People in Unusual Circumstances

Stop me if you've heard this one before. A pilot survives a plane crash against all odds, despite having no exit point from the crashing plane, no safe zone to land in, and two failed parachute deployments on the way down. Did I mention the airplane was carrying two nuclear bombs? Did I mention one of the radioactive bombs is still buried under a cotton field- in North Carolina? The Operation Chrome Dome program January 1961 was just a typical day for the eight pilots aboard a B-52 bomber. Operation Chrome Dome was in full swing. For 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, multiple B-52 bombers carrying two Mark-39 hydrogen thermonuclear atomic bombs flew above the Northern Hemisphere, waiting for Russia to make a false

The road to redemption is never an easy path but for a shadowy cult in a small Russian village, the way was particularly difficult. To achieve salvation, they had to die. But not only did they have to perish, they had to depart life in a most horrific way. For these unfortunate believers, in order to reach paradise, they had to be buried alive. Liman, Russia – 1896 The tiny village of Liman is located twenty-eight miles from Tiraspol in the province of Kherson in what is now modern-day Ukraine. It was a small village of about thirty people, most of who belonged to a cult known as Raskol Niki (or Raskoinki). Raskol Niki was a vague subsect of a religious division known as the Old Believers

The child had no choice. Sold as cheap labor by poverty-stricken parents with too many mouths to feed, they were between 4 and 8 years of age, too young to defend themselves or flee their owner and live on their own. Unfortunately, they were just the right size to squeeze into narrow, pitch black, claustrophobic, suffocatingly-hellish 7-inch chimney flues. The dangers child chimney sweeps faced In early 1800 England, immediately after the Industrial Revolution and during the Victorian Era, child chimney sweeps faced a hellish task. They were lowered into narrow chimneys by their owner and forced to clean soot, grime, and creosote from the chimney flue. Falling or being burnt to death was always a possibility but worse, if they lost their way in the complex

In the early 1800’s, London’s sewer systems were a mess. Early household cesspools, cisterns located underneath homes that collected waste water sewerage, had migrated to a labyrinth of underground tunnels snaking throughout London. The sewer system was constructed to solve London’s disease problem by directing sewage away from homes and into the Thames river. For the system to work properly, the sewer pipes had to be periodically repaired and cleared of debris. Sewer workers, such as Randolph Gentry, made a decent living doing the dirty work. About 1836, Randolph Gentry was directed to make a repair to a drain in east London, just a few blocks north of the River Thames. During the repair work, Gentry checked ancillary drainage systems to ensure they contained no debris.

From the mid 1920’s through the mid 1950’s, Ernest Miller Hemmingway produced some of the world’s greatest literary works. His books are considered American classics for which he was awarded a Nobel Prize. Ultimately Hemmingway died by his own hand, and odd ending to a life plagued with bizarre, horrific accidents, many of which nearly killed him. Hemingway’s early near-death events Hemingway nearly loses a leg after being hit by mortar fire Shortly after high school, Ernest Hemingway enlisted for the Army in order to serve in World War I. He worked as an ambulance driver, transporting wounded soldiers from the battlefield to field hospitals. While at camp and returning from a run to grab chocolate bars for the soldiers, he was wounded by mortar fire (more favorable

Captured by photographer Kevin Carter in 1992, it came to be known as the Waiting for Death photo and went on to win the 1994 Pulitzer Prize. The graphic picture shows a starving Sudanese child collapsed on the ground, kneeling, waiting for death as a wide-eyed vulture sits patiently in the background, waiting for its next meal. When the picture was published in the New York Times on March 26, 1993, the international community was horrified – and awakened - while the toll from the horrors he witnessed led Carter down a path of destruction. Kevin Carter travels with Operation Lifeline Sudan Kevin Carter traveled to Sudan in 1993 alongside a United Nations group tasked with assisting starving Sudanese under the umbrella of Operation Lifeline Sudan. Sudan already had a long and

The horror – held captive in basement dungeon for 24 years When the public found that Josef Fritzl had held a woman, his daughter, and three of her children captive in a rat-infested basement dungeon for 24 years, the act seemed unspeakable, as if a real-life boogey man had stepped from the pages of a horror novel into their reality. The four-day trail of Josef exposed a web of horror, a series of events that surpassed the worst snuff film or penny dreadful, events that would cause permanent physical and emotional damage to the captives and send one person to prison for life. Elisabeth flees from Josef Fritzl’s abuse Josef Fritzl was born on April 9, 1934 in Amstetten, Austria, a small town of 14,000 located halfway between Vienna

Four U.S. presidents have been assassinated – Abraham Lincoln, James A. Garfield, William McKinley, and John F. Kennedy. Even more survived attempted assassinations including Andrew Jackson, William Howard Taft, Theodore Roosevelt, Herbert Hoover, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Harry S. Truman, Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush, and George W. Bush. Any presidential assassination attempt is highly unusual but the attempt to assassinate President Theodore Roosevelt stands head and shoulders above any other. Roosevelt was shot in the chest just before making a speech, but with blood seeping through his shirt and a bullet lodged in his chest, he took the stage anyway and made his speech. The Theodore Roosevelt assassination attempt Theodore Roosevelt succeeded William McKinley who himself was assassinated on September

