These days, there are numerous commercials of girls diving into pools or frolicking through wildflower fields, all because they can, thanks to their awesome tampons and other feminine products. But the first pads were not invented until 1888, and even then, it wasn’t an everyday item. Women oftentimes could not afford the product, and it wasn’t until much later that they became more affordable and common. Tampons didn’t come till 1929. So what did women do before then?

10Rags

Rags are an obvious stand-in for a pad. Fabric is absorbent and can be relatively long-lasting, as well as abundant. Since at least the 10th century, women used rags or some kind of cloth as a way to absorb the flow. These were also reusable; once the rags had done their job, women would just wash them.

This practice lasted up until the nineteenth century, at least, since that is when the pad was invented. Of course, since not all women could afford pads at the time of their invention, it’s likely, if not certain, that women continued to use rags up into the 20th century.

9Papyrus

The Ancient Egyptians supposedly used softened papyrus as a tampon. Papyrus is a plant that grows naturally in Egypt and was used for numerous purposes in antiquity, primarily as paper for writing. To make papyrus pliable, women would simply soak it in water. The water softened it and would bring out a natural stickiness to hold multiple pieces together.

The characteristic of pliability and softness, as well its abundance, certainly makes it a decent tampon. Unfortunately, we cannot know for sure this was done. Since ancient texts were often written on papyrus itself, which is a very vulnerable material, any documentation of such a thing, if there ever was any, is lost.

8Wool

In Ancient Greece, wool was supposedly used as a tampon. Typically, ancient uses are left to just evidence and reasoning, but in this case, there is better record. The wool tampon was a treatment written by (or on behalf of) Hippocrates. Wool tampons are also logical, as that’s a resource the Greeks had.

Hippocrates was a physician from Ancient Greece during the fifth and fourth centuries, and he is considered the father of medicine. He has many written works that describe his plethora of diagnoses and “discoveries.” Some are groundbreaking, but others are not entirely so, as our modern medicine has shown. For example, he said that fat women could not conceive because their fat crushed down on the uterus, and that the only way to conceive, therefore, was to lose the weight. Of course, without proper technology and understanding, it is reasonable that someone of his time would deduce something that, in today’s world, is outrageous.

7Cedar Bark

Cedar bark, as painful as that might sound, was used by Native American women as a menstrual pad and even as diapers. Typically, when we think of bark, we think of the rough hard side of a tree. When it comes to cedar, it is true that it is hard on the side of the tree; however, it does have a few special properties that could make it a decent, though still not very comfortable, pad. First of all, cedar bark is very lightweight and thin. Secondly, and most importantly, it is absorbent.

The moisture retention qualities as well as its lightness make cedar a good candidate for a pad or diaper, especially with relatively limited resources.

6Buffalo Hide

Buffalo hide was used by the Arikara women as a sanitary pad.

The Arikira tribe, related linguistically to the more well-known Pawnee tribe, is located in the northern United States in North Dakota, Montana, and parts of Wyoming. Buffalo had a multitude of uses in Native American life. Of course, the meat was used for food, but the other parts of the beast were far from wasted. The bones were made into knives and tools, even boiled for glue. The hooves and horns were used for cups or other vessels. The sinews were made into bowstrings and other threads, to sew clothes with. Clothes were made from the buffalo skin. Other items made from buffalo skin were tipis and bags, among other useful items, including sanitary pads.

Tanning buffalo hides involves soaking and scraping. The skin, just off the buffalo, is soaked in water, stretched, and then scraped to remove the hair. This process of soaking, stretching, and scraping continues until it is finished. Then it is time to dry it. To dry it, and to make the hide, the Native Americans would smoke it. That is, they would have it held over a fire and let the heat dry it and allow properties from the smoke enhance the hide.

By the end of this process, the skin becomes relatively soft and pliable. This would make it a decent menstrual pad, especially compared to cedar bark.

5Natural Sponges

In ancient times, women in coastal areas, like Greece, used natural sea sponges as tampons. Sponges, as we all know, are very absorbent. Whether using a sponge straight from the sea is safe is worth questioning, though.

