitated” that day. For some reason, after countless threats on his life, the one he received the morning before he died terrified him.

Nobody knows who placed the call. The only thing we know for sure is that it wasn’t Felix Yusupov, the man who has taken credit for Rasputin’s death. Yusupov spent the day trying to charm his victim so that he could lure him out to his home, and nobody involved in his conspiracy has ever claimed responsibility for the call.

9 The Cyanide That Failed To Kill Him

Yusupov’s plan was to poison Rasputin. He lured Rasputin out to his home, where he had plates full of cakes and wine that had been laced with cyanide by one of his co-conspirators, Dr. Stanislaus de Lazovert. The plan was to feed Rasputin the poisoned food and watch him die.

There is no question that Rasputin went to Yusupov’s house. The last person who saw him was his daughter, Maria, to whom he bid goodbye at 11:00 PM on December 29. Everything that happened after that, though, is a mystery.

Yusupov claims that he fed Rasputin the poisoned cakes and wines and that Rasputin gorged down enough cyanide to kill an elephant. But no amount of poison would hurt him. Instead, Rasputin kept asking for more.

His story, though, doesn’t quite add up. The autopsy notes say that Rasputin’s body showed “no trace of poison.”

Nobody knows for sure why there was no poison in his body. Yusupov’s story seems to imply that Rasputin really did have supernatural powers, but there are certainly other explanations.

Dr. Lazovert, years later, would claim that he only pretended to poison the cakes out of a pang of conscience—but not everybody’s convinced he was telling the truth. More recently, forensic scientist Dolly Stolze concluded that Rasputin was poisoned, but the doctor performing the autopsy missed the signs.^[2]

But then, of course, there’s always the other possibility: Yusupov could have lied.

8 The Gunshot That Failed To Kill Him

Frustrated that his poison didn’t work, Yusupov pulled out his pistol and shot Rasputin in the chest. Rasputin collapsed onto his back, blood spilling out of his body, and convulsed in spasms. It took a full minute for his body to become still, but by then, Yusupov’s co-conspirators had rushed into the room.

“The doctor [Lazovert] declared that the bullet had struck him in the region of the heart,” Yusupov wrote in his memoirs.^[3] “There was no possibility of doubt: Rasputin was dead.”

The conspirators, he claims, then drove to Rasputin’s house, one of the men dressed up in Rasputin’s clothes to convince the neighbors he’d made it home safely that night. Then they came back and got ready to dispose of Rasputin’s body.

“Then a terrible thing happened,” Yusupov wrote. “With a sudden violent effort Rasputin leapt to his feet, foaming at the mouth.”

Yusupov and the other men ultimately shot Rasputin several more times before one of the conspirators, Vladimir Purishkevich, finally took him down with a gunshot to the head. Even while they tied him up and threw him into the river, though, Yusupov insists that Rasputin’s body continued to move.

“I realized now who Rasputin really was,” Yusupov wrote. “It was the reincarnation of Satan himself.”

7 The Autopsy That Contradicts Everything Yusupov Said

Yusupov’s story certainly is exciting—but it doesn’t fit the facts. The autopsy report on Rasputin’s body, conducted by Professor Dmitry Kosorotov, contradicts every single word.

In his memoirs, Yusupov claims that he shot Rasputin in the heart and even says that he had Dr. Lazovert check the body and confirm that was where the bullet had hit its mark. Kosorotov’s autopsy, though, found only three bullet wounds, and not a single one had even come close to the heart. Instead, the bullets went through his stomach, liver, kidney, and skull, with wounds that no physician could possibly mistake for a gunshot to the heart.^[4]

Likewise, Yusupov claimed that Rasputin was taken down by a long-range shot from Purishkevich that took him in the back of the head. The bullet in Rasputin’s skull, however, had entered from the front at point-blank range, while Rasputin was lying on the ground.

It’s hard to reconcile Yusupov’s story with the facts. Some have suggested that he blew the murder up to make Rasputin more of a threat—but his account is nowhere near the truth. It’s almost as though Yusupov had no idea how Rasputin died.

6 The Rumor That Rasputin Drowned

Yusupov claims that he saw Rasputin move, even after he’d taken a bullet to the skull. Still, the co-conspirators tied up Rasputin’s arms and legs, wrapped up his body in a piece of heavy linen, drove it to the top of a bridge, and hurled it into the water.

Legend has it that Rasputin was still alive when they threw him in. When he was found, his hands were unbound and lifted over his head. He’d freed his hands under the water, Rasputin’s daughter Maria would later claim, and died drowning.

It’s very difficult to tell what the autopsy says. During the trial, an expert witness claimed that the autopsy showed “there was air in Rasputin’s lungs” and that he had still been alive when he was thrown into the water.^[5]

But this is a rare case where even reading the autopsy report doesn’t give us a clear answer. For some reason, different transcriptions say different things. Even today, you can find copies of Kosorotov’s original autopsy that say there was no water in his lungs and others that say there was. We’ve even found versions of Kosorotov’s autopsy that unambiguously claim Rasputin was alive, saying, “The victim was still breathing when he was thrown into the river.”

Somewhere along the line, whatever Kosorotov wrote was changed. Did the rumor pervade so far that people rewrote his autopsy? Or was the report altered to hide that Rasputin was still alive?

5 The Horrible Mutilation Of His Body And Genitals

Whoever killed Rasputin didn’t just shoot him. They brutally and horribly mutilated his corpse.

The description, in Kosorotov’s autopsy, is nothing short of horrifying:

The left-hand side has a gaping wound inflicted by some sharp object or possibly a spur.

The right eye has come out of its orbital cavity and fallen on to the face. At the corner of the right eye the skin is torn.

The right ear is torn and partially detached. The neck has a wound caused by a blunt object. The victim’s face and body bear the signs of blows inflicted by some flexible but hard object.

The genitals have been crushed due to the effect of a similar object.^[6]

The wounds, Kosorotov would later say, appeared to have been inflicted after Rasputin had died. This wasn’t the result of a violent scuffle. It was the brutal desecration of a dead body, a merciless beating that isn’t mentioned anywhere in Yusupov’s confession.

There are explanations. Some have theorized that Rasputin may have incurred these wounds in the water, while his body floated and dragged underneath a thick layer of rough ice. The ice, it’s believed, may also have broken the ropes off of Rasputin’s wrists.

But every explanation is nothing but speculation. All we know for sure is that his body was mutilated; whether it was by the force of man or the force of nature, we cannot know for sure.

4 Yusupov’s Strange Insistence On Taking Credit

Yusupov and his co-conspirators went to great lengths to cover up Rasputin’s death. They faked him driving home, they threw him in the river, and Yusupov repeatedly told the police that the gunshots from his house had just made by a drunken guest shooting at a dog.

According to police reports, though, the conspirators confessed pretty well immediately. The officer sent to Yusupov’s house, following up on reports gunshots, said that Purishkevich threw open the door and declared:

Listen here, he [Rasputin] is dead, and if you love the Tsar and the Motherland, you’ll keep this quiet and won’t tell anyone a thing.^[7]

The police certainly found bloodstains in Yusupov’s backyard, even if the autopsy didn’t fit his story. And while he denied the murder at first, Yusupov started hungrily trying to profit off his reputation as soon as he was implicated. He even ended up writing a whole memoir describing how he’d killed Rasputin in intricate, storybook-like detail.

When an MGM film called Rasputin and the Empress came out about Rasputin’s death, Yusupov even sued the filmmakers in a court case that, in the end, had Yusupov put down on the legal records as the man who killed Rasputin.

3 The British Spy Who Might Have Killed Him

Every bullet in Rasputin’s body, according to the autopsy, came out of a different caliber gun. At least three people—or at least three guns—had to have been involved in his death.

The bullet holes in his stomach and kidney could have been made by Yusupov and Purishkevich’s guns, but the one in his skull didn’t fit. It was made with a revolver, specifically, according to the most popular theory, a .455 Webley—a gun none of the conspirators carried.

A British friend of Yusupov’s named Oswald Rayner, though, carried a .455 Webley on him at almost all times. And though Yusupov denies that he was ever there, a lot of people think that Rayner fired the shot that finished Rasputin off, all under the orders of British Intelligence.

The British had a vested interest in seeing Rasputin dead. He was trying to broker peace between Russia and Germany, and his treaty would have turned the tide of World War I against the Allies. In Rasputin hadn’t died, it’s possible that the Germans would have won the war.

And there’s a letter that seems to completely give it away. A man named Stephen Alley, stationed in Petrograd, sent a missive to England on January 7, 1917, that read:

Our objective has clearly been achieved. Reaction to the demise of ‘Dark Forces’ has been well received by all, although a few awkward questions have already been asked about wider involvement.

Rayner is attending to loose ends and will no doubt brief you on your return.^[8]

2 The MI6 Archives That Say Otherwise

The British government, more than 100 years later, still denies having anything to do with Rasputin’s death. The suggestion that Rayner killed Rasputin, they insist, is “an outrageous charge, and incredible to the point of childishness.”

