r/HolyShitHistory

Image 1 — Lindy poses with baby Azaria on the lower slopes of Uluru, then known as Ayer’s Rock. The subject of international scorn and ridicule (including the oft-spoofed phrase “A Dingo came and took my baby”), Lindy and her husband Micheal fought for 3 years to clear her name.

Image 2 — Bloodstained matinee jacket worn by Azaria the night of her death. With no physical evidence corroborating Lindy’s claim of a dingo attack, she was seen as the prime suspect in her daughter’s death. This tiny bloodstained coat, found by a hiker years later, finally supported Lindy’s version of events.

Image 3 — Canis familiaris dingo, the Australian Wild Dog. Introduced to the continent by early aboriginal settlers as many as 50000 years ago, Dingos are now the largest terrestrial predator in the country.

Image 4 — Uluru, then known as Ayer’s Rock. A sacred site for local tribes for millennia, it is also one of the Australia’s most visited natural landmarks. It is here where baby Azaria was dragged off into the bush the night of August 17.

r/HolyShitHistory

The body of 41 year old Ricky McCormick was found in an open field on June 30, 1999. He was almost completely illiterate, only able to write his own name. In his pocket's, police found two notes, writing in an unknown cipher. The FBI has never been able to solve the cipher, and his murder.

In 1989, a stranger offered Ronald and Doreen Jack jobs at a remote logging camp and told them their two young sons could come because there was daycare. Hours later, the family got into his dark pickup truck and left Prince George. They were never seen again.

Anissa Jones was a child actress known for the sitcom Family Affair, which ran from 1966-1971. On August 28, 1976, she was found dead of a Seconal overdose in an upstairs bedroom of a house that belonged to a friend’s father. People she was partying with ranged from 12 to 22 years in age.

On this day in 1987, Michael Ryan (aged 27) shot dead 16 people in Hungerford including his mother and then killed himself. It’s one of the worst mass shooting incidents in the UK and was followed by stricter gun laws.

Fatima (died 1246) was a Persian former slave who became a minister of Mongol regent Töregene Khatun. Töregene's nephew Koden accused Fatima of using witchcraft. Fatima was tortured, all of her orifices were sewed up, and she was drowned. Her supporters were also purged.

Nearly 7,000 meters beneath the ocean, scientists discovered a 1,200-km-long "whale graveyard" where whale remains have accumulated for millions of years alongside unique deep-sea life.

On August 17, 1980, 9-week old Azaria Chamberlain disappeared while camping with her parents in the Australian outback, with her mother, Lindy, claiming a dingo took the child. Sentenced to life imprisonment for her own child’s murder, it took years to clear her name.

In 2012, 2 year old Maddox Derkosh was visiting the Pittsburgh Zoo when his mother ignored safety warnings and placed him atop a safety railing. Maddox then fell into the African Painted Dog enclosure, home to 11 animals. By the time a rescue was mounted, little of Maddox remained.

Archaeologists have uncovered a 2,000-year-old waterproof coating used on ancient Roman ships, revealing surprisingly sophisticated maritime technology.

The Falling Man, photographed by Richard Drew, 9/11/2001. This unidentified man was seen falling, either because of a stumble, or an attempt to escape fire and smoke.

Charles Manson formed an unlikely bond with The Beach Boys drummer Dennis Wilson, and even wrote a song for the band before their friendship went very wrong

The skull of Joseph Merrick, aka “The Elephant Man”. Shunned by his father, Merrick was forced to work at a freak show before being taken in by the London Hospital, becoming a local celebrity. He died of a broken neck in 1890, aged 27, likely after trying to sleep lying down for the first time.

In 2018, 20-year-old Ryan Shtuka left a house party in Sun Peaks, British Columbia, for the short walk home. His friends had gone ahead of him, but when they looked back, Ryan was gone. He never made it to work the next morning and has never been found.

Giant kangaroos survived in New Guinea long after their relatives disappeared from mainland Australia, with a thick-jawed species persisting in the island's highlands until surprisingly recently.

A 59,000-year-old Neanderthal tooth shows evidence of deliberate drilling with a sharp stone tool, suggesting one of the earliest known attempts at dental treatment.

The Werewolf of Bedburg: Demonology, Satan, and the Confessions of Peter Stumpp (full story in comments)

In the afternoon of March 18, 1925, the deadliest tornado in United States history, also known as the Tri-State Tornado, traveled through Eastern Missouri, Southern Illinois, and Southern Indiana. The tornado killed 695 people and injured 2,207 as part of a large tornado outbreak on the same day.

On this day in 1980 a dingo took nine-week-old Azaria Chamberlain from a Uluru campsite. Her mother went to prison for murder, convicted on forensic evidence that turned out to be junk science.

In 1987, people in Brazil found a mysterious powder that glowed blue in the dark. They thought it was beautiful, passed pieces of it around to friends and family, and some even rubbed it on their skin. It was cesium-137.

A few of the documented crimes during France’s occupation of Algeria