James II Of Scotland, Who Died From A Backfiring Cannon Public DomainJames II, King of Scots, had a fatal fascination with cannons. As the King of Scotland, James II was known for his fiery temper, equally fiery facial birthmark, and his interest in weapons of war. But as he prepared to besiege the English-held Roxburgh Castle in 1460, the 29-year-old king’s passion for weaponry proved fatal when a cannon exploded and killed him.

Before Carrie Bradshaw and Hannah Horvath, New York was host to the 1980s. And trust us, it wasn't all that pretty.The 1980s greatly tested New York City’s strength: residents fled the city in record numbers, government mismanagement caused near bankruptcy of the city, and the introduction of crack-cocaine unleashed an unprecedented wave of drug addiction and violence. Below, we look at the decade that came to define the city as the ‘Rotten Apple’ for a generation of Americans:

Photos of the beatnik movement in 1950s Greenwich Village that was home to Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, and the thriving Beat Generation.In the late 1940s, a new counterculture coalesced around the writings of Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac, and William Burroughs that embraced nonconformity, sexual liberation, and a bohemian lifestyle. Known as the Beat Generation, they laid the philosophical foundations for a free-spirited expressionism that would evolve into the broader hippie movement in the 1960s.

Infamous fake photos from a time before photoshop.Wikimedia Commons In our modern world of the internet and photoshop, where it’s second nature to double check almost every photo for legitimacy, it can be hard to imagine a time when people believed outlandish photos without any proof. Fake photos of monsters and flying humans would be published in newspapers without any verification, and it seemed that people would believe just about anything if it was captured on film.

During the Battle of the Bulge, the Nazis had intended on surrounding the Allies, crushing them, and chasing them out of Europe. However, the Allied Army had other plans. A heavily-armed Nazi soldier marches into Belgium. Belgium. Dec. 18, 1944. Wikimedia Commons American prisoners-of-war from the all-Black 333rd Battalion, photographed by their Nazi captors. Many of the men captured on this day were stripped of their weapons, walked out into a field, and massacred.