

D.B. Cooper: Man who hijacked a plane and jumped out with a $200,000
Who is D.B. Cooper?
An unknown man named D.B. Cooper abducted a Northwest Orient Airlines flight in 1971, demanded $200,000 in ransom, and then jumped out of the aircraft. Despite a 45-year investigation, the FBI has never managed to apprehend the unidentified man who used the alias Dan Cooper to book the flight.
Under the guise of Dan Cooper, the hijacker boarded the aircraft on November 24, 1971, with a briefcase containing explosives. He had paid cash for his one-way ticket from Portland to Seattle. According to New York magazine, the man claimed to have a bomb and passed a note to air hostess Florence Schaffner with the following instructions: “I want $200,000 by 5:00 p.m. in cash. Put in a knapsack. I want two back parachutes and two front parachutes. When we land, I want a fuel truck ready to refuel. No funny stuff or I’ll do the job.”
Cooper requested the release of the passengers upon landing in Seattle and was given the ransom. Then, after asking the pilot to take him to Mexico City, he strapped the money to himself and jumped out of the plane while it was over southwest Washington.
The FBI discovered that the name Dan Cooper was a fake while they were looking for him/his body. Then, in 1980, a boy, age 8, who was on vacation with his family discovered $5,800 in bills floating down the Columbia River. The FBI recognized them as being part of the ransom money even though they had partially disintegrated.
Over the years, the FBI investigated more than 1,000 suspects who might be D.B. Cooper, but it was unable to definitively identify him.
DB Cooper developed a cult following as a result of the newsworthy crime, with t-shirts bearing the slogan “D.B. Cooper, Where Are You?”‘ is being sold all over the country, and a store in Washington celebrates D.B. Cooper Day every year.
Was D. B. Cooper’s parachute ever found?
The DB Cooper parachute has never been located. This has prompted many conspiracy theorists to postulate that he actually survived the jump and fled with the parachute.
The FBI reported in March 2008 that they were investigating a shredded, tangled parachute discovered buried in Southwest Washington. Children were playing outside their Amboy-area home when they discovered the parachute.
A month later, it was determined that it couldn’t have been the hijacker’s parachute because it was made of the incorrect material and had the wrong design.
According to what we could gather from the people we spoke with, the parachute “just didn’t look like it was the right kind of parachute in any way,” an FBI spokesperson said.
Was any of D.B. Cooper’s money recovered?
It’s true that some of D.B.’s money was found. On the banks of the Columbia River in Vancouver, Washington, a young boy discovered $5,800 in cash in 1980. The cash’s serial number matched that of the cash given to D.B. Cooper, according to the investigators.

Nothing else, though, was ever discovered. His tie and pearl pin, which he forgot to take off with him, were the only other items that were found.

The youngest person executed, George Stinney Jr was proven innocent
In 1944, George Stinney Jr. was 14 years old when he was executed in South Carolina. It took only ten minutes to convict him — and 70 years to exonerate him.

How Cleveland's Balloonfest in 1986 Turned Into a Public Tragedy
In Cleveland, Ohio, United Way broke the world record by deflating nearly 1.5 million balloons as part of a publicity stunt to raise money. The balloon obstructed a US Coast Guard search for two boaters who were subsequently discovered to have drowned, blocked airport runways, and blocked land and waterways.

The Bizarre (And Magical) Duel Between Chung Ling Soo And Ching Ling Foo
Ching Ling Foo and Chung Ling Soo were two magicians from the early 20th century who were bitter rivals. While Ching Ling Foo was genuinely Chinese, Chung Ling Soo was actually a New Yorker named William Robinson.

How Sleep Deprivation Was Once Used as Torture
Sleep deprivation, long before modern interrogation techniques, was considered a “clean” and effective form of torture—leaving no physical scars, yet breaking minds with haunting silence. Victims endured days and nights without rest, leading to vivid hallucinations, disorientation, and psychological torment. This article traces the dark history of sleep deprivation as a weapon, examines the science behind its effects on the brain, and shines a light on the painful balance between human endurance and cruelty in the annals of coercion.

Mother who spent entire life savings for daughter’s cancer treatment won the lottery
A mother won $2 million from a $10 scratch-off lottery ticket after she spent all of her entire life savings to pay her daughter’s cancer treatment. She bought the winning ticket after her daughter’s last cancer treatment.

Medals of Friendship: The Enduring Olympic Story of 1936
At the 1936 Summer Olympics, two Japanese pole vaulters named Sueo Oe and Shuhei Nishida tied for second, but they declined to compete against each other. As a result, Nishida was awarded the silver medal and Oe won a bronze medal. Upon returning to Japan, the athletes had their medals cut in half and spliced together to create new "friendship medals," which were half silver and half bronze.

Xin Zhui And The Story Of The Stunningly Intact Lady Dai Mummy
A 2,000-year-old mummy of a Chinese woman, Xin Zhui, also known as “Lady Dai,” was preserved in 21 gallons of an “unknown liquid.” With her original hair, organs, eyebrows, and eyelashes intact, the mummy still has blood in her veins. Her skin and ligaments are soft and as flexible as that of a living person.

