Part of a majesty and grandeur of the American experiment is that no matter who you are or where you come from, with some hard work and determination, you can rise from nothing to become the head of a major criminal organization. Like baseball and apple pie, organized crime has been an American tradition ever since it first became a nation. And like the nation itself, American organized crime is a melting pot of different industries, rackets, enforcement brigades, and transnational networks that Walmart only wishes it could duplicate.

Most of us go through life not knowing who we are, or what we want to do, until at least a few decades in. Well go through many false starts, and travel through many dead-end paths, until we find the one that’s truly right for us. Many companies are the same way. Oftentimes, the most successful corporations on Earth started with one simple idea, and are now vastly successful in a very different area. Such as …

It may have been conscious or subconscious. It may have just ended up developing that way. However, there are abundant similarities between the fictional character of Bruce Wayne and the very real President of the United States Theodore “Teddy” Roosevelt. Some of them may have been intentional upon Batman’s creation, but others seemingly developed on their own over time. At any rate, check out the almost eerie similarities between the two.

On July 21, 1973, Israeli agents of the Mossad killed a waiter in Lillehammer, Norway, seeking revenge for the 1972 Munich Olympics massacre of Israeli athletes.  The hapless victim was innocent and had nothing to do with the terrorist event, and the murder was just another blunder by a country attempting to conduct spy games.  Over the years there have been some egregious errors by secret agencies, and here we list 10 of those “oops” moments.  Which incidents would you add to the list?

On September 4, 1957, the Ford Motor Company introduced its latest product, the Edsel.  Named after founder Henry Ford’s son, the Edsel was supposed to be an upscale mass-market car and vital part of Ford’s marketing plan.  It turned out to be a flop, and has since become synonymous with the word “failure.”  The ugliness of the car did not hurt or kill anyone, but some do products end up being fatal.  Here 10 products that for a variety of reasons have become infamous, notorious and reviled are listed.  A previous article already covered Zyklon B and DDT.  What other products would you add to the list?

The first McDonald’s was opened on May 15, 1940, by brothers Richard and Maurice McDonald. When it first opened, McDonald’s was a barbecue restaurant and in the early days, they had 25 items on their menu. However, at the end of World War II, the brothers realized that 80 percent of their sales were hamburgers. So they shut down the restaurant for a few weeks, and reopened with a smaller menu that had just nine items: hamburgers, cheeseburgers, three soft drink flavors available in 12-ounce cups, milk, coffee, potato chips, and pie. The idea behind the new store was to focus on speed and lower prices.

Alfred Hitchcock pretty much made his living telling stories of mistaken identity, and his tales painted thrilling adventures left in the wake of an innocent man being pursued by mysterious people who thought he was someone else. Of course, real life is typically not like the movies, and while films usually feature happy endings, unfortunately that’s seldom the case with instances of mistaken identity. Here is a list of real-life cases, most of which ended horrifically.

The universe is a vast and mysterious place, and there are so many scenarios where almost anything can happen. Have you ever considered what would happen if the Earth doubled in size? Or what would happen if the super-continent Pangaea never broke up? Even if you haven’t thought of those specific questions, these ‘what if’ scenarios show how amazing and mind boggling the Earth and the universe can be.

People have fallen for some crazy things but why do they do that? What makes us fall for scams that are obvious frauds? First, people make quick, irrational decisions sometimes and that can have consequences. We make these decisions because we don’t use our heads; instead we use our emotions, which can get the best of us sometimes. Two, we all want to be rich, we do not think rationally. We think that the bargain sounds like a great deal and that we can make a lot of money, so we automatically say yes right away. Lastly, we feel pressured from the person scamming us. They sound like they know their stuff and we don’t want to disappoint them. Basically, it’s in our nature to get scammed and people like to take advantage of that.

Being in a position of power is awesome, and we’re not going to lie: given nigh unlimited god-like power over millions of people, we’d probably abuse it just a little. However, here’s a list of 10 people who went way too far, because they were in charge and because they could.