THE CANNIBAL CHIEFS

Ratu Udre Udre

Fiji

Cannibal Chiefs Chair 2During the 19th century, the Fijian people were known around the world for ritualistic cannibalism. Udre Udre was a Fijian commoner. He holds the Guinness World Record for “most prolific cannibal.” Udre Udre reportedly ate between 872 and 999 people. He kept a stone for each body and the stones were placed alongside his tomb in Rakiraki, in northern Viti Levu after his death. According to Udre Udre’s son, the chiefs of Rakiraki would go to the battlefield along with Udre Udre and they would each give him every body part of their victims, especially the head. Udre Udre preserved the human remains and ate them. He believed that after he consumed the 1000th body, he would become immortal.

CANNIBAL LORD

James Douglas


3rd Marquess of Queensberry, Scotland

James Douglas, 3rd Marquess of Queensberry, was a Scottish nobleman. He was the eldest son of James Douglas, 2nd Duke of Queensberry, who was created Duke of Dover, Marquess of Beverley, and Earl of Ripon in 1708. In 1709, the elder Douglas was made Secretary of State for Scotland. The younger James Douglas was born in 1697. Stories describe him as an “imbecile,” and violently insane. Douglas was kept under lock and key from childhood at Queensberry House in Edinburgh, which is now part of the Scottish Parliament complex. In 1706, the elder James Douglas attempted to have his son removed from the succession. It is reported that when the Act of Union was signed in 1707, which placed the Kingdom of England and the Kingdom of Scotland under the same monarch, the disruption allowed the 10-year-old James Douglas to escape. He then entered the kitchen of Queensberry House and slaughtered a young servant. The report says that Douglas roasted the boy alive on a revolving spit. He then ate sections of the boy before being apprehended. After the event, Douglas was known as “The Cannibalistic Idiot,” and the oven he used to kill the boy can still be seen in the Parliament’s Allowances Office. James Douglas died in 1715 and was buried in Calverley churchyard. His brother Charles Douglas, 3rd Duke of Queensberry succeeded him. The Queensberry House kitchen is still said to be haunted to this day.

THE JAPANESE MASTERMIND

Shirō Ishii

Shiro Ishii 1Ishii was a microbiologist and the lieutenant general of Unit 731, a biological warfare unit of the Imperial Japanese Army during the Second Sino-Japanese War. He was born in the former Shibayama Village of Sanbu District in Chiba Prefecture, and studied medicine at Kyoto Imperial University. In 1932, he began his preliminary experiments in biological warfare as a secret project for the Japanese military. In 1936, Unit 731 was formed. Ishii built a huge compound — more than 150 buildings over six square kilometers — outside the city of Harbin, China.Some of the numerous atrocities committed by Ishii, and others under his command in Unit 731, include: vivisection of living people (including pregnant women who were impregnated by the doctors), prisoners had limbs amputated and reattached to other parts of their body, some prisoners had parts of their bodies frozen and thawed to study the resulting untreated gangrene. Humans were also used as living test cases for grenades and flame throwers. Prisoners were injected with inoculations of disease, disguised as vaccinations, to study their effects. To study the effects of untreated venereal diseases, male and female prisoners were deliberately infected with syphilis and gonorrhea via rape, then studied. A complete list of these horrors can be found here.Having been granted immunity by the American Occupation Authorities at the end of the war, Ishii never spent any time in jail for his crimes and died at the age of 67, of throat cancer.

Delphine LaLaurie

Delphine-Lalaurie-PaintingLaLaurie was a sadistic socialite who lived in New Orleans. Her home was a chamber of horrors. On April 10, 1834, a fire broke out in the mansion’s kitchen, and firefighters found two slaves chained to the stove. They appeared to have started the fire themselves, in order to attract attention. The firefighters were lead by other slaves to the attic, where the real surprise was. Over a dozen disfigured and maimed slaves were manacled to the walls or floors. Several had been the subjects of gruesome medical experiments. One man appeared to be part of some bizarre sex change, a woman was trapped in a small cage with her limbs broken and reset to look like a crab, and another woman with arms and legs removed, and patches of her flesh sliced off in a circular motion to resemble a caterpillar. Some had had their mouths sewn shut, and had subsequently starved to death, whilst others had their hands sewn to different parts of their bodies. Most were found dead, but some were alive and begging to be killed, to release them from the pain. LaLaurie fled before she could be bought to justice – she was never caught.

