Operation Ghost-Fox

The Office of Strategic Services (O.S.S.) was a US intelligence agency formed during WWI. It preceded the Central Intelligence Agency (C.I.A.). It was formed with the purpose of coordinating espionage activities behind enemy lines. And all of the people with leadership positions in it had questionable sanity at best.

Here's an excellent example. So when the US was battling Japan, some OSS agents heard of a Japanese superstition surrounding fox spirits with shape-shifting abilities. So in reaction to the news, the OSS planned to release a bunch of glow in the dark foxes into Japan in hopes of... scaring them or something? But alas, sources revealed that the "spirit fox" folklore was fake. So the OSS, realizing the stupidity of the operation in the first place, abandoned the whole thin- Ha! No this is the OSS we're talking about, instead of abandonment, they moved on to developing their furry super weapon.

"Get our scientists working on shape-shifting foxes right away."

The OSS tested their assault of the coast of New York by dumping a bunch of foxes that had been dipped in phosphorus into the ocean. Predictably, all of the foxes swam in the wrong direction and promptly drowned. 

Tax dollars at work.

At that moment, someone realized that the whole project was incredibly silly. So the OSS scrapped the whole project, and moved on to bigger and better things. Things like shipping hundreds of barrels of yellow dye to Cambodia in order to dye one of the largest rivers in the world, only later to find that the dye didn't work. 

In my opinion the OSS' ideas were less based on whether or
not their idea would be effective, and more on whether or
not their idea would be something a cartoon supervillian would attempt. 

The "Free" French Army

Back in World War II, Germany obliterated the French government early on in the war. Not wanting his country to go down without a fight, Gen. de Gaulle went abroad and formed an army of resistance fighters from French territories in Africa.

Not only did de Gaule's rag tag army consist of native Africans, it also included Arabs, Tahitians, and French officers.

Anyway, the dubbed "Free French Army" went on to do incredibly well in the war, something not usually affiliated with the French at the time. They carved a bloody path all the way to Paris, where they were ready to liberate the capitol united with British and American allies. That is, until the allies said "Yea, this victory is kind of a whites only type of thing."

"Please enjoy this $5 Bed Bath and Beyond gift card for your troubles."

De Gaulle had to quickly replace anyone in his army who had failed the melanin test with more easily-sunburnable persons or else he could not take part in the liberation. This of course, was difficult because this was his problem in the first place. He ended up dressing a bunch of Spanish soldiers as French ones, and hoped that no one would care at that point.

Meanwhile, the Africans were deported back to Africa. They at least got to enjoy the benefits of having served... well until 1959, when the French Government inexplicably cut off all of their military pensions and attempted to erase their entire evolvement in the war.

But hey, it just goes to show that all we need is love to get along.
And Nazis to fight. 

The Overtoun Death Bridge

 

   

 The Overtoun House can be found near the small Scottish village of Milton. The house itself isn't that special. No, the arched bridge that spans over the Overtoun burn is what's really interesting. Since the 60's, over 600 have been reported to have jumped to their death from the bridge.

And absolutely zero humans have died jumping off of it.

Worst trick ever

Just to clarify, yes, no humans have every jumped off the bridge. However, over 600 dogs have leaped to their death. For no apparent reason.

Many theories exist that try to explain this extremely bizarre occurrence. Some speculate that particularly pungent rodents drive the dogs over the bridge, while some think it's nothing more than a very particular string of random coincidences.

And to make things stranger  (as if they weren't already strange enough), it has been observed that several dogs that survived their jump climbed back up and hurled themselves off again. For no discernible reason whatsoever.

Moral of the story? Dogs are probably more depressed than we
think that they are.

The Best Soccer Game

       I am no expert on soccer. My knowledge extends as far as knowing to not kick the ball into your team's goal, and that the game is called "football" pretty much everywhere except America. Well, it turns out that I know even less than I previously thought. Kicking the ball into your own team's goal can be an ingenious maneuver. Well, supposing you are Barbados' 1994 soccer team.

       The Barbados team was playing Grenada in the Group round of the Caribbean Cup. They were winning 2-0 with seven minutes still on the clock, when all of a sudden Grenada scored and brought the score to 2-1. Even though Barbados was still winning, they were technically losing. You see, if they won the game, the two teams would be tied in the standings. But Grenada would win the tiebreaker based on having scored more in prior matches. The only way Barbados could advance to the next round was in they won the game by two goals.

