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Category / Obscure history

The Underground World of Tunnels Beneath Disney

I don’t know why I didn’t figure this out when I was a kid. Did I really believe Mickey and Minnie were taking their lunch break in the backstage shadows of the rides? Of course there was a vast network of secret underground tunnels! This is Disney we’re talking about after all… So here’s a fun fact…

Meet the Hollywood Bombshell Who Invented the Basis for Modern WIFI

If this beautiful Hollywood starlet looks a little bored or unimpressed while posing in her rather ridiculous glitzy get-up, it’s because she probably was; her mind elsewhere– for instance, oh say … masterminding the breakthrough technology that would bring us the basis for modern-day WiFi and Bluetooth. Hedy Lamarr was voted the most desirable pin-up girl during World War…

The Rock & Roll Cult of Sunset Boulevard

The only Hollywood-based cult of the 60s and 70s that comes to mind is the Manson Family, so when I happened upon this photograph of a secretive but wild group of beautiful young people who strolled around LA in the 1970s wearing colorful gowns, devoted to a Hollywood restauranteur-turned-spiritual leader who had 13 wives, a Rolls…

The Secret Lives of Fashion Mannequins

For a brief moment in the 1930s, one of the most famous celebrities of the day was a 100-pound mannequin named Cynthia. She had box seats at the Metropolitan Opera, received freebies from Tiffany and Cartier, graced the cover of Life magazine and was even invited to the wedding of Edward V111 and Wallis Simpson.…

Women Wear High Heels Because We Are Idiots, Says History

High heels were not originally intended to be worn by women. In fact, the coveted red-soled Christian Louboutin shoes were famously inspired by a French royal and notable trendsetter of the high heel, King Louis XIV of France. He passed a law ensuring only members of his court could wear the red-soled heels he sported, making it…

Japanese Mermaids: Ancient Pearl Hunters of the Sea

These women are the last of their kind. In their floral wetsuits, they fill their lungs with air and dive for long periods of time deep into the Pacific ocean, with nothing more than a mask and flippers. They are known as Ama and make a living hunting for abalone, a sea snail that produces pearls.…

A Pilgrimage to the Ancient Penis Monastery

Deep in the Himalayas you’ll find Bhutan, an ancient kingdom with an equally ancient Buddhist monastery that is bound to make you blush. It’s called Chimi Lhakhang, and it’s a temple dedicated to fertility and the “sacred phallus.” Emphasis on the phallus. A carved “welcome” sign invites Western visitors to explore the monastery and its surrounding village,…

How One Frenchman Became the World’s Most Beloved Lesbian Poet

We thought we’d heard it all when it came to imposters. Clearly, we hadn’t met Pierre Louÿs. The French writer had Europe’s literary scene eating out of the palm of his hand, and was decorated as a Chevalier and Officier de la Légion d’honneur in his lifetime, two of his country’s highest honours, that would never have been awarded…

The Groundbreaking Kitsch Cowboy Art of George Quaintance

You just can’t outshine George Quaintance. Literally. Take one look at the glistening bodybuilders from his kitsch, homoerotic oeuvre, and you’d think you were looking some 1986 romance novels, but nope. These babies date back to the 1940s-50s, to an era before the queer advocacy following the AIDS crisis, and before the sexual revolution. And…

Flying Girls: A Compendium of WW2 Airplane Pin-Ups

Since the Egyptians had their chariots, the Vikings had their ships and the Zulu warriors had their shields, man has been decorating his instruments of war. War art traditionally served as a protection from evil, to receive supernatural powers from the gods and give a noble identity to each warrior. Come the twentieth century, the tradition continued,…

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