Certain big movies feel inseparable from their directors, seeming to extend directly from the unique stylistic, thematic, and dramatic places that make those directors who they are on screen. But film productions are more fluid than many of us realize, with frequently more than one filmmaker coming and going before the picture actually gets made. And, surprisingly often, Steven Spielberg is at one or the other end of this process!

These are just a few of the many, many massive movies that have come close to being made by a totally different talent before fate, death, financiers, or good old-fashioned bad timing intervened.

Related: Top 10 Famous Directors Who Were Fired

10 Solaris (2002)

Steven Soderbergh’s only science-fiction movie to date is, perplexingly, a remake of Andrei Tarkovsky’s masterpiece Solaris (1972). Despite initial reluctance from audiences to approach the movie with an open mind, Solaris won out against its critics (for the most part) by leaning into Soderbergh’s gritty yet visually awe-inspiring directorial style and has stood the test of time.

However, James Cameron was originally going to helm the 2002 project. The Terminator director spent several years securing the rights to Solaris with an eye to conducting the remake himself. 20th Century Fox wanted Soderbergh to make a science-fiction picture, and, knowing that Cameron had the rights, Soderbergh took his shot with the veteran director.

Surprisingly, Cameron said yes, allowing Soderbergh to helm the project and side-stepping into the producer’s chair. And while some producers can be tremendously overbearing—especially if they wanted to make the movie themselves—Cameron trusted the younger director’s vision and took a hands-off approach, even allowing Soderbergh to depart from the original narrative.^[1]

9 Schindler’s List (1993)

The iconic Holocaust movie Schindler’s List feels like it could only have been directed by Steven Spielberg, given how deeply enmeshed it is with his filmic sensibilities and Eastern European Jewish heritage. Yet Irish-Catholic New Yorker Martin Scorsese was once attached to direct the picture.

This was during a turbulent period when Spielberg felt he simply couldn’t crack the script for Schindler’s List, touring it around a number of different writers and doubting his own abilities to tackle such a big subject. He gave it to Scorsese, feeling that the Taxi Driver director wouldn’t shy away from the violence, but eventually, Spielberg reneged on it, feeling that he’d “given away a chance to do something for [his] children and family about the Holocaust.”

Not only that, but Daniel Day-Lewis was originally in consideration to play Oskar Schindler when Scorsese was still in the director’s chair. However, when Spielberg took over, Day-Lewis moved on with Scorsese to film The Age of Innocence, and the role of Schindler went to Liam Neeson.^[2]

8 Cape Fear (1991)

The story of how Steven Spielberg came to direct Schindler’s List is inseparably tied to how Martin Scorsese came to direct Cape Fear. Spielberg was the first director on board with the crime thriller, but after being involved throughout development, he opted to trade Scorsese this picture for Schindler’s List.

The two directors arranged a trade in which Spielberg put Scorsese onto Cape Fear and reclaimed Schindler’s List for himself. And it’s lucky that they did because Cape Fear—with Robert De Niro in the lead role as a violent ex-convict who seeks vengeance against the public defender who he blames for his jail sentence—is Scorsese through and through.

But that’s not where the Jurassic Park director’s involvement with the property ends. Both Spielberg and Scorsese are currently lined up as executive producers of a TV adaptation of Cape Fear, which draws from John D. MacDonald’s original novel The Executioners while adopting a 21st-century setting to examine the U.S.A.’s present obsession with true crime.^[3]

7 Dune (1984)

Despite Denis Villeneuve’s recent success with it, Frank Herbert’s sprawling epic science-fiction series Dune has been notoriously difficult to adapt. Several attempts to make it were abandoned in the 20th century, before David Lynch’s maligned version, which put financiers off the property for several decades.

Given how much material Lynch needed to cram into a 137-minute runtime, it is little surprise that his film failed. But perhaps it would have succeeded in the hands of a director a little more suited to the subject matter—say, Alien and Blade Runner director Ridley Scott.

Scott was, in fact, attached to the film before Lynch. Hired by producer Dino De Laurentiis (who remained as producer after Scott left the project and shepherded in the subsequent disasterpiece), Scott worked on the script and had big ideas for the franchise. However, one trip to the set in Mexico that De Laurentiis had chosen to cut costs, and everything changed. Scott felt he couldn’t work in the sub-standard conditions the studio offered and went off to make the Tom Cruise fantasy flop Legend instead.^[4]

6 Alien: Resurrection (1997)

Many of the hardcore fanbase consider every Alien movie made after James Cameron’s 1986 sequel Aliens to be heresy against Ridley Scott’s original vision. Yet there is plenty to love in this mishmash of xenomorph content. Take Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s Alien: Resurrection, which combines action, humor, and a late-1990s aesthetic in an original, far-future story the like of which the franchise had never seen.

But the project almost went to a very different flavor of ’90s director—Danny Boyle. With Trainspotting and Shallow Grave already in the can, Boyle was a leading light of the decade, and Fox was keen to snap him up.

As a huge fan of the series, as well as Joss Whedon’s script—which was set to reintroduce the psychological and sexual overtones that Cameron and Alien 3 director David Fincher had largely ignored—Boyle was set to make his blockbuster debut. However, when it came down to it, the indie director felt intimidated by the scale of the picture and the level of special effects required. He was unwilling to meet studio demands to craft the film into an action flick in the vein of Aliens.^[5]

5 Spider-Man (2002)

Alongside Bryan Singer (X-Men), Sam Raimi was one of the first directors to show what superheroes could do on the big screen, paving the way for the MCU with his Spider-Man movies. Against all odds, the director’s quirky, dynamic, often slapstick style, which he had honed in low-budget horror pictures, was successfully brought to bear on the web-slinger’s world, creating a cinematic icon in the process.

How different things could have been if Chris Columbus, who is known for his warm, sensible, family-friendly movies, had stuck with the project. Spider-Man was Columbus’s childhood hero and one of the reasons he became a creative, so it was a perfect fit, especially as Sony wanted to court a family vibe to make as big a box office as possible on their 139-million-dollar movie.

But Columbus was hoping to snag Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone at the same time. He was so invested in Potter that he wrote up his own director’s version of the script in preparation for his meeting with the executives. He delivered a passionate 45-minute speech on why he ought to direct. Thus, when offered both Spider-Man and Potter—just a day apart—he went with his gut, not his heart.^[6]

4 Good Will Hunting (1997)

Good Will Hunting managed the unthinkable by transporting writer-stars Matt Damon and Ben Affleck from relative obscurity onto the Hollywood A-list, netting them the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay in the process. It didn’t hurt that they had veteran comic Robin Williams on board from early in the process. Producer-mogul Harvey Weinstein bought the movie for over $1 million before helping them find their director.

