According to the majority of pilots, takeoff and landing are the most dangerous aspects of a flight.  Still, some conditions are riskier than others—but it seems that all the mountain peaks, cliff faces, crowded beaches, and main roads on our list, haven’t managed to discourage the brave pilots who navigate them every day.

Since the topic of the deadliest airline disasters has been covered before, let’s have a look now at the most extreme and hazardous airports around the world.  Fasten your seatbelts:

Getting to this amazingly beautiful Caribbean island can be a bit distressing, thanks to a mere 1300-foot-long runway—only slightly longer than most aircraft carrier runways. The incredibly short runway is surrounded by tall cliffs, and it comes dangerously close to a steep slope which leads directly to the ocean.

For these reasons, it is one of the most dangerous airports in the world. An incorrect assessment of the pilot during the takeoff may take the airplane straight into the abyss. Large planes avoid this airport for obvious reasons, but even for a very small aircraft such as a Cessna, landing seems to be a difficult mission—especially when the weather conditions are bad. At least everybody knows what’s to blame for the constant decrease of tourism in the island.

Qamdo Bamda Airport is the world’s highest airport, perched more than 14,000 feet above sea level. Even more impressive than the airport’s altitude, however, is the nearly 3.5-mile-long runway.  

Having a runway that’s the length of sixty soccer fields may seem a bit excessive, but apparently long runways are crucial to making safe landings at higher altitudes. At sea level, where the approach speed is about 150mph, it may take five thousand feet of runway to stop. But at more than fourteen thousand feet above sea level, the same approach speed will require around twice as runway to bring a plane to a halt.

Traveling at high altitude can in fact be pretty dangerous all round, and travelers should make themselves aware of conditions before they decide to fly in such places

The small airport of Gustaf III, on the Caribbean island of Saint Barthélemy, provides pilots and passengers alike with some fairly grave dangers. The corridor in which the runway has been built is incredibly narrow, and planes come frighteningly close to hitting the slopes of the adjacent upland area, or plummeting into the ocean, every time they land.

This video on youtube clearly shows what you might have to go through if something goes wrong during the landing. The good thing is that—in this instance at least—no one was even slightly injured.

The dangers of Ice Runway have more to do with the extreme weather conditions that the pilot has to deal with, rather than the design or position of the airport itself. The Ice Runway is one of three major airstrips used to haul supplies and researchers to Antarctica’s McMurdo Station. As its name implies, there’s no tarmac in sight—just long stretches of meticulously groomed ice and snow.

There is no shortage of space on the Ice Runway, so super-sized aircraft can land with relative ease. The real challenge is making sure that the weight of the aircraft and cargo doesn’t bust the ice or get the plane stuck in soft snow. As the ice of the runway begins to break up, planes are redirected to Pegasus Field or Williams Field, the two other airstrips servicing the station.

The city of Courchevel in the French Alps is one of the most famous ski resorts in Europe, but it seems like the city owes much of its fame to its airport, which is located inside the mountains. Courchevel Airport is not only famous for its incredible height and bizarre location, but also for the fact that it has had a leading role in a James Bond film, Tomorrow Never Dies, which depicted Mr. Bond landing a plane successfully in the extremely dangerous airport.

This is quite possibly the only airport in the world that also serves as a beach. Takeoffs and landings at Barra Airport occur on the same sand that people can stroll along during airport off-hours. And that’s just the beginning: during high tide in the evening, the illumination from the lights of all the cars passing by assist the pilot with his landing. For those who simply want to enjoy a romantic walk along the beach, there are warning signs informing them of all expected upcoming flight arrivals.

Believe it or not, Barra is still an officially recognized international airport by the Air Traffic Organization, and it seems like any kind of logical or critical suggestion would be deemed irrelevant by the authorities. We can only hope that they know better than us!

In Tegucigalpa, the capital city of Honduras, we can fly into one of the most dangerous and notorious airports in the world. It has been the subject of scrutiny following several accidents, including a 2008 crash that caused the deaths of five passengers. The airport opened back in 1934, an era when planes were less powerful and didn’t require such lengthy runways.

Toncontin’s runway is just over seven thousand feet long, and it’s situated in a valley surrounded by mountains. What’s even harder to believe—and by far the most hazardous aspect of this airport—is that there’s only one way in and one way out for the planes, which increases the risk dramatically. Despite all these high-risk factors, planes as large as Boeing 757’s land at the airport on a daily basis.

Lukla Airport, as it was called originally, was later renamed Tenzing-Hillary Airport to honor the first climbers to reach the summit of Mount Everest. Located in Lukla, Nepal, the airport serves thousands of climbers hoping to “conquer” Mount Everest, as well as trekkers wishing to explore the Everest region.

Dangers at this airport include high winds and extreme cloud cover—but these are by no means the scariest aspects. Like Gustaf III Airport, one end of the runway is preceded by high terrain; but instead of a beautiful sandy beach on the other end, there is a two-thousand-foot drop.

There have been several accidents at Lukla airport, most recently on October 12, 2010.

The two main runways at Madeira Airport were just 5,250 feet long when the airport was first opened back in 1964.

After a horrifying crash in 1977, in which an incoming Boeing 727 smashed through a stone bridge and ended up on the beach, one of the runways was extended by 655 feet. In the early 2000s, the runway was further lengthened by extending it across the beach, supported by columns.

Lengthened or not, the basic approach to Madeira Airport remains tricky to this day, even for the most experienced pilots. Against their better instincts, pilots must first aim the aircraft directly at a looming mountain peak, and then quickly bank to the right in order to avoid crashing into the mountain, in order to put themselves on course for the runway.

Gibraltar airport is not only one of the most dangerous airports in the world, but one of the busier ones as well (especially compared to the other risky airports included in this list). No matter how unbelievable this might sound, the corridor of this airport actually passes through the main street of the city.

Vehicles are made to stop every time an aircraft lands or takes off. It’s amazing that there has never been a major accident—and we can only hope it stays that way.

Theodoros II is a budding author and a law graduate. He loves History, Sci-Fi culture, European politics, and exploring the worlds of hidden knowledge. His ideal trip in an ideal world would be to the lost city of Atlantis.

Science progresses by theory and experimentation. When an experiment requires a human subject there are two main options for the investigator. By far the most popular is to cast about for a volunteer, usually obtained by offering money rather than appealing to their thirst for scientific advancement. The other option is for the scientist to use him or herself as a test subject. Here are ten cases of bizarre, dangerous or important self-experiments.

