InterneTaught

Annette Kellerman was an Australian professional swimmer, film actress, writer, and business owner. She helped popularize synchronized swimming, but her biggest claim to fame is the one piece bathing suit she released for her own line of women’s clothing. The controversy here was that at the time women were expected to wear en cumbersome outfits for swimming, to hide their bodies as much as they could. Not exactly fair as men were walking around in just shorts; not to mention it made actual swimming very difficult. She was actually arrested for indecency when she first wore the bathing suit out.

This is the last photo ever taken of Regina Kay, while she was alive. And it was taken by her killer. His name was Robert Ben Rhoades, and he toured the country side in an 18-wheeler semi truck with a torture chamber set up in the back. He cut her hair mostly off, and made her wear this black dress for the picture right before he murdered her.

Tianducheng is a place in China, entirely man made to resemble Paris. It's been under construction since 2007 and was originally projects to house about 10,000 people but currently has roughly 1,000, whom work at a nearby French theme park. The "fake city" isn't notably popular probably due in part by it's odd location; in the outskirts surrounded by farm land and dead end roads. The replica of the Eiffel tower is 1/3 the size of the real thing. 

Honey Bee's are the only type of bee which die when they sting someone or some thing. Why? Because the stinger itself actually starts up inside the abdomen of the bee, attached to some of it's internal organs. So when they release it in defense, the stinger pulls out part of their digestive tract, muscle tissue and nerves. And leaves a gaping hole in their body. Obviously, they can't survive such bodily devastation and die shortly after every thing is yanked out. But the nerve cells left behind with the stinger actually keep moving back and forth, causing the stinger to dig deeper into it's victim.

Scientists at Orfield Labs in Minneapolis have created what is technically called an "anechoic chamber", or worlds quietest room as it is known by Guinness Records. To put it in perspective, a typical room at it's most average level of complete silence sits at 30 decibels. This room... -9 decibels. When someone sits in the room, door closed and alone, they can not only clearly hear their heartbeat but also their stomach churning, the small sound your ears make, and other organs doing stuff. It's so uncomfortable the longest a person has lasted in the room is 45 minutes. The rooms purpose is for testing the noise levels of various products like LED lights. It's alternate purpose is proving that anything can be awful, even some goddamn peace and quiet.

In 1944 a 14 year old boy named George Stinney was arrested and charged for the murder of two young girls in South Carolina. His trial lasted 3 hours, and during the course of that trial his lawyer performed no cross examinations and called no witnesses. The jury of 12 white men took only 10 minutes to agree on his guilt. He was executed via electric chair. Then 70 years later, the case was re-opened for a modern re-examination and he was determined to be not-guilty of the crime. The boys 6th amendment rights were declared violated and his execution unjustified. The family is not happy about the news and they believe the real killer will likely never be identified.

The word Halloween is a shortening of All Hallows' Evening, also known as Hallowe'en or All Hallows' Eve. Halloween has origins in the ancient Celtic festival known as Samhain ("sah-win"). The festival of Samhain is a celebration of the end of the harvest season in Gaelic culture.The ancient Gaels believed that on October 31 the boundaries between the worlds of the living and the dead overlapped and the dead would come back to life and wreak havoc on the living, in the form of sickness or damaged crops. Also, masks and costumes were worn in an attempt to mimic the evil spirits or appease them. and trick-or-treating resembles the late medieval practice of "souling", when poor folk would go door to door on Hallowmas, receiving food in return for prayers for the dead on All Souls Day.

Every one knows the quote, often said by mafia folk in the movies; "Blood is thicker than water". It's used by people to signify that family bonds are the strongest. Like the blood of family is sacred, and more important and bonding than anything else; be that friendships or alliances, etc.So what does the water represent? Just anything in general? Well, the ironic thing here is that the original, full length quote which this derives from is the following; "The blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb." Which technically, means the exact oposite of what every one uses that quote for in modern times. It means the blood of a brotherhood, or club, fraternity, etc, is more binding than that of family.

