Comment on 10 Insane Rides From The World’s Most Dangerous Amusement Park by 10 Insane Rides From The World’s Most Dangerous Amusement Park | Kronosim/must visit

History March 29, 2014

Creepy Kier Harris April 1, 2014

Action Park in New Jersey was one of the first water parks, back in the lawless era that was the 1980s. As a result, a lot of the rides were experimental at best. At the time, there was little to no regulation on water attractions—they were just too new. Because of this, Action Park got away with pretty much whatever they wanted to do, even with their non-water attractions. Most of these rides were little more than death traps that laughed in the face of safety. Add to that drunken guests (and some workers), apathetic (and sometimes stoned) teenage ride operators, and a general sense of recklessness, and you have a recipe for injuries. Lots of injuries.

Some things just don’t go together, and while loops and roller coasters are the best of friends, we’re pretty sure that waterslides and loops have restraining orders against each other. Apparently, the engineers of Action Park never got this message (or their engineering degrees, for that matter) and built the flagship of stupidity called “The Cannonball Loop.”

It was exactly what it looks like: a waterslide with a loop at the end of it. While it doesn’t seem physically possible to make it through, the slide was an operating attraction at Action Park—for about a month. After that, the state mandated that it be closed down, probably for being the most hilariously unsafe ride ever created.

Everything about the Cannonball Loop was a safety hazard. There was a legitimate chance of not clearing the loop. In fact, that happened so many times that the park had to install a hatch at the bottom of the loop so people could actually get out if they didn’t make it. Not that those who made it fared much better—bruises, bloody noses, and cracked craniums weren’t uncommon. Some patrons didn’t gather enough speed to “stick” to the loop the whole way around and fell 3 meters (10 ft) on the downward half. Guests were actually hosed down with water in the hopes it would help them build up enough speed.

Another issue was the sand and dirt that would build up at the bottom of the loop and horribly scratch people’s backs as they zoomed onward toward loopification. There wasn’t even a pool waiting at the end of this unholy terror—the slide unceremoniously dumped those who conquered the loop onto a wet rubber mat. It’s rumored that they first tested the slide with crash test dummies—and that they came out the other end dismembered. However, we know that park employees were offered $100 to test it out. After the ride was closed, it wasn’t dismantled until the park changed hands in 1996. Until then, it stood in its place at the front of the park, warning all guests of the horrors that lurked within Action Park.

In a contest of “things we probably shouldn’t make a slide out of,” Aqua Scoot is the clear winner. This “slide” was made entirely of metal rollers, like the ones that they use to slide luggage on in airports. Riders hopped on a plastic sled, and rode down the rollers into a shallow pool below. The water in the pool was only about 30 centimeters (12 in) deep, and the idea was that the sled would hit the pool and skim across the water’s surface.

There were a couple of problems, though. First of all, you had to be sitting in the correct position for the sled to go skimming across the water. If you weren’t and happened to be lucky, the sled just sank when you hit the water. If you were unlucky, the sled took a nosedive and flung you face-first into the incredibly shallow water, which resulted in a bunch of lacerations. There were also reports of people pinching themselves on the rollers, because they’re rollers and not a material you’re supposed to use to make slides, as well as people getting smacked with other revelers coming out of the slide after them.

The “Grave Pool” is the local nickname that was attributed to Action Park’s wave pool. It was one of the first of it’s kind, and because state regulations defined it as a pool, the only thing Action Park was required to do was keep the water clean and have lifeguards on duty. There was always a minimum of 12 guards, and sometimes, there were as many as 20. On a busy weekend, the guards would make as many as 30 saves in the pool, as opposed to the average one or two per season that a guard anywhere else can expect to make.

Most of the park’s deaths (there were three in total) were a result of people drowning in the wave pool. A lot of accidents and near-drownings were attributed to a combination of the pool’s design, which had waves higher than they should have been that lasted much longer than they should have, and the fact that most of the park-goers were from the city, where they didn’t get much swimming experience. It was also easy for people to forget that the freshwater waves weren’t nearly as buoyant as real ocean waves.

In theory, the Tarzan Swing wasn’t a bad idea. It was a 6-meter (20 ft) cable hanging from a steel arch that straddled a deep pool. Guests would stand on a platform, swing on the cable out over the pool, and then drop into the water. There were some design flaws, though. For one, the water was spring-fed, and because of that, it was freezing—significantly colder than the water in the rest of the park. The Tarzan Swing claims one of Action Park’s few non-wave pool deaths: A man died of a heart attack after entering the pool, presumably from shock because of the cold water.

The far side of the pool was bordered by the natural embankment, which was certainly within swinging range. Not to worry, though—the park decided to put a thin foam mat over the lower portion of it, making it virtually impossible for anyone to injure themselves by colliding with the bank, we promise.

Another big flaw in the design was that the zip line doubled back in the direction the line came from in such a way that the zip line was in full view of the entire line. A lot of riders would suddenly realize that they had an audience and perform reckless stunts like backflips, shout obscenities, or even display “body parts” to the onlookers. Remarkably, the Tarzan Swing is still in operation today.