10 Pain

Pain is a tricky concept to quantify. We all know people who can deal with a limb being lopped off without complaint while we ourselves are weeping over a paper cut. One potential way to work out a scale of pain would be for an individual to experience a range of painful stimuli and compare them against each other. This was the course Justin Schmidt took when he wished to compare the pain caused by various invertebrate stings. Schmidt ranks the pain caused by a sting from 0 (Ineffective against humans) to 4 (Excruciating). For stings at the higher end of the scale he also adds a verbal description of the pain to allow a fuller examination of what one suffers. One sting—that of the Pepsis wasp—was described as “Immediate, excruciating pain that simply shuts down one’s ability to do anything, except, perhaps, scream.”

9 Cholera

Max von Pettenkofer was a huge figure in 19th century German medicine, being seen as the founder of hygiene. One of the most troubling diseases at the time was cholera, which causes death by extreme loss of fluids by diarrhea. We now know that it is caused by a germ, Vibrio cholerae, and is spread by fecal contamination. Pettenkofer lived in the early days of the germ theory of disease and was convinced cholera was caused by a mixture of a germ and soil conditions which transformed the germ into an infectious miasma. To prove the importance of soil in developing cholera, Pettenkofer drank a sample of pure cholera germs to see if he would get sick. While he felt a little unwell he did not end up dying from voluminous vomiting and diarrhea. This shows the limit of self-experimentation; we only have one self and a single datum is not generally sufficient to prove a theory.

8 Food

Since the first person starved to death it has been obvious that humans need food. What is less obvious is what happens to it once it is inside you and why it seems we excrete less than we take in. In the early 17th century a doctor called Sanctorius decided to weigh everything he ate, his own body, and everything he excreted for over 30 years. He built a special chair to allow him to measure the changes in his weight. These experiments allowed him to calculate that for every 8 pounds of food he ate he passed only 3 pounds of waste. Clearly some was being lost by a process he could not understand and he called this an insensible perspiration. Weighing all your feces and urine for 30 years is true dedication to science, but then I suppose it is better to use your own than someone else’s.

7 Infectiousness

Yellow fever is a viral disease spread by mosquitoes that still kills 30,000 people each year despite there being an effective vaccine available. In the past epidemics of yellow fever would spread through North America and people would regularly leave cities for the safer countryside during ‘the fever season.’ Since it was such a peril a young medical student called Stubbins Ffirth decided to investigate. Certain that it was impossible for the disease to pass from one person to another he tried to infect someone using samples from victims. The person he tried to infect, as you might guess from this list, was himself. He took vomit from yellow fever patients and drank it. He also rubbed it in cuts on his own body for good measure. He did not contract the disease. Perhaps that was not the infectious route, he considered; so he then poured vomit onto his eyeballs. Still no fever. He then progressed through blood, saliva, and pus. Still in robust health Ffirth decided he had confirmed yellow fever was not infectious and published his results. Unfortunately all his samples had come from patients who had passed the infectious stage of the illness and yellow fever is very much a transmissible illness. He never found out he had drunk vomit for nothing.

6 Electrical Stimulation

The discovery of electricity and its effects on dead animals lead to a scramble of scientists attempting to investigate the role of electricity in life. Johann Wilhelm Ritter, discoverer of ultraviolet light, was one such scientist. His experiments into ‘animal electricity’ did away with testing it on corpses and onto his own body. He applied charges to various areas and recorded the results. The most extreme reaction he found was when he used his battery, a Voltaic pile, on his genitals and achieved orgasm. Like a child with a new toy he repeated his experiments endlessly. He was so attached to his work that he joked about marrying his Voltaic pile. The increasing shocks he gave himself occasionally required morphine to dull the pain and it is likely he shortened his life by his work.

5 Surviving Submarines

War has been a natural training ground for scientists. The huge number of bodies produced let early medics explore human anatomy. But the urge to help prevent deaths has also spurred some scientists into risky behaviors. J. B. S. Haldane was one of the great theorists of evolution but also had a flair for dramatic experiments. He learned this from his father, also a biologist, who used to experiment on his son. Wishing to study the effects of rapid changes in pressure which a submariner would experience on escaping from a wreck, Haldane had himself repeatedly placed in a decompression chamber. While much was learned about nitrogen narcosis, the bends, no major harm was done to Haldane except for some fits and perforated ear drums. He shrugged this latter off. “The drum generally heals up; and if a hole remains in it, although one is somewhat deaf, one can blow tobacco smoke out of the ear in question, which is a social accomplishment.”

4 Upside Down World

All we know of the world is through our senses and so it is natural for scientists to investigate how those senses work. George Stratton decided to test how the mind would adapt to change in its perception of sight. By wearing glasses he inverted his vision so up was down and down was up. At first putting on the glasses led to the nausea and disconnected feelings you would expect. Within days he was able to function normally and after some time he reported that he actually felt the image he was receiving was actually the right way up. When he took the glasses off he thought the world as he saw it without the glasses was upside down. Repetitions of this experiment have failed to replicate this feeling normality but have shown the power of the brain to adapt to changes in perception compared to reality.

3 Hanging Sensation

Nicolae Minovici was a man who had a question he wanted an answer to: what does hanging feel like? For most of us the answer ‘Probably not great’ would be a sufficient guess, but Minovici wanted to know beyond reasonable doubt. The only logical answer was therefore to have himself hanged and experience it for himself. Several times and with several different types of noose he had assistants hoist him into the air. The pain was apparently severe and lasted for weeks after each experiment, not something condemned men would have to contend with as their suffering is cut somewhat short. Of course this experiment does not answer what those who suffer the long drop and a broken neck undergo when they are executed.

2 Heart Cathetar

Sometimes it is necessary for doctors to get access to the heart either for diagnosis or treatment. The simplest way to do this might seem to be to hack open the chest and have a look at the organ itself. Obviously this has massive risks and while even today opening the chest is risky, in the 1930s it would have been almost certainly fatal. Werner Forssman studied corpses and decided it would be possible to pass a thin tube, or catheter, along blood vessels and directly into the heart. Needing to discover whether this would be possible in still living humans he decided an experiment would be in order. He cut open his arm and threaded the tube up and into his heart. A small slip could have torn a major vessel and led to his death but he still needed to prove he had reached the heart. So, with the tube dangling from his arm, he walked from the operating room to an x-ray machine, and took the pictures which showed he had been successful. For this bit of scientific derring-do he shared the Nobel Prize in medicine in 1956.

1 Stomach Ulcers

One of the most basic rules of lab safety is no eating or drinking, but there can be serious rewards for ignoring this ban. Today stomach ulcers are, for the most part, just punch lines in jokes about people being too stressed but they were once a major cause of death. The risk is from an ulcer causing bleeding or perforating and leading to infection. The cause of these potentially fatal ulcers was a mystery until two scientists, Barry Marshall and Robin Warren, discovered many patients carried the bacterium Helicobacter pylori in their stomachs. After checking his stomach was healthy Marshall downed a Petri dish of the bacteria and waited. He soon developed gastritis and other symptoms. They had shown H. pylori could cause stomach ulcers and that antibiotics could treat them. For this discovery Marshall and Warren shared a Nobel Prize in 2005.

