Lawyer's most convincing argument
Thomas McGin was a well-known troublemaker in his town. 1871 - he was accused of shooting a man during a row in a bar. His lawyer, Clement Vallandigem, on the other hand, insisted that the victim, a certain Meyers, himself fired an accidental shot while trying to pull the pistol out of his pocket. Vallandigem even arranged a demonstration for his colleagues of how everything happened, that is, a kind of investigative experiment, in modern terms.
The lawyer had put two pistols on his desk beforehand - one loaded, the other not. Confused, he grabbed the loaded pistol, put it in his pocket, and pulled on the fabric of his trousers. He wanted to present the scene exactly as he thought it happened. But when he pulled the trigger, the pistol fired - exactly as it happened to the victim. Vallandigem died 12 hours later. Incredibly, McGin was acquitted.
Killing greeting
1750 - Robert Morris, a major colonial official, had an incredible dream: as if he was mortally wounded when the ship, which he was to visit the next day, gave an artillery salute. When he woke up, he was shocked and refused to board the ship. Calming the guest, the captain promised that there would be no salute until Morris, after visiting the ship, descended to the ground. Morris agreed to this condition.
After inspecting the ship, the captain waited until Morris was on the boat, and then gave the order to prepare for a cannon salute. But then a fly landed on his nose, and he raised his hand to drive it away. The commanders took his gesture for a signal and fired. A shard of shell hit Morris, who sailed only a few meters in a rowboat.
As they say - you can't escape fate.
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Buried alive
The night after the funeral of his five-year-old son Max, his mother, Mrs. Hoffman, had nightmares: she saw her son, who was imprisoned. The boy clenched his little hands into fists under his right cheek and tried to break free from mortal captivity. The woman woke up from a nightmare and asked her husband to dig the coffin, but he refused, believing that all this was nerves and she simply could not believe in the death of her son. But the other night the woman saw the same nightmare in her dream. And her husband succumbed to her prayer.
Together with a neighbor, Mr. Hoffman, at 1 am they went to the cemetery and dug up the corpse of a child. The boy was in the same position as his mother had seen him in her nightmare, but showed no signs of life. Nevertheless, they brought him to the doctor, who had previously stated his death. The doctor, not hoping for success, began to resuscitate the boy. After an hour, to their horror, they saw that the child's eyelid twitched. A week later, Max absolutely regained consciousness and lived to the venerable ninety years of age.
Attend your funeral
1831 - in England, during the raging epidemic of typhus, medical students dug out of the grave for a training autopsy the corpse of a man who was buried four days ago. But as soon as the professor made the first cut, the dead man screamed and grabbed the professor by the arm. The events leading to this man's apparent death were even more mysterious.
The poor Englishman said that, although he was greatly weakened by the typhus he had suffered, he never lost consciousness. He could not speak or give any other sign, he had to obediently listen as the doctor announced his death. Lying with his face covered, he listened to how friends and family were killed by him. Having experienced the terrible treatment of the gravedigger, he finally heard a knock on wood - it was nails being driven into the lid of the coffin. Twisted in his narrow box, buried alive, he felt as if his head, arms and legs were being torn off. I also had to listen to the funeral words spoken in his own address. For the next 4 days, he felt and was aware of everything. But when the professor began to cut him, he suddenly managed to scream loudly, as if by this to break the shackles of death and return to life.
Violet scent
After defeat in the Franco-Prussian War of 1871, Emperor Napoleon III fled to England, where he was granted refuge by Queen Victoria. The emperor's son liked the British so much that he enlisted for military service in South Africa, where in 1879 he was killed in battle with the Zulu. He was buried in the jungle near the battlefield, but where exactly, no one knew for sure.
The Empress wanted her son to be buried in the family crypt, and therefore set out in 1880 on an expedition to Africa in search of the grave. The expedition did not give any result. And when the empress, whose health was undermined by the tropical climate, had already completely abandoned any hope of finding a burial site, she suddenly felt the scent of violets, the favorite scent of her son's perfume. Guided by this scent, she finally found Louis' grave, which was hidden in the dense undergrowth.