They might be telling the truth. Rayner was not listed as an active agent when Rasputin died, and although countless historians have scoured through every available MI6 record, they can’t find the slightest trace of evidence that the British were involved.^[9]

Some of the arguments against Rayner fall flat, as well. One book dedicated to proving Rayner was the killer claims that the bullet in Rasputin’s head could only be “the work of a professional killer”—but that bullet, as we already know, was fired at point-blank range while Rasputin was lying down. It was hardly an expert shot.

Nor was the murder. Police Chief Serda described Rasputin’s murder as the work of “incompetent” killers whose methods were clumsier than he had ever seen in his entire career.

It was, in short, hardly the work of a secret agent.

1 The Burning Body That Sat Up

The most popular explanation for Yusupov’s outrageous story is that he was trying to erase a guilty conscience. He’d killed a defenseless man in cold blood, but he still wanted the people to believe that he was a hero. And so he changed the truth, making himself look better by selling Rasputin as a demonic monster who couldn’t be killed.

But one strange moment in March 1917 almost makes it tempting to believe that Yusupov was telling the truth: that Rasputin really a supernatural being.

A group of soldiers exhumed Rasputin’s body, threw it onto a pile of logs, doused it in gasoline, and set it on fire. They destroyed his body, afraid his tomb would become a monument to the Tsarist regime.

A whole crowd of villagers came out to watch Rasputin’s body burn—and almost every one of them insists that they saw his decomposing corpse rise up in the fire.^[10]

There are scientific explanations, of course. It’s been speculated that Rasputin’s tendons shrank in the fire, causing his body to bend at the waist. Or else the whole thing has been written off as a great mass delusion.

But Rasputin, they say, predicted every bit of it. In a letter that Rasputin (supposedly) wrote to Tsarina Alexandra shortly before his death, he said: “I feel that I shall leave life before January 1.”

Even dead, the sorcerer predicted, he would not be left in peace. His body would be burned, his ashes scattered into the winds.

The race to colonize Mars is ongoing. However, it is not as easy as sending over people to live in igloo cities. We’ve already discussed the obstacles that astronauts must overcome on a voyage to Mars. But there’s far more to mystify us and conquer once we get there.

The Red Planet’s geology is not fully understood, and the bits known by researchers include deadly phenomena capable of crushing the dream of human settlements. Apart from highlighting the harsh landscape, this mind-blowing world comes with epic geological mysteries and unique finds.

10 The Strange Cloud

In 2018, the Mars Express orbiter sailed past the Martian equator. Among the images beamed back was the odd photo of a cloud. The white streak stood out starkly against the red world and measured 1,500 kilometers (930 mi) long.

More curiously, it appeared to originate above a volcano. The possibility of an eruption was zero—Arsia Mons was a long-extinct volcano. In fact, the last time that Mars saw any kind of eruption was millions of years ago.

However, there was a chance that Arsia Mons spawned the vapor. Clouds often shroud the dead volcano, but the only ones resembling the 2018 fog trail are found on Earth.

Called orographic clouds, they form on the downwind side of mountains. Air gets pushed uphill where it spreads, cools, and condenses on dust particles. Oddly, clouds resembling this phenomenon have appeared near Arsia Mons’s peak every three years since 2009. The 2018 cloud fit this pattern perfectly.^[1]

9 First Wind Recording

The InSight lander touched down on Mars in 2018. The high-tech device’s main purpose was to find out more about the planet’s interior. After arriving, the lander had some free time while adjusting to its new surroundings. Scientists decided to listen to the wind on Mars, and for the first time, they managed to do so successfully.

The ultrasensitive equipment and sensors picked up sounds audible to humans as well as frequencies in the infrasound range. NASA recorded both, and the result was eerie. One researcher described it as a mix of Earth’s wind, an ocean roaring, and something else that gave it an otherworldly quality.

The wind gusts came from the northwest and blew across the lander’s solar arrays at 24 kilometers per hour (15 mph) and 16 kilometers per hour (10 mph). The recordings were made by Insight’s air pressure sensor and seismometer. When the lander’s real job began, researchers reversed their wind study and used the sensor to cancel the windy commotion because it interfered with the seismometer’s ability to probe inside the planet.^[2]

8 Fire Opals

In 1911, a Martian meteorite hit Egypt close to the village of El Nakhla El Bahariya. Thus called Nakhla, the space rock found a home at the Natural History Museum in the UK. In 2015, scientists reexamined it and found a first for Mars. The meteorite contained fire opals.

On Earth, these breathtaking gems have a warm, flame-like tint. They only form in the ocean around hydrothermal vents. This type of opal is useful to scientists because it traps microbes during formation.

This opened another avenue for looking for life on Mars. Previously, surface samples from the Red Planet suggested that opals could form in certain regions, but Nakhla provided the first direct gems.

Under a powerful microscope, the Martian opals showed that they were a couple of million or billion years old and very similar to Earth’s. Unfortunately, the slivers were too small to look for life. Future expeditions could target Mars’s opal regions for larger samples.^[3]

7 Mysterious Blueberries

In 2004, NASA’s Opportunity rover cruised around Mars. After a few months, it encountered something curious—tiny spheres—which scientists do not understand to this day. Working with false-color photographs that turned the spheres blue, researchers puzzled over the mysterious “blueberries” scattered around the Martian surface.

Which geological forces created them, and what did that reveal about the planet’s past environment?

Recently, researchers pounced on the nearest places that resembled the red wonder—Mongolia and Utah. To everyone’s excitement, they found something similar. The minuscule globes on Earth had calcite cores encased in iron and were likely shaped by a lengthy exposure to moving water. The “river pebble” look suggested that a lot of water had flooded the blueberry region.^[4]

Scientists cannot be sure of the chemical makeup of the Martian spheres. If they can crack that riddle, it might reveal the chemistry of the water that crafted them and whether the region was habitable. In other words, they may discover if the water encouraged any form of life.

6 Missing Methane

The world of space news lit up with exciting news in 2003. NASA announced the discovery of methane on Mars. The following year, this was independently confirmed by the European Space Agency (ESA).

It seemed like a done deal in 2014 when NASA’s Curiosity rover found more of the gas on the Martian surface. The atmosphere of Mars was packed with methane. Scientists were excited because this type of organic molecule suggested the presence of life.

However, in the years that followed, the methane-rich atmosphere disappeared. In 2016, the first sobering realization happened when the ESA sent their ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter (TGO) to the planet. It was outfitted with ultrasensitive sensors capable of picking up trace amounts of methane.^[5]

As Mars had previously emitted copious amounts, nobody thought that TGO would report the methane missing. Two years later while still in orbit around Mars, it never detected any. TGO is not faulty, and a lot of its new data awaits crunching. It could still reveal the answer to the missing (or hidden) methane.

5 Medusae Fossae Formation

The Opportunity rover was forced into hibernation during 2018. The reason: Lethal dust storms had completely engulfed Mars. This event highlighted an old mystery. The Red Planet has too much dust.

Back on Earth, dust is the by-product of natural processes like rivers, volcanic activity, and moving glaciers. None of these are active on the Red Planet. Yet, about 3 trillion kilograms (6.6 trillion lbs) of the powdery stuff appears every year.

In 2018, researchers found the source of the endless dust. Most of it came from the Medusae Fossae Formation. When the formation was first discovered in the 1960s, nobody really knew what it was.

The massive geological formation, measuring 1,000 kilometers (620 mi) long, was identified as volcanic, which made it the biggest volcanic deposit in the solar system. Incredibly, the formation was once half the size of the United States.

Around 80 percent of its porous material had already eroded, which created an unbelievable amount of powder. This was confirmed when dust everywhere on Mars chemically matched the Medusae’s trademark sulfur-to-chlorine ratio.^[6]

4 Earthlike Water Cycle

In 2018, scientists investigated a site for a lander to park in 2020. This spot, Hypanis Valles, was once an ancient river system. During the check, the area revealed something amazing: Mars likely had a hydrological cycle that closely matched Earth’s—including a massive ocean.

The study found the largest river delta ever discovered on the Red Planet. It left trademark deposits at the mouth of the river system which could only have formed if moving water had flown into a sea. One large enough to cover a third of the planet’s north.

The presence of such big water bodies in the region had always been among the most critical mysteries regarding the geology of Mars. An ocean means that the desertlike world once had a water cycle supported by lakes, rivers, seas, and vast oceans.^[7]

Scientists believe that this system was global and worked in the same way as Earth’s until 3.7 billion years ago. A rapid decline of some sort destabilized the cycle until it failed for good. Today, the Martian surface is devoid of liquid water.

3 Curiosity’s Legacy

After years of exploring the Martian landscape, NASA’s Curiosity rover made history in 2018 and possibly solved the planet’s methane mystery. First, the samples it provided finally proved that there were biological compounds on Mars. Second, the rover’s observations gave a fair idea of where the methane went. Both developments were hailed as breakthroughs in astrobiology.

