Area 51 is reportedly just another government facility sitting ominously in the middle of the Nevada desert, home to the usual government weirdness like military tests and secretive operations with code names like the Watertown Project and Skunk Works. How did it come to be associated with aliens?
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The Amish have a bit of a reputation as a devoutly religious group who live simply, without modern conveniences. But there is a dark truth to the group.
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According to The Independent -- who in 2006 described the Arctic Monkeys as "Britain's latest supergroup" -- the band has just completed a grueling European tour when bassist Alex Nicholson announced that he was taking a break, as he was suffering "fatigue following an intensive period of touring."
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Despite getting a bum rap from humanity for their Biblical association with evil and trickery, snakes play a vital role in the circle of life. They are known predators of a voluminous amount of species, and to many others they are a delicious, nutritious source of limbless, slithering protein.
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At the time the Irwins put together their plan to save endangered animals from rapidly growing habitat destruction, they didn't believe the problem would end any time soon. It's a man-made problem caused by a mindset that will take a lot of time, dedication, and societal rebuilding to control.
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Some animal attacks on humans are surprising because you don't expect it from animals like squirrels and rabbits.
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Just about any dog owner has wondered why their pooch does that cute weird thing. But we should probably narrow that down. We're talking specifically about dogs' tendency to tilt their heads to the side, especially as a reaction to being spoken to by their master. It's an iconic gesture.
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There's a lot of material to work with to piece together what happened in the days leading up to gunmen opening fire on Marley's home, but even so, the story is complex, and the final truth unclear.
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According to Rolling Stone, Wilkeson was among the most severely injured in the Skynyrd plane crash. Reports indicated he suffered massive internal injuries, as well as a smashed jaw, broken nose and facial bones, 15 dislodged teeth, six broken ribs, and a broken left arm and leg.
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There was one stunt, however, that Big Show used to get the fans hyped about his WrestleMania 24 match against legendary boxer Floyd Mayweather that he wouldn't regret, or be able to forget for quite a while after.
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Each year humans consume around 50 billion tonnes of sand (that's metric tons, which come out to a little more than a tenth larger than U.S. tons) to carry out the oh-so-important work of being humans. Sooner or later, even a resource is as plentiful as sand is going to run out.
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Dale Wayne Sigler, one of the subjects of Netflix's popular docuseries I Am A Killer and, more recently, I Am A Killer: Released, openly admits that 30 years ago, he took a man's life. Sigler spent three decades in prison following a robbery attempt that went bad in 1990.
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These are some of the craziest cases of mistaken arrest.
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According to Copeland, Padovani "could play guitar better than I could, and I could play guitar better than Joe Strummer ... well, in those days. So I reckoned he'd be okay, but I didn't figure Sting would see it that way."
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Of all the places one could imagine cutting an album, a casino falls on the list somewhere around "in the back of a semi on a busy highway" and "recording in the park during a Memorial Day barbecue." Casinos are loud places, and loud isn't exactly conducive to recording clean tracks.
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His contributions to the film industry were acknowledged with a knighthood by Queen Elizabeth II of England at the turn of the millennium. He'd picked up an Academy Award in 1988 for Best Supporting Actor in The Untouchables, but as the wise old acting professor once observed, you can't eat awards.
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Some suggest that Connery's knighthood -- finally bestowed by Queen Elizabeth II in 2000 -- was delayed because of his political views. BBC America reports that he was blocked twice for the honor by England's Labor Party, in 1997 and 1998, because of his outspoken opinions regarding Scotland.
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When Eddie Van Halen died at 65 on October 6, 2020, after a long battle with cancer, Roth was one of the people expressing grief over the rock world's loss. According to Today, Roth posted a photo of the two of them, with the words, "What a long great trip it's been.."
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In the early 1980s, Seagal became involved with Never Say Never Again, the not-entirely-official James Bond film which saw Sean Connery return to the role of Bond. Seagal was supposed to help Connery with martial arts moves for the film.
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When Billboard interviewed Todd Rundgren in 2017 about the experience of producing Meat Loaf's album Bat Out of Hell and asked him for his fondest memory from that time, Rundgren told an amazing story about Meat Loaf's proposal and subsequent marriage to his first wife, Leslie.
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Fred Rogers was known primarily as Mister Rogers of the long-running PBS television show Mister Rogers' Neighborhood. He gently reached out to generations of preschool children, encouraging emotional and social growth while assuring his television neighbors that he loves them just the way they are.
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Headon and the others continued to drift apart in terms of lifestyles, with Headon acting the stereotypical rock star, constantly consuming alcohol and drugs. For the rest of The Clash, their "punk roots gave way to musicianship," only occasionally partying with their ever-partying drummer.
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While her album, Songbird, sold more than five million copies worldwide -- reaching platinum status six times in England and becoming certified platinum in the United States in 2008, according to Grunge News -- Eva Cassidy never knew of her success. She died of cancer in 1996, age 33.
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"Old Town Road" by Lil Nas X was the talk of the town since it came out in December of 2018, and he fanned the flames even more by releasing a remix version featuring a very familiar face and voice, Mr. "Achy Breaky Heart" himself, Billy Ray Cyrus.
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Prior to joining the show, Shoaf ran his own company, called Tappen Business, which rebuilt heavy machinery. In 2018, he opened up his own rural restoration shop and restored cars on his own. Unfortunately, the business never took off. Shoaf turned his career aspirations toward reality TV instead.
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Robinson remembered Gordy introducing himself and asking where their songs had come from. Said, Robinson, "I wrote 'em," and when Gordy asked if he had more, Robinson mentioned he had "a loose-leaf notebook with about 100 songs in it."
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Part of Shatner's over-the-top persona comes from his early career as a Shakespearean actor, when he performed in 1954 in Stratford, Ontario. At his core, he's a performance artist who has, unfortunately for him and fortunately for comedy, demonstrated a tin ear for how he comes across.
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The channel also has a love affair with "dirty men shun the 21st century and act gritty while also rarely showering" shows, like Alone, Swamp People, and Mountain Men. The "historical" aspect of these forays, it seems, revolves around embracing ancient methods of living.
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The success of Rust Valley Restorers seems to have paid off well for the host of the show, Mike Hall. Hall's estimated worth is close to $2 million. The majority of his net worth comes not only from his business dealings, but from his valuable personal collection of cars.
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When AC/DC founder and rhythm guitarist Malcolm Young died on November 18, 2017, the world lost a true rock and roll giant. Since 1973, Malcolm and his brother Angus had been united as the dual creative force behind the band that served up a seemingly endless supply of iconic rock staples.
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Answer: This is where James Holzhauer accumulated his trivia knowledge in advance of his 32-episode Jeopardy! win streak. Question: What is the library? While this is technically the correct response, Alex Trebek would probably ask you to be more specific if this clue ever appeared on Jeopardy!
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It's a bit creeptastic to hear Fred Durst quaveringly croon, "Well, I wish it would be nice if I could touch your body." Shockingly, though, that isn't even the worst part of Limp Bizkit's cover of George Michael's class track, "Faith." The worst part of the track would be, well ... everything.
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With Steven Tyler in front and Joe Perry on guitar, it might be hard for other bandmates to get noticed, but that doesn't mean the other musicians in Aerosmith aren't equally as interesting. With drummer Joey Kramer, it's a story of turmoil and struggle, and the truth is quite worthy of being told.
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Doyle didn't really like Holmes. The Los Angeles Times said Doyle told his mother that Holmes "takes his mind off better things." Before publishing the Holmes stories, Doyle had difficulty finding a publisher for his works. But now that he was writing a well-read series, he tired of it.
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Terri reminisced about the park's crocodile show and the man who "was talking about them in ways that I never really thought of crocodiles ... The fact that he was so humble and loving towards these animals was so attractive to me and he looked like a rock in those shorts, too."
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In the world of Star Trek, one of the greatest enemies of the United Federation of Planets is calling from inside the house. We're speaking, of course, of the admirals of Starfleet. Here are some of the worst Starfleet Admirals on Star Trek.
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Petty had a hidden passion for what he considered to be the perfect cup of coffee. Zanes said that on one visit to Petty's home, he commented on how good the coffee they were drinking was. Tom immediately perked up, "talking about what a good cup of coffee should be."
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Jane's Addiction has a bit of a rocky history, including the time Navarro almost got kicked out. He could have been booted for a number of worthwhile reasons. Maybe his work on Ink Master was taking up too much of his time. Maybe the rest of the band was jealous that he got to marry Carmen Electra.
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Employees have to keep up the ruse even outside the park. They're not allowed to divulge which characters they've been. If someone asks them which character they've donned the costume for, they're prohibited from saying they "played" the characters, because these are meant to be real.
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James Holzhauer is obviously a trivia genius. As a result, most people probably assume that he got onto Jeopardy! as soon as he started trying. As it turns out, however, Holzhauer spent a long time attempting to get onto the show before he ever got accepted. How long, exactly?