Mel Gibson was the first big name attached to the film, having demonstrated his ability to deliver a major production in the William Wallace historical epic Braveheart. Having never actually seen Braveheart, Damon and Affleck pretended they had while courting the actor-director, and he was convinced by them and their script to come on board.

Unfortunately, Gibson was terribly slow moving, developing the film over many months, and Damon approached him to ask if they could move forward with someone else. Gibson agreed, and indie auteur Gus Van Sant—who was enamored with the script—signed on, reining in the more avant-garde elements of his filmmaking to create a true Hollywood classic.^[7]

3 Jaws (1974)

Jaws, the original blockbuster, saw Steven Spielberg take a story about a killer shark and make cinematic history despite all manner of pre-production and on-set mishaps along the way. While it made the director’s name and paved the way for a stupendous career, he almost didn’t get the position.

Spielberg was just a junior director with few films to his name and fewer successes. Still, the producers knew about him and liked him so much that they let him look at the script while they already had another director signed on to make the movie—Dick Richards.

Thankfully, for pretty much everyone involved, Richards dropped the ball at the beginning of production. During an important meeting between the producers, the writer, and Richards, the Tootsie director kept calling the shark a whale, and Peter Benchley—writer of the original novel—took umbrage. As a result, the producers got rid of Richards and gave Spielberg the opportunity of his life. He was their preferred choice from early on, but it’s not like they were looking for just any reason to do this…^[8]

2 Dallas Buyers Club (2013)

Dallas Buyers Club transformed Matthew McConaughey and Jared Leto in the eyes of the film-viewing world with a groundbreaking drama about stigma and healthcare during the AIDS epidemic in the American South. While both actors had been in their fair share of great movies prior, this was the film that made their careers, in no small part, thanks to the rigorous direction of Jean-Marc Vallée.

But Dallas Buyers had been in the works for many years before it finally came to fruition. During this time, Marc Forster was the one hoping to be behind the camera when it finally started rolling.

Forster seized the project in the early 2000s after the success of his drama Monster’s Ball earned him widespread acclaim. Despite having Brad Pitt on board to star as real-life cowboy Ron Woodroof and the production requiring only a modest budget and no special effects, he could never get the film off the ground. And with plenty of other potential films vying for their talents, Forster and Pitt moved on. Luckily, Vallée eventually picked up the project and scored three Academy Awards in the process.^[9]

1 A.I.: Artificial Intelligence (2001)

Stanley Kubrick was a notoriously laborious filmmaker, spending much time sitting on material and far less actually shooting it. While this has left us with fewer Kubrick films we might like, it did wonders for the quality of his work.

The biggest victim of his procrastination is A.I., a film that he had been working over in his mind and on the page since the ’70s. However, he never got to see it made. Steven Spielberg had been Kubrick’s confidant on this project since the ’80s, and it was he who the Shining director entrusted to bring the film to fruition in his stead.

While fans and critics lambasted Spielberg for taking the film 2000 years into the future at the end, cutting away from the darker ending that many assumed Kubrick had wanted, their ire was misplaced. Kubrick always intended to transport the narrative to a post-human future and give the film’s android child, David, a final day with his mother—concluding on a bittersweet, heart-warming note that perhaps betrayed a softening in the director’s old age. In every frame and decision, Spielberg sought to honor his vision.^[10]

Mankind often stretches the boundaries of preconceived norms with creations so extraordinary that they become more than the sum of their parts. The Eiffel Tower is a cultural icon of France and, although not warmly received at first, its beauty has since transfixed people the world over.

So it might come as a surprise to learn that, from 1925 to 1936, French automobile manufacturer Citroen essentially utilized this extraordinary structure for the mundane task of advertising their brand. In fact, the very thing that saved the Eiffel Tower from demolition was its role as a radiotelegraph communications tower in World War I, hardly a glamorous occupation for one of the most romanticized structures in the world.

Despite having a functional purpose, the Eiffel Tower still remains extraordinary, but what about things mankind has created that are ordinary, even mundane in their very creation and essence? Let’s take a look at 10 man-made things that are so extraordinary, they deserve to transcend their ordinary origins.

10The Niesenbahn Funicular Service Stairway

It would be fair to assume that the longest stairway in the word is in an extraordinarily tall building, but that title actually goes to the service stairway running alongside the Niesenbahn Funicular railway near Spiez, Switzerland. At 11,674 steps, it claims the Guinness World Record for longest staircase in the world. To put 11,674 steps into more relatable terms, the stairway covers a distance of 3.5 kilometers (2.2 mi) and rises 1,669 meters (5,476 ft) in elevation along that distance.

Before you enthusiastically venture out to conquer this Everest of stairways, you must first register to do so. It’s only open to workers, excluding the annual stairway run—in which you can pay to run on stairs for over an hour. Admittedly, that sounds terrible, but since it’s in Switzerland the views are probably gorgeous.

9The Cleveland Federal Reserve’s Vault Door

From its installation in 1923 to its retirement in 1996, the 1.5-meter-thick (5 ft) door at the Federal Reserve of Cleveland served as the largest vault door installation in the world. At a weight of 100 tons, the swinging section of the door alone is akin to the weight of a Boeing 757 before fueling and loading, and its 5.5-meter (18 ft) hinge adds an additional 47 tons to the total weight. Yet it’s so perfectly balanced that one person can open and shut it with ease.

The door is so large and heavy that, when the time came to transport it to Cleveland, Ohio from York, Pennsylvania, the largest railcar in the United States was required to carry it, and the route had to be carefully planned to avoid bridges, because the sheer weight of the cargo threatened to collapse anything that wasn’t solid Earth. Once the car arrived in Cleveland, it took two full days just to unload the door from the railcar. No crane existed that was strong enough to lift it, so massive hydraulic jacks were used instead. If that wasn’t enough, once unloaded from the railcar, it took a total of four days to travel from the rail station to the bank, a distance of merely 1.6 kilometers (1 mi).

8Wartsila-Sulzer RTA96-C

The world’s longest ship, Emma Maersk, is astounding in its own right, with a size comparable to the height of the world’s tallest skyscrapers at 397 meters (1,302 feet). It’s been the record holder for the world’s longest ship since 2007, but it’s the heart of this mighty beast that’s truly staggering. It’s befitting that the longest ship on the planet be powered by the largest reciprocating engine in the world—the Wartsila-Sulzer RTA96-C, an engine roughly the size of a small three-story apartment building.

Without getting too technical, an engine of this size generates 110,000 horsepower and weighs 2,500 tons; compare that to the average horsepower and weight of an automobile engine at 150 horsepower and 160 kilograms (350 lb). Despite being so immense, the Wartsila-Sulzer RTA96-C is incredibly efficient, but nonetheless it still consumes 39.5 barrels of fuel every hour and costs $46 a minute to run.

