Cursed....Jewels....

Cursed Star of India

The largest gem quality blue sapphire.

The greyish blue gem is almost flawless and is unusual in that it has stars on both sides of the stone.

It's name came from it's star pattern.

Mined under mysterious circumstances in Sri Lanka, India 300 yrs before gem collection paris exposition in 1900.

It's golf ball sized.

Bad luck comes to anyone who puts there hands on it.

Oct 29, 1964, three men broke into the American Museum of Natural History in New York City.

and stole it.

The thieves unlocked a bathroom window during museum open hours, climbed in that night, and found that the sapphire was the only gem in the collection protected by an alarm.

The battery for that alarm and the cameras were dead.

None of the Jewels were insured.

Later they were caught.

In January 1965, authorities were led to a bus locker in Miami where the uninsured Star of India and some of the other stolen stones were recovered.

Black Prince's Ruby

Referred to as the great impostor.

It's the large stone in the center of England's imperial state crown.

It is not a Ruby, it is a stone called the red spinal.

The Black Prince Edward of Woodstock stole it in the 14th century from Abū Sa'īd, the Moorish Prince of Granada.

After, Edward contracted a mysterious illness and died.

Richard the III took it, and put it in his helmet when he went to the Battle of Bosworth, where he died.

Since it's cursed, it rarely makes a public appearance.

The Blue Diamond Affair

A series of unsolved crimes and embittered diplomatic relations triggered by the 1989 theft of gems belonging to the House of Saud by a Thai employee. Kriangkrai had access to the prince Faisal bin Fahd's bedroom and hid the stolen jewelry in a vacuum cleaner bag at the palace. 

It included a valuable blue diamond and other gems.

Kriangkrai managed to ship to his home in Thailand.

Lieutenant-General Chalor's team flew to Saudi Arabia to return the stolen items. 

However, the Saudi Arabian authorities discovered that the blue diamond was missing and that about half of the gems returned were fake.

A Saudi Arabian businessman close to the Saudi royal family, traveled to Bangkok to investigate on his own. 

He went missing on 12 February 1990 and is presumed to have been murdered.

Several days prior to his disappearance, three officials from the Saudi Embassy had been shot dead in Bangkok.

All the murders remain unsolved.

Lieutenant-General Chalor was later charged and convicted of ordering the 1995 murder of the wife and son of a gem dealer allegedly involved in the affair, and he was sentenced to death. 

The Regent Diamond

Owned by the French state and on display in the Louvre.

It is widely considered the most beautiful and the purest diamond in the world. 

In 1698, a slave found uncut diamond in the Kollur Mine (in the Guntur district of Andhra Pradesh, India).

He hid it inside a large wound in his leg.

He made a deal with an English sea captain.

The captain stole the diamond from the slave, killed him by drowning him.

Before he died he cursed the diamond.

He then sold it to an Indian merchant.

Sometime after it belonged to Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette and they were both beheaded.

Napoleon Bonaparte used it for the pommel of his sword and he was exiled.

After that it belonged to Louis XVIII, he was exiled as well.

The Shah Diamond

What it lacks in looks and in value,

it more than makes up for in it's bloody history and darkness.

Found at the Golconda mines in what is now Andhra Pradesh, Central India, probably in 1450, and it is currently held in the Moscow Kremlin.

In 1829, the Russian diplomat and writer Alexandr Griboyedov was murdered in the capital of Persia, Tehran. 

The Russian government demanded severe punishment of those responsible.

In fear, the court of Fath 'Alī Shāh sent the Shāh's grandson Khusro Mirzā to Saint Petersburg, where he gave the diamond to the Russian Tsar Nicholas I as a present.

It was then kept among the Russian Crown Jewels in the Diamond Room at the Winter Palace in St. Petersburg, until the Russian Revolution and the overthrow of the Romanov Dynasty on 2 March 1917.

Sancy Diamond

Brings misfortune and greed.

Once reputed to have belonged to the Mughals of antiquity.

It belonged to Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy.

He was cut apart, froze and ravaged by animals in battle.

It passed to his cousin, King Manuel I of Portugal.

He died from unknown reasons.

Before he died he sold it to sold the diamond to Nicolas de Harlay, seigneur de Sancy.

Henry III of France suffered from premature baldness and tried to conceal this fact by wearing a cap. 

Diamonds were becoming increasingly fashionable at the time, Henry arranged to borrow de Sancy's diamond to decorate his cap.