The Kayak Experience was one of the more tame rides in Action Park. Riders got their own kayak and navigated it down a roughly straight slope with underwater fans that simulated real rapids. The worst thing you had to worry about was your kayak tipping over and having to get out and flip it back over. Oh, and of course, death by electrocution.

Toward the end of the Kayak Experience’s operation, a young man’s kayak flipped. When he got out to fix it, he stepped on some exposed wiring for one of the fans, which shocked him to death. Two of his nearby family members were also electrocuted, but they survived. The official coroner’s report said that the cause of death was cardiac arrest due to electrocution, but Action Park officials denied any responsibility. An investigation determined that the park hadn’t violated any regulations, but remember, there were few of those to begin with at the time.

Action Park drained the Kayak Experience and never reopened it after the incident, saying that guests would “always be intimidated by it.” A bit of a strange move, considering the park claimed the ride wasn’t responsible for killing him.

For a couple of years, Action Park had an obstacle course and jousting competitions inspired by the show American Gladiator. For the jousting portion, guests would compete against a “gladiator” (read: musclebound Action Park employee) and attempt to knock them off a 1-meter (3 ft) pedestal into the pool below. A metal pedestal. A wet, slippery metal pedestal. If they succeeded in not being bludgeoned to death by the gladiator, they were rewarded with the chance to be bludgeoned by the biggest gladiator, called “the Titan,” on a 2-meter (6 ft) pedestal. All of this was done in front of crowds of guests, of course, to sate their bloodlust.

And the park didn’t survey current employees to select its gladiators. No one said “Hey, Johnny, you look strong. Take this oversize cotton swab and go knock some guests off some poles.” No, instead, they surveyed a bunch of local gyms to find the biggest, strongest guys they could and told them not to hold back. On top of that, the events had an announcer who would perform commentary and make fun of guests who were outclassed by the gladiators.

You’ve probably seen an attraction similar to Surf Hill at almost every water park you’ve ever been to. It was a large waterslide that was split into a bunch of side-by-side lanes, and riders would race each other on mats to the bottom. Because it was one of the first slides of its kind, though, they still hadn’t ironed all of the kinks out. The dividers between lanes weren’t high enough, and it was very easy to jump lanes. The seventh lane also had one section that dropped off a bit faster than the others, making it easy to get air. On breaks, park employees would make a habit of sitting at the cafe at the base of the slide because it was almost guaranteed they’d see a wipeout or lost bikini top.

Once riders reached the bottom, they found themselves choosing the worst of two evils. You see, there wasn’t room at the bottom for the typical long, straight stretch that modern versions of these slides use to slow down. Instead, there was a water-filled basin that curved up to form a padded wall opposite the slide. If you went too slowly, you dropped into the basin, and your mat slapped you in the face. But if you went too fast, you slid up the curved wall and fell backward into the basin.

Geronimo Falls was Action Park’s take on speed slides. But there was a catch: The incline was far more steep than most speed slides today. It was so steep that the first portion of the slide was enclosed because riders would frequently come off of the slide at the top, and the enclosure forced them back down onto the slide instead of plummeting to the ground below. There was a metal bar that guests would hang from with their feet out over the edge of the slide and let themselves drop out onto it. Were they supposed to do this? Probably not, but it was a frequent occurrence. Riders could reach speeds of nearly 100 kilometers per hour (60 mph) on the way down.

When the park changed ownership, the slides that made up Geronimo Falls were dismantled, and a new green speed slide (called H2 Oh No!) with a lesser incline was installed in their place.

Another worthy contender in our “please don’t make slides out of this, what are you even thinking?” contest is the Alpine Slide, which was a luge-like ride with a track made from fiberglass and concrete. Riders sat in tiny plastic carts and zipped down the hill at breakneck speed. The carts had brakes that allowed riders to control their speed, but they were notorious for not working. Without brakes, it was a challenge to keep the cart from sailing off the tracks—and many people failed that challenge.

This ride lead to so many cuts, scrapes, bumps, bruises, lacerations, and crying children that it’s impossible to keep count of how many poor souls wiped out on this monstrosity. There are more personal accounts of people losing skin on this attraction than any amusement park ride should boast, and this problem was made even worse by the fact that Action Park is a water park. People had a habit of going down in their bathing suits.

It also became the site of the park’s first death when an employee’s cart flew off the tracks and ricocheted off a hay bale (which was put there for safety, ironically), which parted him from his cart. He tumbled down an embankment and fatally slammed his head against a rock.

The tracks took up so much of the hill that riders took a ski lift to go down the slide, and the ski lift went right over the tracks. This led to guests on the lift spitting and hurling insults down at the riders below on a regular basis. Despite all of this, it was the park’s most popular ride, and a park official went so far as to claim it was “the safest ride there is.” The Alpine Slide was torn down when the park changed hands, but you can still see the path it used to take on the ground below the lift.

At its core, Tank Tag seems like some good, clean fun, and for the guests of Action Park, it probably was. But for the workers, it was literally the worst station in the park to be posted.

Think of the ride like most bumper cars, with riders in a relatively small fenced in area, but the bumper cars are tanks, and the tanks are armed with tennis ball cannons. The perimeter of the enclosure was lined with mounted tennis ball cannons that other park visitors could pay money to fire at the tanks.

