It can be argued that no people are more important in English history than the Anglo-Saxons. This loose confederation of Germanic tribes not only gave Britain its language, but also its first and most enduring literary hero—the Geat warrior-king Beowulf. The Anglo-Saxons also bequeathed a culture of dispersed power and widespread liberty, which is still evident all throughout the Anglophone world.

Despite this incredible legacy, there are certain facts about the Anglo-Saxons that many people overlook today. The following ten items are but a mere sampling of this forgotten history.

10 They May Have Built An ‘Apartheid’ Society

In 2006, a team of scientists from the Royal Society published a paper outlining their theory as to why modern England has such a high number of Germanic male-line ancestors. Specifically, their research concluded that in England today, between 50 and 100 percent of the country’s gene pool contains Germanic Y chromosomes. After an exhaustive study, the team argued that this genetic dominance was achieved by a relatively small number of pagan migrants from what are today Germany, Denmark, and the Netherlands. More importantly, these Angles, Saxons, and Jutes, who initially numbered somewhere between 10,000 and 200,000 immigrants between the fifth and seventh centuries AD, successfully outbred the native Romano-British population and established an “apartheid” society, wherein they controlled economic life.

Two years after the study made waves in the UK press, it was challenged by John Pattison of the University of South Australia, Mawson Lakes. According to Dr. Pattison, the idea that a small number of elite Germanic warriors managed to wipe out their British competition underplays the fact that Germanic tribes and native Britons had been intermarrying for generations prior to the invasions of the fifth century. Ancient chroniclers believed this to be true. Julius Caesar mentions in The Conquest of Gaul that Belgic tribes, who may have been both Celtic and Germanic, lived in Celtic Britain. Therefore, an apartheid-like society was not necessary, as fifth-century Britain may have already contained a large population of Celto-Germanic people.

9 Anglo-Saxon Culture Was Nearly Eradicated

Before they were defeated by the Normans following the Battle of Hastings in 1066, another group of Vikings (the Danes) nearly killed off Anglo-Saxon culture. Beginning in the ninth century, after years of raids along the coasts, Danish Vikings began to settling in Britain and establish small, but powerful, communities. In 851, a Danish army stayed the winter at their quarters in Thanet, while later, a force of some 350 ships attacked Canterbury and London before being defeated by a West Saxon army.

This early defeat did not deter the Danes, for they continued to pour into the island. They became farmers and fearsome warriors, which in turn earned them political power. By the late ninth century, Danish law held sway in 14 shires, most of which were located in the North and East. Under Danelaw, a powerful Anglo-Norse culture pushed Anglo-Saxon culture to the brink of extinction.

For their part, the Anglo-Saxons, who were thoroughly Christian by this point, viewed the mostly pagan Danes as a separate race of demons controlled by Satan himself. Although both groups were culturally and genetically similar to one another, this religious differences helped to perpetuate a cycle of violence that would last well into the 11th century.

8 Anglo-Saxon Rulers Oversaw A Pogrom

Although the term is most closely associated with European horrors from the 20th century, pogroms, the organized mass slaughter of certain ethnic or religious groups, were not uncommon in the ancient world. In fact, on November 13, 1002, Anglo-Saxon England itself was the scene of a brutal campaign of ethnic terror.

On that date, the English king Aethelred the Unready, whose brother had been murdered years before inside Corfe Castle, issued orders that every Danish settler in England was to be killed. In what would come to be known as the St. Brice’s Day Massacre, Anglo-Saxon citizens attacked their Danish neighbors in droves, especially in Southern England, where Danelaw was weakest. Although the number of deaths has never been determined, it’s likely that hundreds if not thousands of Danish individuals were massacred. In one instance, Anglo-Saxon villagers burned several Danish families alive after setting fire to St. Frideswide’s Church. Two years later, in 1004, King Aethelred issued another order calling for “a just extermination” of all English Danes.

King Aethelred’s actions earned him the everlasting hatred of the Danish crown. By 1013, King Sweyn I of Denmark had been named king of England after Aethelred had fled to Normandy. Less than a year later, Sweyn was dead, and Aethelred’s advisers were seeking his return as king. However, thanks to the bad blood and enmity caused by King Aethelred, Canute, King Sweyn’s son, was busy destroying the Anglo-Saxon countryside in a pogrom of his own.

7 Anglo-Saxon Christianity Was Nearly Destroyed By A Pagan King

During the first decades of the Anglo-Saxon invasion of Britain, the Anglo-Saxons, who were heathens, decimated the native Christian population. By the seventh century, however, many Anglo-Saxons were converting to Christianity in droves. Still, there were pagan holdouts. In the Kingdom of Mercia, which was located in what is today called the English Midlands, a fearsome ruler named Penda almost upset the balance of power in favor of Anglo-Saxon paganism.

In 628, King Penda established his political supremacy after defeating the Saxon Kingdom of Hwicce at the Battle of Cirencester. After the victory, Penda not only annexed Hwicce territory, but along with the Welsh leader Cadwallon of Gwynedd, he invaded the powerful Kingdom of Northumbria and killed the Christian king Edwin in 632. This victory not only established the Kingdom of Mercia as the most powerful entity in all of England, but it also helped paganism to briefly supplant Christianity as the preferred religion among the Anglo-Saxons.

Although known for being barbarous and cruel, King Penda did not completely abolish Christianity within his kingdom. However, because of his success, other princes converted back to the old faith in order to win favor. Penda’s victory over Oswald of Northumbria at the Battle of Maserfield in 641 helped to prolong pagan supremacy until Penda was killed at the Battle of Winwaed in 655. After the battle, the Christian Northumbrians not only reestablished their dominance in the North and Midlands, but according to historian Charles Plummer, they finally killed off Anglo-Saxon paganism once and for all.

6 Blood Month

Before converting to Christianity, the Angles, Saxons, and Jutes all practiced the rituals and rites of Germanic paganism. Similar to Norse paganism, which was famously practiced by the Vikings of Norway, Iceland, Denmark, and Sweden, Anglo-Saxon paganism flourished in Northwestern Europe until warriors exported it to Roman Britain.

One of the more common practices among Anglo-Saxon pagans was animal sacrifice. According to the Anglo-Saxon scholar and Christian monk Bede, Anglo-Saxon pagans devoted an entire month (November) to performing animal sacrifices. In his Latin-language book The Reckoning of Time, Bede writes that “Blod-monath,” or blood month, was a “time for immolations,” a time when cattle and other animals were slaughtered in order to gain favor with the Germanic gods. It is commonly held today that this autumnal ritual was directed at older or otherwise sickly animals, which were killed in order to provide food and clothing for the winter.

Interestingly, the Anglo-Saxons, like the Celts of Britain, began their new year in November and typically held feasts and ceremonies on the last day of October. Even more intriguing is the fact that the Celtic festival of Samhain, the ancestor of Halloween, was still in practice alongside the similarly gruesome Blood Month. It is still a matter of debate concerning whether or not Blood Month also included human sacrifices.

5 Anglo-Saxon Warriors Fought For The Byzantine Empire

Like all ancient Germanic peoples, the Anglo-Saxons lived in a culture that venerated warriors and military discipline. Anglo-Saxon warriors tended to fight in small groups of roughly 100 men. For weapons, Anglo-Saxon armies favored spears, bows, and axes. In many ways, they weren’t too different from their Viking foes. In fact, both cultures participated in blood feuds, tribal conflicts, and the art of sea raiding.

Typically, most students of history lose interest in the Anglo-Saxons after their defeat at the Battle of Hastings. After years of fighting Danish and Norwegian Vikings, the Anglo-Saxons of England were defeated by French descendants of the Norwegian Vikings. According to the usual story, the Normans established themselves as a class apart, promoting the Norman dialect of French over Old English. Aside from the countryside, where most peasants continued to speak their native tongue, the Anglo-Saxon culture was entirely swallowed by an Anglo-French one.

This reading is not only incorrect on many fronts, but it also overlooks the fact that many Anglo-Saxon refugees fled England for greener pastures. Many Anglo-Saxon warriors offered their services to the Byzantine Empire. These warriors became part of the fabled Varangian Guard, a Byzantine military unit mostly associated with the Vikings of Kievan Rus’. While the Varangian Vikings tend to get most of the glory as far as battle prowess is concerned, the Anglo-Saxons, especially the warrior elite known as the Huscarls, were in-demand warriors who saw battle all over Europe and Asia.

4 They Murdered Their Hosts

Although this story may be apocryphal, it nevertheless speaks to the Anglo-Saxon culture of treachery: First described by the Welsh historian Nennius in his ninth-century tome Historia Brittonum, the original Anglo-Saxon settlers of Britain, led by the brothers Hengist and Horsa, were given land on the Isle of Thanet by the last Romano-British king, Vortigern. Vortigern and other members of the Romano-British elite invited the Germanic warriors to Britain as mercenaries, tasked with fending off Pictish and Gaelic invasions from Scotland. The Anglo-Saxon warriors proved brave in battle but deceptive in politics. Before long, Hengist and Horsa’s forces had swelled into the full-fledged Kingdom of Kent.

In order to reduce the Anglo-Saxon threat to his own power, Vortigern invited the Saxons to a friendly meeting on Salisbury Plain. The Germanic mercenaries had other ideas, however. Called “Saxons” because of their use of the seax, a type of long dagger, Hengist and Horsa’s men concealed their weapons until the shout of “Eu nimet saxas” (“Draw your knives”) rang through the night. At that point, the Saxon warriors murdered their British hosts.

In truth, the Night of the Long Knives is just too perfect to have actually happened. That being said, the story does neatly summarize how the Anglo-Saxons successfully purged Britain of its ruling Romano-British elite through force.

3 Many Saxon Warriors Had Been Trained In The Roman Army

Usually, the Anglo-Saxon invasions of Britain are described as a barbaric victory over a more civilized culture. Without question, the Romano-British elite were better-educated and more cultured (at least by Roman standards) than Anglo-Saxon noblemen. Furthermore, while the Romano-British had access to bathhouses, books, and cities, the Anglo-Saxons lived in rural villages, were mostly illiterate, and typically lived as farmers or pirates. However, the Saxons were familiar with a certain Roman institution—the Roman army.

Because they were known as fierce warriors, the Saxons of Northern Germany and Southern Denmark were recruited in droves by the Roman army. Indeed, the Romans knew all too well about the fighting prowess of the Saxons, for in the third century AD, Saxon tribesmen, along with other Germanic groups like the Frisians, Jutes, and Angles, frequently raided Roman camps in Gaul and near the border with unconquered Germania. From a Roman perspective, the Saxons, along with their close confederates the Franks, were a particular nuisance because they not only attacked Roman soldiers on land, but also liked to disrupt Roman shipping lines near the English Channel.

After the fall of the Western Roman Empire, Roman Britain was left fully exposed. The only remaining fighters who could hold back the invading Picts and Gaels were Roman-trained Britons. It’s likely that the Saxons were invited by the Romano-British because they, too, had served in the Roman army. What is often overlooked by historical accounts is the fact that many of the “invading” Angles, Saxons, and Jutes were already living in Britain, for they had been posted there as members of the late Roman army.

2 Anglo-Saxon Pirates Ravaged The British Coast For Centuries

Frequently overlooked is the fact that the Anglo-Saxons had prior contact with Roman Britain before beginning their migrations in the fifth century AD. Beginning sometime in the third century AD, Saxon pirates raided the British coast. These raids proved so costly that the Roman army in Britain had to establish a string of forts that stretched from Norfolk to Hampshire. These battlements were called the “Saxon Shore” in honor of their adversary.

In AD 285, Carausius, a Roman commander of Belgic extraction, was ordered to halt Saxon piracy in Britain by his general, the future emperor Maximian. Although Carausius proved successful, he was accused of conspiring with pirates in order to obtain some of their plunder. Carausius not only refuted these charges, but he severed his allegiance to Maximian and declared himself emperor of Britain. For years after Carausius’s defeat and the reestablishment of Roman rule in Britain, Saxon pirates in flat-bottomed boats continued to terrorize the English Channel, the North Sea, and the Baltic Sea.

1 Continental Saxons Remained Pagan For Centuries

Thanks to wandering monks from Rome and the very active monks of Ireland, Anglo-Saxon Britain began converting to Christianity not long after the establishment of the Kingdom of Kent in the fifth century. Christian Anglo-Saxons established monasteries throughout England, wrote beautiful poems dedicated both to God and the heroes of their pagan past, and constructed magnificent stone churches, some of which are still in use today.

