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Being a hobo was hard—’Hoboglyphs’ made it easier Sketched with coal or chalk in places where migrants were likely to pass, hoboglyphs – the secret code of hobos – were pointers for other travelers.
Henry Koczur ate potato soup for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. There was little else to eat. It was 1932, and Koczur was 16, living in East Chicago with his mother, father, and five siblings. In the midst of the Great Depression, work was scarce and poverty abundant. Thinking he would relieve his family of one more mouth to feed, Koczur did what many other teenagers did: he left home. Heading for California, Koczur thought he was going someplace where fields were bountiful and, he said, “a land where I didn’t think anyone could starve.” So, his journey began. “We caught a Southern Pacific passenger train to Niland, California, riding the…
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This 1950s science kit for kids came with real uranium What’s even better than a nice refreshing huff of DDT? Giving children uranium to play with to their heart's desire, of course.
The absolute worst foods you can buy at a dollar store You go to the dollar store for convenience, but these awful dollar store foods prove that sometimes the convenience and cost just isn't worth it.
Survival chemistry: How to mix your own grooming supplies in the post-apocalypse Whip up some lifesaving grooming supplies that'll keep you looking and smelling as good as the store-bought stuff you left behind in the old world.
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The weird underbelly of Texas: 10 of the Lone Star State’s oddest sights Everybody's heading to Texas these days. Make sure you experience these weird places with unlikely histories and even weirder people.
Texas is potentially the state with the most individuality and liberty per square mile, and it makes no apologies for it. With little use for the opinion of authorities before they stick a spade in the ground, Texans have adorned their state with an array of strange and unique physical landmarks and properties. Sparky Park (Austin) Watch this video on YouTube Topping the charts is the very unique Sparky Park, Austin. That such a prime piece of land has been given over to artwork is impressive, particularly since, according to Texas Land, 96% of land in the state is privately bought and sold on the open market. Sparky Park, built from…
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The unending frustrations of a sex shop clerk Friendly advice from a dildo salesperson.
5 scientific ways strangers can tell you’re gay (even if you’re in the closet) We don't endorse stereotypes unless they're funny or we have science on our side, and the data is in: the "gaydar" is anything but a myth.
YouTube’s 15 most insane science projects The age of the lone inventor tinkering away in his own backyard is far from over—but this stuff is barely legal.
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This 1950s science kit for kids came with real uranium What’s even better than a nice refreshing huff of DDT? Giving children uranium to play with to their heart's desire, of course.
Want to know what’s even better than a nice refreshing huff of DDT? Giving children uranium to play with to their heart’s desire. This may sound bizarre today, but in the Gilbert U-238 Atomic Energy Lab science kit from the 1950s, it was a reality. Blame the uranium boom During the 1950s, the uranium boom was substantial. Since it helped the government construct nuclear weapons, they mined for that stuff like crazy, hardly considering the consequences for those who dug it up. But I mean, it powered some epic bombs, so what was the issue, right? The real problems started when the substance began to find its way into normal…
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Too freaky to fake? 5 legendary TV curses One might be tempted to dismiss this as the inevitable result of an industry that attracts famewhores and the mentally ill. Then again...
10 hilariously stupid products everyone knew would fail, and then they did Serious people in expensive suits looked at each other and agreed; we're gonna make baby food for adults and make a killing.
46 things I learned from being gulaged Varlam Shalamov spent much of the period from 1937 to 1951 gulaged in the arctic cold of Kolyma. These are the 46 things he learned from the experience.
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From ballet to nylon: The strangest things to cause riots Some riots will be leaving historians scratching their heads forevermore.
When it comes to tension surrounding race and Super Bowl victories, rioting makes perfect sense. But occasionally, the strangest things—like eggnog and nylon—can induce a riot, leaving historians scratching their heads forevermore. Straw hats Perhaps one of the weirdest riots to ever take place was the Straw Hat Riot of 1922, when people were rampaging through the streets of New York and beating up anyone wearing a straw hat. Straw hats had appeared in the 19th century as summertime wear and initially it was not considered good form for men to wear these in big cities. By the early 20th century, they were considered acceptable day attire in North American…
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I’m a Lyft driver and asked riders to tell me their deepest confessions You'd be surprised what people told me over the course of my 60 day experiment.
Fun sounding techniques for measuring horrible things When something goes horribly wrong, there are people out there who get paid to measure just how bad things actually are.
10 types of weirdos you’ll find in an adult bookstore There's something in an adult bookstore for everyone, right? Unfortunately.
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The Christmas party that stopped a world war They defied the orders of their superiors, laid down their rifles, and celebrated Christmas with the enemy in No Man's Land.
On Christmas Eve 1914, when WWI was well underway, soldiers lay in their trenches ready for the enemy to attack. But soldiers on the both sides of the Western Front had misgivings about killing their fellow man on a day that celebrates Peace on Earth. These men defied the orders of their superiors and for a day laid down their rifles and celebrated Christmas in No Man’s Land. Through the eyes of British, French, and German soldiers we see how fragile it was, and how brave these men were to celebrate peace in a time of war. “What a different sort of Christmas Eve” On Christmas Eve 1914 a young…
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This is why some people have that disgusting cheesy feet smell The answer, surprisingly, comes via malaria research.
5 reasons Santa Claus is clearly a villain When you take an investigative lens to his seemingly flawless image you find more than a few bone-chilling pieces of evidence to the contrary.
