On July 30, 1945, the USS Indianapolis was sunk by a Japanese submarine — plunging hundreds of its men into the shark-infested waters of the Philippine Sea.

While excavating an early medieval cemetery in Kent, researchers discovered a 1,500-year-old sword inside an Anglo-Saxon grave.

Stuck in legal limbo, Mehran Karimi Nasseri lived at Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris between 1988 and 2006, and inspired the 2004 film “The Terminal.”

In 1977, Anita Bryant launched a "Save Our Children" campaign in Miami-Dade County, Florida to repeal a local ordinance that outlawed discrimination based on sexual orientation — and although that initiative was successful, it also led to her financial ruin.

In the 1940s and '50s, the biggest stars of Golden Age Hollywood rang in the new year at the famed Romanoff's restaurant in Beverly Hills or producer Sam Spiegel's annual A-list affairs — but by the 1970s, Manhattan's notorious Studio 54 was the place for celebrities to be on New Year's Eve.

In 1999, many worried that the world's computers couldn't handle the change to the year 2000 — and some even thought that the apocalypse was near.

Rodents of unusual size, or ROUS, are bloodthirsty creatures in The Princess Bride, but their closest counterparts in the real world are capybaras or the massive Bosavi woolly rats of South America.

Historians debate whether or not Judge Holden ever really existed, but the Blood Meridian antagonist was said to have been the most ruthless member of the Glanton gang of scalp hunters that roamed Mexico and the American Southwest in the mid-1800s.

Though gifts were much simpler than modern-day presents, with many children receiving dolls, train sets, and stuffed animals, the joy of Christmas morning was clearer than ever.

These monumental discoveries left even the experts stunned.