It’s terrifying to think that there are still people out there in the world who refuse to believe that the Holocaust was real. In the face of so much evidence, it takes an incredible combination of hatred and will to convince yourself that the deaths of at least six million people were faked.

Despite what a small fringe believes, though, the Holocaust really happened—and we can prove it. Even discounting the stories of the million Jewish survivors who witnessed it firsthand, there is a wealth of physical evidence that the Holocaust happened just the way history records—and that the details were not exaggerated.

10 The Jewish Population Dropped By A Third

In 1939, there were 16,600,000 Jews in the world. When the war ended, that number had dropped by a third. Even after seven years of new lives being born, there were a mere 11,000,000 left alive.

The Nazis took a deep interest in these numbers. They monitored the number of Jews still living in Europe, working to get the number down to zero. We have proof of that. In 1943, Heinrich Himmler commissioned a report called “The Final Solution of the European Jewish Problem”—one of the Nazi documents that most clearly shows their approval of Jewish genocide.

This was a statistical report, listing the number of Jews still left in Europe. It notes how the numbers are dropping and takes a twisted pride in Germany’s role in getting the Jewish population down.

“Altogether,” the report boasts, “European Jewry must have been reduced by almost half since 1933, that is to say, during the first decade of the development of the power of National Socialism.”

9 The Gas Chambers

The gas chambers used to exterminate Jews were left behind, but they were not in the same condition they’d once been in. The Germans tried to destroy them, dynamiting some in the hopes of erasing the evidence.

It didn’t work. The chambers were still intact, along with the doors that were lined with airproof seals around the edges. There’s no question that these airtight seals were meant to keep poisonous gases from leaking out of the chambers. In the work order sent by the Auschwitz Construction Office, the doors are specifically described as “gas-tight.”

We’ve also found holes in chamber rooftops. These holes perfectly match survivors’ descriptions of how the Germans would pour Zyklon B crystals into the chambers. Zyklon B also left a residue that proves it really was used. The insides of the chambers are lined with hydrogen cyanide—a key component of Zyklon B.

8 Catalogs Of Cremated Bodies

In a letter dated June 28, 1943, Auschwitz administrator Karl Bischoff wrote up a tally of all the cremations his men had performed on a single day. In just 24 hours in one camp, his men had cremated 4,756 Jewish people.

It seems like an impossibly high number, but the people who burned the bodies insist it is accurate. One, Henryk Tauber, reported that “on average, we incinerated 2,500 bodies a day.”

They used cremation equipment that was only meant to burn one body at a time, which would have made those numbers impossible. The Nazis, however, ignored basic decency to get through the work more quickly.

“Generally speaking, we burned four or five bodies at a time in one muffle,” Tauber explained, “but sometimes we charged a greater number of bodies. It was possible to charge up to eight.”

7 Photographs Of Open-Air Pits

Sometimes, the Nazis killed too many people to cremate in a single day. On those days, the Nazis took the dead out to a large burning pit to dispose of the bodies.

We have pictures of these burning pits—and it took an incredible act of bravery to get them out of the camp. The Nazis suppressed or destroyed most photographic evidence of the camps. The pictures of the open-air pits are among the only pictures that survived. These were taken by a prisoner who smuggled the film out of the camp in a tube of toothpaste.

We also have aerial photos of the burning pits letting out plumes of smoke. These were taken in 1944 by Allied reconnaissance planes that happened to photograph Auschwitz, not fully aware of what they were seeing. They caught, on camera, smoke emanating from one of the burning pits as Jewish lives were brought to an end.

6 The Reinhard Death Camps

“Operation Reinhard” was the code name given to three death camps in southern Poland: Treblinka, Belzec, and Sobibor. While some Auschwitz prisoners were put into lives of forced labor, these camps were used purely for extermination.

Mass graves have been found in all three. Inside the graves are the cremated remains of the dead and a few bones that had been crushed into tiny shards.

In 1943, a telegram reporting on the Reinhard death camps was intercepted by the Allies. It was coded, referring to the camps by their first letters, and was ignored by the men who found it. It took until 2001 before anyone realized what it was.

The telegram was a death tally of Jews in the camps. Belzec: 434,508 dead. Sobibor: 101,370 dead. Treblinka: 713,555 dead.

By the end of the war, an estimated two million people died in these camps alone.

5 The Gas Vans

In some death camps, Jews were exterminated in gas vans. These were large black vehicles with massive, airtight cargo compartments in the back. Thousands of Jews were forced into those compartments, and there they died.

The exhaust pipes were curved, turning under the car and up through holes in the floor. When the ignition was sparked, the carbon monoxide of the exhaust would fill up the compartment, killing everyone inside.

Several German officers left behind letters about the vans, most complaining about the way the vans were built. One, Dr. August Becker, wrote that he “ordered that during application of gas all the men were to be kept as far away from the vans as possible” to ensure their safety.

Another suggested moving the exhaust “so that the gas is fed from the top downwards” to keep the vehicles from rusting. In another letter from an SS officer to the Reich Security Office, the officer complained that he didn’t have enough gas vans to kill everyone he was expected to kill. “A transport of Jews, which has to be treated in a special way, arrives weekly,” he complained. “The three S-vans which are there are not sufficient for that purpose.”

4 Anne Frank’s Diary

Some Holocaust deniers believe that Anne Frank’s diary was faked. They claim it is a forgery, a scheme by her father to get rich. One denier called it “just one more fraud in a whole series of frauds perpetrated in support of the ‘Holocaust’ legend and the saga of the Six Million.”

Most people just ignore the Holocaust deniers, but the Dutch government actually tested their claim. The government analyzed Anne Frank’s original diary and proved in several ways that it was legitimately written by Frank herself.

For one thing, the handwriting was consistent throughout the diary and with other examples of her handwriting. According to the report, the diary entries also had characteristics that fit the way young girls tend to write.

The materials were also proven to have been purchased before the end of the war. The paper, ink, and glue used in the diary were all created before the early 1940s. Different types of glue and ink were introduced in 1950, and the materials that made up Frank’s diary were extremely rare after the war ended.

The government also found that Anne Frank had passed the time by making a second draft of her diary. Fittingly for a teenage girl, she’d wanted to adapt her life into a detective story. So she rewrote her own life, using the family name “Robin” instead of her own.

3 Witnesses To The Babi Yar Massacre

The Babi Yar Massacre was one of the worst mass killings of the Holocaust. On a single day in September 1941, 33,771 Jews were massacred in a ravine in Ukraine. There were few survivors. But some faked their deaths and escaped to tell the story.

However, the victims aren’t the only witnesses who confirmed that the massacre really happened. Some of the killers did, too, and their versions of the story perfectly corroborate the ones told by the survivors.

A German truck driver named Hofer said that the victims were forced to lie down on top of the bodies of the dead. “A police marksman came along and shot each Jew in the neck with a submachine gun,” he described. “It went on this way uninterruptedly, with no distinction being made between men, women, and children. The children were kept with their mothers and shot with them.”

Kurt Werner, one of the executioners in the massacre, described the same scene. “I had to spend the whole morning down in the ravine,” he said. “For some of the time, I had to shoot continuously.”

2 The Einsatzgruppen Reports

When the German Army marched into the Soviet Union, a group called Einsatzgruppen followed behind them. These were Nazi death squads who sought out and massacred Jews, usually gunning them down. The death squads murdered at least one million people before they were turned back, leaving a trail of mass graves in their wake.

The Einsatzgruppen sent weekly reports back to Berlin with updates of their massacres—and 194 of the 195 reports have survived to today. The reports list the dates, numbers, and ethnicities of the people killed by the Einsatzgruppen. Most of their victims were Jewish.

“I consider the Jewish action more or less terminated as far as Einsatzkommando 3 is concerned,” one report reads. “I am of the view that the sterilization program of the male worker Jews should be started immediately so that reproduction is prevented. If, despite sterilization, a Jewess becomes pregnant, she will be liquidated.”

1 Hitler Knew About It

There is no question that Hitler knew and approved of what was going on. To keep his records clean, Hitler never wrote and signed an official order. But there is more than enough evidence to show that he was behind it.

In 1922, Hitler told Josef Hell, “Once I really am in power, my first and foremost task will be the annihilation of the Jews.” Likewise, Joseph Goebbels wrote in his diary, “Regarding the Jewish question, the Fuhrer is determined to clean the table. [ . . .  ] The world war has come, therefore the annihilation of the Jews has to be its inevitable consequence.”

In 1923, Goebbels recorded in his diary that he had informed Hitler that mobs were holding demonstrations in which they burned down synagogues. Goebbels recorded Hitler’s response: “He orders: Let the demonstrations go on. Withdraw the police. The Jews must for once feel the people’s fury.”

Hitler, worried about the public reaction to the Holocaust, seems to have given orders verbally rather than writing them down. So we don’t have his Holocaust order in writing.