Since this was thousands of years ago, there is little information of this topic available, so it is difficult, if not impossible, to know what harm using the sponges might have caused and whether the sponges were even treated in any way before they were used. Today, however, this has been looked at, and it has been decided that sponges might not be so safe. With an increased fear of toxic shock syndrome, the use of sponges in modern times grew, so the Federal Drug Administration stepped in and, after analyzing scientific studies, declared that they’re “significant risk devices” due to bacteria, yeast, and other harms. Despite this, these sponges are still sold and used by numerous companies, and technology has advanced since the FDA made that statement in 1995. With more advanced technology comes more thorough cleaning and disinfecting processes, so the risks might be less.

The ancient Mediterranean women, however, did not have the FDA, nor did they have much to clean the sponges, except perhaps boiling them in water. If these sponges are risky in today’s world, they were most likely much more so thousands of years ago.

4Grass

Grass was used in some form—a pad or a tampon—by women in Africa as well as Australia. The first form, a pad, was simply a bandage of sorts made of grass and vegetable fiber. Vegetable fibers are materials like flax or cotton that go into making fabrics. The tampons were made by constructing rolls of grass and roots.

The use of grass in either form could not have been very pleasant. Some species of grass, like carpet grass, can be soft enough that it might be suitable to use. Other grasses, perhaps more often than not, are itchy, rough, dry, or painful. Africa has many of these grasses, like nine awned grass. Of course, some other grasses are not as pointy and painful, given how many animals graze and would have to eat the grass. Nevertheless, grass in any form was probably not ideal for menstrual care.

It is fair to note, however, that menstrual care in Africa is still lacking. In many places, women still have to use rags and rewash them daily. Sometimes they don’t dry completely by the time they need to be used, so bacterial infections and other diseases can occur. Still others have to resort to leaves or paper.

3Paper

In Ancient Japan, women would supposedly use rolls of paper as a tampon and bandaged it in place. This paper was held in place by a bandage called kama (totally unrelated to the Hindu text Kama Sutra). Understandably, this device had to be changed an average of about 10 times a day.

Paper in Japan at this time, though, was surprisingly durable and absorbent as far as paper goes. Good-quality paper, called washi, was made in Japan at an unmatched pace by AD 800. This paper was made of plant fibers, and during production, they were left long, instead of crushed up like Western paper. Between the production method and the sheer nature of the plants, this paper was relatively strong, absorbent, and lightweight.

These qualities are superior to today’s paper, so if these women were changing eight to twelve times a day, imagine how often women would have to change with today’s inferior paper.

2Rabbit Fur

Supposedly, women used rabbit fur back in the day as a menstrual pad. There are multiple contexts that state this, but there are very limited, and few sources verify this claim. As frequently as it is written in passing, there might be some weight to it, but take it with a grain of salt.

Just because there is a lack of sourcing does not necessarily mean it is not possible. Cultures like the Native Americans, African cultures, and others certainly used the fur of rabbits and many other animals for a variety of purposes, like clothing and blankets.

Given how soft and pliable the fur is, it would not be surprising if women chose to use this to catch their monthly flow, but we do not know for sure.

1Nothing!

In 19th-century Europe, women just let nature run its course naturally. This was due mostly to the fact that one, nothing was invented yet, so they had nothing to go buy. Two, they couldn’t afford to buy anything if they could. Three, they could have used a homemade pad, but sparing rags or tearing up sheets might have been too costly to spare. In this case, it is mostly poor women who opted out of any kind of pad.

This practice can’t be just centered on 19th-century women. Common sense leaves room for these circumstances to apply to women throughout the ages. Even today, any woman can get in a bind and have no choice but to free bleed. In fact, some women even do it intentionally.

