Category: Bazaar News

Go inside the mystery of who was the Zodiac Killer — and the stories of nine men who are the most convincing suspects.

In the late 1960s, a serial murderer who called himself the Zodiac Killer terrorized Northern California. In under a year, from December 1968 to October 1969, he killed at least five people. He then sent cryptic letters to local newspapers, some of which included ciphers. But who was the Zodiac Killer — and why hasn’t a suspect ever been charged in this case?

To date, no one has ever definitively confirmed the Zodiac Killer’s identity. But a number of suspects have been floated in the years since the infamous criminal sent his last batch of letters in the 1970s. Sons have accused their fathers, amateur investigators have suggested new people of interest, and the police have continued to investigate the horrific crimes.

Below, discover the stories of nine compelling Zodiac Killer suspects.

Gary Francis Poste: The Scarred Veteran

In 2021, an investigative team called the Case Breakers said they solved the mystery of the Zodiac Killer’s identity. They pointed the finger at Gary Francis Poste, a California-based house painter, who died in 2018.

According to the investigators — a team made up of former cops, military intelligence officers, and journalists — several things about Poste made him a likely Zodiac Killer suspect. For starters, he had distinctive scars on his forehead, which the investigators claim that the murderer shared.

“[There is] photographic proof, as a former FBI agent put it, of ‘irrefutable’ scars on our Zodiac’s forehead — spotted by 3 witnesses and an observing cop, then later passed on to the 1969 SFPD sketch artist,” the Case Breakers explained in a press release. Seeing Poste’s photo next to one of the police sketches of the Zodiac Killer helps put things in perspective.

The investigative team also believes that removing Poste’s name from one of the Zodiac Killer’s infamous ciphers reveals a new message. And they point to a paint-splattered military wristwatch found near possible Zodiac victim Cheri Jo Bates in Riverside, California in 1966. They believe the watch could have belonged to Poste, who had once served in the U.S. Air Force.

What’s more, many who knew Poste acknowledged that he could be a killer. While living in Groveland, California, Poste reportedly recruited young men in town into a criminal “posse.” According to the New York Post, Poste even allegedly confessed to being the elusive serial killer to one of his recruits.

But not everyone buys Gary Francis Poste as a Zodiac Killer suspect. One expert on the case, Tom Voigt, told Rolling Stone that the Case Breakers’ claims about Poste were “completely bogus” and “hot garbage.” Voigt says that the police sketch of the Zodiac Killer didn’t really show “scars” on his forehead and that it was just shading to fill in the picture. He also adds that there are other, much more compelling Zodiac Killer suspects out there.

Irene Gut Opdyke risked her life to smuggle food and travel permits to Polish Jews — and even hid 12 of them inside the home of a Nazi officer where she worked as a housekeeper.

The American general William Tecumseh Sherman once stated that “war is hell.”

For Irene Gut Opdyke, that observation held true. During World War II, she endured sexual assualt, multiple arrests, and brutal interrogations from both Nazi Germany and the USSR.

Despite all that trauma, however, Opdyke found the courage to save 12 Jews from the Nazis by hiding them where the Germans least suspected it — in a German major’s own villa.

As she later told her daughter, “When stuff like that happens, you don’t have time to think through what you are going to do. You’ve got to react.”

And Irene Gut Opdyke most certainly did react.

How Irene Gut Opdyke Began Helping Jewish Holocaust Victims

Irene Gut Opdyke was born in 1922 in a small village in Poland, according to the Zekelman Holocaust Center. At the age of 16, she began studying nursing. At 17, she was thrust into war.

In 1939, Opdyke joined the Polish Army with other nurses from her school. “It seemed unreal to me, as though I were only acting a part in a play,” she later wrote in her memoir, In My Hands.

That reality soon turned into a nightmare when she was captured by Russian soldiers who had invaded Poland. Opdyke was beaten, raped, and sent to work at a Soviet hospital. She remained there until a prisoner exchange allowed her to return to Poland.

Back in her Nazi-occupied home country, Irene Gut Opdyke began working in a munitions factory that supplied weapons to the German front. After fainting due to the fumes one day, she was allowed to move to the kitchens, where she served meals to German soldiers.

While running an errand for work one day, according to PBS, Opdyke witnessed an SS soldier violently throw a Jewish infant to the ground. At that moment, she decided she would help the Jewish people if the opportunity ever arose — and soon enough, it did.

Irene Gut Opdyke’s Fearless Acts Of Heroism

Irene Gut Opdyke was soon transferred to the town of Tarnopol, where she continued serving meals to German officers. There, she became friends with 12 Jews who worked in the laundry room washing the soldiers’ clothes.

Opdyke started to overhear the officers talk about wiping out nearby Jewish ghettos. She warned her friends in the laundry room, who spread the news to their friends and relatives, allowing countless people to escape before their homes were destroyed.

She also began smuggling food into Jewish neighborhoods. “I knew it was a drop in the ocean, but I could not do nothing,” she later wrote.

However, as the Nazis began to ramp up their “Final Solution,” Irene Gut Opdyke started taking bolder action, as well. In 1943, she helped six Jews escape into a nearby forest by utilizing a pass from the German major she worked for, Eduard Rügemer, and hiding them in a wagon until they reached safety.

Later that year, Opdyke overheard plans for Tarnopol to finally become “Judenfrei” — free of Jews. “I knew this meant my friends in the laundry room would be killed,” she said, according to PBS. “I didn’t know what to do.”

In a stroke of luck and at just the right time, Major Rügemer asked Opdyke if she would start working as the housekeeper in his villa. She eagerly accepted — and decided she would bring her Jewish friends from the laundry room with her.

How Irene Gut Opdyke Hid 12 Jews Right Under A German Officer’s Nose

When Major Rügemer invited Opdyke to live with him as his housekeeper, she later recalled, “I knew then that could be the place I would hide the Jews.” She sneaked her friends into Rügemer’s home, hiding them in both the cellar and the attic so the major wouldn’t discover them.

To make matters more desperate, one of the Jewish couples hiding in the home discovered they were expecting a baby. They told Opdyke they would give the child up to avoid detection, but she told them not to fret. “We’ll see — you’ll be free,” she told them.

Unfortunately, Opdyke’s heroic act wouldn’t remain a secret for long.