       So with three minutes to go and Barbados still only winning by one, the team came up with a brilliant plan. Instead of trying to score, they would force overtime. By tying the scores. Ergo  scoring  on themselves.

Barbados - Grenada 1994 - YouTube

      "But so what?" You may be asking. "Supposing that they score in overtime, the score will still only be 3-2, and they still don't advance, right?" Well you obviously don't know much about the Caribbean Cup scoring policy. It states, for some strange reason, that overtime goals counted as double.

      So then all hell broke loose. As much as Barbados needed overtime, Grenada needed to prevent it. Even if it meant losing. So then they started trying to score in their own goal, hoping to lose the game by only one goal, meaning of course that they would advance to the next round. So Barbados ended up defending both sides of the field, as well as trying score on themselves again. 

      This four-minute farce finally ended when Barbados scored (miraculously on the other team), winning 4-2. Thereby advancing to the next round. Where they were promptly and brutally defeated.

      Now I see why soccer is the most popular sport in the world. No wait, actually I still have no idea.
     

Cuffed Sleeves and Malpractice

            Not much else can ruin your day quite like getting getting guts and various other bodily fluids all over the sleeves of your sharpest looking suit.

Second only to being seen crying while watching Twilight. 

          Much like you, the dapper surgeons of the 19th century decided that bloody sleeves must become a thing of the past. So, instead of discovering new medicines or groundbreaking surgical techniques, the 19th century surgeons invented custom-tailored suits which allowed them to roll up their sleeves for impromptu surgery. And thus cuffed sleeves, or "surgeon's cuffs," were born.

Because a true gentleman doesn't even take off his jacket when he's cutting
into dudes. 

          Since being a surgeon was such a prestigious title, many common folk started purchasing cuffed jackets to look educated and cool. Soon tailors started just slapping vestigial buttons on the sleeves of suits, even though they served no purpose other than looking like a 19th century surgeon. Which I'm sure everyone still aspires to.

"Stab wound? No problem! Look at my sleeves!"

Internet Scam of the 19th Century

     You may be familiar with the Nigerian email scam. If you are not, a strongly suggest you continue reading. If you already know about the scam, then uhh, still keep reading anyway. Okay, so the Nigerian scam (also called the 419 scam, or the advance-free fraud) most often takes the form of an email from an unknown party claiming that if the reader wires them a certain amount of money, they will soon be generously rewarded with even more money than was wired. There are many different stories behind the unknown party's need for money, some with an incredibly intricate plot. A common one is that a member of Nigerian royalty needs your money to gain access to a fortune, which he would more than happily share with you once he attains it.

Nobody believes me... 

       In case you hadn't guessed, the scam ends with you loosing money and never receiving a part of a fortune. And you feeling like an idiot for the rest of your life. 

       Similar scams have been around much longer than you may think. Like, even before the internet. 

Figuratively forever ago. 

       The Spanish Prisoner letter scam was one of a few money scams from as far back as the 18th century. Reaching it's peak in the 19th century, the confidence trickster tells his victim (the mark) that he is (or is in correspondence with) a wealthy person of high estate who has been imprisoned in Spain under a false identity. Some versions had the imprisoned person being an unknown or remote relative of the mark.  Supposedly the prisoner cannot reveal his identity without serious repercussions, and is relying on a friend (the confidence trickster) to raise money to secure his release. The confidence trickster offers to let the mark put up some of the funds, with a promise that he will be financially rewarded when the prisoner returns, and perhaps also by gaining the hand of a beautiful woman represented to be the prisoner's daughter. After the mark has turned over the funds, he is informed that further difficulties have arisen and more money is needed. With such explanations, the trickster continues to press for more money until the victim is cleaned out or declines to put up more funds.

"Don't you ever ask me how I lost all my riches again!"

      The amount of effort put into the scams back then is astounding. For an example of a Spanish Prisoner letter, you can click on this link. 

      The moral of the story is don't give people your money.

