Men have ruled since the earliest societies. In every stage of human history, women have been in margins, struggling through a second-class life.

It wasn’t just that women couldn’t vote or that they didn’t get equal pay. Women’s lives were like a horror story. Throughout our history, everyday life was filled with experiences that made being a woman a waking nightmare.

10Newborn Girls Were Regularly Left To Die

In ancient Athens, it was very common for a couple to take a newborn baby girl out in the wilderness and leave it to die—an act they called “exposing” the baby. “Everybody raises a son even if he is a poor,” one Greek writer wrote, “but exposes a daughter even if he is rich.”

In Rome, this was just as common, especially in poor families. We have records of a lower-class Roman writing to his wife about her pregnancy. “A daughter is too burdensome, and we just don’t have the money,” he told her. “If you should bear a girl, we’ll have to kill her.”

Even in Egypt, which gave women comparatively equal rights, the poor often left kids to die. “If you have the baby before I return,” one letter shows an Egyptian man writing his wife, “if it is a boy, let it live; if it is a girl, expose it.”

9Men Wouldn’t Touch Menstruating Women

The Roman philosopher Pliny The Elder wrote, “On the approach of a woman in this state, milk will become sour.” He figured menstruating women could kill everything they looked at, even saying, “A swarm of bees, if looked upon by her, will die immediately.”

In Egypt, the women spent their menstrual cycles isolated in a special building men couldn’t enter—and they weren’t only ones to do it. The Israelites wouldn’t even touch a woman during her period—or, for that matter, anything she touched. “Everything on which she sits,” they wrote, “shall be unclean.” And in Hawaii, men who entered the hut for menstruating women risked the death penalty.

The natives of Papua New Guinea took it the farthest. If a man touched a menstruating women, they believed, it would “kill his blood so that it turns black, dull his wits, and lead to a slow death.”

8Losing Your Virginity Was A Death Sentence

In Athens, if a man found out that his unmarried daughter had slept with a man, he could legally sell her into slavery. The Samoans made sure that their wives were virgins—and that everyone knew. During a Samoan wedding, the chief of the tribe would manually rupture the bride’s hymen with his fingers in front of a crowd to prove that she was pure.

In Rome, if a priestess of the goddess Vesta lost her virginity before the age of 30, she was buried alive. And in ancient Israel, it didn’t even matter if you were a priestess. Any woman who lost her virginity before marriage could be stoned to death.

7Men Were Expected To Be Sexual Predators

In Rome, slaves were expected to sexually active as part of their jobs. The only way you could get in trouble for sleeping with a slave was if she was owned by somebody else and you didn’t ask first. Even then, it wouldn’t considered rape—it just classified as property damage.

Women with some jobs couldn’t file rape charges no matter what happened to them. It wasn’t just prostitutes that couldn’t accuse anyone of rape—waitresses and actresses, too, were treated as willing participants of any sex a man forced upon them. In one case, an actress gang-raped by several men was denied permission to press charges. The men who assaulted her, it was ruled, had simple “acted in accordance with a well-established tradition at a staged event.”

In the middle ages, Saint Augustine was considered progressive for suggesting that raped women didn’t need to kill themselves. Even he, though, suggested that some women enjoyed it.

6Brides Were Often Kidnapped

In some parts of China, people were kidnapping brides until the 1940s. In Japan, the last reported case of bride kidnapping happened in 1959. Ireland had a widespread problem with bride stealing in the 1800s. And even the Bible relates stories of men slaughtering whole villages and taking the virgin women as wives.

Rome wouldn’t even exist without kidnapped brides. The legends of the nation start with men kidnapping the Sabine women. In the story, Romulus tells the women they she be happy to be kidnapped, because they were lucky enough to “live in honorable wedlock.”

5Women Were Forced To Kill Their Babies

Murdering frail babies wasn’t just something that happened in Sparta. In almost every country, when a woman gave birth to a deformed child, she was expected to kill it. In Rome, it was the law. “A dreadfully deformed child,” Roman law mandated, “shall be quickly killed.”

If a Roman child was born with a disability, the mother had two choices. She could either suffocate it or, more often, she could abandon it. Some places were horrible for this. On the shore of Israel, archaeologists found the remains of 100 dead babies in the city’s sewers.

It happened a lot. We don’t know the exact number of babies that were left to die, but it’s believed that one out of every four Roman babies didn’t make it through the first year of life.

4Women Were Barely Allowed To Talk

In ancient Greece and Rome, women were forbidden from leaving the home without a male escort. When company came over, they weren’t allowed to speak or to sit down for dinner—they had to retire to their rooms, out of sight, lest the presence of a woman bother the men.

In Denmark, unruly women who bickered or who openly expressed their anger could end up locked up in a device called a shrew’s fiddle. This was a wooden trap shaped like a violin that bound her hands and her face. The woman would be paraded down the streets, publicly shamed for having openly shown anger.

The English were even worse. They put quarrelsome women in the scold’s bridle, a metal mask with sharp teeth that had a bell attached—to make sure everyone came out and mocked the woman who dared complain.

3Adulterers Were Tortured

If a married woman dared to sleep with another man, it was over. A Roman man, under certain circumstance, would have the right to kill his wife if he caught her in bed with another man. Even the Puritans who colonized America took the biblical approach and legally condoned murdering adulterers.

Again, though, it was the medieval men who did the worst things. They weren’t content to just kill their wives—they wanted them to suffer. In medieval times, they had a device called a breast ripper that they used on women who had affairs—which does exactly what it says.

It’s a horrible torture—and it wasn’t even limited to adultery. A woman could be sentenced to the ripper just for having a miscarriage.

2Women Were Killed With Their Husbands

Until the 19th century, a woman in India who lost her husband was expected to climb onto his funeral pyre and burn herself to death along with him. Sometimes, during war, women would be expected to do this even before their husbands died. If a siege was going poorly, all the women of the village would burn themselves alive and take their children with them.

The husbands would just watch as their families burned. Then, in the morning, they would smear their wives’ ashes on their faces and go to war. These women killed themselves just to give their husbands a little extra motivation.

1Women Have Gone Through This Since The Beginning Of Humanity

Even before recorded history, the very earliest marriages were extremely one-sided. Archaeologists looking a prehistoric remains in Africa found the men all stayed in one place their whole lives—but every one of the women was born somewhere else.

That means that even cavemen had one-sided relationships, making their new wives move to their homes when they started a family. More importantly, it makes it highly likely that these women didn’t come consensually. Most likely, they were probably kidnapped from their families in other tribes and dragged to the beds of their captors.

Life in ancient Rome was rough, especially for children. Even if they were lucky enough to survive for more than a few years, they had to look forward to a life filled with grueling or dangerous work for little reward. Only a privileged few got to reap the benefits of life to its fullest.

Despite this, people persevered. They went through the motions from newborns struggling to survive, to fully-fledged citizens of the Roman Empire.

10Being Welcomed into the Family

In ancient Rome, the pater familias was the uncontested head of the household. He was granted complete authority both by Roman law and mos maiorum (the collection of unwritten customs and traditions). He was the only member of the family allowed to own land and was expected to represent the family in legal, business, and religious affairs.

Even though pater familias meant “father of the family”, the father did not always occupy that role. The pater familias was the oldest living male, so if the father died, the eldest son would take his place. This is one of the reasons why Romans placed a high value on having sons, and male adoption was a common occurrence.

Any new baby had to be accepted by the pater familias. Traditionally, the midwife placed the newborn at his feet, and only if the pater familias picked it up would the baby become a formal part of the family. The father had the authority to disown and sell his children into slavery should they anger him. He was even allowed to kill them, although records show this was a rare occurrence and was eventually outlawed by Augustus.

9Receiving the Bulla

Due to high infant mortality rates, children were not given a name when they were born. Instead, Romans waited for a week before naming the child during a celebration called the dies lustricus (“day of purification”). Much like a modern birthday, friends and family visited to offer the baby gifts and well-wishes.

Male children also received a bulla at this celebration. The bulla was a pendant meant to ward off evil spirits, as well as signify the boy’s status as a freeborn citizen of Rome. Scholars still debate whether Roman girls also wore a bulla or if they had a different type of amulet called a lunula.

Boys were expected to wear their bullae until they reached adulthood while girls wore their pendants until their wedding day. Typically, a bulla was made out of gold but this would only be available to the wealthy elite of Rome. The lower classes made do with bullae made from affordable materials such as leather, bronze, or tin.

8The Stages of a Child’s Life

A Roman childhood had several clearly defined stages, both from a social and a legal perspective. The first period was known as infantia. It lasted from birth until the age of seven, both for girls and boys. This time was spent mostly at home being looked after by parents, grandparents, guardians, and older siblings. All children who were infantes or infantiae proximus (slightly over the threshold) were considered doli incapax—incapable of guilty intentions in the eyes of the law.

Until the ages of 12 and 14 for girls and boys, respectively, children were impuberes, or pubertati proximus in the cases of those close to reaching the threshold. They were still presumed doli incapax, although legal evidence could be presented that said otherwise. Socially, children started to explore the world at this stage. They would leave the house more often, spend time in the company of strangers, and even begin an education away from home if their parents could afford it.

Girls older than 12 were suitable for marriage. At age 15, boys passed into manhood. They were granted legal privileges and responsibilities, although Roman law still considered them adolescents until the age of 25.

7Getting an Education

As with many societies, education in ancient Rome was mostly available to the rich. Rough estimates placed literacy levels at around 20 percent, although it varied based on time period.

During most of the Roman Republic, education remained an informal practice involving parents passing down knowledge to their children. However, after the conquest of Greece in 146 B.C., the Greek education system started spreading through the empire. Romans started placing more importance on education, and tutors became more accessible as many of them were slaves.

Children typically went to school when they turned seven. Their teacher was called a litterator who taught reading, writing, basic arithmetic, and perhaps some Greek. At age 12 or 13, children who could afford an advanced education would go to a “grammar school”, taught by a grammaticus. Here they moved past the practical knowledge needed for everyday life and began studying arts and poetry. The highest levels of education involved learning rhetoric by studying the works of great orators such as Cicero and Quintilian.

6Playing Around

Children of ancient Rome spent a lot of their free time playing with toys quite similar to ones from modern times. Infants were often entertained with a rattle called a crepitaculum. It was made out of wood or metal and sometimes had bells on it. Besides acting as a toy, it is possible the Romans also used it as a ward similar to the bulla.

Dolls and puppets were the most common toys for girls. These were made out of a wide range of materials such as terracotta, wax, clay, wood, metal, and stone. Some of them even had articulated limbs, while others could be dressed and accessorized with jewelry.

Boys preferred moving toys such as carts or horses with wheels. Wooden swords were also common so they could pretend fight. Hoops, kites, balls, and spinning tops were common toys available for children of all ages.

Board games were popular with young and old alike. They had a variety of games using dice, knucklebones, and stone pieces. Other games included hide-and-seek, leapfrog, and terni lapilli (tic-tac-toe).

5The Family Pet

Like us, the ancient Romans were fond of animals and many households had one or more pets. Cats were common pets, as were various Old World monkeys such as Barbary macaques. It seems that even in ancient times, people were amused by the antics of our simian cousins. Several authors and poets make mention of monkeys and the mischief they caused.

Snakes were also kept as pets, although they were more of a religious symbol and were unlikely to be found in an average household. Many wealthy families preferred to keep birds because they also served as a status symbol: their special dietary needs and upkeep placed them out of the range of a typical Roman family.

Apparently, even in Roman times, dog was man’s best friend. It was, by far, the most popular pet of ancient Rome, featuring in literature, pottery, paintings, and bas-reliefs. Unlike other pets, dogs also served practical functions as hunting companions and watchdogs. As the mosaics in Pompeii showed, more than a few Roman houses came with the inscription “Cave canem”—“beware of dog”.

4Finding a Job

The social status of a boy’s family usually dictated what kind of job he could be eligible for once he became a teenager. The most prestigious positions were in politics, but these were normally reserved for the elite and required an extensive education.

Slightly lower down the totem pole were administrative positions within the empire: tax collectors, notaries, clerks, lawyers, teachers, etc. Again, these jobs were typically available to young men with a strong education, although some of these positions were also available to educated slaves, particularly the Greeks.

