Stories

In 1979, a farmer in Pará, Brazil, discovered a gold nugget in Serra Pelada. News spread quickly, and within months, tens of thousands of prospectors, known as garimpeiros, rushed to the site, transforming it into one of the world’s most chaotic gold mines.

Yakhchāls, meaning “ice pits” in Persian, were developed in ancient Iran over 2,000 years ago. These dome-shaped structures, built from heat-resistant mud bricks, were designed to store ice and food in the hot desert climate. Some were connected to qanats (underground canals) to enhance cooling.

On July 24, 1943, John E. Gregory Sr. and his wife, Lorena, sat on their porch in Kure Beach, North Carolina. The coastline was dark due to blackout regulations, meant to protect merchant ships from German U-Boats.

Albert Stevens, a house painter from Ohio, was admitted to the University of California Hospital in San Francisco in 1945 with what doctors mistakenly believed was terminal cancer.

In December 1944, Japanese intelligence officer Hirō Onoda was sent to Lubang Island, Philippines with orders to conduct guerrilla warfare and avoid capture.

A narrow door at the Alcobaça Monastery’s refectory has been widely shared online as an “anti-gluttony door.” The story claims that monks had to pass through it to get their food, and those who were too large would go hungry.

On June 14, 1325, at age 21, Abu Abdullah Muhammad Ibn Battuta left Tangier, Morocco, to perform the Hajj pilgrimage in Mecca. His original journey was meant to last about 16 months, but instead, he spent the next 30 years traveling across Africa, the Middle East, Asia, and Europe, covering an estimated 117,000 km (73,000 mi)—far more than Marco Polo or Zheng He.

In 2008, Denver-based experimental duo Bull of Heaven began releasing compositions of extraordinary durations. Their piece 118: The Chosen Priest and Apostle of Infinite Space spans over two months.

The Katzenklavier, or “cat piano,” was described in the 17th century by German scholar Athanasius Kircher. It was an instrument that arranged live cats in a row, each placed in a box with their tails stretched under a keyboard.

When Queen Elizabeth I died in 1603, her attendants discovered an unusual ring on her finger. It was a locket ring, small but intricately designed with rubies and diamonds forming the letter “E.” The ring had remained with her for decades, never removed, even in her final days.