From their roots in ancient pagan celebrations of the winter solstice to their ban in colonial America, the history of the Christmas tree is longer and more complicated than most people realize.

https://allthatsinteresting.com/christmas-tree-history

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During the Manson murders, Charles Manson's followers gruesomely killed actress Sharon Tate and six others in Los Angeles on August 9 and 10, 1969.

https://allthatsinteresting.com/manson-murders

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In 1818, Mary Shelley published her classic novel about

https://allthatsinteresting.com/real-frankenstein-experiments

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After suffering from mysterious hallucinations for four days straight, Edgar Allan Poe died of unknown causes in Baltimore at age 40 on October 7, 1849.

https://allthatsinteresting.com/how-did-edgar-allan-poe-die

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Again and again, in desperate times throughout history, people have turned to desperate measures and committed what many societies consider to be the worst of all human sins — cannibalism. Members of the Donner Party infamously resorted to cannibalism to survive when they became stranded in the Sierra Nevadas in the 1840s, as did survivors of the Andes Flight Disaster in 1972. At sea, castaway sailors often followed a long-held tradition known as the "custom of the sea," an implicit agreement that, if they were stranded, sailors would draw lots to pick who would be killed — and eaten. But the story of cannibalism involving a 19th-century ship called the Mignonette is a bit different. 

https://allthatsinteresting.com/history-uncovered/mignonette

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Throughout maritime history, sailors have reported sightings of ghost ships with eerily similar details — empty vessels appearing out of the blue, with no one aboard and no sign of what happened to the crew.

Over the centuries, numerous vessels have been found floating on the high seas without a crew — here are some of the most disturbing cases.

https://allthatsinteresting.com/ghost-ships

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In February 1909, just around one month after the first newspaper reports about the Jersey Devil were published, the Maryland-based Middletown Valley Register published a report about a local who encountered a terrifying creature known as the Snallygaster.

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The Catholic Church has put many people on trial, including Galileo, Joan of Arc, and Martin Luther. But the strangest trial in church history took place in the ninth century. Known as the Cadaver Synod, it was the trial of Pope Formosus — who had died eight months before.

https://allthatsinteresting.com/cadaver-synod

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Despite being an amputee, Virginia Hall bolstered the Allied resistance in France so successfully that the Gestapo launched special missions just to find her. They never did.

https://allthatsinteresting.com/virginia-hall

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Tsutomu Yamaguchi was at ground zero in Hiroshima — and three days later, in Nagasaki. He survived both atomic bombings. Decades later, he told his story to the world. This is the life of history’s only officially recognized double survivor.

https://allthatsinteresting.com/tsutomu-yamaguchi-hibakusha

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