THE ARCHITECT OF THE HOLOCAUST

Heinrich Himmler

Heinrich-HimmlerHeinrich Himmler, the architect of the holocaust and considered to be the biggest mass murderer ever, by some (although it’s really Josef Stalin). The holocaust would not have happened if not for this man. He tried to breed a master race of Nordic appearance, the Aryan race. His plans for racial purity were ended by Hitler’s vanity in making rash military decisions rather than letting his generals make them, thus ending the war prematurely. Himmler was captured after the war. He unsuccessfully tried to negotiate with the west, and was genuinely shocked to be treated as a criminal upon capture. He committed suicide by swallowing a cyanide capsule he had bit upon.

CHEERLEADERS INSPIRED HITLER

Hitler Was Inspired By Cheerleaderschherlead

Whack a pair of pom-poms on any man and he’ll be rendered harmless—even Hitler. But Hitler’s association with pom-poms goes well beyond that of a cheap joke. The infamous “Nazi salute,” a stiff-armed gesture, accompanied by the phrase “Heil Hitler” or “Sieg Heil,” was made mandatory for all civilians in 1933. The gesture was adapted from an Ancient Roman salute, but the “Sieg Heil,” translated as “Hail Victory,” came from somewhere far less martial.According to documents created by the Office of Strategic Services (a wartime CIA) Hitler was besotted with American Football cheerleaders and marching bands. The documents include the observations of Hitler’s close friend Ernst Hanfstaengl, known to Hitler as “Putzi.” Putzi states that in the year of 1923, Hitler was a massive fan of football college games and their accompanying marches, and the “Sieg Heil!” shout was based on the cheerleaders’ techniques.
He also deployed college-style music to inject some excitement into his political rallies. Give us an H! Give us an I! Actually, on that topic . . . 

THE LAST MUGHAL.

Bahadur Shah II

1775 – 1862

Bahadur Shah Zafar.JpgBahadur Shah II was the last of the Mughal emperors that ruled over India for over 300 years. After the death of his father in 1837 Bahadur Shah II was placed on the throne when he was a little over 60 years of age. Like his father he was a weak ruler due to the British domination over India at the time. During the War of Independence in 1857 the freedom fighters nominated Bahadur Shah as their Commander-in-Chief but eventually the strong and organized British forces defeated them and Bahadur Shah was overthrown. He was arrested from Humayun’s tomb, in Delhi, where he was hiding and numerous male members of his family were killed and imprisoned by the British. In 1858 Bahadur Shah Zafar was tried for treachery and was exiled to Rangoon. He lived his last five years there and died in 1862 at the age of 87. The only known photograph was taken in 1858 just after his trial in Delhi and before his departure for exile in Rangoon.Interesting Fact:: Bahadur Shah is known to have had four wives and numerous concubines. He had 22 sons and at least 32 daughters. In 1959, the All India Bahadur Shah Zafar Academy was founded expressly to spread awareness about his contribution to the first national freedom movement of India.

RAREST SYNDROME CALLED CYCLOPIA

Cyclopia

Cyclopia is a rare birth defect in which the body is unable to properly separate the two eye sockets so they remain merged as one. The majority of babies suffering this disease are stillborn but if they survive it is not usually for more than a few hours.

AMAZING NAIL FACTS !!

Chinese Fingernails

As a symbol of high social standing, high members of the Chinese aristocracy would often grow their fingernails to an excessive length. This was perhaps (like foot binding) a sign that they need not have functional use of their hands for work.

KETHUP, THE ANTI-CANCEROUS AGENT

Ketchup Helps Prevent Cancer

Despite using questionable science, Bennett and Smith were right: Ketchup does indeed possess health benefits. It’s good for the heart and helps reduce the risk of certain types of cancer. These benefits occur because ketchup is an excellent source of the chemical lycopene, which gives tomatoes its red color. Lycopene is an antioxidant, inhibiting inflammation and cell damage caused by free radicals. Uncooked tomato products such as juice are not as useful as ketchup because the body absorbs cooked tomato products better. Cooked products also have higher lycopene levels.For prostate cancer, research shows that lycopene reduces the growth of cancerous cells and also affects the way these cells communicate. It chokes the way blood flows to these cells by inhibiting the growth of blood vessels that feed tumors. Some studies indicate that lycopene also helps with liver, skin, breast, and lung cancer, but the results are inconclusive. Interestingly enough, the chemical appears naturally in the human lungs, skin, liver, blood, prostate, adrenal glands, and colon. It is the most dominant color component in those organs and is also thought to have a natural role in guarding against cancerous cells.Lycopene supplements, also called “essence of tomatoes” and “tomato pills,” are sold worldwide. Daily dosages of these “wonder pills” are claimed to save lives, increase life spans, cut cholesterol, reduce the risk of heart attacks and strokes, beat arthritis, help with diabetes, and keep the skin wrinkle-free. Bennett’s concept of tomato pills has come full circle

TOMATOLESS KETCHAP !!!

