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Sometimes stories like that of Holocaust survivor Herman Rosenblat are indeed too good to be true. Here, some of the literary world's most shocking fakes

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At the tender age of 19, forgery artist William Ireland managed to convince numerous of scholars in 18th-century England that he had found dozens of love letters, unpublished manuscripts and annotated volumes written by none other than William Shakespeare. (He claimed he discovered them in an old chest given to him by an "anonymous friend.") But Ireland's ego finally trumped his talent in 1796 when he staged a long-lost Shakespearean play called "Vortigern and Rowena." Critics and audiences alike panned it; the play ran for just one night — perhaps because just two days before its premiere, literary expert Edmond Malone published an essay proving that Ireland not only wrote the play himself, he had forged all of the Shakespearean relics he claimed to possess. Ireland's father, a rare book dealer who faithfully published all of his son's "discoveries," refused to believe the allegations (even after Ireland confessed), telling skeptics his son was too stupid to have forged them.

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Sometimes stories like that of Holocaust survivor Herman Rosenblat are indeed too good to be true. Here, some of the literary world's most shocking fakes At the tender age of 19, forgery artist William Ireland managed to convince numerous of scholars in 18th-century England that he had found dozens of love letters, unpublished manuscripts and annotated volumes written by none other than William Shakespeare.

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So, what do you make of a country where a third grader brings a gun to school to ward off bullies?

In Inkster, Mich., an eight-year-old boy brought a nine-mm semiautomatic handgun to his elementary school two days in a row for protection, and to scare off three girls who were bullying him. The weapon was in the boy's backpack and belonged to a relative. And surely somewhere in this nation of unacceptable levels of violence and gun worship, there are those who think that is a good thing, to arm children to protect themselves. More guns will make us all safer, right?

After the recent tragedy at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., America, it seems, is waking up to the need to stem the tide of violence in this country. But there is nothing new here. Whether we look at the shooting sprees and mass murder of young white men in the affluent suburbs or rural areas, or the epidemic of gun violence in communities of color in Chicago and elsewhere, violence is part of the fabric of America.

From the beginning, this country has used violence to solve its problems. Years of dehumanization of others will do that to you. And this was always the case, from the enslavement of Africans to the genocide of the indigenous population, and from the regime of lynching in the Jim Crow South and elsewhere, to the acts of terror waged against civil rights workers, antiwar protestors and organized labor.

Speaking out against the Vietnam War in 1967, Martin Luther King said, "I knew that I could never again raise my voice against the violence of the oppressed in the ghettos without having first spoken clearly to the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today -- my own government." Dr. King's words are even more relevant today than when he spoke over four decades ago.

The U.S. has the most powerful army, accounting for 58 percent of the military expenditures made by the top 10 military powers. With high gun accessibility and the highest rate of gun ownership in the world, America leads in deadly gun violence. Nearly 70 percent of U.S. homicides are committed with guns, and 70 percent of the weapons seized in drug war-ravaged Mexico are traced back to the U.S. Gun proliferation is bolstered by an anachronistic and obsolete Second Amendment, and promoted by gun manufacturers, who bribe lawmakers and hold the public hostage in the process.

Further, America's love affair with violence extends to its overly punitive, disproportionate system of justice. With one quarter of the world's prisoners, the U.S. is the largest jailer in the world. Prisons are the largest repository for the mentally ill, with more people receiving mental health treatment behind bars than in hospitals or treatment centers. As budgets for education and social services are slashed and jobs are scarce, the American way is to lock up and even kill our perceived problems rather than to build up people and rehabilitate them.

Moreover, our continued reliance on the death penalty in the U.S. is a prime example of what happens when a society perpetuates a vicious circle of violence. While capital punishment was long cast aside in Europe, Canada, Australia and elsewhere, the barbaric practice still finds a welcome home in America -- at least for now. The U.S. is part of an unsavory alliance of nations who lead the world in executions -- including China, Iran, Iraq, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Somalia and Yemen. But the winds of change are blowing.

