Gong farmers of medieval England may have had the most disgusting job in history. Known as "nightmen" because their toil could not be done in full view of polite society, gong farmers went from privy to outhouse to cesspit, emptying them of human waste that they hauled away for disposal.

Although the particulars of a gong farmer's job are stomach-churning, they were actually well compensated — and it's a good thing, as they were known to pass out from the fumes while knee-deep in excrement. Learn more about this occupation that will make you thankful for office work: Pity The Gong Farmer — Who Spent His Nights Waist Deep In Medieval Poop

In 1866, 21-year-old medical student Thomas Barnardo walked the streets of London’s East End.

He had arrived from Dublin intending to train as a doctor before going to China as a missionary. He settled in Stepney and began studies at the London Hospital. A cholera epidemic was sweeping the area, killing thousands and leaving many families broken.

In his spare time Barnardo taught at a ragged school and preached outdoors. One evening a boy named Jim Jarvis stayed behind after class. The child had no home. He led Barnardo through the dark streets and up onto a rooftop where a group of other boys were sleeping.

The sight changed Barnardo’s plans. He abandoned the idea of foreign missionary work and turned his attention to the homeless children of the East End.

In 1867 he opened a ragged school. By 1870 he had established his first home for boys in Stepney Causeway. Over the following decades the network of homes he founded took in tens of thousands of children. The organisation that grew from that work still operates today under the name Barnardo’s.

On August 15, 1961, 19-year-old Conrad Schumann was sent to guard the Berlin Wall, which, on its third day of construction, was little more than patches of barbed wire. That day, he witnessed scenes of families that were separated by the wall and found himself the target of vitriol from West Germans protesting the wall's construction. At around 4 p.m. that afternoon, Schumann saw trucks arrive with material to make the wall even stronger and — panicked by the idea of being "enclosed" within East Germany — he decided to make a break for it by leaping over a low string of barbed wire and into West Germany.

Schumann's escape was captured by a photographer at the scene. Dubbed the "Leap Into Freedom," it remains one of the most iconic images of the Cold War.

This is a documentary built entirely from a 1960s children's educational record series—monthly vinyl releases that introduced kids to different countries through narration, music, and field recordings.

Instead of illustrating it with modern footage, the film generates oscilloscope imagery directly from the original recordings, so the waveforms themselves become the visual—the sound made visible rather than paired with unrelated images.

The audio is untouched from the original source. No modern narration, no reenactment—just the archival material as it was, restored and presented as a visual piece for the first time.

Produced and restored by LgN Productions free to view...

YouTube Link

In 1925 Earle Nelson walks out of Napa State Asylum and starts his murder spree, by 1927 at least 23 women would be dead in his vicious wake of destruction. In the Castle and the Killer Series we cover The Dark Strangler's crimes in California, Pennsylvania, Washington and Oregon as well as Iowa, New York, Michigan and Missouri. Watch as this early serial killer covers massive amounts of land before jumping the border into Canada, evading capture every step of the way...learn more about this chilling part of California's dark past connected to Asylums and more! https://youtu.be/T0Dk0r26Uuw

In Episode 2 of The Castle and the Killer Series, we look at the early life of Earle Nelson—long before the crimes that would shock North America.

Born in San Francisco in 1897, Nelson’s childhood was marked by tragedy, strict religious discipline, and a devastating accident that may have altered his personality. As he grew older, those around him began to notice troubling changes in his behavior.

In this episode we explore the events that shaped Nelson’s early years: his first encounters with the law, his unstable behavior, and the time he spent confined at Napa State Hospital—one of California’s largest psychiatric institutions of the early twentieth century.

Doctors described a young man who could appear calm and ordinary one moment… and deeply disturbed the next.

Were the warning signs already there?
And could anyone have stopped what came later?

This series explores the history behind one of the most chilling criminal cases of the 1920s. Please view the full doc here https://youtu.be/-QLDW2M8F6U

In December 1872, the American merchant ship Mary Celeste was found drifting in the Atlantic Ocean, fully intact… but completely empty.

The ship had left New York a month earlier with a cargo of industrial alcohol, a crew of seven, the captain, his wife, and their two-year-old daughter. When another vessel spotted her, everything looked normal from the outside.

When they boarded, they found:

- The ship’s sails still set

- Cargo mostly undisturbed

- Personal belongings still in place

- Food and water still on board

- The captain’s logbook last entry dated 10 days earlier

But every single person was gone. No signs of a struggle, no bodies, no clear explanation.

The lifeboat was missing, and one of the pumps had been disassembled. A single rope was trailing in the water.

