We’ve idolized our stars of stage and screen since man first entertained his fellow villagers. Newspapers, magazines, and the Internet give us so much gossip and information on our celebrities that we’re pretty sure we know everything there is to know about them. But sometimes, there is so much more behind a pretty face or a catchy tune.

It’s hardly surprising to hear that a musician has invented a guitar or a microphone that will improve their performance or that an actress has invented support pantyhose. However, many famous people actually had achievements far outside their entertainment field. A surprising number of celebrities have either patented inventions or made accomplishments that most people aren’t aware of, and here are ten examples.

10 Hedy Lamarr—Wi-Fi

Austrian-born film star Hedy Lamarr was a box office hit during the Hollywood Golden Age in the late 1930s and early 1940s. She was once called “the most beautiful woman in the world,” but there was much more to the bombshell movie star than a pretty face.

During World War II, Lamarr also worked on a torpedo guidance system which forms the basis of today’s Bluetooth and Wi-Fi communications. Patented in 1942 in conjunction with composer George Anthiel, their “frequency hopping” device was used during the war to prevent enemy forces from jamming radio-guided torpedoes, thus sending them off course.^[1]

Surprisingly, neither Lamarr nor Anthiel profited from their groundbreaking invention during their lifetimes.

9 Uri Geller—Radiation Shield

An Israeli-British illusionist, magician, and psychic, Uri Geller is best known for using “mind power” to bend spoons on live TV. His 40-year career as a paranormal entertainer has inspired both awe from fans and derision from skeptics. Offstage, there have been ongoing suggestions that he is a CIA agent.

However, a lesser-known feat is Geller’s invention of a radiation shield to protect cell phone users from the radiation they emit, which some contend to be harmful. Patented in 1998, the shield encases the device to protect users from the harmful effects of long-term exposure to radiation emissions from cell phones, walkie-talkies, and other handheld devices.^[2]–>

8 Jamie Lee Curtis—Baby Diaper

As the daughter of screen legends Tony Curtis and Janet Leigh, it is hardly surprising that Jamie Lee Curtis became a screen legend in her own right. She has featured in many movies during her career, including the famous Halloween series and with funnyman John Cleese in A Fish Called Wanda.

With such a busy acting schedule, it’s quite surprising that she found time to turn her hand to invention. Curtis actually patented a baby diaper during 1980s, aimed at improving the traditional disposable diaper design. Her nappy incorporates both the disposable diaper and a pocket containing disposable wipes, which are typically used at the same time.^[3]

Despite having the patent, Curtis refused to license the product to be sold until companies began producing environmentally friendly biodegradable products. The patent expired in 2007. In 2016, she filed for another patent pertaining to disposable diapers. This one is good until 2036.

7 Johnny Cash—Military Code Operator

Johnny Cash was one of the all-time top-selling music artists. The US country and blues singer and guitarist sold more than 90 million records worldwide. Most of us will remember the deep baritone voice of “The Man in Black” which made him famous, with songs such as “I Walk the Line” and “Ring of Fire.”

During the 1950s, Cash served in the US Air Force, assigned to the 12th Radio Squadron Mobile in Landsberg, Germany. As a military code operator listening in on Soviet Army transmissions, not only did Cash need to be highly skilled in Morse code, but he also needed to be pretty fluent in Russian. Cash was the first American to learn that Soviet premier Joseph Stalin was dead, having intercepted Russian communications.^[4]

6 Brian May—Astrophysicist

Brian May is best known as the long-haired lead guitarist and songwriter for the English rock band Queen. During his musical career, he has produced or performed on recordings which have sold hundreds of millions of copies worldwide. The most famous of these include the rock classic “We Will Rock You.”

When Brian May joined Queen in 1971, he was studying astrophysics and working on a thesis on “zodiacal dust.” His work studied the light reflection and velocity of interplanetary dust in the solar system.

He resumed his studies over 30 years later, completing his PhD in 2008. Since this time, May has continued both musical and scientific activities. His two worlds more recently collided with the release of his single “New Horizons” to celebrate the eponymous NASA spacecraft’s flyby of the Kupier belt object Ultima Thule.^[5]

5 Tony Bennett—Painter

American crooner Tony Bennett was a household name during the 1950s and 1960s with his mix of pop, jazz, and big band performances and has remained well-liked since. He got his “big break” when Bob Hope heard one of his nightclub shows and invited Bennett to share the stage with him during a performance at New York’s Paramount Theater.

Bennett made numerous hit records, with “I Left My Heart in San Francisco” possibly being the star’s most memorable song of all time. His 2011 chart-topping album Duets II (which included a duet with Amy Winehouse not long before her death) at the age of 85 made him the oldest artist to top the Billboard charts.

However, it’s not only music for which Tony Bennett is famous. Working under his original name of Anthony Benedetto, he is also an accomplished painter.^[6] Benedetto’s oil and watercolor pieces include a work commissioned for the 50th anniversary of the United Nations. His paintings are held in private and public collections around the world, including the Smithsonian Institution and the National Portrait Gallery.

4 Zeppo Marx—Heart Monitor

Zeppo Marx was the mute “straight guy” in the famous Marx Brothers slapstick comedies. While onstage, his role was to provide a foil to the over-the-top humor of his brothers, Groucho, Chico, and Harpo. In real life, he was said to be just as much of a clown. Many Marx Brothers fans would be surprised to know just what Zeppo did once he left the limelight. He pursued his lifelong passion for inventing things.

In 1969, Herbert Manfred “Zeppo” Marx was part of a team which patented a cardiac pulse rate monitor. The device was worn on the wrist and gave both an audible alarm and also vibrated if one’s heart rate exceeded a certain level, warning the wearer to cease activity. Marx also invented the Marman clamp, which is used today in various aeronautical applications.^[7]

3 Barbara Cartland—Gliders

Dame Barbara Cartland is famous for being the sugary pink English romantic fiction novelist as well as being the step-grandmother to Diana, Princess of Wales. During her career, she penned more than 700 novels, once putting out 23 in a single year, becoming one of the most prolific and also best-selling authors of the 20th century. At the time of her death in 2000, Cartland had sold more than 750 million books in 38 languages.

However, her world records for pumping out formula romance fiction were not Dame Cartland’s only achievement. Prior to her writing career, Dame Cartland’s contributions to early aviation actually helped Britain to fight the Nazis during World War II’s Normandy campaign.

During the 1920s and 1930s, Cartland was a daredevil glider pilot. Watching German stunts, where gliders would be towed out on short trips by airplanes, Cartland wanted to devise a means for a longer glider flight. Together with two air force pilots, she built her own glider, in which she made a 320-kilometer-long (200 mi) towed flight in 1931.

Cartland’s work led to the invention the long-haul troop-carrying gliders, which were pivotal in delivering troops and supplies into France during the war.^[8]

2 Mark Twain—Bra Straps

Mark Twain—born Samuel Clemens—has been called the “father of American literature.” The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn have been enjoyed by generations of readers around the world. However, despite his success as a novelist, bad business investments and social upheaval during the Civil War saw Clemens honing his practical skills to patent a number of inventions. These included the humble bra strap, which is still in use today.

His “Improvement in Attachable and Detachable Straps for Garments” was patented in 1871.^[9] It was originally intended to replace suspenders, which he absolutely hated, but the patent also mentioned vests, corsets, and shirts. The button-on elastic strap was later refined for women’s corsetry and modern-day bras. Twain also held a patent for a self-pasting scrapbook and a trivia game.

1 Gary Burghoff—Fishing Equipment

American actor Gary Burghoff is best known for his role as Corporal Walter “Radar” O’Reilly in the 1970s TV series M*A*S*H. Unlike the naive, innocent character he portrayed in the hit series, Burghoff also has a bent for inventing things.

He holds two patents for “Chum Magic,” a fishing device that draws fish toward the boat, as well as a fishing rod. Chum Magic automatically dispenses chum while attracting fish to the hook with a combination of lights and optional simulated seaweed.^[10]

He also patented a toilet seat-lifting device, if you are averse to visiting public toilets.

Lesley Connor is a retired Australian newspaper editor who provides articles for online publications and her own travel blog.

4chan was once a discussion board site that celebrated anime, but because users could post and upload content anonymously, it soon morphed into a counter-culture hub for edgy political groups, controversial subcultures, organized pranks, hackers, and even pornography. It’s a place where some users feel free to post whatever they want with little repercussions—you know, like the golden olden days of Internet free speech (the ’90s and early ’00s).

But while 4chan users have proven to be capable of some pretty dark stuff, some go to incredible lengths for causes they believe in. At times, parts of the 4chan community have banded together to perform amazing feats.

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10 4chan Solves a 25 Year Old Math Problem

4chan began as a place for anime fans to geek out, and parts of it still remain dedicated to anime fandom. A popular anime called the Melancholy of Suzumiya Haruhi posed a problem that fans puzzled over. The series featured time travel, and the episodes were not in chronological order. Some fans wondered what would be the best order to watch them in, but others took it a step further and wondered how many variations of episode orders it would take to watch the series in every possible variation.

