At one time or another, most drivers encounter unsafe road conditions. Hazards can appear in many different forms; for instance, poor weather, drunk drivers, and simple human error can all complicate an otherwise uneventful journey. On the other hand, sometimes the condition of the road itself can put your life in jeopardy. Some of the…
Author: Keith Burnside
In the two thousand years since Christ walked the earth and founded one of the most influential religions in the world, church history has been documented by an incredibly diverse collection of stories that speak to mankind of blessings, curses, and everything in between. Millions have found hope because of Christianity – but millions have…
Brazilian folklore is a wonderful stew of European, African, and Native American legends, flavored with exotic spices that are added and subtracted to each region’s taste. Much has been written on the subject over the years. One of the major and more recent sources is by the Brazilian folklorist Luís da Câmara Cascudo, whose Dicionário…
If you’re like us and enjoy wasting time on the internet, you’re probably well aware of patent medicines. According to the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History, patent medicines were first produced as special remedies in England in the late 17th century, with “letters patent” granted by the royal crown to give monopolies to the…
There are a few reasons why a woman would set her husband on fire. The first is that she wants money and stands to get a lot of it if he winds up dead. If you’re a man, you can easily avoid this scenario by remaining poor your whole life. That way, your wife will…
Historians usually agree that the first modern submarine was the one constructed and successfully tested by a Dutchman named Cornelius Drebbel. The first modern submarine designed, however, was probably the one dreamed up by William Bourne. The English mathematician imagined a glorified underwater boat sometime around 1578. Bourne’s sub was never actually built, which might…
The sewing machine, the song “Yesterday” by The Beatles, and Frankenstein’s monster all have one thing in common – they came to their creators in a dream, and now the world is a better and scarier place. But while dreams can be agents of creation, they can also be prophets of destruction, as the people…
But for the hundreds of dispersed accounts that testify to its existence, spontaneous human combustion would likely be dismissed by all as an impossibility. Reports of the phenomenon reach back through centuries of history; it’s been credited as divine judgment for drunkards, discredited as a gruesome hoax, taken up as evidence of paranormal activity, ridiculed…
Bones are all around you. Most of the ones closest to you are safely hidden inside bodies, but every skull and bone must come out of its shell and return to dust at some point. Each one leaves behind a story in the process, and some of these tales are quite remarkable—like the people, beasts,…
Hello, stupid! If you weren’t such an idiot, you’d understand why you’re wrong about everything. But apparently you’re so retarded that you can’t even spell right. And also you’re fat. Internet flame wars! It doesn’t seem to matter what topic is being discussed; almost anywhere you look you can expect to find people trading hostilities…
Assassins, gangsters, and enraged mobs of the past have employed a wide variety of methods to silence their victims. One such method involves chucking people out of windows, an act known as defenestration. Technically, the word applies when you throw anything – not just people – out of a window. In spite of this, I…
The Bible – it’s one of the most popular and best-selling books in the world. Spanning a couple thousand years of history, it touches upon a wide range of subject matters. In it we find stories about origins, human nature, kingdoms, salvation, and the end of the world. Life and death, happiness and despair, good…
At one time or another, most drivers encounter unsafe road conditions. Hazards can appear in many different forms; for instance, poor weather, drunk drivers, and simple human error can all complicate an otherwise uneventful journey. On the other hand, sometimes the condition of the road itself can put your life in jeopardy. Some of the…
In the two thousand years since Christ walked the earth and founded one of the most influential religions in the world, church history has been documented by an incredibly diverse collection of stories that speak to mankind of blessings, curses, and everything in between. Millions have found hope because of Christianity – but millions have…