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Yuri Alekseyevich Gagarin   [a]  (9 March 1934 – 27 March 1968) was a Soviet pilot and  cosmonaut  who became the first human to journey into  outer space , achieving a major milestone in the  Space Race ; his capsule,  Vostok 1 , completed one orbit of Earth on 12 April 1961. Gagarin became an international celebrity and was awarded many medals and titles, including  Hero of the Soviet Union , hi...

" The Death of Superman " is a  crossover  story event featured in  DC Comics '  Superman -related publications. The crossover, which originated from editor  Mike Carlin  and writers  Dan Jurgens ,  Roger Stern ,  Louise Simonson ,  Jerry Ordway , and  Karl Kesel , began in December 1992 and lasted until October 1993. It was published in  Superman ,  Action Comics ,  The Adventures of Superman , ...

Vantablack  is a material developed by Surrey NanoSystems in the  United Kingdom  and is one of the  darkest  substances known,  absorbing  up to 99.965% of visible light (at 663 nm if the light is perpendicular to the material). [4] [5]

Caligula  ( / k ə ˈ l ɪ ɡ j ʊ l ə / ; 31 August 12 – 24 January 41 AD), formally known as  Gaius  ( Gaius  Caesar Augustus Germanicus), was the third  Roman emperor , ruling from 37 to 41. The son of the popular Roman general  Germanicus  and  Augustus 's granddaughter  Agrippina the Elder , Caligula was born into the first ruling family of the  Roman Empire , conventionally known as the  Julio-Cl...

Tetris  (Russian:  Тетрис   [ˈtɛtrʲɪs] ) is a  tile-matching video game  created by Russian software engineer  Alexey Pajitnov  in 1984. It has been published by several companies, most prominently during a dispute over the appropriation of the rights in the late 1980s. After a significant period of publication by  Nintendo , the rights reverted to Pajitnov in 1996, who co-founded  The Tetris Comp...

The  Great Famine  ( Irish :  an Gorta Mór   [anˠ ˈɡɔɾˠt̪ˠə ˈmˠoːɾˠ] ), also known as the  Great Hunger , the  Great Starvation , the  Famine  (mostly within Ireland) or the  Irish Potato Famine  (mostly outside Ireland), [1] [2]  was a period of mass  starvation  and disease in  Ireland  from 1845 to 1852. [3]  With the most severely affected areas in the west and south of Ireland, where the  Iri...

In  psychology , a  false memory  is a phenomenon where someone  recalls  something that did not happen or recalls it differently from the way it actually happened.  Suggestibility , activation of associated information, the incorporation of misinformation, and  source misattribution  have been suggested to be several mechanisms underlying a variety of types of false memory phenomena.

Joseph Frank Keaton  (October 4, 1895 – February 1, 1966), [1]  known professionally as  Buster Keaton , was an American actor, comedian, film director, producer, screenwriter, and stunt performer. [2]  He is best known for his silent films, in which his trademark was physical comedy with a consistently stoic,  deadpan  expression that earned him the nickname "The Great Stone Face". [3] [4]  Criti...

Harriet Tubman  (born  Araminta Ross ,  c.  March 1822 [1]  – March 10, 1913) was an American  abolitionist  and political activist. Born into  slavery , Tubman escaped and subsequently made some 13 missions to rescue approximately 70 enslaved people, including family and friends, [2]  using the network of antislavery activists and safe houses known as the  Underground Railroad . During the  Ameri...

Washington's Birthday  is a  federal holiday in the United States  celebrated on the third Monday of February in honor of  George Washington , the first  president of the United States , who was born on February 22, 1732. The  Uniform Monday Holiday Act  of 1971 moved this holiday to the third Monday, which can fall from February 15 to 21, inclusive. [1] Colloquially, the day is also now widely kn...

Cannabis  ( / ˈ k æ n ə b ɪ s / ) [2]  is a  genus  of  flowering plants  in the family  Cannabaceae . The number of species within the genus is disputed. Three species may be recognized:  Cannabis sativa ,  Cannabis indica , and  Cannabis ruderalis ;  C. ruderalis  may be included within  C. sativa ; all three may be treated as subspecies of a single species,  C. sativa ; [1] [3] [4] [5]  or  C. ...

The  Antwerp diamond heist , dubbed the "heist of the century", [1]  was by far the largest diamond heist and one of the largest robberies in history. Thieves stole loose diamonds, gold, silver and other types of jewelry valued at more than $100 million. [2] [3]  It took place in  Antwerp , Belgium, during the weekend of 15–16 February 2003. Though arrests were made and time was served, most of th...

