Cracked Archive - History

The 5 Most Incredible Scenes Ever Preserved by Fossils
Every once in a while Mother Nature decides to cut your friendly neighborhood dinosaur hunter some slack by capturing a perfect snapshot of something awesome.
- Authors
- By Teddem Yee
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466
5 Stupid Juries That Prove the Justice System Is Broken
It's no surprise that this system goes wrong from time to time. It's just surprising how wrong it goes.
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- By Jeff Bennion, Eric Yosomono, Gregory Myers
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1154
5 Gigantic Wars You Won't Believe Almost Happened
It's impossible to know exactly what the results would have been, but it's mind-boggling to think how close we were to these.
- Authors
- By Jacopo della Quercia , Edward Chusid
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998
The 5 Most Badass Ways People Escaped from Slavery
In real life, not only did slaves frequently escape, but they often did it without help from free whites, and without murdering several hundred people.
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- By Alex Hanton
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626
5 Ridiculous Lies You Believe About Ancient Civilizations
Much of what we know about ancient Greece and Rome tends to come from films and TV. And, well, much of what we know is plain wrong.
- Authors
- By J. Wisniewski
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2009
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7 Filthy Jokes You Didn't Notice in Shakespeare
What most non-English majors don't realize is that under Shakespeare's flowery language and incomprehensible old-timey wordplay is a whole lot of sly references to boners, anal sex, masturbation, and much worse.
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- By Grace McCarthy
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721
5 Surprising Upsides of Horrible Natural Disasters
Just occasionally, natural disasters can have surprising upsides. Here are a few cases where the universe's fury has actually worked out pretty well for some of the people involved.
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- By Alex Hanton, Micah Duke
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469
The 5 Most Outrageous Bluffs In the History of War
Every good military strategist knows that a well-constructed bluff can overcome almost any odds.
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- By Alex Hanton
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454
5 Priests Who Turned Badass When Things Got Critical
The downside of being a man of God in a military setting is that there really is a cap on how much ass-kicking you can do. (Sometimes.)
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- By Evan V. Symon
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508
5 Ridiculous Modern Fashions With Badass Historical Origins
It seems like fashion trends these days are nothing but pointless peacocking, but you might be surprised to find out that many of them arose from a very genuine need.
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- By Amanda Mannen
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806
6 Images That Ruined the Lives of People They Made Famous
WARNING: SOME OF THESE IMAGES ARE DISTURBING. We have censored where necessary, but if you're sensitive, you might still want to stay away.
- Authors
- By Eric Yosomono, Drew Anderson
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1420
The 6 Most Hilariously Petty Abuses of Military Power
We're all for goofing around at work -- our entire business model is based on it. But when that workplace is the military, you'd hope there wouldn't be people running around doing dumbass things.
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- By Xavier Jackson
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582
5 Shockingly Progressive Ideas From 'Primitive' Cultures
We're not only less progressive today than you might think, but there have been some truly shocking moments of tolerance in history that make the modern world look downright bigoted.
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- By Patrick McCarty, Patrick Hopkins, Xavier Chavez-Sarria
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1557
7 Popular Old-Timey 'Hobbies' That Will Give You Nightmares
People used to have atomic bomb viewing parties. That is all.
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- By R. Jason Benson
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884
5 Insane Strategies That Won Elections (and Changed History)
Sometimes, just sometimes, a politician gleefully ignores all the conventional weaponry and wins the battle by slapping the enemy down with the rubber chicken of nsanity.
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- By Xavier Jackson, Evan V. Symon , Micah Duke
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526