1

Pictionary

Image: Kelly Sikkema

Who hasn’t played Pictionary at least once in their life? The whole gameplay boils down to drawing a picture so that others can guess what it is. It’s like "charades" with drawings instead of actions.

While this is a board game, the board itself is the least important part of the game. The only things that matter are the drawings and how people guess what they are. Anybody of any age can get into the game and have a good time.

2

Game of Life

Image: Jaciel Melnik

One of the most popular board games of all time, the Game of Life, was created in 1960. The idea is that you want to end the game with more assets than anyone else. The basic gameplay involves spinning the spinner and making a handful of key decisions at intersections. It is in those moments that you influence which way your "life" will turn out.

The whole game is, like life itself, very luck-driven and not very strategic. This game laid the groundwork for many modern, narrative-driven games.

3

Clue

Image: Towfiqu barbhuiya

Clue was the first mass-market game to make bluffing and deduction an explicit part of the game. During gameplay, you’re always trying to analyze your opponents’ moves and react accordingly.

A game that spawned a million more games, Clue takes its participants on a journey to solve a murder using a series of clues given throughout the session. Even if you never played it (and chances are that you have), you know it.

4

Chutes And Ladders

Image: Biao Xie

Chutes and Ladders was inspired by an ancient Indian board game that originated around the year 200 BC. The game is luck-driven; there is no strategic element to either the ancient or the modern version.

Just like in The Game of Life, the gameplay involves spinning a spinner and advancing the specified amount of spaces it indicates. Ladders move you up higher on the board, and chutes drop you down to lower spaces.

5

Risk

Image: Dave Photoz

Risk has one of the most recognizable boards of any board game, with its colorful map divided into strange countries. The focus is set on one of the oldest of human ambitions: to conquer the world.

It is not the kind of game you want to play if you only have a few minutes to spare, since the entire gameplay can take up to a few hours. But, if you have the time and at least one other player, it is well worth it.

6

Trivial Pursuit

Image: Claudia Wolff

If answering questions about different topics of general human knowledge is your thing, then Trivial Pursuit is definitely your game. The board itself is not the center of the game. It serves the purpose of marking which theme must be answered in each turn and where each player is in the gameplay.

Some prefer the questions about sports, while others hope to get the questions about culture. But there is always something for everyone.

7

Scrabble

Image: John Benitez

Another well-known board game, Scrabble is the foundation of just about every word-based tabletop game that has come since its first appearance in 1948. In this game, the pieces you work with are thrown into a bag and doled out by random chance.

You can make maneuvers to benefit yourself and to block others, but the real advantage is in the hands of those with a strong vocabulary and a good memory to recall the words at the right time.

8

Checkers

Image: Gabriel Meinert

A game so simple that it can be played and enjoyed by children, Checkers is a very straightforward strategy game, similar to Chess in some aspects (especially the board) but simpler in many others.

The gameplay, intended for two players, involves forward movements of uniform game pieces and mandatory captures by jumping over opponent pieces.

9

Monopoly

Image: Joshua Hoehne

Another all-time modern classic, Monopoly shares a similar objective as the previously mentioned The Game of Life: finishing the game with the most properties and money possible.

Monopoly has many themed versions and variants, including popular culture themes, and digital versions. But the gist in all of them is: roll the dice, buy properties, pay rent to other players, and pray not to land on Boardwalk or Parkway Avenue, especially if there are hotels (unless you own those two).

10

Chess

Image: Randy Fath

Let us finish this list with the Game of Kings itself, Chess : the best-selling game of all time, played by countless generations across the globe. Learning the basic moves is simple; mastering them is something different altogether.

Whether you are an advanced player, an aficionado, or someone who is considering learning it, Chess is good for you. It provides excellent exercise for your brain, infinite hours of fun, and can be played at any age.

1

Spotted and striped cucumber beetles

Image: Alexandria Szakacs

Striped and spotted cucumber beetles favor cucumbers and melon vines. These insects spread bacterial wilt from plant to plant, a disease that is often fatal. When striped cucumber beetles are a chronic problem, the best course of action is to choose bacterial-wilt-resistant cucumber varieties .