The  Burke and Wills expedition  was organised by the  Royal Society of Victoria  in Australia in 1860–61. It consisted of 19 men led by  Robert O'Hara Burke  and  William John Wills , with the objective of crossing Australia from  Melbourne  in the south, to the  Gulf of Carpentaria  in the north, a distance of around 3,250 kilometres (approximately 2,000 miles). [1]  At that time most of the inl...

The  Battle of the Golden Spurs  ( Flemish :  Guldensporenslag ;  French :  Bataille des éperons d'or ) was a military confrontation between the royal army of  France  and rebellious forces of the  County of Flanders  on 11 July 1302 during the  Franco-Flemish War  (1297–1305). It took place near the town of  Kortrijk  (Courtrai) in modern-day  Belgium  and resulted in an unexpected victory for th...

Alien abduction , sometimes also called  abduction phenomenon ,  alien abduction syndrome  or  UFO abduction , is a personally held belief in which the alleged "abductee" describes "subjectively real experiences" of being secretly kidnapped by non-human entities ( aliens ) and subjected to physical and psychological experimentation. [1]  Most scientists and mental health professionals explain thes...

This episode picks up on Wikipedia's list of unusual deaths, starting with the Medieval period. --- Our theme song was written and performed by Anna Bosnick. If you'd like to support the show on a per episode basis, you can find our Patreon page here .  Be sure to check our website for more details.

The  Etruscan civilization  ( / ɪ ˈ t r ʌ s k ən / ) of  ancient Italy  covered a  territory , at its greatest extent, of roughly what is now  Tuscany , western  Umbria , and northern  Lazio , [2] [3]  as well as parts of what are now the  Po Valley ,  Emilia-Romagna , south-eastern  Lombardy , southern  Veneto , and  Campania . [4]

Lapland New Forest  was a  Christmas -themed park near  Ringwood ,  Hampshire ,  UK . [1]  The park had been advertised as being a "winter wonderland" with a variety of exciting family events such as a Christmas market and a "magical tunnel of light", but the majority of the promised attractions either malfunctioned or were of a very low quality. The park closed after a week after complaints from...

The  Boston Massacre  was a confrontation on March 5, 1770, in which British soldiers shot and killed several people while being harassed by a mob in  Boston . The event was heavily publicized by leading  Patriots  such as  Paul Revere  and  Samuel Adams . [2] [3] [4]  British troops had been stationed in the  Province of Massachusetts Bay  since 1768 in order to support crown-appointed officials...

James Randi  (born  Randall James Hamilton Zwinge ; August 7, 1928 – October 20, 2020) was a Canadian-American  stage magician [3] [4] [5]  and  scientific skeptic [6] [7] [8]  who extensively challenged  paranormal  and  pseudoscientific  claims. [9]  He was the co-founder of the  Committee for Skeptical Inquiry  (CSI), and founder of the  James Randi Educational Foundation  (JREF). Randi began h...

Maximilian I  ( Ferdinand Maximilian Joseph Maria ,  Spanish :  Fernando Maximiliano José María de Habsburgo-Lorena ; 6 July 1832 – 19 June 1867) was an  Austrian   archduke  who reigned as the only  Emperor  of the  Second Mexican Empire  from 10 April 1864 until his execution on 19 June 1867. A younger brother of Emperor  Franz Joseph I of Austria , Maximilian had a distinguished career as comma...

The  Jamestown [a]  settlement in the  Colony of Virginia  was the first permanent  English settlement  in the Americas. It was located on the northeast bank of the  James (Powhatan) River  about 2.5 mi (4 km) southwest of the center of modern  Williamsburg . [1]  It was established by the  Virginia Company of London  as "James Fort" on May 4, 1607  O.S.  (May 14, 1607  N.S. ), [2]  and was consid...

The  Atari video game burial  was a mass burial of unsold  video game cartridges , consoles, and computers in a  New Mexico   landfill  site, undertaken by American  video game  and  home computer  company  Atari, Inc.  in 1983. Up until 2014, the goods buried were rumored to be unsold copies of  E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial , one of the  biggest commercial failures in video gaming  and often cited...

General   Gregor MacGregor  (24 December 1786 – 4 December 1845) was a Scottish soldier, adventurer, and  confidence trickster  who attempted from 1821 to 1837 to draw British and French investors and settlers to "Poyais", a fictional Central American territory that he claimed to rule as "Cazique". Hundreds invested their savings in supposed Poyaisian  government bonds  and land certificates, whil...

Lucia Cole was an imaginary persona that tricked a number of online publications into releasing stories about her upcoming album and celebrity collaborations.