Seduction of the Innocent was the title psychologist Fredric Wertham chose for his 1954 book. No, it wasn’t a romance or an erotic thriller. It was an exposé of a product dangerous to the mental health of adolescents everywhere—or so he insisted. His target: comic books that he regarded as violent and risqué. These scandalous periodicals, he claimed, encouraged delinquency among their juvenile readers by exposing them to sex and violence. When facts and other evidence didn’t support his theory, he twisted them to fit.

Despite the preposterous character of his charges, his claims alarmed parents, teachers, and politicians. They also led to the voluntary self-policing of the comic book industry, as publishers began to censor their titles so their contents would be approved by the Comics Code Authority (CCA), created in 1954 by the Comics Magazine Association of America.

Surprisingly, even after publishers abandoned their voluntary participation in the censorship program, some of them, including the industry’s biggest and best known—Marvel Comics and DC Comics—continued to censor their own titles.

The ten comics on this list were deemed too hot to handle. As a result, they were censored by their own publishers.

10 King Conan

The second issue of Volume 2 of Marvel Comics’ King Conan (2022) showcases a new character, the scantily dressed Matoaka. Both her name and her costume—a brass breechcloth, a brass bra, and matching neck rings—offended Native Americans. The image both “sexualized” Powhatan’s daughter and appropriated Native American culture. Matoaka was the “private name” by which the historical Pocahontas chose to be called; Pocahontas was a nickname.

The character’s origin also offended Native Americans. According to the fictional Matoaka’s backstory, she was exiled from her South American homeland after she fell in love with an explorer from another land. She then revealed to him the location of her country’s treasure, which led, in turn, to the rape and the pillaging of her own country. In a Twitter comment, Kelly Lynn D’Angelo, a Native Haudenosaunee writer, summed up another related reason for the disgust she and other Native Americans felt. “The sexualization of a real young girl that was r*ped and killed affects our murdered & missing indigenous women TODAY.”

The comic book’s editor, Jason Aaron, apologized for the comic’s depiction of the character. To atone, he announced he would donate his pay for the offending issue to the National Indigenous Women’s Resource Center and promised that the “character’s name and appearance [would] be adjusted for the rest of this mini-series and in all digital and collected editions.”^[1]

9 DC Giant-Sized Superman

Walmart inked an exclusive contract with DC Comics to sell reprints of original stories, some of which are collected in DC’s Giant-Sized Superman, issues 9 and 10 (2018–2019). However, mindful of its shoppers, Walmart insisted that some changes be made to the original artwork by the late Michael Turner, finding some of his female characters’ manner of dress a bit suggestive.

The “material” of Artemis’s thong-style bodysuit, latex by the looks of it, worn in an issue of Superman/Batman, was extended to cover her hips, lower buttocks, and upper thighs. In a Supergirl from Krypton reprint, Superman lifts Artemis aloft as he chokes her. The choking survives in the censored version of the comic book cover, but Artemis’s original costume does not. Again, its “material” has been extended, this time to cover an expanse of her upper thighs.^[2]

8 Heroes in Crisis

If choking was found acceptable, so, apparently, was the depiction of a dead or dying villain bleeding onto the floor. On the cover of issue 7 of the Heroes in Crisis series (2019), Poison Ivy lies prone on a mat, bleeding from the side of her head and from a slashed wrist. As Andrew Rodriguez points out, after the image was “leaked online somehow, DC retracted the cover, changing it because five people thought that the image of Poison Ivy was too sexy.”

Her exposed cleavage was objectionable; her bleeding was not. In the revised version of Turner’s artwork, her costume is extended to cover her offending bosom. Oddly, in the process, her costume’s trademark green color turned blue, and the floor mat vanished. The blood beneath her head is now concealed by her hair, and the blood around her wrist has been made to resemble a strand of red ribbon.^[3]

7 Miracleman

The first issue of Miracleman (2014) was flagged for revision after Alan Moore took over the comic’s authorial duties in 1982, transforming the protagonist into an antihero who became involved in more sinister adventures during the rest of the series’ run. When Marvel Comics gained ownership in 2009, the company’s editor announced the need to make a few changes to the comic’s digital edition.

