Common history is already brutal. Behind the well-known wars, diseases, and murders are stories that manage to be even more horrifying. Some of these terrifying tales can only be likened to those found in Halloween movies. But, unlike horror movie monsters, which may be destroyed by declaring, "It's just a movie," the terrible tales on this list are all true.

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The Astronaut’s Mysterious Visitor

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Yang Liwei was floating in his capsule in 2003. He had just become China's first man in space. He was alone in the middle of nothing. Then there was a knock. 

Nobody can hear you scream in space. However, it appears like you can hear tapping. Back on Earth, Liwei told reporters about the incident. The sound reminded him of "someone pounding the body of the spaceship with a wooden hammer, just like knocking an iron bucket." He couldn't pinpoint the source of the noise. "It didn't come from outside or within the spaceship," he explained. He set out to investigate the shuttle for any clues. He looked out his porthole and saw nothing out the side. There was also nothing wrong on the inside. Nobody could explain the strange knock.

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When the sound returned, scientists had little luck in determining its enigmatic sources. Theories of benevolent aliens welcoming Liwei to the neighborhood were swiftly dismissed. Liwei returned to Earth and investigated the capsule once more. He and his colleagues were still stuck. The sound was recreated by the crew. Nothing even came close. Because sound requires a medium, the most likely cause was a physical item colliding with the spaceship. There were no marks indicating outside touch. The most widely accepted idea is that the exterior's metallic surface constricted while exposed to the cold vacuum of space. Other astronauts reported similar sounds in 2005 and 2008, providing credence to the theory that it is related to temperature. The truth exists, although it is most likely due to thermal change.

The British Zombie Invasion

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A virus spreads. The victims' shambling remains wander the city. The government attempts to suppress them, but they manage to flee. Armed locals must take matters into their own hands and carry them out. This is the plot of numerous zombie films, ranging from REC to Resident Evil. It was a reality for Black Plague victims in England. London, as a booming metropolitan hub, had reason to be especially concerned about the disease's spread. The sick were locked up in their own homes. The doors were padlocked to keep guests out. Any contaminated residence was marked with a red cross on the door to warn people to stay away. Armed guards were stationed to prevent anyone from attempting to assist.

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Inside the residence, conditions deteriorated due to a lack of food and medicine. The infected battled back, much like in George Romero's Land of the Dead. Families murdered the guards in order to flee. One usual method was to slip a noose through a window and lower it until it was around the guard's neck. The guard was hauled up with a rapid pull till he pledged to let them go. Blankets were thrown on top of deceased guards in order to deceive plague carts into carrying them away with the dead. When entire streets were quarantined, residents rioted and slaughtered all of the guards, with one crazy victim going so far as to make homemade explosives. Freedom was not worth all the bloodshed. The plague refugees wandered with no resources. As they fled London, many of the smaller villages barred entry. Locals threw stones and manure at the infirm. Some let the sick in, only to rob them.

Waterloo Soldiers Were Ground Up To Fertilizer

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Waterloo is connected with historical disasters, thanks to Napoleon Bonaparte and ABBA. On that Belgian battlefield, 60,000 soldiers were killed. What those troops had no idea was that they would become an important element of English gardening. The fields were cleared a year after Waterloo. All exposed soldier and horse bones were collected by companies. They ground the bones into a powder to save space. This was routine practice on many of Napoleon's other battlegrounds, including Leipzig and Austerlitz.

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At the time, newspapers said that they dragged "more than a million bushels of human and inhuman bones." The French army was crushed up in Yorkshire factories, marking their second defeat at the hands of the English. After putting the man in "manure," the remnants were combined as an addition in fertilizer. The marrow oil was extremely beneficial, outperforming "nearly any other item." With a positive spin on this widespread grave robbery, modern newspapers declared that "a dead soldier is a most valuable commodity of commerce." The substance, which was sent in large quantities to Doncaster, aided in the growth of the plants in England's agricultural hub. It might be purchased by local farmers to help them raise their own crops. A generation of Europeans ate meals prepared with the assistance of dead bodies. Hannibal Lecter would be pleased and satiated.

Venerable Pope Pius XII’s Climatic Death

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The Venerable Pope Pius XII had only one desire. He refused to be embalmed. He wanted his body to be buried just as God had created it. His Holiness, no doubt, did not want to explode. Pope Pius XII's reign had proven to be particularly divisive outside of Catholic circles by the time he died in 1958. Historians have disputed the merits of the Pope's leadership throughout the buildup to and aftermath of World War II. Aside from such discussions, the pontiff's history received a final and frightening blow. Galeazzi-Lisi, a papal Court doctor, was appointed only via nepotism. Galeazzi-Lisi was friends with Pius XII (while then Cardinal Eugenio Pacelli) before he became Pope, yet he was hopelessly unprepared to be designated as the Pope's personal physician.

