When you settle in with a steaming mug of cocoa and cue up a classic holiday film, you probably expect pure joy and cozy nostalgia. Yet the top 10 horrible truths lurking behind those festive flicks often read more like a behind‑the‑scenes thriller than a feel‑good story. From backstage battles to unsettling rumors, each of these ten iconic movies carries a darker side that most viewers never see. Let’s dive into the shadowy side of holiday cinema, where the magic sometimes comes at a steep price.

10 On‑Set Tensions

The highest‑grossing Christmas film of all time, Home Alone, could have turned out drastically different had it not been for the bitter and repulsive attitude of Chevy Chase. Chase, who was signed on for John Hughes’s Christmas Vacation, met with then‑director Chris Columbus. Not only did their meeting go awry, but Columbus quit as director of Christmas Vacation despite desperately needing the work. “There’s no way I can do this movie,” Columbus told Hughes, “I can’t do it with this guy.” Two weeks after resigning, Hughes sent Columbus the script for Home Alone. Columbus’s artistic direction not only altered the most infamous booby‑trap scenes but made the semi‑dark script more festively warm and endearing for audiences across the world.

Therefore, in a way we have Chevy Chase to thank for the brilliant outcome of Columbus’s final cut. This is perhaps the first time any gratitude has been given to a man who has made enemies across the board. He is notoriously known for having an inflated ego and a penchant for “pissing people off.” In addition, he is a master at insults which nearly caused a physical altercation with Bill Murray when he told the comedian that his face “looked like something Neil Armstrong landed on.” Thankfully, his narcissism and arrogance led to his departure from his last high‑profile gig, Community, in 2012.

9 Catholic Legion of Decency

For more than four decades, the American film industry was highly influenced by the Catholic Legion of Decency, particularly in the 1930s and ‘40s. This meant that a substantial degree of Hollywood entertainment was being dictated by Catholic ideology. Thus, anything the church deemed offensive—including premarital sex, abortion, divorce, and homosexuality—was officially “Condemned” and given a “C” rating. Such labels clearly had negative effects on films that dared to test the Legion’s leniency.

One surprising movie, in particular, is 1947’s A Miracle On 34th Street; a film that was ahead of its time by challenging the notion of what a woman’s role is and should be in America. The movie’s storyline surrounding a divorced, working mother, whose cynical and cold worldviews are being taught to her daughter, outraged the Catholic Legion of Decency. Despite the film’s values being questioned, the Legion gave the film a “B” rating for being “morally objectionable.”

8 Naughty Santa

Tim Allen’s The Santa Clause caused quite the stir when parents across America began receiving enormous charges on their telephone bills. In the film, Allen’s character jokes about calling the number 1‑800‑SPANKME. To Disney’s dismay, hundreds of curious kids took to the phones not knowing their call to Santa was being directed to a 900 line.

One outraged father received a bill for more than $500 while another furious dad in Long Island demanded that the movie be recalled. In his case, he stated that his daughter showed “signs of being disturbed and upset” causing them to have to pay for counseling. The comfort of his financial security only worsened upon receiving bills totaling in the hundreds of dollars; “Disney (which owns ABC) will pay $1.25 million to Allen per Home Improvement episode, but it won’t spend a dime to recall a film with a ‘porno’ number.” The Santa Clause went on to gross $145 million dollars with Disney firmly casting blame on the parents for the charges their children had racked up.

7 The Grinch

The thriving career of acclaimed cinematographer Don Peterman came to an end in 1997 while on the set of Mighty Joe Young. A crane holding a platform 18 feet off the ground snapped with Peterman standing directly below it. Despite being nearly crushed by the platform, Peterman was dragged away with only a broken leg and minor head injuries. For two years Peterman convalesced prior to returning to work on Ron Howard’s How the Grinch Stole Christmas. Nonetheless, the wounds that he sustained debilitated him for the rest of his days. Every day on set was a struggle both physically and emotionally. In spite of that, he was able to complete the shoot, one that would be his last.

Another tragic figure of the Christmas film was Joshua Ryan Evans who stole the show by playing the young Grinch. Due to a rare growth disorder, Evans stood at 3‑foot‑2. He passed away at 20, merely two years after his success with the film.

6 John Candy the Vampire

Planes, Trains and Automobiles is arguably one of John Hughes’s most endeared films of his career. Interestingly enough, the 1987 classic road‑trip movie starring Steve Martin and John Candy was Hughes’s first adult‑centered film after a string of teenage blockbusters.

The on‑screen chemistry between Martin and Candy caught the attention of Hughes causing him to drastically alter the script. In fact, the entire plot was removed and replaced with a more wholesome Thanksgiving theme. The original draft was quite dark with Candy’s character being a blood‑sucking vampire hell‑bent on being invited into Martin’s family home. This premise plays on the folklore that vampires cannot enter a house without an invitation. One cannot help but think how sinister Hughes’s original script was or how convincing the jovial John Candy would have been. Nonetheless, Planes, Trains and Automobiles went on to become one of the most quietly celebrated holiday films to date.

5 The King Lives

Since Elvis Presley’s untimely death in 1977 at age 42, countless conspiracy theorists have claimed that the rock legend still walks among us. Such a farcical theory even made its way into John Hughes’s 1990 film, Home Alone. For years, Elvis skeptics around the world have been perpetuating the false narrative that The King is seen standing behind actress Catherine O’Hara at the airport as she pleads to board a plane.

Due to the endless speculation, director Chris Columbus had to officially confirm that the extra was not Elvis, adding; “They are convinced, these people, that this is Elvis Presley,” he said. “That he’s faked his death, and because he still loves show business, he’s an extra in Home Alone.”

Sadly, what these sightseeing skeptics do not understand is the profound and unnecessary pain such theories bring to the Presley family. Since his death, the notion of a cover‑up has opened up old wounds for those who were closest to the musician. In retrospect, it causes an immense disservice to the memory of Elvis by those who claim to be his biggest fans.

4 A Risqué Christmas Story

Bob Clark’s modestly budgeted comedy A Christmas Story was released a week before Thanksgiving in 1983 to limited and select theatres. With strong word‑of‑mouth and a continuous growth of followers, the film crept into the hearts of the public, eventually becoming a cult classic.

Surprisingly, the inspiration for the nostalgic family Christmas tale was based on a collection of short stories that first appeared in Playboy. With that said, it is quite possible that Clark may truly be the only man to have purchased the risqué magazine solely for the articles.

Determined to make a movie, Clark tried for years to find a studio to finance a semi‑autobiographical holiday film based on stories from a nude magazine. A Christmas Story went on to become the inspiration for the television show The Wonder Years, as well as being considered “one of the most popular holiday movies of all time.” These days, more than 40 million people tune in every year on Christmas Eve to catch the annual marathon on TBS.

3 Drunken Method Actor

Frank Capra’s It’s a Wonderful Life hit the silver screen in 1946 becoming one of the most renowned and cherished holiday films of all time. The director’s masterpiece tells about a desperate man—George Bailey (Jimmy Stewart)—who is on the brink of suicide. Capra’s intense style of directing along with dedicated method actors, however, proved harmful to child actor Bob Anderson who played the young George Bailey. In one scene in particular, Capra allowed method actor H.B. Warner to get into character by drinking a bottle of alcohol before filming. By the time the cameras rolled, Warner had become loud and demanding causing an already disturbing scene, in which his character smacks young George in the face, to become too realistic. “He actually bloodied my ear,” recalled Anderson. As Jimmy Stewart fearfully looked on in the distance, the smacks continued; “My ear was beat up and my face was red and I was in tears. I was gonna get knocked on my butt.”

Excessive physicality reached its pinnacle on yet another holiday film, Scrooged (1988) starring Bill Murray. Carol Kane, who played the manic and abusive Ghost of Christmas Present, became so immersed in her role that she actually tore Murray’s lip open causing production to halt for several days.

2 The Racist Inn

Irving Berlin’s 1942 film, Holiday Inn, was destined to be a box office hit given the large audiences Bing Crosby and Fred Astaire attracted. However, the series of musical episodes in the film, such as “Easter Parade” and “White Christmas,” alters the mood from nostalgic to festive to downright unconscionable in today’s society.

In one scene, Crosby and Astaire perform a musical number for Abraham Lincoln’s birthday in which they appear in blackface. In fact, the entire band and waiters/waitresses also sport the highly offensive facial paint, in front of an entirely white audience. Ironically enough, the song details the emancipation of black American slaves. If this was not distasteful enough, the film’s true black actors are excluded from the performance only to be shown singing along to themselves in a distant room. Oh, the unity of the holidays.

1 Punk Rock Resentment

The 1970s American band New York Dolls saw its share of turmoil just as quickly as they emerged on the punk rock scene. With the death of their original drummer followed by the demise of his replacement and the founding guitarist, the Dolls disbanded by 1977. Lead singer David Johansen found fame on the silver screen, leaving guitarist and bassist Arthur “Killer” Kane with profound resentment.

Kane’s jealousy and anger spiraled out of control one evening when his former bandmate unexpectedly appeared in the movie that he was watching. Unbeknownst to Kane, Johansen starred opposite Bill Murray in the 1988 Christmas film Scrooged as the Ghost of Christmas Past. Johansen’s success of having a prospering career sent a self‑defeated and depressed Kane skydiving out his third‑story window. Fortunately, Kane landed on an awning below saving his life. While hospitalized, the “Killer” found God causing him to leave behind his life of drugs and alcohol. He remained sober until his death in 2004 when he went to the emergency room believing he had the flu. Sadly, Kane was diagnosed with leukemia and died just two hours later at the age of 55.

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

Conclusion

Even the most beloved holiday movies have shadows lurking behind the glitter and tinsel. From on‑set injuries and creative disputes to outright scandal, the top 10 horrible facts remind us that cinema magic often comes at a price. The next time you press play, you might just hear the faint echo of a broken crane, a disgruntled star, or a whispered conspiracy—adding a new layer of intrigue to those timeless holiday moments.

When you think of ten amazing artists, you probably picture brilliant canvases, iconic sculptures, and groundbreaking compositions. Yet brilliance on the canvas doesn’t always translate to brilliance in the bedroom, the boardroom, or the bar. Below we dive into the unsettling personal histories of some of the most celebrated creators in Western culture – a reminder that great art can emerge from deeply flawed, even horrendous, humans.

Why Ten Amazing Artists Still Captivate Audiences

10. Michelangelo Merisi Da Caravaggio

It’s such a common phrase by this point to be nearly meaningless when you hear someone can supposedly “get away with murder.” But famed Renaissance painter Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio actually did get away with murder in his life. And he went right on painting through it.

Caravaggio is best known for his exquisite oil paintings depicting gory scenes and bloody battles. His subjects show remarkable motion on the canvas while slaughtering and getting slaughtered. And as it turns out, Caravaggio’s paintings may have very much followed a murderous trend in the artist’s own life.

