7 ) The Kelly-Hopkinsville Encounter

Not all alien invasion stories are created equal. In fact, all of them pale in comparison to the Kelly-Hopkinsville encounter because it involves rednecks, alien goblins, and guns. On the night of August 21, 1955, a Kentucky farmer went outside to get a drink of water and claimed to have seen a “flying saucer” crash in a nearby gully. Everyone laughed at him and suggested that he was either lying or hallucinating.

The Bizarre:

A few minutes later the group saw a three foot tall creature glide towards them. It had an over-sized head, pointy ears, glowing eyes, was dressed in silver metal, had large talons on its hands, and had them raised towards the sky. The group responded like any of us would: they grabbed their guns and started shooting at it. But it just somersaulted away and for the next few hours the group was harangued by a group of goblins that didn’t get hurt by gunfire and seemed to just want to peer inside the house.

Possible Explanation:

The best explanation is that they were shit-faced on moonshine and were shooting at owls. But the police was very adamant in stating that the group was not under the influence of alcohol and drugs and “sincere and sane and that they had no interest in exploiting the case for publicity.”

6 ) The Dancing Mania of Aachen

Not the Tito Puente album, but a craze that swept across Europe and lasted for about 300 years. On June 24, 1374, a large group of people started dancing through the streets of Aachen, Germany, engaging in orgies and screaming about visions. They foamed at their mouths, talked in tongues, and kept dancing even after collapsing from exhaustion. It quickly caught on and rapidly spread through the rest of Europe.

The Bizarre:

Obvious Thriller joke aside, what made the entire scenario even better was the fact that the first solution was to attempt to pray away the mania. Large religious ceremonies were staged on counter the movement because it was thought to be a form of demonic possession. When that failed, anytime a dance mania would kick off musicians would accompany the afflicted in hopes that it would “treat” them.

Possible Explanation:

There are a few: Michael Jackson turned into a werecat after asking his girlfriend to go steady, ergot poisoning, or mass delusions. You decide which one you like better.

5 ) The Dyatlov Pass Accident

In something that the Blair Witch Project apparently ripped off, nine Russian cross-country skiers went on a trek through the Ural Mountains in 1959. They were forced to set up camp during a snow storm but something scared them enough to make a mad dash through the harsh subzero weather towards a nearby forest wearing practically nothing. Not surprisingly, all were found dead afterwards. None of them had any signs of outward trauma.

The Bizarre:

Since no Cher CDs were found it is unknown why they would dash into the snow to die, but other hikers in the area swear there were strange lights in the sky. Five were found to have died of simple hypothermia – it appears that they just ran out into the cold and froze to death – but four were found in strange circumstances: two had crushed ribs, one had a crushed skull, and one was missing her tongue. These four were dosed with radiation and families swear that their skin turned orange and their hair white.

Possible Explanation:

No tongue? FUCK! Aliens! Buzz-kills want us to believe that an avalanche or a weapons test gone wrong caused the deaths, but there is no evidence of either, and most records were lost after the fall of the USSR or are still sealed.

4 ) The Northwest Orient Airlines Flight 305 Hijacking

On November 24, 1971, a man that resembled Michael Douglas’ character in Falling Down sat down and requested a bourbon with soda. The man is D.B. Cooper and he is about to become an American legend. After lighting a cigarette he passed the stewardess a note saying that he’ll detonate a bomb if he isn’t given $200,000 in cash and four parachutes.

The Bizarre:

After the FBI gives him the money and parachutes, he straps it to himself and asks for the plane to go to Mexico City. After 45 minutes in the air he offers each of the stewardesses a $2,000 tip, opens a door in the back, and bails into the darkness and rain.

Possible Explanation:

He had balls that were made of diamonds. Expert experienced paratrooper and skydivers swear that there is no way he could have survived the jump but no body is ever found. A few people come forward, either claiming to be D.B. Cooper or claiming to know who he was, but DNA evidence disproves their claims.

3 ) The May Day Mystery

Every May 1st since 1981, a cryptic ad has been placed in the Arizona Daily Wildcat.

The Bizarre:

At first glance they are just gibberish, but analysis by fans has revealed that they seem to be laying out a story that involves The Orphanage, a secret society that is placing the ads, that wants to give away The Prize, which is a reward that is in a safe deposit box for whoever solves the mystery. The Orphanage transports White Rabbit/Wonder Bread, which are unknown items, and seem to have some obsession with Martin Luther because his image appears on a lot of the ads.

Possible Explanation:

The super-model-sexy explanation is that there is a super secret society that is trying to see if anyone out there is smart enough to crack their code. The seeing-your-grandmother-naked explanation is that the ads are placed by Robert Truman Hungerford, an eccentric lawyer that claims to be the legal counsel for “The Brotherhood”, and that he is bat shit insane.

2 ) The Max Headroom Signal Piracy Incident

On a typical Chicago night on November 22, 1987, someone wearing a Max Headroom mask managed to hijack a broadcast signal twice – once CBS and once PBS. Pirating a broadcast signal is incredibly hard. According to the FBI the cost of doing something like this could range from a couple thousand dollars to over $25,000.

The Bizarre:

The first intrusion took place while CBS was going through sports scores. “Max” appeared for about 30 seconds and swayed in front of a corrugated metal sheet until CBS killed his signal. The second intrusion took place while PBS was showing an episode of Doctor Who. “Max” appeared around 11:15 PM and started dancing around while saying random phrases. He then decided to moon the viewers and was spanked by someone wearing a dress with a flyswatter. Then the signal blacked out. It pissed off Doctor Who fans to the point that one remarked: “I got so upset that I wanted to bust the TV set… I really did.”

Possible Explanation:

The most badass one is that it was a bored hacker that wanted to show off his abilities. The not as awesome, but still interesting one is that someone had a grudge against the CBS station. The philosophical one is that he used Max Headroom because it was set in a post-apocalyptic wasteland ruled by TV corporations and freedom fighters spread their message by hijacking TV feeds. But either way, no one knows, because “Max” covered his trail extremely well and there is practically no evidence anymore.

1 ) The Lead Masks Case

Some crazy shit happens in Brazil, there are parts of Rio de Janeiro where pilots refuse to fly over out of fears that slum lords will shoot them down. So, it is only natural that mysterious deaths have to involve UFOs. On August 20, 1966, in Niteroi, the bodies of two healthy men in their 30s were found on a hilltop. Both men were wearing half-masks made of lead that covered the upper half of their faces. A notebook keeping diagrams and partially coded notes along with a strange letter was found with the bodies.

