The story of the Amber Room has all of the elements of an Indiana Jones film: the bounty of kings, the spoils of war, theft by dastardly Nazis, a tireless search by the Soviet Union, mysterious deaths, and a priceless treasure waiting to be found.

Construction of the opulent “Eighth Wonder of the World” began at the command of the king of Prussia in 1701. Although estimates of its size vary, the Amber Room was believed to span about 55 square meters (592 ft²) after 18th-century renovations. It contained over six tons of amber backed by glittering gold and set with diamonds, rubies, and emeralds.

As a peace symbol between allies, the Amber Room was moved from its place in Charlottenburg Palace twice—once to Winter House in St. Petersburg and then to Catherine Palace in Pushkin. As an act of war, the room was moved once more before being lost forever.

In 1941, invading Nazi soldiers tore down the room, packed its panels into 27 crates, and shipped it to Konigsberg (now Kaliningrad), Germany. When the city was destroyed by Allied bombing in 1943, the room went missing.

In subsequent years, governments, historians, archaeologists, bounty hunters, and treasure seekers alike have sought it out, interviewing thousands of witnesses, poring over records, digging up locations all over Europe, and spending fortunes along the way. As of this writing, the room has never been found.

10 Unmoved From Kaliningrad, Germany

Although the prominent theory holds that the Amber Room must have been destroyed by the bombs which rained down upon the city then called Konigsberg, some evidence contradicts this. In over 1,000 pages of reports compiled by the decade-long Soviet investigation, no witnesses attest to any unusual odors as the city burned. Officers involved in this investigation believed that it would be impossible to miss the equivalent of 6 tons of incense burning at once.

In 1997, a German raid in Bremen lent credence to the idea that the room had survived the bombing.^[1] One of its Florentine mosaic panels turned up for auction. After its seizure, the panel was authenticated but the seller claimed ignorance as to its origin. His father, a deceased Wehrmacht soldier, never shared the secret of the panel, not even with his own flesh and blood.

9 Hidden In A Silver Mine On The Czech Border

Helmut Gaensel was a bounty hunter. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, the bounty he hunted was the bejeweled panels of the Amber Room. Former SS officers living in Brazil had tipped him off to a location. According to them, the panels were deposited in the 800-year-old Nicolai Stollen mine near the border between Germany and the Czech Republic.

Gaensel was not the only man to hear the tale. While he and a team of engineers, mining experts, and historians attempted to dig into the mine from the German side, a rival group led by Peter Haustein, then mayor of the town of Deutschneudorf, tried burrowing in from the Czech side. Though the competition led to international headlines and legal headaches, neither team proved successful.^[2]

8 Covered In A Murky Lagoon

The mayor of the Lithuanian town of Neringa believed that the Amber Room was hidden beneath the dirty waters of a nearby lagoon. According to Stasys Mikelis, SS soldiers were seen attempting to hide wooden crates in the shoreline near the end of the war. They did not count on rising sea levels to submerge their loot.^[3]

Not only did Mikelis believe it, he assembled a research team in 1998 to find it, hoping to put his town on the map. His dream was not realized.

7 Lost In A Bavarian Woodland

Georg Stein was a strawberry farmer and an avid treasure hunter. His heart was set on finding the Amber Room, but he got too close according to some sources.

Stein claimed to have discovered a secret radio frequency and to have listened to the last-known communication about the transfer of the Amber Room. This message was reportedly sent from the Castle Lauenstein on the border of Thuringia on a direct shortwave to Switzerland.

Stein then arranged to meet a “search competitor” in Bavaria. The meeting was not to be. In 1987, Stein was found dead in the woodland.^[4] His body was stripped, his stomach slashed open with a scalpel. The death was ruled a suicide.

6 Beneath Wuppertal, Western Germany

Pensioner Karl-Heinz Kleine believes that he knows the location of the Amber Room and who hid it there. According to Kleine, the Nazi’s chief administrator in East Prussia, Erich Koch, secreted the treasure in his hometown of Wuppertal in the industrial Ruhr area.^[5]

It would not be a far stretch to imagine it of Koch. Even the Nazis were appalled by his brazen thefts and use of concentration camp inmates for personal gain. Koch was tried for corruption before a Nazi court in 1944 and sentenced to death. Later reprieved, he returned to favor and continued amassing his personal fortune until the end of the war.

Once captured in Poland, he was sentenced to death for the murder of 72,000 Poles and for sending another 200,000 to labor camps. But he escaped his sentence yet again. Koch’s ill health prevented Poland from carrying out his death sentence, and he lived in prison for 27 years, unrepentant to the last.

5 Shipwrecked In The Baltic Sea

The sinking of the Wilhelm Gustloff on the night of January 30, 1945, was the worst disaster in maritime history. Under the press of the Red Army and rumored defeat, a great evacuation of German civilians began on the Baltic Sea. Every seaworthy vessel was placed into service.

So it was that the Wilhelm Gustloff, a luxury liner designed for fewer than 2,000 people, carried 10,582 shivering evacuees on that fateful night. It was flanked by only one military escort, which stood no chance when a Soviet submarine fired three torpedoes at the Gustloff. Each torpedo hit its target. An estimated 9,343 people died that night, half of them children.

The exact location of the Gustloff has long been known and searched. But some still claim that it may contain the hidden remains of the Amber Room. As the wreckage of the Gustloff is recognized as a war grave, diving to it, penetrating it, or both is illegal. But a lack of resources has left Polish authorities unable to protect it.^[6]

4 Aboard A Ghost Train, Walbrzych, Southwest Poland

It has long been said that a Nazi train loaded with treasure was lost in secret tunnels under a mountain in Walbrzych. Nobody knows the name of the train, its mission, or from where its precious cargo came.

Some speculate that the lack of written evidence of the train strengthens their hypothesis. Secrecy, the theory goes, was more important than paperwork, even to the Germans. Some theorize that the train may have carried the stolen wedding bands and other personal jewels of interned Jews, while others insist that the train bore the crated panels of the Amber Room.^[7]

In 2015, two men, a German and a Pole, claimed to have found the train. The local government of Walbrzych refused to comment on the matter except to warn that the train may be booby-trapped by mines if it exists.

3 In a Bunker In Mamerki, Northeastern Poland

In 2016, officials of the Mamerki Museum reported to have found a hidden room inside a World War II–era bunker using geo-radar. Bartlomiej Plebanczyk of the museum believed it possible that the panels of the Amber Room were hidden inside.

His theory was based upon the testimony of a turncoat Nazi soldier. In the 1950s, the former Nazi told Polish soldiers that he had witnessed heavily guarded cargo trucks delivering their load to the bunker in winter 1944.^[8]

2 Buried In Tunnels Under The Ore Mountains In Eastern Germany

In 2017, treasure hunters Leonhard Blume, Peter Lohr, and Gunter Eckhardt claimed to have deduced the location of the room via archival and radar sleuthing. Both the East German and Russian secret police held years-long searches for the Amber Room. It is from their records that these men reportedly found a clue as to the room’s whereabouts.

Eyewitnesses claimed that a shipment of crates had been hidden inside the tunnels. The entrance to the tunnels, they said, was then blown up. Blume, Lohr, and Eckhardt eagerly surveyed the “Prince’s Cave” near the Czech border, and the results were astounding.

Mr. Blume said, “We discovered a very big, deep, and long tunnel system and we detected something that we think could be a booby trap.” Their search continues.^[9]

1 A Secret Russian Location Known By Stalin

The impending raid of Winter Palace was known to the officials and curators of Catherine Palace. According to the official record, they attempted to disassemble and hide the Amber Room. When the brittle panels began to crumble, they chose to wallpaper over them instead. But they could not outwit the Nazis, who discovered the trick almost at once.

This conspiracy theory holds that Joseph Stalin fooled the soldiers after all. The panels they stole were replicas, while the real Amber Room had already been shipped off and hidden elsewhere. If true, the Amber Room may have been cleverly saved, only to be lost forever.^[10]

Olene Quinn is the historical fiction author of The Gates of Nottingham and Prince Dead. A self-described armchair historian, she resides in Northern California.

It may seem like there’s a ton of money to be made in the film industry, but that’s actually not the case. Not always, at least. In many instances, actors stick their necks out to do a movie they are very passionate about or are very inspired to produce, and they come away broke! Forget the multi-million dollar salaries, the huge box office totals, and the massive marketing budgets. Some movies just suck money out of the room. Even for the stars who sign on to do them, hoping it’ll propel their A-list profiles to even higher heights!

In this list, we’ll take a closer look at ten Hollywood movie stars who actually lost money producing hit movies seen by millions of people. From marketing costs stretching the budget thin to paltry low salaries after agreeing to get on set, these ten stories prove that the movie biz isn’t all sunshine and rainbows!

Related: Top 10 Tremendous Wastes Of Money

10 Dwayne Johnson

Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson was incredibly hopeful that moviegoers would love to see Black Adam (2022). The brains behind the DC Comics Extended Universe were hopeful that audiences would connect with the character, too. After all, the franchise was sputtering at the time, and they desperately needed to turn over a new leaf. So they signed Johnson on in large part because all of his movies have always been massive hits. Well, until this one! The superhero story about an Egyptian slave from 2600 BC who was granted great power by the ancient Gods simply failed to connect with audiences in the biggest and worst way.

For one, the film’s production was marred by the COVID-19 pandemic. Then, when it came time to release it, Johnson himself put his money where his mouth was and stepped up as both a producer and a promotional mouthpiece. Sadly, it didn’t work. Despite all of Johnson’s other films raking in dough, this one lost tons and tons of money for both him and Warner Brothers. According to reports, the film’s funders lost as much as $100 million after fans failed to show interest in the story and its off-shoot title character. Oops!^[1]

9 George Clooney

George Clooney believed so much in his 2008 sports comedy film Leatherheads (2008) that he invested a lot of his own money to make it work. But while the production got off without a hitch, and the film did live long enough to see theaters and be sold to moviegoers, the public mostly panned the flick. Sure, George may have written the film, starred in it, directed it, and even produced it by taking in the bigger picture with marketing and funding. However, he forgot the most important part: to make a movie the public wanted to see.

Ultimately, the film came to life on a budget of $58 million, which was put up by George’s own production company, Smokehouse Productions. Unfortunately for the ER alum and his Smokehouse brethren, they didn’t come anywhere close to making back their money. According to film industry watchdog reports, the film only brought in just a shade over $41 million in box office receipts. So it left George about $17 million in the hole. Ouch!^[2]

8 Kevin Costner

Kevin Costner isn’t afraid of investing his own money into his films. There’s just one problem with that strategy, though: When he misses, he misses REALLY big. Take The Postman (1997) as the perfect example of this. Costner himself helped fund the flick, but unfortunately, audiences didn’t go see it nearly enough to earn the star his money back. The film’s budget topped $80 million, according to reports, but it only turned around and brought in $17.6 million in ticket receipts. Worse yet, it didn’t even get an international release, preventing Costner from scoring big on foreign money after its disappointing American run.

But is Costner upset with losing so much money on the movie? Nope! Speaking to HuffPost about it after the film bombed, Kevin called The Postman a “really good movie.” Defending his decision to fund and produce it, he added: “If you revisit the movie, that’s a good thing to do. You can go back and revisit some movies that made well over $100 million and you might not care anything about them. And you can go back and maybe review a movie like that—you know, it was a pretty big, epic movie.” Hey, as long as he’s proud of it and okay with it losing so much money, who are we to criticize?^[3]

7 Brad Pitt

Brad Pitt felt so strongly about his 2007 movie The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford that he put up his own money to get it off the ground and out in theaters. The issue came when he found out how fans didn’t feel nearly as passionately about the movie. Pitt and his production team spent more than $30 million on the film—much of which came out of the A-list star’s own deep pockets. But the movie only returned about half of that total in gate receipts, making it a complete failure on every financial level.

