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SEE ALSO: 10 Bizarre Origin Stories About Your Favorite Foods 10 Emperor Claudius’s Murder Claudius came to power after Caligula’s murder, and it wasn’t long before he became the target of conspiracies, too. He had a series of failed marriages, and it was his last wife, Agrippina, who plotted to kill him to ultimately put her son, Nero, at the head of the Roman Empire. In his last days, Claudius was overheard being very vocal about regretting his marriage and his adoption (and advancement) of Nero, which historians think isn’t a coincidence....

10The Shell-Drilling Snail Clams are generally impervious to attack by all but a large animal capable of crushing their shells. It might come as a surprise then that certain species of snail, such as the beautiful (but still creepy-looking) moon snail, are often a clam’s worst nightmare. Often found in the Pacific Northwest, the little moon snail makes a living by drilling into the shell of other molluscs with its barbed radula (tongue) and then secreting a powerful acid to dissolve the calcium carbonate making up the prey animal’s shell....

But as we’re going to learn, humans aren’t the only culprits. Some of the same crimes for which people have been responsible have also been carried out by animals. Here are 10 of these cases. 10 The Bear Who Stole A Car, Crashed It, And Relieved Itself Bears have been known to steal food from homes, terrorize towns, and even break in on some occasions. But this story most likely takes the cake....

10 Birth Of The Coogan Act Hollywood has a sordid relationship with child actors. They often fall victim to the people they trust the most—their parents. Many of these parents treat their children’s wages as their own personal piggy bank. Famous child actors like Macaulay Culkin, Gary Coleman, and Shirley Temple all had their fortunes squandered by their parents, but none were more affected than Jackie Coogan. Best known today as the original Uncle Fester, Coogan was a successful child actor....

The tragic part is obvious. As leader of the breakaway Republika Srpska during the devastating Bosnian War, Karadzic was the architect of the war’s ethnic cleansing. It was his ultra-nationalist rhetoric that led to the sectarian conflict that killed 100,000 people. It was his orders to forge a “pure” Serbian state that created the concentration camps, the siege of Sarajevo, and the genocide at Srebrenica. In league with his pudgy general, Ratko Mladic, and Serbian president Slobodan Milosevic, he brought the worst massacres that Europe had seen since the end of World War II....

But sometimes, even after the catastrophe is over, the tragedy continues. People get swept up in the havoc and chaos of the moment and do things that make history’s worst moments even worse. And in the aftermath, some of our darkest moments are left with details too bleak to make it into the history books. 10 Tiananmen MassacreChina Billed The Victims For The Bullets In 1989, after the death of the controversial figure Hu Yaobang, Chinese students marched out to Tiananmen Square and tried to force real change in China....

With the advance of technology, some old-time diseases are well and truly dead. For example, the 33rd World Health Assembly made an official announcement on May 8, 1980, declaring that naturally occurring smallpox had been eradicated worldwide. Other diseases, such as polio, have been significantly reduced. Worldwide polio cases declined by more than 99 percent between 1998 and 2013. Now, 80 percent of the world’s population lives in so-called “polio-free” areas, according to the CDC....

10The Murder Sydenham is an unassuming district of South London, the sort of place that tourists don’t visit but where lots of people actually live. On March 10, 1987, a private investigator named Daniel Morgan was in the area to have a few drinks at the Golden Lion pub. At around 9:00 PM, Morgan left the pub to walk back to his BMW. He was found in the parking lot shortly afterward, with an axe buried in his face....

Even though the above situation is fictional, as are the many cases of teenage babysitters being stalked and murdered in movies, urban legends often do have some basis in fact. Babysitting can sometimes be a frightening experience in which it’s easy to feel vulnerable, especially since plenty of real-life cases involving babysitters have ended in terrifying things happening. 10The Murder Of Janett Christman Many people believe that the urban legend “The Babysitter and the Man Upstairs” was inspired by a real-life murder case from Columbia, Missouri, in 1950....

SEE ALSO: Top 10 Bizarre Cases of Mass Hysteria Many times, a single unusual incident with a logical explanation has escalated into an epidemic in which those close by imagine they are experiencing similar symptoms. From bizarre behavior to imaginary illnesses, there have been a number of epidemics of mass hysteria throughout history. 10 Dancing Plague Of 1518 We’ve all been tempted to “dance till you drop” when out partying or clubbing....