Early Versions Did Not Use Tomato

Though ketchup today uses tomato as a base, early versions did not. They were made from anchovies, shallots, oysters, lemons, or walnuts. Perhaps you find walnut ketchup a tough nut to swallow or find shallots and oysters too fishy. Other people from long ago shared similar thoughts, so back then, mushrooms were the most popular type. A typical mushroom-based recipe is found in Beeton’s Book of Household Management, first published in 1861. Beeton’s mushroom ketchup calls for a peck of mushrooms, salt, pepper, mace, allspice, and a few drops of brandy. Don’t want to coat your meals with a condiment made from fungi? Try the Philippines version; it uses bananas, so this ketchup tastes sweeter. If you find the thought of brown or yellow ketchup too strange to stomach, don’t worry. Out of deference to tradition, most products on the market are dyed red. If ketchup made from bananas doesn’t give you a warm and fuzzy feeling either, there are other fruit or vegetable versions. Try plum, pear, sweet mustard, cranberry, carrot, mango, apple, or horseradish ketchup, for starter

GLAUCUS, A VICTIM OF SAVAGE HORSE !!

Glaucus

Greece- glaucus

Glaucus was a great king in Greek mythology, a man descended straight from the Titans. Being a descendant of the gods as well as a king, it’s not surprising that he was more than a little eccentric. See, Glaucus really liked to ride horses and participate in chariot races. This in itself was a pretty normal hobby for the time, but Glaucus took things to the next level. For some reason, he decided that his horses should be fed nothing but human flesh. While the tales don’t say where he got the flesh, it’s not hard to imagine that some despicable things must have happened.Unfortunately for Glaucus, he may have gone a little too far—before long, his horses had developed an inescapable fondness for human flesh. One day, Glaucus was in a chariot race when the horses pulled apart and ate their own master.

THE FISHER KING FROM GREAT BRITAIN

The Fisher King

Great Britain- fisher king

The story of the Fisher King is not necessarily the story of one particular king and is often tied into the quest for the Holy Grail. The theme usually involves a kingdom in the throes of a serious problem—sometimes it’s a financial problem, sometimes the land is too barren to grow crops, and sometimes a disease has ravaged the people of the land. The king himself, in these legends, is also ill or weakened and it is suggested that the two problems are inextricably intertwined. The king hardly has the power to fix the problem himself, but is instead stuck waiting for a knight in shining armor to come to the rescue. The knight may find some relic—such as a grail—and use that to fix the problem, or he may need to discuss something with the king in just the right way. This theme has been used heavily in Arthurian legend. In some forms of the tale, King Arthur didn’t really want his knights running off on a quest to find the Grail because he believed that sending your knights far away from the kingdom they need to defend is generally a bad idea. However, due to being afflicted by the Fisher King malady, he sends them off with his blessing to find the cure and thus save all those who depend on him. But although it’s used widely in Arthurian legend, the tale of the Fisher King is not unique to those stories and could just be an allegory for government in general. If the government is not well, the people will not be either, and vice versa.

Yayati
India- yayati

The story of King Yayati comes from Indian mythology, and it starts with the age-old problem of infidelity. Yayati was married to a woman named Devayani and things seemed to be going well until a former princess named Smarmistha became a maid at their house. She convinced the king to wed her as his second wife, and before long they had several children, all kept completely secret from Yayati’s first wife. When Devayani discovered the children, she told her father, who cursed the king for his unfaithfulness by turning him into an old man. Devayani’s father soon became wracked with guilt for the severity of the curse, but it was too late—he was unable to reverse the effects. So Devayani’s father gave Yayati another chance. According to the magic of the curse, if one of Yayati’s children was willing, they could exchange their youth for their father’s old age. Most of his children rejected his request, but finally his son Puru agreed to do so out of love for his father. Puru quickly became an old man, and Yayati was blessed with as much youth as he wanted. However, he didn’t find it satisfying. Before long, he realized that no matter how many carnal pleasures he could enjoy as a young man, he would never truly feel fulfilled. Realizing that he had made a terrible mistake, he returned to his kingdom and gave his youth back to his youngest son. Knowing that Puru had been the most loyal and wisest of his children, he made him king and retired into the forest to meditate for his remaining years.