7The Delaware Aqueduct

Many of us reading this have the luxury of instant access to clean water in the comfort of our homes, but we usually don’t think of the unseen engineering marvels put in place so we can do something so simple as fill a glass of water. Most modern cites aren’t blessed with the foresight of the founders to settle near an adequate water supply, and New York City is one of them. Early settlers dug the first permanent well in 1677, and the first reservoir delivered water to 22,000 residents via hollow logs nearly 100 years later in 1776. Aqueducts became the solution to New York’s growing population and their increasing thirst all the way up until 1944, when the Delaware Aqueduct was constructed.

As of today, it still delivers 50 percent of the metropolis’s drinking water. At 137 kilometers (85 mi) long, it is the world’s longest continuous tunnel, and its deepest point lies 450 meters (1,500 ft) underground—nothing short of incredible, considering that it was constructed by drilling and blasting through solid rock. The aqueduct is also incredibly efficient—95 percent of its water is delivered by gravity alone, which is no small feat considering it delivers 1.9 billion liters (500 million gal) of water per day. Unfortunately, the fact that it leaks up to 130 million liters (35 million gal) of water daily—and has been since 1988—makes it one of New York’s biggest current problems. Plans are underway to spend $1.2 billion on diversion tunnels by 2019.

6KVLY-TV Television Mast

Before Dubai’s Burj Khalifa was built in 2010, the record for the world’s tallest man-made structure belonged to the KVLY-TV antenna in North Dakota. It took just 33 days and 11 men to assemble the antenna to a dizzying height of 628.8 meters (2,063 ft). The tower is so tall that if one of those 11 workers dropped his wrench at the top, it would be traveling at 400 kilometers per hour (250 mph) by the time it reached the ground—fast enough to ruin your day in a hurry if it happened to land on your toes.

If you’re feeling brave, there’s a small, two-man service elevator that takes you 594 meters (1,950 ft) up the tower, but the last 275 meters (900 ft) or so—the actual antenna—are only accessible by climbing. The gusts up there can reach 112 kilometers per hour (70 mph) and the tower sways up to 3 meters (10 ft), so maybe it’s best just to visit the Burj Khalifa’s air-conditioned observation deck instead.

5The Australian BHP Iron Ore Train

How would you like to be stuck behind a train that is 7.3 kilometers (4.6 mi) long? While it might not seem that impressive at first glance, know that the amount of cars in this record-breaking run was a staggering 682 cars with a combined weight approaching 100,000 tons, making it both the longest and heaviest train to ever move. This becomes even more impressive when you learn that the entire train was under the control of a single driver harnessing the power of eight massive General Electric Diesel locomotives spaced evenly throughout the train to increase traction and braking forces.

BHP Iron Ore is no stranger to long trains, however, and routinely operates trains at half this size, meaning that they are regularly the largest trains on the planet at any given time. If you ever find yourself blocked at a railroad crossing by one of these beasts, it might be best to just head back the way you came.

4The Luxor Sky Beam

No matter how common lightbulbs are these days, it’s hard to overlook the light mounted on top of the Luxor Hotel in Las Vegas. This light is the second brightest man-made light in the world. While its setting is anything but ordinary, there’s no trickery or magic behind the “sky beam,” as it’s called in Las Vegas. It uses 39 xenon-powered lamps and the aid of simple reflector shields. Granted, these aren’t your average consumer-grade lightbulbs, as each one costs a hefty $1,200 and uses 7,000 watts. When combined as a unit, they make 40 billion candlepower. It’s so bright that it has reportedly been seen at night by airline pilots 430 kilometers (270 mi) away in Los Angeles, and the air temperature around the lamps reaches 260 degrees Celsius (500 °F).

This might sound impressive, but the world’s brightest light used to be even brighter when it was first installed in the 1990s. The hotel once claimed that American astronaut Daniel Brandenstein remarked that the light was so bright that it would awaken his comrades on the space shuttle. While that story was revealed to be a hoax, the Luxor sky beam is still powerful enough to use as a navigational landmark, as more than a few Las Vegas residents have admitted to doing.

3Large European Acoustic Facility

The Large European Acoustic Facility (LEAF) is so loud it can kill you. Glossing over how the scientists behind it found that out, let’s try to put one of the world’s most powerful artificial sound systems in more relatable terms. At its base, the LEAF isn’t much more than a juiced-up sound system pumping sound waves into an acoustically optimized room, similar to a loud stereo system playing into a hard-walled closet. The only difference is, the room is 15 meters (50 ft) tall and the system is fueled by nitrogen to produce sounds just 40 decibels quieter than a TNT bomb.

The device is used to test whether satellites and other electronics can withstand the decibels produced at takeoff. As some of the loudest man-made sounds on the planet, rocket blasts sometimes damage the sensitive equipment being launched into space. And yes, the LEAF can kill you—because of this, the designers engineered a fail-safe that doesn’t allow the system to be turned on unless the door is closed.

2The Aerium

Businesses fail all the time, and the more ambitious ones usually leave behind large facilities in their wake. Unfortunately, it’s much easier to sell a standard office building than it is to sell, say, an aircraft hangar 210 meters (688 ft) wide and 107 meters (350 ft) high. That’s the predicament German airship company CargoLifter AG found itself in in 2002 when they declared insolvency. Fortunately for tourists in Europe, the Malaysian company Tanjong had the extravagant plan to convert the world’s largest freestanding building into an indoor water park and resort.

The result is nothing short of astounding. While the structure is nothing more than a clever aircraft hangar, and the resort is standard fare for tourists and business moguls alike, the two combine to create one of the most fascinatingly odd man-made attractions in the world. Just how big is the world’s largest freestanding building? The Aerium can fit the Statue of Liberty standing up or the Eiffel Tower lying on its side; the floor space alone can fit eight American football fields. With all that space available, it’s barely surprising to learn that it holds a 2,700-square-meter (9,000 sq ft) pool with 180 meters (600 ft) of sandy shoreline. It also contains the world’s largest indoor rainforest with 50,000 trees.

1SEA-ME-WE-3

Submarine telecommunication cables are the unsung heroes when it comes to connecting the world. It seems that in our modern age of increasingly advanced technology and rapid development, the majority of communications would be delivered via satellites, but the reality is that most of our data circumnavigates the globe the same way our computers connected to the Internet 10 years ago—with really long cables. Most people don’t even know they exist, and SEA-ME-WE-3 is the world’s longest at a staggering 39,000 kilometers (24,233 mi). Completed in 2000, the cable runs from England to Australia and has 39 landing points in 33 countries and four continents.

What’s even more incredible than the sheer scale is how mundane and simple these cables are. Modern submarine fiber optic cables like SEA-ME-WE-3 are little more than 6.8 centimeters (2.7 in) in diameter, which accounts for a rubber shell, protective synthetic bedding, copper insulation, and the optical fibers themselves. The difference between your household Ethernet cords and submarine fiber optic cables isn’t that great in principle, and everyone who’s had a data cord break on them knows how frustrating it can be. As it turns out, this exact thing can happen to data cables as well.

