The place to learn about the past and present,
The time the US justice system tried to re-imprison a model citizen they had released early It was just another day for Rene Lima-Marin in his job helping to transform city skylines by installing glass windows into skyscrapers until an unknown caller buzzed his mobile phone. The woman on the line said she was from... Continue Reading →
The oceans have always proved bountiful for coastal communities, providing not only sustenance but valuables lost in the sand or washed ashore from shipwrecks. For the people of the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad in 2015, however, the sea gifted a hoard of 'Baltic Gold'. Amber is hard, transparent fossilised tree resin, the sort famous for... Continue Reading →
To fly is a dream, and every kid at some point imagines acquiring enough helium balloons for a little aerial adventure. Big kid Larry Walters actually pulled off this stunt for real in an epic flight over Los Angeles. Who hasn’t held a bunch of helium balloons as a kid and imagined the fun they... Continue Reading →
Find out how one woman survived a 10,000 metre freefall when her plane was blown out of the sky by terrorists. It was 2:30pm on the 26 of January, 1972 and Serbian flight attendant Vesna Vulovic was at Copenhagen Airport waiting to board a DC 9 aircraft of JAT Flight 367 “I saw all the... Continue Reading →
Unlike the hundreds before and after, one woman survived jumping into the chasm of Avon Gorge from the bridge that spans it. Find out what quirk of fashion saved Ms Henley from her attempt to end her life. The city of Bristol, UK, is a charming place in England’s West Country. It’s famous for a... Continue Reading →
God surely showed his hand when an exceptional spate of coincidences rescued 15 choir members from being blown to smithereens It was a frigid evening on the first day of March in 1950 and the clock was ticking towards utter tragedy for the fifteen members of the West Side Baptist Church choir, in Beatrice, Nebraska. The... Continue Reading →
Patrick Lawler seemed fine after a small accident at work. What seemed at first to be a lousy toothache turned into needing emergency surgery after a stunning X-ray find. The 23-year-old construction worker, with black eyebrows and goatee, sat on the edge of his chair and gnawed on his fingernails with the sort of trepidation... Continue Reading →
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 →
Bill Morgan's fortunes went from catastrophic to fantastic when the lucky trucker recovered from being on life support to winning a car and massive windfall on two scratch-cards, even winning the 2nd 'scratchie' live on air. Luck can be like buses, you wait for ages then several come at once, and so it happened to... Continue Reading →
To survive was one-in-a-million, but to almost completely recover is incomprehensible. The side-effects, however, made him shunned by decent society On September 13, 1848, an unbelievable medical marvel occurred. A foreman named Phineas Gage was toiling at the head of a work-gang. They were blasting rock to prepare the roadbed to lay railroad track on... Continue Reading →
History and Things 