Wildenstein has reportedly gone from billionaire to bankrupt in less than 20 years. The New York Post reported in 2018 that her divorce in 1999 padded her bank account to the tune of $2.5 billion. But that factoid came at the end of an article concerning her recent filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.
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Americans can rest easy knowing that soon the long-standing tradition of having dogs in the White House will be restored. Joe Biden has been elected as our next president, and he's taking his two German shepherds, Champ and Major, to the White house. Here's how old Joe Biden's dogs are.
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Although the broadcast honored the truly big names in country music who died this year, such as Charlie Daniels, Mac Davis, and Kenny Rogers, the show failed to mention three other legends that country music lost in 2020: John Prine, Jerry Jeff Walker, and Billy Joe Shaver.
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There's a class of billionaire who will surely never get a drop of our sympathy, and that's the kind who makes his fortune from years of stealing other people's life savings, and then loses his bundle. Such is the case with Allen Stanford, the native Texan with an ego as big as his home state.
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What the majority of people are referring to when they say "hacker" is a black hat hacker, the cyber villains who wreck stuff and steal things via digital means. White hat hackers are the tech people who typically work in cyber security. Grey hat hackers are content to mess around in their basement.
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What is Christmas like for those who can't participate -- for those people, perhaps, locked inside correctional institutions for the mistakes they made in their lives? This is what it's really like to celebrate Christmas in prison.
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The metal singer saw fame through two different camera lenses: The one that got him paid, and the one that took his mugshots. You might not know it, but Ozzy Osbourne has a bit of a criminal past.
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When he decided to branch out into the global luxury aviation business in 2007, he boasted in an interview after multiple tall glasses of scotch on the rocks, "I work hard and I play hard, too. There is nothing wrong with that." He had just bought 50 Airbus planes in Paris, a $7 billion order.
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Mister Rogers, known as Fred Rogers off-screen, is one of the most beloved figures of children's television after decades of hosting his program Mister Rogers' Neighborhood on PBS. But Mister Rogers was notoriously difficult to interview. In interviews, Mister Rogers always failed to provide drama.
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Artie Lange was arrested as a young man for a prank that didn't go as planned. As an adult, he's been arrested multiple times for things that are no laughing matter.
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Although rockstars have a reputation for living hard-and-fast lifestyles, many have gotten married in the midst of their careers or before they made it big. Carlos Santana is one example, marrying his first wife in 1973. Unfortunately, the marriage didn't last & they split in 2007.
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Dennis Frederiksen served as the lead singer for acts such as Trillion, Angel, LeRoux, and Toto, and provided backing vocals for Survivor. Occasionally credited as Fergie Frederiksen or just Fergie, the Michigan native was credited with three big hit singles in three consecutive years.
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Huge crowds gathered through the late '90s and early 2000s to listen to Hedberg's signature comedy style, which could be described as a stoner Jerry Seinfield calmly blasting the audience with disconnected one-liners without ever removing his shades.
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For all the Foo Fighters' success, they've had some troubles as well, particularly in the guitar department. The lineage is a little hard to follow, but coming in second was lead guitarist Franz Stahl, a man who seemed to disappear as just quickly as he appeared.
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It's hard to imagine that a sketch comedy television show like Saturday Night Live would ever want to pass up a talent like John Belushi, but not everyone from the production was eager to have him join their ranks.
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Being a rockstar, it would make sense to most of us if Eddie Vedder's brush with death was the result of a drug overdose or something, but Vedder has never had a known drug problem. No, Vedder's near-death incident was a terrifying close call that had nothing to do with the rock and roll lifestyle.
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Lucille Ball's life was filled with tragedy. Her father died when she was young, she was abused by her mother, her marriage to Desi Arnaz was frequently difficult -- the list goes on. But, there was one incident in particular that tragically changed young Lucille's family forever.
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Recording Medicine at Midnight wasn't without its own peculiar moments. Unlike the Foo Fighter's first nine albums, the challenges around the 10th album couldn't have been easy to predict, since they were supernatural and all. That's right: A haunting almost ruined the Foo Fighters' 10th album.
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On the way to becoming Japan's true White Savior and its final, bestest samurai ever, Tom Cruise gets dressed by a Japanese widow who develops feelings for him, teaches some lessons about never giving up to other Japanese people, and leads a rebellion of samurai against some guys with cannons.
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Ozzy has immortalized himself in more ways than one. That's not to say the legendary musician isn't approaching actual immortality. Lord knows he's lived through more near-death experiences than the rest of us, including numerous drug overdoses.
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For many people -- celebrities included -- conspiracy theories and crank ideas come to cause untold damage to their professional and personal lives. One example is rapper B.o.B, aka Bobby Ray Simmons Jr., who shot to fame in 2009 after his hit single, "Nothin' On You," reached number 1.
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Before Matt LeBlanc hit it big as Joey Tribbiani on the '90s TV chart-topper Friends, he was Daphne Zuniga's (TV's Melrose Place, the film Spaceballs) romantic partner in a Bob Seger video.
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Apparently a motorcycle remains Keanu's "preferred mode of transportation" not only because of its ease in getting him to his many appointments, but also because he enjoys "the physical sensation of riding, the wind, the smell, the sights, the connection to the machine, the living-in-nature."
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Game shows since 2000 have been more and more about performing physical stunts. But with more dangerous stunts comes the opportunity for more things to go wrong, and now appearing on a game show can mean serious injury or even death. These are the most traumatic experiences in game show history.
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Right before her 1987 Academy Award for Moonstruck (which The Guardian called "hopelessly romantic"), before she "turned back time," Cher aimed her sights at becoming a rock star and formed Black Rose with her boyfriend of the moment, Led Dudek, in 1980.
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The 1980s saw the rise of the video vixen, coinciding with the launch of MTV. Tawny Kitaen rose to fame in rock videos. Here's what happened to her.
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One question remains to be answered about the indie rock four-piece: Where did the epic name Imagine Dragons come from? The band is not the first to remain coy about their name, but they certainly are among those to turn it into a guessing game of sorts.
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Rolie had been lead vocalist on iconic Santana hits like "Black Magic Woman" and "Oye Como Va," reports Rolling Stone. As Santana launched its Welcome album in 1973, Rolie and lead guitarist Neal Schon had already broken off to begin what is now known as Journey.
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There is a dark side to every glitzy American success story, and that of Frank Sinatra is no exception. When Sinatra died in 1998 at the age of 82, it was revealed that the Federal Bureau of Investigation had kept a file on the world-famous crooner for more than 40 years, totaling some 1,300 pages
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Apart from its inclusion playing over the closing credits of the 1994 film Interview With The Vampire, for which it was recorded, there has never much appreciation for the track. When Spin magazine ranked the band's recordings back in 2016, "Sympathy for the Devil" came in dead last -- 79th of 79.
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Frey, fellow Eagle Don Henley, and collaborator J.D. Souther wrote "a Sam Cooke-esque song that had hand clapping and no chorus." To help with the chorus, Frey called an old friend and fellow '70s rock star/songwriter Bob Seger and asked for his input. Frey and Seger went way back.
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What was a young Hollywood starlet doing with a nerdy writer 11 years her senior? Marilyn Monroe could have had any man she wanted, but she went with playwright Arthur Miller? Even though it only lasted a short few years, there was initially something that brought this disparate couple together.
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Three were killed in the "Indiana Jones Epic Stunt Spectacular" in 2009. Visitors and employees alike have been struck by runaway train carts, and even the "It's a Small World" ride has murdered people. Oh, and just in case all that isn't depressing enough, The Beatles died there, as well.
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When pressed to name past and present members of the Rolling Stones, it's easy to come up with Mick, Keith, Charlie, and Ronnie, and not too hard to remember past Stones like Brian Jones or Bill Wyman, but it's a rare person who will automatically think of and give credit to keyboardist Ian Stewart.
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Founder, co-singer, guitarist, and lead songwriter Jerry Cantrell eschewed the show-offy, over-the-top guitar work of the glam era (as many of his contemporaries did), and in its place opted for pointedly constructed lines suffused with slow, grinding loops and pedal tones of sludge metal.
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The two first met in 1943, while Ava was still with her first husband, the famous actor Mickey Rooney. Frank was married as well, to his sweetheart Nancy, with whom he had a child (and eventually two more). Still, that didn't stop him from showing interest in Ava.
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Steve Austin's Broken Skull Challenge, a physical competition reality show, featured a surprisingly supportive, though classically tough-as-nails, Steve Austin. He still yelled everything he said, but this time it was tough love, rather than repeatedly threatening people.