HOTU MATUA

Hotu Matu’a
Polynesia- matua

According to the legends passed on by word of mouth, there was once a great tribal chieftain named Hotu Matu’a, who lived in a place called Kiva. While there are many variations to the legend, they all suggest that the tribe was defeated in battle and very quickly needed to find a new place to live. The king’s tattooist had a dream of a far-off island that was perfect for them, and that was where they set sail to. In some versions, the king sends scouts out in canoes first, but in every case the entire tribe eventually fills their canoes with food, seeds, small livestock, tablets for writing, and all the supplies they would need to begin their new lives. The journey takes them 120 days, after which they finally find a beach on which to bring their canoes ashore. The island in the legend is what is now Easter Island and is known for the gigantic head statues that litter its beaches. The story of Hatu Matu’a and his people states that the building of the giant heads—called Moai—was very ritualistic in nature and essentially a religious practice. Upon his deathbed, the king divided the land between his sons, who all became great chieftains in their own right. The people believed that the chieftains had supernatural qualities and that carving a giant head in their likeness would help the people retain that power, which would bless them with good harvests and fertility.

DUSHYANTA

Dushyanta
India

Dushyanta was an important king in Indian mythological traditions, but his story cannot be told without first recounting the origins of his bride, Shakantula. A great king named Kaushika was trying to achieve a form of spiritual transcendence by giving up his worldly life, but Indra (king of the gods, in Hinduism) was threatened by his quest and sent a beautiful woman named Menaka to distract him from his goal. Indra’s plan worked and the two soon had a daughter named Shakantula, but they unfortunately abandoned her as an infant. The young girl was adopted by a wise old sage named Kanva and raised in his humble shack in the woods.One day, when the girl had become much older, the king Dushyanta was hunting in the woods and came upon her abode. Dushyanta quickly fell in love with the young woman and asked her to marry him. Unfortunately, her adopted father was not at home and she wanted his blessing for the wedding. The king managed to convince her to go ahead with the marriage by telling her that they could use the trees as witnesses to the union. After the wedding, the king claimed that he would not feel right taking her without first talking to her father, so he left her (although he stuck around long enough to get her pregnant). The king never returned, and eventually the family gave up on him ever making good on his word. They named the boy Bharata and went on with their lives.But as the boy grew, he began asking about his father, and Shakantula finally ventured out of the forest to find the king. When she found and confronted Dushyanta, though, he pretended not to know her. When she told him that their witnesses had been the trees, he and his court scorned her words. As she was about to leave angrily, the sky tore open and the voice of one of the gods told Dushyanta to take responsibility for his son and the wife he had married. Not wanting to anger a divine power, the king finally accepted Shakantula and Bharata as his own.

KING BREOGAN

Breogan
Ireland- mirror

The story of King Breogan begins with a bit of magic. Wishing to see to every corner of his realm, the king reconstructed the tower of Hercules. A high tower is a great vantage point for seeing distant places, but Breogan burned with the desire to see even farther. As luck would have it, he chanced upon a magic mirror that let him see far beyond the borders of his kingdom. The legends say that Ith, the son of Breogan, looked through the mirror and was able to make out the distant coast of Ireland. As he continued to gaze upon the land, he became more and more enamored with it, and eventually he decided to set out on an expedition of conquest. He went out with a fleet of seven ships, but legend is unclear as to what happened to him after that. Some believe that his own men mutinied and killed him, while other stories say that his ships were destroyed by a storm. All the legends agree, though, that Ith and his men were not seen again until their bodies washed up on the shores of Breogan’s empire. Angered by the death of his son, the great king gathered 36 different chieftains and went on to invade Ireland.

WHAT AN ART

Sexual Repression Of Roman 

The Vatican is a huge fan of classical Roman art, collecting hundreds of statues with one minor adjustment made to them: hiding their penises. The blatant sexual image was deemed inappropriate for display in a holy place, so each was covered with a fig leaf. According to a widely repeated urban legend, the Vatican went a step further and actually physically removed the offending phalluses. This tale has led some to even claim that the Vatican has a secret room in their vast complex solely devoted to the storage of these ancient erections.

