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].

We tend to think of history as a collection of abstract facts that have no bearing on the “real world,” but everything connects across the timeline. Big, world-changing events don’t just change things when they happen; they send out shock waves that reverberate into the present. Like William Faulkner said, “The past is never dead. It’s not even past.”

10 Espionage And Sedition Acts

When Woodrow Wilson declared war in 1917, he gave a speech before congress warning of the disloyalty of many Americans. To deal with those who wanted to undermine the war effort, Wilson advocated “a firm hand of repression.”

Thus, Wilson enacted the Espionage and Sedition Acts to prosecute people who threatened “national defense.” The acts granted the government the power to censor newspapers and movies as well as jail those who resisted the draft and made it federal crime to slander the Constitution. The government imprisoned thousands during Wilson’s administration.

Cooler heads never really prevailed. By 1919, the Supreme Court decided that the laws were not in violation of the First Amendment and freedom of speech, and their use continues to this day. They were most recently employed to imprison Chelsea (formerly Bradley) Manning, and they would be used to put Edward Snowden behind bars if he were to be captured.

9 Iron Harvest

Farmers in France, Germany, and Belgium are still at risk of becoming casualties due to the amount of munitions launched during World War I. When they plow their fields, they’re still dredging up tons of unexploded weaponry, and sometimes the bombs go off. Entire teams are dedicated to finding these weapons and disarming them before that happens. People like Michael Colling even have to wear gas masks, as if the war never ended.

In 2012, Belgium uncovered 105 tons of munitions, including poisonous gas. They call the haul, like a macabre crop grown in Hell, the “iron harvest.” In 2004, one site in Germany yielded 3,000 unexploded bombs. Those hauls are only a drop in the bucket. During World War I, 1.4 billion shells were launched. People still occasionally die. The Great War is still claiming lives.

8 Champagne

You may have, at some point, heard a snob proclaim, “Champagne is only champagne if it comes from the Champagne region in France.” Here’s why:

The French regions that could produce champagne were effectively destroyed during World War I. To ensure that champagne would remain exclusively French, a clause was added to the Treaty of Versailles, stipulating that the entire world wouldn’t be able to call any sparkling wine “champagne.” The countries that ratified the Treaty of Versailles agreed.

This stipulation remains at work today, though not completely as intended. If you’re in the US, you may have noticed that a lot of cheap wine is still called “champagne.” This stuff is made in the United States. In the US, you can a get terrible hangover from “champagne” instead of “sparkling wine” because the Senate never ratified the Treaty of Versailles. The US remains technically exempt from the clause.

7 The Red Zone

Some towns in France were so destroyed and contaminated that the French government seized an area of land larger than Paris and deemed it uninhabitable.

Several towns in the Champagne-Ardenne region experienced some of the war’s most devastating fighting. The people that lived there fled, and the towns succumbed to the guns of August. The ground was contaminated, and there were too many unexploded bombs. People didn’t return after the war.

On April 17, 1919, the French government bought the land and declared it uninhabitable. Henceforth, it was to be known as the “Zone Rouge,” a place fit for military training and nothing else. People have returned to some of the towns as the ground became safer, but a large strip of land is still considered impossible for human life.

6 The Hungarian Diaspora

The Treaty of Trianon was the peace agreement established between the Allies and Hungary in 1920, and like all of the treaties dealing with Central and Southern Europe, there was the messy issue of what to do with the losing side’s land. Breaking up the Austro-Hungarian Empire meant dividing the land among the various nations that used to make up the empire.

Hungary really lost hard in the deal. Roughly two-thirds of its territory was given to surrounding countries like Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia. The unintended consequence of this is that millions of Hungarians are in other countries. The Hungarians who found themselves outside their borders did not assimilate into the new nations and essentially created Hungarian exclaves.

Hungary’s solution to this problem today is basically to recreate the Hungarian Empire. They’re creating countries within countries by granting full citizenship, including voting rights, to hundreds of thousands of Hungarians in places like Romania. This has brought the two countries to the brink of war as recently as 2013. It has also promoted the rise of far-right demonstrations chanting “Down with Trianon!” a century after the fact.

5 Debt

World War I was expensive, so much so that Britain went from the world’s creditor to a debtor nation in just four years. No one could have predicated just how devastatingly expensive the war was and how long it would take to pay back all the borrowed money.

Germany was famously stuck with the bill for World War I with the reparations and “war-guilt” clause in the Treaty of Versailles. The country has only recently paid off its debt. They made their final payment of $94 million to the Allies in 2010. They weren’t alone, either. Britain finally paid off its £1.9 Billion debt in 2015.

4 ISIS

ISIS wouldn’t exist if it weren’t for World War I. In fact, the organization makes of point of saying how they will be destroying all of the World War I treaties that created the modern Middle East.

Keep in mind that all of the current nation-states in the Middle East did not exist before 1914. They were (mostly) part of the Ottoman Empire. When it started to look like the Allies would win, the UK and France (again, mostly) decided how they would carve up the new land and add it to their empires. This included the Sykes-Picot agreement.

France and Britain brokered a secret treaty during World War I about who would have what in the Middle East. In the agreement, they decided to create Iraq and Syria and add these newly created territories to their empires. The trouble is that they didn’t take into account how the people living there would feel.

Destroying these borders is now a huge part of the ISIS agenda. In 2014, in one of ISIS’s first videos, they filmed a bulldozer knocking down a chuck of dirt between Iraq and Syria, and then the camera panned down to a sign that said, “End of Sykes-Picot.”

3 Divided Ireland

At the outbreak of World War I, Ireland was part of the UK, but by the end of the war, the Irish had started their own Brexit. Typically, historians have treated the Easter Uprising of 1916 as the origin of modern Irish problems and violence, and it could not have happened without the conditions facilitated by World War I.

Participation in the British military helped to widen the cracks between Irish loyalists and republicans. Northern Ireland fought and died for Britain, and they weren’t about to join Irish nationalists and republicans, who, in their view, weren’t joining or joined for the wrong reasons. Ulster loyalists also supported the conscription of Irishmen, while republicans, nationalists, and Roman Catholics violently resisted.

Things came to a boiling point on Easter 1916, when James Connolly and a group of volunteers stormed Dublin, occupied the General Post Office, and declared the Irish Republic. This event set the tone of violence that would dominate Ireland throughout the 20th century and up until the present day.

2 Pilates

Pilates, the popular fitness fad that has swept the suburbs, was actually born in a World War I internment camp. Joseph Pilates, a native of Germany, moved to England in 1912 to work as a defense instructor for Scotland Yard. Two years later, the war broke out, and the British rounded up thousands of German nationals, whom the British believed represented an enemy threat.

While interned as a potential German saboteur, Joseph developed a method of exercise that could be performed inside the camp. He rigged together what was on hand to enable others to perform effective exercise with little more than their body weight. It worked well and was a hit, and he eventually moved to the US in 1926. He brought his fitness system along with him and opened a studio in New York City. From there, it spread throughout the country.

1 Passports

Papers for travel weren’t always a common necessity. They mostly existed for sailors to pass through ports. By the end of the 19th century, railroads had made travel so popular and easy that Europe simply abolished any legal paperwork that might have been required for travel. From the 1860s to 1914, borders were essentially open.

World War I changed everything. Free and open travel was simply not a reality for nations at war, and the UK was the first to set up the system we recognize today. The British Nationalist and Status Alien Acts of 1914 gave birth to the modern passport. It was a piece of paper with a picture and other identifying criteria encased by a cardboard cover. Besides some minor changes made in the 1920s, these passports became the template for all international travel. Other than increased sophistication in technology, they haven’t really changed.

Temples are sacred places of worship. Countless numbers have been built since time immemorial, just as countless numbers have been destroyed and completely forgotten. However, some have lasted for centuries and remain in remarkably good condition today.

10Wat Phra Si Sanphet

Wat Phra Si Sanphet, or the Temple of the Buddha Si Sanphet, was built around the 15th century. Unlike Thailand’s other temples, monks were not allowed to live in it. Instead, it was used exclusively for storing royal items and conducting royal ceremonies.

In 1491, King Ramathibodi II added two chedis to the temple to hold the remains of members of his family. Chedis are a vital part of Thailand’s temples. They’re built after the body of a deceased loved one has been cremated, and the ashes of the dead are usually kept inside.

One of the two chedis built by Ramathibodi II held the ashes of his late father while the other held the ashes of his late brother. Seven years later, he added an assembly hall where the statue of Buddha Phra Si Sanphet was placed. The statue was covered in about 200 kilograms (440 lb) of gold.

It was this statue that later popularized the temple and gave it its name. Unfortunately, the gold covering the statue was looted in 1767 by the invading Burmese army, who also destroyed much of the temple.

9Dwarkadhish Temple

Suvarna Dwarka, a town in ancient Anarta, India, was the capital city of Lord Krishna’s kingdom. It’s the home of the Dwarkadhish temple, which is regarded as one of the holiest places in the world by Hindus. It is also their most important site for pilgrimages.

Its main idol is an image of Krishna depicted as the god Vishnu, with four arms. It is believed that Krishna is an incarnation of Vishnu. There are also idols of Baldejvi (Krishna’s brother) and Pradyumna and Aniruddha (Krishna’s son and grandson). There are also several other shrines dedicated to his mother, Shiva, and Vishnu himself.

The temple is an imposing five-story building with 72 pillars and a 78-meter-high (255 ft) temple spire. On top of the temple is a 25-meter (84 ft) flag with images of the Sun and the Moon. The 2,500-year-old temple has two entrances: Its northern entrance is called “Moksha Dwara,” which means “Door to Salvation,” and its southern entrance is called “Swarga Dwara,” which means “Gate to Heaven.”

8Wat Tham Suea

Wat Tham Suea is located in Thailand and was given the name “Tiger Cave Temple” after the tiger’s paw prints that line the walls of the limestone cave in which it was built. It’s considered a holy site by the Buddhists in Krabi, Thailand.

About 250 monks and nuns presently live in and maintain the temple. Tourists come as much for the temple as for the breathtaking natural beauty of the surrounding forest. Massive banyan trees grow everywhere, and one of these—nicknamed the “Wonderful Tree”—is believed to have the largest root system of any tree in Thailand. Archaeologists have also unearthed idols, beads, pottery, and tools made during the Stone Age in the area around the temple.

Tiger Cave Temple is surrounded by several cells that were built into the caves and cliffs around the main building; these natural dormitories serve as the living quarters for the monks. The temple itself is filled with skulls, skeletons, and explicit paintings. The most extraordinary part of the temple is probably the shrine at its top, but to get there you’ll have to trudge up 1,200 steps.

7Wat Tilok Aram

Wat Tilam Aram is over 500 years old, and while it comes with a grab bag of interesting historical facts, most of its intrigue comes from its recent history. The temple is believed to have being built by King Tilokanart of the Mengrai dynasty and was deliberately submerged more than 68 years ago during the construction of Phayao Lake.

Recent attempts to drain the water around the temple have been met with resistance because doing so might cause more damage to the temple than anything the water could do. The project could also affect fishing in the area and cause damage to the ecosystem.

