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First World War ammunition frozen in time for nearly a century has been found as glacier melts WWI ammunition frozen in time for nearly a century has been discovered in northern Italy. More than 200 pieces of the ammunition were revealed at an altitude of 3,200 metres by a melting glacier on the Ago de Nardis peak in Trentino. The 85-100mm caliber explosives weighed between seven and 10 kilos and explosives experts have been to the site to safely dispose of the weaponry. The once-perennial glacier began partially melted during a recent heat wave, allowing the Finance Police Alpine rescue...

A Los Alamos Story Worthy of Stephen King Ever heard of The Demon Core? It was named by Los Alamos scientists — who are generally not a superstitious lot — after it claimed multiple lives, in a series of strange and horrible accidents. Discover a legend of science... that's worthy of a horror movie. When I was reading Stephen King stories, I was constantly amazed at the things he made scary. It was like reading the legend of the monkey's paw over and over again, with increasingly weird objects. His most famous evil objects are the hotel in The Shining...

Anti-Prostitution Posters, World War II Emphasizing the relationship between patriotism, morality, health preservation, and disease prevention, images of the infected soldier and disease-carrying prostitute in posters during the First and Second World Wars came to symbolize both moral failure and social decay. The following posters use images of "loose" women, patriotic iconography, and frightening symbols to grab the attention of the viewer and inspire behavior modification. These images not only reflected attitudes, values, and beliefs about the causes and consequences of venereal disease but also affected responses to the problem. (Note: Most these photos link back to Retronaut; added are...

For Summer 2012 - U.S. Bikini Laws ... Circa 1920s - 1930s Bathing Suit Arrests, Chicago, 1922 “Women being arrested in Chicago for defying a ban on wearing brief swimsuits in public. Women were meant to cover-up when not in the water” - Australian National Maritime Museum US Bikini Laws, 1922 ‘June 30, 1922. Washington policeman Bill Norton measuring the distance between knee and suit at the Tidal Basin bathing beach after Col. Sherrell, Superintendent of Public Buildings and Grounds, issued an order that suits not be over six inches above the knee.’ - National Photo Co. US Bikini Laws,...

Back in the day, Mickey Mouse attempted suicide and fought opium smugglers Intrepid readers will remember that one time Mickey Mouse and Goofy espoused the salubrious effects of amphetamine-laced soft drinks. The truth is, that helium-voiced cartoon rodent weathered many a dubiously family-friendly moment during his early years. Let's look at those occasions Mickey tried to kill himself and extolled the virtues of gigolos. Perhaps the most bizarrely bleak Mickey adventure was the story arc that ran from October 8 to October 20, 1930. According to cartoonist Floyd Gottfredson, Walt Disney was inspired by the 1920 Harold Lloyd comedy Haunted...

Portland tomb opened only 90 minutes a year PORTLAND -- An unusual Portland tradition lets the public tour a tomb each year for just 90 minutes on Memorial day. With the sad sounds of bagpipes playing nearby, hundreds gathered at the Wilhelm Portland Memorial funeral home in Westmoreland on Memorial Day. Some were there to remember family. Many were there to see the private Rea tomb. “If you haven’t been inside, it’s really different," author Roy Widing said. He’s been fascinated by the tomb and its occupants for years and recently wrote a book about it called “Whispers from the...

Before and After D-Day: Rare Color Photos It’s no mystery why images of unremitting violence spring to mind when one hears the deceptively simple term, “D-Day.” We’ve all seen — in photos, movies, old news reels — what happened on the beaches of Normandy (codenamed Omaha, Utah, Juno, Gold and Sword) as the Allies unleashed an historic assault against German defenses on June 6, 1944. But in color photos taken before and after the invasion, LIFE’s Frank Scherschel captured countless other, lesser-known scenes from the run-up to the onslaught and the heady weeks after: American troops training in small English...

After 50 years, fire still burns under Pa. town (A motorist in 2004 drives among the smoldering remains of land near Route 61 in Centralia, Pa. AP file photo) Fifty years ago Sunday, a fire at the town dump ignited an exposed coal seam, setting off a chain of events that eventually led to the demolition of nearly every building in Centralia — a whole community of 1,400 simply gone. All these decades later, the Centralia fire still burns. It also maintains its grip on the popular imagination, drawing visitors from around the world who come to gawk at twisted,...

A 73-Year-Old Man Tried to Assassinate JFK with a Buick Full of Dynamite Weeks after John Fitzgerald Kennedy beat Richard Nixon in the 1960 United States presidential election, an elderly man nearly killed the President-Elect. Richard Pavlick, a disturbed man with anti-Catholic sentiments, packed his car and traveled from New Hampshire to Florida with one goal in mind - the death of President-Elect Kennedy. Pavlick's brute force plan would likely have succeeded, but a moment of compassion stopped Pavlick in his tracks and allowed for the era of Camelot to begin. Retired postal worker Richard Pavlick often voiced anti-Catholic sentiments...

Behold, an X-ray of Hitler’s head You're looking at one of five known X-rays of Hitler's head. The radiograph is just one of 17-million rare, intriguing, and often-bizarre items housed in the the U.S. National Library of Medicine, the largest medical library on Earth. We've got a gallery. This particular image is part of a larger medical dossier on Hitler that was assembled by U.S. military intelligence following World War II, and one of the 450 images featured in Hidden Treasure — a book published yesterday in observance of the National Library of Medicine's 175th anniversary. Hitler as Seen by...

Gallery: Familiar-yet-alien Soviet arcade games While playing Centipede (don't judge) at my local mall in the '80s, it never occurred to me that somewhere behind the soon-to-fall Iron Curtain there would be some punk playing the Soviet version of arcade games as well. Hell yeah they were! Now, thanks to two nostalgic Muscovites who remembered their days of playing "Sea Battle," there is an entire museum full of these Soviet-era games. The story of the Museum of Soviet Arcade Machines is so cool we couldn't make this up if we tried. Let's talk about the games first. Soviet classics Sea...

How an 1870s marine expedition changed oceanography and drove eight sailors insane When was the first voyage of the Challenger? No, not the Space Shuttle — the original Challenger, a sea ship that sailed in 1872. The HMS Challenger traversed the world's oceans for four years, drove some of its sailors completely insane, caused about a quarter of the crew to jump ship, and forever changed the face of ocean science. Is there a way to scroll past the nature channels without seeing one that describes the richness of the ocean and the life that teems in its depth? In...

In 1939, a robot dog was killed while chasing a car. Really. Sometimes you stumble across a piece of history that is too good not to follow up on. Sparko, the robot dog, is one such piece of history. Prepared for the World's Fair in 1939, he got out of his pen, chased a car, and was killed. No fooling. Androids may dream of electronic sheep, but people have dreamed, for decades, of electronic dogs. Robots, a threatening concept, became much less frightening when put in the form of man's best friend. This relationship turned out quite satisfying for people...

I was thinking Brussels might make a good home for the UN. The US could remodel its UN buildings as Museums of Modern History. (MOMH) Dioramas about wars, genocides, dictators and heroic leaders would find plenty of room there. It would be somewhat like the Smithsonian, but perhaps show more about Pol Pot, Hitler, Stalin, Mao and their collaborators. What do you think the buildings should be used for? If we can think of a positive use for its current buildings, maybe the UN will be more likely to call the moving men.