While Anglo-Saxons in Britain embraced Christianity, their brethren on the Continent (aka the rest of Europe) did not. During the eighth and ninth centuries, Saxon pagans remained a thorn in the side of the Germanic kings who maintained an allegiance to Rome. Chief among these kings was the Frankish ruler Charlemagne. Beginning in 772, Frankish and other missionaries pursued a hostile policy designed to eliminate Saxon paganism. In 773, Saint Boniface, himself a Christian Anglo-Saxon from Devonshire, chopped down Thor’s Oak (the Irminsul) in order to proclaim the superiority of Christianity over paganism. The Saxon natives retaliated by murdering Boniface.

Ultimately, Charlemagne’s quest to eradicate Saxon paganism was successful. No move symbolizes this bloody victory quite like the mass killing of some 4,500 pagan Saxons in October 782.

Benjamin Welton is a freelance writer based in Boston. His work has appeared in The Weekly Standard, The Atlantic, , Metal Injection, and other publications. He currently blogs at literarytrebuchet.blogspot.com.

Prehistory squeezed out an inexhaustible list of captivating creatures. Everyone already knows about the raptors, mammoths, saber-tooth tigers, and similarly legendary beasts, but that’s barely scratching the surface of nature’s creativity.

From sea lion–like whales that popped above water to give birth to the VW Beetle–sized armadillo that gave up its shell for the benefit of humanity to a terrible armored frog that snatched up cute little baby dinosaurs, the prehistoric world was teeming with fascinating but little-known life-forms.

10 Primitive Whales That Gave Birth On Land

Protocetids, the primitive whales of 50 million years ago, looked mind-blowingly goofy. They were relatively small, only about 2–5 meters (7–16 ft) long. And they had four ridiculous limbs that ended in hoofed flippers.

These weird appendages allowed creatures like Maiacetus inuus to flop about on land like a sea lion as the lineage of early whales split from their goatlike and cowlike ancestors and took to the waves.^[1]

Protocetids fed in the water but emerged onto land for other daily activities, including sleeping, mating, and giving birth.

One delectably rare fossil of a pregnant mother and her unborn calf supports the land-birth theory. The 48-million-year-old calf is positioned headfirst in the womb like land mammals whereas aquatic creatures are positioned tailfirst to avoid drowning before the end of labor.

9 Bus-Sized Crocodiles That Ruled The Seas

Machimosaurus rex was discovered within 120-million-year-old rocks on the edge of the Sahara in Tunisia in an area that was once an ocean-facing lagoon.^[2]

Like the modern crocs on Nat Geo and Science, Machimosaurus made its living as an ambush predator. It snapped up sea creatures as well as land creatures that ventured too close to the shore. And with its short, rounded teeth, it could have easily ground prehistory’s large turtles into dust.

It’s the largest sea-dwelling crocodile ever—three tons and 9 meters (30 ft) of fury—with a skull that surpasses 1.5 meters (5 ft) in length.

8 Bitey Otters That Grew As Large As Wolves

Around six million years ago, the wetlands and swampy forests of southwest China housed wolf-sized otters that could mess you up spectacularly. The 50-kilogram (110 lb) Siamogale melilutra wasn’t just big, it was a top predator with a surprisingly strong bite.

Typically, jaw sturdiness decreases as otter size increases. But S. melilutra was an evolutionary outlier with jaws that killed and crunched much larger, tougher prey than any existing otter.

Unlike modern otters that feast on plants and small animals, including rodents and crabs, S. melilutra chomped through the thicker shells of large mollusks and turtles and even through bird bones for additional nutriment.^[3]

7 A Dinosaur Equipped With Sails

Amargasaurus was a sauropod (think brontosaurus but smaller) about 9 meters (30 ft) in length and relatively light at just three tons. It lived during the Cretaceous period 130 million years ago and munched on plants.

But unlike other sauropods, it had two rows of spines that ran down its neck and back. The spines are of uncertain purpose, but maybe they were covered in bone and used for self-defense.^[4]

Alternatively (and the cooler option), the spines may be scaffolding for two parallel sails.

These impressive skin flaps could have helped to dissipate heat. Or the sail may have been used for mating displays and then was evolutionarily selected because lady Amargasauruses preferred prominent spines and sails—and you know they all did.

6 Ankylosaurs Survived Thanks To Nasal Air Conditioning Systems

Massive dinosaurs like the heavily horned and armored ankylosaurs countered their higher risk of overheating with convoluted nasal passages that worked as a natural AC.

In addition to smelling things, noses also heat and humidify inhaled air. In birds and mammals like us, a furl of bones and cartilage improves heat exchange by increasing surface area. But for ankylosaurs like the hippo-sized Panoplosaurus and the rhino-sized Euoplocephalus, evolution followed a different route.

CT scanning and fluid dynamics revealed “insanely long nasal passages coiled up in their snouts” which researchers liken to crazy straws. And they helped a lot. Just by playing with nasal passage geometry, evolution found a way to increase the gigantic dinosaurs’ heat-transfer rates by 50 percent.^[5]

5 Pterosaurs May Have Been Feathered

Around 230 million to 66 million years ago, the fearsome flying reptiles known as pterosaurs ruled the skies and terrorized the dinosaurs. And it goes that pterosaurs were covered in fur-like pycnofibers.

But recent research contends that they sported a full spectrum of feathers, according to 160-million-year-old remains uncovered at the Daohugou Formation in Mongolia. The remains are so finely maintained by nature’s serendipity that they apparently preserved detail all the way down to the individual feather.

They also suggest that pterosaurs had four different types of feathers about 80 million years before such things appeared on dinosaurs and birds.^[6]

4 Glyptodon Shells Provided Prehistoric Shelters

The Glyptodon was an ancient armadillo. Like other prehistoric beasts, evolution scaled it up to “holy crap” proportions. This giant antediluvian ‘dillo grew to 3 meters (10 ft) in length and weighed a ton, matching a Volkswagen Beetle.

Like the modern armadillo, it carried dome-like armor made of bony plates. But other than its appearance, it wasn’t too threatening to others because it ate plants in its native South American swamplands. It didn’t even have a weaponized club-tail like its fellow glyptodonts.

The Glyptodon showed up on the evolutionary scene two million years ago and disappeared around 10,000 years ago—probably with a lot of help from human hunters, who sometimes used its discarded shell for temporary shelter.^[7]

3 The Frog That Ate Baby Dinosaurs

Meet Beelzebufo ampinga, the armored devil frog which definitely merited its name.

The pugnacious Beelzebufo lived around 70 million years ago in Madagascar, the land of oddities. And it was disgustingly big. It weighed in at 5 kilograms (10 lb) and measured 41 centimeters (16 in) in length like a bumpy, slimy beach ball.

It had a cranial shield to protect its noggin and insane bite strength which helped it to ambush its prey, as per modern horned frogs. According to researchers, it could have crunched baby dinosaurs with a bite that imparted 2,200 newtons, as much force as a wolf or even a tiger.^[8]

2 Beaked, Turkey-Sized Ornithopods That Swarmed Prehistoric Plains

Some of the most successful dinosaurs of all time—such as the ornithopods—weren’t at all fierce. The ornithopods were bipedal plant grazers that became one of the most successful groups during the Cretaceous period 146 million to 66 million years ago.

Based on scant remains, including a complement of tail bones and a bit of foot found in Australia, researchers pieced together the ornithopods’ Diluvicursor pickeringi. This beaked, turkey-sized animal straddled the edge of the Antarctic Circle 113 million years ago when Antarctica and Australia were still connected.

This dino was built for agile running with a short, muscular tail and stout, powerful legs. But it only terrorized plant life, feasting on mosses, ferns, seeds, lichens, and possibly flowers.^[9]

1 Unicorns Did Exist

Unicorns did exist. But they were horrifying and awesome and probably gored an early human or two with a horn that measured more than 1 meter (3 ft) in length.

It was known as Elasmotherium sibiricum, and records show it split off from modern rhinos about 40 million years ago. At 3.5 tons, it was tanklike and twice the size of extant rhinos, although its anatomy was built running.

Researchers thought that the “Siberian unicorn” died out about 100,000–200,000 years ago. But now they say it didn’t disappear until much more recently—39,000 years ago.

Luckily for us, as climate change delivered Earth from an ice age, it also destroyed the Siberian unicorn’s primary food source of tough, dry grasses and dumped it into the evolutionary reject pile.^[10]

Ivan writes about neat things for the Internet. You can contact him at [email protected].

Roman families would be both recognizable and unrecognizable today. Their strict social classes and lawful human rights violations will make any rational person glad to be alive in the 21st century. On the other hand, their homelier moments are eternal. Like today, children played similar games, the whole family coddled pets, and they enjoyed the finer things in life.

10Marriage Was A Mere Agreement

Girls married during their early teens while men tied the knot in their mid-twenties. Roman marriages were quick and easy and most didn’t flower from romance but from two agreements. The first would be between the couple’s families, who eyeballed each other to see if the proposed spouse’s wealth and social status were acceptable. If satisfied, a formal betrothal took place where a written agreement was signed and the couple kissed.

Unlike modern times, the wedding day didn’t cement a lawful institution (marriage had no legal power) but showed the couple’s intent to live together. A Roman citizen couldn’t marry his favorite prostitute, cousin, or, for the most part, non-Romans. A divorce was granted when the couple declared their intention to separate before seven witnesses. If a divorce carried the accusation that the wife had been unfaithful, she could never marry again. A guilty husband received no such penalty.

9Feast Or Famine

Social position determined how a family ate. Lower classes mostly had simple fare while the wealthy often used elaborate feasts to showcase their status. Bread featured heavily at both breakfast and lunch. While the lower classes added olives, cheese, and wine, the upper class enjoyed a better variety of meat, feast leftovers, and fresh produce. The very poor sometimes just ate porridge or handouts.

Meals were prepared by the women or slaves of the household, and the children served them. Nobody had forks, so food was consumed using their hands, spoons, and knives. Dinner parties of the Roman rich were legendary for their decadence and delicacies. Lasting hours, guests reclined on dining couches while slaves cleaned up the discarded scraps around them. All classes relished a stomach-churning sauce called garum. Basically the fermented guts of fish, it reeked so bad that it was forbidden to make it within city limits.

8The Insulae And Domus

One’s neighborhood pretty much depended on how high up the totem pole you were. Insulae were apartment buildings, but the kind that would make a modern safety inspector hit the roof. The majority of the Roman population lived in these seven-story-plus buildings. They were ripe for fire, collapse, and even flooding. The upper floors were reserved for the poor who had to pay rent daily or weekly.

Eviction was a constant fear for the families living in a one-room affair with no natural light or bathroom facilities. The first two floors of an insulae were reserved for those who had a better income. They paid rent annually and lived in multiple rooms with windows.

Wealthy Romans either lived in country villas or owned a domus in the city. A domus was a large, comfortable home. They were big enough to include the owner’s business shop, libraries, rooms, a kitchen, pool, and garden.

7Marital Sex

Things in the Roman bedroom weren’t exactly even. While women were expected to produce sons, uphold chastity, and remain loyal to their husbands, married men were allowed to wander. He even had a rule book. It was fine to have extramarital sex with partners of both genders, but it had to be with slaves, prostitutes, or a concubine/mistress. Wives could do nothing about it since it was socially acceptable and even expected from a man.

While undoubtedly there were married couples who used passion as an expression of affection for one another, the general unsympathetic view was that women tied the knot to have children and not to enjoy a great sex life. That was for the husband to savor, and some savored it a little too much—slaves had no rights over their own bodies, so the rape of a slave was not legally recognized.

6Legal Infanticide

Fathers held the power of life or death for a newborn, even without the mother’s input. After birth, the baby was placed at his feet. If the father picked it up, the child remained at home. Otherwise, it was abandoned outside for anyone to pick up—or to die of exposure. Roman infants faced rejection if they were born deformed, a daughter, or if a poor family couldn’t support another child. If the father was suspicious about the kid’s real paternity, he or she could be dumped near a refuge area.