Don’t count on Pitt regretting the process, though. “The way producers get us actors on is if it’s something we love and have to do, we do it for a price and get the movie made,” Pitt explained to Variety five years after the movie came out, in 2012. “It actually cost me money in the end. I paid to work on that one, and I think the film still lost money, but it was one of my favorites and one of the most rewarding to me.” Of course, there isn’t a price to be put on emotional satisfaction. Still, the thought of losing tens of millions of dollars is a tough pill to swallow!^[4]

6 John Travolta

John Travolta took a big risk when he decided to take Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard’s book Battlefield Earth: A Saga of the Year 3000 to the big screen. He had trouble nearly from the very beginning, too. Most notably, Travolta couldn’t find funding for the 2000 movie! So he had to fund it himself if he wanted to see it get made—and that’s exactly what he did.

The A-lister put in millions of his own dollars to fund the film and even agreed to forfeit the majority of his normal paycheck to make it. In turn, he hoped to see a major return on his investment with a popular showing at the box office. But he didn’t! Not even close. The film’s budget ended up soaring higher than $73 million in the end. And as for how much it brought in? Well, it didn’t even clear $30 million in returns. Ouch!

Still, even though he took a $43 million haircut, Travolta has no regrets about it. Speaking to the Daily Beast about losing so much money on Hubbard’s book-turned-film, Travolta argued: “Why would I ever regret that? I had the power to do whatever I wanted, and I chose to do a book that I thought was worthy of making into a movie. It’s a beautiful film. It’s a good movie.”^[5]

5 Sharon Stone

Sharon Stone had one of the most iconic film roles of all time with her work in Basic Instinct (1992). But it might surprise you to learn that she didn’t make any money on the film! Her co-star, Michael Douglas, may have commanded millions of dollars with his role in the flick, and he came away as a clear financial winner. But Sharon didn’t make that kind of money for her role, which catapulted her into true superstardom. Then, to make matters worse, she had to do the awards show run because the film was so successful—and so she lost money spending big on dresses, makeup, and stylists!

Between promoting the movie as it hit theaters and then doing the Oscars dance after it started to gain traction, Stone ended up bottoming out in the red. After looking back on her Basic Instinct experience in a chat years later with the CBC, Stone reminisced. “I didn’t get paid [well] to do Basic Instinct. I made a little bit of money. Michael made $14 million and has points. I made not enough money to buy my dress to go to the Oscars the next year. I was in this weird limbo where I was suddenly famous, but didn’t have any money.”^[6]

4 Jack Black

Jack Black thought so highly of Tenacious D that he used up all his willpower and goodwill with producers and Hollywood movers and shakers to bring it to the big screen in 2006. The result was the funny and bizarre movie Tenacious D in the Pick of Destiny. While he may have loved that the film was even greenlit and produced at all, his adoration for his band didn’t translate into a financial windfall. In fact, it went completely in the other direction! Things got so bad that Black even had to forgo his usual $12 million per movie salary that he had been accustomed to drawing in other productions.

In the end, the movie was made on a $20 million budget. That’s not huge compared to the costs of some films nowadays. However, the issue was that Jack’s passion project only made back $13.9 million in theaters. So that’s quite a significant loss compared to what he and Tenacious D co-creator Kyle Gass had been hoping to get. Oh, yeah, and that’s the other thing: being partners on the musical side of things, Gass and Black had agreed to split their movie money evenly in the end. So each one ended up netting about $500,000 on a movie that cost $20 million of their own money and privately raised investor funds to make. Yikes!^[7]

3 Will Smith

Will Smith and his production company Overbrook Entertainment took a big chance in 2013 when they took the sci-fi flick After Earth to theaters. The film wasn’t cheap at all to make. In fact, they spent $150 million to produce the film—and then another $100 million to market it. Those numbers are massive in any context! And they are even more massive when you consider how much the film didn’t make! In the end, After Earth only brought back $234 million during its theatrical release. A big number out of context, obviously, but when you spend north of $250 million to get it out there, falling $17 million short doesn’t feel good. Smith himself later called it “the most painful failure in my career.”

“What I learned from that failure is how you win,” Smith told Esquire after the movie bombed so badly, and he took some time to reflect on its losses. “I got reinvigorated after the failure of ‘After Earth.’ I stopped working for a year and a half. I had to dive into why it was so important for me to have number-one movies. And I never would have looked at myself in that way.”

And he continued: “That Monday started the new phase of my life, a new concept: Only love is going to fill that hole. You can’t win enough, you can’t have enough money, you can’t succeed enough. There is not enough. The only thing that will ever satiate that existential thirst is love. And I just remember that day I made the shift from wanting to be a winner to wanting to have the most powerful, deep, and beautiful relationships I could possibly have.”^[8]

2 Patricia Arquette

Patricia Arquette was paid so little to be in Boyhood that the movie nearly wasn’t worth it to do. Financially, she came away with just a few thousand dollars for her trouble. Which, when you factor in time spent on set, time preparing and learning lines and blocking, and the costs of having assistants and helpers keep up her home and pets when she was gone to film, it just wasn’t worth it! Well, that is until she won the Oscar for Best Supporting Acctress for her role in it.

“It’s important to me as an actor to be able to make a living, but I’m going to tell you something,” Arquette revealed after the movie hit theaters and turned into a massive critical and award-show success. “I paid more money to my babysitter and my dog walker than I made on ‘Boyhood,’ and to be in Boyhood.” That seems kind of backward to us, considering popular movies make bank. But again, she won an Oscar for her role, so we have a feeling that she’s not too upset by the outcome.^[9]

1 Rebel Wilson

Rebel Wilson revealed in her memoir that the early career-defining role she had in Bridesmaids netted her just $3,500 in salary. That’s a remarkably small salary for a movie that turned out to be so popular and well-known. Not only that, but Rebel actually had to wait more than a year before the check cleared and was sent to her! We hope she wasn’t counting on paying rent or anything with the proceeds. She did use the money to join the Screen Actors Guild, at least, so that’s a nice move to make. But she ended up in the red on it overall because she had to dish out dollars for dresses and beauty bills when it came time to premiere and promote the film!

“I basically made no money,” Rebel wrote about the financial reality behind Bridesmaids in her memoir. “I lost money because I had to pay to go to the premiere, like to buy my dress and everything. That was a really skint year where I was living on $60 a week in L.A. once I’d paid my rent and my car hire. I wasn’t partying or living this [movie star] life. It was basically having that focus, trying to write for myself, like going to auditions.”^[10]

For most of us, memory is the cornerstone of who we are. Our past defines us and shapes both who were are now and who we will become. Many of us deliberately set out to make memories that we can enjoy later.

It is commonly known that memories fade a little with age, and conditions such as dementia can rob people of parts of their former selves. But for people with neurological conditions like amnesia, the loss of memory can prove utterly devastating and leave them with no clue as to the person that they are.

10 Henry Molaison

Born in 1926, Henry Molaison, or H.M. as he was referred to in medical journals, had suffered epileptic seizures since the age of ten, possibly as a result of being run over by a bicycle at age seven. His seizures increased in severity, and by the time he was 16, he was suffering major seizures daily. The seizures continued until 1953, when he was offered an experimental procedure which would remove parts of the left temporal lobe. Though the surgery was a success as far as controlling the epilepsy went, Molaison was left with profound amnesia.^[1]

Molaison could remember his childhood. He knew his name and those of his family. He even remembered the Wall Street Crash of 1929. However, he had trouble remembering things from roughly a decade preceding the surgery. He also lost the ability to make new memories. He would wake every day without any memory of the day before.

Henry Molaison allowed neuroscientists to study his brain for over 50 years, until his death in 2008. This has resulted in major discoveries about how we make and store memories. He even donated his brain to science after his death.

9 Ansel Bourne

Ansel Bourne was an evangelical preacher. In 1887, he “woke up” to find himself running a general store, without any knowledge of how he had arrived there. The last date he remembered was two months prior to his arrival in Norristown, Pennsylvania.

Bourne is said to have experienced a disassociative fugue, causing him to forget his own identity. People in this state often adopt a new identity and travel long distances. The fugue state is most often brought on by trauma, and there is no treatment, though the condition is often temporary. Bourne’s is probably the best known case of disassociative fugue and may have been Robert Ludlum’s inspiration when he came to naming his character in The Bourne Identity.^[2]

Though many people doubted the truthfulness of Bourne’s account of his “lost weekends,” there seems to be little to suggest that he was doing anything disreputable while he was away. In fact, he spent most of his time selling sweets and going to church. He made very little capital out of his adventure. In fact, his fugue-state self seems to have been remarkably boring.

8 W.O.

A patient, identified only as “W.O.” or “William,” visited the dentist in March 2005 for root canal surgery. Up until the time of his injection, W.O. could remember his life as well as anyone else. Since that time, however, he can only store memories for 90 minutes before they are wiped out again. Neuroscientists are baffled as to the cause of the condition.

W.O., who is believed to suffer from anterograde amnesia, can remember getting into the chair and being injected with local anesthetic but nothing from that point onward. He wakes up every morning believing that it is still 2005. His wife has written notes of major events for him in a file labeled “First Thing—Read This.”

Neuroscientists are baffled as to why the anesthetic might have caused the memory loss. Since 2005, W.O. has only managed to remember one new thing: his father’s death. It is thought that his powerful grief forced itself along the memory tracks of his brain, when everything else just slipped away. Doctors treating him hope that this means they will be able to build on this to help him create new, happier memories.^[3]

7 Clive Wearing

Clive Wearing was an accomplished classical musician when, in 1985, he contracted herpesviral encephalitis. The virus attacked his central nervous system, damaging his ability to store new memories. His loss of memory is so profound that he can hold on to current memories for no longer than 30 seconds.

The condition has left him in a constant state of confusion. He cannot understand what has happened to him, and when people try to explain, he has forgotten the question long before they reach the end of the answer. Wearing also remembers little of his life before 1985, except his love for his wife. He has kept a diary of his thoughts over the years, which has consisted of repeated variations of the same sentence: “Now I am awake.”^[4]

Astonishingly, however, Wearing’s ability to play the piano has not diminished. He continues to be able to read and play music. However, when the sheet music calls for him to repeat a section, he will repeat it over and over again, forgetting each time that he has already played it.

6 Anthelme Mangin

Anthelme Mangin was a French soldier who fought in World War I. In 1918, he was sent home suffering from amnesia, along with 65 other casualties, all of whom had, literally, lost their minds. Unlike most, however, Mangin was not carrying any identification. He gave his name as “Anthelme Mangin.” He was diagnosed with a form of dementia and placed in an asylum in France.

In 1920, a newspaper published a feature with the pictures of several unidentified patients. Some 300 families, desperately looking for missing loved ones, claimed Mangin as their own. He met with each family to try to spark recognition, but without success.

He was finally identified in 1930 as Octave Monjoin, who had been taken prisoner on the Western Front in 1914. No one knows what happened to him between his capture and his discovery in 1918. Mangin was taken to his hometown. He was left at the train station, and his caregivers watched from a distance as he walked from the station directly toward his father’s house. He recognized his hometown, including the local cafe and the lightning-struck tower of the church, but did not know his father or brother.

Though it seemed the mystery was solved, other claimants to “the ghost man” refused to accept that Mangin was not their own missing son, and he was kept in the psychiatric hospital until a court case was decided. By the time the case was over, and he was officially declared to be Octave Monjoin, his father and brother were both dead.