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There are covers that exist that are absurdly strange, which by many accounts, flat-out shouldn't exist. Unfortunately, new wave band Duran Duran's cover of Public Enemy's "911 is a Joke" is an example of the latter, an acoustic blues-rock rendition of a serious critique on race in America.
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It's a tough gig becoming a Hollywood star. You need acting talent, then you've gotta nurture it for years until you finally get your big break and become a star, then keep acting for years more. And just imagine what it must have been like in Old Hollywood. Many stars only got big after they died.
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The rocker's lowest financial point likely came in 2005, when he had to file for Chapter 7 bankruptcy after amassing a hefty $1.5 million in debts, including $714,000 in secured claims and $784,000 in unsecured claims, as reported by the Las Vegas Review-Journal.
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Sure, Megadeth has sold millions of albums and have gone platinum and won several awards, but one of those awards was a Humane Society Genesis Award, reports Rockapedia, which is given to members of the entertainment industry for raising awareness of issues relating to animals.
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In 2012, a reporter kicked off the interview by asking Robinson about the nickname, noting that she'd read it had come from an uncle who had given it to Robinson "so that you would constantly remember that you were a Black man because you are fair skinned."
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The song that launched Van Halen into the public eye was such a simple, power-chorded track as "You Really Got Me," released in 1978. The song's danceable, grooveable, and yet, between its very catchy loops, Eddie stuffed all the empty spaces with his trademark fills and solos.
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The band could go on separate buses not just because of family members and schedule differences, but also because the members simply could afford it. "People don't understand that. We try to travel comfortably," said Neil.
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We still celebrate the animal that started its place in the world with the unremarkable name of Tardar Sauce, according to The Telegraph, inspired, in part, by Grumpy Cat's orange-ish coloring, similar to the actual condiment.
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The cosplayer inside the foam was none other than David Joyner, a man with a list of credentials that either makes him the worst's most interesting man, or the world's best cautionary tale about overly diversified resumes.
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While he must enjoy hosting Jeopardy!, Alex Trebek seems to really like being a TV personality, and spreading fun and good cheer. He's also not afraid to poke a little fun at his image, career, or his sometimes sternly-approached Jeopardy! duties.
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No matter what you think of Cage's hyperbolic thespian talents, we can all agree on the real-life action he took in 2016 when he put a violent Vince in his place after an altercation with a fan who had asked Cage for an autograph.
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When the Black Sabbath covered Crow's "Evil Woman Don't Play Your Games With Me," their circumstances changed in ways that not only changed the band forever, but changed the heavy metal world -- arguably the music world as a whole -- in ways that could never be undone.
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the success of Damn The Torpedoes made MCA want Hard Promises to be part of their new marketing program, in which records expected to sell particularly well would be priced a dollar more. "Superstar pricing" meant that Hard Promises would sell for $9.98 instead of the then-standard $8.98.
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The story of Mac Miller is one we've heard too many times in too many different ways. A young talent finds fast fame and fortune, only to die young. It's a sad tale in some ways, and a story of accomplishment in others. In Mac Miller's 26 years on this Earth, he got a great a deal done.
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The band has been up and down and traveled some rocky roads, but all that time, bassist Cliff Williams stuck it out. Until that time he didn't in 2016, anyway. Why, after everything the band had gone through, did Williams decide to step away from the gig? He had his reasons, and it wasn't easy.
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Boybands come and go, but while they're around, there's always intense debate about them. What's their best song? Who's the best singer? Who's the hottest member? At the risk of inciting a throng of angry millennial fangirls, people even fight about the least popular members.
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After he graduated, he taught high school for three years. "First day, I'd tell the class all I knew," he told The Saturday Evening Post, "and there was nothin' left to say for the rest o' the semester." He was born to perform, though, and he created a road show with his wife, Barbara Edwards.
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Speaking to StarWars.com, Hyneman said he researched possible new careers and made a list of his interests. And he didn't just make a pros and cons list; he actually went to a library and studied up on what these different jobs entailed. He landed on special effects, particularly animatronics.
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Irwin got his start early. At six, he received a 12-foot scrub python as a pet. He named it Fred. Strange gift? Not really, since both his parents, Lyn and Bob Irwin, were naturalists, and the Crocodile Hunter spent lots of time with them looking at wildlife as he grew up.
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Upon leaving the military Hendrix performed as a session musician under the name Jimmy James, but it was while fronting his own group, Jimmy James and the Blue Flames in 1966 in New York, that Hendrix had a fortunate meeting that would forever change the course of his musical career.
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For many, the image of John Lydon –- or as he is often better known, Johnny Rotten –- will forever be tied to his opening lines on The Sex Pistols' "Anarchy In The UK."
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As with any historically based drama, the new Netflix film from screenwriter and director Aaron Sorkin, The Trial of the Chicago 7, has audiences asking how accurate it is, and how much was cooked up for entertainment purposes.
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Bruce Lee was one of the most famous human beings of the 20th century. As a result, the story of his parents is often overshadowed by the successes and scandals of Lee's life, but they were each fascinating people in their own right.
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Bruce Lee was born in San Francisco, and he grew up in Hong Kong … so why is he buried in Seattle?
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By the time that blues rock band Cream marked its third year as a band, the three-piece had basically already broken up -- in November of 1968.
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Ozzy Osbourne has lived a life so unbelievable that many bonkers stories about him are indeed real. But a lot of common knowledge about the man is just plain wrong. Here are the false facts about Ozzy Osbourne that you always thought were true.
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After more than 45 years of earning his money by duck walking, dropping to the floor for sick guitar solos, miming devil horns on his own head, and running around stadium stages in a schoolboy uniform, it's a fair question: Just how much is AC/DC's Angus Young really worth?
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One of the most famous filmmakers of all time, Walt Disney’s story is larger than life … and that’s thanks to some major myth-building, both good and bad. Much of what we believe about Disney is just plain false, so let’s set the record straight.
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Wolfe travels the country, looking for old things to sell or reuse. Sometimes, he sells something that he wishes he hadn't. Strangely, it isn't a rusty old sign or a bike he may have paid more money for than it's worth.
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It's a bit difficult to reduce all of this information into "most popular" or "least popular" when considering social media engagement, general public perception, endorsements and engineered publicity, language ability, dancing and singing acumen, and so on. Debates among fandom are never ending,
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During the recording of 1995's Balance, Sammy and Eddie's "once harmonious songwriting relationship hit a sour patch," per Ultimate Classic Rock. "That was the record where if I said black, Eddie said white, and I'd say, 'Okay, white,' he'd say, 'No, I want black,'" remembered Hagar.
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AC/DC's lead guitarist Angus Young is well known for his wild stage presence, including his duck walk and schoolboy uniforms. Angus Young has been wearing his schoolboy uniform on stage for the last four decades, but the reason he does is because his older brother Malcolm insisted on it.
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In 2000, Mötley Crüe lost both longtime drummer Tommy Lee and his replacement, Randy Castillo, within a matter of months. According to NRK, drummer Samantha Maloney, then best known as Hole's touring drummer, got an e-mail from Nikki Sixx asking if she'd like to fill in. She jumped on a plane.
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Rudd's "procuring murder" charges, as they are called in New Zealand, were dropped within days of his arrest, but he remained charged with "possession of methamphetamine, possession of cannabis, and threatening to kill." AC/DC released a short statement.
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British New Wave group Depeche Mode have been up for a Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction in 2017 and 2018, so why are they finally being inducted in 2020? The real reason Depeche Mode is being inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame might have to do with their heavy use of synths.
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From early Doobie Brothers hits like "China Grove" and "Listen to the Music" to the compositions of Michael McDonald, such as "Takin' It to the Streets" and "What a Fool Believes," their songs aren't simple "three-chord rock 'n' roll." He said the musicianship is "more subtle and more complicated."
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His biggest regret? "Not having been educated enough to protect himself from unscrupulous record executives." Calling himself "ignorant, illiterate really," he recalled, "I was so glad to be famous, but if I had my life to live over again, one of my greatest desires would be to be more educated."
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One of the greatest singers of our time finally joined the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. NPR announced the Hall of Fame had inducted Whitney Houston, and while for many, there is no doubt she belongs there, others question why a pop and R&B star is on the roster. It's simply because she deserves it.
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Led Zeppelin, the influential rock band of the 1970s, consisted of members John Paul Jones, John Bonham, Jimmy Page, and Robert Plant? But among the four members of Led Zeppelin, who was considered the least popular member? Reader polls suggest that the bassist is often overlooked.
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Fans of T. Rex have been wondering why the glam rock pioneers haven't been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. As Ultimate Classic Rock pointed out in October 2019, lead singer Marc Bolan is a member in spirit, simply due to the powerful influence he had on stars who made it in long ago.
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Drummer Peter "The Catman" Criss left KISS for the first time in 1980, revealing what Ultimate Classic Rock called the "first fissures in the original lineup." When asked why he'd left the band, Criss replied, "I wanted to do my own thing, my own music and 10 years in KISS was enough for me."