The most accessible choice for most Roman freemen was to join the army. As a militaristic empire, Rome was rarely short on wars and always had a need for soldiers. This was also a good way for the lower classes to secure a steady income and even earn land once their 25-year service was over.

As the empire grew, so did the variety of jobs. Soon enough, a Roman adolescent could choose to become a merchant, an artist, an entertainer, or a tradesman. However, these positions were typically passed down from father to son. Alternatively, the family needed a connection in order to secure their child an apprenticeship with a master.

3Getting Married

Male children did not really have to concern themselves with marriage since men typically married in their mid-twenties. Girls, however, married much younger, as early as age 12. Since most girls did not receive the kind of extensive education afforded to boys, there was no point in keeping them around the house after they reached childbearing age.

Girls from wealthy families usually married younger than girls from working class families. Their potential marriage was seen as a rare opportunity to climb the social ladder. Most parents would not want to jeopardize this valuable commodity by letting their daughters get too old or lose their chastity.

Most girls had little say regarding their future husbands. Like most of their life’s decisions, this one was made by the pater familia. He would be on the lookout for prospective husbands and make the necessary arrangements with the boy’s family.

The wedding featured numerous customs which evolved over the centuries, and some are still found today. These include the wearing of white and carrying the bride over the threshold.

2Finding a Place to Live

At its peak, ancient Rome was home to over one million people, a feat that would not be repeated in Europe until Industrial-era London. This forced the government to come up with impressive innovations such as the aqueducts and the Cloaca Maxima sewage system to deal with the ever-growing populations. It also meant that Rome was one of the most crowded places to grow up in.

Two types of residential housing were common in the city. The rich could afford a domus—a large house with multiple rooms, an interior courtyard, and, in some cases, shops that faced outside called tabernae. The ultra rich also had villas outside the hustle and bustle of Rome.

Most of the population, however, was crowded into apartment blocks called insulae. As construction technology improved, so did the height of these buildings. Some insulae could reach eight or nine stories. Third-century records show there were around 44,000 insulae in Rome. It was not uncommon for an entire family to live in just one room.

The floor you lived on was often inversely proportional to your social status. The bottom floor was taken up by tabernae and other places of business. The first couple of stories had more spacious and more expensive apartments. As the floors kept climbing, they not only got more cramped but also more dangerous. Fires were a common occurrence in Rome, and tenants living on the top floors were often trapped in burning buildings. Augustus brought the legal height limit of insulae down to 70 Roman feet (20.7 meters), and Nero lowered it again to 60 Roman feet (17.7 meters) after the Great Fire.

1Becoming a Man

Reaching sexual maturity was an important stage in the life of Roman adolescents. Girls were expected to remain virgins until they got married. They did not have extensive maturation rituals, and their wedding night typically functioned as their rite of passage.

Boys reached sexual maturity when they were 15-16 years old. Besides leaving behind their bulla, they also underwent a wardrobe change—they replaced their “toga praetexta” with the “toga virilis”—the plain white toga worn by adult males.

Romans celebrated the coming of age of young men at the Liberalia, a festival marked by food, wine, song, and dance. In fact, Liberalia was associated with the older, more lavish Bacchanalia dedicated to the god of wine and fertility, Bacchus. After the Senate made efforts to suppress the Bacchanalia, similarities between the two festivals caused them to merge together.

A sixteen-year-old Roman male could pursue sexual relationships before marriage. A man from a wealthy family would likely have sex with a slave, while a commoner would visit a prostitute. Both these kinds of relationships were considered acceptable for men even after marriage. Adultery was typically regarded only between a married man and a Roman wife or unmarried daughter.

Genghis Kahn and his Mongolian hordes swept through Asia, slaughtering and conquering a huge part of the world. No army could stand in their way. By the time their conquests had ended, they had wiped out a tenth of the world’s population.

It took an intense and brutal army to pull it off. Fighters in the Mongolian army did not have the option to be weak. Life, in a Mongolian horde, meant giving up even the most basic of comforts and doing some absolutely horrifying things.

10Mongolians Never Cleaned Their Clothes

The Mongolians of Genghis Khan’s time believed that contaminating water would anger the dragons that controlled its cycle. They feared that, if they dirtied the water, the gods would send a storm to destroy their homes—and so they did not wash anything.

Bathing in running water or washing your clothes was prohibited. Most of the Mongolian fighters would not even change their clothes. At most, they would beat their coats to get the lice out and put them right back on. They would wear the same thing, day after day, until it literally rotted off and could not be worn anymore.

They did not wash the dishes in water, either. Instead, they would wash their plates in the left-over broth from the last meal. Then they would pour the used broth back into the pot and cook their next meal in it.

It was smelly—but they took pride in that. There was a power to their stench. It would be considered an honor if a great Khan gave someone his cloak, not just because he had his clothes, but because he could now carry the Khan’s stench.

9They Learned to Ride Horses When They Were Three

As soon as a Mongolian could walk, they learned to ride. Every family had a horse, whether they were wealthy or poor, soldiers or farmers. Even shepherds would take care of their flocks on horseback. They had to get ready young—so they started when they were three years old.

The Mongolians had custom saddles made for children, designed with a few extra safety features to make sure they did not get hurt. They wanted their kids to start practicing as soon as possible. It made a huge difference. When Europeans saw them, they wrote back that the little girls in Mongolia were better horse riders than most European men.

The kids learned archery, too. As soon as they started riding, they were given tiny bows and taught to shoot. For a Mongolian in the time of the great Khans, riding a horse and shooting a bow were as essential as learning to walk.

8They Drank Blood from a Vein Cut in Their Horses’ Necks

The Mongolian army covered incredible distances. In a single day, they could travel 80 miles (129 km), a distance that, in their time, was completely unheard of. It took intense and vicious riding to do it, and they did not have time to stop for food.

To make the journey possible, they would put raw meat on their horses’ backs. It is believed that this was to tenderize the meat, so they could eat it on the go, although that is debated. Some now believe that the meat was for the horse, meant to help heal their sores while they pushed through incredible treks.

Marco Polo claimed that these warriors would ride for ten days straight without stopping long enough to make a fire. When they got thirsty, they would pierce a hole in the necks of their horses and drink the blood that came squirting out.

The horses helped them get drunk, too. They would ride female horses whenever possible and would milk them when they stopped. Then they would take that milk with them, letting it ferment into liquor for the road.

7They Cut Open Animals’ Chests to Butcher Them

Mongolians barely ate vegetables. From time to time, they would gather a few wild plants or eat some food that had been offered to them by a surrendering army, but they mostly relied on meat and dairy.

Their diet was, essentially, the exact opposite of veganism—and the way they prepared it was the exact opposite of kosher. When they wanted to butcher an animal, they would tie the animal down, jam a knife into its chest, and cut it open. Then they would reach in, grab its heart and squeeze to fill the carcass up with blood.

They would tear out all of its internal organs and cook them up. Every part of the animal’s body would be put to use, usually boiled in a pot of broth, but, on special occasions, cooked on a skewer. The blood would be drained out of the body and worked into sausages.

Usually, they ate mutton, but they would eat horses when they could. Horses were usually saved for special occasions, but they ate whatever horse meat they could. According to one missionary who went to Mongolia, they would even eat the afterbirth of mares.

6A Mongolian Man Could have 30 Wives

The Mongolians were strict about extra-marital sex. If a man was caught with a married woman, he could have his lips cut off. If they were in bed together, he could be killed. And if he was caught with an unmarried virgin, both the man and the woman would be put to death.

As long as you married them, though, a man could have as many women as he wanted—or, more accurately, as many as he could afford. He would have to pay a dowry for each one, and he would be expected to provide her with her own tent to live in. Some Mongolian men had thirty wives, and the Khans had hundreds.

The women just accepted that this was how life was. It is claimed that, after some men spent the night with his wife, he would invite in all of this other wives to share a drink together.

5The Youngest Son Inherited His Father’s Wives

When a Mongolian’s life came to an end, they made sure that his wives were taken care of. His land and his possession were divided up among his sons, with the best bounty going to the youngest. He would get his father’s home, his slaves, and also his wives.

The boy would not be expected to marry his own mother, but he would be expected to provide for all of his father’s other wives. And while there were no rules saying he had to, he was allowed to take them as his own. It was not uncommon for a young man who had lost his father to make his stepmothers his wives and bring them into his tent.

4They Used Psychological Warfare

One of the main ways the Mongolians became such effective killers was by using psychology. They could not have conquered so many nations by fighting alone—they needed to get as many as possible to surrender without having to waste the life of their men.

No matter the circumstances, they would hide their numbers. If the opposing army was bigger than theirs, they would put dummies on spare horses or light extra campfires to seem more imposing. If their army was bigger, they would ride their horses in single-file, with branches tied to their tails to mask them in a cloud of dust.

They were experts at scaring people. They would travel with their yurts, tents that they could set up before a siege as portable homes. In at least one case, they used the colors of these tents to terrify the people within a city’s walls. First, they put up white tents, telling them that if they surrendered now they would be spared. If they did not surrender, they would put up red tents, telling them that only the men would be killed. If the people were still not ready to fight, they would put up black tents, telling them that everyone inside would die.

3They Massacred Whole Cities

The key to their psychological terror was their reputation for brutality. They needed their enemies to believe that if they did not surrender, every person in the city would be horribly killed. They did not use any tricks to get that reputation—they really did it.

If a city did not surrender, the Mongolian horde would massacre every single person inside. They rounded up the women and children and slaughtered them all. Sometimes they even rounded up the cats and the dogs and killed them for good measure. Their heads would be removed and they would make a pyramid of their skulls to let anyone who passed by know what happened if you angered a Khan.

The most horrible thing was what they did to pregnant women. According to an Arabian writer, the Mongolians would not stop at killing them. They would rip open her stomach and kill the unborn baby inside of her.

2They Had to Kill Nobles without Spilling Blood

The Mongolians believed that blood contained a person’s spiritual essence. They did not dare spill the blood of a nobleman, believing it would defile the ground on which it fell. So, when they killed royalty, they had to find other ways to do it.

Usually, noblemen would be suffocated or drowned. If a member of the Khan’s family betrayed him, he would usually be rolled up in a carpet and thrown in a body of water. Sometimes, though, they got creative. Guyuk Khan took care of one of his rivals by sewing every orifice on her body shut and pushing her into a river.

They had to get creative with enemy nobles, as well. In one case, they trapped Russian princes under a board and held a feast on top of them to suffocate them without spilling their blood. In another, Genghis Khan had a man killed by pouring molten silver into his eyes.

1They Catapulted Diseased Bodies over City Walls

The Mongolian army might have been the first to use biological warfare. While they swept into Europe, they were hit by the Black Plague—and they decided to use it to their advantage.

Their enemies had holed up inside of the city of Caffa, where the Mongolians had them surrounded. When the Black Plague started killing their people, though, they realized they could not stay forever. They wanted to make the biggest impact they could before they left—so they threw their dead over the city walls.

Any Mongolian who died of plague was put on a catapult and sent flying over the walls. On the other side, the people tried to get rid of these bodies by throwing them into the sea, but this just tainted their water supply. Soon, the plague had spread throughout the city.

A few people fled over the city walls and ran further west, but it was too late for them. They were already carrying the plague, and, as they ran out westward, they spread it through Europe.

Mark Oliver is a regular contributor to . He writing also appears on a number of other sites, including The Onion’s StarWipe and Cracked.com. His website is regularly updated with everything he writes.

I work at a value hotel in the part of the world that serves the Ark, the Creation Museum, the Cincinnati Reds, and other event spaces in the area. The region has been growing, hotels have been springing up like crazy, and many locals saw the hotel business as a great place for career mobility.

Then the coronavirus happened.

Now everything has changed. For some hotels, business has dropped to 10–20 percent (at best) of what they were doing and things look extremely grim. Despite the slowdown, it has also been incredibly chaotic. Everything is scary and unpredictable day to day. Here are 10 realities of life in the hotel industry during the coronavirus epidemic.

