Category: Bazaar News

Al-Qarawiyyin Library is the oldest library in the world. It is located in Fez, Morocco, and was part of the oldest continually operating university in the world, al-Qarawiyyin University. The university opened in 859. (If you’re thinking this can’t be right because Oxford is the oldest university, note that it’s simply the oldest in the English-speaking world. Even the University of Bologna was founded after al-Qarawiyyin.)

Al-Qarawiyyin had a library, but sultan Abu Inan Faris founded the one we consider the oldest continually operating library in 1349. He was able to collect some of the world’s most precious manuscripts.

How the al-Quarawiyyin Library came to be

Al-Qarawiyyin university, its library, and a mosque were founded by a woman (around the same time algebra was invented!).

Her name was Fatima El-Fihriya, and she even attended the university. Born in Tunisia around 800 AD, her family became wealthy as a result of her father’s successful merchant business and migrated to Fez.

Both well-educated, Fatima and her sister Maryam went on to found mosques in Fez. Fatima’s wealth was a result of her father having only two daughters to leave his riches to, and Fatima’s husband and father died shortly after her wedding. However, we know little else about their lives. A fire in 1323 destroyed most of the records that could tell us more about her life.

It appears Fatima El-Fihriya’s goal was to make Morocco an educational hub, which she did. In fact (while it’s disputed), she likely influenced the future of educational institutions around the world.

Al-Qarawiyyin offered many courses on the Qur’an, but eventually expanded to include the study of medicine, grammar, mathematics, music, and astronomy. It drew intellectuals from all over the world.

Once accessible only to academics, the library is now open to the public thanks to a full renovation Canadian-Moroccan architect Aziza Chaouni began in 2012 and finished in 2017.

— WTF fun facts

Source: “The Fascinating History of the World’s Oldest Library; Al-Qarawiyyin Library and University, Fez” – Odyssey Traveler

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In 1954, the British engineers behind Blue Peacock designed a nuclear landmine to use against the Soviets — and it was dependent upon live chickens.

As the Iron Curtain descended across Europe following World War II, countries on both sides started making plans about what to do if the Cold War ever turned physical. As the nuclear arms race took off, the British came up with the top-secret Operation Blue Peacock as a way to stop a potential Soviet attack.

The plan: bury nuclear landmines across West Germany that would explode if the Soviets tried to invade.

The problem: frigid temperatures might keep the bombs from detonating.

The solution: seal live chickens inside the buried landmines to keep them warm.

It may sound too outlandish to be true — but Operation Blue Peacock was very real.

How The Cold War Sparked A Nuclear Arms Race

World War II ended in 1945, but a new standoff soon gripped the world. And this time, the conflict pitted nuclear powers against each other.

In the 1950s, NATO faced off against the Warsaw Pact, and Germany was ground zero. Divided in two after World War II, the country was the battlefield where the Cold War could easily become hot.

But how far would either side go to win?

The British were willing to go nuclear. In the early 1950s, according to The Guardian, the British Army came up with a drastic idea codenamed Blue Peacock.

Britain’s Royal Armament Research and Development Establishment (RARDE) had investigated numerous ways to thwart the Soviets using nuclear weapons, but Project Blue Peacock involved something a little unconventional: atomic landmines.

RARDE suggested burying the mines in the North German Plain. If the Soviets ever crossed into Western territory, the British would wait just long enough for them to set up headquarters and supply depots — then detonate the bombs right beneath them.

These landmines weren’t small, either. At 10 kilotons, each weapon was about half as powerful as the bomb that destroyed Nagasaki in 1945 and would leave a crater larger than a football field in the ground upon exploding. In the aftermath of their detonation, huge swaths of Europe would be blanketed in radioactive fallout.

In addition to blasting away Soviet forces, the British hoped the nuclear landmines would make occupation impossible. That is, the radioactive contamination would convince the Soviets to leave Germany.

As a top-secret 1955 policy paper put it, according to The National Interest, “A skillfully sited atomic mine would not only destroy facilities and installations over a large area, but would deny occupation of the area to an enemy for an appreciable time due to contamination.”

But though the Blue Peacock sounded like a promising weapon at first, it also had several flaws that engineers needed to find solutions to.

Inside The Chicken-Powered Nuclear Bomb

One of the first dilemmas the British came across was just how to detonate the new landmines. One option, as reported by Popular Mechanics, was to hastily bury each landmine with an eight-day timer if Soviet forces ever started to invade.

Officials also considered activating the bombs remotely or programming them to detonate within 10 seconds if they were tampered with. However, there was still another issue: the weather. Temperatures often fell below freezing in northern Germany during the winter, particularly underground. With so many intricate parts, the landmines were liable to fail if they got too cold.

Engineers first suggested wrapping each seven-ton bomb in fiberglass pillows to keep them warm, but then they had another idea: chickens. Live birds would be placed inside the casing of each bomb with just enough food for them to survive for eight days. Their body heat would keep the mine warm until it was time for it to detonate — and they would be killed in the resulting explosion if they hadn’t yet starved to death.

As outlandish as the idea sounds, engineers actually built two prototypes, and the British Army even ordered 10 of the weapons in 1957. But the innovative design would never be put to use.

The End Of Operation Blue Peacock

The British toiled away on Project Blue Peacock for four years before giving it up. In 1958, the Ministry of Defense canceled the “politically flawed” project, citing concerns about radioactive fallout and the destruction of their allies’ territory.

“It may look bizarre now, but this weapon was a product of its time,” researcher Lesley Wright told New Scientist. “It was a response to the perceived threat of overwhelming Soviet superiority in conventional weapons.”

Even after the plan was scrapped, the Blue Peacock remained a secret for decades. In fact, it wasn’t until 2004 that the project was declassified. The information was released on April 1st of that year, prompting many to ponder if it was some bizarre April Fool’s Day joke.

According to BBC, some were so convinced Blue Peacock was an elaborate hoax that Tom O’Leary, the head of education at the National Archives, had to release a statement. “It does seem like an April Fool but it most certainly is not,” he said. “The Civil Service does not do jokes.”

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Operation Blue Peacock sounds like fiction — but it wasn’t the first outrageous British war plot. Next, read about the panjandrum, the rocket-propelled Nazi destroyer that looked like something out of a sci-fi movie. Then, learn about Oleg Penkovsky, the Soviet spy who prevented nuclear war.

If you were born between December 22 and January 20, you are one of the world’s wonderful Capricorns.

