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Harry Houdini had to modify his Challenge Act when he discovered that police officers were offering him jammed handcuffs to escape from. Here he is seen escaping from a strait jacket whilst hanging upside down over Broadway.

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On the 18th of January 2007, the container ship MSC Napoli ran aground off Branscome beach, Devon. Thousands of local residents and tourists flocked to the beach to retrieve the stricken cargo, which included clothing, wine, motorbikes, beauty creams and oil paintings.

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Dunwich, England. Once a thriving port with a population of 4000, since its heyday in the Middle Ages, it has been gradually consumed by the sea. The church in the photograph had disappeared completely by the 1920s.

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Taking off from Kansai Airport, the first to be built on reclaimed land. It has sunk over 8 meters since construction began, but has survived the 1995 Kobe earthquake and a 300 km/h typhoon in 1998.

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Nagasaki before the reclamation of flat land from the sea.

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Over a three-week period in October 2002, the Gulf War veteran John Allen Muhammad killed 10 people as they went about their daily routine. Acting with an accomplice, the sniper attacks were carried out from the boot of a modified Chevrolet Caprice. Post 9/11 anti-terrorist laws were applied in order to execute Muhammad by lethal injection on the 10th of November, 2009.

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Allied soldier’s photograph of the Jahra Highway strewn with bombed vehicles. After being forced out of Kuwait, Iraqi troops were leaving the burning oil wells behind them and retreating back to Bagdad. U.S. pilots were shown recent news reports of the bombing of a nearby army barracks before being ordered to stop the retreating convoy at all costs. The attack lasted two days.

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Signal Hill, part of the Long Beach Oil Field, one of the most productive in the world. The plots of land had been sold to potential homeowners who promptly changed their minds and entered into the oil business, hoping to get rich quick. The next-of-kin would eventually receive royalty checks for oil extracted from beneath the graves in the nearby cemetery.

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After completion in Paris, the Statue of Liberty was accepted in 1886 by President Grover Cleveland on behalf of the United States. He said: 'We will not forget that liberty has here made her home'.

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100 grams of boiled locusts can provide 26.3 grams of protein and the species is listed in Japan's standard food composition table.

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The 1915 locust plague stripped areas of Palestine of almost all its vegetation and caused huge increases in the price of food.

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The daguerreotype is one of the earliest photographic processes and was invented by Louis Daguerre. His patent was acquired by the French government and a life-long pension granted in exchange for the free use of the process world-wide. One week before, Daguerre registered his patent in Fox Talbot's native Britain, restricting the taking of daguerreotypes to a select few. It was the only country where such a patent was enforced.

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Print from the earliest known surviving photographic negative made by William Henry Fox Talbot. He spent considerable amounts of his own money in developing his process.

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The Coney Island fire of 1911 is reputedly referred to as 'Topsy's revenge'.

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Coney Island's Topsy the elephant is electrocuted in front of 1500 people by Thomas Edison. His aim was to demonstrate the dangers of Tesla's AC current and promote instead his own DC system. These demonstrations led in turn to the invention of the electric chair.

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Nikola Tesla's laboratory in Colorado Springs. Without him we would not have the AC power system used today.

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The same view 13 years later.

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Dubai.

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Nadar's balloon.

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The first aerial photograph was taken from a balloon by Felix Nadar in 1858. He also pioneered the use of artificial lighting whilst exploring the sewers and catacombs beneath Paris.

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During his lifetime, Wilson 'Snowflake' Bentley photographed more than 5000 snow crystals. He never found any two alike. He died of pneumonia in December 1931.

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