One anonymous user posted an answer: 93,884,313,611. Along with it, they posted a mathematical proof of how they reached that number. Unknowingly, they had proposed an answer for a 25 year old mathematics problem about superpermutations. In this case, the permutation would be a single order to watch the episodes in, and a superpermutation would be all possible sets of orders strung together.^[1]

It wasn’t written up to the standards of the mathematical community, and the 4chan proof stayed mostly under the radar for years until science fiction writer Greg Egan proposed a different proof for superpermutations. Interest in the 4chan proof was revived, and it was eventually independently verified by two mathematicians. Recognized at last, the 4chan proof was hailed as a great accomplishment in the fields of pure mathematics.^[2]

9 4chan Exposes an Animal Abuser

A Youtube user known as “Timmy” uploaded a video of two disguised teenagers taking a cat into a bathroom and torturing it. The video made its way to 4chan, which apparently has a soft spot for justice . . . and cats. Enough users were angered that the community began dissecting the video for any clues as to “Timmy’s” identity.

The found a link to another account on another site connected to an Oklahoma zip code. Guessing that this other Youtube account was connected to “Timmy’s” actual name, they connected more dots to find the Facebook account of a teenager: Kenny Glen. Soon, they had contact info for him, his parents, and the local sheriff. Two days later, Glenn was arrested. The cat, which was still alive, was taken to a veterinarian.^[3]

This isn’t the only time 4chan exposed cat abusers, either. When a British man found his cat in his trashcan, he checked his CCTV camera’s footage to find that a woman had chucked it into the bin. He posted the footage on Youtube, where it was soon found by 4chan, which launched a campaign to find and doxx the woman. When they discovered the abuser was one Mary Bale, 4chan did not stop with doxxing her, but caused such an uproar that she was forced into hiding after receiving death threats.^[4]

8 The Bike Lock Basher

Emotions run high at political rallies. Throw in a protest, and you have a recipe for people getting out of control. That’s exactly what happened at a rally for President Trump in Berkeley, California in 2017. Things got so heated that one member of the extremist group ANTIFA (and Berkeley college professor) was filmed beating several rally-goers with a U shaped bicycle lock.^[5]

Enter 4chan.

Some of its users on the /pol/ message board, which dedicates itself to political incorrectness, were eager to bring the bike locker basher to justice. After scouring the video for clues to his identity and linking them to social media accounts, they began a doxxing campaign for college professor Eric Clanton.^[6] They tipped off police, who later arrested him on charges including suspicion of assault with a weapon that was not a firearm and assault causing great bodily injury. He eventually pleaded no contest to misdemeanor assault and was sentenced to three years of probation.

7 Fighting ISIS with Ducks

Sometimes the best way to fight the bad guys is to make them look like idiots. 4chan went to war with ISIS, or at least the terrorists group’s online presence. They took ISIS propaganda pictures and photoshopped toy duck heads on all their fighters. Given that ISIS has a large propaganda arm on the internet, the “create the duck state” was a way to deweaponize their actions.

The duck-headed ISIS fighters were quickly picked up by reddit, another online forum, and spread to Twitter and other social media sites. How effective the duck state was in thwarting the business of ISIS is up for debate, but it certainly made them look foolish to a good portion of the internet. (And probably ruffled a few feathers of the terrorists behind the propaganda that was being spread across the internet.)^[7]

6 Lettuce Gate

One Burger King employee thought it would be a great idea to play a malicious prank on his customers by standing in two lettuce containers with his shoes on, right on top of the lettuce. Then, he had the even better idea of posting it on 4chan. The site is well known for less-than-wholesome pranks, but in this instance, the community took offence at some guy possibly getting a lot of innocent fast food customers sick.

“Lettuce Guy” had not stripped the GPS data from the picture he’d posted, which made it easy to locate him. Within 15 minutes, they’d found the exact location of the Burger King franchise where the incident happened. While 4chan could not identify the person from his shoes, calls and emails to the branch and media resulted in a quick vanquishing of the Lettuce Guy’s job. He was fired along with three other employees. The lettuce was tossed out, and dozens of Burger King customers were potentially saved from a nasty case of diarrhea.^[8]

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5 Katawa Shoujo

4chan made an erotic visual novel about dating girls with disabilities. Given what 4chan is usually known for, and how “erotic visual novel about dating girls with disabilities” sounds, it surprised many to learn that Katawara Shoujo, the name of the visual novel, was reportedly extremely good. (By visual novel standards.)

The Japanese style visual novel is like a choose your own adventure video game, with story telling dependent on the player’s choices. It may be best to get the “erotic” part out of the way first, as the game does have sex scenes, but the girls are not bumbling, inept people in need of constant guidance and help. Quite the contrary, in fact.

While the female characters do have disabilities, they have long come to terms with them before meeting the player in the story. They are living their lives quite well without him. In some cases, so well that the main character’s presence can become a burden. They are treated not as “disabled people,” but as people—ones who happen to have a disability. By most accounts, and despite its questionable medium, Katawara Shoujo was a very good take on people with disabilities.^[9]

4 4chan Identifies the Portland Shooter

The Trump 2020 Cruise Rally formed a caravan that entered downtown Portland Oregon at the same time as the nightly Black Lives Matter protests. The two groups clashed, and the violence resulted in the point blank cold blooded shooting of Aaron J. Danielson, who had entered with the Trump rally, by an unknown assailant.^[10]

When 4chan heard about a Trump supporter being shot to death, it got to sleuthing who had killed him. Hours after the internet hunt began, the community produced evidence that ANTIFA member Michael Reinoehl was the murderer, and sent their evidence to police. Reinoehl also confessed to the crime after giving an interview associated with Vice.

Shortly after the interim Reinoehl was confronted by law enforcement and shot multiple times. Police say that he was killed after firing a handgun. A witness, though, gives a different version of events, saying that police did not give any commands or warnings before opening fire.^[11]

3 Pool’s Closed

Habbo (formerly Habbo Hotel) is a game where characters engage in an online community centered around virtual “hotels.” At one point, reports were circulating that the moderators were arbitrarily banning dark-skinned avatars from the pool area.^[12] Responding to the alleged racist actions of the mods was 4chan.

They organized what became known as the “Pool’s Closed” raid. 4chan users entered the game and created a black-skinned avatar wearing a suit and an afro. The raiders surrounded the pool area, preventing it from being accessed, and spammed phrases that would get past the game’s filters such as “Pool’s Closed due to fail and AIDS,” which resulted in the “Pool’s Closed” meme being born. For the next few years on the anniversary of the first raid, some users would return to recreate the avatar and cause mischief.

2 Heist of the Century

Actor Shia Lebouf, in one feat of internet activism, created a livefeed camera in New York intended to be played throughout the Trump presidency. People could look into it and chant “He Will Not Divide Us.” But soon trolls began figuring out the identity of protesters and harassing them, Lebouf was arrested, and the livestream was shut down after the museum hosting it had enough of the disturbances. Lebouf moved the project to yet another museum, where it was likewise shut down after gunshots were reported in the area.

So Lebouf created another livestream, this one of a HWNDU flag waving in the air. The stream only allowed viewers to see the flag and the sky, so there was little anyone could do to interrupt the stream this time. But 4chan proved that “little” does not mean “nothing.”^[13]

Users of 4chan studied the flight trails in the daytime sky behind the flag and compared them to flight plans. At night, they studied star patterns. They crossed that with a tweet Lebouf sent from Tennessee, and narrowed the flag’s location down to an area small enough to search with a man on the ground.

A local user drove around the area honking his car horn while others listened to the livestream for the sound of the horn. In the dead of night, the flag’s location was discovered. The local user went to the field, took down the flag, and raised a Trump hat in its place. As for the fate of Lebouf’s flag, it currently hangs in the dude’s basement.^[14]

1 4chan Calls in an Airstrike

This one will probably never be verified due to its connection with military intelligence, nor would the Russian military ever admit that it used 4chan as a source of information. (If it did indeed use them at all.) The finer details likewise shift depending on who’s telling the tale, but the pieces fit together well enough for it to have more credence than the average internet urban legend.

A Twitter user calling himself Ivan Siderenko posted a video from Syrian rebels asking if anyone could help him find the location where the video was shot. Certain 4chan users answered the call. A subgroup of the notorious /pol/ calling itself /sg/ (for Syria General) began using the background of the rebel’s video to narrow down the location of the training base. By using other videos of the same location, they managed to locate several of its landmarks on Google Maps.^[15]

4chan’s information was passed to Ivan Siderenko, who posted it to the Russian Ministry of Defense’s Twitter account. There is no evidence that the Ministry of Defense paid any attention to Siderenko’s tweet, but, whether by coincidence or design, airstrikes were carried out in the vicinity soon after.^[16]

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About The Author: Mike writes lists in his ever-dwindling free time.

There are some actors who have done some amazing things over the years, playing incredible roles, doing their own stunts, or just cranking out a lot of movies over their lifetime. As with anything else in the world, if you can be the only person to have ever done something, that unique status can be considered pretty cool. It’s doubtful any actors set out to accomplish these specific goals, but inevitably there’s always going to be one person who is the only person to have done a thing, at least until someone else does it, assuming that’s at all possible. For now, these are the only actors who have achieved these remarkable accomplishments.

10. Anthony Daniels is the Only Actor in all 9 Star Wars Movies

The very first Star Wars movie came out in the year 1977. It was followed by two sequels in the early ’80s. The prequel trilogy premiered in 1999. The sequel trilogy began in 2015 and the final film, Rise of Skywalker, came out in 2019. That means the Star Wars film saga has been going for 42 years. And in that time, across 9 feature films in the central storyline, only one actor appeared in every single one – Anthony Daniels.