While Christmas and New Year offer the perfect excuse for a party, Capricorns will often tell you it isn’t the best time for a birthday.

But despite this, Capricorns are determined and goal-oriented and will often be seen aiming for their big dreams.

There are many unique qualities that Capricorns have, and they are considered to be one of the friendliest of the zodiac signs.

In many ways, they are the perfect all-rounder. You might recognize some of these traits if you’re fortunate enough to know (or be!) a Capricorn.

What are Capricorns known for?

Capricorns are known for being hard-working and ambitious.

They are generally willing to fight for what they want and find it hard to stop before accomplishing their goals.

Capricorns would instead set their own rules rather than follow others, so you will likely come across this zodiac sign in high-level positions.

Socially, Capricorns don’t keep large circles of friends, although they are known for being helpful and friendly.

They can become deeply attached to lovers, soulmates, and close friends.

Since Capricorn is an earth sign, water signs like Scorpio, Virgo, and Taurus can help to balance them out.

Their general personality is calm and approachable, although they can become irritable and moody if you get on the wrong side of a Capricorn.

They often have a strong focus on what they want to achieve and have the energy to match.

5 Interesting Facts About Capricorns

1. Capricorn is the last of the zodiac Earth signs. Earth signs represent discipline, commitment, strength, focus, and power. So it’s no surprise that Capricorn is one of the most hard-working of the star signs.
2. The symbol used to represent Capricorn is a goat. But it is no ordinary goat – the mythical Capricorn has goat’s hooves and a fish’s tail. This is symbolic of their ability to weather rugged terrain, travel to the depths of the Earth, and stay grounded.
3. According to legend, the Greek god Pan metamorphosized into a half-goat, half-fish creature to escape the deadly giant Typhon. With his new body, he was able to jump into the River Nile to escape.
4. Capricorn comes from the Latin word “capriconus,” meaning “goat.” The constellation Capricorn was listed in the 2^nd century by Ptolemy, a Greek astronomer, and mathematician.
5. Every zodiac has its lucky day, in addition to lucky numbers and letters of the alphabet. Saturday is Capricorn’s lucky day and is shared with its zodiac neighbor Aquarius.

Do Capricorns have good intuition?

It’s rare to find a Capricorn who isn’t very perceptive and highly intuitive.

They can often make a pretty accurate judgment about a person within minutes of meeting them.

If you’re hanging out with a Capricorn, don’t try to cover up your real intentions because they might just find out!

What are Capricorn’s bad traits?

While Capricorns are known for being hard-working, intuitive, friendly, and disciplined, they can’t be perfect.

It may be difficult to believe, but Capricorn has some bad traits too.

Capricorns can be incredibly fussy and like things to be done a certain way.

They may struggle with change, but they often develop significant resilience and strength through this.

Capricorns tend to get a bit moody if things aren’t going right, leading to irritability and even anger.

Do Capricorns hide their feelings?

A Capricorn’s confidence and hard-working nature can make it difficult for this zodiac sign to show their genuine emotions.

Capricorns tend to hide their feelings rather than expose themselves, particularly if they are sad or annoyed.

One of the main reasons they struggle to show their true feelings is that Capricorns do not like to appear weak or vulnerable.

Fun Facts About Famous Capricorns

Michelle Obama was born on January 17 and is one of the most famous Capricorns in the world. The determination and goal-oriented nature of Capricorns is undoubtedly true for Michelle Obama, who was the first African-American First Lady of the United States.

Basketball pro LeBron James celebrates his birthday on December 30. In true Capricorn spirit, LeBron James believes in the importance of working hard and playing hard.

Beyonce and Jay-Z’s daughter Blue Ivy Carter was born on January 7 and became the youngest-ever winner of a BET award at the age of eight.

Born on January 19, singer Dolly Parton just about made it into the Capricorn world. In 1986, she opened the theme park Dollywood – one of Tennessee’s largest tourist attractions.

Actor Timothée Chalamet, born just two days after Christmas, is one of the youngest-ever actors to be nominated for an Oscar.

 

It’s clear to see that Capricorns are some of the most successful, well-rounded, and focused of the zodiac signs.

Represented by a goat symbol, this represents their confidence, focus, and ability to overcome challenges.

If you’re a Capricorn, maybe you’ve learned something new about yourself. And next time you meet a Capricorn, you’ll know exactly what to expect!

It’s no secret that movies have the ability to radically impact popular culture, and not always for the better. In the case of Jaws (1975), which depicts a ravenous great white getting vacationers stuck in its teeth, it meant a surge in unfounded shark fears.

Nearly 50 years following the film’s release, director Steven Spielberg is acknowledging his self-admitted culpability. “That’s one of the things I still fear, not to get eaten by a shark, but that sharks are somehow mad at me for the feeding frenzy of crazy sport fishermen that happened after 1975,” Spielberg said on “Desert Island Discs,” as Smithsonian reported. “I truly, and to this day, regret the decimation of the shark population because of the book and the film.”

Jaws was based on the bestselling 1974 novel by Peter Benchley. Both the source material and the film—which was for a time the highest-grossing movie in Hollywood history—made a mental imprint on the general public that sharks were bloodthirsty beasts. Some have blamed it for the rise in shark fishing, either to capture their valuable fins or for sport, though it’s not clear the film had a direct influence.

Speaking with CBS News in July 2022, psychologist Gabriella Hancock said that people are “not innately afraid of sharks” and that fear of them is “learned and socially enforced.” The major culprit may be what mental health professionals have dubbed “The Jaws Effect,” with audiences assuming sharks are as voracious as the one seen in the film.

Jaws isn’t solely responsible: Mass fear of sharks dates back to at least 1916, when a spate of attacks in New Jersey resulting in four deaths made national headlines. But such was the indifference to the predator that some people believed sea turtles were to blame. (The incident inspired Benchley to write his novel.)

The occasional rampage aside, sharks don’t find humans particularly interesting. The Florida Museum of Natural History recorded just 73 unprovoked bites worldwide in 2021, with nine fatalities stemming from those unprovoked attacks.

And despite its reputed carnage, Jaws wasn’t nearly as gruesome as you might remember. It received a PG rating—although, to be fair, PG-13 ratings weren’t introduced by the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) until nine years after the film’s release, in 1984.

[h/t Smithsonian]

The folklore surrounding Christmas doesn’t benefit from scrutiny. Tales of an Arctic workshop run by elves, a flying sled, and a jolly man who slides down chimneys after gorging on cookies are best paired with a strong suspension of disbelief. Compared to these stories, the taxonomy of Rudolph may seem trivial. But certain animal lovers can’t let go of the question: Why is the red-nosed reindeer so often depicted as a white-tailed deer? 

