Japan’s voters have made their choice clear

A Canadian “human rights” tribunal just exposed the Orwellian strategy of the transgender movement—it seeks to weaponize “empathy” to demand allegiance to the absurd and dangerous idea that men can become women and vice versa. Barry Neufeld, a brave school board member in the city of Chilliwack, British Columbia, dared to speak out against a school program encouraging sexual orientation and gender identity called SOGI 1 2 3. Two teachers unions, the British Columbia Teachers Federation and the Chilliwack Teachers Association, sued Neufeld on behalf of members who identify as two-spirit, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, or queer for statements he made from 2017 to 2022. The British Columbia Human Rights Tribunal found Neufeld liable for “hate speech” and discrimination in a ruling Wednesday. The tribunal ordered him to pay 750,000 Canadian dollars for violating the Human Rights Code, and it ordered him to pay another CA$10,000 in damages for violating the tribunal’s rules during the proceeding against him. Neufeld, who did not oversee any of the 2SLGBTQ+ employees represented by the teachers unions, argued that he could not be held liable for discrimination against them, but the tribunal found that “his conduct permeated, and adversely impacted, [the teachers’] work environment.” The Most Revealing Statement The ruling is 112 pages, but one particular statement most reveals the threat of transgender orthodoxy. “The denial of trans identities is the theme underlying all of Mr. Neufeld’s impugned publications,” the tribunal writes. “Mr. Neufeld believes that gender is static, binary, and determined by a person’s genitals at birth. He calls modern understandings of gender – including that it is socially constructed, may be fluid, and may be different from sex assigned at birth – an ideology that must be resisted.” The tribunal includes a long quote from Neufeld defining gender ideology as “the belief system that everybody has a gender identity; that this gender identity is not determined by the biological sex of a person; that this gender identity therefore may be one of any number of gender identities … that anyone may assume any gender identity simply by self-identifying; and that a person actually is whatever gender identity that person thinks, regardless of biological sex.” Astutely, Neufeld notes that “believers of this ideology do not regard it as a belief system at all, but rather as an accurate and true account of the world.” “We can think of no better example for how transpeople are denied than this passage,” the tribunal writes. “Transpeople are, by definition, people ‘whose gender identity does not align with the sex assigned to them at birth.’ If a person elects not to ‘believe’ that gender identity is separate from sex assigned at birth, then they do not ‘believe’ in transpeople.” “This is a form of existential denial,” the tribunal added. “It is not, as Mr. Neufeld argues, akin to religious beliefs. A person does not need to believe in Christianity to accept that another person is Christian. However, to accept that a person is transgender, one must accept that their gender identity is different than their sex assigned at birth.” Smuggling in a Belief Requirement The tribunal cited one of its previous rulings finding that “the question of whether transgender people exist and are entitled to dignity in this province is as valuable to ongoing public debate as whether one race is superior to another.” Then it gave this remarkable statement: “People can and do live beyond the binary. People can and do decide that they were assigned the incorrect gender at birth. Trans people are here, existing in schools and homes and workplaces.” This isn’t just a piece of flashy rhetoric—it’s a truth claim, and it subtly twists Neufeld’s disagreement with transgender ideology into a desire for violence. Neufeld was never denying that people exist who claim to identify as the gender opposite their sex—he merely contested the claim that this gender identity is definitional for them, and that it overrides their biological sex. He expressed concern that enforcing the idea that it is healthy for someone to identify as the gender opposite their sex leads to confusion and self-harm. He rejects this ideology, not the existence of the people who believe it. But the tribunal’s interpretation of his statements smuggles in the idea that he is denying these people’s existence, that he is wishing harm upon them. The tribunal goes on to state that “calling transness ‘gender ideology’ allows anti-trans activists to hide behind a veneer of reasonableness. It allows them to say… that they are not attacking human beings.” “But behind this insidious veneer is the proposition that transness is not real,” the tribunal adds. “Such phrasing can make it easier to ignore that trans people are human beings. Referring to ‘gender ideology’ or ‘transgenderism’ … pushes the idea that trans people have an agenda rather than being just another demographic group. As this decision illustrates, such terms can create the conditions for discrimination and hatred to flourish.” Chilliwack Teachers Association v NeufeldDownload This isn’t an argument claiming that transgender ideology is true so much as an insinuation that disagreeing with transgender ideology is dangerous. The tribunal doesn’t bother to prove that a man can become a woman or vice versa—it simply states the ideology as a matter of fact and then tries to make dissent unthinkable. By postulating that transgender ideology is not up for debate, and penalizing its mere definition as a form of discrimination, the tribunal has carried out a verbal jiu jitsu worthy of George Orwell. A Cross-Border Threat Unfortunately, this isn’t new or unique to Canada—it’s just the most obvious articulation of the transgender movement’s longtime attempt to dominate the conversation. The Southern Poverty Law Center, for instance, puts conservatives and Christians who disagree with transgender ideology on a “hate map” with chapters of the Ku Klux Klan. The Human Rights Campaign, the Trevor Project, and other LGBTQ activist groups have repeatedly suggested that mere disagreement with the ideology is a form of violence. This ruling in Canada is merely the logical extension of the rhetoric we see in the U.S., and it should serve as a wakeup call that we must firmly reject this ideology. The post ORWELLIAN: How a Canadian ‘Human Rights’ Tribunal Tries to Make Opposition to Transgender Ideology Unthinkable appeared first on The Daily Signal.

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Steven Spielberg and his wife, Kate Capshaw, have left California and moved to Central Park West in Manhattan as politicians argue whether a billionaire tax will hurt the Golden State.The legendary director became a resident of the Empire State as of Jan. 1, according to a Los Angeles Times report.'The billionaire class cannot have it all. This nation belongs to all of us.'Spielberg's relocation is sparking more fears about a tax proposal that has already driven out other billionaires, including Peter Thiel and others. "Steven’s move to the East Coast is both long planned and driven purely by his and Kate Capshaw’s desire to be closer to their New York-based children and grandchildren," said spokeswoman Terry Press to the Times.The one-time tax has not yet qualified for the ballot, but if it passes, it would go into effect in 2027. It would apply to residents worth $1 billion or more.The debate over the union-backed tax has led even some Democrats to back off from the proposal. Opponents say it will drive billionaires out of the state and potentially cripple tax revenues.Although Spielberg denied that the billionaire tax has anything to do with his exit, he left the state just in time to avoid the tax, which would apply to those who were residents of California on Jan. 1, 2026.Spielberg is estimated to be worth about $7.1 billion, which means he'd have to pay the state of California about $355 million if the tax passed.His move was first reported by the New York Times.Among those pushing the bill is independent Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, who visited Los Angeles to advocate for it."Enough is enough," said Sanders. "The billionaire class cannot have it all. This nation belongs to all of us."RELATED: LA Times gets obliterated online for scolding people wanting to leave high-tax California Spielberg's spokeswoman also refused to indicate whether he had any opinion on the possible tax.Spielberg is known for numerous popular movies including "Schindler’s List," "Jaws," "Jurassic Park," "Saving Private Ryan," "Catch Me if You Can," and the "Indiana Jones" franchise.Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

