When it came time for the stars of Love Is Blind season 2 to hit the altar, fans were left with a lot of shocking surprises (and anger at Shake, but we’ll get to that later). One of the biggest surprises came when Natalie Lee refused to marry Shayne Jansen, citing a big fight they’d had the night before. Shayne’s devastated reaction made it seem like Natalie had blindsided him—but Natalie later revealed the truth about that moment.

She actually let Shayne know in advance that while she’d walk up the aisle, she wouldn’t say “I do” when she got to the altar. So, why did he act so surprised?

Natalie thinks it’s because he was still holding out hope that she might change her mind. And while she may not have agreed to marriage, that doesn’t mean that she and Shayne parted ways after their ill-fated trip to the altar. About a week later, they began seeing each other again, and Natalie still wore her engagement ring. After a few months, they broke things off and took a cooling period before the reunion.

Ultimately, they stayed friends and both say they cherish the time they spent together. The path to love isn’t always a straight one—especially when paperwork is involved…

Of all the couples on 90 Day Fiancé, Olga and Steven were among the most sympathetic characters. They were incredibly young and Olga’s experience giving birth in a Russian hospital was downright scary. On top of that, their venomous fights made it feel like they were doomed to split up—and that’s exactly what they did in October of 2020 after just over a year of marriage.

Still, the cute pair still had another surprise up their sleeves.

In October of 2021, a year after their split, Olga and Stephen confirmed that they were back together—but they came up with even bigger news in March of 2022. The against-all-odds couple announced that they just found out that Olga was pregnant again. After a big move to Brooklyn, New York, the pair and their now three-year-old son Alex will welcome a baby in late 2022.

Starting a family young is never easy—but as the cast of Teen Mom has proved, some handle it better than others…

When it came to breakout 16 And Pregnant/Teen Mom stars, no one made a splash quite like Farrah Abraham. With her abusive mother and the tragic loss of her daughter’s father, she started out as one of the most sympathetic figures on MTV—only to complete turn that all around within a period of years.

There were the adult films and her villainous behavior on Teen Mom OG. But throughout it all, it seemed like Abraham had the MTV producers wrapped around her finger…that is, until they hit their breaking point.

Viacom, MTV’s parent company, fired Farrah from Teen Mom OG in 2017. While many believed it was because of her abusive and demanding behavior with producers, a stunning lawsuit from Farrah later revealed the truth. She accused producers of having fired her for “not conforming to gender stereotypes,” and that they’d discriminated against her due to her work in the adult industry.

Ultimately, both parties settled for a cool $5 million—and Farrah went on to persecute producers again on Ex on the Beach season 2. While MTV was quick to bury the hatchet, the same can’t be said for some Bravo stars…

For years, Stassi Schroeder and Kristen Doute were the (terrifying) backbone of Vanderpump Rules, striking fear into the hearts of co-stars and SUR customers alike. But in 2020, Bravo made the tough decision to fire them both at the same time after castmate Faith Stowers accused them of calling the authorities on her, saying that she was a wanted woman.

At the same time, Bravo booted two of the show’s newer cast members after some of their racially insensitive tweets surfaced. So, what became of Stassi and Kristen?

Losing their spots on VPR was just one of the consequences that the girls faced for their actions toward Stowers. Stassi’s agency and PR firm dropped her as a client, and Kristen lost a book deal. Since all that drama, Kristen has kept a low profile, but has revealed to fans that she’s interested in having a baby with her partner Alex Menache.

Her story is actually pretty low-key compared to Stassi’s…

Since her unceremonious exit from VPR, Stassi Schroeder not only got married to longtime partner Beau Clark, she also had her first child with him, a daughter they named Hartford, in January of 2021. And unlike Kristen, Stassi has some career moves in the works—name, a book about “surviving rock bottom,” due in April of 2022.

It will (obviously) address the fallout from her behavior toward Stowers and her firing from Vanderpump Rules. But it might take a lot more than a book for other stars who put their foot in their mouth…

Hannah Brown’s sweet charm and pageant smile took her from contestant on The Bachelor to star of The Bachelorette season 15. Bachelor Nation contestants often amass huge followings on social media after their seasons end, and Hannah was no different—but that’s exactly where the trouble began.

During the early months of the pandemic when tons of celebrities were taking to Instagram live, Hannah came under fire after viewers caught her using the N-word on camera while singing along to rapper DaBaby’s song “Rockstar.” Among those calling her out was former Bachelorette Rachel Lindsay.  Strangely enough, Hannah initially tried to deny it—super weird move—before eventually apologizing.

And taking a turn from stars apologizing, we have those who are most definitely owed an apology.

When Gabrielle Union joined America’s Got Talent as a judge in season 14, it was a great moment for the show. After all, she’s super entertaining—but when she only lasted a season and producers declined to ask her back, the alarm bells went off our heads. Was she a backstage diva? Did ratings take a dive during her tenure?

Well, the real reason was a lot more sinister.

Union later revealed that her discomfort behind the scenes began during her very first moments on the show, when she had to stand in a cloud of Simon Cowell’s cigarette smoke—she’s allergic. Allergies or not, that’s vile enough, but that was the start of the nightmare. Variety later published an expose about the terrible environment at the show, detailing allegations of racially-charged incidents between contestants, producers, and guest judges like Jay Leno.

So how did Union end up on the wrong side of it all?

According to reports, Union spoke up about the horrible treatment she and other cast and crew members were experiencing. In the wake of her complaints, the producers of the show declined to renew her contract. When Union went public with what had happened, NBC set up an investigation into her claims but didn’t really report any findings.

Union eventually filed a discrimination claim, before eventually settling with NBC for an undisclosed sum. That wasn’t the only surprise exit on a major network show…

With 42 seasons and counting (!!!), Survivor has had its fair share of memorable characters. Sadly, some were memorable for less than savory reasons. In 2019, Dan Spilo became the first player ever that producers ejected. Weeks earlier, fellow contestant Kellee Kim had said that he’d touched her inappropriately and that it had made her uncomfortable.

But that was just one part of his early exit.

After Kellee commented that it looked like Dan had a pattern of inappropriate behavior with women, producers issued a warning to him. Later, after he touched the thigh of a female producer off camera, they asked him to leave. In December of 2019, Dan released a statement apologizing for his behavior. Since then, he’s produced a number of film and TV shows.

From one surprise firing to another—both for seriously messed-up stuff…

Jenelle Evans was a 16 And Pregnant and Teen Mom long-hauler, appearing on the series for over nine years—but then, in May of 2019, MTV cut ties with her. The reason why was sickening. Jenelle’s relationship with her partner David Eason was a terrible one, with violent incidents aplenty. But that year, Eason shot and killed Jenelle’s dog, Nugget.

It was the final straw for MTV, who let go of Jenelle and never looked back. They definitely made the right choice—but sometimes, things aren’t so black and white.

When it comes to the Real Housewives franchise, Vicki Gunvalson is the OG of the OG. As one of the original cast members of the first series, The Real Housewives of Orange County, Vicki was one of Bravo’s darlings and major money-makers. But all good things must come to an end—even if they end spectacularly badly. Vicki was on RHOC for 14 seasons before ending up in a “friend of” role for season 15.

Apparently, she wasn’t happy about it.

In January of 2020, Vicki announced her exit from RHOC—with sources whispering that she was angry and unwilling to appear again in the lesser “friend” role on the show. Then, it appeared to backfire on her. Bravo was working on creating their Real Housewives Ultimate Girls Trip series, and Vicki was in talks with them to appear. But when she said she was done with RHOC, the network ghosted her.

For a minute, it looked like we’d never see Vicki on Bravo screens again—but luckily, these things have a way of working themselves out.

Vicki will appear on season 2 of Ultimate Girls Trip—but she’s not the only face from Housewives past that fans never expected to see again. Real Housewives of Atlanta’s NeNe Leakes had exited that show after what she called “emotional negotiations” with Bravo, but has agreed to appear for season 3 of Ultimate Girls Trip. What other fan favorites can we expect?

Well, there’s Brandi Glanville, Dorinda Medley, Sonja Morgan, Lisa Rinna, and Taylor Armstrong. What a reunion! Not every cast gets along so well when the cameras stop…

Vanderpump Rules’ Jax Taylor and his wife Brittany Cartwright survived the firings of Stassi Schroeder and Kristen Doute—but not for long. Just months after the cast shake-up, Bravo fired Jax for “racist and transphobic comments” he’d made in the past, and Brittany went with him. His last appearance on the show featured him telling Lisa Vanderpump that it was “his” show, before she corrected him—and ultimately, the joke was on him.

But just because he wasn’t onscreen anymore didn’t mean he wasn’t creating any drama.

While the remaining cast members don’t really talk about Stassi or Kristen, they did refer to Jax in the most recent season—and what they shared was brutal. Particularly, there was some detail about the ultimate fate of Jax Taylor and Tom Sandoval’s friendship. While they’d once been close, things began to fall apart during Jax’s wedding.

Afterward, Jax publicly stated that he wished that Tom hadn’t been at the wedding. And then…they caught Jax on camera.

Among Jax’s more melodramatic moments was the time that Sandoval woke up one morning and checked his doorbell cam footage only to find that Jax had sneakily returned the samurai sword that Sandoval had once gifted him. He didn’t even bother ringing the doorbell. Since then, Jax hasn’t gotten the spinoff show he may have anticipated—but he has plenty of endorsement deals and Cameo requests to keep him occupied.

He isn’t the only former screen presence hawking Cameos, either…

One of the more expensive reality star Cameos comes courtesy of former Bachelor host Chris Harrison (his videos go for $350+). Producers ousted the longtime host in early 2021 after a disastrous interview where he defended a contestant who attended an Antebellum-themed party. That was the end of his record 19-year run with the show.

While it wasn’t a great year for Harrison career-wise, there was one bright spot. In October of 2021, he got engaged to his partner of 3+ years, Lauren Zima. Engagements have been in the air lately…

I think anyone who watched Love Is Blind season 2 was aware that Shaina Hurley and Kyle Abrams were never going to make it—but no one expected her to rebound as fast as she did. While we may have only known Shaina & co. for a few months, Love Is Blind was filmed so long ago that Shaina managed to pack in a nearly-year-long relationship since she and Kyle parted ways.

And recently, she took it to the next level.

In March of 2022, Shaina revealed that her boyfriend of nearly a year, Christos Lardakis, had proposed to her. She explained that he’d been with her as Love Is Blind aired and her face—and brief engagement to Kyle—were splashed across tabloid covers. They got engaged while visiting Greece. Well, there goes all hope for the Shayne/Shaina shippers…all one or two of them.

But forget season 2…let’s go back to the beginning and season 1’s most memorable cast member.

She was supposed to be the “career woman,” but all it took was a few inebriated incidents and letting her dog drink out of her wine glass for Jessica “the Messica” Batten to emerge. Jessica’s relationship, engagement, and aborted wedding happened months before Love Is Blind ever aired. By the time that it hit our screens, she was prepared for what she called a “bad edit”—but the backlash was way more than she expected.

Jessica ended up as the “villain” of season 1 of Love Is Blind, so after it aired, she took time to herself out of the public eye to recover. While the show didn’t bring her true love in the form of a quickie engagement to fellow contestant Mark Cuevas, it did bring her true love in the form of…a quickie engagement…with some guy who watched the show.

A fan named Dr. Ben McGrath slid in Jessica’s Instagram DMs after watching the show—and gambit worked way better than anyone could’ve expected. They got engaged in September of 2021, a year and a half after they started dating. Tying the knot with Dr. McGrath will make Jessica a stepmother to his two kids from a previous relationship.

She got her happily ever after…but not everyone is as lucky.

Jon & Kate Plus 8 was a reality sensation when it debuted in 2007—but when the titular couple couldn’t make it work, it became, simply, Kate Plus 8. After an extremely messy split and a few failed relationships, Jon ended up working odd jobs, including one as a prep cook at T.G.I. Friday’s, and one installing solar panels.

But his relationship with his kids suffered greatly after the split.

These days, Jon Gosselin is estranged from six of his eight children. The two exceptions, Hannah and Colin, live with Jon full-time. After a few failed relationships, it looked like Jon had finally found love with nurse Colleen Conrad—but their romance was ultimate a casualty of the pandemic, and the two split in 2021.

From one classic reality figure to another…

Dance Moms mainstay Abby Lee Miller was controversial from the very start. When Dance Moms first aired, the Dance Masters of America revoked Miller’s membership, saying that it was "a total misrepresentation of our dance educators and their students and is detrimental to the dance profession.” And it only got worse from there…

Miller’s tenure on Dance Moms made her the subject of 1,000 memes. In March 2017, in the middle of a bankruptcy fraud case, she left the show. After receiving a sentence of 366 days in prison, she went away before her eventual release in March of 2018. Miller wanted to make a comeback with Abby’s Virtual Dance Off, but Lifetime canceled the series in June of 2020 after a series of offensive remarks she’d made resurfaced.

Phew. Quite the rollercoaster. At least another Dance Moms star got a happy ending.

Season 4 saw fan favorite Chloe Lukasiak quitting at the end of the season—but fast forward a few years, and the dancer is happier than ever. Now 20 years old, Chloe is thriving and happy with her girlfriend, pro skateboarder Brooklinn Khoury. As one commenter remarked, “it’s good to see someone escape from Abby Lee Miller’s claws.”

Not every child star is as lucky—but some do make it out intact.

Alana Thompson—formerly known as the titular character of TLC’s Here Comes Honey Boo Boo—is now 16 years old, if you can believe it, and no longer participating in child beauty pageants. She’s periodically appeared on TV in shows like Dancing With the Stars and The Masked Singer. Sadly, she did have to move in with her sister after her mother’s 2019 arrest—but does seems relatively happy and well-adjusted despite the circumstances.

Dog the Bounty Hunter ran for nine seasons, introducing us all to the high-tension world of bounty hunting through Duane “Dog” Chapman and his family, including his wife Beth. Ever since Beth’s tragic death in 2019, people have wondered what her widower Dog had been up to—and the answer is heartbreaking. Chapman has tried to recapture the success he once had…and it hasn’t exactly gone well.

In 2021, Chapman was supposed to star in a new series called Dog Unleashed, but the program never made it to air—angering Chapman, who lashed out at the production team. The company behind the show then revealed the real reason why it hadn’t moved forward, claiming they’d uncovered "racist and homophobic comments” that Chapman had made.

Chapman denied the allegations—and then went on to join the hunt for Brian Laundrie in the fall of 2021. He wasn’t there for the dramatic end of that case—and it remains to be seen if he’ll ever make it to our TV screens again.

Colton Underwood became The Bachelor contestant responsible for the abovementioned superlative when he dramatically jumped over a fence at a resort after his pick, Cassie Randolph, left. Ultimately, Randolph and Underwood found their way back to each other and ended the season in a relationship.

But then, after a year and a half of dating, the pair broke up—and that’s where the trouble began.

Four months after their breakup, Randolph filed a restraining order against Underwood—and the allegations came as a surprise to many fans. Randolph claimed that he’d shown up at her and her parents’ homes, sent creepy texts from an anonymous number, and installed a tracking device on her car. The court granted her request, but the exes later reached a private agreement dissolving the restraining order.

The surprises didn’t end there, though, as Underwood came out as gay in April of 2021. That put a definite end to that saga. However, these type of issues in Bachelor Nation are basically nothing compared to what’s going on with the housewives…

The Real Housewives franchise has been hit hard over the last two seasons—between the accusations against Erika Jayne and her divorce, and Jen Shah’s sudden arrest, it’s definitely getting messier than the producers ever intended. But after the unceremonious firing of Real Housewives of Salt Lake City’s Jennie Nguyen after offensive past tweets surfaced, another housewife’s exit—and legal troubles—didn’t get as much attention.

In late 2021, RHOSLC star Mary Cosby faced charges for “unlawfully providing shelter to a runaway and contributing to the delinquency of a minor.” Immediately, fans thought that perhaps it had something to do with her church. But, in fact, authorities charged her alongside her son, Robert Cosby, Jr. The runaway/minor in question is thought to be Robert’s girlfriend.

Mary lamented having to deal with another family’s domestic issues. As far as we can tell, the courtroom issues are ongoing—but one thing is for sure. Mary Cosby’s time on RHOSLC is done. The only question is: why?

When rumors began to float around that Mary was skipping the season 2 reunion, it raised a lot of eyebrows. After all, it’s practically forbidden for housewives to ditch reunions, which are often the highest-rated episodes of any given season. As the rumors floated around and were eventually confirmed as truth, another set of stories began to spread.

This time, they said that Mary was done with the series. So, did she quit…or was she fired?

Well, it turned into a bit of a roller-coaster ride. At first, Mary denied that she’d parted ways with the Housewives franchise—but insiders claimed that producers had indeed made the decision to fire her after she skipped the reunion. Considering her whole “schtick” on the show was acting like she’s above everything, it’s not surprising…but it looks like it was a fatal mistake.

She’s for sure gone—but hey, at least she’ll always have her congregation, right?

Juan Pablo Garcia is widely-known as the worst bachelor in the history of Bachelor Nation—which made what he tweeted at the end of season 26 of The Bachelor all the more funny. After a rocky season full of questionable decisions for bachelor Clayton Echard, Juan Pablo tweeted: “Finally I can SLEEP in peace… THANKS Clayton Lol,” implying that Clayton had surpassed him as the most-hated bachelor.

But do Clayton’s actions since the end of his season really merit this treatment? Well…

At least when seasons of The Bachelor usually end, there’s normally two people walking away happy. At the end of this season’s finale, there was four unhappy people parting ways. Rachel was upset, Gabby told Clayton precisely what he’d done wrong, and Susie, rejecting Clayton in the way he’d rejected the other women. But then—a twist.

At some point between the finale and the After the Final Rose special, Clayton and Susie had got back together—and moved in. Yikes. If he hadn’t been such a jerk, it almost could’ve seemed like redemption. Instead, it just seemed liked a dud move for Susie, who at least at one point, knew that she could do better than Clayton.

Well, at least Love Is Blind’s Deepti knew her worth and stuck to her guns…

At a time when we all needed it most, Netflix came through with a bonkers second season of Love Is Blind. As we mentioned, Natalie and Shayne stirred up their fair share of drama, but there was one cast member who united tens of thousands of people (if not more) in their shared hatred: Abhishek “Shake” Chatterjee. After weeks of rude comments to other people about his fiancée Deepti Vempati, she left him at the altar—apparently beating him to the punch. But as we all know, their story didn’t end there.

In the wake of their failed wedding, cast members came together to stand behind Deepti—and at the reunion, they let Shake know what they really thought of him. Before long, Love Is Blind co-hosts Nick and Vanessa Lachey were joining in the pile on. Between that and a huge audience backlash, Shake was definitely in the hot seat.

In early March 2022, Shake released a video on Instagram, making a public apology to Deepti (on top of an earlier private one). It was one that many fans thought was long overdue—and it soon became clear that one apology didn’t mean he was a completely reformed man…

Of course, Shake’s apology rang oh-so-sincerely after he spent weeks quite literally telling anyone who would listen that he was not going to apologize. And he didn’t stop there. He’s also made disparaging posts about both Nick Lachey and co-star Kyle Abrams, saying in an IG post that “You’re a serial cheater and everyone in Chicago knows it.”

But, of course, it was Deepti herself who made the biggest revelation of all.

During the Love Is Blind reunion, Shake was eager to express that he found Vanessa Lachey attractive—something the host was not exactly impressed by. Deepti said that not only had he made other girls in the cast cry while they were in the pods, but that he was also openly hitting on Lachey before the filming started for the reunion. One word: yuck.

Sources: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, , 8, , , 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38

The Mexica people, known today as the Aztecs, founded the city of Tenochtitlan in 1325. According to legend, an ancient prophecy foretold that the Mexica would found a great city at a site signaled by an eagle with a snake in its beak, perched on a cactus—an image still enshrined on the Mexican flag today. After years of wandering, the Mexica discovered this portent on a tiny, marshy island in the middle of Lake Texcoco. Undeterred by the difficult location, they founded Tenochtitlan on the site.

A more likely origin is that the Mexica simply had nowhere else to go. They were latecomers to the Texcoco region, and some 50 settlements already surrounded the lake. A tiny, marshy island in the middle of the lake seems like a poor consolation prize—but the Mexica were resourceful and inventive. Life had given them lemons, and they made lemonade.

Using chinampas—artificial islands made by fencing off areas of the shallow lakebed with reeds and then filling them with soil—the Mexica farmed directly on Lake Texcoco itself. What followed was abundance and prosperity. 

Before long the Mexica, once newcomers on Lake Texcoco, dominated all the other city states in the region. By 1519, their empire spanned 80,000 square miles, stretching from the Atlantic to the Pacific. The Mexica ruled a population of around six million people—and it all centered around the wondrous city of Tenochtitlan.

Though chinampas were originally used for farming, the artificial islands soon grew more permanent and served many functions. By the time of its height, Tenochtitlan looked nothing like the swampy island of its origins. In its place stood a sprawling metropolis, seemingly floating in the middle of the lake. An intricate network of canals wove through massive temples, thriving marketplaces, a luxurious palace, gardens, zoos, and even an aquarium, while three grand causeways connected the city to the mainland.

At its height, Tenochtitlan held 200,000 to 400,000 people, making it one of the largest cities in the world—five times the size of London at the time. When Spanish conquistadors first laid eyes upon the sprawling lakebed metropolis, some of them thought they were dreaming. But if it was a dream, it was about to come to an end.

Though the Mexica possessed remarkable ingenuity and a complex culture, they were no match for the military might of Hernán Cortés and his Spanish conquistadors. In 1521, Cortés conquered the city after a long siege. According to stories, tens of thousands of Mexica bodies floated in the city’s canals by the time the fighting had stopped. 

As soon as he had control, Cortés set about leveling Tenochtitlan, building Mexico City upon the ruins. The Spanish then drained Lake Texcoco in order to control flooding, and it wasn't long before the beautiful city in the middle of a shining lake was nothing but a distant memory.

You might guess that William of Gloucester had it all. His parents were Prince Henry, brother to the reigning King George VI, and Alice, Duchess of Gloucester. At the time of his birth, he was fourth in line to become King of England. The royal family rejoiced at the birth of a new son—but it wasn't yet safe to reveal him to the world.

From the moment he was born, William's life was in danger.

Though he was a prince of England, William of Gloucester wasn't born in some decadent palace like most of his kin. Shortly before his birth, German air raids forced his family to evacuate to a small village in the country. William came screaming into the world in a humble nursing home.

After years of service in France, William's father had been able to return to be there for his birth. Then, just a few months later, he was torn away yet again.

Prince Henry got a few precious weeks with his wife and newborn son, but the war still raged and he couldn't stay. His brother, the King, soon sent him on a diplomatic mission that would bring him dangerously close to the front. The King was well aware of the risks; he wrote to William's mother saying that should anything happen to Henry, he would become the boy's guardian himself.

Thankfully, he was never needed. Henry returned home safe and WWII ended a few years later—but William still needed a guardian angel.

Though nearly 20 years younger, William was quite close with his cousin, Princess Elizabeth. He acted as a page boy at her wedding when he was just seven years old. A few years after that, he attended her coronation, when she became Queen Elizabeth II. What's more, her son Charles absolutely idolized his older cousin.

Just a few years younger, Charles was the perfect age to see William as a superhero. And, to be fair, William was one heck of a guy.

They don't make them like William of Gloucester anymore. Tall and roguishly handsome, everyone called him warm, tender-hearted, and generous to a fault. He was fiercely loyal to his friends, particularly those who were "ill, unpopular with others, or even downright embarrassing". But no one is perfect—not even Prince Charming.

Though Prince William had a good heart, he was still a prince. He grew up as the golden child for an entire kingdom, and it went to his head. He could be "tiresomely selfish," according to his biographer. That wasn't his only vice, either. Despite his cushy upbringing, even as a teenager, Prince William had developed something of a death wish.

An adventurous boy, Prince William soon grew into some extremely dangerous hobbies. From racing cars to flying planes, everyone in England heard about the daredevil prince's exploits. Pretty soon, people started calling him the Royal Family's own James Bond. It's little wonder Prince Charles looked up to him so much.

Clearly, Prince William was unlike any royal we'd ever seen.

Prince William didn't just look the part—he could claim adventures that even James Bond never could. Though the details are scarce, at some point in his life, William hiked through the Sahara Desert. But though it might sound fun, William couldn't just leave responsibility behind to wander the desert forever. He had to make something of himself.

Though princes like William customarily entered military service, he was far too independent for a uniform. Instead, he became just the second royal ever to work in civil service. He worked for a merchant bank, then became a diplomat. William still had the same adventurous streak, and he wanted to see the world.

He took a post in Lagos, then a few years after that, transferred to the British Embassy in Tokyo. That's where his doomed love story began.

Before he met the love of his life, William only had eyes for one woman: his mother. William once said of his mother, “She is a human being and she must possess some faults. But so far as I am concerned she has no faults at all”. They remained extremely close for the rest of his life—but tragically, she would also live to witness his horrifying demise.

William's mother demanded that he have a doctor take a look at him before he left for Tokyo. For the royal family's James Bond, he likely expected a clean bill of health. He was in for a rude awakening. The doctor noted that William had suffered from jaundice for several months. The prince's skin also blistered if exposed to too much sunlight.

Good thing William's mother made him go in, because the doctor found something else troubling.

The doctor told William that he had porphyria. If that's not ringing a bell, that's the same disease that doctors believe drove King George III mad. Since the condition is hereditary, any of George's family could have it—and William was a direct descendant. Doctors eventually confirmed the diagnosis, providing more evidence that porphyria had been haunting the royal family for centuries—perhaps even as far back as Mary, Queen of Scots.

Thankfully, porphyria would not drive William mad like it had King George. It would never get the chance.

Naturally, William flew himself to Tokyo, in one of his many personal aircraft—the man was still a prince, after all. After a grueling 16-day flight from London, he arrived to find freedom like he had never really known before. Away from the standard royal duties and protocol, William could live something of a normal life. Well, "normal" for someone who's stinking rich.

It's time the playboy prince started living up to his name.

William was a working stiff now, but he hadn't given up on his daredevil lifestyle. He still loved fast cars and faster planes—but his reckless ways meant he often flirted with disaster. Once, while in Japan, he took some friends on a flight in one of his planes. Everything seemed fine at first, but as soon as the aircraft took off, something went terribly wrong.

"Safety" wasn't always the #1 thing on a man like William's mind. He performed his regular checks before taking off that day, but he missed something. Just as his plane reached the air, one of the doors suddenly burst open. As deafening wind flooded the cockpit, William's close friend grabbed onto the door and did his best to hold it closed.

One false move would have meant the end of William and his friends—but William knew just what to do.

Thinking fast, William asked his friend to hold on for as long as he could. The prince then performed an emergency stall in midair. Just as alarms started ringing, he slowed the plane enough that his friend could slam the door shut and fasten it securely. William managed to bring his friends safely back to Earth that day, with a story they'd be able to tell for the rest of their lives.

Unfortunately, he wouldn't always get so lucky.

In Tokyo, William couldn't be further from his family—and that meant no stuffy relatives keeping an eye on his activities. He was seen with many different foreign girls on various nights out on the town. No surprise, William didn't struggle to find female company. But then one day, William found the woman he wanted to spend the rest of his life with.

Born in Hungary, model Zsuzsi Starkloff moved to Japan to be the face of Revlon's Japanese advertising campaign. Eight years older than William, she had already married, had a daughter, and divorced. As one of the most visible models in the country, she flew in the highest social circles. She even went out with Sean Connery several times while he visited to shoot a movie.

Maybe she had a thing for 007s, because as soon as she met Prince William, the two fell madly in love.

In 1968, one of Starkloff's upper-class friends threw a costume ball. Starkloff had already heard about the dashing young British prince in town, so she told her friend to invite him. And, in case he didn't think her intentions were clear, she wrote him a flirty note: "Dear Prince Charming we hear a party isn’t a party without you. Besides that, I’m missing a slipper, signed Cinderella." Do you think he got the message?

Naturally, Starkloff dressed as a princess that night (but, since this was the 60s, she regrettably chose to be an "Indian Princess"). That night, her Prince Charming dressed as the Lone Ranger in a black cape and mask. When he found his princess, he strode across the floor, approached her, and said, "May I borrow Cinderella for a dance?"

With an origin like that, is it any wonder they fell in love?

It’s not hard to see what William saw in Starkloff. One of her former business associates described her as “very beautiful, with large brown eyes and long auburn hair. She was a good dresser and carried herself gracefully. She conversed in flawless Japanese and was clearly a very clever woman”. But would it be enough to appease William's family?

William's early days with Starkloff were a whirlwind. They rented a secret love nest near the ocean, and for a painfully short time, they could pretend they were like any other couple. William adored cooking for Zsuzsi and made her breakfast every morning. She could scarcely believe the man was a prince—but she'd soon receive a painful reminder.

William and Starkloff could pretend like they were a normal couple for a while, but not forever. William quickly realized that he wanted to spend his life with her, but he knew it wasn't that simple. When he raised the courage, he sent a photograph of her to his family back home in order to gauge their reaction. It was not good.

William's parents told him the Starkloff was quite beautiful, but he could read between the lines. Had they been able to say what they were thinking, their letter might have begun with, "ARE YOU COMPLETELY MAD?" Starkloff was Hungarian, of common birth, divorced, and already had a child. To say they "didn't approve of the match" is putting it lightly.

In fact, they were determined to put a stop to it.

Despite the royal family’s misgivings about Starkloff, she had honest intentions and her love for William of Gloucester was true. Years later, Starkloff reminisced, “My relationship with William had nothing to do with his title or me wanting to be a princess, that wasn’t what it was about and William knew that”.

Fortunately, the couple had an unlikely ally inside the royal family.

Not long after William's letter, he received a visitor from back home: His cousin, Princess Margaret. Though she was ostensibly there on a diplomatic trip, William knew exactly why she had come. She was there to talk some sense into him. Margaret was the perfect choice, after all. She knew his struggle better than anyone.

William was far from the first royal to fall for someone beneath their station. When Margaret was younger, she had fallen in love with her father's equerry, Peter Townsend. She had wanted to marry him, but he had been 17 years older and divorced with two children. Sound familiar? The Royals knew she was the perfect person to remind him of his duty.

But when she arrived, William decided to take a chance.

William could have simply hidden Starkloff from his cousin and carried on their affair in secret. However, he seems to have trusted Margaret, because he introduced the two of them. When the princess first met Starkloff, a look of genuine surprise swept across her face. William's paramour was clearly not who she was expecting.

Margaret had come to convince William to leave her. That is not what ended up happening.

During her visit, Margaret and William spent many hours talking alone together. They never revealed what they talked about. When Starkloff asked William what the princess thought of her, he simply replied, "She said you are very nice and very interesting and she doesn’t blame me for falling in love with you”.

But what he didn't say spoke volumes. Starkloff claimed she already knew then that their love was doomed—but William wasn't ready to give up on it just yet.

Though Margaret didn't directly encourage William to pursue his relationship with Starkloff, she did leave him with one small glimmer of hope. The Royal Family's attitudes were changing—if glacially. Upon her return home, she wrote to William, telling him to "wait a bit" and "see how everything looks" once he got back to England.

That was all the encouragement William needed. He was going to try and make this relationship work.

Though their days were numbered, at least William and Starkloff got to enjoy a few more months of bliss. After Tokyo, they traveled all over the US together before ending up in New York. William told Starkloff to wait there while he returned to England to, as Margaret told him, "see how everything looked".

A month later, he sent word: Starkloff was to join him in England. Did that mean his family finally came around?

Prince Henry and Princess Alice welcomed Starkloff into their home. She found them kind and accommodating, but from the moment she arrived, she felt the distance between them. They were cordial, but they would never accept her as their daughter-in-law. That part might have hurt, but at least it wasn't a surprise.

However, this was also the first time she'd ever seen her William back home with his family. She was shocked to find that he was a totally different person.

Zsuzsi Starkoff had known William, the dashing young diplomat who flew planes and cooked breakfast. This was the first time she met Prince William of Gloucester. Seeing this side of him confirmed what she already knew: Though William was, as Starkloff put it, "too much of a man to be happy as a prince", he was also "too much of a prince to give it up to be a normal man".

Nearly the entire Royal Family disapproved of William and Starkloff’s relationship, but none more than Queen Elizabeth II’s husband, Prince Philip. He was concerned about the damage to the royal family’s reputation from yet another scandalous love affair. He wouldn’t have to worry for much longer, however. Tragedy was around the corner.

Prince William and Zsuzsi Starkloff eventually went their separate ways, but they never truly gave up on each other. Before parting, William had a signet ring made for her, embossed with a W, as a promise. Though he could never go against his family's wishes, he wouldn't forget about her. And if the winds ever changed, he would come back for her.

She made him an identical ring so he'd never forget that promise.

William of Gloucester got painfully close to marrying his great love. He even asked Starkloff what she would say if he proposed. She told him, "Ask me and find out". Some reports say he even made up his mind and decided to marry her, no matter what his family said. But even if that was the case, tragic news from back home put an end to that idea once and for all.

Around 1970, William's father suffered a series of debilitating strokes that left him confined to a wheelchair. As his eldest son, it fell to William to take over his father's affairs. He still wore the ring he made for Starkloff, but his father's health only reaffirmed his choice of duty over love.

William left diplomatic service to, as he put it, take on his full-time job as a royal prince. He would never be with Zsuzsi Starkloff again—but that didn't stop him from trying to replace her.

In the early 70s, tabloids noticed that William had a new beau: Her name was Nicole Sieff, but it quickly became clear that he hadn't moved on from his first love. You might have expected William's next lady to be of noble birth—someone of whom his family would approve. Nope. Nicole was a divorcee with two sons from a previous marriage. Sound familiar?

Clearly, William wasn't over Starkloff, and he wasn't ready to settle down.

Prince William was obviously Nicole Sieff’s type. Her first husband was a daredevil just like William, but he stayed grounded in race cars. But maybe Nicole was a bad luck charm? While still married, her first husband suffered a brutal crash at Le Mans and he barely survived. After that, you'd think maybe she'd want a nice boring man, but instead, she went for William of Gloucester.

That's testing fate if I've ever seen it.

Now that the Royal Family's own 007 was back in England, everyone wanted to know what he was up to. While giving an interview for the Sunday Mirror, the reporter naturally asked the dashing prince about his love life. He responded that if he ever married, it would only be someone who was right "in the eyes of other members of the Family".

Tragically, William of Gloucester would never get the chance to meet that woman.

Though William no longer had the same freedom he enjoyed in Japan, he was still as adventurous as always. He got right back to racing anything with an engine. In 1972, he signed up to compete for the Goodyear International Air Trophy. He was to pilot the aircraft along with his friend Vyrell Mitchell, who would join him for the ride.

William had participated in plenty of races before—but this was where his luck finally ran out.

A crowd of 30,000 people watched excitedly as William of Gloucester's plane took off, only for their excitement to turn to horror. Almost as soon as he got in the air, William's Piper Cherokee banked steeply to the left. The abrupt turn caused his plane to lose altitude—and sent it careening straight towards a tree.

William tried to bring the aircraft under control, but he had already lost too much altitude. His plane hit a tree and tore the left wing clean off. By then, it was too late. The aircraft flipped over before crashing into an earthen bank near the airfield and bursting into flames.

A group of small boys who happened to be near the crash site rushed to the raging inferno to render aid. But their efforts were in vain. One of the boys later told BBC News, “We tried to break into the plane's doors and then tried to break it in half by pulling at the tail. But it was no good, we had to go back because of the heat”.

Though emergency crews rushed to the scene, there was nothing they could do either. It took two hours to get the blaze under control. The following day, coroners inspected the remains and, through dental records, confirmed what everyone already knew. Prince William and Vyrell Mitchell died in the crash. Mitchell had been 43, and William had been just 30 years old.

William’s mother, Lady Alice Montagu Douglas Scott, was so distraught at her son’s passing that she didn’t have the heart to tell her husband what had happened. She feared that, in his poor health, he wouldn’t be able to bear the news. In her biography, she confessed that he must have learned about the tragedy from the television.

Prince Charles took William's loss particularly hard. He'd always idolized his older cousin, who had always seemed invincible. He never forgot about William, and 10 years later, when Princess Diana gave birth to his oldest son, he already knew exactly what name to call him.

Even to the very end, William was still thinking of Zsuzsi Starkloff. In fact, he had actually invited her to join him at the race that day, but she had been previously indisposed. That turned out to be a mercy, as it spared her from watching the love of her life go up in flames. And, in case she still worried he might have moved on, he left one final, heartbreaking tribute to her.

The remains inside the aircraft were too disfigured for anyone to properly identify, but there was one item that survived the crash: The ring that William had made for Starkloff still sat around his finger. Even on his very last day, William was still thinking about Zsuzsi Starkloff.

Zsuzsi Starkloff eventually married, but she never let go of her daring prince. She lived until May 2020, when she lost her fight with cancer—but for all those years, she still wore William's ring around her neck.

Sources: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5

Charles chose a different path.

After a stint in the Navy, Harrelson took to a life of failed marriages, odd jobs, and small-time crime. He had several children, but he wasn’t around to see them very much. After getting locked up for robbery, he became a snitch and got out on probation.

By the mid-1960s, he claimed to be making a living as a professional gambler. But in truth, he had a more sinister way of making money: He’d become a hitman.

After getting acquitted of one murder, Harrelson eventually went back to prison for shooting a man named Sam Degelia. This time, he was sentenced to 15 years, but he got out after just five for good behavior. He didn’t stay free for long.

John H. Wood Jr. was a US District Judge known as “Maximum John” for the long sentences he handed out. A local drug trafficker wanted Wood gone, so he hired Charles Harrelson, fresh out of jail, to do the deed.

The authorities eventually caught up to Harrelson, and after a six-hour, drug-fueled standoff, they arrested him again. There was no getting out on good behavior this time.

Harrelson went on to brag about a whole slew of murders—even claiming to have been one of the men on the grassy knoll who shot JFK.

He tried escaping in 1995, but the attempt failed and he was transferred to a supermax facility, where he remained until he succumbed to a heart attack in 2007.

Unsurprisingly, for a hitman, Charles Harrelson was a terrible father. He barely saw his three sons at all during their childhood, and never after 1968, when he dropped out of their lives completely.

They were probably better off without him anyway. Case in point: His son Woody did pretty well for himself. Do you think he was channeling some of his father when he starred in Natural Born Killers?

Sources: 1,

French political thinker and abolitionist Édouard de Laboulaye promoted the idea of a monument honoring American liberty and Franco-American friendship. He also admired American democracy and hoped France would move further in that direction. Sculptor Frédéric-Auguste Bartholdi eventually turned that political idea into an enormous figure.

For years, accounts said Laboulaye proposed the statue at an 1865 dinner following Abraham Lincoln's death. National Park Service researchers concluded that story is probably a legend traceable to an 1885 fundraising pamphlet. Available evidence instead points toward the statue's conception around 1870 or 1871.

Bartholdi traveled to the United States in 1871 and selected Bedloe's Island in New York Harbor for his proposed monument. The little island had one enormous advantage: ships entering the harbor would pass it. Bartholdi regarded the location as part of the "gateway to America."

Its familiar nickname came later. Bartholdi called his creation La Liberté éclairant le monde, translated as "Liberty Enlightening the World." The torch therefore originally represented enlightenment, although generations of immigrants sailing into New York Harbor would give the raised light another powerful meaning: welcome.

Americans got a preview long before the complete statue arrived. The arm holding Liberty's torch was completed in 1876 and exhibited at Philadelphia's Centennial Exposition. Two years later, the completed head and shoulders appeared at the Paris Universal Exposition, while work continued on the rest of her body.

Gustave Eiffel became involved before building the Paris tower that made his name famous worldwide. After engineer Eugène Viollet-le-Duc died in 1879, Eiffel was hired to address the statue's structural challenges. His approximately 98-foot internal iron framework allowed the enormous copper exterior to withstand New York Harbor's winds.

For something so gigantic, Liberty has remarkably thin skin. Her exterior copper sheeting is only about 3/32 of an inch thick, which the National Park Service compares to two pennies placed together. The copper was formed using repoussé, with sheets hammered into shape over wooden forms.

The statue was constructed in France and completely assembled in Paris before Americans ever saw her standing in New York Harbor. The copper plates were finished by 1881, and the complete figure stood in Paris between 1881 and 1884. Only afterward was the massive gift taken apart for shipment.

Lady Liberty did not sail into New York standing majestically on a ship. Workers dismantled the completed monument and packed it for the Atlantic crossing aboard the French naval vessel Isère. The National Park Service records that the statue arrived in 1885 packed into hundreds of pieces and specially built cases.

France paid for the statue, but Americans were responsible for financing its pedestal, and fundraising stalled badly. Newspaper publisher Joseph Pulitzer eventually appealed directly to ordinary readers of the New York World. More than 120,000 people contributed over $100,000, with many individual donations amounting to about a dollar or less.

Pulitzer offered donors something wonderfully simple: recognition. His newspaper published the names of people who contributed to the pedestal fund, regardless of how small their gifts were. The campaign also printed human-interest stories from contributors, turning the struggling construction project into a remarkably successful exercise in mass crowdfunding.

Look closely at Liberty's base and you can still see an earlier chapter of American history. Her pedestal sits within Fort Wood, an eleven-pointed star fort built between 1808 and 1811 to defend New York Harbor. The Army continued using Bedloe's Island as an outpost until 1937. 

For most of the statue's early history, visitors were not going to Liberty Island at all. They were going to Bedloe's Island, the name used when Bartholdi selected the site and when the statue was dedicated. The island was officially renamed Liberty Island in the twentieth century.

Geographically, Liberty Island looks tantalizingly close to New Jersey, leading to endless arguments about which state actually owns the statue's location. The National Park Service settles it: Liberty Island is federal property, but it lies within the territorial jurisdiction of New York under an interstate agreement dating to 1834.

The copper statue itself measures 151 feet, 1 inch from its base to the torch. Add the pedestal and foundation and the complete monument rises 305 feet, 1 inch above the ground. When dedicated in 1886, the National Park Service says it was New York City's tallest structure.

Liberty's scale becomes stranger when individual body parts are measured. Her index finger is eight feet long, her nose is four feet six inches, and her right arm stretches 42 feet. Her mouth is three feet wide, while the distance from her chin to the top of her skull exceeds 17 feet.

Liberty's crown contains 25 windows and seven rays. The National Park Service describes the rays as part of a nimbus, or halo, surrounding the figure's head. Visitors reaching the crown can look through its windows toward New York, but getting there requires climbing hundreds of steps inside the monument.

One of Liberty's most meaningful details is nearly impossible to see clearly from ground level. At her feet lie a broken shackle and chains, imagery connected to freedom from oppression and tyranny. Her right foot is also positioned as though she is moving forward rather than standing completely still.

The enormous tablet tucked into Liberty's left arm is more than 23 feet long and 13 feet wide. Inscribed on it in Roman numerals is "JULY IV MDCCLXXVI." That translates to July 4, 1776, deliberately connecting Bartholdi's French monument with the American Declaration of Independence.

Visitors at the 1886 dedication did not see the familiar sea-green figure Americans know today. Liberty's copper exterior originally had a brownish copper or bronze appearance. Exposure to the environment gradually produced a protective green patina through oxidation, with the National Park Service noting that the transformation was evident by 1906.

The federal government actually classified the statue as a lighthouse. Its torch was electrically illuminated, and President Grover Cleveland placed the monument under the U.S. Lighthouse Board in 1886. Unfortunately, Liberty had not been designed as a navigational aid, and the light proved ineffective. The War Department assumed control in 1901.

Thousands celebrated Liberty's dedication on October 28, 1886, but the island ceremony itself was attended by roughly 2,000 to 2,500 men. Women suffragists who could not obtain tickets without male accompaniment chartered a boat instead, using the occasion to call attention to women's lack of political liberty.

On July 30, 1916, saboteurs targeted a huge ammunition depot at nearby Black Tom in Jersey City. The resulting explosions damaged buildings around New York Harbor and affected the Statue of Liberty. The attack occurred while the United States was still officially neutral in World War I.

The Black Tom explosion had a lasting consequence few visitors realize. The Statue of Liberty's torch has remained closed to visitors since the 1916 attack. Even National Park Service employees reach the area using a narrow 40-foot ladder when they need to maintain the floodlights illuminating the torch.

The torch seen today dates from the statue's massive 1980s restoration. Workers replaced the badly deteriorated earlier torch with one based on Bartholdi's original design, covering the flame with gold leaf. The historic 1886 torch survives and is now displayed inside the Statue of Liberty Museum.

Between 1886 and 1924, almost 14 million immigrants entered the United States through New York, and many saw Liberty while approaching their new country. Her creators intended the torch to symbolize enlightenment. To countless newcomers, however, the figure increasingly became a welcoming "Mother of Exiles" and symbol of arrival.

Emma Lazarus wrote "The New Colossus" in 1883 to help raise money for the pedestal, but her poem was not originally a prominent part of the monument. It received little attention at first. Only in 1903 was the poem engraved on a bronze plaque and placed at the statue's base.

The Statue of Liberty was already nearly six years old when Ellis Island's federal immigration station opened on January 1, 1892. From 1892 to 1924, more than 12 million immigrants were processed there, cementing the visual relationship between the immigration station and the colossal figure standing nearby in the harbor.

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Sources: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13,14, 15, 16

Full House just wouldn't have been the same without Jodie Sweetin—but few know how dark her history actually is. She had a tumultuous start in life. With both of her parents locked up behind bars, little Jodie had to find a new family. Her aunt and uncle adopted her and, when she was only five, she began working on Full House. Her time on the show was smooth-sailing, but when the show wrapped after eight seasons, that's when the trouble began.

Not long after saying goodbye to the only life she'd ever known, 14-year-old Jodie began drinking. Sadly, this opened her up to the world of addiction. Before long, the teenager had begun experimenting with illicit substances. And once she started, she just couldn't stop. Later, Jodie admitted that these addictions began because she felt "bored." It seemed like a tale as old as time: a child actor falling off the rails. But luckily, there's a twist to this story.

Before her addictions could consume her completely, Jodie Sweetin decided to work towards sobriety. By 2008, she was in the clear, and from then on, she decided to dedicate her career to helping others recover from addiction. She found a job at an LA rehab center, working as a clinical logistics coordinator—and even went to school to become a counselor.

Macaulay Culin was the child actor of the 90s. His role in the Home Alone films, as well as his devastating performance in My Girl, made him a household name. One simply can't survive the Christmas season without seeing his face everywhere. Culkin seemed like he was going to grow up into a Hollywood star, but sadly, his life morphed into a disturbing rollercoaster.

To begin with, Culkin's home life was a mess. His father, Kit Culkin, was an angry and jealous man, and Culkin later admitted where this resentment stemmed from: "everything he tried to do in his life I excelled at before I was 10 years old." To make matters worse, his parents also had control of his hefty trust fund. This is where his family ties truly began to fray.

Macaulay Culkin became estranged from his father after he took both parents to court and had their names removed from his trust fund. It was a deep cut for Macaulay, but even greater tragedies awaited him. In 2000, Culkin's half-sister, Jennifer Adamson lost her life to an overdose. Eight years later, a car hit his other sister, Dakota. She, too, did not survive. But these heartbreaking losses were only compounded with Culkin's other dangerous demons.

Behind the scenes, Culkin struggled terribly with addiction and even spent some time behind bars. Physically, his appearance began to worry fans. The once adorable child looked unrecognizable. His adult years certainly weren't treating him with kindness, and the emaciated actor looked worrisomely unhealthy. Luckily, Culkin's story does have a happy ending.

Despite his bumpy road into adolescence, Macaulay Culkin has pulled through the worst of it. These days, he's looking much healthier and happier. In 2018, he met the love of his life, Brenda Song—his co-star on Changeland. The happy couple welcomed their first child in 2021, a daughter named after Culkin's late sister, Dakota Song Culkin.

Taylor Momsen is another child actor that defines the holiday season—and her role as Cindy Lou Who in How the Grinch Stole Christmas still warms our hearts every year. But, unlike some of our other child stars, Momsen wasn't just a flash in the pan. Once she grew into her teen years, she graced the screen as Jenny Humphrey in Gossip Girl. These days, however, Momsen has shed her good-girl persona entirely.

After acting for most of her childhood and teen years, Momsen decided that she wanted to pursue music instead, saying "music is where I can be me." In 2009, she stepped out as the lead vocalist and rhythm guitarist of the rock band, The Pretty Reckless. She also embraced a brand new image—all-black outfits all the time and dramatic, coal-rimmed eyes.

Since then, her band has enjoyed great success. They released their latest album, Death by Rock and Roll in February 2021.

Angus T. Jones infamously played Jake Harper on one of America's most popular sitcoms, Two and a Half Men. By 2010, he had an unbelievable salary of $300,000 per episode. However, behind the scenes, Jones wasn't so happy with his acting career. In fact, things took a turn for the scandalous when Jones discovered his religion.

In November 2012, Jones hit his breaking point. Newly baptized, he felt that his profession conflicted with his faith. Even more shocking? He didn't want to appear on Two and a Half Men anymore. Jones spewed his judgment readily, calling the show "filth" and telling audiences that they should cease tuning in. Moreover, he did not leave on good terms.

When he made his official departure he called himself a "paid hypocrite," and just turned his back on the whole debacle. So what is this angry child actor doing now? Well, after leaving the show, Jones made a wise choice and focussed on his education, attending the University of Colorado Boulder. In 2016, he started working for a multimedia and event production company called Tonite. As part of the management team, Jones is taking the high road—running as from the sitcom world as possible.

Jaimee Foxworth started out young. When she was only five years old, she started modeling, which eventually led to advertisements. This early exposure won her her most notable role as Judy Winslow on Family Matters. But sadly, in the fourth season, the studio decided to ruthlessly cut her character out of the show. In fact, the script offered no explanation for her random disappearance.

With Jaimee gone, the popular character of Steve Urkel rose to prominence. Budget cuts were required and poor Jamie was just collateral damage. This decision left Jaimee completely blindsided. She later said, "They figured they could just throw me away, no explanation at all. Some of my cast members knew before I did." Sadly, the loss of this role did not bode well for the young actress.

After a failed attempt at starting a girl band, Jaimee decided to try something new. From 2000 to 2002, she worked in the adult film industry under the pseudonym Crave. But that wasn't the only shocking aspect of Jaimee's life. You see, she also struggled with depression and addiction. Life after Family Matters was more trying than she ever thought it would be.

Liesel Pritzker is best known for her roles in A Little Princess and Air Force One—but her time in Hollywood didn't go far beyond that. No need to worry though, as the heiress to the Hyatt fortune, money was never really a concern for little Leisel. In fact, being a part of a millionaire family churned out all the drama she ever needed.

Turns out, Leisl's own family had misappropriated money from her trust funds. Going into full defense mode, the retired child actress filed a six billion dollar lawsuit against her father and 11 cousins. The payoff was huge. Thankfully, Leisl is dedicated to giving back. Today, she is an American philanthropist responsible for founding a microfinance support group.

Gary Coleman is considered one of the greatest child actors of all time—but he was doomed to a horrifying end. Coleman rose to stardom after landing the role of Arnold Jackson on Diff'rent Strokes. Through the late 70s and 80s, he was the highest-paid adolescent on television. But despite raking in the cash, Coleman had some serious financial struggles.

In 1989, Coleman went after his parents and business adviser for misappropriating his assets. He sued them and won. But shockingly, only a decade later, the actor was bankrupt. Still, that wasn't the most distressing part. Behind closed doors, Coleman also faced medical problems. He had an ongoing battle with his growth deficiency, addiction problems, and depression. It was a dangerous cocktail of issues that sent Coleman down a dangerous path.

On top of his inner demons, Coleman's personal life was a downright mess. He frequently found himself in trouble with the authorities for his aggression and domestic disputes. Both outwardly and inwardly, the actor spiraled out of control, his health nosediving as his reputation faltered. And then it all came to the most disturbing climax.

On May 26, 2010, Coleman fell down a flight of stairs at his home. He hit his head so hard, he suffered an epidural hematoma. Although he seemed lucid the next morning, he declined rapidly. Only two days after his fall, the actor succumbed to his injuries. Sadder still? His will read, "...that there be no funeral service, wake, or other ceremony memorializing my passing."

Perhaps one of the most lovable characters from The Goonies was Chunk—the jokester who stole many of the scenes with effortless comedy. This talented young actor was Jeff Cohen, and he certainly went to extremes to ensure that he didn't lose out on the role of Chunk. Right before The Goonies began filming, Cohen made a horrifying discovery.

He'd contracted chickenpox. Terrified that they'd give the part to someone else, Cohen lied about being sick and showed up to set anyway. In the infamous "Truffle Shuffle" scene, viewers can see those tell-tale dots on Cohen's chest. But despite his wonderful performance, acting didn't become Cohen's main focus. During filming, he fostered a close relationship with director Richard Donner, who helped him find his true calling.

Thanks to introductions made by his old Goonies director, Jeff Cohen snagged summer jobs that focussed more on the business aspects of the studio world. When he discovered that most high-ranking figures in Hollywood had law degrees, he set his sights on a shimmering new goal: a legal career. And boy, was he successful. Today, Cohen is an entertainment lawyer in LA and even co-founded his own firm in Beverly Hills. Through it all, he had one stalwart fan, cheering him on.

Director Richard Donner only has good things to say about the child actor turned lawyer. He told Variety, "His acting had an incredible sense of genuineness, of reality. He was Jeff — he drew from himself, and I think that's who he is now. He's honest and straight. I think that was in his acting and now in his law practice."

Michael Vitar was the fearless leader, "Benny the Jet" Rodriguez, in the feel-good film The Sandlot—but that's where his acting career peaked. He quit Hollywood, finished his education, and today, he's a firefighter for the Los Angeles Fire Department. However, in 2015, Vitar started making headlines again—and for one disturbing reason.

Vitar got himself involved in a controversial situation when he and two fellow firefighters approached a 22-year-old named Samuel Chang. They believed Chang guilty of handing out laced candy to trick-or-treaters in their neighborhood. They chased the suspect, caught him, and held him down. But what Vitar did next was absolutely chilling.

Vitar continued to pin the man to the ground while another firefighter put his hands around Chang's neck. That's when Chang lost consciousness. Now it was panic time. They had to perform CPR and pray they hadn't done him in. Paramedics arrived and Chang remained in hospital for weeks. Obviously, Vitar paid the price for his actions. He faced suspension without pay for six months—but eventually returned to his duties.

Who can forget the impressive young actors in Jurassic Park? Joseph Mazello gained recognition after taking on a main role in the Steven Spielberg classic. This life-changing experience had a stunning ripple effect. Down the road, Spielburg wrote Mazello the letter of recognition that helped him get into the University of Southern California. However, his ties to Jurassic Park continued to reap many benefits...

Although Mazello only had a small role in The Lost World: Jurassic Park, his salary was enough to pay for his college tuition. He even joked that the money was a graduation present from Spielburg. Today, Mazello is still in show business. Most recently, he starred as the bassist, John Deacon, in 2018's Bohemian Rhapsody.

Frankie Muniz was one of the most popular actors of the early 2000s and was even dubbed "one of Hollywood's most bankable teens." He rose to fame with his family sitcom Malcolm in the Middle and then continued making hit children's movies like Big Fat Liar and Agent Cody Banks. He had a good run—but it wasn't meant to last forever. These days, he's doing something completely different.

Muniz went on to pursue one of his other passions: race car driving. Since discovering his need for speed, he's been racing on and off for over a decade. But that's not all. In 2018, he and his wife purchased Outrageous Olive Oils & Vinegars—a specialty store in Scottsdale, Arizona. For the next two years, they dedicated themselves to running the business...and then the 2020 pandemic hit.

Although the couple enjoyed steady sales, they decided to sell their store. You see, Muniz had another grand adventure to attend to: fatherhood.

When she was only five years old, Mara Wilson saw her brother acting in commercials and realized she wanted to do the same thing. However, fate had another plan in mind for Mara. After doing a string of commercials, she got the chance of a lifetime: a part in the 1993 comedy Mrs. Doubtfire. The success of that film propelled her career forward—but the actress soon realized that Hollywood was a fickle business.

Although she'll always be remembered for her role in Matilda, like most child stars, Mara's moment in the sun was excruciatingly brief. As she grew older, the roles just weren't rolling in. She later said, "I consider my relationship with acting in Hollywood as sort of a mutual breakup. Through puberty, Hollywood didn't really want me anymore, and I was like, 'Yeah, I don't really want you, either.'"

Because of her disappointing acting prospects, Mara had no choice but to step away from the limelight. She dedicated her long 12-year hiatus to writing, and then, in 2012, returned to acting. Today, she mainly stars in web series or works in voice acting.

Peter Ostrum was only 12 years old when talent agents scooped him up for his one and only role as Charlie in Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory. It was his first time on a movie set, and Peter only has fond members of his legendary screen partner, Gene Wilder. He later expressed how the older actor "treated people with respect and dignity." When filming wrapped, the studio offered Peter an enticing three-year contract. But the young boy's response was shocking.

Peter decided to turn down the film contract—and this decision caused his life to veer in a completely different direction. Not long after finishing his one film, he discovered his true calling. His family welcomed a horse into their lives, and the experience opened his eyes to the world of veterinary medicine. Although he toyed with the idea of returning to Hollywood, Peter ultimately chose to become a veterinarian.

Amy O'Neill is most recognized for her role in the family comedy Honey, I Shrunk the Kids, as well as her substantial run on The Young and the Restless. But despite having a strong start, her love for acting began to wane—and for one disturbing reason. She kept getting scripts that required her to take off her clothes. Nope. Amy wasn't ready to go down that road, and so, she made a drastic decision.

Disgusted by disappointing roles, Amy decided to quit acting. However, it wasn't the end of the road for her. She became enthralled by the circus and decided to pursue it. Luckily, the former actress found a home in LA's performing arts community, and in 2002, she joined the Alabama trio, "Girls on Stilts." Since then, Amy has toured all over the world.

Jonathan Ke Quan had a childhood defined by terror and fame. In 1978, he and his family fled Vietnam as refugees, arriving in the US the following year. However, when he was 12 years old, fate dealt him another surprising hand. The casting director for Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom auditioned children at his school, and he came out on top. All of a sudden, Jonathan found himself playing Harrison Ford's sweet sidekick in a major motion picture.

After his massive debut, Jonathan went on to star in the beloved classic, The Goonies. Unfortunately, from then on, the child actor faced disappointment after disappointment. There just wasn't enough opportunity for Asian Americans in Hollywood, and so, he walked away from it all. He thought that was the end of his acting career—but he was so, so wrong.

When Jonathan Ke Quan witnessed the success of 2018's Crazy Rich Asians, he felt bolstered by Asian representation. Inspired, he decided to give acting another shot. In 2020, he made his comeback by joining the cast of the science fiction film Everything Everywhere All at Once. What's more? The actor shows no sign of slowing down. As announced in February 2022, he will also be a part of the TV adaptation of American Born Chinese for Disney+.

There's no denying that, as a child, Haley Joel Osment stole the audience's hearts. He was unbelievably adorable and tremendously talented. Although he started acting at the age of four, he truly catapulted into the public eye with his performance in The Sixth Sense. He was nominated for an Academy Award—and, since then, his iconic quote, "I see dead people," is a catchphrase that everyone knows. So where did this beloved child actor disappear to?

To be honest, he didn't really go anywhere. Osment just isn't nailing the main roles like he used to. Instead, he has taken on supporting parts or minor characters in shows like Silicon Valley and The Boys. He also starred in the Netflix film, Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile in 2019. In the midst of his acting career, Osment also took time off to attend the Tisch School of the Arts, and today, he still resides in New York City.

The 90s were Edward Furlong's playground, but most people remember him for his stunning debut performance as John Connor in Terminator: Judgment Day. It seemed like the young actor had a promising road ahead of him and, as he branched out, he even had the opportunity to star alongside heavy hitters like Meryl Streep and Edward Norton. But when the 2000s hit—his success imploded in the worst way possible.

Edward fell into a spiraling struggle with drug use. His first stint in rehab was in 2000 and, according to him, it was his addiction that lost him his role in Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines. Oh, but the bad news doesn't end there. Edward also had a habit of getting himself involved in horrifying domestic disputes. His relationships were downright messy and his aggression tainted his reputation. Surprisingly, there is a silver lining for this down-and-out actor.

Today, Edward is working toward rehabilitation, even starting a podcast called American Glutton where he openly discusses his recovery from addiction and compulsive eating.

When George Lucas announced The Phantom Menace in 1998, fans were ecstatic. The hype surrounding this film was unprecedented. There was also a new face in the mix—adorable child actor Jake Lloyd, who'd been cast as Anakin Skywalker. But sadly, after the film hit theaters, poor Jake learned the hard way that fame came at a high price.

You see, the press and his school classmates brutally harassed Jake for his performance in the Star Wars movie, and by 2001, he'd quit acting altogether. Sadly, even Star Wars star Mark Hamill recognized that Hollywood had done Jake dirty. “I couldn’t believe some of the things they wrote about the prequels, you know. I mean really, beyond I didn’t like it. I’m still angry about the way they treated Jake Lloyd." Unfortunately, his story of woe doesn't end there.

Since his claim to fame, Jake Lloyd has struggled with his mental health. Moreover, his schizophrenia and aggressive behavior have gotten him into trouble with the authorities. On one occasion, Jake initiated a high-speed police chase, which landed him behind bars and, eventually, saw him placed in a psychiatric facility. Today, he lives near his parents, seeking treatment for paranoid schizophrenia.

As the darling of the 2000s, Amanda Bynes seemed like she could do no wrong. With her natural talent for comedy, she made it big with The Amanda Show, and then went on to dominate teen romcoms throughout the decade. Bubbly and lovable, she shone in films like What a Girl Wants and She's the Man. But it was all doomed to a heartbreaking end.

Sadly, Amanda's struggles with her mental health cut her fame down at its knees. She began using many damaging substances and, most notably, became addicted to Adderall. Soon, the actress didn't even seem like herself, her behavior becoming increasingly erratic. On one memorable occasion, she faced charges after allegedly starting a fire in a neighbor's driveway. But that was only the tip of the iceberg.

Amanda shocked her fans when she took to Twitter to tweet out the most convoluted messages, accusing her parents of mistreating her. However, there was an explanation for her bizarre antics. Doctors diagnosed the actress with bipolar disorder. Since then, her parents have had conservatorship over her affairs. Luckily, this horror show had an end in sight.

For years, the tabloids have dragged poor Amanda through the mud, but these days, things are finally looking up. With the help of her family, she's been able to stay sober and, as of 2022, has filed to end her conservatorship: "She believes her condition is improved and protection of the court is no longer necessary."

Before landing the role as Bastian in 1984's The NeverEnding Story, Barret Oliver had only had tiny roles in television and film. This was his big break...but it was also as big as he was ever going to get. Although he played a part in Tim Burton's Frankweenie the following year, his career never really took off. You see, Oliver was destined to work with film—just a different kind of film...

Down the road, Oliver not only sported a shocking new look, but also a new profession. He realized that his true passion lay in print and photography, and today, he specializes in specific 19th-century processes. His work has been shown in museums, galleries, and films. But that's not all. He also has a published book, A History of the Woodburytype.

Sources: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20,

Alcatraz Island, AKA “The Rock,” is a small island located in San Francisco Bay, California. Between 1934 and 1963 the island was used as a federal prison. During that time, it housed some of the country’s most dangerous criminals, including Al Capone and Robert Stroud. Due to the exorbitant cost of operating the prison and damage to the buildings from the salt water, the facility was closed in 1963, but its dark legend lives on today. Read on for 42 chilling facts about the famous prison.

While incarcerated in Atlanta, Al Capone was able to bribe the guards to get special treatment, and overall, he was kept pretty comfortable. That all changed when he got to Alcatraz. The conditions were so harsh he reportedly told his warden “It looks like Alcatraz has got me licked.”

Alcatraz is surrounded by the cold waters of San Francisco Bay, but there is no source of fresh water anywhere on the island. Close to one million gallons of water were brought to the island each week, along with food, fuel, and other supplies. No wonder it was so expensive to run.

Alvin Francis "Creepy Karpis" Karpowicz was so named for his terrifying smile. Karpis was one of the biggest Depression-era criminals, and was the face of the Barker Gang, who were a particularly vicious group of bank-robbers and kidnappers.

As far as criminals go, he wasn’t the worst of the worst, but he has the distinction of not only serving the longest tenure at the prison—25 years—but he outlasted the prison and was eventually transferred elsewhere to finish out his sentence before being deported to his native Canada.

A popular myth about Alcatraz was that escape was impossible because the waters were full of man-eating sharks. The myth was perpetrated by the guards to try and deter prisoners from even attempting to escape, but in reality, the only sharks in San Francisco Bay were harmless bottom feeders. The prisoners were more at risk from the extremely cold water, the strong currents, and the lengthy mile-plus swim. Any of these conditions could lead to drowning.

Alcatraz was the only prison to offer its prisoners hot showers, but it had nothing to do with being kind to the prisoners. The belief was that if the prisoners were used to the hot water from the showers, they’d be unable to cope with the frigid waters of the Bay and would be deterred from attempting to escape. Not a bad theory, but it didn’t stop a few brave—or stupid—souls from trying.

The island of Alcatraz was first discovered in 1775 by Spanish explorer Juan Manuel de Ayala, who named it La Isla de los Alcatraces. The name translates to Island of the Pelicans or possibly strange bird, but prisoners just referred to it as “the Rock.”

As soon as he realized that there were no breaks to be had on Alcatraz, Al Capone became a model prisoner and was allowed to play banjo in the jailhouse band the Rock Islanders. Being allowed to play was one of the few privileges the prisoners enjoyed, and according to letters sent to his son, Capone was able to play 500 songs and even wrote one called “Madonna Mia.”

Fearing that someone would murder him in the recreation yard, Al Capone received permission to spend recreational time practicing his banjo in the shower room. Recently, a park ranger who astonishingly was not familiar with the history of the prison claimed to hear banjo music coming from the showers.

Other visitors and employees have also reported hearing the sound, but there’s no reasonable explanation for what’s causing it. Could Al’s ghost still be hanging out at Alcatraz?

Before it was a prison, Alcatraz Island served as the site of the first lighthouse on the West Coast. The lighthouse was built in 1852 in order to help the frequently arriving ships navigate through the bay.

The original tower was irreparably damaged during the 1906 earthquake, but a new tower with a stronger design was built after the quake and is still operational today.

The Hopi Hostiles were a group of 19 Hopi men who were imprisoned on Alcatraz when it was still under military control. The men opposed the government’s forced education in boarding schools, and the policies that were intended to eliminate their language and religion.

The government figured that hard labor and confinement would eventually force them to submit, and they were held from January to August of 1895, when the island was a military prison called Alcatraz Citadel. The Hopi had a far stronger will than they’d imagined, and they continued to resist even after they were released.

The Alcatraz Triathlon was established in 1980 and has continued to be held on an annual basis to prove that escape from Alcatraz is possible—that is, if you’re a highly trained athlete. The marathon is made up of a 1.5-mile swim to San Francisco, an 18-mile bike ride, and an eight-mile run. No sweat, right?

Alcatraz Island earned its nickname the Rock because it literally is a rock. The island is about as barren a spot as you can imagine. There’s no flowing water, very little vegetation, and no beaches. In fact, it’s so rocky that the first surveyor didn’t even think the land was fit to build on. Sounds like the perfect spot for the ultimate prison!

Prisoners at Alcatraz were allowed warden-approved visitors once a month, but visitations had really strict rules. There was no physical contact allowed, their conversations were closely monitored, and they weren’t allowed to talk about current events or prison life. If they violated any of these rules, there would be no more visitors allowed, so it was probably safest to stick to subjects like the weather.

In the prison’s 29-year history, no prisoner ever successfully escaped—at least none officially on record. 36 men tried, but 23 of them were recaptured, six were shot and killed, and the remaining five were listed as missing and are assumed to have drowned.

Several of the prisoners at Alcatraz went insane during their incarceration, leading at least a few of them to self-mutilation and suicide. One prisoner apparently chopped off all of his fingers on his left hand and another tried to slash his throat with eyeglasses, only to be killed during an escape attempt. Out of the frying pan and into the fire.

The final escape attempt from Alcatraz in 1962 became the subject of a book called Escape From Alcatraz by J. Campbell Bruce, and the 1979 movie of the same name starring Clint Eastwood as the ringleader, Frank Morris.

Morris and brothers Clarence and John Anglin used homemade tools to drill holes in the cell walls to reach the vents. They created false walls to hide their work and made dummy heads from paper-mache with real human hair (gross) to put in their beds. The men seem to have thought of everything because they’d even made makeshift life jackets out of prison raincoats.

Morris and Anglins were never found, but are presumed to have drowned in the attempt. A third body dressed in clothing resembling the uniform turned up on shore a few weeks later, but it was too decomposed to be positively identified.

Con artist Victor Lustig once managed to con Al Capone out of $5,000, and that was just the tip of the iceberg. Lustig was also responsible for trying to sell the Eiffel Tower, not to mention the massive counterfeiting operation which got him sent to Alcatraz, where Capone just happened to be a prisoner.

In 1945, a clever inmate by the name of John Giles successfully escaped the island by stealing an army uniform from the laundry bags and waltzing onto an army truck in uniform. His plan might have worked if the truck had been headed for the city, but no such luck. It was on its way to Angel Island instead, and as soon as he got off the truck, correctional officers sent him back to Alcatraz. So close, yet so far!

The cells in Alcatraz were barely bigger than a closet, measuring five feet by nine feet. If a prisoner stretched out their arms they could touch the cell walls, and they were just big enough to hold a sink, a toilet, and a cot. D block cells were more spacious, but seeing as they were solitary confinement, you really wouldn’t want to end up there.

When the US acquired Alcatraz Island, the California Gold Rush was in full swing, and the government decided to create a fortress on the island for defensive purposes. The military built Fort Alcatraz in the early 1850s, and by 1859, it was equipped with some pretty serious firepower. Between the cannons and the guns, attacking San Francisco would be totally futile.

The ADX Florence Prison in Colorado is so secure it’s been dubbed the Alcatraz of the Rockies. Like Alcatraz, it houses some of the country’s most dangerous criminals, like Unabomber Ted Kaczynski and “shoe bomber” Richard Reid.

Prisoners are kept in solitary confinement 23 hours a day, and there are so many insane security features, let’s just say nobody’s ever getting out of there.

Eventually, the need for a heavily armed fort in California disappeared, so the army tore down the fortress, leaving only the basement foundation. For two years between 1909 and 1911, military prisoners were forced to build new disciplinary barracks. Isn’t building your own prison kind of like digging your own grave?

Big and small screen portrayals of Alcatraz love to make it out to be hell on earth, but according to former inmate Willy Radkay, it actually wasn’t all bad. The rules were strict and enforced, but each prisoner had their own cell and privacy, as well as some protection from violence. Radkay also noted that Alcatraz had better food than any other American prison. What more could a prisoner ask for?

Alcatraz wins the prize for one of the most haunted places in America, and the most haunted prison in the country.  The original Native American inhabitants of the island claimed to have encountered evil spirits even before it became a prison, and writer Mark Twain described it as “being as cold as winter, even in the summer months.”

Despite multiple reports of ghostly activity on Alcatraz, officials deny all of it and claim it’s nonsense. Of course it is—and all of those doors just shut themselves!

The prisoners of Alcatraz weren’t locked up 100% of the time, and softball was a popular activity. It wasn’t all fun and games, however. The teams were racially integrated, and this occasionally led to tensions and flaring tempers. At one particular game on May 20, 1956, some of the prisoners pulled makeshift knives during a dispute. Would that be an automatic out?

In 1969, a group of Native American activists occupied the abandoned prison in an effort to call attention to the government’s seizure of Native American tribal lands. Amazingly, the occupation lasted for 19 months and the protesters numbered 400 at its peak. The government decided to wait until it was a much more manageable 15 before they moved in, but the goal was achieved. In 1970, President Nixon reversed the policy, and the government stopped taking their land (for a time).

Without human inhabitants, the island has literally gone to the birds. Alcatraz is home to 5,000 birds from nine different species, and the first thing visiting tourists see when they pull up are the Western gulls lining the shore. The Birdman would be pleased!

Unlike most prisons, criminals were not automatically sentenced to Alcatraz. The criminals who were shipped there were not necessarily the most violent or most odious of the bunch, but they were defiant and impossible to handle. A trip to Alcatraz was intended to smarten them up and get them obeying the rules so that they could eventually be returned to federal prison.

Alcatraz was not equipped with a death row or facilities to execute prisoners, but that didn’t mean nobody ever died on the island. Eight prisoners were murdered by other inmates, there were five suicides, and 15 died natural deaths. Though it might sound like a lot, the deaths were so infrequent they didn’t even have a true morgue.

Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary was commissioned strictly for men and in its entire history, there were never any female prisoners. There were also no female guards, administrators, or any women ever hired at the prison, and many of the men went as many as 20 years without hearing a female voice.

A unique feature of Alcatraz was that there were no set sentences, and nobody could be released from the prison. Typically, a prisoner would spend between six and eight years there, but it depended on how long it took for them to shape up and start behaving.

Once they were deemed “model” prisoners, they’d be transferred back to their original prison to be paroled or to serve out the rest of their original sentence.

Considering that some inmates were serving multiple life sentences, Alcatraz was technically kind of like an island vacation!

Each prisoner had their registry number stenciled on their shirts and overalls, and it became a way of distinguishing the old timers from the newbies. Those with four-digit numbers were part of the new breed of prisoner, while those with the lower numbers were the veterans.

Al Capone, who arrived in 1934, was known as prisoner 85, while Robert Stroud, the Birdman of Alcatraz, was transferred there in 1942, and so was prisoner 594.

Prior to 1933, Alcatraz was actually a minimum-security prison where some of the inmates were employed as babysitters for the children of the officers. When Al Capone arrived it had already changed, but could you imagine having him look after your kids?

The launch party for the film The Rock on Alcatraz island was interrupted by an unconventional crasher. Windsurfer Jeff Bunch landed on the north side of the island wearing a tuxedo shirt and bowtie over his wetsuit.

He claimed that he’d already had a drink with Sean Connery by the time the park rangers caught up with him, but instead of celebrity selfies, he got a trespassing on federal land charge for his trouble.

Below the A block of cells was a set of cells which were dubbed the Spanish Dungeon. Over the years, stories about the dungeons grew to almost mythic proportions. Some discharged prisoners claimed they were built by the Spanish Inquisition (they weren’t) while others claimed they were built beneath the water line.

The dungeons were wet and cold, but in truth, they were 100 feet above the water line—not below. In 1942, the Bureau of Prisons director decided that the dungeon was cruel and unusual punishment and prohibited their further use. It sure took them long enough to figure that one out.

George “Machine Gun” Kelly was another of Alcatraz’s most famous prisoners. He began his criminal life as a bootlegger, but he upped the stakes when he and his wife Kathryn Thorne kidnapped a wealthy businessman for ransom. The pair were captured three months later and sentenced to life in prison. Kelly moved to Alcatraz around the same time as Al Capone, after bragging about his plans to escape and jailbreak his wife.

While at Alcatraz, he also loved to boast about his crimes. For whatever reason, he suddenly started to feel bad about what he’d done and wrote an apology letter to his victim. Not surprisingly, he got no response. After 17 years at Alcatraz, he was transferred back to Leavenworth Penitentiary in Kansas, where he died of a heart attack in 1954.

The first prisoner to attempt to escape Alcatraz was Joe Bowers in 1936, when he tried to scale the chain link fence at the edge of the island. He did manage to leave the island, but in a body bag. When he refused to come back down, an officer shot him and he fell somewhere between 50 to 100 feet to his death. Definitely not the escape he’d envisioned!

Robert Stroud, AKA the Birdman of Alcatraz, may have become known to the public as a respected ornithologist (a person who studies birds), but he was actually one of the most notorious criminals in the country and before being transferred to Alcatraz, was a violent inmate as well. If the people who were advocating for his release knew the whole story, they definitely would have changed their tune!

Stroud was sent to prison for killing a bartender who attacked one of his prostitutes when he was a pimp, and he quickly became known as a violent and dangerous inmate. After he stabbed and killed a guard, he was sentenced to life imprisonment in solitary confinement, and that's when his interest in birds began. He collected nearly 300 birds and wrote Diseases of the Canaries, making genuine contributions to the field before being transferred to Alcatraz. There, he was diagnosed as a psychopath and his research tools were taken from him, so he then wrote a history of the penal system. Hey, no one can say the guy didn't keep busy.

There were many stories of paranormal activity in Alcatraz, and one particular incident occurred in Cell 14D. Sometime in the 1940s, a prisoner who was locked in the cell screamed all night that something with glowing eyes was trying to kill him.

The next morning, he was found strangled to death in the cell. The cause of his death was never determined, and that could be why guards later claimed to see his ghost in line with the other inmates during a head count. Spooky!

The Battle of Alcatraz, or the “Alcatraz Blastout” as it was also known, took place between May 2nd and 4th, 1946. Six prisoners managed to get hold of weapons and cellhouse keys, but there was a minor hitch in their plans.

The keys did not include one for the recreation yard door, and the guards discovered that they were trying to escape. They should have given up there, but they decided to fight.

In total, 18 officers were injured during the battle, and the Marines had to come in and help get things back under control. When all was said and done, three of the six were dead, two were tried for murder and sentenced to death by gas chamber, and the last of them, just 19 at the time, received a second life sentence. Things definitely did not go as planned.

At the best of times, conditions in Alcatraz were not exactly a barrel of laughs, but there was a particularly harsh punishment for prisoners who refused to follow the rules of the prison. Cellblock D was known as the worst place to end up, and the five cells at the end of block D were known as "The Hole." There was next to no light in the Hole, the cells were kept colder than usual, and inmates sent there were often subject to brutal beatings and starvation. But right at the end of the Hole was a single cell that became known as "the strip cell," reserved for the absolute worst of the worst. While most cells in the Hole at least had a sink, the only thing in the strip cell was a hole in the floor for a toilet.

Sources: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, , 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28

Born in Newark, New Jersey, Concetta Rosa Maria Franconero, known as Connie Francis, spent her first years in Brooklyn before returning to New Jersey. She grew up in an Italian-Jewish neighborhood—and like all children, she was a sponge when it came to absorbing languages. So, she grew up speaking English, Yiddish, and Hebrew.

From the get-go, her family knew she was someone special.

Francis’s father, George Franconero, was especially ambitious about her little daughter’s future. He was quite responsive to her musical talents and enrolled her in a music school to learn the accordion. Moreover, she showed off her vocal skills at talent contests, pageants, lodge celebrations, church socials, and other neighborhood festivities.

But this was an innocent phase of Francis's life. She had no idea that fate had a dark plan in store for her.

After countless failures, Connie Francis recorded a cover version of the hit song, “Who’s Sorry Now." Both her team and her father believed this could be a hit for the second time. But sadly, she didn’t even like it. As you can guess, her father’s words were final—so she recorded the song.

Connie Francis released the number, and there was no buzz around it. But that all changed on January 1, 1958, when the song debuted on a hit television program.

In a couple of months, Francis’s new solo sold over a million copies, transforming her into a superstar. In April, she reached number 1 on the UK Singles Chart and number 4 in the United States. Just like that, med school went down the drain, while new solos lay on the horizon. But she still needed a little assistance.

Her team introduced her to a new friend—and this is when Francis’s life took a complicated turn.

While she was focused on her career, life gave Connie Francis a companion who shared the same obstacles. His name was Bobby Darin—another up-and-coming singer/songwriter. The two began sharing ideas and writing songs together. Although they had their fair share of arguments, the majority of their time, they were flirting.

But behind the scenes, someone else watched them with a burning fury.

Francis was smitten with Darin, and vice versa. Even though there was no record of the two being in a relationship, people knew that they were in love. Just like a stereotypical, strict Italian father, Francis’s father did not approve of Darin and his daughter. As a full-time job, he worked to separate the two whenever possible so that Francis stayed focused.

Francis’s father failed miserably at keeping the two lovebirds apart...at least, at first. There were rumors about Francis and Darin having plans to elope after one of her shows—but once her father caught wind of this scandalous news, he snapped. His manner transformed into an aggressive one.

On one occasion, he even chased Darin out of a building. Francis and Darin were star-crossed lovers, but this story was no Romeo and Juliet.

Francis admitted that Darin was her one true love—but there was one thing barring her from finding her "happily ever after".

As a devout daddy's girl, Frances knew that her relationship with Darin was doomed. Her father's intense feelings would always get in the way. Therefore, she decided to put her feelings aside and pour her feelings into her songs—but it wasn’t that easy.

While she tried to forget Darin, Francis heard a shocking marriage announcement on the radio. While driving with her father, a radio DJ announced Darin was getting married. Francis was devastated. On top of that, she also had to listen to how happy her father was about the news.

That's when Francis lost her head—and started thinking the most sinister thoughts.

In her diary, Francis wrote some pretty disturbing things about that day. She was pretty vivid about her heartbreak and anger. Francis wrote that she hoped that the Hudson River would flood the Lincoln Tunnel, and drown both her and her father. She hoped to die that day. But little did Francis know, there was a reunion on the horizon.

Even though Bobby Darin had married Sandra Dee, Connie Francis still wore her heart on her sleeve. She later confessed that she met with Darin under the most sordid circumstances. Darin had just sent his wife away due to her awful gambling habit and then

Nothing could have prepared her for this encounter.

In her memoir, Francis shared how excited she was to reunite with Darin. She was eager to console him in lieu of his marriage problems. But when the doors to his suite opened, he caught him in his birthday suit...with two women all over him. No doubt devastated, Francis still managed to hit back at him with a sarcastic quip: "So glad to see your mojo is still working. Very, very nice".

Darin's response was unforgettable.

Caught by his old love in the most ridiculous position, Darin yelled back at Francis, "Bad timing baby, the friggin' worst! This has got to be a setup and when I find the mastermind, he DIES". It was a chaotic mess and Francis fled the scene, shouting back at Darin that he should calm down, otherwise, he might suffer a heart attack.

Considering Darin's tragic end, this was a weirdly prophetic statement.

Francis began to second guess herself about Darin because he was a self-involved person. Also, their relationship was constantly overshadowed by the presence of Sandra Dee, creating a tumultuous dynamic that tested their bond.

While they were working together on the TV series This Is Your Life, Francis decided that this must come to an end. No matter how painful it would be, she swore that she would cut ties with Darin after the show was over—it was time to girl boss.

Even though “Who’s Sorry Now” earned Francis a spot at the top, she needed to stay there. Her follow-up singles didn’t have the same success, so she met Neil Sedaka and Howard Greenfield—who wrote ballads for her. When they met, they began the tireless discussion of which songs were most suitable for Francis.

Francis began writing in her diary, secretly sharing her opinions about the ballads.

When Sedaka and Greenfield asked about her writings, Francis refused to share them. Instead, she expressed her thoughts more politely, saying that she found their ballads over-sophisticated for the younger generation. She said she preferred a more lively song.

The writers had a song in mind, but they thought the lyrics would insult Francis. Since they had nothing to lose—and since Francis hated the other songs—they took a shot in the dark.

After a day of disappointment, Connie Francis was tired. She gave Sedaka and Greenfield one last chance—and Sedaka began playing a song called “Stupid Cupid”. She was undoubtedly impressed and declared that he had just played her new hit song. In fact, she was right—the song broke the charts and earned her some more time as a worldwide star.

But Francis didn't just hit the ceiling of her fame—she broke it.

Francis faced a brand new challenge—acting. Of course, the production team of Where The Boys Are wanted to use one of her songs as the movie’s soundtrack. She agreed but also starred in the 1960 film. The movie was about a sleepy town that became a “hotspot for college students on their spring vacation”.

With this movie, Francis showcased all the scandalous possibilities of spring break. But like all spring breaks, hers ended with a touch of longing and sadness.

After she did the movie, in 1963, Francis met Dick Kanellis—a press agent and entertainment director. The two jumped into a relationship, and a year after, they decided to move it up a notch. On a warm summer day in 1964, they tied the knot. 

Nevertheless, their relationship went downhill after the honeymoon phase ended—they separated before winter arrived. But there was even more romance around the corner.

When Francis was 32, another gentleman—named Izzy Marrion—entered her life. Owner of multiple beauty salons, Marion fell head over heels in love with Francis. Like her first marriage, Francis’ second marriage happened relatively fast, which was also Marrion’s second marriage.

The ceremony took place in St Aloysius Church, followed by a lovely reception at Francis’s home in Essex Fells. Sadly, the second time wasn’t the charm for them.

Even though this union lasted longer than Francis’ previous marriage, it didn’t see the one-year threshold. After only 10 months, Marrion and Francis agreed that their run was over. They got a divorce in 1971. Once again, Francis was alone—but not for long. Her next marriage would see her through the most disturbing chapter of her life.

Two years passed by, and Francis met a restaurateur named Joseph Garzilli—the person that would manage to stay in her life for more than a couple of months. At that point, Francis was still not hesitant to marry fast—Francis and Garzilli became husband and wife in 1973. 

This was the last year that Francis enjoyed some peace—it was probably the calm before the storm.

On November 8, 1974, a nerve-wracking scandal changed Francis’s life. She was in her hotel room at the Howard Johnson's Motor Hotel in Westbury, Long Island when someone broke in. Francis was terrified as this person approached her—but this was only the beginning.

He then started touching her very aggressively, he kept doing unspeakable things to Francis and scarred her—literally and figuratively. The following morning, the authorities found Francis—and couldn't believe their eyes.

The next morning, officers discovered Francis bound and tied to a chair. She later elaborated on that awful night. She said, “I thought, 'How could I be pulling this off?' I mean, I talked to him like he was a human being: 'Having problems with a job? Why do you have to do this?'”. But that wasn't the craziest part.

This was already a disturbing incident, but Connie Francis was lucky to be alive. She believed that one element of this horror story had saved her life. She'd told her assailant that she was famous. This may have discouraged him from ending her life, as he may have feared a massive investigation.

The fallout was incredibly distressing.

While this near-death experience sent Francis into a deep depression, her team worked nonstop to find the person responsible. They began the blame game by suing the motel chain—since they didn’t provide adequate security—and allegedly won the lawsuit. But not everything got resolved.

Though Francis’s team tried to find the intruder, their efforts were fruitless. Sadly, there was more heartache to come.

While she struggled with her mental health issues, Francis's support system failed to support her. Her father—who had been very strict and controlling—wasn't compassionate when she needed it the most. He crossed the line when he told Francis that she'd become “damaged goods” after what happened to her.

Francis lost hope in one of her favorite men, but she was about to lose hope in another one as well.

The remnants of this tragedy affected Francis’ marriage. She noted that her guilt and self-loathing about what happened grew by the day—and it negatively affected her marriage. She said that her strict Catholic upbringing was part of that guilt, adding, "That was one of the worst factors. That rigid, rigid code, especially with Italian men".

But there was something else about that night that haunted her.

Drowning in awful memories, Francis found that she didn't even have the strength to return to the stage and was even scared to walk on the street. She stopped interacting with everything, spending most of her days in bed, watching television. She didn't even want to be near her husband. The consequences tore her family apart.

Bed-bound and still suffering, Connie Francis watched her husband walk away from her. She later said, "I don't blame him for leaving. I wasn't the same person. How many weeks can you see somebody lying in bed and encourage them but nothing gets through? You get disgusted. He was a weak man and he didn't have the time to wait it out, so he just left".

It was one of the darkest chapters of her life, but it was about to get even darker.

In a moment of desperation, Francis thought that she might be able to win her husband back if she could just recapture her star quality: "I thought if maybe he sees me with a microphone again, he'll love me". It was a comeback plan, alright—but it went so wrong. You see,

For Francis, things just went from bad to worse. After having nasal surgery, she realized that she could no longer sing an entire octave. Three more painful operations ensued—but devastatingly, none of them worked. This tragedy cut Francis down entirely, and she later expressed how shattered she felt: "I'd lost my mind already, and now I lost my voice".

She wanted to be discreet about this chaos, yet she didn’t know that secrets had a cost.

Francis was determined to keep this scandal undercover, but this meant disappointing her loved ones. She didn’t tell anyone that she'd lost her voice, not even her closest friends—including the legendary Frank Sinatra. This secret only created more secrets and more problems because Sinatra was about to ask her a very sincere and poignant favor.

Sinatra asked Francis to sing one of her songs as an homage to his deceased mother—who was a close friend of Francis’s. The request was to sing her song “Mama” at a Las Vegas tribute. Francis kindly turned down this request, but she gave a nonsense reason. 

About what happened, she commented, “That hurt. Dolly and I were very close, our families were close enough to listen to dirty Italian records together. That was the hardest thing I've ever had to do''. Luckily, this pity party was about to end.

In 1978, Francis had a comeback. It had been three years of keeping her terrible secret. Her voice was finally getting healthy, and she immediately went back to the recording studio. This time, she experimented with different styles, incorporating disco versions of some songs. She still wanted to show off her language skills, so she recorded in Japanese, Italian, and Spanish.

Fortunately, Connie Francis had a positive outlook on how to deal with grief. She noted, “I realized there were suddenly a lot of broken homes. I couldn't afford the luxury of self-pity anymore. It was truly a turning point". She put on a happy face and showed the world that she was still standing.

No matter what, Francis continued singing. She even took up her love of performing and kept herself busy with tours. On one occasion, she performed at the American Bandstand 30th Anniversary Special Episode, which took place in the town where she had that bone-shaking experience in the hotel.

However, she'd soon learn that sweeping everything under the carpet had dire consequences.

During the 1980s, Connie Francis still struggled to keep her head above water. She underwent powerful shock treatments to ease her psychological pain. She even tried to take her own life. In 1984, she remained in a coma for several days after the horrible attempt.

Since Francis’s life had more ups and downs than an action-filled movie, it was no surprise for her when Gloria Estefan reached out to her for a movie based on Francis’s life. She liked the idea, and became involved in writing the script, producing the movie, and even announcing that she would play the lead.

However, Francis and Estefan began to disagree on certain artistic decisions.

In 2009, the team pulled the plug on the project because Estefan and Francis had a significant disagreement. As Francis explained, “I wanted the writer Robert Freeman who wrote that miniseries Life with Judy Garland: Me and My Shadows, but Gloria and company were unwilling to hire that writer. He was so eager to do my life story for the film, but she [Gloria] wouldn't agree to hire him and that was the end of that”.

Francis's risky ties to the mob turned out to be beneficial for her on a single occasion. This was when one of her close friends Don Rickles’ made fun of a mobster’s date and was about to be punished by them. She kindly asked her “friends” for a favor, which was not to break Rickles’ legs. He was lucky, because her pleas worked.

But that was the end of her "nice" associations with the mob. Much worse was coming. 

After she reached a level of success, Francis and her family’s mafia associations began to take a dark turn. Her brother George became more entangled in their hazardous web—sometimes working with them, sometimes against them. It was a treacherous path, and it ended in an unspeakable tragedy.

Francis had thick skin after the tragedies she'd endured, yet she always had a soft spot for her family—especially her father and her brother. So when her father called and said, "Your brother's been shot," she felt her thick skin peeling. When she asked about the hospital, her father responded, “He's dead”. She screamed, and then she sat down to think.

At first, Francis couldn’t make sense of what happened. She knew that it had to do with her family’s ties with the underground world, but she couldn't pinpoint what gave rise to this tragedy. When the investigation began, she hoped for a result that had nothing to do with her brother’s work with the mafia, but the result she got was disappointing.

Francis’ brother was a sharp partner in a law office, yet he also had a double life. While keeping close ties with the mob, he cooperated with law enforcement . He paid for his services with his life. It was a heart-wrenching turning point for Francis—but there was an even bigger one we haven't talked about yet. 

The night of Francis's awful encounter with her assailant in 1974, she'd been opening fan mail in her motel room. But one package stood out from all the rest. When she opened it, the contents stunned her. A woman had heard that Francis had suffered a miscarriage, and so, decided to offer the singer her own child. 

The reason why was heartbreaking.

The package's sender believed that Connie Francis would be able to give her child a better life. Francis didn't even think twice. She thought to herself, "Wonderful, I have a baby!"—and immediately tried to contact her husband at the time. When she couldn't get through to him, she called her lawyer at 2:30 am.

He thought she'd lost her marbles, but took down the number of this baby-gifting fan. Only an hour later, Francis met her insidious intruder. But shockingly, the story doesn't end there.

The awful man who violated Francis also took her fur coat. But here's the thing. Francis had placed the letter from the woman and the photos of the baby in the coat pocket. In the wake of the traumatic events that followed, she forgot all about the baby. But fate had a crazy twist in store for her.

By mid-December, Connie Francis wasn't thinking about the baby she'd been so excited to adopt...until he arrived on her front doorstep. Baby Joey arrived, wrapped in a red bow, with a small suitcase. Still reeling from the break-in, Francis wasn't exactly ready to be a mother anymore. 

She later shared, "All my life I'd wanted a baby...But I found I couldn't even handle my baby. I had to hire someone to come into my house to take care of my baby". Nonetheless, six months after the surprising arrival of baby Joey, Connie Francis officially adopted him.

After suffering a series of health problems in early 2025, Connie Francis passed on at the age of 87 on July 16, 2025. Sharing details about her final days, her friend Ron Roberts reported that she "slipped away peacefully". Roberts and Francis had been friends since all the way back in 1962, when he interviewed her. 

One thing about Francis? She was a hit-maker til the very end. Recently, her 1962 single "Pretty Little Baby" had become popular on TikTok. 

Because Temple grew up in the spotlight, she started to lose her baby teeth in the spotlight, too. To keep a Hollywood smile, Temple wore a dental plate when she was acting that hid her gaps. If she was out in the world, moreover, she would often distract away from her mouth by being extra cutesy. In one example, she put her bare feet in the concrete at her sidewalk ceremony in front of Grauman’s Theatre. Except this soon backfired on her.

After years with Temple at the top of the box office, nasty and powerful rumors began circulating about the developing girl...ones that went way beyond wearing wigs. Incredibly, some people began to suggest that Temple was really a 30-year-old dwarf masquerading as a child. After all, they reasoned, she never seemed to lose her teeth. This then ignited one of the most bizarre investigations in history.

For whatever reason, people in Europe were particularly susceptible to the dwarf rumor, and they found it particularly upsetting. It reached such a fever pitch, none other than the Vatican sent a priest over to America to look into it. Father Silvia Massante arrived, met with the Temple family, and concluded once and for all that Temple was, in fact, a little girl. Because ironically, no one could just take this on faith.

Sources: 1, 2

A spite house is...exactly what you think it is. It's a building constructed specifically to annoy your neighbors. Maybe you've seen a spite fence before, but that's child's play. Spite houses are the big leagues. Since they're not built for convenience or comfort, spite houses often stick out like a sore thumb—such as Boston's "Skinny House," shown here.

Although the exact origin of the Skinny House is a little foggy, legend has it started with a dispute between brothers. The two of them inherited a piece of land from their father, but when one of them went away to serve in the military, the other erected a large house on the property, leaving a tiny scrap of land for his brother.

When brother number two returned home and saw what his brother had done, he built the Skinny House, a mere 10 feet wide, to block his brother's view.

Though spite houses have been built all over the world, they remain a largely American phenomenon. This is partially because the European system of civil law, which governs large portions of the world, forbids them. Some countries, such as Finland, even have explicit laws prohibiting spite houses. And, to be fair, modern Americans can sue their neighbors for building a spite house, and they're likely to win.

But that's today. The United States is still littered with spite houses built by embittered neighbors over the centuries. One New York City landowner erected a building that was four stories tall, 100 feet wide...and five feet deep. All because he was offended that his neighbor lowballed him when offering to buy the narrow scrap of land.

Even the first Waldorf Hotel in New York City was built out of spite. William Waldorf Astor didn't get along with his neighbor—who was also his aunt, Caroline Webster Schermerhorn Astor. So, William tore down his mansion and built the Waldorf Hotel on the land. It towered over his aunt's house...and also happened to have no windows on that side.

Though they're less common today, some people have found creative ways to keep the spite house tradition alive. In 2013, the charity Planting Peace bought a house across the street from the Westboro Baptist Church and painted the house in the colors of the pride flag, dubbing the place "Equality House."

But history's greatest example of a spite house is also maybe the oldest—and it's not just a spite house. It's an entire city. In 541 AD, Emperor Khosrau I sacked the city of Antioch. But he wasn't entirely heartless. He built an entire new city for the people he captured during the sack. He even based the layout on Antioch. But he wanted to make sure the people there never forgot what he did for them, so he named his new city, literally, "Better Than Antioch, Khosrau Built This."

Now THAT'S how you spite your neighbor.

Sources: 1, 2

Staley’s birth was much like any other. He was born on August 22nd, 1967, in Bellevue, Washington, to Philip “Phil” and Nancy Staley. His parents christened him Layne Rutherford Staley. While they named him after his mother, whose maiden name was Layne, it wouldn’t be long before there were problems. As he grew, Layne was not happy.

Even as a child, Layne Staley did not feel things in half. Staley hated this middle name, Rutherford, responding with anger whenever people called him by it. By the time he was a teenager, he legally changed his middle name to “Thomas”, after Mötley Crüe’s drummer Tommy Lee. Staley’s passion for music would shape his life.

While other children struggled to find themselves, Staley knew what he wanted to do with his life early on. At two or three years old, he was the youngest member of his local rhythm band. At the age of nine, he wrote in his Dr Seuss book, All About Me, that he wanted to be a singer.

Other children often lose their childhood dreams, but Staley wasn’t like other children.

Staley came by his passion for rock and metal music honestly. It was his parent’s music collection that shaped his early music tastes. Staley considered Black Sabbath as his first influence, though he listened to bands from the familiar such as Twisted Sister and the Stooges, to the more obscure like Ministry and Skinny Puppy. It wouldn’t last, however.

As Layne Staley grew older, his life became rocky. His parents’ relationship could no longer survive its growing tension. By the time that Staley was seven, they had divorced. From this point, Staley was raised by his mother, and stepfather, Jim Elmer.

During his high school years, he took his stepfather’s last name, enrolling as Layne Elmer. Without this marriage, Staley’s life might never have been the same.

Music remained a part of Staley’s life, though he struggled to find his focus. At the age of 12, was playing drums and joining glam bands. Still, there was a voice in the back of his mind that continued to whisper his true passion: singing. However, he was holding himself back. He needed a little push to become who he was meant to be.

Staley almost missed the opportunity that started him on his road to success. In 1984, three students from Shorewood High School, James Bergstrom, Johnny Bacolas, and Zoli Semanate, were starting a band: Sleze. They had two guitarists and a drummer, but they needed a singer. Staley was waiting in the wings, if someone was willing to give him the push.

It was Staley’s stepbrother, Ken Elmer, who got Staley the audition for Sleze. Knowing his stepbrother’s ambitions, Elmer mentioned to Sleze’s drummer James Bergstrom, that Staley was a singer. However, he almost didn’t go to the audition, telling his mother, “Well, I’m no singer”. Trouble was brewing for not just Staley’s future, but Sleze’s as well.

Despite Layne Staley being exceptionally timid during this audition, he blew the founding members of Sleze away. Bacolas recalled, “the grain of his voice was there, the soul was there”, expanding further to say, “I don’t know what we were looking for. We just kind of—we just kind of found it”. Sleze, and more importantly Staley, were on their way.

Most bands struggle to get off of the ground. Sleze, however, had something special—they had Staley. With Sleze, Staley had modest success, signing with a local record company, and even appearing in a small low-budget movie, Father Rock. The cameo on Father Rock appeared on Seattle’s Public Access Channel in 1985. Despite all this, Sleze was constantly in flux.

As was often the case with burgeoning bands, the lineup of Sleze was constantly in flux. Founding member Zoli Semanate left entirely. Johnny Bacolas briefly left to play with a different band, so Staley invited his friend Nick Pollock in. It would seem impossible for a band to survive this much change, yet through it all Staley remained, holding it together.

By 1986, Bacolas returned from his stint playing with Ascendant, though Sleze looked quite different than it had before. Bacolas, how playing bass, rounded out Sleze to a quartet that consisted of himself, Staley, Bergstrom, and Pollock. They were locked in musically. However, Bacolas also brought a new dilemma. He was no longer in love with the name Sleze; he wanted something different.

Bacolas had been having a conversation with another artist, Russ Klatt from Slaughter Haus 5, that had led to inspiration. They had started their conversation talking about a “Wonderland Tour”, which lead them to Alice in Wonderland, which finally lead Bacalos to his ultimate brainstorm: Alice in Chains. Bacloas and the band loved this name, but others did not.

There was a problem with Alice in Chains, and even Bacolas could see it. He fully admits that “Alice in Chains” came from an idea of putting the fictional Alice in chains, which caused problems with the young band’s family members, particularly Staley’s mother, Nancy McCallum. This might not have been a problem except Staley was in direct opposition to his mother.

The fact was that Layne Staley liked the name “Alice in Chains”. He liked it a lot, and he didn’t see it as a problem. To Staley, the band was about dressing in drag, and playing metal music; “Alice in Chains” played into that image. To Staley it was all a fun joke, but to others it held heavy offense. In the end, the band would have to agree to a compromise.

If the problem was that “Alice in Chains” alluded itself to something unsavory, then the band would simply hide the allusion in amongst the words. They settled on changing the name of the band from “Alice in Chains” to “Alice ‘N Chains”. According to Bacolas, this compromise worked for it made it sound more like “Alice and Chains”, which lessened the unsavory allusion that caused offense. Yet, it didn’t appease everybody.

McCallum still felt the illusion of a woman in chains would alienate her son’s female audience. McCallum’s opinion would not change, nor would Staley’s. It concerned and offended McCallum that Staley did not see a problem with the name. She asked herself, “How could my child possibly choose a name like 'Alice ‘N Chains”?

They didn’t speak for almost two weeks, a first in their relationship. Yet, life went on, and Staley’s next step was around the corner.

There was someone waiting just around the corner for Staley, though he’d yet to realize it. Jerry Cantrell, a guitarist playing for a band called Diamond Lie, was mourning the loss of his mother only three weeks prior when he had gone to a concert in April 1987 for a band called Alice ‘N Chains.

He was impressed by the raw, deep voice of its lead singer: Layne Staley. Neither Cantrell nor Staley realized what was being put into motion.

Things might never have changed it Cantrell didn’t face adversity of his own. In July of that same year, Diamond Lie played their last concert, and Cantrell was once again without a gig, and more importantly without a home. That’s when fate worked its strange magic. Cantrell and Staley met in August of 1987 at a party in Seattle. The pair quickly kicked off a relationship that would change the course of both their lives.

Layne Staley was a kind person who helped others when he could. At this point in his life, Staley was working at the Music Bank. He was also living there. Upon hearing that Cantrell had been kicked out of his family’s house, Staley wouldn’t hear of it. He invited Cantrell to join him there.

For over a year, the pair lived in a dilapidated rehearsal space. It was here that magic happened.

Cantrell and Staley were nothing but roommates at this point in their lives. However, that was about to change. Although Alice ‘N Chains saw modest success, playing locally and recording two demos in 1987 they did not last. By the end of 1987, the band had gone separate ways.

Bacolas and Bergstrom would go on to form their bands, but Cantrell had his eyes on Staley.

Cantrell hadn’t sat by idly when Diamond Lie fell apart. He’d been collecting musicians that he’d admired to craft a new band, one that would exceed all expectations. He’d pulled in Sean Kinney for drums quickly enough, and through an ironic twist of fate, got exactly who he wanted for bass: Mike Starr. However, they still needed a singer, and there was only one Cantrell wanted: Staley.

Cantrell had never forgotten the sound of Staley’s voice from the first time he’d seen him perform. The deepness of Staley’s voice, despite his slight frame continued to impress Cantrell. He knew, “that voice was the guy [he] wanted to be playing with”. There was just one problem.

Staley wasn’t interested in working with Cantrell. He had projects of his own.

Layne Staley hadn’t sat by when Alice ‘N Chains disbanded. He had gotten on with his life and immediately joined another project. This time it was with a funk band that had yet to develop a name. He was excited for Cantrell, as a friend, to succeed with his own band, but Staley was focused on this funk band. He didn’t want to split his time.

Cantrell, however, had a plan.

How, you might ask, did Cantrell convince Staley to do something he didn’t wat to do? Well, remember, at this time, Cantrell and Staley shared a home, and it was a home that also doubled as a rehearsal space. Cantrell began to hold auditions for his band’s lead singer in front of Staley—every single one of them was terrible. Still, Staley resisted.

Layne Staley may have been stubborn, but Cantrell was more so. He kept pushing until there was something Staley couldn’t ignore. Then came the final straw: The male stripper. When Cantrell auditioned a male stripper in front of him, Staley finally caved and agreed to join Cantrell’s developing band. However, Staley had one condition of his own.

Staley’s funk band needed a guitarist. He agreed to join Cantrell’s band as a singer on the condition that Cantrell would join his project as a guitarist. A deal was struck, and Cantrell came out ahead. By the end of 1987, Staley’s funk project fell through, and Cantrell’s band became his full focus.

Now Staley and the band were rocking. However, they struggled to settle on a name. In their early stages, this new band played under a plethora of names, including that of Cantrell’s previous band, Diamond Lie. Eventually, they began discussing adopting the original name that Staley’s name had wanted to use: Alice in Chains.

To do so, however, he needed permission.

Staley, it seemed, never forgot that original name his first band had come up with. Alice ‘N Chains had disbanded on good terms, and Staley wanted to keep it that way. He reached out to his old band to ask permission to use “Alice in Chains”. Although Nick Pollock initially didn’t love the idea, he eventually came around. Alice in Chains were off, or so they thought.

It was local promoter, Randy Hauser, who gave Staley and Alice in Chains got their big break. Noticing the band’s talent, Hauser offered to pay for the group to make demo recordings. However, the day before they were set to record, disaster struck. 

The authorities shut down the studio in the biggest cannabis raid in the history of the state. Was Alice in Chains going to end before it started?

Things were looking dire for Alice in Chains. However, they hadn’t worked this hard simply to give up at the first sign of trouble. Despite adversity, Alice in Chains managed to complete their final demo by 1988, named The Treehouse Tapes. The Treehouse Tapes found their way to Columba Records’ representative, Nick Terzo, who signed them in 1989. They were on their way, and so was Staley.

While all of this was happening for Alice in Chains, Staley’s personal life was also beginning to blossom. In the spring or summer of 1988, Staley met Demri Parrott, a model and minor actress who was working in a shop called Saturdays.

They quickly began a relationship, changing Staley’s life forever.

Quotes by many close friends and bandmates of Staley and Parrott state that the pair were perfect for each other, some even using the term “soulmates”—but there was a dark side to the romance. Their demons, certainly, matched each other.

Parrott and Staley both became dependent on their addictions. Staley would struggle to cope with his for years.

Layne Staley was growing as a talent, and it wouldn’t be long before the world would know it. In August of 1990, the band released their first debut album, Facelift. This album solidified the band’s unique sound, with their second single “Man in the Box”, lyrics written by Staley, becoming a huge hit. The band was rising; however, so were Staley’s demons.

The year was 1992, and things were about to happen for not just Alice in Chains, but Staley himself. He and Parrott became engaged, cementing the relationship everyone else called perfect. Meanwhile, Alice in Chains released their second album, Dirt. They also made a cameo in the film Singles. Staley was rising fast; which only meant he had further to fall.

The more success that Alice in Chains received, the more consumed Layne Staley became in his addictions. Although the band went on tour for Dirt in 1993, it did not last long. Their manager hired bodyguards to keep Staley away from bad influences, but still he relapsed before the tour’s end. Things continued to deteriorate from there.

Alice in Chains was rising. Unfortunately, Staley was falling. In 1994, Alice in Chains released their fourth EP, Jar of Flies. This EP marked a height for the band. Not only was it an instant hit for them, but it was the first EP to ever released at number one. Unfortunately, for Staley the year marked a sharp downward turn.

It was also at this point that Staley’s health was visibly deteriorating, and so was his life. His engagement of two years with Parrott suddenly ended. It is unclear if both Staley and Parrott’s substance use was the cause. However, Staley’s abuse the reason that Alice in Chains decided not to tour for Jar of Flies, hoping to keep Staley away from temptation. It wouldn’t last.

Following the release of Jar of Flies, Layne Staley entered rehab and the band went into hiatus. During this time, Staley also joined the band Mad Season at the urging of Pearl Jam’s lead guitarist, Mike McCready. McCready had hoped that giving him work with sober musicians would motivate him to stay so as well. If it worked, it only did for a short time.

By this point in his career, Staley’s drug use and the complications from it were becoming common knowledge, as his body was showing signs of damage. In February 1996, Staley told Rolling Stone, “Drugs worked for me for years, and now they’re turning against me”. He was walking through hell, and he wanted other people to know it.

Although Staley could not resist his addictions, he didn’t want his fans to admire his use of illicit substances. He stated, “I didn’t want my fans to think that [they were] cool”. It was one of his greatest pains and disappointments, that he still got fans coming up to him bragging about their substance use.

Despite his struggles, Layne Staley was not completely lost—yet. Staley recorded one more album with Alice in Chains, Alice in Chains. Unfortunately, Staley’s issues stopped the band from, yet again, going on tour. He would make one last performance with Alice in Chains in July of 1996 while the band was touring with Kiss. Things may have turned out differently, if Staley hadn’t received a final blow that he couldn’t come back from.

In October of 1996, Staley’s former fiancé Demri Parrott succumbed to her own substance misuse-related health issues, and Staley never recovered from her loss. He was put on a 24-hour watch for self-harm.

Mark Lanegan, a friend from the band Screaming Trees, reflected in 2002, “[Staley] never recovered from Demri’s [passing]. After that, I don’t think he wanted to go on”.

It certainly seemed that Layne Staley had given up fighting his own issues, following the loss of Parrott. By 1998, Staley had retreated into himself. He rarely left his apartment, and he began isolating himself from his friends. Despite this, he did record two more tracks with Alice in Chains in October that year.

His body was failing him; he was dying.

On April 4, 2002, bandmate Mike Starr visited Staley for Starr’s birthday. At the time, Staley was very sick, however, he refused to call the authorities or allow Starr to call. The pair argued, and Starr eventually left, recalling Staley calling out as he left. What he said was unforgettable. 

Staley was saying, “Not like this, don’t leave like this” as Starr left. It would be an action Starr would regret for the rest of his life.

It would be over ten days, on April 17th, before anyone attempted to contact Staley again. His mother arrived at the apartment with the devastating news of Parrott’s brother's passing—but only a deafening silence greeted her. Staley did not answer the door. However, at this time, this behavior was not uncommon for Staley, so his mother left.

However, the chilling truth would soon make itself known.

Two days later, on the 19th, Staley's accountants reached out to his former manager, Susan Silver, with more unsettling news. They raised red flags, notifying her that no money had come out of his account in two weeks. Silver contacted McCallum, who returned to her son’s apartment one last time. This time, there were some alarming developments.

Finding mail piling up and Staley’s usual silent cat meowing in distress, McCallum called the authorities. Once officers arrived on the scene, McCallum and her ex-husband Jim Elmer finally entered the apartment—and made the most heartbreaking discovery imaginable.

They found that Staley had passed some time ago, due to an overdose

It would be eight years before fellow bandmate Mike Starr would confess to being the last person to see Staley before his passing on April 5, 2002. Although Starr was never able to forgive himself for leaving Staley that night, McCallum was firm that neither she, her family, nor Staley would’ve blamed him.

She said, “Layne would forgive you. He’d say ‘Hey, I did this. Not you’”. Tragically, Starr followed in his friend’s footsteps, dying of an overdose in 2011.

Since his passing, there have been numerous tributes to the life that Layne Staley lived. While his struggles defined his passing, those who loved him most want him to be remembered for who he was instead. He was a talented and emotional man who prospered despite his suffering. That is the tribute that those who loved him most continue to make.

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You can find Area 51 in the deserts of Nevada, just 83 miles northwest of Las Vegas. It’s located beside a dry lake known as Groom Lake. We don’t recommend that you get too close, however, for your own safety.

You might be wondering why it’s called “Area 51” and the answer might surprise you for how ordinary it is. It was derived from a grid reference that existed on an atomic energy commission map. What, were you expecting something a bit more sinister?

Although Area 51 is found in Nevada, its administrators are actually found in southern California. These administrators are the staff of Edwards Air Force Base.

Interestingly, Area 51 shares a border with the Nevada Test Sites’ Yucca Flat region. In case that name doesn’t mean anything, this region is where more than 700 nuclear tests were carried out by the United States Department of Energy. Does this mean that Godzilla might rise up from Groom Lake one of these days?

Although Area 51 is kept off-limits to anyone who doesn’t work there, the surrounding area has evolved into a popular tourist destination. The small town of Rachel, which is nearby Area 51, often entertains these tourists. Nevada has gone one step further by dubbing State Route 375, the nearby highway, as the “Extraterrestrial Highway.”

This was done both for the conspiracies around Area 51 and the repeated testimonies of people who claim to have witnessed UFO activity in the area.

Area 51’s original airfield was established during the Second World War, but only after the Americans entered the field in 1941. This airfield was known as Indian Springs Air Force Auxiliary Field. In a very humble origin story, the airfield consisted of just two runways that were each 5,000 feet long and unpaved.

Area 51 has gone by a number of names over the course of its existence. Some of the monikers which didn’t stand the test of time are “Paradise Ranch,” “Watertown,” and “Dreamland.” To be honest, we can see why people didn’t use the nicknames that sound more suitable for Peter Pan’s home than a top-secret military base!

Speaking of those other nicknames, we actually know the origins of one of them. Kelly Johnson was one of the designers who worked on Lockheed’s U-2 aircraft, which was the first of Area 51’s projects—more on that later. Johnson coined the term “Paradise Ranch” for the area as an attempt to encourage workers to move out there and help establish Area 51 in the first place.

Frankly, given the facility’s current reputation, all he’d have to do nowadays is confirm one of the many conspiracy theories about the place online!

The original layout of Area 51 during the 1950s was quite humble in comparison to what it’s become now. We already mentioned the unpaved runway, but there were also three hangars, a control tower, a number of shelters, and trailer homes, which housed the small crew of workers who lived there. To try and help stave off boredom, a volleyball court and cinema were also built in Area 51.

Interestingly, for all that this place is a place of such serious national security, nothing is blocking you from trying to approach it. You heard us right; there are no fences or walls around Area 51. What they did put up, however, were a number of warning signs (more on those later).

We’ll just get the subjective stuff out of the way. Over the decades, endless theories have been established as to what really goes on in Area 51. These theories have ranged from artificial weather control, the development of time travel, studying downed alien spacecraft, and programs conducted by a government which supposedly rules over the entire world.

Naturally, given its ominous presence in American society, Area 51 has been parodied in several films over the years. Some of the more well-known recent films that have featured locations similar to Area 51 or which have referenced the facility include Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, Fantastic Four (2015), and Paul.

During the Lockheed program in the 1950s, a number of personnel had to be flown in regularly from outside of Area 51, and this presented a problem for effective secrecy. The solution that was thought up was an unorthodox flying schedule. Personnel would fly very early in the morning on Mondays and left the facility late at night on Fridays.

Presumably, everyone would be too busy recovering from or preparing for the weekend to notice a bunch of guys coming and going from the Nevada desert!

In 1959, Project OXCART was first established at Area 51. Among the purposes of this project was the testing and training for the Lockheed A-12 aircraft. A year after the project was first launched, an 8,500-foot runway was completed to replace the original.

Speaking of renovations, 1961 witnessed a complete overhaul of Area 51’s original layout, replacing or repurposing the existing buildings. Among the new additions to the facility were three surplus Navy hangars, a reservoir pond with a perimeter of trees for privacy, and 130 Babbitt duplex housing units.

If you try to use Google Maps to find Area 51, you’ll notice that someone at Google has quite the sense of humor. Any time someone moves the mouse cursor over Area 51, the cursor turns into a little spaceship. And no, you can’t use that as proof that you’ve seen alien spacecraft at Area 51!

One of the lesser-known films which deals with Area 51 would have to be the 1997 TV movie Trucks. Based on a short story by Stephen King, the story features aliens arriving at Nevada, declaring war on us, and turning trucks into sentient beings which target and kill people. And yes, this film was inspired by the same short story which inspired King’s directorial debut, Maximum Overdrive. You can see why it’s not fondly remembered!

Along with new projects and programs, Area 51 has only expanded over the years. Expansions were carried out in 1983, 1995, and 2015.

Speaking of that expansion in 2015, that particular expansion was a seizure of land which had belonged to a Nevada family for nearly 140 years. Because the land overlooked the base, a federal judge deemed that it posed a risk to national security, and so signed an order which transferred the property ownership to the United States Air Force.

It should surprise nobody that the found-footage horror genre should tackle the subject of Area 51 in one of their films. In 2015, Area 51 was released by Paramount Insurge. The film follows a group of young people infiltrating the top-secret facility to get answers for what happened to their friend after he was abducted.

Three guesses whether they find extraterrestrials when they arrive!

One of the most recent ways that Area 51 has appeared in the zeitgeist is thanks to James Rolfe, best known to millions of fans as the Angry Video Game Nerd. At last count, his videos have been seen more than 1.5 billion times. When the Internet celebrity got the clout and finances to make a movie about his famous character, Rolfe created a story which involved aliens, Area 51, and the Angry Video Game Nerd.

Despite mixed reviews, Angry Video Game Nerd: The Movie has achieved cult film status online.

In 1974, a CIA official whose name is lost to history sent a memo to William Colby, the then-director of the CIA. The memo reported photographs taken by astronauts onboard the Skylab space station. Specifically, the photographs were taken of a location which is clearly sensitive to the CIA, based on the language of the memo. It also resulted in a furious debate within the departments as to whether it was ethical to classify previously unclassified images in the name of national security.

Space historian Dwayne A. Day was one of the people particularly interested in the what is now known as the Skylab incident. He was convinced that the sensitive location was Area 51, and this was a time when the US government still didn’t even acknowledge that Area 51 was a thing. In 2006, Day published “Astronauts and Area 51: the Skylab Incident” in a free online publication known as The Space Review.

Long before Area 51 was established at Groom Lake, silver and lead were being mined around the aforementioned lake during the mid-19th century. In fact, the lake got its name from the English mining company called Groome Lead Mines Limited. It was this company which financed the establishment of the Conception Mines during the 1870s.

The mines around what would later be Area 51 stayed active for just under a century. Ownership of the mines did change during that time. Groome Lead Mines Limited relinquished their interests to J. B. Osborne and his partners. The mines were temporarily closed in 1918 but resumed production after the First World War was ended.

The mines closed for good in the 1950s, just as Area 51 itself was established instead.

One of the most famous portrayals of Area 51 in mainstream pop culture would have to be the 1996 sci-fi movie Independence Day. In it, the theory that aliens are being kept in that facility is taken to its “logical” conclusion by having it be the new base of operations for the good guys when the White House is destroyed by an alien invasion.

We’re suddenly wondering if that movie was ever screened at the real Area 51 just so everyone could have a laugh.

Speaking of Independence Day, a poster for the film appears in the TV series The X-Files, that classic show about shadowy conspiracies, paranormal activity, and everything in between. Surprisingly, Area 51 is only brought up in passing in the show. Frankly, we’d be sure that they’d spend at least a whole season there!

Believe it or not, Area 51 has been discussing the idea of drones and unmanned aircraft ever since 1960. This was spurred as a necessary goal due to the Soviets shooting down a U-2 aircraft with Greg Powers inside it. This resulted in a crisis which fueled hostilities and negative opinions during the Cold War.

Beginning in 1989, an American named Bob Lazar made a series of claims about Area 51 and the work which was done there. He not only claimed to have been a physicist who worked in Area 51, but he also claimed to have seen government documents which confirmed alien interactions with humans for over 10,000 years. Whether you believe him or not, Lazar’s stories were what really fuelled the general public’s interest in Area 51.

Regardless of whether you believe Bob Lazar’s claims, there’s no denying that he influenced pop culture in a big way by bringing public attention to Area 51 when the US government was still refusing to acknowledge the facility’s existence. In 2018, a documentary was released about Lazar titled Bob Lazar: Area 51 & Flying Saucers. On a side note, the documentary was narrated by actor Mickey Rourke.

The CIA only acknowledged the existence of Area 51 in 2013, in a 400-page history which was released to the public by the National Security Archive at George Washington University. Unfortunately for any conspiracy theorists out there, they didn’t make any mention of UFOs, aliens, or anything like that. But then again, would you really expect them to release that kind of information anyway?

In 2005, Midway Games released a video game focused entirely on the mysterious military facility, appropriately titled Area 51. The video game’s plot follows a small group of people facing off against mutants and aliens, of course! Developed by Midway Studios Austin, the game is actually inspired by an arcade game with the same name which first appeared in 1995.

Among the celebrities who provided voice work for the series were the late Powers Boothe, music legend Marilyn Manson, and X-Files star David Duchovny. Why are we not surprised by any of these people’s participation?

In case you consider walking past the warning signs of Area 51, be warned that you will be seen. Guards have been posted all over the area, and according to a man who used to work there as a guard, they have full authority to shoot or even kill any trespassers who ignore the warning signs. Frankly, we’d rather not try to dodge bullets just to go see some (alleged) aliens!

As many of you reading this have probably heard by now, Area 51 became a trending topic in a big way in July 2019, when a satirical proposal to storm the base became more popular than anyone could have imagined. Millions of people online voiced support for the push to invade Area 51, which was humorously titled “They Can’t Stop All of Us.”

The enthusiastic response was such that even the US military spoke up about it when they reinforced their position that “The US Air Force always stands ready to protect America and its assets.”

You might be wondering how the employees of such a restricted and heavily guarded area can access it. It turns out that any employees traveling to and from Area 51 don’t use cars, but a plane. Las Vegas’ McCarran International Airport has a restricted terminal, which is nicknamed the “Gold Coast.”

Speaking of that restricted terminal, even the planes which take employees to and from Area 51 are restricted! The planes are unmarked except for a red stripe along their bodies, and they belong to a classified airline which we only know as “Janet" (or "Just Another Non-Existent Terminal").

Area 51’s importance rose as the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union escalated. Soviet and other foreign aircraft which were captured by the US were transferred to Area 51 for extensive study. While these actions weren’t exclusive to Area 51, they took over from previous efforts as the years went on.

Area 51 was first established in 1955 by the CIA. It was here that the reconnaissance aircraft known as the Lockheed U-2 was designed, in part by Kelly Johnson. Due to the need for secrecy, Lockheed conducted flight tests and pilot training programs at Area 51 rather than at their own facilities. The climate and terrain were also extremely beneficial to flight tests.

In 1994, a lawsuit was filed against the US Air Force and the US Environmental Protection Agency. The plaintiffs were five contractors and the widows of two others. The contractors claimed that they had been exposed to unknown chemicals when they were at Area 51, leading to high levels of such toxins as dioxin and dibenzofuran in their body fat.

Liver, skin, and respiratory problems were also reported by the plaintiffs as consequences of their exposure to the chemicals.

The 1994 lawsuit demanded not only financial compensation for the injuries and deaths caused by the actions undertaken by Area 51 personnel, they also wanted information on the chemicals released so that treatment could respond accordingly. In response, the Air Force, who oversees Area 51, argued that declassifying such information would threaten national security.

Ultimately, the lawsuit by the contractors against the Air Force and the EPA was dismissed due to a lack of evidence. This was achieved by a determination by then-President Bill Clinton to exempt Area 51 from environmental disclosure laws. This exception is renewed yearly by the US president to this day.

As we mentioned before, the U-2 was being frequently flown around Area 51 during the 1950s. This type of aircraft was known to fly 60,000 feet above the ground, back when most military aircraft flew at 40,000 feet and civilian aircraft at 20,000. The extreme height of the U-2 led to the setting sun catching the aircraft’s metal wings.

This phenomenon has been used to explain away many of the supposed UFO sightings that people have reported witnessing in Nevada.

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Preparation for Balloonfest took six months. Workers constructed a large structure to hold the balloons; it was three stories high and the size of a city block. Inside, 2,500 volunteers got down to business, filling over 1.4 million balloons with helium. It was an overwhelming sight to behold, but nothing compared to the day of their fateful release.

On September 27, 1986, large crowds of people gathered to witness Balloonfest unfold. It was a spectacle right from the start. Clouds of balloons soared up and around buildings. Visually, it was an outstanding success—but a front of cool air and precipitation pushed them toward the ground before they had a chance to deflate. Chaos ensued.

