[infinite monkey]

Does anyone else hear:

♪ London's bridges now and then
Now and then
Now and then
London's bridges now and then
My fair lady ♫

And do you know the meaning of that song? Actually that's up for debate but this one is sort of fun, in a horrible terrible fun sort of way. I make no claims about the veracity of this information.

It's a song about starving children to death.

There have been a lot of theories over the years as to what the collapse of the London Bridge in the song means. Some believe that it refers to Viking attacks back in the 11th century. As no documented records of such an attack on the bridge exist, however, we'll instead focus on a different interpretation: immurement. Don't know the term? Well then, here's a new reason to drink in the morning!

Immurement is the practice of entombing someone within a structure, where they slowly die from lack of food and water (not to be confused with being buried alive, where you mercifully just get to suffocate). The tradition is centuries old, based on the belief that such sacrifices would ensure the stability of the structures in which people were imprisoned.

It was thought too awful to be anything but myth, but some documented cases have been recorded: They turned up a slew of bodies within the walls of several old European structures, including castles, churches and, in the case of Bremen, Germany, at least one bridge. In other words, London Bridge is most likely a reference to the sacrifice of a child within the bridge's base to serve as an "eternal watchman."

http://www.cracked.com/article_20032...ens-songs.html