The park's hasty construction didn't help matters. The plumbing soon ground to a halt on account of a local strike that left the water fountains dry, while the freshly laid tarmac paths turned into a sticky, people-trapping mess. It's even rumored that a visitor's poodle was completely enveloped in that Swamp of Sadness.

As for the rides, they didn't work for myriad reasons, ranging from mechanical failure to not being finished. To compensate, workers started piling people onto Mark Twain's Riverboat Ride, leaving it teetering and swaying in that way all boats do before they list and wipe out your potential word of mouth. Again, this was all broadcast on live television. If we didn't know better, we'd suspect that this was all a huge propaganda setup by the USSR to show their people how Western-style decadence is the path to idiocy.

The Los Angles Times
This is just the toilet line, presumably.

To salvage his reputation, Walt ordered the park to, you know, be finished, and held a second "opening day." Fortunately, the public loved it (along with the ability to eat and drink) and attendance grew and grew. That's not to say that people ever forgot about that first day. It became known as "Black Sunday" among the workforce, and some swear that, when the moon is full and the night air is still, you can hear the noise of a yapping poodle.

After 10 years of turning over every rock in a part of the world that's full of them, the CIA finally found Osama bin Laden, capped his ass, and closed a dark chapter in U.S. history. However, none of this would have been possible without Dr. Shakil Afridi, who was hired by the CIA to run a vaccination campaign in the Abbottabad region in the hope of snaring a DNA sample from the man that they suspected was bin Laden. Although unsuccessful, his work proved vital in proving that ObL was holed up in his now-infamous compound, leading to his death ... and that of many innocents in the coming years, unfortunately.

How? Well, before the raid, there was already myriad conspiracy theories in the region surrounding vaccination campaigns ("The West is plotting to sterilize Muslims!"), and the CIA's antics only gave the locals even less reason to trust strangers with needles. Vaccination levels in the region subsequently plummeted to such an extent that we could have used the resulting crater to throw Osama's body into the molten core of the planet. Oh, and it super didn't fucking help that the Taliban then jumped into the fray and started systematically murdering aid workers, planting roadside bombs to take out aid convoys, and just straight-up burning down the vaccination centers.

International Press of Pakistan
Congrats on making Jenny McCarthy look sane, dickbags.

Rightfully fearing for their lives, the aid groups being targeted (i.e. all of them) closed up shop, leaving Pakistan and Afghanistan as a virological no-man's land. If vaccinations were carried out, they had to conduct them in the backrooms of bus/train stations, like common junkies. It's only been within the last couple of years that vaccinations have been carried out in the open, but workers still have to be accompanied by a small platoon of armed guards. All in all, it's estimated that the CIA's intelligence-gathering exercise might have put back the projected date for the global eradication of polio by 20 fucking years.

BBC
Nostalgia for the '80s has officially gone too far.

This worked out great for Milk, but not so much for Sipple. Hounded from his home and ostracized by his family, Sipple launched a lawsuit arguing that the media had violated his privacy. Unfortunately, thanks to Milk's anecdotes and Sipple's own confession that 100-plus people knew about his secret, the media successfully argued that they were within their rights to report the story since it was never secret in the first place. Which is why they reported it, obviously.

There could only be one ending to this story. On the back of his newfound public profile, Milk became involved in politics and was eventually elected to city supervisor. Sipple, meanwhile, crashed into a deep alcohol-fueled depression and died several years later, regretting ever stepping into the firing line all those years ago. OK, there's your best actor Oscar, Benicio del Toro.

For entertainment, the crews had books and television and, in the case of Apollo 12, enjoyed a lovely Thanksgiving dinner. They were kept inside these trailers for 21 days, during which they underwent extensive medical exams and chemical scrubbing to find any stray alien organisms/spacepox they might have caught out there. There was also a window in the astronauts' trailer where scientists could observe them during the facehugger gestation period ... or where Richard Nixon could just stare at them. We're not quite sure which scenario is worse.

NASA
"This is the most boring Twilight Zone I've ever seen."

When NASA eventually realized that there weren't any nasties on the moon trying to kill us, they scrapped the quarantine procedure. Or that's what the aliens want us to think, anyway.