The messenger carrying the jewel never reached his destination, but de Sancy (by then Superintendent of Finance) was convinced that the man was loyal and had a search conducted until the site of the messenger's robbery and murder was found. 

When the body was disinterred, the jewel was found in the faithful man's stomach.

He had swallowed it to hide it from the attackers.

It is on display at the Apollo gallery. at the Louvre.

Delhi Purple Sapphire

The Delhi Purple Sapphire is actually an Amethyst.

In 1857 a mutiny happened in India.

It was stolen from temple Indra, in Cawnpore (Kanpur) by a Bengal Cavalryman Colonel W. Ferris.

The temple was dedicated to the Hindu god of war and thunderstorms.As soon as he returned to England, Ferris began to suffer a series of financial misfortunes which brought the family to the brink of collapse. 

At first Ferris blamed his own poor judgement but when every member of the family also suffered a series of debilitating illnesses, his thoughts turned to the gem.

His fears were confirmed when he lent the stone to a friend of the family who inexplicably committed suicide with the stone in his hand.

An author, Edward Heron-Allen, became the next owner of the gem in 1890.

Heron-Allen, spoke of an immediate series of misfortunes and bad luck, which led him to believe that the sapphire was "terribly accursed".

He had even gifted the stone twice to friends who were interested in owning it, and in both incidences those friends met with bad luck and returned the stone to him.

He even hurled it into canal it returned to him.

In a bid to neutralize the power of the curse he had it bound with a silver ring fashioned as a double headed snake. 

He also attached two amethyst scarab beetles and inscribed the ring with symbols of the zodiac.

In the years that followed the stone was quiet

The only hint that it was cursed was the apparition of a Hindu Yogi that haunted Heron-Allen. 

The Yogi appeared in the study of the family home searching desperately for the sapphire.

In 1904, after the birth of his first daughter, 14 years in his possession, he sealed the gem inside a box and shipped it to his bankers with set instructions for it to be locked away until after his death.

He later bestowed the sapphire to the Natural History Museum, under the condition that the box was not to be opened until at least 3 years after his death, and that under no circumstances must his daughter ever touch or be in possession of it.

In 1943, after the death of Edward Heron-Allen, the Natural History Museum received the box containing the gem.

Sometime later, long after the box had been opened, a type written note was found.

Heron-Allen ended his note with these final words, 

"Whoever shall then open it, shall first read out this warning, and then do as he pleases with the jewel. 

My advice to him or her is to cast it into the sea".

In 2004 the gem was in the possession of John Whittaker, a member of the Natural History Museum who was tasked with transporting it to the Heron-Allen Society for an event. During the journey, Mr Whittaker and his wife were engulfed in a dramatic thunderstorm, which trapped them in their car. 

Whittaker was tasked with transporting the Sapphire a second time, after which he fell deathly and violently sick with a stomach bug, and then a third time, when just before he was due to take the gem he fell in pain, finally passing a kidney stone.

The Black Orlov Diamond or the Eye of Brahma

It supposedly featured as one of the eyes in a statue of the Hindu god Brahma in Pondicherry, until it was stolen by a Jesuit monk. 

This caused the gem to be cursed.

In 1932, diamond dealer J. W. Paris is said to have taken the diamond to the United States and soon after committed suicide by jumping from a skyscraper in New York City.

Later owners included two Russian princesses called Leonila Galitsine-Bariatinsky and Nadia Vygin-Orlov (after whom the diamond is named).

Both women allegedly jumped to their deaths in the 1940s.

The diamond was later bought by Charles F. Winson and cut into three pieces in an attempt to break the curse.

The Black Orlov has been displayed at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City and the Natural History Museum in London.

Koh i Noor Diamond

It is one of largest cut diamonds on the planet.

It is part of the British Crown Jewels.

The diamond was originally owned by the Kakatiya dynasty.

Probably mined in Golconda, India, It's name means mountain of light.

It fell into the hands of Babur, the first emperor of the Mogul empire.

Shah Jahan, the fifth Mughal emperor, had the stone placed into his ornate Peacock Throne.

In 1658, his son and successor, Aurangzeb, confined the ailing emperor to Agra Fort.

It was ceded to Queen Victoria after the British conquest of the Punjab in 1849.

Following the 1739 invasion of Delhi by Nader Shah, the Afsharid Shah of Persia, he took the gem.

Nader Shah was killed and his empire collapsed in 1747, the Koh-i-Noor fell to his grandson, who in 1751 gave it to Ahmad Shah Durrani, founder of the Afghan Empire, in return for his support.