The plan was eventually shelved and a floating platform was built over the underwater temple instead. The temple itself has suffered extensive damage, and all that remains of it are four poles, some debris, and a massive concrete wall.

6Pyramid Of The Magician

Uxmal, which means “built thrice,” is a destroyed Mayan city in Yucatan, Mexico. It was declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1996. One of its major landmarks is the “Pyramid of the Magician,” which is also called the “House of the Dwarf” because of the belief that it was built by a dwarf who hatched from an egg. According to legend, the dwarf grew into an adult in a day and built the pyramid in a night. In reality, the pyramid was constructed in the sixth century.

Standing an impressive 35 meters (115 ft) tall, the pyramid is the biggest building in Uxmal. It actually contains several temples that were built before the pyramid itself was erected—it wasn’t uncommon for the Maya to construct new buildings on top of older ones. Temple IV—one of the temples at the top of the pyramid—has 12 masks hung around its doorway. The masks were originally believed to represent Chac, the god of rain, but this has been disputed.

Another temple at the top, Temple V, was built around A.D. 1000. It might have been inspired by the Governor’s Palace, which stood nearby.

5Temple Of The Inscriptions

The Temple of the Inscriptions is another Mayan temple built on top of a pyramid that was erected between A.D. 672 and 682. The 20-meter-tall (66 ft) temple has four pillars decorated with the image of several adults carrying a deformed child who has a snake-like leg with six toes.

The name of the temple was derived from the three tablets inside, which are marked with Mayan glyphs and date as far back as A.D. 692. One is inscribed with the names of early Mayan kings before King Pakal, while another gives information about the life of Pakal himself. They also give information about the future—the year 4772, to be exact. The temple also contains one of the most popular iconographic monuments in Mayan history: the lid of a stone coffin showing Pakal falling into the world below at the time of his death.

The town of Palenque—where the Temple of the Inscriptions stands—was abandoned completely forgotten until 1773, when it was discovered, lost, and discovered again. No one knows its real Mayan name. The name it bears today came from the neighboring village of Santo Domingo de Palenque.

4Asamai Temple

The Hindu population of Afghanistan has been greatly reduced in recent years because of pressure from the Mujahideen and the Taliban, which forced them to flee to India. Within nine years, the numbers of Hindu worshipers in Afghanistan fell from 20,000 families to just 500 families.

Asamai Temple in Kabul is one of the few temples still standing in Afghanistan today. It is named after the Asamai Mountain, or Koh-i-Asamai. The Asamai Mountain itself is named after Asha, the goddess of hope. According to legend, Asha lives at the very top of the mountain. It is believed that the fire in the temple, the Perpetual Light or Akhand Jyoti, has been burning continuously for 4,000 years.

Inside the temple is the Panjshir Ka Jogi stone, which is believed to be hundreds of years old. It is named after a Hindu ascetic who used to meditate in the Panjshir Valley. After being harassed by the local populace, he was forced to turn himself into a stone.

3The Great Plaza Temples

The Great Plaza is the most important building in Tilak, Guatemala. It is also home to two ancient Mayan temples—Temple I, also called the “Temple of the Great Jaguar,” and Temple II, also called the “Temple of the Mask.”

The Temple of the Great Jaguar was constructed by Ah Cacao, who was also known as Jasaw Chan K’awiil. Ah Cacao was responsible for bringing Tilak back to its original position of affluence and power after a stagnant period of more than 150 years in which no new buildings were built and no important event was recorded.

Much unlike many other buildings in Tilak, the Great Plaza Temples were built within a short time. Ah Cacao was able to complete the construction of Temple II but left Temple I—which was to be his own final resting place—to be completed by his son. Ancient Maya believed that Temple I was the gateway to the underworld.

When Ah Cacao passed away, his son buried him with pottery, jade, and shells and then built Temple I over his tomb. The burial of Ah Cacao in Temple I was also a break from the norm—according to tradition, the kings of Tilak were usually buried in the North Acropolis.

2Varaha Cave Temple

The Varaha Cave Temple in Mahabalipuram, India was built straight into a mountainside in the seventh century. It’s dedicated to Vishnu, and it holds some of the most intricate Hindu rock-cut sculptures in the world. These include highly detailed two-dimensional sculptures of Lakshmi, Durga, and Varaha, the boar-shaped incarnation of Vishnu. The temple’s pillars are carved to look like lions, and several panels show Varaha carrying Bhudevi—the goddess of mother Earth—out of the ocean.

There are also sculptures of Vishnu saving the Earth and several others of Durga, Gajalakshmi, and many mythological creations. One shows Durga and Trivikrama killing Mahishasura, a demon with a buffalo head and a human body. Gajalakshmi is also depicted sitting on a lotus while being bathed by elephants.

1Temple Of Dendur

The Temple of Dendur is an Egyptian temple presently in New York. It was built in Egypt in 15 B.C. during the reign of Roman emperor Augustus Caesar. The temple was given to the United States in 1965 and is presently displayed in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. It honors the goddess Isis and two other gods, Harpocrates and Osiris. It also honors Peteese and Pihor, the sons of a Nubian chief who assisted the Romans during war.

The Temple of Dendur used to sit on the banks of the Nile, close to the Egyptian town of Tutzis. It was removed from its original site along with several other temples to prevent it from being damaged by the rising waters of Lake Nasser. While most of the other temples were simply moved to higher ground, Egypt decided to give the Temple of Dendur to the US as a show of thanks for helping with the temple-moving project. The temple was dismantled into 642 blocks which weighed more than 800 tons in total before being packed into 661 crates and shipped to the US.

Elizabeth is an aspiring writer and blogger. She enjoys reading your comments. You can also email her at [email protected].

The Earth has been around for around 4.5 billion years,^[1] and it is tempting to hope that it (and us, for that matter) will still be here in few a billion more. Of course, our world faces a number of ongoing problems that, at the very least, call the planet’s long-term habitability into question.

However, it’s entirely possible that we won’t need to worry about those issues, because there are several ways in which the world as we know it could be wiped out. Today. And only some of them would be down to the stupidity of mankind, which is comforting, if you think about it.

10 Gamma-Ray Burst

A gamma-ray burst (GRB) is an explosion of high-frequency electromagnetic radiation. A burst can give off a stream of energy greater than the Sun could produce in ten billion years, and it would happen in seconds. Scientists believe that GRBs may be caused by exploding stars or by collisions of neutron stars.

It is estimated that if the Earth were to be hit by a gamma-ray burst that occurred within the Milky Way, it would chemically damage our atmosphere, depleting the ozone layer, which protects us from ultraviolet rays, thus triggering a mass extinction. Some scientists also believe that gamma-ray bursts may give off cosmic rays, which would cause radiation sickness in anyone who managed to survive the initial impact of the GRB.

Most bursts last for less than two seconds, but a long GRB (one which lasts longer than two seconds) hitting us could cause a mass extinction on Earth. Luckily, they normally occur in far-off dwarf galaxies, but they have happened nearer to home, and scientists have speculated that gamma-ray bursts may have been responsible for past mass extinctions on Earth.^[2]

So you never know.

9 Giant Solar Flare

In July 2012, a solar superstorm almost ended the world as we know it. If you are wondering how you could have missed the wall-to-wall coverage of this near-miss, don’t bother. There wasn’t any.

When the giant solar flare, or coronal mass ejection, tore into the Earth’s orbit, our planet had just moved out of its path, so NASA thought it was best not to mention it. Had it hit a week earlier, it would have fried our electrical devices. The flare would have caused devastation estimated to be 20 times greater than Hurricane Katrina, and the resulting damage would have taken at least 20 years to repair.

As bad as that sounds, you may think that this does not amount to mass extinction. However, it has been theorized that an even bigger solar flare was the cause of an extinction event around 12,000 years ago, when evidence suggests that the Earth was exposed to intense UV rays for a prolonged period due to damage to the ozone layer.

A study in 2017 determined that there is a “solid chance” that a giant solar flare could hit the Earth within the next century, causing an estimated $10 trillion in damage. They found that extreme super-flares occur on the Sun once every 20 million years or so, and it seems we are due. They put the odds of an extinction event-type impact as one in 1,000, which isn’t that bad, but the odds of an impact which wipes out our electrical and technological capability are more like one in eight.^[3]

So, stock up on candles.

8 Flood Basalt Events

At the end of the Triassic period, half of all living species became extinct, leaving the Earth free for the dinosaurs. It was caused by a volcanic eruption so big that it could have covered the US with 91 meters (300 ft) of lava, which is pretty big.

This eruption, known as a flood basalt event, caused an increase in global temperature, a doubling of the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, and the acidification of the oceans. Some scientists believe that almost all mass extinction events in the history of the Earth have been connected to these flood basalt eruptions, rather than more popular culprits like asteroids.

The first consequence of a flood basalt event is actually cold. The fire fountains caused by the eruptions spew sulfur dioxide into the stratosphere, which reflects sunlight away from the Earth. This would be followed by acid rain and then respiratory illnesses. Livestock would die, and aircraft would be grounded. As time passes, however, the planet would actually get warmer due to all the carbon dioxide and water vapor introduced into the atmosphere by the event.^[4]

Work is still ongoing to try to determine how often these flood basalt events are likely to occur and, more importantly, when the next one is due.

7 A Mishap With The Large Hadron Collider

The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is a 27-kilometer underground ring in which particles are smashed together at incredibly high speeds. Using the force of 9,300 magnets, the scientist can cause 600 million collisions per second in a kind of subatomic demolition derby.

Conditions at CERN’s main site, where the collider is kept, are strictly controlled. But accidents can happen with particle accelerators. In 1978, a Russian scientist put his head in a particle accelerator and was hit by a burst of protons traveling at nearly light speed. He was hit by 76 billion electron volts but lived to tell the tale, though doctors did not expect him to survive.

In 2009, the LHC was shut down when it began to overheat. The cause was found to be a piece of bread, dropped on a electrical substation above the collider. Most people thought that it was dropped there by a stray bird, but a pair of respected physicists, convinced that the research into the Higgs boson particle was detrimental to the fate of the universe, came up with a theory that involved a time-traveling saboteur bird sent from the future to stop the experiments.

With bread.

As bizarre as they sound, they are not alone in their concerns about the collider. Astronomer Professor Lord Martin Rees has warned that a mistake at CERN could cause a “doomsday scenario” in which the entire planet is sucked into a black hole which would compress the Earth into a hyperdense mass spanning just 100 meters (330 ft) across. And if that isn’t bad enough, there is also a theory that a mistake in the collider could cause an accident that would “engulf space itself.”^[5]

6 Alien Invasion

The search for intelligent life in space has been a consuming one for many scientists and astronomers. However, not everyone thinks that looking for aliens is a good idea. Professor Stephen Hawking believed that instead of trying to make contact with alien life-forms, we would be better served by trying to hide from them.

He postulated that, given the number of planets we know exist, there must be other life-forms in the universe, least some of which will be of superior intelligence, with greater technological and military capability. And, Hawking suggested, if they did come, it would be more in the manner of a conqueror than an ambassador.