Nazi soldiers confirm, though, that the orders came from Hitler himself. SS officer Adolf Eichmann wrote in his memoir that Reinhard Heydrich told Eichmann in 1942 “that the Fuhrer had ordered the physical destruction of the Jewish opponent.”

Despite all his caution, Hitler’s name is on one damning piece of paper. The “Report to the Fuhrer on Combating Partisans” announced that 363,211 Jews had been executed. On it are marked the words: “Shown to the Fuhrer.”

The last decade may have been amazing for scientific progress – as we made unimaginable strides in fields like bionics, space exploration and finally verifying whatever Einstein was talking about – though 2020 is still far from the idea of ‘future’ most of us grew up with. While we do now have many of the technologies we couldn’t even dream of a hundred years ago, progress on the cooler and more-visible fictional technologies of the future – like flying cars – seems to have been rather slow.

One reason we believe that is because the fictional tech we’re looking for – like, again, flying cars—is almost always inefficient and unnecessary. Truly groundbreaking and futuristic technologies are actually getting developed as we speak; we just never get to hear about them because they don’t sound as cool. In the spirit of consistently reminding everyone just how scary science is turning out to be, here are 8 recent breakthroughs that prove that we’re already living in the future.

See Also: 10 People Who Claimed To Have Traveled To The Future

8 AI Doctors

Medicine is one of the fields that we assume would never be fully automated, as you’d always need a human brain to diagnose the wide variety of things that can go wrong with the body. That argument definitely holds water, though only if we assume that the robots used to replace the real doctors aren’t going to learn from their experiences, too. With machine learning and AI, robot doctors on the field are already matching—and in some cases surpassing – the extent of our medical knowledge.

Take the British National Health Service (NHS), where the chatbots recently deployed to remotely diagnose problems were found to outperform their human counterparts quite a few times, especially in the cases of abdominal diseases. As per the company’s own tests, its accuracy rate was much higher than us, too.

That’s not it, AI-driven machines have decisively outperformed their human counterparts – at least in the field of medical diagnostics—in a lot of recent studies. Due to our inherent distrust of machines and robots, however, their adoption in hospitals and government facilities around the world has been rather slow.

7 Bringing The Dead Back To Life

Reanimating the dead has been a staple of popular fiction in some way for as long as we can remember. It mirrors humanity’s fundamental desire – above all else – to free itself from the shackles of death, even if it’s often inexplicably expressed through monstrosities like Frankenstein’s monsters and zombies. While we know that we’d some day be able to reverse death in some way, no one expects that day to come any time soon.

According to a recent study, though, we’re not just close to being able to reverse death, but we may even have already learned how to do it. Some researchers at the Yale School Of Medicine were successfully able to reanimate the brains of 32 pigs well after they were declared dead. They put all the brains together into a mega structure called BrainEx, and injected them with a solution to mimic the natural blood flow of the body. To their surprise – and possibly horror – the brains started functioning as normal. Some of them had even started responding to drugs exactly like a normal, non-zombified animal brain.

6 Nuclear Fusion

Most of us think of nuclear fission to be a more powerful form of reaction than nuclear fusion, and it makes sense, too. To a layman, something splitting apart has to release more energy than something being put together, no matter the science behind it. In reality, nuclear fusion isn’t just much, much more powerful, it’s also the primary source of power for our Sun (and all the other stars). It’s also a much cleaner source of energy, though also much more difficult to achieve. Despite our best efforts to replicate that on Earth for our ever-growing energy needs, harnessing the energy of nuclear fusion like the stars has always been a dream of the distant future for our scientists.

While there’d still be some time before we can truly replace the Sun with an energy source of our making, a recent study in China proved that the conditions required for nuclear fusion on the Sun could be recreated on Earth.

Working at the Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak (EAST) reactor in Hefei, China, the team of scientists managed to simulate an artificial Sun with the help of nuclear fusion. They were able to attain temperature levels of over 100 million Celsius, which was enough for it to turn into plasma. That’s right, some scientists from China just found a way to recreate the SUN on Earth, complete with plasma.

5 Detecting Parkinson’s Through Voice

Parkinson’s disease comes from a class of serious disorders we don’t entirely understand – another one being Alzheimer’s. It’s not caused by any external body and is a degenerative disorder of the central nervous system, though that’s pretty much all we know about it. We still don’t know exactly what causes it, or if it’s even a normal disease like we understand diseases or something wholly different, like prions. Moreover, detecting it has always been as difficult as understanding it, as symptoms show up slowly and over a long period of time. There’s quite a bit of debate on what those symptoms are, too, as patients don’t have any clear biological markers.

While we’re far from figuring out and eradicating Parkinson’s, we can now detect it much earlier—thanks to some recent research. In a clinical first, researchers from three universities developed a method to detect Parkinson’s with just voice samples. It’s not really available for medical use yet, but their system was able to detect Parkinson’s with an accuracy of 87%. As it’s based on machine learning, it would only get better at it, too.

4 Robots That Can Follow Orders

If you think about it, robots have hardly made any impact on modern life. Sure, robots combined with other technologies like VR and AI would probably definitely play a big role in the future, though on their own, they’re not of much use. Despite being around for decades now, they’re hardly a part of daily life like the fictional works of twentieth century predicted. What gives?

One of the biggest reasons is their inability to understand what we’re saying. Robots are still not commonplace because they don’t have the cognitive skills required to process our instructions in real time. While we have designed robots that could do backflips and run as fast as a human, it’s incredibly difficult to code them to process any instruction you throw at them.

While there would still be some time before robots could understand and talk just like a real person, we’ve made some unprecedented progress in their cognitive abilities in recent times. The U.S. army has recently developed software that could program field robots to understand verbal instructions, carry them out, and report back without any supervision. They’d also be equipped to machine learn, making them learn from their mistakes and get even better at their jobs as they go.

3 Quantum Entanglement

Quantum Entanglement is one of the most important and mysterious phenomena in Quantum Physics. It’s the theory that a pair of quantum particles will always affect each other regardless of the distance or type of active forces between them, which has also been touted as the solution to everything from faster-than-light-travel and quantum networking. While it has been theoretically proposed as well as observed on small scales in the past, we haven’t yet been able to determine if it’s possible over large distances.

That was until a team of Chinese scientists, for the first time in history, beamed entangled pairs of photons over a distance of more than 1,200 km (around 750 miles). In simple words, they proved that the state of a particle could be changed depending on another particle thousands of miles away, regardless of any other factor. As you’d expect, it has applications in a wide variety of fields. China is well on its way to develop a censor-proof quantum network, which would be leaps and bounds faster and more secure than anything we have. It also enables other breakthroughs that were previously thought to be impossible – like faster-than-light communication.

2 Eye Tribe

The possibility of using just your eyes to control a computer sounds like a futuristic (and rather awesome) proposition, though somehow, there haven’t been many efforts to turn it into a reality. If developed, it has quite a few applications in a wide variety of fields, especially for the disabled. It would fundamentally change how we interact with our devices, and something that a lot of us don’t even think is possible.

While it’s true that no technology of the sort exists right now, it did for a brief amount of time. Eye Tribe was a short-lived startup that had – according to their videos – successfully built a prototype device that enables you to control any screen with just your eyes. Of course, the number of things you could do was clearly limited, as it was less of a finished product and more of a developer prototype to build on. The possibilities were endless, and it really was something straight out of a science fiction book.

Unfortunately, the company ceased all operations in the middle of it for unknown reasons, and was soon bought by Facebook’s Oculus.

1 Converting Brain Signals Into Audio And Images

If you told a person in the nineteenth century that in about two hundred years, we would have the ability to read other people’s thoughts, he’d probably laugh at you. That’s still the case, as it’s still something so futuristic and unrealistic that even science fiction hasn’t used it too often. Scientifically speaking, there should be no way to look into what someone else is thinking, for the simple reason that thoughts are nothing but electrical waves the brain can decipher. Also, privacy.

If recent research on the subject is anything to go by, we already have the ability to read people’s thoughts to a great extent. A team of neuroengineers from Columbia University recently built a system to convert brain signals into audible speech, and it’s surprisingly accurate. Other studies have proven that brain signals could be turned into images, too, which is honestly something we didn’t even know could be done.

Christopher Columbus still has his own holiday. Today, most people are at least dimly aware that Columbus wasn’t exactly a great guy, but somehow, he’s still managed to hold on to a little dignity and respect. It was a different time, some might say; or, perhaps, he was no worse than the rest.

SEE ALSO: 10 Rarely Told Tales Of Columbus, History’s Greatest Explorer

But Christopher Columbus wasn’t just your standard careless colonialist. The things he did were so twisted that even the people of his own time thought of him as a monster. Most of it is so brutal it gets cut out of history books in the name of good taste, but the real Columbus was far, far worse than you ever could have imagined.

We’re going to tell you the real story of Christopher Columbus. So get ready—because this is going to get pretty messed up.