After hiding her friends successfully for nearly nine months, Opdyke forgot to lock a door one day, and Major Rügemer discovered the Jewish refugees in his home. “I trusted you. How could you do this behind my back, in my own house?” he screamed. Opdyke begged him not to tell anyone, and he agreed — on the condition that she become his mistress.

“I won’t tell you it was easy,” Irene Gut Opdyke later said. “But I knew there were 12 lives depending on me.”

Irene Gut Opdyke’s Life After World War II

Soon after the discovery of the Jewish fugitives, Soviet forces began advancing toward Tarnopol. The Nazis were losing the war, and German forces started retreating. Opdyke and all 12 of her Jewish friends were able to flee into a nearby forest — and the pregnant Jewish couple welcomed a healthy baby.

“On May 4, 1944, a little boy was born in freedom!” Opdyke fondly remembered. “That was my payment for whatever hell I went through.”

Irene Gut Opdyke had saved more than just 12 lives with her heroism.

She immigrated to the United States in 1949, where she learned just how much of an impact she’d truly had on the Holocaust victims she helped. One day, a man she didn’t recognize came up to her in New York and said, “Irene, you don’t remember me, but you brought me shoes in the forest.”

Opdyke married a man named William Opdyke and raised a daughter, living a quiet life for many years. Then, in 1974, she heard a Holocaust denier speak and became enraged.

“I think another Holocaust could happen if we don’t mingle together to try to understand one another and not be ignorant,” Opdyke said. “It’s my duty to tell the truth about what I saw.”

So she began to travel across the country, telling her story. “She became a moral compass to tens of thousands of children,” Rabbi Haim Asa said upon her death in 2003, as reported by the Los Angeles Times.

Even though Irene Gut Opydke died almost 20 years ago, her story lives on. Her daughter Jeannie Smith maintains a website in her memory and continues to speak about her mother’s heroism.

As Smith said when her mother died, “Her biggest fear was that people wouldn’t understand what she was saying. But she was amazing… and her story always got through.”

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After learning about Irene Gut Opdyke’s heroism, read about three other people who risked their lives to save Jews from the Holocaust: Corrie ten Boom, Chiune Sugihara, and Wilm Hosenfeld.

Darrell Lee Clark and Cain Joshua Storey were just 17 when they were handed life sentences for the death of their friend.

While investigating the decades-old murder of 15-year-old Brian Bowling for their podcast, “Proof,” Susan Simpson and Jacinda Davis started to notice inconsistencies in the case. Their subsequent investigation revealed that the two men serving time for Bowling’s murder were innocent — and resulted in their release from prison after 25 years.

Thanks to their investigation — and legal work by the Georgia Innocence Project — last week, Darrell Lee Clark and Cain Joshua Storey left prison for the first time since their murder conviction in 1998.

“We found a case that the world had forgotten,” Simpson told the Washington Post.

As CNN explains, Clark and Storey’s ordeal first began back in October 1996. Then, Storey brought a gun to his friend Bowling’s house near Rome, Georgia. As Bowling told his girlfriend over the phone that he was playing Russian Roulette with the gun, a shot suddenly rang out. Bowling was dead.

At first, Storey was charged with involuntary manslaughter. But as police investigated — with pressure from Bowling’s family — they concluded that Bowling had been murdered by Storey with help from Clark.

The police investigation hinged on two witnesses. According to the Georgia Innocence Project, a woman claimed that she had heard Clark and Storey talking about how they’d murdered Bowling because he knew too much about a petty theft they’d committed. And a man allegedly told police that he’d seen Clark fleeing from the scene after Bowling’s death.

This eyewitness testimony resulted in convictions of Clark and Storey, both 17 at the time, for murder and conspiracy to commit murder. They were sentenced to life in prison. But their story didn’t end there.

More than two decades later, their story was picked up by Simpson and Davis for their podcast, “Proof.” And as the two podcasters looked into the case, it became “clear that it just wasn’t adding up,” according to CNN.

Simpson and Davis were able to interview the two witnesses whose testimony had resulted in Clark and Storey’s convictions. And they found that their stories had changed a great deal since 1998.

“It took us a long time to talk to both of those witnesses. The podcast was happening in almost real-time as an investigation,” Davis told CNN. “When we finally found and were able to talk to those two witnesses, it really solidified that both of these guys had been wrongly convicted.”

As The Guardian explains, the woman told the podcasters that police had coerced her testimony by threatening to take her children away. And the man, who had hearing and speech impairments, had been misunderstood — his testimony was about an unrelated shooting he’d witnessed in 1976.

As a result, Clark’s attorneys filed for a new trial. He and Storey — who accepted a plea deal for involuntary manslaughter — were subsequently released from prison. They’d each served 25 years of their life sentences.

“It’s been surreal to say the least,” Storey told CNN, noting that he was afraid to go to sleep on his first night out of prison because he was worried it was all a dream. “I believe it’s going to be great. One step at a time. I never allowed my mind to get locked up all those years, anyhow.”

In a statement from the Georgia Innocence Project, Clark additionally said: “You never think something like that is going to happen to you. Never would I have thought I would spend more than half my life in prison, especially for something I didn’t do.”

Both men are looking forward to starting their lives anew. As the world has changed quite a bit since 1998, there’s a lot for them to catch up on. The Washington Post reports that when Davis and Simpson first reached out to Storey, he asked them: “What’s a podcast?”

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After reading about the true crime podcasts that helped free two wrongly convicted men from prison, see how Larry David inadvertently saved a man from prison after his show “Curb Your Enthusiasm” proved his innocence. Or, see how Matheau Moore appeared on a podcast to raise awareness about his wife’s disappearance — and then was charged with her murder.

Two emus named Kevin and Carol were previously banned from the Yaraka Hotel for bad behavior.

A few years back, Kevin and Carol of small-town Yaraka, Australia gained a reputation as local menaces — so much so, in fact, that they were banned from a neighborhood pub for bad behavior. They’re also emus.

The rowdy flightless birds had been frequent visitors to the Yaraka Hotel, the sole pub in a town with a population of about 20 people, according to ABC News.

Yaraka sits two and a half hours south of Longreach in Queensland, Australia. It’s a dot on a dot on a dot on a map, in terms of size, and would have likely stayed out of the headlines had the Yaraka Hotel not made international news in 2020 for banning Kevin and Carol from the establishment, largely for stealing food, drinks, and car keys from tourists visiting the pub.

