In the early 1800s, Britain and America found themselves in a whirlwind of scientific and medical discovery. The study of anatomy and surgery was extremely popular. This led to a gruesome trade in bodies, a practice which was mirrored elsewhere around the world.

Grieving families could no longer bury their dead and expect them to remain that way. Resurrection men roamed churchyards late at night, looking for freshly dug graves. They would disinter the body, undress the corpse, and toss its clothes back into the grave before carrying it away into the night. After that, the body would be dissected, often in front of an audience, for the betterment of mankind.

Obviously, some relatives took exception to this, and they came up with a number of ingenious ways to foil the body snatchers.

10 Mort Safes

Mort safes were iron cages placed over and sometimes around the coffin to prevent it from being reached by the resurrection men. The cages were left over the graves for up to 10 weeks until the bodies were sufficiently putrefied that they were of no use for dissection. Sometimes, the cages were left in place permanently.^[1]

At that time, Edinburgh had a noted surgical school and was a center of excellence for the study of anatomy and surgery. There was also a steady supply of cadavers due in no small part to two of its inhabitants—Mr. William Burke and Mr. William Hare. Surgeons’ Hall Museums in Edinburgh explore some of the less edifying history of surgery. Now they even boast an interactive dissecting table for visitors to have a go themselves—thankfully, not on a real body!

However, the inhabitants of Edinburgh at that time were not quite so happy. Evidence of mort safes can still be seen at a cemetery called Greyfriars Kirkyard, along with a number of other precautions taken by the residents to prevent the untimely resurrection of the dead.

9 Iron Coffins

Wealthy families sometimes resorted to constructing the entire coffin from iron to prevent the body snatchers from reaching the remains inside. In St. Brides Church in Fleet Street, London, an iron coffin, riveted shut, was discovered bearing the date 1819. Meanwhile, the body of a boy found in an iron coffin near Washington is believed to date from the 1850s.^[2]

A number of patented coffins were guaranteed to be tamperproof, with the iron coffin proving a particular favorite. Special lifting equipment was required to lower the coffins into the ground. This made things difficult for the cemetery keepers who were often reluctant to accept iron coffins.

In one case, the body of a woman lay unburied in her coffin for three months while the courts decided whether the cemetery keepers were entitled to refuse her entry. Which made the whole thing a little redundant.

8 Mort Houses

Mort houses were fortified and guarded buildings used for storing bodies prior to burial to render the corpses unfit for dissection. Each mort house would store a number of bodies for a fee, and they would stay there for several weeks until the decomposition was advanced.

The design of the mort houses was usually extremely secure. They were constructed along the lines of prisons and bank vaults. For example, the mort house at Belhelvie near Aberdeen is built of large granite blocks with a single doorway down three stone steps which is protected by a further set of double doors.

The inner door is covered with a sheet of iron and has a massive lock. The outer door is made of strong oak planks and is studded with iron bolts and two large mortise locks. The two keyholes are covered and protected by two iron bars, one hinged at the top of the door and the other at the bottom. Where the bars intersect, they are secured with a huge padlock.

It would take a committed body snatcher to get past that.

Scotland had a large number of mort houses, including one at Udny which boasted a revolving coffin platform for the easy addition and extraction of bodies.^[3]

7 Delaying Burial

For those who couldn’t afford a place at a mort house, there remained the option of keeping the body at home until it had decomposed. It is unlikely that people found that to be a pleasant choice.

Mourners would also mix the earth in which the body was to be buried with an equal measure of straw to make it more difficult to dig through. But with the elaborate measures taken by the wealthy for their burials, the poor dead were especially vulnerable.

The penalties for body snatching were also relatively minor as long as the perpetrators did not carry away any of the deceased’s possessions. This accounted for the clothes being tossed back into the grave.

Those people who were unfortunate enough to die in the workhouse were especially vulnerable. “Charitable” hospitals would often sell the bodies of any inmates without kin directly to the dissecting hospitals, and resurrection men often arranged for someone to make a claim on the bodies by pretending to be a relative. It is a sad fact that they were valued more in death than they were in life.^[4]

6 Mort Stones

Graves were most likely to be robbed in the first week or two following the funeral when the corpse was freshest and the soil in the grave had not yet been firmed up. As a temporary measure, mort stones were sometimes used to cover the top of the grave site.

At Inverurie near Aberdeen, several mort stones can still be found in the graveyard. These large granite stones had the same dimensions as the plot and completely covered the coffin beneath. They required a special hoist to lift them into place and to remove them again after decomposition so that a headstone could be put in the same place.^[5]

In 1816, Superintendent Gibb of Aberdeen Harbor Works gifted a mort stone, costing half a crown, to St. Fitticks churchyard. The lifting equipment cost considerably more and had to be kept securely under lock and key to prevent the sack-em-up men from getting to it.

5 Vigils

Relatives often took turns sitting at a graveside every night for the first week to deter the grave robbers. Sitting in the dark beside a grave waiting for robbers to show up could not have been an easy task. But people were so afraid of the body snatchers that they did it.

There was a popular view that a body had to be “whole” to enter Heaven. So the dissectors were therefore stealing not only the bodies of the dead but also their eternal rest.

A churchyard in Somerset, England, records the tragic tale of Miss Rogers who was engaged to a sailor. He was sailing home so that they could marry. But his ship wrecked, and he drowned.

As in all the best Gothic romances, his fiancee died soon after from a broken heart. She was buried in her wedding dress, wearing all her jewelry. About that time, there were rumors that resurrection men were searching for new corpses for surgical reasons. The family servants kept nightly vigil at the grave until such time as a mort stone could be laid over it.^[6]

4 Watchmen

Those who did not fancy the task of sitting in the graveyard all night often procured the services of a watchman. The parish of Ely, for example, employed a watchman to be “constantly in the churchyards for the protection of the bodies buried.”

In some of the larger churchyards, watchhouses were built to lodge the watchmen between shifts. One near Aberdeen has a two-story tower with the upper floor used as a lookout. It even has a special hole through which the watchmen could shoot at intruders and a bell on the top of the tower which could be used to raise the alarm and to seek assistance.

Some body snatchers posed as watchmen themselves, which meant that they knew where all the traps were. Some were in league with the body snatchers and took a commission on the sale of the bodies.^[7]

Being an honest watchman was a dangerous occupation. When bribery or intimidation couldn’t persuade the watchmen to look the other way, the sack-em-up men would take their chances anyway and turn to violence if they were caught. One poor guard was even attacked with a saber.

3 Coffin Torpedoes

Among the more ingenious forms of burial security was the coffin torpedo.

Patented in 1878 in Columbus, Ohio, by Philip K. Clover, the coffin torpedo was designed to “successfully prevent the unauthorized resurrection of dead bodies; and . . . be readily secured to the coffin and the body of the contained corpse in such manner that any attempt to remove the body after burial will cause the discharge of the cartridge contained in the torpedo and injury or death of the desecrator of the grave.”^[8]

The torpedo featured an intricate mechanism that exploded “with deadly force” if the coffin was disturbed. Little thought appears to have been given to the legality of such a weapon.

Luckily for Mr. Clover, there is little evidence that the coffin torpedo actually went into production. Churchyards were dangerous enough at that time with body snatchers creeping around with sabers in the middle of the night and armed watchmen shooting intruders through the walls without adding high explosives to the mix.

2 Coffin Collars

Rather more practical was the coffin collar. The collar was made up of a very heavy iron ring mounted on a board of thick oak. This was secured to the base of the coffin with heavy bolts, thus rendering it impossible to remove the corpse without decapitating it and seriously reducing its value.

This was a practical and comparatively cheap method of defeating the resurrectionists, and examples of their use have been found in churchyards in Scotland. The collars were not pretty and would have been very visible in an open casket. But they did give the deceased’s relatives some peace of mind.^[9]

1 Booby Traps On Graves

The feeling against the dissectors was so strong that some mourners even went so far as to booby trap the graves. They set spring-loaded guns into the ground and embedded sharp objects there, too. In Dublin, it was reported that a grieving father went so far as to plant a land mine in the coffin of his infant child.^[10]

Whether the land mine was genuine is debatable. Certainly, no resurrection man took the trouble to find out.

The feelings against the resurrection men ran high, with citizens demanding that something be done to protect the dead. The passage of the 1832 Anatomy Act in England and similar bills in America and elsewhere ended the trade in bodies almost overnight.

It allowed for corpses to be obtained for medical research from a number of sources, particularly the poor and the unclaimed. Surgeons, medical students, and scientists could expand their knowledge of the human body while leaving the dead to their everlasting peace.

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

Sacks containing dead bodies or merely a torso were common finds in the early 20th century. In fact, a quick search through the archives of US and Australian newspapers shows evidence of hundreds of bodies having been found sacked and discarded.

Only a few different types of sacks were used to hold the bodies. But the most common bag was the gunnysack, also called a burlap bag. Cornsacks were also used. But the only difference between the gunnysack and the cornsack was the size of the bag and its original use before a body was placed in it.

There were a few cases of smaller bags being used where the murderer had to chop apart the body and fit it into four different bags, but that was a lot of work for one murder. Few killers were keen on putting in the effort of cleanup.

Most of the body sack cases were never solved. They were simply mentioned in two short sentences in a local newspaper. There were many instances of torsos being found. With nothing else to identify the bodies, the cases remained mysteries for all time.

10 A Floater

The number one rule to getting rid of a sacked body is to weigh it down before dumping it into a deep body of water. There is no telling how many murderers got away with their crimes by following this basic 101 tip. However, some murderers failed miserably at this most basic rule.

For example, James Moore of Texas was a different kind of special. In 1898, he grew jealous of his wife. While she slept one night, he took a hammer and bashed her skull in. After that, he proceeded to stab her with a knife numerous times before stuffing her into a sack.

Moore took his wife’s lifeless body to the Trinity River and threw her in. But he forgot to weigh down the sack, and she was soon found floating in the river. Moore was arrested and confessed to his crime.^[1]

9 Four Suspicious Sacks

Early one morning in Indianapolis, Indiana, in 1902, a young man was on his way to work when he spotted two oddly shaped sacks at the back of the Central College of Physicians and Surgeons. As he walked on, he saw an even stranger sight. There was a body-shaped sack sitting on top of a dry goods box.