Every now and then, one of the tanks would stall out, requiring one of the workers to run out and start it back up. Despite countless signs posted to dissuade this very thing, the park employees (who were totally unarmed and unprotected) would suddenly become everyone’s target and get pelted with tennis balls. Talk about a stressful work environment.

Kier is a writer at Listverse and Cracked.com, and when he isn’t doing that stuff, he’s tobogganing down a cement ditch and ramping through a ring of fire. It was awesome. You should’ve been there.

View the original article here

Comment on 10 Insane Rides From The World’s Most Dangerous Amusement Park by 10 Insane Rides From The World’s Most Dangerous Amusement Park - Trneng/must visit

History March 29, 2014

Creepy Kier Harris April 1, 2014

Action Park in New Jersey was one of the first water parks, back in the lawless era that was the 1980s. As a result, a lot of the rides were experimental at best. At the time, there was little to no regulation on water attractions—they were just too new. Because of this, Action Park got away with pretty much whatever they wanted to do, even with their non-water attractions. Most of these rides were little more than death traps that laughed in the face of safety. Add to that drunken guests (and some workers), apathetic (and sometimes stoned) teenage ride operators, and a general sense of recklessness, and you have a recipe for injuries. Lots of injuries.

Some things just don’t go together, and while loops and roller coasters are the best of friends, we’re pretty sure that waterslides and loops have restraining orders against each other. Apparently, the engineers of Action Park never got this message (or their engineering degrees, for that matter) and built the flagship of stupidity called “The Cannonball Loop.”

It was exactly what it looks like: a waterslide with a loop at the end of it. While it doesn’t seem physically possible to make it through, the slide was an operating attraction at Action Park—for about a month. After that, the state mandated that it be closed down, probably for being the most hilariously unsafe ride ever created.

Everything about the Cannonball Loop was a safety hazard. There was a legitimate chance of not clearing the loop. In fact, that happened so many times that the park had to install a hatch at the bottom of the loop so people could actually get out if they didn’t make it. Not that those who made it fared much better—bruises, bloody noses, and cracked craniums weren’t uncommon. Some patrons didn’t gather enough speed to “stick” to the loop the whole way around and fell 3 meters (10 ft) on the downward half. Guests were actually hosed down with water in the hopes it would help them build up enough speed.

Another issue was the sand and dirt that would build up at the bottom of the loop and horribly scratch people’s backs as they zoomed onward toward loopification. There wasn’t even a pool waiting at the end of this unholy terror—the slide unceremoniously dumped those who conquered the loop onto a wet rubber mat. It’s rumored that they first tested the slide with crash test dummies—and that they came out the other end dismembered. However, we know that park employees were offered $100 to test it out. After the ride was closed, it wasn’t dismantled until the park changed hands in 1996. Until then, it stood in its place at the front of the park, warning all guests of the horrors that lurked within Action Park.

In a contest of “things we probably shouldn’t make a slide out of,” Aqua Scoot is the clear winner. This “slide” was made entirely of metal rollers, like the ones that they use to slide luggage on in airports. Riders hopped on a plastic sled, and rode down the rollers into a shallow pool below. The water in the pool was only about 30 centimeters (12 in) deep, and the idea was that the sled would hit the pool and skim across the water’s surface.

There were a couple of problems, though. First of all, you had to be sitting in the correct position for the sled to go skimming across the water. If you weren’t and happened to be lucky, the sled just sank when you hit the water. If you were unlucky, the sled took a nosedive and flung you face-first into the incredibly shallow water, which resulted in a bunch of lacerations. There were also reports of people pinching themselves on the rollers, because they’re rollers and not a material you’re supposed to use to make slides, as well as people getting smacked with other revelers coming out of the slide after them.

The “Grave Pool” is the local nickname that was attributed to Action Park’s wave pool. It was one of the first of it’s kind, and because state regulations defined it as a pool, the only thing Action Park was required to do was keep the water clean and have lifeguards on duty. There was always a minimum of 12 guards, and sometimes, there were as many as 20. On a busy weekend, the guards would make as many as 30 saves in the pool, as opposed to the average one or two per season that a guard anywhere else can expect to make.

Most of the park’s deaths (there were three in total) were a result of people drowning in the wave pool. A lot of accidents and near-drownings were attributed to a combination of the pool’s design, which had waves higher than they should have been that lasted much longer than they should have, and the fact that most of the park-goers were from the city, where they didn’t get much swimming experience. It was also easy for people to forget that the freshwater waves weren’t nearly as buoyant as real ocean waves.

In theory, the Tarzan Swing wasn’t a bad idea. It was a 6-meter (20 ft) cable hanging from a steel arch that straddled a deep pool. Guests would stand on a platform, swing on the cable out over the pool, and then drop into the water. There were some design flaws, though. For one, the water was spring-fed, and because of that, it was freezing—significantly colder than the water in the rest of the park. The Tarzan Swing claims one of Action Park’s few non-wave pool deaths: A man died of a heart attack after entering the pool, presumably from shock because of the cold water.

The far side of the pool was bordered by the natural embankment, which was certainly within swinging range. Not to worry, though—the park decided to put a thin foam mat over the lower portion of it, making it virtually impossible for anyone to injure themselves by colliding with the bank, we promise.

