Runners-up: The Da Vinci Code, Oprah’s book club. In 1997 an unknown writer named Joanne Rowling finally got her break upon the publication of a novel she had been working on for seven years, Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone. What followed was nothing short of mania. The series, with seven books planned from the start, became a global phenomenon. By the time the final book was published in 2007, the Harry Potter series had turned Rowling into a billionaire, one of the runners-up for Time’s “Person of the Year”, and easily the most influential children’s writer of her era....

SEE ALSO: Top 10 Greatest Benefits of Capitalism The common capitalist mantra that “anyone can be rich if they work hard enough” is a fallacy. There’s only so much room at the top. In order to make money, first you have to take it from someone else. This can be done through selling things, taxation or any other means. But this means that the rich cannot exist without the poor....

Then finally, the police were able to capture 26-year-old Richard Ramirez. Now, he is one of the most widely recognizable serial killers in history as he has become “the face of evil.” Ramirez was nonchalant and never showed remorse. As he believed, “Serial killers do, on a small scale, what governments do on a large one. They are products of our times and these are bloodthirsty times.” See Also: Top 10 American Serial Killers...

A post-apocalyptic tale based on a novella by Harlan Ellison. A boy communicates telepathically with his dog as they scavenge for food and sex, and they stumble into an underground society where the old society is preserved. The daughter of one of the leaders of the community seduces and lures him below, where the citizens have become unable to reproduce because of being underground so long. They use him for impregnation purposes, and then plan to be rid of him....

Wu Zetian was empress of China from October 690 to February 705. She is the only woman in Chinese history to rule in her own right. She was a ruthless, cruel, sadistic and sexually depraved murderess who drove her people into chaos. She ordered tortures, executions and forced suicides on a daily basis. She had all of her rivals exiled or executed including the ex empress Wang. She also had members of her family executed including her niece, nephews and killed her newly born daughter....

10Ants Kill Old Zombie Friends In South America, there is a species of carpenter ant that can become infected with the spores of a fungus. As the spore grows, it controls the ant’s brain, turning it into a kind of zombie. The fungus forces the ant to climb a leaf, chomp down on the leaf, and then die. This action allows the fungus to grow from the ant’s body onto the leaf....

Inspired by the works of acclaimed artists, horror movie directors have added audio, visual, and dramatic effects to their own creative visions, enhancing their artistic works with those of masters of expressionism, magic realism, realism, surrealism, modernism, romanticism, and the Baroque. The results are striking, adding richness and depth to the films’ own images and themes of the horrific and the terrible. 10 Picture of Dorian Gray Although he may not be as famous as some of the other painters on this list, Ivan Albright, the acclaimed “master of the macabre,” was director Albert Lewin’s choice as the artist who would paint the portrait of the protagonist of his horror film The Picture of Dorian Gray (1945), an adaptation of Oscar Wilde’s 1891 novel....

The Film: Martin Scorsese’s Gangs of New York, starring The Clash. This one was finally made in 1999 with Daniel Day-Lewis chewing up all the scenery in sight – including co-star Leonardo DiCaprio. When it came out, it divided critics and audiences, some of whom think it’s a masterpiece while others think it’s an unholy mess. God knows what they would have thought if it had actually been made back in the mid-’70s, when it was first conceived as a vehicle for punk-rock legends The Clash....

10Basswood Tree Slice Checkers$27.99 This beautiful checkerboard is engraved on an actual slice of a tree, which is about as rustic as the centuries-old, beloved game gets. The light and dark pieces add an amazing natural complement, and each set is made to order, taking about 3-4 days. Of course, the size and coloration of the board and pieces will vary slightly. Manufacturer Rustic Road deals in other handmade games as well, such as tic-tac-toe and lawn Jenga....

Having rain falling on you while you’re in a rubber raft in the middle of a stormy sea is counteractive, since the same rain that’s aiding your survival might flood and sink your raft, hastening your demise. Then there’s the unforgiving Sun, the sharks congregating around the raft, and the harsh, salty ocean air that causes painful sores. Tales of surviving several months at sea are rare. 10 Poon Lim133 Days China native Poon Lim was a steward aboard the British merchant ship Ben Lomond when it was torpedoed and sunk by German U-boat U-172 during the afternoon of Nov 23, 1942....