10 Unusual Hotels Around The World

10 Hotels Are Essential, But Layoffs And Hour Cuts Are Still Happening

In the crazy age of the coronavirus, hotels have been deemed essential. But that doesn’t ensure smooth sailing for hotel companies or their employees. Although many essential services have seen a spike in demand, hotels haven’t participated in the surge as tourism is at a standstill all over the world.

Many hotels do not want to deal with increases in unemployment insurance. So they are trying first to cut the hours of their employees before laying people off.

However, bigger hotels are often faring so poorly—due to an apocalyptic loss in occupancy—that they have no choice but to lay off employees. Some establishments near Disney World are furloughing people left and right because the closing of the park has left some 1,000-room hotels at only 1 percent occupancy. At that rate, they can hardly afford to keep the lights on, much less continue to pay all their employees.

As for Las Vegas, many resort hotels have shut down because a huge amount of their money comes from the casino business. This requires larger gatherings of people to be successful. More than anything, they are basically gaming spaces with a hotel attached. Without gaming resorts, there is no point in staying open.^[1]

9 Some Hotels Are Offering Special Home Office Rates For Daytime Stays

At least one hotel so far, Red Roof Inn, is offering a weekday special from 8:00 AM to 6:00 PM to use their hotel rooms as a home office space. This offer is actually quite cheap, running at a little under $30 per day for your temporary office space. They even allow one other person and one pet.

Now this is half off most nightly rates for that type of hotel, but they’re probably not offering full amenities. Presumably, they don’t expect the guest to use the bed or the shower. No breakfast, either.

However, this is still quite inexpensive. Those who are searching for home office space might want to look into this or other hotels that may soon offer similar deals. To get away from it all and have your own work space for $30 dollars a day is fairly cheap, especially if the kids are home due to quarantine and you cannot concentrate long enough to finish your work.^[2]

8 Phones Have Been Ringing Off The Hook With Cancellation Calls

Once the number of COVID-19 cases escalated sharply, gatherings started to be banned and hotels repeatedly received the worst kind of calls: cancellations. For the first several weeks of the COVID-19 outbreak, the phones were ringing off the hook at my hotel. That was also true at many other establishments.

Everyone was getting cancellation calls for stays that ranged from only a few days in advance to those in late summer. Occupancy dropped like a stone overnight. The managers and owners of many hotels are now terrified that, at best, they will break even for the year. But that’s the rosy case and very unlikely to happen.

Many hotel employees are slightly traumatized at this point. Some have reached a point of weary resignation, knowing that most remaining calls will still be cancellations. We’re all just hoping that our hotels don’t have to close permanently and that we don’t have to look for new jobs.

There is also the worry of having your hours cut. Although the US Congress passed a stimulus package to help with unemployment benefits during the coronavirus pandemic, it can still be difficult to apply for and receive the money in a timely manner.

What do you do while you’re waiting? Very few places are hiring, especially part-time workers.^[3]

7 Breakfast Services Are Suspended Or Greatly Limited At Most Hotels

As the COVID-19 outbreak spiked significantly, one of the first things to change was how food was served. To comply with stay-at-home or shelter-in-place orders, restaurants closed their interior dining rooms. So you have to use delivery, curbside pickup, or drive-through because gatherings of more than a few people are now banned.

This left a lot of hotels in a weird gray area. They are not sure if they are properly complying with the law or not. Most states did not say anything specific about hotel breakfasts one way or another, although some states were unclear about whether a breakfast “buffet” was acceptable.

As a result, some hotel managers wondered if continental breakfasts were still okay as long as only a few guests gathered at once. Meanwhile, some establishments have shut down these dining options entirely, even if they don’t serve any hot foods. It hasn’t helped that the authorities have not given much guidance or clarification on the issue.

Out of an abundance of caution, most hotels have suspended their breakfasts or are offering to-go bags. If you need to visit a hotel for business or something, you should call them first to see if they still have any kind of breakfast options. That way, you’ll know if you need to plan ahead for the next morning.^[4]

6 People Are Trying To Get Rock-Bottom Prices When Hotels Are Already Struggling

Many people know that travel has been suspended in most places, that people aren’t gathering, that a lot of vacation destinations are closed, and that most hotels are doing incredibly badly right now. In fact, they might continue to perform poorly for the rest of the year.

However, like all things business, a hotel isn’t a charity and guests don’t consider their business a charity, either. With all the people running out of money right now, those who do need a hotel are looking for rock-bottom prices. This makes room sales supercompetitive.

Currently, some hotels are offering such low competitive rates that they risk losing money on their rooms because they are not receiving enough revenue to cover all the overhead. Some hotel owners believe that having a fuller house will look better to their creditors.

At the end of the day, though, any hotel that is selling out right now is barely breaking even and may even be operating at a small loss.^[5]

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5 When Prices Go Down, Many Criminals Come To Stay

As we’ve mentioned, hotel prices have cratered. As a result, drug dealers, prostitutes, and other ne’er-do-wells see these rock-bottom prices as a great opportunity to use hotels as the base of operations for their businesses. Many druggies who need a place to crash during a high are also tempted by the low prices.

If this wasn’t enough, many cities are now paying to put up homeless people in hotels during the pandemic. It would be great if they stayed inside, which is the whole point. However, many of these people are not self-quarantining. Instead, they are getting into trouble.

The problem extends beyond housing the homeless. They still need money for food, and some are trying to score drugs. Others just have side hustles. They want to save money so that they won’t be homeless forever.

Although it is great to give the homeless a place to quarantine, they simply don’t have the resources to just stay inside hotel rooms for weeks. They certainly don’t have the distractions available to them that most of us have, except for TVs in their rooms.

To make matters worse, many homeless people have mental illnesses. Just giving them homes without providing the help they need may reveal or even cause larger issues.^[6]

4 Some Hotel Workers Have Made Themselves Paranoid Wrecks Over The Virus

Like anyone on the “front lines,” some hotel workers have made themselves paranoid wrecks over getting the virus. Before finally quitting, one of my coworkers was donning a new pair of gloves after every customer and wearing a mask when the CDC was still saying it wasn’t necessary (although we know better now). She was also scaring the guests, who were afraid that she was wearing a mask because she had the coronavirus.

Although you want to be careful to avoid getting the virus, it is also important to base your actions on common sense and not just paranoia. Wearing gloves can help, but you also need to wash your hands after you take them off. You can’t touch anything that’s potentially infected and then touch your face, or the gloves are useless.

They can easily give you a false sense of security. In addition, your paranoia can stress you out and lower your immune system. Although hotel workers clean constantly, wash our hands like crazy, and take a lot of precautions, there is a point at which your methods to sanitize become nonstop panic cleaning that just dries out your skin without any additional health benefits.^[7]

3 Business Is Almost Impossible To Predict Even Day To Day

As stated in the introduction, I work at a value hotel. Before the COVID-19 pandemic, I could work the morning shift and predict how many guests we would have by the end of the day, give or take five individuals. That’s true even for hotels with lots of walk-in visitors.

Even on days when we weren’t doing that well or when it was a slow time of year, business was usually predictable day to day. Once you know the flow of your business, you develop a sense for how things will go.

However, this pandemic has changed everything. Due to cancellations, the criminal element, people traveling at the last minute to get back to their places of origin, homeless people, and many other factors, the hotel business has become impossible to predict day to day or even hour to hour.

The value hotel where I work has about 115 rooms. Right now, we are filling about 20–40 rooms a night. It is almost impossible to predict occupancy or which days will be better or worse.^[8]

2 Guests Are Much Chattier Because Everyone Wants To Talk About The Pandemic

You will get some chatty guests at a hotel, but most people just want to do their business and get on their way. However, the pandemic has changed all that. Customers and employees alike regularly commiserate about the virus.

In fact, regular guests who were never chatty are now talking much more. This virus has scared many of us. By discussing what’s going on, we have that human connection that can comfort some people and make them feel better.

Depending on the individual hotel employee, this can be either cathartic or stressful. Some like the chance to talk about the pandemic. Others are already hearing enough about it on the news and at work. These employees just wish they could forget about the virus for a few minutes.

Unfortunately, when you work in customer service, it is part of your job to chat people up and be sympathetic—even if you wish you could just ask them to please stop talking about the pandemic. You are already stressed out enough over it.^[9]

1 The Future Is Uncertain—No One Knows If Or When Things Will Be Normal Again

Due to the coronavirus pandemic, hotel owners and employees are nervous about the future of hotels. Many owners are convinced that this fiscal year is going to be a complete wash. Hitting breakeven is the new goal (if they can even manage it).

To make matters worse, no one is sure how bad this will be for the hotel industry in the long term. Yes, some hotels and motels will always exist because people need a place to stay. But others cater to guests who are visiting resorts and other attractions.

After the end of the pandemic, we may see a long-term change in how people interact at events, in large crowds, and with other groups. The Internet is such a powerful tool that we may see more virtual entertainment come out of this. Possibly, only smaller groups will be allowed to congregate, even in resort towns.

Even if the law allows, things may never go back to “normal” if general attitudes change. This could be truly ruinous for the resort hotel industry as about 95–99 percent of their business would be permanently gone.

Just like every situation involving the pandemic, we can only do our best as we wait to see what will happen. The world may not change that much in the long term. But it’s impossible to predict at this point, and the uncertainty can be frightening.^[10]

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Millennials, Gen Y, Snowflakes—these are all names for the generation who were born between 1980 and 1994 – and the butt of so many jokes. In Japan they are called “Yutori” and they have just as many critics. They are the first generation who grew up with a more relaxed style of education and now as adults, find themselves pushing against the old ways of their ultra-disciplined parents—with mixed results.

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10 Valentine’s Day is a chore

Valentine’s Day in Japan has turned into a social minefield. In the 1950s, a chocolate company dreamed up “giri choco” meaning “obligatory chocolates” to boost sales on February 14th. They suggested women should spoil all the men in their life with chocolate gifts, but for some the list would stretch beyond male relatives to co-workers and bosses. Giri choco caught on and Japanese women—raised not to offend or appear impolite—would dutifully present their male colleagues with chocolate on the big day. To redress the balance, White Day was created in 1978 and every year on March 14th, men reciprocate with gifts of white sweets and candy.

An uneasy feeling about the custom has crept into society, with it being seen as outdated and sexist. Some workplaces are banning giri choco and without it, there is no White Day.

In February 2018, luxury chocolatier Godiva took out a full- page newspaper advert urging Japan to put the fun back into Valentine’s Day by dumping giri choco. It was a bold marketing move but it worked, and the holiday is evolving into a quirky emoji-filled occasion. Restaurants are cashing in by offering chocolate themed menus and women are buying gifts for themselves – with no pressure.^[1]

9 New Rules of Dating

Japan is now “mikon shakai” – an unmarried society. For centuries, Japanese parents arranged “omiai”—a formal introduction leading to marriage, while these are now seen as old fashioned, most parents still encourage their children to marry. In a society where women over 25 are charmingly referred to as “Christmas cake” ie, left over, and adults still living with their parents are called “parasite singles” the pressure is intense. Now Yutoris are taking control of their own futures and entering the dating game without their parents’ looming influence.

The term “konkatsu” was created by a sociology professor in 2007, roughly translated it means “searching for a potential partner with the purpose of marriage”. Essentially, a more modern form of omiai, it gives the power of choice back to those looking for love.

The dating game is complicated. A “gokon” party is a singles meet up, either casually arranged by friends or by professional matchmakers. You could try your luck at “shumikon” – where you learn a skill such as cookery alongside a potential partner, or “asakon” – an early morning dating event for professionals to squeeze in before their working day starts. The largest gokon comprised of 10,000 hopeful singles at a Tokyo stadium in 2015.^[2]

8 Men for hire

Traditional ideas of masculinity may be changing in Japan but there is still a market for old fashioned fatherly advice. This is why you need “ossan” meaning “old man” and they’re available for hire.

Once seen as a figure of fun, these friendly “uncles” are now charging around 1,000 yen ($10) an hour to listen and offer comfort to troubled Yutori, who may be too proud to confide in their own parents.

Stressed women not in need of ossan have another option – a handsome young man to wipe away their tears. A company called Ikemeso – a combination of the words “hot guy” and “crying” offer a choice of men to appeal to all tastes. They will arrive at your office and put on a sad film designed to get everyone sobbing in a group bonding exercise.