By the end of the 20th century, the world population had reached a whopping 6.1 billion, a far cry from the 1.6 billion people who inhabited the Earth at the beginning of the 20th century. Fears spread about a population too large to be sustained, leading countries to rethink antiabortion laws and drastically reduce the price of contraceptives. Although this tactic worked for countries like the United Kingdom, some nations utterly failed to control their exponentially rising birthrates....

But few realize that Hannibal Lecter was based on a real-life serial killer named Robert Maudsley, who has also been called the most dangerous prisoner in Britain. While technically a serial killer, Maudsley is anything but your run-of-the-mill Ted Bundy or Jeffrey Dahmer. His story raises both questions and eyebrows about our system and how we distribute punishment and justice. Maudsley only committed one of his murders outside while the rest occurred behind bars....

This is the story of Gregor MacGregor, the most despicable conman in human history. 10 Married for Money to Buy Military Rank When MacGregor turned 16, he enlisted into the British military, where he was posted to Guernsey to defend against a French invasion during the Napoleonic Wars. The French attack, however, didn’t go down well because, well…it never actually happened. As MacGregor waited for an enemy invasion that he was destined to never meet, he was met with something else entirely....

10The Horrors Of His First Film For years, Steven Spielberg had a reputation in the film business as a wunderkind, and he more than lived up to it. His first commercially screened film, 1964’s Firelight, was a two-hour movie he shot on the weekends when he was only 16. This movie about an alien invasion (which is so silly that it ends with a shot of alien shadows as they flip a coin to decide whether they’ll invade the Soviet Union or the US first) was actually commercially screened in his hometown of Phoenix, Arizona....

10 Chimu Culture Occupying much of the northern coast of Peru, the Chimu culture is believed to have arisen sometime in the 10th century AD. Possibly descended from small remnants of the Moche culture, which had flourished in the area centuries earlier, the Chimu built one of the most notable archaeological sites in all of South America: their capital city of Chan Chan, the largest pre-Columbian city on the continent. However, the former great city is now uninhabitable, thanks to a severe lack of water....

Here are ten underreported stories about mummies. 10 The Empty Coffin Mystery In 1860, an ancient Egyptian coffin arrived at the Nicholson Museum in Sydney. Unfortunately, someone mistakenly marked the coffin as “empty” except for unimportant mixed debris. This blooper caused the artifact to languish in the museum’s collection for almost 160 years. In 2017, the staff finally looked at the 2,500-year-old coffin. Surprisingly, a CT scanner showed that the sarcophagus contained a mummy....

There’s no doubt that some food additives are questionable. In fact, some deemed safe in the United States are banned in other countries. Nevertheless, as these substances multiplied, several misconceptions evolved about the effects that food additives and preservatives have on our bodies. Even so, large doses of some substances on this list can lead to serious damage. 10 Aspartame If you have eaten or drunk anything that’s sugar-free, you’ve probably had aspartame, which is 200 times sweeter than sugar....

No, I don’t know why we keep punishing ourselves, party after party, or why the hangover—une gueule de bois, la cruda—is a consequence we’re willing to suffer through. Perhaps getting “riggity-wrecked, son” is worth it, especially when humans have come up with innumerable ways to “cure” it. But there is no “cure” to a hangover, only a slow recovery filled with promises never to drink tequila again, regrets from the night before, and food....

10Wat Phra Si Sanphet Wat Phra Si Sanphet, or the Temple of the Buddha Si Sanphet, was built around the 15th century. Unlike Thailand’s other temples, monks were not allowed to live in it. Instead, it was used exclusively for storing royal items and conducting royal ceremonies. In 1491, King Ramathibodi II added two chedis to the temple to hold the remains of members of his family. Chedis are a vital part of Thailand’s temples....

10The Rise Of Tikal The classic Mayan civilization stretched from the Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico through Belize, Guatemala, and northern Honduras. This was difficult terrain, prone to drought and soil erosion. Yet here the Maya built one of the great civilizations of ancient America, mastering writing and mathematics. (They arguably invented zero before anyone else). Unlike the Aztecs or Toltecs, the Maya were never united in one empire. Instead, they formed a squabbling network of city-states, not unlike ancient Greece....