Famously, the Egyptian pyramids were built to host the body of the king. They became temples to the dead, and a new source of worship. That’s all very nice—but perhaps a little elitist. That was the thought of Thomas Willson in 1829, when he proposed a new solution to London’s ongoing problem with graveyard overpopulation: a pyramid mausoleum which could contain the corpses of five million people, and which, if completed, would have been ninety-four floors high (by comparison, the Chrysler Building has just seventy-seven floors). And it would have been located in the middle of London.

Willson thought the idea compact, hygienic, and ornamental, and he hoped that people would come from afar to have picnics and admire it. He also calculated that it would bring in a tidy profit of around ten million pounds. Not all envisaged the idea in the same way, however: one historian has described it as a “nightmarish combination of megalomaniacal Neo-Classicism and dehumanized Utilitarian efficiency”, which is an old-fashioned way of saying “this stinks.” In the end, public opinion turned against it—Londoners most likely deciding that they would rather picnic a park than beneath a colossal pyramid of death.

We associate the Romans with amphitheaters, temples, and statues—but one thing we don’t tend to think of is pyramids. Well, think again. Smack-bang in the middle of Rome is a two-thousand-year-old, 121-foot (37m)-high pyramid.

The Romans had only recently made Egypt a province, and were obviously impressed with their huge tombs to ancient kings. “I like the sound of that,” a Roman magistrate called Gaius Cestius probably said—and had one built for himself, Roman-style, upon his death. Alas, as with the Egyptian pyramids, advertising your tomb in such grand style isn’t always a good idea; both his body and the pyramid’s other contents were plundered in antiquity.

What do you do when you want to build a sixty-five-floor pyramid in the middle of crowded Mexico City? Why, you turn it upside-down and build it underground, of course. That’s the proposal of a Mexican architectural firm. They want to give the city’s main square a glass floor, and build a pyramid of offices, homes, and shops underneath it.

Mexico has a rich history of pyramid building from the Maya civilization, and according to one of the architects, the proposed pyramid would “dig down through the layers of cities to uncover our roots.” Because there’s nothing like building a vast, hi-tech underground shopping centre to discover your roots. At a projected $800 million, the city hasn’t yet expressed much enthusiasm for the idea.

What’s the biggest pyramid in the world? The Great Pyramid of Giza? No—there’s actually one that’s twice as big.

Though not as tall as the Great Pyramid of Egypt, the Great Pyramid of Cholula—which also has the less catchy name of Tlachihualtepetl—is much wider. It can be found in central-east Mexico, and was built over a period of a thousand years, from the third century B.C. to the ninth century A.D.  

Some say that it was built by a giant called Xelhua, but archaeologists, predictably, disagree. They claim that the pyramid was constructed by a series of ancient Mexican civilizations, who added layer upon layer over the years. These days it’s quite overgrown, and doing its best impression of a hill—so much so that the Spanish built a church on it in the sixteenth century.

Everybody thinks of Egypt as the pyramid capital of the world, but there’s another country that has twice as many pyramids: Sudan. Located directly to the south of modern Egypt, they were mostly built around the third century B.C.—around eight hundred years after the last Egyptian pyramids were built.

There are more than two hundred and fifty of them, ranging from twenty feet (6m) to one hundred and twenty feet (36m) high. Many of these have only been discovered in the last few years, suggesting that either the Sudanese were fantastic at hiding their pyramids, or that archaeologists prefer more glamorous locations in which carry out their digging.

It may not be much to look at these days, but the mausoleum pyramid of the first Emperor of China is deadly. It was built from 246 B.C. to 208 B.C., supposedly by as many as 700,000 men—and it was filled with more traps than would fit into an Indiana Jones movie.

It was supposed to be a representation of the Emperor’s palace and universe, and in this vein he had all his childless concubines killed and buried with him. Lovely. Workers, too, were buried alive, in order to preserve the pyramid’s secrets, and trees and grass were planted to make it seem like a hill. The Chinese are yet to excavate, claiming that archaeology isn’t sophisticated enough to do the job properly. But it could well be that they’re simply scared of the traps; for instance, it’s known that the pyramid was filled with a moat of mercury. More than two millennia later, mercury readings from the site are still dangerously high.

Being an architect is tough work. You spend months getting your drawings and measurements perfect—only to have the builders read your plans the wrong way round. That looks like what happened in 1983, for the construction of the 262-foot (80m)-high Slovak Radio Building, in Bratislava, Slovakia. Inside is a concert hall—and it proudly boasts one of the largest organs in Slovakia. If you’re visiting in a group, make sure everyone is spread around evenly; it looks like it could topple at any moment.

Sure, it didn’t last long—but for a while, New York had its own pyramid. At the end of World War One, thousands of helmets from captured German soldiers were taken back to America, and in a somewhat macabre victory display, they were piled up into a pyramid at Grand Central Terminal.

Somehow, we don’t think this would be received very well today. Still, it’s a touch more civilized than the similar actions of fourteenth-century Central Asian emperor Tamerlane. During one siege, he built a pyramid of 90,000 human skulls in front of a besieged city to intimidate them. We imagine that it worked.

Pyramids of death don’t die that easily. In 2007, a group of German entrepreneurs unveiled their designs for a 1900-foot (580m)-tall pyramid to house the bodies of up to forty million dead people. It would also be multi-colored, as if to compensate for the fact that it would be filled with dead bodies. For around $1000, anybody could sign up to have their ashes encased in a block after they die—and the color would be of their choosing. At around ten times the size of the original Great Pyramid, it would have almost literally cast a shadow over the neighboring villages.

Remarkably, the group were given $115,000 of funding from the German government to pursue the idea; since then, however, the plan seems to have faded due to lack of interest and local objection to having a gigantic multi-colored pyramid full of dead people on their doorstep. But don’t worry: if you’re interested, you can still sign up here.

Why restrict pyramid building to our own planet? The Curiosity rover sent by NASA to examine Mars found something rather curious. This pyramid looks like it’s been copied from the ancient Egyptian ones—or perhaps it’s the other way round.

NASA scientists say that the pyramid is most likely the product of wind erosion; but in the minds of ancient aliens theorists, it’s “hard evidence” that our world today has been shaped by mystical space aliens from Mars. One thing is for sure, however: if the aliens who built this rock were the ones who visited Earth, they must have been pretty tiny. The Pyramid of Mars is about the same size as a football.

N. Christie is currently traveling the world to determine once and for all what the Seven Wonders of the World really are.

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There are some animals so bizarre and disturbing that we begin to question how evolution managed to create such creatures. The four species of babirusa possess exceedingly bizarre weaponry, with which they carry out acts of aggression.

Native to Indonesia, these “Deer Pigs” not only possess massive lower canines that curl, fang-like, over the upper jaw—but their upper canines also come in backwards, pairing with the lower tusks and curling back towards the head. Males slash each other with their sabers during vicious mating disputes. The upward direction allows them to be effective in combat, but if the Babirusa fails to grind them down, they may grow into the animal’s skull—with fatal results.

Yes—saber-toothed deer. The thought is so strange and terrifying that one might be tempted to dismiss it as fantasy. In fact, several species of ungulate known as “musk deer”, native to Eurasia, possess massive fangs, which develop from outgrowths of the canine tooth.

Musk deer fangs extend several inches past their lower jaw. Unlike the infamous cats of the distant past, musk deer go to battle against other males with their canine sabers, sinking them into each other during mating disputes. The creatures are genetically distinct from true deer (cervids), and are named after the powerful scent they produce to mark their territory.

Back when the saber-toothed tiger was still roaming around on land, the terrifying payara was evolving exactly the same weaponry for domination of the rivers—but in reverse. Growing to lengths of more than four feet (1.2m), payara stalk the waters of the Amazon, sinking their three-to-four-inch fangs through the vital organs of their prey.

As the stricken prey sinks towards the bottom, the payara’s cavernous jaws engulf it. Unlike most saber-toothed animals, its fangs remain entirely inside its mouth, sliding into two holes in the upper jaw. The ghastly appearance and potential danger of a bite from the “vampire characin” sends chills through the spine of even the most seasoned fisherman.

At first glance, the goosander looks like a typical waterfowl; but when feeding ducks at the pond, you might not want to offer your hand to the members of this unusual species. As the largest of the “Sawbills” of the genus Mergus, the goosander inhabits rivers, estuaries, and park lakes throughout Eurasia, Canada, and the USA.

Extending from its bill are more than one hundred and fifty razor-sharp teeth, curved backwards, which can slice through the bodies of fish like a hot knife in butter. A bird with teeth is always going to be an anomaly—but even more eerily, this dinosaurian “devil duck” may at times saw up small mammals, and even other birds, as though it were some form of aquatic raptor.

The fact that an animal is a herbivore should never tempt you into the belief that it poses no danger to you. Some plant eaters still have particularly wicked canine teeth.

