More Amsterdam

This is the door outside the old women's prison. Mostly prostitutes were sent here during the time it was open...but they put you to work spinning something and if you didn't do it they beat you. The public could pay to see you get beaten and even worse it was owned and ran by a group of nuns...

I didn't get a picture of the men's prison, but its an interesting story as well. Basically, they used you for hard labor if you were put into the prison. If you refused to work they put you in what was called a flood room. They would slowly fill the water up in the room and you had to pump it out with the one pump they gave you. You died if you didn't. The system worked really well until one guy refused to pump. He obviously died and the prison later got shut down.

Take a guess at what this is.... Seriously guess before you keep reading... Yep you probably didn't guess this but its a pee refector and if you pee on this in the middle of the night your urine will splash back up on you and you will look rediculous the rest of the night. This one is really obvious but some of them I could totally see people falling for.

Oh and this is almost really funny. Residents get really mad when people pee on their house, for obvious reasons...so one day a few people decided to take a stand. In particular, the put an electric shock into the metal pieces so when people peed it would shock them. Well this went on for a while until someone nearly charred himself to death and ended up in the hospital. Needless to say, those people were in trouble and that isn't allowed anymore.

Dutch East Indies Company. Basically, back in the day when everyone loaded all their cargo onto one ship, they had to risk loosing their life fortune if something happened to it. To solve this problem the Dutch East Indies Company basically said well each of you give me all your goods and i will split them up onto 10 different boats (which 9 other people shared.) This way, if the boat gets taken by pirates, sinks, etc., you will only loose 10% of your profit. Good idea? Yes, they made a ton of money. Bad news, British got wind and didn't like that. They copied their idea and started a Navy which eventually ran this company into the ground financially. If your a history buff, I would recommend checking this company out... They have a lot of neat history behind them.