A miscalculation by a ship’s navigator or even a curious sea creature can sever a cable, resulting in millions of users without Internet access. Even the mighty SEA-ME-WE-3 isn’t immune to the risks—this exact thing happened in 2005, resulting in Pakistan essentially being isolated from the rest of the world for weeks.

Patrick Fuller is a university student studying industrial design who is fascinated by incredible man-made things.

History is the study of the past through written documents, which means that most people technically didn’t make it into history at all. Traditional historians weren’t very interested in recording the fate of random peasants. But every so often, these forgotten people would force their way into the history books. Some even defied the aristocrats of the time and founded great empires of their own.

10Ya’qub The Coppersmith

Ya’qub al-Saffar (“the Coppersmith”) was an impoverished metalworker who lived in the city of Zaranj in the mid-ninth century. His brother, a mule driver named ‘Amr, lived close by. For most of their lives, eastern Persia was in a state of turmoil as the Abbasid caliphs vied for control with an extremist sect known as the Kharijites. As things descended into anarchy, local self-defense militias sprang up throughout the province. In Zaranj, Ya’qub and ‘Amr volunteered to join one such group.

Over the next few years, Ya’qub took control of the local forces, defeated the bandits plaguing the area, and expanded his power throughout the region. By 876, the Saffarid Empire spanned throughout modern Iran and Afghanistan. Ya’qub himself seemed certain to conquer Baghdad, overthrowing the mighty Abbasid Caliphate.

But it wasn’t to be. The Coppersmith suffered a narrow defeat just 50 miles from Baghdad. Wounded in the battle, he died three years later and was succeeded by his brother ‘Amr, who was unable to hold the empire together and was executed in a Baghdad marketplace.

9Rabih Az-Zubayr

Rabih Az-Zubayr was born in the Sudan at some point in the mid-19th century. Sold into servitude as a child, he became a slave-soldier for a local Sudanese ruler. When this prince was defeated by the Egyptians, Rabih fled into central Africa with around 400 survivors, who would form the kernel of his empire.

Attacking towns and villages as he went, Rabih built his ragged group of survivors into an army of 5,000 trained soldiers, complete with an artillery brigade. In the 1890s, he attacked the once-mighty Bornu Empire and quickly overran it. With impressive efficiency, he formed a tightly controlled empire east in the African interior east of Lake Chad.

Unfortunately for Rabih, his expanding empire ran up against the equally acquisitive French, and his outdated rifles and cannons were no match for the latest European military hardware. He still won several victories, including exterminating a French expedition at Togbao, but he was ultimately defeated and killed on the banks of the Logone River in 1900, bringing his empire to an end after less than a decade.

8Nader Shah

The last of the great Central Asian conquerors was born into a lowly family of herders in eastern Persia. His should have been a humble life, but Nader Shah was driven by a monomaniacal desire for power. He seems to have spent a short time as a slave early in life, before escaping and becoming a bandit. After his armed band helped defeat a local warlord, Nader came to the attention of Prince Tahmasb, a pretender to the throne.

Tahmasb made Nader his commander, which proved to be the best and worst decision he ever made. Nader was one of the greatest generals in history and quickly won numerous victories. But he was also unwilling to be a mere servant and murdered Tahmasb and claimed the throne himself, creating a mighty empire that stretched from Georgia to northern India.

In 1739, Nader launched his famous invasion of the Mughal Empire. After crushing the massive Mughal army, Nader sacked Delhi, making off with unimaginable treasures, including the famed Koh-i-Noor diamond. So much wealth was extracted from Delhi that Nader was able to cancel all taxes in Persia for three years.

Unfortunately, Nader began to show signs of mental degeneration, including bizarre acts of cruelty. In 1741, he had his oldest son blinded, then immediately claimed to regret it. Alarmed by his instability, a group of his own officers assassinated him in 1747, and his empire quickly fell apart.

7Timur The Lame

Nader’s career was impressive, but not that original—-he was merely following in the footsteps of another great and bloody conqueror: Timur the Lame (often known as Tamerlane in the West). Like Nadir, Timur was born to a humble family and became a petty bandit. Early records of his life say that he was once stealing some sheep when an angry shepherd fired arrows into his leg and arm, leaving him with minor disabilities (these injuries were confirmed by archaeologists who opened his tomb in 1941).

Timur took his group into the service of the Chaghatai Khans, then rose through their service and ultimately usurped the throne. He built a massive army of horsemen who raided and conquered in all directions, creating an army that ruled “from Damascus to Delhi.” He defeated the Golden Horde, razed Baghdad, and briefly destroyed the power of the Ottomans (Sultan Bayezid the Thunderbolt died as a prisoner of Timur).

Timur became known for the brutality of his conquests. He built towers of skulls, enslaved thousands, and wiped out ancient cities. He died of a bad cold in 1405, on his way to invade China, leaving his empire to disintegrate in his wake.

6James Brooke

James Brooke was born the son of a reasonably wealthy British judge, and he might have been expected to live out his life in comfortable obscurity. But James never seemed comfortable in 19th-century British society. When his father died, he used the inheritance to buy an armed schooner and sailed east.

In Singapore, he heard that the Sultan of Brunei was struggling to exert control over the island of Borneo. Brooke at once offered to help out, on the condition that he be made governor of Sarawak, a huge territory along the coast of the island. The Sultan was unenthusiastic, but was reluctant to challenge Brooke, who was falsely implying that he worked for the British government. He agreed, only for Brooke to rapidly assert his independence as the “White Rajah” of Sarawak.

Brooke cemented his new kingdom by forming an alliance with the coastal “Sea Dyaks,” who massacred the inland tribes whenever they stepped out of line. Brooke himself funded his operation as a pirate hunter, claiming the Royal Navy’s £20 reward for each pirate killed. This netted him up to £30,000 per expedition, although cynics noted that the dead “pirates” tended to be local opponents of Brooke.

Brooke consistently tried to present himself as a jolly English adventurer, but his rule was founded on bloodshed, including the massacre of 1,500 Chinese in 1857. The state of Sarawak outlived him, passing through the hands of two more “White Rajahs,” before the British bought it in 1946.

5The Mahdi Of Sudan

Muhammad Ahmad was born on an island in the Nile, not far from Dongola in northern Sudan. His family were humble boat-builders, but he sought a religious education from a young age and became known for intense devotion and arguing with his teachers. In 1881, he called his followers to Aba Island and declared himself the Mahdi, a messianic figure expected to appear before the Day of Judgment in most branches of Islam.

