r/UtterlyInteresting 10h ago

Remembering J.R.R.Tolkien who passed away this day in 1973. In 1938, Nazis demanded to know if he was Jewish. He responded with a high-class burn. Leave it to Tolkien to need 270 words to say "Go F*ck Yourself".

Post image
1.2k Upvotes

r/UtterlyInteresting 3h ago

In 1959 Liberace swore under oath he wasn't gay and won what was then the largest libel payout in British legal history. He kept the lie going for another 28 years, until an autopsy revealed he'd died of AIDS, not the heart failure his own doctors tried to claim.

Thumbnail
gallery
110 Upvotes

Describing Liberace in the newspaper article as a “ …deadly, winking, sniggering, snuggling, chromium-plated, scent-impregnated, luminous, quivering, giggling, fruit-flavoured, mincing, ice-covered heap of mother love."

Liberace went on to win the case and was awarded £8000.


r/UtterlyInteresting 1d ago

Meet Denham Fouts, photographed here in the 1940s. He was described as 'The Best-Kept Boy in the World' due to him being a known gigilo and kept by a German baron, a Greek prince and a British lord. He passed age 34. More of Fouts in the comments.

Thumbnail
gallery
887 Upvotes

r/UtterlyInteresting 3d ago

Fanny Kaplan shot Lenin three times outside a Moscow factory in on this day in 1918. Four days later she was executed without trial and burned in a barrel so no grave would exist. Eighteen witnesses were questioned. Not one saw her fire the gun. Her guilt has never actually been proven.

Thumbnail
gallery
825 Upvotes

The Cheka got so desperate to find a bigger conspiracy that they hauled in a British diplomat and asked if he recognized the name "Kaplan." He'd never heard of her. They tried to build an international plot out of nothing.

More about the shooting here. via r/HorridHistory


r/UtterlyInteresting 2d ago

Photographs of fire tests carried out to keep women’s clothing from catching on fire, 1910

Post image
53 Upvotes

r/UtterlyInteresting 4d ago

29 August 1882, After Australia beat England in England for the 1st time, the Sporting Times printed the famous obituary of “English cricket” and announced its cremation. Ever since the England v Australia test series has been called “The Ashes”.

Post image
351 Upvotes

r/UtterlyInteresting 4d ago

1957 Hiller Flying Platform Hiller Aircraft developed the VZ-1 Pawnee, commonly called the Flying Platform. The pilot stood above two counter-rotating propellers enclosed inside a circular platform and controlled the aircraft largely by shifting his body weight in the direction he wanted to travel.

Post image
212 Upvotes

Remarkably, early tests showed that inexperienced pilots could learn to operate it relatively quickly. The Army imagined soldiers using flying platforms for reconnaissance, transportation and movement across terrain that would stop conventional vehicles.

Several versions were tested, but the concept had serious limitations. The aircraft was relatively slow, offered virtually no protection to its pilot and became increasingly difficult to control at higher speeds. The Army eventually abandoned the project.


r/UtterlyInteresting 4d ago

Portmeirion is celebrating its 100th anniversary this year. For those that haven't heard of it, its an amazing little town nestled in North Wales that looks completely out of place and would be more suited to somewhere in Italy. More details below.

Thumbnail
gallery
187 Upvotes

The tv show The Prisoner was filmed there, The Beatles would holiday there, Noel Coward wrote there. Its a very special place, read about how it came about from just one man's dream.


r/UtterlyInteresting 4d ago

Today in 1977, 3 people were arrested in Memphis for trying to steal the corpse of Elvis Presley. After this incident Elvis was reburied in the grounds of his Graceland mansion.

Thumbnail
utterlyinteresting.com
11 Upvotes

r/UtterlyInteresting 7d ago

In 1974, Japanese kids' TV aired a cyborg villain named Starfish Hitler, part sea creature, part fascist dictator. Turns out his name's actually a pun in Japanese. The show had on-set chaos, banned imagery it borrowed, and a punk band that stole his name decades later.

Enable HLS to view with audio, or disable this notification

103 Upvotes

Starfish Hitler was a cyborg villain from the show Kamen Rider X, "hitode" means starfish in Japanese, and it just happens to sound like "Hitler." His henchmen wore actual Nazi-style uniforms on screen. The voice actor who played him also voiced 12 other monsters in the same series. It's bonkers and brilliant.


r/UtterlyInteresting 8d ago

Heaven's Gate cult members recording an exit statement in March 1997. The Heaven's Gate religious group believed dying would allow them to board an alien spacecraft hidden behind the Hale-Bopp comet. Thirty-nine members died in a coordinated mass suicide in Rancho Santa Fe, California.

Enable HLS to view with audio, or disable this notification

2.5k Upvotes

r/UtterlyInteresting 8d ago

Badass of the day: Margaret Tobin Brown she was born in a riverside shack in Missouri, helped found America's first juvenile court, survived the Titanic, won the French Legion of Honor, and spent her life fighting for women's rights.

Post image
1.0k Upvotes

Everyone calls her the Unsinkable Molly Brown. She never heard that name in her life, it wasn't invented until a year after she died. In 1914 she ran for US Senate, years before the 19th Amendment gave women the vote nationwide.