The young man telephoned the police, and shortly thereafter, the bicycle patrolmen arrived. They opened the sack sitting on the box and discovered a body. A look inside the dry goods box revealed a second body stuffed in a sack. When they went behind the school for doctors, two more bodies were discovered.^[2]

An investigation was made, but everyone already knew what was going on. The bodies were recognized as those who had recently been buried in nearby cemeteries and were going to be used by the doctors for dissection.

Seventeen arrests were made, including grave robbers, three doctors, an undertaker, the proprietor of one of the cemeteries, and three watchmen.

8 Half Sacked

In most cases where bodies were stuck inside sacks, the murderer would either fold the body up to make it fit or he would chop off a few of the limbs. However, in 1939, there was a murderer on the loose who just could not be bothered with either of those tasks.

In a private dam in Wycheproof Shire, Victoria, Australia, a body was discovered floating in the water in 1939. What was curious about this particular body was that its legs were in a sack that was tied to the victim’s hips. It was as if the murderer just said to heck with it and tossed the victim into the water half sacked.

There was no mention of any heavy objects in the sack to help weigh it down. Also, the victim had injuries to the head which suggested that the person had been murdered instead of committing suicide.^[3]

The identity of the man was not determined.

7 Who Knows And Who Cares?

Out of Montana came a story that was fairly typical of gruesome sack finds. It was 1910, and a chef who was out fishing found a sack containing bones along the bank of a river. The police were called to investigate. When they arrived, they saw the sack with a bone sticking out of it.

The police looked inside the bag and declared the contents to be “too dead to be recognizable.” It could have been a person, a dog, or a calf for all they cared.

Instead of having a professional identify the bones, the men buried the sack where they found it and went on with their day.^[4]

6 Laziness Or Lack Of Curiosity

For two weeks back in 1926, thousands of people crossed over the bridge in Wagga Wagga, New South Wales, Australia, and viewed the object floating in the water. No one was all that curious about it because it looked like a bag in the muddy water.

One day, however, a man noticed that the sack was floating higher than before. Upon taking a closer look at the object, he could see an ear and part of a head sticking out from it.

The police were called, and they fished the sack out of the water. Inside it, they found the bloated body of a man.

Although no follow-up on the case could be found in the newspapers, it is rather curious that no one bothered to investigate the bag. After all, this is the type of behavior we expect from modern-day citizens and not from the people of nearly 100 years ago.^[5]

5 No Missing Person Report

One of the few ways that the police of the early 20th century were able to name an unidentified body was through the missing persons reports. If someone in the local vicinity had been reported missing, it was either assumed that the body belonged to that person or relatives were brought in for further identification.

If no local person was reported missing and no one confessed to the murder, the discovered body would remain unnamed. Without any form of identification, the case would sit unsolved.

In 1929, a chaff bag washed up on the creek banks in Narrabri, New South Wales, Australia, after some recent floods. A rabbit trapper going about his business found the bag and opened it up.^[6]

Inside was the torso of a man. His head, hands, and legs had been hacked off so that the body could fit into the sack and to help prevent identification. It was estimated that the victim had been deceased for a little under three months.

The police inspector was mystified by the case. Not only did he have an unidentified body on his hands, but no one had been reported missing during the three-month time period.

4 Quite A Haul

Fishermen who fail to catch a fish are apt to catch a boot instead. At least that is what we see in the cartoons. Unfortunately, there have been more known instances of bodies being fished out of the water than shoes.

That was the case back in 1910 when a man was fishing at Tooradin, Victoria, Australia. He brought up a heavy sack from the depths of the water and saw a pale, clammy hand sticking out from the side of the sack. The top of the sack had been tied with a rope.

The victim was described as a well-dressed man who had been spotted walking around Tooradin the day before his body was discovered. The locals believed that he was a city man who had been camping by the river.

When the police went to the victim’s campsite, they discovered his clothing neatly arranged and nothing seemed out of place. Naturally, they concluded that the unnamed man had ended his own life in a rather bizarre fashion.^[7]

3 Where Is The Rest?

Many of the bodies dumped in lakes and rivers were mere torsos. In the early 1900s, there was no real way to identify these torsos unless they had a tattoo or a unique scar. Often, the torso cases remained unsolved and the rest of the body parts were never discovered.

For instance, in 1914, a sewn-up sack was removed from the Mohawk River in New York. In it was the nude torso of a woman. Her head, arms, and legs were removed. The police investigated the case, but without DNA technology, there was little chance they could identify the unmarked torso.

Again, in 1921, a torso was discovered in Rogers, Texas. This time, the torso was discovered by two fishermen who pulled a floating gunnysack out of the river. Inside the sack, they found a woman’s torso. Her head and legs had been removed, but her arms remained attached.^[8]

2 Hair Completely Cut Off

As two men were preparing to leave Lyon, France, one morning and head out to the country, they noticed a strange sack on the ground. Of course, they opened it and discovered the body of a woman. There was blood on her lips and nostrils, and it appeared that someone had cut off all her hair.

The authorities were alerted, and soon enough, the body was identified as that of Marie Servageon. Her husband was located, and he claimed that his wife had disappeared the previous day on June 13, 1908. He found her sudden disappearance rather odd but decided not to contact the police. He said he had hoped that she would return the next morning.^[9]

The police were fine with the husband’s seeming lack of concern over his wife’s disappearance. They assumed that she had been kidnapped and murdered by people unknown.

No further reports were made about the case. It appears that the husband was never charged for the murder and that the kidnappers were never discovered.

1 Sacked With Arms Sticking Out

Imagine waking up one morning to head out to the bathroom. You open the door, already expecting the stench on a warm, damp morning. But instead of the smell, you are greeted with a sight that you would not soon forget. In truth, it was something straight out of a horror movie.

It was summer 1910 when a horrifying discovery was made in Bonner, Montana. The body of a man was found inside an outhouse. The victim had been stuffed inside a gunnysack which was then sewn closed. Oddly enough, whoever sewed the victim into the bag had left the man’s arms sticking out of the sides of the bag at the seams.^[10]

While suicides in outhouses were fairly common in the early 1900s, it was doubtful that a man might sew himself up inside a bag, leaving his arms out, and then commit the terrible deed. For this reason, the police and investigators at the scene were near certain that this was a case of murder.

Elizabeth lives in the beautiful state of Massachusetts where she is currently involved in researching early American history. She writes and travels in her spare time.

There is a reason most restaurants don’t let you watch them cook your food; and it goes along the lines of “what you don’t know won’t hurt you”. We eat all kinds of odd things; from those reviled by other cultures to everyday snacks with hair raising additives. Below are ten strange stories about the food we eat, from our favorite desserts to rotted elephants to the flesh of our neighbors.

Maple syrup is one of the most expensive things you can pour on your pancakes. A bottle generally retails for well over $20. Part of the expense involved in the syrup is the great inefficiency in producing it. It requires anywhere from 5 to 13 gallons of maple sap to make just one quart of syrup. To make sure that it has enough to meet the international demand, the Canadian province of Quebec maintains a Global Strategic Maple Syrup Reserve. In 2012, during an audit, it was discovered that 6 million pounds of the syrup (worth about $18 million wholesale) had been stolen in a daring heist. This was not some smash and grab theft; it would have taken dozens of trucks to move so many barrels. In the subsequent months, several arrests were made, and some two-thirds of the missing syrup was recovered.

Asked to guess the most frequently stolen food on the planet, some might guess candy or alcohol or even steak. But according to multiple studies, up to 4% of the cheese put up for sale ends up pilfered. Next time you’re in the market, pay attention to the way the store displays cheese, particularly the valuable imported kinds. Generally, it is centrally located and well lit to keep thieves from scampering off. The phenomenon is not completely understood, though researchers indicate that cheese is relatively expensive, easy to conceal, and can be resold to other stores or restaurants. Black market cheese is big business.

American and Canadian tourists traveling outside their respective countries are often astonished to see eggs sitting out at room temperature. They would probably be even more shocked to find out that in the countries of the European Union, the eggs they are getting are straight from the chicken—they have not be sanitized or washed in any fashion. A chicken actually imparts a liquid coating around its egg called a cuticle, which protects against contamination. The layer is mostly removed by cleaning, which involves washing the egg with water of at least 90 degrees and an odorless detergent. The washing actually makes the egg more porous and susceptible to contamination, so it must be kept in a refrigerator. The counter-productivity and expense of this process is astonishing, but American shoppers do not seem soon to relent.

With dozens and dozens of ice creams available on the market, a distinctive taste sets a company apart from it’s competitors. The largest producer of ice cream in the United States is Dreyer’s (which includes the Edy’s and Häagen-Dazs), due in no small part to their official taste tester, John Harrison. Harrison travels throughout the country to different Dreyer’s plants to impart his expertise. He uses a gold spoon, which does not impart any flavor to the ice cream. His tastebuds are insured for $1 million. He helped create several different popular flavors of ice cream, including the Oreo-based cookies and cream.

Other ice cream makers use different philosophies. Using fresh, local ingredients, Vermont’s Ben & Jerry’s is a crowd favorite. Their ice cream is noted for large chunks of things like brownies and fruit, added in response to co-founder Ben Cohen’s anosmia (he cannot smell and can barely taste anything). Since Cohen couldn’t really taste anything he was eating, he tended to add more stuff to satisfy a need for texture.

People are rarely ambivalent about mushrooms; they are generally a food that is either loved or despised. Regardless of one’s opinion on their taste; they are marvelously interesting organisms. Some, like the awesomely named “Western North American Destroying Angel”, can be deadly, and others, like the psilocybes “magic mushrooms”, result in profound psychedelic experiences. There are 71 known species of mushrooms that glow in the dark, and there is even a type, called the Laetiporus, that is said to taste like chicken. Most recently, scientists have discovered that running electricity through mushrooms can more than double their production, a fact that had been known to Japanese farmers for generations. Lightning hitting fields of shitake mushrooms send voltage buzzing through the soil, thus increasing the farmer’s yield. The scientists are not entirely sure what causes this phenomenon, but it is most likely a kind of defense mechanism, amping up reproductive capabilities in the face of a hazard.