MOST OF US MONGOLIAN !!

Genghis Khan


Mongols. We know them, we love them, and it just so happens that many of us may be related to their greatest leader. A recent study of DNA revealed that a surprisingly high percentage of men may share a common genetic root in Genghis Khan. According to some estimates, 1 out of every 200 men is a descendant of the great Khan. That’s a whopping 16 million people. While this seems unbelievable, the 13th-century gene pool was much smaller than today’s, and the Mongol king seemed to spend most of his time having sex with lots of different women. Historians have no definite number as to how many children Genghis fathered in his lifetime. Some estimate hundreds. Others even give figures in the thousands. Only the four children birthed by his wife have been well documented because they were the only ones seen as his true heirs, and they certainly did their part to spread Mongol DNA. The Khan’s eldest son, Tushi, had 40 legitimate sons and possibly many more illegitimate children who missed the headcount. Kublai Khan, Genghis’s grandson, had 22 legitimate sons by his wives and supposedly added 30 women to his harem every year. With such numbers, it’s easier to see how 16 million people could be descended from this one man.

MOTHERLY AFFECTION

The Woman Who Rescued Europe’s Children 1023

Truus Wijsmuller-Meyer may be the most important humanitarian most of us have never heard of. Faced with the horrors of the Holocaust, she wasn’t content to simply rescue 100 or even 1,000 lives. In less than one year, she saved 10,000. This Dutch social worker traveled right into Nazi Vienna and personally convinced Adolf Eichmann to let her take 600 Jewish children to England immediately. Insanely, he agreed. Even more insanely, Truus was just getting started.As Europe careened toward war, she turned up all over the continent, dealing with the Gestapo, bribing frontier guards, and generally acting like a one-woman anti-genocide machine. In Berlin, she joined forces with Jewish rescuer Recha Freier. When Germany steamrolled into the Netherlands, she returned to her home city of Amsterdam and immediately began smuggling children into Switzerland. Between November 1938 and September 1939, she got around 10,000 children to safety—the equivalent of rescuing the entire population of the Falkland Islands three times and then throwing in Vatican City for good measure. For her efforts, she was recognized as “Righteous Among the Nations” by Israel—though we prefer the more accurate term “superwoman.”

HATS OFF TO THE TURBANAL !!

The Sikh Who Stopped The Horrors Of Partition

When the British left India in 1947, they left behind a country on the edge of civil war. Hindu and Muslim extremists were itching to murder one another, and bloodshed seemed inevitable. To head the violence off, the government tried dividing the country into two states, Muslim Pakistan and Hindu India, but they rushed the borders, leaving many stranded on the wrong side. The resulting violence killed around one million people. It would have killed more were it not for Khushdeva Singh.A Sikh doctor, Singh ran a refugee station right at the new border. Unlike the fervent extremists all around him, he made it a policy to shelter people from all religions, treating them equally. But his most heroic actions came when local militias made it clear they were planning to enter the station and murder anyone Islamic. Rather than sit back and let violence unfold, Singh embarked on a campaign of bribery, flattery, and outright lies that succeeded in smuggling all the town’s Muslims to a safe camp. Not content to bask in this victory, Singh then repeated his plan in three other towns. When he finally visited Pakistan after the violence was over in 1949, Muslims whom Singh had saved lined up to salute him. At least 317 people claimed they owed him their lives. 2 The British Rabbi Who Risked Everything To Save His People 06

CASTLE IN AIR !!

Ponce De Leon Was Searching For The Fountain Of Youth

 Juan_Ponce_de_LeónThe Truth: He wasn’t. None of de Leon’s writings or letters, or the writings of anyone else associated with his expedition, mention the Fountain of Youth. The truth is that de Leon was a traditional Spanish conquistador—he was out for gold, land, and riches—and wasn’t afraid to brutally massacre the Native American inhabitants of the areas he colonized. As the first governor of Puerto Rico and later in Florida, de Leon demonstrated a ruthlessly pragmatic nature at odds with later stories of his search for a mythical spring.In fact, the story was made up by Ponce’s enemies in Spain after his death in order to make him look like a gullible, sexually impotent idiot. It worked—the story largely eclipsed his actual achievements, like discovering the Gulf Stream. The myth gained traction when America acquired Florida and writers like Washington Irving discovered that they were much more comfortable with the idea of Ponce as a hapless, Don Quixote–like figure, rather than the reality of a brutal man whose name was a source of terror for the native inhabitants of the area. Centuries later, a 16th-century smear campaign is still repeated as fact in some American textbooks.

