Lists about social, medical, scientific, and questionable experiments by humans on willing participants, unwitting victims, and even innocent animals.

Let's Just See What Happens

History

Nowadays, the ambitious and wild Biosphere&nbsp;2 experiment is only remembered&nbsp;as a footnote to the Pauly Shore film&nbsp;Bio-Dome, which is a shame. The Biosphere 2 project was ambitious, idealistic, and apocalyptic; it was some <a href="http://www.ranker.com/list/funny-ig-nobel-prize-winners/rylee_en">pretty crazy science</a>&nbsp;wrought with drama, intrigue, cults, and billionaires. There&nbsp;are many&nbsp;wild Biosphere 2 stories as a testament to this fact. In short, its movie should have been a David Fincher thriller instead of a low-budget comedy.

The Biosphere 2 experiment was a closed&nbsp;artificial ecological system.&nbsp;It was three acres and five ecosystems - ocean, rainforest, desert, mangrove wetlands, and savannah grasslands - the world&#39;s largest formal experiment.&nbsp;The plan for Biosphere&nbsp;2&nbsp;was to test human interaction with the environment by sealing eight&nbsp;people in the closed Biosphere for two&nbsp;years, from September 26, 1991 to September 26, 1993. <a href="http://www.cabinetmagazine.org/issues/41/turner.php">Wearing outfits designed by Marilyn Monroe&#39;s former dressmaker</a>, the participants - called Bionauts&nbsp;- stepped into the&nbsp;closed ecosystem where they&nbsp;would be closely monitored by Mission Control. The whole project was undertaken&nbsp;in&nbsp;the hopes of proving biomes were sustainable environments that could potentially lead to Martian colonization.&nbsp;Read on to discover some crazy things you didn&#39;t know about Biosphere 2.

10 Insane Facts About Biosphere 2, The Largest Contained Experiment Ever

General

10 Insane Facts About Biosphere 2, The World's Largest Experiment

Andy Miller

Mysteries

Science and technology enhance humanity's collective knowledge, but the world is still full of unsolved mysteries. Some of them involve discoveries from prehistoric or medieval civilizations that elude the scope of what modern scholars and society understand.Other mysteries involve more recent murder cases that might never get resolved, while still others involve parts of the planet that seem to possess inexplicable properties that induce bizarre physiological and psychological effects. Some people point to alien intervention or the supernatural, while others believe the explanation must be grounded in science.

International Mysteries We Really Want Solved

Stephen Morin

Ancient History

Modern democracies love to reference ancient democracies when stressing the&nbsp;value&nbsp;of participatory&nbsp;politics. The Athenian direct&nbsp;democracy and the Roman Republic are seen as milestones on the path toward more egalitarian forms of governance, yet&nbsp;these&nbsp;ancient democracies eventually failed.&nbsp;

The Roman Republic traditionally spans from 509 BC to 27 BC, at which point it became the <a href="https://www.ranker.com/list/popular-items-from-the-roman-empire-vs-today/melissa-sartore" target="_blank">Roman Empire</a>. It was&nbsp;the Athenians who coined the term democracy&nbsp;- &quot;rule by the people&quot; - to describe the system they developed in the sixth century BC. Athenian democracy lasted until 322 BC, when the city was conquered by the Macedonians under Alexander the Great.

In both Rome and Athens, elites and oligarchs exploited long-standing weaknesses in the political system&nbsp;to seize power for those on top, disrupting democratic processes enough to create enduring problems. In both cases, this went on for hundreds of years until all remaining&nbsp;vestiges of democracy ceased to exist.

The Actual Reasons Ancient Democracies Failed

Megan Summers

Exploring and ranking everything in HBO's epic fantasy series.

Game of Thrones

Total Nerd

George R.R. Martin is a master of fantasy&nbsp;world-building - so much so that some people are more interested in learning about the history and lore of the Game of Thrones universe than actual historical events. Entire encyclopedias have collected stories from&nbsp;the past generations of Westeros, and some of those tales will&nbsp;inspire the upcoming HBO spinoff. While the adventures of Jon Snow and Daenerys Targaryen may not count as real&nbsp;history homework, it is apparent that Martin&rsquo;s A <a class="edS-cl" href="https://www.ranker.com/list/real-meaning-of-game-of-thrones-prince-that-was-promised/stephanroget?ref=internalCrossLinking_keyword">Song of Ice</a> and Fire books take heavy cues from events that really happened.