As balloons began wreaking havoc through the city and beyond, they became an environmental hazard and endangered human life. Not only did they clog waterways, but they also distracted drivers who had to swerve around them on the road. As a result, there were many traffic collisions, and a bulldozer was required to shovel away piles of balloons. But that wasn’t all.

On the day of the event, two fishermen were reported missing—Raymond Broderick and Bernard Sulzer. Though rescuers were able to locate their boat, the “asteroid field” of balloons made it difficult for them to reach the area. What’s more? All of the floating balloons made it impossible to see the fishermen in the water. The Coast Guard had no choice but to call off their search. Some time later, Broderick and Sulzer’s bodies washed up on shore.

In the end, Balloonfest ’86 was a heartbreaking failure all around. Although it broke the record for the "largest ever mass balloon release,” the fundraiser lost money, and two men tragically lost their lives. It also made Guinness World Records change their standards. Because of the damage wrought, they no longer measure events that harm the environment.

Source: 1

John Montagu, 4th Earl of Sandwich, did not invent the idea of putting food between bread. Still, his title became attached to the meal in 18th-century Britain, with Edward Gibbon using “sandwich” in a diary entry in 1762. The famous story that Montagu ordered one so he could keep gambling is much harder to prove.

Guy Fawkes helped plot to blow up Parliament in 1605, but his strangest legacy came later. Effigies of Fawkes became known as “guys,” and the word gradually shifted from an odd-looking person to an ordinary man. Millions of people now say “guy” without thinking about the failed Gunpowder Plot.

In 1880, Irish tenants and their supporters socially isolated land agent Charles Boycott during a dispute over rents. Workers left him, businesses shunned him, and newspapers spread the story far beyond Ireland. His surname quickly became a word for refusing to deal with someone as a form of protest.

Texas landowner Samuel Maverick became known for leaving much of his cattle unbranded. Unbranded animals associated with him were eventually called “mavericks.” The word later expanded to mean an independent person who refuses to follow the crowd.

Union general Ambrose Burnside was famous for the enormous whiskers running down the sides of his face. Similar facial hair became known as “burnsides” before the syllables were flipped into “sideburns.” His military reputation may be complicated, but his beard won linguistic immortality.

Étienne de Silhouette briefly served as France's controller-general of finances in 1759. His name soon became attached to simple profile portraits and eventually to any dark outline of a person or object. Exactly why remains debated, but “silhouette” long outlived his political career.

James Brudenell, 7th Earl of Cardigan, led the Charge of the Light Brigade during the Crimean War. His title later became attached to the familiar knitted jacket that opens down the front. Anyone pulling on a cardigan is casually invoking a controversial Victorian cavalry officer.

Women's rights activist Amelia Bloomer became closely associated with loose trousers worn beneath a shorter skirt. She did not invent the outfit, but she enthusiastically promoted it in her newspaper, The Lily. Her publicity worked so well that the trousers became known as “bloomers.”

French acrobat Jules Léotard became famous for daring trapeze performances in the 19th century. He wore a close-fitting garment that allowed him to move freely while performing. That costume eventually took his surname and became the modern leotard.

During a 1902 hunting trip, President Theodore Roosevelt refused to shoot a black bear that had been tied up for him. The incident inspired a famous cartoon and later a stuffed toy called “Teddy's Bear.” Roosevelt's nickname soon became inseparable from one of the world's most familiar toys.

Diplomat Joel Roberts Poinsett encountered a striking red plant while serving as the first U.S. minister to Mexico. He helped introduce it to the United States, where it eventually became known as the poinsettia. His name now appears in homes and stores every Christmas season.

Massachusetts governor Elbridge Gerry signed a redistricting bill in 1812 that benefited his political party. One strangely shaped district was compared to a salamander, inspiring the word “Gerry-mander.” More than two centuries later, gerrymandering still means manipulating electoral boundaries for political advantage.

John Duns Scotus was a highly respected medieval philosopher and theologian. His followers became known as “Duns men,” but Renaissance critics began using the term mockingly. Over time, “dunce” came to mean an ignorant or slow-witted person.

Draco was an ancient Athenian lawgiver remembered for the extreme severity associated with his legal code. Ancient accounts claimed even minor crimes could receive brutal punishments. His reputation became so strong that “Draconian” still means excessively harsh or severe.

Niccolò Machiavelli wrote The Prince, his famous examination of political power and leadership. His reputation soon inspired “Machiavellian,” a word for cunning, manipulative, or ruthless behavior. His surname became shorthand for political scheming centuries after his death.

Physician Franz Anton Mesmer promoted the 18th-century theory of “animal magnetism.” His practices inspired the word “mesmerism” and eventually the verb “mesmerize.” Today, someone can be mesmerized by anything captivating, even though Mesmer's medical theories have long disappeared.

Italian physician Luigi Galvani studied electrical effects in the muscles of frogs. His surname inspired “galvanism” and later the verb “galvanize.” The word eventually expanded beyond electricity to mean suddenly spurring someone into action.

Louis Pasteur showed that carefully heating liquids could help prevent spoilage caused by microorganisms. The process became known as pasteurization and eventually spread to milk, beer, juice, and other products. Few scientists have their surnames printed on grocery labels quite so often.

French diplomat Jean Nicot helped promote tobacco in 16th-century France, when Europeans often believed it had medicinal benefits. His surname became part of the botanical name Nicotiana. It later gave us “nicotine,” the name of tobacco's addictive chemical.

Belgian instrument maker Adolphe Sax developed a new family of wind instruments in the 19th century. The best-known became the saxophone, combining his surname with a word element relating to sound. Every saxophone still announces its inventor's name before anyone plays a note.

German engineer Rudolf Diesel developed the compression-ignition engine that still bears his surname. His engines became widely used in trucks, ships, trains, and heavy machinery. Eventually, his name also became the everyday word for the fuel powering them.

Louis Braille began developing his raised-dot reading system while still a teenager in Paris. Inspired by an earlier military communication system, he created a much simpler six-dot code. His surname became the everyday name for a system that transformed literacy for blind people worldwide.

Joseph-Ignace Guillotin did not invent the guillotine, and he was never executed by one. The French doctor actually opposed capital punishment but supported a standardized, supposedly more humane method of execution. His surname became permanently attached to the machine anyway.

British artillery officer Henry Shrapnel developed a shell that scattered projectiles over enemy troops. The weapon became known by his surname, and “shrapnel” later expanded to mean fragments thrown by explosions more generally. His name survived long after the original weapon became obsolete.

Thomas Bowdler published an edited version of Shakespeare that removed material he considered indecent or unsuitable for families. His approach became notorious enough that “bowdlerize” entered the language. It still means removing material considered offensive or inappropriate from a text.

Charles Ponzi was not the first person to run the type of fraud now associated with his name. His hugely publicized investment scheme collapsed in 1920 after using new investors' money to pay earlier investors. “Ponzi scheme” became the standard term for that kind of financial deception.

Most people disappear from everyday conversation not long after they disappear from history. These figures somehow did the opposite, becoming sandwiches, sweaters, scams, insults, inventions, and political tactics. Language may be the strangest monument anyone can leave behind.

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Life never did Caterina Sforza any favors. From the moment that she entered the world, she found herself at a disadvantage. Although her father was Galeazzo Maria Sforza, Duke of Milan, her mother was Lucrezia Landriani—his mistress. As Galeazzo’s illegitimate daughter, Caterina may have had biological claims to his impressive legacy, but socially, her ability to access that prestige depended on her father's whims.

Thankfully for Caterina, her father appeared inclined to keep his children in his life. Galeazzo brought Caterina, along with her three siblings (all his illegitimate children via Landriani), to court when his father passed, and this elevated him to the title of Duke of Milan. However, it was there that they had to contend with some powerful forces: namely, the duke’s wives.

Galeazzo married Dorotea Gonzaga the same year that he became the Duke of Milan. During this time, his mother, Bianca Maria Visconti, had charge of his children by another woman. However, Gonzaga had little time to complain about Galeazzo’s illegitimate children living in her household, as fate dealt her a tragic twist.

According to some sources, she succumbed to illness before the marriage took place. Others state that she passed slightly later. However, regardless of the date, Galeazzo quickly replaced her, leaving Caterina at the mercy of another woman.

Galeazzo married his second wife, Bona of Savoy, on May 9, 1458. Bona promptly adopted Caterina and all of her siblings, therefore legitimizing their births and allowing a whole world to open up to them. Caterina received a thorough education, which led her to take pride not just in her warrior ancestors but also in her savvy political skills. 

Caterina’s childhood proved informative and useful; unfortunately, her brains and education couldn’t save her from the fate that awaited all women.

Although Caterina proved to be a strong student, both passionate and intelligent, she remained a woman in a time when women had one role within society: elevating their family's status by securing a favorable marriage. That meant she was only 10 years old when she pinned down a "desirable" match. 

Caterina's future husband, Girolamo Riario, was a whopping 20 years older than her. But the backstory of how she snagged him is quite unnerving. You see, Girolamo was initially engaged to Caterina's 11-year-old cousin, Constanza. Reportedly, there was one awful reason why Caterina became the more desirable bride.

At the time, the legal age was 14. Constanza's mother wanted her to come of age before consummating her marriage to Girolamo. As the story goes, there was no wait time for Caterina, who supposedly proved willing to submit to Girolamo's desires despite the fact that she was still a child. Other sources, however, suggest that Caterina did wait for four years to consummate the marriage.

Whatever the truth might be, the marriage was a powerful one—and Caterina took full advantage of it.

In marrying Girolamo, Caterina now belonged to two of the most extravagant Italian courts. After all, her husband was Lord of Imola and her father was the Duke of Milan. In 1477, Caterina arrived in Rome—a city bustling with potential, passion, and culture. But though she was surrounded by powerful people, behind the scenes, her husband had some chilling expectations of her.

Girolamo didn't want his young wife sticking her nose into politics. However, he sorely underestimated her magnetism. Caterina certainly knew how to hold her own, wielding charismatic social skills and an extroverted personality. It wasn't long before Roman aristocrats welcomed her into their circles. But this was only the beginning.

Caterina wasn't just a beloved noblewoman, she was also incredibly beautiful. She had society wrapped around her little finger—even the pope. And as she grew up in this world of intrigue, she shed the chrysalis of childhood, becoming an influential mediator in her own right, flitting between the Roman court and other Italian courts.

Then in 1479, she took on a brand new role.

In addition to being a dutiful wife, Caterina also became a dutiful mother, welcoming her first child, Ottaviano, in 1479. But she didn't stop there. Over the next decade, she would give birth to five more children. However, this wasn't a time of peace and relaxation for the noble family. Fate had a tumultuous plan in store for them all.

For a time, life was smooth-sailing for Caterina. After all, Pope Sixtus IV favored her husband, and elevated his power. Girolamo earned himself a reputation for being quite ruthless with his enemies, and was eventually given the lordship of Forlì in 1480. However, when the pope perished in 1484, Caterina and Girolamo's lives changed in a brutal and sudden way.

Pope Sixtus IV passed in August 1482—and his demise had an immediate effect on Caterina's life. Chaos and anarchy ensued as rebellions began to rumble across Rome. With no one to control them, looters rampaged through the city. They nearly destroyed Caterina’s own home in Compo de’Fiori. 

However, in times of trouble, Caterina proved to be her most efficient. Instead of cowering, she took charge. 

No one would have blamed Caterina for cowering in the face of the chaos around her, should she have chosen to. Not only did her home almost go up in flames, but she was also seven months pregnant at this time. However, Caterina did not see that as a setback. Instead, while her husband took charge from within the city, she did something unbelievably brave.

Heavily pregnant, Caterina crossed the dangerous waters of the Tiber via horseback to control the chaos from the edges, ultimately taking charge of Castel Sant’Angelo in Rome. It was a highly strategic position, and she used it to wield her power and influence over one thing in particular.

At this time, the Pope used this building as a personal fortress. Therefore, from this position, Caterina could keep an eye on the Vatican and the creation of a new conclave. She monitored who entered the Castel Sant’Angelo, and had high demands about who was allowed entrance into the stronghold she claimed the Pope had given to her family to control. Caterina proved an obstacle too great to overcome.

So mighty was Caterina’s hold on Castel Sant’Angelo that the cardinals feared they would catch artillery from Caterina should they attend Pope Sixtus IV's funeral or attempt to enter the conclave. Although they attempted to convince Caterina to leave her position within Castel Sant’Angelo, she would not budge—even as Rome seemed to burn around them. 

The situation couldn’t have been more fraught. Rome needed the election of a new pope to calm the destruction that continued. However, Caterina would not budge from her position. Therefore, the Cardinals did what any man did when forced to deal with an “unreasonable woman”. They pleaded with her husband. After all, any good husband could control his wife—right?

The cardinals felt that the obvious solution to their problems was the immediate removal of Girolamo and Caterina from Rome. Therefore, they bargained with Girolamo. In return for leaving Rome and taking his wife with him, he would retain his titles, receive money for the damages to his destroyed property, and gain the post of captain-general of the Church. 

Girolamo considered this a fair deal and accepted—but Caterina didn’t agree.

When they informed Caterina of her husband’s compromise, Caterina responded contrary to how they expected her to. Instead of ending her siege upon the papacy, she doubled down. She increased the number of men supporting her and prepared for engagement to force the Cardinals to discuss the matter with her. 

Caterina could not be moved. At a loss for what else to do, they called in the only person they thought could oppose her: her husband. 

The cardinals returned to Girolamo, informing him of the difficult situation Caterina had created. As a response, he stood against his wife. It’s unclear how strongly he opposed Caterina. However, in the end, she finally agreed to release the stronghold from her grasp and allowed her husband to take her and their family back to their place in Forlì... But even more problems awaited them there.

As they returned to Forlì, the announcement of their new Pope reached them. The conclave elected Giovanni Battista Cybo as Pope Innocent VIII. But this posed an alarming problem. Bad blood existed between Caterina, her husband, and the newly christened Innocent VIII. 

While he honored the agreement made in theory, allowing Girolamo to keep his titles and appointment, he effectively severed all of the family’s ties to the papacy. The financial consequences were devastating.

While ensuring that Girolamo no longer had any control over the papal army in any way, Innocent also refused to pay Girolamo. In an attempt to gain favor in Forlì, Girolamo had removed all taxes within the state. Despite having no other source of income, he refused to reinstate the taxes. Although a seemingly generous position, Girolamo failed to create another source of income for the state. 

Soon, Caterina found herself cleaning up her husband’s problems.

By the end of 1485, Caterina and her husband had a nightmare on their hands. The government no longer had any money, thus forcing Girolamo to reinstate the taxes. However, thanks to their now impoverished state, the people were crushed by the sheer weight of the ballooned taxes. 

As a result, whispers of something troubling began to spread through Forlí. The people weren’t happy with their lord—and, as his wife, Caterina faced their wrath too.

Girolamo had already made himself unpopular with the people of Forlì by persecuting anyone he viewed as an enemy harshly. The raised taxes turned even more citizens against him, and they began to wonder why they put up with this man at all. A conspiracy began to grow, designed to remove Girolamo and place Pope Innocent’s illegitimate son in control instead. 

With tensions growing, something drastic needed to happen.

It took the citizens of Forlì at least six failed attempts before they succeeded in their goal. The noble family, Orsis, led a successful move against Caterina's husband in April 1488. Tragically. Girolamo lost his life, while Caterina and her children faced their own terrifying fate: prison. 

However, Caterina was not one to sit by idly while people took advantage of her, and anyone who thought she would was sorely mistaken.

Although the Orsis rebellion succeeded in taking out Caterina's husband, the fortress of Ravaldio, a key part of the city's defenses, remained loyal to Caterina. The rebels couldn’t overcome it. This proved key to Caterina’s plan. Taking advantage of their desperation, she volunteered to persuade Tommaso Feo, who held the fortress, to let go of his hold. 

They couldn’t possibly have realized the depth of their mistake until it was far too late.

They believed Caterina to be genuine in her offer to help—or, at least, believed they could control her even if she was not—because they still had her children. However, as soon as Caterina had gotten within the fortress and away from capture, she began flinging insults and vows of vengeance against them. 

They began to realize their mistake; however, even here, they underestimated the lengths Caterina would go to win. 

Once they realized Caterina’s betrayal, her former captors pulled out what they thought was their ace card. They threatened to kill Caterina’s children. However, as the infamous story goes, this didn’t bother Caterina one bit. Supposedly, Cateria replied by exposing herself and yelling, “Do it, if you want to: hang them even in front of me ... here I have what's needed to make others!” 

They likely didn’t get the eyeful the stories claim, but Caterina proved to be smarter than her captors regardless. 

Though the story of Caterina's scandalous undressing is likely a historical tall tale, more reputable sources claim that she told the captors that she was pregnant. This undermined the conspirators' plans, for it meant even if they got rid of all of Caterina’s children, she still carried one more legitimate child of Girolamo's. 

They’d never gain the power they coveted, not while Caterina and the unborn child lived. It proved to be the one move that changed everything—and Caterina orchestrated it all.

Although the pregnancy was likely a lie to trick her enemies, it worked. They were too shocked to do anything to her children, and this enabled Caterina the time needed to gather support from her uncle and regain her family’s position within Forlì and Imola. As a result, Caterina gained another thing: a unique position of power.

Once Caterina settled the matter of the rebellion, the administration and magistrates recognized her son, Ottaviano, as the new Lord of Forlì. However, as they also recognized that he was too young to rule, Caterina rose to the powerful position of his regent—much to the concern and displeasure of those around her.

Although they granted Caterina the title of regent for her son, most of the men who held power expressed concern over it, as women were believed to be “irrational and vulnerable”. Therefore, they couldn’t possibly trust Caterina with so much power. They even went as far as sending Cardinal Raffaele Riario to watch Caterina under the guise of protecting his late cousin’s children. However, Caterina needed little to no monitoring. 

She took control swiftly and far more efficiently than her husband ever had.

Caterina got to work—and performed brilliantly. She lowered and controlled the taxes that had caused her late husband so many problems. She immediately took charge of training the militia. But that was only the tip of the iceberg. Caterina's rule ushered in peace and order, and she had high expectations of her people. 

However, she had no control over the forces revolving around her—despite her control, Caterina soon found herself at the center of conflict, quite literally.

As Caterina began exerting her power over Forlì, Italy faced a host of other changes. Namely, the appointment of a new Pope, who favored Caterina due to past friendships. Additionally, the passing of Lorenzo il Magnifico led to increasing conflicts between Milan and Naples. This astounding domino effect eventually led to King Charles VIII of France invading Italy, causing Caterina to consider the position of Imola and Forlì carefully. 

One wrong move could undermine everything that she’d built.

Caterina intended to remain neutral as she knew Forlì had a vulnerable position and she had connections to all feuding members. However, the Duke of Calabria persuaded her to involve herself in the conflict—and then abandoned her when it became clear that he did not have the forces to support her. 

When the conflict rose again, Caterina remained neutral, succeeding in holding onto her ties to all important powers. While Caterina saw Forlì safely through conflict, there was still scandal on the horizon. 

Only 25 when Girolamo Riario widowed her, Caterina remained a desirable marriage prospect—all the more so because of the power she held through her young son. Men quickly attempted to take advantage of this. None tried harder than Antonio Maria Ordelaffi. 

Antonio felt so confident in his courtship of Caterina that he began telling people that Caterina had made promises that she’d never made—a mistake he soon wished he’d never made.

Antonio wrote to a friend that Caterina would one day be his future bride. Caterina, having no intention of marrying a man who so clearly felt he could control her, swiftly handled the situation. She imprisoned anyone responsible for giving this rumor wings. As for Antonio, he ended up confined for 10 years as the Senate in Venice dealt with the matter. 

With Antonio handled, Caterina’s heart remained open, if someone dared to try to take it—in fact, someone already had.

Caterina fought hard alongside the Feo family to secure her family’s position when conspirators attempted to take it from her. She formed strong connections with those whom she fought alongside; however, none were as strong as her connection with Giacomo Feo. With Giacomo, Caterina finally found love. However, her position meant that she couldn’t indulge in it.

Giacomo proved himself to be faithful and a strong fighter. However, he had no education nor any noble blood. Moreover, Caterina’s position as regent of her son proved precarious. Those around her already did not like that she was a woman. Another marriage surely would undermine her authority. That being said, Caterina did not enjoy being told what to do; she’d have her cake and eat it too.

Caterina married Giacomo. She just didn’t let anyone know about it. Instead, they kept their affair a secret. Over time, Giacomo began to gain more and more power. However, as he grew in power, his unkindness, particularly towards Caterina’s children, became more and more obvious. Giacomo undermined everything Caterina worked so hard for. Caterina, however, appeared enthralled by him.

Giacomo held no love for Caterina’s children by her first husband. In one instance, he reportedly slapped Ottaviano, the rightful lord of Forlì, yet by that point, Giacomo had gained enough power that all who witnessed this horror show feared speaking out. It seemed Giacomo couldn't care less if Caterina’s first set of children passed, and, according to some sources, neither did Caterina.

Some sources claim that Caterina was so enthralled by Giacomo that she would not care if he or anyone offed her first husband’s children. Even worse? She was reportedly prepared to end her children's lives herself rather than be separated from Giacomo. Caterina had lost all sense of reason. But this was only the calm before the storm.

It became apparent that Caterina would never harm Giacomo. Therefore, someone needed to do something about it.  Even Caterina’s own children were willing to stand against their mother and her vile husband. If Caterina did not leave Giacomo, then they would have to step in... and so began an illicit conspiracy.

One dark night in 1498, when Caterina, Giacomo, and several of her children returned from a hunt, those involved in the plot surprised Giacomo with force and ended his life. In her grief, Caterina’s rage knew no bounds. She threw politics out the window. Executing those who'd set upon her great love wasn’t enough for Caterina. She wanted something even more brutal—and what she came up with was unspeakable. 

She demanded to know the names of the men involved, and then went to their homes, getting her foot soldiers to drag their wives (some of whom were pregnant) and children from their beds and take their lives. She then put a bounty on each conspirator's head. 38 people died in the name of Caterina’s grief. Caterina became the villain in the story. However, as Giacomo proved, even villains could be loved.

Despite being widowed twice, Caterina was still young. She fell in love again, this time with Giovanni de’ Medici il Popolano, a member of the powerful Medici family. Although Caterina had the approval of her children and uncle this time, she still married Giovanni in secret, fearful of causing opposition from other powerful Italian families who did not approve of the union. 

Caterina may have found happiness. However, she wouldn’t keep it—perhaps her past crimes proved too much for her to deserve happiness.

Giovanni succumbed to an illness two years after their marriage. Now alone once more, Caterina had another dangerous and powerful family to contend with: the Borgias. In France, Louis XII came to the throne; thanks to his heritage, he had claims to Milan and Naples. This led to the appointment of Cesare Borgia as ruler of Romagna and sent him marching towards Forlì. 

With no allies, Caterina found herself alone in Forlì as Cesare marched upon her. Fortunately, Caterina flourished under pressure.

Having sent her children to Florence for safety, Caterina met Cesare by herself, supported only by her men and the belief that Ravaldino remained impenetrable. She’d absolved her people of their fealty, freeing them to flee, and prepared to face Cesare from Ravaldino alone. 

Caterina refused to negotiate peace, and Cesare became incensed—he wanted her dead or alive, and even put a price of 10,000 ducats on her head. She welcomed the challenge, better to fall in glory than run in cowardice.

All across Italy, bards sang of Caterina’s determined and lonely resistance against Cesare’s persistent attack. Eventually, however, the walls fell and Cesare’s forces flooded in. Realizing that resistance was futile, Caterina made one last calculated move. 

She surrendered to Antoine Bissey, aware that the French had a law against prisoners of war who were women. Caterina’s political savviness knew no bounds. Unfortunately, her reprieve from Cesare remained short-lived. 

Cesare took Caterina from the French under the promise to treat her as a guest, not a prisoner. He held her briefly in Belvedere Palace in Rome until a failed escape attempt forced them to move Caterina. To justify imprisoning Caterina, they accused her of attempting to poison the pope—something she easily could have done. 

History has a way of repeating itself; as Caterina neared the end of her life, she found herself in one of the places that had defined her youth.

They held Caterina in Castel Sant’Angelo, the very place she’d held onto all those years ago by force. Eventually, they released her, sending her to Florence and her children. Although the eventual fall of Cesare meant that Forlì and Imola could return to her, she’d damaged her image too much. The people did not want her. 

In the end, Caterina passed from pneumonia at the age of 46. In a time when women were viewed as weak, Caterina proved the opposite. She lived her life with fire and passion—they could take everything from her, but even in the afterlife, Caterina Sforza never relinquished her pride.

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Sources: 1, 2, 3, 4

The woman we came to know as Carole Lombard was actually born Alice Jane Peters, to wealthy parents. Her mother took her to Los Angeles when she was just six years old—but this isn’t what you’d think. Lombard wasn’t a spoiled prima donna whose stage mom bought her way into Hollywood. She never intended to end up on the silver screen…so her entry into the film industry was pretty unconventional.

As a kid, Lombard was a total tomboy. She excelled at pretty much every sport that her school offered. In just one day, that talent changed the course of her whole life. Lombard was playing baseball with friends when film director Allan Dwan noticed her. She was plucky, outgoing, and most importantly, she was kicking everyone’s butts on the field.

So, he gave Lombard her first film role at just 12 years old—but she wasn’t exactly an overnight success.

Lombard relished working on the set of Dwan’s 1921 film A Perfect Crime, and rode high off of her own unexpected success—but she was in for a heartbreaking disappointment. The film didn’t get very far. When she decided to use it as a springboard to audition for other parts, she found only more disappointment and rejection. For three years—quite a long time for a girl her age—she had no luck.

Then, just as she was about to give up, a brush with one of Hollywood’s biggest stars turned things around.

Charlie Chaplin was preparing to make his magnum opus, The Gold Rush, and had an entire team out in Hollywood scouting for co-stars. One of his men spotted Lombard and sent her for a screen test. Although she didn’t end up in the film, the screen test changed hands a number of times before landing at the Vitagraph Film Company. They compelled her to take the stage name Carole, but they didn’t offer her a film contract.

Still, all the hubbub surrounding her screen test meant that she was the talk of the town. Finally, film execs were taking note.

The 16-year-old Lombard ultimately ended up at the Fox Film Corporation, ready to take on Hollywood. While they only had bit parts for her, she managed to take on the town in another way. She was hob-knobbing with stars on set, getting into the flapper lifestyle, and becoming a fixture at the Cocoanut Grove nightclub. Sadly, it came back to haunt her.

Lombard definitely had what it took to become a fixture on the Hollywood party circuit. However, when it came to being a leading lady, she hadn’t yet convinced her studio. They gave her one chance—in the silent drama Marriage in Transit—but they opted not to renew her contract. She needed to shake things up…and that’s exactly what she did.

Above all, Lombard was a good-time girl—so why should she swan about melancholically in a drama when her sense of humor and vivacity was much more well-suited to comedy? At 19, Lombard joined up with Mack Sennett to appear in the first of a series of slapstick comedies. But just as finally found her niche, her career was nearly derailed completely.

One night in September 1927, Lombard was out on a date with a man named Harry Cooper. They were driving down Santa Monica Boulevard when a terrifying tragedy struck. Cooper accidentally crashed the car they were in, and the windshield shattered. Deep cuts covered her face and blood poured from her wounds. After rushing to the hospital, doctors performed emergency surgery, but the damage was extremely bad.

The crash was devastating—but her nightmare was just beginning.

The accident left Lombard with a prominent scar, a long recovery period…and a budding career in peril. Silent films frequently used extreme close-ups on actors’ faces to communicate emotion—and Lombard’s scar was extremely visible on camera. She was terrified that she was about to lose everything she’d worked for—so she took drastic action.

As you can imagine, the dramatic and damaging crash put a damper on Lombard’s romance with Harry Cooper. Lombard and her mother actually ended up suing Cooper for $35,000 in damages. The court papers explained that the accident had left her unable to work, when she’d previously been getting $300 per week. Ultimately, they settled for $3,000—but Lombard had an unexpected ally on her side.

Lombard’s boss Mack Sennett was a shining success in Hollywood, having made hundreds of silent films and shorts. Lombard had worked on no more than a couple of his films when she got into her accident, and he didn’t really owe her anything. But Sennett must have seen something special in her, because he not only vowed that he’d keep her contract—he came up with a plan to make her a star.

Sennett provided Lombard with high-profile, well-paying roles, lots of publicity, and even gave her a racy new nickname. Sennett deemed her “Carole of the Curves.” Not only did it work to emphasize her body, it drew the focus away from her face—and by extension, her scar. She appeared in 18 different Sennett shorts, which jump-started her career and helped her polish her comedy skills.

In just two years, she went from a potential has-been to a promising new star—and now, it was time for her to move on from Sennett shorts to the big time.

Lombard was ready for stardom. She just needed the big break to help her make the jump from shorts to features. After leading roles in a few smaller comedies—much needed during the Depression era—Paramount signed her to her biggest contract yet at $350 per week, which would increase tenfold over the next five years. She was finally getting compensation for her hard work, but it took something entirely different to catapult her right onto the A-list.

Lombard appeared in a whopping five films in 1931. Two of them had her starring opposite suave leading man William Powell, whom she’d long admired. Well, her beamed that admiration right back at her. Powell fell for her, and fell hard. He proposed multiple times, but she wasn’t ready to hang up her career and become a housewife. Finally, he gave in. He agreed that she could keep acting…but that was easier said than done.

Despite their age difference—she was 22, he was 38—the pair rushed to the altar and tied the knot that June. However, it wasn’t exactly happily ever after. Lombard tried to fulfill the role of a doting housewife, while Powell tried to lighten up and appreciate her laid-back, unconstrained nature. They were incredibly different, to the point of being incompatible. Soon enough, the cracks began to show.

Maybe they should have seen it coming—after all, there were not one but two mishaps that seemed like bad omens. During the ceremony, Powell was so anxious that he forgot which finger to put Lombard’s ring on. Then, on their honeymoon to Hawaii, Lombard was so ill with the flu that she could barely look at her new husband, let alone enjoy their trip. Not a great sign…

Regardless of their problems, Lombard’s marriage to an A-lister increased her star power exponentially—not that she didn’t deserve the attention. Critics heaped praise on her for each successive film, and as the audience got to know her, they fell in love just as Powell once had. Producers paired her with another rising star, Clark Gable, in a film called No Man Of Her Own.

They eventually became very important to each other—but in 1932, it wasn’t exactly a love at first sight situation.

Lombard and Gable clashed on set. She was angry at the studio for loaning her out, and he found her off-putting. Still, they got through it. At the end of the shoot, they each had the good humor to give each other gag gifts. Gable got Lombard a pair of ballet shoes with a card that said, “To a true primadonna,” while she got him a ham with a picture of his face on it.

They each got a solid laugh, and then parted ways. As we’ll see, the next time they met, the circumstances were entirely different.

After 26 months of marriage, Lombard and Powell finally called it quits—but their high-profile divorce was far from conventional. Lombard went to Reno for the divorce, which Powell didn’t contest, and she didn’t ask for any money from him. She even made a joke in the divorce papers, saying this his foul mouth was one of the reasons they couldn’t make it work—when she was famously the one who was all-too-liberal with swear words.

It was probably one of the cleanest divorces Hollywood had ever seen. It left Lombard free to go back to her party-girl lifestyle, including plenty of nights out at the Cocoanut Grove.

It was during one of those nights out at the Cocoanut Grove where Lombard met singer Russ Columbo. It was love at first sight—and this time, things were a lot different than her ill-fated marriage to Powell. Lombard and Columbo were the same age and had similar lifestyles and personalities. It was a match made in heaven. Many expected that marriage would follow—but it wasn’t meant to be.

One afternoon in September of 1934, Columbo stopped at his old friend Lansing Brown’s house to take some publicity photos. The pair were examining some of Brown’s collection of firearms when a devastating tragedy struck. Brown accidentally set off an antique dueling pistol. The ball that he fired hit a wooden table and ricocheted, embedding itself deep into Columbo’s left eye—the same side where Lombard had suffered her injury in the car accident.

Sadly, Columbo wouldn’t be as lucky as his paramour.

An ambulance rushed Columbo to the hospital, where doctors worked frantically to save his life and retrieve the metal ball from where it had entered his eye and gone through to his brain. Finally, after six hours, Columbo succumbed to his injuries. He was only 26. His loss left Lombard absolutely bereft—but sadly, this was just the beginning of her ordeal.

At Columbo’s star-studded funeral, Lombard made a poignant tribute to honor her dearly departed love. His favorite flowers had been white gardenias. Lombard made sure that every attendee wore one. However, there was one conspicuous absence from the service.

Just days before Columbo’s untimely death, his mother had suffered a heart attack. Together with Columbo’s siblings, Lombard made a  heartbreaking decision. They decided not to tell Columbo’s mother that he’d passed on, fearing that she couldn’t handle the shock. Lombard visited her weekly, and read letters that she’d written from Russ’s perspective, claiming they were from Russ.

For the remaining ten years of her life, Columbo’s mother never had to know about the terrible accident that had taken her son’s life. And Lombard didn’t just show this level of empathy in the wake of tragedy, either.

Above all, Lombard was altruistic and absolutely dedicated to the health and happiness of those around her. Her close friend and tennis coach remembered telling Lombard about another tennis player, Alice Marble, who was struggling with her health. Lombard called up Marble and helped raise her spirits when she was sick and unable to play—and that’s not all.

Lombard even arranged for Marble to see a new doctor, who gave her a second opinion that helped save her career. This was before they’d even met in person! After they had actually met, Lombard went to most of Marble’s matches to cheer her on. Marble went on to win multiple Grand Slams—which she likely would not have been able to do without Lombard’s help.

Lombard tried to use her career and fame for good…but sadly, as we’ll see later, it eventually led to her dark end.

Lombard deeply mourned the loss of Russ Columbo—but with her grief came an unexpected fruitful period in her career. Perhaps as a distraction for the grief, Lombard threw herself into making new movies, even connecting with her cousin, director Howard Hawks, on the film Twentieth Century. He ended up being a better teacher than almost any other director she’d worked with—and they had plenty on fun on set.

When Columbia Pictures executive Harry Cohn visited the set of Twentieth Century, he would continually make passes at Carole Lombard. She grew more and more frustrated and enlisted help from Hawks. Together they enacted an embarrassing plan to put Cohn in his place. One day, while Hawks was in Cohn’s office, Lombard rushed in. She shouted, “I've decided to say yes!” and pretended that she was about to take off her clothes.

Hawks feigned disgust, saying, “I'd better get out of here if this is the kind of studio you run,” and left. The whole situation shocked Cohn so much that he asked Lombard to leave and never bothered her again. Problem solved!

Twentieth Century cemented Lombard’s star status, which only rose higher with Hands Across the Table, where she starred with Fred MacMurray. They had so much chemistry that studios paired them together three more times—but that wasn’t the chemistry that had Lombard’s name splashed across tabloids. No, there was another offscreen pairing on the horizon.

Four years after starring together in No Man of Her Own, Lombard and Clark Gable crossed paths again, this time under different circumstances. They met again at a ball, and this time, there was a spark. In fact, he came right out with it and asked Lombard back to his hotel room. The starlet’s response was utterly legendary. 

Lombard asked him, “Who do you think you are, Clark Gable?” She may have had a witty comeback, but the attraction was mutual.

The joke left Gable insulted and he went home in a huff. However, Lombard soothed his ego by sending him a note. From then, the pair were rarely apart. Be it a Hollywood party, the Oscars, or simply just a dinner out, Lombard was on Gable’s arm. Tabloids stepped all over themselves to be the first to publish a photo of the glam pair. But it wasn’t exactly smooth sailing…

They were two of the biggest stars in Hollywood. Anyone who met them could tell they were in love. Everyone wondered when they’d tie the knot, especially Lombard herself—but there was a major roadblock in their way. In fact, major barely covers it. Gable was still married to his second wife, Maria Langham…and even though they were separated, she wasn’t about to let him get away.

Despite their separation, Langham held onto hope that Gable would come back to her. She knew that he’d cheated on her before, and didn’t care—but this time was different. Gable and Lombard were such a popular pair that the tabloids actually sympathized with them over Langham. That’s how you know it’s bad. Well, Lombard may not have known it, but she would help Gable out of this situation in more ways than one.

Hollywood was in a frenzy over the production of Gone With the Wind—and every star who picked up the novel immediately wanted to get involved, Lombard included. She was actually the one who passed it on to Gable, who initially wrote it off as a “woman’s picture.” Little did he know, it was actually a solution to his problem.

The studio wanted him out of his scandalous marriage—and by putting him in Gone With the Wind, they’d be able to pay him enough that he could afford a generous divorce settlement. Their plan worked, but it came at a cost.

Clark Gable got the part of Rhett Butler in Gone With the Wind—but that unfortunately meant that the studio was unwilling to put Carole Lombard in the film as Scarlett O’Hara. Still, Lombard got another prize: Gable himself. Just 13 days after his divorce from Langham, Lombard and Gable eloped during a production break from the epic.

They say fools rush in—but these two knew exactly what they were getting into.

Lombard and Gable weren’t just husband and wife—they were also the best of friends. They were both bon vivants, practical jokers, and lovers of the outdoors. They bought a ranch together in Encino where they could grow a garden, go on hunting trips, and keep horses, chickens, and dogs. But still, there was something missing…

For all of her riches and successes, there was one thing that Lombard desperately wanted and never got. Lombard wanted nothing more than to have a child with Gable, but two heartbreaking miscarriages and multiple attempts at fertility treatments failed. The long ordeal weighed heavily on their marriage, as we’ll see—but for the time being, not being pregnant meant that Lombard could throw herself into her thriving career.

As Carole Lombard gained fame and power, she used it to help out friends. This included John Barrymore, her Twentieth Century co-star, whose career had been steadily going downhill. Lombard pushed to get him the role of Charley Jasper in the 1937 film True Confession. The studio wasn’t keen on hiring him, but Lombard insisted, and they conceded.

Sadly, Barrymore passed on a few years later of cirrhosis, but they remained friends for the rest of his life. She didn’t get along with every co-star, though…

Lombard’s confrontation with Harry Cohn wasn’t the only time she got creative when turning away an overly-amorous coworker. Fredric March, Lombard’s co-star in Nothing Sacred, was known for hitting on his leading ladies. When March put the moves on Lombard, she had a surprise for him. Lombard invited him into her dressing room, and as soon as she picked up her skirt, he was treated to the sight of an anatomically-correct racy toy between her thighs.

Not surprisingly, he left her alone after that!

Gone With the Wind was a huge success for Gable. On her side, Lombard decided to try her hand at more dramatic roles. While the movie swept the Oscars that year, Gable lost. Lombard comforted him by saying, "Don't worry, Pappy. We'll bring one home next year." He explained that he thought it was his last chance to win one—and her response was utterly hilarious.

With characteristic confidence, Lombard said: "Not you, you self-centered [bleep]. I meant me." Amazing. Unfortunately, the good times couldn’t last forever.

Lombard was in a great position in Hollywood, and became more and more choosy with her roles, hoping to score that elusive Oscar trophy that had previously escaped both her and Gable’s grasp. This left her plenty of free time, and as the US was just entering WWII, she began to explore her options for how she could help with the war effort. Sadly, this altruism would set her up for the tragedy that came next…

Gable became chair of the Hollywood Victory Committee and suggested that Lombard visit her hometown of Fort Wayne, Indiana, for a war bond drive. Lombard traveled there by train with her mother and Gable’s agent, Otto Winkler. Their drive was an unprecedented success. They wanted to raise $500,000, but instead came away with $2 million in bond sales—but their glee over the victory was soon shattered.

Lombard’s mother hated flying, but Lombard was in a serious hurry to get home, so she begged her and Winkler to consider a flight. They tossed a coin, and Lombard won. It was a long journey—back then, it would take nearly 17 hours and multiple refueling stops to get that far. When the plane stopped in Albuquerque, a number of Army Air Corps personnel were waiting.

The pilot asked Lombard and her group to give up their seats—but unfortunately, Lombard had a characteristic witty comeback.

Lombard pointed out that she was also “essential,” since she’d raised so much for the war effort. Who could say no to Carole Lombard? She and her group continued on the trip, which stopped next in Las Vegas. By then, they’d been traveling for over 12 hours. The plane took off again—but on this leg of the journey, disaster struck.

Just 15 minutes after taking off from Vegas, TWA Flight 3 hit one of the cliffs of Potosi Mountain, where it crashed. News of a crash quickly reached Clark Gable at home in Hollywood. He flew to Las Vegas and rushed to the site of the accident, hoping to find his bride stumbling out of the rubble. Famous Hollywood fixer Eddie Mannix begged Gable to stay safe and started the long journey up the mountain himself.

What he found instead was absolutely devastating.

TWA Flight 3 had 22 passengers on board, including Lombard, her mother, Gable’s agent, and 15 US troops. Not a single passenger or crew member survived—it was a total loss. Mannix was able to retrieve part of a ruby clip Lombard often wore, and a lock of her hair, but not her wedding band. When he telegraphed Gable about what happened, Gable's reaction was heartbreaking. He proclaimed through sobs: “Oh, God! I don't want to go back to an empty house.”

His grief was immeasurable—and as the news of the tragedy spread, the rest of the world began to mourn too.

Gable held a small funeral for Lombard. After the spectacle of ’s funeral, Lombard had told him she wanted something private and quiet. At the service, a white dress she’d requested in her will laid in her coffin, covering what little remains the search party had been able to retrieve. Following the service, Gable was stoic. He broke down just once, after reading the final note Lombard had left him before she went to Indiana.

And then, the investigation into the crash began…

The Civil Aeronautics Board began a full inquiry in order to discover what had happened to TWA Flight 3. Ultimately, they found that pilot error was the problem, in tandem with a lack of beacon lights in the vicinity which had been turned off in an attempt to prevent Japanese attacks. Still, for some, these answers weren’t enough.

While Clark Gable did not comment on the issue, director Orson Welles later revealed a disturbing theory about the crash. He claimed that a security official had told him that Axis forces had shot down Lombard’s plane, but that the government had covered up their involvement in order to protect Americans of German ancestry.

While this theory didn’t get much traction, it was definitely not the most far-fetched story about the crash…

Lombard’s mother had never flown before, and was especially terrified of getting on TWA Flight 3—all because of a terrifying premonition. Prior to the trip, Lombard and her mother visited a psychic who told her to "Keep out of planes in 1942, there is danger in them for you.” On top of that, Lombard’s mother believed in numerology.

All the number 3s associated with the trip—from the flight number to the plane model to Lombard’s age (33) convinced her that it was a terrible idea…but Lombard had insisted.

Why was Lombard so dead-set on getting home quickly from the trip to Indiana? Sadly, many point the finger at her husband, Clark Gable. At the time, he was filming a movie with starlet Lana Turner, and many believe that Lombard suspected Gable was cheating on her. They had fought before she left, and Lombard may have believed that she was saving her marriage by hurrying home. This had a devastating effect on Gable.

When the US entered WWII, Lombard had encouraged Gable to enlist, and following her untimely passing, he finally did. Gable joined the United States Air Force—but his behavior there was chilling. Many believe that his guilt about Lombard led him to put himself in dangerous situations as self-inflicted penance.

He made it out alive, but before he did finally pass on in 1960, he made sure that his final resting place was next to the love of his life—Carole Lombard.

Gable wasn’t the only one who felt some kind of guilt. In fact, it’s possible that no less a figure than US President Franklin D. Roosevelt felt it as well. When Lombard and Gable had asked him how they could help when WWII broke out, he told them that their efforts should be directed to the war effort. Following Lombard’s crash, due to the timing of it all after the bond rally, he named her the first woman representing the Allied Forces to be killed in action during WWII.

He also said: “She is and always will be a star, one that we shall never forget, nor cease to be grateful to.”

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Sources: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21

It turns out that heartbreak can actually be fatal—but it’s extremely rare. Sometimes called broken heart syndrome, takotsubo cardiomyopathy is the closest thing to a physical manifestation of heartbreak that there is. It involves a weakening of the heart muscles, but here’s where feelings come in. While physical stressors on the body may play a part, it can also be caused by emotional stressors—which can of course include loss, divorce, or other trauma. 

Studies found that patients who experienced takotsubo cardiomyopathy had high levels of a stress hormone in the brain, which can in turn have a dire effect on the heart. While most patients who experience it recover, it can be fatal. It can also lead to complications like heart failure and myocardial rupture. Luckily, it’s rare, making up only 0.02% of hospitalizations in the US. 

Thanks to its symptoms, takotsubo cardiomyopathy is often mistaken for myocardial infarction, or a heart attack. While medical treatments are used to resolve takotsubo cardiomyopathy, some of the classic cures for metaphorical heartbreak are also recommended. Learning to manage stress is one lifestyle change that can help. Another factor that helps symptoms to dissipate? Time—yes, the one that heals all wounds. However, it remains unclear if chocolate and a good cry at When Harry Met Sally works as well for cardiomyopathy as it does a broken heart.

Sources: 1, 2

Belushi’s teenage experience seemed straight out of a movie. He was football captain, homecoming king, highschool sweetheart, and even the frontman of a band. Not bad for the son of Albanian immigrants turned pharmacy worker and restaurant owner. 

Belushi left Wheaton, Illinois seeking the same thing that brought his parents here: His own American dream.

After high school, John Belushi did something very strange: He recommended that Judith Jacklin, his high school sweetheart, dump him. He gave her the truth, and a way out. He confessed, “I want to be an actor and I'll probably never make any money,” flat-out telling her that she would have to be the provider if she married him. 

Belushi had doubts about his career, but believe it or not, Jacklin never did. She stuck by her man—but neither of them had any clue what they were in for.

Belushi may have started from the bottom, but boy could he climb. He dropped out of college, moved to Chicago, and co-founded the West Compass Trio. The comedy group's success landed him in The Second City. Working with the legendary comedy club led to National Lampoon stage and radio gigs in New York City. 

Oh, and his soulmate—and we're not talking about Jacklin.

When Belushi and Dan Aykroyd crossed paths at The Second City, the entertainment world was never the same. They were a match made in comedy heaven. Even after leaving the club, their lives and careers remained intertwined. 

The legendary partnership of Belushi and Aykroyd wasn’t over yet. It was set for triumph—and tragedy.

In 1975, Chevy Chase and writer Michael O’Donoghue recommended Belushi to Lorne Michaels, who was putting together a new comedy show. But the Saturday Night Live boss had doubts about the 27-year-old and his physical comedy style. However, these doubts vanished when he saw Belushi in action. 

Michaels invited Belushi, who was reluctant at first, to be part of the show’s original cast. Belushi’s life—and television—would never be the same. 

Sparks flew when Belushi and Aykroyd reunited on SNL. But Belushi and Chase? Not so much. Jealousy, specifically Belushi’s, was to blame. Chase became an overnight sensation, SNL’s first breakout star—and an unbearable attention hog. Chase had everything that Belushi wanted and didn’t have. 

Belushi needed to lock in—and boy did he.

It didn’t take long for Belushi to rival Chase in popularity. He developed some of SNL’s most iconic characters and skits, including his Henry Kissinger imitation and Samurai character. Belushi and Aykroyd also created the band the Blues Brothers just to warm up the audience, but then even they became a hit. 

They turned the Blues Brothers into an actual band and musical guests for the show. But while things were going well, there was serious darkness behind the scenes.

According to his wife Judith, the darkness in John Belushi was there from the beginning. When the show and the cast were new, some cast members targeted Belushi, the easiest victim. He was from the midwest. His parents were Albanian immigrants. He was overweight. He was a college dropout. He was a nobody at that point. 

Belushi could have broken the cycle when he became somebody. But he didn’t. And his partying definitely didn't help matters...

By the second season, Belushi was already “binging day and night”. And that’s before the final blow came in 1977: After a brutal knee injury, doctors gave him a generous prescription for powerful and addictive painkillers. Today, in the opioid crisis, stories like this are dime-a-dozen—but few people realize that Belushi was one of its earliest victims. 

Jim Belushi was just 28 years old, and those painkillers would haunt him until the end of his life.

You know it’s bad when people on SNL in the 70s are worried. “Where’s John?” became a common question on set. Belushi was often late, or didn't bother to show up at all. Some cast members even accused him of pocketing their personal supplies for Lord knows what reason. 

Resentment festered on set. And that's before Belushi crossed another line. A white and powdery one.

It got so bad that Belushi even "went skiing" during a live sketch. SNL head writer Michael O'Donoghue revealed “He had a big fat line, and there was that tight shot of him doing it”. The cameras caught him right in the act. The SNL boss may have started off lenient, but it didn’t last. 

When Michaels put his foot down, Belushi was the first cast member that he stomped on.

Belushi was in a messy on-and-off relationship, but it wasn’t with Judith. Against the odds, they were still going strong. It was with SNL. Belushi and the rest of the show clashed over everything from his creative choices to his addiction. Michaels would fire Belushi, rehire him, and repeat the cycle. 

One thing was clear: Belushi was a mess, but he was a talented and indispensable one. But this couldn’t go on forever.

After four years and multiple dismissals, this time it was Belushi who decided to quit SNL. For many, the decision was baffling: He could’ve continued coasting on the show's popularity. His brother Jim, who’d join the cast in a few years, demanded to know why. 

Belushi replied: “It’s like high school: Senior year, you’ve got to move on”. The show knew about Belushi’s exit, but he still managed to give them a nasty surprise.

Belushi pulled a fast one on SNL. The show didn’t know that Aykroyd was going with him. Some felt like Belushi lured him away. But this move was only about the drama, if at all. SNL's demanding schedule tied the cast down and often clashed with other opportunities. Belushi and Aykroyd set themselves free. The world was theirs.

But maybe a little structure had been good for them...

Most agree that Belushi’s best films are Animal House (1978) and The Blues Brothers (1980). Animal House is one of the most profitable movies ever, but it was more than that: critics also viewed it as one of the greatest comedies of all time. 

The Blues Brothers, made with Aykroyd, also became a cult classic, and their band even made a number one album. But as Belushi’s success grew—so did his addiction.

The Blues Brothers behind the scenes antics became infamous. Production even set aside a budget to supply white powder for the cast and crew. On night shoots, skiing was as normal as coffee. Aykroyd confessed, “Everyone did it, including me. Never to excess, and not ever to where I wanted to buy it or have it”. 

He couldn’t say the same for Belushi.

Belushi’s habit of wandering off set got ridiculous. One day, Aykroyd couldn't find him anywhere, so he expanded his search to a nearby neighborhood and knocked on a house. When the door opened, Aykroyd said "Excuse me, we’re shooting a movie and missing one of our actors”. 

The owner replied “Oh, Belushi? He came in about an hour ago, raided my fridge and crashed on my couch”. 

Director John Landis could only tolerate so much before he snapped. His breaking point was finding a mountain of “snow” in Belushi’s trailer. He confronted his star: “John, you’re killing yourself. Do not do this to my movie. Do not do this to me. Don’t do this to Judy. Don’t do it to yourself”. 

But Landis was just getting started.

Landis flushed the mountain, reportedly around $100,000 worth of snow, down the toilet. Belushi and Landis then fought like wrestlers—until the director burst into their tears. Their grapple turned into an embrace. Belushi also started crying, and came clean about his addiction. But acceptance wasn’t enough. 

They had to take extreme measures—if for a depressing reason.

Belushi loved going to bars, but they were full of people who were all but throwing substances at him. They wanted to brag about getting loaded with a celebrity. So the producers hired Smokey Wendell. 

Wendell was a former Secret Service agent-turned superstar bodyguard for celebrities. And John Belushi was the client—and challenge—of a lifetime.

Wendell used to guard President Nixon and rockstars…but those gigs paled in comparison to chasing Belushi 24 hours a day. Every day. The job broke him physically and mentally. He resigned around a year later. It was a miracle that The Blues Brothers even hit theaters, much less becoming a hit. 

But not everything Belushi touched turned into gold.

1941 (1979) should’ve been a slam dunk hit. It had Steven Spielberg behind the camera and a star studded cast in front of it. Instead, the film became a commercial and critical flop, widely considered Spielberg’s worst movie. 

Belushi couldn’t help but find the ordeal hilarious. Rumor has it he even wore a shirt that said “Steven Spielberg 1946-1941”. 

In between the filming of Continental Divide (1981) and Neighbors (1981), Belushi was actually sober. He lived with Judith on Martha’s Vineyard—but this didn’t last long. When Belushi relapsed on Neighbors, he relapsed hard. Being away from his wife and checking into the infamous Chateau Marmont didn’t help. 

This was truly the beginning of the end. 

February 27 to March 4, 1982 was Belushi’s final week. He spent it partying and club hopping around Hollywood. His Chateau Marmont became the after party spot. Meanwhile, Judith remained at their New York home and barely heard from him. Belushi, until the end, remained optimistic about reinventing his career and the projects he had lined up.

On March 4, 1982, Belushi showed up to his manager's office begging for $1,500. Belushi swore he just wanted to buy a guitar. Bernie Brillstein suspected, or knew, he was lying. That there was no guitar—only an expensive addiction. 

Brillstein refused, and even told his client why. But Belushi was desperate. He wasn’t taking no for an answer.

Belushi paid Brillstein another visit on that same day. His manager was in a meeting, which changed everything. Brillstein didn't want to rebuke Belushi in front of others. It'd be awkward for everyone. So he gave in and gave Belushi the money. Brillstein could only hope that he was wrong. But he wasn’t—and this decision would haunt him forever.

That same day, Belushi also contacted and invited Cathy Smith over. It was the biggest mistake of his life. Smith was more than Belushi’s dealer. She also personally injected the needle-phobic star. Soon after, Robert De Niro and Harry Dean Stanton stopped by the bungalow to invite Belushi out. 

Instead, they found the room trashed—with Belushi and Smith just as trashed.

Belushi and Smith were so messed up, De Niro and Stanton felt uncomfortable and left. Next, Robin Williams dropped by, and he couldn’t resist doing some lines with Belushi and Smith. But like the others, he soon felt uneasy. He quickly left them to their own devices. 

None of Belushi’s friends had any idea that this was goodbye.

Nothing could stop Belushi and Smith’s binge. Not invitations out, concerned friends, or even pain. They kept going even after Belushi complained about feeling ill and congested. He eventually fell asleep. The next morning, Smith checked on him and left. March 5, 1982 at around 10 AM was the last time anyone saw Belushi alive.

Bill Wallace, Belushi’s trainer and sometimes bodyguard, dropped by in the afternoon. He only planned to drop off some stuff Belushi wanted yesterday. Wallace found Belushi’s lifeless body alone. They confirmed he passed from an overdose of the multiple substances in his system. The amount would’ve ended anyone. Belushi was 33.

In an instant, SNL’s “Don’t Look Back” sketch became infamous, tragic, and ironic. Belushi played an older version of himself who’s the last survivor of the cast. He visits their graves and roasts them. His character closes with "The Saturday Night show was the best experience of my life. And now they're all gone. I'll miss every one of them”.

32. His Dealer Confessed

If anyone else was to blame for Belushi's end, it was Cathy Smith. She probably could’ve gotten away with it, but she couldn’t resist when tabloids offered to pay her for interviews. Smith talked to multiple journalists about how she supplied the substances and injected them to Belushi on that night. 

Smith shrugged it off “It was just the Hollywood scene, really, nothing out of the ordinary”. 

Smith’s press tour caught up to her. The authorities extradited her from Canada and charged her with second degree murder. She was in for a long, messy, and expensive fight. Four years later, she pled guilty to lower charges of involuntary manslaughter, and three counts of administering controlled substances. 

She eventually got 15 months behind bars for her role in John Belushi's end.

Belushi’s fame and fanbase exploded after his passing. The consequences were grave. Literally. His tombstone had the inscription "I may be gone but Rock and Roll lives on”, which some fans took too literally. Belushi's gravesite became a tourist attraction. Many visitors were noisy, destructive, and annoying. 

That was already bad enough. But what they did next was so much worse.

Some fans paid their respects in the most disrespectful way. Everyone knew addiction ended Belushi’s life. Yet they littered his gravesite with bottles and paraphernalia. Jacklin made a heartbreaking decision in response. She had her husband’s body dug up and transferred to a secret spot. But peace was still out of reach for the Belushis.

Judith and Brillstein wanted to end the nonstop gossip. They turned to Bob Woodward, an acquaintance and the journalist who broke Watergate, to write a book about Belushi. Many of his friends, family, and colleagues were eager to participate. They wanted to clear the air, and clear Belushi’s name. 

But everyone regretted their participation the moment Wired came out in 1984.

Wired only added more fuel to the fire, as Woodward showed Belushi no mercy. The star’s loved ones didn’t even recognize the man Woodward wrote about. They declared that his portrayal was exaggerated, negative, and one-sided. And perhaps worst of all, Woodward downplayed Belushi’s talents. 

They couldn’t stay silent. Especially not his wife and his best friend.

38. He Was Defended

Wired was even adapted in a 1989 film—about which Dan Aykroyd didn’t hold back: "I have witches working now to jinx the thing... I hope it never gets seen and I am going to hurl all the negative energy I can” at them. It worked: the film flopped in every way. 

A year later, Judith published her memoir Samurai Widow in response to Woodward. But they weren’t done yet.

Dan Aykroyd held onto his grief and grudges. While filming Loose Cannons (1990), he made a horrible discovery. One of the actors, JT Walsh, had worked on Wired. Worst of all, filming already began. But Aykroyd still forced Walsh out of the movie. It led to a $125,000 production delay. But defending Belushi’s honor was priceless.

Never meet your idols, and never follow in their footsteps. No one proved this more than Chris Farley. He worked at Second City Chicago. He became a beloved SNL cast member. He had a physical comedy style. He even wore Belushi’s costumes. He explicitly said he wanted to be like John Belushi.

This was all fine, if maybe a little creepy—until Farley also developed an addiction. That got worse and worse. Oh no.

John Belushi's brother Jim begged Farley: "You got to stop chasing him, Chris. He's gone…you can’t follow him with the drugs to find out who he was”. Jim knew what he was talking about. He wasn't just Belushi’s brother, but also a former SNL cast member and a recovering addict. 

But he wasn't the only one who was worried about the way Farley was taking after Belushi.

Soon Adam Sandler, another SNL cast member, joined in to try and help Chris Farley. He warned his friend that he would end up just like Belushi if he didn't clean up his act. Farley replied that he was all right with that. This exchange wasn’t just heartbreaking. It was prophetic. 

In 1997, the prophecy came true, and Farley met his end in almost the exact same way as Belushi—they were even both 33 years old. Farley completed his life’s mission to be like his hero. But it gets even more eerie. 

There have been multiple attempts to adapt the satirical novel The Incomparable Atuk into a film, and at the time of their deaths, both Belushi and Farley had expressed interest in starring as Atuk. But this conspiracy goes beyond these two.

Once is a tragedy, twice is a coincidence, and thrice is suspicious. Any more sets off alarm bells. And that’s what Atuk did. Quite a few people involved or interested in adapting The Incomparable Atuk into film had premature ends. The list includes Belushi, Farley, Phil Hartman, Michael O’Donoghue, Sam Kinison, and John Candy. 

Maybe it was a supernatural conspiracy, or maybe show biz is just cruel. 

Jane Curtin, a fellow cast member, revealed that Belushi was a massive misogynist. Who believed women weren’t funny. Who hated acting in sketches with or written by women. Who went out of his way to sabotage female writers and comedians. They hid this for decades. 

At the same time, the show struggled with another, even more destructive secret.

When asked about Belushi’s misogyny allegations, Judith declared “John actually was a woman’s libber before I was”. Though she confessed he still “had that systemic sexism. But he was aware of a lot of that and consciously tried to work around it”. 

Judith wanted people to know that “John wasn't perfect, but he was a full human being—caring and adventurous and kind. And he not only made people laugh, he made them feel”.

The original cast and crew are infamous for skiing—and I don’t mean the winter sport. Show business is already notorious for this vice, but SNL took it to a whole new level. They worked crazy hours under crazy pressure. The substance use was rampant, but also therapeutic. Some cast members couldn’t have done the show without them. 

At first, Michaels thought the show’s chill stance on it was the right thing. That is, until it destroyed Belushi.

John Belushi might’ve been the first SNL star to struggle with addiction, but he was far from the last. Many of his successors, right up to names like Pete Davidson and John Mulaney, also struggled with it. Lorne Michaels was around the whole time—but you never forget your first. 

Mulaney revealed the SNL boss brought up Belushi during an intervention: "I knew John Belushi for seven years. I've been talking about him for 48 years, because that's the shrapnel that happens when someone goes down like that".

In 2015, Rolling Stone ranked all 141 SNL cast members. The list reads like a who’s who of Hollywood. The competition was fierce, but Belushi came out on top. The magazine declared that “Belushi was the ‘live’ in Saturday Night Live. The one who made the show happen on the edge… Nobody embodied the highs and lows of Saturday Night Live like Belushi”.

SNL made this clear during their 50th anniversary special. The show has seen countless even bigger stars walk through its halls, and many were even in attendance during this taping. SNL had to decide which clips and cast members would be featured, and they had their work cut out for them. 

But John Belushi's work still made the cut 46 years later. His life and career may have been short-lived, but he will be long-remembered.

Sources: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, , 13, 14, 15, , 17, , 19, 20, , 22, 23, 24, , 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35,36, 37, 38

We’re not sure how salt mines became the go-to metaphor for a dull, tedious job, but clearly the medieval salt miners of Poland didn’t feel that way. They spent their downtime decorating the salt mines with elaborate friezes and sculptures. Their idle carving and sculpting eventually evolved into the construction of a full-blown cathedral, hundreds of miles below what is now the city of Krakow.

To carve an entire cathedral—complete with chandeliers and a life-size replica of “The Last Supper”—must have taken up a lot of lunch breaks. Luckily, the Wieliczka Salt Mine was in continuous operation from the 13th century until 2007.

The subterranean French city of Naours was built to provide refuge from invasion and enemy attack. The city’s 300 rooms, connected by 200 miles of tunnels, provided ample hiding space for besieged medieval villagers. The city lay forgotten for hundreds of years before reprising its military role during the First World War, when Allied soldiers recovered there following the Battle of the Somme.

Not much is known about the people who built the ancient Turkish city of Ҫatalhöyuk, but their unique approach to architecture has captured the attention—and imaginations—of archaeologists since the city’s first excavation in 1958. Houses in Ҫatalhöyuk were built in a cluster, with each home sharing its walls with many others. The 10,000 citizens of Ҫatalhöyuk walked across the city’s rooftops, and visited each other through small passages cut into the roofs.

Not far from Ҫatalhöyuk lies the underground city of Derinkuyu, whose citizens seem to be the antithesis of those in Ҫatalhöyuk. Where Ҫatalhöyuk’s citizens never set foot on the ground, the citizens of Derinkuyu need never rise above it—Derinkuyu operated eight levels below the surface, with shops, houses, and even stables and wineries.

Derinkuyu was initially built by the Phrygians, but was expanded by Cappadocian Greeks who used the city to evade attacks by invading Mongol and Arab armies. The citizens of Derinkuyu continued to use the site in times of crisis all the way into ‘20s, when they were expelled as part of the Greek-Turkish population exchange.

Derinkuyu connects to another underground city, Kaymakli, via a five-mile tunnel. In fact, Nevşehir Province, where both Derinkuyu and Kaymakli lie, is something of a hotspot for underground cities. There are more than 200 in this region of Turkey, made possible by the area’s soft volcanic rock.

The Yonaguni Monument, 60 miles off the coast of Taiwan, has been the subject of debate, with some scientists claiming the mysterious stone steps and altars formed naturally, and others suggesting they could be the remains of an ancient city. While people may not have ever set foot on Yonaguni, the site has been known to host its share of Pikachus and Blastoises: the Abyssal Ruins, featured in Pokemon Black and Pokemon White, are based on Yonaguni.

Egypt, it shouldn’t surprise you, is home to all sorts of mysterious ancient sites, but perhaps the most intriguing is the labyrinth which unwinds beneath Hawara. Modern scholars have yet to find the ancient maze but mentions of the Labyrinth of Egypt appear in the writings of Pliny, Herodotus, and Diodorus.

Writing more than 1,300 years after the labyrinth’s supposed construction, Herodotus claimed the labyrinth contained more than 3,000 rooms (half of them underground), and six separate courtyards. If true, the labyrinth would have been larger than the temples at Karnak and Luxor combined.

In 2008, a team of archaeologists scanned the ground near Hawara. What they found was astonishing: walls, several meters thick, joined together and forming several closed-off rooms. Could this be the ancient labyrinth? We might never know, as Egyptian authorities immediately halted further exploration.

Every year millions of people flock to the Grand Canyon. An even more impressive site might lurk just below the canyon’s floor. In 1909, the Arizona Gazette announced that the ruins of an ancient city had been found by explorer GE Kinkaid.

News of Kinkaid’s discovery disappeared as suddenly as it was announced, and most modern scholars consider it a hoax. Among Kinkaid’s more dubious discoveries at the Grand Canyon site were tablets bearing hieroglyphics and tombs filled with Egyptian-style mummies.

Kinkaid claimed to be working with the prestigious Smithsonian Institute. If true, that would lend his discovery much more credibility. Alas, the Smithsonian denied, and continues to deny, any involvement.

Archaeologists haven’t figured out just how the ancient Pohnpeians built Nan Madol, a massive stone city linked by canals and spread over nearly a hundred tiny islets in Micronesia. Modern Pohnpeians have one solution, however. According to legend, Nan Madol was built by two wizards, who came over the sea in a canoe and built the city with the help of a giant dragon.

The Pohnpeian legend might sound far-fetched, but it’s still our best guess as to how Nan Madol was built. Otherwise, the Pohnpeians would have to move the city’s giant stone blocks at a rate of 2,000 tonnes a year for 400 years, without the use of pulleys.

The mythic origins of Nan Madol sound spookily similar to those of another site half a world away. Ggantija, “the Giantess’s Tower,” is a massive stone structure in Malta. Like Nan Madol, it was built before metal tools and wheels and pulleys existed in the local culture. And like Nan Madol, Ggantija is said to have been built by a mythic creature, a giantess named Sasuna, who carried Ggantija’s massive stone pillars on her head.

Excavation of Ggantija, however, has presented a better real-world explanation than anything found at Nan Madol. While the ancient Maltans didn’t have the wheel, they did have the sphere. Archaeologists have found perfectly round pebbles—much like modern ball bearings—which might have helped to move the stones of Ggantija.

First discovered in modern-day Turkey in 1963, serious excavation on Gӧbekli Tepe did not begin until 1996. The site, which predates Stonehenge by more than 6,000 years, is believed to have been a religious epicenter for worshippers from as far as 100 miles away in all directions.

Gӧbekli Tepe would have been a site of ritual importance for people who had yet to invent the wheel, writing, or agriculture. In fact, some have suggested humans harvested wheat for the very first time at Gӧbekli Tepe.

If Gӧbekli Tepe was indeed an ancient religious site, that begs the question: what did those ancient pilgrims worship? Carvings of lions, deer, snakes, and scorpions all point to animal worship, but the real answer may be downright scary. Human skulls, each marked with ritualistic incisions, have also been found at the site.

But what is most surprising about Gӧbekli Tepe? Despite its massive stone walls and pillars—some weighing as much as 50 tonnes—no stone-cutting tools have ever been found near the site.

Taklamakan is a vast, unforgiving desert in China’s northwest corner. Its name, in the Uighir language, means “You can go into it, but you can’t come out.” With a floor of sand 1,000 feet deep, and a yearly precipitation of just 0.4 inches (most of it snow), Taklamakan appears to be an impossible place to build a city. But such a city lies beneath the deep sands of Taklamakan.

Trade routes passed around the Taklamakan desert for centuries, but beginning in the 19th century, explorers began to find evidence of houses buried beneath the sand. By 1914, archaeologists Sven Hedin and Aurel Stein had found houses, clothing, tools, and fragments of texts which led them to believe that the Taklamakan was the site of the city of Loulan, capital of the short-lived Loulan Kingdom.

Described in the Book of Han as “weak and easy to destroy,” the Loulan Kingdom faced a series of sieges and political subjugations before the arid climate finally forced the Loulan people to abandon the kingdom in the 5th century CE.

Further exploration of the Taklamakan site in the ‘80s turned up bodies which had been mummified by the dry desert air. Several of these mummies bore some surprising characteristics, including blond-red hair and European facial features. Their presence at Taklamakan suggests that Loulan was a cultural crossroads, and may have played a more pivotal role in the global community than anyone had previously suspected.

The climate of Taklamakan punishes those who try to cross the desert. And the meaning of its name, “You can go into it, but you can’t come out” provides ample warning to any adventurer who would try. But what if the name Taklamakan isn’t meant to be ominous at all? Archaeologists have long assumed the name comes from the Persian “Tark makan”—“a place to abandon.” But the Turkish language also has a phrase, “Taqlar makan.” Those words mean “Place of Ruins,” an interpretation that lends further credence to the idea that Taklamakan was once home to an ancient oasis.

The ruins of Great Zimbabwe give evidence of a mighty ancient empire, whose wealth and influence spread as far as China. One would think any modern country would be proud to inherit such a legacy. Not so with the Rhodesian government which ruled Zimbabwe through the 20th century. The white Rhodesian government restricted archaeological work on the site and suppressed any evidence that such a worthy empire was ever built by native Africans.

The city of Great Zimbabwe was likely built by the Gokomere in the 4th century CE, and survived into the 16th century. Artifacts found at the site point to a diverse economy—there are tools for working copper, ivory, and iron, as well as pottery and textiles, and proof of very large herds of cattle—but Zimbabwe’s great wealth was built on gold. More than 20 million ounces of the stuff could have been mined from the area during the empire’s reign.

Also found at the site were shards of Chinese pottery, coins from Arabia, and glass beads of unknown origin. All of these suggest that Great Zimbabwe was part of a highly developed, international trade network.

Letters from Portuguese traders tell us what became of the once-mighty empire. João de Barros, writing in 1538, recounts a visit to Great Zimbabwe, remarking that the country is an ancient, formerly successful one, built on gold, which they have not mined for many years because of constant wars. But perhaps de Barros’ words should be taken with a grain of salt: he also believed the massive stone houses of Great Zimbabwe to be “the work of the devil.”

European attempts to build a history of Great Zimbabwe fell to great political pressure. At various times, the ruins were ascribed to the Egyptians, the Phoenicians, Arabic peoples, and even the biblical King Solomon—anyone, it seems, but the native Zimbabweans themselves. It wasn’t until 1929, after findings by Gertrude Caton-Thompson, that arguments that the site was built by Zimbabweans began to gain support.

Another site mentioned by Herodotus, Heracleion, was said to have collapsed into the sea. The ancient Egyptian port was thought to be just another myth until 1933, when a British air force pilot spotted the undersea ruins near Abu Qir.

Though the ruins of Heracleion were first spotted in the ‘30s, it wasn’t until 1999 that archaeologists precisely located the city and began exploring. To date, they’ve visited less than 5% of the Heracleion site, but findings have been surprising. In addition to coins and tools, statues of the usual Egyptian gods, are several statues of an Egyptian pharaoh no one seems to recognize.

Heracleion figures prominently in the story of the Trojan War. Paris and Helen were said to have stopped there on their way to Troy, after absconding from Greece. The two lovers, however, were turned away by the city guard, who feared the wrath of Helen’s husband, Menelaus.

According to Herodotus, Heracleion was so named because it was the first Egyptian city visited by Hercules (or Heracles).

Teotihuacan, a 32-square-mile city near modern-day Mexico City, predates the Aztec period by more than a millennium. At one point, Teotihuacan had a population of over 125,000 people, which would’ve made it one of the largest cities in the world.

To house its hundred thousand citizens, Teotihuacan depended on a “modern” solution. The city is ringed by apartment complexes, tall multi-dwelling buildings which would have housed several families.

Teotihuacan is notable for its advanced, mathematically precise architecture. At its center sits the Pyramid of the Sun, the third largest pyramid in the world. Together with the Temple of the Moon and the Temple of Quetzalcoatl, the Pyramid of the Sun forms a row of buildings which aligns exactly with Orion’s Belt. Aerial observers have noticed a similarity between Teotihuacan and a more modern image: with the Pyramid of the Sun and the Temple of the Moon serving as large microchips, Teotihuacan bears an uncanny resemblance to a circuit board.

The name Teotihuacan comes from the Aztecs; it means “the Birthplace of the Gods.” The city seems to hold special significance for the Aztecs, who based their creation myths in the city. Mayans called the city the less-impressive “Place of the Reeds.” To this day no one knows what citizens of Teotihuacan called their hometown.

What became of the people of Teotihuacan? No one knows. The city was an important political and industrial center in Mesoamerica, and its architectural style had a major cultural impact on both the Mayan and Aztec cultures. Despite a conspicuous absence of citadels or fortifications, there is no evidence the city was ever attacked by foreign armies. Rather, the city’s collapse seems to have come from the inside.

Teotihuacan faced several years of famine and population decline; juvenile skeletons show signs of severe malnutrition. Archaeologists have noticed that Teotihuacan’s most damaged buildings tend to be large, single-family dwellings and palaces. Could Teotihuacan’s working class have risen up against an ancient 1%? It could’ve happened, but the question remains—where did they go from there?

Sources: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17

During a disappointing season, the White Sox saw this hatred for disco as the perfect opportunity to fill their stadium with fans. They hired anti-disco campaigner Steve Dahl to organize an unbelievable promotion. Tickets to the doubleheader at Comiskey Park were sold at a discount rate of 98 cents. To get said discount, guests simply had to bring a disco record to the event. Dahl planned to collect thousands of these records and destroy them all with a dramatic explosion.

July 12, 1979 was the date of Disco Demolition Night—and the turnout was jaw-dropping. White Sox officials never foresaw a crowd of 50,000 people showing up. Shockingly, the stadium reached capacity, causing thousands of hopeful attendees to sneak in after they were denied entry. Pandemonium ensued.

Though the plan was for staff to collect all the records, the staggering number of guests meant that many began flinging their vinyl albums from the stands like frisbees. But the day took an even darker turn after the crate of disco records exploded. Waves of people rushed onto the field and turned the event into a wild riot.

In the end, the White Sox had to forfeit the second game due to the damage inflicted on the field. But that’s not the most disappointing part. Many believe Disco Demolition Night was a clear expression of prejudice and homophobia, and that the extreme event sparked the decline of disco.

Sources: 1

The story of the Sydney Opera House involved quite a bit of drama. The man who envisioned its design—Jorn Utzon—moved to Australia from Denmark with his entire family and was completely invested in its making. Unfortunately, after he had put in seven years of hard work, the Minister of Works of a new government, David Hughes, forced him to resign.

There were many protests demanding Utzon's reinstatement, but he left the country when he saw the government was not interested in any acceptable compromise. He later described the situation as “Malice in Blunderland,” as Hughes had scrapped his designs and withheld payment from his staff. Utzon wasn’t even invited to the opening of the Opera House, and never set foot in Australia to see how his dream had been realized.

When the Eiffel Tower was completed as an exhibit for the World Industrial Fair in 1889, the plan was to tear it down after 20 years. That probably would have appeased the countless people who hated the thing from the start. Most writers and intellectuals felt it destroyed the pristine, genteel beauty of Paris. They labeled it an ugly and useless addition to the landscape.

Writer Guy de Maupassant famously said he would lunch frequently in a restaurant at the Tower's base. Why? It was the only place he could go where he didn't have to look at it.

Conman Victor Lustig once tricked a man named Andre Poisson into buying the Eiffel Tower. In fact, not only did he scam Poisson out of his asking “price” for the tower, he also got him to pay a little extra to ensure that no one else tried to buy it either. And the cherry on top? When Poisson discovered the scam, he didn't even report it, for fear of becoming the laughingstock of the whole city.

The Great Pyramid of Giza is the only wonder of the ancient world that still stands. The pharaoh Khufu commissioned the great monolith, and it was the tallest man-made structure in the world for 3,800 years. The architectural marvel stupefied people for millennia—and in fact, still does. There are many outrageous theories, including the persistent myth that only aliens could possibly have built it. But don't worry, the theories get even more bizarre.

Most recently two amateur archaeologists insisted that the residents of the lost city of Atlantis actually built the Great Pyramid. To prove their theory, they snuck into the pyramid after hours and secretly chipped at the walls to obtain a sample for testing. Needless to say, this act of vandalism did not amuse the Egyptian government. The Giza Criminal Court sentenced the two “archaeologists” and a filmmaker who had been with them, as well as the six Egyptian guards on duty at the time, to five years of prison in 2014.

The CN Tower is Toronto’s best-known and most distinctive landmark, built to show Canada’s industrial strength. It also serves as a telecommunications center serving over 16 Canadian television and FM radio stations. However, its height has also caused some problems during the winter months. In April 2018, large chunks of ice fell from the top of the tower, dropping to Earth like icy missiles.

They punctured the roof of the nearby Rogers Center on the same day the Toronto Blue Jays were supposed to play a game. The game had to be postponed, and the center and all surrounding roads and areas were closed down.

We all know that the Colosseum in Rome was a famous arena where enslaved warriors fought each other and wild animals (remember Gladiator?). But did you know that Emperor Titus, who completed its construction in AD 79, had it flooded to re-enact legendary naval battles? Over 3,000 men "fought" in one of these massive mock-engagements.

The Hagia Sofia, the landmark church-turned-mosque-turned-museum-turned-mosque again in Istanbul, has been around for over a thousand years. There are many legends and stories surrounding it, but one that has remained constant is about the “perspiring” column that is perpetually wet, no matter how hot the weather. For centuries people have touched the hole at the base of the column, some to be healed of whatever ails them and others in hopes of having their dearest wish come true.

There's nothing random about the Japanese way of doing things, it seems. When planning to build the Tokyo Skytree, the nation's tallest communications tower, designers decided upon the height of 634m for a very specific reason. In Japanese, the digits of the number read as “mu-sa-shi.” And where is the tower located? In the province once known as Musashi, of course!

It may be remarkable to look at, but Dubai’s Burj Khalifa, the tallest freestanding structure in the world, has a dark side. South Asian and East Asian laborers made up nearly the entire workforce for construction, and many of them were paid less than $10 per day. Only one casualty was reported, a man named Emaar in 2007, but the Human Rights Watch Study believes that many fatal accidents went unreported, especially those due to “heat exhaustion, stress, and suicide.”

Built in the 13th-century, the Konark Sun Temple is a World Heritage Site in Odisha, India. The temple pays homage to the Hindu Sun God, Surya, and it is meant to look like a massive chariot, drawn by stone horses. In its heyday, it was a 200-foot marvel, though today much of the complex lies in ruins. Still, the temple's intricate stonework makes it an extremely popular tourist destination.

The Dancing House in Prague is hard to miss. After the destruction of WWII, the city wanted to create something beautiful. Canadian-American architect Frank Gehry and Czech architect Vlado Milunić designed the building in a “deconstructivist” style, using concrete and glass. They intended the finished structure to reflect the legendary Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers dancing.

Today, the Dancing House has a restaurant at the top, serving French and other international food. The name of the restaurant? Ginger and Fred of course!

The original White House looked a lot different than it does today. After construction, it was called the President’s Palace, and then the President’s House (palace does have a bit of a monarchical ring to it, doesn't it?). Each President would add to the House’s décor in his own way, but in 1812, during the presidency of James Madison, British forces set fire to the building. The only thing saved from those early days was George Washington’s portrait, which Madison’s wife insisted on taking down before she left the House for safety.

The current look of the White House is largely thanks to the reconstruction that happened after the fire.

The construction of Spain's Mosque of Cordoba began in the 700s, but continued for two centuries because the rulers in power kept adding to it or restoring it. The original emir, Abd-ar-Rahman I, wanted to make a temple as magnificent as the ones in Baghdad, Damascus, and Jerusalem, and approaching the sacredness of the one in Mecca. Apparently, his successors agreed, and construction just went on and on.

In the 1200s, Cordoba came under Christian rule again, and they converted the mosque into a Roman Catholic church. Although Muslims have asked for permission to pray at the mosque in recent times, the government and religious circles have been reluctant to upset the status quo.

The Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao is also one of the world's most celebrated pieces of modern architecture. Designed by Frank Gehry (remember him?), people have described it as “dream ship,” “the world’s largest toy,” and one critic said its panels reminded him of “fish scales.” The museum isn't just pretty to look at, though. The Bilbao area of Spain was once a bustling port city, but economic upheavals left it deserted and poor in the mid-20th century.

However, since the opening of the Guggenheim Bilbao in 1997, the area has transformed into a modern hub of culture and activity.

Apart from being famous for the papal conclave that takes place there, people flock to see the Sistine Chapel because of the beautiful frescoes that decorate the interior. And the crown jewel of the entire building is Michelangelo's legendary ceiling. But believe it or not, Michelangelo wasn't the first choice to paint the ceiling. The Pope had originally asked Raphael, who was more popular at the time, for the job.

Raphael was jealous of Michelangelo’s growing success, and he wanted to find a way to stick it to him. He convinced the Pope to choose Michelangelo, hoping his rival would screw it up and embarrass himself. Guess that plan kinda backfired, eh?

One World Trade Center stands tall at 1776 feet, a direct reference to the year the Declaration of Independence was signed. Its observation deck starts at 1362 feet and extends until 1368 feet, the exact heights of the Twin Towers before they fell.

The Acropolis of Athens sits above the main city on a rocky outcrop. It consists of the ruins of several famous ancient structures, the most famous of them being the Parthenon. Construction began in the fifth century BC, during the golden age of Athens. Milennia later, in WWII, Germans raised their flag at the site—but the locals couldn't stand for it. A month later, two Athenians succeeded in pulling down the flag and ripping it to shreds. Their action became a symbol of resistance and helped the city stay strong under occupation.

Completed in 2012, the Shard in London is meant to look like a massive shard of glass, though it's actually made of 11,000 distinct glass panels. Londoners waited eagerly for opening day to get a glimpse from the top of the skyscraper—but some people couldn't wait that long. A group of “recreational trespassers” known as “place hackers” managed to avoid security and made it to the top of the building.

One of them was an Oxford University researcher, Bradley Garrett, who posted a picture of himself on a crane, with the London skyline visible behind him.

Westminster Abbey is the United Kingdom's most important religious building. The site of William the Conqueror's coronation, every English and British Monarch since has been crowned there, right up to Elizabeth II. It houses the Coronation Chair, an ancient wooden seat that every monarch since Edward I has sat upon at the moment England's crown first touched their heads. Built in the late 13th-century, it's the oldest known piece of English furniture.

Potala Palace is a fortress in Tibet. It was the residence of ten Dalai Lamas over 317 years. In 1959, it became a world heritage site after the 14th Dalai Lama fled to India. No other structure in the city is built on a higher level as a mark of respect. To protect the building from the ravages of weather, a crew of around 500 people, all residents and volunteers, repaint it every single year.

The “paint” is a traditional concoction of milk, honey, sugar, and lime, and it has a particularly sweet aroma. I wonder if the volunteers are ever tempted to taste it!

The Dome of the Rock is an Islamic Shrine in Old Jerusalem. The Foundation Stone the temple is built upon has great significance in Abrahamic religions. It is believed to be the place where Adam, the first man created by God, set foot on the Earth for the first time. It is also believed that this is where the prophet Abraham tried to sacrifice his son to please his God.

Workers actually noticed the Tower of Pisa's infamous "lean" when the structure was only two stories high. Military conflicts then halted construction for nearly a century, but that turned out to be pretty lucky. That gave the unstable soil time to settle, preventing the tower from toppling over. The lean got progressively worse over the years, until a restoration project in 2008 decreased the lean from 5.5 degrees to 3.97 degrees, stabilizing the tower for the very first time. Engineers predict that the tower will now stay stable for 200 years, after which the ground will slowly start giving way again.

The Taj Mahal may be the world’s most beautiful and famous mausoleum, but its history is not as sparkling as its façade. Legend has it that while the emperor Shah Jahan had this structure made as a tribute to his love for his queen, he did not want anyone to even try and replicate it. So, he took some extreme measures and supposedly cut off the hands of the workers who built it, before gouging out their eyes.

This story has persisted through the centuries—though most historians believe it's most likely completely false. It's beautiful, but is it "gouge peoples' eyes out" beautiful? I don't know about that...

A symbol of Russia, St. Basil’s Cathedral in the Red Square in Moscow is shaped like a “flame of a bonfire rising up to the sky.” It served as the home of Russia's Orthodox Chruch for centuries, until the Soviet Union confiscated it as part of their program of state atheism. In fact, the Cathedral was very nearly destroyed during the Soviet regime, but thankfully cooler heads eventually prevailed.

Decades later, after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, religious services once again began being held in the Cathedral, starting in 1997.

St. Basil’s Cathedral was built at the behest of Ivan the Terrible, the first Tsar of Russia. Like the Taj Mahal, it's rumored that he blinded the architect who designed it so that they could never copy it and create another structure so beautiful. Once again, there's no evidence for this story, but with a name like Ivan the Terrible, we wouldn't put it past him.

The Gateway Arch in St. Louis, Missouri, was built as a monument for Thomas Jefferson and his efforts for America’s westward expansion. At 630 feet tall and wide, it's the world’s tallest arch. Ominously, before construction started, the insurance firm working with the architects and engineers predicted that at least 13 people would lose their lives during its construction. Happily, they were wrong and no one lost their lives—but that doesn't mean there isn't any blood in the Arch's ledger.

In 1980, Kenneth Swyers attempted to parachute from a plane, land on the arch, then base jump to the ground. He successfully managed to land on the arch, but tragically, his next chute failed to open, and he lost his life in the fall.

Casa Mila in Barcelona is one of the most unique buildings on Earth. Antoni Gaudi designed the undulating house in free form, and not a single right angle can be found in the entire structure. It became a UNESCO heritage site in 1984, and critics consider it to be one of the most fascinating buildings in the world because it does not follow any design rules. Considered a father of modern architecture, Gaudi had a vivid imagination, and he was alternately praised and criticized for his bold and innovative ideas.

Unfortunately, one of his biggest critics was the owner of the house. The owner hated the final product and tried to cover up much of Gaudi's work with more traditional decor.

Kuala Lumpur’s defining feature, the Petronas Twin Towers, were built under bizarre circumstances. Not only did the Malaysian Prime Minister have the plans altered to make the finished structure the tallest building in the world, he also turned construction into a dramatic competition. In an unprecedented move, he awarded the responsibility of each tower’s construction to two different companies from two different countries.

Japan’s Hazama Corporation and South Korea’s Samsung Engineering and Construction were responsible for one tower each and the race was on to see who would finish first and emerge as the clear winner. Spoiler alert: it was Korea.

During a routine maintenance clean, staff at Quebec city's legendary Chateau Frontenac found a letter stuck between two floors of the hotel. The words inside were heartbreaking. A cadet had written the note just before shipping out, and inside, he told his sweetheart to wait for him. No one knows the real fate of the couple, but the story inspired the producers of a popular Korean soap, Goblin: The Lonely and Great God, to shoot an episode in the hotel.

The number of visitors coming to see the Chateau from Korea has increased exponentially since then, and an old brass mailbox in the hotel’s lobby has become a popular Korean selfie spot!

The Niteroi Contemporary Art Museum in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil was the subject of a political scandal even before it was built. First, the city’s sub-mayor, Zeca Mocarzel, convinced the owner of the site where the museum would eventually stand that the land was worthless. Mocarzel then bought the land for next to nothing—shortly before Mayor Jorge Roberto Silveira announced his proposal to build on the site.

Morcazel sold the land to the city for substantially more than he'd paid for it, go figure. Since then, it's widely speculated that Mocarzel and Silveira planned this whole scheme.

The Dresden Frauenkirche was long notable for its 12,000-ton sandstone dome, with only eight skinny supports to hold it up. Hard to believe, but this architectural marvel was stable enough to withstand 200 Prussian cannonballs during a conflict in 1760. Unfortunately, it wasn’t strong enough to survive renewed shelling during WWII. It held firm for two days, giving some 30 people sheltering inside enough time to make a run for it, but the dome finally collapsed and the structure fell.

The city left the blackened pile of bricks as a memorial for years before finally deciding to rebuild the grand structure.

The Forbidden City in Beijing is the largest Imperial Palace in the world. Completed in 1420 AD, it served as the Imperial Palace of China for 492 years. In this period, the emperor was considered to be a “son of Heaven” with holy heavenly powers, and their home was built accordingly. Architects designed the palace to lead to the north, as an earthly counterpart for the North Star. While in use, the Palace was considered a divine residence, which was why common people were forbidden to enter it.

The construction of the Basilica de la Sagrada Familia began in 1882, and it has yet to be completed! The incredibly unique structure has had a ridiculously long and complicated history, but it looks like the end may finally be in sight. Officials hope that the perpetual construction might finally come to a close in the 2020s, some 250 years after it started.

Due to its closeness to the Transylvanian side of the border from Romania, Bran Castle is often referred to as “Dracula’s Castle,” although it is just one of several locations linked with the story. The legend of Vlad III Dracula, also known as Vlad the Impaler, inspired Bram Stoker to create the legendary monster. While it's probably just a story that Vlad III was imprisoned in this castle, the Romanian Government decided it would be good for tourism to market the castle as the one where Dracula once lived.

Automobile mogul Walter P. Chrysler had the Chrysler Building built to demonstrate his company’s success. The building served as company headquarters for around two decades, but when that era came to an end, Chrysler bought the building for himself, thinking he would pass it down in his family and it would remain a family legacy. However, soon after his passing, his family sold the building to a real estate investor for $18 million.

The Louvre, one of the world's most famous art museums, was originally a fortress. It became a residence for royalty later, and looking at it now, it might be hard to believe that at one time it was deserted and rotting. However, after the royals shifted their residence to the Palace of Versailles, the Louvre fell to disuse and decay.

After the French Revolution, city officials decided to convert the building into a museum for the people. It opened in 1793, with over 500 paintings and other artworks confiscated from the deposed royalty and nobility on display.

Architect Floyd Lloyd Wright designed the iconic house Fallingwater as a nature retreat for Edgar J. Kaufmann. The house helped resuscitate Wright’s career at a time when many considered him a has-been whose best work was behind him. He proved them wrong by designing one of the most beautiful houses on Earth...in less than two hours! For months, Wright told Kaufmann that he'd been working on plans, but he actually had nothing.

Then one day, Kaufmann gave Wright a call and said he'd like to come visit to look over the plans. Most of us would have crumbled, but Wright just calmly sat down and drew up Fallingwater that instant.

One of London’s best-known skyscrapers, 30 St. Mary Axe, AKA The Gherkin, is situated in the city’s primary financial district. It was completed in 2003, but during the early days of construction workers discovered the grave a young Roman girl while digging. The body was preserved at the London Museum for 12 years. When construction finished, authorities gave the girl a funeral and reburied near the base of the tower.

Legend has it that the second Buddha, who is credited with bringing Buddhism to Bhutan, flew to the place where the Tiger’s Nest Monastery is now situated. He flew there on the back of a flying tigress, stepped into a natural “tiger’s lair” cave and meditated there for three years, three months, three weeks, and three days. When he was done, he anointed the site for the construction of a monastery.

Frank Lloyd Wright envisioned the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York with a red façade because he believed red was the color of creation. However, Guggenheim’s art advisor Hilla Rebay shot this idea down instantly because she disliked the color. However, while his color scheme didn't land, Wright still ended up designing nearly every single aspect of the famous museum, right down to the chairs inside.

The Winter Palace in Saint Petersburg was a symbol of imperial power and decadence in the late 1700s. Although Peter I had come up with the idea of building it, it didn't reach its true glory until the time of Catherine the Great, who enlarged it and filled it with grand and splendid objects. The royals who succeeded Catherine the Great kept living there, right up to Nicholas II, the last Tsar.

Nicholas's reign saw Bloody Sunday, the brutal massacre on the steps of the Winter Palace in 1905. Imperial guards opened fire on peaceful protesters who demanded the Tsar help the starving masses of Russia. It was a dark mark on the Russian Empire, and one of the key events that led to the Russian Revolution.

The Chateau de Chenonceau in France is also known as the Ladies’ Castle because of the women who lived in it and loved it and contributed to its style. From Catherine Briconnet, wife of Charles XVIII, to Catherine de Medici to Madame Louis Dupin, all these ladies played a role in beautifying the castle and making it the landmark that it is today.

Sources: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 59, 60

The first year of the pandemic was rough for most of us, but man, John Mulaney really went through it, eh? First, there was his shocker rehab stint in December 2020. Then, just a few months later, he dropped another bombshell: He was leaving his wife, Anna Marie Tendler. For a guy who had done that much standup about being sober and how much he loved his wife, needless to say, we were all stunned.

That's a crazy year, if you ask me, but I'm pretty sure Mulaney hasn't been up to much since then (oh wait...).

March 2020 was a weird time to start a relationship, but that didn't stop Ana de Armas and Ben Affleck from having a go at it. Well, maybe it was the giant phoenix tattoo, or maybe she wasn't a Good Will Hunting fan, but de Armas decided to call it quits less than a year into their relationship. Oh well, I'd say ol' Ben has done alright for himself since then...

On a completely unrelated note, here's another couple who didn't survive lockdown: Jennifer Lopez and Alex Rodriguez. Though they got engaged in 2019, they had to postpone their wedding twice due to COVID-19. Well, maybe that was a good thing, because in April 2021, they decided that they were "better as friends."

On the list of priciest breakups of the last two years, Bill and Melinda Gates have to take the top spot, right? The billionaire philanthropist power couple tied the knot in 1994, but the pandemic was the final nail in the coffin. But wait? Despite the billions up for grabs, Melinda wrote in her divorce petition that “spousal support is not needed." She simply thought their marriage was "irretrievably broken" and she wanted out, but she wasn't worried about the money.

If you ask me, I'm sure she'll be just fine.

This one we definitely didn't see coming. Camila Cabello and Shawn Mendes seemed like a match made in heaven—but just because you WANT something to work out, doesn't mean it will. Of course, these two even managed to make breaking up look glamourous: “We’ve decided to end our romantic relationship but our love for one another as humans is stronger than ever. We started our relationship as best friends and will continue to be best friends." Crying emoji.

Sometimes, the pandemic works fast. Celebs like Jay Cutler and Kristin Cavallari had the luxury of going tropical for the first phase of lockdown. The couple spent three weeks in the Bahamas in March 2020...and Cavallari filed for divorce pretty much the second she got home. The two of them had been married for 10 years, and they share joint custody of their three sons.

Ok, this one is hard to track the timeline, but Khloe Kardashian and Tristan Thompson both reconciled and split in the last two years. Apparently, some time locked down made them want to give their relationship another chance. They rekindled their romance in August 2020 and stayed together the rest of the year—but by June 2021, it just wasn't working out.

Kardashian cited her ongoing trust issues with Thompson, and she finally just decided he wasn't worth the effort.

If you were a celeb on social media, it was pretty hard to hide a breakup in the early days of lockdown. Fans were quick to notice that Julianne Hough and husband Brooks Laich were definitely not quarantining together. They claimed it was no big deal, but...come on. Finally, on May 29, they came clean: They had separated after three years of marriage.

File this one under "probably not the pandemic's fault," but I doubt it helped. In May 2020, Thomas Middleditch and costume designer Mollie Gates separated. Notably, this came mere months after Middleditch raved about how much swinging had helped their marriage. Hmm...we'll just leave that right where it is...

Speaking of splits that were probably coming, pando or no pando, there's Armie Hammer and Elizabeth Chambers. After quarantining together in the Cayman Islands with their two kids, Hammer and Chambers returned home and quickly announced their separation. They released the usual public statement, saying they'd grown apart and were ready to turn the page...but anyone reading the news at that time might be able to deduce another reason their marriage fell apart...

Riverdale fans rejoiced when they saw that two of their favorite stars, Cole Sprouse and KJ Apa, were quarantining together. But wait, hadn't Sprouse and Lili Reinhart just gotten back together? Well, apparently, the prospect of locking down together was too much. The pair made the latest—and thus far final—split official in May 2020.

Doubt you forgot about this one! Megan Fox and Brian Austin Green threw in the towel after almost a decade of marriage in May 2020, officially filing for divorce a few months later. BUT, we should note: Fox had already filed for divorce once...then they got back together and had their third child. All I'm saying is, you never know. Watch your back, MGK.

Anyone who has heard Kacey Musgraves' new album probably already guessed she'd be showing up. The country singer and her husband Ruston Kelly announced their divorce in July 2020, after just a few months of lockdown. Their announcement made the split seem quite amicable—but Musgraves' music tells another story...

Nothing says "quarantine" like Tiger King. Well, I've got some bad news for you: Joe Exotic and Dillon Passage announced they were getting a divorce after three years of marriage in March 2021. That's it, totally normal. Nothing weird here. Except...in July 2021, Exotic announced a contest called "The Bachelor King" where men over 18 can apply to be his new husband. Just that.

Rebel Wilson's pandemic glow-up was hard to miss, and that came with a hot new billionaire beau, Jacob Busch, heir to the Anheuser-Busch fortune. But relationships in the middle of big life changes don't always work out, and by 2021, the bloom was off the rose. Wilson allegedly grew distant around New Years 2021, before finally breaking up with Busch...via text.

Dang, even billionaires get dumped by text.

Selling Sunset was lockdown comfort food for a lot of us on Netflix. Well, behind the scenes, two of the show's stars, Chrishell Stause and Jason Oppenheim, started knocking boots. They shacked up together after Stause's divorce was finalized—but I guess mixing business with pleasure didn't work out quite as they'd planned. After getting together in July 2021, the pair called it off by December.

Was there a hotter couple than Dua Lipa and Anwar Hadid? One of the biggest singers in the world and a Hadid?! It seemed like a fairy tale—but fairy tales aren't real, and the pair went "on a break" in December 2021, after two years together. Soon after that, a source close to the pair confirmed they are "no longer dating." Sorry to burst your bubble...

There's no love like Broadway love—but that doesn't mean it lasts forever. Anthony Ramos and Jasmine Cephas Jones starred in Hamilton together. They met for the first time during the initial rehearsals for the play, then Ramos finally popped the question three years later. Except, maybe they weren't quite ready for "forever." In November 2021, the two performers announced they'd ended their engagement.

But you know what King George says: "You'll be back, soon you'll see..."

Around the same time, Evelyn Cormier and David Vazquez Zermeno announced that they had split after four years. But, seeing as the couple starred in season 5 of 90 Day Fiancé, we can't exactly say we're that surprised...

When lockdown started, Kelly Clarkson quarantined with her husband, Brandon Blackstock, and their two children. I doubt that was a fun couple months, because by June 2020, Clarkson filed for divorce after almost seven years of marriage. Clarkson kept full custody of their kids.

Jason Sudeikis and Olivia Wilde were one of those cool celeb couples that all us normies all fawned over—but it clearly wasn't meant to be. In November 2020, after a seven-year engagement and two kids, the Booksmart director and SNL alum went their separate ways. I can't imagine seeing Wilde cavorting with Harry Styles was easy for our guy Ted Lasso, especially because he's almost half Sudeikis's age. Oh well—hopefully being the most beloved man on TV is an OK consolation prize.

The pandemic didn't ONLY destroy love. It created it sometimes too! Tiffany Haddish and Common got together around mid-2020—bet you didn't know that! Well, there's probably a reason...after a little over a year together, the pair split in November 2021. Easy come, easy go I guess...

The pandemic Bachelorette couple didn't make it either. Tayshia Adams chose Zac Clark to give her rose in Season 16 after a contest locked down at a single resort. Apparently, that wasn't the ideal place for love to blossom, because about one year after their engagement, they announced that they are "no longer a couple."

Zoomer power couple Kaia Gerber and Jacob Elordi first started seeing each other in September 2020, but apparently, lockdown cramped their style. After a year of giving paparazzi gold and posting racy images online, Elordi and Gerber ended their relationship in November 2021.

Was the pandemic hard on reality show couples—or is being a reality show couple just hard? Either way, Christine and Kody Brown separated after more than 25 years together in 2021. But don't worry too much about Kody: The Sister Wives star has three other wives whose shoulders he can cry on.

When Us magazine asked Lindsey Vonn when her wedding was going to be, she told them she had "no idea." Like some others on this list, she and hockey player P.K. Subban had gotten engaged in 2019, but had to postpone their nuptials due to COVID. Or...was there another reason? The wedding never ended up happening, because Vonn announced the pair had broken up in December 2020.

Lockdown really prompted some serious life changes for some longtime celeb couples. Rob Riggle and his wife Tiffany had been together for 21 years—but in May 2020, they announced their separation. They divorced in October of that year—but the story didn't end there. Turns out, Tiffany had hacked Rob's Apple account, stolen money from him, and planted a secret camera in his house. After all that, Rob had to get a restraining order against his wife. Yeesh.

I am told that Zayn Malik and Gigi Hadid were a very big deal. People were very excited when they got back together—but that was in January 2020. If only they'd known what was coming...They announced they were expecting their first child in April 2020, and welcomed a daughter later that year, but after quarantining together with some of Hadid's family in rural Pennsylvania, things went south.

Hadid's mother filed four harassment charges against Malik, and the couple called it quits soon after.

Early pandemic convinced Sean Penn and Leila George they were ready to settle down together. They tied the knot in July 2020—but maybe they didn't realize how long this would last. Just over a year later, George filed for divorce. Most importantly, that means that Sean Penn is NO LONGER Vincent D'Onofrio's son-in-law, so update your notes.

Yet another reality show couple bit the dust—but at least this one wasn't too contentious! 90 Day Fiancé's Tania Maduro and Syngin Colchester split up after two years of marriage. Maduro announced her newly-single status on Instagram, but she still gave her ex a nice shoutout: "Now don’t go all at once to his DMs ladies or he’ll never be able to sort them all out."

As for Colchester? You know he's gone and signed himself up for season two of 90 Day: The Single Life.

Look: I can't say I understood the Elon Musk/Grimes pairing to begin with, so I can't necessarily say I was shocked when Musk announced the couple had "semi-separated" in September 2021, a little over a year after the birth of their son X Æ A-Xii. Maybe it was the pandemic—but I don't know, I can't really picture what went on in that house anyway.

I'm starting to notice a pattern: Couples get together in lockdown, have kids...then break up a few months later. That's what happened to Jason Derulo and Jena Frumes. They first met in March 2020. They welcomed their son in May 2021. Then, in September 2021, Derulo took to Twitter to say: "Jena and I have decided to part ways. She is an amazing mother but we feel being apart at this time will allow us to be the best versions of ourselves and the best parents we could be. Pls respect our privacy in this time."

I'll be honest: I kinda figured Scott Disick would have made this list—and I was right! He met 19-year-old model Amelia Gray Hamlin in February 2021, and against all odds, it didn't work out. The Kardashian gossip mill blew up when Kourtney Kardashian's ex Younes Bendjima shared messages that Disick allegedly sent about Kourtney. That's a suitably Kardashian way to break up, if you ask me.

But another source says Amelia was finished with Scott regardless. Either way, they're donezo.

We've seen this fairy tale before: Then star actress and the billionaire heir. That's the story behind Kaley Cuoco and Karl Cook—but they didn't get their happily-ever-after either. A few months after their third wedding anniversary, in September 2021, the two announced that their "current paths have taken [them] in opposite directions." Now sure, relationships end all the time, but we're definitely seeing a pattern here:

Celebs get married while living their crazy busy celeb lives—then a year or so locked down with their spouse...

Come on: Where there's a chance to shade Jon Gosselin, you've got to take it. Gosselin had been with his girlfriend, Colleen Conrad, for seven years, but he broke up with her in February 2021...right after she announced her breast cancer diagnosis. Not a good look, Jon.

In 2018, Jennifer Sloan filed for divorce from Jim Belushi, her husband of 23 years. Soon after, she had a change of heart and the pair reconciled. Welp, I guess they weren't prepared for a lockdown. In August 2021, Belushi filed the paperwork again, and it looks like this time, it's going to stick.

The pandemic was a great time for "this really isn't a big deal" divorce announcements, but I think Kate Bosworth's takes the cake. In 2021, she and her husband, director Michael Polish, announced their separation. She took to Twitter to break the news: "Our hearts are full, as we have never been so enamored and deeply grateful for one another as we do in this decision to separate. Together, over the last ten years, Michael and I have chosen love, every time. We hold hands as tightly today as we entangled fingers on our wedding day."

May we all pray to be that chill on the day of our own divorces...

In a weird way, the pandemic seems to have helped prevent divorce—by making people postpone their weddings. Jersey Shore's Sammi Sweetheart Giancola and her fiancé, Christian Biscardi, got engaged in March 2019. They were supposed to be married in April 2020—but I bet you know that didn't happen. Well, maybe that was a good thing. In July 2021, Giancola announced the engagement was off. Hey, that's a lot easier than a divorce is all I'm saying.

In July 2021, Us magazine got the scoop Scooter Braun was leaving his wife of seven years, Yael. Well, days later, Braun himself confirmed it. They remained living together for a time before Braun moved out, and tried their best to keep things amicable for the sake of their children Jagger, Levi, and Hart.

The pandemic saw the rise and fall of a great Boomer power couple. Model Paulina Porizkova and Aaron Sorkin stunned us all by going public with their relationship at the 2021 Oscars. Well, maybe they were just in it for the photo op, because three months later, Porizkova announced they'd split up on social media. She ended the post saying that was "all [she'll] ever say on the subject," which leads ME to believe there's some dirt there. I can dream at least, can't I?

La La and Carmelo Anthony seemed like a rare NBA success story, but COVID was the last straw for this couple, who'd been together for over 20 years. Don't you go worrying about them, though, because a source told Us magazine "They have been separated for a while now and will remain friends."

SO STOP. WORRYING!

The boys from One Direction are all over this list! Liam Payne and Maya Henry got engaged in August 2020—and broke up within a year. Not long after, Payne went on the "The Diary of a CEO" podcast and proceeded to beat himself up over the whole thing: "I feel like more than anything at this point, I'm more disappointed in myself that I keep on hurting people. That annoys me." Probably annoys them too, Liam!

The longtime relationship ending after quarantine are the ones that really bum me out. Jason Segal and his partner, Alexis Mixter, ended their eight-year relationship in April 2021. BUT, Mixter at least gave Kate Bosworth a run for her money in terms of amicable breakup announcements: “It is odd to write about the end of a relationship, especially when the friendship that still exists is so full of life,” she announced. “But change happens and we made the decision quite a while ago to let ourselves grow away from what our relationship had been and into what it was becoming.”

All these amicable breakups, where are the messy ones? Don't worry, I've got you covered. Saweetie took to Twitter to announce she was leaving Quavo, her boyfriend of three years: "I’m single. I’ve endured too much betrayal and hurt behind the scenes for a false narrative to be circulating that degrades my character." Oh, and there's so much more than that, look up the rest of her tweets...

I don't know WHAT went on out of the public eye, but it don't sound good.

Some pandemic relationships went out in a ball of flame, some ended peacefully—but some were just cold and bitter. When Luke Evans was asked about the status of his relationship with soccer player Rafa Olarra, all he could do was shrug: "It is what it is." (That means they broke up).

I don't really have the mental capacity to really try to grapple with Shia LaBeouf anymore, so I'm just going to present the facts: He starred in a very NSFW music video with Margaret Qualley. It was for her sister's song, but we're just going to brush past that. They started dating soon after—right around the time that LaBeouf's ex, FKA Twigs, started pursuing legal action against him for "relentless abuse." They didn't last long after that.

Margaret? I'll say it: Seems like you made the right choice.

I'll be honest: I didn't know Zoe Kravitz was married. But, before taking over Hollywood and cruising around town with Channing Tatum, she actually had a husband, actor Karl Glusman. They tied the knot in May 2019—but, like so many of us, lockdown was evidently not kind to them. Kravitz filed for divorce in December 2020.

And sorry Karl, I really do hate to say it, but come on. Channing Tatum? Seems like she's doing pretty good.

Sometimes, these things move fast: Demi Lovato started dating Max Ehrich in March 2020, they got engaged in July...and broke up in September. Look, it was a trying time for all of us...I get it.

I know there were a lot of us out there who were pulling for Cardi B and Offset, but it just didn't work out, I suppose. In September 2020, Cardi announced that she had filed for divorce, though mentioned that both she and Offset would "continue to put [their son] Kulture first through this troubling time."

And if you were hoping she might give him a second chance, I wouldn't hold your breath. She stated that there are "no prospects for a reconciliation."

Here's two for the price of one: Sure, you might have heard that Aaron Rodgers and his fiancée Shailene Woodley broke up during the pandemic—but did you remember that wasn't Rodgers' first pandemic split? Way back in July 2020, Rodgers broke up with NASCAR's Danica Patrick after two years together.

But now, there's maybe a chance he's getting back together with Woodley? Jury's out on that one, so keep your ears to the ground.

We all heard about the rich getting richer during the pandemic. Nicole Young fits that bill: She made a cool $100 million...by divorcing her husband of over 20 years, Dr. Dre. But she had to work for that money—the divorce proceedings took over a year and a half, and they did. Not. Sound. Fun.

May 2020 was a busy time for divorces, for obvious reasons. And we mean it! When Mary-Kate Olsen tried to file for divorce from her French banker husband, Olivier Sarkozy, she actually couldn't. The pandemic led to an eight-week moratorium in New York City courts, so she couldn't get a divorce even if she wanted one. Well, that gave her some time to think...and she still went through with it the second she had the chance.

Ioan Gruffudd and Alice Evans' split might just be the messiest pandemic breakup. In January 2021, Evans announced on Twitter that Gruffud told her "he is to leave his family," giving no further explanation. The tweet was soon deleted, but a total Twitter meltdown soon followed. Gruffud has remained almost entirely silent on the issue—but he did file for a restraining order again Evans on Valentine's Day, 2022, citing domestic violence. Yikes.

Messy pandemic breakups all have one thing in common: Twitter! In November 2021, Aaron Carter announced that he and his partner, Melanie Martin, had broken up...just one week after their child was born. Think that's juicy? Just wait til you read the tweet: "here has been a very big lie and my sister communicating w my ex fiancé [SIC] ruined everything considering she knew what angel tried to do to me in court thanks angel you ruined my family. God bless."

I've said it before and I'll say it again: Yikes.

And here we have arrived at the climax of this list: I call it the Ye Chapter. We'll start with the OTHER couple he helped break up: Meek Mill and Milan Harris. In July 2020, Ye wanted on a massive Twitter rant claiming that Kim cheated on him...with Meek Mill! Mill quickly denied the allegation—but something must have gone down behind the scenes, because just days later, he announced he and the mother of his newest child, Milan Harris, had broken up.

It seems like this happened a million years ago, but Kanye West and Kim Kardashian actually had a pandemic breakup. Kim filed for divorce in February 2021. And that's all we heard from them for the rest of the pandemic! Wink.

I bet you think the next breakup would be Ye and Julia Fox—but you can't forget about Irina Shayk! Ye dated the Russian actress/model in the summer following his split from Kim, but, as you could probably guess, it didn't work out. Apparently, they realized that "they aren't great romantic partners." The whole Julia Fox media frenzy—which only lasted a couple months, remember—came long after the Shayk split.

On a totally unrelated note, here's another pandemic breakup you probably forgot about: Pete Davidson and...Phoebe Dynevor! The pair started dating mid-lockdown, but called it off by August of 2021. Then ol' Pete stumbled into yet another relationship with yet another ridiculously famous woman. To be honest, I have no clue what the real status of Pete and Kim's relationship is, so we're just going to let the cards fall on that one and keep you posted.

Sources: 1, 2, 3, 4

Stevie Ray Vaughan’s father wasn’t called Big Jim for nothing. This hard-drinking ex-Navy man was as tough as they came—and his youngest son couldn’t have been more different. Despite being born two weeks late, little Stevie entered the world on October 3, 1954, in Dallas, Texas, weighing just three-and-a-half pounds (1.6 kg).

But the stark contrasts didn’t stop there…

For every ounce of Big Jim’s brute strength and towering confidence, young Stevie was the exact opposite—small, shy, and sensitive. It didn’t help that Big Jim spent his days doing backbreaking work that put him in a foul mood by the time he got home to Martha and the two boys.

And when it came to unwinding? Let’s just say Big Jim’s methods were anything but gentle.

Hobbies are great for stress relief, right? Sadly, Big Jim released the combined pressure of his job and what was likely leftover shell shock (aka PTSD from his time in WWII) by knocking back drinks and unleashing a reign of terror on his family.

Poor Stevie grew up in a constant state of fear—and it left scars that never fully healed.

A wise man once called booze “the cause of, and solution to, all of life’s problems”—and it was a lesson that Stevie learned way too early. At six, he was already mixing drinks when his parents were out because—despite all off the evidence otherwise—he “thought it was cool”. The neighborhood kids agreed.

What started as a childhood thrill would end up nearly destroying him.

Of course, life at the Vaughan household wasn’t all bad—music was the perfect mood lifter. Both Vaughan’s parents had music in their DNA, and they soon realized their sons had inherited some uncanny abilities. Stevie, always eager to mimic his older brother, Jimmie, quickly went from curious to completely hooked. By the time he was seven, he had his very own guitar, and he never let it go.

Some nights, the boys’ mother Martha would peek into their room to find them both asleep, cradling their guitars like prized possessions.

The Vaughan brothers didn’t just love music—they lived it. Too bad not everyone was on board. By the time Jimmie was 16, his rock and roll lifestyle caused so much tension at home that he packed his bags and left. That meant 13-year-old Stevie lost his favorite jamming partner—and he was miserable.

Guitars around the house were a painful reminder of Jimmie, so to please his parents, Stevie decided to get a job. Sounds harmless enough, right?

Stevie’s parents couldn’t be happier when their youngest put down his axe and landed a job at a local hamburger stand. However, one day, while hauling trash out back, Stevie Ray Vaughan got into an accident so horrific, it’s unforgettable.

He lost his footing and fell about 10 feet, landing hard—right on top of a massive barrel filled with scorching hot grease.

Stevie Ray Vaughan could have lost his life in that fall—but his boss didn’t care. Instead of checking that he was okay, she freaked out over the cracked grease lid. Luckily, he’d only cracked the lid and hadn’t touched any of the dangerously hot grease inside. Furious, Vaughan didn’t just walk away, he quit and stormed home.

Once inside, he cranked up an Albert King record as loud as it would go and made a decision that would change everything…

After his nasty fall, Vaughan swore he’d never waste another second on grunt work—he was going to play guitar like Albert King. Fast forward over four decades, and that promise paid off when self-described “Stevie Ray Vaughan wannabe” John Mayer inducted him into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Mayer summed it up perfectly: Vaughan “seamlessly melded the supernatural vibe of Jimi Hendrix, the intensity of Albert King…and the sharpshooter precision of his older brother Jimmie.”

Stevie Ray Vaughan wasn’t some kid with pipe dreams—he had the chops to back it up. When he auditioned for a band called Southern Distributor at just 14, they probably thought they’d stump him by asking for “Jeff’s Boogie”—a lightning-fast showcase of Jeff Beck’s guitar wizardry.

Big mistake. Vaughan ripped through it note for note, leaving their jaws on the floor. Word was starting to spread. This kid was something special.

As talented as he was, Vaughan still had to pay his musical dues. He spent many nights tearing it up at The Cellar, a sleazy Dallas club frequented by bikers, hippies, and misfits. Its anything-goes ethos meant Vaughan could play whatever he wanted while his girlfriend Glenda danced suggestively beside him.

It wasn’t all fun and games, though…

Sure, Stevie Ray Vaughan was earning money and having a blast, but this dive bar was actually dangerous. Case in point: Some audience members chose not to boo—but instead to fire a few rounds at the stage when they didn’t like what they heard.

Vaughan, a true Texan, wasn’t fazed at all. His philosophy? “You ducked and kept playing”. Not exactly a normal life for a 16-year-old—and something was about to give.

Vaughan was not your typical high schooler. With his long hair, wild outfits, and a habit of nodding off in class—thanks to the substances he’d picked up at the dive bar—he stood out. He’d also started lying to his parents about what he was up to. They didn’t want him following in his brother’s footsteps, and the tension at home was reaching a breaking point.

One day, while Stevie Ray Vaughan was relaxing in his room, his father stormed in—and kicked him clear across the room. When a classmate noticed his bandaged ear and asked what happened, Vaughan’s response was chilling. He said: “My dad boxed my ear. He told me he didn’t want me to turn out like Jimmie”. But even his father’s brutality wasn’t going to stop him.

He knew that one day he’d show them all—and that day was coming very soon.

Imagine picking up a guitar because of Albert King—and then, a few years later, playing right beside him. That was now Vaughan’s reality. As he tore through the Austin music scene, he didn’t just cross paths with legends like Buddy Guy, Jimmy Rogers, and Lightnin’ Hopkins—he played alongside them.

By 1977, the Austin Sun crowned them Band of the Year, but that was just the beginning. Someone far bigger was about to take notice.

When it rains, it pours, and by 1978, Vaughan’s life was moving at breakneck speed. His career kept getting hotter, and so did his personal life. Oh, and, um, speaking of speed, his habits were spiraling out of control. According to one biography, “If powdered stimulants were around, it was next to impossible to get Stevie to leave the room until nothing was left”.

His pursuit of pleasure would soon take him into dangerously rocky territory.

Sure, Stevie Ray Vaughan was a bit of a quirky misfit, but you gotta admit, there’s something irresistible about raw talent and unwavering ambition. Let’s be clear: He definitely wasn’t lacking in admirers. Unfortunately, the dark-haired pageant queen who really caught his eye? She should have been 100% off-limits.

Enter Lenora “Lenny” Bailey—wild, beautiful, and completely forbidden. She was already dating Dallas musician Diamond Joe Siddons. Vaughan gave Siddons guitar tips in exchange for “party favors”. But Vaughan took more than just the substances—he took Lenny.

Siddons was so bitter he literally threw darts at a photo of Vaughan’s face. And with all the romantic chaos that followed, it soon became clear—maybe Vaughan didn’t actually win this round.

By mid-1978, Double Trouble was born—the blues rock powerhouse that would make Vaughan a legend. With Chris Layton on drums, Tommy Shannon on bass, and Vaughan—now going by his full name, Stevie Ray Vaughan—on guitar and vocals, the trio was tearing up Texas.

They had the talent, the momentum, and their sights set on something bigger. Too bad fate was about to throw a nasty wrench in the works.

Post-show jitters? Totally normal. A little pick-me-up after putting your all into a stellar show stage? Not unheard of. But doing it in front of an open window? Big mistake. Stevie Ray Vaughan was doing a little post-performance toot at a Houston show when the wrong person caught a glimpse—and things were about to take a disastrous turn.

What are the odds? An off-duty cop just happened to be lingering outside of Vaughan’s dressing room window—and got a front-row seat to the guitarist recklessly snorting nose candy. Busted. The officer wasted no time slapping Vaughan with a possession charge. Talk about a buzzkill.

To make matters worse, Vaughan’s band opened for the Muddy Waters that night—and the blues legend had some chilling words about Vaughan’s downward spiral…

Want to hear the ultimate backhanded compliment? After the window incident, Muddy Waters didn’t mince words: “Stevie could perhaps be the greatest guitar player that ever lived, but he won’t live to get 40 years old if he doesn’t leave that white powder alone”. Ouch.

If that warning wasn’t harsh enough, Vaughan’s actual punishment was about to hit even harder.

If you think about it, Stevie Ray Vaughan was pretty lucky. Despite getting busted red-handed, he walked away with just two years’ probation, a Texas travel ban, and a court order to go to rehab and steer clear of bad influences.

Despite having god-tier guitar skills and a skyrocketing career, deep down, Vaughan was still that insecure kid looking for something to fill the void. Booze and substances weren’t scratching that itch, so he got…creative. He tried reaching out to an old flame and even randomly proposed to a pal during a late-night 7-Eleven run. Yikes.

Then, one night, the real answer came to him—in a dream.

Let’s skip the drawn-out description of Vaughan’s dream (because, honestly, who has time for those?). Vaughan dreamt that Howlin’ Wolf called Lenora, the girl he took from Diamond Joe, up to the stage and sat her on his knee. When Vaughan woke up, he realized he wanted to marry her.

Sweet right? Well, as long as she didn’t know that she hadn’t exactly been the first choice on his list.

Martha Stewart would have been horrified: The invitations went out last-minute over the phone, the bride borrowed a blouse from the photographer, and the wedding rings? Just scraps of wire that had been found on the floor. And yet, in the middle of a gig at Austin’s Rome Inn, Vaughan and Lenny sealed the deal—rock and roll style.

Everything was really clicking for Vaughan—newly married and now booked to play at the Montreux Jazz Festival’s blues night in 1982. It was the perfect way to catapult Double Trouble out of Texas and into the national scene—and, boy, did it work. People magazine described how he “reduced the stage to a pile of smoking cinders”.

Suddenly, everyone—including one rock superstar—wanted to know who this fiery guitarist was.

After Montreux, Vaughan got the call of a lifetime. None other than David Bowie had been so blown away by his performance that he asked Stevie Ray Vaughan to play on his next album. The album? Let’s Dance. It was definitely an unexpected combo, but somehow it worked—Vaughan shredded his way through six of the album’s eight tracks, and Let’s Dance sold over three times as many copies as Bowie’s previous release.

Too bad Vaughan’s magic touch was about to spark some serious trouble.

Even though Vaughan’s contribution to the chart-topping Let’s Dance was major, the ever-humble guitarist brushed it off, saying he “just sprayed Albert King all over the F-er”. Classic Stevie. Bowie wanted Vaughan to do the same on his world tour. Torn between chasing his dream and leaving his Double Trouble bandmates behind, Vaughan finally agreed.

But just when things seemed perfect, disaster struck during rehearsals…

What do you get when you mix a troubled yet talented Texan bluesman and his coke-addled wife with a British glam rock superhero and his jealous lead guitarist? A big ol’ mess. Vaughan’s wife, Lenny, a huge Bowie fan, insisted on hanging out at rehearsals—and Vaughan didn’t mind, especially since she kept the nose candy flowing.

But not everyone loved the arrangement…

Bowie’s lead guitarist, who was sober and fiercely protective of his spotlight, didn’t like the new competition. Tensions rose fast. It didn’t help that Vaughan’s chemistry was a key part of Bowie’s new sound. Eventually, the situation boiled over—Bowie laid down the law and banned Lenny from rehearsals.

The stage was set for a showdown no one saw coming.

Stevie Ray Vaughan had played a major role in David Bowie’s comeback—but the respect? Nowhere to be found. Bowie made it clear who the real star was and laid down the law. Vaughan couldn’t mention Double Trouble during press interviews, and, to top it off, his paycheck barely matched that of a backup singer. Seriously?

Vaughan had had enough. In a legendary move, he quit the tour the day before it started. As his manager later put it, “Telling Bowie to [eff] off was the greatest factor for establishing Stevie Ray Vaughan as the working-class guitar hero”.

Quitting Bowie’s tour was a power move—but Stevie Ray Vaughan wasn’t exactly unshakeable. When the “Let’s Dance” video dropped, Vaughan lost it. There was Bowie, casually miming his guitar parts…wearing white gloves!? The disrespect was unreal. Vaughan was so furious he couldn’t touch a guitar for days. Talk about hitting a nerve.

Bowie wasn’t the only big star blown away by Vaughan and Double Trouble’s fiery Montreux performance. Jackson Browne was so impressed he offered them the ultimate gift: free use of his recording studio. The band didn’t waste a second and knocked out a full album in just two days.

With the Bowie buzz still fresh, it didn’t take long for a label to snap them up. Their debut album was about to drop, and it was a game-changer.

Who needed David Bowie? Not Stevie Ray Vaughan and Double Trouble. Their 1983 debut album, Texas Flood, struck gold and reignited mainstream interest in the blues—no small feat in an era dominated by synth-pop. The critically acclaimed album kicked off with a song about Vaughan’s wife and closed with another.

Guess the relationship was still moving right along—toward disaster. 

When Vaughan wanted to prove his love to Lenny, it wasn’t with roses or jewelry. According to Lenny, “He wouldn’t give me money, but he would give me [substances]”. When she suggested putting the cash in a savings account instead of up their noses, Vaughan became incensed. Sadly, that wasn’t even the worst of it…

Vaughan’s manager, Chelsey Milikin, spilled the beans about a moment that should have been one of Vaughan’s most memorable: Vaughan’s first $5,000 check. Shortly after he deposited it, his wife Lenny cleared out the account. “She was totally unreliable,” Milikin said. “His moments in the sun were always clouded by her actions”.