The flying animals that pull Santa Claus’s sled are officially reindeer, which makes sense within the broader mythology. Santa and his elves reside at the North Pole, and reindeer (known as caribou in North America) are found on lands above the Arctic Circle. They’ve also been used to pull sleighs across Scandinavia and Siberia for millennia (though not necessarily the toy-filled kind). 

Reindeer are members of the deer family, but several features set them apart from their white-tailed cousins found in the Americas at lower latitudes. They have broad, furry snouts rather than black, button noses; their wider hooves are adapted for padding over snow. Members of both sexes also sport bulky antlers for part of the year. Female reindeer lose their antlers in the summer and males shed them in the winter, which implies that Santa’s reindeer are either all girls or too young to grow the head ornaments. 

When depicting flying reindeer in story books and animated specials, artists rarely aim for scientific accuracy. The original 12 reindeer debuted in the 1823 poem “A Visit from Saint Nicholas” (better known as “The Night Before Christmas”), and Rudolph appeared over a century later. A booklet distributed by the Chicago department store Montgomery Ward in 1939 introduced the story of the red-nosed reindeer and showed him looking rather un-reindeer like. He was given the slight build and tiny hooves of deer found at more southerly latitudes. The resemblance to white-tailed deer is even more pronounced in Rudolph’s peers, who all have tiny black noses.

When Montgomery Ward copywriter Robert May created the character, he didn’t set out to confuse generations of children about what reindeer look like. His daughter Barbara was fond of the deer at the Lincoln Park Zoo, so he sent an artist there to model the story book characters on the resident deer. Though the final design resembles a common white-tailed deer, the inspiration may have been a more exotic species: Chital, or axis, deer are native to India, and a chital fawn had been born at the Lincoln Park Zoo the year before “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” was published. Like white-tailed deer, the animals also have small, black noses and tiny hooves. 

The Montgomery Ward booklet may have invented Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, but many people’s perception of the Christmas character comes from the 1964 animated television special of the same name. If you picture Rudolph as a fawn with two stubby antlers, a brown tail with a white underside, and a small snout with a glowing red nose at the end, Rankin/Bass may be why. 

“The Rankin/Bass TV special is 100 percent of how people think of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer today,”  Rick Goldschmidt, author of Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer: The Making Of The Rankin/Bass Holiday Classic, tells Mental Floss.

Writer Romeo Muller and designer Antony Peters took inspiration from the Robert May booklet while making the characters their own. Because they were building a world for stop-motion animation, simplicity was a priority. 

“Antony Peters was a minimalist,” Goldschmidt says. “In animation, you need to be—this is why some hands were animated with three fingers. The idea is to keep things simple.” To film the show, technicians moved the models of Rudolph and his pals a tiny bit and shot the scene, moved them another tiny bit, shot the scene, and so on. The technique was dubbed Animagic.

The petite features of white-tailed deer translated smoothly to this style of animation. Instead of figuring out how to make a reindeer’s broad snout glow red, the animators gave Rudolph a small snout with a round, red nose at the end where the other reindeer had small black ones. 

“The reindeer were perfect in Rudolph. In later Rankin/Bass productions, they did give the reindeer longer snouts and, in general, the appearance was a little more detailed. But I don’t like it as much as the earlier stuff that Tony designed,” Goldschmidt says.

Holiday media has since dabbled in more accurate representations of reindeer. The 1989 film Prancer, 1994’s The Santa Clause, and 2003’s Elf all show the magical versions of the creatures as they appear in nature. But when Rudolph shows up in movies and shows today, he still maintains the white-tailed deer look popularized by the Montgomery Ward book and the Rankin/Bass cartoon. It’s a testament to the effectiveness of the original designs—but it the difficulty of putting a red nose on a reindeer without making it look like a clown may also be a factor.

No matter your age, it can be hard to resist snooping for gifts around the holidays. This is especially true if the members of your household use the same hiding spots year after year. If you want to get your present-hunting fix without stirring up holiday drama, check out the brainteaser above.

This hidden-image puzzle from Furniturebox depicts a cozy Christmas scene. A living room has been decked out with a wreath, boughs of holly, and a tree with all the trimmings. You can even spot Santa riding his sleigh outside the window fresh off a delivery. The only things missing from the tableau are the presents—but if you look closely you’ll find several of them hidden around the room.

This may be more challenging than the holiday brainteasers you’ve done in the past. While most hidden-image puzzles hide one object for people to find, this picture contains six. The presents in the room are all small and concealed in some way, making them easy to miss. According to Furniturebox, the average time to find all six gifts is 90 seconds. Set your clock before examining the image above and see if you can beat it. Here’s a simpler holiday-themed puzzle to try if this one gives you a headache right away.

If you’re struggling to spot the presents, you can check the answers in the key at the bottom of the article. Hopefully this satisfies your urge to snoop until the holidays arrive.

From a child-eating scarecrow to Krampus himself, these eerie Christmas folktales from around the world are bound to ensure you have at least one nightmare before Christmas.

The Christmas season is meant to be a time when people can come together to exchange gifts, be merry, and partake in a number of traditions, from the tree to Santa himself. But the modern Christmas celebrations in America are adaptations of more traditional folklore from pre-Christian cultures.

And some of these beliefs are much, much darker than the joyous traditions of today. Nowadays, misbehaving children worry that they’ll wind up with a lump of coal in their stockings above the fireplace — which is perhaps less terrifying than the Austro-German folktale of Frau Perchta, the malevolent old lady who was said to disembowel foolish children.

Explore eight terrifying Christmas legends as told in folklore from around the world.

Mari Lwyd, The Gray Mare Of Welsh Folklore

In South Wales, old folk tales speak of a creature known as the Mari Lwyd, a shrouded being with the skeletal face of a horse and glowing eyes. The Mari Lwyd is said to have a propensity for rhyme schemes and ventured door to door during winter celebrations, inviting revelers to outwit it in a contest — and rewarding them with food and drink if they win.

Those who lose, however, must allow the Mari Lwyd to enter their homes and, in turn, supply it with food and drink.

According to Hyperallergic the modern tradition sees a troupe of revelers led by someone dressed as the Mari Lwyd, traveling house to house and challenging their neighbors to games of call-and-response rhyming known as a “pwnco.”

Much like the folkloric contest, rewards for the winners typically involve food and beverages.