If aliens do make contact with Earth, it’s possible that the Chinese will be the first to hear them, since they have invested heavily in alien contact technology, building the world’s largest radio dish for this purpose. But if aliens do make contact, there is no single protocol for how Earth will collectively respond, nor is there anything to stop enthusiastic amateurs from projecting any message they like to listening aliens.

And what if they don’t call first but just show up? Given the amount of resources required and the length of time it would take, it is unlikely that it would be for a casual visit. As Stephen Hawking said, “If aliens visit us, the outcome would be much as when Columbus landed in America, which didn’t turn out well for the Native Americans.”^[6]

5 Swallowed By A Black Hole

Even without the help of CERN, there is a possibility that Earth could be swallowed by a black hole. A black hole is defined as a concentration of mass great enough that the force of gravity prevents anything from escaping it, even light.

There are many things that can cause a black hole. One of the stars of the Eta Carinae stellar system, for example, is close to going supernova. It is even possible that it has already exploded, but the image of the event still light-years away.

When the star does go, its core could collapse in on itself, forming a neutron star or a black hole. Some have claimed that if a black hole does form, it will swallow the remains of Eta Carinae and could take the Earth with it. Scientists have said that this is extremely unlikely, however.

All the same, it is possible, albeit with long odds, that a rogue black hole could happen upon our solar system. If that were to happen, the Sun and all the planets would likely be ripped apart.^[7]

Well, that’s comforting.

4 Nuclear War

The threat of nuclear war has hung over the Earth since the mid-20th century. Though the threat has waxed and waned over the decades, the potential for nuclear war appears to have become more prominent in the last few years.

Should a nuclear war break out today, it has been predicted that the fallout would be “similar to the extinction of the dinosaurs.” Soot created from the destruction would alter the climate, cooling the Earth’s surface and heating the upper atmosphere, with “potentially devastating effects.”

Nuclear war was narrowly averted during the Cuban Missile Crisis by a combination of public tough talking and private diplomacy on both sides. Khrushchev wrote to Kennedy, “If there is no intention to tighten that knot and thereby to doom the world to the catastrophe of thermonuclear war, then let us not only relax the forces pulling on the ends of the rope, let us take measures to untie that knot.”

Today, the threat of nuclear war is again said to be “dangerously close,” and the fate of the world may lie in the diplomatic skills of various nations and their leaders.^[8]

3 Supervolcano Eruption

Campi Flegrei is a supervolcano nestled in the Bay of Naples. The volcano, whose name means “burning fields,” consists of a vast network of underground chambers, filled with magma, largely under the sea. Campi Flegrei has not erupted for over 500 years (and that was a tiny one), but it seems that this may soon change. In December 2016, volcanologists warned that the volcano could be reaching “critical degassing pressure,” which could lead to an eruption.

That would be bad. Around 39,000 years ago, the volcano once “punched” 300 cubic kilometers (72 mi^{) of molten rock 70 kilometers (43 mi) up into the air and emitted 450,000 tons of sulfur dioxide. The ash landed as far as 2,000 kilometers (1,200 mi) away. The eruption had devastating, centuries-long consequences for Europe. The sulfur dioxide released by the eruption precipitated a volcanic winter, covering the land in ash 20 centimeters (8 in) deep and blocking heat from the Sun.[9]}

Nor is Campi Flegrei the only supervolcano in existence. Lake Toba in Indonesia, Yellowstone Park in the US, and the Taupo caldera in New Zealand are all the sites of supervolcanoes which have the potential to wipe out large swathes of the population and turn the land into desert, should any of them erupt. Experts are working to be able to predict when the eruptions are likely to occur. Geologists studying the Yellowstone supervolcano believe that there is an average gap of 740,000 years between eruptions, which would mean that Old Faithful should be safe for at least another 100,000 years.

Lets hope all supervolcanoes are just as reliable.

2 Methane Burst

Most apocalyptic scenarios involve drama, danger, and a high degree of explosions. But how about a microbe that spews methane?

It has been theorized that just such a catastrophe occurred 252 million years ago, killing 90 percent of marine creatures and 70 percent of those on land in one of the five major mass extinctions in the history of the Earth. They believe that Methanosarcina, a microbe that produces methane, grew unchecked in the oceans, causing the climate to heat up, resulting in the acidification of the seas and the extinction of life. The microbe flourished on the minerals produced by large-scale volcanic eruptions in Siberia, which increased the concentrations of nickel required for its growth.

So, how likely is it that another methane burst will wipe out life on Earth? Well, quite likely, it seems. It is believed that the Arctic is a “ticking time bomb” of methane. Methane is said to be trapped in the permafrost in the form of methane hydrate and methane clathrate. Should too much ice melt, a world-ending mass extinction event could be triggered.^[10]

1 Vacuum Decay

The universe is held in a vacuum. And our vacuum is jostled up against the vacuums of other universes. However, some of these vacuums are not true vacuums. And if the vacuum of a universe is a false vacuum, it is potentially unstable, or “metastable.”

If our universe is held in a false vacuum, then any high-energy event, such as an exploding star, might cause part of our universe to knock against the true vacuum of an adjoining universe, which would create a bubble that would expand at the speed of light and suck the entire universe in.

Not only that, but a universe that was sitting, minding its own business, in a false vacuum, can be “tunneled into” by a tiny particle that broke through the barrier separating one vacuum from another, which would also result in the false-vacuumed universe being sucked into the other.

So, do we live in a vacuum or a false vacuum? It is not certain. However, work on the measurements of the Higgs boson seem to indicate that our vacuum may be metastable.^[11] It is predicted that if we were to be sucked into a true vacuum, we would all be annihilated instantly as the bubble wall moves through our galaxy at the speed of light. There would be no survivors.

It’s not all bad news, though. The lifetime of a metastable universe is thought to be especially long, so we will probably be okay for a while. And if we are all sucked into a vacuum, it would happen so fast that we wouldn’t know about it.

So, nothing to worry about.

When we think of buildings that have survived to the modern day, we think of structures such as the Colosseum, the Leaning Tower of Piza, and the pyramids. But what about structures that are still in use—their original use—to this day?

While most ancient structures have gained a second life as tourist attractions, the humble bridge has often maintained its original use throughout the ages. Due to being built to last, there are many bridges out there that were built hundreds of years before our time and still see daily use. While old bridges often get destroyed in disasters, blown up in wars, or burned down in tragic accidents, the bridges in this list have survived the ages relatively unchanged.

10Pons Fabricius

The Romans built many things that stood the test of time. With their rigid and effective building techniques, a few important constructions built during the Roman era still stand to this day. If you’re in the mood to inspect their handiwork for yourself, simply take a trip to Rome and visit the Pons Fabricius bridge.

The bridge was built by Lucius Fabricius in 62 BC, possibly to replace a wooden bridge that had burned down. You can tell Lucius commanded its construction because he had it written on the bridge in four different spots.

After a flood in 23 BC, two consuls known as Marcus Lollius and Quintus Aemilius Lepidus added adjustments in 21 BC in order to help preserve the bridge, although it’s not stated what the improvements were exactly. It might have been the addition of the small arch on the bridge which serves the purpose of relieving pressure during high waters. That alone probably helped the bridge survive as long as it has.

9Ponte Vecchio

Built in 1345, the Ponte Vecchio can be found in Florence, Italy. It was built to replace a wooden bridge that didn’t stand up too well against floods, and it still remains in its original glory.

The interesting part of Ponte Vecchio (which translates into “Old Bridge”) is that it was built to contain an arcade of shops which is being used even today. The bridge used to be haunted by fishmongers and butchers in the 1400s, whose crafts caused the bridge to contain a foul odor. Given that Florence was becoming the hub of the Renaissance at the time, Grand Duke Ferdinand I had the merchants removed and the sale of fish and meat products on the bridge banned. He ordained that the only people who could sell on the bridge were goldsmiths and silversmiths, which helped develop Florence’s imagery to wealthy foreign visitors.

This bridge wouldn’t have made it to the modern day if it wasn’t for an act of respect performed during wartime. In World War II, as the German soldiers fled Florence, they blew up every bridge they crossed to stall enemy forces. Ponte Vecchio was the only bridge spared—they chose instead to destroy the access to the bridge, rather than the bridge itself.

8Ponte Di Rialto

An Italian bridge was constructed in 1591 to replace a wooden one that had collapsed. It was designed by one Antonio da Ponte, who had some stiff competition to design the bridge, with rivals being Michelangelo and Palladio. Unfortunately, once it was built, it didn’t go down so well with the locals. It received both praise and scorn from critics, who slammed its design for being “top-heavy and ungraceful,” the same attention the Eiffel Tower drew after it was built.

Despite the criticism, the bridge has remained very much intact since it was built. Given it had to have a 7-meter (24 ft) arch to allow galleys below as well as enough strength to hold up the row of shops that spans its center, it had to be structurally sound. It’s so sound, in fact, that cannons were fired from it during riots in 1797.

7Khaju Bridge

Built in 1667 on the foundations of an older bridge, this bridge’s construction was ordered by the late Shah Abbas II. Being a bridge, its main purpose was to allow people to cross the Zayandeh River, but it also has other uses. It acts as a dam and has sluice gates, yet its most interesting use is the social aspect.

While we’re unfamiliar with a bridge being the place to be used for social hangouts, that didn’t stop Shah Abbas II from trying. Along the bridge—and still visible to this day— is an impressive array of paintings and tile work. A pavilion was constructed in the middle so that Shah Abbas II and his courtiers could look over the scenery. These days, the pavilion is a teahouse and art gallery. If that’s not enough, within the pavilion was a stone seat which the Shah Abbas used to look over the river. The seat is still around but very much a remnant of its former glory.

6Shaharah Bridge

Also known as the “Bridge of Sighs” (not the one in Venice), Shaharah Bridge can be found in Yemen. Built in the 17th century, Shaharah Bridge is a path that spans a 200-meter-deep (650 ft) canyon in order to connect two mountains, Jabal al Emir and Jabal al Faish. It was a lot of trouble for the inhabitants of both mountains to visit one another, as it meant climbing down one mountain and scaling another. The bridge was made to better connect the villages on both mountains to save time and effort.

It wasn’t just a hot spot for transportation. Given that it was the only entrance to the town of Shaharah, it had to be fortified to help fend off Turkish invaders. It is said that the locals know how to destroy the bridge at a moment’s notice, isolating the villagers from danger.

These days, Shaharah Bridge is a major tourist attraction, and it still receives its intended use by the locals as a functioning bridge.

5Cendere Bridge

Also known as Severan Bridge, this was built in Turkey during the second century by four Kommagenean cities. Its intent was to honor the Roman emperor Septimius Severus, his wife Julia, and their two sons, Caracalla and Geta. While very old, it also holds the title for the second longest arched bridge built by The Romans.

On each side, there are two columns that were built to represent the members of the emperor’s family—Severus and Julia on one side and Caracalla and Geta on the other. If you go to look at them for yourself, you’ll notice the column that represents Geta is currently missing. This is because Caracalla assassinated Geta due to an ongoing rivalry, with reports saying that Geta was in his mother’s arms at the time. Caracalla went so far as to have Geta’s friends and allies put to death. For a final blow to Geta’s legacy, Caracalla ordained that any mention of Geta’s name should be erased from history, and the column representing Geta was destroyed.

