In Elizabethan England, if you needed to torture a man, there was a cheap and easy method available. The Tower of London was right there. Just let the Thames River flow into a window and create something called the Rat Room. Rats were washed into the room and when the water went down, the rats … Continue reading Rat Torture
Before Winthrop Rockefeller became governor of Arkansas in 1966 and instituted prison reform, the Arkansas prison system was a dangerous place for inmates. It was legal to whip prisoners in Arkansas, but they were regularly beaten and tortured by guards who shot at them for fun. There were stories of prison trusties who put needles … Continue reading Tucker Telephone
In 2008, 24 year old Angel Pantojas was killed. He was shot 11 times and thrown off a bridge in San Juan, Puerto Rico. His family remembered something that Angel had said at his father’s funeral when he was just 6 years old, “Not me. At my wake, people will see me on my feet.” … Continue reading Dead Man Standing
Warning: This post contains images that some may find disturbing. Until it was outlawed as a form of assisted suicide, hundreds of Buddhist monks attempted to become Sokushinbutsu (Buddha in the flesh or Buddha in this body) through self-mummification. About 24 were successful. Their remains date from the 12th to the 20th century. It is … Continue reading Sokushinbutsu
In 1912, prospectors struck oil, and a lot of it, just west of Burkburnett, a tiny town in north Texas. The oil field brought 20,000 new residents to Burkburnett and the surrounding area. The nearby city of Wichita Falls was where many oil companies set up their offices. One of these office buildings was the … Continue reading The World’s Littlest Skyscraper
In the early 1990s, a man named Horace Burgess bought a plot of land in Crossville, Tennessee on Beehive Lane with a beautiful 80 foot tall tree on it. The base of the tree was 12 foot in diameter and was surrounded by other mature oak trees. Then, one night, Horace heard the voice of … Continue reading The Minister’s Treehouse
The idea came when the CIA was surveilling an Asian head of state. They noticed that during his meeting, feral cats were wandering around and no one seemed to notice. That’s when the Directorate of Science and Technology for the CIA developed the idea of using cats to spy on the Russian embassy. The project … Continue reading Acoustic Kitty
During the presidency of Woodrow WIlson, suffrage was a hot topic. Women fought for their right to vote. One organization fighting for the rights of women was the National Woman’s Party formed by Alice Paul. Paul was born January 11, 1885 in Mount Laurel, New Jersey. Her mother was a member of the American Woman … Continue reading The Silent Sentinels
Alice Roosevelt took the nation by storm when she moved into the White House with her father, Theodore, and stepmother, Edith, in 1901. She was a 17 year old spitfire. Her father once told a friend, “I can either run the country or I can attend to Alice, but I cannot possibly do both. Alice … Continue reading Alice Roosevelt
Rob Hall was born January 14, 1961 in Christchurch, New Zealand. He met Jan Arnold at Mt. Everest in 1990. That same year, he and his climbing partner, Gary Ball, climbed the Seven Summits (the highest peak on every continent) in 7 months. Rob and Jan’s first date was climbing the highest peak in North … Continue reading Rob Hall
