Most people around seem to know someone who has a friend who has been on a reality television show. There is so many around these days, and they are so loved, that it is a seemingly easy way to become famous. You don’t even have to be talented! The late Jade Goody (British Big Brother) rose to fame showing no desirable talent, simply for being wonderfully unintelligent. On the other hand if you are talented than reality television is a whole lot easier to not only become famous but maintain fame for a long career, for example Leona Lewis and the British singing show the X-Factor....

Jack Johnson is regarded by some as the originator of the modern trash-talk. He was the world’s first black heavyweight champion, and it’s easy to understand why he might’ve felt the need to speak out, as the racial situation in those days was not at all favorable to African Americans. He was, in many ways, one of the first consummate sports celebrities, hogging the press, maintaining an expensive lifestyle and endorsing products....

10Inserting Spies Into The Soviet Union Via Balloon The Warsaw Pact nations had extremely effective border security during the Cold War, so sneaking American spies in was quite a challenge. Meanwhile, the US Navy had been using gigantic plastic balloons for astronomical observation and weather monitoring. To make the balloons, the Navy turned to the famous General Mills (the company that makes Betty Crocker and Cheerios, as opposed to a military officer)....

The Monster Study was a stuttering experiment on 22 orphan children in Davenport, Iowa, in 1939 conducted by Wendell Johnson at the University of Iowa. Johnson chose one of his graduate students, Mary Tudor, to conduct the experiment and he supervised her research. After placing the children in control and experimental groups, Tudor gave positive speech therapy to half of the children, praising the fluency of their speech, and negative speech therapy to the other half, belittling the children for every speech imperfection and telling them they were stutterers....

In hindsight, it’s quite obvious that Prohibition didn’t work, and many scholars and commentators today have suggested that we learn its lessons and perhaps apply them to the much-debated drug laws of modern times. 10 Organized Crime Flourishes It’s argued that not only did prohibition provide organized crime syndicates with a gap in the market in the 1920s, but it also increased their wealth and influence, which in turn allowed them to continue their ventures in other areas once the ban on alcohol was lifted....

Known as “Reverse” Buller by his troops during the Second Boer War, the Englishman was first defeated at the Battle of Colenso and subsequently lost his position as overall commander. He continued on to suffer defeats at Spion Kop and Vaal Krantz, almost letting the war slip away from the British. After achieving moderate success in Libya and Ethiopia, the “Butcher of Ethiopia” became Commander-in-Chief of the Italian Royal Army’s General Staff and of Italian North Africa at the start of World War II....

Top 10 Gruesome Fairy Tale Origins 10 Hans Christian Andersen Hans Christian Andersen wrote down two things, children stories and records of every time he masturbated. Thankfully, the two never overlapped. In his professional life, the man behind fairytales like “The Little Mermaid” and “The Snow Queen” remained pure. Outside of that, he challenged to contain his sexual urges. To control his desires, he masturbated with such regularity that he developed “penis sores....

This film follows a group of high school students growing up in southern California, based on the real-life adventures chronicled by Cameron Crowe. Stacy Hamilton and Mark Ratner are looking for a love interest, and are helped along by their older classmates, Linda Barrett and Mike Damone, respectively. The center of the film is held by Jeff Spicoli, a perpetually stoned surfer dude who faces off with the resolute Mr....

And so our music became the soundtrack of a party… silly, upbeat, and ultimately disposable. The appropriate response to a Cold War world that was surely doomed. But such music isn’t what you think of when you think “beautiful.” And yet… there were some beautiful songs in the 80s. So many, in fact, that this list was very hard to write. Odd at first glance because we also remember the 80s as a decade of truly atrocious ballads and “power-ballads” produced by hair bands and past-their-prime types… I have gleefully ignored these as beneath contempt, and instead have largely eschewed the ballad for simple, straightforward songs....

But advertisers aren’t exactly human. Where most of us see pointless suffering, they see gigantic dollar signs. 10A Dubai Gym Promotes Fitness With The Holocaust In 2012, Dubai’s Circuit Factory fitness center posted images to its Facebook page showing a picture of Auschwitz and the tagline “Kiss your calories goodbye.” Unsurprisingly, people were offended by the suggestion that murdering millions is somehow equivalent to getting a good workout. Faced with a growing backlash, Circuit Factory’s owner then managed to make things even worse by defending the ad, saying that exercise classes are “like a calorie concentration camp....