Milikin warned Vaughan that Lenny was not acting in his best interests. You don’t say?

As any rock star’s wife knows, long tours can lead to deep jealousy. In Vaughan’s case, Lenny had good reason to question his fidelity—especially after he allegedly gave her an STI that he’d gotten from one of Hugh Hefner’s bunnies. Oof.

Nothing compared to the call Lenny made to Vaughan’s hotel in Norway, though…

We are not sure why Stevie Ray Vaughan would let a woman answer his hotel room phone, but one happened to do just that while Vaughan was touring Norway. Vaughan, who could hear yelling on the other end, grabbed the phone from his companion in time to hear a livid Lenny—and what she screamed was so disturbing, it’s unforgettable. 

She told him: “I just want you to know I just flushed a baby down the toilet”. No amount of booze and substances could erase those words from Vaughan’s mind, but it didn’t stop him from trying.

As one wise music philosopher said, “The years start coming, and they don’t stop coming”. For Stevie Ray Vaughan, it wasn’t just the years, it was the mind-altering substances, too. At his lowest point, he was consuming a staggering quart (.95 L) of Crown Royal and a quarter-ounce of coke every single day.

Unsurprisingly, the impact was brutal—both on his health and his music.

Touring is tough even for the healthiest rock stars—and Vaughan was far from that. In September 1986, his body finally gave out after a show in Germany. His skin turned clammy and grey, and he started throwing up blood nonstop. One terrified bandmate later said looking at Vaughan was like looking into the eyes of a deer on the side of the road—there was no life in them.

When Stevie Ray Vaughan turned to his bandmates and weakly said, “I need help,” they immediately knew this wasn’t another rough night. Within minutes, a bunch of men in white trench coats speaking German rushed into the room. It was terrifying—but it turned out to be the moment that finally pushed Vaughan toward sobriety—and this time, it stuck.

But fate wasn’t done with him yet…

Vaughan couldn’t remember the last time he’d played sober—and honestly, the thought terrified him. But while recording 1989’s In Step (a nod to AA’s 12-step program), his confidence started creeping back—and for good reason. The album won Vaughan his first Grammy and became his biggest commercial success ever.

His divorce from Lenny was official, and he had even found a new soul mate. Sounds like a happy ending, right? Well…

During the tour supporting In Step, Vaughan wasn’t just showcasing his legendary guitar skills—he was also opening up about his battle with addiction. But then, on August 26, 1990, things took a chilling turn. Vaughan told his bandmates about a nightmare he’d had the night before: He was a guest at his own funeral, surrounded by thousands of mourners. Talk about a bad omen.

The day after his chilling nightmare, Vaughan hit a career high—and it was legendary. For the grand finale of a sold-out show in front of 40,000 fans, Vaughan joined an epic guitar-god jam session featuring none other than Eric Clapton, Robert Cray, Buddy Guy, and his brother Jimmie.

The once-in-a-lifetime encore took place at an outdoor venue just outside Milwaukee—a night that seemed like the peak of his career. In about an hour, it would all be over.

The concert venue was picture perfect—a lush countryside resort complete with a golf course and ski hill. But there was a catch. There was only one road in and out, and post-show traffic was a nightmare. For performers, helicopters were the only way to skip the chaos. So, after their epic encore, Vaughan and the others boarded the four waiting choppers.

There was some fog, but nothing too out of the ordinary…

Tragically, the third helicopter—the one carrying Stevie—never made it. It traveled less than a kilometer (0.6 miles) before crashing into a ski slope, scattering bodies and debris across 60 meters (200 feet). The crash was instantaneous, with no explosion or fire.

Chillingly, the passengers in the other three helicopters didn’t realize anything was wrong—until Stevie’s chopper never arrived.

Stevie Ray Vaughan had finally found the right path, but destiny had other plans. At just 35, his sudden loss felt unbearably unfair. His haunting dream of a crowded funeral became a reality, with over 1,500 attendees and 3,000 more gathered outside. The guest list read like music royalty: Eric Clapton, Stevie Wonder, Buddy Guy, ZZ Top, Bonnie Raitt, and Jackson Browne all came to say goodbye.

After the shock wore off, Stevie’s family was left with questions—and they wanted justice. His mother, Martha, and brother, Jimmie, sued the helicopter company, claiming that the pilot was unqualified and flying recklessly. The court battle dragged on for five years before the family finally settled for an undisclosed amount of money.

For years, fans speculated how it all could have happened. It seemed like the pilot had driven the helicopter into the side of the slope on purpose. But when journalists and pilots attempted to recreate the conditions, it became clear. It had in fact been an accident.

Stevie Ray Vaughan may have left the stage too soon, but his brother, Jimmie, made sure his memory stayed front and center. At Stevie’s induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2015, Jimmie accepted the award on his behalf, thanking Stevie’s millions of fans.

That night, John Mayer summed it up perfectly—although he didn’t use a fire metaphor: “If Stevie Ray Vaughan and Double Trouble took the stage to open for someone, they gave it back in shambles”. Wherever Stevie is right now, he’s probably still setting the place on fire.

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Nina Mae McKinney had the face of a goddess and the fate of a Greek Tragedy. Just after she turned 16, she began grinding her way toward fame, working as a chorus girl in the Blackbirds of 1928. Although McKinney merely supported bigger names like Adelaide Hall in the revue, she always seemed destined for better things.

For a brief time, that came true. McKinney had an undeniably stunning face, leading the press to call her the "Black Clara Bow" for her It-Girl looks, and then later the "Black Garbo" after Greta Garbo's impenetrable beauty. So when legendary director King Vidor came to town looking to cast actors for his all-Black film Hallelujah!, she knew it was her shot. She acted accordingly.

While casting was going on, McKinney walked back and forth outside the building endlessly. Why? She was making sure she caught Vidor's attention. It worked. She eventually won the starring role in Hallelujah! and wowed audiences with her vivid screen presence and dancing. But that wasn’t all: Her success earned her a five-year contract with MGM, making her the first Black performer to do so. Only, this was really a death sentence.

At the time, miscegenation laws meant that McKinney got desperately few parts and even fewer leading vehicles. When she left MGM and began working in Europe, this improved somewhat, but only to a point. Her turn opposite Paul Robeson in Sanders of the River was a potential big break, for example, until much of it ended up on the cutting room floor.

At her height, McKinney was famous in Black newspapers across America as only "Nina Mae". By the 1960s, she was destitute and forgotten. In 1967, when she passed from a heart attack at the age of 54, her song went largely unsung. As her fellow dancer Fayard Nicholds put it, “She could act, sing, dance and wisecrack with the best of them, but she came along too early and there was no place for her."

Lead made paint durable, colorful, and resistant to moisture, so manufacturers used it extensively in homes. Children were especially vulnerable when deteriorating paint produced chips and dust. The United States didn't ban lead-containing consumer paints until 1978, decades after childhood lead poisoning had become a recognized danger.

Tetraethyl lead helped engines resist knocking, but workers manufacturing leaded gasoline suffered poisonings almost immediately. Fifteen production workers lost their lives to the toxic substance during the 1920s, while others experienced severe neurological symptoms. Scientists later demonstrated that dispersing lead through automobile exhaust was contaminating the environment and exposing entire populations.

Asbestos seemed almost miraculous because its fibers resisted heat and fire, leading to widespread use in insulation, cement, tiles, roofing, plaster, and other construction products. Inhaled fibers can lodge in the lungs, however, causing asbestosis, lung cancer, and mesothelioma, sometimes decades after the original exposure.

After radium's discovery, manufacturers incorporated radioactive materials into an astonishing assortment of products, while luminous radium paint became particularly valuable for watch and instrument dials. Workers who pointed brushes with their lips swallowed radioactive material, and illnesses among the “Radium Girls” exposed the terrible consequences of internal radium exposure.

Cigarettes became mass-market consumer products long before their health consequences were widely accepted by the public. Research eventually established overwhelming connections with lung cancer, heart disease, and other illnesses. Tobacco smoke even contains radioactive polonium-210 and lead-210, which can accumulate in smokers' lungs over decades.

For generations, scraped knees were routinely painted bright red with Mercurochrome. Introduced in 1919, its active ingredient, merbromin, was an organic mercury compound used as a germicide. FDA eventually removed merbromin from the generally recognized as safe and effective category for over-the-counter antiseptic products.

Thalidomide was introduced in Europe in the late 1950s as a sedative and was initially regarded as remarkably safe. Pregnant women also took it for morning sickness. By 1961, physicians had connected prenatal exposure with distinctive, devastating birth defects, particularly severe malformations of infants' limbs.

Doctors prescribed the synthetic estrogen DES to pregnant women in hopes of preventing miscarriage and other complications. Then young women exposed before birth began developing an extraordinarily rare vaginal cancer. A landmark 1971 study found prenatal DES exposure in seven of eight affected patients whose histories were examined.

DDT looked like a wonder chemical in the 1940s, successfully fighting mosquitoes, typhus, malaria, and agricultural pests. But it persisted in the environment, accumulated in fatty tissue, harmed wildlife, and raised toxicological concerns. Mounting evidence ultimately led the EPA to cancel most American uses in 1972.

Polychlorinated biphenyls were prized for chemical stability, nonflammability, and insulating properties, making them useful in transformers and electrical equipment. Unfortunately, that same persistence allowed PCBs to remain in the environment and accumulate in living organisms. Research links exposure with cancer and neurological, reproductive, immune, and endocrine effects.

For generations, mercury thermometers were standard equipment in medicine cabinets, hospitals, and schools. They measured temperature beautifully, but broken glass could release elemental mercury into indoor spaces. Mercury exposure can damage the nervous system, and safer electronic alternatives eventually made household mercury thermometers increasingly difficult to justify.

Mercury compounds appeared in some cosmetics and skin-lightening preparations because they can suppress melanin production. The problem is absorption: mercury applied to skin can enter the body and accumulate. FDA regulations now severely restrict mercury compounds in cosmetics because of potential neurotoxicity, irritation, and allergic reactions.

Before modern synthetic pesticides, compounds containing lead and arsenic were routinely applied to agricultural crops and orchards. Lead arsenate became particularly widespread against insects. These persistent toxic metals did not simply disappear when farmers stopped spraying, leaving contaminated soils at some former orchard and agricultural sites decades afterward.

Benzene's ability to dissolve other substances made it valuable in industry and consumer formulations, including historical uses in solvents and related products. Repeated exposure eventually revealed a much darker property: benzene damages bone marrow and is a known human carcinogen strongly associated with leukemia and other blood disorders.

Carbon tetrachloride once appeared in household cleaning fluids, spot removers, and fire extinguishers because it was nonflammable and an effective solvent. Unfortunately, inhaling or swallowing substantial amounts can seriously damage the liver and kidneys. Consumer uses largely disappeared as its toxicity became increasingly apparent.

Chloroform is remembered as an early anesthetic, but it also found its way into medicines and consumer formulations. Evidence eventually demonstrated serious toxicity, including liver damage and carcinogenic concerns. FDA regulations now prohibit chloroform as an ingredient in cosmetic products, apart from unavoidable trace amounts created during manufacturing.

Hexachlorophene became a popular antibacterial ingredient used in soaps, cleansers, and other personal-care products. Evidence that it could penetrate human skin and produce toxic effects changed that reputation dramatically. FDA regulations eventually restricted cosmetic concentrations to 0.1 percent and prohibited its use on mucous membranes.

Chlorofluorocarbons seemed ideal for aerosol sprays and refrigeration because they were stable, nonflammable, and relatively nontoxic near ground level. Their stability became the problem. CFCs could survive long enough to reach the stratosphere, where chlorine released from them destroyed ozone molecules that shield Earth from ultraviolet radiation.

Urea-formaldehyde foam insulation was promoted during the 1970s as an energy-saving way to insulate difficult spaces in homes. Problems emerged when the material released formaldehyde gas indoors. Exposure can irritate the eyes, nose, throat, and respiratory system, while formaldehyde is classified as a human carcinogen.

Heavy lawn darts were marketed as an outdoor game, but their weighted tips could turn a backyard toss into a catastrophic injury. By 1988, three children were known to have died in lawn-dart incidents, while roughly 670 injuries annually were reaching American emergency rooms. Federal regulators banned them.

Partial hydrogenation gave vegetable oils longer shelf lives and useful textures, helping artificial trans fats become common in processed foods. Research showed that trans fat raises LDL cholesterol and increases heart-disease risk. In 2015, FDA determined that partially hydrogenated oils were no longer generally recognized as safe.

Liquid methyl methacrylate helped create hard artificial nails, but consumers began reporting painful injuries. FDA investigated complaints during the early 1970s and concluded that the monomer was a poisonous and deleterious substance that should not be used in fingernail preparations, fundamentally changing its place in American nail products.

Phenacetin was once a common ingredient in pain-relieving medicines and was consumed for decades before its long-term hazards became clear. Heavy use became associated with serious kidney damage and cancers of the urinary tract. Regulators ultimately removed phenacetin-containing medicines from markets, while safer analgesics replaced it.

Ephedra-containing dietary supplements became popular for weight loss and athletic performance during the 1990s. Reports accumulated of serious cardiovascular effects, including hypertension, heart attacks, strokes, and dangerous heart rhythms. After reviewing the evidence, FDA prohibited dietary supplements containing ephedrine alkaloids in 2004 because they presented unreasonable health risks.

Brominated vegetable oil helped keep citrus flavoring evenly distributed in certain beverages for decades. Concerns grew because bromine can accumulate in the body, while animal studies identified potential adverse effects. After reviewing newer toxicology data, FDA revoked the regulation authorizing BVO's use in food in 2024.

PFAS chemicals proved extraordinarily useful because they resist grease, water, stains, and heat, encouraging applications ranging from nonstick surfaces to stain-resistant materials and food packaging. Their persistence earned them the nickname “forever chemicals.” Certain PFAS exposures are now associated with immune, developmental, reproductive, and other health effects.

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In 1823, a grizzly bear mauled fur trapper Hugh Glass so severely that his companions expected him to die. Two men stayed behind, then abandoned him and took his equipment. Somehow, Glass survived and made an extraordinary journey toward help, covering roughly 200 miles according to the famous account. He later tracked down the men who’d deserted him, but the historical story didn’t end with Hollywood-style revenge killings.

That distinction became increasingly difficult to see as his ordeal grew into frontier mythology. Eventually, The Revenant introduced another generation to a man whose entire public identity had become inseparable from one bear attack.

Ernest Shackleton set out in 1914 hoping to cross Antarctica. Instead, his ship Endurance became trapped in ice and was eventually crushed, turning an expedition into a desperate struggle to keep 28 men alive. Months on drifting ice led to a lifeboat escape, followed by Shackleton’s extraordinary voyage to South Georgia to find help. Every member of the Endurance party survived. Yet the crossing he’d intended never happened, and the rescue overshadowed his original ambitions.

Shackleton returned south on another expedition but passed on in 1922. He became most celebrated for bringing his men home from a journey that had gone catastrophically wrong.

Vesna Vulović became famous for something she couldn’t remember. In January 1972, the Yugoslav flight attendant survived her aircraft breaking apart over Czechoslovakia, falling inside a section of wreckage from an officially recorded altitude of approximately 33,000 feet. Everyone else aboard perished. Vulović suffered devastating injuries, including spinal fractures and temporary paralysis, but eventually recovered enough to return to an airline desk job. She became a national celebrity and later used that visibility to support political causes.

The crash itself, however, remained a blank in her memory. The world endlessly revisited the defining moment of her life, while she could recall almost nothing about it.

Being locked in a stone cell probably saved Ludger Sylbaris’s life. When Mount Pelée devastated Saint-Pierre, Martinique, in May 1902, the thick walls sheltered him from the full force of the eruption that took the lives of approximately 30,000 people. He suffered severe burns and remained trapped until rescuers found him days later. His escape then became a commercial attraction. Sylbaris toured with Barnum & Bailey, showing his scars and recounting the catastrophe to paying audiences, sometimes appearing in a replica of his cell.

The place where he’d nearly lost his life became part of his performance. Survival had freed him from the ruins, but his livelihood kept taking him back.

Hiroo Onoda’s ordeal lasted so long that survival became almost impossible to separate from refusal. Sent to Lubang Island in the Philippines during World War II, he rejected evidence of Japan’s surrender and remained in hiding until 1974. Only orders delivered by his former commander finally persuaded him to stop fighting. Japan welcomed him as a symbol of endurance, but that heroic version left out the Filipino residents his group had attacked during those decades.

Onoda later raised cattle in Brazil and established a nature school in Japan. Nevertheless, he remained famous as the soldier who wouldn’t surrender, with all the troubling consequences that description carried.

When a German submarine sank the British merchant ship Benlomond in November 1942, Chinese steward Poon Lim escaped onto a small wooden raft. He stayed alive for 133 days, collecting rainwater and catching fish and seabirds after his emergency supplies dwindled. Brazilian fishermen finally rescued him in April 1943. The feat brought him the British Empire Medal and a lasting place in survival history.

Lim eventually moved to the United States and returned to maritime work, building a life beyond the raft. Yet his name remained attached to a grim distinction: the man who’d endured more than four months alone on a floating platform.

Ada Blackjack didn’t join an Arctic expedition because she wanted fame. The Iñupiaq seamstress needed wages to help support her young son, who had tuberculosis. In 1921, she accompanied four men to remote Wrangel Island, where failed resupply and worsening conditions gradually destroyed the expedition. Three men disappeared while seeking help, and Blackjack nursed the remaining man until he drew his last breath. She then survived alone until rescue in 1923.

Homecoming brought publicity, intrusive attention, and accusations about her conduct rather than lasting security. While others profited from the story, she struggled financially. Surviving the Arctic hadn’t protected her from exploitation back home.

Douglas Mawson’s Antarctic nightmare began in December 1912 when expedition member Belgrave Ninnis fell into a crevasse, taking crucial supplies with him. Mawson and Xavier Mertz began a desperate retreat, but Mertz also perished, leaving Mawson alone with dwindling food and brutal conditions. After weeks of struggle, he reached the expedition’s base only to discover that the relief ship had recently departed. Another Antarctic winter awaited him. Mawson eventually returned to acclaim, a knighthood, and a distinguished scientific career.

Still, the survival story remained his defining adventure, forever tied to the two companions who never made it back with him.

When a plane carrying a Uruguayan rugby team and other passengers crashed in the Andes in October 1972, rescue didn’t come quickly. Sixteen people ultimately survived 72 days of freezing temperatures, injuries, hunger, and an avalanche. To stay alive, they ate the bodies of those who had perished, a decision that later threatened to overshadow everything else they’d endured. Nando Parrado and Roberto Canessa eventually trekked out to find help.

The survivors rebuilt their lives, but books, interviews, and films repeatedly returned them to the mountain. For audiences, it became an astonishing adventure; for those who lived it, the story also contained friends and relatives they’d lost.

Steven Callahan was sailing across the Atlantic in 1982 when his boat sank, leaving him alone in a small inflatable raft. Over 76 days, he caught fish, produced drinking water with solar stills, and fought to keep the damaged raft afloat. By the time fishermen found him in the Caribbean, he was severely weakened. Callahan later turned the experience into the bestselling memoir Adrift and brought his knowledge to projects including Life of Pi.

He didn’t simply retreat from the ocean. Instead, the ordeal became central to his work, meaning that much of his professional life involved revisiting the experience he’d barely survived.

Alain Bombard deliberately put himself in danger to investigate how shipwrecked people might survive. In 1952, the French doctor crossed the Atlantic in a small inflatable boat, spending 65 days at sea and becoming famous as a “voluntary castaway". His book helped turn the journey into a celebrated survival experiment. Then a later demonstration produced a much darker legacy. In 1958, a lifeboat trial he led near Étel, France, ended in disaster, with nine people drowning.

Bombard survived, but the man associated with saving shipwreck victims was now connected to a fatal maritime tragedy. His later environmental and political work couldn’t remove that chapter from his biography.

Eleven-year-old Terry Jo Duperrault thought she was enjoying a family sailing vacation in 1961. Instead, the trip ended with her family gone, the yacht sinking, and Terry Jo alone on a tiny float. Captain Julian Harvey had told rescuers that everyone else had perished, but her discovery after roughly four days at sea exposed his account as a lie. She survived severe dehydration and returned to Wisconsin to live with relatives.

Adjusting wasn’t easy, and she initially struggled to sleep alone. Decades later, under the name Tere Duperrault Fassbender, she helped tell her story in Alone: Orphaned on the Ocean, published in 2010.

Violet Jessop didn’t have just one maritime disaster following her around. She was aboard Olympic during its 1911 collision with another ship, survived Titanic in 1912, and escaped the sinking of Britannic in 1916. That third ordeal nearly ended her when a lifeboat was drawn toward the ship’s propellers; she jumped into the water and suffered a serious head injury. Remarkably, Jessop returned to working at sea and didn’t retire until 1950.

Her decades of professional experience, however, became secondary to the extraordinary pattern. Remembered as “Miss Unsinkable,” she was defined less by the voyages she completed than by the ones that ended in catastrophe.

In March 1944, RAF rear gunner Nicholas Alkemade faced an appalling choice: remain inside a burning Lancaster bomber or jump without a usable parachute. He jumped, falling approximately 18,000 feet before branches and deep snow helped cushion his landing. Astonishingly, he survived without the catastrophic injuries such a fall would normally cause. German captors initially doubted his account and suspected that he might be a spy. Evidence from the aircraft wreckage eventually supported his story.

Alkemade spent the rest of the war as a prisoner, then returned to civilian life. Yet the moment he’d chosen a fall over fire remained the reason strangers knew his name.

Roy Sullivan’s story sounds like a running joke until you consider what it actually involved. The Virginia park ranger survived seven recorded lightning strikes between 1942 and 1977, earning a Guinness World Record and the nickname “Human Lightning Rod". Those encounters left burns and repeatedly set his hair alight. Sullivan became increasingly fearful of storms, and accounts of his later life describe people avoiding him because they worried they might be struck too.

He found that reaction hurtful. What looked from a distance like extraordinary good fortune came with pain, anxiety, and social isolation. His celebrity turned repeated brushes with the grim reaper into a novelty that followed him everywhere.

In 1848, an accidental explosion drove a tamping iron through railroad worker Phineas Gage’s skull. He survived, becoming one of the most famous cases in the history of brain injury. Reports of changes in his behavior eventually expanded into exaggerated stories presenting him as permanently violent, irresponsible, or unrecognizable. His later life was more complicated. Gage worked as a stagecoach driver in Chile, suggesting considerable recovery and an ability to handle demanding responsibilities.

Yet that part rarely made the popular version. His skull and the iron were preserved at Harvard, while the man himself became a cautionary anecdote that often obscured the life he rebuilt.

During the 1996 Everest disaster, Beck Weathers was left for dead after becoming trapped in a storm high on the mountain. He somehow regained consciousness and struggled back to camp, astonishing people who believed he couldn’t possibly survive. Rescue saved his life, but frostbite cost him his right hand and part of his forearm, fingers on his left hand, and his nose, which required reconstruction. His injuries made the disaster impossible to leave entirely behind.

Yet Weathers later said the experience helped transform his priorities and repair his family life. His story became famous for physical survival, while he emphasized the personal recovery that followed.

Joe Simpson broke his leg while descending Peru’s Siula Grande in 1985, leaving climbing partner Simon Yates to lower him toward safety. When Simpson became suspended over a drop and threatened to pull them both off the mountain, Yates cut the rope. Simpson fell into a crevasse, survived, and then crawled and struggled back to camp over several days. His memoir Touching the Void became a bestseller and later a celebrated film.

Public fascination repeatedly returned to the cut rope, but Simpson defended Yates rather than condemning him. His survival became an enduring moral debate, even though he refused to turn his climbing partner into its villain.

On Christmas Eve 1971, 17-year-old Juliane Koepcke survived her plane breaking apart over Peru, falling into the rainforest while strapped to a row of seats. Injured and alone, she used knowledge learned from her biologist parents to follow waterways and eventually find help after 11 days. Her mother, who’d been traveling with her, lost her life in the disaster. Koepcke later became a biologist herself and devoted years to rainforest conservation.

Nevertheless, she described enduring grief and survivor’s guilt. Her scientific career was substantial, but books, documentaries, and headlines kept returning to the same identity: the teenager who fell from the sky and somehow walked out alive.

Louis Zamperini had already competed in the Olympics before war transformed his life. In 1943, his military aircraft crashed into the Pacific, beginning 47 days on a raft before Japanese forces captured him. More than two years of imprisonment and brutal treatment followed. Returning home didn’t make those experiences disappear from his story. Zamperini eventually embraced Christianity and became an inspirational speaker emphasizing forgiveness, even attempting to meet his harshest former captor.

Laura Hillenbrand’s Unbroken brought his ordeal to another enormous audience. The athlete who’d once been celebrated for running became better known for surviving, then repeatedly explaining how he’d found a way to move forward.

In 2013, Nigerian cook Harrison Okene survived the sinking of a tugboat by finding an air pocket inside the overturned vessel, approximately 100 feet beneath the Atlantic. He remained there for about 60 hours while the other 11 people aboard met their end. Divers expecting to recover bodies instead encountered a living man, producing extraordinary rescue footage. Afterwards, Okene described nightmares in which he was sinking again.

But his later life took an unexpected turn: he trained as a professional diver and returned to underwater work. The ocean became part of his livelihood again, even as the public continued to know him through those terrifying hours beneath it.

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Bethlem was founded in 1247 in the city of London. It was originally named the Priory of the New Order of Our Lady of Bethlehem. We can see why it isn’t known by its original name!

Bethlem is the “oldest extant psychiatric hospital” in European history—it has been open on a continuous basis for more than six centuries!

As the 13th century continued on, Bethlem became a hospital in all but name, providing care to poor people. It was also an institution of hospitality for visiting bishops and monks belonging to the order of Bethlehem.

The land upon which Bethlem originally stood was given as a donation by Simon FitzMary. FitzMary had been the Sheriff of London and also served as an alderman (a public official). After a career in politics had left him wealthy, FitzMary wanted to give some of that wealth to the Church. We shudder to think how he would have reacted to how his gift of property was used!

The word “Bethlem” originated from the original name being shortened by the London population. It would also be pronounced “Bedlam,” which is how it is most often named within the zeitgeist.

The nickname “Bedlam” began being used as early as the Middle Ages. By the Jacobean era (the late 16th century to the early 17th century), the word “bedlam” was also being used colloquially to describe chaos or an uproar.

The original location of the hospital is now occupied by Liverpool Street Station.

By the 17th century, the original building of Bethlem Hospital was falling apart. To make matters worse, the building stood over a sewer which frequently overflowed (we won’t elaborate on that any further). This building was replaced by the more iconic structure that is associated with Bethlem.

Artist William Hogarth was one of many people to portray Bethlem, and not in a positive light. Hogarth’s series of artworks titled “A Rake’s Progress” consisted of eight paintings following the downfall of a man named Tom Rakewell. The paintings portray Rakewell inheriting a fortune, gambling it away, and ending his journey as a patient of Bethlem.

Those familiar with the classic look of Bethlem’s building in the 17th century might know that the entrance was famously “flanked by two human sculptures wracked with suffering named ‘Melancholy’ and ‘Raving Madness.’” It wasn’t the most pleasant way to welcome people, but then again, it wasn’t exactly a leisure center they built!

One man who contributed to the torturous “therapy” provided at Bethlem was Erasmus Darwin, the grandfather of Charles Darwin. He came up with “rotational therapy,” which involved patients sitting in a chair which is suspended in the air. The doctor then orders the chair to be spun however quickly or slowly as he insisted. As you can imagine, this would often lead to intense vertigo and vomiting. This was done in a time when vomiting was seen as “therapeutic.”

Oliver Cromwell himself has a connection to Bethlem. A porter who worked for him—whom we know only as Daniel—became one of the most famous patients in Bethlem of his time. One thing which made Daniel literally stand out from the crowd was his incredible height of 7’6”! While this would have made Daniel a highly valued basketball player today, he had to be satisfied with a personal library to accommodate his tall frame. This boon was carried out under orders from Cromwell himself.

As a patient of Bethlem, Daniel the ex-porter became known for more than just being tall, however—he was also a supposed prophet. He is said to have predicted the 1666 Great Fire of London, as well as the outbreak of plague which had ravaged the city preceding the fire.

The original intention of Bethlem was to be a center where donations could be collected to support the Crusades which were going on at the time. So even when it began, Bethlem was serving some form of horrifying madness.

One of the more unlikely patients of Bethlem was Augustus Pugin. Pugin was previously an architect who designed parts of the Palace of Westminster, where the British Parliament meets, including the iconic Elizabeth Tower that holds Big Ben. Is there something fitting about politicians meeting in a room built by a madman?

It’s been established that Bethlem began to take in people classified as “insane” in the year 1377. Very little information remains to reveal how these early patients were treated. One record from 1403 notes Bethlem’s use of “four pairs of manacles, 11 chains, six locks and two pairs of stocks.” It’s guesswork as to how these tools were utilized, but given that it’s the Middle Ages we’re talking about, it can’t be anything good.

Bethlem was relocated yet again in 1930, with the former hospital becoming the Imperial War Museum in 1936. The hospital moved to the suburb of Monk's Orchard, where it remains to this day.

Bethlem was run and organized by the Catholic Church in the 13th century. However, in 1346, the hospital was teetering on its last legs. As a result, the institution was taken over by the City of London.

Most patients in Bethlem were people from poor backgrounds. They often suffered from some form of intellectual disability, and they were usually abandoned by their families.

The first example of Bethlem’s long history with scandal and criminal activity occurred in 1403. Peter Taverner had been serving as the hospital treasurer until he “was found guilty of embezzlement and theft of hospital property.” Way to start a positive trend, Peter.

During the Second World War, all the staff and patients of Bethlem were relocated from London to the English countryside, along with so many other people dealing with the London Blitz.

Some of the patients who were kept in Bethlem were taken there after they had either attempted or completed especially sinister forms of homicide. These included attempts to kill the members of the royal family or people who had killed their own family members, such as one’s own children.

1997 was the 750th anniversary of Bethlem, and it was suggested by the hospital administration that such an occasion should be celebrated. As you can imagine, this drew immense criticism, especially from survivors of abusive mental institutions. It was historian Roy Porter who denounced Bethlem as nothing to celebrate, saying that it was “a symbol for man’s inhumanity to man, for callousness and cruelty.” We couldn’t have said it better ourselves.

In 1619, King James I of England arranged for Helkiah Crooke to be made the keeper-physician of Bethlem Royal Hospital. Unlike the previous men who had held that position, Crooke was the younger brother of a baron and a highly educated man. Not only had he graduated from Cambridge, he’d written a book on anatomy which was highly successful in its time. Crooke, however, lived up to his name when a 1632 investigation launched by James’s own son, King Charles I, found the keeper-physician guilty of neglecting Bethlem’s patients and embezzling the funds and goods donated to the hospital. Crooke was promptly dismissed thanks to this investigation. You see that, Oliver Cromwell? Charles I did at least one thing right!

In 1946, a horror B film titled Bedlam was released, based on the painting series “Rake’s Downfall” by William Hogarth (remember those?). The film starred Boris Karloff (famously known as the actor who played Frankenstein’s monster) and Anna Lee.

The second version of Bethlem was designed by Robert Hooke. Hooke is also known to history as being the assistant to Christopher Wren, whom you might remember was the architect who helped rebuild London after the Great Fire. Curiously, it was one of the grandest buildings in all of London at the time it was built.

In 1601, the British government passed an act declaring that parishes would only look after people who were physically or mentally incapable of work. As a result, some beggars would pretend to be mad to get into Bethlem rather than a workhouse. To be honest, we don’t want to know how bad the workhouses were if Bethlem was preferable!

From the 18th to the 19th century, generations of the Monro family would provide physicians to run the treatments imposed on the patients of Bethlem. These treatments famously included starvation, beatings, forced immersions in cold water, and solitary confinement for inhuman stretches of time. Things got so bad for the patients that Bethlem would actually turn potential patients away because it was feared that they would be unable to endure the treatments. This was still known as a hospital, right?

Women were far from exempted the horrors of Bethlem. In fact, they didn’t have to be insane to be eligible. Bethlem proved a means to lock up women for all kinds of reasons that went beyond any kind of disability.

From 1846 to 1858, Bethlem patients were photographed by Henry Hering. Hering took these pictures as part of a study in mental health. Many of the patients’ names are lost to history, leaving just their images on old photographs which immortalized them. The especially tragic part is that, at this time in history, the subjects might not even have been aware that their images were being preserved for antiquity.

James Hadfield and Bannister Truelock (easily one of the coolest names we’ve ever heard in our lives) were two men who plotted to kill George III of England. However, both men were found to be insane and thus were not prosecuted as murderers. They were both committed to Bethlem by reason of their insanity.

One reason why the word “bedlam” became used in everyday speech was due to the 17th-century art world’s interest in portraying Bethlem or similar asylums. When it comes to the world of theatre, a prominent example of the above situation was The Changeling, the celebrated tragedy by Thomas Middleton and William Rowley. The play includes a comedic subplot which takes place which takes place in an asylum based on Bethlem.

The Changeling wasn’t the only connection that playwright Thomas Middleton had with Bethlem. In 1611, he and collaborator Thomas Dekker published the quarto for their play The Roaring Girl. This play was a fictional account of Mary “Moll Cutpurse” Frith. Frith was a well-known thief in London who shocked her society by dressing in men’s clothes and smoking tobacco (she’s been occasionally called the “first female smoker of England”). It’s also known that she spent time in Bethlem until her release in 1644. She would live another fifteen years after that, dying in 1659 of dropsy.

Fifteen-year-old Chris Brennan lost his life at Bethlem hospital in 2014 when he succumbed to asphyxiation. Brennan had previously inflicted self-harm several times. The hospital itself was accused of failing to provide sufficient care plans or properly utilize risk assessment in Brennan’s care. For their part, the hospital took action to combat the “staffing problems and low morale” which they found played a part in Brennan’s passing.

In 2010, Bethlem’s medical staff and British police came under fire when Olaseni Lewis was killed due to imposed restraints. The inquest found fault with the excessive force exhibited by the police in attendance and also blamed the medical staff’s failure to intervene and help Lewis when he lost consciousness.

One of the most famous cases of a murderer being kept in Bethlem was Richard Dadd. In a rather chillingly ironic case, given his surname, Dadd was committed to Bethlem after he stabbed his father to death, convinced that his father was actually the Devil. Dadd would spend much of his life as a patient in Bethlem and Broadmoor hospitals. During that time, he created several paintings now considered to be classics.

The most shocking aspect of Bethlem was how the hospital ran tours of their patients which were open to the general public in the 17th century. The patients were treated like abused animals in a zoo, even as their plight was exploited so ruthlessly that the money made on the tours made up a significant portion of Bethlem’s budget.

With all that torturous treatment, Bethlem’s patients had a very high mortality rate. The full extent of it was not truly realized until the new Crossrail system was under construction in London. Digging into the ground on Liverpool Street uncovered literally hundreds of skeletons belonging to patients who had been quickly disposed of by Bethlem’s staff.

The apathy of families abandoning their relatives to a hellish existence in Bethlem led to a new form of exploitation. From the 1700s to the 1800s, there was a marked increase in the dissection of bodies to learn more about human anatomy. In the 1790s, Bethlem’s chief surgeon was Bryan Crowther, a man who saw opportunity in the search for corpses to study. Crowther would dissect Bethlem’s dead patients in the name of medical science, believing that he would be able to find a difference in the brains of his mentally ill patients, compared to "normal" people. Of course, he did these operations without any kind of consent or legal right.

John Haslam was one of the most sinister figures in the history of Bethlem, and it was while he was the head of management that the institution sunk to a new low in depravity. While Bryan Crowther (remember him?) was conducting illegal dissections as chief surgeon, Haslam used various tortures against the patients. He was adamant that the first step to curing the patients was breaking their wills first. It honestly makes us wonder how insane Haslam himself must have been to believe that even after he failed to actually cure anyone in Bethlem!

Haslam and Crowther were finally stopped thanks to the efforts of philanthropist Edward Wakefield in 1814. Defying all attempts to keep him away, Wakefield forced his way into Bethlem after bringing along a member of the British parliament. Horrified by the depraved conditions, Wakefield petitioned for something to be done. This led to a long inquiry which ended with Haslam and Crowther being removed from their positions (to say the least).

Among the observations made by Edward Wakefield upon his 1814 visit to Bethlem, one of the worst ones was the example of James Norris. Norris, an American Marine, had been sent to Bethlem on the 1st of February 1800. When Wakefield met him in Bethlem's "incurable wing," Norris’ arms were pinned to his sides by iron bars. He was also kept chained to the wall by his neck. This fifty-five-year-old man had been continuously kept in this position for “more than twelve years.” No wonder Wakefield was horrified.

Sources: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9

This tiara has an understated beauty compared to many in the Queen’s collection, but it also has a big history. Not only did Queen Elizabeth receive this on her 18th birthday from her father, but it’s also a huge favorite with many of the women in the royal family. It’s the one Kate Middleton wore on her wedding day. Yeah, that one. Even so, there's a more famous tiara.

The Lover’s Knot is an absolute stunner of a crown jewel. Like so many pieces in the Queen’s current collection, it originally belonged to Queen Mary of Teck—but most famously, Princess Diana got the Gothic Revival bauble as a wedding present when she married Prince Charles. In fact, the tiara is practically synonymous with Diana’s girlish yet elegant style. Nonetheless, Kate Middleton has also taken a shine to it, wearing it in 2018 at a state banquet.

But lest you think Elizabeth just owns jewelry, she also owns much more bizarre possessions...

No, it’s not an urban legend: Queen Elizabeth really does own all the swans in the Thames. More than that, she owns all the “unclaimed and mute” swans throughout England and Wales, it’s just that she only exercises her ownership of the birds on Thames. She really is an animal lover. But when it comes to Elizabeth's items, there is one in particular with a bone-chilling claim to fame.

Most of Queen Elizabeth’s possessions have long histories, but this jewel has perhaps the most tragic story. The so-called “Swan Lake” necklace, which is worth 12 million and made of 178 pearls, got its name because Princess Diana wore it to a showing of the ballet Swan Lake. Sadly, it was the last royal jewel she wore before her violent end. And it gets sketchier.

That’s right, the Queen is an outlaw, because she is literally above the law in some cases. For example, she doesn’t actually need a driver’s license or a passport, and she has a whole lot of diplomatic immunity. She doesn’t even pay taxes in the same sense as the rest of us commoners. And as this next story proves, she gets people to bail her out of some very sticky situations.

There are lots of old things in Queen Elizabeth’s possessions, but one of the most famous items is a pearl necklace that belonged to Queen Anne, the last Stuart ruler. This necklace is often worn with its companion, the “Queen Caroline Necklace.” But Elizabeth once treated them horribly. After getting them as a wedding present, Elizabeth soon realized in the chaos of her big day that she had forgotten them at the church. All hell broke loose.

Her private secretary had to commandeer the King of Norway’s limousine and then, when he hit traffic, run back to the venue and convince the guards to let him in so he could get them back to Elizabeth in time for an official portrait. Phew. And these arent' the only irreplaceable pieces Elizabeth owns.

Did you know that Queen Elizabeth and the rest of the female royal heirs have earrings just for their coronation? Because they do. Sensibly named the “Coronation Earrings,” the pear-shaped drops have been worn at coronations since 1901, and were originally made for Queen Victoria from a Garter badge. You know what they say around the royal family: Reduce, reuse, recycle. And there's another thing they say about the royal family...

The royal family grew up loving Corgis, but Queen Elizabeth recently made a shocking announcement. She's not going to get anymore Corgis. Still, that doesn’t mean she didn't have dogs after. In fact, she had two Daschund/Corgi mixes  named Vulcan and Candy, and they were adorable. From the adorable, we go to the bittersweet.

Despite their cutsey names, “Granny’s Chips” are brooches that mean serious business. Made out of two stones cut from the enormous Cullinan diamond, the cushion and pear-shaped stones are actually named for Queen Elizabeth’s grandmother, not Queen Elizabeth herself; Queen Mary loved wearing them, one above the other. The story gets more tear-jerking.

In 1958, while on a trip to the Netherlands, Queen Elizabeth went to the Asscher Diamond Company, the place where the Cullinan diamond had been cut half a century before. While there, she took off the brooch and showed it to Louis Asscher, the brother of the original diamond-cutter, to examine them. Asscher, infirm and elderly, had tears in his eyes over the interaction.

Modern royal history has had some other tense moments thanks to Queen Elizabeth's diamonds.

With all the controversy and hubbub surrounding Meghan Markle after her wedding, you’d be forgiven for forgetting just how fantastic that wedding was—especially because Markle borrowed “Queen Mary’s Diamond Bandeau” from Queen Elizabeth’s personal collection. With hundreds of diamonds in a beautiful platinum setting, it’s no wonder it’s worth nearly 3 million dollars.

Yet while the Queen was nice enough to lend Meghan the bandeau, she obviously has a different favorite relative, at least if her other lendings are anything to go by.

Meghan Markle’s borrowed bandeau tiara on her wedding day made audiences gasp all around the world, but few people know there’s an even better bandeau that Queen Elizabeth owns—and she gave it to another member of the family to wear. The gorgeous Greville Emerald Kokoshnik tiara made its first public appearance at Princess Eugenie’s 2018 wedding. And that wasn't the only granddaughter the Queen has helped out.

In the summer of 2020, Queen Elizabeth’s granddaughter Princess Beatrice had an exquisite (if scaled down) wedding, and her beautiful vintage Norman Hartnell gown made international headlines. But there was a secret in the dress. It actually belongs to Queen Elizabeth, who first wore the gown in 1962 to the Lawrence of Arabia premiere. And the dress has another connection to the queen.

As it happens, Princess Beatrice wasn’t just following in grandma’s footsteps by wearing an old dress of hers; she was continuing a tradition in the royal family of wearing Norman Hartnell to important court events. Queen Elizabeth also wore a resplendent Hartnell dress to her own coronation, a silk ball gown with all-over embroidery in various metallics.

Having royal courtiers dress you is the height of luxury, but beware: Not all of Elizabeth's life is glamorous.

This one is probably a no-brainer, considering Buckingham Palace is one of the Queen’s main places of residence and sits at the heart of London. But it does have a dark history. Over the years, the palace has been the victim of many security breaches, with one man, dubbed “The boy Jones,” sneaking in several times, and Michael Fagan even slipping into the queen’s bedroom in 1982.

Also called the “Oriental Circlet,” this tiara gets its name from the fantastic lotus flowers that decorate the crown. But even though these lotus flowers are gasp-worthy, they look even better next to the juicy rubies that are embedded in the center of them. As one of the more expensive pieces, clocking in at around 8 million, this is a far rarer sighting from the royal family; Queen Elizabeth has worn it just once.

When it comes to her very favorite possessions, however, this next one might be it.

The thing about being a hereditary monarch is that the Queen has access to some of the most private items of the great men and women who came before her. But one item might be the most personal. Queen Elizabeth owns her great-great-grandmother Queen Victoria’s sketchbook, among a bunch of other of Victoria’s personal items. Still, if you want to talk very personal, look no further than the next point.

On November 20, 1947, Queen Elizabeth—then just a princess—married Philip Mountbatten, and she did it in yet another Norman Hartnell gown. Behind the scenes, however, it was far from a fairy tale. Scads of women worked at Hartnell’s studio for weeks on end to make the gown’s delicate and carefully-wrought embroidery. And all that hard work almost fell to pieces in an instant...

Queen Elizabeth II wore "Queen Mary's Fringe Tiara" on her wedding day to Prince Philip, but she might have known it was a bad omen. Although the Fringe Tiara is a favorite among older royals, not everyone has always liked the jewel; one courtier called it “an ugly spiked tiara.” And that’s just the beginning of its scandalous history.

On her big day, just moments before Elizabeth walked down the aisle, the tiara snapped and the court jeweler had to rush to fix it. Oh, but that surprise is nothing to this next jaw-dropper.

Yes, you read that right: Queen Elizabeth owns a McDonald’s. It might not be the most British of restaurants, but she owns it nonetheless. Located in Oxfordshire a fair way away from Buckingham Palace, the McDonald’s sits on Crown Land, technically making it Elizabeth's. The more important point, however, is what the Queen would order if she walked in.

Alexandra of Denmark was the consort to King Edward VII, and when her 25th wedding anniversary was coming around, she knew she wanted a tiara—but her inspiration was a little suspect. Alexandra had long wanted a “kokoshnik” style tiara, after the shape of a traditional Russian headdress, because her sister Tsarina Maria Feodorovna had one.

Well, whatever Alexandra wanted, she got, and Lady Salisbury gifted her with the Alexandra Kokoshnik Tiara, still a favorite with Queen Elizabeth today. But what about Kate Middleton—ahem, the Duchess of Cambridge?

A Kate Middleton favorite, the Nizam of Hyderabad necklace is one hefty Cartier creation, hitting something like 121 million dollars, and looking every bit worth it. Of the many, many diamonds in the cascading necklace are no fewer than 13 emerald-cut beauties and one enormous pear-cut diamond in the middle. As we all know, though, money can't buy happiness, and some of the things Elizabeth owns are imbued with a deep sadness.

There’s only one place the royal family ever goes for Christmas, and that’s the sprawling Sandringham Estate in Norfolk. Yet it has housed some incredibly tragic moments. For one, both Queen Elizabeth’s father and grandfather, George VI and George V, died on the grounds of the estate. Even so, the royal family has occupied it since Elizabethan times (you know, the other Queen Elizabeth).

In any case, Elizabeth doesn't seem to mind going to Sandringham. But she does seem to mind this next item.

Now, there’s no telling for sure if Queen Elizabeth doesn’t like the so-called “Meander Tiara,” but there are a couple of hints she might not. For one, she’s never worn it in public. For another, her mother-in-law gave it to her. Still, worry not: Princess Anne loves the tiara’s classical Greek key pattern, and has worn it several times, even lending it to her daughter Zara Philips for her wedding day.

Obviously, Queen Elizabeth has a lot of items from Victorian times, but her possessions go back farther than that. She even owns armor that once belonged to the notorious King Henry VIII, an ancestor she probably wishes she didn’t have. And there’s one juicy detail. The armor has physical evidence of how large the king grew in his old age; it contains a 2-inch plate wedged in to make more room for the king’s growing waist.

Royals are so extra. And speaking of extra...

Queen Elizabeth II was born on April 21, 1926, and she takes full advantage of it with private celebrations—but that’s not the only day she celebrates her birthday. She also has a second birthday in the summer, so that there can be official and public celebrations with a better chance of good, calm weather. Now I want two birthdays.

For all this talk of fancy things, we've been studiously avoiding talking about one person. Well, no more.

Although Kate Middleton and Meghan Markle’s jewelry choices get the most press, Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall isn’t shy about borrowing some of the Queen’s jewels too. She’s gone out most particularly with the “Greville Festoon Necklace,” a ridiculously large bauble that shines in diamond-encrusted swoops. The necklace’s main stone is an ungodly five carats.

The Delhi Durbar Tiara is magnificent. After all, it's a massive column of intricately swooped scrolls with one honking big emerald (and later a diamond) in the center and top. Then again, it needed to command attention. It had unpleasant beginnings. Queen Mary and King George V had it made especially so Mary could wear it to her colonial coronation in Delhi Durbar as the Empress of India. Not a popular position.

Queen Elizabeth’s weekend retreat is Windsor Castle, located near London in Berkshire. But even though it’s the largest inhabited castle in the world, this comes with a whole host of problems. Windsor is almost continually in disrepair, and in 1992, an enormous fire raged through the castle’s Upper Ward, causing extensive damage.

With news like that, sometimes even Queen Elizabeth needs a pick-me-up. But while for you or me that means a cappuccino, for Elizabeth it means, well...you'll see.

Queen Elizabeth generally goes for crowns made solely of diamonds or, if she’s feeling special, pearls. So when she asked royal jewelers Garrard & Co. to make a tiara out of dark red ruby stones from her private collection, you know it was going to be breathtaking. And it is: Garrard came back with the Burmese Ruby Tiara, a red and white confection with 96 red gemstones in it.

Okay, this next one surprised even me.

If you’ve ever been to Oxford Circus or Piccadilly Circus, you’ve actually been stepping on Queen Elizabeth II’s turf. That’s because she owns the world-famous Regent Street (or most of it, anyway) in London’s West End. Okay, to be fair, it’s a part of the “Crown Estate,” but that still boils down to Queen Elizabeth anyway, so let’s not split hairs.

And now we come to a very rare piece, and one of my absolute favorites.

Among certain circles, the “Strathmore Rose” tiara is one of the most legendary jewels in the royal family’s collection. An incredible art-nouveau piece, it used to be a favorite of the Queen Mother; after all, her father gave her the jewel for her wedding. It has made very few appearances since the Queen Mother passed but remains one of the more heartfelt pieces in the vault.

Want less heartfelt, more bombastic? This next piece will do you a solid.

If Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall, could pick one item from Queen Elizabeth’s extensive collection, I’m going to bet it’s the Greville Tiara, otherwise known as the “Honeycomb Tiara” for its distinct lattice pattern. Showy and big, Camilla loved it so much that Queen Elizabeth gave it to her as a long-term loan; it was a regular in the Queen Mother’s rotation too.

Of course, the loan probably doesn't mean much to Elizabeth, since she has more jewels than she knows what to do with. In fact, sometimes she's physically unable to wear them. Let me explain.

Here’s another bizarre royal fact: Queen Elizabeth didn’t have her ears pierced into well into adulthood. So when her parents gave her the Greville Chandelier Earrings, she couldn’t actually wear the chandelier stunners. When she did finally pierce them and showed off the earrings, women all over Britain clamored to have their ears pierced, too.

A favorite of the royal family since the days when Queen Victoria and Prince Albert took romantic getaways there, Balmoral Castle is where the royal family lets loose. And it does have a surprising feature. While it might be called a castle, it’s actually very normal-looking by royal standards and has been called a “rather ordinary” country house. I'd hardly call this next item ordinary, though.

Buckingham Palace might have some security issues to worry about, but there’s one priceless luxury in its basement: It houses a private ATM just for Queen Elizabeth’s own personal use. I really don’t think she needs the cash, though. Case in point below.

The Queen is apparently a fan of Scottish tennis player Andy Murray, because in 2010 she showed up to Wimbledon in order to watch him play in her first outing to the tournament in 30 years. And she certainly came in style: She owns the Royal Box, which gets a great view from its position at the south of the court. As one commenter put it, attending the Royal Box is “one of the most special experiences in sport.”

In royal speak, a “parure” is a set of jewels made to go together—and one of the newest and most dazzling of these is Queen Elizabeth’s Brazilian parure. It was given by the Brazilian government and shows off Liz’s love of color and fun with Aquamarine jewels. She loved the set so much, in fact, that she created the ridiculous and amazing Aquamarine Tiara to match.

Queen Elizabeth and the royal family have any manner of heirlooms with long histories. But one of her possessions is the most cursed of all. That’s because the Queen owns the infamous Tower of London, which has seen the capture and violent ends of many a rebel—including King Henry VIII’s tragic wives Anne Boleyn and Catherine Howard.

Surely one of the most impressive of the monarch’s holdings is The Royal Collection, whose thousands of artworks are nothing to sniff at. Actually, scratch that—there are millions of items in the collection, including scads of masterpieces like Rembrandt and Raphael around every corner, many of them in the Queen’s residences.

But if the Queen really needed money, she wouldn't sell those pieces. She has a much different plan for that.

It’s no joke to say that the royal family members are “horse people,” and it’s not just Princess Anne who loves the fast, four-legged creatures. Queen Elizabeth breeds and trains racehorses that have a proven track record on the, well, track. But that’s not all: Although it’s a labor of love, these horses have also won Elizabeth millions of dollars. Again, not that she needs it.

The Queen is something of a car connoisseur and has a whole fleet of cars worth millions of dollars. The most remarkable is perhaps her Bentley limousine, which is great for state events. But the queen has a surprising favorite. She might be able to have practically any car she wanted, but Elizabeth much prefers her humbler Range Rover for everyday tasks.

Around the time of Elizabeth’s ancestor King Edward VII, the royal family took a page from the Romanovs’ book and started buying up Faberge eggs and accessories. While some of the Romanov treasures are now lost, Elizabeth’s family kept a close eye on theirs, and the Queen still owns an extensive Faberge collection. And as we'll soon see, it's not the only Russian-inspired treasure she has.

By now, it shouldn’t be a surprise that Queen Elizabeth owns Westminster Abbey, but that doesn’t make it any less impressive. Besides being absolutely stunning, holding the tombs of some of the most influential people in British history, and sitting right in the middle of London, the Abbey has also been the site of every coronation since 1066.

Hyde Park is frequented by tourists and locals alike, and it’s no wonder. The green space in the famous park is to die for—and Elizabeth owns it, too. Oh, and don’t forget Regent’s Park, Primrose Hill, Kensington Garden, the Green Park…I could go on.

Unbelievably enough, Queen Elizabeth made her very own gold record. And no, she hasn’t taken to a career in music, it’s just that for her Golden Jubilee (that’s 50 years on the throne) in 2002, the family put on a concert called “Party at the Palace.” When the music studio later released the album, it went gold in the first week. Prince Harry was probably impressed....but he would NOT be impressed with the disgusting thing that's up next.

Sure, Queen Elizabeth likes corgis and horses, but she’s also the “proud” owner of …a colony of bats. The bats settled into her home in Balmoral and didn’t seem to want to leave. Well, the Queen soon got used to them and reportedly tries to catch them with a butterfly net if they get too out of hand while she’s staying at the castle.

Another treasure from Queen Victoria probably takes the cake: Elizabeth has her ancestor’s wedding dress. Made of cream and white silk, satin, and lace, the dress has another claim to fame. Because Victoria’s wedding to Prince Albert was so popular with the people, she helped jumpstart a trend of white wedding dresses, one that has obviously continued today. And there's more where that came from.

Queen Victoria’s Emerald Tiara is truly one of the most eye-catching jewels in the entire royal vault—but it has a heartbreaking backstory. Queen Victoria’s consort Albert gave it to her, and it’s one of the only diadems a consort gave to his queen. Victoria loved it so much, she was painted in it and wore it often as a reminder of his love.

Although the so-called “Lily Font” isn’t an official holy relic, it might as well be. Originally owned by (who else) Queen Victoria and used for the baptism of her first child, Princess Victoria, the Lily Font has continued to be useful for the royal family today. As in, they still use it to baptize most of the members of the royal family whenever they get the chance. Hm.

British Sea Power used to be a huge deal, so it makes sense that Queen Elizabeth has her own yacht, the HMY Brittania. Although it’s currently out of commission, the old girl first sailed in 1953, had the capacity to turn into a hospital if needed, and could even help the Queen and Prince Philip survive a nuclear attack if necessary. That's pretty metal. The next item is...quite the opposite.

When we think of Queen Elizabeth, we (quite rightfully) think of Crown Jewels and expensive dresses. And sure, those are fun, and the bread and butter of any list on Queen Elizabeth’s possessions—only, did you know she has a very expensive and very nerdy collection of stamps, too? Thanks to her grandfather George V’s own mania for stamps, it’s actually the largest collection on Earth.

The fact that the Queen owns all the swans in the Thames is well-known, but how about the fact that she owns all the dolphins in the United Kingdom? Actually, thanks to a decree dating from King Edward II’s time, she also owns all the whales and sturgeons that happen to make it to British shores, not to mention porpoises, too. Lucky girl.

The “Grand Duchess Vladimir” tiara has one bloody history. Originally a wedding gift to Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna of Russia, the Russian Revolution nearly destroyed it. Somehow, someone managed to hide it in Vladimir Palace in St. Petersburg during the chaos and keep it safe. And that’s just the start of this jewel’s fascinating story.

Later, British secret agent Albert Stopford secreted into England, where the Queen can now choose to wear it with juicy pearl drops or vibrant emeralds in the setting.

Stop. Think about Princess Diana. Do you picture her in pearls? If so, you’re might be picturing the incredible “Diamond and Pearl Choker” with four strands of exquisite pearls. It was one of the first pieces of royal jewelry Diana ever wore, and it’s still very much associated with her to this day. Ever the brave woman, Camilla is currently doing her best to muscle Diana out of the picture.

The Duchess of Cambridge asked to borrow the set and recently wore them to Prince Philip’s funeral as well as a host of other state events.

Queen Elizabeth’s favorite handbags come from British designer Launer, and she owns about 200 of them total, many of them in the Royale and Traviata style. But she also uses the bags to send secret signals. If her staff sees her put a bag on a table, that means she wants to leave a meeting in five minutes. But if she puts the bag on the floor, watch out—that means she wants someone to save her from her conversation immediately.

Sources: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13

But beneath her steely exterior roiled scandals just waiting to erupt.

Hetty Green had unusual, if not humble, beginnings. Born in New Bedford, Massachusetts in 1834, she was the daughter of Edward and Abby Robinson, who were the heads of the wealthiest whaling clan in the city.  

Her parents raised her in the Quaker faith, a Protestant sect that generally believes in non-hierarchical structures and simple living, and encouraged a pared-back life despite their wealth. It was a lesson she would never forget.

When she was just two years old, Hetty went to live with her maternal grandfather Gideon Howland as well as her maternal aunt Sylvia Howland. It was here that she began to show a strange aptitude. Even at a tender age, she would read stock reports to her grandfather, and began to understand some of his business acumen.

These skills only got more unbelievable as time went on.

After her grandfather’s passing, Hetty went back to live with her father and mother, but she didn’t forget the lessons her grandpa taught her. She now started reading financial reports to her father at just six years old, and quickly learned how to read ledgers. By 13, she was her father’s bookkeeper.

But at least two people had very big problems with this.

In her mother and her aunt Sylvia’s opinion, Hetty’s talents were a curse, not a blessing. It was the very beginnings of the Gilded Age, where adventurous (male) speculators got rich and then paraded around their well-appointed wives and daughters—so Hetty should be wearing the money, not making it.

Hetty’s family worried she didn’t quite understand that. As it turned out, it was worse than they even imagined.

Growing up, Hetty’s family sent her to a series of finishing schools to help mold her into a “proper” young woman and introduce her to a social circle of other heiresses. It completely backfired. Instead of primping and preening, Hetty went another direction entirely.

Hetty spent almost no time on her appearance, and regularly dressed in old, shabby, and workaday clothes no matter where she went—and where she went was usually the docks to help her father’s business, rather than to any fashionable destination.

Nearly apoplectic, the women of her family took matters into their own hands.

When Hetty turned 20 years old, her family forced her hand. Under immense pressure from her Aunt Sylvia to get herself a husband, Hetty reluctantly moved to New York City, posting up with a distant relation while she was there. The idea was that the hustle and bustle of city nightlife would put her in the path of suitors.

Only, Hetty had her own ideas.

While in New York, Hetty had no real issue spending time with the Big Apple’s wealthiest and brightest, and made the rounds at many gala evenings. She just wasn’t doing any husband hunting.

Instead, she spent her time eavesdropping on the conversations of Wall Street men to find out the latest financial gossip. Needless to say, it didn’t end well.

Even as a 20-something, Hetty knew her mind, and she made another surprise move. Sick of the marriage plot, she returned from New York several months earlier than planned, and with no husband in tow. Her mother and aunt were apoplectic, but Hetty had more surprises in store.

While in New York, Hetty’s family had given her a generous budget of $1,200—but, knowing the worth of a dollar even then, Hetty returned having spent just $200 of the sum. To the delight of her proud father, she then invested the rest in stable bonds.

It was the true beginning of Hetty’s impressive, diligent, and conservative financial career, but it was also the beginning of a period of intense turmoil.

Now an adult, Hetty spent most of her time helping her father in various business ventures in New York—but it still wasn’t good enough for most of her family. Her Aunt Sylvia in particular remained skeptical of Hetty’s talents, and was unsure of how much inheritance to give to her niece in her will.

Meanwhile, Hetty was certain of her Midas touch, and felt she deserved to be the sole beneficiary. It led to a tense feud.

Hetty was like a dog with a bone when it came to her aunt and “her” inheritance. Frustrated, Hetty showed a dark side. When she went back to New Bedford from New York now, it was often to keep insisting to Sylvia that she name her as the sole heir and have done with it.

The next tragic events didn’t help matters.

In the winter of 1860, Hetty experienced her first real loss when her mother passed. Her mother, like Sylvia, had never fully approved of Hetty’s financial-not-feminine priorities, but the loss for Hetty still must have been great.

That loss was even greater when Hetty read the will.

Hetty’s mother had come from a wealthy family in her own right, and when she passed, she had a good chunk of inheritance to give. So Hetty, who had spent so much time pestering her Aunt Sylvia about money, must have been irked that most of the estate went to her father, although she did get a modest house in the bargain.

Perhaps eager to be away from all this, Hetty made a drastic change no one saw coming.

While in New York after her mother’s passing, Hetty shocked everyone she knew when she met a man she actually wanted to court. Edward Henry Green was a partner in a trading company, and already a millionaire when he met Hetty.

Almost 15 years her senior, it seemed like Edward was to be Hetty’s mentor in the world of Wall Street. Well, that didn’t happen.

Hetty’s father had raised no fool, and he was no fool himself. He suggested one rigid stipulation. If the pair married, Edward Green would never inherit Hetty’s money. Or, as the legal language put it, her money was to be “free from the debts, control or interference of any such husband”.

After that, however, Hetty’s father supported the relationship…though he may have had ulterior motives.

At the time, Hetty’s father was increasingly in ill health, and he worried about his daughter being alone. Like most of her family, he also worried about Hetty, or any woman, being able to manage the business without him, and perhaps without the guidance of any man.

He was wrong—but he wouldn’t live to find out.

In May of 1865, Hetty and Edward became officially engaged. It was none too soon: Hetty’s father’s health was evidently falling even further, and they may have done it in fears he would soon pass. Shortly after, he did—and then Hetty found out enraging news.

When Hetty’s father passed, his will revealed the devastating truth: He officially didn’t trust her ability to manage money. Although she got millions of dollars, she could barely touch any of it. Her father had placed the inheritance in a trust, and Hetty only had access to the interest of the principal.

But her father’s death wasn’t the only tragedy to visit Hetty.

Around this time, Hetty’s Aunt Sylvia—the one who she had been pestering to name her as the sole beneficiary of her will—died as well. Unfortunately, for one of the first times in her life, Hetty had failed in what she set out to do: She was not the sole beneficiary. The news got worse.

Not only was Hetty not the only beneficiary of the will, but her aunt had dealt her one final insult in death. Just like Hetty’s father, Sylvia left her a significant sum of money, but put it in a trust so that Hetty could get at very little of it.  

That’s when Hetty broke down, and went wild.

Her father’s will had no doubt annoyed Hetty, but her aunt’s bequeathment—especially after all the badgering Hetty did—truly stung. No one seemed to believe she could take one dollar and make a thousand in her sleep, and Hetty became obsessed with getting her hands on her aunt’s money to prove them wrong.

Before anyone could stop her, Hetty initiated court proceedings to contest Sylvia’s will. It ended in infamy.

Hetty presented evidence in court, in the form of a signed addendum, that her aunt had actually meant to give nearly her entire estate over to her niece. There was just one massive issue. The executor of Sylvia’s will, Thomas Mandell, insisted that this so-called addendum was really a forgery.

Hetty was in hot water, and the verdict only turned the heat up.

In front of the whole court, the judge ruled that the addendum was a forgery, casting aspersions on Hetty’s morality in the process. Robinson v Mandell became a black mark on Hetty’s record, and in the end, she only got a relatively small percentage of her aunt’s estate—which was still placed in trust.

Hetty’s public persona was in tatters, but it was her private life that was concerning her now.

In the wake of Robinson v Mandell, Hetty’s own family turned on her. Her cousins were incensed with her failed lawsuit, and there were rumblings that they would try to have her indicted for forgery based on the results of the case. Panicked, Hetty changed her life almost overnight.

With her family breathing down her back, Hetty made a series of life-altering decisions. First, she and Edward Green married in the summer of 1867—and then the newlyweds took off almost immediately to London, England, hoping it would allow them to escape the pressure building at home.

But Hetty didn’t just breathe a sigh of relief once she was overseas. She made herself a star.

In England, with or without the full wealth of her father and aunt, Hetty rolled up her sleeves and got to work investing—and investing brilliantly. Her strategy was generally to buy low and sell high, which she said was “the secret of all successful business”.

In this way, she used the measly interest she was getting from her father’s trust…and finally showed up her doubters.

By the end of Hetty’s first year in London, she made a yearly profit of $1.25 million—and was raking in money to the tune of $200,000 per day. She did it all with careful, considered investing, never going in for risky speculation. Through this, she began to get the recognition she deserved for the financial talents she knew she had all along.

Unfortunately, someone was still bringing her down.

By the 1870s, Hetty and Edward had two children together, a son named Ned and a girl they called Sylvia. But as their family grew, so too did their troubles. Hetty’s husband proved to be much less adept than his wife in money matters, and he began to accrue a staggering number of losses.

For Hetty, this meant it was time for another change.

In 1873, with her children still young, Hetty moved the family back to the United States, settling in Edward’s hometown in Vermont. It was supposed to be a fresh start, but it ended up as a fresh nightmare.

Hetty found herself at odds with Edward’s mother, now always at hand, and fought with her constantly until the older woman passed in 1875. Even then, the Green name kept bringing Hetty pain.

The very same year Hetty’s mother-in-law died, her husband began truly falling apart. Edward now had massive losses from his work as a director of the London and San Francisco bank, so much so that Hetty had to cover his financial obligations. In 1884, she had to do it again.

At that point, the situation turned catastrophic.

In 1885, Edward was working at the finance house of John J Cisco & Son when the bank collapsed—and then the nasty truth emerged. Edward had found himself in debt yet again, this time for the mind-boggling sum of $700,000. Now, though, Hetty found herself right in the middle of the mess.

Hetty also had assets in Cisco & Son; her own personal $500,000 there was a full quarter of the bank’s holdings. But when she tried to transfer this money out in the wake of the collapse, the bank refused to let her until she settled Edward’s debt.

It drove her to a decision that ruined her marriage.

Hetty realized she had to pay off Edward’s debt one more time, but it was the final straw. After years of people telling her a woman couldn’t work finances, Hetty had now bailed her own once-wealthy husband out again and again, and she’d had enough.

After she made the transfer, she never forgave Edward for his shoddy practices. Meanwhile, though, her own name was on the rise.

By this point, even with the shadow of her husband’s bad debts looming over her, Hetty’s steady, reliable reputation preceded her, and people began calling her “The Queen of Wall Street”. She likewise championed the idea of women in finance, once saying, "It is the duty of every woman, I believe, to learn to take care of her own business affairs”.

But she was also getting a more eccentric reputation.

Hetty may have been able to spin straw into gold, but she was no big spender. Although she paid for an office to work in at the Chemical Bank, she spent her nights with her family in modest surroundings like boarding houses and flats, preferring to keep her money rather than spend it conspicuously. But stranger rumors abounded.

In a Gilded Age full of excess and gowns, Hetty’s thrift stuck out like a sore thumb—and some resented it. The press began to print antagonistic articles that claimed Hetty was so miserly, she refused to turn on the heat or even use hot water in her house. But that was the least of the whispers.

According to these stories, Hetty also only wore a single black dress every day, usually only washing its hem—so as not to waste soap—and replacing it only when it was entirely threadbare. To be fair, there was truth to these rumors: Hetty was extremely conscious of her spending and her lending, and would often travel miles, alone, to collect a small amount of debt.

Yet the darkest rumor hit at the very heart of Hetty’s happiness.

In the wake of her husband’s many failings and then his passing in 1902, Hetty turned more and more to her children, growing—as we’ll see—fiercely protective of them. But one day, a mother’s worst nightmare occurred. Her son injured his leg, and eventually had to have it amputated.

When the press got wind of this, they went rabid.

According to the Gilded Ones who sneered at Hetty’s frugality, she was the author of her son’s misfortune—all because she had been too miserly to take him to a doctor. Yet evidence shows that Hetty fully opened her coffers to treat her son, and even moved residences to better accommodate his injury, to no avail.

Little did Hetty’s haters know, their Gilded Age was coming to an official end.

At the turn of the century, optimism was still running rampant about the amount of wealth one man (and they were mostly men) could produce, and brash speculators like Jay Gould and Jim Fisk remained the heroes of the day. Hetty, as usual, stepped to the beat of a different drum.

In the early 1900s, she began warning that speculation with little cash to back it up—the ethos of the Gilded Age—was a dangerous prospect, and that banks were due to fail. Few listened…until she was proven right.

In 1907, Hetty’s predictions came gruesomely true. The Panic of 1907, where banks across the nation faltered and failed from a lack of cash liquidity and too much speculation, unfolded almost exactly as she had predicted.

As the banks fell, they took many of Hetty’s harshest critics with them—but, as with her husband Edward, Hetty couldn’t stand by and do nothing.

Knowing this day was coming, Hetty had shored up an immense amount of cash assets, and she now lent out much of it to help financiers through the Panic. It was no surprise, then, when banking magnate J Pierpont Morgan invited her to his expert roundtable meetings about the crisis—even though Hetty was the only woman in the room.

Hetty was obviously an ace at financial matters, but she now began to stumble in motherhood.

Although Hetty’s son Ned moved away and managed family business Chicago and Texas, her daughter Sylvia lived with her mother until she was in her 30s. There was a disturbing reason for this. Although Sylvia had many suitors, Hetty would abide by almost none of them, thinking they were only gold-diggers after the family fortune.

It took a very agreeable offer for her to finally give Sylvia away.

In 1909, Sylvia married Matthew Astor Wilks, one of the heirs to the grand Astor fortune, after courting him for two years. As Matthew was an Astor, it was impossible for Hetty to call him a gold-digger—but she did still fiercely protect her daughter and her money. Just like her own father had done for her, Hetty insisted that the groom sign a prenuptial agreement giving up his rights to inherit Sylvia’s family money.

If this was “miserly” of Hetty, it was certainly for a good cause. But as she got older, this trait became more and more concerning.

Although Hetty had never neglected her son to the point of an amputation, she did begin to neglect herself if it could save a little money. At one point, the elderly Hetty got a hernia, but refused an operation. Her home-grown “treatment” was ghastly. She would instead use a stick to tamp down the swelling whenever it bothered her.

Her paranoia also grew.

Hetty had spent a long while at the Chemical Bank, and when she eventually left it was not for the usual reasons. Instead, she irrationally believed she had been poisoned there—a phobia that popped up throughout her life—and so moved her office to the National Park Bank to get away from the “threat”.

Her end, however, was steeped in more gossip and rumors.

On July 3, 1916, The New York Times reported that the 81-year-old Hetty Green had passed on in her New York City home after a series of strokes. But another suggested possibility was bizarre. According to the Guinness Book of World Records, she suffered from a fatal apoplectic fit…after fighting with her maid about her preference for skimmed milk.

By the time Hetty Green passed, the world now called her the “Wizard of Finance” and “The Richest Woman in America”, even if others identified her as the Scrooge-like “Witch of Wall Street”.

In the end, though, they could talk all they wanted; Hetty Green walked the walk. At her death, she was worth up to $200 million, equivalent to over $5 billion in today’s money.

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She soon landed a position as a maid with Professor Edward Charles Pickering, the director of the Harvard College Observatory. For Fleming, who used to be a schoolteacher and possessed a keen mind, work sweeping floors was a major downgrade. Just not for long.

According to one story, Pickering soon got fed up with his staff’s lackluster astronomical efforts. In a fit of rage, he exclaimed “My Scotch maid could do better!”—then promptly hired her on. It’s a suspect story, but the likely truth is even better. Pickering, who was famous for his progressive views on women’s intellect, probably listened to his wife when she told him the new maid was too smart to stay one.

Either way, Pickering's hiring decision paid off tenfold Fleming was excellent at her new job. This immigrant single mother eventually helped Pickering develop a designation system for stars, not to mention catalogued thousands of celestial bodies and astronomical phenomena. Most famously, she discovered the Horsehead Nebula in 1888. She was barely in her 30s at the time.

Ancient Rome had its own professional poisoner. Locusta became notorious during the Julio-Claudian dynasty and was associated with poisonings at the imperial court, including the downfall of Claudius and, more securely in the ancient accounts, Nero's elimination of Britannicus. Nero reportedly rewarded her expertise rather than punishing it.

Spanish conquistador Lope de Aguirre joined a 1560 expedition searching for El Dorado, then helped slay its commander before seizing control himself. Styling himself a rebel against King Philip II, Aguirre terrorized settlements across northern South America before his own men turned against him in Venezuela in 1561.

Long before Blackbeard became piracy's favorite villain, French buccaneer François L'Olonnais earned the nickname "Flail of the Spanish." During the 1660s, he plundered ships and settlements around the Caribbean and became notorious for extraordinary mistreatment of prisoners. His violent career ended just as brutally in Central America.

Gironima Spana led a secret poison network in 17th-century Rome, supplying women with deadly mixtures that could be used against unwanted husbands. Her circle operated discreetly for years before papal authorities uncovered it. Spana and four associates were convicted and publicly hanged in 1659, exposing a remarkable underground trade in the dangerous substances.

Catherine Deshayes, better known as La Voisin, operated at the center of the scandalous Affair of the Poisons during Louis XIV's reign. The Parisian fortune teller supplied poisons and other illicit services to wealthy clients, including members of the aristocracy. Apprehended in 1679, she was convicted and burned at the stake

Gesche Gottfried seemed so devoted to nursing sick relatives and friends that people called her the "Angel of Bremen." In reality, she was making many of them sick herself. Between 1813 and 1827, Gottfried claimed the lives of 15 people with arsenic, including husbands, children, parents and her twin brother, before suspicious food finally exposed her.

John Joel Glanton became one of history's most infamous bounty hunters. During the late 1840s, his gang collected Mexican government bounties for Apache scalps, then reportedly slew Mexicans in cold blood, passing off their scalps for payment as well. Glanton later seized a Colorado River ferry before Yuma fighters cut him down and collected his scalp in 1850. Glanton's grim story was drawn from obscurity by Cormac McCarthy's novel Blood Meridian.

American adventurer William Walker didn't merely invade Nicaragua. He actually became its president. The Tennessee-born "filibuster" seized power during the 1850s, relegalized slavery and threatened neighboring countries before a Central American coalition defeated him. Undeterred, Walker launched another expedition and was executed in Honduras in 1860.

John Chivington was a Methodist minister and celebrated Union officer before becoming responsible for one of America's most infamous massacres. In November 1864, he led Colorado troops against a peaceful Cheyenne and Arapaho encampment at Sand Creek. More than 230 people were slain, many of them women, children and elderly people.

Basil Zaharoff became fantastically wealthy selling weapons during an era of international rivalry. Working closely with Vickers, the mysterious arms salesman became infamous for encouraging competing countries to buy increasingly powerful weaponry. During World War I, his extraordinary influence stretched from corporate boardrooms into the highest levels of European politics.

Colonel Alfred Redl had one of the most sensitive jobs in Austria-Hungary: counterintelligence. Unfortunately, he was also secretly selling classified information to Russia. His betrayal became an enormous scandal when discovered in 1913, shortly before Europe descended into WWI. Confronted with the evidence, Redl took his own life.

The Russian Civil War produced some extraordinary characters, but few matched Baron Roman von Ungern-Sternberg. The fiercely anti-Bolshevik commander led troops into Mongolia, captured Urga and helped restore the Bogd Khan in 1921. His violent, eccentric rule was brief. Soviet-backed forces defeated him, and he was captured and executed that September.

D.C. Stephenson turned the Ku Klux Klan into a terrifying political machine in 1920s Indiana. As Grand Dragon, he accumulated enormous influence while the state's Klan grew into the hundreds of thousands. His power collapsed after the brutal assault and slaying of Madge Oberholtzer led to his 1925 conviction for the crime.

Thomas Midgley Jr. wasn't a dictator or evil mastermind. His danger came from chemistry. The celebrated engineer helped develop tetraethyl lead for gasoline and later chlorofluorocarbons for refrigeration. Both seemed enormously useful at first, yet their long-term health and environmental consequences eventually made Midgley's scientific legacy astonishingly destructive.

Texaco chairman Torkild Rieber may be one of the most consequential Americans you've never heard of. During the Spanish Civil War, he supplied Francisco Franco's Nationalists with desperately needed oil, extended credit and provided useful intelligence about Republican shipping. Historian Adam Hochschild argues that Texaco's largely forgotten assistance was crucial to Franco.

Charles Bedaux was an efficiency expert, millionaire and international celebrity whose château hosted the Duke and Duchess of Windsor's wedding. Then his story took a darker turn. During World War II, Bedaux developed relationships with Vichy and Third Reich officials and became involved in an Abwehr (German military intelligence) scheme concerning strategic oil facilities in Iran.

Japanese army doctor Shirō Ishii directed Unit 731, the notorious biological-warfare program that conducted lethal experiments and helped deploy disease against China. Yet Ishii never faced trial for what he had done. American authorities granted him and associates immunity in exchange for information gathered through their biological experiments. He died a free man in 1959.

Pavel Sudoplatov spent decades performing the Soviet Union's dirtiest intelligence work. A senior NKVD operative, he helped organize assassinations and covert operations for Stalin's regime. Most famously, Sudoplatov played a central role in the operation that claimed the life of Leon Trotsky in 1940 in Mexico City.

Reinhard Gehlen ran German army intelligence on the Eastern Front, then made himself useful to Germany's former enemies. After WWII, American intelligence employed Gehlen and his extensive network, which included former Nazis and collaborators. His organization eventually became the foundation of West Germany's Federal Intelligence Service.

German-born physicist Klaus Fuchs escaped the Third Reich, became a British citizen and joined the Manhattan Project. There was one enormous problem: he was secretly passing atomic information to the Soviet Union. Fuchs' espionage gave Moscow valuable information about Western nuclear research before he was finally exposed and convicted in Britain in 1950.

Otto Skorzeny became one of Germany's most celebrated commandos after participating in the dramatic rescue of Benito Mussolini. He later commanded German infiltrators during the Battle of the Bulge. Skorzeny survived the war, escaped internment and eventually settled comfortably in Francisco Franco's Spain.

Egyptian writer Sayyid Qutb began as a literary critic and educator before becoming one of the twentieth century's most influential Islamist thinkers. His later writings advocated revolutionary transformation and profoundly influenced subsequent militant movements. Ayman al-Zawahiri, who eventually led al-Qaeda, was among those deeply affected by Qutb's legacy.

General Mohamed Oufkir became one of Morocco's most powerful men under King Hassan II, serving as interior and defense minister and developing a fearsome reputation. In 1972, he was accused of masterminding an attempt to shoot down the king's aircraft. Oufkir died immediately afterward under circumstances that remain disputed.

Bob Denard was essentially a professional coup maker. The French mercenary fought across postcolonial Africa and became particularly influential in the Comoros, participating in repeated coups and eventually commanding the presidential guard. In 1995, an aging Denard tried one last takeover before French troops intervened.

Hissène Habré ruled Chad from 1982 until 1990 with American and French support, largely because Western governments viewed him as a counterweight to Libya's Muammar Gaddafi. His regime carried out widespread political killings, torture and arbitrary imprisonment. Decades later, Habré was eventually put on trial for his actions and convicted. He lived out the rest of his days behind bars in Senegal.

Saudi businessman Adnan Khashoggi became fabulously wealthy arranging international arms deals and connecting governments, intelligence officials and weapons manufacturers. His extraordinary web of contacts eventually intersected with the Iran-Contra affair, where he helped arrange financing for the secret sale of American weapons to Iran.

Canadian engineer Gerald Bull dreamed of using enormous artillery pieces to launch objects into space. That obsession eventually brought him to Saddam Hussein's Iraq, where Bull worked on Project Babylon, an enormous "supergun." In March 1990, Bull was gunned down outside his Brussels apartment, and Project Babylon soon collapsed.

Abdul Qadeer Khan became a national hero in Pakistan for his role in developing the country's nuclear capability. Less publicly, he constructed an extraordinary international procurement network that evolved into a nuclear black market, supplying technology or expertise to Iran, Libya and North Korea before the network was exposed.

Cardiologist Wouter Basson led Project Coast, apartheid South Africa's secret chemical and biological warfare program. The country's Truth and Reconciliation Commission later examined research involving toxins, biological agents and substances intended for crowd control. Basson's combination of respectable physician and clandestine weapons scientist earned him the unsettling nickname "Dr. Death."

For decades, Syrian-born Monzer al-Kassar operated as an international arms dealer from Europe. His career finally unraveled when undercover American agents posed as buyers for Colombian guerrillas. Kassar agreed to supply millions of dollars in weapons, including surface-to-air missiles and explosives, and was eventually convicted in U.S. federal court.

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Borders became one of America’s dominant bookstore superstore chains but struggled as online bookselling and e-books changed the market. It filed for Chapter 11 in February 2011. By July, after a buyer failed to emerge, Borders moved to liquidate its remaining 399 stores, ending a roughly 40-year run.

Waldenbooks was the smaller, mall-friendly bookstore inside Borders Group. Borders had already been shrinking the chain before its own collapse. When Borders entered liquidation in 2011, the remaining Waldenbooks locations went with it, taking the familiar small-format mall bookstore along.

B. Dalton was Barnes & Noble’s longtime mall bookstore chain and a direct Waldenbooks rival. By late 2009, only 50 stores remained. Barnes & Noble closed them as it concentrated on its larger namesake bookstores, ending a chain that had been built largely around regional malls.

Sam Goody was a go-to mall stop for CDs and other music. Parent company Musicland went through bankruptcy in 2006, and Trans World Entertainment bought many surviving stores. Most Sam Goody locations were later converted to FYE, effectively wiping out the brand’s once-large national mall presence.

Suncoast specialized in movies and television on VHS and DVD. It was also part of Musicland’s 2006 bankruptcy. Trans World kept Suncoast as a separate video-focused division after the acquisition, but its national footprint shrank dramatically from the hundreds of locations it once operated.

KB Toys packed action figures, dolls, games, and seasonal crazes into small mall storefronts. The company filed for bankruptcy for a second time in December 2008 as holiday sales weakened. It moved into liquidation and began shutting its remaining stores, turning the holiday season into a chain-wide going-out-of-business sale.

RadioShack sold batteries, cables, adapters, radios, and electronics parts long before such items were easy to order online. After years of losses and no quarterly profit since 2011, it filed for Chapter 11 in 2015, planning to sell up to 2,400 stores and close the rest of roughly 4,000 U.S. locations.

The Limited helped define mall fashion for women and once operated more than 750 stores. Changing shopping habits and rising competition hurt the chain. In January 2017, it shut all 250 remaining physical stores nationwide, although the company initially said the brand would continue online.

Wet Seal was a teen and young-women’s fashion staple that struggled against newer competitors. After an earlier bankruptcy and attempted turnaround, the chain announced in 2017 that it would close all of its roughly 170 remaining stores, ending its physical retail comeback.

dELiA*s built its identity through catalogs before expanding into malls. The teen retailer struggled with weak sales for years. In December 2014, after failing to find a buyer, it filed for Chapter 11, arranged liquidation sales, and prepared to close its 92 stores.

Gadzooks grew into a large mall apparel chain aimed at young shoppers before falling into bankruptcy. Forever 21 bought most of its operating assets in 2005, including 150 of Gadzooks’ 243 stores. Many locations were later converted, and the old name disappeared.

Contempo Casuals had 239 stores when Wet Seal agreed to buy the trend-driven women’s chain in 1995. The locations survived longer than the name. By 2001, the remaining stores had been converted into Wet Seal or Arden B. locations, so the company survived longer than its famous sign did.

Steve & Barry’s became known for ultra-low-priced clothing and celebrity lines while expanding rapidly. It filed for Chapter 11 in July 2008 after growing to 276 locations in 39 states and was sold, but the rescue did not hold. By November, the new owners had abandoned the turnaround and moved to liquidate the remaining stores.

Structure vanished through a corporate makeover rather than liquidation. The Limited decided in 2001 to fold the struggling men’s chain back into Express, where Structure had originally begun as a men’s department in 1987. Structure stores became Express Men, removing the old name from mall directories.

Merry-Go-Round expanded aggressively on youth fashion and reached hundreds of mall locations. It filed for Chapter 11 in 1994, but years of restructuring and store reductions failed to restore the business. In February 1996, the company announced liquidation, leaving more than 500 stores to be sold or closed.

Chess King sold trend-conscious men’s clothing and became a familiar 1980s mall name. Merry-Go-Round bought the 476-store chain in 1993, then ran into serious financial trouble itself. In 1995, the bankrupt parent announced it would eliminate Chess King and close 375 stores.

Thom McAn spent decades selling affordable footwear and became closely tied to suburban malls. By the 1990s, sales had weakened. Parent company Melville announced in 1996 that remaining stores would either close or convert to Footaction by mid-1997; fewer than 300 remained at the time.

Kinney Shoes was another major family-footwear chain. Its owner, formerly Woolworth, increasingly focused on athletic retail. In 1998, Venator Group said it would close 467 Kinney stores and 103 Footquarters locations while concentrating on athletic chains such as Foot Locker and Champs.

Electronics Boutique, often branded EB Games, was a familiar stop for console games and accessories. Its disappearance came through consolidation: GameStop and Electronics Boutique completed their merger in October 2005, creating a much larger game retailer, and many former EB locations ultimately carried the GameStop name.

Mervyn’s anchored many Western malls for decades. The chain filed for Chapter 11 in July 2008 with 175 stores still operating and initially hoped to reorganize. Months later, it announced liquidation sales at all 149 remaining stores.

Montgomery Ward predated the mall era but became an anchor at many shopping centers. After an earlier bankruptcy, it still struggled to recover. In December 2000, the company announced that all 250 stores and 10 distribution centers would close, ending 128 years of retail operations.

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Erich Segal’s Love Story was published in 1970 and quickly became one of the decade’s defining tearjerkers. Its doomed romance, short sentences, and famous line about love and apology made it easy to quote and easy to mock. People read it quickly, cried over it, argued about it, and then watched the movie.

Richard Bach’s Jonathan Livingston Seagull was short, illustrated, and unexpectedly huge. A fable about a bird who wanted to fly higher became a self-improvement text, gift book, dorm-room symbol, and bestseller phenomenon. Some readers found it profound. Others found it unbearably soft. Either way, it was everywhere.

Mario Puzo’s The Godfather appeared just before the decade began, but its hold on the 1970s was enormous. The book and the 1972 film made the Corleones feel like forbidden family history. Readers passed it around for the violence, the power games, and the sense that organized crime had become grand opera.

William Peter Blatty’s The Exorcist was not just a scary novel. It became a cultural event. Readers treated it like something risky to bring home, especially after the film made the story even more notorious. The book fed a decade already fascinated by religion, evil, psychology, and the fear that ordinary homes were not safe.

David Reuben’s intimacy guide was first published in 1969, but it fit perfectly into the 1970s’ new frankness around bodies and desire. Its title alone became a cultural phrase. People bought it for information, curiosity, shock value, or secrecy, proving that a book could turn embarrassment into mass-market sales.

Thomas A Harris’s I’m OK—You’re OK helped bring transactional analysis into everyday conversation. Readers learned to talk about “Parent,” “Adult,” and “Child” as if psychology belonged at dinner. The title became a catchphrase because it sounded reassuring, simple, and just scientific enough to feel useful.

Hal Lindsey’s The Late Great Planet Earth made biblical prophecy feel connected to the evening news. It sold because it gave readers a framework for conflict, nuclear fear, and global anxiety. For many people, it was not just a book. It was a warning system for the end of the world.

Marabel Morgan’s The Total Woman became a 1970s nonfiction sensation by telling wives how to please and support their husbands. Supporters treated it as marriage advice. Critics saw it as a backlash against feminism. Its fame came partly from the advice itself and partly from the arguments it started.

Erica Jong’s Fear of Flying became a sensation because it put a woman’s intimate restlessness, ambition, anger, and fantasy into language that felt startlingly direct. Readers debated whether it was liberating, vulgar, honest, or overhyped. That debate was exactly what turned it into a cultural touchstone.

Robert M Pirsig’s Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance mixed memoir, philosophy, travel, parenting, and mental strain into a book that many readers carried around like a challenge. It was not light reading, but that helped its reputation. Owning it suggested seriousness, searching, and maybe a little confusion.

Peter Benchley’s Jaws was the rare bestseller that changed how people looked at water. The novel became huge, and the 1975 film turned it into a full-blown cultural fear. Readers who opened it for summer suspense found themselves staring differently at the ocean. A beach book had made the beach feel unsafe.

Vincent Bugliosi and Curt Gentry’s Helter Skelter gave readers a detailed account of the Manson murders and the prosecution that followed. It helped make true crime feel like something people could read seriously, obsessively, and guiltily. The book was horrifying, but it was also hard to put down.

Richard Adams’s Watership Down looked, from a distance, like a book about rabbits. Readers quickly discovered a survival epic about leadership, exile, violence, mythology, and home. Adults and younger readers both claimed it, which helped it become one of those unusual books families could read at different depths.

Stephen King’s Carrie did not become a phenomenon in quite the same way as his later blockbusters, but it still changed paperback horror and helped launch one of the decade’s most important popular writers. After the film adaptation, Carrie White’s rage, humiliation, and telekinetic revenge became part of 1970s horror memory.

Alex Haley’s Roots was already a bestseller before the television miniseries, but the 1977 broadcast turned it into a national event. Readers returned to the book with new urgency. Families talked about ancestry, slavery, memory, and history. Few books of the decade felt so tied to a shared public reckoning.

Gail Sheehy’s Passages gave readers a map of adult life at a moment when many people felt traditional timelines breaking down. It helped make “midlife crisis” and life-stage talk mainstream. People read it to understand themselves, their spouses, their friends, and the unsettling feeling that adulthood had hidden stages.

Wayne Dyer’s Your Erroneous Zones became a self-help giant by telling readers they could stop being trapped by guilt, worry, and approval-seeking. Its message fit the decade’s hunger for personal control. It was direct, upbeat, and portable, exactly the kind of book people underlined and recommended.

Shere Hite’s The Hite Report turned women’s anonymous responses about intimacy into a bestseller and public debate. It was discussed, praised, attacked, and quoted because it made intimate experience sound collective. Like many 1970s books about intimate encounters, it worked because readers felt they were seeing something newly speakable.

Colleen McCullough’s The Thorn Birds gave readers family saga, forbidden love, religion, Australian landscape, and melodrama on a grand scale. It was the kind of big novel people sank into and then handed to someone else. Its later television adaptation only strengthened the feeling that everyone knew the story.

Jay Anson’s The Amityville Horror became a craze because it was marketed around the idea of a true haunting. That claim made it more unsettling than ordinary horror for many readers, even as skeptics challenged the story. The book lived between campfire tale, paperback shocker, and suburban nightmare.

Marilyn French’s The Women’s Room captured feminist frustration in a blunt, sprawling novel about marriage, motherhood, education, and female rage. It was not a polite book, and that was part of the point. Readers argued over it because it made private dissatisfaction sound political, shared, and impossible to ignore.

After JRR Tolkien’s death, The Silmarillion arrived in 1977 like a deep archive for devoted fantasy readers. It was not as easy to read as The Hobbit or The Lord of the Rings, but that almost added to its aura. Fans treated it as proof that Tolkien’s imagined world extended far beyond the familiar quest.

John Irving’s The World According to Garp became a late-1970s literary phenomenon because it mixed comedy, violence, family, feminism, and grief in ways readers could not easily categorize. Some loved its wildness. Others found it too much. That intensity made it a shared argument as much as a shared read.

A 1970s book craze did not spread by algorithm. It moved through book clubs, newspaper lists, paperback racks, talk shows, campus chatter, magazine profiles, libraries, movie adaptations, and television events. If enough people carried the same book in public, it became its own advertisement.

Part of the fun of 1970s bestseller culture was that different books carried different social meanings. Some made readers look thoughtful. Some looked religious, feminist, intellectual, dangerous, or embarrassingly trendy. People did not just read these books. They signaled something by being seen with them.

Today, audiences are more fragmented. A book can still explode, but it competes with streaming, podcasts, social media, and endless niche communities. In the 1970s, a bestseller had more room to dominate. For a while, it really could feel as if every neighbor, coworker, relative, and stranger on the bus was reading the same thing.

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Nostradamus was born in December 1503 in Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, Provence, France. He did not adopt this Latinized name until later in life, however. The reputed seer-to-be was baptized Michel de Nostredame, and tourists can still visit the alleged place of his birth today. And though the infamy of his name survives to this day, he was an unlikely standout in a large family.

The home life of the de Nostredame family was likely frantic: Nostradamus was one of a whopping nine children. While only one of his siblings had anything close to a notable life—his brother, Jean, became a Provençal historian and author—Nostradamus’ parents had a more interesting story. His mother, Reynière, descended from a notable physician, and his father Jaume’s family went through some interesting changes.

Nostradamus’ paternal family had originally been Jewish. However, his grandfather, originally named Cresquas and an Avignon-based grain and money dealer, had converted to Catholicism before his famous grandson was born. It was here where the family gained their notable name.

After converting to Catholicism, Cresquas needed a Christian name to go along with his new faith. He chose “Pierre”, and paired it with the surname “Nostredame”, which translated to “Our Lady”, in tribute to the saint on whose day the grain dealer solemnized his conversion. Thus, the seeds got planted for Nostradamus’ famous name. His occupation, on the other hand, came from his mother’s side.

As previously mentioned, Nostradamus’ mother descended from a notable 15th century physician: she was the granddaughter of Pierre de Saint-Rémy, who worked in medicine in Saint-Rémy and made a name for himself as an early proponent of medical science. He may have had an influence on his great-grandson’s eventual career as a physician.

There is very little remaining on the record about Nostradamus’ childhood. However, a persistent story reports his physician great-grandfather apparently educated him, instilling in him a passion for medicine. One huge problem undermines this claim, however.

Casting doubt on the traditional claim that his great-grandfather educated Nostradamus is a glaring timeline issue: all records of Pierre de Saint-Rémy disappear after 1504, when Nostradamus would have been just a year old. It may be that the records simply got lost, or the story may be farcical. Either way, Nostradamus found his way to school eventually.

Regardless of the identity of his tutor, Nostradamus clearly had a natural gift, an impressive intelligence, and a studious capability. Illustrating this, the young prodigy enrolled in the University of Avignon when he was just 14 years old to study for his baccalaureate. Events beyond his control would make his stint there a short one, however.

Nostradamus lasted just over a year in Avignon, where he likely studied grammar, logic, and rhetoric. Unfortunately, however, he got forced to leave school after a nasty outbreak of the plague caused the university to shut its doors and send its entire student body packing. It was poor timing for the ambitious Nostradamus, but he enthusiastically took his education into his own hands.

Following his ejection from the University of Avignon, Nostradamus’ own accounts of his life report that he spent the next eight years traveling the countryside, researching herbal remedies. His sojourn would last until 1521, after which he would identify with a controversial profession.

Over the course of his travels, Nostradamus gained enough knowledge of various remedies to call himself an apothecary, a professional title under which he operated for several years. He dispensed medicine to “patients”, and perhaps to the more trusting and experimental physicians, building his confidence in the trade all the while. Eventually, he would try once again to attain academic recognition.

In 1529, Nostradamus once again returned to education, this time enrolling in the University of Montpellier, and hoping to earn a doctorate in medicine. He began his studies in earnest, weaving in the knowledge he had attained in his years as an apothecary. Unfortunately, this would come back to bite him pretty quickly.

Shortly after his enrollment, Nostradamus was promptly expelled from the University of Montpellier. The reason this time was, in fact, the very thing that led him back to school: upon discovering his work as an apothecary, the University booted the medicine man—university statutes expressly banned the “manual trade” of apothecary. And while the forbidden profession served as the main cause for his expulsion, there was another reason too.

The student procurator who expelled Nostradamus was Guillaume Rondelet, a renowned professor of medicine. As grounds for the expulsion, Rondelet also cited another discovery he made: that, in his years as a traveling apothecary, Nostradamus had been arrogantly slandering doctors. But despite his smack-talking, the disgraced apothecary was happy to adopt the title when it suited him.

Despite never attaining official academic recognition, many of Nostradamus’ later correspondents, and even his posthumous publishers, would refer to him as “Doctor”. The arrogant pseudo-physician would never push back on this, of course, enjoying the status it endowed him with. Now professionally adrift once again, Nostradamus returned to his independent practice.

Following his expulsion from Montpellier, Nostradamus picked up where he left off, continuing to work as an apothecary. It was during this time that the healer began making a name for himself, particularly for inventing a “rose pill”, a remedy of his own creation which Nostradamus himself claimed protected against the plague that was still rampant in Europe. His notoriety was enough to earn him an important summons.

In 1531, on the back of his rose pill notoriety, Nostradamus received an invitation from leading Renaissance scholar Jules-César Scaliger to come to the city of Agen to further his work as a physician and apothecary. Upon arriving in Agen, the traveling healer met a woman whose name is uncertain, though some sources claim she was Henriette d'Encausse. Either way, this woman would become his wife.

Whatever her name was, Nostradamus was immediately smitten with this woman he met in Agen, and the couple quickly got married. The apothecary would have two children with this mystery bride, but his family bliss would last only a brief time before its tragic demolition.

It wasn’t long before the most unimaginable tragedy befell the beleaguered Nostradamus. By 1534, the apothecary’s entire family, his wife and two children, were no more. The most likely cause of their demise was the ever-present plague, and perhaps this was why the grieving patriarch doubled down on his efforts to fight it.

After a year-long sabbatical of grief, where he traveled through France and Italy, Nostradamus reemerged in 1545 and buckled down to assist Louis Serre and other local physicians in combatting a particularly severe outbreak of the plague in Marseille. He fought further outbreaks in Salon-de-Provence and Aix-en-Provence and even published a book on his attempted treatments of the disease. He grew attached to the local area in the process.

Nostradamus’ years of traveling finally came to an end in 1547 when he decided to settle down in Salon-de-Provence, having grown attached to the area during his work battling with the plague there. Tourists can still visit the house in which the healer settled today. Nostradamus did not delay in sowing roots and setting himself up.

After so much time on the road, Nostradamus had little wealth to show for it. To that end (and perhaps for love too), he decided to marry into money. After meeting wealthy widow Anne Ponsarde, the two promptly wed. They would eventually parent six children, three boys and three girls. Nostradamus set to work putting his wife’s money to good use.

Having married into a modest fortune, Nostradamus invested the money to grow his family’s fortune, as well as his local community. Sometime between 1556 and 1567, the couple acquired a small share in a massive regional canal project, one that resulted in the Canal de Craponne, which served to irrigate the largely barren Salon-de-Provence with water from the river Durance. His pivot to investment was far from Nostradamus’ biggest career shift, however.

In the late 1540s, Nostradamus took yet another trip to Italy, and while we don't know many details about the excursion, he apparently encountered something significant there. Upon his return to France, the apothecary began moving away from medicine toward a spooky new passion: the occult. With the publishing of another book, he cemented his historical identity.

Nostradamus’ next move was his most historically important to date: almanacs had exploded in popularity in France, and the occultist decided to publish one of his own in 1550. Significantly, the former medicine man Latinized his name to “Nostradamus” for the first time in print, etching it permanently into history. With the success of the publication, he had found a new groove.

Nostradamus’ almanac proved to be an outsized hit, and its success greatly encouraged the occultist. He continued writing at least one almanac every year, often publishing several within the space of a few months. These publications sometimes contained annual calendars and, more significantly, featured at least 6,338 prophecies over their entire publication run. This only resulted in further work for Nostradamus.

Nostradamus’ almanacs attracted the attention of many prominent nobles and other wealthy Europeans, and this resulted in a massive windfall for the budding occultist. His well-to-do readers began hiring the former healer as an astrologer, seeking “psychic” readings and advice. Hilariously, however, Nostradamus made them work for it.

Professional astrologers of the time were typically responsible for calculating their clients’ birth charts in order to perform personalized readings. Nostradamus was notoriously bad at this, however, making frequent errors when he attempted it, and he eventually insisted that clients provide the birth charts themselves. Despite this shortcoming, the astrologer received significant patronage, which allowed him to publish his life’s work.

In 1555, Nostradamus published Les Prophéties (The Prophecies), a book of 1,000 French (for the most part) quatrains. It remains his most significant and well-known work to this day. The book comprised a collection of poems, many of which made prophetic predictions of future events, casting Nostradamus as a seer to contemporaries and historians alike. The powerful Church did not like this, of course.

Fearing his heretical predictions would subject him to religious prosecution, Nostradamus devised a syntaxial method of obscuring the true meaning of his poems. He achieved this through the use of word games and language mixing—Les Prophéties contains elements of French, Greek, Italian, Latin, and Provençal. He initially released the book to a lukewarm reception.

Many of his contemporaries were thoroughly unimpressed with Nostradamus’ Prophecies. The author relied heavily on historical and literary precedents, which some thought compromised the veracity of his claims, leading to an initially mixed reception to the publication. Others had a more negative view still.

Toward the more negative end of the mixed reception were those who believed Nostradamus was doing active harm with his predictions. These reactions ranged from believing the seer was a servant of evil, to those who believed he was a fraud, to others still who believed the astrologer was simply insane. The haters mattered little to Nostradamus, however, compared to his well-to-do fans.

Despite his detractors, Nostradamus’ predictions received their fair share of enthusiastic fans too, and many of these fans came from elite members of the upper class. One of his greatest and most notable admirers was Catherine de’ Medici, a member of a powerful Florentine family and the wife of King Henry II of France. The Queen promptly gave Nostradamus a job.

Upon reading Nostradamus’ almanacs, many of which featured predictions concerning unnamed threats to the royal family, Queen Catherine promptly summoned the seer to Paris to explain his prophecies. Nostradamus was terrified, fearing they would behead him on arrival. Clearly, however, he put his silver tongue to use because it wasn’t long before the Queen was asking the astrologer to draw up horoscopes for her children. His career prospects only improved from there.

Over the next 10 years, Nostradamus firmly ingratiated himself with Catherine and the royal family, and she appointed him to some powerful and important positions. Chief among these was Counselor and Physician-in-Ordinary to the Queen’s young son, the future King Charles IX of France. But while he had his admirers in the halls of royal power, he rubbed other powerful institutions the wrong way.

Unsurprisingly, over the years, Nostradamus’ work as an apothecary, astrologer, and purported seer brought him into frequent conflict with the powerful Catholic Church. In Agen in 1538, for example, a Church Inquisitor publicly condemned him after visiting the area in search of anti-Catholic views. His most consequential brush with the clergy came over 20 years later, however.

In 1561, a royal decree was issued, stating that any publication of the kind that Nostradamus regularly wrote would need the express permission of a bishop before its release to the public. The controversial seer blatantly flouted this decree, of course, releasing his 1562 almanac without permission from anyone. This bold move resulted in Nostradamus’ brief imprisonment in Marignane. But this was far from the worst experience of his later years.

By the 1560s, Nostradamus began suffering from severe gout. The ailment plagued him with pain for many years and made movement increasingly difficult. By 1566, the gout had progressed into edema, and you didn’t need to be a psychic to figure out Nostradamus’ imminent future.

Employing his trademark foresight, Nostradamus summoned his lawyer in late June 1566. He instructed the attorney to draw up an extensive will that bequeathed a now-substantial fortune to the seer’s wife and children. With his house now in order, Nostradamus made his final prediction.

On the evening of July 1, Nostradamus allegedly predicted to his secretary that they would “not find me alive at sunrise”. His prediction came true: the following morning, the controversial seer was discovered unresponsive on the floor next to his bed. He was 62 years old. The astrologer had pursued a curious life of unorthodox research and prediction, but his posthumous success dwarfs the impact he made while still alive.

In the centuries following his passing, Nostradamus began attracting increasing numbers of supporters, particularly around his work in Les Prophéties. Many of these advocates, who have included members of the popular press, credit the seer with accurately predicting dozens of major world events. The list of alleged prophecies has some heavy hitters.

Among the interpretations of Nostradamus’ work, his most fervent believers insist he foretold great events in history. The most agreed-upon claims among his supporters are the Great Fire of London, the French Revolution, the rise of both Napoleon and the Führer, as well as WWI and WWII, and the latter’s conclusion with nukes dropped on Japan. Such was the support for these claims at one point, in fact, that cynical actors used them at a time of great strife.

During WWII, both the Allied and Axis powers deployed some of Nostradamus’ alleged predictions as tools of propaganda. Upon learning of the prophecies, Josef Goebbels found them “not only intriguing but potentially useful” and employed astrologers to write propaganda based on them.

The Allies, in response, dropped their own Nostradamus pamphlets over occupied Europe, and film studio MGM even made four short Nostradamus films to boost American morale. The seer’s predictions far outlasted the conflict.

During the latter half of the 20th century, and into the early 21st century, Nostradamus’ apparent predictions continued to be applied to massive world events. He was further credited with predicting the Moon landing, the Challenger disaster, the untimely demise of Princess Diana, and the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center. But while his supporters were quite vocal, his doubters spoke up too.

Many other sources, particularly academic ones, vehemently reject the idea that Nostradamus had any prophetic powers, supernatural or otherwise. These detractors insist that the associations the seer’s supporters make between world events and The Prophecies’ quatrains are simple misinterpretations (sometimes deliberately so) or mistranslations. That’s the intellectual argument, at least, but there’s also a more cynical take.

Nostradamus skeptics, academic or otherwise, also argue that the astrologer’s apparent predictions were incredibly vague, and could pretty much be applied to anything if one wanted to. This calls the author’s alleged prophetic powers into serious question—as well as the critical thinking skills of his supporters! Indeed, the timing of some of these retcons does seem suspicious.

Many of Nostradamus’ supporters are those that publish books on the alleged accuracy of his predictions, but a look at the timeline suggests these authors may not be acting in good faith.

Their books frequently claim that the astrologer predicted whatever major event had just occurred right before these authors’ books get published, a phenomenon known as the “movable feast”, which appears to be nothing more than a cynical cash grab. In fact, one need only look at other aspects of their writing to see the shakiness of their arguments.

These authors, unanimous in their alleged belief in Nostradamus’ powers of prophecy, also consistently and blatantly invent aspects of the astrologer’s biography to bolster his mythical status.

Some notable lies told about the man include that he was a descendant of the Israelite tribe of Issachar, that he was educated by both of his grandfathers, who were physicians to the King of Provence, and that he was a medical lecturer at Montpellier until his ejection for his unpopular views. These are all false claims. In fact, the very claim that he made these predictions could be the biggest lie of them all.

Perhaps the most skeptical view of all on Nostradamus’ predictions is that he didn’t author them at all. Academics like Jacques Halbronn have proposed that Les Prophecies was, in fact, an antedated forgery, made up of false stories and attributed to Nostradamus for political reasons. But despite this plethora of arguments against the alleged seer’s psychic abilities, he still retains believers to this day.

Though he is perhaps not as popular as he once was, Nostradamus’ prophecies still have their supporters to this day, with people continuing to attribute predictions to the seer online. Many claim that the astrologer predicted the Covid-19 pandemic, for example. Some even say that he predicted a "seven months great war" and that a celebrity would get struck by lightning in 2026!

Regardless of one’s feelings about his abilities, we cannot deny that Nostradamus had a curious mind, was perhaps ahead of his time, and remains a fascinating figure that inspires conversation long after his own lifetime.

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For much of grocery-store history, shoppers did not wander aisles collecting their own food. They told a clerk what they wanted, and the clerk fetched it. That began changing dramatically in 1916, when Piggly Wiggly opened its pioneering self-service store in Memphis.

Self-service was a retail breakthrough. Customers could walk the aisles, compare products and put what they wanted into a hand basket. It also meant stores needed fewer clerks filling individual orders. But the new system created one very obvious problem.

A shopper could buy only as much as they could comfortably carry. Once a wicker or wire basket became full or painfully heavy, there was a powerful reason to head for the checkout. For a grocer hoping to sell more food, that was money walking out the door.

Sylvan Goldman noticed exactly that. He owned grocery stores in Oklahoma City and watched customers, especially women, stop shopping when their baskets became too heavy. If he could remove that physical limit, shoppers could keep moving through the aisles...and keep adding groceries.

Goldman was not some tinkerer who wandered into retail by accident. He and his brother Alfred had spent years in the grocery business and eventually bought the struggling Humpty Dumpty chain in 1934. Goldman understood supermarkets, advertising and, most importantly, how valuable it could be to keep customers shopping longer.

Goldman is usually credited with inventing the shopping cart, but other grocers had already experimented with ways to move heavy baskets. Texas grocer Joseph Weingarten reportedly tried wheeled carriers in the 1910s, while Houston’s Henke & Pillot later installed tracks that let customers roll baskets around part of the store.

The earlier solutions never really caught on. Henke & Pillot’s system, for example, tied shoppers to a fixed track through the store. Goldman needed something customers could steer wherever they wanted, that could carry plenty of food and, just as importantly, wouldn’t consume half the store when nobody was using it.

In 1936, inspiration reportedly struck while Goldman was looking at folding chairs. The basic thought was wonderfully simple: instead of forcing customers to carry a basket, why not put the basket on a folding frame with wheels and let the customer push it?

Goldman worked with Fred Young, a mechanic and carpenter employed by his grocery business, to turn the idea into something shoppers could actually use. Their design became a wheeled metal frame that could carry grocery baskets while still folding up when the store needed to save space.

The first version did not look much like the deep wire cart parked outside supermarkets today. Goldman’s “folding basket carriage” held two removable wire baskets, one above the other. It was essentially a mobile rack for the same kinds of baskets customers were already using.

Goldman introduced the cart in Oklahoma City on June 4, 1937. He had every reason to think shoppers would love it. No more aching arms. More room for groceries. An easier trip through the store. From a retailer’s point of view, it seemed almost impossible to dislike.

Goldman promoted the new idea aggressively. A newspaper advertisement teased shoppers with the promise that they would no longer need to lug heavy baskets around the store. He called the concept his “No Basket Carrying Plan.” The sales pitch sounded pretty irresistible.

Then customers actually saw the carts. Instead of racing to grab one, many shoppers simply walked past them. The device Goldman thought would immediately make shopping easier had somehow created a completely different problem: people worried about what pushing one of these strange contraptions said about them.

Many women wanted nothing to do with the cart because it reminded them of a baby carriage. After years of pushing children around in prams and strollers, the last thing some wanted was to push something similar while buying groceries. Convenience had accidentally collided with a very personal association.

Men resisted for a different reason. Historical accounts say many believed pushing the contraption made them look weak, while others dismissed it as women’s work. Carrying a heavy basket apparently felt more masculine. Goldman had solved the physical problem perfectly and run straight into the psychology of 30s shoppers.

Older customers were reportedly among the few willing to try the carts at first. That did not exactly help Goldman’s cause with everyone else. His futuristic new invention risked becoming associated not with convenience or modern shopping, but with people who physically needed help carrying their groceries.

A lot of inventors might have blamed the public, changed the design or quietly abandoned the whole thing. Goldman did none of those. He believed the problem was not the cart itself. Customers simply needed to see that using one was normal...so he decided to manufacture that feeling.

Goldman kept selling the idea in print. After the rough launch, he even ran an advertisement claiming his “No Basket Carrying Plan” had met with instant approval. That was certainly optimistic. But his newspaper campaign was nothing compared with what he was about to do inside the stores.

Goldman hired male and female models of different ages to walk through his stores pushing carts and pretending to shop. They weren’t customers who had suddenly fallen in love with his invention. Their job was to make actual customers look around and think...apparently everyone else is doing this.

Goldman also stationed an employee near the entrance to encourage customers to take a cart and point out that other shoppers were already using them. Long before marketers talked constantly about social proof, Goldman was manufacturing it right inside his grocery stores.

Seeing ordinary-looking men and women confidently pushing the carts made the contraption seem less strange. The same shoppers who had worried about looking weak, old or motherly could now see people like themselves doing it without embarrassment. The cart had barely changed. What people thought of it had.

Accounts of the rollout say that within weeks, customers began accepting the carts. Goldman put them into all his stores. What had looked like an embarrassing failure was turning into exactly what he had imagined: a device that kept customers moving through the aisles while carrying more groceries.

Goldman quickly realized the opportunity went far beyond his own supermarkets. In September 1937, he presented the cart at the first Super Market Convention and promoted it to other grocers. He was no longer just fixing a problem in his own stores. He was selling a new piece of retail infrastructure.

Goldman filed his patent application for a “Folding Basket Carriage for Self-Service Stores” on March 14, 1938. It was granted on April 9, 1940. The patented design used a folding wheeled frame with two shelves capable of holding two removable wire baskets.

The turnaround was astonishing. By 1940, grocers trying to order shopping carts reportedly faced a waiting list of about seven years. The contraption customers had refused to touch just three years earlier had become something store owners apparently couldn’t get quickly enough.

Once customers no longer had to worry about carrying everything in their arms, retailers and manufacturers could think bigger. Food producers began offering larger package sizes because shoppers could now move bulkier purchases through the store without having to physically carry them.

Goldman’s folding design solved the carrying problem, but storing large numbers of carts was still awkward. The familiar solution arrived from another inventor. In 1946, Kansas City inventor Orla E. Watson filed for a new kind of shopping cart that would fundamentally change their shape.

Watson’s breakthrough was a hinged rear gate that allowed carts to telescope, or nest, inside one another. Instead of folding them up or removing baskets, store employees could simply push a row of carts together. Suddenly dozens of carts could occupy the space that previously held only a handful.

Goldman soon introduced a competing nesting cart of his own, leading to a lengthy dispute over the design. The conflict was eventually settled, with Goldman obtaining licensing and manufacturing rights while Watson received royalties. The shopping cart had become valuable enough to fight over.

Goldman kept tinkering with the shopping cart long after its initial success. In 1949, he filed a patent for a dedicated “baby seat for store carts,” giving parents a separate place for a small child without surrendering the cart’s main grocery basket. The patent was granted in May 1950.

The effect went well beyond tired arms. Stores could accommodate larger purchases, aisles and checkout areas evolved around wheeled carts, and consumers became accustomed to buying quantities that would have been difficult to haul around in a hand basket just a generation earlier.

Nearly 90 years after shoppers initially rejected Goldman’s carts, they are almost impossible to imagine supermarkets without. Smithsonian reported in 2025 that an estimated 20 million to 25 million shopping carts were in use across American retail stores at any given time—roughly one for every 13 Americans.

Goldman’s Folding Carrier business became a major cart manufacturer, and his inventions helped make him a multimillionaire. The man whose customers initially refused to use his strange wheeled baskets had helped turn that same idea into one of the most recognizable objects in retail.

And that may be the strangest part of the whole story. Goldman correctly predicted that shoppers would buy more if stores gave them an easier way to carry it. What he didn’t predict was that before customers would embrace the shopping cart, he would first have to convince them that everybody else already had.

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Marcel Duchamp was a key figure in the avant-garde art movement of the early 20th century. Contemporary critics place him as one of the three most influential artists of the era, along with and Matisse. But Duchamp had slightly different ideas about "art" from many of his peers. The biggest departure was this: Duchamp didn't think art had to look good. In fact, he didn't want his art to look good.

Duchamp decried the majority of art as "retinal," designed only to please the eye. Duchamp was far more interested in creating art for the mind—and because of that, he created some of the most bizarre, original, and controversial works in history.

Though Duchamp received classical training, and his early works like The Chess Game could certainly be described as "retinal," as he got older his ideas about art evolved. His paintings started drawing heavily on Cubist influences, and they grew far more abstract. But that was just the beginning.

This brings us to New York City in 1917, where the French Duchamp had fallen in with the American artists of the early Dada art scene. The town was abuzz with rumors that Duchamp, already a well-known artist, was working on a Cubist painting called Tulip Hysteria Co-ordinating. But when the Society of Independent Artists held its 1917 exhibition, the painting was nowhere to be seen.

In fact, there weren't any pieces by the French artist. At least, not on display.

Most historians believe that Tulip Hysteria Co-ordinating never really existed. Duchamp was already far more interested in what he called "readymades": An ordinary object that an artist gives meaning through selection and modification. An ordinary object like, say, a urinal.

Duchamp purchased a standard urinal from a hardware store on Fifth Avenue. He tilted it 90 degrees so that it lay on its back. Then he signed it, "R. Mutt, 1917" (a mostly-nonsense name just chosen to throw people off his scent), titled the piece Fountain, and that was that.

He submitted the piece to the Society of Independent Artists exhibition under a pseudonym, and it immediately sparked debate.

The board of the Society of Independent Artists argued heavily about Fountain, and eventually, they decided they couldn't simply display a urinal as art. When the day of the exhibition came, they hid the piece behind a partition. But this wasn't the last they'd hear of R. Mutt's urinal.

Not long after the show, New York Dada artists defended the piece and decried its "suppression". In their magazine The Blind Man, several proto-Dadaists published essays defending the urinal. The magazine also included a photograph, which has since become one of the most enduring images in the history of modern art.

But the debate rages on. Can a urinal, merely through the act of selection by an artist, become art? Both sides still have staunch proponents. But if Duchamp's goal was to create something that stimulated the mind, more than a century of debate over a urinal certainly seems like a success.

Want to see Fountain for yourself and decide whether or not it's art? Well...too bad. The sculpture was lost almost immediately after the exhibition. The best guess as to what happened to it? Someone thought it was garbage and threw it out. Honestly, a fitting end for one of the most controversial works of art in history.

One of the most promising young actors of the 90s, Brad Renfro was talented enough to be the next Leonardo DiCaprio, but troubled enough to give Robert Downey Jr a run for his money. No matter how wise beyond his years he seemed, Renfro was just a troubled kid trying to navigate Hollywood’s dark underbelly without any parental support.

If that’s not a recipe for a downward spiral, we don’t know what is.

Brad Renfro’s origin story is as troubled as they come. He was born on July 25, 1982, in Knoxville, Tennessee, to Angela and Mark Renfro who split up when he was five. His mother didn’t take it well and ended up dumping the young boy on the front steps of his paternal grandmother’s trailer. It was far from an auspicious beginning.

Brad Renfro’s encounters with law enforcement started early. When he was in fifth grade, he was in a taught by an officer who kicked him out of class on the very first day. The officer later admitted to being charmed by the boy, but said “he was still a piece of work as far as being out of control”. Too bad DARE’s “just say no” lessons didn’t seem to stick.

Renfro’s trouble with substances, both lawful and not-so-lawful, started disturbingly early—and he was not secretive about it. In media interviews, he would often talk about how he first got loaded at 11 and first tried the devil’s cabbage at the age of nine. He even lit up in front of a school employee, which did not end well.

Sadly, getting high would become one of Renfro’s favorite pastimes.

To truly understand Brad Renfro’s entanglement with mind-altering substances, you have to go right back to the very beginning. As an adult, he confessed to his friends that he had been born addicted to the really hard stuff and had started using at the age of 12. One of his friends also said that Renfro’s mother was an enabler.

Apparently, one of his favorite things to say was, “It’s a miracle that I’m still alive”. He was already on a dark path—but it was destined to get even darker.

It’s probably clear by now that Renfro did not have stage parents. In fact, the way in which Hollywood found him is rather eyebrow-raising. Joel Schumacher was directing an adaptation of the John Grisham novel The Client. The plot revolved around a young boy, and Joel wanted “a kid who understood in the marrow of his psyche what it was like to grow up too soon”. How on the nose.

Joel Schumacher didn’t want a squeaky-clean Disney kid, so he sent his casting agents on a massive boy hunt. In their quest for an “endearing, mischievous boy,” they even contacted law enforcement—and here’s where stuff gets real. When Renfro’s DARE teacher heard about the casting call, the boy popped into the officer’s head, proving that it sometimes pays to be bad.

Too bad Renfro took this philosophy way too far.

As soon as they met Brad Renfro, the casting agents knew that they had someone special. They flew Renfro and his grandmother to California where he aced the screen test, beating out 5,000 other kids. The casting agents set him up with a manager who said, “He was just obviously screaming for someone to establish some kind of boundaries for him”. 

Unfortunately, Renfro’s proverbial screams went unheard.

Joel Schumacher took a huge gamble when he cast an inexperienced kid in The Client. Renfro was a natural—thank God—who was able to memorize his lines and hold his own alongside Susan Sarandon and Tommy Lee Jones. When he wasn’t on set, it was his grandmother’s job to keep an eye on him. 

Being responsible for this wild child, however, would have been a tall order for anyone.

One crew member later anonymously admitted to having a lightbulb moment about young Renfro’s demons. After noticing that Renfro was coming to the set tired, he had a chat with his grandmother—who seemed like she wasn't being quite honest. “That was the first inkling where I thought, ‘Oh, this isn’t just cigarettes. There could be more going on with this kid, and I don’t have control over it’”. 

Newsflash: No one had any control over him.

Carrying a feature film is stressful for adults, imagine how demanding it would be for an out-of-control 11-year-old with addiction issues. To top it off, many of Renfro’s scenes were intensely aggressive. An organization that reviews media suitability for children, sums it up well: “Plucky, terrorized boy at the heart of legal thriller”.

Well, Renfro wasn't about to disappoint anyone with his performance.

The Client was a make-it-or-break-it moment in Renfo’s burgeoning career and despite the challenges, the movie became one of the top-grossing movies of 1994. People magazine put him in its “Top 30 Under 30,” but with the world watching, would he succumb to the curse associated with many of the entertainment world’s newcomer awards?

After his success with The Client, it was clear that Brad Renfro had been bitten by the acting bug. He played a loner in his next two films, both 1995 releases, but that’s about all they had in common. In The Cure, he portrays a kid who befriends a young boy with AIDS. Although Renfro’s performance was well-received, the movie was not.

Brad Renfro was quickly making a name for himself and acquiring admirers, both young and old. Among them was The Cure Director Peter Horton: “Brad had a really rough background. He is 11 going on 24 and didn’t seem to have the childhood side of him”. Horton also recalled Renfo receiving suggestive fan mail even though he had only just turned 12.  

Renfro’s other role that year was in a Disney movie. Safe choice, right? Right?  

Wrong. Actually, there was nothing much safe about his time on the Disney set. The Tom and Huck trailer called them “the original bad boys” and, well, it was half right. During his audition for the role of Huck Finn, 12-year-old Renfro seized a real ax and began chasing one of the casting assistants. Unbelievably, he still got the role. Huck’s adventure had just begun…

Hollywood will often pull out all the stops for actors with star power—and Renfro truly had that special something. According to Premiere, Tom and Huck's producers paid an “acting coach” $10,000 every month to keep Renfro out of trouble. Alas, just like his grandmother, this “coach” failed to control the young actors vices or the "girls in his trailer”.

Ah yes, substances weren’t his only vice…

To make matters worse, what happened in Brad Renfro’s trailer, did not stay in his trailer. Down the road, when production designer Gemma Jackson from Tom and Huck found out that Renfro was only 13 at the time of filming, she suddenly realized how dire his situation had been. What's more?

She claimed that, at the time, Renfro even had a girlfriend who was “years older than him”. Yikes! Kinda makes us wonder if Renfro’s “acting coach” was worth the money.

Kids will be kids, right? Yes, especially during a night out after a long day of filming Tom and Huck. Renfro starred alongside pre-pubescent sitcom heartthrob Jonathan Taylor Thomas who was at the peak of his powers. When he tried to get into Hooters one night, Renfro told the bouncers, “I’m the kid with the kid from Home Improvement”.   

The shenanigans didn't end there.

Even with a supposed minder, Renfro wasn’t the only one stepping over the line. In one Tom and Huck scene, the two kids have to cover themselves in mud. Director Peter Hewitt said it was a cold, miserable scene, but that wasn’t the only problem. In addition to the mud, Renfro was wearing tiny, tight underpants while Jonathan wore a pair of baggy pants.

This gratuitous display would become a disturbing theme across Renfro’s career. 

If we could use one adjective for Brad Renfro’s career trajectory, it would be mercurial. He went from Disney to the very dark Barry Levinson-directed thriller Sleepers. This was not a film for kids. To make matters worse, the worst of the brutality centers around 13-year-old Renfro.

As tough as the kid seemed, Levinson must have known the scenes were taking a toll…

Brad Renfro was waving plenty of red flags on the Sleepers set. Even director Levinson said that the boy was “fraught with demons and needed help". Instead of taking a moment to think about how to help him, though, the production team hired a guardian to keep an eye on Renfro’s ever-increasing out-of-control behavior.

What do you get when you combine problematic director Bryan Singer with a pre-pubescent addicted actor and a script about a kid who is unhealthily obsessed with a WWII German soldier? A whole heck of a lot of issues. On the set of 1998’s Apt Pupil, one crew member recalled 14-year-old Renfro sneaking smokes when the union rep was visiting. 

