DEAD SERIOUS
History's strangest true stories
A King Let The Women Of A Fallen Castle Leave With Whatever They Could Carry On Their Backs. The Gates Opened, And Out Came The Wives, Carrying Their Husbands.
His Team Expelled Its Other Pitcher, So He Promised To Pitch Every Remaining Game Himself. He Won 59. His Arm Never Forgave Him. The Record Has Never Been Touched.
In 1931 New Zealand Farmers' Trousers Began Exploding. On Clotheslines. By The Fire. While Being Worn. The Government's Own Weedkiller Was The Culprit.
The Rats Of A French Province Were Put On Trial. Their Court-Appointed Lawyer Argued They Could Not Attend Because Of The Plaintiffs' Cats. It Made His Career.
Two Survey Teams Made The Same Mistake And Left A Strip Of Italy Belonging To Nobody. The Villagers On It Declared Freedom. It Lasted 385 Years.
Lenin's Rival Tried To Beat Death By Swapping Blood With Students. It Worked Eleven Times. The Twelfth Exchange Killed Him. The Student Lived.
London's Hottest Ticket Was The Worst Actor In The World. Audiences Made Him Die Twice A Night. Death Finally Caught Him At The Theatre Door.
Four Students Stole The Coronation Stone From Westminster Abbey On Christmas Morning. It Broke In Two. The Mason Who Repaired It Sealed A Message Inside. No King Has Ever Read It.
A Shotgun Left A Window Into His Stomach. His Doctor Spent A Decade Lowering Dinner Into It On Silk Threads. Science Never Got The Stomach.
He Was Refused Permission To Fly The Atlantic. So He Flew It By Accident
In 1933 Five Men In The Bronx Took Out Life Insurance On A Homeless Old Drunk Named Michael Malloy And Set Out To Kill Him For The Payout. They Fed Him Antifreeze, Wood Alcohol, Turpentine, And A Sandwich Of Rotten Sardines And Metal Shavings, Froze Him In The Snow, And Ran Him Over With A Taxi. Every Time, He Came Back For Another Drink.
A Surgeon Refused To Amputate His Ruined Fingers, So Adrian Carton De Wiart Bit Them Off Himself. Across Three Wars He Was Shot In The Face, Head, Stomach, Hip, Leg And Ear, Lost An Eye And A Hand, Survived Two Plane Crashes And A Prison Tunnel, And When He Wrote It All Down He Titled The Book Happy Odyssey, Because Frankly, He Had Enjoyed The War.
In 1810 A London Prankster Bet A Friend One Guinea That He Could Make Any House In The City The Most Talked-About Address In London. So He Sent Up To Four Thousand Letters In A Widow's Name, And On One November Morning Coal Wagons, Wedding Cakes, Forty Butchers, An Undertaker With A Coffin, And The Lord Mayor Himself All Descended On Her Door At Once.
A Heavyset Butcher From The Australian Outback Claimed He Was A Slim, French Speaking English Aristocrat Who Had Drowned At Sea. He Could Not Speak French And Weighed Twice As Much, But The Dead Heir's Grieving Mother Accepted Him On Sight, Much Of England Believed Him, And It Took The Longest Trial In English History To Expose Him.
In 1901, A Broke Sixty Three Year Old Schoolteacher Decided To Get Rich By Becoming The First Person To Survive Going Over Niagara Falls In A Barrel. She Tested It By Sending Her Cat Over First. She Survived. Then Her Manager Stole The Barrel, And She Died Penniless In A Poorhouse.
A Finnish Farmer Barely Five Foot Three, Fighting With Open Iron Sights And No Scope In Forty Degrees Below Zero, Was Credited By His Own Officers With More Confirmed Kills Than Any Sniper In Recorded History. Then An Explosive Round Tore Away Half His Face And He Woke From The Coma On The Day The War Ended.
A Polish Army Unit Bought A Bear Cub In Iran For Tins Of Beef, Enlisted Him As A Private With A Paybook And Serial Number, And He Carried Artillery Shells For Them At The Battle Of Monte Cassino.
An Austrian Army Of Thirty Thousand Men Got Into A Fight Over A Barrel Of Schnapps In The Dark And Destroyed Itself. The Ottomans Took The Town Two Days Later Without Firing A Shot.
The Richest Woman In America Lived In A Tenement And Ate Cold Oatmeal. Her Son Lost His Leg Because She Wouldn't Pay For A Doctor.
The French Army Used Him As A Spy. They Made Him Swallow Secret Dispatches Across The Prussian Lines. He Ate Anything.
He Spent 40 Years Immunising Himself Against Every Poison. When He Tried To Commit Suicide, The Poison Did Nothing.
Louis XIV's Composer Stabbed His Own Foot Conducting. He Refused Amputation. He Died Celebrating The King's Recovery.
A French King Believed His Body Was Made Of Glass. He Sewed Iron Rods Into His Clothes. The Delusion Then Spread Across Europe For Three Hundred Years.
The Man Who Discovered Gravity Spent Thirty Years As A London Cop. He Personally Sent Twenty-Eight Men To The Gallows.
A Bankrupt German Alchemist Boiled Fifteen Hundred Gallons Of Urine Looking For Gold. He Accidentally Invented Modern Chemistry.
Two American Paleontologists Dynamited Their Own Dig Sites To Spite Each Other.
She Fooled An Entire English County Into Thinking She Was A Princess.
The Chicken That Lived Eighteen Months Without A Head.
He Declared Himself Emperor. The City Went Along With It.
He Wrote Sherlock Holmes. He Believed In Fairies.
He Skated Through a Mirror.
He Failed Upward Until He Was a Lord.
Britain Went to War Over a Pickled Ear.
An Oxford Geologist Ate the Heart of a King.
He Couldn't Keep a Dog at College. So He Bought a Bear.
He Drank the Vomit. He Got an MD for It. He Was Wrong.
The First Man Across the Line Rode in a Car. The Winner Was Poisoned.
One Man Invented Leaded Gasoline AND the Hole in the Ozone Layer
She Convinced the King's Own Surgeon She Was Giving Birth to Rabbits
The Surgeon Who Killed Three People in One Operation
The Man Who Stole Einstein's Brain and Kept It for 43 Years
They Dug Up a Dead Pope and Put His Corpse on Trial
They Dug Up a Dead Pope and Put His Corpse on Trial
Two Empires Nearly Went to War Over a Dead Pig
400 People Danced Until They Collapsed. Nobody Knows Why.
The CIA Spent Millions Putting a Microphone Inside a Cat
Australia Declared War on Emus. The Emus Won.
He Sold the Eiffel Tower for Scrap. Twice.
He Died Because He Wouldn't Pee
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