On Wake Island in 1943, the Japanese execute 97 captured Americans by machine gun. Only 1 man escapes the slaughter and carves “98 US PW 5-10-43” on large coral rock as an attempt to document the atrocity. He is later captured and beheaded. It is still there today.

Child’s arm, holding the eye’s vascular tissue. Prepared by, Bernardus Siegfried Albinus, 1730.  Bernardus Siegfried Albinus Case in anatomy hall. All preparations by Albinus, Circa 1730.  

From the Museum Boerhaave in Leiden, the Netherlands.

Fucking, Austria

Fucking is an Austrian village in the municipality of Tarsdorf, in the Innviertel region of western Upper Austria.

Quite the name, eh?

Candiru

Also known as cañero, toothpick fish, or vampire fish, are a number of genera of parasitic freshwater catfish in the family Trichomycteridae; all are native to the Amazon River. Although some candiru species have been known to grow to a size of 40 centimetres (16 in) in length, others are considerably smaller. These smaller species are known for an alleged tendency to invade and parasitise the human urethra.

A Tower of Silence or Dakhma   is a circular, raised structure used by Zoroastrians for exposure of the dead.

There is no standard technical name for such a construction. The common dakhma or dokhma originally denoted any place for the dead. Similarly, in the medieval texts of Zoroastrian tradition, the word astodan appears, but today denotes an ossuary. In the Iranian provinces of Yazd and Kerman, the technical term is deme or dema. In India, the term doongerwadi came into use after a tower was constructed on a hill of that name. The word dagdah appears in the texts of both India and Iran but, in 20th century India, signified the lowest grade of temple fire.

Dock Ellis

Dock Phillip Ellis, Jr. (March 11, 1945 – December 19, 2008) was a professional baseball player who pitched for the Pittsburgh Pirates, among other teams in Major League Baseball.

Ellis pitched a no-hitter against the San Diego Padres on June 12, 1970. He would admit in 1984 to being under the influence of LSD throughout the course of the game. Ellis had been visiting friends in Los Angeles under the impression that he had the day off, and he was still high when his friend’s girlfriend told him that he had to pitch a game against the Padres that night. Ellis boarded a shuttle flight to the ballpark and threw a no-hitter, despite not being able to feel the ball or see the batter or catcher clearly. Ellis said that catcher Jerry May wore reflective tape on his fingers, which helped Ellis to see his signals. Ellis walked eight batters and struck out six, and was aided by excellent fielding plays by second baseman Bill Mazeroski and center fielder Matty Alou. Because the no-hitter was the first game of a double header, Ellis was forced to keep track of the pitch count for the night game.  

As Ellis recounted it:

I can only remember bits and pieces of the game. I was psyched. I had a feeling of euphoria. I was zeroed in on the (catcher’s) glove, but I didn’t hit the glove too much. I remember hitting a couple of batters, and the bases were loaded two or three times. The ball was small sometimes, the ball was large sometimes, sometimes I saw the catcher, sometimes I didn’t. Sometimes, I tried to stare the hitter down and throw while I was looking at him. I chewed my gum until it turned to powder. I started having a crazy idea in the fourth inning that Richard Nixon was the home plate umpire, and once I thought I was pitching a baseball to Jimi Hendrix, who to me was holding a guitar and swinging it over the plate. They say I had about three to four fielding chances. I remember diving out of the way of a ball I thought was a line drive. I jumped, but the ball wasn’t hit hard and never reached me.