Too bad that was child’s play compared to some of the other on-set incidents.

Fernando Altschul was the first assistant director on the set of Apt Pupil but he ended up trying to keep Renfro in line as well. A Herculean task, to be sure, but he was doing it with care and concern. Altschul even stormed off the set when the filmmakers forced young Renfro to work way too many hours so that the production could stay on schedule. 

Long hours weren’t Altschul’s only cause for concern, though…

The cast and crew of Apt Pupil may have worked hard, but they played hard too. At a casual party during the shoot, Altschul couldn’t believe that Renfro was there celebrating as well. He was the only child there. Altschul felt that “a 14-year-old had no business being” at the party, but he kept mum, feeling that it wasn’t his place. 

Ah, where to begin with Apt Pupil director Bryan Singer? Over the past two decades, he has been plagued with allegations of misconduct. One of the more disturbing incidents was in Apt Pupil when Renfro’s character was showering at a school gym. The camera lingers on Renfro and dips disturbingly low—but the scene gets alarmingly worse…

Anything involving children and movie sets is a minefield, but when a lack of clothing enters the mix, things can get catastrophic without proper oversights. In the Apt Pupil shower scene, the crew forced a group of boys into stripping down completely. The crew later claimed it had been a mixup, but the incident led to a series of lawsuits against the production and Singer. 

Hollywood and flashy parties go hand-in-hand, but many have a dark side. Around the same time as Apt Pupil, Bryan Singer was famous for his pool parties. One of Singer’s friends later described one of these parties by saying that “it felt like a high-school party”. He also wondered why there were so many boys there. Cue Brad Renfro…

A male source disclosed to The Atlantic that he had an intimate relationship with Bryan Singer while the source was still in his early teens. Singer brought this person to the set of Apt Pupil and to one of his famous parties. At the party, Singer led the 15-year-old source and 15-year-old Renfro, upstairs…

The source claimed that while Renfro had been the third party at first, before anything intimate actually happened. According to The Atlantic article, two sources said that Singer would refer to Renfro as his boyfriend. The source at the party later talked to Renfro about the incident and the two agreed that they hoped these wealthy men would do things for them.

After a harrowing job like Apt Pupil, who wouldn’t need to unwind. Brad Renfro had finished filming and the movie was a few months from being released when Renfro’s next bout of troubles began. He had gone home to Knoxville and was letting loose on a drive with his 19-year-old cousin when they suddenly saw telltale red and blue flashing lights behind them…

Yes, Brad Renfro was 15 at the time of the traffic stop, and no things did not look good. According to the sheriff’s report, his bloodshot eyes and incoherent speech gave him away. He was also carrying a couple of baggies of illicit substances and had stashed some Mary Jane in his sock. The officers took Renfro and his cousin in and charged them. 

Even the trial did not go down without incident…

It must have been pretty exciting to have a celebrity at the county courthouse. The press had congregated and Renfro didn’t disappoint. Outsice the building, he got into a loud dispute with his mother that escalated to the point where he was shouting and cursing at her. A journalist then made the mistake of telling Renfro he shouldn’t talk to his mother that way…

Brad Renfro’s reply to the journalist was nothing if not shocking. He proceeded to make a rude gesture at the journalist before turning back toward his mother and resuming his jaw-dropping rant. The best part of it all? The two were fighting over a lighter. And thus began a long string of way too many run-ins with the law.

Apt Pupil may have been Renfro’s last major studio film, but he was in no way finished with acting. In 2000, he’d signed on to play a wayward teen in the movie Bully. Just before filming, director Larry Clark picked up Renfro from his grandmother’s house in Knoxville. The plan was for the two to drive to Florida where all of the filming would take place. 

When Renfro came out of the house to greet Clark, the director couldn’t believe his eyes…

At that moment, Brad Renfro was 100% not that dude who sent girls into a tizzy. Clark said he was bloated and had blood on his arms. At that moment, the director saw the state of his actor—and just knew his movie was doomed. How was this 18-year-old hot mess going to play a teenager when he looked 35? He decided to hatch a desperate and drastic plan…

After spending a few days with Renfro in Knoxville, Clark decided it was time to make his—highly unorthodox—move. Clark got Renfro into the car under false pretenses and then hightailed it to the Sunshine State. During the grueling ride, Clark, who was once an addict himself, watched Renfro have a seizure as part of the terrible withdrawal process.

This nightmare road trip would definitely NOT happen on a major studio movie. Once the pair got to Florida, Clark took Renfro to AA meetings and hired a trainer as well as a minder. The director said, “I’ve been around a lot of addicts…and I remember thinking at the time, this is one of the worst cases I’ve ever seen”. 

Somehow, despite all these efforts, things were about to get even worse.

By now, Renfro was a pro at sneaking away from his babysitters. But during the filming of Bully, he did something much worse than sneaking out. In the middle of the night, he crawled out of a second-floor window and disappeared into the darkness. The person paid to watch him had no idea he was gone, and Fort Lauderdale wasn’t going to know what hit it.

The night was young-ish and Renfro was free at last! His first order of business was to meet up with a dealer, of course, and get blitzed. He and a friend then headed to a marina and decided that it would be a good idea to hot-wire a 45-foot yacht. Is it much of a surprise that things didn’t quite go smoothly? 

Imagine you’re just an innocent boat owner, sound asleep on your vessel when you’re suddenly startled awake at 3:40 am by a loud CRASH! Apparently, Brad Renfro and a pal got the yacht started and were accelerating hard when they realized that they had forgotten to untie the big boat. Like something from a cartoon, the yacht reached the end of its rope and crashed back into the dock.

Do you know who was also at the end of their rope? The film’s director. The rudely awakened boat owners dragged Renfro and his pal off the yacht and held them until the authorities arrived. Renfro was charged and the film had to shut down for a day. When he got out of the slammer, he won over the director yet again.

Clark said, “He was so good, you would kind of forgive him for being a (screw)-up”. The companies who insured film projects weren’t quite as forgiving, however. 

It’s not often that celebrity profiles include quotes from a star’s grandmother, but a strange 2001 article in Details included some eerie musings. Renfro’s grandmother said, “Brad’s got to get that partying out of him… Brad’s over 18 now, I’ve turned him loose. I’m not going to be here forever”. Little did she know that she’d be around for slightly longer than Renfro.

Over the next few years, Brad Renfro managed to keep getting roles while also getting into a whole lot of hot water. He was charged with a probation breach, drinking in public, possession, driving without a license, public inebriation, and drinking and driving. The most humiliating run-in with the law happened at the end of 2005 though…

The desperation of an addict is not pretty, and the fact that Renfro resorted to looking for a fix on LA’s Skid Row must have meant he was in dire need. Unfortunately for him, there were undercover detective on the lookout. 

During the raid, authorities apprehended Renfro and the Los Angeles Times printed a huge photo of him, handcuffed and looking less than fabulous, on the front page. Ouch.

Brad Renfro ultimately faced three years of probation, but breaking his bad habits was easier said than done. In 2006, he even spent 10 days in lock up for possession and driving while drinking. In June 2007, Renfro broke his probation because he hadn’t enrolled in a treatment program. Would he try again?

Renfro gave treatment another go. After all, the judge made the consequences of not geting help seem rather unappealing. After finishing the program, Renfro agreed to move in with some who wanted to help him stay away from substances. But though the actor seemed to be turning a corner, fate had another cruel twist in store for him.

After a night drinking with the friends in question, Renfro went to bed and was heard snoring. But the next morning when they went to wake him up, they made a disturbing discovery. Renfro wasn't breathing, so they called 9-1-1. Paramedics came, but it was too late. Renfro had passed on at the age of only 25. 

The coroner’s office ruled it was an accidental overdose. However, after his passing, a surprising secret came to light.

With a revelation that seems like it could have been out of a soap opera, Renfro’s obituary disclosed to the world that he had a love child. The obit listed his son as “Y Renfro” and Us Weekly revealed the child’s name was Yamato. We don’t know much about him other than that he was born in Japan in 2003 and he was “unplanned”. 

It was quite scandalous that the Academy did not include Brad Renfro in the Oscars’ “In Memoriam” tribute after his passing. One actor, however, did make quite a head-scratching homage to Renfro. Actor James Franco (before his cancellation) had a tattoo artist slice Renfro’s name into his right shoulder, but Franco’s devotion to the actor went much deeper. 

Why would Franco do this to himself and then make an art film out of the process? Stay with us…James Dean was one of Franco’s idols and Renfro was often compared to James Dean. The blade was similar to the kind used in Dean’s Rebel Without a Cause—a tragic film about a lost boy acted by a talented young star whose life was tragically cut short. Hmm, that sounds familiar. 

You see, in the years that followed, 41% of the crew got cancer. This may have seemed like an average percentage of cases for the time, but there was one disturbingly unique detail—the affected crew members developed the disease at far younger ages than usual. This sparked a debate over whether The Conqueror’s filming location doomed everyone involved from the very beginning.

Production took place in Utah, with many of the exterior shots set in the Escalante Desert. However, this was only 137 miles from a nuclear testing site. The filmmakers—though aware of the proximity—trusted the federal government, which claimed that the nuclear tests posed no danger to the public. Well, this proved to be a huge mistake.

The two lead actors both died of cancer in the 70s: John Wayne developed lung cancer, followed by stomach cancer, while Susan Hayward had brain cancer. As well, director Dick Powell and actress Agnes Moorehead also died from the disease. Tragically, cancer impacted 91 crew members in total.

Reportedly, The Conqueror’s producer Howard Hughes felt terribly guilty about choosing the dangerous filming location, so much so that he shelled out $12 million—buying every print to stop the film from circulating. The whole fiasco had a chilling hold on Hughes. In the magnate’s final years, he obsessed over The Conqueror, re-watching it again and again.

Captain John Smith genuinely helped lead the struggling Jamestown colony. He was also one of its main chroniclers, and his accounts regularly placed him at the center of events. Historians have long noted how effectively Smith promoted his own heroic image.

Smith eventually claimed Pocahontas saved him just as Powhatan’s men were preparing to kill him. Yet he did not mention the dramatic rescue in his earlier accounts, only describing it years later. Historians still debate whether it happened, was misunderstood, or was embellished.

Scottish adventurer Gregor MacGregor returned to Britain claiming to rule a Central American territory called Poyais. Promotional materials described fertile land, thriving settlements, and a functioning government. Investors bought bonds and prospective settlers purchased land.

Settlers crossed the Atlantic expecting the prosperous country they had been promised. Instead, they found an undeveloped tropical coastline, and many died from disease and deprivation. News of the disaster exposed MacGregor as one of the era’s most notorious fraudsters.

Sarah Emma Edmonds disguised herself as Franklin Thompson and enlisted in the Union Army during the Civil War. Records confirm that she served as a nurse, mail carrier, and postmaster. Her later account, however, made her wartime career far more dramatic.

Edmonds claimed she repeatedly crossed Confederate lines as a disguised Union spy. Historians have found no official record supporting those missions. Edmonds later admitted her memoir contained extensive fictionalization and denied performing secret-service work in a sworn statement.

William F. Cody really had worked as a hunter, Army scout, and frontier entertainer. As Buffalo Bill, he and his promoters turned those experiences into a much grander legend. His Wild West shows then carried that heroic persona around the world.

Cody famously claimed he had ridden for the Pony Express as a teenager. The Smithsonian’s National Postal Museum says the historical evidence does not support that story. Cody nevertheless reenacted the supposed exploits so often that they became part of his legend.

Martha Canary became famous as Calamity Jane, the hard-living woman of the Wild West. She embraced publicity and helped blur the line between genuine experiences and colorful frontier tales. Reliable contemporary evidence for many of those stories is surprisingly thin.

Later stories credited Jane with military scouting, Pony Express riding, and dramatic rescues. Researchers have struggled to verify many of those claims. The real Canary led an unusual life, but much of the action-packed Calamity Jane legend cannot be firmly documented.

Heinrich Schliemann became internationally famous for excavating Hisarlik and identifying it with ancient Troy. Yet Frank Calvert had already investigated the site and encouraged Schliemann to dig there. Schliemann’s wealth and publicity skills helped him receive most of the fame.

Schliemann announced that a spectacular cache of gold belonged to Homer’s King Priam. Archaeologists later dated the objects roughly a thousand years earlier than the period associated with the Trojan War. His destructive excavation techniques also permanently damaged parts of the site.

Explorer Frederick Cook announced that he had reached the summit of Denali in 1906. He later claimed to have reached the North Pole in 1908, before rival Robert Peary. For a time, Cook was celebrated as an extraordinary record-breaking explorer.

Climbers examining Cook’s Denali evidence concluded his supposed summit photograph was taken far from the top. His North Pole claim also failed to gain lasting acceptance. Although Peary’s rival claim remains debated too, Cook’s two greatest achievements were widely rejected.

During the 1930s, Grey Owl became famous through books, films, and popular lectures about conservation. He presented himself as an Indigenous man whose background gave special authority to his message. Canada’s national parks system even employed him.

Grey Owl was actually Archibald Stansfeld Belaney, born in Hastings, England. Newspapers revealed his true identity shortly after his death in 1938. His conservation work remained influential, but the Indigenous identity central to his public persona was false.

After Russia’s imperial family was killed, rumors persisted that Grand Duchess Anastasia had escaped. Anna Anderson emerged in Germany and convinced many supporters that she was the missing princess. Her claim inspired decades of books, arguments, and films.

Modern genetic testing eventually allowed researchers to examine Anderson’s claim. DNA evidence excluded her from the Romanov family. Instead, it supported a connection to the family of Franziska Schanzkowska, the Polish woman investigators had suspected Anderson really was.

The Third Eye, published in 1956 under the name Tuesday Lobsang Rampa, supposedly described the upbringing of a Tibetan lama. Its stories of monasteries and mystical experiences became an international sensation. Rampa quickly gained a large following.

Experts noticed major problems with Rampa’s account, prompting an investigation into his background. He was identified as Cyril Hoskin, an Englishman from Devon who had never visited Tibet. Hoskin responded by claiming a Tibetan lama’s spirit had taken over his body.

Ferdinand Demara spent years assuming professional identities he had no qualifications to hold. His most astonishing role came when he joined the Royal Canadian Navy using a doctor’s identity. He served aboard HMCS Cayuga during the Korean War.

Despite having no medical degree, Demara treated patients and performed surgical procedures aboard ship. Press coverage eventually alerted the real doctor whose identity he had stolen. Canadian authorities uncovered the deception and removed Demara from the Navy.

J. Edgar Hoover led the FBI for nearly half a century. Under him, the Bureau promoted professionalism, scientific crime detection, and dramatic campaigns against gangsters. Hoover carefully cultivated an image of an efficient and politically neutral law-enforcement agency.

That image weakened when secret FBI activities became public. COINTELPRO had infiltrated organizations, spread discord, and worked to discredit targeted individuals and groups. The FBI later acknowledged that some tactics went too far and violated constitutional protections.

Frank Abagnale became famous for claiming he impersonated pilots, doctors, lawyers, and professors while still very young. His memoir Catch Me If You Can turned those exploits into an irresistible criminal redemption story. A successful Hollywood film made the legend even bigger.

Later investigations uncovered records contradicting several of Abagnale’s best-known claims. Documents indicate he spent significant portions of the supposed globe-trotting period in prison. Abagnale continues to defend his broader story, but much of his famous biography is now seriously disputed.

Not everyone here was an outright fraud. Buffalo Bill really was a frontier scout, Edmonds really served in the Civil War, and Schliemann really excavated Troy. Their stories show how easily genuine accomplishments can become wrapped in legends that eventually grow larger than the evidence.

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German-born Christian Gerhartsreiter spent years as “Clark Rockefeller,” borrowing one of America’s most prestigious surnames. The identity helped him enter Boston’s elite world, marry a Harvard-educated executive, and sustain a patrician image despite a long history of aliases.

In 1983, David Hampton convinced wealthy Manhattan residents that he was Sidney Poitier’s son. He also claimed connections to Harvard and Yale students, obtaining meals, money, clothes, and lodging from people in New York’s upper crust.

French con man Christopher Rocancourt adopted identities tying him to famous families, including the Rockefellers. His stories and polished confidence opened doors among wealthy people in the Hamptons and Hollywood before authorities caught up with him.

Anthony Gignac impersonated a Saudi royal using diplomatic-style plates, luxury cars, bodyguards, and other status symbols. Federal prosecutors said his performance helped him cultivate investors worldwide and obtain nearly $8 million before he received a lengthy lockup sentence.

Cassie Chadwick claimed to be industrialist Andrew Carnegie’s illegitimate daughter and used forged documents to suggest access to his fortune. The fiction gave her credibility with bankers and financed an extravagant Cleveland lifestyle until the scheme collapsed.

Thérèse Humbert claimed an enormous inheritance from an American millionaire named Robert Henry Crawford. The supposedly contested fortune helped her secure credit, maintain a grand Paris home, and host an influential salon until the famous safe was finally opened.

New Zealand fraudster Amy Bock became Percival Leonard Carol Redwood, supposedly a wealthy sheep farmer from a prominent family. She courted Agnes Ottaway, borrowed money, maintained the illusion of wealth, and staged an elaborate 1909 wedding before exposure.

In 1920s Germany, Harry Domela circulated using aristocratic identities including Baron von Korff and Prince Lieven. He eventually passed himself off as a Hohenzollern prince, showing how quickly perceived rank could convert a false identity into serious social deference.

Victor Lustig often styled himself “Count” and cultivated an aristocratic manner while targeting wealthy travelers and businessmen. His most famous scam persuaded scrap-metal dealers that the Eiffel Tower was secretly being sold for demolition.

Stanley Clifford Weyman repeatedly posed as diplomats and officials. In 1921, pretending to be a State Department naval liaison officer, he accompanied an Afghan royal visitor into a White House meeting with President Warren G. Harding.

Scottish adventurer Gregor MacGregor promoted himself as ruler of “Poyais,” supposedly a prosperous Central American territory. In London, the invented state supported investments and land sales, giving his fantasy the polished appearance of international legitimacy.

Born Eliza Gilbert in Ireland, Lola Montez reinvented herself as a Spanish dancer and noblewoman. Her constructed identity carried her into European society and Bavaria, where King Ludwig I became her patron and created her Countess of Landsfeld.

English-born Archibald Belaney publicly presented himself as Indigenous and became famous as conservationist Grey Owl. His books and lectures brought international prestige, culminating in elite British engagements that included a royal command performance at Buckingham Palace.

Mary Carleton arrived in Restoration London claiming to be a wealthy German princess. The story helped her secure a marriage and become a public sensation; Samuel Pepys was among the many curious Londoners who went to see her.

After escaping indentured servitude in colonial America, Sarah Wilson adopted royal identities, including a supposed sister of Queen Charlotte. The performance won her hospitality, gifts, and attention as she traveled among affluent colonists and government figures.

In 1817, Mary Baker appeared in Gloucestershire speaking an invented language and was presented as “Princess Caraboo” from distant Javasu. Local dignitaries treated her as exotic royalty for roughly ten weeks before a woman recognized and exposed her.

George Psalmanazar, probably French, reached England claiming to be a native of Formosa, now Taiwan. He invented a language and published a fabricated account of the island, attracting the Bishop of London’s support and considerable interest in British high society.

Giuseppe Balsamo used several invented noble titles before adopting the identity Count Alessandro Cagliostro. His new persona and involvement with alchemy and Freemasonry brought new prestige and connections as he moved through European society.

Jeanne de La Motte styled herself a countess and claimed intimate access to Marie Antoinette. That supposed friendship helped draw Cardinal de Rohan into the Diamond Necklace Affair, one of the most notorious scandals of the French court.

Perkin Warbeck claimed to be Richard, Duke of York, one of the missing Princes in the Tower. His story won support across Europe, including from Margaret of York, Emperor Maximilian I, and Scotland’s King James IV.

Lambert Simnel, a boy of modest origins, was presented as Edward, Earl of Warwick, a Yorkist claimant to England’s throne. His supporters carried the performance so far that he was crowned “Edward VI” in Dublin in 1487.

The man remembered as False Dmitry I claimed to be Dmitry, Ivan the Terrible’s supposedly dead son. After gathering support, he entered Moscow and became tsar in 1605—although historians still debate his true identity.

Anna Anderson spent decades insisting she was Grand Duchess Anastasia. The claim won her wealthy and royal supporters who housed her and backed her case, but a German court did not accept her identity and later DNA evidence failed to match the Romanov line.

The adventuress remembered as Princess Tarakanova claimed to be a daughter of Empress Elizabeth and therefore a rival dynastic figure. Her pretensions alarmed Catherine II enough that Alexei Orlov was used to lure her into Russian custody.

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Sources: 1, 2

The word “sandwich” comes from John Montagu, the 4th Earl of Sandwich, an influential 18th-century British politician and naval administrator. Merriam-Webster records the word in English from 1762, when food placed between pieces of bread became associated with his title. The basic idea of eating food with bread was obviously much older, but Montagu supplied the name that stuck.

The famous story claims that Sandwich was such an obsessive gambler that he ordered meat between bread so he would not have to leave the gaming table. Royal Museums Greenwich argues that this version is probably unfair and that the hardworking politician was more likely eating that way while spending long hours at his Admiralty desk. Sandwich was also an important patron of Captain James Cook, who named the Sandwich Islands, now Hawaii, in his honor. Somehow the portable lunch proved far more durable than either his political career or his Pacific geography.

Étienne de Silhouette served briefly as France's controller general of finances in 1759, when the government badly needed money during the Seven Years' War. His attempts at taxation and economy made him deeply unpopular, particularly among wealthy people who disliked his cost-cutting measures. His surname soon became associated with things considered cheap, austere, or quickly executed. That association eventually attached itself to inexpensive profile portraits made from simple dark outlines.

Exactly why the portraits became known as silhouettes is not completely certain. Merriam-Webster notes both Silhouette's reputation for frugality and his own interest in cut-paper shadow portraits, while the Académie française connects the term with his unfinished or sketched financial measures. Whatever the precise path, the insult outlasted the political controversy that produced it. Today, “silhouette” can describe anything from a paper portrait to the outline of a city skyline.

Joseph-Ignace Guillotin was a French physician and politician who personally opposed capital punishment. Recognizing that abolition was unlikely, he argued during the French Revolution that executions should at least be fast, standardized, and equal regardless of social rank. Before such reforms, aristocrats and ordinary people could face very different methods of execution. Guillotin therefore advocated a mechanical form of beheading intended to reduce suffering.

The strangest part of Guillotin's linguistic immortality is that he did not actually design the machine bearing his name. Physician Antoine Louis developed the French prototype, yet Guillotin's public advocacy caused his surname to become attached to it. He was reportedly distressed that a proposal motivated by humanitarian reform became synonymous with the mass executions of the Reign of Terror. His family later tried unsuccessfully to have the machine renamed, leaving Guillotin permanently connected to an invention he neither created nor celebrated.

Charles Cunningham Boycott was a retired British army officer working as a land agent in Ireland during the turbulent Land War of the late 19th century. In 1880, tenants demanded lower rents, and Boycott attempted to evict those who refused to pay. Irish Land League supporters responded not with physical violence but organized social and economic isolation. Workers left his service, local businesses refused to deal with him, and neighbors largely stopped cooperating with him.

The campaign against Boycott became so famous that his surname almost immediately turned into a verb and noun. Merriam-Webster dates the first known English use of “boycott” to 1880, the same year the confrontation occurred. The strategy became far larger than one dispute over Irish rents and now describes organized refusals to buy from, work with, or otherwise support a person or institution. Few people have had the experience of hearing their own surname become a worldwide method of protest while they were still alive.

Samuel Augustus Maverick was a Texas lawyer, politician, landowner, and businessman who acquired several hundred cattle in the 1840s. Unlike neighboring ranchers, Maverick did not consistently brand his animals, and his cattle wandered freely across the South Texas range. Other stockmen began referring to unbranded cattle as “Maverick's.” The possessive gradually disappeared, leaving his surname as the generic term.

By 1866, “maverick” was appearing in English as a word for an unbranded range animal. It eventually expanded to describe an independent-minded person who refuses to follow the herd. There is an extra irony in the modern meaning because Maverick himself was not necessarily making some grand statement about rugged individualism when he failed to brand the cattle. A practical ranching oddity transformed him into the linguistic patron saint of nonconformists.

James Thomas Brudenell, 7th Earl of Cardigan, was the British cavalry commander who led the famous Charge of the Light Brigade during the Crimean War. On October 25, 1854, Cardigan led his men down a valley toward Russian artillery after a disastrous chain of confusing orders. The National Army Museum records that he rode courageously at the front, although the charge inflicted terrible losses and became one of Britain's most famous military blunders. Alfred Tennyson soon immortalized the action in poetry.

Cardigan's name also became attached to knitted jackets opening down the front. Merriam-Webster traces “cardigan” directly to the earl, whose fashionable clothing and Crimean service helped popularize the style. What began as a wool garment associated with a controversial cavalry commander evolved into one of the most ordinary pieces of modern clothing. Cardigan therefore achieved the rare feat of being remembered simultaneously for a catastrophic charge and comfortable knitwear.

French acrobat Jules Léotard helped revolutionize circus entertainment when he developed the flying trapeze. Smithsonian records that he performed his new act at Paris's Cirque Napoléon in November 1859. Léotard needed clothing that allowed unrestricted movement without loose fabric catching on equipment. His close-fitting one-piece costume became almost as famous as the aerial performance itself.

The garment eventually became known simply as a leotard. Merriam-Webster traces the term directly to the French aerial gymnast, with English usage emerging after his career. Léotard died in 1870, but dancers, gymnasts, acrobats, and athletes continued wearing variations of his practical costume. Millions of people consequently speak his surname without realizing they are invoking a 19th-century daredevil who helped invent the flying trapeze.

Franz Anton Mesmer was an 18th-century physician who believed living bodies were influenced by a mysterious force he called animal magnetism. In Paris, patients gathered around elaborate tubs filled with supposedly magnetized materials while Mesmer, sometimes dressed theatrically, attempted to manipulate this unseen fluid. Patients experienced convulsions, trances, and other dramatic reactions, and Mesmer acquired wealthy supporters. His treatments became one of the great medical crazes of the Enlightenment.

In 1784, Louis XVI appointed a commission including Benjamin Franklin and Antoine Lavoisier to examine mesmerism. Their tests concluded that the effects could be explained by imagination and expectation rather than Mesmer's alleged magnetic fluid. Mesmer's reputation declined, but his name escaped the scientific wreckage. “Mesmerize” ultimately evolved from meaning to subject someone to mesmerism into the familiar sense of completely captivating someone's attention.

Louis Braille was born in Coupvray, France, in 1809. As a small child, an accident involving a tool in his father's workshop injured one eye, and complications eventually left him blind. His family nevertheless insisted on educating him, an unusually ambitious expectation for a blind child in rural France at the time. At ten, he entered the Royal Institute for Blind Youth in Paris.

As a teenager, Braille adapted an existing raised-dot communication system into the elegant six-dot code that bears his name. Students embraced it, but institutional acceptance came slowly, and a later director of the school actually banned its use for a time. The system was publicly demonstrated at the institute in 1844, and France formally adopted braille shortly after its inventor's death in 1852. A method once resisted by educators ultimately put Louis Braille's surname beneath the fingertips of readers around the world.

Jean Nicot was a 16th-century French diplomat stationed in Portugal. Around 1560, he helped introduce tobacco to the French court, where the plant was promoted for supposed medicinal properties, including relief from headaches. France's National Museum of Natural History records that the botanical genus Nicotiana was named in his honor. A diplomatic gift had attached Nicot's name to a plant with consequences he could never have imagined.

The tobacco plant's scientific name later gave rise to “nicotine,” the name for its principal addictive alkaloid. Merriam-Webster traces nicotine through French and New Latin Nicotiana, bringing the etymological trail back to Jean Nicot. Nicot himself did not discover nicotine and could not have understood its chemistry. Yet his surname became embedded in the vocabulary of addiction, medicine, toxicology, and public health centuries after his diplomatic career was forgotten.

Italian physician Luigi Galvani became fascinated by the relationship between electricity, nerves, and muscles. His experiments showed that frog legs could contract when electrically stimulated, leading him to develop his theory of “animal electricity.” Galvani did not completely understand the mechanism, but his work became foundational to the development of electrophysiology. More importantly for language, his twitching frogs supplied science with an extraordinarily memorable surname.

Words including “galvanism” and “galvanize” were formed from Galvani's name around the end of the 18th century. The verb originally referred to stimulating tissue with electricity, then developed the figurative sense of shocking or exciting people into action. It later acquired the industrial meaning of coating iron or steel with zinc. Galvani's name therefore wandered from dissected frogs to political movements and finally to rust-resistant nails.

German engineer Rudolf Diesel believed existing engines wasted too much energy. During the late 19th century, he developed a compression-ignition engine that could operate with greater efficiency than many contemporary designs. His surname quickly became attached to the engine itself, and Merriam-Webster records “diesel” in English from 1894. Today it describes engines, vehicles, and the fuel associated with them.

On September 29, 1913, Diesel boarded a steamship traveling from Belgium to England for a business meeting. By the following morning he had vanished, his bed apparently unused, and his disappearance became an international mystery. Smithsonian reports that financial problems and poor health strengthened the conclusion that he took his own life, although assassination and disappearance theories circulated for years. Diesel's body disappeared, but his surname became almost impossible to escape in the industrial world he had helped transform.

Belgian instrument maker Adolphe Sax wanted to create a wind instrument combining powerful projection with flexible playing characteristics. He moved to Paris and patented the saxophone in 1846. The Metropolitan Museum of Art notes that the instrument initially found more success in military bands than conservative orchestras. Jazz and popular music later turned Sax's invention into one of the world's most recognizable instruments.

Success brought Sax fierce opposition from competing instrument makers. Paris's Musée de la Musique records repeated lawsuits, press attacks, and financial difficulties, while his business eventually endured multiple bankruptcies. His personal instrument collection had to be auctioned after the 1877 bankruptcy. The man struggled repeatedly to keep his company alive, but the word “saxophone” carried his surname into musical cultures that did not even exist during his lifetime.

John Duns Scotus was a highly sophisticated medieval philosopher and theologian whose work influenced generations of scholars. His followers became known as Dunsmen or Scotists. During the Renaissance and Reformation, however, humanist critics increasingly portrayed these traditional scholastic thinkers as hopelessly outdated opponents of new learning. A respected philosopher's surname slowly became ammunition in an intellectual culture war.

By the 16th century, “dunce” had developed into an insult for someone regarded as stupid or slow to learn. Merriam-Webster directly traces it to Duns Scotus, whose once-respected writings had become objects of ridicule among later intellectuals. The transformation is particularly cruel because the historical Duns Scotus was famous precisely for intellectual sophistication. Few dictionary words reverse a person's actual reputation as completely as “dunce.”

British artillery officer Henry Shrapnel began experimenting in the 1780s with hollow projectiles containing bullets and a bursting charge. His goal was to deliver the destructive effect of close-range canister fire at much greater distances. Library and Archives Canada preserves Shrapnel's correspondence, reports, and drawings documenting the development of his spherical case ammunition. The British Army eventually adopted the weapon in 1803.

The weapon became known as a shrapnel shell, permanently attaching Henry Shrapnel's surname to battlefield destruction. Modern usage is slightly different because people commonly call fragments from an exploding shell “shrapnel,” although Shrapnel's original design primarily scattered prepared bullets rather than relying on jagged casing fragments. Library and Archives Canada notes that he nevertheless died a poor and disappointed man despite the military importance of his invention. His fortune faded, but his surname became one of the grimmest common nouns in the English language.

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Sources: , 2,, 4, 5, 6, 7,,, 10, 11, 12, 13,,, 16,, 18,, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24,, 26,,, 29, 30,,,, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39,,, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46

James Clavell made historical fiction feel enormous. His novels Shōgun, Tai-Pan and Noble House mixed politics, adventure and culture into stories readers could disappear inside for days. Shōgun has returned to the spotlight—but how many younger viewers could name the man who wrote it?

Harold Robbins did not write quiet little novels. He wrote sprawling stories about money, power, Hollywood and scandal—and readers devoured them. Books such as The Carpetbaggers made him one of the world’s bestselling authors, while his extravagant lifestyle made him nearly as interesting as his characters.

For millions of baby boomers, Erma Bombeck was the wonderfully funny voice of suburban family life. By the 70s, her syndicated newspaper columns were reaching about 30 million readers, while books such as The Grass Is Always Greener Over the Septic Tank became bestsellers.

When Valley of the Dolls appeared in 1966, Jacqueline Susann became nearly as famous as the glamorous characters she created. She appeared constantly on television and traveled across America promoting her work, helping turn the modern author publicity tour into a very serious business.

Younger audiences certainly know Jason Bourne—but many may not know Robert Ludlum created him. Long before the movies, novels such as The Bourne Identity made Ludlum one of the biggest names in international thrillers. His name even continued appearing on new books after he passed away.

Judith Krantz published her first novel, Scruples, when she was 50—and quickly became one of the biggest authors of the late 70s and 80s. Her glamorous stories offered wealth, fashion, romance and exactly the kind of escapism millions of readers apparently wanted.

James Michener wrote the kind of enormous novels that looked capable of injuring someone if dropped. Books such as Hawaii, Centennial and Chesapeake followed families and civilizations across generations. His novels became bestsellers, screen productions and permanent fixtures in baby boomer households.

For decades, Mary Higgins Clark was practically royalty in the suspense aisle. Beginning with Where Are the Children?, she built a remarkably consistent career filled with endangered heroines, buried secrets and chapters designed to keep readers awake. Her suspense novels sold more than 100 million copies in America alone.

In the early 70s, it seemed as though everyone was reading Jonathan Livingston Seagull. Richard Bach’s slender, philosophical story began with a small printing, spread largely through word of mouth and remained on bestseller lists for months. Today, Bach’s name rarely inspires that same immediate recognition.

Arthur Hailey could turn almost any large institution into a page-turner. Hotel explored the hospitality business, Airport examined commercial aviation and Wheels tackled the automobile industry. Readers loved discovering the machinery behind everyday life, and several of his books became major screen productions.

Belva Plain never needed shocking publicity or a glamorous public persona. Her multigenerational family dramas simply kept selling. Beginning with Evergreen in 1978, she produced a long run of popular novels that filled bookshelves, grocery-store racks and living rooms across America for decades.

Nearly everyone knows Jaws. Far fewer people remember Peter Benchley. His 1974 novel became a massive bestseller before Steven Spielberg transformed it into a cinematic phenomenon. Benchley continued writing about the ocean, although he later devoted much of his time to marine conservation and protecting sharks.

If a baby boomer loved historical sagas, there was a good chance John Jakes occupied several inches of their bookshelf. His eight-volume Kent Family Chronicles sold tens of millions of copies, while the television adaptations of his North and South trilogy became major ratings events.

Jackie Collins did not merely write about Hollywood excess—she became part of its celebrity world. Her 32 novels all reached The New York Times bestseller list, while television appearances made her instantly recognizable. Her biggest success, Hollywood Wives, reportedly sold more than 15 million copies.

Leon Uris became a household name with sweeping historical novels such as Exodus, Mila 18 and Trinity. His books tackled war, immigration, national identity and survival on an epic scale. They became major cultural events, although his once-famous name has faded considerably among younger readers.

Robin Cook discovered that hospitals could be every bit as frightening as haunted houses. His 1977 novel Coma became a huge bestseller and helped establish the modern medical thriller. Cook continued blending medicine, technology and suspense, frequently using fictional crises to explore genuine medical concerns.

Irving Wallace specialized in provocative premises that practically demanded to be discussed. Novels such as The Chapman Report, The Prize and The Seven Minutes became major bestsellers, and several of his books reached the screen. During the 60s and 70s, his name carried enormous weight with readers.

Jean M. Auel’s The Clan of the Cave Bear introduced readers to Ayla, a young modern human raised by Neanderthals. The novel launched the hugely successful Earth’s Children series and turned prehistoric fiction into a publishing phenomenon. Fans sometimes waited years for each enormous new installment.

Before becoming a bestselling novelist, Sidney Sheldon had already won an Academy Award and created The Patty Duke Show and I Dream of Jeannie. Then books such as The Other Side of Midnight and Master of the Game helped him sell an estimated 300 million copies worldwide.

Louis L’Amour’s name was once nearly synonymous with Western fiction. His stories of frontiersmen, drifters and determined families appeared everywhere from drugstores to airport bookstores. By the end of his career, he had written more than 100 novels, short-story collections and nonfiction books.

Australian author Colleen McCullough became internationally famous after publishing The Thorn Birds in 1977. The sweeping family saga sold more than 30 million copies and inspired one of television’s biggest miniseries. She later wrote an ambitious series about ancient Rome, but The Thorn Birds remained her defining phenomenon.

Crime readers once knew Lawrence Sanders extremely well. His novel The Anderson Tapes became a bestseller and a Sean Connery movie, while The First Deadly Sin launched a series featuring investigator Edward X. Delaney. Sanders became one of the most dependable names in airport thrillers.

Taylor Caldwell spent decades producing historical sagas and novels about family, wealth and power. Captains and the Kings alone sold millions of copies and became a television miniseries in 1976. She was once among America’s most widely read authors, yet her name now feels tied to another era.

Mickey Spillane’s hard-boiled Mike Hammer novels sold in astonishing numbers and made their author a celebrity. Critics frequently disliked his blunt storytelling, but readers kept buying it. Spillane even played Hammer himself in the 1963 movie The Girl Hunters. Seriously...how many authors can say that?

Before Ludlum and Clancy dominated espionage fiction, Helen MacInnes was sending ordinary people into dangerous international conspiracies. She wrote 21 spy novels, beginning with Above Suspicion in 1941, and four reached the screen. At her peak, she was known as the queen of international espionage fiction.

Herman Wouk won the Pulitzer Prize for The Caine Mutiny, then gave readers two enormous World War II novels with The Winds of War and War and Remembrance. All three became major screen productions. For decades, Wouk was one of America’s most respected and commercially successful storytellers.

Joseph Wambaugh brought firsthand experience to police fiction. The former Los Angeles officer wrote bestsellers including The New Centurions, The Blue Knight and The Choirboys. His books helped reshape the genre by focusing on the emotional pressures, flaws and private lives of the officers themselves.

Australian novelist Morris West became an international sensation with books about religion, politics and moral crises. His 1963 bestseller The Shoes of the Fisherman imagined the election of a Slavic pope 15 years before it happened in reality. His novels sold widely, but his once-famous name has faded.

Alistair MacLean wrote some of the most popular adventure thrillers of the mid-20th century. The Guns of Navarone, Ice Station Zebra and Where Eagles Dare became bestselling novels and successful movies. His name once promised danger, treachery and a very difficult journey home.

Norman Mailer was more than a novelist—he was a professional public figure. He wrote The Naked and the Dead, helped establish The Village Voice, won two Pulitzer Prizes and appeared constantly in public debates. Baby boomers knew both his books and his famously combative personality.

How many of these authors did you recognize immediately? If you remembered nearly all of them, congratulations: either you have an extraordinary memory, an impressive collection of old paperbacks—or you spent a lot more time browsing airport bookstores than younger generations ever will.

Contradictory Facts About Jack Kerouac, The Unwilling King Of The Beatniks

Unruly Facts About Oscar Wilde, The Greatest Victorian Playwright

Enigmatic Facts About Agatha Christie, The Queen Of Mystery

Sources: 1, 2, 3

The Simple Life traded on the fact that its stars, Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie, were wealthy socialites. But how do two 22-year-old girls actually end up as socialites? Well, it all has to do with their families. While the story behind Hilton’s status is pretty cut-and-dry—it’s right there in her name, Nicole’s story is a little more complicated.

Nicole Richie was actually born Nicole Camille Escovedo. Her parents were in the music scene and her dad was in 80s pop and R&B icon Lionel Richie’s band—but they didn’t quite have the success that Richie had, and they struggled to raise Nicole. When she was three, she moved in with Lionel and his wife Brenda. Later, when she was nine, they legally adopted her.

This put Nicole squarely in the same realm as Paris Hilton and a slew of other soon-to-be-famous rich kids—but it wasn’t always smooth sailing.

When Nicole was seven years old, the happy family she’d been part of nearly exploded in one fateful night. Brenda Harvey had suspected that Lionel Richie was cheating on her, and she tracked him down at the apartment of a woman named Diane Alexander. When Brenda found Lionel there, she started hitting him. Officers showed up and detained her, and it eventually led to the dissolution of their marriage.

When Lionel remarried, it was to a familiar name: Diane Alexander, the woman Brenda had caught him with. Nicole saw a lot of turmoil for a kid—but her teen years would be even more dramatic.

During Lionel Richie and Brenda Harvey’s contentious and very public divorce, they spoiled Nicole as a way to distract her from the turmoil—but they went a little too far, and even Nicole later said that no kid should have that much freedom. With few rules and an unfettered access to her dad’s credit cards, Nicole would take that opportunity and run with it.

While the Paris and Nicole the world got to know through The Simple Life and the tabloids were very similar, their upbringings couldn’t have been more different…

There’s one thing to know about Paris Hilton—and that’s that the image she cultivated in the early 2000s (and continues to cultivate) has pretty much nothing to do with the real Paris. She portrayed herself as spoiled and ditzy, but her upbringing speaks for itself. Paris’s parents, Rick and Kathy Hilton, were conservative and strict with her. They didn’t allow her to date or go to school dances—but as she grew up, this just led her to rebel.

The Hiltons moved from California to the East Coast when Paris was 16 years old, and as soon as she arrived in NYC she picked up a fake ID and got involved in the nightclub scene there. Thanks to the cachet of her family name, promoters began to offer to pay her to appear at clubs. She was finding her niche—but her strict parents were about to put a serious stop to it.

As Paris defied her parent’s strict rules, they panicked about what to do. Eventually, they found a youth residential treatment center and school to send her to—but they were actually sending her into a living nightmare. The Provo Canyon School is just one institution that’s part of what some researchers call the “troubled teen” industry.

What they did to Paris during her time there is absolutely chilling.

Paris Hilton claims that staff at the Provo Canyon School both physically and emotionally abused her during her 11-month-long stay there in the late 90s when she was just 17 years old. At their hands, she was the victim of a “legal kidnapping,” where staff abducts their teen clients instead of performing a regular intake. They also gave “mystery medications” to the teens.

If Paris refused to take the meds, they would put her in isolation, in the cold and without clothing, for up to 20 hours at a time. And then, all of a sudden, she was 18 and free.

While Paris remained on good terms with her family, she held the emotional scars and trauma from her time at Provo Canyon. It’s an experience that she said still haunts her today. She had to take the next steps to decide what to do with her life. At the same time, Nicole was facing the same decisions. Both briefly took a crack at higher education—Paris in a prep school and Nicole at the University of Arizona—but their experiences were unsatisfying.

Both girls dropped out…and before long, they crossed paths.

Throughout the years, the Hilton family and the Richie family had traveled in the same social circles. Paris and Nicole had actually been very close friends throughout their childhood, before they began attending different schools. By the year 2000, Paris was modeling, making public appearances, and appearing in bit parts in a few unsuccessful films.

Around that time, she began visiting with producers at Fox, looking for her next project. They had a concept for a show—Green Acres but make it reality TV—and they needed a lead. The stars were aligning…

The Simple Life made it look like Paris and Nicole had been the best of friends for years—but there’s something few fans realized about that. When Fox told Paris they wanted her to star in the show, she actually asked two other friends first: Rod Stewart’s daughter Kim, and Johnson & Johnson heiress Casey Johnson. After both said no, she thought of Nicole—but Nicole was going through a strange time in her life.

When you think of Paris and Nicole having run-ins with the law, most think of their infamous DUI charges (more on that later)—but Nicole’s first arrest came long before that. Just like her friend Paris, Nicole was also living the party girl lifestyle pre-The Simple Life. However, things got out of control one night while she was out at a club.

Police ended up detaining her after a brawl. Fortunately for her, they dropped the charges—but she wouldn’t have the same luck the next time.

In February 2003, Nicole got in trouble with the law again—and this time, it was serious. Officers in Malibu detained her for driving with a revoked license and possession of an illicit substance. Nicole acted fast in hopes that the charges wouldn’t damage her budding career and checked herself into rehab. Later, a judge gave her three years’ probation—but her problems with substance misuse would come back to haunt her before long.

Later that year, Nicole and Paris teamed up to wreak havoc on the Leding family and their friends and neighbors in Altus, Arkansas for the first season of The Simple Life. It debuted to great ratings and the season was a smashing success. Paris and Nicole had made appearances on tabloid pages before the show, but now, they were really in the spotlight.

However, their stardom also left them vulnerable.

Shortly after The Simple Life debuted, a scandalous part of Paris’s past came to public attention. In 2001, Paris and her then-boyfriend Rick Salomon had made a tape together in the bedroom. She’d never intended for it to get out, but when she got famous, Salomon saw an opportunity. He released 1 Night in Paris without her consent—immediately causing a huge controversy.

Paris Hilton was still dealing with her newfound fame—and now, all of a sudden, she was the subject of jokes on late-night TV, and the media went wild with it. It humiliated Paris. Throughout it all, including the mockery she experienced and the lawsuits that went back and forth between her and Salomon, she was able to lean on her family and her close friends, including Nicole.

But as we’ll see, this would later come back to haunt her.

Season 1 of The Simple Life was such a success that Fox brought the show back for a second season. This time, Paris and Nicole went on the road and took us various blue-collar jobs, including catching fish and working on a nudist resort—but behind the scenes, Paris was hurting.

Right after they began to make season 2 of The Simple Life, Paris suffered a terrible tragedy when her grandmother died. She returned to set, only for a horse to throw her off while filming. Her injuries were so bad that paramedics had to airlift her to a hospital. Paris got back on the proverbial horse and finished up the season with Nicole at her side.

With that under their belt, they went back to their off-season routine of paid club appearances—and tabloid hijinks.

Paris and Nicole started filming the third season of the The Simple Life, which was subtitled Interns, in October 2004—but by the time it premiered in January 2005, the cracks were starting to show. The pressures of fame and the attention from the paparazzi were getting more and more intense—and Paris seemed to play into it.

She was the more attention-seeking of the two, while most fans and casual observers could clock Nicole as the funnier of the two. Which makes what happened next all the more strange.

Soon after the premiere of the third season of The Simple Life, the producers of Saturday Night Live capitalized on the show’s popularity by inviting Paris to host. But it immediately left people wondering why Nicole wasn’t involved. After all, she was clearly “the funny one.” The night that the show aired, many expected her to make a cameo—but they were in for a surprise.

On the night that Paris hosted SNL, Nicole was nowhere to be found. Instead of showing up for her BFF, she spent the night with friends. Many trace the eventual dissolution of their friendship back to this night (more on that later), but one thing is for sure. By the spring of 2005, it was clear that something dire had happened between Paris and Nicole.

No one was really saying anything about it…at least, they were at first.

In April of 2005, when someone asked Paris about what was happening with her friendship with Nicole, she finally broke her silence—and what she said was shocking. All that Paris would reveal was that “Nicole knows what she did, and that's all I'm ever going to say about it.” But, unsurprisingly, Paris did have a little more than that to say about it…

Fans of The Simple Life knew that the show was on the rocks. Between the problems with Paris and Nicole’s friendship and season 3’s dwindling ratings, there was talk that it may never come back. But, as always, Paris had a plan up her sleeve. In April of 2005, she said that The Simple Life was coming back…and that her friend Kimberly Stewart would be replacing Nicole.

It was a serious bombshell—but what did Nicole have to say about it?

Seven months after Paris made the shocking announcement about replacing Nicole on the show, Nicole finally got to express her thoughts on the matter when she appeared on the Today show. She briefly discussed what had happened, claiming that she and Paris had grown apart and that it wasn’t as much of a big deal as people were making it. And as for the show?

Nicole categorically shut down reports that Paris was trying to replace her on The Simple Life with Kimberly Stewart. She expressly said: “That was never going to happen.” At the time, there was a lot of scrutiny on Nicole—and it wasn’t just because of the ongoing tension she had with Paris. No, she was in the papers for a much darker reason.

Nicole had undergone a radical transformation since the beginning of The Simple Life. By 2006, she had lost a shocking amount of weight and appeared gaunt and fragile in paparazzi photos. There was immediate speculation that she was dealing with an eating disorder—something that Nicole expressly denied. But soon enough, the attention turned from her physique right back to The Simple Life.

So what did that mean for the show? Was it over, or was their hope that her and Paris could get it together and bring it back? It took a while, but fans finally got their answer. In June of 2006, The Simple Life came back on the air, reuniting the once-besties. The format was a lot different, and Paris and Nicole mainly filmed in Los Angeles.

They had a little more freedom and the comforts of home. But could space save the friendship?

At first, it looked like having a little more space and time apart from each other was good for Paris and Nicole’s friendship. After all, they’d made three seasons of The Simple Life, and spent 24/7 together both on and off-screen. Their relationship had basically defined their lives and stardom to a public that had previously been unfamiliar with them.

To many, it looked like they’d completely reconciled—but the feud wasn’t over yet.

During the final moments of the season 4 finale of The Simple Life, Paris stirred things up once again. In the final scene, she looked at Nicole and said “We need to talk.” Nicole replied “So talk…” The cryptic exchange had fans wondering what the heck was going on. Everyone thought they’d reconciled, but there was clearly still a big problem brewing between them.

Normally, in between seasons of The Simple Life, Paris and Nicole could be spotted going to parties and posing for pictures together. Not so after the end of season 4. It appeared the feud was back on, and once again, the gossip mags were at a loss as to why. With neither speaking to the media about it this time around, everyone was waiting to see who’d break the silence first.

As it turns out, they were all in for a surprise. In October of 2006, paparazzi spotted Paris and Nicole dining together in L.A., laughing and talking like they’d never even had a fight. So, was it all for the cameras? Well, when the next season of The Simple Life began to air, it soon became clear just what had happened.

Paris and Nicole had completely made up in between seasons of The Simple Life, but cameras had been there to catch the sentimental moment when they rekindled their friendship. What’s a reality TV show producer to do? Ask them to recreate it for the cameras, of course. With that, viewers got a glimpse into what their reconciliation had looked like.

That was filmed in March of 2007, after they buried the hatchet. But off-camera, things were seriously dramatic

There was six months between the time that Paris and Nicole made up IRL and the time that they started filming the fifth season of The Simple Life. Six months isn’t a lot—but in that short time, Paris and Nicole packed enough behind-the-scenes drama into their lives to fill five different reality shows. Let’s start with Nicole.

Earlier that year, Nicole had been engaged to DJ AM, but the pair broke it off in May. At first, it looked like she’d get through it like any other starlet her age…with a healthy dose of partying and casual dating. But before too long, Nicole met another man—Good Charlotte singer Joel Madden. It seemed like just another party girl/bad boy musician pairing at first, but it soon became clear that these two were getting serious and settling down.

Paris, on the other hand…

Paris Hilton was going out more than ever—but she no longer had Nicole at her side. Photographers rarely, if ever, spotted the two partying together anymore. Instead, Paris was spending more and more time with Britney Spears and Lindsay Lohan. The “Holy Trinity” of 2000s icons spent weeks dominating tabloid headlines—but there was a heartbreaking reason why Nicole wasn’t around.

For months, the media had speculated on the reasons behind Nicole Richie’s dramatic weight loss. She’d continuously denied that it was an eating disorder, but that couldn’t stop the whispers. Finally, Nicole sought treatment for her inability to put on weight. She worked with doctors and nutritionists and underwent multiple tests to try and figure out what was happening to her body.

Sadly, her health wasn’t the only thing that she was battling.

In December of 2006 (that’s post-reconciliation, pre-season 5), law enforcement officers responded to a call for a vehicle traveling the wrong way down the freeway. When they pulled over the driver, they found that she was under the influence of both weed and Vicodin. You’ve probably already guessed it—that driver was Nicole.

She’d relapsed. Not only was she facing some serious charges, but there was also the threat of potential jail time looming over the filming of season 5 of the The Simple Life.

Ultimately, E! got season 5 of The Simple Life off the ground without a hitch. And in July of 2007, a judge sentenced Nicole to four days for her DUI. She ultimately only served 82 minutes of her sentencing due to overcrowding. It was a lucky break—and unfortunately for Paris, she did not get the same one.

Paris and Nicole had been dominating not just tabloid headlines, but entertainment media and mainstream news for a period of years at this point. And as their antics—well, particularly Paris’s antics—continued throughout 2007, the focus on them reached a saturation point. Magazines and TV shows began promising “Paris-free” content.

The phrase “there’s no such thing as bad publicity” is notorious—but when it came to Paris, her relationship with the media was coming to a dark and cynical climax.

Right after The Simple Life aired its finale, Paris released her first single, “Stars Are Blind.” While it was a hit, critics lambasted it. But then, Paris made a grave mistake. In September of 2007, the LAPD detained Paris for driving under the influence. Her mugshot made the rounds—and made her even more of a target for mockery.

But for Paris, the worst was yet to come.

Paris got off with probation and a suspended license—only for the authorities to catch her driving a month later. But she didn’t stop there. A month after that, they caught her driving two times the speed limit, and without her headlights on, at night. Her reckless driving habit was out of control—and now, she had to go in front of a judge for violating her probation.

Paris’s careless behavior regarding her probation and driving not only teed off the media, it seriously infuriated the judge that she had to face for her probation violation. He sentenced her to 45 days behind bars. At first, she planned to appeal, but then eventually found a new lawyer and changed her mind. On June 5, 2007, Paris went in to start her sentence—but she expected that she’d get out of there quickly, like Nicole.

She was so, so wrong.

Two days after Paris entered the Century Regional Detention Facility, a sherriff signed an order changing her sentence to 40 days of home confinement with an electronic monitoring device. It was apparently because of an unspecified medical condition. When the judge who gave the original sentence found out, he was furious.

He called her in for a hearing, and sent her straight back to the detention facility.

Paris thought her punishment was over, so when the judge made his decision, she shouted “It’s not right!” and began crying. The whole ordeal and her reaction just turned the media further against her. Ultimately, she only served 13 more days at the detention facility—but that wasn’t the only consequence. Both Paris and Nicole’s DUIs had put the production of The Simple Life in jeopardy at different points, and the network declined to make another season with them.

Still, at least they had their friendship...right?

Without The Simple Life, it became harder and harder to figure out exactly what was going on between Paris and Nicole. At first, it looked like they still had to be friends, at least on the surface. After all, Paris began dating Nicole’s boyfriend’s twin brother, Good Charlotte guitarist Benji Madden, in February of 2008.

But despite that close connection, Paris was sending clues that not all was well with Nicole.

Whether or not they were friends, the title of Paris’s new show really sent a signal about the relationship. It was called Paris Hilton’s My New BFF, and it was a reality show where a group of 16 contestants competed to win the coveted position of Paris’s new best friend. Sure, it was more staged than reality, but the title and premise really leaned on the idea that Paris and Nicole were done for good…

Paris’s reality show wasn’t the only thing making it seem like their friendship was done. In 2010, Nicole Richie and Joel Madden tied the knot after four years of dating—but there was a conspicuous absence at the wedding. Nicole had invited Paris, and apparently Paris had backed out due to “prior commitments.” Prior commitments or not, that’s your lifelong best friend.

People definitely took the snub as a sign that the feud was back in full swing. Yet when it comes to Paris and Nicole, there’s always a “but…”

In the next few years, both fell out of the spotlight, as Paris concentrated on DJing and Nicole worked on her fashion career and started a family. In 2015, Paris posted a throwback picture of her and Nicole, perhaps in an attempt to quash rumors that they weren’t friends anymore. Still, it didn’t have many convinced.

But when it comes to these two, it seems like you can never quite count their friendship out.

In 2018, Paris invited Nicole to her upcoming wedding to Chris Zylka—only to call it all off soon after. Well, there was a surprising twist to Paris’s sad breakup. Her ordeal brought her close to Nicole again. Soon after, they were pictured together at a party in L.A. for the first time in years. People began to notice that their long feud just might be over…

Both Paris and Nicole appeared on different episodes of Watch What Happens Live, and each girl confirmed that they’re friends and still love each other. However, when it comes to other friends, Paris didn’t exactly have the same glowing praise. On the same episode where she talked about how much she loves Nicole, she called Lindsay Lohan “lame” and “beyond.”

Ouch.

Paris seems to mellow out as she gets older, and she later corrected herself and said that she and Lindsay Lohan are on good terms. She said that she was thrilled to find out about Lindsay’s engagement to Bader Shammas and made it a point to text her and congratulate her. It’s too bad there couldn’t be a reunion at Paris’s wedding—but her reunion with Nicole was already stealing the show.

Paris and Nicole finally made their reunion official-official when Paris tied the knot in late 2021. Paris may have been marrying Carter Reum, but people seemed to care a lot more about her and Nicole’s interactions during the celebrations. Videos circulated of them joking around and even repeating one of their Simple Life catchphrases, “Sanasa!”

But all the attention brought back questions about what had happened to them in the first place.

The feud between Paris and Nicole all stems back to their first falling out, back in early 2005—the night that Paris hosted SNL. Instead of congratulations from Nicole, Paris got a humiliating surprise. Nicole hosted friends to watch the show, but when the episode of SNL was over, the party didn’t stop. That was when Nicole put on Paris’s infamous sex tape, 1 Night in Paris.

Many think that’s what caused Paris to say “Nicole knows what she did,” and that it was the driving force behind their decade-long on-and-off feud.

Sources: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16

Peter Cushing is instantly recognizable as Dr Frankenstein, Van Helsing, Sherlock Holmes, or even Star Wars’ Grand Moff Tarkin. What many people don’t realize is that his career followed a very shaky trajectory to superstardom. The guy just seemed to consistently make the wrong decisions. 

In fact, his career didn’t even take off until he was middle-aged, and even then he seemed to sabotage it every chance he got. 

Peter Wilton Cushing was born in England on May 26, 1913. His childhood was bizarre as his mother dressed him like a girl, and then, when there was a threat of a missile attack during WWI, she hid him under the table. Cushing survived WWI, only to get double pneumonia—an illness that was usually fatal at that time.

Though he pulled through, it was a fraught existence for Cushing, and he needed to find an escape.

One Christmas, Cushing saw a performance of Peter Pan, and everything suddenly fell into place. He’d always wondered why he liked to play make believe, and why dressing up in girl’s clothes hadn’t bothered him at all. The easy answer was that he wanted to be an actor. Cushing finally knew what he wanted to do with his life. 

But even from the beginning, Cushing’s luck wasn’t always with him.

Cushing’s father, who came from a theater background, was strangely adamant that his son not become an actor. He did recognize that his son was artistic, so he set him up as a surveyor’s assistant. This was about as close to being artistic as...well it’s not. Cushing failed miserably at this job and was soon defying his father and doing amateur plays in his spare time. 

Without no financial support from his father, Cushing had to go to extreme measures to kick-start his acting career.

Cushing desperately wanted to get into an acting school, so he wrote over 20 letters to a theater company for a scholarship. When he finally got a meeting, the director humiliated him. It turned out that he just wanted to tell Cushing to stop writing letters. He did have some luck though. 

The director was suddenly in need of a performer that night, and he let Cushing take the role. Cushing’s career was getting a healthy start. His love life, however, was about to be in tatters. 

More and more roles came Cushing’s way, and so did something else. While in Southampton he met 18-year-old Doreen Lawrence, and a romance blossomed. Soon Cushing was proposing marriage. Lawrence did say yes and then did a dramatic turn around. She heartlessly canceled the engagement and it was for not one but two humiliating reasons. 

A cancelled engagement would be devastating for anyone, but Lawrence certainly had some shocking reasons for her decision. It turned out that she did not appreciate his fits of crying—I mean who would? The other reason was his parents. Apparently, he brought them with him on their dates. 

Luckily, all of this disappointment was for a reason. He hadn't met the true love of his life. That would come later.

After some considerable hardship, Cushing decided to give Hollywood a shot. You’d expect his father to again stand in his way, but this didn’t happen. In fact, dad bought Cushing his ticket. This wasn’t quite the kind act that you may think. The ticket was just one way. 

Cushing arrived in Hollywood with about $60 in cash, and no way to get home. It would be sink or swim. His first role in Hollywood would be both bizarre and utterly disappointing. 

Cushing somehow found his way to Edward Small Productions, where they were about to film an exciting movie called The Man in the Iron Mask. This film had two lead roles, and—unfortunately for Cushing—one man was playing both. Instead of getting a part, Cushing got a job. 

As a stand-in on The Man in the Iron Mask, audiences would only ever see the back of Cushing’s head. Luckily, during filming, Cushing got a break. They needed an actor to do a small role that involved a sword fight. Cushing announced that he was very skilled at fencing. Well, this was a complete lie, and his scenes were awful. 

One thing that was true on his resume was a British accent, which ended up helping him in a surprising way. 

When comedy duo Laurel and Hardy made their spoof film A Chump at Oxford, United Artists was scouring Hollywood for anyone who sounded even a little bit British. They found Cushing and signed him on to play the role of “Student”. It was still a small part, but he finally had an actual role. It wasn’t without it’s trials, though 

While filming A Chump at Oxford, Cushing had to fall into a pond with some other extras. After getting completely soaked, Cushing witnessed the kindness of Oliver Hardy. The star made a demand that the extras get fresh towels and clothes—and even a bunch of donuts—for their efforts. 

It was a rare moment of kindness in a business that was notoriously cutthroat. Sadly, this kindness was not enough. Cushing’s patience—and money—were running out and if he didn’t get a starring role he’d be broke. 

With home on his mind, Cushing went to New York City to make some money. Once he got there, he started working on Broadway. Cushing did find some success in the theatre world—but sadly, his Broadway debut was a failure—his show closing after only 11 days. As soon as he could afford to buy his ticket, he headed home.

Sadly, it was destined to turn into a very dangerous place. 

Cushing returned home but WWII had broken out and Europe was in terrible trouble. Instead of fighting for his country, Cushing acted. An army touring company needed a last-minute replacement for the lead in a touring play, and Cushing stepped up. The only problem was that he had only four days to learn the entire script. 

Cushing’s co-star on this tour was Helen Beck and the two quickly fell in love. April 10, 1943 marks their wedding day, but the marriage was immediately put to the test. Cushing was suffering from lung congestion and had to make the dramatic decision to quit the tour. 

Cushing was down on his luck and had no money to buy his wife even a small present. So, he had to get crafty—literally. Cushing decided to hand paint images of characters from Charles Dickens' stories on a piece of silk. It sounds a lot like a lame homemade gift you’d probably throw away, except for one thing. 

When a textile worker saw it, he offered Cushing a job designing scarves. His new job as a designer would keep Cushing and his wife afloat during these difficult times. However, there were more struggles in store for him.

Cushing was still having financial trouble when he took a role in a very ambitious project. It was a stage version of the novel War and Peace. We all joke about how long Leo Tolstoy’s novel is. Well, Cushing’s stage version ended up being a whopping five five hours long. And, after all that rehearsal and line memorizing, the show tragically closed after just a few nights. 

War and Peace was a disaster, and so was Cushing’s next audition. 

A huge break came when Cushing got to audition for esteemed actor and director Laurence Olivier. Although, this time Cushing’s British accent was no help. Olivier needed him to perform with an American accent, and Cushing’s attempt was a disaster. Olivier thanked Cushing for his time, and sent him on his way. 

This loss devastated Cushing, but happiness was just a phone call away. 

Olivier remembered Cushing and called him up for his filmed adaptation of Hamlet. One scene had Cushing walking down some steps while talking with Olivier. Cushing was having trouble getting his lines out, and there was an embarrassing reason. 

A recent trip to the dentist was making him spit. Olivier didn’t care and just asked Cushing to “drown me”. Yuck. Cushing was a hit in Hamlet, and it paid off in a huge and unexpected way. 

Olivier’s Hamlet ended up winning the Academy Award for Best Picture and this was exactly what Cushing’s career so desperately needed. However, following this, he decided to take up Olivier on his offer to go on a year-long theater tour through Australasia. 

By the time he got back, everyone had forgotten his performance in Hamlet. Cushing had to scramble for his next role, and it would take him straight into controversy. 

On his wife’s advice, Cushing dove right into TV roles and straight into controversy. This was a TV adaptation of George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four. The show was so brutal that the government almost banned it. Luckily, the controversy just brought more attention to the show and to Cushing's performance. 

Cushing was now one of the biggest stars of British TV. But good old Cushing would even turn that into something negative. 

Cushing was at the top of his game in the TV industry, but he found the work stressful and wanted to get back into film. But now he had a problem. His name was so closely connected to TV that a comedian once defined television as “Peter Cushing with knobs”. Cushing had painted himself into a corner. He didn’t want to do TV, and no one wanted him in a film. 

Surprisingly, the solution was right in front of his eyes. 

Cushing was at home sulking about being a TV star when an ad caught his eye. It turned out that a low budget studio was looking for actors to appear in a film version of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. Cushing was a huge fan of the novel, and contacted the producer. Cushing was ready to descend to the depths of low budget horror. 

As it turned out, he may have waited too long. 

One of the founders of Hammer Films, James Carreras, was a fan of Cushing, so he was delighted when Cushing showed interest in his film. The problem was Cushing was coming to him about two decades too late. The character of Dr Frankenstein was 20 years younger than Cushing’s 44 years. 

Cushing waited while Carreras made a decision between working with a star and being true to the novel. Cushing's career lay in his hands.

Well, Carreras did go with Cushing, and filming of The Curse of Frankenstein soon began. However, there was something very familiar about this particular set. It turned out that Cushing and his co-star—Christopher Lee—had been in three films together, but had somehow never actually met. 

Cushing and Lee would go on to make many more films together, but their friendship got off to a shaky start. 

When they were just beginning to make The Curse of Frankenstein, Lee confronted Cushing with a complaint. He realized that, as the monster in the film, he had absolutely no lines. Maybe a few moans, but no lines. Cushing wasn’t put off by Lee’s verbal attack and calmly replied, “You’re lucky. I've read the script”. 

Yes, the script was only “meh," but the critical response was a complete surprise. 

Well, The Curse of Frankenstein ended up being a huge hit, and critics actually praised Cushing’s performance. Later, some film experts even said that Cushing invented the mad scientist character that is a staple in many horror films. Cushing was crushing the horror movie industry, and Hammer was ready to take him even further into the darkness. 

Although, their next project definitely crossed a line. 

Cushing’s next film with Hammer was The Revenge of Frankenstein. According to the horror film rules, a sequel has to somehow outdo its predecessor, so the director didn’t hold back. When they released it, the Daily Telegraph decided to create a new warning for this film: “For Sadists Only”. 

The Frankenstein franchise was scaring the pants off audiences, but Hammer wanted Cushing’s films to go even darker. 

Sure Frankenstein is scary, but Dracula is the one that really sends shivers up spines. Hammer Films wanted to add Dracula to the fold of their horror films, but they thought that Cushing wasn’t Vampire material. They decided to bring in Christopher Lee as Dracula, but that left Cushing high and dry. 

There was the character of Doctor Van Helsing available, but Hammer Films encountered a familiar problem.

Cushing’s age was once again working against him. Now he was too young for the role instead of too old. Make-up artists were standing by to make the transformation but Cushing—maybe feeling cocky from his new found success—refused. They decided to ignore the book and just make Van Helsing young. 

Hammer Films was just getting started at changing the source material, and Cushing's character ended up patching up some significant plot holes.

Though the book said that Dracula could transform into a bat or wolf or fog, the studio chose to nix these details. Sadly, it was poor Cushing who had the embarrassing lines to explain these absences. His character just called them “common fallacies” and that was it. 

Dracula was still a colossal hit, and Hammer was eager to start a third franchise with Cushing. This wasn't going to be horror, so a very worried Cushing went to great lengths to make sure it was a success. 

Sherlock Holmes was the next character on offer by Hammer, and Cushing took his role as the famous sleuth to the next level. Unlike most B-movie stars, Cushing did extensive research and even arranged for his own authentic costumes. Lee was also on board as his co-star and the stage was set for another successful Hammer Films series. 

Unfortunately, it didn’t work out that way. 

Cushing had done his research to play Sherlock Holmes. What he should have done was research his fans. As it turned out, they didn’t really want to see Cushing unless there were also monsters in the movie. Cushing as Holmes in The Hound of the Baskervilles failed to thrill, and Hammer canceled the series after just one film. 

For his next role, it would be back to horror. But this film had one astonishing twist. 

In 1960’s The Flesh and the Friends, Cushing plays a mad doctor who pays a pair of serial killers for human cadavers. While this may sound a lot like Frankenstein, there was a huge and startling difference—it was based on a true story. This doctor actually existed, and the film raised awareness of the lack of bodies available for research. 

In Violent Playground, Cushing plays a priest and while filming, a passerby saw Cushing in costume. She innocently asked him if he would pray for her. Cushing was so totally in character that he did just that. The woman walked away blessed and none the wiser. 

Cushing was soon back on more familiar ground, but this next character took “scary” to a whole different level. 

In 1968’s Corruption, Cushing returned to playing a crazed physician. This one was just that much more extreme. You see, in order to get the fluid he needs to repair his girlfriend’s facial scars, the bad doctor had to ruthlessly take the lives of innocent women. It was so demented that the ad for the theatrical release said that "no woman will be admitted alone". 

All his life, Cushing had been a devoted husband to just one perfect woman. When Helen passed in 1971, it devastated him. Cushing became like one of his characters, desperate to stop the pain. He tried running up and down the stairs in a depressing attempt to have a heart attack and end his own life. You see, he just wanted to be with her.

Though Helen would not be able to grow old with Cushing, he would never forget her. She left behind a letter for him that encouraged him to keep going. Even years later, he was able to recite her words from memory. 

According to Cushing, it took him 13 years to fully recover from the loss of Helen. In one interview he confessed, "You can’t have had the experience and the love of a person such as Helen and then suddenly it’s not there anymore. It’s more than ¾ of your own self taken from you".

But their story didn't end there.

In order to cope, Cushing threw himself into his work to distract him from his grief. He also turned to the vice of cigarettes for solace. But though Cushing made 32 TV and movie appearances from 1971 to 1983, there was one thing he refused to do. For this entire decade of frantic work, Cushing couldn’t bear to make a public appearance.

In Cushing’s 1972 film Tales from the Crypt, the script called for his character to constantly talk to himself. Cushing instead suggested that his character speak to a photo of his late wife. This change to the script hit extremely close to home, and his real grief brought authenticity to his performance.

It also helped him take home a trophy for his work at the French Convention of Fantasy Cinema. Cushing’s mourning was not going anywhere fast, and it was about to mess with his career.

During the filming of Dracula AD 1972, Cushing showed up to the set looking terrible—so bad, in fact, that they quickly changed his role from father to grandfather. Dealing with losing his spouse had actually aged him. Clearly Cushing had to deal with his grief, and he finally did it in a very unusual—and public—way. 

After many years, Cushing still mourned his wife’s passing. To get some relief, he appeared on a wish granting show called Jim’ll Fix It. Cushing told the audience that he had a very touching wish. He wanted a new rose strain to have his wife’s name. Well Jim did fix it, and a horticulturist created a beautiful flower called Helen Cushing Rose. 

Obviously, Cushing was an absolute sweetheart, but he’d soon need his evil face to terrify a new generation of new fans. 

George Lucas was putting together a story and characters for a little movie he called Star Wars. Because his main villain was always in a mask, Lucas thought he should have a scary secondary villain who showed his face. Cushing was the perfect fit.

Cushing got the call from Lucas to be in Star Wars—and the project turned out to be a pleasant surprise.

The thing was, Cushing didn’t really like science fiction movies, but Star Wars was different. He knew that audiences would love it. The cherry on the top was that even though his role was pretty small, he would be making more cash than most of the principal cast. 

Cushing was an expert at using his evil-looking face for scares, but there was something that almost undid his performance. 

While doing scenes with Carrie Fisher in Star Wars, Fisher had a problem with Cushing. He was playing the evil Grand Moff Tarkin, and Fisher was having trouble trying to look like she hated him. She said that Cushing was so nice that she couldn’t act angry. 

An iconic film franchise like Star Wars only comes around once in a lifetime. If Cushing hadn't messed up, it could have been twice in a lifetime. 

When John Carpenter was looking for some British sophistication for his iconic film Halloween, he approached Cushing. On advice from his agent Cuching said “no," so Carpenter moved on to hire Donald Pleasance. Pleasance went on to make a small fortune in no less than five Halloween films. Well, at least Cushing knew he was the first choice. 

For his entire life, Cushing thrived in the horror genre—but in truth, he wasn't exactly tailor-made for it.

For someone who specialized in horror movies there was something surprising that Cushing suffered from. He was nyctophobic, which is a fancy word for someone with an irrational fear of the dark. Imagine his die hard fans finding out the king of horror was afraid of the dark. He didn't even like watching horror flicks.

Peter Cushing and his friend Christropher Lee were the kings of horror, but they shared a very heartwarming interest. They both loved watching Looney Tunes cartoons. This helped cement their friendship, but even got them into trouble. Owners of a theater once had to ask the two grown men to leave because they were laughing too loud at Tweety and Sylvester. 

Cushing loved this juvenile pursuit, but he was about to face a very adult tragedy. 

In 1982, one of Cushing’s eyes suddenly blew up to almost three times the usual size. Cushing rushed to the doctor and got the horrible news. He had prostate cancer and had just over a year left to live. Cushing surprised his doctors and gave a hard “no” to both surgery and chemotherapy. 

Cushing would face his cancer on his own terms, but there was one more secret he had left to reveal.

In one of his very last appearances on television, he told an interviewer something he'd never told anybody in the press. Apparently, though Cushing deeply loved his wife Helen, he had in fact cheated on her one time. Luckily she forgave him, and the beloved memory of her followed him right to the end.

Shockingly, despite his cancer diagnosis, Cushing went on to live another 12 years. On August 11, 1994, cancer did take Cushing’s life, but it wasn’t a final farewell. 

You can still see glimmers of Cushing's in performances today. Johnny Depp borrowed Cushing’s mannerisms as Ichabod Crane in Sleepy Hollow and so did Doug Bradley when he played Pinhead. You could say that Cushing, like Dr Frankenstein, had created a monster that would live forever. 

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During the harrowing exorcism scenes, Blair wore a thin nightgown, which wasn’t enough to shield her from the shockingly cold temperatures on set. To make her breath visible, the production team used air conditioners, causing the temperature to often dip below zero. While the crew dressed appropriately, Blair had no choice but to endure the bitter cold. But it only gets worse.

During the scenes where Blair thrashes her body around due to possession, she wore a harness attached to a mechanical bed. But on one chilling occasion, her lacings came loose, which injured her in a terrible way: "I'm crying, I'm screaming, they think I'm acting up a storm. It fractured my lower spine. No, they didn't send me to the doctor, it is the footage that's in the movie.”

Lastly, Blair’s makeup routine took anywhere from two to five hours to complete, which was already a difficult process, but to make matters worse, the glue used to secure her prosthetics painfully burned her face.

Sadly, Linda Blair’s spinal injury continued to haunt her into her adult years, and she even developed scoliosis. But no matter how much of an ordeal The Exorcist was for her, Blair still believes that the film was one of the most formative chapters of her life.

In the 18th century, even reading novels could look dangerously addictive. Critics worried that impressionable readers, particularly women, would neglect responsibilities, confuse fiction with reality, and absorb questionable ideas about romance and morality. Scholars have described the backlash against Britain's booming novel culture as an early moral media panic.

When the waltz became fashionable during the early 19th century, critics were scandalized by partners dancing in a close embrace while rotating together. Compared with more formal dances, the physical contact seemed shockingly intimate. The dance survived the controversy and eventually became almost synonymous with respectable ballroom elegance.

Early jazz and ragtime alarmed guardians of respectable culture who associated the music with dancing, nightlife, loose morals, and racial integration. By the 1920s, jazz became part of a wider generational struggle over changing manners. Universities attempted to regulate student behavior while young Americans enthusiastically embraced the Jazz Age.

Commercial dance halls gave young people opportunities to socialize beyond the supervision of parents, churches, and traditional community institutions. Reformers consequently worried about immoral behavior, drinking, predatory men, and supposedly improper dancing. What young customers saw as recreation could look to older observers like a factory producing moral delinquency.

As moviegoing became a mass pastime, adults wondered what all those detective pictures, romances, and glamorous stars were doing to children. The influential Payne Fund studies of the late 1920s and early 1930s examined movies' effects on young audiences, feeding an already heated national debate about Hollywood's influence.

Pinball seems extraordinarily innocent today, but authorities once associated the machines with gambling, corruption, truancy, and juvenile delinquency. New York City banned pinball in 1942 and kept the prohibition for decades. In 1976, player Roger Sharpe famously demonstrated to city officials that modern pinball involved skill.

Horror and detective comics became America's unlikely public enemy during the 1950s. Psychiatrist Fredric Wertham argued that comics damaged young readers, while a Senate subcommittee investigated their supposed relationship with juvenile delinquency. Schools and civic organizations even held comic-book burnings before publishers adopted strict self-censorship through the Comics Code.

The 1950s teenager seemed like an entirely new species to many adults. Newspapers, movies, politicians, and parents worried about young hooligans and their hot rods, leather jackets, rebellious music, and juvenile chaos. Congress conducted extensive hearings on juvenile delinquency, examining everything from comics and television to youth rehabilitation programs.

Rock and roll arrived amid warnings that the new music encouraged irresponsible behavior, juvenile rebellion, and racial mixing. Performers such as Elvis Presley became lightning rods for adult anxiety. The music that some critics regarded as a threat to American youth soon became one of America's most successful cultural exports.

Switchblades became frightening symbols of teenage gang conflict during the 1950s, helped enormously by movies and sensational media reporting. Congress responded with the Federal Switchblade Act of 1958, restricting interstate commerce in the knives. The switchblade became almost a shorthand prop for the supposedly uncontrollable juvenile delinquent.

Once television entered nearly every American living room, concerns followed that children were absorbing unprecedented quantities of violence. Congressional hearings and psychological research examined the issue for decades. Television essentially inherited the role that comic books, movies, and radio had previously occupied as the new medium supposedly transforming children's behavior.

British newspapers went wild over clashes between Mods and Rockers at seaside resorts in 1964. Sociologist Stanley Cohen's later analysis of the coverage helped popularize the very concept of the "moral panic," arguing that relatively limited disorder had transformed two youth subcultures into menacing national "folk devils."

Generations of American parents learned to inspect Halloween treats for poison, razor blades, and other sinister surprises supposedly planted by strangers. Sociologist Joel Best investigated the stories for decades and found no confirmed case of a stranger murdering a child through randomly distributed poisoned Halloween candy.

A fantasy role-playing game somehow became evidence of occult danger during the 1980s. Critics claimed Dungeons & Dragons encouraged witchcraft, Satanism, and other disturbing behavior. Some schools banned it, despite researchers repeatedly debunking supposed connections between the game and participants' behavior in real life. Controversy helped make D&D even more famous.

During the 1980s, Americans heard terrifying allegations that secret Satanic networks were conducting rituals across the country. Books like Michelle Remembers (see slide 1), television programs, religious groups, investigators, and recovered-memory techniques helped spread the claims. Thousands of allegations emerged, yet investigations failed to substantiate the vast underground conspiracy that frightened millions.

Day-care centers became a particularly devastating focus of Satanic panic. Workers were accused of elaborate occult rituals based partly on statements produced through highly questionable interviewing techniques. Hundreds of centers faced allegations, and some defendants endured extraordinary prosecutions before the broader phenomenon came to be recognized as a moral panic.

Parents were told that heavy-metal records could contain hidden Satanic commands audible when played backward. The fear became so serious that Judas Priest faced a 1990 lawsuit alleging subliminal material had contributed to two young men's actions. A Nevada judge ultimately dismissed the case after a highly publicized trial.

In 1985, the Parents Music Resource Center pushed for greater information about explicit music, leading to famous Senate hearings featuring musicians including Frank Zappa and Dee Snider. The controversy helped produce the familiar "Parental Advisory" label and turned supposedly dangerous song lyrics into a national dinner-table debate.

During the 1980s, highly publicized child abductions helped produce enormous fear of unknown predators. Schools taught children about "stranger danger," missing children appeared on milk cartons, and parents reconsidered freedoms once routinely granted to youngsters. The campaign sometimes obscured the reality that many dangers to children involve people they already know.

Heavy metal became a recurring villain during the 1980s, accused of promoting Satanism, and general all-around antisocial behavior. Album artwork and theatrical imagery made convenient television visuals, while religious campaigners sometimes interpreted deliberately provocative entertainment literally. Heavy metal therefore got wrapped up together with the decade's wider Satanic panic.

During the 1990s, Americans were warned that a new generation of remorseless juvenile "superpredators" could unleash an enormous wave of delinquency. The prediction became influential in political and judicial debates, but the anticipated explosion never materialized. Instead, American rates of juvenile offenses fell dramatically during the following years.

Mortal Kombat, Doom, and other controversial games became 1990s successors to comics and heavy metal. Politicians held hearings and critics feared interactive on-screen aggression could make children more aggressive in real life. Researchers have continued debating media effects, but scholars have also explicitly examined video-game fears through the framework of moral panic.

The details change remarkably little. A frightening incident receives intense coverage, a new or poorly understood group becomes the villain, anecdotes begin standing in for evidence, authorities promise action, and complicated social problems get boiled down to a simple explanation. Eighteenth-century print culture could produce the same recognizable cycle centuries before social media took hold.

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Sources: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10,11, 12, 13, 14, 15, , 17, 18, 19, 20, ,

Let's take it all the way back to 2002. Our two stars met on the set of the doomed rom-com, Gigli. Although Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez sizzled on screen, not even their chemistry could save this film from becoming an undeniable flop. Professionally, Gigli really took Affleck down a notch—but romantically, it set him up for one of the wildest rides of his life.

He later said, "And I did get to meet Jennifer, the relationship with whom has been really meaningful to me in my life."

As co-stars, Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez were just good friends. After all, she had recently married her backup dancer, Cris Judd. But this didn't stop Affleck from tooting his leading lady's horn. In fact, he went ahead and took out a full-page ad in trade magazines just to express his adoration for her—and what he wrote was enough to melt any cold heart.

Although they weren't even together yet, Affleck had some serious feelings when it came to Lopez—and his little ad certainly had some flirtatious undertones: "It has been nothing but an honor and a pleasure to work with you...I only wish I were lucky enough to be in all your movies.” And then he rounded it all out: “With love, respect, and gratitude, Ben Affleck.”

His public gushing certainly stirred the pot. There were rumors about a possible romance between these two—and it didn't take long for the truth to come out.

By the time J.Lo's summer birthday bash rolled around, she had separated from her husband. In fact, she had a brand new man to celebrate with. At her surprise party, Lopez and Affleck were seen cuddling up to one another and even kissing. It was finally time for the tabloids to come out and play—and since then, they've never really left these two alone.

Two days after the birthday party PDA, Lopez filed for divorce from Cris Judd. After Bennifer made it official, the media went into high alert. Snapshots of these two become pure gold. In August 2002, People magazine spent a whopping $75,000 for photos of the couple galavanting in a Bentley convertible. The cherry on top? A prized photo of the two of them enjoying a sensuous "lip-lock."

As Affleck and Jennifer began to heat up, they also became increasingly self-aware. They knew how much they'd captivated the public's imagination—and had something to say about it. The only problem? It backfired...hard.

Who can forget the infamously viral music video for "Jenny From the Block." Not only did it tell the story of the paparazzi's obsession with the couple, but it also gave them exactly what they wanted..and more. The video gave fans an intimate look into the couple's romance. But the video's most sensational moment also became one of Affleck's biggest regrets.

Nothing is sexier or more cringe-worthy than Ben Affleck worshipping J.Lo's famed posterior. Yup, in the video for "Jenny From the Block," while sunbathing on a yacht with her, Affleck leans over and plants a smooch on his girlfriend's butt. And even better? This was Affleck's very own idea. It might have seemed like a good choice at the time—but in retrospect, it became a mighty faux pas.

In the years following this statement video, both J.Lo and Affleck began to feel the sting of regret. In fact, J.Lo even tried to get the video removed from MTV, while Affleck called it the "big regret" of the entire relationship. At the time, however, it was all part of their whirlwind romance. Despite criticism, things seemed to be heating up. As we know now, it was all doomed to a messy end.

Before they imploded, Affleck and Lopez enjoyed a brief but extravagant honeymoon phase. Only months after Lopez ended her second marriage, Affleck was already in planning mode. He wanted a superstar to be his wife–and his proposal needed to fit the bill. In November 2002, he set the scene at his mother's Boston home—and when J.Lo walked in the front door, she couldn't believe her eyes.

In an exclusive interview with Diane Sawyer, Lopez described the fairytale proposal: "It’s just a blanket, a quilt of rose petals, all over the whole entire house. So many candles, and vases, bouquets. And my song 'Glad' was playing…I walk in and I was just, like, overwhelmed. I wasn’t expecting it, and I was just like, 'Oh my God.'" But that wasn't the most impressive part.

As if this proposal couldn't get any better, Affleck got down on one knee and revealed the ultimate showstopper: a 6.1 carat pink diamond engagement ring from Harry Winston. At the time, Affleck reportedly purchased it for 1.2 million and it certainly stopped J.Lo in her tracks. She later called it "the most magnificent thing I've ever seen." And the intrigue behind the ring didn't end there.

That massive pink ring became one of the most recognizable pieces of jewelry in Hollywood—and today, it's estimated to be worth anywhere from $2.7 million to $12 million. Affleck turned out to be quite the romantic, explaining that he specifically selected the ring because he wanted his fiancé to "have something that nobody else would have."

Unfortunately, no amount of money would free the couple from the media attention that dogged their every step.

Considering their rapid engagement, rumors about infidelity began to surface. They insinuated that Bennifer had gotten together while Lopez was still married to Judd. These comments threw them for a loop, especially Affleck, who told Vanity Fair, "That is absolutely not true. It goes against the fundamental code I believe in and live by: being honest, doing things with which I can live, rather than be ashamed of—doing esteemable things."

Little did Bennifer know, this was only the calm before the storm.

Their bliss began to nosedive during the summer of 2003. Mere hours after their personal Dateline interview dropped, so did another bombshell. Allegedly, Affleck had been spotted at a Vancouver strip joint, with some sources claiming that he'd cheated on J.Lo with another woman. The rumors began spiraling, and there were even references to taped evidence.

It was a real eye-opener for the couple—and it was only a matter of time before the perils of Hollywood began to poison everything.

The anticipation that revolved around Affleck and Lopez's wedding became akin to a royal affair. But as the big day approached, doubt crept in. Only a day before the ceremony, the couple released a jaw-dropping statement. They had decided to postpone their nuptials. The media had finally gotten under Bennifer's skin, destroying their special day in one fell swoop.

Unnerved by the constant attention, Affleck and Lopez had even considered implementing "decoy brides" to throw the press off. It drained them of the excitement they were supposed to feel. Their statement read, "We began to feel that the spirit of what should have been the happiest day of our lives could be compromised. We felt what should have been a joyful and sacred day could be spoiled for us, our families, and our friends."

For Bennifer, this was the beginning of the end (well...sort of).

By January 23, 2004, the relationship was over—and the headlines were brutal. The Chicago Tribune headline just read, "Dumped." Lopez released a very simple statement about the broken engagement and asked that her privacy be respected. But this left the public with a lot of unanswered questions: Why in the world did this power couple come to such a sudden end?

Affleck and J.Lo made one more film together before breaking up, and they might have been kicking themselves for doing so. Only months after parting ways, their film Jersey Girl hit theatres, and it stunk just as bad as Gigli. The film's failure only echoed the failure of Bennifer. It was finally time to move on, and both actors didn't waste any time.

In the wake of the breakup, J.Lo found herself floating back to an old flame, singer Marc Anthony. They'd met back in 1999 while collaborating on the song "No Me Ames," and rekindled their love in 2004. In fact, only months after breaking her engagement with Affleck, Lopez married Anthony. She later wrote, "All the heartache and pain of my recent breakup couldn’t have been for nothing, could it? Maybe I had to go through the bad so I could end up with the person I was meant to be with all along."

Affleck, on the other hand, had a romance as well. For the media, his new lady was a glaring clue as to why Bennifer imploded in the first place.

In the autumn following J.Lo's marriage, Ben Affleck stepped out with his new girlfriend and old co-star, Jennifer Garner. It didn't take long for everyone to do the math. Although the couple had originally met on the set of 2000's Pearl Harbor, they'd become much closer on the set of 2003's Daredevil. This only meant one thing.

In an interview with Playboy, Affleck confirmed what everyone suspected: He'd fallen in love with Garner in the summer of 2002 while filming Daredevil. He told them, "We met on Pearl Harbor, which people hate, but we fell in love on Daredevil. By the way, she won most of the fights in the movie, which was a pretty good predictor of what would happen down the road—my wife, holding swords and beating the living s--- out of me."

It certainly sounded romantic, but in reality, it was all a big mess.

At the time, Affleck was still with J.Lo, and Garner was married to actor Scott Foley. In fact, Bennifer's romantic engagement came after this summer of action hero love. But if you take a closer look, the truth of it all starts to bubble to the surface. While still attached to other people, Affleck and Garner were guests on Dinner for Five—and their interactions were so flirtatiously charged, it was hard not to notice.

While watching Garner and Affleck chat on Dinner for Five, some viewers sensed some romantic tension between the co-stars. A writer for Vulture commented that, during one scene, Garner gazes at Affleck with "such a genuine look of gratitude and affection, it still makes me a bit uncomfortable to see it on television." Turns out, sometimes, the rumors are correct.

Almost a year after going public, Affleck and Garner married in a private, understated ceremony. At this point, nobody could have predicted that Affleck and Lopez would one day reunite.

For the next decade, Affleck and Lopez worked hard on their marriages. By 2009, Affleck had two daughters, Violet and Seraphina, while Lopez had twins, Max and Emme. On the surface, everything seemed to be going well—but behind the scenes, demons stalked both Affleck and Lopez. Before they knew it, their individual struggles had led them straight to the deep end.

Sadly, Ben Affleck has had a long-standing drinking problem that can be traced all the way back to his teen years. During his marriage to Garner, he continued to struggle with addiction, as well as anxiety and depression. In fact, in his fight to stay sober, there were periods of the actor's life where he'd drink until he "passed out" every night.

Throughout his career, Affleck has been dragged through the mud for his relapses and stints in rehab—and it may have been a factor in the collapse of his marriage.

Three years after Lopez and Anthony welcomed their twins, they shocked the world by announcing their divorce. In her book, Lopez wrote that she told her husband, "This is not working. You know it's not working. We're not living like a family, and I don't see how things are going to change. Neither of us is happy, and the kids are wondering what is going on. I think we should move on with our lives."

Miraculously, Lopez's split with Anthony was one of the most amicable and successful breakups imaginable. They still had a deep love for one another and, since then, have maintained a close friendship. But while her own marriage dissolved, so was her ex-fiancé's relationship. In 2015, Affleck and Garner announced their separation—and it absolutely cut the actor to his core.

After a decade of declaring his undying love for Jennifer Garner, Ben Affleck had to accept that his marriage was finally over. He even called their split "the biggest regret of my life." Although he knew this was the right decision, he couldn't deny that the "painful experience" was one of the hardest challenges of his life, especially with three kids involved.

With both Affleck and Lopez released from their long-term relationships, the press waited in the wings with bated breath.

In 2016, Jennifer Lopez spoke to People magazine and commented on her brief engagement with Ben Affleck. What she had to say was more than a little prophetic: "I think different time, different thing, who knows what could’ve happened, but there was a genuine love there." Unfortunately, both Affleck and Lopez had another round of heartbreak to face before finding their way back to one another.

After her split with Marc Anthony, J.Lo's next big romance was with former Yankee, Alex Rodriguez. After dating her for two years and watching Lopez grow close with his daughters, Rodriguez decided to pop the big question. To stand out from her former suitors, he certainly went the extra mile, proposing to her with a $1.8 million emerald-cut engagement ring.

Meanwhile, Affleck himself began moving forward. However, his next romance shocked everyone.

A year after Lopez's engagement announcement, Affleck found himself falling hard—and he was not complaining. On the set of the romantic thriller Deep Water, he met the gorgeous up-and-comer, Ana de Armas. In the film, the stars play a married couple, but surprisingly, they kept things professional until filming paused due to the pandemic.

Once they had time away from work, however, things really started heating up.

Nothing says romance like going on a trip to your girlfriend's home country. On a trip to Havana, Cuba, Affleck and de Armas were spotted looking very much in love. According to eyewitnesses, the Cuban actress showed him all her favorite spots, and Affleck even conversed with her in her native tongue. This set the scene for a quarantine like no other.

During quarantine, Affleck and de Armas became the paparazzi's dream team. They had no qualms about stepping out together and showing off some PDA. Affleck seemed completely smitten with de Armas: There were Instagram posts, selfies, public smooches, and lavish birthday gifts. But that wasn't the best part.

As much as Affleck doted on de Armas, he also respected her as an actress. The first time they sat down to read lines together, de Armas blew him away. He later commented on her performance, saying, "Not only does she know how to do it with ease, she also manages to surprise you in every shot. Her talent is infinite." But you know what was not infinite? Their relationship...

After one year of dating, Affleck and de Armas amicably parted ways. However, leave it to Affleck to expose their breakup in the most hilarious way. Over the summer, his kids had played a prank on him, using a large cardboard cutout of the Ana de Armas. Sadly, onlookers spotted the very same cutout stuffed in Affleck's trash.

Affleck may have been heartbroken all over again—but don't worry, fate was about to step in.

While Affleck enjoyed his summer fling/quarantine with de Armas, Lopez had her own struggles to attend to. Because of coronavirus, her lavish wedding had been postponed multiple times. Unfortunately, things went from bad to worse. At the start of 2021, cheating rumors about Rodriguez and Madison LeCroy were everywhere.

No matter how hard she tried, Lopez couldn't escape the press. They published inaccurate articles and even announced her split with Rodriguez before she'd actually confirmed it. But as it turns out, the media's speculations were correct. In April 2021, the couple released a joint statement—and it was the nail in the coffin: "We have realized we are better as friends and look forward to remaining so. We will continue to work together and support each other on our shared businesses and projects."

On the heels of grief and heartbreak, the stage was finally set for Bennifer to make their glorious comeback.

On April 30, 2021, Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez shocked the world. Affleck had been spotted visiting her LA mansion on multiple occasions. After 17 years, this unforeseen reunion became the perfect tabloid fodder. Of course, Bennifer fended off the rumors by citing their longstanding "friendship." And according to some sources, that's exactly how it all began.

There's nothing like two single "friends" reconnecting and bonding over their failed relationships—but for Affleck and J.Lo, it meant so much more. Allegedly, it was Affleck who decided to reach out to her, with one source saying, "They picked up where they last left off and are enjoying each other’s company right now." Suddenly, the impossible seemed possible.

For the next month, this tentative couple kept the press on its toes, with everyone on the lookout for a much-anticipated kiss. And then, it actually happened. On June 13, 2021, a photograph of a sultry Bennifer lip-lock surfaced. They'd attended Lopez's sister's 50th birthday and shamelessly packed on the PDA, kissing and holding hands beneath the table.

And once these two started, they just couldn't stop.

By the time J.Lo's own birthday rolled around, she knew exactly how she wanted to spend it: Wrapped up in Ben Affleck's arms. There was no turning back now. She even took to Instagram to make it official, welcoming Affleck to her social media via a snap of the sun-kissed couple making out. Fans swooned for Bennifer—but this was just the beginning.

Although the voracious press was one of the reasons Bennifer failed the first time around, the couple navigated the attention with the ease of seasoned pros. In fact, they gave the paparazzi exactly what they wanted. In July 2021, Affleck and Lopez enjoyed some time on a yacht in Mexico. The entire scene was a nostalgic throwback to the infamous "Jenny From the Block" video—and then Affleck did something that made jaws drop.

Cuddled up to his old flame, Affleck decided to unintentionally (or intentionally) recreate his scandalous music video moment by placing his hand on J.Lo's perfect posterior. It may have been his "big regret" back then, but it certainly didn't seem that way now. Nope. Bennifer was full steam ahead. In the following weeks, the proof was definitely in the pudding, with Lopez rocking a necklace that spelled out one tell-tale word—"BEN."

At the 2021 Venice Film Festival, Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez stepped onto a red carpet together for the actor's new film, The Last Duel. It had been a whopping 19 years since their very first red carpet appearance—and to see them together again, well, it looked like a fairytale love story come true. Bennifer was finally back and hotter than ever, their chemistry sizzling in every photo.

But as jubilant as the press was to report on this couple all over again, they were also on the hunt for drama. One wrong move and the gossip mill would be out for blood.

Right when things seemed to be going smoothly, Ben Affleck placed a toe out of line. Or more accurately, he said the wrong thing. In an interview with Howard Stern, he confessed that he'd felt "trapped" in his marriage to Jennifer Garner. But he didn't stop there. While contemplating what would have happened if he'd stuck out the marriage, Affleck said, "We probably would’ve ended up at each other’s throats. I probably still would’ve been drinking." Bad move Ben, bad move.

It didn't sit so well with fans that Ben Affleck attributed his marriage to Jennifer Garner as a reason for his addiction issues. The press hung on to this negative tidbit with all their might, even claiming that his comments enraged Jennifer Lopez. However, Lopez denied the rumors, fully supporting Affleck. With the criticism weighing heavily on his shoulders, the actor had no choice but to respond.

In an interview with Jimmy Kimmel, Affleck tried to remedy his comments by saying that they'd been taken out of context: "[I] would never want my kids to think I would ever say a bad word about their mom." Of course, fans were keen to praise Jennifer Garner for always keeping her private life private—and for never saying a bad word about her ex-husband.

Although some negative press might have really stressed out Bennifer 1.0, Bennifer 2.0 took it all in stride. Despite the criticism, the couple continued on their merry way. Most recently, Affleck really leaned into his romantic side for Valentine's Day. He didn't quite top the pink diamond sparkler from the 2000s—but he did give Lopez something that "seriously melted" her heart...

Some might call it cringeworthy and some might call it romantic, but Ben Affleck injected every ounce of feeling into his Valentine's Day present for J.Lo. He made a video montage of all their special moments together, mostly taken from their 2000s romance. And the cheesy cherry on top? He set it to her new song, "On My Way." Whether you hate the video or not, it doesn't really matter because Lopez adored it.

Jennifer Lopez gushed over Ben Affleck's sentimental montage: "Watching it made me think about the journey of true love, it’s unexpected twists and turns, and that when it’s real, it actually can last forever." At this point, everyone's just happy that J.Lo's happy, and by all accounts, she seems to be settling into cloud nine. Her reunion with Affleck completely surprised her—but now, she's more equipped than ever to deal with the tabloids and the criticism.

In an interview with Rolling Stone, Jennifer Lopez reflected on her tumultuous journey back to Ben Affleck—how she had years to learn from past mistakes: "We feel like what we found again is so much more important, and how we protect that and how we live our lives—what to share, what not to share—is the balance that we have now, the benefit of experience and the wisdom that we gained over the years."

Sources: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13,

In 1939, Harvey Philip Spector was born into a New York City family destined for tragedy. He was only 10 years old when his dad, consumed by debt, took his own life. His gravestone reads “Ben Specter. Father. Husband. To Know Him Was To Love Him”. The family packed up, and fled to Los Angeles where Bertha Spector worked as a seamstress, while her son met his destiny.

It was obvious this Phil kid was something special. He and his friends formed a band called the Teddy Bears in high school, and even landed a record deal. 19-year-old Phil struck gold on their second song, “To Know Him Is to Love Him”, inspired by his dad's gravestone. It went number one, and sold over a million copies. Sadly, the group disbanded only a year after peaking. Phil was destined for bigger—and badder—things.

Music changed Phil’s life—but he also changed music. Phil isn’t just considered one of the most successful producers between the 1960s and 1970s, he’s regarded as one of the greatest, most important, and most influential artists of all time. Phil’s crown jewel is his “Wall of Sound” production technique. 

And his roster of stars was staggering. 

They were a match made in music. Phil’s collaborators included The Beatles, The Ramones, Leonard Cohen, The Ronettes, and Ike & Tina Turner. They created magic together like “Be My Baby” and “Let It Be”—but Phil started testing their patience. He had some shady behavior, and it got the point where they couldn’t ignore it anymore. Slowly, but surely, the bridges began crumbling. 

Even as a quirky genius, there was only so much Phil could get away with. As years passed, he became more unreliable, difficult, erratic, and sometimes even psychotic. George Harrison will never forget the time he climbed into Phil’s hotel room—from the roof—to drag him to the studio. Or all the times Phil showed up utterly inebriated. 

Others, like John Lennon, had even worse stories.

Phil was almost always armed—and not afraid to whip it out. There was the time he held the Ramones captive. And that time he shot the ceiling when John Lennon was in the studio. Or that other time he pulled it out and chased John through the halls. There are countless stories of him terrorizing everyone from nobodies to A-listers. And Phil behaved even worse in his personal life.

Phil didn’t get the memo about not mixing business and pleasure. In 1963, he and Annette Merar married. She was the 20-year-old lead singer of the pop trio the Spectors. Phil was the group’s 24-year-old creator and producer. He even named a record company, Annette Records, after her. But this didn’t stop him from betraying her that same year.

It turns out Phil had a type: younger and under his control. Enter, Ronnie Bennett. She was the 20-year-old lead singer of the girl group the Ronettes. In 1963, they signed to one of Phil’s labels, making him their producer and manager—which should’ve made her off-limits. Instead, Phil began an affair with her. But she didn’t even know he was married then.

Phil got Ronnie into humiliating situations. After leaving their room after a night together, the hotel’s detectives ambushed her. They accused Ronnie of being a lady of the night. They gave her a phone call—then Phil gave them an earful. Phil’s affair fell into place, while his marriage fell apart. 

In 1966, Annette’s marriage ended, and Ronnie’s nightmare began. 

Phil and Ronnie married in 1968—to the horror of her mom. Beatrice had a terrible feeling about her daughter’s husband and marriage. She signed her daughter’s marriage certificate, but still had to get it off her chest. She then made the cryptic comment to her daughter: “I just signed your death certificate”. Regrettably, she was proven right only a few hours later, when the wedding night became a horror show. 

Phil couldn’t even give his new bride one happy day. After one too many drinks, he accused Ronnie of being a gold digger. When he started screaming at her, Ronnie and Beatrice fled to a bathroom. They locked the door while Phil tried forcing his way in. Beatrice said “Ronnie, Ronnie, Ronnie. What did you marry?” The bride sobbed all night long. It was too late—and about to get way worse.

Phil’s estate became Ronnie’s gilded cage. He installed barbed wires, guard dogs, and security guards. This wasn’t to keep intruders out—it was to keep Ronnie in. He even confiscated her shoes to make sure. Over the course of their years-long marriage, he rarely let her go out—but when he did allow it, he made insane demands.

There’s deranged, and there’s Phil Spector. 

Phil made Ronnie drive with a life-size inflatable of him in the passenger seat. He also installed a gold coffin in the basement, then told her what he'd do if she didn't come back. Phil vowed to slaughter Ronnie, and put her body in there. He often promised her, “Before I let you go, you'll be dead”. 

It’s hard to believe, but it gets worse.

Ronnie began drinking and attending AA meetings just to get out of the house. But she knew this wouldn’t last: "I knew that if I didn't leave I was going to die there”. Ronnie and Beatrice hatched an escape plan. where they would sneak out of the service entrance. But on the big day, they ran right into Phil. Beatrice convinced him they were only walking through the mansion’s grounds. But as soon as they got to a corner where he couldn’t see them, they ran for their lives.

But Ronnie wasn’t free until she settled the divorce and custody battles. Phil fought dirty: he often whipped out arms and talked about hitmen. He demanded that she give up everything from her music rights to the kids. It worked. Ronnie deserved the world after everything Phil put her through. But after they divorced in 1974, she settled for a measly: $25,000, a used car, and a monthly alimony of $25,000 for five years. Oh, and a career in ruins.

But at least she was free...somewhat.

Ronnie rebuilt her career while fending off Phil's revenge plots. The Ronettes, long overdue for an induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, kept getting snubbed. Phil just so happened to be on the nomination committee, of course. It didn't take a genius to put two and two together. Phil could be sneaky like this, but he could also be brazen.

Phil called Ronnie to remind her of his promise of what he'd do if she left him. Phil then informed Ronnie that he'd hired six hitmen to end her life on stage. Ronnie ended up drinking so much she couldn't get on stage. So, we don’t know if the danger was real—but her terror was. 

Finally, Phil was about to get his own taste of fear.

Phil didn’t just get a divorce in 1974—he also got into a horrific car accident. The impact threw him through the windshield. His body looked so lifeless that most responders would’ve declared him gone at the scene. And that would’ve been the end of Phil Spector. But one officer noticed the faintest of pulses. They rushed him to the hospital and into surgery. 

If he wasn't unhinged enough already, the traumatic accident had bizarre consequences.

Phil’s head injuries were serious, requiring many hours of surgery, 300 stitches on his face, and over 400 stitches on the back of his head. One Phil went into the hospital—and a different version walked out. The crash scarred him physically and mentally. After the accident, Phil began wearing ridiculous wigs. Then he began withdrawing. Once Phil started, he didn’t stop.

Phil’s days as a music powerhouse—and functioning adult—were well behind him. As the 1970s went on, Phil became more reclusive. By the 1980s, his life transformed into one of isolation, substances, and further alarming behavior. Despite that, he and his then-girlfriend Janis Zavala had biological twins, Nicole and Philip Jr But tragedy was coming.

No parent should have to bury their child—but that’s what Phil and Janis had to do. In 1992, nine-year-old Philip Jr succumbed to leukemia. On top of all the other substances, Phil began taking copious amounts of antidepressants. Phil’s behavior already freaked people out. He was already a menace. But everything was about to get worse. This was the beginning of the end.

Phil’s erratic, and oftentimes dangerous, behavior drove people away. Yet at the same time, Phil couldn’t handle being alone in his mansion. So, he hatched a plan—particularly for when visitors came over and had the audacity to want to go home. Former guests revealed how Phil locked his doors and gates to prevent them from leaving. It got even scarier when Phil got his arsenal involved.

Being a guest leaving his home was already bad enough. Now try being a woman rejecting him. Women caught his eye when he drank. Phil would shoot his shot. But Phil didn’t take it well when they rejected him. On multiple occasions, he pulled out arms to prevent these women from leaving. There were even rumors that he held two of them captive for days. 

Then on February 3, 2003, he pulled the trigger for real.

Phil should’ve stayed home. He was intoxicated and medicated. Instead, he went to the House of Blues, a restaurant and music venue. That’s when he crossed paths with Lana Clarkson. The struggling actress and waitress didn’t recognize him. She even mistook him for a woman and called him “Miss”. Until Sophie Holguin, another waitress, let her know Phil was an important man and a big tipper.

Phil first approached Sophie, but she refused. He then propositioned Lana. She also wasn’t eager—but Phil was persistent. Lana also hoped that his power and connections would open doors for her. Lana told him she’d go home with him—but only for one drink. Phil promised that his driver, Adriano de Souza, would wait outside the whole time, and would take her home after the drink. But Lana never made it home.

Adriano drove them 35 minutes to Phil’s mansion and waited outside. At 5 am, he heard shots coming from inside the house. Then Phil came outside waving his piece around with his hand. After he finally admitted “I think I just shot her”, Adriano called emergency services. The authorities raced to the property and made not one, but many disturbing discoveries.

The mansion, now taken over by mice and rats, had seen better days. Some rooms hadn’t been occupied in years. And then they found Lana’s body. Her lifeless body was slumped over in a chair with a round in her mouth. Phil already changed his story: she’d done this to herself. But the authorities didn’t buy it and launched an investigation. It was only a matter of time before they found out the truth.

In the meantime, Phil was still going after much younger women. A few weeks later, Rachelle Short caught his eye at a restaurant. She was 41 years his junior (around the same age as his daughter)...and the splitting image of Lana. Phil asked Rachelle to sit at his table. Once they started talking, they didn’t stop. They had to leave the restaurant at 6 am—but he wasn’t ready to let her go.

When Phil asked Rachelle if he could kiss her, she quickly declined, but still gave him her number. He called the next day, and they began dating. Rachelle admitted she’s always had a thing for older men. She didn’t learn about Lana until weeks later. And her response was shocking: “When you meet him, you get no sense of danger whatsoever. He's tiny. I'm bigger than him now, and he wouldn't hurt a fly…He's too kind, and caring and giving and genuine”. 

Rachelle was easily impressionable, and Phil knew it.

In 2005, Phil and Rachelle got engaged. In 2006, he was charged. But Phil was free until his trial on a $1 million bail. A month later, they married. Rachelle threw herself into preparing for his trial. Phil, on the other hand, seethed when the Ronettes got inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. Phil was no longer on the nominating committee, so he couldn’t block them anymore. But he had a trick up his sleeve.

Phil plotted an ambush on their Rock & Roll Hall of Fame ceremony. Ronnie thanked many people during her acceptance speech, and not one of them was Phil Spector. But Phil refused to let anyone forget him. Paul Shaffer rushed to the mic right after the Ronettes performed. He gushed “It gives me a lot of pleasure to read this note”. 

Paul read out “I’m extremely happy for the Ronettes. From the days of 1963 at Gold Star Studios, I wish them all the happiness and good fortune the world has to offer.’ And it’s signed ‘Phil Spector,’ ladies and gentlemen”. Phil didn’t—or wasn’t allowed to—attend. But he still managed to ruin their career highlight. Ronnie told the media “You’d think he might have focused on his trial”. She was right.

The trial began in March 2007, and was televised. Phil took full advantage of this. He wore flamboyant suits, high heeled shoes, and wigs. His accessories included Rachelle, and their three massive bodyguards. When the posse arrived every day, they moved in unison. And like a movie scene, everyone in the hallways stepped back to gawk at them. Some who knew Phil suspected he enjoyed the attention.

Phil was—figuratively and literally—sick. In a pre-trial deposition, Phil testified he’d been treated for bipolar disorder for almost a decade. He revealed "No sleep, depression, mood changes, mood swings, hard to live with, hard to concentrate, just hard—a hard time getting through life, I've been called a genius and I think a genius is not there all the time and has borderline insanity”. His trial was even messier.

Phil went through at least three defense teams, but they always insisted he was innocent. They claimed that Lana was depressed over a breakup and her financial situation. That night, she was inebriated and medicated. They claimed Lana took her own life at Phil’s house. Lucky for Phil, the prosecution had their work cut out for them. Turns out, this wasn’t the slam dunk case they'd thought it’d be.

Knowing Phil was guilty was one thing, but proving it was another. Most of the forensic evidence was inconclusive. There were no witnesses inside the mansion. The prosecution only had the testimonies of his driver, and five women who testified that Phil showed them his arms after they rejected him. Phil’s life was in the jury’s hands.

The jury needed to reach a unanimous decision. But they couldn’t: 10 members voted guilty, while 2 voted not guilty. The judge declared a mistrial. Phil had to do this all over again. His second trial started in October 2008. The case went to the jury in March 2009. After 19 days of deliberating, they made their decision. 

Second time’s the charm. The jury’s decision was unanimous: guilty. They found Phil guilty of slaying Lana in the second-degree, and arms charges. In May 2009, the judge sentenced him to 19 years to life. He was already 70 years old, so this was effectively a life sentence. Phil was locked up right after his sentencing. His days as a free man were over. But Phil refused to go down without a fight.

Phil’s defense team tried different arguments, including his poor health, in their appeals. But they received the same rejection every time. Rachelle didn’t give up though. She even got a license to practice as a private investigator in hopes of building a better case for him. The couple had another surprise up their sleeves.

In June 2010 and after 30 years, Phil made a comeback to music with Rachelle’s debut album Out of My ‘Chelle (punny). But people wondered if Phil, now behind bars, actually produced it. But Phil swore they’d worked on it before his first trial. Not that this mattered because the album sucked. One review even declared that Phil’s music was now as criminal as he was. Ouch.

A journalist interviewed his friends—and even enemies—in 2010. Their responses were shocking. They claimed that Phil changed for the better, and Rachelle was the reason why. The journalist wondered if this version of Phil would’ve pulled the trigger that night. But his transformation came too little, too late. Not to mention, it’s unclear whether these changes would survive if—or when—their marriage collapses. 

Phil went from riches to rags. He spent 23 hours a day in a tiny shared cell. He couldn’t do much but read and sweat. Phil was estranged from all his kids, except for his daughter. But she lived on the other side of the country. This made Rachelle the center of his world. Phil and Rachelle were never going to be a normal couple—but his incarceration made it so much worse.

Rachelle was in control of his life, legacy, and fortune. They talked every weekday (when he’s allowed a 15-minute call). And every Saturday, she wakes up a little after midnight to make the 3 hour journey to Phil. They get one hug and one kiss. Then they talk in the visitor’s area for hours. But their weirdly wedded bliss didn’t last forever.

In 2018, Phil divorced Rachelle and made shocking allegations against her. He claimed that she only gave him $300 every month. Meanwhile, Rachelle blew through his $35 million fortune. This included: luxury fashion, two houses for her mom, plastic surgery, a Ferrari, an Aston Martin, and a $350,000 private plane. After 12 years, most of it locked up, his third and final marriage was over.

Things only got worse for Phil. Over the years, his health declined even more. It got so bad that they transferred him to a hospital for people behind bars. But even that wasn’t enough. The final hit turned out to be a gruesome case of COVID-19 in December 2020. By the end of the month, he became so sick that they transferred him to a normal hospital. He never left.

On January 16, 2021, Phil succumbed to COVID-19 complications. He was 81 years old—and would’ve been eligible for parole in 3 years. The media rushed to report on his passing, but many botched their coverage. Readers complained of outlets focusing too much on Phil’s accomplishments, and not enough on his wrongdoings. Then Ronnie jumped into the conversation—with a shocking social media post. 

Ronnie spoke her truth on Instagram. She wrote: “It’s a sad day for music and a sad day for me…As I said many times while he was alive, he was a brilliant producer, but a lousy husband. Unfortunately Phil was not able to live and function outside of the recording studio. Darkness set in, many lives were damaged. I still smile whenever I hear the music we made together, and always will. The music will be forever”.

And the darkest part of their horrifying relationship? Well, it was when Phil came up with a devious plan to control Ronnie. 

Things took an even darker turn when Phil got children involved. In 1968, the newlyweds adopted their son Donte Phillip Spector. But Phil didn’t do this out of the goodness of his heart. In his mind, a child would bind Ronnie to him even more. So, when they couldn't conceive, he found another way. 

But one child wouldn't be enough to stop her, so Phil took it up a notch and plotted behind her back. Ronnie was in for the shock of her life.

You know how you’re not supposed to give pets as surprise gifts? Well, Phil went even further. In 1971, Ronnie came home, from the hospital no less, to 5-year-old twins running around her home. Turns out, Phil adopted Louis Phillip Spector and Gary Phillip Spector, and presented them as surprise Christmas gifts. But Ronnie knew better. Phil was using them as two more anchors to keep her trapped.

Phil was an evil husband, and an evil dad. Donte revealed “For years, we were just caged animals to be let out for Dad's amusement”. Their captivity was even worse than Ronnie’s: Phil locked the kids inside their rooms. Even worse, Gary alleged his adopted father blindfolded them and mistreated them, claiming it would prepare them for future relationships.

Donte also admitted the family was “very sick, twisted, dysfunctional”, and that he ran away from home at age 10 to escape it all. 

Sources: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, , 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22

Ekberg was a Swedish bombshell who starred most famously in Federico Fellini's 1960 film La Dolce Vita, where she played an actress hounded by photographers. Ironically, the success of the film quickly made Ekberg herself a heatscore for publications around the world—but she had one nemesis in particular.

Photographer Felice Quinto had also been in La Dolce Vita, albeit as an extra, and his merciless pursuit of celebrity subjects in his day-to-day job had even reportedly inspired one of Dolce's paparazzo characters. In the end, though, what happened between Ekberg and Quinto was stranger than fiction.

In the wee hours of October 20, 1960, Quinto caught Ekberg flouncing around Rome with a married producer, and ended up snapping them locked in an embrace. Ekberg, furious at the compromising position she was in, soon went back to her villa and cloistered herself inside. 

Undeterred, Quinto and some of his colleagues followed her back and waited outside her house. But they had no idea what they were in for. An enraged—and barefoot—Ekberg suddenly burst out of the house, wielding a functional bow and several arrows she had taken from the set of her latest film, all while yelling “Give me those pictures!"

The gathered photographers probably thought Ekberg just wanted to scare them away, and one even managed to take an iconic photograph of the star aiming the weapon at him. But this was no empty threat: The actress fired. More than that, she hit her marks, injuring Quinto in his forearm and letting fly more shots into the backs of the other paparazzi present. 

Justified? Maybe not, but it probably felt good at the time. Then again, it did give us another very compromising photo.

I may not see it, but if Pete Davidson can manage to date the likes of Ariana Grande, Kate Beckinsale, and Kim Kardashian, then he’s definitely got enough appeal to attract some overzealous fans. But the story of Davidson’s biggest fan is way weirder than your typical celeb stalker story. It all began when a press release from “Bodega Cats” made the rounds in March of 2021.

The press release claimed that it was a newly-minted production company helmed by Pete Davidson and a childhood friend—and that’s not all it said.

According to the press release, Davidson was not only collaborating with childhood friend Michelle Mootready, but he’d also tied the knot with them. The news was a shock…particularly to Davidson, whose reps claimed that he didn’t even know them (Mootreddy identities as they/them). They began to look into remedies to the situation—but the situation was about to spin even more wildly out of control.

On March 18, 2021, law enforcement detained Mootreddy after they broke into Davidson’s Staten Island home. According to their accounts, they found an open side door and sat down at the kitchen table before Davidson’s aunt called 9-1-1. The break-in meant that Davidson was finally able to get an order of protection against his fake wife. On top of that, the courts charged them with multiple felonies for her stunt.

Dang, and here I was looking forward to seeing what kind of stuff Bodega Cats films would come up with. Well, when it comes to dealing with weird stalkers, Davidson could’ve asked his girlfriend Kim Kardashian for advice…

What’s that one thing that every girl wants? Why, a diamond ring, of course…but what about when it comes in the mail from someone you don’t know, along with a pack of Plan B? That’s what happened to Kim Kardashian in 2021. While this wasn’t her first time dealing with a stalker, it was definitely among the more bizarre incidents.

And it’s not like he just mailed the ring out of nowhere—no, this strange story began much earlier.

It all began in February of 2021, when Nicholas Costello showed up at Kim’s door, claiming that he was there to take her to dinner. Hey, at least he tried for a first date before sending an engagement ring, right? Well, that’s not all. He also posted extensively about the star on social media and apparently even doctored up a marriage certificate with both of their names.

According to Costello, "Queen Kimberly [is] sitting up in thy big castle alone waiting for her Knight in Shining Armor.” Fairy tale talk is one thing—but what Colin Farrell had to deal with is another…

Not every celeb can say they’ve been stalked by a prolific and creative author. Well, maybe that’s a bit of a stretch in Colin Farrell’s case—though his stalker does certainly have a way with words. Farrell got an unpleasant surprise in 2006 when he appeared on The Tonight Show With Jay Leno. That night, Dessarae Bradford rushed the stage in order to present Farrell with her magnum opus: a book she’d written that she titled Colin Farrell: A Dark Twisted Puppy.

But the story doesn’t end there…

Farrell wasn’t the first celeb that Bradford had fixated on. She’d previously written another book about Alec Baldwin—with an equally entertaining, if unprintable title. After the incident on The Tonight Show, Farrell feared for his safety and that of his family’s, so he obtained a court order against Bradford.

At least we can laugh about Bradford’s bizarre book titles—because what Rihanna’s stalker put her through is way too sinister to find humor in.

In 2018, a man named Eduardo Leon broke into a Los Angeles area home looking for Rihanna. There was just one problem. Leon got the address wrong. Law enforcement took him in, but days later he was out in L.A. again—and this time, he didn’t make the same mistake. Not only did he make it into the house, he also was able to disable her alarm system.

With that out of the way, Leon made himself at home and waited…

Leon had unpacked his bag and was charging his phone when the door opened. Well, it wasn’t quite who he was expecting. It was actually Rihanna’s assistant, who immediately called the authorities. When they arrived, they tased and detained Leon. When they asked him why he was there, his answer was chilling. He told them he was there to have sex with the star, adding that he hadn’t planned on using force. As if that’s reassuring.

Ultimately, the court ordered him to stay away from Rihanna for ten years. Well, what happens when you can’t get a court order, because you have to share custody with your stalker? That’s what one Real Housewife had to deal with after a contentious divorce.

Fans of Real Housewives Of New York City watched through the early seasons of the show as star Bethenny Frankel tried to find love. Eventually, it looked as though she’d met the man of her dreams when pharma exec Jason Hoppy popped the question. But while it seemed like a fairy tale, it was actually more of a horror story.

The couple lasted two years and Frankel gave birth to a daughter, Bryn, before they separated. That was the moment when Hoppy’s sinister side really came out.

It would not be an exaggeration to say that Frankel and Hoppy had one of the most contentious divorces in reality TV history. It took eight years for the courts to finalize. But it was in the middle of it all, in 2017, when Hoppy went over the edge. According to court docs, he sent Frankel unsolicited emails and attempted Facetime calls, “numbering in the hundreds.” And then, it got worse.

After a confrontation at their daughter’s school, authorities ultimately charged Hoppy with one count of harassment in the second degree, one count of aggravated harassment in the second degree, and one count of stalking in the fourth degree. They also issued a restraining order. When the court documents came out enumerating all of Frankel’s complaints against Hoppy, the details were shocking.

In one email, Hoppy told Frankel “I’ll never go away.” Later, he confronted Frankel and her boyfriend on the street, saying, “There’s nothing you can do to stop me. You’ll be sorry. You’ve been warned. I can’t help it. She’s pure evil. You’ve been warned. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.” Ultimately, the courts finalized their divorce in 2021 and allowed Frankel to stop paying child support to Hoppy, since their daughter spends most of her time with Frankel anyway.

Despite his claims that he’d never stop, it looks like he finally did. Reality star exes and stalking claims seem to go hand in hand, though…

At the end of most seasons of The Bachelor, a couple winds up happily engaged. Or, at the very least, they break up within a few months and go their separate ways. Well, Colton Underwood’s season of The Bachelor wasn’t like other seasons. For a while, it seemed like it was anyone’s game, but eventually, it became clear that Cassie Randolph was leading the pack of contestants.

However, when she didn’t return Underwood’s affection, it led to what host Chris Harrison insinuated might be “the most dramatic moment in Bachelor history.”

After Randolph left the show before the final episode, Underwood dramatically jumped over a fence at the resort the cast was staying at in an attempt to leave the show as well. Ultimately, Randolph and Underwood found their way back to each other and ended the season in a relationship. But then, after a year and a half of dating, the pair broke up—and that’s where the trouble began.

Four months after their breakup, Randolph filed a restraining order against Underwood—and the allegations came as a surprise to many fans. Randolph claimed that he’d shown up at her and her parents’ homes, sent creepy texts from an anonymous number, and installed a tracking device on her car. The court granted her request, but the exes later reached a private agreement dissolving the restraining order.

The surprises didn’t end there, though, as Underwood came out as gay in April of 2021. That put a definite end to that saga. Underwood’s outburst was strange—but Keira Knightley’s stalker experience was 100 times weirder.

Keira Knightley’s stalker Mark Revill was doing the run-of-the-mill stalker stuff—sending handwritten letters, showing up at her house, etc., at first. Then, things took a bizarre turn. Revill showed up at the home Knightley shares with her husband James Righton, opened the mail slot, and began meowing through it.

Righton chased Revill off—but he wasn’t done with his feline antics quite yet.

Revill also sent Knightley a USB drive he’d filled with music about cats. It’s unclear whether it was music he composed himself or if he just did a deep dive and found some feline-fixated folk singer out there. But Revill’s escapades also had a sinister side. He also posted threatening tweets about Knightley and Righton, and had a previous conviction for showing up naked to another woman’s home.

Ultimately, the courts sent him to a psychiatric hospital, where he’ll stay indefinitely. It’s a dark end to a creepy tale—but the story of Sarah McLachlan’s stalker has an even more disturbing conclusion.

