Great Secrets of History: Gripping Stories of Truth and Lies, Deception and Discovery. Uncover the Hidden Facts!

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There is much to admire in Tartt's novel, but it is especially laudable for how persuasively she chronicles the steps from studying classics to committing murder. This is a difficult transition to relate in a believable manner, and all the more difficult given Tartt's decision to tell the story from the perspective of one of the most genial of the conspirators. Her story could easily come across as implausible—or even risible—in its recreation of Dionysian rites on a Vermont college campus, and its attempt to convince us that a mild-mannered transfer student with a taste for ancient languages can evolve, through a series of almost random events, into a killer. Yet convince us she does, and the intimacy with which Tartt brings her readers into the psychological miasma of the unfolding plot is one of the most compelling features of The Secret History. [10] Planned and cancelled screen adaptations [ edit ] Everybody loves a good conspiracy story,” says Burt. “And that was the initial spark—headlines, outrage, crimes, a murder. It didn’t take long before a movement was borne.” The outrage led to calls for political action. Citizens from all over New York state met and declared their intent to stop voting for candidates with Masonic ties. If New Yorkers didn’t want to be ruled by the Masons, their most immediate course of action was to vote them out. That sentiment extended to the media as well, as Mason-owned newspapers were boycotted. Though people pretend it's written in stone, history features tons of famous mysteries - many of which remain unsolved. From the location of Genghis Khan's tomb to the instructions for making a Byzantine weapon that inspired Game of Thrones, this list collects the best-kept secrets in history. Some secrets remained hidden for centuries until an accident uncovered them, such as a solid gold Buddha hidden in plain sight. Surprisingly enough, that's not the only million-dollar secret on this list. Other top-secret information, from the Manhattan Project to Britain's World War II intelligence operations, eventually came out after the war, stunning the public. Judy Poovey: one of Richard's dormmates. Also a California native, she has a one-sided sexual infatuation with him, and he only goes to see her when he wants something from her. The kings and queens who commanded such realms as ancient Egypt, the Roman Empire and medieval England wield much fascination for historians and the public alike. For proof of this trend, simply look to Smithsonian’s ten most-read stories of the year: Number three centered on a funerary temple dedicated to the Egyptian Old Kingdom queen Naert, while number four detailed an amateur treasure hunter’s discovery of the missing centerpiece of Henry VIII’s crown, a gold figurine depicting Henry VI.

Which part of the 5,000-acre plantation she called home remained unknown until archaeologists followed an old clue. One Jefferson grandson had mentioned that she lived in Monticello’s South Wing. Excavations shifted to that wing and unraveled why her room disappeared. Traditionally, Freemason membership has only been open to men. In the group’s “1723 Constitutions,” a kind of guidebook to the organization by James Anderson, written under the aegis of the Grand Lodge of England, women and atheists were excluded along with enslaved people. History tells that on 30th April 1945, Adolf Hitler killed himself in his underground bunker. Is this really true? Or did the soviets lie to the world? Evidence from the new declassified FBI documents shows that the government had information that Hitler was alive after World War II. He was supposedly living in the Andes Mountains.The Manhattan Project: Making the Atomic Bomb”, Francis Gosling, United States Department of Energy History Division (1994) Above Area 51 is one of the most restricted air space on the planet. But why is the U.S. government trying so hard to keep people out? Finally, the truth had emerged in declassified documents published in August 2013. According to the report by the CIA, Area 51 was created in 1955 for a single purpose, to test a top secret aircraft project, code-named ‘’Aquatone”. The aircraft was to spy the Soviet Union when Russia bragged of its nuclear power. 4. Adolf Hitler While no serious scholar believes that this story is literally true, some have speculated that the legend could have been inspired, in part, by real events that happened in Greek history. One possibility is that the Minoan civilization (as it's now called), which flourished on the island of Crete until about 1400 B.C., could have inspired the story of Atlantis. Although Crete is in the Mediterranean, and not the Atlantic, Minoan settlements suffered considerable damage during the eruption of Thera, a volcano in Greece. Freemasons have long communicated using visual symbols drawn from the tools of stonemasonry. The “All-Seeing Eye,” or Eye of Providence, while not designed by Masons, has been used by the group to represent the omniscience of God. The most well-known Freemason symbol, “The Square and Compasses,” depicts a builder’s square joined by a compass. The “G” at its center remains subject to dispute; some experts at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, for example, believe the “G” in the symbol’s center represents geometry, a critical field to the first Freemasons, while others believe it represents God, the “Grand Architect of the Universe.” The Square and Compasses remains a popular symbol on Masonic rings. Fein, Esther B. (November 16, 1992). "The Media Business; The Marketing of a Cause Celebre". The New York Times.

Greek Fire... was essentially gasoline for flamethrowers that was used by the Byzantine Empire from around year 670 to their final fall in 1453. The fire was also not only able to still burn on water, but seemed to be fueled by water, with the flames spreading even more as people tried to put it out. So the Byzantines strapped these flamethrowers to their vessels to simply burn enemy ships before they even got close.Anolik, Lili (May 28, 2019). "The Secret Oral History of Bennington: The 1980s' Most Decadent College". Esquire. Archived from the original on June 1, 2019. Last but not least, a masterpiece of a different kind—a blue-and-white dress worn by Judy Garland in the 1939 film The Wizard of Oz—turned up in a trash bag at the Catholic University of America in June, confirming long-standing rumors that the Washington, D.C. school’s drama department housed the iconic costume.

While Freemasonry is not itself a religion, all its members believe in a Supreme Being, or "Grand Architect of the Universe.” Members come from many faiths, but one denomination in particular bars any crossover. The Catholic Church first condemned Freemasonry in 1738, prompted by concern over Masonic temples and the secret rituals performed within them. In the 19th century, the Vatican even called the Masons "the Synagogue of Satan." The Manhattan Project was maintained in a state of such strict secrecy that most of the people who worked on the nuclear bomb were unaware of that fact The 2002 publication of Tartt's second novel The Little Friend caused a resurgence of interest in The Secret History. A new adaptation was announced by Miramax Films, to be produced by Harvey Weinstein and headed by Jake and Gwyneth Paltrow, who hoped to star as the characters Charles and Camila Macaulay respectively. The death of the siblings' father Bruce Paltrow in October of that year caused the project to be shelved again, and the rights were reinstated to Tartt. [12] In 2016, radar tests detected the original walls of the tomb. Encouraged by the presence of a cave, archaeologists removed the marble slab said to cover the shelf where the body of Jesus once rested. [7]

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General Benedict Arnold was plotting with Head of the British Secret Service Major John Andre to surrender the fort at West Point. A diameter of 330 meters (1,083 ft) makes Avebury the largest stone ring in Europe. Why a Neolithic society decided to arrange 100 massive stones into three circles sometime around 2850–2200 BC remains hazy. The 2010 film 'Centurion' surmised that the Ninth Legion met a grisly fate in northern Britain. Another theory contends that it was butchered on the empire's easter frontier. (Image by Alamy)