Of course, the emus’ droppings played a role too — understandable, considering that a full-grown adult emu can weigh up to 132 pounds.

Still, the emus’ caretaker, Leanne Byrne, said that despite their mischievous behavior, Kevin and Carol “love cuddles.” The emus were known to be particularly comfortable around humans, even confident, which made them popular around town and among tourists. In fact, the town even sells merchandise featuring the two.

But at a certain point, it seems, their mischief simply became too much for the owners of the Yaraka Hotel.

“They handled it,” Byrne said. “[Kevin and Carol] used to try and get up the stairs and stuff, but they did put a chain across there to stop them. It doesn’t stop all the people from coming to see them, though.”

Byrne had likewise earned a reputation in the small town, as the “Yaraka Mother of Dragons,” in reference to Daenerys Targaryen from Game of Thrones. Like the character, Byrne’s claim to fame was hatching eggs — though, in this case, they were the emu eggs that grew up to be Kevin and Carol.

“They’re not my pets,” Byrne said. “They just tended to stay, and everyone looked after them type thing. They’re still wild animals.”

Each year, Byrne travels for a few months to work, taking her away from her home in Yaraka. Usually, when Byrne traveled, Kevin and Carol would venture off into the wilderness and return when Byrne did.

This past January, however, they didn’t.

Naturally, this caused concern among the locals, who worried that something might have happened to the beloved, if troublesome, emus.

Byrne did some investigating and discovered that while Kevin and Carol haven’t hung out much around town, they are still local to the area.

Speaking with news.com.au, she said, “Some gentlemen were cutting some wood, and they came up behind them and tapped them on the shoulder and said, ‘Hi.’”

What’s more, Kevin and Carol weren’t spotted alone in town. They had four baby chicks with them. “And they’re brother and sister,” Byrne said, “so we’ll just leave that alone.”

She explained that when Kevin and Carol were younger, there was a drought that made it difficult for the emus to find drinking water and food, which could explain why they stayed in town as often as they did — and why they favored the Yaraka Hotel in particular.

But now that the drought has ended, there are plenty of watering holes for the emus and their chicks to drink from.

That hasn’t stopped townsfolk from calling Byrne whenever there’s a sighting, though.

“A lot of townsfolk ring me straight away and say, ‘I think Kevin and Carol are down near the dump,’ and I rush down there and can’t see them, or, ‘I think they’re up near the airstrip,’ and nope I can’t see them,” she said.

Byrne also said that Carol will still swing by for a cuddle and to rest her head on Byrne’s shoulder, however. And for what it’s worth, Byrne actually prefers that Kevin and Carol don’t spend as much time in town with their chicks.

When Byrne was given the eggs that hatched into Kevin and Carol, they were in fact only two of a total of nine.

The other seven, unfortunately, never made it to adulthood. Most of them became the victims of automobile accidents, and Byrne hopes that Kevin and Carol stay away from traffic in town to keep their babies from the same fate.

“I hope when they’re a bit older, they’ll come back with their chicks,” Byrne said.

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Kevin and Carol are hardly the first emus to cause trouble in Australia. In fact, back in 1932, the emu population was so out of control, Australian farmers fought a war against them. And earlier this year, an Australian town was terrorized by another group of animals: kangaroos.

Pandas are native to China. Today, the country owns all living pandas. That’s because they’re extremely hard to breed (they simply won’t do it on their own) and any panda born outside the country becomes immediate property of China. However, the country does lease their pandas to zoos around the world in an act called panda diplomacy.

How did panda diplomacy come to be?

Between 1941 and 1984, China occasionally gifted pandas to other countries. But they stopped doing this and claimed ownership of the animals instead. Now, all pandas outside of China are technically leased (often for a decade) by the country.

Panda diplomacy is the act of gifting or leasing pandas as a gesture of goodwill.

The first panda “diplomat” came about after fashion designer Ruth Harkness took two pandas out of China and sold them to Chicago’s Brookfield Zoo and Baptist minister David Crockett Graham took and sold two to the Bronx Zoo. After that Madame Chiang Kai-shek, first lady of China and a diplomat in her own right, arranged for two more pandas to be sent to the San Diego Zoo.

However, the first act of panda diplomacy ended up buried in the news cycle since it happened during the bombing of Pearl Harbor.

Continuing diplomacy

Between 1957 and 1983, China gifted 24 pandas to 9 nations as diplomatic gestures of friendship. And when Richard Nixon visited China in 1972, he secured two more pandas from Mao Zedong for The National Zoo in Washington DC. In the first year they were on display over 1 million people came to visit the animals.

Countries around the world clamored for a chance to host the animals. But as they become more endangered, China stopped giving them away and began leasing them. In 1984, China’s leader (Deng Xiaoping) leased the first pandas to Los Angeles for the 1984 Olympics. The cost was $50,000 a month.

In 1991, the country moved to long term leases of a decade and the cost is up to $1 million a year and a promise that any cubs born will be returned to China along with their parents. — WTF fun facts

Source: “Panda diplomacy” – Wikipedia

Yoshie Shiratori became known as the “man no prison could hold” after he escaped four different times — once using little more than miso soup.

Between 1936 and 1947, Japan’s Yoshie Shiratori escaped from prison four times, earning him the nickname “the man that no prison could hold.”

The escape artist also became famous – or infamous. His escapes brought attention to horrible conditions in Japan’s prisons. As Shiratori explained, “The reason why I tried to jailbreak was because I was angry at the guard who did not treat prisoners as humans.”

Today a well-regarded folk hero, one of the prisons from which Shiratori escaped even has a permanent exhibit dedicated to his exploits.

Who Was Yoshie Shiratori?

Born in 1907 in the mountainous Tohoku region of Japan, Yoshie Shiratori took a job working in a tofu shop. Then, he tried his hand as a fisherman.

But soon, Shiratori fell in with a bad crowd and started gambling. A list of petty crimes put him on the police radar — then, in the mid-1930s, Shiratori was accused of murder.

Shiratori swore he had been falsely accused, claiming a local gang was framing him. But a court found Shiratori guilty and sent him to Aomori Prison.

At the time, Japan’s prisons were harsh places. Guards frequently tortured prisoners. As a result, many prisoners tried to escape — but precious few were as successful as Yoshie Shiratori.