The Bizarre:

Lead masks aside, the autopsies revealed that both men were healthy and had died when their hearts just stopped beating. The notebook contained references to the Ohm equation and the letter appeared to be instructions to appear at the hilltop, swallow orange capsules, and to wait for the “promised sign.” Naturally, people came forward to claim that strange orange objects were hovering over the hilltop the same day. When investigators searched one of the men’s workshop they found a book that discussed scientific spiritualism in which passages dealing with masks and intense rays of light were marked.

Possible Explanation:

No Madonna CDs were found, so it isn’t sure why they were obsessed with rays of light. Theories about aliens, psychics, cults, etc started to spread but none had any evidence. The police closed the investigation saying: “I have no doubt they died of an experiment with psychic forces, for which they were ill-prepared and which turned out to be fatal.”

Source: http://ty.rannosaur.us/

1. Michael Arrington

Being the god-king of tech blogs isn’t easy (unless your name is Pete Cashmore and you can stare at yourself in a mirror), just ask Michael Arrington. He spends most of his panda-like existence blogging and picking fights with anyone that dares to criticize him. Most of the hate for Arrington comes from TechCrunch’s popularity, insane anger, and general douchebaggery towards anyone he considers lower than him.

2. Julia Allison

Famous for her attempts at getting famous, blogger Julia Allison has been hated on sites like Gawker since she first appeared in 2006. A legion of commenters descends from the skies like the monkeys from The Wizard of Oz to shit and piss all over the place with comments about her thighs whenever she writes a blog post about whatever tech company founder she is dating.

3. Tila Tequila

Sometime in 2006, Tila polished the turd of being an internet softcore pornstar into Tila Tequila, a pop singer and MTV dating show host. The neckbeards and fat lesbians that were sloughed off during her transformation were not amused by the sudden drought in Tila porn and act like a loosely connected terrorist cell that appear to raise doubts about her sexuality and to compare her forehead to a dolphin’s.

4. Casey Serin

In 2005, Casey Serin racked up $2.2 million in debt to flip houses for massive profits. Only, he was armed with MC Hammer’s financial powers and couldn’t sell most of the houses in the collapsing market. His blogs are the target of a hate so pure from The Haterz, an organized group of real estate and finance bloggers, that they could bottle and sell it for a higher profit than Serin could ever manage.

5. Lori Drew

The world was shocked that attractive people on MySpace could be middle-aged helicopter moms when, in 2007, bloggers outed Lori Drew as the person that used a sock puppet to harass 13-year-old Megan Meier until she committed suicide. The lack of remorse from Drew has angered the internet to the point that most are willing to give up some free speech to send her to jail under broad hacking laws.

6. Jason Fortuny

In 2006, the media exploded in a Bastille of anger when Jason Fortuny realized Craigslist is used only to troll for sex, posed as a woman, and posted the responses to his LiveJournal (obviously NSFW) where commenters identified and hassled responders. He then created Megan Had It Coming, posing as Drew posing as Megan’s friend, and was flummoxed that he is considered a bag of dicks for coming out as the author.

7. Michael Crook

If Fortuny is a bag of dicks then Michael Crook is the dick bank where Scrooge McCock swims around in an endless sea of dicks. He is best known for using DMCA takedown notices to harass bloggers that mocked his appearance on Fox News to defend Forsake the Troops, a site that claims troops are overpaid parasites, until a 2007 EFF lawsuit made him literally apologize to the internet.

8. David Motari

David Motari’s Bebo profile says he is happiest “hittin the gym”, “eating”, and “cruisin”, but fails to mention his love for tossing puppies of cliffs. in 2008, a YouTube video showing him doing that appeared and bloggers became fixed with ruining his life. To their credit, the USMC investigated the issue as soon as the video appeared and ended up discharging him.

9. Tim Buckley

Other webcomic creators hate Ctrl-Alt-Delete, Tim Buckley’s webcomic about stroke victims that are unable to close their mouths but love video games and have miscarriages, because of Buckley’s inability to take criticism, lazy art, and excessive dialogue. Former fans hate him for banning thousands of forum members in 2005 after it was alleged that he sent naked pictures of himself to an under-aged forum member.

10. Eric Bauman

The Carlos Mencia of the internet, Eric Bauman is hated by everyone that encounters him but eBaum’s World still manages to scrape on. YTMND DDoS attacks, Anonymous attributing raids to him, and all sorts of other drama stem from Bauman’s unrepentant attitude towards watermarking stolen content. In fact, hate for Eric Bauman and eBaum’s World is what powers the internet.

Source: http://ty.rannosaur.us/

10 ) Socrates

Credited as one of the founders of Western philosophy, Socrates was also well known for his piggish features. Alcibiades, an Athenian general and student of Socrates, compared his appearance to Silenus. Silenus was a legendary follower of Dionysus that was portrayed as morbidly obese, constantly drunk, and balding.

Zopyrus, a rival philosopher that believed people should be judged on appearance alone, said that Socrates was “stupid, brutal, sensual, and addicted to drunkenness”, making him an ugly yet sexy drunk. When his followers violently objected, Socrates stepped in and said that the reading was on the mark.

9 ) Attila the Hun

Practically unstoppable, Attila almost wiped out Western civilization until Pope Leo I talked him out of sacking Rome. According to Hollywood he looked like Gerard Butler, better known as Leonidas from 300, since Butler played him in the 2001 television series.

The reality is that he looked more like Shrek. Passages from history describe an extremely short man, built like an ogre, who so hideous that he was “human and yet not.” He is described with a bulbous head, flat nose, moist nostrils, beady eyes, and thin beard. None of this stopped him from marrying 12 beautiful women and dying while devirginizing his last one.

8 ) Tannakin Skinker

The epitome of a butterface, Skinker was born to a rich 17th century German family. Her parents kept her deformity secret for years, until news about the “hog-faced gentlewoman” leaked out and people started lining up for hours to catch a glimpse. The family attempted to use the hype to marry her off, dressing her in the finest bejeweled clothes to draw attention away from her face and offering a massive dowry to anyone brave enough to marry her. One man stepped up, saying: “Put her head in a black bagge and what difference between her and another woman?” Then her veil was lifted and he hightailed it out of there. Skinker died a single woman.