Anthony Daniels plays C-3PO, and he’s literally the man inside the suit.  When he first got the role, he assumed it was going to be a one and done kind of deal until the producers came back to him with an idea for a sequel and then another sequel. He went on to play C-3PO in the Rogue one movie, and he’s voiced him in several animated projects, and even appeared on The Muppets at C-3PO. He lent his voice to Star Wars rides at Disney World, and has done commercials and other promotional projects in character as well.

9. Sylvester Stallone Is The Only Actor To Have a Number One Movie Six Decades in a Row

Sylvester Stallone has been a versatile force in Hollywood for decades now. On screen, some of his early roles made audiences think he was sort of a big, dumb muscle man. But it’s worth remembering he was the writer behind Rocky and won an Academy Award for that. He’s actually done quite a bit of writing work over the years in addition to his acting. 

While not all of his movies have been award winners, they are often very popular. Because of that, and because of the length of his career, Sylvester Stallone is actually the only actor who’s had a number one movie in each of six different decades. 

The movie Rocky premiered in 1976 and made $225 million at the box office. Not a big deal today but adjusted for inflation that’s over $1 billion, so definitely a hit.

In the ’80s Stallone made a killing and more than one film hit number one including both Rocky and Rambo films. In the ’90s he scored big with the movie Cliffhanger and then later with Demolition Man and Cop Land.

The 2001 movie Driven topped the box office, giving him his first hit of the new millennium. In 2010 he released The Expendables, which spawned another franchise and also hit number one, and finally in 2021 he clinched the sixth decade when Suicide Squad, in which he plays King Shark, hit number one, and he’s added to that with 2023’s Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3. 

8. Oscar Isaac is the Only Actor to Have the Marvel Triple Crown

Being in a comic book movie is a rite of passage these days. Very few actors of renown have not appeared in a movie for either Marvel or DC at this point. There are a couple of actors who have had some crossover and appeared in both Marvel and DC properties. Ryan Reynolds has been Deadpool in Marvel as well as the Green Lantern for DC. Chris Evans played the Human Torch as well as Captain America. But Oscar Isaac is the only actor who has tripled down on Marvel.

While the MCU is the juggernaut of the Marvel universe, it’s not the only place to get movies based on Marvel characters. Because of various contracts and rights issues over the years, Marvel has been split up in some unusual ways. Sony has the rights to Spider-Man and his associated characters. For a long time Fox had the rights to the X-Men and the Fantastic Four, although those now belong to Disney. And the rest falls under the Disney and Marvel merger that created the MCU.

Oscar Isaac joined the MCU when he played Moon Knight on the Disney Plus series. Prior to that he was in the Fox Marvel movies when he played Apocalypse in the X-Men franchise. In 2023, Isaac finished his Marvel domination by playing Spider-Man 2099 in Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (after a post-credits cameo as the character in Into the Spider-Verse). 

7. Will Smith Had 8 Consecutive Films Gross Over $100 Million

There are plenty of ways to define success as an actor, but for many people, especially the people who are getting paid by movies, box office is the be all and the end all. Some stars are generally understood to be bankable. That means that you can count on them to make a lot of money because of how popular they are. For a good deal of time, one of the most bankable stars in Hollywood was Will Smith. 

As a leading man Will Smith has pulled in over $6.5 billion at the box office in his career. That makes him the 9th most profitable leading man in Hollywood. But he does hold a distinction no one else has, and that’s starring in 8 films in a row that all grossed over $100 million domestically. If you go international, he actually had 10 in a row top $150 million.

When top movies make over $1 billion these days, that doesn’t sound like a lot. But for an actor to do 8 in a row is unheard of. Actors often shake up their routine with smaller movies that don’t make as much money, or they’ll just find themselves in a dud that bombs at the box office. 

6. Jonathan Freeman Voiced Jafar in Aladdin the Movie and on Broadway

There have been occasions in the past when an actor has played the same character on screen as they have played on stage, or vice versa. Jonathan Freeman seems to be the only actor who has transitioned a character from an animated film onto the stage.

Freeman was the voice of Jafar in the original Aladdin movie back in 1992. When the cartoon was adapted to Broadway, he played the character on stage giving it a little more authenticity since the voice was exactly the same.

Freeman has voiced Jafar in more than one animated film, as well as video games and theme park rides. All told, Freeman had been voicing the character for about 30 years in various media. 

5. Bernard Hill Is the Only Actor To Star in More Than One Film That Won 11 Oscars 

Every once in a while a movie comes out that is so beloved across the board that, when award season shows up, it seems to sweep nearly every category. Both Ben Hur and Titanic received multiple Academy Award nominations when they were released, with Ben Hur getting 12 of a potential 15 nominations and Titanic getting 14 of a potential 17. And even with all those nominations, scoring wins for most of this is no easy task.

All told, only three films have won 11 Oscars and none have won more. The two previously mentioned and Lord of the Rings: Return of the King. And Bernard Hill is the only actor to have starred in more than one.

Hill played the character of King Theoden in the Lord of the Rings trilogy. He also played Captain Edward J. Smith in Titanic. You certainly can’t attribute the overwhelming success of both films to Hill alone, but the fact remains no other actor has been in as many highly awarded films to date.

4. Tom Hanks is the Only Actor In the Army Rangers Hall of Fame 

Back in the year 2013 actor Tom Hanks was voted the most trusted person in America. This was based solely on the persona that he has in movies. People like Tom Hanks because he seems like a good guy. The effects the characters he plays in movies has on people goes far beyond just convincing everyone he’s trustworthy. Nothing serves as a better example of this than the fact that the Army Rangers inducted Tom Hanks into their Hall of Fame strictly because of his work in movies. He’s the only actor who has ever been inducted to the Army Ranger Hall of fame.

Hanks received the honor as a result of his work in the film Saving Private Ryan, as well as for his commitment to honoring those who served in war. 

3. Kelsey Grammer Was Emmy Nominated for Playing the Same Character on Three Shows

If comic book movies have taught us anything it’s that actors love seeing crossovers with characters from other films. But comic books didn’t hold exclusive rights to this idea. Over the years, TV shows have flirted with crossovers to keep audiences interested and sometimes your favorite characters would appear on someone else’s show for an episode or two.

In the history of television, Kelsey Grammer is the only actor who has been nominated for his portrayal of one character but on three different shows. Grammer made a career out of playing Dr. Frasier Crane, a psychiatrist who first appeared frequenting the bar Cheers back in the 1980s. That was where Grammer received his first Emmy nomination.

Crane was such a hit that NBC gave him his own show. On Frasier, Grammer went on to receive more Emmy nominations and while it seems like it should end there, it doesn’t. He also did a guest spot on the NBC show Wings where he played the doctor and that was also nominated for an Emmy.

2. John Cazale is the Only Actor Whose Entire Filmography Was Nominated for Best Picture

If you use award nominations as a metric for the talent of an actor, then an actor who has been in nothing but movies nominated for Best Picture at the Academy Awards might be considered one of the best actors ever. Most of the actors that are considered the best in the world, those who have received multiple awards for their skill over the years, can’t claim to have been in nothing but Best Picture nominees. In fact, only one actor can make that claim. His name is John Cazale.

John Cazale starred in 5 movies over 7 years. That was the full length of his career. But if an actor was only going to work for that long on so few films, then they could make no better choices than Cazale did. He starred in The Godfather, The Conversation, The Godfather II, Dog Day Afternoon and The Deer Hunter. Both Godfathers and The Deer Hunter won Best Picture while The Conversation and Dog Day Afternoon were nominated.

In addition to only starring in Best Picture nominees, Cazale is the only actor whose entire filmography was chosen by the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being “culturally, historically or aesthetically” significant.

Cazale had been diagnosed with cancer while filming The Deer Hunter and passed away before it was released.

1. James Dean Is The Only Actor To Get More Than One Posthumous Oscar Nomination

Getting a posthumous Oscar nomination is not as rare as you might think. A fair number of actors and filmmakers have received nominations after they unfortunately passed away, and 16 of them actually ended up winning. Heath Ledger from The Dark Knight is one of the most famous cases of this happening. 

The first actor to ever receive a posthumous Academy Award nomination was James Dean. As famous as James Dean is, and his legacy lives on today, nearly 70 years after his death, it’s surprising to remember that Dean only starred in three movies.

Not only was Dean the first actor to receive a posthumous Academy Award nomination for his work in the movie East of Eden, he became the only actor in history to be nominated for two Academy Awards posthumously when he was nominated the following year for the film Giant.

We hear a lot about scientists and their fancy ideas, though it’s actually engineers who put those ideas into practice for real world applications. At its most basic, engineering is the science of building things – like machines – to apply theoretical scientific principles to real life situations. The theoretical system of measuring time, as one example, no matter how sophisticated or accurate, is useless in the absence of a working clock. 

Of course, the greatest engineering marvels of today are a bit more advanced and complex than clocks. In the past few years, engineers from around the world have built many things that were once thought impossible, or at least well in the realm of the distant future. 

10. Parker Solar Probe

Despite its seeming proximity to Earth, we know very little about what’s going on with our own Sun, especially on its surface. It seems to be cooler than its atmosphere – or the corona – which is where all the Sun’s heat really comes from. It doesn’t make any sense – it’s like feeling hotter the further away you move from a fire.

That’s only one of the many things we don’t know about the Sun, and until recently, reaching its corona to take measurements was considered an impossible, futuristic task. NASA’s Parker probe broke that barrier on April 28, 2021, when it became the first man-made thing to touch the Sun’s atmosphere. It was Parker’s eighth flyby, and gave us some crucial insights into how solar winds are generated.