2

Colorado potato beetle

Image: Олександр К

As the name implies, the surest way to attract Colorado potato beetles to your garden is by planting potatoes. These insects lay clusters of orange-yellow eggs on the undersides of leaves, which hatch into highly destructive orange larvae that feed voraciously and grow quickly. While beetles can be killed at any stage, it's easiest to remove the adults and eggs by hand .

3

Eggplant flea beetle

Image: Weronika Romanowska

Eggplant flea beetles can destroy an eggplant plant in just a few days. While many insecticides can kill these pests, the most effective method requires protecting plants with summer-weight floating row covers. These covers transmit enough sunlight while physically blocking the beetles from the plants.

4

Harlequin cabbage bug

Image: David Clode

These insects might look striking, but they are the worst enemy of summer kale, broccoli, and other brassicas. They suck the sap from leaves, leaving behind unsightly pockmarks.

Harlequin cabbage bugs can be picked off by hand , and wearing a face mask can help you avoid the unpleasant odor they emit. Also, spraying them off with a jet of water will help knock them back.

5

Mexican bean beetle

Image: Viktor Talashuk

In a similar case to the one we mentioned earlier, it’s the larvae of Mexican bean beetles that cause the most damage. The adults emerge in late spring but usually don’t become a serious problem on bean plants until midsummer.

The best way to deal with this pest may seem harsh, but necessary if you want to keep your other plants safe: you must completely harvest and remove the infested plants from the garden . After picking all the beans, the entire plant should be pulled, bagged, and taken far away from the garden.

6

Red spider mites

Image: adege

Tiny red spider mites live on the undersides of leaves, where they feed on plant sap. To control them, the best approach is to increase humidity and, if growing under glass, introduce a biological control . Alternatively, organic sprays can also be effective.

7

Codling moth

Image: Mikkel Frimer-Rasmussen

These moths are responsible for the maggots found in apples. To avoid these, spray emerging caterpillars twice with bifenthrin , starting in midsummer. Another useful method involves hanging pheromone traps in late spring to catch male moths and prevent them from mating.

8

Winter moth

Image: Erik Karits

Winter moth caterpillars hide inside webbed leaves on fruit trees during the spring. One effective way to control these pests is by applying sticky traps to capture the adult moths before they lay eggs.

9

Scale insects

Image: efraimstochter

Scale insects cluster on branches and beneath leaves, often leading to poor plant growth. Other common symptoms include sticky excretions (called honeydew) and the development of sooty mold, especially on evergreens. The solution is to wash off the mold and spray the plant with horticultural oil .

10

Viburnum beetle

Image: Grant Ofstedahl

The Viburnum beetle and its larvae can create holes in the leaves. The answer to this is to spray the areas affected during the spring with bifenthrin or thiacloprid .

11

Adult vine weevil

Image: Henry Lai

The adult weevil is a nocturnal, flightless insect that makes notches in the leaves of your plants. To control this pest, apply nematodes by mixing them with water and applying the solution to the soil in the affected area.

12

Rose slug

Image: Naoki Suzuki

The rose slug is easy to overlook until its feeding starts to damage the leaves. Rose slugs feed on the undersides of leaves, out of sight, nibbling on the tissue between the veins. By the time they’re done, the leaves often resemble skeletons.

Luckily, the solution only requires blasting the slugs off the roses with a spray of water or treating them with spinosad, a bioinsecticide derived from soil bacteria.

1

The Civil War began and ended on Wilmer McLean’s property

Virginia businessman Wilmer McLean tried to escape the Civil War by moving away from Manassas after the First Battle of Bull Run erupted near his home in 1861. Confederate General P.G.T. Beaugard even used McLean’s house as headquarters, and a Union cannonball crashed through his kitchen.

McLean relocated about 120 miles south to Appomattox Court House, hoping for peace. Instead, on April 9, 1865, Robert E. Lee surrendered to Ulysses S. Grant in McLean’s parlor, effectively ending the war. McLean later joked that the war "began in my front yard and ended in my front parlor."

