Histories And Mysteries

Nuclear waste will last for thousands and thousands of years before it is finally safe. How do we communicate this danger to future generations, who may not share our language, symbols, or scientific understanding?

Nuclear power is gaining popularity worldwide, but despite its long history, we haven't actually decided where to put the highly dangerous byproducts of nuclear power production. Maybe we should get on that.

1820, at the height of whaling, the Nantucket whale-ship Essex suffered an unheard of tragedy - being attacked and sunk by an 80 foot sperm whale. But unlike the book it inspired, this was far from the end for the captain and crew.

A major distinction between different types of serial killers - and different types of Angels of Death - is motive. Traditionally, male serial killers are more likely to be motivated by sex and female serial killers more motivated by material comfort. However, that it not always the case... particularly not when it comes to killers like Jane Toppan.

We expect nurses and doctors to provide knowledge, health, and most of all, safety. But medical professionals compose a distinct subset of serial killers, known as Angels of Death.

For hundreds of years, Canada and the United States have been each others closest neighbours, strongest allies, and largest trading partners... except for all the times they were at each others throats. The Revolutionary War, the War of 1812, the Pork and Beans War, and the Pig War -- 50% actual wars, 50% backwoods hijinks. This past is one far more recent than one might think, including two declassified documents from the early 20th century -- Defense Scheme One and War Plan Red.

Lizzie Borden, despite being acquitted of all charges, has remained the primary suspect in her parents double-homicide for over a hundred years. Was she really the killer? And is there any way to know for sure? Absolutely not.

Lizzie Borden took an axe Gave her mother forty wacks When she saw what she had done She gave her father forty-one [Citation Needed]

The quest for the Northwest Passage -- a navigable sea route through the Canadian arctic -- was long and dangerous. Even so, when Sir John Franklin led two ships, the Erebus and Terror, on a last mission to complete mapping of North America's icy archipelago, there was every reason for confidence. The Terror and Erebus were last seen by European whalers off the coast of Greenland in the summer of 1845, after which they simply disappeared into the frozen north.

In 1921, Roscoe Arbuckle was one of the most famous men in the United States and among the wealthiest actors in the nascent Hollywood. That all ended when a lurid murder trial for the death of Virginia Rappe led to him being a persona non grata, his films banned all around the English-speaking world.