The probe is still in orbit around the Sun, and is expected to make another close flyby some time in 2025. 

9. Mind-Controlled Prosthetics

Modern prosthetics are, in themselves, one of the greatest engineering achievements of all time. For most of our history, amputees had to either live without them altogether, or make do with rudimentary, uncomfortable models made out of leather, wood and other basic material. It’s only now that prosthetic limbs have come to look and even almost feel like real limbs. Still, they’re far from being the real thing, as it’s impossible to recreate the neural connection between a living organ and the brain with a machine.

Mind-controlled prosthetics are a new class of prosthetics that could be, well, controlled by the mind, though they’re still in their early stages. One prototype developed by Swedish scientists connects with the patient’s nerves, muscles and skeleton, allowing them much more control over their fingers and wrists than previously thought possible. Currently, it’s in active use by three Swedish patients and doesn’t require any additional care or supervision by a medical professional, unlike most prosthetics we have right now. 

According to the researchers, the technology could be available for patients outside Sweden within this year. While it’s still not the same as a real limb, it provides us a glimpse into what the future of prosthetics might look like. 

8. Burj Khalifa

Sometimes, engineering is about pushing the frontiers of not just engineering, but also other areas of study, which advances our overall understanding of the world. However, it doesn’t have to be, as good engineering could also just be about building a really tall and good-looking building. 

Currently, the tallest building in the world is the Burj Khalifa, standing at a height of 2,717 feet. It is extraordinarily tall – about 500 feet taller than the next competitor – making you wonder how it’s even standing upright. 

Built by a Chicago firm called Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, the Burj Khalifa took over six years to complete, and was first opened to the public in January 2010. Its Y-shaped base is designed in the shape of the local Hymenocallis flower, though it also works to absorb heavy winds. 

There are a total of 163 floors, each built in a different shape to reduce the effect of the winds as you go higher. Apart from residences and shopping districts of its own, the building houses multiple observation decks, including the two-story At The Top on its 124th and 125th floors, as well as luxury restaurants, corporate spaces and a three-story lounge.

7. Floating Cities

Rising sea levels pose a huge challenge to the Netherlands, as over one-third of the country already lies below the current sea level. To counter its worst effects, a Dutch architecture firm has come up with Schoonschip: a conceptual residential project in Amsterdam that combines architecture and sustainable design to come up with an entirely new style of living.  

The entire neighborhood is built on floating arks in the Johan van Hasseltkade canal, and currently houses around 100 people in 46 residential properties. It’s an alternative to all the land-based models we currently have, though by no means a novel one – many native communities around the world still live on floating settlements. 

Schoonschip is more than just a fancy houseboat, however. Every part of its design is meant to be sustainable and reusable, with all the decision-making in the hands of the residents. For one example, all the energy generated within the complex is done through renewables, and traded among the residents through a blockchain. 

6. Nanobots

Nanobots – or microscopic robots that can carry out any function you want – have shown up in science fiction in various forms. Until recently, though, it was next to impossible to actually make something like that. Thanks to advancements in theoretical sciences and nanotechnology in the past few years, we already have the first prototypes of what future nanobots might look like.

As you’d expect, these tiny machines have quite a few use cases in medicine. A group of researchers from the University of California San Diego have developed nanobots that could clear toxins and pathogens from the bloodstream. Another one from the University of New South Wales figured out a way to train these bots to repair themselves with DNA, blurring the line between living organs and man-made robots. 

5. Invisibility Cloak

When we think of an invisibility cloak, we think of a hypothetical material that could render us truly invisible. (Or, just as likely, we think of Harry Potter. Naturally.) Many prototypes have been tried, though almost all of them rely on either cheap tricks of the light, or were too bulky to be of any real use.  

The only material that comes close to real-life invisibility is Quantum Stealth, developed by a Canadian corporation known as Hyperstealth Biotechnology Corp. It’s a passive, everlasting effect, too, instead of using some kind of power generation or illusion to make it seem like you’re invisible. 

From the videos released by the firm, it’s clear that the material is designed to successfully bend light around any kind of subject – including large vehicles. We don’t know exactly how it works, though, as that information is still classified due to its possible military applications in the near future. 

4. Mind Reading

It’s one thing to scan the brain for electrical and neurological signals, and another to actually read and record what’s going on inside our heads like we perceive it. The former could be achieved by many machines found at your local hospital. The latter, though, is a barrier we never thought machines could cross, as consciousness is much more than just waves of electricity passing through the brain.

As it turns out, it’s really not. We already have machines that can identify a song playing inside your head with the help of an AI, as it learns the connections between brain signals and specific sections of music with the help of machine learning. Or even recreate the image you’re thinking about, albeit to a lower degree of accuracy than the songs (though still high enough to be creepy). 

3. 4D Objects

We’ve all heard of 3D printing, which involves basically making anything you want, as long as you have basic ingredients and its blueprint. It’s a revolutionary concept in itself, and has been successfully used in a wide variety of applications. Some day, it might even allow us to print living organs, or even living beings.

4D just builds upon that concept, except the printed things are now able to react to different conditions in real time. Quite a few 4D materials – also called smart materials – have been developed in the past few years, including self-healing plastics that can eliminate wear and tear and make plastic items infinitely reusable, fabrics that can rearrange their molecular arrangement to changes in the weather, and shoes that can fully repair themselves with an additional gel, among others. 

2. Artificial Intelligence

Artificial Intelligence isn’t an entirely new concept. First coined in 1956, the term has come to refer to any type of machine or algorithm that can mimic human intelligence. Early experiments involved rudimentary, slightly-intelligent automatons like the John Hopkins Beast, though the technology was still held back by the lack of processing power and other computational limitations to have a real impact.

Fast forward to today, and Artificial Intelligence is easily one of the most groundbreaking developments of the past few years, thanks to the proliferation of powerful graphical processing units (or GPUs), machine learning and the emergence of ‘Big Data’. Neural networks, as one example of its many implementations, are able to think and compute exactly like the human brain, which includes the ability to learn from their mistakes. 

AI has revolutionized many fields, including medicine, logistics, space research, marketing, and pretty much anything that involves parsing a lot of data. That also, unfortunately, includes warfare, as militaries around the world develop their own AI-based technologies to be used in the automated battlefields of the future. 

1. Large Hadron Collider

The Large Hadron Collider is perhaps one of the most important engineering works ever undertaken. It’s a 17-mile-long underground tunnel located on the border between France and Switzerland, with its primary purpose of smashing different kinds of particles together at really high speeds to understand the true nature of reality.

First operated in 2008, it was a massive project, not just in scale but also the scope of its purpose. Organized by CERN – or the European Organization for Nuclear Research – it was designed and built by over 10,000 scientists, engineers and other professionals from around the world. At over $10 billion, it’s easily the most expensive machine ever built, and we can now tell that it was well worth it. Since its first run, the LHC has made many important, fundamental contributions to theoretical physics, including the highly-publicized discovery of the Higgs boson back in 2012.

Since 1958, NASA has operated as one of the world’s leading space agencies. For over 60 years, it’s made incredible achievements in space exploration and innovation in the quest to understand the cosmos.

On July 29, 1958, NASA opened its doors under the Eisenhower administration. The agency was a direct response to aggressive progress made by the Soviet Union in the late ’50s. The USSR launched Sputnik 1 on October 4, 1957. With Sputnik’s launch, the Soviet Union was the only country to have an operational satellite in space. This achievement was lauded in the USSR, but leaders in the US felt blindsided by this Soviet-led advancement, giving rise to national security concerns.

In the years following NASA’s founding, the space agency made incredible advancements in science and technology thanks to its efforts to explore the universe. The agency would experience its most formative years during the ’60s during the presidencies of JFK, LBJ, and Nixon. Long after these influential leaders’ time in office, the agency has continued making incredible discoveries and advancements in space exploration.

10. Explorer 1 Satellite

Kicking off NASA’s impressive track record of reaching the stars is the Explorer 1 satellite. When the agency formed in 1958, there was a need for speed to showcase America’s potential in space, hoping to give the Soviets a run for their money. At a moment where the USSR had successfully shown their early dominance in space, Eisenhower wanted to send a powerful message that America wouldn’t sit back and allow their rival superpower the opportunity to be the gatekeepers to space. 

The Explorer 1 predates NASA’s very existence and acted as the means to kick of the US Space Age and make their mark on the global Space Race. Thankfully, the mission was a success, launching on January 31, 1958.

Explorer 1 wasn’t just designed to show the Soviets that America could also launch satellites; it had a scientific purpose to it, and that was to orbit the Earth while studying cosmic rays. Explorer 1 orbited the Earth 12 and a half times a day, and its efforts helped provide a new key understanding of Earth’s atmosphere. This monumental achievement launched the agency and made a pathway for a series of Explorer satellites to be launched throughout 1958. While the federal government was more concerned with showing the Soviet Union its might, scientists knew this would change their understanding of the universe with every satellite, mission, telescope, and more launched into space; they simply weren’t aware how much they’d achieve in the coming decade.

9. Skylab

The early ’70s saw NASA riding the high of its achievements of the late ’60s. The agency was making progress on countless fronts and showing the world just how seriously the US commitment to space exploration and understanding should be taken. Regardless of NASA’s achievements, the Soviets weren’t letting up and were still making tremendous efforts to one-up their rival superpower in a race to dominate space. However, space overall was with filled with unknowns. With burning questions still left unanswered, and multiplying by the day, the Soviet Union launched Salyut 1 on April 19, 1971 becoming the first space station in low Earth orbit. The US wouldn’t leave this unanswered, and thus Skylab was born.