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Fehn played with the band until 2019. He was the band's hard-pounding and wild percussionist. You probably wouldn't recognize his face, but his mask could be picked out from any lineup, with its elongated nose that made him look like a demonically possessed, Lovecraftian version of Pinocchio.
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Nine Inch Nails, including Trent Reznor and six of his bandmates, are being inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame on November 7, 2020. The real reason Nine Inch Nails are being inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame is because of their unparalleled contribution to industrial rock.
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Every so often, viewers see Savage scared, mostly because of the higher possibility of dying during certain experiments. Mythbusters fans learned what Savage's biggest fear was in one of the show's episodes. It had nothing to do with explosions. Savage, it turns out, has an irrational fear of bees.
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they've had some serious success. According to Ace Showbiz, they've won a handful of different awards, ranging from Billboard Awards to MTV Music Awards and more, and have been nominated for more than you probably have the patience to read through. But music isn't the only thing.
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Led Zeppelin is known as one of the most influential English rock bands of the last 50 years, but they mysteriously never had a top 10 hit in the UK because they hated releasing singles. Led Zeppelin was so opposed to releasing singles because of a dispute in 1969 with their record company.
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He learned about a job at a radio station in Springfield, Missouri, and that the manager of the station liked planes. "I put on my naval officer's uniform and my wings of gold and went in and talked about airplanes for about 30 or 45 minutes and I had my first job in radio," Barker said.
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Is it strange to think that a guy got good enough at magic tricks to afford his own resort with a land mass roughly seven times the size of Vatican City? Sure, but it might be more shocking to realize that Copperfield is one of the most financially lucrative solo acts in history.
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On July 23, 1982, an all-too-real tragedy occurred while filming the movie adaptation of the classic television show The Twilight Zone. Per History, on the last day of shooting, veteran actor Vic Morrow and two child actors, Renee Shinn Chen and Myca Dinh Le, were killed while filming a segment.
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The Rolling Stones are practically synonymous with rock 'n' roll, and plenty of crazy rumors about the band have come up over the years. Here are some of the false things you believe about the Rolling Stones.
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If he knew that the type of life he lived would lead to such a violent and early end, Biggie Smalls was well aware that the music he made would endure even after he was gone, and he named his follow-up album accordingly: Life After Death was released on March 25, 1997, just 16 days after his murder.
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There is sad news, however, for fans of George Harrison, who comes in last in the Beatles' popularity contest run by CBS, with a mere 8 percent of the vote. (Ringo, who wrote and sang the least material but was a memorable character in the Beatles films and interviews, got 11 percent of the vote.)
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When you think of Black Sabbath, you probably picture Ozzy Osbourne biting the head off of a bat that was thrown on stage, or the feud between him and Ronnie James Dio. But there's one member whose name is only raised to glory by serious music aficionados, and he was on bass guitar: Geezer Butler.
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Lee was married to Linda Lee Cadwell at the time of his death, but that didn't stop him from finding love in forbidden places.
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How many of you know who Krist Novoselic is? We're guessing it isn't many.
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In 1994, Dave Grohl really didn't feel like playing the drums anymore. His friend and former band mate Kurt Cobain had recently taken his own life. But then one of Grohl's heroes asked him to play a Saturday Night Live gig with him, and it turned his whole perspective on music around.
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"What became of the likely lads? What became of the dreams we had?" So sang a young Pete Doherty with his erstwhile songwriting partner Carl Barât on The Libertines' self-titled 2004 album, which debuted at no. 1 on the UK charts.
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First of all: you're probably saying his name wrong. According to his official bio, TV's favorite dog trainer was born in Culiacán, Mexico. His full name is César Felipe Millán Favela. So, it's not Cesar like the salad.
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Eddie Van Halen's guitar riff is the centerpiece of Michael Jackson's 1982 number-one hit "Beat It." But Eddie Van Halen first thought the call to collaborate was a prank call from Quincy Jones. Not only did Eddie Van Halen contribute guitar to "Beat It," but he arranged it as well.
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Jackie Gleason was one of the biggest stars of the 20th century, but underneath his jocular, smiling public demeanor, he dealt with considerable inner turmoil.
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Maybe, flying in the face of the laws that hold the universe together, the one true example of a Marshmallow-Person-Who-Takes-Himself-Too-Seriously broke through to this realm of imperfect substance. Maybe that's how we got Steven Seagal.
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Eddie Van Halen, who died on October 6, 2020, still wanted to tour with his legendary rock band Van Halen but was sidelined by a cancer diagnosis. Eddie Van Halen's last performance was on a 2015 tour in Los Angeles, where he played "Jump."
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In the late 1980s, the fledgling feud between the Red Hot Chili Peppers and Faith No More started as nothing more than a friendly rivalry. The two bands were pioneers of the funk-metal genre, with Faith No More even occasionally opening for the Red Hot Chili Peppers.
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While being a frontman for one of the world's most popular bands of all time might be stressful enough, it's hard to imagine Queen's Freddie Mercury performing with his signature show-stopping stage presence along with strumming a guitar onstage, all at once. Mercury rarely played guitar onstage.
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There is no stereotypical band origin story here in which friends came together for the love of the music; according to Van Halen News Desk, Roth was only invited to join the band because, unlike Eddie and drummer Alex Van Halen, he came from money and had his own sound system.
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Let's take a look at where some of the heroes (and people who think they're heroes) wind up, what that means for each group, and what it means for the world of The Boys.
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he music from the Edward Van Halen tape sure sounds like the work of Eddie Van Halen, but was it actually him? In 2012, TMZ finally got the answer to this question once and for all when a reporter/Van Halen fan accosted Eddie Van Halen on an escalator to ask him about the alleged cameo.
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There was one trade that, although it definitely fits the criterion of being positively filthy, Rowe didn't feel he could cover in his usual comedic fashion: crime scene cleanup. "It's a great dirty job, but it's hard to be lighthearted about a body left in a trunk for three days in a swamp,"
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Michael Landon was a star, popular for his roles on Little House on the Prairie and Highway to Heaven. However, his life had some ups and downs.
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His final Instagram birthday post to Wolfgang featured a photo of the newborn. "The Best Day Of My Life. Happy Birthday Wolf! I Love You So Much!! Your Pop," the legendary shredder posted. As it would turn out, Eddie Van Halen's last Instagram post would be a similar message of love for his family.
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Brian May of Queen is a man of many talents. Not only is he a brilliant lyricist and an imaginative guitar player, he's also an astrophysicist. He's also managed to build a guitar all from scratch, thanks to random stuff around the house, his dad, and ingenuity. It's the Red Special.
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Eddie Van Halen, an icon of rock music whose iconic guitar riffs inspired many to pick up a guitar and try for themselves, died in 2020 at the age of 65 following a brave, decade-long battle with throat cancer. Here's how these famous rock stars reacted to Eddie Van Halen's death.
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It's been a heavy year, for many reasons, but the death of music legend Eddie Van Halen, announced on October 6, 2020, is yet another sad marker of time's passage.
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Eddie Van Halen's brother Alex is also a founding member of the rock group Van Halen. Originally trained as a classical pianist, Alex Van Halen took up drums and went on to great acclaim. Details you might not know about Alex Van Halen include a contentious lawsuit with his ex-wife.
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Legendary guitarist Eddie Van Halen died on October 6, 2020, of throat cancer. The rock and roll star broke new ground in the genre, and one way he did it was with the cobbled-together guitar that he called "Frankenstein." Here's the trust about Eddie Van Halen's Frankenstein guitar.
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The loss of musician Eddie Van Halen, the man once voted the Greatest Guitarist of All Time, is sad news for rock and guitar fans everywhere, and, heartbreakingly, Van Halen's wife of 11 years, stuntwoman Janie Liszewski Van Halen. Here are details you didn't know about Eddie Van Halen's wife.
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The rock 'n' roll world took a hit today, as it said goodbye to one of the most influential guitarists of the 20th century. TMZ reported that Eddie Van Halen, of his riotously successful namesake band, lost his years-long battle with throat cancer. This is the sad death of Eddie Van Halen.
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Singer Mitch Malloy had the opportunity to join the band in 1996 following Hagar's first departure. Again according to Ultimate Classic Rock, guitarist Eddie Van Halen was "extremely complimentary about the work the singer did while auditioning for the group."
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Even before the band hit, it went through lineup changes caused by issues between members. Frischmann, who was in a relationship with Anderson, was kicked out of Suede after the two broke up, though NME revealed that Anderson credits Frischmann's departure as the reason for Suede's later success.
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While Wager and Tolkien share similarities, it could be because the same mythologies inspired them. Tolkien always downplayed any connection to Wagner, even to the point that any comparison annoyed him. "Both rings were round, and there the resemblance ceased," Tolkien supposedly said.
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Irish immigrants faced discrimination in the US during the Great Famine of 1845, according to History. And while Shamrock's stereotypical characteristics don't tread on the "dirty Irish" ones historically used, pigeonholing her as only that is unfair to Shamrock.