In the end, two versions of the comic were released, the original and the censored. The former was made available under a 17+ age restriction as Miracleman: Parental Advisory Edition #1 (2014). The reason for the brouhaha? One of its characters had dared to bare their buttocks. In the censored version, underpants have been added.^[4]

6 Spider-Woman

When Milo Manara, the well-known illustrator whose drawings tend toward the erotic, posed her in a variant cover for the 2014 issue of Spider-Woman, issue 1, the title character became sexualized. Leaning forward on her hands and knees, her legs apart, the female wall-crawler creeps over the edge of the top of a building, several skyscrapers behind her, suggesting the height of her apparent climb. Her familiar costume, rendered in pastel colors, is more pink and light peach than its standard red and gold.

Although her suggestive posture implies movement, the type of action it is intended to imply is open to interpretation. Enough members of the public saw the possibility of lewdness in Manara’s depiction to protest, and Marvel’s editor-in-chief Axel Alonso, responded with both an apology, explaining that the variant cover was for a limited edition of the comic book meant for collectors. For that reason, the company was okay with retaining the image of Spider-Woman as the artist saw her. Manara’s version of the character was sold at auction to a collector who paid $37,000 for the privilege of owning it.^[5]

5 Batman

The first issue in the Batman: Damned series (2018–1019), which appeared in the company’s adult-oriented DC Black Label imprint, shocked readers with its full-frontal nudity. The Caped Crusader appears from the waist down, his nakedness apparent but with details hidden by a dark shadow falling across him in one panel. The only hint of his penis is a few lines, visible despite the shadow, which outline a part of the organ. Based on the feedback the company received from the comic book hero’s fans, DC’s powers-that-be concluded that nudity is not appropriate, even for their mature line of comics.

Future printings of the issue will not include so much as a glimpse of Batman’s genitals, and the digital version of the comic, like those of the printed version, will replace the offending panel of the story with one in which the shadow blocks out all offending parts of his anatomy. Censoring the image was the right call to make, DC admitted, since Batman’s exhibitionism didn’t really add anything to the story.^[6]

4 The Authority

The Authority was originally published by WildStorm, which was owned by AOL/Time Warner from 1990 to 2018, the same company that owned DC Comics during this time period. It was fairly frequently targeted for censorship by DC. Writer Mark Millar and artist Frank Quitely’s inclusion of several characters that were parallels to counterparts in DC’s titles caused much of this censorship. Censored panels were either revised or replaced altogether with new drawings.

In one case, Apollo and Midnighter, it had been implied, might be gay. Their sexuality had never been made explicit, though, until Millar left no doubt that the pair were lovers by allowing them to kiss in issue 27. DC is likely to have censored this act out of concern that Apollo and Midnighter—as characters that paralleled Superman and Batman—might suggest to fans that there was a same-gender relationship between the Man of Steel and the Caped Crusader, which could damage the sales of their titles. A similar reason might have led DC to censor an image of the Engineer, Hulk’s Authority counterpart, flipping off her adversary’s dead body. In the printed version, the British “two-finger [Victory] salute” replaces the Engineer’s raised middle finger.^[7]

3 Batman/Catwoman

The cover of the seventh issue of Batman/Catwoman (2021) was criticized for its depiction of its protagonist’s bloody face and hands. With the bodies of masked police officers in riot gear heaped and tumbled behind him, Batman clutches one of the fallen by the collar, lifting him from the ground as he stares in anger at the face of the unconscious cop. Against the blue-gray pile of his fellow officers, who are also badly beaten and unconscious, the black silhouette of Batman’s cape and cowl, like his red face and hands, make a stark and dramatic contrast.

Oddly, the revised version of the cover is, if anything, more lurid than the one it replaces. The picture itself is the same. The differences are that the blood does not entirely cover Batman’s face and hands, making him seem masked and gloved. The crimefighter’s face is more visible, as are his hands. The sight of them reveals him to be a man of flesh and blood, rather than a dark, depersonalized avenger.

