A transit in astronomical terms is when one heavenly body passes in front of another such that, as viewed from Earth, we can see one move across the other in the background. The moon transiting in front of the sun during a solar eclipse, for example. Much more rare than a solar eclipse is the planet Venus transiting the Sun. The last time this took place was in 2004. But you are in luck! The next transit of Venus will occur this year! On June 5 to June 6, 2012 those positioned in the right spot on Earth, and with clear skies, will get to see this very rare event. The best spot to see the transit will be in the Pacific Ocean. The island of Tahiti is ideal for those who wish to travel to see it happen and the island is making preparations for many “astronomy tourists” to go there to view the transit. Portions of the transit will be viewable from Europe and North America. Most of South America and western Africa will not be able to see the transit. What an observer will see is a small black dot (Venus) passing in front of the sun. Depending on where you are on Earth to view the transit, you may see the dot move slowly across the Sun for several hours.

Sequences of transits occur in a pattern that repeats every 243 years, with transits occurring eight years apart followed by a gap of 121.5 years, then a gap of eight years (the 2012 transit finishes the latest eight year period from the transit of 2004) and then another long gap of 105.5 years until the next transit. So for those who miss the Venus transit this June, you will have to live to be very old indeed to catch the next pair of transits (2117 and 2125). To see if you can view part or all of the 2012 Venus transit go here (warning – may need fast internet connection).

As Galileo invented his first telescope in 1609 the first chance to observe a Venus transit using modern optical devices came with the transits of 1631 and 1639. Five years before the 1631 transit, in 1627, Johannes Kepler became the first person to predict a transit of Venus. Kepler successfully predicted the 1631 event. However, Kepler was unable to determine where would be the best location to observe the transit, nor did he realize that in 1631 the transit would not be observable in most of Europe. Therefore, no one made arrangements to travel to where they could see it, and this transit was missed.

Fortunately, 8 years later on December 4, 1639, a young amateur astronomer by the name of Jeremiah Horrocks became the first person in modern history to predict, observe, and record a Venus transit. Horrocks corrected Kepler’s earlier calculations and realized what we now know about Venus transits, that they occur eight years apart after long (very long) waits. It is commonly stated that he performed his observations from Carr House in Much Hoole, near Preston England. Horrocks also told his friend, another amateur astronomer by the name of William Crabtree, about the coming predicted transit and he also spotted the planet’s silhouette on the solar disk. Crabtree probably observed near Broughton, Manchester England. Although Horrocks was uncertain when the transit would begin, he was lucky enough to guess the time so that he was able to observe part of it. He used a telescope to shine the image onto a white card, thus safely observing the transit without harming his eyes. Using his observational data, Horrocks came up with the best calculation for an Astronomical Unit (AU).

One hundred and twenty-two years later came the next eight-year pair of Venus transits. During that time the noted astronomer Edmond Halley (of Halley’s comet fame) had proposed that scientists could gain an accurate estimate of the distance between the Earth and the Sun (an Astronomical Unit or AU) using the scientific principal of parallax. Parallax is the difference in the apparent position of an object viewed along two different lines of sight, and is measured by the angle or semi-angle of inclination between those two lines. Halley correctly reasoned that if the Venus transit was viewed and measured from very distant points on the Earth, that the combined measurements, using parallax, could be used (with trigonometry) to calculate the actual distance between the Earth and the Sun (AU). Up to that time, the scientists were using Horrocks determination of AU, but realized they needed many more accurate observations to get a truer calculation.

Thus the Venus transits of 1761 and 1769 launched an unprecedented wave of scientific observations to the farthest points of the Globe. This was one of the earliest examples of international scientific collaboration. Getting (and surviving the trip) to these locations was as much an adventure as obtaining the first accurate data for a Venus transit. Scientists, mostly from England, France, and Austria, traveled to places as far apart as Newfoundland, South Africa, Norway, Siberia, and Madagascar. In South Africa very good measurements were obtained by Jeremiah Dixon and Charles Mason who would later go on to add their name to the historic Mason-Dixon Line in the USA. Noted points of the globe for the 1769 transit included Baja, Mexico; Saint Petersburg, Russia; Philadelphia Pennsylvania, USA; Hudson Bay, Canada; and from Tahiti, the great British explorer Captain Cook observed the transit from a place he called “Point Venus.”

Using the data obtained from the two transits, French astronomer Jérôme Lalande calculated the astronomical unit to have a value of 153 million kilometers. The calculation was a considerable improvement on Horrocks’ calculations from the 1639 observations. The modern measurement for an AU is 149 million kilometers (92,955,807.3 miles).

Prior to astronomers viewing the transit of Venus no one knew Venus had an atmosphere. All of that changed with the 1761 Venus transit. Looking from the Petersburg Observatory, Russian scientist Mikhail Lomonosov predicted the existence of an atmosphere on Venus. Lomonosov saw the image of Venus refracting solar rays while he observed the transit. During the initial phase of the transit, he saw a ring of light around the trailing end of the planet (the portion that had not yet transited in front of the sun). He correctly inferred the only thing to explain the light refraction would be an atmosphere around the planet.

When observing the Venus transit, the most critical times are the first, second, third, and fourth contact. Being able to clearly see and time these transitions – from the shadow of Venus not touching, to just first touching the suns disc (first contact) the time the shadow of Venus fully transits into the disc of the Sun (second contact), and then when exiting, the point where the leading edge of the shadow of Venus again touches off the disc of the Sun (third contact), back into outer space, and the time the entire shadow has left the disc of the Sun (fourth contact) and is no longer visible – is important to gain accurate data. Unfortunately, an optical phenomenon called the black drop effect makes it difficult to see the second and third contacts.

Just after second contact, and again just before third contact during the transit, a small black “teardrop” appears to connect Venus’ disk to the limb of the Sun, making it impossible to accurately time the exact moment of second or third contact. This negative impact on the timing of the second and third contact contributed to the error in calculation of the true value of AU, in 1761 and 1769 transits. It was first thought the black drop effect was caused by the thick atmosphere of Venus, but it is now believed it is caused mostly by interference in the Earth’s atmosphere. Today, better telescopes and optics are minimizing the black drop effect for astronomers observing Venus (and Mercury) transits.

By the time the 2004 and 2012 Venus transits rolled around, measurements of AU could be made using other and more accurate measuring techniques. However, that did not mean the 2004 and 2012 transits were not highly anticipated. They could still be used to do very important science, in this case, helping in the search for planets outside our solar system.

Scientists were eager to learn more about how patterns of light were dimmed and interfered with as Venus blocked out the Sun’s light. This would provide data to develop new and better methods to use the same technique to look for planets orbiting distant suns. Right now, a variety of other methods are used to “see” extrasolar planets orbiting distant suns. But most of these methods require the extrasolar planets to be very large – Jupiter-sized planets. Perfecting a way to “see” an extrasolar planet based on the light it blocks, coming from its sun, when it transits, would be a much more accurate way to detect the planet and could be used to ‘see” and calculate the size of much smaller planets orbiting these suns. However, extremely precise measurement is needed: for example, the transit of Venus causes the Sun’s light to drop by a mere 0.001 magnitude, and the dimming produced by small extrasolar planets will be much less.

In December 1882, astronomer David Peck Todd traveled from Amherst College in Massachusetts to California to photograph the transit of Venus. The transits of 1874 and 1882 were the first since the invention of photography so Todd’s documentation of the Venus transit was one of the first made using photographs. On top of Mount Hamilton from what would become Lick Observatory (still under construction in 1882), Todd collected a series of photographs during the December 6 transit. Viewing conditions were ideal with no clouds and he collected 147 glass negative plates documenting most of the transit. The plates were carefully stored but soon forgotten as astronomers found better ways to view and document the transits.

In 2002, two astronomers writing for Sky and Telescope magazine rediscovered the long forgotten plates, all of them intact and in good condition. They realized the sequence of photos could be made into the first “motion picture” of a Venus transit. The resulting “movie” documents one of the historic observations of a Venus transit. You can see the animation of the transit made using the 147 negatives here (warning – you need QuickTime and a fast internet connection).

The months in which we can see the eight-year pairings of Venus transits is “creeping” forward. Before the 1631 transit, the pair occurred in May and November. Transits can currently occur only in June or December. Transits usually occur in pairs, on nearly the same date eight years apart. This is because the length of eight Earth years is almost the same as 13 years on Venus, so every eight years the planets are in roughly the same relative positions. However the small difference means the timing of the arrival of the eight-year pairs of transits is slowly creeping forward on the Earth calendar.

This approximate conjunction between Earth and Venus usually results in a pair of transits, but not always. The transit of 1396 did not have a pair (there was no transit in 1404, one did not appear until May 1518). The next “solo transit” will be in 3089.

Multiple transits are very, very, very rare occurrences, but do happen. It is possible for there to be a solar eclipse and a transit of Venus at the same time. The last time this took place was in the year 15,607 BC. The next solar eclipse plus Venus transit will occur on April 5, 15,232.

It is also possible for Mercury and Venus to transit the Sun at the same time. That’s right, both of Earth’s inner planetary neighbors perfectly lining up with the Earth’s orbit and the Sun so that an observer on Earth could see both tiny shadows passing in front of our Sun at the same time. The last time this happened was in the year 373,173 BC. The next time the simultaneous transit of the Sun by both planets will occur will be July 26, 69,163. Will man even be around to see this far off transit?

The year 1882 was a Venus transit year and to commemorate this historic event, and the unveiling of a statue of American physicist Joseph Henry (who developed the first electric motor and was the first secretary for the Smithsonian Institute), the famous bandleader and composer John Philips Sousa was commissioned to write a march. Sousa wrote the march, it was published by the J.W. Pepper Company, and quickly forgotten about and lost. But not before the march was performed for the first time on April 19, 1883 at 4pm, which, for Sousa, a Freemason, had Masonic significance having to do with the element copper, copper used in electric motors (invented by Henry), and Venus, which probably makes perfect sense to Masons reading this list but is lost on the author.

In any event, the march came and went about as fast as a Venus transit and was thought lost for over 100 years until it was rediscovered in the Library of Congress in… wait for it… 2003! Yes, one year before the 2004 transit the long lost Sousa march “Transit of Venus March” was found just in time to celebrate the next transit! In 2004 the Library of Congress joined with NASA to bring back the long lost march to the general public (who, apparently, were as thrilled with it as the people of 1883). Now you too can hear Sousa’s Transit of Venus March (which to me sounds just about the same as all his other marches) in the clip above.

A French scientist and astronomer who took long names to a new extreme – Guillaume Joseph Hyacinthe Jean-Baptiste Le Gentil de la Galaisière (Guillaume Le Gentil) made some important contributions to astronomy, especially some of the first observations of several Messier objects. But it was his role as part of the international drive to document the 1761 Venus transit that makes him such an interesting and tragic figure.

Le Gentil was one of over a hundred observers from around the world who marched or sailed off to far away locations of the globe so as to gain various far flung vantage points of the transit to help calculate a more accurate determination of an AU. Not all of these expeditions met with success, in fact, many were thwarted by cloudy skies, rain, unfriendly natives, difficulty getting to where they wanted to go, and faulty equipment. But no one was as unlucky as Le Gentil.

Guillaume le Gentil set out from Paris in March 1760 bound for Pondicherry, a French colony in India. He reached Mauritius in July. But by then he learned that France and Britain were at war. Before his ship arrived, he learned the British had occupied Pondicherry so the ship diverted back to Mauritius.

On June 6, 1761 the transit arrived as predicted, but Le Gentil was still on board the ship. Though the skies were clear he could not make observations aboard the rolling deck of a ship at sea. No problem, he thought, I came this far, I will wait for the next transit, eight years away.

He passed the time, among other ventures, mapping the coast of Madagascar and then set off or Manila in the Philippines to see the 1769 transit. Once there however he was met with resistance from the Spanish authorities. So he set sail once again for Pondicherry India. He arrived in March 1768 and built a small observatory and waited. June 4, 1769 finally arrived and though previous weeks had offered perfect clear skies, June 4th had nothing but clouds and rain. He saw nothing. Despondent, he decided to return to France. He was delayed by an attack of dysentery and then his ship was caught in a storm. He was dropped off at the small island of Reunion, east of Madagascar, and he had to wait until a Spanish ship could bring him back to France. He arrived in France almost 11 years after he left, in 1771, only to find he had been declared dead, removed from his position in the Royal Academy of Sciences, and stripped of his fortune by his greedy relatives. Oh yes, his wife had remarried as well. Eventually his position to the Academy was restored and he lived out the remainder of his life in France.

Most species of organisms are unrecognized for their unique, versatile abilities, appearance and existence. When we think of organisms we often think of the typical dog, cat and other household pets. When we think of wild organisms, we think of zebras, lions, monkeys and other animals seen in habitats that are known for housing wild animals, like zoos. When thinking of aquatic organisms we think of jellyfish, goldfish, and sharks. We have become accustomed to a stereotype of the organisms that form each label of organisms; people are becoming ignorant to the variety and eccentricity of organisms we have among us today. This following list is of 10 eccentric organisms, showing the plethora of organisms within each species.