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The fact is, Dylan's had ups and downs in his love-life, just like the rest of us, and many musicologists believe that these experiences have shaped some of his best-known works, filling them with an emotional intensity you can only get through living, loving, and years of reflection.
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After seeing Fishbacher perform some magic tricks, Horn approached him and asked, "If you can make a rabbit and a dove appear and disappear, can you do the same with a cheetah?" Roy revealed that he had sneaked his pet cheetah onto the ship. It's unknown if Siegfried made Chico disappear that night.
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John Lennon showed genius in the songs he created, but that doesn't mean he sought greatness in everything he wrote. The unconventional musician liked to challenge people. In fact, the song "I Am the Walrus" intentionally used befuddling lyrics to stress the point that music isn't always serious.
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Visits to Santa Claus, in malls or Christmas festivals, are a time-honored tradition. The kids tell Santa what they want for Christmas, and parents find out what to buy. Being a Santa Claus isn't just about putting on a costume and asking children what they want. It honestly takes a lot of work.
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Harry said, "I just continued to try and flag a cab down. But he was very persistent, and he asked me where I was going. It was only a couple of blocks away, and he said, 'well I'll give you a ride.'" She got in the car, but when she went to roll the window down, she realized something was wrong.
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There is a single floor tile at complete odds with the rest of the cathedral, suggesting it was installed later. In the center of the tile is a very boot-shaped footprint that legend says was made by the Devil himself as he stood in that spot, frustrated at his bargain being broken.
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For two weeks, the family sat by his bedside, waiting for Blanc to wake up from his coma. Then one of his neurologists came up with an idea, explained Open Culture. Instead of talking to Blanc, why don't they try talking to one of his many characters?
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This unusual artistic venture was sponsored by Louis XIII Cognac (owned by the French brand Rémy Martin), which asked Robert Rodriguez and John Malkovich to create a film inspired by the 100 years it takes to properly age a bottle of Louis XIII.
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Dolly Parton's "Jolene" is catchy, with a hook that repeats the title name over and over again. People are also attracted to the lyrics about one woman begging another not to take her man. The song spoke to scorned women and country music fans everywhere.
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On the morning of June 3, 1964, Starr collapsed during a band photo shoot in London, England for the Saturday Evening Post, reports the Beatles Bible. He was taken to University College Hospital, diagnosed with tonsillitis and pharyngitis, and ordered to rest.
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Comedians Rhett and Link have been ruling the internet for several years. Together since childhood, they are most known for their show, Good Mythical Morning, and their podcast, Ear Biscuits. Here's taking a look at the lives of the comedic duo.
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Is it any wonder why, then, when Kilmister passed away on December 26, 2015, that Motörhead and their "metal umlaut" were no more? A mere three days later, as recounted on Expressen, drummer Mikkey Dee said, "Motörhead is over, of course. Lemmy was Motörhead." That was it.
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Napoleon Dynamite basically invented a one-time genre of undefinable hipster comedy that simply had not come before, and has not been replicated since. And a big part of that falls on the film's shaggy-headed, squinty-eyed protagonist, Napoleon, played by then-26-year-old Jon Heder.
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As Rolling Stone recounts, Lennon said of "Come Together," "It wasn't a rip-off; it was a love-in." McCartney added, "We pinch as much from other people as they pinch from us." This may be true, but it didn't stop the Beatles from not only being accused of plagiarism, but getting sued over it.
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Over the years, Meat Loaf would get several bit parts in film and on television, including an appearance in the Brad Pitt-Edward Norton film Fight Club. In the midst of his fame, his Meat Loaf's celebrity status at an all-time high, the singer accomplished quite a bit. Like, upsetting the Royals.
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Even the electronic genre's hardened sceptics -- those who think the genre is just a load of R2D2-style boop-boop noises -- would have a tough time arguing that the judge's ruling in this particular case is anything other than self-evident. Why did the court go through the trouble?
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The country crooner John Denver is primarily known for his musical skills -- recording about 300 songs, writing about two-thirds of them. He sold more than 33 million albums. Besides his musical accomplishments, he was also an aviator, and his death at 53 influenced experimental aircraft regulation.
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Grunge recently took a poll via YouTube and asked, "To commemorate Eddie Van Halen, which of these Van Halen songs is your favorite?" Options included "Jump," "Panama," "Eruption," "Ain't Talkin' 'Bout Love," or a write-in.
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The Redlands drugs bust has been described as the moment that the Rolling Stones lost their innocence -- "that was when the fun stopped," Richards has said. Things took a dark turn in the years that followed as Richards found himself battling an addiction to heroin and generating an urban myth.
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The Godfather of Heavy Metal keeps on kicking. He's now 71 years old, and he still rocks the mic on tour. But despite enduring for more than 70 years, Ozzy has almost died on more than one occasion. He tells Rolling Stone, "I should have been dead f****** 10 times. I'm not saying that to be funny."
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The Rolling Stones' Altamont concert was one of the most tragic music events in history. The music was awful, the venue was awful, the crowd, etc. The only moderately redeeming quality to the show was its price: free. This is a look into the tragedy at the Rolling Stones' Altamont concert.
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Dave Rowntree, the drummer of Brit-pop band Blur, has become a jack of all trades since the band went on hiatus. Dave Rowntree has gone on to become an animator, a lawyer, fly planes, and even host his own radio show on Radio X.
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According to MetalWani, on June 5, 2008, Lukather posted a message on his official website, stating: "The fact is yes I have left Toto. There is no more Toto. I just can't do it anymore and at 50 years old I wanted to start over and give it one last try on my own."
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By the middle of the decade, turmoil between Mick Jagger and Keith Richards had increased significantly. Jagger signed a solo deal with CBS Records and spent much of 1984 writing songs for his first album. To the annoyance of Richards, Jagger publicly declared his lack of interest in the Stones.
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Before Matt Cameron, a whole slew of others banged on the old Pearl Jam skins. One of those drummers was Dave Abbruzzese, who abruptly left the band in 1994. Many people thought it was a simple creative split. We're here to tell you otherwise.
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So, we here at Grunge decided to take an informal poll asking you lovely netizens to answer one of the cosmos's most pertinent, enduring, and unanswerable questions: "Who was the best rock band from the '90s?" That poll, viewable on YouTube, garnered quite a fair amount of worldwide attention.
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The story follows the United States Army's 45th Infantry Division (aka the Thunderbirds) as they fight their way from Sicily to Germany on a 500-day march. The animated Thunderbirds struggle through Axis territory, freeing Europe from Nazi oppression. Narration for the series is by Mike Rowe.
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Taylor's hit "Fire and Rain" captures audiences with its sweet melody and beautiful chorus, but the song's melancholy lyrics have also led many people to wonder about the true meaning behind the verses. Each verse speaks to different struggles Taylor has faced in his life.
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When Ozzy does finally bite the dust, we don't expect it to be a mundane affair, but who knows. The last time he tried to die on us, it wasn't exactly "metal." Instead, the rock icon almost joined the choir invisible in a horrific ATV accident.
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Even some of Hollywood's best directors have been subjected to the latter after churning out movies that still tick off fans to this day.
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In February 1990, Queen won Outstanding Contribution to British Music, presented at the Brit Awards. The band had been working on their album Innuendo, recording for three weeks, and then taking two weeks off, so Mercury could recover.
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Everyone was getting down to Outkast until -- poof -- they were gone, breaking up, seemingly out of nowhere. It seems like a pretty odd thing to do for a group with 16 Grammy nominations and 6 wins. But it's not like André 3000 and Big Boi fell off the planet. They just had other things to do.
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Perhaps because he'd had a few too many drinks, he soon felt nature calling. Apparently, he had to urinate badly enough that he couldn't hold it long enough to find a restroom. Instead, he relieved his bladder directly onto the 60-foot-high Cenotaph monument in Alamo Plaza.
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From 1897 to 1962, the Grand Guignol brought unseemly subjects and stomach-turning gore to the Paris stage.
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Ozzy has secured himself as a household name across the world. There's only one problem: The metal behemoth known as "Ozzy Osbourne" isn't actually named "Ozzy." It's his stage name, a name he's been called for so long that people forget it's not the real thing.
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After playing shows during which the band often had to stop and let the audience sing, May and singer Freddie Mercury decided to write a song that specifically relied on audience participation. May's contribution was "We Will Rock You," while Mercury wrote its companion song, "We Are The Champions."
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There was one investigation. however, that had Hawes sitting on a staircase, afraid to move. In a recent interview on an episode of the Geico-ad-heavy SUS: Share Ur Scare YouTube show, Hawes dives into his most terrifying experience. It's seriously horrifying.