THE REAL DISCOVERER OF THE NORTH POLE

Robert Peary Was The First Man To Reach The North Pole
Robert_Edwin_PearyThe Truth: Not even in his own account was Peary the first man to the pole. That was actually the other member of his expedition, Matthew Henson. However, Henson was black, so while Peary was widely celebrated, Henson sank into obscurity and had to get a job in customs to get by. Peary refused to answer Henson’s letters, help him get a job, or return the photos of the expedition that Henson had taken and paid for. Henson would later conclude that Peary was jealous he reached the pole first.However, even Henson probably wasn’t the first. Just before Peary and Henson returned, an explorer named Frederick Cook announced he had reached the pole. Unfortunately, Cook had left the instruments that would prove his claim with another member of his party while he rushed back with the news. The ship that was supposed to retrieve them vanished, and Cook’s assistant had to be rescued . . . by Peary, who demanded that Cook’s instruments be abandoned. Then he browbeat Cook’s Inuit employees—who could not speak English—into signing documents saying they hadn’t reached the pole. When he returned to America, Peary’s powerful backers launched a smear campaign against Cook. Without the instruments it’s impossible to be sure, but subsequent explorers have found that Cook’s description of his route matches the landscape perfectly, including things he would have no way of knowing had he been a fraud

WHO WAS ONAN

Not unlike Simon Magus, Onan’s brief appearance inspired a name for a particular action. He was the second son of Abraham’s grandson Judah, the patriarch and namesake of one of the 12 tribes of Israel. His older brother, Er (yes, just “Er”) was “wicked in the sight of the Lord,” so God killed him. What he did to deserve such an execution remains a mystery. Tradition at the time dictated that Er’s widow, Tamar, become Onan’s wife. Onan had to impregnate her to keep the lineage alive, but he was not as wild about the idea. Maybe it was the thought of impending fatherhood, or Tamar just wasn’t his type. So, taking matters into his own hands, he committed the first recorded act of coitus interruptus. Or, as Genesis 38:9 so poetically put it: “And Onan knew that the seed should not be his; and it came to pass, when he went in unto his brother’s wife, that he spilled it on the ground, lest that he should give seed to his brother.” God was displeased and slew Onan.The whole tale gets even more sordid. Onan had a younger brother, Shelah. Customarily, he would have been next in line to impregnate Tamar, but Judah forbade it. Tamar, rather than graciously accepting forced spinsterhood, seduced Judah and got knocked up by the old man. Judah fathered twins Zerah and Perez, the latter of whom was listed by Matthew as an ancestor of Jesus’s earthly father Joseph. But history’s first recorded money shot had cultural implications as well. “Onanism” became a euphemism for sexual self-gratification, and some took God’s displeasure of the act to indicate the sinfulness of contraception. Some have even suggested that Onan’s death warns that sex is meant only for purposes of reproduction, and not for pleasure.

REALITY BEHIND THE GODZILLA

Because bigger is always better, the 2014 version of Godzilla is the largest ever, some 106 meters (350 ft) tall and weighing over 160,000 tons (over time, Godzilla has tended to grow in size so as not to be dwarfed by increasingly large buildings). Of course, there is a reason that beasts of this size exist only in fiction—they are physiologically impossible. There are a number of surprisingly scholarly articles that explain the various reasons Godzilla couldn’t exist. First, there is no way the monster’s skeleton could support its body, even if it was made of titanium. The heat generated by its muscles would be tremendous, and there would be no way its heart could pump blood to its extremities.At the more grotesque end of the spectrum, in his battles with humanity and other gigantic monsters, Godzilla tends to take quite a beating, toppling over time and again only to rise even stronger than before. Unfortunately, the impact of such a great weight falling from a height would be tremendous, enough to make the lizard explode upon hitting the ground. For a rather evocative example, the physics of falling giants was explained in an essay by J. B. S. Haldane in 1928: “You can drop a mouse down a thousand-yard mine shaft; and, on arriving at the bottom, it gets a slight shock and walks away, provided that the ground is fairly soft. A rat is killed, a man is broken, a horse splashes.”