10 He Cut The Hands Off Of Natives Who Didn’t Bring Him Enough Gold

Columbus, upon reaching the New World, had written back to the Spanish lord promising “as much gold as they need . . . and as many slaves as they ask.” Now, though, he had to prove he could do it—even if it took a massacre.

He started rounding up natives and locking them in pens. Some were sent to Spain as slaves—though nearly half died during the voyage—and the rest were put to work gathering gold. Every member of the Arawak people who was 14 or older was sent into a part of Haiti were Columbus believed huge gold fields were hiding.

Any native who came back with enough gold to satisfy Columbus was given a copper token to hang around his neck, which meant he was allowed to live. Any native spotted without the token was to have his hands chopped off on the spot. This wasn’t just amputation; the wounds were left untreated, and the victims were allowed to bleed out until they died.^[1]

There was next to no gold in Haiti, which meant it was almost impossible to bring Columbus what he demanded. Most, realizing it was impossible, tried to flee, so the Spaniards hunted them down with dogs and killed every person they could find.

9 Columbus’s Men Tested Their Blades By Killing People

“My eyes have seen these acts so foreign to human nature, and now I tremble as I write.”

This was the report that Bartolome de las Casas, a priest who had joined Columbus’s men in New World, sent back home to Europe. He’d witnessed how the Spaniards treated the natives, and what he described was worse than any horror story.

Columbus’s men, Bartolome said, would round up natives and slice off parts of their bodies to test the sharpness of their blades. Just to pass the time, he wrote, the Spaniards “made bets as to who would slit a man in two, or cut off his head in one blow.”

They didn’t stop their massacres at adult men, though. As sport, Columbus’s crew would tear babies out of their mothers’ arms and dash their heads against rocks—or worse. According to Bartolome: “They spitted the bodies of other babes, together with their mothers and all who were before them, on their swords.”^[2]

People were massacred, sometimes just as a way to pass the time. “A stream of blood was running,” Bartolome said, through the native villages after Columbus arrived, “as if a great number of cows had perished.”

8 Columbus Also Mutilated His Own Spaniards

Columbus didn’t stop at torturing the natives; he tortured his own men, too. As he stayed on in the New World and food became scarce, he started to starve his men out. He’d fill his ships with an abundance of food, but he wouldn’t share it with his settlers, even when they began dying of starvation.

Instead, Columbus set up a strict set of rules, promising to hang anyone who so much as stole bread. Often, though, his actual punishments were even more depraved. When a cabin boy stole a fish out of another man’s trap, Columbus had the boy’s hand nailed to the spot where he’d stolen the fish. And when another young boy was caught stealing corn, Columbus had his ears and nose cut off and then had him whipped, shackled, and finally sold into slavery.

He even tortured people for simply buying food with their own money. A group of a dozen Spanish men was tied together by their necks and feet and publicly whipped for buying pork and bread. Their crime, Columbus declared, was that they had “bartered and gave gold without the Admiral’s permission.”^[3]

By the time Columbus left, 50 of his men had died of starvation. He, though, stayed fairly plump—by strict command. In fact, when one of his men failed to get enough food for his pantry, Columbus had him stripped naked and whipped with 100 lashes.

7 Women Were Regularly Paraded Naked Through The Streets

When a Spanish woman upset Columbus, he took a bit of different route. He didn’t stop at whipping her or hanging her; he made sure she was humiliated. Specifically, he’d strip her naked, put her on a mule, and parade her through town.

Columbus’s group did this at least three times. The first was a sentence given out by Christopher Columbus himself, who accused a woman of “falsely claiming to be pregnant” and, as punishment, had her stripped naked and paraded through town.

His brother Bartolome followed his example a little later when a woman accused them of being the sons of a common journeyman.^[4] Again, he stripped her naked and had her shown off to the town on a mule—and then, for good measure, he had her tongue cut out. Christopher was thrilled and publicly congratulated Bartolome for defending the family’s good name.

Then another official did it to a woman named Teresa de Vaeca because her friend had an affair. Teresa herself hadn’t done anything—it was her friend who had the affair—but they still felt she deserved “the punishment for pimping,” which was to be stripped naked, given 100 lashes, and have her tongue cut out.

6 He Started A Child Sex Slave Ring

When Columbus realized that there was more money to be made in prostitution than there was in cultivating land, he started a ring of sex slaves. This, he believed, was just good business. “A hundred castellanos are as easily obtained for a woman as for a farm,” he wrote in a letter home, so how, he felt, could he be faulted for dragging away women and selling them to be brutally raped?

The women weren’t willing participants—nor were they, for that matter, always women. Little girls, Columbus said, were the most profitable. He wrote that “those from nine to ten are now in demand.”^[5]

The stories that came out of it are horrifying. One man, named Michele de Cuneo, wrote that Columbus gifted him a young girl to use as a sex slave. “Since I wanted to have my way with her and she was not willing, she worked me over so badly with her nails that I wished I had never begun,” Cuneo wrote in a letter. “I got a rope and tied her up so tightly that she made unheard of cries which you wouldn’t have believed. At the end, we got along so well that, let me tell you, it seemed she had studied at a school for whores.”

5 He Lied About Being The First Person To Spot Land

It wasn’t all murders and massacres, though. Sometimes, Columbus was just petty. Even before he’d set foot in the New World, he was ruining people’s lives.

Before Columbus sailed west, the king and queen of Spain promised a lifetime pension to whoever first spotted land. Columbus’s men, hoping never to have to work another day in their lives, kept an eye out at every moment—until one night, two hours after midnight, Rodrigo de Triaga caught the first glimpse of land over the horizon.

When they reported back to Spain, though, Columbus interjected that he had noticed a light “which appeared like a candle” the day before, and though he hadn’t told his men he’d spotted land, he still felt it was only right that he get the money and Rodrigo de Triaga get nothing.^[6]

As the leader of the expedition, Columbus probably didn’t need the money. According to his contemporaries, he just wanted to be able to say he was the first to spot land. So, for the sake of his pride, he stole a lifetime pension and a place in the history books from one of his own men.

4 He Paraded Dismembered Bodies Through Town

After they’d been mutilated, run down with dogs, and sold into sexual slavery, some of the Arawak natives decided to fight back. They put up the best resistance they could, revolting against Columbus and his men and trying to chase them away—but they didn’t have much of a chance.

The Spaniards had armor, muskets, swords, and horses, so the rebellion was crushed pretty quickly. Columbus and his men hung some of their prisoners, enslaved others, and even burned some of them alive.

Then, to make a point, they dismembered the bodies of the dead and marched through the native towns, parading the mutilated corpses to send a message.^[7] Anyone who tried to fight Columbus, they were warning them, would meet the same fate.

3 He Pretended To Be God To Keep The Natives Working For Him

When they realized they couldn’t kill Columbus, the Arawaks tried another approach: starving him out. Columbus hadn’t really figured out how to survive on his own in the New World; he relied on the food the natives gave him. So, the people in Jamaica decided to just stop feeding him, hoping he’d give up and go away.

Columbus, though, managed to trick them into giving up their food by pretending to have magic powers. He used an astronomical table to figure out when the next lunar eclipse would hit. Then, moments before the eclipse began, he told them that his god was angry with them and that the Moon would now appear inflamed with wrath.

“They came running from every direction to the ships, laden with provisions,” Columbus’s son Ferdinand gleefully wrote, describing it, “praying the Admiral to intercede by all means with God on their behalf; that he might not visit his wrath upon them.”^[8]

It’s a fairly well-known story—but what’s usually left out is the context. Columbus’s triumph came after he’d massacred their people, and the natives were just doing what they could to spare their own lives.

2 The Arawaks Committed Mass Suicide Rather Than Live With Columbus

With no way to escape from Columbus, the Arawaks of Haiti just gave up. Death, they believed, was inevitable. The only hope they had was to spare themselves from the pain and torture they’d experience at Columbus’s hands.

They started committing suicide en masse. Whole communities would gather together to kill themselves, sometimes doing so in groups of 100 at a time. Mothers would feed their children cassava poison to let them die peaceful deaths, and the young women swore not to bring another child into the world.

One of the Spaniards there, Perdro de Corboda, wrote home: “Many, when pregnant, have taken something to abort and have aborted. Others after delivery have killed their children with their own hands, so as not to leave them in such oppressive slavery.”^[9] At the peak of mass suicides, 250,000 native Haitians died in just two short years.

1 He Brought Syphilis To Europe

Columbus killed millions of natives, but in what might well be divine retribution, he killed millions more back home. When he and his men came back from the New World, they didn’t just bring back slaves—they brought back syphilis.

The first syphilis outbreak in Europe happened in 1495, shortly after Columbus and his sailors returned. Before Columbus, there hadn’t been any known cases of syphilis in Europe. There are a few researchers who insist they’ve found one, but none have been conclusively proven, and all signs point to the idea the Columbus and his men brought it over with their ring of child sex slaves.^[10]

Some of Columbus’s crewmen ended up serving in a war against Italy, whoring their way across Europe on the way, and soon spread syphilis all across the continent. It was devastating. The first outbreak alone killed more than five million Europeans.