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Chris Cornell's voice took him far in life, elevating him to rich and famous rock star status with Soundgarden, Audioslave, and more, but his life would end tragically prematurely. Here's a look at what the final 12 months of Chris Cornell's life was like.
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Allman Brothers Band bassist Berry Oakley undoubtedly helped to define the Georgia-based band as a force to be reckoned with in the early 1970s. After the death of Duane Allman, Oakley never recovered. A year after his death, Oakley got into a similar accident and died.
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By 1971, however, the Vietnam conflict still showed few signs of ending, and President Richard Nixon seemed more concerned with stopping Lennon's activism than stopping the war. Lennon became more involved with the anti-war movement.
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Though both of the fighters have different abilities, they actually have a lot in common. Neither Superman nor Goku are human. They're both aliens who crash landed on Earth after their respective home planets were destroyed. They also both find a group of superpowered friends on their new planet.
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These movies were rated R for some really strange reasons.
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Santana told Rolling Stone that he had been holding back from recording, feeling like he had "a masterpiece of joy in [his] belly." His previous recording companies had tamped down his more experimental projects and even felt he was too old. But he knew he still had something to prove.
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The Rolling Stones' penchant for hard recreational drugs often saw them on the wrong side of the law, but one incident stands above all others: a police raid which is now known as the "Redlands Bust." Here's a look into the Rolling Stones' 1967 drug bust.
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There has been another, literally out-of-this-world, honor, bestowed shortly after Rogers' death. Scientists renamed an asteroid, first discovered in 1993 and previously known as No. 26858. Per NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, the celestial body is now officially known as 26858 Misterrogers.
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Paul Stanley of KISS is known for his rollicking, party-hearty lyrics and rhythm guitar, but the rock star struggled with his ears behind the scenes. You might not know that Paul Stanley was born with a congenital deformity that left him deaf in his right ear.
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Did Led Zeppelin really sell their souls to the devil? In the 1980s, evangelicals claimed that Led Zeppelin had created masked Satanic messages in their tracks like "Stairway to Heaven." This is where the Satanic Led Zeppelin rumors stem from.
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Actor Danai Gurira, who has thrilled audiences with her portrayals of such iconic characters as The Walking Dead's Michonne and Black Panther's Okoe, has been cast to play United States Congresswoman Shirley Chisholm, a political trailblazer as well as a 1972 candidate for United States President.
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Joe Perrys guitar licks were something out of this world when the band was rocking through '70s and '80s. Well, part of the '80s, since Perry was absent from the band between 1979 and 1984. Here's how that happened.
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Some artists thrive and go on to create even better music once they're free to follow their own ideas; others struggle to establish their own identities and be taken seriously as a solo act, rather than a part of a whole. The Monkees' Peter Tork certainly fell into the latter category.
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It's not always bad luck that sinks a production, however. Bad decision-making and human error also play a major part. Here are a few notorious movie-killing blunders.
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People are weird. We pay good money to be given a bit of hope, just enough to make us fall in love with a character, a world, a story, then we're completely satisfied when our newfound friend's world comes crashing down. Some movies make us laugh, others fill us with excitement and explosions.
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Iommi is generally considered one of the best rock guitarists of all time, a member of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. Those are crazy feats when you consider he's missing a couple crucial body parts needed for that whole guitar playing thing: Iommi is sans the top â…“ of two fingers on his right hand.
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To top it all off, after six months he was finally on the mend, and got so excited one day that he fell out of bed "and ripped open all these stitches in my stomach," requiring doctors to "dive in again and sew me up." All told, young Ringo ended up staying in the hospital for a year.
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Pantera wasn't exactly known for its luck. Sure, the band was famous and all, but their story is full of tragedy and loss. Their legacy is a mix of headbanging metalheads rocking to their tunes and of news headlines breaking stories that fans never wanted to hear.
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Let's be clear: Knock Knock is disturbing and excessively anxiety-inducing, as one Twitter user reports, but not necessarily because of its horror elements. Without spoiling the plot, the most messed-up things about Knock Knock are its believable parts, not its camp.
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Visitors to the theme park have noticed there weren't any recycling bins. Does Dolly Parton not recycle? Does she not see how important the environment is? Calm down. Our queen isn't doing the environment dirty. Dollywood is actually very green. The park uses a different method of saving the planet.
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We're talking about the time Alice Cooper bit the head off of a live chicken in front of his fans. Crazy, right? There's only one problem with that popular tale: It isn't true. But take heart. The real story isn't any less gruesome, and it does involve a chicken. So, here's what really happened.
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James Holzhauer appeared on The Chaser in 2014, about five years before he landed on Jeopardy!, and did pretty well for himself. From the beginning, Holzhauer was a quiz show master. Questions are thrown at him rapid-fire, and Holzhauer knocks them out of the park, one after the other.
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"He was walking death," Joe Perry said of Thunders' lowest point in the 1980s. "Every time I ran into him, he was desperately trying to get from hour to hour. You'd hear that he'd tried to clean up, and then he'd be back living on the street again."
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For the moment, let us put aside the mountain of evidence -- that's right: real, tangible, plentiful evidence, not electromagnetic blips -- that Ghost Hunters is totally fake, and focus on the show's origin story. It starts, as all good ghost stories do, with a skeptic who started seeing things.
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When Frank told his wife to choose between him and Randy, Lib and Randy moved to their own place. As Lib told People, "I never spoke to the man again. Randy might have given me the courage to leave a bad situation, but Randy did not break up the marriage."
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Robinson had been telling the crowds, "This is live rock 'n' roll being brought to you commercial free." The company running the tour, Lone Wolf Productions, saw it as a slam against Miller Beer, the tour's corporate sponsor, so they fired the band.
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There's a reason for the saying, "the only two things to survive a nuclear war would be cockroaches and Keith Richards." Since one might think there's nothing about Keith Richards that could possibly shock anyone now, it's particularly surprising to learn that he had an extremely nerdy childhood.
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An accident in his early childhood left him in the hospital for "six or seven months." In fact, despite rumors that the 29-year-old was shot in the eye, Wap actually attributes the loss of his left eye to a childhood disease, congenital glaucoma.
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Music history is full of performers who were far too wasted to give the people what they paid to see, but Kenny wasn't one of them. Just like the card player of his most famous song, Rogers knew when to hold 'em and when to fold 'em, and when it came to booze, he decided to just never ante up.
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Stewart himself didn't address the wild story at all for many years. Maybe he figured his career was doing fine in spite of some people's beliefs about his leisure-time activities. And publicity is publicity, no matter what. Spell the name right, right?
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In 2014, actual Monkee Mickey Dolenz was a guest on Gilbert Gottfried's podcast and when the topic came up, he confessed, "I just made a joke. 'Everybody auditioned for the Monkees, Stephen Stills, Paul Williams and Charlie Manson!' And everybody took it as gospel. And now it's an urban myth!"
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Rogers shared that he had been offered other endorsement deals, including commercials for cigarettes, beer, and liquor, but he'd turned them down, which is ironic, considering one of his signature songs, "The Gambler," features characters indulging in both whiskey and cigarettes.
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In a post about the new music from SOAD's website, the band writes, "These two songs ... speak of a dire and serious war being perpetrated upon our cultural homelands of Artsakh and Armenia." They say that the "corrupt regimes" of Turkey and Azerbaijan are committing "genocidal acts with impunity."
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The rockstar life was certainly thrilling at first. That amount of excitement took a massive toll after a while, driving O'Riordan to exhaustion. What few fans realize is that O'Riordan showed a preference for a slower pace, a more serene rural lifestyle, similar to the one she grew up with.
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The end of the group would actually occur nearly two decades later, with the tragic death of rapper Phife Dawg, aged just 45, on March 22, 2016. At the time, the Tribe were working on their first album together in 18 years: We Got It from Here ... Thank You 4 Your Service, completed in his absence.
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This version of A Star is Born has an interesting, and unexpected, connection to Pearl Jam lead singer, Eddie Vedder. Vedder, it seems, was the inspiration for Bradley Cooper's character, as stated on the AV Club. And while Cooper was making the film, Vedder had some very specific advice for him.
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The many attractions of Dolly Parton's Dollywood theme park in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee, include fairway rides, a reproduction of the two-room cabin in which Dolly grew up, an entire water park, and the Eagle Mountain Sanctuary, an enormous aviary measuring 30,000 square feet
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It was "Wind of Change" that has led some to believe that Scorpions were reaching beyond mere musical expression and into the realm of politics. It wasn't just a song about envisioning a free future for all people, as the lyrics say -- oh, no. It was CIA-created propaganda.
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Gregg Allman was diagnosed with Hepatitis C in 2007, for which he received a liver transplant. In the following years, he would go on to suffer from liver cancer. The band continued to tour, but Gregg's worsening health problems would force them to stop in 2014.