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Despite their seemingly seamless chemistry when rocking out, however, apparently Tyler and Perry can't stand each other off-stage. And the difficulties in their relationship actually date back decades. The two were so notoriously unable to get along that they were nicknamed the "Toxic Twins"
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Barker had every right to pull his support of the pageant and use his celebrity and right to free speech to make a statement about his cause, but one organization -- which claimed to have the same animal welfare goal in mind -- didn't react well to his criticism: The American Humane Association.
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David Lee Roth has left Van Halen (or Van Halen has left him) many times in an ever-evolving clash of rock-and-roll egos over the years. One of the more intriguing tales involves Roth's brief (and ultimately unsuccessful) attempt at an acting career.
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Viral rap sensation Lil Nas X rocketed to fame in 2019 with his country-rap hit "Old Town Road," and its remix featuring Billy Ray Cyrus. While many think Lil Nas X's stage name is a nod to other famous rappers, how Lil Nas X got his name has roots in his internet usernames and his career goals.
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The moniker "Saint of Bohemian Grove" might conjure imagery of a Grand Poobah-type of coronation where one of the grove's frat-bro elitists is hefted aloft in a chair like C3PO at the end of Return of the Jedi -- except wearing moose antlers. The "Saint" of Bohemian Grove is a real Catholic saint.
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one of the drama's characters was an invention -- Jerry, played by former child star Haley Joel Osment (pictured above). In the movie, Jerry is Elizabeth's supportive co-worker with whom she forms a friendship and, eventually, a romantic relationship that culminates in marriage.
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The fictional Game of Thrones universe is based on the late medieval period of Western Europe. The time was exciting and romantic in some ways—if you were rich and powerful. For the vast majority of humanity, it was a miserable time to be alive. Here's what living in Westeros would actually be like.
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Courtney Love was actually dating Smashing Pumpkins frontman Billy Corgan when she first started having feelings for Nirvana's Kurt Cobain. This is the truth about Billy Corgan and Courtney Love's relationship.
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The truth, according to The Tolkien Society, is a little less dramatic. Tolkien studied the Classics, Old English, the Germanic languages, Welsh, and Finnish for the first part of his college career, earning a second-class degree in 1913 at the halfway point of a four-year Oxford Classics course.
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Having lionized Tell for centuries, the Swiss had a hard time swallowing the bitter pill of their misguided history. According to Curious Historian, de Haller's book William Tell: A Danish Fable "caused such an outcry that people publicly burned the book." De Haller had to publicly apologize.
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As Stapp himself recounts in his 2016 interview with Oprah (posted on YouTube), he was addicted to alcohol and drugs such as Adderall and started believing that the CIA was conducting "mind-control" on him.
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Chasen left the party and picked up her car from the valet. At about 12:28 a.m., "four shots were fired through the vehicle's front passenger window as it likely slowed or stopped in the left-hand turn lane heading west on Sunset to make the turn south on to Whittier Drive."
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In the mid-1800s, the United States set its sights on Alaska, now a state rich in oil, fish, minerals, natural wonders, and snow. But not everyone thought it was such a great idea The US went ahead and made the purchase anyway. So what is the real reason Russia sold Alaska to the United States?
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Once humans started eating more grain, "bacteria in the human mouth flourished, pouring out acids that eat away at the teeth." The Sudanese skeletons belonged to farmers, so why were their teeth in such great shape?
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Britain destroyed and withheld evidence of crimes in Africa with the explicit purpose of being kept out of the hands of post-independence governments.
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Gaius Julius Caesar is known for having been a statesman who changed the course of history. Per Britannica, he was a general who overthrew the long reign of Roman nobility and replaced it with a dictatorship. (He came, he saw, he conquered, or in his words, Veni, vedi, vici.) July is his namesake.
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The ark of the covenant is of great importance for many religions, and even more so for the Israelites who escaped Egypt. They carried the ark with them during the Exodus, and, because of its importance, they constructed a place to shelter it, called a tabernacle, to keep it safe while they rested.
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One man wrote of Boone, "He never liked to take life and always avoided it when he could." An historically accurate depiction of Boone reveals that he would have rather negotiated peace than engage in violence, and this attitude would put him into a bit of trouble with the military in 1778.
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Per Mother Jones, birth control was often difficult to obtain in the first half of the 20th century. It was expensive, hard to access, and required the intervention of doctors who often didn't want to provide contraceptives to their patients. This left people to devise their own methods.
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Ancient Greeks took the cosmetic use of dangerous lead a step further, favoring a white lead face cream that was meant to clear up blemishes and even the tone and texture of skin. Unfortunately, lead causes health problems ranging from infertility to dementia.
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The electors represent the choice of the majority of their state -- whoever wins the popular vote in their state. To put it simply, when you vote on November 3, you're voting for your candidate's electoral representatives, explains the website of the US House of Representatives.
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The truth of life in the Wild West was rarely easy for the people who actually had to live there. Things like medical care or law enforcement could be hard to find. To be a woman there was even more difficult. These women were some of the toughest to make their mark
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In the cowpoke getup, the 100-pound Pearl looked like more like a young boy playing sheriff than a menacing highway robber, but the clothes -- and the .38 revolver she took with her -- were enough to scare the daylights out of the passengers on the stagecoach bound for Florence, Arizona.
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Have you ever noticed an obvious typo in an important document just seconds after you submitted it? The answer to that question is probably "Yes"; it's a terrible moment that unites us all. Humans are imperfect, so unless we get replaced by robots, it's unlikely that we'll ever stop making typos.
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Twain basically invented himself as a public figure, and both he and his irreverence infiltrated social circles, from Nikolai Tesla to abolitionists to suffragettes. Twain did have a private life, however, and it centered around his wife Olivia ("Livy") and their children.
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It's plain that a not insignificant number of those trailblazing frontiersman were really just a bunch of pugnacious lowlifes always on the lookout a chance to steal something, most often after shooting something or someone. One such scoundrel was Warren Earp, the youngest brother of Wyatt Earp.
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The coronavirus (COVID-19) is the latest in a litany of pandemics that have been unleashed upon society, a powerful threat with a global impact. It's no wonder that pandemics throughout history have more often than not coincided with significant civil unrest.
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Spencer Silver discovered that his glue had microspheres that retain stickiness. He couldn't think of a use for his invention; after all, the goal was to find a new adhesive that could stick anywhere. So his microsphere-filled, removable adhesive sat on a shelf for several years.
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Hundreds of years ago, though, our ancestors made up their own mythology about the Northern Lights or Aurora Borealis.
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Christmas will never be immune to buzz-killing shortages. These are the worst Christmas shortages in history.
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According to Smithsonian magazine, some 2,000-4,000 golden lancehead vipers live on the island officially known as Ilha da Queimada Grande (which translates literally to Big Burned Island, though its colloquial name obviously suits it better).
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At what point in history did we as a people decide, yes, pants they are important? That was right around the time we decided walking was for losers and started riding horses. Yep, horses are the reason for all this pants nonsense.
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The history of the pencil is inextricably linked with the entire history of human communication as it flowed from oral traditions to written communication, and the development of written languages, where tiny scrawled symbols denoted sounds made by the human mouth, tongue, and throat.
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Not only did Columbus not discover America -- there were already Native Americans who had been living there for thousands of years -- he literally never set foot in what became the continental United States.
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Traditionally, it's been attributed to Clement Clarke Moore, a theologian and professor of Middle East and Greek literature. For some years now, academics and descendants of the poet Henry Livingston, Jr., have claimed he should have bragging rights for creating it.
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If you're a writer, it's something you expect to have on you at all times. The ballpoint pen, your trusted companion throughout school and the days when checks were still being used, has only been around since the 1930s. And we have one man to thank: Lászó Biró.
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Remember the Alamo? The battle famously left very few survivors after Mexican troops advanced into the garrison. Among those few survivors were Susanna Dickinson and her daughter, Angelina. Dickinson and other survivors corroborated much of what we know about the siege and final assault.
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Also known as the "Pennsylvanian Fireplace," Franklin wrote in his autobiography that he invented the stove in 1742, but according to Founders Online, it was more likely during the winter of 1739-1740. The stove was a metal-lined fireplace that stood away from a building's chimney.
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It's a small, ubiquitous little tool, so common and unassuming that it's easy to take it for granted. But for all its many uses, the paperclip is actually a relatively recent invention. The humble item now litters almost every office desk drawer in America.
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Indian cobras are "large highly venomous snakes," one of the "'big four' species that inflict the most snakebites on humans in India." Native to southeast Asia, they are "can be found throughout India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, and southern Nepal," often near water. But Missouri? Not so much.
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In 1941, about two weeks prior to the attack on Pearl Harbor, an advertisement in The New Yorker seemed to predict the attack.
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We know what you're thinking. Ireland is just about as far from Australia as you can get, both in terms of distance and climate — how could wallabies possibly be living there? Well, as you can guess, they didn't get there naturally.