Sea pigs are sea creatures closely related to sea cucumbers, belonging to the kingdom Animalia. These aquatic organisms are about four inches in length, and have 10 tentacles with tub like feet that are used not for swimming, but for marching along the ocean floor. Sea pigs are bottom feeders and detect food by scent; they remove organic particles from the mud with their deflating and inflating tentacles and eat the particles trapped in their tentacles. These sea creatures obtained their name from their pink-tint and chubby body, do not fall short of idiosyncrasy.

The yeti crab was only discovered in 2005 by Marine biologists in the Pacific Ocean. This organism resembles the mythical organism yeti with its hair-like sinuous, and resides in the hydrothermal vents of the pacific ocean that protrude a toxic liquid that to the average organism would be deadly. This organism is not well-researched yet, but its albino-like eyes suggest that the organism may be blind and it is suspected to feed off of the toxic minerals from the hydrothermal vents.

The viperfish, which can easily be recognized from the Disney film “Finding Nemo” with its hinged lower-jaw containing long stringy, pointy teeth, is a deepwater fish that lives in tropical and temperate waters. The viperfish varies from 12 to 24 inches in length and swims in depths from 250 to 5,000 feet. Although the viperfish is frightening in appearance, it is preyed on by sharks and even dolphins! This fish can live up to 40 years and holds the Guinness world record for largest teeth in comparison to head size in a fish.

This marine crab is the biggest arthropod in the word in overall size containing eight legs. The Japanese spider crab is found about 150-800 meters deep off the southern coasts of the Japanese island Honshu and has a leg span of 3.6 meters. This crab can live up to a miraculous 100 years and are known to be calm animals. The Japanese spider crab feeds off animal carcasses, plants and shellfish; they could be considered the vulture of the sea.

The giant isopod, a crustacean living in the Atlantic Ocean, is an alien-looking sea creature that exists in the pitch darkness of the bathypelagic zone in depths as deep as 7,020 feet. This interesting organism has stayed relatively the same for the past 130 million years! The giant isopod can be up to 14 inches in length and up to 30 inches in height and have four sets of jaws. The giant isopod is a scavenger that feeds with its four sets of jaws, on dead whales, fish, and squid. This organism has the ability to survive without food for more than eight weeks!

The Chinese giant salamander has stayed almost exactly the same in resemblance as its ancestors of 30 million years. This organism is the largest known salamander in existence and its habitats include mountain streams and lakes of China. This salamander can grow up to 73 inches in length and have lived up to 80 years at a time. The Giant Salamander does not have eyelids, and therefore has poor vision and rely on sensory nodes to detect possible vibrations made by predators. This amphibian has the ability to breathe through the pores and wrinkles in the skin and is mainly a nocturnal animal that hunts during the night feeding on crabs, crayfish, fish, frogs, insects, shrimps, snails and worms.

This proteus, aquatic, snake-like amphibian is a blind organism that lives in the caves of the subterranean waters. The Olm is about 8-12 inches and the small fragile superior limbs contain three fingers and the inferior limbs containing two. The olm’s skin resembles the color and texture of humans and is sometimes recognized as the “human fish” for its skin. The olm has not only external gills but also has lungs that are rarely actually used during the respiratory process. Due to their eyes that lay deep beneath the dermis and only somewhat detect light, the olm is dependent on their acute sense of smell and hearing abilities to survive.

The giant grenadier is the only member of the Albatrossia genus that is found along the north Pacific part of Japan to the Okhotsk and Bering seas. This fish can reach up to seven feet in length and has been proven to live up to at least 56 years-old. The Giant Grenadier feeds mainly on different species of squids, crabs, worms, shrimps and echinoderms and is well known for its frightening resemblance to snakes with its long pointy tail and its large eyes.

This fish, also known as the oarfish is the longest bony fish in existence. It is found in depths from 300-1000 meters in any of the world’s oceans. The king of Herrings remains in deep waters and does not surface often; typically if it surfaces, it dies when doing so. This 16 foot long fish was first discovered washed up dead on the shore in Bermuda in 1860. It is believed by scientists that the great myth of a sea serpent could have branched off of a king of herrings sighting. Despite that, this organism is a fish, it does not have any scales and although frightening in size, is not a threat to the human race based on its small teeth and one dorsal fin.

This cuddly creature is a domestic rabbit bred for long and soft wool. They originate from Angora, Turkey, are affable companions for those looking for a pet, and live up to seven years when well taken care of. There are five types of Angora rabbit breeds including English, German, Giant, French and Satin. The Angora rabbit can be up to 12 pounds and in spite of their large fluffy appearance, are very active creatures.

The official definition of a controversy is an issue that involves a prolonged public dispute or debate. Controversies usually concern a matter of opinion and can involve a wide variety of topics including world history, religion, philosophy, politics, economics, science, finances, age, gender, and race. In some areas of the world controversial issues are said to be disruptive to society and are not discussed in public. In other cultures, people feel it is their duty to examine all areas of a subject and discuss it in a civilized manner.

Since the invention of the camera, hundreds of controversial pictures have been taken. This article will examine 10 images that have raised concern in the media and caused debate across the internet. The list is not attempting to display the top ten controversial photographs in history, but will examine a collection of pictures that have not been featured in similar articles. In any case, I would like to hear your opinion on the most controversial images in history.

The 1948 Tucker sedan is an advanced automobile that was developed by Preston Tucker and produced in 1948. According to records, only 51 Tucker sedans were made before the business folded. The vehicle’s design was innovative for the 1940s and was built for safety. The Tucker was the first car to feature seat belts, safety glass windshields, and the Cyclops, which was a headlight system that shifted directions to increase visibility for night driving. In 1949, the Tucker Corporation was ridiculed by the American media and experienced a consumer backlash. The company was shut down amidst a scandal of controversial accusations around stock fraud. In 2011, a 1948 Tucker sedan was featured on the show It’s Worth What? and received an estimated value of $1,200,000.

Justin Cole is a man that runs Benchmark Classics in Middleton, Wisconsin. He claims to own the only unfinished prototype of a Tucker convertible. The authenticity of the vehicle has been questioned by classic car collectors from all over the world. Legend holds that the convertible was a secret, off-the-books prototype known as “Project Vera,” developed by Preston Tucker and named after his wife. However, Alex Tremulis, who designed the Tucker sedan, has claimed that the convertible was not a factory project, official or unofficial. Justin Cole refers to his convertible as Tucker #57 and says the factory number of 57 is stamped on the body panels.

In 2010, Justin Cole attempted to sell the Tucker convertible at the Russo and Steele auction in Scottsdale. The bidding reached a price of $1.4 million, but didn’t meet the reserve price. The car was also listed on ebay in 2010, where bidding approached $900,000, but once again didn’t meet the reserve. The vehicle is still listed for sale on Benchmark’s website and has a large gallery of photographs. The car holds a clear Tucker design and clean convertible conversion. The position of the Tucker Automobile Club of America is that the vehicle was converted after the company went out of business.

Girls’ Generation is a nine-member South Korean pop girl group formed in 2007. They are currently the top selling Korean girl band in the world. In the summer of 2009, the group took part in a controversial photo shoot with a military theme. One of the pictures from the shoot was selected for the band’s mini-album cover Sowoneul Malhaebwa (Genie). Soon after the album’s release, controversy erupted over the cover. In the picture, a plane can be seen which many people felt was a direct replica of Japan’s A6M Zero fighter plane, which was used by the Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service in World War II. People also noticed that the military outfits, medals, and hats worn by the girls resemble that of the Third Reich.

In one example, the eagle emblem used on the girls’ hats greatly resembles the Nazi Party emblem. In response to the accusations, SM Entertainment stated: “We used military icons on the album cover, but it was interpreted and understood in a way we didn’t expect, so we are planning to delete it and put an icon of the South Korean supersonic jet T-50.” In the future, Girls’ Generation should be more careful about using images that were taken from Nazi and Kamikaze insignia. Regardless of the controversy, Sowoneul Malhaebwa (Genie) reached #1 less than 24 hours after it release.

Thomas Hoepker is a German born photographer and member of Magnum Photos. On September 11, 2001, Hoepker was in New York when the World Trade Center was attacked. Hoepker captured hundreds of photos of the destruction, but one stands out. The photograph shows a collection of Americans relaxing and enjoying a conversation while the Twin Towers burn in the background. Hoepker did not publish the image for five years because he was concerned with the message. In 2006, the picture caused controversy in the American media. The New York Times published an article claiming the picture showed America’s failure to learn from the tragic day, or to change and reform as a nation.

“The young people in Mr. Hoepker’s photo aren’t necessarily callous (insensitive). They’re just American.” This is a country that likes to move on, and fast. The people in the picture have responded to the media by saying that they were in “a profound state of shock and disbelief.” They have ridiculed Hoepker saying that he took the picture without permission and in a way that misrepresented their feelings. Whatever the case, the photo is established as one of the defining images of 9/11 and remains controversial in the eyes of many people.

At the end of World War II, the United States and Soviet Union captured a large collection of German secrets, including information on a German rocket program. The technology sparked the Space Race (1957-1975) between the United States and the Soviet Union. In each country, a select group of individuals were chosen as the first astronauts. In most cases, these people were kept secret from the public. A good example is the Russian born astronaut Grigori Nelyubov. Little is known about Nelyubov, but he was likely the third or fourth person to travel into space before his dismissal from the Soviet space program in April, 1963, for disorderly conduct. Following his dismissal, all information regarding Nelyubov’s life was stricken from the Soviet record.

Grigori Nelyubov’s image was removed from a collection of famous photographs, including the Sochi Six picture, which shows the top members of the original class of Soviet cosmonauts. This airbrushing has led to a large collection of conspiracy theories regarding lost cosmonauts and unreported space flight. In 1966, Nelyubov committed suicide. From 1961 to 1972, at least eight former Russian cosmonauts are known to have died. The Sochi Six picture was officially released in the 1970s and the deception was only discovered after Russian news managers lost track of which versions of the picture they had already published. The fakery has caused some to label the Soviet Union’s string of space triumphs over the United States in the 1950s and early 1960s as a series of falsifications. I have included the original Sochi Six photograph before Nelyubov was removed. He is the tallest man in the picture.

Chris Hondros was an American Pulitzer Prize-nominated war photographer. In 2005, he traveled to Iraq in order to cover the war. On January 18, 2005, Hondros was in Tal Afar when he witnessed a car that failed to stop at a U.S. checkpoint. U.S. Soldiers feared a suicide bomber and opened fire on the car killing both parents and injuring one of their five children. Hondros approached the scene and captured a picture of 5-year-old Samar Hassan splattered in her parent’s blood. After the photo was published, it quickly caused controversy and was spread across the world. Many feel the picture is the most iconic image of the Iraq War, similar to the naked Vietnamese girl screaming and running after a napalm attack. The Iraq War delivered few singular images, partly because it was too dangerous for photographers. The U.S. military also set strict rules for journalists.

In 2011, Samar Hassan looked at the picture for first time and was interviewed by the New York Times Middle East. About the incident she said that her family was in the car because her brother was sick and that they were returning from the hospital. In 2011, Samar was living on the outskirts of Mosul in a two-story house with four other families, mostly relatives. Chris Hondros was quoted about the once in a lifetime photograph: “Almost every soldier in Iraq has been involved in some sort of incident like that or another, I would say. Their attitude about it was grim, but it wasn’t the end of their world.” It was reported on April 20, 2011, that Chris Hondros and photojournalist Tim Hetherington were killed by a mortar attack in Misrata while covering the 2011 Libyan civil war.

Mary Ann Moorman was a witness to the assassination of U.S. President John F. Kennedy. She is best known for her photograph that shows JFK a fraction of a second after being shot in the head. During the event, Moorman was standing directly across from the grassy knoll, about 15 feet (5 m) from the presidential limousine. Her photograph was taken approximately one sixth of a second after the bullet’s impact. The image has caused controversy. Some claim to have identified as many as four different figures on the grassy knoll. With the most well known figure being a uniformed police officer named the “badge man.” Others claim to see Gordon Arnold or a man in a construction hard hat. People also point to the light color observed over the wall (left side), which looks like photo doctoring.

The story of Gordon Arnold is an interesting one. In 1978, Gordon claimed that before the assassination he was twice approached by a business-suited CIA or Secret Service agent who demanded that he move from behind the picket fence of the Dealey Plaza grassy knoll. Arnold claimed that he moved just south of the picket fence and filmed the assassination with a movie camera. During the event, a bullet passed extremely close to his left ear and in response Gordon hit the ground. He was then approached by an armed officer dressed in a Dallas police uniform. The man kicked Arnold while on the ground and demanded the movie film. Another man was armed with a rifle and dressed in a Dallas police uniform. He was wearing yellow lens tinted “shooter’s glasses” and stood close by crying, shaking, and waving his rifle around.