Gatorade was invented in 1965 by University of Florida professor nephrologist (kidney specialist) Robert Cade and staff to help keep football players hydrated. While today’s product line features a veritable rainbow of flavors, the early stuff was pretty much water, sugar, salt, and some lemon juice for taste. When Cade unveiled his beverage to the Gators team, tackle Larry Gagner tried some, announced “This stuff tastes like piss.”, and dumped the rest of the cup onto his head. The staff was intrigued at the comparison. According to Cade, “None of us had tasted urine… We wee-weed in a cup and dabbed a finger. You know what? There’s a significant difference in flavor.”

Prior to the explosion in popularity of sushi, many fish such as the Bluefin tuna were so plentiful that they were used as cat food. Today, the Bluefin is one of the most highly valued creatures in the world, with exceptional specimens fetching hundreds of thousands of dollars. With the expense rising and the ocean’s population falling, many sushi restaurants take advantage of most peoples’ inability to distinguish between types of fish, often substituting cheaper species. In the United States, many establishments selling “tuna” are actually pushing escolar, also known as the oilfish or snake mackerel. Escolar has a staggering oil content known to have a laxative effect in many people. Many countries throughout the world consider escolar toxic; it’s sale has been banned in Japan since 1977, but many American diners still (unwittingly) consume it each day. And pay for it in the bathroom.

Woolly mammoths lived beside early man, but the vast majority became extinct around 10,000 years ago. The last isolated populations died out around the time the Great Pyramid of Giza was built. We know so much about these magnificent creatures because many of them roamed in areas like the Siberian tundra, where they were frozen and quite well preserved after death. So well preserved that modern humans have eaten thawed mammoth meat. There are many stories of feasts of these ancient elephant ancestors, and while many are dubious, some are quite well verified. Not surprisingly, descriptions of the meat range from “awful” to “rotten”. Zoology professor Dale Guthrie offers a remarkably generous explanation of the flavor; he and his team cooked some mammoth from a 36,000 year old carcass found near Fairbanks, Alaska into a stew. He wrote “the meat was well aged but still a little tough, and it gave the stew a strong Pleistocene aroma.” Whatever that means.

Despite being seen by most modern humans as “the ultimate taboo”, cannibalism has been practiced in every part of the world, and is still more frequent than most of us would like to believe. Many of the civil conflicts in central Africa, particularly in the Congo, have resulted in cannibalism, and primordial tribes like New Guinea’s Korowai sometimes indulge in the consumption of human flesh. That said, the natural although somewhat macabre question most people would ask themselves would be, “What does it taste like?”

Accounts vary somewhat, but a rather concise explanation comes from William Buehler Seabrook, a reporter who received a chunk of flesh from a hospital intern at the Sorbonne in Paris. Seabrook cooked it, later writing: “It was like good, fully developed veal, not young, but not yet beef. It was very definitely like that, and it was not like any other meat I had ever tasted. It was so nearly like good, fully developed veal that I think no person with a palate of ordinary, normal sensitiveness could distinguish it from veal.”

You would be hard pressed to find someone who doesn’t like the taste of ketchup, and for good reason. Unlike nearly every food on the planet, ketchup , particularly the Heinz variety, satisfies the entire palate. Simultaneously salty, sweet, sour, bitter, and umami (savory, the flavor profile created by adding MSG), Heinz is very carefully mixed so that no one part of its recipe overwhelms the tastebuds. Lesser ketchups are not so neatly balanced, and tend to have a note that you can focus on, like that of vinegar or the sweetness of the tomatoes. This is why, over a hundred years since it first hit shelves, Heinz remains so popular, selling some 650 million bottles annually. Unlike many other foods, you will rarely encounter “new and improved” ketchup. It’s already perfect.

Mike Devlin is an aspiring novelist. If it wasn’t for frozen pizza, he’d probably starve to death.

It’s not all tea, crumpets, and royal weddings in the United Kingdom. In fact, Britain is home to some downright bizarre and truly weird and wonderful festivals.

To some outsiders, the Brits may seem prim, proper, and a bit too serious at times. But a closer look will dispel that notion. From ancient pagan rites to modern-day oddities, this small island has the power to charm, amaze, and occasionally disgust. But it’s always entertaining.

10 Summer Solstice At Stonehenge

Each year, thousands gather at the ancient stone monument in Wiltshire to mark the summer solstice. As the Sun rises, it aligns perfectly with the Heel Stone, the ancient stone entrance to the monument, and casts rays of light across the revelers gathered there.^[1]

Stonehenge is considered to be a sacred site by Britain’s pagan and druid communities. Visitors are not normally permitted to approach and touch the stones, but an exception is made for the solstice celebrations. It is unknown how, when, or why this ancient monument was constructed. However, there are many theories, each more fantastic then the last.

9 The Tar Barrels Of Ottery St. Mary

Each November 5, the usually quiet streets of Ottery St. Mary in Devon are lit up by the flickering light of flaming tar barrels. Men and women charge through the crowded streets while carrying these fiery barrels overhead. Each weighs as much as 30 kilograms (66 lb). Wearing thick gloves to protect their hands, the barrel carriers must have grit and courage to endure the heat.^[2]

Many generations of the same families appear as proud barrel rollers. However, the origins of the festival are unclear. Some believe that it has links to the famous gunpowder plot, while others think it is a pre-Christian pagan ritual intended to drive out evil spirits.

8 Whittlesea Straw Bear Festival

The small town of Whittlesea in the east of England celebrates the harvest in a particularly unusual way. Known as the “straw bear,” a man covered from head to toe in straw is paraded through the streets. Accompanied by musicians and led by a “keeper” or “driver,” the bear dances in front of houses and inns for gifts of food, money, or beer.

The event briefly died out in 1909 when a local police inspector banned it as a form of begging. However, the custom was revived in 1980 by the Whittlesea Society and now takes place during the second weekend of January.^[3]

7 Egg Throwing World Championships

Legend has it that the tradition of egg throwing in the English village of Swaton dates back to the 14th century. In an attempt to boost numbers at church, the abbot gave out free eggs to all who attended. In 1322, the river flooded and prevented locals from attending church. So monks threw eggs across the river, and the tradition was born.

The first Egg Throwing World Championship took place as a feature of the 2005 Swaton Vintage Day where the grand prize was scooped up by an “eggstatic” team from New Zealand. Teams of two compete for the prize by seeing who can pass the egg farthest without breaking it.

Additional events include the “Russian egg roulette” in which competitors take turns smashing eggs against their own heads. Of the six eggs available, five are hard-boiled and one is raw. The competitor who picks the raw egg loses and ends up with actual egg on his face.^[4]

6 Burning The Clocks

The seaside town of Brighton marks the shortest day of the year with the “Burning the Clocks” festival. Thousands of individuals line the streets to watch a procession of people with homemade fire lanterns. After parading through the town, the people ceremoniously burn the lanterns on the town’s beach.^[5]

The event organizers explain, “Burning the clocks is an antidote to the excesses of the commercial Christmas. People gather together to make paper and willow lanterns to carry through their city and burn on the beach as a token of the end of the year.”

5 Abbots Bromley Horn Dance

First performed in 1226, the Abbots Bromley Horn Dance is one of Britain’s oldest surviving traditions. Dancing through the town are six men dressed with reindeer antlers, two musicians, a man dressed as a woman, an archer, and a fool who hits anyone who comes too close with an inflated pig’s bladder.^[6]

The reasons behind this strange event have been obscured by the mists of time. Some suggest that it was performed to mark the opening of the hunting season and to ensure a successful year. Others speculate that it is connected to ancient fertility rites. One thing is for sure: This ancient tradition is downright strange!

4 Maldon Mud Race

The Maldon Mud Race is held each year on the River Blackwater in Essex. At low tide, competitors race across the incredibly muddy riverbed and back with their footwear taped on firmly to prevent any lost shoes.

The event originated in 1973 when the landlord of the Queens Head pub was dared to serve a meal on the riverbank dressed in a tuxedo. The following year, a bar was opened on the riverbank for the day. About 20 people competed to dash across the river, drink a pint of beer, and return. The Maldon Mud Race was born.^[7]

3 ‘Obby ‘Oss

Perhaps the oldest dance festival in the UK, the ‘Obby ‘Oss is celebrated every May 1 in the Cornish fishing village of Padstow. Thought to be connected to the ancient Celtic festival of Beltane, the main event begins when two parades accompanying male dancers dressed as hobby horses (hence ‘obby ‘oss) swing through the town.

The ‘Obby ‘Oss consists of a large oval frame wrapped in a black oilskin with a strange horse’s mask and snapping jaw. The ‘Oss is accompanied by other dancers and musicians and led through the town by a teaser who prods the ‘Oss with a painted club.^[8]

As he passes through the town, the ‘Oss will attempt to catch young maidens and drag them under his cloak. To be caught by the ‘Oss is considered good luck.

2 World Toe Wrestling Championships

Established in Staffordshire in 1976, the World Toe Wrestling Championship is now held annually in the Bentley Brook Inn. Much like arm wrestling but with feet, contestants link toes and attempt to pin the other’s foot for three seconds. You’ll be pleased to know that the feet of all competitors are thoroughly checked by a podiatrist before they can compete.^[9]

1 Haxey Hood

First played in the 14th century, the Haxey Hood takes place on the 12th day of Christmas each year. Regulars from the town’s four pubs attempt to push the “hood” (a leather tube) to their pub, where it will remain until the following year.

Legend has it that in the 14th century, the wife of local landowner John de Mowbray was out riding when her hood was blown from her head. She was so amused by the efforts of the 13 farmhands who chased the hood across fields that she gifted the parish 13 acres of land on the condition that the chase be reenacted every year.

Said to be more about drinking than anything else, the game begins when the hood is thrown into the air and a large rugby-style scrum (known as the “sway”) converges on it.