At the time, Sudan was ruled by Egypt, which in turn was effectively a British protectorate. This dual foreign influence was heavily resented, and it was taken as a miracle when the Mahdi’s poorly armed followers defeated an Egyptian attempt to arrest him. His religious movement grew rapidly in strength over the next few years, culminating in the stunning defeat of the British general “Hicks Pasha” in 1883.

In late 1884, the Mahdists launched their famous siege of Khartoum, which was stoutly defended by Charles Gordon, better known as “Chinese Gordon,” an oddball British general who was probably their equal in religious fanaticism. The city fell in 1885, leaving Muhammad Ahmad undisputed ruler of a religious empire stretching across modern Sudan. However, “the Mahdi” fell ill and died six months later. With the heart of their movement gone, his followers were not able to defeat a new Anglo-Egyptian invasion in in 1896.

4Babak Khorramdin

Over 150 years after the Muslim conquest of modern Iran, tensions remained high between the Arab caliphs and their Persian subjects. Many Persians continued to follow the Zoroastrian religion and resented the influence of Arab language and culture. The brewing revolution found a leader in Babak Khorramdin, a zealous follower of the Zoroastrian prophet Mazdak.

Babak began his career as a guerrilla fighter, launching lightning raids to seize isolated mountain fortresses, including his famously impenetrable castle of Ghaleye Babak. As his reputation grew, Persians flocked to his banner and by 819 his forces were capable of fighting pitched battles against the Caliph’s armies. Over the next 16 years, he defeated four Arab armies and gained a reputation as a protector of the poor.

But the might of the Abbasid Caliph was too great, and Babak was ultimately driven from his mountain stronghold and captured. His arms and legs were cut off, and he was allowed to bleed to death. Shortly before his capture, he had famously rejected an offer of amnesty, declaring that it was “better to live a single day as a ruler than 40 years as an abject slave.”

3Mahapadma Nanda

According to the Greek historian Curtius, the mighty ruler Mahapadma started life as the son of “a barber who earned just enough to eat each day. But he had a fine presence and thus gained the queen’s affection. Thanks to her influence, he obtained a position of trust . . . treacherously assassinated the king and, under the pretext of protecting the royal children, usurped the supreme authority.”

Indian sources agree, calling Mahapadma the son of a barber and a prostitute who rose from extremely humble beginnings to become prime minister of a north Indian kingdom, then overthrew the king and established his own dynasty. He was known for slaughtering rival nobles and refusing to follow the aristocratic rules of warfare, to the point that the Puranas dub him “the destroyer of the princely order.” Such ruthless tactics worked well, and by his death in 329 BC, he had expanded his rule to form the most powerful empire India had ever seen.

2The Slave Dynasty Of Delhi

Qutb al-Din Aibak was the founder of the “Slave Dynasty” that ruled northern India in the 13th century. As the name implies, he started life as a slave in Nishapur and was sold to Sultan Muhammad of Ghor. As an adult, he was placed in charge of the royal stables and later became a military commander, where he showed his true talent by conquering Delhi and most of northern India.

After the Sultan was assassinated by unknown assailants, Qutb found himself in the perfect position to seize power, which he duly did. Before he could become sultan, he had to gain his freedom, but his heavily armed soldiers ensured that his new owner was unlikely to refuse. The Mamluk (“Slave”) dynasty he founded would rule the Delhi Sultanate until 1290, when it was replaced by a more aristocratic lineage.

1Temujin

It’s impossible to imagine a worse childhood than that of Temujin, the greatest conqueror the world has ever known. When he was 12, his father was poisoned by his enemies, prompting the tribe to abandon his widow and orphans, leaving them with nothing. His mother, Hoelun, managed to keep the children alive by gathering food along the banks of a river, while the young Temujin hunted rats, marmots, and other small game. At 14, he killed his half-brother after an argument over a small fish.

It only got worse from there. At some point, he was captured by the Tayichiuds and forced to work as a slave. A failed escape attempt resulted in him being placed in a cangue, a stock-like device that left him unable to feed himself. He only survived thanks to the assistance of other slaves, before finally staging a successful escape by hiding in a river overnight.

Even as a young adult, Temujin was merely the head of a small band, barely scraping out an existence on the steppe. It was only when his young wife Borte was kidnapped by the Merkids and Temujin put together an expedition to rescue her that he truly started on the path to becoming the immortal Genghis Khan.

All of us have made a small mistake at one time or another, and most of the time it doesn’t turn into anything more than a minor problem. For this reason, the average person doesn’t generally worry too much about paying hyper-focus to detail, at least in most situations. However, there are some cases where a mistake can cause more than just a small problem. Sometimes, one minor error or one single lapse in judgment can cost billions, or lead to the death of thousands. Or, in some cases, potentially both.

10. Casually Using The N-Word on A Conference Call Has Serious Consequences 

Papa John Schnatter has become a case study in how not to talk at a conference call, to avoid marketing disasters. Back in May of 2018, he had been clarifying some earlier comments he made blaming the NFL for not doing enough about the protests regarding the national anthem when he decided to casually throw out the n-word — along with some other off-the-cuff comments many found offensive. Schnatter tried to explain that he was trying to show his antipathy towards racism, and not that he was being racist, but the damage was done. 

While Schnatter may have been worried about lost pizza sales due to decreased NFL viewership, his company soon had a much bigger problem. In July, the first month after the news of what he had said sunk in, sales in Papa John’s stores dropped 10.5%. To make matters worse, the company projected that this would likely be consistent for at least the rest of the fiscal year. As for Schnatter, while he still has a lot of stock in the company, and no one can just take that away from him, the controversy ended with him losing all the power he once had within his own company. 

9. A Small Accounting Error Caused A $4 Billion Discrepancy For Bank Of America 

Back in 2014, Bank of America found itself in hot water with regulators and was forced to suspend some payout plans while they sorted things out. You see, it turns out that for five years, Bank of America had been accumulating losses, and had not been reporting them to the regulatory authorities. This was no small amount either: It turned out that Bank of America had $4 billion of unreported losses, which was something they could handle but was also a very significant sum of money to lose. 

The excuse from Bank of America? Their accountants just got confused and missed it, simple as that. So, how did they manage to lose this much money until an internal review found it five years later? Well, it gets into some fairly complicated financial rules that even accountants don’t necessarily like dealing with, but the short version involves their acquisition of the troubled Merril Lynch. When they did this, they took on their debt, but they did not need to report it as a loss, as it was considered unrealized debt — at least until they sold it. The problem is they started selling the debt, finally realizing their losses, and their accountants didn’t realize they needed to report it. 

8. The Japanese Stock Market Had To Cancel $6 Billion In Transactions Due To A Small Error 

The Japanese Stock Exchange is the second biggest in the world, and Japan is known for having excellent technology as far as most of the world is concerned. So it may be a surprise to some to know that Japan has had multiple instances where their antiquated stock exchange system cost people gigantic sums of money. However, the truth is among stock traders and technology experts, the issues that Japan has had in the past with its stock exchange system are well known, and they have been under fire for not having properly updated systems as far back as the early 2000s when some of the worst errors began. 