In a sad conclusion the unknown soldier’s story, Anthelme Mangin lived out the rest of his life in the asylum, dying in 1942 of malnutrition and neglect.^[5]

5 Michael Boatwright

In 2013, an unconscious man was found in a motel in Southern California and was taken to a hospital. His identification documents named him as Michael Boatwright, a former US Navy aircraft engineer and a native of Florida. When he finally came to, however, Michael Boatwright could remember nothing of his life in Florida or his military service. He didn’t even recognize his name, his nationality, or his language.

Michael Boatwright believed himself to be Johan Ek. And he also believed he was Swedish.

Despite being shown photographs of his previous life, he could not feel any affinity with Michael Boatwright. And, indeed, his previous life appeared to have been rather complicated. When found, he had five tennis rackets in his room but had no idea why. Investigators discovered that Boatwright had at some point married a Japanese woman and had a son, taught English in China, and ran a consultancy company with a Swedish name.

Boatwright appeared to be in a fugue state, the cause of which is most often trauma or an accident. He spoke only Swedish and appeared to have forgotten the English language. He remained at the hospital for five months while social workers tried to uncover his past. Despite finding a sister in Louisiana, Boatwright moved to Sweden, believing that this was his true home. Unfortunately, his life took another strange turn, and he was found dead in his new apartment soon after, from what is believed to have been suicide.^[6]

4 Kent Cochrane

In 1981, Kent Cochrane, or Patient K.C. as he came to be called, had a motorcycle accident which resulted in the loss of parts of his memory. Cochrane was able to recall facts but not personal memories.^[7]

Cochrane was unable to form new memories, nor could he remember events immediately prior to his crash. He knew facts about himself but couldn’t generate memories from them. So, he could, for example, look at a photograph and recognize the people in it and even the occasion when the picture was taken, but looking at it would not trigger any memories outside of the photo.

However, Cochrane’s intellect did not seem to be damaged by his memory loss, and he could learn, albeit with much repetition. He learned, for example, to check the refrigerator door for messages from his family and how to file books in the library where he worked.

Kent Cochrane was the subject of over 30 scientific papers, and his brain was studied by neuroscientists around the world. He died in 2014.

3 Michelle Philpots

In 1994, Michelle Philpots developed epilepsy as a result of two car accidents, both of which caused head trauma. Her seizures grew steadily worse, and Michelle began to become forgetful. She was eventually fired from her job after photocopying a single document over and over again, forgetting each time that she had already done it.

And then her memory stopped working altogether. Michelle Philpots is now permanently stuck in 1994. Every day when she wakes up, she is the person that she was then. Her rare form of anterograde amnesia means she wakes up next to a husband, who, to her, has aged a quarter of a century overnight. She cannot even remember her own wedding, relying on the photos to prove it really happened.^[8]

To remind herself who she is, she leaves herself notes around her home. She is rarely able to leave home alone and has to use sat-nav to walk to her local shop. Damaged brain cells were removed during an operation in 2005, but although the operation managed to control her seizures, there is no way to repair the brain damage or restore her memory.

Michelle Philpots is destined to live in 1994 forever.

2 Susie McKinnon

Susie McKinnon does not have amnesia, despite the fact that she cannot remember being a child or, indeed, any age other than the age she is now.

Having had the condition since birth, it was years before McKinnon realized that when other people told stories from their past, they weren’t just making up the details as they went along. It was only when a friend who was studying medicine asked her to take part in a memory test that she realized that her memory did not work in the same way as other people’s. She could recall events from her past but could not remember what it felt like to be there.^[9]

McKinnon suffers from Severely Deficient Autobiographical Memory, or SDAM. She cannot remember how she felt when she was at school or imagine how she will feel when she goes on holiday in the future. She is unable to recall any fond memories. On the upside, however, she is never plagued by self-doubt and is incapable of holding a grudge because she forgets why she was annoyed in the first place. Her condition also means that she does not feel painful things, such as grief, as profoundly as other people.

Researchers have so far failed to discover any disease or injury which may have caused her condition. However, McKinnon also suffers from aphantasia, or the inability to picture things in her mind. Researchers are still investigating whether there is a link between her lack of autobiographical memory and her “blind mind.”

1 Giulio Canella

In 1927, Mrs. Giulia Concetta Canella saw a newspaper photograph of a man who had been found wandering around a cemetery in Turin in the dead of night. The man had been trying to steal a copper vase, but when approached, he began to cry, saying he had no idea who he was.

Mrs. Canella recognised her husband, Professor Giulio Canella, a philosophy scholar who had been missing in action since World War I. She visited the hospital and, convinced that the man was her husband, took him home, which would have been fine, except that a few days later, an anonymous letter claimed that the man was, in fact, an anarchist and petty criminal named Mario Bruneri.

Bruneri’s family were traced, and his wife, son, brother, two sisters, and his mistress all identified him immediately. Canella/Bruneri is said to have fainted when he saw them, possibly from the trauma but probably from embarrassment.^[10]

Mrs. Canella, after her beloved husband had come back to her from the dead, would not give up so easily. When Bruneri’s fingerprints were discovered in the police archives and found to match those of the amnesiac, she took the whole thing to court. After several years of trials and retrials, the court concluded that the amnesiac was Bruneri. Mrs. Canella, the man she was sure was her husband, and the three children they’d had together in the meantime all moved to Brazil.

Prof. Canella/Bruneri died in 1941 in Brazil, and his wife spent the rest of her life trying to prove that her husband had not been an imposter.

Ward Hazell is a writer who travels, and an occasional travel writer.

The vast majority of historical cultures have been lost time. Some pieces of history that almost slipped through the cracks have allowed us to learn more about what we do and don’t know. Accidental finds by both archaeologists and regular people show that important finds can be made at any place and time.

10 The Varna Gold

From 1972 to 1991, excavations at a lakeside cemetery in Bulgaria produced around 6 kilograms (13 lb) of gold artifacts. These artifacts constitute one of the most profound archaeological finds in Europe because they are over 6,500 years old—only a few centuries after the first farmers showed up in Europe. They’re also the first evidence of a social hierarchy, since they were only found in a handful of the graves at Varna; four graves held 75 percent of the gold found.

All of the graves containing gold artifacts were occupied by men, a finding that disproved the theory that prehistoric European civilizations were run by women, which was popularized by influential archaeologist Marija Gimbutas. Over the course of 15 years, 312 graves were excavated, dating from 4600 to 4200 BC—the Copper Age, when humans were first beginning to experiment with metalworking. The variety of artifacts range from jewelry to breastplates to a golden penis sheath.

9 Mahendraparvata

In 2012, extensive study above the densely forested plateau known as Phnom Kulen revealed a millennia-old vanished civilization. It contained a pyramid-like structure, temples, and even an intricate, man-made water infrastructure. The remains of the city are located 40 kilometers (25 mi) north of the Angkor Wat complex and were first uncovered in the 19th century by French archaeologists. According to inscriptions on ruined walls, the city was called Mahendraparvata, and it was built by the ninth-century warrior-King Jayavarman II.

There was further exploration in 1936, but the site was again forgotten during the turmoil of the Vietnam War. When it was rediscovered decades later, it became clear that it was the template for the more famous Angkor Wat, built centuries later. While Mahendraparvata may have been forgotten, its legacy continues to live on.

8 The Mona Island Graffiti

Mona Island, located in the Caribbean Sea, was occupied by the Taino people in the 16th century. When the island’s cave system was explored recently, it was found that the Spanish conquistadors of the time and the Taino had a sort of cultural exchange, long forgotten to historical record. The cave graffiti includes depictions of Christian symbols, around 30 religious phrases, and the Taino’s own religious iconography.

These findings show that Spanish may have been less ruthless in their efforts than previously thought. Explorers required native help to explore the complex caves, and the iconography shows that they were most likely genial and tried to peacefully expose the Taino to Christianity and European culture, while the indigenous people engaged the explorers with their own culture and beliefs.

7 The Clovis Points

The Clovis points were first unearthed in 1932 in Clovis, New Mexico. Initially, their finder, archaeologist Edgar B. Howard, wasn’t looking for artifacts; he was looking for mammoth fossils. Mixed in with the bones, he noticed fine, hand-crafted blades, which were dubbed the Clovis points. Howard researched them further and stumbled upon an ancient American culture. The earliest Clovis points date back 13,500 years and have been found in 1,500 places throughout North America and have appeared as far south as Venezuela.

The Clovis people were some of the earliest inhabitants of the Americas, and the fact that no Clovis points have been found in Siberia (from which humans first migrated to the Americas) shows that they may have been the first American invention. They quickly swept across the continent, showing just how widespread the Clovis culture may have been at the time. The points were not for hunting like one would expect (only 14 Clovis sites were hunting areas) but rather as a general tool. While there were pre-Clovis tribes in the Americas, the Clovis culture remains the oldest known American civilization.

6 The Bobcat Burial

Feline domestication first occurred in ancient Egypt, but a mislabeled finding shows that it may have also occurred in North America in the past. In the 1980s, a 2,000-year-old Hopewell burial mound in western Illinois was uncovered during construction of a highway. Among the human remains, animal bones were found and believed to be dog remains, since the Hopewell were known to bury them.

For several years, the bones were labeled as canine until a researcher found that they more closely matched a bobcat’s. Not only were the bones found in special mound, but the bobcat had been treated with reverence, something not seen before in North America. It was buried with pendants and shell beads as a sort of collar, showing that it was cherished. There was no evidence that it was sacrificed and no sign of trauma. The bobcat was young, meaning that the tribe may have tried to tame it as a kitten.

5 The 18th-century Ship At The World Trade Center

After the Twin Towers fell in 2001, excavations at the site came up with a surprising discovery in 2010—the remains of a centuries-old ship. The wooden-hull vessel sat 6 to 9 meters (20–30 ft) below street level, and it became the first-large scale historical discovery in Manhattan in several decades. Apparently, when the World Trade Towers were being built, the ship wasn’t disturbed and most likely hadn’t been so for over 200 years.

The ship was most likely built in the mid- to late 1700s, but little else is known about it. However, there is proof that it was truncated and may have served as landfill material as a way to extend Lower Manhattan into the Hudson River. As soon as it was uncovered, the ship began to disintegrate because it had long been concealed and protected in dirt beneath a succession of buildings.

4 Pasargadae

Pasargadae, located in Northern Iran, was the capital of the Achaemenid Empire built by Cyrus the Great. Pasargadae was, at one time, the most important city in the world. The Achaemenid Empire served as the inspiration for Alexander the Great’s empire 200 years later and the Roman Empire after that. Nevertheless, the city fell by the wayside and was eventually forgotten. The Tomb of Cyrus still stood, but its true occupant was forgotten. Over time, locals began to refer to the tomb as belonging to the mother of King Solomon.

The city wasn’t uncovered again until German archaeologist Ernst Herzfeld arrived in 1928. Many of the details of the capital had been forgotten, including its very location, but Herzfeld’s meticulous efforts eventually resulted in its rediscovery. He mapped and documented the ruins, its complex irrigation system, its palaces, and the Tomb of Cyrus, allowing for the city to be investigated by researchers today.

3 The Castle Under The Prison

In 2015, a men’s prison in Gloucester, England, began working on a proposed redevelopment. Beneath its yard, workers made a shocking discovery—the ruins of a 1,000-year-old castle. Two castles have been built in Gloucester over the centuries. The first was demolished and replaced in 1110, and the second stood until 1789, when it, too, was demolished. The castle found at the prison was probably the latter.

According to the BBC, its walls have “never been seen in the last 200 years.” The castle was a huge tower keep, comparable in size to the White Tower of the Tower of London, and was most likely a prominent building until its destruction. In 1791, two years after the Gloucester castle was destroyed, the Gloucester prison began to receive its first prisoners. Whatever remained of the old castle was covered by the prison yard.