Other services available include partners for non-sexual cuddling and fake friends and relatives for special occasions.^[3]

7 Exam Scam

In 2019 for the first time ever, women out-performed men in entrance exams for Japanese medical schools. The reason? The schools stopped rigging test scores to give male applicants an unfair advantage. The scandal was uncovered by a newspaper who found that universities had been tweaking the results for over 10 years. The dean of Juntendo university in Tokyo explained:

“Women mature faster mentally than men…in some ways this was a measure to help male applicants.”

Most saw it as another example of gender discrimination. In 2016, just 21% of all doctors in Japan were women, compared with the UK at 47.2%.^[4]

6 Sneakerheads

American branded sneakers have reached cult status among Yutoris. In the early 1990s, the popularity of Michael Jordan together with Nike’s launch of the AirMax 95 sneaker created a fascination with the footwear and its fans became known as “Sneakerheads”. The district of Shibuya in Tokyo is where fanatics gather to buy rare brands to collect or sell on, for huge profit. The market is so lucrative, that some fans have been targeted by thieves and robbed of their valuable sneakers in the street.

Collaborations with celebrities and designers are the most sought after by Sneakerheads, causing huge queues on the day they land in store. Staff now insist on ID and enforce a dress code to check the style credentials of customers as Sneakerheads have been known to pay homeless people to queue for hours in their place. Some take their love of brands so seriously that there is now a small industry in sneaker authentication where you can pay an expert to check if you have bought the real thing. The business is shrouded in secrecy to protect staff from bribery and violent threats in a cut-throat industry.^[5]

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5 Halloween

Halloween arrived in Japan courtesy of Walt Disney in 2000 when Tokyo Disneyland launched its first celebration. Japan has embraced Halloween and all its traditions – except for trick or treating which is a step too far for the polite society and instead, it’s all about the costumes. For a generation hooked on cosplay – dressing up as a character from film, TV or manga—it is the perfect holiday. Every year since 2011, crowds of costumed revellers gather at Tokyo’s iconic Shibuya “Scramble” Crossing to drink and party amid the traffic chaos. Record numbers flocked to Shibuya in 2018 and the night ended with multiple arrests and an overturned truck. Public drinking is now banned in Tokyo.^[6]

4 Falling birth rate

In 2019, the birth rate in Japan fell to its’ lowest since 1899. A survey by the Japan Family Planning Association found that 45% of women were either not interested or “despised” sexual contact. There is a growing number of young men with dwindling sex drives named “herbivore men” due to their lack of interest in “flesh”. These “soushoku danshi” or “grass eaters” also despise the punishing work life the older generation, preferring a more passive existence.

Shinzo Abe, the prime minister has described the birth rate as a national crisis, but the reason for the drop could be simple economics. Long gone are the “salarymen” who dedicated their lives to one corporation, instead many Yutoris are employed on short-term contracts with little job security. Some Japanese parents will still oppose a marriage if the groom is not a high earning professional. More women are rejecting the traditional role of homemaker, preferring instead to have a career—the media has labelled ambitious female workers “carnivore girls”.

By 2065, the population is set to shrink from 127 million to 88 million, fuelled by the attitude of “mendokusai” meaning “can’t be bothered.”^[7]

3 Hidden Hãfu

As an island nation, Japan is often regarded as a closed society. Japanese people of mixed race are known as “hãfu” from the English word “half” and have struggled to find acceptance. They are not officially recognised as a social group and are banned from holding dual citizenship. The government records no data on people with only one Japanese parent, and there is no acknowledgement of any discrimination they may face.

Slowly, some young Japanese of mixed heritage are gaining recognition. Ariana Miyamoto was born in 1994 to a Japanese mother and an African-American father and won the Miss Japan contest in 2015. She was inspired to enter the pageant after the suicide of a mixed race schoolfriend but faced criticism for not being “pure” Japanese.

The Ministry of Health has predicted that 1 in 30 babies born in Japan today are of dual heritage, the majority to parents from neighbouring Asian countries such as China and Korea. A new word “mikkusu” based on the English term “mixed race” is beginning to be widely used and “hãfu” is now seen as belonging to Japan’s past.^[8]

2 #KuToo

Wearing high heels to work may be a personal choice for most women but in Japan, they are compulsory.

After spending a long shift in crippling 3-inch heels, Yumi Ishikawa tweeted about the unfair rule and kicked off a social media campaign. Women began sharing photos of their swollen and blistered feet tagged #KuToo – a combination of the words “kutsu” meaning shoes and pain “kutsuu”, plus a nod to the #MeToo movement.

Yumi started a petition in June 2019, proposing a law to stop businesses imposing women only dress codes and forcing them to wear the dreaded heels.
#KuToo has opened up a debate on gender discrimination and given a voice to women in a culture that disapproves of public emotion. Some companies have since relaxed their rules on footwear and Yumi has published a book about #KuToo where she writes: “It’s super-fun to be angry.”^[9]

1 The Lonely Princesses

The Imperial Throne of Japan is the oldest monarchy in the world. Emperor Naruhito ascended the Chrysanthemum Throne in 2019 and has one child, Princess Aiko. Also known as “Toshi”, as a female she can never rule Japan – that honour will go to the nearest male heir—her cousin Prince Hisahito. 18-year-old Toshi has more teenage angst than most because ancient rules state she must marry a nobleman – of which there are none left in modern day Japan. Marriage to a commoner means she will lose her title, status and money, cut off with a one-time payment and facing life as a private citizen.

Toshi’s aunt, Princess Sayako did just that when she married a government official and had to take a crash course in driving and supermarket shopping before her wedding. Toshi’s cousin, Princess Mako aged 28, became engaged to fellow student Komuro Kei in 2017 – followed by months of royal silence. The Imperial Family announced a postponement in 2018, and Mako stated: “It is because of our immaturity, and we just regret it.”

There are now six unmarried Princesses who will all have to choose between a life of independence or royal duty. Unless the laws of succession are changed, the future of the monarchy currently lies with a 14-year-old boy.^[10]

Top 10 Reasons Generation X Is Generation Best

About The Author: I am a true crime enthusiast and lover of words.

Although it might be exhilarating to witness life thousands of years ago through a time machine, surely no one would ever want to do much more than visit. The ancient world was a rough and unforgiving playing field, especially if you were a kid or anything but wealthy.

Ancient China was no exception. Unless you were a male born into a wealthy family of high status and influence, you were likely to endure a miserable existence if you managed to live past infancy. China has one of the most elaborate and captivating histories and cultures you may ever study. However, it was still an unbearable struggle just to survive for the majority of people in ancient China.

10 Filial Piety

The most fundamental aspect of traditional Chinese culture was “filial piety,” which was taught by Confucius, an influential Chinese philosopher. The teachings of Confucius, specifically through filial piety, developed the established social norms of ancient China.

In a family unit, the father served as the head of the household while the mother’s only role was to honor his orders and birth him a son. If the father was not present, then the eldest son had the authority in the family and his mother had to obey him. The sad truth was that the husband was allowed to abandon the family and remarry if a woman would not bear a son.

The core concepts of ancient Chinese culture also stressed that all people of differing social classes, genders, and ages must perform specific obligatory roles in society and act accordingly. If a father were to act in an abusive manner toward his children, filial piety teaches that they still must return full respect and honor toward him. This occurred because a father’s role was to command, while a child’s role was to obey despite the circumstances.^[1]

The same concept applied to an emperor’s ultimate authority in society and the role of citizens under that authority—even if corruption occurred in some dynasties.

9 Access To Education

What is the best way to keep a conforming lower class in place without question?

Limiting access to education, which is believed to be the best weapon against poverty and oppression. Education was an opportunity reserved for the children of the most elite families. Generally, only teenage boys born into very wealthy families had the opportunity to receive schooling. This was the only group with the means to pass highly selective state examinations to gain any political power or say in the world around them.

The curriculum consisted primarily of calligraphy and the teachings of Confucius. Whether educated or not, all people were required to know the five virtues of Confucius by heart when asked at any given moment. It wasn’t until the Han dynasty, which began in 206 BC, that ancient China established a public education system to develop a more intelligent and well-informed society.

Commoners in the empire were presented with more social mobility through an education that prepared them to pass the civil service examinations. Then they had the chance to get a civil service job or earn a more respectable role in society. The establishment of the exams was an effort to allow gifted people to earn political power or influential roles in society on the basis of merit rather than lineage.

However, this opportunity was extremely hard to come by as these exams were highly competitive and difficult. After spending at least a decade or two studying, test takers had to walk in with food, a waste bucket, and test-taking materials. They were confined in small individual cells for three days to complete an exam. No stretching breaks allowed!

There were several levels of testing, beginning with the provincial exams and ending with the national exams that were administered by the emperor only once every three years. All had ridiculously low pass rates. At some points, the chances of passing the tests and getting a decent job could be as low as 1 in 3,000.

In fact, the scholars and prodigies who managed to pass these rigorous exams ended up becoming the names in ancient China that we study in our history books today. If all that isn’t convincing enough that the arduous process of these exams meant business, cheating on them was even punishable by death.^[2]

8 Your Job Options

If you were one of the majority born into an impoverished family in a cramped, rusty, tin countryside hut, then working in the rice paddies with no hope of upward social mobility would likely be your life’s destiny. In fact, dedicating your life to backbreaking manual labor in the fields was expected of most men, women, and children in ancient China.

The North primarily grew wheat and millet, while the South specialized in rice. Obviously, the poor mostly lived in the country, while the rich primarily resided in major urban areas with more opportunity. Some families even grew desperate enough to sell off their own daughters as slaves to rich men.

The norm was that only a small minority lived comfortably, and the role of the majority was to maintain the lifestyles of the minority. In fact, many people were not only farmworkers but also servants to wealthy families. These servants were slaves who were eunuchs, and they tended to every need and whim of the rich.

Some wealthy people in ancient China would even grow their nails incredibly long as a status symbol to show that they did not have to work. Everyone else had to keep those nails short and neat because the fields were the sole, inevitable option for most youth growing up in ancient China.^[3]

7 Love And Marriage

There weren’t many options when it came to marriage, either. Any intermarriage between individuals of differing social status was forbidden by law. Marriages were arranged by the parents under the wings of hired matchmakers.

Typically, girls in ancient China had to marry at about age 15, while men were about 30. Furthermore, the bride and groom never got to truly meet each other until their wedding day. The transition into marriage for a young daughter barely into her mid-teens must have been tremendously stressful or even traumatic. She had to leave her family and her childhood home and might not see her family again for years.

The bride moved into the family home of her husband and had to obey every command of her mother-in-law. This made marriage especially difficult or even unbearable for women in ancient China. However, they would never be respected as women or in general unless they hadhusbands.^[4]

The husband owned everything within the property, including his children and his wife. If he was wealthy, then infidelity was a social norm rather than a taboo.

6 Diet

If you were wealthy (especially by working in the bureaucracy after passing the civil service examinations), you would be blessed with a rich diet with meat and vegetables. The rich and influential in ancient China had access to a wide variety of meats, including pork, bear’s paw, and dog. However, they mostly ate fish or rice, the staples of the ancient Chinese diet.

Besides fish, many of the meats in their diet came from a variety of birds, such as goose, pheasant, duck, or chicken. Still, they didn’t eat meat often because the Chinese diet is mostly vegetarian. Therefore, meat was considered a delicacy. Their vegetables included yams, turnips, and more. Other items on the menu could include anything from shark’s fin and edible bird’s nest to soup, millet, or wine.

However, the poor majority in ancient China had a bland, boring diet. Generally, they ate rice or plain noodles without any meat or fish. There were few vegetables in their diet. This led to recurring famines during periods of drought in the countryside.^[5]

5 Leisure And Tradition

Leisure and traditional events and practices were an integral part of Chinese culture. Some of the most popular pastimes, especially for young people, were mahjongg, archery, kickball, and checkers.

Chinese culture also emphasized honoring one’s ancestors. Therefore, those who practiced Taoism, the widespread religion of ancient China, would worship their ancestors. They also believed in a kitchen god named Zao Shen and kept a paper image of him in the house. It was taught that this god would protect the family and report their demeanor to heaven every month.