Shitarori’s First Escape

How did Yoshie Shiratori escape prison for the first time? Shiratori started by memorizing the guards’ schedule. He identified gaps in security and found a 15-minute window in which he could escape the prison.

Early on the morning of his first prison breakout, Shiratori picked the cell lock using a piece of wire he had stealthily swiped from a bucket in the bathhouse.

He planned the escape meticulously. Shiratori pried up pieces of floorboard to hide in his bed, giving him more time to flee undetected.

The plan worked, and the guards didn’t realize Shiratori was gone for hours.

But the escape artist did not remain free for long. Authorities captured him three days later. Shiratori went back to prison after his first escape. And this time, he earned a life sentence.

The start of World War II changed Shiratori’s prison experience. He was sent to Akita Prison, where prisoners did manual labor.

A harsher place even than Aomori Prison, prisoners slept on concrete floors. And since he had a track record as an escape artist, the guards also locked Shiratori in solitary confinement when he wasn’t working.

The solitary confinement cells made escape nearly impossible. Prisoners had to wear handcuffs at all times, even when sleeping. A high skylight and smooth walls kept prisoners inside. Yet Shiratori still found a way to escape.

Yoshie Shiratori’s Air Vent Escape

Every night, Shiratori practiced scaling the walls. He climbed up to an air vent and slowly loosened the rusted fittings night after night. Then, after weeks, Shiratori was ready to escape.

During a rainy night, Shiratori slipped off his handcuffs and climbed the wall, escaping through the air vent. Claps of thunder distracted the guards, and after only three months at Akita Prison, Shiratori was free again.

This time, Shiratori managed to evade police for months. But trusting a friendly police officer proved to be the wrong choice.

At Akita Prison, one police officer had been kind to Shiratori, while the other guards tortured him. Hoping that the officer might help him, Shiratori went to his home.

He begged the officer to take on the corrupt prison system to end the torture of prisoners. Instead, the officer called the authorities and Shiratori went back to prison for a third time.

The Miso Soup Escape

Two prison escapes had made Yoshie Shiratori a legend. Newspapers reported on his escapes. And authorities wanted to make sure Shiratori never escaped again, so they sent him to the notorious, high-security Abashiri Prison.

As Japan’s northernmost prison, Abashiri got plenty of snow, which helped deter prisoners from escaping, since they wore thin uniforms.

At Abashiri, there were no loose air vents or 15-minute gaps in the guard rotation. Authorities locked Shiratori in heavy iron restraints fitted around his ankles and wrists. Only a blacksmith could remove them.

But Shiratori vowed to escape again.

This time, it took months. Every day, Shiratori dripped miso soup on his iron shackles. He also dripped miso soup onto a small opening on his cell door where guards delivered food. And ever-so slowly, the salty broth wore down the metal.

After months, Shiratori could slip out of the shackles. He pried open the feeding hatch on the door, but it was much too small to fit a person. That is, until Shiratori dislocated his own shoulder and slipped through the hatch.

Yoshie Shiratori was the first — and only — prisoner to ever escape Abashiri Prison.

Yoshie Shiratori vs. Japan’s Prison System

After his third escape, Yoshie Shiratori went into hiding for over a year. He lived in an abandoned mine, foraging for berries and hunting wild rabbits.

But a farmer eventually spotted Shiratori and attacked him, thinking the fugitive was a thief. During the struggle, the farmer died. Authorities put Shiratori on trial — and this time, Shiratori received the death sentence.

Authorities refused to take any more chances. They locked up Shiratori at the Sapporo Prison. Six guards watched him 24 hours a day. And the only opening on the cell was smaller than Shiratori’s head.

Yet one morning, guards opened the cell door to find Shiratori gone.

How did he escape for a fourth time? Shiratori had unscrewed the cell’s floorboards and dug a tunnel with a miso soup bowl. He only dug at night and positioned the hole right under his bed.

For a year, Shiratori managed to escape detection. Until he was sitting on a bench and a police officer sat next to him. The officer didn’t recognize Shiratori — in fact, he offered the fugitive a cigarette.

Shiratori inexplicably decided to confess his true identity to the police officer, and went back to court.

But reforms in Japan’s prison system worked in Shiratori’s favor. He explained that he’d only escaped because of abusive conditions. The court sympathized and declared the farmer’s death self-defense.

Yet Shiratori would have to serve time for his many escapes. After lifting the death sentence, the court sent Shiratori to prison for 20 years. At Shiratori’s request, he went to Fuchu Prison in Tokyo.

During his final stint in prison, Shiratori never tried to escape. He was released early on good behavior in 1961 and lived out his final years in freedom before dying in 1979.

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Yoshie Shiratori is a legend when it comes to prison escapes. Next, read about the most daring prison breaks in history, and then learn about the worst prisons in the world.

When people think of Christmas movies, they typically think of holiday sentiment, snow, gifts, and an overarching message of kindness. But sometimes, a holiday movie can deliver those themes while having a profanity count rivaling that of Goodfellas.

Recently, language tutorial site Preply examined 60 scripts from popular holiday (or holiday-set) films to see which ones contained the greatest number of expletives. While some, like 1990’s Home Alone, are relatively tame (it has just nine swear words), National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation (1989) has a relatively robust 23. Nothing, however, comes close to 2003’s Bad Santa, the Billy Bob Thornton vehicle about an inebriated Claus (Thornton) working as a mall Santa, with its astonishing 255 cusses.

Check out the complete list below, but bear in mind the profanity counts are based on scripts: Swears could have been added or subtracted during filming.

1. Bad Santa (2003) // 255 swear words
2. The Ref (1994) // 86 swear words
3. Better Watch Out (2016) // 82 swear words
4. Die Hard (1988) // 77 swear words
5. Just Friends (2005) // 46 swear words
6. Black Christmas (1974) // 39 swear words
7. Trading Places (1983) // 37 swear words
8. Krampus (2015) // 37 swear words
9. Love Actually (2003) // 36 swear words
10. The Family Man (2000) // 32 swear words
11. Fatman (2020) // 25 swear words
12. National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation (1989) // 23 swear words
13. Last Christmas (2019) // 18 swear words
14. Scrooged (1988) // 17 swear words
15. Batman Returns (1992) // 14 swear words
16. Shazam! (2019) // 14 swear words
17. Surviving Christmas (2004) // 14 swear words
18. Serendipity (2001) // 13 swear words
19. A Christmas Story (1983) // 11 swear words
20. Home Alone (1990) // 9 swear words

Looking for a new movie to watch, or at least a movie that’s new to you? Mental Floss’s new book, The Curious Movie Buff: A Miscellany of Fantastic Films from the Past 50 Years, offers behind-the-scenes details and amazing facts about some of the greatest movies of the past half-century. And it’s available now at your favorite place to buy books, or online right here.

