Stevenson was intensely interested in whether free will could be overcome, with the result that a person would do something s/he would ordinarily refuse to do. So he set about addressing this issue in his legendary novella about a scientist experimenting with chemicals that will cause him to change into someone else. Dr. Jekyll has no idea, at first, that the person he will change into will be a pure misanthrope, Mr....
10Public Nudity The laws regarding public nudity vary wildly across the world, and in America, they even vary from state to state. In New York City, for example, women are allowed to go topless. Some, such as performance artist Holly Van Voast, do so deliberately to provoke a reaction. In the United Kingdom, nudity is allowed on certain beaches but not in public. Stephen Gough, known as “The Naked Rambler,” has frequently challenged these laws by hiking nude in public throughout England and Scotland....
10 Franklin D. RooseveltFire Though he said that “the only thing we have to fear is fear itself,” Franklin D. Roosevelt had an intense personal fear of fire. His fear was likely to stem from his childhood, when he had several frightening experiences. As a young child, he witnessed his young, screaming aunt Laura running down the stairs with her dress ablaze from a spilled alcohol lamp. In 1899, he helped to tear up part of a parlor floor to put out a cellar blaze and participated in a bucket brigade to put out a stable fire at the nearby Groton School....
10Trash Talking Today we trash talk when we play video games or sports—so much so that there are often rules to govern what’s considered sportsmanlike conduct. And as it turns out, the ancients did exactly the same thing. Historians have recently started studying ancient graffiti as a way to look into the world of everyday people, and they’ve found that not only were they cheerfully foul-mouthed, they also shared their opinions with less regard for other people’s feelings than the average YouTube commenter....
10Algeria’s Secret Service Bombed The Paris Metro On July 25, 1995, a bomb exploded in a crowded Paris metro car. It was the start of a summer of terror. By October that year, seven more bombs had detonated across France, killing eight and wounding 200. Responsibility was placed on Algeria’s Armed Islamic Group (GIA), seeking revenge for France’s support of their government during the civil war. But there’s another theory: The Algerian government itself was responsible....
Far more than just a frozen land of penguins, the frigid continent features more than you might imagine, and there’s even more than that hidden beneath its ice sheets. Antarctica has plenty of delicious content, all told here. 10 Land Divisions Given that Antarctica is around 1.5 the size of the United States, there is quite a lot of land to divide. This continent is divided into two regions: East and West Antarctica....
Humankind has grown up alongside plants, and we’re quite used to seeing them just sitting there, not doing much of anything. For that, we could be forgiven for viewing plants as inanimate objects that aren’t capable of anything other than growing taller, getting eaten, and shriveling up. However, members of the plant kingdom are capable of some pretty awesome things. Let’s explore a few, shall we? 10 Communicating Via Roots Trees are fairly inconspicuous upon first glance: branches lightly blowing in the breeze, woodland creatures nesting in their trunks....
Castle Rushen, one of Europe’s best-preserved medieval castles, is among the island’s greatest attractions. The Isle of Man also holds the world’s largest working waterwheel, which used to provide water to the mines. And there are a dozen ancient and Neolithic sites to explore. The Isle of Man is especially convenient for tourism as most of the island can be seen by traveling on a network of heritage railways powered by steam, electricity, and even horsepower....
The pope is supreme. He is an absolute monarch who answers to no man on earth. When Pope Benedict XVI abdicated he did not offer his resignation to anyone: he simply declared it to be so. The pope is the only absolute authority in the Church. He can overrule any decision made by his delegates in other countries—the bishops. Bishops do have a certain autonomy but their statements must always be in accord with the wishes of the pope....
Society seems to eat up these stories that fuel their distaste for the homeless, but there are plenty of cases of true heroism that should be remembered and honored. The purpose of this list is to highlight the moments when those who have lost everything in life act as heroes despite societal expectations. In the wake of these “homeless heroes turned rotten” stories, we need to be reminded of some real heroes....
