Stories and mysteries from the modern era.
Modern
Just after midnight on 3 December 1984, methyl isocyanate leaked from a pesticide plant over sleeping Bhopal. Thousands died by morning, and warnings had been ignored for years.
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Modern
The V-2 rocket, a 188-tonne tank, a jet flying wing, a supergun aimed at London and a plan for a mirror in orbit. More people died building the V-2 than were killed by it.
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Modern
Over a hundred English colonists disappeared from Roanoke, leaving the word CROATOAN carved on a post. The likeliest answer is that they went to live with their neighbours.
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Modern
Chernobyl's operators pulled out the control rods during a 1986 safety test, not knowing that the rods' design could speed the reaction up. Secrecy turned the explosion into a catastrophe.
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Modern
Howard Carter opened Tutankhamun's tomb in 1922: the only near-intact royal burial found in Egypt. Later pharaohs erased the boy king, which is partly why robbers missed him.
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Modern
French soldiers found it in 1799: one decree in Greek, Demotic and hieroglyphs. Thomas Young and Jean-François Champollion then raced for 23 years to read the Egyptian scripts.
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Modern
Flight 19 and the USS Cyclops made the Bermuda Triangle famous. Lloyd's of London and the US Coast Guard find no more losses there than in any other busy, stormy stretch of ocean.
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Modern
On 20 July 1969 Armstrong steered past a boulder field and landed with seconds of fuel to spare. How Apollo 11 was flown, and why the laser mirrors on the Moon settle the hoax claims.
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Modern
Tesla's AC motor and polyphase system power the modern grid. He was also famous and honoured in his lifetime, which is not the story the internet legend tells.
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Modern
In 1959 nine experienced Soviet hikers cut their way out of their tent into a freezing night and died with strange injuries. A 2021 study of a small slab avalanche may explain what happened.
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