Cracked.com has posted a super-interesting list about seven lost bodies of work that could have changed everything if they were still around/documented properly.

#1 All Music Made Through Most of Human History

Quick, what’s the best song of all time?

Don’t bother answering. The odds are overwhelming that we don’t have it. All records of the music that humans were making for the first several thousand years of the art form, simply doesn’t exist.

We have lost the life’s work of just about every musician who ever lived before the age of powdered-wigs, which coincidentally also happened to be the beginning of the music industry.

So What Happened?

Obviously there was no way to make sound recordings until very recently. But what about sheet music? Don’t we have all sorts of ancient scrolls of that laying around?

Nope. While the history of musical notation dates back to Ancient Greece, India and China, it doesn’t change the fact that almost nothing has survived. And most of what we have isn’t really something you can make into your ring tone.

Humans have been singing and playing music for tens of thousands of years. What did it sound like? Who were the great musical geniuses through the millennia? We have no freaking idea.

How did Homer sing the Iliad? What war songs did Genghis sing as his Mongolian horde prepared for battle? What the hell did the national anthem of the Roman Empire sound like? How many Django Reinhardts or Jimi Hendrixes went unnoticed until the advent of YouTube? How good were they? What styles existed that we’ve never even heard of?

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The famous Abbey Road studios has been given listed building status by English Heritage for it’s contribution to music history – The Beatles recorded many albums there.

The venue has been given Grade II status – the third-highest category – for its role in shaping British music.

Culture Minister Margaret Hodge listed the studios on the advice of English Heritage saying it had “produced some of the very best music in the world”.

Its owners EMI recently denied reports it was to be sold off to ease debts.

Listing for the property, whose official address is 3 Abbey Road, was granted due to its historic, rather than architectural, merit.

It means any future owners must be careful to make sure the character of the property is treated with respect, but it does not prohibit internal changes.

The Beatles used Abbey Road for 90% of their recordings, naming an album after the studios in 1969.

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A piano which survived the Hiroshima blast in 1945 is set to take centre stage at a peace concert in New York.

The instrument was in the Hiroshima home of Matsuba when United States aircraft dropped the first atomic bomb over the city on 6 August, 1945.

Around 140,000 people were estimated to have been killed and 60 per cent of buildings in the city were destroyed, but both the piano and its owner managed to survive.

The piano, bought by Matsuba’s mother in 1933, and sustained only slight damage after being toppled over by the explosion, despite its location only 1.3 km from ground zero.

Matsuba, who now lives in Sendai, north Japan, agreed to rent the piano to the group for one year, describing such a use as an “honour”, according to Kyodo News.

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Newly released photographs reveal that Sean Dempsey, a famous Irish musician, played for Adolf Hitler in 1936.

Dempsey, an uileann piper, was invited to play for Hitler and propaganda chief Joseph Goebbels during a visit to Berlin in 1936 after being told that Hitler was an Irish folk music fan.

When he arrived to play however, there was no room for him to sit, which he needed to do to play, and it looked like it would be canceled.

however, Hitler jumped up and demanded that an S.S. member get down on his hands and knees and that Dempsey sit astride him while he played.

Dempsey played what was described as a ‘haunting air’ as Hitler listened with rapt attention. After he performed, Hitler presented him with a gold fountain pen while Goebbels clapped wildly.

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The Slate answers the question “Why Do Rappers Hold Their Guns Sideways?”

During the first half of the 20th century, soldiers used the side grip for the express purpose of endangering throngs of people. Some automatic weapons from this era—like the Mauser C96 or the grease gun—fired so quickly or with such dramatic recoil that soldiers found it impossible to aim anything but the first shot. Soldiers began tilting the weapons, so that the recoil sent the gun reeling in a horizontal rather than vertical arc, enabling them to spray bullets into an onrushing enemy battalion instead of over their heads.

Nowadays, the only time professionals use the side grip is while holding riot shields, which limit their field of vision. Turning the gun and raising it up make the sight slightly more visible.

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