AN INDIAN CIVILIZATION BEFORE THE HARAPPAN CIVILIZATION

Despite wars and several invasions, India’s ancient history was largely preserved. Long believed to date from about 500 BC.; discoveries in the past century have pushed back the origins of Indian civilization thousands of years. In the Indus Valley, the cities of Harappa and Mohenjo Daro were discovered. The cities were so sophisticated and well-planned, that archaeologists believe they were conceived as a whole before construction on them begun. The Harappa culture also remains an enigma. Its origins and deterioration is hidden, its dialect is unknown and the writing is completely indecipherable. At the site no differences in social class can be discerned and there are no temples or religious buildings. No other culture, including those of Egypt and Mesopotamia, has revealed the same degree of planning and development.

NAMING OF AMERICAS

We’ve recently discussed how various civilizations, some from Europe, might have reached the Americas hundreds of years before Columbus did. Columbus, who had landed on modern-day Haiti, was sure he was somewhere near India. One man who was part of his expeditions, the aforementioned Amerigo Vespucci, knew full well that this was a new continent, and his tales of this “new world” amazed two Germans who were reprinting an ancient treatise on geography. The Germans incorporated Vespucci’s discovery in the treatise’s preface:“There is a fourth quarter of the world which Amerigo Vespucci has discovered and which for this reason we can call ‘America’ or the land of Americo.”However, a second theory involves Welshman Richard Amerike (or Ap Meryk), who funded an expedition that reached Newfoundland in 1496. One piece of evidence supporting this theory is that the US flag’s “Stars and Stripes” design is similar to that of the Amerike family’s coat-of-arms.Jo lives in “The Island of King Philip II of Spain.” How about you? Share tales of how your country got its name in the comments section, or scold him if he forgot your nation via email at mrjo.lists@gmail.com

HOW HAD CHINA GOT ITS NAME !!

The most populous nation in the world has had numerous names. The word “China” itself was derived from the Qin Dynasty (pronounced “chin”), established by Qin Shi Huangdi, the First Emperor. Likewise, another name, “Cathay,” came from the famous traveler Marco Polo, who referred to northern China by such a name (and southern China as “Mangi”). Readers may know of the airline Cathay Pacific, and its Marco Polo Club, exclusive to “modern-day Marco Polos”—frequent flyers.Another name for China is “Zhongguo,” from the words Zhong (“center”) and Guo (“country”). Literally it could be interpreted as “the central country,” but a more apt translation would be “The Middle Kingdom.”For centuries, the people of China believed the land was at the very core of creation under heaven. The further you travel away from this center, the more barbarous and inhospitable the lands become. In a sense, they were correct. Outside their borders and their famed Great Wall lay the various steppe tribes—the Xionnu and Shan Yue raiders and the countless hordes of the Mongols and Oirats. “Zhongguo” was also used as the shortened version of “The People’s Republic of China.

SECRETS OF THE WORLD WAR II

At the end of World War II, the United States and Soviet Union captured a large collection of German secrets, including information on a German rocket program. The technology sparked the Space Race (1957-1975) between the United States and the Soviet Union. In each country, a select group of individuals were chosen as the first astronauts. In most cases, these people were kept secret from the public. A good example is the Russian born astronaut Grigori Nelyubov. Little is known about Nelyubov, but he was likely the third or fourth person to travel into space before his dismissal from the Soviet space program in April, 1963, for disorderly conduct. Following his dismissal, all information regarding Nelyubov’s life was stricken from the Soviet record. Grigori Nelyubov’s image was removed from a collection of famous photographs, including the Sochi Six picture, which shows the top members of the original class of Soviet cosmonauts. This airbrushing has led to a large collection of conspiracy theories regarding lost cosmonauts and unreported space flight. In 1966, Nelyubov committed suicide. From 1961 to 1972, at least eight former Russian cosmonauts are known to have died. The Sochi Six picture was officially released in the 1970s and the deception was only discovered after Russian news managers lost track of which versions of the picture they had already published. The fakery has caused some to label the Soviet Union’s string of space triumphs over the United States in the 1950s and early 1960s as a series of falsifications. I have included the original Sochi Six photograph before Nelyubov was removed. He is the tallest man in the picture.

