That Time I Spontaneously Flew Across the World for a Dead Rock Star

[] I was dripping onto the carpet of the casino after running through the rain, adrenaline pushing me through. I’d been awake for over 24 hours, but I had never felt more alive. It was September 2016; I was 23, and alone in Montreux, Switzerland. Earlier that afternoon, I’d crossed the globe from my native Toronto for Freddie Mercury’s 70th birthday...

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Conscripted Into The Emperor’s Private Orchestra

[] When the rebels stormed Charlie Perrière’s house, he was sure his days were about to come to a swift and bloody end. The night before, 66-year-old Perrière, fearing what was coming, knelt down on the floor of his home in Bangui, the capital of the Central African Republic. He began to pray. “God, I have no weapons, no army, I’m not a fighter. Tomorrow,...

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A Fortress Full of Stories

[] Our Hidden History series is all about celebrating the unsung humans of history – sometimes going waaaaay back – as in the case of King Erik VII, the 15th-century Danish “King Who Became a Pirate.” King Erik built Kronborg Castle – the towering fortress later featured in Shakespeare’s Hamlet. It’s also the place where the author of our piece, Anja...

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The Crime Victim Who’s Obsessed with True Crime Shows

[] I sat on the couch under a white knitted blanket, my swollen hand propped up on the armrest with ice packs keeping the pain at bay. My husband, Eric, was holding the remote and clicking through the TV guide trying to find something that we both wanted to watch. We were on round four of binging Friends from beginning to end, and while he had been...

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How the World’s Most Venomous Fish Convinced Me to Stop Working Myself to Death

[] My body was convulsing, my mind slipping in and out of consciousness with each contraction. It had taken all of my strength just to run the couple hundred meters from the surf spot back to camp. I could hear my heart: thump-thump, thump-thump. Each beat was pushing the poison further around my body. I imagined my blood mixing with the toxin, shaken...

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The DJ Who Broadcast to One Listener for 40 Years

[] The Deke Duncan show on Radio 77 had it all — the latest hits, bouncy jingles, and a DJ who was born to be on the airwaves. In the 1970s it ran around the clock, several days a week, playing to the smallest audience in the world: Deke’s only listener was his wife. Radio 77 was based in a shed in Duncan’s backyard in a small English town, and everything...

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The Quarantined Hippies Trapped in a Jungle Paradise

[] On February 26, a case of COVID-19 was confirmed in Brazil. At the time, it was the first known case in Latin America, though now it looks like COVID-19 may have been creeping through Brazil as early as January. Over the next few days, in Guatemala and Costa Rica, backpacks were stowed at the bottom of buses that headed over a long bumpy road toward...

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My Father’s Fanatical Feud With the Bullies Next Door Became an All-Out War

[] When I was seven years old, my father started sleeping on the sofa with a rifle. We lived in a small Oregon town with a population of only a few thousand. Nestled on a gravel-lined, dead-end street, my childhood home was an idyllic setting to raise a family. To the east, a snow-capped Mt. Hood jutted from the tree-lined horizon. To the west, acres...

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The King Who Ordered a Quarantine to Flatten the Curve 4,000 Years Ago

[] “My lord!” The call echoed down the long hallway, accompanied by the sounds of wheezing breaths and sandals slapping against the floor. Zimri-Lim, king of Mari, exhaled gustily. He had recently embarked on his royal tour of the kingdom. Just an hour earlier, he had marched through the city walls of Terqa with his entourage. He had barely even had...

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The American Medical System Doesn’t Care How Much My Vagina Hurts

[] Editors’ note: You could probably tell from our headline but just in case: this story contains written and visual references to human anatomy. If you find that offensive you may want to skip this one The post The American Medical System Doesn’t Care How Much My Vagina Hurts appeared first on Narratively.

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