Clearly, the population boom of 4.5 billion people was the wake-up call that the global community needed. After decade-long “baby booms” in which having a large family was seen as one of the ultimate signs of success, people began to realize in the 1990s that this rapid population growth might become a problem.

By the end of the 20th century, the world population had reached a whopping 6.1 billion, a far cry from the 1.6 billion people who inhabited the Earth at the beginning of the 20th century. Fears spread about a population too large to be sustained, leading countries to rethink antiabortion laws and drastically reduce the price of contraceptives.

Although this tactic worked for countries like the United Kingdom, some nations utterly failed to control their exponentially rising birthrates. Still others succeeded far too well.

Whether population growth or decline is the problem, countries have tried some pretty odd things to control birthrates. But these 10 ways are among the absolute strangest.

10 ‘Do It For Denmark’ Campaign

With a 0.4 percent population growth rate and a birthrate of 1.73 children per woman, Denmark’s population was in some serious trouble back in 2014 (and still is). With a rapidly aging population and a birthrate that wasn’t high enough to replace the current population, Denmark was spiraling uncontrollably toward a population decline and a labor crisis—something that terrifies all governments. But perhaps even more concerned than the government was Danish travel agency Spies Rejser, which claimed that a declining Danish population would mean fewer Danish travelers and thus, less business for them.

But the creative employees at Spies Rejser weren’t content to just sit around and worry. Instead, the company released a surprisingly bold, somewhat scandalous commercial campaign aimed at adults, with the goal to get couples to have more children. It even had a catchy slogan: “Do it for Denmark!”

The bold commercial started out by asking a shocking question—“Can sex save Denmark’s future?”—before letting a picture of a solemn elderly couple fill the screen, describing Denmark’s population problem, and sharing a video clip of a young adult girl visiting the hotel in which she was conceived.

As viewers watched a young woman try on lingerie and then gallavant with her boyfriend around Paris, the voice of the commercial stated that Danes have 46 percent more sex when on vacation, leading to 10 percent of all Danish babies being conceived during a holiday. Near the end of the video, Danes were encouraged to take a romantic vacation and, to sweeten the deal, use the “ovulation discount” when booking through Spies Rejser to “get it on.”

If you could prove that you conceived a child while on vacation, Spies promised to reward parents with three years of baby supplies and a kid-friendly vacation. It was a hard offer to pass up, the commercial pushed, especially when “all the fun is in the participation.”

9 Hate Taxes? Have A Baby In Romania!

Facing population growth that was close to zero in the late 1960s, Romania banned abortion and contraceptives, made divorce almost impossible, and began imposing a tax burden on childless families. Married or single, childless men and women over age 25 were subject to increased taxes that could amount to 20 percent of their total income.

Police were stationed in hospitals to ensure that no abortions took place, and women were even subjected to monthly gynecological exams to detect and preserve pregnancies. At the same time, childless couples over age 25 were interrogated about their sex lives.

On the other hand, Romania offered “family allowances” paid by the state, which increased each time a child was born. Families with more than three children had their income taxes slashed by 30 percent. The campaign proved to be disastrous, resulting in hundreds of thousands of children being abandoned at birth and put into orphanages.

8 Have A Kid, Be A Heroine

Convinced that the way to become a world superpower was to boast a humongous workforce, Soviet Russia took to branding mothers as heroines to incite a baby boom. Mothers who bore and raised at least five children were given the honorable title of “Mother Heroine” and awarded the Soviet Motherhood Medal, established in 1944.

A Second Class Medal was awarded to mothers who bore five children, provided that the youngest child reached one year old and all the others were still alive. Approximately eight million of these brass medals were issued, double that of the silver First Class Medal, which was awarded to the heroine who birthed six or more children and brought them up. Though medals were highly coveted during the 20th century, you can buy them for cheap now on eBay if you so desire.

7 Sex Breaks In South Korea

After the birthrate in South Korea plummeted to one of the lowest in the developed world, around 1.2 children per woman, the government took it upon itself to get people interested in becoming parents again by introducing “Family Day.” On the third Wednesday of every month, government offices now close early at 7:00 PM, encouraging their employees to go home and spend quality time with their families—and make bigger ones.

South Korean officials hoped that the reduced workday would “help staff get dedicated to childbirth and upbringing.” Unfortunately, the country didn’t see any noticeable increase in births accredited to ‘Family Day.” But when your birthrate is lower than the elderly nation that is Japan, every little bit helps.

6 Sterilization ‘Camps’ In India

Considered by some as the darkest time in India’s history, 1975 saw the suspension of democratic rights and violations of human dignity by Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, who instituted a 21-month mass sterilization program. Although democratic rights have been restored, sterilization continues to be India’s biggest weapon to combat rapid population growth.

Women are persuaded to be voluntarily sterilized through cash rewards. Those who don’t accept the money are forcibly sterilized. Other consequences are also meted out by the government for having a large family, such as being prevented from owning a gun or holding public office.

Sterilization “camps” are among the most controversial practices. In one camp at an abandoned hospital in a rural part of India, 83 women were sterilized in five hours by a single doctor who was said to have dipped his equipment only briefly in disinfectant.

5 Mentos: Working To Increase Birthrates

Panicking over a birthrate that was less than one child per woman, the government of Singapore partnered with Mentos in 2012 to create the “National Night” campaign in which a three-minute Mentos commercial encouraged babymaking through a rap about “doing your civic duty.”

The video started out with a rap about not watching fireworks and “[making] ’em instead.” Then it moved on to the chorus in which a singer croons that it’s “National Night,” encouraging viewers with words like “let’s make Singapore’s birthrate spike.” The video ends with couples being encouraged to “get your National Night on” and let their “patriotism explode.”

Whether it worked has yet to be determined. But one thing is sure: Singapore is the first (and probably only) country to associate mints with sex.

4 Robot Babies In Japan

Apparently, the one demographer who claimed that the Japanese would be extinct in 1,000 years got to the Japanese government. After a period of ignoring what was obviously a growing population crisis, Japanese officials are finally working to increase the birthrate—and they are doing so through robot babies.

Japanese students at the University of Tsukuba created a robot baby who sniffles, cries, giggles, and sneezes just like a human baby. Adults are encouraged to view and play with the robot baby. The ultimate goal is to spark a yearning for this kind of interaction with a real baby in the viewer’s own life, providing the motivation that the Japanese need to conceive.

3 Secretly Sterilizing Women In Uzbekistan

Despite the culture of Uzbekistan, which views having a large family as the definition of success, the government seems to be concerned with the 2.53 births per woman. So concerned, in fact, that the government ran a secret campaign to sterilize women without their knowledge or consent.