Some of the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.ranker.com/crowdranked-list/best-game-of-thrones-characters" target="_blank">best Game of Thrones characters</a> are based on historical figures, and some of <a href="https://www.ranker.com/list/best-game-of-thrones-episodes/reference" target="_blank">its grandest battles</a> are practically shot-for-shot remakes of ancient conflicts. It&rsquo;s true that some of <a href="https://www.ranker.com/list/game-of-thrones-plot-points-you-forgot/michaelgraff" target="_blank">the series&rsquo; plot points</a> mirror historical events very closely, but one shouldn&rsquo;t go looking in textbooks for Season 8 spoilers - George R.R. Martin always manages to twist even his more direct inspirations.&nbsp; 
&nbsp;

All Of The Real Historical Parallels To 'Game of Thrones'

All The Real Life Historical References On 'Game Of Thrones'

Stephan Roget

Lists about the zany little things we believe anyway.

Very Superstitious

Supernatural & Paranormal

The Hope Diamond is one of the most famous chunks of mineral in the history of the world, and the mystery of the Hope Diamond Curse is a big part of that. What is the curse of the Hope Diamond? To some, it’s an eerie and unexplainable pattern that sees those who come into close contact with the $250 million jewel experience misfortune, tragedy, and, often, death. To others, it’s an overblown and exaggerated myth made up of specious stories and spurious connections. As it often is, the truth lies <a href="https://www.ranker.com/list/the-most-cursed-images/mick-jacobs" target="_blank">somewhere in the middle</a>.The Hope Diamond, which first entered history in the 17th century, has been around for a long time, and it has&nbsp;been owned by individuals who have experienced great tragedy;&nbsp;however, it’s also been owned by plenty of people who haven’t. In between, it’s been alleged to have been owned by a number of people for which there is no evidence of ownership, in a bid to deepen the mystery of the <a href="https://www.ranker.com/list/cursed-objects/jacob-shelton" target="_blank">supposed curse</a>. In the end, the saga of the Hope Diamond is likely nothing more than proof that bad things can happen to <a href="https://www.ranker.com/list/scariest-cursed-objects/christopher-shultz" target="_blank">rich people</a>, too.

The Cursed Quarter-Billion Dollar Diamond That Brings Death Wherever It Goes

The Cursed Hope Diamond That Brings Death Wherever It Goes

Since the dawn of civilization, a lot of important things have happened. Here are lists of about the many winding routes we took to get where we are today.

Historical Contexts

World History

Archaeology aims to open a window into the past by unearthing artifacts that show exactly <a href="https://www.ranker.com/list/whoa-archaeological-finds/garri-chaverst" target="_blank">how humans&#39; ancestors used to live</a>. But sometimes, experts have discovered archaeological finds that rewrote history. Rather than confirm&nbsp;a commonly held belief (cavemen weren&#39;t intelligent!), these&nbsp;finds would upend it (cavemen made art and crafted advanced tools!). More recent historical artifacts that rewrote history have changed&nbsp;the way people think about ancient civilizations and humanity as a whole.

Some of these discoveries might seem minor at first glance. A new burial ground might seem like another collection of bones, until you consider what its placement means about early humans&#39; intelligence. A strange metal mass could be a piece of trash, until historians discover it can calculate the planets&#39; orbits. These eye-opening, and downright weird, discoveries continue to expand people&#39;s view of their world. From ancient fossils to strange structures, every object can help modern humans understand the past a little more. Read on to discover a few of these important artifacts in history, and be prepared to be amazed.

18 Bizarre Archaeological Finds That Rewrote History As We Know It

18 Weird Archaeological Finds That Rewrote History

Nathan Gibson

Lists of fascinating facts and lesser-known details about the lives of people whose names you learned in History class (or should have).

