On August 28, 2003, pizza delivery man Brian Douglas Wells robbed a PNC Bank near his hometown of Erie , Pennsylvania , United States. Upon being apprehended by police, Wells died when an explosive collar locked to his neck detonated. The FBI investigation into his death uncovered a complex plot described as "one of the most complicated and bizarre crimes in the annals of the FBI". [1] https://www.wired.com/story/collar-bomb/...
Koro is a culture-bound delusional disorder in which individuals have an overpowering belief that their sex organs are retracting and will disappear, despite the lack of any true longstanding changes to the genitals. [1] [2] Koro is also known as shrinking penis, and was listed in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders ....
Balloonfest '86 was a fundraising event in Cleveland , Ohio , United States, held on September 27, 1986, in which the local chapter of United Way set a world record by releasing almost 1.5 million balloons . [2] The event was intended to be a harmless publicity stunt . However, the released balloons drifted back over the city and Lake Erie and landed in the surrounding area, causing problems for traffic and a nearby airport. In consequence, the organizers faced lawsuits seeking millions of dolla...
Mostly taken from this GQ article here: https://www.gq.com/story/meet-the-nutmaxxers-obsessed-with-shooting-bigger-loads
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_travel_claims_and_urban_legends Multiple accounts of people who allegedly travelled through time have been reported by the press or circulated online. These reports have turned out to be either hoaxes or else based on incorrect assumptions, incomplete information, or interpretation of fiction as fact . Many are now recognized as urban legends ....
https://azdailysun.com/news/state-and-regional/qanon-shaman-files-40-trillion-lawsuit-against-trump-with-plan-to-revolutionize-america/article_5f4ad841-60ef-4060-9ff3-7f33d7ee4f0d.html
https://www.outsideonline.com/outdoor-adventure/biking/real-life-superhero-who-beats-cops-bike-thieves/
A broadcast signal intrusion is the hijacking of broadcast signals of radio , television stations , cable television broadcast feeds or satellite signals without permission or licence . Hijacking incidents have involved local TV and radio stations as well as cable and national networks....
George Edward "Rube" Waddell (October 13, 1876 – April 1, 1914) was an American pitcher in Major League Baseball (MLB). A left-hander , he played for 13 years, with the Louisville Colonels , Pittsburgh Pirates , and Chicago Orphans in the National League , as well as the Philadelphia Athletics and St. Louis Browns in the American League . Born in Bradford, Pennsylvania , and raised in Prospect, Pennsylvania, Waddell was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1946 . Waddell is best remembered fo...
The 2,500-year celebration of the Persian Empire, [1] officially known as the 2,500-year celebration of the Empire of Iran ( Persian : جشنهای ۲۵۰۰ ساله شاهنشاهی ایران, romanized : Jašn-hây-e 2500 sale' šâhanšâhi Irân ), was hosted by the Pahlavi dynasty in the Imperial State of Iran in October 1971. Concentrated at Persepolis , it consisted of an elaborate set of grand festivities that sought to honour the legacy of the Achaemenid Empire , which was founded by Cyrus the Great in 550 BC. [2] [3]...
Over 21 days of talking with ChatGPT, an otherwise perfectly sane man became convinced that he was a real-life superhero. We analyzed the conversation. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/08/technology/ai-chatbots-delusions-chatgpt.html
Mummia, mumia, or originally mummy referred to several different preparations in the history of medicine , from "mineral pitch " to "powdered human mummies ". It originated from Arabic mūmiyā "a type of resinous bitumen found in Western Asia and used curatively" in traditional Islamic medicine , which was translated as pissasphaltus (from "pitch" and "asphalt") in ancient Greek medicine . In medieval European medicine , mūmiyā "bitumen" was transliterated into Latin as mumia meaning both "a bitu...
Vasa (previously Wasa ) (Swedish pronunciation: [²vɑːsa] ⓘ ) is a Swedish warship built between 1626 and 1628. The ship sank after sailing roughly 1,300 m (1,400 yd) into her maiden voyage on 10 August 1628. She fell into obscurity after most of her valuable bronze cannons were salvaged in the 17th century, until she was located again in the late 1950s in a busy shipping area in Stockholm harbor. The ship was salvaged with a largely intact hull in 1961. She was housed in a temporary museum calle...
The Exxon Valdez oil spill was a major environmental disaster that occurred in Alaska 's Prince William Sound on March 24, 1989. The spill occurred when Exxon Valdez , an oil supertanker owned by Exxon Shipping Company , bound for Long Beach , California, struck Prince William Sound 's Bligh Reef , 6 mi (9.7 km) west of Tatitlek, Alaska at 12:04 a.m. The tanker spilled more than 10 million US gallons (240,000 bbl) (or 37,000 tonnes ) [1] of crude oil over the next few days. [2]...
https://www.outsideonline.com/adventure-travel/essays/jungle-wedding/
Olestra (also known by its brand name Olean) is a fat substitute food additive that adds no metabolizable calories to products. It has been used in the preparation of otherwise high-fat foods, thereby lowering or eliminating their fat content. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved olestra for use in the US as a replacement for fats and oils in prepackaged ready-to-eat snacks in 1996, [2] concluding that such use "meets the safety standard for food additives, reasonable certainty of no ...