From 2010–2012, women were sterilized without their knowledge or consent in the hospital or doctor’s office after having their second child. Anonymous testimonies from patients and doctors have been collected, revealing that doctors are given quotas on how many women to sterilize each month. The pressure to sterilize girls is especially high in rural areas, where doctors are forced to sterilize up to eight girls per week.

2 Lebensborn In Nazi Germany

Although Nazi propaganda encouraging German mothers to bear as many children as possible to provide for the German army is relatively well-known, a more secret program was uncovered in the 21st century. Called Lebensborn, the program aimed to enlarge and perpetuate Aryan characteristics and the Aryan race.

Pregnant women secretly gave birth in clinics scattered about Germany and were cared for by doctors and nurses as long as they possessed the Aryan physicality of light hair and eyes. The goal of the program was to “further the Aryan race [by] whatever means were available,” a source reported.

1 Need A New Car? Pregnancy Will Take Care Of That!

Though the Soviet era in Russia spiked the birthrate, the deplorable conditions of Soviet Russia raised the death rate to an equally high level, leaving the country with a miniscule population of youth after the Soviet collapse in the late 20th century. Determined to increase their population of young people, the Russian government declared in 2007 that September 12 would be the National Day of Conception.

The national holiday, which gives couples the day off work, was created in hopes that couples would use their free time to breed (also known as “doing their civic duty”). To up the ante, women who conceived on September 12 and gave birth on June 12 (Russia Day) were eligible to win money, cars, or appliances like a new refrigerator.

In 2007, the holiday proved successful as the birthrate of the Russian region increased by 4.5 percent. After all, who would pass up the chance for a free car?

High school student Aria doubles as a freelance writer and babysitter to pay for her ambitious travel plans and (hopefully) college tuition.

Everyone craves excitement. Some people find their thrills in little things like having a second glass of wine. Other people get their dopamine buzzing with adventurous activities. As far back as we can look, humans have been pursuing adrenaline rushes. Here are ten extreme sports from history that show our ancestors were willing to risk life and limb for a little pleasure.

10 Land diving

Pentecost is one of the islands which make up the nation of Vanuatu in the South Pacific. Men of the island perform a ritual, which, to outsiders, looks like madness. Land Divers climb a 75 foot (25 meters) tall platform made from roughly hewn logs. At the top they tie a vine to each foot. Then they leap off the tower.

This ritual is said to be around 1,500 years old, though its origin is not exactly known. One of the legends is that a wife, upset by her husband’s constant sexual demands, fled into the jungle. He chased her as she climbed a tree to escape. To save herself she tied vines to her feet and jumped off. Her husband neglected to attach vines and so died when he hit the ground. Now men perform the ritual remind them not to fall for the same trick again. Land Diving is also associated with the yam crop. Those who dive from the highest height will have the best harvest.

Despite the apparent danger of the activity, injuries from Land Diving are surprisingly rare. The vines have good elasticity, and the soil beneath the tower is tilled to make it soft in case of a hard landing.

9Ancient Polo

Polo is one of the world’s oldest team sports. In the ancient world, cavalry often played the decisive role in battles. To be able to turn your mount and direct it towards gaps could turn the course of a fight. The game of polo probably developed out of cavalry practice. You would think that a game would take the danger out, but a quick glance at polo’s history reveals a bloody list of accidents.

Polo developed in the ancient Persian Empire some time before the sixth century B.C. It was a popular game among warriors. When Alexander the Great was about to invade Persia, the Persian King Darius sent him a polo mallet and ball, suggesting the young man should go back to playing games.

The game spread across Europe and Asia. The polo court of Tamerlane the Great can still be seen in Samarkand. The Byzantine Empire also took up a type of polo using nets on poles rather than mallets.

Ramming horses together at high speed, using long sticks that can get tangled in their legs, and poor safety equipment made for dangerous play. The Byzantine Emperor Manuel suffered a concussion in one game, but he got off lightly. The Emperors Alexander and John of Trebizond died while playing polo.

8Anastenaria

In various towns throughout Greece and Bulgaria, a ritual takes place each year which may be thousands of years old. In its current form, the Anastenaria is a Christian veneration of the Saints Constantine and Athanasius. Worshippers hold the icons of the saints and then walk across a pile of burning wood.

Legend has it that when a church in Bulgaria caught fire, the nearby villagers heard the voices of the saints inside calling for help. Protected by the blessings of the saints, the villagers were able to bring the icons and relics of the saints safely out of the blaze. Now they repeat the same feat and believe that it is divine grace which brings them safely over the embers.

Not everyone supports the Anastenaria. The act of firewalking has been linked to the ancient worship of the god Dionysus, and some think that this ritual is of pagan origin and therefore should not be performed by devout Christians.

7Calcio Fiorentino

The Ancient Romans had a ball game called Harpastum which was apparently similar to Rugby. A small ball was passed between players and snatched from the air without letting it touch the ground. Roman commentators thought it was the ideal exercise for young men. The Calcio Fiorentino, a game which is said to have descended from Harpastum, takes all the physical contact of Rugby and discards all of those pesky rules.

Calcio Fiorentino, or Calcio Storico—Historic Football, was played in the central square of Florence in the 16th century. Teams of 27 face each other down and try, by any means possible, to get their ball over a fence at either end of the pitch. Players can wrestle, punch, and kick to get control of the ball. To add to the martial feel of the event, each time a goal is scored a cannon is fired.

The winning team in former years used to receive a cow. Now the winners get a free meal, and the losers get to go home to tend their injuries.

6Knattleikr

Knattleikr was a Viking game—and that should be enough of a clue that things are about to get brutal. Little is known for definite about Knattleikr, but there are clues in the Viking sagas which have allowed a tentative reconstruction of the game to be made.

Two teams of burly Vikings would meet carrying bats. The bat used may have been shaped in some way to allow a ball to be caught by it, and it was, the sagas say, sometimes broken in anger. The ball the teams used was small and hard enough to draw blood or knock a man down if thrown hard enough. Where the game was played is contested. Most records suggest a frozen pond or flat plain in winter, but this does not seem to have been a requirement.

Matches could last days, like a modern day Cricket match. Less like a Cricket match, players could be tackled and knocked about while the ball was in motion.

5Chariot racing

The wealthiest sportsman to ever live was Gaius Appuleius Diocles, who, in his career as a charioteer, amassed a fortune equivalent to billions of dollars today. As we shall see, given the risks he faced, perhaps he deserved it.