Oasis in the middle of the ocean
1881 Captain Neil Kerry sailed from Liverpool to San Francisco with his wife, two children and a crew of 32. Approaching North America, a severe fire broke out on board the ship, because of which everyone was forced to abandon the ship off the west coast of Mexico. Three lifeboats carried the waves of the Pacific Ocean, there was no land or a passing vessel to be seen. Soon hunger and thirst took their toll, and already seven of the shipwrecked had lost consciousness. At night, Kerry had a dream that the color of the water changed from blue to green. He tasted it and the water was fresh and drinkable. When he woke up, he was amazed to find that the water had actually turned green. And just like in a dream, having gathered his last strength, he filled the vessel. The water turned out to be fresh.
Twenty-three days after the shipwreck, Captain Kerry and his men set foot on the Mexican coast. A mysterious oasis of fresh water, which Kerry accidentally discovered in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, saved the shipwrecked.
Incredible salvation
1828 - A British ship sailing from Liverpool to Nova Scotia had been sailing in the icy waters of the North Atlantic for several weeks when senior sailor Robert Bruce saw a stranger in the captain's cabin. He was writing something on the board. Bruce mistook him for a "hare" and went after the captain. Entering the cabin, however, they did not find the stranger there, and on the board they saw the inscription: "Take a course for the northwest."
The captain took turns calling out team members, and each one wrote this sentence on the board. Neither handwriting matched. Nevertheless, the captain followed the strange advice and changed the course of the ship. Soon, a sailor on Mars saw another ship, which, as it turned out, was stuck in the ice. When the crew with the passengers of the stricken ship boarded the British ship, Bruce saw among them the man who was writing on the board. They took a sample of his handwriting as well. The handwriting turned out to be the same. The man said that shortly before they were wiped in the ice, he slept. And when he woke up, he had a feeling of confidence that they would be saved. Apparently, the man left his body in a dream and teleported aboard a British ship to ask for help in advance.
Revenge from the grave
1681 Jason Graham, a miller from Durham County, England, was visited three times by a woman's ghost. The ghost introduced itself to Graeme as Ann Walker and looked disgusting: it was splattered with blood from head to toe, and five gaping wounds on the head. She said that she was killed by someone Mark Sharp, who was persuaded to commit a crime by his relative, from whom Ann was expecting a child. Now the ghost wanted Graeme to tell this story to the authorities.
Graham did not believe that Anne could be anything other than the product of his own horny fantasy, and did not comply with the request. Ann Walker had to show up two more times before the miller went to the local magistrate and showed him the place where the murder victim was buried. When they began to dig, in fact they found a corpse with such wounds as Graeme described them. Mark Sharp, along with a relative, were arrested, convicted and hanged. Ann Walker took revenge from the other world.
The dead can walk
The confusion of African religions with European Catholicism has formed a kind of spiritualist religion in Haiti, the so-called cult of voodoo. The gods of the loa cult endow the priests with special powers, with the help of which they can revive the dead and create soulless automatons, zombies, out of them.
Very often, unhappy love or an unsatisfied feeling of revenge is the reason for the appearance of zombies, both of these phenomena play an important role in voodoo rituals. In one case, for example, a priest wanted to possess a young girl who was already engaged to another. She refused, to which the priest replied with a barrage of curses. A few days later, the girl fell ill and died under mysterious circumstances. Soon after the funeral, there was a rumor that the girl was seen with a priest, whom she refused to reciprocate. There was no specific confirmation of the rumors, and the villagers did not check that they might have buried the girl alive. But a few years later, the girl returned to the village and told her family that the priest made a zombie out of her, but then repented and let her go.
The disappearance of the lake
For hundreds of years, a small lake has existed, hidden among the Italian Dolomite Alps. And in July 1980, when people were habitually fishing and swimming, from the middle of the lake the water suddenly rose in a spiral-shaped column and all went to heaven. Neither hydraulics nor geologists can provide an explanation for this phenomenon.