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Everywhere you drive, people or things are constantly reminding you to buckle up. That's what makes it all the weirder that when kids get on a school bus, there are no seatbelts to be found. How is that legal? Well, here are the details you need to know about why buses don’t have seatbelts.
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Westerners have known about the Aztec Sun Stone since 1519, do we really understand what it was used for? Was it a calendar? A political statement? What about a warning of the end of the world? Read on to see the mysterious Aztec Sun Stone explained.
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In 1666, when the Great Fire of London swept through the city streets, it destroyed a massive part of the medieval structures. To finally explain the Great Fire of London, learn exactly how it was started, what was destroyed, and why a French watchmaker was blamed for starting the fire.
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Humor is a distinctly human trait. While different cultures and generational groups might disagree on what we find most funny, the tendency to laugh at jokes unites all of humanity. And humor is by no means a modern invention; humans have probably been telling jokes since we first started talking.
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Society is indeed full of heroic figures like these. But when it comes to the total number of lives saved, there is one man who has all these others beat. That man is the American agricultural expert Norman Borlaug, who may have prevented over a billion deaths.
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His mom has Canadian citizenship, which he therefore shares, so it was simply a good choice for him when thinking of the future. Canada was a gateway to Silicon Valley, full of "all the cool stuff." Musk did exactly that: He leveraged his education in Canada to move to the US and build a startup.
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Francis Scott Key was so inspired by his experience during the Battle of Baltimore in the War of 1812 that he wrote "The Star-Spangled Banner." Yet, the path taken by Key's words and the flag that inspired them has been long and unexpected. This is the history of The Star-Spangled Banner explained.
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Stories about the end of public payphones, when they are published, tend to sound like coverage of their phasing out in New York, which talk about their obsolescence. While payphones certainly are an outdated technology, however, they also have a sordid history.
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Fake news as a term soared during the 2016 U.S. presidential election. The phrase was used so often that the Collins Dictionary dubbed it the word of the year in 2017. While "fake news" means different things to various people, its basic definition is news that is fabricated.
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Of all the ways humanity could abruptly end, disease is the scariest. It's invisible, can spread quickly, and the only surefire defense is complete isolation. In 2020, fears are riding high about the novel coronavirus that causes COVID-19, but does it compare to the most deadly outbreaks in history?
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Spiritualism was at an all-time high in the 19th century. So much so that seances became a fad and a fixture of social life to boot. It's in this environment that the Ouija board, or planchette, came about.
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Our modern impression of the 1980s wouldn't be very familiar to the people who actually lived through the decade. Here are some things people get wrong about the 1980s.
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Excalibur, King Arthur's fabled sword, has two different origin stories: 1) It was given to him by the Lady of Lake, and chucked back into the lake by Arthur's knight Bedivere after Arthur was mortally wounded, or 2) It was pulled out of a stone by boy Arthur, signaling his divine right to be king.
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Vice President Mike Pence and Joe Biden's running mate Kamala Harris head to the debate stage tonight in a contest that The Guardian said has been made more important due to presidential candidates' ages -- President Trump is 74 and Joe Biden is 77 -- as well as Trump's Covid-19 diagnosis.
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The 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake, while not the "Big One," was a complete catastrophe, nonetheless. In a mere 15 seconds, per Britannica, the 6.9 magnitude quake caused $6 billion in property damage, injured 3,800 people, killed 67, and reshaped the face of San Francisco forever.
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When the Pilgrims first set sail on the Mayflower in August 1620 to the New World, they expected a month-long trip. However, what it was really like sailing on the Mayflower was far different. Pilgrims on the Mayflower ran out of fresh food, water, and had to occupy themselves with games.
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An LA Times article called out Disney for not paying its fair share to the city. Anaheim owns the parking garage that Disneyland uses for its visitors, and the city only charges the mega-corporation $1 per year to lease it. Meanwhile, Disneyland pulls in multi-million-dollar revenue every year.
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Politico describes an October surprise as either "happenstance or deliberately orchestrated ... bombshells that scramble political calculus just as the stakes are at their highest." And it appears as though October 2020, like the rest of this bewildering year, won't be lacking in such events.
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In a time when we are beginning to challenge the figures of the past whom we have chosen to lionize either by erecting statues or giving their names to streets, it seems that Walter Reed, whose name adorns the Presidential hospital at Bethesda, is an utterly apt and timely choice.
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The trend of "upscaling" historic film –- which includes the process of colorization, improving the resolution to 4k, and standardizing the frame rate at 60 frames-per-second -– has become a huge hit on YouTube. Why do historians dislike it?
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As head of the FIDE, the International Chess Foundation, Arkady Dvorkovich stated in a New York Times article, "No matter what the game is, when there are benefits from winning, you have cheating."
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Kareem Abdul-Jabbar's career was waning as Jordan's was just beginning to take flight, and their teams played very rarely. The legendary Laker has his own unique reasons for not wanting to be like Mike, and they have nothing to do with b-ball.
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Kamala Harris already knew the Biden family well before the 2020 presidential race. During her time as California Attorney General from 2011-2017, she worked closely with the Bidens' son Beau, who served as the Attorney General of Delaware from 2007 until his tragic death from brain cancer in 2015.
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When the remaining sections of the earth were uncovered, Riggs was right. The dig revealed a perfect circle, right in the middle of downtown Miami. The circle is made up of a ring of 24 smaller basins, cut into the limestone bedrock, that combine to form a full circle that is 38 feet in diameter.
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During the debacle that was the first 2020 U.S. presidential debate, President Trump refused to condemn white supremacy in America, instead appearing to endorse far-right group the Proud Boys. But, who are the Proud Boys? This is the truth about the Proud Boys.
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There is one thing that keeps tech billionaire Elon Musk up at night, and it's not spiders or ghosts or dying in a fiery hyperloop accident. This is the one thing Elon Musk is most terrified of.
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Common characteristics include a coffin-shaped handle, a heavy cross guard -- the piece of metal found at a right angle to the blade above the handle -- and a "sweeping clip blade" with a "partially sharp top edge." The blade itself might measure anywhere from 9-12 inches in length.
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Lincoln is not just a good politician; he was also something of an inventor, dabbling in mechanical creativity. And he even managed a patent for one of his inventions, said Time Magazine, the first (and so far, only) president to hold a patent.
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IQ tests have been around, in one form or another, for over a century. Sadly, the many occasions in which IQ tests have been used as a justification for racism, eugenics, xenophobia, and executions is ... deeply troubling, to say the least. This is the messed up truth behind IQ tests.
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World War I claimed millions lives, but that fact alone only scratches the surface of the weird, messed up things that happened during World War I.
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Tuberculosis, caused by the bacterium Mycobacterium tuberculosis, is one of the deadliest infections a human can get. Here's the messed up history.
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Most popular bands have made a bad record. For Van Halen, the consensus seems to be that 1998's Van Halen III tops the worst album list. Not too surprising, really. Any sequels with a three in the name really never measure up, do they?
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When Jay-Z released 2013's Magna Carta ... Holy Grail, critics were particularly savage, as The Atlantic recounts. Pretentious, portentous "dad rap" written by a "bored first-class denizen on his fourth Bloody Mary ordering opulent, au courant, marvelously vapid beats out of a SkyMall catalog."
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Picking a band name isn't easy. Often, it takes a few tries to get it right, even for groups that have become iconic. And some of the original names of legendary bands are dumb, confusing, and downright terrible.
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Weezer has gone through a lot of ups and downs over the years, and there are probably a few twists and turns in their history that you've never heard of. Let's fix that and take a look at the untold truth of Weezer.
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"The first phone call said his son was sick," tour manager Richard Cole told Express. "And the second phone call, unfortunately, Karac had died in that time." Plant's son Karac was just five years old when he died of a stomach virus.
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It is impossible to get an objective read on anyone's life, and the life of Elvis Presley is more difficult to pin down than most.
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By the early '60s the brothers were fighting constantly. Said Phil, "There were too many people making too much money off us, keeping us going. Things were too confused. We should have taken a long rest. But ... we couldn't."
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The highly-publicized feud between Brian Wilson and Mike Love of the Beach Boys first started in 1966, when Love purportedly criticized their upcoming album Pet Sounds. While Brian Wilson and Mike Love are wildly successful musicians, ego, lawsuits, and creative disputes are at the center of a feud.
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They also sued Stapp for $1.2 million dollars in 2018, claiming he refused to tour with them to promote their 2017 album The Madness. Brother bandleaders Johnathan and Vincent Votta said they advanced Stapp $200,000 to sing, but Stapp only showed up for 18 of the 40 gigs they'd booked.
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Tensions ramped up between the two during the making of the 1980 album Women and Children First, particularly when it came to shooting the album cover and inset photos with provocative fashion photographer Helmut Newton.
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The X&Y cover features a Tetris game in the middle of a dark blue background. When the album was first released, MTV said people didn't understand what was going on in the album. Was Coldplay just closet Tetris fans? The band teased that there was something deeper and people started staring.