SATAN IS ALIVE ON THE EARTH

Satan is alive on Earth, and has created the Antichrist, who is, at this moment, not quite old enough to seize power, but will in only a few years. He will do so in a very political manner, taking over some powerful organization, such as the United Nations. Every generation, since St. John the Divine wrote the Revelation, has sworn that it would witness the Great Tribulation, Armageddon, and the second coming of Jesus. “The end is near,” everyone has been saying. Now, though, with the advent of global communications, especially the Internet, the theory has swelled exponentially. Christians who previously didn’t think much of it have changed their minds. It can be argued that the worldwide availability of press coverage only serves to heighten fear of terrible things happening at any moment. 9/11 was the most well covered, watched tragedy in human history. Wheneer a tragedy occurs, people who believe in the Christian end-times scenarios flock to church to pray away their fear. But now, with the ability to control the entire world actually conceivable, the paranoia of the Antichrist showing up has become quite the pandemic. Most terrorists believe he will be male, will arise in Europe, probably Western Europe, and some even swear that he will be French. Plenty are sure, however, that President Barack Obama is in fact the Antichrist. Numerologists believe that the Antichrist is not yet old enough, but will make his appearance at the age of 30, symbolically equal to Jesus beginning his ministry. Worldwide terrorism, the current U. S. led war on it in the hotbed of political unrest, and the fact that almost every Arab nation seems to be threatening an invasion of Israel at every second, all serve to make this one feel very real. Every day CNN is loaded with horror stories about the Holy Land, and it just seems to keep getting worse. “The end is near

THE FOUNDER OF THE BASEBALL

Abner Doubleday Invented Baseball. This very common myth of baseball credits Doubleday with inventing the game, supposedly in Elihu Phinney’s cow pasture in Cooperstown, New York, in 1839. In 1905, a committee was appointed to investigate the origins of the game, their conclusion was:
“the first scheme for playing baseball, according to the best evidence obtainable to date, was devised by Abner Doubleday at Cooperstown, New York, in 1839. [In] the years to come, in the view of the hundreds of thousands of people who are devoted to baseball, and the millions who will be, Abner Doubleday’s fame will rest evenly, if not quite as much, upon the fact that he was its inventor … as upon his brilliant and distinguished career as an officer in the Federal Army.”In fact, this conclusion was based on the testimony of one man, who was of questionable credibility. Jeff Idelson of the Baseball Hall of Fame has said that baseball was not really invented anywhere, but as far as history is concerned, the first written rules of baseball were penned by Alexander Joy Cartwright for the baseball club The Knickerbockers. On June 3, 1953, Congress officially credited Cartwright with inventing the modern game of baseball.

THE FIRST POLICEWOMAN

The first policewoman was Alice Stebbins Wells (pictured) who joined the LAPD in 1910. Because she was the first (and only) policewoman, she designed her own police uniform. Four years later, Britain had their first woman policeman

THE FACT OF THE COLOSSUS OF RHODES

Most ancient and even modern paintings of the now long gone Ancient Wonder of the World, the Colossus of Rhodes show him straddling the harbor entrance with ships entering the port beneath his legs. The Colossus was a statue (the tallest in the ancient world) of the Greek God Helios, built between 292 and 280 BC and standing at a height of 30m (100ft). Contrary to the popular misconception that the statues legs were apart, the Colossus actually stood with his legs slightly apart on one side of the entrance to the harbor. This renders virtually all illustrations of the statue, incorrect. The image above is a truthful depiction of his likely stance.

REALTY ABOUT LIZZIE BORDEN

Unfortunately this myth rears its ugly head quite often, and often no amount of effort is sufficient to disprove it to the true believers. First off, Lizzie – she is famous through the children’s poem:
Lizzie Borden took an axe
And gave her mother forty whacks.
And when she saw what she had done
She gave her father forty-one.In fact, her father was axed 11 times and her step-mother 18 or 19 but that is not the real myth – the real myth is the belief that Lizzie Borden committed the crime at all. After a mere one hour of jury deliberation, Lizzie was found innocent of the crime. To give further weight to her innocence, shortly before her trial a second axe murder happened in the area. Additionally, Lizzie was found with no blood on her minutes after the crime took place, and no murder weapon was ever found.

YOU ARE PUNISHED!!!

 In ancient Rome the punishment for killing one’s father was to be drowned in a sack along with a viper, a dog, and a rooster. The reason behind this? I have no idea.

AMAZING JOURNEY

 To save the effort of sailing boats upstream, Mesopotamian traders built collapsable boats which they would sail downstream with a donkey on board. At the other end of their journey they would sell the frame and when they finished trading, they would use the donkey to return home.

THE SLICED BREAD

 In 1927 Otto Rohwedder invented sliced bread. He made the first machine to slice and wrap bread and won a patent for the process. After only six years from invention, more sliced bread was sold than unsliced.