Today's True Werid Stuff - Reliving The Black Eyed Kids

Today's True Weird Stuff - Another Icepick To The Brain

Today's True Weird Stuff - Headless Valley

Today's True Weird Stuff - The Last Duel

The most famous duel in American history was between Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr in 1804. The premiere way of settling disputes and upholding unwritten codes of honor, the act of dueling would gradually fall out of favor over the 19th Century. However, dueling was still commonplace in Southern states like South Carolina. That is, until a duel in 1880 between Colonel E.B. Cash and Colonel William Shannon forced the state to ban the practice.

Today's True Weird Stuff - Jill the Ripper

 In 1888, the people of the Whitechapel district of London were terrorized by someone on a ruthless killing spree. Over 100 suspects were named, including a woman named Mary Pearcey. In 1890, Mary was convicted of brutally murdering her lover's partner and child, and Mary was sentenced to death. The brutal nature of the killings would lead to a theory decades later that claimed Mary Pearcey was the was the infamous Jack the Ripper.

Today's True Weird Stuff - Mirror, Mirror

Margaretha von Waldeck was the real-life inspiration for Snow White and the Seven Dwarves. Born to a noble family during the Holy Roman Empire, Margaretha's mother passed away when she was 4 years old. Her father, Count Philip IV, would go on to remarry a woman named Katherina von Hatzfeld. Katherina despised her stepdaughter, and had Margaretha sent away. Though beautiful and poised to make a name for herself in the history books, Margaretha's short life would play out like a fairy tale...minus the happy ending.

Brain In A Jar

Phineas Gage was an American railroad foreman who survived a traumatic brain injury.  In 1848, an iron rod shot through his skull and destroyed a chunk of his left frontal lobe. Though he survived the accident, the damage to his brain drastically altered his personality. Gage's story became a catalyst for modern neuroscience, which has advanced to the point scientists are now able to develop a brain in a jar.

Today's True Weird Stuff - The King's Rhinoceros

In the 1500s, King Manuel of Portugal gifted Pope Leo a beautiful, white elephant as a gesture of obedience to the Vatican. Unfortunately, the majestic beast passed away after only two years. To make up for it, King Manuel tried to ship Pope Leo a rhinoceros named Ganda; however, the rhino met its demise in a shipwreck before it could make it to Rome. The only good thing to come from this debacle was the immortalization of Ganda by an artist who created a sculpture without ever having seen a rhinoceros.

Today's True Weird Stuff - The Appetite

Tarrare was a French Showman in the 1700s who had an insatiable appetite. His eternal hunger terrorized him to the point he literally tried to consume everything: live animals, garbage, inanimate objects, and even human flesh. The curious case of the 100lb Tarrare baffled even the greatest medical minds, and the medical findings of his autopsy were the definition of truly weird stuff.

Today's True Weird Stuff - The Bunker

In the 1950's and '60s, fallout shelters were all the rage. Tensions due to America's Cold War with Russia led to a looming fear of nuclear disaster. These underground bunkers, equipped with a living space and food rations, were a civil defense strategy aimed at reducing casualties in a nuclear war. And no fallout shelter was more elaborate than the Greenbrier Hotel; a luxurious resort paid for by the government as a cover for the secret bunker designed to house Congress below.