After "recruiting" 22 orphans to serve as live carriers for the vaccine, de Balmis set sail for the New World. The procedure was brutally simple. Shortly after departure, the first orphan would be vaccinated -- several days later, they'd break out in vesicles containing fluid that would be used to prepare a vaccine for the second orphan, who ... you get the picture. Needless to say, this was not The Love Boat. It's hard to build a fun-filled ambiance when your hold is full of sick, fluid-spewing, screaming children. We're told, anyway.

Despite aiming for Puerto Rico, de Balmis had run out of unvaccinated orphans by the time his ships reached the Canary Islands. Like a trucker with a cab full of empties, he simply dropped anchor, hopped ashore, and swapped his old orphans for a new batch.

via Bolivian Thoughts
Is that a Batman logo on the ship? Very appropriate.

Upon reaching Puerto Rico, de Balmis swapped his empties again and continued on to Haiti. Once there, he hit a(nother) snag: There were no orphans to buy/borrow/steal (they'd probably been hidden in anticipation of his visit). Finding a silver lining in this cloud, he simply bought four young slave girls and continued on his way. He subsequently lost a significant sum of money selling them back to the slavers on his arrival, as if the economic downside of using child slaves as walking incubators was worse than, say, having a special place in hell reserved for him and his dubious ethical standards.

The main voyage, meanwhile, continued on through the Philippines and China and eventually returned to Spain. In one of the few moments of levity that this story has, the orphans that he scattered around the world were all welcomed into the arms of their respective communities. It's just as well. After all, would you get on a boat again after that journey?

The Holocaust might be one of the darkest moments in history, but one good thing came of it: the end of the fucking Holocaust. That moment when the good guys broke down the prisons and concentration camps and provided warmth, shelter, and humanity to those who needed it most.

Oh, except the gay ones, that is.

Among the many groups that occupied a special place on Hitler's hate-boner were homosexuals, mainly gay men. Prior to the Nazis, major cities such as Berlin and Hamburg were hotbeds for sexual experimentation where people could mash their genitals into whatever exciting and energetic configurations they wanted without any fear of the law. That all changed in 1935 with the passing of Paragraph 175, which strictly outlawed "lewd and lascivious acts" between men (between women wasn't as serious, for some reason). Under this legislation, thousands upon thousands of men were arrested for anything ranging from sex to kissing to baseless rumor. By 1942, they were being sent to concentration camps, because Nazis are so original.

via Same Same
This is who the whole pink triangle pride symbol is in remembrance of.

Following the end of the war, the new government repealed many of the laws introduced by the Nazis. Paragraph 175 wasn't one of them. Sadly, this made sense: Considering that the U.S., Great Britain, and the Soviet Union all had laws outlawing homosexuality, there was nothing specifically Nazi-ish about Paragraph 175. To the Allies and Germany v. 3.0, this was a basic law of the land. Indeed, one survivor recalled a soldier berating a 175er (as they were known) for having the temerity to be gay.

With their conviction still legally sound, survivors were ostracized by society, their friends, and even other survivors. In actual fact, the post-war government was responsible for more convictions under Paragraph 175 than the Nazis were. We were better Nazis than the Nazis at this.

US Holocaust Memorial Museum
Presenting one of the rare times "worse than Hitler" has been a legitimate internet response.

Faced with this situation, survivors disappeared into anonymity or committed suicide. As they were still considered criminals, they were denied the same financial compensation awarded to other groups of survivors. Additionally, this led to Kafkaesque nightmares, such as survivors being rejected by leftist support groups and being refused a symbolic payment of one Deutschmark. In the case of Josef Kohout, he was denied pension benefits that even ex-concentration camp guards received.

In all, only a handful of survivors won the battle for the compensation that they were rightfully owed (one case wasn't finalized until 1992). In 1969, however, West Germany began decriminalizing sexual activity between men. In 1994, Paragraph 175 was abolished. In 2002, all 175ers received official pardons from the government. It took them only 57 years. We'd normally end this with some pithy remark about it being better late than never, but fuck 'em.

When Adam isn't ruining history for fun and profit, he tweets on Twitter. He also has an email address where you can contact him with compliments/comments/something else beginning with C.

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