The geological samples came from mudstone regions in the Gale crater, aged around 300 million years old. They revealed organic chemistry that was nearly identical to Earth’s mudstone but came from larger, more complex materials.^[8]

Curiosity also found a pattern: The methane appeared and disappeared. Analysis showed the exciting results: The changes matched the Martian seasons. In the northern hemisphere, methane spiked in the summer and vanished during winter.

Although the dynamics remain mysterious, one theory matched the rhythm. Crystalline water structures called clathrates could be causing the annual methane shift as they seasonally lock the gas in ice and then thaw.

2 Babies On Mars

Scientists have a serious fixation about Mars colonies. The idea is to create a sustainable population and make humans a multi-planetary species. To be successful, generations must be born and raised on Mars. Nobody knows if that is even possible. The two biggest hurdles are radiation and gravity.

Astronauts already endure space radiation, and their exposure is carefully monitored. The effects on a delicate fetus could be disastrous, resulting in serious abnormalities.^[9]

Also, gravity on Mars is only 38 percent of Earth’s. Frankly, researchers do not have a clue how this might affect an unborn baby or a growing child. Tests on animals fail to yield consistent results.

Mammalian reproduction in space is proving so complex that the best theories mean nothing. Not until people have babies on Mars or human embryos are tested in space can the real effects be gauged. However, this will cause so much ethical resistance that progress in that department is basically nonexistent.

1 Martian Terraforming Is Out

If humans want to walk and breathe on Mars, the planet needs to be terraformed. This means that the extremely cold temperatures and thin atmosphere must be manipulated to suit Earthlings. The first step would be to make Mars toastier with carbon dioxide.

A 2018 study crushed that dream. There is simply not enough of the greenhouse gas. The study did a thorough check on all the planet’s carbon dioxide reservoirs locked away in rock and ice and found that, even if we released them all, it would still not be enough. Combined, the amount of gas would only triple the atmosphere’s thickness—a mere one-fiftieth of that required for terraforming.^[10]

Another hurdle is our current tech level. Even if there was enough CO₂ sealed away in the Martian landscape, humans do not have the expertise to perform what would amount to major alterations to the surface.

There is still another obstacle: Mars does not have a magnetic field strong enough to hold onto an atmosphere. Whatever CO₂ is released eventually drifts into space.

The Black Death was a pandemic that swept through not just Europe, but also parts of Asia and Africa, leaving an absolutely devastating death toll in its wake. Tens of millions of people died at the very least, and the populations hit were so decimated that they didn’t recover to previous levels for centuries.

During the time period of the Black Death, written records weren’t kept nearly as well as they are now (if they were at all), and the huge and constant loss of life meant that much knowledge of exactly how things happened is lost. This means that many rumors have spread about how it occurred, and many popular accounts are greatly exaggerated. Many of the common claims about the Black Death are either false or not entirely true.

10 The Catholic Church Has Been Blamed For The Black Death

The Catholic Church has been one of the most powerful organizations in the world for quite some time, so it is perhaps not too surprising that there are a lot of conspiracy theories about it, and it has become a popular scapegoat for many situations. In terms of the Black Death, no one is suggesting that the church tried specifically to cause it, but they do suggest that the church’s alleged backward thinking and practices helped it spread more effectively and cause more deaths overall. The claims say that the disease came mostly to humans from fleas and that these fleas came from rats. At this point, the popular theory does seem to unravel a bit, as fleas could travel along with many other animals besides rats.

Regardless, some like to claim that due to Catholic superstitions, cats were originally blamed for the Black Death. This led to a mass culling of cats, which caused the rats to spread and populate far quicker than they normally would have. According to popular mythology, this massive destruction of felines directly helped the Black Death get off the ground as a major pandemic, and it was all the church’s fault.

The problem with this theory—apart from many historians not believing that rats had as big a role as people claim—is that there is really no evidence of this mass cat culling due to Catholic superstition. It’s an oft-repeated story by cat lovers on the Internet to promote the virtues of their beloved choice of pet, but none of it appears to be sourced on anything solid.

9 Terrible Hygiene And Sanitation Practices Were A Huge Factor

Some people don’t like to picture it because it’s not a very romantic part of medieval history, but many researchers believe that one of the biggest reasons the plague spread so easily and with such deadly purpose was not just lack of advanced medical knowledge and preponderance of rats, but the fact that the hygiene habits of the time period were absolutely vile.

Now, we don’t mean that people didn’t bathe or try to stay clean, but rather that the infrastructure was lacking to a point that would be horrifying to most modern people today. Modern sewers and other sanitation didn’t exist, modern trash pickup was not a thing, and refrigeration along with proper knowledge of food safety was also something that people of the time seriously lacked.

Take, for example, the conditions in Bristol, the second-biggest city in Britain when plague hit Europe. It is said that the city was overpopulated and that there were open ditches with people’s waste and other filth running through them, without anything covering them at all. The outhouses were absolutely disgusting, and meat and fish were left out in the open, with flies all over them. And not only was the well water contaminated, but the booze also wasn’t safe to drink much of the time, either. According to historians, these were normal conditions that even the rich had to endure during this time period. With these conditions, it’s not too surprising that an pandemic was able to quickly spread.

8 The Role Of Rats Is Greatly Exaggerated

For many people, the cause of the Black Death is a combination of medieval people being disgusting and way too many rats around. However, researchers who have been studying the evidence for a long time smelled a rat, and after a lot of sniffing around, they came up with a completely different conclusion. Yersinia pestis, the bacterium usually considered responsible for the outbreak of the plague, isn’t usually native to Europe but actually comes from Asia.

After the first outbreak of the plague that killed millions across the continents of Europe, Asia, and Africa, the plague was still taking mass victims. It would pop up occasionally across Europe and do damage again before disappearing for a bit. Many people attributed this to rises and falls in the rodent population increasing the incidence of plague.

However, researchers have discovered that the real culprit was likely climate shifts in Asia. As their climate fluctuated throughout the years, it created conditions more likely for carriers, especially fleas, to breed like crazy and to potentially find their way to Europe again. While this doesn’t mean that rats hold no responsibility at all, they are not nearly as dangerous a carrier as the flea itself, which can bother humans directly if its normal sources of sustenance are somehow interrupted, or if there are too many fleas for them to all eat from nearby smaller animals.

7 Some May Have Ended Up With HIV Resistance Genes

The plague swept through Europe and killed millions of people. Afterward, there were multiple repeated outbreaks over the years that continued to occasionally cause devastation until we finally figured out a way to keep the deadly disease under control. During that time, people from some regions of Europe had to either get extremely lucky or hope for an evolutionary genetic mutation to help their progeny survive the constant onslaught of deadly disease. While some people likely did simply get lucky by practicing extremely good hygiene and staying away from sick people, it seems that some people may have evolved in order to fight against it.

Researches have long been trying to find ways to beat HIV, and recently, they found out that some people seem to be entirely or almost completely immune. They have a rare mutation that stops the bad cells from ever entering their white blood cells. Scientists have been unsure how or why they have this mutation, but it certainly does seem to be advantageous in that situation. One researcher studying the issue has looked at the history and believes that the mutation likely came about due to struggles against the plague epidemics in Europe.

While understanding the mechanism behind this rare mutation could certainly help treat or prevent HIV in the future, it is hard to say for certain if there is actually a link to the plague. While there is interesting reason to believe it’s possible, the mutation only seems to occur in some Europeans. Despite Africa and Asia also having been hit incredibly hard by the Black Death, they do not seem to have the mutation in any quantifiable numbers.

6 ‘Ring Around The Rosie’ Has Nothing To Do With The Black Death

Just about everyone has heard the nursery rhyme “Ring Around the Rosie” at least a few times in their life. It’s a nearly ubiquitous little song that has always been a kid favorite. After singing, they get to all fall down and be silly at the end. While it may just be an innocent song to the kids who enjoy it, some adults are convinced that it is much more serious. A great number of people are certain that “Ring Around the Rosie” is actually a song talking about the Black Death in Europe.

The claims usually suggest that the posies are either to honor the dead or to somehow cover up the bad smell. The ashes are a fairly self-explanatory reference to dead people, and “we all fall down” is supposed to be a reference to the fact that such an insane amount of people died. However, there is no evidence at all that the poem had anything to do with the plague.

There are multiple variations of it, the earliest of which showed up in the 1800s. That’s hundreds of years after we pretty much had the plague under control, so it’s quite unlikely that the two ever had anything to do with each other. There is no evidence of what the real meaning for the song was, but we know that it was written much more recently, so it couldn’t be about the plague and was probably just supposed to be fun.

5 It Completely Changed the Economy Of Europe And Hastened The Renaissance

While the Black Death was an incredible tragedy in human history, when millions of people who could have gone on to do great things were lost, no tragedy usually vanishes without some good coming out of it. At the time, as we mentioned earlier, some parts of Europe were extremely overpopulated. This not only made it easier for the plague to proliferate, but it also ensured that labor was not really worth all that much in terms of value, because there were far more laborers than were really needed.

After the plague killed millions, things suddenly changed. With so few workers compared to before, regular farmers and other peasants were now earning much more money. Merchants were also able to make a better living, and any craftsmen of skill became quite important, as there was now a shortage of living skilled and unskilled laborers.