Yet another example of how we've got it all wrong.

Located in Ushiku, Ibaraki Prefecture, Japan stands the worlds tallest statue. Named Ushiku Daibutsu, it stands at 390 feet tall and is made of bronze; weighing in at over 4,000 tonnes. Completed in 1993, it was built to commemorate the birth of Shinran, founder of Jōdo Shinshū, AKA "True Pure Land School" of Buddhism. An elevator inside takes you to an observation deck at the top, and music plays and incense burns within the body of the statue.

Most people know what a velociraptor(or "raptor" as made famous by Jurassic Park) is. But unfortunately most people would be misinformed too. The raptor shown in the films, with it's now iconic appearance, looks almost nothing like the real raptor that lived approx. 70 million years ago. In fact it was modeled after another dinosaur called deinonychus, which obviously isn't as catchy as the other name. Hence the switcheroo. The real life raptor was actually about the size of a chicken at approx. 30lbs on average, and even sort of looked like them, as it had feathers on most of it's body. They also probably didn't hunt in packs, as depicted in the films. Based on evidence which includes a raptor fossilized in the act of attacking another small dinosaur, scientists believe they worked alone. The one big fact the movie got right, was the single huge claw on it's hind legs. It is believed that they did in fact use this to gash prey in quick vicious bursts, then the raptor would retreat a safe distance and wait for the victim to bleed out, before going in to eat it. Also they weren't from North America, but central Asian instead.

Cute little killing machine, isn't it?

Near the town of Hemet in Riverside County, California, is a compound which consists of a set of double wide trailers joined together within a Scientology compound. It's nicknamed "the Hole"; and while the building is meant for office use as it's complete with cubicles and desks, it is used as living quarters for 40 to 100 people at a time. People "staying" in the Hole are often so cramped that people are sleeping on and under desks, and up against each other. So who stays here? And why? Executives and other managerial staff from the Church of Scientology have been sent here to stay for as long as weeks or even years. While the church denies the living conditions, they do say that those staying here are doing so voluntarily and it is merely a "program of ethics and correction".

In addition to uncomfortable and cramped "quarters", executive are also not allowed to leave unless to attend church, or for showers. And showers involve being escorted into a nearby garage in pairs of two, where you are observed by security staff. Meals are brought to the building via golf cart, and you are only given 15 minutes to eat. The food is described as "like left overs", and usually consists of various foods thrown together in a pot and cooked to barely edible conditions. The building is also said to be infested with ants, and often the air conditioning goes off causing temperatures inside to reach 106 degrees.

The mentality of those staying here often becomes very hostile, as no one can be trusted due to the extreme conditions and abusive treatment administered by the staff. Which involved various humiliation activities meant to get people to admit to all of their misdeeds and impure thoughts. Often resulting in confessions to a screaming mob of people of things one didn't even do, just to satisfy the crowd. From admissions of lying and stealing, to sexual fantasies. The tactics used to bring out these confessions often got physically violent. Some examples include being made to stand in a trash can while ice water is poured over you, being slapped and kicked against, and made to lick bathroom floors for 30 minutes straight.

The first useable mobile phone, was used to make the first mobile phone call, on a street corner in Manhattan; April 3rd 1973. It was placed by Martin Cooper of Motorola, and it was a brief phone call to one of his rivals at AT&T. The phone was a prototype for what would later become the Motorola DynaTAC 8000x. The first consumer mobile phone, weighed in at 2.5 pounds. And it only cost $3,995 dollars.