Whenever Zao Shen delivered his report to the heavens, the family would burn the image and set off firecrackers to send him on his way. They also smeared the lips on his image with honey so that he would take a good report to heaven. While Zao Shen was away, the family would be careful to avoid doing anything that was believed to attract evil spirits or entities.

Large festivals were also a significant part of the leisure aspect of life in ancient China. The Lantern Festival and Chinese New Year were some of the most important events of the year.^[6]

4 Got Health Care?

If you were lucky or wealthy enough to have access to any medical care, the doctors of ancient times were in no way like modern practitioners. In ancient history, people usually had religious or philosophical explanations for illness. It was believed that illness was caused when a person was possessed by evil spirits or ghosts.

Therefore, doctors in ancient China were usually priests or mystics who performed exorcisms with little to no medical expertise. If that didn’t help, these doctors would turn to herbal remedies or acupuncture to treat their sick patients. This made herbal tea especially common.^[7]

3 Slavery

The sad reality was that much of the ancient Chinese population was made up of slaves. For most, slavery was the only option or destiny from the moment they were born. As mentioned earlier, the majority of job opportunities consisted of manual labor in the fields, but some of the workers were freemen.

Slaves lived under the absolute rule of a master, and they were often prisoners or captives of war. Many slaves were children who worked as domestic servants for wealthy households. As mentioned earlier, these servants were slaves who were eunuchs.

A eunuch entering any room in a house unannounced or uninvited was punished by death. An especially heinous slavery practice in ancient China occurred whenever a slave master died. His slaves were buried alive due to the belief that they must serve their master in the afterlife for eternity. Thousands of slaves were also used as human sacrifices—usually by decapitation—to prevent rebellion by inciting fear in other slaves.

Fortunately, the practice of killing slaves upon the death of the master was brought to an end during the Zhou dynasty, which began in 1046 BC. Government efforts in China to end slavery began during the Ming dynasty, which started in AD 1368. However, many people continued to secretly own slaves in remote regions of China until as late as the early 1950s.^[8]

2 Foot Binding

In ancient China, having very small feet was believed to be a highly desirable and attractive trait in a woman. The practice of foot binding was adopted by the upper class during the Tang dynasty.

When a girl was around four or five years old, her feet would be wrapped in bandages tight enough to forcibly break and curl her toes into the soles of her feet. This prevented the toes from growing.

It was an excruciating process, and the girl would have to walk on broken toes for the rest of her life. While enduring unbearable pain and extremely limited mobility, she was confined to indoor domestic work and a miserable existence.^[9]

In fact, a girl could risk being beaten if she was caught trying to remove the bandages around her feet. The twisted practice of foot binding wasn’t outlawed until 1912.

1 The Coming Of Age

If born in ancient China, one was lucky to reach young adulthood. As boys were valued much more than girls, newborn baby girls were sometimes abandoned or drowned. This was considered socially acceptable, which made the infant mortality rate fairly high. Other factors such as poverty, lack of education, slavery, and famine made an individual exceptionally lucky to reach adulthood.

However, both men and women received individual ceremonies commemorating their initiations into adulthood. This ritual was generally hosted by the father, who delivered a speech welcoming the young adult into a new chapter of his life. A young man would have his “capping ceremony” at age 20, while a young woman would receive her “hair-pinning ceremony” at age 15.^[10]

The American Civil War is one of the most studied, dramatized, and reenacted events in world history. Much less covered is the period generally agreed by historians to have spanned from 1865 to 1877 known as the Reconstruction.The Civil War could easily be portrayed as a glorious campaign where the forces of good triumphed and in the process freed millions and preserved the union. It’s all very reassuring if not inspiring. Meanwhile the American Reconstruction is largely a matter of blunders. Blunders that cost countless Americans their lives and generations their livelihoods. Hard to feel inspired by that.

10 Ways American Slavery Continued Long After The Civil War

10 Black Codes

The Thirteenth Amendment which banned involuntary servitude “except as punishment for a crime” may be the most abused amendment in US history. In November 1865, Mississippi passed laws that quickly spread throughout the South to deny a number of basic rights to black people such as being able to enlist in militias, serve on juries, testify at trials, or take jobs without the approval of a previous employer. These were largely overturned, but after Reconstruction ended, new and arguably worse laws to ensure a steady flow of involuntary labor, such as criminalizing loitering or “vagrancy” which meant being caught in public while unemployed.

In Georgia for example, between 1864 and 186 8 the number of freed slaves that were convicted increased twentyfold. This got even worse towards the end of Reconstruction in 1875 when Convict Leasing, a practice whereby prison labor was provided to private businesses, exploded and remained in common practice until it was formally banned in 1941. By then, an estimated 200,000 African Americans had been put through the convict leasing program, while 800,000 were estimated to have been forced into unpaid labor. Under these conditions, for some prisons the annual death rate was reportedly as high as 5%.

9 Field Order No. 15 Betrayal

With the freeing of four million slaves at the end of the Civil War, the issue loomed of what exactly the Union would do to allow those people who had been legally barred from owning property to escape destitution. One experiment the Union Army intended to try was conceived of during a meeting between Secretary of War Edwin Stanton, General William Sherman, and 20 black community leaders led by Reverend Garrison Frazier in Savannah, GA on January 11, 1865. 400,000 acres of coastal farmland from Charleston to St. John’s river in Northern Florida would be distributed to 10,000 freed families, with the benefit of a mule added later. Sherman issued the order on January 15 with Lincoln’s approval.

Unfortunately for the future of countless freed slaves in America, Abraham Lincoln’s replacement Andrew Johnson was a Democrat who’d been put on the ticket by Lincoln to promote unity, and while he’d been loyal to the Union he was sympathetic to the slave owners. Thus he cancelled the order in 1865 and redistributed the land to the same planters that had in many cases taken arms against the United States. Deeply disillusioned, vast numbers of freed slaves were forced into the poor agricultural wages that left many of them more vulnerable to Black Code incarceration.

8 KKK Wars

It’s questionable whether the families would have been able to hold on to the lands allotted in Field Order No. 15, for two years after it was founded in 1865, the Ku Klux Klan moved from intimidating Republicans in the South to violence. Of the roughly 600 black candidates elected to office during the Reconstruction, the Klan would physically attack about ten percent of them and successfully assassinate at least seven. Their war against the federal government drove Republicans entirely out of power in the South.

The Klan also demonstrated a significant degree of shrewdness in how it waged a number of small wars. A prime example of this was the Kirk-Holden War. On February 26, 1870, Union League founder and 2nd US Colored Cavalry veteran Wyatt Outlaw was lynched in Graham, NC. In response militia forces under George Kirk were dispatched to hunt down the Klan. 100 members were arrested, but none of these went to trial. Spurred on, Klan candidates gained control of the North Carolinian general assembly and in March 1871 successfully impeached governor William Holden for sending the militia after them.

7 Freedman’s Bank

For many black veterans of the Civil War, there was a significant issue of what to do with their pay when many local banks in former Confederate states couldn’t be trusted with their accounts. Reverend John Alvorod of New York City and a group of twenty philanthropists founded a savings service that was given federal approval on March 3, 1865. Over the course of the Reconstruction, it would open 37 offices in 17 states and collect $57 million in assets from more than seventy thousand depositors, much of it from tens of thousands of black veteran families.

Unfortunately despite its initial stated aim that none of the funds be used for loans, the bank drew a number of managers that by 1870 were giving out loans without so much as token collateral among other forms of fraud. Such was the loss of public trust in the bank by March 1874 that no less than Frederick Douglass was elected its president. Unfortunately for Douglass he invested $10,000 in the bank as a show of trust before fully reviewing the bank and realizing what a horrid state it was in, and within months he was calling for the federal government to close it, which it did in June 1874. It was soon revealed that the federal government did not guarantee anyone compensation for their lost funds. Among the account holders, the fortunate ones were the half that received 60% of their deposits. Petitions for compensation from the federal government continued for thirty years, further shrinking public trust.

6 Race Riots

Even outside of the Klan terrorism the American reconstruction was in large part not peaceful. For example during the first three days of May 1866 Memphis, TN was embroiled in riots after an altercation between a white police officer and a black veteran. The aftermath was 48 deaths, of which 46 were black, 100 buildings burned down, and zero arrests. Two months later in New Orleans an attempt to reconvene the Louisiana Constitutional Convention of 1864 and extend suffrage to freedman was declared an unlawful assembly by confederate veteran mayor John Monroe. On July 30, 25 delegates convened anyway while a mob protested outside, and when 200 freed supporters of the convention arrived, fights broke out until deputized police began firing into the freedmen. 34 freedmen were shot dead and an extra 119 were wounded, and while initially the press and authorities claimed it was a riot later accounts described it as a massacre. It went on through cities such as Richmond, VA and Franklin, TN in 1867, and the 1868 riot in Millican, TX which left 25 black people dead. Even the presence of tens of thousands of federal soldiers throughout former Confederate states through 1875 wasn’t enough to prevent such violence.

5 Panic of 1873

Not all of America’s problems involved race relations. During the Reconstruction America’s rail programs had been wildly ambitious. Beyond finishing the Transcontinental Railroad in 1869 an additional 35,000 miles had been built through wild speculation, much of which it must be said was partially facilitated by Abraham Lincoln’s paying off Civil War expenses through authorizing mass printing fiat currency. By September 1873, Jay Cooke’s bank, which had been functionally the bank of the Civil War and rail development in the US, closed its doors. This drove almost a quarter of rail lines into bankruptcy, put 18,000 companies out of business over the next two years, and raised unemployment to 14%, dropping average wages by a quarter. While it took until 1883 for the US economy to recover, it was actually much worse for other nations. For example the United Kingdom suffered a depression that lasted twenty years.

An effect of the crash was significant conflict between the American labor movement and the government, such as when federal troops were called in to deal with the Great Railroad Strike of 1877. This had the dual effect of draining troops that were desperately attempting to keep the peace in the former Confederacy away and removing public support for the working class, allowing such practices as convict labor to get away with more atrocities.

4 Regular Epidemics

The state of medicine during the Civil War was such that twice as many soldiers died of disease as died from combat. It was hardly an improvement on the home front, where epidemics were practically a routine semi-annual occurrence. A single cholera epidemic in 1866 killed 50,000 Americans, the equivalent of 500,000 today, and that was actually relatively mild compared to an 1849 epidemic which killed three times as many. At the same time a smallpox epidemic was underway which by 1867 killed 49,000 Americans. In the Southern states yellow fever raged more summers than it did not, and in 1867 alone it killed 3,000 people in New Orleans. In the city of Shreveport, LA, 1873 witnessed so many deaths that the city declared a suspension to funerals. Under these circumstances it was unsurprising that many of the federal laws such as the 1878 National Quarantine Act were passed that form the basis of dealing with the Coronavirus pandemic.

3 The Locust Swarms

Aside from humans, no animal has ever posed a greater threat to the future of the United States than the Rocky Mountain Locust. As a drought struck the Rocky Mountains from British Columbia through Wyoming in 1874, the food shortage drove the unusually massive population of locusts to the fertile farmland of the Great Plains instead. From Texas to Minnesota two million miles of farmland were attacked by a swarm that supposedly covered 198,000 square miles, making it functionally impossible to stop, especially by the means available at the time. The damage from the lost crops alone was estimated at $200 million, not even getting to how their corpses left huge numbers of chickens inedible and their scat left water undrinkable. It was only that the 1874-1875 winter was particularly harsh and long that prevented future giant swarms.

A massive relief campaign was begun for financially ruined farmers and speculators. While the effort successfully distributed huge amounts of funds and goods, it was accompanied by a large number of complaints and even official reports that inevitably the relief money would go into the hands of lazy and idle people.

2 Mass Lynchings

Returning to the issue of race, there really never was a time in American history that so many people were murdered so publically with so little fear of retribution. In 2020, the Equal Justice Initiative released a report that 2,000 known lynchings had occurred during the twelve years after the Civil War. By contrast, between 1878 and 1950, there were 4,400. A mass-lynching could be set off by something as benign as just a number of black people going to the polls, as happened in Eufala, AL in December 1874. Even black National Guard soldiers were attacked and killed in groups, as occurred to at least six of them in Hamburg, SC in July 1876.