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Galeazzi-Lisi, a charlatan with no medical experience, invented his own embalming system. Galeazzi-"aromatic Lisi's osmosis" procedure drenched the body in natural oils, evoking the oil rituals of early Christian leaders. The body lay covered in cellophane for 24 hours. Scientists abandoned this procedure because it permits internal gases in the organs to build up as the corpse decays. The corpse burst open while being carried in procession while stewing in the Mediterranean heat.

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Galeazzi-Lisi was obliged to re-embalm Pius overnight after the corpse exploded. It was already too late. Pius XII's nose and fingers were already gone. The body was blackened by decomposition. Mourners wept over a "emerald green" corpse displayed in St. Peter's Basilica. The smell caused nearby guards to pass out. The careers of Pius XII and Galeazzi-Lisi were both ended on the same day. He won his place in history via incompetence. He is the only individual who has ever been expelled from the Vatican.

George Washington Comes Back From The Dead

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Dr. William Thornton existed before Dr. Victor Frankenstein. To make his monstrous monster, Frankenstein rummaged through the graves of recently killed prisoners. Thornton settled for a more refined customer, the United States of America's Founding Father. Martha Washington assured George Washington that he would live to see the year 1800. On Saturday night, December 14, 1799, George Washington died. Martha, apparently unwilling to break her commitment, contacted Dr. William Thornton. 

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George Washington feared being buried alive. He was terrified by stories about coffins with scratch marks within. After verifying his death, Washington worked with his secretary, Tobias Lear, to "not let his body be deposited into the Vault in less than three days." During that time, his bereaved family would gather and watch to see whether he moved. Thornton had another thought.

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William Thornton was a well-known physician during his time. Thornton, educated at Europe's top colleges, swore he could fix everything wrong with Washington. Washington passed away before he came. That was no problem for Thornton. The strategy was straightforward. Thornton would immerse Washington's body in cold water like a Thanksgiving turkey. Thornton would wrap the president in layers of blankets to thaw him out. Thornton would pump air into Washington's lungs to induce breathing as his body temperature progressively rose. Thornton would inject the President with sheep's blood to restart his heart. The Washington would eventually resurrect as if nothing had occurred. Surprisingly, the idea was turned down.

Ivan Pavlov experimented on homeless orphans too

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The insane Russian scientist's mind control experiments on helpless victims are as old as the hills. Those crazy scientists, on the other hand, rarely win the Nobel Prize. Ivan Pavlov is the rule that proves the exception. Even though Pavlov is most known for training dogs, his research was never intended to stop there. Nikolai Krasnogorsky, a student of Pavlov's, expanded his studies to include humans. He was able to simply control a group of young children by recruiting subjects from the nearby orphanage without having to worry about receiving permission from their parents.

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It would have been impossible to recreate the setup from his mentor's well-known dog experimentation. Compared to dogs, people are less likely to eat when told to. The children's mouths were propped open by metal head gear and leather straps. Their saliva collection was measured using apparatus connected inside the mouth. Every time food was due to be distributed, an electric pad would touch their wrist. Both sweets and disgusting food were forced-fed to the kids. Their responses to the various samples were noted. Though highly unethical, the research furthered the scientific understanding of conditioning on humans. Unlike Pavlov’s dogs, humans were less susceptible to slight changes in the stimuli. Through their suffering Kransngorsky’s children laid the groundwork for the modern theory of cognitive behavioral therapy.

Minik Wallace’s Museum of Horrors

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Today, Robert Peary is best known for his 1909 expeditions to the North Pole. Peary and his team had already been studying the Arctic for years by that point. Six Eskimos from Greenland sailed with him to New York in September 1897; they were probably there without their choice. They were to undergo physical examinations at the American Museum of Natural History. Minik, a 7-year-old kid, and his father Qisuk were two of the six.

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Visitors marvelled at Minik and Qisuk as they lived as an attraction in the Arctic show. In New York, where the germs were unfamiliar, four people, including Qisuk, perished right away. Soon after, another departed for the Arctic. Minik Wallace was left alone hundreds of miles away from his home. The museum held a funeral for Qisuk. Minik observed the burial of his father in the museum's garden. Actually, the museum had only buried a fur-wrapped wood. At Bellevue Hospital, Qisuk's actual body as well as the bodies of the other three Inuits were dissected and bleached. His father's body was on display only a few feet from Minik's own exhibit.