That death toll might even include Christopher Columbus, who died in 1506, after years of fighting through a long and painful illness he’d contracted on his last voyage to the New World. At the time, they called it gout, and today, most think it was Reiter’s syndrome, but some believe that he was taken out by his own disease: syphilis.

Animals surprise people and scientists continuously. Ongoing research keeps revealing things we didn’t know about specific creatures and some of these findings are truly awesome. While there are way too many awe-inspiring animals in the world to fit on one list, here are 15 facts to show the awesomeness of just some of them.

Top 10 Lesser-Known But Interesting Ancient Animals

15 Goats prefer happy people

A study in 2018 revealed that not only can goats read human facial expressions; they also prefer interacting with people who are happy. A team of scientists at Queen Mary University of London detailed how 20 goats were shown images of both happy and angry human facial expressions and determined that they preferred looking at the happy face images. It was also determined that this happened particularly when the happy face images were on the right side of the goats, causing them to use the left hemisphere of their brains to assist in processing happy emotions.^[1]

14 Whales used to walk on land

Whales are awesome full stop. However, they used to be even more badass back in the day (around 50 million years ago to be exact). Some of the earliest descendants of the modern whale looked nothing like the majestic mammals we know today; they walked on four legs and hunted both small land animals and freshwater fish. Known as Pakicetus, this animal eventually evolved to cope with their changing environment.^[2]

13 Bigfoot may have been a lemur

There is a lot more to lemurs than the Madagascar movie franchise will have you believe. In total, there are a staggering 105 different species of lemurs. And once upon a time they all used to be the size of gorillas. Lemurs are native only to Madagascar and the Comoro Islands and thrive in dry- or rainforests as well as wetlands and mountains. In the late 19th century it was discovered that the lemur had a prehistoric primate ancestor and it was given the name Megaladapis meaning ‘giant lemur’. A very interesting fact about Megaladapis is that it may have started the legend of Bigfoot. When human settlers arrived in Madagascar, the Megaladapis was not yet extinct and it is believed that encounters with the massive creatures may have given rise to the legend.^[3]

12 Crows leave gifts

When Gabi Man was four years old, she was always accidently dropping food wherever she went. Unbeknownst to her, a bunch of crows would swoop in to sweep whatever she dropped. As she grew older, she took more notice of the birds and started leaving food out for them including her school lunches. Eventually the crows started thanking her in a heart-warming manner. They would leave her little gifts such as polished rocks, an earring and a small piece of metal with the word ‘best’ on it. The gifts would be left after they finished off the peanuts left in a birdfeeder by Gabi. By the time Gabi was 8 years old, the birds had left her a whole host of gifts. A crow even once returned Gabi’s camera lens cap to her after she misplaced it.^[4]

11 A zebra’s coat can be used as a barcode

In 2011 a team of researchers came up with an alternative idea to track wild zebras that didn’t involve the use of RFID chips. They developed a system called StripeSpotter with which they were able to isolate a portion of a zebra, photograph it and then cut it up into horizontal bands. Each pixel in the selected portion is converted to black or white and the horizontal bands are encoded to StripeStrings which eventually are made into a StripeCode which looks a lot like a barcode. The information is then stored in a database which researchers can use to identify animals without having to approach them directly.^[5]

10 A fish used to be a Roman party drug

Known as ‘the fish that make dreams’, eating salema porgy heads is known for causing hallucinations. You wouldn’t say there is anything out of the ordinary about this fish just by looking at it, but the Ancient Romans soon figured out its weird secret and ingested this fish as a recreational drug during the time of the Roman Empire. Polynesians also ate the salema porgy during ‘special events.’ In 1994 a man found himself surrounded by screaming animals after eating a baked salema porgy on the French Riviera. In 2006, two men ate the fish at a Mediterranean restaurant and experienced hallucinations, both auditory and visual.^[6]

9 Lulu the kangaroo was a heroine

Lulu the kangaroo was rescued from her dead mother’s pouch in 1998 by the Richards family, who took her into their home and raised her. Little did they know that this act of kindness would prove to be one of the best things they’d ever do. In 2003, Len Richards was knocked unconscious when a tree branch fell on him at his home. Lulu literally raised the alarm by standing a couple of hundred metres away from the house and “barking” until family members came over to see if there was a problem. When they found Lulu, she was standing next to Len and the family rushed him to hospital. Luckily, he wasn’t severely injured and was released the same day. Lulu became an instant heroine and journalists from all over the world called the Richards family to have a story written about the incident.^[7]

10 Absurd Sleep Habits Of Wild Animals

8 A village of wolves

While many adult male animals are aggressive towards their young and sometimes even kill them, it is very different with wolves. It is almost as if they adopt the human saying: ‘it takes a village to raise a child.’ Every member of the pack pitches in, male and female, to help care for and raise wolf cubs. It has also been found that some female wolves in a pack go through pseudo-pregnancies which makes them feel like parenting and therefore they are also involved in ‘rearing’ wolf cubs.^[8]

7 A herd of elephants mourned The Elephant Whisperer

Elephants are emotive creatures with excellent memories. They become emotional when they experience the death of a herd member and sometimes cover their dead with soil or grass. Elephants also grieve when humans, who they have a connection with, die. When Lawrence Anthony, otherwise known as The Elephant Whisperer, died in South Africa in 2012, two elephant herds he had worked with showed up at his nature reserve home shortly afterwards. The herds hadn’t visited the home for 18 months and it took them around 12 hours to get there. They stuck around for about two days and then left again. Lawrence Anthony devoted his life to calming traumatised elephants and he also recued animals from the Baghdad Zoo during the Iraqi invasion.^[9]

6 Crocodiles can gallop

Awesome might not be the word that comes to mind when most people think of crocodiles, but the fact is that they truly are. When they sleep with their mouths open, it doesn’t mean they are waiting to attack; they are actually releasing heat as they don’t sweat. They can sleep with one eye open and they can hold their breath underwater for more than an hour. Even more surprising perhaps is the fact that some crocodiles can gallop. In the early 2000s researchers studied five crocodile species; African dwarf crocodile, African slender snouted crocodile, Cuban crocodile, Philippine crocodile and the American crocodile and found that all of them were able to bound and gallop.^[10]

5 Arab horses have been around as long as the Egyptian pyramids

Horses can sleep standing up or lying down. They communicate their feelings through facial expressions, and they have better night vision than humans. The oldest domestic horse in history was Old Billy who lived to the age of 62. The oldest surviving breed of horse, the Arab, has been around for an estimated 4,500 years. Arabian horses are called so because most experts agree that they originated in the Arabian Peninsula. George Washington, Alexander the Great, Napoleon Bonaparte and Genghis Khan all owned Arabian horses.^[11]

4 Cows form close friendships

Cows are not only large, placid animals that dot the countryside. They are very intelligent creatures that prefer the company of their ‘best friends.’ A 2019 study saw cows penned for 30-minute intervals, first with a best friend and then again with a cow they did not know. During both intervals, the heart rates of the cows were measured. The results showed that when a cow was penned with a friend, their heart rates were low, and they were less stressed. The study also proved that cows have a level of personality and an urge to form a connection with others of their kind.^[12]

3 Cats have healing power

Cats are one of the most popular pet choices in the world. They meow to communicate with their owners and can jump up to six times its body length in a single leap. Their noses are as unique as a human’s fingerprint and they have three eyelids. What’s more, cats sometimes have the power to heal themselves. A domesticated cat’s purr has a frequency of between 25 and 150 Hertz which is also the frequency at which bones and muscles grow and repair themselves. It might also help humans such as astronauts who experience bone density loss and muscle atrophy during long periods at zero gravity.^[13]

2 Sea otters hold hands while sleeping

Sea otters are very cute little marine animals that have the densest fur of any animal on earth. They use rocks as tools for hunting and feeding and they can live their entire lives in water. The cutest thing about them is that when they fall asleep in the water, they ‘hold hands’ so that they do not drift away from each other. This is quite common with mothers and their pups and shows how intelligent these animals are. Should a pup be too small to hold hands with its mother he hitches a ride on her belly. When the mother goes hunting, she wraps her pups in seaweed to ensure they don’t float off.^[14]

1 Alpacas are water and fire resistant

Alpacas are quirky-looking, fluffy animals with a penchant for continuous chewing and spitting. They are very sociable and should not be kept alone. They are also water and fire resistant; well at least their fleece is! Any products made from their fibre is flame retardant and wicks away moisture. What’s more, being around alpacas is very therapeutic and they are often taken to hospitals to bring healing and joy, especially to children.^[15]

10 Shocking Procedures Done To Animals

Area 51 is not the only secret base in Nevada. Other deserts have ancient ships filled with treasure, vanishing monoliths and eternal songs.

