The fact that Joe Arridy was innocent couldn’t save him from being executed for the rape and murder of two local teenage girls whom he had never met. It was January 6, 1939, and the mentally challenged 23-year-old, who had an IQ of 46, apparently had a hard time grasping what it meant to die. […]
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Within one of history’s darkest eras, a figure emerged whose name would become synonymous with cruelty, efficiency, and death: Vasily Blokhin, the chief executioner of the Soviet Union. Blokhin is widely acknowledged and infamous for the title of the most prolific executioner in recorded world history. And for good reason. Amidst the shadowy corridors of
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Have you ever been curious about what famous people looked like before they were famous? In this article, we go back in time to see old pictures of famous people when they were younger. We will show you their old school pictures and the first pictures of them when they started acting or singing. It’s
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The incredible life of Robert Smalls is a story of courage and daring. Smalls was born into slavery in the South in the 1800s. He rose from humble beginnings to become a naval hero, a political pioneer, and a champion for civil rights. But it was his incredible escape from the chains of enslavement that
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Evaluating generalship is often a practice of choosing arbitrary values to rank. Military historians will argue infinitely over the relative merits of one leader over another. Ranking Roman generals is not immune to this kind of controversy. Sun Tzu provides us with some guidance: “Therefore the skillful leader subdues the enemy’s troops without any fighting;
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In 2008, some of the unfinished manuscripts of Cuban anthropologist, historian, and musicologist, Fernando Ortiz were published posthumously as La Virgen de la Caridad del Cobre. Historia y etnografía. This work, which deals with Cuba’s patron saint, was devoured by readers all over the island. The book flew off the shelves of bookstores – a
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Part myth, part legend, the African warrior-chief known as Shaka Zulu transformed the Zulu people. This was a relatively small and insignificant tribe. And he turned them into one of the most savage and well-trained war machines in African history. To some, Shaka was a nation-builder. He was a uniter of Black people. A bringer
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One of the most legendary pitchers to ever throw a baseball would have rather spent his time fishing, and often did. Rube Waddell was an eccentric person, had an interesting and varied career, and pitched some of the most record-breaking games of baseball ever. A Rocky Start Waddell began his career in 1897 when the Louisville Colonels
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The Schmidt pain index was created by entomologist Justin Schmidt to rank the degree of pain caused by the bites and stings of various insects. And how did he develop this scale? By subjecting himself to each and every bite and sting. And if that wasn’t enough, he wrote up delightfully descriptive summaries of each
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The death penalty no longer exists in most Western countries, including England. But in the 1800s, executions were a common form of capital punishment. While most people did not survive to tell the tale, one man named John Henry George Lee (also known as John “Babbacombe” Lee) survived three execution attempts. Poor Childhood, Big Dreams
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