Mental Floss

STONES, BONES, AND WRECKS











Historian Liz Hallam Smith shows off the a-door-able opening in the wall of Westminster Hall.

Earlier this week, England’s Parliament announced that a secret door had been discovered in the walls of Westminster Hall. Inside, historians found “graffiti” left in 1851 by a bricklayer who was “fond of Ould Ale.”

Ellen Gutoskey














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Standing tall in the Scandinavian countryside, Viking runestones bear messages from 1000 years ago in an alphabet called the Futhark. Read on for more little-known lore.

Erika Harlitz-Kern