The Mari Lwyd celebration occurs sometime between Christmas and New Year’s Eve, though there is no way of knowing which of those days it will appear at your door.

As for how this strange, terrifying tradition came to be, the origins are up for debate.

Atlas Obscura noted that the tradition of the Mari Lwyd seems to originate from pre-Christian pagan cultures, but over the years it has been adapted to support Christian interpretations as well.

In fact, though the Mari Lwyd is specific to Welsh culture, it shares many commonalities with other “white horse” characters in the ancient cultures of Europe, particularly the Celtic goddess Rhiannon.

In translation, Mari Lwyd is often taken to mean “gray mare,” though it is difficult to ascertain why the symbol may have been important to ancient cultures as other religious scholars have interpreted the name to mean “Holy Mary,” a reference to Christian lore.

Supposedly, they say, Mari Lwyd was a pregnant horse, cast out of the stables when Mary gave birth to Jesus, who travels in search of a place to birth her foal.

The legend’s true origins may be unknown, but the modern interpretation of the festivities has existed sporadically since at least the 1800s. It was even commemorated by Welsh poet Vernon Watkins in his 1941 poem, “The Ballad of the Mari Lwyd,” which begins:

Mari Lwyd, Horse of Frost, Star-horse, and White Horse of the Sea, is carried to us.
The Dead return.
Those Exiles carry her, they who seem holy and have put on corruption, they who seem corrupt and have put on holiness.
They strain against the door.
They strain towards the fire which fosters and warms the Living.

In any case, the vision of a spectral, skeletal horse prowling the streets on a cold winter night is enough to send shivers up the spine.

From 1868 to 1945, the Empire of Japan reigned as a formidable world power — and perpetrated some of history’s worst war crimes before and during World War II.

The phrase “Nazi Germany” inspires a horrific set of images in the minds of most Westerners. But when it comes to “Shōwa Japan” — the term used to designate the wartime Japanese Empire under Emperor Shōwa (or Hirohito) — the same phenomenon tends not to occur. And yet, Japanese war crimes during World War II were just as appalling as Nazi ones.

In the 1930s and 1940s, Japanese troops committed a number of atrocities across Asia. Some events are well documented, like the Rape of Nanking — also called the Nanjing Massacre — which left as many as 300,000 Chinese civilians dead. But there are also many lesser-known events, like the Bataan Death March, the Rape of Hong Kong, and the Manila Massacre.

So how did Japan get to that point? Like Germany and the United States, the country rapidly modernized in the late 19th century and set out to establish a sphere of influence. But Japanese society, which emphasized Japan as “the sacred motherland of all human races,” and sought to avoid subjugation by other nations, increasingly relied on a kind of cultural blitzkrieg.

These tactics made World War II-era Japan an unfathomably brutal place. By some estimates, there were upwards of 40 million deaths in the Pacific Theater — about half of whom were civilians killed by Japan’s military.

Below, delve into how and why Japanese war crimes came to be so widespread as the country’s power grew in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Then, see why they’ve been largely forgotten in the post-war era.

Inside The Origins Of The Japanese Empire

It’s hard to imagine the Japanese Empire without a Japanese emperor. Per the national mythology of Japan, the legendary first emperor, Jimmu, was the descendant of a sun goddess. February 11th, the date of Jimmu’s crowning in 660 B.C.E., is the country’s National Foundation Day.

Jimmu’s fabled role as the divine link between man, spirit, state, and nature, has served as the prototype for the emperor’s customary role in Shinto, a Japanese animist religion. As such, emperors like Jimmu and those who followed him have traditionally been revered by the public in Japan.

However, by the 12th century, Japan’s emperors were relegated to the background as a sequence of shoguns — military dictators — took over. But this system devolved into violence in the 15th century as Japan split into various provinces and rival lords, known as daimyo, fought for control.

In the early 17th century, the first Tokugawa shogun brought the fighting to an end at the cost of strict social control and near-total isolation from the outside world. For nearly 250 years, Japan remained in early modern stasis — a nation of farmers and merchants ruled by military nobility — until American Commodore Matthew Perry arrived in the country in 1853.

Armed with a small fleet of U.S. Navy ships, Perry demanded that Japanese ports reopen to outsiders. According to The U.S. Office of the Historian, Japanese policymakers noted how the British had forced China to open up to the world, and decided to work with Western powers to avoid being colonized by them, or subjugated by them in other ways.

At first, the Japanese were not excited about opening their borders. But before long, they started to take advantage of the new access they had to technology across the West — and the country began to modernize.

The Modernization Of Japan In The 19th Century

Following Japan’s opening to the West, the Japanese launched one of the most rapid modernization efforts in history — and planted many seeds that would later mutate into Japanese war crimes during World War II.

After Emperor Meiji came to power in 1868, the shogunate was swiftly abolished and power shifted to the newly crowned emperor, marking the official beginning of the Japanese Empire. Meiji’s name came from the word “enlightened rule,” and the “Meiji Period” — or “Meiji Restoration” — sought to combine traditional Japanese values with modern advances.

As The Economist notes, Japanese officials traveled across the world to learn all they could about modern technology. They brought that back to Japan, leading to the construction of train tracks and telegraph lines. Still, the Japanese constitution of 1889 emphasized deep respect for the emperor, whose divine status was infused into the government.

One of the other key changes was the creation of a national army in 1871, maintained by mandatory three-year conscription for male citizens. Trained in new techniques and armed with the finest weaponry, this army was formed with the intention of self-protection. In practice, however, the army and the larger modernization of Japan set the stage for future atrocities.

How The Japanese Empire Established Itself As A Formidable World Power

Before long, Japan put its modern strength and military to the test. Starting in the 1870s, the Japanese Empire focused on Korea, which was largely under the control of China but rich in resources that Japan desired.

In 1894, increasing tensions between the two countries over Korea escalated into the First Sino-Japanese War. According to Britannica, foreign observers believed that China, with a larger army, would prevail in the fight. But Japan’s more modern forces fought their way to victory over the Chinese.

The Chinese were forced to sue for peace, and the resulting Treaty of Shimonoseki awarded great swaths of land to Japan. But that wasn’t enough for the Japanese. The South China Morning Post reports that Japanese assassins and Korean collaborators killed the Korean queen in 1895 because it seemed she might appeal to Russia to halt Japanese influence.

At this time, the Japanese Empire increasingly viewed Russia as a threat while they sought to expand their power throughout Asia.

