@zeraValentine’s Day in the Victorian era wasn’t always about roses and romance. Some people sent what were known as “vinegar valentines”—cheaply printed cards filled with insults, mockery, and cruel caricatures. Instead of poetry, these cards called the recipient lazy, ugly, greed
@zeraIn 1889, a small Japanese company called Nintendo was founded in Kyoto, originally producing handmade playing cards known as hanafuda. Around the very same time, on the other side of the world, the streets of Whitechapel were still echoing with the terror of Jack the Ripper, the
@zeraVictorians loved to perform civilization—polite society, proper hats, moral lectures—but their obsession with ancient Egypt had a rotten underbelly that feels like a gothic fever dream: they treated mummies like both entertainment and “medicine.” The product was called mumia (or
@zeraSpontaneous human combustion is the unsettling idea that a person can catch fire with no obvious cause—no tipped candle, no smoking gun, no warning. It’s the kind of phenomenon that sounds like folklore… until you read the reports and realize how often the aftermath is described
@zeraAt night, Griffith Observatory doesn’t just look down on Los Angeles—it seems to watch it. Griffith Observatory is supposed to be a place about wonder—planets, stars, the endless sky. But the hill it sits on carries a more bizarre story, one that begins with the man who gave i
@zeraThe Power Rangers were childhood heroes—colorful warriors who fought evil and saved the world. But in real life, the story of Ricardo Medina Jr. took a much darker turn. In 2015, the former Power Rangers actor was arrested after a violent argument with his roommate escalated i
@zeraIn 12th-century England, villagers in Woolpit discovered two terrified children at the bottom of a wolf trap. Their skin was green, their clothes unfamiliar, and they spoke in a language no one understood. The children refused all food until someone offered raw beans, which th
@midi002I just put in an Interactive Node Mesh of Communities on /digglist This is a strongly bonded molecule with big nodes. This is what a well supported community looks like via data visuals./bizarre and friends are doing good work. Keep it up.
@zeraThis photograph of Sharon Tate is often cited as one of the last images taken of her—captured just three days before her murder in August 1969. Behind her hangs a large, somber painting—dark, muddy, filled with struggling figures and lifeless bodies. Many who study the photo
@zeraThe lion once belonged to Frederick I of Sweden, who received it as a diplomatic gift in the early 1700s. It lived as part of the royal menagerie until it eventually died, after which its skin was preserved for display. That’s where history took a bizarre turn. When the ski
@zeraIn 1922, when the sealed tomb of King Tutankhamun was opened in Egypt’s Valley of the Kings, the world celebrated a miracle of archaeology—golden relics, jeweled coffins, and a boy king preserved almost perfectly for more than 3,000 years. But the celebration didn’t last long. Al
@zeraIn 1518, in the city of Strasbourg (then part of the Holy Roman Empire), something deeply unsettling happened: people began to dance uncontrollably. It started with a woman named Frau Troffea, who stepped into the street and began dancing. Not joyfully. Not intentionally. She
@zeraChristopher Columbus’s journals don’t just document exploration — they read like the logbook of a man slowly realizing the ocean was hiding things it didn’t want understood. In January 1493, near the coast of what is now the Dominican Republic, Columbus claimed to see three me
@leemond80@zeraViolet Jessop didn’t just survive the sea — she defied it. In the early 1900s, she worked aboard the grand ocean liners of the White Star Line, unaware she was stepping into a nightmare that would repeat itself again and again. Her first warning came in 1911, when the RMS Olym
@zeraAl Capone, infamous for running Chicago’s criminal underworld during Prohibition, is also tied to a surprisingly wholesome idea: expiration dates. During Prohibition, Al Capone ran one of the most powerful bootlegging operations in the United States, controlling speakeasies, brew
@zeraOn January 20, 1982, rock history took one of its most infamous turns. During a concert in Des Moines, Iowa, Ozzy Osbourne noticed a bat thrown onto the stage by a fan. Assuming it was a rubber prop—something that wouldn’t have been unusual for his shock-filled performances—Oz
@zeraWojtek’s story began in 1942, in the mountains of Iran, where Polish soldiers of the Anders’ Army were moving through the Middle East after being released from Soviet labor camps. While passing through a small village near Hamadan, the soldiers met a young boy carrying an orphane