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"Weird Al"'s career really started with "My Bologna," a parody of the Knack's hit "My Sharona," described succinctly by Rolling Stone: "accompanied only by his accordion, the song is a G-rated ode to bologna" which "launched a hugely successful career that is going strong to this day."
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Many of Hill's friends and collaborators point to one relationship which has been especially destructive since her 1990s hey-day, a relationship which came into being just as Hill was at her most vulnerable, feeling the pressures of both public life and supporting a family as a working mother.
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Some of the biggest acts around performed, including Jimi Hendrix, The Who, Joan Baez, Jefferson Airplane, Santana, The Grateful Dead and Janis Joplin, but Dylan took a hard pass. What could have been more important?
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The legend is that Johnson entered into a Faustian pact: that his great ability as a guitarist and vocalist was down to Johnson selling his soul to the devil, a deal which took place at the crossroads of Highways 49 and 61 in Mississippi, according to how the legend is recounted by Biography.
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In 1993, the editors of the Midnight Star interviewed "Weird Al"'s drummer, Jon "Bermuda" Schwartz, asking about the significance of 27. Said Schwartz: ""There's no significance to those numbers. I asked Al, who evidently hadn't even noticed before. He hesitated, and said, '27 is a funny number.'"
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It is an idea that has captured the imaginations of cryptic-minded listeners and stoned truth-seekers for more than five decades: Paul McCartney, the principal singer-songwriter alongside John Lennon in the Beatles since their formation, is dead after a gruesome car accident around the end of 1966.
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Kitt wasn't done pushing boundaries, and the following year her headstrong attitude and fearlessness in the face of power would land her in hot water with one the country's most powerful and secretive federal agencies.
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There are covers that are absurdly strange, with fans and critics alike agreeing that they flat-out shouldn't exist. Metallica's tribute to Prince in Minneapolis during the WorldWired Tour belongs in the latter category, as their cover of "When Doves Cry" made headlines for all the wrong reasons.
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Uncharted has occasionally veered into some pretty creepy territory, bringing our dashing hero into contact with genuine monsters and calamities beyond the scope of the natural order of things.
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These actors have never been in a good movie. In fact, many of them have been in some of the worst movies of all time.
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A Quiet Place, the sneakiest horror thriller in a long time, is downright amazing and guaranteed to make you jump more than once. But as amazing as it is, A Quiet Place has more than a few plot holes and inconsistencies. Here are dumb things in A Quiet Place that everyone just ignored.
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If you've ever seen a nativity scene outside of a church during Christmas service, then you no doubt know what it looks like, but nativity scenes are actually much older than you may think. The first-ever nativity scene was put together by St. Francis of Assisi in 1233.
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We all know that Santa Claus has supernatural abilities, and the origin of Santa Claus' powers are explained by the Wonderful Wizard of Oz author L. Frank Baum in his story The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus. This is the surprising connection between Oz and Santa.
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In the final month of 1988, Armenia was struck by an earthquake that absolutely devastated the northern region of the country and displaced thousands of people.
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Whether it be at the dawn of the Roman empire in the B.C. era or the heights of the Cold War a few generations back, powerful states have attempted and failed many times to conquer land. The reasons vary on why these invasions may have failed. Here is a list of invasions that went horribly wrong.
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While modern Christmas traditions are nearly universal thanks to pop culture, they used to be very different. If you look back at the 19th and early 20th centuries, you'll see unexpected holiday celebrations. Here are some strange Christmas traditions that were considered normal 100 years ago.
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The history of how nutmeg came to be a staple in our kitchens is not really in line with the whole "Peace on Earth, good will to men" business we like to tell ourselves. The notions of reunion, comfort, and human connection we now get from a hint of nutmeg actually came at a terrible human cost.
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All in all, being a president has to be rough, and some of the rules surrounding the job make it even more so. At least the silly rules end when a president's time in office is up, right? Actually, only some of them do.
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it makes sense why a teenage, Jewish Mary who visited her cousin and husband-to-be Joseph for a few months, and then became pregnant, would have been in quite a lot of trouble. In fact, Jewish law was quite brutal and strict in this regard.
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The Yule Goat can fly, and it often carries Santa on his yearly journey to deliver his sack of goodies around the world.
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The city, founded in 315 BCE and named after Alexander the Great's half-sister Thessaloniki, was a major thoroughfare in the Macedonian Empire, and became a center of trade between east and west under the Byzantine Empire.
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Despite its long affiliation with the Christian holiday of Christmas, the Yule log actually has its roots in pagan Norse mythology. The tradition originated in Scandinavia, then spread to the Celtic Brits and Gaelic Europeans, who believed that burning a yule log would bring good luck.
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Women have dipped their blades in the fires of battle all around the world for millennia. This is the forgotten history of women in combat.
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President Franklin Roosevelt was reportedly concerned that his administrations' records would be lost, destroyed, or sold, which had been the case for past presidents. He also wanted a place in which to write his memoirs and to "burnish his image as a defender of democracy."
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Celebrating the Christmas holiday was actually banned in Massachusetts from 1659 through 1681, per Time magazine. Early American Life magazine notes that Puritans "abhorred the excesses of church celebrations" and saw Christmas as just another day on which to work hard in the name of Lord.
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As with most holidays, Christmas is rife with symbols that we take for granted, but of course there is lots of rich history behind them. Just like Christmas trees, candy canes, and mall Santas, the tradition of hanging wreaths had to start somewhere, and exactly where kind of depends on who you ask.
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"Jingle Bells" is a favorite everywhere, from Christmas radio stations to seasonal concerts, as a cheerful holiday melody that everyone can sing along to. But it was never originally intended to have any connection to Christmas at all.
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People used to put candles on their Christmas trees, explained Popular Mechanics. The tradition was brought to England by Prince Albert, Queen Victoria's husband, who grew up in Germany. A magazine published an illustration of the Queen's family gathered around a tree with candles adorning it.
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Hanging decorated stockings by the fireplace, with the hope that Santa Claus will fill them with treats, is a popular tradition. In 1823, the practice was commemorated in song with the publication of the famous poem "A Visit from St. Nicholas," better known today as "The Night Before Christmas."
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One theory posits that employers distributed "Christmas boxes" full of gifts, money, and leftovers from their holiday feasts to their servants on December 26, as the servants would have worked on Christmas Day. The boxes were the 1800s' version of holiday bonuses.
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Santa Claus at the top of the world in a winter wonderland. His workshop bustles in the Arctic Circle while his helpers pump out toys for billions of kids. But the North Pole at the top of the world isn't the only place that Santa calls home. You can find the jolly saint in several different places.
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In a common sense way, it's understandable why ancient people would have used snow to craft a human figure, or even just play with (if they weren't trying to avoid freezing to death, that is). After all, cave paintings, tribal figurines, and hand-hewn statues all depict the human form.
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The relationship between the US and the indigenous people of North America has been infamously bloody, cruel, and usurious. In a single century, from 1784 to when the Dawes Act was signed in 1887, native lands were stolen, bit by bit, until only tiny fragments of modern-day reservations remained.
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Even as a world record holder, life is anything but easy for the World's Shortest Living Man.
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It's perhaps the most famous sidewalk in the world, but not many people know the true history of the Hollywood Walk of Fame, even though it has some very interesting tales to be told. Here is the history of the Hollywood Walk of Fame explained.
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On July 20, 1969, one of the most momentous events in human history occurred: Men walked on the Moon. Eventually the United States completed six Moon landings, bringing a total of 12 astronauts to the Moon's surface by 1972. Then we stopped. This is the real reason we haven't been back to the moon.
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Thousands of old men would impersonate our altered vision of what St. Nick looked like and sit in shopping malls to let countless children sit in their laps to ask if they're real. That last one is a Christmas staple these days, but exactly how did it get its start?
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The National Confectioners Association reports that candy canes are the most popular non-chocolate candy during December, with 90 percent of them sold between Thanksgiving and Christmas. This comes to 1.76 billion candy canes produced in the United States each year. But where did they originate?
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Where did these staunch Christmas helpers come from? Why exactly does an immortal, bearded man with a magic, toy-spawning bag of holding need slave elves to manufacture said toys before the toys are teleported into said bag? This (and other yuletide mysteries of the ages) clearly needs unraveling.
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When we see the cartons of eggnog on grocery store shelves or the bottles of Very Olde Saint Nick at the liquor store, it might trick us into thinking the drink is a modern beverage, but, in truth, eggnog has several centuries worth of history. Check it out.
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Today, Hawaii celebrates most holidays like the rest of the U.S., but there are differences. Here's what it's really like to celebrate Christmas in Hawaii.