Have you ever asked yourself “what is a group of ferrets called”? No doubt you’ve asked yourself this deep and probing question multiple times in the past. Or maybe not, since it’s pretty rare to run into a whole group of ferrets?

What is a group of ferrets called?

Well, in case you’re NOW wondering what the name is for a group of these furry little guys, it’s a “business.” Yes, a business of ferrets.

They may also be called a fesnyng, which isn’t nearly as catchy.

For some reason, these creatures have all sorts of names we didn’t know about. According to the website A-Z Animals (cited below), non-neutered males are called hobs, and unspayed females are called jills. For fixed ferrets, males are called gibs, and females are called sprites. Their babies are referred to as kits.

What’s this business about?

Still stuck on the fact that a group of ferrets is called a business? A-Z Animals explains (sort of):

Ferrets are known for their mischief, ability to get into things they shouldn’t, escape tactics, and energetic natures. Would it make more sense if we told you that, in the past, they were referred to as a busyness? People saw ferrets and went, ‘Wow, those are some busy critters!’”

We’ll be honest, we’ve never spent time observing ferrets, so we can’t say how busy they are.

There are some other interesting fun facts about ferrets, however. For example, it’s considered cruel to own just one since they are such social creatures. While you don’t have to get a whole business of ferrets, you should get your cuddly pal a companion. Otherwise, they can get depressed. Even if you give your pet lots of stimulation, you can’t play with them the way they need to be played with (for example, you really shouldn’t bite them, but nipping is something they enjoy doing while play-fighting either each other). They have very thick skin, so the biting doesn’t hurt them – instead, it’s something they do to communicate!— WTF fun facts

Source: “What’s a Group of Ferrets Called?” — A to Z Animals

The Wizard of Oz (1939) is one of the most famous films of all time—but it differs quite a bit from the novel on which it was based, L. Frank Baum’s The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (1900). Here are 10 things the book did differently from the film. (SPOILER ALERT: This list contains plot spoilers for those who haven’t read the book.)

It may come as a surprise to classic film fans that the original enchanted slippers were silver, not red. Some critics speculate that Baum’s color choice was part of an elaborate metaphor for the 19th-century American Populist movement’s opposition to the gold standard. By this reading, the Yellow Brick Road symbolizes the gold standard [PDF], which was notoriously inaccessible to farmers (Scarecrow), factory workers (Tin Man), and the masses (Dorothy) [PDF]. As a result, Populists supported free coinage of—you guessed it—silver.

Screenwriter Noel Langley made the decision to alter this detail and give the slippers their now-famous ruby hue, “probably,” as Jesse Rhodes writes in Smithsonian, “because the color would stand out better against a yellow brick road.” The rest is cinema history.

“Remember me? Your old pal Hunk?” Baum didn’t. The film’s elaborate framing structure, which transforms the crabby Miss Gulch, the humbug Professor Marvel, and the three farmhands into the Wicked Witch of the West, the Wizard of Oz, and Scarecrow, Tin Man, and Lion, wasn’t part of the book. In fact, none of the five Kansas characters are in the book at all, the opening scenes of which focus instead on Dorothy, her aunt and uncle, Toto, and the very gray midwestern landscape.

Does anyone else find it odd that nobody in the movie questions the existence of a “Tin Man”? Where does a man made of tin come from in the first place? The book supplies this missing information: The Tin Man was once an ordinary human who fell in love with a Munchkin girl. Their romance was thwarted by a selfish old woman who lived with the girl and wanted her to remain at home.

The old woman enlisted the help of the Wicked Witch of the East (no longer just a pair of striped socks under a house), who bewitched the woodman’s axe so that it chopped off all of his limbs and his head, and cleaved his torso (and heart) in two. The woodman replaced each part of his body with tin limbs—but ended up without a heart.

In the book, the poppy episode has nothing to do with the Wicked Witch. In fact, these bewitching flowers need no magical help at all. As their scientific name (Papaver somniferum) suggests, poppies have long been connected with sleep-inducing effects, and there’s an excellent reason for this: the poppy latex, a milky fluid that oozes out of the seed pod when cut, contains morphine, codeine, thebaine, papaverine, noscapine, and trace amounts of opium (oh, my!). In the book and movie, Dorothy and Lion doze off after smelling the flowers—but in reality, one can only feel a poppy’s effects by ingesting its narcotic components.

The Emerald City of the book is much more dazzling than that of the movie—it’s bejeweled with so many emeralds that its inhabitants must wear sunglasses all the time. These shades are more than a fashion statement: They’re actually locked on behind the wearer’s head to protect them from being blinded by the gems.

In the movie, Dorothy and her friends are taken around in a horse-driven cart. But the book tells us specifically that there are no horses—of any color!—in Emerald City. Without any beasts of burden, the citizens push their wares around manually on carts.

The luminous head of Oz in the movie is, in the novel, just one of four forms that the sham wizard takes. In the original, each of the four friends visits Oz separately and he takes a different shape for each one. He appears to Dorothy as a luminous head “much bigger than the head of the biggest giant”; to Scarecrow as a beautiful woman; to Tin Man as a fearsome beast “nearly as big as an elephant … [with] five eyes in its face”; and to the Lion as a ball of fire.

If you thought that Margaret Hamilton’s green skin and shrill cackle were scary, the original Wicked Witch of the West was a cyclops. Baum doesn’t describe her appearance much, except to tell us that she has a single, all-seeing eye that scans the land for Dorothy and her friends. Luckily for the faint-hearted among us, the filmmakers opted for a crystal ball instead.

In the film, as in the book, Glinda the Good Witch kisses Dorothy on the forehead before she sets out for the Emerald City. The film makes very little of this moment. However, in the novel, Glinda’s kiss leaves a protective mark visible to all, which eventually gets Dorothy and her friends in to see Oz and, later on, prevents the flying monkeys from killing her.

