The history of mankind is replete with shocking episodes and scary stories, compared to which any horror film seems like a children's horror story.
We present to you the top 7 most terrifying historical events that can serve (and sometimes do) as inspiration for a game, film, or book.
7. Zombie apocalypse in the UK
Zombie movies are no longer a surprise. Countless armies of the living dead wandering aimlessly through the streets, the panic of the few survivors... That's pretty much what it was like in England during the Great Plague (1665-1666).
London authorities tried to limit the spread of the disease by quarantining the homes of those infected. All family members of those who died of the plague were required to remain confined to their homes for 40 days, and a guard was stationed at the door to ensure the quarantine was not violated.
Considering that most homes had minimal food and medicine, it's easy to imagine the desperation and fear of those quarantined, and their desire to escape. Killing guards was common practice, and one deranged victim went so far as to construct homemade explosives.
6. Attack of the Dead
An episode of the defense of the Osowiec fortress during the First World War went down in history under this journalistic title.
The Germans besieging the fortress used large quantities of liquid chlorine against its defenders from the 13th Company of the 226th Zemlyansky Regiment. They supplemented the chemical attack with artillery fire, creating a veritable hell for the Russians from which no one was expected to escape alive.
«"We had no gas masks, so the gases caused terrible injuries and chemical burns. Breathing produced a wheezing sound, and bloody foam came from our lungs. The skin on our hands and faces blistered. The rags we wrapped around our faces were of no help. However, the Russian artillery began to fire, sending shell after shell from a green chlorine cloud toward the Prussians. Then, the head of the 2nd Osowiec Defense Department, Svechnikov, shaking with a terrible cough, croaked: 'My friends, we can't die like Prussian cockroaches from poisoning. Let's show them, so they'll remember us forever!'"« — from the memoirs of a participant in the events, the commander of a half-company of the 13th company, Alexei Lepeshkin.
This attack so frightened the Germans that they rushed to flee from the bloody, mutilated people, and many died from the fire of the fortress artillery, hanging on their own barbed wire.
These events formed the basis of the short film "Attack of the Dead: Osowiec", released in 2018.
5. Waterloo soldiers were used as fertilizer and dentures.
By the early 19th century, the belief had spread in England that calcium-rich bones were a valuable fertilizer. And for several years after Napoleon's defeat, agents from fertilizer manufacturers combed the battlefields.
The bones of humans and horses were removed from places like Austerlitz, Leipzig, and Waterloo and sent for processing, typically to Hull and Doncaster. This seems shockingly disrespectful to the dead, but times were different. For centuries, corpses on battlefields were plundered by other soldiers and local peasants, and the Napoleonic Wars were no different.
Long before the arrival of the bone dealers, many bodies in Waterloo were missing teeth. Dentures made from human teeth were known for many years as "Waterloo teeth.".
The Battle of Waterloo also sparked tourism. Surprisingly, there are reports of Britons traveling to the battlefield to witness the action in real time, like spectators at a sports game.
4. Jack the Ripper was never caught.
The story of Jack the Ripper began on August 31, 1888, when the body of a woman was found dead in Whitechapel. Her throat had been slit and her stomach had been ripped open.
Three months later, when what became known as the "Autumn of Terror" ended, the same terrible fate befell four more women.
From the very beginning of the investigation, Scotland Yard was baffled. The only thing known for certain about Jack the Ripper was that he killed women. According to Edmund Reid, one of the detectives assigned to the murders, all of Jack's crimes were similar:
- All five women were active or former prostitutes;
- all the victims were from the lower class;
- everyone lived close to each other;
- and all the murders were committed after the pubs closed.
One more significant detail can be added to Reed's key facts: no one ever heard cries for help, which is highly unusual for such a densely populated area as Whitechapel. None of the bodies showed wounds consistent with self-defense, such as cuts or bruises on the hands and forearms. And three victims were found with their internal organs removed, which Jack apparently took with him. He included a kidney from one of the victims in a letter, "From Hell," sent to a member of the Whitechapel Vigilance Committee. The letter states that Jack the Ripper "roasted and ate" the second kidney.
One of the women told police she saw the second victim, prostitute Annie Chapman, accompanied by a "foreigner" of medium height, wrapped in a dark raincoat. But whether this was Jack the Ripper or one of Annie's clients, we will never know.
3. Pope Pius XII's body exploded after his death.
Pope Pius XII did not want embalmers to remove his internal organs after his death. Everything was to remain in the same condition "as God created it." Therefore, Riccardo Galeazzi-Lisi, the pontiff's physician, utilized a new embalming method developed by the Neapolitan professor Oreste Nazzi.
Galeazzi-Lisi hoped that Pius XII's embalmed body would be preserved forever in its natural state. But something went wrong, and under the influence of the Mediterranean heat, the Pope's corpse began to rapidly decompose, literally exploding from the inside. This occurred during the funeral ceremony.
The stench was so strong that even the staunch Scots Guards, who stood guard of honour around the pontiff's body, felt ill.
Ultimately, Pius XII's body and Galeazzi-Lisi's career were destroyed on the same day. However, the doctor gained the dubious distinction of becoming the only person ever expelled from the Vatican.
2. The Duplessis Orphans
It's terrifying when even one child is tortured, let alone when the toll runs into the thousands. But that's exactly what happened in now-prosperous and democratic Canada, in the province of Quebec, during the government of Maurice Duplessis (1940s-1950s).
All local schools, orphanages, and hospitals were entrusted to the church's management. And around 20,000 (according to other sources, up to 300,000) abandoned children, orphans, allegedly mentally ill children, and children born out of wedlock were placed under the care of nuns and medical staff.
Many of them were subjected to sexual abuse, medical experiments, drugs, beatings, and forced to work alongside adults.
The truth about what happened to the Duplessis orphans only began to emerge in the 1990s. However, the Roman Catholic Church refused to accept responsibility for what happened.
1. A serial killer during the London Blitz«
From early September 1940 to May 1941, Great Britain was bombed by Nazi Germany. This period was known as the "London Blitz" or "The Great Blitz." But bombs weren't the only danger to the residents of the English capital.
Under cover of darkness, serial killer Gordon Frederick Cummins terrorized the city, killing seven women. Four of them died.
Cummins, nicknamed the "Invisible Ripper," like Jack the Ripper, mutilated the bodies of his victims. But, unlike the elusive 19th-century serial killer, Cummins was brought to justice.
A stroke of chance played a role: when the killer attacked his next victim, a night porter happened to be nearby and shone a flashlight in Cummins's face. The maniac fled, dropping his service respirator. The police used the serial number on the respirator to track down its owner. The evidence was enough to sentence London's "Invisible Ripper" to death.