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In 1863, Nast drew a popular advertisement for Harper's Weekly magazine that depicted Santa Claus delivering gifts (and copies of Harper's) to Union Army soldiers. Nast later produced annual Christmas drawings, one of which indicated that Santa could be reached via mail addressed to the North Pole.
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Imagine being stuck under a parasitic plant with someone, and the only way out is to kiss them. It honestly sounds like a nightmare, and yet it's a Christmas tradition some people somehow enjoy -- mistletoe, the hemiparasitic plant in question, is an essential part of the holiday.
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Despite most of modern communication taking place via texts, messaging via apps, and, for some old-fashioned traditionalists, e-mail, mailing physical Christmas cards remains a popular and beloved custom that continues to stand the test of time. Where and when did this tradition originate?
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A staple of Christmas, gingerbread houses can be as simple as two rectangles leaning on each other, to mansions recreating some of the world's most famous palaces. Gingerbread houses are a tradition for a reason. But why do we make houses out of gingerbread, instead of just eating it as a cookie?
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Where and when did the tale originate? Santa Claus, leaving lumps of coal instead of Christmas presents for naughty children? According to Mental Floss, the tradition predates Santa and is found in tales of several individuals.
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In many parts of Europe, Christmas celebrations include figures that are downright diabolical. Monsters, witches, and demons provide a chilling counterpoint to Santa, Rudolph, and Frosty. You better watch out because the most terrifying Christmas characters ever are coming to town.
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Aristotle's views on ethics, logic, and metaphysics have played a central role in Western thought, even today. It's easy to assume that Aristotle was pretty much right regarding just about everything. But that's a mistake. One critical weak point in Aristotle's philosophy: his perspective on women.
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At this stage of the science of dentistry, however, dentures were not so much artificial tooth replacements as they were real human teeth, set in ivory and placed in someone else's mouth, according to the BBC. Wealthy people even placed advertisements in papers for human teeth.
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During WWII, Allied soldiers caught by the Nazis became prisoners of war (POWs) and were placed into prison camps. Christmas brought secret tools for escape.
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Polyandry, when a woman takes two or more husbands, has been found in many cultures throughout history. In the 18th and 19th century, for instance, women in China ruled the roost and sometimes took more than one husband. Who knew the 1800s could be so progressive?
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Not as well-known, but possibly even more cruelly petty than any of these emperors -- if you can believe it -- was Marcus Aurelius Severus (not Snape) Antoninus Augustus, also called "Caracalla," after a type of cloak that he apparently designed.
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There are a whole bevy of holiday-themed ghouls, including an eye-catching subset of Christmas witches. These female figures run the gamut, from friendly grandmas to ogresses to wild, pre-Christian goddesses, many with roots in pagan practices. Here are the tales of several Christmas witches.
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The farm provided clothing for the family as well -- with a little improvising. Bulk purchases of flour and feed were delivered to farms in large cloth sacks, and savvy mothers soon realized they could stretch the family budget by repurposing the fabric into garments for their families.
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The Clotilda was America's last slave ship, setting sail in 1860. The ship picked up 110 Africans and made its way to Alabama, where all were sold into slavery. After emancipation, the survivors went on to form Africatown, which is still populated today. Here are the stories of some survivors.
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If consuls were horses, they would naturally be far more adept at these tasks. At least, maybe this is what Caligula believed, because, as History states, he made his favorite horse, Incitatus, a consul, and "gave the steed a marble stall, an ivory manger, a jeweled collar and even a house."
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It's no surprise that most American presidents have shared the White House with a dog, cat, or other animal friend.The presidency's unique challenges have made pets nearly a requirement for the job. Read on to learn more about the history of the animals that have made the White House a home.
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Most stewardesses began working around age 18-20. Seems young? You're right. Airlines preferred unmarried, childless stewardesses. The average age of tenured stewardesses was 32-35. The no-marriage rule was relaxed in 1957, though some airlines still required employees to be single and not pregnant.
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Batista was once seen as the perfect example of Brazil's status as a booming, successful country "that had seemed to successfully combine private enterprise with social justice and was riding high on surging commodities prices." How did Batista lose his entire $35 billion fortune in one year?
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"Ouija" is actually a brand name for a type of game called a "talking board" that grew in popularity, along with a rise in interest in spiritualism, after the Civil War. In the years following a conflict full of death, strife, and acrimony, it's understandable that people wanted resolution.
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The Roaring Twenties roared in part because of the proliferation of organized crime, and Capone had his rivals back in the day, in more ways than one. We're talking about the crime boss George "Bugs" Moran, born Adelard Cunin, whose life intertwined with Capone's in dangerous ways.
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Herman Melville's classic novel Moby Dick is an essential part of American literature and popular culture. One of the most riveting things about the novel is that it's based on a lot of true events. Here are some true events that inspired Melville's Moby Dick.
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These days, as long as the bank thinks you can pay off your debts, you can get a credit card. But it was a hard-fought battle to get to this point. And it wasn't just unmarried women who couldn't get credit cards; married women had to bring along a man when applying for one.
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Silicon Valley may be peddled as the place where dreams come true and young people get rich, but the reality can be far different. Here's the messed up truth of what goes on in Silicon Valley.
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In the Wild West, barbers were an important hub for news, trusted advice, and cleanliness. Here's why barbers were some of the most important people.
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Known in the automotive industry as an innovator, John DeLorean's life was one of rebellion, struggle, and peerless invention. We now know John DeLorean's car from the Back to the Future franchise, but his tragic life included many divorces and an FBI sting for smuggling cocaine.
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Depending on who you believe, no one has ever found the Ark. Not only is the Ark a piece of religious history, it's believed to hold wondrous powers that could wipe out whole nations, part seas, and probably do some other miraculous biblical stuff.
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North Korea's people sometimes turn to drugs, and users include workers in factories, who use it as a pick-me up during shifts, along with businessmen and local celebrities. They even exchange methamphetamine on all sorts of holidays, including Chuseok, a harvest festival, and New Year's.
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A Swanson salesman named Gerry Thomas came up with the idea of marketing meals as TV dinners. Thomas realized in 1953 that Swanson had a surplus of frozen turkey -- 260 tons of it, in fact, sitting inside refrigerated train cars. The company had no idea what to do with it.
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According to the Abide in Christ website, the Ark wasn't just a box holding the Ten Commandments; it was also the Mercy Seat, where God would meet and judge souls. That's two holy objects smashed into one. It's holy enough to grant men power if they ever get their hands on it. Terrifying power.
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But wait. The United States has adopted the metric system, you say? Back in 1866, via the Metric Act, as Smithsonian Magazine relates. It remains unenforceable, however, and now people are confused because they can drink half-liter bottles of water while running a 5k, and then travel 2.3 miles home.
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Joseph is just kind of hanging out there, being a pretty good dude. Nothing super special about him in the common mythos, except that he stuck around to raise Mary's child, knowing it wasn't his own. No, this was God's baby. The Holy Spirit had blessed Mary with a serious honor.
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Celebrities garner a lot of attention, and sometimes, that attraction proves fatal. Here's a list of stars who received the wrong kind of devotion from fans.
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These myths about Ancient Egypt are things you've probably believed for a long time. Let's put the false facts to rest.
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Author Deirdre Bair interviewed hundreds of people, including Capone's descendants, to show the complex persona behind the ruthless killer. "This is also the story of a loving son, husband, and father who described himself as a businessman whose job was to serve the people what they wanted."
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It's been common knowledge for quite some time that drunk driving is dangerous, but people do it anyway. These days, society looks down on the act while we try to reduce the number of casualties. But, as disturbing as it is, that's not how drunk driving was viewed 50 years ago. It was much worse.
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The Ancient Greeks commonly practiced slicing people open to bleed them out for health purposes — bloodletting, by the official name. The reason Ancient Greeks were so into bloodletting comes down to the belief in balancing the four humors that they held.
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The President of the United States is also the Commander-in-Chief of the military, and while it's not a requirement to serve before becoming president, some presidents have. Among them was the 35th President, John F. Kennedy. And JFK did not just enter the Navy; he's a bona fide war hero.
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The future president took home-study U.S. Army Extension Courses from 1935-1936, and joined the Army's Enlisted Reserve Corps in Des Moines in 1937 after he completed 14 classes, according to the National Museum of the U.S. Air Force. He enlisted as a private.
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While the assassins and their co-conspirators planned meticulously how to murder Caesar, they didn't plan for his death's aftermath. And in the end, the killers found they couldn't live in the future they helped create.
