The place to learn about the past and present,
Read about the reaction when, in Iowa 2005, fortune cookie lucky numbers caused 25 times more players to win the state lottery than anticipated. You know how at the end of a Chinese restaurant meal you get a little fortune cookie to crack open with some lucky numbers and wise words of oriental counsel inside?... Continue Reading →
Boston was hit by one of the weirdest disasters ever heard of, when the city docksides were deluged by a wave of sticky molasses. Read about the suffering it inflicted and how the city's streets reeked for years after. Molasses (Black Treacle) is a thick, heavy substance refined from sugar cane. In Boston, 1919, the... Continue Reading →
A tale hard to distinguish fact from fiction, yet there is undoubtedly some truth behind Sawney Bean and his massive family of incestuous cannibals who may have devoured hundreds over the decades and terrorised the locals. Read on to discover his terrible fate. The tale of Sawney Bean is a gruesome tale from Scottish history.... Continue Reading →
When a man commissioned a strange structure to be built on behalf of a mysterious group, it left stone masons scratching their heads. Find out what was inscribed on it and why it was the subject of numerous conspiracy theories. In June 1979, a man using the pseudonym Robert C. Christian approached the Elberton Granite... Continue Reading →
A story came out of the horrors of the First World War of an enemy of a novel kind; that wolves on the Eastern Front grew so bold, so numerous, soldiers on both sides were forced to turn their guns on these pack predators. It was the Winter 1917 and WW1 was into its fourth... Continue Reading →
What kind of pirate would sail to London to parley with her arch nemesis, the Queen of England? Her name was Grace O'Malley, she was Irish and a queen in her own right In the 16th Century, whilst Ireland’s eastern coastline was controlled by the English, its hinterland to the west was frontier country. On... Continue Reading →
Residents of Oakville were flummoxed by a downpour of goo they experienced in 1994. What was even more disconcerting was the wave of illness that rippled throughout the community immediately after... With the sight of undulating woodland resembling the serried ranks of a million upright matchsticks covered in a fuzzy green blanket of needles to... Continue Reading →
The story of the man who built himself an armoured bulldozer to attack and destroy his town has since passed into legend. But was Marvin Heemeyer just a spite filled brute, or a symbol of the 'little guy' perennially oppressed by corporate power? A man by the name of Marvin Heemeyer sat in his Komatsu... Continue Reading →
It baffles people now as it did then, when hundreds of people around 16th Century Strasbourg danced and danced till they could dance no more. Read about its potential cause and the remedies phycisians came up with One Summer’s day in 1518 down a narrow street in Strasbourg, France an odd thing occurred; people turned... Continue Reading →
The story of the folks of Virginia State who hung an elephant for killing her handler seems barbaric even by early 20th Century standards. Was she really murderous or the victim of cruel treatment? Find out here Mary the elephant lived during the turn of the 20th Century performing with Sparks’ World Famous Shows —... Continue Reading →
History and Things 