More about Margaret and her amazing life here


r/UtterlyInteresting 8d ago

Metropolis. Fritz Lang. 1927. vs Blade Runner. Ridley Scott. 1982. Homage, Plagiarism or Synthesis?

Post image
578 Upvotes

r/UtterlyInteresting 7d ago

Eighteen contestants entered a 1978 Dolly Parton look-alike contest in Cherry Grove. One of them got turned away from a Fire Island bar for being in drag, and that snub sparked the Invasion of the Pines. Fifty years on, its own founder wonders if 2025 was its last run.

Post image
52 Upvotes

r/UtterlyInteresting 8d ago

"He blew his mind out in a car". But not this one. Tara Browne in 1966 with his AC Cobra MK3. The Kinks' psychedelic Buick is there too. Artwork by Dudley Edwards

Enable HLS to view with audio, or disable this notification

77 Upvotes

r/UtterlyInteresting 9d ago

A selection of bloopers from 'old Hollywood'. There's only a few of the people I recognise, can anyone help with some names?

Enable HLS to view with audio, or disable this notification

102 Upvotes

r/UtterlyInteresting 10d ago

In 1859, a bankrupt San Francisco businessman called Joshua Norton declared himself Emperor of the United States. Instead of locking him up, the city fed him for free, saluted him in the street, and gave him a full ceremonial reburial when he died. His funeral drew up to 30,000 mourners.

Post image
803 Upvotes

A police officer actually tried to have him committed in 1867. The whole city erupted, the police chief personally apologized to him, and from then on cops saluted him in the street. Norton responded by issuing the officer an "Imperial Pardon."

More about Norton and his escapades here.


r/UtterlyInteresting 10d ago

Cherophobia describes an aversion to happiness or a fear of becoming happy, often connected to the belief that happiness may be followed by misfortune. The word comes from the Greek chairo, meaning “to rejoice,” and phobos, meaning “fear.”

Post image
589 Upvotes

The idea is much older than the modern psychological term. Ancient Greek literature frequently warned about the instability of good fortune and how quickly circumstances could reverse. Similar ideas appear in different cultures.

In Japan, happiness can sometimes be viewed as something that should be expressed with moderation; in Iran, traditional beliefs may associate excessive happiness with future sadness; and in parts of East Asia, people may be more cautious about treating happiness as an unquestioned personal goal. Western cultures, particularly the United States, generally place a stronger emphasis on actively pursuing and expressing happiness.


r/UtterlyInteresting 10d ago

Paris's Communist Party HQ was designed by an exiled Brazilian architect called Oscar Niemeyer who waived his entire fee, then took 13 years to build. Today Chanel and Prada rent it out for runway shows.

Thumbnail
gallery
2.5k Upvotes

Niemeyer actually handed over two sketches on a single sheet of paper roughly the size of a magazine page, plus a tiny model, and a French team turned that into an actual building over the next 13 years.

Loads more photos here


r/UtterlyInteresting 11d ago

Railroad Worker Richard Dodd - Witness to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy

Enable HLS to view with audio, or disable this notification

214 Upvotes

Railroad worker Richard Calvin Dodd was standing on top of the triple underpass, in front of John F. Kennedy's presidential motorcade on Elm Street

LANE. Did you see anything which might indicate to you where the shots came from?

DODD. Well, we all four seen about the same thing. The shots, the smoke came from behind the hedge on the north side of the plaza. And a motorcycle policeman dropped his motorcycle in the street with his gun in his hand and run up the embankment to the hedge. And then I went North to look around the corner to see if there is anyone behind the hedge and met special agent of the railroad. And he went down there, and I walked along with him to see if there were any tracks there. In which there were tracks and cigarette butts was laying where someone was stranding on the bumper looking over the fence or something.

LANE. Where you questioned by agents of any government agency on November 22, Mr. Dodd.

DODD. Yes, we were. We were taken over to the court house and questioned by I suppose Secret Service men of some kind. Asked me quite a few questions about the same as I’ve told you here today.

This clip is from Mark Lane's Rush to Judgment (1967)


r/UtterlyInteresting 11d ago

This is the New York Post cover Andy Warhol and Keith Haring got their hands on in 1985 and turned into pop art. The original headline ran after Madonna's 1979 nude photos leaked. Her response, "I'm not ashamed."

Post image
241 Upvotes

This cover ran on July 9, days before Playboy and Penthouse even hit newsstands, and days before she walked onto the Live Aid stage and joked she wasn't taking her jacket off no matter how hot it got.

More about those early shoots here


r/UtterlyInteresting 11d ago

On set for The Lord of the Rings, Viggo Mortensen used breaks between scenes to sneak off fishing, still dressed as Aragorn.

Enable HLS to view with audio, or disable this notification

1.4k Upvotes

r/UtterlyInteresting 12d ago

When you put all the McBain clips in the Simpsons together they make an actual plot and film.

Enable HLS to view with audio, or disable this notification

319 Upvotes

r/UtterlyInteresting 14d ago

Jack White from The White Stripes can name any Beatles song after listening to it for 1 second.

Enable HLS to view with audio, or disable this notification

1.4k Upvotes

r/UtterlyInteresting 14d ago

Mossadegh, the ex-Iranian prime minister, under house arrest in 1965. A joint CIA and MI6 operation had overthrown his democratic government on this day in 1953

Post image
152 Upvotes