4Anji Bridge

Also known as Zhaozhou Bridge, Anji Bridge is the oldest bridge in China, built in AD 605. You can tell it was designed to last, as its name translates to “Safe Crossing Bridge.” It was engineered to be one of the best in the world. At the time, it was the most technically advanced bridge due to having the largest arc. Long after its construction, the bridge was winning awards; it was praised as the 12th milestone of international civil engineering by the American Society of Civil Engineers and awarded a bronze monument.

Given that it’s still solid enough to cross, it’s obvious that the Anji Bridge, while very ambitious, didn’t cut any corners in its design. In fact, the bridge has stood up to even more than the test of time. It has managed to survive 10 floods, eight wars, and countless earthquakes, while only requiring repair work nine times in its documented lifespan.

3Ponte Sant’Angelo

Ordered to be constructed by Emperor Hadrian in AD 136, Ponte Sant’Angelo (Bridge of the Holy Angel) is one of the most famous bridges in Rome . . . and one of the most beautiful. It was a slightly self-indulgent act of Hadrian, as the goal of the bridge was to connect the whole of Rome to his own mausoleum, the Castel Sant’Angelo (Castle of the Holy Angel). They’re both labeled under the suffix “of the Holy Angel” due to the statue of the archangel Michael on the top of the mausoleum itself. The angel was said to have appeared in 590 BC on top of the same building and miraculously ended the plague in Rome.

One of the more beautiful additions to the bridge happened long after Hadrian was around to see it for himself. In 1668, sculptor Lorenzo Bernini enhanced the bridge by designing 10 angels to adorn its length, two of which he made himself. Each angel holds a symbol that represents the crucifixion of Jesus, such as a crown of thorns or a whip. Even after all these years, both the bridge and the angels still stand, making it a great sightseeing spot.

2Tarr Steps

Found in Exmoor, the Tarr Steps is what’s known as a clapper bridge—a bridge made entirely out of rocks resting atop one another. Given its construction, it’s hard to tell when it was built, although guesses range from 3000 BC to medieval times. The earliest documented description of Tarr Steps was in Tudor times, which means it dates at least to the 1500s.

Tarr Steps has a local legend that states that it was built by the Devil himself, who swore to kill anyone that dared to cross it. When the villagers sent across a cat to test the theory, the cat was vaporized. Then they sent across a vicar (who was probably worried about receiving the same fate as the cat) to meet with the Devil at the halfway point of the bridge. After he and the Devil had an argument, the Devil struck a deal: Anyone could use the bridge, but if the Devil wanted to use the area for sunbathing, the ban would resume. If you want to walk the Tarr Steps yourself, make sure there aren’t any sunbathing demons before you try.

Unfortunately, the Tarr Steps is a slight exception to the trend of bridges that have stayed mostly intact throughout the ages. Given that a pile of rocks doesn’t have the best of foundations, segments have been bowled over by floods through the course of history. For this reason, all the stones have been numbered so they can be recovered and placed back where they belong to keep the authenticity intact. Even though it’s been put back together several times, it’s still technically the same bridge.

1Arkadiko Bridge

The Arkadiko Bridge in Greece is the oldest surviving arch bridge still in use. It’s believed to have been built during the Greek Bronze Age, around 1300–1200 BC, meaning it has gone through a lot to make it to today.

It acted as part of a military road system between the cities Tiryns and Epidauros back in Mycenaean times. It has a wider berth than a normal footbridge, with a road width of around 2.5 meters (8 ft). Historians believe that this additional width was designed so that the bridge could handle chariots. What makes it even more impressive is that it’s made purely from limestone boulders, using no binding agent between the stones to keep the bridge intact. That means the bridge has lasted over three millennia from Mycenaean masonry skills alone and has survived it all.

S.E. Batt is a freelance writer and author. He enjoys a good keyboard, cats, and tea, even though the three of them never blend well together. You can follow his antics over at @Simon_Batt or his fiction website at www.sebatt.com.

Ancient Egypt is mostly recognized for its pyramids, hieroglyphs, and mummies. A rich culture that lasted for over 3,000 years before Christ, it left behind tons of relics, which provide insight into the civilization. Thanks to translations of documents and inscriptions as well as beautiful images, we know a lot about ancient Egyptian life.

Thanks to the ancient Egyptians’ practice of mummification, they learned much about the human body and seem to have developed advanced medical knowledge. Centuries ahead of their time, a lot of the practices that doctors used in ancient Egypt would not be unfamiliar to us today. Doctors may no longer use spells and amulets as the ancient Egyptians did, but in many other ways, a visit to the doctor’s office may not have been so different thousands of years ago.

10 Taking A Pulse

When we walk into a doctor’s office today, there are a few things that get checked every time, namely blood pressure, temperature, and pulse. The pulse can grant insight into the health of the circulatory system. Yet to understand it, there first needs to be an understanding that arteries and veins run throughout the body. This is common knowledge today, but for early medicine, it was a huge breakthrough.

Likely as a result of their mummification practices, ancient Egyptians had knowledge of the circulatory system. They understood its connections throughout the body and that it carried this “pulse.” They did miss one factor in that they didn’t seem to know that the heart itself is a pump. They saw it as a reservoir for the blood. Nevertheless, they knew the importance of the vascular system and were able to use it to help treat and diagnose illnesses.

The idea of measuring a pulse was far ahead of its time, and it would be centuries before it was picked up elsewhere in the world. In their knowledge of the vascular system, the Egyptians also counted the number of vessels reaching each part of the body. Their numbers were not accurate, however, as they didn’t realize how tiny arteries and veins become. But their counting may have allowed them to locate larger blood vessels, which would have been useful in case of injury or during surgery to stop bleeding.

9 Turn Your Head And Cough

Yes, men have been enduring this awkward exam for centuries, it seems. The Ebers Papyrus, a medical manual from ancient Egypt, mentions the diagnosis of a hernia, stating it is a “swelling appearing on coughing.” There are even images from ancient Egypt of figures with both umbilical hernias, which protrude from the stomach, and the all-too-graphic images of hernias in the scrotum.

Hernias happen when part of the bowel protrudes through the stomach’s muscular wall. They’re often caused by straining or lifting heavy things. Considering that the Egyptians gave us massive stone monuments like the pyramids, they were accustomed to lifting heavy things and may have been very familiar with hernias.

Their treatment for hernias, however, seems less known. The Ebers Papyrus does mention using heat on the area, but it’s not entirely clear if the heat is meant to be just a soothing treatment or if it refers to cauterizing the area to seal the muscles after minor surgery. With so many images of people living with hernias, one could wonder if they were even treated at all.

8 Tampons

Many would assume that tampons are a modern advancement that gives a woman on her period freedom. It is true that tampons were not used until recently in many Western cultures. There were even advertising campaigns as late as the 1980s touting the benefits of tampons and trying to convince American women that they were safe. These campaigns even referred to the ancient Egyptians’ use of them as proof that they are ancient and natural.

Often referred to as a tyet or an Isis knot, cloth tampons were made by using scrap fabric, often cotton, rolling it up, and tying a string around the center. The name “Isis knot” refers to the goddess Isis, who according to legend, used a tampon while pregnant with Horus to protect him while in the womb from attacks by the god Seth. Ancient Egyptians also used other cloths similar to today’s pads, which was common throughout many early cultures. Yet the benefits of the supposedly modern tampon may be something that Egyptian women knew all about.

7 Fillings

Cavities were actually rare in ancient Egypt. Since sugar wasn’t a part of the Egyptian diet, they did not have the tartar development and other issues that we do now. They did, however, wear their teeth down. Flour and grains were ground with stone, and despite their best efforts, small pieces of stone were always in the food. Living in a sandy desert likely added some grit as well. This wore down the teeth and could lead to cavities or infection. These infections could actually lead to death if the bacteria entered the bloodstream. Nefertiti’s sister, Horembheb, supposedly suffered from bad teeth and had lost all of them by the time of her death, likely due to infection.

Different fillings and ointment recipes are found in the Ebers Papyrus. One describes how to treat “an itching tooth until the opening of the flesh: cumin, 1 part; resin of incense, 1 part; dart fruit, 1 part; crush and apply to the tooth.” The idea was that this would drain the infection. Other filling recipes included honey, which has antibacterial properties, and ocher, a paint pigment heavy in iron, and ground wheat. Other times, the filling was simply cloth.

In 2012, a mummy was CT scanned, uncovering a cavity that had been filled with linen. The man was still suffering from the infection at the time of his death, however. Ancient Egyptian doctors did their best to treat cavities and to stop them from getting infected, but going to the dentist was never any fun.

6 Prostheses

Mummies in Egypt have been found with the world’s oldest known prosthetic limbs, toes, fingers, and so on. Prostheses to replace missing parts was essential to Egyptians for a couple of reasons. One was the Egyptian belief that after death, the body needs to be whole and preserved for them to be able to return to it in the afterlife. This is why mummification was so important and likely why prostheses existed. By replacing the lost limb, the body would be made whole again.

Of course, having a prosthesis would help a person maintain some functionality in life, and there is evidence that prostheses were also made for living patients. This shows how Egyptians used amputation to treat infections and injuries, and it appears that people sometimes survived the surgeries. The most famous of these patients was a lady found with a wooden big toe. The area under the prosthesis had healed, showing that she actually used the prosthetic toe in life. It likely helped her walk and balance once the old toe was lost. It is considered the oldest known prosthesis ever discovered.

5 Government-Controlled Medicine

Access to medical care was very well-controlled by the ancient Egyptian government. Doctors were educated through a specific curriculum and were members of a “house of life,” which was usually was associated with a temple. These were medical institutes that trained doctors and also functioned as medical practices where anyone could go to receive treatment.

Also, as mentioned before, there were medical manuals like the Ebers Papyrus and the Edwin Smith Papyrus, in which ailments and their treatments are outlined as well as recipes for medicines. This shows us that doctors shared cures and treatments as a part of standardized care. Doctors in ancient Egypt could be male or female and appear to have chosen specialties, much like our doctors do today. With access to well-trained doctors, Egyptian citizens had better health care than almost anyone else at the time.

Even workers’ compensation seemed to exist. There are descriptions of medical camps set up near construction projects and quarries so that injured workers could receive treatment. It appears that if the injury occurred on the job, the employer would cover the cost of care. Workers could even receive supplemental pay if they were unable to work. Thousands of years ago, this was a very complex way to approach health care and is amazingly similar to how we look at it today.

4 Prescriptions

Having to take your medicine is apparently as old as civilization itself. Thankfully, now we have a spoonful of sugar to help it go down. The ancient Egyptians weren’t so lucky. Often, medicines were trial and error. Some things ended up working really well. Others may have done more harm than good.

The Egyptians knew that honey worked well on wounds. (It’s still used today for skin ailments.) They also knew that mint could calm a stomach. Yet other items like lead and feces may not have been such great ideas. Whether they worked or not, there are dozens of recipes for medicines preserved in the medical papyri, along with instructions for their dosage and use. Patients in ancient Egypt would have been sent home with these concoctions and instructed on how to use them just as we are now.