The man who did not want to be hanged
Young Will Purvis was convicted of killing a farmer in a Columbia court. And although he assured everyone of his innocence, twelve jurors found him guilty and sentenced to death by hanging. When Purvis was taken out of the courtroom, he shouted to the jury: "I will survive all of you!"
1894, February 7 - Purvis stood under a gallows with a noose around his neck. When the hatch opened, instead of hanging from a rope with a broken neck, he just fell down. The knot was mysteriously untied, and the loop simply slipped off the convict's neck. They tied the knot again and were going to repeat the execution. But the assembled spectators had a different opinion, in their eyes the salvation of Purvis was a miracle, they believed that he was clearly not destined to die on the gallows. By shouting, singing and calling to the Lord, people achieved a postponement of the execution. The death row's petition for clemency was not considered, and a second execution was ordered on December 2, 1895. By this time Purvis was already a celebrity.
Shortly before the second execution, with the help of his supporters, he managed to escape from custody. He went into hiding and waited for the inauguration of the new governor, who was known as a just man. In 1896, Purvis confessed, and the sentence was changed to life imprisonment. But in 1898 a real stream of petitions poured in with requests for the abolition of punishment, and favorable public opinion nevertheless had its effect. Purvis was pardoned. But only in 1917 was he truly acquitted: a certain Joseph Byrd confessed on his deathbed to the crime for which Purvis was almost hanged.
This story has a rather interesting continuation: on October 13, 1938, Purvis passed away - three days after the last juror to convict him died. He actually outlived them all.
Gigantic rats
Sometimes the whims of nature are truly unpredictable. For example, in Iran there are huge rats, some weighing up to ten kilograms, which attack and devour cats. According to the newspaper "Kayhan", these rodents have unusually long hind legs and they jump with their help like a kangaroo.
William Jackson, professor of biology at Bowling Green University, compares these monsters to the so-called pipe cutters, giant rats from West Africa that the local population eats as a treat. But "African women" are herbivorous, and therefore Jackson cannot understand what these carnivorous Iranian rats are. Aggressive behavior in rats is something very strange, the professor said.
Not subject to heat
The ability to walk on burning coals can be explained by discarding mysticism, time-limited mental control over pain. But the unique ability of a blacksmith in Denton, Maryland, may serve as proof of the possibility of genuine heat immunity.
Nathan Coker was born in Hillsborough in 1814 and was a slave to Attorney Pernel. The owner treated the boy cruelly, did not feed him well, and it was hunger that revealed in him an amazing ability. One evening, when the cook left the kitchen, Nathan quickly dipped his hand into a pot of boiling water, pulled out the scalding dumplings and began to eat them. And then he realized that he did not feel pain - neither in his hand, nor in his mouth. Now he could, without feeling pain, take hot food and eat it. He drank, for example, fat from the surface of a boiling soup and even claimed that cold food hurts him. After the abolition of slavery in the United States, Nathan worked for a blacksmith, where his unique abilities were very useful to him. “I often take out the hot metal from the forge with my hand and feel absolutely no pain,” he said.
News of Nathan's natural gift spread throughout the area, and he was invited to Easton to demonstrate his abilities to prominent citizens, including two newspaper editors and two doctors. In 1871, an article about Coker was published in the New York Herald. According to eyewitnesses, Coker stepped on a white-hot iron shovel with his bare feet. The cooled shovel was re-heated, and he ran his tongue over it. Molten lead was poured into his palm, he took it in his mouth and moved his tongue in front of the stunned audience until the metal froze.
Each time after the experiment, Nathan was examined by doctors, but did not find any burns.
Abraham Lincoln and the dancing piano
In the 60s of the last century, spiritualism was so popular that it attracted the attention of even American President Abraham Lincoln. Attending a session at the home of Mrs. Laurie and her daughter, Mrs. Miller, he witnessed Mrs. Miller playing the piano in a trance and dancing the instrument.