For a nation conditioned by violence, it is hard to break extremely old and equally bad habits. After all, people are comfortable with what they know, comfortable with what they were raised on. America can break the cycle of violence -- however normalized it has become -- and yet it must if it wants to break from its troubling past and become better than it was.
David A. Love is the executive director of Witness to Innocence, a national nonprofit organization that empowers exonerated death row prisoners and their family members to become effective leaders in the movement to abolish the death penalty.

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So, what do you make of a country where a third grader brings a gun to school to ward off bullies? In Inkster, Mich., an eight-year-old boy brought a nine-mm semiautomatic handgun to his elementary school two days in a row for protection, and to scare off three girls who were bullying him.

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This time of year, thrillseekers can enjoy horror movies, haunted houses, and prices so low, it's scary. But if fear is a natural survival response to a threat or danger, why would we seek out that feeling?

Dr. Margee Kerr is the staff sociologist at ScareHouse, a haunted house in Pittsburgh that takes all year to plan. She also teaches at Robert Morris University and Chatham University, and is the only person I've ever heard referred to as a "scare specialist." Dr. Kerr is an expert in the field of fear. I spoke with her about what fear is, and why some of us enjoy it so much.
Why do some people like the feeling of being scared, while others don't?
Not everyone enjoys being afraid, and I don't think it's a stretch to say that no one wants to experience a truly life-threatening situation. But there are those of us (well, a lot of us) who really enjoy the experience. First, the natural high from the fight-or-flight response can feel great. There is strong evidence that this isn't just about personal choice, but our brain chemistry. New research from David Zald shows that people differ in their chemical response to thrilling situations. One of the main hormones released during scary and thrilling activities is dopamine, and it turns out some individuals may get more of a kick from this dopamine response than others do. Basically, some people's brains lack what Zald describes as "brakes" on the dopamine release and re-uptake in the brain. This means some people are going to really enjoy thrilling, scary, and risky situations while others, not so much.
To really enjoy a scary situation, we have to know we're in a safe environment.
Lots of people also enjoy scary situations because it leaves them with a sense of confidence after it's over. Think about the last time you made it through a scary movie, or through a haunted house. You might have thought, Yes! I did it! I made it all the way through! So it can be a real self-esteem boost. But again, self-scaring isn't for everyone, and there are lots of psychological and personal reasons someone may not enjoy scary situations. I've talked to more than a handful of people who will never set foot in a haunted house because they went to a haunt at a young age and were traumatized. I always recommend parents thoroughly check out the content and rating of a haunted attraction before bringing a child. The chemicals that are released during fight-or-flight can work like glue to build strong memories ("flashbulb memories") of scary experiences, and if you're too young to know the monsters are fake, it can be quite traumatic and something you'll never forget, in a bad way.
What happens in our brains when we're scared? Is it different when we're scared "in a fun way" versus being actually afraid?
To really enjoy a scary situation, we have to know we're in a safe environment. It's all about triggering the amazing fight-or-flight response to experience the flood of adrenaline, endorphins, and dopamine, but in a completely safe space. Haunted houses are great at this-they deliver a startle scare by triggering one of our senses with different sounds, air blasts, and even smells. These senses are directly tied to our fear response and activate the physical reaction, but our brain has time to process the fact that these are not "real" threats. Our brain is lightning-fast at processing threat. I've seen the process thousands of times from behind the walls in ScareHouse-someone screams and jumps and then immediately starts laughing and smiling. It's amazing to observe. I'm really interested to see where our boundaries are in terms of when and how we really know or feel we're safe.
What qualities do "scary things" share across cultures, or does it vary widely?
One of the most interesting things about studying fear is looking at the social constructions of fear, and learned fears versus those fears that appear to be more innate, or even genetic. When we look across time and across the world, we find that people truly can become afraid of anything. Through fear conditioning (connecting a neutral stimulus with a negative consequence), we can link pretty much anything to a fear response. Baby Albert, of course, is the exemplar case of this. The poor child was made deathly afraid of white rabbits in the 1920s, before researchers were required to be ethical. So we know that we can learn to fear, and this means our socialization and the society in which we are raised is going to have a lot to do with what we find scary.
Things that violate the laws of nature are terrifying.
Each culture has its own superhero monsters-the Chupacabra (South America), the Loch Ness Monster, the Yōkai (supernatural monsters from Japanese folklore), Alps (German nightmare creatures)-but they all have a number of characteristics in common. Monsters are defying the general laws of nature in some way. They have either returned from the afterlife (ghosts, demons, spirits) or they are some kind of non-human or semi-human creature. This speaks to the fact that things that violate the laws of nature are terrifying. And really anything that doesn't make sense or causes us some sort of dissonance, whether it is cognitive or aesthetic, is going to be scary (ax-wielding animals, masked faces, contorted bodies).