Another big flaw in the design was that the zip line doubled back in the direction the line came from in such a way that the zip line was in full view of the entire line. A lot of riders would suddenly realize that they had an audience and perform reckless stunts like backflips, shout obscenities, or even display “body parts” to the onlookers. Remarkably, the Tarzan Swing is still in operation today.

The Kayak Experience was one of the more tame rides in Action Park. Riders got their own kayak and navigated it down a roughly straight slope with underwater fans that simulated real rapids. The worst thing you had to worry about was your kayak tipping over and having to get out and flip it back over. Oh, and of course, death by electrocution.

Toward the end of the Kayak Experience’s operation, a young man’s kayak flipped. When he got out to fix it, he stepped on some exposed wiring for one of the fans, which shocked him to death. Two of his nearby family members were also electrocuted, but they survived. The official coroner’s report said that the cause of death was cardiac arrest due to electrocution, but Action Park officials denied any responsibility. An investigation determined that the park hadn’t violated any regulations, but remember, there were few of those to begin with at the time.

Action Park drained the Kayak Experience and never reopened it after the incident, saying that guests would “always be intimidated by it.” A bit of a strange move, considering the park claimed the ride wasn’t responsible for killing him.

For a couple of years, Action Park had an obstacle course and jousting competitions inspired by the show American Gladiator. For the jousting portion, guests would compete against a “gladiator” (read: musclebound Action Park employee) and attempt to knock them off a 1-meter (3 ft) pedestal into the pool below. A metal pedestal. A wet, slippery metal pedestal. If they succeeded in not being bludgeoned to death by the gladiator, they were rewarded with the chance to be bludgeoned by the biggest gladiator, called “the Titan,” on a 2-meter (6 ft) pedestal. All of this was done in front of crowds of guests, of course, to sate their bloodlust.

And the park didn’t survey current employees to select its gladiators. No one said “Hey, Johnny, you look strong. Take this oversize cotton swab and go knock some guests off some poles.” No, instead, they surveyed a bunch of local gyms to find the biggest, strongest guys they could and told them not to hold back. On top of that, the events had an announcer who would perform commentary and make fun of guests who were outclassed by the gladiators.

You’ve probably seen an attraction similar to Surf Hill at almost every water park you’ve ever been to. It was a large waterslide that was split into a bunch of side-by-side lanes, and riders would race each other on mats to the bottom. Because it was one of the first slides of its kind, though, they still hadn’t ironed all of the kinks out. The dividers between lanes weren’t high enough, and it was very easy to jump lanes. The seventh lane also had one section that dropped off a bit faster than the others, making it easy to get air. On breaks, park employees would make a habit of sitting at the cafe at the base of the slide because it was almost guaranteed they’d see a wipeout or lost bikini top.

Once riders reached the bottom, they found themselves choosing the worst of two evils. You see, there wasn’t room at the bottom for the typical long, straight stretch that modern versions of these slides use to slow down. Instead, there was a water-filled basin that curved up to form a padded wall opposite the slide. If you went too slowly, you dropped into the basin, and your mat slapped you in the face. But if you went too fast, you slid up the curved wall and fell backward into the basin.

Geronimo Falls was Action Park’s take on speed slides. But there was a catch: The incline was far more steep than most speed slides today. It was so steep that the first portion of the slide was enclosed because riders would frequently come off of the slide at the top, and the enclosure forced them back down onto the slide instead of plummeting to the ground below. There was a metal bar that guests would hang from with their feet out over the edge of the slide and let themselves drop out onto it. Were they supposed to do this? Probably not, but it was a frequent occurrence. Riders could reach speeds of nearly 100 kilometers per hour (60 mph) on the way down.

When the park changed ownership, the slides that made up Geronimo Falls were dismantled, and a new green speed slide (called H2 Oh No!) with a lesser incline was installed in their place.

Another worthy contender in our “please don’t make slides out of this, what are you even thinking?” contest is the Alpine Slide, which was a luge-like ride with a track made from fiberglass and concrete. Riders sat in tiny plastic carts and zipped down the hill at breakneck speed. The carts had brakes that allowed riders to control their speed, but they were notorious for not working. Without brakes, it was a challenge to keep the cart from sailing off the tracks—and many people failed that challenge.

This ride lead to so many cuts, scrapes, bumps, bruises, lacerations, and crying children that it’s impossible to keep count of how many poor souls wiped out on this monstrosity. There are more personal accounts of people losing skin on this attraction than any amusement park ride should boast, and this problem was made even worse by the fact that Action Park is a water park. People had a habit of going down in their bathing suits.

It also became the site of the park’s first death when an employee’s cart flew off the tracks and ricocheted off a hay bale (which was put there for safety, ironically), which parted him from his cart. He tumbled down an embankment and fatally slammed his head against a rock.

The tracks took up so much of the hill that riders took a ski lift to go down the slide, and the ski lift went right over the tracks. This led to guests on the lift spitting and hurling insults down at the riders below on a regular basis. Despite all of this, it was the park’s most popular ride, and a park official went so far as to claim it was “the safest ride there is.” The Alpine Slide was torn down when the park changed hands, but you can still see the path it used to take on the ground below the lift.