Art historians have long made note of Caravaggio’s drinking habits. He was very well‑known during his raucous life for getting drunk in Italian bars and pubs and then assaulting anyone within arm’s reach. Some historians even assert he was a well‑known pimp who sold a series of women to local johns. His worst sins were far more deadly, though. As a teenager, he reportedly killed a man in his hometown and was forced to flee. A few years later, he murdered a young male rival of his on a tennis court and skipped his adopted hometown once more.

Historians believe he killed several more people across Italy. His hard‑drinking habits certainly didn’t help. But it’s not every day that a world‑famous painter is also supposedly a serial killer. In the end, the law caught up with Caravaggio. Government officials in the Papal States soon grew tired of his violent ways. They put out a “bando capitale” on the artist. Basically, it allowed any local resident the opportunity to catch and kill Caravaggio as an enemy of the state.

In 1610, the Knights of Malta caught up to the painter and gave him a taste of his own medicine. As we know now, the world lost a phenomenal painter when Caravaggio was killed. But at the time, the Papal States simply couldn’t stomach the pressure he put on society any longer than they already had.

9. Paul Gauguin

Paul Gauguin’s most famous achievement—other than his own paintings, of course—was being the guy who chopped off Vincent Van Gogh’s ear. The two painters were longtime friends who shared costs and often made art based on the same subjects. They both had incredible eyes for color, shading, and style. And they both were difficult to work and live with, so their friendship was fated to end long before it probably should have. After his falling out with Van Gogh, Gauguin fled to French Polynesia and experimented with color in ways painters never before had done.

But that’s not what makes Gauguin unique for the purposes of this list. Instead, the post‑Impressionist is known first for abandoning his French wife and five children upon leaving abruptly for Tahiti. Once he got there, he then started taking Polynesian children as brides.

By 1891, when Gauguin was in his 40s, the artist had taken three child brides younger than 14 years old. He had children with all three. Then, he promptly infected all three with syphilis, as well as spreading the virulent virus all around the island while having other trysts on the side. By the time he died in French Polynesia in 1903, his passing was welcomed by all the women whose lives he’d changed forever.

8. Edgar Degas

Edgar Degas was one of the greatest Impressionist painters of all time. The talented artist was a living legend during his life in France. The way he depicted movement on canvas changed how many future painters saw the craft. But as it turned out, Degas was not the nicest person away from his art studio.

Degas’s behind‑the‑scenes controversies began in 1894, when a French Army captain named Alfred Dreyfus was convicted of selling military secrets to Germany. Dreyfus was Jewish, and the treasonous affair was big news in France at the time. (As it would later come to pass, it turned out Dreyfus was framed—but that mattered little to many people intent on criticizing him.)

Degas was one of many French citizens shocked to learn Dreyfus had supposedly been selling state secrets to a rival. But instead of just being mad about treasonous corruption, the Impressionist took things quite a bit further. Lamenting Dreyfus’s alleged behavior, Degas became a rabid and publicly vicious anti‑Semite.

The artist began to loudly proclaim to anyone who would listen—and many who wouldn’t—that all Jews were just as bad as Dreyfus, and none of them could be trusted. Degas took things further, too, by cutting off all contact with any Jewish people who had been in his life. Sadly, that included dumping a lifelong friend who had never wronged the painter in any way.

In time, Degas’s anti‑Semitism even bled into his work connections. The artist had previously loved the painting of Camille Pissarro, who was, then and now, the only major Jewish Impressionist of note. But after 1894, Degas refused to have anything to do with Pissarro. When a friend pointed out that Degas used to loudly support the Jewish artist’s work, Degas coldly replied, “That was before Dreyfus.”

As the calendar turned to the 20th century, Degas’s anti‑Semitic streak continued. In one notably bizarre incident, he kicked a model out of his studio for being Jewish—even though she was actually a Protestant. If there’s any consolation to Degas’s cruel behavior, it’s that his friends had all mostly abandoned him by the time of his death in 1917. They had grown weary of his constant racist attacks and diatribes.

7. Richard Prince

Richard Prince has what every modern‑day artist seemingly wants. He’s an in‑demand star with work that sells for millions of dollars. He’s esteemed by colleagues, and his work is desired by art buyers worldwide. In 2015, an art publication even named his work some of the most lucrative pieces among all living artists. There’s just one little problem with it all: He keeps getting criticized—and sued—for ripping off other people’s art.

In 2014, Prince held an exhibition of photos he simply copied off Instagram. That was it. That was the art. He pulled other people’s digital photos off Instagram, printed and framed them, and then sold the images for a whopping $100,000 each. He didn’t even tell the original photographers!

When word got out, and the original photographers started getting mad about their images being used without warning or compensation, Prince whined about how the “phony fraud photographers” simply couldn’t stop “mooching” him for recognition.

But Prince’s story gets weirder still. In another photo grab, the popular artist swiped and repurposed nearly three dozen images from photographer Patrick Cariou. The French photographer had published them in a book about Jamaican men titled Yes Rasta.

Prince liked them so much that he copied about 30 of the images, drew electric guitars on them, and sold them all. He netted millions of dollars in profit—and a lawsuit from Cariou. That court battle has dragged on for years with stops, starts, decisions, appeals, and rulings. One thing is for certain, though: photographers rightfully don’t seem to care too much for Richard Prince’s antics.

6. Benvenuto Cellini

Italian sculptor Benvenuto Cellini is still known today as one of the foremost goldsmiths of history. He mashed and molded gold into incredibly detailed and intricate sculptures. He created the still‑iconic Cellini Salt Cellar and a famed sculpture of Perseus with the Head of Medusa. He even wrote a painstakingly detailed autobiography that historians still point to as one of the foremost literary works of the 16th century.

But away from his art and literature, Cellini was—to put it in the mildest terms—a bad dude. The sculptor’s rough life began very early. As a teenager, he brawled so much that he was cast out of his hometown. Living his young life on the road only made Cellini more vicious, though. He started carrying knives and was known to pick violent fights with foes, real or perceived.

Then, in 1527, the Sack of Rome happened, and Cellini saw his first taste of real murderous action. He killed at least two of the occupying soldiers in a rage during the invasion. And he apparently enjoyed it so much that he chose to keep killing after that.

Over the rest of his life, Cellini killed at least three more men and wounded several others. One of his brothers was executed by police in Florence because of a murder he’d committed—thereby proving the vicious familial connection. Benvenuto didn’t like that his brother had to die, though, so he killed one of the watch’s corporals in revenge.

A few years later, he was busy beating a man to death when a witness saw him do it and turned him in. Cellini promptly killed the witness before the man could testify against him. A few years after that, Cellini went to sculpt in France. There, he became the subject of a civil lawsuit. But before that filing could work its way into court, Cellini crippled the plaintiff’s legs and fled town.

The murderous man faced no long‑lasting consequences for these acts and lived just short of his 71st birthday before dying peacefully in 1571. His art lives on today—and his horrific and violent acts now do, too.

5. Eric Gill

Eric Gill used his talents as an incredible sculptor. During the early 20th century, he was one of the foremost progenitors of Britain’s powerful Arts and Crafts movement. Gill’s work is known the world over, and it sits in some high‑profile places.

At times, his sculptures have sat in front of the BBC’s Broadcasting House in London, as well as the United Nations’ European headquarters building. Many of his works are meticulously guarded as part of careful collections by London’s Tate Galleries. And many more of his famed pieces are very much inspired by the solemn and powerful Catholic faith.

But Gill himself was a star‑crossed person in his private life—to say the very least. According to art historians, Gill seduced at least one of his sisters during his lifetime, with some contending he actually slept with both. He conducted unspeakable sexual and physical experiments on his family’s pet dog late at night for years. And it later came out that he sexually abused his daughters throughout childhood and their teenage years.

Gill was often sick in his adult life; in 1940, he passed away after battling lung cancer. He wasn’t even 60 years old. And for a while, nobody knew about his sordid personal dealings. Those shocking revelations only came out five decades after his death, when a jaw‑dropping biography was published about the real Eric Gill.

4. Francis Bacon

Francis Bacon delivered shocking and often gruesome portraits of characters throughout his prolific art career. The 20th‑century Irish artist—not the 16th‑century English statesman—was known for painting revolting images of nearly inhuman people doing unspeakable things. As it turned out, in his case, at least, life imitated art. Or maybe we have that backward, and Bacon’s unsettling art actually imitated his dark life.

The Irish‑born artist was a very disturbed individual who was said to have pushed several boyfriends into such despair that they committed suicide. He also viewed sexuality as an opportunity to “prey” on younger, often unwitting victims. When he was just a teenager, a stablehand was said to have tied him up and whipped him while bound. That may have affected the rest of Bacon’s life, as he soon became a sexual predator in revenge.

In 1963, Bacon met London‑born male model George Dyer at a pub. The two men hit it off—well, as easily as one could with Bacon—and soon began a torrid affair. But it was tempestuous from the very beginning. Both men physically harmed each other in an endless loop of domestic violence. Bacon was twisted enough to emotionally do damage to Dyer’s fragile psyche, too. In 1971, the awful relationship came to a head.

While on a trip to Paris, Bacon embarrassed and then cast away Dyer. The emotional pain was so great that the male model killed himself in response. For his part, Bacon lived out the rest of his days seemingly unbothered by Dyer’s shocking death at just 33 years old. The tortured (and torturing) artist lived out a long life beyond the suicide and died at the ripe old age of 82 in 1992.

3. Percy Grainger

Percy Grainger was “Australia’s first great composer.” Okay, so that’s what he called himself. And can you really give yourself a nickname—or an honorific like that? The fact that Grainger bestowed such a moniker upon himself probably should have given the world its first clue that he maybe wasn’t the kindest person out there. Then, throughout his life in the first half of the 20th century, he pretty much proved those suspicions correct.

Even though he was born Down Under and theoretically far away from much Jewish interaction taking place in Europe, Grainger still took great interest in the faith. And not in a good way. His entire life’s work, from music to his social commentary and public persona, centered on some deeply and very strongly held anti‑Semitic beliefs.

And when his professional attention turned to preserving and promoting classic British folk music, he did so for a disturbing reason. Grainger believed Britain’s white natives were at risk of losing their “creative genius” due to immigration, race‑mixing, and Jewish conspiracies.

Grainger lived in the United States from the mid‑1910s on, and his life played out during a tumultuous few decades in American history. For much of that time, he drew on prior years he’d lived in Germany to enthusiastically support the work of Nazi Party favorites. One of the men Grainger held in the highest esteem was a British‑German philosopher and pro‑Nazi thinker named Houston Stewart Chamberlain, whom Grainger believed to be the world’s foremost academic.