Skylab was the US first space station and was launched May 14, 1973. The mission was to investigate the effects space had on the human body and how it adapted to an intensely foreign environment. Skylab also attempted to observe and study the sun in excruciating detail, and observations of Earth’s resources. Three successive crews visited Skylab during its operation between 1973 and 1974. 

By 1979, the Skylab had deteriorated much quicker than anyone expected and on July 11 it reentered the atmosphere, burning up on reentry. It broke into pieces and scattered in populated areas in Western Australia, while bulkier pieces went into the southeastern Indian Ocean. Thankfully, nobody was injured. 

8. Voyager

The Voyager missions were NASA’s attempts at sending satellites far beyond where anything from Earth had gone before. Launched in August and September 1977, the twin spacecrafts are on a 40-year journey across space to provide insight into what lies in the furthest regions of our galaxy.

In August 2012, Voyager 1 made history as it entered interstellar space. In November 2018, Voyager 2 exited the heliosphere and joined Voyager 1 in interstellar space. This wasn’t the original intention of the Voyager’s mission. After successfully completing its initial mission of exploring Jupiter and Saturn and making historic discoveries of the two gas planets, NASA extended the Voyager missions to explore Uranus and Neptune, and now the interstellar region.

The Voyager 1 satellite also carries a message for alien life, in the event it encounters life beyond our solar system. The message comes as a gold-plated record filled with a message to intelligent life forms. It contains a greeting in over 55 languages, pictures of Earth, pictures of people, knowledge, music, and Earth sounds.

7. Freedom 7

Freedom 7, also known as Mercury-Redstone 3, is historic for two reasons. For starters, it carried the first American successfully launched into space following the success of the Soviets launching the first ever human into space, Yuri Gagarin. Second, it acted as a catalyst for John F. Kennedy to announce the United States’ intentions to land on the moon. 

On May 5, 1961, Alan B. Shepard Jr., a US Navy Commander, was launched in a Mercury Space Capsule – which would be formally known as the Freedom 7 – from Cape Canaveral. Shepard remained in space for 15 and a half minutes, making him the first American in space.

Three weeks after Freedom 7 safely returned to Earth, landing in the Atlantic Ocean, JFK announced the goal of landing a man on the moon by the end of the decade.

In one of the most historic speeches in presidential history, JFK said, “We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard.”

6. Apollo 13

The Apollo Program was one of NASA’s most successful programs in the agency’s history. However, the Apollo 13 mission is a unique success in that it was a successful failure.

Apollo 13 launched on April 11, 1970 with Astronauts Jim Lovell, Jack Swigert, and Fred Haise at the helm. It intended to land on Fra Mauro, a crater on the moon; however, it would instead never make it to its destination. This mission, as any 1990s movie buff now knows, became one of survival.

55 hours and 46 minutes into the mission, the crew had just finished a 49-minute address to the nation, letting them know everything was going to plan. The astronauts had just pressurized the lunar module, and while Lovell moved through the connecting tunnel on the way back to the command module, a loud explosion could be heard from the Aquarius lunar module.     

The explosion was the result of the astronauts needing to stir the cold oxygen by turning on internal fans periodically. The routine task caused the explosion. All three returned to the command module, and Lovell immediately reported to mission control, “Houston, we’ve had a problem here.” Electricity was lost in the command module, and at 200,000 miles from Earth, they now faced a crisis of depleting oxygen, water, destroyed fuel tanks, and limited control.

For a while, the severity of the situation hadn’t been fully realized. They knew the cryogenic oxygen tanks’ pressure levels were dropping, so they fed supplies to the three fuel cells to keep everything running. Eventually, they abandoned the planned objective to land on the moon. The mission was now about getting the Apollo 13 crew home safely. Mission control determined that using the lunar module’s engine and gravity from the moon was the safest course of action meaning the Apollo 13 was no longer landing but instead swinging around the moon.

The crew was forced to work out their navigation by hand, in coordination with ground control. The idea of using the lunar module to make its way around the moon was a point of concern, considering it was not what the module was designed to do. On April 14, they executed a five minute engine burn putting them on a safe return trajectory. The journey was far from over, but now there was renewed hope that they’d return home.

For three days, Apollo 13 traveled through space in freezing conditions. Finally, on April 17, they reentered Earth’s atmosphere in a touch-and-go mission from the moment the explosion occurred. After four minutes of radio silence, mission control feared the worst, only for the parachutes to be spotted moments later, resulting in the astronauts safely landing in the Pacific Ocean. While one might say the mission was a failure, NASA might argue differently.

5. The Perseverance Rover

Since the dawn of the space age, Mars has been of particular interest to scientists. The reason behind this intense interest is because of Mars’ position as the most similar planet to our own. Since 1997, NASA has had a presence on Mars thanks to a series of rovers. The first rover to touch down on the red planet was Pathfinder, launched in 1996.

Before rovers became the primary tool of Mars exploration, the Viking mission in 1976 resulted in lander modules reaching the surface of Mars to investigate signs of life. 

Since 1996, five rovers have been sent to Mars to study the planet: Pathfinder, Spirit, Opportunity, Curiosity, and perhaps most impressive of them all, Perseverance. The Perseverance rover – the most recent of the bunch – is specifically designed to examine Mars for future human-led missions. One of the leading science experiments on board the Perseverance rover aims to showcase the ability to produce oxygen on the surface of Mars. Perseverance also contains a drone, which has since become the first object to fly on Mars. 

With humans closer than ever to exploring the red planet, the Perseverance rover is equipped to examine the climate, weather, dust, and collect samples for future study, to better understand the geological history and potential of Mars.

4. James Webb Space Telescope

Less than a decade after the launch of the Hubble Telescope (we’ll get to that in a minute), work had already begun on a successor telescope. It would become known as the James Webb Space Telescope. Named after NASA’s second administrator, the James Webb Space Telescope has been in development since 1996, and in construction since 2004, with it finally launching on December 24, 2021.

The road to launch was a long and rocky one, and the threat of the project being scrapped came up many times during its lengthy development. Regardless of the tiresome journey to launch, the power of the James Webb Space Telescope is undeniable. A collaboration between NASA, the European Space Agency, and the Canadian satellite observatory, it’s a technical marvel.

The hope of the James Webb telescope is to discover the first stars and galaxies formed in the earliest iterations of the universe. The telescope detects light in infrared, allowing it to see inside dusty clouds, as well as stars forming planetary systems.

This mission is far from over, but the sheer magnitude of its very existence is an achievement. It took a considerable effort to get the James Webb telescope from concept to launch. If successful, the telescope will hopefully observe the farthest reaches of the galaxy, helping scientist find exoplanets and potentially even signs of life.

3. Hubble

On April 24, 1990, the Discovery space shuttle launched from the Kennedy Space Center and, with it, took what would become one of NASA’s most significant efforts to answer the mysteries of space for decades to come: the Hubble Telescope.

Before the Hubble’s existence, scientists relied on ground-based light telescopes to help provide a view into space. However, considering the limitations of ground-based telescopes, the images often lacked defined representations of space.

In 1979, work began on the Hubble Telescope in collaboration with the ESA. It was named after Edwin P. Hubble, an early 20th-century astronomer credited with discovering the expanding universe. Initially, the telescope was intended to launch in the ’80s, but setbacks, the Challenger disaster of 1986, and political fallout delayed the project into the ’90s.

Throughout its three-decade existence, the Hubble Telescope has provided unprecedented access into the universe. Since launching in 1990, it’s made over 1.5 million observations. It’s provided scientists and space enthusiasts around the world with new ways of understanding this vast solar system we inhabit.

2. The ISS

In 1980, President Ronald Reagan approved the development of the International Space Station, which at the time was a domestic attempt at a space station named Freedom. NASA was given 10 years to build and launch the station. In 1989, with the Cold War between the Soviet Union and the United States dying down before formally ending in 1990 with the dissolution of the USSR, plans were adapted to make Freedom the International Space Station.

This reformation, and complete redesign of the space station, was part of an effort to reduce the costs and promote global cooperation in the advancement of science. 1993 saw two former rivals joining forces when Russia agreed to merge their independent space station module to the ISS. Russia joined a growing list of countries in contributing to the ISS.

On November 20, 1998, Russia launched the first segment of the ISS. The United States launched their first module called Unity 15 days later. The ISS would host its first residents on November 2, 2000, with astronaut Bill Shepherd being joined by cosmonauts Sergei Krikalev, and Yuri Gidzenko.

Over the course of the decade, further additions have been made to the ISS, including a Russian-built habitat and control center, a NASA microgravity lab, a European lab, and a Japanese lab. This pivotal player in science has the involvement of many countries from around the world, including the US, Russia, Canada, Brazil, 11 members of the EU, and Japan.

251 astronauts have stayed in the ISS for varying periods of time. The ISS has played a role in groundbreaking discoveries in diseases, medicine, water purification, and the effects space has on the human body.

1. Apollo 11

One can’t talk about NASA’s greatest achievements without mentioning the historic success that was Apollo 11 in 1969. JFK made it clear after the success of Freedom 7 that the United States fully intended to send a man to the moon before the end of the decade. Sadly, he didn’t live to see Neil Armstrong take the first steps on the lunar surface, as he was assassinated in 1963.