In the original cover’s illustration, not a single drop of blood has splattered the limp, unconscious body of the police officer whom Batman lifts from the ground or any of his fellow officers. In the censored version, he, like Batman, is bloody, his blood revealing his vulnerability as a victimized human being. In this case, the censorship of the original image results in a much more dramatic and sympathetic portrayal of both Batman and the fallen police officers, showing the humanity beneath their respective costumes and uniforms.^[8]

2 Dark Knights of Steel

The limited series Dark Knights of Steel (2021–2022), set in an alternate universe to that of Earth’s, unfolds a complex, convoluted plot. Part of it involves Superman’s sister Zala-Jor-El’s avenging the death of Superman’s father, King Jor-El, after Green Man assassinates him at the behest of King Jefferson. Her vengeance takes the form of her own killing of the king’s son before she embarks on a murder spree, during which she kills the alternate universe’s Metal Men with a fury of which only she is capable.

Her slaying of Gold is especially brutal: she thrusts her left arm through him so fiercely that her hand, emerging through his back, is covered in and drips his blood. To censor the extreme violence of the drawing, a sound effect, “RNNGH,” was added to cover her bloody hand.

The same tactic is employed in a subsequent panel, a different sound effect concealing the emergence of the ship’s spar through Jefferson’s abdomen. As Ben Sockol observes, in writing about these censored panels, Zala-Jor-El, unlike her brother, isn’t bothered by moral scruples concerning the commission of acts of violence in the interests of personal vengeance.^[9]

1 Punisher

Originally, Punisher was depicted as an unscrupulous, murderous vigilante. In 1974, when he made his debut, and for the last two decades of the twentieth century, such a character was not altogether unacceptable. Crime, including murder, was on the increase, and drug abuse was rampant. The fact that Punisher was himself a victim of crime also made him sympathetic. As times changed, the antihero became an increasingly unfavorable and less bankable character. The Punisher’s weapon of choice, an M16 automatic rifle, also puts him at odds with a growing number of people concerned about gun violence, as does his oft-demonstrated willingness to kill his adversaries.

In 2021, Marvel began seeking to “reboot” the character by adding horns and tusks to the white skull logo he wears on his black shirt to make it resemble the Japanese demon known as an oni and by having Punisher fight his battles without the aid of his trusty M16 rifle or other guns. His fans may not be on board with these censorious revisions. Screen Rant’s senior writer Francesco Cacciatore, for one, is not convinced that Marvel’s modifications of the character’s costume and character will succeed. The company’s efforts to make Punisher more appropriate for today ignore the fact that “the character, as he was originally conceived, is simply not suitable for these times.”^[10]

Quite simply, some people don’t know how to handle money, and having a lot of money can be a recipe for disaster. While the money management blues could be because of ineptitude or bad luck, the common denominator is that these wealthy people would have been better off with less. Here are 10 people who should never have become rich.

10 A Fall from Grace

Eike Batista is not a rags-to-riches story since Batista’s father had been the Minister of Mines and Energy in two previous Brazilian governments. It was natural that Eike Batista made his living in mining, gas, and oil with his family background. It was then a logical step to finance large-scale infrastructure projects that would support his other concerns.

At the beginning of 2012, Batista had a net worth of around $35 billion—this meant that he was the seventh wealthiest person in the world. Unfortunately, he didn’t last long in the world’s top ten. By the summer of 2013, his wealth stood at $200 million and, a year later, had fallen to minus $1 billion.

There were various reasons for this dramatic drop, but not all of them were Batista’s fault. A general downturn in the precious metals industry, underperforming assets, and poor decisions played a part. But the biggest fall from grace may be that Batista is facing 30 years in jail for bribing the governor of Rio de Janeiro.

So why should Batista never have become rich? The answer is simple. A capitalist economy relies on the operation of free markets that depend on trust. Someone who builds a business empire built on sand warps the economy, destroys confidence, and wipes out the investments that pay people’s pensions.