The lucky ones were adopted by childless couples and received the family’s name. The rest risked being sold as slaves or prostitutes or being deliberately maimed by beggars who displayed such children to get more sympathy. If older children displeased their father, he also had the legal backing to sell them as slaves or kill them.

5Leisure For The Family

Downtime was a big part of Roman family life. Usually, starting at noon, the upper crust of society dedicated their day to leisure. Most enjoyable activities were public and shared by rich and poor alike, male and female—watching gladiators disembowel each other, cheering chariot races, or attending the theatre.

Citizens also spent a lot of time at public baths, which wasn’t your average tub and towel affair. A Roman bath typically had a gym, pool, and a health center. Certain locales even offered prostitutes. Children had their own favorite pastimes. Boys preferred to be more active, wrestling, flying kites, or playing war games. Girls occupied themselves with things like dolls and board games. Families also enjoyed just relaxing with each other and their pets.

4Education

Education depended on a child’s social status and gender. Formal education was the privilege of high-born boys, while girls from good families were only allowed to learn how to read and write. Schooling in Latin, reading, writing, and arithmetic were usually the mother’s duty until age seven, when boys received a teacher.

Affluent families had private tutors or educated slaves for this role; otherwise, the boys were sent to private schools. Education for male pupils included physical training to prepare them for military service as well as later assuming a masculine role in society. Country folk or children born of slaves received little to no formal education. To them it was more practical that sons learn their trades from their fathers and little girls learn housekeeping. There were no public schools for disadvantaged children to attend. The closest thing was informal get-togethers that were run and taught by freed slaves.

3Coming Of Age

While daughters crossed the threshold of adulthood almost unnoticed, a special ceremony marked a boy’s transition to manhood. Depending on his mental and physical prowess, a father decided when his son was grown (usually around 14–17).

On the chosen morning, the youth discarded his bulla and childhood toga, and a sacrifice was given. His father then dressed him in the white tunic of a man. If the older man had rank, the tunic reflected this—two wide crimson stripes if he was a senator and slim ones for a knight. The last of the new clothing was the toga virilis or toga libera, worn only by adult males. The father then gathered a large crowd to escort his son to the Forum. Once there, the boy’s name was registered, and he officially became a Roman citizen. After that, the new teenage man could expect an apprenticeship for a year in a profession of his father’s choosing.

2Pets

When it comes to ancient Rome’s animal policies, one can be forgiven if the first image that comes to mind is gory slaughter at the Colosseum. However, private citizens cherished their household pets. Dogs were by far the favorite, but cats were not uncommon. House-snakes were appreciated as ratters, and domesticated birds were also delighted in. Nightingales and green Indian parrots were all the rage because they could mimic human words.

Cranes, herons, swans, quail, geese, and ducks were also kept. While the last three proved very popular, Roman fondness and treatment of peacocks was almost on par with dogs. Some cruelty existed in bird fighting, but it wasn’t a widespread sport. Roman pets were so deeply loved that they were immortalized in art and poetry and even buried with their masters. Other pets included hares (a popular gift exchanged by lovers), goats, deer, apes, and fish.

1Women’s Independence

Ancient Rome wasn’t an easy place to be a woman. Any hopes of being able to vote or of following a career was about as possible as a modern person trying to pluck a diamond out of thin air. Girls were sidelined to a life in the home and childbirth, suffering a philandering husband (if he was so inclined), and having little power in the marriage and no legal claim to her children.

However, because child mortality was so high, the state rewarded Roman wives for giving birth. The prize was perhaps what most women dearly wanted: legal independence. If a free-born woman managed three live births (four for a former slave), she was awarded with independent status as a person. Only by surviving this serial-birthing could a woman hope to escape being a man’s property and finally take control over her own affairs and life.

FBI Special Agent John Douglas is the man known as “Mindhunter.” The nickname originates from the 1995 book that he wrote alongside Mark Olshaker. The book profiles Douglas’s creation of the FBI’s Investigative Support Unit, formerly known as the Bureau’s Behavioral Science unit. Douglas and fellow agent Robert “Bob” Ressler interviewed hundreds of killers in order to invent the process known as criminal profiling.

See Also: 10 Murderers Who Did Not Kill Anybody

As dramatically shown on the Netflix series “Mindhunter,” Douglas and other agents dealt with such infamous serial killers as Edmund Kemper, Jerry Brudos, David Carpenter, Robert Hansen, and Wayne D. Williams. Douglas even talked with Charles Manson, the man once widely seen as America’s most infamous inmate.

Besides these high-profile cases, “Mindhunter” the book also dives deep into lesser known crimes and criminals, all of whom Douglas interacted with or chased in one form of another. The following list details and describes some of the more overlooked horrors of Douglas’s groundbreaking autobiography.

10 The Murder of Betty Jean Shade

The 1979 slaying of 22-year-old Betty Jean (Douglas’s book says “Jane”) Shade is depicted in the fifth episode of the first season of “Mindhunter.” Here’s the real story: On the last night of her life, Shade got into a serious argument with her live-in boyfriend, Charles “Butch” Soult, Jr. Despite this, and despite Shade’s determination to break things off with Butch, she still decided to ride in the same car with Butch, his brother Michael, and their sister Catherine. The foursome went to Wopsononock Mountain near the city of Altoona, Pennsylvania.

Hours later, Logan Township police officers Steven D. Jackson and Walter Coho were dispatched to Skyline Drive near the mountain. A local jogger had found the mutilated body of a white female. The body belonged to Shade. Lead investigator Detective Howard Horton, along with Robert Long, Edward G. Pottmeyer, and Barry Bidelspach, were quick to zero in on Butch as the prime suspect. Douglas concurred with this view. Ultimately, Douglas and the Logan Township officers learned that Butch and Mike Soult had raped and murdered Shade. Mike not only sexually assaulted Shade, but helped his brother dispose of her body. Butch killed and mutilated Shade. Catherine Soult helped her brothers to transport the corpse.

The case of Betty Jean Shade was one of Douglas’s early attempts at a criminal profile. He correctly deduced that Shade’s killer was someone from a broken family with a domineering mother. Douglas also correctly predicted that Shade’s killer would be “inept with women”. This matched Butch to a T, as he mutilated his former girlfriend after failing to have sexual intercourse with her prior to her death.

9George Russell Jr.

George Russell Jr. was one of the first murderers to complicate Douglas’s thinking concerning cross-racial sex crimes. Prior to 1991, Douglas and the majority of the American law enforcement community operated under the assumption that lust murderers targeted victims of the same race, i.e. white attackers target white victims or black attackers target black victims. Russell changed the game.

Between 1990 and 1991, Russell, a handsome black male in his thirties, bludgeoned and strangled to death three white women named Mary Anne Pohlreich, Andrea Levine, and Carol Marie Beethe. According to the residents of Mercer Island, Washington, Russell was charming and dated many different women of different races. Even though he had a history of petty theft, Mercer Island police officers had a hard time believing that he was capable of such heinous murders.

The 27-year-old Pohlreich spent her last night drinking and dancing with friends at Papagayo’s bar on June 22, 1990. Hours later she was found beaten to death in her bed by someone using what Douglas calls a “blitz-type” attack style. A similar fate befell the 35-year-old Beethe and 24-year-old Levine. As Douglas writes in “Mindhunter, Russell’s method of overwhelming his victims with speed and violence was not unique. Rather, what made Russell unusual was the amount of post-mortem posing that he did with his victims. For instance, one of the women was left in her bed with a pillow over her head and a rifle inserted in her vagina. The final victim was put in an even more humiliating position, indicating to Douglas that Russell had a deep-seated hatred of women and felt compelled to degrade them.

8 The Murder of Francine Elveson

Francine Elveson was a petite woman—90 pounds and only five feet tall. She was also quiet and shy and suffered from a case of kyphoscoliosis (a curvature of the spine). The 26-year-old spent her days teaching handicapped children, while her nights were spent with her parents inside of their Pelham Parkway apartment in The Bronx.

In October 1979, a young resident of Elveson’s apartment building found her wallet in the stairwell connecting the third and fourth floors. Upon returning the wallet to the Elveson family, it was learned that Francine had failed to show up for work that day. Afraid that something had happened to her daughter, Mrs. Elveson and some of her neighbors searched the apartment building for Francine. They found her at the top of the stairs leading to the roof. Francine was found naked and badly bruised. In fact, Francine’s killer had managed to fracture her jaw, nose, and cheeks. The killer had also strangled Elveson with her own belt and nylon stockings. Other grotesque acts included biting the Elveson’s thighs, removing her nipples, inserting various objects into her vagina, and leaving behind excrement at the crime scene.

Douglas’s profile figured that Elveson’s killer was someone who knew the apartment building well and lived in the area. Douglas also predicted that the killer would have a history of mental illness, would be unemployed or intermittently employed, and a military reject. All of these described Carmine Calabro, the man charged with Elveson’s murder many months after her body was found. Calabro, who pled not guilty by reason of insanity at his trial, was ultimately convicted of the murder thanks to dental forensics, which matched his teeth with the bite marks on Elveson’s body.

7Carl Stephen Mosely

Carl Stephen Mosely, who Douglas calls “Gregory Mosely” in “Mindhunter,” preyed on vulnerable women. His first victim, 35-year-old Dorothy Louise Woods-Johnson, was a widow who wanted to make friends. On a Friday night in April 1991, Dorothy went to the SRO Country Club in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. It was there that she met the handsome Mosely. The following day, April 13, 1991, Dorothy’s body was found outside of a housing development. The medical examiner found not only multiple stab wounds on Dorothy’s body, but also found signs of strangulation as well as bruising on Dorothy’s face and throat.

The next victim, 38-year-old Deborah Jane Henley, spent her last night alive at the SRO Country Club too. When Deborah failed to come home that night, her parents called the sheriff. That same day, a farmer found Deborah’s nude body in a cornfield. Like Dorothy, Deborah’s body contained bruises, particularly on the throat and face. Both cases were broke wide open thanks to an anonymous tip, which claimed that Carl Mosely had borrowed a friend’s car on the night of Deborah Henley’s murder. It did not take police long to discover that Mosely had a prior conviction: In 1989, Mosely had abducted and sexually assaulted Laura Fletcher, thus earning convictions for assault with a deadly weapon and second-degree rape.

Two of Douglas’s students, Larry Ankrom and Greg Cooper, profiled Mosely as a sexual sadist with an “inadequate personality.” Furthermore, the FBI agents saw Mosely as obsessed with control and cruelty. After all, Mosely not only mutilated his victims before killing them, but he had also stabbed both women twelve times each on top of penetrating them vaginally and anally.

6Larry Gene Bell

Larry Gene Bell was a soft-spoken killer who enjoyed taunting his victims. Bell was so vile that Douglas devotes an entire chapter to his crimes in “Mindhunter.” During the summer of 1985, Bell was the man who struck fear in the hearts of South Carolinians, especially those with blonde daughters.

At approximately 3:38 p.m. on May 31, 1985, high school senior Shari Faye Smith went missing. After her father, Robert, found Shari Faye’s car setting in the family’s driveway with the engine running, he alerted the Lexington County Sheriff’s Department. This would set off the largest manhunt in the history of Columbia, South Carolina—a manhunt that would become a kidnapping case when Shari Faye’s abductor called the Smith family and told them: “Shari Faye was kidnapped from her mailbox with a gun. She had the fear of God in her”.

These taunting phone calls would continue. One of these phone calls led Sheriff Jim Metts to Shari Faye’s body, which was found eighteen miles away from her home in Saluda County. The level of decomposition made it impossible to determine the cause of death, but the medical examiner did conclude that Shari Faye had expired on the same day that she was kidnapped.

After Shari Faye, another victim, 9-year-old Debra May Helmick, was abducted near her family’s trailer located at Old Percival Road in Richland County, South Carolina. Helmick was murdered almost immediately, and the killer called the Smith family again and told them where to find Helmick’s body. Douglas, other members of the FBI, and Sheriff Metts encouraged Dawn Smith, Shari Faye’s sister, to keep talking to the killer every time he called. Eventually the phone number was traced to Huntsville, Alabama, and from there cross-checked with a phone belonging to the Sheppard residence, which was fifteen miles from the Smith family home. The Sheppards were ruled out, but not Larry Gene Bell, their house sitter.