7 ) Frederick North

An 18th century Prime Minister of Great Britain, Lord North embraced his unattractive appearance. He insisted that his portraits accurately depict that he was a portly man with thick lips and eyes that bulged from his face. While at a dinner party he was asked about the “frightful woman” sitting across from him. He informed the man that it was his wife. Realizing his blunder the man said that he meant the “monster next to her.” North simply replied: “That is my daughter, and I may tell you, sir, that we are considered to be three of the ugliest people in London.”

6 ) Jean-Paul Marat

Considered to be one of the most important men in French history, Marat was best known for his rabble rousing journalism during the French Revolution and his harsh stance against the new government. He spent most of his time in a bathtub to get relief from a bunch of skin diseases he picked up while hiding in the French sewer system. His supporters described him as short, squat, and blessed with an “unflagging malodor.” His enemies simply called him repulsive and one eventually assassinated him while he was in the bathtub.

5 ) Queen Charlotte

Before Photoshop there was the court painter.  It was rumored that King George III’s insanity was caused by the trauma of having sex with Queen Charlotte. Wikipedia describes her as “plain faced.” Thankfully, no 18th century Londoners can edit Wikipedia because when she first arrived to take her throne she was greeted with cries of “pug-face.” When she inquired about the chants her translators told her it meant “God bless her Majesty.”

4 ) George Lewes

Lewes became a 19th century celebrity due to his ability to carry on a conversation with practically anyone and for writing a famous biography of Gothe. He was also considered to be one of the ugliest men in England due to his buck teeth and oddly shaped head. He took this to heart and and attempted to hide his flaws with a large beard. Douglas Jerrold, a particularly savage writer, once said that the chimpanzee at the Zoological Gardens died “out of jealousy, because there existed a creature more hideous than itself!”

3  ) Julia Pastrana

Pastrana was a 19th century Mexican that was born with hypertrichosis terminalis, a condition that caused her face and most of her body to be covered in straight dark hair. Theodore Lent bought her from her mother in order to teach her to sing and play music. He then exploited her on a worldwide tour called “Bearded and Hairy Lady.” He eventually married her to secure all rights to her likeness. When she was pregnant with his child he sold tickets to the birth. The deformed child survived for 3 days and Pastrana died from complications afterwards. None of this stopped Lent, who simply had her and the child embalmed, placed in a glass case, and sent on a lucrative world tour. He was eventually committed to a mental institution.

2 ) J. G. Biggar

A 19th century Irish nationalist, Biggar basically invented the filibuster by talking down anything related to the Irish Coercion Act. The first time Biggar stood up to give a speech, Benjamin Disraeli asked, “What creature is that?” After being informed it was Biggar, Disraeli remarked: “Oh! I thought it had been a Leprechaun, one of those things that comes out in the moonlight to dance with fairies.” Disraeli wasn’t just being a dick. Biggar was born with a hunch, forcing him to walk with a cane, had large Hobbitesque feet, a “face like a gargoyle”, and skinny bony fingers. He also suffered from a speech impediment, making his long speeches highly effective in their ability to clear the room.

1 ) Joseph Merrick

The Elephant Man is probably the most famously ugly person in history. He suffered from Proteus syndrome, a genetic disorder that caused bony growths and tumors over large sections of his body. He walked with an odd hobble and often wore a cap and hood that covered his face. Even though he was highly intelligent, easy going, and artistically inclined he was relegated to working the freak show circuit because he was otherwise unemployable. Merrick was obsessed with attempting to live a normal life and ended up passing away when the weight of his head snapped his spine while he was asleep.

Bonus: Sarah Jessica Parker

Aside from Michael Jackson, I can’t think of a single person that is alive today that gets as much flak as Sarah Jessica Parker does for their physical appearance.  She was voted unsexiest woman alive by Maxim, practically all of the comments on her AskMen profile compare her to a horse, and yes, there is actually a website called Sarah Jessica Parker Looks Like A Horse.  Ouch.

Source: http://ty.rannosaur.us/

6 ) Sir Isaac Newton

The English writer that came up with The Three Laws of Motion was also puritanical, rarely smiled, and was a lifelong bachelor. All those years of not chasing women made him one crabby bastard, he was famous for his violent anger towards those he felt had spited him. He spent years hounding Gottfried Leibniz over the discovery of calculus. He kept a list of all the sins he had committed in his life and it included such horrible things like: “Making pies on Sunday night”, “squirting water”, and “peevishness.”

5 ) Søren Kierkegaard

The Danish philosopher that basically created Existentialism was also a hunchback. The original emo kid, Kierkegaard was famously depressed and considered it to be his “most faithful mistress.” Which is good, because he considered sex to be an abomination. It may have had to do with a girlfriend he once had: he was briefly engaged until he broke it off but never got over her. He spent the rest of his years trying to win her back through indirect communication and his writings. Titles like Fear and Trembling made sure she never talked to him.

4 ) J.M. Barrie

The Scottish novelist that came up with the idea for Peter Pan after his grieving mother enjoyed watching him dress up as his dead brother and wished he would never grow up or get older. Her wishes came true, seeing as how Barrie never grew taller than 5 feet tall. He blamed his height for his inability to meet women but somehow managed to land a gorgeous actress as a wife. But it became clear he wasn’t interested in sleeping with her on their wedding night and he never bothered to consummate the marriage.

3 ) George Frederic Handel

The German composer that wrote some of the most famous operas and inspired Beethoven and Mozart. Aside from having some of the most awe inspiring hair ever, he also got into a fist fight with Johann Mattheson over who should play the harpsichord. When King George II asked why he wasn’t married, he simply responded with: “I have no time for anything but music.”

2 ) Mohandas Gandhi

The Indian nationalist that pushed for independence from the British through non-violence and is best known for being skinny. Gandhi was married and had children but decided to put the kibosh on that in his 30s so he could control his “vital fluids.” He would have panic attacks after waking up from nocturnal emissions and would often test his celibacy in the most Hugh Hefner of ways: he’d get young women to massage him and spend the night with him in the nude.

