The V-2 rocket, produced by Nazi Germany during World War II, was the first man-made object to achieve suborbital spaceflight and was the precursor to all modern rockets, including those used for human spaceflight. Germany launched over 3,000 of them at Allied countries up through 1945, claiming 7,000 military and civilian lives, mostly in London and Antwerp, as well the 25,000 slave laborers who died while being forced to produce them.

The 46-foot-long rocket’s liquid oxygen-fueled engine would burn for only about 65 seconds before cutting off, using two gyroscopes and a simple analog computer to determine the exact angle of the rocket at the moment the engine cut off. The rocket then followed a purely ballistic trajectory the rest of the way to its destination, sometimes landing within meters of its target. The V-2 had a range of up to 200 miles at an altitude of 55 miles.

Whenever the rockets fell in London, there would be no warning before the explosion, as the V-2 traveled at supersonic speeds. Just after the explosion, a characteristic fading whistling sound could often be heard. In fact, the British government denied that the city was under rocket attack until it had been going on for weeks, instead attributing the explosions to other causes.

When Germany fell to the Allied troops in 1945, the V-2’s creator, Wernher von Braun, and his whole team surrendered to the Americans in order to prevent their technology from going to the Russians. Von Braun went on to create the rockets first used by the fledgling US space program, including the giant Saturn V rocket that took astronauts to the moon.

D. B. Cooper was the alias of a man who hijacked a Boeing 727 in 1972 and then disappeared after parachuting out of the plane. The dapper man in a crisp suit passed a note to a flight attendant claiming he had a bomb in his suitcase. He demanded $200,000 in unmarked $20 bills, and four parachutes. After the plane landed and officials met his demands, he released the passengers and told the crew to take the plane back into the air. Then, somewhere over the Pacific Northwest, he opened the rear stairway of the plane and, strapped into a parachute and clutching the briefcase full of cash, leapt into a furious rainstorm, never to be seen again. It is unknown if he survived the jump, but in 1980 about $5000 of the bills he had been given by the FBI were found in the mud on the banks of the Columbia river. It not known if they were buried or just washed up there.

In 1716, the King of Prussia gave Russian czar Peter the Great a gift of a 180-square foot room encrusted with six tons of amber panels backed with gold leaf, aptly known as The Amber Room. Invading Nazis looted the room in 1941, packing the amber into crates and hightailing it back to Germany. The missing panels have never been found.

Blackbeard the Pirate was a total badass. His real name was Edward Teach, but nobody is sure if he was born in London, Bristol, Philadelphia, or Jamaica. His reign of terror lasted only about six years, from 1713 to 1718, in the seas between the Bahamas and the Carolinas. In particular, he spent a lot of time terrorizing the coast of North Carolina, and even delivered booty to governor Charles Eden in exchange for protection and an official pardon. In 1718, he blockaded Charleston Harbor in South Carolina, plundering five merchant vessels before he was through. Later that year, Blackbeard met his end at the hands of British Lieutenant Robert Maynard when a price of 100 pounds was put on his head. According to legend, in his final battle Blackbeard was shot five times and stabbed more than 20 times before he went down, and his headless body is said to have swum circles around his ship seven times before it sank.

However, it is unclear who would have won had he done battle with ninjas. Arrrr!!!