Despite his death, his successors Lyndon B. Johnson and Richard Nixon didn’t take the nation’s foot off the gas. Thanks to the longstanding rivalry between the two superpowers during the Cold War, once JFK set the goal of getting a man on the moon, nothing could derail what would become a defining moment in history. It became not just a means of prestige, but also national security. LBJ had the words of Eisenhower in his head and feared that if Russia achieved dominance in space, the potential for a nuclear attack from beyond the Earth’s surface was imminent. He famously said on March 1, 1968 at NASA’s Manned Spacecraft Center in Houston, “We will not abandon our dream. We will never evacuate the frontiers of space to any other nation.”

The Apollo 11 rocket launched on the July 16, 1969 from Cape Canaveral. Three astronauts were chosen to be a part of history: Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and Michael Collins. It traveled for four days before landing on the moon on July 20.

It was estimated that an astounding 650 million people watched Armstrong’s televised descent to the lunar surface and heard him say the first words ever uttered on the moon: “That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.”

Have you ever done something unusual and thought to yourself “I bet I’m the only person in the world who’s ever done this?” It’s impossible to know how true that is for any given task, but it’s also an entirely reasonable thought. After all, someone always has to be the first and sometimes only person to do literally everything that can or ever will be done. As it happens, sometimes those historic feats are a little more memorable than others. Like these 10 achievements that have never been repeated. At least, not yet…

10. Andre Geim Won Both a Nobel Prize and an Ig Nobel Prize

In the worlds of Alfred Nobel, the Nobel prize was set up to honor “those who, during the preceding year, shall have conferred the greatest benefit to humankind.” They are awarded in a number of scientific fields as well as the humanities.

The Ig Nobel prizes, on the other hand, are to award achievements in something bizarre or trivial that nonetheless required extensive research and hard work to accomplish. The two awards rarely cross paths in real life, but they did once in the form of Andre Geim, the only man to win one of both.

In 2010, Geim won the Nobel Prize in Physics for his “groundbreaking” work with graphene. His work involved isolating single layers of graphite that may one day have future applications for how we build nearly endless things, given how strong graphene is.

Ten years earlier, Geim also won the Ig Nobel Prize for levitating a frog. There was more to his work than flying frogs, of course, and it was focused chiefly on something called diamagnetism. Magnetic fields can hold diamagnetic materials by pushing them away if they’re strong enough. Since water is diamagnetic, if you put a frog in the water and hit it with a magnetic field, the frog floats. And that’s how you get an Ig Nobel Prize.

9. Roger Sherman Signed Four Major US Foundational Documents

When people invoke the Founding Fathers of America, they usually refer to people like Thomas Jefferson and Ben Franklin. They should probably be talking about Roger Sherman, however, since he was the most foundingest of the fathers. Which is to say he’s the only one who signed four of the most significant documents related to the founding of the country.

While some may have signed the Declaration of Independence or even the Constitution, Sherman signed both of those along with the Articles of Confederation and the Continental Association, otherwise known as the Articles of Association.

A real man about town, Sherman became a lawyer when another lawyer told him he should just start practicing law, then a judge, then a Superior Court Justice in Connecticut, and politics was not far behind. It’s said he was admired by many of the other Founding Fathers and his life was very much dedicated to the nation and defining it.

8. John Paul Scott is the Only Confirmed Escape from Alcatraz

Alcatraz will go down in history as one of the most infamous prisons ever. It held some of the nation’s most notorious criminals, but it was even more well known for being inescapable. People tried, of course, and some were never seen again. But only one man ever got off the Rock and lived to tell the tale.

Several attempts came close, such as when John Giles used a stolen uniform to get on a boat. Unfortunately, he went to Angel Island instead of San Francisco. The famous story Escape from Alcatraz covered the attempt by the Anglin brothers and Frank Morris who got off the island but are believed to have drowned.

The only man officially recognized as having The first person to set foot on San Francisco soil after escaping Alcatraz is John Paul Scott, who made it out in 1962. He came to shore near the Golden Gate Bridge, exhausted and almost dead, where he was promptly captured and returned to the prison. No one said he escaped for long, but he did escape.

7. Kathy Sullivan Has Gone to The Deepest Place in the Sea and into Space

They say life has its ups and downs, but only Kathy Sullivan can claim to have mastered that truth like no one else in history. Kathy has been further up and further down than any other human, having traveled both to space as an astronaut and to the depths of Challenger Deep, the deepest part of the ocean.

Sullivan was actually the first woman in history to go out on a space walk and that was all the way back in 1984. As of 2021, 72 women had been to space. However, in 2020, Sullivan upped the ante for exploring the outer reaches when she traveled seven miles below the surface of the sea to Challenger Deep. She was the first woman to accomplish that task, as well.

As for why Sullivan is pushing the limits of exploration, it’s a matter of understanding. Sullivan has said she wants to “understand the world around her as much as possible.”

6. Harold Russell Won Two Academy Awards for the Same Role

Not a lot of people know the work of Harold Russell these days. The actor and WWII veteran died back in 2002 and only had five acting credits to his name. Remarkably, one of those was a role in the film The Best Years of Our Lives in 1946, for which Russell ended up winning not one but two Academy Awards, making him the only actor to pull off that feat.

Obviously, many other actors have won multiple acting awards in the past. Some people have won multiple awards for the same film if they also wrote or directed a film in which they starred. But none of that was the case with Russell. He was given two acting awards for the same role in the same film.

The first award was for Best Supporting Actor, an award audiences today are still very familiar with. But the second award was where things got a little unusual. He was given that award, an honorary one, for “’bringing aid and comfort to disabled veterans through the medium of motion pictures.”

5. Peter Siebold is the Only Survivor of a Spaceship Disaster in History

Anyone who survives a deadly disaster is lucky, most people would agree. Whether it’s a tornado, a sinking ship, a fire or something just as harrowing, to make it out with your life can seem like a miracle. Peter Siebold knows this better than most. He’s the only man in the world who fell from space and lived to tell the tale.

Siebold was a test pilot for a Virgin Galactic spaceship that suffered a catastrophic failure at about 50,000 feet in the air. His seat ejected and fell about 30,000 feet at nearly 200 kilometers per hour before his chute deployed, giving him 20,000 more feet to go before he hit the ground and survived to tell the tale.

Tragically, Siebold’s co-pilot didn’t survive the incident and Siebold himself actually lost consciousness during his fall but had enough time to come to and even signal to people with a thumb’s up that he was ok.

4. Marie Curie is the Only Person to Win Nobel Prizes in Two Scientific Fields

We already saw Andre Geim’s impressive achievement of both a Nobel Prize and an Ig Nobel Prize but he’s got nothing on Marie Curie who remains the only person to get a Nobel Prize in two separate scientific fields.

Her first prize came in
1903 when both Curie and her husband were awarded the Nobel in physics for her work with radiation. It’s arguably what she’s most well known for, and is the reason a curie is a unit used to measure radiation intensity. But it wasn’t the only thing she focused on in her scientific career.

In 1911, Curie was awarded her second Nobel Prize, this time in chemistry, for discovery of the elements radium and polonium.

3. Arrhichion Won Olympic Gold After He Died

Implausible as it sounds, a number of politicians have won elections despite being dead. So it’s rare but not exactly unique. That said, there are some more rare accomplishments that the dead have pulled off and arguably one of the most remarkable was when ancient Greek athlete Arrhichion won an Olympic event despite dying during the match.

Arrhichion was a pankratiast, which is to say he played pankration, a sort of violent, old-school MMA fighting sport that mixed boxing and wrestling and was known to end in fatalities. So how did the man win and also die?

As the story goes, Arrhichion had won at two previous Olympic games. In his third championship bout, his opponent had him in a choke hold and was slowly but surely killing the man. To fight back, Arrhichion broke the man’s ankle, forcing him to end the hold. The maneuver put the fight in Arrhichion’s favor but the damage had already been done. He died from his injuries even though he won the match.

2. Adam Rainer was a Dwarf and a Giant

Medically speaking, dwarfism is defined as a condition that limits a person’s height to under about 4-foot-10. It can be brought on by several other conditions, but the main symptom most of us would associate with it is that short stature. Acromegaly, also known as gigantism, would be an opposite condition in many ways. Those afflicted can grow to unusual heights, even closing in on eight feet. It tends to express itself later in life, however, in the teens even to early adulthood.

Since both dwarfism and gigantism are different conditions, you may wonder if it’s possible for a person to somehow be afflicted with both and how that could even work. Well, the answer is yes. Adam Rainer had both, and it played out in a very unusual way that was likely quite painful for the young man.

Rainier was 4-foot-8 at the age of 19. It was said that, despite his short stature, he also had unusually large hands and feet. He wore a size 10 shoe, for instance. Three years later, he was in a size 20.

By age 21, Rainier’s growth became remarkable. In ten years, he would reach a height of 7-foot-1. A tumor on his pituitary gland had caused acromegaly and led to his increased growth as well as a curved spine, large lips, hands, feet and forehead. He is said to have been about 7-foot-8 when he died at age 51.

It’s worth noting that most tales of Rainier include photos that are not Rainier at all. The pictures most often included are of a man named Baptiste Hugo who was also a giant, but never a dwarf.

