The Borgias were a noble family from the years of the renaissance. Although hailing originally from Spain, they rose to great power in Italy and more than one Borgia became a Catholic Pope. However, despite entrenching themselves in religion, they were known for caring little about morality. They made enemies with many powerful noble families, and have been accused of nearly every depravity you can imagine.

Humanity’s rise to become the dominant species on the planet seems to have been a fairly orderly progression from one species to another. But this could not be further from the truth. It was more like an arbitrary, often brutal process; a sort of “survive or die” situation. Since life began on our planet, probably some more than 4 billion years ago, Earth went through a series of ups and downs in terms of its living creatures. So much so, that 99% of all beings that have ever existed, are now gone. The planet went through 5 or 6 major events where more than half of its inhabitants were extinguished, with another series of smaller ones taking place now and again.

These days, it’s easy to feel like the world is a depressing place where nothing good ever happens. Bombs explode, wars trundle on, politics gets more polarized, and the future looks as black as can be. No wonder we wake up each morning reaching for the Xanax.

For hundreds of years, people all over the world have reported sightings of a hairy, bipedal giant in the wild. The creatures, or species, known as Sasquatch have been seen on every continent except Antarctica. In the United States, they have been seen everywhere; not just the Pacific Northwest. With so many encounters, not all reports result in the assessment that these are simply passive, forest giants. Some reports are downright violent.

In recent years people have become much more afraid of flying in airplanes than they ever have before. The events of 9/11 shook many people’s faith in the safety of air travel, and in more recent years people have been increasingly concerned about turbulence, bad weather and even pilot error. The spate of planes that went down with no survivors and the depressed German pilot who decided to commit suicide and mass murder at the same time are still fresh on everyone’s minds.

The Titanic set out to make headlines as the largest ship on Earth, sailing on its maiden voyage across the Atlantic in April of 1912. Instead, it made history of a different sort as one of history’s greatest follies. The ship hit an iceberg on its fourth day – exactly 105 years ago today, to be exact – 400 miles off the coast of Nova Scotia, and sank within two hours and forty minutes. Somewhere in the ballpark of 1,500 unfortunate victims, who mostly died by being in extremely cold, 28 degree (Fahrenheit) water. If you thought water couldn’t get colder than freezing, think about salt.

In the quest to end a war or conflict as quickly as possible, ingenious battle plans are drawn up all the time. Sometimes, these plans fall by the wayside, for one reason or another. Whether the cancellation was good or bad for civilization, it makes one wonder what would have happened if it was seen through to the end. Here are ten such war plans that could have changed history completely, had they not been abandoned during the blueprint stages.

When most people think of ways you can get high or alter your perception of the world, they immediately think of mind altering drugs. While drugs are certainly effective at doing such things, the human brain hardly needs foreign substances to cross the blood brain barrier in order to see, hear and in general perceive things in a way that is much different from the normal base state of human consciousness. The human mind is incredibly suggestible and can be manipulated in many ways without using drugs at all.

Slavery appeared alongside the agricultural revolution some 12,000 years ago, when humanity went from hunting and gathering to a sedentary and more hierarchical society. With the appearance of agriculture and animal husbandry came the first abundance, and along with it the material advantage of owning another person.

How many countries are there in the world? It seems like a simple question, but the answer is far more complicated than you might think. The UN, for example, lists 193 member states, but this completely excludes not only Taiwan and Kosovo, but also Vatican City. Other means of measurement are just as difficult. Were you to count only places that issue their own passports, you’d have to say Scotland and Wales are not countries, but the Knights of Malta (who own literally no territory) are. Does that make sense to you?