In 1904, the two countries went to war after Russia refused to acknowledge Japan’s sphere of influence in Korea. Just like in the First Sino-Japanese War, foreign observers of the Russo-Japanese War underestimated Japanese forces. They triumphed over the Russians after just a year and a half.

Though short-lived and remembered mostly for Russia’s embarrassing defeat — which helped bring about the 1905 Russian Revolution — Japan’s victory over Russia established it as a force to be reckoned with.

Japanese Aggression In China Under Hirohito

Having taken over Russian-built rail lines in China’s Manchuria region in 1905, Japan began eyeing opportunities for fuller control over Chinese territories. Following the collapse of the Qing dynasty in 1912 and the outbreak of political unrest, Japan worked with various “warlords” to better serve its aims. And during World War I, Japan briefly turned its attention to seizing islands in the Pacific that had once been German colonies.

In 1928, Emperor Hirohito — the grandson of Emperor Meiji — took the throne in Japan just as Chinese politician Chiang Kai-shek’s forces were taking control of China. But Chiang Kai-shek (a leader in China’s Nationalist Party) still faced a threat from Mao Zedong and his Communist forces. Meanwhile, both men faced threats from outside of the country as Japan searched for ways to increase its influence and power in China.

Then, in 1931, Japan set off an explosion next to its own rail line in Manchuria. Using the so-called Mukden Incident as an excuse to occupy the area, the Japanese created a puppet state of Manchukuo that was nominally ruled by the last Qing emperor but actually controlled by Japan.

Though the Japanese Empire’s aggression in China led to condemnation from the League of Nations — and Japan’s withdrawal from the peace-focused organization — Japan continued to conquer new territory.

The next year in 1932, according to the World War II Database, Japanese troops bombed Shanghai after Chinese troops supposedly “violated” rules that had been set by the Japanese. Despite international condemnation, Japan fought on, which led to an eventual ceasefire and the removal of Chinese troops in Shanghai. Back in Japan, Prime Minister Inukai Tsuyoshi was assassinated after trying to halt his country’s military actions.

Just five years later, tensions between the Japanese and Chinese escalated into the Second Sino-Japanese War. This would be followed by the Pacific Theater of World War II (though some argue that the Pacific War essentially began at the same time the Second Sino-Japanese War did). The ensuing battles would lead to some of the worst war crimes of the century.

The Second Sino-Japanese War And The Horrific Rape Of Nanking

On July 7, 1937, a skirmish broke out between Japanese and Chinese troops on the outskirts of Beijing, leading to the beginning of the Second Sino-Japanese War. As History writes, various world powers — including the Soviet Union, Britain, France, the United States, and even Nazi Germany for a brief time — stepped up to support China during the conflict.

But the Japanese Empire fought on, often resorting to brutal tactics to obtain victory. Their determination to win by any means was gruesomely illustrated when Japanese troops marched on the city of Nanking.

The city — today better known as Nanjing — was then the capital of China, as well as one of its wealthiest cities. But when Nanking fell on December 13, 1937, forces under the command of Emperor Hirohito’s uncle, Prince Yasuhiko Asaka, surrounded the Chinese troops. The Japanese soldiers were allegedly commanded to “kill all the captives.” And then, the Rape of Nanking began.

What followed was a six-week massacre that may have killed over 300,000 people in the city. Up to 80,000 women and girls were raped, and many of these rape victims did not survive their assaults. Those who did live were often left mutilated. Indeed, the horrific stories of murder, rape, and torture are so numerous, one cannot possibly cover all of them in one article.

But one American surgeon’s diary entry, recorded in the book Eyewitnesses to Massacre, gives an idea of the carnage in Nanking:

“The slaughter of civilians is appalling. I could go on for pages telling of cases of rape and brutality almost beyond belief… Last night the house of one of the Chinese staff members of the university was broken into and two of the women, his relatives, were raped. Two girls, about 16, were raped to death in one of the refugee camps. In the University Middle School where there are 8,000 people the Japs came in ten times last night, over the wall, stole food, clothing, and raped until they were satisfied.”

It didn’t take long for word of these Japanese war crimes to quietly spread. One American reporter who had evacuated Nanking in the midst of the bloodshed tipped off The New York Times to what was happening as soon as he arrived safely in Shanghai. And an American priest, John Magee, managed to record some of the carnage in photographs and on film, including the large number of women killed by a bayonet to the genitals.

But while news of these atrocities soon outraged readers across the world, Japanese senior commanders decided that instead of preventing this kind of brutality from ever happening again, they’d simply hide it behind closed doors in brothels, which were specially created for the military.

Another infamous story from the Nanjing Massacre is the “Contest to Kill 100 People Using a Sword.” As the name suggests, it was a competition between two Japanese officers, Toshiaki Mukai and Tsuyoshi Noda, to see who would be the first person to kill 100 Chinese people with a sword.

This was promoted as a heroic or sportsman-like competition to the Japanese public. According to China.org.cn, this is evidenced by the headline from the Tokyo Nichi Nichi Shimbun, which read: “‘Incredible Record’ — Mukai 106 — 105 Noda — Both 2nd Lieutenants Go Into Extra Innings.”

While it’s certainly disturbing to imagine an audience excitedly reading about mass murder, it was at least in part army propaganda, according to Noda. The truth was, Noda had no idea how many people he had killed, and many other Japanese soldiers were committing similar routine massacres, as noted in Katsuichi Honda’s 1999 book The Nanjing Massacre: A Japanese Journalist Confronts Japan’s National Shame. As Noda put it:

“Actually, I didn’t kill more than four or five people in hand-to-hand combat… We’d face an enemy trench that we’d captured, and when we called out, “Ni, Lai-Lai!” (You, come here!), the Chinese soldiers were so stupid, they’d rush toward us all at once. Then we’d line them up and cut them down, from one end of the line to the other. I was praised for having killed a hundred people, but actually, almost all of them were killed in this way.”

From accounts throughout the campaign in China, Japanese soldiers routinely slaughtered captured soldiers and civilians. As reported by Daqing Yang in an essay titled Diary of a Japanese Army Medical Doctor, 1937, this was an open secret. One doctor’s diary entry from 1937 described the machine-gunning of 80 “men and women of all ages” near Nanking.

Clearly acts of terrorism, these mass rapes and massacres can also be seen as a facet of genocidal violence perpetrated by the Japanese Empire. In many cases, the mutilated bodies of victims were left out for others to see, which undoubtedly had a horrific impact on the survivors left behind.

