So you want to be a writer? If you even bothered to click on this list, you’ve already admitted it to yourself. Maybe writing is your passion. Maybe it’s your hobby. Or maybe you’ve just run into an awful article somewhere on the Web and thought to yourself, “Hey, I could do better than this.” Well, if you can come up with an incredible Top 10 list, then we here at Listverse will publish your work for all the world to see. How many people exactly? Try one million visits per day.

We’ll even give you money for your hard work: US$100 to be exact (paid via paypal or bitcoin). Interested? Then check out our submissions page. Or perhaps you’re not convinced yet. Maybe you need more than 100 portraits of George Washington’s green mug to persuade you that Listverse is worthy of your blood, sweat, and tears. Not sure? Let me convince you.

6 You’re Totally Qualified

Breaking into a new field can be challenging, especially if you’re a writer. Lots of sites are looking for folks with “experience only” which is pretty discouraging for newcomers. But here at Listverse, we’re just like famed rocker Billy Joel: We love you just the way you are. It doesn’t matter if you’re an aspiring novelist, an attorney, a filmmaker, a guy who thinks he’s a car, or a ’70s rock star who played with Joan Jett and the Runaways. All you have to do is follow the guidelines and get busy typing. Seriously, it’s so simple that, well, even I can do it. Before submitting my first Listverse article, I hadn’t written anything other than college papers and long-winded Facebook rants. I just had an idea and a computer and then boom! I was on the front page of the site. And that’s a very empowering experience.

5 You Can Show Off Your Smarts

You’re a unique individual with your own amazing experiences. Wouldn’t you like to share them with the world? Maybe you’ve traveled the globe, and you’ve seen things most people wouldn’t believe. Then why not write an article about your experiences like 10 Bizarre Aspects Of Chinese Culture? Maybe you’re a political junkie who’s spent your life studying international affairs so you could write a list like The 10 Worst Diplomatic Faux Pas By Famous Politicians. Or maybe your encyclopedic knowledge of movie trivia would put Quentin Tarantino to shame. If so, share it with the rest of mankind and write something like 10 Obscure Films Memorialized For All The Wrong Reasons.

As for me, I’ve spent the last three years teaching English to South Korean students, a job which provided plenty of interesting tidbits for a list like 10 Awesome Facts About South Korea. And as a teenager, I knew a couple of paranoid nut jobs which provided plenty of fodder for lists like 10 Crazy Catholic Conspiracy Theories. So what do you do for a living? Where have you been, what have you seen, and what do you enjoy talking about? Put it in a list and send it here. The world wants to read it, and we want to pay you for it.

4 Access To The Writers’ Forum

Did you know Listverse has a forum dedicated especially to its writers? It’s specifically built to let writers work directly with the editors, connect with other writers and people who know people, and get a glimpse of the fascinating little ins and outs of the business. And we want you to be there, too.

Once you’ve had your first article published, you’ll be given access to the forum. Every day, the editors post amazing factlets they want to see turned into lists—you claim an idea, and away you go! It might be the closest thing to free money this side of a broken ATM. If you can cut the mustard, we want to help you cut it harder (and write strong metaphors).

(Note: If you have been published on the site, but haven’t received your invitation, let the bosses know. They’ll get you set up.)

3 You’d Be Writing For One Of The Best Sites On The Web

Maybe you’re in the writing game for the prestige, and you don’t want to sell your work to just any Top 10 website. Fair enough. We aren’t going to name names, but there are plenty of places that publish subpar articles riddled with typos and the latest tabloid headlines. But that’s not going to happen at Listverse. Not only do we have simple, straightforward guidelines that’ll show you the ropes, but we have a crack team of editors who will make your articles all the more professional by catching your typos and dispensing sage, Yoda-esque advice. The stuff published here is the best of the best.

Of course, you don’t have to take my word for it. The folks at Time magazine know a thing or two about lists. After all, they write them all the . . . time. And in 2011, they compiled a list of the 25 best blogs on the web. Care to guess which Top 10 website founded by Jamie Frater made the cut? Not only that, but Listverse has been featured by the BBC, New York Times, National Geographic, and PBS. Imagine telling your friends—or future employer—that you’ve written for a website like Listverse, all because you clicked this link. At the very least, your mother will be proud.

2 Your List Could Show Up In A Book

Did you know Listverse is in the book business? As of right now, we’ve published three books of our content, and the fourth one is already available for pre-order. Wouldn’t it be awesome if your list showed up in the fifth? Our books are chock-full of the best articles Listverse has to offer. If you can make it on the site, you might make it into a book, a book that’s going to end up in libraries, stores, and coffee tables around the world. And assuming it’s kept far away from moisture, book lice, and fascist firemen, it’s going to last a long time. So think about it like this . . . you’ve read the guidelines and sent in a $100 list for millions of people to read, and as an added bonus, your work might end up on a Barnes & Noble bookshelf. If nothing else, they’d make cool Christmas gifts for your friends, or an excellent way to introduce yourself at parties. “Yeah, I’m a published author.”

1 Now Just Go Do It

Have I totally convinced you to get started on your first mind-blowing list? Maybe you feel ready to jump in right now. You’ve been reading the site for a long time, and you know what we like to read and publish. In that case, double-check your sources and dive right in.

But maybe you take things a little slower. Maybe you want to read 10 Tips for Getting Paid to Write for Listverse. It’s another great article full of solid advice from a guy who knows all the tricks of the trade. If you’re thinking about giving Listverse a go, it’s definitely worth your time.

+ Don’t Forget About KnowledgeNuts

If Listverse is a cup of caramel macchiato, rich and full, then KnowledgeNuts is a shot of espresso. The site is full of micro-articles charged with concentrated doses of interesting info. Not only is it a blast for readers, it’s an awesome opportunity for writers.

Maybe you know one cool fact about Japanese history. That’s not enough for a list, but it’s perfect for a Nut! Throw together a few hundred words about something like The Ant-Walking Alligators Of Hiroshima, and you’ll make an easy 10 dollars! Do you always correct your friends on The Difference Between Hades And Satan? Well, there are plenty of people who don’t (people like me) so turn that tidbit into a KnowledgeNut. Or if you grit your teeth whenever people mention a brontosaurus, explain how The Brontosaurus Never Existed and pull down a quick 10 bucks. If you can keep it short, strong, and entertaining, then you should give KnowledgeNuts a try!

Nolan Moore is an ESL teacher who spends his spare time writing for Listverse.

If you want to send him an idea for a list, offer him a lucrative writing job or just send him hate mail, shoot him an email at [email protected].

Many researchers, mainstream and otherwise, believe that we are not the first advanced civilization to have existed on Earth. Furthermore, they postulate that in prehistory, unrecorded history, one or more advanced civilizations just might have existed, thrived, declined, and perished before us.

While this is an outlandish notion for most people, when broken down, it isn’t as crazy as it first seems, not least when you consider what might become of ourselves should a sudden end announce itself without warning. Chances are, should life begin again, nobody would remember that we had even existed. If that’s the case, then, who’s to say that advanced civilizations didn’t exist thousands of years before our own recorded history?

10 Power Stations Would Shut Down Fast

Let’s say that something happened to wipe out the vast majority of human life on planet Earth. Be it a sudden super-contagious virus, a meteorite, a solar flare, a nuclear war, or even (you know it’s coming) an alien invasion, if it was to happen, life would disappear with alacrity.

Seriously, though, many of us don’t realize just how precarious our existence is here on Earth. Let’s say the vast majority of human life is wiped out by any of the hypothetical situations mentioned above; surely there’d be survivors, right? The thing is, where would the power come from? With no one to run them, the power stations, and with them, the world’s electricity supply, would shut down relatively quickly. In fact, many of them would switch into safety mode to avoid any disasters.

However, eventually, with nobody to oversee these procedures, nuclear power plants, their cooling waters having boiled off, would go into meltdown. Chernobyl-type scenarios would unfold all around the planet.^[1] In short, you really wouldn’t want to be around, and if you were, you would want to be completely out of the way somewhere. We’ll talk more about the survivors in entry number five.

9 Man-Made Objects

Most man-made objects, whether comprised of wood, plastic, metal, or anything other than stone (which we will look at later also) will simply disappear, even down to the roads and streets, which will be completely overcome with vegetation within only several decades at the very most.^[2] Just to take that a stage further, within “only” a few centuries, the metal frameworks of the buildings and the bridges around the world will simply rust, break down, and collapse. All that will be left will be the crumpled and piled ruins.

Within only 10,000 years, which is but a snapshot in terms of geological time, just about all that remains will be the stone. And even then, only that which was built purely from stone will survive in any recognizable form (and still might be buried). As mentioned, bridges and buildings will have collapsed due to their rusted and decaying metal parts and will lie in ruins. Over the course of time, much like our ancient sites today, these ruins will be lucky to be pieced together in the future, if ever.

8 Only Stone Will Survive

Is it any wonder that the structures we have left of the ancient world are the buildings, monuments, and statues carved from stone? And make no mistake, there was much, much more than just stonework at one time.

As we have mentioned above, only true stone structures will survive any type of annihilation of humanity for any significant amount of time,^[3] and even then, the remains would then be subject to any future civilizations and explorers stripping such monuments of what they see as valuable and leaving the rest, much like was done with the Egyptian pyramids (and, who knows, maybe the Sphinx) over course of history.

With that in mind, then, how many of our modern structures might survive thousands, or even hundreds of thousands of years, into the future? Ironically, it would mostly be the buildings from antiquity that would still survive. And again, with that in mind, how long have such structures really been there, and who did they once belong to?

7 Myths And Legends

Although they are certainly not the same as solid stone monuments by any stretch of the imagination, should we perhaps pay more attention to certain types of myths and legends that persist across many cultures over thousands of years?^[4] For example, was there really a great flood, even if only in the form of several episodes of localized but substantial flooding that just might have wiped out entire communities? Such calamities would have surely seemed like the end of the world to those civilizations that experienced them.

And what about the tales of “the gods”—higher beings with advanced technology that ruled over mankind? Are these really just legends? Or might there be some truth to such stories? Shortly, we will look at the possibility of survivors from such an “end of the world” situation. What if “the gods” of the past were the survivors of an even older advanced civilization? Might that explain the powers (or advanced technology) of the gods? Or the advanced knowledge of the gods? It is certainly an interesting notion.

6 Ancient Egypt

While we have looked in our previous points at what might happen if our civilization was to face a sudden, life-ending disaster in order to prove, at least in theory, that other civilizations very much could have existed before our recorded history, it is also worth looking back at known ancient civilizations. If we look at the ancient Egyptians, for example, it is perfectly obvious, and even accepted by mainstream scholars, that they appear to have begun their civilization already at the height of their power and then went into permanent decline.^[5]

To some researchers, who are very much shunned by most mainstream experts, this suggests that the Egyptians “took over” the remnants of an ancient, “lost” civilization. From these types of theories generally spring the further claims that such ancient structures as the Pyramids of Giza are more likely monuments and buildings of an Atlantean-type society as opposed to the work of the Egyptians themselves.