2

A bullet links the first and last soldiers who lost their lives in the Civil War

One long-circulated Civil War story claims that the bullet removed from the first Union casualty was later melted and reused years afterward, eventually ending with the life of one of the final soldiers of the conflict . Historians debate parts of the tale, but it became one of the war’s more enduring legends.

The coincidence works as a reflection on how Americans tried to make sense of the terrible human cost of the war. More than 600,000 people lost their lives in the conflict, making it the deadliest war in U.S. history.

3

A baby fell from a building twice, on the same man

In Detroit, during the 1930s, street sweeper Joseph Figlock reportedly became part of a bizarre accident when a baby fell from an apartment window and landed on him . The child survived, and so did Figlock.

About a year later, the same child allegedly fell from the same building again and once again landed on Figlock . Newspapers at the time treated the story as one of the strangest coincidences ever recorded in America. One might argue that street sweepers spend a disproportionate amount of time on the same streets, but the situation is still quite incredible.

4

Anthony Hopkins accidentally found the exact book he needed

While preparing for the 1972 film The Girl from Petrovka , actor Anthony Hopkins searched London bookstores for a rare copy of George Feifer’s novel. After failing to locate one anywhere, he sat down on the subway and noticed a forgotten copy of the tome in question lying on a bench .

Months later, Hopkins met Feifer himself and learned that the author had lent his annotated personal copy to a friend, who had lost it on the London Underground. The abandoned copy Hopkins found turned out to be that exact copy.

5

John Wilkes Booth is in one of Abraham Lincoln’s last photographs

John Wilkes Booth was already a nationally famous actor before assassinating President Abraham Lincoln in April 1865. Because of that fame, photographers had captured detailed images of Booth years before the crime that made him infamous.

One especially eerie coincidence is that Booth appears in photographs connected to Lincoln’s second inauguration festivities shortly before the crime took place . Historians later realized that the future assassin had unknowingly been documented near the President before he changed history forever.

6

A woman survived all three major White Star ship disasters

Violet Jessop worked as a stewardess for the White Star Line, the company behind the Olympic-class ocean liners. In 1911, she was on board the RMS Olympic when it collided with another ship.

In 1912, she survived the sinking of the Titanic . Four years later, in 1916, during World War I, she was aboard the HMS Britannic when it struck a mine and sank in the Aegean Sea. Jessop survived all three disasters and later became known as "Miss Unsinkable."

7

Theodore Roosevelt’s speech manuscript helped stop a bullet

During the 1912 presidential campaign, former President Theodore Roosevelt was shot in Milwaukee before giving a speech. The bullet first passed through a folded 50-page speech manuscript and Roosevelt’s metal eyeglass case in his breast pocket.

The thick stack of papers slowed the bullet enough that Roosevelt survived . Remarkably, he still delivered the speech, speaking for about 90 minutes (those 50 pages were no joke) before seeking medical treatment. Doctors later decided that the bullet was safer left inside his chest permanently.

8

A man unknowingly photographed his own future car accident

In the 1970s, amateur photographer Robert Landsburg reportedly took pictures of everyday traffic while experimenting with a new camera. After developing the film later, he realized one image showed the exact intersection where he would soon be involved in a collision .

The eerie coincidence became famous because the photograph captured the other vehicle that would later crash into his own car.

9

The "Jim Twins" lived nearly identical lives without knowing each other

Identical twins Jim Lewis and Jim Springer were separated at birth in Ohio in 1940 and adopted by different families. Amazingly, both adoptive families independently named the boys James. The twins did not meet again until they were 39 years old.

When reunited in 1979, they discovered a shocking number of similarities. Both had married women named Linda, later remarried women named Betty, owned dogs named Tony, drove similar cars, and even suffered from the same headaches .

10

The Wizard of Oz costume accidentally belonged to the book’s author

While filming The Wizard of Oz in 1938, costumers searched for an old-looking coat for actor Frank Morgan, who played both Professor Marvel and the title character. Costume staff reportedly bought several secondhand jackets from a thrift store in Los Angeles and picked one that looked perfect for the Marvel role.

Later, while examining the coat, the team discovered a label sewn inside with the name "L. Frank Baum", author of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz . Baum’s widow later confirmed that the jacket had indeed belonged to her late husband.