10 Unsolved Desert Mysteries

10 A Huge Happy Cat

The Nazca Desert in Peru achieved infamy decades ago when massive geoglyphs were discovered on the ground. The ancient images include animals, birds, and geometric patterns. In 2020, a new geoglyph turned up. For cat lovers, the Cute Factor of the latest picture was a welcome change.

Etched into a cliff, the feline measures 37-meter (120-feet) long. The cat’s pose is relaxed and shows the animal resting on its back, almost as if begging for a belly scratch. The adorable theme is not the only thing that sets it apart from the other geoglyphs. Anyone who is familiar with the Nazca Lines will quickly notice that, compared to the others, the cat’s lines are more simple.

Age could explain why the cat does not have the complexity and straight lines that other Nazca art is known for. Clocking in at 2,000 years old, the kitty is the oldest geoglyph in the area. Perhaps, as one of the earliest attempts, the results were a bit wobbly. But as generations practised the unusual desert creations, they refined their skills and produced masterpieces that still defy our understanding.

9 Ice Filled With Life

Ice is not supposed to grow in the desert. But under the right circumstances, like high altitudes and extremely dry land, fields of jagged ice spring up in deserts all over the world. Called “penitentes,” they look like upright blades that often grow as tall as a person.

In 2019, samples were removed from an ice field in Chile’s Atacama Desert. Some of the samples contained red patches. This was a stunning moment. In other parts of the world, red ice points to the presence of living microbes. This was something that had never been found inside penitentes before.

After a few tests, the microbes were identified as snow algae. They were related to species of algae that flourish inside alpine and polar ice. But how the organisms got inside the ice blades standing in the middle of the desert is a mystery.

8 An Endless Song (Sort Of)

In 1982, the band Toto produced their hit “Africa.” Almost 40 years later, somebody decided that the song should play in the desert. Forever. That someone was Max Siedentopf, a Namibian-German artist. As a rabid fan of the song, he had listened to “Africa” more than 400 times (by his own estimate).

Depending on one’s view, he created a piece of art or gave the desert a notorious earworm. But either way, he kept the location a secret. At his chosen spot, he placed several speakers and an MP3 player on white pedestals and hooked them up to a solar-powered battery system.

Somewhere in the Namid Desert, this song is playing on an endless loop. Well, that is the perfect scenario anyway. The artist never protected the installation from the harsh desert environment apart from using durable equipment. Siedentopf himself admitted that the desert would probably strangle the song sooner rather than later.

7 The Most Isolated Tree

By the 1970s, the Tree of Tenere had stood in Niger’s Sahara desert for nearly 300 years. As the only tree around for 402 kilometres (250 miles), the acacia was used by ancient travellers as a landmark and it also featured on military maps from the 1930s.

The lonesome tree was born when the Sahara was greener and looked less like a desert. It died in 1973. The way the tree was killed infuriated many people. A drunk driver had been following an old caravan route when he ploughed into the Tree of Tenere.

The trunk of the tree is now displayed at the Niger National Museum. By way of remembrance, a metal monument was placed at the spot where the acacia had once stood.

6 1.8 Billion Trees

The Sahara desert had everyone fooled. From Joe on the ground to scientists, most people believed that the Sahara was nothing but ripples of sand and maybe a lizard. But nothing escapes the eye of artificial intelligence and satellites.

In 2020, a study used AI and NASA satellites to count trees in the desert. Incredibly, the project discovered more than 1.8 billion shrubs and trees hiding in the west of the Sahara. What makes the discovery so remarkable is the fact that they were inside a relatively small area. All told, the sneaky foliage covered an area of just 1.3 million square kilometres (501,933 square miles).

5 A Space Invader Called Witherspoon

In 1990, pilots with the National Guard flew over the Alvord Desert in Oregon. At one point they looked down and saw something that would enthral the world. Down below, carved into the earth, was a massive symbol. It contained a square, circles, and petals. This arrangement was later identified as a Hindu symbol called Sri Yantra.

One of the most popular theories blamed aliens. But when the truth dawned, it involved a different kind of space invader. Indeed, when a man called Bill Witherspoon carved the image he never had permission to “decorate” what was a protected wilderness area.

Witherspoon refused to abandon his desert art. He promptly paid the $100 fine and then created more giant images (this time on a private ranch where he had permission). Not everyone was a fan of the carvings. Complaints ranged from environmental concerns to fears that Witherspoon was using the symbols to summon dark spirits.

4 A Place Called Slab City

Camp Dunlap was a training base for Marines that was shut down after World War II. Squatters soon moved in and raised shacks on the concrete slabs of the base which also had a grid of streets. In no time, Slab City was born.

Located in California’s Colorado Desert, the inhabitants often portray themselves as the last free people in America. If freedom is based on taxes, then that may well be true. The taxman is not particularly interested in Slab City.

Other inhabitants include survivalists and adventurers. But those who arrive by choice is only one half of the story. Many families lose everything and have nowhere else to go except a squatter camp in the desert. Life is not easy. There is no running water, plumbing or hospitals. Did someone steal your wallet? Tough beans. The Slab City Police Department does not exist.

Slab City does not officially exist either.

3 The Utah Monolith

In 2020, wildlife officials flew over a remote part of Utah. The helicopter’s mission was to find and count bighorn sheep. Instead, the crew noticed something shiny down below. Intrigued by the reflective object, the helicopter landed nearby. What they found was a bizarre metal rectangle standing upright in a ravine.

This was no ancient artefact. But besides being new, what made the whole thing so odd was that someone had made the effort to plant the 3-meter (10-feet) pillar in bedrock, in the middle of nowhere, for seemingly no reason.

Fearing that sightseers would trample ancient sites or get lost in the desert, authorities kept the location a secret. But somebody found it. Roughly a week after the monolith was discovered, it disappeared.

2 A Ship Filled With Gold

In 1533, a ship called the Bom Jesus set sail from Portugal and vanished. Besides the loss of her entire crew, the ship also disappeared with a cargo of gold coins which, by today’s standards, was worth $12.5 million.

Nearly 500 years later, in 2016, miners stumbled upon the remains of the shipwreck. It was inside a dry lagoon in the Namibian desert. They alerted archaeologists who confirmed the identity of the vessel. After six days of excavations, the gold was recovered.

Media outlets lost their minds over the precious coins. But the archaeologists? They were more excited about the human bones, clothing, and pottery that were also discovered. Almost nothing is known about the daily lives of sailors who lived centuries ago. Since such artefacts can tell us more, they are, in a historical sense, more valuable than gold.

1 Area 6

Area 51 needs no introduction. But the base is not the only secretive zone in the Nevada desert. Meet Area 6; a smaller complex with hangars and a 1.6 kilometre (1 mile) long landing strip.

Airspace is restricted and the entire place is fenced off. About 19 kilometres (12 miles) separate Area 6 from Area 51 and the airstrip is used by both Homeland Security and the Department of Defense. Beyond that, the facts get hazy.

When the departments were pressed for answers, an official spokesperson admitted to a short clue, saying that “They come here to test their own sensors.” Investigators also found the license application of the contractor who had built the airstrip. The paperwork described the facility as a place where unmanned vehicles are created and tested.

Based on that, some have suggested that Area 6 holds MQ-9 Reaper planes. These are drones that specialize in reconnaissance missions. Area 6 could be where new technology related to the planes are tested and the surrounding landscape is also perfect for dry runs of actual missions.

10 Hidden Secrets Of The Sahara Desert

Life in the 21st century is so full of technology that it can be hard to relate to the people who came before us. Mobile phones, the internet, and cars are just three of countless inventions which have ostensibly changed the world.

However, a cursory look at history shows that despite new technology, people have not changed all that much. Long before the invention of the flushing toilet, even long before the idea of a nation-state, people were behaving exactly the same way as they do now. You could see this either as reassuring or worrying. Either way, here are ten anecdotes from history which prove that people never change, for good or for bad.

Related: 10 Fascinating Things About Ancient Humans You Never Knew

10 The World’s Oldest Joke

Let’s begin with a joke. Humanity’s oldest civilization was that of the Sumerians. This ancient society, which built the first cities and invented writing, among many other achievements, flourished between the 5th and 3rd millennia BC. So, do we have anything in common with people who lived over five thousand years ago?

While it is tempting to imagine our ancient ancestors as far wiser than ourselves, the truth is quite surprising. One of the most sociologically fascinating artifacts uncovered by archaeologists working in modern-day Iraq is a tablet inscribed with the world’s oldest joke. Dated to between 2,300 and 1,900 BC, the joke runs thus: “Something which has never occurred since time immemorial; a young woman did not fart in her husband’s lap.”

It is somehow reassuring to know that humanity’s first civilization was comfortable with toilet humor. Furthermore, to see them using a recognizable joke structure with a set-up and punchline brings ancient Mesopotamia to life in a way that statues and ruined remains never can.^[1]

9 Lovesick Teenagers

The idea of lovesick teenage boys who are left speechless when confronted with their crush is deeply ingrained in popular culture. But teenage boys have been struggling to express themselves long before Superbad (2007) hit cinemas.