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This was Peary’s common practice. He robbed Eskimo graves for their bones and property. The Museum would buy it. For years, Minik campaigned for the return of his father’s body. His requests were refused until Minik finally got Peary to listen by threatening to reveal that Peary had fathered two Eskimo children. Peary let Minik return to the Arctic. The reunion of Minik was bittersweet. He rediscovered his original tongue and wed an Eskimo. He yearned for the United States, the only nation he had ever truly known, and eventually came back. N.H. Minik, a logger in Pittsburg, perished in the Spanish Flu pandemic in 1916. He was 28.

John Scott Harrison’s Cadaver Chop Shop

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John Scott Harrison holds the unique distinction of being the only individual to be the father of a future president and the son of a former US president (William Henry Harrison) (Benjamin Harrison). He also has the unusual distinction of having been a victim of a dissecting chamber a la Leather face. John Scott Harrison's own political career was quite successful, which explains why so many people came to his funeral on May 25, 1878. John Scott Harrison was a former Ohio congressman. During the ceremony, mourners discovered that Augustus Devin's adjacent tomb had been burglarized. His sons placed three substantial stones bound with cement on the coffin out of concern that John Harrison may suffer the same fate. The stones needed 16 men to lift them. A guard was employed for a month to keep watch as an added measure of safety.

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Curious as to the fate of Mr Devin and suspicious of the nearby medical school’s need for corpses to study, a search warrant was obtained for the Medical College of Ohio. Their search uncovered multiple macabre finds including a box of mangled body parts and the splayed corpse of a six month old baby. But more revolting still was a masked naked corpse hanging from a rope. They removed the mask revealing the face of John Scott Harrison. His body had been robbed less than 24 hours after his burial despite all of the precautions.

The Serial Killer in the London Blitz

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During the London Blitz, England bravely resisted the Nazis' unrelenting advance. In bomb-ravaged London, daily existence was a perpetual struggle. It got worse because to Gordon Frederick Cummins. Gordon Frederick Cummins terrorised London for six days while under the shelter of the curfew's mandatory darkness. Seven different ladies were attacked in total. 4 of them passed away. Cummins was assigned to the Aircraft Reception Center in northern London after joining the Royal Air Force. He spent a week hunting in the city, primarily targeting prostitutes.

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His first casualty Evelyn Hamilton was raped, mugged, strangled, and dumped in the street. Evelyn Oately's slashed body was discovered in just under 24 hours. A can opener that was used in the assault was found next to her deformed corpse. The handle of the can opener had a fingerprint on it. The body of Margaret Florence Lowe was discovered the following day with her internal organs torn out of her abdomen. Then, cops discovered Doris Jouannet, a fourth consecutive dead prostitute.

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Cummins waited a day to attack on Friday the 13th to become a cliché of horror. Cummins did not commit any murders that night, in contrast to Jason Voorhees. When a night porter shone his spotlight on Cummins in the midst of an attack, 32-year-old Mary Haywood was spared. Cummins escaped from the fight while still wearing his duty respirator. The serial number was linked to Cummins by the authorities. Cummins was given a death sentence after having his prints compared to those on the can opener. On June 25, 1942, the newly named "Blackout Ripper" was put to death. 

The Lincoln Assassination’s Forgotten Victim

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One of the most tragic occasions in American history was the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. That evening, Booth's accomplices targeted high-ranking officials in the American government, including Vice President Andrew Johnson and Secretary of State William Seward. Clara Harris was one unfortunate casualty who was not planned. She too passed away as a result of a distant connection to the Lincoln murder. On that April evening in 1865, Clara Harris was not even meant to be at Ford's Theatre. As requested by First Lady Mary Todd Lincoln, she attended with her then-boyfriend, Major Henry Rathbone. The audience members were in a festive mood due to the recent Civil War triumph. However, as history is well aware, the joy was short-lived when John Wilkes Booth broke into the president's box and fatally shot him. Rathbone grabbed Boothe's arm in an effort to stop the murderer, but Booth stabbed him. Booth escaped while still holding the bloody dagger.

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Years later, Clara Harris and Henry Rathbone married. Unable to part with her blood-stained dress, Clara had preserved it behind a walled off closet. She believed it might summon Lincoln’s ghost. Spirits talked to Rathbone too. Guilt driven for not stopping the tragedy, Rathbone heard voices in the walls. They blamed him for Lincoln’s death and ordered him to avenge the fallen president. With a murder straight out of The Shining, Rathbone recreated the assassination on Christmas Eve in 1883. He shot Clara and stabbed himself with a knife. Clara died. He then attempted to attack his children before groundskeepers could pull him off. Henry spent the rest of his life in an asylum.

Let us know which of the above creepiest stories makes you chill in the comments!