The cargoes transported across the Mediterranean included terrified slaves and prisoners (like the apostle Paul, whose ship was smashed to pieces) as well as exotic spices.

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In village after village, the houses of those suspected either of practising black magic or of killing Muslim clerics the distinction is often unclear have been burned or smashed to pieces.

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Everyone knows the Blues Mobile -- Jake and Elwood's 1974 Dodge Monaco in "The Blues Brothers" movie -- but few know where all the cop cars famously smashed to pieces in the film came from.

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When the Stephen Whitney, an American sailing packet carrying cotton, corn, clocks and cheese, emerged from three days of dense fog in 1847, its captain got his bearings wrong and the vessel was smashed to pieces on the rocks near Fastnet.

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And, judging from the cheers that greeted Godzilla when he smashed it to pieces in one of the more recent episodes of that long-running cinema epic, plenty of people dislike it.

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But according to the Brains in Brussels it is better that such used jars be sent off, smashed up into pieces (known as cullet) and then recast into new jars.

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