When World War II broke out, Grainger’s old German friends asked him to help Jews who were fleeing the Nazi regime. He turned them down again and again despite having the means and connections to help. Not great, Percy.

2. Bob Kane

Bob Kane spent his life claiming he invented Batman. In reality, one of his longtime friends, Bill Finger, created the Caped Crusader. And even worse, not only was Finger left uncredited with the creation for decades, but Kane also seemed to take any and every opportunity to rub it in his face. Batman took off in the late 1930s, of course. But it wasn’t actually Kane’s own creation—at least not as the superhero ended up being portrayed.

In the middle of the Great Depression, Kane started thinking about a superhero named Bat‑Man. Kane wanted the star to have a red suit and wavy blonde hair. He was supposed to fly around using a pair of attached bat wings, too—hence the name. So Kane enlisted his artist friend Finger to make a mockup design of the new hero.

Quickly, Finger realized the whole concept behind Kane’s Bat‑Man idea was laughable. Dumping the bright red costume and wavy blond hair, Finger instead put the superhero in a black, skin‑tight suit. Finger also dropped Bat‑Man’s various superpowers, turned him into a detective, and gave him Bruce Wayne’s backstory. Finger even created other mainstay characters like Catwoman, Robin, and the Joker to help fill out the tale.

Kane loved the idea and ran with it, but he didn’t care to bring Finger along for the ride. After his unlucky friend was done creating characters, Kane took the mockups to DC Comics and secured a contract that specifically did not mention or include Finger in any way. The rest, as they say, is history.

Finger died in obscurity years later, having been unable to receive any credit for his work. Kane made money off Batman from the very start of his lucrative partnership with DC. Still, Finger never got a dime in royalties. He didn’t even get a creator credit on the iconic idea until 2015—long after he passed away in 1974 after years of heart problems.

As for Kane, he died a rich man in 1998. His gravestone acknowledged that he did have a little help in creating Batman after all. But the credit didn’t go to Finger; instead, it claimed “God” assisted Kane in creating iconic comic books.

1. Pablo Picasso

If you know anything about Pablo Picasso, you’re probably surprised that you had to wait this long to see his name pop up. The painter is arguably the most talented visual artist to ever live. Certainly, he’s one of the most famous. His name is synonymous even today with works of beauty, splendor, and uniqueness.

But away from his public life, Picasso was a troubled and often very demanding man who put his family and friends through hell. “He needed the blood of those who loved him,” Picasso’s granddaughter Marina once famously said about the artist. Sadly, that very often proved to be true.

Picasso himself didn’t try to hide this fact about his personality. He once called women “machines for suffering” and boasted about being the one to push them to their limits. Even though he made lots of money during his life, Picasso never let his loved ones partake. After Marina’s own parents split up, Pablo ensured the little girl and her mother remained in abject poverty. He intended to “teach them a lesson” with the cruel and unnecessary act.

Things could have been worse, though. For decades, he mistreated women in relationships with constant infidelity and relentless verbal and emotional abuse. Of the half‑dozen women who featured significantly in Pablo’s life, two were driven to madness and institutionalized, while two more died by suicide.

10 horrible atrocities: The SS’s Darkest Crimes Revealed

The Schutzstaffel, better known as the SS, was the black soul of the Nazi regime. The group, whose name means “Protection Squadron,” was founded in 1925 to guard Adolf Hitler and his inner circle. When Heinrich Himmler seized control of the SS in 1929, he reshaped it into an elite force that embodied the Nazi party’s twisted master‑race doctrine. He filtered recruits by ancestry and unwavering political loyalty, turning the SS into the self‑styled guardians of “racial purity.” This article walks you through the ten most chilling atrocities they committed, each a stark reminder of how far cruelty can be systematized.

10. Horrible Atrocities Overview

Below you’ll find a countdown of the ten most grotesque crimes carried out by the SS, from the early days of political repression to the industrialized murder of millions. Each entry includes vivid details, dates, and the horrifying scale of the violence, accompanied by original photographs that bring the history into sharper focus.

10. Torturing Political Prisoners

The first Nazi concentration camp, Dachau, opened its gates in March 1933, not as a death factory for Jews but as a holding site for German political dissidents. Roughly 4,800 inmates—mostly communists, socialists, and democrats—were crammed into the SS‑guarded facility after Hitler’s rise to the chancellorship made open opposition a capital offense. Without a trial, these prisoners faced either brutal incarceration or outright execution.

The murder of a detainee named Sebastian Nefzger sparked a public investigation by a Munich prosecutor, but the inquiry quickly hit a wall. Hitler responded by stripping Dachau of any judicial oversight, granting the SS unilateral authority over its affairs. This move eliminated any external checks, allowing the SS to kill at will.

New SS regulations mandated that any inmate who disobeyed rules would be beaten, and anyone attempting escape would be shot on the spot. These draconian rules set the template for every subsequent concentration camp, cementing a regime of terror that would expand across Europe.

9. The Night Of The Long Knives

Shortly after its formation, the SS earned a reputation as the ruthless enforcers of Nazi policy. By the early 1920s, Adolf Hitler had already encouraged his followers to use violence against political opponents. By April 1934, Himmler, now head of the SS, also commanded the Gestapo, the secret state police, giving him a powerful tool to hunt down dissent.

Himmler turned his attention inward, targeting the Sturmabteilung (SA), the original paramilitary wing of the Nazi Party. The SA had grown too independent and powerful for Hitler’s liking. To consolidate power, the SS orchestrated a purge from June 30 to July 2, 1934, aimed at eliminating SA leaders and other perceived threats.

More than 85 murders—likely hundreds—were carried out, most by SS members, in what became known as the Night of the Long Knives, a name evoking the ancient Saxon surprise attack on the Britons. This three‑day bloodletting cemented the SS’s dominance within the Nazi hierarchy.

8. The SS Einsatzgruppen’s Destructive Polish Campaign

The SS’s top priority was to eliminate any perceived threat to Nazi rule, and the Einsatzgruppen—mobile killing squads—were a key instrument of that policy. Formed in 1938 as Germany annexed Austria and parts of Czechoslovakia, the Einsatzgruppen initially served as a military support unit. Their role exploded with the invasion of Poland in September 1939.

About 3,000 men were organized into six units, tasked with eradicating Jews and crushing Polish political resistance after German troops seized control of an area. From September 1 to October 25, 1939, the Einsatzgruppen were responsible for more than 16,000 deaths and the razing of over 500 Polish towns. In the first weeks alone, they made 10,000 arrests.

Although early on the Einsatzgruppen conducted brief trials, SS intelligence chief Reinhard Heydrich ordered that all prisoners be shot or hanged without legal process, claiming the killings were not happening quickly enough. Their methods grew so barbaric that even Wehrmacht commanders lodged complaints, especially after reports of hundreds being burned alive inside synagogues.

7. Establishing The Generalgouvernement

When Germany’s 1939 invasion of Poland ignited World War II, the conquered territory was split into three zones. The central region became known as the Generalgouvernement, a pseudo‑administrative area designed from the outset to serve as a laboratory for SS atrocities against Jews.

Although the official governor was Hans Frank, real power rested with SS‑Obergruppenführer Friedrich Kruger and his cadre of SS officers and police. They imposed the Nazi racial agenda, exploiting the region’s 12 million inhabitants as forced labor. Any act of Polish resistance that resulted in a German death prompted public executions of 50‑100 Poles.

The SS also carried out mass arrests and killings to intimidate the population, plundered cultural institutions, seized artworks, and commandeered financial assets. Food supplies were deliberately restricted, leaving civilians with barely enough to survive. For Jewish Poles, the situation was even more dire: their property was confiscated, they were forced into slave labor, and by 1942 many were deported to nearby extermination camps where the majority perished.

6. The Night Of Crystal

Kristallnacht, literally “the Night of Crystal,” unfolded on November 9‑10, 1938, when Nazi officials orchestrated a coordinated pogrom across Germany, Austria, and the Sudetenland. Local Nazi offices received orders to launch a “spontaneous” outburst of violence against Jewish communities.

Instructions explicitly forbade harm to non‑Jewish Germans or foreigners, required the removal of synagogue archives before demolition, and directed firefighters to stand by while synagogues and Jewish businesses burned. Police were told to arrest as many healthy, young Jewish men as possible.

During the two‑day frenzy, 267 synagogues were destroyed, hundreds more damaged, over 7,500 Jewish businesses vandalized, at least 91 Jews murdered, and countless rapes recorded. The SS and Gestapo rounded up more than 30,000 Jewish men and shipped them to concentration camps, where hundreds died. Kristallnacht marked the first large‑scale, state‑sponsored mass incarceration based on ethnicity and paved the way for the Nazis’ systematic expropriation of Jewish property, including a punitive fine of roughly $400 million levied on the community.

5. Kidnapping And Germanization Of Aryan Children

The SS’s obsession with “racial purity” extended beyond murder to a grotesque program of child abduction and forced Germanization. Himmler publicly declared that the war in Poland offered an opportunity to “sift” young people of “good racial stock” from the conquered populations.

In 1939, SS officials began systematically evaluating Polish children aged two to twelve. Those deemed “racially valuable” were ripped from their families and placed with childless SS officers or families deemed of “good race.” The children underwent intensive indoctrination in institutions designed to erase their native identities. Those judged “worthless” were often sent to forced‑labor farms in Germany.

Estimates suggest that roughly 200,000 Polish children were seized, with another 200,000 taken from other Eastern‑European nations. While a handful were eventually reunited with surviving relatives, many grew up never recalling their true origins, their lives forever altered by the SS’s twisted social engineering.

4. Using Rape And Sterilization To Degrade Women

Testimonies, diaries, and eyewitness accounts reveal that thousands of Jewish women suffered sexual violence at the hands of SS personnel during pogroms and within concentration camps. The SS sanctioned a network of at least ten brothels inside camps, where women were forced into prostitution to serve as a perverse incentive for male prisoners and as a source of perverse gratification for guards.

Although Nazi law forbade “Aryan” SS members from having sexual relations with Jewish women, countless violations occurred. Victims endured brutal assaults, often used as a method of torture intended to break their spirits. In addition, the SS implemented a campaign of forced sterilization and coerced abortions, rendering tens of thousands of women infertile. Many survivors also suffered permanent reproductive damage due to the repeated violence.

3. Biological Warfare

The SS, as the so‑called “Protection Squadron,” was tasked with internal security and also with seeking new ways to wage war. Among their more macabre projects was an investigation into biological warfare. In 1942, an entomological research institute was set up at Dachau, despite Adolf Hitler’s explicit ban on such weapons.