While this can’t be said to be the only factor that led to the Renaissance, it can easily be said that it at least greatly hastened it. With regular citizens having way more economic power and being more on the level of those of noble birth, the old societal system quickly started to give way to something entirely new. While it may have been very bad for Europe and the world in a lot of ways, humanity showed its ability to flourish instead of flounder when hit by a serious crisis.

4 The Plague Still Kills A Handful Of People Every Year

Some people think of the Black Death as something long gone like smallpox, but unfortunately, as many people have learned with the absurd anti-vaxxer, movement, it can be very hard to permanently eliminate a disease, and it may decide to come raging back to cause trouble again when you least expect it. Yersinia pestis was never considered a truly extinct disease, but it still crops up every now and then even in North America, a continent not traditionally known for the plague.

Some trace the existence of Yersinia pestis in North America to the port of San Francisco many years ago. Supposedly, in order to make as much money as possible, the city was allowing people through without properly checking them. This allowed the plague into the city, and since then, it has made its way to the US Southwest, where it has been occasionally causing trouble ever since.

It may still be surprising that some people die of the plague, or even contract it, in this day and age, but it is an extremely deadly disease. It can easily kill in a few days if not properly treated, and because it’s such an old disease that most people are unfamiliar with, they may wait too long to get the medicine and help they need.

The plague may be mostly vanquished, but it still exists, and it still kills every year. If we are not prepared, it could still attempt to strike back and cause yet another massive pandemic of deadly disease.

3 The Miasma Theory And Scientific Ignorance Greatly Helped Its Spread

For those who haven’t heard of it, miasma is an old scientific theory in regards to how people get sick and or ill. As of today, germ theory is pretty well-accepted, and people generally know how to avoid catching something from someone else. However, back in the day, science wasn’t as well-understood, and many experts of the time believed that disease and illness spread through “bad air” that was allowed to accumulate and slowly led to people’s deaths. Considering all of the decomposing filth surrounding them at all time, it’s not too surprising that they considered the foul-smelling air itself to be a vector for disease.

This miasma theory led the people of the time, in desperation, to turn to the best contagion measures they could muster to fight off the disease. They believed that by removing filth from the streets, they could avoid bad air and greatly help to prevent disease. They also emphasized burials far from the city, so that the bodies couldn’t contribute to making the miasma even worse. In a way, these were actually good measures, and it shows that they were starting to understand how to fight off disease, but their knowledge was incomplete, which caused them not to address other, more important issues. Luckily, many humans lived through it with hard-earned knowledge on how to better stave off pandemics.

2 The Origin Of ‘Quarantine’ Is Rooted In The Plague Years

The idea of quarantine didn’t come with the Black Death; the practice of sequestering sick people from healthy people has existed for a long time. Many cultures throughout the world realized long ago that putting healthy people with sick people often led to more sick people. In fact, even the Bible suggests keeping those with leprosy away from healthy people so that they do not get leprosy as well.

However, the actual term “quarantine” is much newer and actually does indirectly have to do with the plague. During the repeated outbreaks of the Black Death throughout Europe, some leaders either sent those who were sick out to live in a field until they were better, sent them to a small area for sick people, or just made them stay at home and stay inside. At first, the period for which people were kept isolated was usually about 30 days. This may seem rather excessive, but with how little they knew about germs at the time, it may have actually been a good idea.

Eventually, for unknown reasons, the amount of time for sequestering a sick person became 40 days, and this is where the name comes from. The original name had actually been trentino, for 30, but became quarantino for 40 once the amount of time changed. Over the years, this evolved into the word “quarantine,” which we now use for any situation where a sick individual is sequestered from healthy people until they are better.

1 Some Researchers Argue That The Culprit Was Not Yersinia Pestis

Most people are certain that the Black Death was caused by a bacterium called Yersinia pestis, which infects people with the bubonic plague. It is so named because of the awful buboes that grow on you and the swollen lymph nodes that appear before you quickly die and succumb to the deadly disease. However, some researchers have suggested that it may not actually be the culprit behind the major pandemic that swept three continents so many centuries ago.

Plenty of scientists are still convinced that it was Yersinia pestis, but others who have looked closer are not so sure. Some have spent years exhuming those who died of the plague and researching it minutely, and they feel that the plague moved far too fast to fit with the modern strains of the plague that exist today.

Some scientists are convinced that it was an entirely different disease, perhaps even one that we are familiar with today, that actually caused so many people to die so very quickly. They have suggested that it behaved more like a virus and that it was perhaps something more similar to Ebola than the modern version of Yersinia pestis. Scientists have also recently discovered the existence of two unknown strains of Yersinia pestis that had been present in those who had died of the plague. This has led to the compromise theory between the two that perhaps it was Yersinia pestis, but not a strain that we are currently familiar with.

Picture this: It is about 700 years before Jesus was born, and you are Numa. No, not the “Numa Numa” song. You are Numa Pompilius, the king of Rome. You live in a time long before being an insane emperor was cool. The priests of your kingdom have informed you that the goddess Vesta will protect your realm from harm.

The catch? You must light a magical fire in her honor and never let it go out. You wonder: How could the kingdom preserve such a fire? After much thought, you decide that such a task could only be taken on by a holy college of virgin women. This sort of thinking is exactly why they elected you king.

These women were known as the vestal virgins, or the vestals for short. For a thousand years, they attempted to keep Vesta’s sacred fire lit. And because of the 10 reasons listed below, they were perhaps one of the most fascinating orders in all of history.

10 They Had To Remain Chaste But Not Forever

When an order of priestesses is called the vestal virgins, you get the feeling that virginity was an important part of the process. These vestals, who were chosen as children, indeed had to abstain from sex for as long as they tended to the sacred fire.

The holy rites of Vesta could only be performed by somebody innocent and pure of heart. If one of the vestals were to break their vows of virginity, it was feared that the fire would go out and Rome would be destroyed. Therefore, ancient Rome had the greatest argument for chastity in the history of abstinence education.

While some might dread the mere mention of abstinence, not to mention a lifetime of it, fear not. Each vestal only served for 30 years. After their service to Rome had been completed, the priestesses would be freed from their vows, just in time to enjoy their midlife crises but with all of the privileges that were associated with the vestals.

9 They Were The Most Powerful Women In Rome

Believe it or not, feminism was not very popular 2,500 years ago. While women in Rome had more rights than women in other ancient cultures, they still could not vote. They were also legally controlled by their fathers and, eventually, their husbands. Because of this, ordinary Roman women rarely owned land or amassed influence.

However, the vestals were no ordinary women. Their rituals were thought to be the one thing stopping Rome from being destroyed or otherwise doomed. Being the most important women in the kingdom/republic/empire, they had privileges that the common women could only dream of.

They were freed from the influence of their fathers and could vote and own property, they were considered trustworthy enough to handle important documents, and they even had front-row seats reserved for them at stadium games. Unfortunately, these privileges have not endured the test of time as modern lady priests are not given complimentary floor tickets to see LeBron play.

8 There Could Only Be Six Of Them (Times Three)

With all the prestige and awe that came with being a virgin, you would think that all the women would have lined up to join the priestesshood. Unfortunately for them, the college of vestals was very exclusive and becoming a virgin was much harder than it would seem. Noble families would offer up their young daughters to the vestal college, although in later years, the college would have to resort to lower-class families as the virginity fad began to die down.

The order would admit six young girls to study the ways of the vestals for 10 years. Afterward, they would perform the rites of Vesta for another 10 years and then train the newest batch of girls for their last 10 years of service. As such, there would never be more than 18 women in the vestals at a time, which made them a rather scarce commodity.

7 Marrying A Former Vestal Was All The Rage

Today, when one thinks of a trophy wife, one thinks about a young woman who has little going for her except for her attractiveness. However, if a man lived in the times of ancient Rome, the greatest wife that he could snag would have been a former vestal. Although they were few in number, retired vestals were well respected, had expanded rights, and received generous pensions, making them potential targets for any masculine gold diggers.

For example, Marcus Licinius Crassus, who is renowned for being one of the wealthiest men in all of human history, is known to have chased the skirt of a vestal named Licinia. He merely wanted to woo her so that he could buy her property cheap.

However, as Licinia was still in the vestal virgins and had not retired yet, a controversy began to brew, and eventually, both Crassus and Licinia were put on trial. Fortunately for the two of them, the judges decided that Crassus was stupidly greedy and didn’t actually mean to deflower the vestal. So Crassus and Licinia were free to go. With this one trial in mind, it would seem that the repercussions for trying to marry a current vestal weren’t too horrible.

6 Marrying A Current Vestal Was A Horrible Mistake

Elagabalus was the 25th emperor of Rome. He was also a teenage boy most famous for fornicating across the capital, marrying five women and two men, and forcing the Senate to watch him dance for his Syrian Sun god—which, in all honesty, is the least that the Senate deserves.

Although Elagabalus preferred the company of his beefy charioteer, he forced Aquilia Severa, a vestal, to marry him. He believed that this would have two benefits: The faiths of Rome and ancient Syria would be joined as one, and he and Aquilia would have “godlike” babies because the vestals were clearly magical.