2 The White City

The White City was long the stuff of legend in Honduras. According to the indigenous people, when the Spanish conquistadors first arrived and began to take over, they fled to a “white house” deep in the Honduran jungles. In the remote Mosquita region of Honduras, strange objects were found that seemed to indicate that there was some sort of civilization there. The site, along with three others, were discovered in 2012 using an aerial imaging technique called Lidar.

Excavations showed that there was an entire city deep in the jungle, just as the natives had said. Earthen pyramids, plazas, and artifacts were all found indicating that a long-forgotten civilization once dwelt there. Ground was broke at the White City site in 2016 with the Honduran president there to witness it.

1 Homo Naledi

In 2013, paleoanthropologist Lee Berger assembled a team to explore the Rising Star Cave in South Africa. The team consisted of six thin women; the reason for this was the fact that Berger needed them to squeeze into a narrow chute which ended in a gap just 18 centimeters (7 in) wide. Beyond the gap were 1,500 bones from around 15 skeletons. This find is important because those skeletons are the remains of a previously unknown species of human called Homo naledi.

When Berger first explored the Rising Star Cave, he wasn’t expecting to find anything so impressive. The cave had been regularly explored for 50 years but, but when Berger sat in a crevice, he found that his feet didn’t touch the bottom. The chute he discovered led to the find. Despite the fact that Homo naledi had heads the size of modern gorillas, they may have engaged in burial practices in the cave and seem to have been quite intelligent.

As language evolves, we often expand the meanings of certain words and phrases. Thanks largely to slang, words like “bad” and “ill” can now be used positively. In most instances, though, those words rarely lose their original meaning. We just expand our use of them.

However, there are many words in the English language that have truly lost their original meanings over time. It’s not that we’re necessarily using these words wrong or even that we’re using an alternate definition of them. Instead, these words have changed so much over the years that it’s almost impossible to use them in their original contexts without sounding like you’re speaking a different language.

Related: 10 Pop Culture Tattoos (and Their Secretly Ridiculous Meanings)

10 Awful

Awful can mean “bad,” but it’s more commonly associated with “unpleasant.” These days, you typically use “awful” to describe something that is not only bad but that upsets or offends your senses on some level.

Yet, “awful” is derived from the Middle English words “agheful” and “aueful,” which were used to describe the sensation of being filled with awe or to describe something worthy of invoking such a feeling. Even at that time, though, the word was sometimes used to describe something that fills one with so much awe that it also inspired a sense of dread. That helps explain how the word eventually came to invoke powerful feelings of disdain.^[1]

9 Apology

We all apologize (hopefully) when we’ve done something wrong and wish to make amends to the person we’ve wronged. It’s essentially an admission of guilt mixed with a plea for forgiveness. That’s nearly the opposite of how the word was originally used years ago, though.

As recently as the 16th century, the word “apology” was used to describe one’s defense against an accusation. An apology (or “apologie”) could be rooted in facts but was also a way to say “here is my side of the story” to defend yourself—as in Plato’s Apology. It’s not entirely clear when the popular shift in meaning occurred, though Shakespeare’s use of the word in Richard III and other works gradually brought us to the point where apologies became associated with forgiveness.^[2]

8 Terrific

Centuries ago, the word “terrific” was commonly used to describe something that invoked a great sense of terror. Even as late as the 1800s, the word was more closely associated with things of great size or intensity. It was essentially a combination of “terrifying” and “excessive” that grew to emphasize the meanings of the latter word.

So, how did “terrific” come to mean something wonderful? The shift seemingly happened in the late 1800s when writers began to use the word somewhat ironically in things like advertisements and reviews. The increasingly popular idea was that something could be so bold or excessive that it almost had to be seen. Interestingly, the English language is filled with words that were once used to convey terror but gradually became something positive through the bridge concept of “awe.”^[3]

7 Cynicism

The ancient Greeks used the word “cynic” to convey the idea of someone or something having “dog-like” features. It was commonly applied to a group of philosophers who believed that people should live simple lives in pursuit of virtue. Those philosophers were referred to as Cynics by those who saw them as beggars and outcasts.

However, by the time the word “cynic” began to appear in English writing, it was most commonly used to describe those philosophers and their beliefs in a more neutral, observant way. Over the years, though, the idea of being “cynical” was adopted by those who derided such people due partially to the belief that they were judging those around them. That revised definition, combined with the beliefs of the original philosophers, eventually gave us the now-common idea of a cynic being skeptical toward modern people and systems.^[4]

6 Peruse

In more recent years, people have used the word “peruse” to describe a casual observation of something. For instance, you may peruse the sales rack of a store or a book as you flip through its pages. As far back as the 16th century, though, peruse was used to describe someone reading something in great detail or otherwise performing a thorough examination.

Remarkably, people are still arguing over the correct definition of peruse to this day. Some dictionaries offer both seemingly contradictory meanings of the word, while other sources have sided with one or the other. It’s not clear why the “skim” definition has become especially popular in recent years, though you can find centuries-old uses of that interpretation in various published works.^[5]

5 Nice

While the word “nice” can be used as an insult these days—such as saying someone is too nice or using the word to mock an obvious mistake—it is considered the standard way to convey that something is pleasant. In the 1300s and 1400s, though, “nice” was more commonly used to call someone ignorant.

What changed? Society did. The word “nice” was gradually used to describe excess luxury and, eventually, high society people who focused too much on polite appearances. As parts of the world shifted to gradually emphasize such behavior, “nice” eventually became a far less derogatory concept. Of course, you can still find the roots of the word in those who use “nice” as an insult these days.^[6]

4 Naughty

Essentially, the opposite of “nice” (especially around the holidays), “naughty” is used to describe someone or something that is very bad. It’s such an obvious example of that idea that the word is often used when you want to convey an exaggerated parody of that concept.

However, “naughty” was originally used to describe poor people who had very little in life. The word eventually grew to describe such people who were also believed to lack basic morality, which is the use of the phrase that slowly caught on. By the 1600s and 1700s, “naughty” was more commonly used to describe someone (usually a child) who is misbehaving or generally exhibits bad behavior.^[7]

3 Meat

It’s hard to imagine that there could be another definition of the word “meat.” Sure, we have adopted various slang phrases that use that word in slightly different contexts, but it’s difficult to imagine a time when “meat” was popularly used to describe anything other than food that comes from the flesh of an animal.

Yet, until around the 14th century, “meat” was used to describe almost any solid food (as opposed to liquids). If you go far enough back, you’ll find that variations of the word have been used to describe a wide variety of substances. As the English language evolved, though, the word “meat” eventually conveyed something much more specific. It grew to be used in the more specialized way we use it today.^[8]

2 Speed

Until around the later days of the Middle English era (the late 1500s), the word “speed” and its variations were typically used to convey the idea of success. Specifically, it was often related to the pursuit and achievement of your goals. While achieving those goals quickly was sometimes implied in variations of the phrase, the idea of rapidity wasn’t necessarily automatically applied to the word “speed” (or even the phrase “Godspeed”) at that time.

By the mid-1500s, though, “speed” was more commonly used to imply a quick and successful journey or endeavor. As that phrase was used by growing industrial sectors to suggest increased work and production rates, the haste aspect of “speed” became much more prominent. Even today, you can argue that we often use the word with the implication of success.^[9]

1 Bully

As late as the 1500s, the word “bully” was used like we may use the phrase “sweetheart” today. It was a term of endearment that could describe a variety of people you have an intimate relationship with. Around the 1600s, though, we find more instances of the phrase being used to describe males as essentially being “good guys” or “fine fellows.”

Interestingly, the word continued to evolve from there and was eventually used to describe blusterous individuals (typically males) who were not afraid of taking risks. Eventually, some applied that word to people fitting that description who had also done something wrong (usually something violent) to them. While “bully” was often used at that time to describe ruffians and thugs, the original intimacy of the phrase is arguably still implied in the hurt we feel that someone socially close to us would do us harm.^[10]

Though unthinkable for those of us in the present day, with our ability to digitize everything, there was a time when movies could only be saved in physical form. Because of this, coupled with production companies’ shortsightedness and the frailty of early film, many of the earliest movies have been lost to us. Here 10 of the most sought-after lost films.

SEE ALSO: 10 Surprisingly Awesome Things From History That We Somehow Lost

10 The Fairylogue and Radio-Plays

Starring: L. Frank Baum

Conceived by L. Frank Baum as a travelogue of sorts, designed to take you to the Land of Oz, The Fairylogue and Radio-Plays debuted on September 24, 1908. As a whole, it could be best described as a mixture of a live-action play, a slideshow, a lecture and a film presentation. One of the earliest attempts to translate Baum’s vision to the silver screen, it was produced by the Selig Polyscope Company of Chicago.

Though some of the film scenes are said to have been incorporated in to later movies which Selig produced, it is widely believed everything is lost. Critically acclaimed during its two-month run, the performance was just too expensive to turn a profit, even with the tickets as pricey as $1 per show. Faced with the prospect of a failed show and creditors banging down his door, Baum sold the rights to three of his books to the Selig Polyscope Company, who managed to make another lost film: The Wonderful World of Oz.^[1]

9 Jail Birds of Paradise

Starring: The Two Stooges (Sorry Larry)

More of a short than a full-length movie, with a running time of only 18 minutes, Jail Birds of Paradise was released on March 10, 1934. One of the earliest depictions of the slapstick comedy for which they would become world-famous, the film takes place in a prison, one in which the warden’s daughter had begun to run amok. While her father was gone, she turned it into a luxury hotel of sorts, with the prison guards forced to perform any number of menial tasks.

We’re introduced to Moe Howard first, playing an axe murderer coming from Leavenworth Federal Penitentiary. A toupée-wearing Curly Howard shows up a little later, the mastermind of a bald cure scam amongst the other prisoners. By the end of the movie, a fight breaks out between the prisoners, with gunshots echoing throughout the jail.^[2]

8 The Story of the Kelly Gang

Starring: Elizabeth Tait, John Tait

While not entirely lost, as 17 minutes of its runtime exists as of today, The Story of the Kelly Gang still belongs on this list. Recognized as the world’s first feature-length narrative movie, more than 40 minutes from this infamous Australian film remains missing. Incredibly successful right from the start at its release in 1906, it tells the story of Ned Kelly, an infamous Australian criminal, and his merry band of miscreants.

Various small fragments, some only a few frames’ worth, were uncovered over time; however, the largest single piece was brought to the light in 2006, during research performed by the National Film and Sound Archive of Australia. In another lucky break, programs which contained scene-by-scene breakdowns were provided at showings of the film; these provided researchers with valuable information with which to order the few bits of film available to them.^[3]

7 The Oregon Trail

Starring: John Wayne

Having appeared in over one hundred and seventy films, John Wayne was one of America’s biggest box office draws of all time. However, even with that level of stardom, he is not immune to the vagaries of film history. One of his earlier films which was lost to us is The Oregon Trail. Released in 1936, it tells the story of John Delmont, a veteran who, upon realizing his father was murdered, vows to hunt down his father’s killer.

Though Wayne would eventually be propelled to being a household name, that wouldn’t happen until 1939, in John Ford’s Stagecoach. So, after its theatrical run, all known copies of the film just disappeared. In a silver lining of sorts, a fan of Wayne’s ordered some memorabilia in 2013. Included in his purchase were the negatives of 40 photographs known as movie stills, presumably sent by mistake. For movie buffs, they provide insight into the early career of one of Hollywood’s most famous cowboys.