On 1 February 1850, the jewel was sealed in a small iron safe inside a red dispatch box, both sealed with red tape and a wax seal and kept in a chest at Bombay Treasury awaiting a steamer ship from China. 

It was then sent to England for presentation to Queen Victoria in the care of Captain J. Ramsay.

They departed from Bombay on 6 April on board HMS Medea, captained by Captain Lockyer.

The ship had a difficult voyage: an outbreak of cholera on board when the ship was in Mauritius had the locals demanding its departure, and they asked their governor to open fire on the vessel and destroy it if there was no response. 

Shortly afterwards, the vessel was hit by a severe gale that blew for some 12 hours.

On arrival in Britain on 29 June.

The Koh-i-Noor was formally presented to Queen Victoria on 3 July 1850 at Buckingham Palace by the deputy chairman of the East India Company. 

The Hope Diamond

The original form of the Hope Diamond was stolen from an eye of a sculpted statue of the goddess Sita, the wife of Rama.Sold to french traitor.

Acquiried its "Hope" name when it appeared in the catalog of a gem collection owned by a London banking family called Hope in 1839. 

Jacques Colet bought the Hope Diamond from Simon Frankel and committed suicide.

Prince Ivan Kanitovski bought it from Colet but was killed by Russian revolutionists.

Kanitovski loaned it to Mlle Ladue who was murdered by her sweetheart.

Simon Mencharides, who had once sold it to the Turkish sultan, was thrown from a precipice along with his wife and young child.

Sultan Hamid gave it to Abu Sabir to "polish" but later Sabir was imprisoned and tortured.

Stone guardian Kulub Bey was hanged by a mob in Turkey.

A Turkish attendant named Hehver Agha was hanged for having it in his possession.

Tavernier, who brought the stone from India to Paris was torn to pieces by wild dogs in Constantinople.

King Louis gave it to Madame de Montespan whom later he abandoned.

Nicholas Fouquet, an Intendant of France, borrowed it temporarily to wear it but was disgraced and died in prison.

A temporary wearer, Princess de Lamballe, was torn to pieces by a French mob.

Jeweler William Fals who recut the stone died a ruined man.

William Fals' son Hendrik stole the jewel from his father and later committed suicide.

Some years (after Hendrik) it was sold to Francis Deaulieu, who 

It also belonged too..

King Louis XVI who was Guillotined.

Marie Antoinette who was Guillotined.

Lord Francis Hope bankruptcy

May Yohé Musical actress, divorced, remarried several times, died poor.

Edward Beale McLean and Evalyn Walsh McLeanCouple divorced 1932; Edward had mental illness and died aged 51 or 52; Evalyn died aged 60 from pneumonia in 1947.

It is now in the Washington National museum of National History.

The Fugitive: Sam Shepard and The Murder of His Wife, Marilyn.

Marilyn Reese Sheppard

She was born on April 14th, 1923 in Cleveland, Cuyahoga County, Ohio. 

Sam Sheppard and his wife Marilyn were high school sweethearts who married in California in 1945 and then lived together in Ohio where Sam had joined his father's medical practice at Bayview Hospital as a neurosurgeon.

Both were well educated, Sam had been class president in high school three years in a row and was accomplished both in sport and academics. 

On July 3rd, 1954 Sam and Marilyn were entertaining neighbors at their lakefront home on Lake Erie, in Bay Village, Ohio. While they were watching the movie Strange Holiday, Sheppard fell asleep on the daybed in the living room. Marilyn walked the neighbors out.

On July 4th, 1954, Marilyn was murdered in her own bed. Blood was splattered everywhere. She was hit 35 times by a left handed person with an unknown weapon. She did not die from these injuries. She drowned in her own blood. All of this happened while her 7 year old son was sleeping in the next room.

Some items from the house, such as Sam Sheppard's wristwatch, key chain and key, and fraternity ring, appeared to have been stolen. They were later found in a canvas bag in bushes behind the house.

According to Sam, he was sleeping soundly on a daybed when he heard the cries from his wife. He ran upstairs where he saw someone in the bedroom and then he was knocked unconscious.  When he awoke, he saw the person downstairs, chased the intruder out of the house down to the beach where they fought and Sam was knocked unconscious again. He awoke with half his body in the lake.