Take the familiar and apparently blasé dromedary camel, for instance. Although this species has long been used as a pack animal and grazer, those thick lips hide impressive teeth that reach over three inches (7.5cm) in length. With such massive jaws and sharp teeth, it is easy to understand how owners have been killed—sometimes in their sleep—by camels with a mind for revenge. It is well within their power to crush a human skull. Fatal bites, such as the one recently reported in China, may also occur during mating season, when the animals are defensive and territorial.

This is the only extinct species on this list. The helicopron was a shark, twenty feet (6m) in length, which used its enormous teeth in a manner unlike that of any known living creature. Attached to a circular muscle, the shark’s mouth apparatus would shoot out and shred prey into bite-sized pieces, much like an actual chainsaw.

The shark’s bizarre form of dentition was misunderstood by scientists for years, before the strange and disturbing truth was eventually revealed. The two-inch (5cm)-long teeth were tightly packed in a descending spiral, ensuring that the prey was torn to pieces with great speed.

The “unicorn of the sea” was afforded mythical status by explorers and researchers—until the moment when the bizarre creature was properly documented and found to be real.

In a bizarre twist of physiology, this relatively small, thirteen-foot (4m)-long whale developed a lethal “spear” atop its head, which could be used during territorial disputes and in self-defense. Occasionally, it is used to break up ice in the whale’s arctic habitat.

In a departure from the norm of symmetry in the animal kingdom, the narwhal’s enormous weapon is actually a modified right canine tooth that angles forwards and extends through the animal’s forehead. The narwhal has no other teeth in its oddly-shaped jaws, but on occasion, the left canine socket may sprout a second “tusk,” sometimes of equal length to the first.

Baboons are the largest monkeys on Earth, filling out at more than eighty pounds (36kg). Despite being around half the size of most humans, the average baboon’s fang-like canines often reach two inches (5cm) in length—even longer than the teeth of most adult lions. Although these simian sabers appear fit to kill even the most intimidating prey, they are more often used in mating season fights among rival males—suggesting that it was sexual selection which led to the development of oversized fangs. But this doesn’t afford much comfort to those who stray into baboon territory.

The hippopotamus may reach a length of more than sixteen feet (5m), and can put on an incredible nine thousand pounds (4000kg) in weight, making it the third-most massive land animal. The hippopotamus (to avoid the contentious plural) also has the largest canines of any land animal, with two sword-like teeth that reach a whopping sixteen inches (40cm) in length.

Essentially, we are dealing with a truck-sized river monster with teeth capable of running through two humans in one bite. And we grew up thinking that crocodiles were our biggest enemies on the Nile… 

In one notable case, a tour guide was partially swallowed by a hippopotamus, and his arm was lost. And in a final fascinating twist, genetic research has shown that these saber-toothed creatures are relatives of whales, rather than pigs as once thought.

With a name like that, anything is possible—this is one fish you do not want to meet on a diving trip. Reaching well over two feet (60cm) in length, these tropical reef inhabitants can be found in shallow waters. They are known to fiercely defend their territories against intruders, including human explorers. Triggerfish teeth—their purpose being to crush rock-hard coral—are shockingly sharp and powerful, and appear almost human-like.

Triggerfish teeth are unusual in that they are straight yet extremely thin. This makes them exceptionally sharp, yet they’re also extremely strong, and resilient to damage.

Ron Harlan investigates of the mysteries of nature and the bizarre findings that often crop up on this planet. He is a freelance writer and student of science.

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In late 1957, the Soviets needed a snappy follow-up to Sputnik. Given thirty days by the Kremlin to come up with something impressive, or else to get packing for Siberia, Russian scientists decided to do the only logical thing: send a stray dog into space.

On October 31 that year, “Laika” was placed into a narrow rocket and left on a frozen launching pad for three days. In all likelihood, this was the highlight of her trip; the actual lift-off subjected her to enough G-Force to push her heart rate into the ‘danger’ area. At the same time, a malfunction caused the rocket’s thermal control system to shut down, essentially turning the cabin into the space-borne equivalent of a sealed car in a sun-baked parking lot. Within five hours, Laika had become both the first creature to reach orbit, and the first creature to die in orbit: a bitter consolation prize rendered even worse by her patent inability to understand it.

During the Winter of 1719, Swedish Lieutenant-General Carl Gustaf Armfeldt was stuck in Norway with 6,000 battle-weary soldiers. In a desperate attempt to make it home, Armfeldt ordered his men back across the Tydal Mountain range—a useful shortcut into Sweden, provided it isn’t midwinter and your troops aren’t carrying summer equipment.

What followed was one of the biggest logistical screw-ups in military history: the first leg of the journey saw two hundred men die of exposure as the army scrambled for shelter in a tiny village. Rather than be put off by the screaming agony all around him, Armfeldt decided that the best course was to carry on—right into the heart of a blizzard.

In the horror that followed, frostbite set in, horses perished, equipment was burnt for warmth, and wolves descended on hapless victims. By the time the remnants of the army had finally reached Sweden on January 15, nearly four thousand men were dead, with another six hundred maimed for life. Because life laughs in the face of justice, Armfeldt was “punished” for his incompetence with a massive promotion.
   

Burke and Wills were the Laurel and Hardy of exploration. Tasked in 1860 with finding a land route from Melbourne to Australia’s north coast, the duo set out with such ‘essential’ supplies as 1,500 pounds (680kg) of sugar, a filing cabinet, a heavy wooden table and matching chairs, and a giant gong. In normal circumstances, you’d like to think that God would have taken pity on their amusing incompetence. But Victorian Australia was not “normal circumstances.”

Having timed their trip to coincide with a blisteringly hot summer, the two quickly ran out of supplies, temper, and luck. The original party splintered, with mass-desertions leading to Burke and Wills running for the coast almost entirely by themselves. When they finally got there, their goal was obscured by miles of mangrove swamps – meaning they technically failed, as well as dying in the process. A year or so after setting out, the two explorers expired over ninety miles (145km) from safety, having accomplished nothing and wasted £60,000 of public money in their very successful suicide attempt.

Any trip that ends with you eating a significant proportion of your loved ones is never going to wind up on a list of “10 Loveliest Journeys.” But did you know the Donner trip was awful even before the cannibalism began?

It’s true: the party had every sign of being totally doomed from the start. For one thing, the guy they were meant to be following across the brand new trail turned out to be a fruitcake. Rather than guide them through the mountains, he left letters tacked to trees and generally led them into areas so dangerous you’d swear it was an assassination attempt. This included the Great Salt Lake Desert—an area of the world so inhospitable that even the Elder Gods fear it. Unsurprisingly, this slowed them down.

Secondly, local native tribes decided to start killing their animals like crazy—an inconvenience made worse by the simmering tensions within the group. This leads nicely to number three: they all hated each other. No kidding: two members of the group even had a whip/knife duel at one point. With that sort of animosity, the cannibalism was probably something of a relief.

We all know the phrase “Doctor Livingstone, I presume?” But what you probably didn’t know was the full extent of misery Livingstone had undergone before he heard it.

In 1866, Livingstone became determined to find the source of the Nile. How determined? Well, he leapt in a boat for Africa, leaving everything he loved behind, and vanished for six years—eventually resurfacing up as the comical “pet” of a local tribe. And he really was something like their pet: despite the fact that he was riddled with dysentery, suffering from malaria, and bleeding internally, the tribe who found him would only offer him food on the condition that he eat it in full view, for their amusement. They were certainly amused, falling over themselves with hilarity while watching this stuffy white man scrabble for survival—much as we now watch Bear Grylls sleep inside a camel for cheap kicks.

Those six years didn’t exactly end well, either; shortly after the famous words above were spoken, Livingstone plunged back into the jungle and promptly died—seven years after setting out, and no closer to discovering the source of the Nile.

You know those days when nothing goes your way, and life feels hopeless? Well, Robert Falcon Scott had roughly sixty of those—consecutively. They also culminated in his death, which is something we can’t often say about our own bad days.

The year was 1911. No one had yet reached the South Pole, and the race was on to claim it in the name of one or another superpower. In the British corner was Scott: a Navy officer and scientist with some decidedly odd ideas about Antarctic travel. In the Norwegian corner was Amundsen: an expert in cold weather exploration, and one of the greatest explorers of his day.

Despite being clearly fated to lose, Scott made a game effort for the pole: by which I mean he wasted days collecting rock samples, and arrived five weeks late. The return journey was even worse: the weather reached previously-unrecorded savageness; temperatures dropped so low that the snow became like sand; and an unprecedented super-storm pinned down and killed the team just a few miles from safety. In the end, Scott’s pole attempt achieved nothing, killed everyone involved, and made the British look like fools.

Mungo Park was one of the first Europeans to properly explore central Africa. In the process, he managed to set a standard for awful journeys, against which all future disasters could be measured.

Planning to sail down the Niger River and into the Congo (thought at the time to be joined), Park’s expedition was crippled by dysentery even before it reached the river proper. What followed was an exercise in how not to navigate through nineteenth century Africa. Park’s river boat cruised into various territories where it really wasn’t wanted, often resulting in ferocious attacks. Luckily, the Europeans had enough firepower to save their skins—at least until the boat got snagged on a rock.