In 1991, a computer programmer named Uwe Vandrei began sending Sarah McLachlan, who was just then becoming a star, a series of letters. Within three years, he’d sent McLachlan thousands of letters, each of which crossed the line from admiring to totally menacing. Often, it’s the stars who take their stalkers to court for a restraining order—but in this case, Vandrei turned the tables on McLachlan.

In 1993, McLachlan released her third album, which contained a track named “Possession.” The letters that McLachlan had received from a number of overzealous fans—not just Vandrei—had inspired the lyrics of the song. Not long after the release of the song, Vandrei sued McLachlan, claiming that she’d taken lines from his letters and used them as lyrics in the song.

It was quite a surprise—but there was more in store for McLachlan.

Many suspected that the case was just a way for Vandrei to get McLachlan in a room with him. But, before the case could ever make it to court, it took a seriously twisted turn. In November of 1994, someone spotted Vandrei’s truck parked near in a rural area near his home. Upon further inspection, they made a chilling discovery. Vandrei’s body was inside—and he’d taken his own life.

It was a brutal end to a chilling story—and as we’ll see, it bears striking similarities to Sandra Bullock’s story.

Remember the creepy story about the Pete Davidson fan who claimed that she was his wife? Well, Katy Perry had a similar—if not more deranged—experience when dealing her with stalker, a man named William Terry. In a terrifying moment that seems like something out of a horror movie, Perry was at home with her newborn daughter when Terry scaled the fence at her Los Angeles home.

Authorities took him into custody—but he wasn’t ready to let a few officers stop him.

The next morning, when Terry got out of custody, he posted a seriously disturbing message to Twitter that read: “Security guard trying to stop me from seeing my wife and had a gun and all but I wasn’t going down without a fight.” Yup, that’s right, he thought Perry was his wife. I’m sure Orlando Bloom had something to say about that.

Perry got a restraining order against him—but when it comes to utterly far-fetched delusions, the story of Steven Spielberg’s stalker is hard to beat.

Back in the mid-90s, there was a brief overlap between the Satanic Panic craze and early message boards. A former social worker named Diana Napolis found her niche in this bizarre corner of the internet, and began posting under the name “Curio.” There, she began harassing people that she believed were performing satanic ritual abuse—despite the fact that others in her former field of work had rejected the idea that these things were happening.

And then, she got not one, but two celebrities involved…

Napolis began making threatening phone calls to Spielberg. During the calls, she made some seriously bizarre claims. She said that the director and his wife Kate Capshaw had put a microchip that she called a “Soulcatcher” into her brain. He sought a restraining order, which the court granted—but then, Napolis turned her focus on someone else.

With the law barring her from contacting Spielberg, Napolis shifted her attention to actress Jennifer Love Hewitt. She even got close enough to Hewitt at the Grammys to confront her, and got into a shoving match with the actress’s mother. At a hearing, Napolis claimed that both Spielberg and Hewitt were part of a satanic conspiracy, and that they were performing mind control on her.

When a judge eventually ruled on Napolis’s case, one of the requirements was that she could no longer use computers. While it may seem weird for someone with a fixation on a celebrity to transfer that obsession to another—it’s not entirely uncommon.

Johnny Depp famously got a tattoo saying “Winona Forever” when he dated Winona Ryder in the 90s—only to change it to “Wino Forever” when they broke up. Well, one of Ryder’s biggest fans ended up taking a similar journey when it came to his worship of the actress. See, Ryder was making a film when she noticed that an obsessed fan had made it onto the set as an extra.

Ryder told the director about it—only to receive an unexpected message from the fan. In a note, he said that he really was on set because he wanted to be an extra—not to see her. He also claimed that he’d gotten over her and had moved onto to Alyssa Milano. It was a pretty hilarious ending to what could’ve been a harrowing tale.

Unfortunately, Sharon Stone didn’t have quite the same luck.

You know what they say: If at first you don’t succeed, try again. Well, perhaps that advice shouldn’t actually be applied to stalkers. When Sharon Stone’s #1 admirer popped up in her poolhouse, the courts had him sent back to his home country of Italy. He was a determined little pest, though, and showed back up stateside a year later—but this time, he wasn’t out for Stone.

By the time that Agostino Pomato returned to the US, he had forgotten all about Sharon Stone—and had moved onto another blonde. This time, Pomato approached blonde supermodel Claudia Schiffer to deliver the news that the Pope had ordered them to be married. Sorry Sharon! You snooze, you lose. And for Schiffer, this was just one creepy experience of many…

Britain's Crown Prosecution Service dropped the charges against Pomato when it came to his unwanted encounter with Schiffer, after deciding that he wasn’t mentally fit to stand trial. Unfortunately, this wasn’t the only stalker Schiffer dealt with. In 2004, Schiffer’s husband Matthew Vaughn entered their kitchen only to find an intruder sitting at their table.

Vaughn yelled at the man to get out—only to make a disturbing realization.

Upon noticing that the intruder was carrying a bag—and that both Schiffer and their kids were upstairs asleep—Vaughn thought that the man might have a gun. He backpedaled and decided to offer the man a tea instead. As he set the water the boil, he finally dialed the authorities. After incidents like these, Vaughn confessed that he lives in fear that Schiffer could meet the same fate that John Lennon did.

The story of Lennon’s murder is notorious—but he wasn’t the only Beatle to experience a violent encounter with an obsessed fan.

On a quiet night between Christmas and New Year’s in 1999, George Harrison was at his Friar Park home with his wife Olivia. That night, the pair faced a terrifying situation. An unknown man was in their home. The intruder, Michael Abram, was suffering from paranoid schizophrenia. He believed that he was hearing messages from God and the devil.

And then, things escalated.

Abram, who had been released from a mental health unit just five weeks earlier, came at Harrison with a kitchen knife before Olivia incapacitated him with a fireplace poker. The attack left Harrison with no fewer than 40 stab wounds, including one that pierced his lung, but he survived. Abram spent three years in a mental hospital before he was released.

Abram later apologized to Harrison—but not every story ends with an apology from the guilty party.

Megastars depend heavily on their security teams when dealing with stalkers—but what happens when the people you trust the most mess up? Jennifer Lopez had been dealing with creepy behavior from a man named Tim McLanahan for a while. He’d followed her from Vegas to L.A. and had even shown up at her house with gifts.

Lopez’s team finally applied for a permanent restraining order—but they made one fatal mistake.

When Lopez’s security team went for the permanent restraining order, they had to serve papers to McLanahan to get him to show up to court. When they couldn’t find him, they decided not to show up either. As a result, the judge dismissed the case—but there was one thing they didn’t realize. If they’d showed, they still could’ve taken steps to make sure they got what they wanted.

Since they didn’t bother, they left Lopez vulnerable to her stalker once again. Keanu Reeves knows a thing or two about dealing with a persistent stalker—well, make that stalkers.

In September of 2014, Keanu Reeves entered his home to discover an unwanted guest sitting there waiting for him. He was able to quietly call 9-1-1 and the intruder was detained—but Reeves’ nightmare was just beginning. Things took an even weirder turn three days later, when Reeves had another break-in from a different female guest.

This time, the woman took a shower and then skinny-dipped in his pool before the authorities apprehended her. Maybe he should’ve taken Robert Pattinson’s brave approach to dealing with it…

Robert Pattinson is pretty weird as Hollywood stars go—but nothing could prepare me for the way that he reacted when he came face to face with a stalker while he was filming a movie in Spain. He noticed that a fan was standing outside of his apartment every day for weeks. One night, when he was bored, he went out and asked her if she wanted to get dinner.

She agreed, but at the restaurant, Pattinson complained about his life so much that after they parted ways, she never came back to darken his doorstep. At least he noticed her—Lana Del Rey never saw her stalker coming.

In February of 2014, Lana Del Rey performed a concert in Orlando, Florida. It seemed like any other show—but there was a dangerous man with a chilling plan waiting outside. That night, Michael Hunt showed up to the Amway Center with a concert ticket and a knife. But he’d made one fatal mistake. Authorities had been keeping track of social media and clocked threats that he’d made.

Law enforcement tracked Hunt down a block from the arena where Del Rey was about to perform. He’s posted about plans to abduct the singer—but luckily, they were one step ahead. It’s actually not that uncommon for the authorities to find out about a potential threat against a celeb before they even know they have a stalker.

However, in Colin Firth’s case, he saw it coming—because he had a personal connection to him.

In 2018, a story broke that Colin Firth was being harassed and frightened by a persistent stalker, and Firth took action against him. However, that's not where the story ends. Leaked court documents showed that the stalker, Marco Brancaccia, allegedly had an affair with Firth's wife Livia Giuggioli. With that news out, Firth had to face up to an unexpected scandal.

Firth's rep later clarified that husband and wife decided to separate a few years before, and that the "affair" happened during this separation. When the pair reconciled, the affair apparently ended, and Brancaccia proceeded to threaten Firth. Brancaccia largely denies these accusations, and says that Giuggioli wanted to leave Firth for him.

It’s quite a complicated little predicament—but the story of Taylor Swift’s stalker is even more twisted.

We all know that Swifties are one of the most fervent fanbases out there—if not the most fervent. But what happens when someone is equally as passionate about hating her? Well, it leads to some seriously disturbing statements. Swift’s stalker not only had it out for her, but for her family as well—and between 2015 and 2016, he revealed the extent of his feelings in a series of terrifying emails.

A man named Frank Andrew Hoover emailed Swift’s father Scott multiple times, threatening the entire family. One read "Decided that we are going to end all the Swifts on one day because I can’t stand that virus [….] your daughter spread." Another told Scott Swift to "Enjoy the brain aneurysms and death." Gee, thanks.

But the creepy emails didn’t just come out of nowhere…

Before he turned on Taylor, Hoover wrote emails that contained more typical stalker fare, expressing his love for her. Despite the fact that she had a protective order against him, he showed up at one of her concerts and then tailed her motorcade before security intercepted him. This incident probably inspired her security team to take some extra steps—some more dramatic than others…

Did you know that when you walk into a Taylor Swift concert, it’s likely that facial recognition technology is being used to differentiate you from one of her many stalkers? Yup, that’s right, Swift has had so many creepy stalkers that her security team has taken drastic action to keep her safe from them. But it’s not just her team—Swift herself has gone to chilling lengths to protect herself from crazed fans.

Swift revealed that she’s taken to carrying heavy-duty bandages in case there’s a stabbing or shooting incident. Based on her experience, I wonder if she helped her friend Gigi Hadid when Hadid went through a stalking ordeal of her own…

Gigi Hadid’s stalker actually involved one of her good friends—and a fellow stalking victim—in his weird little game when he tweeted at Gigi about an outfit she was wearing and told her to say hi to Taylor. But Marcell Porter’s antics went far beyond tweeting about the object of his (creepy) affection. While staying at a nearby YMCA, he tried to break into her Manhattan apartment multiple times—even telling the doorman that she was the one in love with him.

Though law enforcement apprehended him, they weren’t sure they could protect Hadid…

Attorneys questioned whether Porter was fit to stand trial. It all left Hadid terrified, especially since he so clearly knew where she lived and what her routine was. Ultimately, the court sentenced Porter to three years in prison—but not before Hadid got the heck out of the building that he’d tried to get into so many times, selling her place for a cool $2.45 million.

Hadid wasn’t the only one who grew to feel unsafe in her home—but luckily, she never had to deal with what Sandra Bullock did.

By the that Joshua James Corbett began writing Sandra Bullock letters, she’d already dealt with her fair share of stalkers—including at least one who’d shown up at her home. But Corbett would prove to be far more terrifying. It began with letters, including ones where he wrote: "You are my girl!...You are my wife by law, the law of God and you belong to me and me to you." But then…it escalated.

On an early morning in June of 2014, Bullock woke up after she heard banging noises in her home. She went to investigate—but when she saw made her blood run cold. There was a black-clad figure moving up the stairs. Bullock quickly locked her bedroom door and called the authorities. Later, the transcripts of her 9-1-1 call from that day came out—and they were absolutely horrifying.

Luckily, Bullock had a safe door in her closet. She hid there as she waited for the authorities to arrive. In the call, Bullock explains that she’s hiding—and in one terrifying moment, you can hear Corbett bang on her bedroom door. Eventually, law enforcement arrived and took Corbett into custody. Soon after, they made a disturbing discovery.

As officers arrived, Corbett came down the stairs. He claimed he had been trying to tell Bullock about a lapse in her security. Corbett also yelled, “Sandy, I’m sorry! Don’t press charges” as they took him away. Not only did Corbett have letters on him that described graphic sex acts, he also have a trove of weapons at his home.

Ultimately, he pleaded no contest to the charges against him, and the court sentenced him to probation and granted Bullock a restraining order—but the story didn’t end there.

After Corbett missed a court date in 2018, officers went to his house to arrest him. They had no idea what they were walking into. He refused to come out of the guest house that he lived in on his parents’ property and threatened to shoot the officers. This led to a long standoff, and after five hours, a SWAT team entered his home. There, they found Corbett’s body. Sadly, he’d taken his own life.

Corbett’s attorney later explained that his client struggled with mental health issues, but wasn’t getting treatment or taking medication at the time of the standoff.

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Diana Spencer eventually occupied the ultra-stressful position of wife of the heir to the British throne—but even that was nothing compared to the pressure cooker she was born into. Her parents John and Frances Spencer were both high-ranking nobles desperate for a male heir. In 1960, they gave birth to their third child, a son, only for him to die ten hours later.

Diana’s birth followed a year and a half year, in July of 1961—thrusting her into the center of a family strained to the limit and still mourning for her lost brother.

Three years after Diana’s birth, the family felt some of their pressure relieved when Frances gave birth to a son, Charles—but it soon became clear that even this blessing wouldn’t alleviate the unhappiness that pervaded the Spencer family. Diana’s elder sisters left for boarding school as soon as they could, and Diana did her best to shield her little brother from the strife in her parent’s marriage—but there was no one to protect her, and the consequences were dire.

When Diana’s parents’ marriage eventually imploded, it was incredibly dramatic. However, it was only as an adult that she finally revealed the horrific details of what happened behind closed doors. Diana claimed that there was physical abuse in the relationship, as well as plenty of infidelity. Publicly, it appeared that it all fell apart when her mother left her father for another man. In reality, there was a lot more to the story than that.

When Frances left John Spencer, it started a horrible chain reaction that damaged the lives of everyone connected to them. After their divorce, John took Frances to court for custody of Diana and her siblings—and he had a devastating witness of his side: Frances’ own mother. She was his secret weapon, and she made sure that the deal was done.

At just seven, Diana’s father had her ripped away from her mother. It left her absolutely bereft.

After the custody battle, Frances Spencer could only see her kids on the weekend. Diana later recalled just how painful the situation was. She said it was incredibly hard to say goodbye to her mother after their visits, and how it broke her heart to see her mother cry every Saturday night as their time together wound down.

A series of nannies raised Diana and Charles until it was time for her to enter boarding school like her older sisters—not that she had much in common with them.

While her older sisters Sarah and Jane were good students, Diana was not academically-minded. Her parent’s divorce had disrupted her education at a pivotal point, and while she enjoyed extracurricular activities and was something of a social butterfly, she didn’t take her studies seriously. There was one thing she did have in common with her sisters, though—she would often get crushes on their ex-boyfriends.

And, as we’ll see, that interest would eventually play into a pivotal moment in her life.

When she wasn’t away at school, Diana grew up in Park House, situated on the Sandringham estate in Norfolk. The Spencers leased the house from its owner, Queen Elizabeth II. The royals frequently holidayed nearby at Sandringham House and would occasionally get together with the Spencers—an event that Diana greatly dreaded, even though she was occasional pals with Princes Andrew and Edward.

Of course, it wouldn’t the last time that a visit to the Royal Family would fill her with apprehension.

Diana and her little brother Charles had made the best of a bad situation—but in 1976, their father once again ripped their entire lives out from under them. Diana had really only ever called Norfolk home, but that year, her father moved the entire family to Northamptonshire when he remarried to Raine, Countess of Dartmouth. While Diana doted on her stepfather (and he on her), her bitter relationship with her new stepmother was like something out of Cinderella…

Diana and her siblings nicknamed their new wicked stepmother “Acid Raine”—but that was just a fraction of the vitriol they felt. During a party at Althorp, the family home, they got into a raging fight after Raine slighted Diana’s mother, who’d once been lady of the house. Diana got so mad that she nearly pushed Raine down the stairs—and later, when tragedy struck, Diana’s resentment only grew stronger.

In 1978, a friend of Diana’s asked how her father was. At that moment, a chilling premonition came over her. She told the friend: “I’ve got a strange feeling that he’s going to drop down,” and she was right. The next day, she received news that he’d collapsed after suffering a brain hemorrhage—but the nightmare was just beginning.

Raine blocked John Spencer’s children from seeing him in the hospital. While John eventually recovered, this only added fuel to the fire between the Spencer siblings and Raine.

The misery at home didn’t exactly drive Diana to try any harder at school—and eventually, it came back to bite her. After failing her O-levels (British school exams) twice, Diana dropped out of school at 16. She envisioned that she’d finally get a measure of freedom away from the family drama, but she couldn’t have been more wrong.

Diana’s parents forbade her from getting an apartment or moving to London until she was 18—so, she came up with a plan to ensure her freedom. She became a nanny to a family in Hampshire, and after two long years, finally made it to London. While there, she lived in a house with a bunch of girls, and took on a series of low-paying jobs, including more nannying, teaching dance, and even some cleaning work.

It was one of the happiest times of her life—but back home, the rest of her family were looking toward loftier pursuits.

When Diana went back to Althorp to visit family, she found her sister Sarah entertaining an unexpected guest: Prince Charles, the elder brother of Diana’s childhood playmates Andrew and Edward. One thing was clear: Sarah had a big crush. Later, a biographer asked Diana what she thought of the prince when she saw him at Althorp. Her answer was unforgettably brutal.

Diana remembered thinking, “God, what a sad man.” And she didn’t stop there.

On top of that, Diana recalled that her sister Sarah “was all over him [Charles] like a bad rash.” Diana could tell that Charles liked her, and despite her initial opinion of him, she was flattered. But still, she was only 16, and her sister was the one who was into him. So, nothing happened—that, until her 19th birthday.

By then, Sarah had taken the hint that Charles wasn’t interested in her. Still, Diana never expected what happened when she visited a friend for a weekend at the same time as Charles. They were sitting together and she remarked on his appearance at the funeral for his great-uncle, Lord Mountbatten. She told him how he’d looked lonely. His next move shocked her to the core.

As Diana put it, he practically jumped on her. Then, he demanded that she cut the weekend short and come back to Buckingham with him. She had no idea what to do—and it was only going to get more confusing from there.

While Diana fended off Charles’ advances that weekend, he asked her on an upcoming sailing trip, which she went to. Then, she went for a weekend at Balmoral, his family’s castle. When Charles wanted her to spend time with him, it both flattered and excited her. Still, it quickly became clear that she was in way over her head.

She’d never had a boyfriend before, and didn’t know what was normal. Still, when Charles called her apartment and said that he had an important question to ask, she knew that something big was on the horizon.

Throughout it all, Diana leaned on her loyal flatmates for guidance, as well as a handful of girls she’d met through Charles—and she was getting most of her advice from an unexpected source. Charles’ “friend” Camilla Parker Bowles always had a lot to say to Diana about the prince’s behavior, but it took her a while to realize just why Camilla was such an expert source.

By then, it was too late.

The next time that Diana went to see Charles, told her he’d missed her and asked her to marry him—but there was a chilling side to the romantic moment. Despite the sentimental words coming out of Charles’ mouth, there was no love behind his eyes or affection in his gestures. He even gave himself away with one unsettling sentence, telling her: “I love you so much…whatever love means.”

Diana knew that something was off—but she was simply too young and naïve to recognize the giant red flags in her midst.

The absurdity of the situation—her brief (not-so-romantic) romance with Charles, their age difference, and the fact that, if she said yes, she could one day become the Queen of England—left Diana stunned and overwhelmed. Even though they’d only seen each other maybe 13 times in total, she accepted his proposal. However, she was once again struck with a strange feeling. Diana said she knew, even then, that she’d never become queen.

She set off for Australia to enjoy a few weeks of solitude—knowing that when the press found out, they’d upend her life forever. Oh, how right she was.

Despite how unconventional their relationship had been, Diana did actually believe that Charles loved her. Unfortunately for her, he had a strange way of showing it. When she was in Australia, Charles didn’t call her once. Then, when she came back, someone from his office brought her a bouquet of flowers. She was delighted—until she realized that there was no card, which meant that he probably had nothing to do with it.

It was more likely that a conscientious secretary had orchestrated the whole thing. Sadly, this cold front was just a sad omen for what was to come.

As soon as the press realized that Diana was in Charles’ life, they descended on her like vultures. Yet few people realize just how bad it was, even back then. She still lived with flatmates, but none of them could receive calls from family because of reporters constantly calling. While Charles called Diana to relay Camilla’s complaint about four reporters outside her window, Diana had 34 outside hers.

Still, she never complained—but she did start to come up with her own ways to deal with it.

While avoiding the constant barrage of press, Diana began to learn how to avoid them—but one of her methods was not only dangerous, it also foreshadowed her dark fate. She was still a new driver, but Diana realized that one of the most effective ways of getting paparazzi off her back was to speed through a green light at the last second, leaving them in her dust.

Eventually, she reached out for help—but she was in for a sad surprise.

Long before her marriage or any of the trouble that followed, Diana got her first taste of what dealing with Buckingham Palace would be like. When she asked what could be done about the reporters stalking her, she expected a helping hand from her new family. Instead, she only found the iron fist of “the Firm.” They told her that she was on her own.

Things didn’t exactly get better when the engagement became public knowledge.

There was a flurry of activity after the Palace finally announced Charles and Diana’s engagement. In the melee, someone brought Diana to the Queen Mum’s residence. She expected a warm welcome into the family—but that wasn’t what she got. Instead, no one greeted her, and everyone asked her why she’d come there. When she moved to Buckingham Palace, things didn’t get much better…

Though Diana spent the remainder of her engagement at Buckingham Palace, her future family’s home, the Windsors basically left her to her own devices. She had to leave her job as a nursery teacher’s assistant, and more than anything, she missed her old flatmates. It was incredibly lonely—so when the chance to take part in her first public appearance came up, she jumped at the opportunity.

Charles and Diana’s first appearance as an engaged couple was at a charity ball at Goldsmiths’ Hall, where she met another iconic princess—. Keeping track of all the social rules and mores overwhelmed Diana, and Grace sensed it. She pulled Diana aside and listened as she poured her heart out—and then offered a grave warning. 

Though she said it as a joke, when Grace told Diana “Don’t worry…it gets worse,” there was definitely a dark truth to it for both of them.

Living in Buckingham during the engagement brought Diana closer to Charles—but not in the way she wanted. In fact, their proximity set her up for a devastating surprise. Once, she overheard him on the phone telling Camilla “Whatever happens, I will always love you.” She also quickly caught on to their nicknames for each other, Gladys and Fred, when she found out that he’d had a bracelet made for her engraved with those names.

She was stunned. For the first time, she began to think she should get out—so she turned to her sisters.

When Diana told her older sisters that her fiancé was in love with someone else, their reaction was unusual. They laughed and told her that it was too late, so she better get used to it. It seems a bit brutal, but Diana knew they were right, and that the only way to get through it would be to make jokes about it. Still, it led to some terrible tension between Diana and Charles.

The wedding approached, and for Diana, there was no turning back. She remembered the week of the event as exhausting—and it brought out a dark side in her. That week, she began bingeing and purging as a way to deal with the stress and pressure. Sadly, this wouldn’t be her last time battling the eating disorder.

On July 29, 1981, Diana Spencer walked down the aisle at St. Paul’s Cathedral to face Charles, Prince of Wales. She was just a little late, her voluminous gown having slowed her down in the carriage on the way there and during her walk up the aisle. She said her vows in front of an audience of 3,500 guests, with two million spectators waiting outside to greet the couple—not to mention the estimated 750 million watching at home.

The pressure had been on before, but it was nothing compared to this.

As she walked up the aisle, Diana forgot all the days she’d spent crying that week and instead focused on the extravagant ceremony unfolding in front of her. In that moment, her thoughts of how in love she was with her new husband overwhelmed every ounce of fear and apprehension—even the knowledge that Camilla was sitting there in the church, watching them.

The ceremony looked like a fairy tale—but it had more than its fair share of stumbles. While saying her vows, Diana accidentally reversed the order of Charles’s first two names. She wasn’t alone, with Charles making an error of his own in the vows—but that wasn’t all. There was one thing that set apart their vows from the royals that had come before them.

As a couple, they had requested to omit the vow where the bride promises to “obey” the groom. It was a progressive choice, and one that caused a bit of a scandal—an early taste of what was to come.

All the trappings of romance surrounded them, convincing Diana that “happily ever after” was on the horizon. Sadly, it was all an illusion—and during their honeymoon, it came crashing down. During the first leg of their trip, Diana realized that Charles was more interested in the books he’d brought. On top of that, they were rarely alone for more than a moment.

Diana’s bulimia came roaring back, and people could tell that something was wrong with her—but they had no idea just how bad it was.

For the first three months of their marriage, Diana became obsessed with Camilla, and dreamed about her every night. The fact that Charles flaunted their connection didn’t help. Finally, Diana found some reprieve when she got pregnant in October of 1981. Her pregnancy became a fantastic distraction from her situation, and it allowed her to settle a bit more into her new role as the Princess of Wales.

Princess Diana’s pregnancy wasn’t easy on her, and it ravaged her already-fragile body. Just a few months into her pregnancy, Diana gave herself and the court the shock of a lifetime when she suffered a horrible fall down the stairs. Luckily, she and the fetus were fine. However, few remember the dark truth about her “accident.” 

Years later, Diana confessed that she’d purposely thrown herself down the stairs that day after a fight with Charles…but the story didn’t end there.

Charles had stormed off to go riding after their fight, sparking Diana’s decision to throw herself down the stairs. While Queen Elizabeth was absolutely horrified by the incident, Charles’ reaction was devastatingly brutal. He didn’t appear worried at all and he completely dismissed Diana. Her cries for help were falling on deaf ears—and it was only going to get worse.

As the months of her pregnancy wore on, Diana couldn’t take it anymore, and asked for an induction to be scheduled. Their son Prince William was born healthy and happy in June of 1982—but Diana’s bliss as a new mother was cut short by post-partum depression and the growing divide between her and her in-laws. Diana recalls her pain was like a deep abyss—and as a result, the years after giving birth to William almost went by in a blur.

In 1984, Princess Diana and Prince Charles were pregnant once again—and this time, everything was different. She wasn’t as sick, and in the final months of her pregnancy, Diana and Charles were closer than they’d ever been. However, she was hiding a secret from him. Diana knew that Charles wanted a girl—but she’d seen on the scans that she was carrying a boy.

Regardless, she thought that this happy period would carry them through the birth of their second child. Oh, how wrong she was.

The final six weeks of Diana’s pregnancy marked the high point of her marriage to Charles. Sadly, it all came to a crashing halt. When their son Prince Harry was born, Charles retreated from Diana once more. He even expressed his disappointment to the queen, who snapped back that he should be happy to have a healthy child.

Does that mean that Queen Elizabeth was on Diana’s side? Not quite…

Princess Diana and Queen Elizabeth didn’t get along, per se, but according to Diana, there was a form of mutual respect between the two while she was still with Charles. Unfortunately, the queen attributed all of their marital problems to Diana’s bulimia, and claimed that it was the source of Charles’ issues. If only she’d known what her son was doing behind closed doors...

Diana and Charles’ fights got worse and worse—until they took an unforgettably disturbing turn. When Charles would refuse to acknowledge her or what she was expressing, she would turn to self-harm, often cutting herself in front of him. Charles would either ignore her or tell her that she was “crying wolf”—but in reality, Diana knew exactly what she needed.

The pressures and demands on Diana were intense, and she acted out with self-harm and bulimia. When she talked to doctors and psychologists, they recommended pills. But through it all, Diana thought that if she could just get some rest, she might be able to pull herself back from the brink. Sadly, those closest to her ignored her pleas for help—and her breakneck schedule of royal engagements continued. While she loved her charity work, everything else filled her with dread.

It was five years into their marriage, and Diana was living on tenterhooks. Finally, something drove her over the edge. When she realized that Charles was with Camilla again, it absolutely devastated her. But this time, instead of falling in on herself, she sought out happiness and reprieve amongst the misery.

Diana watched as Charles and Camilla reignited their romance—and thought “two can play at that game.” Her attention fell on James Hewitt, a member of the Household Cavalry, and her riding instructor. But this wasn’t just a passing fancy. Diana and Hewitt’s romance went from fling to long-term affair—and, of course, led to its own share of troubles for the princess.

Of course, Charles wasn’t the only source of her problems—his whole family was. Even though she generally got along with everyone, the press played her off all of them, which only increased the tension. When Sarah Ferguson came on the scene, they had a particularly icy relationship…that is, until the moment a horrible accident brought them together.

Princes Charles and Andrew were on a skiing trip in Switzerland with their wives and entourages in 1988. Fergie, who was pregnant, came back shaken after a fall and Diana was helping her to bed when they overheard an aide mention an avalanche. They both froze in fear, as their husbands were still out there on the mountain.

Finally, after a tense few moments, Charles called to report that he and his brother were fine—but sadly, that they’d lost their friend Major Hugh Lindsay. At that moment, Diana sprung into action.

The accident left Charles so shocked that Diana took charge of the situation and began the arrangements to return Lindsay’s body to his wife—but as the days wore on, the tragedy deepened. Lindsay had been married for less than a year, and his young wife Sarah was six or seven months pregnant. Diana took care of the funeral arrangements and took care of Sarah through it all—but for the royal family, the worst was yet to come.

Diana and Charles thought the nightmare of the accident was over—but it was actually just beginning. The authorities began to investigate the incident to see if they could charge with negligence Charles over it, as he’d been the one in charge of the party who went skiing. Ultimately, they decided not to charge him—but they did establish that his group had, without a doubt, caused the avalanche with left Lindsay and another skier dead.

How did Charles take out his stress and grief over the situation? On his long-suffering wife, of course. At first, Diana fell back into her old habits—bingeing and purging—but finally, she began to crawl out of the hole she was in. A friend called and gave her an ultimatum: get treatment for the bulimia or I’ll tell the world about it. And that’s exactly what Diana did.

Seeing a doctor and dealing with the bulimia replenished Diana and gave her the strength to stand up to her husband. Not just that—she finally stood up to Camilla, too. Usually, Diana avoided her like the plague, but when she got the invite to Camilla’s sisters 40th in 1989, she knew she couldn’t let Charles go alone. After letting Charles and Camilla have their time together, she entered the room where they were and asked Charles and his friend to leave.

Then, she finally confronted the woman who’d haunted her for the past ten years.

Diana was extraordinarily calm as she sat down in front of Camilla and politely told her that she knew exactly what was happening between her and her husband. She didn’t make any extraordinary demands. All that she asked was for them to not treat her like an idiot. With that, she left—with an extraordinary weight off her shoulders. While it did little to stem Charles and Camilla’s affair, it was a massive step (the first of many) for Diana.

Bulimia had served to isolate Diana from not just her husband and everyone else around her—but from humanity as a whole. When she came out of it, she finally was able to make connections, and became the woman that everyone began to call the “People’s Princess.” She began to spend her time talking with people—be it on the street, or in a cancer ward—and listening to their stories.

And in the process, she changed herself and the world around her.

Diana was one of very few public figures to stand up for AIDS victims early in the epidemic. Though most people were afraid of touching people with HIV and AIDS patients, Diana knew better. In a famous incident, the Princess not only shook hands with an ill man, but also hugged him. In a heartbreaking speech, she revealed the reason why she stood up for AIDS patients in particular.

Diana said that, “HIV does not make people dangerous to know. You can shake their hands and give them a hug. Heaven knows they need it.” It was a groundbreaking moment for a community stricken by AIDS.

At this point in the story, as Diana found her voice, you’d expect that things would finally turn around for her—but at that very moment, a storm of drama blew threw her life like nothing she’d seen before. Over the course of a few months in 1992, Diana had the horrid details of her personal life exposed in the tabloids…and the timing couldn’t have been worse.

In March of 1992, Princess Diana lost her father, John Spencer. Upon John’s death, Charles became the 9th Earl Spencer and received the family home at Althorp. Just two days after the loss of his father, Charles tossed his stepmother Raine out of their house—but he wasn’t working alone.

While Charles kicked out Raine and fired her staff, his security made sure that she didn’t take anything from the house. After all, it was all supposed to belong to the Spencer name. Then, Diana added insult to injury. The Princess kept watch as Raine’s maid packed her clothing—and when she noticed a monogrammed “S” on the luggage, she claimed the set as a Spencer item, and told the maid to put everything in garbage bags.

Charles then kicked the bags down the stairs toward Raine. Jeez, guys. Tell me how you REALLY feel.

Keep in mind that before 1992, all of her story—the cheating, the bulimia, the depression, the suicide attempts—had been kept under tight wraps (though the press did know that the marriage was rife with problems). That year, Diana finally decided to expose the truth about her life as the Princess of Wales. In June, the Sunday Times began publishing passages from the book Diana, Her True Story—with headlines like “Diana driven to five suicide bids by ‘uncaring’ Charles.”

Finally, her story was out in the open—and people went wild over it.

Diana had never expected to get out of her marriage to Charles, and she’d vowed to herself and her in-laws to never end it—but the separation of Prince Andrew and Sarah Ferguson the year before had shown her that there was, indeed, a way out. The publication of the first parts of the book forced the palace’s hand, and Diana and Charles sat down and made a grave decision.

After just over a decade of marriage, Princess Diana and Prince Charles officially separated.

Diana had wanted to tell her story in her own words. However, shortly after passages from Diana, Her True Story came out, someone else exposed what happened behind closed doors without Diana’s permission. A tape recording of a conversation that Diana had purportedly had with childhood friend James Gilbey in 1989 came out, which implied that the pair were having an affair.

In the tape, she expressed fear that she was pregnant, and he called her “darling” and “squidgy”—hence, reporters naming the incident “Squidgygate.” But in terms of secret tapes, the worst was yet to come.

Princess Diana weathered the storm of “Squidgygate”—but reporters had yet another disturbing secret tape in store. This time, it was a recording of a conversation between Charles and Camilla from 1989. The conversation was 8 minutes long, quite explicit, and included an infamous exchange where Charles tells Camilla he wishes he could live in her trousers (maybe as a tampon). Yikes…

The firestorm of controversy was stiflingly intense and behind the scenes, both Diana’s and Charles’ staffers waged a secret PR war, hoping to gain public sympathy—but they weren’t the only ones involved. Prince Philip wrote to Diana, expressing his hope for reconciliation. Diana had also done her fair share of writing, having penned letters to the Queen Mother.

No one knows exactly what was in them, but they were so shocking that Princess Margaret, Charles’ aunt, decided to burn them in 1993. Well, there was even more shock to come…

The press was unrelenting when it came to Diana, and came up with name after name that they linked her to in the press. Diana fought back in the form of a tell-all interview with Martin Bashir, where she provided the infamous quote "Well, there were three of us in this marriage, so it was a bit crowded” while talking about her husband’s affairs.

After everything they’d gone through, it was the final straw.

In December of 1995, the Queen wrote a letter to both Diana and Charles, asking that they divorce. They both agreed—but that didn’t mean that the mud-slinging was over. Instead of an argument over custody or money, it became a battle over Diana’s title of Her Royal Highness. Months before, Prince Philip had purportedly threatened to take it away from her. Her comeback was unforgettable. She told him: “My title is a lot older than yours, Philip.”

While the Queen was fine with her keeping it, Charles insisted that they take it away from her. However, she had an unexpected ally on her side.

Diana had showered her sons with love and affection through their entire childhood—and it showed. They were utterly devoted to her, and when she lost her title, Prince William promised that he’d restore it when he became king. Let’s see if he keeps that promise…

The battle over titles was nothing compared to the rumor that Diana allegedly started during the divorce. Many believe that she spread a story that Charles was involved with his personal assistant, Tiggy Legge-Bourke, and that she’d aborted a secret love child. She reportedly even went up to Tiggy at a party and said something along the lines of “Sorry about the baby.”

It was an ugly period—but the divorce didn’t actually make it any better.

When the courts finalized Diana’s divorce from Charles, many expected her to return to her family home of Althorp—yes, the one she and her brother Charles had wrested from their “evil” stepmother. But in the end, Diana chose not to live there, and instead spent the rest of her life in a set of apartments in Kensington Palace.

Diana always had a cadre of psychics and astrologers as part of her entourage—and although there were some predictions that she took with a grain of salt, there were others that she obviously believed. Before her divorce, she confessed that a friend told her that she’d “marry somebody who’s foreign, [or who has] foreign blood.”

While Diana didn’t remarry, the friend was right, in a way.

After her divorce, Diana dated British-Pakistani heart surgeon Hasnat Khan—and this wasn’t just a simple rebound. She was real-deal madly in love with him…but her circumstances presented a host of problems for the budding romance. Khan was a very private man, and Diana had to straight-up lie to keep their relationship secret. At first, it worked—but then, it became to much to bear.

They even contemplated marriage, but Khan knew that the media attention would completely take over and ruin their lives. But there may have been more to the story than just that. Diana’s butler reported that her mother disapproved of her being in a relationship with a Muslim man, and that it caused a rift between mother and daughter that was never healed.

There are different accounts as to who broke up with who, but ultimately, the pair split up in the summer of 1997 after nearly two years of dating. Later, friends shared that they considered Khan the love of Diana’s life—but even if that is true, she did rebound from him quite quickly.

Diana took her sons for a summer vacation in 1997 to the South of France, where they were guests of Egyptian billionaire Mohamed Al-Fayed. While on the trip, she met his son Dodi, and they later began seeing each other after the trip ended. They went on a couple of cruises together, where paparazzi caught them in an embrace.

The steamy photos not only started a sensation—they also set off the dire sequences of events that concluded with Diana’s dark end.

When the press realized that Diana had a boyfriend, they went into overdrive following them around France. To avoid them, Diana and Dodi changed their dinner reservations and even sent out a decoy car to give them some cover—but all their planning couldn’t prevent the tragedy that loomed ahead. After the decoy car left the Paris Ritz, the hotel’s head of security, Henri Paul, got behind the wheel of a Mercedes meant to secret shuttle them to Dodi’s apartment.

They never made it there.

Just after midnight on the morning of August 31, 1997, the car carrying Diana, Dodi, Henri Paul, and Trevor Rees-Jones, a member of the Fayed family’s security team approached the Pont de l’Alma tunnel. As it entered the tunnel, a number of motorcycles carrying photographers swarmed the car—which never made out the other side.

The car crashed in the tunnel, bouncing between walls and pillars before coming to a stop. It looked horrible—but the reality was even worse.

While some of the photographers who’d been chasing them rushed to help, others just took pictures. As the authorities arrived, they split their time between investigating the crash and immediately arresting the offending photographers and confiscating their rolls of film. Others attended to the car’s passengers—two of whom were still conscious, but in rough shape.

Both Rees-Jones and Diana were conscious when ambulances arrived 15 minutes after the crash. She was speaking, occasionally saying “Oh my god.” A doctor on the scene thought she was in shock—but the truth was so much more devastating. Soon after EMTs took her out of the car, she went into cardiac arrest. They did their best to revive her, and they did, but when she got the hospital, the damage was much worse than they’d thought.

About three hours after her initial rescue, she was pronounced dead. The aftermath was heartbreaking.

When Diana died, it felt like the whole world was grieving. As Prince Charles and her sisters rushed to France to retrieve Diana’s body, mourners left more than a million bouquets outside the gates of Kensington Palace. Over the days, the pile grew to be five feet tall in places. The public mourning at the funeral was equally prolific—and as the details of what happened emerged, the tragedy deepened.

After he initially received the news from France, Princes Charles had to wake William and Harry up before dawn to break the news to them about their mother. While the royal family expressed their grief, they were criticized for remaining tight-lipped about the tragedy—a reaction they later explained was part of an effort to protect William and Harry’s privacy.

Amidst the royal family’s polarizing response to Diana’s death in 1997, it was William’s grandfather, Prince Philip, who convinced William and Harry to walk behind her coffin with a few heartbreaking sentences. When the young princes were apprehensive, Philip reportedly told his eldest grandson, “If you don’t walk, I think you’ll regret it later. If I walk, will you walk with me?”

At the funeral, Philip, William, Harry, Charles, and Diana’s brother followed the bier all the way from Westminster Abbey to Buckingham Palace, as millions watched. Still, people wanted answers for what had happened…

Following Diana’s death, a number of investigations began looking into the causes of the crash. What they found was fairly predictable—speed the presence of paparazzi were factors—but there was one surprise. The driver of the car, Henri Paul, had both alcohol and prescription medication in his system.

While most investigations have blamed this for the crash, others haven’t been so quick to believe…

For nearly a decade, Mohamed Al-Fayed (the father of Diana’s romantic partner Dodi Fayed, who also perished in the crash) maintained that his son's death was the result of a murder plot by MI6. He even pressed for further investigation, including a demand for the release of the NSA’s file on Diana. While Al-Fayed eventually gave up on his quest, it’s not because he didn’t stop believing—he just decided to let it go for William and Harry’s sake.

Of course, his isn’t the only conspiracy about Diana’s dark end—and Diana even had a few of her own during her life.

Princess Diana always had suspicions that “the Firm” was out to get her—and for good reason. So, occasionally, she had her own staff investigate incidents…and one of their more surprising findings was about the leak of the tape that came to be known as “Squidgygate.” After her death, one of Diana’s staff stated that he’d come to the conclusion that the “Establishment,” as he called them, had leaked the tape to embarrass her…but that was far from the most disturbing allegation about them.

There had long been one constant in the marriage between Diana and Charles—and her name was Camilla. However, in 1993, Diana began to suspect he was hiding an even darker secret. As mentioned earlier, she believed that he was also having an affair with his personal assistant (and their children’s former nanny) Tiggy Legge-Bourke, and that he wanted to marry her—but that’s not all.

Diana also believed that Charles wanted the firm to have her killed, so that he could “make the path clear for him” to be with Tiggy.

Diana lived in fear of the Firm, expressing her suspicions that they were going to take her out multiple times—and it all stemmed back to one incident, years before. In the early 90s, Diana confessed that between 1984 and 1986 (before her affair with James Hewitt), she was deeply in love with someone. Immediately, people began to speculate you—and as they put the puzzle pieces together, it all became clear.

In 1986, Diana’s security team made the decision to transfer her bodyguard Barry Mannakee to another detail—and the reason why was scandalous. His managers had determined that his relationship with the princess was “inappropriate,” leading to speculation years down the line that he had been the man Diana loved between 84 and 86.

While Diana never named the man she’d said she’d been in love with, she’d gone as far as to say that she’d been ready to “give all this up [and] just to go off and live with him." While her friends denied that she’d had an affair with Mannakee, the things she’d said about him over the years led people to suspect otherwise—but their story had an unbelievably tragic ending.

About a year after he stopped being part of Diana’s security team, Barry Mannakee died in a car crash. Immediately, Diana had her suspicions—and they fell directly on her in-laws, or more specifically, the Firm. While an investigation found that it had been an accident, Diana continued to believe for years afterward that the Firm had been involved in her alleged former lover’s death.

He wasn’t the only former lover that people later speculated about, either…

Princess Diana’s earliest confirmed affair was with James Hewitt—but few know just how tragic their story was. They were actually together for five years before Diana ended their relationship in 1991. Hewitt’s reaction was devastating, and he later confessed that he contemplated taking his own life when it ended—but his story didn’t end there.

In 2003, Hewitt began to try and sell a bunch of letters that Diana had written him during their romance for £10 million—but by doing do, he had crossed the wrong person. Diana’s old friend (and occasional frenemy) Sarah Ferguson came forward to chastise Hewitt, calling it a horrible betrayal. As if that wasn’t bad enough, it reignited rumors that Hewitt was Prince Harry’s real father—despite the fact that his affair with Diana began years after Harry’s birth.

Prince Harry, of course, has faced his own problems since his mother’s death.

In January 2020, Diana's youngest son Prince Harry abruptly announced that he and his wife, Canadian actress Meghan Markle, were taking a step back from the royal family. The decision made headlines all over the world, but after the initial shock wore off, Harry's reasons became clear. The press began to wonder if Harry was retreating from public life to make sure that his child wouldn't experience the kind of tragic loss he went through.

Finally, after months of speculation, they set the record straight.

Like Diana, Harry's wife Meghan has suffered under the royal family and the press. She even revealed that when she approached the Firm with the problems she was having and told them that she “didn’t want to be alive anymore,” they refused to help her. My, how history repeats itself. During the same interview, Harry didn’t hold back about the problems he had with his own father, complaining about how cold Charles had been after Diana’s passing, and how they were now barely on speaking terms.

Charles? Cold? Surprising. Well, it all started so much earlier…

A month before his wedding to Diana, Charles left for a trip. At the airport that day, photographers caught Diana crying at the airport as he bade her farewell—but there’s an even more heartbreaking side to the iconic photograph. That was the day that Diana gave up trying to come between Charles and Camilla. When she heard them on the phone together that day, she knew she could pick up the extension, but instead, just left them to their call.

As Diana later said, “It just broke my heart”—and it was, sadly, a wound that never healed.

Sources: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, , 22, 23, 24, 25, 26

In 1924, Ince boarded a cruise, looking forward to celebrating his 44th birthday—and he wasn’t the only famous one on board. The owner of the yacht was none other than the media tycoon William Randolph Hearst, and actors Charlie Chaplin and Marion Davies also made the list.

Now, the story surrounding Ince’s death seems accurate. Apparently, after dinner, he got sick with indigestion, left the yacht to seek medical help, and eventually ended up dying from heart failure. However, in the aftermath, the rumor mill began working overtime.

Shockingly, some claimed that Ince had been murdered. According to this rumor, William Randolph Hearst had tried to shoot Charlie Chaplin for canoodling with his mistress Marion Davies—but mistakenly shot Thomas Ince instead. It was a wild theory, but those who believed in it suggested there’d been a cover-up.

After the supposed incident, stories began circulating that Hearst had not only given Ince’s widow a hefty trust fund, but also offered a witness a lifetime employment contract. In addition to these alleged pay-offs, Chaplin’s valet said that he saw Ince transported on a stretcher, with his head “bleeding from a bullet wound.” Of course, those who believed the rumors took this “evidence”—and ran with it.

Though many of these claims have been disproved, all of this speculation truly transformed Thomas Ince’s legacy—the scandal often overshadowing his illustrious career.

In 1835, The New York Sun published a series claiming astronomer Sir John Herschel had discovered life on the moon. Readers were told about strange animals, lush landscapes, and winged humanoids called "man-bats." The series became known as the Great Moon Hoax.

The story arrived when the public was fascinated by science and exploration. It borrowed Herschel's real name and claimed connections to a scientific journal, making it sound credible. Readers embraced the fantasy, and newspapers abroad reprinted it.

P.T. Barnum knew people would pay to see something incredible, even if they suspected a trick. His famous Feejee Mermaid was supposedly a bizarre sea creature. In reality, it was made from a monkey's upper body attached to a fish tail.

Barnum's museum mixed real curiosities with obvious hoaxes. That made it difficult for visitors to know what was authentic. The uncertainty was part of the fun, and enormous crowds kept coming.

In 1848, sisters Maggie and Kate Fox claimed mysterious knocking sounds were coming from their family home in New York. The raps appeared to answer questions from visitors. Their demonstrations helped ignite the modern Spiritualist movement.

Spiritualism grew rapidly as families searched for comfort after losing loved ones. Maggie later publicly demonstrated how some of the famous raps had been produced using her joints. She later recanted, but the episode revealed how strongly people wanted the messages to be real.

In the 1860s, photographer William Mumler began producing portraits that appeared to show ghostly figures beside living subjects. Customers sometimes recognized the shapes as deceased relatives. For believers in Spiritualism, the photographs seemed like physical proof.

Other photographers suspected tricks such as double exposure. Mumler was charged with fraud in 1869, but prosecutors failed to prove exactly how the images were made. His most famous photograph showed Mary Todd Lincoln apparently accompanied by Abraham Lincoln's spirit.

In 1869, workers near Cardiff, New York uncovered what appeared to be a 10-foot petrified man. Crowds rushed to see the supposed ancient giant. It had actually been created and secretly buried by George Hull and his cousin William Newell.

The giant appealed to people who believed biblical accounts of ancient giants were literal history. Hull reportedly devised the hoax after arguing about those passages. Even as experts questioned the figure, many visitors still wanted the discovery to be genuine.

In the early 1870s, Philip Arnold and John Slack claimed to have found a secret diamond field in the American West. They showed investors bags of real gems while keeping the supposed location hidden. Wealthy financiers quickly became interested.

Arnold and Slack secretly planted gemstones at the site to strengthen the illusion. Stories of western mineral wealth made the discovery seem plausible. The fear of missing a fortune encouraged investors to ignore obvious warning signs.

In 1912, fossil fragments known as Piltdown Man appeared to reveal an ancient human ancestor. The remains seemed to combine a human skull with an ape-like jaw. For decades, the specimen influenced discussions about human evolution.

Piltdown supported the popular idea that a large brain evolved early in human ancestry. Later discoveries made the fossil look increasingly suspicious. Testing eventually revealed a human skull combined with an orangutan jaw and artificially altered teeth.

In 1917, cousins Elsie Wright and Frances Griffiths took photographs that appeared to show fairies near their home in England. The images eventually reached Arthur Conan Doyle. The Sherlock Holmes creator publicly defended them as genuine.

Doyle's reputation gave the photographs remarkable credibility. Decades later, the women admitted most of the pictures had been staged. His belief showed how easily wishful thinking can overpower skepticism, even in someone famous for creating a master detective.

In 1919, Charles Ponzi promoted an investment scheme supposedly based on international postal reply coupons. He promised massive returns in very short periods. Early investors were actually being paid with money from newer investors.

As investors received impressive payouts, word spread quickly. Seeing friends make money made the opportunity feel safer and more legitimate. Ponzi's name eventually became synonymous with this entire type of fraud.

In 1925, Victor Lustig posed as a French government official and claimed the Eiffel Tower was going to be dismantled. He invited scrap-metal dealers to a luxury hotel and presented the deal as highly confidential. He even arranged tours to make the story look official.

Lustig targeted dealer André Poisson, who hoped the contract would elevate his status. Lustig even hinted that he expected a bribe, making his fake government role seem more believable. Poisson paid and apparently stayed quiet out of embarrassment.

In the early 1970s, author Clifford Irving claimed Howard Hughes had secretly authorized an autobiography. Irving produced forged letters and invented meetings to convince publisher McGraw-Hill. The project seemed like an extraordinary publishing exclusive.

Irving relied on Hughes being so reclusive that he would never publicly challenge the story. Instead, Hughes joined a telephone press conference and denied ever working with him. The fraud collapsed soon afterward.

In 1983, German magazine Stern announced the discovery of Adolf Hitler's supposed private diaries. The documents promised an unprecedented look inside one of history's most notorious figures. Publishers and journalists rushed to secure access.

The excitement of landing a historic exclusive pushed skepticism aside. Testing soon found postwar materials in the supposedly old documents. Forger Konrad Kujau eventually admitted creating them.

Bernie Madoff built a reputation as a respected and well-connected Wall Street figure. His investment operation seemed to produce remarkably steady returns. Its exclusivity made getting in feel like a privilege.

Madoff's reputation and consistent results made the operation seem trustworthy. In reality, investor money was being used to support a massive Ponzi scheme. It collapsed in 2008, and Madoff was later sentenced to 150 years in prison.

These scams looked different, but they all exploited the same weakness. People wanted lost fortunes, supernatural proof, secret history, or effortless wealth badly enough to overlook warning signs. The easiest lie to sell is often the one someone already hopes is true.

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Sources: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14

Sit down at an American restaurant and there's a good chance a large glass of iced tap water will appear without anyone ordering it or paying for it. Refills may keep coming automatically throughout the meal. That's hardly universal around the world, where diners may be expected to order bottled water, pay for it separately, or specifically request tap water. Americans barely register the service, but visitors frequently do.

An American king-size mattress measures roughly 76 inches wide, giving two sleepers an amount of personal territory that can feel almost diplomatic. Large bedrooms and hotel rooms make enormous beds practical, and they're common enough that Americans don't necessarily consider them extravagant. Visitors from countries where bedrooms themselves are smaller may wonder why two people require a sleeping surface nearly as wide as some people's entire room.

At some point, a closet stopped being a cupboard and became somewhere you could physically enter. Walk-in closets are a selling feature in many American homes, particularly in newer suburban construction. Some are large enough for shelving, drawers, shoe racks, mirrors, and seating. To somebody accustomed to a wardrobe against the bedroom wall, dedicating an entire room-like space exclusively to clothing can look less like storage and more like a private boutique.

One purchased drink can somehow produce four drinks by the end of an American meal. Free refills on fountain soda, iced tea, and sometimes coffee are so ingrained in casual dining that Americans may be genuinely surprised when traveling abroad and discovering that every Coke appears separately on the bill. It's a small perk, but one that makes American restaurant service feel unusually abundant.

Americans don't merely air-condition their houses. They air-condition restaurants, offices, shopping malls, supermarkets, movie theaters, hotels, schools, cars, and practically anything else with walls. In 2020, air conditioning was used in 88% of US households, and nearly every new single-family home completed in 2024 had central air. Visitors from countries where residential AC remains less common can go from admiring the cool air to carrying a sweater in July surprisingly quickly.

Few American kitchen appliances confuse foreign visitors faster than the machine hiding underneath the sink. Flip a switch and food scraps disappear into a loud spinning grinder connected to the drain. Garbage disposals aren't universal even within the United States, but they're far more familiar there than in many other countries. To someone who's always scraped every scrap into a trash or compost bin, deliberately putting food down the sink can feel completely wrong.

Why buy six rolls of paper towels when you can buy 18? Warehouse clubs and supercenters have made bulk purchasing a major part of American shopping culture, particularly for suburban families with cars and storage space. USDA data show warehouse clubs and supercenters taking an increasingly large share of US food-at-home spending. Giant detergent jugs and cereal boxes make perfect sense when you also have a giant pantry, basement, garage, or SUV to accommodate them.

An attached garage provides an oddly specific comfort that becomes easy to take for granted: you can drive home in rain, snow, or freezing temperatures, close the garage door, and walk into the house without going outside again. It also provides storage for bikes, tools, holiday decorations, sports equipment, and approximately 47 boxes nobody has opened since moving. Two-car garages remain especially common in newer American detached homes.

An American refrigerator can look less like an appliance and more like a pantry with electricity. Full-size models commonly provide generous refrigerator and freezer space, and larger kitchens make room for side-by-side doors, French-door designs, and extra freezer drawers. For visitors accustomed to compact refrigerators and more frequent grocery trips, the idea of fitting a week's groceries, leftovers, drinks, condiments, and a birthday cake into one machine can feel remarkably extravagant.

Americans like ice enough that many refrigerators simply manufacture it continuously. Open the freezer and cubes are waiting; press a glass against the dispenser and ice may pour directly through the door. In countries where people mostly fill trays manually or don't use much ice at all, dedicating part of a major appliance to making an endless supply can seem almost comically indulgent. In the US, running out of ice is treated like an appliance malfunction.

Throwing wet clothes into another machine and getting them back warm and dry an hour later doesn't strike most Americans as luxurious. Yet line-drying remains much more common in many countries, especially where homes are smaller or energy costs are higher. Roughly four out of five American homes have a clothes dryer. That turns laundry into a mostly indoor, weather-independent chore rather than something that requires racks, clotheslines, sunshine, or patience.

The dishwasher occupies a strangely humble place in American life. It's expensive machinery designed specifically to save people from standing at a sink, yet in many homes it's treated as a completely ordinary kitchen feature. Smaller apartments and kitchens elsewhere may not have room for one, while hand-washing remains common in many countries. Americans are more likely to argue about who forgot to unload it than marvel that it exists.

American laundry appliances can swallow a surprising amount of clothing. Full-size washers, especially top-loaders, are designed around relatively large loads, making it possible to wash towels, bedding, jeans, and piles of everyday clothing without dividing everything into several tiny cycles. Visitors accustomed to compact European or Asian machines may find the capacity almost absurd. Americans, meanwhile, still somehow manage to wait until every towel in the house is dirty.

A routine American supermarket can be the size of a serious commercial building. Produce departments, bakeries, butcher counters, pharmacies, deli sections, frozen aisles, prepared meals, household cleaners, pet supplies, and dozens of versions of the same cereal may all exist under one roof. Visitors expecting a neighborhood grocery shop can be overwhelmed by the sheer scale. Choosing toothpaste shouldn't require a strategy, but sometimes it does.

Finding a bathroom in an American shopping mall, department store, big-box retailer, supermarket, gas station, or restaurant often doesn't involve pulling out a coin. Access certainly isn't perfect everywhere, especially in major cities, but free customer restrooms remain common enough that Americans often assume one will be available. Visitors familiar with pay toilets can be pleasantly surprised that a bathroom break usually doesn't require finding exact change first.

A suburban American restaurant can have more land devoted to parked cars than to the restaurant itself. Huge complimentary lots surround shopping centers, supermarkets, gyms, movie theaters, and big-box stores, making parking feel like a basic part of the transaction. In dense cities overseas, drivers may expect garages, meters, permits, or serious competition for curb space. Americans can become annoyed if the free spot is merely a little too far from the entrance.

America didn't invent every drive-through service, but it certainly embraced the concept. Fast food is only the beginning. Depending on the town, drivers can collect prescriptions, deposit checks, buy coffee, pick up groceries, and access other services without leaving the vehicle. The convenience makes more sense in a country built heavily around automobile travel. The American dream, apparently, includes completing errands without ever unbuckling the seat belt.

American homes really can be enormous by international standards, especially newer detached houses in suburbs. The median new single-family home completed in 2024 had more than 2,100 square feet of floor space. That doesn't mean every American lives in a huge house, but it helps explain why visitors may be startled by ordinary homes containing several bedrooms, family rooms, basements, offices, garages, and storage areas that would count as separate rooms elsewhere.

Waiting for somebody to finish showering isn't a universal American childhood experience because many houses have more than one bathroom. Newer homes may include an ensuite for the primary bedroom, another full bathroom for children or guests, and an additional half-bath downstairs. Census data show hundreds of thousands of recently completed single-family homes with three or more bathrooms. Visitors from places where an entire household commonly shares one can find that surprisingly luxurious.

American kitchens often assume that cooking requires room to spread out. Long countertops, central islands, double sinks, numerous cabinets, full-size appliances, and pantry storage are common aspirations, particularly in suburban homes. Visitors used to compact urban kitchens can be surprised that a kitchen itself becomes a gathering space. Americans may complain that the island isn't big enough while standing beside a countertop larger than someone else's entire kitchenette.

Many Americans simply turn on the shower and expect hot water to remain available until they're finished. Standard showerheads can use 2.5 gallons per minute, and EPA estimates that showering accounts for nearly 17% of indoor residential water use. In regions where water shortages, smaller heaters, high energy prices, or different infrastructure encourage short showers, leisurely American shower habits can look genuinely luxurious. The greatest danger is somebody else using all the hot water first.

American restaurant portions have become famous internationally for a reason. Entrées may arrive with multiple side dishes, oversized drinks, baskets of bread, and enough food to comfortably exceed what one person intended to eat. Portion sizes vary enormously by restaurant, but abundance is part of the appeal at many casual chains. Visitors sometimes discover that ordering an appetizer and entrée was an error only after the plates start arriving.

The giant portions make considerably more sense once you understand the box. Asking a server to package unfinished food is completely normal in the United States, and turning tonight's restaurant dinner into tomorrow's lunch can feel like part of the value. Smithsonian notes that the modern American “doggie bag” became common during the 20th century. In cultures where carrying restaurant leftovers home is less routine, watching everyone leave dinner clutching plastic containers can be unexpected.

Americans increasingly expect almost anything to come to them. Clothes, phone chargers, toilet paper, pet food, coffee, cleaning supplies, and completely unnecessary purchases made at midnight may reach the front door remarkably quickly. US retail e-commerce sales reached hundreds of billions of dollars per quarter by 2026, while carriers now advertise same-day and next-day services. Waiting several weeks for an ordinary online order can feel almost prehistoric once you've become accustomed to that speed.

Twenty-four-hour retail isn't as universal in America as it once was, especially after the pandemic changed many store schedules, but late-night convenience remains striking in numerous places. Diners, fast-food restaurants, gas stations, pharmacies, and some supermarkets may operate long after most conventional businesses have closed. Visitors from countries where shopping districts become quiet early can find it strangely comforting to know tacos, cold medicine, and windshield washer fluid might all remain available at midnight.

American heating expectations can be just as surprising as American air conditioning. Many homes use furnaces or heat pumps designed to warm the entire living space rather than relying primarily on individual room heaters. In colder regions, walking from the bedroom to the kitchen without changing climates feels completely normal. More than half of US residential energy consumption has historically gone toward space heating and cooling, which says plenty about how strongly Americans value temperature control.

America's relationship with large vehicles is impossible to miss from the passenger seat. Pickup trucks, three-row SUVs, large crossovers, and roomy minivans offer generous legroom, wide seats, storage compartments, and cargo areas capable of swallowing a warehouse-store trip. Wide roads, suburban lifestyles, relatively long driving distances, and historically cheaper fuel helped make vehicle size feel normal. Visitors arriving from countries dominated by compact hatchbacks may feel like they're suddenly riding in living rooms.

American cars take beverages extremely seriously. Cup holders appear in center consoles, doors, rear armrests, third-row seats, and sometimes places nobody realized needed hydration support. Some vehicles provide more cup holders than seats. It makes sense in a culture where long drives, drive-thrus, travel mugs, fountain drinks, and giant water bottles are everyday companions. What's funny isn't that cars have cup holders. It's how offended people become when there aren't enough.

Walk down the hallway of an American hotel and there's a decent chance you'll eventually encounter a machine producing free ice. Guests fill a plastic bucket and carry it back to their rooms as though unlimited frozen water is an obvious hotel amenity. Travelers from abroad can be baffled by both the machine and Americans' enthusiasm for using it. The tradition fits neatly with the country's broader insistence that practically every cold beverage needs even more cold added to it.

Americans often expect drinking water to appear in schools, airports, parks, government buildings, gyms, museums, and other public facilities without requiring a purchase. Traditional fountains are increasingly joined by bottle-filling stations designed for reusable containers. They're easy to overlook until you visit somewhere they're uncommon. Being able to refill a bottle repeatedly while traveling without buying another one is a genuinely useful little luxury disguised as ordinary infrastructure.

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Sources: 1, 2, 3, 4

Americans are famously enthusiastic about ice. Soft drinks, water, iced tea, coffee, and even drinks that are already chilled often arrive packed with cubes. In many countries, especially in parts of Europe, a cold drink may come with little or no ice unless you specifically ask for it. Americans barely notice the difference until they're staring at a room-temperature soda wondering where half the glass went.

Americans wear baseball caps almost everywhere, including restaurants, airports, classrooms, shopping centers, and sometimes offices. In cultures where hats are traditionally removed indoors, this can look unusually casual or even impolite. In the U.S., though, a baseball cap often functions less like outdoor gear and more like an ordinary piece of clothing.

Reusable tumblers and disposable coffee cups are practically accessories in the United States. People carry coffee into cars, offices, stores, classrooms, airports, and meetings. In many countries, coffee is more likely to be consumed while sitting in a café or during a deliberate break. American coffee culture often treats caffeine as something that should remain physically attached to you for most of the morning.

Americans frequently eat while driving, walking, commuting, sitting at a desk, or rushing between appointments. Coffee comes in travel cups, breakfast becomes a sandwich, and lunch may happen in front of a computer. In cultures where meals are more deliberately social and seated, the sight of someone eating an entire breakfast while walking down the street can feel oddly hurried.

A trip that's technically walkable can still become a car journey in much of the United States. Part of this is habit, but urban design matters enormously. Wide roads, limited sidewalks, sprawling parking lots, and destinations separated by large distances make driving practical even for short errands. Visitors from pedestrian-oriented cities can be amazed to discover that something "right nearby" still requires getting into a car.

Americans often strike up conversations with people they don't know in elevators, grocery lines, airports, waiting rooms, or beside them at a bar. "Where are you from?" can appear within minutes. In cultures where public interactions are more reserved, this can feel startlingly intimate. Americans often see it as friendliness rather than intrusion, which means they may not even realize they're doing something unusual.

Many American kitchens have a motorized garbage disposal beneath the sink that grinds small food scraps so they can pass through plumbing. Visitors from countries where the devices are uncommon can find the concept somewhere between fascinating and alarming. Americans raised with one may think nothing of pushing leftover food toward a spinning machine hidden below the drain.

Unlimited refills on soda, coffee, and sometimes iced tea are so common in American casual restaurants that people often assume they'll be included. In much of the world, ordering another drink means paying for another drink. The first time an American finishes a cola abroad and waits expectantly for someone to refill it, the cultural difference becomes obvious very quickly.

Tipping is common in many countries, but the American system is unusually broad and socially important. Restaurant servers, bartenders, hairstylists, taxi drivers, delivery workers, hotel staff, and others may all expect tips, and the percentage can be substantial. Visitors are often surprised by how much mental arithmetic goes into an ordinary meal, while Americans abroad sometimes tip generously in places where it's unnecessary or even awkward.

"How are you?" functions almost like "hello" in American English. The expected reply is often some version of "good" or "fine," even if the speaker's day has been terrible. Visitors sometimes find this confusing because the question sounds genuinely personal. An American cashier can ask how you're doing, scan your groceries, and move on before there's remotely enough time for an honest answer.

Casual smiling is another behavior Americans often don't think about. People may smile at strangers while passing on sidewalks, entering elevators, or making brief eye contact in stores. In some places, that level of smiling can seem overly familiar, artificial, or even suspicious. An American may think they're simply being polite while the other person is wondering whether they know each other.

Leggings, sweatpants, sneakers, baseball caps, hoodies, and gym clothes are perfectly ordinary outfits for shopping, traveling, attending class, or grabbing lunch in the United States. In countries where people tend to dress more formally in public, visitors may wonder why half the population appears to be on the way to a workout. Often nobody has any intention of exercising whatsoever.

American fountain drinks can be surprisingly large, especially in convenience stores and fast-food restaurants. A "medium" may resemble a large elsewhere, while the biggest sizes can look genuinely absurd to first-time visitors. Americans generally don't think much about it because large cups have been normalized for decades, but travelers returning from abroad often notice the scale immediately.

American households commonly own multiple vehicles, and individual family members may drive separately even when going in roughly the same direction. That's less common in places with stronger public transportation or denser cities. The result is a culture where driving isn't merely transportation. It's often treated as a basic part of personal independence.

American ideas about distance can be hilarious to visitors. Someone will describe a restaurant as "just down the road" and then reveal that it's 25 minutes away by car. In large metropolitan areas or rural regions, an hour-long drive may barely register as a serious trip. People from denser countries can have very different definitions of what counts as nearby.

Asking for a container to take unfinished food home is completely routine in the United States. Large restaurant portions make the practice especially common. In some cultures, taking leftovers home has historically been less customary or can feel awkward in more formal restaurants. Americans often see it as practical rather than embarrassing. You already paid for the food, so why wouldn't you eat the rest tomorrow?

In many American restaurants, a server brings a large glass of tap water almost immediately and keeps refilling it for free. Travelers sometimes discover that elsewhere water must be ordered, bottled water may be the default, and it can appear on the bill. Americans who are accustomed to endless free ice water can find paying for a small bottle surprisingly irritating.

Compared with countries such as Spain, Italy, or Argentina, Americans can eat dinner remarkably early. Restaurants may become busy around 5:30 or 6 p.m., and families with children sometimes eat even earlier. In places where dinner routinely begins at 8, 9, or 10 p.m., American dining hours can seem closer to late afternoon than evening.

"No onions, dressing on the side, extra pickles, substitute fries for salad, sauce separate, and can you make that without cheese?" Customized ordering is exceptionally common in American restaurants. Many establishments are designed around substitutions and modifications. In cultures where dishes are treated more as the chef's finished creation, extensive changes can seem demanding or bizarre.

Traditional American table manners developed a distinctive knife-and-fork style sometimes called the "zigzag" method. A diner holds the fork in the left hand while cutting, then places the knife down and transfers the fork to the right hand to eat. Continental European etiquette usually keeps the fork in the left hand throughout. Most Americans don't consciously think about the difference until someone points it out.

Burgers and fries aren't the end of it. Ketchup can appear with eggs, meatloaf, hash browns, hot dogs, and other foods depending on the household and region. The condiment isn't uniquely American, but its sheer ubiquity in casual American eating can surprise visitors from cultures with stricter ideas about what sauces belong with particular dishes.

This one varies greatly by household, region, climate, and family background, but enough Americans wear outdoor shoes indoors that visitors regularly notice it. In Canada, Scandinavia, Japan, and many other places, taking shoes off immediately at the door is often automatic. Americans from shoe-on households may not realize how shocking it looks to someone watching them walk across a carpet in the same shoes they wore through a parking lot.

American refrigerators tend to be large, particularly in suburban homes. Double doors, ice makers, water dispensers, freezer drawers, and enough interior space for a week's worth of groceries are commonplace. In countries where people shop more frequently or kitchens are smaller, American refrigerators can look less like appliances and more like walk-in storage lockers.

Warehouse stores turned bulk buying into an American art form. Families may purchase dozens of rolls of toilet paper, giant containers of snacks, enormous cereal boxes, and enough paper towels to survive a minor siege. Larger homes, bigger vehicles, suburban lifestyles, and abundant storage space all make this practical in a way that would be difficult in many compact urban households abroad.

Americans are accustomed to being able to buy groceries, medicine, fast food, or household items well into the evening, and historically many businesses operated around the clock. Hours have become somewhat shorter in recent years, but the expectation remains. Travelers can be caught off guard when shops abroad close earlier, shut completely on Sundays, or disappear for an afternoon break.

American service culture often emphasizes friendliness, introductions, check-ins, upbeat greetings, and phrases such as "my pleasure." Servers may tell customers their names, retail staff may approach shoppers proactively, and employees are frequently expected to appear cheerful. Visitors sometimes interpret this as fake, while Americans encountering quieter service abroad can mistakenly assume the employee is being rude.

Flags appear outside homes, businesses, schools, gas stations, car dealerships, campgrounds, restaurants, construction sites, and government buildings. Other countries certainly display national flags, but casual everyday flag visibility in the United States is unusually high. Americans often barely notice them because they're part of the ordinary visual landscape.

The national flag doesn't stay on poles. American flag designs appear on shirts, hats, swimsuits, socks, coolers, lawn chairs, vehicle decals, and countless other objects. In some countries, national symbols are treated with greater formality, making casual flag-themed clothing seem unusual. In the United States, it can simply be another summer outfit.

In American small talk, "What do you do?" usually means "What do you do for a living?" and it's one of the most common questions when meeting someone new. That can seem oddly career-focused in cultures where employment is considered a more private topic or where social identity isn't tied as closely to occupation. Americans often ask without realizing how quickly they've turned a casual conversation into a résumé summary.

Professors, bosses, older acquaintances, customers, and new colleagues are often addressed by first name much sooner in the United States than they would be in more formal cultures. Titles still matter in certain professions and regions, but American social life generally leans informal. Visitors accustomed to surnames and honorifics can find it surprisingly intimate.

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Alexander Fleming returned to his laboratory in 1928 and noticed something strange on a bacterial culture. Mold had contaminated the dish, but around it was a clear area where the bacteria weren't growing normally. Instead of simply tossing the spoiled plate away, Fleming investigated. He identified the mold as belonging to the Penicillium group and realized it was producing something capable of destroying bacteria. What looked like a ruined experiment contained the beginnings of one of medicine's greatest discoveries.

Fleming's accidental observation was only the beginning. More than a decade later, researchers including Howard Florey, Ernst Chain, and their colleagues turned penicillin into a practical treatment and helped make mass production possible. By World War II, the drug was saving soldiers from infections that once routinely signalled the end for wounded men. What began with a contaminated culture dish ended by transforming modern medicine and saving countless lives.

In the early hours of June 17, 1972, Watergate security guard Frank Wills noticed something remarkably small during his rounds: tape had been placed across a door latch so the door wouldn't lock. Wills removed it and continued working. When he returned later, the door had been taped open again. This time, he realized someone might still be inside and called police. Officers entered the building and apprehended five burglars inside the Democratic National Committee headquarters.

Those arrests exposed connections to President Richard Nixon's re-election operation and eventually opened the door to investigations into political espionage, secret campaign money, obstruction, and a White House cover-up. The scandal consumed Washington, led to convictions, and culminated in Nixon's resignation on August 9, 1974. Historical accounts differ over whether the burglars used masking tape, duct tape, or another kind, but the essential detail remains the same: one alert security guard noticing a tiny strip of tape helped set off the chain reaction that brought down an American president.

Before the French Revolution, many of France's most highly trained cooks worked in aristocratic households, preparing elaborate meals that ordinary people would never experience. Then the Revolution shattered the social order supporting those kitchens. Nobles fled, lost fortunes, or faced execution, leaving numerous professional cooks without their traditional employers. Some responded by bringing skills previously reserved for private estates into the commercial world, joining an expanding restaurant culture where paying customers could experience sophisticated cooking without receiving an invitation to a nobleman's dining room.

Restaurants had already existed in Paris before 1789, so the Revolution didn't invent dining out from nothing. What it did was dramatically change the environment around it. The weakening of aristocratic households and old guild restrictions created new opportunities for chefs, restaurateurs, and diners, helping Parisian restaurant culture expand rapidly in the decades that followed. Refined cooking increasingly moved from private palaces into public dining rooms, where menus, specialized service, and ambitious chefs could reach a much broader clientele. A political revolution that toppled France's old elite ended up helping reshape how people around the world go out to eat.

Before the Führer became synonymous with Germany’s Third Reich, he wanted to be an artist. In 1907, the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna rejected his application, concluding that his drawing skills were insufficient for its painting program. He tried again the following year and failed to gain admission. The rejection didn't instantly transform an aspiring painter into a dictator, but it became one of the most famous turning points in his early biography. An acceptance letter would have placed the young dictator on a very different path.

After his artistic ambitions collapsed, the Führer remained in Vienna, where he lived precariously and absorbed some of the nationalist and antisemitic currents circulating around the city. He later moved to Munich, fought in World War I, entered extremist politics, and eventually took control of Germany. From there came dictatorship, war, genocide, and a conflict that reshaped the entire world. It remains one of history's darkest examples of how an apparently ordinary rejection could sit near the beginning of an extraordinary chain of events.

On June 28, 1914, Bosnian Serb nationalist Gavrilo Princip slew Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, and his wife Sophie in Sarajevo. Europe was already packed with rival alliances, nationalist movements, military plans, and international grievances. The murders didn't create those tensions. They provided the spark. Austria-Hungary blamed Serbia, issued an ultimatum, and began a crisis that rapidly pulled Europe's great powers toward war.

Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia on July 28. Russia mobilized in Serbia's defense, Germany backed Austria-Hungary and declared war on Russia and France, and Britain's entry followed Germany's invasion of Belgium. Within weeks, an assassination in Sarajevo had helped turn a regional dispute into World War I. Four imperial systems collapsed, millions perished, borders were redrawn, and the unstable peace afterward helped create conditions for another world war. One morning in Sarajevo had set off consequences that stretched across decades.

Long before Lego became synonymous with plastic bricks, Ole Kirk Christiansen ran a woodworking business in Billund, Denmark, producing furniture and wooden toys. In 1942, a devastating fire destroyed his factory, wiping out much of the business he'd spent years building. Christiansen chose to rebuild rather than walk away. The disaster forced him to rethink how the company would survive, and within a few years Lego began experimenting with a radically different material that many traditional toy makers still viewed with suspicion: plastic.

Lego purchased a plastic injection-molding machine in the late 1940s and soon began producing early versions of the interlocking bricks that would define the company. Another warehouse fire in 1960 later destroyed much of Lego's remaining wooden-toy inventory, helping accelerate the decision to abandon wooden products altogether. From that point forward, the company concentrated increasingly on its plastic building system. A business repeatedly devastated by fire ultimately emerged with a completely different identity, and that forced reinvention helped turn a small Danish toy company into one of the world's most recognizable brands.

On November 9, 1989, East German official Günter Schabowski held a televised press conference and announced new rules allowing citizens to travel more freely. He had been given incomplete instructions and apparently wasn't fully briefed on when the policy was supposed to take effect. When a reporter asked when the changes began, Schabowski hesitated and then indicated that, as far as he knew, they were effective immediately. Millions of East Germans heard him say it live.

Crowds quickly gathered at border crossings demanding to be allowed through. The guards hadn't received clear orders corresponding with what viewers had just heard on television, and the pressure became impossible to contain. At the Bornholmer Strasse crossing, officials eventually began letting people pass, and other checkpoints followed. Berliners climbed onto the Wall and celebrated through the night. A few uncertain words at a press conference helped turn months of political pressure into one of the defining moments of the Cold War's collapse.

British troops captured Washington, DC, in August 1814 and burned major public buildings, including the Capitol and the White House. Then the weather turned violent. A severe storm struck the city, bringing torrential rain and what eyewitnesses described as a tornado. The winds reportedly tossed cannons, damaged buildings, and took lives. The rain also helped extinguish fires that had been burning through the capital, producing the wonderfully strange spectacle of weather interrupting an armed occupation.

The violent storm slammed into Washington just as the British occupation was reaching its dramatic peak. Torrential rain helped put out fires, winds damaged military equipment, and the chaos complicated an already difficult situation for the invading force. Soon afterward, British troops withdrew from the city. One freak weather event had inserted itself into a war and helped shape how one of the most humiliating moments in American history came to an end.

Shortly before Titanic sailed in 1912, officer David Blair was unexpectedly removed from the voyage during a reshuffling of senior officers. The ship's lookouts subsequently didn't have binoculars available in the crow's nest. A surviving key associated with Blair later helped inspire an irresistible story: that he'd accidentally taken the key to the binocular locker when he left, depriving the lookouts of equipment that could have helped them see the iceberg sooner.

When lookout Frederick Fleet finally spotted the iceberg, Titanic had only moments to react. The ship struck the ice, flooded, and sank in the North Atlantic, taking the lives of more than 1,500 people. Fleet later testified that binoculars might have allowed the iceberg to be spotted sooner. Whether they would have prevented the collision can never be known, but the missing equipment became one of the disaster's most haunting details: a tiny pre-voyage change that may have reduced the warning time aboard history's most famous doomed liner.

One of the strangest stories to emerge from WWI involves British soldier Henry Tandey. Tandey later recalled encountering a wounded German soldier during fighting in 1918 and choosing not to shoot him as the man retreated. Years later, a story developed that the German soldier had been the Führer. According to the tale, the dictator himself recognized Tandey from a famous painting and claimed that this was the British soldier who had once spared him.

If the story is true, the consequences are almost impossible to comprehend. The wounded soldier supposedly allowed to walk away later became Germany's dictator, unleashed WWII in Europe, and oversaw the Holocaust. Tandey's split-second act of mercy would therefore sit at the beginning of one of the darkest chains in modern history. The identification remains disputed, but that uncertainty has only made the story more haunting.

Ferruccio Lamborghini had already made a fortune manufacturing tractors when he developed a taste for expensive sports cars. According to the famous story, he became frustrated with recurring clutch problems in one of his Ferraris and brought his complaints directly to Enzo Ferrari. Ferrari allegedly dismissed the tractor manufacturer and effectively told him to stick to building farm equipment. Lamborghini didn't particularly enjoy being patronized.

Lamborghini founded Automobili Lamborghini in 1963 and quickly set out to build refined grand touring cars capable of challenging Ferrari. The 350 GT established the young company, while the Miura helped redefine the modern supercar. Lamborghini eventually became one of Ferrari's most famous and enduring rivals. A complaint about a clutch and an insult from another businessman helped ignite one of the greatest rivalries in automotive history.

Henry VIII grew up as the younger son of Henry VII. His older brother Arthur was Prince of Wales and the expected future king. Then Arthur passed on in 1502, probably from illness, at only 15. Suddenly, 10-year-old Henry became heir to the throne. When Henry VII met his end seven years later, the younger son became Henry VIII and eventually married Arthur's widow, Catherine of Aragon. That unexpected succession would have consequences nobody watching the young princes could have predicted.

Henry's marriage to Catherine failed to produce the surviving male heir he desperately wanted, and his campaign for an annulment eventually contributed to England's break with papal authority. The resulting English Reformation transformed religion, politics, royal power, and everyday life across the kingdom. Henry later married Anne Boleyn, whose daughter became Elizabeth I and presided over another defining chapter of English history. Arthur's early demise had quietly redirected the Tudor dynasty and, with it, the future of England.

When authorities of the Third Reich raided the Secret Annex in Amsterdam in August 1944, Anne Frank and the other people hiding there were apprehended. During the search, Anne's diary papers were scattered across the floor as the contents of Otto Frank's briefcase were emptied. After the arrests, helpers Miep Gies and Bep Voskuijl returned upstairs and saw the papers lying there. They gathered them rather than leaving them behind amid the chaos.

Miep stored Anne's writings without reading them, hoping to return them to her after the war. Anne perished at Bergen-Belsen, while her father Otto became the only member of the immediate Frank family to survive. Miep then gave him the papers. Otto arranged for Anne's diary to be published, and the teenager's private words eventually reached tens of millions of readers around the world. A few pages picked up from the floor became one of the most enduring personal records of the Holocaust.

In November 1820, the Nantucket whaleship Essex was operating far out in the Pacific when a large sperm whale repeatedly rammed the vessel. The ship eventually sank, leaving its crew thousands of miles from the South American coast in small whaleboats with limited supplies. Their ordeal became horrific. The survivors endured thirst, starvation, death, and eventually cannibalism during months adrift. Several men survived to tell an almost unbelievable story.

Years later, Herman Melville encountered accounts of the Essex disaster, including a narrative written by survivor Owen Chase. The story of a whale attacking and sinking a ship became one of the real-world inspirations behind Moby-Dick. Melville transformed the ordeal into a sprawling novel about whaling, obsession, fate, and Captain Ahab's pursuit of the white whale. One extraordinary collision in the middle of the Pacific ultimately helped produce one of the defining works of American literature.

In 1961, meteorologist Edward Lorenz wanted to repeat part of a computerized weather simulation. Rather than restart the entire calculation, he entered values from a previous printout and let the machine run. The numbers on the printout had been rounded to fewer decimal places than those stored internally by the computer. Lorenz assumed the tiny difference would be meaningless. Instead, the new simulated weather gradually departed so dramatically from the old run that it looked like an entirely different forecast.

Lorenz realized he'd stumbled onto something fundamental about nonlinear systems: extremely small differences in initial conditions could produce enormously different outcomes later. His work became central to chaos theory and eventually inspired the term “butterfly effect.” A rounding shortcut involving a few decimal places helped reshape how scientists think about weather, predictability, and complex systems. The butterfly effect itself was born from a butterfly effect.

At the 1919 Paris Peace Conference, a young Vietnamese nationalist then known as Nguyen Ai Quoc helped present a petition demanding greater political rights for the Vietnamese under French colonial rule. He hoped principles of self-determination being discussed after World War I might apply to colonized peoples as well. President Woodrow Wilson and other major Western leaders didn't take up the Vietnamese demands. The colonial system in French Indochina remained intact.

Nguyen Ai Quoc later became better known as Ho Chi Minh. He moved deeper into communist politics, helped establish the Indochinese Communist Party, led the independence struggle against France, and eventually became the central figure in North Vietnam. Decades later, the United States became deeply involved in a devastating war against the government he helped create. A petition that received little attention in Paris became an eerie opening chapter to one of America's longest and most divisive foreign conflicts.

After Japan's defeat in World War II, the Allied occupation brought enormous political, economic, and cultural change. American movies, cartoons, comics, and popular culture became increasingly visible, interacting with Japanese artistic traditions that already stretched back generations. Creators including Osamu Tezuka absorbed influences from Western animation while developing distinctive storytelling techniques of their own. Tezuka's work eventually became foundational to the postwar manga and anime industries.

The cultural exchange that followed Japan's defeat helped accelerate a new era of manga and animation. Artists absorbed ideas from Disney and other Western creators, transformed them through Japanese visual traditions, and produced styles that became increasingly distinctive. Those works eventually traveled back across the Pacific, influencing American animation, comics, games, and popular culture in return. A wartime defeat helped set in motion a cultural feedback loop that would reshape entertainment on both sides of the ocean.

Before automobiles became dominant, major cities depended on enormous numbers of horses to pull streetcars, delivery vehicles, cabs, and private carriages. Those animals produced staggering quantities of manure and urine, while dead horses could remain on streets awaiting removal. Congestion was just as troublesome. Horses were essential to urban life and simultaneously responsible for some of its nastiest problems. As cities grew, the limitations of horse-powered transportation became increasingly obvious.

The pressure created by crowded, horse-dependent streets helped cities embrace new forms of mass transportation. Underground railways, electric streetcars, automobiles, and improved public transit gradually removed millions of horses from urban roads. Streets became cleaner and transportation faster, while metropolitan areas could spread farther from their old centers. A problem that literally piled up in city streets helped accelerate a transportation revolution that transformed how modern cities were built.

For centuries, Chinese porcelain was a luxury product Europeans desperately wanted to imitate. Its strength, whiteness, and translucency made it unlike ordinary European pottery, while the secret of producing true hard-paste porcelain remained elusive. European courts and merchants spent heavily importing it, and rulers encouraged alchemists and craftsmen to crack the recipe. That obsession eventually helped produce European porcelain manufacturing, most famously at Meissen in the early 18th century.

The race to reproduce Chinese porcelain pushed European craftsmen, chemists, and patrons to experiment obsessively with minerals, firing temperatures, and manufacturing methods. In Saxony, Johann Friedrich Böttger and Ehrenfried Walther von Tschirnhaus eventually helped establish a workable European hard-paste porcelain formula. Meissen porcelain followed, launching a new luxury industry and encouraging competing factories across Europe. A desire to imitate imported Chinese tableware ended up transforming European ceramics, manufacturing, design, and luxury consumption.

Christopher Columbus didn't sail west because everyone else thought Earth was flat. Educated Europeans already knew Earth was spherical. His gamble depended instead on badly underestimating its size and exaggerating how far east Asia extended. Columbus convinced himself that sailing west from Europe would bring Asia within manageable reach. Other experts were skeptical for good reason. If the Americas hadn't stood between Europe and Asia, his expedition might have run out of supplies long before reaching its intended destination.

Columbus reached islands in the Caribbean in October 1492 while still believing he had reached lands associated with Asia. His geographical mistake helped initiate sustained European contact with the Americas. What followed included conquest, colonization, the Columbian Exchange, catastrophic epidemics among Indigenous peoples, forced labor, transatlantic slavery, and enormous movements of people, plants, animals, and wealth. One enormous miscalculation about the size of the planet helped redirect global history.

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Chicago’s glamorous Iroquois Theatre was promoted as practically fireproof. Then, in 1903, a stage fire killed more than 600 people. Locked exits, confusing doors, and other failures turned escape into chaos. The disaster helped drive tougher theatre codes and popularize panic-bar exit hardware.

In Sunderland, England, an 1883 children’s performance ended with prizes being handed out. Children rushed toward a partially blocked doorway, creating a deadly crush that killed 183. The horror helped inspire laws requiring entertainment venues to provide adequate exits with doors that opened outward.

Vienna’s Ringtheater caught fire in 1881 shortly before a performance. Hundreds died as flames and smoke overwhelmed the building. Austria responded by sharply strengthening theatre fire regulations, while the catastrophe also inspired research into smoke ventilation and helped spur the creation of Vienna’s organized emergency medical service.

When Ohio’s Lake View School burned in 1908, its wooden interior and open stairways helped the fire spread frighteningly quickly. A bottleneck near an exit trapped children trying to escape. The tragedy influenced school and public-building rules involving wider exits, safer stairways, and easier-to-operate doors.

A pleasant 1904 church excursion aboard the steamboat General Slocum became one of New York’s worst disasters. Firefighting equipment failed, life preservers were defective, and the crew lacked proper drills. More than 1,000 died, triggering major scrutiny of passenger-vessel inspections, equipment, and crew training.

Paris commuters learned a brutal lesson about underground fires in 1903 when a burning wooden Métro train helped create a disaster that killed dozens. Afterwards, the system began separating electrical sections, improving exit markings and emergency lighting, adding firefighting equipment, and eventually replacing wooden train bodies with metal ones.

A storage tank holding roughly 2.3 million gallons of molasses burst in Boston in 1919. Yes, molasses. The resulting wave demolished buildings and killed 21 people. Investigations exposed serious engineering and testing failures, helping strengthen expectations that major structures needed professional engineering, calculations, and meaningful oversight.

In 1918, a Brooklyn rapid-transit train entered a sharp curve far too quickly and derailed, killing scores of passengers. The catastrophe highlighted the danger of relying too heavily on human judgment alone. New York transit gradually adopted better speed controls, signals, automatic stopping devices, and safer equipment.

Natural gas was once dangerous for an especially unsettling reason: you might not smell it leaking. After accumulated gas destroyed a Texas school in 1937, the resulting outrage led Texas to require odorants in gas. That familiar rotten-egg warning smell exists because invisible danger needed a detectable warning.

During a 1943 air-raid warning in London, people descending into Bethnal Green station encountered poor lighting and a dangerous staircase. One fall triggered a massive pileup that killed 173 people. Investigators recommended better lighting, handrails, entrance design, barriers, and crowd control for public shelters.

The big top at Hartford’s 1944 circus had been waterproofed using a mixture involving paraffin and gasoline. When fire reached the canvas, the enormous tent became horrifyingly flammable. Obstructed routes worsened the evacuation, making fire-resistant materials and genuinely accessible exits impossible to dismiss as bureaucratic fussiness.

Boston’s Cocoanut Grove nightclub burned in 1942, killing 492 people. Some exits were blocked or unusable, while the main revolving door jammed beneath the crowd. The aftermath influenced requirements involving illuminated exit signs, outward-opening doors, sprinklers, occupancy limits, emergency lighting, and safer interior materials.

Atlanta’s Winecoff Hotel advertised itself as “fireproof,” which turned out to be a rather narrow definition of the word. The 1946 fire exposed dangerous unprotected stairways and inadequate escape routes. It helped push American fire codes toward protecting people, not merely preventing buildings from collapsing.

In 1929, highly combustible nitrate X-ray film caught fire at the Cleveland Clinic. Poisonous fumes spread through the building, contributing to 123 deaths. The disaster led to nationwide changes in how X-ray film was stored and became another reminder that hospital safety involved far more than medical treatment.

A relatively small 1927 fire inside Montreal’s Laurier Palace became deadly when children rushed to escape. Dozens were crushed in a stairway. Quebec subsequently strengthened cinema safety rules, including requirements involving outward-opening emergency doors, adequate passageways, and panic hardware that could be opened from inside.

Two years later, another children’s movie matinee ended disastrously in Paisley, Scotland. Smoke from film equipment triggered a rush for the exits, killing 70 children. Cinema regulations were strengthened to require additional exits, outward-opening push-bar doors, occupancy limits, and enough adult attendants to supervise young audiences.

When California’s St. Francis Dam failed in 1928, an enormous torrent swept through communities downstream. The catastrophe became a turning point in dam oversight. California’s modern dam-safety program traces its creation directly to the failure, replacing excessive faith in individual engineers with stronger government supervision.

Britain’s 1952 Harrow and Wealdstone rail disaster involved three trains and killed more than 100 people. Investigators found that one train had passed warning and danger signals. The crash accelerated adoption of the Automatic Warning System, giving train drivers audible and visual warnings inside their cabs.

Shopping became a nightmare in Brussels in 1967 when the L’Innovation department store caught fire with roughly 1,000 people inside. Belgium subsequently strengthened fire regulations for stores open to the public, addressing sprinklers, protected escape routes, smoke control, detection systems, and safer building design.

Drivers crossing the Ohio River in December 1967 had little reason to suspect the Silver Bridge was about to disappear beneath them. Its collapse killed 46 people. The disaster directly led to America’s National Bridge Inspection Standards and the systematic inspection system motorists depend upon today.

A gas explosion inside London’s Ronan Point tower in 1968 blew out a wall panel. Instead of remaining a localized accident, the damage spread through the structure in a progressive collapse. Building regulations were revised to demand stronger connections and designs capable of surviving localized structural failures.

The futuristic Summerland leisure centre on the Isle of Man was supposed to represent modern family entertainment. A 1973 fire instead exposed the dangers of combustible building materials. Britain’s subsequent “Summerland Amendments” strengthened regulations involving the fire resistance of external walls and flammable materials.

Kentucky’s Beverly Hills Supper Club was packed with diners and entertainment seekers in 1977 when fire broke out. The building had no sprinkler system, and sections were severely overcrowded. The tragedy put renewed attention on occupancy limits, alarms, sprinklers, escape routes, and whether older buildings deserved exemptions from newer safety expectations.

When Las Vegas’s MGM Grand burned in 1980, the hotel lacked comprehensive sprinklers, smoke detectors, and automatic alarms because older buildings could escape newer requirements. The deaths intensified pressure to rethink grandfather clauses and demonstrated why “it met the code when we built it” was not necessarily comforting.

In 1981, suspended walkways inside Kansas City’s Hyatt Regency collapsed onto a crowded atrium, killing 114 people. Investigators traced the failure to a disastrous design change and inadequate engineering review. The case became a defining lesson in professional responsibility: somebody must actually check the calculations.

Modern life can make safety precautions look almost comically ordinary. Exit signs glow. Bridges get inspected. Gas smells terrible. Doors swing outward. None of that happened by accident. Many protections surrounding us today exist because earlier generations discovered, often at an unbearable cost, exactly what happened without them.

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As we all know, Sex And The City began life as Candace Bushnell's column in The New York Observer. The column became a book, and soon enough, Bushnell hooked up with producer Darren Star to turn it into a TV show. Star wrote the pilot, and he had only one person in mind to play the iconic Carrie Bradshaw.

Star pictured Sarah Jessica Parker as Carrie from the very beginning, but SJP didn't see it. She turned him down at first, but he allegedly "begged" and convinced her to do it. She agreed, and soon, Kristin Davis, Cynthia Nixon, and Kim Cattrall joined her in the main cast.

None of them knew what they were in for.

By the second season, the show was clearly a hit. Sarah Jessica Parker became an executive producer, which came with a nice $300,000 salary bump. That's where the trouble started.

When SATC ended in 2004, fans were heartbroken, and everyone wanted to know why their favorite show was ending. Cattrall was the one to spill the beans, and her reason was simple: Money. "I felt after six years it was time for all of us to participate in the financial windfall of Sex And The City. When they didn't seem keen on that I thought it was time to move on."

With a juicy quote like that, people were dying to know more. Pretty soon, the dirty details started spilling out.

For years, there had been rumors that SJP and Cattrall didn't get along. Cattrall evidently didn't like that SJP made more money, and rumor had it that things on set could get a little...tense. Then, after Cattrall's interview, the Telegraph decided to do some digging.

Turns out, there might have been something to those rumors...

The Telegraph report cited crew members who confirmed the money troubles on set. Cattrall allegedly tried to negotiate for a bigger salary after SJP got the producer bump. That's when everything started going downhill.

According to the report, the other cast members weren't happy with the way Cattrall handled the situation. For whatever reason, they didn't like that she had tried to get more money, and it drove a wedge between her and the other three. And things got awkward.

Apparently, the tension between Cattrall and the other cast members got so bad that they wouldn't even sit with her at meals. Still, no fans wanted to believe that the four of them weren't actually friends off-screen. Then, at the 2004 Emmys, the feud burst into the open.

It was hard not to notice. When cameras panned across the crowd at the 2004 Emmy Awards, you'd see Sarah Jessica Parker, Kristin Davis, and Cynthia Nixon all sitting happily together at their table—with one face glaringly absent. Kim Cattrall didn't sit with her co-stars at the show, and yeah, everyone noticed.

This feud was officially the real deal, but there was still so much more drama to come.

Obviously, reporters ran to Cattrall to ask her about the Emmys. She didn't start slinging mud, but she was noticeably frosty: "Are we the best of friends? No. We're professional actresses. We have our own separate lives." Ok, we know how Cattrall felt, but how did the others feel?

SJP maintained for years that the entire cast were friends, and that no one person was singled out: "Honestly, we are all friends and I wish I saw more of Kim. She mentioned money and no one should vilify her for it. People made a decision that we had vilified her."

If things ended there, I doubt anyone would care about the SJP/Cattrall beef. But, when word of a SATC movie started spreading, the feud started making headlines again.

Though two SATC movies eventually came out, for a while, it seemed like we might not even get one. Word had it that one of the cast members held out on agreeing and took some serious convincing. Obviously, fans assumed that Cattrall was the holdout.

But when Marie Claire asked her about it, Cattrall's response was heartbreaking.

When asked if she was the holdout on the movie, Cattrall said, "Four years ago I was going through a painful public divorce, the series was coming to an end, and my father was diagnosed with dementia. I felt it was time to be with my real family. A year-and-a-half ago, when I was sent the script, I was ready and strong enough to revisit Samantha. In some ways, I'm glad we waited. The script and the experience of making the movie was the best possible reunion."

With the cast reunited and the first movie in the books, it seemed like maybe—just maybe—the beef was finally over. It was not.

No matter how much the cast tried to downplay reports of a feud, there was just too much smoke for there to be no fire. Then, when the second movie got rolling, the beef kicked into high gear.

When Carrie, Samantha, Charlotte, and Miranda got together to make the second movie in 2009, the long-simmering tension between Cattrall and SJP finally burst into flame. An article in New York magazine detailed what life was like on the set of the movie—and it wasn't pretty.

There are fun movie sets...and then there's the set for SATC 2. According to New York, Parker and Cattrall had stopped speaking entirely. As you can imagine, that made just about everyone on set extremely uncomfortable. It's honestly a miracle they got the movie finished at all.

But, as always, SJP was quick to downplay any reports of beef.

ELLE magazine asked SJP about all the rumors, and as always, she denied, denied, denied: "I don't think anybody wants to believe that I love Kim. I adore her. I wouldn't have done the movie without her. Didn't and wouldn't." And, believe it or not, this time, Cattrall agreed with her.

When asked about SJP's comments, Cattrall had this to say: "I think Sarah was right: People don’t want to believe that we get on. They have too much invested in the idea of two strong, successful women fighting with each other. It makes for juicy gossip and copy...I think Sarah is fantastic...She and I are sick of this. It’s exhausting talking about it, and a real bore."

So, was that the truth? Had all of this been overblown, and there really was no feud? At the very least, that's definitely what the rest of the cast wanted us to believe...

Parker and Cattrall had seemingly buried the hatchet, but the rumors had been around for too long to go away. When Marie Claire interviewed the whole cast, the reporter asked about tension on set. Parker admitted that "feelings get hurt." Cynthia Nixon continued, saying, "It hasn't always been smooth sailing, but the idea that we're somehow adversarial is ludicrous."

Cattrall was right there with them: "The press has to put women in these boxes, rather than show them as the movie portrays them: working together and being powerful. Things just have to be explosive for no other reason than for people's imaginations."

So Parker said they were friends, Nixon said they were friends, and Cattrall said they were friends. What did Kristin Davis say?

At some point, fans apparently saw Davis and Cattrall both eating at a hotel restaurant...just not together. When a reporter asked Davis about it, she, like everyone else, downplayed: "When I would get back from the set, I would go to the gym and get room service. I'm not a put-on-decent-clothes-and-go-to-the-hotel-restaurant person, but Kim is. The story was that we don't like each other. Ridiculous!"

Now we have come to the year 2016, and it seemed like the beef was finally dead. Maybe it never even really existed at all, if the cast was to be believed. But that didn't stop people from asking about it.

In October 2016, SJP went on Howard Stern, where she talked about the toll the rumors had taken on her over the years. "Was every day perfect? No, but this is a family of people who needed each other. This sort of narrative, this ongoing catfight…it used to really confound me and really upset me."

But little did she know, the rumors were not behind her. The feud was about to really kick into high gear. Why? Simple: The third SATC movie was in development.

As I'm sure you all know, there never was a third SATC movie. But a lot of fans don't realize just how close it was to happening. Warner Bros. had given the project a green light, and the movie was mere days from beginning filming when the whole thing got the axe.

So what happened? Two words: Kim. Cattrall.

According to a report from the Daily Mail, Warner Bros. canceled production because of Kim Cattrall's outrageous demands, which included an agreement that the studio would produce the other movies she wanted to develop. They said no, she refused to appear in the movie, and the studio decided they didn't want to make a movie with only three of the four main characters. That would have been crazy, right???

If you expected Cattrall to stay quiet about this, you haven't been paying attention. When asked about the report, she stated that the only "demand" she ever made was demanding to not do the movie. From her side, she says she was never interested, and any reports to the contrary are bogus.

SATC 3 was officially dead. How did SJP feel about it?

Sarah Jessica Parker didn't throw Cattrall under the bus—through this whole saga that has never been her style—but she did give one quote that fans took as a teensy bit passive-aggressive...

SJP was the one to confirm that the third movie wouldn't happen: "It's over. We're not doing it... I'm disappointed. We had this beautiful, funny, heartbreaking, joyful, very relatable script and story. It’s not just disappointing that we don’t get to tell the story and have that experience, but I think more so for that audience that has been so vocal about wanting another movie."

This was the spark the feud had been waiting for. It was about to get crazier than ever.

With the cancellation of SATC 3 all over the news, reporters flocked to Cattrall for more dirt—and she didn't disappoint. An interviewer asked if she was friends with her co-stars. Up to this point, she had always downplayed the feud, but that time was over. Her answer was blunt. She said they'd "never been friends."

Then, for the first time, despite all her protestations that the feud was bogus, Cattrall set her sights directly on SJP.

Kim Cattrall went on Piers Morgan's show to talk about SATC, and she stopped being diplomatic. "This is really where I take to task the people from Sex And The City, and specifically Sarah Jessica Parker. I think she could've been nicer...I don't know what her issue is."

There was no doubting it now: The beef was no media fabrication. So how did Parker take that interview?

When asked about Cattrall's comments, SJP replied that she felt, "heartbroken. The whole week…I was really, I found it very upsetting because that's not the way I recall our experience." But it was too late to pretend the feud wasn't real. Now, all the stories from the last two decades started coming out.

In 2017, the New York Post published an article claiming that Parker, Davis, and Nixon had formed a group on the set of the show and specifically left Cattrall out of it. Sure, we'd heard that kind of thing before. But this time, they had receipts.

The Post revealed that once, back when the show was still in production, they shot for several days in Atlantic City. Davis rented a house nearby, and Parker and Nixon stayed with her for the duration of the shoot. Cattrall was not invited.

HBO tried to squash that story back when it first happened. They claimed that the only reason Cattrall didn't stay with the other stars was that her husband was supposed to join her on the trip. He dropped out at the last second, but everyone had already made their arrangements. It certainly sounded plausible back then, before anything had come out. Now...we're not so sure.

For years, all of the cast members denied that there was anything going on and claimed they all liked one another. Now it sure seems like they were just flat-out lying. According to one source close to the show, by the end of the series—before either of the movies had even happened—none of the other leads were speaking to Cattrall.

Throughout the whole feud, all anyone wanted was for SJP to sling some mud Cattrall's way, but she never took the bait. When Ellen asked her if another movie could happen without Cattrall, her answer was characteristically coy: "I think there's a period of grief, a mourning process, and then perhaps we'll consider, say for instance, you playing Samantha."

At least she could keep a light heart with everything that had happened. Unfortunately, the beef was about to take its ugliest turn yet.

It all began with a terrible tragedy. Cattrall's brother was found dead in 2018. Support poured in from across the internet, and her old co-star took to Instagram to offer her condolences. SJP commented, "Dearest Kim, my love and condolences to you and yours and Godspeed to your beloved brother. Xx." on Cattrall's post.

Many were surprised that SJP commented at all. Their feud was public knowledge at this point, but Parker said, "If somebody in your life, whether you're in touch with them or not, [is] suffering for any reason, it's involuntary that you want to convey condolences or sadness or just let someone know you're thinking about them." She had also apparently contacted Cattrall personally when she heard her brother was missing.

Well, apparently, Cattrall did not agree. Clearly, she was going through a lot—but no one expected her brutal response.

February 10, 2018. That is the date that Sarah Jessica Parker vs. Kim Cattrall officially reached the ranks of Hollywood's greatest feuds. The image was a simple background with plain black text: "I don't need your love or support at this tragic time @sarahjessicaparker."

The caption was even more ruthless.

Cattrall expanded in her caption: "My Mom asked me today 'When will that @sarahjessicaparker, that hypocrite, leave you alone?' Your continuous reaching out is a painful reminder of how cruel you really were then and now. Let me make this VERY clear. (If I haven’t already) You are not my family. You are not my friend. So I’m writing to tell you one last time to stop exploiting our tragedy in order to restore your ‘nice girl’ persona."

The post left the entire SATC fandom in shock—but no one more so that the three other leads.

Apparently, even Cattrall's friends agreed that her post was a little harsh. One told US Weekly, "Their costars can’t understand why Kim lashed out. It wasn’t this bad during filming. There’s no love there, but Sarah Jessica was just being polite. It’s sad."

Clearly, Cattrall was in mourning and emotional—but for many close to the show, this was a step too far. People started taking sides, and I bet you can guess which side most of them took.

The weeks following THAT post saw basically everyone who'd ever been involved in the show sounding off. On-screen, Jason Lewis played one of Samantha's many hunky boyfriends, but off-screen, he was Team Carrie all the way: "Listen, I have to say that Sarah was always just so lovely and such a consummate professional and I think that people should remember their graciousness and the things that have been given to them."

But what did he have to say about Kim?

So how did Lewis follow up his complimentary words on SJP? "I'm going to stop there. Because I've got nothing good to say." Uh oh, things aren't looking good for Team Samantha...

Just because the world was against her didn't mean Cattrall was about to back down. When asked about stepping away from the show for good, she said, "...I loved Sex and the City. It was a blessing in so many ways, but after the second movie I'd had enough. I couldn't understand why they wouldn't just replace me with another actress instead of wasting time bullying. No means no."

Would she ever stop stirring the pot? Well, in 2019, she implied she was finally hanging up the spoon for good.

I get it: 20 years of being asked about this, I'd get tired of talking about it too. When pushed to comment on the drama once again, Cattrall just threw up her hands and said, "Everything is on Google, so I encourage you to Google it, about anything that I’ve said. I feel that that was then, and when I look at what’s going on around me, I just don’t have any regrets."

So, now that all the cards were on the table, would SJP finally drop the act and get in the mud with Cattrall? Hardly. When asked if she disliked her former co-star, she simply said, "No. I don’t dislike her. I’ve never said that. Never would. Samantha isn’t part of this story. But she will always be part of us. No matter where we are or what we do.”

But wait...what's that? News of a reunion? A new show on HBO? How the heck was that going to work?

Recasting Samantha was not an option, so the show's producers came up with a simple solution: "The friends that you have when you’re 30, you may not have when you’re 50. Just as in real life, people come into your life, people leave." I...gueeess that's true, so fine.

But as the premiere approached, everyone had to know: How would they get rid of Samantha?

(WARNING: AND JUST LIKE THAT... SPOILERS AHEAD)

Samantha Jones was one of the most iconic characters in TV history, so how was HBO going to handle the delicate task of writing her out of the show? Well, it turns out that Samantha...moved to London. But she could still contact them, right?? Nope, she just stopped returning the other three stars' messages.

Presto-changeo, no more Samantha!

That couldn't be the last we heard of Samantha! Of course not! In the season finale of And Just Like That... Carrie and Samantha finally made up...via text...off-camera. The television event of the century!

With Carrie and Samantha's reconciliation (sort of) on the books, everyone was wondering: Was there any way we might see Samantha in season 2? If you've read this far, you probably know that's NOT happening, but people asked SJP anyway—and, for the first time ever, she almost said something that you might take as shade...

Variety asked SJP if she'd be willing to have Cattrall appear on And Just Like That..., and she finally dropped the act that everything was OK: "I don’t think I would, because I think there’s just too much public history of feelings on her part that she’s shared...I haven’t participated in or read articles, although people are inclined to let me know.”

Fans just want a little hope they might see Samantha again, but it just doesn't look like it's happening. Producer Michael Patrick King gave the final word on the matter: "Magically thinking, it’s great to have Samantha. I have no realistic expectation of Kim Cattrall ever appearing again."

And just like that...we've covered the feud up to this point. Will it flare up again? All I can say is: I sure hope so.

Sources: ,

But after her death, the jaw-dropping truth came out. 

Born in 1903 to a working-class family, Jeanette MacDonald was firmly her father’s favorite. Although he had hoped for a boy and gotten three girls instead, Jeanette—the baby of the family—was the one who looked most like him, and inherited his red hair and blue-green eyes. As his favorite, he constantly pushed Jeanette to pursue an “American dream”...and did she ever. 

At a young age, MacDonald had a startling realization. She needed people’s adulation “as I needed food and drink”. She wasn’t afraid to give someone a nudge in this direction, either: When, as a girl, she performed at a local church and there was a pause between her finishing and the applause, she immediately started clapping, crying out, “Now everybody’s got to clap!”

MacDonald’s pathological need to perform would push her to great heights.

At the very beginning of the Roaring 20s, MacDonald followed her sister Blossom Rock—a character actor in her own right and eventually Grandmama on The Addams Family show—to New York. While there, she climbed her way up the Broadway ladder and earned rave reviews for the sweet tenor of her soprano voice. 

Still, MacDonald always wanted more.

By the late 1920s, MacDonald was an established star on the Great White Way. Then she hit a bigger stroke of luck. Famed director Ernst Lubitsch was looking through old show reels for a leading lady to cast when his eyes fell on MacDonald. He instantly put her in his upcoming sound film Love Parade, alongside Maurice Chevalier. 

It opened the floodgates.

The Love Parade was a massive hit, and right when the talkies were taking over Hollywood. More than that, it came out just after the Wall Street crash, and just as audiences were in need of a pick-me-up. So overnight, MacDonald became a star, and one synonymous with optimism and better days ahead. 

But behind the scenes, the story was much different.

Even as The Love Parade was rocketing her to the top of Hollywood’s call list, MacDonald was suffering from terrifying symptoms. In a letter dated from 1929, when she was just 26 years old, MacDonald revealed that she had recently had a heart attack. She then began suffering from blackouts as well as fainting spells, and doctors advised her that she might not be able to carry a pregnancy to term.

It wasn’t just physical ailments, either. 

MacDonald’s various illnesses took a toll on her mental health. She got so distressed by the all-encompassing sickness that she often couldn’t eat, and developed a case of stage fright that had her running to a therapist. Nonetheless, she never gave up on trying to find relief, including entering more or less experimental treatments like massage therapy, even if they only worked temporarily. 

She also never let it stop her very particular requirements on set.

Because of her symptoms, MacDonald was unable to attend morning shoots, a habit that some of her less sympathetic co-stars hated. But her other requests annoyed them more. Proud of her singing voice and suspicious of Hollywood’s new sound technologies, MacDonald refused to lip sync while shooting her movies, preferring to sing live to playbacks on set.

This, as it turns out, was extremely grating: On Broadway Serenade, leading man Lew Ayres requested earplugs while he was alongside her, lest the volume burst his ear drums. Not that MacDonald had trouble getting other leading men to like her.

MacDonald’s foray into Hollywood had been an instant success, but her forays into love weren’t so easy. While she was still trying to make it on Broadway, she dated Jack Ohmeis, a wealthy manufacturer’s son. Unfortunately, Ohmeis’s family took one look at pre-fame MacDonald and thought she was a gold-digger.

Even though they eventually changed their minds and the pair got engaged, it fell apart before MacDonald made it to stardom. But it wasn’t the last she saw of him.

Just as The Love Parade was coming out, Jack Ohmeis’s family fell as MacDonald rose: They lost nearly everything in the Wall Street crash. Although it had been some years since she had been with Ohmeis, MacDonald didn’t hesitate to lend him money—so much, in fact, that it took him until the 1950s to repay her. 

As we’ll see, MacDonald did always have a hard time letting people go. This got even messier. 

As her fame grew, MacDonald began dating Wall Street man Robert Ritchie. Their relationship was scandalous from the beginning. 12 years older than her, Ritchie also made the somewhat dubious claim that he was the son of a millionaire who had fallen on hard times—then followed MacDonald to Hollywood to become an MGM agent. 

However, none of this appeared to bother MacDonald. 

In a move that would mirror her later secrets, MacDonald may have married Robert Ritchie, but certainly kept it under wraps. MacDonald once signed her name “JAR” (Jeanette Anna Ritchie) and called him her “darling husband”. His own family claimed they had married and then had the union annulled, but Ritchie and MacDonald were tight-lipped about it for the rest of their lives. 

Besides, by then she had begun one of the most successful partnerships of her life—on screen.

Starting with Naughty Marietta in 1935, MacDonald began an enormously popular co-starring streak with the clean-cut, doe-eyed Nelson Eddy. A baritone musical actor who had cut his teeth in opera, Eddy had huge crossover appeal, and at his zenith he was the highest-paid singer in the world.

Naughty Marietta was so successful, and largely because of the chemistry between MacDonald and Eddy, that they starred in seven more films together over the next eight years. But that chemistry also led to explosions.

MacDonald and Eddy were both now contract players with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM), and thus often under the thumb of the infamous executive Louis B Mayer, who had a reputation for controlling actresses and turning their lives into nightmares. So when Mayer saw how much emotional pull Eddy had over MacDonald, he was none too happy—and he got revenge.

1936’s Rose Marie remains one of MacDonald and Eddy’s most popular two-handers, but Louis B Mayer tried to sabotage it from the beginning. According to the crew, Mayer gave the makeup team explicit instructions to make Nelson Eddy’s makeup look bad, thus supposedly teaching Eddy a lesson for trespassing on his territory, i.e. Jeanette MacDonald.

Audiences, however, had a much different reaction.

From 1935 onward, the evident chemistry between MacDonald and Eddy led fans, critics, and gossip columnists alike to speculate about a romantic relationship between the pair. Hollywood audiences were soon disappointed: MacDonald and Eddy always staunchly denied that anything was going on between them. 

Then, they went one step further to proving it. 

The year that MacDonald made Naughty Marietta with Eddy, she met the man she would end her days with. Actor Gene Raymond was a baby-faced, seemingly stable man who ended up scorning the studio system that had produced monsters like Louis B Mayer. 

MacDonald was apparently smitten, and they began dating…but not without controversy. 

MacDonald always did have trouble winning over her lovers’ families, and Gene Raymond’s mother was no exception. The matriarch was so incensed at the match, she not only regularly snubbed MacDonald, she also actively tried to split them up, once setting up her son at a charity ball with actress Janet Gaynor rather than inviting MacDonald along. 

In the end, it was futile.

Despite these issues, MacDonald seemed determined to make it work with Raymond, and in 1937 they married. The special day was a total mixed bag: Although Raymond’s mother, still bitter, refused to attend the ceremony, Nelson Eddy did show up and sing a song for the newlyweds.

This fragile happiness would only get more fragile. 

For the next few years, MacDonald’s life with Raymond looked like a postcard: They lived in a mock-Tudor mansion they called “Twin Gables” with a pack of dogs and a horse named White Lady. But inside its doors, tensions rose. Raymond was never as successful as MacDonald and, even more worryingly, never had a steady stream of income, which wore on the household.

Unfortunately, it got more humiliating than that.

MacDonald's partnership with Nelson Eddy was at its apex during her wedding to Raymond, and so diehard fans naturally assumed that whenever they saw her with Raymond, he must actually be Eddy. This was a painful experience for husband and wife: As MacDonald confessed, "Of course we always laughed it off—sometimes Gene even obliged by signing Nelson's name—but no one will ever know the agonies I suffered on such occasions”. 

Still, if fans looked closer, they would see even more cracks in the facade.

Even after the wedding, MacDonald–Eddy fans never gave up on somehow getting the two of them together. If they looked closely, there was unsettling evidence. For one, right after MacDonald’s marriage, their partnership had a blip, and both of them went off to do solo films: MacDonald starred in The Firefly with tenor Allan Jones, while Eddy starred in Rosalie with Eleanor Powell. 

And that wasn’t all.

After both solo efforts underperformed expectations, Louis B Mayer—never one to pass up making more money, despite his personal feelings—quickly got MacDonald and Eddy in another film together, 1938’s The Girl of the Golden West. Yet this, too, had warning signs for fans: MacDonald and Eddy shared very little screen time and seemed awkward together, although some noted this dissipated in their next film, Sweethearts.

For those who wanted to believe there was something between MacDonald and Eddy, though, the next event was the smoking gun. 

In 1939—just two years after MacDonald married Raymond—Nelson Eddy suddenly eloped with Ann Franklin, the ex-wife of Hollywood director Sidney Franklin. To many in the industry and in the cinema seats, it almost looked as if Eddy was on the rebound, and trying to give MacDonald as good as she got. MacDonald’s reaction didn’t help. 

When MacDonald heard about the elopement, she was in the middle of making Broadway Serenade, very much not co-starring Nelson Eddy. Her response after wrapping was frantic. She immediately left Hollywood to take up a concert tour, and while this might have been business as usual, she also refused to renew her contract with MGM—the same studio that employed Eddy. 

Her next demands were also bizarre. 

Months after icing out MGM, MacDonald seemed to realize she still needed Hollywood, and called her manager—none other than her possible ex-husband Robert Ritchie—to help her negotiate. While at the table, MacDonald seemed to do everything she could think of to avoid Eddy, requesting that she next film Smilin’ Through with Jimmy Stewart instead. 

She wouldn’t get her wish.

Instead of granting her request, MGM pushed her into not one but two films in 1940 with Nelson Eddy: New Moon and Bitter Sweet. The studio was rewarded. Audiences ate it up, with New Moon in particular being one of MacDonald’s most enduringly popular films. 

When MacDonald finally did film Smilin’ Through, her husband Gene Raymond was, perhaps not coincidentally, on the credits roll. But in any case, her time with Eddy was coming to an end. 

In 1942, MacDonald made her final film with Nelson Eddy, I Married an Angel. Yet it was Eddy’s drama, not MacDonald's, that brought their partnership to a close: Tired of fighting with Louis B Mayer, Eddy bought out his contract and went over to Universal in a million-dollar deal, leaving MacDonald to fend for herself professionally. 

MacDonald was about to enter a new phase of her life. A bitter-sweet one. 

After her partnership with Nelson Eddy came to an end, MacDonald seemed to lose interest in Hollywood for the next decade. In the 1940s, she embarked on a quest to reinvent herself as an opera singer, making her debut as Juliette in Gounod’s Romeo et Juliette, and also took jobs in television and radio. 

In the end, she would only make four more movies after I Married an Angel, ending her film career for good in 1949. But when she tried to make a comeback, her drama followed her.

Starting in the late 1950s, MacDonald tried to engineer her resurgence in Hollywood, and she took great measures to get her comeback off the ground. She hired a screenwriter to help create projects for her, and additionally tried to coordinate with either Maurice Chevalier, her first co-star in The Love Parade, or Nelson Eddy to stage a reunion. 

It almost literally ended in tears. 

At one point, MacDonald had almost clinched a comeback deal, with Nelson Eddy set to be her co-star. Then her old screen partner betrayed her. Reportedly scared off because he’d heard MacDonald was investing her own money into the picture, Eddy pulled out. Then again, the story got more complicated than that. 

In public, Eddy criticized the project as mediocre, and cited multiple issues with the production. But there was an even darker reason the film never got off the ground: MacDonald’s general health problems, and particularly her heart issues, had never gone away, and by this time she was uninsurable. It made her lose out in more ways than one. 

By the early 1960s, MacDonald was still casting around for a film comeback, but her body was making it more and more difficult to do anything. She turned down a part in the 1963 comedy The Thrill of It All, and though 20th Century Fox considered her for the role of Mother Abbess in The Sound of Music, talks stalled when MacDonald’s health began to plummet.

But if you asked MacDonald, that’s not what happened at all. 

In 1957, MacDonald’s old co-star Maurice Chevalier asked her why she had been absent from Hollywood for all these years. MacDonald’s answer was suspiciously perfect. She responded, “Because for exactly twenty years I've played my best role, by [my husband’s] side. And I'm perfectly happy”.

Perhaps MacDonald wanted to believe that it was only her love for Raymond keeping her out of the movies, but even then people must have understood it wasn’t the full truth. They had no idea. 

In late 1964, MacDonald’s heart condition rapidly worsened, and in January of 1965 she was near death at Houston Methodist Hospital, with all medical interventions and surgeries having gotten nowhere. On January 14, 1965, heart failure felled the actress at the age of just 61. 

But, at least according to her official lore, there was a silver lining. 

The last moments of Jeanette MacDonald’s life read like a saccharine fairy tale—albeit one with a tragic ending. Reportedly, just before she passed, MacDonald’s husband Gene Raymond was at her bedside, massaging her feet. According to Raymond, their last words for each other were shared “I love yous” right before her head hit the pillow. 

Yet even amidst this version of events, the public noticed something else. 

At MacDonald’s funeral on January 18, 1965, mourners from across Hollywood and America poured in, including Spencer Tracy and several former or future US presidents. But one guest in particular caught eyes. Newsreel footage revealed that Nelson Eddy was the last one to leave the church, with friends circling around him and giving him condolences.

After all these years, people still questioned the true nature of their relationship. But MacDonald clung to secrecy. 

Before her death, MacDonald had been trying and failing to publish an autobiography about her life. Despite prompting from publishers, MacDonald’s pages were “too genteel” to make the book viable, as she refused to divulge gossip about any of the Hollywood heavy-hitters she’d known, Nelson Eddy included. 

MacDonald’s stance was that she was taking the high road, but in reality, she was only hiding the truth—and it’s worse than you could ever imagine. . 

Despite pesky rumors about MacDonald and Eddy carrying a flame for each other during their film run, the safe haven of her marriage to Gene Raymond remained intact until the day she died. Except this may have been the biggest lie of all. According to biographer Sharon Rich, Raymond frequently had affairs during his marriage to MacDonald…and that’s not all. 

Raymond’s wandering eye would have been one thing, but the couple were hiding so much more than that. Reportedly, while on her honeymoon, MacDonald walked in on Raymond in bed with male actor Buddy Rogers, and over the course of their marriage Raymond was detained on three different occasions for these at-the-time taboo proclivities. As a result, many believe Louis B Mayer forced MacDonald into the union as Raymond’s “beard”.

This would all be tragic enough, but it’s still only half of the story.

In 2015, MacDonald’s diary was sold at auction. Its pages revealed the harrowing truth. Raymond, frustrated and denied his own desires, was both physically and emotionally horrific to MacDonald for decades, often showering her with verbal insults and getting physical. But when he wasn’t hurting her, he was doing much worse.

MacDonald’s diary reveals the stark, heartbreaking truth about the last years of her life. While her health was failing, Raymond was acutely neglecting her. He left his incapacitated wife utterly alone for 44 days of the year, and her weight unsurprisingly dropped down to under 100 pounds. 

It was not a perfect marriage. But MacDonald had other things to hide. 

More of MacDonald’s deep secrets came out after her passing, including the truth about her relationship with Nelson Eddy. In a letter written around the time of their first film together and uncovered much later, Nelson Eddy wrote: “Dearest Jeanette…I love you and will always be devoted to you,” finally confirming after all this time that they did have a romantic relationship.

But like so much in MacDonald’s life, that was just the sweet beginning to an utterly harrowing ordeal.

By the time MacDonald and Eddy filmed Sweethearts together in 1938, they were hiding a catastrophic secret. At the time of filming, MacDonald—though only recently married to Gene Raymond—was pregnant with Eddy’s child. Some say you can even see the pregnancy through her costume in certain scenes in the film.

This news reads like a telenovela, but the situation would only get more dramatic. 

The baby MacDonald carried in Sweethearts became a breaking point for all aspects of her life. That’s because, even while she was pregnant, Raymond reportedly physically mistreated her. After learning of this, a furious Nelson Eddy confronted Raymond and attacked him so viciously, the newspapers reported Raymond had fallen down some stairs. 

It ended in even more tears.

There’s evidence that, with all this going on, MacDonald went to Louis B Mayer and begged him to annul her marriage to Raymond so she could elope with Eddy. Mayer’s reply was pure cruelty: He refused carte blanche. Six months into her pregnancy, MacDonald then lost the baby, with Eddy burying the remains on his property in California.