5 Survivors Would Be Reduced To Cavemen

Now, let’s say that some people have survived our hypothetical modern-world-ending disaster. What would become of them, realistically? For a start, they would very likely not be concerned with searching out technology or things of that nature. Chances are, once the system has gone down, and the power is off, they will be concerned with their survival more than anything else.^[6] They will no longer be on top of the food chain. Without the aid of our modern plethora of technological gadgets and advanced buildings, many remaining humans will be easy picking for hungry wild animals.

Any survivors would be preoccupied with hunting and gathering whatever food they could and finding some kind of shelter. As the generations go on, humanity’s connection to the “old” world would return. By the third and forth generation, chances are all that would be remembered of pre-disaster Earth would be no different than what myths and legends are to us now. In short, life would be starting again, from scratch.

4 Discoveries Of Mysterious Ancient Objects

As a further point of interest, and perhaps evidence, there have been numerous discoveries of ancient objects, apparently the result of intelligent design, dating to far before such objects should have existed. And what’s more, they’ve been found all over the planet. For example, in 1912, in the small town of Wilburton, Oklahoma, two employees at the Municipal Electrical Plant reportedly discovered a particularly oversized piece of coal that they couldn’t fit into the furnace, which they were stocking to keep the plant ticking over.

They would proceed to smash the coal to smaller pieces so that they could toss the remains into the flames. When they did, though, a perfectly formed and recognizable iron pot fell to the floor. It was allegedly examined and found to be authentic. Why was it there, in a piece of coal that was millions of years of old?

Even more bizarre are the strange spheres, made of some very hard substance, purportedly brought up from the mines of South Africa on multiple occasions by miners.^[7] These spheres have bizarre grooves in them and are of obvious purposeful design. What they might be and, more importantly, why they are there is open to debate.

3 Discoveries Of Tools

As well as mysterious objects that may or may not have a use, many very purposeful and obvious tools have been discovered in pieces of rock that, if we accept what science tells us, are millions of years old.

One particularly intriguing case occurred in London, Texas, in 1936, when the head of a hammer was discovered in a piece of rock believed by some to be as old as 400 million years. (Others say only 700 years.) In 1944, a ten-year-old boy, Newton Anderson, would find a handmade bell in a piece of coal. The lump of coal was reportedly 300 million years old.^[8]

Numerous other purported discoveries of strange, seemingly ancient, objects are on record, many of them from the 1800s and before. The book Forbidden Archaeology lists example after example.

2 Advanced Ancient Technology

Many mainstream historians simply do not accept the notion that many of the ancient civilizations, including the ancient Egyptians and Sumerians, had, at one point in the distant past, advanced technology.^[9] However, many reasons are put forward for this notion, not least the obviously advanced knowledge of the cosmos and the workings of the universe that so many ancient civilizations possessed. Even the placement of many of their famous structures mirrors the arrangement of the stars and the planets to such an accuracy that such knowledge cannot be denied.

We could also look to such devices as the “Baghdad Battery” or the traces of acids in the passageways of the Giza Pyramid that suggest some kind of generation of electricity. And what of the many sites around the world that reportedly show signs of nuclear explosions in the distant past? A prominent example is Mohenjo-Daro, which some researchers, most notably David Davenport in his book Atomic Destruction 2000 BC, have postulated was the site of intentionally made nuclear weapons being purposefully deployed long ago. This, of course, would suggest, as Davenport agreed, that a highly advanced civilization existed.

1 Historians Have A ‘Myopic’ View

At the end of the day, no matter the interesting, valid, and, to varying degrees, legitimate views and claims on either side of the argument, the sad fact is that for many mainstream historians, much like mainstream scientists, archaeologists, and most other specialties ending in “ist,” the view is generally, in the words of Graham Hancock, “very myopic.”^[10]

The reasons for this are numerous. Firstly, amid the constant jockeying for limited funding, nobody wishes to put their head above the parapets. So, as a result, the “status quo” opinion is maintained. Those who do discover things of interest that go against the established paradigm and then, more to the point, attempt to tell the world about them, face a sudden cutting of their funding and, even worse, the wrath of their contemporaries. Perhaps a good example would be the case of Dr. Virginia Steen-McIntyre, who, after discovering ruins in Mexico that suggested civilization in the Americas going back 250,000 years—using accepted, tested methods no less—was suddenly and universally shut out by the “accepted” scientific and archaeological communities.

Right now, the phrase “Middle East” is pretty much synonymous with “gigantic clusterf—k.” But how did things get to be so monumentally bad? How did a region once famed for its tolerance, wisdom, and learning turn into one famed for bloodshed, mayhem, and chaos? To figure that out, we need to delve into the region’s history.

10 The Sunni/Shia Split

In AD 632, things must have been looking pretty rosy for Islam. The outcast sect had swept through Mecca, uniting the entire Arabian peninsula. Muhammad’s clan was strong, they had God on their side, and there were fresh lands for conquering.

Then Muhammad died without naming an heir, and everything went to hell.

Between all his conquering and religion-founding, Muhammad hadn’t found time to father a son. This meant that no one knew who took over when he died. Many of his followers thought his father-in-law, Abu Bakr, should be the first caliph. A smaller, separate bunch thought his cousin Ali ibn Abi Talib should be the first Imam. From that minor disagreement arose the sectarian split that’s been haunting the region ever since—the divide between Sunnis (team Abu) and Shia (team Ali).

9 Centuries Of Disagreement

Despite their differences, the two teams rubbed along fine at first. After three Sunni-chosen caliphs, Team Abu even agreed to make Shia Ali their fourth caliph. Everyone was happy.

Then Ali died, and his son took over. Deciding that one Shia caliph was enough, the Sunnis deposed him. That event set the course for the next 1,400 years of history.

The Shia created their own hierarchy, recognizing imams descended from Ali instead of caliphs. Sometimes, these two systems got along, but when they didn’t, the Shia suffered. During the 16th century, the Ottomans mass executed 40,000 Shia. Later, the Indian Mughal emperors would burn Shia scholars alive. Later still, British colonialists would hire Sunni militias to hunt Shia rebels in Iraq.

Naturally, this led to simmering resentments. As history shows, such resentments have a tendency to eventually boil over.

8 Saudi Arabia’s Deal With The Devil

While these problems were ticking over, an 18th-century Islamic reformist named Ibn Abd al-Wahhab was getting mad.

At the time, Sunni Islam had a big list of stuff you couldn’t do (like worshiping images) that the Shia nonetheless did. Wahhab thought the restrictions should be even stricter and that those who broke them were apostates. That meant the Quran sanctioned their killing.

Wahhabism caught on big time in the Sunni world, so much so that the House of Saud decided to make an alliance with its preachers. In return for their endorsement of the fledgling Saud state, the House of Saud would promote the Wahhabists and shower them with funds.

The pact worked; the House of Saud became rulers of the powerful Saudi Arabia. But it also left them in hock to a dangerous, ultraconservative ideology. It wouldn’t be long before their alliance came back to haunt them.

7 Lines On Maps

For centuries, the Sunni Ottoman Empire was the beast of the Middle East. A superpower that styled itself as a continuation of the Caliphate, it was the glue holding the Middle East together.

Then World War I hit.

If the Great War was bad for Europe, it was a calamity for the Ottomans. Their empire disappeared overnight. The Allied powers divided it up into new nations by drawing a series of lines on a map. From the dust of Turkish rule, Syria, Iraq, and other modern nations arose.

The trouble was that these nations were made up of peoples with not much in common. Shias and Sunnis were thrown together and told to play nice. Kurds, Christians, Yazidis, and others were spread thinly between states. Essentially, a whole bunch of mini-Yugoslavias had just been created. And like Yugoslavia, it only worked so long as there was prosperity and no stoking of ethnic tensions.

6 Iran Gets The CIA Treatment

As all this was going on, there still remained one final player waiting in the wings. In 1941, Iran’s pro-Hitler shah was deposed by Allied forces. This led to a brief flirtation with democracy that would have ramifications for those ethnic tensions we just mentioned.

Although the Allies were happy to see the Iranians trying out democracy, they didn’t like who they democratically elected. Mohammad Mosaddegh was a secular, pro-democracy anti-Islamist who just happened to be a Marxist. As such, he nationalized the British-connected Anglo-Persian Oil Company. The Brits went running to the Americans, who orchestrated a coup to remove Mosaddegh and replace him with the shah’s son.

The new shah was just as corrupt and dictatorial as his daddy. Realizing that democracy had just gotten them more oppression, Iran’s masses began to look for alternative methods of revolution. They found them in the county’s marginalized hard-line Shia preachers.

5 Saudi Arabia’s Internal Problems

Back in Saudi Arabia, the House of Saud was in a worrying bind.

By the 1970s, Wahhabism had gotten very extreme. Its anti-Shia, pro-jihad ideology was attracting hate preachers who poured bile across the Middle East, stoking up Sunni-Shia tensions. It was from these teachings that Al-Qaeda would eventually emerge.

Unfortunately, the internal politics of Saudi Arabia had become so tense that pulling the plug on Wahhabism was impossible. The clerics would’ve whipped up a revolution. So the royal family kept quietly funding this poison, exporting Wahhabism to an ever bigger audience.

Like Chinese water torture, this constant drip-drip of hate was slowly taking effect. The Saudis were spending literally billions of dollars pushing an ultra-extreme version of Islam on Sunnis in Lebanon, Jordan, Syria, and Bahrain—and people were listening. Suddenly, Sunnis and Shia were beginning to look at one another with a whole lot of distrust.

4 Iran Gets Its Revolution

January 7, 1978, marked the moment that all these little streams began to converge into one big, roaring river. It was the start of the Iranian Revolution, a revolution which would see the shah flee, the Ayatollah Khomeini take his place, and the establishment of a hard-line Shia theocracy. It was also the moment that Sunni Saudi Arabia went into panic mode.

The revolution challenged the Saud state’s very being. The Ayatollah explicitly argued that hereditary kingship was against Islam. He also declared postrevolutionary Iran to represent all Muslims, something Saudi Arabia already claimed about itself. Those old seventh-century problems about Sunni/Shia legitimacy were resurfacing again.

Over the following decades, both countries began to deliberately play on those issues to legitimize their own rule. Saudi Arabia fed the Wahhabists even more money to preach the evils of Shia Islam. Iran tried to foment a Shia uprising against Saudi Arabia’s ruling Sunni clique. Each interference brought the temperature ever closer to boiling point.

3 The Iraq Disaster

Throughout the Iranian-Saudi rivalry, there was one wild card keeping everyone in check: Both sides regarded Saddam Hussein as an existential threat. The Iraqi dictator’s wild temper and obvious insanity scared everyone and counterintuitively helped to stabilize the region. Like two fighters caged up with a rabid dog, neither side wanted to make the first move and risk being bitten.

Then 2003 rolled round, and the US shot the dog.

Saddam’s death removed the last check on Iran and Saudi Arabia’s power games. Worse, it encouraged the two regional superpowers to try to fill the power vacuum in Iraq. Saudi Arabia sided with Saddam’s deposed Sunni allies, arming them against the new Shia government. Iran, meanwhile, backed Iraq’s new Shia rulers as they went on a bloody rampage against the Sunnis who had ruled them for so long.

