During the Middle Ages, both laws and the penalties for breaking them were very different from the ones we are familiar with today. From football being outlawed to the practice of witchcraft being punishable by death, here are ten ludicrous laws from the Middle Ages that, thankfully, are no longer in place. 10 Playing Football Was Forbidden While football players today have a reputation of being dramatic over the smallest of injuries, their predecessors were the exact opposite....

10 Scream: “We All Go a Little Mad Sometimes” We love to see the iconic ’90s slasher movie paying tribute to an even more iconic Hitchcock film. Wes Craven’s blockbuster hit is full of scary movie references throughout its runtime like The Exorcist, Friday the 13th, Halloween, and so many more. So it only makes sense that Hitchcock’s Psycho would make a cameo at some point. When Billy Loomis (who is a huge horror film fanatic) reveals he is one of the killers, he says, “We all go a little mad sometimes....

The week that took us into December got off to a tragic start when a terrorist attacked people with a knife on London Bridge, killing two. While the UK was in mourning, other stories were busy rocking the rest of the world. In France, the nation once again prepared for paralysis as Macron once again pushed unpopular reforms through. In Germany, there were fresh political convulsions, while political shenanigans in the US continued to rumble on....

10Mount Everest Is Moving Sideways, Not Up Fifty million years ago, the Indian subcontinent decided that it didn’t like the neighborhood south of the Equator and headed north. It eventually smashed into Asia, raising the Himalayan mountain range—including Mount Everest—during the process. Today, at almost 9 kilometers (5.6 mi) high, Everest is Earth’s tallest mountain that is above sea level. Since the India-Asia collision is ongoing, it’s still rising, right? Wrong, say scientists who have meticulously measured the mountain’s height....

Ammonites are fairly common fossils and have been misidentified for thousands of years. The ancient Greeks thought they were ram horns, and named them after the Egyptian god Ammon who sported such horns. The ancient Chinese called them horn stones for a similar reason. In Nepal they are seen as a holy relic left by the god Vishnu. The Vikings regarded them as the sacred petrified offspring of the world serpent, Jormungand....

10‘Devil Creature’ Of San Doong Cave When it was discovered in 1995, the Son Doong Cave was said to be so large that it couldn’t be fully explored at the time. Over 150 meters (492 ft) high, 200 meters (656 ft) wide, and 6.5 kilometers (4 mi) in length, it was opened to the public for tours in 2013. Since then, there have been several reports of strange creatures lurking within the cave systems....

The term “phobia” comes from the Greek word phobos (“fear”). Some phobias are common, such as coulrophobia (fear of clowns) or arachnophobia (fear of spiders). Other phobias are so rare or bizarre that you may have never heard of them. 10 Ergophobia People suffer from workplace anxiety from time to time—for example, when you have that important presentation to give in front of a big audience. However, with ergophobia, the sufferer has an irrational fear of work....

However, famous places also have a scary tale or two to offer. Some of the most well-known landmarks around the world have a dark side, too, and their history often includes deeply disturbing and sometimes haunting stories. 10 Ancient Ram Inn In Wotton-under-Edge, around 40 minutes from Bristol, you will find the Ancient Ram Inn. It has been called the most haunted house in Britain and has existed since 1145....

Maps, languages, codes and ciphers are cracked and deciphered all the time, sometimes after years of painstaking research and calculations. A recent development is in the use of computers to decipher previously unknown and unintelligible languages. One recent success was the decoding of the Copiale Cipher, a hand-lettered 105-page manuscript that appears to date from the late 18th century. According to a recent New York Times article, the deciphering of the first 16 pages shows the Copiale Cipher appears to be a “detailed description of a ritual from a secret society that apparently had a fascination with eye surgery and ophthalmology....

This stunning image of Saturn was captured by the incredible Cassini spacecraft in 2006 as it passed behind the ringed gas giant in the 9th year of its mission. Even more incredible it that the pale-blue dot of the Earth can be seen in this image just above and to the left of the bright, main rings. [Source] The Crab Pulsar, a city-sized, magnetized neutron star spinning 30 times a second, lies at the center of this remarkable image from the orbiting Chandra Observatory....