Himmler enlisted the expertise of Eduard May, who examined insects—especially mosquitoes, fleas, and rats—to determine whether they could be used to spread diseases like malaria among enemy populations. May’s work focused on identifying the most efficient vectors, though he personally refused to conduct experiments on human subjects and never handled infectious agents directly.

Ultimately, the SS never progressed beyond theoretical studies, as the war’s shifting tides and resource constraints prevented the development of a functional bioweapon program.

2. Mobile Gas Chambers

As the German war machine pushed eastward into the Soviet Union, the SS’s Einsatzgruppen—literally “mobile killing units”—expanded their murderous repertoire. One of their most chilling inventions was the mobile gas van, a vehicle whose exhaust system was altered to pump carbon monoxide into a sealed compartment, effectively turning the back of the truck into a moving death chamber.

These vans were first deployed at the Chelmno killing site in late 1941. Victims were rounded up at their homes, forced into the vans, and driven to nearby mass graves where the bodies were dumped after suffocation. By 1943, the gas vans had claimed at least 152,000 lives, and many historians view this method as a grim precursor to the industrialized genocide of the Final Solution.

1. The Final Solution’s Killing Centers

The “Final Solution” was the Nazi euphemism for the systematic extermination of the Jewish people. After years of escalating hatred and discriminatory legislation, the SS leadership formalized a plan to annihilate European Jewry. On July 31, 1941, following Hitler’s delegation of all security responsibilities to Himmler, SS General Reinhard Heydrich received orders to begin preparations for the mass murder.

The operation, initially trialed in the Generalgouvernement under the code name “Operation Reinhard,” established three extermination camps—Sobibor, Belzec, and Treblinka—each equipped with gas chambers designed for rapid killing. Soon after, Auschwitz‑Birkenau was expanded to function as the largest killing center, where roughly one million Jews perished.

In total, the SS oversaw the murder of approximately 2.7 million Jews across these death factories, a horrific testament to the industrial scale of genocide orchestrated by the Nazi regime.

When it comes to the glittering world of Broadway, the top 10 iconic productions often hinge on the verdicts of the press. After the curtain falls on opening night, the cast and crew sit in suspense as critics unleash their pens, shaping public perception one review at a time.

Why These Top 10 Iconic Musicals Faced Harsh Reviews

10 Oklahoma!

While the original production of this truly groundbreaking musical garnered almost exclusively positive reviews, Daniel Fish’s 2019 Broadway revival was incredibly divisive.

Not a single word of the original production is changed. However, through costuming, blocking, gender‑swapping, and more, Fish was able to transform a classic show into something entirely different—and not for the better, according to many.

Some reviews called it “edgy,” “dark,” and “terrifying,” which could be construed as positive, but many reviews weren’t so generous. WTTW News claimed the show “wreaks havoc on a musical theater classic” and that it’s “a travesty of a mockery of a sham.” There even were reports of audiences leaving the show early and even some “audible vomiting.”

So, not a beautiful morning!

9 Moulin Rouge!

Based on Baz Luhrmann’s 2001 movie, Moulin Rouge! is truly a spectacle to behold. It has everything you could want in a Broadway musical: dazzling costumes, chorus lines, acrobats, moving sets, beautiful people, and an audience chomping at the bit for more.

But according to critics, there is one thing this show doesn’t have: substance. The show has no original songs, making it a “jukebox” musical (a show that uses pre‑existing songs). It spends so much time showing off its sets and costumes it hardly remembers there’s supposed to be a plot.

Most reviewers agreed there wasn’t much depth to this supposed love story between writer Christian and courtesan Satine, leaving the audience empty emotionally. But the producers of the show seem to know what they’re doing: The show has boasted such stars as Titus Burgess, Riverdale’s Casey Cott, JoJo Levesque, and Boy George, keeping ticket‑buyers coming back for more and ensuring the show’s glamorous marquee continues to shine on Broadway.

8 Be More Chill

The film Be More Chill, based on the 2004 novel, follows nerdy teenager Jeremy as he implants himself with a supercomputer chip programmed to make him cooler. An interesting score and some funny characters accompanied the 2015 world premiere of the musical version (also called Be More Chill), but that wasn’t enough to save the show when it moved to New York City.

Songs from Be More Chill went viral during its 2018 Off‑Broadway run, so by the time the show transferred to Broadway in 2020, thousands of teens flocked to the Big Apple to catch it. Unfortunately, both the COVID‑19 pandemic and low ticket sales from adults (the main demographic for Broadway) caused the show to flop financially.

And the reviews didn’t help. While some critics enjoyed the experimental nature of the music, which used instruments such as the theremin, the majority found the show too childish, poorly written, and repetitive. Ben Brantley of the New York Times probably summed it up best when he wrote that Be More Chill was like “one of those high‑pitched dog whistles that only those under 25 can hear.”

So, while the show might not be as famous as others on this list, scroll through TikTok for a few minutes, and I can almost guarantee you’ll stumble across a tune from Be More Chill. The tween fandom is still very much active.

7 Suessical The Musical

Now a staple in elementary schools across the country, Suessical seemed dead on arrival when it premiered on Broadway in 2000.

While Dr. Seuss’s books, the source material for the show, are filled with heart and clear morals, the same can not be said for Suessical. Rather than focusing on just one Seuss story, the musical attempts to combine multiple into one mega‑plot. The result was a cluster of confusion, no real depth, and characters that were more caricatures than relatable people.

The biggest complaint about Suessical was that the show couldn’t decide whether it was for children or adults. While this meant failure on Broadway (the show couldn’t even be saved by a short stint featuring Rosie O’Donnell as the Cat in the Hat), the show has gone on to find a home at community and school theaters for children who are less concerned with clever lyrics and parents who are just excited to see little Billy play the Grinch.

6 The Rocky Horror Show

Not to be confused with the iconic The Rocky Horror Picture Show, the 1975 movie adaptation of the 1973 musical The Rocky Horror Show, opening on Broadway to abysmal reviews. The New York Times called it “campy trash,” while Newsweek claimed it was “tasteless, plotless, and pointless.”

The funny thing is, this all may be true, but that doesn’t stop the show from being a whole lot of fun! The nonsensical yet extraterrestrially sexual plot seems just to be an excuse for the actors to jump around in their underwear, making crude jokes. And audiences love it.

While most people know that midnight moving showings of The Rocky Horror Picture Show are a place to throw food and shout out jokes, not as many know that the stage version encourages this as well.

Rocky Horror is interesting because, critically, it is a bad musical. But who cares about what the experts think when you can have a fun two and a half hours throwing toast and screaming “A**hole!” at Brad Majors?

5 Gigi

Based on the 1958 musical movie of the same name, Gigi seemed like it was meant to be a surefire hit. Starring Broadway superstar Corey Cott and High School Musical alum Vanessa Hudgens, Gigi opened its revival stage production in 2015.

The main compliant critics had with this show was how clean it was. Despite the fact that the show is about a teenage prostitute, the New York Times mentioned it “has been scrubbed of anything even remotely naughty or distasteful” and that Gigi’s job as a prostitute “is alluded to in such delicately vague terms that no parent chaperoning a tween… will have much explaining to do after the curtain has fallen.”

While this may have interrupted the show’s integrity as a piece of art, it did boost ticket sales. Hudgens’s young fanbase and the show’s classic Broadway feel allowed tourists with children to enjoy the Tony‑nominated, splashy production.

4 Beetlejuice

Beetlejuice follows the same plot as the 1988 Tim Burton movie it’s based on: Undead demon Beetlejuice meets a recently dead couple, and hijinks ensue. The odd plot lends itself well to a musical adaption, and the show has blown up on social media, particularly TikTok, with songs such as “Dead Mom” inspiring lip‑syncing trends.

However, while the youth may adore the show, adult professional critics largely do not. The New York Times claimed Beetlejuice catered to its younger audience by frequently relying on cheap one‑liners and stupid gags, leading to “sensory overload.”

Even the most positive reviews admitted that there’s not a lot of substance behind the mediocre songs and recycled jokes. “Exhausting,” “gross,” and “ill‑conceived” are just a few of the worst things this show has been accused of being.

Luckily, most teens don’t rely on the NYT to know what to see on Broadway. A catchy song and impressive voice work from the title character is all it takes nowadays.

3 Les Misérables

Trying to adapt a 1,200‑page book into just two and a half hours of showtime is a difficult task, and the reviews of the original production of Les Misérables reflect this. Opening in 1985, one critic called the show “witless and synthetic entertainment,” while another compared it to “attempting to pour the entire English Channel through a china teapot.”

While the music and performances were loved, audiences and critics simply couldn’t get past how much was left out of the original novel. One of the most infamous reviews of the show comes from Francis King in the Sunday Telegraph, who described the show as “a lurid Victorian melodrama produced with Victorian lavishness” without the missing context of Victor Hugo’s book.

Despite these poor reviews and the long run time, Les Misérables got the last laugh, eventually going on to become the second longest‑running musical in the world and winning Best Musical at the Tony Awards.

2 Merrily We Roll Along

Anyone who’s been keeping up on Broadway this year knows this season’s hot ticket is Stephen Sondheim’s Merrily We Roll Along. Tickets are going for hundreds of dollars, and this production about a group of friends coming of age (told in reverse) stars Harry Potter star Daniel Radcliffe and Frozen’s Jonathan Groff.

This is a revival of one of the most infamous Broadway flops of all time. Before the show had even officially opened, there were reports of audience members walking out, and leading man James Weissenbach dropped out of the show. Opening night didn’t go much better: Critics ripped the show apart, calling it both boring and confusing. To combat the issue of audience members being unable to tell characters apart, producer Hal Price dressed everyone in sweatshirts with their names on them.

After just 16 performances, Merrily ended its original run. Since then, composer and lyricist Stephen Sondheim has been recognized as one of the best in theater history, and more familiarity with the odd style of the show and Sondheim’s complicated lyricism has allowed the newest revival, which opened in 2023 to usher in a new era of appreciate for the flopped show.

1 Wicked

With Jon Chu’s big‑budget adaption set to premiere later this year with pop superstar Ariana Grande at the helm, it’s hard to believe there was ever a time Wicked wasn’t one of the most beloved shows on Broadway.

Wicked started performances in San Francisco in 2003, to generally mixed results. The production was highly anticipated, with lyrics and music by Stephen Schwartz (who also did such famous shows as Pippin and Godspell). While Idina Menzel and Kristin Chenoweth’s performances were universally admired, many critics found the music generic and the lyrics trite.

Karen D’Souza of the San Jose Mercury News wrote that “style over substance is the real theme in this Emerald City,” suggesting that while the sets and costumes were dazzling, there wasn’t much of a story beneath all the glitz and glamor of this Wizard of Oz retelling.