Capitalist Candy: A Halloween Spectacular

        Ok, so this is going to sound like a crazy conspiracy theory, so just bear with me here. Okay? Okay. Remember the little shift in daylight savings time in 2007? If you don't, Congessed passed a bill called "the energy policy act."And  now instead of ending the week of October, daylightsavings now ends the first week of November. And it was all to make you buy more candy. 

                   Capitalist swine

        Alright, so the whole peropose of the "energy policy act" was, as you may have guessed, to have America conserve more energy. And even though there is no actual proof that the bill would work (in fact there was evidence to the contrary) the bill was passed. Why? 

      On a completely unrelated note, did you know that the candy industry can make over $2 billion per Halloween? 

      Ok I lied. The above statement was not unrelated. The biggest groups pushing for the bill to pass were in the candy industry. Giving kids another hour of candy gathering time would result in a small fortune for them. And it did. And still does. The end.

      And that's the story of how the candy industry controlled time. 

        I'm pretty sure this would make

        a great Disney movie starring

        Scrooge McDuck. 

Angels are actually Terrifying

       
 Imagine an angel. A divine winged human being surrounded by an aura of gentle white light.

So angelic.

           Now imagine that image was eaten and regurgitated by a codeine-fueled nightmare. Actual biblical angels look something like that.
           You see, painters took a lot of liberties with appearance of angels. They made them friendly and majestic. They also made them humanoid. Ultimately, angels looked a lot more... weird... before painters edited them.

        For example, lets look at a seraphim, the only type of angel that actually has wings.

          Oh did I mention it has six? And they're not for flying, they cover the body of the angel. Because if you saw the angel's real body, you would be either blinded or incinerated.

          Not "trippy" enough for you? Fine. There are also angels called thrones, which are described in the bible as "wheels within wheels." Oh yea, and the wheels are covered in eyes.

Click to see throne

         At least none of the angels are overtly terrifying. Ha! You obviously haven't seen the cherubim yet.
         "What, the cute little pudgy-baby-cupid type things?" You may be thinking.
         Well technically. Except they look like this:

Click to see Cherubim

      Yup, Ezekiel 10:14 describes them as "frightening four-headedmonstrosities that included the faces of a man, an eagle, and a lion." And sometimes he has a goat or an ox head in there just for good measure.

         The bottom line is that angels are terrifying.

Terrifying I tell you.

Fanta-stic Origins

         The year is 1941, the United States have officially entered the second World War, and Coca-Cola is placed in a rather difficult situation: "Should we continue selling Coke to Germany and be ostracized by everyone forever, or should we not sell to America's now sworn enemies?"

I don't care. Let them all burnnnn.

            Unsurprisingly, Coca-Cola opted to stop shipping their product to the poor thirsty Nazis. This put a man named Max Keith in a pickle. You see, Keith was the head of operations for Coca-Cola in Germany. And now that Coke and it's secret ingredients were gone from the Fatherland, there was like, figuratively nothing to drink.

God forbid...

           So acting quickly, Keith threw a bunch of stuff in a bottle and called it a beverage. His concoction included whey (watery part of milk after curds have formed) and pomace (stuff left over after pressing fruit), all of which was drown in a bunch of fake sugar. He dubbed the "product" Fanta, and abbreviation for phantasie, the German word for fantasy.

Pictured: whey. My definition of  "fantasy" is a little
different than Keith's.

         Fanta was largely successful in Germany, especially towards the later part of the war, where food shortages ran rampant. Fanta was enjoyed by many hungry Germans as a broth for soup.

         After the war ended, Coca-Cola returned to the now Hitler-free country and Fanta was abolished on the basis that it was practically inedible. That is, until around 10 years later, when Pepsi began enlarging their line of beverages. Coca-Cola, realizing that just brown sugar-water might not be able to compete with Pepsi's variety, brought back Fanta (only with a few changes in the ingredients, making sure it was, you know, fit for consumption).

And people have been enjoying Fanta ever since. I think. 

         

The Legacy of William Howard Taft

         Here are some historical facts about William Howard Taft:

 Taft was the 27th president of the United States from 1909-1913.
He was hand picked by Theodor Roosevelt to be his successor.
After his presidency, he went on to become Chief Justice of the United States. Making him the only president to ever be both.
He sought world peace.
Historians generally remember him as just an all around good president.
And once he got stuck in the White House's bath tub.