Thousands of miles from safety, outgunned and outnumbered, Park’s crew were massacre by arrows, leaving Park no choice but to jump into the rushing river. Unsurprisingly, this resulted in his immediate death by drowning—a fact which sadly escaped his son, who died on an expedition to rescue his father some eleven years later.

This is it: the granddaddy of all nightmare journeys. In 1914, Ernest Shackleton set off for Antarctica. Before long, his ship became trapped in pack ice, which forced the crew to make a perilous journey across the ice to the only solid ground for miles: a desolate lump of rock called Elephant Island. And that’s when shit got real.

With no other options, Shackleton organized a desperate expedition to the island of South Georgia: eight hundred miles north, across storm-lashed seas. Not your ordinary storm-lashed seas, either: Shackleton reported waves bigger than any he’d seen in two decades of sailing. Ice gripped the boat and sea-spray drenched the occupants, and sleep was impossible. It took fourteen days to reach their destination—and the journey wasn’t over yet.

Thanks to the unfavorable ocean currents, the team was forced to land on the wrong side. Since it was impossible to sail round to safety, they were forced to cross the harsh interior on foot, without maps, more or less navigating through guesswork. After fighting their way for three days through thick fog over mountains, they finally reached humanity—at which point Shackleton very nearly slipped and fell to his death. But he didn’t, and here we come to the uplifting bit: everyone survived. In the face of the harshest conditions on Earth, Shackleton managed to keep every single one of his men alive and to bring them home. So remember that next time you’re having the “journey from hell.”

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The Angora rabbit is the product of hundreds of years of domestic breeding; generation after generation of humans have bred it for its wool. Its appearance can be described with any number of metaphors: a cat that touched a power line; a cotton ball with a face; and a sheep with a straightener, among them.

There are actually multiple breeds of this rabbit, and they were very popular among French royalty.

The dumbo octopus can be found at really, really deep parts of the ocean. Seven thousand meters deep, to be more precise. It’s not called the dumbo octopus because of its intelligence, either; it’s thus named because it actually uses its ears to swim. 

Despite being one of the only octopus species that swallows its victims whole, we have to admit that these guys are pretty cute. We don’t need to fear for ourselve,s either; he’s only about twenty centimeters in length at his full size. Apart from that, scientists don’t know much else.

The rather hideous blobfish isn’t a particularly fast swimmer. In fact, it doesn’t really have much going for it at all; it hangs about at the bottom of the ocean, waiting for its micro-organism dinner to drift by. It doesn’t even have to swim most of the time, as its body tissue is slightly less dense than water, allowing it to float at the bottom of the ocean.

But how does it avoid being eaten? Well, it turns out that the blobfish doesn’t even taste very good; in fact, it’s inedible for humans. They’re still endangered, however, since overfishing leads to large numbers of them being hauled out of the ocean at a fast rate. We can’t help but feel a little sorry for the blobfish.

The kakapo is a New Zealand parrot, which owes its existence to the lack of native mammalian predators on the islands. Among its numerous qualities, the kakapo smells weird, barks like a dog, and is nocturnal. Its numbers have been declining ever since Europeans brought dogs and cats to New Zealand, and it is now critically endangered.

Let’s list some general characteristics of the olm: it has three toes on its front limbs, and two toes on its back limbs; it is blind; it lives to one hundred; and it can go ten years without food.

That’s one remarkable creature. In addition to all that, olms have great hearing and olfactory systems. Its olfactory system is so well made, in fact, that it can sense quantity of small organic organisms around it. Many fisherman are said to have developed a belief in sea monsters, after catching one of these creatures.

The matamata turtle’s shell and head may look extremely tough—and probably are—but they are actually designed primarily for camouflage. Just imagine if you were looking at this guy from above; he would be very difficult to distinguish from the bottom of a creek. You would also get a fairly nasty surprise if you were to step on one; although they’re rather harmless, the creep-factor of camouflaged matamata turtles surely approaches that of spiders or snakes.

The barreleye in the picture above is one of the only ones ever seen alive. They have been documented since 1939; but most of the time, nets or lines have pierced the fluid bubble that makes this fish so unique.

So why exactly does this fish have a transparent head? Well, it essentially functions like a cockpit. Its advanced eyesight can be directed backwards and upwards through a swiveling of the eyes, allowing it to see prey and predators alike.

Tarsiers are peculiar creatures, which stand at a diminutive height of five inches. Most of their diet is comprised of insects, but they have been known to jump from tree to tree in search of heedless birds. They’re also nocturnal, and move incredibly fast with the help of their dextrous fingers (and long tail). Females usually have about one little baby tarsier per year. Much like owls, they’re able to swivel their heads 180 degrees.

I couldn’t find much information on the flying squid, because many people mistake it for flying fish. Only within the last twenty years has the flying squid begun to be seriously discussed in academic circles.

It has been recently confirmed by scientists that a kind of flying squid indeed exists, and is known as the red, or neon, flying squid. We don’t know how they jump out of the water, or why. It’s possible that their motives are similar to those of regular flying fish—but they’re very hard to track down, so we can’t be sure just yet.

Darwin’s bark spiders were discovered as recently as 2009. Interestingly, their silk is much stronger than the silk of other spiders that have previously been studied. It is even ten times stronger than kevlar (which is used to make bulletproof vests).

Somehow, these spiders manage to string their webs across rivers. One can only guess at how they manage to do so; it’s possible that they float across in the breeze.

The best way to study them is by boat, because that’s the only way scientists can analyze their behavior up close. They eat bees, dragonflies, and mayflies (up to thirty-two mayflies have been found in one web at the same time).

Kevin Shaw is a not-so-intelligent student who is trying desperately to understand the cause of oppression and hatred all over the world.

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Well, the twentieth century certainly wasn’t short on innovation—and it should come as no surprise that we’ve made a few decent attempts at flying cars over the years. Some were genius, others hilariously misguided, but they all add an extra little pinch of flavor to the legacy of our era. Here are ten amazing examples of flying cars from over the years.

The Curtiss AutoPlane is pretty much the first glimpse the world got of a flying car, outside the pages of fiction. In 1917, an aviation engineer named Glenn Curtiss dissected one of his own airplane designs and slapped some of the pieces onto an aluminum Model T. The airplane it was based on was called the Curtiss Model L trainer, a triplane (three rows of wings) with a one-hundred-horsepower engine (which is about as powerful as a decent tractor).

Like a car, the front two tires could be turned with a steering wheel inside the cabin, and it was propelled on the ground and in the air by a propeller attached to the back. Unfortunately, the “limousine of the air” never really flew—by all accounts, the most it could manage was a series of short hops before it was discontinued at the start of WWI.

This flying car is almost a legend, and besides this photo and a brief mention of the vehicle in a newspaper clipping from Andalusia, Alabama, it might as well have not existed at all. According to the story, the photo above is of Jess Dixon; it was supposedly taken sometime around 1940. Although it’s considered a flying car by aviation history buffs, the machine is actually closer to a “roadable helicopter,” due to the two overhead blades spinning in opposite directions. In other words, it’s a gyrocopter that can also roll.

The Flying Auto was powered by a small forty-horsepower engine, and foot pedals controlled the tail vane on the back, allowing Mr. Dixon to turn in mid-air. It was also supposed to be able to reach speeds of up to one hundred miles per hour (160 kph), and was able to fly forwards, backwards, sideways, and hover. Not bad for a flying car that was never heard from again.

The Convair Model 116 Flying Car took flight for the first time in 1946, and looked like nothing more than a small airplane welded onto a car. And essentially, that’s exactly what it was. The wings, tail, and propeller could be detached from the (plastic) car, allowing it to be driven like a regular vehicle on the road. When it needed to go where no roads could take it, the plane attachment was fitted on.

The 116 model only had one prototype, which itself managed a whopping sixty-six flights. A few years later, designer Ted Hall recreated the machine as the Convair Model 118, bumping the engine from a 130-horsepower model to a 190-horsepower beast that gave it more power in the air. Convair planned to build 160,000 for their first production run—but that never panned out, thanks to a tragedy which saw one of the prototypes crash in California. When the pilot took the car into the air, he had assumed that the fuel tank was full. But the ConvAirCar had two fuel gauges—one for the car’s engine and one for the plane’s—and while the car still had plenty of gas, the plane engine ran dry in mid-air. Such are the dangers of multi-tasking.

The Curtiss-Wright VZ-7 resulted from one of the first attempts by the US military to get involved in the flying car industry. Ideally, the VZ-7 was meant to be a type of flying jeep. Like a jeep, it allowed the pilot to maneuver through rough terrain on the ground—but with the not-insignificant bonus that it could also fly. It was developed by Curtiss-Wright, which, interestingly, formed through the merger of the Wright Company (the Wright Brothers) and Curtiss Aeroplane (Glenn Curtiss). Curtiss and the Wright Brothers had been fierce rivals during the early days of aviation.