1 ) Nikola Tesla

The Serbian inventor that is most famous for winning the War of Currents also loved pigeons. He spent years inventing things he never got credit for, like the light bulb and radio, and even believed he could control the weather. He also felt that sex was a drain on creativity and completely pushed aside any woman that was interested in him. Sarah Bernhardt, a famous actress, tried her hardest to woo him but he considered her to be little more than a distraction from inventing a death ray. When asked about marriage, he replied: “I do not think you can name many great inventions that have been made by married men.”

Source: http://ty.rannosaur.us/

These days the word “pervert” is mostly used to talk about sex, but it has more to do with taking a social norm and twisting it until it is something completely different. The following five authors managed to pervert social norms of their day. As an added bonus I’ll include a web community that the author would probably be a member of if they were alive today…

5) Lewis Carroll

Who was he?

The author of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass. He was also a logician, mathematician, Anglican clergyman, and photographer. His use of logic, structure, and wordplay would endear him to a group of fans that make even the most hardcore Star Wars fanboy seem easygoing and understanding (Greedo shot first).

How was he a pervert?

Carroll was usually surrounded by an entourage of prepubescent girls. He would write them letters that included puzzles and tricks but they second they got too old for him, usually the onset of puberty, he’d drop them like a bad habit. Yes, much like Michael Jackson’s undying love for young boys, Lewis Carroll loved young girls – but only English girls, American girls were too rude for his tastes and boys were absolutely disgusting nude. Yes, nude. You see, he loved taking pictures of young girls in basements, naked, spread out across a bed and would then go home and write about “the inclinations of my sinful heart”.

What web community would he be a member of today?

A severely repressed celibate pedophile could only be a member Slashdot’s Linux section.

4) The Marquis de Sade

Who was he?

The author of Justine, a philosophical pornography wrapped around Libertine philosophy that would lay out the main justification for sadism. The Libertines were a bunch of bored aristocrats that believed that the highest pursuit was that of pleasure. This mostly entailed writing dirty poetry, going to orgies, and having gay sex while cursing the crown. By the time de Sade was born being a Libertine was common – even his father was a frequenter of orgies – but he found ways to make even the most jaded Libertine’s monocle pop out in shock.

How was he a pervert?

Christ, how wasn’t he a pervert is a better question. After getting bored with plain vanilla orgies he decided to lock a prostitute in a rented mansion and asked her to whip him. When she refused he did what most of us would: masturbated into a chalice, asked her to take an enema so she could empty her bowels onto a figurine of Jesus Christ, called the Roman Catholic Lord a “motherfucker”, used crucifixes to masturbate himself, and inserted a few communion hosts into her before entering her himself while screaming: “If thou art God, avenge thyself!” Eventually Napoleon had enough and it forced de Sade into an asylum where he spent the rest of his days writing stuff that made even the most explicit guro seem chaste.

What web community would he be a member of today?

A sadist that continually found new ways to make you say “Jesus, what the fuck?” could only be a member of 4chan.

3) Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Who was he?

A philosopher that promoted the idea that all humans were good by nature but the progress of science and art corrupted virtue and morality. He wrote The Social Contract, in which he justified the overthrow of any government that was not controlled by the people. This idea would inspire revolutions and reforms through most of Europe and even in the United States.

How was he a pervert?

There was only one thing Rousseau loved more than freedom for everyone and that was getting his bare ass spanked by women. While living as a vagabond for a few years he would frequently moon passing women in hopes of getting spanked. In Confessions, the first real autobiography, he discussed this obsession: “To fall at the feet of an imperious mistress, obey her mandates, or implore pardon, were for me the most exquisite enjoyments, and the more my blood was inflamed by the efforts of a lively imagination the more I acquired the appearance of a whining lover.”

What web community would he be a member of today?

An idealist that loves getting continually spanked and asking for more could only be a member of the Ron Paul Forums.

2) Horatio Alger, Jr

Who was he?

An author of over 130 different “city stories” that dominated the dime novel market of the 19th century with such a fury that he would often outsell Mark Twain. All of his stories featured young street urchins as characters that were all alone in the big city. They would slave away, saving money and each other, until one day a rich businessman would take notice and whisk the young boy off to a better life.

How was a pervert?

When he was a minister in Brewster, Massachusetts he started having sex with young boys in his congregation. After two came forward he confessed to a “practice”, resigned, and moved to New York. Many critics suggest that the street urchins he wrote about were actually homeless child laborers that spent their nights in slums and would often get raped by predatory rich men.

What web community would he be a member of today?

A pedophile that promises young boys a better life but ends up raping them could only be a member of MySpace.

1) F. Scott Fitzgerald

Who was he?

The author of The Great Gatsby and is considered, by many, to be one of the best American writers of the 20th century. His wife, Zelda Sayre, and he would epitomize the Jazz Age – a time when technology and modernist trends dominated society, art, and American culture.

How was he a pervert?

Fitzgerald is most famous for his foot fetish, but even that completely pales in comparison to the sheer amount of dickery he heaped upon his wife and got off on. He credited his wife’s vagina with his only truly successful book and by the time he was writing The Great Gatsby he discovered that sleeping with other women and excessive drinking made him just as creative. Eventually she started an affair with a French lieutenant, which he was fine with because she left him alone until she said she was going to leave him, at which point he locked her in their house and forced her to break off the affair. He would later state that he had orchestrated the affair just so he could base a character off his wife’s suffering. Eventually she went batshit insane, would practice ballet all day and night, wrote a tell-all book, and checked into an asylum. Fitzgerald responded by drinking more, moving to Hollywood to pursue a career at MGM, having an affair with a critic, and calling Zelda’s ballet and book a waste of time, money, and paper.

What web community would he be a member of today?

A drunk writer that got off on misogyny and women’s feet could only be a member of Suicide Girls.

Sources: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8

8 ) Cheng I

The famous Hong Kong pirate created an even more famous pirate, Cheung Po Tsai, by kidnapping him and forcing him to be his lover. After his death, his wife married Cheung Po Tsai and became one of the most notorious pirates of the era. Eventually, Cheung Po Tsai would eclipse both of them by amassing about 40,000 men and 600 ships under his command during his career as a pirate.