The Romans loved chariot racing. Images of races appeared everywhere in the city. Fortunes were gambled. A vast track, the Circus Maximus, was constructed in Rome. It could seat over 150,000 spectators. Chariots pulled by two or four horses would race seven laps of the circus. The key to victory was seizing the inside track. Accidents were common, and a study of charioteer graves has suggested an average age of death of just 22.

Chariot racing is so dangerous that even filming recreations can be deadly. The 1926 film Ben Hur featured a chariot race which cost the lives of five horses and one stuntman.

4Water Jousting

Jousting was hilariously dangerous. You took sharp sticks and charged at other people on horseback, with the intention of knocking them off with your sharp stick. At some point, people decided this sport was not dangerous enough and decided to add the excitement of potential drowning.

In Southern France in the 17th-century, teams of young men jousted on water. A team of bachelors in a blue boat attacked married men in a red boat. It was a chivalrous combat. The two boats rowed at each other at full speed, propelled by ten oarsmen, while the champions, with a shield and armor, stood on boards attempting to knock their opponents off.

On the Ancient Nile, water combats were a contest with real world results. Fishermen on the Nile would joust for access to waters. Combat between boats of fisherman are attested to in reliefs, and they did not have dainty rules. While most of the crew controlled the boat, the fighters would have at it with poles, trying to knock the other down. Once in the water, the combatant would be at the mercy of hippos and crocodiles.

3Pankration

In Ancient Greece, Pankration was an Olympic sport in which two men faced each other in a brutal fight with hardly any rules. The only rules were that the fighters could not bite, gouge, or attack each other’s genitals. Anything else was fair game if it brought the opposition down. Loss came when you declared your submission.

Arrhichion won the Pankration contest in the ancient Olympics in an unusual way. He was being held in a chokehold by his competitor while reaching for the other’s leg. Arrhichion managed to break the other fighter’s ankle. This, understandably, made the other submit. It was then that the judges found that Arrhichion had been suffocated. Nonetheless, Arrhichion’s corpse was given the victor’s crown and paraded through the streets.

2 Mob Football

In England from the 14th century onwards, Shrove Tuesday became a popular day for youths to gather and play with a ball. These games were the genesis of not only modern soccer but also football hooliganism. An inflated pig bladder was produced with the aim of returning it to your team’s village. It was essentially a riot with a goal. Broken limbs were common, and deaths not unknown.

It was common for hundreds of men to compete in Mob Football when whole villages were competing. In large cities, it could be a competition between groups of apprentices which ran through the narrow lanes and streets. In 1365, King Edward III banned football because it was causing a nuisance and distracting able-bodied men from practicing their archery. Football trained men in fighting, just not the right sort.

In one Mob Football match in Pont-l’Abbé, France, 40 men are said to have drowned in a pond when the ball strayed into the water.

1Cretan Bull Leaping

In 1400 B.C. on Crete, at the Minoan palace a Knossos, a mural was painted showing a leaping youth back-flipping over a charging bull. Such images are not unique. Paintings and sculptures of figures grasping the horns of a bull have been found at numerous Minoan sites.

Some researchers say that such images do not display a real event but rather a mythical one. Many Cretan images show men using a bull’s horns to spring over the back of the beast, which does seem hugely risky. Others point to modern bullfighting events where young men regularly leap over bulls. It seems likely that bull-leaping was a ritual which actually took place on Crete.

It should be remembered that Ancient Crete was home to the legendary Minotaur—a half-bull, half-human monster requiring human sacrifices. Is it possible that the bull-leaping ritual, which no doubt took many young lives, lived on through the legend of the Minotaur?

Extreme sports are extremely scary.

Millions of people around the world live their daily lives without engaging in extreme sports, which either puts them on the right side of Darwinian evolution or demonstrates that they are simply too scared to push themselves to the limits of their nerve and endurance.

For those of us who don’t go outside when it is windy because tree branches are a hazard, the concept of dying while doing an extreme sport can seem like a waste of life. For extreme sport devotees, though, the thrill that they get from flying, falling, or hurtling is what makes this life worth living.

So with no further ado and a parachute that might not even open, let’s free-fall into this list of 10 people who died while participating in the extreme sports they loved more than life itself.

10 Uli Emanuele
2016

BASE (Building, Antenna, Span, and Earth) jumping is an extreme sport in which people with nerves of steel jump from objects like bridges using parachutes or wingsuits and then parachutes.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, BASE jumping has a high fatality rate and is illegal in many places.

One of the most widely known BASE jumping wingsuit deaths took place while it was being live-streamed on Facebook. Uli Emanuele was filming a wingsuit flight in the Italian Dolomite mountains when he crashed and died on impact.

Emanuele had previously performed amazing stunts, passing through tiny gaps in cliff faces in his wingsuit. He was certainly no amateur. His death shocked the wingsuit community because he was known for his precision and attention to detail when planning flights.^[1] Emanuele was 29.

9 Malik Joyeux
2005

Malik Joyeux was a big-wave surfer who grew up in Tahiti. An antidrug advocate and all-around good guy, Joyeux had won an award for surfing one of the biggest waves on his home break of Teahupo’o.

The French-born, goofy-foot surfer (which means that he led with his right foot on the board) was also a professional kite surfer and windsurfer who scraped by on sponsorship money and friendship. He was just starting to make a name for himself when he went for a surf on a seemingly uneventful day at the famous Oahu Pipeline on Hawaii’s notorious North Shore.^[2]

Joyeux’s last wave was a 2.5-meter (8 ft), thick one that crashed down on the young surfer. It pushed him under the water and destroyed his board, flinging it out of the water.

The wave was part of a set, so Joyeux was kept under the water while two other waves crashed. It took 15 minutes to find his body. Despite lifeguards and paramedics using CPR and a defibrillator, it was simply too late for the young surfer. Malik Joyeux was 25.

8 Dwain Weston
2003

Dwain Weston was a legendary Australian BASE jumper with loads of experience and air time. He was considered to be one of the top BASE jumpers of his time. However, with a sport that has an almost nonexistent margin for error, this does not guarantee safety.

Weston was a computer analyst who traveled the world, making well over 1,000 jumps. In 2002, he won the world BASE jumping title. Little did anyone know, he would not survive more than another year.

Weston’s final performance was a wingsuit jump from a plane with another person as part of a demonstration in the first year of the Go Fast Games in Colorado.

The flight plan was that both men would jump from the plane, with one flying over a bridge that spanned a railway track and the other flying under. Weston was meant to fly over the bridge. Instead, he slammed into it at 193 kilometers per hour (120 mph) and parachuted to the rocks below, his leg severed at the hip.