Gelada baboons are truly impressive monkeys, with those huge manes and severe flat faces. They are unique to the mountains of Ethiopia where they feed mostly on grass. Usually peaceful, but they are armed with some of nature’s most terrifying set of teeth. Although they seldom, if ever, attack humans in the wild, zoo specimens have been known to be extremely savage and aggressive. Weighing up to one ton, the American bison is one of two truly gigantic herbivores left in North America (the other being the moose) after the Ice Age extinction....

Fleeing a plague and sitting it out in the countryside was one of the only things most people could do. Of course, they often spread the plague to the “safe” places to which they ran. So even this had only limited success. With everyone around them succumbing to mysterious illnesses, the people of the past had nothing to lose by trying what seem like ridiculous tactics to us. Here are 10 historic ways that people tried to beat plagues....

Oni Japanese Depictions of oni vary widely but they are usually portrayed as hideous, gigantic creatures with sharp claws, wild hair, and two long horns growing from their heads. They are humanoid for the most part, but occasionally, they are shown with unnatural features such as odd number of eyes or extra fingers and toes. Their skin may be any number of colors, but red and blue are particularly common....

Here is a list of 10 films that are said to be based in reality, and the true events that inspired them. Top 10 Modern Horror Novels More Terrifying Than A Stephen King Book 10 A Nightmare on Elm Street In 1984 the film A Nightmare on Elm Street was released. The film, which features the iconic villain Freddy Krueger, who hunts the children of Elm Street and slaughters them in their dreams, is eerie enough on its own, but hearing there might be some truth to this urban legend was almost too much!...

See Also: 10 Craziest Alternatives To New Year’s Fireworks 10 2010—The Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill Writer: Mark Oliver On April 20th, 2010, the world experienced one of the worst environmental disasters in history. The Deepwater Horizon oil rig ignited into flames, burning for more than 24 hours before finally sinking into the Gulf of Mexico, leaving the well gushing 8,000 barrels worth of crude oil a day directly into the sea....

In the early 1980s, a collection of black women began to turn up dead in the alleyways and dumpsters of South Los Angeles, California. On September 23, 1985, the police announced that they believed a single individual, labeled the Southside Slayer, was responsible for the crimes. The case turned cold until May 2007, when the murder of Janecia Peters, 25, was linked by DNA analysis to 11 unsolved murders attributed to the Southside Slayer....

10 The First Bitcoin Transaction Was For Pizza On May 18, 2010, Laszlo Hanyecz posted on a forum for Bitcoin: Bitcoin Talk. At the time, Bitcoin was still in its infancy. It was incredibly volatile, and each Bitcoin was worth only a few pennies on the dollar. Hanyecz’s post was for two Papa John’s pizzas that he said he would pay 10,000 bitcoins for. This transaction would go down in Internet history as the first time that Bitcoins were actually used to buy something....

Compulsive shopping is a disorder, and one that can keep the economy churning, if the afflicted member is a responsible credit card owner. More often than not, however, a frequent credit card swiper will live in bottomless debt, with nothing but a household of canoes and flatscreen T.V.’s to show for it. Of course, the government would encourage spending at inadvisable times if it means economic stimulation (and, of course, sales tax revenue), but the compulsive shopper needs more counseling than trips to the mall to right this wrong....

But there are plenty of individuals, instances and practices that we don’t often hear about that really plumb the depths of human cruelty. Here are ten examples you may not have heard of that show that mankind’s propensity for cruelty is boundless. Some stories may make you blood boil, some may repulse you. One or two of them will do both. (Feels odd to write this, but) – Enjoy! – (Ah hell, you know what I mean)....

SEE ALSO: 10 Fabulous Graves (Almost) Worth Dying For Just 3 years ago, the most brutal mass-murder in journalistic history took place, in which at least 34 journalists were deliberately killed as casualties of political terrorism. There was tension in Maguindanao (a province of an island in the Philippines) as an election was underway; two rivaling members of the same party running for the same office. Vice Mayor Esmael “Toto” Mangudadatu, who was filing his certificate of candidacy, received threats that his rivals (supporters of the Andal Ampatuan, Sr....