The Moorman picture has been digitally enhanced for television documentaries. In the photo, blood and brain fragments can be seen exploding forward, which contradicts the theory that the shot came from the front. Moorman’s original photograph was never confiscated by the FBI and in 2008 she sold it on ebay for $175,000. On the contrary, a second picture taken by Mary Moorman that shows the sixth-floor window of the Texas School Book Depository moments before the assassination was lost. The picture was confiscated by the FBI and never published. It probably shows Lee Harvey Oswald or anyone who may have been shooting at the President’s car. Another interesting photograph was taken by Phillip Willis (number 5) seconds before the fatal head shot. Willis said he took the picture after being startled by a gunshot, possibly the first shot. In Willis’ photograph, the grassy knoll can be seen and some have identified the “black dog man.”

On the morning of July 7, 2005, four Islamist home-grown terrorists exploded a series of bombs in quick succession aboard London Underground trains. In all, 52 people were killed in the attacks. The bombers (all deceased) were identified as Mohammad Sidique Khan, Shehzad Tanweer, Germaine Lindsay, and Hasib Hussain. The group was recorded by CCTV cameras entering Luton station on 7/7. On September 1, 2005, it was reported that al-Qaeda officially claimed responsibility for the attacks. However, an official inquiry by the British government indicated that the tape claiming responsibility had been edited after July 7, and that the bombers did not have direct assistance from al-Qaeda.

The lack of facts surrounding the case and its unusual timeline has led to a collection of conspiracy theories. Some newspaper editorials in Iran have blamed the bombing on British or American authorities seeking to further justify the War on Terror, and have claimed that the plan involved the harassment of Muslims in Europe. There have also been theories proposed about the attackers, including the suggestion that they were patsies. One of the theories is centered on a picture that was taken at Luton station. After researching the photo, a large collection of people have called it fake.

Some of the problems with the picture include a number of inconsistencies with the railing in the back of the image. The railing appears to be moved over the man’s arm and its crossbars do not line up. The person featured in the right side of the picture has no clear face and a skinny left leg. The entire picture is developed with extremely poor quality and three of the terrorist’s faces are unidentifiable. The photo is the only image taken of the four bombers together on 7/7. Controversially, no other CCTV images, either still or moving have ever been released. In an interesting twist, the photo is timed at four seconds before 7.22 am, which would have given the men only three minutes to walk up the stairs at Luton, buy their tickets, and move to the platform.

Andres Serrano is an American photographer who has become notorious for using feces, corpses, and bodily fluids in his work. Serrano was raised in a strict Roman Catholic family and is half Honduran, half Afro-Cuban. In 1987, he created a photograph titled Piss Christ. The image depicts a small plastic crucifix submerged in a glass of the artist’s urine. The photograph was part of a series of pictures that show classical statuettes submerged in various fluids, including milk, blood, and urine. Serrano received $15,000 for the picture, which was provided by the United States sponsored National Endowment for the Arts. In 1989, the image was displayed for the first time and the event caused a massive scandal. People became outraged over the picture and it was alleged that the U.S. government funding of Piss Christ violated separation of church and state.

Andres Serrano received death threats over the controversy and lost public grants. He responded by saying that the picture was not intended to denounce religion, but alludes to a perceived commercializing or cheapening of Christian icons in contemporary culture. Supporters of the picture have argued that it is an issue of freedom of speech. On the contrary, others feel it is their duty to destroy the image if displayed in a museum. In 1997, a retrospective of Serrano’s work was featured at the National Gallery of Victoria in Melbourne. During the show, two teenagers attacked Piss Christ with a hammer. On April 17, 2011, a print of Piss Christ was vandalized “beyond repair” by Christian protesters while on display in Avignon, France.

This entry is not a specific photograph, but rather the overall depiction of Muhammad. On September 30, 2005, the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten published 12 editorial (political) cartoons that depicted the Islamic prophet Muhammad in various situations. The headline of the cartoons read: “Muhammeds ansigt” (The face of Muhammad). The cartoons were drawn by 12 professional cartoonists in Denmark, most of who regularly worked for the newspaper. After the cartoons were published, Islamic protests erupted across the Muslim world with more than 100 reported deaths. The Danish embassy in Pakistan was bombed and embassies in Syria, Lebanon, and Iran were fire bombed. Muslims stormed European buildings and burned the Danish, Dutch, Norwegian, French, and German flags in Gaza City.

The newspaper announced that the cartoons were an attempt to contribute to the debate regarding criticism of Islam and self-censorship. Further examples of the drawings were reprinted in newspapers in more than 50 countries, which further deepened the controversy. Critics of the cartoons have described them as racist and hurtful to the Muslim faith. Supporters claim the cartoons illustrate an important issue of terrorism and are a legitimate exercise of free speech. Many people in the Western world feel that Muslims were not targeted in a way different from other religions, since unflattering cartoons about Jesus and Gautama Buddha are often published.

The entire issue was covered in two separate episodes of South Park, which is notorious for depictions of Jesus. Apparently, Comedy Central has been hesitant to allow images of Muhammad to be shown on the network since the riots and threats generated from the controversial cartoons. After Muhammad was heavily featured in the South Park episode 200, creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone received death threats from the Revolution Muslim organization. Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen has described the Muhammad cartoon controversy as Denmark’s worst international crisis since World War II.

The full image will not be included, only a cropped version. Garry Gross was an American fashion photographer who specialized in dog portraiture. In 1975, he took a collection of pictures that would become the most controversial in history. The photographs show a ten-year-old Brooke Shields nude. She is standing and sitting in a bathtub, wearing makeup, and covered in oil. The pictures were taken with the consent of her mother, Teri Shields. At the time, Garry Gross was working on a project titled The Woman in the Child, in which he wanted to reveal the femininity of prepubescent girls by comparing them to adult women. The series was first published in the magazine Little Women, and then in Sugar and Spice, which is a Playboy Press publication.

In 1981, Brooke Shields attempted to prevent further use of the photographs, but a U.S. Court ruled that she was bound by the terms of the contract and more surprisingly that the images did not breach child pornography laws. In 1992, American artist Richard Prince, who is famous for his reproduction work, purchased the rights to the pictures. He recreated the picture and called it “Spiritual America.” In 1999, Prince’s version sold for $151,000. Three years ago the print was removed from the Tate Modern gallery in London, England. In response Gary Gross said: “The photo has been infamous from the day I took it as I intended it to be.” He was disappointed by the removal, but not surprised by the Tate’s decision. In 2002, a similar controversy erupted in London over a picture taken by Swiss artist Annelies Strba.

In Greek mythology, Cassandra was the daughter of the King of Troy. She was so beautiful that the God Apollo granted her the gift of seeing the future, prophecy. When Cassandra spurned Apollo’s love, he put a curse on her – that no one would believe any of her predictions. Cassandra was thus an epic and tragic figure – granted a powerful ability, yet powerless to use it. Throughout history there have been many Cassandra-type figures, people who predicted the coming of terrible tragedies and disasters, but whose warnings were ignored. These people were not gods and were not using special powers of prophecy. They were people who had a deep understanding of the realities of a situation and tried to warn others. In each case, others failed to listen to their warnings, and tragedies that might have been averted were not. Here are ten examples of people who tried to warn others, but whose warnings went unheeded.

On October 24, 1963, less than a month before President John F Kennedy was scheduled to go to Dallas as part of a campaign swing through the critical electoral state of Texas, Kennedy’s UN Ambassador Adlai Stevenson went to Dallas to speak at Dallas Memorial Auditorium to mark U.N. Day. Many people in Dallas openly and violently hated the United Nations, Supreme Court Chief Justice Earl Warren, and the Kennedys. Their hatred was so intense that they persuaded Governor John Connally to declare the day before Stevenson’s visit “US Day” out of protest. When Stevenson arrived at the auditorium there were thousands of picketers outside, and many inside, to protest him and the UN (and the Kennedy Administration). As Stevenson tried to speak these protestors stamped their feet, shouted, booed, and rattled noisemakers to disrupt him. But Stevenson pressed on. One man screamed “Kennedy will get his reward in hell and Stevenson is going to die.” After the speech, police tried to escort Stevenson out of the auditorium but the angry crowd surrounded him. At one point Stevenson stepped out of the police protection to try to talk to a woman who was screaming at him. The woman clobbered Stevenson over the head with her picket sign. Stevenson then said “are these human beings or are these animals?”

Upon arriving back in Washington, Stevenson warned Arthur Schlesinger, Kennedy’s speechwriter, that Kennedy should not go to Texas, or at least, avoid Dallas. “There was something very ugly and frightening about the atmosphere,” Stephenson told Schlesinger. Schlesinger did not pass along the warning. Even if he had, it is doubtful Kennedy would have avoided Dallas, to do so would have seemed cowardly. Kennedy paid for this decision with his life.

In February 2002, Vice President Dick Cheney authorized the CIA to dispatch former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson to the small African nation of Niger to see if there was anything to the rumors that Saddam Hussein and Iraq were trying to purchase yellowcake uranium for use in nuclear weapons. Yellowcake is uranium concentrate powder (colored bright yellow) that is an intermediary step in processing raw uranium ore into weapons grade, highly enriched uranium used in nuclear weapons. As Niger has considerable natural uranium deposits, the possibility existed Iraq may have been trying to secretly buy the yellowcake to use in a possible nuclear weapons program. Wilson consulted with the Niger Prime Minister and came away with the conclusion that there was nothing to reports that Iraq had sales agreements with Niger to buy yellowcake uranium. He reported this to the CIA in March 2002.

In January 2003, in his State of the Union address, President George W. Bush stated “The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.” After the invasion of Iraq by the United States, in July 2003, Wilson wrote an op-ed article for the New York Times where he disclosed the mission to Niger. He stated that he had looked into the possibility of Iraq buying uranium and found nothing to it, and that he reported this to the CIA and White House. He implied that the President’s statement was misleading as justification for war with Iraq. CIA Director George Tenet would later say those words should never have been in the text of the Presidents State of the Union address, but still believed Iraq was trying to get its hands on nuclear material and was developing or even had developed an atomic weapon or other weapon of mass destruction (WMD).

After the US invasion in Iraq, a long and exhaustive search of the country was conducted to see if Iraq did in fact have nuclear material, a nuclear weapon, a nuclear weapons programs, or any of the weapons of mass destruction that the Bush administration warned the American people of. No WMD or any indication that Iraq had an active or even rudimentary nuclear program was ever found.

A Military-industrial complex (MIC) is a kind of iron triangle composed of a nation’s armed forces, legislative/administrative government, and defense industry companies who work together to constantly funnel national resources into more and more military procurement. Though such complexes have existed since man began to use technology to wage war and develop better weapons, it was in the aftermath of World War II and the rise of the atomic age that the US version of the MIC began to frighten people who worried the MIC was beginning to over power typical democratic means of restraint, moderation, and control. No one was more concerned than President and former General Dwight Eisenhower. In his eight years as President, Eisenhower had watched the fearsome growth and power of the ever expanding and powerful United States MIC. As he left office on January 17, 1961 in his farewell speech to the Nation, he made the following warning:

“A vital element in keeping the peace is our military establishment. Our arms must be mighty, ready for instant action, so that no potential aggressor may be tempted to risk his own destruction…

“This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence — economic, political, even spiritual — is felt in every city, every statehouse, every office of the federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources and livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure of our society. In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.

“We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals so that security and liberty may prosper together.”

Eisenhower’s warning went unheeded. In the US today, the MIC is larger and more powerful than ever, making it difficult to near impossible for the US to stop making massive weapons programs and expending huge amounts of its national treasure on the military, even during times of relative peace (such as the 1990s after the fall of the Soviet Union). Today the US military budget is almost as large as that of all other nations combined.

In the late 1800s a bunch of wealthy industrial barons led by Henry Clay Fricke decided they wanted their own private retreat from the soot, dirt, and heat of the city – a place out in the mountains of western Pennsylvania. They purchased a dam and lake that had been built in the early 1800s as a reservoir on the Conemaugh River near Johnstown Pennsylvania and created the South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club. They called their lake “Lake Conemaugh” and though the dam that created it had originally been well-built, over the years, due to poor maintenance and alterations, it had become more and more unstable. By the time the industrialists bought it, it was already leaking and in a state of disrepair. Rather than use some of their incredible wealth to strengthen and fix the dam, they mostly made patches using clay and straw whenever it sprung a leak, which it did quite often.

On May 31, 1889, a storm struck the Johnstown-South Fork area creating one of the worst downpours ever recorded in Pennsylvania history. Six to ten inches of rain fell in a 24-hour span and the local streams burst their banks, pouring water into the already unstable Lake Conemaugh.

That morning, Elias Unger, the president of the South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club awoke to see the water level of the lake was nearly cresting the dam. Unger quickly assembled a crew to try to clear the blocked spillways but they could not clear the debris. His men then made a frantic effort to dig another spill way to take some of the pressure off the dam and divert the water. This too failed.

Fearing the dam would collapse at any moment, Unger ordered John Parke, an engineer for the South Fork Club, to ride on horseback to the nearby town of South Fork to the telegraph office to send warnings to South Fork and Johnstown. Parke made it and telegraphed not one but two warnings, both of which were never passed along to South Fork and Johnstown officials who could have taken action and evacuated the towns. Over the years there had been so many false alarms of the dam breaking (because of the frequent leaks and repairs) that no one believed Parke when he told them the dam would not hold.