Dante Alighieri, the revered Italian most famous for his religious epic The Divine Comedy, is a prime example. While a young man in 13th-century Florence, he produced a treatise on love called La Vita Nuova or The New Life. In one part, Dante writes about his reaction to seeing his crush, Beatrice, at a party. He feels a “trembling on the left side of [his] chest,” starts shaking uncontrollably, and nearly faints.

The other “gracious ladies” at the party make fun of him for behaving so strangely, after which Dante leaves to go home, cry, and write love poetry. All this gossip leads Beatrice to refuse to greet Dante when they run into each other in Florence, which apparently takes away “the source of all [his] bliss.” It should be reassuring for lovesick teenagers to know that the greatest Medieval poet was just as hopeless as they are.^[2]

8 Scipio’s Hair

Inter-generational clashes are nothing new. In the 1950s, rock ‘n’ roll was berated as immoral, and fifty years later, hip-hop has had much the same treatment. In the intervening half-century, numerous cultural trends have been slammed by parents and grandparents alike, from the punks to the goths and everything in between.

The exact same thing happened in ancient Rome over two thousand years ago. During the Second Punic War, when Hannibal had nearly led the Carthaginians to victory over the Roman Republic, a young man stepped in to save the day—Scipio Africanus. He was, without doubt, a military genius, but his personal habits earned him the disrespect of the Roman Senate’s venerable older members.

The Roman historian Livy records that young Scipio had long, “flowing” hair, quite different from the usual Roman fashion of shaved scalps. This was semi-scandalous in Rome. Later, when Scipio proposed to invade Carthage, his hairstyle and dress sense were held against him by an elder statesman and general, Fabius Maximus. However much we idolize ancient Rome, it is worth remembering that they too had serious inter-generational clashes over things as minor as fashion.^[3]

7 Ancient Drunkards

Returning to Mesopotamia, the cradle of human civilization, a number of rediscovered texts have proven just how relatable the Sumerians were. Not only did they drink beer, but they also absolutely loved it. The Epic of Gilgamesh, the oldest written story in history, contains more than a few references to “fine” and “sweet” beer. Indeed, one Sumerian proverb says that “he who does not know beer, does not know what is good.”

The world’s oldest recipe for brewing beer is recorded in the “Hymn to Ninkasi,” written in about 1800 BC, and there have been several recent attempts to follow it. It has even been speculated that civilization owes its very existence to beer. Those ancient people who discovered fermentation realized that to brew beer on a large scale, they would have to change from a hunter-gatherer to an agricultural lifestyle.

So while drunkenness may seem like a modern problem, it is, in fact, an ancient one. To quote an insult from The Epic of Gilgamesh: “May a drunk soil your festal robe with vomit.” Cheers!^[4]

6 Poetic Diss Tracks

The idea of a “diss track” seems very 21st century, and it has become a staple of pop culture for rival rappers or musicians to deride one another. But long before Eminem and Machine Gun Kelly released their respective diss tracks, another disgruntled artist was hard at work taking down his enemies.

Lord Byron, the most famous and influential poet of the Romantic Age, was a specialist in diss tracks. His first collection of poetry, published in 1807, had been poorly received. In response, the troublesome Lord Byron wrote “English Bards and Scotch Reviewers,” a satirical poem that tore viciously into the critics and poets who had mocked his first collection.

Byron refers to his rivals’ fans as a “tabernacle of proselytes by whom [their] abilities are over-rated,” and repeatedly heaps biting insults on the other, more famous poets of the day. Literary critics now believe that the humiliating reception to Byron’s first poetry collection, and his response, probably launched his career. Either way, “English Bards and Scotch Reviewers” is a hilarious read, and it takes the allegedly modern concept of the diss track to a whole new level.^[5]

5 The Roman Big Brother

George Orwell’s vision of an all-powerful police state is now more conceivable than ever before. With the advent of modern technology, the idea of “Big Brother” listening to us in our homes does not seem far-fetched. What may surprise you—and disappoint you—is that state-mandated eavesdropping predates 1984 by more than two thousand years.

The great Roman historian Tacitus wrote about the case of Titius Sabinus, a Roman knight who regularly complained about the emperor Tiberius. One of Sabinus’s friends betrayed him by building a secret room in his house and inviting Sabinus around one evening. Several witnesses hid in the secret room and overheard Sabinus’s opinions about Tiberius.

This confession was made public, and Sabinus was executed. Informing the emperor of treasonous individuals became a prosperous business in Imperial Rome. It was so well-rewarded that a whole class of professional informers—known as delatores—appeared. This is a somber reminder that history is full of lessons that we should be careful not to forget.^[6]

4 Espionage in Ancient Greece

The very idea of the spy is deeply intertwined with the 20th century. It brings to mind James Bond, the Cold War, the German Enigma machine, and recent films like the Jason Bourne and Kingsman franchises.

But the ancient Greek historian Herodotus, often referred to as the “Father of History,” wrote about an incredible bit of espionage that would have baffled even Mr. Bond.

During the Greco-Persian Wars of the 5th century BC, Histiaeus—the king of the Greek province of Miletus—was taken to the Persian capital after its defeat to Persia’s Darius I. Histiaeus knew he needed to get a message to his nephew Aristagoras, who remained in the conquered Miletus. To achieve this without raising suspicions, he chose his most trusted servant, shaved his head, and tattooed the message onto his scalp. When the servant’s hair had regrown, the king sent him to Greece on an innocuous errand, where the servant presented himself before Aristagoras and shaved his head to reveal the message.

This is the first recorded example of steganography, which is the practice of concealing a message within another object, and it was recently imitated in the buddy cop action film Rush Hour 3, starring Jackie Chan and Chris Tucker.^[7]

9 Boccaccio’s Decameron

Born not long after Dante, Giovanni Boccaccio was an Italian writer whose magnum opus, The Decameron, is a testament to the vibrancy of the Middle Ages. While we tend to think of Medieval people as having lived in miserable conditions, Boccaccio’s collection of stories presents an alternative, contemporary perspective.

The Decameron is full of wit, tragedy, and romance. We read about a sly man who pretends to be blind and finds employment as the gardener of a nunnery, where he seduces one of the sisters. There is the tale of a knight who offers to carry a lost maiden by horseback to the nearest city, but his subsequent chattering is so boring that the maiden dismounts and walks there herself. And, not exactly in keeping with the notion of religiously restrained Medieval people, there is a story about three boys who pull down a judge’s pants while he is presiding over a case.

So, rather than looking back and pitying those poor peasants who didn’t have flushing toilets or modern medicine, we should instead realize that they had just as much fun as—if not more than—modern people.^[8]

2 Children Behaving Badly

Livy, who was active toward the end of the 1st century BC, is regarded as Ancient Rome’s greatest epic historian. His account of the war with Hannibal is legendary, along with his retelling of the myth of Romulus and Remus. But beyond his grand narratives, Livy does make some amazingly modern comments.

While praising the behavior and integrity of previous generations of Romans, Livy complains about “the contempt and levity with which the parental authority is treated by children in the present age.” The news today is filled with people complaining about the behavior of children, whether because they play too many video games or no longer face any discipline in school. It is somewhat amusing then to read a Roman moaning about the same problem over two thousand years ago. This is often used as an excuse by unoriginal or mentally lazy people for today’s behaviour in youth and it is suggested that the idea of “falling standards” may be a result of nostalgia rather than any actual decline in the behavior of young people. But we would do well to remember that this occurred during the decline of Rome and we all know how that turned out. Perhaps we should be seeing this as a portent of doom and not laugh it away as “old people” problems.^[9]

1 Death and Taxes

They say that only two things are certain in life: death and taxes. This aphorism may sound highly modern, but it was actually made famous by Benjamin Franklin in the late 18th century. What is even more fascinating is that people have been complaining about taxes for as long as human civilization has existed. Let us not forget Saint Matthew the tax collector (and future apostle) and the treatment he received at the hands of the Jews and even the followers of Christ until He put things right by dining in his home.

When ancient Rome introduced a 5% inheritance tax it caused an uproar, much like Julius Caesar’s 1% sales tax. Indeed, the Roman Senate handed out contracts for tax collection to private companies, called publicans. There are countless stories of disgruntled citizens raising grievances with the Senate because the publicans were taxing them too heavily.

Perhaps the most important archaeological discovery of all time, the Rosetta Stone, is actually a tax concession written in three different languages! Not only have taxes been ubiquitous throughout history, but so too has tax evasion. Even Jesus was accused of refusing to pay taxes to Caesar. And in Medieval France, an entire town was punished with torture and crucifixion for burning the tax rolls.

It hardly makes the burden any lighter, but it is perhaps reassuring to know that taxes have been irritating people for many millennia.^[10]

City, suburb, farmlands, repeat. The world we’ve built for ourselves can be awfully dull and repetitive. Sure, there are some incredible mountains and rivers, and the world’s coasts aren’t half bad, but then you remember that Fresno, California exists.

