The sad truth of space travel is that before humans were blasted into space scientists used another mammal to make sure we were fit for the coldness beyond the atmosphere. These test humanoids were anesthethized prior to their missions and covered with implants and sensors so researchers could take detailed readings of their trip. Albert II, a male rhesus monkey, was placed in a V2 rocket on June 14, 1949, and launched 83 miles into the sky. Albert II nearly survived the flight, but a problem with the parachute on his recovery capsule lead to Albert dying upon impact.

It’s hard to be friends with your parents. Not only are they our disciplinarians, but they’re can be hard to understand. Most people would never party with their mom, but Jamie Lee Curtis isn’t most people. She’s said that when her parents divorced she felt betrayed by her father and became incredibly close with her mother. She told the Huffington Post :

After undercover cops arrested her, this exotic dancer showed off in court, Florida 1983

Exotic dancers have never had an easy run with the law. People look down on them even if they pay for their services. This dancer had to prove to a judge that the bottoms she wore while performing didn’t reveal too much – the only way she could do that was by bending over in front of the judge in the same outfit she wore on stage. This saucy photo brought the Floridian dancer acclaim when it ran in Playboy. It’s not clear if the dancer was able to get off without serving time or paying a fine, hopefully she made it back to the club sooner than later.

Freddie Mercury and his ex-girlfriend and lifelong friend Mary Austin

We should all be so lucky as to find a friend as close as Mary Austin was to Freddie Mercury. The two best friends started out as lovers, After meeting in 1969 Mercury and Austin were unseperable. They spent nearly a decade together a couple, but even when after they separated they remained close friends and even lived as neighbors until Mercury passed away in 1991. Mercury explained his friendship with Austin:

An East German soldier helping a lost boy sneak across the Berlin Wall

When the Berlin Wall went up on August 13, 1961, the city wasn’t ready to be cut in half. The worst part about the forced splitting of the city was the fact that no one from East Berlin was allowed to cross over to West Berlin and vice versa. As chaos ensued this boy found himself on the wrong side of the wall. Rather than doom a child to a life of poverty without his family, this unknown soldier took his career into his own hands and helped the boy across the wall (at this point it was a simple barbed wire fence). The soldier was caught after saving the boy, and while it’s believed that he was removed from his post no one really knows what happened to him.

Princess Diana sits alone on a yacht, July 1997

During the final months of her life, Princess Diana spent her days traveling the world with new beau Dodi Fayed, a billionaire businessman. Her decision polarized the western world. She was already one of the most watched women in the world, now she spent her days alone on Fayed’s yachts and in hotel suites while the paparazzi tried to capture a saucy photo. This picture captured Diana’s lonely opulence. It’s depressing to know that one of the most giving people on the planet could feel so alone. Weeks after this photo was taken Diana passed away on August 31, 1997 after her car crashed in a tunnel in Paris, France, during a chase with the paparazzi.