It was not limited to black citizens either. In 1871, a shootout between a few Chinese people in Los Angeles, CA snowballed after a police officer and saloon owner were caught in the crossfire, and as a result, eighteen Chinese immigrant bystanders were lynched near the site of the shooting. While there were several convictions for manslaughter, all of them were overturned on technicalities.

1 The First Opium Epidemic

400,000 morphine addicts is one of the lesser known products of the Civil War. Field hospitals regularly used it not only to give relief to wounded soldiers but also the generally ill. Its use was also common for many Confederate veterans attempting to cope with the pain of defeat. According to the 1868 book Opium Habit that year there were still an estimated 100,000 opium addicts in America, though that was surely a huge undercount as a general perception that being addicted to opium was a sign of weak character meant many people were unwilling to admit it. Returning to unfortunate Shreveport, LA, as much as 1% of the population suffered from an addiction. This was one area where black southerners had something of an advantage, as opium addicts were vastly more likely to be white people, even proportionate to population. Interestingly, this is also the case in America with the contemporary opioid epidemic.

10 Burning Facts About The Ku Klux Klan

About The Author: Follow Dustin Koski on Twitter for a lighter view of history.

It’s not uncommon for people to have a feeling that “something bad is going to happen.” These feelings often precede an announcement of the intention to divorce or a diagnosis of illness. Incidents of this nature are often brushed off because people “know their spouses well enough to realize something is wrong” or they “know their bodies well enough to feel when something has invaded their immune system.”

Sometimes, however, predictions and premonitions precede something so terrifying that it cannot be comprehended by the person seeing the vision or dreaming of their inevitable future. This list reveals ten of these feelings that led to terrifying realities.

Related: 10 Unsettling Premonitions That Came True

10 Shadows of Fear

Evelina Onida had lived in Illinois for many years when Typhoon Haiyan struck her home city of Tacloban in the Philippines in November 2013. Telephone and internet services were both down, and Evelina didn’t immediately know the extent of the tragedy and how it affected her family. However, she had a premonition in the days leading up to the disaster.

She was at a party with friends when she was asked to retrieve something from the cellar. Inside the cellar, she felt uneasy. Then shadows started swirling around her, and she fled. When news of the approaching typhoon broke, she couldn’t shake the terrible feeling that her family would not get through it unscathed.

And she was right. She eventually learned that her father, Salvador Onida, had drowned and that the rest of her family lost everything in the disaster.^[1]

9 Passing By

In May 1982, Carol Kingston and her husband, John, were woken up by the incessant ringing of their doorbell at one o’clock in the morning. John rushed to the front door only to find their porch empty. Carol had a fleeting thought that became stronger the more she pondered it. She was suddenly sure it was her brother Steve who was in the SAS and based not far from her home.

The bell rang again, and John went to the door again, but nothing. It rang a few more times, but both decided to ignore it. At ten the next morning, Carol’s father phoned with sad news. Steve had been killed in a helicopter crash hours earlier.

Carol’s eight-year-old son had a dream about Steve that night. He told his mother that he saw Uncle Steve rise up out of a body of water, his arms stretched to the heavens, saying, “Don’t worry about me. I’m okay now.”

The family later learned that the helicopter crashed over the South Atlantic Ocean and that Steve had subsequently drowned.^[2]

8 “I’ll never know if I could have prevented it.”

When Sue Klebold gave birth to her son Dylan, a powerful sense of impending doom enveloped her. Her thoughts took on a life of their own, and one, in particular, wouldn’t let go: “This child will bring me a terrible sorrow.” Soon after, Dylan became ill and needed surgery. Sue reflected on the awful moment she’d experienced after his birth and wondered if it was some type of intuition at play trying to tell her that her son was ill.

Years passed before her premonition came to terrifying fruition. Seventeen-year-old Dylan woke up early on the morning of April 20, 1999, and bounded heavily down the stairs without turning on any lights inside the house. Sue heard him and called out for him, but he simply shouted “Bye” and left the house. Sue was immediately concerned because he sounded “off,” and she implored her husband to speak to Dylan after school.

But he would never get the chance. Dylan Klebold and his friend Eric Harris murdered 13 people and wounded 24 others inside their high school that day—Columbine High School in Colorado. They both committed suicide afterward.

Five years later, it would emerge that the two teenage shooters weren’t trying to fight back against bullies as many believed to be the case. In reality, they wanted to be known as the two people who inflicted the “most deaths in U.S. history.” And they came close to their ideal. If their planned bombing had gone smoothly, more than 600 people would have died in a single explosion. And even more bombs would have gone off in their cars, ripping through gathered crowds, rescue workers, and reporters, if they had wired the explosives properly.^[3]

7 Voice in Her Head

On December 17, 1980, Etta Smith was going about her workday at an aerospace company in California when she heard a disturbing story on the news. A thirty-one-year-old nurse by the name of Melanie Uribe had been missing for days, and police were no closer to finding her.

Suddenly, Etta heard a voice talking to her. She looked around but then realized the voice was inside her head. The voice said: “She’s not in a house.” Shaken up, Etta began to see a picture in her mind. She saw a dirt path, a canyon, a curved road, and something white peeking through some shrubbery.

Etta couldn’t just let it go and decided to go to the police and report her experience. She told police she believed Lopez Canyon was what she’d seen in her vision and that Melanie Uribe would be found there. The police officer she spoke to was accommodating enough, but Etta worried he wouldn’t take her seriously. She enlisted the help of her daughter, Tina, and together they drove to Lopez Canyon in Los Angeles County.

As soon as she stepped out of the car, Etta experienced an intense feeling of fear and dread. She and her daughter drove a little further, and then Tina spotted something in the brush. It was a body wearing white nurse’s shoes. Etta immediately contacted the police, who arrived shortly afterward and removed the body. It was confirmed via autopsy later that the body was indeed that of Melanie Uribe and that the nurse had been raped and murdered.

As expected, Etta became a suspect and was locked up for several days while police investigated the case. However, it wasn’t long before three young men were arrested for the crime, and Etta was released without being charged. The three killers were convicted and sentenced to life in prison.^[4]

6 “I feel like something’s gonna happen.”

On the morning of September 20, 2009, 21-year-old hip-hop producer Kevin Robert Harris II hugged his mother and held on to her. His mother, Katheryn, recalled that she asked him whether something was wrong, to which he replied, “Everything’s just happening so fast. I feel like something’s gonna happen.”

Katheryn told him not to think like that. Her musician son was on the road to immense success, with Ice Cube just having bought one of his tracks and rumors flying that both Rihanna and Britney Spears wanted to work with him. Things were definitely looking up.

But that evening, Kevin was sitting inside his car outside a music studio in Inglewood, California, when a car filled with people drove up beside him. He opened his window, probably because he knew some of them. Then, shots rang out, breaking the silence. Kevin was shot at close range, shell casings littering the inside of his car. He was pronounced dead at a hospital shortly afterward.

His murder remains unsolved.^[5]

5 Impending Doom

Debbie Turnbull was overjoyed after giving birth to her son, Christopher. She was told she would never fall pregnant and believed that Chris was her “miracle baby.” Soon, however, her joy was replaced by an ever-increasing sense of impending doom and an unshakeable feeling that her son would die young.

As the years passed, Chris survived two near-drownings, and Debbie began to believe that her fear was irrational. Chris was a strong swimmer and loved the water. But then tragedy struck when Chris was 15 years old. The teenager went swimming at Capel Curig near his family’s home in Wales and was sucked down 9 meters (30 feet) into a cold whirlpool under a waterfall. He drowned after suffering cold water shock and a minor heart attack.

Debbie had dropped him off that morning, not knowing that his emphatic “I love you, Mum” would be the last words her son would ever say to her.^[6]

4 An Inescapable Certainty

Susan Palmer didn’t believe in clairvoyance and wanted nothing to do with fortune tellers and the like. So when a psychic predicted that Susan’s husband would die when their son turned 13, she brushed it off as nonsense. Susan didn’t even have a son at the time. Eventually, she gave birth to a boy whom she named Matthew.

Many times, Susan and her husband would joke about the prediction made by the psychic. But mirth turned to tragedy when Susan’s husband died three weeks after Matthew turned 13. Susan was left emotionally incapacitated and couldn’t reconcile the psychic’s prediction with the loss of her husband. About a year later, Susan started reflecting on the premonition. She still couldn’t produce a plausible answer for what had taken place but reflected that her reaction was one of awe and discomfort.^[7]

3 Sometimes, Nightmares Come True

A young woman named Amanda from Washington State was having a nightmare, tossing and turning next to her husband. In the nightmare, she was standing next to her husband in their baby’s room, where the chandelier that hung above the crib now lay shattered inside it. Below the pieces of the chandelier was the body of her child, crushed to death. Outside, a storm raged furiously. Her eyes caught the time on the clock: 4:35 am.

Amanda awoke with a start. A chill ran down her spine as she got out of bed and ran to her baby’s room. Her child was sleeping peacefully. She looked outside, and there was no sign of a storm. But she remained shaken, so she picked up her baby and took him back to her room.

Both Amanda and her husband were woken up by a loud crash hours later. Rushing to the baby’s bedroom, they found the chandelier inside the crib. As they stood together in shock, they became aware of a storm raging outside.

Amanda looked at the digital clock. The time was 4:35 am.^[8]

2 “I’m very fearful.”

School shootings are a terrifying reality for Americans. Teachers giving up their lives to try and save their students and the brutal slaying of innocent children continue to headline newsreels.

Even as long ago as 1992, teachers knew that simply going to work every day didn’t mean they would return home safely. Robert Brens felt this fear very strongly. He told a fellow teacher, “I’m very fearful that one day one of these students might harm me or even kill me.” He went on to tell Robert Ledford, “And if someday this were ever to happen to me, please make sure that the death penalty is put on this person.”

Somehow Brens knew his fate. On May 1, 1992, former Lindhurst High School student Eric Houston arrived at the school armed with a 12-gauge shotgun and a sawed-off .22 caliber rifle. He held a grudge against Robert Brens for failing his class; Brens was his first target. Houston fatally shot the teacher at close range. He then went on to shoot and kill three students at the California high school. Ten more people were injured during the shooting.

Twenty-year-old Eric Houston was convicted and sentenced to death for the murders. He is currently on death row.^[9]

1 Written Account of Premonition

Private Jake Kovco had been on a tour of duty in Iraq for 14 days when he had a disturbing dream. The dream bothered him so much that he wrote it down in his journal: “I dreamt I was sitting in our room (here) by myself. And for some unknown reason, I pulled out my 9mm pistol and shot myself in the head!? I have no idea why, but it seemed I wanted to see what it felt like.”

Kovco went on to describe the sound of the “click of the hammer” as he shot himself and how the sound went dull as the bullet entered his skull. He also wrote that it seemed like he could feel the bullet inside for a few seconds before going limp and starting to bleed out. He wrote that he was not suicidal and had no intention of shooting himself but believed the dream was a premonition of him getting shot in the head. Kovco ended the journal entry by writing to his wife and children, “I love you Shelley, Tyrie, and Alana, you are all my world. My heart will always be with you… your loving husband and father, Jake.”

A month later, on April 21, 2006, Kovco’s body was discovered in his quarters in Baghdad. He had been shot in the head, and it was determined that the bullet came from his own pistol. The bullet exited his head the same way he’d described in his journal entry. In addition, it was discovered that Kovco was not alone in the room but that two of his friends were present. They both testified that they didn’t see the shooting and that Kovco never seemed suicidal.

A military inquiry concluded that Jake Kovco mishandled his pistol and accidently shot himself in the head.^[10]

During World War II, General Patton was known to slap men who seemed to be experiencing “shell shock” under the belief that the lack of a physical injury meant that the men must be fit for battle. Nothing could have been further from the truth. As science has progressed, we’ve become more aware of the mental anguish that occurs during war, with many soldiers experiencing continued trauma after the event. Scientists have come to label this condition Post-traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). The US Department of Veterans Affairs estimates that PTSD afflicts 31% of Vietnam veterans, as many as 10% of Gulf War veterans, 11% of veterans of the war in Afghanistan, and 20% of Iraqi war veterans. And while soldiers remain most afflicted group, it’s unfortunate that PTSD is associated simply with veterans. In actuality it’s a problem that affects a wide range of people.

