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Queen Victoria’s Chimney Stalker and Other Creepy Moments From History

Khalid Elhassan December 11, 2019 33 min

Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex - Buckingham Palace — Queen Victoria's most famous stalker was a begrimed urchin. Iluminasi

5. The Stay-Behind

It was not only pride that prevented Shoichi Yokoi from surrendering. He also convinced himself that Japan would rise again and attempt to retake Guam. When that happened, he would be ready and in place to assist with the reconquest. Awaiting that day, Yokoi survived in the jungle, spending his days hiding in an elaborate hole in the ground, and emerging at night to hunt lizards and gather snails and tubers.

In January, 1972, two local men came across Yokoi in the jungle. Taking him for a local villager, they were ready to move on, but a paranoid Yokoi assumed they were about to attack him, so he attacked them first. They beat him up and subdued him, then carried him out of the jungle and back to civilization, where his astonishing story finally came out.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.