Francesca Paris

The alcohol Breathalyzer came to life slowly, over the course of decades.

It was like a scene straight out of Alfred Hitchcock. Late on New Year's Eve 2010, thousands of birds rained from the sky in Beebe, Arkansas.

Some 5,000 red-winged blackbirds, European starlings, common grackles and brown-headed cowbirds suffered blunt-force trauma after colliding with cars, trees and buildings, an ornithologist from the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission would tell National Geographic.

Updated at 9:05 p.m. ET

In a stunning and historic Kentucky Derby upset, the horse that crossed the finish line first was not the one that was declared the winner.

Maximum Security, the favorite entering the race and the only undefeated horse in the field, outpaced the competition on the muddy track at Churchill Downs and appeared to have won the 145th Kentucky Derby with a time of 2:03.93.

Then an objection was lodged. For several tense minutes in Louisville, some 150,000 people in rain-soaked ponchos and fancy hats waited for a verdict.

Rachel Held Evans, a progressive Christian author whose writing challenged traditional evangelical views on politics and the role of women and LGBTQ members of the church, died on Saturday. She was 37.