The weird underbelly of Texas: 10 of the Lone Star State’s oddest sights Everybody's heading to Texas these days. Make sure you experience these weird places with unlikely histories and even weirder people.
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Colonial Americans were pretty much always drunk The American Revolution was built on a foundation of booze, led by tavern addicted Founding Fathers who could drink any frat boy under the table.
Images of our Colonial forefathers usually involve powdered wigs, petticoats, and the thrill of throwing tons of tea into the Boston Harbor. Although we often think of their era as proper and civilized, it turns out that the people who led the American Revolution knew how to party. In fact, the American Revolution was built on a foundation of booze, led by tavern addicted Founding Fathers who could drink any college frat boy under the table. Beer saved the Mayflower The first settlers brought with them the English tradition of beer drinking. Even during the famous 1620 voyage of Pilgrims on board the Mayflower, beer saved the voyage. The water…
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Does snuff porn actually exist? A look at the history of porn's most enduring legend.
The 11 most traumatizing TV episodes of all time The episodes and scenes that both shocked and scarred us with the misery they portrayed.
Andrew Jackson’s 1400-pound block of cheese Jackson was a legend. And, at some point, he was gifted a humongous wheel of cheese. This is the story of that cheese,
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Cruel and unusual: history’s most disturbing medical treatments Let's be grateful for how far healthcare has come.
You probably don’t enjoy going to the doctor (who does?), but seeking medical treatment today is worlds better than it was in the past. Can you imagine setting up an appointment about a persistent headache and the doctor prescribing an ice pick to your eye socket? Of course, as ridiculous as some of these treatments sound, practitioners honestly believed that they were giving patients the best possible care. But that hardly changes the fact that many of these treatments did more harm than good. After reading about history’s most infamous and unusual medical treatments, you’ll be grateful for how far healthcare has come. Mercury Ancient Chinese and Indian people were…
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The incredible technologies and inventions now lost to history Some may be nothing more than legends, while others are well documented or even surviving as unexplained curios to this day.
Enter the dominion of The Beast: The mysterious allure of Aleister Crowley Described by some as "the wickedest man in the world," this satanist led quite the colorful life.
17 fun facts you need to know about Monty Python 17 things you didn’t know about Monty Python. Unladen swallows included.
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The true history of absinthe, and the reason it was banned for 100 years The drink has a colorful history involving everything from medical miracles to murder.
Absinthe has a bad reputation, even compared with other alcoholic beverages. But from its early use as a medical elixir to the wave of absinthe bans that occurred during the early 1900s, the drink has a very colorful history involving everything from medical miracles to murder. Medicinal roots Absinthe is an anise-flavored, distilled spirit that was originally developed not as an alcoholic beverage, but for medicinal purposes. Early prototypes of the beverage were used by the ancient Greeks in childbirth. Scholars credit Madame Henriette Henirod from the Swiss village of Couvet as the first individual to create recognizable absinthe during the mid-eighteenth century. The earliest written recipe is dated to…
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10 hilariously stupid products everyone knew would fail, and then they did Serious people in expensive suits looked at each other and agreed; we're gonna make baby food for adults and make a killing.
6 incredibly stupid cons that actually worked You are being hunted by polish priests and need to pay the CIA $160k to protect you. These are the cons that make Nigerian 419 scammers look like Ocean's Eleven.
Top 35 unforgettable moments in Star Trek history Moments across the entirety of Star Trek that we won't ever forget.
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4 adorable facts about history’s greatest dictators Finally an excuse for those kawaii dictator memes.
Saddam Hussein wrote romance novels Really sappy ones too. Before he was found in a hole and hung from his neck while having someone record the snuff video, he was a jolly dictator who had hobbies. One of them was to write love stories on the side to show his softer side. When finding time out of his day to stop torturing people and shooting AK-47s into the air, he wrote the book Zabiba and the King. Zabiba and the King was a piece of historical fiction that portrayed Iraq as Zabibah, the lead female in the story. She was abused and raped by her sadistic husband, who was very…
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From ballet to nylon: The strangest things to cause riots Some riots will be leaving historians scratching their heads forevermore.
Does Trump have a time machine? Tesla's stolen research, and some freaky coincidences. Here's my theory.
The rise and fall of the Vanderbilts—America’s wealthiest family The Vanderbilts were arguably the most prominent family of the Gilded Age, but time has slowly eroded their fortune and legacy.
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The stomach-turning online world of ‘popping’ We examine an online subculture forming around the world's worst boils, zits, recluse spider bites, and exotic skin conditions. Disgusting images ahead!
Human beings are gross. We’re barely-functional assemblages of fluids and bones, held together by a barrier of skin that constantly struggles with an atmosphere full of pollutants. And when that delicate membrane gets irritated, things get even grosser. So gross, in fact, that the resulting video looks like something out of horror sci-fi. Welcome to the world of r/Popping, the Reddit destination for “pictures, videos, and stories about cysts and pimples.” Over 86,000 people subscribe to this Subreddit to see and share the nastiest boils, zits, recluse spider bites, and assorted skin conditions in grisly detail. Here’s a warning, right off: we’re about to share some insanely disgusting images, videos,…
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The gentleman’s guide to hacking Tinder We put the best experts in a room and distilled the essence into this thing.
10 hilariously stupid products everyone knew would fail, and then they did Serious people in expensive suits looked at each other and agreed; we're gonna make baby food for adults and make a killing.