At around 3:10pm, the dam finally gave way. Its contents, an estimated 20 million tons of Lake Conemaugh water, rushed down the Little Conemaugh River. The water reached the little town of South Fork first. Fortunately most of the inhabitants heard the roar of the water coming and were able to scamper up the side of the mountain to high ground and only four people were killed. The people of Johnstown were not as fortunate. The wave of water, moving at 40 miles per hour and reaching a height of 60 feet, carrying houses, telephone poles, rocks, trees, railroad cars, and everything else in its path, slammed into the town. An estimated 2,209 people were killed making it the worst disaster in the history of the US at that time.

In April 1912 Cyril Evans was working as the telegraph operator on board the SS Californian on a voyage across the Atlantic. On the night of April 14, 1912, the Captain of the Californian, Stanley Lord, brought the ship to a halt as it had entered a wide ice field with many large icebergs. Lord came into the wireless operators room and ordered Evans to warn other ships in the area of the ice. Evans proceeded to do just that, sending out wireless warnings to other ships in the area that they were approaching ice.

In the wireless room aboard the Titanic, operators Jack Philips and Harold Bride were trying to get through a backlog of private messages they were to send from the ship to the United States, the destination of the Titanic on her maiden voyage. Philips received Evans’ ice warning message, but because the Californian was so close to the Titanic and Evans had his set turned to full power, he almost blew the headset off Philips head. An angry Philips told him to get off and Philips never passed along the ice warning to the bridge or the ship’s Captain. Evans felt he had done what he was ordered to do, switched off his radio set, and went to bed. A short time later the Titanic, heading at full steam west toward America, came upon the ice Evans had tried to warn them about, struck an iceberg and sank with the loss of over 1500 people.

In 2010, operations on the Deep Water Horizon oil platform, owned by BP and operated by Transocean, were not going well. In fact, getting the oil well drilled and producing oil (and revenue) had been a nightmare from the beginning and was behind schedule. The Deepwater Horizon was drilling an exploratory well at the Macondo Prospect region located about 41 miles off the southeast coast of Louisiana, at a water depth of approximately 5,000 feet. On April 20, 2010, the oil rig exploded, caught fire, and sank, killing eleven workers and causing one of the worst environmental disasters in history.

On the morning of the disaster, rig operator and Transocean employee Jimmy Harrell was seen to be in an argument with a senior BP official. BP wanted Harrell to substitute lighter seawater to hold the gas in place and stop it from rising up the drill pipe, and not heavy (and more costly) lubricant packing (called “mud”). Mud was what was typically used to pack the bottom of the rigs drill pipe before capping the well. Harrell refused to do so without conducting two leak tests. For both tests, leaks were found in the pipe allowing drilling mud to flow out and onto the drill platform. A successful test should have had no mud leaking out of the pipe. For some reason, in spite of the leaks, Harrell went forward with the removal of the heavy mud from the pipe, replacing it with lighter seawater. At 9:45pm a geyser of seawater, methane gas and mud burst out of the pipe onto the platform. The gas ignited and the rig exploded and caught fire.

Though he would later testify that he could “not recall” having a confrontation with the BP official, as soon as the rig exploded and caught fire, and before he abandoned the rig, other crew members heard Harrell shouting into a satellite phone talking to the BP office in Houston and saying: “Are you fucking happy? Are you fucking happy? The rig’s on fire! I told you this was gonna happen.”

Though Harrell now states he cannot remember giving BP a warning, others have testified that is exactly what he did. At a meeting with BP officials just before the explosion, a frustrated Harrell told another employee “I guess that’s what we have the pincers for” – referring to the automatic blowout preventer which was supposed to slice into and seal the well head if the ultimate disaster happened. The blowout preventer, along with just about every other safety device, failed that day.

Katsuhiko Ishibashi is a well-respected professor and seismologist at Kobe University in Japan. Since the early 2000s he has been warning Japan that the country’s many nuclear power plants are in danger of serious damage or even a melt down because they have been built in earthquake-prone areas.

In 2006 he was a member of a government committee that was to revise the national guidelines on making Japan’s nuclear power plants more resistant to earthquakes. He proposed that Japan review its standards for surveying and assessing the danger from active faults, but this proposal was rejected. He later resigned saying the committee’s review process was unscientific and the outcome of the committee findings were rigged in favor of the Japan Electric Association. He also claimed the final guide that the committee produced was flawed because it underestimated the design basis for earthquake ground motion. Ishibashi also stated that Japanese engineers were overconfident in their predictions of plant engineering and safety design to withstand an earthquake.

Ishibashi warned of the danger of an earthquake-induced nuclear disaster at an International Union of Geodesy and Geophysics conference held in Sapporo. He said: “The seismic designs of nuclear facilities are based on standards that are too old from the viewpoint of modern seismology and are insufficient. The authorities must admit the possibility that an earthquake-nuclear disaster could happen and weigh the risks objectively.”

Ishibasi once said: “I think the situation right now is very scary … it’s like a kamikaze terrorist wrapped in bombs just waiting to explode.”

All of Ishibasi’s fears came true on March 11, 2011 when a huge off shore earthquake and resulting tsunami damaged the Fukushima Diiachi nuclear power plant resulting in a level 7 International Nuclear Event Scale disaster – the highest level nuclear disaster possible.

In May 2011, he said “If Japan had faced up to the dangers earlier, we could have prevented Fukushima.”

When Brooksley Born took over as head of the Commodities Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), a government agency empowered with the task of monitoring and regulating the commodities exchange in the US, she very quickly discovered something that shocked her. An entire branch of the commodities market known as Over the Counter commodities (OTC commodities) existed that were for all intents and purposes, totally unregulated. Worse, the government (which was supposed to monitor and regulate commodity trading) didn’t even know these types of commodity investments existed. Gargantuan sums of money were being traded as OTC commodities called “derivatives,” with no regulation and nobody even aware it was taking place. On Wall Street they called it the “Black Box” of trading, only those involved knew the details. And they wanted it to stay that way.

Born had other ideas. The more she learned about OTC commodities and the derivatives markets, the more frightened she grew that something terrible would happen to the US and world economies. Bond was most worried about the derivatives and swaps markets – where the risk associated with investments were traded as insurance policies. These were complicated financial investments understood by very few people, and banks began to fraudulently sell them to unsuspecting customers who did not fully understand what they were buying, and who ended up losing huge sums of money. Born believed that it was the job of her agency to investigate and prosecute such fraud. Alan Greenspan had other ideas about that. Greenspan, who more then any other single individual can be blamed for the US financial and economic collapse of 2008, believed, foolishly and naively, that regulation and enforcement was unnecessary – that banks, financial firms, and business could “regulate themselves.”

Born believed differently and when she tried to move to regulate OTC derivatives for the first time, she was met by the full force of the financial industry lobbying effort. She and her agency were crushed by political power and Born eventually resigned. But the warnings she had made about the unregulated OTC derivatives market becoming far too large and posing a threat to the very structure of the US and world economy did not go away. By 2007 just before the crash, the OTC derivatives market was valued at a mind-numbing $595 trillion. Derivatives were being written to insure derivatives, which were themselves written on derivatives. It was a house of cards of financial debt waiting to fall, all it needed was a triggering event. And the collapse of the housing market did just that. In a matter of months the huge load of debt, most of it in the form of “credit default swaps” and derivatives, led to the fall of Lehman Brothers, which triggered an almost complete collapse of the US financial market. Only emergency influx of US taxpayer money to buy the worthless “toxic assets” off the books of banks and large investment houses, saved the US economy from plunging into another Great Depression.
As the US financial markets imploded under the weight of derivative trading debt she had warned against and tried to regulate, Born had this to say: “It was my worst nightmare coming true. Nobody really knew what was going on in the market. The toxic assets of many of our biggest banks are over-the-counter derivatives and caused the economic downturn that made us lose our savings, lose our jobs, lose our homes. It was very frightening.”

And she has another warning, even after the collapse of 2008: “I think we will have continuing danger from these markets and that we will have repeats of the financial crisis. It may differ in details, but there will be significant financial downturns and disasters attributed to this regulatory gap over and over until we learn from experience.”

John O’Neil was an FBI agent who, more than anyone else in the agency, was actively investigating the terrorist group Al-Qaeda in the 1990s and the links between state sponsors of terrorism such as Yemen and Saudi Arabia, Al-Qaeda operatives, and attacks on US interests around the world including the 1993 attack on the World Trade Center buildings. The more O’Neil dug into the shadow world of international terrorism, the more he began to warn anyone in Washington DC that would listen, that Al-Qaeda and Osama bin Laden were major threats to the US. Throughout the 1990s, with the first attack on the World Trade center buildings, the attacks on US embassies, and the attack on the US Cole, all being linked to Al-Qaeda, O’Neil and his predictions were turning out to be true. Yet his personal style stepped on the shoes of powerful people in Washington DC and FBI headquarters, many of whom were jealous of his successful predictions. By August 2001, his enemies had pushed him out of the FBI. O’Neil resigned to take the job as head of security for the World Trade Center buildings. One of his friends told him he had taken the perfect job because Al-Qaeda had already attacked there and he was safe. O’Neil disagreed and said that he thought Al-Qaeda was coming back to the World Trade Centers to finish the job. The night before the attacks in a conversation with another friend, O’Neil told him that he felt an attack on US soil was going to happen, and happen in a matter of days or weeks. He was still monitoring activities coming out of Afghanistan and felt, in his stomach, that the attack was coming, and soon.

He had good reason to feel this way. Just before he left the FBI, O’Neil was closing in on the trail of several leads, leads linking terrorists coming out of Yemen into the United States. Information from a terrorist suspect the FBI was tracking should have been setting off red warning lights, but without O’Neil, no one was shouting the warnings (with the exception of Richard Clarke and a few others who were actively and aggressively trying to warn the new Bush administration that an attack was coming) and no one in the Bush administration was listening, or concerned. This terrorist told the FBI of a meeting in Malaysia attended by two of the Al-Qaeda terrorists who had participated in the attack and bombing of the US Cole. These two had been moving in and out of the United States and practicing on flight school simulators. They would be two of the Al-Qaeda terrorists who on September 11, 2001, crashed flight 77 into the Pentagon.

John O’Neil was in the south World Trade Center building that day. He survived the initial impact of the plane. He called his wife to tell her conditions were terrible but he was making his way out of the building. He never made it. His body was later found in one of the stair towers of the south building. For more information on John O’Neil and his incredible story, see the PBS Frontline documentary called “The Man Who Knew.”

In the 1980s Roger Boisjoly worked as an engineer at Morton Thiokol, maker of the solid rocket boosters used in the space shuttle program. In 1985, a year before the space shuttle Challenger disaster, Boisjoly had been warning Thiokol that the joints used to seal the sections of the solid rocket boosters could fail if they became too cold before launch.

The space shuttle used two solid fuel rocket boosters and a central hydrogen gas tank, to fuel the engines for launch. The different sections of the solid rocket boosters were sealed to one another with a rubber material or gasket called an “o-ring.” Boisjoly and other Thiokol engineers had found that in cold weather conditions, the rubber material in the o-rings became brittle and did not seal the sections into place. In this case, the o-ring would fail to prevent the flames from reaching the rocket’s metal casing. If this happened, the flames could trigger a huge explosion of the hydrogen fuel tank located right next to the boosters.

On January 27, 1986 the space shuttle Challenger was on the launch pad set for launch the following day. The weather forecast for Cape Canaveral was to be unusually cold with temperatures dropping below freezing. All of that evening and into the morning hours of January 28, Boisjoly and other engineers pleaded with NASA to delay the launch. Senior managers at Thiokol and NASA officials rejected their argument. NASA insisted the shuttle would launch the morning of January 28 as scheduled, even with the cold weather. Only a minute after taking off, the o-ring on one of the solid fuel rocket boosters failed just as Boisjoly had predicted it would. The flames shot out from the booster and hit the hydrogen tank, which exploded, killing all of the astronauts on board. Boisjoly was so sure that the booster o-rings would fail, he could not make himself watch the launch.

The resulting investigation of the Challenger disaster showed NASA had developed an internal culture that all but ignored safety. It was a culture that pushed to launch the Challenger to meet the schedule and keep politicians happy. Astronaut safety took a back seat to NASA and Washington DC politics.

For his testimony exposing NASA and Thiokol, the space engineering community blackballed Boisjoly. He spent the last 17 years of his life lecturing on engineering ethics. In 2003 when an unchanged NASA culture caused the disintegration of the shuttle Columbia, Boisjoly stated that NASA engineers and administrators should be charged with murder and the only way to change the NASA culture was to throw people in jail.

Sometimes the modern world can lead to a feeling of disconnection between us and the natural world. As a remedy to this First-World fatigue here are ten of the most spectacular shows the Earth can provide.