Wouldn’t it be nice to have a bit of strangeness in our environment? A little something out of the ordinary to renew your faith in the Cosmic Jester?

If you answered “Yes,” this list will be for you. If “no” was your answer, and you’re happy with the drudgery and the liminality of your cookie-cutter world, just remember one thing: there’s a place on our planet where a waterfall falls horizontally. Don’t you want to see that?

Related: 10 Curious Facts Involving Canyons And Mountains

10 The Stunningly Beautiful “Zone Of Death”

If you have an interest in the natural world, this place is for you. If you have an interest in those stocking stuffer books of weird laws that never got repealed in some U.S. states, this place is for you. If both apply, buy a yurt and move here.

There is a curious strip of land in Idaho’s portion of Yellowstone National Park where laws don’t act in the way they should. The Sixth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution states that “In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed….”

Cool, but what happens when the crime is committed in the “Zone of Death,” a place where Wyoming has sole jurisdiction? If, say, a murder is committed there, the defendant would have to stand trial in Cheyenne, Wyoming. Yet, the crime was(technically) committed in Idaho. The wording of the Sixth stipulates “State” as well as “district.” So the rights of the accused would be violated by transporting them for trial beyond the state in which the crime was committed.

This is technically the case but practically untrue—the loophole has been “debunked” several times but (thankfully) never put to the test. The scenery is lovely there, though.^[1]

9 Falling Across

If you’ve ever been to a particularly touristy waterfall, you will have noticed the preponderance of guard rails and fencing all around. These are here for obvious safety reasons. Most other falls that attract the masses are usually precluded from the requirement for rails by the environment—only accessible by boat, the top is hard to get to, etc. What would you do, however, with a highly popular waterfall that doesn’t “fall”?

Among Australia’s more odd natural wonders is Garaanngaddim, aka the “Horizontal Falls,” in the Kimberly region of Western Australia. This is a fascinating place where the waters of Buccaneer Bay rush (imperceptibly) downward through a very narrow gorge. This causes the water to seemingly form rapids for no good physical reason, given that the incline cannot be seen among the frothing waters. If you’ve ever wanted to sail across a waterfall, this is a place you can do it…but you should probably lay off the entheogens too.^[2]

8 The Least Rainy Place on Earth

Nobody likes a rainy day. Even people who say they do are lying. You can’t go out unless you don some hydrophobic robe and hold a stick with a hexagon of material on the end above your head. The light disappears and lowers your mood, and the chances of all manner of devastating weather-based catastrophes occurring increase sevenfold—cars don’t skid on sunshine, and nowhere was ever flooded by a gentle breeze. Rain sucks.

So why hasn’t mankind moved to the areas of Earth where it rains the least? Because they suck worse, that’s why. Take the McMurdo Dry Valleys. There has been no rainfall there for two million years, making this one of the world’s most extreme deserts. But fret not, should you find yourself there, there’s a lovely big lake named Lake Vida. Except it’s a hypersaline lake. And constantly under ice. Yeah, this place is in Antarctica. No chance of sunstroke, at least.^[3]

7 The Islands That Are 21 Hours and 2 Miles Apart

These islands are an example of how mankind makes a lot of perfectly normal things in the natural world perfectly weird. The invention and implementation of time zones have done a lot for our species—reliable hours for work, allowing international travelers to accurately measure how many Xanax to take on a flight, and no more looking up at the sun to determine what time it is at the expense of your eyesight.

But there are downsides: some stubborn governments insist on keeping one unified time zone for the whole nation despite being big enough to warrant several (China), and certain Polynesian people get the unearned, grossly unfair benefit of ringing in the new year before everyone else.

Perhaps the most ridiculous example of this is the Diomede Islands, two small islands that are slap bang in the middle of the Bering Strait. Big Diomede is part of Russia, Little Diomede the USA. They are, as the title of this entry suggests, two-ish miles apart. However, due to the international date line, they are 21 hours apart. If you live on Big Diomede but have a pressing business meeting on Little Diomede, you can get there on a speed boat in an hour or so and be there yesterday and return the same day…which will then be tomorrow, Mr. McFly.^[4]

6 The (Slightly More) Leaning Tower of East Frisia

Yes, this medieval tower is on a more pronounced lean than its far more famous cousin in Pisa, Italy. Despite this accolade, the Italian tower is far more photographed, visited, and celebrated. Where’s the justice? Found in the village of Suurhusen, this leaning steeple was erected in the Middle Ages. The foundation was made with oak trunks that shifted considerably after the groundwater drained in the 19th century, causing the wonderful wonk. It beats that flashy, do-nothing tower in Italy.

But there is a problem.

Despite beating its more famous cousin, this isn’t the “most leaning” building on Earth. That accolade was given to the Capital Gate Tower in Abu Dhabi by the Guinness Book of World records in 2010, noting that the 18-degree lean was greater than that of the tower in Suurhusen. As if that wasn’t bad enough, the tower in the UAE was specifically built that way. It didn’t “earn” it like the leaning tower of East Frisia. Cheaters.^[5]

5 Dune Skiing…Followed by a Pint of Beer

You pop on your goggles, clip into your ski boots, adjust your camo shorts, and apply a last blob of sunscreen. The dune is tall; the slope is perfect for some high-speed shredding. You realize that all those people freezing their butts off in various snowy resorts are idiots compared to sand skiers and boarders like you. But where in the world are you? Egypt? The Negev? The Gobi?

Nope. You’re in Bavaria. Germany.

Nestled among the beautiful countryside is the town of Hirschau, a place where kaolinite was mined for the porcelain industry during the 1800s. A by-product of this was quartz sand—tons of the stuff. Enough, in fact, to make a mountain. Monte Kaolino. The massive mound is now a mecca for skiers who fancy a day on the slopes in the middle of July.

So next time you’re dragged to a stuffy antique dealership and forced to look at pastille-painted porcelain figurines of cows and beggar boys, just remember that one of the coolest resorts on Earth was formed as a by-product of that precious quaint crap.^[6]

4 Dåeeìýooöô

TV news networks have a few tried and tested segments they will run whenever there is a slow news day—somebody did something nice for charity, a pet has done something that animals don’t usually do, some kids have done something kids don’t usually do, and every once in a while, some cultural quirk from a far-flung corner of the world becomes relevant to the locale in question. A local man has learned Igbo in order to converse with staff at his local Nigerian restaurant in their mother tongue. A lady in Denver has returned from visiting a McDonald’s in every country the chain has a branch. And then there are the “Languages other than English are weird” sections…

You’ll see little titbits about the place in North Wales that’s incredibly long (*Author’s note* As a proud Welsh speaker, I can, of course, say Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch) or that place in New Zealand (Taumatawhakatangi­hangakoauauotamatea­turipukakapikimaungahoronukupokaiwhen­uakitanatahu) pop up quite regularly in bland YouTube travel vlogs or local news shows.

But there are a number of places on earth that do the opposite; they have one-letter names. The title of this entry contains them all. From a windswept island off the coast of Scotland, a mountain in Hokkaido, and various small settlements across Scandinavia, one-letter places are varied in their characteristics, some mundane, some stunningly beautiful, some weird as hell.

Take the river D in Oregon. The City of Lincoln fought a decades-long battle with the Guinness Book of World Records to get their waterway recognized as the shortest (not only by name but by length—a reputed 120 feet—claiming that the Roe River in Montana was lying. In 2006, the book dropped the record altogether, allowing D-lovers to claim a moral, scorched earth victory. This may be how the next civil war begins…^[7]

3 This Region Is in Uzbekistan…Which Is in Kyrgyzstan…Populated by Tajiks…

Landlocked nations, exclaved regions, and partially recognized states are fascinating. All over the world map, you’ll see countries like Abkhazia, South Ossetia, and Kosovo, which are disputed. You’ll also see little countries like Lesotho, which are entirely surrounded by another country—“You want to cross the border? Welcome to South Africa.” There are bits of India floating in a sea of Bangladesh and vice versa.

Perhaps the most fascinating anomaly in this weird geography space is the So’x (Sokh) District of Uzbekistan. It lies near the borders of Tajikistan and its official nation of Uzbekistan yet is completely surrounded by Kyrgyzstan. Almost all the people that live in this district of Uzbekistan that is surrounded by Kyrgyzstan are Tajiks. Imagine a small village in Cornwall that is officially part of Sweden but entirely populated by Swiss people—that’d be where all the chocolate-covered herring pasties are found.^[8]

Anyone hungry?