For the people of Rome, this was unacceptable. The protectors of Vesta’s flames were the vestal virgins, not the vestal babymakers. For the crime of rapturing a vestal away from her duties, among other things, Elagabalus was quickly shown justice. In other terms, he was stabbed and decapitated before being thrown in the Tiber River.

5 Breaking The Rules As A Vestal Was Even Worse

So much emphasis has been placed on the chastity and virtue of the vestals. But even if the Romans thought otherwise, the priestesses were only human. Surely, they erred from their duties on occasion? Everybody needs their fill of Sunday Funday, after all.

Unfortunately, the punishments for errant vestals were ridiculously harsh. If the sacred fire were to go out, then the vestal at fault would be whipped for making the goddess forsake the city. Even worse was the punishment for breaking their vows of celibacy: the considerably bleaker sentence of death.

Of course, attempting to execute a vestal virgin for naughtiness would prove to be difficult as their sacred blood could not be spilled. “Easy solution,” said the other priests. “We’ll just bury them alive!”

This posed another problem, however. Roman law dictated that nobody could be buried within the city. “All right then,” the rival priesthoods collectively murmured. “We’ll build nice rooms underground, put a little bit of food down there, and then seal the room under several feet of dirt. That way, we’re not burying the vestals. We’re just putting them in a chamber where they’ll happen to die after a few days.”

The faithful of Rome then congratulated themselves on the sort of ingenuity that would make any politician swell with pride.

4 They Were Serious About Their Duties

Clearly, being a vestal was not all it was hyped to be, especially if you were constantly under the threat of being whipped, placed in the worst bed-and-breakfast ever, or both. However, to their credit, the vestal virgins were absolutely on top of their game. Vesta’s flame hardly ever went out, although the temple in which it was housed did catch on fire on occasion. That is what you get for trying to keep a magical fire lit for the entirety of Rome’s history.

However, even more incredible is the extent to which the vestals adhered to their vows of chastity. The priestesshood had survived for well over 1,000 years, and yet there are only 10 recorded vestals who were punished for impropriety. That is an average of one virgin breaking the rules every 100 years, a batting average that every religion in the world would be envious of.

3 They Were The Most Sacred And Powerful Of All Roman Clergy

By virtue of protecting the city with Vesta’s flame and having the chastity tenacity of 100 priests, the virgins were naturally the most powerful priestesshood in all of Rome. They even had the political power to pardon pre-dictator Julius Caesar, who had been targeted in one of his rival’s political purges.

Although the priests of other gods had legal protections, the vestals were so revered that merely injuring one was punishable by death—although this presumably did not include dragging one of the errant vestals into an underground chamber.

Furthermore, they were so sacred that they could intervene in criminal affairs at will. If a vestal touched a slave, they were freed on the spot. If a criminal saw a vestal virgin as the criminal was on his way to be executed, he was automatically pardoned. Unfortunately for world history, the demise of Vesta’s college eliminated both the vestals and their slave-freeing powers.

2 Their Fire Was Put Out Forever By The Christians

For eons, the vestal virgins had kept the sacred fire in Rome lit like a magical, protection-granting bonfire that only occasionally burned down the surrounding temples. The Roman pagans argued that the fire, coupled with the Romans’ faith in their pantheon, had granted the city the protection of the goddess. This seemed hard to argue with because of the whole 1,000 years of continued existence thing.

Unfortunately for the pagans and the pyromaniacs of Rome, Christianity happened. In the year 394, emperor Theodosius, boasting the most Christian name an emperor could have, closed the vestal college and put out the magical fire.

According to legend, his niece then came to Vesta’s temple and stole a necklace from a statue of the goddess, thinking that nothing bad could come from this. Sixteen years later, Rome was destroyed by rampaging barbarians—to be precise, the dreadful and Hot Topic–dressing Goths—which led to the most scornful “I told you so” in ancient history.

1 The Closing Of The Vestal College Radically Shaped Christianity

Quickly after the sack of Rome, the citizens of the empire were quick to blame the Christians. If the city prospered for a millennium but was destroyed after these religious upstarts had forsaken the old gods, then surely this was all their fault.

However, instead of this leading to sour feelings and a return to paganism, the notion ended up leading to a theological revolution. Saint Augustine, one of the most famous figures in early Christianity, began to work on a rebuttal.

A few years later, he retorted with his most famous work, The City of God, where he argued that the Christian god had protected Rome in the past when it was virtuous and had abandoned the empire for misbehaving in recent times. Vesta and the other pagan gods had failed to protect Rome from past misfortunes.

They were also, he argued, fake and stupid. Although this did little to assuage any former disgruntled vestals, it reaffirmed the beliefs of contemporary Christians and helped cement Augustine as the most important theologian of his time.

Jeremy is an impoverished college student who enjoys research, gaming, history, and researching gaming history.

America’s bloodiest and most costly conflict, the US Civil War claimed the lives of 620,000 men (roughly 2 percent of the population) with over 800,000 wounded or missing. Although the battlefields were covered with death, perhaps the most frightening places were the field hospitals. From the echoing screams of men undergoing amputations to the inexperienced doctors and lack of medical knowledge, many believed it was better to die on thefield than to face the surgeons, who were often considered to be butchers. The following 10 cases describe the horrors as well as astonishing, lesser-known facts about what the men endured throughout their time in Hell.

10 Drunken Surgeons

Alcohol was a vital commodity during the Civil War and was primarily used as an anesthetic during amputations. However, use quickly became abuse. Some took the occasional nip to dull their fears, while others, including the surgeons who were operating, got flat out drunk.

Phoebe Yates Pember, a Confederate hospital matron, once wrote of a patient who was brought in after his ankle had been crushed by a train. She described how after his ankle was set, the man was still in agonizing pain, and upon further investigation, Pember discovered that the patient’s bandaged leg was perfectly healthy and that the other leg was “swollen, inflamed and purple.” The surgeon was so intoxicated that he had set the wrong ankle. Soon after, fever set in, and the patient died.

Such stories of surgeons, officers, and even generals being intoxicated on the battlefields were not uncommon, given their access to whiskey and brandy. At the First Battle of Bull Run, a group of civilians and medical assistants who were supposed to drive medical wagons and collect the wounded from the field got into the medicinal liquor (aka whiskey) and became too drunk to be of any use. They ignored their wounded comrades, leaving them to die where they lay.

9 Smuggling Drugs Past Enemy Lines

The majority of medicinal drugs in the mid-1800s were manufactured in Europe and shipped to the United States. During the Civil War, the Union blockade of Southern ports prevented the Confederates from receiving shipments, including arms and medicine. This ultimately forced the Confederacy to obtain drugs through other means, such as processing indigenous medicinal plants, capturing enemy supplies, and smuggling.

One way that the South smuggled medicine past the Union blockades was through the use of children’s dolls. They would pack the medicine into the dolls’ hollowed papier-mache heads in order to avoid detection by the North’s blockades. The Union troops wouldn’t inspect the toys, since they were looking for obvious contraband.

Two drugs that were of great importance on the battlefield were morphine for pain and quinine. Quinine was vital for troops stricken with malaria, which spread like wildfire and claimed the lives of thousands of soldiers. Around 900,000 Union troops contracted malaria. The numbers of Confederates who fell ill hasn’t been well-documented, but given their lack of medicinal supplies, the numbers are presumed to be staggering.

8 Compassion In Gettysburg

Even though hundreds of thousands of men were dying on the battlefields from gunfire to hand-to-hand combat with bayonets, acts of humanity and compassion were evident in the Union hospitals, where doctors set aside their differences to care for the wounded. On July 1, 1863, the first day of the three-day Battle of Gettysburg, which claimed the lives of 7,000 men in the first 24 hours, Union officers overran the Lutheran Theological Seminary, converting the church into a hospital.

Although the church was officially a Union hospital, the doctors and local volunteers tended to both Union and Confederate soldiers as well as black soldiers, treating every injured man equally. The men were cared for and slept beside one another under the same roof for several days at a time. At its peak, the small church accommodated 150 wounded soldiers from both sides and continued to do so throughout the month, with 78 patients remaining on August 3.

7 Unqualified Doctors

During the Civil War, United Sates medical schools were far behind the educational quality of their European counterparts, which had four- year cirriculums. US medical schools, however, ran only two years, the second year primarily being a repeat of the first. In fact, US medical schools were so far behind that Harvard Medical School didn’t even have one stethoscope or microscope until after the war had ended. The majority of Civil War surgeons had never even performed surgery, let alone seen a gunshot wound.

To make matters worse, both the Union and Confederate armies were extremely understaffed. The Union Army only had 98 doctors, while the Confederates had 24. With the growing numbers of wounded soldiers reaching into the thousands every day, both the North and South began to take anyone who considered themselves a doctor. For the most part, their only medical knowledge came from a military surgery manual written by Dr. Samuel Gress, which would be their guide to performing life-saving emergency operations.