There were medications for all sorts of issues, made from a wide variety of materials. Minerals like copper, clay, lead, and salt were used. Herbal remedies included fennel, onion, linseed, and mint. Other (lets call them “organic”) items included hair, skin, blood, feces, and more from various animals and even humans. These elements were usually combined in recipes for the fullest effect. There seem to have been many recipes for constipation. Some advise simply eating more figs (not so bad), while others prescribe castor oil, which we still use today, mixed with cold beer. A remedy for tapeworm contains equal parts lead, petroleum, ta bread, and sweet beer. It may have worked to kill the tapeworm—and hopefully not the patient.

Poultices were also a very popular treatment, with external concoctions applied for everything from baldness to stomachache. Milk was common in these, as were multiple kinds of dung, from cow to sheep to goose. Clays and lead are often included as well. Human secretions were sometimes included, from urine to milk to blood. In the case of anxiety, one cure states to rub the afflicted person down with the “milk of a woman who has born a son.” It’s not clear it if it worked.

3 Circumcision

The practice of removing a male infant’s foreskin has come in and out of vogue over the centuries, sometimes viewed as a religious practice and other times as medical. For centuries, the Jewish culture was identified with this practice, as Christians did not use it. Today, is is widely practiced by doctors in most Western countries regardless of religion.

The ancient Egyptians seem to have practiced circumcision widely. Images show doctors performing the procedure on patients. Egyptians were very interested in personal hygiene and often shaved off their body hair to stay clean and avoid parasites and conditions associated with uncleanliness. This may be what led them to start practicing circumcision throughout the culture.

Circumcision was so common that uncircumcised penises were actually a novelty. Writings describe soldiers’ fascination with the uncircumcised penises of the conquered Libyans, often collecting them from the slain to bring home and show off. Thankfully, that practice has been lost.

2 Surgery

The ancient Egyptians gained a wealth of knowledge of human anatomy and the workings of the body through their mummification practices. By operating on the dead, they were able to see issues in bodies and make associations with illnesses in life. These skills allowed them to practice surgery. Later cultures in the Middle Ages would lose this knowledge completely, as autopsies were illegal for religious reasons. Their willingness to cut into a body put the Egyptians centuries ahead medically.

Many mummies show surgeries that actually healed, from trephination to the removal of tumors. Scalpels used for surgery were either copper, ivory, or obsidian. Obsidian was particularly special, as it is a volcanic glass that keeps an edge better than most modern metal and is still used today. Patients were given alcohol and sedatives before a procedure, and since anesthesia didn’t exist, one could only hope to pass out. Mandrake root could be used as a sedative, and poppy juice, an opioid, was used for pain management.

The main issue with survival rates was that without the knowledge of blood transfusions, patients would often bleed out if the surgery was too complicated or too long. Cauterizing vessels with hot blades helped slow the bleeding. After surgery, antibiotic ointments such as honey and copper helped stave off infections. The patients who survived their ordeals may have been the first in history to have undergone medical surgery.

1 Opioids

Poppies, still grown today to produce powerful drugs, have long been known for their pain-relieving abilities. Opioids today are still the leading pain medication, especially in cases of severe pain management. Though the poppy juice used by the ancient Egyptians wasn’t quite the morphine or OxyContin of today, it was still a very useful drug at the time. In the ancient world, pain relievers were not easy to come by, and being able to treat pain was huge medical advancement.

Poppy juice, as mentioned, could be used for surgery, often mixed with beer or wine. It would provide relief to patients with nervous issues and sedate them, reliving depression and anxiety. It appears it was also used across the board as a fever reducer and painkiller. The juice, a milky substance drawn from the poppy seed pod, is not as strong as modern opioids but was still effective. The fact that it was less potent might be why ancient Egyptians don’t seem to have developed the addictive problems seen today. Poppy juice was rarely used outside medicine, but it was an effective painkiller and a very useful tool to treat and maintain the health of the ancient Egyptian people.

Nicole Gentempo is a freelance writer and certified sommelier who loves to explore natural beauty, cultures, and wines around the world. With a broad European history background, she enjoys writing well-researched, in-depth articles that delve into a locale or a wine. She has written on subjects from viticulture, regions, and history to market trends and food pairing. As a traveler, she is often found in a canoe or sailboat, her love of the outdoors and water giving her the opportunity to present places from a unique perspective, often sharing them with a glass of wine.
/>www.mywinepro.com and Instagram @my_wine_pro

Human desire to conceal is rivaled by our desire to reveal. Mystery texts arise anytime an inventive author conceals the key to understanding some new method of writing, but mystery texts go viral whenever the code suggests the key is easy to recover. Maybe the author is alive and deliberately withholding information, or maybe the key appears entirely lost to the past.

readers already know many still-unsolved mystery writings of the past, like the Voynich manuscript and the Phaestos disk, and treasure-hunt codes of the present, like the Kryptos cipher sculpture that was recently updated with the “Berlin clock” hint. Now you can test your discovery skills against a fresh slate listing ten more of the most compelling unsolved codes and ciphers ever concealed, all of which have supernaturalist or globalist backstories. Your rewards, described below, include buried treasures, rewrites of history, and even mystical insights into the universe.

See Also: Top 10 Secret Codes You Aren’t Meant To Know

10 Faust’s Magic Disc

Dmitri Borgmann, linguistics pioneer, successfully cracked many codes but left two “bafflers” in his authoritative work “Beyond Language”. Besides the inscrutable French government formula for pricing funerals, Borgmann asks for help solving the mystery text Rembrandt etched into “Faust in His Study, Watching a Magic Disc” (about 1652, with prints held by the Metropolitan Museum of Art and Pierpont Morgan Library). Rembrandt’s glowing disc contains “INRI” in the center, and (reading clockwise from the southeast and outward) “ADAM + TE + DAGERAM / AMRTET + ALGAR + ALGASTNA”. The text remains an “indecipherable anagram”,^[1] although “INRI” is usually understood as representing the inscription on the cross of Jesus.

Borgmann suggests the “surely irrelevant” occurrence of AMSTERDAM, Rembrandt’s home, among the outer letters, and some “most unconnected” Latin anagrams: “ADAM is a cyclic transposal of DAMA (‘fallow-deer’)”.^[2] Twentieth-century mystic Samael Aun Weor made use of the same text, rendering it “adam te dageram amrtet algar algas tinah”, as an inscription for a magic mirror.^[3] However, he appears merely to be recycling the text, which Borgmann suspects came from Rembrandt’s neighbor, Samuel Menasseh ben Israel, who had deep occult interests^[4] and married into the rabbinic Abarbanel family. Is ADAM plaintext, or for that matter is INRI part of the anagram? Should we rely on such partial anagrams as Meradag (Mordechai), Graal, or Satan as having any meaning? Borgmann concludes playfully, “the anagram … remains a cabalistic conundrum. Does it inspire you to try your own hand at it?”

9 Cicada 3301’s First Book

Cicada 3301, anonymous publisher of challenge data texts, is controversial enough to need its own article. “The Washington Post” ranked the organization among the top five “eeriest” internet mysteries.^[5] For three years, Cicada 3301 claimed to use complex data encryption puzzles to recruit the best codebreakers, the most interested in data privacy. Unsurprisingly, very few successful solvers came forward to disclose what they learned about the organization, even while it appears that the victorious “recruits” were assigned to engineer novel web privacy tasks.

A Cicada ebook, “Liber Primus” (Latin for “First Book”), had been discovered in 2014, completely written in runes, and with cover art of a hand holding a compass in the traditional triangular pose. Approximately half of the text has been solved, beginning with the words, “A warning: Believe nothing from this book”; but solvers despaired of further solution or anything more meaningful being recovered. Suddenly in 2016, a single tweet was released, bearing the same digital signature that verified its origin with Cicada 3301, and stating that “Liber Primus is the way”.^[6] To this date, the unknown rewards to be claimed upon solving Cicada’s hardest challenges remain publicly unclaimed.

8 Swift’s Little Languages

Like musician Edward Elgar,^[7] author Jonathan Swift frequently experimented with impromptu coding in his art, most notably in “Gulliver’s Travels” and the posthumous “Journal to Stella”. Lemuel Gulliver is frequently taken as a pun on “gullible” (even as Lemuel is known incongruously to be a nickname for Solomon); the lands he visits, Lilliput and Brobdingnag, sound like “little” and “big”. On a deeper level, Isaac Asimov speculated on many of Swift’s etymologies,^[8] holding that Swift’s “Lindalino”, which suffered government impositions, was a “double Lin” and therefore represented the city of Dublin, which Swift regarded as similarly beseiged. Most notably, the invented word “Yahoo”, taken as an insult but now a dominating search engine, is probably a corruption of the divine name “Yahweh”.^[9]

Much work has also gone into understanding a collection of Swift’s letters to close friend Esther Johnson, published as “A Journal to Stella”. Like the name Stella itself (taken for Esther), the letters are often full of nonce language that involves an irregular set of phonetic and linguistic changes that Swift believed Johnson would understand.^[10] Often resembling baby talk, this “little language” remains incompletely solved. Swift’s “word-doodling” is so various in these and other works that much new ground remains to be solved despite past scholarly forays.^[11]

7 Serafini’s Uncyclopedia

Inspired by the medieval Voynich Manuscript, architect Luigi Serafini handwrote and hand-drew an immense encyclopedic work, published in two volumes in 1981. Many discovered this book via Douglas Hofstadter’s review in his monthly column (and later book), “Metamagical Themas”. The pictures, which Hofstadter in one sentence called “grotesque and disturbing … beautiful and visionary”, start with the famous cover art of a lovemaking couple methodically transforming into an alligator.^[12]

Many years later, Serafini discounted his literary output as having “become” the same as automatic writing, even though many regularities in the Codex script, such as its page numbering, have been discovered.^[13] Is the work entirely to be understood merely as an absurdist fantasy universe without linguistic content, or is meaning inherent in the allegedly “automatic” text? Readers are still debating!

6 The Holy Codex of Rohonc

By 1838, Count Gusztav Batthyany had accumulated myriads of books from all over the world in his home, the Castle of Rohonc (now called Rechnitz, Austria). Very many of these were at that time donated to the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, which shortly discovered that one codex of nearly untraceable origin was full of incomprehensible script characters, regarded by some contemporaries as a meaningless hoax. Unlike most other unsolved codes, the “pictures are almost primitive … and the codes are not especially decorative”.^[14] As a further complication, the cipher alphabet contains at least 100 to 200 characters, often confusingly joined together, and nobody is certain what original language might have been used.

A clue may appear in the catalogue of the Batthyany library from 1743, where one entry translates as “Hungarian prayers in one volume, size duodecimo”.^[15] Work by Gabor Tokai and Levente Zoltan Kiraly in 2010-2011 seems to be converging on some characters representing New Testament books and chapters, while some illustrations retell the Passion of Christ.^[16] While this work seems promising, it may provide no more structure than the page numbers of Serafini’s much more elaborate codex. Does Rohonc display more “certain piety” than Serafini? Time must tell.