One group to benefit from this chaos were Sunni jihadists Al-Qaeda in Iraq. They would eventually become famous under another name—ISIS.

2 Power Games

With no Saddam and Iraq in flames, Iran and Saudi Arabia began to extend their power games across the region. In Lebanon, Bahrain, and Yemen, both backed their Shia or Sunni allies against the other. Propaganda was pumped into conflict-free countries through mosques and outlets like PressTV. Suddenly, the old divide between Sunni and Shia was at the forefront of Middle Eastern life once again.

As new sectarian conflicts erupted across the region, it became harder and harder for Sunnis and Shia elsewhere not to take sides. In the same way that the Irish Troubles stirred Protestant and Catholic rivalries in the UK, these conflicts magnified the ancient schism and made it seem a matter of life and death.

Then, the Arab Spring exploded. As dictators toppled, wars erupted, and old certainties fell, Iran and Saudi Arabia began to fight for control of the emerging new order. Their struggle would eventually come to a head in Syria.

1 Syria Goes To Hell

By 2011, the old sectarian rivalries had been brought to boiling point. Battle-hardened jihadists were preparing for an apocalyptic war. Two regional superpowers were willing to destroy everything in a deadly game of chicken.

Then Syria imploded.

It was like everything had been leading up to this. Saudi Arabia saw a chance to remove Assad, the Iran-friendly Shia dictator. Iran felt it couldn’t let Saudi Arabia establish a Sunni client state on its doorstep. When Assad gassed his own people and the West did nothing, many Sunnis saw it as confirmation that the US and Europe were siding with Shia Iran. Primed by decades of apocalyptic Wahhabist preaching, they went to fight, joining and empowering groups like ISIS.

The result is a region that is now more divided than it has been for centuries—a mess of factional alliances, dangerous power games, and two big beasts carelessly using an ancient schism to boost their agendas. Until the dust clears and a winner is eventually declared, it’s likely that the Middle East will remain completely screwed up.

Many Star Wars fans are not particularly happy about the new movies, and some feel that Disney threw out the baby with the bathwater when it came to the expanded universe. See, before Disney took over, Star Wars had a huge amount of extra material (novels, comics, etc.), referred to as the expanded universe, or EU.

It used to be that all of the EU was considered canon unless directly contradicted by a movie. However, when Disney came along, they declared that the EU was all just “legends” told within the Star Wars universe. While they can still use elements of it of they so desire, they have chopped the whole thing to pieces, and there were a lot of good reasons why.

10 The ‘Big Three’ Were Far Beyond The Age Of Most EU Stories

One of the biggest reasons that Disney had to go ahead and just throw out the baby with the bathwater is that a huge wealth of the EU stories involved the “big three” (Han, Luke, and Leia), and the actors were advancing in years. Most of these books were written back when the three were still in their prime and were quite popular as depictions of the characters go, but it’s hard to imagine how you could change a lot of the stories enough to make up for such an age gap.

The truth is that what the fans wanted was something fairly shortly after Return of the Jedi—as close as could be plausibly done—and a story that had a young Han, Luke, and Leia simply could not work. For this reason, an incredible amount of EU story lines already had to be scrapped. People simply wouldn’t have been able to suspend their disbelief. Unfortunately, no one would have believed that Mark Hamill, Harrison Ford, or Carrie Fisher were in their thirties.^[1]

9 Anakin Solo’s Entire Existence Was A Sore Point For George Lucas

In the Star Wars expanded universe, Han and Leia get married and have three kids.^[2] Two of them are twins named Jacen and Jaina, which some fans wished had been replicated at least in some form in the new movies. In fact, it is for this reason that many fans really like the idea of Rey and Ben secretly being brother and sister—it would fulfill the fan wish for Han and Leia to have had twins. However, the Solos also had another child, and George Lucas kind of wished they hadn’t.

In one of the crazier comics, Leia has her womb touched by the cloned Emperor Palpatine while she’s pregnant—another reason to ax the EU—and is worried about how it may affect her son and make him dark in the future. In order to honor her father, and somehow try to show that the name can be overcome, she names her third child Anakin, after her murderous cyborg father. George Lucas was never happy about this character, if nothing else, because he felt fans would confuse him with Anakin Skywalker. Lucas was reportedly pleased when the kid was finally killed off later on in the New Jedi Order series.

8 Many Of The Most Popular Characters Had Already Been Ruined Or Killed

As we mentioned above, in the EU, Anakin Solo was killed off in The New Jedi Order, but they killed a wealth of other characters in that series and since as well.^[3]The New Jedi Order killed off mostly side characters apart from Chewbacca and Anakin Solo, but after that, the purge really got going. Jacen Solo went to the dark side and was eventually killed by his twin sister. Meanwhile, Mara Jade, Luke Skywalker’s expanded universe wife, gets killed by Jacen Solo, her own nephew, when she tries to confront him and bring him back to the light. Han becomes a washed-up wreck, and Luke goes into exile; Luke’s son Ben gets killed as well.

In the end, nearly every main character that was remotely interesting either dies, loses all the people close to them and becomes a sad sack, or first experiences the second one and then the other—kind of like most Game of Thrones characters. By the time Disney got its hands on the franchise, you could practically count on one hand the amount of interesting characters left whose stories hadn’t already been driven into the ground with incredible force. In the end, Disney felt they needed to be able to go their own route with old characters and be able to feel more free to introduce new ones as well.

7 The Ssi-Ruuk Would Have Given Awkward Questions For Kids To Ask Their Parents

In Star Wars‘s early days, there were a few novels that just kind of left everyone wondering what kind of drugs the author was using. This was mainly because back then, the people in charge, Bantam Books, were basically just letting a lot of sci-fi authors try their hand at the universe and see what they came up with. Still, it is kind of hard to figure out how this one not only made it past the editors but even got a reprisal years later in the form of multiple appearances in The New Jedi Order—a 19-book series.

The Sii-Ruuk are a species that shows up in The Truce at Bakura, and they use a process called entechment to suck out your soul, slave it to a piece of machinery, and use your life energy to power it.^[4] You are stuck in a nightmarish state, powering their desk lamp or whatever until your energy finally fades, your soul passes on, and you die. This is a terrible, horrific thing that really belongs in the most disturbing sci-fi horror novel, but instead, it makes multiple appearances in the Star Wars EU. This is an example of killing it with fire not even being nearly enough.

6 The Yuuzhan Vong Made Such A Mess That A Hard Reset Was Almost Necessary

The Yuuzhan Vong were introduced largely in The New Jedi Order.^[5] This series focused on the invasion of the Star Wars galaxy by a group of extragalactic invaders called the Yuuzhan Vong. This species was largely humanoid but was a black hole in the Force. You could not feel them in the Force or use Force powers on them, but they could not use the Force at all themselves. They came in great numbers and swarmed through the galaxy, almost taking over and destroying everything. Using great organic machines, they reshaped entire worlds to their will.

What made the entire thing so bizarre, and almost ruined the universe from that point forth, is what they left behind. These invaders eschewed all conventional technology and pleasure and thought it evil. They worshiped pain and were extremely sadistic and masochistic. All of their weapons and technology were actually living, which was extremely bizarre and otherworldly. Their shapers, a group of their species responsible for massive genetic engineering, changed entire worlds and left their ridiculous organic matter and other invasive organisms littered all over the universe. The entire thing was simply too crazy for the Star Wars universe and ruined it forever—a hard reset was almost necessary after the horrible disaster of the New Jedi Order series, which never should have been and whose creators should still be ashamed by the existence of.

5 The EU Is So Complicated That One Man’s Entire Job Is Keeping It All Together

One thing many people who are only casual fans (not that there’s anything wrong with that) are unaware of is just how mind-bogglingly huge the entirety of the Star Wars continuity is. There are so many stories throughout so many comics, role-playing game write-ups, novels, short stories, video games, movies, cartoons, and so much media that some may consider it impossible to keep track of. However, there is actually one man whose job it is to do just that.

His name is Leland Chee, and his official title is “Keeper of the Holocron.”^[6] He has been at it for decades now, and even with the EU no longer official canon, they still want someone to keep track of the old continuity as well as the new timeline, so he still has a job. It is an incredibly staggering task, but he has managed to keep a comprehensive timeline updated over the years, with levels of “canon” for every single story for decades. However, this was all just one more reason that Disney felt they needed to tell people to just enjoy the old stories and stop worrying so much about actual continuity in a fictional universe. While Disney still has its own new continuity now, it is a much less crowded galaxy to work in with the old EU now being legends.

4 The Next 30-Odd Years After Return Of The Jedi Have Basically No Breathing Room

Another big problem facing Disney wasn’t just the big three but that even if they did want to cast them in a story, they had already been written into a corner. The period in the 30 years or so after Return of the Jedi has been by far the most popular era to write stories for in Star Wars, so that period is incredibly congested.^[7] Nearly every single moment is filled thick with story, and there really isn’t much of anything you can do to fit anything significantly new in anymore.

The fans wanted new movies in the period after Return of the Jedi, but that period is glutted with stories, and many of them are, quite frankly, terrible. A clean slate allows the writers a chance to simply write a good story and allows for new, young fans to get into Star Wars without needing to go read several dozen to a couple hundred books to get up to speed with everything that is going on in the universe.

3 Changing Anything From One Medium To Another Often Just Disappoints Fans

When Harry Potter was transferred to the big screen, some fans really liked it, and some were incredibly disappointed. Some of the later movies, especially, have been criticized as feeling rushed, and many feel in hindsight that it wasn’t just movie seven that should have had two parts to properly tell the story. However, while it is understandable that Harry Potter and its prodigious length made it especially difficult, it is always hard to translate a book into film. Books are told in an entirely different way, where everything is told to people. On the other hand, movies are a medium where everything is shown to people.

This is why the powers that be are likely reluctant to use book stories from the Star Wars expanded universe for new Star Wars movies. One medium often doesn’t translate well to the other, so it really makes more sense, if you can, to just write an original story rather than trying to translate a preexisting one from a book to a movie. It also creates an air of expectation that can be hard to live up to. If you say you are taking heavy inspiration from a particular book, certain fans will get upset the more you deviate from the source material,^[8] and that disappointment can lead to long-term lost revenue streams.

2 It’s Hard To Have Suspense When People Know The Story Already

Probably the biggest reason of all, though, one which many fans do not tend to think as much about, that Disney decided to go ahead and throw out the EU is because they want to be able to surprise people. The truth is that if you go with story lines that most people already know and don’t deviate from them much, there really isn’t going to be that much surprise, just you bringing a previously told story to the big screen.^[9] While there are plenty of people who will enjoy it, it just won’t spread through word of mouth as much or fuel as much excitement for the next movie.

If you already pretty much know what is going to happen, there really isn’t anything at all to speculate about or talk about, so there is little discussion surrounding the film. This means little to no hype and hardly anyone but the really big fans going to see the movie. The writers know that if you really want a large, general audience, you need a new story that will give people something to talk about for sometimes years to come while they wait for the next installment. For this reason, using preexisting EU stories simply weren’t practical, so Disney decided to go in a different direction.