So how did Wicked become the cultural symbol of Broadway it is today? Thanks to some great rewrites, by the time the show made it to New York City, Schwartz and the creative team had taken critics’ advice and tightened things up. Although reviews were better for their Broadway opening, these good reviews wouldn’t be enough to allow the show to take home the coveted “Best Musical” Tony Award: It lost to Avenue Q, a show starring some seriously disturbed puppets.

Welcome to the world of 10 gross horrible discoveries that will make you question everything you thought you knew about newborns. From hidden teeth to mysterious fluids, we dive into the quirkiest, most unsettling details that turn the cute factor up to eleven. Buckle up, because parenting just got a lot more interesting.

10 Gross Horrible Facts About Babies

10 Babies Have Two Sets Of Teeth

We’ve all gone through the rite of passage that involves baby teeth, the Tooth Fairy, and the eventual arrival of adult molars. The twist? Those adult teeth don’t just appear out of thin air after we lose the milk chompers. In fact, the entire set of baby teeth is already formed before we even take our first breath.

Once we’re born, a hidden army of permanent teeth begins its quiet invasion, nesting in tiny pockets behind the primary set. They patiently wait until the baby teeth tumble out, at which point they emerge, ready to take over the chewing department. This stealthy swap means a newborn’s gummy grin is actually a secret stash of future dentition.

So the next time you marvel at that innocent, toothless smile, remember you’re looking at a miniature dental workshop, packed with both baby and adult teeth, biding their time behind the scenes.

9 Babies Have More Bones Than Adults

Babies roll into the world with roughly 300 tiny bones, a stark contrast to the 206 solid structures adults eventually end up with. This surplus exists because many of those early bones are actually flexible cartilage plates destined to fuse together as the child grows.

The reason for this bony abundance is practical: a newborn’s skeleton needs to be pliable enough to squeeze through the birth canal. The skull, in particular, is composed of several separate plates that can shift and overlap, granting the head the necessary give‑and‑take during delivery.

Those overlapping plates create soft spots—known as fontanels—where the bone hasn’t yet sealed. While essential for birth, these openings can become a double‑edged sword later on.

If a baby spends too much time resting on the back of a soft spot, the pressure can flatten the skull, giving it a soufflé‑like appearance. Prolonged flattening may even reshape the entire head into a teardrop silhouette.

Fortunately, simple interventions—like giving the infant more tummy time—or, in more severe cases, custom‑made helmets can help correct the deformation and guide the skull back to a healthier contour.

8 Babies Have Huge Eyes

There’s something undeniably magical about the way a newborn’s eyes lock onto you, wide and full of wonder. Those orbs spark an instinctual urge to protect, making us coo, gasp, and melt all at once.

But if you take a closer look, you’ll notice those eyes are almost oversized. A newborn’s ocular size is already about 70 percent of an adult’s, meaning they’re practically full‑grown from day one.

Combine those massive peepers with the fact that babies also carry two full sets of teeth in their tiny jaws, and you have a head that must be proportionally larger—about a quarter of the baby’s total body length—to accommodate everything.

7 Babies Start To Taste And Smell Before Birth

It’s no secret that babies love to shove anything they can grasp into their mouths. What many parents don’t realize is that this sensory quest begins well before they take their first breath.

Inside the womb, the amniotic fluid acts as a flavorful soup, absorbing whatever the mother consumes—vanilla, carrots, anise, mint, even garlic. Research shows that fetuses can detect and even develop a preference for these flavors, meaning they arrive on the scene already primed for certain tastes.

The fluid itself might be a bit icky, but it serves as a rich tasting ground. And the surprises don’t stop there: newborns sport taste buds not only on their tongues but also along the back of the throat, right down to the tonsils, giving them a full‑body palate.

So, while it may feel like a cruel joke, those early taste‑and‑smell adventures are actually a sophisticated way for the baby to start mapping the world of flavors before ever meeting solid food.

6 Babies Are Born Covered In Thick, White Goop

The womb is a constantly moist environment, but the amniotic fluid’s acidity isn’t exactly skin‑friendly. To shield delicate newborn skin, nature equips babies with a protective coating known as vernix.

Vernix is a creamy, cheese‑like substance that looks like a thick, white blanket. It does more than just keep the skin from drying out; it dampens sound, provides insulation, and even acts as a natural lubricant during the birthing process.

Trying to scrub every last speck of vernix off a newborn is practically impossible, and many parents end up feeling a pang of loss when they finally see the baby’s skin uncovered. That coating also helps lock in moisture, keeping the baby’s epidermis supple.

Once the vernix finally disappears, the newborn’s skin begins to dry, and within one to three weeks the first layer of skin typically peels away, leaving a flaky, sometimes crusty surface—quite the opposite of the “soft as a baby’s bottom” myth we grew up hearing.

5 Babies Menstruate

While still nestled in the womb, a baby absorbs a cocktail of hormones from the mother, including estrogen. Newborns, however, lack the capacity to produce these hormones on their own, causing estrogen levels to plummet shortly after birth.

That sudden drop triggers the shedding of the uterine lining—a miniature version of a menstrual cycle. For babies with a uterus, this means they can experience a tiny period within days of entering the world.

Imagine the panic when a parent discovers fresh blood in a newborn’s diaper and rushes to the ER, only to learn that the infant is simply “menstruating” at two days old. It’s a bewildering, yet perfectly normal, physiological response.

4 Babies Are Covered In Hair

Most expect a newborn to emerge bald and smooth, but some babies arrive looking like tiny wolf pups, covered in a fine, soft hair called lanugo. This hair acts as an insulating blanket, helping to keep the fetus warm inside the womb.

Lanugo also plays a role in anchoring the vernix coating, ensuring that the protective goo stays put during the birthing process. Most babies shed this hair before birth, letting it dissolve into the amniotic fluid, but a few retain a noticeable fuzz for a short while after delivery.

3 Babies Pee In The Womb And Then Drink It

Around the tenth week of gestation, a fetus’s bladder becomes functional, allowing the baby to start excreting urine into the surrounding amniotic fluid. This urine becomes part of the fluid’s composition, adding a new element to the baby’s liquid environment.

Five weeks later, the developing baby gains the ability to swallow. From that point on, the infant ingests several ounces of amniotic fluid each day—urine and all—providing a continuous cycle of intake and excretion that helps condition the newborn’s digestive system even before birth.

2 Babies Sometimes Poop In Utero, Too

The first stool a baby produces is called meconium, a thick, tar‑like substance that typically appears after birth. In some cases, however, the infant releases meconium while still in the womb or during the birth canal passage.

Meconium is primarily composed of swallowed amniotic fluid, along with mucus, bile, and lanugo—the fine hair shed before birth. This mixture creates a dark, somewhat unpleasant material that can be alarming for parents and medical staff alike.

When meconium is expelled before or during delivery, it can obstruct the newborn’s airways, leading to breathing difficulties. Nurses must quickly suction the baby’s mouth and nose to clear the passages, ensuring the infant can take its first breaths without obstruction.

1 Science Says You Should Probably Poop On Your Baby During Birth

Most expectant mothers dread the idea of having a bowel movement during labor, but emerging research suggests that a little poop might actually benefit the newborn.

The pelvic muscles used for defecation are the same ones employed to push during delivery. When the baby gets a coating of fecal matter, it indicates that those muscles are working in unison—an encouraging sign that the birth is progressing well.

Beyond the mechanics, exposure to maternal stool can jump‑start the infant’s microbiome, seeding the gut with helpful bacteria that aid digestion and bolster the immune system. Since newborns start life with a nearly sterile gut, this natural “starter kit” can be crucial for healthy development.

For this microbiome boost to occur, some of the stool must make its way into the baby’s mouth, a process that sounds uncomfortable but ultimately supports the child’s long‑term health.

Renee is an Atlanta‑based graphic designer who enjoys researching strange topics and writing the occasional list.

10 Horrible Cases Of Medical Malpractice

When you think of doctors, you probably picture white coats, steady hands and a bedside manner that could calm even the most jittery patient. Yet, as the saying goes, even the best‑trained professionals can slip up, and those slips can be downright terrifying. In this roundup of 10 horrible cases we dive into some of the most cringe‑inducing medical blunders of recent years – from operating on the wrong side of the brain to patients catching fire in the operating theatre. Buckle up; the world of medicine isn’t always as sterile as it seems.

1 Wrong‑Side Brain Surgery

Rhode Island Hospital, a flagship teaching institution linked to Brown University, managed to turn a routine craniotomy into a three‑time tragedy within a single year. The first mishap occurred when a third‑year resident neglected to mark the correct hemisphere, leaving the surgical team to operate on the opposite side. The second incident involved a seasoned surgeon with over two decades of experience who simply omitted the side‑of‑lesion notation on the patient’s chart, trusting his memory – a gamble that cost an 86‑year‑old man his life weeks later. The third blunder was perhaps the most baffling: both the chief resident and a nurse double‑checked the intended side, only to slice the wrong hemisphere anyway. Three distinct teams, three identical errors – a stark reminder that checklists are not optional.

2 Fake Surgeon’s Pec‑Implant Gaffe

Body‑builder Alexander Baez, a former Mr. Mexico and Mr. Universe runner‑up, walked into what he thought was a legitimate pectoral‑implant operation in 1999. Instead, the imposter surgeon Reinaldo Silvestre – a man with forged credentials and a penchant for using kitchen utensils as surgical tools – installed a pair of C‑cup breast implants. Silvestre’s fraud didn’t stop there; he also performed illicit surgeries on at least two women in Florida before fleeing to Belize, where he allegedly treated hundreds more patients over a year. The case highlights how a counterfeit medical license can turn a cosmetic procedure into a lifelong nightmare.

3 Anesthesia Awareness

Carol Weihrer’s ordeal reads like a horror script. Undergoing a five‑and‑a‑half hour enucleation of her painful right eye, she spent roughly two hours awake because only the paralytic component of the anesthesia took effect. As the surgeon blasted disco music and barked commands like “Cut deeper, pull harder,” Carol was helplessly conscious, hearing every cut while her body lay paralyzed. When the team finally realized she was awake, they flooded her system with additional nerve‑blocking agents, leaving her with a sensation described as “being roasted on a barbecue pit.” The experience left her so traumatized she now sleeps only in a recliner, fearing any return to a supine position. Anesthesia awareness affects an estimated 42,000 Americans each year, and Carol’s story is a chilling illustration of its impact.

4 Surgical Fires That Turned Operating Rooms Into Infernos

Most patients worry about the surgeon’s skill, not the possibility of the operating theater catching fire. Yet Janice McCall, 65, succumbed to complications six days after a mysterious blaze ignited during her surgery in 2009. While the cause remains classified, other documented incidents shed light on how such infernos ignite. In 2012, Enrique Ruiz suffered second‑degree burns when an electrosurgical scalpel sparked an oxygen‑rich environment, causing a flash fire. Catherine Reuter, 74, endured second‑ and third‑degree burns after an alcohol‑based disinfectant on her face ignited from a cauterizing tool, leading to severe infections, kidney failure and eventual death two years later. Surgical fires, though rare, affect roughly 650 patients annually, underscoring the need for stringent fire‑prevention protocols.