The Monarch butterfly (Danaus plexippus) provides one of the most beautiful of all animal displays. Individually they are a pretty orange and black, but when they mass for migration they fill the air with color. The migration path of the butterflies covers a large part of North America. The migration is prompted by the fragility of the butterflies to cold and so, as winter approaches, they head south. In these warmer areas the butterflies overwinter in large groups that may cover whole trees. No one individual will survive the whole migratory route due to the butterflies’ ephemeral nature. Their descendants will, however, continue to put on this beautiful migratory display.

Geysers are a spectacular demonstration of the power of the Earth under our feet. Geysers are hot springs which, by a build up of pressure, erupt periodically and shoot water into the air. Geysers occur worldwide but over half of the world’s geysers occur in Yellowstone National Park. Yellowstone hosts the world’s tallest geyser, Steamboat, which shoots water up to 90m into the air. Geysers can, like most natural phenomena, be somewhat unpredictable and this has proved deadly when people wishing to see an eruption get too close in a fit of impatience. For a guaranteed geyser eruption Old Faithful in Yellowstone probably offers the best bet for tourists in America. Strokkur on Iceland erupts far more often than Old Faithful and can rival that geyser for height in major eruptions though.

An algal bloom does not sound very spectacular, though red tides of toxic algae can be huge, but in the case of Noctiluca scintillans it is one of the wonders of the sea. When there is a population explosion of these dinoflagellates it can look like the sea is on fire with blue flames. When disturbed they give off a burst of blue light. This can lead to a very spooky experience for night swimmers. They are found worldwide but for those unwilling to get wet, the video above shows some loud people throwing a rock into a Noctiluca scintillans bloom.

Tornadoes are terrifying events, but add fire and they become spectacularly terrifying. Fire whirls occur when the heat from a fire drive the air above it in such a way as to form a vortex with the cooler air outside. If this vortex acquires a vertical spin then a fire whirl, a vortex sucking flames upwards, will form. Fire whirls can be incredibly dangerous as they may pick up burning debris and so spread the flames. When Tokyo was struck by an earthquake in 1923 an enormous fire whirl was created by the massive numbers of burning wooden buildings. The whirl was a major factor in the burning to death of 38,000 people. Smaller whirls are commonly seen at the front of fires in grasslands.

In very cold weather, when ice crystals are suspended in the atmosphere, light pillars may form in the sky. The light pillars form around natural light sources, like the setting sun or moon, but can also be created by man-made light. The ice crystals serve to reflect light back at us and, as we cannot see the crystals, trick us into believing there is a pillar of light in the sky. The higher the ice crystals, the taller the light pillar will appear.

Maelstroms, hugely powerful whirlpools, have a long history in fiction as being terrible dangers to sailors. In real life there have never been any cases of large ships being sunk by maelstroms. The swirling masses of water in maelstroms, usually driven by unusually strong tides, are impressive. The Corryvreckan on the west coast of Scotland can be heard miles away as huge waves up to fifteen feet high crash back into the sea. Huge whirlpools have always attracted adventurous souls and the Corryvreckan was first swum by George Orwell’s one-legged brother-in-law. Maelstroms can be found world wide and chartering boats to them has become a popular tourist activity.

Lava, molten rock, is usually only visible during violent volcanic eruptions. However there are five points on the Earth where lava meets the surface in relatively peaceful pools. These lava lakes are a valuable scientific resource as the offer the chance to collect lava samples which have not been contaminated in the violence of a volcanic eruption. These pools offer direct access to the molten center of the Earth. At night, the lakes glow with the fierce heat they radiate. The video above shows that although the lava pools are relatively peaceful they are still dangerous.

Sand storms are spectacular to look at but devastating to be in. Dust or sand storms have always bedeviled desert travelers who may become lost in them or even smothered by the sand they deposit. Sand storms occur when a strong wind whips up soil and sand particles into the atmosphere and carry them away. Sand storms can be so large that they are visible from space. Each year forty million tons of dust are carried from the Sahara to the Amazon basin. The carrying away of top soil can destroy agriculture or deposit necessary minerals. A wall of dust billowing out of the desert is one of the great images of the power of nature.

The Earth is special in that we have a moon which, at times of eclipse, will perfectly cover the disc of the Sun. This happens because the Sun’s diameter is approximately 400 times larger than that of the Moon, but the Sun is also 400 times further away from it. During a total solar eclipse the corona, a plasma layer around the Sun, becomes visible. Eclipses have fascinated mankind since the dawn of time, but have been understood and predicted for thousands of years. Now, with the ability to travel the globe, there are tourists who will travel to wherever the next total eclipse will occur.

In my opinion there is no greater natural spectacle than the Aurorae. I first saw them while standing on a frozen lake in the north of Finland. We had left our little fire hut on the shore because a very faint green glow could be seen over the treetops. As we watched, a wall of green swept silently across the sky, flecked with pink lines. When you see a picture of the aurorae you do not get the sense of motion or scale. The aurorae occur when particles, ejected on the solar wind, are channeled by the Earth’s electromagnetic field into the atmosphere. As the particles strike the atmosphere they ionize atoms which then release light. Some people report hearing a crackling sound when aurorae are particularly intense, but this has never been confirmed.

Over the last 15 years, numerous men worthy of Oscar nominations have not been nominated, while some who gave lesser performances were. Here are the top 15 male snubs at the Oscars of the past 15 years (1996-2011). I’m not saying they should have won (in some cases, yes; others, no), but should have at least been nominated. There will probably be a women’s list in the future. And I have more than enough to do a Part 2. Please note: Spoilers will be found in this section.

We start this list off with one of this year’s snubs – Albert Brooks, one of America’s underrated comedians, plays a mobster who leads a getaway driver in a cat-and-mouse game over a $300,000 heist. It’s one of Brooks’ best, but Drive was snubbed at the Oscars. Considering that Brooks was one of two favorites to win, this snub screams egregious.

In The English Patient, Colin Firth plays the husband of Kristin Scott Thomas. When his wife begins an affair, Firth naturally wants revenge, although it proves to be his downfall, in more ways than one. Firth was an upcoming star, and this was his breakout role.

Say what you want about him personally, but Richard Gere gave a career-best performance as smooth-talking lawyer Billy Flynn. Having claimed to have “never lost a case,” Flynn plays puppet master (literally and figuratively) in the film, making sure that his perfect record remains intact. In addition, his tap dance combined with his courtroom histrionics are one of the best parts of the film.

Philip Seymour Hoffman has been on a hot streak this past decade. Although The Ides of March was not the critical success it claimed to be, Hoffman’s performance as intensely loyal campaign manager Paul Zara steals the film from George Clooney and Ryan Gosling. His monologue about misguided loyalty and consequences proves that sometimes loyalty can be a fatal flaw. When he is betrayed by Clooney and Gosling at the end of the movie, his final scene is played with malaise and pain that pulls the audience to him. If there is a hero in this film, he is it.

Best known as Ben Affleck’s younger brother, Casey Affleck did receive a nomination that year in the supporting category for The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford. He should have been a double-nominee that year, though, as his role as Detective Patrick Kenzie forces him to confront his neighborhood pride and still do the right thing. The very end of the film makes him realize how much of a misjudgment he has made in his investigation.

For me, the best part of the film is his scene where he talks back to a salesman, saying “I’m a Dapper Dan man!” The film is a little choppy as a whole, but Clooney’s take on Odysseus makes him an anti-hero in the Great Depression, a time when the public needed a “regular” guy. His banter and face may not have won him the award, but it should have given him his first nomination five years earlier than it actually did.

All you need to know about this film can be summed up in two words: The Dude. As the Dude, Jeff Bridges plays an unemployed pothead who becomes involved in a kidnapping plot. His nonchalance makes all the serious parts of the film seem farcical, and he provides a perfect foil to John Goodman’s Walter. To sum it up: “The Dude abides.”

Dylan Baker, in this writer’s opinion, is one of the more underrated character actors of our time. In Happiness, he plays Bill Maplewood, a supposed “family man” who is, in fact, a pedophile. He abuses two of his son’s classmates, and does it ruthlessly, bordering on being a stalker. The audience feels repulsed by his actions, as they well should, but it’s a testament to Baker’s acting talent that he can be so vicious under a cheerful façade.

Coming off a Best Actor nomination the previous year, Don Cheadle plays a detective in Crash, assigned to find his missing brother. It turns out that his brother is on the other side (i.e. the wrong side) of the law, and when Cheadle can’t save him, his confrontation with his mother forces him to re-evaluate his tardiness. His opening quote, about Los Angeles not being a “real city” and untrustworthy, sets the tone for a troubling film. Say what you want about its Best Picture credentials, but it’s a lot better than people give it credit for. Cheadle is a reason why.

In a double role as twin brothers Paul and Eli Sunday, Paul Dano provides the perfect foil to ruthless oil baron Daniel Plainview, played by Daniel Day-Lewis. Dano’s character Eli, a preacher, goes from aggressor to victim at the drop of a hat. One minute, he is forcing Plainview to confess his sins, and then being forced to admit that “God is a superstition” and “I am a false prophet” in order to prevent Plainview from killing him. I don’t think anybody would have beaten Javier Bardem that year, but Dano certainly could have given him a run for his money.

The only directing nominee on this list, Cold Mountain is just as good as his Oscar-winning directed piece, The English Patient. In many places, it’s better. Minghella leads an amazing ensemble class, including Jude Law, Nicole Kidman, Renee Zellweger, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Kathy Baker, Brendan Gleeson, Natalie Portman, and more. Both he and the film should have received top nominations.

I must admit, I kind of wanted to see Astin on this list so that Return of the King would lose at least one award (because, let’s face it, nobody was going to beat Tim Robbins that year). Still, Astin goes from ensemble to second lead over the course of the trilogy, and considering how far he rose from his child star status, he deserved the nomination, if not the victory.

Much like Dylan Baker, Jason Patric has developed into a fine character actor. The son of Jason Miller (a.k.a. Father Karras in The Exorcist), Patric give a career-best performance in Your Friends and Neighbors. As Cary, Patric shows that you don’t have to kill anyone to be a true sociopath. His character is a rapist, a sexual predator, and a misanthrope who takes perverse delight in sleeping with women, then breaking their hearts. He is probably the most immoral character that almost nobody knows about. While chatting with his male colleagues, Cary recalls that his best sexual experience was a homosexual rape in high school, which he claims “blew him away.” In arguably his most cruel moment, his refusal to wear condoms (because of his macho attitude) results in another character becoming pregnant. Not surprisingly, he blames her. To this writer, this is the Best Supporting Actor performance of 1998 (with all due respect to the late, great James Coburn).

As oenophile and wannabe novelist, Miles, Paul Giamatti plays an anti-hero for the 21st century. His character is the quintessential loser: unpublished, depressed, divorced, and in the middle of a mid-life crisis. And Giamatti is hilarious in this role. His interactions with Jack (Thomas Haden Church) reveal his hard side, while his softer side emerges with Maya (Virginia Madsen). One of my favorite scenes in movie history is the scene after his book is rejected for the final time: he waxes philosophical about how he is nothing more than a “thumbprint on a skyscraper window.” Always getting the last word, Miles later admitted he borrowed from Charles Bukowski. Always poignant, Giamatti always has us on his side, and we find ourselves hoping he can land on his feet.

“Good morning. Oh, and in case I don’t see ya, good afternoon, good evening, and good night.” As Truman Burbank, Jim Carrey reveals just how good he can actually be when given the right material. His heartbreaking portrayal of Truman Burbank won him the Golden Globe for Best Actor, but he was shockingly denied his best chance at Oscar gold (you could argue that he should have been nominated for Man on the Moon as well). I will say it – during the year 1998, there was no better performance: not Tom Hanks, not Roberto Benigni, not Edward Norton. How he slipped through the cracks is one of the most astounding Oscar mysteries.

Honorable Mentions: Jack Nicholson, The Departed; Kevin Spacey, L.A. Confidential; Ben Foster, 3:10 to Yuma; Denzel Washington, American Gangster; Gene Hackman, The Royal Tenenbaums

Pink Floyd are one of, if not the most, well-known rock bands of the progressive rock genre, capturing the essence of lengthy instrumental passages and complementing them with memorable vibes and clear lyrics. Their concepts were compelling, from early psychedelic eccentricities to the formation of a concept album. They were shaped by Barrett’s inventiveness, Water’s writing skill and passion, Gilmour’s affection for chords and yet simplicity, Wright’s compositional knowledge, Nick Mason’s resourcefulness, and the numerous jazz influences they were inspired by and would frequently come back to. This list attempts to highlight some relatively unknown facts about Pink Floyd as well as addressing myths about the band. The list is in an order deemed relevant.

Nick Mason is the longest running member of Pink Floyd, from the Barrett era to the times of the dehydrated Floyd (i.e. without Roger Waters). In his time with Pink Floyd he rarely ventured out of his comfort zone of percussive instruments, taking failed violin lessons and providing special effects and sounds. But how did the band acquire him as a drummer? According to Mark Blake, author of “Comfortably Numb: The Inside Story of Pink Floyd,” Nick Mason was looked well upon as a drummer because he could provide the funds and transport to buy instruments and get them to gigs. Despite this oversight by the band, Mason proved to be an effective drummer, and contributed to the composition of such songs as Time, Echoes, and Speak to Me (solely credited to him). His voice is also featured on the track One of These Days.

