Maria Henao and late husband Pablo Escobar had drastically different backgrounds. Henao recalls in her memoir, My Life and My Prison With Pablo Escobar, that she "came from an upstanding, traditional family." Escobar not only came from the wrong side of the tracks; he was a runaway train to hell.
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During the Pax Romana, there were no major wars, piracy, or slave revolts. Life in Ancient Rome must have been pretty awesome during those years, but was it awesome for everyone? For women, life got a little better, but you can't exactly say it was super awesome for them, either.
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History is a murky son of a gun, but most historians agree that Cleopatra died on or around August 12th of 30 BC. It's generally accepted that she killed herself, but firsthand accounts are difficult to come by and the exact method of her demise is up for debate.
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No matter what country it represents, a flag is enormously symbolic. It represents a nation's past and its present. How a flag is perceived by its citizens can be vastly different from the way it's perceived by other nations. And a great example of this problem is Japan's "Rising Sun" flag.
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Wouldn't it have been great to be a woman in the Renaissance? All those fancy dresses, and the ... fancy dresses. Nope, life pretty much sucked for women in the Renaissance. And guess what? You didn't even get a fancy dress.
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It's difficult to know exactly why, but in recent days, the question has been raised: can the president of the United States extend a presidential pardon to himself? Maybe it's a societal innocent curiosity, or because Mercury is stuck in retrograde.
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Thousands of years after the collapse of their civilization, the Greek empire still reigns as one of those most successful of all time. Sure they gave us things like the Olympics, but they were more than just athletes. They were thinkers, and pioneers in many areas of science and philosophy.
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In the case of the dollar bill, you might overlook the fact that it features a pyramid right on its backside. What's the story? There are two possibilities.
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The stars at night are big and bright deep in the heart of Texas. But the lone star featured on the state flag has a special place in the hearts of Texans.
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Horses are quite the superlative animal. Even amongst the ranks of this uber creature, some horses rank as bigger and badder than the rest. Which breed ranks as the biggest of all?
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Ever since we've been putting things in water, they've been getting all biofouled, and for millennia, we've been struggling to deal. Over the ages, humans have tried everything from scraping chains against the hull to coating hulls with glass. But the answer lies in painting boat bottoms red.
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In June of 2001, a soft-spoken old white guy hit the soft-spoken old white guy lottery when he brought his grandmother's old Navajo blanket to an Antiques Roadshow taping and discovered that it had more than just sentimental value. It was worth big time money.
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Humans invented the internet, buses, doctors who can save you if you get hit by a bus, and best of all, sliced bread. These inventions were made possible by the rise of civilizations, and for that, modern humans have ancient Mesopotamia to thank.
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If memes have taught us anything about Soviet Russia, it's that the flag flies you. That's because it flies in the face of individual freedoms. The crimson banner bears a hammer and sickle with a star and has become synonymous with the oppression behind the Iron Curtain.
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Adolph Hitler overcame the odds to do terrible things, and managed to pull the wool over the eyes of millions. Here's the messed up truth about Hitler.
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The gunfight at the O.K. Corral.is a shoot-out that has come to define the Wild West. Here's the messed-up truth of the gunfight at the O.K. Corral.
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Most businesses, you'd think, would have a name that's meaningful to the titans of industry who created them. In the case of Amazon and founder Jeff Bezos, that's not the case. Let's take a look at how a company that got its start selling stacks of thinly sliced trees wound up being called Amazon.
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Federal judge and former special narcotics prosecutor Sterling Johnson, Jr, said of Leroy "Nicky" Barnes, "He had charisma. Have you been in the presence of Bill Clinton when he walks down the street? That was Nicky Barnes." Not a great look for Bill, but Barnes was quite the drug dealer.
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The truth about the modern candy-filled Halloween is that it was once a religious celebration, and just because it wasn't an explicitly Christian religious celebration does not mean it's Satan's holiday.
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Nothing could be more Christmas-y than a Christmas tree. Except that Christmas trees actually have pagan origins, so there's that. "Wait, you mean Jesus didn't invent the Christmas tree?" 'Fraid not. So where did the idea for Christmas trees come from, and what do they mean?
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The Great Pyramid of Giza is awe inspiring, and for centuries we've been trying to solve its mysteries — with the biggest one being the mystery of how the heck anyone managed to build such a thing. We still aren't sure, but we have theories, and we also know how much it would cost to build it today.
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Nobody associates Satan with good advice or good anything else unless you're somebody like Anton LaVey, who founded the Church of Satan, earning him the moniker "Black Pope." He also penned the Satanic Bible, a verbal melange of philosophy, rationalism, occult ideas, and anti-Christian criticisms.
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At some point, we've all stared at the ceiling and thought to ourselves "I wonder how fast cars can go?" The answer, of course, depends on the car, and what your definition of "car" is. The point is, the world's fastest car is less of a car and more what you'd call a space shuttle on wheels.
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Like everything in the Star Trek universe, the Borg are complex and not nearly as black and white as they appear. Here's the messed up truth about the Borg.
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In 1776, American colonists did something revolutionary by kicking England to the curb via the Declaration of Independence. But when Thomas Jefferson declared "that all men are created equal" with "inalienable rights" to "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness," he wasn't referring to women.
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Female infanticide is so widespread in China that among some segments of the populace there are 140 men for every 100 women, prompting residents to abduct women from neighboring nations. Despite this unfortunate fact of life, the Middle Kingdom is home to a "kingdom of women."
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Star Trek has seen bad stuff. What upsetting stuff was going on in one of history's best shows? Here's some messed up things you didn't realize about Star Trek.
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