Despite our great leaps in knowledge since the era of General Patton, Post-traumatic Stress Disorder has not been taken seriously enough by the public. Here are 10 facts about PTSD that may surprise you.

10. Alarming suicide rate among veterans

While most people are aware that veterans face struggles when returning home, few realize the true depth of their mental anguish. A recent study reported that 18 combat veterans commit suicide every day due to PTSD, leading to a total of 126 suicides per week and roughly 6,552 per year. Although veterans make up only 9% of the US population, they make up 18% of all suicides.

Studies have shown that veterans are at much greater risk to commit suicide than civilian adults. A comparison between veterans and civilians, from 2001 to 2014, demonstrated that the civilian suicide rate rose 23.3% while the rate of suicide among veterans jumped more than 32%.

Another disturbing facet of this trend is that women who serve are at even greater risk than their male counterparts. From 2001 to 2014, the female civilian suicide rate increased by 40%, compared to a rise by more than 85% for female veterans.

It has gotten to the point that suicide has caused more deaths than combat for our troops.

9. Obscure things (sounds, smells, photographs) can trigger PTSD

One of the most difficult things about combating PTSD is that family members can be left struggling to understand the catalyst for the episodes. Family members of veterans diagnosed with PTSD have to understand that a whole host of triggers can cause a veteran to spiral into a dark state. Something as innocuous as a sound, a photograph, or a smell could lead to an episode. At first, the triggers may appear to be random, or out of the blue, but they’re connected to an experience of danger or fear that was traumatic in the past.

Think of a past memory, of Christmas morning, or a Thanksgiving feast. Those memories usually do not just include images, but sounds and smells as well. That’s exactly the case for victims of PTSD. The event contains the sounds and smells of the traumatic incident, which can be triggered by similar stimuli.

8. Women are more susceptible than men

The perception is that PTSD sufferers are mostly men who have returned home from war. However, as we noted earlier, women are actually the biggest victims of PTSD.  Studies have shown that more than half of women are likely to face a traumatic experience in their lives, due to sexual assault or child abuse. As a result, women are roughly twice as likely to develop PTSD as men.

Other factors that contribute to a woman’s greater likelihood to be diagnosed is that “women may be more likely to blame themselves for traumatic experiences than men and may have a past mental health problem (for example depression or anxiety).”

7. Symptoms may not manifest until years later

Many police officers are made to witness tragedy and treat it like just another day at the office. It’s part of the job, officers like Jonathan Figueroa would say.

Figueroa was one of the first responders on 9/11. He remembers reaching City Hall and seeing a cloud of dust. His brother-in-law was an EMT and he worried that he might have already been engulfed in the debri. According to Figueroa, “you couldn’t see anything. It looked like a major snowstorm, a blizzard… Then we heard this large boom. It was earthshaking and metal twisting.”

The sound he heard was north tower collapsing.

For the next several days, Figueroa worked on clean-up duty hoping to help, and to somehow find his brother-in-law. He recounts finding a skull, without flesh or any bit of skin, and after showing it to his supervising officer, he was told to put it down. They were looking for living people.

Officer Figueroa never found his brother-in-law. And without the body, he remembers it being difficult for the family to mourn. His brother-in-law’s death weighed on his mind, but he didn’t speak to anyone about, especially not a therapist.

Tragedy would soon strike again, when Figueroa responded to a jetliner, containing 260 people, exploding just after take-off.  “We were recovering the bodies… mothers holding their babies, charred, stuffed in the airplane seats,” he said. “You can’t block that out.”

Even after all this, Figueroa didn’t display PTSD symptoms. It took one last event to take him over the edge. The shooting of his friend, a fellow officer. Soon after, he “started feeling shaky and nervous, and right on that day, I spiraled down, and everything from the past came out: 9/11, the plane crash, my brother-in-law, the first homicide I ever saw as a rookie.”

Symptoms began. Figueroa had night sweats, night terrors, anxiety, panic attacks, dry mouth, aches and pains, heart palpitations, combined with flashbacks of horrific images with himself as the victim. His pride kept him from telling anyone. He lost weight, and death seemed to be closing in all around him. After getting his gun from his locker, with the intent to kill himself, he saw a picture of his family. That stopped him. Figueroa was able to get the help he needed in the form of talk therapy and some medication to alleviate the anxiety and terrors.

As a result of talk therapy, we’re happy to say that Figueroa was able to return to full duty and serve the people of New York City.

6. You may not get over it but you can manage it with therapy

One of the hardest things to do when you needs help is to ask for it, but it’s morally imperative that PTSD sufferers do just that. About 70% of veterans who took their own lives were not regular users of VA services. There are several forms of therapies that have proven to be effective. A novel form that many may not have heard of is called Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR).

The goal of therapy involving PTSD is re-shaping a reaction to a particular trauma. EMDR involves a victim thinking or talking about a certain memory while focusing their eyes on other stimuli, like eye movements, hand taps, and sounds. If done effectively, the person will no longer relive the images, sounds, and feelings of the trauma when the event is brought to mind, but will instead have the new stimuli as reference points.

5. Exercise can similarly help you manage your episodes

Our list has more than few surprises that we’re sure our readers thought had no connection to PTSD. One of them is the effectiveness of exercise, specifically intense exercise. Researchers have found that the stationary bike, in particular, is helpful in reducing PTSD symptoms and improving mood. Studies have found that those who exercise regularly are less likely to suffer from conditions like anxiety and depression.

Part of the reason that exercise has proven to be beneficial is that it gives sufferers “a renewed sense of determination and hope, increased quality of life, and the cultivation of positive self-identity.”

Overall, sports and frequent exercise can provide the vehicle for PTSD victims to regain a sense of achievement and self, rather than to focus on past traumatic experiences.

4. Children can also develop PTSD

If there’s one takeaway from this list, it’s that PTSD impacts more than families of veterans. Children and teens could also be victims of PTSD, if they experienced a trauma or lived through an event where someone was injured or killed. According to Child Protective Services, 5% children in the US will show signs of PTSD. In 30% of these cases, the children have been the victims of abuse. The scary part about episodes of PTSD in children is the recency of the event forces them to reconcile the traumatic events differently than adults.

As previously mentioned, adult sufferers describe flashbacks of the traumatic events. However, for many children, they’re experiencing signs that a trauma is going to happen. Many believe that “they will see these signs again before another trauma happens… they think that if they pay attention, they can avoid future traumas.”

A horrifying circle develops, with children trying to stop a trauma that has already occurred.

3. PTSD is on the rise

It may not come as a complete surprise, but PTSD cases are on the rise and the numbers aren’t pretty. A non-profit organization has warned that the number of veterans in need of help from PTSD has jumped by 71% in the past five years in the aftermath of the Iraq and Afghanistan campaigns.

And while this may catch many as a surprise, the growth in cases is actually a good thing. As we’ve already mentioned, mental health problems have been a taboo topic in American society for some time, but our gradual acceptance that it’s okay to come forward has led to more people being treated and helped. Even referrals have increased “from 1,443 in the financial year 2010/11 to 2,472 in 2015/16 – a 71% rise.” We should be encouraged that more men and women are coming forward. It’s our duty to provide them with the help and resources they need.

2. 5% of military service dogs also suffer PTSD

It may be a surprise to learn that man’s best friend can also fall victim to a condition that impairs its master. Studies have found that about 5% of military dogs develop the disorder. In the military, many dogs are used for bomb detection, and in police departments for search and rescue to find bodies after disasters. It’s not surprising, then, that dogs may be adversely affected after experiencing the horrors of war and natural disasters.

In addition, similar to their masters, dogs can fall victim to PTSD from abuse. Many dogs found in shelters are suffering from PTSD as a result of mistreatment, neglect, and abandonment. Some reported cases of PTSD in dogs even occurred from losing their human caretaker. Just goes to show that animals are capable of emotions quite similar to humans.

1. Ecstasy could be a viable treatment method

Who knew Ecstasy could be more than just a party drug? Scientists have discovered that the ingredient MDMA has demonstrated promise in a small clinical study. Studies suggest that MDMA causes “a big increase in the levels of several neurotransmitters in the brain, the most predominant of which is serotonin.” The increase in serotonin leads to feelings of well-being and happiness, which is beneficial for PTSD sufferers during therapy sessions.

Psychiatrists note that the use of MDMA results in patients being in an “optimal arousal zone.” With more emotions and feelings flooding the patients, therapists are better able to discuss and reconcile the past traumatic event with the stimuli that cause episodes of PTSD.

It must be noted that ecstasy has not been proven to work in isolation, but in conjunction with therapy.

CJ Hardin is living proof that medicinal ecstasy could be of great use to PTSD sufferers. In a New York Times article, Hardin chronicles the struggles he had after returning from three tours in Iraq and Afghanistan. He was divorced, an alcoholic, and even admits contemplating suicide. All the different forms of medications and therapies associated with PTSD were not working. He was at wit’s end.

Then, in 2013, he joined a small clinical study that used MDMA, and he says, “it’s changed my life.” According to Hardin, the drug allowed him to open up about his experiences and see his trauma without “fear or hesitation.”

Here’s hoping that Ecstasy can do a little more good in the world than just helping you become the life of the party.

The Wild West era of American history is often romanticized as a time of rugged outlaws and fearless lawmen. Those people really did exist, of course. But there was much more to this period than just gun battles and train robberies. Beneath the surface of the popular narrative lies the story of everyday people who kept frontier society running. That included bankers, railroad workers, shopkeepers, and ranch hands.

These rugged settlers worked hard to make a living, just as we do today. Even if it wasn’t in a wild manner like cops and robbers, much of their work was honest. And their contributions to the growth and development of the West are just as important as those of the famous gunslingers and lawmen.

While the Wild West may seem like a distant and foreign world, the people who lived during that time were not so different from us. They had to find work and pay for their livelihoods. In turn, they made a life for themselves and their families. To that end, the variety of jobs available during this time was quite diverse. From blacksmiths and stagecoach drivers to merchants and saloon keepers, commerce ruled out West.

In this list today, you’ll learn all about the truth behind ten jobs held by America’s westward pioneers. Some of these sure aren’t as wild as you might think. And they all have a reality far different than the Old West stereotypes so often presented in pop culture!

10 Ranch Work

There’s a good reason the image of the cowboy is ingrained in American culture today. That’s because it was a legitimate and adventurous way to earn a buck out West! On the big screen, the cowboy is a romanticized figure in American culture. He is often portrayed as a heroic and adventurous individual. But the reality of the job was far from glamorous.

The cowboy’s main responsibility was to protect cattle on the ranch where he lived. This was no easy task back in the day. Bandits and outlaws were known to steal cattle constantly. Then, the thieves would sell the valuable meat and hides on the black market. A cowboy had to be constantly vigilant. Think of him as a high-end security guard—with plenty of back-breaking physical duties to carry out, too.

Now, the cowboy is often associated with American culture, but the origins of the profession can be traced back to Mexico. The Mexican cowboy, known as a vaquero, had the same duties as their American counterpart. He was tasked with protecting and overseeing cattle. But the manual labor was often the most brutal part. To be successful in this profession, one had to possess certain skills. These included roping, lassoing, herding, fence-making, and riding.

Cowboys earned decent wages for the time. Many took in between $25 and $40 a month, which is equivalent to about $1,000 to $1,500 in today’s currency. However, the work was grueling. Long days often exceeded the modern 8-hour workday. And there was no paid time off or anything like that. The work droned on until it was done!^[1]

9 Law Enforcement

The image you almost certainly have of the Wild West is that of a lawless frontier. You see it being overrun by gun-slinging outlaws, right? Well, that’s a common scene perpetuated by movies and pop culture. But the reality of the era was quite different. There were certainly instances of banditry—and we’ll discuss that below—but the overall level of lawlessness was not as widespread as depicted. In fact, law enforcement jobs were some of the most consistent and high-prestige gigs in the region!

In the absence of a formal law enforcement structure from the state, fledgling towns in the Old West had to establish their own methods of order. This led to the rise of strongman figures like sheriffs, deputies, and bounty hunters. They brought criminals to justice and proudly defended their communities. Additionally, lawyers, judges, and executioners were well-paid to ensure outlaws were punished accordingly.

