Before then, however, France had a long and successful military history. From seizing Gaul by force after the fall of Rome to dominating Europe throughout the Middle Ages and again during the reign of Louis XVI, France was the strongest military force in Europe for centuries before it was eclipsed by Germany at the turn of the 20th century. Even after 1900, France remained a significant military power. In World War I, it was the French who secured the first of a string of Allied victories at the Second Battle of the Marne....

10Dr. John Schneeberger The Facts: Dr. John Schneeberger was once a popular, trusted medical professional residing in Kipling, Canada before he was convicted of two counts of sexual assault in 1999. He allegedly drugged his first victim, a 23-year-old patient named Candace, before assaulting her in his examination room. His second victim was his 13-year-old teenage stepdaughter, who reported the same awful story. The Weird: After Candace reported her assault to the authorities, the police forced Dr....

10Sticky Tape If you peel certain kinds of sticky tape (including Scotch tape) in a vacuum, it produces short bursts of X-rays. A group of UCLA scientists first noticed this crazy fact in 2008, although Soviet scientists had observed something similar (producing high-energy electrons rather than X-rays) in the 1950s. It seems that no one believed the Soviet findings. How could peeling tape generate such high-energy electrons? Since 2008, many other scientists have produced X-rays with sticky tape, so it seems to be a real phenomenon—but how does it happen?...

If you know only what you saw in the film “Braveheart,” you’re still unfamiliar with what truly happened at Stirling Bridge. The battle took place on September 11, 1297, during the Scottish War for Independence from England. The Scots were led by Andrew Moray and Sir William Wallace, who hated the English so much that he sought out Hugh de Cressingham, the English second-in-command on the field and personally beheaded him, then had him skinned and made into a sword belt....

Edward Jessup (William Hurt in his film debut) is a university professor who, while studying schizophrenia begins to think that “our other states of consciousness are as real as our waking states.” Jessup begins experimenting with sensory-depravation using a flotation tank. The professor then enhances the effects of his experiments by injecting a “mushroom cocktail” he brought back from Mexico. In the flotation tank he undergoes a series of increasingly drastic psychological and physical transformations....

10 1997 NASA Mars Court Case When NASA landed the Sojourner and Pathfinder probes on Mars, the world heralded the expedition as a great step forward for humanity. But not everyone was thrilled. In 1997, three Yemeni men sued NASA for trespassing on what they considered their property. According to these men, they had inherited the planet from their ancient ancestors who had lived on Mars 3,000 years before the NASA mission....

10 Fetus Flesh Capsules In 2012, South Korean officials seized thousands of pills containing the powdered flesh of fetuses. The pills were labeled as stamina boosters but intended to satisfy a demand for cannibalism. They were manufactured in China, and their grisly nature has ignited international tensions. The Chinese blamed the South Koreans. The South Koreans blamed the Chinese. Aborted and stillborn children were harvested for the process. They were refrigerated before microwave drying....

10 The Second Great Barrier Reef A doughnut wonderland exists behind Australia’s famous Great Barrier Reef. Unfortunately for the sweet-toothed, these “doughnuts” are limestone circles knitting together a colossal second reef. The unusual forms of the 6,000-square-kilometer (2,300 mi2) stretch aren’t the only surprise; its age has also blown scientists away. Estimated to be around 10,000 years old, the rings were formed by dead algae called Halimeda. When such algae dies, it changes from a living, green thing to a pale, limestone flake....

10The Italian Tax-Dodge State Giorgio Rosa was a man with a vision. In 1967, the Italian engineer decided to construct his own island state in international waters out of a self-professed love for “liberty.” Sinking nine pylons deep into the Adriatic Sea, Rosa and a handful of friends built a 400-square-meter (4,000 ft2) platform, declared their independence from Italy, and immediately began printing stamps for the new Republic of Rose Island....

10 ‘Struggling For Truth’ Was Considered A Symptom Of Schizophrenia The Soviet Union felt it had the best political system in the world, but for some strange reason, its people just didn’t seem to understand how great they had it. Inexplicable desires for useless things like “freedom” and “justice” ran rampant, and no one could explain why. Finally, in the 1970s, Soviet psychologists figured out why the people were so unhappy: They were insane....