The film stages Dorothy’s time in Oz as an elaborate dream, brought on during the tornado when she receives a nasty knock on the head from a loose window and passes out. This framing device isn’t in the book: Dorothy dozes off as the house is borne aloft by the twister. However, she is fully conscious for the return journey back to Kansas, during which she is whirled up into the air “so swiftly that all she could see or feel was the wind whistling past her ears.” Just before she lands back in Kansas, the silver slippers fall off, “lost forever in the desert.”  

Police broke down the doors of a London art gallery to save a woman slumped unconscious over a table – only to discover she was made of packing tape and foam filler.

The lifeless woman they had been trying to save was in fact an art installation entitled ‘Kristina’ which is on display at the London gallery.

The work was commissioned by Steve Lazarides, Banksy’s former agent and the dealer behind Laz Emporium.

Mr Lazarides said: “Hannah who was working in the gallery that day had just locked up and gone upstairs to make a cup of tea.

“She came down to find the door off its hinges and two confused police officers!”

London’s Metropolitan Police were responding to a call about a “person in distress” at the gallery on the evening of 25 November.

“Officers forced entry to the address, where they uncovered that the person was in fact a mannequin,” a police spokesperson told Artnet News.

The installation features a woman wearing trainers and a yellow hoody slumped face forward in a bowl of soup, her long blonde hair concealing her face.

The realistic sculpture is by American artist Mark Jenkins and is based on Mr Lazarides’ sister.

This is apparently not the first time the installation, which sits in the gallery window, has caused trouble. In October, paramedics were called to assist the woman, Artnet News reported.

A businessman has been left with 18,000 useless T-shirts which wrongly herald England as World Cup champions.

Football fan Karl Baxter was so convinced the Three Lions were going to return home from Qatar as winners that he had the tops printed ahead of the quarter-finals.

Sprawled across the back of the shirts are the slogans ‘England, Cup Winners 2022, It’s Finally Home’ and ‘The Day It Came Home’.

But the gamble didn’t pay off, with Gareth Southgate’s side losing 2-1 to France in their quarter-final match on Saturday after Harry Kane missed the chance to score an equalising penalty.

“We had a load of blank football shirts that we bought a couple of years ago, which we had not done a great deal with, so I decided to take a gamble on the crest of the wave England were riding and get some shirts printed in anticipation of success,” Mr Baxter, 46, told Sky News.

“Well over and above the shirts we have, as an England fan I am absolutely gutted we went out in the way we did,” the managing director of Poole-based Wholesale Clearance UK said.

‘Wear it with pride… or clean your windows’

In a message to customers on the website, Mr Baxter wrote: “We have reduced the price of these unique items as we certainly won’t be getting any more.

“So wear it with pride, add it to your collection, use it to clean the windows…we don’t know.”

The father-of-three added that while the cost of making the shirts wasn’t too expensive, and he has already sold a few, there are still “some more to get rid of”.

Read more:
Should Southgate quit England?
England footballers return – with a new mascot
Kane’s heartbreak after missing penalty

“As they are England cup winners’ shirts, we can always try to sell them not only as the cup that never was…but as celebrating the only actual English winners of a cup in 2022, our fantastic England ladies team,” he said.

Asked if he had a message for England fans, Mr Baxter simply replied: “There’s always the Euros.”

The shirts were due to retail for £29.99, but are now being sold for £9.99.

From the numerous factual errors in Dahmer to the brotherhood that never existed in Vikings, see how some of your favorite TV shows got historical events totally wrong.

The streaming age has blessed us with some truly amazing, cinematic television shows, and with the wide range of content being produced, there is virtually no niche left untouched. Shows based on historical events have perhaps benefitted the most from this modern television renaissance.

TV budgets have afforded costume and set designers the ability to craft stunning sets and period-accurate clothing, letting viewers feel as if they have actually been transported back in time — rather than feeling as if they’re watching a stage production someone recorded on a Handycam.

But, of course, science has yet to enable true time travel, and so we must settle for watching high-budget adaptations of historic events translated from script to screen. Unfortunately, like a game of telephone, the truth of the depicted events does not always emerge with 100 percent accuracy.

The famed neurologist Sigmund Freud, for example, didn’t become entangled in an occult conspiracy with a psychic medium as the series Freud would suggest. But even shows that stick a bit more closely to reality suffer other kinds of misrepresentation, such as Peaky Blinders and Victoria.

These are nine popular television shows that portrayed real-life events from history — and the important details that they got completely wrong.

Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story Took “Artistic License” With Many Crucial Details

One of Netflix’s most popular true-crime adaptations is the series Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story, a show produced by American Horror Story producer Ryan Murphy and his longtime collaborator Ian Brennan.

According to Vulture, the series has been the subject of debate regarding its focus on the serial killer’s gruesome crimes and horrific nature rather than his victims, and the decision of the creators to alter key details only further complicates the ethical grays of producing a show of this nature.

In the wake of this controversy, journalist Anne E. Schwartz, who first broke the Dahmer story in 1991, spoke with The Independent to address components of the show that were apparently changed to up the drama.

“In the first five minutes of the first episode you have Glenda Cleveland knocking on his door,” Schwartz pointed out. “None of that ever happened.” In reality, Cleveland — a neighbor who tried to alert the cops to Dahmer’s crimes — lived in a separate building. She didn’t live right next door to Dahmer, as portrayed in the show, and she never confronted him.

Schwartz also claimed that the rampant racism and homophobia of the Milwaukee Police Department were heavily exaggerated in the show. Though some Milwaukee residents may disagree with this claim, it’s clear that at least some of the cops’ scenes were completely fictionalized.

For instance, the police officers who returned one of Jeffrey Dahmer’s victims, 14-year-old Konerak Sinthasomphone, to the killer because they wrongly believed that Sinthasomphone was Dahmer’s lover didn’t win “Officer of the Year” awards as seen in the series. In reality, the cops were fired from their positions and then eventually reinstated, but they were never rewarded for their crucial mistakes as depicted in the series.

But even the scenes that the show got right have raised questions as to whether or not it’s ethical to make a show like this in the first place, especially considering that Dahmer was only apprehended for his crimes a few decades ago. And many of his victims’ families are still grieving.