Yet still, MacDonald and Eddy couldn’t quit each other.

In the end, MacDonald and Eddy didn’t let Louis B Mayer stop them marrying, at least in their hearts. According to one story, they performed a mock ceremony at Lake Tahoe while filming Rose Marie, considered themselves married, and traveled back to the lake every autumn for years to renew their “vows”. 

Indeed, the evidence of their attachment was scandalously obvious.

Over the course of their illicit and extremely hush-hush relationship, there is both documentation and visual evidence that MacDonald got pregnant eight times by Eddy, even after he too got married. After all, Gene Raymond reportedly couldn’t father children in the first place. 

Sadly, possibly due to MacDonald’s health issues, each pregnancy ended in a miscarriage. 

MacDonald’s relationship with Nelson Eddy lasted long past their film partnership together, right up until MacDonald’s passing. According to evidence, they even surreptitiously shared several homes, or else used hotels and friends’ houses to see each other. In the last years of her life, Eddy got an apartment directly beside MacDonald’s so she could walk over and see him as long as she was strong enough. 

Jeanette MacDonald presented one perfect, celluloid face to the world, all while her private life roiled with a heartache so deep, she could barely even admit it to herself. In the end, she lived with the lies until her dying day, putting on a performance every hour of her life—because without the comfort of her Hollywood fantasy, the unvarnished truth would have brought her to her knees. 

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As a stableman and trainer, Frank Hayes wasn’t usually a jockey. However, on the fateful day of June 4, 1923, he competed in a steeplechase at Belmont Park racetrack. Though this wasn’t Hayes’ usual profession, he managed to place first. Unfortunately, when the officials went to meet and congratulate him, they made a disturbing discovery: Hayes was dead.

Turns out, while racing his horse Sweet Kiss, Frank Hayes had suffered a fatal heart attack. His body stayed seated, while Sweet Kiss continued to victory. But the tragedy doesn’t end there.

Turns out, Hayes’ demise may have been the result of sudden weight loss. In the attempt to satisfy the weight requirements for the race, he’d dropped from 142 pounds to 130 pounds too quickly, which likely put a strain on his heart.

Three days after his passing, Frank Hayes went to his final resting place, wearing his racing silks. His trusty steed, on the other hand, never took part in another competition. Instead, Sweet Kiss earned a dark nickname that she’d never be able to shake: “Sweet Kiss of Death.”

The Queen of Sheba's most famous appearance comes in 1 Kings 10, with a parallel account in 2 Chronicles 9. Having heard reports of King Solomon's wisdom, she travels to Jerusalem with an impressive caravan and tests him with difficult questions before acknowledging his extraordinary reputation.

The biblical account emphasizes the queen's staggering wealth. Her camels carry spices, precious stones and 120 talents of gold for Solomon. The text even claims that Jerusalem had never received spices comparable to those she presented, helping create the enduring image of Sheba as fabulously prosperous.

According to 1 Kings, Solomon successfully answered every question the queen asked him. She was also overwhelmed by his palace, officials, servants, food and religious offerings. Solomon subsequently showered her with gifts and whatever else she desired before the queen and her attendants departed for their own country.

For somebody who became one of antiquity's most famous queens, she is introduced remarkably anonymously. Neither the Hebrew Bible nor the Qur'an provides her personal name. She is simply the Queen of Sheba, leaving later Jewish, Christian, Islamic and Ethiopian traditions to supply identities and biographies of their own.

First-century Jewish historian Josephus retold the story centuries after the biblical period, identifying Solomon's visitor as a queen of Egypt and Ethiopia. Such later accounts show how early the queen's geographical identity became fluid, but they can't independently establish who the original woman was or whether she existed historically.

The Qur'an also describes a female ruler of Saba in Surah 27. Solomon learns that a woman possessing a magnificent throne rules a prosperous people who worship the sun. He sends her a letter demanding submission, in the start of a story substantially different from the biblical version.

In the Qur'anic narrative, Solomon rejects gifts sent by the queen and has her throne miraculously brought to him before her arrival. He alters it to test whether she recognizes it. She ultimately encounters Solomon's extraordinary glass-floored palace and declares her submission to God.

The name Bilqis, also rendered Belqis or Bilqīs, became firmly attached to the queen in Islamic tradition. Crucially, however, the Qur'an itself never calls her Bilqis. Medieval commentators supplied that name while elaborating her ancestry, appearance, relationship with Solomon and eventual fate in numerous different ways.

A completely different name became famous across the Red Sea. Ethiopian tradition knows the Queen of Sheba as Makeda. Her story eventually became fundamental to Ethiopian royal identity, but Makeda does not appear by that name in the biblical account, and the tradition was recorded a lot later than Solomon's supposed lifetime.

The Ethiopian narrative Kebra Nagast, or Glory of Kings, developed the queen's visit into an elaborate national foundation story. Makeda visits Solomon, and their relationship produces a son, Menelik. The work survives from the medieval period, roughly two millennia after the traditional tenth-century BCE setting of Solomon.

According to the Kebra Nagast, Menelik eventually travels to Jerusalem and returns to Ethiopia with the Ark of the Covenant. Ethiopian monarchs later claimed descent from Solomon and Makeda through Menelik, transforming the mysterious biblical visitor into an ancestral figure supporting the legitimacy of Ethiopia's Solomonic dynasty.

That tradition explains Ethiopia's powerful cultural claim to the queen. Makeda became intertwined with Ethiopian Christianity, monarchy and national history. Traditions around the ancient Ethiopian kingdom of Aksum even identify places associated with her, although archaeological remains there generally belong to periods many centuries later than the tenth-century BCE age traditionally assigned to Solomon.

Yemen's claim rests on a different foundation: Saba was real. Archaeological remains in modern Yemen document an affluent South Arabian kingdom centered eventually at Ma'rib. Its monumental temples, inscriptions, irrigation works and involvement in the incense trade provide an unmistakable historical setting resembling the wealthy Sheba remembered by later tradition.

Thousands of ancient South Arabian inscriptions have transformed understanding of Saba. Sabaic became the best-attested ancient South Arabian language, and reliably dated inscriptions begin appearing during the early first millennium BCE. Archaeology therefore confirms a powerful Sabaean civilization even though it has not confirmed its legendary queen.

Solomon is traditionally placed in the tenth century BCE, but Saba becomes much clearer archaeologically somewhat later. Ma'rib rose as Saba's capital around the middle of the eighth century BCE, while reliably dated substantial Sabaic inscriptions also become available centuries after Solomon's traditionally assigned reign. That chronological gap complicates identification.

The queen's personal fortune remains unverified, but the broader reputation of southern Arabia for wealth makes historical sense. Saba benefited from trade networks carrying valuable aromatics, especially frankincense and myrrh, toward Mediterranean markets. Profits supported monumental temples, sophisticated settlements, expensive objects and ambitious water-works projects.

Ancient Ma'rib developed into Saba's administrative, economic and cultural center. Its inhabitants created a vast irrigated oasis supported by an extraordinary dam and canal system. UNESCO describes the engineering achievement as unparalleled in ancient South Arabia, demonstrating that Sabaean wealth produced genuinely monumental public works.

Near Ma'rib stands the Bar'an Temple, a monumental Sabaean sanctuary dedicated to the god Almaqah. The site is popularly known as the Throne of Bilqis, directly associating its dramatic ruins with the legendary queen. Archaeology, however, identifies it as a religious sanctuary rather than Bilqis's personal throne room.

Scientific dating makes the Bar'an Temple fascinating but troublesome as direct evidence for Sheba's queen. Radiocarbon work places significant phases of the sanctuary from approximately the eighth century BCE onward. That is impressive Sabaean archaeology, but later than the conventional tenth-century BCE setting of Solomon's famous royal visitor.

The nearby Awam Temple is popularly known as Mahram Bilqis, another modern connection between the archaeological landscape and the legendary queen. It was actually Saba's major sanctuary dedicated to Almaqah. Its monumental enclosure, colonnade and thousands of inscriptions make it enormously important without establishing Bilqis as its builder.

The distinction matters. Archaeologists have found Sabaean cities, fortifications, temples, inscriptions, religious practices, irrigation systems and evidence of sophisticated government. UNESCO's World Heritage property at Ma'rib now incorporates seven major archaeological components. What researchers haven't found yet is an object securely identifying the Queen of Sheba herself.

Excavators searching ancient South Arabia uncovered bronzes, inscriptions, temples and evidence of a highly literate civilization, but no fabulous royal treasure belonging to Sheba's queen. American explorer Wendell Phillips hoped his mid-twentieth-century excavations might illuminate the legend, but his spectacular discoveries never produced the elusive queen or her gold.

This absence is especially important because Saba left enormous numbers of inscriptions. Thousands document religious dedications, rulers, construction, administration and historical events. Yet no securely identified ancient Sabaean inscription has emerged naming Bilqis, Makeda or another woman who can confidently be equated with Solomon's visitor.

The idea of a wealthy Arabian queen is not inherently impossible. Ancient Near Eastern records attest to powerful women and female rulers, while Arabian societies had politically influential women. What's still missing is the crucial bridge connecting any historically documented woman specifically to the unnamed Queen of Sheba described in the biblical tradition.

A diplomatic or commercial mission between South Arabia and the Levant would not be geographically absurd. Saba eventually occupied a major position in trading networks linking southern Arabia with Mediterranean markets and East Africa. Aromatics were particularly valuable, making the biblical emphasis on spices strikingly appropriate to the region's genuine economy.

A real Saba, real caravan routes and genuine incense wealth can explain how a Queen of Sheba story arose without proving its central character existed. Archaeology can confirm the historical background while remaining silent about an individual. That distinction is what currently defines the scholarly problem surrounding the queen.

Yemen possesses the archaeological heartland of ancient Saba, including Ma'rib and its temples. Ethiopia possesses the extraordinarily influential Makeda tradition connecting its monarchy and Christianity to Solomon. Contacts across the Red Sea were real, which helps explain why the queen could become culturally meaningful on both sides.

Research continues to refine Saba's chronology. Archaeological work indicates complex settlement and irrigation around Ma'rib before its emergence as the clearly documented capital of Saba, while inscriptions are increasingly informative from the eighth and seventh centuries BCE onward. New discoveries can change the historical background without necessarily identifying the queen.

In 2023, UNESCO inscribed the Landmarks of the Ancient Kingdom of Saba at Ma'rib as a World Heritage Site. The seven components include ancient Ma'rib, the Awam and Bar'an temples, portions of the ancient dam and Sirwah. Ongoing conflict simultaneously placed the property on the World Heritage in Danger list.

Filmmakers repeatedly supplied the queen that archaeology could not. Betty Blythe starred in The Queen of Sheba (1921), Leonora Ruffo played her in The Queen of Sheba (1952), and Gina Lollobrigida brought spectacular glamour to Solomon and Sheba (1959). Decades later, Halle Berry portrayed the queen opposite Jimmy Smits in the television film Solomon & Sheba (1995).

These films emphasize enormous wealth, exotic splendor, political intrigue and especially romance. But it's important to keep in mind that the biblical account never says Solomon and Sheba became lovers, while Solomon and Sheba (1959) even makes her an Egyptian ally plotting against him. Cinema transformed a mysterious diplomatic visitor into a romantic heroine because the ancient sources left filmmakers enormous room to invent.

Modern archaeology has confirmed the most important fact behind the legend: Saba was a real, sophisticated and wealthy civilization. It hasn't confirmed Bilqis, Makeda, Solomon's royal visitor or her enormous treasure. For now, the Queen of Sheba stays suspended between a genuine ancient kingdom and an extraordinary literary tradition.

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In the early 1700s, a mysterious European calling himself George Psalmanazar arrived in Britain claiming to be a native of Formosa, now Taiwan. He presented himself as a converted pagan with firsthand knowledge of an island that remained mysterious to most Europeans. There was just one problem: almost everything about him was invented. 

Psalmanazar became a celebrity and moved among prominent religious and intellectual circles. He published An Historical and Geographical Description of Formosa in 1704, confidently describing bizarre customs supposedly practiced by his countrymen. His invented expertise was persuasive partly because few people in Britain possessed enough reliable knowledge of Taiwan to challenge him.

Psalmanazar did not stop at inventing customs. He created a supposed Formosan language and alphabet, and even translated religious material into it at the request of his supporters. Critics eventually exposed the deception, but for a remarkable period he had turned an imaginary identity into intellectual authority.

In the 1790s, William Henry Ireland began presenting his Shakespeare-obsessed father with supposedly newly discovered documents written by the playwright. Ireland was still a teenager when the stream of discoveries began. Soon he was producing signatures, letters, poetry, and other precious pieces of Shakespeare history. 

Ireland claimed his discoveries included a love letter from Shakespeare to Anne Hathaway, complete with a lock of hair. His father enthusiastically promoted the documents and published facsimiles of the collection. Despite growing doubts among scholars, plenty of admirers initially wanted the remarkable discoveries to be genuine. 

Ireland eventually unveiled Vortigern, supposedly a lost Shakespeare play. It reached the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, for a performance on April 2, 1796, just as scholar Edmond Malone was publicly attacking the authenticity of the documents. The spectacular expansion of the hoax helped bring the whole thing crashing down. 

French forger Denis Vrain-Lucas found an extraordinary customer in Michel Chasles, one of the most distinguished mathematicians of the 19th century. Beginning in 1861, Vrain-Lucas sold Chasles huge numbers of supposedly historic letters. Chasles was not gullible in any ordinary sense, but the documents offered discoveries that appealed directly to his interests.

The collection became increasingly ridiculous. Vrain-Lucas produced documents supposedly written by figures including Cleopatra, Julius Caesar, Alexander the Great, Galileo, and Mary Magdalene. Remarkably, the ancient writers all appeared to have communicated in versions of French. 

Among the forged correspondence were letters suggesting that Blaise Pascal had anticipated Isaac Newton's work on universal gravitation. Chasles presented this apparent bombshell to the French Académie des Sciences in 1867, triggering an academic controversy. Vrain-Lucas was eventually exposed, prosecuted, and sentenced to two years in prison.

In 1912, amateur archaeologist Charles Dawson and British Museum palaeontologist Arthur Smith Woodward announced remarkable fossils from Piltdown in southern England. The combination of a human-like skull and ape-like jaw appeared to represent a previously unknown ancient human ancestor. Much of the scientific world accepted the discovery in good faith. (Natural History Museum)

The supposed fossils seemed to offer precisely the kind of transitional human ancestor researchers had been searching for. Dawson continued producing finds, including material from a second Piltdown site. Later analysis showed that bones had been artificially stained and teeth altered to make the collection appear far older and more convincing than it really was.

Testing in the early 1950s finally demonstrated that Piltdown Man was a fraud assembled from human and ape remains. The deception had distorted discussion of human evolution for decades. Modern genetic, chemical, and imaging research has pointed strongly toward Dawson as the central figure behind the hoax.

Dutch artist Han van Meegeren discovered that producing a convincing fake could be more lucrative than winning recognition under his own name. Instead of simply copying known works by Johannes Vermeer, he created paintings that appeared to fill gaps in the artist's career. That made his inventions harder to compare directly with an original. 

Van Meegeren's Christ at Emmaus was examined by respected Vermeer authority Abraham Bredius in 1937. Bredius enthusiastically accepted it as a genuine Vermeer, and the painting was subsequently acquired for Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen. A brand-new artwork had successfully entered the world as a centuries-old masterpiece. 

After World War II, investigators traced another supposed Vermeer to Hermann Göring and then back to Van Meegeren. Facing accusations connected to selling an important Dutch artwork to the Germans, Van Meegeren confessed that his "Vermeers" were his own creations. Scientific examination later identified modern materials in the paintings, confirming one of art history's most famous deceptions.

Ferdinand Waldo Demara had already assumed multiple identities when he began impersonating Canadian physician Joseph Cyr. Using Cyr's identity, Demara entered the Royal Canadian Navy as a medical officer. He eventually found himself aboard HMCS Cayuga during the Korean War with sailors depending on him for medical care. 

Demara had no formal medical qualifications, but he studied textbooks and relied heavily on experienced medical personnel around him. He performed minor procedures and treated seriously wounded Korean casualties aboard the ship. Somehow, the impostor managed to function convincingly enough that his work initially brought admiration rather than suspicion.

Demara's apparent medical heroics became news, which was exactly what an impostor using someone else's identity did not need. The real Joseph Cyr learned that another man was serving under his name, and the deception unraveled. The Navy discovered that its surgeon-lieutenant was actually an American serial impostor. 

In 1971, writer Clifford Irving told McGraw-Hill that billionaire Howard Hughes had secretly chosen him to produce an authorized autobiography. Hughes was famously inaccessible, making Irving's claims unusually difficult to check directly. McGraw-Hill and Life became convinced enough to prepare the sensational project for publication. 

Irving produced supposed handwritten communications from Hughes, and experts initially found them convincing. Hughes finally emerged through a telephone press conference in January 1972 and declared that he had never authorized the book or even met Irving. Investigators unraveled the forged documents and financial trail, and Irving eventually admitted the entire project was fabricated. 

German forger Konrad Kujau produced dozens of notebooks supposedly containing Adolf Hitler's private diaries. The German magazine Stern spent millions of Deutsche Marks acquiring them, while foreign publications rushed to secure publishing rights. Suddenly, an obscure forger had created one of the biggest historical scoops imaginable. 

Distinguished Hitler historian Hugh Trevor-Roper initially gave the diaries credibility, although he soon developed serious doubts. Proper forensic testing revealed postwar materials that could not possibly have belonged to Hitler. The supposedly priceless historical archive collapsed into an embarrassing reminder of what can happen when secrecy, competition, and deadlines outrun verification. 

Decades later, Shaun Greenhalgh demonstrated that even sophisticated modern institutions could still be fooled. Working largely from his family's home in Bolton, England, he created imitation paintings, sculptures, and antiquities while his parents helped provide convincing stories about where the objects came from. Their creations eventually reached museums, auction houses, and major collectors. 

Greenhalgh's most celebrated creation was an Egyptian-style figure known as the Amarna Princess. Experts accepted it as an ancient object, and Bolton Museum bought it for roughly £440,000 after it had received high-level scrutiny. The operation finally unraveled when supposed Assyrian reliefs raised suspicions, including errors in their inscriptions and details that did not fit the ancient period. 

Japanese archaeologist Shinichi Fujimura developed an astonishing reputation for locating extremely ancient stone artifacts. His apparent discoveries pushed the human occupation of Japan dramatically further into the past, and colleagues nicknamed him "God's Hands" because of his remarkable ability to find important objects. His work helped shape accepted accounts of Japanese prehistory. 

In 2000, reporters from Japan's Mainichi Shimbun secretly photographed Fujimura at the Kamitakamori archaeological site. The images showed him deliberately placing artifacts into the ground before they were supposedly discovered during excavation. A spectacular archaeological career suddenly looked very different. 

Fujimura initially admitted only limited wrongdoing, but later acknowledged fabricating discoveries at at least 42 sites. According to Archaeology magazine, those compromised sites represented virtually the entire Japanese archaeological record before the Upper Paleolithic. Textbooks had to be revised as one of the country's most celebrated archaeological stories collapsed.

These frauds worked for wildly different reasons, but one pattern appears again and again. The most successful deceivers did not simply create believable evidence. They created evidence that respected people were already excited, pressured, or intellectually prepared to believe, which can make even extraordinary expertise a surprisingly imperfect defense.

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Mary Astor didn't exactly have a happy home life. Her controlling parents pushed her into teen beauty contests and stringent piano lessons in the hopes she would become a star. They even moved the whole family over to New York City so their daughter could try her hand at drama. It was a lot of pressure for a little girl...and as we’ll see, it had disastrous consequences.

As it turns out, Astor's horrible parents were still spot-on about their daughter's star potential. Nicknamed “Rusty” after her long red hair, Astor grew into a hauntingly beautiful woman with large, sad eyes. Astor also developed early, turning tall long before her classmates, so much so that it seemed like she was never a child. Oh, but she very much was.

Mary Astor's origin story is right out of the Old Hollywood starlet playbook. When Astor was only around 16 years old, famed photographer Charles Albin saw her walking down the street in Manhattan and knew he had to snap a photo of her. It was a date with destiny. Albin's headshots made their way to the desk of Famous Players-Lasky Studio, who immediately signed her on.

As it turned out, though, this was no fairy tale.

Astor might have been beautiful enough to catch the eye of Hollywood, but she had to undergo a transformation to keep Tinseltown's interest. In a meeting the young girl wasn't even invited to, studio heads changed her name from the "cumbersome" Lucile Vasconcellos Langhanke to the pert "Mary Astor" we know today. Well, thanks, guys.

It was probably an unsettling welcome for the teenage girl, yet she had more disturbances to come.

Astor's mother had always wanted to be a famous actress herself, so you'd think seeing her daughter on the cusp of becoming one would have been heartwarming for the matron. Nothing could be further from the truth. Helen Marie de Vasconcellos only tightened her controlling grip more on her young daughter, insisting on chaperoning her everywhere. And that wasn't all.

Astor's parents lorded over every single detail of their daughter's life. Her mother accompanied her to set and would constantly re-tweak her makeup and costumes, while at home her father would open all of the letters she received. The poor girl wasn't even allowed to send her own letters, let alone leave her house solo. This did not go well.

At first, Astor let her parents suffocate her without complaint. It came with a high cost. Early on in her career, the legendary Lillian Gish took a shine to the starlet and screen-tested her for director D.W. Griffith. Although Astor was incandescent, Griffith took one look at her father and rejected her, warning, “The man’s a walking cash register. I’ll never be able to develop the daughter into an actress with the father around.”

Sadly, it got much worse before it got better.

Eventually, Astor became a successful starlet—no thanks to her parents—and started pulling in big bucks. This, however, was its own kind of curse. After all, it was her good-for-nothing parents who had full control of her salary, and they had no qualms about spending it on themselves, buying an enormous mansion and keeping her as a virtual prisoner in it.

With a film career most girls could only dream of, it was hell on Earth for Mary Astor. So when she rebelled, she rebelled HARD.

In 1924, Astor's beauty snagged her a big film. The debonair veteran actor John Barrymore caught sight of Astor in a photograph and demanded that she star alongside him in his upcoming silent film Beau Brummell. Charismatic and talented, Barrymore took Astor under his wing, giving her career a much-needed boost. But that wasn't all he did.

In the timeworn tradition of creeps everywhere, the 40-year-old Barrymore wasted no time on set trying to woo his new, nubile co-star—after all, the stage icon had a notorious reputation around Hollywood as a boozy philanderer. Ever the smooth-talker, Barrymore told the teenaged Astor that she was so beautiful she made him “feel faint!” Astor's response? Well...

Poor Mary Astor was only 17 years old, and had barely been let out of her own house at this point. So, of course, the naive teenager fell head over heels for Barrymore. There was just one huge problem. There was no way on God's green Earth her strict parents were going to be letting a tryst happen. Instead, Barrymore and Astor had to come up with a scandalous plan.

In order to get around her parents' (totally valid) concerns, Barrymore set up "private lessons" for him to "teach" Astor and improve her "craft." In other words, they used this alone time to thoroughly boink each other from here to Shanghai, and soon got engaged on the down-low. Still, trouble was already showing up in Paradise.

In taking up with John Barrymore, Astor earned herself a shred of independence, but not her full freedom. Her parents still constantly meddled in her life, and she and Barrymore were reduced to setting up secret communiques months apart. Worst of all, Barrymore knew Astor would never work up the courage to truly defy her parents and marry him. It all ended in heartbreak.

Unable to stand his girlfriend's family, Barrymore dealt Astor a cruel betrayal. Eventually, his eye started to wander right over to Astor's fellow starlet, Dolores Costello. Nicknamed “The Goddess of the Silent Screen,” Costello soon owned Barrymore's whole heart. He married her in 1928, discarding Astor along the way. Ouch. But that's when Astor really broke free.

Mary Astor squarely blamed her controlling parents for the breakup, and her bitterness made her lash out at them in a big way. She became a passionate party-goer, running away multiple times to attend Hollywood soirees, even if it meant escaping out of her bedroom window. And then she took drastic measures to take back control of her life.

Astor wasn't playing games anymore, and she kicked her parents right to the curb. She hired a maid to be her assistant on set, not her mother, and barred her father from negotiating on any more of her film contracts. Then she twisted the knife in: At 26 years old, she demanded full control of her salary. To Astor's shock, her parents got brutal revenge.

Without a source of income, and saddled with a very expensive mansion, Astor's parents sued their famous daughter for financial support. Disgusted but ready to be done with it, Astor eventually settled out of court, agreeing to pay her folks a paltry $100 per month if they'd stay out of her business. It was supposed to be a fresh start, but it wasn't a smooth ride.

As the silent movie era ended, and the age of the talkies began, Astor found herself in deep trouble. The studio brought her in for a sound test, and it quickly turned into a disaster. While her face was as gorgeous as ever, they found her naturally deep voice "masculine" and "hollow," and put her out of work for 10 long months. But by this time, Astor had other things on her mind.

In 1928, Mary Astor sealed her new independence by getting married to director Kenneth Hawks, whom she had only known for a year. By all accounts, he was a gentle, upstanding man, and he doted on Astor, even giving her a car as a wedding gift. For her part, Astor had nothing but love and respect for him—which made her next move a strange one.

While Hawks was a financial and emotional rock for Astor, they were hiding a big secret behind bedroom doors. Their intimate life was far too boring and stilted for Astor, who, after all, had gotten her "education" from the very senior lover John Barrymore. She tried to be a good little girl and wife for a few months, but the wheels came off quickly.

Mary Astor later confessed that she wasn't exactly faithful during her marriage to Kenneth Hawks, and she struck up an affair soon after tying the knot. The really scandalous part? Even years after the fact, Astor refused to name the mystery lover who managed to seduce her from her marriage bed. Then again, she had one very illicit reason to keep him secret...

Less than two years into her marriage to Kenneth Hawks, Astor made a disturbing discovery. She was pregnant, and not with her husband's child. In fact, given just how little bedroom relations they had been having, there was no way she could even hope to pass off the baby as his. Instead, the young starlet had a hush-hush abortion and tried to mend the error of her ways.

Fate, however, had other plans.

On January 2, 1930, Kenneth Hawks was directing an aerial scene for his upcoming film Such Men Are Dangerous. Suddenly, two of the planes met in a mid-air collision, and both aircraft plummeted into the Pacific Ocean, taking the lives of everyone on board—including Hawks—in what was called "the worst air accident in film history."

When Mary Astor got the grim tidings, she received the news in the worst way possible. She had just finished up a matinee performance on stage when her friend, actress Florence Eldridge, told her about the crash. Aides immediately swept a shell-shocked Astor away from the play, and she holed up in Eldridge's apartment for days. When she came out, though, it somehow got worse.

Although clearly traumatized by the loss of her husband, Mary Astor became an eerie, frozen picture of normalcy when she emerged from that apartment. Acting as if nothing was wrong, she buried herself in work, staging show after show and even starring in her first talkie, Ladies Love Brutes, in the same year. Astor thought she could outrun her pain...but it came back to haunt her.

When the horror of what had happened to Kenneth Hawks finally caught up to Mary Astor, it was an utter catastrophe. She had bottled it all up so deeply, that when it emerged it nearly destroyed her, causing her to suffer a full-blown nervous breakdown and putting her out of film roles for months. Clearly, Mary Astor needed a break. Except she didn't actually get one.

While in the throes of her illness, Astor fell under the care of the dashing, handsome Doctor Franklyn Thorpe. If you're getting a sense of unease here, well, follow that feeling. In a move that would have made Sigmund Freud shake his head, Astor soon became infatuated with the good doctor, and married him in 1931. Yes, this was a big YIKES.

To be fair, Thorpe and Astor had some things in common: Both had demanding careers, as well as high expectations of themselves and others. In 1932, they also had a daughter named Marylyn together, which could have only drawn them closer for a time. Astor even briefly considered quitting the screen and settling down as a doctor’s wife.

Except when things fell apart with them, they got very nasty, very fast.

As it happens, having an uber critical husband isn't much of a happily ever after. By 1933, Astor was worn thin with Thorpe's constant listing of her flaws. Even more alarmingly, he was easily annoyed by their daughter Marylyn and had started to shake her so hard that “her teeth rattled." That, however, was just their home life...

Besides being less than a Prince Charming inside their house, Astor also claimed that Thorpe had no fewer than four affairs over the course of their marriage, and had also neglected to inform her that he had been married before. It was all too much for the actress to take, and she demanded a divorce and took him to court. That's when her husband showed his sinister true colors. 

During the divorce proceedings, Mary Astor presented her evidence for why Dr. Thorpe was The World's Worst Husband, but her ex-lover bit back—hard. Instead of admitting to any philandering himself, Thorpe turned the tables on Astor and claimed she was the one hiding ruinous secrets. More than that, he said he could prove it "in her own handwriting." And oh, he could.

See, during the dissolution of their marriage, Thorpe had got his grubby little hands on Astor's private diary. Its contents nearly destroyed her. In the slim book, Astor spilled the beans about a hot and heavy tryst she had with the playwright George S. Kaufman just after she had informally split with Thorpe. Thorpe saw his opportunity, and he pounced.

According to Thorpe, the confessions in Astor's diary—plus the other liaisons he was sure she was having—were enough to show that she was an unfit mother to little Marylyn, and that he should get custody of their daughter. The thing is, Thorpe never actually showed this diary in court, but he sure as heck mentioned it a lot. Soon enough, trouble started brewing.

A Hollywood divorce was already big tabloid fodder, and the addition of a secret and mysterious diary was too much for gossip hounds to ignore. Once the news about Kaufman went to the press, the papers jumped on Astor's personal strife. After that, unfounded stories of her bedroom romps only grew larger, until they hit a notorious apex.

Take note: Cheaters never prosper. Although Thorpe wanted to destroy Astor, he only made her stronger. A judge deemed the diary inadmissible in the custody battle for Marylyn, and threw it out of court. As a result, Thorpe was unable to build his case, and Astor received majority custody of Marylyn, all while her career got a fresh wave of interest. Take that, fool.

Although Astor's diary scandal set the world alight, today we know the grim truth. In an act of supreme vengeance, Thorpe likely faked most of Astor's supposed "confessions," though Astor did confirm her dalliance with Kaufman. Still, if there was any shred of truth to his claims, we'll never know: The courts sealed the diary in the 1930s and destroyed it in 1952.

The thing is, Mary Astor's scandals were just getting started.

Mary Astor couldn't stay away from trouble for long, and in 1935 she really got herself in it. That year, she met the devastatingly handsome Manuel del Campo, a British-Mexican film editor and aspiring actor. Astor found him “kind and decent,” and a little exciting too, with his British accent, mixed heritage, and love of adventure. In other words, it was time for Astor to do something supremely misguided again.

In a case of history repeating itself, Astor and del Campo got secretly engaged and then married just a year after meeting. Seriously, the union was so confidential that his own parents didn't know about it, much less hers. In due time, the two had a son named Anthony "Tono" del Campo together...but the addition of a new family member didn’t turn del Campo into a family man overnight.

Del Campo would rather spend his days partying in nightclubs with other women than cleaning up baby spit, all while Astor was waking up at the crack of dawn for early film calls. It led to a dreary fate. His enlistment into the Air Force was the final nail in the coffin for their relationship. The pair split in 1941, with del Campo barely seeing his son or ex-wife afterward.

Eventually, Mary Astor grew confident in her abilities—and when she did, watch the heck out. While portraying a concert pianist in the 1941 film The Great Lie, Astor realized she hated the schlocky material. A perfectionist until the end, she and her co-star Bette Davis tweaked the script. It paid off big time, earning Astor an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress.

Obviously, Astor’s background as a pianist came in handy in The Great Lie. Or at least, it should have. Sadly, her piano playing was actually dubbed over—but she still “played” so convincingly that no one could believe it. As Davis once proudly said, “These concert scenes of Mary's were the most believable ever seen on screen—because she really was a pianist par excellence.”

After The Great Lie came out, Mary Astor gave her father a heartbreaking gift. Although their relationship was complicated, to say the least, she took her old man to see the movie shortly before his passing. When he watched it, the patriarch actually thought his little girl really was playing the piano, and was proud of her at long last.

With a string of incredibly dysfunctional relationships behind her, Mary Astor thought she had it all figured out by the 1940s, and settled down into yet another marriage with the military man Thomas Gordon Wheelock. He was loyal and dependable, and everything Astor thought she needed. Except for one thing: She didn't love him in the slightest. And when it rains, it pours.

In the early 1940s, Astor's luck sadly ran out. Though she was only in her mid-30s, studios began to relegate her to the "mom" roles, including most famously in 1944's Meet Me in St. Louis. In a further indignity, soon almost every young actor on the studio lot nicknamed her “Mom.” Ah, the name every woman wants to hear.

In 1955, unable to get over her lack of passion, Mary Astor officially divorced Thomas Wheelock after 10 lukewarm years of marriage. It was her romantic swan song: She gave up on love entirely after that and never married again. Instead, the star fell into isolation, suffering from severe insomnia and nerves. Then, her biggest inner demon reared its ugly head.

Throughout her years in Hollywood, Astor had always liked a drink, but it had never affected her work before. Well, that all changed in the blink of an eye. Her troubled relationships took their toll, and she took a hiatus from acting, steadily drinking more each day while falling further into debt. Eventually, she needed to apply to the Motion Picture Relief Fund to buy groceries.

One of Astor’s most famous roles was as Brigid O’Shaughnessy in the film The Maltese Falcon, where the starlet set the mold for the “femme fatale” stereotype. Astor played up the character’s nervousness and vulnerability, going so far as to hyperventilate before her scenes started to sound breathless and desperate for help. Clever girl.

Astor's family life took a bigger toll on her than most people even knew. Despite being an avid reader of history books and a lover of classical music, she never felt smart enough or capable enough—after all, her parents were always treating her like a baby. Soon enough, her fellow actors noticed her low self-esteem, and one took advantage of it in an unsettling way.

While filming  The Maltese Falcon opposite Humphrey Bogart, the noir heartthrob apparently noticed Astor's nerves. His response was the definition of gross. In a misguided attempt to give her a boost, Bogie consoled her, “So you’re not very smart, but you know it, and what's the matter with that? Be yourself.” Umm. Thanks?

Hard up for cash, Astor transitioned over to early live television later in her career. While she featured in plenty of big-name shows, the depressive star couldn't keep up with the fast-paced schedule. Dressing up became “too much trouble,” and even going on set was a bother. Still, this finally pushed her to do something that she always wanted to do.

Astor had an active imagination, and this worked hand-in-hand with her love of reading—she even liked to read the labels on medicine bottles if there were any lying around. Everywhere she went, Astro's first thought was to look around for reading materials, and it helped shape her emerging talents as a writer. Soon, she began a new chapter of her life.

In 1959, Astor published her memoir, My Story: An Autobiography, which became a bestseller. She chronicled a lifetime of experiences in the tome, speaking frankly about her troubled past and revealing intimate details about her relationship with her parents, her many affairs and marriages…and, as we'll soon see, one more surprising revelation.

Mary Astor wasn't shy about revealing the tips and tricks of the film trade. In her second book, A Life on Film, she revealed that movie scenes depicting spontaneous moments of romance were definitely not spontaneous, and the hours and hours put into making sure the scene played out just so made them far from romantic to shoot.

In one instance, after all the prep needed to make a love scene with Clark Gable work, Astor could barely remember what it was like to kiss him.

During a game of golf with some big wigs at Paramount Studios, Mary Astor took a swing and completely missed her shot. Her reaction was legendary. Angry, Astor let her temper loose. However, this actually convinced the studio heads that she would be the perfect person to play the tough-as-nails saloon owner Fritzi Haller in the upcoming Desert Fury. Guess it pays to be true to yourself.

Astor loved her role as Fritzi, and had trouble getting out of character after a day of shooting. She didn’t realize this until one evening, while at the dinner table, she suddenly snapped “Pass the butter!” in a very Fritzi-like manner. After realizing her mistake, she tried very hard to leave her work on the studio lot.

Astor’s high expectations extended beyond herself and her family; even her household staff couldn’t escape her critical eye. Regularly finding faults in her hired help, Astor constantly hovered around them as they worked. This didn’t stop some of them from taking her silverware or just complaining about the job—although this only made her fire them more easily.

Astor’s daughter Marylyn often found herself on the receiving end of Astor’s ire, and the actress loved to "win" all arguments. Marylyn also had the unenviable title of “Mary Astor’s daughter,” which overshadowed her for years. After watching how the film industry ruined her mother in many ways, Marylyn unsurprisingly decided against joining Hollywood herself.

Despite not always listening to her daughter, Astor still found the time to have a bit of fun with Marylyn. The actress had a studio photographer who regularly took pictures of her at home, and after the photographer left, mother and daughter would often go up to the balcony and drop the flashbulbs he left behind, trying to see whose flashbulb would smash the loudest.

Above all, Mary Astor wanted financial and job security, not stardom and all the drama that came with being in the spotlight. She regularly took on supporting or featured roles, since there would be a lot less pressure to carry the movie, and she still made a pretty penny for her work on set. All in all, this was one smart cookie.

For all her meek start, Mary Astor was not afraid to speak her mind by the end. She didn’t like Charlie Chaplin, for one, and thought he “was a bore.” She thought actress Loretta Young “looked like some underwater creature,” and that Louis B. Mayer was a “bossy tyrant.” Astor was done with holding back her opinions, and this extended to her own films...

Astor frequently played the damsel-in-distress in her films, and she disdainfully called those who contributed to these movies, including herself, “the hope peddlers. ” She thought these movies were formulaic and dishonest, and hated that they were only out to make a quick buck, making audience members believe that life was full of happy endings.

Astor regularly worked from 5:30 AM to midnight, putting pride in being on-time and dependable. She hated the idea of keeping others waiting around, and couldn’t stand actors who were constantly late to set. Astor never let her personal issues, even her drinking, affect what happened in the studio, and was a total pro when it came to filmmaking.

During her years with Manuel del Campo, something strange happened to Mary Astor. Like Madonna after her, Astor started to take on a thick British accent in the mode of her then-husband. Somehow, Astor kept the act up for literal years while she was still married to del Campo, though she mercifully dropped it after they divorced.

When she was young, no one in Hollywood could get over the perfection of Astor's face, particularly in profile. The smooth curves and jutting angles of her sideways gaze was so famous and iconic, she earned the nickname "The Cameo Girl."

In the 1970s, Astor moved into a retirement home, and she was not the social butterfly you might imagine. She took her meals alone in the dining room, monopolizing a little table to herself and speaking as little to the other residents as possible. When people did manage to talk to her, her conversations were often heavy with profanity. What a dame.

Writing healed Astor like nothing else would, and she eventually stopped drinking entirely. Trading the bottle for the pen allowed Astor to find release through the written word, and she learned to eventually love herself. Astor continued to release more books, and even worked on acting gigs from time to time. Yet her battle was far from over.

Although Astor had quit drinking since she started writing, this healthy streak came to a violent and abrupt end when she watched her Siamese cat meet her end at the hands of a German Shepherd. The trauma caused Astor to take up the bottle once more soon afterward, and she would never completely conquer the habit again. After all, she didn't have much time left.

Although Astor bared a lot of painful memories in her memoir My Story, there was one revelation that shocked readers. Astor admitted she had a deep amount of self-loathing for herself, and that she “would have liked… a nice, quiet release from the life I did not know how to live.” Sadly, she acted on these dark impulses...

In the 1950s, Astor reached a tragic breaking point and overdosed on sleeping pills. Although she ended up surviving the night and swore it was only an accident, her friends and family knew better than to believe her. Perhaps more heartbreakingly, it wasn't Astor's last attempt; later, a family member had to rescue her from a bathtub.

Remember the stories that came out about Astor's diary during her divorce? Well, As Astor's time in court raged on, the most infamous rumor about her came out. People started to claim that in her diary, besides relating her many affairs in high definition detail, Astor also ranked and scored her Hollywood hunks according to how much pleasure they had given her. It was a forest fire of a scandal, and it was spreading fast.

Unfortunately for the starlet, her acting contract included a morality clause, which meant that Astor had to be in squeaky-clean shape to stay in the movies. The outrage over her affair and the messy divorce almost got her kicked off her next film, Dodsworth, with many campaigning producer Samuel Goldwyn to outright fire her. Instead, the exact opposite happened.

Goldwyn decided to keep her on, and Astor repaid him back tenfold. She held her head high throughout both filming and her court battles, and Dodsworth ended up receiving rave reviews, thanks in part to Astor's charm. Indeed, when she came on the screen for the first time in the film, audiences would often break out into applause. And the hits kept coming.

In the 1940s, Astor’s mother was gravely ill and staying at a hospital long-term. She began deteriorating both physically and mentally, and as her condition grew worse, she would often be delirious. When this happened, she would rant and rave about Astor, unable to recognize that the woman by her bed was her own daughter. It didn’t get any better from there.

Throughout this ordeal, Astor took to copying down her mother's diary for posterity. That's when she found the sickening entries. On page after page, Mommy Dearest went on at length about how much she hated her own daughter, despised her choices, and was jealous of her success. Astor was heartbroken, and when her mother finally passed in 1947, the star's downhill spiral was well on its way.

In 1960, Astor received her star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Shortly after, she made one more movie, Hush...Hush, Sweet Charlotte, before turning in her Guild card and retiring for good. Astor lived to the ripe old age of 81, passing on September 25, 1987, during a prolonged stay in hospital. Rest in peace, you brassy broad.

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Peg Entwistle remains one of the most talked-about figures in Hollywood lore. Not because of scandal—but because of her dark and tragic end.

Sources: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14

Pope Alexander VI was born Rodrigo de Borja in Xàtiva, near Valencia, Spain to a family of Spanish nobles. Eventually, the family Italianized it to Borgia, the name that would become synonymous with depravity and violence.

Alexander VI was not the only Borgia to become pope. In fact, he was the second of three Borgias to lead the Catholic Church. His uncle was Pope Callixtus III, who assisted Alexander in his rise to power. Then, more than 150 years after Alexander’s ascension to Pope, his great-great-great-grandson would be elected Pope Innocent X.

After the election of his uncle Pope Callixtus III, Callixtus made Rodrigo Borgia a cardinal. Soon after, he went even further and made Rodrigo then vice-chancellor of the Catholic Church. This set Rodrigo up for a future ascension to the papacy. These nepotistic appointments were a common practice in the church at the time. They allowed the new pope to build a base of support at the Vatican. In fact, if anything, the Borgias weren't as bad as some other families in this regard.

In this era, it wasn't too scandalous for high-ranking church officials to have mistresses. However, Rodrigo made the rare and controversial move of openly acknowledging the children he fathered out of wedlock. He had two famous mistresses, Vannozza dei Cattanei and Giulia Farnese, both of whom were married noblewomen.

These two women had a total of seven children with Borgia, though he likely fathered more with other women less well-known to history. He clearly saw the value of bringing his children into the family. Many of his offspring became allies in his political ambitions as they grew up.

While Rodrigo was still the most junior cardinal at the Vatican, Pope Callixtus III passed, and the cardinals had to elect a new pope. Rodrigo made a bold move, risking his power to play a key role in electing Pope Pius II. His power-play succeeded, making Rodrigo an ally to the new pope. As more popes rose and fell, Rodrigo amassed more power.

During his time as a cardinal, Rodrigo took part in wild and lascivious parties. Pius II warned Rodrigo to avoid such shindigs, as they were “unseemly” for someone of his position in the Vatican. The Pope even officially reprimanded Rodrigo for his behavior. Based on his later reputation, it's safe to say that Rodrigo didn't heed the Pope’s advice.

After assisting in the election of Pope Paul II, the Vatican sent Rodrigo to Spain as a papal legate. They gave him the power to either approve or deny the proposed marriage between Ferdinand and Isabella, the future King and Queen of Spain. The match would unify two Spanish regions, Ferdinand’s Aragon and Isabella’s Castile. Rodrigo approved the marriage, thus earning the future favor of King Ferdinand.

When Pope Innocent VIII passed, a conclave of cardinals met at the Vatican to elect a new pope. They considered several cardinals, including Rodrigo Borgia, Giuliano della Rovere (later Pope Julius II), and Ascanio Sforza. The conclave took three unsuccessful divided votes. Then, on the fourth vote, they unanimously elected Rodrigo Borgia. He received every vote except his own. Rodrigo Borgia was no more, and Pope Alexander VI had arrived.

Given the sudden turnaround in the votes in Borgia’s favor, many of Pope Alexander VI’s enemies accused him of buying the votes of other cardinals. This rumor followed him for the rest of his life. He allegedly offered fellow candidate Ascanio Sforza four mules loaded with silver if he threw his support behind the Borgia pope’s ascendency.

Rodrigo Borgia may not have been the only one trying to buy power at the Vatican. Some historical accounts report that King Charles VIII of France and the Doge of Genoa financed a combined 300,000 ducats to influence the election in favor of Giuliano della Rovere. However, even cardinals who could normally be swayed shook their heads at the French interfering with Vatican matters.

Once Rodrigo had risen to power in the Vatican, he started using his young daughter Lucrezia as a bargaining chip with power-hungry families wishing to align their fortunes with his. Cardinal Ascanio Sforza said at the time, “There are many who long to marry into the pope’s family via his daughter and he lets many think they have a chance. Even the King of Naples aspires to win her hand!” Cardinal Sforza ended up winning this game of power himself.

Pope Alexander was not one to break with a tradition of nepotism. He elevated at least ten relatives to the College of Cardinals. This included his own son Cesare and his mistress’ brother, Alessandro Farnese. Farnese was later elected Pope Paul III.

Pope Alexander’s enemies also accused him of simony, the selling of church offices, formally classed as a sin in the Catholic Church. This was another common sin among the popes, who would often promise promotions to church officials in exchange for their votes in the election. In this respect, Pope Alexander played the game like his fellows, and given his reputation, he was probably past caring about formally classed sins.

According to an account of Pope Alexander’s consecration ceremony, the church officials had to verify that he was male. For centuries, the myth that a Pope John had secretly been a woman circulated through the Vatican, and the Church was allegedly wary such a case might happen again. Rodrigo Borgia thus had to submit to a body examination before he could take the highest office in the church.

Alexander didn’t stop his nepotism at naming cardinals. He also carved out fiefdoms from land in the Papal States and the Kingdom of Naples for his own children to preside over. This practice quickly made an enemy of Ferdinand I, the King of Naples.

When Alexander became pope in 1492, his newfound power coincided with Christopher Columbus’ “discovery” of the New World for Europe. Months after news of the discovery, Spain and Portugal had already started fighting over the land in the New World. Portugal claimed a previous papal decree gave the New World to Portugal. This put the Vatican in the middle of a world-making decision.

When Lucrezia Borgia was 13 years old, Pope Alexander arranged her marriage to Giovanni Sforza, nephew of Cardinal Ascanio Sforza, hoping to court Sforza’s powerful family as allies. Cardinal Sforza had proved his worth by playing an influential role in supporting Alexander’s election. In addition, the Cardinal’s brother was the Duke of Milan, and an alliance between the families would give the Borgias a grasp on power in northern Italy. However, the marriage would soon come back to haunt them.

When Ferdinand I of Naples sought to make an alliance against Pope Alexander, he successfully approached Florence, Milan, and Venice. Then Ferdinand sought to ally with Spain, but Spain refused. Spain wanted to remain on good terms with the Vatican to stake their claim on the New World through the pope, a gamble that worked in their favor.

Pope Alexander stepped into the middle of the New World conflict between Spain and Portugal and decreed that any newly discovered land 100 leagues west of the Portugal-controlled Cape Verde islands would belong to Spain. He followed this with another decree giving any lands already belonging to "India" (remember how they thought North America was India?) over to Spain, no matter where they were located. Portugal wasn’t going to take that.

Tired of Pope Alexander’s meddling, Portugal decided to bypass the pope and negotiate directly with Spain for land in the New World. They ended up signing the Treaty of Tordesillas, which equally divided the New World between the two countries. This treaty ended up having huge historical consequences: It's the reason Brazil—barely east of the Papal Line—still largely speaks Portuguese while the other South American countries speak Spanish.

In 1494, the King of France, Charles VIII, invaded Italy. Ludovico Sforza, Duke of Milan and uncle of Giovanni Sforza, made an alliance with France against Pope Alexander. Giovanni refused to turn against his uncle to support the Borgias, betraying the purpose of the political marriage Alexander arranged. Lucrezia’s brother, Cesare, warned Lucrezia that Giovanni would not survive that decision.

Lucrezia may have warned Giovanni of his impending doom, and Giovanni fled to Milan in disguise. But the Borgias still had dark plans in store for him.

By the end of the year, Charles VIII’s forces had reached Rome, alongside French-aligned cardinals and Alexander’s rival Giuliano della Rovere. Facing the looming threat that the French would depose him as pope, Alexander opened negotiations with the French king. He agreed to send his son Cesare to Naples with the French army as an insurance policy, essentially making Cesare a prisoner.

Alexander also agreed to turn over Cem Sultan, a pretender to the Ottoman throne who was being held in Rome, as well as surrendering the city of Civitavecchia to Charles. King Charles left, and Rodrigo got to stay in power.

After Alexander successfully navigated the French invasion, Cesare escaped captivity and returned to Rome. Alexander then put his son in charge of a Vatican-aligned army to bring the disarrayed nearby Papal States into order. Cesare went on the warpath and settled much of Central Italy under the power of the Borgias. He then marched on Naples to wrest power from his once-allies. Alexander left Rome to divide up the land he was busy conquering, and left Lucrezia behind as his regent.

Girolamo Savonarola, a Dominican friar, led a religious movement in Florence during Alexander’s papacy. He focused on reforming the Christian faith, and that was bad news for Alexander. Savonarola did everything in his power to wipe vice from his city, denouncing the corruption and tyrannical rule of the clerics. Pope Alexander thought little of the friar until Florence refused to join his Holy League to fight the French after their invasion.

He blamed this on the reformist influence of Savonarola, and he banned the friar from preaching. When Savonarola didn’t obey, Alexander excommunicated him—but that wasn't enough for this bloodthirsty pope. Not long after, government officials condemned and hanged Savonarola.

When the Sforzas ultimately disappointed Alexander’s ambitions, he declared that Giovanni Sforza was impotent and annulled his marriage to Lucrezia on those grounds. Giovanni fought the annulment, but finally gave in when Pope Alexander agreed to let him keep Lucrezia’s sizeable dowry. However, even that didn’t make Giovanni disappear into history quietly.

Alexander VI arranged a second marriage for Lucrezia after the annulment, this time with Alfonso of Aragon, the illegitimate son of the King of Naples. He intended for this union to pave the way to a marriage between Cesare and Carlotta, the King of Naples’ daughter. If Alexander tied himself to Naples, he would gain a crucial ally against France. Fortunately for Lucrezia, she was now 18 and seemingly happy with the match. Unfortunately for Lucrezia, their union was doomed.

In 1498, Giovanni Borgia was born into the House of Borgia, though to whom he was born is still a debate. Lucrezia Borgia is thought to be his mother, perhaps through her lover Perotto Calderon—but much darker rumors persisted. Many believed he was the child of a relationship between Lucrezia and either her father Pope Alexander or her brother Cesare. Lucrezia may not have been the mother at all, and the child could have been from Pope Alexander’s relationship with an unknown woman.

In 1501, Pope Alexander VI finally publicly addressed the birth of Giovanni Borgia, but only in the most confusing way possible. He issued two papal decrees on the same day. One claimed Giovanni was Pope Alexander’s own son. The other claimed Giovanni was Cesare’s son, and therefore Alexander's grandchild. These decrees only stoked the flames of those who claimed Giovanni was the product of a rumored relationship between Alexander and his own daughter.

Pope Alexander VI was far from the only church official to indulge in relationships the church frowned upon. One of his primary mistresses, Vannozza dei Cattanei, allegedly had a previous relationship with another cardinal, Alexander’s rival Giulio della Rovere. Rovere was later elected Pope Julius II, Borgia’s successor, making dei Cattanei the mistress of two popes.

In 1501, Pope Alexander VI and his son Cesare allegedly held a shocking all-night party in the pope’s official residence. The Borgias hired 50 concubines for the event. On the night in question, they had these women disrobe and pick up chestnuts strewn on the floor. Father and son also allegedly held a competition, with a prize going to the man who could use the services of the most women that night.

However, though it's a wild tale, modern historians doubt its veracity. Only Johann Burchard, the papal master of ceremonies, wrote about the banquet. The story fit in with Pope Alexander’s sordid reputation, though, so it became part of the Borgias’ scandalous lore, true or not.

In 1503, a Venetian cardinal suddenly succumbed to a sudden and unidentified illness. Wasting no time, Pope Alexander VI sent his personal forces cardinal's estate to collect 150,000 ducats. He also sent nine new cardinals to replace the late official, ensuring the local cardinals would be loyal to him. This all seemed remarkably convenient for Alexander, so it's little wonder most people assumed the Pope himself poisoned the cardinal.

The Borgias supposedly dosed enemies to get them out of the way, and their method of choice was the mystery substance Cantarella. Historians still debate exactly what Cantarella was. It could have been cantharidin, a powder made from blister beetles that causes chemical burns. The most likely theory is that it was an arsenic compound. Arsenic was a well-known and effective method of silencing one's enemies at the time.

Another rumor claimed the Borgias created their mystery compound by sprinkling arsenic on the entrails of pigs. Historians still can't say for sure, but regardless, this secret substance likely allowed Pope Alexander VI to remove some inconvenient people from his path to power.

Pope Alexander VI presided over a rare Jubilee Year in 1500, an event that took place only every 50 years. During this time, the Church encouraged the residents of Rome to confess their sins by passing through the “Holy Doors” opened in Rome’s basilicas. Alexander himself began a longstanding formal rite of opening the Holy Doors to mark the beginning of the Jubilee year, a tradition still practiced to this day.

While the Borgias are now synonymous with deviance, there may be more to the story. Alexander ruined Giovanni Sforza's life and reputation—and the spurned man might have sought revenge. Modern historians believe that many of the most shocking rumors about Alexander, such as his affair with his own daughter, might have come from Sforza.

So, at the end of the day, Sforza walked away with his life, Lucrezia’s dowry, and a decisive blow to the Borgia’s reputation. Honestly, not that bad of a deal.

Right before his Jubilee year, an astrologer predicted that misfortune would soon befall Alexander VI. The astrologer failed to specify how many misfortunes were about to hit him—and it was a lot.

During a meeting in June of 1500, a strong wind knocked down a chimney over the papal throne, where Alexander VI was seated at the time. Three people lost their lives in the accident, and Alexander himself was injured—but this was just the beginning.

Cesare’s planned marriage to Carlotta of Naples fell through, and Alexander VI instead saw an opportunity to ally with the newly crowned King of France, Louis XII. Alexander arranged for Cesare to wed a relative of the French king, but this left Lucrezia’s husband Alfonso high and dry. France and Naples were enemies, and now Alexander was allying himself against Alfonso’s family in Naples. Talk about trying to have your cake and eat it too.

The same year Cesare married to seal the French alliance, unknown culprits attacked Alfonso of Aragon with a knife. Alexander had Alfonso taken to the Vatican to recover. He assigned a dozen guards to Alfonso's quarters to protect him against a rumored plot—a lot of good that did him. A month later, someone entered Alfonso’s room at night and asphyxiated him in his bed at the Vatican. Most people suspected Cesare was behind the dark crime, though no one could prove it.

In a purported incident in 1501, Pope Alexander VI shocked the Vatican by allowing Lucrezia to take his place in a meeting he could not attend. This meant he was not only allowing a woman to preside over the affairs of the Catholic Church, but the illegitimate daughter of a pope no less! In later years, this became fuel for claims that Lucrezia was dosing Borgia rivals, as her attendance of papal events gave her access to many powerful men.

The Renaissance artist Pinturicchio's painting of the Madonna came under scrutiny when critics accused him of using Pope Alexander VI’s mistress, Giulia Farnese, as a model for the Biblical Mary. That the pope's mistress might have stood in for the Virgin Mary herself was far too scandalous for even the most lecherous cardinal to handle.

In later years, Lucrezia Borgia would take on the historical role of the villain. There were even rumors that she wore a ring with a secret compartment for arsenic to slip into drinks. However, it is more likely she was only a chess piece in Pope Alexander’s power games. Most of her villainization comes from her three marriages, all arranged and dissolved in a way that was advantageous to her father.

If anyone in the family was dispatching husbands and rivals, it was probably not Lucrezia. The rest of Pope Alexander’s family, however, is a different question entirely.

Following the passing of a pope or any high-ranking official, Romans followed the grand tradition of rioting and pillaging. Cesare was too ill to attend to family business when Alexander croaked, but he knew he had to do something. He sent a trusted associate to seize Alexander’s treasures before the public learned of his passing in order to keep them out of pillaging hands.

When Giuliano della Rovere became Pope Julius II in 1503, he issued a decree that annulled any papal election bought by simony and excommunicated cardinals for selling their votes. It’s safe to say he was still bitter about Pope Alexander VI successfully buying his own election a decade prior.

After Alexander’s passing, the newly elected Julius II refused to take up residence in the same Vatican apartment as his predecessor. He abandoned the now-infamous Borgia Apartments for corresponding rooms on the next floor up. By all accounts, he hoped to escape the reminder of the pope he hated. The Borgia Apartments remained sealed until the 19th century, three centuries after Alexander VI's lifetime.

Despite the many swirling rumors about Pope Alexander VI’s sordid crimes, little solid evidence exists to condemn him. Around the time of his passing, the only accusations that he dosed rivals with Cantarella came from his own servants. The servants reportedly only made these accusations under duress and violence from Pope Julius II, hoping to further drag the reputation of his longtime enemy through the mud.

The Borgias were a Spanish family trying to play games of power throughout Italy, which may have been another downfall of their reputation. As Spaniards, they were subject to the influence of anti-Spanish propaganda following Spain’s involvement in the affairs of Northern Italy. During this volatile time, when Italian propaganda painted anything Spanish as brutal and cruel, Rodrigo Borgia tried to build wealth and power for his Spanish family. This wave of anti-Spanish sentiment could have helped wild rumors about the Borgias take hold.

Some modern historians believe Alexander VI has been unfairly besmirched in the historical record, claiming that he was the victim of a smear campaign by Pope Julius II. In 1999, the Vatican opened their archives to scholars seeking new information that may show the Borgia Pope in a more favorable light.

After Alexander VI, there was no other non-Italian pope for 500 years. The next pope from outside of Italy was the Polish John Paul II, elected in 1978.

Pope Alexander favored his son Juan, his eldest child by Vannozza dei Cattanei, until tragedy struck. Following the French invasion, Alexander turned on the powerful France-aligned Orsini family, seizing their land and intending to give those lands to Juan. Before he could maneuver his son into this seat of power, Juan's corpse was found washed up in the Tiber River, the victim of foul play.

The culprit is still a mystery, though a jealous lover, Cardinal Ascanio Sforza, and Juan's brother Cesare Borgia were all suspected.

When Pope Alexander VI finally passed on, it was in a manner befitting his legacy—under mysterious circumstances. He fell suddenly ill with a mysterious malady and it ravaged his body, claiming his life in August 1503. The effects on his body were so gruesome that his attendants deemed the remains unfit to display publicly. This stirred up rumors that it was not a natural illness.

One rumor stated Cesare had accidentally dosed his father with a fatal concoction while aiming for a rival. However, some historians suspect it was more likely malaria that brought down the Borgia Pope.

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Qin Shi Huang’s name means “First Emperor of Qin.” As you can imagine, he only took this name when he assumed power. His birth name was either Ying Zheng or Zhao Zheng, depending on who’s writing.

Qin was born on February 18, 259 BC. Given how far back that goes, and given the lack of writing to confirm, no one knows exactly where he was born. We do know that it was likely in the state of Zhao, where his father was at the time (more on that later).

While you might expect the man who united China into one empire to be praised and revered within China, the exact opposite is more often the case. Traditional Chinese histories often portray Qin as a ruthless man with a barbaric thirst for blood and a man who was paranoid over his mortality—and that’s even with all his accomplishments as China’s first emperor. We’ll go into the reasons why that is the case, but it’s safe to say that Qin is one of the most polarizing figures in the history of China.

Qin spent part of his adult life as a king of one of the independent Chinese states that warred with each other. After he united these states, Qin assumed the title of emperor. Keep this in mind while reading the article; we’ll call him a king or emperor depending on what he was calling himself at the time.

Qin’s father was Yiren, the prince of the state of Qin. According to the histories, Yiren met Qin’s mother when he was living as a hostage in the state of Zhao to guarantee the continuation of a peace treaty. At the time, Qin’s future mom was the concubine of a wealthy merchant named Lu Buwei. Yiren fell in love with said concubine and persuaded Lu to let them marry.

She was known as Lady Zhao thereafter, in reference to the region where she came from.

Understandably, Qin was the founder of the Qin dynasty, named after himself and the state which he’d ruled as king. It was the first dynasty in the history of Imperial China, beginning in 221 BC. Unfortunately for Qin, it was a very short-lived dynasty, ending in 206 BC, less than 20 years later. Some of you have had pets that lived longer than that dynasty did!

Given the lowborn status of Qin’s mother as a concubine to a merchant, a dark theory emerged about his parentage. Rumors spread that he was actually the illegitimate son of said merchant, rather than Prince Yiren. This idea has often been dismissed in recent times as merely being an attempt to slander Qin’s legacy. It’s worth pointing out that Confucian China considered a merchant to be part of the lowest of social classes, and Confucians had quite a few reasons to hate Qin (more on that later).

Qin’s father reigned as King of the Qin state for just three years. While the exact cause is unknown, the king died when Qin was only 13 years old. As Qin was too young to rule, a regent ruled in his stead. Interestingly, this regent was none other than Lu Buwei, the merchant whom Qin’s mother had served as a concubine. Perhaps unsurprisingly, Qin’s mother reacquainted herself with Lu, perhaps for old times’ sake?

The irony of Qin’s life is that while he oversaw a period that greatly shaped China in the long run, his own dynasty was very short-lived. Because he so feared death, Qin never dared to make a will. With no official documentation, people presumed Qin’s heir was his eldest son, Fusu. However, Qin’s former Prime Minister, Li Si, was sure that Fusu would remove him from power—so he came up with a dark plot.

Li Si falsified a letter from Qin which instructed Fusu to kill himself—and amazingly, this worked! With the loss of Fusu, Li Si crowned a younger son of Qin as Qin Er Shi. Unfortunately, Li Si’s plot to keep his power was undone due to the very person he made Emperor. Qin Er Shi was ill-suited to replace his father, and the Qin dynasty collapsed in a sea of rebellions and revolts. In its place was the Han dynasty, which ruled China for 400 years.

In preparation for death, Qin ordered the construction of a massive tomb that contained an army to protect him in death. These eternal soldiers were fashioned out of terracotta. Incredibly, Qin arranged for the construction on the tomb to begin when he first became king at 13 years old. Work on the tomb continued for decades, allegedly requiring the labor of 700,000 men (though some historians have pointed out that this number is likely just a little exaggerated).

The Terracotta Army, as this collection of statues is named, featured more than 40,000 bronze weapons, 520 horses, 130 chariots, and over 8,000 soldiers—even some non-military figures were included in the massive tomb. Believe it or not, when the tomb was finally finished, it was bigger than any city which existed at that point in human history! It is currently registered as a World Heritage Site.

Reportedly, once Qin’s tomb—including the entire Terracotta Army—was completed, most of the workers who built it were killed. This was done in order to keep the secrets of how the tomb was laid out and where treasures could be found from potential grave robbers. Frankly, though, that’s not the severance pay we’d ever ask for!

Qin was an ambitious king from almost the very start of his reign. One of his first targets was the state of Yan. It was clear that they could not oppose Qin, so in 227 BC, the crown prince of that state-organized an assassination attempt on Qin. Two men, Jing Ke and Qin Wuyang, were to approach Qin with gifts, only to stab him to death with daggers before he could defend himself.

Since it was forbidden to bear weapons in the king’s court, the plan seemed to be an effective one.

Unfortunately for the would-be assassins of Qin, their attempt in 227 BC was a disaster. First, one of the would-be assassins lost his nerve, so the other man had to go it alone. Then, Qin proved quicker with his reflexes and drew his sword to strike back. In desperation, Jing Ke flung his knife at the king, but it missed. Qin made Jing pay for the attempt by inflicting eight wounds upon Jing with his sword.

Speaking of Jing Ke, he had a friend who took his death at Qin’s hands less than well. Even though he was a lute player by trade, Gao Jianli was determined to avenge Jing’s death (forgetting that Jing had been trying to assassinate Qin prior to dying). Gao made his way to the king’s court and catered to Qin’s famous love of music. However, he was identified by a courtier who knew of his friendship to Jing. What a bad stroke of luck for Gao!

Presented with yet another would-be assassin, Qin surprisingly didn’t have him put to death. Gao Jianli was such a skilled musician that Qin couldn’t bring himself to have him slain. Instead, he ordered Gao to be blinded, but he also kept him around to play music!

In order to secure his father’s kingship, Qin had to deal with his half-brother. Zhao Chengjiao had also been born to Qin’s father, and he took issue with Qin becoming the new king. This resulted in rebellion, but Zhao proved unable to oust Qin from power. He fled for his life, leaving his followers and their families to be executed by Qin.

When Qin assumed his father’s kingship, it would have been protocol to have the former regent become chancellor. However, with Lu Buwei’s exile, Qin chose another man. This was Li Si, and he proved to be one of the most important figures in Qin’s life. During the regency period, Qin spent many hours speaking with Li, and the two men bonded over the dream of getting the Chinese states into one kingdom.

In 237 BC, Qin was urged to expel all foreigners from his state to prevent espionage (this included Chinese people who weren’t from that state). This would have meant expelling his friend Li Si, who was originally from the Chu state. Li actually took it upon himself to defend the rights of foreigners in Qin’s kingdom, and his arguments were so persuasive that Qin promoted him.

Jing Ke’s attempted assassination of Qin inspired the plot of the 2002 Chinese action film Hero, released in 2002. Jet Li stars as a nameless protagonist who may or may not be an assassin sent to kill the king (you'll have to watch the movie to find out!). At the time, Hero was one of the most expensive Chinese films ever made, and it went on to become one of the highest-grossing films in Chinese film history.

You might be wondering just what kind of hint Qin needed to realize that his courtier was shacking up with his mom and producing children. Qin allegedly didn’t find out until a drunken Lao Ai, feasting with friends, began bragging that he was the king’s stepfather. To be honest, we’re wondering how Qin missed the two boys that his mom gave birth to!

Despite Qin’s desire to keep his failed assassin, the blinded Gao Jianli, as his personal musician, Gao wasn’t deterred from trying to kill the king, even after he was blinded. Gao once again relied on his incredible music playing to lull Qin into a false sense of security. The plan actually worked well enough that Qin allowed the blind musician to come close to him. Prior to playing, Gao fastened a piece of lead to his lute, so he swung the weighted instrument at Qin, hoping to bludgeon the king to death.

Of course, being blind did hamper his assassination attempt, and Qin evaded the blow. This time, he granted Gao no mercy and had him put to death.

As was mentioned, Qin’s father lived in the Zhao state as a hostage, along with his young son. In 229 BC, the adult monarch was able to avenge his and his father’s treatment after a series of natural disasters greatly weakened the Zhao state. The state was conquered within a year, even as Qin sought out his surviving enemies and dealt them a cruel death.

In his efforts to unite the Chinese states with standardized laws and language, Qin's chancellor Li Si worked tirelessly to aid him. When Qin became emperor, Li became the Prime Minister. Li held this position for many years, serving not just Qin, but his successor as well.

One of the less pleasant aspects of Qin’s rule as emperor (which in turn led to some of his cruelest atrocities) was his targeting of free thought. In his determination to unite China under one system, Qin suppressed any philosophy or study that he didn’t agree with, or which he thought could be a threat to his power.

One philosophy that met Qin’s ire was Confucianism. Arguably Qin’s most ghastly action was allegedly ordering more than 450 Confucian scholars to be buried alive. However, the source that details the atrocity comes from long after Qin’s death, and recent studies have created the suspicion that this story may be propaganda invented to vilify Qin’s legacy. Either way, however, Qin was certainly an enemy of Confucianism.

One of the biggest steps Qin took to cement his rule over a united China was abolishing feudalism. Instead, the newly formed Chinese Empire was divided into regions known as commanderies. This severed ties that people might have had to their former states. Not only that, appointments in the empire under Qin were merit-based instead of hereditary.

Under Qin, the royal color became black. He had all of his clothes, flags, and pennants embroidered in the color. This represented Qin's belief in the philosophy of the five elements (earth, wood, metal, water, fire). His birth element was water, and water was represented by black.

As you can imagine, Qin’s life has been the inspiration for several films and television series produced by Hong Kong and Chinese film industries. Among the series produced about Qin were Qin Shi Huang, A Step Into the Past, and Rise of the Great Wall.

Throughout his reign, Qin never seems to have named an empress to sit beside him. Don’t be mistaken about his love life, however. Qin had several concubines, with whom he had around 50 children (most of whose names are lost to history).

In an act that would make his reign infamous, Qin ordered the widespread burning of books, beginning in 213 BC. Some subjects were spared the blaze; books about agriculture, medicine, astrology, divination, and the history of the Qin state were allowed to continue existing. Qin was concerned with books that compared his reign with the past, but he also wanted to eliminate old writing systems to replace them with his own standardized language.

In 214 BC, Emperor Qin organized the construction of a vast canal that would connect the north of China with the south of China by linking two major Chinese waterways. The Lingqu Canal is widely recognized as one of the very best accomplishments of Ancient Chinese engineering. An expression from antiquity states, “In the North, there is the Great Wall, but in the South, there is the Lingqu Canal.”

Qin didn't build the canal for very altruistic reasons, however. He had a much darker purpose: he built it so that he could attack the indigenous Baiyue tribes living in the south.

While most of the films which have portrayed Qin have been Chinese in origin, the emperor did become part of the backstory to the 1986 Hollywood film Big Trouble in Little China. Directed by John Carpenter and starring Kurt Russell, the film takes place in the present (1980s present) but deals with an ancient wizard who was cursed by Qin after defeating him in battle. The film wasn’t a success during its time but has since become hailed as a cult classic which has inspired a board game, a card game, and a comic book series.

In 230 BC, Qin was making strides in his conquests of the Chinese states, having just defeated the Han state. One nobleman of that fallen state, Zhang Liang, plotted vengeance. He hired a strongman to join him in an ambush against Qin.

The third attempt on Qin’s life relied on perhaps the strangest plot concocted by Qin’s enemies. Hiding along a mountain trail where Qin would be traveling, Zhang Liang and the strongman waited for Qin’s carriage to approach their position. The strongman then threw a large, metal cone that weighed around 160 pounds into Qin’s carriage. However, Qin had anticipated possible assassination attempts, and so had sent out a carriage identical to his own as a decoy.

We’re not sure if he also anticipated the heavy metal cone part, but we can’t imagine that he was that crazy!

Qin makes an appearance in the long-running Magic Tree House children’s books. In this series of a boy and girl traveling through time and space with the aid of a treehouse, they come face-to-face with Qin in the 1998 novel Day of the Dragon King. The protagonists must rescue a book from the book burnings ordered by the emperor, who is known as the Dragon King in the book.

Qin was responsible for the construction of a wall that was a precursor to the Great Wall of China. After a campaign against northern tribes led to a bloody stalemate, the emperor wished to enforce the Chinese border. A huge wall was built, requiring hundreds of thousands of laborers. Part of this wall actually connected pre-existing walls built during the Warring States Period.

Qin grew to love his life as emperor so much that he was terrified of dying. This fear grew worse the older he got. Qin began falling victim to stories of elixirs that would give him the gift (or curse) of immortality. Unfortunately for him, he never did find one that actually existed.

Qin’s persecution of intellectuals during his reign as emperor has become a stain on his legacy, but one man saw it as an inspiration. Even worse, that man happened to be Mao Zedong, who became the chairman of the People’s Republic of China. His own persecution of intellectuals was compared to the First Emperor, and he actually took the time to address that comparison.

Mao stated, "He buried 460 scholars alive; we have buried forty-six thousand scholars alive... You [intellectuals] revile us for being Qin Shi Huangs. You are wrong. We have surpassed Qin Shi Huang a hundredfold. When you berate us for imitating his despotism, we are happy to agree! Your mistake was that you did not say so enough." Oh boy…

During Qin’s regency period, his mother, Lady Zhang, not only became Lu Buwei’s lover, but she also became particularly interested in Lao Ai, a retainer in Lu’s employ. One reason for this attraction was, and this was explicitly written in ancient sources, that Lao was very well-endowed.

Lu Buwei allegedly supported Lady Zhang's intimate escapades—or at least, believed it was in his best interest to keep her happy. He even masterminded a plot to spread a rumor that Lao Ai had been castrated, eliminating any suspicion that he and Lady Zhang were lovers.

Things came to a head between the adult Qin and his mother when she became pregnant with Lao Ai's child and the two of them devised a chilling plot. They planned to depose Qin and install their illegitimate sons on the throne instead. They launched a revolt in 238 BC, but Qin was victorious in quashing it. Lao and his illegitimate sons were put to death, while Qin’s mother was stripped of any authority.

For his association with the plotters (you know, the whole eunuch charade), Lu Buwei was exiled, only for him to take his own life while on the run.

Qin was definitely one for finding creative (and painful) ways to execute his enemies. Lao Ai, the dowager queen’s secret lover, was killed by being tied to horse carriages and torn into five pieces. His two sons were wrapped in sacks and battered to death. No wonder Lu Buwei took his own life rather than be caught by Qin!

If the written histories can be trusted, a rather unique meteor foreshadowed Qin’s death. Falling to earth in China around 211 BC, it was inscribed with the words, “The First Emperor will die and his land will be divided.” When Qin found out about the inscription (which he assumed a human wrote after the meteor fell), he sought out the person who inscribed the prophecy.

Nobody confessed (shocker) so the emperor had everyone who lived around the area put to death just in case, then had the meteor destroyed. It was to no avail, however; he died shortly after, on September 10, 210 BC.

The irony of Qin’s desire to make himself immortal is that this very desire was likely what resulted in his death. The prevailing theory behind Qin’s death is that it came about due to mercury pills. At the time, these were used by alchemists in the hope that they would help produce an elixir. Whoops!

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Diana Russell, Duchess of Bedford was born as the youngest member of the illustrious Spencer family in July of 1710. Her father was Charles Spencer, 3rd Earl of Sunderland, but it was really her mother, Anne Spencer, who had all of the right royal connections. Sadly, no amount of favoritism would save her from a tragic life.

When she was just a baby, the Spencer family gave Diana the affectionate nickname, “dear little Di”. That nickname might sound familiar for good—and very ominous—reasons. Diana wasn't just a direct ancestor of the tragically-fated Lady Diana Spencer, she was actually her namesake. As we'll see, that wasn't all they shared.

Despite her ultimate fate, Diana's early childhood was actually mostly sunshine and rainbows. As the baby of the family, she was firmly the favorite child. In fact, her mother Anne had also been the favorite child of her own mother, the powerful Sarah Churchill, Duchess of Marlborough, who was herself Queen Anne’s favorite courtier.

But coming from a long line of favorites meant nothing when tragedy finally did strike.

Diana's misfortunes started pretty early on—and then just kept coming. Only a few months before her sixth birthday, she got horrific news. Her mother passed away. The Countess was only 33 years old at the time, and her unexpected and sudden passing left "little Di” without a loving mother. But things didn't stay this way for long.

Diana's father was quick to remarry. In fact, his deceased wife’s corpse had barely even set into rigor mortis before he tied the knot with the little-known Judith Tichborne just a few months later. It would have been a hard transition for a six-year-old to bear, but there was so much more upheaval ahead for little Di.

In just six short years of marriage to her father, Tichborne managed to give Diana three more siblings. Then it turned dark again. Not one of those little angels survived past infancy. Losing loved ones was now practically a hobby for Little Di. But as it turned out, the worst was yet to come.

Almost six years to the day of her mother’s passing, Diana officially became an orphan. That summer, her father followed her mother into the grave. And once more, it was sudden and unexpected; the duke was only 46 years old, and left behind his wife and a gaggle of children. But there was also something scandalous about that day.

Just before his passing, Diana's father had been a key player in a treasonous plot. The so-called "Atterbury Plot" was a conspiracy to restore the House of Stuart—Queen Anne’s royal household—to the throne. Before the conspirators could put their plan into motion, however, the Earl kicked the can—a turn of events that actually helped expose and doom the plot.

Amidst all this drama, Diana found a  powerful ally.

Diana's family may have been dying around her, but she still had her powerful maternal grandmother, Sarah Churchill, the Duchess of Marlborough. And the cunning woman knew just what to do. She took Little Di under her wing and groomed the budding girl for success. And boy, did Diana ever get it.

Under her grandmother’s careful protection and watchful gaze, Diana grew into a proper woman. From an orphaned little girl, she became her grandmother's favorite descendant, and then one of the most eligible bachelorettes in the Kingdom. Of course, it helped that her guardian the Duchess of Marlborough was one of richest women in the country, too. But Diana had more than that.

It’s so rare that someone as beautiful as Diana would also be kind-hearted. But, just like her famous descendant Princess Di, Diana’s contemporaries commented on her gentle disposition, agreeing that she was both sympathetic and charismatic. But even if Diana had it all, she wouldn’t have it all for long.

As she came of age, Diana blossomed into the good looks the Spencers have continued to be famous for. Like the future Princess Diana, she was tall, blonde, and had an open, innocent-looking face. The effect her beauty had was astounding. Men began falling over themselves just to pay her a compliment. And this is where her trouble began.

The first of Diana’s many suitors wasn't exactly the romantic fairy tale prince you might imagine. The Duke of Somerset approached the young girl not to marry him, but with the business-like intent to broker a union for his grandson. He failed. And as more suitors came, they failed too. Soon, the problem became obvious.

Although wealthy Viscounts and Earls were lining up around the block to ask for Diana's hand in marriage, none of them seemed to make it very far. The reason why was simple. Diana's grandmother the Duchess of Marlborough had already decided they weren't good enough for her girl, and she held out for something better. But Diana's next option was the worst by far.

Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield, was as enamored of Diana as seemingly every other straight man in the land, but he had an ace up his sleeve. A middle-aged man, he was actually friends with her grandmother Sarah Churchill, and thought that this would up his chances of winning her hand in marriage. So he put a bloodless plan into action.

Writing from The Hague directly to the Dowager Duchess, the Earl of Chesterfield wrote in not-so impassioned tones about “The person, the merit and the family of Lady Diana Spencer" when he asked for her hand. He was in for a huge disappointment. Sarah Churchill was having none of him either, friend or not, and turned him down.

Sadly, Diana and her grandmother were about to find out there's such a thing as too little, too late.

Good things come to those who wait—unless they wait too long. In the middle of husband shopping, a terrible and disfiguring affliction struck Diana. She developed a case of tuberculous cervical lymphadenitis, better known as scrofula or the king’s evil, which produces huge, unsightly lesions around the lymph nodes.

Terrified Diana was going to lose her good looks and thus one of her main attractions in the marriage market, the Dowager Duchess came up with a desperate plan.

The Dowager Duchess of Marlborough couldn’t stand to see her favorite grandchild disfigured. So, like any doting grandmother would, she opened up her purse and spent a fortune to “fix” little Di’s disfiguration. She hired the most prominent surgeon she could find and had him conceal the injury, and it worked.

Just like that, Little Di was back on the market and more eligible than ever. But apparently, her grandmother hadn't learned any lessons, because her next plot was the most ambitious yet.

Growing up, Diana had become close to the royal family through her grandmother's connections, and had played with King George II's children when she was still in the nursery. This turned into a vital asset. Now that the Prince of Wales, Frederick, was grown, the Dowager Duchess thought she finally had a suitor worthy of her granddaughter. She was embarrassingly wrong.

Not all princes are Prince Charming, and no one proved that point better than Frederick. While he certainly had the royal connections Diana and her family wanted, he was also a grade-A jerk who was completely estranged from his father and would go on to spread rumors about the king's early death just to destabilize the throne.

Yeah, this was the guy Diana and the Duchess were after. It ended as badly as you' think.

The Duchess of Marlborough was one canny lady, and she had the Prince of Wales's number. Knowing he loved money and power above all else, Diana's grandmother came up with a brilliant idea. She posted up a massive dowry for her granddaughter, using it to entice Frederick with visions of paying off his substantial debts. But there was a huge complication.

A Prince of Wales is a hot commodity, and many other people, not mention entire countries, were hoping to snag Frederick for a husband. Because of this, Diana and her grandmother conducted most of these marriage meetings in secret, even going so far as to arrange a clandestine ceremony in Windsor Great Park. At first, it went perfectly.

For Diana, everything was finally falling into place. Her dear grandmama had all but secured her future safety and success. The secretive marriage plans were moving ahead at full steam. According to the Dowager Duchess, Diana was to marry the Prince of Wales come hell or high water, and even the date had been set. And then it all began to fall apart. 

Not everyone thought that Diana and the Prince of Wales were a match made in heaven. In fact, for the Dowager Duchess’ enemies, having little Di married to the heir apparent spelled certain doom, at least for England's influence over in the continent if Frederick didn't marry a European princess.

So they began plotting to ruin her marriage plans—and what may have been her only chance at a happy life.

Diana's secret wedding day plans crashed and burned thanks to one very powerful man. Prime Minister Robert Walpole was one of the people who thought Frederick should make a continental union, and he wasn't about to let all of that slip away.  After hearing about the plans from his “infallible spy system,” Walpole kiboshed the wedding.

It was a crushing blow to the Spencer family, and they didn't take it well.

After weeks of plotting and holding out to marry Diana to a prince, the Dowager Duchess was back at square one. Her next actions puzzled everyone. Perhaps thoroughly downtrodden, the Duchess reached out to the 21-year old Lord John Russell as a suitor for Diana. He was an odd choice.

See, although Russell was dashing, he was also only a second son of the Duke of Bedford, and his older brother currently held the title. In other words, he wasn't the most eligible bachelor. It was a complete about-face for Diana's highly-anticipated prospects...but things were about to get twisty.

The Dowager Duchess rarely acted without thinking, had fingers in all the pies of England, and hadn't spent a lifetime in court politics learning nothing. So when she told Diana to marry the second son, Diana listened, tying the knot with the lesser noble in October 1731 for a fraction of the dowry she'd needed to tempt the Prince of Wales.

It had been a whirlwind couple of months, and she might have thought it would finally calm down. Nope. Another wrench was about to come into the works.

Diana and her new husband didn’t waste any time consummating their marriage. They were, after all, two of the most attractive nobles in the kingdom with more money than they could count. The consequences were instantaneous. The newly-minted Diana Russell proved fertile and quickly became pregnant with the couple’s first child.

Sadly, her first pregnancy was doomed to a violent end.

In 1732, Diana was heavily pregnant when she took a diverting carriage ride in the crisp November air. It ended in utter disaster. The carriage got into a serious accident, and Diana was sharply thrown from the vehicle with little warning. Fortunately, both mother and child survived the terrible crash. At first.

In those first desperate hours, Diana likely prayed that her baby was safe and all was well. It wasn't. The shock of the fall eventually proved too much for Diana's body, and the ensuing events were harrowing. She went into premature labor, possibly even on the side of the road in a small town named Cheam. She barely had time to think before her whole world changed.

While still recovering from her own injuries in the carriage accident, Diana pushed until she gave birth to a baby boy she named John, who instantly became the Marquess of Tavistock. He was withered and sickly, but he was hers, and Diana intended to keep him alive as long as she possibly could. Tragically, this wasn't long.

After swaddling the baby up, Diana rushed to baptize the premature child, knowing he had little chance of making it to adulthood but hoping and praying all the same. In the end, harsh reality won out: Just a day after his baptism, the little boy passed away. Then the real twist came.

Diana had been through so much in her short life, and she must have been nearly at her wit's end when it came to her premature son. But her friends' reactions were utterly deranged. Apparently fearing for her mental health, Diana's courtiers wanted to cover up the baby's death entirely. And the way they were planning on doing that was even more unhinged.

According to historical records, Diana Russell’s handlers decided that the best thing to do was to grab any old child of around the same age as poor little John. They would then plant him in the family, and everyone would simply pretend he was Diana's real son until "she was strong enough to hear the truth and be told it was only a pretender”.

Before that could happen, though something much weirder did.

Even as Diana was having her terrible carriage accident, a huge surprise was coming for her. In an incredible twist of fate, her husband's elder brother had died in Spain without any children to his name. Although the news hadn't yet reached them, at the very moment Diana had her carriage accident, her husband was actually the Duke of Bedford, and she was the Duchess.

When the news finally did hit them, you'd think it would eventually change things for the better. Unfortunately, it it made it so much worse.

Diana's husband John had been devastated at the loss of their son, and his grief soon took on disturbing dimensions. Once he became the Duke of Bedford, he became obsessed with producing a healthy son and heir for his family. Dutiful as ever, Diana followed him right back into the bedroom to try and try again.

However, she might have been better off waiting before jumping back into the sack.

Diana never seemed to have a problem getting pregnant, and in a few short months after her carriage accident she was showing again—much to the delight of her Duke, though probably not to the delight of her still-recovering body. The couple began planning all the ways they would welcome their new heir into the world...and then once more, tragedy struck. 

Sadly for Diana, getting pregnant and staying pregnant were two very different things. Tragically, after only a few months of carrying the baby, the Duchess of Bedford miscarried and lost her second child, this time without even so much as a goodbye or with the baby drawing breath. However, as she lay in bed finally convalescing, that was the least of her worries.

Despite the fact that he had been the one pushing her to have another child quickly, the Duke of Bedford placed the blame for the miscarriage squarely on Diana's shoulders, claiming she hadn't been taking proper care of herself and that's why she lost the baby. This would have been bad enough, but the Duke didn't stop there.

Not content with merely accusing his wife of miscarrying almost intentionally, the Duke's cruelty soon grew. Eventually, he withdrew almost all his affection from her, excepting his regular bedroom visits to ensure that heir he so desperately wanted. Growing increasingly miserable in her marriage, Diana knew of only one place to turn.

Even though they were living far apart, Diana Russell and the Dowager Duchess of Marlborough still kept in touch. In fact, they wrote to each other practically every day. Their letters contained the most intimate details about marriage, finances and, of course, Diana Russell’s terrible luck with pregnancy. Soon, these words would be all that the Dowager Duchess had to remember her favorite grandchild.

Sometime in the spring of 1735, Diana Russell began experiencing strange symptoms. The Duchess of Bedford assumed that she was, at last, pregnant again with her third child. Her spirits lifted and she believed that she would finally make her husband happy and bring a child to term. But once more, fate had something else in mind for little Di.

It's true that morning sickness is a common symptom of early pregnancy. But other, more disturbing signs were appearing. Soon, Diana Russell began noticing that she wasn’t gaining weight as pregnant ladies so often do. In fact, contrary to gaining weight, she was losing weight. And she was losing weight fast. Eventually, the dark truth came out.

It wasn't long before doctors confirmed the 25-year-old Diana's worst suspicions: The Duchess of Bedford was suffering from a particularly virulent bout of the potentially fatal disease tuberculosis. Her prognosis was dim at best, and Diana's grandmother begged her to go to Bedford House in London to recover. Even that was too much.

Disappointed and dismayed that she was “pregnant” with a virus instead of a baby, Diana Russell began making her way to Bedford House, but by the time she arrived there she was already beyond all help. That September, the beautiful Diana Russell, Duchess of Bedford succumbed to her illness. The aftermath was brutal. 

Diana had been the apple of her grandmother’s eye, and her passing was more than the Dowager Duchess could bear. Allegedly, Marlborough read her granddaughter’s revealing letters one last time, then tossed them into a roaring fire and threw herself on the ground in grief. But according to some, this elaborate display of mourning had a dark side.

In her short 25 years of life, Diana had managed to accumulate an enviable jewelry box. In fact, it might have been more like a treasure chest. According to some of the family's enemies. the Dowager Duchess of Marlborough was more interested in getting her hands on her granddaughter’s jewels than anything else.

No matter what her detractors said, the Duchess of Marlborough did appear to be truly destroyed by her favorite granddaughter's death. She not only withdrew from public life, she also loudly accused the Duke of Bedford of causing Diana's tragic end, believing his coldness to her granddaughter contributed to her ill-heath.

But a grief-stricken grandmother wasn’t Diana Russell’s only legacy.

Two and half centuries later, another Lady Diana captured everyone’s heart. In fact, the lives of these two Dianas were so similar that one might be forgiven for thinking that they were the same person. Both were celebrated for their beauty, grew up without a mother from the age of six, were romantically entangled with a Prince of Wales, suffered an accident during their first pregnancy, and died young.

Practically the entire kingdom mourned Diana's passing, and her funeral turned into quite the affair. Mourners would have flanked the streets as her lead-lined coffin made its way through town. Following her demise, she was finally laid to rest in Buckinghamshire. Her poor grandmother never truly recovered from the loss.

Diana Russell received an education befitting someone of her social standing and position. That is to say, she learned about all of the important things in life…like opera. In fact, she actually grew up next to the famed composer George Frederic Handel, just to give you some idea about the rarified circles Diana moved in.

Diana's grandmother the Duchess of Marlborough once noted that her granddaughter had "more sense than any [woman] I know". Accordingly, she trusted the young Diana to write out all of her private communications, particularly when the Dowager Duchess's gout made it nearly impossible for her to write.

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Sources: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8

Frederick Barbarossa was born in December of 1122. His parents were Frederick II, the duke of Swabia, and Judith of Bavaria. Through various family members, Frederick had connections to the Welt family, the Hohenstaufens, and the Ottonian dynasty. These ranked among Europe's most powerful families, so everyone expected great things from Frederick. 

But he had one big thing going against him. 

While growing up, Frederick learned important things like hunting and riding. But there was one glaring omission in his early education. Surprisingly, no one bothered to teach him how to read or write. He also didn’t learn to speak Latin until much later in his life. 

Despite this, he still got some rather impressive invites. 

Frederick’s uncle was King Conrad III, and he held assemblies known as Hoftages. These were elite “invite only” events where nobility got together to talk about issues that mattered to the different rulers of the empire. Obviously, an invite from the king put Frederick at a high level of importance. 

But Frederick still craved adventure. 

On December 28, 1146, Frederick’s uncle Conrad promised the pope that he would lead a crusade. These were violent offensives with the goal of taking back the Holy Land for the Empire. Frederick saw this as a great opportunity and signed up to be by his uncle’s side. 

One man stood between Frederick and a life of adventure. 

Frederick’s father didn’t have long to live, and he didn’t want his son rushing off to battle and maybe not returning. After all, Dad wanted Frederick to take care of his mother and half-brother. Dad complained to King Conrad, but it was too late. Frederick was ready to rumble. 

Dad was still fuming about Frederick’s imminent departure on the crusade when he suddenly passed. Dad’s worst fear had come true. At least now Frederick could stay home and take care of his family. Nope, Frederick still didn’t care. Seven weeks after his father’s passing, he left on the crusade. 

His life of adventure would start with a bang. 

While on the crusade, one of Frederick’s fellow crusaders lost his life at the hands of thieves in a monastery. Conrad decided to let Frederick choose the punishment for the thieves. Frederick didn't hold back at all. He completely razed the monastery, executed the thieves, and demanded all the money back. He would have gone further if a general hadn’t held him back. 

But even someone as powerful as Frederick could find himself in danger. 

Around the beginning of September, Frederick Barbarossa and the crusaders set up camp. Frederick and his uncle Welf VI decided it would be better to be on a hill away from the main camp. This ended up being a very lucky decision, as a flash flood descended on the camp and pretty much destroyed it and everyone in it. 

Luck was on Frederick’s side and he would live to slay another day. 

During the crusade, Frederick battled it out in the Siege of Damascus. This was a short battle—only about five days—but Frederick showed his prowess. Gilbert of Mons said that Frederick “prevailed in arms before others in front of Damascus”. That’s old-timey talk for “he slayed in Damascus”. 

Frederick may have been strutting his stuff, but he couldn’t win it alone. 

As it turned out, the crusaders failed to win the Siege of Damascus and were soon in full retreat. Back in Germany, Frederick Barbarossa found himself in a textbook case of being in the right place at the right time. You see, King Conrad was about to breathe his last breath, and there was only Frederick and a bishop-prince in the room. 

As the king was dying, he said something astonishing. 

The official heir to the throne was Conrad’s son, who at this time was just six years old. Frederick swore that before passing, Conrad had said that he wanted Frederick to be the next king and not his own son. Luckily, Frederick had the prince-bishop to back up his claim. 

But would anyone believe this? 

As it turned out, they did believe and Frederick Barbarossa became King of the Romans on March 9, 1152. But what he was ruler over was a mess. As it turned out, whoever was the King had no real power. They also had very little money. The king’s only wealth came from a few prosperous towns in northern Italy. 

Job one for Frederick was unification. 

At this time, Germany consisted of more than 1,600 states, and each of these had its own prince. King Frederick, who had largely meaningless titles like “Caesar”, “Augustus”, and “Emperor of the Romans”, just wanted to restore order. He did this by making huge concessions to the nobility of the different states. 

Frederick was bringing order to Germany, but there was disorder in his own household. 

Before he left for his crusade, Frederick Barbarossa had married Adelheid of Vohburg in a bit of a rush. I think he should’ve given this marriage a little more thought. You see, Queen Adelheid hardly fit the role of a devoted wife. She hadn’t even made the effort to attend her husband’s coronation. In fact, she rarely did the usual royal duties of appearing before the masses.

But there was something even worse about Adelheid. 

Some historians believe that Adelheid cheated on Frederick. At least she had the excuse of her hubby always being away on crusades. But there was something even worse. She hadn't produced any heirs. With these two strikes against her, Frederick had had enough of Adelheid. 

He turned to the pope to solve this problem. 

In 1153, just six years after their marriage, Frederick Barbarossa asked the pope for an annulment from Ahelheid. He didn’t use her adultery or her general laziness about royal duties as reasons. Instead, he dug way back in history and found that he and his wife were “fourth cousins, once removed”. The pope bought this excuse and granted an annulment. 

Frederick was single and ready to mingle. 

Of course, speed dating didn’t exist back then, and it wouldn’t have mattered. Frederick wasn’t looking for a woman he had things in common with. He was looking for a wife with benefits. He found her in Beatrice I of Burgundy. This 13-year-old girl offered Frederick something that money couldn't buy. She was the countess of Burgundy. 

This was a major coup for Frederick. 

So, what did Frederick Barbarossa want with Burgundy? First off, it would give him easy access to his enemies in Milan in case he wanted to mount an offensive there. She also had a huge number of knights to fight alongside Frederick’s men. As it turned out, Beatrice was a catch in other ways. 

While it seemed that Frederick was marrying just for Beatrice's royal assets, it seemed that she was actually a great catch in other ways. Since there were no cameras back then, a poet took the time to describe the bride. He said that Beatrice was more beautiful than Venus, smarter than Minerva, and richer than Juno. It looked like Frederick was getting the full package. 

And he was ready to take advantage of it. 

Frederick Barbarossa didn't waste any time. Right after his marriage to Beatrice, he took over in Burgundy. Officially, he co-ruled with Beatrice, but she was still young, and on paper anyway, it looked like Frederick was calling the shots. This wouldn’t change until 1166, when Beatrice was in her 20s. 

As Frederick strengthened his power in Italy, he met up with a formidable foe. 

Back in 1155, Pope Adrian IV had made Frederick very angry by handing over territories to Sicily’s King William. Frederick thought those territories should be his. Then it came out that the pope thought that Frederick was only emperor because he had put him there, and that Frederick answered to him and not the other way around. 

Frederick was angry, and he had a plan for revenge. 

Furious with the pope, Frederick Barbarossa grabbed his cousin Henry the Lion and a group of fighters and entered Milan. He easily took the city and even put his own men in charge of some Italian cities in the north. Frederick could now enjoy the feeling of having taken full revenge on the pope. 

But taking Milan had its consequences. 

After he’d conquered Milan, Beatrice soon became captive to a group of rebels. To punish Beatrice for being the wife of the man who’d conquered them, they made her ride a donkey backwards. While this seems laughable now, many considered it a hugely degrading humiliation. 

Frederick would have to avenge his bride. 

Frederick Barbarossa freed his wife from her captors and plotted his revenge. He put a fig in a donkey’s rear-end and cruelly forced the magistrates of Milan to remove the fig using their teeth. In another story, the fig was actually dung from the donkey, and to finish off the punishment, Frederick forced the men to say “behold the fig” with the dung still in their mouths. 

Frederick was clearly having a ball doling out punishment. But there were more serious issues at hand.

On this same campaign, Frederick also reduced the city of Crema to a pile of dirt. While this was happening, Pope Adrian IV passed. What happened next was really bizarre. Two popes now fought for control of the Church. It was Alexander III versus Victor IV, who they called the antipope. Both of the contenders looked to Frederick for support. 

This kind of power could go to a man’s head. 

After yet another violent stop in Milan, Frederick’s arrogance allowed him to take some interesting loot. He heartlessly made off with some relics that many thought had actually belonged to the three kings—yes, those same ones from the Christmas story. Frederick gave the relics as a gift to the Archbishop of Cologne, and to this day they remain there. 

Pilfering relics does not make you popular with popes. And neither does choosing one over the other. 

Eventually, Frederick Barbarossa named Victor the new pope, and this, of course, enraged Alexander. Alexander ignored Frederick's decision and excommunicated both Victor and Frederick. Then, Alexander turned to Sicily for support. Frederick had become Alexander’s sworn enemy and was about to receive his papal punishment. 

To make Frederick pay, Alexander was now backing the Lombard League. This league’s sole purpose in life was to take away Frederick’s power in Italy. Alexander had also cozied up to another one of Frederick’s enemies: the Byzantine emperor Manuel I. Together, these three foes could give Frederick a real run for his money. 

Frederick had reason to be afraid, very afraid. 

Frederick Barbarossa fought his way through Italy and, in 1167, he was preparing to face a serious enemy. The word out there was that the Roman army was the greatest ever assembled by Romans. Frederick faced off with them at the fierce Battle of Monte Porzio. When the dust had settled, Frederick came out as the clear winner. 

Frederick quickly headed to Rome. There was something he’d been wanting to do for a long time. 

Once in Rome, Frederick arranged for his wife to finally take the title “Empress”. For himself, Frederick got his second coronation, this time from Pope Paschal III, who had taken over from Victor. Everything on this campaign was going Frederick’s way. And then it all stopped for a surprising reason. 

It was a foe that Frederick couldn’t battle with a sword.  

The one thing that Frederick Barbarossa couldn’t fight against was disease. There was an outbreak of the plague, and it put a halt to Frederick’s plans. He returned to Germany and had to regroup. This was a time for sensible thinking on Frederick’s part, as he started to become friendly with his arch-rival Manuel. 

It was also a time to work on his family. 

Because of the plague, many rulers of the time passed. Frederick saw this as an opportunity to put his sons in power. Frederick V was soon the Duke of Swabia, and Henry became king of the Romans. Once it was safe to travel again, Frederick knew he still had a few scores to settle.

His first stop was his constant rival, Milan. 

While the plague kept Frederick grounded, Milan had risen and become independent again. Frederick was soon headed off to Italy with a vengeance. But he soon found that Italy was different this time around. The northern cities were much richer than before. They were a much more formidable opponent, and Frederick realized he’d need some help. 

It was time to call on an old and trusted friend. 

Frederick was clearly in over his head against these more powerful places in Italy, so he turned to Henry the Lion for help. Henry was Frederick’s cousin and had helped him out before. But this time it was different. Henry had his own troubles to worry about, and he turned a cold shoulder to Frederick. 

Frederick was very much alone. 

Without the help of Henry, Frederick was in trouble. He and his men marched on Alessandria in 1175, and they met with defeat. This happened again in the battle of Legnano, near Milan. These defeats shocked Europe. Frederick had seemed untouchable, and here he was losing battle after battle. 

And then a story surfaced that Frederick was no more. 

The rumor was out there that Frederick had lost his life in battle. The truth was that he had only received an injury, but with this injury came a loss of power. He’d met with failure against the Lombard League, so Frederick had to eat his words and accept Alexander as pope. They even arranged for a humiliating ceremony in Venice. 

With Alexander as pope, Frederick’s life would look completely different. 

With Frederick’s reconciliation with Alexander, many changes happened almost immediately. Because Frederick was acknowledging that Alexander was pope, Alexander acknowledged that Frederick was the overlord of the Imperial Church. Frederick also started a peaceful relationship with his enemy, the Lombard League. Everything seemed rosy except for one thing. 

Frederick still had one axe to grind, and he was ready with a severe and painful punishment. 

Henry the Lion had declined to help Frederick when he needed him most, and as we now know, Frederick was not one to let things like this go. At this time, Henry had his own state with power in Saxony, Bavaria, and other places in Germany. The irony was that Henry only had this state because he had failed to help Frederick in Italy. 

Frederick knew a punishment that would get Henry right in the gut. 

Many German princes already resented Henry, and Frederick used that against him. Frederick set up a trial and deliberately excluded Henry from it. At the trial, they took away Henry’s land and declared him an outlaw. Frederick had successfully weakened Henry’s power. 

Next he’d move in to finish him off. 

Frederick and his powerful army marched into Saxony and forced Henry to surrender. When Henry looked to his allies for help, he found they’d all turned their back on him—much like Henry had done to Frederick. In 1181, Henry submitted to Frederick and Frederick sentenced him to exile. Henry lived his remaining days completely powerless. 

Frederick had satiated his desire for revenge, but there was still more to fight for. 

Frederick soon realized that Germany had descended into disorder. The nobles who ruled the individual states were always in combat against each other. Making matters worse, these German states had gotten more powerful over the years. Frederick knew he had to unite the fighting states, but defeats in Italy had left him a tired, broken man. 

And Italy was still a thorn in his side. 

Frederick also suffered when he considered his role in Italy. As the emperor, he was the official ruler of Italy. But the truth was something altogether different. Italians still looked to the pope as the most powerful man in Italy. If he wanted to make headway into Italy, he’d have to be more creative. He may have been too weak to fight, but at least he could be strategic. 

He started with a marriage.

To be more successful in Italy, Frederick set up a marriage between his son Henry and Constance of Sicily, who was more than a decade older than him. Of course, this marriage was for one reason only: To gain power in Italy. The new pope, Urban III, objected to the marriage, but Frederick was now more than used to angering popes. 

Frederick had gotten his strength back. It was time for another crusade. 

Frederick was now an old hand at leading crusades, so he knew that strategy meant everything. For this one, he spent a full year just planning. When he was finally ready, Frederick had an army of 15,000 men. With this massive group of fighters, Frederick had success at the Battle of Philomelium and the Battle of Iconium. 

But when Frederick stopped to ask for directions, he faced a tragedy. 

Frederick wasn't sure of the next direction to take, so he asked some local Armenians what he should do. Their advice was to take a shortcut that went alongside the Saleph River, which is now in present-day Turkey. While his army took the mountain path, Frederick took the river shortcut. 

There's more than one story about the tragedy that occurred next. 

After heeding the Armenian’s advice, Frederick was either bathing in the river, swimming across it, or riding his horse through it. The almost 70-year-old emperor was doing one of these things when he tragically drowned. The details are as murky as that river, but one thing was very clear. 

This crusade suddenly had no leader. 

After Frederick’s river accident, thousands of his men abandoned the crusade. Because they were weaker and lacking a leader, the crusade descended into failure. One way to save the crusade from complete failure would be to bury Frederick’s remains in Jerusalem. Sadly, their attempts to preserve the body in vinegar also failed. 

In the end, Frederick’s final resting place was, well, not in one single place. 

Frederick’s final resting place actually had three different locations. His followers buried his flesh in a cathedral in Antioch. His bones ended up in the Cathedral of the Holy Cross in Tyre, now Lebanon. Lastly, there was his heart and other organs. They finally found peace in Saint Paul’s Church in Tarsus, now a part of Turkey. 

Despite having three separate burials, some believed he was still alive. 

Somewhere there is a mountain in Europe where some believe Frederick still lives in a cave. His red beard has grown so long that it has gone through the table where he sits. The myth states that when the ravens stop circling the mountain, Frederick will come out of his cave and make Germany a great power once again. 

If you don’t believe that Frederick lives on in a mountain cave in Europe, there are other ways to meet up with him. 

In 2009, Blade Runner actor Rutger Hauer played Frederick in the film Barbarossa. If you dare, you can get more interactive and meet up with this formidable emperor in the video games Sid Meier’s Civilization and Age of Empires II. Warning: making him angry may be hazardous to your health. 

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Sources: 1, 2, 3, 4. 5, 6, 7, 8 

We most commonly understand Venom as the long-toothed, eerie-grinned maniac who looks like a black, over-muscled Spider-Man. But, in fact, Venom is derived from a race of alien beings called "symbiotes" that take on a host in order to survive. The Venom symbiote is a thick, black liquid-like being that latches onto its host and provides powers in exchange for the host's life-force.

Spider-Man, being one of Venom’s first hosts, had his life-force integrated into the symbiote, so when the creature was separated from him, it retained some of his powers. Thus, when it found another host, they became a sort of Spidey 2.0. That host was, of course, Eddie Brock, who became one of Spider-Man’s most recurrent enemies.

Venom wasn't actually created by a comic book writer. Rather, Randy Schueller, a 22-year-old comic fan and avid reader, first came up with the character. He sent in a letter suggesting that Reed Richards of the Fantastic Four could create a black costume for Peter Parker using unstable molecules.

Marvel liked the idea and bought the character for $220, even offering Schueller the chance to write a script (though that later fell through). Mike Zeck and Todd McFarlane designed the original black costume, which made its first appearance in Amazing Spider-Man Issue 252 in May 1984 (though chronologically, the suit first showed up in the Secret Wars Issue 8).

The unfortunate (or fortunate, depending on your style) hosts of Venom are given great powers and abilities—Schueller's initial idea was that the black suit would enhance Spidey's powers by 25%. As an independent symbiote, this creature can fend for its self apart from a host, using shapeshifting abilities, camouflage, and even the ability to morph into spikes or increase in size.

However, since Spider-Man was its original host, all future hosts gain Spidey’s powers and abilities. Even worse, the symbiote cannot be detected by Spider-Man’s spider-sense, which is why Venom is so difficult for the hero to defeat.

While Venom isn’t exactly slim, he could be classified as a bit shady. Fittingly, rapper Enimem was handed the opportunity, nay, the honor, to write the catchy tune which can be heard at the end credits of the film. To promote the song, the rapper performed it live from the 103rd floor of the Empire State Building in an appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live.

Venom may seem almost unbeatable, but does he have any weaknesses? Of course—two specifically. The first is heat. Yes, flame and fire are detrimental to Venom’s health and abilities, and their effect is rather self-explanatory: fire burns and destroys the symbiote bonding to its host.

The second, however, has proven to be extremely important in Spider-Man's struggles against his counterpart: Sound. The symbiote is extremely vulnerable to sonic waves and Spider-Man has beaten Venom several times with this knowledge. A great example of this is seen in the film Spider-Man 3, when Spider-Man bangs iron poles together, causing loud vibrations which cause the symbiote wrenching pain and eventually separate it from its host, Eddie Brock (played, inexplicably, by Topher Grace).

What could be worse for a superhero than one deranged alien symbiote going around and bonding to hosts? More than one symbiote, of course!

There have been many other symbiotes in the Marvel Universe, many of which spawned from the original Venom. One of the most powerful became known as Toxin. Toxin attached itself to an NYPD officer named Patrick Mulligan and the two of them became an anti-hero, at one point helping Spider-Man fight against two other symbiotes, Venom and Carnage.

Tom Hardy, who plays Venom in the new hit film, has signed on for three Venom movies. This means we'll get to sit back and enjoy (at least) two more films of our beloved, venomous Marvel character. As Hardy put it, "I'm open to whatever you want to do with it. We've signed up for three of them. So it's very much an open case. We'll see what people's responses are to it. I think it's an awesome character. I love playing both of them. It's an amuse-bouche, and for Sony, it's the Venom-verse launched in isolation, as it were."

Venom even bonded with Deadpool in the past. In fact, Venom bonded to Deadpool before it bonded with Spider-Man. So that means Deadpool, not Spider-Man, was technically the original Venom.

Despite being known as one of Spider-Man’s primary villains, there are moments in comic book history where Venom acts as more of an antihero than a villain. One of the most notable works featuring this characterization is the 1993 Venom: Lethal Protector series, which focuses on Venom moving to San Francisco, eventually teaming up with Spider-Man to fight five new symbiotes: Scream, Phage, Riot, Lasher, and Agony.

Speaking of the 1993 Lethal Protector series, it was one of these comic arcs that inspired the central themes of the new major motion picture film, Venom, which stars Tom Hardy as Eddie Brock. Some major themes taken from the comics are Eddie Brock's wrestling with the Venom symbiote, and talking it into sticking up for civilians and preventing its fellow symbiote friends from destroying humans.

So, we’ve talked a bit about Carnage. To refresh, Carnage is another symbiote in the Spider-Man universe. But how was he created? It all begins with Venom and its host, Eddie Brock, and ends with a new host, Cletus Kasady.

Brock and Kasady, a psychopathic serial killer, were cellmates in prison together. Eventually, the Venom symbiote breaks into their cell, bonds to Brock, and they escape. However, a small piece of the symbiote was left behind. That small piece ends up bonding with some of Kasady's blood, and mutates into the horrific Carnage, one of the most powerful (and insane) of Spider-Mans enemies.

SPOILER AHEAD. Is Carnage in the Venom film, you ask? Well, yes and no. For those who have seen it and stuck around during the credits, you would have watched Eddie Brock walk into prison to find a man, Cletus Kasady (played by Woody Harrelson), sitting in his cell. The character’s line: “There will be carnage,” clearly foreshadows a future film where Harrelson will take on the character and symbiote of Carnage. This could also mean that fans will see Venom in full antihero mode as he helps to take on Carnage. Fingers crossed!

There is, in fact, a comic book series titled Venom vs. Carnage. It's a great series because it not only further explores the lives and powers of both human hosts, Eddie Brock and Cletus Kasady, but also of their symbiotes, Venom and Carnage, including how they fight/interact.

It also explains why Carnage is more powerful than Venom—because its host, Cletus Kasay, was a deranged serial killer and professional criminal, whereas Eddie Brock was just a journalist with grit. Hear that kids? It's what's inside that counts.

VENOM SPOILER WARNING. Symbiotes aren't just for boys, either. Venom also once bonded to a woman named Anne Weying, creating the iconic She-Venom. Weying appears in the 2018 film, portrayed by Michelle Williams, and while we haven't seen a full appearance from She-Venom, we at least got a small taste of her on screen.

The feud between Carnage and Venom goes back to the 1993 comic series titled, Maximum Carnage, a 14 part storyline which consists of many plots and characters surrounding the Spider-Man universe, primarily Venom and Carnage. The premise here is that Spider-Man and Venom team up to defeat Carnage. The hope is that this plot point will make its way onto the big screen, but who knows for sure if we'll ever get to see Spidey and Venom share the spotlight.

If things can’t get any stranger about Venom, symbiotes, aliens, etc., they just did with this fun fact: In the Old Man Logan comics, the Venom symbiote is bonded with a T-Rex. Enough said.

What makes the symbiotes, such as Venom, thrive? The answer isn't surprising—these creatures feed of off the hosts' fear, adrenaline, and hatred; three human qualities found in our primordial nature. This makes humans easily susceptible to the symbiotes' bonding power.

Because of the symbiotes' ability to feed off of human fear, it's no wonder that Eddie Brock struggles with Venom. Venom and Brock have a long-lasting relationship full of conflict and contemplation. The two spend so much time together that their minds and nature begin to connect as one—while they are continually at odds with one another, they nevertheless behave and act in unison at times.

Have you ever tasted squirrel? Nah, me neither. But guess who has? You got it! Venom. Venom is an odd soul, so much so that he munches on and devours all kind of creatures, including humans. However, according to some comics, Venom’s favorite snack is actually squirrel. Nom nom nom.

Ever been watching the old Spider-Man animated series and recognize a familiar voice whenever Venom spoke? Maybe that's because the character was voiced by Hank Azaria, who's famous for doing the voices of Moe, Apu, and many others on The Simpsons.

Again, despite being one of Spider-Man’s top nemeses, Venom actually proves useful as an antihero. He has been an active member of the Guardians of the Galaxy (when the symbiote bonded to Flash Thompson, creating Agent Venom). Though it’s doubtful we'll see Venom in the Guardians film franchise (cross your fingers), it's still pretty cool to see in the comic book world.

Venom was also a member of the Avengers. Again, this most likely will not be seen in the Avengers film franchise, but it’s still pretty cool—it was even Captain America himself who let Venom in the crew!

Venom may seem all big scary and even gross sometimes (when he’s munching on people), but he also has a sensitive side when it comes to sticking up for certain people. Specifically, he is known to protect homeless people, even going to live among them when he left New York for San Francisco in Venom: Lethal Protector.

Does the Venom symbiote have a mind of its own? Well, yes and no. For the most part, it merely enhances the motives, desires, and traits of its host, making them more volatile, but still essentially remaining themselves. In this way, Venom takes on much of its personality from its host, be it Peter Parker, Eddie Brock, or someone else. However, that doesn't mean it doesn't have a will of its own—it has actually killed its host before, so it should not be underestimated.

Sources: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12

Anne Baxter was only five when she made her first attempts at acting. This was when she stepped on stage in a school play. The next year, the Baxter family moved to New York, and Baxter entered the rather posh Upper East Side Brearley School. The move to New York was fortunate because young Baxter had her sights set on Broadway.

After seeing a play on Broadway, Baxter announced that she would be an actor. Three years later she was on stage in her first Broadway show. This was the comedy/horror Seen but Not Heard. Baxter had certainly caught the acting bug, but she needed someone to take her to the next level.

While many aspiring actors attended classes from Lee Strasberg, Baxter went one better. She learned from the woman who taught Strasburg. This was Russian immigrant Maria Ouspenskaya, who took Baxter under her wing. The plan was to make Baxter into a star.

Working with Ouspenskaya paid off, and Baxter landed a great part. She would play Katharine Hepburn’s daughter in the Broadway show The Philadelphia Story. They did a pre-Broadway run to get ready for the real thing. Before they moved the play to Broadway, something disastrous happened.

Before taking The Philadelphia Story to Broadway, lead actor Katharine Hepburn had a request. She wanted Baxter off the show. Apparently, Hepburn didn’t like the teenager’s acting style. It looked like Baxter’s career was over before it began. But she was no quitter, and decided to go in a different direction.

Anne Baxter decided that if Broadway didn’t want her, Hollywood just might. She didn’t waste any time and soon had an audition with the illustrious director Alfred Hitchcock. She was only 16, and she was auditioning for the lead actress in Hitchcock’s Rebecca. Her future was in the horror movie director’s hands.

Hitchcock thought, quite correctly, that Baxter was too young to play Mrs DeWinter in Rebecca and the role went to Joan Fontaine, who was six years older. Fontaine walked away with an Academy Award nomination, but Baxter got her own reward.

Both MGM and 20th Century Fox wanted to sign her on. She had a big decision to make.

Anne Baxter had her choice of two major studios. There certainly are worse things in the world for an up-and-coming actor. To make her decision, Baxter did the most obvious thing. She went where the money was. Fox was offering the higher salary, so that’s where she signed.

Now it was time for them to turn her into a star.

Strangely, 20th Century Fox’s first move for Anne Baxter was to loan her out to the studio she’d said no to. MGM was making the 1940 Western 20 Mule Team and they needed her for a daughter role. That same year, 20th Century Fox brought her back for a comedy with John Barrymore.

You could say that Baxter was paying her dues with these smaller parts. But if she wanted to be a star, she needed a lead part.

After another small role—this one with Jack Benny in Charley’s Aunt—Baxter received her first lead role offer. The film was Swamp Water and there are only two names above hers in the credits. For this reason, you could call this Baxter’s first lead role. But there was something fishy in these swampy waters.

Baxter’s name may have been third in the credits, but the name right below hers was clearly the film’s protagonist. This was Dana Andrews, who appears in nearly every scene in Swamp Water. It’s not clear what Andrews did to receive such bad treatment, but it certainly paid off for Baxter.

All Baxter needed now was for Swamp Water to be a hit.

Swamp Water wasn’t a huge hit, but it did well at the box office and with critics. Up next for Anne Baxter was The Pied Piper. Baxter was once again among the stars at the top of the billing, but there was a big difference here. The Pied Piper received recognition from the most important people in Hollywood.

When it came to that year’s Academy Awards, The Pied Piper received three nominations. Unfortunately, none of them headed in Baxter’s direction. The good news was that one of the nominations was for Best Picture. Being in a Best Picture nominated film could do wonders for an up-and-coming actor.

Certainly, Baxter could leverage this win into a career-defining role.

A director’s name that was on everyone’s lips was Orson Welles, especially after he made the controversial film, Citizen Kane. While Welles continued to fight to get Citizen Kane into theaters, he made his next film, The Magnificent Ambersons. Of course, a part in this film could really ignite Baxter’s career.  As it turned out, she had a leg up with this one.

The lead role in The Magnificent Ambersons went to Joseph Cotten, and he had a fond memory of Anne Baxter. He’d been in the stage play where Katharine Hepburn had arranged to have Baxter fired. When Welles was looking for a young woman to play Cotten’s daughter, Cotten recommended Baxter.

Baxter had found her gold mine part, now she had to knock it out of the park.

The Magnificent Ambersons was a critics’ darling, but failed to thrive at the box office. When awards season came around there were nominations, but nothing for Baxter. The film did get the nod for Best Picture and would be up against another Baxter film, The Pied Piper. At least she had a great chance of one of her movies taking home the top prize.

Sadly, neither Baxter film took home the trophy on awards night. No matter, Baxter moved on to a leading lady role in Crash Dive. Once again her name appeared one step above co-star Dana Andrews. This film also garnered Oscar buzz but sadly only won for Best Visual Effects.

It seemed that, like the title of this film, Baxter’s career was taking a dive—and was in danger of crashing.

Baxter’s next film was with another celebrated auteur. This was Double Indemnity director Billy Wilder, and the film was Five Graves To Cairo. Here, Baxter had to pull off a credible French accent and, according to some, she nailed it. Her accent, however, didn’t save the film and it received mixed reviews.

But something big was coming her way.

In 1944, Anne Baxter finally got what she wanted. In Guest in the House, she got top billing. But behind the scenes, making the film was a nightmare. Halfway through filming, the director collapsed. He had appendicitis and needed emergency surgery. This may have been a piece of luck for the director, because he could avoid the disappointment that was Guest in the House.

While Guest in the House did make $50,000 for United Artists, it made no friends with the critics. Sadly, a lot of the problems seemed to lie in Baxter’s acting. In the film, she plays a homewrecker, but the consensus was that she was just too obvious. This was certainly a setback in Baxter’s career.

Sadly, she was about to see this on repeat.

Baxter’s next film, A Royal Scandal, provided her with a huge deja vu. Once again, the original director got sick, and they replaced him with a new director. This time Otto Preminger, who just had success with Academy Award-nominated Laura, took the helm. The other piece of deja vu was the bad reviews. They called the film “oddly dull”.

Anne Baxter had struck out with two famed directors: Wilder and Preminger. She had to be wondering if she was the problem.

In 1946, Baxter got a call to appear opposite matinee idol Tyrone Power in The Razor’s Edge. Well, not exactly opposite. Baxter was back to playing a supporting role—maybe as punishment for her two flops. All she could do now was hope that audiences and critics would notice her.

With this film, she got her wish.

Even before its release, The Razor’s Edge was becoming a big deal. 20th Century Fox wasn’t holding back on its publicity of the film. They premiered it at the Roxy Theater in New York City and it was a glamorous affair. Some called it the "largest and most star-studded motion picture premiere since the war".

Now all Baxter had to do was hope she didn’t get lost in the shuffle.

With the huge marketing campaign, it was no surprise that The Razor’s Edge made a killing at the box office. Some critics, however, were not so kind. The New York Times took issue with the dialogue and the script in general. It looked like another flop for Baxter, and then something surprising happened.

When the Academy announced their nominations for the year, The Razor’s Edge came up with a surprising four nods. Even better, Anne Baxter was up for Best Supporting Actress. As it turned out, there was a reason for Baxter’s stellar performance, and it was a heartbreaking one.

One of Baxter’s pivotal scenes in The Razor’s Edge has her character in an emotional scene in a hospital. In real life, Baxter had lost a three-year-old brother when she was a child, and she took the feelings from that sad situation and used them for her acting. It was powerful stuff, but was it enough to take home the trophy?

On Oscar night, Baxter did indeed win the Best Supporting Actress category. It was the only win for The Razor’s Edge, and a triumphant moment for Baxter. Then it happened again at the Golden Globes. Baxter must have been over the moon. But as we now know, Best Supporting actresses don’t always have happy endings.

Even though Baxter’s next feature—Blaze of Noon—focused on four brothers involved in aviation, it was Baxter who got top billing. Surely her new status as an Academy Award winner helped with that. Sadly, this film was kind of “meh”. Could Baxter be heading for what has recently—because of actors like Marisa Tomei and Jennifer Hudson—been called the?

The thing was, Anne Baxter had no shortage of roles. What she needed was a lead role in a successful film. While her next film—Homecoming—was a huge hit, Baxter was left in the cold. The stars that benefited from it were the leads: Clark Gable and Lana Turner. Baxter was back to playing supporting roles.

But there was one big plus from this film.

In one of Baxter’s scenes in Homecoming, she finds a shoulder to cry on. The actor playing this role was John Hodiak. Well, crying on Hodiak’s shoulder was easy as pie--as the two had tied the knot before starting the film. They met back in 1944 while making Sunday Dinner for a Soldier.

Baxter’s next costar would not be nearly as cozy as Hodiak.

Working with her husband was easy, her next role wouldn’t be as pleasant. Her co-star in the western Yellow Sky was Gregory Peck, and the two did not get along. The director went as far as to say that Baxter hated Peck. The problem here is that Baxter was playing Peck’s love interest. Sound difficult?

Then fate stepped in to give Baxter a break.

One scene in Yellow Sky called for Baxter and Peck to roll around in the hay together. This might be weird if you don’t get along with your co-star—but Baxter got out of the awkward situation in an unexpected way. Well, before they shot this scene Peck had broken his ankle falling from a horse. Baxter thankfully got to roll around in the hay with his stunt double instead.

Actually, it was Peck who was really lucky.

When the director of Yellow Sky—William Wellman—learned that Anne Baxter hated Gregory Peck, he offered Peck a warning. Wellman said that he should be careful as he thought that Baxter would physically hurt him if they got into a fight. Baxter was getting a reputation as a fighter.

Well she was about to face the Hollywood star with one of the worst reputations in the business.

1950’s All About Eve had a tremendous buzz about it even before they made it. The film tells the story of an aging Broadway star whose very existence comes under threat from a seemingly innocent fan. The role of Margo—the aging star—originally went to Claudette Colbert.

This was good news for Baxter for a bizarre reason.

The director of All About Eve thought it would be an interesting choice to have the two competing lead characters resemble each other by the end of the film. Because Baxter looked a little like Colbert, she got the part of the manipulative fan. Then a funny thing happened.

Colbert ended up injuring herself on another film, so she had to gracefully bow out of All About Eve. That’s when Bette Davis received an offer to play the part. Luckily, Baxter was still in, but now she was playing opposite one of the scariest people in Hollywood. There was something else much more foreboding that might have been worrying Baxter.

Anne Baxter had received her worst reviews playing a manipulative outsider trying to seem innocent. This was in Guest in the House, and likely Baxter was still hurting from the bad press. The thing was, her role in All About Eve was unnervingly similar. She was once again playing a character pretending to be nice and having an evil agenda.

It’s time to find out if Baxter had learned from her mistakes.

Likely, Anne Baxter had received warnings about Davis’ outrageous antics on set. The media was gleefully playing up that the two were not getting along. Luckily, actually making the film was another matter altogether. As it turned out, Baxter and Davis had no problem with each other, and even forged a friendship.

It was only after the filming ended that Baxter did something that had the potential to push Davis over the edge.

When it came to the Oscars, Anne Baxter had learned her lessons. She did not want to get a nomination for a supporting Oscar. She put the pressure on and got the nod for Best Actress for the film. There was just one problem. The notoriously competitive Davis was also nominated for Best Actress. Surely, having two actresses up for the same award was good for a film.