At 5:40 am, a neighbor received an urgent phone call from Sheppard who pleaded for him to come to his home. When the neighbor and his wife arrived, Sheppard was found shirtless and his pants were wet with a bloodstain on the knee. Authorities arrived shortly after. Sam seemed disoriented and in shock.

On October 18, 1954, Sam's first trial began.

A federal judge later criticized the media, "If ever there was a trial by newspaper, this is a perfect example."  The U.S. Supreme Court later called the trial a "carnival atmosphere".

Prosecution

Prosecutors learned during their investigation that Sam had carried on a three-year-long extramarital affair with Susan Hayes, a nurse at the hospital where Sam was employed. The prosecution argued that the affair was Sam's motive for killing his wife. The prosecutor emphasized the inconsistencies in Sam Sam's story and that he could not give an accurate description of the intruder in his house.

Other issues brought up at trial involved why there was no sand in his hair.

Sam's missing T-shirt, which the prosecutor speculated would or should contain some of Sam's blood.

Prosecutor Mahon chose to make these assertions despite no T-shirt ever being found or presented as evidence. Also, part of the prosecution's case centered around questions like why a burglar would first take the belongings in the canvas bag, only to later ditch them in bushes outside the Sam home.

It was under these circumstances that Mahon openly speculated Sam had staged the crime scene.

Lack of a murder weapon.

County Coroner Samuel R. Gerber nearly circumvented this discrepancy by testifying that a blood imprint found on the pillow beneath Marilyn Sheppard's head was made by a "two-blade surgical instrument with teeth at the end of each blade" such as a scalpel.

Sam's lawyers left this vague assertion unchallenged. Sam's lawyer was denied access to the physical evidence by the judge and therefore could not argue any assertions as to blood droplets, murder weapon marks, blood spatter, physical marks on the body, etc.

Defense

Sam's attorney, argued that Sheppard had severe injuries and that these injuries were inflicted by the intruder.

This argument was based his argument on the report made by neurosurgeon Dr. Charles Elkins, M.D., who examined Sheppard and found he had suffered a cervical concussion, nerve injury, many absent or weak reflexes, and injury in the region of the second cervical vertebra in the back of the neck.

Dr. Elkins stated that it was impossible to fake or simulate the missing reflex responses.

The defense further argued the crime scene was extremely bloody, however, the only blood evidence appearing on Sam was a bloodstain on his trousers.

His lawer also argued two of Marilyn's teeth had been broken and that the pieces had been pulled from her mouth, suggesting she had possibly bitten her attacker. He told the jury that Sam had no open wounds.

Observers have questioned the accuracy of claims that Marilyn Sheppard lost her teeth while biting her attacker, arguing that her missing teeth are more consistent with the severe beating Marilyn Sheppard received to her face and skull.

As criminologist Paul L. Kirk later pointed out, if the beating had broken Mrs. Sheppard's teeth, pieces would have been found inside her mouth, and her lips would have been severely damaged, which was not the case.

Sheppard took the stand in his own defense.

"I think that she cried or screamed my name once or twice, during which time I ran upstairs, thinking that she might be having a reaction similar to convulsions that she had in the early days of her pregnancy.

I charged into our room and saw a form with a light garment, I believe, at that time grappling with something or someone.

During this short period I could hear loud moans or groaning sounds and noises.

I was struck down.

It seems like I was hit from behind somehow but had grappled this individual from in front or generally in front of me. I was apparently knocked out.

The next thing I knew, I was gathering my senses while coming to a sitting position next to the bed, my feet toward the hallway....

I looked at my wife, I believe I took her pulse and felt that she was gone.

I believe that I thereafter instinctively or subconsciously ran into my youngster's room next door and somehow determined that he was all right, I am not sure how I determined this.

After that, I thought that I heard a noise downstairs, seemingly in the front eastern portion of the house."

Sam ran back downstairs and chased what he described as a "bushy-haired intruder" or "form" down to the beach below his home. Then he was knocked out again.

The defense called eighteen character witnesses for Sam, and two witnesses who said that they had seen a bushy-haired man near the Sheppard home on the day of the crime.

Verdict

On December 21st, after deliberating for four days, the jury found Sam guilty of second-degree murder. He was sentenced to life in prison.

On January 7th, 1955, Sam was told that his mother, Ethel Sheppard, had committed suicide by gunshot. Eleven days later, Sam's father, Dr. Richard Sheppard, died of a bleeding gastric ulcer and stomach cancer. Sam was permitted to attend both funerals but was required to wear handcuffs.