2 The Lake Where Jellyfish Live up to Their Name

On the tiny island of Eil Malk in the Pacific nation of Palau, there is a marine lake. It’s called Ongeim’l Tketau in the Palauan language. This means “Fifth Lake.” In English, it is known as “Jellyfish Lake” because, well, check the video. There’s a ton of the nasty little buggers, all floating and bobbing around, ready to sting any unlucky swimmer looking to cool off in the burning Pacific heat. Doesn’t it give you the creeps? Imagine the amount of pee you’d need to be sprayed on you back on the shore…

It shouldn’t—these jellyfish—the “Golden Jellyfish”—have been so isolated from their former home in the ocean that they have evolved. Due to the lack of predators, these formerly stingy blobsters have shed their clubs and, therefore, most of their toxic clout. So, they won’t harm you. But hungry saltwater crocs are swimming about. And a layer of highly toxic hydrogen sulfide about 15 meters (50 feet) below the lake’s surface that’ll absorb into your skin and kill you up nice and quick.^[9]

Maybe go to Disneyland again.

1 Boston, Schmoston! Milwaukee…

Zilwaukee!

This little city in the great state of Michigan is built on lies. Lies and deception. That’s according to a local legend regarding the provenance of the city’s name. When Daniel and Solomon Johnson from New York settled in the area, they built a sawmill. Over time, the settlement grew and became stable. But the place couldn’t develop past being a sleepy backwater with a lucrative mill. Immigrants searching for a place to lay down some roots were called to the big cities—St. Louis, Baltimore, Chicago.

And Milwaukee.

So, as the story goes, the town was named “Zilwaukee”’ in order to trick unwitting settlers into coming to their little corner of Michigan instead of making the trek to Wisconsin. Who likes power tools and cheese that much anyway?

Despite the lack of solid evidence that this legend is true, the locals seem to cling to it regardless. Perhaps the city’s motto should be “Ha! Fooled you, suckers!” and the city anthem should just be a massively blown raspberry.^[10]

There seems to be little privacy in the modern world. Modern technologies gather information about us, and we have little control over what happens to this data. We all use the internet, and every time we do, we add to the stock of information available to businesses and the authorities. Most of us accept this as a price we pay for being connected. But it also illustrates that we don’t value privacy as we once did.

We are creatures of habit, and our habits ground us in the world and make our environment more familiar and comfortable. Most of our practices are harmless and have no impact on others. But we have developed some new habits, and old ones have adapted to help us navigate the new age of technological wonders.

The habits we will discuss here are common enough, but if we stop to think about them, they are a little odd. Some of these habits show that privacy is no longer one of our primary concerns. Does it matter? I’ll leave you to decide.

Related: Top 10 Bizarre Ways To Make Money From Disgusting Habits

10 Who Cares?

You’re sitting in a restaurant having a quiet conversation with your partner when a phone rings at the next table. You are then forced to listen to one side of a conversation (sometimes both sides if the speaker is on). Irritated but simultaneously fascinated, you discover that A really hates B, that C is an idiot who doesn’t know what he is doing, and that C is seeing D on the side. You don’t know these people and never will, but you now know more about them than you ever wanted to.

Some people don’t seem to realize that there are boundaries between the private and public worlds. And is it just your imagination, or is the phone conversation louder than it should be? No, it’s not your imagination.

In 1909, a French doctor called Étienne Lombard discovered that people talk at a volume that matches the noise level around them. We often think there is more noise than there actually is and talk more loudly than necessary—especially on the phone.

9 Bull’s Pizzle

We can’t all be as inventive as Shakespeare when it comes to swearing, but most of us have a few choice words that we only roll out on special occasions. We usually know when and where swearing is appropriate—few people would swear in church, but many might when watching a football game with friends.

If used sparingly, swearing is a safety valve that makes your feelings very clear and very public. Some people swear too much and season every conversation with colorful words. This makes swearing counter-productive as well as tedious.

Studies have shown that swearing helps to reduce stress, builds bonds among peers, and is often a sign of fluency, intelligence, and honesty. Naturally, you have to use swear words sparingly and save them for the right moment. In other words, swearing as a habit just makes a public spectacle of the swearer. Shakespeare was the master of the right word at the right time.

8 Where Did I Put It?

My wife refers to my office as “the black hole” because my desk is heaped with papers, stationery, and books. This untidiness in an open office means that your work (and yesterday’s lunch) is in public view. You should never leave confidential stuff lying around for anyone to see—nor yesterday’s lunch, for that matter. While leaving private information, lying is always bad form, and in some cases, it’s illegal. HIPPA and FERPA laws protect patients’ and students’ information, for example.

An untidy desk may show you are creative and too busy to tidy up. On the other hand (which is true in my case), it may simply show that you are lazy. Whatever the reason, it is a very public demonstration of your personality.

People who keep their desks tidy might be more organized if not as creative as their messy colleagues—there is room for both types of people in an organization.

7 What Did I Say?

Most people—96%, according to some studies—have conversations with themselves. But these chats go on in the head. Some 25% of people talk to themselves out loud regularly. This habit can help you work through problems and hear how a phrase might sound. A lot of people will mutter the opening words of an email to themselves before they start clattering away on the keyboard.

When you think about it, it’s a strange habit indeed. Why should talking aloud to yourself clarify things better than just thinking about them? But it seems to work for many of us.

There’s a big difference between rehearsing the first line of an email out loud and constantly talking to yourself disjointedly about anything and everything. The second might indicate a mental health issue, although nowadays, with mobile phones and Bluetooth hearing devices, it’s difficult to be sure.

6 This Is My Lunch

Open your Facebook page, and I am sure that you will find that one of your contacts has posted a photo of some trivial aspect of their life that few, if any people, will have any interest in at all. Do you really want to know what Tom had for lunch?

According to a report in The New York Times, 94% of people post on social media because they want to inform, amuse, and help others. That’s all well and good, but some people take the habit to extremes and post the most trivial rubbish. Others share posts and photos they may regret one day—and the internet never forgets.

Social media platforms have become an important part of our lives in a very short period. That people enjoy using them and find them useful is certainly true. Unfortunately, they have their dark side, and young people can be especially vulnerable to abuse.

We need to educate our young people about appropriate use and the need for caution when using these platforms. This includes parents who post content such as a back-to-school picture with their kid in front of a school sign. A quick Google search will show any creep where your child now attends school. Not cool.

5 Text Me

Next time you are in a restaurant, look beyond the guy talking too loudly on his phone, and you will see a group of people all staring at their screens. Chances are that some of them will be texting their friends.

Why? Are the people at their table too boring to talk to? Why do we need to know exactly what our friends are doing at all times?

And why don’t people send all the information in one text? Why do they message us sentence by sentence? This is not a face-to-face conversation, with texting you answer the first point and then discover that it’s irrelevant because the sender contradicts the first:

A: Is there a meeting on Monday?

B: Yes, there is.

A: Or Tuesday?

B: Monday afternoon.

A: Because I can’t go on Monday.

A: morning.

4 Gossip

We’re social creatures, and connection with others is very important. Most of us can’t resist a good piece of gossip. It’s a social lubricant that is usually harmless enough. However, we should always be aware that gossip implies that an aspect of another person’s life is now in the public sphere.

The problem with gossip is that it is rarely based on complete information, and as it spreads, it becomes more fanciful until, like Chinese whispers, it bears little relationship with the facts.

We should be mindful of what we say and the damage that gossip can cause.

3 Smoking

Smoking, many people will tell you, is a filthy habit. Over recent years, smokers have found that they are not welcome in public places. This should have the effect of driving smoking underground to become a private vice. But this isn’t what happens.

Smoking is addictive; some say it’s easier to quit taking heroin than to give up smoking. A heavy smoker can’t go through an entire workday without a cigarette, so smokers leave the workplace and walk to the nearest place where they can indulge their habit. Here, in all weather, smokers gather in groups exposed to the disapproving eyes of the public.

Smokers reinforce each other’s addiction and form an “us versus them” mentality. Meanwhile, they’re not getting any work done.

Interestingly, psychologists have discovered that putting horrible photos on packs of cigarettes often has the opposite effect to that intended. After a short while, a dedicated smoker associates the photo with cigarettes, and this serves to reinforce the habit.

2 Keep Going

Some people have the habit of persistence. This can take various forms, from the irritating person who won’t stop going on about the same tired subject to the person who keeps trying until they get something right. This habit can keep someone in a job they hate for years or drive a scientist to keep trying until they reach the desired result.

Strangely, many people will simply keep going and never give up. It can be very admirable in many ways, but sometimes it can be very irritating. Regardless, the person will seek out others to share their woes or triumphs with in great detail—ones we really don’t want to know or have any business knowing. The trick is to know when to stop.

1 Me, Myself, I

In search of a perfect selfie to post on Facebook, Anna, an 18-year-old Romanian, lay on top of a train car. She stretched out a leg to get the ideal pose but touched an overhead wire. She burst into flames as 27,000 volts coursed through her body. She didn’t live to see her photo posted.

Selfies are everywhere. Fortunately, not many are as deadly as Anna’s, but most are intensely irritating and very public. Why do people think others are so interested in their badly-centered, unfocused portraits?

Taking selfies is a narcissistic habit that only feeds our desire to be the center of attention. It also reveals a lot about our lives and where we are at any given time. Planning a vacation? Hold on to those selfies to post when you return. Or you might just return to an empty house.