Wikimedia CommonsDanvers State Hospital, pictured in 1893. First established in 1874 in Danvers, Massachusetts, Danvers State Hospital once had a good reputation for treating mental health patients. But over the decades, conditions at the asylum deteriorated, and some people eventually made horrific allegations about patient abuse and botched lobotomies. The facility itself also began to fall into disrepair. Was this just an unfortunate coincidence, a result of mental health care declining due to an overcrowded and underfunded facility? Or was this hospital destined to become a hellish place due to its chilling history? As it turns out, John Hathorne, a notorious judge who presided over the Salem witch trials, once occupied the same land where the hospital stood. The witch trials, which led to 200 accusations of witchcraft and 20 executions in the 1690s, were undoubtedly a dark chapter in American history. So perhaps it’s not surprising that the region where Hathorne once lived is rumored to be “cursed” or even “haunted.” Even though the area that once housed Danvers State Hospital later became home to a residential community with fully renovated apartments, the former building’s troubled past makes the old asylum impossible to forget. The Early Years Of Danvers State Hospital Danvers State HospitalAn image inside Danvers State Hospital, year unknown. Danvers State Hospital was originally called the State Lunatic Asylum at Danvers. It was part of a growing 19th-century concept that people with psychological problems needed to be cured inside specially made facilities. The idea was that the facility would be self-sustaining, with all necessary amenities available onsite. The hospital was designed in the hopes that it would draw nice, calming breezes throughout the entire structure. Construction on Danvers State Hospital started in 1874, and the first patients moved in sometime around 1878. At its peak, the facility had 40 buildings and was intended to max out at 450 patients. The goal was to not only treat the patients who needed help, but to completely cure them of their ills. At first, the hospital was seen as a success. By 1900, Danvers State Hospital employed 125 people and had treated more than 9,500 patients since opening. However, its initial good reputation might have been its undoing, as it became an increasingly popular place to drop off mental health patients. Over the next 20 years, the population of the hospital swelled to more than 2,000 patients, despite its official capacity of just 450. Administrators begged the state for money to build more rooms and hire more staff, to no avail. And soon, amidst overcrowding and underfunding at the asylum, allegations of abuse emerged at the facility. The Shocking Living Conditions Inside The Massachusetts Asylum In the early 20th century, Danvers State Hospital was plagued by many horrific accusations, from mistreatment of patients to inhumane “medical” treatments to the increasingly dismal state of the facility itself. Reportedly, some patients walked through the facility’s hallways completely naked. Many purportedly suffered from a lack of basic hygiene, and ended up living in their own filth as a result. Conditions like these clearly wouldn’t help cure the patients’ psychological issues, so it’s little wonder why many began to steadily decline as their mental health symptoms worsened. Before long, shock therapy became the norm at the hospital, with the idea that jolts of electricity could either alter a patient’s brain or make the patient afraid of shock therapy and scare them into submission. When patients still misbehaved after enduring painful treatments, they were placed in straitjackets to keep them restrained — and left in them for long periods. When methods like these failed to keep patients in line, that’s when the lobotomies started. By 1939, the medical community as a whole was looking for a permanent fix to the crisis facing overcrowded and deteriorating mental health facilities. At Danvers State Hospital specifically, the population of patients had swelled to 2,360, which was significantly over capacity. Chillingly, a total of 278 people died at the hospital that same year. Danvers State HospitalThough patients were once treated humanely at Danvers State Hospital, conditions deteriorated over time. Lobotomies seemingly promised a treatment for insanity, as well as a way to prevent the unnecessary deaths of mentally ill patients. Some doctors stopped performing the procedure after they realized that it often hurt the patients more than it helped them — but others didn’t seem to care. Danvers State Hospital has often been described as the “birthplace of the prefrontal lobotomy.” This came from the procedure’s widespread use at the asylum, as well as the surgery’s refinement at the hospital. Visitors at the hospital in the early 1940s reported seeing lobotomy patients wandering aimlessly through the halls. Some