7 ) William S. Burroughs

The author of Naked Lunch – a semi-autobiographical story about addiction – helped usher in the Beat movement and carried on a relationship with a 14-year-old boy while he lived in Tangier, Morocco. One of the central characters in the book, Kiki, is based on him. This information, coupled with leaked Scientology audit documents, paint a confusing picture about how far Burroughs went with Kiki . At the very least, if everything is taken as heroin induced hallucinations, then Burroughs was having sex with the boy. If everything is taken literally, then Burroughs enjoyed getting shat on by Kiki while shooting up heroin.

6 ) Pope Julius III

The pope that funded Michelangelo also took a 13-year-old beggar named Innocenzo under his wing after seeing him fight off a pet ape in the streets. He kept their relationship a secret by calling him his “nephew” until he became pope, at which point he elevated the illiterate boy to the position of cardinal and made him the highest paid man in Europe. They both hosted orgies with other young cardinals until Julius III passed, at which point Innocenzo was whisked away to various monasteries on murder charges.

5 ) James I of England

The unpopular king that followed Elizabeth I passed severe laws against sodomy and pederasty but became involved with a 17-year-old boy named Robert Carr. Carr was known for his good looks and “limited intelligence”, but eventually broke James I’s heart by picking his wife’s bed over the king’s. James I got his revenge when he pushed for a trial following a scandal over Carr’s wife poisoning a friend. Carr threatened to reveal their relationship and during his testimony there were guards standing next to him holding cloaks – ready to muffle him in case he dared.

4 ) William “Big Bill” Tilden

The tennis player that transformed the sport from a “sissy” country-club game to one played by actual athletes saw his life fall apart because of his relationship with a 14-year-old boy named Bobby. Rumors about Tilden’s behavior around boys were widespread at the time, but getting caught fondling Bobby in a parking lot sent him to jail for a few months. Afterwards, he was caught again making advances on a 16-year-old hitchhiker, which lead to more jail time, and his subsequent banning from most competitions. He spent his final years broke, his vast fortune squandered on bad investments, living in a tiny room in Hollywood.

3 ) Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky

The Russian composer that is best known for Swan Lake stayed confused about his sexuality his entire life. His sexuality was widely denied by the Soviets for years, and it wasn’t until recently that material was uncovered that showed that he was involved with younger boys. One of them, Eduard Zak, would inspire Romeo and Juliet after his suicide. His longest lasting relationship was with a 12-year-old servant named Aleksey “Aloysha” Sofronov , who remained his lover even after his own marriage. In his last 5 years he became involved with his own nephew, Vladimir “Bob” Davidov, and his final symphony is thought to be a requiem over this love.

2 ) Jules Verne

According to some of his biographers, the father of science fiction was also involved with Aristide Briand, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, when Briand was 15. Briand was a friend of Verne’s son and he would often pick up the young boy without his son. Even though there is no evidence that Verne actually slept with the boy, Verne’s biographers have suggested that the running themes of a love between a man and handsome youth were homages to Briand.

1 ) T.E. Lawrence

The British soldier, better known as “Lawrence of Arabia”, that played a massive role in the Arab Revolt and was involved with a 14-year-old Syrian boy named Selim Ahmed. Lawrence was a celibate that hated being touched by others but this changed after he met Ahmed. He nicknamed him “Dahoum”, wrote about “sweet” embraces in his journal, and even had Ahmed move in with him. While living with him, Lawrence carved a gargoyle based on him and, much to this dismay of his neighbors, placed it on his rooftop.

Source: http://ty.rannosaur.us/

7 ) Souflikar

During the Ottoman Empire the job of Bostanci was a prestigious one. The title translates to “Gardener”, and he was one… but he was also expected to prune the Emperor’s court through strangulation.  They added another twist to it: the condemned raced the executioner through the gardens to the execution spot.  If he managed to beat him, his sentence was reduced to banishment.  If he lost, he was strangled on the spot and his body thrown in the river.  None were as fast as Mahomet IV’s head executioner, Souflikar, as over the course of 5 years he strangled at least 5,000 people – a rate of almost 3 people a day.

6 ) Richard Brandon

The English were always very picky about who could become an executioner.  It had to be someone from a family of executioners that knew how to kill someone quickly but also knew how to vamp for the crowd.  Brandon was one of the most famous Common Hangmen of London and became the yardstick against which other English executioners (even Albert Pierrepoint) were measured.  He was extremely proud of his ability to sever a head with a single blow, something that was very popular with the crowds – and appreciated by people getting executed – since it generally took a few chops for the average executioner to get through.  He refined this skill after years of practice on cats and dogs.  He is best known for executing King Charles I, but did so under heavy disguise out of fear of retaliation.

5 ) William Marwood

While Brandon was popular for his skill, Marwood became popular for developing a process that instantly killed his victims.  He started out as cobbler but got a job as executioner after showing that a person died instantly if his “long drop” method was used.  Before Marwood, people getting hanged would slowly strangle to death and the executioner would have to use his own weight to seal the deal.  Marwood added a snapping motion that would instantly break the neck.  It wasn’t perfect though, the first few executions often ended with decaptiation.

4 ) Fernando Alvarez de Toledo

The “Iron Duke of Alva” was the chief executioner for King Philip of Spain during the Spanish Inquisition.  Stories about his approach would send towns into a panic – and rightfully so: he once executed 8,000 people in a single session at Antwerp.  He boasted that he had managed to hang 18,000 Dutchmen in the Netherlands.  These stories and his brutal methods – he would brand his victim’s tongue until it couldn’t be taken back into the mouth and would then burn them at the stake – only helped spread rumors that Spaniards were savage radicals.

3 ) Giovanni Battiste Bugatti

“Mastro Titta”, a corruption of “Master of Justice”, is considered a national hero in Italy for performing 516 public executions for the Papal States.  While other executioners on this list would show off for the crowds, Bugatti considered it to be a side job.  Well known for his brutality – using hammers to crush heads and then quartering the bodies – he approached each execution in a casual and religious manner: he would go to confession and take communion before each victim, offered them a pinch of snuff, and then ended their lives.  His blood stained cloak can still be seen in Rome’s Criminology Museum.

2 ) Charles Henri-Sanson

Unlike Bugatti, Henri-Sanson enjoyed working up a crowd before performing executions.  He attracted record numbers and was one of the most efficient public executioners in Paris.  He once executed 300 people during 3 days of the Reign of Terror and was asked to slow down because residents of a nearby street were complaining that the stench of blood would drive house prices down.  He was so skilled that he could guillotine 12 people under 13 minutes.  He famously made Marie Antoinette one of those people in front of 200,000 cheering fans.

