Does Alcohol Evaporate Out of Food When Cooked? Why some boozed-infused dishes might give you a hangover...,
From Nation, For Nation - Pulse of the Nation
How Tall Was Napoleon Bonaparte Actually? French inches were longer than English inches.
5 Medieval Torture Devices That'll Make Your Skin Crawl
The Middle Ages earned their nickname-the Dark Ages-for a reason. While modern historians argue the era wasn’t as bleak as it seems, a quick look at the torture devices of the time makes it easy to understand how the label stuck.
From humiliating punishments to brutal pain-inducing contraptions, these devices reveal just how far societies have gone in the name of justice, control, and confession. Some were real. Some were exaggerated. And some might have been created purely to scare.
Here are five of the most chilling Medieval torture devices from the pages of history-and from the Ripley’s collection.
1. The Brank Mask: Public Humiliation in Iron
Sometimes called the “scold’s bridle,” the Brank Mask was used to punish those-often women-accused of gossip, slander, or other “nuisance” behavior. The heavy iron mask clamped over the head often featured grotesque designs to reflect the accused’s supposed crime.
Wearing it wasn’t just uncomfortable-it was humiliating. The wearer would be paraded in public, a walking symbol of shame.
2. The Pillory: A Medieval Time-Out… With Rotten Tomatoes
The pillory, or stocks, didn’t draw blood, but it did break spirits. Locked in place by wooden boards, victims had their heads and hands immobilized in public squares-free for passersby to mock, spit at, or pelt with food and trash.
Reserved for petty crimes, the real punishment was humiliation. Some unlucky offenders were left for days, rain or shine, as a warning to others.
3. The Spiked Collar: Stay Still-Or Else
A terrifying twist on prisoner transport, the spiked collar was a circular iron band lined with inward-facing spikes. As long as the wearer stayed still, they were relatively safe. But any sudden movement-like trying to run-meant the spikes would pierce deep into the neck or throat.
This device was less about restraint and more about control-built on the threat of pain rather than the act itself.
4. The Torture Glove: Confession by Fire
Used during the Inquisition, the torture glove was filled with burning coals and locked around a victim’s hand. If they confessed, the glove might come off. If they didn’t? The fire kept burning.
This device wasn’t just designed to hurt-it was intended to cleanse the accused of sin through suffering. Pain, after all, was seen as purifying.
5. The Iron Maiden: Fact, Fiction, and Fear
Easily the most infamous of all torture devices, the Iron Maiden is a towering iron coffin lined with sharp spikes-positioned to pierce, but not kill... at least, not right away.
The most legendary version-the Iron Maiden of Nuremberg-is said to have been built around 1800, long after the medieval period had ended. Historians debate whether it was ever used or simply created to terrify and attract paying spectators. Regardless, the myth of the Iron Maiden looms large.
Some accounts say it was modeled after the Schandmantel, or "shame cloak," a barrel-like punishment device. Others link its origins to even older legends, like the Apega of Nabis-a spiked mechanical statue from Ancient Greece-and the gruesome Brazen Bull, which allegedly roasted victims alive inside a brass sculpture.
Believe It or Not!, Robert Ripley acquired an Iron Maiden during a trip to Germany and brought the eight-foot-tall device back for his collection. With 13 iron spikes and a legacy as mysterious as it is macabre, the Iron Maiden still haunts the halls of Ripley’s today.
→
From Globe, For Globe - Pulse of the Planet
With the Beatles’ breakup in the late 1960s, the rock landscape would never be the same. Rumors swirled about what contributed to the band’s untimely end. And a fascinating group of individuals worked to reunite the famed boy band. As attempts mounted and negotiations took place, the thirst for Beatlemania 2.0 increased throughout the 1970s.
The most fascinating effort involved Muhammad Ali. It teetered on success throughout the 1970s. The most famous man in the world at the time, the heavyweight boxer was a confessed Beatles fan. His attempt involved crowdfunding well before the internet, President Jimmy Carter, John Lennon, and Yoko Ono.
Many Hits for a Short-Lived Band
The Beatles touched off Beatlemania and the “British Invasion” on February 7, 1964, when they stepped off an airplane at New York City’s JFK Airport. Yet only 4,000 people turned out to greet them. Contrast this with their appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show mere days later, and nearly 74 million people tuned in to watch them perform.