Among survivors — including women and girls who were kidnapped from China and other occupied countries and forced to become “comfort women” at Japanese military brothels — many were separated from their communities by personal shame or social stigma. Done enough times, in enough places, this was an attack against the foundations of culture itself.

Nowhere was this ambition to wipe out Chinese resistance more clearly stated than in a 1939 speech by Japanese Prime Minister Kiichirō Hiranuma, which echoed similar sentiments from Nazi leaders over the grim future for Slavic people: “I hope the intention of Japan will be understood by the Chinese so that they may cooperate with us. As for those who fail to understand we have no other alternative but to exterminate them.”

How The Japanese Empire Kept Marching On Throughout World War II

While capturing land and resources was important to Japan, getting the most out of these gains required considerable manpower and infrastructure. By the early 1940s, the Japanese had to supply, support, and maintain communications across thousands of miles, with not nearly a large enough population to supply the army they needed as well as the laborers.

Some Japanese troops turned to forced labor as a solution, luring or flat-out kidnapping people across Asia into back-breaking work. In Indonesia alone, as many as 10 million people were forced to work on numerous mining and infrastructure projects, according to Japan’s Quiet Transformation.

To keep Japanese soldiers entertained and satisfied on their breaks, military brothels were established at even the most remote outposts, filled with victims of kidnapping. Throughout the late 1930s and 1940s, up to 400,000 women and girls in Japanese-occupied parts of Asia were abducted and forced into sexual slavery for the Japanese military, according to NPR. Some of these rape victims were as young as eight years old.

And in order to better move troops and supplies across its now-massive territory, the Japanese Empire required a 258-mile-long railway through Thailand and Burma during World War II. Hundreds of thousands of forced laborers and Allied prisoners of war were subjected to brutal labor with little to no food, and many of them died of starvation, exhaustion, or disease.

Shockingly, some Japanese troops later claimed that some war crimes were carried out due to a lack of resources. For instance, in many cases, the mass executions of captured prisoners were considered to be more “practical” than keeping them alive and making sure they had enough essentials to live.

Sometimes, the Japanese believed that it was simply easier to shoot everyone, or, to save bullets, bayonet them or march them into the sea. In the infamous Bataan Death March of 1942, moving American and Filipino prisoners from one camp to another became a brutal exercise in thinning their numbers whenever prisoners could no longer keep up.

In other war crimes, however, it seems the cruelty had other practical purposes, like further advancing Japan’s scientific knowledge. Certain prisoners of war and civilians — most of whom were Chinese — were transported to facilities like Unit 731, where Japanese medical officers performed inhumane experiments on human beings before killing them.

In 1995, a former medical assistant from a Japanese Army unit stationed in China during World War II described his experience of dissecting a man alive for the first time: “When I picked up the scalpel, that’s when he began screaming. I cut him open from the chest to the stomach, and he screamed terribly, and his face was all twisted in agony. He made this unimaginable sound, he was screaming so horribly. But then finally he stopped.”

According to the former medical assistant, the victim was a 30-year-old Chinese “prisoner” who had been intentionally infected with the plague as part of a horrific research project carried out by Japan during World War II. The vivisection was just the final step of this man’s role as an unwilling test subject — he was cut open to see what the plague had done to his insides.

The assistant also rationalized the lack of anesthetic, as the researchers were worried that the substance would affect the final results.

Violence As Propaganda And Indoctrination

One lingering accusation heard most often by American World War II veterans is that the Japanese were the worst to their captives of any Axis Power. Upon examination, there does seem to be some truth here. According to the MacArthur Memorial Education Programs, prisoners of war suffered a 4 percent death rate in Europe and a 27 percent death rate in the Pacific.

As explained in a text issued by the Japanese government during the war, “An Investigation of Global Policy with the Yamato Race as Nucleus,” the Japanese considered themselves a chosen (and superior) people under a divine emperor. This notion was explicitly tied to eugenics.

As it turns out, the unscientific Yamato Race Theory is remarkably similar to Nazi Race Theory, including personal virtues and ideals that make up a true Yamato Warrior. Part of this ethos includes the Japanese prohibition against surrender, or as it is sometimes called, “death before dishonor.”

While, on one hand, this resulted in the kamikaze pilots, who made deliberate suicidal crashes into enemy vessels, it also promoted a valuable idea. If a true Japanese warrior would never surrender, and never allow themselves the shame of being taken prisoner, why should they have any sort of respect for the kind of person that would? By extension, why should they have any respect for that person’s family, possessions, or even their life?

This likely helped enable Japanese soldiers to commit crimes against other races and groups of people. And when carried out against Westerners specifically, it helped confirm their own belief in their superiority to colonial powers. Whenever Japanese troops displayed Western prisoners of war to the public, they made sure they looked as pathetic as possible, typically by starving them or by denying them necessary medical treatment.

In one particularly brutal case of Japanese war crimes against Western prisoners, staff members at a Japanese university dissected downed American pilots — while they were still alive — as reported by the Daily Mail.

And in another revealing anecdote, a Japanese soldier tasked with beheading an American prisoner recounted how he tried to swing the sword three times before going through with it — when he thought about the emperor and removed himself and the prisoner from the equation.

Japanese War Crimes As A Form Of Brutal Group Bonding During World War II

While there are few reports of the internal monologues of the Japanese soldiers who personally carried out war crimes, it is reported that soldiers were told that the same would be done to them if they were ever captured during World War II. This potentially helped motivate them to act as brutally as possible in order to avoid being treated that way themselves.

But the fear of capture alone may not have been a powerful enough motivator to perpetrate these atrocities. After all, for most people, it takes a psychological toll to kill someone, especially if torture is involved.

In Nazi Germany, one of the reasons for the creation of the Nazi death camps was that the members of the mobile killing squads known as the Einsatzgruppen were reportedly suffering from “mental strain.”

However, what the Japanese Empire seems to have understood, at least implicitly, is that having someone enact violence on another person — particularly, if the subject is young, male, and in a group of other young males — can be a powerful bonding exercise. (A modern-day instance of this type of violence might be deadly hazing incidents at universities.)

Perhaps the most gruesome example of bonding among some Japanese troops is the cannibalism that took place during World War II. Though most soldiers who turned to cannibalism during the war later claimed that they were starving and had no choice but to eat people, there were at least a few incidents of troops cannibalizing enemy troops, civilians, and even each other for spiritual or sporting purposes. In some cases, officers ordered their underlings to eat human flesh to give them a “feeling of victory.”