1 ) Grover Cleveland

The only American president to serve two nonconsecutive terms also carried out two executions while sheriff in Buffalo, New York.  He hanged a man that stabbed his own mother and a few months later hanged a murderer.  During the 1884 elections his rivals called him “Buffalo’s Hangman” and tried to use the executions against him.  Neither the allegations that he had a child out of wedlock, nor the nickname hurt his candidacy.  In fact, some historians believe that personally executing criminals made him appear tough on crime.

Source: http://ty.rannosaur.us/

1. Stede Bonnet

Stede Bonnet lived as a wealthy landowner and gentleman until the summer of 1717, when he bought a ship, hired a crew, and took to piracy. Bonnet wasn’t trying to escape prosecution or rebelling against the crown; instead, his reasons for becoming a pirate stemmed from “discomforts he found in a married state.” In other words, he became a pirate to escape a nagging wife. His complete lack of sailing experience led to serious wounds he sustained in a battle with a Spanish man-of-war. Bonnet then allowed Blackbeard to help out while he was incapacitated. Blackbeard stole all of Bonnet’s goods, recruited most of his crew, and left Bonnet with a stripped ship and a handful of marooned pirates. Bonnet swore revenge, but since he still couldn’t sail, he never did find Blackbeard. Still on the lam, Bonnet changed his name and the name of his ship to avoid capture. It didn’t work. After running aground during a battle with the Royal Navy, his ship was quickly boarded. Soon thereafter, Bonnet was imprisoned, berated by a long-winded judge, and hanged. At least he got away from his wife.

2. Edward “Blackbeard” Thatch

Blackbeard built a bloodthirsty reputation, plundering many vessels, and receiving equally as many pardons. Born as Edward Thatch, he abandoned pivateering to create the infamous Blackbeard pirate persona. But, despite the tall tales of a snarling tyrant, brandishing pistols and lighting cannon fuses with a smouldering beard, there is no evidence that he ever killed anyone. There is more evidence that he was a syphilitic drunk that made disastrously bad decisions. Despite having numerous hostages during his famous blockade of Charleston, his only demand was for a chest of medicines. This probably stemmed from his habit of sharing his wives with his crew, ensuring that everyone suffered from one STD or another. He was offered a pardon, in hopes that it would make him go away, but instead he got shit-faced, ran his ship aground, and engaged Lieutenant Robert Maynard of the Royal Navy while hungover. Blackbeard lost after twenty stab wounds, five bullet holes, and good-old decapitation. Suddenly, your drinking stories don’t feel as awesome.

3. First Century Cilician pirates

Cilician pirates were extremely clever sailors who raided a large number of ships on the Mediterranean and made a fortune from the slave trade. They went so far as to plunder Ostia. But, they were not prepared to meet Julius Caesar. Early in his career, Caesar was captured while travelling to Rhodes to study rhetoric. Knowing they had a prize in their hands, the pirates requested a ransom of twenty talents. Caesar, in a move that demonstrated the size of his brass balls, laughed at the size of the ransom, promised to have them crucified, and told the pirates to ask for fifty talents instead. He had the money raised, paid the pirates, and was set free. As soon as he got back, he raised a fleet, captured the pirates, and then beat them to death with his bare hands in a cage match. No, I’m kidding. He kept his promise and had them ruthlessly crucified.

4. Unknown Somali Pirates

Somalia’s pirates have become some of the most wealthy men in the area. A captured oil tanker or cargo ship in the Gulf of Eden brings in an average ransom of $2 million. But, before you pack your bags to become a new age pirate, remember this little tidbit from late 2005: A group of Somali pirates in speedboats–armed with riles and rocket-propelled grenades–attacked a cruise liner off the coast of Somalia. The pirates fired several times, panicking the passengers and lightly injuring one of the crew members. They were eventually driven off by “an on-board acoustic bang” which convinced the gunmen they were under fire. That’s right. These pirates were driven off by a loud noise. More recently, a group of Somali pirates were given a $3 million ransom to return an oil tanker but managed to capsize their boat, losing both the money and their lives by drowning in the process.

5. Henry Every

Henry Every managed to capture a trading ship bursting with swag on his first, and only, voyage. Believed to be the single largest haul in the history of piracy, the loot made Every and his crew extremely wealthy. Unfortunately, the ship belonged to the Mughal emperor Aurangzeb, and this fact made it impossible for Every to settle down and spend his loot. After being turned away from the Bahamas and New England, Every managed to officially disappear in Ireland. According to Charles Johnson, one of the first piracy historians, Every attempted to sell some precious jewels to a group of merchants in Bristol. This was the only treasure he kept, presumably, because it was easier to carry around a handful of diamonds than several chests of gold. The merchants took his jewels, promised him large sums of cash, but stonewalled him indefinitely. Unable to ever get the full sum of money the merchants owed him, Every died a penniless vagabond. Meanwhile, several members of his crew had crowned themselves kings in Madagascar.

6. John “Calico Jack” Rackham

John Rackham, also known as Calico Jack because of his clothing, enjoyed a few small successes until he hooked up with Anne Bonny and Mary Read. After meeting them his life became interesting: ménage a trios, famous raids, and actual success as a pirate. But, he was an abysmally bad captain who was riding the coattails of Bonny and Read. This became clear when his ship was surprised in the night by a vessel of the Royal Navy. Bonny and Read had to defend the ship by themselves because Rackham and his men were drunk in the hold and slept through the entire ordeal. Rackham recieved the death sentence, but Read and Bonny avoided it because they were pregnant. Bonny visited him before his execution, staying long enough to say: “Had you fought like a man, you need not have been hang’d like a dog.” Rackham was eventually hanged and gibbeted as a warning to other pirates, Read died in childbirth, but Bonny managed to disappear – presumably living long enough to emasculate several other men before dying of old age.

