balalaikaboss:

The photo above is the closest humanity has ever come to creating Medusa. 

If you were to look at this, you would die instantly. End of story.

The image is of a reactor core lava formation in the basement of the Chernobyl nuclear plant. It’s called the Elephant’s Foot and weighs hundreds of tons, but is only a couple meters across.

Oh, and regarding the Medusa thing? This picture was taken through a mirror around the corner of the hallway. Because the wheeled camera they sent up to take pictures of it was destroyed by the radiation. 

“Puma Man he flies like a moron”

 - Mystery Science Theatre 3000

This painting is of a story in Pliny where Cleopatra bet Marcus Antonius that she could stage a more lavish feast. At the end of the meal Cleopatra took off her pearl earring, dropped it into a glass of vinegar and drank it, winning the bet.  

It is currently in the National Gallery of Victoria. 

Batter my heart, three-person’d God, for you
As yet but knock, breathe, shine, and seek to mend;
That I may rise and stand, o’erthrow me, and bend
Your force to break, blow, burn, and make me new.
I, like an usurp’d town to’another due,
Labor to’admit you, but oh, to no end;
Reason, your viceroy in me, me should defend,
But is captiv’d, and proves weak or untrue.
Yet dearly’I love you, and would be lov’d fain,
But am betroth’d unto your enemy;
Divorce me, ‘untie or break that knot again,
Take me to you, imprison me, for I,
Except you’enthrall me, never shall be free,
Nor ever chaste, except you ravish me.

- John Donne

I love this poem.

regndoft:

The Middle Ages was a very exciting time in Europe.

They had different problems to us. 

mewstew:

jimsgayunderwear:

Lt Colonel Fighting Jack Churchill, aka Mad Jack

• fought throughout WW2 with a longbow and a broadsword
• was also known to bring bagpipes
• he volunteered for the Commandos, not because he knew what they did but “because it sounds dangerous”
• he crawled out of a concentration camp
• about the end of WW2, he commented “If it wasn’t for those damn Yanks, we could have kept the war going another 10 years.”
• atta boy

dear god

slaar:

The siege of Alessia is so interesting, and Vercengeterix, on top of uniting the Gauls against the Romans, had a badass mustache. It’s featured on his statue, too.

fuldagap:

The Buzludzha Monument was constructed in 1981 to commemorate the founding of the Bulgarian Socialist movement nearly a century before, but it now stands as a symbol of its failure.

pyrrhiccomedy:

The Black Death in Norway

The population of Norway was at least halved during the Plague. Some figures put the death toll as high as 70%. Nearly the entire clergy was wiped out; only one bishop survived. Old Norse died out because there were so few people left who knew how to speak it. And Norway was so weakened politically by deaths among the nobility that it was forced into a union with Sweden and Denmark, after which it remained under the Danish crown for 400 years.

According to Norwegian folklore, the Plague was an old woman who went from farm to farm. Where she used the rake, some survived; but where she used the broom, everybody died.