Nathan's Famous Doctor Stunt
When Nathan's Famous Hot Dogs first opened in 1916, the owner hired people to dress as doctors and eat hot dogs outside his shop, to convince people his hot dogs were healthy.

15 interesting facts about Queen Elizabeth II
Queen Elizabeth II, who ruled Britain for 70 years, has away at the age of 96. She was the country's longest-reigning monarch. Here are some little-known facts about her.

The day Iceland's women went on strike
Icelandic women went on strike for equal rights on October 24, 1975. 90% of women walked out of their jobs and homes, effectively shutting down the entire country. The men were struggling to keep up. The following year, Parliament passed a law requiring equal pay. Iceland elected the world's first female President five years later. Iceland now has the highest gender equality rate in the world.

3 men lived on top of a billboard in tents for almost 9 months
From 1982-1983, three men in Allentown PA competed in a radio contest in which they lived on top of a billboard in tents. Whoever stayed up longest would win a house. Due to economic pressure from the recession, none of the contestants wanted to give up, so the contest lasted almost 9 months.

Juliane Koepcke: The Teenager Who Fell 10,000 Feet And Trekked The Jungle to survive
In 1971, a high school student was sucked out of an airplane after it was struck by lightning. She fell 10,000 feet to the ground while still strapped to her chair and survived. Only to endure a 9-day trek to the nearest civilization.

What exactly was the US's 'Ghost Army' during WWII?
During WW2, there was a special unit of men dubbed the ‘Ghost Army’. The unit was made of artists, creative and engineers and their job was to create deception about the enemy. From inflatable tanks to phony convoys to scripted conversations in bars intended to spread disinformation, they used all possible tricks to fool the enemy.

1972 Andes Plane Crash Survivor recall the terrifying Struggles to Stay Alive
On October 13, 1972, a plane carrying a rugby team from Uruguay crashed in the Andes between Chile and Argentina. The survivors were in brutal conditions - high altitude, bitter cold, and the lack of food—and faced the most terrible choice—eating the frozen flesh of their dead friends or starving to death themselves.

Moondyne Joe: The story of Australia's most notorious prison escapee
A man named Joseph Bolitho Johns (A.K.A Moondyne Joe) broke out of Australian prisons so many times that the police were compelled to build a special cell just for him. He escaped from that as well.

Max Headroom Incident: America’s Creepiest TV Hack
In 1987 a man hijacked a television station during an episode of Dr. Who and wore a Max Headroom mask and uttered nonsense, and he still hasn’t been caught

Medieval Medicine: A 1,000-year-old onion and garlic salve kills modern bacterial superbugs
Scientists recreated an Anglo-Saxon manuscript-based 9th century onion and garlic eye remedy and discovered that it killed 90% of antibiotic-resistant staph bacteria (MRSA).

Why the Brooklyn Bridge Was Once Crossed by 17 Camels and 21 Elephants
On May 30, 1883, a rumor that the Brooklyn Bridge was going to collapse caused a stampede, which killed at least at twleve people. To prove the bridge was safe, P.T. Barnum led a parade of 21 elephants over it.

The 1814 London beer flood
In 1814, there was a beer flood in London when a tank containing more than 300,000 gallons ruptured in which 8 people drowned.

The Forgotten Story of Semipalatinsk and the Soviet Nuclear Experiments
Between 1949 and 1989, the Semipalatinsk Test Site in Kazakhstan became the primary location for Soviet nuclear weapons tests, exposing millions of unsuspecting villagers to radioactive fallout. Known as the “Polygon of Suffering,” this remote desert witnessed 456 nuclear detonations that caused widespread health crises, birth defects, and generational genetic damage. This article narrates the chilling legacy of Semipalatinsk, unveiling the human cost of Cold War arms development and the ongoing struggle for healing and recognition in Kazakhstan.

8 Interesting Facts About The Unsinkable Ship, TITANIC
If you ask your friends what's the most famous ship in history the answer in most cases will be the same, of course the legendary Titanic. Its history is full of mysteries, at first it was a source of hope and national pride as well as proof of the triumphs of mankind but it soon became a source of nostalgia and pain, the extent of which cannot be described in words.

The 1976 April Fools' Pranks, Planetary Alignment
On April fool's Day, 1976, the BBC convinced many listeners that a special alignment of the planets would temporarily decrease gravity on Earth. Phone lines were flooded with callers who claimed they felt the effects.

Jack the Baboon operated a railroad, earned a living, and never made a mistake
A baboon worked as a signalman for the railroad in the late 1800s. He never made a mistake and worked for the railroad until the day he died.

Inside China’s Footbinding Tradition: The Painful Ritual of Lotus Shoes and Bound Feet
In China, Lotus shoes were used to bind women's feet to keep their feet small

Nuclear bomb accidentally dropped on North Carolina in 196
4 January 1961: The 4241st Strategic Wing's Boeing B-52G-95-BW Stratofortress, serial number 58-0187, was on a 24-hour airborne alert mission off the United States' Atlantic Coast.