Sometime around 1999, a married doctor named Richard Phillips began an affair with a girl at his practice, named Sharon Irons. They both swear they never had sex, but instead only engaged in oral sex three times over the course of their affair. What Richard didn't know, was that one time after she had given him a blowjob, Sharon kept his semen in her mouth, and later spit it out and inserted it into her vagina. In a secret attempt to get pregnant with his child. Two years later, long after the affair had ended, Sharon filed a paternity suit. Richard was identified as the father, and ordered to pay $800 a month in child support. He immediately filed a lawsuit upon learning of the deceptive way she impregnated herself. The case was initially accepted and pursued, on grounds that what she did was outrageous and extreme deception. Part of Richards lawsuit included claims that he had suffered intense mental anguish and stress over the situation, But ultimately the case was dismissed, as according to the court Richards semen was "given as a gift" to Sharon, with no expectation or agreement of it's return and thus hers to do with how she pleased. The paternity suit stuck, and Richard was ordered to pay child support in the end. In the courts eyes, regardless of how it happened, the fact is a child was created.

Guess he should have wrapped that gift before he gave it. Amirite?

The Voynich manuscript is an illustrated codex hand written and drawn in an unknown writing system/language, carbon dated by the vellum pages it was made with as far as the early 15th century; presumably in Northern Italy during the Italian Renaissance. It's named after the Polish book dealer who purchased it in 1912.

It appears to be missing pages, lost over time; yet about 240 pages still remain. Every page consists of text written left to right, and most with illustrations and diagrams. The language used to write the entire book is completely unknown and has been the subject of study by cryptographers for decades but no one has been able to decipher it.

The book appears to have "sections", with accompanying illustrations to support them; such as Herbal, Astronomical, Biological, Recipes, etc. Complete with strange diagrams that seem to depict unknown practices or processes, along with what appear to be "bullet-ed" lists. An interesting thing is that none of the plants depicted in the book resemble any known species on Earth. That combined with the astronomical section and the unknown language, has lead many theorists to believe the book is somehow of alien origin. The astronomical section does contain drawings of known constellations. Some have argued it's a hoax, but other experts insist the books incredible attention to even the most subtle detail, along with the high price it would have cost to create such a thing at that time, point to it being very unlikely to be a hoax of that magnitude. So the mystery remains as to who created this elaborate book, and where does it really come from...

Rumor has it the missing page # 6 was a crude drawing of a woman in a bikini.

The term "suspended animation" is more commonly used in science fiction, when describing the act of balancing a person between life and death. Sort of like a zombie. But that fictional practice may soon become a common reality, as researchers at the UPMC Presbyterian Hospital in Pittsburgh are to perform the first ever human clinical trials of utilizing suspended animation this month.

The practice involves replacing a patient's entire blood supply with cold saline solution, which essentially induces hypothermia and slows down all cellular activity. Thus allowing surgeons more time to operate on individuals who have extreme life threatening injuries. Once the wounds are repaired, they are gradually brought back by slowly replacing the saline with blood again.

The oldest living cat currently is Poppy, at 24 cats years old. That's 114 human years. She was born in 1990, and is currently barely 2 years younger than the worlds oldest living person. She is deaf and blind, and meows when she needs things but her owners saw she is still the boss of the house, which is home to 4 other cats. She is very frail, and supposedly has very little time left, so her owners keep her from doing things dangerous like walking down the stairs; even though she actually goes up them on her own. Also it should be pointed out that her owners sometimes feed her KFC chicken and biscuits. So she's like that old lady you know who smokes and drinks, yet somehow is like 100 years old.

The word of the year for 2013, as by the Oxford Dictionaries, was said to be "selfie". While this may seem like a modern trend, it actually dates all the way back to the earliest photographs ever taken. Here we have the worlds first ever selfie; taken by amateur chemist and photography enthusiast(he totally would be) Robert Cornelius in 1839. He took the photo be removing the lens cap, and then running into the frame and standing still for about a minute before quickly covering the lens back up. He wrote on the back of the picture "first light Picture ever taken. 1839". Now this is regarded as the first ever photograph self portrait.

If you really examine all the details regarding this piece of history, it becomes apparent that some things never change.