patients seemed to be in a drugged, hellish daze, while others stared blankly at the walls surrounding them. These patients also seemed to be confined to the hospital, unable to leave and possibly even held at the facility against their will. Tragically, some of these patients may not have even been able to express their own thoughts and feelings after suffering severe damage to their brains. The Decline And Eventual Repurposing Of Danvers State Hospital Despite the clear crisis at Danvers State Hospital, the lack of funding continued. But eventually, people outside the facility could no longer ignore the terrible state the buildings were in, as they fell further and further into disrepair, undoubtedly making the conditions even worse inside. Finally, the state intervened. Portions of the hospital were shut down in 1969. By 1985, most of the facility had ceased operations, and then it was a permanent shutdown in 1992. For years after the shutdown, the site was a popular destination for thrill-seeking kids looking for a good scare. Rumors had spread that the location was haunted and that the building was occupied by the souls of patients who were horrifically mistreated there before they died. The fact that the land had once been occupied by someone deeply involved in the Salem witch trials made the area all the more chilling. Then, in 2005, a development company bought the rundown property and tore down a large portion of the buildings. The renovations turned the lunatic asylum into Avalon Danvers Apartments. Construction faced delays in 2007 when a mysterious fire broke out and burned most of the new construction and some trailers. Some who believed the area was still haunted suggested that the tormented spirits of the dead put a curse on the construction site. Wikimedia Commons The Kirkbride complex of the former Danvers State Hospital, as seen in 2010. Though the area where Danvers State Hospital once stood is largely unrecognizable today — and seemingly far more cheerful — the asylum’s haunting reputation remains. Its reputation has also left a historic mark on pop culture, as horror novelist H.P. Lovecraft reportedly used Danvers as the inspiration for his Arkham Sanitarium. If the name Arkham sounds familiar, it’s because DC Comics latched onto that name and created Arkham Asylum as the bone-chilling backdrop for many of Batman’s villains. But the only physical remnants of the horrific practices that went on in Danvers are the gravestones in two nearby cemeteries, which mark about 770 bodies. Some headstones only have numbers, as opposed to names. Tragically, even in death, it seems these patients were never dignified. After venturing inside the tormented history of Danvers State Hospital, see these haunting photos taken inside mental asylums of decades past. Then, read about the real horror story of Bedlam, the Bethlem Royal Hospital. The post The Chilling Story Of Danvers State Hospital, From Abused Asylum Patients To Rumored Ghosts Wandering The Halls appeared first on All That's Interesting.

Though his story has become a central part of American cultural lore, the tale of Johnny Cash’s first wife Vivian Cash has been all but written out of his story. In 1954, Johnny Cash married Vivian Liberto of Texas and they stayed together for 13 years. But during that time, Vivian Liberto Cash suffered both her husband’s infidelity as well as widespread hatred over her racial identity. After their divorce in 1967, Cash married singer June Carter, with whom he had an affair during his marriage to Vivian Cash. Michael Ochs Archives/Getty ImagesThroughout Vivian Cash’s time as Johnny Cash’s first wife, she endured untold hatred over her racial identity. And while June Carter Cash has maintained a large part in the story of “The Man in Black,” Johnny Cash’s first wife often goes ignored. This is the widely overlooked story of Vivian Cash. Vivian Liberto’s Early Years Before she became Mrs. Cash, she was Vivian Dorraine Liberto. Born on April 23, 1934, in San Antonio, Texas, she grew up as the middle daughter of a strict Italian Catholic father and an alcoholic mother. My Darling VivianVivian Liberto shared her side of the disastrous marriage in her 2007 memoir I Walked The Line. In 1951, Vivian Liberto met young Johnny Cash by chance at an ice skating rink. The two ended up skating together and dated for three weeks. Then, Cash was shipped off to serve in Germany for the U.S. Air Force. My Darling VivianJohnny Cash, presumably during his deployment in Germany. But that didn’t end their whirlwind courtship. The young couple exchanged heartfelt love letters over the next three years that Cash served abroad. As is the way with young love, Johnny Cash wrote to Vivian Liberto often. The couple shared everything through their correspondence, from their favorite foods to their deepest insecurities. Cash was earnest, funny, and vulnerable, and he often signed the letters with “your husband to be.” In one of their love letters, he talks about getting made fun of at the post office for mailing her letters back for safekeeping: “Honey, the people at the post office laughed at me today. On the customs card, under ‘description of contents,’ I put ‘500 love letters.’ They are love letters, and those people probably thought they were just the average run-of-the-mill love letters, but they’re priceless to me. I love you Viv honey. I love you so very, very much.” CBS Photo Archive/Getty ImagesJohnny Cash worked as a salesman before he secured a major deal with Sun Records. Some of these letters, evidence of their once tender relationship, were published in Liberto’s 2007 memoir I Walked The Line: My Life With Johnny. Vivian Cash’s Life As Johnny Cash’s First Wife My Darling VivianVivian Liberto Cash and Johnny Cash were married for 13 years before they divorced in 1967. When Johnny Cash returned from his military service on July 4, 1954, Vivian Liberto, along with both their families, drove to the West Memphis airport to greet him. When she saw him for the first time in three years, Liberto later wrote, she couldn’t speak. “I just fell into his arms, he scooped me up, and we kissed,” Liberto recalled. They married the next month at St. Anne’s Catholic Church in San Antonio. Vivian Cash and Johnny Cash then moved to Memphis, where he took a job as a salesman to provide for the family. But their lives would never be the same after Cash went to audition for Sam Phillips at Sun Records, an event Vivian Liberto described as the “one hour that would change everything.” My Darling VivianThe couple’s four daughters all appear in the 2020 documentary chronicling their parents’ turbulent marriage. Cash joined other Sun Records artists like Jerry Lee Lewis, Roy Orbison, and Elvis Presley, constantly touring and of course attracting the attention of other women. When Vivian Liberto asked Cash if he was ever tempted to cheat on her, he told her, “I walk the line for you.” That lip service turned into Cash’s 1956 hit single “I Walk The Line.” The couple soon moved to California at the behest of Cash’s new manager, Stu Carnall. My Darling VivianJohnny Cash with his wife and daughters. Things took a turn for the worse after the birth of their third child, Cindy, in 1958. The couple entered what Vivian Cash referred to as “a dangerous current” of partying that swept into their new Hollywood life. Cash began to fall into drunken stupors and started popping pills. “All of the things that Johnny had called filthy and dirty’ and had insisted would destroy our lives were things he began to embrace,” Liberto wrote. In 1961, following the birth of their fourth and last child together, Tara, the couple moved to Casitas Springs. Liberto hoped the move would help fix their crumbling marriage, but her husband’s shenanigans continued. Cash often escaped to Lake Casitas, where he explored his love of fishing, booze, and drugs — a combination that made him a fixture for the local police. Most notably, Cash set off a forest fire in the area during one of his drunken stupors, which led to a hefty fine of $82,000. In spite of his reckless behavior, Vivian Cash mostly blamed the destructive behavior of her ex-husband on drugs. Following Johnny Cash’s death on Sept. 12, 2003, Liberto wrote, “To me he is and will always be my wonderful, caring, protective husband.” The End Of The Line For Their Marriage Johnny Cash performing ‘I Walk The Line’ in 1958. After Johnny Cash’s drug arrest in 1965, a newspaper printed a photo of him with Vivian Liberto. It caused an uproar among fans because readers who thought Liberto was African American. Furor over the presumed interracial couple triggered canceled concerts and protests in the South. More frightening were the death threats that Cash and Liberto received from the Ku Klux Klan. On top of that, Liberto had long harbored suspicions of Cash’s affair with fellow singer June Carter. She noticed her husband spent less time at home, she found receipts for gifts worth thousands of dollars, and she received hints from his bandmates and family members about the relationship. Ron Galella/Getty ImagesJohnny Cash’s relationship with June Carter became a canon love