He died on impact with the bridge. However, this was not initially clear to the people watching from the bridge because his parachute deployed after the hit. Dwain Weston was 30 years old.^[3]

7 Jay Moriarity
2001

Jay Moriarity was an American professional surfer who received worldwide attention at only 16 when a photo of him wiping out on a big wave at Mavericks, a renowned surf break in Northern California, was published on the front cover of Surfer magazine. Mavericks is a famous ocean break that is 3 kilometers (2 mi) offshore and is known to produce waves up to 18 meters (60 ft) high.

Several top surfers have died at Mavericks dues to the heavy, pounding surf. Jay Moriarity was not one of them.

Instead, Jay died while he was training for big-wave riding. A serious surfer, Jay was intent on conditioning his body to withstand being deep underwater for long periods of time. This is important when you are riding waves the size of mountains.

Jay died free diving after climbing down a buoy rope to sit on the bottom of the ocean in the Maldives without scuba gear or flippers. Jay descended to a depth where he would usually need these things and may have blacked out while returning to the surface.^[4]

He never came up for air. Jay Moriarity was 22 years old.

6 Jimmy Hall
2007

Jimmy Hall was something of a celebrity in his home state of Hawaii. He wasn’t just involved in one extreme sport, though. He spent his life being involved in several.

Hall lived on the island of Oahu and owned a business called Hawaii Shark Encounters. Sharks are also something that millions of people successfully avoid. But Hall’s business catered to the demographic that wished to encounter them.

He was a shark expert who had swum with Hawaii’s only great white shark. After seeing footage of Hall’s experience, the Discovery Channel signed him to host Shark Week.

Hall had already booked a trip to Nunavut in Canada to participate in BASE jumping when he got the Discovery Channel contract. He was filming a documentary on Baffin Island when he died.^[5]

The documentary was to include footage of Hall BASE jumping off mountains on Baffin Island. It was during one of these parachuting jumps that Hall died. Jimmy Hall was 41 years old.

5 Erik Roner
2015

Erik Roner was a German extreme sports enthusiast who achieved a level of fame on the MTV show Nitro Circus. Sadly, he died doing an unremarkable jump with two other parachutists. The three were performing the skydiving stunt during the opening ceremony for a celebrity golf tournament in California when things went horribly wrong.^[6]

While the other two parachutists landed safely on the ground, Roner slammed into a tree and became entangled, hanging from the tree. Although onlookers and officials tried to rescue him, even going so far as to form a human ladder, the efforts were futile and Roner died in the tree. Erik Roner was 39 years old.

4 Mark Sutton
2013

When the 2012 Summer Olympics opening ceremony in London celebrated the book and movie character of James Bond, Mark Sutton was the experienced stunt double for Daniel Craig, who was playing 007.

A year later, Sutton was dead, another extreme sport victim of gravity and speed.

Sutton had jumped from a plane with fellow veteran wingsuiter Tony Uragallo. The pair had decided to follow a preplanned course. Their jump was part of a three-day wingsuiting event called HeliBASE 74, which was to be filmed by Epic TV. Sutton’s jump took place on the first day of the event.

Sutton was traveling at about 200 kilometers per hour (125 mph) when he veered off course and hit a ridge. He died on impact. A rescue helicopter immediately located his body, but there was nothing anyone could do. His parachute did not deploy. After his death, the event continued on in honor of Sutton.

Footage of the tragic flight was given to the local police. Mark Sutton was 42 when he died.^[7]

3 Caleb Moore
2013

The 2013 Winter X Games were in full swing when onlookers were horrified to see Colten Moore crash his snowmobile in an accident that separated his pelvis. At the time, Colten didn’t know that his brother, Caleb, had crashed his own snowmobile in the same spot moments earlier.

Caleb Moore had attempted a backflip off a jump. But he under-rotated, and the vehicle’s skis caught in the snow. Caleb ended up beneath the snowmobile. He walked away, but the damage was done. His heart had been injured, and he went into cardiac arrest before he was able to have surgery. Having sustained brain damage due to lack of oxygen, he died a few days later.^[8]

He was the first person to die at the Winter X games. Caleb Moore was 25 years old.

2 Dario Barrio Dominguez
2014

Dario Barrio was a popular Spanish TV chef. His successful television show had allowed him to travel all over the world and explore the culinary delights found in other countries. He was also a keen wingsuiter. Unfortunately, this led to his death.

Dominguez jumped with two other wingsuiters at the International Air Festival in the Sierra de Segura mountain range in Spain. Footage of the tragic event shows that the other two wingsuit flyers landed safely with parachutes. Dominguez has no such luck and smashed into the ground over a ridge, dying on impact. His parachute had simply not deployed.^[9]

Dario Barrio Dominguez was 41.

1 Kuraudo ‘Cloud’ Toda
2015

Kuraudo “Cloud” Toda was an inspirational young Japanese motocross rider who was involved in a serious accident while testing Suzuki bikes in 2008. This accident had left Toda paralyzed from the chest down, but the intrepid young man wanted to keep riding.

After he had healed as much as he could from his injuries, he began to ride again. Toda had a cage installed on his bike that allowed him to ride without using the lower half of his body. The cage effectively strapped him to the bike.

Toda was training for the X Games Best Whip competition when he landed in a foam pit that he had constructed with the help of his friends as a safety measure.

Tragically, the foam pit was ignited by his bike. He was unable to free himself from the bike due to the cage, so he burned to death in the pit. His helpless friends watched in horror as the flames were too hot to approach. Kuraudo “Cloud” Toda was 34 years old.^[10]

Christy Heather is an Australian novelist, lawyer, and professional writer who would never jump out of a perfectly good plane.

[WARNING: contains foul language and offensive concepts.] In their early days, The Who’s live performances would sometimes culminate in the band destroying their instruments. Guitarist Pete Townsend would hold his six-string aloft and proceed to smash it against the stage. Earlier this year, Californian indie star Phoebe Bridgers attempted a similar feat on Saturday Night Live. At the climax of her song “I Know The End”, Bridgers started bashing her guitar against a monitor. A few sparks came out, but nothing actually broke. She later tweeted that she had asked the guitar company’s permission before trying to trash their kit and assured fans that the monitor was a prop. Outrageous behavior.

Off the back of performances like that, it is easy to see why some people think punk (and other forms of protest music) is dead. The majority of musicians today seem to be terrified of controversy (or are simply now part of the status quo or paid off to not inhibit “progress” which most of them agree with anyway). Most of those who have anything of any substance to say keep quiet or dilute their message to ensure the flow of money. But towards the fringes, there are plenty of musicians who are unafraid to speak their political (typically left-wing) minds. These feisty players call out conservatives; engage in protest; and rebel against those whom they consider to be crooked politicians. Here are ten bands and artists that prove the spirit of punk is still very much alive.

Top 20 Best Rock Bands Of All Time

10 Fat White Family

Fat White Family is one of the most outspoken bands around today. The south London rockers seem to thrive on controversy, especially in their early days. First emerging in 2011, they made a name for themselves touting a confrontational blend of transgressive art, nihilism, and brazen drug references.