Nope, it actually caused a big issue.

Popular opinion decided that Baxter’s desire to get a Best Actress nomination hurt both herself and Davis. Members of the Academy who liked All About Eve now had to choose between Baxter and Davis. Many believe that is why neither took home the trophy that night. Judy Holliday got it for Born Yesterday.

Baxter said goodbye to Oscar drama and hello to her own very real drama.

Baxter’s marriage ended in 1953, and Baxter called it “the longest winter in the world”. Somewhere around the mid-1950s, she started dating Russell Birdwell. The thing was, he was also her publicist. It was hard to tell which was more the driving force of this partnership: romance or making money.

One thing was for sure—Baxter’s luck with directors hadn’t changed.

Anne Baxter continued her habit of making forgettable films with respected directors. In 1953, she made I Confess with Alfred Hitchcock and The Blue Gardenia with Fritz Lang. Neither film attracted a favorable response from critics or audiences. It looked like Baxter’s life would continue like this, but then she got a very important phone call.

In 1956, Baxter received a call from legendary filmmaker Cecil B DeMille. When she got to his office, he told her that he wanted her to play Egyptian Queen Nefertiti in his biblical epic The Ten Commandments. Of course, Baxter knew that a film with DeMille was what every actor wanted, but she still had a demand. She told him that she had to wear a false nose to look Egyptian.

DeMille’s reply was pure Hollywood legend.

When Baxter asked DeMille if she could wear a false nose, the famous director pounded his desk with his fist. He apparently had a strong opinion about this. He said that her “Irish nose stays in the picture”. And that was that. Baxter had a part in a film that would make history.

As everyone knows, The Ten Commandments went down in history as a very important film. It garnered seven Academy Award nominations but won only for Best Special Effects. Some critics pointed out Baxter’s acting, but not in a good way. One called her performance “old-school”. It hardly mattered. Baxter was in an epic film that audiences would enjoy for years to come.

Now Baxter could rest on her laurels, and give marriage another try.

By 1960, Baxter’s relationship with her publicist had dried up, so she decided to tie the knot with cattle rancher Randolph Galt. The couple had two daughters and then started moving around the country. They lived on a ranch in New Mexico, in Hawaii, and then in California. Sadly, this marriage ended in divorce nine years after it began.

But Baxter wouldn’t give up on love.

In the late 1970s, Anne Baxter tied the knot one last time. Sadly, this one wouldn’t end in divorce, it would be much worse than that. She and her new husband David Klee bought a home in Connecticut and planned to fully renovate it. Sadly, Klee passed even before their first anniversary.

Baxter’s life as a widow focused on doing mostly TV and Broadway. And then her own tragedy struck.

On December 4, 1985, Anne Baxter was in New York City doing what many New Yorkers do every day, she was hailing a cab. That’s when tragedy struck. Sadly, Baxter suffered a stroke while getting the cabbie’s attention. They put her on life support for eight days, and then her family agreed to pull the plug. She was just 62 years old.

Besides All About Eve and The Ten Commandments, there’s one more reason to remember Baxter—and it’s a shocker.

 While making All About Eve, Anne Baxter may have noticed another actor with a small part in the film., This was a then-virtually unknown. After the film was a wrap, friends started noticing that Monroe was acting strange. As it turned out, Monroe had borrowed Baxter’s breathy voice and was using it as her own.

Baxter had literally inspired a legend.

The Yankees and the Lakers have at least got the championships to back their clout up. The Leafs? Not so much. With no cups since 1967, the Maple Leafs' championship drought is tied for the longest in NHL history. Those years have been one long line of horrible management, horrible luck, and one embarrassment after another. Yet before 1967, the Leafs were a powerhouse. Then Harold Ballard came along and, well...

Before Harold Ballard, the Toronto Maple Leafs were Conn Smythe's team. Smythe is hockey royalty—the NHL's playoff MVP trophy still bears his name today—and he turned the Leafs into a juggernaut. An extremely hands-on owner, the Leafs won 13 Stanley Cups during his tenure. Then, in 1961, after 34 years running the team, he sold his shares to his son Stafford. At least, that's what he thought he was doing.

In reality, Stafford Smythe didn't have the money to buy the shares on his own. Conn Smythe was actually selling his shares to Stafford, and newspaperman John Bassett, and, you guessed it, Harold Ballard, who was then president of the Leafs' junior affiliate. Yes, this is where everything started going wrong.

On the ice, at least, things were still chugging along great. The Leafs won four Stanley Cups in the seven years after Ballard became a part-owner. Profits for the team also skyrocketed—but it all came at a price. Harold Ballard was great at earning money, and he'd screw over anyone to get it. Even the Beatles.

When the Fab Four came to Toronto to perform at Maple Leaf Gardens, they booked two shows at Maple Leaf Gardens. Ballard, however, saw dollar signs in the band's legions of mad fans, so he just went and sold tickets for three shows. When the Beatles' confronted him, he just shrugged. Were the Beatles going to disappoint the thousands of fans who had bought tickets? Ballard knew they wouldn't. But he wasn't done...

We're starting to get to cartoon supervillain levels. At those Beatles concerts, Ballard cranked the heat in the building, cut off the water fountains, and delayed the performances by over an hour. The Beatlemaniacs' only option was pricey fountain drinks from the concession stands. Like I said, Harold Ballard was great at making money...

It shouldn't surprise you to know that Ballard's finances weren't exactly on the level. In 1969, both he and Stafford Smythe were charged with using the Maples Leafs' money on personal expenses, along with a little tax evasion to boot. The board of directors acted fast and voted to fire both Smythe and Ballard—but they made a massive mistake. They let both men keep their shares—the same ones they bought from Conn Smythe in the first place.

Ballard and Smythe stayed on the board, and over the next year, they staged Succession-style corporate warfare until the chairman, John Bassett, finally gave up. He resigned and sold his shares to Smythe and Ballard. The two men now had almost total control—then tragedy struck.

Stafford Smythe succumbed to an ulcer at just 50 years old. A nasty legal battle between the Smythe Family and Ballard ensued, and Ballard came out on top. He gained control of Smythe's shares, giving him a 60% controlling interest and allowing him to install himself as president and chairman. The team that Conn Smythe had built was officially out of the family. They were Ballard's Maple Leafs now. The team was doomed.

Remember those tax evasion and fraud charges? Those didn't go away. Soon after taking over the Leafs, the courts sentenced Ballard to nine years behind bars. He actually served three of those years before walking free—and once he did, he put all of his focus towards "fixing" (destroying) the hockey team he'd fought so long for.

Ballard's wild mood swings and intense micromanagement alienated the Leafs' players and staff. He chased beloved team captain Dave Keon out of town just because he didn't like him. Keon, a Leafs legend, would have nothing to do with the team for nearly 20 years. He did something similar with another Leafs legend, Darryl Sittler.

Ballard forcibly traded future hall-of-famer Lanny McDonald just because he knew McDonald was Sittler's friend. Sittler supported the burgeoning NHL Players Association, and as you can imagine, Ballard wasn't exactly a fan of unions. When Sittler heard about the trade—disastrous for the Leafs, by the way—he ripped the captain's C off of his jersey. Word about these feuds with players got around, and Toronto struggled to attract top talent for decades.

The Leafs hadn't exactly been juggernauts before the Lanny McDonald trade, but things went downhill fast after. After the trade, Leafs didn't finish a season with a winning record for the rest of Ballard's life, including a record 13 straight years below .500. When Ballard took over the team, they had just come off a run of Stanley Cups and were considered the top team in the league. By the time he was finished, they were a laughingstock—as they remain to this day.

The list of Harold Ballard's antics is seemingly endless. He sold all the Leafs' championship banners out of jealousy for Conn Smythe. When the league told him he had to put players' names on their jerseys, he used blue on the blue jerseys and white on the white, just to be as difficult as possible. Add that to mismanagement, federal crimes, and an endless lexicon of offensive statements to the press...Harold Ballard was a cartoon supervillain who destroyed hockey's biggest team—maybe forever.

Sources: 1, 2, 3, 4

For centuries, physicians prescribed mercury compounds for illnesses ranging from constipation to syphilis. Patients swallowed them, rubbed them onto their skin, and breathed in mercury vapors. The treatment could damage the kidneys and nervous system, cause trembling, and alter behavior. Still, doctors kept reaching for the mercury.

Mercury treatment sometimes continued until patients began salivating heavily. Doctors occasionally interpreted this dramatic reaction as proof that something useful was happening. Something was happening, all right. Mercury poisoning could produce mouth sores, swollen gums, and loose teeth. Nothing says "successful treatment" quite like suddenly needing dentures.

Calomel, a mercury compound, became one of the most popular remedies in American medicine. Doctors used it to purge the digestive system, believing that emptying the body might remove disease. Unfortunately, repeated treatment could cause mercury poisoning. Somehow, "violently ill but now also poisoned" remained a respectable medical strategy.

Abraham Lincoln reportedly used pills containing calomel before becoming president, particularly during periods of emotional distress. He eventually stopped taking them. That was probably wise. Researchers have suggested mercury exposure may have contributed to irritability and other symptoms—something Lincoln definitely didn't need while preparing to run a country.

Modern poison labels have somewhat damaged arsenic's reputation, but 19th-century medicine was considerably more optimistic. Arsenic compounds were prescribed for asthma, skin problems, and other illnesses. Long-term exposure could damage nerves and organs while increasing cancer risk. Apparently, the skull-and-crossbones branding had not yet caught on.

Arsenic wasn't merely medicinal. Some beauty products promised that it could improve the complexion, particularly when pale skin was fashionable. Unfortunately, arsenic exposure could cause skin lesions, stomach problems, numbness, and serious illness. The Victorian beauty routine occasionally had a surprisingly strong "possible poisoning" component.

Lead compounds turned up in historical creams, ointments, and other preparations. The attraction was understandable: some lead-based products could temporarily change the appearance of skin. The downside was rather substantial. Lead accumulates in the body and can damage the brain, nervous system, kidneys, and other organs.

For centuries, pale skin suggested wealth because it implied you weren't working outdoors. Some people therefore used cosmetics containing white lead to achieve the desired look. Unfortunately, repeated exposure could cause hair loss, skin damage, abdominal pain, and poisoning. Beauty may hurt, but ideally it shouldn't require toxicology.

Historical physicians loved the idea of purging disease from the body, and antimony was excellent at producing dramatic results. It could trigger vomiting and diarrhea with impressive efficiency. Unfortunately, excessive exposure could also cause severe dehydration, heart problems, organ damage, and death. The cure certainly didn't lack enthusiasm.

Here's a medical collectible you probably don't want in your kitchen. Antimony cups were once used to prepare beverages that caused vomiting. Liquid left inside the cup absorbed antimony before being consumed. The resulting sickness was considered therapeutic. Somehow, people willingly owned cups specifically designed to ruin their afternoon.

Few questionable treatments enjoyed a longer career than bloodletting. Physicians practiced it for centuries, believing illness resulted from imbalances within the body. Removing blood supposedly restored harmony. Unfortunately, removing too much could weaken already sick patients, cause dangerous drops in blood pressure, and make recovery considerably harder.

When George Washington became dangerously ill in December 1799, his doctors removed a substantial amount of his blood while desperately trying to save him. His exact cause of death remains debated, but losing so much blood probably wasn't helpful. Even presidents weren't safe from medicine's enthusiasm for buckets.

Bloodletting didn't always require a blade. Doctors also used leeches, which conveniently handled the unpleasant part themselves. During the early 19th century, demand became enormous. Leeches do have legitimate uses in modern reconstructive medicine, but historical physicians applied them far more enthusiastically—and to considerably more conditions.

Some physicians believed creating large blisters could draw illness away from another part of the body. Irritating substances were deliberately applied to the skin until painful blisters formed. The patient might have arrived with a fever and left with a fever plus a brand-new collection of wounds.

Cantharides, commonly called Spanish fly, came from blister beetles and was used medically to irritate the skin. The substance could cause painful blistering and was extremely toxic if absorbed or swallowed. Kidney damage, internal bleeding, and death were possible consequences. The beetles were arguably the least troubling part.

For generations, doctors believed bowel movements could force disease out of the body. Powerful purgatives were therefore prescribed for an extraordinary variety of illnesses. Unfortunately, severe diarrhea could leave sick people dangerously dehydrated and weak. If the disease didn't exhaust you, the treatment was standing by to finish the job.

When radioactivity was discovered, people understandably found it fascinating. Less understandably, businesses soon began placing radioactive materials into supposed health products. Radiation was promoted as energizing and restorative. Customers weren't told much about tissue damage, bone destruction, or cancer, largely because nobody fully understood those consequences yet.

Some early 20th-century consumers purchased water containing radioactive material because advertisements suggested it could restore vitality. Today, that sounds like something a movie villain would keep in the basement. At the time, however, radioactive products were marketed with cheerful confidence to people who assumed modern science knew what it was doing.

American industrialist Eben Byers famously consumed large quantities of Radithor, a commercially sold radioactive preparation. He eventually suffered catastrophic radiation injuries, including severe damage to his jaw and bones. His death in 1932 became national news and helped convince regulators that radioactive wellness products might require slightly more supervision.

Strychnine is best remembered today as a notorious poison, but small amounts once appeared in medical tonics. Physicians used it as a stimulant and attempted treatment for various conditions. The margin between "stimulating" and "terrifying medical emergency" wasn't exactly generous. Poisoning could trigger violent muscle spasms and convulsions.

Once electricity became widely understood, medical entrepreneurs decided it must surely solve every human problem. Electrical belts, brushes, rings, and strange machines promised relief from weakness, pain, nervousness, and countless other complaints. Some did virtually nothing. Others could burn or shock customers. Either way, the advertisements were terrific.

In the early 20th century, physicians sometimes infected patients suffering from late-stage syphilis with malaria. The idea was that malaria's high fevers might kill the syphilis-causing bacteria. The technique sometimes worked, remarkably enough, but intentionally giving somebody another potentially deadly disease came with some fairly obvious complications.

Before modern psychiatric treatments became available, some hospitals administered large amounts of insulin to patients with schizophrenia, deliberately causing severe hypoglycemia and comas. The process could lead to seizures, brain injury, or death. Its effectiveness was eventually questioned, but thousands of patients had already experienced the treatment.

Lobotomy involved deliberately damaging connections within the brain's frontal regions in an attempt to treat severe psychiatric illness. The procedure became surprisingly widespread during the mid-20th century. Some patients became quieter afterward, which was sometimes labeled improvement. Unfortunately, others experienced devastating personality changes, disability, cognitive impairment, or death.

The history becomes even stranger. Portuguese neurologist António Egas Moniz shared the 1949 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for developing prefrontal leucotomy, an early form of lobotomy. Today, the procedure is largely remembered as a medical horror story. Scientific reputations, it turns out, can age rather unpredictably.

It's easy to chuckle at radioactive water and antimony vomiting cups, but the people using them weren't necessarily foolish. Many were following the best advice available at the time. That's what makes these stories fascinating—and unsettling. Medicine advances partly because someone eventually asks the extremely important question: "Are we sure this is helping?"

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Sources: 1, 2, 3

Kate Chase was born on August 13, 1840, in Cincinnati, Ohio. Her dad was politician Salmon P Chase, and he was already on wife number two. Dad’s first wife had passed one year after giving birth to a daughter who had also passed. And believe it or not, even more tragedy loomed on the horizon for this little family.

Like her father’s first wife, Kate’s mother also passed young. Kate was only with her mother for five years before losing her to consumption. Luckily, Chase did manage to break the trend and lived into adulthood. With Mom out of the picture, Chase looked for a replacement. 

Luckily for her, Dad was right there. 

Now without his second wife, Kate's father became her sole caregiver. The two had a close bond that was more than just a typical father and daughter relationship. So much so that when her father married his third wife, Chase wasn’t about to give up her dad easily. 

Maybe it is no surprise that Kate Chase did not get along with her father’s third wife. After all, Chase and her father were close, and Sarah Bella Dunlop Ludlow was not going to get in the way of that. Chase soon started acting out, and her dad had to take drastic measures. 

Chase’s father saw no alternative but to send the rebellious Chase off to school. Chase studied at the Haines School in New York City, immersing herself in subjects like how to speak properly and how to have polite manners. She also studied music, history, and languages. But as it turned out, Dad had an ulterior motive. 

He was grooming his daughter for a future in politics. 

While off at school, Kate Chase and her father exchanged letters. But this correspondence was not a weekly warm-and-fuzzy letter about how much he missed her. Nope, Dad was correcting her grammar and offering advice. These letters came across as cold, but this didn't seem to faze Chase. She idolized her father. 

And as such, Chase was ready to take her rightful place in the family home. 

In 1852, Chase’s father lost his third wife, also to consumption. So with wife number three out of the way, Chase took control over her father’s social life. She vetted his friends and even went through his correspondence. Sometimes she would even resort to being rude to get rid of an unwanted guest. In other words, Chase was not going to let anyone get between her and her father ever again.

Surprisingly, Chase’s father didn't mind the interference provided by his daughter. In fact, he welcomed it. About his daughter’s control, Salmon P Chase once said, “But for … the feelings of Katie … who knows what I might not have been tempted to the consenting”. Chase was more than a doting daughter. 

These two had become a team, and they had a plan. 

Chase’s father was soon the Governor of Ohio, and Chase stepped up as the hostess of the household. The wife of the Governor usually did this job, but Chase took the role and ran with it. Chase was a natural, and Dad’s associates couldn’t help but notice. 

Politician Carl Schurz praised Chase’s character and looks. Physically, he described her as “well formed”, with “vivacious hazel eyes” and “waving, gold-brown hair”. He also liked the way she wasn’t afraid of participating in political discussions. With all this going for her, it's no surprise that Chase broke a lot of hearts.  

But eventually, something would break Chase’s heart. 

In 1860, Kate Chase watched on with excitement as her father sought the Republican presidential nomination. Sadly, she didn’t count on her father losing out to a man named Abraham Lincoln. When Lincoln went on to become president, Chase’s life changed forever. 

In 1861, President Abraham Lincoln made Chase’s father the Secretary of the Treasury. This meant a move to Washington, and a new residence. You might think that living in Washington would humble Chase into shyness. But no, she arrived and got right down to work. 

Nothing or nobody would stand in her way. 

Kate Chase began throwing parties in Washington for her father almost immediately. The parties became more extravagant and also quite popular. She was only 20 years old, and they ranked her as number four in the official society. Clearly, Chase was no ordinary daughter of a politician. 

But Chase soon realized that she had a rival. 

Chase had to face off with the First Lady of the White House, Mary Lincoln. Party after party put these two hostesses at odds with each other. It seemed that no one would ever win until Lincoln tragically lost her son. Mary was in mourning, and Chase became the victor of the party battles. 

With her competition in the dust, Chase became a force to be reckoned with. 

Washington was quickly falling in love with Kate Chase. Not only was she beautiful, but she also had a “keen mind, quick and forceful”. She was skilled at both political discourse and small talk, and she was the envy of the elite of Washington. They called her the “Belle of the North”. 

But not everyone was a fan. 

When it came to people not on “Team Chase”, it was mostly women. The thing was, women found her arrogant. While men were more Chase’s thing, a problem existed there too.  A lot of men got creeped out by one of Chase’s quirks. You see, she only had eyes for her father. 

But Chase had more important things to do than worry about her haters. 

This was a dark time in American history as states battled each other on the issue of slavery. Kate Chase didn’t shy away from the conflict and visited battle camps. She also made friends with Union generals and offered her opinion on what America was going through. Chase was standing up for her own opinions, and this was rare for women at this time. 

As you might imagine, finding a husband who could handle the outspoken Chase would be a job and a half. 

Despite, or because of, Chase’s outspoken personality, she certainly had her share of male attention. Men like politicians Carl Schurz, John Hay, and James Garfield had all fallen under Chase’s spell. When she attended the ceremony to dedicate the Oliver Hazard Perry Monument, she met and fell in love with a man named William Sprague IV. 

Sprague certainly wasn't the most obvious choice for a husband. 

Kate Chase had broken many young men’s hearts, so there was a lot of excitement over who she would finally choose as her husband. When she became engaged to William Sprague IV, some people were clearly surprised. After all, Sprague was not well-educated, a small man, and most considered him not very attractive. 

But Sprague had one very important thing going for him. 

Sprague was rich. Super rich. Now, you might wonder why a young woman connected to a well-established politician would need a rich husband. The thing was, Chase’s father wasn't actually rolling in dough because he was a poorly paid politician. As the Treasury Secretary, he was close to money, but he didn't earn much. 

But this wasn’t about greed. Chase had a very specific need for Sprague’s money. 

Chase’s father, Salmon P Chase, had serious ambitions of becoming the President of the United States. Running a campaign for the presidency cost a lot of money, and many believed that Chase married Sprague for this reason only. It’s hard to believe that she would marry just for her father’s campaign. 

But there was something else going on.

Chase’s father was a three-time widower, and he had no intention of marrying again. Chase could see that if her father became the president, she would be in a unique position. She would be an acting First Lady. At this time, this was as close to the top spot that a woman could achieve in politics. Of course, a lot of this is speculation. 

But what we know for sure is that in 1863 Chase went ahead and married Sprague. 

Only 50 people attended the wedding ceremony of Kate Chase and Sprague, but 500 arrived for the reception, making it the “wedding of the decade”. President Lincoln himself was at the wedding, but his wife, First Lady Mary Todd Lincoln, sent her regrets. Apparently she was not a fan of Chase or her father.  

At her wedding, Chase got something that few brides could ever dream of getting. 

While most brides enter their reception to a song they like, most don’t get what Chase got. When she walked into her reception room, the US Marine Band was playing a song that a composer had written just for her. What a way to make a bride feel special. 

Her wedding gift was also a stunner. 

Chase’s groom had a lot of money, and that money bought an impressive gift. As a wedding present to his beloved, Sprague sprung for a tiara that sported both diamonds and pearls. Reportedly, this headpiece was worth $5700, which would be a staggering $150,000 today. 

Sadly, after this extravagant wedding present, the marriage went straight downhill. 

From the outside, this looked like a picture-perfect marriage. Kate Chase was an attractive and intelligent young woman, and her husband, while lacking in the looks department, was from a rich and respected family. But Chase had her ridiculously high standards, and it was becoming clear that Sprague was not really up to the mark. 

Soon after the wedding, their marriage quickly unravelled.  

One of the constant quarrels between Chase and her new husband was about money. Sure, Sprague was rolling in the dough, but he still complained about his wife's spending. This gave Chase the opportunity to complain about her husband’s drinking problem. There was also an issue with Sprague’s fortune. 

Sure, Chase’s spending was putting a dent in Sprague’s millions, but Sprague was also running down the fortune. He had a habit of investing in business ventures that critics considered “poorly conceived”. If Chase had indeed married him for his money, she may have been wasting her time. 

So Chase decided to turn her focus back to dear old dad. 

Kate Chase continued spending much of her time in Washington helping her father with his political ambitions. Since she didn't really enjoy being with her husband, Chase spent a lot of time in the capital helping her father. Sprague stayed in Rhode Island and worked for the family business. 

It seemed like a not-so-perfect arrangement for a married couple. But Sprague still had one duty to perform. 

Supposedly, the main reason for Chase marrying Sprague was to get money for her father’s presidential campaign. And in In 1864 he did just that, funding Salmon P Chase’s run for the presidential nomination. Sadly, Chase failed to win. But luckily, a surprise was in store for Chase and her father. 

Chase’s father had failed in his bid to be president, but Lincoln still had something for Chase. He appointed him Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. While many saw this as a prestigious post, Chase saw right through it. She reportedly feared the appointment might put her father’s presidential ambitions on the shelf. 

As such, it was time for Chase to move her focus back to her husband. 

In 1865, Kate Chase and Sprague had a son they named Willie. The public still had a fascination with Chase, and this birth drew national attention. The baby didn’t change things, as the couple still lived mostly separate lives. Chase spent her time in Europe, in Washington, and in the mansion she and her husband had in Rhode Island. 

Next, a national tragedy would throw Chase for a loop. 

In 1865, a tragedy occurred when John Wilkes Booth heartlessly ended Abraham Lincoln’s life. Chase suffered a brief moment when she wasn’t sure about her political future. Luckily, the new president was Andrew Johnson, and his wife Eliza, was no match for Chase. Chase could continue on as the number one hostess in Washington. 

But Johnson’s term as president would soon face a huge obstacle. And it would seriously damage Chase’s marriage. 

In 1868, Johnson faced an impeachment trial, and Chase’s father was presiding over it. Chase believed that if the impeachment failed, it would help her father’s future run for the presidency. When her husband voted in favor of the impeachment, it was another nail in this marriage’s coffin. 

But n the end, the impeachment did fail. Chase would have another opportunity to fulfill her dream of being First Lady. 

In 1868, Chase’s father once again attempted to win a nomination for the presidency. This time he tried as a Democrat. It was Chase herself who ran the campaign, and she did it from their hotel on Fifth Avenue. Chase was clearly in her element. But one very important place was out of bounds. 

Even though it was Kate Chase who was running her father’s campaign, her gender made this difficult. Chase involved herself in the mostly male-dominated “back-room maneuvering", but the rules barred women from the convention floor. Sadly, Chase failed to get her father the nomination. 

Chase knew exactly who to blame. 

When the Democrats nominated Horatio Seymour instead of Chase’s father, Chase knew who to point the finger at. She was sure that a collection of New York politicians had formed an alliance against her dad. At the head of this alliance was Samuel Tilden. Chase was livid, and she marked Tilden for future punishment. 

Four years later, Chase got another chance at being First Lady. 

In 1872, Kate Chase had to watch one more time as her father, this time as a member of the Liberal Republican Party, failed to get the nomination. This was another crushed opportunity to fulfill her dream of being the First Lady. When, a year later, her father passed due to a stroke, things became clear. Chase would never be the First Lady. 

But Chase had more heartache to face. 

The same year that Chase lost her father, the Panic of 1873 struck. This was an economic crisis that adversely affected many parts of the world. Chase felt its impact when her husband’s empire almost completely collapsed. Worse still, some had accused Sprague of some underhanded cotton trading. 

This was the beginning of the end for Chase. 

Along with her husband’s poor investments, Sprague was also guilty of cheating on his wife. Apparently, there were several other women he was running around with. Kate Chase also got involved with someone outside her marriage. This was Roscoe Conkling, who was a married New York Senator. 

Conkling had something that Chase’s husband couldn’t provide. 

In Conkling, Chase found a man who was her equal in politics and intelligence. In fact, Conkling went to Chase for her opinion on many matters. This gave Chase something that few women at this time got: a voice in American politics. Chase was not above using her influence for her own benefit. 

Remember, back in 1868, Chase had blamed Samuel Tilden for her father’s loss of the Democratic nomination. As such, Kate was later said to have gotten a measure of revenge when Conkling played an influential role in resolving the disputed 1876 election, which ultimately went to Hayes.

But in the end, their illicit, political love affair ended in scandal. 

In 1879, Chase was at her summer house enjoying alone time with her secret boyfriend Conkling, when her husband walked in the door. An enraged Sprague had two intentions. Throw his wife out a window and shoot Conkling. Luckily, he didn’t manage to do either. But this marriage was over. 

At this time, divorce was something almost unheard of in America and considered social taboo. But this marriage had to end. When Chase and Sprague got their divorce in 1882, they had four children: three girls and a boy. Chase handed over the son to Sprague, took the girls, and went back to using the name Chase. 

You might be thinking “go girl” for this bold move. But America was a different place back then. 

Of course, all of the secrets came out when Chase got her divorce. Her affair caused the greatest scandal. Many saw her fling with the married Conkling as a shocking scandal. Until this moment, Americans had looked up to Chase, but now she didn’t seem that special after all. 

This would be a spectacular fall from grace. 

As she was spiraling downward, Chase faced a staggering tragedy. In 1890, her son Willie Sprague took his own life in Seattle, Washington. He was just 25 years old at this time. Chase still had her three daughters, but she could not deal with the loss of her son. 

She went to a very dark place. 

Already living with her daughters at her father’s Edgewood estate, Kate became increasingly reclusive after Willie’s passing. The once elaborate mansion was now a crumbling ruin, but it was all Chase had. One of her daughters had a mental disability, so Chase spent a lot of her time helping her. 

But still, Chase had to bring food to the table. 

Chase literally only had the land she lived on, so she turned to the soil to make a living. She grew and harvested vegetables, and raised chickens. Each day she swallowed her pride and loaded up her “one-horse wagon”. The former “Belle of the North” took her wares to the street or sold them door-to-door. 

Compared to her fabulous lifestyle as a Washington hostess, this was a low that Chase could never have imagined. 

In 1899, Chase passed due to Bright’s disease. She was just 58 years old and living a life of poverty. At her funeral, there were only two or three mourners, and they were her closest family members. There was one silver lining: they buried her next to her father. 

It seemed that everyone had forgotten the woman known as the “Belle of the North”. Well, not everyone. 

Despite her small funeral, it turned out that the media did not let Chase pass without notice. The Washington Post called her “the most brilliant woman of her day”. The Enquirer went even further and said that Chase “came closer to being Queen than any American woman has".  

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Sources: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 

Philip Hartman was number four in a string of eight children. He was born on September 24, 1948, in Brantford, Ontario, Canada. As a child, Hartman felt a little lost among all his siblings. He later said that he craved affection, and when his parents didn’t have time to give it to him, he found it in other ways—by being funny.

The entire Hartman family made a big move from Canada to California, where they lived near LAX. Here Hartman attended high school and got a reputation as the class clown. He also involved himself in drama. He appeared in plays at Orville Wright Junior High and one of his co-stars ended up being famous—well, infamous. Hartman shared a stage with none other than Lynette Fromme.

You may know her as Squeaky, the Manson Family member who tried to shoot Gerald Ford when he was the President. Yikes! And Fromme wasn’t the only one to get involved in the counterculture of the 1960s. Hartman was right behind her.

When he graduated, Phil Hartman started up at community college. This, however, didn’t last long. This was the late 1960s and there were a lot of cool temptations for a young man in California. Hartman soon got a job as a roadie for a rock band and said goodbye to college and hello to the open road.

On his travels, Hartman ended up front and center at a concert that would go down in rock and roll history.

Hartman was touring with a band called Rockin Foo when they got a gig at an LA club—but they got way more than they bargained for. The club the band was playing at had a famous owner: Jimi Hendrix. At one point in the concert, Hendrix himself got on stage to jam with Rockin Foo. A problem occurred when the drummer hit his kick drum very hard, and it moved downstage every time he hit it.

That’s when Hartman—shaggy-haired and looking like a surfer dude—saved the day. He literally held the drum in place with his hands while Hendrix brought the house down. This was all fun and games, but eventually, Hartman needed to get serious about life.

Once he’d done his thing as a roadie, Hartman realized he still needed a career. He studied graphic arts at a state university and soon was combining his love of design and of rock music. This resulted in Hartman designing album covers for bands like Crosby, Stills & Nash, and Poco. Hartman, however, wasn’t content to be behind the scenes. He wanted to be famous.

Hartman’s first stop on the road to getting himself noticed was to be on The Dating Game. During his introduction, the host announced that Hartman made the best avocado sandwich in the world—and then Hartman took it up a notch. He jokingly called himself: “Slippery when wet” and “built something like a Greek god”. The audience loved him, and so did the female contestant—who chose him for her date.

Once he’d tasted the thrill of being loved by an audience, he wanted more.

After winning The Dating Game, Hartman poked around looking for an outlet. He wanted to perform but didn’t know how. He stumbled upon The Groundlings, which was an improv group that had launched the careers of many Saturday Night Live members. Hartman was just a student of the group, but he often attended the live performances. One evening when he was in the audience, he had an epiphany.

He thought he was ready to join the actors on the stage, so he just got up and joined them. It didn’t go quite as planned.

Even though Phil Hartman launched himself onto the stage, The Groundlings gave him a big thumbs down when it came to performing. They sent him back to their school for more training, but there was just one problem. He couldn’t afford them.

So, in exchange for classes, Hartman worked his magic as a graphic designer. He redid their logo and helped them “merchandise” their brand. It paid off, because they invited him back onstage, and—within a couple of years—he was an audience favorite.

While performing with The Groundlings, Hartman met Paul Reubens. The two started to work together on comic bits, and through this collaboration, they gave birth to a bizarre character: Pee-wee Herman. The Groundlings thought that Pee-wee Herman was a blast, so they gave them the stage at midnight. Reubens was Pee-wee and Hartman appeared as Captain Carl and Monsieur LeCroq.

The Pee-wee Herman Show was a spoof of children’s TV shows and the audiences loved it. It wasn’t, however, only audiences that thought the show was hilarious.

Executives at HBO happened to come to a midnight performance of The Pee-wee Herman Show and loved it. The network decided to tape one of the live performances and then put it on the air. This was the beginning of a crazy ride that would make Paul Reubens incredibly famous. While Hartman was one of the creators and had a character of his own, it was hardly going to put his face on the map.

In fact, at this time Hartman was questioning his career choice. Would he ever be a famous performer?

By 1982, Phil Hartman was on his second marriage. The first had been in the early 1970s and this one was with Lisa Strain: a real estate agent. In 1985, Hartman and Strain got a divorce. Strain later laid the dark details of their relationship bare in an interview. She told People magazine that the problem with their marriage was that Hartman tended to “disappear emotionally” and “be in his own world”.

She added that this behavior made her crazy. As we’ll soon see, this wasn’t the only wife of his that felt crazy around him.

While he was questioning being a performer, Phil Hartman got a role in a movie. In Cheech and Chong’s Next Movie, both Reubens and Hartman had cameos. But still, this bit part wasn’t about to make Hartman into a star. Later, when Reubens wanted to make a movie, he got Hartman on board as one of the writers on 1985’s Pee-wee’s Big Adventure.

While it must have been fun working on this film, it had Hartman away from the camera instead of in front of it. This wasn’t his career plan—and he’d do anything he could to change it.

In 1986, CBS became interested in Pee-wee Herman. They had an idea to make The Pee-wee Herman Show—which was a fake children’s show—into an actual children’s show. Which makes you think that CBS didn’t quite get the joke. Ultimately, it didn’t matter. CBS wanted Pee-wee and wherever Pee-wee went, Hartman went too.

It seemed that the two would be together as long as Pee-wee Herman was a success—or maybe not.

Opportunities to appear on a big show like Pee-wee’s Playhouse were few and far between. On the outside, it seemed like a big break for Hartman—but behind closed doors, things were falling apart at the seams. Hartman and Reubens had intense creative differences and eventually, it grew to be too much for Hartman, and he walked. What he walked into were more small roles.

Though none were especially memorable, they did expose him to a whole new batch of co-stars—many of whom had previously appeared on Saturday Night Live. It made him think. Maybe it was his turn to appear on the show.

SNL creator Lorne Michaels auditioned Hartman and welcomed him to the show in 1986 for the 12th season. Hartman had a plan. He wanted to use SNL to gain exposure to a wide audience. Then he could go on to write and appear in his own movies. So SNL was supposed to be a temporary means to an end. So why did he end up staying for eight seasons?

In the end, Phil Hartman really did go down in Saturday Night Live history. The website Grantland was looking to name the best SNL cast member of all time. The winner of their online poll put Will Ferrell in the number one spot, but they were quick to mention his only competition: Hartman. Bryan Curtis of Grantland said that Hartman had “a kind of comedic graciousness.”

What most people said was that Hartman was a nice guy. Well, he was about to meet someone that would challenge this ability in a big way.

During his first year with SNL, Phil Hartman went on a blind date with swimsuit model Brynn Omdahl. Although that hadn’t always been her name. A friend later wondered why Omdahl changed her name from Vicki to Vicki Jo and then from Brindon to Brynn. The friend thought it made Omdahl seem unstable—she had no idea how right she was. 

Omdahl was sober when she met Hartman, but she hadn’t always been. Omdahl’s beauty blinded Hartman, and he wasn’t able to see any of the warning signs. They got married in 1987—and the countdown to tragedy began.

One day, Phil Hartman was filming an opening credit sequence for Saturday Night Live. In the shoot, Hartman was supposed to be eating dinner, and he asked Omdahl to sit opposite him for the filming. The director knew what he had to do: get shots of Hartman’s face and no one else's. When Omdahl noticed that she wasn’t in the shot, she got angry with the director.

The poor woman just wanted to be on TV. What harm was there in that?

Hartman saw his wife’s need to be on camera and tried to help her. Sadly, even Hartman couldn’t use his connections to get Omdahl into an on-camera role. The consequences were brutal. When she’d had enough of failure, she sadly returned to the bottle. Instead of pacifying Omdahl, booze tended to ignite her.

She often flew into rages, and of course, Hartman was her lone target.

Omdahl really wanted her own career, so when she and Hartman had children it put a monkey wrench in her plans. Sean Edward was born in 1989 and Birgen came three years later. Omdahl had her hands full. She was taking acting lessons, raising two kids, and all the while watching her husband have what she so desperately wanted: fame.

There was something else wrong with the marriage—and it may not have been Omdahl’s fault.

It turned out that Phil Hartman had a disturbing pattern in relationships. At first, he was very emotional with the new person. After some time, however, Hartman tended to retract into himself. His second wife, Strain, had said this, and others who knew him agreed. The problem this time around was that Omdahl was already unstable, so Hartman’s withdrawal from her had a more sinister effect.

Another pattern that Hartman had with his wives was how he argued. Apparently, in the middle of an argument, Hartman would do something bizarre: go to sleep. Hartman said that he did this to let his wife calm down. But you can imagine the frustration. You’re in the middle of an argument, and your partner decides to take a nap.

We’ll soon see how this habit would prove fatal for Hartman.

One example of Omdahl’s instability was when the couple received a “congratulations on the new baby” card after the birth of their son Sean. The problem wasn’t the card, it was who it was from: Hartman’s ex-wife Strain. Omdahl was soon writing a letter of her own to Strain.

In the letter, she told Strain in no uncertain—or polite—terms, to stay away from her family forever. If she didn’t stay away, Strain would “really be sorry”.

While Hartman and Omdahl were working on their marriage, he was finding great success with SNL. Two of his most audience-pleasing characters were Eugene the Anal Retentive Chef and Unfrozen Caveman Lawyer. It was, however, his impersonations that fans really enjoyed. He had a long list that he could do well.

This included Charlton Heston, Phil Donahue, and even Barbara Bush. There was one, however, that got him into trouble.

One of Hartman’s impressions for SNL was then-US President Bill Clinton. Let’s just say that Hartman’s impression was not at all kind to the junk food-loving President. In 1993, Hartman happened to meet Clinton and Hartman felt a little guilty. He humorously told Clinton: “I guess I owe you a few apologies”.

Clinton didn’t seem too bothered by Hartman’s impression and even later sent him a signed photograph. It was hard to be mad at Hartman, he was such a decent guy.

While working on SNL, Phil Hartman received the nickname “Glue”. Lorne Michaels explained that the nickname was because Hartman sort of held the show together. He was helpful and gave a lot to his fellow cast members. Eventually, Hartman won an Emmy for his writing on SNL and received a nomination for his performance.

Hartman was the toast of New York, but his wife clearly wasn’t feeling the love.

Hartman’s wife Omdahl was not just a model, but an actor too—or at least she wanted to be. You can imagine how tough it would be to be trying to get famous while married to someone who was already so successful. This would be especially true when your only credits were a “waitress” in a movie and two episodes of 3rd Rock from the Sun.

Omdahl wanted to be famous and watching her successful husband was like putting salt in a wound.

Hartman stayed with SNL, even as his favorite castmates left. The show’s creator Lorne Michaels kept Hartman on the show by making him a huge promise. He told Hatman that if he stayed for another year, he’d give him his own show. This is exactly what Hartman wanted. What Hartman envisioned was an old-time variety show.

Unfortunately, Hartman may not have realized that there’s nothing more fickle than a show business executive.

When Phil Hartman was ready to leave SNL and start The Phil Show, NBC suddenly got cold feet. They didn’t think a variety show would appeal to young—and jaded—audiences. You’d think that Hartman would have gone ballistic, but he didn’t. He later confessed that it was a relief. He could see how much work the show would be and knew it would be like “sweatin’ blood” to make it up to his standards.

Hartman was through with Saturday Night Live, and it was time to move on to the next phase of his life.

Phil Hartman hit Los Angeles and soon found work on Fox’s The Simpsons. They brought him in for a one-episode part during the second season, and Hartman ended up doing a total of 52 episodes. His most famous character was certainly Troy McClure—a fictional has-been actor who has to perform degrading infomercials and educational videos. It seemed that wherever Hartman worked, the people there wanted to keep him around.

Obviously, NBC still owed Hartman something after not going through with their promise for a variety show. Their offer was a part on NewsRadio, which was an ensemble sitcom set at a radio station. Hartman’s Bill McNeal was a standout character, and Hartman joked that he basically played himself minus “any ethics”.

Hartman had made a successful transition from New York to LA. And what about his wife? Any chance she was finding success as well?

A move to sunny California should’ve brightened the mood in the Hartman home. Sadly, nothing could be further from the truth. Omdahl was still tired of living in the shadow of her famous husband. Having kids had not settled her, and she was now using both booze and narcotics. At times, Hartman became concerned for his children’s safety.

Omdahl was losing her cool on many occasions, so Hartman would take the kids to a friend's place for their own safety. But it wasn’t just the kids that needed protection.

Since they’d moved to LA, Omdahl had been afraid for her and her family’s safety. Maybe she was used to the hustle and bustle of New York and found it strange to be in a big house, often alone with the kids. To remedy her fears, Omdahl wanted some protection, so she bought a pistol. A friend who likely knew about Omdahl’s anger management issues begged her to get rid of it, but she refused.

It seemed like a bad idea for someone with a bad temper to have something like that so close at hand.

While Hartman’s career was going well, his home life was clearly not. Co-workers started to notice something shocking. Hartman was showing up at work with visible scratches on his face. Most people knew that Omdahl had a temper, so they assumed it was she who’d scratched him.

Some nights, Hartman would avoid his home—and his wife—and sleep in the safety of his houseboat. What Hartman needed was someone to talk to about his problems at home.

One of Hartman’s co-stars on NewsRadio was Joe Rogan—who later became the host of The Joe Rogan Experience. Hartman opened up to Rogan about what was going on with his wife back at home. Rogan, after hearing about Omdahl’s behavior, had one thing to say: divorce her immediately. He apparently told him this at least five times over.

Hartman said he couldn’t leave her. He stayed with Omdahl for the sake of the kids—a decision that he wouldn’t live long enough to regret.

Among the other cast members he’d stayed friends with, Phil Hartman had remained close to his ex-SNL scene partner Jan Hooks. Omdahl started looking at her husband’s relationship with Hooks suspiciously. She would sometimes joke that it was like Hartman was married to Hooks and not to her. While these comments came off as jokes, it appears they were more deeply rooted than just a jab.

On the night of May 27, 1998, Omdahl was having an intimate Italian dinner with her friend Christine Zander, who had worked as a writer for SNL. Zander later said that Omdahl seemed to be fine. Yes, they’d had a couple of drinks, but she was in a “good frame of mind”. When Omdahl got home to Hartman, however, that frame of mind turned dark.

When Omdahl got home, she and Hartman got into a terrible fight. It’s not clear when they stopped arguing, but Hartman did his usual thing and went to bed in the middle of the fight. Omdahl had some time to brood, and she also drank more and took some illicit substances.

She then got herself worked up into a frenzy. Omdahl grabbed her pistol and entered their bedroom where Hartman was fast asleep.

Omdahl was obviously in a very agitated state. From outside the bedroom, three loud shots rang out in the large home. The children were fast asleep and luckily didn’t hear anything. When Omdahl saw what she’d done, she was at a loss. She spent an hour drinking more and wondering what she should do next.

Distraught, she decided to call her friend Ron Douglas.

When she got a hold of Douglas on the phone, Ohdahl made up a story. She said that Hartman wasn’t home. According to her, he’d left her a note which said that he was out for the evening. Maybe Omdahl was already concocting a story to explain what had happened. Get herself an alibi. Douglas just told her to calm down and go sleep it off.

Omdahl then left her sleeping kids in the house, got into her car, and headed to Douglas’ home.

Ron Douglas said that Omdahl arrived at his house at 3 am. She immediately headed to the bathroom, where she vomited repeatedly. Once she’d recovered, she told Douglas the horrible truth. She’d shot Hartman. Likely, Douglas had seen his friend in such an agitated state before, so he didn't believe her.

When she showed him the weapon, Douglas was still unconvinced. He looked down into the chamber, and whatever he saw made him think she was lying.

For some reason, Douglas hung on to his belief that Omdahl was lying or mistaken about what she’d done. Just to be on the safe side, he took her pistol and put it in a plastic bag. When her head was clear enough to drive, he asked her to go home. Omdahl agreed on one condition: that he drive in his car behind her.

Douglas agreed and the two set off for the Hartman household. Omdahl knew what they would find there, but Douglas had no idea.

When Omdahl arrived at the house, she and Douglas entered. Douglas, who’d been so sure that Omdahl was lying, finally saw the horrible truth with his own two eyes. He saw that Omdahl had shot Hartman three times: in the chest, in the throat, and finally right between the eyes. Douglas finally realized it was time to call for help.

While he was looking for the landline, Omdahl locked herself in the bedroom—with Hartman’s body.

Once Douglas had called for help, he realized he needed to do something about the children, who were still asleep in their beds. He grabbed Sean, who was nine at this time and took him outside. By this time the officers were already there. He gave Sean to the officers, and he also handed over Omdahl’s weapon.

Another officer went in and got the couple’s daughter Birgen, who was just six years old. At that moment everyone heard a loud bang come from the bedroom where Omdahl was with Hartman’s body.

While in the bedroom with her husband’s body, Omdahl had got a hold of another pistol. She spoke to her sister on the phone for a short time. The loud bang that Douglas, the officers—and probably the children—had heard was Omdahl taking her own life.

Two children lost both their parents that night and the world lost a great comedian.

Of course, once everyone had taken in the tragedy, twisted rumors began to emerge. Neighbors said they knew that the couple had problems—likely they could hear the screaming matches. Actor Steve Guttenberg had the opposite impression. He said they had the “appearance of being well-balanced”.

In Omdahl’s belongings, they found hateful letters Omdahl had written to Hartman’s dear friend Jan Hooks. It seemed that there were two sides to this volatile relationship: the one that they put forward, and then the truthful one.

It came out later that Omdahl had been using a medication called Zoloft partnered with booze and other things. This information prompted Omdahl’s brother Gregory to launch a lawsuit for wrongful death. Gregory’s lawsuit was against Pfizer—the company that made Zoloft—and the doctor who prescribed it to his sister. While this was going on, there was another squabble about Hartman—and this one was a lot more personal.

Jon Lovitz—an SNL colleague and friend of Hartman’s—had someone he wanted to blame for Hartman’s early demise. It was Hartman’s co-star on NewsRadio Andy Dick. Lovitz said that Andy had gotten Omdahl back into recreational substance use: even though she had a history of misusing them.

He had apparently reintroduced Omdahl to illicit substances and the two had used them together. So, what did Andy have to say about this accusation?

Andy did not deny using with Omdahl. What he did deny was something else—he said had no idea about Omdahl’s history of substance use. Lovitz took a while, but he eventually admitted that maybe Andy wasn’t to blame. Andy, however, wasn’t about to let it go. When he saw Lovitz in a LA restaurant in 2006 he said these words to Lovitz: "I put the Phil Hartman hex on you. You're the next one to die".

Lovitz had him removed from the restaurant, but this certainly wasn’t over yet—not by a long shot.

The next year, 2007, Lovitz ran into Andy at the comedy club, The Laugh Factory. The two men soon got into a heated argument, again about Hartman. Andy was continuing to say that he was not responsible for Hartman’s demise. Lovitz wasn’t buying it—and he finally took out his anger over losing his friend. He ended up taking Andy’s head and banging it against the bar.

While the adults work out what went wrong with Hartman and Omdahl, let’s not forget about the kids.

The real victims in all this, of course, are Hartman and Omdahl’s children. Omdahl’s sister Katherine and her husband Mike Wright stepped up and took over raising the children. Luckily, they lived far from the paparazzi of Hollywood—in Wisconsin. The kids didn’t need to worry about money, as Hartman had taken great care with his will. The children would get lump sums of money at different points through their adult life. He was a caring man to the end.

But it wasn’t really about the money, was it? What about the kids’ mental health?

It may be because of all the media around his parents’ passing, but the adult Sean Hartman has kept himself completely out of the spotlight. All we know about him is that he lives in Oakland, California and he—like his father—is a visual artist and also a musician. Birgen has grown into a stunning beauty. Based on her Instagram account, Toronto is her favorite city, and she had a spectacular wedding in Italy.

On the surface it seems that the kids have done alright—but it seems to me that only time will tell.

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Maharaja Duleep Singh was the only son of two giants of the Sikh Empire: Maharaja Ranjit Singh, "The Lion of the Punjab," and his formidable wife Jind Kaur. But this lineage didn't save him from horror. Although he had eight older half-brothers, seven of them died by the time Duleep himself was just a child. And unfortunately for the young boy, that was just the first blow in a series of tragedies.

Despite his royal titles, Duleep seemed born under a bad sign. After all, his father Ranjit was already terminally ill by the time he came into the world, and had died of a stroke before Duleep turned one. Duleep never really got to know his father, and only had the legends of his great feats to sustain him. As we'll see, these were definitely not enough.

Like so much else in his life, Duleep came to the throne through unthinkable violence. When he was just five years old, his elder half-brother Sher Singh, who was the current Maharaja, was assassinated after only three years in power. With the throne unstable—not to mention dangerous—the toddling boy was shoved into the role under the guidance of his cunning mother Jind Kaur. And then his troubles really started.

In 1846, Duleep suffered his first crushing defeat—and it was at the hands of his soon-to-be greatest enemy: Britain. The Anglo-Sikh war was an utter disaster for the baby ruler and his mother, and they lost immense power and territory. Their defeat was so bad, it turned Duleep into a mere figurehead ruler. Times were desperate...and they called for desperate measures.

Duleep's mother Jind was no fool, and she soon came up with a cunning plot. To consolidate her son's power, she engaged him to Tej Kaur, the daughter of a powerful governor and noble from another province. With this new alliance, Duleep thought he was finally going to be on the winning side of things. But fate had another twist in store.

The British were watching Duleep and his mother very closely, and they immediately shut down the marriage prospect to keep him dependent on them. Did this deter Duleep? No. Though he couldn't have his bride, he and his mother continued to chafe under British manipulation, often refusing to bend to their demands. That's when it all came crashing down for good.

The British were starting to realize that they had two tough customers on their hands in Duleep Singh and Jind Kaur. Their vengeance was unforgettably heartless. Getting at Duleep through his mother, they imprisoned Jind, violently separating her from her son, all while slashing her pension by more than two-thirds. Yet that was just the beginning of the nightmare.

Duleep already suffered long months without his mother, but he was about to experience what true separation meant. Cruelly deciding that imprisonment wasn't enough, the British then completely exiled Duleep’s mother from Punjab, taking her to a faraway fort and even stealing her valuable jewelry. You know, to render her all the more helpless. But that was the least of the family's worries.

Tragically, Jind Kaur’s exile was long and brutal. Although the wily Maharani managed to escape the fortress and hotfoot it to Nepal, she was stuck there for 11 long years, making for 13 whole years away from her beloved son. Throughout this time, the British didn't permit Duleep to see her even once. And well, without his mother, Duleep got into big trouble.

Unfortunately for the young Maharajah, the Second Anglo-Sikh War fell hot on the heels of the first. In 1849, it brought true disaster. That year, destabilized beyond all hope, the Sikh Empire fell. Duleep fell with it, losing his throne at just 10 years old. With an out-of-work Maharajah on their (bloody) hands, the British put Duleep under the guardianship of Scottish surgeon Dr. John Login. Though really, “guardianship” is too nice a word for it…

Without a mother and without a kingdom, Duleep traveled far away from Lahore to Fatehgarh. While there, his captors subjected him to extreme restrictions on who he could see; apart from British yes-men servants, his wardens prevented him from socializing with any of his fellow Indians in private. And their reasons behind this were chilling.

In sending Duleep to live with Dr. John Login, the British were shamelessly and bare-facedly trying to purge all the Sikh customs Duleep had ever learned and sought to replace them with British "culture." Everything they did from this point on, whether outwardly cruel or seemingly benign, was part of their broader policy to culturally anglicize him as deeply as possible. This had grave consequences.

This regime of extreme, individual colonization very likely contributed to young Duleep's frequently poor health. He often had to convalesce for weeks at a time at a hill station in the Lower Himalaya. It was a grueling four-day journey to his ultimate destination, dubbed The Castle, and it probably didn't help his dangerously frail state, either. But the weaker he got, the more power the British took.

In 1853, something in Duleep snapped. After his intense crash course in "Britishness," he converted to Christianity as a 14-year-old teenager, much to the delight of Dr. Login and the other British ministers circling around him. The nominal Maharajah of the Sikh Empire was a Sikh no more. Only, the British weren’t done with him yet.

In 1854, like his mother before him, the British government sent Duleep into exile. Unlike his mother, they didn't send him to an Indian fortress; they sent him to England. Call it Phase Two of their "turn him into a Brit" plan...and it worked a little too well. He lived in England for nearly the rest of his short life, and he made quite a splash.

The British were playing "good cop" during this time, and they began lavishing Duleep with honors, parties, and feasts. And then came one of the defining moments of his life. He went to the court of Queen Victoria, and she and her husband Prince Albert took an immediate liking to him, showering him with royal affection. The Queen even invited him to stay at her rural, summer home, Osborne House. And that’s where it all got very strange…

Ol’ Vicky took quite the liking to the teenaged Duleep. She even waxed poetic about his dark good looks, writing, "Those eyes and those teeth are too beautiful." All this despite the fact that Victoria was nearly 20 years Duleep's senior, and very much in a position of power over him. And she certainly didn't mind flexing that position when it suited her.

While staying at Osborne House, Duleep became something of a royal muse. No less than Queen Victoria herself sketched him, while Prince Albert photographed him. The court artist also made his portrait, cementing Duleep's position in the Victorian court. It seemed like the British had won another assimilation victory over Duleep...but inside, Duleep was raging to get out.

Within a year of his arrival in England, Duleep itched to return home to India and asked if he could travel back. He was doomed to heartbreak. Still fearing his power, the British rebuffed his request, then suggested he tour the European continent instead. Not quite a gap year with a Eurorail pass, but it was the closest Duleep would ever get. When he got back to England, though, he got one indecent proposal.

Upon his return to England in 1855, the British gave 17-year-old Duleep a yearly pension of £25,000—a massive sum for the times. Only, it very much came with strings attached: The Queen only granted him this pension on the condition that Duleep “remain obedient to the British government.” It was a steep price to pay for a man who should have been ruling his own empire, and yet he kept that promise…for a while.

When Duleep turned 18, his thoughts turned sharply toward his mother Jind, who was still holed up in Khatmandu, Nepal, fearing for her life and cursing the British. Determined to see her again, Duleep wrote to her, asking her to join him in England. Instead, what he got was a harsh betrayal. The British intercepted this letter, making sure it never got to her. So Duleep simply had to try again.

Ever the dedicated—if distant—son, Duleep tried to reach his mother again. This time, he sent a human rather than a letter to let his mother know he wanted to see her. Unfortunately for the royal mother and son, evil stepmother England was as good at tracking couriers as she was mail. Victoria's minions also intercepted Duleep’s courier and prevented them from reaching Maharani Jind. Then Duleep had to get creative.

Jind Kaur had raised no fool, and Duleep soon realized that the only man for the job was his own darn self. First, he used the pretext of a tiger shoot in Bengal to slip free of British eyes and get geographically closer to his mother. Then, using every ounce of cunning she'd given him, he wrote to the British Resident in Kathmandu, craftily hiding his letter within one from his guardian, Dr. Login.

This subterfuge worked, and the resident wrote back with an update about Jind. The letter's contents were harrowing. 

The years had not been kind to Duleep Singh, but they had treated his mother much worse. Although the British had once nicknamed Jind the "Messalina of the Punjab" because of her own steadfast opposition to their rule, the letter Duleep received revealed her grim current condition. She was now blind and had lost much of her characteristic fire. However, there was a bittersweet silver lining.

The Maharani’s decline meant that the Brits were finally not so terrified of her. Upon receiving news of her themselves, they finally allowed Duleep to see her for the first time since he was a young boy. The heartfelt reunion took place in January 1861 at Spence's Hotel in Calcutta, when Duleep was 22 and his mother was approaching her mid-40s. Yet, once more, the British had underestimated the former Indian rulers.

Duleep’s long-awaited reunion with his mother happened to coincide with the return to Calcutta of several Sikh regiments who had been off fighting. Their response nearly caused a catastrophe. When they heard their Maharaja and his mother were in town, they demonstrated outside of  Spence’s Hotel, striking fear of rebellion into the hearts of the British. Only, this didn't have the end Duleep's mother might have wished for.

The British were quaking in their boots when they saw the soldiers gathering in the name of Duleep, so much so that the Governor General of India himself, Lord Canning, personally asked Duleep to take the next boat back to England to quell the rumbles. Luckily for Canning, Duleep obeyed, perhaps foiling his last real chance to renew the fight for his rightful kingdom. Nonetheless, Duleep struck back in other ways.

Not satisfied with his mother-son reunion, Duleep also fought to reunite his mother with her long-lost jewels. For all these years, the British had kept these gems in a treasury, and Duleep successfully negotiated for their return. It wasn’t their kingdom, but at least it was something, and he could put his mother back in the glamor she deserved. Yet, it all came too little too late.

In 1863, the biggest tragedy of Duleep's life hit. After barely a year of living in Britain, his mother Jind Kaur finally succumbed to her lifetime of torment, passing at the still-young age of 46. Although Duleep was at least beside her when it happened, it was small comfort for all the years the British had taken from him. But just as one chapter of his life ended, another began. And it was juicy.

The next year, Duleep traveled to Bombay to put his mother's ashes to rest, since the British wouldn't allow him to do it in her hometown of Lahore (classic). Still, this ended up being a fateful decree: While returning from Bombay, Duleep stopped off in Cairo and took a tour around a local girl's school. While there, he literally met his destiny.

One of the instructors at the school was the beautiful part-Ethiopian, part-German Bamba Muller, the illegitimate child of a prominent banker. Crucially, Muller was also a devout Christian—one of the only ones at the institution. Duleep must have liked what he saw, because after he met her, he began gifting the "school" with incredibly lavish gifts. Still, he may have kept his crush on the down low for a reason...

When Duleep got back to England and his old frenemy Queen Victoria, a strange kind of pressure began mounting. Victoria had decided that, now that his mother was well and truly out of the way, it was time for Duleep to marry. In particular, Victoria wanted him to make a match with a British-assimilated Indian princess because, you know, who else would be worthy? But Duleep had other ideas.

Forever wiggling underneath Victorian meddling, Duleep decided he didn't want a perfect British subject. Instead, he wanted someone "less sophisticated," AKA less touched by colonialism. And he had just the idea: He wrote to the old girl's school in Cairo and asked the missionaries there if they could recommend anyone who was both Christian and of Eastern descent.

Considering Bamba was the only one there who fit that description, methinks Duleep already knew who he wanted. But that didn't mean he had a smooth time of it.

You might think that a proposal from a prince would make any girl say yes. But Duleep's reality was much different. Bamba was reluctant to uproot her life and stop teaching children, which she considered her main ambition in life. Eventually, though, she grew to believe this was God's way of saying "go get 'em, girl," and she consented to him. Which is where things got truly awkward.

When it came time for Duleep's official proposal to Bamba, it was mighty hard to get much romance in. Duleep spoke zero Arabic, while Muller spoke only Arabic, and he had to use an intermediary just to pop the question. In fact, when the pair married in a small ceremony in Alexandria in 1864, they spoke their vows in different languages. Quirky, right? Unfortunately, their future was less quirky, more devastating.

In 1865, Duleep was expecting his very first child with Bamba, who was due any day now. It all ended in blood and tears. Although Bamba gave birth to a son that year, the boy died just a day later, without the couple ever even giving him a name. For Duleep and Bamba, who had both seen so much hardship, it must have been a crushing blow. Duleep reacted the only way he knew how.

Duleep knew that if at first you don't succeed, ignore the trauma and try again: Eventually, he and Bamba had a whopping six healthy children together, most of whom made it into adulthood and had glittering lives among both the British and the Indian elite. All in all, the pair were married for over two decades...but behind bedroom doors, it was no fairy tale.

If you believe the rumors, Duleep was far from faithful to Bamba. In fact, he was obsessed with one "other woman" in particular: The French princess Ada Douglas Wetherill. As the years wore on, Duleep got restless in his marriage and domestic duties to Muller and began spending more and more time with Wetherill. And that wasn't all he was restless about.

In 1886, Duleep got another irresistible pull to return home to India, and this time he didn't take no for an answer. Amid objections from the India Office, he set sail with Bamba and his children. Until it all unraveled. After catching up to him in the middle-eastern city of Aden, the British apprehended him and demanded that he turn back in Queen Victoria's name. Duleep did not do this. No, his response was ten times more jaw-dropping.

Upon receiving this ultimatum from the British, Duleep fled to Paris...without his family. Yes, he seriously abandoned Bamba and the children to their own fates, instead preferring to go solo to France. And that wasn't all. When he got to the City of Love, his long-term mistress Ada Wetherill reportedly shacked up with him, too. OUCH, Duleep. Ugh, and he wasn't done yet.

A mere year after her husband chucked her at the border to abscond with another woman (!) Bamba Muller died at just 39 years old. Duleep repaid her with stunning cruelty. Two years later, he made things official with Wetherill and married her, going on to have two more children with the royal-mistress-turned-wife. Oh, but they got a comeuppance.

You don't get through that kind of explosive mid-life crisis quietly, and one person in particular noticed that Duleep was coming apart at the seams: Queen Victoria. Well, she was not amused. Forever after, Victoria refused to meet Ada Wetherill in any kind of polite company, citing her respect for Bamba Muller's memory. Hey, the broad can do some things right.

Even though his "return to India plan" was foiled, Duleep managed to stick it to the British in another way: He got reinitiated into Sikhism. He had wanted his reconversion ceremony to take place in the homeland of both himself and his faith, but managed to pull off a more casual, impromptu one in Aden while he was being detained.

The Maharaja’s cousin, Sardar Thakar Singh Sandhawalia, was instrumental in both his reintroduction to Sikhism and this successful re-initiation, as he sent emissaries to Aden to accomplish the latter. The Queen could keep the Maharaja from India, but she couldn’t keep Indians from the Maharaja! With this accomplished, Duleep set his sights on a violent aim.

At this point, Duleep was very much in an "off" phase of his on/off, toxic friendship with Queen Victoria, and he let her know it under no uncertain terms. While living in Paris, Duleep and his then-mistress Ada traveled to St. Petersburg, Russia. His mission: Convince the Czar to invade India through the north and re-install him as ruler. Unfortunately, the Czar did not take the bait.

Duleep Singh’s third daughter, Princess Sophia Singh, became a famous suffragette in the United Kingdom. She was a leader in the Women’s Tax Resistance League, which advocated for refusing to pay taxes in protest of women’s ongoing disenfranchisement. And she did this all while living in a palace apartment given to her by Queen Victoria. Turns out biting the hand that feeds you isn’t always a bad idea—especially when it’s the hand that stole your family’s plate.

Once the young Duleep took the throne all those years ago, he automatically became the owner of the renowned Koh-i-Noor, one of the largest cut diamonds on Earth. As a child, Duleep wore it in court at Lahore, fastened to his arm. But it suffered a dark fate. The British seized it as a spoil of war, giving it to Queen Victoria for her own crown jewels collection.

While compliant by most standards, Duleep Singh rebelled when it came to his heraldry. The Maharaja and his family used an illicit coat of arms that was not registered at the College of Arms, even though it had been drawn up by Prince Albert. To be fair, the family motto was “to do good rather than be conspicuous,” and there is nothing more conspicuous than registering your coat of arms.

In 1861, Queen Victoria continued her strategic adulation of Maharaja Duleep Singh,  naming him one of the first handful of knights in the brand spanking new Order of the Star of India. This appointment netted him the appellation “Sir” in addition to his longstanding—and long limited in terms of real power—title of Maharaja.

Duleep Singh was a member of the Freemasons, AKA the actual fraternal organization upon which The Simpsons’ famous Stonecutters organization was based, if that's more your bag. Indeed, he was involved in all sorts of shady spiritualism; one account has him entering a room arm-in-arm with the notorious occultist Madame Blavatsky.

Duleep's name comes in many forms: Duleep, Dhulip, Dulip, Dhalip, Dhuleep, and Dalip. Despite the fact that he used "Duleep" when writing it himself—and surely he was the foremost authority on the matter—even some official British documents refer to him as Dalip. They do follow it up with “the Ultimate,” but does that really make up for their sins against him?

In digital spirit, at least. Maharaja Duleep Singh has been immortalized in a video game, of all places. Duleep is a character in Ubisoft’s well-known action-adventure video game series, Assassin’s Creed. A young Duleep Singh figures in its 2015 installment, Assassin’s Creed Syndicate. The Maharaja and his battle for his kingdom live on!

Adding further intrigue to their odd dynamic of crush and controller, Queen Victoria ended up being the godmother to many of Duleep Singh’s children. Though there could have been a disturbing motive behind this. Quite likely, this was yet another power move. Victoria used it to limit Duleep and his children's opportunities to reclaim their rightful throne in India.

Not only was Duleep Singh a muse to Queen Victoria, but their relationship was also a muse for filmmaker Kavi Raz. His 2017 historical drama, The Black Prince, centers on the Stockholm Syndrome-like relationship between the two royals. Unfortunately, critics didn't love the movie, despite its salacious subject matter.

While in the United Kingdom, Duleep took a liking to Scotland and, at age 20, managed to rent a castle there from a Scottish Earl. He quickly set about making a name for himself...though not always for the best reasons. The surrounding commoners knew him for his luxurious lifestyle and his shooting parties, as well as his penchant for dressing in Highland costume; these habits quickly had him dubbed “the Black Prince of Perthshire.”

Of course, Duleep was actually brown and not Black, but it seems that was none the difference for the pale Scots of the 1850s.

It may be a bit of reach, but Duleep might have indeed been a narcissist, considering that he gave his own name to all eight of his children. His three sons and five daughters alike had two to three given names, all followed by “Duleep Singh.” Okay, his first son with Bamba Muller died without a name, but it’s a safe bet how it would have ended.

Despite having so many children with his name, the Maharaja’s family lineage ended with this generation. All eight of his children died without legitimate issue.

In what must have been a scene reminiscent of Hamlet, Maharaja Duleep Singh’s eldest son, Prince Victor Albert Jay Duleep Singh, claimed he saw a vision of his father looking at him through a picture frame one day. But the creepiest part came later. As Prince Victor soon found out, he had this vision just a day before his father's death. Might I suggest you pursue haunting Queen Victoria instead, dear Maharaja?

Though it was largely unwillingly and at the behest of the British Empire, Duleep was a bit of a globetrotter throughout his troubled life and, true to style, died outside of his putative homes of India and England. Instead, at only 55, Duleep took his last breath in Paris, after suffering a stroke. One might hope he was finally freed from his life under British tyranny...but one further indignity loomed.

Adding insult to the many injuries of his short life, Duleep Singh died in circumstances unbecoming of a royal: He passed away alone in a Paris hotel room, broke and indebted to many. After all, Duleep Singh’s lavish life of large estates, recreational hunting, and fancy parties were largely behind him by the time he passed. Still, the British had one final betrayal for him.

Duleep explicitly wanted his family to return his body to India upon his death but, like his many wishes to return home while he was still alive, the British denied this one too, fearing the insurrection his homecoming might foment. Instead, they buried his body next to that of his wife, Maharani Bamba, following Christian rites. Even in death, the Crown couldn't risk Maharaja Duleep Singh’s power over his people.

Despite being the last Maharajah of the Sikh Empire, Duleep Singh was born in what is now Pakistan, an Islamic Republic. At the time, his birthplace of Lahore in the province of Punjab was actually the capital of the Sikh Empire. However, after the British partitioned India in 1947, they gave this part of Punjab to Pakistan. Thus, the Maharajah continued to lose his kingdom even after death.

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Back in 1964, astronomer Nikolai Kardashev proposed a way to classify civilizations based largely on how much energy they could harness. The idea was simple: the more advanced a civilization became, the more energy it would be capable of controlling. And the scale gets very big, very quickly.

In the popular modern version of the scale, a Type I civilization could harness energy on the scale of an entire planet. Solar, wind, geothermal and other sources would make today's global energy system look remarkably primitive. And that would merely get humanity through the front door.

A Type II civilization operates on an entirely different scale. Instead of collecting a tiny fraction of sunlight that reaches Earth, humans might surround the Sun with enormous energy-collecting structures, often imagined as a Dyson swarm, capturing a substantial portion of the star's tremendous output.

Type III is where the numbers become almost impossible to comprehend. Kardashev imagined a civilization possessing energy on the scale of its entire galaxy. That could mean spreading across billions of star systems and tapping the output of an enormous number of stars.

This part matters. Kardashev himself only described Types I, II and III. Everything beyond that comes from later speculative extensions, and scientists don't have one agreed definition for Types IV, V, VI or VII. From this point on, we're entering a thought experiment rather than established science.

Various extended versions take the scale in different directions, but some imagine additional levels progressing from galactic civilizations toward control of the universe, multiple universes and eventually even more exotic possibilities.

For this thought experiment, imagine Type VII as the extreme endpoint: a civilization no longer meaningfully limited by planets, stars, galaxies or perhaps even one universe. Its technology would be so far beyond ours that manipulating spacetime and fundamental physics might be ordinary engineering problems.

Today, nearly everything about civilization depends on one small planet. By Type VII, Earth could be little more than humanity's ancestral home. Humans or their descendants might occupy countless artificial worlds, star systems or entirely engineered environments scattered across distances we can barely imagine crossing today.

Why terraform a planet when you can simply build a better one? A sufficiently advanced civilization could conceivably create enormous artificial habitats tailored precisely to its needs, controlling atmosphere, temperature and ecosystems, while using rotation or acceleration to produce artificial gravity rather than hoping to stumble across another conveniently Earth-like world.

To us, stars are enormous objects we can barely approach. To an extremely advanced civilization, they might become resources to move, modify or dismantle. Concepts such as stellar engineering already exist as theoretical speculation. Type VII would make even those astonishing ideas seem almost quaint.

Black holes are among the most extreme objects known to physics, but physicists have long studied ways energy could theoretically be extracted from rotating black holes. A civilization unimaginably beyond us might deliberately create, manipulate or use black holes as power sources, laboratories or technological tools.

One enormous obstacle to galactic civilization is the speed of light. Even at light speed, crossing the Milky Way takes roughly 100,000 years. If Type VII humanity had discovered physically possible shortcuts through spacetime, however, our present idea of "far away" could become almost meaningless.

Einstein already showed us that time isn't absolute. Speed and gravity affect how quickly it passes. A Type VII civilization might understand spacetime so completely that controlling time dilation becomes routine, allowing civilizations separated by enormous stretches of space and time to coordinate in ways we can't currently imagine.

There's no particular reason a civilization surviving long enough to reach such an astonishing level would still consist entirely of biological humans. Minds could potentially merge with machines, exist inside artificial environments or take forms completely unlike us. Homo sapiens might simply be the civilization's distant starting point.

If conscious experience could someday be reproduced digitally, a civilization with almost unlimited computing resources could create extraordinarily convincing simulated worlds. Want medieval Europe? A tropical paradise? A world with completely different rules? Physical reality might become just one option among countless artificial ones.

Most human conflict throughout history has involved scarce things: land, food, resources, energy and wealth. A civilization controlling stellar or galactic amounts of energy could make many familiar forms of scarcity dramatically less important. But even something this advanced would still face physical limits involving matter, energy, computation and entropy.

Now we're well beyond anything demonstrated by modern science. But some speculative cosmological ideas allow physicists to at least discuss whether new universe-like regions could theoretically be created. For a hypothetical Type VII civilization, creating universes could be the ultimate technological achievement rather than merely a theoretical question.

Imagine engineers who don't simply design a machine within the laws of physics, but somehow influence the physical properties of an entirely new universe. That is another enormous speculative leap. No known physics shows that even a civilization capable of creating a universe could simply choose its physical constants or rewrite its laws.

If a Type VII civilization could create extraordinarily realistic artificial worlds and populate them with conscious beings, how would those beings know they were created? They might look at their universe, discover consistent physical laws and naturally conclude that this was simply reality.

The possibility that our universe could itself be simulated has been debated by philosophers and scientists, although there is currently no evidence establishing that it is true. But Type VII makes the thought experiment much more unsettling: sufficiently advanced civilizations might theoretically create worlds containing civilizations of their own.

People often imagine advanced aliens arriving in enormous spacecraft. But something millions or billions of years beyond us might be almost impossible to identify as technology. Its actions could look like natural astrophysical events or even features of physics itself. We might not know what we were looking at.

Science-fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke famously observed that sufficiently advanced technology would be indistinguishable from magic. Type VII takes that idea about as far as it can go. A civilization operating at this level wouldn't merely possess better gadgets. From our perspective, its capabilities could appear almost supernatural.

After all that, here's the reality check. Carl Sagan later adapted the Kardashev scale into a continuous system, and using that approach modern humanity sits at roughly 0.73. In other words, we're still below Type I, while Type VII sits unimaginably far beyond anything our civilization can currently do.

Before humanity worries about manipulating universes, there's the considerably smaller challenge of surviving long enough to reach Type I. Civilizations capable of producing increasingly powerful technologies also acquire increasingly powerful ways of damaging themselves and their environments. Technological progress doesn't automatically guarantee civilizational survival.

There may be hard physical limits that no amount of intelligence can overcome. The speed of light may remain an absolute barrier. Usable wormholes may prove impossible. Other universes may be inaccessible or nonexistent. Some things imagined for Type VII civilizations could simply violate the rules of reality.

There's another possibility that's arguably even stranger. People living 10,000 years ago couldn't have meaningfully imagined quantum computers, genetic engineering or spacecraft reaching other planets. Asking us to accurately imagine technology millions or billions of years ahead may be just as hopeless.

And that might be the biggest question of all. Reaching Type VII would presumably require humanity to survive and transform across staggering periods of time. Our descendants could modify their bodies, merge with artificial intelligence or abandon biology altogether. Whatever eventually reached Type VII might have started with us without resembling us at all.

Humans once struggled to control a campfire. Today we release nuclear energy, photograph black holes and send machines beyond the Solar System. Type VII may ultimately prove impossible. But that's what makes the idea fascinating: it asks just how far intelligence could go if civilization somehow never stopped advancing.

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Sources: 1, 2, 3

Olivia Munn came onto the scene as a correspondent for The Daily Show before making a splash with parts in The Newsroom and Magic Mike. However, with her sultry good looks, gravelly voice, and general “cool girl” vibe, the attention soon turned from her career to her love life.

Since her early days on Attack of the Show, Munn has traded on her perceived image as a hot-yet-nerdy type—but her love life hasn’t fully reflected this, as it’s absolutely stacked with relationships with handsome superstar types like Chris Pine and Aaron Rodgers. However, one of these flings was much more controversial than others…

It’s rumored that Munn had a romance with none other than megastar Justin Timberlake, and the timing was, to say the least, questionable. So, it’s alleged that the pair hooked up in 2010—that’s exactly three years after he started dating Jessica Biel. Sources says that the moment Timberlake met Munn, he started chasing. But did he catch her?

In 2010, Us Weekly claimed that Timberlake and Munn had exchanged numbers and started texting—but that’s not all. He’d also told multiple people around that time that him and Biel were done. Hmm, did anyone tell her? According to some, Munn texted back and forth with Timberlake but ultimately shot him down, believing that he was still with Biel.

However, not everyone agrees with that sequence of events…

Others claimed that the two had a steamy night—or three—alone together in Munn’s NYC hotel room that autumn. While it didn’t really pan out and Timberlake clearly went back to Jessica Biel, the two stayed friends and have occasionally texted in the years since their rumored hookup. But did the flame really get put out that one night, or did it keep burning…

Justin Timberlake’s relationship with Jessica Biel has definitely had its highs and lows, but they made it to the altar in 2014. However, sources claimed that Timberlake got a bit jittery before his nuptials and started texting Munn again—and what he said was seriously brutal. Apparently, she showed texts to her friends from Timberlake that said things like “My relationship is basically over.” Basically isn’t actually, Justin.

Munn was too shrewd to fall for his claims—but that doesn’t mean she hasn’t ended up in some toxic relationships of her own.

Before the Mulaney thing, Munn’s most high-profile relationship was with Green Bay Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers—and it definitely had its fair share of ups and downs, most of which played out in the public eye. It was all a matter of being in the right place at the right time. Neither was really that famous on their own, but put the two together, and the tabloids went wild.

And guess who wound up paying the price?

The immediate storm of attention put a huge strain on both Munn and Rodgers, as well as their relationship. Rodgers in particular found that he was out of his element, as he was used to leading a relatively private existence. Munn had a bit more experience in the “public relationship” realm and helped him through it—but the pressure was still a lot to deal with.

What happens after a couple of famous folks start dating? News outlets start speculating about when they’ll get engaged, of course. And that’s exactly what happened to Munn and Rodgers, shortly after they got together. When OK! dropped news of a potential engagement, Munn’s mother had to call her to ask if the story was true.

But in the end, rumors about tying the knot were the least of their problems.

So, “Why don’t people seem to like Olivia Munn?” Here’s one concrete answer to that question. During the course of their relationship, football fans seemed to peg the Packers wins and losses—particularly, the losses—on Munn and Rodger’s relationship. It’s a fate that has befallen many an athlete’s partner, but the pair did their best to ignore the undue scrutiny.

The next story that broke about them wasn’t as easy to shake, though.

See, while Aaron Rodgers found the fame that came from his relationship with Olivia Munn hard to deal with, the same can’t be said for his brother, Jordan Rodgers. Jordan was a contest—and winner—on JoJo Fletcher’s season of The Bachelorette, and the pair have been together ever since. And it was on that very show that Jordan dropped a bombshell about his brother.

On the hometown episode of that Bachelorette season, Jordan mentioned that Aaron wouldn’t be there when he brought JoJo home, and that he doesn’t really speak to him. He implied that while the rest of the family is close, Aaron has kept his distance from them. And considering this aired in 2016, two years into Aaron’s relationship with Olivia Munn, people were quick to point fingers.

Immediately, people began to speculate that Rodgers wasn’t close to his family and that Munn had somehow driven a wedge between them. A Bleacher Report feature on Rodgers fanned the flames even more when they dove into his family history. They reported that he’d been estranged from them since 2014—the year he started dating Munn.

And they didn’t hold back the dirty details, either.

According to sources, Rodgers’ family didn’t even have his cell number. In Christmas 2014, Rodgers’ parents tried to mend the gap by sending him and Munn Christmas presents. Their reaction was unforgettably brutal. Apparently, they sent them right back. On top of that, the report said that his family wasn’t welcome in Green Bay, and that Aaron had even skipped his father’s funeral.

Yikes. But could this really all be blamed on Munn, or what?

Well, I’ll be honest. If my parents acted toward my partner the way that Rodgers’ allegedly had toward Munn, I’d be angry too. Sources say that after he got together with Munn, his family told him not to trust her and that they thought she was with him for the wrong reasons (sound familiar, Bachelorette fans?). Rodgers was apparently furious with their position on it, and decided to stand by Munn.

But could the entire family drama have come from just this one incident?

In later interviews, Rodgers attributed at least part of the rift between him and his family on his move away from his Christian upbringing—but back in 2017, basically every headline about Rodgers or Munn implied that she was the one behind it all. The stories implied that she was controlling and that she was the one keeping him away from his family.

Rodgers mostly stayed silent on the issue, as did Munn—but then, the story blew up even more.

In 2017, news outlets were once again speculating that Munn and Rodgers were engaged—but then, seemingly out of the blue, the couple of three years split up. Immediately, people began to whisper that Munn’s alleged controlling behavior and her role in his family drama was to blame, but the pair remained mum on the subject.

Eventually, though, someone had to break the silence…

While the narrative that spread was one of Munn controlling Rodgers, one post-breakup podcast interview seemed to turn that whole story upside down. While appearing on an episode of Naked With Catt Sadler, Munn opened up about a former relationship that slowly devolved over time. She implied that it happened over the course of years, which made everyone think she was talking about Rodgers—and the revelations were bombshells.

Munn talked about being in a long romance where she thought she was happy…until, as she said, the “boat capsized” and she realized that over time, the relationship had come to make her feel worthless. But she didn’t just talk about feelings—she also had some concrete examples of incidents that were huge red flags.

Munn said that the partner in question had wanted her to prioritize the relationship over her career, and had encouraged her to turn down two huge projects—a film in Australia and a Broadway show. She even referred to the relationship as emotionally abusive. When it ended, she was left with a mountain of regrets, both romantically and professionally.

So, why did everyone think that she was talking about Rodgers?

While Munn didn’t name the ex in question who asked her to put him first and her career second, many put the details from the interview together and could only speculate that she was talking about Rodgers—but that’s not all. During a 2015 interview with Conan O’Brien, Munn talked about making “concessions” in her work in order to make the relationship with Rodgers work.

It’s all fitting together now! But when you dive a bit deeper, it still doesn’t fully explain why Munn seems to make people bristle so much.

The whole Aaron Rodgers saga was a sad one. Ultimately, all the criticism and scrutiny surrounding Munn seemed to have a lot more to do with misogynist assumptions about her role in Rodgers’ life than anything else. People were way too quick to jump on her during that period—just as they’re doing now, with John Mulaney.

But other people would say they have very good reasons for jumping on Munn—because, according to them, she has something of a misogynistic streak of her own.

It’s usually completely understandable when a celebrity goes off on gossip mags and sites. After all, they’re the source of so much judgement and vitriol. But when Olivia Munn wrote an essay about her life as a celeb that specifically targeted the beloved red carpet critique site Go Fug Yourself, people were mostly just confused. While the blog does take jabs at celebrity outfits, it’s mostly in good fun.

Fans and friends of GFY shot back at Munn, pointing out that she was going after a female-run business when plenty of other sites were way meaner and way worse. But it was when people dove into her other writing that things really got fiery.

In 2010, Olivia Munn’s book Suck It, Wonder Woman (subtitled “Misadventures of a Hollywood Geek”) came out—and, in a sea of other celebrity memoirs and essay collections, just kind of floated away. But, um, that wasn’t that long ago, and it’s safe to say that if it came out today, it would cause some serious problems for Munn.

If there was thinly-veiled misogyny buried within Munn’s critique of Go Fug Yourself, well, it would make sense. Because in Suck It, Wonder Woman, it’s completely blatant.

So, there are some seriously cringey and downright offensive passages in Olivia Munn’s book—most of which is written in a tone that implies that not only is she the only dork slash “cool girl” (see: the definition from Gone Girl) in showbiz, but that she’s innately superior to basically every other woman in Hollywood.

And it would be one thing if it were a valid critique of the industry, but it’s mostly just non-sequitur digs at the ways other women choose to live their lives. Let’s dive in, shall we…

It’s funny that Munn went after a red carpet fashion critique blog, because in her book she says that she thinks sexist behavior is “as nauseating as mom jeans.” Speaking of shaming others for their appearance, Munn compares the mysteries of dating to the puzzle of why “some starlet’s boobs hang so low.” And that’s it. That’s where the comparison ends—a completely unnecessary knock on some imagined “starlet” for the sake of an unfunny one-liner joke.

See, now I’m even starting to understand why people are so mad at Olivia Munn…and it gets so much worse.

In Suck It, Wonder Woman, Munn claims that if she were to run for president, she would fix the US’s obesity problem by “taking all the motorized transport away from fat people” and building “fat tunnels where all the fat people can walk. This will create jobs and subsequent weight loss.” She also talks about how much she loves pie.

So, “unhealthy” eating is totally fine for someone with her body…but not anybody else. And she just. keeps. going.

Munn recalls her first dating experience in high school, fully dropping an R-bomb in reference to a new kid in school. She ends up dating him and expressing her extreme regret upon realizing he has Tourette’s. Gee, I wonder what he thought when he read it. She also has a chapter giving men advise, and in one part she tells them to have a threesome with “two fives,” as it adds up to a ten. Honestly, “yikes” doesn’t quite do it.

So yeah, in the pantheon of reasons why people are mad at Olivia Munn, her extremely cringey book is Up There. And it’s not like she stopped putting her foot in her mouth since then, either.

If there’s one thing any dog owner knows, it’s, well, don’t mess with someone’s dog. And somehow, through her business ventures, Olivia Munn got roped into some serious doggy drama. Munn was an early investor in the app Wag!, which connects dog owners with walkers and sitters. So, when one of the aforementioned walkers walked right off with someone’s dog, the owners reached out to Munn—and within minutes, she was on the phone.

Munn called the New York couple whose dog was missing and helped find a detective to get on the case. Ultimately, they got their dog back, but they decided to sue Wag! for using sketchy walkers and for using Munn’s celeb status to smooth things over. After news of the suit came out, Munn canceled a talk show appearance.

There are PR nightmares you get roped into…and then there are the ones you create yourself.

Olivia Munn is a great podcast guest—not because she’s dropped any mind-blowing insights, but because she always seems to spill some tea when she goes on one. Recently on Whitney Cummings’ Good For You podcast, she talked about an ex who was bad in bed, liked “spooning from behind,” and who insisted on doing the deed with the lights off. Munn then insinuated that he did this because he didn’t actually want to be in bed with a women.

People immediately speculated that she was talking about Aaron Rodgers, especially since she’s repeatedly talked about him since their breakup. Either way, speculating about someone’s preferences is pretty offensive. But let’s be real: when it comes to people getting offended at Olivia Munn, this is just the tip of the iceberg.

It’s time to address the elephant in the room. Sure, there’s her previous relationships and her terrible book. However, there’s one reason and one reason only why a lot of people really seem to be mad at Olivia Munn right now. His name is John Mulaney. However, to fully understand why people are so weirded out by her relationship with this innocuous-seeming comedian, we’re going to need to get into the back story—and boy, is it juicy.

There is one thing to understand about where everything went wrong in this whole saga—and it starts with the fact that people love John Mulaney. Or at least, they used to. He seems mild-mannered with just the right amount of cynicism. It’s like if a 70-year-old man with all the attendant insights and gripes that come with age somehow found himself in the body of a teenaged boy…in a suit.

Over the course of the past decade or so, Mulaney’s comedy specials and other work have garnered a legion of devoted fans. After all, he’s the man who created SNL’s Stefon! But, as always, fame comes with a lot of problems.

A lot of Mulaney’s stand-up bits involved stories about his wife Annamarie Tendler and their beloved dog Petunia. These glimpses into his personal life made fans feel like they knew him—and her, and Petunia. But that’s not all that he was open about. He also shared that he’d struggled with addiction in the past, and that he stopped drinking and using illicit substances at 23 after a rough wake-up call.

People were used to the Mulaney they knew—married, steady, sober—but they were in for a tragic surprise.

Mulaney had struck up a friendship with SNL’s Pete Davidson and they had both talked about how John was helping Pete with his sobriety. So it was extra shocking in December of 2020 when Mulaney entered a treatment facility for alcoholism and substance misuse. Later, he elaborated that it had actually been his second stint in rehab that year, as he’d also undergone treatment in September of that year and later relapsed.

But the most devastating announcement—at least for some fans—was yet to come.

Along with the news about Mulaney’s stint in rehab was the revelation that he and his wife of nearly seven years, Annamarie Tendler, had separated. In those intervening years since Mulaney had become famous, Tendler had won some fans of her own. While some may have got acquainted with her through Mulaney’s stories about her, others undoubtedly fell for her funny, quirky social media presence.

Unfortunately, fans are always going to take sides in a situation like this and look for someone to blame—and in this case, their gaze fell solely upon Olivia Munn.

Take it from someone who was there, and who somehow ended up on a strange corner of Tiktok where people speculated wildly about John Mulaney’s life. Long before they announced anything, a lot of people knew that Mulaney and Munn were dating—and they were seriously mad about it. But was this just another case of the type of misogyny that was directed at Munn during her relationship with Aaron Rodgers?

Well, in some cases, yes. But there was way more to it than that.

Internet detectives quickly dug up a tweet that Munn had posted in December of 2021, when Mulaney was in rehab, that read, “Sending SO MUCH love and support to John Mulaney. You got this.❤️⚡”. Of course, people took this as evidence that either a. the relationship had started much earlier than they’d said or b. that Munn had been circling Mulaney like a hawk for months, ready to strike at his most vulnerable.

It definitely toed the line between genuine concern and creepiness on the part of the fans—and it wasn’t the last time that questions of timing came up.

At some point in the summer of 2021, Olivia Munn stopped posting current pictures of herself—which immediately led the people who’d been closely following her romance with John Mulaney to speculate that she was pregnant. Why, again, did this make people so mad? Well, Mulaney had been vocal in his stand-up act about the fact that he and Tendler has agreed they didn’t want children.

And, well, guess what? The internet sleuths were right again. Soon after, they announced that they were expecting a child—and the furor over it all intensified.

In September of 2021, Mulaney appeared on Late Night With Seth Meyers and succinctly summed up the year previous, saying “I went to rehab in September, OK? I got out in October, I move out of my home from my ex-wife. Then, in the spring, I went to Los Angeles and met and started to date a wonderful woman named Olivia […] And we're having a baby together."

Happily ever after, right? Well, not so.

As I mentioned earlier, the line between concern and creepiness has been hard for people to walk when it comes to John Mulaney and Olivia Munn. Many fans were concerned about the fact that Mulaney broke off a marriage and entered a relationship right out of rehab, as making those kinds of huge changes is usually a massive red flag.

Specifically, many experts agree that romantic relationships are a bad idea out of early recovery—let alone a relationship and a baby.

Still, that’s all Mulaney’s decision to make, right? Well, people have pointed to Munn’s history with men on the rebound as another indication that not all is right with her. Shortly after Chris Pratt’s divorce from Anna Faris, there were rumors that he was hooking up with Munn. However, Munn shot those rumors down and shared a text exchange between her and Faris.

Faris seemed happy with the outcome—but another ex wasn’t such a fan of Munn’s.

Mulaney isn’t the only one involved in this mess who has an absolutely fervent fanbase. Enter: Kacey Musgraves. Her fans already had their backs up about Olivia Munn. Why? Well, in 2020, Musgraves and husband Ruston Kelly split. Not long after, he was spotted hanging out with Munn, leading people to come to the conclusion that she has a thing for recently divorced men.

On top of that, some mutual social media love in the comments between Musgraves and Tendler had people speculating that the two had bonded over their divorces…or over a common enemy, perhaps?

There’s one driving force behind the speculation over their relationship that we haven’t mentioned yet. That’s the timing of it all. The fact that news of their relationship broke immediately after news of Mulaney’s split had people wondering if Munn and Mulaney had had an affair during his marriage to Tendler. Mulaney’s attempts to build a timeline around his rehab, divorce, and romance with Munn don’t hold up to scrutiny, either.

He said that they met in church in L.A. after his marriage ended, but they were actually both guests at Seth Meyers’ 2013. And that’s not the only problem…

Long before Munn came along, there were rumors that trust was a problem in his marriage, and that before he went to rehab he had been going to strip clubs—but that’s not the worst part. There were many stories where he’d allegedly hooked up with dancers or paid for activities that are a lot more scandalous than a private dance.

Man, maybe Munn needs to watch out for the red flags and not vice-versa…

Another reason why people might be #TeamTendler? Her announcement about their split was particularly devastating, reading “I am heartbroken that John has decided to end our marriage. I wish him support and success as he continues his recovery.” Around the same time that he went to rehab, she entered a facility for emotional and eating disorders.

Clearly, it was a horrible time for both of them—but people seem to really want to lay it all on Munn’s shoulders. Does she really deserve it?

Olivia Munn hasn’t always had such a great time in Hollywood, and her book details some of her worst encounters with the town’s creeps, ranging from unpleasant to downright criminal. In 2017, she was one of six actresses who came together to put forward allegations of harassment and misconduct against director Brett Ratner, revealing that he was one of the men she’d mentioned her book—and the story is seriously disturbing.

In 2004, before Munn was a star, she visited a friend who was a PA on the set of one of Ratner's films. When she did her friend a solid and brought Ratner his meal, he cornered her in his trailer and “took care of himself” in front of her. Later, he told people they’d slept together—an allegation that Munn continues to deny.

Sadly, Munn’s experience is all too typical—and also, incredibly damaging.

It was only recently that Munn finally addressed all the commotion over her relationship with Mulaney. Notably, she said, “They think they know our relationship so well. When in reality, they don’t.” She also acknowledged that people seem to be mad at her, saying, “For whatever reason, it’s easier to blame me.” Well…that about sums it up correctly.

And as for the relationship right now? Well, Munn and Mulaney’s son Malcolm was born in November of 2021, and in January of 2022, they began to debut pictures of him despite rumors that they’d broken up. Most recently, Munn posted a picture of Mulaney cuddling Malcolm on her IG, which seems to send a message that the pair are still together.

Considering how rapidly everything has happened for Munn in the last year, who knows what the next year—let alone the next few weeks—hold.

So, what’s the real reason why people are so mad at Olivia Munn? Well, there’s the Aaron Rodgers family stuff, the book, and Mulaney’s disappointed fans scrutinizing everything she does. But honestly, it just seems like she’s in between a rock and a hard place. No matter what she does, Munn just seems to rub a large contingent of people the wrong way—and her romance with Mulaney is just the latest thing to get them going.

Sources: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, , 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26

Oh yeah, she also has the voice of an angel. 

Joan Baez was born on January 9, 1941, in Staten Island, New York. She had a priest and a minister as grandfathers, and her father was a scientist who co-invented the X-ray microscope. With so much science and religion in the Baez household, it’s a surprise that Baez would eventually find her way to a career in music. 

But before music, there was something else that caught Baez’s attention. 

At this time in US history, having a Mexican background presented certain problems. There was a lot of prejudice, and this angered Baez and her family. When the Baez family became Quakers, they were even more conscious of social problems. You see, Quakers is a religious group that focuses on three things: equal treatment for all people, always telling the truth, and pacifism. 

Baez was getting ready to fight the good fight. 

While in high school in California, Baez found one of her first acts of protest. While in her Palo Alto High School classroom, there was an air raid drill. Of course, the instruction was to leave the school as quickly as possible. Baez didn’t move quickly—in fact, she didn’t move at all. Baez was disturbing the order of things, and now it was time to discover music. 

Baez found music early in her life—and it came in the form of a physical gift. A family friend presented her with a ukulele. Baez quickly learned four chords and then stopped. Those four chords were all she needed to play the music of her choice: rhythm and blues. But there was opposition from an unlikely place. 

Baez’s parents were all in when it came to her playing music. What they worried about was the scene that came with being a musician. They were well aware of the drug culture that had its claws in the music industry. However, her parents' fear wasn't enough to derail her dreams, especially after she met one very inspiring person.

Baez’s aunt saw how music inspired her niece. When Baez was barely a teenager, she took her to a concert by activist and singer Pete Seeger. This was all Baez needed. She knew that was what was in her future, and she went for it. Not long after Baez finished high school, her father got a job offer that would send the family clear across the country. 

In 1958, Baez’s father received an offer to teach at MIT. This meant Baez had to leave hippie-dippie California, where she was coming into music. But there was a silver lining here. MIT is in Boston, which was, at this time, the center of the folk music scene. Baez arrived ready to dive into performing. However, she didn’t have the most promising start. 

Once in Boston, Baez got her first gig at a place called Club 47. Her inaugural concert was in front of just eight people. They were her parents, sister, boyfriend, and a smattering of friends. The fee she collected for the performance was just ten dollars. Somehow, this turned into a twice-weekly gig that paid her $25 a night.

It was certainly a slow start, but she was meeting the people she needed to meet. 

Soon, Baez was meeting like-minded people like Odetta and Bob Gibson. Not only were they folk singers, but they were also social activists. Gibson soon had an amazing offer for Baez. He was performing at the first-ever Newport Folk Festival in 1959, and he wanted Baez on stage with him. Baez jumped at the chance. 

However, when it came to her actual performance, the audience spent a lot of time looking at her feet. 

Joan Baez's ethereal voice stunned the audience at the Newport Folk Festival. However, it wasn't just her singing chops that garnered their attention. The crowd couldn’t help but notice that Baez wasn’t wearing any shoes. This caught on, and soon, people had a new nickname for her. They called her "the barefoot Madonna". But this Madonna had an attitude. 

Baez certainly knew how to send a message—and couldn't help but mix protest with her music. When performing at colleges, she refused to work in any venue that segregated people of color from white people. This meant that she had to do things a bit differently. 

Taking her show to the southern states meant that she only sang for colleges designated as Black. And when it came to record labels, Baez also had a strong opinion. 

In 1960, it was time for Baez to record her first album. Columbia Records was courting her, but they had competition from a little label called Vanguard Records. Columbia, being a huge and powerful record label, was certainly the obvious choice. But Baez went for Vanguard Records because she thought the smaller label would grant her more freedom as an artist. 

The problem was that Vanguard didn’t have the money that Columbia had. 

Now that she had signed with Vanguard, she was ready to record. Instead of heading to a recording studio, Vanguard took her to the Manhattan Towers Hotel. Baez described the ballroom as simply a dirty carpet with two microphones. Strangely, Wednesday night bingo meant that they couldn't record on that particular night of the week. But that wasn’t the only problem. 

Not only was the setting of Baez’s first album strange but so was the time that went into it. She took only four days to record it. She said that they worked so fast that they only recorded some of the tracks one time. With such a short recording time, was there any chance that her first album would be a success? 

Vanguard called Baez’s first album Joan Baez. One critic called it a “fine account” and went on to say that some songs sounded like “they were being sung for the first time”. Hmm, maybe he knew something about the way Vanguard was putting this album together. 

So, the album was only a moderate success, but it still led to live concerts. 

On November 5, 1960, Baez had her first NYC gig at the 92nd Street Y. Don’t worry, Baez wasn’t performing at a sweaty gym—this was a performance space that would later welcome guests like Joan Rivers and Paul McCartney. It must have been a hit because her next show took Baez to new heights. 

Baez’s next show in Manhattan was at Town Hall, but there was one big difference. It was one year later, and it was completely sold out. When Baez saw that the concert was "SRO," she tried to sort out the acronym. Was it “sold right out”? Her manager had to correct her. It was “Standing Room Only”. 

No matter how you sliced it, Baez was a hit. 

Around this same time, people started calling Baez the “Queen of Folk”. However, there was another rising star in her midst, who she later described as an “urban hillbilly”. Baez went to Gerde’s Folk City to hear this young man, who would later morph into the famous Bob Dylan. Dylan’s music stunned her, and she had trouble keeping it together. 

Dylan's moving performance utterly entranced Baez. The problem was that her boyfriend—who she called "very, very jealous"—was standing right beside her. Baez was sure her boyfriend could tell something had sparked between her and Dylan... and then the worst thing happened. 

After Dylan had finished singing, he walked right up to Baez. You see, Dylan knew exactly who Baez was and wanted to meet her. He’d had her album on nonstop rotation at home and was over the moon to see her at his concert. He walked up to Baez and simply said, “Uhh, hi”. 

From this chance encounter, a powerful duo was born. 

At this time, Baez’s fame was soaring higher than Dylan’s—and a year after they met, she would appear on the cover of Time magazine. She also decided to give Dylan a boost by bringing him on stage during her concerts. Dylan’s raspy voice wasn’t that welcome to the fans of Baez’s lovely soprano. But there was something special about Dylan that interested Baez. 

What Baez saw in Dylan was his ability to write music that made songs of protest sound more modern. It changed the way she looked at folk music and moved her career forward in a different way. But this wasn’t simply two musicians respecting the heck out of each other. There was something more happening here. 

Somewhere along the line, Baez and Dylan discovered they had romantic feelings for each other. These two peas in a pod both remain very secretive about exactly when this happened. Baez says that she didn’t know what year it was, and Dylan is vague as well. What we do know is how and when it ended. 

By 1965, Dylan’s career was soaring, and he had a UK tour. He invited Baez along, but did something shockingly strange. Where Baez had welcomed Dylan on her stage many times, Dylan did not return the favor. Baez said she felt sorry for herself and neurotic about the situation. She couldn't figure out why her boyfriend didn’t want her on stage with him. 

He was breaking her heart, and she had no idea why. 

1965 would prove to be a pivotal year for Dylan. Right before the tour, he released Bringing It All Back Home, in which he debuted a controversial electric style. Perhaps he was turning a new chapter—one that didn't include the soft, soaring vocals of the Queen of Folk. The excuse he gave later was that he was just trying to deal with his sudden and huge popularity. 

One way or the other, their short-lived relationship came to a devastating close.

While Dylan had fame on the brain, Baez took their break-up very hard. She said that Dylan broke her heart and later described their time together as “totally demoralizing”. What Baez needed now was a way to mend her bleeding heart.  

Baez had to learn how to carry on with life without Dylan, so she decided to switch out of folk music for a while. You could speculate that she did this to wash Dylan out of her hair completely. Whatever the reason, Baez turned to classical music and made three albums with classical composer Peter Schickele. 

But she wasn’t through with Dylan so easily. 

As messy as the saga of Joan Baez and Bob Dylan had proved to be, in 1968, Baez did something quite odd. She went to Nashville, Tennessee and recorded Any Day Now. The weird thing was that this album contained cover songs by Dylan and nothing else. 

Of course, there was something even stranger about 1968. 

Baez recorded two albums that year in Memphis. There was one full of Dylan covers, and the other was a tribute to her husband that would come out the following year. Yep, Baez had tied the knot, and the story of how they met is a folk music fairy tale that started during a protest. 

In 1967, Baez and her mother ended up in prison after a protest where they blocked the doors of the Armed Forces Induction Center in Oakland, California. Even though the guards kept the male and female protesters separate, Baez managed to meet activist and writer David Harris. They two got close in prison, and when released, they carried on with their relationship. 

Baez wound up moving in with him, but their home certainly wasn't a traditional one.

Instead of finding a cute house or apartment together, Baez moved into Harris’s commune. This was a place in the hills near Santa Clara County, and its sole purpose was to help young people avoid going to fight in Vietnam. While it doesn’t sound like the most romantic place on earth, it did lead to marriage. 

Baez had only known Harris for a few months before the two decided to wed. Even though Baez was a folk singer, and Harris was a journalist, Time magazine called their nuptials the “Wedding of the Century”. It looked like Baez had found the perfect guy, but there was trouble brewing on the horizon.

After the wedding, Baez and Harris headed for the hills, where they set up another commune and lived off the land. Sadly, their idealistic life came to a sudden and grinding halt. The US military wanted Harris to sign up for service in Vietnam. The issue Baez and Harris had been fighting for had barged right through their front door.

Of course, Harris was not about to sign up for Vietnam, so officers took him off to prison. Baez continued to perform and eventually ended up on the stage at the infamous Woodstock music festival. Those who emerged from their tents early enough to catch her morning performance might have noticed something different about Baez.

While Baez was missing her imprisoned husband, she was also carrying his baby. On December 2, 1969, Baez gave birth without her husband in attendance. She named her baby boy Gabriel. But though Harris finally got out of prison on March 15, 1971, the new parents still didn't get their "happily ever after".

Just three months after Harris left prison, the relationship fell apart. Baez and Harris separated and shared custody of their child. Later, Baez offered an explanation for the separation and subsequent divorce. She said that she “was made to live alone”. Baez left her marriage... and walked directly into the line of fire. 

Back in 1964, Baez had been open about her disagreement about sending soldiers to Vietnam, and she wasn’t quiet about it. She’d encouraged people to stop paying taxes and started the Institute for the Study of Nonviolence. At her concerts, she spoke about the benefits of young men avoiding the draft. Soon, Baez would be traveling to Vietnam herself. 

In 1972, the Vietnamese Committee for Solidarity with the American People invited her to Vietnam to see first-hand what was happening in the battered country. Baez traveled to Hanoi, Vietnam, and planned to spend Christmas there. This would be a trip she would never forget. 

On Christmas Eve in Hanoi, Baez sang the Lord’s Prayer, but then a loud sound interrupted her beautiful voice. The US military had sent Phantom Jets to drop explosives on Hanoi. But it wasn’t just Phantom Jets. They’d also sent B-52s, which can devastate entire areas of a city. The air raid sound was howling over her.

She was at the center of a huge and devastating air raid. 

In the end, the Christmas Day attacks were massive. Between December 18 and the 30th, the military dropped 100,000 tons of explosive devices. A US officer said this was “the biggest aerial operation in the history of warfare”. When Baez emerged from her safety area, a horrifying scene awaited her.

Baez and her fellow peace-loving Americans witnessed the destruction the air strike had caused. They saw destroyed homes and buildings and, of course, they saw firsthand the loss of human life. A stunned Baez was lucky to be alive. She blamed the US military, but she also threw her criticism in another direction. 

Later, Baez would publish advertisements in four major US newspapers that criticized Vietnam’s government. Baez’s decision to speak out against the Vietnamese government sent shock waves into the protest community. And one high-profile activist took great offense. 

Another performer associated with the Vietnam protest movement was Hollywood sensation Jane Fonda. Fonda was not at all on board with Baez’s criticism of the Vietnamese government and was not shy about saying so. A feud started, but what most people didn’t know was that Baez and Fonda had history. 

Back in 1967, Fonda was filming the sci-fi film Barbarella in Rome and living in a castle with her director husband, Roger Vadim. One day, Fonda was in the kitchen making gazpacho, and Baez walked in unannounced. Fonda couldn’t believe her eyes. Baez walked right up to Fonda, took her hands, and told her they were beautiful. From this strange meeting, a friendship was born. 

But Fonda wasn’t the only big name to fall for Baez’s charms. 

Sometime in the early 1980s, Baez dated a young man who had an interest in computers. The man was Apple Computer honcho . Apparently, it was quite serious—at least for Jobs. He contemplated popping the question, but reportedly her age ended up being an issue. Unlike Jobs, Baez wasn't planning on having any more children.

Because Baez involved herself in such serious issues, some conclude that she has no sense of humor. In 1986, NBC sketch show Saturday Night Live pushed this idea with their mock game show Make Joan Baez Laugh. Nora Dunn portrayed Baez, and yes, she did eventually laugh.  

But for the real Baez, politics was no laughing matter.

While Baez is intensely political, she always shied away from getting involved with a single political party. That all changed in 2008. She mailed in a letter to the San Francisco Chronicle, wherein she fully endorsed Barack Obama. She later said that he reminded her of Martin Luther King Jr. 

Years later, another president would have her taking a party line. 

Baez hadn’t had a new song in 27 years, but she broke that dry spell for a cause she felt passionate about. In April 2017, she released “Nasty Man” on her Facebook page. This song was a protest against US President Donald Trump. That same year, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame welcomed her in. 

And speaking of awards, Baez certainly has her fair share. 

Lately, it seems that Baez is busy collecting her accolades. On the list is a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award and a Spirit of Americana/Free Speech Award. In 2015, Amnesty International gave her a joint award for Ambassador of Conscience. Rolling Stone also got involved and honored her with a ranking of 189th on a list of the 200 Greatest Singers of All Time. 

I’d say there’s still more to come from Joan Baez. 

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Chuck Yeager never would’ve become a legend without Glamorous Glennis. Who is she? Well, according to Chuck, she was his good luck charm. Yeager met and fell in love with Glennis Dickhouse before any of this happened. After that, he named any aircraft he flew Glamorous Glennis. He was probably onto something about her being good luck…

Chuck Yeager enlisted in the U.S. Army Air Forces just a few months after turning 18. He was too young and didn’t have the right background for flight training, but he had two things on his side. He possessed incredible 20/10 eyesight...and good timing. When the US entered WWII, they were suddenly in need of pilots—and Yeager was right there.

Yeager was a seriously talented pilot—but he was also good on the ground. When Axis forces shot him down during his eighth mission, he made a daring escape to Spain thanks to the help of some French resistance fighters. He paid them back by aiding them in the construction of bombs and helping one of their navigators cross the Pyrenees.

The USAAF's rules stated that anyone who’d gone down over enemy territory couldn’t go back in. Yeager wasn't going to accept that. He confronted General Dwight D. Eisenhower himself and convinced the man to let him go back to his squadron. Ultimately, Yeager flew 61 missions during the war and won scores of awards. Still, he wasn’t done making history.

With everything he’d done in WWII under his belt—plus his vast experience flying and maintaining aircraft—Yeager was eligible to become a test pilot. Once again, Yeager had good timing. He was in the right place at the right time, as the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics was working on a program with a lofty and difficult goal. They wanted to break the sound barrier.

They already had the aircraft, the rocket engine-powered Bell XS-1, but they didn’t have a pilot. Another test pilot who realized how dangerous and potentially impossible the mission was demanded $150,000 (about $1.7 million today) to do it. As a result, the USAF took over and proposed that Chuck Yeager be the one to complete the task.

The task was perilous enough that death was a very real possibility. Despite the danger, Yeager was up for the task—however, a freak accident nearly ended the experiment before it even began. Just two nights out from the big test, Yeager was riding horses with his wife, the famous good-luck charm Glennis, when he fell and broke two ribs.

Yeager knew that the USAF would take him off the mission if they found out what had happened, so he swore his wife and doctor to secrecy, and only told one other pilot, Jack Ridley, about it. It’s a good thing he did, too, because when the time came to get in that aircraft, Yeager immediately ran into a problem. The pain from his cracked ribs prevented him from being able to seal the aircraft’s hatch. Ridley saw him having trouble and used a broom handle to help get the hatch closed. And then, it was time for takeoff.

On October 14, 1947, Chuck Yeager took off in the Bell XS-1 that he’d renamed Glamorous Glennis. While Yeager flew over the Mojave Desert at 45,000 feet, he hit Mach 1.05—becoming the first pilot to break the sound barrier. It was a massive achievement, but Yeager didn’t stop there. In the years following, he broke scores of other aviation records and even defended his title by setting a record speed of Mach 2.44 shortly after another pilot had reached twice the speed of sound. He also stuck with his good luck charm, the famous Glennis. They remained married for 66 years, until her death in 2011.

Sources: 1, 2, 3, 4

Early telephone users did not simply punch in a number. Calls passed through switchboard operators, and customers were reluctant to dial for themselves even after numbered directories appeared. Automatic switching gradually removed that human intermediary.

America’s first mobile telephone service, demonstrated in 1946, was nothing like a cellphone. The equipment filled much of a car’s trunk, and subscribers began calls by speaking to a switchboard operator. By 1948, the service had about 5,000 customers.

Public calling originally involved more human help, too. In the 1880s, someone wanting to make a public call had to find an agent-operated pay station. William Gray’s coin-controlled telephone inventions, patented beginning in 1889, helped turn the public phone into something customers could operate more independently.

Before automated cash machines, withdrawing money generally meant doing business while the bank was open. Cash dispensers appeared in the late 1960s, and Chemical Bank installed an ATM in Rockville Centre, New York, in 1969, bringing automated cash withdrawal to American banking.

Depositing a paper check once commonly meant handing it to a teller or feeding it into an ATM. Remote Deposit Capture moved that task to the phone. The FDIC notes that many banks let customers photograph checks and deposit them electronically without visiting a branch.

Bank employees once handled routine account transactions that customers now perform themselves. Wells Fargo’s history says its website gained account access in 1995, then added functions including transfers between accounts. A branch or phone interaction increasingly became a few clicks.

Online banking also turned bill payment into a self-service job. Wells Fargo says recurring bill payments were among the features added to its early web banking service. Customers could schedule payments directly instead of relying on an employee to arrange the transaction.

Individual investors once typically placed trades by contacting a broker. The SEC says internet-based trading systems arrived in 1995 and expanded rapidly during the late 1990s. Online platforms let customers enter orders themselves, though trades still pass through registered brokerage firms.

Travel agents once served as a gateway to airline schedules, hotel rooms, and rental cars. When Microsoft launched Expedia in 1996, consumers could access reservation information and book air, hotel, and car arrangements online without asking an agent to assemble the itinerary.

Checking in once meant finding an airline employee at the airport. Alaska Airlines says it installed self-service kiosks in 1996 and became the first airline to offer internet check-in in 1999. By 2005, more than half of its customers checked in electronically.

Online travel initially still relied heavily on human support. In 2008, Alaska Airlines introduced “Jenn,” described as the first virtual assistant from a US airline. Natural-language software answered questions and directed customers to information that might otherwise have required an employee.

Calling a restaurant and speaking to a host was once the standard way to reserve a table. OpenTable, founded in 1998, helped pioneer online restaurant reservations, allowing diners to search availability and book without waiting for someone to answer the phone.

Skilled human translators remain essential for many jobs, but basic translation no longer always requires one. Google launched its machine-learning-based Translate service in 2006. It began with limited language pairs and developed into a tool that automatically translates text and other content.

The supermarket itself was once a self-service innovation. In many 19th-century groceries, goods sat behind counters while clerks measured, weighed, and assembled orders. Piggly Wiggly, opened in Memphis in 1916, helped popularize shoppers selecting goods for themselves.

Self-service eventually reached checkout. NCR says it installed its first self-checkout at a U.S. grocery store in 1998. Customers could scan, bag, and pay for purchases themselves, shifting another task traditionally handled by a cashier onto the shopper.

Fast-food ordering followed the same path. McDonald’s has introduced self-order kiosks, mobile ordering, and digital payment tools that let customers choose and customize meals without ordering face-to-face. The cashier counter remains, but it is no longer the only route to food.

For much of the 20th century, filling stations centered on attendants. NACS says remote-access self-service gasoline pumps arrived in Colorado in 1964, when pumping your own fuel was prohibited in most states under fire codes. The model took years to gain broad acceptance.

Riding an elevator once meant relying on an operator. Otis says its Autotronic system, installed in a Dallas office building in 1950, created the world’s first building with high-speed, no-operator elevators. Push-button vertical travel eventually became ordinary.

Tollbooths once meant stopping to hand money or a ticket to a collector. E-ZPass grew from regional experiments with electronic toll collection beginning in the late 1980s. A windshield tag and reader could charge a prepaid account automatically as a vehicle passed.

Mailing many packages once required a post office counter. USPS began deploying Automated Postal Centers in 2004, letting customers weigh parcels, calculate postage, and print labels themselves. Click-N-Ship had already moved label purchasing to home computers in 2002.

A box-office clerk once stood between moviegoers and a seat. By 2007, Comcast described Fandango as a major online destination for showtimes and theater tickets. Buying ahead online turned arriving, waiting in line, and asking what remained into a self-service transaction.

New York’s token booth shows another human middleman fading from a routine transaction. The MTA says station agents worked in booths since the token era, while changes in fare payment ultimately culminated with OMNY. Agents moved out as machines and tap-based payments handled more of the transaction.

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Even the telephone could arrive with homework. The Detroit Historical Society preserves a 1962 Michigan Bell booklet called The Telephone and How to Use It, with 24 illustrated pages explaining calls, long distance, telephone books, and how to get assistance.

A camera guide could be part of the purchase rather than something hunted down later. The Science Museum Group holds a Kodak Retinette 1A 35mm camera from around 1963 together with its case and instruction booklet, preserving the directions alongside the device itself.

Typewriters also had dedicated operating literature. The Smithsonian preserves a 12-page Oliver Typewriter Instruction Book with brown paper covers, showing just how much printed guidance could accompany a familiar-looking office machine.

Early radios could be considerably less self-explanatory than modern speakers. The Smithsonian’s circa-1924 RCA Radiola III had controls for filament rheostat, regeneration, and station selection, and its catalog record references an “Instruction Booklet for Radiola III” kept with the specimen.

TV ownership came with more than a receipt. The Putnam Museum archive lists Hoffman television owner’s manuals alongside 1951 receipts, warranty registration, and product brochures, leaving behind an unusually complete paper record of purchasing and owning the set.

Multi-speed record players were not always a one-button affair. The Morawa Historical Society Museum’s domestic-appliance collection includes a four-page owner’s manual for the Toshiba SR-A115 stereo turntable, one of numerous printed operating guides preserved by the museum.

Family slideshow night had its own learning curve. The Science Museum Group’s Aldis Minor projector survives with an eight-page instruction booklet bearing a handwritten 1953 date, plus a separate operating card marked “Caution”.

A slide rule was compact, but its mathematical scales were hardly self-explanatory. The Smithsonian’s Keuffel & Esser 4097C, sold from the 1930s into the early 1950s, is documented with a separate instruction booklet associated with the model.

The Timex Sinclair 1000 came with a lot more than a keyboard. The Smithsonian’s example includes a power supply, television connector, and instruction manual; the machine used a TV as its monitor, stored data on cassette tape, and supported BASIC programming.

The Commodore VICMODEM Model 1600 shows how physical early networking could be. Smithsonian records say its package included a telephone-interface cartridge, a VICTERM program cassette, an instruction booklet, and the original box.

Gaming could require substantial reading, too. The Science Museum Group preserves a 35-page instruction booklet for the Magnavox Odyssey, made between 1972 and 1975, showing how much printed guidance could accompany an early home video-game system.

A circa-1947 Steam-O-Matic iron in the Smithsonian collection had fabric settings, a water opening, a detachable cord, and a speed control. It also survives with an instruction manual, which records the appliance’s original price as $18.95.

Automatic washing did not eliminate the need for directions. Museum Wales holds a 1960s 12-page booklet for the Hoover Keymatic de-luxe automatic washing machine, specifically described as giving instructions for the use and care of the machine.

Vacuum cleaners could come with dedicated reading material. The Morawa Historical Society Museum catalogs a 12-page December 1972 instruction book for the Electrolux Solamatic cleaning system, among a much larger collection of domestic-appliance manuals.

Refrigerators also received detailed paperwork. The Science Museum Group preserves a Prestcold Refrigeration Instruction Book for Model S472 alongside related material including a wiring guide and a brochure titled How to Get the Best from Your Prestcold 'Fridge'.

Some appliance manuals doubled as cookbooks. The Smithsonian describes General Electric’s circa-1954 Let’s Get Acquainted with Your Hotpoint Electric Range as both a recipe book and an instruction manual, complete with menus, rack placement, and directions for cooking several dishes together.

The Waring Mixor shows how instruction and inspiration could share a booklet. A circa-1952 example in the Smithsonian remains in its original cardboard box with a recipe-and-instruction guide, while the mixer itself offered three speed settings.

Pressure cookers could come with substantial reading material. Hackney Museum preserves a Presto pressure-cooker booklet dated to roughly 1955–1963 that runs 64 pages and combines recipes with operating instructions.

Food processors also received purpose-built printed guidance. The Smithsonian’s Product Cookbooks Collection includes Cuisinart’s How to Use Your Cuisinart Food Processor from 1973, documenting a guide specifically devoted to operating the kitchen appliance.

Even backyard grilling came with lessons on paper. The Smithsonian preserves a Weber-Stephen publication titled Recipe and Instruction Book: 59 Great Recipes for Covered Cooking the Weber Way, combining product instruction with dishes designed for covered grilling.

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Richard III was remembered as the deformed usurper who took out his nephews for England’s throne. Tudor accounts and Shakespeare hardened that image, but the princes’ fate remains unresolved. The discovery of Richard’s remains also disproved the theatrical hunchback: he had scoliosis.

Anne Boleyn’s life was taken in 1536 after accusations of adultery, and plotting against Henry VIII. Modern historians generally regard those charges as contrived. Much of her darker reputation came from hostile observers and political enemies whose accounts long shaped the story.

Jane Boleyn, Lady Rochford, spent centuries being accused of supplying testimony that destroyed her husband George and Anne Boleyn. Yet no contemporary source clearly identifies Jane as the decisive accuser. Recent scholarship increasingly treats the jealous-wife story as a later construction.

Roman propaganda turned Cleopatra into a dangerous seductress who manipulated powerful men. Much of that image came from Octavian’s campaign against her and Mark Antony. Modern scholarship instead emphasizes a capable monarch trying to preserve Egyptian power against an expanding Rome.

Marie Antoinette became shorthand for aristocratic indifference, helped by the claim that she answered bread shortages with “Let them eat cake”. Historians have found no evidence she said it; versions of the story circulated before she was queen and were attached to other royal women.

Catherine de’ Medici was long portrayed as a poisoner, schemer, and mastermind of religious bloodshed. Historians now challenge many lurid stories attached to her, including black magic and organized seduction, while emphasizing her repeated attempts to negotiate between Catholics and Protestants.

China’s only female emperor accumulated accusations of depravity, cruelty, and unnatural ambition. Some may reflect real ruthlessness, but hostile later writers shaped the record. Modern assessments also credit Wu Zetian with political stability, administrative reform, and a more merit-based bureaucracy.

Western Christian tradition fused Mary Magdalene with other women in the Gospels, creating the enduring image of a repentant prostitute. Modern scholarship has separated those identities, while Catholic teaching today emphasizes Mary of Magdala as the first witness to the Resurrection and “apostle of the apostles”.

Nero became a synonym for monstrous rule, especially through the Great Fire of Rome. Yet the British Museum notes he was away when the fire began and later organized relief and reconstruction. Deeply hostile ancient accounts make separating genuine brutality from political propaganda difficult.

Thomas Cromwell was often portrayed as the cold bureaucrat behind Henry VIII’s worst excesses. Later scholarship complicated that picture by stressing his administrative achievements and political skill. His ruthlessness remains real, but the one-note villain increasingly looks inadequate.

Later writers turned Isabella of France into the “She-Wolf of France,” a dangerous queen who destroyed Edward II. The nickname appeared centuries after her lifetime. Historians still debate her responsibility for Edward’s passing, while contemporary evidence shows her reputation was never so simple.

Joan of Arc was convicted of heresy in 1431 and ended after an English-backed church trial. Twenty-five years later, another ecclesiastical proceeding annulled the verdict after finding serious flaws in the original prosecution. Her reputation transformed further until the Catholic Church canonized her in 1920.

Malintzin, often called La Malinche, became a symbol of betrayal because she interpreted for Hernán Cortés during the Spanish conquest. Modern reassessments stress that she had been enslaved and transferred between powerful men. With no writings in her own voice, her motives remain uncertain.

William Kidd entered legend as a swaggering pirate, but he began his career as a privateer and was commissioned to pursue pirates and enemy shipping. He was eventually convicted and executed in 1701. Historians have continued debating the extent of his guilt and how firmly the pirate label fits.

French officer Alfred Dreyfus was convicted of treason in 1894 amid intense antisemitism. Evidence later exposed forgeries and pointed toward another officer, yet Dreyfus endured a second conviction before finally being exonerated in 1906. His case became a classic example of prejudice overriding evidence.

Iva Toguri D’Aquino was convicted of treason in 1949 for wartime broadcasts from Japan and became inseparable from “Tokyo Rose”. Decades later, key witnesses admitted they had lied under pressure from prosecutors. President Gerald Ford pardoned her in 1977 and restored her citizenship.

Supporters of Hawaii’s 1893 overthrow depicted Queen Liliʻuokalani as a threat while American and European business interests helped remove her. A US investigation subsequently concluded that American representatives had improperly aided the overthrow. In 1993, the United States formally apologized for its role.

Aaron Burr is remembered mainly for fatally shooting Alexander Hamilton in their 1804 duel. Historians note that Hamilton left a far richer written archive, while many of Burr’s papers disappeared in an 1813 shipwreck. That imbalance helped shape how later generations remembered both men.

John Brown’s 1859 Harpers Ferry raid made him a danger to many Americans and a martyr to others. His earlier issues in Kansas complicates any rehabilitation. Later generations increasingly placed his actions within his uncompromising campaign to destroy slavery rather than simply dismissing him as insane.

Nat Turner led an 1831 uprising in which followers took out roughly 55 to 60 white people, including women and children. White retaliation then ended scores of Black people, many uninvolved. Modern interpretations place Turner within resistance to slavery while still confronting the rebellion’s deliberate violence.

US officials portrayed Sitting Bull as a dangerous obstacle to assimilation and linked him to the Ghost Dance movement. He was taken out during an attempted arrest in 1890. Later accounts emphasize his resistance to US encroachment and his role as a spiritual and political leader.

Ned Kelly was a convicted felon, admitted stock thief, bank robber, and outlaw, so the darker side of his story is not invented. Yet his Jerilderie Letter described grievances against police and colonial authority, and later Australians turned him into an underdog icon. His reputation remains unresolved: hero, criminal, or both.