      ...Which one of those facts are you going to remember about him?

America, even our president is so fat he gets stuck in bath tubs.

        Yup, at 330 pounds, Taft was America's largest president. 

  

        When someone finally found him, it took four men to get him out.

      

"Maybe If I grow a fantastic mustache, that's what people will remember me for!"

       Later, a new bathtub was installed specifically for Taft. It could fit four full grown men. 

       ... I feel like I should write more, but I mean, President got stuck in a bathtub. What more do you want?

Lobster: From Rags to Riches

               Here the story of a boy named Billy.

Billy

              Billy lives in the year 1801, and tonight he's taking a gal named Mindy out for a fancy dinner!

Mindy

              Billy decides to take Mindy to his favorite sea-side restaurant. Once there, Billy spends all the money he's earned inhaling asbestos as a carpenters assistant on a fresh, luscious, lobster. Mindy slaps Billy, and walks away. Never to be seen again.

              What did Billy do wrong?

              He ordered lobster! Duh! 

              

              You see, lobster used to be considered a horrendous thing to eat. It was next to grasshopper on the stuff you want to enter your mouth list. It's like half spider, half insect, all disgustingness. British POWs during the Revolutionary war complained because they were being fed too much lobster. 

Who would pay to eat this?

               So what changed? 

               Well, with the invention of railroads, rich people in the middle of the country (who didn't know what lobsters were) were tricked into buying massive amounts of them. These rich people promptly found that lobster is very good at soaking up lots of butter. 

                And thus began the dawn of the $800 lobster dish.           

The Confederate Flag, A Tale of Undecidedness

               Quick, what does the confederate flag look like? Chances are, you thought of this:

If you didn't, well then good for you. 

                  But it totally isn't the Confederate flag.  Well, at least not the first. 

Yup, it turns out all those proud American citizens sporting their Confederate tattoos are totally wrong. Who would have guessed such generally intelligent people would be mislead? 

Beats me.

                  Anyway, incase you were wondering, the first Confederate flag was the "Stars and Bars" flag. The reason it was eventually abolished in 1863, was that it showed 13 stars (originally 7), and there was only 11 states in the Confederacy. The other two represented Missouri and Kentucky, states that the South really wanted to have join up with them, but never did. 

"We'll just keep these stars here, just incase you want 'em later
or something."

                  The problem with this flag was that it looked too much like the already existing American flag. So in 1862, the South released their new "Stainless Banner," which was pretty much solid white. (Typical South am I right?). Unfortunately, it looked very similar to a flag of surrender (Civil War foreshadowing?) and was scraped shortly after it's release onto the battlefield. 

                 On March 4, 1865, with the war nearing an end, the Confederate Congress decided to adopt yet another flag. Nick named "the Blood Stained Banner," it turned out to be the final flag for the Confederacy. 

"I don't know guys... Lets just put "Not Union" on there somewhere."

              "But what is the Confederate Flag the we know and love?" You are probably thinking. Well, that particular flag was used by some self proclaimed "Rebel Companies" in the Pacific during World War II.

                So there you go, everything you know is a lie.

             

Charles Bedaux's Exploration

            Can you guess what Edmund Hillary (one of the first men to climb and explore mount Everest), Neil Armstrong (first man to set foot on and explore the moon), and Captain James Cook (first captain to cross and explore the Arctic Circle) have in common? If you guessed that none of them were pimps, you would be correct! This is because pimps, generally speaking, have no credentials for exploring uncharted places. However, this did not stop one monsieur Charles Bedaux from attempting to explore a trail for an Alaskan-Canadian highway back in 1934.

At least he'd be warm.

          Bedaux's expedition brought only the most essential items to their survival, to insure quick travel and survival. And by most essential, I mean his expedition consisted of: two limousines, five Citroen half-tracks (which were newly invented and supplied by a close friend), 130 horses loaded with caviar and champagne, a film crew, a few lucky scientific surveyors, his wife, a butler, a valet, a maid, and last but definitely not least, his mistress. Because pimp.

"Damn, my favorite chalice! I knew I forgot something!"

