Tag: Bizarre

In an era before antibiotics and advanced medical treatments, leeches were the go-to remedy for ailments like infections, fevers, and blood disorders. Leech collectors had the unenviable task of gathering these blood-sucking critters from their natural habitats, like ponds and marshes. They of...

This is the story of a buried treasure brought to light — a precious gemstone unearthed from some foreign, mathematical land, and it begins at the intersection of many different worlds: Switzerland. During the day, I was a teacher of math and physics at a boarding academy in an alpine villa...

In the late 1800s, a new challenger arose to threaten the booming American cattle industry; the “Texas Fever Tick”. Or more specifically, two species of cattle tick. Boophilus microplus and Boophilus annulatus were found to host a parasite that killed the beefy European cattle ...

One chilly winter morning in 1995, two unlikely criminals were about to embark on a daring adventure. It was on January 6 in the streets of Pittsburgh when McArthur Wheeler and Clifton Earl Johnson decided to make their mark in the world but in the most peculiar way. They planned to rob not one, ...