9 From Bad to Worse

Jack Whittaker didn’t need to win the lottery; the West Virginian was a wealthy and successful businessman in the construction industry. But, in 2002, he won the then-largest jackpot in the Powerball multi-state lottery. His prize was worth around $315 million, but he opted to take the one-off cash payment option that left him with over $113 million after taxes.

Whittaker was kind-hearted and well-meaning as he pledged 10% of his winnings to Christian charities and set up the Jack Whittaker Foundation to distribute food and clothing to the needy in rural West Virginia. He also rewarded the man who worked in the store where Whittaker had bought the winning ticket and threw handfuls of cash from his new sports car around the neighborhood.

Then things started to go bad. In 2003, someone stole over $500,000 that Whittaker had left in his car in the parking lot of a strip club. Not a good look Whittaker, but things kept going from bad to worse.

Next, his teenage granddaughter, Brandi, was lavished with cash and gifts, but in 2004, the body of Brandi’s eighteen-year-old boyfriend was found in Whittaker’s home. The boy had taken a cocktail of drugs leading to his death. Later that year, Brandi went missing, and her body turned up dumped on a friend’s property. She had been taking drugs, but the cause of death wasn’t clear, and authorities filed no charges.

Unfortunately, Jack had problems with gambling, and his uninsured house burned to the ground. He died in 2020.

8 Sky High to Rock Bottom

We can’t know what would have happened if Edwards had won just enough money to turn his life around, but he won a lot.

David Lee Edwards was a connected armed robber who had spent one-third of his 46 years in prison. Broke and unemployed, he borrowed some cash from a friend to pay a utility bill. Unfortunately, Edwards had some change left over that he spent on a pizza and a couple of lottery tickets. He won $27 million.

At a press conference, Edwards swore that he would turn his life around and look after his daughter. Yet, he immediately began spending money left and right. His mansion in Florida was full of expensive gadgets, and his body was full of expensive drugs.

Edwards supported his and his wife’s increasing dependence on drugs. He also paid for his friend’s drugs and funerals if they overdosed. Edwards did spoil his daughter, but by 2006, he and his wife were living in a storage unit surrounded by drug paraphernalia and their own body waste.

Mrs. Edwards left him; he died penniless in a hospice in Kentucky. He was 58.

7 Madame Mayor

Maureen O’Connor, a native of San Diego, California, rose through the local political ranks to become the city’s first female mayor from 1986 to 1992. At the time, she was married to Robert O. Peterson—the founder of the Jack in the Box fast-food chain.

When her husband died in 1994, O’Connor’s personal fortune stood somewhere between $40 and $50 million. In the cutthroat world of politics, all successful politicians are big risk-takers. O’Connor was a political winner, but she was a loser when she began to gamble in casinos.

O’Connor lost around $13 million in casinos. She misappropriated over $2 million from her husband’s charitable foundation, which she immediately spent playing video poker. To raise more cash to fund her gambling, she liquidated all her savings and took out second and third mortgages on her home. She attempted to pay off her debts but found herself charged with wire fraud.

She attributed her gambling addiction to a brain tumor. In 2015, a judge formally dropped all charges against her.

6 To the Bitter End

John Werner Kluge (1914–2010) was a successful businessman who became a television mogul. At one time, he was the richest person in the United States. A hard-working philanthropist, he also found time to indulge in his hobby of getting married. He married four times, and Patricia was the third of his wives.

When the couple divorced in 1990, Patricia kept the Albemarle estate near Charlottesville, Virginia. The couple had built a 45-room mansion on the property that hosted parties for the rich and famous. With her new husband, Patricia Kluge opened the Kluge Estate Winery in 1999. This was an excellent place for growing vines, and their ambition was to create a world-renowned winery that would produce some of the finest vintages in the world. To an extent, they succeeded.

However, they had enough money to launch the project and were rich by most people’s standards, but their plans called for much more money than they had available. Patricia took out $65 million in loans but found that she was over-extended. When the economy crashed in 2008, she put the estate up for sale. Donald Trump eventually bought it for a fraction of the asking price. It is now known as the Trump Winery.