6 Bizarre Medical Treatments

Because medical education and knowledge during the Civil War was substandard to say the least, bizarre and absurd medical treatments were practiced, only making the injured and sick worse off. For instance, severe gonorrhea was “treated” with whiskey mixed with silkweed root, pine resin, and small pieces of blue vitriol. We can assume that such a concoction did nothing to combat the venereal disease. If a patient was suffering from syphilis, which caused genital ulcers, swollen lymph nodes, pustule rashes, fever, sore throat, and even neurological problems, a doctor would prescribe mercury, an extremely toxic chemical element.

Doctors considered pus a good sign, believing that a wound was healing when in fact, the injury was infected. To make matters worse, doctors unknowingly infected other patients by intentionally transferring pus from patients who had it to those who didn’t, assuming that it would be beneficial. Patients suffering from diarrhea were given chloride of mercury, a violent laxative also known as a purgative. This would cause the already dehydrated soldiers to lose even more fluids via vomiting and extreme diarrhea, thus compounding their illness, ultimately leading to death.

5 Working Around The Clock

If it wasn’t bad enough that the physicians during the Civil War were unqualified and practiced bizarre treatment regimens, the fact that they were greatly understaffed made a terrible situation far worse. Melvin Walker of the 13th Massachusetts Infantry described how surgeons operating at the division hospital where he was taken worked without rest or sleep for 36 hours straight, often with little food and no help.

Following the Battle of the Wilderness, roughly 7,000 wounded soldiers were taken to Fredericksburg, a trip that took many over 24 hours to make due to the clogged roads and primitive ambulances, which were horse-drawn wagons. Upon arriving at the hospital, the 7,000 wounded men were met with only 40 surgeons available to tend to their needs. Surgeon George Stevens of the 77th New York regiment described how hundreds of ambulances were continuously arriving, men were dropping dead all around him one by one, and that he and his fellow surgeons “were almost worked to death.” It’s understandable why there were more casualties off the battlefield than on.

4 The Great Anesthesia Myth

One of the greatest myths of the Civil War was that there were no anesthetics for operations such as amputating limbs, which was commonplace in the hospitals. Amputation was so common, in fact, that piles of arms and legs would be strewn around in every direction the eye could see. Contrary to popular belief, those undergoing surgery were often sedated with chloroform and whiskey, causing them to partially lose consciousness and not feel pain. The screams that field hospitals were so known for were often from soldiers who’d just learned that they were going to lose a limb and hadn’t yet been sedated.

Although the men were reported to be only partially sedated, when properly anesthetized, the wounded would feel no pain at all during surgery. Although it’s uncertain as to how many successful operations took place in terms of the anesthesia working, the best example of proper sedation is that of Stonewall Jackson’s amputation. Jackson, whose left arm needed to be amputated, described how once the chloroform kicked in, the only thing he noticed was the sound of the saw cutting through the bone of his arm. Other than that, Jackson claimed that he faded into a stupor while repeating the words “blessing, blessing, blessing,” free of pain.

3 Battling The Real Enemy

During the Civil War, disease ran rampant. The battlefields, camps, and hospitals were filled with typhoid, pneumonia, measles, tuberculosis, and malaria, just to name a few. With the exception of malaria, there were no medications or cures available. Those infected would only become more ill, further spreading disease. The local streams were quickly contaminated, leading to the development and spread of yet more diseases, including dysentery, which accounted for 45,000 Union deaths and 50,000 Confederate deaths.

Lack of sanitation and hygiene only made the situation worse. Surgeons would use the same tools continuously on hundreds of patients without ever cleaning their instruments, thus causing cross contamination. Often, the surgeon would hold his bloody tool in his mouth while operating, possibly infecting himself.

Of the 620,000 soldiers who died during the Civil War, two thirds succumbed not to enemy fire but to the endless array of diseases lurking all around them. Their frail and weakened bodies, exhausted and worn from continuous battle as well as horrendous diet and lack of food took an immense toll on their immune systems, making it impossible to stand any chance of overcoming an illness. It’s a misconception that the greatest danger was on the battlefield, when in fact the real enemy was visible only under a microscope.

2 The Dawn Of Modern Medicine

Although the greatest number of casualties during the Civil War stemmed from the lack of medical knowledge and understanding, it did become apparent to physicians that a change in medical practice was necessary, thus paving the way to new research and knowledge. Physicians began to document their observations from hundreds of different cases, which would ultimately aid researchers after the war.

For instance, medical officers realized that sanitation could greatly reduce the spread of disease. Some hospitals took notice that washing bandages in hot, soapy water in order to reuse them caused the infection rates to decrease, unlike other hospitals that weren’t conducting such practices. Because of this correlation, the birth of sanitation had begun.

The Civil War also gave rise to modern emergency medicine and ambulatory evacuation, not seen prior to the 1860s. It was of great importance that the wounded be carried off the battlefields to a nearby station, where they were attended to prior to being taken to a hospital. This gave way to the bigger concept of moving someone swiftly in order to provide care to save their life, a standard which will forever be practiced in warfare.

1 Dr. Mary Walker

The story of Dr. Mary Walker is not only one of sacrifice and courage, but heroism that has broken down barriers for female physicians ever since. After Dr. Walker received her medical degree, she headed to the front lines, where she worked in tent hospitals in Warrenton and Fredericksburg, Virginia. The following year, Dr. Walker was stationed in Tennessee, where she was appointed assistant surgeon in the Army of the Cumberland by General H. Thomas.

Dr. Walker was captured by the Confederate Army in April 1864. She was imprisoned in Richmond, Virginia, for four long months. Following her release, Dr. Walker began to supervise a hospital for women prisoners and an orphanage after becoming an acting assistant surgeon with the Ohio 52nd Infantry, a feat no woman had ever accomplished.

Dr. Walker served honorably until the war had come to an end. In 1865, she was awarded the Medal of Honor. Dr. Walker wore the medal with great pride every day from that point on until her passing in 1919. To this day, Dr. Walker remains the only woman to have ever received the Congressional Medal of Honor.

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

Many people do not believe in cults. Despite the fact that very real cults have existed throughout history, many ordinary folks like to cast them aside as just a “conspiracy theory.” The problem is that, in many cases, such thinking is akin to an ostrich voluntarily dunking its head in the sand. Cults exist, and some are truly dangerous.

One such cult is called the Order of Nine Angles. This organization has links to neo-Nazi and left-wing anarchist groups, plus its strong adherence to the “Left-Hand Path” has earned it accusations of human sacrifice and murder. Examining this group involves a peek in at the world of true radicalism—a world where Satanism, extremist politics, and hard-line Islamism cohabitate.

10 Origins

The Order of Nine Angles (ONA) was founded in Great Britain by a man named Anton Long. At the time, Long and others formed ONA out of a diverse collection of occult groups then centered in England. According to Long himself, as a child he traveled all over Africa, Asia, and the Middle East. Here, in the latter area, Long began studying religions and taught himself Greek, Arabic, and Persian.^[1]

By his own admission, in the early 1970s, Long found attraction in the darker side of society, and at some point, he began committing various crimes. Before long, this blossoming occultist fell in with other British witches and warlocks, many of whom claimed descent from Britain’s original pagans. Indeed, beginning in the 1980s, the ONA began publishing tracts and articles claiming that their brand of “sinister” occultism had roots in the original “solar paganism” of the ancient Indo-European peoples. As such, Anton Long and priestess Christos Beest claimed in writing that their Satanism was an attempt to revive Nordic, Anglo-Saxon, and Celtic paganism in the face of Christianity. The group published a book entitled The Black Book of Satan, which promised its readers a sevenfold path toward reaching the sinister.

9 Distinction

Lazy journalists who became aware of the ONA linked them with Anton LaVey and Michael Aquino. Founded on Walpurgis Night 1966, LaVey’s Church of Satan was all about showmanship and self-promotion. Indeed, the group’s official “bible,” The Satanic Bible, is more philosophy than theology. LaVey rejected the existence of Satan and instead espoused the philosophies of Friedrich Nietzsche and Ayn Rand.^[2]

Michael Aquino was the founder of the Temple of Set, an occult order based in Southern California. Aquino, a former officer in the US Army, preached what he called “esoteric Satanism.” The Temple of Set broke off from the Church of Satan in order to pursue their path toward “enlightenment” without the supposed hang-ups of Judeo-Christian morality. For the followers of Aquino, the goal is to become an individual god.

The ONA believe in none of this. They are theistic Satanists, which means that they believe in a deity named Satan. For them, practicing black magic and causing chaos in the world is all part of glorifying their black god.

8 The Importance Of David Myatt

British citizen David Myatt has lived a most interesting life. Born in Tanzania and raised in East Asia by a civil servant father, Myatt began practicing martial arts at a very young age. From here Myatt, began studying the religions of the world, including Buddhism and Islam. However, instead of becoming a priest or a scholar, Myatt first became a political activist.

Beginning in 1969, Myatt became involved in the British Movement (BM), a right-wing group founded by Colin Jordan. Then and now, Jordan was a controversial staple of British politics. During his heyday, Jordan supported the idea of sending all of Britain’s Jews to Israel, the complete halt of all non-European immigration to Great Britain, and removing all blacks and Asians from British life. As can be guessed, Jordan and his followers got into many street battles with Labour Party supporters and immigrant groups. As such, Jordan hired Myatt to be his bodyguard.