The VZ-7 was designed as a VTOL craft—Vertical Take-Off and Landing. It flew with the aid of four upright propellers, which were positioned behind the “cockpit,” more or less just an open-air seat. In order to maneuver, the pilot could change the speed of individual propellers, tilting the craft forwards, backwards, or to the side. Technical aspects aside, the entire thing was a death trap, since none of the propellers were covered—and in 1960, the army cancelled the project just two years after its commencement.

With the VZ-7 grounded forever, the army turned to a very different prototype: the Piasecki VZ-8 AirGeep. Bear in mind that helicopters had already become popular by this point; but it turned out that the military was interested in something smaller than helicopters, which could be successfully flown with less training.

The AirGeep went through seven different versions before it was finally deemed “unfit for military use,” but they all kept the basic design: two large vertical propellers in the front and the back of the craft, with a seat in the middle for the pilot and either three or four wheels for ground use. While the first model was flat, later ones curved upwards at the front and back to form a flattened V-shape. The navy even tried to fit one model with floats, with the hope of using it at sea—but that idea was eventually abandoned, along with the rest of the program.

In 1971, the Advanced Vehicle Engineers company in California decided to design a flying car that was reminiscent of the ConvAirCar of the 1940s. They took a Ford Pinto, welded a Cessna Skymaster to the top, and essentially called it a day. The bizarre hybrid monster that resulted was dubbed the Ave Mizar.

The car-half of the craft was fairly similar to any normal Ford Pinto on the street. The Pinto’s engine brought the plane up to speed for take off, at which point the plane’s propeller took over. Upon landing, the car’s brakes were responsible for slowing it down. Unfortunately, in 1973—just a year before the car was scheduled to begin mass production—the right wing of one prototype crumpled in mid-air. The car plummeted to the ground, taking any future it might have had with it.

As we broach the modern era, it’s surprising to see how far we still are from developing a practical flying car. Case in point: the Butterfly Super Sky Cycle, which doesn’t look much different to Jess Dixon’s fabled Flying Auto. Like the 1940s incarnation, the Super Sky Cycle is technically a road-able gyrocopter, with a single folding propeller and a swiveling tail to steer the craft in flight.

The Super Sky Cycle was built in 2009 and is now (as of 2012) fully legal to drive, provided you have a motorcycle license and a pilot’s license. It even folds down to seven feet (2.1m), allowing it to fit into most garages. The gyrocopters are manufactured by Butterfly Aircraft LLC, and sold as kits that you assemble at home. It may not be what most people envision when they think of flying cars; regardless, they’re available to anyone with an spare $40,000.

In 2009, the Terrafugia Transition had its first successful test flight. Since then, it’s gone through a whirlwind of upgrades and remodels, resulting in several completely new designs and a second successful test flight in 2012. In any case, the Transition finally offers something that at least looks futuristic. It has the aerodynamic shape of a plane, with wings that fold in and then swivel into a vertical position while on the ground. It can reach up to seventy miles per hour (110 km/h) on the highway, and 115 miles per hour (185 km/h) in the air.

One problem that the company faced in designing the Transition was that it was too heavy to comply with FAA regulations, due to all the extra parts needed to be safe on the road—such as bumpers and airbags, for instance. In 2010, the FAA decided to let the flying car slide through the regulations, which changes its classification and makes it easier to get the appropriate pilot’s license. Unfortunately, it still costs more than a Lamborghini.

Bringing some much needed style to the world of autogyros, the PAL-V One is a Dutch design, which makes some huge changes to the traditional format. For starters, it only has one engine; the power is automatically switched between the tires and the propeller, depending on whether or not it is making contact with the ground.

What’s especially interesting about the PAL-V craft is that it’s only meant to fly below four thousand feet (1,200 m), which essentially means that you don’t have to file a flight plan to use it—a huge hurdle for flying cars in modern times. This could well lead to GPS-guided “digital corridors,” invisible highways in the sky that would allow airborne traffic to remain organized, like cars upon a regular highway.

The AirMule is more like an airborne ambulance than a car—but the idea is still the same. It’s being developed by the Israeli company Urban Aeronautics, and its main purpose would be assisting search and rescue missions. While it could feasibly reach the same speeds as a regular helicopter, it uses less than half the airspace, so it can also squeeze into areas that would be impossible for a helicopter.

If you’ve been reading, you can probably tell that it looks a lot like the AirGeep designs the military tried to hatch in the 1970s. But it has one crucial difference: it’s flown remotely. That’s right, the AirMule is unmanned, which either means it’s going to be instrumental in saving lives, or—based on the way UAVs have been used in the past—taking them. Even so, it won’t necessarily be on autopilot—Urban Aero plans to use a remote pilot with flight controls and a bank of monitors to control the AirMule in real time—a little like the way we might control planes in a complex video game.

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The hottest man-made temperature ever recorded is 7.2 trillion degrees fahrenheit, or about four billion degrees celsius. Since we hope to minimize the use of superlatives in this list, let’s just say: that’s pretty hot. 

In fact, it’s about 250,000 times hotter than the temperature at the core of the sun. The extreme recording was made at the Brookhaven Natural Laboratory in New York, in their 2.4-mile-long Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider. Scientists had been smashing gold ions together, in an attempt to recreate big-bang like conditions by creating a quark-gluon plasma. In this plasma state, the particles that make up the nucleus of atoms—protons and neutrons—break apart, and create a “soup” of their constituent quarks.

We’ve already made mention of the Bose-Einstein condensate. It’s a phenomenon that occurs to matter at a fraction of a degree above absolute zero. Though previously seen only at these super-cold temperatures, scientists were able to recreate the effect at room temperature, by using light instead of matter.

They managed to do this because of the relative density of the matter and the light; one of the scientists involved, Jan Klars, explained that “Our photon gas has a billion times higher density, and we can achieve the condensation already at room temperature.” They forced light to travel through two mirrors with particles of dye between them. As the light bounced back and forth, it lost a little bit of energy each time it passed through some dye. And when it reached room temperature, the light effectively began to behave like an ultra-cold gas made of traditional matter. 

This result takes on a whole new relevance when we learn that it could lead to new types of lasers—which, after all, should be the ultimate goal of all physics research.

Some of you may be familiar already with the following comparisons—but take a moment to think about what they really mean, in relation to the normal temperatures of human experience. 

The sun—to borrow an understatement from an earlier entry—is pretty hot. It’s at its hottest in the centre, which reaches around twenty-seven million Fahrenheit (fifteen million Kelvin). In comparison, it’s actually less than ten thousand degrees Fahrenheit at its surface (about 5,700 K).

The centre of the Earth stands at about the same temperature as the surface of the sun. Apart from the sun’s centre, the hottest part of our solar system is the core of Jupiter, which, remarkably, is five times hotter than the Sun’s surface.

And the coldest-known place? That’s actually on our own moon, where temperatures in the shadows of some craters are only thirty Kelvin above absolute zero. The temperatures, measured by NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, are even colder than those on Pluto.

The SI unit of temperature is the Kelvin. The temperatures used to define this are absolute zero—the bottom limit of temperature—and what known as the triple point of water. A triple point is defined as the temperature by which a substance’s traditional three states of matter exist in an equilibrium. At this point, the most infinitesimally small alteration to temperature or pressure can be used to alter its state one way or another.

To define one Kelvin, you take the difference in temperature between the triple point of water and absolute zero and divide it by 273.16. There are limited practical applications of the triple point of water, but its proximity to the melting point is key to causing the watery cushion needed to allow people to ice-skate.

The rules of nature that govern temperature are known as the Laws of Thermodynamics. Originally there was only a first, a second, and a third law—but then scientists came up with a fourth law. The newest law stated that “if two systems are each in thermal equilibrium with a third system, they are also in thermal equilibrium with each other.”

That basically means that if two objects don’t have a net exchange of heat with a third object, they’d not do so with each other—which is how we define them as being at the same temperature.

Scientists soon realized that this law is fundamental to the whole field of thermodynamics; they also realized that it should have been the first rule they formulated. Because “first law” was already taken, they gave it due respect by calling it the “zeroth law.”. It was around 1935 when the law was coined—meaning that scientists didn’t get around to formally defining what temperature meant until a couple of hundred years into the development of the field.

Some people have established their homes in the most unlikely of places. The coldest permanently inhabited places in the world are the towns of Oymyakon and Verkhoyansk in Siberia, which we’ve mentioned before. During winter, temperatures there average below minus fifty degrees Fahrenheit.

The coldest city in the world is also in Siberia. Yakutsk, with a population of 270,000, is not much warmer in the winter than its smaller cousins—often dropping below minus forty degrees Fahrenheit. But at the height of summer, temperatures can swing all the way up to the other end of the scale, to almost ninety degrees Fahrenheit.

The highest recorded average temperature belongs to the abandoned town of Dallol, in Ethiopia, which recorded an average temperature of ninety-six degrees in the 1960s. The record for hottest city is Bangkok, with average air temperatures breaking above ninety-three degrees between March and May.