Associated with two similar quotes, the song Any Colour You Like from Dark Side of the Moon seems to reference Henry Ford’s quote: “You can have it any color you like, as long as it’s black.” While the title’s concept does concern the lack of choice in the modern world, the origin of the title does not come from Henry Ford’s quote, it comes from an observation Roger Waters made while living in Cambridge. As the inspiration for this list this excerpt was and can be found in an essay titled “Which One’s Pink?” by musicologist Phil Rose.

“In Cambridge where I lived, people would come from London in a van – a truck – open the back and stand on the tailboard of the truck, and the truck’s full of stuff that they’re trying to sell. And they have a very quick and slick patter, and they’re selling things like crockery, china, sets of knives and forks. All kinds of different things, and they sell it very cheap with a patter. They tell you what it is, and they say ‘It’s ten plates, lady, and it’s this, that, and the other, and eight cups and saucers, and for the lot I’m asking NOT ten pounds, NOT five pounds, NOT three pounds . . . fifty bob to you!’, and they get rid of this stuff like this. If they had sets of china, and they were all the same color, they would say, ‘You can ‘ave ‘em, ten bob to you, love. Any color you like, they’re all blue.’ And that was just part of that patter. So, metaphorically, ‘Any Colour You Like’ is interesting, in that sense, because it denotes offering a choice where there is none. And it’s also interesting that in the phrase, ‘Any color you like, they’re all blue,’ I don’t know why, but in my mind it’s always ‘they’re all blue,’ which, if you think about it, relates very much to the light and dark, sun and moon, good and evil. You make your choice but it’s always blue.”

In addition to the title of the song, the work in progress had various names, such as Scat or Scat Section, and has also been known as Breathe (2nd Reprise) due to its similar beat and chord sequence.

Staying on the topic of what is considered to be Pink Floyd’s magnum opus, Dark Side of the Moon makes use of voices throughout the album. These voices were generated by questions Roger Waters had written up on cue cards and were subsequently asked to roadies, doormen, members of the band Wings, and anyone available at Abbey Road. The approximately twenty questions ranged from “When was the last time you were violent and were you in the right?” to “What does the phrase ‘The Dark Side of the Moon’ mean to you?” The laughter that can be heard on Speak to Me and Brain Damage is that of Peter Watts, a road manager for Pink Floyd. In addition to the voices, at the end of the album, faint music can be heard, which is presumed to be an instrumental version of Ticket to Ride by the Beatles in the background. It has been proposed that while recording doorman Jerry Driscoll’s response (“there is no dark side of the moon really, as a matter of fact it’s all dark”) that somewhere in Abbey Road, Ticket to Ride was playing and was picked up by the microphones.

Pioneering the Pink Floyd’s sound, Barrett has widely been viewed as a musical genius for his contributions to the 1960s’ underground psychedelic scene. Little seems to focus on the man behind the music aside from his mental meltdown that ultimately led to the band abandoning him while on the way to a gig in 1968. Slowly, he reverted from Syd Barrett to his given name of Roger Barrett as he slipped into ever-increasing obscurity after departing the band. He would continue to release two solo albums with the help of David Gilmour, but eventually succumbed to a private life in Cambridge. Media outlets and fans sought him out in the later years of the Floyd, a concept that Barrett did not understand; he lived firmly in the present and did not take advantage of his past. Becoming more aware of the materialism that surrounded his artistic creations as he tried to live as privately as possible, he began to practice a form of self-destruction on his artwork.

Barrett himself had studied and practiced with paint, ink and pencil while in the band’s oldest incarnations. He would continue this throughout his time with Pink Floyd and after his era as front-man. With a strong disinterest in materialism and utter disbelief behind why people sought him out, he continued painting and creating works of art with a new-found method to deal with the clamor. He took on a ritual of photographing his completed works and then destroying the canvas, sometimes by burning his own work. As the metaphor that it unintentionally is for the development of the band, Barrett has managed to encapsulate the aspect of how he deals with the pressure of attention and demand in the industry (and earlier in time, the presence of drugs) with this damaging and brash act. [Source] http://www.sydbarrett.com/biography.htm

Pink Floyd’s album art is as legendary as the band itself, addressing the themes in their music with visuals as impressive as the content itself. Gerald Scarfe and Storm Thurgeson, two artists often associated with Pink Floyd, are behind much of the 1970s era Floyd artwork. Scarfe drew content for The Wall album and Thurgeson designed the album artwork behind The Dark Side of the Moon and Wish You Were Here. On the DSOTM’s iconic sleeve is a prism that represents the band’s stage lighting, the record’s lyrical themes, and keyboardist Rick Wright’s request for a simple and bold design. Of the seven designs presented to the band, the prism was unanimously chosen. As the band could afford to be pickier however, things became more complicated.

Wish You Were Here’s cover image consists of two businessmen meeting in the street, greeting each other with an empty handshake, one man on fire. The image was inspired by the idea that people tend to conceal their true feelings, for fear of “getting burned.” This was a common phrase in the music industry, used often by artists denied royalty payments. In the image, two stuntmen were used, one dressed in a fire-retardant suit covered by a business suit. His head was protected by a hood, underneath a wig. The photograph was taken at the Warner Bros. studios in Los Angeles. Initially the wind was blowing in the wrong direction, and the flames were forced into the stuntman’s face, burning his mustache. This was easily remedied, however, with the two stuntmen changing positions. The photograph was later reversed.

For the Animals’ cover image, they were careful with how they planned to orchestrate a pig on the wing. After commissioning a German company Ballon Fabrik (who had previously constructed Zeppelin airships) and Australian artist to build a porcine balloon, known as Algie, the balloon was inflated with helium and maneuvered into position with a trained marksman ready to fire if it escaped. Unfortunately, inclement weather delayed work, and the band’s manager neglected to book the marksman for a second day. The balloon, obviously testing Murphy’s law, broke free of its moorings and disappeared from view. It landed in Kent and was recovered by a local farmer, who was furious that it had “scared his cows.” The balloon was recovered and filming continued for a third day, but as the early photographs of the power station were considered better, the image of the pig was later superimposed onto one of those.

This is a short summary of a greater and much more in-depth analysis of the album The Wall and its many moving parts, courtesy of Bret Urick. While the album itself is full of symbolism, literary devices, themes and other items of significance – hammers, bricks, walls, worms – the song Another Brick in the Wall, Part 2 is full of oxymoronic and contradictory statements throughout despite its unifying stance against the way institutions stifle creativity in today’s classrooms. As Waters, Wright, and Gilmour sing a choir of restless schoolchildren to rebel against the harsh and cynical treatment of their teachers, there is a certain antithesis in the air that is apparent in the lyrics.

While fighting for individuality, the lyrics of Another Brick in the Wall, Part 2 ironically are saturated with references to conformity. There is no ‘I’, or singular driven character as with the rest of the album, there is a ‘we.’ This plurality is identity-robbing, as evidenced by the kids’ actions while under the teacher’s rules and while ransacking the school in the film based on the album. The children in the second verse sing lyrics of personal revolution, yet it is accompanied with their symmetrical lockstep rhythm, both musically and physically. Notwithstanding their rebellious tendencies, they have become as comparable as when they were clones of one another. Moreover, one could delve into the effects of mass psychology and the pressure from amongst peers to contribute to the violence and chaos that is the literal tearing-down-of-the-school-walls. It is a momentary victory for Pink in his struggle against his figurative wall, which explains the expressive guitar solo amidst the rigid disco structure of the song.

Most agree or are of the opinion that Syd Barrett had a breakdown in early 1968 due to the increasing notoriety of the band and his drug use. Rob Chapman, author of “Syd Barrett: A Very Irregular Head,” however, argues that Syd’s madness was a misunderstanding of his artistic intent. He claims the motive behind the other band members abandoning Syd is that when the band was on the verge of becoming financially successful, Barrett wanted to turn to a different form of sonic experimentation. He attributes Barrett’s actions (such as playing one untuned string during a whole performance) as acts of defiance against the band members who disagreed with him.

Chapman takes it even further by analyzing Syd’s Pink Floyd songs and work from his solo years. He reasons that had Syd had a mental breakdown, that his writing would have suffered as much as he had. Like in his years with Pink Floyd, Chapman finds references and quotes spread throughout, from Huff the Talbot and our Cat Tib (Mother Goose rhyme), Thomas Nashe’s Summer’s Last Will and Testament (an Elizabethan masque play), Shakespeare’s King Henry VI Pt. 1, Kenneth Grahame’s The Wind In The Willows, poems from: Anonymous (Mr Nobody), John Clare (Fairy Things), Sir Henry Newbolt (Rilloby-Rill) and William Howitt (The Wind in a Frolic) – all in the song Octopus from the album The Madcap Laughs. How near or how far into this we delve, his music remains influential.

In 1972, Pink Floyd released a live performance album recorded from the amphitheater of Pompeii and a studio in France. While the location of Pompeii’s amphitheater without an audience served as an excellent statement against the live recordings of the time in which bands were shown alongside their adoring fans, it most importantly was symbolic of the history of Pompeii.

The initial idea behind Live at Pompeii wasn’t Pompeii at all, but was, as conceptualized by the director, combining the Floyd’s music with contemporary art. In a meeting with David Gilmour and the band’s manager the band declined this idea, agreeing to talk about it at a later date. Adrien Maben, the director, went on holiday to Italy in early summer 1971. It was in Pompeii that Adrien Maben lost his passport, and retracing his steps, was surprisingly let back into the ancient city. There is no better way to sum up the spirit of the Live At Pompeii recordings than what Maben described seeing in the empty amphitheater:

“I returned alone, retracing my steps along the empty streets of Pompeii, back to the amphitheater of stone walls and seats.

“It was strange. A huge deserted amphitheater filled with echoing insect sounds, flying bats and the disappearing light which meant that I could hardly see the opposite side of this huge structure built more than two thousand years ago.

“I knew by instinct that this was the place for the film. It had to be here. It somehow all came together that evening in the ancient city. Film the empty amphitheater, resurrect the spirit of Pompeii with sound and color, imagine that ghosts of the past could somehow return.”

It is a complete myth that Italian authorities would only let Pink Floyd play in Pompeii as long as there wasn’t an audience; the Soprintendenza of Naples (the official board that controls the site of Pompeii) was skeptical of a rock group playing at a site of cultural value, but the idea that there would be no audience was not imposed by the Soprintendenza.

The Publius Enigma is a mystery surrounding the Division Bell album, and is suspected of being both an early example of a viral marketing campaign and a puzzle that was eventually abandoned by its creators. Whether or not the enigma is an officially solvable puzzle still remains unclear but has been confirmed by Mason in his book “Inside Out: A Personal History of Pink Floyd” as being a marketing ploy of EMI and that ‘Publius’ was not a fictitious spokesperson for the band, but rather, an actual person coordinating an orchestration of events geared to stir and stimulate Floyd fans for the Division Bell Tour.

Publius promised an unspecified reward for solving the riddle and further claimed that there was an enigma hidden within the artwork, music and lyrics of the album. Outcries from skeptics soon followed, only to be shushed when Publius affirmed his appearance at a live venue: “Monday, July 18, East Rutherford, New Jersey. Approximately 10:30pm. Flashing white lights. There is an enigma.” Sticking to his promise, the words ENIGMA and PUBLIUS appeared in bold white lights during the song Keep Talking. Further authenticating Publius’s existence during the televised and recorded concert at Earl’s Court, London, the word ENIGMA was projected onto the backdrop during the song Another Brick in the Wall, Part 2. On the P•U•L•S•E DVD of that concert, extra markings were also added with the clue L = mc², only to be quickly overlaid with E = mc².

Adding to the validity and perpetuation of the Publius Enigma are further clues from Pink Floyd paraphernalia: “Publius Enigma” can be heard spoken just before the song One of These Days on the 2003 DVD release of Pink Floyd: Live at Pompeii. Page 13 of the The Division Bell’s CD booklet contains an anagram of the word “enigma,” hidden in the third column from the right of the lyrics to Wearing the Inside Out. The following are wild and often irrational associations to other significant events, but keep in mind this was EMI’s brainchild.

“The page numbers of The Division Bell’s CD booklet are written in various languages and printed on silhouettes of the head statues shown on the cover of the album. Page 11 shows two head silhouettes. Printed on either one is the German word for eleven, ‘elf,’ resulting in ‘elf elf,’ or, ‘eleven eleven.’ The trailer for the 2009 film 11:11 features the song High Hopes. High Hopes is the 11th track on The Division Bell. The release date of David Gilmour’s On An Island, March 6, 2006, is exactly eleven months and eleven years after the U.S. release date of The Division Bell, April 5, 1994.

