The SS-Sturmbrigade Dirlewanger, better known to historians as simply the Dirlewanger Brigade, holds the dubious distinction of being amongst the most reviled units of the Nazi war machine. Infamous for its brutality and the open sadism displayed by its commanding officer, a man previously imprisoned for raping a young teen girl, the unit and their actions were so detested that […]
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The ancient Olympics are littered with spectacular stories of athleticism and peculiar characters, like Melankomas of Caria, an ancient boxer who won several Olympic wreaths by reportedly doing nothing but avoid his opponents punches until they gave up. Perhaps the most bizarre Olympic story of all, however, is that of Arrichion of Phigalia, who once won an Olympic wreath despite […]
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In 1977, one of the most influential women of the 20th century, newspaper columnist Esther Pauline Lederer, better known as “Ann Landers” (and funny enough twin sister of one of the other most influential women of the 20th century, Pauline Esther Phillips, aka “Dear Abby”), wrote a seemingly innocent article in which she cited a preference for hanging her toilet […]
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Mae Scott asks: How did they get the CGI in the original Jurassic Park to look so much better than even some movies today? Regardless of your feelings about the overall quality of the film itself, you have to admit that for a movie released in 1993, Jurassic Park contains some mighty fine lookin’ dinosaurs. In fact, the dinosaurs in […]
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Celebrity impersonators are nothing new and with the odd exception, the majority of them fail to measure up to the talent or skill of the person they’re trying to emulate. The same can’t be said of a woman who went by the name of Vickie Jones- a singer who sounded so much like Aretha Franklin that a judge tasked with […]
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Tucked away in the English county of Yorkshire is a small 9 square mile patch of land known colloquially as The Yorkshire Rhubarb Triangle. As the name suggests, this area is famous for producing nearly all of the rhubarb consumed in Britain and, at one point, produced enough forced rhubarb to satisfy almost the entire world’s demand. Oddly, despite literal […]
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Azzah Syafire asks: Why do some clothes have random gibberish Japanese characters on them? Browse any clothing store and you’ll more than likely find at least one t-shirt covered in characters using the Japanese writing system. And if you can actually read Japanese, you’ve probably noticed that what’s written is often gibberish. Rather interestingly, the reverse is also popular in […]
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DOOM isn’t so much a video game as it is a pop-culture phenomenon, a media touchstone that is consistently ranked as one of the most influential games of all time. A game so popular it spawned a host of copycat releases, kick started the FPS (First person shooter) genre and was at one point in history, installed on more PCs […]
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Kassy17 asks: Why are Nintendo consoles so much much more durable than any other system? Nintendo has a surprisingly long history that extends all the way back to the the late 19th century. Originally named “Nintendo Koppai”, the small business based in Kyoto was started by Fusajiro Yamauchi and originally produced Hanafuda Cards. For those unfamiliar, these are simple playing […]
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The 17th century wasn’t exactly the most progressive time in history, as evidenced by the fact people with dwarfism were literally traded about by the upper echelons of society like Pokemon cards. Amongst the pantheon of known “court dwarfs” as they were called, one stood above them all thanks to the frankly astonishing life he led in his rise from […]
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In 2003, the town of Erie, Pennsylvania made national news when an unassuming pizza delivery man walked into a local bank and demanded a quarter of a million dollars from the vault. What happened next would baffle authorities for years and see the crime become one of the most intriguing ever committed in the United States. So what happened? At […]
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Long before they were in the business of making movies themselves, Marvel infamously sold off the film rights to some of their most beloved characters for pennies on the dollar compared to their current worth today. Most pertinent to the topic at hand is their sale of the superhero team that helped Marvel redefine the superhero comic genre- the Fantastic […]
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In the city of Athens, Georgia there exists a rather curious local landmark- a large white oak that is almost universally stated to own itself. Because of this, it is considered one of the more famous trees in the world. So how did this tree come to own itself and the land around it, and does the government agree with […]
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Phillip G. asks: What’s the best way to fire two guns at once? If you’ve ever seen pretty much any action movie involving a badass spy or member of law enforcement, you know a common trope in the industry is to have the protagonist firing away at the bad guys with a gun in both hands. But is this ever […]
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To many people adding one of the principal ingredients in antifreeze to wine sounds almost cartoonishly stupid and evil, which is probably why that exact scenario is the basis for an entire episode of The Simpsons. Nevertheless, for at least 7 years, many major wine makers in Austria decided to add this highly toxic poison to their wines, with a […]
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PandaGuy5 asks: Were people ever really tortured in Iron Maidens? The people of the Middle Ages have a reputation for wanton brutality and, as supposed evidence of this, countless instruments of torture sit in museums around the world, arguably the most famous of which being the Iron Maiden. This hellish contraption supposedly caused unthinkable pain and anguish for those unlucky […]
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Literally Everyone asks: Why are outhouses traditionally depicted with a crescent moon on the door? In all the years we’ve been answering questions from our abnormally attractive readers, one that has popped up in our inbox and in comment threads more times than any other is some form of the question “What’s the deal with crescent moons on outhouse doors?” […]
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On the scenic Thai island of Koh Sumai, tucked away in the Wat Khunaram temple is the mummified body of one of Thailand’s most famous monks- Luang Pho Daeng. Remarkably well preserved, Luang Pho Daeng’s body was put on display sometime in the 1970s and is still there today, virtually unchanged from the day he passed away, with the notable […]
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