Another shared characteristic of monsters across the globe is their blurred relationship with death and the body. Humans are obsessed with death; we simply have a hard time wrapping our mind around what happens when we die. This contemplation has led to some of the most famous monsters, with each culture creating their own version of the living dead, whether it's zombies, vampires, reanimated and reconstructed corpses, or ghosts. We want to imagine a life that goes on after we die. Or better yet, figure out a way to live forever. Again, though, that would violate the laws of nature and is therefore terrifying. So while the compositions and names of the monsters are different, the motivations and inspirations behind their constructions appear across the globe.

Humans have been scaring themselves and each other since the birth of the species, through all kinds of methods like storytelling, jumping off cliffs, and popping out to startle each other from the recesses of some dark cave. And we've done this for lots of different reasons-to build group unity, to prepare kids for life in the scary world, and of course, to control behavior. But it's only really in the last few centuries that scaring ourselves for fun (and profit) has become a highly sought-after experience.
What are some early examples of people scaring themselves on purpose?
My favorite example of one of the early discoveries of the joys of self-scaring is actually found in the history of roller coasters. The Russian Ice Slides began, not surprisingly given the name, as extended sleigh rides down a snowy mountain in the mid-17th century. Much like they do today, riders would sit in sleds and speed down the mountain, which sometimes included additional man-made bumps to make it a little more exciting. The Russian Ice Slides became more sophisticated throughout the 18th century, with wooden beams and artificial mountains of ice. Eventually instead of ice and sleds, tracks and carriages were constructed to carry screaming riders across the "Russian Mountains." Even more exhilarating terror came when innovative creators decided to paint scary scenes on the walls that shocked and thrilled riders as they passed by. These came to be known as "Dark Rides." People were terrified, but they loved it.

We haven't just enjoyed physical thrills-ghost stories were told around the campfire long before we had summer camps. The Graveyard Poets of the 18th century, who wrote of spiders, bats, and skulls, paved the road for the gothic novelists of the 19th century, like Poe and Shelly. These scary stories provided, and continue to deliver, intrigue, exhilaration, and a jolt of excitement to our lives.

The 19th century also brought the precursors to the haunted attraction industry. Sideshows or "Freak Shows," and the museums and houses of "oddities," have existed since the mid-1800s. Perhaps the most notable is Barnum's American Museum, operated by P. T. Barnum, best known for being half of the Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey Circus. His museum contained things like monkey torsos with fish tails attached, and other characters meant to frighten and startle. Much like modern haunts, customers would line up to challenge themselves and their resilience and dare each other to enter the freak shows and face the scary scenes and abnormalities. The haunted-attraction industry has come a long way from fish tails and plastic bats-modern haunts incorporate Hollywood-quality sets, and a crazy amount of modern technology all designed to scare us silly.