1. Gerald Ford Was Never Elected Vice President Or President

When it comes to “official” rankings of US Presidents, Gerald Ford is not particularly memorable. He’s not the best, he’s not the worst. One survey had him ranked 28th, about as middle of the pack as humanly possible. But, if nothing else, Gerald Ford deserves recognition for his astounding and unmatched achievements in American politics. He is the only person to ever reach the position of both Vice President and then President, having never been elected by anyone to either job.

Ford was House Minority Leader in 1973 at the height of the Watergate scandal that saw Vice President Spiro Agnew resign from his position over charges of tax evasion and taking bribes. President Nixon then appointed Ford to the office of Vice President.

Less than a year later. Nixon himself would resign from office, and that meant Ford had just been given a promotion. He served from 1974 until 1976 and is mostly known for pardoning Nixon for his crimes and doing not much else.

It’s always impressive when something record breaking happens. The hottest day on record. The most expensive hamburger ever made. Even a personal record can be remarkable, whether that’s running your fastest mile ever or beating your taco eating record. And while these onetime achievements are very interesting, there’s something to be said for a sustained, long-term achievement that can happen over a very long period making it that much more impressive.

10. Ricardo Abad Ran Marathons 607 Days in a Row

Many people consider running a marathon to be a great achievement in life. Some people train for months to run the biggest marathons in the world and not everyone is able to complete them as they can be extremely physically demanding. And not to diminish anyone’s achievements or hard work when it comes to running marathons but no one in the world runs marathons like Ricardo Abad runs marathons. In fact, Abad holds a record for essentially marathoning marathons. He ran 607 consecutive marathons in 607 straight days. 

Initially Abad, a runner and factory worker from Spain, had the idea to do 500 marathons. After he reached that goal he intended to do another 500 for a full 1,000 but even Superman has his limits. After 607, Abad had to call it quits with a record that was still far above his closest competitors.

9. St. Petersburg Florida had Sunshine 768 Days in a Row

Natural records can happen any time and in any place. Often there’s no way to tell it’s happening until it’s already happened. That was likely the case when the city of St. Petersburg in Florida managed to pull off the unexpected weather feat of having pleasant, sunny days for over two straight years. 

St. Petersburg calls itself the Sunshine City, a title well-earned on February 9, 1967. That was the first day the sun rose over the city after some cloud cover the previous day. Then the same thing happened on February 10th. Same on March 10th. July 10th. And even February 10, 1968. It wouldn’t be until Tuesday, March 18, 1969 that the people of St. Petersburg would have to bid the sun goodbye and endure a little cloud cover like the rest of us.

8. Marble Bar, Australia Had a 160+ Day Heat Wave

As sunny as things get in Florida, the temperature there is not necessarily record breaking. And for sustained, oppressing, absolutely horrid temperature records then you need to go to the other side of the world and visit a place called Marble Bar, Australia.

Heat waves are nothing new and, unfortunately, they’re becoming more and more commonplace these days. In the United States, the average heat wave lasts for four days. These can be incredibly serious as well since people who are unable to manage the temperatures with things like air conditioning or adequate shelter and water can suffer ill effects potentially even dying. 

In Marble Bar, it’s not unusual for temperatures to reach over 120F or 49C for about 8 months per year. But it was their 1923 heat wave that makes it such a noteworthy place. Every day for 160 to 170 days (there are contradictory figures), the temperature was around 100F or hotter. 

7. In 1862, a Storm in California Lasted Over 40 Days

You may recall that the Bible made mention of a quite significant flood that lasted for 40 days and 40 nights somewhere in the Book of Genesis. Any storm that lasts for more than a month would surely seem cataclysmic to people back in that day and age and, if we’re being honest, it’d probably be worse today because people can share doomsday theories on social media. Somewhere in the middle is what the people of 1862.

Beginning in December 1861, the rains that drowned out hundreds of miles of land in California lasted for 43 straight days. The Central Valley, home to cities like Sacramento, Fresno and Bakersfield was under 15 feet of water. One third of the property in the state was destroyed. One in 8 homes was swept away. Over 200,000 cattle died. When the new government of California was inaugurated on January 10th, he had to row to the governor’s mansion and enter through a second story window. It’s estimated around 4,000 residents died as well.

6. Dale Webster Went Surfing 14,642 Days in a Row

The difference between a hobby and a job tends to be that no one pays you for hobbies so you do them for the joy you get out of it. And, with that in mind, what hobby do you have that you’d be willing to stick with for 14,642 days in a row without a break?

Dale Webster, sometimes known as Everyday Dale, liked to surf. And so he went surfing every day for about 40 years. He started his surfing marathon in September, 1975. Every day, he’d catch at least three waves, usually in a place called Bodega Bay. No matter the weather, he was out there.

Webster called his 40 year streak quits on October 4, 2015. That was because he had kidney surgery on October 5th and was put on bedrest for a few weeks. 

5. Lakeview Gusher Spewed Oil From a Geyser for 544 Days

Have you ever seen a video of an oil well going off? It happens in movies sometimes, and you may see clips on the news of these oil geysers spouting into the air. But when we see them they’re in little clips and often it seems like the next logical step is that someone caps it somehow and stops the oil from spewing out. But that’s not always the case. 

The Lakeview Gusher, an oil geyser that blew its top in California in 1910, raged for 544 days without anyone stopping it. It formed an entire lake of oil and produced 18,000 barrels per day for a total of 9 million before it stopped. 

Drillers were looking for oil about 100 miles north of LA at the time. When the geyser went off, it shot oil 200 feet into the air. The volume and power seemed to be more than people could handle and rather than controlling it they tried to deal with it. Sandbag walls and pipes to redirect the oil were established even as it formed a crater around the initial geyser, destroying the undersized derrick and other equipment.

Eventually the well collapsed on its own somewhere deep in the earth, sucking everything back to the depths as quickly as it had appeared.

4. An Alpine Swift Can Stay in Flight for 200 Days Straight

We’re always impressed when we see a human who can run fast or lift a huge amount of weight. And it’s likely a bit of human arrogance that makes us focus so much on incredible things humans can do as opposed to what other creatures in the world can do. That’s a shame because there are some animals out there that leave humans in the dust in every conceivable way. Take, for instance, the humble alpine swift.

These small birds can be found in parts of Europe and Asia and, for the most part, seem unremarkable. To see what makes a swift a real standout, you have to have a lot of time on your hands. An alpine swift is able to stay in the air for 200 days in a row without ever touching ground once.

Researchers were able to determine that the swift has such remarkable flight stamina after putting a tracker on one. The tiny birds, which weigh under half a pound, summer in Europe then migrate to Africa for the winter. The point of tracking was mostly just to see how the birds handled their migration. Where they go, how long they spend there, how long they stop, and so on. 

What the team discovered when the birds returned to Europe and the tags were collected was that, when the birds aren’t breeding, they aren’t landing. Because the sensors collect data on acceleration, the angle of the bird relative to the ground, and the angle that light is hitting the bird to determine sunrise and sunset, they were able to determine the birds never actually went to ground. They can sustain flight or a glide for 200 days. 

The birds eat flying insects, so that aspect of how they manage their marathon was easy enough to understand. But how they slept was another matter. Clearly, the birds are able to sustain flight while sleeping or, as some speculate, they may not really need to sleep at all. 

3. A Man Went to Disneyland 2,995 Days in a Row

Have you ever heard the term “Disney adults?” It’s a name given to adults who are such fans of all things Disney that they devote an intense amount of time and money to supporting their fandom. That can include buying what seems like an inordinate amount of Disney merchandise and, in particular, visiting Disney theme parks frequently. Some people will go so far as to make almost weekly trips to Disneyland and Disney World. And, to be clear, these are adults. They may have children that come with them but typically, to meet the definition, they do not.

You would be hard pressed to find anyone who meets the status of a true Disney fan and a Disney adult more than Jeff Reitz. Because of the covid restrictions in 2020 that saw Disneyland closing its doors to visitors, Reitz had to end his unbroken streak of regular park visits. Prior to the closing he had been to Disneyland every single day for 2,995 days. 

Reitz started going to the park in 2011 and would often head there right after work. He’d spend an average of three to five hours walking around then head home. When the park finally closed, cutting his streak off, he actually had difficulty adjusting to life without it. According to Reitz, he started falling into a depression and found it difficult to even get out of bed some days. 

2. Donna Griffiths Sneezed for 976 Days in a Row

In terms of physical achievements there are probably many that any of us would be happy to reach. Being the best at something; the strongest or the fastest or the smartest could hardly be seen as a bad thing. But there are plenty of personal, physical achievements that are less desirable and then some that are just weird and unpleasant.

Donna Griffiths holds the dubious honor of having spent more time sneezing than anyone else in the world. She started sneezing on January 13, 1981 and stopped sneezing September 16, 1983. That’s 976 days of sustained sneezes. It was estimated she belted out one million sneezes in her first year alone. 

1. Valeri Polyakov Spent 437 Days in Space

Most missions to the International Space Station see astronauts spending about six months in space. That’s a decent length of time to not be on an actual planet anymore. Astronaut Mark Vande took that to extremes when he spent 341 days in space. That gave him the record for the longest spaceflight by an American astronaut and it’s very impressive. Just imagine nearly a whole year in a place where you can’t go out to get food or water or medical care, or even visit a friend. You can’t even go out for some air. Your life is sustained by what you have with you and what can very rarely be brought to you. Definitely not for the claustrophobic or the easily rattled. And despite Vande’s amazing achievement, it’s not the record by any means.