On February 13th, 1963, Sam's father-in-law, Thomas S. Reese, committed suicide in an East Cleveland, Ohio motel.

On June 6th, 1966, the Supreme Court, by an 8-to-1 vote, struck down the murder conviction. Sam served ten years of his sentence.
Three days after his release, he married Ariane Tebbenjohanns, a German divorcee. The two had been engaged since January 1963.

On October 7th, 1969, Sam and Tebbenjohanns divorced.

Retrial

Unlike in the original trial, neither Sam nor Susan Hayes took the stand. After deliberating for 12 hours, the jury returned on November 16 with a "not guilty" verdict.

It was during this trial that Paul Kirk presented the bloodspatter evidence he collected in Sheppard's home in 1955 which suggested that the murderer was left handed (Sam was right handed) proved crucial to his acquittal.

After

On August 6th, he went back to his practice. He nicked the right iliac artery on a 29-year old patient who bled to death internally.
Sam resigned from the hospital staff a few months later after wrongful death suits had been filed by the patients' families.

He debuted in August 1969 at the age of 45 as "Killer" Sam Sheppard, wrestling Wild Bill Scholl. He wrestled over 40 matches before his death. During his career, Sam used his anatomical knowledge to develop a new submission hold, the "mandible claw". It was popularized by professional wrestler Mankind in 1996.

On April 6th, 1970, Sam was found dead in his home in Columbus, Ohio. The official cause of death was Wernicke's encephalopathy (biochemical lesions in the brain caused by a thiamine deficiency)

Sam's son, Samuel Reese Sheppard, has been attempting to clear his father's reputation.

1999

Alan Davis, a lifelong friend of Sheppard and administrator of his estate, sued the State of Ohio County Court of Common Pleas for Sheppard's wrongful imprisonment.

Marilyn Sheppard's body was exhumed, in part to determine if the fetus she was carrying had been fathered by Sam. Terry Gilbert, an attorney retained by the Sheppard family, told the media that "the fetus in this case had previously been autopsied", a fact that had never previously been disclosed. This raised questions about the coroner's office in the original case possibly concealing pertinent evidence. The passage of time and the effect of formaldehyde on the fetus's tissues, paternity could not be established.

The Handyman Richard Eberling

During the civil trial, plaintiff attorney contended that Richard Eberling, an occasional handyman and window washer at the Sheppard home, was the likeliest suspect in Marilyn's murder. Eberling found Marilyn attractive and he was familiar with the layout of the Sheppard home.

Back in 1959...

Detectives were questioning Richard Eberling on various burglaries in the area. He confessed to the burglaries and showed the detectives his stolen goods. Among them there were two rings that belonged to Marilyn Sheppard. Eberling stole the rings in 1958, a few years after the murder, from Sam Sheppard’s brother's house, taken from a box marked “Personal Property of Marilyn Sheppard”. In questioning, Eberling admitted his blood was at the crime scene of Marilyn Sheppard. He said that he cut his finger while washing windows just prior to the murder and bled in the house. Eberling took a polygraph test with questions about the murder of Marilyn. The polygraph examiner concluded that Eberling did not show deception in his answers, although the polygraph results were evaluated by other experts years later who found that it was either inconclusive or Eberling was deceptive.
DNA analysis of blood at the crime scene showed that there was presence of blood from a third person, other than Marilyn and Dr. Sam Sheppard.

With regard to tying the blood to Eberling... A plaintiff DNA expert was 90% confident that one of the blood spots belonged to Richard Eberling. According to the rules of the court, this was not admissible.

The defense argued that the blood evidence had been tainted in the years since it was collected, and that an important blood spot on the closet door in Marilyn Sheppard's room potentially included 83% of the adult white population. The defense pointed out that the blood collected from the closet door was Type O, while Eberling's blood type was Type A.

Throughout his life, Richard Eberling was associated with women who had suspicious deaths. He was convicted of murdering Ethel May Durkin, a wealthy, elderly widow. Durkin's 1984 murder in Lakewood, Ohio was uncovered when a court-appointed review of the woman's estate revealed that Eberling, Durkin's guardian and executor, had failed to execute her final wishes, which included stipulations on her burial. Durkin's body was exhumed and additional injuries were discovered in the autopsy that did not match Eberling's previous claims of in-house accidents.

In subsequent legal action, both Eberling and his partner, Obie Henderson, were found guilty in Durkin's death.