It’s clearly devastating that an entire generation of Japanese people was encouraged to commit horrific violence against other groups. But some have wondered whether this coercion on the part of the Japanese government and high-ranking military leaders is yet another crime all its own.

The prohibition of surrender and the “death before dishonor” mentality of Japanese troops, and in some cases, civilians, could be seen as an effective suicide pact. This was painfully clear in Okinawa, the last major battle of World War II, where Okinawan civilians were encouraged — and ordered — by soldiers in the Japanese Army to die by suicide rather than being taken captive by American soldiers, according to The New York Times.

As it turns out, one of the generals who forced the devastating fight to the death during the Battle of Okinawa — costing the lives of 94,000 Okinawan civilians — was the same one who may have ordered the Nanjing Massacre.

The Legacy Of The Japanese Empire’s Atrocities

Though most people in the West understand the magnitude of the Nazi Holocaust and the European Theater in modern times, few grasp the extent of Japan’s brutality during World War II. Much like Nazi Germany, the Japanese Empire was one of the most genocidal in world history.

However, in the years since the war ended, Germany has made strides to confront its history. This includes prosecuting former Nazis, erecting memorials to Holocaust victims, preserving death camps, and making it illegal to deny that the systematic mass murder of 6 million Jews happened. But Japan has done comparatively little to address its war crimes.

Today, many Americans are horrified when they learn about this. But the United States actually played a large role in why Japan wasn’t forced to answer for its atrocities during World War II. Not only did U.S. authorities help cover up these war crimes, but they also granted immunity to many high-ranking Japanese generals in exchange for any data they collected.

One of the most infamous examples is Shiro Ishii, the Japanese Army medical officer behind Unit 731. Eager to learn the results of Ishii’s barbaric research on human beings — without actually performing the experiments themselves — American authorities agreed not to charge him with war crimes as long as he shared the detailed results of his program.

Emperor Hirohito, the man who the nation had spent years fighting for, also escaped justice. This was largely due to U.S. General Douglas MacArthur, who oversaw the Allied occupation of Japan in the aftermath of the war. He firmly believed that executing an emperor — who many Japanese people still saw as a “living god” — would make the country ungovernable.

Another reason why Japan’s atrocities didn’t get as much attention as Germany’s had to do with their trials. Thanks, in part, to Japan’s strategic importance against the Soviets in the emerging Cold War, the war crimes trials in Japan were a different affair than the Nuremberg trials.

Whereas the prosecution of the Nazis had been international, detailing crimes committed against multiple nations, the Japanese were prosecuted in different trials, years apart, by the United States and the Soviet Union. Cold War interests informed who was prosecuted, who was left running the country, and what the public was allowed to know.

As a result, many of the crimes were never fully revealed during the lifetimes of most of the people who were involved, and never really answered for. By 1958, nearly all of the imprisoned Japanese war criminals had been released — denying the world, and Japan itself, the full and ugly picture.

Sadly, the tendency to downplay war crimes in Japan continues even today. In 2022, when Japan’s Prime Minister Fumio Kishida marked the end of World War II in August, he didn’t mention Japanese aggression and instead said that Japan would “stick to our resolve to never repeat the tragedy of the war.” And as for Emperor Naruhito — the grandson of Hirohito — he simply expressed his “deep remorse” over Japan’s actions during the war.

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After reading about the history of the Japanese Empire, learn about one of the most famous conflicts of the Pacific Theater: the Battle of Iwo Jima. Then, check out the most striking pictures from Japan’s imperial era.

Though officials know that the girls likely met on social media, police have no leads on their motives in this grisly slaying.

Eight teenage girls are facing second-degree murder charges following the stabbing death of a 59-year-old Toronto man on December 18.

Per CBC, police are not categorizing the girls as a gang, but rather investigators have called the incident a “swarming,” which Detective Sergeant Terry Browne said typically involves victimizing a specifically chosen target.

The swarming group consists of three 13-year-olds, three 14-year-olds, and two 16-year-olds. Three members of the swarm, Browne said, had previous contact with police.

Their identities are not being released per the Youth Criminal Justice Act. The name of the victim has likewise not been released, as police are still working to notify his next of kin.

“I’ve been in policing for almost 35 years, and you think you’ve seen it all,” Browne told The Associated Press.

“Anyone who isn’t shocked with hearing something like this has clearly just thrown in the towel and just said that anything is possible in this world,” Browne added. “Eight young girls and most under the age of 16. If this isn’t alarming and shocking to everyone, then we’re all in trouble, quite frankly.”

The man had been talking with another person on the street when the group approached, but police are unsure why, exactly, they had done so or why the situation escalated.

In all, Browne said, the whole thing took about three minutes. The man was rushed to hospital with life-threatening injuries and died a short time later.

Browne also said that the girls had been involved in an altercation earlier that evening in the same area, but did not offer any further details.

“They met each other through social media. They come from varying parts of the city,” Browne said. “We don’t know how or why they met on that evening and why the destination was downtown Toronto. We don’t know how long they were acquainted with each other.”

“Maybe these were eight young women that wanted to make a name for themselves and see if they could become socially famous,” he added.

Police seized a number of various weapons as well, but they have not said what sorts of weapons they were. They did say, however, that they believe the girls coordinated the attack.

“They are all equally culpable,” Brown said. “There is no doubt in our minds that they were all working as a singular entity in a swarming mob mentality when they chose to attack this man… It’s bizarre that they would all have hooked up together and found their way to downtown Toronto. Their primary residences are all over the place.”

The girls have made their first appearance in court and remain in police custody, with a second court appearance scheduled for December 29.

As for the victim, Browne said that the man had been living in Toronto’s shelter system since September, but police have so far been unable to reach his family.

“He does have a very supportive family in the area, so I wouldn’t necessarily call him homeless. Maybe just recently on some hard luck,” Browne said.

Another resident of the shelter, the Strathcona Hotel, told CBC that she had been outside with the victim when the girls approached. She’d had a bottle of alcohol with her and said the girls tried to take it; the victim told the girls to leave the woman alone.

“He protected me,” the woman said, after which the girls allegedly punched the man repeatedly. The woman said walked away, frightened, and one of the girls tried to follow her.

“Bleeding, bleeding, bleeding. I didn’t know if they had a knife or what. I was just scared,” she said. “I think they stabbed his belly… I didn’t know he would die.”

Browne said similar incidents occurred more frequently 20 or 30 years ago, when swarms of teenage boys attacked victims trying to steal pairs of Dr. Martens or Air Jordans, but these sorts of attacks had faded away in the years since.