1 They Can Still Use Characters Or Elements From The EU As They See Fit

The final reason Disney got rid of the EU is because while they did need it gone, it is never really gone if they do need any of it. The EU still has a wealth of existing planets, characters, aliens, organizations, technologies, and all sorts of other things to draw on. While all previous story lines may be axed, they can borrow if they want and bring out fan favorites all the same. For example, due to the way they were written, without even knowing how the prequel trilogy would go down, the first Star Wars expanded universe trilogy by Timothy Zahn will never be adapted into film.

However, the character Grand Admiral Thrawn, a blue alien who uses his knowledge of art to analyze his opponents, is a fan favorite, and Disney has already brought him into the official canon in all new stories.^[10] The truth is that the EU wasn’t truly destroyed; it was just marginalized so that Disney could make sense of the entire mess. All of the old content is still there and can and will be drawn on as needed, but there is simply no benefit to continuing the old continuity system—sometimes you need to start fresh.

Why do modern-day humans appear so drastically different from apes when ape species don’t look all that different from one another?

Fifty years ago, the mainstream scientific consensus said that our ancestors went from living in trees to hunting on the savanna. Then fossil evidence challenged what we thought we knew. In the Great Rift Valley where early hominids thrived, paleontologists discovered that the accompanying microfauna, pollen, and vegetation from that period weren’t savanna species at all.

The image of early hunters chasing red meat through a golden savanna sure painted beautiful illustrations for biology textbooks. But the truth is, we became bipedal before the savanna existed. The former depiction also didn’t account for other puzzle pieces, like the development of our big, complex brains.

Although it began as a lunatic fringe theory, the idea that humans evolved alongside the water and generally had a more aquatic existence has gained considerable steam in the scientific community. Even esteemed natural historian Sir David Attenborough has said, “It isn’t yet the hypothesis that most students are taught, but perhaps its time has come.”

Originally known as the “aquatic ape theory,” it has since been dubbed the “waterside model,” presumably because it sounds a little less silly. Nobody is saying that our ancestors were mermaids swimming in the deep blue alongside whales and talking crabs. Rather, as Elaine Morgan, a proponent of the theory, suggests, “The difference between man and apes has something to do with water.”

Here are just a few reasons to think that the aquatic ape theory might not be so crazy after all.

10 Bigger Brain

Human brain anatomy is markedly different than that of an ape, especially where the cerebral cortex is concerned. Ours is much larger (even though it doesn’t always seem that way). The qualities that define us—like our abilities to use language, make tools, and have fine motor skills—are the result of this key advantage. The question is: How did our brains evolve for these unique purposes?

The enlargement of the human brain can be compared to those found in seals and dolphins. Marine diets seem to be the only foods capable of fueling brain development as they contain “brain-specific” polyunsaturated fats such as docosahexaenoic acid (DHA), which is an omega-3 fatty acid.

The land-based food of savanna hunters simply doesn’t provide the nutrients needed for this change to occur. No primate can develop a large brain with only a land-based diet. As animals evolve bigger bodies on land, their brains actually shrink. Think of the horse with a walnut-sized brain.

In the sea, however, the opposite is true. For example, dolphins have a brain that weighs 1.8 kilograms (4 lb) because seafood provides the nutrients that stimulate a boost in brain growth. This is why a dolphin has a bigger brain than a zebra despite their similar body sizes. Interestingly, the sperm whale has the largest brain in the world, weighing in at 7–8 kilograms (15–18 lb).^[1]

9 Large Sinuses

Our noses are among the most bizarre in the animal kingdom. These oddly shaped snouts are not shared with any other member of the ape family or, for that matter, any other land mammal. We have strikingly large sinuses, which are those empty spaces in the skull between the cheek, nose, and forehead. They seem to serve no significant purpose until one considers the possibility of aquatic adaptation.^[2]

If one imagines an aquatic lineage, it seems that our design has a very useful function indeed. These vacant air cavities may be understood as buoyancy aids that could keep our heads above water. They also protect the upper airway tract in a watery world.

Have you ever wondered why our nostrils peculiarly tilt at a downward angle? It does seem to keep water out of the nose when swimming, does it not?

Our sense of smell, however, is notoriously poor. Keep in mind that one doesn’t need a sharp sniffer underwater. For example, diving mammals typically have a reduced sense of smell. It’s only a breadcrumb on the trail, but you may be getting a whiff.

8 Bipedal Shift

Humankind has been walking on two legs for about two million years. (Some sources say four million years, while others say six million. Suffice it to say, it’s been a while.)

Once upon a time, it was believed that the transition from life in the trees to surviving in open grassland was the reason for this change. However, when baboons ventured from the jungle onto the savanna, they stayed resolutely on four legs.

Why? If walking upright for long periods of time is advantageous, why didn’t more species adapt this trait?

Walking on four legs is clearly a superior means of travel when it comes to balance and speed. Of course, now we know that the savanna wasn’t even in existence at that time anyway. Baboons, it turns out, do stand upright from time to time but only for a very specific purpose—to wade through water for food!

David Attenborough explained that during his lengthy career, he saw many species of primate wading bipedally in the water, crossing shallow rivers and pools. But as soon as they hit land, they always dropped onto four legs again. Wading through water is the only circumstance when these primates will walk on two legs.

Humans only walk somewhat efficiently because of our extended legs and vertical hips. But even so, it’s a little awkward. It’s like we are falling forward with style. So how did we learn to do this?

Studies have observed humans walking in water versus on land, and they suggest that it may be how our early ancestors learned to walk. Water has a natural buoyancy that makes walking upright easier. The evolution of our gangly legs and our silly walk was facilitated by a strong need to develop these traits.^[3]

7 A Subcutaneous Fat Layer

When human babies are born, they look like little cherubs with chubby cheeks and adorable little rolls of fat. This is because their bodies are naturally wrapped in a comparatively thick layer of fat. Other primates are not born so plump. They usually appear to be wrinkly, malnourished balls of skin. So, what gives?

Underneath our skin is a layer of fat that covers almost our entire body. It’s one of the main reasons that humans can become morbidly obese in a way that’s impossible for other primates.^[4] No other primates have these subcutaneous fat layers. Lucky us.

However, this fat layer is seen in sea mammals, including whales, seals, walruses, and manatees. This blubber provides buoyancy and insulates the body, maintaining body heat in cold water. Also, the fat streamlines the body and allows for more effective swimming. It creates a serious advantage in aquatic environments because heat loss happens more quickly in water than air. It’s not just cozy, it’s necessary.

6 Curiosities From Birth

When human babies are submerged in water, they instinctively know to hold their breath and open their eyes. This reflex is called the bradycardic response. Don’t try this at home, but if they are dipped in cold water, their little hearts will instinctively slow as the flow of blood shifts from the peripheral muscles to conserve oxygen.^[5]

This reflex safeguards the oxygen for the brain and heart. It’s not rocket science that a freakishly fat baby who instinctively holds his breath underwater didn’t evolve on an African savanna.

When infants first pop out, they are covered in a mucous layer that looks like cheese. This slick coating that keeps out the cold is called vernix caseosa. It used to be believed that it was unique to humans until a research team from Cornell discovered that newborn seals, or pups rather, are also born in this disgusting greasy ball of vernix caseosa.

Now it’s hypothesized that this physiological phenomenon may extend to all marine mammals.

5 Sweat And Tears

Living near salt water requires the occasional release of salt from the body. While sweating is an effective cooldown ability on its own, it’s not really needed when you’re right next to a body of water and can just take a dunk. That’s where tears come in handy.^[6]

Crying is useful for shedding excess salt. Humans not only sweat more than any other mammal, but they are also the only mammal that sheds tears. Other mammals cry, but no tears fall. As it turns out, humans exude greater quantities of salt water than any other mammal.

4 Breath Control

The reason gorillas can’t speak has nothing to do with their teeth, tongues, lungs, or vocal cords. We only speak because we have mastered conscious control of the breath, and that’s the key.

All diving mammals hold their breath to shield water from the lungs and regulate the pressures in the respiratory tract as they submerge, feed underwater, and surface. This refined mastery of the airway entrances was preadaptive for the evolution of speech. Living in a seascape could explain why we urgently evolved to be able to control our breath.

In our respiratory valves, we have a unique design from other primates in that a soft palate can lift to close off the nasopharynx. This is a critical feature for aquatic mammals to keep water clear of the respiratory passage.^[7]

Humans also have a uniquely descended larynx, which just means that it’s closer to the lungs. As the human baby grows up, the larynx sinks down lower. Again, animals with this design are seals, sea lions, walruses, and dugongs. The one and only primate that has it is us. It allows for gulping large amounts of air easily.

Some researchers argue that our upright posture naturally slid the larynx down, but others suggest that it may have actually been a selected pressure. Next time you hold your breath for a swim, imagine how this seemingly inconsequential feature may have been the biggest game changer in our evolution.

3 Fossils And Observation Of Behavior

The fossil of Lucy, an early upright-walking hominin, and other well-known ancestors were discovered near shorelines of massive lakes, of which the surrounding area was subject to periodic flooding. In an analysis of 20 hominid fossil sites in East and South Africa, there is fossil evidence that suggests our early ancestors were either living lakeside or in flooded grasslands.

How did they handle this deluge?

Researchers have a clue based on observing baboons at Botswana’s Okavango Delta during the summer months when it is flooded. When fruit becomes rare, the baboons eat water lily roots instead.^[8]

Fossil evidence demonstrates that early hominids also resorted to aquatic plants like water lily nuts. The nuts from this thorny plant are a pain in the butt to collect as they require diving 5–7 meters (16–23 ft) deep. Then they can be roasted over a fire where they pop open like popcorn. Even today, people still collect water lily nuts and eat them in the same way.

We also know that our ancestors were chowing down on seafood, in general, about two million years ago. For example, we’ve discovered fossilized bones of a catfish 2 meters (7 ft) long that had been cut with stone tools. It may be no small coincidence that early humans followed the coastlines around the world before heading inland. The water is what they knew best.

2 Pruney Fingers

Have you ever wondered why our fingers get all wrinkly when we’re in the water for a while? This active process is controlled by our autonomic nervous system. Evolutionary neurobiologist Mark Changizi believes it served a valuable function in our distant past.

He thinks that the pruney pattern may improve our underwater grip on objects. An independent team from Newcastle University found some support for this hypothesis in a study that demonstrated how people can pick up wet marbles more quickly with pruney fingers than dry ones.

This advantage only applied to the wet marbles. When the marbles were dry, both wet and dry fingers had the same ability. Evolutionary biologist Tom Smulders said, “We have shown that wrinkled fingers give a better grip in wet conditions—it could be working like treads on your car tires, which allow more of the tire to be in contact with the road and [give] you a better grip.”^[9]

He explains how this advantage could have helped our ancestors gather food from bodies of water.

1 Nakedness

We are the only smooth-skinned primates. Nakedness is an advantage underwater because it allows the body to glide gracefully through the water with ease. Why, then, do we still have hair on our heads?

It is hypothesized that cranial hair remained to protect us from sun radiation. Hair shields the head, but the shoulders and upper arms also tend to have more hair. The hair that did stick around is arranged diagonally, pointing inward toward the midline of the body. This pattern provides the least resistance while swimming.