5 Hal Gashtan’s Microcosm

“In July 1984 an envelope was placed in the room pictured above …” reads the teaser of “Microcosm”, a psychedelically illustrated treasure book by “Hal Gashtan”, promising one thousand pounds to the decoder of the name within the envelope. Two magazines, “Creative Computing” (America) and “Your Computer” (Britain), sponsored this simple-looking BASIC-language programming contest, thinking it might briefly challenge ’80s PC users. Simply join the correct phrases from the book’s poetry to one of the given 20-letter keys using the columnar decryption program provided, and the answers lead to the phone number and secret name.^[17]

Unfortunately, the publisher, Lazy Summer Books (now YouCaxton Publications), underestimated the permutational challenge involved, well beyond that of the typical BASIC PC. Each of thirteen keys requires thirteen correct choices out of sixteen possibilities each (many quadrillions of combinations), before an unspecified final combination of the thirteen solutions is required. Two clues were later released by “Your Computer”: George Washington, and computer names.^[18] In the latter case, the correct 13 computers were found, but led only to the first solution text “FIND THIRTEEN NOT ME”, leaving it unclear whether this was indeed one of the final thirteen texts. The author has disappeared, and the illustrator (possibly Nigel Mynheer) has not been forthcoming. In short, no internet solve team has ever coalesced, and neither brute force nor intuitive solution has ever been successfully marshaled against the mysterious author.

4 Pink Floyd’s Publius

In a more widely known puzzle marketing campaign that apparently failed, Pink Floyd’s album “Division Bell” was released in 1984 to promote a world tour. The album’s title was proposed by author Douglas Adams, the cover art’s tantalizing head sculptures were photographed in front of Ely Cathedral, and additional edgy, discontinuous album artwork was provided by graphic designer Storm Thorgerson. With the tour ongoing, an anonymized internet persona named Publius proposed on Usenet that within the album lurked an enigma, where “there is a central purpose and a designed solution …. a unique prize has been secreted.” On July 16, 1994, Publius prophesied that Pink Floyd would verify the enigma’s existence, which happened on the 18th when programmable stage lights briefly displayed the words “PUBLIUS ENIGMA”, during the band’s last U.S. event.^[19]

Despite further confirms and internet hints, no convincing solution appeared, no prize was awarded, and the puzzle continues fascinating fans today. Lighting designer Marc Brickman said in 1995 that he had programmed the repeated “ENIGMA” lights under the orders of band manager Steve O’Rourke, who had given Brickman’s idea of internet exposure to “some guy of Washington DC … in the encryption game”.^[20] Drummer Nick Mason later stated that an EMI Records employee with encryption experience, who had also worked for President Reagan, designed the enigma, and the prize was more intangible, “something like a crop of trees planted in a clear cut area of forest”.^[21] Putative solutions include references to single or double 11s, as well as the writer of PubliusEnigma.blog, who claims actually to be the intended solution, explaining that the album regularly refers to herself.^[22]

3Copious Masonic Mnemonics

If that weren’t enough, our top three codes all involve known Freemason links. In 1981, the staff of fledgling puzzle magazine “Games” (in their first spinoff publication, “The Four-Star Puzzler”) asked for “help in solving the mystery” of an encoded 1860 book. Aside from its hefty title, “Written Mnemonics: Illustrated by Copious Examples From Moral Philosophy, Science, and Religion”, the book consists essentially of left-hand letter grids opposite right-hand number grids. The “Puzzler” also reproduced a back-cover chart listing number triads for the book’s divisions I-III (the book helpfully says in plaintext, e.g., “DIVISION I. — MORAL PHILOSOPHY”), where the first number is even (like a left-hand page number) and the other two are often “1 1” (like a mnemonic start location). The “Puzzler” speculated it contained Civil War codes but never got to run the full followup report its editors intended for a future issue.^[23]

Several other copies of the book are alluded to on the internet; they typically have owners’ names and 1860s dates within the front cover and the same mysterious charts. The book’s basic purpose has been generally determined: it is “an example of a Masonic ritual cipher … which can be read if one has the key to decrypt it”.^[24] In 1931, a Mason named Ray Denslow described the method in detail in “The Masonic Conservators”, now a public-domain work. The three divisions represented the first three degrees of Freemasons (“Moral Philosophy” meant “Entered Apprentice”), the letters and numbers were a book code (“T 9” meant “the”), and the contents chart indicated the rituals involved (“Cong.” meant “to congregate”). The author was Rob Morris, a Mason who created the Conservator movement in an attempt to keep Masonic lecture texts consistent; he began with wide approval but his method was deprecated later in the 1860s because it was held to contain omissions and errors and to come too close to revealing sworn secrets.^[25] Yet, if the book key (called the “spelling book”) could be located or reconstructed, would an early source of authentic Masonic ritual be laid bare before the general public?

2Secrets of … Michael Stadther

Inspired by Kit Williams’s “Masquerade”, author Michael Stadther published a successful puzzle book, “A Treasure’s Trove”, in 2004, for “children of all ages”. Clues led solvers to locations in fourteen state parks where tokens had been secreted; in 2005 Stadther redeemed these tokens by awarding hunters with fourteen jewels worth one million dollars, on the “Today” show.^[26] Solvers looked forward to his second book, 2006’s “Secrets of the Alchemist Dar”, even more lavishly illustrated and confusingly encrypted. One hundred tokens with redemption value of two million dollars in diamonds were represented.

It is clear that “The Alchemist Dar” was merely an anagram of “Michael Stadther”, but totally unclear how the hundred locations can be found, as Stadther’s company entered dispute-related bankruptcy in 2007 before the hunt could be completed, so no official Dar redemptions have taken place. In 2012 Stadther promised to release hints until full solution “even though there is no possibility for someone to win a ring.” For instance, of the mystery language in his book, Stadther says, “Hest is English”; but these leads have not helped.^[27] Stadther died in 2018 in Coronado, California, taking many secrets with him. In particular, why were two Freemason-connected texts, the Oak Island 90-foot-deep stone and the Beale cipher, numbers 2 and 3 in Stadther’s 2004 book, “100 Puzzles, Clues, Maps, Tantalizing Tales, and Stories of Real Treasure”, if the book was intended “to get you thinking about treasures” and to help you see Stadther’s own hunt clues?^[28]

1 Cole’s Solution to Beale’s Cipher

Readers know that in 1885 “The Beale Papers” was a money-making pamphlet; it was published (and probably written) by James B. Ward, who became a Master Mason in 1863 (during the Conservator era). The pamphlet told the story, possibly invented, of a Thomas J. Beale who hid tons of gold and silver in Bedford County, Virginia, in the 1820s. Temptingly, it contained three ciphertexts, one of which was presented as already easily solved, a simple book cipher based on the Declaration of Independence that described the treasure’s contents. The other two, unsolved, described location and heirs.^[29] Kryptos solver Jim Gillogly later pointed out that cipher one (locating the treasure) contained a highly improbable alphabetic sequence; he favors a hoax interpretation but recognizes the possibility “that another level of encryption (e.g. elimination of nulls) must be stripped away”.^[30]

The Tripod website BealeSolved claimed the vault was found in 2001, providing photos, and presented complete solutions to ciphers one and three, but stated nothing was left of the original treasure. However, the solutions were no book ciphers as others expected, because identical numbers repeatedly yielded different alleged plaintext, and no solution method was given; solver Daniel Cole died during the hunt in 2001. A Masonic background, including “very high degree”, was “a common bond” between Cole and fellow treasure-hunter Gary Hutchinson.^[31] The BealeSolved site was composed in 2001 by SWN, probably Steven Ninichuck, the third member of the team. Ninichuck and Hutchinson reported to Michael Stadther that they had solved everything correctly but had merely been beaten to the punch. But then why did Ninichuck post an unverifiable solution, alongside Vigenere systems with the keys “blue” and “point-to-point”? Why did Hutchinson say that a former hunter for “T. J.” Beale’s gold was improbably named “G. W. Hunt”? Why did Stadther say the solution was “deciphered … from a Masonic ritual”? How did Cole compose his own manuscript, if not by using something like written mnemonics; as Stadther asks, “When will we see how the Location cipher was broken?”

About The Author: John J. Bulten has been puzzle editor for independent news network WND, inventor of the 3-D crossword, and the best Scrabble player in Florida.

Food has evolved a lot. It’s easy to take the complexity of the recipes and technology we enjoy today for granted—but it wasn’t always this way. There was a time when things weren’t so sophisticated and took quite a lot longer.

If you’ve ever wondered what food tasted like back then, you’re in luck. We have the answer. We’ve managed to preserve and recover recipes from the time of Richard II all the way back to the Sumerian empire, and you can still try them today.

10The Forme Of Cury
AD 1390

The Forme of Cury is England’s oldest surviving cookbook. When you serve one of the recipes you can find in it, you’re tasting the same food somebody ate in the 14th century. What’s more, you’re tasting the same food King Richard II ate.

The book was compiled by King Richard II’s personal chefs, and it’s full of dishes that were served to the king of England himself. There are over 190 recipes compiled in there altogether, ranging from the simple to the exotic. Some recipes are as simple as throwing peeled garlic in a pot of water and oil and then sprinkling saffron on top, while others call for porpoise or whale meat.

One place you can try the dishes is at the Cafe at the Rylands, which tested out several of them with their customers back in 2009 and kept a few of the more popular choices on hand. Otherwise, you can just cook them yourself. The full cookbook in its original Middle English can be downloaded here, while several simplified recipes can be found here.

9Annals Of The Caliphs’s Kitchens
AD 1000 AD

The Annals of Caliphs’ Kitchens, an ancient book by a man named Al-Warraq, is the oldest Arabic cookbook still in existence. The book is filled with over 600 different recipes you can try, some of which are incredibly different from the things you’ve tasted today. Some of these gives really unique insights into how food used to be prepared. One sauce, for example, calls for the cook to leave milk out in the sun for 50 days—a majorly different process from how most people do it today.

The book also has comments on culture, proper behavior, and health—including how to avoid a hangover. The book recommends eating cabbage before going out drinking and then making a stew called “Kkishkiyya” in the morning, which is meant to calm down your headache and your stomach pain.

You can buy the book online. Or, if you’re planning on going out drinking tonight, you can get the recipe for Kkishkiyya online for free right here.

8Apicius
(c. AD 500)

If you want to find out what kind of decadent feasts a Roman emperor would gorge himself on, you’ll want to read Apicius. This cookbook is believed to have been written by Marcus Gavius Apicius, a successful Roman chef. Nobody knows for sure exactly when it was written, but it’s at least 1,500 years old.

The food in it was apparently revolutionary in its time and had some unique discoveries on how to treat meat, most of which sound completely mouthwatering. One, for example, suggests stuffing a pig’s mouth full of dried figs and feeding it honeyed wine before killing it. The book has over 500 recipes, and more than 400 of them are served dripping in sauce.

You can read the original cookbook here—although there is a bit of a challenge in recreating these. The book was intended to be used by experienced Roman cooks, so most of the recipes don’t give quantities of ingredients or cooking times. For the most part, you’d have to go by taste and instinct.