At its core, Tank Tag seems like some good, clean fun, and for the guests of Action Park, it probably was. But for the workers, it was literally the worst station in the park to be posted.

Think of the ride like most bumper cars, with riders in a relatively small fenced in area, but the bumper cars are tanks, and the tanks are armed with tennis ball cannons. The perimeter of the enclosure was lined with mounted tennis ball cannons that other park visitors could pay money to fire at the tanks.

Every now and then, one of the tanks would stall out, requiring one of the workers to run out and start it back up. Despite countless signs posted to dissuade this very thing, the park employees (who were totally unarmed and unprotected) would suddenly become everyone’s target and get pelted with tennis balls. Talk about a stressful work environment.

Kier is a writer at Listverse and Cracked.com, and when he isn’t doing that stuff, he’s tobogganing down a cement ditch and ramping through a ring of fire. It was awesome. You should’ve been there.

View the original article here

Comment on 10 Of The World’s Greatest Lost Treasures by 10 Of The World’s Greatest Lost Treasures - ratermob - ratermob/must visit

 

The Copper Scroll is one of the 981 texts found at Khirbet Qumran between 1946 and 1956, collectively known as the Dead Sea Scrolls. It holds special significance to Indiana Jones–hopefuls because it purports to be a treasure map. Written on very thin sheets of rolled-up copper, it is the only document found at Khirbet Qumran not written on either parchment or papyrus. In addition, the Hebrew which is inscribed onto it differs from that of the other scrolls. It is of a sort which was more commonly used hundreds of years later.

The Copper Scroll mentions over 60 different locations, with varied amounts of gold and silver said to be buried or hidden at each of them. It is often highly specific, with directions such as “in the gutter which is in the bottom of the rain-water tank . . . ”

No evidence, other than the scroll itself, has ever been found to indicate the existence of these hoards, but that hasn’t stopped a number of people from leading expeditions to find them. Some scholars believe it’s more than likely that the Romans already found all of treasure, as they had a habit of torturing captives in order to find their secret stashes.

While most people are familiar with William Shakespeare’s famous lost play Love’s Labour’s Won, a less well-known, yet equally sought-after play is The History of Cardenio. Written by Shakespeare and John Fletcher, a man he also collaborated with on Henry VIII and Two Noble Kinsmen, the play was centered on a character in Miguel de Cervantes’ epic novel Don Quixote. Evidence of the play exists in a few places, including a list of the plays to be performed by the King’s Men (Shakespeare’s acting company) in May 1613.

However, the manuscript for the play was lost and never seen again. In the 18th century, Lewis Theobald, a Shakespeare editor and playwright, claimed to have found a copy of the manuscript and “improved” on it, turning it into a play known as Double Falsehood. The manuscript Theobald claimed to have was placed in London’s Covent Garden Playhouse, which burned to the ground in the early 19th century. Whether or not Theobald was telling the truth (and some scholars maintain that he was), we still don’t have the unadulterated version from the greatest playwright who ever lived.

Often described as the Leonardo da Vinci of ancient Greece, Archimedes was a brilliant inventor, best known for shouting “Eureka!” and running naked through Syracuse. Aside from public indecency, he also had a flair for invention, which resulted in a device known as a “planetarium.” Basically a sphere which showed the movements of the sun, moon, and planets as viewed from Earth, Archimedes’s planetarium was unmatched in its mechanical intricacy. None are known to have survived, though a device known as the Antikythera mechanism is believed to be closely related.

Very few details of how to construct the inventions of Archimedes were ever written down, as he didn’t like to bother himself with recording mundane things. However, he made an exception for his planetarium, believing it helped people understand the heavens and, therefore, the divine. The intricacies of his design, mechanical gears which rivaled modern clockwork and wouldn’t be seen again for over a thousand years, were all meticulously detailed in his work On Sphere-Making. Unfortunately, all we know of the book itself is writings from other authors, such as the Greek mathematician Pappus.

What list of lost treasures would be complete without a little piracy? Allegedly stashed on the uninhabited Cocos Island (located off the shore of Costa Rica) is a treasure rumored to be worth almost US$300 million. The haul consists of “113 gold religious statues, a life-size Virgin Mary, 200 chests of jewels, 273 swords with jeweled hilts, 1,000 diamonds, solid gold crowns, 150 chalices and hundreds of gold and silver bars,” according to the original inventory—all riches accumulated by the Catholic Church during its time in South America. It was originally given to a British trader named William Thompson for safekeeping. Church officials wanted him to sail around for a few months until the revolutions which had flared up all around Spain’s colonies cooled off.

Unfortunately for the Catholic Church, it was too much of a temptation for Thompson and his men, who killed the guard in charge of watching over the treasure and sailed to Cocos Island. They allegedly buried all the riches, intending to come back later after the heat had died down. But their ship was intercepted by Spanish officials—the crew, save for Thompson and his first mate, were hung for piracy. In return for clemency, Thompson agreed to lead officials to the treasure, but fled into the jungle as soon as he arrived and he, as well as the treasure, was never seen again.

