Shibam, located in Yemen’s Hadramaut region, is known for its 500-year-old high-rise buildings made entirely of mudbrick. Some of these structures reach over 30 meters (98 feet) high, earning the city the nickname “the Manhattan of the Desert.”

On May 18, 1927, a powerful explosion destroyed the north wing of Bath Consolidated School in Michigan. The blast killed 38 students and six adults, with the explosion heard miles away. Rescuers worked for hours, pulling survivors from the rubble.

In 1989, U.S. Navy hydrophones detected an unusual whale call at 52 hertz, much higher than typical blue or fin whale frequencies. Unlike other whales, it appeared to sing at a frequency no other known whale species used.

In the 18th and 19th centuries, medical schools required fresh cadavers for dissection, creating a black market for stolen corpses. “Resurrectionists” dug up graves under cover of darkness, selling bodies to anatomists.

Frank “Rocky” Fiegel was born in 1868 in Chester, Illinois. He was a local bartender known for his incredible strength, tough demeanor, and distinctive appearance. With a strong jaw, a pipe constantly in his mouth, and a knack for getting into fights, he became a well-known figure in town.

In 1987, Steve Wilhite and his team at CompuServe needed a way to display images without using too much memory. They developed the Graphics Interchange Format (GIF), a compressed file format that could store multiple images in one file. Using the Lempel-Ziv-Welch (LZW) compression algorithm, GIFs allowed for efficient image sharing and later became the first format to display color images online.

In the 1950s, Britain developed Blue Peacock, a ten-kiloton nuclear land mine designed for use in Germany. The plan was to bury these bombs on the North German Plain and detonate them if Soviet forces invaded. The mines could be triggered by a wire, an eight-day timer, or anti-tampering devices.

On June 4, 1923, 22-year-old jockey Frank Hayes rode a horse named Sweet Kiss at Belmont Park in New York. The race was a steeplechase event, requiring riders to navigate multiple obstacles.

The Steffenbach Bridge, located on the Furka-Oberalp Railway in Switzerland, is a rare folding bridge designed to withstand avalanches.

In 1666, Agent 160, also known as Aphra Behn, was sent to the Netherlands as a spy for England. Her task was to recruit William Scot as an informant for Charles II.