A recipe for pork with apples, however, has been recreated by The Silk Road Gourmet with modern, specific instructions, so you could try one taste of the Roman Empire today.

7The Life Of Luxury
300 BC

The first three entries on the list are from after the death of Christ, and so they’re full cookbooks that aren’t too different from what we use today. With “The Life of Luxury,” though, we’re going farther back—and things start getting a bit different.

The Life of Luxury is meant to be funny. Rather than just telling you how to cook food, it’s written as a parody of overblown epics, complete in full verse. It’s hilarious—at least, the academics who research it assure us it is, anyway. For most people, though, jokes like “a rather rough ox-tongue . . . is good in summer around Chalcis” might not exactly hold up 2,300 years later.

It’s believed that the book would be put on display during banquets so that people could glance in it and have a chuckle while eating, but the book itself didn’t actually survive. The only reason we know anything about it is because another writer named Athaneaues quoted it in a book called Philosophers at Dinner, written in AD 200.

You can read the parts that survived, though, online here—and you can try recipes that were written before the birth of Christ.

6Garum
600–800 BC

Garum is a salty fish dish—incredibly salty. This is a dish that, in some recipes, calls for as much salt as fish, so if you fry it up with a one-pound fish, you’re supposed to throw an entire pound of salt into the bucket.

This recipe wasn’t written down as neatly as the first few were, but a writer named Laura Kelley who specializes in ancient food has done her best to figure it out. She’s managed to track down records from as far back as 600–800 BC that describe it as a “Carthaginian sauce,” and so we know it was being prepared at least that long ago.

Kelley has also gone to a lot of work trying to recreate it. She mixed together instructions from the oldest documents she could find with a few instincts on what tasted well and then put it together. You can find her instructions here and do it yourself—but you’re going to need a bit of patience. This a recipe from a different era that used different technology, so it takes nine months of fermentation to get it ready.

5Midas Touch Beer
700 BC

You’ve probably heard the story of Midas, whose every touch turned things to gold, but you might not realize he was a real person. Obviously, King Midas couldn’t turn everything he touched to gold, but he did live, and he did die. And 2,700 years later, we found his tomb.

There wasn’t any gold in Midas’s tomb—he was buried with some of his possessions, but they were ironically all made of bronze. There was, however, something very interesting: the surviving residue of Midas’s beer.

Chemical investigation of the beer in Midas’s cups gave us enough information to actually recreate it, revealing that people in that time drank something altogether different from what we have today. The drink was made of a mixture of wine, beer, and mead, sort of like something you’d mix together if all you had was a few drops left in a few nearly empty bottles and strong determination to get drunk.

This one takes a lot less effort to try, because the Dogfish Brewery has reverse-engineered it and sells it around the world. Reviews call it muddled, flat, and lifeless, but it’s got to be worth it just for the experience of tasting a liquor King Midas himself loved so much that he was buried with it.

4The Babylonian Tablets
1700–1600 BC

Yale University managed to get into its possession a set of tablets descended all the way from Bablyon, 3,700 years ago, filled with recipes. This is very old food—historians believe that the fact that some of it is cooked in liquid was groundbreaking for its time, as this was prepared in a time so far back that cooking with water just hadn’t occurred to anyone yet.

The first person to thoroughly analyze them, Jean Bottero, didn’t exactly give them a positive review. He called the food “fit for only his worst enemies.” The recipes are, admittedly, a bit simple—one dish, for example, has the exotic-sounding name Akkadian but translates to a much less appealing “meat cooked in water.”

Still, people have gone to great lengths to prove Bottero wrong. Brown University has tried to improve on Bollero’s interpretations of the recipes, claiming they can be made delicious. A full, modern-style recipe for one of the dishes, “Wildfowl Pie” can be found online here.

3Mersu
Before 1600 BC

According to Jean Bottero, there are only two full recipes older than the Babylonian Tablet, one of which is for mersu. Bottero describes the mersu tablet as “recipe” for a “cake,” although all the tablet actually says it that dates and pistachio were delivered to make a dish called mersu

The rest of this comes from theories based on the name and other similar dishes, so we aren’t necessarily right about how mersu was made. Still, there are recipes you can try that give out best guess.

The oldest recipe actually found was from a city called Nippur and was apparently used as a sacrificial offering to the gods. It includes figs, raisins, minced apples, garlic, oil, cheese, wine, and syrup, which makes it sound like the most decadent and spectacular treat in the world.

Some suggestions on how to put together your own mersu can be found here. For one this old, you won’t exactly find a full recipe—but you’ll be able to put together something close.

2Kebabs
1700 BC

I will admit that eating a kebab may not be as unique of an experience as some of the others on this list.

A kebab, for those unaware, is meat, perhaps skewered through with a stick, and some form of this meal is popular all around the world. Still, it’s worth noting just how remarkably ancient kebabs are. There is definitive evidence that people in Greece were eating them as early as the 17th century BC, which means that every time you bite into a Greek kebab you’re sharing an experience someone had almost 4,000 years ago.

Even the Chinese kebab, called chuan, is believed to just have been an adaptation of the Greek recipe, picked up from European traders about 2,000 years ago. It’s believed that the Chinese tried the Greek recipe, added a few spices to fit their own palate, and then adopted it as their own. There’s evidence from Chinese tombs that they ate them as early as AD 220.

So, anywhere you are in the world, any time you bite into a kebab, you’re biting into a history that goes back almost 4,000 years.

1Sumerian Beer
1800 BC

This incredibly ancient recipe for Sumerian beer isn’t exactly a recipe at all. Instead, it comes from a poem dedicated to Ninkasi, the goddess of beer. The poem just happens to be weirdly detailed. The poem praises Ninaski by saying things like, “You are the one who bakes the bappir in the big oven / puts in order the piles of hulled grains” often enough and with enough detail that people have been able to actually recreate the liquor fairly accurately.

The beer it makes has to be drunk with straws and apparently tastes fairly similar to hard apple cider. Unlike Midas Touch, though, it can’t be sold en mass. The beer has to be drunk right away or else it goes bad—so the only way you can try this one is if you make it yourself.

Which you can do. Read the poem for yourself right here. Just make sure you have a bappir and some large reed mats ready.

Mark Oliver contributes to several websites, included Cracked, The Onion’s StarWipe. You can see everything he writes on his website.)

When you think of modern medicine, what do you picture out in your head? Pristine doctors in white coats speaking to you calmly, administering safe medicines in the comforts of a nice modern office? That’s not entirely wrong, as advances in the field have led to a majority of diseases treatable in this manner. However, medicine still has its darker side.

We’re not saying people are secretly chlorinating your water source or recycling dead bodies, but several medical procedures we seem unable to get past are largely crude and horrifyingly barbaric by today’s standards. If it works, stick with it, right?

10Scraping The Womb

The fields of obstetrics and gynecology are probably among the bloodiest in medicine. Most women, due to problems with their uterus, have to undergo at some point in their lives what is known as “curettage,” or the scraping of the womb. This procedure involves the introduction of a sharp “curette” that scrapes the inner lining of the uterus. These tissues are then sent for analysis to make sure that nothing is wrong with them—namely, that there isn’t an early cancer growing particularly in the presence of problems with menstruation.

Other times, it may be done after a miscarriage to ensure that no remnants of the deceased baby are left. Although effective, it is nonetheless cringe-worthy and makes us wonder why nothing less invasive has been invented up to this day.

9Drilling A Hole Through A Skull

Probably the oldest procedure in medicine that is still practice today—the act of drilling a hole through one’s skull, referred to as “Burr Holing”—can be traced back to the time of Hippocrates and the early Greek civilization. The principle of the procedure remains largely the same, but the purpose and the methods differ.

Generally, while the early Greeks used to do it with the belief that headaches were caused by massive amounts of “water” in their heads that would cause an imbalance of the body’s functions, today’s patients who undergo this ghastly procedure usually have massive amounts of blood pooling beneath portions of their skull, often the result of severe trauma and accidents. There also exist other variations of skull carpentry, some of which involve removing a large portion of the skull and keeping it for use later. However, unlike in the older days of primitive surgery, all of this is done under heavy anesthesia.

8Burning Off Flesh

Back in medical school, a rotation in the Department of Surgery often meant being exposed to blood, guts, and burning flesh. As barbaric as this sounds, the science of “cauterization” or “cautery” has drastically improved how surgeries are done.

Cautery simply refers to the act of searing a portion of flesh. This is done via a small electrical current that is driven through a handheld electrode that can be controlled with either a foot pedal or a button. Fundamentally, it refers to destroying microscopic layers of protein and ensuring that blood vessels are sealed shut in the process—an invaluable tool in procedures where one cannot risk having the patient lose too much blood. So the next time you see a surgeon, thank him for having the stomach to endure that oh-so-characteristic smell. Perhaps that’s what those masks are really for.

7Sticking A Tube Through Your Brain

Many of us would like to think of the brain as the single most important untouchable organ in the body. So how would you feel if doctors told you they had to stick a tube into the deeper portions of your brain?

No, nothing sophisticated to it. Just a tube. Passing through your skull, burrowing into the cavities of your brain.

Yes, people still do this, particularly for cases where there is a pressure buildup inside the skull (hydrocephalus). However, as expected, it’s done under utmost controlled conditions. It is lifesaving, but despite that, the thought of having a tube rammed into your head is enough to scare the life out of most people.

6Shoving A Tube Down Your Windpipe

What happens when we don’t breathe? We get a machine to do it for us. However, despite the promise of noninvasive means of facilitating breathing, the most effective method still remains the crudest and the most invasive. This involves placing a special plastic tube (or “endotracheal tube“) down someone’s windpipe.

How do they place it in, doctor? Good question. In a nutshell, they get a metal blade that holds the patient’s mouth open while the doctor forces it down the windpipe. Simple. Effective. Yet utterly frightening.

It is, however, considered to be one of the more “heroic” measures that must be done in the event of cardiac arrest and for critically ill patients. So the next time you watch the next episode of ER or Code Black, look for the tube. Chances are, it’s bound to get shoved down someone’s throat. Fast.

5Rotting Radiation

Cancers still remain among the most difficult diseases to treat in today’s medical landscape. Our understanding of cancer remains highly rudimentary, and our current methods of treatment reflect that. Generally, cancers are treated with a course of either chemotherapy (poison injected into your veins), surgery, or radiotherapy, or a combination of the three.

Radiotherapy is deadly radiation that is concentrated into the diseased site. Despite whatever fancy names companies think of, it is a beam that causes the tissues to either self-destruct or rot. It is a death ray, albeit a very precise and concentrated one. It’s not exactly pretty, nor is it without risks—other organs may also be affected should the procedure not be done properly. But don’t be afraid. We’re not going to see any scarred megalomaniacs strapping these onto sharks in his death lair anytime soon.

4Cavity Exploration

We’ve come a long way in terms of X-rays and other imaging. Today, we have CT scans, MRIs, and a bunch of other noninvasive ways to determine what’s wrong with our bodies. But what happens when nothing shows up on the readouts? And the patient’s still complaining that he’s about to explode? In most cases, most doctors have a good idea of what’s going on. But a confirmatory procedure, such as a getting a tissue sample or directly observing it, may be necessary.