As she began to play, the front legs of the piano began to rise and fall in time with the music. One of the guests asked permission to sit on the piano to see if the piano actually moved by itself. The medium allowed everyone to sit on the instrument. One member of Congress, a judge, and two soldiers from Lincoln's escort checked out. Then Mrs. Miller resumed playing, and the piano continued to dance to the music.
A mountain of light … or darkness?
Two legends are fraught with the brilliance of the Koh-i-nor diamond - that its owner will rule the world and that a man should never wear it. Koh-i-nor means “mountain of light”. But at one time, the diamond caused terrible destruction in two great empires. He appeared among the treasures of the Mughal emperor Mohammed - and he was overthrown. And the Persian Shah - its new owner - died in a palace coup in 1747. A century later, the diamond was the brightest stone on the turban of the leader of the Sikhs, who did not tolerate women in their ranks, and their possessions were conquered by the British, headed by Queen Victoria. Since then, the diamond has adorned the crowns of the three queens of England. No British king ever wore it.
The healing powers of Padre Pio
If an ordinary person suddenly appears stigmata, that is, bloody sores of Christ on the body, then Catholics consider such cases as a miracle. An extremely remarkable case of stigmatism occurred in the city of Loggia, Italy. The Capuchin monk whose name was Pio not only had stigma on his legs and arms, not only a puncture wound in his side, he also had the ability to heal the sick with the touch of his hands. So he cured a nine-year-old hunchbacked boy who, after the monk put his bleeding hand on him, straightened up and lost his hump.
Padre Pio was born in 1887 and only at the age of 28 he felt pain in his arms, legs and in his side, but the doctors could not explain the reasons for their occurrence. Three years later, when he was praying in front of the altar, he suddenly fell to the ground, writhing in pain. After some time, the brothers in faith found him lying unconscious on the floor, blood flowing from his wounds. The monks understood that these were Christ's wounds.
Although Padre Pio was revered in Italy, and then throughout the world, he had to constantly meet with a skeptical attitude towards himself. One such skeptic, Dr. Richardi from the small town of San Giovanni Rotondo, in the Kompanias region, had a brain tumor. He didn't want the help of a healer. But when Padre Pio nevertheless came to the sick man, the completely exhausted man willingly agreed to receive healing. Soon the doctor was completely healthy.
Sumerian star maps
The Babylonians were famous for their astronomical knowledge, which they reached thousands of years before the Copernican scientific revolution in Europe. But now, judging by the recently translated Babylonian texts, it can be argued that this civilization only took over its vast knowledge from the previous, Sumerian. The Babylonians, apparently, only used their star charts, although they understood little in the calculations underlying them.
This means that the basis for our calendar was created 5 thousand years ago by the Sumerians, who, it seems, already knew that the planets are spherical and move around the Sun. Moreover, they knew that the Earth deviates from its own axis during rotation and this changes the position of the North Star. They calculated that this star takes about 26,000 years to return to its original position. But the most interesting thing is that they accurately calculated the distance between the stars, that is, they owned information that is especially important for modern astronauts. But why did the Sumerians, who apparently did not possess spacecraft, were interested in such information?
Pets predict earthquakes
The Chinese have known for a long time that animals sense the approach of earthquakes. They sense the changes in the Earth's magnetic field that precede the approaching disaster, become nervous and often try to hide: in Japan, goldfish tried to jump out of aquariums, in China, birds tried to escape from their cages.
Jim Burkland, chief geologist for Saint Clara County in California, is convinced of the Chinese method of predicting earthquakes, and he also had a cat that escaped before the earthquake. Berkland regularly reviews finds and disappearances in three major California newspapers. If the number of missing animals increases sharply, then perhaps an earthquake will soon occur. To the information about animals, he adds information about the activity of geysers and tides, as well as about the positions of the Sun and Moon, and bases his predictions of earthquakes on all this, while achieving an amazing accuracy - 82%.
Nikolai Nepomniachtchi