Who knows? It might turn up someday as another of Wayne’s film was believed lost as well. A copy of Baby Face turned up in the US Library of Congress in 2004.^[4]

6 Alam Ara

Starring: Master Vithal, Zubeida

Most likely unknown to most Western countries, Alam Ara holds a significant place in the legacy of Indian cinema: released on March 14, 1931, it was the first “talkie” in the country’s history. A love story between a female gypsy and an Indian prince, Alam Ara introduced the basic structure which seems to dominate Bollywood to this day. The songs featured in the film became widely successful hits, as did the film itself.

As early as 1967, there were no known copies of Alam Ara left in the world; although, there may have been a copy lost in a 2003 fire at the National Film Archives of India, a tragedy which claimed copies of other landmark films of Indian cinema. Luckily, those movies could be found in private hands; Alam Ara would not be so lucky and all that is left of it are a handful of movie stills and posters.^[5]

5 Saved from the Titanic

Starring: Dorothy Gibson

A relatively nondescript actress during the silent film era of American cinema, Dorothy Gibson is best known for a weird coincidence. She starred in Saved from the Titanic, a film released a mere 29 days after the tragic sinking and, unsurprisingly, the first one about the event. The coincidence: Gibson herself was on the Titanic and was on the very first lifeboat launched after it struck the fateful iceberg.

Co-writing the film at the behest of her employer, the French film company Éclair, Gibson was seemingly forced to relive a lot of the tragedy she had just narrowly survived. In fact, she allegedly wore the same clothes she had been wearing when the Titanic went down. Playing a fictional version of herself, Gibson is set to marry a Navy ensign named Jack. Faced with a traumatized daughter, Gibson’s mother tells Jack he needs to choose either the Navy or her daughter. Choosing the Navy, Jack is surprised when Gibson’s father gives him her hand anyway.

With the last known copy destroyed in a fire at Éclair Studios in 1914, Saved from the Titanic will probably be lost forever, with only a few production stills remaining. As for Gibson, she purportedly suffered a mental breakdown and retired from acting shortly after.^[6]

4 The Carpet from Bagdad

Starring: Kathlyn Williams, Guy Oliver, Wheeler Oakman

Produced by the prolific silent film company the Selig Polyscope Company, The Carpet from Bagdad tells the story of a precious, even sacred, Iraqi carpet. A group of international thieves plot to steal it from the mosque which houses it and sell it to an antique dealer, who ends up falling in love with the daughter of the head of the crooks, played by Kathlyn Williams.

Relatively well received upon its release, the movie nevertheless fell victim to the same fate as nearly all of Selig’s films: it disappeared. Out of the hundreds of movies they produced, very few managed to survive and The Carpet from Bagdad was not one of the lucky ones. Perhaps the oddest twist involves the only surviving reel we have: it was salvaged from the wreck of the infamous RMS Lusitania in 1982. As for why it was on the ship, it was probably being brought to the UK for a potential release.^[7]

3 The Betrayal

Starring: Leroy Collins, Verlie Cown

Directed by one of the earliest black American directors, a man named Oscar Micheaux, The Betrayal was his final film and, unfortunately, it was also one of his worst, being widely panned by nearly everyone. Seen as the Tyler Perry of his day, Micheaux released at least one black-centric film a year for over two decades.

The Betrayal was adapted from his own novel, a book which itself drew from Micheaux’s first film The Homesteader. Telling a well-worn story of self-sufficiency, love and treachery, it was a big-budget movie, largely financed by Micheaux himself. When it flopped, it was so financially devastating he was forced to go on a book-selling tour, a decision which eventually led to his death.

One small piece of alleged trivia: the reason we don’t have any copies of The Betrayal is that Micheaux’s wife, Alice Russell, destroyed all the copies because she was distraught over his treatment at the hands of the press.^[8]

2 Peludópolis

Starring: N/A (Animated)

Widely considered the first animated feature film with sound, Peludópolis is an Argentinian film from 1931, a satirical look at the political atmosphere of the time. Quirino Cristiani, the director and main animator, had a target in his eyes: Hipólito Yrigoyen, the president of Argentina at the time production began on the film. However in 1930, with the movie nearly three-quarters complete, Yrigoyen was deposed in a military coup, an event which sent Cristiani scrambling.

The film was changed, mainly the ending, and it was premiered in 1931, with the temporary president installed by the military in the audience for the showing. The old president was still shown as a corrupt politician and the generals were featured as liberators. Though critics received it relatively favorably, the public did not care for it, often finding the situation too serious to laugh at. Faced with financial difficulties of such a failure, and with Walt Disney’s reach finally making it to Argentina, Cristiani retired from full-length animated filmmaking.^[9]

1 The Miracle Man

Starring: Lon Chaney, Thomas Meighan, Betty Compson

Though Thomas Meighan and Betty Compson were stars in their own right, the biggest star to emerge from this film was Lon Chaney, the “Man of a Thousand Faces”. In The Miracle Man, Chaney played a con man known as The Frog, pretending to have a crippling physical disability in order to con a blind faith healer. However, prolonged exposure to the man known as the Patriarch changes Chaney and the other members of the gang, causing them to go straight.

Despite being an incredible success, costing $120,000 to make and grossing more than $3,000,000, no copies of The Miracle Man have made it to the present day. A few small clips survived, with the scene where Chaney is “healed” of his affliction being chief among them.^[10]

+ Something Good – Negro Kiss

Thanks to our reader Gu who commented below, I wanted to add a bonus item to this list. This film was directed by William Selig (the director of item 4 above) in 1898 and was lost. But in this case it was recovered in 2018! The film is particularly interesting historically as it is the first film featuring black Americans in a non-caricatured form, though Selig had previously filmed a number of minstrel shows.

The two actors, Saint Suttle and Gertie Brown (both born 150 years ago!) do a brilliant job conveying a sense of passion for each other. They actually performed as dance partners but were not a couple. What an amazing bit of luck it is that this historic work was recovered, and what amazing quality it is!

The first English colony in America was abandoned without a word or a trace. When a ship arrived with supplies, they found it deserted with no signs of a struggle. Only one clue was left behind—the word “Croatoan” etched in a tree.

The story of the lost Roanoke Colony has lived on as one of the greatest American mysteries, but the disappearance is far from where the story begins. That story is full of some absolutely horrible atrocities; it’s also one that just might hold some strong clues about the colonists’ fate.

10 The Colonists Burned Down a Native Village Because Someone Stole A Cup

The Roanoke settlers weren’t good people. They viewed the natives as savages, and they treated them like savages, too.

From the moment the colony was established, they built bad blood with the people around them. Shortly before their fort was built, a colonist discovered that one of their silver cups had gone missing. They quickly became convinced that a native man had taken it—and they weren’t going to let him get away with it.

By English law, the penalty for theft was usually whipping, but English law didn’t apply for the natives. Instead, the Roanoke settlers burned every inch of the native man’s hometown to the ground, all because they’d lost a single cup.

9 The Natives Tried To Involve The Colonists In Their Wars

The colony was not a success; they were almost immediately hit by famine and started to starve. The only food they could grow was corn. They had to rely on the help of natives to stay alive.

A tribe called the Secotans gave them food—but they didn’t do it for free. They’d seen the Europeans’ weapons and technology and knew that whoever managed to team up with them would have a major advantage when the next tribal war broke out. The Secotan chief, Wingina, vied for the colonists’ sympathy. An enemy tribe, he told them, had invited some of his people to a peace talk and then massacred them during the feast. He wanted revenge.

The English didn’t want to get involved, so Wingina’s attitude changed. He stopped sharing food with the settlers and told them that he didn’t have enough to spare. Wingina told the colonists that it wasn’t his fault the colonists were starving to death. There was simple reason why: “Your Lorde God is not God.”

8 The Colonists Kidnapped And Ransomed Natives

With their crops dying, the colony resorted to some desperate measures to get food from the natives. The governor, a man named Ralph Lane, was famously cruel. He would regularly kidnap natives and hold them hostage—not because they’d done anything wrong, but because they were useful bartering chips.

The natives weren’t too happy with his approach. One of Lane’s hostages, a boy named Skiko, tried to make a break for it. He ran for freedom, but Lane caught him. He locked Skiko up, beat him horribly, and threatened to cut off his head.

After torture at Lane’s hands, Skiko let slip that the tribes were planning to rise up and attack Roanoke, and Wingina was organizing them. Lane would be the first to die.

7 The Colonists Murdered The Secotan Chief

Lane decided to strike first. He gathered together an armed group and raided Wingina’s camp in the night, slaughtering every person they could find. The Secoans were caught off guard, and the Roanoke settlers ripped through them easily.

Lane spotted Wingina and becokoned him to face him on the shore, man-to-man. Wingina obliged. He rushed at Lane—but was shot in the back by another man. For a moment, he laid still on the ground. The settlers thought he was dead. Then, realizing all was lost, Wingina got up and fled into the forest.

He didn’t get away. A man named Edward Nugent chased after him and emerged from the woods a few moments later, carrying Wingina’s severed head.

6 The Croatan Chief Helped The Colonists Slaughter His Own People

In time, Lane left the colony. He sailed back to England, leaving an artist named John White in charge. Lane’s reign of violence was over, but there were still many more bodies to come.

“Croatoan” wasn’t just a nonsense word; it referred to the Croatan, the only tribe that actually got along with the colony. Manteo, the Croatan chief, was the colony’s most valued guide and interpreter. He was so dedicated to the colony that he was even baptized as a Christian. When the Roanoke tribe (which the colony was named after) became hostile, White sent Manteo out to talk with them, hoping to smooth out some of the tensions that Lane had left.

Manteo returned and reported that the Roanoke tribe had killed 20 Englishmen over the past two years. White was livid. He organized a group of 25 men and ordered Manteo to lead them to the killers so they could get revenge.

Manteo did as he was told, but he accidentally led them to the wrong place. By mistake, he took them to a group of Croatans, living peacefully away from the main tribe, and led the English forces as they massacred his own people.

5 The First English Baby Was Born And Lost At Roanoke

The first English child born in America was born at Roanoke and was lost with the colony. Her name was Virginia Dare, and she was the grandchild of Governor John White.

Just nine days after her birth, though, White left. The colony was still starving and in hostile land. They were in desperate need of aid. If his granddaughter was going to survive, White would need help from the empire.

He brought Manteo with him. The two promised to return within three months, but they didn’t. England was at war with Spain, and the fighting kept White and Manteo from making the trip back. It took three years before they made it back to Roanoke—and by then, it was too late.

4 The Spanish Army Found The Colony

The Spanish Army had heard about Roanoke colony. However, instead of a small group of 118 people, they believed it was a powerful English military base. They were hunting for it, determined to destroy it.

Shortly after White left, the Spanish found it. They’d thought it was in the Chesapeake Bay, assuming that Roanoke Island was too small to contain the enormous army they’d imagined. On the way back from a failed search of the bay, however, a man named Vincente Gonzalez was hit by strong winds—and blown right to Roanoke Colony.

Gonzalez didn’t enter the colony itself, but he found clear proof it was there. He reported his discovery to Spain, pushing for a total invasion of Roanoke.

3 Nobody Actually Tried To Find The Lost Colony

When White returned, the colony was abandoned. White was sure, though, that the word “Croatoan” meant they were safe, hiding with the one tribe that didn’t want them dead.

White wanted to find his family. He convinced the captain to sail to Croatan, but a heavy storm hit, and their food started to run low. Instead, the ships went south to get fresh water, but once they’d restocked, White couldn’t get anyone to go back and help him find his family. White was sent on to Trinidad and then ultimately back to England. He never saw his family again.

Other people tried to look for the colonists. Sir Walter Raleigh sent out teams to find them, but every one turned back due to bad weather before starting a real search. Over in England, Raleigh was soon accused of treason, and the searches stopped.

The Spanish, too, tried to hunt the colonists down. They got word that they were living in the Chesapeake Bay and planned a full assault, but the plan was dropped. Nobody ever saw the colonists again.