5 Forgotten Retractor Inside a Chest

Leaving foreign objects inside a patient is a nightmare that occurs about 1,500 times a year in the United States. Daryoush Mazarei’s case stands out because the retained item was a ten‑inch surgical retractor lodged in his chest, visible on X‑ray yet dismissed as a hallucination. After months of relentless pain, repeated visits, and a dismissive hospital staff that suggested a psychiatric issue, Mazarei finally demanded a CT scan. The scan confirmed the metal culprit, which was subsequently removed. His legal battle against the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center highlights how a simple oversight can spiral into a decade‑long saga of suffering.

6 Double‑Organ Transplant Blood‑Type Mismatch

Seventeen‑year‑old Jesica Santillan’s story is a tragic illustration of how a single clerical slip can cost a life. After receiving a heart and double‑lung transplant at Duke University Hospital, her body rejected the organs. Investigation revealed a glaring error: Jesica’s blood type was O, yet the donor organs were type A. Over a dozen verification steps were bypassed, and the hospital concealed the mistake for eleven days before publicly acknowledging it. A second transplant was attempted two weeks later, but Jesica was declared brain‑dead and taken off life support. Her mother contends the hospital deliberately weaned her off medication to hasten her death, adding a layer of alleged malice to an already devastating mistake.

7 Kidneys, Testicle, Leg

Identifying the correct organ may sound straightforward, but surgeons have occasionally gotten it spectacularly wrong. In 2000, 70‑year‑old Graham Reeves of Wales died after two surgeons mistakenly excised the wrong kidney. Benjamin Houghton, an Air Force veteran, received a $200,000 settlement after doctors removed his healthy testicle instead of the diseased one. Willie King, a diabetic patient, was awarded $1.15 million after his right leg was amputated in error, forcing a second surgery on the correct limb. These blunders underscore that even with modern imaging, human error can still lead to catastrophic outcomes.

8 Unnecessary Jaw Surgery for a Non‑existent Cancer

Kim Tutt sought a jaw‑bone biopsy after a routine dental X‑ray revealed a suspicious lump. Doctors warned she had three to six months to live unless a radical surgery removed the left side of her chin and replaced it with a fibula graft. Desperate to spend time with her teenage sons, she consented. Post‑surgery, the pathology report declared her cancer‑free – only to discover a lab mix‑up had swapped her samples with another patient’s. In reality, she never had cancer at all, yet endured five invasive procedures and permanent facial disfigurement. Her case highlights how a single administrative error can alter a life forever.

9 Therapist‑Patient Abuse Under the Guise of Re‑Parenting

Paul Lozano’s trauma extended far beyond his childhood abuse. His psychiatrist, Margaret Bean‑Bayog, employed a controversial “re‑parenting” technique, treating him as an infant: calling him “baby,” demanding he repeat affirmations like “I’m your mom and I love you,” and even engaging in sexual relations. The therapy sessions devolved into erotica, with Lozano eventually committing suicide after years of manipulation. The case illustrates that malpractice isn’t confined to the operating room; it can also thrive in the therapist’s couch.

10 Controversial Lawsuit Over a One‑Limb Birth

Bryan Mejia entered the world without arms and with only one leg – a birth defect that sparked a heated legal battle. Parents Ana Mejia and Rodolfo Santana sued Palm Beaches Medical Center, alleging negligence for failing to detect the anomaly via ultrasound, claiming they would have aborted the child had they known. Dr. Morel, the defending physician, argued the ultrasound images showed all four limbs, and that the parents declined amniocentesis, which carried a 1‑in‑500 miscarriage risk. The couple ultimately received a $4.5 million settlement, not for pain but to support Bryan’s quality of life. The case ignited a national debate over reproductive rights, medical responsibility, and the ethics of suing over a child’s congenital condition.

These ten harrowing stories serve as stark reminders that even the most advanced healthcare systems are vulnerable to human error, miscommunication, and outright fraud. While medicine saves countless lives daily, the shadows cast by these mishaps urge continuous vigilance, stricter protocols, and unwavering accountability.

Across the globe, countless derelict edifices sit in a state of mournful decay, exuding an unmistakably eerie, desolate atmosphere. Among these, the 10 eerie derelict sites stand out for the grim events that unfolded within their crumbling walls.

While many abandoned structures were left to rot for ordinary, unremarkable reasons, a handful bear witness to darker, more tragic histories. Below you’ll find ten such places, each with a story that will make you think twice before stepping inside.

10 Eerie Derelict Sites Overview

This neo‑Gothic palace in Celles, Belgium—also known as Chateau de Noisy—was erected between 1886 and 1907 as a lavish summer retreat for the affluent Liederkerke‑De Beaufort clan. Its ornate towers and sweeping façades, however, took an ominous turn when the Nazis commandeered the estate during World War II, turning it into a military outpost where German troops were quartered. The chateau later became a battlefield during the ferocious Battle of the Bulge, and the surrounding skirmishes claimed the lives of numerous soldiers within its stone corridors.

After the war, the building was repurposed as a “holiday camp” for convalescing children—a euphemism that hardly masks the grim reality. Many of the young patients never recovered, their fates intertwining with the building’s morbid legacy. The specter of restless souls seemed to linger until the structure was razed in 2017, forcing any lingering ghosts to seek new haunts elsewhere.

9 Sanzhi UFO Houses

Rising like a fleet of silver saucers on the coast of New Taipei, Taiwan, the Sanzhi UFO Houses were a bold experiment in futuristic architecture that proved that sleek design offers no protection against misfortune. Construction began in 1978 with the promise of a luxurious resort for American military officers stationed nearby. Yet, before any guests could arrive, the project was abruptly abandoned after a spate of mysterious deaths among the construction crew—including fatal car accidents and reported suicides—cast a pall over the site.

Local lore swirled with theories: some blamed a severed Chinese dragon sculpture that allegedly unleashed a curse, while others whispered that the ground itself was haunted by the spirits of Dutch soldiers. Regardless of the cause, the eerie pod‑shaped structures stood empty until demolition crews finally tore them down at the close of the 2000s.

8 Willard Asylum

Perched in the quiet hamlet of Willard, New York, the Willard Asylum for the Chronic Insane was built in the 1860s as a progressive sanctuary for the mentally ill—a time when many patients endured confinement in grim poorhouses or were shackled in tiny cells. Conceived by Dr. Sylvester D. Willard, the sprawling complex featured separate wings for men and women, a cinema, a gymnasium, and even a bowling alley, all designed to brighten the lives of its residents.

Despite these humane intentions, the asylum’s legacy is stained by a massive, unmarked cemetery holding thousands of nameless graves. The true chill came after the facility shuttered in 1995, when workers uncovered over 400 suitcases tucked away in an attic. Inside lay an intimate trove of personal effects—children’s toys, family photographs, and cherished books—offered by patients who never left, their belongings forever frozen in time.

7 The Murder House

In Dundee’s affluent Roseangle district stands a three‑storey Victorian mansion that locals dub the “Murder House.” Once home to retired physician Alexander Wood and his wife Dorothy, the couple’s tranquil retirement ended in brutal horror on a May night in 1980. An intruder broke in, wielding a hammer, and savagely beat the elderly duo to death—a crime so savage that Detective Chief Superintendent Jim Cameron described the scene as “not normal.”

The perpetrator, Henry John Gallagher, later committed two additional murders in Kent before being apprehended. Declared criminally insane, he was sent to Broadmoor Hospital rather than prison. The house itself lingered in dereliction, becoming a macabre waypoint on Dundee’s Dark Dundee tour, and as of August 2018, plans were floated to convert the grim relic into a bar and restaurant.

6 Fort Douaumont

Perched near Verdun, France, Fort Douaumont was originally erected after the Franco‑Prussian War to thwart a German incursion. Though its massive stone walls promised security, the fort never saw action until World I, when the French abandoned fixed fortifications and a small garrison was overwhelmed by a surprise German assault at the outset of the Battle of Verdun.

The French eventually reclaimed the fort in October 1916, spurring a nationwide drive to restore this symbol of national pride. The recapture was savage: relentless artillery and grenade explosions filled the central magazine with toxic smoke, killing roughly 800 German soldiers. With the battlefield still raging, the dead could not be interred outside, so many were sealed within the fort’s galleries, their skeletal remains now part of an ossuary that still haunts the underground chambers.

5 St. Gerard’s Hospital

In Birmingham, England, the abandoned St. Gerard’s Hospital stands as a stark reminder of how decay can amplify dread. Founded in the 1890s by the charitable Father Hudson Society, the facility served impoverished children suffering from tuberculosis and other poverty‑linked illnesses for nearly a century before closing its doors for the final time in 1988.

What makes the site truly unsettling is that, after abandonment, none of the interior furnishings were removed. Visitors still encounter rusted beds, wheeled chairs, syringes still stained with blood, faded X‑ray films, and children’s toys and coloring books left to deteriorate under the elements. The lingering presence of these objects creates an almost tangible sense that the patients and staff never truly left.

4 Church Of The Nine Ghosts

Officially named St. George’s Church, the 14th‑century sanctuary in Lukova, Czech Republic, earned the nickname “Church of the Nine Ghosts” after a series of calamities. Consecrated in 1352, the stone church endured repeated fires that scarred its interior, yet each time the community rebuilt it—until a final tragedy in 1968. During a funeral service, the roof collapsed, prompting locals to deem the building cursed and abandon it altogether.

Local artist Jacob Hadrava rescued the forsaken structure by converting it into a haunting art installation. He placed nine shrouded plaster figures in the pews, christening the work “My Mind.” The eerie tableau quickly attracted tourists, especially those with a taste for the macabre, and additional ghostly figures have since been added to the original nine.

3 Hulme Hippodrome

Manchester’s Hulme Hippodrome opened its doors in 1901, dazzling audiences with music‑hall performances before being rechristened the Second Manchester Repertory Theatre in the 1940s. The venue hosted legendary acts, including Nina Simone, and later served as a bingo hall in the 1970s before falling silent.

The theatre’s eerie reputation deepened when the controversial Gilbert Deya Ministries purchased the building. Deya claimed to provide “miracle babies” to infertile couples—a promise that led to a 2004 BBC investigation uncovering allegations of child kidnapping from Nairobi, Kenya. The scandal culminated in Deya’s 2017 extradition to face trafficking charges, leaving the once‑vibrant Hippodrome steeped in a chilling, unresolved legacy.