Both of Durkin's sisters, Myrtle Fray and Sarah Belle Farrow, had died under suspicious circumstances as well. Fray was killed after being "savagely" beaten about the head and face and then strangled; Farrow died following a fall down the basement steps in the home she shared with Durkin in 1970.

Although Eberling denied any criminal involvement in the murder of Marilyn Sheppard, Kathy Wagner Dyal, who worked alongside Eberling in caring for Durkin, testified that Eberling had confessed to her in 1983. A fellow convict also reported that Eberling confessed to the crime. Eberling died in an Ohio prison in 1998, where he was serving a life sentence for the 1984 murder Durkin.
The defense asked in the Civil Trail....

Why Sheppard had not called out for help, why he had neatly folded his jacket on the daybed in which he said he had fallen asleep, and why the family dog, which several witnesses had testified (in the first trial) was very loud when strangers came to the house, had not barked on the night of the murder (implying that the dog knew the killer).
The jury deliberated just three hours on April 12, 2000, before returning a unanimous verdict that Samuel Reese Sheppard had failed to prove that his father had been wrongfully imprisoned.

Another Suspect...

James Call was an Air Force deserter who passed through Cleveland on a multi-state crime spree at the relevant time. Neighbors saw a military lurking around the morning of the murder.

Do you think Sam did it?

The dog that didn't bark.

Lack of forced entry. 

Where's Sam's T-shirt? 

The delay in reporting the murder and inconsistencies in story
Signs of a staged sex crime and robbery
27 blows: a sign of passion?
Sam's infidelity and troubled marriage
Sam's thumbprint on the headboard
Sam's bloody watch
The missing table lamp?
No type A blood

Do you think he is innocent?

Sam's hard to self-inflict wounds
Marilyn and Sam appeared lovely that night.
Sam's lack of previous violence.
The damaged trophies.
Where's all the blood on his pants?
Moreover, according to DNA expert Dr. Mohammed Tahir, the blood stain on Sam's pants did not come from either himself or Marilyn--but, presumably, from the killer.
DNA analysis of the closet blood stain.
Only 1 of out of 42 people have a DNA profile consistent with a large blood stain found on a closet door near Marilyn's bed, and Richard Eberling is one of those rare persons.
Sam's apparent lack of motive
If he did it, he'd have a better story
A forensic expert, after examining blood spatter evidence, concluded the killer was left-handed. Sam Sheppard is right-handed.
The sperm in Marilyn did not come from Sam.
The murder weapon was not, as first alleged, a surgical instrument.
A forensic expert concluded the murderer bled from a cut hand.
Sam had no cut on his hand when examined after the murder.
Sam's refusal to confess.
Eberling stole Marilyn's ring and admitted bleeding in the Sheppard home.
Eberling's alleged "confessions".

Before i studied this case and the evidence, i thought he was probably innocent... Now i'm leaning slightly the other way. I wonder if they did any tests to see if he was under the influence.
Without a known history of violence, i don't see him committing the murder. If he was intoxicated at the time and he found his wife cheating or that she cheated and the baby wasn't his.... maybe. If it wasn't him, it was a lover that she had. That i am sure.

Some things you probably didn't know about bears.

A bear fought in the Polish Army in WW2. 

He carried shells to the front line and was taught to salute.

Wojtek

He was a Syrian brown bear purchased, as a young cub, by Polish II Corps soldiers who had been evacuated from the Soviet Union.

During WWII the bear was drafted into the Polish army. 

The soldier bear assisted the 22nd Artillery Supply Company in Africa.

In the 1st century AD, polar bears fought seals in Roman amphitheaters flooded with water.

The Colosseum (Flavian Amphitheater)

The building’s opening ceremony in 80 AD was as impressive as the Colosseum itself, lasting for 100 days with games such as animal fighting and gladiator duels.

The Romans would often re-enact famous military victories.

Perhaps the most spectacular events at the Colosseum, though, were the mock naval battles in the flooded arena.

Theodore Roosevelt had a pet bear.

Jonathan Edwards

He was President Theodore Roosevelt's pet bear.

He had been named by his children “partly out of compliment to their mother’s ancestor, and partly because they thought they detected Calvinistic traits in the bear’s character.”

As he grew, so did his temper and wildness.

In January of 1901 Roosevelt wrote to the Bronx Zoo, inquiring if they would be interested in giving Jonathan Edwards a home.

There's a shark in Greenland that eats polar bears and can live up to 200 years

They live further north than any other shark species.