10The Rochester Armored Motor Service Of America Heist On June 26, 1990, two guards were transporting money to the Federal Reserve branch in Buffalo, New York. Outside of Rochester, they stopped for a sandwich. An unidentified woman guard went into the store, and when she did, a man with a shotgun apparently stuck the barrel of the gun into the slot in the door, and a guard by the name of Albert Ranieri let the man into the cab....

Pizza delivery drivers are seen as easy targets for robberies, but sometimes those robberies turn into murders as well. Here are ten brutal murders of pizza delivery drivers. 10 Bobby Jenkins (2019) In 2019, 30-year-old Bobby Jenkins was murdered while delivering a pizza for Stacy’s Pizza in Philadelphia. Authorities believe Jenkins was lured to the location as a trap because the delivery location was a vacant home still under construction....

Visiting cemeteries at night, ghosts aside, is a bit unsettling. The ground is soft because it’s been turned so many times, there are literally dead people under your feet, and typically, the lighting isn’t the best. But the cemetery threat isn’t the ghosts. In fact, an undisturbed cemetery is quite peaceful. The threat comes more from other weirdos hanging out in the cemetery while you wander aimlessly through it at night....

10 Mormons Are Polygamists It is true that the church once accepted the practice of polygamy and encouraged it among its members, but the practice was removed in 1890. This was accomplished after numerous confrontations between the church and the Utah and federal governments. Since the new Manifesto outlawing the practice of plural marriage was revealed, polygamy has remained against church policy. A second manifesto was required in 1904 after then–church president Joseph F....

Chimpanzees are often incorrectly called monkeys, but they are actually in the great ape family just like us. The other great apes are orangutans and gorillas. There is only one species of human alive at present: homo sapiens. In the past, many scientists tried to argue that there were several species of human, and would often hasten to add that they themselves belonged to the ‘superior’ species. However, all humans can produce fertile children and so we are all the same species....

What I find much more interesting is that every now and again, we find out that a murderer was interviewed before they were caught. These interviews give us insight into how cold-blooded killers will sometimes feign the kind of emotions that regular people would feel should they become the victim of a despicable crime. So, here are 10 convicted murderers who gave TV interviews before they were arrested for their heinous crimes....

Other nations developed crazier tactics, including putting men inside missiles. The United States Air Force almost did this, in fact. Below are ten bizarre times that various groups tried (and sometimes succeeded in) turning soldiers into suicide weapons. 10 Kaiten The kaiten were the underwater version of the Japanese kamikaze airplanes. Like the airplanes, the pilots were expected to ram their torpedo submarines into enemy ships, killing the pilot and destroying the ship....

One of the first mammals to develop saberteeth, Machaeroides were about the size of a large fox or small coyote, but due to its enlarged canines, it probably could kill larger prey than other, similarly sized predators. Machaeroides lived in the Eocene period, over 50 million years ago; it belonged to the Creodonta group, which were predatory mammals that ruled the world before the appearance of the Carnivora (the group modern day meat-eating mammals belong to)....

By day, he appeared to be an ordinary husband and businessman who dressed as a clown to entertain at children’s parties during the weekends. Yet, lurking beneath his outgoing exterior was a twisted murderer who lured his victims to their deaths and buried the bodies in grisly graves. His crimes continue to haunt us today. 10 Growing up a Gacy Born March 17, 1942, John Wayne Gacy grew up in Chicago, Illinois, with his parents and two sisters....

Unfortunately and perhaps surprisingly, LEGOs have been involved in a number of fiendish (sometimes hilarious) plots. While this might seem hard to believe, this article will review ten of the most startling ways in which LEGOs were used illegally. 10 The LEGO Star Wars Bandit Over the last few decades, Star Wars has played an important role in LEGO history. The Star Wars brand marks the first intellectual property that was licensed by the LEGO Group....