It may surprise you to find that there were actually six civilian casualties in the 48 states during World War II. The incident occurred in 1945 when a Japanese balloon bomb floated into the United States where it killed six people in rural eastern Oregon. They are the only World War II U.S. combat casualties in the contiguous 48 states.  Up until their deaths, U.S. officials kept news of the deadly weaponized balloons from the public in order to avoid panic. The death of Elyse and five children in Oregon On May 5, 1945, as the United States and Japan were locked in the final stages of World War II, Reverend Archie Mitchell and his wife were driving five young teenage students to a Saturday afternoon picnic.

During the United States Senate Inquiry into the sinking of the “unsinkable” Titanic on April 15, 1912, many survivors provided testimony describing their last moments on the ship. Below is a sampling of those testimonies. Testimony of Olaus Abelseth (Testimony taken separately before Senator William Alden Smith, chairman of the subcommittee.) (The witness was sworn by Senator Smith.)   Senator SMITH. I wish you would tell the reporter when you first knew of this collision, and what you did, and where you were in the ship. I believe you were a steerage passenger? Mr. ABELSETH. Yes, sir. Senator SMITH. In the forward part of the ship? Mr. ABELSETH. Yes. I was in compartment G on the ship. Senator SMITH. Go ahead and tell us just what happened. Mr. ABELSETH. I went to bed about 10 o'clock Sunday night, and I think

At only 14 years of age, George Junius Stinney, Jr. was the youngest person ever executed in the United States. Weighing barely 90 lbs., Stinney was so small, he required a booster seat to reach the headpiece of the electric chair. Stinney had been convicted of first-degree murder in the deaths of two young white girls, 11-year-old Betty June Binnicker and 8-year-old Mary Emma Thames. With no physical evidence in the case and only the testimony of three southern police officers claiming Stinney had given a confession, the all-white jury convicted Stinney in less than ten minutes. The deaths of Betty Binnicker and Mary Thames The deaths of Betty and Mary occurred on March 23, 1944 in Alcolu, South Carolina, deep in the Jim Crow South. The girls were last seen

It’s a common thought – what happens at the precise moment we pass from this life to the next. However, it’s an extremely rare event when that moment is captured in a photograph. Such was the case on June 22, 2013 at the Vectren Dayton Air Show in Dayton, Ohio when an eagle-eye noticed that one small section of a spectacular hi-definition, high-speed photograph of a plane crash froze in time the instant a female wing walker, Jane Wicker, met her end. Jane Wicker - wing walker 45-year-old Jane Wicker was a Federal Aviation Administration budget analyst with a backbone made of steel. Financial accountant by day, Wicker began her daredevil career in 1990 after answering an advertisement from the Flying Circus Airshow in Bealeton, Virginia. After

It’s a fairly rare occurrence but something all of us experience from time to time. That unusually strong sensation that you’ve been there before or already experienced what you’re doing (or reading) in the present time – it's called déjà vu which is French for “already seen. For most people, the feeling passes quickly leaving us slightly frightened and more often, confused. But not so for a 23-year-old British man who researchers say has become victim to one of the strangest cases of déjà vu ever recorded in modern medical history. For the past eight years, he’s been “trapped in a time loop”, feeling as if he was reliving every moment of his life. The condition began in 2007 shortly after the man, who has not been named,

Former Miami Dolphins fullback Rob Konrad has quite a tale to tell his grandchildren after an unusually dangerous situation presented itself to him on January 7, 2015.  He was nine miles off the east coast of Florida when a wave knocked him out of his boat into the frigid Atlantic waters. But at 6’3” and 250 pounds, Konrad is no pushover.  Despite being circled by sharks and stung by stingrays, Konrad swam nearly 30 miles for a grueling sixteen hours, to reach the shore’s safety.  His story of survival is miraculous. The accidental fall from his boat On Wednesday, January 7, 2015, Konrad set out from Boca Raton to fetch his 31-foot Grady-White boat which was being serviced in Riviera Beach, about 30 miles north. Along the

  54-year-old William G. Biggart first heard about the World Trade Center terrorist attacks from a passing taxi driver. News that a plane had just crashed into the World Trade Center prompted Biggart to rush to his apartment near Union Square and grab three of his cameras – two film and one digital. He then walked two miles to the center not knowing the next couple of hours would be the last moments of his life. As Biggart walked toward the burning towers, he shot photographs of the event from various angles. He arrived at the building complex and amidst fire trucks and emergency personnel, situated himself near the North Tower where he could shoot nearly straight up at the burning structures. At 9:29 AM, he captured