There are no organized teams, and the only rules are that the hood cannot be thrown or run with. As many as 200 people can be playing at any point. The objective of the game is to move the hood to one of the local pubs. The game ends when the hood is touched by the pub’s landlord standing on his front step.^[10]

Will is an entrepreneur, yogi, and travel lover. He can be found at www.veganchocolateshop.co.uk.

Medical Research and the study of Human Health are subjects that offer an extensive and ever expanding range of puzzling and in some cases, disturbing phenomena. The lesser known, exceptional or downright weird occurrences in the medical field thus continue to fascinate Listverse readers and scientists alike. In this new and unusual account, we discover how contact lenses can trigger blindness, consider cases of infant development outside of the womb, learn why potato chips could make you angry, and explore a mysterious infection that discriminates by sex.

10Cold Urticaria

While most allergies are in response to physical stimuli, Cold Urticaria is an allergic reaction to cold temperatures. It is triggered when the immune system is exposed to sudden drops in temperature or contact with a chilled object. Hives, swelling and severe itching may result from attacks of Cold Urticaria, while falling in cold water or spending too much time in a walk-in freezer could prove fatal for the most severely affected. The condition is diagnosed by testing with ice cubes, and immune support therapies may be prescribed in addition to relocating to a warmer climate.

9Ectopic Pregnancy

Pregnancy begins when the sperm successfully merges with an egg, which begins to develop inside the uterus as an embryo. However, in around one percent of pregnancies, the fertilized egg becomes lodged outside the uterus and the embryo develops in what is known as an ectopic pregnancy. The fallopian tubes linking the ovaries to the uterus are the location accounting for the majority of ectopic pregnancies. As the fetus develops outside the normal location, severe medical complications may result, leading to death when proper medical care is not provided. Ectopic pregnancies are normally terminated to prevent fatal complications, but in rare cases, babies have been delivered alive and healthy after developing entirely outside of the womb.

8Smoker’s Penile Reduction

Smoking is often associated with lung cancer or increased respiratory illness, but one of the primary effects of smoking is its ability to constrict and interfere with circulation. Nicotine tightens blood vessels, while calcification and increased carbon monoxide levels associated with the practice further impair the human cardiovascular system. The potential for heart disease comes to mind, but it turns out for men that lighting up sticks may affect another very important stick: The blood vessels in the penis are only half the size of those in the heart, and are even more rapidly compromised by the effects of smoking. Studies suggest that men who smoke may experience a certain reduction in both flaccid and erect penis size as a result.

7Human Spinal Cord Redundancy

The spinal cord forms a tightly wired nerve bundle that is both complex and easily injured. While complete severing of the spinal cord will generally remove all function below the injury site, the spinal cord is different from a manmade electronic cable in that impairment levels do not correspond to the degree of spinal damage. The spinal nerves are in fact highly redundant and interconnected, so even a 90 percent gap in the spinal cord may not deprive a victim of the ability to walk. The implications of this include the fact that a cure for spinal cord injuries may be easier to achieve than once thought. Partial, “random” regeneration, rather than nerve by nerve reconnection, may suffice to return mobility. In an even more bizarre finding, blue dye injections dramatically reduced the impact of spinal cord injuries in rats, a treatment that must be tracked for humans.

6Situs Inversus

Situs Inversus is a rare condition affecting less than 1 in 10,000 individuals where the main visceral organs in the abdomen and thorax are reversed, or “mirrored” in position. The heart will typically be transposed to the right hand side, while the stomach and spleen trade places with the liver and gall bladder, while the intestines and other organs are “misplaced”. Complications can result from misaligned blood vessels, and those affected often carry a special note affixed to their person to ensure a surgeon would not operate “backwards” on them in the case of a medical emergency. Many with the condition do not realize they have it until it is discovered by a medical professional. Although the condition is rather odd, patients appear normal externally, and can usually live normal lives.

5Contact Lens Blindness

Acanthamoeba Keratis is the scientific term for the way contact lenses can blind you. While developing nations face the worst water quality threats, most tap water in the United States contains Acanthamoeba microbes. When contact lens users rinse their lenses with tap water, the lenses become coated with the bacteria. If a slight, imperceptible scratch occurs during replacement of the lens, the amoebas may invade the eye, causing an infectious inflammation known as keratitis. The effects of the attack may include swelling, redness and irritation, while severe cases can actually cause blindness. 85 percent of reported infections occurred in contact lens users, suggesting sterile wash, and not tap water should be used to clean contact lenses.

4Whipple’s Disease

A man may have to eat a peck of dirt before dying, but the potential to contract Whipple’s Disease means it may have been the dirt that killed him. Tropheryma whipplei bacteria cause a potentially fatal suite of including gastrointestinal lesions symptoms if not properly treated with a round of antibiotics. However, the exact method of contraction remains a rather disturbing mystery of medicine. The organism is far more prevalent in the environment than one would expect based on rates of infection, suggesting infection is highly dependent on body condition, rather than exposure. Especially bizarre is the fact that 87% of infections involve men. Disturbingly, Whipple’s Disease may mimic almost any neurological disorder as bacteria affect the nervous system, hindering detection.

3Potato Chip Rage

Potato Chips—you cannot have just one. But what you might possibly have, according to preliminary researchers, is a case of trans-fat induced personality change. Researchers at the University of California at San Diego conducting a controlled study of several hundred male and female participants found statistically significant increases in hostility and aggressive behaviors resulting from consumption of fast food. The study was controlled for variables such as Caffeine and Nicotine use, and pointed towards an apparent correlation between levels of trans-fatty acids in the diet and behavior. The mechanism for the effects is thought to stem from the ability of trans-fats to interfere with the body’s natural levels of DHEA, a long chain fatty acid that is known to impact mood and act as a natural anti-depressant.

2Muscle Tissue in the Lungs

Abbreviated as LAM, Lymphangioleiomyomatosis is an exceedingly weird lung condition that only affects women, at an average age of around 34, in the vast majority of cases. LAM involves the uncontrolled growth of an unusual type of smooth muscle tissues throughout the lungs, airways and blood vessels of the respiratory system, leading to serious impairments in breathing, and sometimes death. In an even odder twist, the runaway smooth muscle cells may arise from cloned tissue when LAM is of the type associated with the non-malignant tumor disorder known as Tuberous Sclerosis. The disease may be managed to a certain degree, but the fact that symptoms may be mistaken for Asthma may hinder treatment until the disease reaches an advanced stage.

1Parrot Fever

Though a great source of intelligent companionship, pet birds can also give you a potentially fatal case of Psittacosis. Also known as “parrot fever”, Psittacosis is an aggressive, avian form of Chlamydiosis, closely related to the disease better known as a sexually transmitted infection in humans. The infection reached pandemic proportions in the late 1920s following increased importation of parrots from South America, and deaths have occurred from time to time since. The disease may manifest as high fevers, muscle rigidity, and eye irritation, all the way to spleen enlargement, heart distress and brain swelling. Fortunately, death is usually preventable through appropriate antibiotic treatment.

Mike Williams is an ardent follower of science with a passion for the unexplained or unusual. His writing interests include strange medical facts, world mysteries and new technology.

Species do not evolve in isolation. The web of life means that different species must adapt as they interact with each other. Between predator and prey, there might be an evolutionary arms race as each struggles to beat the other.

Although the interactions between two species can be far more interesting and involved, both species sometimes evolve together in ways that benefit each other. Here are 10 examples of animal and plant species locked in weird relationships.

10 Ants And Acacia Trees

It’s not a shock to find that the acacia ant has a close bond with the acacia tree. What is surprising is just how close their bond is. As they are so immobile, plants are always at risk of being eaten, which is something many organisms find unhelpful. To fend off herbivores, acacia trees have developed sharp thorns and a bitter taste. They have also enslaved whole species of ants to actively fight off their foes.

Acacia ants find acacia trees a welcoming home as the huge thorns can be hollowed out for the ants to live in. Many species of acacia will swell up around these hollow thorns to produce an even larger home for their resident army. To further attract ants to live there, the trees will produce a sweet nectar for adult ants to eat and protein-rich pods for ant larvae to consume.

With such a welcoming place to live, it is no wonder the ants will protect their acacia tree. Up to 30,000 ants may live on a tree. They will hunt out and sting animals that eat their tree, cut up rival plants stealing sunlight, and scrub off fungal pathogens.

The acacia takes no chances that its captive bodyguards might wander away. In its nectar, it adds an enzyme that prevents the ants from eating any other form of sugar. Any ant that tries to leave its acacia tree will soon starve to death.^[1]

9 Myrmecodia And Ants

Acacia trees are not the only plants that have evolved to work closely with ants. Although the acacia ant took its name from the tree in which it lives, the ant plant (Myrmecodia) takes its name from the ants that live in symbiosis with it.

The ant plant of Australia is somewhat unusual anyway in that it lives on other plants. Epiphytes, as such plants are called, land on trees as seeds and grow high above the ground. This offers some protection from things trying to eat them, but the ant plants have an extra layer of defense.

Chambers form in their swollen lower stems that are the perfect homes for ants. The ants do not create these homes; rather, the plant has evolved specifically to produce them. These stinging ants will swarm anything that disturbs their homes.

This is very similar to the acacia ant, but the ant plant benefits from its ants in another way. Nitrogen is one of the main nutrients that plants take from soil. As it grows far from the soil, the ant plant struggles to get enough nitrogen. The plant grows two sorts of chamber within itself—smooth ones where the ants live and rough ones where the ants deposit their waste.

The plant is able to harvest the nitrogen it needs for growth from the ant poop.^[2]

8 Pitcher Plants And Pooping Bats

Pitcher plants are carnivores that will digest the animals that fall into them. This is a response to the low-nitrogen environment in which they live. As the ant plant invites ants to live in it in order to get nitrogen, so the pitchers invite animals to die in them. However, one species of pitcher plant is a more inviting host.

Nepenthes hemsleyana is an unusually large pitcher plant that has evolved a relationship with a bat. By day, a Hardwicke’s woolly bat will climb inside the pitcher and rest. Instead of trying to digest the bat, the plant survives on the nutrients it can scavenge from the bat’s droppings.