Rita Isbell, the sister of one of Dahmer’s victims, Errol Lindsey, said in an interview with Insider that the character who portrayed her giving a heart-wrenching victim impact statement in court repeated, “verbatim exactly what I said.” But Isbell also said, “When I saw some of the show, it bothered me, especially when I saw myself… It felt like reliving it all over again.”

“I was never contacted about the show,” she added. “I feel like Netflix should’ve asked if we mind or how we felt about making it.”

From ghosts to UFO sightings to a Bigfoot-like creature, legends claim that the Bridgewater Triangle has long been home to a variety of unexplained occurrences.

You may be familiar with the Bermuda Triangle, the mysterious region where, legend has it, all aircraft and ships disappear. But did you know there’s another triangular region known for supernatural activity in the United States?

Introducing the Bridgewater Triangle, a sinister area in southeastern Massachusetts that’s famous for UFO sightings, poltergeists, and a variety of other unusual mysteries.

The 200-square-mile area was given its name by renowned cryptozoologist Loren Coleman in the 1970s. The region became better known in 1983, when Coleman published Mysterious America, a travel book that covered many of the strange and paranormal experiences America has to offer — including the mysteries of the Bridgewater Triangle.

Here’s everything you need to know about the spooky region.

The Bridgewater Triangle, A Historical Landmark

Bridgewater Triangle shares roots with many colonial settlements along the East Coast, and the forest region has picked up a handful of legends and myths throughout its long, rich history.

According to New Bedford news station WBSM, Loren Coleman, who had been living in Massachusetts in the 1970s, was the first to sketch out the specific borders of the Bridgewater Triangle. Most of the area’s activities, Coleman noted, took place in West Bridgewater, East Bridgewater, and Bridgewater proper, which formed a triangle.

Later, the area expanded to about 200 square miles. The towns marking each point of the triangle are Abington in the north, Freetown in the southeast, and Rehoboth in the southwest.

Within the triangle are a number of landmarks known for being sites of paranormal activity, ranging from the eerie Hockomock Swamp to the Solitude Stone, an ominous inscribed rock that would later become known as the “suicide stone.”

The Landmarks Of The Bridgewater Triangle

The Hockomock Swamp, found in the center of the triangle, is the largest freshwater swamp in the state of Massachusetts.

Around 300 C.E., the swamp acted as hunting grounds and a burial site for the Wampanoag people, according to Legends of America. The Wampanoag chief deity of death and disease, Hobomock, still supposedly inhabits the swamp, along with ghosts and other mythical creatures, and the tribe gave the swamp the name “Hockomock”, meaning “place where spirits dwell.”

Profile Rock, located in Freetown Fall River State Forest, is another significant landmark of the Bridgewater Triangle. Named for its shape, which resembles a face in profile, the site carries spiritual significance for the Wampanoag people.

One legend says that during King Philip’s War, colonists stole a sacred Wampum belt from the Wampanoag. It is believed that Profile Rock is where Philip returned the lost belt to Anawan, a notable Wampanoag figure. Today, some visitors still see a ghostly figure of a man believed to be Anawan sitting on the rock with his legs crossed and arms outstretched.

As for the Freetown Fall River State Forest itself, the area has seen numerous reports of suicides and a massive amount of alleged cult activity, including animal sacrifice and ritualistic or satanic murders.

Also in West Bridgewater is Solitude Stone, which bears the eerie inscription: “All ye, who in future days, Walk by Nunckatessett stream Love not him who hummed his lay Cheerful to the parting beam, But the beauty that he wooed.”

In the landmark’s history, the bodies of several missing people have been found near the stone, and it has since been given the nickname “suicide stone.”

Up next is Bridgewater State University, a public university whose main campus allegedly boasts a number of rooms and buildings haunted by ghosts. In 1924, a fire destroyed several of the college’s buildings, and some claim to have seen the ghosts of students running down halls yelling “fire!”

The Hornbine School, a one-room schoolhouse, shares a similar haunted past. People have reported hearing the laughter of disembodied children there, or even seeing spectral schoolteachers and children through the school’s windows.

Then there’s the Taunton State Hospital, a now abandoned complex that, from 1854 to 1975, functioned as a psychiatric asylum.

U.S. Ghost Adventures reports that the hospital hosted a number of serial killers in its run, but also treated innocent patients suffering from mental health disorders, and subjected many of its patients to horrific “treatments” like lobotomies, confinement, and electroshock.

Visitors to the hospital grounds have claimed to have heard banging or moaning there, and some have reported being touched or pulled by unseen figures in certain parts of the hospital. Allegedly, the asylum was also once a hub of satanic cults during the 1960s and 70s.

The Mythical Creatures of Bridgewater Triangle

From unidentified flying objects to Bigfoot sightings, the triangle has had its fair share of paranormal activity. And the mystical creatures that roam Bridgewater may be just as terrifying as the region’s historical landmarks, if not more so.

AMany of these wild sightings have taken place near the 16,950 acres of the Hockomock Swamp. A number of visitors have reported unnatural animal sightings, including panthers and bears, which are not found in the area. Some have spotted supernatural creatures, like giant snakes and enormous vicious dogs.

In one account, according to The Yankee Express, a law enforcement officer claimed to have spotted a giant black creature called a Thunderbird with an 8 to 12-foot wingspan.

Another mythical creature called the Pukwudgie has been known to inhabit the Freetown State Forest within the triangle. According to Algonquian folklore, the Pukwudgie is knee-height or smaller. The local Wampanoag people have long considered the Pukwudgie to be a mischievous creature that loves to play tricks on humans.

UFO sightings are also commonplace in Bridgewater Triangle. In fact, the region has had numerous reports of unidentified flying objects, often in the form of bright balls of light or unusual spacecraft.

Perhaps the scariest sightings have been those of poltergeists, ghosts, and shadow people. On multiple occasions, there have been strange voices coming from several areas within the Bridgewater Triangle.

To top off all the paranormal events, the area reportedly also has a history of disturbing cult activity, including various animal mutilations, particularly in Freetown and Fall River.

According to the Standard-Times, in 1998 a mutilated, headless cow was found in the woods. In another instance earlier that same year, a group of grotesquely mutilated calves had been discovered in the same spot, leading authorities to believe the cows had been used in some sort of ritual or sacrifice.