2 Archaeological Evidence Indicates The Colonists Joined Neighboring Tribes

James White marked a tiny star on a map of Virginia, so well-concealed that it was only found recently. It marked where he believed his family had fled. It took until 2012 before anyone searched the area White had marked. The archaeologists who did found 16th-century English supplies that could only have belonged to the Roanoke colonists.

There was English pottery, flintlocks, and tools that the colonists seem to have taken with them as they fled to the safety of a friendly tribe. There’s also evidence that they didn’t stay put. Other 16th-century English artifacts have been found at the homes of various tribes on every side of the old settlement.

It seems that the colonists settled into native life. In 1701, a man named John Lawson visited the Croatan. Be then, they had light hair, blue eyes, and spoke fluent English. There was little doubt, he wrote, that the people he saw were the descendants of the lost colony.

1 Pocahontas’s Father Claimed He Killed The Colonists

Fleeing to neighboring tribes might not have been enough to keep the colonists alive. A few years after they disappeared, John Smith landed in the Chesapeake Bay. There, he met Chief Powhatan—best known today as the father of Pocahontas—and learned the fate of the Roanoke colony.

Powhatan’s priests had told him that a great empire would rise from the Chesapeake Bay, and he sent his men to slaughter the tribe living there. There among then, Powhatan said, were a group of white faces, living among a native tribe. The strange sight of white faces among the tribe didn’t stop Powhatan. He murdered every one of the Roanoke colonists he found.

It’s possible that some of the colonists escaped Powhatan’s onslaught, but no survivors were found. For most, the end likely came shortly after they’d finally learned how to live in peace with their neighbors—at the hands of a warlord who hadn’t.

Some of our greatest buildings have endured for centuries to become the heavily visited and treasured wonders they are today. Many of the most impressive creations from history, however, didn’t make it to modern day. For example, consider the original Seven Wonders of the World, all of which (save the pyramids at Giza) were destroyed by either war, natural erosion, or neglect.

The survivors are protected in modern times but were not always so safe. Several escaped at the last minute from being nothing more than the memory of a great idea. Others never would have existed at all had forward-thinking individuals not intervened on their behalf.

10The Eiffel Tower
Petitioned For Destruction

The French people were not always in love with their most famous building. In fact, many still aren’t, but public opinion has shifted in favor of the iconic Tour Eiffel.

When the tower was planned to commemorate the French Revolution for the 1889 World’s Fair, a public outcry erupted even before the foundation was set. Parisians of the time considered Eiffel’s proposed tower an eyesore and a blight on the scenic vistas of Champ de Mars. Petitions were circulated attempting to ban the project from even starting.

With the understanding that the tower would be disassembled within 20 years after the celebrations concluded, a reluctant community allowed the tower to be built. Despite a change of heart by citizens who began to appreciate the tower (and because the antenna tower proved to be an invaluable wartime resource), it narrowly escaped the worst again during World War II when Hitler ordered its destruction. The order was never carried out.

Today, the tower accepts visitors numbering over seven million per year, making it the most visited pay-for-entry monument in the world. It houses restaurants and gift shops on the second level and enjoys possibly the best view of the city from over 275 meters (900 ft) at the third level. Over 500 people work in and on the tower to maintain and run the monument every day, ensuring that the image will continue to grace the Paris skyline.

9The Sphinx
Lost Beneath The Sands

The Sphinx, one of the world’s most popular and easily recognized landmarks, was for centuries neither of those things. It has also suffered from neglect, vandalism, political turmoil, and natural erosion.

At over 4,500 years old, the Sphinx has seen much of human history unfold from its place near the famous Valley of the Kings. It was erected in connection with the Egyptian god Harmakhis, but the popularity of the cult that worshiped the deity waned, and the colossal sculpture was left unattended. It was buried beneath the shifting sands, and only the head remained visible, inspiring the moniker “father of fear” from locals who were disturbed by the unusual silhouette.

Over the centuries, the sands were removed and then left to overtake the monument again and again. One undocumented attack damaged the statue and destroyed the nose. Seeking gold and other treasures, the Sphinx was again unburied in 1817, but archaeologists found nothing and had to battle back the corrosive sands time after time. Worse, it was discovered that salt leaking up from the base was destroying the foundation of the Sphinx and compromising its stability.

The concrete used by the Egyptians had eroded, and the entire structure was in peril. Conservation efforts have replaced the original mortar with a stronger material, and the Sphinx is safe, for now.

8Statue Of Liberty
Stuffed In Storage

Millions of immigrants came from around the world to pass under Lady Liberty’s torch and find new lives in a nation that promised a better future. She has stood in the harbor attracting thousands of new visitors every year and representing the idealism of her country and its people.

You may know that the Statue of Liberty was a gift from France. This is both true and completely false. The artist, Auguste Bartholdi, originally approached Egyptian leaders during the World’s Fair with hopes of designing a massive statue to sit at the entrance of the Suez Canal. He was ultimately denied and searched for an alternative, turning to America with the hook of celebrating the young country’s independence.

It took 15 years and extensive fundraising to complete the statue, which was fully constructed in a Paris neighborhood with no significant funding from either government. In the end, Joseph Pulitzer saved the day by promising to print the names of every single contributor in his magazine. The plan worked. The gift was packed and shipped on the French ship Isere in 300 pieces in 241 crates across the Atlantic Ocean.

The cargo was nearly lost in rough seas. Once she reached the harbor, America’s icon was placed in storage for over a year. There it stayed, and there it would have remained indefinitely until it was de-mothballed and made the centerpiece of a publicity stunt, in which every person who donated to the cause of putting Liberty on her island got their name printed in New York World newspaper. Who could resist?

So bribery, luck, and good old-fashioned commercialism established America’s symbol in her current home.

7The Alamo
Bowie’s Blow-Up Plan

Remember the Alamo? Texas does, Mexico does, and Bowie sure did (Jim, not David).

The location that now stands as little more than the adobe facade of a once great building served many roles. Originally constructed as the chapel of the Mission San Antonio de Valero in 1718, it consisted of a few huts and a stone tower that was destroyed by a storm in 1724. The stone church building was constructed around 1744. It collapsed in 1756.

A second stone chapel, the one we see today, was started in 1758 and was slated to include two large towers and a domed ceiling, covering over four acres. It was never completed. Epidemics had reduced the population of Valero so much that not enough people were left to tend the building.

It was converted to a self-sustaining parish in 1793. It was stripped of its doors and windows and served as a parish for soldiers, eventually becoming San Antonio’s first hospital. A military unit—the Second Flying Company of San Jose and Santiago of the Alamo of Parras—gave the parish its modern name when they were stationed there for nearly 10 years starting in 1801 or 1802. Meaning “cottonwood,” the name has lasted for centuries.

The Alamo changed hands more than 16 times during battles between the Texan, Spanish, Mexican, Union, and Confederate forces that all fought for the land. What was left of the Alamo (probably only the first 7 meters (23 ft) of the walls that stand today) was almost completely destroyed for the last time when Sam Houston requested permission from Governor Henry Smith to remove valuable items and blow up the Alamo to keep it out of enemy hands. Smith refused, Houston left, Bowie stayed, and history was made. Bowie wrote to Smith on February 2, 1836 and stated, “Col. Neill & Myself have come to the solemn resolution that we will rather die in these ditches than give it up to the enemy.”

6The Washington Monument
Earthquake

The Washington Monument was almost a lost treasure before it even began. As the result of early financial troubles in young America, Washington himself pulled the plug on efforts to immortalize him with the massive and expensive monument. Instead, he founded the city that would one day bear his name. Due to a succession of political blunders and the inability to finance it, nearly 75 years passed before any significant construction began, and even that was eventually abandoned.

Though a pared-down and far less expensive monument was finally constructed, it contained a substandard base structure. In 2011, the integrity of that structure was put to the test. A magnitude 5.8 earthquake struck near Washington, D.C., causing extensive structural damage that required the monument to be closed to the public.

According to a report requested by the National Parks Service, the monument suffered several broken marble panels that adorned the outside of the structure, particularly at the pyramid section. Vertical supports that ran inside the monument cracked, and pieces broke off. Portions of the exterior facade cracked and fell off due to twisting during the earthquake. The keystones were damaged, and pieces had to be completely removed. Structural supports known as ribbing inside the monument cracked at crucial joints, and gaps in the mortar became so extensive that daylight could be seen through them, leading to leaking and water damage.

Repairs were completed to the extent needed for it to reopen to visitors. At over 130 years old, the Washington Monument was not designed for earthquake resistance. Though it was patched and approved by the NPS, another incident could prove disastrous for the landmark.

5The White House
Tornado

Historians remember with regret that the White House that stands today is actually only a shell of the original building, which has been burned, gutted, and restored many times throughout history. The worst destructive act on the country’s most famous residence was in 1814, when British soldiers invaded Washington, expelled all the residents, and set fire to the Capitol and the White House along with other public buildings.

The story of how the White House barely escaped complete ruin at the hands of the British army defies logic, common sense, and even science. Union forces were scattered in the wake of the attack, and Washington appeared to be lost. Then came one of the most remarkable and unseasonable weather events in American history.

On August 25, 1814, two days after the siege began, a tornado hit downtown Washington, D.C. Its torrential rains doused the fires and disrupted British forces, slamming their ships and throwing their cannons into the air. More British troops were killed by the storm than by gunfire.

Following the unexpected gale, the invading army retreated to its ships to regroup, left harbor, and never returned. Up to three tornadoes hit that day—quite an oddity, considering that only seven made landfall in the following 200 years.

4Taj Mahal
Military Armament

It’s shocking to hear the lengths former leaders and the public of Agra went to disgrace their country’s most famous monument. The Taj is now considered a must-see for travelers to India, a priceless remnant of the past, and a testimony to the enduring power of love. But it was nearly destroyed several times, defaced for decades, and the object of scorn by many former leaders.

Built as a tomb for the wife of former leader Shah Jahan, the monument was one of the grandest achievements of its time. After the emperor’s death, the memorial was ignored and fell into disrepair. The British intervened and converted the monument into a military compound. Marble facades were destroyed, barracks were built on the grounds, and the forts were converted into garrisons. In an effort to impress the Prince of Wales, the hall was painted in a coat of whitewash.

After their departure, plans were submitted to have the Taj destroyed and a government building erected in its place. Those plans were abandoned, but the destruction continued. Picnics, fairs, and other events were held on the grounds, where revelers would chisel away pieces of the adornments to take as souvenirs.

In 1828, Lord William Bentinck declared that many landmarks were to be destroyed and sold off in pieces in London. Several pavilions of the Taj were stripped to the brick and shipped off to Europe, some going to King George IV himself. Wrecking equipment was moved into place, and the Taj was ordered to be destroyed. Luckily, just as the crews began, auction attempts in London were declared a failure, and the project was abandoned.

In the early 1900s, Lord Curzon was shocked by the monument’s condition. He had it restored to its current state along many other mosques and tombs that had been turned into kitchens, police stations, and ticket offices. In 1983, the Taj was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

3The Colosseum
Struggles Against Time

The Colosseum in Rome, also known as the Amphitheatrum Flavium, has undergone as much structural damage as any building could while remaining standing. It’s nearly 2,000 years old, and the remaining two-thirds of the original Colosseum is a testament as much to the engineering prowess of ancient Romans as it is to conservation efforts.

The Colosseum has suffered not one but two direct lightning strikes that burned out the wood support structures and gutted the basement added by Titus’s brother Domitian. It took every firefighting official and member of the naval fleet to put out the flames and barely avert complete destruction. The fires also greatly damaged the stones and mortar holding the amphitheater together. It was decades before repairs were complete.