This is not a passive relationship. The pitcher plants have evolved a way of attracting bats in the dense rain forest. The back wall of the plant is shaped like a dish and will reflect the echolocating bat’s calls. This allows the bat to detect a roosting spot easily.^[3]

7 Mammals Pollinating Plants

When we think of animals that pollinate plants, we most often think of bees and other insects which buzz from flower to flower spreading pollen. However, there are many species of plants which rely on mammals for reproduction.

To attract these mammals, plants must evolve quite different flowers than those which entice insects. The smells of mammal-pollinated flowers are not the delicate floral scents we usually think of. A mammal-attracting flower will often smell of cheese and yeast. These flowers are also more likely to point downward to scatter pollen on the mammals below as they try to feed from it.

It is not only herbivorous mammals that will be used as pollinators by plants. Sugarbushes attract carnivorous mongooses and genets. This benefits the plants because carnivores tend to have large territories and will spread the pollen further.^[4]

6 Amorphophallus titanum And Flies

Of course, not all insects are attracted to sweet foods. A flower attracts a certain type of insect by giving it what it wants. The Amorphophallus titanum has evolved to attract flies and carrion beetles, and so it produces a smell to lure them in. The perfume that the Amorphophallus titanum pumps into the jungle air has given the plant its alternative name—the corpse flower.

The flower of the Amorphophallus titanum is the largest on Earth. This is partly a response to its environment. In the lush jungles of Sumatra, a plant must produce a lot of its scent to have a chance of spreading it far enough to attract insects.

The huge structure of the flower also produces its own heat. This increases the reach of its rotting flesh aroma and makes it easier for flies to find the plant. Fortunately for those not fond of flowers that reek of decomposing bodies, the Amorphophallus titanum only blooms approximately once every six years.^[5]

5 Duroia hirsuta And Ants

The Amazon rain forest is famous for its biodiversity. Huge numbers of species of plants and animals live together in one of the richest ecosystems on the planet. And yet there are patches of the rain forest that seem to consist only of a single species of tree—the Duroia hirsuta.

The native peoples of the Amazon thought that these patches were created by evil demons, and so these areas were called Devil’s gardens. The Duroia hirsuta produces chemicals which inhibit the growth of other plants, but this is not enough to explain their dominance.

In fact, the demons which create these areas are an ant species. As we have seen with other ant–plant relationships, the ants will act as an army to defend their home.

Instead of just targeting other animals, the lemon ants that live on these trees will search the jungle floor for seedlings of other plants and poison them with their formic acid. This prevents other plants from stealing the light needed by the Duroia hirsuta.

In turn, this increases the size of the ants’ home. An ant colony in a Devil’s garden can grow to house thousands of queens and millions of ants.^[6]

4 Fig And Fig Wasp

It is perhaps no surprise to find that fig wasps live in fig trees. The fact that many figs contain the corpses of dead wasps may put you off eating them, though. The relationship between figs and fig wasps goes back at least 60 million years, so it is humans eating figs who are really intruding on a private affair.

The fig is not really a fruit but a hollow structure containing many flowers. As a fig develops, it produces a scent which attracts pregnant female fig wasps. To get inside the fig, the female must burrow in. This is a tough process which often tears off her wings and antennae.

Once inside, the wasp will deposit her eggs and the pollen she has carried from her home fig. Then she dies. If not pollinated, the fig will often wither and die, killing any eggs inside it. This is an evolutionary safeguard to ensure that wasps continue to bring it pollen.

If pollinated, the fig ripens, the wasp eggs hatch, and they feed on the flesh of the fig. Males and females will grow inside. The males gather pollen for the females and tunnel a hole out of the fig. Then they mate with the females and deliver their pollen before the female wasps escape to search out new figs—and the cycle continues.^[7]

3 Giant Ground Sloths And Avocados

Humans have a bit of a track record with driving species to extinction. Seeing the close relationship between species on this list, it is not hard to see how wiping out one species can harm other species. In the case of the giant ground sloths of South America, humans very nearly ended up destroying the avocado.

Seeds carried by animals tend to be sized appropriately to the creatures which carry them. The avocado’s huge seed required a suitably large animal to move it about. The giant ground sloths could grow to be up to 6 meters (20 ft) in length. Being big and hungry, they would eat avocados and then spread the avocado seeds through their bowel movements.

With the coming of humans to the Americas, many large mammals, including the giant ground sloths, were eradicated. Without the sloths to spread the avocado seeds, the plants had no way to colonize new areas, putting them at risk of following their sloths to extinction.^[8]

Thanks to humans cultivating avocados, the plant has survived and humans have stepped into the role of the sloth.

2 Mint-Sauce Worms And Algae

It is not so unusual for animals to live in plants. However, Symsagittifera roscoffensis is a worm that has evolved to have plants living in it. These mint-sauce worms never eat and instead get all their energy via the algae that live inside them.

The worms have no guts. So when they absorb the algae as juveniles, the algae are not digested. Instead, the tiny plants receive a safer home than they could expect floating free in the ocean. In return, they give the worms energy.

The worms live on beaches. When the tide is out, they rise to the surface to expose their symbiotic algae to sunlight. When the tide comes in, the worms retreat under the sand for safety. Whether the algae or the worms benefit more from this relationship is open to question, but many see mint-sauce worms as a true animal–plant partnership.^[9]

1 Plants That Call To Predators

We have seen plants that provide a home to insects to protect themselves from herbivores, but perhaps that relationship is a bit clingy. Some plants wait until they are under attack to call in animal helpers.

For example, when a tobacco plant is damaged by a caterpillar munching on its leaves, the plant releases volatile organic chemicals. These chemicals rapidly spread through the air.

The caterpillar may not notice this silent scream, but predatory insects do. They will descend on the caterpillar that is causing the damage and eat it. The plant benefits, the predators benefit, the caterpillar . . . not so much.

Perhaps the most vicious response to attack is one used by maize plants, among others. When under siege by caterpillars, these plants release a signal which attracts parasitic wasps. The wasps fall on the caterpillar, lay their eggs in it, and wait for the caterpillar to be eaten alive from the inside out.^[10]

Ben is a freelance writer, whose musings and ramblings can be followed on Twitter.

According to Benjamin Franklin, only two things are certain in life: death and taxes. This is very true. In fact, Franklin probably underestimated how certain taxes are.

Obviously, governments will tax anything to raise money. By anything, we mean they will tax your dog, hat, beard, and windows if they have the chance. All these things and many more have been taxed throughout history.

10 Dogs

Man’s best friend was not saved from man’s weirdest taxes. Between 1797 and 1798, Scotland introduced a fixed tax of five shillings on all nonworking dogs. The tax caused a controversy soon after it was introduced. People against the tax complained that dogs were being considered objects and not living creatures. Supporters argued that dogs ate food and used other amenities that would have been used by humans, so they should be considered luxuries.

The tax was proposed in 1796 by John Dent, the member of parliament representing Lancaster. Dent was heavily criticized and mocked by other members of parliament and the press for even thinking of taxing dogs. They even nicknamed him “Dog Dent.”^[1]

The tax was not meant to rid Scotland of dogs, though people may have killed the dogs they could not afford to pay tax on. There were lots of nonworking dogs running around Scotland at the time. They spent their time chasing people around and were generally considered a nuisance. The money raised from the tax was intended to be used for the poor.

9 Beards

The first beard tax was introduced by King Henry VIII of England in 1535. King Henry VIII had nothing against beards, and he didn’t really need the money. In fact, he kept a beard himself. He was only interested in turning beards into status symbols. The amount to be paid was dependent on the status of the bearded person. The higher the status, the larger the tax.

King Henry VIII later abandoned his beard tax, but Queen Elizabeth I reintroduced it when she became queen. She imposed a tax on any beard that was left to grow past two weeks. In 1698, Peter I of Russia introduced a tax on beards and mustaches in an attempt to stop men from keeping beards, just like other Europeans.

Everyone who paid the tax was issued a special silver or copper coin called a beard token. They were required to have the token with them at all times. Men who did not have the token or refused to pay the tax would have their beards shaven in public. The tax was repealed in 1772.^[2]

8 Clocks

In July 1797, the British government passed an act requiring everyone to pay a special tax on their clocks and watches. Clocks were taxed at a flat rate of five shillings, gold watches were taxed at 10 shillings, and other watches were taxed at two shillings and sixpence. Any clock that cost below one pound was excluded from the tax.

The tax was very unpopular. The fact that it was paid every three months did not help matters. Most people just hid their clocks and watches instead of declaring them as required by the government. People with gold watches also changed their cases to avoid paying the high taxes on gold watches.

The losers were the clockmakers because everyone stopped buying clocks and watches. The winners were the tavern owners. Sensing that people would always need to check the time, tavern owners purchased big clocks to put inside their establishments. They hoped that people coming to the taverns to check the time would buy a drink before leaving.

Nevertheless, the act was a total failure. The government only managed to receive £2,600 before repealing it in March 1798, less than a year after it was passed.^[3]

7 The Chinese

Canada used to have a special tax for Chinese immigrants. The tax was included as part of the Chinese Immigration Act of 1885 that initially imposed a tax of $50 on every Chinese citizen coming into Canada.

The act was part of the anti-Chinese sentiment that was building up in Canada at the time. Chinese citizens were entering Canada and taking jobs that could have been performed by Canadian citizens. The Chinese were also willing to take lower pay, which made some employers hire them en masse.

The tax did not deter the Chinese, and they continued to enter Canada. So, the tax was increased to $100 in 1900 and $500 in 1903. The Chinese still kept coming. The tax was relaxed during World War I when Canada became short of manpower. However, the anti-Chinese sentiments that flamed the act quickly returned after the war.

Many Canadians were angry because the Chinese were now becoming landlords. Nevertheless, they still came in despite the high taxes. Canada got fed up and introduced the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1923, banning all Chinese from coming into Canada. The law was partially repealed in 1947 and finally abolished in 1967.^[4]

6 Fireplaces

Between 1662 and 1689, a special tax was imposed on all fireplaces in England and Wales. Each fireplace was taxed at one shilling for six months. The tax was introduced to cover the £1,200,000 annual expenses of the royal family led by King Charles II. Other accounts say that the tax was enacted to fund the budget.