So what happens? You guessed it. There are times when doctors conduct what is known as an exploratory surgery to tell what’s causing symptoms or diseases. They open you up and start probing to see what’s wrong. This may also be attempted in cases of emergencies where both a diagnosis and treatment are necessary, such as gun-shot wounds and other accidents.

3Gouging The Knee

Apart from the famous Skyrim memes, the medical field has a penchant for doing many violent things to one’s knees, the most frightening of which is gouging a huge needle through the knee.

There exist numerous variations of this, the most brutal one of which is called “intraosseous cannulation.” This procedure involves sticking a large bore needle through the knee to deliver medications straight to the blood system, which can be achieved with the needle traversing the rich blood vessel network within the front portion of the knee. However, this is regarded as a drastic measure and used as an alternative to the usual vein lines in giving medications.

2Snapping Joints Back Into Place

On TV, have you ever seen someone fall and snap their leg into an awkward position? And then the character just snaps it back into place? We actually do that in the medical field.

Bones are held together at joints by a complicated system of ligaments (or stretchable tissue) and muscles forming a generally strong support system. However, when accidents happen, some of these joints are forced out of alignment and may fracture. In the absence of a fracture, where the bones are simply not aligned, there really is no other option than to snap it back into place, often immediately before the muscles start to tighten.

1Amputation

Nothing too drastic has changed in the long history of managing severely infected and destroyed limbs. Apart from trying to salvage one’s toes, fingers, arms, and legs through restoring blood flow, once the limb reaches the end game of having it rot, amputation is still the way to go.

Although we’ve mapped out most of the structures of the arms and legs we’d like to minimize injuring, the act of actually removing a limb to cure someone is still quite astonishing despite advances in science. So everyone—please do take care of those cuts and bruises, and if you’re diabetic, foot care and blood flow screening should be at the top of your to do list today.

Dr. Keith Andrew Chan is an internist and Internet meme extraordinaire. He often refers to himself as “The One” and frequents local milk tea parlors when not working at the hospital. He is a regular contributor to cebumd.com and writes for various national health publications. Follow him on Twitter for more medical humor.

When you go shopping, do you look for name brands? Some people will only purchase something if it has that name-brand appeal. And there is something to be said for a trusted name, especially one that has a lot of years behind it. It stands to reason, even if we don’t have proof, that a business must be good at what they do if they’ve been around for a long time. Whether that’s always true doesn’t matter, it does give you some extra cache in the business. And with that in mind, here are some of the oldest brands in the world that you can still enjoy to this very day.

10. Fruity Pebbles Was the First Brand of Cereal Marketed Around a TV Show 

Once upon a time, some brilliant marketing executive realized that if they started linking products to TV shows, then they would technically have a built-in customer base already. If you love The A-Team, surely you will love A-Team brand sneakers. In the cereal world, the first person to stumble upon this idea decided that if you like The Flintstones, you’re going to love Flintstones cereal. and thus Fruity Pebbles were born. 

If you’ve never had Fruity Pebbles they are small, arguably fruit-flavored sugary bits that are very brightly colored and feature The Flintstones on the box. Pebbles, as you may recall, was the name of the Flintstones’ daughter. That kind of makes eating the cereal weird because are they suggesting it’s dried-out bits of this cartoon child? Best not to think about it.

Fruity Pebbles was the first brand of cereal that was marketed as a tie into a TV show all the way back in 1971. According to Post, the company that makes the serial, about 1.4 billion bowls of their cereal are eaten every year proving that, even though The Flintstones was only on TV until 1966 originally, people will still enjoy a bowl full of sugar with your cartoon on the label over half a century later.

9. Buick is America’s Oldest Car Company Still in Operation

Car brands come and go throughout history. You will not find a new Pontiac on the road anytime soon, or an Oldsmobile, or a DeLorean. But if you want a vehicle with a lot of history behind it, you have a few choices. Everyone knows Ford and Chevy have been around for a while. Chevy dates back to 1911 and Ford dates back to June 1903. But if you want real old school? Buick is the oldest car brand in America which just sneaks past Ford as it was founded in May 1903. 

If you want something even more classical than a Buick, you’re going to want to look to Europe. Peugeot is the oldest car manufacturer in the world that’s still running, and they were manufacturing their first vehicles in the 1890s.

8. Fry’s Chocolate Cream is The World’s Oldest Still Available Chocolate Bar 

Do you have a sweet tooth? If you put a lot of stock in old family recipes, then you may have a preference for classic candy bars. Everyone knows Hershey, Nestle, and Cadbury had plenty of chocolates to offer and have been around for a while, but none of them can claim to have the world’s oldest chocolate bar that’s still on the market today.

If you want a taste of history you want Fry’s Chocolate Cream. Even the name sounds horribly antiquated and maybe not as enticing as it did back in 1866 when Joseph Fry invented it. 

The company itself dates all the way back to 1728, and it ceased being a company in 2011. However, Cadbury took over production of Fry’s products, including cream eggs which everyone knows, and the chocolate cream bar which is still on sale today. It features chocolate covering a creamy fondant center if that’s your cup of tea. 

7. Vernors is The Oldest Soda Brand

The global soft drink market was worth over $400 billion in 2021 and is expected to keep rising. That’s a baffling sum of money for something most people consider bad for you. Of course, alcohol is over one trillion dollars and that doesn’t include what’s sold at restaurants and bars, so maybe soft drink sales aren’t so remarkable after all. 

Regardless of the cash going into them, there are plenty of soft drinks on the market and many of them have extremely long histories. Drinks like Pepsi, Coca Cola and Dr. Pepper all date back to the 1800s with Dr. Pepper being the oldest from 1885. Still, the good, pepper doctor is not the oldest soda available in the modern world. That honor falls on Vernors ginger ale.

Vernor’s goes all the way back to 1866 when it was created in Detroit. Like any good drink of the era it was named after its inventor, in this case James Vernor and, of course, he was a pharmacist because pharmacists used to make a lot of weird stuff back in the day. Most early soft drinks were originally created as medicinal tonics because apparently no one knew what medicine was until sometime in the 1950s, maybe. 

Of course, if you like a little scandal, there’s also some debate about the exact year of Vernor’s creation with the potential for it being in 1880, which would still make it the earliest. However, the formula may have changed in the last several years as well and, if that’s the case, the Vernor’s you’re drinking may not be the original Vernor’s and therefore may not qualify as the oldest brand still available. 

6. Good & Plenty is the Oldest Candy Still Available

If Fry’s is the oldest chocolate bar still available, does that mean it’s the oldest candy still available? Or is that another category altogether? If you’re looking at non-chocolate candy, then Good & Plenty gets the title of the oldest one that’s still available on the market today. The tiny white and pink candy-coated slivers of black licorice were first sold back in 1893.

It is somewhat ironic that the oldest candy available in America is flavored with black licorice since black licorice is regarded as one of people’s least favorite flavors. It’s unpopular enough that there are news articles written about how unpopular it is, something you don’t see with most other candy flavoring out there.

5. Beretta Has Been Making Guns Since the 1500s

In the US alone 663 companies manufacture guns and ammunition. While many of those companies date back years and a few go back well over 100, none come close to Italian gun maker Beretta. The company has been manufacturing firearms since 1526. 

The company is a family-owned business and for many generations has been passed from father to son or nephew, all maintaining the Beretta family line. The company helped arm Napoleon’s forces back in the day. Who knows how many historical figures have shot or been shot by guns made by the Beretta family? It’s quite a legacy.

4. Zildjian Has Been Making Cymbals Since 1623

If you’re not a percussionist, you probably have devoted very little time in your life to thinking about cymbals. You may, however, have seen a drummer banging on one and noticed the name Zildjian written on the cymbal in a fancy script. Zildjian makes cymbals, and they have done so since the year 1623. If you want the oldest cymbals in the world, that’s where you need to go.

The story of Zildjian is more bizarre than you’d guess. In 1618, alchemist Avedis Zildjian was not looking to make musical instruments, he was trying to make gold. As you may be aware, alchemy isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, and instead of creating gold, he stumbled on a recipe for metal that made exceptional cymbals. 

The alloy Zildjian created is not widely known, and the company keeps it under wraps, lest every other musical alchemist out there tries to steal their thunder. The metals are copper, tin, and silver but exactly how they are combined is unknown. 

3. White Castle Is The Oldest Fast Food Burger You Can Get

In 2021 the global fast food market was worth just shy of $650 billion. There are also over 536,000 global fast-food restaurants out there, serving everyone quick and delicious or sometimes not-so-quick and vaguely horrible meals. All of that adds up to a lot of people eating a lot of fast food and that’s a hell of a legacy for the people who, many years ago, thought that churning out burgers like they were on a factory line was a good idea.

If you’re in the mood to get a real taste of that legacy, you need to go to the source. You need to find the oldest fast-food restaurant in America. Lucky for you, it’s also the first fast-food chain restaurant, too. It’s White Castle. 

White Castle began selling 5-cent hamburgers back in 1921. That was 19 years before the McDonald brothers opened their first restaurant, 31 years before the first KFC, and  33 years before the first Burger King. The closest you can get in terms of burger chains is A&W, which was founded in 1919 but didn’t become a restaurant until 1923. Before then it was just a roadside root beer stand.

2. Conciato Romano Seems to Be the Oldest Kind of Cheese Still Produced in the World

According to Wisconsin cheese makers, there are over 1,800 varieties of cheese in the world. Other sources will say over 2,000. Suffice it to say that you’ve got a heck of a lot more than just mozzarella, cheddar, gouda, and Velveeta.

Cheese-making dates back around 4,000 years. It’s believed that a lot of those ancient cheeses were probably pretty salty and briny. We don’t have a lot of recipes on explicitly how it was made when it was first discovered. That said, some cheese, by definition, must be the oldest, right?

Conciato Romano seems to be the oldest variety of cheese still produced today.  It’s been produced since the Roman Empire and the Samnite civilization around the 4th century BC. While it may not be an everyday cheese for most of us, it’s still probably worth trying if for no other reason than to understand what Roman emperors used to eat on their crackers.

The process of making the cheese today is labor intensive and obviously not something that many people are going to do. It needs to be made from goat or sheep’s milk, it’s washed in a very specific kind of water that is used to cook a dough first, and then it’s tanned in beechwood buildings. It’s quite an artisanal endeavor, and the cheese is not cheap. The price for 200 grams, less than half a pound, is close to 60 Euros.

1. Weihenstephan is a 1,000-Year-Old Brewery

In the world of alcohol, age means skill. Every brewer and distiller that has been around for more than a decade will probably include on the label or website somewhere just how long they’ve been around. None of them can come close to competing with Weihenstephan.

This Bavarian brewery isn’t just old, it’s ancient. While some might measure their progress in decades and a select few can even claim a century or two, Weihenstephan is the only brewer that’s about to start tossing the word “millennium” around.

The brewery was founded in the year 1040. It started life as a Benedictine monastery because 1,000 years ago monks were all about making beer in the name of the lord. In that whole time, it has never stopped doing what it does, so for nearly a thousand years they’ve been brewing different kinds of beer and, you would hope, really perfecting the recipes.