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Section 1 of Article 3 of the Constitution states that federal judges and Supreme Court justices "shall hold their Offices during good Behavior," meaning they can be impeached for conduct unbecoming of a member of the highest court in the land. There is no constitutional definition of naughtiness.
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Buckingham Palace has a history going back several hundred years. Being the official residence of English monarchs for nearly 200 years means a lot of weird history has unfolded at the palace. here's a list of the most bizarre things to ever happen at the royal palace.
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Even though Steve Jobs died several years ago, the iconic founder of Apple still holds a place in the memories of many tech users (so ... many modern humans). But for all his creativity, Steve Jobs always wore the same black turtleneck. Here's Steve Jobs' uniform finally explained.
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In a list of the best US presidents in history, a few dark horses emerge as surprising choices. Perhaps the most surprising is James K. Polk, who served as president from 1845 to 1849. Here's why James Polk was the most underrated president.
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Even though Allen Pinkerton formed the legendary Pinkerton's Detective Agency in 1850, unsolved robberies and murders remained a problem in the American West.
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In his lifetime, Ishi, the last member of the Yahi tribe, watched his people be wiped off the Earth. This is the last member of the Yahi's tragic life story.
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On November 22, 1963, John and Jackie Kennedy visited Dallas where Lee Harvey Oswald shot and killed Kennedy. Jackie became the world's most famous widow. While she was praised for her strength in public, in private she was devastated. Here's what Jackie Kennedy did the year following JFK's death.
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How much do you really know about our Founding Fathers? We're taught a lot in school, and it's often stories like George Washington chopping down the cherry tree. And that's not the only tall tale we've been told. Here are some false things you believe about America's Founding Fathers.
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No one has pinpointed all four locations with certainty, but finding these waters have occupied the time of many scholars. It's not even certain that the Bible divulged the location correctly.
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Harriet Tubman -- abolitionist, suffragist, and former slave -- is one of the most influential political activists in American history. In recent years, advocates have proposed commemorating her many achievements by putting her face on the $20 bill, which is coming due for a redesign.
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Conjoined twins Daisy and Violet Hilton were born in Brighton, England in 1908. Their mother was an unmarried barmaid named Kate Skinner; their father was unknown. Skinner soon handed over the twins to Mary Hilton, the woman who owned the pub where Skinner worked and had assisted at their birth.
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the presidency may be "the highest office in the land," but he is no autocrat, let alone dictator. After all, that's the kind of ruling class and non-egalitarian system of government that the United States' forefathers wanted to do away with.
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Tubman lived in Canada from 1851-1861, bringing with her many of the formerly enslaved people she saved, to live a free life. In those times, Canada had already outlawed slavery and provided shelter and work for many escaping the United States.
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To add insult to injury, it's pretty likely that once a Stone Age man, woman, or child died, their surviving friends and family would mourn their loss while simultaneously celebrating a sudden bounty of food by eating the deceased.
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We walked on the moon for the first time in 1969, and since then there's been a rarefied group of people who've set foot on our planetary satellite. The United States no longer sends people to the moon on missions, so the group remains small. (And no, there's no evidence we faked it.)
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A prison can't operate without staff, including Alcatraz. Many of the police officers, prison guards, and other staff who worked in the prison lived on the island with their families, including young children. There was another side to the island, where staff kept their homes and raised kids.
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The Biblical story of the Garden of Eden centers around four key characters: God, Adam, Eve, and the serpent. To many, the serpent is a particularly interesting character, representing cunning and evil, standing in opposition to God's goodness and grace.
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One of Tubman's encounters with danger stands out from the rest, but not because of a slave owner or someone on the hunt for her reward money. It came from a hustler who was uncommonly good at his job, who left Tubman beaten and bound in the woods of Auburn, New York.
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In August 1877, during a poker game, McCarty trades insults with a local blacksmith, Francis Cahill. The game turns violent. Cahill pins McCarty to the ground, and McCarty shoots. Cahill dies two days later.
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With voguish gangsters and bootleggers like Al "Scarface" Capone and George "Machine Gun Kelly" Barnes capturing the public's attention, the government knew it needed an equally dramatic response to their sensational criminality, one that would strike fear in the hearts of potential lawbreakers.
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Religious texts explain more about the Garden -- for instance, that the Garden of Eden consisted of two gardens. According to the Jewish Encyclopedia, there were both a "higher" and a "lower" Garden.
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Hypatia was born in Alexandria, Egypt. She was a scientist, educator, and intellectual, though many details of her life remain obscured. She was a brilliant woman who was deeply tied to Alexandra's reputation as a center of learning and progress.
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A charity event puts everyone to work toward a common goal and is usually for something that no one can argue about. Every once in a while a charity event occurs that is a disaster unto itself. Here are some of the biggest, grandest, charity disasters.
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From curses to enslavement to the downright weird, the Ancient Greco-Romans had it all. And, one of these revenge methods was certainly as strange as they come: using the enemies' names as toilet paper.
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Queen Victoria carried with her a royal curse, one that she passed on to other royals. Unlike that episode of Doctor Who, where Queen Victoria passed on lycanthropy to her heirs, her royal curse is more of a medical nature: She was a carrier for hemophilia.
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In the 2017 report, researchers speculated on whether the brace kept Kennedy sitting upright after he'd been shot in the neck by Lee Harvey Oswald. Had the president not been wearing it, he may have crumpled forward, making it more difficult for Oswald to fire the fatal second shot.
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When trying to locate the physical, actual inspiration for the Garden of Eden, you might assume that we'd be looking for a pretty lush, verdant expanse stuffed full of bountiful fruits. But there have been a lot of climate changes in the Middle East going back to, oh, 10,000 BCE or so.
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It was the Middle Ages; things were bound to be terrible compared to now. The sad thing is, even if people lived through the hunger and the wars, a doctor might end up killing them instead. Medicine, especially military medicine during the Crusades, was crude and often very dangerous.
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Alcatraz had one luxury that most other prisons lacked: "reasonably hot" showers. Showers weren't private, and had to be quick, but they were at least not frigid. It's suspected that this gesture was merely an attempt to prevent prisoners from getting acclimated to the cold water of the Bay.
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Is a "mountain man" precisely the kind of long-bearded, ax-hefting hermit you imagine him to be? Who exactly were these atavistic conquerors of tree and hill, these intrepid trappers of critters and traders of tabacky? Something a bit more authentic than who we see on The History Channel, mayhaps?
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Before Robert Koch discovered the tubercular bacillus in 1882, the lack of understanding of the bacteria and the disease it caused led to some wild theories and attempts to curb the spread of tuberculosis. Surprisingly, this intersected with vampire legends in an especially curious manner.
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Seattle has always been a city of industry and innovation, something that teenagers Jim Casey and Claude Ryan knew all too well. In 1907 they borrowed $100 from an acquaintance and founded the American Messenger Company, which would eventually become UPS.
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Geoglyphs are basically designs that someone's made on the surface of the earth, through etchings or piling up elements to create a picture. Geoglyphs can be found throughout the world. These are the most mysterious geoglyphs on the planet, from Peru to Ohio.
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Many of Tesla's greatest contributions to science came from his ideas, not necessarily the things that he was actually able to build. As you'll see, many of Tesla's designs would ultimately lay the foundation for today's technologies. We're fortunate that some of the others were never built.
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Nina Simone is known as one of the most prolific vocalists and pianists of 20th-century American music. This is Nina Simone's tragic real-life story.
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Winnie the Pooh and his fuzzy, adorable friends have entertained and inspired children and adults alike. Part of their enduring charm is that the Winnie the Pooh universe comes across as completely and totally innocent ... or so it seems. Here are some other messed-up things about Winnie the Pooh.
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Lots of these reasons people dislike Justin Bieber don't have anything to do with Bieber's music, and more to do with his obtuse or arrogant behavior (such as writing in the Anne Frank House guest book, "Hopefully she would have been a belieber," as the BBC reported in 2013).
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Not all of Kennedy's mistresses received the same treatment. Mary Pinchot Meyer, a talented painter and the daughter of a wealthy progressive lawyer and a journalist, was a long-time Kennedy mistress whose death, although less well known than Marilyn Monroe, was no less shrouded in mystery.
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Everyone needs a little help from their friends. Even a legend like Ella Fitzgerald. The singer gained popularity in the 1940s, performing jazz and classics in small clubs. But despite her talent, racial barriers and her looks held back her career. Until she became friends with Marilyn Monroe.
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Following the death of Garcia in 1995, the surviving members had made a point of retiring the name The Grateful Dead in their band mate's honor, according to CNN, with the group performing under names such as The Other Ones in the years after, until deciding in 2003 to bill themselves as The Dead.