Down in History

If you've ever played the video game <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Nioh-PlayStation-4/dp/B01MRKF099?th=1?&amp;tag=rankercom-20" target="_blank">Nioh</a>, you might have noticed a tall, ax-wielding, black samurai named <a href="https://nowloading.co/p/yasuke-the-real-life-story-of-the-black-samurai-from-nioh/4199717" target="_blank">Yasuke</a>. Maybe&nbsp;you're a fan of the <a href="http://www.ranker.com/list/full-list-of-afro-samurai-episodes/reference" target="_blank">Afro Samurai</a> anime. Perhaps you're a Hollywood insider all about <a href="http://deadline.com/2017/03/lionsgate-taps-highlander-creator-gregory-widen-to-script-film-on-first-black-samurai-1202049635/" target="_blank">Lionsgate's Black Samurai&nbsp;film</a>, which was announced in spring 2017.&nbsp;All of these projects&nbsp;are based on a real person. Yasuke was an&nbsp;African samurai who&nbsp;arrived in Japan with Jesuits during the <a href="http://www.ranker.com/list/hardcore-miyamoto-musashi-list/christopher-myers" target="_blank">Sengoku period</a>&nbsp;(the Yasuke Nioh character's massive ax is a fabrication, alas).&nbsp;During his short stay in the annals of Japanese history, Yasuke rose from slave to vassal&nbsp;to sword bearer. The (maybe) former African slave samurai arrived on Japanese shores in 1579, and only appears in recorded history until 1582. In that small window, he made a huge impression on a very important figure in Japanese history:&nbsp;<a href="http://www.ranker.com/list/list-of-famous-daimyos/reference" target="_blank">daimyō</a> (warlord)&nbsp;Oda Nobunaga, whom&nbsp;he served in various capacities.&nbsp;Yasuke was one of few foreigners officially designated a samurai, and he fought in a few&nbsp;major battles, which ought&nbsp;to earn him a spot on the list of <a href="http://www.ranker.com/list/awesome-samurai-stories/justin-andress" target="_blank">awesome samurai</a>.

The Remarkable Tale Of Yasuke, An African Captive Who Became The First Foreign Samurai

The Remarkable Tale Of Yasuke, An African Slave Who Became The First Foreign Samurai

Christopher Myers

Whoa Facts

In the last decade of the nineteenth century, Norway set its sights on polar exploration, and, for&nbsp;two decades, a series of history’s <a class="edS-cl" href="https://www.ranker.com/list/notable-explorer_s)/reference?ref=internalCrossLinking_keyword">most famous explorers</a> set out to expose the mysteries of these frozen expanses. To get the job done, Norway relied on the most famous exploration vessel of its time, a three-masted schooner named the Fram. In the history of famous explorer ships,&nbsp;the Fram tops them all.At a time when <a href="http://www.ranker.com/list/facts-about-the-shackleton-expedition/philgibbons">ships simply weren’t up to the task</a> of Arctic and Antarctic exploration, the Fram safely guided scores of Norwegian explorers closer to the ice caps than ever before.Over a series of four expeditions between 1893 and 1912, the Fram accumulated a library’s worth of nautical exploration stories that are both harrowing and enlightening. As a ship, the Fram more than <a href="http://www.ranker.com/list/viking-history-facts/mike-rothschild">lived up to its Viking heritage</a> as an indomitable force for exploration.

12 Facts About The Fram, The Most Important Arctic Exploration Ship To Ever Sail

12 Fascinating Facts About The Arctic Ship Fram

Justin Andress

The ancient world may not have had access to computers, indoor plumbing, or the most reliable healthcare, but it was populated by the same kinds of people that exist today. Some were good, some were strange, and some of them told the same dirty jokes we&#39;ve been telling for centuries.

Redditors interested in facts about the ancient world love to share what they&#39;ve learned, especially when it concerns topics History teachers usually don&#39;t touch on. For example, ever heard of the &quot;Osterby Head&quot;? It&#39;s&nbsp;a nearly 2,000-year-old skull with a perfectly preserved hairdo. Or how about this: ancient&nbsp;Persians living in the desert had a nifty refrigeration system already figured out by the year 400 BC.

Here are some other cool facts about the ancient world&nbsp;you may never have heard before. Want more? <a href="https://www.ranker.com/list/whoa-ancient-greece-facts/mallory-weiler" target="_blank">Here are some remarkable facts just about Ancient Greece</a>.

