The worst blizzard in recorded history: the 1972 Iran blizzard

In 1971, a high school student was sucked out of an airplane after it was struck by lightning. She fell 10,000 feet to the ground while still strapped to her chair and survived. Only to endure a 9-day trek to the nearest civilization.

Philippines is the world’s largest supplier of nurses, supplying roughly 25% of all overseas nurses worldwide.

Lina Medina, a five-year-old Peruvian girl, became the youngest mother in history in 1939 when she gave birth to a boy.

Hours before his death Edgar Allen Poe was found on the streets of Baltimore. He was incoherent, wearing another man’s clothes, and unable to explain how he got there. The cause of his death is an unsolved mystery.

In 1919, J.D. McMahon convinced investors to fund a 480-foot skyscraper, but he labeled the plans as 480 inches, building a 40-foot structure instead. After taking $200,000, he won in court since the plans matched what he built.

Before women were allowed to enroll in medical school, Margaret Ann Bulkley studied medicine and assumed the identity of Dr. James Barry for 56 years while dressing as a man. After 46 years of service as an army doctor officer, her secret was not made public until after her death in 1865.

Blanche Monnier, she was a French woman noted for her beauty, she wished to marry an old lawyer that her mother disapproved of, so she locked her in a small dark room in her attic for 25 years.

A man named Nicholas Winton saved 669 kids during WWII and lived almost all his life without letting people know.

An airplane crashed into the Empire State Building in 1945. Among other damage, plane parts severed the cables of an elevator and the woman inside fell over 70 stories. She lived and holds the world record for the longest survived elevator fall.

Poto and Cabengo, as the two girls called each other, communicated in their own language. The twins were ignored by their parents and secluded from the outside world because their father felt they were developmentally retarded, and their unique language evolved as a result of that neglect.

American environmental activist Julia “Butterfly” Hill lived in a 1500-year-old California Redwood tree for 738 days to prevent it from being cut down by the Pacific Lumber Company. The Simpson’s episode “Lisa the Tree Hugger” was inspired by Hill’s story.

Scientists recreated an Anglo-Saxon manuscript-based 9th century onion and garlic eye remedy and discovered that it killed 90% of antibiotic-resistant staph bacteria (MRSA).

Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria and his wife Sophie are shot to death by a Bosnian Serb nationalist during an official visit to the Bosnian capital of Sarajevo on June 28, 1914. The killings sparked a chain of events that led to the eruption of World War I by early August.

Roller coasters were invented to distract Americans from sin. In the 1880s, hosiery businessman LaMarcus Thompson didn’t like that Americans were going to places like saloons and brothels and created the first roller coaster on Coney Island to persuade them to go there instead.

When Nathan's Famous Hot Dogs first opened in 1916, the owner hired people to dress as doctors and eat hot dogs outside his shop, to convince people his hot dogs were healthy.

We are all aware that medicine has advanced dramatically over the last fifty years. There are several modern medical approaches available today, but this was not always the case. However, the past of medicine is a dark one. Medical leeches, lobotomy, vascular surgery, cranial stenosis, and even electroshock therapy are all options. These are only a couple of the cruel healing techniques that are still in use today.

David Vetter lived his whole 12 years in sterile “bubble”. He was “outside” for 20 second after being removed from his mother’s womb. He never touched any human.

Hollywood actress Hedy Lamarr was also a mathematician and the inventor of frequency hopping spread spectrum, a technology still used for bluetooth and wifi

Actor Rebecca Hall had serious reservations about tackling the macabre story around why Chubbuck killed herself in 1974. So what changed her mind?

Hundreds of young women worked in clock factories during World War I, painting watch dials with luminous radium paint. The company lied about the risk of radiation, claiming there was no danger, which resulted in the death of the young women.

Australian blood donor James Harrison has been one of our most impressive and valued donors, having donated for 60 years. Know his story, how he was a pioneer of our Anti-D program, and why this matters.

Bill Haast immunized himself by injecting snake venom into his blood for several years. He holds the Guinness World Record for surviving the most lethal snake bites, having been bitten over 172 times. Bill became known as "Snake Man" around the world and lived for over 100 years.

For years, scientists didn’t know what caused mysterious cave networks in South America. In 2010, they learned that the caves were actually tunnels dug by ancient giant sloths

Volcanic eruptions can devastate cities, change the world's atmosphere, and devastate economic systems. They can create molten lava rivers, mudslides, suffocating ash, and poisonous gases that cause chaos around the world for years. A volcanic explosion's effects can be massive, from its size to its death toll to its economic cost. Here is ten world’s most destructive and dangerous volcanic eruptions in history.

The unbroken seal of Tutankhamun's tomb before it was opened in 1923, it was unbroken for over 3000 years.