In 1974, Myatt formed the National Democratic Freedom Movement, an openly neo-Nazi organization that published a newspaper entitled British News. Myatt was frequently arrested for engaging in street brawls. At the same time, he was also collaborating with London-based Thelemites and members of the ONA. Under the sway of Myatt, the ONA embraced National Socialist racialism and the idea that Christianity is a religion fit only for slaves.^[3]

In 1998, Myatt converted to Sunni Islam. Following this, he began trying to synthesize hard-line Islamism with neo-Nazi ideals of political revolution.

7 Links To Right-Wing Groups

Thanks to the influence of David Myatt and other British political activists, the ONA began collaborating with right-wing organizations all over Europe. Sometimes, this collaboration was indirect, with groups independently adopting the ideals and ideas of the ONA.

One intellectual influenced by the ideas of the ONA is French journalist Christian Bouchet. In 1991, Bouchet, a mainstay of right-wing politics in France, founded the Nouvelle Resistance, a revolutionary nationalist movement, and the pan-European European Liberation Front. Bouchet’s ideas have not only been informed by the Aryanism of the ONA but also by the American author Francis Parker Yockey and the founder of “Esoteric Hitlerism,” Savitri Devi.^[4]

In New Zealand, the Black Order, founded by author Kerry Bolton, took direct inspiration from the ONA, while the German group the National Socialist Underground were similarly influenced by ONA. Just this year, one of the longest trials in German history concluded when Beate Zschape of the NSU was convicted of ten counts of murder.

6 Links To The Left

The ONA considers itself open to differing views. As such, membership in the ONA includes members who subscribe to left-wing politics. While most authors have focused on the group’s connections to right-wing organizations, the ONA’s theology, which embraces chaos, has been adopted by some anarchist groups who routinely engage in acts of vandalism.^[5]

According to the group’s own words, the ONA “upholds anarchism” as the most compatible with black magic. For ONA adepts, the initiation of anarchy is desirable because tragedy and trauma create wisdom and enlightenment. As such, ONA members are against organized society and its institutions. This idea has been adapted by several small anarcho-communist groups. However, unlike the ONA’s connections to the right, its connections to the left are less tangible.

5 The Atomwaffen Division

In several articles, the American neo-Nazi organization Atomwaffen Division has been linked to the ONA. In March 2018, The Daily Beast published an article detailing how the Satanist wing of the Atomwaffen Division had declared war on the group’s non-Satanic adherents. The article, written by Kelly Weill, said that the group’s supposed leader, James Cameron Denton, has posted ONA images online in the past.^[6] Denton and his followers reportedly see no contradiction between Satanism and the ONA (which encourages its adherents to infiltrate any extremist organization), while other members of the Atomwaffen Division do not agree.

The Atomwaffen Division are not some fringe group, mind you. They’ve been known to place flyers on American college campuses, are well-armed, and have made threats to attack the US government and American electrical grids in the past. At one point, the group was accused of playing a role in the murder of college student Blaze Bernstein. Bernstein’s killer, Samuel Woodward, had been a member of Atomwaffen Division, but he admitted in court that he targeted the Jewish Bernstein because he was gay.

4 The ONA’s Goals

The main goal of the ONA and its followers is to bring about the so-called New Aeon.^[7] The ONA is convinced that the modern world has failed and that global capital, consumerism, religious extremism, and environmental destruction are the result of Magian (Judeo-Christian) culture and politics. The New Aeon will come about as soon as society returns to its tribal roots.

The ONA also believes that the new age will be inaugurated by Vindex, a revolutionary hero who will restore justice. Vindex will be, like Achilles, a semidivine warrior with a preordained mission. Once Vindex reaches his destiny, the New Aeon will come forth.

The ONA believes that its “sinister” ideals must be spread as much as possible in order for the New Aeon to come. That is why ONA members are encouraged to join radical organizations with predominately young membership.

3 The Dark Gods

According the ONA theology, a series of sinister deities known as the Dark Gods exist. These gods exist in the acausal realm, which is connected to our own causal realm. The acausal realm is bounded by acausal time and has more than three spatial dimensions.^[8] These Dark Gods have the ability to enter into the minds of adepts in a process that is somewhat reminiscent of Lovecraftian fiction. Indeed, also akin to Lovecraft is the ONA notion that a new age will come when the Dark Gods of the acausal realm bleed over into the causal realm.

One of the Dark Gods is Baphomet, the mother and bride of Satan. The goat-headed Baphomet is, according to the ONA, associated with the feminine and is the creator of all demons. Students of history may remember that the Knights Templar were accused of worshiping Baphomet by at least two sources.

The other Dark Gods of the ONA pantheon are completely unique to the group and do not have any obvious connections to the Western occult tradition.

2 The Seven Fold Way

The core tenet of the ONA is the concept of the Seven Fold Way. The Seven Fold Way is a hermetic hierarchy of practitioners. Each category of the Seven Fold Way represents a certain level of occultism. Keep in mind that the ONA’s brand of occultism demands sharp aestheticism, scholarship, and physical endurance.

The seven stages of adeptness for the group are: 1) Neophyte, 2) Initiate, 3) External Adept, 4) Internal Adept, 5) Master/Mistress, 6) Grand Master/Mousa, and 7) Immortal.^[9] The exact number of ONA members in each category are unknown. At best, it has been theorized that there over 1,000 members of the ONA throughout the world.

1 Human Sacrifice

The ONA is infamous in the Satanic underground as one of the few organizations that encourages human sacrifice. To the ONA, sacrificing human life is “powerful magick” that releases an individual’s energy, which can be stored and reused by magicians.^[10] In their own mythology, the ONA’s ancestors in pagan England practiced human sacrifice every 17 years in order to maintain “cosmic balance.”

Members of the ONA believe in “culling,” or committing sacrifices wherein the victim self-selects their own death. Some former members of the ONA claim that Myatt is still active in the group and actively encourages fellow members of the cult to commit crimes and murders as part of magical rites.

Television has shaped global entertainment, providing viewers with countless hours of drama, laughter, and intrigue. From sitcoms that make us laugh until we cry to dramas that keep us on the edge of our seats, certain TV shows have transcended the small screen to become cultural phenomena. These series not only entertained millions but also set new benchmarks in storytelling, production, and character development. Here, we explore 10 amazing facts that reveal how some of the most popular television shows redefined the industry and captivated audiences worldwide.

Related: Top 10 Truly Terrible Television Series

10 The Cast’s Unbreakable Bond and Historic Pay Negotiation on Friends

One of the most amazing facts about Friends is the unity and solidarity of its cast. By the final two seasons, the six main actors—Jennifer Aniston, Courteney Cox, Lisa Kudrow, Matt LeBlanc, Matthew Perry, and David Schwimmer—were each earning $1 million per episode, making them some of the highest-paid actors in television history. What makes this even more remarkable is that the cast insisted on negotiating their salaries as a group, ensuring equal pay for all.

Initially, the actors were offered different salaries based on individual popularity, but David Schwimmer and Jennifer Aniston advocated for equal pay, leading the entire cast to negotiate collectively. This united front set a precedent in Hollywood and became a symbol of their off-screen friendship and loyalty.

The show’s creators credit this camaraderie for the series’ success and longevity. Throughout its 10 seasons, Friends maintained a consistent cast dynamic that was beloved by fans worldwide. Their historic negotiation remains one of the greatest examples of camaraderie and teamwork in the entertainment industry. This unity translated on-screen, creating a believable and relatable group of friends who continue to resonate with audiences long after the final episode aired.^[1]

9 Revolutionizing Television Production with the Three-Camera Technique on I Love Lucy

An often unknown fact about I Love Lucy is how the show revolutionized the way sitcoms were filmed by pioneering the use of the three-camera technique. Desi Arnaz, who played Ricky Ricardo and was married to Lucille Ball, introduced this innovative filming method to capture the live performances of the show.

In the early 1950s, sitcoms were typically broadcast live or filmed using a single camera. Instead, Arnaz insisted on filming before a live studio audience with multiple cameras simultaneously capturing the action from different angles. This technique allowed for seamless editing, preserving the spontaneity of the performances while maintaining high production quality.

Moreover, I Love Lucy was one of the first sitcoms to be recorded on 35mm film, allowing for better preservation and syndication, which paved the way for future reruns. By being filmed in front of a live audience, the show’s creators could capture genuine laughter, adding an extra layer of authenticity to the comedic timing.

As a result, I Love Lucy became a pioneering force in the television industry, influencing the production style of countless sitcoms to come. Its success demonstrated the potential of multi-camera production, which remains the standard for many sitcoms today. Desi Arnaz’s vision transformed the sitcom landscape, making I Love Lucy a lasting legacy in television history.^[2]

8 The Global Cultural Impact of the Transformers Franchise

The Transformers’ incredible journey from a simple line of Japanese toy robots to becoming a globally recognized multimedia franchise spans decades. In the early 1980s, Hasbro licensed two transforming robot toy lines from Japan: Takara’s Diaclone and Microman series. To introduce these toys to the American market, Hasbro partnered with Marvel Comics to create a backstory and universe for them. Thus, the Transformers brand was born in 1984, along with a comic book series and an animated television show.

