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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.
We tend to look back at ancient technologies with an air of superiority, but there are more than a few historical inventions and artifacts that reach beyond our understanding. Some may be nothing more than legends, while others are well documented or even surviving as unexplained curios to this day. Stradivarius violins Antonio Stradivari lived from 1644 to 1737. He was an Italian luthier and craftsman who we know as the most significant and greatest artisan in instrument-making history. Somewhere around 500 of his violins survive to this day and sell for tens of millions of dollars for their acoustic properties. The exact techniques and materials used to make his…
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From Bach to 50s weirdness: Everything you need to know about classical music An 8-step cheat sheet to classical music that will make you cultured in one reading.
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.
Are you being followed? How can you tell if you're being followed? Don't bother looking for men peering around corners. The secret to identifying a tail is all in the shoes...
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10 spectacular Darwin Awards of the medieval age The Darwin Awards are annual and don't concern themselves with historical (ig)noble sacrifices. Let's correct that injustice.
The Darwin Awards were created in the 1980s to honor those individuals who made the ultimate sacrifice to protect humanity’s gene pool. That is, they died in such an extraordinarily idiotic manner that their deaths actually significantly raised the quality of the DNA passed on to the next generation – as per Charles Darwin’s theories on natural selection. But the Darwin Awards are annual, only concerning themselves with candidates who have expired within the last year. This leaves a vast array of figures throughout history who have gone unrecognized for their (ig)noble sacrifice. This hardly seems fair. Of course, there’s a lot of history to cover, so in the interests…
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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.
Here are all the mentions of prostitutes in the leaked US diplomatic cables I sifted through WikiLeaks' dump of secret government cables for entries about sex work.
The (many) lies pornographers tell Porn counting goes like this: 1, 2, 3, Gang, “INSERT FANTASY NUMBER HERE.” And basically everything else is a lie also.
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10 great educational video games for history buffs Jokes about Battlefield's wokified WWI soldiers aside; for today's games, historical authenticity is a selling point. Learning has become fun.
You may have played those third-rate “edutainment” video games as a kid and developed a dislike for anything with the word educational in front of it. Educational video games for aspiring essay writers are often focused on reading comprehension (like Reader Rabbit) or simple math (like Number Munchers), and those games aren’t really that fun. The fare for adults is much better. Video games focused on history tend to involve deep strategic gameplay, and are even more enjoyable when you already have a little prior knowledge of the past (which we suppose you do). Many of them strive for historical authenticity – and of course it doesn’t hurt that it’s…
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7 hilariously stupid self-defense systems that will get you killed dead As long as there’s an Internet, there’ll be people utterly incapable of defending themselves – especially against people saying “Buy this, it’ll totally help you defend yourself!”
The wacky gay world of extreme bodybuilding Would you eat monkey brains?
10 reasons you should never date a pornstar The pros just don't outweight the cons.
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These ancient technologies were way ahead of their time Incredible artifact discoveries reveal many ancient cultures were capable of far more than previously thought.
People tend to think of ancient civilizations and their technologies as primitive, but while certainly not as impressive as our 2020 technology trends, it’s still incredible what they were able to do with the limited tools and resources available to them. Incredible artifact discoveries have shown that some of these cultures were way ahead of their time and capable of far more than previously thought. From ancient alarm clocks to an industrial revolution that almost happened thousands of years ago with the invention of steam power, here are 10 fascinating ancient technologies. The Lycurgus Cup, a 4th century Roman technicolor cup The beautiful Lycurgus Cup is a Roman glass cup…
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The 10 most evil fictional organizations Agglomerations of wretched villainy poised to completely destroy the civilization we hold dear.
How I survived a year of SHTF in 90s Bosnia No electricity, no food, no running water, no law. In a now legendary forum thread, a user named Selco tells preppers about his experiences and what he and his family did to stay alive.
The (many) unsexy reasons you would never want to be a male porn star Getting paid to have sex on camera with hot girls is wildly overrated, and we’ll tell you why.
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Medieval gambling: high stakes games in the Middle Ages The folly of many, and suppressed whenever authorities felt the gentry were impoverishing themselves. It nevertheless flourished.
Just like today, people in the Middle Ages (5th to 15th century) liked to play games to pass the time. And where there’s games, there’s gambling. Gambling in the middle ages was of course a lot different from pointing your browser at King Casino and clicking yourself to victory on Jumanji video slot, but no matter what time period you’re from, backing games up with stakes will get your adrenaline pumping that much faster and our ancestors would have experienced the same thrill we do. Despite pushback from the church and law enforcement, gambling was an unrelenting force for people in all levels of society. Here are our top 10…
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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.
How our caveman instincts explain why we play video games Video games are fun - that’s a given. But here's what makes them fun.
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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The most badass Latin phrases Latin's utility has long since faded, but there's still something inherently awesome about it.
There’s something delightfully pretentious about Latin. It is, despite what the classics majors will tell you, a very dead language. And yet its use alludes to an era that many in the West naturally revere — the Bronze Age. These days, Latin is, more often than not, relegated to legal terms or mottos. These have an air of permanence about them. And while Latin’s utility has long since faded, there’s still something inherently awesome about uttering a phrase in Latin. Here are some of our favorites. Ad astra per aspera “A rough road leads to the stars” Apollo 1 was the US first real disaster in the space program. Three…
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The future of humanity depends on this secret society and their 200 million samurai They can raise 200 million samurai at will.
A brief history of toilets Going to the bathroom used to be a lot weirder. And in some countries, it still is.
Why Hollywood gets World War II so wrong Hollywood liberals see World War II as the last morally unquestionable war but so often get their facts wrong.
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Struggles of a royal mistress: the women who went to any length to obtain their kings In order to have sex with a king, you had to be one accomplished mistress.
“Every woman was born with the ambition to become the King’s favorite,” wrote Primi Visconti, an Italian fortune-teller who lived at Louis XIV’s french court. And in this world of glittering ambition and mercurial passions, it seemed he was right. While princesses were bred to be proper and abiding, the mistresses of kings were edified on an entirely different level. Pandering to powerful men who were accustomed to having their egos and nether regions stroked regularly, the chosen lover or maîtresse-en-titre of the king had her work cut out for her. If prostitution is, in fact, the oldest profession in history, maintaining the position as the chief mistress of a monarch…
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Are you being followed? How can you tell if you're being followed? Don't bother looking for men peering around corners. The secret to identifying a tail is all in the shoes...
Cops share their creepiest paranormal encounters Cops have to deal with a lot of weird shit, and the paranormal—or what seems to be—is sometimes part of it.
6 World Wars you’ve probably never heard of Why they happened and why they were forgotten.
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A brief history of toilets Going to the bathroom used to be a lot weirder. And in some countries, it still is.
The next time you take a seat on your own private porcelain throne: be grateful. You have privacy, toilet paper, and the streets don’t reek of feces. Toilets have come a long way from their dirty, breezy, communal origins. Poop like an Egyptian The earliest humans in hunter-gatherer society would have just gone au naturale out in the woods. But once cities started becoming a thing, the elite needed to figure out a way to keep all that human waste out of their way. The ancient Egyptians were among the first to appoint designated pooping spots for the wealthy. They even concocted some of the world’s first toilet seats—these little…
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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.
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.
From rites of passage to hipsters: The evolution of tattoos Whether it's a classic “MOM” on your arm or distinctions of class and social hierarchy, tattoos have always been around—and probably always will be.