Facts About The Ancient World We Just Learned Today That Made Us Say ‘Whoa’

Facts About The Ancient World We Just Learned That Made Us Say ‘Whoa’

Alby Thompson

The course of history has often been shaped by rivalries between states and countries. Some were limited contests for trade, while others were epic battles to death between the world&#39;s greatest powers. Some of the fiercest rivals of yesteryear are staunch allies today;&nbsp;it just took a few hundred years and a whole lot of battles to work things out.

This collection looks at some of history&#39;s most notable rivalries, from the great struggles&nbsp;of the ancient world to the First World War.&nbsp;

11 Of History's Longest And Most Intense Rivalries

M. Muir

Timeline

The world is a big place, and the scope of history is even bigger. It's pretty difficult to know every single event in history, but it's also possible to lose sight of how historical happenings from around the globe line up with one another.&nbsp;<a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.ranker.com/list/whoa-timeline-comparisons-history/melissa-sartore">Looking at a timeline</a> can be pretty mind-blowing when you realize Uranus was discovered before Antarctica and the Founding Fathers of the United States<a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.ranker.com/list/weird-but-true-historical-date-comparisons/melissa-sartore"> never knew about dinosaurs</a>.&nbsp;Even when you condense time into a period like the Middle Ages, it isn't always intuitive to match up something that happened in Western Europe with an event or person in Africa, Asia, or the Americas. We got to thinking about what was happening outside of Western Europe during the medieval period and found some&nbsp;<a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://www.ranker.com/list/more-weird-but-true-historical-date-comparisons/melissa-sartore">fascinating historical comparisons</a>.&nbsp;While it helped us put time and history into perspective, it also made us realize there's a whole lot about the past that deserves more attention. Take a look and let us know which events you agree have been unfairly overlooked.&nbsp; &nbsp;

11 Timeline Facts About The Middle Ages That Prove Western Europe Wasn't The Center Of The Universe

11 Facts That Prove Western Europe Wasn't The Center Of The Middle Ages

Melissa Sartore

As long as human beings have been alive, we have been doing bizarre things that barely make sense. Here are lists of a few thousand of them.

Weird History Around the World

Historical artifacts and photographs never fail to fascinate &ndash; they&#39;re like mysterious keys to other cultures &ndash;&nbsp;but this roundup of some of the strangest and <a href="https://www.ranker.com/list/whoa-historical-artifacts/pierce-nahigyan" target="_blank">most mesmerizing artifacts</a> from history might&nbsp;just take the cake. From a piece of bread that dates back to <a href="/list/facts-about-pompeii/theodoros-karasavvas" target="_blank">Pompeii</a>&nbsp;to some truly disturbing melted wax figures from a fire at Madame Tussauds wax museum in London, these images are sure to incite some reaction, be it delight or disgust.

Artifacts are objects made by human beings that &ndash; with the passage of time &ndash; come to represent a cultural or historical moment in the popular imagination. Which is why really weird artifacts are still so interesting;&nbsp;what do they reveal about the societies that created them?

For that matter, in the future, what will our cultural artifacts say about us?

Super Weird And Interesting Historical Artifacts That Will Mesmerize You

Weird And Interesting Historical Artifacts That Will Mesmerize You

Cleo Egnal

“My momma always said, ‘Life was like a box of chocolates. You never know what you’re gonna get.’”&nbsp;While the chocolate box metaphor works to describe the unpredictability of any individual’s life, it is also true that some people just get more interesting boxes of chocolates than others. Gump himself traverses American history with a bumbling, stumbling gait, accidentally thrusting himself or being thrust into several of the country’s must integral turning points. The trope of “ordinary people who were accidentally a part of history” had its champion, and everyone’s favorite historical film of all time starred a character who didn’t exist.Tom Hanks portrayals aside, there are several real-life Forrest Gumps out there that also goofed their way through some of history’s largest events. Some of the examples mirror Forrest in his simplicity, while others are considered among the greatest men to ever live, but each of them shares one uniting quality:&nbsp;they entered the history books through coincidence, circumstance, and sheer&nbsp;dumb luck.

11 Real Life Forrest Gumps: People Who Became Part Of History By Coincidence

Person

11 Random People Who Became Part Of History By Coincidence

People have been living all around the world for literally thousands of years. Here are some of the most interesting things human beings have ever done (that we know about).