Before Bell’s discovery, Douglas believed that Shari Faye’s killer would be a white male in his late twenties to early thirties. He also believed that the killer had married early in life before getting a divorce. The killer lived with his parents, had been discharged after a brief stint in the military, and was a porn addict. Larry Gene Bell was a divorced loner who did odd construction jobs. He spent less than a year in the Marines before being discharged due to a knee injury, and the first search of his room in the Sheppard home uncovered a “Hustler” magazine.

Bell never confessed to the murders. He died in the electric chair on October 4, 1996. Bell is still considered one of the primary suspects in the 1984 disappearance of Sandee Elaine Cornett, the girlfriend of one of his co-workers, and the July 1975 disappearance of Denise Newsom Porch, who was last seen at an apartment complex not far from where Bell lived at the time.

5 James R. Odom & James C. Lawson

James Russell Odom and James Clayton Lawson met in a mental ward in the mid-1970s. Both were serving time for rape at California’s Atascadero State Mental Hospital. Lawson and Odom passed the time by talking about their future plans. Lawson wanted to kidnap women, cut off their breasts, cut out their ovaries, and stick knives into their vaginas. Lawson wanted to do everything to his female victims except have sex with them. For Odom, the only crime he cared about was rape.

Not long after both men were released back into the civilian world, they hopped into the 1974 Ford Comet belonging to Lawson’s father. Days later, on August 29, 1975, the nude body of a 25-year-old mother of two was found near Columbia, South Carolina. Both of the victim’s breasts had been removed. Her genitals had also been removed as well, while evidence at the scene indicated that the woman’s killers had eaten part of her flesh.

The case of Odom and Lawson, which ended in 1976 with Odom receiving life plus forty years and Lawson dying in the electric chair on May 18, 1976, became one of the foundational case studies for Douglas. In a 1980 article penned by Douglas and Robert Hazelwood, the case of Odom and Lawson was used to describe how sexual fantasies influence lust murderers.

4 Joseph Christopher

On September 22, 1980, 14-year-old Glenn Dunn was found dead in a supermarket parking lot. A day later, 32-year-old Harold Green was shot while eating at a fast food restaurant. Later that same day, 30-year-old Emmanuel Thomas was shot to death outside of his own home. On September 24th, another victim, Joseph McCoy, was shot to death not far from Niagara Falls.

Because of the weapon used, the murderer of these men became known as the .22-Caliber Killer. Eyewitnesses who saw some of the shootings described the assailant as a young white male. This fact led Douglas to believe that the murders were conducted by a “mission-oriented, assassin-style” killer who was motivated by racism (all of the victims were black males). Douglas’s profile was given added ammunition when, on October 9th, a man matching the description of the killer entered a Buffalo, New York hospital and attacked 37-year-old patient Collin Cole. The assailant screamed “I hate niggers” before running away. After months of investigation, the .22-Caliber Killer was unmasked as 25-year-old Joseph Christopher, a private in the US Army.

Douglas and other investigators also proved that Christopher was the man known as the “Midtown Slasher,” an assailant who stabbed four black men and one Hispanic man to death in downtown Manhattan over a thirteen-hour period on December 22, 1980. Prior to Christopher’s capture, Douglas had predicted that the .22-Caliber Killer would be a serviceman who was rational and well-organized, and yet unable to live under Army discipline. This description applied to Christopher, who carried out the murders while on leave from Fort Benning.

3 William Henry Hance

Serial killer William Hance is featured in the third episode of the second season of “Mindhunter.” In real life, Hance was known to the terrified people of Georgia as the Stocking Strangler. Although convicted on solid evidence, Hance’s 1994 execution has been labeled as a “legal lynching” by some advocates because of Hance’s diminished mental capacity.

Beginning in 1978, the Stocking Strangler attacked and strangled six elderly women after breaking into their homes, all of which were either in or near the city of Columbus, Georgia. All six victims were white, and the limited forensic evidence found at the crime scenes suggested that the killer was black. Around the same time, the Columbus police received a letter on US Army stationary signed by seven people calling themselves the “Forces of Evil.” The letter claimed that because the Stocking Strangler was a black male, they would kill a black woman in retaliation. The letter also claimed that a black prostitute named Gail Jackson had already be abducted and killed by the group.

Douglas, who was already working a major serial killer case in Atlanta, believed that the “Forces of Evil” was a deflection written by the real killer, aka the Stocking Strangler. Fellow FBI profiler Robert Ressler, himself a former Army MP, believed that the killer was a black male and an enlisted soldier stationed at Fort Benning. Ressler believed that the killer was either in the artillery or the military police.

After the FBI criminal profile made its way around Fort Benning, 26-year-old Specialist William Hance, who was a member of an artillery unit, was arrested. He confessed to the murders of Gail Jackson, Irene Thirkield, and Army private Karen Hickman, who had been found dead at Fort Benning in 1977.

A year before “Mindhunter” was published, Hance’s name made the national news because of several accusations of racism. Specifically, multiple jurors who had participated in Hance’s second sentencing claimed that racial epithets had been used by other jurors towards Nance and the lone black member of the jury. However, despite these accusations and despite the fact that Hance’s IQ was once tested at 76 (thereby making him borderline disabled), his execution went ahead.

2Wayne Nance

Doug and Kris Wells, who became friends with Douglas, have the distinction of being some of the few people to ever go from serial killer victims to serial killer killers. This strange turn of events occurred on September 3, 1986.

After arriving home sometime after midnight, Doug and Kris Wells found an unknown pickup truck parked outside of their Missoula, Montana home. Doug found that the truck was occupied by a sleeping man. Minutes later, that same man asked Doug for a flashlight. Before Doug could retrieve the flashlight, the man pulled out a gun and ordered Kris to tie up Doug. The man then separated the two. Kris was taken to a bedroom in the house, while Doug was brought to the basement, tied to a pole, and beaten and stabbed with an 8-inch knife. Incredibly, Doug managed to free himself. He grabbed a loaded rifle and made his way upstairs. He shot the assailant once, but did not kill him. When the man fought back, Doug struck him several times in the head. Then, after the assailant fired three rounds from his .22-caliber pistol (one round hit Doug in the leg), Doug seized the pistol and shot the intruder in the head. The man would die in St. Patrick’s Hospital the next day.

The intruder turned out to be Wayne Nance, a native son of Missoula who was born in 1955. Nance knew Kris Wells because she was the store manager at Conlin’s Furniture, the same store that he worked at as a delivery driver. Nance became infatuated with Kris and may have decided on killing her during one working day.

In the years since the attack on the Wells family and the publication of “Mindhunter,” Douglas and Montana police officials have asserted time and time again that Nance was more than likely a serial killer responsible for more than five deaths between 1974 and 1986. Some of Nance’s suspected and confirmed victims include Donna Pounds (1974), Devonna Nelson (1980), Marcella Cheri “Marci” Bachmann (1984), the unidentified woman known as “Christy Crystal Creek” (1985), and the murders of Michael and Teresa Shook (1985).

1 Steven Brian Pennell

Delaware is not known for much besides being America’s “First State” (Delaware was the first state to ratify the US Constitution). But Delaware made the news for all the wrong reasons between 1987 and 1988.

During that time, a serial killer regularly traveled US Route 40 in New Castle County, Delaware in order to abduct and murder women. The first body discovered was that of ex-prostitute Shirley Anne Ellis, 23, who was found partially nude and bound with black tape. Ellis’s killer had hit her several times in the head with a hammer and had tortured her with work tools before strangling her. After Ellis, several more women either went missing or were found dead. These women included 32-year-old Catherine A. DiMauro, 22-year-old Michele A. Gordon, 26-year-old Kathleen Anne Meyer, and 27-year-old Margaret Lynn Finner.

After being called in to consult on the case, Douglas profiled the killer as a white male with a wife and kids. He was also a blue-collar worker who knew how to use tools. Douglas also predicted that the killer knew Route 40 well, and would hunt the area nightly with a “rape kit” prepared in his work van. 31-year-old Seven Brian Pennell, an electrician and a married father, was the man that police were looking for. The Delaware native enjoyed dominating women and fit Douglas’s profile of “macho” man archetype.

Pennell, Delaware’s only recorded serial killer, died via lethal injection on March 14, 1992.

By any stretch of the imagination, life in colonial America was hard, demanding, and cruel. Many European settlers did not survive their first few years in North America thanks to disease, starvation, the harsh climate, and violence.

Many recognize these truths, and yet few have fully comprehended just how daunting a task it was to settle a strange continent. The following 10 entries will not only provide greater detail about memorable events, but many will also provide a new appraisal of certain moments in history.

10 The Pre-Pilgrim Settlers Of New England

Most US students can rattle off the dates concerning when the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock. Most believe that before 1620, no English settlers had ever set foot on New England soil. This, however, is incorrect.

In looking through the historical record, it’s clear that isolated English fishing communities from what is now Maine down to Long Island sparsely dotted the map. For the most part, these settlers stuck close to the coast, although it has been asserted that their contacts with the Native Americans led to epidemics that weakened certain tribes prior to the arrival of the Pilgrims.

Furthermore, it’s likely that English settlers had been trawling the waters of New England for generations before the coming of the Separatists and Puritans. Indeed, the very fact that Squanto, a member of the Patuxet tribe, could speak English and was a Christian highlights the fact that the English began settling New England long before 1620.

9 The First Pilgrims

Decades before English Separatists sought to leave behind the neo-Catholicism of the Anglican Church, a group of French Protestants, known as the Huguenots, settled in modern Florida.

Back in Europe, after years of tense harmony, French Catholics decided to bloodily purge Calvinism from their country. During the infamous Massacre of Saint Bartholomew’s Day in 1572, the Huguenot leader Gaspard II de Coligny was murdered alongside 3,000 Protestants in Paris and another 70,000 throughout France.

Seeking refuge from Catholic persecution, many Protestants fled to Fort Caroline near today’s Jacksonville. The fort had been founded by a French expedition led by de Coligny and Jean Ribault. Unfortunately, on September 20, 1565, the small garrison at Fort Caroline was overrun by a Spanish force who reclaimed the area for Catholicism.

8 Forgotten Conquerors

The pop history of early America usually focuses on the colonies of England, Spain, France, and, to a much lesser extent, the Netherlands. But there was a fourth power involved—Sweden.

Between 1638 and 1655, Sweden controlled much of Delaware, southern New Jersey, and eastern Pennsylvania. The center of the colony, Fort Christina, was founded by a small cadre of sailors who left Gothenburg under the command of Captain Peter Minuit. Located in Wilmington, Delaware, Fort Christina included mostly Swedish settlers with a sprinkling of Finnish and Dutch as well.

The commercial goals of New Sweden were never fully met. After Sweden lost to Russia in the Second Northern War, the 400 men at Fort Christina became citizens of New Netherland.

7 Battle Of The Severn

Sometimes called the final battle of the English Civil War, the Battle of the Severn took place far away from England in the colony of Maryland. When Cecil Calvert, 2nd Baron Baltimore, took control of the colony, he tried to establish it as a refuge for England’s Catholic minority.

Unfortunately for him, large Protestant immigration quickly turned Maryland into a Protestant-majority colony. In 1649, Governor William Stone allowed several hundred Puritans from Virginia to settle in Maryland.

Years later, Virginia declared its loyalty to King Charles II, the heir of the executed King Charles I. As for Maryland, Governor Stone ordered all landowners to pledge their loyalty to the Catholic Lord Baltimore, which in a way was an oath of allegiance to the English crown.

As can be expected, the Puritans refused. So on March 25, 1655, Governor Stone and a militia force sailed from St. Mary’s City to the Puritan settlement of Providence (today’s Annapolis). Near Spa Creek, the Puritans surprised Stone’s men, killing 40.

6 Puritans Return To England

Decades prior to the English Civil Wars, a massive migration of English Protestants took place. Many went to the Netherlands, where Calvinism was accepted. Some went to the Rhineland, while others headed for the Caribbean islands of Barbados and Saint Kitts and Nevis. An unlucky few settled Old Providence Island off Nicaragua’s Mosquito Coast.

The majority, however, landed in Massachusetts, thereby creating the Plymouth Colony and the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Between 1620 and 1640, over 20,000 Pilgrims and Puritans settled what would become New England with their families. Soon thereafter, the population doubled and would continue to double every generation for two centuries.

