Is it still a thing?

On 10 July 1973, 16-year-old John Paul Getty III, the grandson of oil billionaire J. Paul Getty, was kidnapped at gunpoint in Rome by members of the Italian criminal organization known as the 'Ndrangheta. The kidnappers demanded $17 million, believing the world's richest man would quickly pay for his grandson's release.

Instead, J. Paul Getty refused. He argued that paying the ransom would encourage more kidnappings and famously said, "If I pay one penny now, I'll have 14 kidnapped grandchildren." Some members of the family also initially suspected the teenager had staged the kidnapping himself.

For nearly five months, John Paul Getty III was held in a remote cave, beaten, threatened, and repeatedly pressured as negotiations stalled. When no payment came, his captors cut off his right ear and mailed it, along with a lock of his hair, to an Italian newspaper, warning that more body parts would follow unless the ransom was paid.

Only then did Getty agree to contribute $2.2 million, the maximum amount that was tax-deductible under U.S. law. He loaned the remaining money to his own son at 4% interest. After the ransom was delivered, John Paul Getty III was released alive on 15 December 1973 near a petrol station in southern Italy. When he later called his grandfather to thank him, J. Paul Getty reportedly refused to take the call.

What you are watching is a cable car gliding down Market Street in San Francisco, filmed on the 14th of April, 1906.

The camera was mounted on the front of the car, so you see the city exactly as it was: the crowds, the horse-drawn carriages, the early automobiles weaving through traffic, the men in hats, the great buildings rising on either side. An ordinary spring afternoon in a thriving American city.

Four days later, on the morning of the 18th of April, a magnitude 7.9 earthquake struck. The shaking lasted under a minute, but it ignited fires that burned through the city for days...

By the time it was over, more than 3,000 people were dead and roughly 80 percent of San Francisco had been destroyed. Almost every building you see in this footage was gone.

And the film itself nearly went with it.

The negative was placed on a train bound for New York on the 17th of April, the day before the earthquake. Had it left a single day later, it would have burned in the fire along with the studio that made it.

This entire moving record of a lost city survives because of one day...

4 August 2020, a major explosion occurred in Beirut, Lebanon, caused by the ignition of 2,750 tonnes of ammonium nitrate. The chemical, confiscated in 2014 from the cargo ship MV Rhosus and stored at the Port of Beirut without adequate safety measures for six years, detonated after a fire broke out in a nearby warehouse. The explosion resulted in at least 218 deaths, 7,000 injuries, and approximately 300,000 displaced people, alongside property damage estimated at US$15 billion. The blast released energy comparable to 1.1 kilotons of TNT, ranking it among the most powerful non-nuclear explosions ever recorded and the largest single detonation of ammonium nitrate.

The explosion generated a seismic event measuring 3.3 in magnitude, as reported by the United States Geological Survey. Its effects were felt in Lebanon and neighbouring regions, including Syria, Israel, and Cyprus, over 240 km (150 mi) away. Scientific studies noted that the shockwave temporarily disrupted Earth's ionosphere. Adjacent grain silos at the Port of Beirut sustained major damage. In July and August 2022, two years after the explosion, portions of the silos collapsed following fires caused by remaining grain stocks.

In the swirling psychedelic folk world of the late '60s, few voices were as ethereal and captivating as Christina "Licorice" McKechnie.

Nicknamed for her love of licorice rolling papers, she joined The incredible String Band and became a counterculture icon. Her haunting vocals and songwriting shone on classics like The Hangman's Beautiful Daughter (Paul McCartney called it the "acoustic Sgt. Pepper") and their legendary Woodstock performance in 1969.

Then... she vanished. After leaving the band in the '70s with ties to Scientology, Likky was seen in the late '80s/early '90s, reportedly hitchhiking through the Arizona desert.

For decades, one of rock's greatest unsolved mysteries: What happened to this Woodstock fairy?

Theories swirled..

But in late 2025, reports revealed she's alive, living quietly and privately in California—choosing obscurity over fame. The mystery endures in its own way: a brilliant soul who simply walked away from the spotlight.

Licorice McKechnie: Forever enigmatic, forever brilliant.

She was known as the petticoat runner.