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Emhoff was born in Brooklyn on October 13, 1964, and moved to California as a teen. He is Jewish, which would make him the first Jewish spouse of a United States vice president. He graduated from the University of Southern California's Gould School of Law and worked as an entertainment litigator.
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Long a mystery, numbers stations are radio stations that play coded messages and anyone with a shortwave radio can listen in. The bizarre mystery behind the numbers stations is that nobody knows who transmits them. Numbers stations broadcast numbers or codes for intelligence officers and spies.
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The circles were first spotted by aircraft in 1920 by a British commander named Lionel Rees, relates The Washington Post. Rees wrote about the three circles he saw for the journal Antiquity but, despite how mysterious the rings were, they inspired little research until a photography project.
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Eddie Van Halen and Dimebag Darrell Abbott were phenomenal guitarists that the world was sad to let go. As it happens, they actually met just before Darrell's death. Dimebag Darrell made such an impression on Eddie Van Halen that Eddie insisted on burying one of his own guitars with Darrell.
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As the domestic goddess (and apparent fruitcake lover) herself, Martha Stewart, explained on her website, it's a sinfully rich dessert filled with dried fruits and nuts. The fruits have to be soaked in a sugar syrup before being dropped into the batter. Fruitcakes are typically very dense cakes.
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Greta and her fellow climate activists claimed that by failing to properly address climate change, the five countries are "recklessly causing and perpetuating life-threatening climate change [and] have failed to take necessary preventive and precautionary measures...."
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according to The Atlantic, if you want to party with Pence, you'd better hope Karen is at his side. The vice president said back in 2002 that "if there's alcohol being served and people are being loose, I want to have the best-looking brunette in the room standing next to me."
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At the age of 77, Joe Biden would be the oldest president in United States history were he to win the 2020 election. That's why many wonder if Joe Biden would run for president in 2024 if he loses to President Donald Trump.
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If President Donald Trump loses the 2020 US election, what happens then? Some think he'll refuse to peacefully hand over the presidency. Others think he'll try to become president again in 2024, which begs the question: Can Donald Trump run for president in 2024 if he loses to Joe Biden?
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In the constitution, the rules for future presidents were outlined, including a natural citizenship requirement and an age requirement. The age requirement to run for president of the United States starts at 35. The president's age was of great debate in the 1700s.
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Some candidates try again and again to be president, but success forever eludes their grasp. So you might be wondering, what's the most times someone has run for president of the United States?
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Lyon Sr., like his presidential father, also had a second wife, and was in his 70s when Lyon Jr. (1925) and Harrison (1928) were born, said CBS. Lyon Jr. died on September 26, 2020 at 95.
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There's a lot to be said about the United States of America's third president, Thomas Jefferson. But presidents aren't superhuman. Jefferson had one fear, in particular, was quite strange given the man's very public career path. This was Thomas Jefferson's strange fear during his presidency.
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Kamala Harris's friendship with Biden's late son, Beau, who died of brain cancer in 2015, and their mutual grief over the loss, helped mend the rocky relationship. The Guardian reports that to Harris, Beau was an "incredible friend and colleague." Both served as state attorneys general.
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Harrison made a key update to the historical White House: Namely, he ordered electric power to be installed. Harrison himself, however, wanted nothing to do with electricity or electric lights. Or at least, he wanted nothing to do with the lights' switches.
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The hot evolutionary question at the moment is, "why do so many creatures evolve into crabs?" It's a query that suggests many more questions: What do you mean, so many creatures? Do different animals evolve into the same thing? Could it happen again? What is so special about crabs?
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Taking part in the liberation of World War II's concentration camps was an unimaginable horror that most Allied troops did not expect. It's estimated that up to 20 million people died in concentration camps. A small percentage survived to be liberated by Allied troops during World War II.
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The 2010s were full of brutal, gruesome movies. But not all of them got the attention they deserved. From psychologically disturbing dramas to gory horror flicks, these are the darkest movies of the past decade that nobody is talking about.
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It seems like a band's bassist usually gets the short end of the fame stick. Queen's bassist, John Deacon, is no exception to that rule. A large part of that probably has to do with Deacon dropping out of the musical spotlight following Freddie Mercury's tragic death in 1991.
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Generally, Vikings could be very terrible.One of those terrible elements of Viking culture is the possible invention of criminal profiling. You know, the kind that predicts if people will be criminals based on how they look. The thing that some authorities still use even though it's unfair.
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There are many aspects of Don King apart from his charming, camera-hungry side that most of us are far less familiar with. Like, for example, the fact that Don King sued sports channel ESPN for defamation in 2005.
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Jane's Addiction paved the way for the "alternative rock" genre we know today, beginning in 1985 with humble roots that the likes of The Pixies, Nirvana and the Smashing Pumpkins would later embrace. Despite a string of successful singles, the band had tensions running high between members.
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As The List noticed during the vice presidential debate between Kamala Harris and Mike Pence October 7, the latter spent several minutes not noticing the housefly that set up shop atop his white hair, while the rest of the global audience looked on and wondered how in the world he didn't notice.
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"I think the wheelchair and the computer voice would fit the part," Hawking said. The physicist and author of A Brief History of Time completely and unabashedly owned his technological "accessories" during his life, recognizing how critical they were in getting people to listen to his lectures.
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Don King was a man of singular initiative. In 2012, then 81-year-old King spoke with CNN about his plans for uniting North and South Korea via "a boxing and music event in North Korea," saying, "This came about by me thinking about Korea and feeling that Korea, that it should be one Korea."
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Ford's newspaper, the Dearborn Independent, ran a series on its front page, titled "The International Jew: The World's Problem." Inspired by the anti-Semitic hoax Protocols of the Elders of Zion, the column examined bogus conspiracy theories surrounding Jewish peoples' quest for world domination.
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There's nothing like a tall glass of rock-and-roll drama in the morning, which happens to be around 3 p.m. rock-and-roll time. In this "Why are those people fighting?" piece, we're here to talk about the feud between Mötley Crüe and co-founder of the band Metallica, Lars Ulrich.
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While we rightly celebrate Einstein as the foremost practitioner of modern physics, we must also acknowledge that he's a human being who's done some terrible things. Although a genius, he was not a good husband who may have contributed to a system that denied his wife respect as a scientist.
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Sir Isaac Newton, one of the greatest scientists of all time, once claimed: "I can calculate the motion of heavenly bodies, but not the madness of people."
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Bilirubin is sent from the liver to the bile ducts and lastly the intestines before being excreted with the body's food waste. If this process is disrupted for one of a number of reasons, the bilirubin accumulates within the body, causing the skin and the whites of the eyes to turn yellow.
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The Animal Kingdom's ability to evolve continually amazes. Case in point: the white-throated rail (also known as the Dryolimnas cuvieri). This chicken-sized bird species became flightless twice, according to Live Science. Yes, you heard that correctly ... twice. The bird came back from the dead.
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On October 26, 2020, two articles were published in the scientific journal Nature, which may change the whole future of space travel and the coming decades for humanity as we know it. Namely, that the Moon appears to harbor far more water than scientists have previously thought.
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We love bees. We love them so much that Jerry Seinfeld made a movie about them. The industrious little bugs generate the world's supply of honey and inspire folksy art the world over, but they're also a vital part of both our ecosystem and our economy. Without them we'd be in a sea of troubles.
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Our first warning is to simply never set foot on Snake Island, and you should be able to live out the rest of your life heeding that sage advice. But if, for some reason, you can't, our second recommendation is to watch your step. And third: snakes aren't the only thing you'll need to watch out for.
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Everyone has heard stories of cats that engage in a dawn-to-dusk, search-and-destroy cry for help that involves shredding furniture, draperies, or anything on a counter top. What's the calmest breed of cat?
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Nukes can destroy the world, but they're not always treated with the utmost respect
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Case in point: have you ever had a sneeze attack as soon as you walk out into the sun? Or do bright lights help you sneeze when you get a tickle in your nose? Luckily, you're not as weird as your friends think you are as you stumble around in search of a bright light to help you say "achoo!"
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It turns out that some sinkholes are more extraterrestrial than we thought. Scientists now believe the mysterious lakes discovered on Saturn's moon Titan could be sinkholes, revealed NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
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Pretty sure you've heard that we humans only use 10 percent of our brains. You probably heard it from teachers or from movies. But, like many things school lied to you about, this is one fact that definitely doesn't stand up to actual science.
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Dr. Phylis Canion, a rancher/nutrionist in Cuero County, caught sight of a bluish, hairless, dog-ish creature on her property in 2007 that supposedly sucked all the blood from her goats, chickens, and other livestock. Canion's story spread because of an episode of The Unexplained Files.
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The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) started a campaign to ensure the safety of planes' drinking water after a sample of 300 planes showed 15 percent of them tested positive for coliform, which in turn indicates that other, potentially harmful, bacteria might also be present in the water.