Pluto ( minor-planet designation : 134340 Pluto) is a dwarf planet in the Kuiper belt , a ring of bodies beyond the orbit of Neptune . It is the ninth-largest and tenth-most-massive known object to directly orbit the Sun . It is the largest known trans-Neptunian object by volume by a small margin, but is less massive than Eris . Like other Kuiper belt objects, Pluto is made primarily of ice and rock and is much smaller than the inner planets . Pluto has roughly one-sixth the mass of the Moon and...
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Defenestration (from Neo-Latin de fenestrā [1] ) is the act of throwing someone or something out of a window . [2] The term was coined around the time of an incident in Prague Castle in the year 1618 which became the spark that started the Thirty Years' War . This was done in "good Bohemian style", referring to the defenestration which had occurred in Prague's New Town Hall almost 200 years earlier (July 1419), and on that occasion led to the Hussite war . [3] The word comes from the Neo-Latin [...
Moving Day was a tradition in New York City dating back to colonial times and lasting until after World War II . On February 1, sometimes known as "Rent Day", landlords would give notice to their tenants what the new rent would be after the end of the quarter, [1] and the tenants would spend good-weather days in the early spring searching for new houses and the best deals. [2] On May 1 , [3] all leases in the city expired simultaneously at 9:00 am, causing thousands of people to change their res...
Samuel Langhorne Clemens (November 30, 1835 – April 21, 1910), known by the pen name Mark Twain, was an American writer, humorist , and essayist. He was praised as the "greatest humorist the United States has produced", [1] with William Faulkner calling him "the father of American literature ". [2] Twain's novels include The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876) and its sequel, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884), [3] with the latter often called the " Great American Novel ". He also wrote A Connect...
"The Juniper Tree" (also "The Almond Tree"; Low German : Von dem Machandelboom ) is a German fairy tale published in Low German by the Brothers Grimm in Grimm's Fairy Tales in 1812 (KHM 47). [1] The story contains themes of child abuse , murder , cannibalism and biblical symbolism and is one of the Brothers Grimm's darker and more mature fairy tales....
Optography is the process of viewing or retrieving an optogram, an image on the retina of the eye. A belief that the eye "recorded" the last image seen before death was widespread in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and was a frequent plot device in fiction of the time, to the extent that police photographed the victims' eyes in several real-life murder investigations, in case the theory was true. The concept has been repeatedly debunked as a forensic method....
The Charge of the Light Brigade was a military action undertaken by British light cavalry against Russian forces during the Battle of Balaclava in the Crimean War , resulting in many casualties to the cavalry. On 25 October 1854, the Light Brigade, led by Lord Cardigan , mounted a frontal assault against a Russian artillery battery which was well-prepared with excellent fields of defensive fire. The charge was the result of a misunderstood order from the commander-in-chief, Lord Raglan , who had...
The Barkley Marathons is an ultramarathon trail race held each year in Frozen Head State Park in Morgan County, Tennessee , United States. Described as "The Race That Eats Its Young", it is known for its extreme difficulty, purposefully difficult application process, and many strange traditions, having been completed only 26 times by 20 runners since 1995....
https://www.thebeliever.net/the-immortal-horizon/ The Barkley Marathons is an ultramarathon trail race held each year in Frozen Head State Park in Morgan County, Tennessee , United States. Described as "The Race That Eats Its Young", it is known for its extreme difficulty, purposefully difficult application process, and many strange traditions, having been completed only 26 times by 20 runners since 1995....
Psychological warfare (PSYWAR), or the basic aspects of modern psychological operations (PsyOp), has been known by many other names or terms, including Military Information Support Operations ( MISO ), Psy Ops, political warfare , "Hearts and Minds", and propaganda . [1] [2] The term is used "to denote any action which is practiced mainly by psychological methods with the aim of evoking a planned psychological reaction in other people". [3]...
Donkey Kong [a] is a video game series and media franchise created by the Japanese game designer Shigeru Miyamoto for Nintendo . It follows the adventures of Donkey Kong , a large, powerful gorilla, and other members of the Kong family of apes. Donkey Kong games include the original arcade game trilogy by Nintendo R&D1 ; the Donkey Kong Country series by Rare and Retro Studios ; and the Mario vs. Donkey Kong series by Nintendo Software Technology . Various studios have developed spin-offs in...
We had errors with our podcast service provider and they released another show on our feed. We are still fielding questions regarding people not having access to last weeks show so we are rereleasing it. If you missed last week's show becuase the podcast on that feed was wrong, here it is again. If you heard our podcast last week - this is nothing new. Sorry for the snafu. Fax (short for facsimile), sometimes called telecopying or telefax (short for telefacsimile), is the telephonic transmission...
Fax (short for facsimile), sometimes called telecopying or telefax (short for telefacsimile), is the telephonic transmission of scanned printed material (both text and images), normally to a telephone number connected to a printer or other output device. The original document is scanned with a fax machine (or a telecopier), which processes the contents (text or images) as a single fixed graphic image, converting it into a bitmap , and then transmitting it through the telephone system in the form...