One of the earliest examples of a transitional fossil (in this case, between a dinosaur and a bird), Archaeopteryx has long been hailed as an important find, both in the fields of paleontology and ornithology. Only 11 relatively complete fossils have ever been found, making each one extremely valuable. The Maxberg Specimen was discovered in 1956 by two men working at a quarry in Germany, which was owned by a man named Eduard Opitsch. At the time, it was only the third Archaeopteryx specimen found. He lent it to the nearby Maxberg Museum for study.

Initially intending to sell it, Opitsch balked when he learned he would have to pay taxes on it. He removed it from the museum and returned it to his house, where it stayed hidden until his death. Afterward, his nephew tried to find it but was unable to; it is presumed to have been stolen in the days following Opitsch’s death. If it is ever found, scientists believe recent technological advancements might allow them to find out even more about the fossil, as it was never properly cleaned.

(The photo above is of the Munich Specimen, likely a juvenile. It was discovered in 1992.)

On June 30, 1520, Hernan Cortés and his troops were trapped in the capital of Tenochtitlan, surrounded by a furious Aztec population who had just seen their leader killed. (Spanish accounts say that the Aztecs killed him themselves.) In the dead of night, Cortés and his men attempted to escape the city, loaded up with immeasurable amounts of treasure, pilfered during their time in the Aztec capital. However, they were spotted by guards, who raised the alarm, and intense fighting commenced. As many as half of the Spanish troops were killed during the escape.

On what came to be known as La Noche Triste (“The Night of Sorrows”), Cortés lost more than just men and ammunition; he also lost much of the looted treasure. Believed to have been retrieved by the Aztec population in the days that followed, it was said to have been buried in the hills in the surrounding area to keep it from prying Spanish eyes. When Cortés and his men, flush with native volunteers, came back to the city, they questioned all refugees about the treasure but were unable to ever find a trace of it. As much as half of the greatest hoard of treasure ever accumulated in the Americas may still be out there.

One of the most revolutionary artists of the 20th century, French-American Marcel Duchamp is probably best known for his work Fountain, which was created in 1917. With a desire to challenge what could be considered art, as well as how people value it, he created “readymades,” pieces of artwork that were simply items Duchamp had found lying around somewhere. Fountain was the epitome of this style. It was an ordinary urinal, turned on its side, signed with the pseudonym R. Mutt. Duchamp was already quite famous by this stage and didn’t want audience preconceptions affecting the acceptance of the piece.

It was created for the exhibition of the Society of Independent Artists in 1917 and was actually rejected by the committee, who disregarded the fact they were supposed to accept all submitted pieces. (Duchamp actually resigned from the committee in protest.) Duchamp had his friends try and drum up some support by taking pictures and writing articles about the work, but the original ended up lost, never to be seen again. It was most likely thrown out by Duchamp’s photographer friend Alfred Stieglitz. Any existing examples of Fountain , including the one pictured, are artist-authorized reproductions, commissioned later by Duchamp for various reasons.

One of the most important palaeontological finds in human history was a number of skulls discovered in China in the 1920s. They were believed to have belonged to hominids which lived over 500,000 years ago: Homo erectus pekinensis, otherwise known as Peking Man. It is likely the protohumans were killed by ancient lion-sized hyenas, as they were found in what appears to have been the animal’s den. Housed in Peking (Beijing) after being uncovered, they unfortunately became one of the many cultural casualties of World War II.

In September 1941, as tensions in China were escalating, Hu Chengzhi, the lead researcher on the skulls, loaded them onto a ship which was sailing to the US. However, they are generally thought to have been lost at sea, either on a Chinese or American ship which was sunk by the Japanese. (Some far-fetched theories posit that the skulls were ground up as traditional Chinese medicine.) Various attempts at locating the remains have been undertaken, but they have all proved unsuccessful.

Its full name is Kusanagi no Tsurugi, which translates to “Grass-Cutting Sword,” and it is one part of a trio of artifacts collectively known as the Imperial Regalia of Japan. Used during a semi-religious ascension ritual which takes place each time a new emperor is crowned, the sword is seen as a symbol of the new ruler’s legitimacy and has been allegedly given to each one for over a thousand years.

The original is commonly believed to be housed in Atsuta Shrine in Nagoya and a copy of the sword is what has been used in its place. However, the real original has been lost, sunk to the bottom of the ocean during a battle in the 12th century, making the one used today a copy of a copy. The sword plays a large role in Japanese mythology and was said to have been found in the body of an eight-headed serpent slain by the storm god Susanoo.

Kusanagi no Tsurugi represents the virtue of valor. The other two artifacts that make up the Imperial Regalia of Japan are the mirror Yata no Kagami, which represents wisdom, and the jewel Yasakani no Magatama, which represents benevolence.

Often referred to as “The Lost Leonardo,” The Battle of Anghiari is a painting depicting four horsemen in armed combat during the Battle of Anghiari in 1440. Originally planned for the Hall of the Five Hundred, the meeting chamber of the victorious Florentine forces, da Vinci began the painting in 1505. It was going to be the largest he had ever done. Unfortunately, the technical problems which had also plagued The Last Supper overwhelmed da Vinci, and he abandoned the project.