Some use the image of the jolly old magical being to lure children. Others use it as a disguise. Either way, these ten examples of Santa being cruel will make you think twice the next time you hear the ringing of bells. 10 Charles Smith The first item on this list is nowhere near as dire as the entries which follow. It is, however, amusing and a welcome break from the creepy and horrific crimes that the rest of the Santa Clauses committed....
There have, however, been some interesting exceptions to this stereotype. Here, we’ll look at ten times through history that the religious were more forward-thinking than some of their contemporaries. 10 Nudity Around 170,000 years ago, humans started wearing animal skins, not out of shame but just because someone realized it could help to protect from cold. The idea of needing to cover specific body parts was a concept introduced by religion....
However, there was a time when perfectly rational people not only believed in mermaids but sometimes also convinced themselves that they had seen one in the scaly flesh. Here are ten such reports. 10 Christopher Columbus In 1492, Christopher Columbus set off to find a new trade route to Asia and famously “discovered” the “New World” of the Americas by mistake. Not only did he find a new continent, but he also observed a few mythological creatures....
As it turns out, the men who managed to evade detection for decades weren’t as crafty as it seems. Some of them pretty well got caught with their hands bloody, face-to-face with the men hunting them. And for reasons that you’ll never believe, they were allowed to walk free. 10 Richard RamirezThe Night Stalker In the middle of the murder spree that would end up taking 13 lives, Richard Ramirez was nearly arrested by a police officer named John Stavros....
10 Apeirotheism In the late 19th century, philosopher Thomas Davidson developed apeirotheism, or “the theory of Gods infinite in number.” His ideas were inspired by the individualist thought of Aristotle and Leibniz, the idea of vita nuova, or spiritual regeneration, from Rosmini and Dante, as well as the social activism of the proto-Fabians. Davidson believed there was a primary or archetypal individual or God, which he referred to as thinking or Nous....
We are all probably familiar with some causes of erection failure: old age, smoking, alcohol misuse, and diabetes. But there are a number of other, more obscure factors that can contribute to the male member failing to rise to the occasion. 10High Blood Pressure To achieve an erection, the penis needs to be inflated with blood. We might reasonably expect that someone with high blood pressure would possess a more powerful pump to achieve this aim and therefore might be less likely than the average man to suffer erectile failure....
The British monarchy is a strange system built on customs and laws that are hundreds of years old—and that has given Queen Elizabeth II some insane powers. There are privileges in the British law books that let the queen do some crazy things that we’re just kind of counting on her not to do. If the queen ever went mad with power, she could have one hell of a day....
When this ended there was another wave of trade and knowledge of Japan’s culture spread widely. Among the exports were artistic forms seen nowhere else. Here are ten of the most amazing products of Japanese imagination. 10 Unusual And Fascinating Japanese Emperors 10 Kintsugi The Japanese sense of aesthetic is sometimes radically different from traditional European forms. While the Ancient Romans and Greeks favoured idealised and flawless artworks the Japanese found beauty in impermanence and imperfection....
As it turns out, some of these urban legends are actually 100% true. Interestingly, a lot of them are about sex—if this doesn’t make you uneasy about sleeping with somebody, we don’t know what will. 10People Have Actually Gotten Stuck During Sex While this nightmarish scenario might be the last thing any couple wants to experience, it unfortunately has happened multiple times in the past. According to medical journals, penis captivus (yes, it’s as painful as it sounds) involves intense spasms that can cause a woman’s vagina to clamp down on her partner’s penis during intercourse....
We certainly don’t expect to get worse as a result of being hospitalized. However, there’s a chance that, in fact, we will get worse as there are 10 ways a hospital stay can make us sicker. 10 Post-Hospital Syndrome Dr. Harlan Krumholz of the Yale School of Medicine has coined the term “post-hospital syndrome” to identify a temporary period during which patients are susceptible to an illness following a hospital stay....