7. Edward England

Edward England was a fairly average pirate that scored a few lucky prizes that gave him some notoriety. It wasn’t his inadequacy as a pirate that did him in, but rather his compassion. England positioned himself as a merciful–even ethical–pirate who refused to kill a captive. His crew wasn’t as understanding when they faced off against Captain Mackra and his men. Mackra and his men caused heavy casualties for England’s crew, and England’s crew was ready to murder Mackra by the time he gave up. But England, in a show of true pirate nature, shook Mackra’s hand and vouched for him in front of the pirate crew. Instead of commending him for his virtuous act, England’s crew marooned him with several others on Mauritius and sailed off to commit more dastardly deeds. England eventually escaped by building a raft, but even then he died a beggar. No good deed…

8. William “Captain” Kidd

William Kidd is a pretty big name in the world of piracy. He started out as a legitimate privateer who was funded by wealthy 17th century New Englanders – including Richard Coote, the 1st Earl of Bellomont. Much to the embarrassment of Coote and the other investors, Kidd found pirate hunting tedious and became a full-fledged pirate himself. He targeted the Indian Ocean, possibly because he never expected word of his indiscretions to make it back home from there, and achieved moderate success. Upon returning to New England, Kidd figured out that he would not be received graciously, so he buried some treasure as leverage and went to Coote seeking a pardon. But Coote and the other investors ignored Kidd’s pleas, tried him on charges of piracy and murder, and denied him representation. He was hanged and his body was placed in a gibbet for twenty years. Oh, and the buried treasure? Coote dug it up and used it as evidence against Kidd.

Source: http://ty.rannosaur.us/

1. Galen

Galen caused millions of deaths by popularizing Humorism - the belief that the human body is filled with black bile, yellow bile, phlegm, and blood. He had never seen the inside of a human body because Romans considered dissection sacrilegious and wrote most of his influential anatomy books by observing, reasoning, and mostly guessing. The Catholic Church demonstrated that it always has great ideas by declaring him the only authority on human anatomy, leading to centuries of Europeans believing that the brain was a phlegm clot.

2. Guy-Crescent Fagon

Louis XIV spent his entire reign turning France into the dominant European power, but spent his final years drunkenly stumbling around Versailles (and stinky) after Fagon put him on a diet of wine to cure a gangrenous foot. (It didn’t work.) Fagon then proved he was better suited to be a spy by wiping out most of Louis XIV’s living heirs in an attempt to cure an outbreak of measles through bleedings and forced vomiting. Louis XV, a baby at the time, survived only because his nurse refused to hand him over to Fagon. Louis XV’s reign signaled a drastic downturn in Bourbon popularity and power.

3. James Clark

Queen Victoria also had a doctor that helped change the United Kingdom’s history. Victoria and Prince Albert had turned the monarchy into a symbol of morality, but Clark killed Albert after he diagnosed his typhoid fever as the common cold. Victoria spent the rest of her life mourning. He then caused a huge scandal (by Victorian standards) when he diagnosed Flora Hastings, an unmarried lady-in-waiting, as pregnant. Two other doctors disagreed, citing that she was a virgin, but Clark convinced Victoria that he had run across other virgin births in his time. Victoria’s reputation was marred when Hastings died and an autopsy revealed that she had liver cancer.

4. Francis Willis

In the 18th century it was believed that the only way to cure mental patients was through restraint and beatings. The idea was to subdue to patient. Willis legitimized this by “curing” King George III’s insanity through torture, a straight jacket, and length of rope. Copycat sanitariums, each advertising even more brutal methods, quickly opened up and became booming businesses as dumping grounds for troublesome family members. At the height of the madhouse-for-sale craze, it was common for husbands to have their wives declared insane by physicians and to pay a yearly fee to keep her at a madhouse indefinitely.

5. Walter Freeman

The treatment of mental illness had not changed much since Willis’ time until the introduction of drugs in the ’50s. A decade before then, Freeman ushered in one of the darkest periods in psychiatry’s history by touting the “ice pick” lobotomy – where a sharp instrument is inserted through the eye socket to destroy the frontal lobes – as the cure for everything from depression to hyperactive children. It became incredibly popular, over 50,000 were performed, with Freeman performing over 3,000 himself in his lobotomobile. Freeman believed in lobotomies even after being discredited. He spent his final years visiting his victims, trying to prove they had benefited from his work.

6. William Arbuthnot-Lane

One of the most gifted surgeons of his time, Lane popularized colectomies because he believed evolution was steaming by so quickly that the colon was now a vestigial organ that caused all health problems. (He also believed that red heads could never get constipated.) He was quick to snip away lengths of the colon if a patient came to him with even minor ailments. His influence in royal circles turned colectomies into one of the most popular medical procedures for a while. It wasn’t until the Royal Society of Medicine in London discredited him that he started promoting a healthy lifestyle that involved eating a lot of fiber to solve one’s colon problems.

7. Shirō Ishii

World War II was a period when science and technology made leaps and bounds. On the Axis side some stomach turning methods were used to push medical science forward. Ishii, a covert medical researcher for the Japanese, used thousands of Chinese – whom he called “logs” – in brutal tests. He had limbs hacked off to study blood loss, had body parts frozen and thawed out to study frostbite, and had bombs strapped to live victims to test their effectiveness. He forced most of his staff to commit suicide after his unit was disbarred but personally accepted immunity in exchange for his data. Some believe he immigrated to the United States after the war, but no one really knows.

8. Josef Mengele

The German, and better known, counterpart to Ishii, Mengele performed weird experiments on concentration camp victims that ranged from trying to change eye color through chemical injections, using X-Ray machines to sterilize women, and dissecting live babies. He was obsessed with twins, and once spent a whole night cataloging the body parts of 14 Gypsy twins after injecting their hearts with chloroform. He even supervised an attempt to create conjoined twins by having two people sewn together. (It didn’t work.) He kept a troupe of dwarfs around him at all times and called them his family. He escaped to South America after the war and died while swimming in Brazil.

9. John R. Brinkley

Brinkley, a small town doctor with a diploma mill degree, popularized the practice of implanting of goat testicles in men after a farmer complained about his libido. Brinkley remembered that goats were especially virile and suggested implanting their testicular glands in the farmer. Nine months later the birth of the farmer’s son, aptly named Billy, turned Brinkley into one of the most popular doctors of the late 19th century until his license was taken away from him. The libidinous boost was entirely psychological, as the body simply absorbed the foreign glands, but people rarely came forward to decry Brinkley because he claimed it only worked on intelligent men.