“Has this happened recently that we are not aware of? Have people been posting this stuff online that we weren’t aware of?” he said. “It’s something that we are going to try to find out.”

“Everyone in our city deserves to be treated with dignity and respect. I am so saddened to know that a man has lost his life in this way,” said Toronto Mayor John Tory in a statement on the night of Dec. 20. “I am extremely troubled by the young age of those accused and by the number of people allegedly involved in this murder. My thoughts are with this man’s friends and all those who knew him as they mourn his loss.”

Toronto has seen a 16 percent decrease in homicides since 2021, totaling 68, but this incident marks the 17th stabbing death, a 13.3 percent increase in homicides of this nature since last year.

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While incidents such as this are rare, this is far from the first time young teens have been involved in horrific crimes. Learn about the Slender Man stabbing, when two teen girls attempted to murder their friend as a sacrifice to the Creepypasta figure. Then, read about the teenage killer Cheyenne Rose Antoine, who was caught because of a selfie she took with the murder weapon.

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — A city commission meeting was given a unique proposal, after talks about a proposed waste disposal contract were taken over by a latex-wearing mistress.

The Fort Lauderdale City Commissioners were going over a nearly one-million dollar contract with Waste Management, when a woman, who was signed up to speak at the meeting, was called upon.

Along with two silent expressionless partners flanked on each side, “Miss Cave” approached the Commissioners with only her mouth visible. Her face was covered in latex with a reflective lens covering her eyes.

While Miss Crave stood neutral on the contract, she did recommend that the Commissioners use a quarter of the proposed funds to support local “Dom’s” and “Sub’s”.

In BDSM culture a “sub” means submissive and a “dom” is short for dominant.

Miss Cave also asked for the Commissioners to build a dungeon for the BDSM community to be paid for by the tax payers and local citizens.

She then welcomed all the commissioners to the dungeon where she looked forward to “spanking” them, before dismissing herself from the meeting.

The commissioners wished the three women a happy holiday in response.

Titanic director James Cameron commissioned a special study to put the matter to rest — and noted that Jack had to die.

Since 1997, a fierce debate has raged between fans of James Cameron’s Titanic. Could the characters Jack and Rose have both fit on a makeshift raft in the movie’s final scenes? The director commissioned a study to find out — and determined that Jack was doomed.

“We have done a scientific study to put this whole thing to rest and drive a stake through its heart once and for all,” Cameron told the Toronto Sun while promoting his new film, Avatar: The Way of Water.

In the movie, both Jack and Rose survive the initial sinking of the Titanic. But while stranded in the icy waters, only Rose is able to climb onto a makeshift raft. Jack is left hanging on the edge, which results in his death from hypothermia. Yet some fans believe that both could have fit on the raft and survived.

As Cameron explained, he and his team conducted a “forensic analysis” with a “hypothermia expert” to see if those fans were right. They placed sensors on stunt people roughly the same size as Kate Winslet, who played Rose, and Leonardo DiCaprio, who played Jack, placed them in icy waters, and tested different methods to see if they both could have lived.

“[T]he answer was, there was no way they both could have survived,” Cameron told the Toronto Sun. “Only one could survive.”

Cameron’s study isn’t the only one to test Jack’s ability to survive the sinking of the Titanic, though others have come to different conclusions. As the Washington Post reports, a 2012 episode of MythBusters found that Jack could have survived alongside Rose if he’d climbed onto the raft. Inviting Cameron onto the show, the hosts proved that the couple could have repositioned themselves and used Rose’s life vest to survive.

But at least one expert noted that Rose and Jack wouldn’t have been thinking clearly in the aftermath of the sinking, which perhaps led to their ill-fated decision not to try and share the raft.

“That’s just basic panic-type stuff, panic or just not thinking straight in a stressful situation,” Gordon Giesbrecht, a professor specializing in cold stress physiology at the University of Manitoba in Canada, explained to the Washington Post. “I mean, why can’t you read a question right when you’re writing an exam? Because you’re under stress.”

Giesbrecht added: “It’s just all so silly. I can’t believe [Cameron has] been getting grief for 25 years about it.”

Cameron is likely to agree. Beyond the physics of Rose and Jack’s final moments together, he’s stated before that it doesn’t matter if Jack could have survived — the character needed to die for the sake of the script.

“The script says Jack dies. He has to die,” Cameron said on MythBusters in 2012. “So maybe we screwed up, and the board should’ve been a little tiny bit smaller, but the dude’s going down.”

The debate surrounding Jack’s death, Cameron said in 2019, was “stupid.”

According to Variety, the director added, “But if you really want to unearth all the dumbass arguments associated with it… I mean, let’s go back to, could Romeo have been smart and not taken the poison? Yes. Could he have decided not to bring his little dagger just in case Juliet might stab herself with it? Yes, absolutely. It sort of misses the point.”

He echoed those comments with the Toronto Sun, noting, “[Jack] needed to die. It’s like Romeo and Juliet. It’s a movie about love and sacrifice and mortality. The love is measured by the sacrifice.”

A special on the study proving that Jack could not have survived the sinking of the Titanic will come out in February 2023, alongside a newly-released 4K restoration of the movie.

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After reading about the “Titanic” study that proves that Jack could not have fit on the makeshift raft with Rose, go inside the theory that suggests that the northern lights played a role in the Titanic’s sinking. Or, go inside the unknown story of the three Chinese men who survived the Titanic — and then were written out of history.

In 2022, the James Webb Space Telescope provided humanity new insights into deep space. But astronomy is far from the only discipline that made interesting new strides in the past 12 months.

In the latest episode of The List Show, Mental Floss editor-in-chief Erin McCarthy shares 100 things people learned in 2022. She hits millipedes named after pop stars, dolphins that taste-test urine, and a whole lot more.

In the case of the James Webb Space Telescope, NASA unveiled the first spectacular images it captured in July. The spacecraft’s giant mirror can grab much more available light than Hubble’s, meaning it can see farther into deep space and thus further back in time—about 13 billion years back, in fact.

Viewers who tuned into NASA’s live reveal of the telescope’s first images saw a galaxy cluster whose light has been traveling toward Earth since the Big Bang and a shot of the Carina Nebula with countless baby stars, among other mind-blowing sights.

Watch the full video to learn 99 more interesting facts spanning the worlds of history, culture, science, and everything in between. You’ll learn the winner of the Kids’ Mullet Championships and why playing chess against robots may not be advisable. 

And subscribe to Mental Floss on YouTube for lots of fun lists and interesting facts.