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With a normal wave, water only moves on the surface, which is why if you want to get out of a wave, you dive below it. But tsunamis reach deep down, so they're almost impossible to escape. This also means a tsunami can be faster or slower, depending on water depth.
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Elon Musk described his childhood as "miserable," claiming that his dad was capable of carrying out "evil" deeds.
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Serial killings had to have started somewhere — they weren't birthed by some mystical demon. This is a very human problem that started somewhere in our history, and the earliest known serial killer may have been the child butcher Gilles de Rais. Was this man history's first recorded serial killer?
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One of the strangest incidents to occur during the band's long career occurred in the early 1980s, when an unexpected connection between the band and a notorious L. A. County serial killer put the band on the front pages for all the wrong reasons, and led to them being tarred as devil worshipers.
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In 1909, Twain told his biographer, Albert Bigelow Paine, "I came in with Halley's Comet ... It is coming again ... and I expect to go out with it ... The Almighty has said, no doubt: 'Now here are these two unaccountable freaks; they came in together, they must go out together.'"
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It was his natural skill and sheer love of baseball that propelled him forward. He was named the MVP for 1998. He surpassed the former MLB champion Roger Maris's home run record. With Sosa's record, he ought to be in the Baseball Hall of Fame by now. That hasn't happened -- and perhaps never will.
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Connery was 18 when he first started the sport. After a couple of years he saved up enough to train with a professional named Ellington, a former gym instructor with the British Army. After two years of professional guidance, Connery stepped into the world of bodybuilding competitions.
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American football has been around since the 19th century. Even though soccer fans make fun of American football, the two are closely tied. Football evolved from a hybrid of rugby and soccer that colleges in the 19th century were playing. This hybrid style of the sport was called the "Boston Game."
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Jordan's mouth was legendary among the ballers who played both against and with him during his 15 seasons in the NBA. And it appears as though his trash talk game was as vicious as his physical one. According to Viral Hoops, Jordan ruined several players' careers with words alone.
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Ventura gained a name for himself as a controversial voice, a straight-shooter who called it like he saw it and didn't care about political correctness. There is probably no other wrestler who made better use of his post-career fame than The Body. But why exactly did Jesse Ventura call it quits?
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In a 2014 interview with the New York Post, Ali, Jr. shared that he couldn't recall ever sharing a meal with his entire family and remembered being bullied in school by other kids who wanted to fight and "to see if I was like my father."
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On the baseball field, Joe Dimaggio was a legend, but off the field, he suffered tragedies and made mistakes like anyone else. This is the tragic real-life story of Joe DiMaggio.
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Triple H's connections to the WWE run even deeper than the professional. He's married to Vince McMahon's daughter Stephanie, and the two have three young daughters together. Balancing work and family is always tough, but Triple H has appeared to accomplish the feat.
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Spalding claimed Doubleday was the man, using flimsy evidence provided by a single source: mining engineer Abner Graves, who said he remembered Doubleday making a diagram of a baseball field in 1839 before starting a game in Cooperstown. Keep in mind that Graves ended up in an insane asylum.
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Just when the future looked impressively bright for the successful wrestler, however, his hopes and dreams would come crashing down in 2001 when he was suddenly dropped from his contract.
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With such a monumental record, it's no wonder that fans of Andre the Giant's colossal legacy are still scratching their heads as to what happened when he fought Japanese wrestler Akira Maeda in 1986. In the video of the match, Andre is seen taking down Maeda by simply falling on top of him.
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In a career filled with legendary performances, Michael Jordan's "flu game" is one of his most well-known and well-loved. During Game 5 of the 1997 NBA finals, Jordan was sick to his stomach and reported feeling "really tired and very weak," and asked coach Phil Jackson to use him "in spurts."
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one former Broncos staffer called the holier-than-thou persona "the most self-centered humble guy I've ever met." This attitude quickly turned his teammates and coaching staff against him. Tebow was so full of himself that he began to charge $50,000 to speak at churches.
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Rudy isn't the only man in history to use his name -- which inspired a classic football film -- to sell merchandise, though it does fall rather nicely into the category of American hero, transformed into a brand, like Walt Disney
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Bruce Lee was more than a martial arts figure. He had hidden depths, such as his love for poetry and philosophy. And when you think about it, poetry and philosophy shaped much of his fighting style.
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Quite a bit has changed in the NFL over the decades. For example, as journalist Bryan Armen Graham tweeted in 2014, players at the first Super Bowl were photographed chugging Fresca and smoking cigs like a bunch of cool kids.
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McGuinness has also used his clout to call for increased hepatitis vaccinations in the ring and put an end to purposeful bleeding -- wrestlers secretly cutting themselves or opponents ("blading," per The Ringer) to produce blood during a match and, presumably, make the match more exciting.
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Vin Baker had a long and successful career with the NBA, playing on six different teams over 13 years and earning nearly $100 million. How did someone with all that talent and money end up working at a Starbucks?
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It might be strange to imagine such a nigh impervious-looking six-time WWE champion taken down by a respiratory ailment, but such are the dangers of asthma, and the silent suffering that Bautista endured during his career.
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It turns out that the big man started his road to success as a football player, and his gridiron prowess was good enough to propel him all the way to the NFL. But what was Goldberg the football player like, and what prompted him to make the transition to the wrestling ring?
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Formula 1 racing is its own unique sport, even as far as racing sports are concerned. The cars used in Formula 1 are their own thing, and their design isn't replicated in any of the other racing sports.
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Former NBA point and shooting guard Jason Terry used to take his pregame prep seriously. First, the night before a game, he insisted on wearing the game shorts of the team he was facing to bed. But not any run-of-the-mill game shorts: he needed official NBA game shorts to find the magic he needed.
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Billionaire entrepreneur Richard Branson has several claims to fame. Besides global business success, he's devoted to daredevil stunts that often result in the 70-year-old Virgin Group founder adding a world record to his long list of accomplishments. His first record was in boating 1986.
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Diamond told the Association Press in 2007 (as reported by The Guardian) that the inspiration for the song came while he was staying at a Memphis hotel. There he saw a photograph of then-nine-year-old Caroline Kennedy, daughter of United States President John F. Kennedy, in a magazine.
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Some of the wealthiest countries have had trouble with the upkeep of their one-time Olympic venues. Beijing, where the 2008 Summer Olympics were held, faced this dilemma when deciding how to maintain and celebrate the jewel of the games, the Bird's Nest.
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The most dangerous holidays in the United States are largely determined by the number of traffic-related fatalities that occur each year. Leading the pack of dangerous holidays is Independence Day, which sees the most deaths per year out of any holiday in the US.
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History class might have taught you that women in the United States won the right to vote in 1920 after a hard-fought struggle that culminated in the ratification of the 19th Amendment. But decades earlier, many women who lived west of the Mississippi River sated their hunger for suffrage.
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Poison was among the most successful "hair metal" rock bands of the 80s. Life outside of the music wasn't always great. Here's the dark tale of Poison.
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No one knows for sure if their lyrical theories are right or wrong, since McLean likes to respond to questions about the song's meaning with statements like, "It means I never have to work again." That part, at least, is true. The song has made the artist millions.
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Born in Nashville and raised in Florida, Duane Allman was a popular session musician for Atlantic Records, playing out of the storied Fame Studios in Muscle Shoals, Alabama well before he and his brother Gregg started their band.
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You'd think with the level of fame Lee amassed in geek and mainstream culture, the end of his life would've been pretty grand. Unfortunately, that wasn't the case. His last days were filled with tragedy.
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In the early morning hours of February 4, 2018, Indianapolis Colts linebacker Edwin Jackson asked his Uber driver to pull over. He wasn't feeling well and needed to get some air. In a tragic turn, Jackson and driver Jeffery Monroe were struck by a drunk driver who had swerved onto the shoulder.
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John Belushi lived a short but eventful life filled with both overwhelming success and heartbreaking tragedy. This is the tragic real-life story of John Belushi.
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Brockie's roommates found him unconscious at his home the night of March 23. They called the authorities, who pronounced Brockie dead; he was just 50 years old. The Associated Press later released the news that an autopsy revealed he had died of an accidental heroin overdose.
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Tragedy can strike at any time, even in moments of personal glory. Sadly, this was what happened to Nigerian soccer player Sam Okwaraji. Okwaraji, who played professional football for European clubs and represented Nigeria, tragically died during a World Cup qualifying match against Angola in 1989.
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Sometimes, it really sucks being part of a talented family. Even worse when you're the middle child. That was exactly how LaToya Jackson felt growing up. Unfortunately maligned throughout her career, Jackson's life has been dotted with pain and strife.
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Old Hollywood icon Rock Hudson was best known for his dashing looks and roles in Giant and All That Heaven Allows. Behind Rock Hudson's fame was a tragic childhood, a manipulative Hollywood agent, and a struggle with his gay identity. Hudson was the first major celebrity to die with AIDs in 1985.
