The Persian Empire believed in justice. They had strict and careful rules about sentencing a punishment for a crime. No one, they believed, should be executed for a first offense, and every criminal’s good deeds should be considered before handing down judgement. If someone was going to suffer, he should deserve it.

But if you did deserve it, the Persians made sure you paid for it. They came up with some of the most imaginative and brutal punishments in history. Justice in ancient Persia wasn’t always swift—it was a slow, prolonged, and painful torture torn from your worst nightmares.

[Read the full article at Listverse.]

On November 24, 1971, a man in dark glasses and a neatly pressed suit boarded a Northwest Orient airplane with a bomb in his briefcase. The man, known today only as D.B. Cooper, demanded $200,000 in “negotiable American currency” and four parachutes—or else he’d blow up the plane. The ransom was paid, the passengers were let go, and D.B. Cooper leaped out the back of the plane and parachuted into the darkness and disappeared.

The identity of D.B. Cooper remains a mystery to this day. It is the only unsolved case of its kind in history, and after 45 years, we still don’t know who did it. Some names, though, have come up more than once—and one of them just might be the real D.B. Cooper.

[Read the full article at Listverse.]

In the late 19th century, there was a fortune in gold hiding in the Klondike Valley, just waiting for anyone brave enough to go north and grab it. And so began the Klondike Gold Rush, when nearly 100,000 men left their homes to travel up to a frozen land in search of their fortune.

[Read the full article at All That Is Interesting.]

Looking for a job with good benefits? You can’t do much better than becoming the queen of England. Sure, it takes a certain skill to bring about the series of calamities you’d need to become next in line for the throne, but becoming the matriarch of the British royal family has some perks.

The British monarchy is a strange system built on customs and laws that are hundreds of years old—and that has given Queen Elizabeth II some insane powers. There are privileges in the British law books that let the queen do some crazy things that we’re just kind of counting on her not to do.

If the queen ever went mad with power, she could have one hell of a day.

[Read the full article at Listverse.]

In 1910, the people of Mexico stood up for liberty, equality, and freedom — and they paid for it with their lives. This was the Mexican Revolution, a brutal war that raged over the better of a decade and snuffed out the lives of more than a million people. It was a fight for principles, a war of brother against brother that tore a country apart and changed it forever.

[Read the full article at All That Is Interesting.]

When the bombs fall, the face of the planet will be forever changed. For 50 years, that terror lingered behind every moment. The world lived with the knowledge that one person just had to hit a button and the nuclear holocaust would come.

We don’t worry about it as much anymore. Since the fall of the Soviet Union, the idea of mass nuclear devastation has been turned into little more than a fantasy backdrop for movies and videos games. But the threat hasn’t really gone away. The bombs are still there, just waiting for someone to press the button. And there are always new enemies to destroy.

Scientists have run tests and simulations to understand what life will be like after the bomb. Some people will survive. But life in the smoldering remains of a devastated world will be completely changed.

[Read the full article at Listverse.]