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Columbus was long presented mainly as the daring navigator who connected Europe and the Americas. His rule on Hispaniola also involved enslavement, forced labor, violent punishment, and brutal crackdowns against Indigenous people. Spanish authorities eventually investigated complaints about his governance.

Washington remains central to the United States’ founding, but Mount Vernon’s own historians emphasize how deeply his household depended on slavery. He controlled hundreds of enslaved people during his life. His will freed the 123 people he personally owned, showing a late change that did not erase decades of issues.

Jefferson wrote that “all men are created equal” while owning more than 600 enslaved people over his lifetime. Monticello also states that he fathered at least six children with Sally Hemings, an enslaved woman. The gap between his political ideals and private life is now impossible to treat as a footnote.

Jackson’s old image as a rough-hewn champion of popular democracy now sits beside Indian removal. He signed the Indian Removal Act in 1830 and pushed policies that uprooted tens of thousands of Native people. The later Trail of Tears grew directly from the removal system his administration built.

Lincoln’s role in destroying slavery remains enormous, but the “Great Emancipator” portrait can hide how much his thinking changed. For years, including early in his presidency, he supported voluntary colonization schemes encouraging Black Americans to leave the United States before moving toward broader emancipation.

Roosevelt is remembered as a trust-buster, conservationist, and energetic reformer. He also believed in a hierarchy favoring white Europeans, supported American imperial expansion, and endorsed eugenic ideas. Historians have shown those beliefs influenced both his domestic assumptions and foreign policy.

FDR’s leadership through the Great Depression and most of WWII made him one of America’s most celebrated presidents. Yet he signed Executive Order 9066 in 1942, leading to the forced removal and incarceration of about 122,000 Japanese Americans.

Wilson’s reputation once leaned heavily on progressive reform and internationalism. Princeton later removed his name from its public-policy school after reassessing his prejudice, including his administration’s segregation of the federal civil service. His record now looks far less compatible with the democratic ideals he publicly championed.

Churchill’s defiance of Germany in WWII remains central to his heroic image. His imperial and prejudiced attitudes have drawn greater scrutiny, especially around the 1943 Bengal famine. Researchers argue that British wartime policies worsened the catastrophe, although historians still debate the precise degree of Churchill’s personal responsibility.

Gandhi’s philosophy of nonviolent resistance influenced civil-rights movements worldwide. But writings from his South African years include derogatory descriptions of Black Africans and objections to Indians receiving the same treatment. Defenders note that his views evolved, yet the early record complicates his universal moral image.

Mother Teresa became synonymous with selfless service and was canonized in 2016. Critics, including medical observers, questioned hygiene and standards of care in some Missionaries of Charity facilities. Her uncompromising opposition to contraception, abortion, and divorce also complicates the broadly humanitarian image that made her famous.

Ford helped revolutionize mass automobile production and made cars accessible to millions. He also used The Dearborn Independent to circulate antisemitic material, including the notorious “International Jew” series. Ford later apologized and retracted the material, but the episode permanently complicated his image as a visionary industrialist.

Lindbergh became an international hero after his 1927 solo Atlantic flight. Before WWII, however, he became a prominent America First spokesman and delivered a notorious speech blaming Jewish influence for pushing America toward conflict. He had also accepted a medal from Hermann Göring in 1938.

Bell is usually introduced as the inventor associated with the telephone and as a teacher interested in deaf education. His Deaf-community legacy is far more controversial: he opposed sign language, promoted oralism, embraced eugenic thinking, and discouraged deaf people from marrying other deaf people.

Sanger helped make birth control a national political issue and opened America’s first birth-control clinic in 1916. Planned Parenthood now openly acknowledges that she also aligned herself with eugenics and endorsed Buck v. Bell, the Supreme Court decision permitting compulsory sterilization of people labeled “unfit.”

Muir’s writing inspired generations of conservationists and helped protect major American landscapes. The Sierra Club later confronted his derogatory descriptions of Black and Indigenous people. His views evolved, and he later expressed admiration for Indigenous stewardship, making the record more complicated than either pure heroism or simple condemnation.

Einstein became both a scientific icon and an outspoken critic of American inequality. Yet travel diaries from the 1920s revealed prejudiced and dehumanizing comments about Chinese people and others he encountered in Asia. The contrast with his later advocacy has forced a more layered assessment of his humanitarian reputation.

Popular culture often freezes Keller at the childhood moment when Anne Sullivan helped her connect words with the world. Her adult life was far more political: she joined the Socialist Party, advocated workers’ rights, and supported sweeping social change. The inspirational story is real, but incomplete.

Parks was long portrayed as a weary seamstress who spontaneously refused to surrender her bus seat. She rejected that version herself. Parks had years of civil-rights involvement, served as an NAACP secretary, and attended the Highlander Folk School before the Montgomery bus boycott.

Tubman’s Underground Railroad work is legendary, but that familiar story understates her career. During the Civil War she served the Union as a scout, spy, and guide. In 1863 she helped lead the Combahee River Raid, which freed more than 700 enslaved people.

Theodor Geisel’s children’s books made “Dr. Seuss” a symbol of playful imagination. During WWII, however, his political cartoons used prejudiced stereotypes of Japanese people and portrayed Japanese Americans as potential traitors. That work now sits uneasily beside his beloved literary legacy.

Chávez became an icon of nonviolent labor organizing and helped win better conditions for farmworkers. Biographer Miriam Pawel documented his hostility toward undocumented strikebreakers and support for deportations in the 1970s; by the late 1980s, the UFW was helping undocumented workers seek legal status.

Anthony’s name became almost synonymous with women’s suffrage, but the movement she helped lead fractured over race after the Civil War. She opposed the Fifteenth Amendment because it enfranchised Black men

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High society liked to believe it could recognize rank, education, and breeding at a glance. That confidence created an opening. If someone sounded noble, foreign, royal, wealthy, or connected, people were often slow to challenge the story. Deference, snobbery, and embarrassment could all protect a lie.

Here are some of the most notorious imposters throughout history.

In 1817, Mary Baker, also known as Mary Willcocks, appeared near Bristol speaking an unfamiliar language and presenting herself as Princess Caraboo from the island of Javasu. Her story fascinated local residents, including socially prominent hosts who treated her as a royal figure rather than an English impostor.

Caraboo’s hoax worked because the people around her wanted the story to be extraordinary. Translators, hosts, newspapers, and curious visitors helped turn confusion into romance. Once she was treated like a lost princess, every gesture became evidence, feeding the fantasy. 

Caraboo was eventually exposed as a local English woman rather than a foreign princess. That did not make the story disappear. If anything, the exposure made her more famous. Her brief success showed how eagerly respectable people could turn uncertainty into spectacle when the story was strange enough.

In the early 1700s, the man known as George Psalmanazar claimed to be from Formosa, now Taiwan. He created fake customs, a fake language, and a sensational description of a place most English readers could not easily verify. His invented expertise made him a curiosity among educated and religious circles.

Psalmanazar did not rely on vague claims. He supplied maps of behavior, customs, alphabets, food rules, and shocking religious practices. Many of the details were bizarre, but that helped rather than hurt him. To audiences who expected distant places to seem strange, absurdity could look like authenticity.

Psalmanazar eventually admitted he had invented the Formosa story. That later confession makes him especially revealing. He was not just someone who lied once and vanished. He became a living example of how curiosity, limited knowledge, and elite confidence could turn a fabricated identity into temporary authority.

In the 1490s, Perkin Warbeck claimed to be Richard, Duke of York, one of the vanished Princes in the Tower. That was not a harmless story. If accepted, it threatened Henry VII’s claim to the throne. Warbeck’s identity claim drew attention from European courts and revived dangerous Yorkist hopes.

Warbeck did not need everyone to believe him sincerely. He needed enough powerful people to find him useful. Margaret of Burgundy supported him, and other rulers entertained his claim when it served anti-Tudor politics. In royal Europe, an impostor could become a threat even when doubts remained.

Lambert Simnel was a boy pushed forward by Yorkist supporters during Henry VII’s reign. He was presented as Edward, Earl of Warwick, and crowned in Dublin by people who wanted to challenge Tudor rule. Simnel himself was likely less mastermind than instrument, a child used by ambitious adults.

After Simnel’s cause collapsed at the Battle of Stoke in 1487, Henry VII did not execute him. Instead, the king placed him in the royal household, reportedly first in the kitchens and later as a falconer. The message was clever and brutal: a fake king could be reduced to a servant.

The man later known as False Dmitry I claimed to be Dmitry, the supposedly dead son of Ivan the Terrible. During Russia’s Time of Troubles, he gained enough support to enter Moscow and become tsar. His case was not just social deception. For a short time, imposture became state power.

False Dmitry’s rise depended on more than personal charisma. Russia was shaken by dynastic uncertainty, famine, elite rivalry, and distrust of Boris Godunov. In that atmosphere, a surviving royal heir could sound plausible to people desperate for change. The fake prince succeeded because the system was already unstable.

In the 1770s, a mysterious woman known as Princess Tarakanova claimed a connection to the Russian imperial family. Her story changed across Europe, but it drew enough attention that Catherine the Great’s government treated her as a political danger. She was eventually captured and apprehended by Russian authorities.

Tarakanova’s story is tangled with romance, rumor, propaganda, and later artistic myth. That uncertainty is part of what makes her useful here. She did not have to produce perfect proof. In aristocratic Europe, a mysterious woman with a possible royal claim could attract attention before evidence caught up.

In the 1820s, Scottish adventurer Gregor MacGregor promoted himself as the “Cazique” of Poyais, a supposed Central American territory with institutions, fertile land, and investment potential. In Britain, he sold bonds, land certificates, and colonial dreams tied to a country that existed mainly in his promotional materials.

MacGregor’s scheme did not look like a carnival trick. It came with maps, books, offices, titles, and financial language. Investors believed they were buying into empire, settlement, and opportunity. The fraud was powerful because it wrapped fantasy in the respectable clothes of development and finance.

Cassie Chadwick, born Elizabeth Bigley in Canada, convinced lenders and acquaintances that she was Andrew Carnegie’s illegitimate daughter. That supposed secret inheritance opened doors and credit lines. Her claims worked because the Carnegie name suggested hidden wealth, social access, and almost unlimited financial backing.

Chadwick used forged documents, private hints, and the promise of discretion, but greed did much of the work. Bankers who imagined themselves close to Carnegie money had reasons not to ask too many questions. Her lie survived because people wanted the secret to be profitable.

Anna Anderson was the most famous woman to claim she was Grand Duchess Anastasia, daughter of Russia’s last tsar. After the Romanov murders, the idea that one daughter might have survived was emotionally powerful. Some relatives and émigrés rejected her, but others defended the possibility for decades.

Anderson’s claim lasted because longing, trauma, and uncertainty can outlive ordinary evidence. But DNA testing in the 1990s showed she was not related to the Romanovs and supported the identification of her as Franziska Schanzkowska. Science ended a story that rumor and grief had kept alive.

In Victorian Britain, a man from Australia claimed to be Sir Roger Tichborne, a missing heir from a wealthy Catholic family. He was widely identified as Arthur Orton, the son of a Wapping butcher, but Lady Tichborne accepted him. The case became a massive legal and social spectacle.

The claimant’s appearance, manners, language, and education did not fit the missing Sir Roger neatly. Yet supporters treated objections as snobbery, conspiracy, or family cruelty. The case showed how an impostor could become a movement. Once identity became political, contradictions could strengthen belief instead of weakening it.

Alessandro Cagliostro, born Giuseppe Balsamo, moved through 18th-century Europe as an occult healer, Freemason, and self-fashioned noble figure. He used ritual, secrecy, performance, and claims of hidden knowledge to impress people who wanted access to something rare. Mystery became his social passport.

Cagliostro’s act worked because he made doubt feel unsophisticated. If followers wanted ancient wisdom, secret orders, cures, and aristocratic glamour, demanding ordinary proof could seem small-minded. He turned vagueness into status, and status helped him keep moving through elite circles.

In colonial America, Sarah Wilson claimed to be Princess Susanna Caroline Matilda, supposedly connected to Queen Charlotte’s family. She exploited distance from the British court, slow communication, and colonial fascination with royalty. Her identity was fake, but the deference it produced was real.

Wilson’s scam worked because verification was slow and awkward. People in the colonies could not easily check the details of European royal households. A woman with courtly claims, clothes, manners, and confidence could turn geography into protection. Distance gave the lie time to breathe.

These frauds did not succeed by confidence alone. They needed hosts, patrons, bankers, courtiers, readers, newspapers, officials, and spectators who helped the stories spread. Some were naive. Some were ambitious. Some probably suspected the truth but found the illusion useful enough to continue.

Historical societies were not without documents. They had letters, seals, introductions, passports, legal papers, church records, and family testimony. But documents could be forged, misunderstood, or socially overruled. A confident impostor could make weak evidence feel sufficient if the story was attractive enough.

Elite manners often made direct questioning difficult. To ask too bluntly might seem rude, vulgar, or insulting. That hesitation gave impostors room to perform. The same etiquette that made drawing rooms appear civilized could also make them strangely easy to manipulate.

Today’s security standards make some old tricks harder, but deception has not vanished. People still fall for status, exclusivity, urgency, celebrity, insider access, and special knowledge. The technology has changed. The emotional weaknesses are familiar.

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Charles Darwin became so closely associated with evolution that his name is practically shorthand for natural selection. Yet he spent years developing his ideas without publishing them. Then another naturalist independently reached a remarkably similar conclusion.

Alfred Russel Wallace sent Darwin a manuscript describing his own theory of natural selection in 1858. Their work was presented together to the Linnean Society, and Darwin published On the Origin of Species the following year. Darwin became the household name, while Wallace remained the far less famous co-discoverer.

By 1903, Wilbur and Orville Wright had solved many of the problems standing between humans and powered flight. One major obstacle remained: they could not find a lightweight engine suitable for their airplane. Their bicycle shop mechanic stepped in.

Charlie Taylor worked with the Wright brothers to build the four-cylinder engine that powered the 1903 Flyer. That engine carried Orville Wright into the air at Kitty Hawk on December 17. The brothers became legends, while the mechanic who supplied their crucial power remained far less famous.

Charles Lindbergh's 1927 solo flight from New York to Paris made him an international sensation. He crossed more than 3,600 miles in the Spirit of St. Louis and won the $25,000 Orteig Prize. But Lindbergh did not build the remarkable airplane that carried him there.

Ryan Airlines engineer Donald Hall was the principal designer of the Spirit of St. Louis. Working closely with Lindbergh, Hall created an aircraft capable of carrying the enormous fuel load needed for the crossing. Lindbergh flew into history, while Hall stayed largely behind the scenes.

Ernest Shackleton's Antarctic expedition went disastrously wrong when the Endurance became trapped and crushed by ice. Yet every member of his stranded party ultimately survived. Shackleton became famous for the rescue, but another man's navigation was essential to it.

Captain Frank Worsley navigated the small James Caird roughly 800 nautical miles across the stormy Southern Ocean. With few reliable sightings available, he still managed to guide the boat toward tiny South Georgia. Shackleton became the celebrated leader, while Worsley's extraordinary feat remained less familiar.

Ferdinand Magellan organized the expedition that became the first to sail around the world. His name remains inseparable from the achievement. There was just one problem: Magellan never completed the journey himself.

Magellan was killed in the Philippines in 1521, leaving the expedition without its original commander. Juan Sebastián Elcano later took command of the Victoria and returned to Spain in September 1522. Magellan started the voyage, but Elcano actually completed the first circumnavigation.

George Washington became the defining military hero of the American Revolution. During the difficult winter at Valley Forge, however, his army still needed better discipline, organization, and standardized training. A Prussian officer arrived at exactly the right time.

Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben introduced standardized drills and personally trained a model company at Valley Forge. His methods spread through the Continental Army and helped make it a more cohesive fighting force. Washington remained the famous commander, but von Steuben helped give him a much stronger army.

Dwight D. Eisenhower became one of World War II's most celebrated Allied commanders, particularly after D-Day. The invasion required huge numbers of troops and vehicles to reach beaches without conventional ports. A New Orleans boatbuilder helped make that possible.

Andrew Higgins developed landing craft with front ramps that could deliver troops and vehicles directly onto beaches. His company produced thousands of vessels used across the war. Eisenhower later called Higgins "the man who won the war for us," yet Higgins never became remotely as famous.

Samuel Morse became synonymous with the telegraph and the dots and dashes of Morse code. His name became so dominant that the invention can seem like a solo achievement. In reality, Alfred Vail was one of his most important collaborators.

Vail helped develop a practical system for sending and receiving electrical signals and improved the telegraph equipment itself. Smithsonian records also credit him with developing the alpha code used with the electromagnetic telegraph. Morse got the famous name, while Vail became a footnote to a system he helped create.

Jean-François Champollion became famous for deciphering Egyptian hieroglyphs in 1822. His knowledge of Coptic allowed him to understand how the ancient writing system represented the Egyptian language. But another scholar had already opened part of the door.

Thomas Young showed that some hieroglyphs on the Rosetta Stone represented sounds in the name Ptolemy. He also identified important connections between hieroglyphic and demotic writing. Champollion ultimately went much further, but Young had already provided several crucial clues.

Thomas Edison built a public image as America's great inventor, and early motion pictures became part of his enormous legacy. His laboratory developed the Kinetograph camera and Kinetoscope viewer. Much of the hands-on work, however, came from one of his employees.

William Kennedy Laurie Dickson performed much of the work on Edison's early motion-picture system beginning in 1888. He helped develop the equipment and participated in some of the earliest experimental films. Edison's name became the brand, while Dickson stayed largely inside film-history books.

Walt Disney built one of the most recognizable entertainment empires in history. Mickey Mouse became its defining character after Disney lost control of Oswald the Lucky Rabbit. But another animator was there when Mickey came to life.

The Smithsonian credits Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks with co-creating Mickey Mouse. Iwerks then produced huge amounts of animation for the earliest Mickey cartoons at remarkable speed. Disney became the public face of the empire, while Iwerks remained far less recognizable.

Alexander Fleming's accidental discovery of penicillin in 1928 became one of medicine's most famous stories. He noticed that mold contaminating a bacterial culture could stop bacterial growth. But Fleming did not turn that discovery into the widely usable medicine that followed.

Howard Florey, Ernst Chain, and their Oxford team later developed ways to concentrate and test penicillin as a treatment. Their work led to animal studies, human trials, and eventually large-scale production. All three men shared the 1945 Nobel Prize, but Fleming became the name most closely associated with penicillin.

James Watson and Francis Crick's 1953 model of DNA's double helix became one of modern science's defining breakthroughs. They later shared the 1962 Nobel Prize with Maurice Wilkins. For decades, Rosalind Franklin's contribution received far less public attention.

Rosalind Franklin used X-ray diffraction to produce important evidence about DNA's structure while working with Raymond Gosling. Her data helped Watson and Crick develop and check their model, while Franklin made major structural insights herself. She died in 1958, but her central role is now far more widely recognized.

Jackie Robinson became a national icon after breaking Major League Baseball's modern color barrier with the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1947. His talent and composure under relentless racist abuse made him one of America's most important athletes. But someone inside baseball first had to create that opportunity.

Dodgers executive Branch Rickey deliberately searched for a Black player capable of succeeding despite enormous hostility. He signed Robinson in 1945 and stood behind the decision to integrate the Dodgers. Robinson carried the burden on the field, but Rickey helped create the opening that changed baseball.

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Like many Romanovs before him, however, he remained ignorant of the threat posed by the revolutionary change bubbling up within his own country until it was too late and, also like many of his kin, eventually fell victim to it in a grisly way…

Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich was born in Tsarskoye Selo, Russia, in the Zubov wing of the Catherine Palace, on May 11, 1857. Sergei was the son of Tsar Alexander II, but he would never succeed his father: he had six older siblings, four of them brothers, all of whom had succession rights before him. But while he didn’t possess a chance at inheritance, he never lacked company.

Sergei’s early years were spent in luxury and childhood bliss. He moved between the Winter Palace in Saint Petersburg and the Romanov’s Crimean retreat property, spending most of his time inseparable from two of his siblings: his younger brother, Paul, and his older sister, Marie. The three remained close their entire lives, and their mother was the glue that bound them.

During these early years, Sergei spent as much time with his mother, Empress Maria Alexandrovna, as he did with his siblings. The children’s mother was not particularly affectionate (though she had a soft spot for her youngest daughter), but nevertheless, she was very close to her three youngest children, perhaps more to them than any of her older kids. The love between the tight-knit junior imperial siblings was evident in their words for one another.

Sergei’s sister, Marie, in particular, adored the young Grand Duke. She would gush about him in her diaries, praising him as “an exceptionally nice young man”, promoting him as a person who “can be recommended one very possible way, not because he is my brother, but because he is an exception among princes”. This description somewhat contradicts later descriptions of the adult Sergei’s demeanor, but perhaps childhood difficulties hardened the innocent boy.

Sergei’s mother suffered for a long time with poor health, and her condition was already declining by the time of the Grand Duke’s birth. As a result, even after he returned to Saint Petersburg to begin his education, Sergei would spent long sojourns abroad with his mother so that she could avoid the toll that Russia’s harsh climate took on her health, including stints in Germany and the South of France. As his mother deteriorated, the young duke retreated inside himself.

By the time his education began, Sergei showed some of the personality traits that would come to define his later public persona. The young duke was shy and withdrawn, though he also displayed an impressive studiousness and natural intelligence. The influence of his ever-present mother was clear too.

Sergei clearly inherited his reserved nature from his mother, herself quite an introverted character as well. Empress Maria was also extremely pious, a quality she passed on to her son: Sergei became very religious in childhood and would remain so for the rest of his life. His horizons did not remain narrow, however.

Sergei’s education began in earnest in the 1870s, and he proved a capable and curious student. His studies instilled in him a lifelong interest in arts and culture, including antiques, art treasures, archaeology, music, and acting. Indeed, the Grand Duke showed quite a bit of creative aptitude: he painted well and was a competent flute player. He also became fluent in several languages. Despite all this, however, Sergei's destiny held only one kind of career.

All male members of the Romanov dynasty were required to pursue a career in the armed forces, and Sergei was no different. He began early in life, becoming colonel-in-chief of the 2nd Battalion Guards Rifles at an impressively young age. A quirk of the imperial family meant that this was not his first leadership position, however.

Romanov family tradition and custom amusingly granted Sergei a military position on the day he was born! The new Romanov baby was also the new colonel-in-chief of the 38th Tobolsk Infantry Regiment, though it would be a few years before he gave his first order. By the time he reached adulthood, it was time for the Grand Duke to officially commit to his dynastic family.

Sergei celebrated his 20th birthday by reaffirming his commitment to his family, his ruler, and the Russian Empire. On April 29, 1877, the Grand Duke swore a solemn oath of allegiance to the emperor and committed to serving him in whatever way the empire saw fit. His timing could not have been better from the Russians’ perspective.

Just five days before Sergei took his oath, the Russo-Turkish conflict of 1877 had broken out. The Grand Duke played a prominent role in the conflict, alongside his tsar father and his brothers, with Sergei serving most of his stint under his brother, Tsarevich Alexander, in southeast Romania. It was there that the Grand Duke would truly prove himself.

Sergei displayed his capability during his service, proving himself and receiving honor for it: he got promoted to colonel and received the Order of St George, awarded to him for courage and bravery in action during a reconnaissance expedition. The younger Romanov proved himself to be a competent and influential force within his family, even as that family began crumbling.

Following the conclusion of the Russo-Turkish conflict, Tsar Alexander II dropped a bombshell on the imperial family when he announced he would neglect his sickly wife, Empress Maria, in favor of starting a new family with his mistress. This caused a massive scandal within the Romanov dynasty, and Sergei, ever the loyal son, sided with his mother in the split. The disharmony within the family foreshadowed a grisly epoch for the Romanovs.

With the dawn of the 1880s, seismic events rocked the Imperial Family, and within two years, Sergei became an orphan. His mother, Empress Maria, finally succumbed to her illnesses in June 1880. The following year, terrorists took out Tsar Alexander II. It was a dramatic turn of events for the Romanovs, and as Sergei’s brother ascended, the Grand Duke found solace in his passions.

Following the demise of his parents, Sergei had had enough of the dramatics of court. Three months after his father’s assassination, the Grand Duke traveled to Palestine to visit Jerusalem and the sacred sites.

There, the studious young duke founded the Imperial Orthodox Palestine Society, an organization dedicated to the preservation of Orthodox shrines in the Holy Land. Sergei took on the role of chairman and patron of the Society, an obligation which he adored, and which reportedly brought him more joy than any other duty. Not that he shunned his other duties…

After the untimely passing of his father, Sergei’s brother, Alexander III, assumed the position of tsar. The Grand Duke ended up playing an influential role in his brother’s reign; the two Romanov boys were very close, and reports suggest Alexander trusted Sergei more than his other brothers. The Grand Duke’s loyalty got rewarded.

Alexander III appointed Sergei as commander of the elite 1st Battalion Preobrazhensky Life Guard Regiment on January 15, 1882. It was a huge honor to serve in this role, which Sergei did loyally for nine years. Importantly, Sergei’s duties involved him introducing his nephew, Tsarevich Nicholas, to army life, which ingratiated him with the future tsar. Indeed, Nicky could have done worse for mentors.

Impressively, Sergei was just 24 years old when his brother appointed him to command. By 1883, the 26-year-old Grand Duke had many admirers in his ranks. Contemporaries described him as intelligent, well-read, and refined. However, he also remained quite reserved, as he had been in childhood, and people struggled to connect personally with the colonel. Nevertheless, he cut something of an imposing figure.

Sergei, like many Romanovs, stood at a towering height: the Grand Duke was over six feet tall, though, unlike his burly emperor brother, the young man was extremely thin. His choice to wear a corset, in the style of Prussian officers, only accentuated his weedy build. And though he was lanky, he wasn’t difficult to look at.

Sergei was certainly easy on the eyes as far as Romanovs went. He wore his hair closely cropped and his beard neat, cutting an impressive figure in his imperial duties. The Grand Duke of Hesse, Sergei’s brother-in-law, described him as “tall and fair with delicate features and beautiful light green eyes”. Another noble went further still.

While Sergei impressed most who met him with his dapper look, some who crossed his path were practically fawning. After meeting him in Moscow, the Duchess of Marlborough, Consuelo Vanderbilt, gushed that the Grand Duke was “one of the most handsome men I have ever seen”. Despite all this praise, however, Sergei remained humble—often to a fault.

All the praise Sergei received for his looks merely bounced off the reserved Grand Duke: for his entire adult life, he remained very self-conscious, a trait which caused him to hold himself stiffly and keep a hard expression in his eyes.

Sergei’s uncomfortable nature meant that he always stood very straight, and many observed that he would constantly turn his jeweled ring around his finger in a sign of social discomfort. Some mistook his rigid nature for pride. But if anything, the Grand Duke felt unwarranted shame.

Like his mother before him, Sergei’s health became seriously compromised after a bout of osteoarticular tuberculosis that caused his joints to wear and deteriorate over time. Sadly, the Grand Duke felt much shame for this condition, which he had no control over, and always sought to conceal it from others. Despite all this hardship, however, his reserved nature was indeed central to his true character.

Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich was indeed shy and reserved by nature, but he was something of a wet blanket too. He greatly disapproved of fashionable society and what he saw as its lax, overly liberal ways, and he made no secret of this disapprobation. And though he was largely quiet, it was quite scary when he did speak up.

For all his reservedness, Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich did not deal with any kind of criticism, or disagreement with his position, very well. He found it incredibly difficult to tolerate opposition and had a tendency to lose his temper easily in the face of reproval. This hypersensitivity influenced how he ran his household too.

In his home, Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich was a slave driver: he insisted on discipline, order, and tidiness within his household. This made things difficult for those who shared his home, leading to a contradiction of feelings.

This was best summed up by his niece, who described him as “dry, nervous, short of speech, impatient, he had none of the rather careless good humor of his three elder brothers ... but for all that we loved him, felt irresistibly attracted to him, hard though he could be”. But who were these long-suffering members of his household…?

In 1884, Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich married Princess Elisabeth of Hesse and by Rhine, the granddaughter of Queen Victoria of Great Britain. It was not exactly a storybook romance: the Grand Duke and Princess were first cousins once removed and had known one another all their lives, but both were quite hesitant to marry one another at first.

Elisabeth even rejected his first proposal. She relented after the two spent some time together, however, and the couple married at the Winter Palace on February 26, 1884. The public record of the union basically ends there.

Sergei’s marriage is unique among Romanov unions in that it is barely documented; his private papers got destroyed, leading many to believe his marriage was unhappy. The few surviving records disprove this, however, as they suggest that the union was happy in its own way and that, at the very least, the couple continued sharing a bed their entire married life. Proof of consummation is less certain, however.

Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich and Elisabeth sired no biological children together. They did foster the children of Sergei’s brother Paul, however, after the younger Grand Duke got banished from Russia following a morganatic marriage. Sergei was strict but devoted and affectionate to his niece and nephew, and they spoke positively of him in their diaries. Rumors suggest there may be a reason the Grand Duke never had children of his own…

Most historians agree that Sergei was almost certainly gay, or bisexual. Russian statesman Count Witte wrote that the Grand Duke “was always surrounded by comparatively young men, who were excessively affectionate towards him”, and he was not the only one who reported such behavior. Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich, of course, was never open about this, given the attitudes of the time and the conflicts with his religious beliefs. Fortunately for him, his secret did not hinder his career.

Throughout his life, Sergei’s military career marched on, and he saw much success (from nepotism, in part, though he was quite a competent leader). The 1880s saw his role occupying an increasing chunk of his time, and in 1889, army brass promoted the Grand Duke to the rank of major general. His tsar brother appointed him to another important position too.

Alexander III adopted a repressive policy, and the tsar needed a like-minded man to enforce it in Imperial Russia’s second city. To that end, Sergei was appointed governor general of Moscow in the spring of 1891. The Grand Duke accepted the role with some reservations; he and his wife were fond of their quiet Saint Petersburg life and were reluctant to give it up. Still, duty came over comfort for Sergei, and he got down to the work asked of him.

Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich served as governor general of Moscow for 14 long years, and in that time, he helped the tsar enact repressive conservative policies. This made him a polarizing figure among the citizenry of Moscow and the Russian intelligentsia in general. His actions as governor were certainly odious.

Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich began his tenure as governor with a deplorable bang: he expelled an astonishing 20,000 Jews from Moscow, as part of the tsar’s antisemitic political philosophy. This systematic expulsion involved violence and pogroms against the vulnerable Jewish communities of the city and resulted in mass displacement and the ruin of many of Moscow’s most lucrative industries. Sergei’s reactionary policies didn’t stop there.

The Grand Duke continued his deplorable rule by repressing a nascent student movement, placing severe restrictions on students and professors at universities in an attempt to eliminate revolutionary ideas. This only sank his popularity among the intelligentsia, though conservative citizens obviously felt pleased with the state’s policy of conspiracy prevention. Sergei’s actions reflected the broader worldview of his brother’s odious regime.

History rightly regards Sergei as an outsized political reactionary, as was the government of Alexander III at large. The two Romanov brothers were conservative hardliners with an unshakeable belief in a strong, nationalist Russia, and the country’s citizens suffered greatly as a result of their backwards views. Despite this regression, however, the governor general was not completely irredeemable.

Proving that people are more complicated than their political identities would have you believe, Sergei seemed to care deeply about Moscow’s poor (as long as they weren’t Jewish). He and his wife would often discuss ways to address the poverty they saw in the city, and he really did see it: the Grand Duke would occasionally tour the city incognito to personally observe the conditions of his people. He put his money where his mouth was too.

Throughout his life, Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich patronized welfare organizations that sought to help Russia’s poorest gentiles. He even chaired some of these organizations, including the Moscow Society for the Care, Upbringing, and Education of Blind Children and the Society for Homeless, Neglected Children, and Convicted Adolescents. Perhaps it was this ability to balance the conservative with the compassionate that kept him relevant beyond his brother’s reign.

Tsar Alexander III passed on November 1, 1984, which meant that his son, Nicholas II, was now the Emperor of Russia. Sergei had always enjoyed a close relationship with his nephew, and Nicky returned this affection in kind: the Grand Duke remained as influential a presence during his nephew’s reign as he had been during his brother’s. He even set the new tsar up with his wife.

Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich and his wife, Elisabeth, put their heads together to shore up their positions, and the standing of the Duchess’ family as well, by promoting Elisabeth’s sister as a potential marriage candidate for Tsar Nicholas. Because of Nicky’s close relationship with his uncle, he enthusiastically agreed and wed Princess Alix of Hesse on November 26, 1894. The union resulted in an odd familial fact.

In a classic quirk of imperial family intermarrying, Sergei now possessed a dual relation to Tsar Nicholas II following his nephew’s marriage to his wife’s sister: he was now both the emperor’s uncle and brother-in-law. For better or worse, Sergei and the tsar found themselves permanently tied to one another. This territory came with some reputational damage.

As per tradition, the Emperor and Empress received their coronation in Moscow, meaning Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich, as governor general, ended up in charge of organizing the festivities. The Grand Duke approved plans for the ceremony to be held in Khodynka Field, an area normally used for military training which was, thus, crisscrossed with ditches.

Half a million people from all over Russia traveled for the coronation, but despite this, Sergei dispatched only one small detachment of police to maintain order. This, of course, came back to bite him: during a rush of confusion, many in the crowd tripped on the uneven ground, causing a stampede which cost the lives of over 1300 souls. Many partially blamed Sergei for the Khodynka Tragedy, seriously damaging his reputation. Of course, it hardly affected his career.

Sergei’s slip-up with Khodynka barely hindered his political rise at all, at least not with his fellow nobles. In 1894, the tsar made the Grand Duke a member of the State Council, his supreme advisory body, and a pre-cursor to Russia’s upper house of parliament. Nicholas II placed him on the Council to counterbalance the ministers who would go against the tsar’s preferred policies. His actions in government had few fans on either side.

Though most correctly viewed Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich as a reactionary, the truth was not as simple as that: he did desire improvements for the Russian people, and strove for these improvements, which angered conservatives. The Grand Duke could please no one, however, as progressive radicals also hated him for his blocking of revolutionary reforms, changes he believed Russia was not “ready” for. Despite his unpopularity, however, he continued to consolidate power.

1896 saw another successful jump in position for the Grand Duke: he got promoted to lieutenant general and appointed commander of the Moscow Military District, tightening his control over the city even further. This role seemed to suit Sergei much more than his political one…

As time wore on, the revolutionary mood in Russia grew alongside dissatisfaction with the tsarist regime, and Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich noticed. Few around him seemed to share his awareness, however, and he grew disillusioned with the situation. After 13 years in the position, the Grand Duke resigned as governor general of Moscow, though he remained in command of the city’s military district. His private(r) life proved not all that fulfilling.

Shortly after his resignation, Sergei, his wife, and their foster children moved to the Nicholas Palace, an imperial property within the safety of the Kremlin. With revolutionary fervor increasingly on the rise, the Grand Duke’s detectives advised him to remain within the palace, an order with which he obliged, meaning he and his wife rarely ventured outside. He was right to be careful, but one slip-up proved to be his downfall.

By February 15, 1905, the (ultimately doomed) Russian Revolution of 1905 was in full swing, and Sergei defiantly decided that if his demise was the will of God, no amount of security would prevent it. That evening, he ventured with his family to a concert at the Bolshoi Theater.

A revolutionary organization known as the SRRs got word of Sergei’s route, and after tracking the Grand Duke to ensure his wife and children would be safe from attack, an SSR terrorist took Sergei out with a bomb just outside the Kremlin. It was a gruesome scene.

Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich was just 47 at the time of his assassination, and his demise was decisive: the explosion left a grisly scene, with the Grand Duke’s carriage completely disintegrated, his bloodstained clothes scattered all over the snow, and his body thoroughly mutilated.

Reportedly, some of the Grand Duke’s fingers landed on the roof of a nearby building, still adorned with his lavish jewelry. It was a grim ending for a man who recognized the danger of the moment, but failed to convince those around him, and life only got worse from there for the Romanovs.

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In 1912, amateur archaeologist Charles Dawson announced that skull fragments found near Piltdown, England, might belong to an ancient human ancestor. The discovery seemed enormous. Here, apparently, was evidence filling a frustrating gap in human evolution—and Dawson suddenly found himself at the center of British science.

Piltdown Man was actually assembled from human skull fragments and an orangutan jaw, with teeth altered and bones stained to appear ancient. The fraud survived for decades before testing exposed it. Modern investigations strongly point toward Dawson himself as the central forger.

Tobacco dealer George Hull was irritated by people who took biblical stories about giants literally, so he decided to manufacture one. He had a roughly ten-foot stone figure created, artificially aged it, and arranged for it to be buried on his cousin William Newell's farm in Cardiff, New York.

When workers conveniently “discovered” the Cardiff Giant in 1869, crowds arrived almost immediately. Some visitors thought it was a petrified ancient man. Others simply enjoyed the spectacle. Hull eventually confessed, but not before the fake giant became one of America's biggest attractions—and inspired P.T. Barnum to make his own copy.

New York Sun reporter Richard Adams Locke is generally credited with one of journalism's most entertaining fabrications. In 1835, the newspaper began publishing reports claiming famous astronomer John Herschel had observed extraordinary creatures living on the Moon through a powerful new telescope.

Readers were treated to lunar bison, strange landscapes, temples, and most famously, winged humanoids. Herschel really was conducting astronomical research in South Africa, giving the fiction just enough credibility. The Sun gained enormous attention, while the very real Herschel found himself answering questions about imaginary moon people.

In 1726, Englishwoman Mary Toft claimed she had begun giving birth to rabbit parts. It sounds impossible now, and plenty of people thought so then. Yet Toft's story reached prominent doctors, royal physicians, the press, and eventually King George I himself. Britain became fascinated by the “Rabbit Woman.”

Several respected physicians examined Toft and accepted at least parts of her unbelievable story. The scheme collapsed after evidence emerged that rabbits were being secretly supplied. Toft confessed, saying her mother-in-law had helped devise the fraud. The doctors who had endorsed her claims became national punchlines.

In the 1860s, William Mumler became famous for photographs showing ghostly figures standing behind living customers. At a time when photography still seemed almost magical, the images looked remarkably convincing. Grieving families came to him hoping to see departed relatives, including Mary Todd Lincoln.

Professional photographers investigated Mumler and struggled to determine exactly how he produced his eerie images. He was eventually prosecuted for fraud but acquitted. His precise methods remain debated, making his story especially interesting: investigators suspected trickery, yet proving exactly how the trick worked was another matter.

In 1917, cousins Elsie Wright and Frances Griffiths took photographs appearing to show them playing with tiny fairies near Cottingley, England. The pictures eventually escaped the family album and reached adults eager to believe they were genuine evidence of supernatural beings.

Sherlock Holmes creator Arthur Conan Doyle became one of the photographs' most famous believers, helping give the story enormous credibility. Decades later, the cousins admitted the fairies had been paper cutouts held in place with hat pins, although Frances continued claiming one photograph was genuine.

Teenager William Henry Ireland knew exactly what his Shakespeare-obsessed father wanted most: undiscovered Shakespeare documents. Beginning in the 1790s, Ireland started producing them himself, supposedly uncovering signatures, letters, poems, books, and even a romantic letter from Shakespeare to Anne Hathaway.

Ireland became increasingly ambitious and produced an entire supposedly lost Shakespeare play called Vortigern. Astonishingly, it reached London's Drury Lane Theatre in 1796. Scholars raised doubts, the play was ridiculed, and Ireland's growing mountain of Shakespearean treasures finally collapsed under scrutiny.

German forger Konrad Kujau already had experience creating fake Nazi memorabilia when he began manufacturing what appeared to be Adolf Hitler's private diaries. He copied Hitler's handwriting, aged materials, and produced volume after volume, creating exactly the kind of historical discovery publishers dream about.

In 1983, Stern magazine announced the diaries as an extraordinary discovery. Respected historian Hugh Trevor-Roper initially endorsed them, and international publications scrambled for rights. Then forensic testing found postwar materials. The diaries were fake, the newspapers were humiliated, and Kujau eventually went to prison.

Writer Clifford Irving made a wonderfully reckless gamble in the early 1970s. He claimed reclusive billionaire Howard Hughes had secretly authorized him to write Hughes's autobiography. Irving produced forged letters and convincing details, persuading publisher McGraw-Hill and handwriting experts that the project was genuine.

Irving's plan depended on one assumption: Hughes hated publicity so much that he would never personally deny the story. Unfortunately for Irving, Hughes joined a telephone press conference in January 1972 and said he had never met him. Irving eventually confessed and served time in prison.

In 1996, physicist Alan Sokal submitted a deliberately nonsensical article about quantum physics and postmodern theory to the academic journal Social Text. He packed it with impressive language, questionable arguments, and ideas he believed the editors would find appealing. They published it.

Sokal quickly revealed that his article had been a parody designed to test academic standards. The resulting argument became bigger than the original prank, with scholars debating peer review, intellectual fashion, scientific literacy, and whether deliberately deceiving an academic journal actually proved what Sokal claimed it proved.

English artists Doug Bower and Dave Chorley began making crop circles in the 1970s after joking about creating evidence of a flying-saucer landing. Using surprisingly basic equipment, including ropes and boards, they flattened crops into shapes that soon attracted believers, researchers, and plenty of reporters.

The funniest part was that the idea escaped its creators. Crop circles grew increasingly complicated as other makers joined in, while theories involving aliens, mysterious energies, and secret technologies multiplied. Bower and Chorley eventually revealed what they had been doing, demonstrating how simple tools could produce supposedly inexplicable formations.

Misha Defonseca's 1997 memoir told an astonishing story. She said that, as a Jewish child during World War II, she crossed Europe searching for her deported parents, survived with wolves, entered the Warsaw Ghetto, and killed a German soldier. The book became an international success.

Genealogical research eventually showed major parts of Defonseca's story were false. She had been raised Catholic and attended school in Brussels during years when the memoir placed her wandering across Europe. Her parents really were resistance members killed by the Nazis, but in 2008, Defonseca acknowledged her remarkable survival story was not literally true.

Some probably would. DNA testing could destroy Piltdown Man quickly, digital archives could expose Kujau's historical mistakes, and online genealogists might dismantle a false memoir within days. But modern hoaxers also have AI imagery, fake accounts, instant distribution, and enormous audiences. Technology improves the detectives—and the deceivers.

The strangest lesson from famous hoaxes isn't that earlier generations were foolish. Doctors, historians, editors, and scientists usually fell because the evidence arrived wrapped in something believable. Today's tools may be different, but curiosity, ambition, confirmation bias, and the hunger for a spectacular story haven't gone anywhere. That's why the next great hoax may already be circulating.

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Every child is eventually exposed to ideas about gods, spirits, purpose and what happens after life ends. But do those ideas begin entirely outside the child? Or is something already happening inside the developing mind that makes certain answers feel more natural than others?

Researchers cannot simply ask a newborn whether God exists. Babies do not understand religious doctrine, and they cannot express a reasoned rejection of it. Consequently, most studies behind this debate involve preschoolers and school-age children—not babies in maternity wards contemplating the universe.

Under the broadest definition, an atheist is simply someone who lacks belief in any gods. A newborn certainly lacks an articulated belief in God. But if atheism means consciously believing that gods do not exist, babies cannot be atheists either. They have not reached either conclusion.

Instead of asking babies about religion directly, cognitive scientists began studying the mental tendencies that later make religious or nonreligious beliefs possible. They examined how children understand purpose, invisible minds, extraordinary powers, life after death and the difference between reality and fiction.

Over three years, Oxford’s £1.9 million Cognition, Religion and Theology Project brought together 57 researchers who conducted more than 40 studies across 20 countries. The project was not designed to prove or disprove God. It examined whether religious ideas were entirely taught or partly rooted in ordinary human cognition.

Project leaders said the combined findings suggested that humans were naturally predisposed to believe in gods and an afterlife. Psychologist Justin Barrett later popularized the argument in a book with the provocative title Born Believers. Predictably, the claim attracted attention from believers, atheists and plenty of skeptical researchers.

Barrett stressed that finding an idea easy to think does not make that idea true. A cognitive predisposition is not evidence that God exists, nor does it mean children arrive believing a particular religion. It simply means certain religious concepts may fit comfortably into the way young minds already work.

Psychologist Deborah Kelemen found that young children frequently favor purpose-based explanations for the natural world. Adults understand that chairs are made for sitting but mountains were not necessarily made for climbing. Children are much more willing to place both kinds of objects into the same purposeful category.

In one memorable experiment, children considered why prehistoric rocks were pointy. Many preferred an explanation suggesting the rocks were shaped that way so animals would not sit on them, rather than one involving material gradually accumulating. To those children, the rocks’ usefulness helped explain why they existed.

Kelemen repeated elements of the research with British children, who were growing up in a less religious national culture than their American counterparts. The British children also showed broad purpose-based reasoning. That suggested the tendency could not be dismissed as nothing more than exposure to America’s comparatively religious culture.

Purpose-based thinking did not disappear with age. Under time pressure, professional physical scientists accepted 29% of scientifically unwarranted purpose-based explanations, compared with 15% when they were not rushed. Even extensive scientific training could not entirely silence the instinct.

A child who thinks mountains exist for climbing has not necessarily imagined a divine mountain designer. Purpose-based thinking may make design explanations easier to accept, but researchers cannot jump directly from one to the other. It is a possible cognitive foundation for religious belief—not religious belief itself.

In a study of 55 British children, purpose-based reasoning was correlated with intelligent-design intuitions. Children endorsed an intelligent agent for 66% of questions about animals. But the study was small and correlational, so it could not show that children possess an innate concept of God.

Another theory focuses on our remarkable sensitivity to agency. Human minds are built to notice living beings, follow their intentions and determine what they might do next. Some researchers argue that this system can become overactive, encouraging people to detect an unseen mind behind events that have no intentional cause.

Recognizing agency is essential for navigating a world filled with other people. However, noticing a possible agent does not automatically create gods, worship or theology. The proposed connection is plausible, but researchers continue debating how strongly agency detection actually predicts religious belief outside carefully designed experiments.

Researchers also tested what children believe different minds can know. In classic experiments, children were shown boxes whose contents could not be seen. Younger children sometimes assumed their mothers and God both knew what was inside, even though neither had been given a chance to look.

As children grew older, they learned that their mothers could be mistaken or uninformed. Yet some continued granting God accurate knowledge. Researchers suggested children might find an all-knowing supernatural mind easier to understand than the limited human minds they encountered every day. It sounded like strong evidence for natural belief.

Later work found a less straightforward developmental pattern. At one stage, children attributed humanlike limitations to ordinary people, God and fictional extraordinary agents alike. Only older children consistently granted special minds knowledge that did not depend on seeing. Understanding extraordinary minds appeared to require development and information.

Even children who knew that God could see inside a closed box had not necessarily grasped omniscience. Truly understanding an all-knowing being means imagining knowledge of everything, including the past, future and every unspoken thought. The studies tested a much narrower ability involving hidden objects.

Researchers then asked whether children naturally separate the mind from the body. If children easily imagine thoughts and emotions continuing after physical life ends, perhaps afterlife beliefs do not need to be invented from scratch. One unusual puppet show produced evidence that initially appeared to support exactly that possibility.

In studies involving American and Spanish children, a puppet mouse was eaten by an alligator. Researchers confirmed that the children understood the mouse was no longer alive, then asked whether it still needed food, felt hungry, loved its mother, wanted to go home or remembered its brother.

Children were generally more willing to say biological functions had ended than to say thoughts, emotions and desires had disappeared. Even when they understood that the mouse no longer needed food, some still said it could feel hungry. The mind appeared harder for them to switch off than the body.

Spanish children attending Catholic school were generally more likely to say functions continued than children attending a secular school. Both groups showed a similar pattern across different kinds of questions, but religious exposure shifted their overall responses. Intuition and instruction appeared to be working together.

Anthropologists Rita Astuti and Paul Harris studied the Vezo of Madagascar, whose culture includes extensive beliefs and rituals involving ancestors. Yet by age seven, Vezo children generally said both bodily and mental processes stopped at death. Adults were more likely to endorse continued mental existence in contexts involving ancestral rituals.

Vezo participants responded differently depending on whether a story emphasized a physical body or an ancestral tomb. Biological and spiritual understandings could coexist inside the same person, with context determining which one appeared. Religious belief had not simply replaced biological knowledge—or emerged automatically before it.

Another study presented religious, realistic and fantastical stories to children from religious and nonreligious backgrounds. Children without religious exposure generally treated characters involved in miraculous events as fictional. Their responses offered little support for the idea that children spontaneously accept supernatural beings as real.

In another study of 107 children ages five to ten, religious beliefs occupied a middle ground. Children treated religious disagreements as less objectively settled than factual disagreements but more objective than differences in personal preference. Even young children did not simply classify every religious claim as an ordinary fact.

Researchers compared children from secular and Christian communities in mainland China. Both groups confidently accepted invisible scientific entities such as germs and oxygen. Their responses to God, heaven and angels were dramatically different: Christian children expressed confidence, while secular children were generally skeptical.

The Chinese children’s beliefs broadly mirrored those of the adults around them. Christian children resembled Christian adults, while secular children resembled secular adults. Early cognitive tendencies may make supernatural ideas understandable, but cultural testimony appeared central in determining whether children regarded particular supernatural entities as real.

One small U.S. study of 25 parent-child pairs found that when parents expressed greater uncertainty while discussing supernatural beings, children also reported less confidence in those beings’ existence. Conversations, rituals, stories, schools and subtle signals about what adults consider real all help construct belief.

Children with religious exposure were more willing than secular children to classify characters in miraculous stories as real. They were also somewhat more accepting of extraordinary events in unrelated fantastical stories. The association suggested culture might shape what feels possible, although the study could not prove that religious instruction caused the difference.

A 2025 study examined more than 200,000 adults across 22 countries. Adults who reported attending religious services weekly at age 12 were 29% more likely to believe in God than those who never attended. However, the association varied by country, and no childhood predictor produced the same result everywhere.

A companion analysis of 202,898 adults found that weekly attendance at age 12 was associated with a 39% greater probability of believing in an afterlife than never attending. The relationship appeared in 17 of 22 countries, but the retrospective data could not establish that attendance itself caused the belief.

If atheism simply means possessing no belief in gods, newborns qualify—but only because they possess no religious concepts at all. If it means concluding that gods do not exist, they do not qualify. A newborn has neither accepted nor rejected a proposition it cannot yet understand.

Children appear to possess mental tendencies that can make purpose, invisible agents and continued minds surprisingly intuitive. But those tendencies do not arrive as a religion. Culture supplies the names, stories and certainty—or teaches children to doubt them. They are born ready to learn, not already believing the answer.

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And so, for your viewing pleasure, we've gone ahead and collected some bits of trivia. We can earnestly promise that all the facts you'll read here will be fun!

Without further ado, here's the list:

The device you’re reading this on probably has a QWERTY keyboard. Many different arrangements were used by early typewriters, but QWERTY is the one that ended up sticking.

Strangely, one of the longest words that can be typed on a single row of a QWERTY keyboard is “typewriter.”

The blue whale is the largest animal that’s ever existed—and it's not even really close. A full-grown Blue weighs almost twice as much as the heaviest dinosaur.

An animal that big needs a serious heart to keep it going: The blue whale’s heart can be the size of a small car, weigh 1,300 pounds, and has vessels so large that a human could swim down them... although I imagine a Blue Whale would not be thrilled about that experiment.

Your lungs are filled with tiny sacs called alveoli that draw oxygen from the air you breathe into your bloodstream. In total, the average adult has around 600 million of these alveoli, and their combined surface area is roughly the size of a tennis court.

Aviophobia, or the fear of flying, affects millions of people.

But not only are plane crashes incredibly rare, they aren't even always fatal. In fact, between 1983 and 2000, 96% of people who were involved in plane crashes actually survived! It really is the safest way to travel.

Satoshi Nakamoto is the inventor of bitcoin.

Nakamoto published a paper in 2008 that first described the currency, and released the first version of a bitcoin software client in 2009. But “Satoshi Nakamoto” is a pseudonym, and to this day no one knows who he or she is. The last anyone has heard from them was in 2011, and various sleuths have tried to uncover their identity (unsuccessfully) ever since.

The entire state of Wyoming has only two escalators, both in the city of Casper. They’re so rare that some Wyoming residents visit these escalators just for the novelty of it, with one of them describing it as “like riding a tilt-a-whirl, but only slower.”

Annnnd that it is the most adorably mid-Western statement ever made. No wonder we love the middle states.

If you were listening to the radio in Vietnam in April, 1975, you might have heard a surprising song: Bing Crosby’s “White Christmas.” That’s because it was the secret signal for Americans to evacuate the country in an event called Operation Frequent Wind.

Speaking of White Christmas, here's another fun fact: Bing Crosby's ode to the holiday is actually the best-selling single of all-time. It's true!

The F-35 fighter jet is one of the most expensive military projects of all time. It’s estimated that by the time the project is finished, it will have cost $1.4 trillion. Clearly no expense was spared at any point, and that includes in the pilot’s helmets: Each F-35 helmet costs a whopping $400,000.

In an effort to make the city more pedestrian friendly and to lower its carbon footprint, the city of Oslo in Norway has plans to ban all cars from entering the city center by 2019.

Though the revolutionary plan will allow, among other things, an enormous amount of real-estate taken up by parking to be repurposed, many residents are understandably upset that such a big change is going to happen so quickly.

The cougar goes by more names than any other animal. You might know it as a puma, mountain lion, panther, catamount, or one of another 40 English, 18 native South American and 25 native North American names.

The founder of the iconic Japanese restaurant chain Benihana was a man by the name of Rocky Aoki.

If you recognize that name, it’s because his son is DJ Steve Aoki. But although Rocky was a millionaire, he didn’t spread the wealth to his children. Since he came from nothing, he wanted his children to do the same, and never gave Steve any money to start up his record label.

The expedition of Lewis and Clark is famous for many reasons, but they had one goal you might not expect: Thomas Jefferson asked them to find a mammoth.

Turns out, Jefferson had a thing for mammoths (or, more accurately, American Mastodons). He was completely enamored with the extinct behemoths, and held out hope that they continued to live many miles away in the west of America. So when he sent Lewis and Clark out on their famous expedition, he told them to look for mammoths. What a discovery that would have been!

Tom Hanks was initially cast to play Mario in the 1993 movie Super Mario Bros. However, this was early in Hanks’ career, and the studio heads were concerned about his star power (no pun intended) and how much money he was asking for. The studio then replaced Hanks with Bob Hoskins, who they considered to be the more bankable star. The movie? Did not make bank.

The British Library has more than 150 million items, and that number keeps growing. Every year, more than 3 million items are added to the collection, meaning that 12km of shelves need to be added yearly to accommodate it all.

When he set out to write “Smells Like Teen Spirit,” Kurt Cobain said that he was trying to write the ultimate pop song in the style of the Pixies.

He came up with the title when a friend of his (Kathleen Hanna, the lead singer of Bikini Kill) wrote the phrase “Kurt Smells Like Teen Spirit” on his wall. Cobain thought the sentence had a certain poetic ring to it, and the rest is history. Really though, Hanna just meant he smelled like Teen Spirit, a popular deodorant at the time.

Crocodiles and alligators are archosaurs, a classification they share with a surprising relative: birds. Crocodilians and dinosaurs both evolved from a common ancestor, while birds evolved from dinosaurs. That means that your pet Cockatoo is actually a closer relative to crocodiles than a lizard is.

How's that for a fun fact, people!

Despite the common nickname, NFL footballs are actually made from cow leather, and it takes 3,000 cows to supply the league with footballs for just one season.

The era of Ancient Egypt lasted for thousands of years, which can be hard to wrap your head around. To put it in perspective, the Great Pyramid of Giza was built roughly between 2550 and 2490 BC, while Cleopatra took the throne in 51 BC. That means that the Cleopatra’s reign was closer in time to the moon landing than it was to the building of the Great Pyramid.

The mantis shrimp attacks its prey by essentially punching them extremely hard. Their fist-like appendages can punch so fast that they can boil the water around them and split your finger to the bone.

Spain’s national anthem has no words. It’s called the "Marcha Real" and it’s one of four anthems on earth that’s entirely instrumental (the other countries are Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, and San Marino).

Everyone’s had to deal with emptying a fridge of food that’s long since gone bad, but there’s one food that you don’t have to worry about: honey. Because of its unique makeup, it never spoils, and people have found pots of honey that are thousands of years old with the sweet stuff still perfectly preserved inside.

The static on your old TV set is actually caused in part by the Big Bang! Television static is caused by your antenna picking up radiation in the atmosphere. Much of it is known as the “cosmic microwave background,” which is leftover radiation from the formation of the universe. So they next time you’re watching static on a TV, know that you’re looking actually looking at part of the beginnings of our universe.

It’s common knowledge that chess is a complicated game, but just how complicated is hard to imagine. In fact, there are so many different possible moves in a chess game that it isn’t even worth the huge amount of effort it would take to calculate it. But scientists can confidently say that there are far more potential chess games than there are atoms in the entire universe.

Before 1903, no human had ever achieved powered flight. But once we passed that barrier, progress started happening fast. Airplanes were used in warfare within a decade, and people had landed on the moon just 66 years after the first flight. Not bad considering people had been trying to fly for centuries.

Next time you’re stuck at a red light, try not to do the math of how much time you spend there—it won’t make you feel any better. Drivers spend an average of two days a year waiting at red lights, which adds up to about 4 months over the course of a lifetime driving if you live to be 75.

Along with dolphins and chimpanzees, the Eurasian magpie is right up there with the most intelligent animals on earth. The mirror test (the ability to recognize yourself in a mirror) is seen as an important test in animal intelligence, and the Eurasian magpie is the only non-mammal that has passed it. It also has one of the largest brain-to-weight ratios in the animal kingdom and has been observed using tools, working in teams, playing games, and grieving.

Inhabitants of Fort Keogh in Montana found snowflakes that were more than a foot across during a snowstorm in 1887. Some of the flakes were 15 inches wide, the biggest ever recorded.

If you combined the wealth of the 48 poorest nations on earth, they would still have less money than the world’s three richest people.

You're right: I suppose that's not really a "fun fact". But we did promise mind-blowing trivia as well... and that is certainly astonishing.

The biggest traffic jam of all time happened in 2010 in China. Mostly taking place on China National Highway 110, it affected cars for over 60 miles. The jam lasted for more than 10 days, and some people were trapped in their cars for five days straight.

OK, back to a seriously fun fact...

Green Eggs and Ham is one of the most popular children’s books of all time, and if you count them up, it uses exactly 50 different words. That’s because Dr. Seuss wrote it on a bet: his publisher bet Seuss $50 that he couldn’t write an entire book with 50 or fewer words.

Scrooge McDuck was named by Forbes as the richest fictional character in the world. They estimate his personal net worth to be $65.4 billion. They said he made his money in mining and treasure hunting, and that he kept most of his wealth, of course, in his gold coin swimming pool.

The smallest birds on earth are hummingbirds. Although they come in a variety of sizes, the smallest weighs as little as 2.4 grams. For comparison, a US penny weighs 2.5 grams.

If you took everything posted on Twitter every day and put it into a book, that book would be 10 million pages long.

Clouds are made up of water vapor that’s collected in the atmosphere. Because they float in the sky, you might think that they’re light as a feather, but the average weight of a cumulus cloud (the really fluffy looking ones) is actually 1.1 million pounds.

Peacocks are all male. They’re actually a kind of bird called a peafowl, and the females are called peahens.

Red, white, and blue no more. In 2012, NASA confirmed that five of the six American flags planted on the moon by various lunar missions were still standing where they were. The catch? The flags don’t really look like American flags anymore. In the harsh radiation of space, and the bright sunlight on the moon, unfiltered by any atmosphere, the flags have been bleached completely white.

Al Capone was one of the most famous mob bosses, ruling the Chicago underworld, and making an estimated $100 million per year.

So what brings down a gang-lord like that? Mass murder? Corruption? Some other outrageous crime.

Nope. Turns out that Capone's crimes only caught up with him because the IRS looked into his tax situation. He'd gone years without filing, and in the end, that's the crime that did him in. He was given an eleven-year sentence for tax evasion, the longest tax evasion sentence ever given in the United States.

Elephants, rhinos, and hippos are some of the very few types of mammal that can’t jump.

While rhinos and hippos will occasionally get all four feet off of the ground while running, the elephant never does at all, staying firmly landlocked at all times.

Remember that next time you're trying to have fun with an elephant: if you break out a skipping rope, you are really going to hurt their feelings.

English is a complicated language, and words like “set” and “run” don’t make it any easier. For years, set was considered to have the most meanings of any word, with the Oxford English Dictionary giving it 430 separate definitions in 1989. But according to OED's chief editor John Simpson, the word “run” has surpassed it with a whopping 645 meanings as of 2011!

Confederate cavalry commander James Ewell Brown “J.E.B.” Stuart once sent a telegram to Union General Montgomery C. Meigs complaining about the quality of the mules he had just stolen from Union soldiers. “Gen. Meigs,” he wrote, “will in the future please furnish better mules; those you have furnished recently are very inferior.”

Skyn Condoms performed surveys to find out the habits of U.S. millennials by State. They learned that a surprising number of people from California, for example, had hooked up in a school. According to their findings:

• Millennials from Georgia were most likely to engage in self pleasure multiple times per day.
• More than half of the population of sexually active millennials from Kansas have had relations in a hot tub or pool.
• Millennials in Massachusetts were most likely to have had a one night stand.
• Millennials in New York were most likely to have a threesome.

And more fun stuff. See the source below for more. Naughty, naughty!

Not such a fun fact: Toilet paper is so ineffective that using it to wipe your behind after you poop doesn't even prevent health problems such as urinary tract infections. It simply doesn't remove all the poop. There's also research to suggest aggressive wiping with toilet paper can cause fissures and even hemorrhoids. Doctors recommend using wet wipes instead, which are far more effective at removing fecal matter.

Thanks for reading! If you're looking for more, have a peek at our long list of fun facts.

Sources: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9,10, 11, 12, 13, 14, , 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38

Martha Mansfield took to the glamorous world of show business like a fish to water, even with her humble beginnings. She was originally named Martha Ehrlich, and born on July 14, 1899, in New York City, despite several biographies claiming that Mansfield, Ohio was her birthplace. Being someone who relocated a lot, the apple didn’t fall far from the tree, as her mother was from neither city to begin with.

Beyond Martha’s history of not staying in one place, her mother had also moved around numerous times by the time her daughter came along. Immigrating to America from Ireland, Harriett Gibson Ehrlich lived in Mansfield before giving birth in New York and returning to Ohio. Still, she and Martha became quite comfortable where they were—not realizing just how important these roots would become to the future star.

Confusion about where Martha Mansfield came from was present even during her heyday. Later in 1921, an interviewer clarified that she was not “a New York girl”. In response, Martha explained that she was born in New York, but she spent most of her formative years in Mansfield and referred to the city when asked where she was from.

Though, even in Mansfield, she bounced around a lot.

Martha’s father, Maurice Ehrlich, sadly passed early on in her childhood, after which she found little stability. Although she stayed in Mansfield, Ohio, she didn’t spend the whole time living with her mother. Various members of her family hosted her for years, mostly aunts and uncles who passed her around. Luckily, Martha found an outlet for her emotional turmoil—something that would end up changing her life forever.

While she wouldn’t see her official debut until later in life, Martha caught the acting bug during her childhood in Ohio. In a much smaller show than what she would later star in, her first experience in performance was in a children’s production of Robin Hood. In only a few years, she and her mother would take the first step toward Martha’s stardom.

Mansfield, Ohio had become home to Martha and her mother, but it wouldn’t stay that way. For reasons unknown, the two picked up their lives and relocated back to New York City around 1910, specifically to The Bronx. Now situated in one of America’s greatest acting hubs, Martha realized her dream.

Clearly, her production of Robin Hood had given Martha an idea of where she wanted her life to go, especially once she was closer to performing avenues like Broadway. When she was 14, she declared her intention to join the screen professionally. Determined to make her dream a reality, Martha went to great lengths to make it happen—including a small breach of privacy. 

By 1913, Martha knew what she wanted to do, but had no idea how. Fortunately, she learned of a surprisingly elite resource nearby. One of her role models in show business, Mary Pickford, was recovering in a New York hospital due to an illness. Not one to simply wait for the right moment, Martha went to the hospital where the actress was recovering to boldly ask for advice on how to break into the industry—and Pickford's reaction was unexpected.

It would have been easy for an actor of such caliber as Mary Pickford to shoo Martha away. However, perhaps as a product of the time, the star allowed Martha to see her—and took her dream seriously. Going beyond just giving advice, Pickford suggested that Martha see her manager to start.

Set on the right path, Martha fought for her chance.

With her tenacious spirit, Martha pursued her early career and refused to take no for an answer. Among projects such as musicals and dramas, she quickly found herself on one of the biggest stages in the world. After campaigning for the part, she eventually secured a role in Broadway’s Little Women.

But as her career progressed, the talented Martha Mansfield didn’t only occupy her time with acting—she took things much further.

Wanting to stand out in show business, Martha accumulated as many skills as possible. Aside from acting and singing in several musicals, she also became an accomplished dancer, honing this craft and appearing in shows like Hop o' My Thumb in 1913. Throughout these years, her exposure would exceed that of traditional performance—and with the help of her exceptional beauty and grace, her career took on its own momentum. 

Outside of her work on stage, Martha’s name grew in renown due to her expansion into modeling. The universal clarity of her beauty and poise turned heads—and caught the attention of two of the most famous illustrators of the time: Harrison Fisher and Alfred Cheney.  For the next several years, Martha posed for over 300 photographs, with her face in magazines and war posters, making her easily recognizable in the show business world.

Still, as popular as her name had become, she wouldn’t keep it forever.

After launching her reputation in the New York acting scene, Martha did what many celebrities do as they make it big. Following the last couple of performances under the name Martha Ehrlich, including Robinson Crusoe, Jr, she assumed the stage name Martha Early around 1917. This wasn’t simply a matter of preference, though.

The motive behind Martha’s name change was far from arbitrary and mostly came from her wanting to avoid any negative associations. WWI was in its later years and the resulting attitude toward German people had become mistrusting at best. Therefore, Martha decided to leave the surname “Ehrlich” behind.

Luckily, this new name came with a new opportunity.

Also in 1917, Martha’s persistence paid off when she began her first foray into the film industry, signing on with Essanay Studios for six months. Known for several inaugural adaptations such as the first Sherlock Holmes and A Christmas Carol films, the studio also produced multiple silent comedies, many of which starred Charlie Chaplin.

Shortly after this, her reputation truly took hold.

While at Essanay Studios, Martha truly established her style as a comedy actress. After Charlie Chaplin left the studio, they signed French comedian Max Linder, who took a shine to Martha. As the year continued, she starred opposite Linder in three short comedies until the studio stopped producing films in 1918.

But this was far from the end for Martha.

Until 1918, Martha’s movie portfolio consisted of the three short films from Essanay Studios. That is, until she made her feature film debut, co-starring in Broadway Bill as the protagonist’s love interest. 

But even with her newfound fame, there was one big thing she couldn't bare to give up. 

Despite being hard at work on her budding film career, she hadn’t said goodbye to her love of live performance. Also in 1918, she divided her time between screen and stage to perform in the long-running production, the Ziegfeld Follies. Meanwhile, in accordance with the times, she did her part.

In the final year of WWI, many entertainment companies devoted their time to supporting those in service, and the Ziegfeld Follies was no different. As it happened, Martha was a part of one of these performances, where she portrayed the Dove of Peace in a tableaux. Shortly after this, she received an offer she couldn’t pass up.

Not long after she changed her surname to “Early,” Martha saw fit to take on her final stage name. This happened due to her new contract with Metro Pictures, a studio located in Los Angeles. With her ticket to Hollywood, Martha Early became Martha Mansfield. She wasn’t the only one on board with this change, though.

Throughout her life, Martha remained close to her mother, who seemed very pleased with her daughter’s new stage name. Seeing as the surname honored the place where they both grew up, Martha’s mother also made the change, becoming Harriet Gibson Erlich Mansfield. This was also the time when, having tried several avenues, Martha decided to go all in on one medium.

Martha was lucky to be successful in many of the ventures she explored, in the sense that she essentially had her pick of the litter. So, in 1919, she made the leap and declared that she would devote herself to a full-time film career going forward. But before she left for Hollywood, she made one last commitment. 

Even though Martha had announced her intentions to focus on her film career, she continued performing on stage throughout the rest of the year. She had enjoyed her time with the Ziegfeld Follies, so before relocating to work for Metro Pictures, she participated in The Midnight Frolic by Florenz Ziegfeld Jr.

As exciting as that was for Martha, her move to Hollywood was a game changer.

Following her Hollywood debut in 1920’s Civilian Clothes, Martha Mansfield appeared in an adaptation that led to her rising among the biggest stars in the business. The same year, director John S Robertson filmed his adaptation of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, with Martha acting opposite the titular character.

And as it turned out, this project would go on to become a gift that kept on giving.

While Martha’s 1920 production wasn’t the first or last adaptation of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, it eventually became the most enduring. Even when released, it was an immediate success as it shattered box office records. Since then, the film has become critically acclaimed as the most effective version of the story.

And although this incredible performance sky-rocketed her career in Hollywood, Martha wasn't completely satisfied just yet. 

With her growing fame, Martha took on more and more roles, eventually signing on to another film studio in Hollywood. Under the banner of Selznick Pictures, she starred alongside Eugene O'Brien in 1919’s The Perfect Lover. With all the jobs she was booking, Martha was doing quite well for herself—and was able to present her mother with an incredible surprise. 

Through all the success Martha had found, she was at a point where she could give back to her mother and take care of her. By the time she signed with Selznick Pictures, she had enough funds to buy a house in California for the two of them. Meanwhile, although she had become primarily a film actress, Martha indulged in something else, too. 

Martha hadn’t finished with the film industry by any means, but she returned to her theatrical roots part-time. For the next two years, she juggled her work on independent pictures like Till We Meet Again while embarking on a vaudeville tour on stage. Of course, as with a life in Hollywood, she continued moving on to newer and bigger opportunities—including one that would secure her name in Hollywood history. 

Finishing her term with Selznick Pictures, Martha took another contract with a precursor to one of the biggest film studios today. As 1923 came along, she signed on with Fox Film Corporation, which would later merge with Twentieth Century Pictures to become 20th Century Fox. 

This led to her making history again as she appeared alongside one of Old Hollywood's greatest legends.

For Martha’s first project with Fox Film Corporation, she found herself acting with one of horror’s original giants. 1923’s The Silent Command was a spy drama that, along with Martha, starred Bela Lugosi—otherwise known as cinema’s first Dracula. 

Unfortunately, as her career was ramping up, it was also about to crash and burn. 

Following her appearance in The Silent Command, Martha worked on the final three of her completed projects before her career’s end. Each from a different studio, the last film she saw finished was 1923’s The Leavenworth Case. In all this time, Martha never forgot her roots, and her roots didn't forget her either. 

Back in Mansfield, Ohio, the locals remained proud of the actress who had found humble beginnings in their city and had since taken its name. Demonstrating this, the various theaters in Mansfield always made a point of showing Martha’s films upon their release. This wasn’t merely a sentimental connection, though.

Despite her career being so brief thus far, Martha had become a beloved household name, especially for those back home. Knowing it would fill their seats, advertisements for theaters prioritized announcing her inclusion in any film of hers, capitalizing on the audience’s love for Martha.

Sadly, no one knew her brief career would soon meet a tragic end.

Considering Martha’s constant stream of jobs, both on stage and off, it makes bitter sense that she met her end while working on her final film. Fox Film Corporation brought her to San Antonio, Texas to film The Warrens of Virginia in 1923. With a larger budget than many of her previous films, there was a good chance the film would have made her an even bigger star.

Of course, its setting would be one of the dominoes leading to disaster.

The Warrens of Virginia was set in the mid-1800s, which influenced the horrible accident that befell its production. It followed a man who joined the Union army at the beginning of the conflict, despite the love of his life being loyal to the South. Martha played this Confederate love interest, so naturally her costume consisted of period-specific clothing.

In a cruel bit of irony, she was nearly finished.

Had Martha left for home earlier or even taken longer to film her scenes, just a few minutes difference could have saved her from a terrible fate. After finishing her work on November 29, she took a moment to rest in her car. Even then, the slight change of rolling up her windows could have avoided the outcome.

As it happened, though, catastrophe struck.

To the shock of everyone on set, the production came to a halt when a freak accident occurred in Martha’s car. Seemingly without reason initially, Martha suddenly burst into flames while stealing a moment for herself. What exacerbated the fire was her costume, consisting of ruffles and hoop skirts, all of which were highly flammable.

Thankfully, there were a few quick-thinking people around.

Martha’s chauffeur was right nearby at the time of the incident, and to his credit, he leaped into action. Identifying the root of the problem, he tried to remove the clothing that had so quickly ignited but was only partially successful. As a result of this heroic effort, he received severe burns to his hands.

He wasn’t the only one who was quick on his feet, though.

Martha's costar, Wilfred Lytell, was the only other person who tried to do something to save her life. Attempting to snuff out the flames, he took off his overcoat and threw it on top of her, managing to stop the fire from reaching her neck and face. However, when all was said and done, their efforts were in vain.

After several agonizing moments, Martha’s chauffeur and Lytell were able to put out the fire that had engulfed her, but not soon enough. When the smoke cleared, she was found to have severe burns over her whole body, but they had managed to save her face. Mere moments away from her demise, they still tried to help her.

As soon as the fire was put out, those around wasted no time in bringing her to the hospital, while she was barely conscious or moving. Martha was no doubt in tremendous pain, and after being extensively treated, she was still in grave condition. 

Doctors did everything possible for Martha following the incident, but it wasn’t enough in the end. On November 30th, 1923, Martha Mansfield passed in the hospital due to severe burns, as well as “general toxemia and suppression of urine”. Although the incident was eventually labeled an accident, that didn’t mean all the answers presented themselves.

As for what caused Martha’s tragic accident, there are two generally accepted theories, with the first being more widely believed. Multiple bystanders later said they had watched a lit match fly through Martha’s car window and ignite her clothing. Still, no identity has been put forward as to who carelessly threw it.

On the other hand, some believe the accident was more on Martha herself.

In another theory, the fire was due to Martha’s own carelessness. According to this possibility, Martha may have ended the day by having a smoke inside her car. Her lit match, or even her smoke, could have fallen and accidentally ignited her clothing. While not impossible, those close to her refused to accept this theory.

Despite it being a common habit to smoke in the 1920s, especially in Hollywood, the one person who knew her best discounted the theory that Martha had caused the accident herself. Her mother strongly disagreed with this suggestion, stating that in life, Martha hadn’t been a smoker as the act made her “uncomfortable”.

After she perished, her family decided to bring her to one of her many homes.

Following Martha’s passing, her family didn’t bury her in Texas, nor even California where she had lived for the past few years. Instead, she traveled back to New York City—but not alone. Escorting her casket was Phillip Shorey, another actor whom the late starlet knew. While New York is a big city, she returned to a familiar place.

For whatever reason, Martha’s family did not see fit to bury her in Mansfield, Ohio, where she had spent her formative years. Instead, they laid her to rest in The Bronx, which still meant something to her. Not only was she born in New York, but she truly kicked off her career while living in the area.

As for that final film, her part in it quickly shrunk after her passing.

It’s unclear how much Martha Mansfield had filmed for The Warrens of Virginia, but whether it was a few scenes or the whole project, her demise had left a mark on the production. Seemingly preferring to gloss over this tragedy, the studio cut out most of her footage—and they didn’t stop there.

It wasn’t enough to reduce Martha’s role in the film, as the studio needed a new way to promote the project. Therefore, instead of “Martha Mansfield” being plastered across the posters, they advertised her co-star Rosemary Hill as the film’s leading lady. Nevertheless, in time, the entire project fell into obscurity.

Without the stunning Martha Mansfield, the film was never the same.

It’s always difficult exploring the lives of old Hollywood stars since so much of their content has been lost to the ages. In Martha’s case, about a dozen films from her career are impossible to watch in this day and age for various reasons. This includes her final movie, The Warrens of Virginia, as no film archives carry it today.

Martha Mansfield was right in the middle of the founding of Hollywood, gaining more fame with every passing day. As a young star in an equally as young industry, her life and career were tragically cut short just before movies started talking, sealing her name as a Silent Era icon.

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Sources: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9

Humans have been beekeeping for at least 10,000 years, and unfortunately, older beekeeping practices involved destroying the colony when harvesting the honey. An increased usage of frame hives in the 18th century meant that beekeepers could keep their colonies instead of culling them—making the practice much more sustainable. And, at some point along the way, people began making it a point to tell their bees about things that happened outside of the hive. 

In one of the few early recorded instances of “telling the bees,” a mid-19th century report from Lincolnshire, England noted a marked change in behavior if bees weren’t told of someone’s marriage or death. Instead, it was suggested to share sweets from the wedding or funeral with the bees and let them in on the knowledge. The writer even remarked that the bees not knowing about a marriage made them cranky and prone to stinging, while not knowing about a death could make the bees very ill and could even be fatal.

This went both ways as well. In one German practice, your marriage might be doomed if you opted out of telling the bees. More often, the custom of telling the bees was associated with funerals—with specific instructions about just how to tell them as well. One such verse went "Little bee, our lord is dead; Leave me not in my distress". Depending on the origin of the practice, the bees could actually be invited to the funeral, or the hive could be decorated, or it would be lifted and put down at the same time as the coffin. 

While it may seem antiquated, the practice isn’t isolated to the 19th and 20th centuries. When Queen Elizabeth II died in 2022, the royal beekeeper not only informed the bees at Buckingham Palace and Clarence House—he also let them know when Charles III was crowned king. The beekeeper said that he told them “The mistress is dead, but don't you go. Your master will be a good master to you”.

Henry Ford wanted his own dependable source of rubber, but he didn't merely establish a Brazilian plantation. Beginning in the late 1920s, Ford created Fordlandia, an American-style settlement in the Amazon where Brazilian employees encountered Midwestern food, company housing, organized recreation and workplace rules inspired by Ford's vision of respectable American life.

Ford had never visited the Amazon, and his managers initially lacked essential tropical agricultural expertise. Rubber trees suffered badly, while workers resented unfamiliar food, schedules and intrusive rules. In 1930, a cafeteria dispute erupted into a serious riot that sent American managers fleeing while workers wrecked company property. Fordlandia ultimately failed spectacularly.

Railroad magnate George Pullman believed he could create better employees by controlling their environment. His model community outside Chicago provided attractive brick homes, sanitation, parks and other amenities while deliberately excluding saloons and influences Pullman considered undesirable. Unfortunately, the benevolent industrialist was also everybody's employer and landlord.

When the depression of 1893 hurt business, Pullman reduced wages without correspondingly reducing company-town rents. Workers struck in May 1894, and a nationwide boycott subsequently disrupted enormous portions of America's rail system. Federal troops intervened, dozens perished in the violence, and Pullman's supposedly harmonious experiment became a national symbol of corporate paternalism gone disastrously wrong.

Robert Klark Graham made a fortune developing shatter-resistant eyeglass lenses, then decided civilization faced genetic decline. In 1980, he founded the Repository for Germinal Choice, popularly called the "Nobel Prize sperm bank," hoping to produce unusually intelligent children using sperm from exceptionally accomplished men, initially including Nobel laureates.

Graham quickly discovered that Nobel winners weren't exactly lining up to participate, and donor standards broadened. More importantly, his attempt to influence human reproduction according to his beliefs about intelligence triggered an international ethical argument. Critics attacked the project as elitist, scientifically questionable and disturbingly reminiscent of earlier eugenics movements.

Du Pont heir John E. du Pont poured enormous sums into amateur athletics, particularly wrestling. At his Pennsylvania estate he created Foxcatcher, a remarkable training complex with wrestling facilities, weights and an Olympic-size swimming pool. Elite wrestlers could live and train there while receiving financial support from one extremely wealthy benefactor.

Du Pont's behavior grew increasingly alarming. Accounts described firearms, bizarre delusions, a tank driven around the property and threatening encounters with athletes. In January 1996, he fatally shot Olympic champion Dave Schultz outside Schultz's home on the estate. The millionaire's private sporting kingdom had ended in an almost unimaginable tragedy.

William Randolph Hearst wasn't satisfied with building an enormous California estate. He created the Hearst Garden of Comparative Zoology, stocking his ranch with an extraordinary assortment of animals including zebras, antelope, camels, giraffes, kangaroos, bears, lions, tigers, leopards and even an elephant. Some herbivores roamed enormous fenced areas.

Financial difficulties forced Hearst to dismantle much of his private zoo beginning in 1937, with animals sold or donated over many years. But the dispersal was never completely finished. Descendants of Hearst's zebras still roam the San Simeon ranch today, making one millionaire's exotic-animal obsession a remarkably durable part of California's landscape.

Howard Hughes arrived at Las Vegas's Desert Inn in 1966 seeking privacy and occupied its upper floors. When the hotel wanted its suites back, Hughes responded in quintessential billionaire fashion: he bought the hotel. Then he kept shopping, acquiring the Sands, Frontier, Castaways, Silver Slipper, Landmark and numerous other Nevada assets.

Hughes eventually controlled roughly one-third of Strip casino revenue, and the Justice Department objected when he attempted another major acquisition. His presence helped legitimize corporate casino ownership, while Nevada changed its gaming laws during this transformative period. One recluse conducting business from a hotel suite helped accelerate Las Vegas's corporate transformation.

Publishing millionaire Bernarr Macfadden built an empire around "physical culture" and promoted exercise, fresh foods and fitness long before those ideas became mainstream. Unfortunately, he also carried his confidence much further, advocating fasting as a treatment for illness and opposing vaccination, pasteurization and many conventional medical treatments.

Macfadden wasn't simply an eccentric practicing unusual health routines privately. He was an enormously influential publisher who used magazines, books and publicity to promote his beliefs to mass audiences. Some of his fitness principles aged remarkably well, but his sweeping claims about fasting and hostility toward established medicine demonstrate the danger of mixing celebrity, wealth and medical certainty.

Kodak founder George Eastman became an enthusiastic advocate of the International Fixed Calendar. Instead of today's irregular arrangement, every month would contain exactly 28 days, with a thirteenth month called Sol inserted between June and July. Eastman didn't merely endorse it: Kodak began using a 13-period system internally in 1928.

Eastman energetically promoted calendar reform far beyond Kodak, becoming chairman of America's National Committee on Calendar Simplification as the League of Nations considered international reform. Religious groups objected strongly because days outside the normal weekly cycle threatened traditional Sabbath observance. Humanity ultimately decided twelve confusing months were preferable to reorganizing civilization.

Efficiency expert Charles Bedaux decided in 1934 to mount an extravagant expedition across the wilderness of northern British Columbia. His entourage brought specially constructed Citroën half-tracks, a Hollywood cameraman, champagne, French delicacies and other luxuries. Bedaux even traveled with both his wife and his mistress, because apparently crossing remote Canada wasn't complicated enough.

Advance crews had to cut a route wide enough for Bedaux's vehicles, but unusually wet conditions defeated the half-tracks. The expedition switched to packhorses; animals subsequently became sick and had to be destroyed. The entire crossing was abandoned, leaving local guides, workers and animals dealing with the consequences of one millionaire's spectacularly impractical adventure.

Texas millionaire Stanley Marsh 3 thought ordinary public art was boring. In 1974, he financed Ant Farm's Cadillac Ranch near Amarillo: ten Cadillacs planted nose-first into a field at an angle associated with the Great Pyramid. Marsh subsequently sponsored numerous other bizarre installations and prank-like artworks around his hometown.

Marsh's eccentricity wasn't confined to private property. His "Dynamite Museum" placed fake road-style signs around Amarillo, while Cadillac Ranch became an irresistible graffiti-covered roadside attraction. Residents effectively found themselves living inside the imagination of an extremely rich practical joker whose artistic projects became inseparable from the city's identity.

Most people have strange ideas occasionally. The difference is that ordinary people usually lack the money to employ hundreds of workers, construct an experimental town or reorganize an entire industry around them. Extraordinary wealth removes one of life's most useful safeguards: somebody responding, "That's ridiculous, and we can't afford it."

Making a fortune can demonstrate extraordinary ability in one particular field without establishing universal wisdom. Henry Ford understood mass automobile production brilliantly; that didn't make him an expert on Amazonian agriculture or Brazilian culture. Robert Graham understood optical plastics; that didn't make his theories about genetics, intelligence and society scientifically infallible.

An eccentric millionaire's employees occupy an especially awkward position. When the boss announces an unusual obsession, dismissing it as nonsense may not be an available option. Workers at Fordlandia, Pullman and Foxcatcher experienced different versions of the same uncomfortable reality: financial dependence can give another person's eccentricities tremendous power over everyday life.

Extreme wealth can also create an environment in which increasingly ambitious ideas encounter surprisingly little resistance. Employees, advisers and associates may depend financially upon the person proposing them. Even when plenty of people recognize that something has gone badly wrong, telling an extraordinarily powerful patron "no" can carry consequences of its own.

There is nothing inherently wrong with wealthy people being unconventional. Hearst's surviving zebras became a beloved curiosity, Cadillac Ranch became an American roadside icon, and even Eastman's calendar had perfectly rational advantages. Trouble begins when immense financial power turns an eccentric preference into an involuntary experiment involving everybody nearby.

These stories aren't really warnings against eccentricity. They're reminders that financial success and good judgment aren't interchangeable. A person can possess enormous business talent while being spectacularly misguided elsewhere. The greater the fortune behind an idea, unfortunately, the more people may discover that distinction the hard way.

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Facts About Howard Hughes

Infamous Facts About William Randolph Hearst, The Real Citizen Kane

Sources: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, , , 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20

Nobody can forget the memorable reality show villain, Kristin Cavallari. Fans of Laguna Beach undoubtedly remember her as the jealous jerk who constantly initiated unnecessary drama within her friend’s relationship. As it turns out, however, there is more to this story than meets the eye. Once the show went off the air, Cavallari gave a tell-all interview where she spilled all the show's secrets.

During this interview, Cavallari alleged that Laguna Beach's producers instructed her to act a certain way—and that they basically left her no choice. She wanted everyone to know that she wasn't really the villain she appeared to be on TV.

Few figures from RuPaul’s Drag Race are as controversial as Phi Phi O’Hara (Jaremi Carey), who most fans likely associate with endless complaints about fellow contestants—most notably Sharon Needles, who would go on to win that season. The drama between these two got so intense that it escalated into a now-infamous on-air fight. Oh, but that was only the beginning.

O’Hara was already salty about Needles’ eventual win—and that attitude carried over into the following season. Despite being given a second chance on the show, O’Hara continued to wind up in numerous fights with the other contestants. And the cherry on top? He eventually wound up boycotting the reunion show after how poorly this experience went.

All of this drama led O'Hara to make the most drastic decision of all.

I guess our villain wasn’t kidding about being unhappy with how Drag Race went. Following the drama on the show, O'Hara announced that Phi Phi O'Hara is no more. After years of performing drag in the persona of Phi Phi, Jaremi Carey—Phi Phi’s real name—announced that both the name and character would no longer be used.

Another iconic reality TV figure that fans just love to hate is the one and only Dave Hester of Storage Wars fame. Hester catapulted himself to reality TV infamy on the auction show with his trademark “Yuuuuupp” catchphrase and his obnoxious habit of intentionally bidding up the prices of storage lockers that his co-stars are trying to buy—much to their chagrin.

But this is far from the only gripe with him that fans have.

In a 2015 episode, a mild disagreement took place between the auctioneer and one of the show’s stars over whether or not a bid had been made in time to be counted. Inexplicably, Hester inserted himself into the situation—goading the auctioneer for not paying close enough attention, and mockingly insinuating that he was bad at his job.

This quickly erupted into a full-blown, on-air physical altercation between Hester and the popular auctioneer, leaving many fans even more annoyed with him than usual. But his negative impact on the show didn’t end there.

A few years into Storage Wars’ run, Hester shocked everyone by alleging that the entire show was fake, and that all the auctions were staged. He even went so far as to claim that the show’s producers deliberately plant interesting items inside the lockers on which the characters will be bidding, and collude with the storage facility owners and/or pay for some of the bids in order to do so—all for entertainment value.

Hester’s going rogue against his bosses had consequences, though.

After Hester came out with his disturbing allegations about the nature of his show, he paid a high price: The network promptly fired him from his role. For the next several seasons, the show continued without him. But Hester fought back and filed a wrongful termination suit against his former employers. Of course, some of his other allegations turned out to be even more extreme.

Among the many other unexpected claims Hester made against the Storage Wars, there's one crazier than all the rest. He claimed that the show’s leaders arranged for certain female members of the cast to get plastic surgery. This is something that seems more reminiscent of shady studio practices of Old Hollywood than a contemporary, regulated workplace.

If fans know Jax Taylor for anything on Vanderpump Rules, it’s his unchanging habits of cheating on partners, lying about his behavior, and angering everyone around him. With credentials like that, he has definitely earned his spot on the list of reality TV’s most notorious villains of all time. On one occasion, he took things to the next level—cheating with his best friend’s girlfriend..while she was literally asleep in the next room.

But at times, his bad behavior escalated even further than that.

During a 2015 visit to Hawaii, Taylor swiped a $300 pair of sunglasses from a local shop—and got caught. He later claimed that he’d had a few too many drinks that night, and had been intoxicated at the time of the incident. The star had to appear in court, where a judge handed him a series of hefty fines and roughly a year of probation.

But if we take a closer look at Taylor's past, even more unsavory details rise to the surface.

While we tend to find many reality TV stars charming because they’re just ordinary people until being thrown into the spotlight, Taylor had a more storied past. Prior to getting into television, he spent a number of years living the high life in Europe while working as a professional model. During this period, one of his roommates was fellow model and future movie star, Channing Tatum.

Small world!

Another of reality TV’s most unforgettable villains is the one and only Tiffany Pollard, who most of us first met as the contestant nicknamed “New York” on the show Flavor of Love. This girl quickly dominated the show—and not in a good way. She picked a fight with almost each and every single one of her fellow contestants at some point or another. The consequences were diabolical.

Pollard didn’t just argue with fellow contestants on the show: On one occasion, things got physical. After getting eliminated, one of her main rivals (nicknamed “Pumpkin”) wanted revenge for the way Pollard had treated her. She went the whole extra mile and spat at Pollard. Pollard did not take kindly to this, and attempted to start a physical retaliation at the show’s cast reunion.

Sadly, this was only the tip of the iceberg.

Pollard had plenty more drama in her life besides her issues with her fellow contestants on Flavor of Love—including some pretty serious issues with her parents. When Pollard became pregnant, her mother refused to believe it and caused the star significant amounts of stress over the situation. Whether directly or indirectly, this saga ultimately led to an unfortunate miscarriage.

Pollard's life was a mess—and it even showed on camera.

After receiving breast implant surgery that she wasn’t happy with, Pollard underwent a scary procedure. She wanted her implants removed. But being who she is, that alone wasn’t quite enough—so she chose to have the procedure broadcast on the national television show Botched. As her twisted life played out for all to see, however, Pollard was just getting started.

In 2020, controversy struck again. During an interview, she nonchalantly announced her new engagement and spoke very highly of her groom-to-be—but she refused to reveal his identity. To this day, many fans are left to wonder who this prince charming is, and what happened with their purported relationship.

Somehow, Pollard's kept a firm grasp on her relevance—but stardom didn't come without its risks.

Pollard made such a splash on Flavor of Love that she has since been given a number of other shows of her own. In addition to three seasons of her own dating show, I Love New York, she also starred in a show chronicling her efforts to become an actress and another one chronicling her efforts to secure a “normal job". But with time, one of these shows would fall apart for a very dark and unexpected reason.

No one completely knew why the network canceled Pollard’s spinoff show I Love New York after its third season—but Pollard herself has a theory. They filmed the show in the aftermath of a bizarre and high-profile murder case in which a former reality show contestant took his wife’s life—and Pollard suspects this incident might have spooked the crew out of continuing with their own show.

Canceled show or not, there's another reason why Tiffany Pollard's face will on in the current culture.

You know you’re important when you’re in a meme—but what if you’re in all the memes? Well, Pollard is one of the few people who knows what that feels like. In the many years since her initial run on Flavor of Love, she has discovered a whole new fan base as the “queen of reaction memes”. GIFs of her unmistakable emotive face responding to anything and everything have become one of the most popular social media gags of all time.

That's the lighthearted side of her legacy...and then, finally, there's its controversial side.

Despite not winning the first season of Flavor of Love, the show’s host Flavor Flav took an unprecedented step in dating show history and brought Pollard back on for the second season—giving her another chance to win his heart. When she failed to win the ultimate prize yet again, things didn’t end well: Pollard initiated a verbal fight with Flav on the air, accusing him of wasting her time and bringing her back for nothing.

Never a dull moment with this one!

Business mogul Kevin O'Leary is another reality TV superstar in the villains' hall of fame. Quite tellingly, he’s sarcastically known on Shark Tank as Mr. Wonderful. While this show is generally about aspiring entrepreneurs having a shot at their dreams coming true, O’Leary’s role in the show is pretty much to be the guy who crushes those dreams and stops deals from happening.

But it’s not just the contestants who have a hard time with O’Leary…

In 2017, at the height of the show’s popularity, O’Leary took a brief hiatus from being a TV villain to run for Prime Minister in his native country of Canada. Seeking the Conservative Party’s leadership, things actually went better than you might expect for someone with such an antagonistic public image—he led the polls for several months and only dropped out when it appeared he would be unable to win the crucial province of Quebec.

Which makes sense, because a reality TV star could never become the leader of a country…right?

Many Shark Tank fans wonder whether O’Leary’s villainous behavior on the show is just a TV persona, or whether he really is that heartless when it comes to putting his own net worth above all else. Well, while seeing into the inner workings of his mind is well beyond the scope of this article, it is noteworthy that O’Leary obtained citizenship for himself in the United Arab Emirates. His sole reason?

He wanted to do business and makes investments there. It was all for the money. Unfortunately for him, it's also his money that has gotten him into some serious trouble.

O’Leary has had his fair share of real-life scandals over the years—some of which have been directly related to his role on the show. For example, in 2021, a group of fans tried to drag the villainous shark into court after paying for an entrepreneurship course that turned out to be nothing but a fraudulent scam. The course had advertised itself as having O’Leary’s endorsement and involvement.

O’Leary, for his part, denies having anything to do with the scam. But this would be far from the worst scandal he would ever draw headlines over…

A shocking story broke in the summer of 2019, revealing that a terrible accident took place during O’Leary’s summer vacation in Muskoka, Ontario. It was an unspeakable tragedy. While on the lake with his wife, the couple’s boat collided with another couple’s boat, taking the lives of two passengers. Authorities charged O’Leary’s wife with “careless operation of a vessel".

However, the process ultimately found her not guilty, instead of faulting the driver of the other boat for failing to have his lights on. Heartbreakingly, the story doesn’t end there.

You’re probably wondering how a story about a couple losing their lives on vacation could get any darker—but it does. This is because many fans did not take the story at face value, and believed that O’Leary himself could have been driving the boat and blamed the accident on his wife so as not to cause public embarrassment for him. This conspiracy theory became very widespread in the period following the initial reports.

Luckily for Mr. Wonderful, a video has since emerged demonstrating that his wife was, indeed, the driver on that fateful night.

What better place to start than with one of 21st-century entertainment’s most unforgettable characters—Michael “The Situation” Sorrentino. This Staten Island bottle of attitude stirred up a ton of drama with his co-stars during all six seasons of Jersey Shore—including frequently lying and interfering in other people’s relationships.

But his on-screen antics would prove to be nothing compared to his real life.

Shortly after the show’s original run, authorities became aware of some shady business practices in which Sorrentino and his brother were allegedly engaged. Namely, they had set up a corporation to pay for their own personal expenses. They'd hidden close to 9 million dollars worth of income. Naturally, the brothers failed to pay taxes on any of this. And soon, they both quickly found themselves in hot water.

Although the case dragged on for several years, the Sorrentino brothers eventually had to serve time behind bars—in our star’s case for only eight months, but in his brother’s case for two full years. But here's the controversial part. Since his brother had also been accused, Sorrentino made a plea bargain deal with prosecutors in order to achieve this reduced sentence, which he served in 2019.

This allowed him to sidestep the five-year sentence the system initially felt he deserved.

While fans of Michael Sorrentino may have felt bad at the thought of him serving time behind bars, his punishment might not actually have been as harsh as it sounds. The Jersey Shore star actually served his short sentence at a place called Otisville—a relatively comfortable minimum-security facility that caters to white-collar offenders serving short sentences.

But although Sorrentino paid for his bad-boy ways in a cushier prison, this wasn't exactly his first time at the rodeo.

Before his tax problems emerged, Sorrentino had already been treading a dark path. During the show’s initial run, the star villain had to take some time away between the filming of the fifth and sixth seasons to be treated for a serious substance use problem. Apparently, he had been misusing prescription medications. But even this story wasn’t quite that simple.

Before the public learned all the details of Sorrentino's substance problem and treatment efforts, certain reports were already spreading salacious rumors. At first, Sorrentino denied all allegations, tweeting, “Don’t believe everything you read or hear”. Finally, when the reality of his stint in rehab became evident, he finally came clean.

He claimed that he'd picked up the bad habit due to "exhaustion". Unfortunately for Sorrentino, his audiences were quickly losing interest in the troubled reality star.

While some entertainers can jump seamlessly between mediums, this doesn't seem to be the case for Sorrentino. In 2011, he appeared as one of the comedians at the roast of then-fellow reality TV star and future US president Donald Trump—but his performance did not go well. The audience booed and jeered as he delivered his awkward and unfunny jokes.

In fact, things got so bad that comedian Jeff Ross interrupted his set out of mercy. Oh, but the backlash didn't end there.

In addition to these antics, 2011 also saw a massive blow to Sorrentino's ego. The popular fashion brand Abercrombie & Fitch offered to pay him a significant sum of money to stop wearing their clothes in public. They feared that any association with him would make people dislike their clothes. The reality star took offense to this and tried to take the clothing company to court over the matter, but nothing came of the effort.

But despite his hard-luck times, Sorrentino hung onto his relevancy with all his might.

I guess sometimes being the bad guy does pay! Michael Sorrentino garnered so much attention during his time as the Jersey Shore villain that he became the second-highest-paid reality TV star in the world in 2010. Thanks to various endorsement deals, clothing lines, music projects, and an autobiography (that he didn’t even actually write), only the iconic Kim Kardashian earned more than his five-million dollars that year.

With his bad reputation and millions in two, this TV villain is still kicking.

Despite always having been considered the bad guy on the show during its initial run, times seem to have changed pretty drastically! In hindsight, fans now view him as one of the show’s most beloved and memorable figures. They even voted him the number one most likable character in the show’s history in March 2022—close to a decade after the show went off the air.

The network even invited him back to take part in the 2018 spinoff, Jersey Shore: Family Vacation. I guess absence really does make the heart grow fonder!

Omarosa Manigault Newman, or just plain old “Omarosa,” as she prefers to be called, was one of the first major villains in the history of the reality TV genre. She's remained one of the most culturally relevant stars ever since. On the first season of The Apprentice, her aggressive attitude and cutthroat behavior caught the attention and respect of then-host Donald Trump.

And time would have a funny way of showing that Trump never forgot the impression she made.

Calling Omarosa’s public life over the years a spectacle would be a major understatement. Few people know drama to her extent. In 2004, during an appearance on The Oprah Winfrey Show, Omarosa accused one of her fellow Apprentice contestants of having referred to her by an offensive slur—a claim that the accused denied vehemently.

But things would soon prove to be more complicated than they seemed.

In the aftermath of her making these allegations, Jimmy Kimmel invited Omarosa on his show—but she backed out as soon as she arrived for the interview and spotted a lie detector machine on set. This development certainly raised a few eyebrows, to say the least. But this little antic would pale in comparison to her next controversial saga.

In the early 2010s, Omarosa began dating actor Michael Clarke Duncan. During their relationship, Duncan had an unexpected heart attack and passed at the age of 54 after a two-month hospital stint. Now, this experience would be enough of a story for most people, and would probably leave most significant others scarred for life. But for Omarosa, it was only the beginning.

Many theories and allegations broke out alleging that Omarosa had engaged in some questionable behavior around the time of her fiancé’s passing. Duncan’s family claimed that she had recently changed the actor’s will. Not only that, but she manipulated and lied to him in the days leading up to his demise, even swiping some of his belongings to sell for personal gain without the permission of his family.

At one point, singer La Toya Jackson directly blamed Omarosa for her fiance’s passing—a claim which she vehemently denied. With controversies swirling around her, the star showed no sign of slowing down.

Despite having been a lifelong Democrat, Omarosa joined the Donald Trump campaign in 2016. Her friend and former Apprentice boss felt she could help him with outreach to the African-American community. When Trump won the election, he hired Omarosa to serve in the White House as both a communications aide and a personal assistant.

Going from reality TV to the White House is certainly no small feat, but this would prove to be far from a success story.

Omarosa’s entire Trump administration stint became mired in controversy and media frenzy. On one occasion, the press objected when she invited members of the Congressional Black Caucus to visit the White House. She signed the invitation as “The Honorable Omarosa Manigault." She apparently bestowed this title upon herself, despite it not traditionally being used by aides.

The drama would only escalate from there.

Another media frenzy erupted in 2017. Omarosa had left the White House, but no one could be quite sure what had happened. Rumors alleged that security personnel had to physically remove her from the building. Omarosa claimed to have resigned from her position, while the White House claimed to have fired her over “serious integrity issues” involving her use of official government vehicles, among other concerns.

Bizarrely, despite her claims to the contrary, Omarosa would later release a secret tape recording of her firing. This corroborated the story that opposed her own account of what happened. From there on out, the fire engulfing her raged out of control.

After her time in the White House, Omarosa returned to reality TV shows such as Big Brother—but not before releasing a controversial tell-all book. Scandalously, it was all about her time in the government, and caused further drama in the process. Along with the release of her book, Omarosa leaked a series of secret tape recordings that she had made during classified meetings in the Situation Room.

Authorities considered these among the most potentially serious security breaches in White House history. She would soon learn just how big a mistake she had made on this front.

In relation to the ongoing investigations into her departure from the White House and whether she directly broke any serious laws in the process, a judge ordered Omarosa to pay out a whopping $61,585 fine to the US Treasury Department. Firstly, this was for violating ethics laws. And secondly, for intentionally failing to comply with disclosure requirements about her time working for the government.

This would not be the only time Omarosa came face to face with her former bosses in a courtroom setting.

Omarosa made a series of serious allegations against Donald Trump as an employer after her departure from the White House. Not only did she accuse him of repeatedly using inappropriate slurs around her, but she also joined a group of former staffers in pursuing compensation. Why? Well, in their view, Trump’s campaign paid African-American women unfairly compared to his white employees.

In one of these related cases, Trump had to pay out over a million dollars to cover Omarosa’s legal fees.

One of the most recent reality TV villains to become a breakout star is Chrishell Stause of the Netflix series Selling Sunset. A former soap opera star, she's known for her ruthless actions in her role in the Oppenheim Group. On screen, she certainly knew how to assert her dominance. As such, she's landed herself a spot on this notorious list in record time.

And it’s not just employees that she clashed with.

After three years of marriage, Stause and her husband, actor Justin Hartley, decided to split up. But they made this decision in an extremely unceremonious way. Apparently, Hartley informed Stause that he would be seeking a divorce via a text message. What's more? This was just 45 minutes before the media became aware of the news.

Stause subsequently began a romantic relationship with her boss and Selling Sunset co-star, Jason Oppenheim. Then, after they broke up, she hooked up with musician G Flip.

Sources: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, , 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26

Born in Russia in 1879, Alla Nazimova witnessed her parents’ deeply unhappy marriage and suffered abuse at the hands of her father. According to one report, he cruelly twisted and broke her arm. But this was just the beginning of the nightmare. When she was eight, her parents separated and her childhood became a dark blur of foster homes, strange relatives, and boarding schools.

With only herself to depend on, Nazimova forged a course toward a self-made future.

Does taking a new name mean you’re starting a new life? In Nazimova’s case, her name change spurred the beginning of a new chapter. Born as Adelaide (Marem-Ides) Leventon, she combined Alla (short for her given name) with Nazimova—a fictional name borrowed from the heroine of the Russian novel Children of the Streets. This change marked a turning point in an otherwise dejected childhood.

Even before she found theater, Alla Nazimova captured her audiences with the violin. At the age of 11, she played in an orchestra occasionally conducted by the likes of Rimsky Korsakov and Tchaikovsky. Some even claimed she was a prodigy. As a girl destined to light up the silent screen, it’s interesting to note how sound impacted her early self-expression.

As a teenager, Nazimova began pursuing her interest in theatre by taking acting classes—a choice that raged against her father’s wishes. After joining Constantin Stanislavski’s Moscow Art Theatre, her life changed forever. She studied his “method style” along with his company of actors, honing her craft and planning her future. Her time spent in this institution gave her the tools necessary to succeed and meet her destiny.

With her exceptional talent, Alla Nazimova skyrocketed into the spotlight. By 1903, she was already a massive star in Moscow and Saint Petersburg, and only three years later she and her boyfriend Pavel Orlenev moved to New York City—a city that loomed over them with the promise of possibility or ruin. She had no idea how infectious her appeal would be.

Due to her constant evolution, Nazimova’s mysterious character is hard to pin down. In the words of biographer Gavin Lambert, she was “not a great beauty, but a compelling actress with personality.” Stubborn, ambitious, and bold—with an acute attention to detail—she struck people with her ability to inhabit her characters so completely. This charisma, paired with a striking set of violet-colored eyes, was a recipe for stardom.

Her first venture in a new city was quite ambitious. She and her boyfriend Orlenev, himself an actor and producer, attempted to open a Russian-language theatre on the Lower East Side. When the project failed to gain traction, Orlenev returned to Russia while Nazimova persevered. Her ability to take failure in stride often led her to greater glory down the road.

When she arrived in America, Nazimova could only speak Russian. To break into English-speaking roles, conquering the English language was her next great challenge. The Schubert Brothers were so impressed with her that they decided to hire her under the condition that she learn English in only six months! It was to the credit of one woman, that Nazimova met her goal…

Caroline Harris was the valuable tutor who gave Nazimova English lessons and prepared her for her debut in record time. This rigorous learning was the key to a performance that would change their lives forever.

In 1906, Alla Nazimova made her Broadway debut with the title role in Hedda Gabler, attracting the attention of critics and fans alike. This was her very first English-language premier and despite being a newcomer on the scene, Dorothy Parker described her as the finest Hedda Gabler she had ever seen. Nazimova was an absolute sensation!

Live theater was Nazimova’s first love, and the audience loved her back. They even named a theatre after her: Nazimova’s 39th Street Theatre. She remained a huge Broadway star for years before turning to silent film, a fresh territory for her to flex her creative chops.

Nazimova's silent film career began with a film that pushed back against a number of her previous roles as the romanticized femme fatale. In War Brides, Nazimova constructed a brand-new image—that of a strong feminist. She told the press that by playing the role of a woman of suffrage she was contributing to “the womanhood of the world.”

After sharing the screen with Richard Barthelmess in War Brides, she encouraged him to audition for more films. Others took notice of his potential and he later became a massive star. Without Alla Nazimova, other greats, such as Tennessee Williams, may never have reached their full potential. She took credit for inspiring Williams to become a playwright—a bragging right not easily forgotten.

After learning English and cutting connections with her last Russian boyfriend, Nazimova’s future rooted itself in America. In 1927, she became a naturalized citizen of the United States. Her assimilation and hard work ingratiated her to the American people—she could be whomever they needed her to be. And depending on the day, she could steal the show or blend in with the crowd.

Everybody has toyed with the fantasy of becoming a fly on the wall, anonymous and sponge-like, soaking in everything from a disguised vantage point. Perhaps Alla Nazimova also liked this idea, as she consistently appeared in the media as an actress “caught” attending the theatre with the general public so that she could watch herself on screen.

Before the peak of her success—even before Pavel Orlenev and her time on Broadway—Nazimova married a man named Sergei Golovin in Russia. She left him almost immediately, and they never reunited. When she moved to the United States, her lips were sealed—not a soul knew that Golovin existed. But that's not the only secret Nazimova kept. With her new life, came new intrigues.

In 1923—24 years after her wedding—Nazimova finally procured a divorce from Golovin. She didn’t travel back to the Soviet Union to settle her affairs but had the paperwork sent overseas. From the beginning, their relationship was void of any real closeness or love, and this official separation was a long-time coming. During her entire time in the US, Nazimova harbored a secret from her loving public…

After 1912, Alla Nazimova pretended to be married to a different man—British actor Charles Bryant. To maintain the ruse of her “fake” nuptials with Charles, she hid her first marriage from the scrutiny of proper society. The public marriage was completely for show, and to maintain its legitimacy she had to keep her marriage to Golovin under wraps. Sound dizzying? Well, the plot thickens…

Turns out she had good reason to parade Bryant around. She was trying to bury the inexplicable truth—that her marriage was a “lavender marriage”—a union of convenience to hide the true orientation of one or both partners. And this marriage? Well, it did NOT end well.

Most lies are built on a foundation of fragility and it wasn’t long before Bryant tilted the balance. He shocked the press, and Nazimova herself, by marrying a 23-year-old girl in Connecticut. Once people realized that Alla and Charles had in fact never been married and that the entire relationship was a sham, they fed on the marital scandal and turned on Nazimova.

This unpalatable revelation damaged the trust of her fans and severely damaged her career—but it was only the beginning.

Being a lesbian during the early 20th century, smack-dab at the center of Hollywood, couldn’t have been easy. With the threat of a homophobic public hovering over marginalized groups, privacy reigned supreme. So, yes. Nazimova had secret affairs and lovers, some rumored and some confirmed. One of these confirmed lovers being none other than Oscar Wilde's niece, Dolly Wilde.

Some of us may think “sewing circle” refers to a group of women who come together to...sew. Well, think again! Its original usage comes directly from Alla Nazimova, and it was a code to refer to lesbian or bi actresses who concealed their true identity. It was about lesbians communing under cover of a seemingly domestic pursuit—cheekily subversive and reeking of pure genius.

Oh, the power of a name! This is something Alla Nazimova understood in spades. She took on many names throughout her life, including male pseudonyms for some of her professional work. For screenwriting, she inhabited Peter M. Winters and for a few of her films she took her partner’s name, Charles Bryant. But Nazimova’s range of personas, especially in her romantic life, proved detrimental to her success.

When she was 42, Nazimova set her eyes on a 20-year-old man named Paul Ivano. Although he claimed their affair lasted only six months and that “Alla preferred women most of the time,” it became a repeated tryst, and they were on and off for many years. With her lively track record, this affair simply punctuated Nazimova’s eventful love life.

Magical and ethereal herself, is it any wonder that Alla Nazimova took up with the beautiful Magic Realist artist and Surrealist painter, Bridget Tichenor? An art collector, Edward James, introduced the two lovebirds and as rumor had it, Bridget was one of her favorite lovers. ‘Twas a romance that no doubt ruffled the feathers of her most enduring partner…

Nazimova found true love in silent screen actress and theatrical benefactor Glesca Marshall. Cast in the same production at the Civic Repertory Theater, the pair met and their friendship flourished. Marshall was a huge Nazimova fan before they became romantically involved, and their closeness only deepened as they worked together.

Despite whispers of infidelity and romantic collusion, Marshall stayed with Nazimova ‘til the very end.

For her debut film, Nazimova raked in $1,000 per day. A year later, she signed a contract with Metro Pictures (a precursor to MGM) that included a weekly salary of a whopping $13,000. After establishing her name in New York and then moving to Hollywood with heavy pockets, the possibilities branched out before her.

She started her own production company, Nazimova Productions, where she finally had free reign to do things her way. She could try new things and test the limits of the audiences she created for—and boy, did she...

Despite the dip in popularity that dogged her marriage scandal, Nazimova took on aesthetic risks that attempted to capitalize on a gay sensibility. Operating under the hope of sensational content appealing to mainstream audiences, she developed daring filmmaking techniques heavily influenced by Art Nouveau—a movement characterized by curving natural forms.

Her films became a direct reflection of her bohemian sensibilities. Unfortunately, the world wasn’t ready for her contributions…

Due to a string of unsuccessful films, Metro told Nazimova to only draw her scripts from literature in order to increase the chance of positive reception. She chose to adapt Aphrodite—a controversial novel that inspired a controversial script. It never made it to curtain call. Metro executives canceled production plans after reading the salacious screenplay by June Mathis. When they read it, they couldn't believe their eyes.

After telling Nazimova to create more crowd-pleasing fare, they discovered a story full of lust and violence. But Nazimova wasn’t finished with experimenting and went on to produce her most iconic film yet.

When every major company refused to finance her productions of A Doll’s House and Salomé, Nazimova decided to use her own money to back her projects. They warned her that both films were unlikely to succeed, but the advice fell on deaf ears. In 1923, equipped with $300,000, a bank loan of $100,000, (and an iron will) she began work on her passion projects.

This expensive venture was a testament to her self-belief and was—above all—a labor of love. Whether the investment would pay off was another question entirely...

As predicted, Salomé—based on an Oscar Wilde play—received harsh reviews from critics and audiences alike. Its ostentatious and slightly risqué treatment of a Biblical tale didn’t quite feed the appetites of her audiences, and it was a commercial failure. Some movies are simply made at the wrong time, and unbeknownst to Nazimova, Salomé’s popularity would grow in time…

Time will always tell. Today, Salomé is considered a feminist milestone in film. As film historian Patricia White puts it, Salomé stands today as a unique effort to produce a “female movie modernism.” In a fashion that would no doubt please its creator, various edited versions of the film played in festivals and underground contexts on 16mm for years.

In 1919, Nazimova purchased a 2.5-acre estate on Sunset Boulevard and then made the most punny power move on the strip: She named her mansion The Garden of Alla. Though it began as a joke, the name stuck and imbued her residence with whimsy and mystery that mirrored her very character. Soon, it would become one of the most iconic—and notorious—establishments in the already scandalous Sunset Strip.

Alla Nazimova had something nobody else in Hollywood had—the largest pool in the city. And it wasn’t just any pool, but a state-of-the-art commission constructed in the shape of the Black Sea. On warm nights, those in her female inner circles congregated around the water, engaging in conversation considered inappropriate by the outside world.

To be a minority in the 1920s—especially as a high-profile celebrity—was dangerous. Nazimova’s home was a refuge for those who wanted to escape the prying eyes of the public and embrace their true selves. It was a place to nurture one’s career and love life. “Lavender Hollywood” often considered the Garden of Alla its center.

Along with her scintillating love life, mystery shrouded Nazimova’s colorful social life and as a result, countless rumors took flight. The fact that she constantly held extravagant parties at the Garden of Alla didn't help slow down the gossip mill, either. According to Time magazine, "Through the intoxicating Twenties and Thirties, the Garden of Alla was more house party than hotel. Robert Benchley was resident clown; John Barrymore kept a bicycle there so as not to waste drinking time walking between the separate celebrations…”

She was an entertainer at heart, and the raucous parties inspired countless others—even when she no longer owned the iconic establishment.

After her deceptive marriage to Charles Bryant came to light, Nazimova's career took an upsetting nosedive.  By the beginning of 1926, she hadn’t worked for an entire year. Despite the lack of income, she continued to spend $1,000 a month to upkeep her homes and $500 on her mother, aunt, and cousin. Desperate for money, she took a harder look at what she already had, and made a surprising decision…

Alla Nazimova began renovations on her home and in 1927, The Garden of Alla transformed into a hotel. But Nazimova was not a born hotel manager and eventually sold the property after her business partners made a series of financial mishaps. She returned to the Broadway Stage hoping to inject life into her fading career. Though she gave up the renowned hotel, her impact on the culture surrounding it lived on.

Just as her name is a marriage between her given name and a fictional heroine, The Garden of Alla blends her name with the title of the best-selling 1905 novel The Garden of Allah by Robert S. Hichens. By simply removing the “h” she turned fiction into her own reality. This illuminates Nazimova’s cleverness and love of literature, but also a life defined by reinvention.

While taking control of your own image is the currency of today’s influencers and Hollywood elite, it wasn’t very common in Nazimova’s day. Her film career boasts a series of strategic decisions that helped reinvent her public persona. She understood the power of celebrity image and made personal sacrifices to maintain it. Her strong female roles in pictures such as War Bride, Camille, and Salomé enhanced the feminist image that would one day become her legacy.

Was there anything this woman couldn’t do? Capable of taking on any role in the fictional realm, she also proved herself behind-the-scenes. She took on a variety of responsibilities relating to film production—occupations mainly filled by men at the time. Nazimova was director, producer, editor, screenwriter, and lighting designer. She even copped a credit for costume design for a film called Revelation.

During her most successful years, Nazimova yielded a great deal of power in Hollywood. She had a confirmed affair with Rudolph Valentino’s wife Jean Acker and a rumored affair with his other wife Natacha Rambova. She took these women to new places, both behind closed doors and in their film careers.

Even today, Hollywood isn’t always kind to the aging actress. Grasping for new avenues to generate income, Nazimova returned to the stage where she garnered generous praise for a few of her productions. Critic Pauline Kael described her acclaimed performance in Ibsen’s Ghosts as the greatest she had ever seen on the American stage. Nazimova still had it in her.

If Alla Nazimova hadn’t made two films in the 1940s, we wouldn’t be able to witness her art on sound film. Thankfully she starred as the mother in both Escape (1940) and Blood and Sand (1941). Despite working into her sixties, her return to film didn’t solve her financial troubles and sadly, this stress followed her into her final years.

Nazimova had an interesting connection to a key family in US politics...She was extremely close to the stage actress Edith Luckett—mother of the future US First Lady Nancy Reagan. When Nancy was born in 1921, Nazimova became her godmother. Both Edith and Nazimova maintained their friendship until her death, proving that connections can be made in the most unlikely of places.

When Nazimova moved back to Hollywood in 1938 she rented a villa at the hotel she used to call home—The Garden of Allah. In 1944, Nancy Reagan visited her godmother in Villa 24. When she recalled the visit, she noted “it was so small, nicely furnished but...How terrible it must be for her after all that fame and glamor.” Like herself, the hotel room was a mere remnant of its former splendor. Her career was officially over.

After living such a rich and varied life, Nazimova’s final years are framed in faded shades—an echo of a gilded moment in time. She stayed at the Garden of Allah until she suffered a coronary thrombosis in 1945, passing away at the age of 66. She left behind a legacy that seemed impossible to forget. Sadly, this was not to be.

There’s nothing sadder than a life cut too short and a story gone untold. In parts of her unpublished memoir, she reflects on her traumatic childhood and its influence on her lesbian self-styling and subsequent denial to the public, as well as its direct connection to her immigrant story and assimilation. One critical appreciation describes her as “the founding mother of Sapphic Hollywood”—a regal title for today’s lost muse.

One cannot deny the power of Nazimova's biographical narrative—a trail that finds connections between Alla Nazimova and almost every famous lesbian in Hollywood, as well as gay cultural icons like Oscar Wilde, Rudolph Valentino, and Montgomery Clift. It’s inherently sensational and mysterious at the same time.

Even so, there are so many archival materials about Nazimova that have yet to be cataloged—hundreds of pages! There are still pieces of the puzzle missing.

Nazimova’s career took the film industry by storm and today she is honored with the quintessential symbol of recognition—a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Traversing theatre in her homeland and then traveling overseas to take her chances in America, Alla Nazimova was not only a starlet, but also a feminist risk-taker and artist.

Sources: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9

Born in Cambodia in 1940, Haing S. Ngor never imagined that he'd one day be striding across a glittering stage to collect his Academy Award. As a practicing surgeon and gynecologist, acting was the furthest thing from his mind. Everything seemed to be going well for Ngor. Not only was he following his dreams, but he was also completely in love with his lovely wife, Chang My-Huoy. He had everything he ever wanted—but it was all doomed to a horrifying end.

In 1975, Ngor's life changed forever. Revolutionary politician Pol Pot and his communist party, Khmer Rouge, seized Cambodia and transformed it into Democratic Kampuchea. It was a nightmare right from the start. Because the regime despised intellectuals, Haing S. Ngor had no choice but to disguise his identity. In fact, he hid everything: his profession, his education, and even his glasses. But this was only the beginning.

Khmer Rouge forced two million people out of the capital Phnom Penh, and Ngor and his wife were among this displaced and terrified group. As part of a social experiment called "Year Zero," Ngor faced a horrifying new reality: a brutal concentration camp. But his troubles didn't end there. You see, Ngor's wife was pregnant, and although he was excited to be a father, he must have feared for the baby's future.

Ngor faced his worst fears when his wife went into labor. Alarmed, he realized that My-Huoy desperately required urgent medical attention; she needed a Caesarean section. Although this was Ngor's area of expertise, he couldn't lift a finger to save his own wife. If he revealed his true identity, it was likely that the regime would end both of them. Devastated, Ngor held his wife in his arms as she passed. In the years that followed, his grief and suffering were only mirrored in the ravaged lives of his fellow people.

In 1979, Khmer Rouge finally fell and Ngor became a free man once again. But it was a bittersweet liberation. He had started this ordeal with a partner and now he stood alone. He had lost his wife and his unborn child, and nothing would ever be the same again. In the wake of his trauma, Ngor returned to his practice, working as a doctor in one of Thailand's refugee camps. But he didn't stay here for long. In 1980, Haing S. Ngor was ready to make the biggest move of his life.

Ngor and his niece decided to head for the United States, but there was one problem. He couldn't practice medicine in America. He had to look elsewhere for work—and fate brought him to the most unexpected place possible...Hollywood.

Although Haing S. Ngor had never acted professionally a day in his life, he managed to land a role in 1984's The Killing Fields. Even more surprisingly, he took home gold. Even now, Ngor has been the only Asian to win the Best Supporting Actor Oscar for a debut performance. However, his road to accepting the role of Cambodian journalist Dith Pran had a heartbreaking backstory.

You see, Ngor wasn't chasing an award when he joined the cast of The Killing Fields. In fact, the part didn't interest him at all. It wasn't until Ngor sat down with the filmmakers that he changed his tune. After all, the film was about the Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia. But even more importantly? He'd promised the love of his life that he'd spread the word and share Cambodia's haunting story with the rest of the world: "I wanted to show the world how deep starvation is in Cambodia, how many people die under communist regime. My heart is satisfied. I have done something perfect."

Yet Haing S. Ngor never got the happy ending he deserved.

In 1996, while outside his home in Los Angeles' Chinatown, Ngor was shot, making him the victim of a horrible murder. He was only 55 years old. However, the circumstances surrounding his demise remain controversial to this day.

On paper, Ngor was the victim of a holdup gone horribly wrong. Authorities brought in three members of the street gang "Oriental Lazy Boyz." Apparently, during the confrontation, Ngor had refused to give them his treasured locket, which held a picture of his late wife. For his defiance, they took his life. But not everybody agrees with this theory.

The defense attorneys looked to Ngor's history and argued that the incident was politically motivated by Khmer Rouge supporters. Unfortunately, there didn't seem to be any evidence to back this up—only some unusual details. Here are some things to consider: If Ngor's murder was really a robbery, then why had the burglars left $2,900 behind, and why would they have demanded a concealed locket (Ngor usually kept the locket underneath his clothes); they hadn't even bothered to search the victim's pockets. To this day, the infamous locket has never been found.

The loss of Haing S. Ngor came to a somber close on April 16, 1998, when the judge found all three defendants from the Oriental Lazy Boyz guilty. Coincidentally, Pol Pot passed on the very same day. But although justice had supposedly been served, rumors still ran rampant. The mysterious circumstances surrounding this tragedy intrigued people for years. Then, a little over a decade later, new evidence surfaced.

In 2009, a former Khmer Rouge official came forward and fueled the fires of controversy even more. According to Kang Kek Iew, Pol Pot had ordered Ngor's murder. But in the end, this claim wasn't enough to change the story. US investigators dismissed its credibility.

Despite his heartbreaking end, Haing S. Ngor overcame unbelievable hurdles. He faced loss, pain, and prejudice, and even broke into Hollywood on his first try. But for a survivor like Ngor, fame was never the end goal. It was far more personal than that. It was about his own history and his love for one woman. He raised awareness and kept his greatest promise. After his film debut, Haing S. Ngor told the New York Times, "If I die from now on, OK! This film will go on for a hundred years."

Sources: 1, 2, 3, 4,