10 Limpets Use Their Tongues Like A Jackhammer Limpets are small, sturdy aquatic snails. They lack a face in the conventional sense but compensate with jaggedly terrifying maws on their undersides. Like more commonly known animals, the limpet has the gastropod equivalent of a tongue—a radula. Like the pointy papillae that turn cat tongues into sandpaper, a limpet’s radula is forested with spiky projections for scraping algae. The appendage also doubles as jackhammer....

10 The Battle Of Muye1046 BC The Battle of Muye was fought between the tribes of Zhou against the Shang Dynasty for control over China. The Zhou army consisted of 50,000 skilled soldiers, while the much stronger Shang forces exceeded 530,000, with an additional 170,000 armed slaves. The Shang slaves defected to the Zhou, which greatly demoralized the remaining soldiers, many of whom also defected. The ensuing battle was fierce, and the Shang forces were easily defeated by the better-trained Zhou....

10AkituBabylon Akitu was the Babylonian festival for the new year. Celebrated in what’s today March or April, the festival honored their supreme god, Marduk, and marked the beginning of the growing season. For the general population, the beginning of the festival meant a week of holidays and celebrations. For the king, though, it was something very different. He began the festival by going to the temple of Nabu, where the priests presented him with a royal scepter....

Many people have these rituals as a result of traditions that have been passed down to them, and they will, in turn, do the same. The origin of various rituals took place during ancient times. Even though history books and websites can teach you the history of some of the most common ones, there are still many that may not have been brought to your attention yet. Keep reading to learn more about these ten ancient rituals you may have never heard of....

SEE ALSO: 10 Plausible Theories For Our Sexual Desires Surprisingly, many species have been known to reproduce asexually, and we’re not just talking single-celled organisms, either. A number of plants and even animals can do so. Here are ten of the most intriguing animals that can reproduce without sex. 10 The Cape Honey Bee There are 20,000 species of honeybees across the planet but only one that has the ability to reproduce without a need for male bees....

10 The Church Of England Goes To The Dogs King Henry VIII of England wanted a son and heir. He’d had six children with his first wife, Catherine of Aragon, but only one little girl, Princess Mary, survived. Henry decided that since Catherine had previously been married to his older brother Arthur, who’d died of “sweating sickness” soon after the wedding, she was akin to his sister, and it had been a sin to marry her....

I find it absolutely ridiculous this women can’t cook a hard boiled egg, but can some how manage to make eggs Benedict with hollandaise sauce, and deviled eggs. It’s egg-cellent! Or should I say the titty Bear which is exactly what the actors all sound like they are saying. This keeps me wondering: Why didn’t I think of this? A family reunion with your hosts Mick and Mimi, and their cynical, hungover family members....

We here at Listverse are no strangers to myths that refuse to go away—we spend a lot of time debunking them! From the five-second rule to bats being blind, some of them are believed almost everywhere in the world, despite being so verifiably wrong. It’s not that all of us are dumb, it’s just that we refuse to look up anything online until it directly affects some aspect of our personal lives—a factor we see time and again when it comes to political debate: it’s just easier to remain ignorant and say “Ok boomer“....

10The Bible Barely Mentions It Most Christian believers in the idea of Hell will tell you that it’s a place of punishment for sinners and evildoers. But does that idea have a scriptural basis? According to Romans 6:7, “he that is dead is freed from sin.” So if a person’s sins are cleared with his or her death, then what’s with the additional punishment of Hell? Well, Romans 6:23 goes on to state that “the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord....

10 Corpse Roads During the Middle Ages, churches were very protective of their parish members. When a member of the parish passed away, the church was determined to have them buried in the proper church graveyard. This was because it was considered the right thing to do and also because it meant that the church would receive money for the burial ceremony. Communities, however, were becoming more and more spread out, which meant that the local parish church could be miles away, making it difficult to transport a body from the village to the church graveyard....