Russian cosmonaut Valeri Polyakov has the current record for longest time a human has spent in space. From 1994 to 1995, Polyakov spent 437 days aboard the Mir space station. He only completed two missions in his life but in that time he could have almost made it to Mars and back.

Polyakov volunteered for his extended stay in space to be something of a guinea pig. The plan was to assess the effect of prolonged space flight on the human body and mind. After he returned, Russian officials determined that he had suffered no permanent or even long lasting effects from his experience apart from a decline in mood that lasted a few months before returning to normal.

What is the most remarkable thing you have ever done in a single day? What is your proudest achievement? Many of us accomplish great things in our lives, but they are often the result of a process. For example, being the first person in your family to go to college, writing a novel, or traveling the world. All of these are great accomplishments, but condensing an achievement into a single day is much harder. Some people, however, are able to do this in ways that are entirely unbelievable.

10. Indian Singer SPB Recorded 21 Songs in One Day

Indian singer SPB was a man dedicated to his craft. Real name Sripathi Panditaradhyula Balasubrahmanyam, he holds a World Record for recording 40,000 songs in 16 languages which is a feat that is honestly hard to wrap your head around. But he didn’t stop there.

His 40,000 songs was obviously over a lifetime as a singer. But even in a single day he was doing amazing things. He also managed to record 21 songs in a single day, actually in just a 12 hour span, back in 1981. He also managed to record 19 Tamil songs in one day and 16 Hindi songs in one day. He was also the voice of countless actors in Bollywood scenes when they were required to do singing.

9. Charles Servizio Did Over 46,000 Pushups in a Day

How many pushups would you say you can do? Or what do you think the average number is? Some super fitness gurus can drop down and crank out 1,000 pushups at the drop of a hat. But according to one survey, more than half of Americans can’t pull off 10 push-ups in a row. Worse, more than a third would struggle to do 5 in a row. All of that makes Charles Servizio sound even more impressive.

In 1993, Servizio broke a Guinness World Record by performing 46,001 pushups in 24 hours. That’s 1,916 pushups per hour. That’s about 32 every minute. While the record for pushups in an hour has been broken many times and people have surpassed Servizio’s hour record, the 24-hour has stood for three decades.

8. Ben Feldman Sold $20 Million Worth of Insurance in One Day

Ben Feldman’s legacy is either as the most amazing salesman of all time or a somewhat tragic tale of a man who was way, way too into his work. Who knows, maybe it’s both. In any event. Feldman goes down in the history books as the nearly mythical insurance salesman who managed to sell $20 million worth of insurance in one day.

Feldman did things as an insurance salesman that boggle the mind. If $20 million in a day isn’t good enough for you, know that he sold $100 million in a year once. He sold $1.5 billion in his lifetime. He was making $1 million per year in commissions. He personally sold more than whole companies. In the 1970s, he personally sold more insurance than 1,500 of the insurance companies in America. The man was basically Insurance Superman.

How does a man get to be a sales dynamo? That part is harder to understand. Word is that Feldman was so shy he once gave a talk at a seminar behind a screen so he didn’t have to see the crowd. But it sounds like he also did little else. 

He researched life insurance from 10 to midnight before bed every night. He worked 12 hour days, 6 and even 7 days a week and, if nothing else, it definitely paid off as he proved himself to be a defining force in life insurance that arguably changed the entire landscape. Before Feldman, most insurance companies wouldn’t insure people for more than $50,000 on the grounds no one needed that much insurance.

7. Sweden Switched 360,000 Streets from Left to Right in a Day

One of the most noticeable differences between the UK and North America is how people drive. Brits drive on the left side of the road. This holdout from a bygone era still happens in former British colonies. They drive on the left in New Zealand, in South Africa, and in Matla. In fact, 76 countries drive on the left while 163 stick to the right. 

Sweden was once a left side country, but they made the switch to the right in 1967. And it happened in a single day. The entire country made a flip covering 360,000 streets and 60,000 miles of road. It happened at 4:50 in the morning when all traffic was stopped for 10 minutes to make the switch. And when it was done, everyone drove on the right. It sounds preposterously simple on paper, but it was not. 

The switch took four years worth of planning and as much as £80 million. Overnight, 350,000 street signs were changed. It took the work of soldiers, police and volunteers, over 200,000 of them in total, to make it happen in that one day. The switch was done, in part, to help prevent accidents. Most Swedish drivers had foreign cars with steering on the left, making driving on the left more confusing. 

6. Will Ferrell Played for 10 MLB Teams in One Day

The record for playing for most MLB teams in a single day isn’t even one that makes sense because why would anyone need to play for more than one team in a day? At best it seems like a strange trade could have resulted in a player being on two teams in a day like Joel Youngblood in 1982. Luckily, Will Ferrell is not really a player and a lot of what he does is weird, so it does make a strange kind of sense after the fact. Ferrell holds a record for playing for 10 MLB teams in one day. 

In 2015, actor Will Ferrell went out for spring training as part of an HBO special being filmed for Funny or Die alongside Major League Baseball. The show was to support cancer research, so the MLB let Ferrell suit up with 10 different teams over the course of the day and play literally every position on the field. He had to be transported by helicopter to five different stadiums to pull it off.

By the end of the day Ferrell has been an Angel, an Athletic, a Cub, a Diamondback, a Dodger, a Giant, a Mariner, a Padre, a Red Sock, and a White Sock.  

5. The First Minnesota Regiment Had the Biggest Single Day Loss of Life of Any US Regiment

While a positive single day achievement is always laudable, sometimes something can be noteworthy for how awful it was. That was the case of the 1st Minnesota Volunteer Infantry Regiment during the Civil War. 

The regiment had proven its valor in more than one battle before Gettysburg, but it was that historic battle that would prove their mettle and also write them into the history books. It’s been said that, if not for the 1st Minnesota, the Union would have lost Gettysburg.

It was July 2, and the Union was being pushed back by Confederate forces who outnumbered them considerably. Reinforcements were a ways off yet and Union General Sickles, an untested leader, had made a foolish move without orders, creating a gap in Union lines that the Confederate forces exploited. There were very few veteran soldiers on site to try to hold back the enemy except for the battle tested 1st Minnesota. They’d started the war 1,000 men strong but, after three prior battles, they were down to 262. 

Sickles’ move had all but doomed the Union. The fear was, if the Confederate Army would storm the rest of the Union and the war would effectively be lost. The 1st Minnesota was ordered to plug the gap against six-to-one odds. All they needed was five minutes for reinforcements to arrive.

The 262 men pushed onward knowing they were being sent to their deaths. They fought hard and their flag fell five times, each time being raised by someone new. By the end, 215 men had died, a total of 82% of the entire regiment. It remains, to this day, the biggest loss of life by any regiment in a single day of combat. They held for 15 minutes, turning the tide of the battle for the Union.

4. Mosquitoes Kill More People Per Day Than Sharks Did in 100 Years

The humble mosquito, one of the greatest pests known to man. They’re small, they’re a nuisance, and they exist in every country on Earth except in the Antarctic and, curiously, Iceland. That makes them incredibly hard to escape. They’re also prolific killers. Mosquitoes will kill more people in one single day than sharks have over the last 100 years.

In 2016, about 1,470 deaths could be attributed to mosquitos per day. This is thanks to the number of deadly diseases which mosquitoes can transfer to humans, including malaria. On the other hand, between 1916 and 2016, sharks managed to kill just 1,035 humans. 

Changing climate has been making conditions for mosquitoes more hospitable and it’s believed that, in the future, the gap between mosquitoes and sharks is only going to grow as mosquitoes become more and more deadly. In 2018, mosquitoes killed 830,000 people which averages to about 2,274 per day. 

3. 4.5 million Thin Mints are Baked for Girl Scouts Per Day

Every year the Girl Scouts roll out their annual cooking selling campaign and people go nuts for them. Thin Mints seem to be the most popular making up 25% of all cookies sold and to meet demand, a lot of cookies need to be produced. 

To keep up with the Thin Mint demand, 4.5 million Thin Mints are baked per day at the height of cookie demand. Considering the girls sell as many as 200 million boxes of cookies, the volume is clearly necessary.

2. Martian Moon Orbits Lead to More than Three Eclipses a Day

Science fiction TV shows and movies often hit a little speed bump when trying to discuss time in an intergalactic way, especially with alien species. When you refer to a day or a year, it’s based entirely on how we tell time on Earth. A year is how long it takes the planet to rotate around the sun. That would mean nothing to an alien. Every planet in our solar system has varying lengths of time for what would be one of their years. Mars, in particular, can get a lot of things done because of how lunar rotation works there.

On Earth, we have around four to seven eclipses per year. On Mars, you get an average of 3.2 every day thanks to how fast the Martian moons Phobos and Deimos orbit the planet. Though the moons are too small to fully block the sun, they still pass it. Phobos orbits every 7.65 hours and Deimos every 30.35 hours.

1. A Chinese Container Ship Produces as Much Pollution in One Day as 500,000 Trucks

A modern container ship can be as much as 1,320 feet long. It takes a lot of power to move a ship that size, laden down with hundreds of tons of shipping containers, and that means burning a lot of fuel. In China, just one of these massive shipping containers will put out as much pollution in a day as 500,000 trucks on the road.

The fuel used by these ships in China is also some of the lowest quality diesel with high levels of contaminants. Sulfur levels are 35 times higher than what would be permitted at ports in Los Angeles. It’s been estimated that the pollution caused by things like these container ships contributes to 1.2 million premature deaths.