           Needless to say, the expedition went horribly. His vehicles were being slowed down by mud, so Bedaux threw out the surveying equipment to lighten the load. He then proceeded to filmed his team dumping a few of the half-tracks over a cliff to see if they would explode. They eventually turned around due to heavy snow 15 days away from their destination, because one can only be entertained for so long by caviar, demolition, mistresses, and exploration.

 

Needs more explosions. And champagne. 

          Though the exploration was most probably just a publicity stunt, there has been some speculation that it was actually part of a Nazi plan to provide easier access to America from up north. This theory was wide spread by a movie later released about Bedaux's expedition entitled "The Champagne Safari."

I expected him to be wearing at least one comically large hat
with a feather sticking out of it. 

         

Where Did I Put That Amber Room?

           At one point or another, it is pretty safe to assume that everyone has misplaced something in their lives. It happens. Maybe you assumed you had your keys in your pocket, but in actuality you left them at the restaurant you hurriedly evacuated after leaving a bad tip. Maybe you placed your fresh cup of coffee on the roof of your car, then subsequently forgot it was there. Maybe you just plain forgot where you put 18 minutes of the Watergate Tapes.

I know I had them when I left Richard's place...

            However, no matter what you lose, at least you are not responsible for losing the Amber Room. 

Also known as "the eighth wonder of the world," the Amber room was one of Russia's greatest treasures. Constructed in 1701, it was build out of amber, gold leaf, and mirrors. 

This is pretty much what Kanye West's house looks like.

         The room was moved around Russia several times until it settled in a St. Petersburg Palace. Skip ahead to 1941, as Nazis invaded St. Petersburg, evacuating Russians quickly wallpapered over the treasure in order to hide it from looters. Their attempts amounted to naught, as the Nazis quickly discovered the room and shipped the whole thing back to Germany.

          Once it safely arrived in Konigseberg, the room was proudly set on display. That is until 1945, as the Russians started advancing, Hitler gave the order that it should be packed up and sent to a more secure location. Honoring the big man's orders, soldiers had the room packed up and taken to a railway station for transportation. It was then promptly lost, never to be seen again.

The suspected culprit.

           Many theories exist as to how the room went missing. It could have been hidden away in some secret bunker, put on a ship that was sunk by the Allies, sold to "Cash4Gold" for like $53, who knows. Over the last few decades, massive searches have gone underway and all of them have been fruitless. The only piece of the room that was recovered was a small mosaic that a German soldier pocketed when he helped transport the room from Russia. It has since been reconstructed in St. Petersburg, although with significantly less real gold. 

ROMAN ACID LUNGS

                 Sorry folks, but this is the last post on here for at least two and a half months. I know, I know. Try to hold back the tears. It's all right. No really stop, you're making this awkward.

I could maybe be convinced to continue, if someone made a charitable
donation upwards of $100 dollars. 

                 Since I started this think with Mummies, I thought I should ended it with some Screaming Mummies. But come on, there has got to be a way more brutal topic than screaming undead pansies. Like say maybe, 2,000 YEAR OLD ANCIENT ROMAN SOLDIERS THAT VIOLENTLY DIED IN A SMALL TUNNEL FROM HAVING SULFURIC ACID IN THIER LUNGS.

Roman's were metal as shit.

                   Alright, sounds good. So back in 1933, when archeology mainly consisted of molesting historic artifacts, a French archeologist named Robert du Mesnil du Buisson was looking for ancient Roman armor in the Syrian city of Dura. His motives being that he is French, and as previously stated, the French have been known to do some crazy stuff. Buisson hit the dead Roman people jackpot when, exploring a tunnel, found 19 dead Roman soldiers stacked in a haphazard pile. He also found a Persian soldier in a tunnel that connected to that tunnel. The strange thing was that all the bodies appeared to be running away from something.

Look, the skeleton of a dead Persian warrior is waving at you. You
should probably wave back. Don't want to offend the undead.  

                     Buisson imagined bloody melee combat killing the men, but there simply wasn't enough room in the tunnel. Also the remains suggested no such fight. The mystery may have been solved by Simon James, who recreated the scene and told this story:

"The Persians attempted to dig a tunnel under the Roman-held cities wall. the Romans heard the Persians working beneath the ground and steered their tunnel to intercept their enemies. The Roman tunnel was shallower than the Persian one, so the Romans planned to break in on the Persians from above. But there was no element of surprise for either side: The Persians could also hear the Romans coming.