However, in 1640, large-scale immigration to Massachusetts reversed as Puritans, both English-born and Massachusetts-born, began sailing back to England to fight for the Parliamentarians. While the exact number is unknown, it is true that this Puritan exodus essentially stopped widespread immigration to New England until the Irish Catholic waves of the 1840s.

5 The First French Fort

Throughout the history of New France, the most important colony was Quebec. To this day, Quebec remains the chief Francophone province in Canada. Other former French colonies, from Illinois to Ohio, have lost their Gallic flavor.

In 1562, the first French settlement in North America was founded by the Huguenots under the command of Jean Ribault. Called Charlesfort, this short-lived colony collapsed when the 26 or 27 men that Ribault left behind mutinied, built their own ship, and returned to France.

The ruins of Charlesfort, or rather Charlesfort–Santa Elena, can be found on Parris Island, South Carolina.

4 The Strict New Haven Colony

Puritanism has a well-earned reputation for theological rigidity. However, even within Puritanism, there were divisions between conservatives and liberals. John Davenport, the founder of the New Haven Colony in Connecticut, was arguably the strictest Puritan of early America.

Founded in 1638, the New Haven Colony had a very clear set of rules: Everything had to be done according to the Bible. Not only did colonists pledge to live their lives according to Scripture, but the town itself was laid out in such a way as to resemble the Temple of Solomon and the New Jerusalem of the Book of Revelation.

Davenport believed that his colony’s government, exemplified by the Church of the Elect, should be ruled by the laws of the Old Testament and by so-called “saints.” In 1665, New Haven Colony merged with the larger Connecticut Colony.

3 Refugees And The Salem Witch Trials

As first argued in the book Salem Possessed by Paul Boyer and Stephen Nissenbaum, many today view the Salem witchcraft trials of 1692 and 1693 as the tragic end result of a land dispute between many of the village’s families. This view is backed up by maps that show the geographic disbursement of the accused and the accusers.

One of the lesser-studied aspects of the trials is the role played by refugees. Namely, a few of the accusers, including 17-year-old Mercy Lewis, had recently moved to Salem Village from the frontier settlements of Maine.

During King William’s War, which occurred in the background throughout the entire trials, Native Americans raided English settlements in Maine and drove many back to Massachusetts. George Burroughs, the former minister of Salem Village who was accused of leading the witch’s coven, had earlier been accused of bewitching soldiers during his time as the minister of Falmouth (now Portland), Maine.

2 The Massacre Of 1622

The attack on the colony of Jamestown that erupted on the morning of March 22, 1622, proved to be one of the deadliest days in the history of colonial America. Angered by the growing English population and the less than friendly manner of the English colonists who began settling away from the coast, the Powhatan tribe surprised the citizens of Jamestown and ultimately killed 347 of them.

The massacre, which was part of a larger Powhatan uprising, nearly ended the English colony of Virginia. One-sixth of all Virginians were killed on March 22, while many others became lost or were taken prisoner.

1 The Worst War In Early America

In terms of sheer body count, the US Civil War remains the deadliest war in American history. In terms of per capita losses, King Philip’s War of 1675–76 is the deadliest. Under the leadership of the Pokunoket chief Metacom (aka King Philip), a confederacy of Native American tribes tried to drive the English settlers back across the sea.

The war was especially vicious. By 1680, Native Americans only made up 10 percent of New England’s population. Furthermore, one-tenth of New England’s military-age male population perished during the war, while 12 Puritans towns were burned to the ground.

Although the war proved costly, King Philip’s War did much to unite the New Englanders as a separate people. As England did not provide troops, arms, or support, the New England militias fought the war on their own, thus arguably laying the groundwork for an American identity.

Even though Nicolas Cage has become a meme of his former self, back in the day he made some pretty cool movies. Cage, with his ability to bring comedy, action and a certain strangeness to every role he’s ever played, has ensured some over-the-top memorable scenes and fans are just waiting for him to get a good role that he can really sink his teeth into again. Until that happens, here are some facts about Cage’s long list of feature films that add just a little extra dimension to one of the world’s most eccentric actors.

Top 10 Best Films About Real Conspiracy Theories

10 Gone In 60 Seconds

Gone In 60 Seconds gave us Angelina Jolie, a blonde-haired Nicolas Cage in the role of Memphis Raines and a plot resembling a watered-down Fast And The Furious movie. And who could forget Eleanor, the 1967 Ford Mustang GT500. Eleanor was originally supposed to be a Ford GT40 and was brought to life by production designer, Jeff Mann, hotrod builder, Steven Stanford and car designer, Chip Foose. The car was given a “Hollywood” makeover so as to not be overshadowed by the Ferrari, Jaguar and Lamborghini that also appear in the movie. What some may not know is that there were 12 of these made-over Mustangs built for the film, of which only 7 survived all of the stunts. The scene where Nicolas Cage flies through an intersection while driving Eleanor, was made possible by The Vincent Thomas Bridge in L.A. being closed for an entire day. It is to date the only time in L.A.’s history that the bridge was inaccessible to the public.^[1]

9 Moonstruck

Romantic comedy, Moonstruck, almost didn’t star our favorite zany actor. When Nicolas Cage first read for the role of Ronny Cammareri, the filmmakers weren’t overly impressed with his interpretation of the character. However, Cher was having none of the negativity and told them she’d quit the movie if Cage wasn’t her co-star. This came after Cher almost turned down her own role, because she had done two movies in short succession and also couldn’t really see herself as Loretta Castorini. In addition to this she thought the movie would be a box-office failure. Fortunately it turned out to be a huge commercial success and was nominated for six Oscars of which Cher won one for Best Actress.^[2]

8 Vampire’s Kiss

It seems that Nic Cage’s ‘meme’ face may have been cemented as early as 1988 when the wonderfully weird comedy horror, Vampire’s Kiss, was released. Despite some of his facial expressions in this film having a forever-home on the internet, Cage has expressed that the role of Peter Loew has been one of his favorites. He has also claimed that the deleted scenes represented some of his best work. Cage got into an altercation with director, Robert Bierman, over the bat used for the apartment scene. Cage apparently wanted nothing to do with the fake bat created by a special effects expert and instead insisted that his assistant traipse around Central Park to capture a real bat. So insistent was Cage that Bierman eventually told him he would die if a real bat bit him, which resulted in Cage reluctantly accepting the fake bat. As if that wasn’t weird enough, Cage also had no qualms about chewing on a live cockroach while filming another scene for the movie.^[3]

7 Face/Off

It’s impossible to think of Face/Off without picturing the creepy animatronic bodies used to portray Nic Cage and John Travolta as they were literally getting their faces peeled off. Or to forget Cage’s crazed expression as he joins a choir for a few seconds, dressed as a priest.

In this wacky movie, Castor Troy, portrayed by Cage, sports two golden guns with dragons carved into the handles. These guns were Cage’s idea since he was born in 1964 which was the Year of the Dragon on the Chinese Zodiac calendar.

Also, since CGI was not yet as widely used as it is today, the action scenes were mostly real. One of these include the scene where Troy crashes a plane into a hangar. This was shot using 13 different camera angles to ensure a perfect scene.

And did you know the magnetic boots worn by Sean Archer, portrayed by Travolta, are the same as those worn by the Goombas in the Super Mario Bros movie?^[4]

6 Raising Arizona

Raising Arizona was another of Nicolas Cage’s very early hit movies. Released in 1987, this comedy is pure entertainment from start to finish. He wasn’t, however, allowed to fully let his freak shine through. Joel and Ethan Coen wrote, produced and directed the film and forbade Cage to ad-lib his scenes or completely be his usual unusual self. This caused the relationship between Cage and the Coen brothers to become strained. On the other hand, John Goodman, who also starred in the film, is believed to have had a very good relationship with the brothers.

But Joel and Ethan had bigger problems to contend with after the film’s release, as there was an outcry over their depiction of the state of Arizona. Many accused the brothers of portraying Arizona as having ‘hick’ citizens with terrible fashion sense. Things got so heated that Joel Coen eventually released a statement in defense of the film. This did little to quell the wide-spread ire, though.^[5]

Top 10 Movies Better Than The Best

5 Leaving Las Vegas

Proving that Nicolas Cage really is (or was) a terrific actor, he won the Best Actor Oscar in 1996 for his role in the movie Leaving Las Vegas, beating out Anthony Hopkins and Sean Penn. Cage’s heartbreaking performance centered around his character, Ben Sanderson, moving to Las Vegas with a plan to drink himself to death after losing his family and job.

The tragedy of the film started even before a single scene was shot, when the author of the novel on which the movie was based, killed himself. He was only 33 years old. Coincidentally, Cage wore the same watch and drove the same model BMW as O’Brien and only realized this when the late author’s parents commented on it.^[6]

4 Con Air

Perhaps the most memorable thing about Con Air is Nic Cage’s very apparent Southern accent and his long greasy hair. Or maybe it is Steve Buschemi’s creepy portrayal of Garland Greene who sang Whole World In His Hands with a little girl everyone was certain would end up dead. Both Steve Buschemi and John Cusack’s parts were written exclusively for them but John Cusack ended up hating the film and refused to grant interviews on it.

Some would agree that for the most part, Con Air is fairly cheesy with an even cheesier dialogue (“put the bunny back in the box”). But what some may not know is that it was nominated for 2 Oscars for Best Original Song and Best Sound. No one was surprised however, when the movie lost out to fan-favorite blockbuster: Titanic. Also, the bunny scene as mentioned above, was dreamed up by Cage himself who wanted the scene to be symbolic of the pain and loss his character had suffered.^[7]

3 It Could Happen To You

While it is fairly well known that the movie, It Could Happen To You, was based on a real life event, the only part that is actually true is the waitress being given millions by a cop after he won the lottery. The two people that make up the true story, were never an item and each married another person. Robert Cunningham shared a $6 million Lotto prize with Phyllis Penzo after they bought a lottery ticket together in lieu of a tip.

They each picked 3 numbers and after winning, Penzo bought a house, a car each for her daughter and husband and did some travelling. Cunningham kept his job and only retired in 2018 after 38 years on the force. He bought a house with his millions and is now living out his retirement with his wife and two sisters-in-law.^[8]

2 Matchstick Men

Matchstick Men is one of Nicolas Cage’s best movies. In it he truly shines in the role of Roy Waller, an OCD and Tourette Syndrome-afflicted con artist with a slight leaning towards agoraphobia. Despite the fact that the movie is good, it pretty much flopped at the box office with very low profit margins.

In the film, Alison Lohman portrayed a 14-year-old girl (Angela) when in real life she was already 23 years old. She arrived for her audition dressed as a 14-year-old and even the producer could not tell that she was a lot older than she looked. Angela pulling off the ultimate con towards the end of the film and leaving Waller penniless after robbing him, was the twist no-one saw coming. Some who were involved with the filming believed this was a too harsh and negative twist, but Ridley Scott fought to keep the scene in the movie.^[9]

1 Ghost Rider

It was almost inevitable that Nicolas Cage would eventually play the starring role in the Ghost Rider movies based on a Marvel Comics character of the same name. The first Ghost Rider film was a huge success, scoring $115 million in the North American box office alone. Sadly, the sequel was terrible and panned by critics and fans.

When talks between Marvel and Hollywood were initiated in 1992 regarding the licensing of various Marvel characters, the idea of a cinematic adaptation of Ghost Rider was floated. Two efforts to get a movie made failed, with the second attempt including Johnny Depp as the lead before the project fell apart.

When Cage was finally cast in the role, he almost dropped out of the Ghost Rider project after the director walked away and Cage was offered a role in Hellblazer. However, the writer insisted on Sting for the Hellblazer role and Cage ended up going back to Ghost Rider. Sting did not play any role in Hellblazer after all, and Keanu Reeves was cast in the lead role. The movie was renamed Constantine.

During an interview about Ghost Rider, Cage said that his performance was inspired by his pet snake. Apparently, the snake would turn its back on him and sway back and forth which inspired Cage to spin around and leap at his victims in the movie.^[10]

10 Of The Most Sought-after Lost Films

Halloween is approaching fast. One can just about taste the trick or treat candy and smell the Pumpkin Spice in the air. And of course, no Halloween is complete without a few scary urban legends. On this list are some lesser known, but still spine-tingling spooky stories to keep in your back pocket for those moonless nights around the campfire… or you know, the TV, for the less adventurous…

SEE ALSO: 10 Mysterious Urban Legends Based on Video Footage

7 El Cadejo

In South America, ancient legends tell of spirit dogs that help humans cross over to the other side after death. Now this may sound heart-warming, however one tale was adapted specifically to highlight the difference between good and evil.