story to his career, overshadowing his first marriage to Vivian Cash. “Once June came along, she relentlessly — well, she wanted Dad and she was going to get him,” said Liberto’s daughter Cindy. “And she did. She made herself very available, to where he pursued her back.” In 1966, Vivian Liberto filed for divorce. Losing her husband to another woman, she wrote, was a “degrading, horrible experience.” Their divorce was finalized in late 1967. The divorce was a shock to many close to the couple, especially Liberto’s devout Catholic family. “She’d say, ‘If I only could have traveled with him instead of being here raising four kids, things would have been different,'” recalled longtime friend Alice Smith. “She said that a lot.” Michael Ochs Archives/Getty ImagesRosanne Cash, their first child, says her parents’ divorce caused her mother to fade into “negative obscurity.” The Catholic Church excommunicated Vivian Liberto because of the divorce, forbidding her from taking communion. It wasn’t until her famous ex-husband wrote to the archdiocese confessing his failings as a husband and father that Liberto was welcomed back by the church. Liberto moved into a new house with her daughters while Johnny Cash secured his own place near Nashville. She later threw herself into community activities, doing volunteer work, and joining a garden club. She eventually got remarried to a police officer named Dick Distin. Vivian Liberto passed away on May 24, 2005, of complications from lung cancer surgery, not long after completing the manuscript for her memoir. A Renewed Legacy In My Darling Vivian Wikimedia CommonsAccording to Vivian Liberto, another point of heartache was Carter’s claim that she was raising her daughters with Cash. In April 2020, the documentary My Darling Vivian made its debut on Amazon as part of the SXSW Film Festival, which was done remotely due to the worldwide COVID-19 pandemic. The documentary is the work of director Matt Riddlehoover and producer Dustin Tittle, who is the grandson of Cash and Liberto, and tells the story of Vivian Liberto’s rocky marriage with Johnny Cash and the heartbreaking aftermath. Their story is told through never-before-seen footage, photographs, and love letters the two wrote to each other. All of Vivian Liberto’s daughters appear in the film, which they say was a love note to their mother who “faded into negative obscurity” after her 13-year marriage to Cash fell apart. The film was also a rebuke to portrayals of Johnny Cash and June Carter, whose romance was elevated to cult status due to popular dramatizations like the 2005 film Walk The Line. My Darling VivianVivian Liberto’s memoir received Johnny Cash’s blessing before he died in 2003 due to complications from diabetes. The Oscar-winning film starring Joaquin Phoenix and Reese Witherspoon as the singing couple cast Vivian Liberto as a bitter shrew. It also venerated the relationship between Cash and Carter that destroyed his marriage with his first wife. “Now that Vivian’s truth is being told at a time when our society is beginning to listen to its aggrieved women, maybe her joy and pain and reality can be fully accepted,” Riddlehoover said of the project. “Her life was romantic and bewildering, difficult and significant, and wholly filmic — more than a mere footnote in the biography of Johnny Cash.” The biggest difference between the 2005 film and Vivian Liberto’s side of the story is Carter’s alleged role in the break-up. In her memoir, which received Cash’s blessing before he died, Liberto recalled one incident where Carter allegedly told her, “Vivian, he will be mine.” “She wanted people to know June went after Johnny,” said Ann Sharpsteen, who co-authored the book with Liberto. “That was where most of her pain and anger rested all these years.” Vivian Liberto also wrote about the anger she felt when Carter claimed credit for raising Cash’s daughters, and she accused Carter of enabling Cash’s drug habit. Still, the full truth behind Cash and Liberto’s broken marriage remains a mystery since all three persons passed before Liberto’s book published in 2007. Although it may have taken decades for it to happen, Johnny Cash’s first wife Vivian Liberto was finally able to tell her side of the story in the end. After learning about Vivian Liberto Cash, Johnny Cash’s first wife, take a look at the rock ‘n’ roll groupies who changed music history and learn about the history of hippies and the 1960s movement that changed America. The post Inside The Troubled Marriage Of Johnny Cash And Vivian Liberto appeared first on All That's Interesting.