The sharks usually eat large seals but have even been known to eat polar bears and reindeer from time to time.

Grizzly bears have a bite-force of over 8,000,000 pascals, enough to crush a bowling ball.

Also grizzly's are big.

A grizzly bear from Alaska having an enormous weight of 1600 pounds. 

The 12.6 foot tall bear had a massive head and teeth.

Its gigantic paws had impressive claws never before seen.

Polar bears can swim 60 miles (96 km) without stopping. 

Polar bears are strong swimmers.

They swim across bays or wide leads without hesitation. 

They can swim for several hours at a time over long distances. 

Polar bears can obtain a swimming speed of 10 kph (6.2 mph). 

A polar bear's nostrils close when under water.

Residents of Churchill, Canada, leave their cars unlocked to offer an escape for pedestrians who might encounter Polar Bears. 

Churchill Canada is known as the Polar Bear capital of the world.

Polar bear's skin is black.

Polar bears are largest land predator on earth 11 feet high and 1,700 lbs.

All polar bears ancestry brown female bear lived in Ireland 50,000 years ago.

Ireland was supposedly covered in ice then.

And scientists suggest they come from inbreeding.

Russians take guns into space to protect themselves against bears if they land off-course.

In March 1965, cosmonaut Alexey Leonov landed faulty Voskhod space capsule in the snowy forests of the Urals, 600 miles from his planned landing site.

For protection, Leonov had a nine-millimeter pistol. 

He feared the bears and wolves that prowled the forest.

Later in his career, he made sure the Soviet military provided all its cosmonauts with a survival weapon.

His efforts culminated in the TP-82. 

It was a sawed-off, double-barreled shotgun with a short-barreled rifle added onto it. 

It was good for hunting small game, while packing a big enough punch to deter a 1,000-pound brown bear.

Predictions that Came True

Jeane Dixon and JFK

She supposedly predicted John F. Kennedy's assassination seven years before it happened.

She told a magazine that a U.S. president elected in 1960 would die in office. 

 She claims that she had actually told the magazine that the president would be assassinated, but they refused to publish it.

She described him as a tall young man with blue eyes and thick brown hair.

 Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain) and Hailey's Comet.

He was born just after Halley's Comet appeared in 1835.

He said that he came in with Hailey's comet and he would go out with it.

He died of a heart attack one day after it appeared at its brightest in 1910.

Nostradamus and Great fire of London
100 years before it happened, Nostradamus wrote a cryptic poem.
The poem read:
"The blood of the just will be lacking in London,
Burnt up in the fire of '66:
The ancient Lady will topple from her high place,

Many of the same sect will be killed."

Sept. 2, 1666, a small fire in Thomas Farriner's bakery on Pudding Lane in London turned into a three-day blaze that consumed the city. 

It became known as the Great Fire of London.

Sharon Tate
She was an actress that predicted her own death a year before she died.
1968 an interviewer asked Tate if she had any psychic experiences.
She said that one night while in bed alone she began having strange feelings.
When she turned on the light she saw a man moving clumsily around the room.
She was convinced that it was an apparition of a famous Hollywood agent who had previously committed suicide there.
Terrified she ran downstairs only to be confronted by an apparition of woman having her throat cut.
She was murdered by the Manson family in 1969.

The Titanic Prediction

Morgan Robertson wrote fictional story The Wreck of the Titan, in 1898.
Similarities between the book and the Titanic sinking are striking.
Both had passengers died due to lack of life boats.
 Most people perished in icy waters after hitting an iceberg on the same side of the boat.
The book had close to the same number of passengers as the Titanic did.
They both crashed bow first.

Nostradamus and Hilter
Nostradamus predicted the coming of the 3 Antichrists.
Napoleon, Hitler and a third yet to be determined. 
His prediction reads:
"From the depths of the West of Europe,
A young child will be born of poor people,
He who by his tongue will seduce a great troop;
His fame will increase towards the realm of the East."
"Beasts ferocious with hunger will cross the rivers,
The greater part of the battlefield will be against Hister.
Into a cage of iron will the great one be drawn,

When the child of Germany observes nothing."
Hitler was born in western Europe.
He was born in lower middle class, not poor exactly.
His speeches did seduce.
He initiated WWII by invading Poland.
Beasts with ferocious hunger could be tanks. 
The word Hister looks a lot like Hitler.

Baba Vanga and 9-11
She was a blind Vulgarian woman.
She gave out a cryptic prediction in 1989.
She claimed that the American brethren will fall after being attacked by steel birds.
brethern=twin towers
steel birds=airplanes

Did Titanic Really Sink?

