10 Dark Facts We Learned This Week That Reminded Us How Strange The World Really Is
Linda Meyers
Most people like to believe they live in a fair world where justice exists and everything happens for a reason. But sometimes you learn things that make you realize just how unruly the world really is. Our daily survival and happiness are a coin flip, and sometimes, we lose that flip.
These dark facts are your weekly reminder that everything can go wrong at a second, monsters are real, and, on a more positive note, that every day that we’re alive is something to be thankful for, because the world is a wild place that makes no promises. Vote up the facts that are the best reminder of this, and don’t forget to come back next week for more.
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• 1
Mount Doom
Photo: Franz-alpin / Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 3.0
In 1936, four mountain climbers attempted to scale the north face of the Eiger – an infamous Swiss peak. The expedition ended in utter disaster, taking the lives of all four men when a single avalanche caused one to fall to his demise, another to fatally smash into the the mountain face, another to asphyxiate on his climbing rope, and the last to be stranded on the mountainside without enough equipment to come down.
A rescue team was sent for him, but he succumbed to exposure while they were mere feet away. His last words to them were “Ich kann nicht mehr,” which translates to “I cannot go on.”
What do you think?
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• • 2
Not So Squad Goals
Photo: Bureau of Engraving and Printing / Wikimedia Commons / Public domain
In 1901, government chemist Dr. Harvey Wiley set out to prove that various substances in the American food supply were threatening consumer health, and thus have those substances (such as formaldehyde, arsenic, various waste products, and more) removed from food production.
In order to do so, he began a series of controversial trials where, for free food and five dollars a month, 12 healthy young men volunteered to be systematically posioned with these chemicals, and have the results studied. They became known as the “Poison Squad.”
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• • 3
An Unexpected Journey
Photo: Bernal Saborio / Flickr / CC BY-SA 2.0
In February of 1970, amateur photographer John Gilpin was taking photos around an airport in Sydney, Australia. It was only after the film was developed that he realized he had captured a stowaway Keith Sapsford’s final moments, as he fell out of the wheel well of a plane taking off, and dropped 56 meters to his demise. You can view the photo in question here or here.
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• • 4
A Test Of Endurance
Photo: Royal Geographical Society / Wikimedia Commons / Public domain
In 1914, an expedition crew led by explorer Ernest Shackleton was shipwrecked when their vessel, The Endurance, became trapped in ice.
They were stranded in the Antarctic for nearly two years, facing hunger, extreme cold, dysentery, and exhaustion before being rescued. At one point. Shackleton’s second-in-command wrote that “at least half the party were insane.”
Miraculously, Shackleton’s entire crew survived.
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• • 5
A Deadly Year
Photo: US Navy / Wikimedia Commons / Public domain
In 1968, four submaries belonging to the US, Israeli, French, and Soviet Navies all mysteriously vanished at sea. A total number of 318 sailors were lost in these disappearances.
The submarines in question were the USS Scorpion, INS Dakar, French Minerve, amd Soviet K-129. While some pieces of wreckage from the vessels have been located in the years since (with Minerve being discovered as recently as 2019), researchers still can’t determine precisely why they sank.
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• • 6
Hostile Takeover
Photo: Christian R. Linder / Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 3.0
Posted by u/mozerdozer:
Some queen ants setting out to create their own nest will speed along the process by finding another queen with an established nest to slay and impersonate. After successful infiltration and elimination, she will then dupe the worker ants into caring for her while she lays her own eggs, gradually replacing the entire colony with her own offspring.
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• • 7
Idiom Origins
Photo: Lil Nas X / Youtube
Posted by u/ScyllaIsBea:
“Devil’s advocate” was once a real job title within the Catholic Church. It was the responsibility of those placed in this position to deliberate on behalf of the devil during the canonization process and argue for why someone should not be made a saint of the Church.
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• • 8
Nothing To Cheer For
Photo: Missy S. / Flickr / CC BY-ND 2.0
Cheerleading carries the highest rate of catastrophic injuries to female athletes in high school sports. It has accounted for about 66% of all catastrophic injuries in high school female athletes over the past 25 years.
When accounting for rate of injury regardless of gender, it is second in risk only to football.
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• • 9
Carnival Of Children
Photo: Jessie Tarbox Beals / Wikimedia Commons / Public domain
In the 1930’s, a sideshow saved thousands of premature babies’ lives.
A man by the name of Martin Couney would display the babies (otherwise written off as weaklings by mainstream medicine) in an experimental glass case called an incubator, and sell tickets to see them as a tourist attraction. He used proceeds from the exhibitions to pay for the children’s medical care, seeing an alleged 80% survival rate.
The kicker? Though Couney claimed to be a doctor (and was addressed as such by the media and the rest of the medical community) he secretly had no medical certification, or even education. The universities he claimed to have studied at had no record of his enrollment, and he deliberately obscured the details of his past.
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• • 10
Land Shark!
Photo: Strobilomyces / Wikimedia Commons / CC-BY-SA 3.0
Posted by u/SprueSlayer
There are nine species of shark that have evolved to walk on land. They use specially adapted fins that allow them the walk between tide pools while hunting for prey. These “walking sharks” belong to the Hemiscyllium family, which is the newest lineage of sharks on Earth. Some members of this family, such as the epaulette shark (pictured above), can survive for hours without oxygen while they walk on land.
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