Some astronauts in the Challenger disaster survived the initial explosion and only died once the orbiter hit the water Can't imagine how the few felt when their shuttle exploded, some of their colleagues dead and they are plummeting rapidly to their deaths

There's a recording of the last Kaua'i Oo bird singing before it went extinct. It was a mating call sung by a male bird. The song has breaks for the female bird to respond. There's no response because the male Kaua'i Oo is the last of its kind.

Elephants will mourn other elephants in their group dying and will hold funerals for them and will even recognize the bones of said elephant and cry out in sadness.

One of my neighbors has a nine year old daughter who has a very rare genetic condition. She's not expected to live much beyond her mid - late teens. The girl doesn't know and believes she's a perfectly normal child. It's heartbreaking to hear her saying that she wants to be a hairdresser when she grows up. She ain't never gonna grow up

Laika, the first dog to be sent out to space, died alone up there. She had no idea what was happening and I still find it extremely cruel that she got sent to space "for science".

All whales eventually lose the energy to surface for oxygen, so they essentially begin to sink and drown

There has been a day when you and your childhood friend got out to play for the last time and none of you two was aware of it.

Swans can die of a broken heart when their mates die.​

For animal testing involving dogs, most laboratories use beagles as they are the most forgiving of the people inflicting pain on them.

Dodo birds were really friendly because they had no natural predators and we killed them all.

On december 5 1942 in Auschwitz-Birkenau, after the round-call of the morning, which was atrocious since you would need to stand still for hours until the count matches, the SS took the entirety of the women camp moved them in front of a ditch within the camp and asked the 6000 present alive women to get naked. Then, the SS armed with whips, pistols and canes got over the ditch, made two parallels lines to create some sort of corridor. Then they screamed the women prisonners to jump over the ditch and run through the corridor of SS soldiers. During the run, the SS with the whips and cane struck/whipped/pulled away all the women they deemed "unfit for labor" due to sickness and physicall exhaustion. Out of the 6000 women that day, around 1500 made it to the end of the corridor without being pulled away : They were the lucky ones and the camp commandant made a speech sort of like "You were chosen to live". The 4500 women pulled away by the SS or who couldn't jump far enough to pass the ditch were pushed into trucks and send to the gas chamber. They apparently screamed like banshees full knowing they were sent to their death. Very few women survived from 1942 to 1945 in auschwitz, but the detail of this day is present in the few books/testimonies from survivors because of how horrible it was.

Animals are routinely horrifically abused and neglected, and nobody cares unless they're a cat or dog.

Whales that sing in the wrong key get lost and are alone in the ocean.

The money in off shore bank accounts 5 years ago could end world poverty for 50 years. Forbes once had the headline: Poverty is a choice, just not by the ones in poverty.

Somewhere right now a child is being abused or fearing it happening again. Child abuse is the saddest f**king thing to me

785 million people do not have access to safe water. (Access includes having having water within a 30 minute round trip for collecting it and carrying it home).

Cats are the most euthanized pets in shelters even over pitbulls. I worked at an animal shelter when I was a you g lad and every f**king time someone came to adopt a pet it was a dog! I even heard a family say “ we want a dog only cats don’t love you” I socialized many of their cats and most of them were so sweet, and cuddly and made me just so sad inside everyday watching people adopt dogs and ignore the cats. This was a no kill shelter but still it was so heart wrenching I quit because of that. Cats do love you back you just have to earn their trust and they show it differently than dogs. All animals show love in their own special way.

The United States government: Fed radioactive oatmeal to mentally challenged children to see what would happen. Allow black men with syphilis to believe they were being treated while actually letting them die from it to see what happened when it was left untreated. Plus: There are people that do not vaccinate their children because of internet memes. There are people that truly believe the world is flat.

A guy in my area had just retired on a Friday. The following Wednesday he was out fishing and a thunderstorm came up. He pulled his boat out of the lake and while standing next to his car on the boat ramp lightning took him out. 5 blessed days of retirement.

There is a plastic bag at the bottom of the Mariana Trench.

Read about a dolphin who had learned some basic communication and was in some sort of pen. Dolphins can suicide by going under water and refusing to go back up for air. This dolphin was miserable and told it's handler goodbye before going under and killing itself. The fact the dolphin was sentient enough to chose suicide breaks my heart.

Stephen Hawking died a little over a year before the first photograph of a black hole

There's more people in slavery now than in the 17-1800's. Pretty sad

One day, sometime far far far in the future, someone is going to speak your name for the very last time and then you’ll be completely forgotten about.

You can do everything in your power and work as hard as you possibly can, sometimes [stuff] just doesn't work out. You very well won't ever accomplish your dream, despite all your efforts.

Yesterday I found out my wife has only a week left

Researchers accidentally killed the oldest animal in 2006

Many people go through the last years of their life sad and chronically lonely

Hachikou was a Japanese Akita dog who each day would wait at the train station for his owner to return from his commute. One day his owner had an aneurysm at work and passed away. Hachikou would spend the next ten years waiting at the station.

I learnt today that if a grizzly bear has a single cub it will abandon it