Paul EhornThe wreck of the Lac La Belle was discovered off the coast of Wisconsin between Racine and Kenosha. Ever since the steamer Lac La Belle went down in a storm off the coast of Wisconsin in 1872, the location of its wreck has remained a mystery. Shipwreck hunters have been looking for it for decades, but it wasn’t until a fresh clue emerged in 2022 that they were finally able to locate this doomed vessel on the bottom of Lake Michigan. Though covered with destructive quagga mussels, the ship’s wooden framing is largely well-preserved, leaving a ghostly outline of the Lac La Belle still visible deep beneath the surface of the lake after 154 years. The Discovery Of The Lac La Belle Shipwreck At The Bottom Of Lake Michigan The story behind the discovery of the remains of the Lac La Belle begins with a shipwreck hunter named Paul Ehorn. According to a statement from Shipwreck World, Ehorn has been interested in shipwrecks since the 1960s, when he became a certified scuba diver at the age of 15. Ehorn started looking for shipwrecks in the Great Lakes in 1965, and located several, including the automobile carrier Senator, which sank in 1929. But the fabled Lac La Belle always proved elusive. Paul EhornA diver swims near the bow of the Lac La Belle. In 2022, however, a fellow shipwreck hunter named Ross Richardson shared a clue about the possible location of the Lac La Belle. Richardson had learned that a fisherman in Lake Michigan had found an item specific to 19th-century steamers, which helped Ehorn narrow down his search area. In October 2022, after just two hours of searching in the area that Richardson had suggested, Ehorn spotted a promising shape on his underwater sonar. It was the outline of a ship — none other than the Lac La Belle. “It was a moment of real jubilation,” Ehorn said. “We knew we had done it.” That said, both bad weather and the wreck’s distance from shore made visiting it in person a challenge. The now-80-year-old Ehorn ultimately hired divers to visit the site, who were able to film the wreck of the 217-foot ship. They found that it was largely still intact, though its upper cabins were gone. For Ehorn, it was a thrill decades in the making. Paul EhornThough the ship’s upper cabins are gone, the wreck itself is in remarkably good shape. “As a woodworker myself, I appreciate the hand craftsmanship that went into these early vessels,” he said. “The Lac La Belle was close to home for me and is a wreck that’s always been on my radar.” So how did the doomed ship sink? The Tragic Sinking Of The Lac La Belle In 1872 Brendon Baillod/Baillod CollectionThe Lac La Belle in 1866, six years before it sank to the bottom of Lake Michigan. Built in Cleveland as a passenger steamer in 1864, the Lac La Belle initially traversed Lake Superior. But then, the ship sank in the St. Clair River in 1866. However, the vessel was only 25 feet deep, and it was raised in 1869 and soon put back into action. Just a few years later, on the night of October 13, 1872, the Lac La Belle set out into Lake Michigan from Milwaukee with 53 passengers and crew, as well as a cargo of 19,000 bushels of barley, 1,200 barrels of flour, 50 barrels of pork, and 25 barrels of whiskey. There was a “moderate gale” at the beginning of the trip, but things took a turn for the worse when the Lac La Belle suddenly sprung a leak from an unknown source. Though the captain tried to turn the vessel back, the gale worsened, and huge waves began to swamp the ship. The vessel began to sink and, at 5 a.m. on October 14, the captain ordered the passengers and crew to abandon ship. Though everyone safely made it into lifeboats — and witnessed the ship sink stern first — one lifeboat capsized in the rough seas, killing eight people. The others made it safely to shore. But the wreck of the Lac La Belle remained a mystery — until Ehorn located it almost exactly 150 years after it originally went down. The shipwreck hunter thus solved a mystery more than a century old. But still, there are an estimated 6,000 to 10,000 shipwrecks that remain in the Great Lakes today — and thus plenty more just waiting to be discovered. After reading about the Lac La Belle, discover the fascinating — and often tragic — stories of some of the most famous shipwrecks found around the world. Then, look through these heartbreaking artifacts recovered from the Titanic. The post The Wreck Of A Luxury Steamer That Sank In 1872 Has Been Found Intact And Upright On The Bottom Of Lake Michigan appeared first on All That's Interesting.

ICE's Epic Troll (a Classic Rope-a-Dope): Detainees Gone Before Ilhan Omar Arrives to 'Support' Them

U.S. Rejects Tehran's Latest Deal and All Signs Suggest That Regime Change Is on Trump's Agenda