One of the reasons people love Halloween is because it produces strong emotional responses, and those responses work to build stronger relationships and memories. When we're happy, or afraid, we're releasing powerful hormones, like oxcytocin, that are working to make these moments stick in our brain. So we're going to remember the people we're with. If it was a good experience, then we'll remember them fondly and feel close to them, more so than if we were to meet them during some neutral unexciting event. Shelley Taylor discussed this in her article "Tend and Befriend: Biobehavioral Bases of Affiliation Under Stress." She shows that we do build a special closeness with those we are with when we're in an excited state, and more important, that it can be a really good thing. We're social and emotional beings. We need each other in times of stress, so the fact that our bodies have evolved to make sure we feel close to those we are with when afraid makes sense. So yes, take your date to a haunted house or for a ride on a roller coaster; it'll be a night you'll never forget.
There's a common belief that if you meet somebody for the first time in a fearful situation, you'll feel more attached or more attracted to that person than you would if you'd met them in a low-stress situation. Is there any truth to that?

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This time of year, thrillseekers can enjoy horror movies, haunted houses, and prices so low, it's scary. But if fear is a natural survival response to a threat or danger, why would we seek out that feeling? Dr. Margee Kerr is the staff sociologist at ScareHouse, a haunted house in Pittsburgh that takes all year to plan.

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In a study that began in 1989, a group of American social psychologists found that just briefly reminding people that they would die had a remarkable impact on their political and religious views.

In their first experiment, the researchers recruited court judges from Tucson. Half the judges were reminded of their mortality (via an otherwise innocuous personality test) and half were not. They were then all asked to rule on a hypothetical case of prostitution similar to those they ruled on. The judges who had first been reminded of their mortality set a bond nine times higher than those who hadn't (averaging $455 compared to $50).

These psychologists - Sheldon Solomon, Jeff Greenberg and Tom Pyszczynski - were testing the hypothesis that we have developed our cultural worldviews in order to give us the sense that we might defy death. They reasoned that if this were not the case, when faced with reminders of mortality, people would cling more fiercely to their beliefs and be more negative about those who threatened them. This is just what happened with the judges: when reminded that they would one day die, they were more severe in punishing those who violated their worldview.

Social psychologists have since tested this hypothesis in more than 400 experiments that aim to explore different aspects of our worldview, from patriotism to religion. So far, their results consistently support a thesis - known as Terror Management Theory - that particular aspects of our outlook are governed by our need to manage our fear of death. In other words, our cultural, philosophical and religious systems exist to promise us immortality.

Every civilization has had such systems. They are embodied in the pyramids of Egypt, the cathedrals of Europe and even the skyscrapers of modern cities. Odds are that you too, dear reader, subscribe to at least one such system - a set of beliefs that motivates you and somehow promises life's continuance. Perhaps you believe that if you attend church or a synagogue or a mosque, your soul will endure in another realm. Perhaps you are encouraging your children's confidence that something of you will live on in them; or perhaps you are taking vitamins and jogging in the hope that you can outrun the Reaper.

Some of these systems overtly flaunt their death-defying promise: Christianity and Islam, for example, make a great deal of the prospect of eternal bliss. As do the arts, in particular cinema and its accompanying celebrity culture - as the film star James Dean acknowledged when he said that "the only success, the only greatness, is immortality." But when we look deeper we also find the promise of deathlessness in places where it is not at all explicit: in the accumulation of wealth, with its attendant aura of life-sustaining power; through immersion in a greater whole, whether a nation or a football team; or even in the pursuit of scientific research, with its claim to enduring truth.

The real question posed by the "Torchwood" scenario is: what would happen to all our death-defying systems if there were no more death? The logical answer is that they would be superfluous. We would have no need for progress or art, faith or fame. Suddenly, we would have nothing to do, yet in the greatest of ironies, we would have endless eons in which to do it. Action would lose its purpose and time its value. This is the true awfulness of immortality.

Let us be grateful that the elixir continues to elude us - and toast instead our finitude.