But the record for hottest workplace likely goes to Mponeng gold mine, in South Africa. At two miles below the surface, rock temperatures can reach 150 degrees Fahrenheit. Ice must be pumped into the mine—and the walls insulated with concrete—to allow people to work there without perishing.

Making things cold has produced a lot of interesting and important results in science. Humans make the coldest known things in the universe, many orders of magnitude colder than anything that occurs naturally. Refrigeration allows temperatures of a few milliKelvin to be accomplished. The coldest temperature ever achieved is slightly below one hundred picoKelvins, or 0.0000000001 K. It’s necessary to use a type of magnetic cooling to achieve temperatures this low. Similar temperatures can be achieved on a small scale using lasers.

At these temperatures, matter behaves differently to the way it does normally (see Bose-Einstein condensate above as an example)—a fact which is key to revealing the many odd quirks of quantum mechanics.

If you were to take a thermometer out into deep space and leave it there, far from any source of radiation, it would read 2.73 Kelvin—a little lower than minus 454 degrees Fahrenheit. That happens to be the coldest naturally-occurring temperature in the universe.

Space is kept above absolute zero by background radiation left over from the Big Bang. Although space is nevertheless very cold, it’s interesting to note that one of the biggest problems encountered by astronauts is actually heat. Bare metal on orbiting objects can reach five hundred degrees Fahrenheit (260 C) due to the unimpeded heat of the sun, and needs to be covered in special coatings to lower the touch temperature to “only” 250 Fahrenheit (120 C).

Outer space itself, however, is constantly getting cooler. Theory has long predicted this, and recent measurements have confirmed that the universe is cooling by around one degree every three billion years.

It’ll continue heading towards absolute zero, though it will never quite reach it (an impossible feat). The background heat of the universe makes little difference to us; the effect of celestial bodies in our solar system and galaxy dwarf it. So it’s not going to counteract global warming, in case anyone has ideas.

Heat is a mechanical property of matter. Put simply: the hotter a thing is, the more energy its particles have as they move around. The atoms in a red-hot solid are vibrating more quickly than the atoms in a cold piece of material. Likewise, those in a liquid or gas whizz about with a speed which depends on how hot they are. That’s pretty basic stuff, which you probably learned in high school—but for hundreds of years until the late nineteenth century, scientists believed that heat itself was actually a substance. This is known as the caloric theory.

The gas of “heat”, scientists believed, would evaporate from a hot substance, thereby cooling it. It would flow from a hot object into a cooler one. Many of the predictions arising from caloric theory actually hold true, and a lot of scientific progress was possible in spite of this fundamental misunderstanding. Caloric theory even had proponents up until the late nineteenth century, at which point the mechanical theory of heat was established beyond dispute.

This list has made many mentions of absolute zero. We’ve even mentioned it on Listverse before. But what about the other end of the scale? How hot can things get? 

The short answer is that we don’t know for certain; and it’s a question at the forefront of modern fundamental physics.

The hottest temperature commonly mentioned in science is known as the Planck Temperature. It’s the hottest temperature believed to have occurred in the universe, a mere fraction of a moment after the Big Bang. It’s about 10^32 Kelvin. To give you some perspective, that’s about ten billion billion billion times hotter than the temperature mentioned earlier, which was itself 250,000 times hotter than the core of the sun. And you thought your bath water was hot. The Planck Temperature is the highest temperature possible, according to the Standard Model. Any hotter, and conventional laws of physics begin to break down.

It’s possible that temperature might continue to increase even after this point; and we simply don’t know what would happen if it did so. Anything hotter than that is basically too hot to exist in our current model of reality.

Alan is an aspiring writer trying to kick-start his career with an awesome beard and an addiction to coffee. You can hear his bad jokes by reading them aloud to yourself from Twitter where he is @SkepticalNumber or you can email him at mailskepticalnumber@gmail.com.

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According to author Malcolm Gladwell, “Sesame Street was built around a single, breakthrough insight: that if you can hold the attention of children, you can educate them”. Although a show expressly for the little ones (there are none of the ‘adult’ jokes floated in shows like “Spongebob Squarepants”), “Sesame Street” has continually been at the forefront of major societal issues that programs for mature audiences have ignored, including death, racial tolerance, and the differences between us. The show seeks not only to educate and entertain, but to help children understand the world around them. Below are ten fascinating facts which contribute to Sesame Street’s legend.

In recent years, as many around the world have begun pushing in earnest for gay marriage to become legal, a grassroots Internet campaign has surfaced urging longtime Sesame Street characters Bert and Ernie to finally acknowledge their homosexuality and tie the knot. Although the show has been renowned for preaching a message of tolerance, they carefully backpedaled away from these claims, stating: “Bert and Ernie are best friends. They were created to teach preschoolers that people can be good friends with those who are very different from themselves. Even though they are identified as male characters and possess many human traits and characteristics (as most Sesame Street Muppets™ do), they remain puppets, and do not have a sexual orientation.”

Although blasting loud music to psychologically torture people is not an entirely new concept, its use has really come to the forefront since the opening of the US’s Guantanamo Bay detention camp in Cuba. The purpose of the camp was to detain and interrogate subjects captured in the “War on Terror” begun since the events of 9/11. A great deal of controversy has arisen as pictures and stories have leaked to the public, and President Obama has made promises to close the camp that have yet to materialize. Amongst far more sinister and humiliating tactics, the soldiers at Guantanamo have been known to inundate Al-Qaeda operatives with blaring, repetitive songs including hard rock music and the Sesame Street theme that are known to break down mental resistance. Amnesty International has condemned this ploy, while the Pentagon has called it a mere “disincentive”.

One of the original human characters on the show, Mr. Hooper ran a general store that served as a focal point and served such fare as birdseed milkshakes. When actor Will Lee died of a heart attack in 1982, there was some debate by the show’s producers how to handle the situation. Some leaned toward having the character retire, but eventually it was decided to deal with the issue. A child psychologist was consulted and the situation was handled gently, but head-on, with Big Bird unable to understand that his friend wasn’t coming back. When Big Bird expresses concern that it “won’t be the same” without Mr. Hooper, another of the adults tells him “You’re right, Big Bird. It’ll never be the same without him. But you know something? We can all be very happy that we had a chance to be with him and to know him and to love him a lot, when he was here.”

The episode aired on Thanksgiving Day, 1983, to ensure that the children who saw it would be around family that could help them with their feelings when they saw it. In retrospect, Mr. Hooper’s passing has been honored by many as one of the most important moments in television history.

The main focus of Sesame Street is a 3 apartment brownstone building (Bert and Ernie live in the basement). The show itself is filmed in Astoria, Queens, but the actual location of Sesame Street has been under debate for years. It is intended to be a neighborhood in Manhattan, though which exactly is up for debate, even amongst staffers of the show. Some suggest the Upper West Side, and others claim that it is modeled after the Alphabet City area of the Lower East Side. Some detail oriented investigators have tried to pin down the location based on clues from the show itself, including zip codes printed on envelopes and background shots of characters walking around.

Despite the terror they invoke, vampires are really terribly vulnerable creatures, with a laundry list of weaknesses: sunlight, garlic, and religious symbols amongst others, depending on which franchise you are considering. But folklore speaks of one of the more rarely considered chinks in the vampire’s armor; arithmomania— an aspect of obsessive-compulsive disorder that in an uncontrollable urge to quantify and count things. Should one find himself confronting by a ravenous, undead ghoul, he could merely throw a handful of rice on the ground. The vampire would be helpless but to fall on his knees and count every single grain. This vulnerability has been rolled into the popular Sesame Street character “Count von Count”, the world’s least intimidating vampire, who teaches children basic concepts of arithmetic.

Elmo is one of the most popular (and obnoxious) denizens of Sesame Street, a bright red puppet known for his falsetto voice and habit of talking about himself in the third person. Elmo has been around for years, but he was relegated to the background for some time, until he was picked up in 1984 by young puppeteer Kevin Clash. Clash breathed life into Elmo, and over the next decade, his star rose exponentially. Elmo hit is stride in the mid to late 90s, with the release of the “Tickle Me Elmo” toy and the film “Elmo in Grouchland”. And then in 2012, 22 year old Sheldon Stephens emerged, claiming that he had Clash had an inappropriate sexual relations when Stephens was underage. Clash acknowledged the two had shared a relationship, but that it had been between two consenting adults. Stephens later recanted his statement, but other men came forward, claiming that Clash had also slept with them when they were teenagers. Clash quickly resigned. When he left the show, he made the statement: “Personal matters have diverted attention away from the important work ‘Sesame Street’ is doing and I cannot allow it to go on any longer. I am deeply sorry to be leaving and am looking forward to resolving these personal matters privately.” Since leaving, additional allegations have been levied against Clash. He has recently come back into the spotlight when he was nominated for four Emmy Awards, despite the scandal.