R.M.S. Titanic 

It was British passenger liner that sank in the North Atlantic Ocean in the early hours of 15 April 1912.

It collided with an iceberg during its maiden voyage from Southampton to New York City. 

There were an estimated 2,224 passengers and crew aboard, and more than 1,500 died.

It was the deadliest commercial peacetime maritime disasters in modern history.

Titanic was the largest ship afloat at the time.

It was the second of three Olympic-class ocean liners operated by the White Star Line. 
It was called the unsinkable ship, until it sank.

April 10, 1912, 12 p.m. - The RMS Titanic sets sail from Southampton, England, on its maiden voyage.

April 11, 1912, 1:30 p.m. - Leaves Queenstown, raising anchor for the last time.

April 14, 1912 -Throughout the day seven iceberg warnings were received.

April 14, 1912, 11:40 p.m. - The Titanic hits an iceberg.

April 14, 1912,11:50 p.m.Water had poured in and risen 14 feet in the front part of the ship.

April 15,1912,12:00 a.m.The captain was told the ship can only stay afloat for a couple of hours. 

He gave the order to call for help over the radio.

April 15, 1912, 12:20 a.m. - The RMS Carpathia receives distress calls and heads to the site to help. It arrives at 3:30 a.m.

April 15, 1912, 12:40 a.m. - Captain Smith gives the order to uncover the lifeboats and evacuate women and children

April 15, 1912, 12:45 a.m. - The first lifeboat is launched with 28 people on board out of a capacity of 65.

April 15, 1912 2:05 a.m. The last lifeboat left the ship. There were now over 1,500 people left on the ship. The tilt of Titanic’s deck grew steeper and steeper.

April 15, 1912, 2:17 am The last radio message was sent. The captain announced ‘Every man for himself’

April 15, 1912 ,2:20 a.m. The Titanic’s broken off stern settled back into the water, becoming more level for a few moments.

Slowly it filled with water and tilted its end high into the air before sinking into the sea.

People in the water slowly froze to death.

April 15, 1912, 4:10 a.m. The first lifeboat was picked up by the Carpathia.

April 15, 1912 8:50 a.m. The Carpathia left the area bound for New York. 

She had on board 705 survivors of the Titanic disaster.

 April 18,1912 9:00 p.m. The Carpathia arrived in New York.

 April 22, to May 15,Several ships were sent to the disaster site to recover bodies. 

A total of 328 bodies were found floating in the area.

Survivors talk about what it was like.

Facts you might not know

Only 16 wooden lifeboats and four collapsible boats were carried, enough to accommodate 1,178 people. 

That's only one-third of Titanic's total capacity, but more than legally required.

Edward Smith, the ship’s captain, also went down with the vessel. His last words were: “Well boys, you've done your duty and done it well. I ask no more of you. I release you. You know the rule of the sea. It's every man for himself now, and God bless you.” 

The most expensive one-way ticket on Titanic was $4,350.

That is more than $97,000 in today's dollars.

Slipping the ship into the water required 22 tons of grease and soap.

Titanic Conspiracy

According to one theory, it wasn't the Titanic that sank. 
Some believe it was the Olympic, which was swapped with the Titanic and sunk in a deliberate accident as part of an insurance scheme. 
And supposedly JP Morgan other top officials are the only ones who knew.
The Olympic, had been in two serious collisions within months of its launch; the damage was so severe that repairs would have been too expensive.
Olympic and Titanic were nearly identical.

It was theorized that when the Titanic was pictured while being built it had 14 evenly spaced portholes but when it left Southampton on doomed maiden voyage on April 10th 1912 it had 16 unevenly spaced portholes.

J.P.Morgan was among many people who cancelled his trip at the last minute as he was of ill.

When in actual fact he had been spotted in France, two days later and appeared to be in perfectly well health.

The ship named SS Californian was able to find coal when the country was in the middle of a coal strike and then there was the fact that when it had left London there was no passengers on board.

Instead there was was a small cargo of of blankets and warm clothes.

Was it for the Titanic?

When the supposed Olympic was taken out of service in 1935  to be stripped and broken down, parts including the Aft first class staircase, was taken and used in the White Swan Hotel, Alnwick, UK.

The paneling used shows number on the frame that says 401 this was the number that was given to Titanic when it was being built. However, if the paneling had been from Olympic the number would have been 400.