On June 11, 1994, Publius made his first enigma post to the Pink Floyd newsgroup. Eleven years later, on June 11, 2005, Roger Waters, David Gilmour, Nick Mason, and Richard Wright agreed to reunite as Pink Floyd for Live 8. During the broadcast (and as seen on the Live 8 DVD), the band took the stage just shortly after 11:00 p.m., and by 11:11, Pink Floyd were playing together as a four-man lineup for the first time in twenty four years.”

Dark Side of the Rainbow, or the Dark Side of Oz, is an alleged purposeful synchronization (though sometimes claimed as an unintentional collaboration of creative souls) of the album The Dark Side of the Moon with the film The Wizard of Oz. The rumors surfaced around 1994 that the album was a soundtrack for the movie, with connections being made between actions by the characters and lyrics on the album. For instance, Dorothy balances on a tight-rope fence during the line “balanced on the biggest wave” in the song Breathe and she begins to jog when the words “no one told you when to run” are sung during Time. Tracks also transition when scenes change, and songs such as The Great Gig in the Sky play for the entirety of Dorothy’s house caught in the Kansas twister. The culmination of the lion’s second roar concludes with a heartbeat, a tin man, and the previously mentioned faint music, making for quite a convincing argument for those who are compelled to believe that this is a stroke of Floyd genius. The members of the band deny the claims however and the producers recall no mention of the movie during recording of the album.

Another interesting synchronicity (a phenomenon in which coincidental events “seem related but are not explained by conventional mechanisms of causality,” as explained by Carl Jung) is 2011: a Pink Floyd Odyssey. The final segment, Jupiter and Beyond the Infinite, is of a similar length of Pink Floyd’s song Echoes. Stanley Kubrick originally offered Pink Floyd a part producing the music behind the film, but Waters would decline as he was trying to distance the band from the space-rock genre. The theory from fans is that after seeing Kubrick’s masterpiece, they (or Waters individually) regretted missing out on the offer and set out to create a piece of music that would fit the movie. While there are parallels to Dark Side of the Rainbow, such as scenes changing with the music, it is ultimately a lesser journey in coincidence.

This is a list of 10 of the worst disasters in our history, however the devastation caused by these disasters have been as a direct result of man-made accomplishments. Reader discretion is advised. I have deliberately not included tragedies that are a direct result of acts of war as they would account for the whole list. So as to not bore the reader too much I have varied the content as much as possible, and I have not concentrated on one specific type of accident, e.g. mining disasters. If you feel something is missing it is probably because I have seen it on a list before and wanted original content. When researching I came across hundreds of accidents that I have never heard of, so, depending on how this list is received I may write a follow-up.

The deadliest aviation accident in history occurred at 5:07pm on March 27th 1977, and came about as a result of a bomb explosion in Gran Canaria airport. Several planes were diverted to Tenerife North Airport, Los Rodeos, including KLM Flight 4805 and Pan Am Flight 1736, both Boeing 747s. This unscheduled surge in air activity meant that many aircraft were forced to park on the taxiway, causing blockages and complicating matters even further. This situation could have been manageable, however a dense fog formed over the airport, greatly reducing visibility. The two above-mentioned aircraft taxied onto the only runway in order to position themselves for takeoff, the dense fog meant that neither aircraft nor the control tower were visible. The control tower gave a clearance to the KLM flight which specified the aircraft’s departure route and gave instructions of what to do after take-off, however it was not a specific clearance for actual take-off. The co-pilot’s reply was “We’re now at take-off,” to which the control tower replied “OK.”

It appears that the flight crew meant that they were actually beginning their take-off, while the controller took it to mean they were in take-off position, awaiting final clearance. He added, “Stand by for take-off, I will call you.” The Pan Am flight transmitted a simultaneous message stating that they were not clear of the runway but mutual interference meant the messages were not transmitted. As the KLM flight increased speed for takeoff, the two crews eventually saw one another and the Pan Am captain applied full power and attempted to veer sharply onto the fourth exit. The KLM captain attempted a steep climb, scraping the plane’s tail along the runway for 65 feet. It left the ground, but its underside struck the Pam Am plane’s upper fuselage, ripping it apart. The KLM plane stalled and came down some 500 feet further on, then slid a further 1000 feet. The collision left a total of 583 dead, this included all 248 onboard the KLM flight and 335 of the 396 passengers and crew on the Pan Am flight.

Fatalities – 583

Located in Liaoning China, the Benxihu iron and coal mine was not a nice place to work at the best of times. During the Second World War, Japanese forces invaded Liaoning and took control of the colliery, here they forced the miners to work in deplorable conditions: the laborers were regularly beaten, food was scarce and Typhoid and Cholera flourished.

On April 26th 1942 a build-up of gas caused an explosion in one of the shafts, resulting in mammoth flames bursting from the entrance. The Japanese guards quarantined the site, preventing friends and family from assisting by erecting electric fences around the perimeter. Over the next 10 days workers cleaned the shaft and carried corpses out to mass graves. Many of workers were unidentifiable from burns suffered during the explosion but most had died from carbon monoxide poisoning caused by the isolation of ventilation after the initial explosion. The Japanese kept very mum about the accident, initially dedicating few words and reporting the death toll at 34. Later reports, including one carried out by the Soviet Union, reported that the death toll was around 1,549, including 31 Japanese, one third of the total work force.

Fatalities – 1,549

The world’s largest man-made accidental explosion occurred on December 6th 1917 in ‘The Narrows’ of Halifax Harbour. As the Norwegian vessel Imo attempted to leave the channel it collided with the Mont-Blanc, a French Cargo vessel carrying 2,300 tons of wet and dry picric acid, 200 tons of TNT, 10 tons of gun cotton and 35 tons of benzoyl – a highly explosive mixture. The collision occurred at 8:44am, when both vessels made a series of ill judged manoeuvres, the sparks generated by the massive amounts of steal rubbing against one another ignited benzene on board the Mont-Blanc and started a fire. The 40 man crew of Mont Blanc, unable to fight the fire, abandoned ship. Hundreds gathered on the shores to witness the huge flaming vessel approach the shoreline, as the Mont-Blanc grounded, it ignited munitions on the pier. Within 20 minutes of the initial collision the Mont-Blanc exploded with 3 kilotons of force (1/5 of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima); the explosion created a fireball that rose roughly 2km into the air, spreading molten metal for miles around. An 18m tall tsunami battered the shoreline dragging onlookers into the water. Churches, houses, schools, factories, docks and ships were destroyed in the swath of the blast. Children who had stopped on their way to school, workmen lining the windows of factories, families in their homes, sailors in their ships – died instantly. Injuries were frightful, blindness from splintering glass added to the shock and bewilderment.

The shockwaves caused stoves, fires and lamps to fall within structures, spreading fire throughout the community, trapping those who had survived the explosion within their homes. 326 acres of land were utterly destroyed. Buildings were damaged up to 16km from the explosion and it was heard up to 316km away. Chunks of metal weighing well over a ton were thrown nearly 4km from the Mont-Blanc. 1,600 people were killed in the initial blast and Tsunami, 9000 were injured. 1,630 houses were destroyed and 12,000 were damaged. Final fatalities were officially recorded as 1,950. All but one of the crew of the Mont-Blanc survived the disaster.

Fatalities – 1,950

The worst fire disaster in history occurred in Santiago, Chile on December 8th 1863. The Church of the Company of Jesus was celebrating the Feast of Immaculate Conception when one of the many gas lamps adorning the scene ignited a veil draping from a wall. A helpful onlooker leapt into action and attempted to extinguish the fire by using another cloth, but instead spread the fire to the wooden roof. Devastatingly, the doors had been closed to allow the church to reach maximum capacity, as they opened inwards, and as the panicking worshipers pushed towards the exit, the doors could not be opened. As the panic increased, the people at the front of the mass were crushed to death and eventually a wall of bodies accumulated in front of the door, making it nigh on impossible to reach freedom. Three hours after the fire started, the roof collapsed, killing the remaining survivors. Between 2,000-3,000 people were killed, mostly women, entire families were wiped out and the damage to the bodies made most unidentifiable – meaning they had to be buried in mass graves. It took 10 days to remove all the bodies from the church. The results of this event can be seen today as Chilean fire brigades are composed of volunteers that were formed in the aftermath of the tragedy.

Fatalities – 2,000-3,000

When people think of ocean liners sinking they instantly think of the Titanic, however this was not the deadliest disaster of its kind – in fact it has the 5th largest amount of casualties. The deadliest ferry disaster in History occurred on December 20th 1987. The MV Dona Paz was en route to Manila in the Philippines; it was officially carrying its maximum passenger manifest of 1,583 passengers and 58 crew.

The Dona Paz collided with an oil tanker MT Vector, which was carrying 8,800 barrels of gasoline. Survivors say that the weather that night was clear but the sea was choppy. Upon collision the Vector caught fire and the flames spread rapidly throughout the ship. The lights onboard the Dona extinguished and as there were no life jackets on board the vessel (or they were locked away), the passengers were forced to jump overboard into shark-infested waters. It was eight hours before authorities were notified of the accident, and it took a further eight hours to organize a search and rescue operation. 26 survivors were retrieved from the waters including two crew of the Vector.

Although official manifests showed there were 1,583 passengers on board, anonymous officials’ testimonies back up passenger accounts that the vessel was carrying around 3000-4000 passengers and they were sleeping in corridors in cots with up to four people in each. This is more than likely due to the fact that only one of the 21 bodies recovered after the accident was listed on the manifest. 2000 were reported missing by friends and family and were believed to have been on the vessel, none of these were on the manifest.

The official Death toll was 1,749 but a more realistic estimate of deaths, and one that the World Almanac records as the deadliest peace time maritime disaster of the 20th century, records 4,341 fatalities.

Fatalities – 1,749-4,341

During the Second World War, 5,000 bombing runs were conducted by the Japanese Army and Navy on the Chinese capital of Chongqing, in all, 11,500 bombs were dropped. Unlike today’s bombing sorties that concentrate on tactical targets, the bombing runs on Chongqing were seen as a terror campaign, targeting residential areas, hospitals and schools. During a particular aggressive bombing run on June 5th 1941, thousands of residents fled into bomb shelters. The sortie lasted over 3 hours, and the large number of personnel squeezed into the shelters resulted in over 2,500 (some estimate 4,000) people suffocating whilst waiting for the bombings to end. A museum has now been set up near the entrance to the tunnel and in remembrance of the victims, an air raid siren is sounded every year on June 5th. I have included this as the tragedy was not as a direct result of the bombing run.

Fatalities – 2,500-4,000

London has been plagued with pollution since the industrial revolution; these events have been collectively referred to as ‘Pea Soupers’ due to the greenish color they embody. One of the most extreme pollution events occurred in 1952. It was known as ‘The Great Smog of ’52′ or ‘The Big Smoke’ and lasted for five days at the beginning of December. The cold winter meant that Londoners were forced to burn more coal that they would normally; this coal emitted a larger amount of Sulphur Dioxide in comparison to coal used today. These fumes combined with pollution from newly developed diesel car exhausts, and the effects of northwesterly winds bringing already polluted air from across Europe, created an effect reminiscent of the adaptation of the Steven King book ‘The Mist’ with smog filling the city and seeping into indoor areas causing problems with the human respiratory tract. The event lead to the clean air act of 1956 and is considered one of the worst pollution events in history. 4,000 people were killed in the weeks following the smog with a further 100,000 taken ill. Recent research puts fatalities closer to 12,000.

Fatalities – 4,000-12,000

Between the 2nd and 3rd of December 1984 the Union Carbide pesticide plant in Bhopal India leaked Methyl Isocyanate (MIC). This tragedy was a result of water entering a tank containing around 42 tons of MIC, this created a chemical reaction that raised temperatures to over 200°c, increasing the pressure, the tank vented the toxic gas which caught in the Northwesterly wind passing over Bhopal

Initial exposure to MIC results in coughing, vomiting, eye-irritation and a sense of suffocation. Locals awoke in a panic when experiencing these symptoms and began to run from the plant, the increase in breath only hastened their unfortunate fate. Acute symptoms include burning in the respiratory tract and eyes, breathlessness, stomach pain and death was caused by choking and circulatory collapse. 170,000 people were treated for symptoms of MIC poisoning, mass funerals and cremations were held with bodies disposed of in the Narmada River. Independent organizations record 8,000 dead in the immediate days following the incident, and a further 8,000 have died since (other estimates put it at around 30,000). 100,000 to 200,000 have suffered permanent illness due to the leak. To this day groundwater and soil in areas even 3km away from the factory contains almost 40 times more pesticides than Indian standards. The soil and water also contain toxic metals like lead, mercury, arsenic, cadmium and chromium.

Fatalities-16,000-30,000

This is the earliest and one of the most catastrophic events on the list. It occurred in 27AD, in the ancient town of Fidenae located close to Rome, Italy. A local entrepreneur known as Atilius built a wooden amphitheater on the cheap to celebrate the end of Emperor Tiberius ban on Gladiatorial Games, the construction was rushed in order to meet deadlines. The amphitheater seated 50,000 and almost inevitably, during the opening ceremony it collapsed, killing 20,000 blood-thirsty spectators. This is by far the worst stadium disaster in history and resulted in the Roman Senate passing laws that only citizens with wealth exceeding 400,000 sesterces would be allowed to host gladiatorial games and that all amphitheaters were to be erected on sound foundation. Atilius was banished from the Empire.