Nevertheless, the tax was very controversial and hated. First, while every household was expected to report the number of fireplaces they had, local tax collectors would always enter the homes to confirm it. Homeowners did not like this as they considered it a breach of their privacy.

Second, not all poor people were exempted from the tax even though they were supposed to be. Hospitals and almshouses (where the poor lived) were taxed. And it was the poor tenants and not the landlords who paid the tax. The tax itself was a failure and did not raise the expected funds.^[5]

5 Windows

The window tax was one of the weirdest and most hated taxes in England. Introduced in 1696, it was initially payable only by landlords of houses with 10 or more windows. While the exemption was intended to protect the poor, it only helped the poor who lived in personal small houses in the villages.

The poor in the cities lived in big rented apartment buildings with more than 10 windows. The landlords paid the taxes on the windows and increased rents in response. To avoid these payments, some landlords bricked up the windows of their existing houses and built new houses with insufficient windows. The landlords could not simply reduce the size of the windows because even the smallest hole was counted as a window and taxed accordingly.

As more landlords bricked up their windows, the law was amended to reduce the minimum number exempted from the tax from 10 to 7. This forced landlords to brick up more windows in the already poorly ventilated homes.^[6]

The tax was very unpopular, and people soon started speaking up against it. Doctors blamed the poorly ventilated homes for the increasing cases of diseases like cholera and smallpox. The tax was finally repealed in 1851, after decades of protests and public backlash.

4 Salt

For centuries, salt was taxed in France until the infamous French Revolution. The salt tax, called the gabelle, was even one of the causes of the revolution. The tax was introduced in 1295 and originally included wine and wheat.

France was split into 30 regions where special salt tax collectors determined the tax rates. They also operated warehouses where salt was stored and sold. Every citizen over age eight was required to buy salt from the warehouses at inflated rates even if they did not need it. There was strict punishment for buying salt elsewhere or for smuggling salt into French towns.

The price of salt differed from town to town, becoming more expensive the farther it was from the sea. The amount spent on salt in a year could be up to a month’s salary. This caused discontent among the peasants who could not afford to buy salt for their food.^[7]

The salt tax was abolished during the French Revolution, and 32 salt tax collectors were executed by the peasants. However, Napoleon reintroduced the tax to fund the war against Italy. The tax was finally repealed in 1949.

3 Hair Powder

In 1795, the government of England was being creative on how to raise money to finance the war against France, so it introduced a tax on hair powder. The government demanded that everyone who used hair powder pay a special tax of £1.05 a year. While the amount looks negligible, it is £127 in 2017 money.

Some people were exempted from paying the tax. Obviously, the royal family did not pay. Neither did most lower- and mid-ranking soldiers and engineers as well as clergymen who made less than £100 a year. A master was also allowed to make a single payment to cover several servants and two payments to cover all his unmarried daughters.^[8]

At first, most people complied. In fact, 46,664 people paid it in 1812. However, people soon got fed up with paying a tax on their hair powder and just dumped their wigs for their natural hair. Only 997 people paid the tax in 1855. Soon, the government was barely collecting £1,000 a year. The tax was abolished in 1869.

2 Bricks

Britain was in need of funds after losing the Revolutionary War. In British fashion, they turned to taxation. This time, it was bricks. The brick tax, which also covered tiles, was introduced in 1784. It was fixed at 2s. 6d. (two shillings and sixpence) for 1,000 bricks but increased to four shillings 10 years later and to five shillings by 1797.

Brickmakers got creative and started making bigger bricks. The treasury found out and, in 1803, decreed that bricks should be no larger than 25.4 centimeters (10 in) by 12.7 centimeters (5 in). Anything bigger would be taxed at twice the normal rate. The tax was further increased to 5s. 10d. for every 1,000 bricks in 1805. The tax remained at this rate until the tax was repealed in 1850.^[9]

1 Hats

Britain introduced a tax on hats in 1784. Every hatmaker within London paid two pounds a year, while hatmakers outside London paid five pounds. These hatmakers were required to have the statement “Dealer in Hats by Retail” above their doors so that the taxman would easily recognize their shops.^[10]

Hatmakers who paid the tax were issued some stamps that they were to affix to their hats. Anyone who bought or sold a hat without these stamps could be arrested. Some hatmakers tried gaming the system by forging their own stamps. A man named John Collins who was caught red-handed forging hat stamps received the death sentence.

Deep under the waves, the ocean is not just a dark place. The underwater landscapes hold ancient events, mysterious animal behavior, and vast gardens of glass and octopuses.

Each contributes new facts and riddles to this incredible aquatic world. However, the ocean also has a scary side—from wrecking the weather on land to blowing giant holes in the seafloor and countries.

10 The Loudest Fish

One can be forgiven for not associating fish with noise. More often than not, they are mute. One species, however, can be very vocal during reproduction. The Gulf corvina is a large, silver fish about the size of a snowboard.

During spring, when the tides and lunar phases are perfect, shoals migrate to the Colorado River Delta. The event is an unforgettable one and worth seeing. When corvinas gather, they pack together in a sheet that can span for miles.

In 2014, scientists followed the spawning shoal and used underwater equipment to record their sounds. The loudest noise captured during the study hit a deafening 150 decibels, which is a record among fish.

Additionally, the sound also rated among the loudest ever recorded underwater—and very capable of damaging the hearing of other creatures, including sea mammals. Researchers believe that male corvinas are responsible for the chorus. Similar to frogs and crickets, the boys produce a throaty croak to attract females.^[1]

9 Return Of The Blob

“The blob” is not as adorable as it sounds. This massive anomaly—a patch of hot water in the Northeast Pacific—affects the weather in extreme ways. The blob was blamed for the persistent California drought (2013–2015), Seattle’s hottest year (2015), and the freakish polar vortex intrusions of two winters (2013–2014 and 2014–2015).

In 2018, the return of the oceanic hot spot was caused by unusually warm weather in Alaska during the fall. Though the blob is famously crabby, it remains hard to predict the phenomenon’s moods.

When it made another appearance in 2016, the spot showed many signs of troubling times ahead but faded away before anything could go wrong. The latest manifestation leans toward weakening in the same way, but even the experts admit that nothing is certain when it comes to the blob.

Either way, Alaska has already suffered notable damage. The southeastern rain forest is in the grip of a persistent drought, and snowfall showed a record delay.^[2]

8 Rectangular Iceberg

In 2018, an unusual photo turned an iceberg into a social media star. A far cry from the usual mountain-shaped behemoths, this icy wonder was almost perfectly rectangular and flat.

As it turns out, this shape is not unknown to scientists. Called “tabular icebergs,” they form during calving (when pieces dislodge from a parent iceberg). The rectangles commonly occur after an ice shelf extends too far and then breaks off at the tip. This gives them a geometric shape.^[3]

A whopping 90 percent of the tabular iceberg remains hidden underwater. This unseen part is usually perfectly angular, too. In this case, the sheet came from the Larsen C ice shelf on the Antarctic Peninsula.

Even though these floating tabletops are known to science, this one was unusual. For once, it was almost short enough to be a square. The size of the object remains unknown. But judging from the image, it could be as long as 1.6 kilometers (1 mi).

7 Largest Octopus Nursery

Most octopuses live solitary lives. This made the discovery of about 100 nesting together near Costa Rica a sensational find. However, this nursery paled in comparison to another found by accident in 2018.

Off the coast of California, marine biologists steered a remotely operated vehicle at a depth of 3.2 kilometers (2 mi). The goal was to study an underwater volcano called the Davidson Seamount.

As the vehicle turned a corner, it happened across the world’s biggest deep-sea octopus garden. The species was Muusoctopus robustus, and over 1,000 huddled together. Nearly 99 percent were females guarding eggs between the volcano’s cracks.^[4]

Their unprecedented conglomeration is not the only unanswered question about the Davidson group. Researchers do not know why the water appears to shimmer around the octopuses.

One theory suggests that heat is behind the glitter, which could explain why the creatures gathered at Davidson to successfully incubate their eggs. Since the volcano is extinct, the heat could be coming from an unknown source.

6 Canyon That Removes CO₂

The Porcupine Bank Canyon is an underwater trench marking the border of Ireland’s continental shelf. In 2018, an effort was made to map the sheer cliffs and contours. Near the canyon’s edge, the research drone discovered something amazing: The underwater trench removed carbon dioxide (CO₂) from the atmosphere using two species and death.

Porcupine Bank came fringed with corals snacking on dead plankton. While dwelling near the surface, living plankton grow by packing their bodies with CO₂ from the atmosphere. When they die, they sink down into the ocean, taking the CO₂ with them.

In turn, the corals eat the plankton and use that carbon to build their own structures. When the coral perishes, it tumbles deeper into the canyon. Researchers found a massive amount of dead coral inside the canyon, all with CO₂ locked up inside them.^[5]

Sadly, this process cannot stop climate change. But at least, it showed that nature has ways to remove some of the greenhouse gas from the air.

5 Garden Of Glass

When the deepest volcano was found in 2015, it was not just a cone-shaped mountain lower than the rest. It was anything but plain—and very unexpected. A deep-sea submersible was investigating the Mariana Trough in the Pacific Ocean when it reached a depth of 4,500 meters (14,700 ft). There, it encountered an environment straight out of a Gothic novel.

An underwater volcano had released intertwined and blackened lava tendrils, which scientists likened to “a nightmarish garden of glass.” Inside a 4.5-kilometer-deep (3 mi) trench, cold water had rapidly cooled the lava into a glassy substance. The frozen twists and turns covered an area 7.3 kilometers (4.5 mi) long.

The visuals are heart-stopping, but something else turned the discovery into a scientific gem. The deepest volcanic eruption on Earth was also fresh. Only a few months old, the undamaged site can advance knowledge about volcanoes on land, how eruptions affect ocean chemistry, and when different species colonize a lava field.^[6]

4 White Shark Cafe

Once a year, a group of sharks confused biologists. Known as the northeastern Pacific great whites, they normally cruise California’s coast, a region rich with prey.