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The plane that crashed into a lake near Madison, Wisconsin, carried all but one of the members of the Bar-Kays, a soul ensemble from Memphis, Tennessee, who had done over a hundred shows with Redding on that tour. Only one member of the band, Ben Cauley, made it away from the wreckage with his life.
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Celebrity marriages often get rocky, and that shouldn't be such a surprise. To be fair, relationships require a lot of time, work, and commitment — even in the best of conditions — and things inevitably become more complex when you throw in constant publicity, tabloid gossip, tours, schedules, much less being part of Van Halen, one of the biggest bands in rock history.
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Khambatta, an internationally known model from Mumbai (formerly Bombay), won Miss India in 1965 clad in an outfit she purchased right before the competition, according to the New York Times. She had appeared in Indian films before coming to Hollywood to play roles
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The stars of Old Hollywood dealt with alcoholism, erratic behavior, and sometimes, a bad end. Here are tragic stories about Old Hollywood's legendary actresses.
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Even among the booze-friendly Replacements, Bob Stinson could still out-drink everybody. Soon after the SNL incident, Stinson quit The Replacements, although other band members did make him seek help for his substance abuse issues. Stinson was never again a full-time musician.
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In 2013 she told Vanity Fair, "those two [last] records I made with almost no vocal ability at all. But I just acted like I was working with a limited palette, like a painter would do -- you know, it's only browns and ivory and black."
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People have always had a thing for unsolved mysteries. We can't stop thinking about the possibilities and it doesn't help when the creep factor is through the roof. High-profile unsolved cases are even worse for the coverage they get. Here are unsolved celebrity deaths that'll keep you up at night.
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Here's a series of terrifying thoughts. First, the human mind can only visualize numbers up to a certain point. After that, they're just abstract concepts. Thus, for all of one's perceived individuality, it is entirely true that sometimes people just ... disappear.
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Jeopardy! viewers haven't seen someone truly dominate the game show since Ken Jennings' infamous run of 74 games. But James Holzhauer changed all that. Here's the untold truth of James Holzhauer.
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Samuel Colt's revolver was considered a Godsend to settlers going West, and changed not only the American frontier, but also the world. His genius extended far beyond the creation of his revolver; he helped revolutionize assembly line manufacturing and advertising.
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Body modification has an incredibly long history — as soon as we were aware of the way we look, we were trying to change that for one reason or another. One of the most drastic forms is foot binding, a Chinese practice that Ancient History says started during China's Tang Dynasty.
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From his passion for flight to his poetry, this is everything you never knew about Jimmy Stewart.
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Arnold Palmer's contributions to the sport earned him a Presidential Medal of Freedom and the Congressional Gold Medal. One of the greatest players of all time, he won 62 PGA tour titles and is fifth in the all-time victory list behind other famous golfers like Tiger Woods and Jack Nicklaus.
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As one of the biggest pop and rock stars in the English-speaking world, the Piano Man has made the news a lot — not just for his musical accomplishments, but for his romantic entanglements and tabloid scandals. The New Jersey native has lived a colorful life, to say the least.
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Up until 2003, Kane wore a horrifying blood-red mask we're all pretty sure was forged out pure nightmare fear, but one Monday Night Raw in June, Kane took on Triple H in an unmasking match that knocked the wrestling world back on its heels. As it turned out, the move would be a boon to his career
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British music legend Rod Stewart is widely celebrated for his contributions to the music industry as a singer and songwriter, and his life has been nothing short of a roller coaster ride. This is the untold truth of Rod Stewart.
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Charismatic actress and singer Annette Funicello was an incredible phenomenon in the 1950s and 1960s, yet there are things that her fans may not know about her. This is the untold truth of Annette Funicello.
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If influence and longevity aren't your bag, there's perhaps one final fact about Jethro Tull that might convince you they are not a group to be scoffed at: that over the course of their long and varied career, they managed to sell an estimated 50 million records worldwide.
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Tool is a band that tends to provoke either rabid devotion or uncomprehending, blank stares, and very little in between.
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Fred Rogers was the beloved host of Mister Rogers' Neighborhood on public television from the mid-1960s until 2001. A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood features the almost-as-beloved Tom Hanks donning that iconic red cardigan. This is the untold truth of A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood.
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Malala Yousafzai, the young Pakistani activist, rose to fame in October 2012 after a gunman shot her for championing every girl's right to education in her homeland. She was also the youngest person ever to have received the Nobel Peace Prize. This is the untold truth of Malala Yousafzai.
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The iconic CBGB music club opened in 1973 in New York City and quickly became a part of the cutting-edge punk rock music scene. Bands like the Ramones, the Patti Smith Group, Blondie, and the Talking Heads frequented the club, showcasing their music in a dive bar setting owned by Hilly Kristal.
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There are plenty of unusual music groups, but few are as mysterious as the electronic duo Daft Punk. With a career spanning decades, it's surprising how little we know about them. They prefer it that way. They rarely grant interviews, and can never be seen in public without their iconic robot masks.
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There's more to Moses than then Ten Commandments, and a lot of it is incredibly strange. If all you know about God's number one boy is Prince of Egypt or Charlton Heston in a wig, here are some lesser-known facts about Moses.
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The Sugarhill Gang is often credited with creating the first major hip hop album and the first chart-topping rap single "Rapper's Delight" in 1979. The untold truth of the Sugarhill Gang is that their groundbreaking hit had a bass line lifted from Chic's "Good Times" and included stolen lyrics.
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Here are facts you might not have known about Mitch Hedberg, the amazing comedian we lost too soon.
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As recorded in a press conference posted on YouTube, vocalist Corey Taylor said of Gray, "He had the biggest heart of anyone I've ever known, and he had the greatest soul I've ever had the privilege to know. He was everything that was wonderful about this band and about this group of people."
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Gertrude "Ma" Rainey was undoubtedly one of the greatest blues performers of all time. This is the untold truth of Ma Rainey.
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The Moulin Rouge has survived fire, two World Wars, and a near riot over a kiss. This is the untold truth of the Moulin Rouge.
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Even though he wears his heart on his musical sleeve, Bruce Springsteen is less known as a person than he is as an artist. But today, we'll attempt to fix this by taking a long, hard look at the moments that not only made him Bruce Springsteen the artist but also made him Bruce Springsteen the man.
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The electric guitar is the definitive instrument of rock 'n' roll, and Eddie Van Halen was one of the greatest. This is the untold truth of Eddie Van Halen.
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Doug Sandom was part of The Who while they were still The Detours (they changed the name -- thankfully -- after learning that there was already another band with the same name). Unfortunately for Sandom, a tiff with Townshend during their audition with Fontana Records would be the end of his tenure.
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Out of the entirety of the collective Star Wars cast, though, two actors haven't fared as well, both Vader-related.
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The ancient Romans were no stranger to vanity. They cared greatly about maintaining appearances, and hygienic practices such bathing, wearing nice perfume, and even regular dentistry were all a necessary part of communicating their wealth and social standing. Clothing was an important status symbol.
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Poison as a means of murder is as old as history, but we've also employed it for a heap of other purposes. Here are some bizarre historical uses for poison.
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In blatant contradiction of what we consider to be par for the course for Christmas movies (and Star Wars), Miracle on 34th Street didn't take to the silver screen in December. As The Huffington Post reports, it was released on May 2, 1947, "making it a surprise summer movie about Santa Claus."
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As one of the most iconic landmarks in Paris, France, the Eiffel Tower stands at 300 meters high, but few people know that the Eiffel Tower was actually built for the International Exposition in France in 1889. This is the bizarre history of Gustave Eiffel and the harsh criticism he faced.
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Tales of magical and terrifying black cats can be found in folklore from all over the world. Here ae some of the scariest black cat legends.
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The world's oldest bottle of wine was discovered in a Roman tomb in Speyer, Germany. Dating back to 325 AD, the world's oldest bottle of wine has been miraculously preserved due to one weird Roman ingredient: olive oil. Topped with a wax seal, the oldest bottle is now in a museum.
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The tradition of caroling around the holiday season has a bizarre history. First done during pagan rituals thousands of years ago, caroling initially had nothing to do with Christmas. The bizarre history of caroling includes wassailing, Saint Francis of Assisi, and a ban on Christmas itself.
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With Netflix, it's all there. And when it's there, we will binge-watch it.
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The Statue of Liberty was first dedicated in 1886 and stands on Liberty Island in New York harbor as a gift from France to the United States. The bizarre history of the Statue of Liberty includes its time as a lighthouse, its shutdown during war, and how it came to be associated with Emma Lazarus.
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Rather than developing increasingly efficient rockets, the solution to this price problem may be a completely different approach: a "space elevator." If an elevator to space sounds like a wacky sci-fi concept, that's because it is -- but that doesn't mean it couldn't be made into a reality.
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The U.S. Army deployed around 600 carrier pigeons, according to the World War I Centennial Commission, and one stood out as heroic. The pigeon's name was Cher Ami -- French for "dear friend."
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