Porta Alchemica is an actual door in modern-day Rome, in a park next to Piazza Vittorio Emanuele, practically smack dab in the center of the city. When we add the odd occult superstition into the mix, the reality of Porta Alchemica does indeed start to sound like something stranger than fiction.
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The Spanish Armada is often the story of the underdog English, saved from certain destruction by guts and gusty providence. The true story of the Spanish Armada, as with any event from centuries past where thousands of people die, is far more complicated than you may think.
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Everyone probably wouldn't mind finding buried treasure, but not everyone would necessarily risk their lives to find it. One particular treasure known as Fenn's Gold was found in June, but not without people dying in their quest to retrieve it.
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A young man was flying a kite on Vintém Hill when he made a truly chilling discovery: Two bodies lying on the ground in some tall weeds. These weren't just any old mortal remains, either. The dead men were both dressed in suits and waterproof coats, and they had strange lead masks over their eyes.
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In the summer of 1943, the Zoot Suit Riots were a series of attacks made by white servicemen against Mexican-Americans in downtown Los Angeles.
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When things with an elevator go wrong, the only place to go is down. These are the world's deadliest elevators.
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The orb accelerated faster and moved more sharply than any craft Gorman had ever seen in the air. At two points during the chase, the object and Gorman played a game of chicken, with Gorman pulling away at the last second during the first encounter and the orb doing the same during the second.
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The eyeshadow protected the eye from the midday sun glinting off the Nile river, and the liner was to keep harmful bacteria and sand away. Before the invention of makeup, it was common for Egyptians to contract infections when dirt got in their eyes.
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Don McLean, mainly known for "American Pie," has lived a life loaded with troubling and controversial moments. This is the messed up truth about Don McLean.
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If you don't believe in curses, maybe you should think twice. Most spiritual traditions around the world believed in curses, and the ancient Romans seemed to have had one for every occasion.
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Grynszpan shouted, "You are a dirty boche [slur for Germans] and in the name of 12,000 persecuted Jews, here is the document!" and shot vom Rath several times before being arrested by Parisian authorities.
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There's something about covered bridges. They add a more pastoral look to a scene, and a certain mystique.
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A bit more sinister than many of its cryptic cryptid cousins, this humanoid from Algonquin legend roams the forests of Canada and the Northern United States.
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The Book of Enoch is part of the Bible in some Christian churches. But that doesn't mean it's not still full of weird stuff, like strange primordial beings, talking babies, stars with human downstairs parts, a corpse giving birth, and way more. Here are some messed up stories from the Book of Enoch.
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Every year on the 20th of Thoth (sometime in mid-August), the annual Festival of Drunkenness was held -- a religious experience normally reserved for nightclubs and key parties.
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Construction began in 1173, and by 1178 it was obvious that the tower was not going to remain upright. The subsequent stories were built to compensate for the lean -- slightly taller on the leaning side of the tower to balance it out and try and keep the floors level -- but to no avail.
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It didn't matter if their husbands hit them, belittled them, or cheated on them; women during that time had no recourse to leave a terrible marriages and be free. Tofana offered them a solution.
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It was 3:45 in the morning. Of the 85,000 who had showed up to the Olympic Club in New Orleans to watch the what would become the longest fight ever.
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Sir Richard Burton spent years exploring, drinking, womanizing, and cramming his brain full of knowledge. These are his crazy adventures explained.
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It may have started in a truly Christian way, as a haven for the downtrodden with nowhere to go, as described by the BBC, but it evolved into a medieval "healthcare facility," and eventually became one of the first institutions to focus on cordoning off the "mad" and "lunatic."
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Henry Morton Stanley, most famous for rescuing Dr. David Livingstone in present-day Tanzania in 1871, was a sailor, journalist, and colonial administrator who explored central Africa. Henry Morton Stanley also searched for the source of the Nile river and aided the Belgian occupation of the Congo.
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Kuhn's speech was a hit with the 22,000 American Nazis in attendance at New York's Madison Square Garden, all of whom had no obvious qualms with the swastikas flanking the two-story-tall image of George Washington behind the stage.
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It wasn't until 1920 that women's right to vote made it into the U.S. Constitution. These are the craziest reasons women were denied the right to vote.
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Mount Vernon is the former home and plantation of the first President of the United States George Washington, located in Virginia.
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Marie Curie was a brilliant scientist who helped expand our knowledge of radioactivity. So when she died, she had to be buried in a lead casket.
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Typically, if someone prowled the streets before sunrise rapping on peoples' windows with a big, long stick, there'd be cause for concern.
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Legend says that Charlemagne's sword, which he named Joyeuse (French for joyful), had magical powers.
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