The Beatles’ arrival in America launched an iconic career for the band, who churned out one hit album after another. Think Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band (1967), the White Album (1968), and Abbey Road (1969). By 1967, however, the band fragmented when Brian Epstein, their manager, died. The Beatles dissolved after six years together. It marked a relatively short career for a band with so much impact.
Call for The Beatles to Come Together
As rumors swirled about what pulled the band apart, reunion attempts spurred resistance. John Lennon noted, “After Brian died, we collapsed. Paul took over and supposedly led us. But what is leading us, when we went round in circles? We broke up then.”
Sadly, what followed the demise of the band made reconciliation difficult. Infighting spurred lawsuits and bad blood. The kind that made letting bygones be bygones impossible.
But then boxer Muhammad Ali, an acquaintance of the band, got involved. Known affectionately as “The Greatest,” Ali held numerous heavyweight boxing titles. He was also a passionate advocate for the impoverished and a well-known social activist. These last two passions played into his attempts to reboot the band.
The Beatles and Muhammad Ali
The Beatles and Muhammad Ali first met in 1964 after their celebrated appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show. The Britons had requested a meeting with heavyweight champ, Sonny Liston. After being refused, they turned to his opponent, Muhammed Ali, then known as Cassius Clay.
The photoshoot occurred on February 18, 1964, at the 5th Street Gym in Miami Beach. The result? Iconic images still celebrated today. What makes these photos so fascinating is that all five men were on the cusp of cataclysmic fame.
The meeting bred an affection between the bandmates and heavyweight boxer. This would come in handy by the late 1970s when Ali and two other men attempted to reunite the group.
Reunion to Save the World
Other individuals and groups also attempted to get the Beatles to reconcile. Most did so by trying to entice them with money. But Muhammad Ali took a different tack. After all, the last thing he and the Beatles needed was more money.
Instead, he proposed the equivalent of crowd-sharing and charity. Ali worked on the endeavor with Alan Amron, a 28-year-old entrepreneur from Long Island, and Joel Sacher of New Jersey.
Amron came up with the idea of funding a Beatles reunion by asking their fans to contribute one dollar apiece to the cause. Amron reasoned, “There are 200 million Beatles fans in the world. This is a fact. And if there are 200 million Beatles fans, it could reach 100 million of them, and [if] only half send in a dollar, that’s $50 million.”
President Jimmy Carter Gets Indirectly Involved
But money alone would not be enough to bring the Beatles together. Ali and Sacher recognized uniting them would take more than money. It would require a movement.
So, they created an agency tasked with “feeding and clothing the poor people of the world.” Negotiations with the band began in earnest in January 1977 after a fateful meeting between Ali, Sacher, Amron, John Lennon, and Yoko Ono. The meeting happened organically at President Jimmy Carter’s inaugural ball in the nation’s capital.
Lennon listened patiently to the surprise and delight of the men. And he didn’t reject the concept of crowdfunding and capitalizing on the reunion to help those less fortunate. But initial negotiations produced a stalemate.
So, Ali took the matter to the public. He did an interview with New York’s Daily News to spur the movement. In the story, Ali explained, “I don’t need the money, and neither do the Beatles. The idea is to create this fund, and to help people develop a quality of the heart.”
The Momentum Comes to an End
Endless back-and-forth conversations followed. The years dragged by, and yet the Beatles came no closer to reuniting. Then, on December 8, 1980, the effort was forever laid to rest with John Lennon’s untimely murder.
According to Sacher, Ali took the news especially hard. “Ali was devastated, and not the fact that we couldn’t get the Beatles back together, but that another person could take someone’s life as such a talented individual. It had a profound effect on Ali for a while. It had that effect on all of us.”
The passage of time means many of the players in the story have passed away. The Ali attempt at a Beatles reunion has been lost to the sands of time, too. Little more than a fascinating footnote in history books. And yet it provides a fascinating window into mid-20th-century pop culture. It also highlights a moment when boxing and music converged for the greater good.
→
Referred by ripleys.com - where the world’s most extraordinary stories are discovered and celebrated.