2 Hirta

Hirta, the principal island of the St Kilda archipelago off Scotland’s western coast, once housed a small, resilient community that eked out a living farming potatoes, barley, and seabird eggs while fishing the surrounding seas. The settlement comprised a cluster of stone houses, a school hall, and other essential structures, all perched on a remote, windswept landscape.

The island’s isolation proved fatal during the harsh winter of 1929, when a brutal cold snap claimed numerous lives and left only 36 survivors. Overwhelmed by grief and desperation, the remaining residents petitioned the government for evacuation, and in 1930 the last families left Hirta forever. Today, the abandoned stone cottages and ruins stand as a stark reminder of a vanished way of life, drawing occasional tourists who brave the journey to this desolate outpost.

1 Red Dress Manor

Known locally as Red Dress Manor, the actual name of this deserted farmhouse is Calcott Hall, erected in 1725 in Powys, Wales. The last occupant, Ellen Jones, passed away in the 1970s, leaving the house frozen in time as if she had simply stepped out for a moment. The refrigerator still holds the food she left behind, paperwork sits on the kitchen table, and family photographs line the walls, all untouched for decades.

The eerie nickname stems from a vivid red dress that Jones hung over a doorway, where it has remained for over forty years. A framed portrait of her wearing the dress also hangs nearby, cementing the image of a woman eternally poised on the brink of departure. Little is known about Jones’s life or cause of death, but the palpable sense that her spirit lingers makes a walk through the manor feel like stepping into a living ghost story.

I am a freelance writer based in Dundee who has previously written sketches and jokes for BBC radio shows. I also make short films as a member of Wardlaw Films.

Men have held power since humanity’s dawn, and at every turn women have been pushed to the margins, forced into a second‑class existence. These 10 horrible realities lay bare the grim daily experiences that defined female life across centuries.

10 horrible realities of female oppression

10 Newborn Girls Were Regularly Left To Die

In ancient Athens it was a distressing norm for parents to abandon newborn daughters in the wilderness, a practice recorded as “exposing” the infant. A Greek author lamented, “Everyone raises a son even if he is poor, but exposes a daughter even if he is rich.”

Rome mirrored this cruelty, especially among the indigent. A surviving letter from a low‑status Roman husband to his wife reads, “A daughter is too burdensome, and we simply lack the money; if you bear a girl, we must kill her.”

Even in Egypt—renowned for comparatively progressive women’s rights—poverty drove similar tragedies. An Egyptian husband wrote, “If the baby arrives before I return, let a boy live; if it is a girl, expose it.”

9 Men Wouldn’t Touch Menstruating Women

The Roman scholar Pliny the Elder claimed that a menstruating woman could sour milk and even cause a swarm of bees to die merely by looking at them. He believed the very presence of a woman in that state was toxic.

Egyptian customs isolated menstruating women in separate buildings that men were forbidden to enter. Similarly, ancient Israelite law declared everything a menstruating woman touched as unclean, and Hawaiian tradition imposed the death penalty on any man who entered a menstrual hut.

In Papua New Guinea, the belief was taken to an extreme: touching a menstruating woman was thought to blacken his blood, dull his mind, and lead to a slow death.

8 Losing Your Virginity Was A Death Sentence

In Athens, a father could legally sell an unmarried daughter into slavery if she was discovered to have had sexual relations. Among the Samoans, a bride’s virginity was publicly verified by the chief who would rupture her hymen before witnesses to prove purity.

Rome imposed a terrifying fate on priestesses of Vesta: losing virginity before age thirty meant being buried alive. In ancient Israel, any woman who lost her virginity before marriage faced the death penalty by stoning, regardless of her status.

7 Men Were Expected To Be Sexual Predators

Roman law regarded slaves as property, and sexual activity with a slave was expected as part of the owner’s rights. Trouble only arose if a slave belonged to another master and the owner failed to ask permission; such an act was deemed property damage, not rape.

Women in certain occupations—actresses, waitresses, prostitutes—could never press rape charges. A notorious case saw a gang‑raped actress denied the right to sue because the assault was ruled “in accordance with a well‑established tradition at a staged event.”

Even Saint Augustine, considered progressive for his era, suggested that some women might derive pleasure from rape, reflecting the pervasive misogyny of the Middle Ages.

6 Brides Were Often Kidnapped

In parts of China, bride kidnapping persisted into the 1940s; Japan’s last recorded case occurred in 1959, and 19th‑century Ireland saw widespread bride‑stealing. Biblical narratives also recount mass abductions of women as war spoils.

Roman mythic origin stories even celebrate the practice: Romulus allegedly told the abducted Sabine women that they should be grateful to be “lucky enough to live in honorable wedlock.”

5 Women Were Forced To Kill Their Babies

Across many societies, mothers of deformed infants were compelled to end their lives. Roman law explicitly ordered that “a dreadfully deformed child shall be quickly killed.”

In practice, Roman mothers could either suffocate the infant or abandon it. Archaeologists uncovered a mass grave of roughly one hundred infant skeletons in the sewers of ancient Ashkelon, Israel, underscoring the scale of the tragedy.

Scholars estimate that one in four Roman infants did not survive past their first year, a grim testament to the era’s harsh attitudes toward disability.

4 Women Were Barely Allowed To Talk

In ancient Greece and Rome, women were barred from leaving the house without a male escort, and during social gatherings they were expected to retreat to their chambers, forbidden from speaking or dining with men.

Denmark’s “shrew’s fiddle” was a wooden contraption shaped like a violin that imprisoned quarrelsome women, binding their hands and faces while they were paraded through streets as a public warning.

England’s “scold’s bridle” was an even harsher metal mask equipped with sharp teeth and a bell, forcing any outspoken woman to endure ridicule and humiliation.

3 Adulterers Were Tortured

In Roman society, a husband could legally kill his wife if he caught her committing adultery. Early American Puritans mirrored this, sanctioning the murder of adulterous women under biblical law.

Medieval Europe escalated cruelty with devices like the “breast ripper,” a torture instrument designed to tear a woman’s breasts—a punishment sometimes applied even for a miscarriage, not just infidelity.

The sheer brutality of these methods highlighted a societal willingness to inflict extreme suffering on women for perceived moral transgressions.

2 Women Were Killed With Their Husbands

Until the 19th century in India, widows were expected to immolate themselves on their husband’s funeral pyre, a practice known as sati. In wartime sieges, entire villages of women would voluntarily set themselves ablaze, taking their children, to motivate their husbands for battle.

Male relatives would watch the flames, later smearing the ashes of their spouses on their faces as a gruesome talisman before heading back to combat.

1 Women Have Gone Through This Since The Beginning Of Humanity

Archaeological evidence from prehistoric African sites shows that early men remained in one locale while women were born elsewhere, implying that women were relocated—likely abducted—into their husbands’ homes.

This pattern suggests that even before recorded history, women experienced one‑sided, non‑consensual unions, with many likely kidnapped from rival tribes and forced into marriage.

The Cecil Hotel, erected by William Banks Hanner, first opened its doors on December 20, 1924. Adjusted for inflation, its construction cost roughly $14 million—a true palace in its prime. Decades later, the building’s glittering reputation has been eclipsed by a litany of grisly incidents that still echo through its corridors. The Netflix documentary “The Vanishing at the Cecil Hotel” shines a spotlight on this shadowy past. Below are the top 10 horrible facts that make the Cecil Hotel infamous.

10 The First Suicide

Long‑time tenants began calling the Cecil “the suicide” as early as 1962, and the moniker wasn’t without merit. The very first death recorded in the hotel was that of William McKay in 1926, ruled a natural passing. The following year, however, marked a darker milestone: 52‑year‑old Percy Ormand Cook ended his own life by shooting himself in the head, setting a grim precedent for the years to come.

Since that inaugural tragedy, a disturbing variety of self‑inflicted deaths have occurred within the walls—overdoses, throat‑cutting, poison ingestion, leaping from rooftops or windows, and even gunshots. Cases like Grace Magro’s remain puzzling; she either fell or jumped from a nine‑story window, and her boyfriend claimed he was asleep at the time. As she plummeted, telephone wires snagged her, snapping from their poles and adding a surreal twist to the incident.

Another chilling episode involved Pauline Otton, who vaulted out of a ninth‑floor window, inadvertently killing an elderly pensioner strolling below. In total, twelve of the sixteen documented deaths linked to the Cecil are believed to be suicides, underscoring the hotel’s grim reputation.

Why These Are the Top 10 Horrible Stories

9 Skid Row Led to the Downfall of the Cecil Hotel

During the 1940s, the Cecil basked in opulence—its marble lobby and sleek décor attracted affluent travelers. Yet city officials in Los Angeles chose a different path, steering the burgeoning homeless population toward the area now known as Skid Row. This district became a dumping ground for individuals released from jails and mental institutions, and the nearby Cecil gradually transformed from a luxury landmark into a dilapidated relic.

The hotel morphed into an extension of the surrounding skid‑row ecosystem, offering long‑term rooms at rates far cheaper than typical hotel prices. This shift drew a new clientele—addicts, sex workers, and the chronically homeless—altering the establishment’s ambiance and safety profile dramatically.

Renovating the entire structure proved financially prohibitive, and stakeholders deemed a full‑scale overhaul unviable. Consequently, in 2011 the property underwent a partial makeover and was rebranded as “Stay on Main,” a thin veneer over a building steeped in decay.

8 There Was a Ghost Sighting at the Hotel

Given the cascade of murders and suicides, many suspect a lingering, malevolent energy within the Cecil. In 2014—less than a year after Elisa Lam’s mysterious death—an 11‑year‑old claimed to have captured a spectral figure on camera, appearing to hang outside a fourth‑floor window. While skeptics debate the image’s authenticity, the sighting fuels rumors that restless spirits still roam the corridors.

In January 2021, the paranormal series “Ghost Adventure: Cecil Hotel” aired a two‑hour special that marked the first documented investigation inside the building. Host Zak Bagans, accompanied by his crew and two psychic mediums, explored the infamous site and retraced Lam’s final steps, offering viewers a chilling glimpse into the hotel’s alleged hauntings.

7 A Woman Was Found Dead in the Water Tower

Canadian student Elisa Lam checked into the “Stay on Main” wing on January 26, 2013. Initially placed in a shared room, she was moved to a private space after fellow guests reported odd behavior. Lam vanished without a trace by January 30, prompting a frantic search.

Weeks later, guests began complaining about discolored, foul‑tasting water. A maintenance worker eventually discovered a woman’s body bobbing in the rooftop water tank. Surveillance footage captured Lam behaving erratically in an elevator, leading many to speculate she was fleeing an unseen threat. While the official ruling labeled her death an accident, the eerie circumstances continue to spark debate, especially after the Netflix documentary delved deeply into the case.