Fascinating Ancient History

The practice pillaging perceived treasures from conquered territories and destroying what remains is nothing new. Throughout history, communities, religious groups, and entire cultures have been victims of barbaric destruction, mostly in the name of primitive intolerance for any number of ideologies&mdash;race, ethnicity, religion, etc. While lovers of culture may lament the loss, there&#39;s nothing particularly radical about art destroyed by bad people&nbsp;in the name of a cause.&nbsp;

In the 2010s, the Middle East lead&nbsp;the way in the loss&nbsp;of art and artifacts, most&nbsp;of them ancient; the&nbsp;number of historical sites lost because of ISIS increases each year. The <a href="http://www.ranker.com/list/brutal-21st-century-rebellions-and-uprisings/peterdugre" target="_blank">collective power vacuum</a> that came in the wake of the Arab Spring&nbsp;allowed swaths of land to fall under ISIS control. ISIS fighters come from all over the world, <a href="http://www.ranker.com/list/american-citizens-who-joined-isis-092315/mike-rothschild" target="_blank">including the United States</a>. For the purposes of this article, the group will be refered to as &quot;Daesh,&quot; it&#39;s other name.

Daesh&#39;s isolated interpretation of religion fuels an incendiary agenda to violently rid the world of non-Islamic symbols of faith. The organization seems intent on having&nbsp;history erased by demagogues. This list purposely focuses on historical sites and beautiful artifacts destroyed by these individuals&nbsp;in lieu of the additionally loss of life that accompanies such extreme iconoclasm.

The Most Beautiful Historical Artifacts Destroyed By Terrorists Around The World

12 Historical Artifacts Destroyed By Terrorists Around The World

Jim Jacobi

Interesting

The 2021 military coup in Myanmar is just the tip of the iceberg when it to comes to examples of armed forces seizing power in countries around the world.&nbsp;From the French for &quot;stroke of state,&quot; coup d&#39;etats&nbsp;are much more prevalent than residents of stable nations may realize. Unlike democratic coups, military coups usually result in dictatorships or tyrannical, repressive autocracies.

Why do these military coups continue to happen with some frequency? Why are they most common&nbsp;in Africa, <a href="https://www.ranker.com/list/what-happened-on-chilean-september-11th/melissa-sartore" target="_blank">the Americas</a>, Southeast Asia, and the Middle East? The reasons are complex and myriad, but countries that experience coup d&#39;&eacute;tats&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cs.mcgill.ca/~rwest/wikispeedia/wpcd/wp/m/Military_dictatorship.htm" target="_blank">tend to share</a> common conditions. Whether it&#39;s economic strife, destabilizing outside influences, a legacy of colonialism, or ethnic tensions,&nbsp;the factors that spawn military coups perpetuate cycles of violence, war, and hardship for citizens.

The Actual Reasons Why Military Coups Historically Happen

Qin Shi Huang, the first emperor of China, built the&nbsp;huge Terracotta&nbsp;Army to protect him in the afterlife.&nbsp;An elaborate tomb complex in Xi&#39;an,&nbsp;the city-size compound came equipped with everything the emperor would require in the afterlife. Like the Egyptians, the ancient Chinese believed the items they took with them to the grave would accompany them into the afterlife. But instead of burying actual people with him underground, the emperor created clay reproductions of warriors, servants, horses, and other objects. An incredible feat of design, the army also features a number of ancient <a href="http://www.ranker.com/list/list-of-chinese-inventions/wayne-szalinski" target="_blank">Chinese&nbsp;inventions</a>, many of which no one realized dated back as far as the Qin dynasty.

Despite excavating it for over 40 years,&nbsp;archeologists&nbsp;have barely made a dent in this <a href="http://www.ranker.com/list/underrated-ancient-monuments/carly-silver" target="_blank">wonder of the ancient world</a>. In total, they&#39;ve&nbsp;unearthed approximately 2,000 soldiers and believe&nbsp;6,000 remain uncovered. The focal point of the tomb, the Emperor&#39;s resting place, may never even be touched due to the hazardous material found near it. So even 2,000+ years later, the famous Terracotta&nbsp;Army still manages to protect its Emperor from the greedy hands of the living.&nbsp;

Fascinating Facts About China's Terracotta Army

12 Fascinating Facts About China's Terracotta Army

Noelle Talmon

World History lists at Ranker - The ultimate source for hundreds of world history lists and rankings