According to this legend there are two types of Cadejo (which are ghosts or spirits that take on the form of a dog): the black Cadejo that represents evil and the white Cadejo that represents, you guessed it, good. It is said that God created the white Cadejo to protect people, while Satan created the black Cadejo to fight against the white one and cause havoc.

The black Cadejo stalks those who are out late at night and up to no good. It hypnotizes its victims with its red glowing eyes and steals their souls. The white Cadejo on the other hand protects all believers and shields babies and small children from the black Cadejo. Luckily you don’t have to rely on only the white Cadejo to protect you from the black one. It is said that the black Cadejo is easily scared off by burning incense.^[1]

6 The Curse of Lake Lanier

Lake Sidney Lanier lies in the northern part of Georgia and stretches out over 26 miles. It is the largest lake in Georgia and dates to 1948. It took 5 years for the lake to reach the desired water level. During this time many structures surrounding the lake were eventually abandoned, as the government relocated families and businesses. These structures included houses, buildings, fields, roads and more. Essentially this means that there are entire ghost towns lying underneath Lake Lanier’s surface, including the towns’ desecrated cemeteries.

As time went by, strange things started happening at the lake. People started noticing a high number of deaths including drownings, boating accidents and cars that crash land into the water. Reports surfaced of boats hitting invisible objects in the lake and capsizing. Swimmers who barely survived drowning, reported being pulled or held underwater. Very soon the lake earned the moniker of being cursed. Furthermore, people also disappear around the lake at an alarming rate. One of the most haunting stories that surround Lake Lanier is the disappearance of Delia Parker Young and her friend Susie Roberts in 1958. The two girls had paid a visit to a gas station near the lake and had allegedly driven off without paying. Across Lanier Bridge were skid marks that seemed to indicate the car they were traveling in had gone off the bridge and into Lake Lanier.

A year and a half of searching for the bodies of the girls proved fruitless. Then a fisherman got the fright of his life when a decomposed body appeared to float up from the depths of the lake, right in front of him. There were two toes missing from the left foot of the body and both hands were gone. Assuming the body was that of Delia Parker Young, it was buried in an unmarked grave. Many years later in 1990, when construction workers dredged Lake Lanier to set up pillars for the expansion of Lanier Bridge, they discovered the car with Susie’s remains still inside. She was eventually buried next to Delia.

Soon after, sightings were being reported of a transparent figure wearing a blue dress and missing its hands, walking the length of the bridge. Considering that Delia Parker Younger wore a blue dress the night she died, people claim it is her ghost looking for her lost hands.^[2]

5 Angelystor

In Llangernyw, a small village in Conwy, North Wales, villagers who visit the medieval church in the area do so to find out whether they would die in the coming months. It is said that an ancient supernatural being called the Angelystor appears in the church and recites the names of the parish members who would die soon. The Angelystor appears only twice a year, on 31 July and 31 October.

According to legend, a tailor named Shôn ap Robert mocked the idea of the ancient being while downing a couple of beers at the local watering hole. His drinking buddies dared him to take a walk up to the church, since he was a complete sceptic. ap Robert wasted no time in making his way to the medieval church, scoffing as he went. But his blood ran cold as he heard a voice from within the church reciting names; the first of which was his own. Terrified, ap Robert screamed that he wasn’t ready to die, but to no avail. He died shortly afterwards.^[3]

4 Selborne Dock

Simon’s Town is home to the South African Navy’s Naval Base and is located on False Bay, east of the Cape Peninsula. The town is the fifth oldest in South Africa and rumored to be among the most haunted. Part of its ghostly reputation began back in 1900 with the building of the Selborne Dock at the harbour to accommodate expanded steam propulsion vessels.

It took 10 years to complete construction on the dock and the intense labour of 3000 workers. Indian craftsmen and Italian masons were amongst the labourers. However, when it came to safety regulations, those who ran the building project were more concerned with finishing on time than ensuring all workers were safe. Consequently, because of the lack of safety measures on site, 33 workers died during the building process. Some of the dead included the Italian masons whose graves are located close to Selborne Dock.

It has been said that when visitors pass by the wall of the dock to visit Boulder’s Beach nearby, hands appear out of the structure, desperately grabbing at whoever is close enough. Giving up in despair, the hands fade back into the stone façade of the dock. Naturally, legend has it that these are the hands of the 33 dead labourers trying their best to pull themselves back into the land of the living.^[4]

3 The Last Bus to Fragrant Hills

China is well known for its creepy urban legends and superstitions. One of these legends tells the story of a young man who got on the last bus heading to Fragrant Hills in Beijing on 14 November 1995. The man had just taken his seat when two men outside tried to flag the bus down. As these men were not waiting at a designated bus stop, the bus driver almost sped right past them. However, the conductor on board told the driver to stop as this would be the last trip to Fragrant Hills for the night.

To the bus passengers’ surprise there were actually three men and they were wearing Qing Dynasty robes. One of the men had long, tangled hair. The other passengers felt a little troubled because the men’s faces were ghostly white, and they did not speak. However, the bus journey was uneventful and eventually all the passengers disembarked apart from the mystery men, the young man and one old lady.

Out of nowhere the old lady started yelling at the young man, claiming that he had stolen her wallet. A terrible argument ensued with the old lady insisting that they both get off the bus and go to the closest police station. The young man was livid as he got off the bus, seeing as how he would not get home and there was no police station in sight to clear up the misunderstanding. Just then, the old lady turned to him and said that the wind from the windows in the bus raised the robes of the mystery men and she saw that they had no feet. That was why she insisted that the young man leave the bus with her.

The following day it became known that the bus, which was numbered 302, had gone missing right after the old lady and young man disembarked. It was found three days later, miles away from Fragrant Hills, inside a reservoir. Inside the bus were the bodies of the driver, the conductor and one unidentified man with long, tangled hair. Another version of the tale states that instead of three ghosts on the bus, it was just one female ghost in a red dress. Yet another version says the gas tank of the bus was filled with blood, or that the bus was never found again.^[5]

2 Andrew’s Walk

At the beginning of the twentieth century, Dr Michael Schneider bought a mansion in Adelaide, Australia. Known as Clifton Manor, the mansion sprawled across 40 acres of land and Schneider and his wife and two daughters were very happy with their new home.

Schneider decided to treat patients at home, but away from his family. He saw the ill and diseased and schizophrenic in a cabin on the far side of his land. Five years had passed when tragedy struck and Schneider lost his wife and daughters to an accident. Schneider couldn’t deal with his grief and went insane.

At some point, nearby residents started reporting that they were hearing screams coming from Clifton Manor. Stories began to fly that in his insanity, Dr Schneider had begun performing surgeries on unsuspecting patients without using anesthesia. It was said that Schneider was offering his dying patients to the devil. For some reason no investigation took place at the property, until Schneider himself died. Only then did police descent upon Clifton Manor, to find the body of the doctor surrounded with the remains of his long-deceased family.

Legend has it that Schneider’s ghost and the restless spirits of his victims still reside at the mansion. Those who are feeling adventurous can visit the site, now known as Andrew’s Walk. Just watch out for vengeful spirits crawling from the tree line as you walk up the lane.^[6]

1 Gjenganger

In Scandinavia, the word ‘Gjenganger’ strikes fear into the heart of many. It is said that some who die in Scandinavia are resurrected and become Gjengangers for the purpose of haunting those who are still alive.

Legend has it that the lost souls who become Gjengangers were ordinary people who were plucked from their lives prematurely by means of murder or accident. Once transformed into a Gjenganger, these spirits make it their afterlife’s mission to disrupt the future of those still living and especially those who contributed to their death.

Gjengangers strike in the darkest hour of night, pinching their victims and then fleeing. Once their victim wakes, he or she will notice an unexplained blue mark on their body. This mark leads to illness and eventually death as the victim’s flesh rots until the disease reaches their heart.

Luckily there is a way to stop a Gjenganger in its tracks. If a person dies by murder or accident, it is advisable to bury them in the appropriate manner with a runic inscription inside the coffin which would prevent any resurrection efforts.^[7]

Area 51 is probably one of the most mysterious man-made places in the world. Depending on which part of the Internet you’re in, conspiracies around the highly secretive military base can range from ‘they conduct human experiments there’ to ‘we’re living in a simulation run out of Area 51`. There’s no dearth of information (or what conspiracy theorists believe is ‘information’) available on the region, though because of its popularity and conspiracy value, most of it is sensationalized and probably not accurate.

SEE ALSO: 10 Secret Cities Kept Hidden From The Public

That’s, of course, if you dig in a bit deeper and realize that there are many relatively-unknown facts around Area 51 that have been hidden in the back pages of search results. If we take our eyes off all the aliens and weather modification stuff for a minute, we’d realize that those facts are every bit as interesting as the most far-fetched conspiracy theories around it.

10 It’s Still Growing

It’s been a long time since the general public got to know about Area 51, even if the C.I.A. didn’t acknowledge its existence till 2013. What was originally an unspectacular military base to deal with the Cold War turned into the biggest military mystery in America, largely due to highly-publicized claims by former employees.

Since then, public interest in the base has only grown, and so has the base itself. Most of us assume that it’s just one cordoned-off place that has stayed the same since it was built. In reality, though, Area 51 is still expanding, along with – assumingly – the scope of whatever research is going on in there. The expansion has garnered quite a bit of controversy, too, as a significant part of the land that now makes Area 51 was forcefully taken by its owners without an adequate explanation. Now we’re not saying that it definitely means that they’ve found more aliens to experiment on in the years since the base was built. All we’re saying is that it’s a possibility.^[1]

9 No One Knows Why It’s Called Area 51

Most of us don’t realize that the name of the base wasn’t always Area 51, even if the government has used ‘Area 51’ to refer to it multiple times in the recent past. It’s also not its original name, as the base is called Homey Airport or Groom Lake in Cold War era documents. Regardless, the base is now referred to as Area 51 for all intents and purposes, even in modern official records.

It certainly begs the question; why that name? Area 51 implies the existence of areas 1 – 50, though if they exist, no one has ever been able to find them. The answer? We simply have no idea. We know that government diagrams from the 60s called it that, and that the CIA officially confirmed it in 2013. Though beyond that, we just don’t know.

Some people say that it’s simply because of the grid naming system by the Atomic Energy Commission that did the planning for that region. Others claim that Areas 1 – 50 were originally built but eventually destroyed due to things getting out of hands with those pesky aliens. As far as we know, any of the explanations could be true.^[2]

8 When The Navy Confirmed UFO Videos Are Real

While there are definitely a lot of conspiracy theories around Area 51 (and we do mean ‘a lot’; just search online), almost all of them could be discredited by reason and logic. We’re sure that some of them have a shred of truth to them – as the military does need bases to test out secretive technology for national security – though some of the theories are too far-fetched to be true.

That is, of course, until you consider that the U.S. Navy has gone on record confirming the presence of one of the UFOs captured on video in the region. The video shows navy aircraft engaging with some weird flying objects, and was considered to be doctored until then. While that doesn’t mean that the navy confirmed the presence of aliens, they did admit that some unexplained flying phenomenon has been happening in and around Area 51.^[3]

7 One Of Those UFOs Matches Lazar’s Description

While many people from the general populace may have forgotten how Area 51 gained its popularity, the conspiracy theorist community remembers that it was thanks to Bob Lazar. Originally an employee at Area 51, Lazar was the first person to claim that he had seen the government conducting alien experiments there.

If you don’t believe in conspiracies, you’d think that none of his predictions could be true, and may dismiss him as someone just out for fame. That would be our assumption, too, at least until his description of one of the alien UFOs matched one of the three whose presence was confirmed by the navy. He claimed that he worked on a spacecraft that flies with its bottom in the front and described its shape in detail. If you look at the above-mentioned video, you’d see that one of those objects perfectly coincides with his claims.^[4]

6 The Original Purpose Of Area 51

Among all the chatter around aliens and conspiracy theories, it’s difficult to find the actual purpose of Area 51. Many theorists believe that to be undeniable proof of the accuracy of their theories, as if it wasn’t built for any other purpose, it must have been to house captured aliens. While that may as well be true – as a lot of people unrelated to each other have claimed to see weird things around the base – Area 51 had a legit reason to exist.