So the Persians set a trap. Just as the Romans broke through, James said, they lit a fire in their own tunnel. Perhaps they had a bellows to direct the smoke, or perhaps they relied on the natural chimney effect of the shaft between the two tunnels. Either way, they threw sulfur and bitumen on the flames. One of the Persian soldiers was overcome and died, a victim of his own side's weapon. The Romans met with the choking gas, which turned to sulfuric acid in their lungs."

                     James' theory is supported by samples of burnt sulfur and bitumen that were collected off of the walls of the tunnel. 

                     So there you go, one of the first documented uses of chemical warfare. 

Man this was a pretty dark post...

                   

Fig No-Relations-to-Sir-Isaac Newton

         Here we go. The history of Fig Newtons. Because why not?                                                      And if you don't know what a Fig Newton is, it's a scrumptious cookie filled with hatred. See below

"Why not?" Being a common question when talking about
Fig Newtons. 

          Ok, so once upon a time in a magical place called "Ohio," a humble cookie maker named Charles M. Roser thought up the Fig Newton cookie. Or at least he is credited with inventing the recipe. Then, around the year of 1890, Roser sold the cookie recipe to the Kennedy Biscuit Works (which is now called Nabisco). The Kennedy Biscuit Works mass produced the cookie, and that is why you can enjoy the slightly-putred taste of figs inside of sugar-bread. The end.

The knight then force-fed the dragon a Fig Newton,
at which point the dragon turned purple and died.

            That was pretty short huh? Want to know more facts about Fig Newtons that you will undoubtedly annoy your friends with? Well then I guess it would be rude of me not to further enlighten you. So here you go:

              In 1891, James Henry Mitchell invented a machine that made mass production of the Fig Newton possible. The machine worked as a double funnel. There was one funnel on the inside of the device that supplied the jam, and a funnel outside the inner funnel that pumped out the dough. This created a long tube of Fig Newton. The machine would then cut and stamp the cookie, making it ready for packaging. 

             And, contrary to popular belief, the Fig Newton's name was not inspired by Sir Isaac Newton. Rather, it was inspired by the Massachusetts town of Newton. Kennedy Biscuits had a habit of naming their cookies after local towns. 

But this guy does look like his favorite cookie would be
a Fig Newton. Or maybe an oatmeal cookie. 

             

Kermit the Murdering Extortionist

                 Jim Henson, if you didn't know, created and originally voiced a little tv show called The Muppets.

Pretty underground, it didn't teach an entire generation basic
life skills or anything. 

               One of the main characters, or arguably the main character, is a frog named Kermit. Kermit is known for many things, chief among them are his lovable if not slightly melancholy songs...

Let the bodies hit the floor
Let the bodies hit the floor

                 ... And being one of the most recognizable puppets from the late 50's to the late 80's. Only then being rivaled by Big Bird. But before Kermit made his first appearance in 1955, Henson had a sort of proto-Kermit. And its name was Wilkins.

                Yup, thats proto-Kermit on the right. He hadn't really morphed into frog form yet. And that depressed looking thing on the left is named Wotkins. And they were both part of Henson's many, many Wilkins Coffee commercials. Each ad is only about 10 seconds, and they're all roughly the same.

So it starts off with Wilkins saying how great the coffee is, then asking Wotkins if he drinks Wilkin brand coffee. Wotkins says no, then Wilkins inflicts bodily harm/murders Wotkins and makes a joke. Wotkins method of murdering Wotkins includes running him over with a steam roller, pushing him out of a hot air balloon, throwing knives at him, shooting him out of a cannon, and full-out shanking him.

               In one commercial, after shooting Wotkins in the head with a pistol, Wilkins turns to the camera and asks if anyone else doesn't like Wilkins Coffee. The implication here being that if you didn't go buy Wilkins Coffee, Wilkins would murder you. 

It's always the one you'd least expect to kill you
because of your choice in coffee. 

              So as times changed, the Wilkins character changed too. He first became a humanoid lizard named, then later evolved into a green frog with banjo playing abilities. Hopefully one day Wilkins will return to the Muppets, possibly curb stomping Fozzie Bear out of rage that Wilkins Coffee no longer exists.