6 The Hotel Inspired American Horror Story Season

Ryan Murphy’s fifth season of “American Horror Story,” titled “Hotel,” draws heavily from the Cecil’s macabre legacy. The series centers on a shadowy Los Angeles hotel called the Cortez, weaving together tales of murder, paranormal activity, and unsettling guests. Notably, the show incorporated the real‑life serial killer Richard Ramírez—who once lodged at the Cecil—into the episode “Devil’s Night.”

Murphy has openly admitted his fascination with the Cecil, especially the baffling footage of Elisa Lam trapped in an elevator. He described the hotel’s dark history as a wellspring of inspiration, cementing its place in pop‑culture horror.

5 The Black Dahlia May Have Stayed There

In 1947, at the height of its glamour, rumors swirled that Elizabeth Short—the infamous “Black Dahlia”—spent evenings drinking at the Cecil’s bar. Short, an aspiring actress, was later found brutally murdered in the nearby Leimert Park area, her body grotesquely bisected at the waist. The sensational nature of the crime captured national attention, yet the perpetrator was never apprehended.

Although no concrete evidence confirms Short’s presence at the hotel, the speculation adds another layer of intrigue. Her tragic story has inspired countless books, films, and endless speculation, cementing her place among America’s most notorious unsolved murders.

4 The Hotel Will Not Be Reopening

Despite the growing trend of “true‑crime tourism,” the Cecil remains shuttered since 2017. A Forbes article reported that, contrary to rumors of imminent renovations, the hotel is not slated to reopen. Earlier plans envisioned a late‑2019 reopening, featuring a full‑service bar, 299 in‑room mini‑bars, a ground‑floor restaurant, and a rooftop venue with over 600 seats.

Developers even secured a $30 million loan in 2020 to fund a massive redevelopment, but the COVID‑19 pandemic stalled progress. As of now, the future of the building hangs in uncertainty, leaving its haunted legacy untouched.

3 Serial Killers Stayed at the Hotel

The Cecil’s dark reputation is underscored by the fact that two confirmed serial killers called it home. In the mid‑1980s, Richard Ramírez—dubbed the “Night Stalker”—occupied a top‑floor room, slipping through the hotel’s chaotic environment unnoticed. After committing murders, he would discard blood‑stained clothing in the dumpster and even stroll naked through the hallways, never arousing suspicion.

In 1991, Austrian killer Johan “Jack” Unterweger, masquerading as a journalist, also lodged at the Cecil. Under the guise of researching crime and prostitution, he murdered three sex workers and allegedly strangled at least ten women overall. The hotel’s proximity to a thriving red‑light district made it a convenient hunting ground for his atrocities.

2 Pigeon Goldie Was Murdered in Her Room

On June 4, 1964, the tragic murder of 65‑year‑old Goldie Osgood—affectionately known as “Pigeon Goldie”—shocked the community. A telephone operator for the hotel, Osgood was discovered in her room, having been raped, stabbed, and beaten. A hotel employee found her lifeless body amid a ransacked space, confirming a brutal assault.

Goldie earned her nickname by feeding birds in nearby Pershing Square, often wearing a Dodgers cap stuffed with birdseed. The cap, still brimming with seed, was found beside her. Friends recalled seeing her just minutes before the dreadful discovery, underscoring the suddenness of the crime.

Police arrested Jacques B. Ehlinger after spotting him wandering Pershing Square in blood‑stained clothing, yet he was never formally charged for Osgood’s murder. The case remains unsolved, leaving a lingering mystery over the hotel’s dark past.

1 Down Will Come Baby…

In 1944, 19‑year‑old Dorothy Jean Purcell, staying at the Cecil with her 38‑year‑old boyfriend, awoke with severe stomach cramps. Unaware of her pregnancy, she gave birth on the bathroom floor, believing the infant was stillborn. Fearing the shock of waking her boyfriend, she threw the newborn out of a window.

Police later retrieved the infant’s lifeless body from a neighboring roof. An autopsy revealed air in the baby’s lungs, indicating the child was still breathing when it was hurled, meaning the infant died after the fall. Purcell faced murder charges, but the court found her not guilty by reason of insanity.

Three independent forensic psychiatrists testified that Purcell was mentally disoriented at the time, and she never offered any explanation beyond believing the baby was already dead. The harrowing episode remains one of the most disturbing chapters in the hotel’s sordid history.

When we talk about the top 10 horrible ways enslaved people were tormented in the United States, the stories are chilling, shocking, and painfully real. Slavery stands as one of America’s darkest chapters, and the cruelty inflicted on human lives was often as inventive as it was savage. Below you’ll find a detailed, yet conversational, rundown of the ten most gruesome punishments recorded in American history.

Why These Are the Top 10 Horrible Punishments

10 Whipping

In the United States, owners routinely lashed slaves—including expectant mothers and youngsters—as a method of discipline. The infamous portrait of a man known as “Gordon,” also called “Whipped Peter,” shows a back covered in a lattice of scarred skin, evidence of relentless, repeated floggings.

Yet some masters escalated the cruelty. When the fresh wounds began to knit, they ordered the injuries to be cut open again, then smeared with irritants such as red pepper and turpentine. One harrowing account even describes an owner grinding a brick into dust, mixing it with lard, and forcing the gritty paste into the slave’s open wounds.

9 Mutilation

Enslaved laborers were often forced to toil under brutally harsh physical conditions, whether on sprawling cotton fields or within the confines of a plantation house where a polished appearance was demanded. Those with lighter complexions or more refined speech were sometimes assigned to domestic work, yet protection of their bodies was rarely a priority.

When slaves clashed with each other or resisted their overseers, owners frequently resorted to savage mutilation. The spectrum of violence ranged from cutting off an ear or slicing flesh to more extreme acts such as amputating limbs, gouging out eyes, slicing hamstrings, or even castrating both men and women.

Medical care was a rarity. Victims often succumbed to infection, massive blood loss, or other complications stemming from the brutal injuries inflicted upon them.

8 Brandings

Branding involved searing a heated metal instrument into a slave’s flesh, typically to mark ownership. Large enterprises would brand slaves to make them instantly identifiable and deter theft or resale, later using these marks as bodily proof that such practices had indeed occurred.

In Louisiana, the “Code Noir” authorized branding as a penalty for runaway slaves. By 1840, New Orleans had become the nation’s biggest slave market, subjecting countless individuals to this gruesome decree.

Across the Southern states, branding was a common response to escape attempts. Often a letter or distinctive symbol was burned onto a slave’s face, effectively barring them from household duties or skilled work and branding them as perpetual property.

7 Smoked Alive

Although various slave states passed statutes that ostensibly protected enslaved people’s welfare, enforcement was virtually nonexistent. Over time, distinct punitive methods gained regional popularity.

Escaped slave William W. Brown recounted a terrifying practice in Virginia: an owner would bind slaves in a smokehouse, whip them, then ignite a fire using tobacco stems. The resulting smoke would suffocate the captives, adding another layer of torment.

6 The Hogshead

First‑hand testimonies from former slaves often reveal the most grotesque forms of cruelty. Moses Roper, born to an African mother and a Native American mother enslaved by his English father, escaped and chronicled his experiences, detailing a litany of barbaric punishments.

Roper described a perverse pastime where a slaveholder hammered nails into the interior of a large barrel—known as a hogshead—leaving sharp points protruding inward. Enslaved people were then crammed inside and rolled down steep hills for the amusement of the owner and onlookers.

10 Slaves Who Became Roman Catholic Saints

5 Suspended Beneath A Cooking Fire

Harriet Jacobs, another escaped enslaved woman, documented the horrors she endured. She fled from a lecherous owner who repeatedly assaulted her, ultimately hiding in her grandmother’s attic crawlspace for seven years before escaping to England.

In a separate gruesome tale, Jacobs reported a nearby slaveholder who owned hundreds of enslaved individuals. His favorite punishment involved tying a slave upright, igniting a fire above them, and cooking a slab of pork. As the fat melted, it dripped onto the captive’s exposed skin, searing them with burning grease.

4 Demotion Or Sale

While this punishment may appear less overtly violent than others on this list, its ramifications could be life‑or‑death. George Washington, a noted proponent of whipping and other corporal punishments, also endorsed demoting slaves who fell short of expectations and selling repeat offenders.

Enslaved people who once performed domestic or skilled labor could be stripped of those positions and forced into the backbreaking work of the fields. This shift exposed them to harsher conditions, more severe overseer abuse, and, in the worst cases, sale to particularly cruel owners who would work them to death.

3 Public Burnings

Public spectacles of punishment were common, intended to intimidate the enslaved population. Other slaves were forced to watch as a stark warning that any disobedience could lead to a similarly gruesome fate. Spectators from neighboring towns often attended, treating the ordeal as entertainment.

One especially barbaric method involved tying a slave to a stake or suspending them above a fire. Some victims lost consciousness from smoke inhalation before the flames took hold, while others endured the agonizing burn of the fire itself until death.

2 Term Chaining

The use of iron shackles is well documented throughout the slave trade, beginning on slave ships where captured Africans were bound together in the vessel’s hull. For repeat runaways, owners often imposed long‑term chaining, attaching slaves to workstations or to one another.

Sometimes entire lines of enslaved people were linked by chains to perform menial tasks in unison—a practice that later evolved into the chain gangs of American prisons.

One notorious figure, Madame Delphine LaLaurie, became infamous for her extreme maltreatment of slaves, even by 19th‑century standards. Investigations into her household continued until a fire erupted in 1834.

According to accounts, an elderly female slave who worked as a cook allegedly set the blaze as a desperate suicide attempt. She had been shackled to the stove’s fire, and after the flames spread, investigators uncovered a horrifying scene in LaLaurie’s attic: numerous slaves suspended by their necks, limbs stretched and torn by chains.

1 Forced Reproduction

Enslaved individuals routinely endured severe sexual violations, including rape, with no legal protections to shield them. Pregnant women resulting from such assaults rarely received medical attention; instead, they often faced harsher treatment from their masters’ wives.

Male slaves were likewise exploited, effectively “pimped out” by owners and forced into sexual relations with multiple women. This systemic abuse was a calculated means to increase the slave population.

Following the 1808 U.S. Act Prohibiting the Importation of Slaves, a shortage of enslaved labor spurred a booming internal market. As a result, slaves were frequently bought and sold based on their perceived child‑bearing potential, and owners compelled them to mate with other enslaved people to produce more offspring.

While some enslaved people could choose partners, many were matched according to physical characteristics documented in meticulous records, turning human lives into commodities.

Top 10 Misconceptions About American Slavery

About The Author: Brittany is a freelance writer from New Zealand. She spends most of her time traveling, reading, and connecting with different cultures. With a professional background in mental health and addictions, she is always on the lookout for new research and breakthroughs.