There’s a close connection between nakedness and water. Mammals that have lost their body hair are the aquatic ones like the hippo, dolphin, manatee. and more. The elephant may be pointed to as an example of a nonaquatic animal that lost its hair, but hold on. Turns out, they have an aquatic ancestor as well. In fact, all naked pachyderms do, even the rhino.

It seems that every naked mammal was conditioned by water at some point.^[10] Why not us?

Celebrities are loved by millions of people all over the world. We all have a favorite celebrity, someone we’ve never met but love. We watch their movies, or listen to their songs, and could spend hours talking about them. People set up blogs dedicated to them, write books about them, and they’re constantly in the news. But what happens when it feels like your favorite celebrity let you down? Or worse, actually hurt you?

Most of us would just be quietly disappointed, or complain on Twitter. “That sucks,” we’d say, and then move on with our day. Some people, however, feel that celebrities need to pay for disappointments and mistakes, and they resolve to use the court system to make it happen, whether the celebrity was actually in the wrong or not.

Without further ado, here are 10 celebrities who were sued, rightfully or wrongfully, by their own fans.

10 Skrillex

Concerts are a dangerous place to be sometimes. Between the packed, jostling crowds, the limited visibility, the strobing lights, and disorienting loud sounds, there’s numerous ways to find yourself injured. That’s exactly what happened to one fan in 2014, at a concert performed by famed DJ and dubstep artist, Skrillex.

Jennifer Fraissl was in the concert audience when Skrillex leapt off a DJ table up on the stage, allegedly landing directly on her and causing her to have a stroke! Though his attorney claims that the video of the incident clearly shows no contact between Skrillex and Fraissl, the jury tasked with the final decision in this lawsuit disagreed.

Fraissl was awarded a cool 4.5 Million in damages, divided up between Skrillex, his tour company, and the venue for payment.

Skrillex, to his credit, took it well, saying that his number one priority was making sure his fans were safe and having a good time.^[1]

9 Creed

Creed is a well known and well loved “dad rock” band, with tracks that have been featured in movies, played incessantly over the radio, and featured in at least one playlist we all had in our 20s. It’s reasonable to expect such an accomplished band to put on a fantastic show, right? The fans seemed to think so, which is why one 2003 concert was such a shock that it apparently required the response of a class action lawsuit!

In 2003, fans of Creed were shocked and a little horrified when frontman Scott Stapp stumbled out onstage, allegedly drunk and unsteady. He reportedly had severe trouble singing, and at one point actually passed out on stage, halting the concert. Needless to say, the 15,000 who showed up to watch creed play were incensed, some so much that they filed a lawsuit on behalf of everyone else at the venue!

They demanded a refund on the ticket costs (and hopefully an apology) for everyone who came to the show, as well as a refund on their parking, a total cost to the band of 2 Million dollars!

The judge, however, dismissed the case, saying that he was not “a rock critic” and that it would be a very bad idea for the arts to set a legal precedent for judging good art (or shows) from bad ones for the sake of lawsuits.^[2]

8 Lil’ Wayne

Even if you’re not into Rap, you probably know about Lil’ Wayne. From 2009-2014, he was a massive success in the rap world. Kids loved him, parents tolerated him, and fans were crazy about him. His explicit songs, whimsical lyrical twists and often hilarious rhymes shot him to the top of the charts.

In May of 2012, however, one fan wasn’t very happy with Wayne. Alfred Marino claims that, after getting into an argument with the famous rapper, one of Wayne’s ‘crew’ smashed him over the head with a skateboard! Marino had pulled out his phone with the intent of taking a picture of Lil’ Wayne after seeing him outside a shop in Los Angeles. After being told repeatedly to put his phone away (and being called a few nasty names) Marino alleges that Wayne’s bodyguard broke a skateboard over the back of his his head, knocking him out and leaving him with vertigo so severe he had to take medical leave from his job.

Marino was reportedly “disgusted” by Lil’ Wayne after the incident, and as a former fan, sued the rapper for the distressing and painful incident.^[3]

7 Justin Bieber

For a while, just about the most harmless celebrity you could imagine would have been Justin Bieber. The Canadian dreamboat was known for his sugar-pop love songs, big eyes, and irresistible charm. Girls of most any age swooned over him, spending tons of money on his merchandise, his albums, and most of all to see him live and in person at sold out concert venues.

At one such show in Oregon in 2010, Bieber set up an act for the concert that played off that very thing, climbing into a giant, heart-shaped metal gondola and being pulled over the crowd, leaning out to wave to the sea of fans below. In the crowd was Stacey Betts, a stay at home mother of five who had come to see the show with her daughter.

According to Betts, Bieber whipped the crowd of girls into such a frenzy with his waving that their screams reached “unsafe levels”, echoing off the metal heart and causing a “sound blast” that permanently damaged her hearing. She claims to have contracted tinnitus, a condition which causes constant, debilitating ringing in the ears. Betts also claims hearing loss and an overall lowered quality of life.

For her pain and suffering, Betts demanded a whopping 9 Million in damages.^[4] The case was ultimately dismissed.

6 Miley Cyrus

Many of us have fond memories of Miley Cyrus as her lovable, blonde alter ego Hannah Montana, the spunky country pop-star plastered across the Disney Channel schedule (and our hearts). The daughter of famous country singer Billy Ray Cyrus, Miley was introduced to the entertainment business young and has stayed there pretty solidly ever since then. Those perfect wholesome beginnings have not, however, kept her out of trouble with the media, and with her fans.

In 2009, a photo surfaced on the web of Miley making a “Chinese eyes” face. Sitting with a group of her friends, Miley was seen in the photo pulling her eyes out to the sides along with others in the group. In fact, the only person in the photo NOT doing this was a young asian man who, it is alleged, was being mocked by the eye pulling.

The photo was deemed so offensive that it triggered a lawsuit. Los Angeles area woman Lucie J. Kim, alleging to have been personally damaged by the “discriminatory” photo, reportedly sued the Disney teen for $4 BILLION dollars! Not just on her own of course, but on behalf of the over 1 million Asian Pacific Islander’s living in the Los Angeles area.

For frame of reference on how out of this world a sum of 4 billion is, Miley’s entire net worth currently stands at only 160 million: roughly 4% of the requested pay.^[5]

5 Usher

Whether you’re a fan of Usher’s music or not, you’ve probably heard his name. From his involvement with Justin Bieber to being parodied on Family Guy, Usher has been around for a while, and in that time has made a name for himself as a talented musician and agent for up-and-comers.

It’s my unfortunate duty to tell you that Usher is also known for a less pleasant bit of publicity: a lawsuit filed against him in 2017 by three people who say that he gave them all herpes! Way to really screw it all up, Usher!

Quantasia Sharpton, an anonymous man, and another anonymous woman have banded together to sue the R&B star for allegedly giving them herpes (and they’re not talking about cold sores, either). Although he refused to make a public statement, Usher is known to have settled a similar lawsuit about the same allegations out of court for 1.2 million dollars in 2012. The unnamed plaintiff in the 2012 case is supposedly a former lover and celebrity stylist.

Sharpton and the anonymous duo sought unspecified damages and to have Usher cover their court fees.^[6]

4 Jessica Simpson

Serious question: can a paparazzo be considered a fan? They’re obsessive like fans, and they love to take pictures like fans, so for the purpose of this list, they probably count. With that in mind, let us look at the lawsuit against Jessica Simpson in 2018.

Outside a hotel in New York, Jessica Simpson was, as is often the case, ambushed by a paparazzo. A few photos were snapped, the paparazzo ran off, such is life for a famous person. However, a few hours later when the photo was posted to a rag site, Simpson copied it and pasted it onto her instagram. You’d think, being that it was a picture of her, she’d have the right. I mean, it’s literally her face!

According to the paparazzo and the media company that employed him, however, since the photo was taken by their employee, they own it, and Simpson actually stole it when she pasted it on her instagram.^[7]

The company alleges damages upwards of 20 thousand dollars. They may not legally own her face, but they sure are determined to make her pay for taking it back!

3 Snoop Dogg

Imagine for a minute you’re at a concert for your favorite artist. Elated at being near them, you rush the stage and go in for a hug. From the wings, as if waiting for you, several security guards swoop in and tackle you, causing major injuries.

That was the situation for Richard Monroe Jr, a Snoop Dogg fan violently tackled by security when he rushed the stage and attempted to hug Snoop in the middle of a concert. Monroe was knocked out and dragged offstage. He later woke on the ground backstage, his face swollen, lying in a pool of blood.

Monroe originally sued for 22 Million in damages, but was awarded just under 500 thousand after the jury determined that Snoop was not entirely to blame for the incident. Monroe also says that, after spending several days hanging out with Snoop during negotiations for a settlement, he feels very close with Snoop. He even went so far as to say that he felt happy when he saw Snoop in the courtroom, despite the circumstances.^[8]

2 Bon Jovi

As we all know, Bon Jovi is a very successful man. An ’80s star that still enjoys relevance and success today, Bon Jovi is clearly a man who needs no helping hands, ethical or otherwise. In fact, he’s still performing and touring to this day, and still putting out new music! So why would he need to steal a song?

According to one Samuel Bartley Steele, Bon Jovi did just that. In 2007, after releasing his song “I Love This Town”, Bon Jovi was hit with a stunning 4 Billion dollar lawsuit by Steele, who claims that Bon Jovi had somehow gotten his hands on Steele’s “country rock tribute” song to the Boston Red Sox (“Man I Really Love This Team”) and had passed it off to his record label as his own. At the trial, Steele even brought a musicologist to testify that they were the same song, only to be surprised when the musicologist testified that the songs were, in fact, nothing alike save for the words “love” and “this” in their respective titles.

His lawsuit was of course dismissed, but that didn’t stop him. Steele appealed the decision, hoping to take another run at the famous singer.^[9]

1 Taylor Swift

When you’re a pretty girl and your face is plastered across magazines, billboards, and social media almost constantly, you tend to attract a lot of strange people. Most are harmless, simply adoring fans who vie for your attention with gifts, stunts, and social media campaigns. What do you do, however, when you manage to attract a stalker?

In 2015, Taylor Swift had to answer this exact question as a fan went rogue and attempted to drag her into court to get her attention. Russell Greer, a long time Swift fan, wrote a song over the course of two years titled “I Get You, Taylor Swift” and send it to her agents, attempting to have it passed on to Swift herself. The agents were not allowed to pass the song on because of copyright concerns, and sent back polite but firm rejection letters.

Instead of taking it on the chin, Greer began sending mail and gifts directly to Swift’s family, begging them to give her the song. When that failed, he tried a new tactic: suing her to the tune of 7 thousand dollars for both neglect of duty and emotional distress. At first, it was couched simply as an attempt to get her attention, but when the lawsuit was dismissed and Greer, through statements made in the motion, found that Swift’s family considered his efforts “troubling” and “invasive”, Greer became openly hostile, and sued her a second time, this time for 50 Million, in another attempt to force her to acknowledge him.^[10]

Yikes! Let’s hope no other girls ever catch his eye quite like poor Taylor!

Merlin was not just a legendary figure. An examination of ancient Welsh poetry, Geoffrey of Monmouth’s accounts of King Arthur, and other works reveals a powerful, real prophet, holy man, and bard.

