6 People You've Never Heard of Who Probably Saved Your Life. It's interesting how a man can become a local hero by saving just one life--or how a fictional character can be considered a superhero by saving a few thousand--when there are people relatively unknown to history who have saved many, many times more.
These are men and women who saved millions of lives, without whom you might not exist, and whose names likely never came up in your history class. Vasili Alexandrovich Arkhipov Nuclear war... Doomsday... WWIII... forget about everything Stanley Kubrick, James Cameron or (God forbid) Alan Moore ever mused on the subject. For instance, you probably know that during the Cuban Missile Crisis, the U.S. and USSR came closer to nuclear war than ever before. It's 1962, communist Cuba had gone nuclear, John F.
For real, they cloned Bobby Kennedy for this movie. In the center of this hot-zone was the nuclear-armed Soviet Foxtrot class submarine B-59, which on October 27, 1962 decided whether you personally would be alive right now. "Yeah, two million. 6 Hugely Popular Books That Accidentally Screwed The World. Even if you're not a famous writer or politician or brilliant scientist, you probably dream of doing something to change the world.
Even if it's just a small thing, like being the guy to single-handedly catch bin Laden and throw him from a helicopter into the rotors of another helicopter. But be careful what you wish for; as numerous authors have found out, sometimes your "world-changing" work doesn't necessarily change things for the better. Like... Jaws, by Peter Benchley It's the book that made the entire planet collectively shit their pants, go swimming, and then shit their pants all over again once the movie came out. Seriously, what was Peter Benchley's problem with our unsoiled pants? Together, the Benchley-Spielberg tag team established Robert Shaw as a badass, Richard Dreyfuss as Richard Dreyfuss, the Jaws theme as the last thing you hear before you die, and the fact that the great white shark proves Mother Nature only wants to murder us.
The 5 Most Terrifying Civilizations In The History of the World. They say that those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it, so pay attention for Christ's sake.
It turns out that many of our ancestors achieved levels of violence that take them right out of the realm of "badass" and into the less cool area of ball-shriveling atrocity. These are the civilizations you don't want to face during, say, your next time travel adventure. And yes, the Spartans are down there. History is kind of spotty on the Celts (they never wrote anything down, and many of the witnesses died brutally) but what facts survived confirm one thing: They had gigantic Celtic balls. First of all, they had a thing for severed heads. If they felt that yours was a head of particular importance, they'd embalm it and whip it out at parties to brag about how awesome they were. 6 Famous Unsolved Mysteries (That Have Totally Been Solved) One of our favorite pastimes here at Cracked is sucking the mystery out of life like the cream out of a Twinkie, leaving only the bland, dry sponge cake of reality behind.
To that end, we've decided to list the often mundane solutions to some of the world's most enduring mysteries, and once again, you're welcome. The disappearance of Amelia Earhart is probably the most well-known mystery in the world that doesn't involve Tom Hanks looking for clues in old paintings. In 1936, Earhart planned to reserve herself a page in the record books by flying around the world; a 29,000-mile journey. On the last 7,000-mile leg of her second attempt in 1937, she disappeared after giving her last radio transmission. The transmission was not anything helpful like, "I'm going to try to just fly through this mountain. More has been speculated about her disappearance than has probably been written about her life. Maybe her gigantic head popped at high altitude. The Answer: The truth is out there. Dr. 6 Famous Unsolved Mysteries (That Have Totally Been Solved)