In the years that followed, another painter, Giorgio Vasari, was commissioned to paint a new mural (The Battle of Marciano, pictured) in the same location, and The Battle of Anghiari was lost to history.

However, recent scholars have found compelling evidence to suggest it is still intact underneath Vasari’s mural and that it may have been intentionally saved by Vasari. Some even believe that it was completed and Vasari made up the story of it being left partially finished in order to paint over it. Work has stopped as of today, with local politicians, as well as art historians, hesitant to potentially damage Vasari’s work (a masterpiece in its own right), leaving the possible discovery of da Vinci’s painting in limbo.

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The Copper Scroll is one of the 981 texts found at Khirbet Qumran between 1946 and 1956, collectively known as the Dead Sea Scrolls. It holds special significance to Indiana Jones–hopefuls because it purports to be a treasure map. Written on very thin sheets of rolled-up copper, it is the only document found at Khirbet Qumran not written on either parchment or papyrus. In addition, the Hebrew which is inscribed onto it differs from that of the other scrolls. It is of a sort which was more commonly used hundreds of years later.

The Copper Scroll mentions over 60 different locations, with varied amounts of gold and silver said to be buried or hidden at each of them. It is often highly specific, with directions such as “in the gutter which is in the bottom of the rain-water tank . . . ”

No evidence, other than the scroll itself, has ever been found to indicate the existence of these hoards, but that hasn’t stopped a number of people from leading expeditions to find them. Some scholars believe it’s more than likely that the Romans already found all of treasure, as they had a habit of torturing captives in order to find their secret stashes.

While most people are familiar with William Shakespeare’s famous lost play Love’s Labour’s Won, a less well-known, yet equally sought-after play is The History of Cardenio. Written by Shakespeare and John Fletcher, a man he also collaborated with on Henry VIII and Two Noble Kinsmen, the play was centered on a character in Miguel de Cervantes’ epic novel Don Quixote. Evidence of the play exists in a few places, including a list of the plays to be performed by the King’s Men (Shakespeare’s acting company) in May 1613.

However, the manuscript for the play was lost and never seen again. In the 18th century, Lewis Theobald, a Shakespeare editor and playwright, claimed to have found a copy of the manuscript and “improved” on it, turning it into a play known as Double Falsehood. The manuscript Theobald claimed to have was placed in London’s Covent Garden Playhouse, which burned to the ground in the early 19th century. Whether or not Theobald was telling the truth (and some scholars maintain that he was), we still don’t have the unadulterated version from the greatest playwright who ever lived.

Often described as the Leonardo da Vinci of ancient Greece, Archimedes was a brilliant inventor, best known for shouting “Eureka!” and running naked through Syracuse. Aside from public indecency, he also had a flair for invention, which resulted in a device known as a “planetarium.” Basically a sphere which showed the movements of the sun, moon, and planets as viewed from Earth, Archimedes’s planetarium was unmatched in its mechanical intricacy. None are known to have survived, though a device known as the Antikythera mechanism is believed to be closely related.

Very few details of how to construct the inventions of Archimedes were ever written down, as he didn’t like to bother himself with recording mundane things. However, he made an exception for his planetarium, believing it helped people understand the heavens and, therefore, the divine. The intricacies of his design, mechanical gears which rivaled modern clockwork and wouldn’t be seen again for over a thousand years, were all meticulously detailed in his work On Sphere-Making. Unfortunately, all we know of the book itself is writings from other authors, such as the Greek mathematician Pappus.

What list of lost treasures would be complete without a little piracy? Allegedly stashed on the uninhabited Cocos Island (located off the shore of Costa Rica) is a treasure rumored to be worth almost US$300 million. The haul consists of “113 gold religious statues, a life-size Virgin Mary, 200 chests of jewels, 273 swords with jeweled hilts, 1,000 diamonds, solid gold crowns, 150 chalices and hundreds of gold and silver bars,” according to the original inventory—all riches accumulated by the Catholic Church during its time in South America. It was originally given to a British trader named William Thompson for safekeeping. Church officials wanted him to sail around for a few months until the revolutions which had flared up all around Spain’s colonies cooled off.

Unfortunately for the Catholic Church, it was too much of a temptation for Thompson and his men, who killed the guard in charge of watching over the treasure and sailed to Cocos Island. They allegedly buried all the riches, intending to come back later after the heat had died down. But their ship was intercepted by Spanish officials—the crew, save for Thompson and his first mate, were hung for piracy. In return for clemency, Thompson agreed to lead officials to the treasure, but fled into the jungle as soon as he arrived and he, as well as the treasure, was never seen again.

One of the earliest examples of a transitional fossil (in this case, between a dinosaur and a bird), Archaeopteryx has long been hailed as an important find, both in the fields of paleontology and ornithology. Only 11 relatively complete fossils have ever been found, making each one extremely valuable. The Maxberg Specimen was discovered in 1956 by two men working at a quarry in Germany, which was owned by a man named Eduard Opitsch. At the time, it was only the third Archaeopteryx specimen found. He lent it to the nearby Maxberg Museum for study.