The Transformers TV show quickly became a cultural phenomenon, leading to the production of The Transformers: The Movie in 1986. The brand then expanded into comic books, animated series, video games, and the highly successful live-action film franchise directed by Michael Bay, which has grossed over $4 billion worldwide.

The most remarkable aspect is how Transformers has continuously reinvented itself to captivate multiple generations of fans while maintaining its core appeal: the epic battle between Autobots and Decepticons. The introduction of new characters and storylines in subsequent series, such as Beast Wars and Transformers: Prime, helped the franchise stay fresh and relevant.

Its enduring legacy and ability to transcend cultural barriers make Transformers one of the most influential toy lines and multimedia franchises in history. It continues to resonate with audiences worldwide, proving that the battle between good and evil robots never goes out of style.^[3]

7 Hugh Laurie’s Accent and Record-Breaking Salary on House M.D.

An amazing fact about House M.D. is how British actor Hugh Laurie convincingly portrayed the American character Dr. Gregory House and became one of the highest-paid actors in television history. Despite his native British accent, Laurie mastered an American accent so well that the show’s creator, David Shore, didn’t initially realize he was British during his audition. Laurie’s portrayal was so authentic that Bryan Singer, one of the show’s executive producers, called him “an incredible American actor.”

Laurie’s dedication to the role earned him critical acclaim and multiple awards. His sharp wit, complex character portrayal, and distinctive limp made Dr. House one of the most memorable characters in TV history. By the show’s final seasons, Laurie’s salary had skyrocketed to $700,000 per episode, making him one of the highest-paid actors in a television drama at the time.

His performance as the brilliant but misanthropic diagnostician became a defining aspect of the show, which ran for eight successful seasons. House M.D.’s global popularity helped redefine the medical drama genre and made Dr. Gregory House an unforgettable character. Laurie’s influence extended beyond the screen, as his impeccable American accent and sarcastic persona set a new standard for foreign actors taking on American roles.

Even after the show’s end, Hugh Laurie’s impact as Dr. Gregory House continues to be felt, as the character remains a touchstone for complex, flawed antiheroes in television dramas.^[4]

6 The Show’s Game-Changing Influence on Television Drama in The Sopranos

The most amazing fact about The Sopranos is how it revolutionized the television landscape, paving the way for modern TV dramas with complex antiheroes. Created by David Chase and premiering in 1999, the series followed mob boss Tony Soprano, played by James Gandolfini, as he balanced his criminal empire with family life.

Before The Sopranos, television dramas rarely explored deeply flawed protagonists like Tony Soprano, who struggled with anxiety and depression while ruthlessly managing his crime organization. The show’s intricate storytelling, character development, and psychological depth set a new standard for TV dramas, influencing countless series that followed.

Moreover, The Sopranos was one of the first cable TV shows to gain mainstream popularity, proving that high-quality, mature storytelling could thrive on premium networks like HBO. It opened doors for other groundbreaking series such as The Wire, Mad Men, and Breaking Bad, which further explored morally ambiguous characters.

The series won 21 Primetime Emmy Awards and remains widely regarded as one of the greatest TV shows of all time. Its impact on the television industry is immeasurable, cementing its legacy as a game-changer and elevating the standards for serialized storytelling in ways that continue to influence modern television.^[5]

5 The Show’s Unmatched Longevity and Regeneration Concept on Doctor Who

The most amazing fact about Doctor Who is its unparalleled longevity, making it the longest-running science fiction TV series in the world. First airing in 1963, Doctor Who has continuously reinvented itself, staying relevant for over six decades.

A significant factor behind the show’s endurance is the ingenious concept of “regeneration,” introduced in 1966. When William Hartnell, the first actor to play the Doctor, had to step down due to health reasons, the producers decided to have the character transform into a new body, allowing a new actor to take over the role. This concept enabled the show to refresh itself with different actors while maintaining the central premise of an eccentric Time Lord traveling through time and space in the TARDIS.

To date, 14 actors have officially portrayed the Doctor in the main series, with each one bringing a unique flavor to the character. This ability to regenerate and adapt to changing times has allowed Doctor Who to resonate with multiple generations of fans, making it a cultural icon across the globe.

Beyond the regeneration concept, Doctor Who has also pioneered special effects, storytelling techniques, and innovative writing that have contributed to its unmatched longevity. The show’s remarkable ability to blend science fiction, adventure, and humor has ensured its lasting appeal and a loyal fan base that spans the world.^[6]

4 The Luke and Laura Wedding Phenomenon on General Hospital

TV’s soap opera General Hospital gave us the unparalleled spectacle of the “Luke and Laura” wedding episode. On November 17, 1981, over 30 million viewers tuned in to watch the wedding of Luke Spencer (played by Anthony Geary) and Laura Webber (played by Genie Francis), making it the highest-rated hour in American soap opera history.

The episode marked the culmination of a storyline that captivated audiences nationwide, turning the couple into cultural icons. Their romance, filled with drama, twists, and turns, captured viewers’ imaginations, and the wedding was treated like a major cultural event. It was attended by real-life celebrities such as Elizabeth Taylor, who appeared on the show as Helena Cassadine and featured glamorous sets and costumes. The extraordinary viewership and media attention cemented General Hospital’s reputation as a pop culture phenomenon.

The popularity of the Luke and Laura storyline also propelled General Hospital to the forefront of daytime television, helping the show win the Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Drama Series multiple times and securing its legacy as one of the most enduring soap operas in history. Luke and Laura’s relationship, though complicated, remains one of the most memorable in television history, embodying the dramatic highs and lows that make soap operas irresistible to their audiences.^[7]

3 G.I. Joe: The Action Figure That Became a Cultural Icon

G.I. Joe wasn’t just a toy; it was a revolution in the industry. Launched in 1964 by Hasbro, G.I. Joe, the “movable fighting man,” broke away from the idea of dolls being solely for girls. With its multiple articulation points and military theme, it became the first action figure designed to capture the imagination of boys. This innovation, along with a variety of figures and accessories, sparked the creation of the action figure industry as we know it today.

G.I. Joe’s influence extended beyond its initial design. The 1980s saw a reinvention with smaller, 3.75-inch figures. This shift, popularized by G.I. Joe, became the standard size for action figures like Star Wars and He-Man. The reinvented G.I. Joe also came with a rich backstory—an elite anti-terrorist team battling the evil Cobra. This narrative, along with accompanying comic books and a cartoon series, solidified G.I. Joe as a major cultural phenomenon.

From a simple toy line, G.I. Joe transformed into a global multimedia franchise. Its impact transcended playtime, proving that action figures could be the beginning of a cultural legacy.^[8]

2 Lynda Carter: Wonder Woman Takes Flight as a Feminist Icon

The Wonder Woman television series left its mark on pop culture in many ways, but perhaps the most amazing outcome is the enduring impact of Lynda Carter’s portrayal of the title character. Carter’s Diana Prince wasn’t just a superhero; she was a symbol of female empowerment who shattered stereotypes and inspired generations.

Premiering in 1975, the series showcased Wonder Woman’s strength and heroism, but Carter’s performance also imbued the character with compassion and elegance. She wasn’t just a warrior; she was a role model for young women who could be powerful and intelligent without sacrificing femininity. Carter’s iconic costume became instantly recognizable, forever linked to the image of Wonder Woman.

The success of the show and Carter’s portrayal proved that audiences craved strong female heroes. Wonder Woman paved the way for future characters like Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Xena: Warrior Princess, ultimately leading to the critical and commercial success of the Wonder Woman film starring Gal Gadot. Lynda Carter’s legacy as Wonder Woman is more than just a television show; it’s a testament to the power of female representation in media.^[9]

1 Who Shot J.R.? A Cliffhanger Heard around the World

The Dallas television series had its fair share of dramatic moments, but nothing quite captured the global imagination like the “Who Shot J.R.?” cliffhanger. This ingenious marketing ploy transformed a night-time soap opera episode into a cultural phenomenon.

On March 21, 1980, the season 3 finale of Dallas ended with J.R. Ewing, the show’s conniving villain, being shot by an unseen assailant. The cliffhanger left viewers hanging for months, sparking a frenzy of speculation about the culprit. Newspapers ran polls, fans debated endlessly, and even oddsmakers offered bets on who pulled the trigger.

The anticipation reached a fever pitch by the time the new season premiered. An estimated 83 million Americans tuned in to learn the identity of the shooter, making it the most-watched television episode in U.S. history at that time. Globally, over 350 million people watched the reveal, solidifying Dallas as a pop culture juggernaut.

The “Who Shot J.R.?” storyline not only saved a struggling series but also revolutionized television. It demonstrated the power of cliffhangers to generate excitement and audience engagement, forever changing the way television shows are structured and marketed.^[10]