10 Woodstock Vampires On October 9, 1890, The Vermont Standard ran a sensational headline: “Vampirism in Woodstock.” The article detailed an event that had transpired some 60 years earlier in 1830. That year, a local man named Corwin died of consumption (tuberculosis). He was buried in Woodstock’s Cushing Cemetery—a common resting place for the departed residents of this sleepy Vermont village. Six months after the burial, Corwin’s brother also became ill with tuberculosis....

But there are some great minds and cultures out there that see ice cream differently. From ancient snow recipes to new scientific innovations from culinary giants, these novel ice creams are undeniably fascinating. 10 Spaghettieis Dario Fontanella is an Italian German and third-generation ice cream restaurateur. He is also the proud creator of Spaghettieis, stranded ice cream. In the 1960s, Fontanella was thinking about his Italian past and how he could apply it to the German culinary style....

Humpty Dumpty was first printed in 1810. At the time, a humpty dumpty was a clumsy person, so the nursery rhyme was meant as a riddle. It doesn’t actually state that Humpty Dumpty is an egg, so the aim of the reader is to guess what he really is. Of course there is not a person who knows the tale these days that doesn’t know he is an egg. There is speculation that the nursery rhyme had an underlying meaning – in which Humpty Dumpty represents King Richard III of England and the wall his horse....

10Kritarchy This system is generally used to describe the period in ancient Israel when the nation was ruled by judges, and many assume that kritarchy is simply that. However, the meaning of kritarchy has evolved in modern times to describe a stateless system that is based on customary law and equal justice. There is no central legislature, merely a body of customary law based on “natural rights.” Judges and police forces are not based on any central authority but are part of a competitive system....

10Thomas Parkin This 49-year-old New York man didn’t let his mother’s death stop him from collecting her benefits for six years. Thomas Parkin’s mother Irene died in 2003. He provided the funeral director with the wrong Social Security number and date of birth, so her death wasn’t properly registered, and Parkin went on to collect $115,000 in benefits and rent subsidies. But Parkin didn’t simply forge paperwork to carry out his deception....

10Praying Mantis 3-D Glasses It goes without saying that praying mantises are some of the coolest insects on the planet. Not only are they expert hunters, they’re the only invertebrates who see the world in 3-D—just like we do. And that intrigued researchers at the Newcastle University Institute of Neuroscience. In fact, many wondered if mantis 3-D vision works like ours or if there are completely different mechanisms involved. Well, there was only one way to find out, and that was by putting mini 3-D glasses on mantises and showing them a 3-D movie....

This week, we aim to expand our cultural horizons a bit by checking out a poop museum. We examine two strange crimes in the form of a serial toilet clogger and a 33,000-year-old cold case. We also point the finger and laugh at a few gaffes committed by organizations that should have known better: A baseball team paid for a memorial tribute for living players, and NASA sold its original lunar landing tapes for a few bucks....

10 Charles Dickens Speaks From The Grave When Charles Dickens died at age 58, he had been hard at work on a new novel, which was to be called The Mystery of Edwin Drood. The story was a murder mystery, with the titular Edwin vanishing and presumed dead. Unfortunately, Dickens succumbed before the book was finished. There were several attempts by other writers to finish the tale, including one version by Charles Dickens Jr....

SEE ALSO: 10 Horribly Unconventional Ways That People Have Died 10 Charles Vance Millar A wise man once said that some men just want to watch the world burn. Charles Vance Millar may not have been a villain, but he was certainly a joker. The Canadian lawyer loved to play practical jokes, especially ones that played on the greed of his victims. Given how dedicated he was to his own amusement, it should come as no surprise that he would use his death to pull off a few last pranks....

Baseball players tear their elbow ligaments. Pro football players can recount dozens of concussions—if they haven’t had too many. Athletes who accelerate quickly, like basketball and soccer players, often tear their ACL ligaments in horrific fashion. And that’s to say nothing of more extreme athletes—like BASE jumpers, BMX riders, and free climbers—who stare at the face of death, disfigurement, decapitation, dismemberment, and a host of other fates that don’t even begin with the letter “D....