In December, the sharks journey into the Pacific and stop about halfway to Hawaii. Satellite studies suggested that the place, nicknamed “White Shark Cafe,” was a marine desert without prey. Despite this, the predators gathered in droves and stayed for winter and spring.

In 2018, scientists wanted to know how the sharks survived and why they found the location so attractive. They followed the whites and also tagged a few. When the research boat arrived at the cafe, they found the place teeming with fish, squid, phytoplankton, and jellyfish.^[7]

These critters took daily trips up and down from the depths. The tagged sharks showed that the predators did the same thing. During the day, they hunted up to 450 meters (1,500 ft) down. At night, they kept to shallow dives, about 200 meters (650 ft).

An unusual gender mystery turned up. During April, the males dramatically stepped up their activity to around 140 dives a day. Researchers do not understand why this behavior is displayed by only one gender.

3 Methane Craters

Recently, scientists visited craters lining the seafloor between the archipelago of Svalbard and Norway. First discovered in the 1990s, they were huge but few. Upon arrival, the team was shocked to find hundreds of previously unrecorded holes.

In a single area near one of Svalbard’s islands, the floor was pockmarked with more than 100. Astoundingly, they had been blown from solid bedrock. The sheer force created craters that measured up to 1,000 meters (3,280 ft) in diameter. The culprit was methane gas from the last ice age.

In the past, enormous ice layers kept the trapped methane in place. Once these melted, the gas exploded. The largest pockets blew 12,000 to 15,000 years ago, but some remain intact and could punch large holes south of Svalbard.^[8]

Satellite images showed that pingos, hills with ice cores, preceded most of the craters. Researchers suspect that the Norwegian pingos had frozen gas instead of normal ice and were possibly instrumental in an explosion. Incredibly, once scientists knew what to look for, they found 7,000 gas-filled pingos in thawing permafrost.

2 Lost Volcanic World

In 2018, scientists investigated something that would not raise many eyebrows—the link between the East Australian Current’s nutrient levels and how phytoplankton behaved. Part of this study included mapping the seafloor. A stunning discovery followed—a lost world dominated by dramatic volcanic peaks.

Some were sharp, while others resembled immense plateaus. Smaller cones made up the rest. Located near the east coast of Australia, the extinct volcanoes towered 3 kilometers (1.9 mi) high.

The depth of the valleys likely contributed to how this underwater wonderland avoided detection for so long. The highest parts of the mountains were still 2 kilometers (1.2 mi) below the surface.

Years of research are required to understand a large geographical area that is seen for the first time. However, researchers are positive about one exciting suspicion—this was the spot that helped Australia and Antarctica to separate 30 million years ago.^[9]

The birth of the volcano chain was pivotal to crumble the Earth’s crust in preparation for continental division. The landscape also hosts a breathtaking ecosystem, including a huge pod of at least 60 pilot whales.

1 Brewing Eruption Underneath Japan

Researchers are well aware that an ancient, underwater volcano lurks underneath Japan. The Kikai Caldera is prone to super-eruptions and, in the past, experienced three devastating episodes. The last time was 7,000 years ago. The eruption was one of history’s biggest and destroyed a vast area of the Japanese archipelago.

In 2018, several expeditions using a wide array of equipment all came to the same conclusion. Underneath the Kikai Caldera was a massive lava dome. The giant bubble held over 32 cubic kilometers (8 mi³) of magma.

Analysis showed that the dome contained lava chemically different from the last eruption. This meant that the giant structure was not a leftover of the event that razed the Japanese archipelago but a completely new formation.

For thousands of years, the magma continued building up inside this new reservoir—something scientists view as a preparation for the next super-eruption. Earlier research indicated that the probability of a caldera catastrophe in the next 100 years was about 1 percent.

The discovery of the active dome was not so comforting. Should Kikai erupt, 110 million people would be in danger.^[10]

Fish tanks are tranquil until scientists want answers and drunk people want some fun. Then the fish stories start to get interesting . . . and more than a little weird.

Beyond the laboratory and fish-related emergency room visits, some of the best tales come from public aquariums. From lifesaving firsts to the mysterious case of a shark abandoned at a worm farm, no fishbowl will ever look the same again.

10 Infectious Fish Pedicures

A trendy way to exfoliate feet is to get a fish pedicure. Clients soak their feet in a container full of tiny fish that consume dead skin cells.

In 2018, a woman in New York allowed the fish, called Garra rufa, to feast on her toes. Months later, her toenails fractured. The bottom layer could be seen underneath the top.

Since it was painless, she did not visit a doctor for six months. Ultimately, she was diagnosed with onychomadesis. This condition occurs when something stops nails from growing and, eventually, they fall off. When all other causes of onychomadesis were ruled out (injury or a family history of nail disease), the woman became the first case linked to a fish pedicure.^[1]

In the past, Garra fish had tested positive for several bacteria that cause skin and tissue infections. Hygiene is another problem. Since the fish are in the tubs, the containers cannot be properly cleaned between customers. Sanitary risks include individuals with foot diseases who use the tub before other clients.

9 Oldest Fish In Captivity

In 2018, an Australian lungfish in San Francisco celebrated her 80th year at the California Academy of Sciences’ Steinhart Aquarium. Her age is closer to 90 as she arrived as an adult in 1938. Named Methuselah, she measures 1.2 meters (4 ft) long.

The oldest fish in captivity loves figs and prawns, belly rubs, and certain volunteers. Methuselah also prefers her own tank. When caretakers placed her in a larger aquarium with two younger lungfish, she insisted on hovering upside down until they moved her back.

Genetics play a role in her long life, but the species is extraordinary in other ways. Lungfish, which are primitive and go back 400 million years, use a swim bladder to float and breathe air. Some even walk over the ground to search for a new pond.

Methuselah seems happy to aim for a century. According to her caretakers, she eats like a pig and loves human interaction. For this reason, the aquarium’s coddled group of lungfish are often called “underwater puppies.”^[2]

8 Fish Have Personalities

Scientists tackled a tricky question in 2015. Wondering if fish had personalities, they decided to create a horror show. They scared guppies with a fake heron beak plunging into the water. On another occasion, they used “Big Al.” He was a carnivorous fish called a cichlid which would suddenly appear on the other side of the glass.

When a guppy was moved to this scare tank, the only shelter was a small plastic cover. After getting the holy sin frightened out of it, the single fish would be returned to a well-protected tank full of other guppies. After three days, it went back to the scare tank to endure five minutes of terror. This continued for a month.

After putting each of the 105 guppies through this experiment, scientists concluded that the fish had personalities. All reacted in a unique way. It was not accidental. The guppies repeated their chosen behaviors (hiding, fleeing, freezing) during the follow-up encounters with the heron and cichlid every three days.^[3]

7 Catfish Drinking Game

In 2016, a drunk man arrived in the emergency room with a bizarre injury. That evening, the unnamed 28-year-old had partied with friends in Rotterdam in the Netherlands. They had decided it would be a good idea to swallow live fish.

Several goldfish were taken from a home aquarium and gulped down without a problem. Then someone suggested another tank occupant—a small catfish. However, it was a Corydoras aeneus, a toxic creature with spines. When threatened, these catfish stiffen their venom-filled needles to avoid getting eaten.

Needless to say, the spiky creature got stuck in the man’s throat. Choking, he threw up blood and beer—but no fish. His drunk friends applied the Heimlich maneuver incorrectly. The man tried to wash the fish down with beer, ice cream, and honey. Finally, after waiting several hours, he went to the hospital.^[4]

Delicate surgery ultimately removed the dead catfish. It was preserved in the Rotterdam Natural History Museum, joining a collection that highlights dramatic encounters between humans and animals.

6 Wrasse Recognize Themselves

There is a simple test for self-awareness. A mirror shows the subject an artificial mark on their body. Any related reaction, like rubbing the spot, suggests an awareness that the image represents their real body. Animals that have passed include dolphins, chimpanzees, elephants, pigeons, and crows.

In 2018, researchers wanted a self-aware fish. They picked the cleaner wrasse. One ability made them the perfect candidate. Wrasse feed on parasites. They have evolved to notice unusual spots on other fish.

When 10 wrasse were isolated in individual mirrored tanks, things got interesting. At first, they mistook their reflections for rivals and fought with themselves. However, within days, they performed “friendly dancing” in front of the mirrors.^[5]

Wrasse are solitary and do not dance for other fish. Although hard to prove, they could have been dancing to see themselves move. When colored gel was applied to their heads (only noticeable in the mirror), seven wrasse spent more time with their reflections or rubbing their heads against things in the tank.

5 Fish Floaties

Leafy sea dragons resemble seahorses that ate too much plant fertilizer. The entire fish is covered with leaflike fronds.

In 2018, the Florida Aquarium in Tampa acquired three young sea dragons. While observing the Australian fish, the aquarium’s vet noticed something distressing. They ate badly and kept sinking to the bottom of the tank.

Leafy sea dragons float for a reason—to look like seaweed and not food. For them to hit the dirt meant something was seriously wrong. Surprisingly, it was discovered that all three suffered from the same condition—a swim bladder that never developed. The organ is responsible for buoyancy, and without it, the trio could not get off the floor.

In a genius move, the vet created floaties. He used black rings made of neoprene, a buoyant material that was both comfortable and resistant to salt water. The rings were looped around the sea dragons’ fragile midsections and sewn together at the ends. It worked. Once the fish found themselves floating, they started feeding and growing again.^[6]

4 The Stickleback C-Section

Stickleback females spray eggs for hopeful dads to fertilize. There is no hanky-panky or pregnancy with this species. In the 1950s, a pregnant stickleback was found in Scotland. No investigation was done. But in 2016, researchers trawled Scotland for more and found a heavily pregnant stickleback. Since she was dying, the fish was humanely destroyed and the eggs removed via C-section.

Although three cases are known (where egg-laying fish got pregnant), this was the only time that the embryos survived. They hatched in the laboratory and became healthy adults.