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The pair put out hit song after hit song, including "It's Gonna Work Out" and "Poor Fool." Tina and Ike worked with record producer Phil Spector. The duo covered "Proud Mary," announcing their entrance into the pop world. But underneath all that success was a marriage that was becoming a nightmare.
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Armstrong described Capone as "a nice, little cute fellow, like some professor who has just come out of college to teach." But Louis would eventually find himself with other dangerous players in the seedy criminal underworld of the Roaring Twenties.
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It seems to be a common situation within the world of A-list celebrities: lots of rock stars want to be movie stars, and lots of movie stars want to be rock stars. It turns out that even Keanu Reeves couldn't resist the urge to walk off the soundstage and onto the arena stage.
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The multi-talented singer and songwriter Kenny Rogers worked in the music business for over six decades, achieving international success with hits like "Lucille," "Islands In The Stream," and of course, his iconic single, "The Gambler." This is how Kenny Rogers' music career started.
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Kelly, born George Kelly Barnes in 1895, started his life of crime as a bootlegger. He was the last person you'd think would become a criminal. Born to a relatively wealthy family in Memphis, Tennessee, he attended Mississippi State University (some records said he went to Mississippi A&M).
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Kehew has the dream job of occasionally being allowed into the Warner Bros. vault where the label keeps its decades of musical recordings. The warehouse, "this Indiana Jones-sized place," is full of recordings of musicians ranging from Jimi Hendrix to Madonna to Green Day and, of course, Van Halen.
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With Monroe being so popular in American culture, it might be difficult for some to imagine that she was once monitored by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. We can tell you right now that the investigation didn't have anything to do with the Kennedys and her death at age 36.
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Keith Richards, The Rolling Stones' guitarist, singer, and co-founder, is as well known for his iconic sense of style as he is for his decades in one of the most famous and influential rock bands of all time. According to Esquire, the Stones' flamboyant personal style went beyond just looks.
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These bizarre tales tell of the most haunted objects we can find to creep you out. Turn down the lights and enjoy.
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Real ghostbusters -- sorry, "ghost hunters" -- stay within budget and don't filch the petty cash while phantasmagorically engaged. These ghost hunters, on their show Ghost Hunters, use some pretty low-tech tech to measure the movements of the unliving.
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Many people believe Alcatraz is one of the most haunted places in the United States -- it's featured in several haunted San Francisco tours. The Rock, as it's sometimes called, has seen death and violence in its long history, so it wouldn't be a surprise if restless spirits remained on the island.
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The lighting of the Christmas tree in New York City's Rockefeller Center has been a holiday tradition since 1933, but the origins of the tree itself go back two years earlier. In 1931, with the country in the grips of the Great Depression, Center employees decided to spread a little holiday cheer.
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Boris Johnson, current prime minister of the United Kingdom, attempted to whip up an international incident involving U.S. President Barack Obama's racial heritage, suggesting he'd had a bust of Prime Minister Winston Churchill removed from the White House because of his part-Kenyan roots.
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In 1968, Shirley Chisholm became the first Black woman elected to Congress, and in 1972, she became the first Black person to campaign seriously for the presidency on a major party ticket. She maintained her independent spirit throughout her career, sometimes to her detriment. Here is her story.
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What would happen if Mr. Trump tries to stay in the White House past January 20? The short answer is, he can't. With or without Mr. Trump's agreement, power will be transferred to the new president after the inauguration, and Mr. Trump will effectively become a trespasser in the White House.
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The president has continued to make the false claims and inspiring his supporters in Arizona and Michigan to gather in Phoenix and Detroit to chant opposing slogans. Trump's refusal to wait until all votes have been counted have some wondering how he would take the possible loss.
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Yes, you're probably thinking, "Wait, Billy Corgan and kittens?" Sure, it sounds incongruous. Exactly how do fuzzy little felines fit into the infinite sadness?
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ou might think that the world of funk metal has enough room for two outspoken, flamboyant frontmen to coexist peacefully. Not so much. Anthony Kiedis of Los Angeles-based Red Hot Chili Peppers and Mike Patton of San Francisco's Faith No More had a decades-long rivalry in which they traded insults.
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Genes are complex and responsible for such things as health and susceptibility to certain diseases, body type, height, eye color, intelligence, and more. Genes can also cause quirks among us. Here's a look at some of the genetic quirks that are perceived to be normal occurrences but aren't.
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If you were one of the thousands who watched the SpaceX launch, you might have noticed that the feed came from Florida. A lot of space shuttles and rockets take off from Cape Canaveral in Florida, and there's a reason for it. But no, it isn't because astronauts get to enjoy the fun and sun.
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2021 could hold some of the most exciting scientific advancements yet for our species. From another habitable planet to flying cars to artificial intelligence helping with climate change, there's plenty of reason to be optimistic for our future. Here are possible achievements for 2021.
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The publishers of the Farmers' Almanac have kept a close lid on how the book makes its predictions without the aid of a satellite or even a groundhog. According to the Farmers' Almanac website, they follow a specific formula, and only one person knows it: Caleb Weatherbee.
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The U.S. has its share of dangerous scaley slitherers. Land.com provided an un-ranked list of the deadliest snakes in North America, noting that the eastern diamondback rattlesnake is not only the largest snake on the list, but also boasts the largest fangs of any rattlesnake in the world.
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These female scientists invented and discovered remarkable things that turned into lifesaving breakthroughs. Here are some of the women of scientific history.
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The dream of commercial space travel will be a lot closer when SpaceX and NASA launch its module to the International Space Station (ISS). Planned for November 14, it will bring four astronauts to the ISS. SpaceX, owned by Tesla founder Elon Musk, partnered with NASA to take astronauts to the ISS.
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As of 2020, the Deepwater Horizon oil spill is still considered the worst oil spill in the history of U.S.
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Turning a spherical surface into a rectangle is a mathematical challenge, one that has plagued mapmakers for centuries. Unfortunately, there's no way to perform this geometric feat (called "projection") perfectly; any map will have a distortion of size, a distortion of shape, or some other error.
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Since billions of people are now considering being injected with something created by this man's company, many are wondering: Who is Albert Bourla, and what is his background? Will his revolutionary vaccine save the world, or is he just looking for publicity to send his company's stocks sky high?
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In the 1880s Pfizer began manufacturing citric acid, used in the production of increasingly popular soft drinks and fueling the company's growth. In 1936, Pfizer became the world's leading manufacturer of Vitamin C, and through the 1940s Pfizer became the world's leading manufacturer of vitamins.
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The world finally received some mildly encouraging news on Monday, November 9, 2020, when Pfizer reported that its COVID-19 vaccine could have an efficacy rate as high as 90%. The data is still early, so that number could change. Here's what it's like inside Pfizer's COVID-19 vaccine trial.
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As Pfizer works toward getting its COVID-19 vaccine approved, people are starting to think about how they're going to get the shots. While testing is currently free in some scenarios in the U.S., will the vaccine be free as well? Here's what Pfizer's COVID-19 vaccine could cost.
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Coal is formed through the fossilization of dead plant matter. Since land plants only emerged on Earth about 450 million years ago, coal itself dates back only 300 or 400 million years. This means that diamonds -- which are over a billion years old -- predate coal by hundreds of millions of years.
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We've also littered the heavens. We know it might be a problem someday. There's everything we've left behind on the Moon and on Mars, the probes we've sent deep into space, and probes like Venera 7 that have dropped onto Venus. Closer to home is the trash currently orbiting Earth itself.
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Although they can be annoying at times, nose hairs actually serve a vital health purpose. Coated with a thin layer of mucus and as dense as the hair on your head, nose hairs protect us from pollen, dust, germs, and other airborne particles we would otherwise breathe in -- a first line of defense.
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In a humble petri dish at The Institute of Physico-Chemical and Biological Problems of Soil Science in Moscow, two prehistoric creatures began to move and eat. Both are believed to be female. One is thought to be around 32,000 years old, while the other is pushing 42,000 years old.
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Yes, outer space is mostly empty ... well ... space. But don't think it's going to stay that way! The fact is that, thanks to human meddling (it's what we do best!) there's a whole lot of really bizarre stuff floating out among the stars. This is only some of it.
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For a long time, Evander Holyfield, four time heavyweight champ, had the funds to live a lavish lifestyle. That's what a tough chin and hard hands will get you. But there came a point when this former International Boxing Hall of Famer was losing more money than his fists could bring in.
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At 6'10', the towering Texas native combined gigantic size with agile athleticism and a killer gimmick to truly dominate the sport for longer than most could ever dream of. He almost ended up stomping around the basketball court, rather than the ring, before deciding to wrestle professionally.