In 2004, the first major cracks started to show when a single error caused a loss of $330 million. The error was a mistake by a clerk entering a number by hand into the system for an ew stock that was coming out, marking it as selling for a dollar a share, instead of several thousand dollars per share. Then, in 2014, a fat finger error by a broker who accidentally made 42 transactions and then immediately canceled them, caused such a mess the Japanese stock exchange had to cancel over $6 billion worth of transactions. 

7. You Should Be Careful With Translations When Deciding To Nuke People 

Mistranslations can create some of the worst misunderstandings in the world, but there has never been a greater tragedy caused by mistranslation than when the United States dropped an atomic bomb on two populated cities because of a double translation failure. It all started near the end of the war when the Allies sent terms of surrender to Japan, and then waited hopefully for a reply that would not mean more war. If the Japanese did not comply, they were prepared for very aggressive measures to ensure they did so. 

The Japanese government needed some time to decide, as the terms were strict and unconditional, but reporters wanted to know where things stood. A reporter asked the Japanese premier how he felt about the proposed terms, and he used the Japanese word Mokusatsu, trying to give the age-old response of “no comment.” Unfortunately, the word he chose was not a great choice, as it can mean silence, but it can also mean “to contemptuously ignore.” The reporter made the mistake worse by assuming the rude version and not even asking for clarification. She took her bad translation back to America with the results we all know too well. The story is now taught in some schools as a way to teach kids about miscommunication.  

6. Missing A Hyphen Can Have Tragic Consequences When Working With Rockets 

Have you ever been programming and forgot a single parenthesis and spent hours tracking it down? Or perhaps you sew, and once spent hours trying to find that one stitch that was out of place. Tiny little mistakes in life can be irritating, and make us spend hours of our valuable time doing something stupid and mostly pointless trying to fix or even find the problem. However, no matter how many times we have made a small mistake that caused us an inconvenience — or perhaps even cost our workplace money — most of us can rest easy knowing we never caused $80 million worth of damage because we missed a single hyphen. 

The incident we are referring to is the loss of Mariner 1, the United States’ first major attempt at an unmanned rocket to explore Venus. It was in the early days of space exploration, back in 1962, which meant eighty million dollars was worth closer to $640 million today. Mariner 1 went up, the misplaced hyphen caused its guidance systems to fail, and they were forced to abort the mission by destroying the rocket. In the end, over half a billion dollars was launched into the air, and it didn’t even last five minutes. 

5. If Not For A Single Mistake, The Crossing Of The Delaware May Have Failed 

The Crossing of the Delaware was one of the key moments in the American Revolution and has been immortalized forever in an iconic painting we all know. On Christmas night, Washington and his men snuck across using three different crossings and surprised the Hessian troops on the other side. Many like to talk about how the element of surprise was what won them the day, and there are even claims the Hessians were drunk from Christmas, although there is no proof of this. The truth, however, is that while Washington did his best to keep it secret, spies found out and warned the Hessian commander. 

The commander, General Rall, simply did not take Washington, or his band of men seriously. He thought of them as little more than a rabble, that his men could take without a fuss, and did not believe he was dealing with a real threat. Then on the day of, he received more messages from spies that an attack was imminent, but refused to fortify defenses or amp up security patrols. Instead, he simply told the spies they would meet the Americans with bayonets. In the end, one man’s casual arrogance led to one of the greatest defeats in military history. 

4. People Think We Avoided Y2K, But The Labor Cost To Save The World Was Massive 

Back at the turn of the millennium, many people were worried about Y2K, and how it might cause severe consequences or even the end of the world. Those who thought the world was going to end were a bit over the top, but the truth was that we were far closer to disaster than most people realized, and it was a very serious issue. While it was unlikely to cause a nuclear weapon to accidentally launch or something tragically similar, there was a very good chance that financial systems and other computer systems could suffer huge errors and glitches that had the potential to cause untold economic harm. 

The programmers who had caused the issue in the first place simply never thought their programs would be used decades later, and had given no thought to the mess they created for future generations. Thus, one of the greatest concerted efforts in modern human history, or perhaps human history as a whole, began. Programmers worked around the clock, manually switching out line of code after line of code, doing a tedious but necessary task to prevent disaster. Fortunately, they did manage to switch out the code in time, but that doesn’t mean the whole mess wasn’t costly. The labor costs to manually switch out all the code in time have been estimated at $100 billion. 

3. The Bay Of Pigs: Time Zones Are Important For Invasion Planning 

April 17, 1961, is a day that lives on in infamy as the day of the biggest screwup the CIA ever had and as something they dubbed a “perfect failure”. The plan was to take out Castro’s air fleet with a quick bomber strike, and then land an amphibious force of roughly 1,400 Cuban exiles. These men could be later supported with additional air support and the cover of a smaller attack on the other side of the island. Unfortunately, with a complex plan, there are more points of potential failure, and this became very apparent when the operation began. 

Among many mistakes, things went badly wrong just as the mission began. The bomber strike failed to destroy all of Castro’s bombers, leaving him with six, and plenty of air support. Then, the amphibious force suffered problems with unexpected coral reefs when landing. Things went from bad to worse, when Castro’s air support started tearing them apart, so they asked for backup air cover. The day may still have been won, but the air support arrived an hour late because of a misunderstanding of the time zones between Cuba and Nicaragua. To add insult to injury, the late-arriving air support had to fight alone and was easily destroyed. 

2. Forgetting To Convert Units Has Dire Consequences In Space 

In 1999, after 10 months of travel through space and countless expensive man-hours spent keeping an eye on its progress, the Mars Climate Orbiter reached its destination. It should have been a super happy day, but instead of a time of celebration at NASA, it became a day of loss and frustration. The Mars Climate Orbiter was given instructions for landing, and instead of landing properly, it crashed into the surface of Mars. So how did NASA lose a $200 million orbiter and all those man-hours? 

Well, the investigation found that there had been some confusion between NASA, and Lockheed Martin, who were both working on the orbiter. NASA was working with metric units, while Lockheed Martin was using American units for their data, and neither realized what the other was doing. This meant that on the day the Orbiter was supposed to land, the instructions they gave it with data from Lockheed Martin were not converted from the American units Lockheed Martin had used. This simple miscommunication and failure to convert units led to an expensive orbiter completely failing to do what it needed to do at the most crucial moment. 

1. The Most Expensive O-Ring Mishap In History 

On January 28, 1985, it was a colder than normal morning at Florida’s Cap Canaveral, but no one was bothered by the cold because excitement was in the air. The Space Shuttle Challenger was about to launch, and it was going to be broadcast live on TV for the whole world to see. Many schools across the United States had kids watching in the classroom as it was a huge educational event. Teachers also got to showcase one of their own, as a teacher was going up on the shuttle to inspire the public. Then, just 73 seconds after launch, tragedy occurred and the shuttle disintegrated on live television — killing all inside. 