The greatest damage has come from people and time. The Colosseum narrowly escaped destruction at the hands of Christian emperors due to its significance as the death place of many Christian martyrs. This did not prevent it from being stripped bare of its impressive marble facade to be used in monuments and houses of the new elite class. The iron supports were stolen by robbers who sold them as scrap, and centuries of turbulent ground shifting has cracked and crumbled the remaining stones into certain peril. It was recently discovered that, a lot like a neighboring attraction in Pisa, the Colosseum leans—it’s 40 centimeters (16 in) higher at one end.

A conservation effort aims to reverse the damage caused not only by years of neglect but by subways and traffic whose vibrations compromise the Colosseum’s structural integrity. The initial effort was postponed several months as pieces of the Colosseum were already being found to fall from its walls.

2The Golden Gate Bridge
High Winds

On the 50th anniversary of the Golden Gate Bridge in May 1987, 300,000 people marched across the asphalt. Witnesses experienced motion sickness as the bridge swayed in the wind and the deck dropped by more than 2 meters (7 ft). Though no one made a big deal out of it at the time, saving a scene of mass panic, the bridge itself, normally curved, appeared to completely flatten from the side.

Engineers stated that there was no real danger. Each foot of the Golden Gate Bridge can comfortably withstand 2,600 kilograms (5,700 lb) of weight, while the marchers only exerted about 2,450 kilograms (5,400 lb) of weight on each foot of the bridge.

The bridge was actually more endangered (but never quite destroyed ) during its construction than it was that day. Scaffolding and dangerous tide problems during the foundation’s construction killed 911 workers. Then in 1951, the entire road was closed down for several hours when winds reached 113 kilometers (70 mi) per hour, causing the bridge to flutter. A sister bridge from the same designer as the Golden Gate, the Tacoma Narrows, had collapsed on film from winds reaching 65 kilometers (40 mi) per hour 10 years before this incident.

Structural damage occurred on the Golden Gate, while the winds bent the bridge so much that the light standards near the center touched the support cables. The bridge was almost destroyed, according to former Golden Gate chief engineer Daniel Mohn. The added weight of traffic could have resulted in catastrophe had officials not acted quickly.

1The Leaning Tower Of Pisa
War Orders

Many of wonders of the ancient world met their demise during intense battles. In modern times, countless artistic treasures are still missing after being misplaced during the height of war.

The famous Leaning Tower of Pisa nearly became one of those casualties. But it wasn’t bombings or the collateral damage normally experienced during firefights that nearly reduced to the tower to rubble. It was an order given to Sgt. Leon Weckstein by higher-ups during World War II.

The troops battling back Nazis in Pisa were ordered to eliminate all buildings that may have potentially served as sniper nests for German soldiers. Weckstein says that he received the command to blow up the tower and nearly did so except for overbearing heat. The heat was so intense that it was impossible to properly aim. After delay, he finally did take aim on the monument, but the troops were bombarded by enemy fire and forced to retreat. Military brass approved the fallback and spared the tower.

Whether the German soldiers had ever been in the tower is not known, but Weckstein’s procrastination bought the landmark just enough time to be spared a violent and unnecessary end. Today, efforts are underway to maintain the leaning tower, which has to be corrected every so many years to keep it from simply toppling over.

+The Kremlin
Blown Up

The Kremlin in Russia is considered to be of the most architecturally significant landmarks in the country. Home to the ruling family from its inception, the Kremlin (“the town”) marks the spot where Moscow was founded in the 11th century. Protected by a fortifying wall and moat, the Kremlin became the center of development for what would become the future capital city.

During the battle of 1812, the Kremlin was captured by Napoleon and nearly became his residence prior to the French retreat. On his departure, Napoleon ordered that the Kremlin be blown up. His plan nearly succeeded. However, a timely rainstorm dampened many of the fuses. Other explosive caches were discovered by residents who put out fires.

Still, the building did not escape unharmed. Five explosions rang out, destroying much of the structure and causing lasting damage. Two of the fortifying towers were demolished, the arsenal was partially collapsed, and several government buildings were damaged in the explosions. The initial blast, the strongest of the five, was so powerful that not only were all of the windows and glass in the Kremlin and neighboring buildings shattered—the window frames themselves were blown out.

Though the building was badly damaged and extensively burned, the residents of Moscow dedicated themselves to resurrecting the iconic landmark. It took decades of restructuring to finish the repairs, but today, the Kremlin stands a testament to the resolve of a centuries-old city and its proud inhabitants.

Twitter: @JSGestalt

We are all concerned about robots and artificial intelligence taking over our jobs. However, nobody seems to be worried about the jobs that were taken over by earlier advancements in technology and even modern robots.

A few centuries or even decades ago, some of these professions were mainstream and profitable. They disappeared when some easier-to-use technologies were invented to take over their roles. In rare instances, advancements in technology proved that the profession should not even exist.

10 Gong Farmer

A few centuries ago, what we consider a bathroom (or toilet in Britain) was called a privy. It was a raised board with a hole in the middle instead of a flush toilet. Users sat there to do their business. Their feces went down the hole into the cesspit below.

The cesspit soon filled up and needed to be emptied. This was the job of the gong farmer.

Gong meant “going,” while farmer was used to refer to the act of “harvesting” the “goings.” The gong farmers entered the tight cesspits where the feces reached their waists. Sometimes, they employed a smaller boy to do the job. The boys scooped the feces into carts for transport to dumps where the waste was converted to fertilizer.

The gong farmers stank a lot, which isn’t surprising considering that bathing was alien to the people of the Middle Ages. They smelled so bad that they were often confined to their homes and only allowed to work at night.

The job was also dangerous. The feces produced poisonous gases that could kill the gong farmers inside the cesspit. However, the handsome pay made up for any humiliation or danger they faced. The job went extinct after sewage pipes and treatment plants crept up in the 19th century. Gong farmers still exist in some parts of the world, though.
^[1]

9 Knocker Upper

Decades before the alarm clock went mainstream, people depended on the knocker upper to wake them from sleep. Interestingly, the profession lasted until the 1970s.

The first knocker uppers knocked or rang at the doors of their paying customers. However, they soon discovered that this was bad for business. Neighbors often complained that the noise woke them up. The knocker uppers also realized that they often woke nonpaying clients during the rounds. So the knocker uppers started tapping on the windows of their clients with long poles.

The tap was loud enough to wake the paying client but quiet enough to wake no one else. The knocker uppers did not hang around to make sure that their clients were awake and left after three or four taps. The profession started to disappear as electricity and alarm clocks became common.

Most knocker uppers went out of business in the 1940s and 1950s, and they were extinct by the 1970s.^[2]

8 Ice Cutter

From 1800 to 1920, people preserved their foods with ice harvested from frozen ponds by ice cutters who used ice axes and, later, handheld ice saws. The industry boomed so well that ice cutters started using large ice saws that required horses to tow.

Most of the ice came from the natural fresh water in the northwest United States between January and February. The work was tedious. Ice cutters worked seven days a week in 10-hour shifts to harvest enough ice before temperatures rose in March. The ice cutters were always at risk of falling into the frozen water.

The horses were not spared from the dangers of the trade, either. They were equally at risk of falling into the frozen ponds. Their dung also contaminated the ice. Most ice cutting businesses even employed a “shine boy” to clean after the horses. The shine boy put the dung into a waterproof wooden sleigh that he always carried along.

The harvested ice was stored in warehouses called icehouses for export to other regions of the US and Europe. The icehouses were built with double walls, raised off the ground, and filled with sand, straw, sawdust, hay, charcoal, bark, and whatever would stop ice from melting. These structures were also located far from trees over concerns that the ice could become damp and melt.

However, the industry was not very predictable because ice could melt or form improperly. It was unusual for ice cutters to record two profitable harvest seasons back-to-back. The winners were the farmers who owned the ponds. They sometimes made more from selling ice from their frozen ponds than they did from peddling their crops. The industry disappeared after the invention of the electric refrigerator.^[3]

7 Match Maker

Centuries ago, match-making companies employed all-female labor forces to make matches. These women were called “matchstick girls.” The job was dangerous and tedious. This was especially true at companies like Bryant and May which paid low wages, overworked workers, had strict regressive rules, and used dangerous white phosphorous in manufacturing its matches.

Matchstick girls at Bryant and May worked 14 hours a day. They were often fined for minor infractions like dropping a match, talking to coworkers, or clocking in late. However, their biggest threat was from the white phosphorous they worked with.^[4]

White phosphorous is toxic. It could cause a disease called “phosphorous necrosis of the jaw,” which the ladies called “phossy jaw.” The disease rotted the jawbone. Sometimes, it spread to the brain, causing the sufferer to die a slow and agonizing death. It could only be treated by removing the damaged jaw. However, this could also lead to death.

6 Rectal Teaching Assistant

While we were immersed in debates over whether robots and artificial intelligence would seize our jobs someday, robots crept behind us and snatched the profession of the rectal teaching assistant.

Medical personnel often diagnose prostate cancer by inserting their fingers into the anus to feel the prostate gland. At one time, they were trained with the rectum of a living human who was called a rectal teaching assistant. Only one man in all of the UK was licensed to become one.

Concerned about the shortage of rectal teaching assistants, scientists at Imperial College London developed a robotic rectum that mimicked a real human rectum. Unfortunately, the creation of the robot meant that the only licensed rectal teaching assistant in the UK lost his job.^[5]

The inventors say the robot is better than a human. Cameras inside the robot allow medical personnel to see the internals of the robot rectum on a computer screen. There was no way they could have done that with a human.

5 Human Computers

The first human computers appeared in 1939 when the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California employed Barbara Canright as a human computer. Canright was responsible for calculating everything from the amount of force required to take an airplane airborne to the amount of rocket propellant required to get a rocket into space.

The complex calculations were done with pencils and paper. Determining the travel time of a rocket took a whole day, and some other calculations could take a week. A single calculation could fill up to eight notebooks. Canright was later joined by Melba Nea, Virginia Prettyman, and Macie Roberts after the US got involved in World War II.

The human computers concentrated their efforts on the space race after the war. They were responsible for the calculations that put the US first satellite in orbit, the Voyager probes into space, the first unmanned rover on Mars, and Neil Armstrong and the Apollo 11 crew on the Moon.

The human computers still had the upper hand when NASA started experimenting with mechanical computers in the 1950s. Most people believed that humans were more reliable than machines. However, the humans soon lost their jobs to computers.^[6]

4 Pin Boy

A few decades ago, bowling alleys employed young boys called pinsetters, pin spotters, or pin boys to manually reset fallen bowling pins and return the bowling balls to players. The work had low pay and was often part-time. However, it was highly demanding as the boys often worked until midnight.

This started to change when Gottfried Schmidt invented the mechanical pinsetter in 1936. The pinsetter was semiautomatic and still required human intervention. Some bowling alleys did not adopt the mechanical pinsetter and continued using the pin boys. However, the pin boys and the semiautomatic pinsetter soon gave way to fully automatic pinsetters.^[7]

3 Lamplighter

The first public streetlights appeared in the 18th century. They used fish oil for fuel and required a lamplighter to light them at night and put them out in the mornings. The fish oil streetlight was later improved, leading to the invention of the gas lamp. However, that also required a lamplighter.

These professionals used long poles to light the lamps at night and extinguish the flames in the mornings. Lamplighters were also responsible for cleaning, maintaining, and repairing the lamps.

The profession started to die off in the 1870s when the first electric streetlamps appeared. Electric streetlights rendered the gas models obsolete in the US. However, the UK was still stuck with gas lamps for several decades because electric lamps were controversial there at the time. Finally, the UK dumped gas for electric lamps.