But how did a member of a species that doesn’t get pregnant carry healthy young in her belly?

DNA tests showed that she did not clone herself because the babies had two parents. The stickleback likely swam through a sperm cloud and was fertilized through her egg tube.

Beyond being a major evolutionary leap, the mother’s body also aced a crucial male role. To stimulate a healthy development, stickleback dads fan the eggs. The C-section fry were normal, meaning a mysterious internal process had replaced the father’s fanning.^[7]

3 Robot Guppies

The Trinidadian guppy does something weird with its eyes. Although the eyes are usually silver, anger turns them black within seconds. As researchers are curious creatures who go the extra mile, they decided to create robot guppies to find out if the change was voluntary and what it communicated within this fishy population.

In 2018, they took a dead specimen and made silicone replicas. The incredibly realistic fakes had either silver or black eyes. They were positioned over food and given lifelike movements thanks to a small motor. The social dynamics that followed showed that black eyes had a very specific meaning.

Smaller guppies approached the food when the robot had silver eyes. However, a dark look communicated what researchers called “honest aggression”—the guppy’s absolute readiness to fight. It also meant that the guppy was guarding a worthy resource.

When the real guppies were bigger, they beat up the robot. This was to loot the resource and thrash a smaller fish that dared to use the look. It remains unknown how guppies flood their eyes with black.^[8]

2 The Sandwich Ray

Macduff Marine Aquarium in Aberdeenshire is home to several thornback rays. Late in 2018, staff decided to clean one of the tanks. It was filled with ray eggs, known as a mermaid’s purse. In this case, they had to be removed as all the babies had hatched and the cases were empty.

However, when an employee tried to push the air out of one purse, it would not give. He peeled back one side and was surprised to find an unhatched ray. The unlucky creature had been trapped inside its egg. Since the case was destroyed and the ray was still an embryo, a surrogate shell had to be found.^[9]

The solution was as simple as it was unusual—a sandwich bag. The ray happily incubated inside the plastic for two months and eventually “hatched.” The day came when staff decided that it was ready to leave the bag. The baby thornback was removed and placed with 10 others where it thrived, seemingly unaffected by its peculiar past.

1 The Abandoned Shark

In 2012, a wildlife sanctuary was closed down outside of Melbourne, Australia. The operator was supposed to preserve a species of giant earthworm but was caught running an illegal animal park.

One of the creatures that was definitely not an earthworm was a great white shark. The enormous predator was supposed to stay there temporarily while its real home was being prepared elsewhere. However, when new owners took over the park, they kept the shark.^[10]

When the park was closed due to irregularities, the animals were handed over to the RSPCA. At this point, the shark’s story gets muddy. Not only was it left behind at the worm sanctuary, but it also somehow ended up in a tank of formaldehyde. This preserved the 4-meter-long (13 ft) great white.

The empty park could be considered spooky, but the shark tank was downright haunting. The corpse, hanging motionless in green water, recently became an Internet sensation after urban explorers encountered the beast and posted the video to YouTube.

We all know about the fundamental problems faced in the ancient past. People had too little food, too much disease, shabby clothes, and inadequate shelters. Human filth was inescapable.

But past cultures also experienced more obscure problems. From supplemental fungus ingestion to prehistoric lead exposure and even prehistoric bedbug infestations, history is full of fascinating problems.

10 They Had To Eat Fungus

The Pueblo in the southwestern US began their agricultural adventure in 400 BC. For the next 800 years, they grew and ate mainly maize, which constituted 80 percent of their calories.

With a diet that included little else, maybe a bit of yucca or rarely some rabbit, the Pueblo people should have been malnourished. But they didn’t suffer the expected pellagra that comes with nutrient deficiency.^[1]

Their nutritional savior was the maize-infecting Ustilago maydis fungus (aka corn smut). It’s an annoyance today. But back then, maize fungus was purposely included in the diet because it boosted overall protein levels thanks to its essential amino acid profile. This huitlacoche is still eaten in Mexico today.

9 They Had To Share Their Beer

Chemical analysis has just offered direct evidence that the Mesopotamians loved beer. Researchers studied various items from Khani Masi, now the Kurdish region of Iraq, and found residue from beer consumed between 1500 and 1000 BC.

Mesopotamian beer was like ours, made from barley rather than rice or corn like ancient Chinese and Peruvian “beer.” But the drinking of the beverage was different. Instead of using personal vessels, the Mesopotamians drank from sizable communal containers by each dipping a long, metal-tipped straw into the brew.

Mesopotamians did eventually start drinking from personal, handheld containers as social traditions grew weaker. These containers held up to 600 milliliters (20 oz) of brew, or nearly two modern-day beer bottles.^[2]

8 Even Ancient People Were Exposed To Lead

Even Neanderthals suffered from lead exposure, and scientists found the telltale signs in teeth from two Neanderthals from southern France.

Researchers studied teeth because teeth are like tree rings. Fetuses and the very young get a new layer of enamel every day, and these layers trap chemicals that the individuals were exposed to.

Researchers can also tell that the 250,000-year-old Neanderthals ingested their lead during the colder weather. Based on oxygen isotope ratios, the Neanderthals experienced harsher, more pronounced autumns and winters and their children faced malnutrition and illness.

It’s likely that they ingested the lead from contaminated food or water or inhaled it from fires as they frequently populated caves with subterranean lead deposits.^[3]

7 Everyone Got Parasites

There’s a lot to learn by studying dried old poo. Like the 700-year-old parasites recovered from stool samples acquired from 31 medieval latrines in Lubeck, Germany.

Lubeck was one of the Middle Ages’ most bustling ports, and its people’s intestines were riddled with tapeworms and roundworms thanks to a diet heavy in improperly cooked freshwater fish.

The poo also shows a shift in parasites, revealing that residents switched to a more meat-centric diet around the year 1300. The change might have been due to the concurrent uptick in leather-making and butchery, two industries that polluted the freshwater ecosystem.^[4]

6 They Had Holes Drilled Through Their Skull

The ancient Chinese knew a lot about disease and described numerous ailments and their pathologies on pieces of bone or tortoise shells. They even knew how to perform craniotomies more than 3,000 years ago.^[5]

Archaeologists at the Ruins of Yin found two skulls with drill holes. One of the skulls belonged to a 10-year-old boy and featured a circular, 1-centimeter-wide (0.4 in) perforation. The bone showed signs of healing, so the boy survived as a result or in spite of the surgery. The operation was likely performed with bone needles, four of which were discovered at the ruins.

It’s not the first time that ancient Chinese skulls have been found with perforations, as 13 such skulls, bearing multiple holes, were previously unearthed at ruins in Xinjiang.

5 Women Weren’t Spared The Violence

Women weren’t spared from violence in ancient society according to a study of 378 Scandinavian skulls ranging from 3900 BC to 1700 BC, or the late Stone Age that saw a shift to farming.

Researchers found that up to one in six of these Stone Age skulls showed signs of violent injury. Nearly 10 percent of skulls from Sweden and 17 percent from Denmark exhibited signs of smashing, with women as likely as men to suffer lethal cranial trauma.

The discovery challenges the notion that women were spared, and researchers believe the injuries came about as a result of local warfare, family feuds, or raids.^[6]

4 They Were Preyed On By Bedbugs

Bedbugs aren’t a modern problem according to recent finds from the Paisley Five Mile Point Cave site in Oregon. Inside the caves, researchers discovered the oldest members of the bedbug genus.

The recovered ancient bedbug fragments date all the way back to 11,000 years ago. They handily beat out the previous oldest, a 3,500-year-old specimen found in Egypt in 1999.

Unlike the bedbugs of popular culture, the types discovered in Oregon are all parasites of bats rather than humans. Researchers say that these creatures probably would have fed on and annoyed humans as the caves were occupied seasonally by hunter-gatherers.^[7]

3 They Had Limited Choices For Entertainment

In spite of their busier lifestyles, Bronze Age humans knew boredom. And when they were bored, the gaming selection was limited. One game which quickly spread from the Near East was called 58 Holes, or Hounds and Jackals.

Researchers found a “game board” etched into a 4,000-year-old rock shelter in Azerbaijan. The game features rows of dots, usually 58 dots total. Gamers would have used a type of dice to move their pieces, with the ultimate goal to reach the top hole.

Hounds and Jackals may be the predecessor of backgammon and definitely served as a “social lubricant” to help disparate groups share their cultures.^[8]

2 They Had Surprisingly Bad Teeth

A communal grave site at the Grotte des Pigeons caves in Taforalt, Morocco, surrendered 52 adults who lived between 15,000 and 13,700 years ago—and their horrible teeth.

Only three of the bodies were free of cavities. More than half of the surviving teeth showed evidence of decay, with 49 of the 52 suffering from cavities. That’s comparable to modern people who stuff themselves with loads of refined sugars.

Preagricultural people don’t usually have such rotten teeth as tooth decay exploded with the introduction of domesticated carbs like barley and wheat.^[9]

But these hunter-gatherers apparently snacked often and overly relied on nuts, North African acorns, legumes, and oats. They likely used a grinding tool found at the site to transform these foods into flatbreads or sweet, sticky porridges that would have stuck to teeth and fed cavity-causing bacteria.

1 They Ate Their Dogs

The Xoloitzcuintli, or Mexican hairless dog, emerged around 3,500 years ago, making it one of the oldest dog breeds.

In the Aztec language, Nahuatl, “Xolotl” was the god of death and lightning (who supposedly created the breed) and itzcuintli less surprisingly means “dog.”

Aztecs revered the dogs as protectors and guides in the afterlife, helping the dead through Mictlan, or Aztec Hades. In the region encompassing Colima, Nayarit, and Jalisco, little Xoloitzcuintli ceramics accompanied 75 percent of burials.^[10]

Although the Aztecs tucked in their hairless little buddies at night, they also ate the creatures as a delicacy . . . because history is brutal. When the conquistadors arrived, they also ate xolo, nearly wiping out the breed.

Ivan writes about cool things for the Internet. You can contact him at [email protected].