Their debut album, Champagne Holocaust, featured frontman Lias Saudi singing about “fifteen-year-old tongue” and throwing out such lines as “Hell hath no fury like a failed artist. Or a successful communist.” Fat White Family has gone on to release songs such as ‘Bomb Disneyland’, ‘Vagina Dentata’, and ‘Goodbye Goebbels’, a tongue-in-cheek love letter to the infamous National Socialist politician.

The band first made headlines in 2013, following the death of former British PM Margaret Thatcher. The day the Iron Lady died, Fat White Family members scrawled the words ‘The Witch is Dead’ onto a banner and joined the hundreds of people out partying in Brixton to celebrate Thatcher’s demise.

The notorious shock merchants have since found themselves at the center of various controversies. There are rumors of band members stripping naked on stage and covering themselves in poop. US music site Pitchfork criticized Saudi, who has Algerian heritage, for using the term “sand nigger” in a satirical Twitter post. In 2020, the band was attacked online after Saudi wrote a damning treatise against Bristol punk band Idles.

Despite that madness, the band finds their antics to be fairly innocuous. “It’s not like we’re breaking any boundaries or anything, y’know?” they told reporters back in 2015. “People got naked and covered themselves in sh——t on stage like thirty years ago. It’s nothing new… I don’t think we’re doing anything unique or special.”

9 Sleaford Mods

Sleaford Mods are another British group raging against the establishment with their pro-vegan and socialist viewpoint (missing the irony of wearing a Cartier watch . . . oops). Originating in Nottingham, the duo soon earned a formidable reputation for their in-your-face live shows. During performances, frontman Jason Williamson howls obscene lyrics of Brexit-era Britain at the audience. His partner in crime Andrew Fearn stumbles about behind him, loading up angry, jagged instrumentals for Williamson to rant over.

“I’m sick of trying to hold it down,” he rages. “I just want to get f——cked up all the time. I wanna leave work, go pub, buy drugs, and f——cking spit at people.”

Sleaford Mods released their latest record, Spare Ribs, at the start of 2021. The album features tracks like ‘Shortcummings’, a piece about conservative political advisor Dominic Cummings, and ‘Out There’ which the NME described as “a perfectly tragicomic painting of our Plague Island.”

8 Goat Girl

When band members give themselves names like L.E.D, Clottie Cream, Holly Hole, and Rosy Bones, you know they mean business. London-based Goat Girl is a band with extremist political intent (as is pretty much every band or form of “entertainment” these days).

Their self-titled debut album was described by singer and guitarist Clottie Cream as being “about gentrification and the wealth gap that exists in London, which is insane.” On ‘Burn The Stake’, ¬she implores the listener to “Build a bonfire. Build a bonfire. Put the Tories on top. Put the D.U.P. in the middle and we’ll burn the f——cking lot.” It is a fierce track lambasting Britain’s ruling alliance between Boris Johnson’s Conservative party and the Northern Irish right-wing.

7 Amanda Palmer

Journalists have called Amanda Palmer a pioneer of crowdfunding, a DIY musician adored by fans the world over. In 2013, the former Dresden Dolls member found herself in the tabloids after a minor onstage wardrobe malfunction. Palmer claims that The Daily Mail wrote an entire article about her nip slip but failed to mention anything about the performance itself. Instead, the journalist focused solely on the fact that one of Palmer’s breasts had apparently “escaped her bra”. She says the Daily Mail published photos of the incident under the title “Making a boob of herself!”

Amanda Palmer is no stranger to nudity. As she pointed out, if the newspaper had put in the slightest bit of effort to look her up they would have found far more salacious images online. Palmer found the experience to be so odd that she performed a song about it at the Roundhouse in London. “It’s so sad what you tabloids are doing,” she sang as a waltz to an audience of devoted fans. “Your focus on debasing women’s appearances devolves our species of humans”.

Halfway through the tune, the acclaimed songwriter stripped off completely in protest at her treatment by the British press. In video footage, she can be seen tossing her kimono to the side and completed the song wearing nothing but a pair of black gloves. “It’s just a naked woman,” she told her whooping audience with a wry smile, before finishing the song with a rousing cry of “Dear Daily Mail, up yours.”

6 Stormzy

Michael Ebenezer Kwadjo Omari Owuo Jr, better known as Stomzy, is one of the most popular rappers in Britain today. But in 2018 he used his position as a well-known musician to attack the government. At that year’s Brit Awards, the grime MC criticized then-prime minister Theresa May in an impassioned performance.

“Yo, Theresa May where’s that money for Grenfell? What you thought we just forgot about Grenfell?” In June 2017, the residential Grenfell Tower block went up in flames. The blaze killed 71 people and left hundreds more without a home. “You criminals,” he continued, “and you got the cheek to call us savages. You should do some jail time. You should pay some damage. We should burn your house down and see if you can manage this.” Stormzy went on to win Best British Male and Best Album at the ceremony.

5 Noname

Noname is another hip-hop artist continuing the tradition of political rebellion. The Chicago rapper is known for her songs on race, sex, and identity, all of which inform her politically focussed lyrics. Although she started as a self-declared poet, she soon turned to rap music, collaborating with her Chicago peers like Chance The Rapper and Saba.

Like Chance, Noname refuses to sign to a record label. Instead, she is an independent artist who finances her own projects and is proud of what she calls her “fight the man mentality.” Noname used the money from her 2016 mixtape Telefone to pay for her debut album Room 25.

4 Slowthai

Over the last few years, Tyron Frampton has become something of a national sensation. Born in the English town of Northampton, the rapper is known for his no-nonsense attacks on the British government.

In September 2019, Slowthai performed at an awards show holding an effigy of Boris Johnson’s severed head. He walked on stage at the Hyundai Mercury Prize with a decapitated dummy of the British prime minister, shouting, “Fu——k Boris Johnson, f——ck everything, and there’s nothing great about Britain.”

Some social media users were quick to criticize Slowthai’s stunt, but the rapper was having none of it. “Last night I held a mirror up to this country,” he wrote on Twitter “and some people don’t like its reflection. Yet this is exactly where we’re being taken, cut off and at all costs. The people in power who are trying to isolate and divide us aren’t the ones who will feel its effects the hardest.”

3 Pussy Riot

For the last ten years, Pussy Riot has been fighting back against the alleged human rights abuses of the Russian government. The musical outfit is known for its outrageous, attention-grabbing stunts. Several members have been jailed for criticizing the Kremlin.