You see, when the Cold War started, the entire Eastern Block was suddenly covered in what we know as the Iron Curtain. Because of that, USA had to come up with an effective way to gather intelligence. Area 51 was originally meant to carry out research on America’s secret, high-altitude U – 2 recon planes. The secrecy around the base could also explained by the simple fact that the U.S. military didn’t want Soviet Russia to know about it, as that would defeat the whole point.^[5]

5 There’s No Actual Fence Around Area 51

For a facility so heavily guarded by the U.S. military, you’d think that Area 51 would have some kind of physical boundary to keep the citizens out. After all, if you can just breach its guarded perimeter by the simple act of walking, it’s not a very safe military facility, is it?

Actually, that’s exactly how it is. Area 51 doesn’t have a fence at all, and we do mean ‘at all’. While some of its inner installations are guarded by perimeters, the whole base has no physical boundary. That doesn’t mean it’s advisable to just walk into it—as it does have magnetic sensors at many places, along with guard towers who would definitely shoot at you if you try to do that.^[6]

4 The Secret Daily Commute To Work

Many of you may have wondered about the work life of the people working inside Area 51. It’s not like they’d build residential facilities for all the employees, as that would literally be the best military job in the world. Who wouldn’t want to work for the biggest army in the world with free accommodation and zero risk of combat?

While we’d guess that some of the personnel working in Area 51 have their own quarters (as we don’t know any better), the majority of them don’t. They make their way to office in possibly one of the most peculiar and secretive daily commutes to work in the world – by air. There’s a whole hangar dedicated to employees of Area 51 inside the facility, with a restricted terminal on the other side at the McCarran International Airport in Las Vegas. More interestingly, the planes use a secret call sign called Janet, which may as well be the most secretive airline in the world. It’s not really a company registered by that name, either, but just a name given to those flights when they’re in civilian airspace.^[7]

3 You Can See It On Google Maps

Even if the general public may not have any idea about what’s inside Area 51, one company knows the entire layout of it, at least from satellite distance. Google Maps is possibly one of the few private companies to be allowed to map the facility, and you could even see it in high resolution right now. It even released a high-res time-lapse of the growth of the facility over the years, something we’re quite surprised the government even allowed it to do.

Google also has an Easter egg for Area 51 if you type in its coordinates in Maps. Just go to 37.24804, -115.800155, and you’d find that the little Google Street pointer guy has turned into a tiny spaceship.^[8]

2 U.S. Military’s Most Heavily-Guarded Secret

Other than conspiracy theorists and people dedicated to dismiss conspiracies, you’d think that Area 51 would just be another secretive U.S. military facility. After all, conspiracy theories exist around all sizeable secret military bases in the world. All the conspiracies around Area 51 seem to branch out of that initial claim by Bob Lazar, and it’s safe to assume that it would just be another military facility if that wouldn’t have happened.

In reality, though, it’s not just conspiracy theorists who find Area 51 to be of interest. When some astronauts at the Skylab space facility accidentally photographed the facility, CIA sent them a special memorandum stating that it was the only coordinate on the planet with explicit instructions to not do that. In other words, the government also recognizes Area 51 as the single most-heavily-guarded secret of the U.S. military. What does that mean? Well, your guess is as good at ours.^[9]

1 The Real Conspiracy At Area 51

We’ve been exposed to so many conspiracy theories surrounding Area 51 that we inadvertently ignore real controversies happening in there. It’s pretty hard to keep up with, say, cases of sexual harassment at the workplace inside Area 51 when we’re consistently told about things like exoskeletons made out of alien skin.

As is the case with most governments, the real conspiracies around Area 51 have more to do with corporate misconduct (Lockheed Martin built the U-2 plane) and employer neglect of working conditions than aliens. There have been quite a few lawsuits alleging that Area 51 employees were exposed to hazardous chemicals that weren’t dumped properly, and at least two people may have died because of it. Complicating matters even further is the government’s refusal to disclose exactly what they were exposed to, as everything inside the facility is a heavily-guarded government secret.^[10]

About The Author: You can check out Himanshu’s stuff at Cracked (www.cracked.com/members/RudeRidingRomeo/) and Screen Rant (https://screenrant.com/author/hshar/), or get in touch with him for writing gigs ([email protected]).

Alcohol is a double-edged sword that’s been enjoyed for centuries by individuals from all walks of life. It can lend courage to the cowardly, creativity to the unimaginative, and, of course, be the downfall of one’s life. From excessive consumption during colonial times to bizarre drinking traditions from around the world, the following 10 cases explore random, little-known facts—both scientific and historic—regarding God’s liquid gift to mankind.

10‘Beer Day’

Iceland, whose alcohol consumption has increased 35 percent between 1992 and 2012, has an official holiday on the first of March known as “Beer Day.”

The history behind the date symbolizes much more than simply becoming intoxicated. It all began in 1915 when prohibition went into effect in Iceland. A short time after, Spain threatened that if Iceland didn’t begin importing Spanish wines once again then Spain would stop all importation of salted cod, which would be a major blow to Iceland’s economy.

Iceland complied, and in 1921, the ban on red Spanish and Portuguese wines was lifted. However, beer was still prohibited until March 1, 1989, when Iceland declared that people could legally buy beer again. On that date, people flocked to the streets in celebration and have continued to do so ever since.

9Alcohol Legality

The drinking age in the United States has varied between 18 to its current state of 21. Such an age would be absurd in 10 percent of the world, given that a total of 19 countries have no minimum drinking age at all, such as Sierra Leone and Cambodia. Fortunately, Antigua, Barbuda, and the Central African Republic are a little stricter when it comes to alcohol consumption—their minimum drinking ages are between 10 and 15 years old.

However, no laws are more stringent than the 16 countries where alcohol is illegal to consume at any age, such as Afghanistan, Somalia, and Pakistan. Iran, whose ban on alcohol was instituted after the 1979 revolution, displayed just how serious a criminal offence drinking was in 2012, when two men were sentenced to death for drinking alcohol. The men had two prior convictions for which they each received 80 lashes.

8Breakfast Of Champions

Most of us are familiar with the oh-so-delicious mimosa, the champagne and orange juice concoction that has forever turned drinking at sunrise into an acceptable and classy experience. On the other hand, some countries have taken the tradition of morning boozing to a whole new level.

The Black Isle Brewery in Scotland has recently released Cold Turkey, a rich beer marketed for morning drinkers that has “all the malty taste of a multigrain cereal.” Although its alcohol content is a measly 2.8 percent, many in Scotland are concerned that the move will promote alcoholism in a country that has the eighth highest alcohol consumption in the world.

At the other end of the scale is the 38-percent Danish liquor eye-opener, Gammel Dansk. Described as being similar to Jagermeister, Gammel Dansk is traditionally drunk at breakfast, straight up and at room temperature. In fact, many people in Denmark prefer to have a small glass along with their coffee to get the day started.

And then there’s the famous Bavarian breakfast. In Bavaria, a German federal state in the southeast of the country, many people take the edge off in the morning by enjoying a cold, tall beer. In fact, Bavarians even have a word for it: fruhschoppen, which means “drinking alcohol before noon.”

7Colonial Times

Americans have never been shy when it comes to indulging in an occasional drink or two, and perhaps it all dates back to colonial times, when Americans drank more alcohol than at any other time in history. In fact, the average American drank about eight ounces of alcohol a day. It was typical for people to drink beer or cider for breakfast. Even children boozed in colonial America, and it all began in England.

During this time, waterways in Europe were polluted, causing many to become gravely—often fatally—ill. For this reason, they substituted alcohol for water, and the tradition carried over to the New World. Whiskey was often given to “cure” laryngitis and colic, hot brandy was taken for cholera, and even a shot of liquor was essential for pregnant women to ease their discomfort.

Founding father John Adams began his mornings with a draft of hard cider, and John Hancock was known to smuggle wine. In fact, more than 100 years prior, in 1622, the Virginia Company of London wrote Governor Francis Wyatt at Jamestown complaining that the colony was being hurt by the colonists’ drinking habits. However, those concerns clearly fell on deaf ears, and the tradition enthusiastically continued.

6Alcoholic Animals

The pen-tailed treeshrews of Malaysia are said to have the world’s highest alcohol tolerance. Fruit bats as well as the slow loris are not shy when it comes to indulging, eagerly consuming fermented fruits and nectar from plants and flower buds.

However, one of the more interesting cases is that of the rhesus macaques, who have the tendency to drink until they fall down or pass out, according to a 2006 study. The study also showed that the monkeys who drank the most often lived alone and drank toward the end of the day, a pattern similar to that of humans.

Vervet monkeys, sometimes referred to as green monkeys, have become accustomed to the ethanol in the fermented sugar cane which can be found throughout the Caribbean. Interestingly enough, research also showed that the younger monkeys drank more alcohol than the adult monkeys, according to Jorge Juarez of the Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico.

The list continues, from butterflies that drink beer to boost their spermatophores to male fruit flies that turn to booze after being sexually rejected.

5Genetic Makeup

Studies have indicated that alcoholism is influenced by both environmental and genetic factors. One particular group with a historically high rate of alcoholism is Native Americans. Dr. Ting-Kai Li, professor of medicine and biochemistry, believes that this is due to an inherited gene mutation. According to Dr. Li, Native Americans do not have the protective genes that allow the metabolism of acetaldehyde.

If acetaldehyde is not broken down during metabolism, the accumulation leads to significant and unpleasant physiological effects. Researchers also believe that the accumulation of acetaldehyde can actually stimulate drinking.

Of course, there are other factors that play into alcoholism, such as one’s environment. Whatever the case may be, Native Americans as a group have the highest alcohol-related deaths of all ethnic groups in the United States, and therefore such research is crucial to understanding and helping those affected.

4Uganda’s Waragi Epidemic

Over a three-week period in 2010, more than 100 people in Uganda died after drinking illegal homemade banana gin laced with methanol. Before dying, those affected experienced blindness and suffered kidney and liver failure. Hundreds of households were searched in the days following the deaths, looking for homemade gin producers.

Waragi, as it’s called in Uganda, is made from bananas, millet, or sugarcane and is sold for one-sixth the price of leading regulated alcohol brands. Unfortunately, the government of Uganda made it illegal to produce unregulated waragi, which accounts for nearly 80 percent of the liquor in the country.

The law was quickly proven to be ineffective. For starters, the illegal production of waragi carries a fine of only $1.50 USD and politicians refuse to crack down on rogue waragi producers, believing that it would cripple many household incomes, ultimately losing their vote in the elections. Regardless, as long as the law stands and people continue to make waragi using whatever chemicals they can obtain, the deaths will continue to rise.

3Alcohol And Pregnancy

The debate as to whether or not an expecting mother could safely have a small amount—say, a glass of wine—has been a contentious debate for quite some time. A recent Danish study found that women who drink one glass of wine per week had children with greater behavioral and emotional well-being as opposed to mothers who refrained from drinking, although the CDC still recommends that pregnant women abstain from alcohol entirely.

However, there are many doctors who find that an occasional glass of wine is harmless for the unborn child. Dr. Marjorie Greenfield, a professor of obstetrics and gynecology, believes that there is no evidence that light drinking is dangerous, and that one or two drinks per weeks is “OK.”

2Alcohol’s Sobering Effects

We all know how detrimental alcohol abuse can be. Medically speaking, we tend to think of liver cirrhosis when talking about alcoholism, but the fact is, cirrhosis is just one of many medical ailments attributed to alcohol abuse. For instance, alcoholism can lead to a decrease in the body’s ability to absorb vitamin B1 (thiamine), thus diminishing the stores we have in our body.

This deficiency causes a profound effect on our neurological system, a condition known as Wernicke-Korsakoff syndrome. This neurological disease has a range of physical abnormalities, including an inability to coordinate voluntary movements like standing or walking as well as ocular impairments like double vision and involuntary eye movements. Wernicke-Korsakoff syndrome can also cause confusion and memory loss, which often leads those affected to create imaginary events to fill in the gaps, medically known as confabulation.

