Curiosities

Operation Acoustic Kitty cost the CIA $10 million: here’s how its plan to turn a cat into a spy microphone actually ended.

In 1932 Australia sent its army against 20,000 emus and lost. Here’s the surreal true story of the Emu War, with real numbers.

The 52 Blue whale has been calling at a frequency no other whale shares since 1989. Discover what science knows about it.

There are no mosquitoes in Iceland, and scientists still can’t fully explain why this strange, curious natural phenomenon happens.

Centralia is still burning underground more than 60 years after a dump fire slipped into a coal seam nobody could put out.

The dancing plague of 1518 made 400 Strasbourg residents dance nonstop for days, collapsing from exhaustion. Here’s why it happened.

In 1925, con man Victor Lustig sold the Eiffel Tower to a Paris scrap dealer, then pulled the exact same scam weeks later.

The Diomede Islands sit just 2.4 miles apart yet nearly a full day apart in time. Discover their strange, curious history.

In Whittier, Alaska, nearly the whole town lives inside one entire building: shops, a church, police, and homes together.

In 1919, a molasses flood tore through Boston at over 35 mph and killed 21 people. Discover the strange physics behind the disaster.