Aloysius Snuffleupagus is a woolly mammoth Muppet who spent fourteen years as Big Bird’s “imaginary” friend. Whenever adults would appear, Snuffy would vanish by way of coincidence, and the grownups would disbelieve Big Bird that he ever existed. Snuffy was revealed to the entire cast in 1985. According to Martin P. Robison, who plays the character, the producers decided that due to stories of abuse of children, they did not want to portray a situation between adults and a child character who wasn’t believed despite being honest. They were afraid they were giving kids the message that their parents might not listen to them in case they had a “unbelievable” story to tell, such as being sexually abused by a relative.

AIDS devastates sub-Saharan Africa like no place in the world; hundreds of thousands of children are born with the disease each year. Most of them die before the age of five. A staggering percentage of the children in the area have been orphaned by the virus. First appearing on 2002’s “Takalani Sesame” in South Africa, Five year old Kami is an upbeat yellow “monster” Muppet like Grover. She is portrayed with a perpetual case of the sniffles as a nod to her condition, which has also claimed the lives of her parents. Kami contracted HIV from a blood transfusion. Along with educating the children of South Africa and Nigeria about the disease, Kami helps them to deal with the societal stigma attached to HIV/AIDS and the inherent sense of loss and fear. Kami has since been appointed a representative of UNICEF projects throughout the world.

Africa is not the only place to host its own version of “Sesame Street.” There are varieties throughout the world, in Europe, Asia, Australia, and the Middle East. The earliest international adaptation was Brazil’s Vila Sésamo. Many other versions exist, each tailored to the specific language, environment, and social circumstances of the area in which it aired. While many of the characters carried over, others were added or replaced. In the Canadian version, the main character was a giant polar bear named Basil, who learned French from his bilingual friend. In the version from the Philippines, the Big Bird character is a giant pink turtle named Pong Pagong; in Israel it is a hedgehog named Kippi Kippod, and in Kuwait it is a camel named No’Man. According to Joan Ganz Cooney, one of the creators of the Sesame Workshop, she was stunned at the international interest in the show: “To be frank, I was really surprised, because we thought we were creating the quintessential American show. We thought the Muppets were quintessentially American, and it turns out they’re the most international characters ever created.”

In 1990, Jim Henson, the creator of Sesame Street’s Muppets, died suddenly of a bacterial pneumonia. In the wake of his passing, two memorial services (one in New York and one in London) were staged wherein both characters from Henson’s “The Muppet Show” and “Sesame Street performed”, including a heartrending version of “Being Green” by Big Bird. Henson’s only request was that no one wear black. Although the services were open to the public, they were not televised, and only certain recorded segments exist. Along with Muppet performances and eulogies from friends and collaborators, excerpts from Henson’s correspondence to his children were read, including this passage: “Please watch out for each other and love and forgive everybody. It’s a good life, enjoy it.”

Mike Devlin is an aspiring novelist. As Muppets go, he prefers Kermit.

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The man who is largely responsible for introducing advertising as we know it was none other than Sigmund Freud’s nephew, Edward Bernays. Bernays’, nicknamed the “father of public relations,” studied his uncle’s writings on psychology and group mentality and learned humans react to feelings not facts. With this knowledge, he saw an opportunity to capitalize on people’s subconscious desires by selling goods with the promise of delivering power, status, sex appeal, glamour, health, and other things with emotional connections. His uncle also taught him that humans often act irrationally when emotions are involved and can be led to believe objects are a symbol of their character. Bernays used these theories to manipulate people into buying products they didn’t necessarily need or want.

One of Bernay’s first widely known marketing campaigns was for the American Tobacco Company where he was tasked with attracting more female smokers. Of course, he had one major hurdle to overcome—it was 1928 and there was a longstanding taboo about women smoking in public. So, Bernays’ consulted a psychoanalyst to help him get at the root of the taboo and was told that cigarettes symbolized the penis. Bernays shrewdly decided to center the Lucky Strike campaign on female power and independence, by advertising cigarettes as “torches of freedom,” equating smoking to female equality. His advertising efforts caused a national stir and almost immediately made it acceptable for women to smoke.

Bernays dominated the marketing arena throughout much of the 20th century and is the reason why those in the US consider bacon and eggs the quintessential breakfast, why Ivory soap is preferred by doctors, and, according to some, is the reason why people believe water fluoridation is safe and beneficial. He had so many successful campaigns that “Life Magazine” named him one of the most influential Americans of the 20th century.

From the start, it seems the idea of a consumerist, malleable society was linked with government ambition. Some of Bernays’ earliest work was as a press agent for the American Committee on Public Information during World War I. In that position, he promoted President Woodrow Wilson as a liberator, spread the tenants of democracy, and was so accomplished he joined the President at the Paris Peace Accords in 1919.

After seeing the effectiveness of propaganda, those in authority weren’t too keen on putting the art of manipulation back in the bag, so to speak. So, even after the war, both the government and businesses continued to use propaganda as a way to control citizens, and occasionally the interests of the government and corporations aligned.

For example, manufacturers were worried the high production and sales they’d grown accustomed to would dwindle once the war was over. Naturally, they didn’t want to see diminishing profits, so they used Bernay’s advertising strategies to convince people to buy more by linking goods to unconscious desires. At the same time, many presidents touted the ‘buy, buy, buy,’ mantra in the hopes it would boost the economy. President Herbert Hoover said to Bernays, “You have taken over the job of creating desires and have transformed people into constantly moving happiness machines, machines which have become the key to economic progress.”

Once consumerism settled in as the basis for the American economy, those in power gradually quit seeing Americans as citizens, but regarded them, above all else, as consumers.

Indeed, it seems today’s leaders treat us like potential buyers, and instead of giving us well-formed, fact-based arguments, they offer sales pitch-esque communications and package their platforms as if they’re destined for the marketplace. In 2002, when George W. Bush’s chief of staff Andrew Card was asked why the administration waited months to explain the reasoning for invading Iraq, Card replied “You don’t roll out a new product in August.”

Overtime, the habit of referring to “citizens” as “consumers” became increasingly common, and now the terms are used interchangeably. This evolution, however, doesn’t sit well with everyone. According to a recent study conducted by Northwestern University, many folks take offense at being called a consumer, “as if their sole purpose and reason for existence on this planet is to consume—to eat, drink, use, watch, and buy stuff.” Interestingly, the study also found that being labeled a consumer automatically makes people behave more selfishly.

In an interview shown in the BBC documentary “The Century of Self” Bernays said the word “propaganda” developed a negative connotation after World War I and II, since it was associated with something Soviet Communists and Nazis used to perpetuate their command. To distinguish his profession Bernays quit calling his industry propaganda and renamed it “public relations.” Still, public relations was little more than a euphemism, as it continued to rely on the fundamentals of propaganda: half-truths, persuasion, and attempting to change public attitudes. Although advertisers weren’t coercing people into supporting a particular political party, they were using their messages to influence how citizens felt about clothes, cars, beauty, and everything in between.

Nowadays most of us know we can’t take any advertisement at face value. In other words, we understand celebrities are paid to carry a certain brand of bag, we see the Coke can placed blatantly front and center in our favorite TV shows, and we know cars are supposed to represent male sexuality. Yet, even knowing these ideals were completely manufactured, it’s nearly impossible to keep them from seeping into our own beliefs — that’s the strength of the propaganda.

Apparently, Bernays didn’t realize his form of marketing so closely resembled fascist strategies and was shocked to learn Joseph Goebbels, Hitlers Reich Minister of Propaganda, kept copies of Bernay’s writings and used them to engineer the rise of Nazism.

Early advertisers understood the only way to keep consumers buying was to ensure they were never wholly satisfied. Although most companies didn’t make shoddy products (although planned obsolescence is currently an issue), they did use ads to convince viewers they were somehow inferior if they didn’t have the newest, most expensive gizmo on the market.

Wall Street banker Paul Mazer made it clear when he said, “We must shift America from a needs- to a desires-culture. People must be trained to desire, to want new things, even before the old have been entirely consumed. We must shape a new mentality in America; man’s desires must overshadow his needs.”

It was no secret customer dissatisfaction was the goal for many manufacturers. Charles Kettering, director of General Motors, wrote an article for a 1929 magazine which he candidly titled “Keep the Consumer Dissatisfied.” In it, he tried to persuade readers that continual consumption was the only way to sustain the economy. He said, “You must accept this reasonable dissatisfaction with what you have and buy the new thing, or accept hard times.”

While it may seem like it’s our economic duty to continually spend (and subsequently work harder), in truth we could all work a fraction of the time and still have enough goods and services to meet everyone’s needs. Secretary of labor James J. Davis discovered this fact in 1927 and discussed it in an interview with “Nations Business,” pointing out that America’s textile mills “could produce all the cloth needed in six months’ operation each year” and only 14% of the country’s shoe factories were needed to provide every citizen with footwear for a year. Later in the interview it was suggested that all the world’s needs could be met by only three work days a week.