Perhaps the most life-threatening and common ailment seen in chronic alcohol abuse is congestive heart failure due to dilated cardiomyopathy. Dilated cardiomyopathy basically refers to the fact that the heart has stretched so much, it often appears to look like a balloon on a chest X-ray, thus affecting its ability to pump blood throughout the body.

1The Federal Poisoning Plan

Between December 25 and 27, 1926, the city of New York saw 31 alcohol-related deaths and countless others desperately ill. What was originally speculated as your typical alcohol poisoning turned out to be far more disturbing given that the deaths were courtesy of the US government.

When Prohibition took effect in 1920, law enforcement began denaturing industrial alcohol by adding toxic chemicals. This plan was conducted with the hopes of deterring people from re-purifying the liquid so that it could be consumed. As time passed and the speakeasies and underground bars flourished, the anti-drinking forces in the government developed a new denaturing process that would make industrial-grade alcohol twice as poisonous.

TIME magazine noted in a 1927 article that three ordinary drinks of this concoction created by the government would cause blindness. Government officials stated that the individuals who consumed the alcohol did it under their own free will, and the act was therefore nothing short of a deliberate suicide. The government insisted that they held no responsibility. Prohibition came to an end five years later, and by that time, the actions of the United States government had claimed the lives of at least 10,000 people.

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

Although history is a rich, complex subject, schools can make it a bit boring by leaving out the juicy bits. Typically, this is either because they are too raunchy or because they don’t conform to the currently desired social narrative. History class would be significantly more interesting if it covered these ten entries.

10 Groundhog Day Initially Involved Cooking The Animals

February 2 is Groundhog Day in the United States. On that day, if a groundhog emerges from its burrow, sees its shadow, and scurries back to its den, then residents claim they can expect six more weeks of winter. If not, then spring will come early. Regardless of the outcome, the festivities have become quite popular, especially thanks to the eponymous 1993 movie starring Bill Murray.

Although the holiday is celebrated in many locations throughout the US, the biggest festival takes place in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania, home of the legendary Punxsutawney Phil. This is also the place where the tradition originated back in the 1880s. However, the initial celebration, called “the Punxsutawney Groundhog Club,” involved large groups of visitors prowling the hillsides, hunting the groundhogs for dinner.^[1]

The club was the brainchild of a local newspaper editor named Clymer Freas. Back then, the train from Pittsburgh passed through Punxsutawney to reach a nearby coal plant, and locals wanted a way to make people stop instead of just passing through. Freas began using flashy descriptions for the groundhog hunts, hoping to draw larger crowds. The tradition morphed into an over-the-top weather forecast soon enough, and in 1886, Punxsutawney Phil became the “Seer of Seers, Sage of Sages, Prognosticator of Prognosticators, and Weather Prophet Extraordinary.”

9 Johnny Appleseed Was Motivated By Money And Religion

The legend of Johnny Appleseed is pervasive in American culture. Most people have the same image of him, walking around with a bag full of seeds, planting apple trees everywhere he went. While this description is somewhat accurate, it misses out on the real motives behind Johnny’s actions.

Back in the late 18th century, the Northwest Territory still had massive chunks of uninhabited land, which were being bought by private companies in anticipation of settlers. In 1792, the Ohio Company of Associates began offering acres of land in the wilderness as incentive for new permanent homesteads. In return, they asked would-be settlers to plant 50 apple trees and 20 peach trees within a few years as a show of commitment.^[2]

Appleseed, real name John Chapman, realized he could stay just ahead of the incoming frontiersmen, planting the orchards himself and selling the land at a profit. Afterward, he would just move to another piece of undeveloped land and repeat the process. Furthermore, Chapman was a devout member of the New Church based on the teachings of Emanuel Swedenborg and also used the opportunity to spread his gospel.

Strangest of all, it’s unlikely that Chapman’s apples were used as food. Given how sour they were and the popularity of hard cider, most of them would have been used for alcohol. Only one Appleseed tree allegedly still exists, on a farm in Nova, Ohio. All the rest were cut down by the FBI during Prohibition due to their ties to alcohol.

8 How To Spot A Virgin

Throughout history, a woman’s body was considered much more the concern of her parents, her betrothed, and her church than of her own. A young woman’s virginity was seen as a prized commodity and would often increase the value of the bride. Understandably, any potential suitors would want assurances of the girl’s purity if they were to pay a premium for it. That’s where the virginity tests came in.

The standard test involved checking the sheets for blood after the marriage was consummated. However, there were ways of faking it, typically involving animal blood. Furthermore, as we know today, there are a lot of medical reasons why first-time intercourse doesn’t always result in bleeding.

Examination of a woman’s urine was also a popular method described by physicians from ancient to medieval times. Pliny the Elder gave a recipe for a potion which the woman was supposed to drink after fasting for a few days. If she could refrain from peeing, then the girl was still a virgin. Albertus Magnus wrote of a similar method.

Fumigation tests were all the rage during the Middle Ages. While they varied in execution, they were based on the idea that, after sex, a woman’s body became an open passage that could carry smells and odors from one end to the other. Italian physician Niccolo Falcucci suggested that a virgin covering her bottom half with cloth and fumigating it with coal would not be able to detect the odor.^[3] Alternatively, fumigating a virgin with dock flowers would make her turn pale. Others believed that fumigating a woman’s lower area with various ingredients would make her breath smell the same way.

7 How To Catch A Unicorn

Unicorns have been around for a long time. They were first mentioned by the ancient Greeks, then referenced several times in the Bible, and have become a staple of many cultures ever since.

Despite the somewhat gentle nature we ascribe to the mythological creature, ancient historians always presented it as one of the fiercest animals in nature. Pliny the Elder even decreed that it was impossible to catch one alive. Seventh-century scholar Isidore of Seville concurred with Pliny . . . mostly. He knew the one weakness of the unicorn and went on to describe the technique needed in order to capture such a creature.

The trick was to use a virgin woman. If she were to stand in front of the unicorn and bare her breasts, the animal would become very docile. It would then proceed to rest its head on the woman’s lap and suckle from her breast until it fell gently to sleep.^[4] That was when the hunters could pounce and slay the beast.

6 The Olympic Torch Prank

The Olympics have a lot of proud traditions and symbols that trace their origins to the ancient games, but the torch relay is not one of them. In fact, this practice comes to us courtesy of the Nazi propaganda machine at the 1936 Berlin Games. It was the idea of Olympics organizer Carl Diem and was brought to its fullest potential by Joseph Goebbels.

Understandably, some people weren’t happy with how venerated this tradition became in subsequent years, given its ignoble origins. During the 1956 Summer Olympics in Melbourne, a group of Australian students protested the torch relay with a prank.

In Sydney, 30,000 people lined the streets, eagerly awaiting cross-country champion Harry Dillon to arrive carrying the Olympic flame. The plan was for him to give the torch to Sydney mayor Pat Hills, who would give a speech and pass it on to another runner. The historic moment finally arrived, and a young man, curiously dressed in a shirt and tie, flanked by a police escort, made his way to the steps of Sydney Town Hall and handed the flaming torch over to the mayor.

Hills started talking but soon realized something was wrong with the torch. It was actually a painted chair leg with an empty pudding can glued to the top. Inside was burning a pair of underwear soaked in kerosene.^[5] The runner, actually a university student named Barry Larkin, had disappeared into the crowd.

5 Franklin Roosevelt: The Failed Bartender

Among other things, Franklin Delano Roosevelt is remembered for repealing Prohibition and making alcohol once again legal in the United States. There is a simple reason for this: The president enjoyed a good cocktail.

There have been plenty of American presidents who liked to drink. Ulysses S. Grant probably had more drunk days in office than sober ones. But Roosevelt took his passion a step further and became the mixologist-in-chief. He passed the time at parties by making cocktails for other partygoers. The only problem was that, according to his colleagues, he just wasn’t very good.

Roosevelt’s go-to drink was the Plymouth martini, which he often liked to spice up by using different combinations of garnishes. He even created his own concoction called the “Haitian Libation.”^[6] It consisted of orange juice mixed with dark rum, an egg white, and a dash of brown sugar, served on the rocks. Allegedly, it was meant to help female guests get a bit frisky, but even FDR’s own son, James Roosevelt, called it a “deplorable invention.”

4 Benjamin Franklin’s Love For Older Women

When he wasn’t busy laying down the foundations of the United States, Benjamin Franklin did a lot of outrageous things. On one occasion in 1745, Franklin wrote a letter to a young, unidentified friend, advising him to get married. Although Franklin was strongly in favor of marriage, he recommended that, at the very least, his young friend should get an older mistress. He then proceeded to list off eight candid reasons why older women are superior to their younger counterparts.^[7]

Most of the reasons are sensible. According to Franklin, older women are more experienced, more discreet, make for better conversation, and decrease the risk of children. They are also more grateful and get better at day-to-day chores as they age: “They supply the diminution of beauty by an augmentation of utility.”

Most notable is the physical reason why Franklin believed mature women are superior. While their faces wrinkle and their neck and breasts grow “lank,” their lower parts remain “as plump as ever.” Franklin believed that, below a girdle, it was impossible to tell a young woman apart from an older one, or as he memorably put it, “In the dark all cats are grey.”

The letter was subsequently deemed too licentious and wasn’t published with the rest of Franklin’s papers in the 19th century. However, it was later cited in the mid–20th century and helped overturn the Comstock laws, which had made it illegal to mail pornography or other lewd, sex-related material. One judge pointed out that under that legislation, Ben Franklin would have been arrested on federal obscenity charges.

3 The Original Liberty Bell Was Melted And Recast Immediately

There are few symbols more powerful in US culture than the Liberty Bell. Originally housed in the steeple of the Pennsylvania State House (now known as Independence Hall), it allegedly rang on July 4, 1776, after the Continental Congress voted on independence. Most modern experts contend this is simply a historical myth born from a short story by George Lippard written in 1847, decades after the fact. If the bell rang at all, it would have happened on July 8, during the reading of the Declaration of Independence. However, some historians claim the Liberty Bell wasn’t used then, either, because the steeple was under repair at that time.^[8]

As with many historical symbols, the Liberty Bell gained its fame long after it came into existence. In fact, the original bell, which was ordered from England in 1752, gained its infamous crack during a test strike and was promptly melted down and recast. The process was repeated two more times until the statesmen were finally satisfied with the finished product. The current bell gained its crack sometime during the 1800s. Accounts vary as to when and why.

The symbolism came much later, when the image of the bell began to be used by anti-slavery publications. This is also when it became known as the Liberty Bell, having simply been referred to as the State House Bell beforehand.

2 Andrew Jackson Hated Paper Money

Andrew Jackson, seventh president of the United States, is known today for his service during the Revolutionary War, his penchant for duels and for being involved in America’s dirtiest election. Primarily, though, he is known for being the guy on the $20 bill. This is in spite of the fact that Jackson campaigned against paper currency for most of his presidential career.

During Jackson’s reelection campaign in 1832, a hot-button issue was the Bank War, a political struggle to recharter the Second Bank of the United States. Jackson and his party opposed this move, as they believed it would grant exclusive powers to corporations and take them away from the common man.

In general, Jackson hated paper currency because he considered it too insecure and prone to sudden fluctuations. He preferred “hard money,” such as gold or silver, due to its intrinsic value. Jackson continued to rally against paper currency until the end of his political career. Even in his farewell address, the ex-president warned people of the “mischiefs and dangers” of paper money and called for immediate reform.^[9]

1 JFK Partied With Bing Crosby

At this point, to say that John F. Kennedy was a womanizer is like saying the sky is blue. His extramarital exploits have been well-documented, yet it seems that there is always room for new revelations. Just a few years ago, former White House intern Mimi Alford came out with a tell-all book describing her love affair with JFK. She talked about the encounters the two shared in the White House pool, aboard his yacht, even in Jackie Kennedy’s own powder-blue bedroom. And yet it seems that JFK liked to let loose the most at Hollywood parties thrown by Bing Crosby. During one Crosby bash, Kennedy convinced Alford to take poppers in order to enhance the sex, although he didn’t partake.

On another occasion, JFK was attending one of Crosby’s parties with a few White House friends. At one point, everyone was naked in the pool. The president was chatting up stewardesses while his aide and close friend David Powers was having sex at the other end of the pool.^[10] Hours later, Powers played a prank on Crosby by grabbing as many of his suits as possible and jumping in the pool with them, to the amusement of the president and annoyance of the crooner.