10. Edward Bodkin

On the other extreme of testicles is Bodkin, a Bill Maher lookalike who was arrested for performing 5 unlicensed castrations in in 1999. He was going to perform a 6th until the man got cold feet and informed police Bodkin intended to castrate young boys. Bodkin advertised his services as a cutter – an underground surgeon – in ball fetishism magazines with the stipulation that the castrati allow him to sell tapes of the process. He kept his “trophies” in jars next to his fridge. When the state prosecutor was asked for a motive, he responded: “I can’t sit here as a reasonable human being and give you an intelligent answer to that.”

Source: http://ty.rannosaur.us/

10 ) Cale Yarborough

Yarborough made NASCAR interesting by getting into a fist fight during the first televised race. Over the years he has been shot, bitten by a rattlesnake, struck by lightning, and nearly mauled to death by a bear while flying an airplane. His shining moment came in 1958 while working as a skydiver in Jacksonville.  During a 5,000 foot jump his chute didn’t deploy until 200 feet when it provided him with minimal drag.  He walked away, later saying: “Lucky for me, I landed on a patch of high grass and mud, which gave me a little bit of a cushion. I walked away with a chipped elbow.”

9 ) Nikola Tesla

Everything that makes the modern world “modern” – radio, wireless technology, light bulbs, induction motors, remote controls, and the microwave oven to name a few – were invented by a Serbian scientist. Tesla was so devoted to science that he stayed celibate so he could attempt to harness TS waves to use the Earth as a tuning fork to transmit energy anywhere for free, control the weather, and destroy areas at will. Even though this is all in the realm of mad science the government was interested and he spent his final years developing a death ray that would allow him to destroy planes from over 250 miles away. His first tests coincided with the Tunguska Event and people have theorized that he had something to do with it.

8 ) Khalid ibn al-Walid

It is too easy to pick Leonidas, Shaka Zulu, and the like, the “Sword of Islam” never lost a battle and cut through the Byzantine, Roman, and Persian empires even when vastly outnumbered and outarmed. Al-Walid answered Fergie by killing valuable camels to drink the water stored in their humps so he could make it across desert expanses to attack enemies from their unguarded side. He chose to become a foot solider after being dismissed as a general until he was asked to resign completely because Caliph Umar was afraid that the personality cult surrounding al-Walid was rivaling devotion to Allah. His final words were: “May the eyes of the cowards never sleep.”

7 ) Jack Churchill

If you were to mix Derek Zoolander, Rambo, and a Viking you would end up with Fighting Jack Churchill. After getting bored with military life he became a male model, honed his archery skills, and and started playing bagpipes even though he wasn’t Scottish. When WWII started he signed up as a commando even though he wasn’t sure what it entailed – it sounded dangerous, so he signed up. He preferred going into battle with his bagpipes, a Claymore sword, war bow, and arrows. In 1943, armed with only a sword and belt, he convinced 42 Nazi soldiers armed to the teeth to give up. After the war he briefly worked as a stunt archer before he devoted his life to surfing. Eat your heart out Chuck Norris.

6 ) Fred Rogers

How am I going from the insanity of Jack Churchill to the sweaters of Mister Rogers? Because the soft spoken Mister Rogers did the impossible by convincing the morass of Congress to do something positive. When they were considering cutting funding for public television he put on his shoes and gave testimony over why he believed that television gave children hope and made them more productive members of society. Congress ended up increasing funding instead. When Congress gave into pressure from the MPAA over the legality of VCRs recording show, he convinced them that it allowed working parents to enjoy his shows with their children as a family. The world could use another Mister Rogers.

5 ) Sonya Carson

In the same vein as Fred Rogers, the mother of Dr. Ben Carson is a testament to awesome mothers everywhere. Ben was born into poverty, had anger issues, and was failing as the only black kid in all white schools. Even though she worked numerous part-time jobs, Sonya Carson wasn’t going to let her children become Detroit statistics.  She wouldn’t allow Ben to watch television, forced him to read two books a week, got him to write book reports over them, and then graded each of the reports.  He ended up going to Yale and became a world famous surgeon that pioneered surgeries that separated conjoined twins. Did I mention that she was functionally illiterate and only had a 3rd grade education?

4 ) Buford Pusser

McNairy County, Tennessee had an organized crime problem in ’60s and Sheriff Buford Pusser had an idea to solve it: he got a 4×4, carved it into a club, and used it beat the living crap out of criminals. He jailed 7,500 criminals over 6 years by targeting illegal gambling dens, prostitution rings, and moonshine stills. Even after they killed his wife, shot him 8 times, and stabbed him 7 times he kept beating the living crap out of organized crime.  He once jumped onto a the hood of a car that tried to run him over, smashed the window, and beat the crap out of the driver.

3 ) Ferdinand Magellan

In an age of frilly shirted European explorers Magellan was crabby, ruthless, and quick to fight anyone that didn’t listen to him.  In 1521 he demonstrated that shock and awe is always a successful tactic by taking on 1,500 Cebu natives with 49 sailors. They were quickly overpowered and Magellan was hit in the leg with a poison dart.  After ordering his men to escape he stayed behind with 6-7 of his most loyal men and fought to his death. Occasionally turning to check if his men had boarded the ship, he somehow found the strength to impale a man with a lance even after getting hit in the face with a bamboo spear.

2 ) Francois l’Ollonais

L’Ollonais will replace your favorite pirate because he understood that the job entailed being completely bloodthirsty.  In the 1660’s, he was the only survivor after his crew was slaughtered by Spanish troops and got his revenge by holding Tortuga for ransom, beheading everyone but one man on the ship that was sent to capture him, and then sending that man back with a message saying he would never give a Spaniard quarter again. He kept his promise by constantly pillaging Spanish settlements. During an interrogation he pulled out the heart of a Spaniard, gnawed at it, and promised the rest to do the same to him if they didn’t provide him with safe passage.

1 ) Theodore Roosevelt

Teddy Roosevelt’s life is full of so many awesome stories that it is almost impossible to pick just a few.  While working as deputy sheriff his boat was stolen by outlaws. He tracked them down, captured them, and decided to take them to the authorities. He ended up guarding them without sleep for 40 hours and read Tolstoy to keep awake. When has War and Peace NOT put someone to sleep?! He was given the Congressional Medal of Honor for charging Juan Hill on foot and later given the Nobel Peace Prize for negotiating the end of the Russo-Japanese War. Yes, he won an award for violence and another for peace.

Source: http://ty.rannosaur.us/