Facts aside, intuitively it seems like we should be working significantly less than our ancestors. After all, we have machines, assembly lines, computers, the internet, and a wealth of technology meant to make our lives simpler, yet, according to an ABC News article, we are working longer hours than at any time since statistics have been kept, and Americans are working more than anyone else in the industrialized world.

So, what gives? Why isn’t technology making our lives easier and why aren’t we all jumping on board the three day work week that was shown viable in 1927? Unfortunately, it’s all done for the sake of business profits. Working employees everyday and getting greater numbers of products to market is more profitable for business owners than just meeting everyone’s needs—that is, of course, if they can convince people to buy the products. But, thanks to Bernays and his followers, corporations know how to turn citizens into consumers, trigger their unconscious cravings, and make them purchase unnecessary products.

In his later life, Sigmund Freud became increasingly withdrawn from the world as he felt humans were innately evil and civilization was a largely ineffective construct meant to restrain our animalistic sides. Bernays and others latched onto this notion and felt it was their obligation to direct the masses towards what was best for society.

Bernays’ own daughter said her father felt the public’s judgment was not to be relied upon since people could very easily vote for the wrong man or want the wrong thing, so they had to “be guided from above” by a group of enlightened despots. As expected, Bernays deemed himself one of the enlightened and used his advertising messages to influence the people towards his will.

Walter Lippmann, a 1920s political commentator, had similar notions and believed people would operate under a mob mentality if not adequately governed by the intellectually elite. He argued that the average person had too many limitations (selfishness, preconceptions, limited social contact, prejudices, etc.) to make socially responsible decisions. Such philosophies gave those in power the ability to justify their manipulative tactics.

For the elites to maintain dominance over the average man and keep him on the perpetual work/ buy machine, they had to link consumption with an emotion nearly all Americans share: patriotism. And nothing is a greater symbol of Americanism than democracy.

Those who judged themselves enlightened, like Bernays, saw nothing wrong with manipulating the public into thinking consumption was a democratic necessity. In fact, he may have believed it himself, as he said, “The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in a democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country… we are dominated by the relatively small number of persons… who understand the mental processes and social patterns of the masses. It is they who pull the wires which control the public mind.”

The idea of consumption being fundamental to consumerism became so ingrained that today when someone speaks of anti-consumerism or anti-capitalism they are immediately pegged as a socialist or communist. Yet, others would argue a capitalistic, consumption-based society is by definition undemocratic because it perpetuates low wages and creates class divisions which prevent all citizens from having an equal say in the decisions affecting their lives. In other words, those with the most money have the most power and influence.

There were a few who spoke out about how unbridled consumerism led by corporations could result in excessive waste, depletion of resources, and a submissive working class.

President Franklin D. Roosevelt particularly stood out in his distrust of a corporate-run economy. In his 1936 “Acceptance Speech for the Democratic Nomination for President” he said, “It was natural and perhaps human that the privileged princes of these new economic dynasties, thirsting for power, reached out for control over government itself. They created a new despotism and wrapped it in the robes of legal sanction. In its service new mercenaries sought to regiment the people, their labor, and their property. And as a result the average man once more confronts the problem that faced the Minute Man.”

Fearing Roosevelt’s sentiments could undermine their influence, the industrial elite from corporations like General Motors, DuPont, and General Foods came together and formed the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM). Together they started spreading the message that Roosevelt was running the country into debt and was responsible for the slow economy. In a 1936 internal memo, NAM was tasked with “re-selling all of the individual Joe Doakes on the advantages and benefits he enjoys under a competitive economy.” NAM packaged its message with the idea that sacrificing a free economy would lead to the handing over of all freedoms to the government, including free speech, religion, and press.

In the 1920s, manufacturers realized they could expand their profits even further by targeting a largely untapped market—the poor and lower-middle classes. Obviously these folks didn’t have much disposable income, so businesses came up with a sort of workaround: the installment plan. These plans allowed consumers to buy expensive goods by agreeing to pay for the product in increments over a set period of time. Often this setup resulted in the buyer paying far more than the product was actually worth, yet it made it possible for many more people to purchase costly items such as cars, appliances, furniture, washing machines, and other luxury goods.

Creditors, debtors, and installment plans were nothing new for the time, but being in debt always carried a certain stigma. Savvy advertisers knew they had to remove the shame of debt if they had any hope of the masses taking advantage of the installment programs. And so they did. “A small cash payment,” “convenient monthly payments,” “a reasonable down payment,” and other persuasive sayings, which are all too familiar today, became mainstream. In some publications the number of advertisements mentioning installment plans more than tripled through the 1920s. Also, the overwhelming success of installment buying in the auto industry (thanks in large part to GMACs marketing efforts) made it socially acceptable to use installment plans to buy other types of goods.

Unfortunately, the Great Depression that followed the roaring 1920s was more painful for those who participated in installment plans, since their lack of income also meant the repossession of many of their belongings.

Unfortunately, it seems neither businesses nor citizens have learned from the mistakes of the 1920s and ’30s, since we’re still persuaded to rack up debt and live outside our means.

Content and copy writer by day and list writer by night, S.Grant enjoys exploring the bizarre, unusual, and topics that hide in plain sight. Contact S.Grant here.

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The Town of Bethel was brought to the world’s attention in 1969 when nearly 500,000 people (almost 100 times more than the population of the town) gathered at Max Yasgur’s Farm for “Three Days of Peace and Music.” The Woodstock Festival was a four-day (not three as originally planned) rock music festival, which started on the 15th and ended on the 18th of August 1969 and made Bethel one of the most famous places in the world that summer. The turnout of spectators was expected to be sixty thousand. However, the area was attended by approximately half a million people, most of who belonged to the hippie movement. The end of the festival created the largest traffic jam in United States’ history and paralyzed many main streets of NY state. The Woodstock Festival remains today, almost 45 years later, the most powerful and influential music festival ever, even though its anti-war and peaceful messages were never really delivered to the “recipients”.

Maastricht is a municipality and the capital of the province of Limburg. The city’s name is derived from the Latin name “Trajectum Ad Mosam”, which refers to the bridge that was built by the Romans under the reign of Caesar Augustus. The city would not gain global attention until the signing of “The Treaty of Maastricht” in the early 1990s, which is officially known as “The Treaty of the European Union,” and it is considered to be the most important treaty in the European continent’s modern history. Historically, there is no similar treaty with such an extensive economic, political, social and cultural content, which involves so many countries and participating states. The Treaty of Maastricht was signed on 7 February 1992, and placed the city in the world map of fame.

Probably the vast majority of the readers has never heard of this city and might wonder why it is in the list in the first place. This is a very rare case that the actual city doesn’t get the recognition it deserves because it hides in the bigger picture. Now if you had read about Transylvania or The Carpathian Mountains, what would be the first thing coming to mind? Vlad III, Prince of Wallachia maybe? Not likely. Vlad the Impaler? Maybe so. Dracula? Sure thing.

What most people ignore though is that the man who inspired Bram Stoker to write one of the best selling books in the history of horror fiction and influenced the film industry to make hundreds of movies related to his name and legacy (with billions of dollars profit), is that he was born and raised in the small city of Sighișoara in Romania. Transylvania, which many people often mistake as the city of Dracula’s birthplace, is the region in which the city of Sighișoara belongs. Today, Dracula’s building of birthplace is used as a museum-themed restaurant and the specialty of the menu is, of course, rare blue steak which swims in blood.

During the first century B.C., Julius Caesar gave the land which took from The Massalian Greeks and the local tribes, to the victorious Roman Legions. It eventually became a kind of second capital of the Roman Empire, known as “The Little Rome of Gaul.” As befitting a major Roman center, it had a number of impressive public buildings. Most of these remain part of the city’s life even today and many monuments have been designated as UNESCO World Heritage Sites.

Many centuries later and more specifically during the 19th century, one of the greatest painters ever, Van Gogh, would connect his name and legacy with the city’s, since he lived and worked in and around Arles. When, in 1888, Van Gogh cut off his ear, he was taken to the Hotel-Dieu, a 16th-century hospital with a galleried garden which he painted. Also some of the great painter’s paintings such as “Starry Night over the Rhone” portray various locations of Arles and are known as “Paintings of Arles”.

Yorktown is a small and peaceful census-designated place in York County, Virginia, which is not known for its large tourism or intense lifestyle. On its lands however, took place the most decisive and tough battle (also known as Siege of Yorktown) of the American War of Independence, which actually ended the war and lead to the recognition of the United States as an independent nation from the United Kingdom. The consequences of this battle were the collapse of the British Government, even though turf wars followed before the new British Government would finally accept defeat and officially acknowledge the independence of the United States. Unfortunately, the only attraction that Yorktown has to offer to its few visitors nowadays, is the impressive “Victory Monument,” which was installed back in 1884.

