Get your fix of fascinating trivia in our 5-minute newsletter.
With their leather jackets, Harley Davidsons, and distinctive winged skull logo, the Hells Angels have long been the symbol of outlaw biker culture. But behind the tough exterior lies a secretive brotherhood, fiercely loyal and protective of their own.
Carl Tanzler was a man of many hats. He was—or at least claimed to be—a chemist, engineer, physicist, scientist, and roentgenologist with degrees in philosophy, psychology, and medicine. Nevertheless, he’s best remembered today as a delusional necrophiliac who slept next to the corpse of a patient—for nearly a decade!
In the final days of World War II, an extraordinary battle unfolded in the heart of the Austrian Alps. French prisoners, American GIs, and German soldiers fought side by side against the SS in a desperate struggle to defend a medieval castle. This is the story of the Battle of Castle Itter.
There are ways to go, and then there’s lingchi, an execution method so horrid and grim that Chinese jurists found it hard to believe it ever existed and Western travelers had trouble grasping its brutality—or even meaning. That didn’t stop them from giving it a poetic nickname: the “death by a thousand cuts.”
Meraki has a rich and diverse history, from ancient Greek medicine to Ottoman Turkish dictionaries, and even in Slavic folk poetry. It is now commonly linked to finding pleasure in one’s work. Interestingly, it originally meant quite the opposite: ‘spleen.’
When the Billy Doll hit the shops in 1997, it was widely touted as “the first ‘out and proud’ gay doll;” older generations were right to meet the claim with skepticism—they remembered Gay Bob, the original gay doll.
On September 7, 1978, Bulgarian dissident Georgi Markov was waiting at a bus stop in London’s Strand when he felt a sharp jab in his leg. Little did he know that he had just become the victim of a sophisticated assassination involving an iconic Cold War weapon: the umbrella gun.
Once upon a time, in a rotating chicken-legged hut in the depths of the forest, there lived Baba Yaga, the preeminent witch of Slavic folklore. Don’t let her wrinkled face or bony leg fool you—she is a fierce enchantress, a force to be reckoned with!
When a plan to eradicate cobras in 19th-century Delhi backfired spectacularly, the incident became known as the “Cobra Effect.” It has since become a cautionary tale about the unintended consequences of well-meaning policies, and a reminder of the importance of understanding the systems within which we operate.
In 1941, Jorge Luis Borges invented the Library of Babel, an infinite repository of knowledge, and a dizzying plunge into the depths of uncertainty and ignorance. Several decades later, we invented the internet. The two are linked—and have a lot to do with several ancient philosophers and Émile Borel’s million monkeys.
On July 28, 1945, in response to the Potsdam Declaration demanding Japan’s unconditional surrender, Japanese prime minister Kantarō Suzuki uttered a now-famous phrase: mokusatsu-suru. The phrase can be translated to mean either “ignore” or “no comment.” The Allies heard the former. The atomic bombs were dropped several days later.
In the eastern woodlands of the Canadian North, there lives—in the chill of the air and in the fearful whispers of the local people—the wendigo, a horrendous creature of evil with an insatiable hunger for human flesh. There is only one thing the locals fear more than being eaten by the wendigo—becoming one.
In the words of celebrated neuroscientist Antonio Damasio, the Euthanasia Coaster—essentially, a 2010 quasi-kinetic sculpture—is “not fun at all as art, and is preposterous as a technical device. But it does work as provocation, regardless of intent.” And the intent? A death-themed amusement park.
In 2021, a Maine photographer was flabbergasted to unearth a feline enigma: her kitten, seemingly afflicted, was a rare jewel—Lykoi, the elusive Wolf Cat. A name mirroring its mystery, wait till you learn of its canine-like tendencies!
Originally, handfasting was a humble engagement ritual. A few centuries—and scholarly misunderstandings—later, it became an elaborate Wiccan alternative to white Christian marriages.
Every great romantic comedy—from The Graduate to Shrek—features a melodramatic “I object” wedding scene. There’s a reason why real life rarely does. It’s got nothing to do with love—and everything to do with law.
A pagan wedding is commonly known as handfasting, but the handfasting is only a part of it. They also include circle closings and Claddagh rings, elemental invocations and off-the-wall vows. Oh, yes, broom-jumpings too!
Facing a shortage of cedars and no available land to grow new seedlings, medieval Japanese foresters developed a technique called daisugi. It allowed them to grow trees—on top of other trees!
Get your fix of fascinating trivia in our 5-minute newsletter.
© Copyright Odd Feed 2023. All rights reserved.