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Opinion | 'Torchwood' Gives Glimpse of Eternal Life

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In a study that began in 1989, a group of American social psychologists found that just briefly reminding people that they would die had a remarkable impact on their political and religious views. In their first experiment, the researchers recruited court judges from Tucson.

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Our discussion of Shakespeare's identity draws from a few sources. A great reference is Slate's episode, How Mathematicians Determine Authorship. Most claims in the video are based on a study by Craig and Kinney, Shakespeare, Computers, and the Mystery of Authorship.

What makes Shakespeare's prose so easy to memorize? Could it be the patterns found in Shakespeare's text? Check out David Freeman and Gregory Taylor's TED-Ed Original to learn more about "Why Shakespeare Loved Iambic Pentameter." These kinds of patterns made it easy for actors to memorize Shakespeare's verse. More about rhythm and mathematics can be viewed at A-rhythm-etic by Clayton Cameron. You can't help but count along with him! Try it.

Because of the transition from print media to digital media, stylometry has recently grown as a topic of interest for researchers. Some examples of tools used for visualizing words include Wordle and Poll Everywhere. Take some time and try them out, and create your own Wordle.

Learn more about stylometry by reading: " What's In a Word-list?" Do you think your writing could be identified by a word-list? How might stylometry be used in forensics? Can authors hide their identity anymore? Read this article from the Smithsonian and see what you think: How Did Computers Uncover J.K. Rowling's Pseudonym? Then listen to Science Friday to learn more about how this mystery was uncovered.

Interested in linguistics? Noam Chomsky challenged linguists with this phrase, " colorless green ideas sleep furiously." What about this phrase is so interesting and perplexing? Read about it and see what you think.

Natalya and Aaron would like to thank those who contributed to feedback for this piece, including Wendy Cho, Richard Lederer, Katerina Popova, and Rusanda Soltan.

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Did Shakespeare write his plays? - Natalya St. Clair and Aaron Williams

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Some people question whether Shakespeare really wrote the works that bear his name - or whether he even existed at all. Could it be true that the greatest writer in the English language was as fictional as his plays? Natalya St. Clair and Aaron Williams show how a linguistic tool called stylometry might shed light on the answer.

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While interesting to explore in his plays, the idea of Shakespeare as a poet isn't new. He wrote many poems. Most famously, he penned 154 sonnets that are often as studied and celebrated as his plays. His sonnets feature a specific format that uses iambic pentameter to reflect great meaning and emotion in a short burst of verse.

If it's the words themselves that grab you, take a plunge down the rabbit hole of Open Source Shakespeare: a beautiful marriage of the bard and technology that allows you to search every poem and play Shakespeare ever wrote for individual words and phrases. Just how many times does the world "blood" show up in Macbeth?

You've seen some of the similarities between Shakespeare's meter and music. This has led many people to draw connections between the bard and a popular modern form of poetry: hip-hop. The Hip-Hop Shakespeare Company explores that connection through events, workshops and many other media. You can watch a fantastic TED Talk by Akala from TedxAldeburgh that explores some of the links between Shakespeare and Hip-Hop. And if you're wondering how the bard stacks up with modern MC's (beyond their affinity for " swagger"), then check out this NPR feature about the number of unique words used by modern wordsmiths.

If all of this wordplay makes you want to get up on your feet and speak the words, you should research the English Speaking Union's National Shakespeare Competition - an annual recitation competition featuring some of Shakespeare's greatest speeches. If your school doesn't participate, then start a movement to make it happen!

Want even more Shakespeare? You can find more on his affinity for insults and views on dating in other great TED-Ed lessons! And if you want more TED, then seek out Steven Pinker on what we learn from the words we use and Stephen Burt on Why People Need Poetry.

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Why Shakespeare loved iambic pentameter - David T. Freeman and Gregory Taylor

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Shakespeare sometimes gets a bad rap in high schools for his complex plots and antiquated language. But a quick peek into the rhythm of his words reveals a poet deeply rooted in the way people spoke in his time - and still speak today. Why do Shakespeare's words have such staying power?