An investigation was launched, and it was discovered that one o-ring acquired a fault due to the cold temperatures that morning. Whether the blame was mainly those at the top who felt under pressure to launch on time, or partly due to engineers who were afraid to voice their concerns has been picked over every which way over the years and there are various popular viewpoints. However, what is clear is that the United States lost a 3.2 billion dollar shuttle, traumatized a generation, and lost eight lives, including a school teacher and seven astronauts.

Life in the wild is full of amazing adaptations and deadly dangers. While many know some of these common adaptations, from camouflage and spines to thwart predators to webbed feet and aerodynamic wings for better movement. However, some adaptations are not as common and may only be limited to a particular species.

The animals in this list have found incredible ways to survive and thrive past problems that seem impossible o solve to the unaware observer.

Related: Top 10 Amazing Prehistoric Creatures With Unexpected Adaptations

10 Woodpecker Brain Damage

The classic, bullet-like pecking of the woodpecker is perfect for punching cavities into trees to roost and nest in and to easily uncover and pluck out delicious insects and their eggs hidden beneath the bark. It’s difficult to think that blurring intense head hammering of up to 20 times a second, at up to 24kph (15 mph), wouldn’t give them horrible concussions, if not complete brain damage from all the concentrated physical stress.

Naturally though, woodpeckers are perfectly designed to take the rapid impacts, with a tiny, light brain weighing 2 grams (0.07 ounces). It’s so small that it barely absorbs any of the pecking force, which is distributed through a dense, shock-absorbing skull. They even have a special bone, the hyoid bone, which wraps around their skull like a seatbelt for their brain. The woodpecker’s protection is so impressive that athletic equipment companies have even based helmets and neck collars on its head anatomy.^[1]

9 Naked Mole Rat Suffocation

Naked mole rats are known for their naked, baggy skin and digging intricate tunnel systems. Digging deep runs the risk of asphyxiation as oxygen sometimes drops drastically from an overcrowded population or lack of ventilation. But these animals can survive nearly 20 minutes without breathing, while mice die without oxygen in about 20 seconds.

Unlike all other known mammals, a naked mole rat’s brain cells don’t die or become damaged from oxygen deprivation. Its body slows to conserve energy in a vegetative state, and its metabolism becomes like a plant. Glucose burning depends on oxygen, but fructose can be turned into energy in an anaerobic pathway. Metabolizing fructose was previously thought by scientists to be only used by plants, but not anymore with this scrappy little mammal.^[2]

8 Burning Echidnas

Echidnas are a spiky Australian animal that is quite slow. This means the animals can’t avoid the hot continent’s raging bushfires. But they don’t need to because they have an even better fire survival strategy than just running for dear life. Echidnas dig their small bodies down into deep, cool soil and enter a torpor state, which lowers their body temperature and metabolism.

While they nap, the bushfire above can cause the spines on their back to melt from the burning heat, turning them into blunt nubs. But though its spikes may be on scorching fire, the echidna doesn’t feel the nerveless keratin, which even regrows later on. The oblivious echidna continues happily dozing off to the inferno raging above before waking up once it’s over. They can then emerge even days later to again forage for food.^[3]

7 Freezing Wood Frogs

During winter, the temperatures in Alaska and Canada can fall to -62 °C (-80 °F) at chilling, prolonged temperatures. Fortunately, most frogs survive by diving deep underwater to hibernate in coldness, where their body temperature never falls below freezing. But wood frogs have a much better strategy. They cover themselves in leaf litter on the forest floor for some insulation, but that isn’t nearly enough to protect them from the subfreezing temperatures of the north.

They actually hibernate in a frozen state, ignoring the dangers of severe body damage from freezing blood and cells, despite looking like they’ve been frozen to death. Although the wood frog allows ice to form on the outsides of its organs and cells, its liver produces a huge amount of glucose that spreads into every single body cell. This binds to water molecules and prevents lethal internal freezing. Since they’re on land already, they get a headstart on life when spring thaws them out while the underwater frogs are still waiting to heat up.^[4]

6 Black Widow Sibling Cannibalism

Black widow females are known for having a bad reputation for making themselves widows, but surprisingly, their children play nice, unlike most spiderlings. Opposite most spider mothers, which lay their offspring haphazardly, letting the bigger ones born first cannibalize their younger siblings, the black widow perfectly times its eggs to all be hatched at the same size and development.

Without carefully timing the hatching of their eggs, the spiderlings would kill each other for food and competition. But at equal size and strength, none of them want to pick a fight they aren’t sure they’d win, so the black widow’s babies get along without murdering each other.^[5]

5 Meerkat Sun Glare

Despite its cute doglike nose, vision is a meerkat’s best sense, so much so that meerkats are only active when the sun is out. They don’t even come out of their burrows if it’s too cloudy. As a result, meerkats need to keep a sharp eye on the sky for eagles and hawks. To do this, they have to stare straight at the sun for the sharpest lookout, which would result in painful temporary blindness for most animals.

Dark areas around their eyes, which function just like the eye black grease pro athletes wear, reduce the sun’s glare for meerkats to see far and clear with their highly developed sight. So they can spot flying predators even in bright sunlight. They have a wide field of view with their long, horizontal pupils, which lets them not waste energy turning their heads around as they watch for danger.^[6]

4 Kingsnake Snake Hunting

The cottonmouth, rattlesnake, and copperhead are all fearsome names of venomous North American snakes. Their bites are fatal to humans, and you’d think any animal that hunts them must have incredible skill to avoid their fangs and kill them fast. But the kingsnake doesn’t care at all if bitten with their lethal injections.

Kingsnakes are born resistant to all their venoms, with natural enzymes that break down the toxic chemicals before they can do their work. Kingsnakes grow up to 1.8 meters (6 feet) and are nonvenomous snakes that kill with constriction, easily ruling with their special talent for killing and eating the other snakes from their region.^[7]

3 Rooster Deafness

A rooster’s crow is incredibly loud, enough to rouse the whole farm with noises over 100 decibels, which is about as loud as a chainsaw. People who work with chainsaws without ear protection become deaf as their inner ear hair cells die from the loudness. However, roosters crow to their heart’s content every morning, which left scientists puzzled why the ear hairs of chickens weren’t damaged at all with hearing loss.