Fatalities – 20,000

The Banqiao dam was completed in 1952. It was constructed to control flooding in the Huai River Basin in Henan province, China, and provided 18GW of power to the region. After initial construction, cracks appeared in the dam, and under the advice of Soviet engineers they were repaired and the dam was considered unbreakable and was known as ‘The Iron Dam.’

The dam was constructed to withstand 300mm of rainfall per day (a phenomenon occurring once every 1000 years), however in August 1975, resulting from Typhoon Nina, the province experienced 1060mm of rainfall in 24 hours (annually the area averages 800mm) . Nina had destroyed much of the communications network in the area and requests to open the dam did not reach the engineers based there. Smaller dams upstream began to break resulting in water at the Banqiao reaching 0.3m higher than the wave protection wall. 78,800 tons of water per second burst from Banqiao, the total water released from the failure of all 62 dams was 15.783 billion tons.

The surge of water resulted in waves 10km wide and 7m high traveling at 50kmph, destroying a stretch of land 55km long by 15km wide, and creating lakes up to 12,000 square kilometers. Evacuation orders could not be delivered in time due to communications failures.

Official estimates from China indicate approximately 26,000 people died as a result of the initial flood with up to 145,000 succumbing to subsequent epidemic and famine. 11,000,000 people were affected by the disaster. The film Dam999 was based loosely on the event.

Fatalities – 26,000-230,000

I have included this as a bonus, as although it was a result of a natural disaster, it is considered the worst rail disaster in history. It occurred during the Boxing Day Tsunami in 2004, It was not as a result of a train crash, but none the less accounts for the highest number of fatalities of any rail disaster in the history of locomotive travel. As the tsunami hit the village of Peraliya in Sri Lanka, water surged around the halted train. The passengers climbed on top of the train to avoid drowning inside, others used the train as a shield to protect them against the incoming torrent of water. They did not know however that this first wave was small in comparison to the 18 foot wave that followed. It picked the train up and carried in at a remarkable speed for 115km. Those that sheltered behind the carriage were crushed against trees and houses, those inside drowned as they were unable to escape through the doors as the train was so heavily packed with people. It was several hours before people realized the train was missing and days before assistance arrived; many of the initial survivors died during the following day. The estimated death toll was at least 1,700 and probably in excess of 2,000, however only 900 bodies were officially recovered.

Fatalities – 1,700 – 2,000+

I have included this as a bonus as it is not on the same scale as the rest of the list but it is my local city, so I decided to briefly mention it. The main stand at the Bradford City Football Club, Valley Parade was made of wood and by 1985 had not been changed in 74 years. The stand was due to be replaced after the last game of the season against Lincoln City on 11th May 1985, this was because of health and safety concerns over the amount of litter that had fallen between the gaps in the stand and its potential as a fire hazard. Just before half time a fire broke out in the main stand and within minutes had engulfed the entire stand. A video can be seen which demonstrates how quickly fire can spread, I have been told that the man who is walking around on fire only died because of internal injuries that he received resulting from other fans trying to extinguish him. 56 people died and 265 were injured. It is suspected that a fan dropped a cigarette or match between the gaps in the stand igniting the litter beneath.

Fatalities – 56

Is there anything more gross than a cockroach? Is there anything more reviled than a rat? There are lots of creatures out there that we’d want to stay as far away from as possible. But the truth is that some of these animals aren’t quite as terrible as we make them out to be and have overly bad reputations that are perhaps undeserved. Here are some animated movies and shows that make us throw the “ice” factor out the window and enjoy creatures that normally freak us out for what they actually are: cuter than puppies.

The geniuses at Pixar accomplished a lot with Ratatouille, but what is perhaps most impressive is the fact that they made us forget that most people would normally do their best to get rats into traps (even though that is alluded to in the movie). Not only is Remy the rat made cute and lovable, but he also cooks food for humans without making the audience cringe. The demand for pet rats rose after the release of Ratatouille as kids around the world asked, “Mommy, can I get a rat?”

There’s nothing scary about this innocent and friendly ghost kid. And just in case you’re wondering how he died, don’t. His parents were already ghosts when they got married and gave birth to him, so he never actually died. At least, that’s what we’re told in some versions of the story.

While in reality, spiders might send most of us running to grab something to smack them with, we forget all about our prejudices and fall in love with the pretty spider as she helps Wilbur with her wisdom.

He might stink, but Pepé le Pew is a true romantic at heart. And although some of his actions might be creepy, as long as you’re not the cat he’s after, you can’t help but find him charming in a convoluted sort of way.

None of us wants to have to see a dog that’s hurt, let alone dead. But in Corpse Bride, we don’t feel the need to shed a tear for Scraps, the skeleton dog, because we realize that dogs are still as cute as ever in the afterlife.

Some people love them. Some people hate them. Caterpillars can be polarizing that way. Not in the movie A Bug’s Life, though, as Heimlich the caterpillar humorously eats his way to our hearts before becoming, in his words, “a beautiful butterfly.”

With another entry from A Bug’s Life, Pixar makes us think twice about reaching for the bug spray at the sight of ants by giving them brighter colors and cuter proportions, making us root for the ants to win the day. Especially Dot. She’s just so darn cute!

Okay, ogres might not be real, but when they appear in fiction, they usually aren’t exactly what you’d call “attractive.” And while you’d hesitate to call Shrek “cute” at first, he does grow on you. In this case, perhaps his attractiveness comes from the inside.

Pixar did it again. In a movie about a robot, Wall-E’s cockroach companion steals the show for a moment when it pokes its head out of a Twinkie, looking cuter than any teddy bear.

How many of us would stick around with a snake nearby? The deadliness of the Viper in Kung Fu Panda isn’t threatening to the kids who watch it, who instead of running away, cheer on as it fights alongside Po and the rest of the animal Kung Fu masters.

Beer and wine have been called many things: delicious, evil, holy, unholy, addictive, and so on, but there is no doubt that one of the most beloved of all human inventions is beer and wine. Therefore, you should know more about it, and thus this list was born: 10 Interesting Facts About Beer and Wine.

This item may be familiar to most avid Listverse readers and has been presented on numerous lists, but I found that I still had to have it in somewhere, as there seems to be the instant stereotyping of relating wine and beer to unhealthiness. However, over the course of a ten year study, wine, and specifically red wine, has been found to possess great cardiovascular benefits (aka: it helps your heart!). This has been attributed to antioxidants called flavonoids, which are present in the skin and seeds of grapes, and reduce the risk of heart disease by improving cholesterol and lowering blood clotting. Further studies have even shown that red wine may inhibit the growing of tumors for certain cancers and assist in the treatment for neurological disorders like Parkinson’s disease and Alzheimer’s. However, despite all this, and as with any food or drink: do not over-consume. Experts say for men to drink two servings of red wine a day, and for women, one (a serving is 4 ounces) in order to experience maximum benefits.

The age at which people can legally drink varies from country to country, continent to continent. In most of Europe the drinking age is set at 16, in Canada it is 18, Asia 20, and of course, it is 21 in the United States. The three top beer-consuming countries per capita are the Czech Republic, Ireland, and Germany; the three top consuming countries of wine are Italy, France, and Switzerland; the three top producers of beer are China, the United States, and Russia, however it should be noted that Germany has the largest number of breweries in the world with about 1,200 (USA only has about 350); and finally, the top three producers of wine are Italy, France, and Spain. On another interesting note, the top three countries with the highest tax rates on beer are Norway, Finland, and Canada.

This was difficult to research, as this is a heated topic of debate and multiple countries claim to reign supreme in producing the most delicious beers for consumption. The European Beer Star awards breweries with the most impressive beer based on taste and quality, and the most recent results came out with Belgium ranking as #1, followed behind by Germany and the United States. These results interestingly contradict the results of the next entry…

In a survey conducted in over 80 countries, 2,000 people were questioned on which countries have the world’s worst beer. The results listed the United States as #1, followed behind by China, the United Kingdom, Australia, France, and Italy. Budweiser was ranked as the #1 worst brand in beer by the takers of the survey, however it should be noted that the USA received gold awards for 50 of their brands and breweries of beer, none of which include Budweiser. This is due in part to the fact that Budweiser is relentlessly advertised, and people seem to believe this is THE beer of the United States, as it is the most widely available and distributed beer in the world. Fortunately, even though it is second in American beer consumption (Bud Light ranks first), the USA definitely has other good brands, such as the Sierra Nevada Pale Ale, the Samuel Adams Boston Lagers, and the Samuel Adams Seasonal.

The number one world-renowned region responsible for producing the world’s highest quality wine is Bordeaux, France. It consists of 284,320 acres of the best vineyards available. The region can make up to 960 million bottles of wine per year, ranging from everyday table wine to some of the most expensive wine in the world, with brands like the Chateau d’Yquem and Chateau Cheval Blanc selling for tens of thousands of dollars. A 1947 bottle of the last wine listed (I don’t won’t to write it again) was sold at auction by Christie’s in Geneva – being previously owned by a Swiss collector – and is considered to be the greatest bottle of wine Bordeaux has ever produced. The cost? $304,375.

Breweries and manufacturers are constantly adapting and changing to the huge number of consumers who drink beer today, and will often try to invent innovative ideas for expanding their revenues and fan-base. Sometimes, however, breweries take this a little too far, such as in Cambodia, a popular beer is a Tarantula Brandy, containing rice liquor and “flavored” with dead tarantulas. Another example would be the Korean Baby Mouse Liquor, which is made with distilled rice spirits, blended with dead mice, and fermented for one year. Yet another example of bizarre beers is the Kwispelbier brand, produced from a small brewery in the Netherlands, and advertised as “a beer for your best friend.” Yes, it is a non-alcoholic beverage designed for dogs after Gerrie Berendsen, the inventor, wanted to refresh his dog after a day out hunting.

Swinging back over to some more facts about wine, these are some of the most bizarre, and perhaps offensive, brand names given to wine. One is a French wine produced and distributed by the British. Its name? Fat Bastard. Another is the Australian brand called Bitch, and as an added joke the name is printed 77 times on the back of the bottle for the lucky drinker. Other names is the French brand (Oops) (yes it is in parentheses, and now I am explaining that in parentheses), which was named so because the grape type was mislabeled for years on the original bottle, so the humorous producers decided to call it (Oops). More bizarre wines from France are the La Vin de Merde (Wine of Shit), the Elephant on a Tight Rope brand, and the delicious Frog’s Piss.

Yes, despite all the praise and admiration, beer of course still has its ill health effects. One such is dubbed “beer belly,” in which over consumption has been shown to increase obesity rates in men. The drink harbors strong stimulants of gastric acid secretion and can cause gastro esophageal reflux, aka heartburn. Beer can also lead to an increase in blood pressure, as well as causing dehydration (beer is a dehydrating agent, even thought people often drink it after a hot day or work), and it acts as a downer, reducing activity in the central nervous system and leading to a hangover. It also has many well known negative effects on the liver and can cause liver cirrhosis after prolonged and heavy drinking. And finally, one of the deadliest effects drinking has is the impairment of driving skills, as motor accidents are the #1 cause of death for adolescents and cause up to 40% of US accident-related deaths every year.

- Over half the hospitals in more than 65 of the largest metropolitan areas of the United States reported that they offer alcoholic beverages to their patients.
- Alcoholic beverages often contain no fat or cholesterol, but have a high concentration of calories.
- In the United States Pharmacopeia, alcohol is listed as a medicine.
- All 13 minerals necessary for human life can be found in alcoholic beverages

Hangovers in other languages:

- The French call it ‘wood mouth.’
- Germans refer to it as ‘wailing of the cats.’
- Italians call it ‘out of tune.’
- Malaysians call it ‘lo.’
- Norwegians identify it as ‘carpenters in the head.’
- Spaniards call it ‘backlash.’
- Swedes refer to it as ‘pain in the hair roots.’

Methods to “curing” hangover include:

- Ancient Greeks ate cabbages.
- Ancient Romans ate fried canaries.
- Some present day Germans eat a breakfast of red meat and bananas.
- Some French drink strong coffee with salt.
- Some Chinese drink spinach tea.
- Some Puerto Ricans rub half a lemon under their drinking arm.
- Some Haitians stick 13 black-headed needles into the cork of the bottle from which they drank.
- Russians drink Vodka.

According to the Discovery Channels hour-long documentary called “How Beer Saved the World,” beer was responsible for the birth and development of human civilization, and is the “greatest invention of all.” It outlines how the agriculture revolution was started because of the need to make beer, which led to many inventions such as the plow, the wheel, and irrigation. Cities were built in an effort to produce more beer for the growing number of people who craved it. Other lesser known inventions were math, which needed to be mastered by farmers as their fields grew and needed to be quantified, as well as written language, which was vital to keep records of the expanding beer trade. The documentary goes on to demonstrate that every invention, innovation, and milestone of human history was, at the core, because of the human love for beer.