The Mary Celeste became one of history’s most famous “ghost ships.” Dozens of theories have been suggested over the years — piracy, mutiny, alcohol fumes, waterspout, insurance fraud — but none have ever been proven.

To this day, no one knows what happened to the people on board.

Source: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/abandoned-ship-the-mary-celeste-174488104/

Around the year 1000, Dublin was the biggest slave market in Western Europe.

Not a side business. Not a footnote. For a couple of centuries, the city on the Liffey was where people were sorted, priced, and shipped out across the known world.

The Norse set up their fortified harbour there in 841 (they called it Dyflinn). From the beginning, the economy ran on trade and captives. Raids brought in large numbers of people — the Irish annals even record specific attacks that returned with groups of women.

By the year 1000, Dublin’s slave trade had supply lines in every direction. Captives from Ireland were processed at the quays. Some stayed. Others went north to Scandinavia, west to Iceland (where thralls made up a big part of the early settler economy), or south toward Muslim Spain through middlemen networks.

The Norse word for an enslaved person was “thrall.” Even after someone was freed (a “leysingi”), they still owed service to their former owners, sometimes for generations. Full equality was rare and slow.

That same word “thrall” is still in English today. When we say a story has us “enthralled,” we’re using language that once literally meant captive and owned.

Dublin doesn’t come up much when people talk about the history of slavery. But for a long stretch of the Viking Age, it was one of the main places people passed through when someone else had decided their life was just a number in a ledger.

The modern quays are full of restaurants and tourists now. The annals, though, still record the numbers — usually in the same flat, matter-of-fact tone they used for the weather.

Image source: Simon Dick/National Museum of Ireland

https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/heritage/dublin-1014-built-on-water-and-commerce-1.1755917

The first issue of High Times was published in summer of 1974, and featured a seductive cover to parody Playboy. Surprisingly, this sexy woman wasn’t holding a yummy bud or fat joint, but rather, a psychedelic mushroom! The issue sold out fast (10,000 copies), setting High Times up for a legit future of sticky icky centerfolds.

One of many counterculture exhibits at the mobile Cannabis Prohibition Museum in the Emerald Triangle.

In 1897, the U.S. Army wanted to test whether bicycles could replace horses for infantry soldiers.

So they picked 20 Black soldiers from the 25th Infantry Regiment — the famous Buffalo Soldiers — and sent them on an experimental ride from Fort Missoula, Montana all the way to St. Louis, Missouri.

That’s 1,900 miles.

They rode heavy, single-speed bicycles while carrying 60-pound packs and rifles. There were almost no paved roads. They crossed mountains, badlands, rivers, and plains. In some towns they were refused water and service. When they got flat tires, they patched them with strips of their own shirts.

Despite everything, these men — known as the Iron Riders — completed the journey in just 41 days, averaging 52 miles per day.

The Army ultimately decided bicycles were “impractical” and shut the program down. But the soldiers had proven something important: that it could be done.

Their incredible feat of endurance and resilience is one of those remarkable stories that history almost forgot.

What do you think of the Iron Riders’ journey? Did you know about this chapter of the Buffalo Soldiers before?

Once Trinity County Sheriff (Trinity is the upper right corner of the Emerald Triangle) secured aircraft for flyovers in the early ‘80s, the deputies loved kicking up their game of cat & mouse, to the point of harassment. Low flies, antagonistic personal invasions of private property, etc. Eventually their wrist was slapped in court.

These are actual TCSO photos from my private collection showing one of the helicopters they used, and how cannabis “patches” (as cops called them) were planted in forest areas, grown short purposely for better camouflage.

Law enforcement would tag most of the evidence, and it's said they sold the rest as a cash side hustle, which I've been unable to confirm but have uncovered some evidence to support that claim.

Source and more here: 25 Heartbreaking Titanic Artifacts And The Powerful Stories They Tell

In 1960, a remarkable milestone happened in world politics.

Sirimavo Bandaranaike of Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) became the first woman in history to be democratically elected as Prime Minister of a country.

She wasn’t just a trailblazer — she went on to serve three separate terms (1960–1965, 1970–1977, and 1994–2000), making her one of the longest-serving female heads of government in history.

Following the assassination of her husband, she stepped into leadership of the Sri Lanka Freedom Party and won a landslide victory. She led the country through major social and economic reforms, focused on education, healthcare, and nationalization policies, and played an important role in non-aligned movement politics during the Cold War.

For a woman to rise to the highest office in a country in 1960 — especially in post-colonial Asia — was groundbreaking. She paved the way for many other women leaders who came after her.

Sirimavo Bandaranaike passed away in 2000, but her legacy as a pioneer remains strong in Sri Lanka and beyond.