- newA ship found drifting in the Pacific was still afloat but all 25 passengers had vanished
On October 3, 1955, the motor vessel Joyita left Apia, Western Samoa, bound for the Tokelau Islands with 25 people aboard — 16 crew and 9 passengers, including a government medical officer carrying a supply of surgical instruments and drugs. The 69…
- 4 hours ago 15 Jun 26, 8:30am -
- newA Navy blimp landed in San Francisco with its engines running and its crew gone
On August 16, 1942, the Navy blimp L-8 lifted off from Treasure Island, San Francisco, on a routine antisubmarine patrol with Lieutenant Ernest DeWitt Cody, 27, and Ensign Charles Adams, 35 — Adams's first flight as a commissioned officer. At 7:38…
- 4 hours ago 15 Jun 26, 8:00am -
- newA 14-year-old Japanese sailor drifted across the Pacific for 14 months and could never go home
In 1832, a 14-year-old crew member named Otokichi left Japan on a rice transport ship bound for Edo. A storm blew the vessel off course, and it drifted across the northern Pacific for 14 months without a mast or rudder. The crew survived on desalinat…
- 14 hours ago 14 Jun 26, 10:30pm -
- Two Italian brothers claimed to have recorded dying Soviet cosmonauts that Moscow erased from history
The Lost Cosmonauts theory alleges that the Soviet Union launched humans into space before Yuri Gagarin's 1961 flight — and that the cosmonauts onboard died. The strongest piece of supposed evidence came from Italian brothers Achille and Giovanni B…
- 1 day ago 14 Jun 26, 9:30am -
- Japanese officers cannibalized four American POWs on a Pacific island in 1944
In September 1944, nine American pilots were shot down during bombing raids on Chichijima, the largest island in the Bonin chain. Eight were captured. The ninth, who evaded capture, was 20-year-old George H. W. Bush.The eight captured airmen — Llo…
- 1 day ago 14 Jun 26, 9:00am -
- A cargo cult in Vanuatu has been waiting for an American named John Frum since the 1930s
The John Frum movement arose on the island of Tanna in Vanuatu no later than the late 1930s. Followers believe John Frum — often depicted as an American serviceman — will one day return bringing wealth and prosperity. In some versions, a native m…
- 1 day ago 14 Jun 26, 8:30am -
- Emojli was a social network where the only language allowed was emoji
Emojli launched on August 29, 2014 — a social media app that restricted usernames and messages to emoji only. No letters, no numbers, no punctuation. YouTubers Tom Scott and Matt Gray built it after seeing the success of Yo, an app whose entire fun…
- 1 day ago 14 Jun 26, 8:00am -
- At a medieval church festival, the priest brayed like a donkey and the congregation brayed back
The Feast of the Ass was a medieval Christian celebration held on January 14, honoring the donkey that carried the Holy Family into Egypt. A girl and a child riding a real donkey would be led through town to the church, where the animal stood beside…
- 2 days ago 13 Jun 26, 9:06pm -
- The WWII commando who fought with a broadsword, longbow, and bagpipes
John Malcolm Thorpe Fleming Churchill — nicknamed "Fighting Jack" and "Mad Jack" — fought through the entire Second World War armed with a Scottish broadsword, a longbow, and a set of bagpipes. He graduated from Sandhurst in 1926, left the army a…
- 2 days ago 13 Jun 26, 9:41am -
- Why are car keys always kept in the visor in movies?
Surely, you've seen the old movie trope where our plucky heroes duck into an abandoned car to flee from some encroaching danger, fold down the visor, and have the keys drop right into their laps. Have you ever seen anyone do that in real life? — Re…
- 2 days ago 13 Jun 26, 9:37am -