Critics complained that their lights were blinding, ugly, and too bright for the night. Others pointed out that electricity was expensive. The British Commercial Gas Association promoted gas lamps as the better alternative and deliberately sabotaged the adoption of the electric lamp.^[8]

Electric lamps only took over in the 1930s. However, around 1,500 gas lamps still exist in London for historical reasons.

2 Log Driver

Long before trains and trucks came along, timber that had been cut down deep in forests was rolled into rivers and left to drift downstream. However, it sometimes got stuck in miles-long logjams that could involve tens of thousands of logs and required dynamite to break up. An entire industry sprang up around escorting the drifting logs downstream and clearing the logjams. The men were called log drivers.^[9]

The job was dangerous and tedious. These men often followed the logs in special boats. Sometimes, they even jumped from log to log as the timber drifted downstream. Unlucky log drivers fell into the water and drowned while escorting the logs or trying to end logjams. Some were crushed to death after falling between the logs.

1 Leech Collector

The leech collector was a brief profession that sprang up and disappeared in the 1800s. At the time, bloodletting was used to drain blood from the body to supposedly cure diseases. Physicians applied leeches to suck blood from their patients.

Leech collectors soon appeared to cater to the high demand for leeches. These jobs were often done by poor women who obtained leeches from ponds and other areas where the creatures were plentiful. The collectors used their legs (the preferred, cheaper method) or those of old horses as bait to attract the leeches.^[10]

The women allowed the leeches to suck their blood for around 20 minutes before pulling them off. This was because a full leech was easier to detach than a hungry one. Nevertheless, this often caused injuries that bled for hours and resulted in significant blood loss. But the bleeding attracted more leeches, which was good for business.

The profession started to die out after leeches became scarce. Around the same time, doctors started to doubt that bloodletting really worked. Medical advancements soon proved that the procedure did not work and was actually dangerous. Bloodletting became history, and the leech collectors followed. The winners were the leeches that were saved from extinction.

We’ve told you before about the many important items our species has managed to somehow lose over the years. But a few mislaid books don’t even begin to compare to the entire locations we’ve somehow destroyed. Through war, vandalism, or just stupidity, we humans have proved time and again that we’re the last people in the universe you should trust with anything valuable.

10The Singapore Stone

You’ve probably heard of the Rosetta Stone. The Singapore Stone was like its powerlifting big brother. The colossal boulder, 3 meters (10 ft) high and 3 meters wide, stood at the entrance to the Singapore River, inscribed with an ancient script no one could decipher. Today, we’re fairly confident it was a variation on Old Sumatran from the 10th–14th centuries, but for the people who discovered it in 1819, it was like an alien language. The stone and the surrounding area, considered holy, were clearly an important find.

So we blew it up.

In 1843, the British army requisitioned the land the stone was standing on to build a fort. Rather than cart the stone away to the British Museum or anything silly like that, they instead blew it to pieces and used the remains as building material, road surface, and a bench. Although a few fragments were saved and now reside in the National Museum of Singapore, the sacred site was utterly annihilated, with the majority of the stone’s text erased forever. Did it record an ancient victory, a local legend, or just an account of daily life? We’ll never know.

9The Senator Tree

At some unknown point 3,500 years ago, the seed of a cypress tree fell to the ground in modern-day Florida and took root. Over the next three and a half millennia, it grew to a height of 36 meters (118 ft). It saw the birth of Jesus Christ, the coming of Columbus, the Wall Street Crash, and the fall of the Berlin Wall, outliving all but four other trees on the planet. The Senator, as it became known, was even honored by President Coolidge in 1929.

In 2012, local meth addict Sara Barnes climbed into the Senator to get high. At some point, it grew dark, and Barnes lit a fire to help her see. The fire instantly did what any fire lit inside a lump of wood would do and went completely out of control.

According to emergency services personnel, the Senator burned “like a chimney” for a couple of hours before collapsing into a pile of ash. Barnes was arrested and thrown in jail, reportedly telling friends she couldn’t believe she “burned down a tree older than Jesus.”

8The Paradise Of Nauru

The tiny island nation of Nauru is today best known for housing one of Australia’s grim offshore detention centers. Only a century or so ago, though, it was better known as paradise. When Europeans first discovered it in the 18th century, it was covered with tropical vegetation so lush and dense they officially named it Pleasant Island. Even today, pictures of its beaches are so impossibly perfect that you’d be forgiven for thinking they were Photoshopped.

The above photo shows the whole of Nauru as it looks today, a blasted heap of stone devoid of any life whatsoever. Unfortunately for the inhabitants of Pleasant Island, their country was lying directly on top of one of the biggest deposits of phosphate on Earth. Starting in 1900, various colonial powers stripped the island bare. When Nauru declared independence in the 1960s, the new government continued to mine the island, leaving behind a wasteland in which nothing can grow. Although Nauru itself technically still exists, everything that made those first sailors fall in love with the place is now gone forever.

7The Atacama Desert’s Archaeological Sites

The Atacama Desert is the driest place on Earth. Thanks to its lack of moisture, delicate pre-Columbian drawings and artifacts have been perfectly preserved there for millennia. Some sand dunes even record the traces of the wind patterns that helped shape them 18,000 years ago. The last thing you’d want to do with these fragile sites is drive a car straight through them, yet that’s exactly what challengers in the Dakar Rally did in 2009.

Although previously held in Africa, the rally was changed to South America following terrorist threats in 2008. Unfortunately, the organizers neglected to check the route properly, resulting in six irreplaceable sites in the Atacama being utterly destroyed. Ancient geoglyphs that can only be deciphered from the air were left with tire tracks running through them. A pre-Columbian hunter-gatherer camp was crushed and ground into the dust, and plenty of other important sites were left with irreparable damage.

Bad as this is, later races were even worse. According to the Santiago Times, the 2011 edition of the race irreversibly damaged 44 percent of all sampled sites, leaving the Atacama’s cultural heritage in tatters.

6Jonah’s Tomb

Marking the final resting place of the Old Testament prophet most of us remember for getting swallowed by a whale, Jonah’s Tomb in Mosul was a pilgrimage site for Muslims and Christians alike. It was also a favorite place of archaeologists, with the oldest parts of the tomb complex being dated to the eighth century B.C. None of this cut any mustard with the leaders of ISIS, who took one look at this invaluable site and decided to blow it up.

In July 2014, ISIS troops entered the mosque above the tomb during prayers and ordered everyone out. Then they set explosives and completely destroyed the site and several nearby houses. By their ultra-strict interpretation of Islam, they were saving those present from worshiping a false idol. By everyone else’s interpretation, they were robbing us of an invaluable cultural treasure.

It seems ISIS have a thing for destroying cultural sites. In February 2015, they blew up a 2,700-year-old wall at ancient Nineveh, consigning yet more Iraqi history (and more of Jonah’s story, coincidentally) to the flames.

5Benin City

Until the 19th century, Benin City was one of the grandest sites on Earth. Portuguese traders recorded a city larger than Lisbon, with large, ornate houses and streets that ran “straight and far as the eye can see.” The Oba’s Palace at the center of the city was so beautiful that Dutch engravers portrayed it with the same fidelity they did Florence, rendering the turrets and cityscape in meticulous detail. Many Europeans admired it as much as their home cities. Then the British came along and burned it to the ground.

In 1892, the British signed a treaty with the rulers of Benin, giving them the right to exploit the land. When the government refuse to cooperate with the UK’s trading demands, London sent a force of 10 soldiers to make them. All 10 died. The British responded by raising an army, arming them to the teeth, and ransacking Benin City. In the course of 17 days’ fierce fighting, the Oba’s Palace was destroyed, the city was looted, and a fire left virtually nothing standing. It was as if Paris or Athens had gone up in flames but even worse because nobody seemed to care.

4Lake Urmia

As late as the 1990s, Lake Urmia in Iran was a tourist paradise. Famed for its azure blue waters and 100 islands hiding all manner of exotic animals, it drew crowds in from around the globe. People would bathe in its supposedly healing mud; others would marvel at the flocks of flamingos the waters drew. The size of Luxembourg, the lake was known as one of the natural wonders of the world. Today, it’s a desolate wasteland.

Thanks to some highly questionable government policies comparable to those that destroyed the Aral Sea, Lake Urmia is on the verge of disappearing. Already, the waters have receded so far back that rusted boats are left abandoned on parched dry land and all the wildlife that can has left. In its place now swirl toxic salt storms that ravage the landscape, spreading death in their wake. Although the Iranian government has pledged billions of dollars to restoring Lake Urmia, no one seriously expects them to do anything.

3The Mayrieres Cave

A group of cavemen living in the southwest of modern-day France 15,000 years ago decided to get artistic in the Cave of Mayrieres superieure. The results were two cave paintings of bison executed with incredible skill and an eye for beauty. Although nowhere near as vast or impressive as the Chauvet Cave, the artworks were still in startlingly good condition and considered invaluable. Until, that is, they caught the attention of some local do-gooders.

In spring 1992, a local Protestant youth club decided to do a good deed by cleaning some nearby caves of graffiti. Armed with wire brushes and plenty of ignorance, the 70 teens descended into the Cave of Mayrieres superieure and proceeded to scrub away much of the prehistoric art. Although they ultimately realized their mistake, the damage was more or less total. The paintings were ruined, French cultural officials were up in arms, and the youth group wound up being awarded an Ig Nobel Prize for their contribution to destroying our past.

2Syria’s Ancient Sites

Currently in the grip of one of the worst wars in living memory, Syria has been ground zero for historical destruction for some time now. Along with the horrendous loss of human life, the war has cost the world more treasures than perhaps any other conflict of the modern era.

Almost since the fighting started, the historic cities of both Damascus and Aleppo have sustained such continuous damage that they’re now in ruins. In 2012, a fire ripped through the ancient Aleppo souk, utterly destroying one of the most important trading points on the historic Silk Road. One year later, the UNESCO-listed crusader castle Krak des Chevaliers was hit by an airstrike, while the ancient minaret on Aleppo’s grand mosque was finally leveled after standing for nearly 1,000 years. The fighting has also provided cover for professional tomb robbers, who have looted invaluable sites like Palmyra so thoroughly that almost nothing is left.

In December 2014, the UN declared that 300 heritage sites had been either damaged or utterly destroyed across the country. With ISIS now bombing cultural sites in the north, it looks like this figure will only increase.

1Everything In Saudi Arabia

We’ve told you before about Saudi Arabia’s bizarre fixation with transforming Mecca into a kind of Las Vegas of the Middle East. But this barely touches on the full insanity of the Wahhabi kingdom. Since 1985, Saudi Arabia’s ruling family has voluntarily destroyed over 98 percent of the kingdom’s Islamic heritage.

We don’t just mean they’ve knocked down some old buildings to put up new hotels, either. All evidence points to a deliberate attempt to demolish as many cultural sites as possible. A mosque belonging to Islam’s very first caliph, Abu Bakr, was recently razed to the ground and replaced with an ATM. At Mount Uhud in Medina, a famous fissure to which Muhammad himself supposedly retreated after a battle was filled in with concrete and fenced off from pilgrims. Nothing was built in its place.

Perhaps craziest of all is the Orwellian way the Saudi government tries to rewrite history. After plans for a new palace built over Muhammad’s birthplace were announced, signs instantly sprang up around the site, warning people that there was no evidence Muhammad had been born there. After Mount Uhud was filled in, another sign appeared declaring there was nothing special about this mountain and never had been. It’s said that when sites are marked for destruction, the bulldozers pull them down in the night and leave no evidence by morning that anything was ever there.

Because Wahhabism proscribes worshiping false idols, clerics in the kingdom have encouraged the destruction of monuments and artifacts that might distract people from worshiping Allah. In doing so, they’ve effectively annihilated many traces of Islam’s ancient past.