Why Bridgewater Triangle Is A Paranormal Activity Hub

So why is this triangle region such a hot spot for paranormal activities? There are a few theories. Legend has it that the spooky energy is the result of a curse unleashed on the area centuries ago as punishment for the poor treatment the Wampanoag people received from colonial settlers.

Remember the Wampum belt that was lost, and eventually returned, near Profile rock? According to the Standard-Times, some researchers believe the curse may have been set on the land after colonists stole the belt from the Wampanoag people, and that that curse still accounts for the Triangle’s abundance of paranormal activity today.

The area is also known to have unusually high levels of quartz, a material so efficient at amplifying energy, it’s often used in digital electronics. Some researchers have theorized that the quartz may be amplifying existing activity in the Triangle, making it easier for us to observe.

Another theory is that the area already had the makings of a paranormal hotbed. According to Boston.com, the world has a number of “vortexes,” or areas where the laws of physics don’t behave normally. Parnormal expert Chris Pittman says the Bridgewater Triangle is one such vortex.

“Some say that the wounded and pained spirits of the Wampanoag are the reason for the paranormal in the swamp. That is part of the explanation, but I would go further,” he Pittman.

He added: “I think the vortex was in place in the swamp before the settlers, and before the Native Americans. That vortex contributed to the inhumanity of the war between the Wampanoag and the English, and it fosters pain and evil in that area to this day.”

Whether it’s a curse, a vortex, or just a series of bizarre events, it’s safe to say that we should all beware of the Bridgewater Triangle.

If you’re up for some more spooky content, learn about 11 of the most haunted places in the world. Or read about 8 unnerving alleged encounters with Bigfoot.

The jeans, which may have been made by Levi Strauss, were auctioned off as part of a collection featuring items from the sunken “Ship of Gold,” the S.S. Central America.

How much would you pay for a pair of jeans? The answer may vary depending on your budget and sensibilities, but it’s likely that $114,000 far exceeds whatever number comes to mind. Yet that’s exactly what a pair of jeans recently sold for at auction — and it’s possible they might not be that different from any other pair of Levi’s in your dresser.

Per a press release from Holabird Western Americana Collections, the jeans were part of a collection featuring nearly 300 19th-century artifacts recovered from the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean, with many of the items coming from the “Ship of Gold,” the SS Central America, which sank during a hurricane in 1857 en route from Panama to New York.

“Some collectors have been waiting for these extraordinary items to come on the market since the legendary, submerged ship was located in 1988 and Life magazine proclaimed it America’s greatest treasure ever found,” said Fred Holabird, President of Holabird Western Americana Collections.

The jeans were described in the statement as “Gold Rush-era heavy-duty work pants,” and notably feature a five-button fly design that closely resembles those associated with jeans designed by Levi Strauss, leading Holabird historians to speculate that Strauss himself may have made the jeans during his early years of work.

As The New York Times reports, the jeans were found in the trunk of a Mexican-American War veteran named John Dement, who served as a buyer for his family’s mercantile shop. Dement traveled often, and was in fact a survivor of the Central America’s sinking.

His trunk was recovered in 1991 and contained a variety of objects including socks, night shirts, and paperback books, many of which survived due to a lack of oxygen in the trunk, preventing any bacterial degradation or biological consumption from occurring.

The thick work pants are made of an unknown material and covered in brown and black stains, but given Strauss’ prominence as a seller of dry goods during the Gold Rush and the five-button fly, it’s possible that he either had the pants made or made them himself.

In fact, 16 years after the Central America sank into the ocean, Strauss and his associate Jacob Davis patented the first blue jean ubiquitous with the style we are familiar with today.

However, Tracey Panek, director of the Levi Strauss & Co. Archives, told the Times that linking the work pants to Levi Strauss was purely speculation.

“From the white color, lack of suspender buttons, five fly buttons instead of four, and the unusual fly design with extra side buttonholes, to the non-denim fabric that is a much lighter weight than cloth used by LS & Co. for its earliest riveted clothing, the Dement trunk pants are not typical of the miner’s work pants in our archives,” she said.

And although the work pants have now sold for over $100,000, they were at the time among the least valuable items aboard the ship.

According to SFGATE, the Central America was boarded by a variety of wealthy passengers, including Ansel and Adeline Easton, a honeymooning couple from San Francisco whose families had made their fortune banking in California.

The couple had planned to honeymoon on the East Coast, but these were, of course, the days before the Panama Canal. They sailed from San Francisco to Panama, crossed overland to the Caribbean, and boarded the Central America.

“The S.S. Central America was carrying tons of Gold Rush treasure from San Francisco and the northern California area when she sank 7,200 feet deep in the Atlantic off the North Carolina coast in a hurricane while on a voyage from Panama to New York City in September 1857,” said Holabird.

Over the course of several days, the hurricane caused increasingly severe damage to the steamship, causing water to leak in and knocking out power to the vessel’s steam engines.

Many of the women and children onboard managed to escape on lifeboats, including Adeline Easton, and rowed to safety. Most of the men, however, were left behind as the ship sank into the ocean — including Ansel Easton.

In total, 425 of the ship’s 578 passengers and crew members died as a result of the hurricane. Of the 153 who survived, only 49 were men. Fortunately, two of those men happened to be Ansel Easton and John Dement.

For over a century, the Central America lay untouched at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean, until the 1980s when treasure hunter Thomas Gregory Thompson led a private excavation group to the sunken vessel to retrieve many of its valuables — of which he then claimed ownership.

Following this, Thompson went into hiding to avoid the numerous lawsuits levied against him as insurance companies also attempted to claim ownership of the sunken relics.

In 2012, Thompson was ordered to appear in court and disclose the location of recovered gold from the Central America. Instead, he fled, became a fugitive, and was arrested at a hotel in Florida in 2015.

He has been in federal prison ever since.

Meanwhile, many of the treasures he helped reclaim are now owned by the California Gold Marketing Group of Brea, California, which has since worked with Holabird to auction them off.

“These incredible artifacts give us a glimpse of daily life for the passengers and crew in the 1850s,” said Dwight Manley, the group’s Managing Partner. “They are a time capsule from the California Gold Rush.”

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After reading about these recovered treasures and the tragic journey of the SS Central America, learn about the seventh-century shipwreck found off the coast of Israel containing Christian and Islamic symbols. Or, read about the divers who recovered 900 bottles of booze from a World War I shipwreck.