Analyzing the bird’s skulls, researchers found that a soft sound-absorbing tissue covered half the bird’s eardrum. Even more importantly, they discovered that a material completely covered a rooster’s ear canal whenever it tilted its head back to crow—their own natural earplugs. Also, birds regenerate cochlear hair cells, unlike mammals.^[8]

2 Chopped Planarians

Being sliced and diced usually results in a brutal death, but not for the planarian. This simple aquatic flatworm can be cut into as many pieces as a scientist’s heart desires, only for all of them to regenerate into brand new worms in only a week. Their bodies are made of 20% pluripotent stem cells, which along with their simplicity, determine the rules of regeneration in the animal kingdom.

Amzingly, even 1/279th of a planarian can regrow into a full-size body, with its stem cells developing into every tissue and cell the partial planarian needs, clearly making them extremely valuable subjects of scientific research.^[9]

1 Lungfish Out of Water

Most fish out of water would be as good as dead, but the lungfish is an ancient animal from 400 million years ago, with an advanced respiration system that lets it survive without any water for years. Aptly named, the lungfish has lungs in addition to gills, taking in oxygen from the air just like land animals. So during the sunny, rainless dry season, while other fish flop around in the throws of muddy death as their ponds and streams evaporate, the lungfish has an instinctive game plan.

They deeply burrow themselves headfirst by taking mud right through their mouths and squeezing it out their gills. Once they’re at a good depth, they curl their elongated bodies, so their mouth is at the top to breathe, hidden from predators and elements as they wait for the rain to return to make their watery homes. Lungfish form a protective cocoon while underground, from the hardening mucus their skin secretes, only leaving their mouths uncovered for oxygen. For up to four years, they undergo hibernation, living off the energy in their tail muscles.^[10]

Throughout history, human beings have created extremely cruel torture devices designed to cause huge pain. While some of these devices were designed to face a slow, painful death, many inflicted so much pain and left such damage that the victims died of blood-loss or infections. Many torture methods and contractions, like the head crushers, breast ripper, or crocodile shears, which were designed to deform the victim, but ended up killing the victim. But many torture devices left the victim to deal with lifelong agony and deformity. Let us take a look at Cruel Torture Devices Designed to Cause Huge Pain.

10 Most Cruel Torture Devices of All Time:

10. Scold’s Bridle

16th century Scotland and England used Scold’s Bridle on women considered as witches, shrews or scolds, particularly for public humiliation. It was an iron mask which attached to a helmet. The contraption was attached to the head of the woman, and the bridle-bit, which measured 2” long and 1” wide, and was studded with spikes, would be inserted into the mouth. This effectively stopped the person from speaking or even moving the tongue, or she would undergo cause immense pain.

9. Tongue Tearer

A Tongue Tearer looked like an extra-large pair of scissors. It was used to cut off the tongue of the victim without any effort. The mouth of the victim would first be forced open using a device called a mouth opener. After that the Tngue Tearer, made of iron, would be used to firmly clasp his tongue with the rough grippers of the device. The tongue of the person being tortured would then be twitched uncomfortably. Then, after tightening the screw, tongue would be torn out roughly.

8. Lead Sprinkler

A Lead Sprinkler was one of the cruel torture devices designed to cause huge pain. The device was usually filled with molten lead, though other liquids such as tar, boiling oil, water, etc., were also used, at high temperature, which could severely scald skin. The victim was tortured using this device by dripping the hot and burning content onto the stomach or other parts of the body, including the eyes. Even molten silver would be poured on the victim’s eyes, to produce the most fatal effects.

7. Knee Splitter

Knee Splitters were employed in the 12th century, during the Inquisition. The contraption had two wooded blocks with spikes. The number of spikes ranged from 3 to 20, and depended on the gravity of the crime committed by the person being punished. These spikes are driven into the flesh of the victim, and once the spikes are embedded into the victim’s leg, the blocks are drawn closer to each other using two large screws, to slowly pulverize the knee, just as the device’s name suggests.

6. Thumb Screws

Thumb Screws, also called Pilliwinks, were used in Medieval Europe as a cruel torture devices designed to cause huge pain. It was used to crush the thumb, fingers and toes of the victim, which were inserted into the contraption, with screws cranking down to pulverize the digits. Sometimes, the crushing bars would have spikes to intensify the pain. Weirdly, during Renaissance eras of England, these were used to straighten and elongate a woman’s fingers, to make them elegant.

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5. Heretic’s Fork/Neck Torture

Heretic’s Fork was metal device with two bi-pronged forks attached to a belt strapped round the victim’s neck, with one fork pointed to the chin, and the other to the sternum, while the victim remained suspended. The device prevented sleep, because, the prongs would pierce their throat and chest if the head dropped. The Neck Torture worked similarly, with a metal or wooden device studded with spikes around the victim’ neck preventing eating, lying down, or any other activity.

4. Scavenger’s Daughter

Queen Elizabeth I used Scavenger’s Daughter, also called Skeffington’s gyves, invented by a Brit named Skevington, against Protestants accused of treason. The apparatus had an iron hoop. The victim had to to sit on one half of it, with the other half crushing him further into an involuntary rigid crouch, as the screw would tighten the hinge in the middle. This would eventually crack the victim’s ribs and breastbone and dislocate the spine. It could even lead to bleeding from fingertips and face.

3. Rack/Horse/Strappado

The Rack, used in Europe, came in many forms, like the Horse. Basically, the victim would be tied down, as a mechanical device, tightened the rope to dislocate the joints, often long enough to tear the limbs off. In case of a Horse, the victim was to the top of a beam, i.e. Horse-back, facing up, while, pulleys below tightened the ropes. The Strappado, used in Palestine, does not have a base for the body to lie on, but the tied arms were wrenched out of the joints of the hanging prisoner.

2. Pear of Anguish

Pears of Anguish were metal tools, mainly for women. Different kinds were inserted into the vagina of a woman, or the mouth or throat of the person being tortured. Shaped like a pear, the device had four ‘leaves’ which were operated by a screw at the top. Once inserted into the orifice of a person for abortion, witchery, miscarriage, homosexuality, adultery, blasphemy, lies, etc., to spread it open, tearing the muscles, causing permanent internal damage, or to dislocate or break jawbones.

1. The Judas Cradle

Judas Cradle was torture device, not designed to kill, but to inflict pain and humiliation. With a steel collar attached to the victim’s waist, a pyramid-shaped tool would be impaled into his intently stretched orifice. The pressure caused excessive pain. The torturer could lift the victim with rope and pulley system and lower him again, driving the penetrative part deeper into the victim. Torture sessions lasted for days. Also, the device was rarely washed, causing life-threatening infections.

The physical conditions in which the victims were left from the cruel torture devices designed to cause huge pain would not only incapacitate them, but also screamed of their criminal history, almost always, even if the crimes were as trivial as petty theft, or they were not criminals, at all, and yet were punished on the basis of just accusation, or for alternate sexuality. Though not a frequent happening, death occurred, too. If that didn’t happen, the torturers and punishers made sure that these torture devices were supplemented with other forms of painful torture and humiliation.

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