In Britain in the sixth century AD, there existed a prophet, magician, and counselor to King Arthur—Merlin. Was Merlin real? In Britain of the post-Roman Dark Ages, the traditions of the Celts were still alive despite the influence of Christianity. The existence of Celtic culture and that of the real pagan druid or bard Merlin was removed from history by later chroniclers.

There were probably two Merlins. One lived from about AD 450–-536. This was Arthur’s Merlin. Geoffrey of Monmouth wrote of him in the History of the Kings of Britain, which became a best seller in Europe when it appeared in 1136. The Life of Merlin by Geoffrey appeared in 1150.

The second, later Merlin was a bard named Myrddin in Welsh. After the Battle of Arderydd in 573, this Merlin went insane and retreated into the woods. These two figures have been conflated, adding confusion to the dating of the Merlin’s life.

10 The Collapsing Tower Story Has A Historical Basis

Writing in the sixth century, St. Gildas recounts how the evil tyrant Vortigern fled from the onslaught of Saxon invaders. The tale is taken up in the Nennius papers that Vortigern tried to build a protective citadel for himself and his followers in Snowdonia.

Geoffrey tells how the tower that Vortigern was building kept collapsing. To remedy the situation, Vortigern’s counselors told him to sacrifice a fatherless boy on the site. This boy was Merlinus Ambrosius. Merlin instructed workers to excavate the foundation of the tower. There, in a pool, they would find two sleeping dragons, one red and one white.

In The Quest for Merlin, Nikolai Tolstoy proposes that Vortigern consulted Merlin, a person of spiritual authority who was known by the name “Myrddin Embreis.” He was the successor to the druids who had once presided over the “navel” of Britain, or a center of Earth that Tolstoy theorizes was Stonehenge.

While the tale of the collapsing towers is not historical per se, the place names and the names of the people involved are real.

9 Geoffrey Of Monmouth’s Information Is Sound

Since 1198, the historical accuracy of Geoffrey of Monmouth’s work has been discredited because of inconsistencies and mistakes that could be the result of translation errors or Geoffrey’s geographical errors. Beginning in the 20th century, scholars defended Geoffrey, pointing to the existence of valid written and oral materials in his time for him to draw upon. As he was a careful chronicler, much of Geoffrey’s information can be seen as sound.

For example, archaeologist T.C. Lethbridge used Geoffrey’s descriptions of ancient giants in Britain to uncover the giant chalk figures in the Cambridgeshire hills. Another example is an inscribed pillar stone found in Ireland that supports Geoffrey’s information that Vortigern’s son had fled to Ireland.

8 Merlin Is The Narrator Of History Of The Kings Of Britain

In History of the Kings of Britain, Geoffrey names Merlin as the source of the information that he has translated from British into Latin. In a letter to Alexander, bishop of Lincoln, Geoffrey writes, “The regard which I owe to your great worth, most noble prelate, has obliged me to undertake the translation of Merlin’s prophecies out of British into Latin.”

Throughout the years, scholars have doubted Geoffrey’s claims that his source for the History of the Kings of Britain could have been an authentic sourcebook written in the native British tongue. However, as Norma Lorre Goodrich points out in her book King Arthur, Geoffrey knew Brythonic.

In addition, Geoffrey claimed that his source material for the History of the Kings of Britain was a “small book” lent to him by a churchman at Oxford. Charlotte Guest, who translated ancient Welsh texts into English, wrote that many of her sourcebooks were little books of about 8 centimeters (3 in) by 15 centimeters (6 in).

Given the credence of the tales in the light of modern scholarship and interpretation, it is not outlandish to suppose that the information ascribed to Merlin by Geoffrey was exactly what Geoffrey claimed it was.

7 Arthur’s Merlin Was Archbishop Dubricius

In her book Merlin, Norma Lorre Goodrich makes the case for Merlin and the Archbishop Dubricius being one and the same person. Merlinus Dubricius Ambrosius, the historical personage, was the Merlin who crowned Arthur king at Carlisle, established the church and priory at Llandaf, and created centers of learning and astronomy.

As Goodrich relates, both men were born into a priestly, Celtic family and had unknown fathers. Both were also prodigies and were unmatched in intellectual brilliance, learning, and wisdom. For reasons of its own, the Roman church co-opted Merlin into the pantheon of its saints.

Merlin became a myth while the historicity of St. Dubricius is not questioned.

6 The Legendary Merlin Is Linked To The Worship Of The Celtic God Lug

As early writings about Merlin link him to ancient Celtic worship of the god Lug, Nikolai Tolstoy asserts that the Merlin tales reflect a real figure behind the myth. That figure, Merlin, was an earthly representative or priest of Lug.

Pagan practices were not extinguished in Britain during and after Roman rule. Tolstoy cites evidence that the Celtic festival of Lughnasa, which honored Lug, was celebrated in Britain during Merlin’s time.

In the Welsh poem Cyfoesi Myrddin (probably composed before AD 1100), Merlin foretells the succession of kings after King Rhydderch. Merlin uttered these prophecies “in his grave,” which means Merlin is speaking from the otherworld. Similarly, appearing to Conn, Lug reveals the succession of the kings of Ireland.

These and other similarities suggest to Tolstoy that there was a real Merlin figure who stood for Lug in the Celtic spiritual practices of that time.

5 Merlin Went Mad After The Battle Of Arderydd

North of Carlisle in Scotland, the Battle of Arderydd was fought in the second half of the sixth century. Geoffrey of Monmouth tells that after this battle in which his lord Gwenddolau is slain, Merlin goes mad and retreats into the woods to live, “forgetful of himself . . . lurking like a wild thing.”

This tale refers to Myrddin, who came after King Arthur’s Merlin. Not only has the site of the battle been identified by the historian W.F. Skene, but Nikolai Tolstoy has placed Myrddin’s retreat at a spring known as Hartfell Spa.

4 Merlin Was A Druid

In his book The Quest for Merlin, Nikolai Tolstoy explains that the Battle of Arderydd was fought as Christianity was overthrowing the pagan power of Dark Age Britain.

The Myrddin of Welsh poetry was a druid, and druidic associations abound in the Myrddin poetry. The “sweet apple tree” mentioned by Myrddin hid him from the rival king, Rhydderch. In addition, Myrddin is a prophet and shape-shifter who is associated with Cernunnos, the horned god and leader of the Wild Hunt.

3 Merlin Was A Dark Ages Soothsayer

Merlin was a historical prophet of the sixth century. As evidence, Nikolai Tolstoy cites a passage from The Life of St. Samson. Anna, the mother of St. Samson, and her husband go to see a soothsayer who is “a man sought out from many regions because all who had consulted him were assured of the truth of all he told them.”

As Tolstoy points out, this is significant because it is from an authentic, historical document that describes a contemporary figure of the fame and ability of Merlin.

2 Merlin Prophesied The Time Of His Own Death

In the Huth Merlin manuscript, Merlin predicted that the Earth would be darkened in the middle of the day at the time of his death. According to the work of an Austrian astronomer, 8,000 solar eclipses occurred or will occur between the years 1207 BC and AD 2161. The one numbered 4,143 was visible in Britain on September 1, AD 536. This was the eclipse that occurred at the time of Merlin’s death.

1 Merlin Was Buried At Bardsey Island

If Merlin is indeed the Archbishop Dubricius, then The Text of the Book of Llandaf tells that he was originally buried at Bardsey Island, where he lived “among the bones and bodies of martyrs and 20,000 saints.” His remains were taken to Llandaf in 1120.

Bardsey was a burial place for “the Treasures of Britain,” those of royal and priestly blood, warriors, and the nobility.

Sources:

Goodrich, Norma Lorre, King Arthur. (Harper & Row, 1986)
Goodrich, Norma Lorre, Merlin. (Franklin Watts, 1987)
Hennig, Kaye D., King Arthur: Lord of the Grail. (DesignMagic Publishing, 2008)
Monmouth, Geoffrey, History of the Kings of Britain. (In parentheses Publications, 1999)
Tolstoy, Nikolai, The Quest for Merlin. (Little, Brown and Company, 1985)

+Further Reading

For more tales of mystery, magic, and history, check out the following lists from our archives:

10 Of History’s Most Fascinating Sorcerers
10 Mysterious Swords From Legend And History
10 Notable People Thought To Be Immortal
Top 10 Medieval Urban Legends

Davanna is a writer living on the Gulf Coast of Florida. Contact her on Twitter.

Over the past 70 years, the global birth rate has dropped from roughly five children per woman in 1950 to 2.2, and 2.1 is considered the replacement level for a continuing population. In countries such as Serbia, the birth rate was 1.1 in 2023 and continued to drop in 2024. Meanwhile, in African nations such as Chad, the average woman has seven children.

There are a number of rich and influential celebrities, such as Peter Thiel and Elon Musk, who have sounded the alarm about this situation. There are whole movements, such as Quiverfull and the Natal Conference, devoted to reversing this trend and jacking birth rates back up. Evidence indicates that the effort will be, pardon the expression, fruitless. As many of the entries on this list will indicate, it’s a movement that is ill-served by its adherents.

Related: 10 Victims Whose Parents Never Gave Up

10 Abortion Bans Aren’t Making Up the Difference

It’s unquestionably true that since the Dobbs ruling, which took away federal protections for abortion rights in more conservative states, birth rates in those states have risen. Texas, for instance, saw a 16,000 increase from 2021 to 2022, of which about 84% were Latino/Hispanic teens. That certainly sounds like it will solve the problem, regardless of how someone feels about bodily autonomy or quality of life for parents.

As of 2024, though, it hasn’t. Even in South Dakota, the state with the highest percentage increase, in 2022, it was still 2.0, which was just shy of the replacement level. Part of this can be accounted for in the fact that even with abortion bans in place, many demographics are still seeing net birth rate drops.

Considering Texas again, the same year that Hispanic teen births went up 13,000 and 5% overall, white female births went down 0.2%, and black births 0.6%. Indeed, white teen pregnancies dropped 5%. The birth rate would have sunk much lower below replacement level without Roe V Wade being overturned (the California birth rate went down 20,000 in California in 2022, for example), but so far, the targets have not been reached.^[1]

9 Prohibitively Expensive or Dangerous Birth Process

The reader probably doesn’t need to be told how unaffordable many basic healthcare costs are getting in a number of countries. In light of the nature of the widespread birth crisis, certain allowances should be made to incentivize births. Instead, birth costs have risen so that, on average, an uninsured patient will be charged $18,865 as of January 2024.

For those who have insurance, the average cost is about $2,655. That’s if the birth is an uncomplicated vaginal procedure. If a caesarian section is required (and it is in about 30% of cases), then the price goes up to $25,820 for the uninsured and $3,200(9b) with insurance. This is in a context where, in the United States of America, 63% of employees report that they cannot afford a $500 emergency.

Traditionalists might recommend opting for a home delivery to cut down on the expenses, which is valid in a strictly financial sense. If an expecting parent hires a midwife, the services are likely to be covered by many insurance providers. However, these services are still expensive themselves: A $6,000 bill for the uninsured is typical. The financially downtrodden should know that only 21 states cover home deliveries through Medicaid.