As formal society moved westward in time, the region offered a variety of legitimate work opportunities for those seeking to uphold the law. Positions such as U.S. Marshals were commonly found in more established towns. And the need for paid, full-time law enforcement officials was high throughout the frontier. However, as with any system, there were opportunities for corruption. Some towns became known as “outlaw towns.” There, the local government was controlled by criminals and corrupt city managers.

Over the years, state lawmen would work to fight back against the grift. Bounty hunters would swoop in, too. They could make big bucks working somewhat outside the structure of the law. Of course, their jobs came with considerable risk to themselves. But despite all that, the West provided a unique and exciting opportunity for those willing to take on the challenges of law enforcement. Prestige was part of the gig from the start—and the pay often proved decent enough to turn it into a career.^[2]

8 Mining

Mining has long been seen as a gritty, unglamorous profession. This has certainly been true in the coal mines of the East Coast, where the dangers of the job have often outweighed the potential for profit. However, on the American frontier, the situation was different.

The miners here were digging for gold and silver. Many worked alone and in small teams. And a single successful strike could lead to immediate and sometimes lifelong wealth. This quest for gold and silver led to the settlement of many towns on the Western frontier. The men who came after these riches often failed, but the drive for wealth proved alluring.

As the mining industry in the West grew, it expanded to include other minerals. Iron, copper, oil, and gas were all pulled out of the ground in time. This meant more opportunities for profit. As a result, more people were eager to work in the mines. But despite the potential for wealth, mining was far from easy or simple. Safety was often overlooked, and the health of the miners was almost completely disregarded.

A study at a mine in Butte, Montana, found that miners were dying from tuberculosis at 10 times the national average. Of course, it was likely due to the presence of dust in the mine. Scientific data from the old days is scarce, of course, but this was very likely not an isolated incident. Similar conditions often existed in other mining operations as well. Miners worked tirelessly during their lives, putting their bodies through hell in the hopes of (quite literally) striking gold. Some did… and changed their lives forever—but most failed and fell by the wayside.^[3]

7 Saloon Bartender

Saloons were a staple of the Wild West. Like lawmen, barkeepers were present in nearly every frontier town. The saloons’ simplicity in setup made them a profitable venture for entrepreneurs. And they served as a natural community center of sorts—for all the adult men in town, at least.

All that was needed was a roof over one’s head, some seating, and of course, alcohol. These establishments often served as the first businesses to open in new towns. The harsh conditions of frontier life left people in need of a place to unwind. And with single men being overrepresented on the frontier, especially in its early days, the saloon became a place to congregate.

Working at a saloon was a very viable option for those seeking employment out West. The nature of the job allowed for a flexible schedule. Plus, the pay and tips were pretty decent, usually, which meant workers often had a chance to save some money. Many bartenders even used the job as a stepping stone to other service-related careers. Of course, the size of the establishment determined the number of employees needed. In small towns, the operations were minuscule. But business was usually always good because settlers almost always wanted to drink.

And as saloons grew, so too did the need for additional staff. Jobs were added constantly as saloons ballooned. Gambling operators, porters, and tobacco room attendants all became legitimate work options. Of course, while the job opportunities were plentiful, the nature of the work was not always respectable. Saloon keepers were often seen as immoral by the more religious townsfolk. And constantly having to break up bar fights wasn’t exactly a highlight of the gig. But the work was steady, and the pay kept rolling in. For many, that’s all they could ask!^[4]

6 Teaching School

Teaching has always played a vital role in society. After all, someone must pass down knowledge and skills to future generations, right? This was especially true in the Wild West. There, the importance of education was not overlooked. Despite the prominence of other establishments, such as saloons, towns knew they needed teachers. So they would make it a point to bring skilled educators out when settlements got large enough.

A teacher’s job in an Old West town was grueling in some ways. The days were long, and the demands from the kids were varied. But it was largely work held in high esteem. And it was remarkably consistent in its delivery. So, many seeking some sense of normalcy way out west would line up to teach. It offered the ability to work closely with the frontier’s future, after all.

The one-room prairie schoolhouse is often depicted in popular culture. And it really was a common sight on the frontier. These schools presented unique challenges for teachers. After all, they were responsible for educating a diverse range of ages and abilities within a single classroom. Young children and teenagers were all housed together during the school day. So teachers had to get creative with their delivery methods. Literacy was paramount. Reading, writing, and arithmetic were key functions of the role.

In that way, many teachers succeeded in bringing literacy to the Great Plains and beyond. All the way through, it required careful lesson planning and the ability to keep all students engaged. While colleges were a long way off at the time, getting more kids through school each year helped to settle and civilize the wild pioneers of the Old West. Subsequent generations still have those teachers to thank!^[5]

5 Banking and Finance

As we’ve seen, the Wild West is often depicted as a lawless frontier. Danger lurked around every corner! In some cases, it certainly did. But as we are learning, this perception of the Old West is not entirely accurate. Take the profession of banking, for example. Sure, there were certainly instances of robberies by armed bandits. But banking was largely an above-board endeavor.

In fact, banking was a relatively safe and steady employment opportunity in many Western towns. Banks on the frontier came in various forms. Some were owned by private investors. Others were developed by larger corporations like the Hudson Bay Company and Wells Fargo.

With the discovery of gold in California, the need for banks increased dramatically. Almost overnight, prospectors sought to protect and grow their newfound wealth. This provided ample opportunities for all types of bank workers. From owners to tellers, the jobs were plentiful. The creation of the United States national banking system in 1863 further added stability to the banking industry.

In fact, it standardized currency transfers between banks and eliminated the threat of “wildcat banks” that took deposits and then disappeared. As a result, regulation brought a sense of security to the employment opportunities within banks. And it gave the general public more trust in them. Just as we’ve seen with old-time school teachers, banking became a relatively noble profession in the Old West.^[6]

4 Railroad Work

As the mining and ranching industries boomed in the Old West, related job opportunities flourished. The Central Pacific Railroad expansion westward, in particular, required an overwhelming amount of labor. All the men that wanted to work could get on with the railroad. But there were still more spaces to fill, and the frontier alone could not provide it. Despite needing thousands of laborers at any given time to build out track, there just weren’t that many able hands.

To fill this gap, Central Pacific looked to Chinese immigrants to supply the necessary workforce. This was a significant development in the American frontier. It not only helped build the railroad, but it also provided jobs for many people. And it brought an entirely new wave of immigrants to the West.

As you might expect, money was abundant in the railroad business. Monthly wages at the time ranged right around the modern-day equivalent of $1,000. For settlers seeking steady work and some pay, those were big bucks. It gave many men some semblance of normalcy through what was otherwise a rough life. But the work was back-breaking too.

The Union Pacific and the Central Pacific Railroad laid over 1,700 miles (2,736 kilometers) of tracks across the West. It required a tremendous amount of labor and money. And many of those who built out the lines buckled under the physical toll. Even so, these men effectively built the American frontier as we know it today. Without their work, logistics out West would have been unimaginably bad, and modernity would have gotten to the frontier at an even slower pace.^[7]

3 Blacksmithing

The blacksmithing profession may not be as memorable today as some other careers in the Old West. But it was certainly one of the most reliable. And it was particularly profitable, too! During frontier times, blacksmiths were in high demand. Today, some even consider it a “golden age” for the profession. With the development of settler locales and the need for construction, blacksmiths immediately became the region’s go-to experts on tools.

Frontier founders relied on their expertise in crafting tools. From hammers to horseshoes, everything needed to be strong and durable for use on a daily basis. To that end, it was the blacksmith’s job to keep everything running. And many soon became responsible for creating and repairing heavy agricultural equipment like plows and shovels.

Blacksmiths were well-compensated for their services. At the time, many earned anywhere from $1 to $1.50 per day for repairs. Some even pocketed $5 or more every time they carved out new equipment. In today’s currency, that equates to roughly $30 to $200 per day. It may not sound like much to some of you, but back then, those were serious wages. Blacksmiths were even responsible for repairing carriages, too. That added to the diversity of services they offered.

In turn, it only increased their earning potential. The wages were so good that blacksmiths would often hire apprentices to assist with daily operations. Slowly, these experts would teach the trade to their young charges. This not only helped with the workload but also ensured the continuation of the profession. For decades, blacksmiths lived well out West. And the things they forged helped to create the frontier!^[8]

2 Service Industry Gigs

The American West was a land of opportunity for many people. As we’ve seen, a wide range of businesses popped up in frontier towns. These businesses all required a diverse set of workers. Some had specialized skills, as we’ve already seen with blacksmiths. But others had far more transferrable abilities. In the growing service industry, in particular, these less-skilled workers found reliable career paths. Restaurants, hotels, saloons, and other establishments provided various employment options.

Every business had an owner, and every owner needed workers to keep their business running smoothly and generating money. Plus, settler towns were full of transient men just passing through. They needed spots in which to stay, dine, and drink. Suddenly, service work in hotels and restaurants became critical to a town’s infrastructure.

As the 20th century approached, the food and hospitality industries in the West began to evolve. Fancier dishes made their way out to the frontier. Things like oysters and other delicacies started getting shipped out on newly-laid train tracks. The appearance of new products like that required even more specialization from cooks and staff.

Hotels also saw a boom in quality and quantity. Of course, they were not nearly as luxurious as they are today. Hotels of the era were often remarkably dirty and lacked basic amenities like bathtubs. Nonetheless, travelers still needed a place to sleep. And workers were very much needed to keep the operations running. Thus, the service industry boomed. Even without most high-end amenities, the opportunity for employment in the West’s hospitality industry was always strong.^[9]

1 Journalism

The frontier may not have seemed like a place that would involve the newspaper business. But interestingly, papers were actually quite prevalent! Take the then-tiny town of Tucson, Arizona. In the 1831 census, it was recorded as having five different newspapers. And that was with having only 465 residents in town that year! That works out to almost one newspaper for every one hundred locals.

People wanted news in the West, and papers popped up all over to provide it. And this doesn’t even include the magazines that were also published across frontier towns. There was no television or radio back then, of course. So settlers needed some other way to get information. Papers were a relatively cost-effective way of (quite literally) spreading the news. Western readers—many of whom had been taught to read by those aforementioned school teachers—picked up copies in droves.

The newspaper industry required many different jobs to keep it running smoothly. Of course, there were the writers who crafted the words. But there were also the specialized design and print staffers who brought them to life on paper. And every town had people who delivered the newspapers to readers. Thus, each and every small newspaper and magazine needed a variety of people to keep it going. The content of these papers was diverse too.

Over the years, it spanned local news, wires from back East, political opinions, and even sports. For those with a talent for writing and something to say, the Old West was a great place to be. Running a paper truly meant keeping a thumb on the pulse of that outlet’s local area.^[10]

+ BONUS: Crime

We might as well talk about it, right? Today, outlaws and bandits are seen as a key part of the Old West. And while the reality of their presence is slightly more mundane than John Wayne might have you believe, crime did pay—sometimes—on the frontier. After all, in remote settlements, the law was often far away. People largely loved it! After all, they were free to live their lives as they saw fit. Adventurous men took to the West like moths to a flame. But not everybody was there to play nice.

Among those who sought their fortunes in the untamed frontier were unscrupulous and violent outlaws. They made a living by preying on the weak among them. Many of the worst simply took what they wanted by force. Although they were reviled by most settlers, these outlaws were very much a part of the fabric of the Wild West. And for disillusioned men who had been cast aside by society, banditry offered an alternative form of employment. Many who were not cut out for more traditional careers turned to crime and the dreams of quick cash.

However, it’s important to remember that the Wild West was not as wild as it is often portrayed today. Despite the lawlessness that characterized the frontier, the law did ultimately prevail. Many of the most famous gunfights and outlaw raids were short-lived and scattered. Often, law enforcement officials of the era were able to bring culprits to swift and violent justice. The shine of being an outlaw in the Old West typically wore off quickly.

With prison and death very real possibilities for those gangsters, the reality of thug life on the frontier was a stark one. After all, there’s a reason so many bandits didn’t live to see old age. The career simply wasn’t a viable long-term option, even if it seemed attractive at first.^[11]