History Uncovered

There's plenty about the American presidency that’s dignified and elegant. Presidents enjoy a home at the White House, frequent visits from world leaders, opulent state dinners, and more. They’re hardly ever seen with a single hair out of place and the words they deliver to the nation are polished by professionals down to the last detail. But the president is, at the end of the day, just a human being. And their lives – both the lives they lead in private while serving as president and the lives they led before getting elected – are often far stranger and more fascinating than the prestige of their hallowed office suggests. 

https://allthatsinteresting.com/us-presidents-facts

credits: https://allthatsinteresting.com/podcast-credits

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To his family and neighbors in suburban New Jersey, Richard Kuklinski was an all-American husband. To the Mafia and his victims, he was an unscrupulous hitman known as the "Iceman killer."

https://allthatsinteresting.com/richard-kuklinski

credits: https://allthatsinteresting.com/podcast-credits

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It’s hard to believe that a man as monstrous as Adolf Hitler, the Nazi leader responsible for the deaths of tens of millions of people during the Holocaust and World War II, was born to a mother and a father just like everyone else, that he grew up surrounded by a loving family, and that he had siblings and cousins and nephews as so many of us do. 

Likewise, it's hard to stomach the idea that Hitler has descendants who’ve lived on long after his own demise in 1945, that there are embodiments of his legacy still walking the Earth today – and yet that’s all too true as well.

https://allthatsinteresting.com/hitlers-descendants

credits: https://allthatsinteresting.com/podcast-credits

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When The Godfather premiered in 1972, its depiction of the American Mafia both stunned and fascinated audiences who’d never seen anything quite like it ever before. A commercial and critical smash, the film went on to win three Oscars, including Best Picture and Best Actor for Marlon Brando, who played the film's iconic mob boss, Don Vito Corleone. But what most audiences probably didn’t realize at the time was that Don Corleone was much more than just a fictional creation. 

https://allthatsinteresting.com/frank-costello

credits: https://allthatsinteresting.com/podcast-credits

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Most people have seen Psycho, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, and The Silence of the Lambs, all of them classics within the horror genre, anchored by some of the scariest villains in movie history. But what many don't know is that the terrifying killers depicted in all three of these iconic films were actually inspired by the same real-life murderer: Ed Gein, the Butcher of Plainfield. 

When police entered his home in Plainfield, Wisconsin on November 16, 1957, following the disappearance of a local woman, they had no idea they were walking straight into a house of horrors unlike almost anything else in history. Not only did they find the woman they were looking for — dead, decapitated, and hung from her ankles — but also a number of gruesome, stomach-churning objects, including a chair upholstered with human skin, and a window shade string fashioned out of human lips. 

What the police would soon learn is that Ed Gein had spent the last decade collecting human bodies — some belonging to those he’d killed himself — to use for his many twisted purposes. The main purpose, as he unashamedly explained to investigators, was simple: he wanted to create a suit out of human skin, which Ed could use to reconstruct his deceased mother. 

And that was just the tip of the iceberg. This is the story of Ed Gein, perhaps the most horrifying serial killer in American history. 

https://allthatsinteresting.com/ed-gein

credits: allthatsinteresting.com/podcast-credits

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In Navajo lore, there's one creature so terrifying that the Navajo themselves rarely dare to even utter its name. That creature is the skinwalker, also called yee naaldlooshii, or ‘with it, he goes on all fours,' and it’s perhaps the most bone-chilling monster in the entirety of Native American mythology. 

However, the skinwalkers actually aren’t monsters at all — they're people, often former healers or medicine men who have crossed over into darkness. Able to transform into animals and wear their skins, skinwalkers are said to be pure evil, capable of spreading disease, disaster, and death. 

But what’s scariest about these supernatural creatures is that they’re not merely confined to legend. Many witnesses have claimed to see skinwalkers and their glowing red eyes in real life. There's even a hotbed of activity in Utah called Skinwalker Ranch, where some have reported unsettling encounters in the depth of night…

This is the legend of the skinwalker, the elusive, violent creature that the Navajo won’t even mention — lest they conjure it straight to their door. 

https://allthatsinteresting.com/skinwalker

credits: https://allthatsinteresting.com/podcast-credits

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In June 1969, Dennis Lloyd Martin walked off to play a prank on his dad and never returned, sparking the largest search effort in the history of Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

https://allthatsinteresting.com/dennis-martin

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Michael and Kristine Barnett of Indiana claim that their adopted daughter Natalia Grace is really a psychotic adult dwarf who tried to kill them — but where does the truth lie?

https://allthatsinteresting.com/natalia-barnett

credits: https://allthatsinteresting.com/podcast-credits

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"Feral Child" Genie Wiley was strapped to a chair by her parents and neglected for 13 years, giving researchers a rare chance to study human development.

The story of Genie Wiley the Feral Child sounds like the stuff of fairytales: An unwanted, mistreated child survives brutal imprisonment at the hands of a savage ogre and is rediscovered and reintroduced to the world in an impossibly youthful state. Unfortunately for Wiley, hers is a dark, real-life tale with no happy ending. There would be no fairy godmothers, no magic solutions, and no enchanted transformations.

https://allthatsinteresting.com/genie-wiley-feral-child

credits: https://allthatsinteresting.com/podcast-credits

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On a Saturday in February in 1867, a group of hunters in the Bulandshahr district of India came across a shocking sight. After they tracked a lone wolf to a cave in the jungle, they peered inside and saw the last thing they’d ever expect to find: a six-year-old human boy, alive and well, living with the wolves. 

Though Sanichar led a strange and short life, forever trapped at the dividing line between human society and the animal kingdom, his legacy lives on. In fact, he's allegedly the inspiration for Mowgli in Rudyard Kipling's novel The Jungle Book, which was later adapted into a beloved Disney film. 

But the true story of Dina Sanichar is nowhere near as innocent, charming, or joyful as the Disney version might have us believe. 

https://allthatsinteresting.com/dina-sanichar

credits: https://allthatsinteresting.com/podcast-credits

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