All of this is disregarding the single greatest problem with home delivery: It is twice as likely to result in the death of the newborn. So it is little wonder that 37% of others attempting home delivery end up going to a hospital, adding thousands to their medical bill. Judging single women or couples for hesitating to go forward with such a dangerous, expensive procedure is simply absurd.^[2]

8 Birth Defect Rates Rising

There are regions experiencing as high as 50% increases in rates of birth defects, such as the United Kingdom from the nineties to the aughts. These defects include cleft lip, born with intestines outside the body, fatal heart flaws, etc. At present, one in sixteen children can be expected to be born with a significant birth abnormality. In America, the rate rose between 2005 and 2022 at roughly 10.7% per year, going from about 1% of births to 2.9%. This is a disconcerting trend for a nation where every state is already below replacement level.

This is absolutely not to say that persons born with severe birth defects do not deserve to live. However, they remain more likely to die in infancy. The extra surgeries often mean more and much greater expenses for an already very costly procedure, even for those very well-insured. Those are only the short-term problems.^[3]

7 Pollution Lowering Fertility

Multiple studies are finding that women who live in more heavily polluted areas are conceiving significantly less often, despite their best efforts. A survey of 18,000 couples in China found that those who lived in dense urban areas were 20% less capable of conceiving after one year of trying.

In America, a 2019 study of 632 women by the Massachusetts General Hospital Fertility Clinic found that women in environments with high concentrations of fine particulate matter in the air, which is typical in urban areas, lost their eggs and were rendered infertile earlier in life. For those who tried IVF instead, a study published in the periodical Human Reproduction in 2024 found that in neighborhoods with high levels of pollution, IVF conception failed 38%(7c) more often.

Men are also deeply susceptible to potency damage from pollution. Hagai Levine from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem reported in 2022 that the minimum threshold before low sperm count led to a decrease in fertility was under roughly 40 million per milliliter. Levine went on to report that between 1973 and 2018, global average sperm counts went from 104 million to 49 million per milliliter.

In 2000, the rate began dropping roughly 2.6% annually. A study published in Nature in 2022 found that fully 7% of men have been infertile their whole lives. That puts human sperm counts near a threshold where many communities will start to see a significant drop in fertility.^[4]

6 Miscarriage Rates

Miscarriage is a true tragedy but an extremely common one as well. About 20% of pregnancies end in a miscarriage or a stillbirth (stillbirth meaning self-terminating pregnancy after 20 weeks, miscarriage being those that happen earlier). You’d think medical advances, modern stress relief, etc. prevent that. In recent years, they have not. A 2018 New England Journal of Medicine study found that miscarriage rates were increasing by 1% per year. This rate is not at all consistent for the duration of the pregnancy: Stillbirth rates are about 1 in 160.

Unsurprisingly, miscarriages and stillbirths bring with them great emotional turmoil for large numbers of aspiring parents. A 2015 study published in Obstetrics and Gynecology found that 50% of those who experienced one felt guilt, and a quarter felt shame. That is a great emotional risk that many people will have to run if they decide to try for parenthood.^[5]

5 Antinatalism/Childfree Lifestyle Spreading

The notion that not having children is more moral than having them has an inherent, self-defeating obstacle in achieving widespread popularity. Its own adherents are inherently less likely to have children to carry on their values; they’re less likely to acquire the money needed for power and influence, and they’re less likely to feel the militant need to proselytize. None of this has stopped the antinatalist movement from growing in popularity in recent years.

Nor has the popularity of being a child-free woman deteriorated. In 2006, there were nine million childless women of childbearing age in the United States. By 2022, that number had grown to 21.9 million. Over the same time span, the U.S. population hadn’t come anywhere close to doubling (specifically, it went from 298 million to 338 million).

Even if a huge number of these women decide to have children after all, consider that after a woman reaches age 30, her odds of having a miscarriage or stillbirth increase dramatically. The risk reaches about 40-50% higher when a woman reaches age 40. Biological clocks are running faster and more urgently than many people realize.^[6]

4 Lowering Birth Options

With a potential baby bust on the horizon and so many wealthy futurists concerned about it, it would be sensible to make birth centers abundantly available to lower the cost by increasing the supply of providers. That has been almost the opposite of the American approach to the problem. Between 2011 and 2023, 217 hospitals stopped offering birth center services.

Instead of the closures stopping in 2024, the rate actually increased dramatically, so that 26 had stopped providing this service at the time of writing. Gynecological and perinatal services were generally still offered at these hospitals, but many women in rural areas had to have their delivery far out of state or turn to midwives whether they wanted to or not.

The reason for this is a matter of insurance providers. More than 40% of insurance coverage for births is through Medicaid instead of private or employer insurance, and the percentage is even higher in rural areas. Medicaid compensates hospitals less than half as much as private companies do. This is why these hospitals tend to withdraw these services in rural areas, particularly in states where Medicaid coverage is less generous.^[7]

3 One Child Desirability

Of course, tens of millions of women have overcome all these obstacles and reproduced. Many of them have, after experiencing the ordeal of childbirth, settled on having one. This is a perfectly reasonable course of action. A 2022 report in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology reviewed 188 studies and found that having a single child is where couples find the highest level of satisfaction, having achieved the biological necessity of reproducing without taking on too much time pressure among other concerns.

The issue remains that the replacement level birth rate is 2.1. The rate of women who only have one child during their childbearing years has been growing over the years, doubling from 1976 to 2015 from 11% to 22%. China’s One-Child Policy from 1979 to 2015 provides plenty of warning about how too many couples with one child can be a destabilizing matter for broader society, even though it can be highly desirable for the individual home.^[8]

2 Climate Change

Regardless of whether the changes in the climate are anthropogenic or the result of natural cycles beyond human control, the rate and extremity of climate disasters are alarming, and the severity is increasing. These sorts of concerns are taking their toll on the confidence potential parents have in the future. A July 2024 Pew Research poll said that of people of childbearing age who did not intend to have children, a quarter said that worries about the environment were their primary motivation.

Even if these concerns were to be removed from the heads of everyone, the fact that as of 2023, on average, every three weeks, America suffers $1 billion of damage from climate disasters does not bode well for future economic stability. For further context, in 2022, 32 million people were made refugees by natural disasters, and that was a 41% increase from 2008. If extreme environmental disasters continue, you can expect it to be a boon for the ranks of the antinatalist movement.^[9]

1 Romantic Disinterest

In recent years, people that are not able to get into romantic or sexual relationships have developed a stigma due to acts of violence by individuals dubbed “incels,” such as Tres Genco and Alek Minassian. That has probably left a lot of people less willing to discuss a hard fact about the contemporary state of relationships. Many young people aren’t just failing to enter serious, child-rearing relationships. They’re not even working for romantic relationships in general.

A Pew Research poll released in May 2024 found that only 40% of single people are interested in even a casual relationship, let alone a serious, committed one. The same poll found that among 18-29 year olds, 37% expressed no interest in relationships or dating at all. For those who might think that’s a phase people will grow out of, the fact is that the same poll showed that from ages 30-49, it’s 39% who have no interest in it.

Women were found to be substantially more likely to be uninterested (70% for women over 40 vs. 42% for men). This is likely to grow as time goes on since, reportedly, 44% of the most recent adult generation went their entire teen years without a relationship. That is a large segment of the population that will be less equipped to enter into relationships and contribute to raising the birth rate.^[10]

Would you ever expect a government to ban a family film from release? Since they are based at a young audience, family films usually do not contain content that would anger film censors. But these films—which certainly look “kid-friendly” on the surface—were prohibited from being screened in certain countries for surprising reasons that don’t always make sense. Is it true that you can find a controversy in everything? Or were these films banned for legitimate reasons? Let’s find out.

SEE ALSO: 10 Beloved Children’s Books Banned For Stupid Reasons

10 Every Marx Brothers Movie (Germany)

The Marx Brothers are a comedy staple. Between 1905 and 1949, they made thirteen feature films, several of which are considered the funniest movies of all time. But between 1933 and 1945, you couldn’t watch any of their films in Germany for one simple reason—the members of the famous comedy troupe were Jewish. However, Germany wasn’t the only country to ban the Marx Brothers’ films. Italy banned their 1933 film “Duck Soup” because Prime Minister Benito Mussolini viewed the film as a personal attack, and Ireland banned their 1931 film “Monkey Business” for appearing to promote anarchism (although they later permitted a cut version of the film).^[1]

9Beauty and the Beast, 2017 (Kuwait and Malaysia)

Controversy found its way to the 2017 “Beauty and the Beast” remake when, prior to the film’s release, director Bill Condon mentioned a “gay moment” in the film. Kuwait and Malaysia (both primarily Muslim countries) banned the film for its homosexual undertones, although the only “gay” activity actually appearing on-screen is a three-second clip of two men dancing. However, Malaysia later gave the green light to an uncut version of the film, released with a P13 rating, with the Malaysia Ministry of Home Affairs saying that “the gay elements in the film are minor, and [do] not affect the positive elements featured in the film”.^[2]

8 The Barnyard Battle (Germany)

Germany censored the 1929 Mickey Mouse short “The Barnyard Battle”, which features an army of cats fighting an army of mice, because the cats’ headgear resembles a German military helmet known as the “pickelhaube”. Both the United Kingdom and Germany banned another Mickey Mouse short, “The Mad Doctor”, for its horror elements.^[3]

7 Little Women (Manila)

In 1998, actress Claire Danes described Manila as “smell[ing] of cockroaches, with rats all over”, and made several other disparaging remarks about the city. Because of this, the Philippine government declared her “persona non grata” and Manila placed a ban on all films starring her, even “Little Women”, one of her best-reviewed films of all time as well as an established family classic. Although Danes later apologized for her comments, the ban on her films remains in effect.^[4]

6 Barney’s Great Adventure (Malaysia)

This one is a bit of a mystery. Malaysia banned the 1998 film “Barney’s Great Adventure” for being “unsuitable for children to watch”. Parents and educators have long criticized Barney for offering children “a one-dimensional world where everyone must be happy”, leading to several offensive parodies of the franchise, some of which resulted in legal cases. However, while Barney is one of the most hated franchises of all time, no reason was ever given for why exactly the movie was “unsuitable”.^[5]

5Abominable (Vietnam, the Philippines, and Malaysia)

Vietnam, the Philippines, and Malaysia all banned “Abominable”, a DreamWorks Animation film featuring the adventures of a Yeti and an adventurous girl. Why? Because the film uses a map which features a variant of the “nine-dash line”, a controversial demarcation line used to claim total Chinese ownership of a section of the South China Sea that multiple countries (including Vietnam, the Philippines, and Malaysia) have territorial claims over.^[6]

4Back to the Future (China)

China banned “Back to the Future” for depicting—of all things—time travel. The State Administration of Radio, Film, and Television explained the ban by saying that time travel in media treats “serious history in a frivolous way, which should by no means be encouraged anymore”. The ban might not make very much sense, but, then again, neither did “Back to the Future”.^[7]