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Unbeknownst to Edge's legions of adoring fans, throughout much of his career he was suffering from several neck injuries that would cause the condition that ultimately led to his retirement from the ring. He was lucky that it didn't take him out for good.
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Now considered by Bleacher Report, Sport Bible, and millions of wrestling fans the world over to be the greatest professional wrestler of all time, Austin now claims March 16 to be a national holiday. And we dare anyone who disagrees to try to tell him otherwise to his face.
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Big Show is actually a very well-rounded athlete. He started off with team sports back when he was still just Paul Wright. He played football and basketball in high school in South Carolina, and though you'd think he'd be perfect for the gridiron, where he truly excelled was on the basketball court.
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The documents alleged that Rose was pulling in at least $100,000 a month just signing autographs, but also revealed that he was blowing the vast majority of that income on high-stakes gambling, with huge debts to casinos as well as the IRS.
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After knocking it out of the park as a musician in the 1970s, the rock star (born Marvin Lee Aday in 1947) began helping others knock it out of the park, too: as a softball coach. While he was living in Connecticut, Coach Meat (as players called him) coached a local girls' softball team.
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Despite their previous success together, trouble was brewing in the Steiner family. As Hulk Hogan's New World Order rose to power, Scott began to see the possibility of more fame as a solo wrestler, so he turned on his brother and joined Hollywood Hogan's new stable at SuperBrawl VIII.
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When something good happens, people want to celebrate. Athletes are no different, and star athletes have a lot to celebrate, including huge contracts that guarantee they'll never have to worry about money again. Here are weird ways that athletes celebrated contract signings.
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Alex Trebek, the longtime host of Jeopardy! has died at 80 years old, according to a statement on the show's official Twitter account. One organization that posted a remembrance to him was the WWE, as Alex Trebek once hosted Wrestlemania.
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Steiner sells real estate in Georgia. That's right: you can buy land in the Peach State from a world tag team champion. He's still got the goatee, but he kicked the spandex and his iconic headgear, usually opting for the classic dad look of a pastel polo shirt and jeans (every job has its uniform).
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Considering Vince McMahon has harbored rivalries with everyone from Triple H (who would go on to be his son-in-law) to Bret "The Hitman" Hart to Randy Orton -- even with his own children Stephanie and Shane -- his actual childhood idol makes a lot more sense.
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According to NBC Sports, however, Coleman invested his money in development deals in his hometown of Detroit, Michigan in hopes of "trying to turn around a city in need of someone willing to make big moves there."
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The controversial, witty, brash, and "Rowdy" Roddy Piper was a fan favorite back when the WWE was the WWF in the 1980s and early '90s. The mouthy wrestling superstar and somewhat successful actor had a reputation for creating a scene.
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Hillel Slovak was a founding member of the groundbreaking funk-metal group the Red Hot Chilli Peppers, a talented guitarist who used heavy guitars in what would become a major influence in honing the group's signature sound.
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Clemente was one of the best players in baseball history, both on and off the field. Aside from the 3,000 hits he racked up before his death, his 12 All Star appearances, and 12 Gold Glove awards, he was well known as an honest man of his word who had a great desire to help people.
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The Blues Brothers would become such a hit that you can find a statue of "Joliet" Jake and Elwood at The House of Blues in Chicago, Illinois. A statue may not be the epitome of comedy fame, but that's okay; Belushi has been immortalized in other ways.
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In the story of NASA, one of the worst disasters in the department's history happened on solid ground. As NASA reports, on January 27, 1967, a fire during a preflight test for the Apollo 1 mission took the lives of astronauts Gus Grissom, Edward White, and Roger Chaffee.
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In all of his in-ring iterations, Nelson Frazier Jr. was an undeniably larger-than-life presence in professional wrestling. Whether he was rocking a spandex onesie or silk pajamas, the formidable 6'9" WWE Superstar struck fear in the hearts of his opponents and excited his throngs of loyal fans.
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T.E. Lawrence -- "Lawrence of Arabia" -- was an archaeologist, writer, and a freedom fighter who created a bond with the Arabs during World War I. His life was marked by tragedy, something that followed him until his untimely death at 49. The accident that took his life, however, raised questions.
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When bands break up, members are free to branch out and establish their own identities and projects. But suddenly being responsible for making their own decisions and solving their own problems often leads to disaster. Members of the Pre-Fab Four, the sitcom-centric Monkees, were no exception.
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The life of an athlete can be short and bittersweet. After their competitive years are over, their lives can be just as hard. Debi Thomas, an Olympic bronze medalist in figure skating, considered the best Black figure skater of her generation, went from extreme highs to extreme lows.
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Fans of the Discovery Channel's series "Deadliest Catch" have seen several tragedies in the lives of the cast, starting in 2010 when Captain Phil Harris died.
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Despite his accomplishments, Ivers is probably best remembered for how he died, his life and career cut short at the age of 36, when his star was still rising. And even today, there are still no clues as to the reason for Ivers's sudden and shockingly tragic death.
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He talked of studying an undergraduate degree and continuing on to do a master's. Despite his family, hobbies, and plans for the future, however, Halladay battled with depression and addiction, and these would combine with his dangerous hobby to bring about his early demise.
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They'd sing, play music, and go through a number of routines to keep the eyes looking their way. This would lead to a couple of stints in Hollywood before their death in the late 1960s. Unfortunately, the Hilton sisters didn't reach fame by living easy lives, and their deaths were equally tragic.
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Snuka, whose real name was James Reiher, was born in Fiji, grew up in Hawaii, and also lived in Camden County, New Jersey. After a successful stint as a bodybuilder, he started as a professional wrestler in the 1970s and made his WWE debut in 1982, helping the organization on its skyrocket rise.
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At that point in time, few had any true understanding the mental and physical complexities of anorexia nervosa. And sadly, it took seeing the young, fragile Karen Carpenter wither and waste away before the world's very eyes that made people stand up and take serious notice of the condition.
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Schlitzie the Pinhead was one of the most famous circus sideshow acts ever. Schlitzie's unusual "pinhead" appearance brought swarms of audiences to the circus sideshows he called home. But Schlitzie's life was incredibly hard behind the scenes. Here's the untold truth of "Schlitzie the Pinhead."
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The Offspring have been around since the 1980s but took the world by storm during the 90s, with songs like "All I Want," "Days Go By," and "Gone Away." The punk rockers have hadhighs and lows through their career. Here's a trip down memory lane with one of the most notable bands from the 90s.
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The Miami Marlins made baseball history on November 13, 2020, when they hired Kim Ng (pronounced Ang) as the team's new general manager. She is now believed to be the first woman to hold the position in Major League Baseball. Ng is now the highest-ranking woman in any MLB team's baseball operations
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People who love Christmas music are passionate about their favorite songs. Some only consider the holiday season officially underway once they hear their special tune for the first time, while others listen to Christmas music all year 'round. This one's for all the "Mele Kalikimaka" fans out there.
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One former Pantera member is only known by the heaviest of metalheads, and that's Rex Brown. Brown was one of the co-founders. He rocked the deep notes in the rhythm section while he wailed on the bass guitar. And where Brown might not be as famous as some of the others, he has just as much talent.
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Whitesnake is 1987 all the way, and the band's megahit "Here I Go Again" is perhaps the catchiest hard rock song of all time. Whitesnake has a complex history that stretches over four decades. Here are a few things you probably don't know about the band.
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The 19th-century photographer Mathew Brady, who went from taking portraits of the rich and famous to taking death portraits on Civil War battlefields, is known for depicting the cost of war. The truth of Civil War photographer Mathew Brady is he funded the photojournalism himself and went into debt.
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As the cohost of the wholesome family show "Wheel of Fortune," Vanessa White has a good sense of humor about her job. Her life has been quite interesting too.
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When you hear about an extraordinary event, it's worth noting if the event actually happened. There might be hard evidence or flimsy eyewitness testimony. Sometimes eyewitnesses are police officers, soldiers, and other authorities. Here are some stories of strange events documented by authorities.
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The coronavirus, also known as COVID-19, has caused global upheaval, bogus claims about the illness have spread. While the urge to latch onto any semblance of certainty like a desperate barnacle is understandable, misinformation about the virus can cause immense harm to individuals who believe it.
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It seems to be human nature to have a fascination with bathroom and bathroom-related activities that began with our ancient ancestors and will probably continue until approximately always. Just take a look back on one of Western Civilization's ancient forefathers, Ancient Rome. It's nothing new.
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The legend of the Lost Dutchman's gold mine is one of murder, secrets, and a lot of gold. For over a century, treasure hunters have sought the Lost Dutchman's treasures supposedly lost in the Superstition Mountains of Arizona. This is the legend of the Lost Dutchman and his gold.
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