It is possible to be rich but not quite rich enough. This is the trap that Patricia fell into.

5 Transfer of Ownership

Atahualpa (1502–1533) was not rich because of his own efforts. He was rich because he was Atahualpa. What happened to his fabulous wealth was not his fault—he was a victim of history.

Atahualpa was the last supreme emperor of the Incas but was unfortunate enough to be in power as the Spanish rampaged through his lands. In Incan society, everything from the fruits of the trees to the gold from the mountains belonged to the emperor. Everything in these vast, rich lands belonged to him.

When the Spanish executed Atahualpa, all of his wealth belonged to them.

Broadly speaking, this massive transfer of wealth ruined the Spanish empire. The Dutch and the British, among others, built empires based on trade. The Spanish did not have to. This unearned wealth meant they tapped their conquests for more gold and silver; the Spanish exported this back to Spain. Many Spanish and Italian merchants got rich, but the economic consequences were dire. The unbalanced Spanish economy suffered from inflation, and massive estates split the countryside into haves and have-nots.

Although Spain was to remain powerful for a while, the seeds of its future failure were sprouting in beds of unearned wealth.

4 “Spend, Spend, Spend!”

Before online gambling, many people in Britain would wager small amounts on the results of soccer matches through a system called “football pools.” These listed the games to be played on the following Saturday, and you could win a lot of money if you could forecast eight score draws.

Viv Nicholson had grown up in poverty. She was pregnant at sixteen and had four children when her second husband, Keith, won the pools in 1961. The prize was over £152,000—over 3 million today.

When asked what they would do with their winnings, the couple famously answered, “Spend, spend, spend.” And they did.

They spent everything. Keith died in a car accident in 1965, and creditors declared Viv bankrupt. She later said that she had had no idea what to do with so much money and that her win had alienated her from her friends, family, and background.

3 Too Much of a Good Thing

Gerald Muswagon was not a well-educated man but was friendly and well-liked by his family and friends. Yet, he had had brushes with the law in his native Canada since 1981.

In 1998, he bought a two-dollar lottery ticket that won him $10 million. He spent a lot of it on luxuries and gifts but did try to invest in his own lumber business. Unfortunately, his business lost money because of low sales. Muswagon was surrounded by hangers-on who were only interested in his money and never got the guidance that he needed about how to handle such a large sum.

He continued to have problems with the police, and things got worse when his wife died suddenly in 2002. Muswagon hanged himself in his parent’s garage.

2 Millions to Manslaughter

Ibi Roncaioli was Hungarian by birth but moved to Canada, where she married a successful gynecologist. She was not short of money but bought a ticket for a lotto game with a friend. In 1991, the two won $10 million and split the money.

Roncaioli started spending her winnings without telling her husband, but she didn’t spend much of it on herself. Mainly, the money went to her three sons. One of these was the son that she had had with her husband, one from before she married, and the third was a child that even her husband of thirty years knew nothing about.

Most people who knew the Roncaiolis described them as a happy, devoted older couple. However, in 2003, Ibi died. The authorities assumed that she had died from natural causes. Still, after careful examination, they found a toxic level of painkillers and alcohol in her body, and there were needle marks on her legs and feet.

The court found her husband guilty of manslaughter. The couple’s net worth was just $300,000 despite Ibi’s winnings and her husband’s considerable earnings. Her 72-year-old husband was sentenced to seven years.

1 The King

Elvis Presley made a lot of money during his stellar career. However, he had no idea how to handle it. He spent a fortune on a luxurious lifestyle and treating his friends. For example, he would pay to have hotel rooms redecorated to look like a room in his mansion, Graceland—he didn’t want to get homesick.

At the time of his death in 1977, Presley was almost broke. And his money had never made him happy.

His ex-wife, Priscilla, eventually took charge of Elvis’s estate after his death because Lisa Marie, their daughter, was still a minor. If Elvis had no head for business, Priscilla did. She converted what little was left into a $100 million business.