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From an island infested with snakes to a vault holding a very special secret recipe, check out a few of the many dangerous, mysterious, or otherwise forbidden places are off-limits to the general public, adapted from an episode of The List Show on YouTube.
1. Ilha da Queimada Grande
Ilha da Queimada Grande, or “Snake Island,” is an island off the coast of Brazil that’s home to a rare and incredibly deadly species of snake called the golden lancehead. According to some estimates, there are one to five snakes for every square meter of land on the 43-hectare island. (A population survey of the area indicated that those numbers are probably an exaggeration, but even so, there are definitely a
Homo erectus pekinensis)
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From natural wonders like Guairá Falls to literary works from Hemingway and Byron to paintings by Picasso and Renoir, here s a list of just a few priceless things that are gone forever, adapted from an episode of The List Show on YouTube.
1. A Nude Watercolor by August Renoir
Walter Chrysler, Jr., the son of the Chrysler corporation founder, was active in the arts for his entire life. As an adult, he helped develop the collection at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. But it was a piece he purchased as a teen that got him into some hot water at boarding school. At 14, Chrysler purchased a small painting that featured a nude woman and proudly displayed it in his dorm room. Chrysler’s dorm master apparently found the work obscene, and took the liberty of destroying it. Unlike the vast majority of naked pictures you might find in a teenager’s room, though, Chrysler’s nude was actually painted by Auguste Ren
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From possessed dolls and Bloody Mary to the Bunny Man and the Jersey Devil, here are the origins of 18 famous scary stories, adapted from an episode of The List Show on YouTube.
1. The Bell Witch
Ten years before he became president, Andrew Jackson heard a story that had spread from the town of Adams, Tennessee, about a ghost witch that was supposedly haunting the Bell family. It began in 1817 with knocks on their door and escalated to singing, bed covers being pulled off, objects moving, physical injury to young Betsy Bell, and even the death of the father John Bell. The entire family claimed to witness these paranormal events.
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Like other dos and don’ts from the Middle Ages, medieval pet advice hasn’t exactly withstood the test of time. A diet of dirty, soggy bread, for example, isn’t a good way to keep your dog puppy-sized forever. And applying a mixture of salt, honey, and onion to a monkey bite sounds more like an invitation for a second monkey bite than a cure for the first one.
On this episode of The List Show, Mental Floss editor-in-chief Erin McCarthy is delving into dozens of strange recommendations from purported pet experts of the era. While most of the tips are dubious at best, there are at least a few that you might want to co-opt for yourself like calling your dog
By Alexa Rodriguez
Apr 15, 2021
A lot has changed between the 19th century and today, but one thing that hasn t is the plethora of available parenting advice though the following tips would likely make today s parents scratch their chins. From giving a single slice of bread as a snack to lancing gums, here are a few puzzling parenting tips from the 1800s, adapted from an episode of The List Show on YouTube.
1. PUT BABIES IN CAGES HANGING OUTSIDE OF WINDOWS TO GET THEM FRESH AIR.
In his 1894 book
The Care and Feeding of Children, Dr. Luther Emmett Holt introduced the concept of “airing,” or exposing infants to cold temperatures in order to improve their immune systems and overall health. Though Holt didn’t necessarily tell people to attach cages to their windows, products like the Boggins’ Window Crib soon cropped up for city-dwellers who were short on yard space (although it should be noted that a 1916 ad for the Window-Crib appealed to city-folk and country-dweller