The city of Dachau became famous around the world and connected its name with one of the darkest and most ghastly war crimes in modern history. Dachau’s concentration camp was the first of the Nazi concentration camps established in Germany. It was located on the grounds of an abandoned munitions factory near the medieval town of Dachau, from which it took its name. In this camp, the Nazis initially tortured and brutalized its own German people who were against the Nazi regime, while later it was used for captives of all ages and nationalities, mainly Jews and various other ethnic groups and minorities, from the countries Nazis conquered during WWII. The Dachau concentration camp functioned until the collapse of Nazi Germany in 1945 and unfortunately thousands of brutal crimes against humanity were committed there during the war.

This small area in Greece has incredible history and a global influence that exists even now. The tradition of lighting an Olympic Flame comes from the Ancient Olympics which took place in this small city exclusively. During the Ancient Olympic Games, a sacred flame was lit from the sun’s rays at Olympia, and stayed lit until the Games were completed. It was first introduced into our Modern Olympics at the 1928 Amsterdam Games. Since then, the flame has come to symbolize the light of spirit, knowledge, and life. The torch is traditionally lit in this small but historic city named Olympia, which every two years (including Winter Olympics) becomes the center of the world, since it is estimated that over a half billion of people around the globe watch the specific event and the torch relay that follows.

Pisa is a small, but very historical and important city of Italy. The University of Pisa is one of the oldest in all Europe and opened in 1343. The biggest attraction of the city, however, and the basic reason this city is so famous around the world (and attracts millions of tourists every year) is the Leaning Tower of Pisa, which was built entirely of marble during the period from 1172 to 1350. It consists of 6 floors and because it was built on loose ground, inclined towards the south (an incline that is gradually increasing each year). It is 56 meters tall and many scientists and top architects from all over the planet, visit Pisa just to study and admire the specific architectural “miracle.” The Cathedral Square (Piazza del Duomo) is also another top touristic and historical building of the city, which is a UNESCO World Heritage site as well.

Waterloo is a very small city which does not attract many tourists, yet it’s one of the most famous cities in history, and its military impact is unquestionable. The Battle of Waterloo is one of the most famous battles in military history, and it took place in modern day Belgium on June 18, 1815. It marked the final defeat of one of the greatest generals of all time, French Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte, who conquered a big part of Europe in the early years of the 19th century. The Battle of Waterloo, in which Napoleon’s forces were defeated by the British and Prussians, signaled the end of his reign and the end of France’s domination in Europe. Today, nearly two centuries later, Waterloo is still used as a term around the western world to define or characterize disastrous or decisive defeat, especially in fields such as politics, sports and of course, military. Waterloo was also the title of the second studio album by the legendary Swedish pop group ABBA. The song was victorious in the Eurovision Song Contest of 1974 and was recently voted as the greatest song in the history of the contest.

If the boxing term “pound for pound” existed to measure the historical influence and impact of a city, it’s quite possible that the city of Corinth would earn that title. Corinth is located in one of the most powerful ports of the Ancient world and was the first Greek city-state that colonized Italy (Syracuse) and gave birth to another city (Corfu). By 730 B.C. Corinth had emerged as a highly advanced Greek city-state (probably the most powerful at the time), way before traditional and well-known ancient Greek cities developed, such as Athens, Sparta and Ancient Macedonia.

Corinth was the homeland to one of the Seven Sages of Greece, Periander, while the greatest cynical philosopher of all time, Diogenes of Sinope, spent most of his life there, where he met Alexander the Great and the two had one of the most historic dialogues in history.

The two most important athletic events of the Ancient times (after the Olympic Games), the Isthmian and Nemean Games, took place in Corinth. But the Corinthian legacy doesn’t stop here. The contributions of the city in architecture were immense as well. The Corinthian order was the latest of the three principal classical orders of ancient Greek architecture. It took its name from the city-state that it originated, but it was followed and adored mostly from the Ancient Romans originally and most European architects and artists during the Renaissance.

Nonetheless, Corinth is probably more known through religion. Over a billion and a half Christians around the world are aware of The First and Second Epistle (also known as Corinthians,) which Paul the Apostle, who lived and preached in Corinth, wrote to “the church of God which is at Corinth” as the bible mentions.

During the modern years, Corinth became famous once again worldwide, for another unique achievement, in construction this time. The Corinth Canal, which was first attempted by the Ancient Greeks and Romans, was finally constructed. On July 25, 1893, the Canal of Isthmus was first used and was, at the time, one of the most impressive artificial constructions in the world. It attracts to this day thousands of tourists from all over the world.

Theodoros II is a collector of experiences and a law graduate. He loves History, Sci-Fi culture, European politics, and exploring the worlds of hidden knowledge. His ideal trip in an alternative world would be to the lost city of Atlantis. His biggest passions include Writing, Photography and Music. You can view his photostream here.

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The giant weta native to the Little Barrier Island of New Zealand (Deinacrida heteracantha) proudly bears the name of the heaviest and largest adult insect in the world, the record weight for one being of 71 grammes or 2.5 oz and more than 8.5 centimeters or 3.4 inches in length. A relative of the grasshopper and of the common house cricket, the giant weta is nowadays a vulnerable species.

Fairyflies are tiny members of the wasp family and the smallest family of insects known to science. Dicopomorpha echmepterygis is a fairyfly native to Costa Rica, the males of the species being no more than 0.14 mm in length, about the same size—if not smaller—than the single-celled paramecium we normally find in lake waters. This species feeds on the eggs of other insects.

The harvester ant (Pogonomyrmex Maricopa) is the world’s most venomous insect—however, it does not pose any threat to humans at all. Its venom is roughly 25 times stronger than that of the honey bee, but it is delivered in small doses, therefore rendering the harvester ant quite inoffensive. Most of you probably expected the Japanese giant hornet, the African killer bee or the bullet and of South America as contenders to this title; surprisingly enough, the winner turned out to be in your very back yard, as members of these species are generally found throughout the US.

The Globe Skimmer (Pantala flavescens) has recently been found to be the insect with the longest migration of all insects, its journey dwarfing that of the famous monarch butterfly. Using the monsoon, these dragonflies travel from India to East and Southern Africa and back again, which adds up to between 14,000 and 18,000 kilometers. Furthermore, the long migration of these insects renders them as an accessible food source for migratory birds, which means that if anything happens to this species, many species of birds would find it very difficult, if not impossible, to perform their annual migrations.

This species of dragonfly (Austrophlebia costalis) has been clocked to a speed of 35 mph, which makes it the fastest insect in the world in terms of flight speed. Although there are previous claims that it would top 60 mph, most experts disagree on their veracity. Nevertheless, there are many who consider that the title of fastest insect remains disputed among dragonflies, hawk moths, and horseflies, with various unverified measurements circulating about each one of these species.

Locusta migratoria, or the migratory locust, is arguably the most feared species of insect known by humankind. Although the mosquito is responsible for the most human deaths, the locust is the one insect that has made men cry in horror throughout history. Although locust swarms are rare nowadays, locust plagues still occur in some parts of the world, as was the case in Madagascar, last year, or the 2004 locust outbreak that affected several countries in West and North Africa that resulted in losses of around $2.5 billion in terms of agricultural devastation.

I suppose few people will be surprised by the title of this entry. I mean, everyone knows the allegations that cockroaches are capable of survival nuclear fallout and so on… Therefore, in hopes of raising at least a few eyebrows, I would like to mention a case in which a German cockroach nymph (Blattaria germanica) managed to live inside another very hostile environment: a human colon. The nymph probably arrived there after having been inadvertently swallowed by the 52-year woman while she was eating, and somehow managed to survive the digestive enzymes of her stomach.

This rather large member of the stick insect family lives on the Lord Howe Island found between Australia and New Zealand. It is also an example of what biologists refer to as the Lazarus effect, namely when a species is thought to be extinct, but it is found again afterwards. The current population of wild Dryococelus australis is thought to consist out of less than fifty individuals (24 at the moment of their rediscovery); with so small a population, however, the species remains critically endangered. Nevertheless, there are efforts to breed the Lord Howe Island stick insect, the Melbourne Zoo of Australia managing to breed over nine thousand individuals within their specially designated breeding program.

A species of cicada, the water boatman (Micronecta scholtzi) is the loudest animal on Earth for its size. Although the entire cicada family is famous for their loudness (with some species managing to sing in almost 120db), the water boatman, at only two millimeters in length manages to make a noise 99.2 db loud, is similar to standing in the front row of a loud orchestra or listening to a jackhammer from fifty feet away.

Argentine ants (Linepithema humile) have been recently found to be the insects with the largest colony in the entire world, whose domination may rival that of humans! Scientists have discovered that the members of the species living across America, Europe and Japan actually belong to the same colonies, as they will refuse to fight one another. Furthermore, a series of experiments hinted that these super colonies might actually be one worldwide colony of ants, as their members did not exhibit hostile behavior towards one another and recognized their familiar pheromone scent, despite being separated by thousands of miles. Furthermore, this unusual phenomenon seems to have been created by humans, who inadvertently introduced them to all continents from South America.

Victor Pintilie is a student of the natural world who likes to discover the intricacies of nature; his ambition is to become a reputable freelance writer about nature-related subjects.

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