3 Wonder Woman (Arab League)

You probably would not be able to guess offhand why the Arab League banned “Wonder Woman”. Lebanon pulled the film from distribution because Gal Gadot, the lead actress, served for two years in the Israeli Defense Force and has expressed support for Israel on social media. Because of their history of conflicts with Israel, Lebanon bans the purchase of Israeli products (although Lebanon did allow the release of the film “Batman V. Superman: Dawn of Justice” featuring Gadot, despite a movement to boycott it). Rania Masri, a member of the Campaign to Boycott Supporters of Israel—Lebanon, said releasing “Wonder Woman” in Lebanon would be “normalizing relations with an enemy state”, something they refuse to do. Tunisia and Qatar also banned the film, for much the same reasons.^[8]

2 Shrek 2 (Israel)

While Lebanon banned “Wonder Woman” based on its lead, Israel banned a film for a completely different reason. Israel blocked the sequel to DreamWorks Animation’s popular film “Shrek” for a joke in the Hebrew dub about popular Israeli singer David Daor. Apparently because of the singer’s famed falsetto, a character threatens to emasculate another by saying “Let’s do a David Daor on him”. “This film intends to present me, in perpetuity, as a eunuch, a man with no testicles, and turn me into a laughing stock,” Daor said to an Israeli newspaper. A Tel Aviv District Court had the film removed from a handful of theaters before the distributors of the Hebrew dub decided to change the line to “let’s take a sword and neuter him”, satisfying Daor’s lawyers.^[9]

1 Christopher Robin (China and Taiwan)

This incident takes the number-one spot because it remains the only case in which a country blocked a film from release because of an Internet meme. That’s right, after a slew of memes spread by PewDiePie (banned for the same reason) in July 2017 comparing Chinese leader Xi Jinping to children’s book character Winnie-the-Pooh, China blocked references to Winnie on social media. This led to “Christopher Robin”, a film adapted from the Winnie-the-Pooh stories, being denied a release in China.^[10]

About The Author: Izak Bulten is an animator and amateur film historian who loves writing articles about conspiracy theories, pop culture, and “crazy-but-true” stories. He’s created logic puzzles for World Sudoku Champion Thomas Synder’s blog, “The Art of Puzzles“, and the e-book “The Puzzlemaster’s Workshop”. More recently, he’s been writing animation news for his blog, “The Magic Lantern Show“.

These days, you can’t look at much on the Internet without seeing a reference to the term, “OK, Boomer.” It’s a funny, yet strained response Millenials give to members of the Baby Boomer generation when they don’t want to bother trying to convince them of something or sway opinion their way.

The Millennials are simply tired of trying, and the Boomers get a lot of flack and blame for many of the world’s problems. While it’s true that financial issues and costs of various things can be attributed to Boomers, the generation has done a great deal Millenials can be thankful for.

See Also: 10 Ways Young Generations Are Better Than Their Parents

10 They Won The Cold War

Before the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, the world was in the grips of the Cold War. The main participants were the Soviet Union and the West, which included the United States and Europe’s NATO allies. That conflict lasted 44 years, and it was fought by members of the Silent Generation all the way through to Generation X, but it was the Baby Boomers who finally brought it to an end, and nary a shot was fired.^[1]

For most of the conflict, the Boomers butted heads across the pond through proxy wars and the advancement and manufacture of bigger, deadlier nuclear arms, but they finally put a stop to it through reinforcement of economic instability and the democratization of political and social life in the Soviet Union. The USSR fell for a number of reasons, but it ultimately came to an end through economic pressure and social upheaval coming from a generation that protested the Vietnam War in the west and Soviet Boomers who grew less and less interested in Communist norms.^[2]

9 The Beatles, Steven Spielberg, & Erin Brockovich

While the Beatles fall just behind the line denoting the year Boomers were born, they grew to prominence as the Boomer generation came into adulthood. There’s no denying the influence The Beatles had on music and society as a whole, but the band also inspired a vast majority of Rock and Pop singers/songwriters in and out of the Boomer generation.^[3] Music aside, another form of entertainment, specifically, movies, has largely been shaped by a man who essentially created the summer blockbuster: Steven Spielberg.^[4]

Spielberg is often cited as one of the greatest directors in the history of cinema, and his resume stands for itself. Finally, Erin Brockovich is more than a movie; it’s the name of a Boomer who decided to stand up and fight for the little guy, but we’re not talking about litigants, we’re talking about the environment. Her lawsuit, which was detailed in the eponymous film about her, helped bring attention to the damage being done by large corporations, and she has helped mold the public outcry revolving around environmental damage and climatology.^[5]

8 They Helped Establish A Worldwide Network Of Telecommunications

Baby Boomers grew up as America and the Soviet Union fought the Space Race, and many of the young men and women who watched Neil Armstrong take his first steps on the Moon grew up to become scientists and engineers who would work for NASA and the ESA. The Boomers who began working at NASA in the 1970s helped to create something you are using to read this article: a global telecommunications network.^[6] The importance of global telecommunications can not be overstated, as it has brought the entire world together in a way never seen previously.

With global communications, people all over the world can take part in things going on pretty much everywhere there are phones and/or computers. NASA and the U.S. Government began filling Earth’s orbit with satellites, which have linked all of humanity in a way never seen in previous eras, and most of the people working tirelessly to make it happen were Boomers. That work has been expanded by subsequent generations, but the Boomers helped make it a reality through the 1970s, ‘80s, and beyond.^[7]

7 They Made Men’s Willies Work Again

It may seem like a silly notion to anyone who hasn’t experienced erectile dysfunction, but it was once a serious problem. Millions of men and their partners around the world owe a great deal of thanks to Dr. Gill Samuels, a Boomer from Bury, Lancashire, United Kingdom. Dr. Samuels joined Pfizer as a research scientist in 1978, and from there, she went on to become one of the leading developers of a wonderous, little blue pill called Viagra.^[8]

Viagra launched in 1998, and while there are more than enough jokes and memes regarding the effects of the drug, it’s hard to discount its importance on society. Dr. Samuels has spoken about receiving letters from men on the verge of suicide, but thanks to her invention, they were living longer happier lives. She even mentioned how the men who participated in the clinical trial begged to continue taking the drug when it concluded. There are more options these days to solve a man’s little problem in the bedroom, but it all started with that little blue pill Dr. Samuels helped bring into the world.^[9]

6 They Shattered A Significant Glass Ceiling

Prior to and following WWII, women were mainly limited to employment in traditionally female jobs, and while that norm stood for some time, it would be the Boomer generation who would put an end to it. As families moved from the cities to the suburbs to raise their Boomer kids, the makeup of the so-called nuclear family began to change. Divorce rates increased as women realized they didn’t have to remain in otherwise loveless marriages. This brought more and more women into the workforce, and they soon realized there was a glass ceiling keeping them on the lower rung of the corporate ladder.^[10]

Pioneering women like Sally Ride, the first American woman in space, Dr. Leona Fulani, the first woman to appear on the ballots of all 50 states in a Presidential election, and Carly Fiorina, the first woman to be named CEO of a Fortune 20 company are just a few examples of Boomers who broke through the glass ceiling.^[11] Hillary Clinton recently broke the ceiling by becoming the first woman to become a serious contender for the office of the President of the United States.

5 Civil Rights & The ADA

The Civil Rights movement in America began while most Boomers were still bouncing on their daddy’s knee, but as those kids grew up, they saw the various injustices of the world and opted to fight against them. Baby Boomers were the ones who fought in and protested against the Vietnam War. They argued for equality, and many of them marched alongside some of the most important activists of the previous generation.^[12] The Boomers learned from these events and pushed for numerous reforms to civil rights and the rights of disabled people.

In 1990, the United States passed The Americans with Disabilities Act, and while there are plenty of people who argue that the Act was unnecessary and costly for businesses, it afforded access to every American, regardless of their situation. This was something that had never been done before, and as a result, people who couldn’t work previously were able to do so while the deaf and hearing impaired were guaranteed access to a nationwide system of interstate services to help them communicate over the phone.^[13]

4 They Ended The Draft

If there’s one thing pretty much all Millennials can and should thank the Boomers for, it’s the elimination of the military draft in 1973. Prior to the creation of the All-Volunteer Force, all American men had to serve in the Armed Forces, and following the loss of 58,220^[14] American Servicemembers in Vietnam, public sentiment towards compulsory service was at an all-time low. The Department of Defense decided to let the Military Selective Service Act expire in June of 1973, and from that point forward, no American was forced to serve in the military.^[15]

The United States used conscription for every major conflict up to and including the Vietnam War, but thanks, in large part, to the protests led by Baby Boomers who were tired of seeing their generation marched off to war, it came to an end. Since that time, the U.S. Military has risen as one of the best trained, best equipped, and most feared militaries on Earth and every single person serving in uniform does so by choice.^[16]

3 They Gave The World The Personal Computer

When computers were first invented, they took up entire rooms, and cost more money than anyone could afford. They were also mainframe systems subject to oversight by whatever corporation or government agency built them. The advent of the personal computer changed all that, and with the introduction of PCs into the home came the democratization of computing. If you’re reading this on a computer or your smartphone, you owe a huge thanks to Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs, two Boomers born in 1950 and 1955, respectively.^[17]

Granted, those two men weren’t the only pioneers in the field, and they owe a thank you to the men and women who built the first microprocessors, many of whom were Boomers as well. The invention of personal computers arguably changed the world. They enabled the average person to enter the digital age in much the same way Gutenberg’s printing press helped make the world literate. It’s one of the most important inventions of all time, and it was made by Boomers.^[18]

2 They Invented The Internet

The Internet. It’s something few people can go without in modern society, and it’s the only way you’re reading this article! The Internet was a game-changer for humanity, and it’s all thanks to the Baby Boomers. The beginnings of what would become the Internet stemmed from the ARPANET,^[19] which wasn’t started by Boomers, but it was used as a framework for the iterations of packet-switching networks, which would ultimately become the Internet. There were a lot of people who worked on the Internet as it grew into a worldwide web of information, but one man, in particular, can be called the father of the Internet.

Sir Tim Burners-Lee^[20] is credited as being the inventor of the World Wide Web in 1989, and it’s because of him that we have URLs, HTTP, and HTML. Burners-Lee was born in 1959, which lands him right in the middle of the period claimed by the Baby Boomers. He continues to help shape and define the WWW as the director of the World Wide Web Consortium,^[21] an organization that oversees the continued development of the Web we call the Internet.

1 They Created Video Games

The first video game was programmed into an oscilloscope by physicist William Higinbotham^[22] in 1958, and while it was an important achievement in the history of video game development, it wasn’t until the early 1960s that a few pioneering MIT employees programmed Spacewar! On the PDP-1 during their spare time. This achievement led to an exponential growth in the number of people interested in programming games, as well as playing them. When the 1970s came around, video games were a burgeoning commercial industry, and with games like Pong, created by Allan Alcorn, a Boomer, the industry began to take off.

Through the late 1970s and well into the 1980s, the video games coded in and outside of the United States were done almost entirely by Baby Boomers. These were the people who wanted to play games, and they figured out how to make them.^[23] While the bulk of the industry moved overseas to Japan, it has remained one of the biggest entertainment industries in the world. If nothing else on this list describes something a Millenial should be thankful to a Boomer for, you can rest assured they are thankful for the video game industry.