Initially intending to sell it, Opitsch balked when he learned he would have to pay taxes on it. He removed it from the museum and returned it to his house, where it stayed hidden until his death. Afterward, his nephew tried to find it but was unable to; it is presumed to have been stolen in the days following Opitsch’s death. If it is ever found, scientists believe recent technological advancements might allow them to find out even more about the fossil, as it was never properly cleaned.

(The photo above is of the Munich Specimen, likely a juvenile. It was discovered in 1992.)

On June 30, 1520, Hernan Cortés and his troops were trapped in the capital of Tenochtitlan, surrounded by a furious Aztec population who had just seen their leader killed. (Spanish accounts say that the Aztecs killed him themselves.) In the dead of night, Cortés and his men attempted to escape the city, loaded up with immeasurable amounts of treasure, pilfered during their time in the Aztec capital. However, they were spotted by guards, who raised the alarm, and intense fighting commenced. As many as half of the Spanish troops were killed during the escape.

On what came to be known as La Noche Triste (“The Night of Sorrows”), Cortés lost more than just men and ammunition; he also lost much of the looted treasure. Believed to have been retrieved by the Aztec population in the days that followed, it was said to have been buried in the hills in the surrounding area to keep it from prying Spanish eyes. When Cortés and his men, flush with native volunteers, came back to the city, they questioned all refugees about the treasure but were unable to ever find a trace of it. As much as half of the greatest hoard of treasure ever accumulated in the Americas may still be out there.

One of the most revolutionary artists of the 20th century, French-American Marcel Duchamp is probably best known for his work Fountain, which was created in 1917. With a desire to challenge what could be considered art, as well as how people value it, he created “readymades,” pieces of artwork that were simply items Duchamp had found lying around somewhere. Fountain was the epitome of this style. It was an ordinary urinal, turned on its side, signed with the pseudonym R. Mutt. Duchamp was already quite famous by this stage and didn’t want audience preconceptions affecting the acceptance of the piece.

It was created for the exhibition of the Society of Independent Artists in 1917 and was actually rejected by the committee, who disregarded the fact they were supposed to accept all submitted pieces. (Duchamp actually resigned from the committee in protest.) Duchamp had his friends try and drum up some support by taking pictures and writing articles about the work, but the original ended up lost, never to be seen again. It was most likely thrown out by Duchamp’s photographer friend Alfred Stieglitz. Any existing examples of Fountain , including the one pictured, are artist-authorized reproductions, commissioned later by Duchamp for various reasons.

One of the most important palaeontological finds in human history was a number of skulls discovered in China in the 1920s. They were believed to have belonged to hominids which lived over 500,000 years ago: Homo erectus pekinensis, otherwise known as Peking Man. It is likely the protohumans were killed by ancient lion-sized hyenas, as they were found in what appears to have been the animal’s den. Housed in Peking (Beijing) after being uncovered, they unfortunately became one of the many cultural casualties of World War II.

In September 1941, as tensions in China were escalating, Hu Chengzhi, the lead researcher on the skulls, loaded them onto a ship which was sailing to the US. However, they are generally thought to have been lost at sea, either on a Chinese or American ship which was sunk by the Japanese. (Some far-fetched theories posit that the skulls were ground up as traditional Chinese medicine.) Various attempts at locating the remains have been undertaken, but they have all proved unsuccessful.

Its full name is Kusanagi no Tsurugi, which translates to “Grass-Cutting Sword,” and it is one part of a trio of artifacts collectively known as the Imperial Regalia of Japan. Used during a semi-religious ascension ritual which takes place each time a new emperor is crowned, the sword is seen as a symbol of the new ruler’s legitimacy and has been allegedly given to each one for over a thousand years.

The original is commonly believed to be housed in Atsuta Shrine in Nagoya and a copy of the sword is what has been used in its place. However, the real original has been lost, sunk to the bottom of the ocean during a battle in the 12th century, making the one used today a copy of a copy. The sword plays a large role in Japanese mythology and was said to have been found in the body of an eight-headed serpent slain by the storm god Susanoo.

Kusanagi no Tsurugi represents the virtue of valor. The other two artifacts that make up the Imperial Regalia of Japan are the mirror Yata no Kagami, which represents wisdom, and the jewel Yasakani no Magatama, which represents benevolence.

Often referred to as “The Lost Leonardo,” The Battle of Anghiari is a painting depicting four horsemen in armed combat during the Battle of Anghiari in 1440. Originally planned for the Hall of the Five Hundred, the meeting chamber of the victorious Florentine forces, da Vinci began the painting in 1505. It was going to be the largest he had ever done. Unfortunately, the technical problems which had also plagued The Last Supper overwhelmed da Vinci, and he abandoned the project.

In the years that followed, another painter, Giorgio Vasari, was commissioned to paint a new mural (The Battle of Marciano, pictured) in the same location, and The Battle of Anghiari was lost to history.

However, recent scholars have found compelling evidence to suggest it is still intact underneath Vasari’s mural and that it may have been intentionally saved by Vasari. Some even believe that it was completed and Vasari made up the story of it being left partially finished in order to paint over it. Work has stopped as of today, with local politicians, as well as art historians, hesitant to potentially damage Vasari’s work (a masterpiece in its own right), leaving the possible discovery of da Vinci’s painting in limbo.

View the original article here