Formed in Moscow, the group staged its first performance in November 2011. The band clambered up scaffolding, ripped open pillows, and threw the feathers onto the subway below. Other early outings included a show next door to Moscow Detention Center. In another, called ‘Putin Z——ssa’ aka ‘Putin Has P——ssed Himself’, they let off a smoke bomb in the Red Square.

Global notoriety came in 2012 when they demonstrated against the re-election of Vladimir Putin. Putin won the vote amidst accusations of rigging the ballot (much like the US and Joe Biden recently). Five Pussy Riot members in colored balaclavas staged a protest in the Cathedral of Christ the Savior. They leapt around the altar singing their anti-Putin anthem ‘A Punk Prayer’ under the slogan “Sr——n Gospodnya” (“sh——t to the Lord”).

Maria Alyokhina and Nadezhda Tolokonnikova were jailed for their role in the stunt. Both women were sent to gulags hundreds of miles from their families. After their release in 2014, the band started playing more conventional gigs. They described them as a “subversive mix of activist art and live set.”

But in 2018 Pussy Riot made headlines once again when they invaded the final of the Russian World Cup. Four members ran onto the pitch of Moscow’s Luzhniki Stadium dressed in police uniform. The band demanded that the Russian government:

• Free all political prisoners
• Stop arrests at public rallies
• Allow political competition in the country
• Stop fabricating criminal cases and jailing people on remand for no reason

The stunt took place during the second half of the France v Croatia match, in which France won 4-2.

After the pitch invasion, Tolokonnikova’s ex-husband Pyotr Verzilov fell ill and was taken to hospital in serious condition. Doctors strongly believe that he was poisoned.

2 Grup Yorum

Grup Yorum is, without a doubt, one of the most rebellious bands that have ever existed. The Turkish folk group (who are really punk in spirit only) has battled against state repression since they formed in 1985. The founding members created the group as students at Marmara University. They were inspired by the left-wing Nueva Cancion cultural movement of Latin America.

Despite changes in the band’s line-up, Grup Yorum has kept its firm “progressive” stance. The band performs folk music shaped by centuries of traditional Turkish culture. But Grup Yorum is not stuck in the past. Their songs also explore themes like the killing of teenager Berkin Elvan by state police, the Kurdish liberation struggle, and women’s rights.

The Turkish government has responded by banning their live shows, arresting many of their members, and raided their cultural center in Istanbul on several occasions. They accuse the band of being part of the Marxist-Leninist group DHKP-C. But state repression could not kill the band’s popularity. In 2015, Grup Yorum held a free concert in the western city of Izmir. Over a million people are said to have turned up.

After the attempted coup in 2016, the Erdoğan regime stepped up its attacks on the group. Six members were announced as wanted terrorists as placed on the government’s “grey list”. Two fled to Europe, while another five were arrested and sent to prison. In May 2019, they made the decision to go on a hunger strike.

On April 3rd, 2020, after 288 days without food, singer Helin Bölek died. She was 28. Mustafa Koçak, a supporter of the band who joined them in their hunger strike, died three weeks later. Bassist İbrahim Gökçek also passed away, aged 39, on May 7th. All three died fighting for the right to perform and demanding their freedom of expression.

1 Kunt and the Gang

Kunt and the Gang is rebellious irreverence at its very best. Despite the name, the act is made up of one man, a foul-mouthed synth player from the British town of Basildon. Kunt started out in 2003, playing provocative comedy hits like ‘A Lonely Wank in a Travelodge’, ‘Jimmy Saville & The Sexy Kids’, and ‘Sh——tting On A Picture of the Queen’.

Then, in December 2020, Kunt and the Gang released his first big single. ‘Boris Johnson Is A F——cking C——nt’ is less than a minute long, but it is clear in its message. The novelty protest piece made it to number five in the Christmas charts and went on to become the twentieth best-selling song of that year. Clearly, it must have captured something in the psyche of the British progressive public.

Top 10 Disturbing Facts About Sid & Nancy’s Doomed Relationship

The human rights of women throughout the Middle East and North Africa are systematically denied by each of the countries in the region, despite the diversity of their political systems. Many governments routinely suppress civil society by restricting freedom of the press, expression, and assembly. These restrictions adversely affect both men and women; however, women are subject to a host of additional gender-specific human rights violations. For example, family, penal, and citizenship laws throughout the region relegate women to a subordinate status compared to their male counterparts. This legal discrimination undermines women’s full personhood and equal participation in society and puts women at an increased risk for violence.

Family matters in countries as diverse as Iran, Egypt, Israel, Lebanon, and Saudi Arabia are governed by religion-based personal status codes. Many of these laws treat women essentially as legal minors under the eternal guardianship of their male family members. Family decision-making is thought to be the exclusive domain of men, who enjoy by default the legal status of “head of household.” These notions are supported by family courts in the region that often reinforce the primacy of male decision-making power.

Here are ten of the most extreme examples of gender inequality you can find currently practiced, often state-sanctioned, in the world today.

In Saudi Arabia, women aren’t allowed to drive, or even ride bikes, and men aren’t allowed to drive women they’re not closely related to. The kingdom is currently dealing with the dilemma of how to get 367,000 girls to school on buses that can only be driven by men. The logical question at this point is this: If no men are allowed to come in contact with schoolgirls, and women aren’t allowed to drive, who will be driving the school buses? The Ministry of Education is currently recruiting “Al-Ameen” or trustworthy men for this initiative. It may be hard for some to take this term seriously considering the way Saudi Arabia’s religious police infamously broke the trust of 15 girls’ parents in 2002 when a girls’ school was on fire. The police forbade them from leaving the building, and in some cases beat them to keep them from leaving, because the girls’ heads weren’t properly veiled. The girls all died in the fire. One has to wonder how the Ministry of Education plans to handle school-bus breakdowns near similarly inclined men.

In 2001 a militant group called Lashkar-e-Jabar demanded that Muslim women in Kashmir wear burqas, head to toe garments that cover their clothes, or risk being attacked. Men threw acid in the faces of two women for not covering up in public. The group also demanded that Hindu and Sikh women dress so as to identify themselves: they said that Hindu women should wear a bindi (the traditional colored dot) on their foreheads, and Sikh women should cover their heads with saffron-colored cloth.

In many countries, while husbands can divorce their spouses easily (often instantaneously through oral repudiation), wives’ access to divorce is often extremely limited, and they frequently confront near insurmountable legal and financial obstacles. In Lebanon, battered women cannot file for divorce on the basis of abuse without the testimony of an eyewitness. A medical certificate from a doctor documenting physical abuse is simply not good enough. Although women in Egypt can now legally initiate a divorce without cause, they must agree not only to renounce all rights to the couple’s finances, but must also repay their dowries. Essentially, they have to buy their freedom. In Israel, a man must grant his wife a get, a Jewish divorce writ that can only be given by a man to his wife – never the other way around.

In many areas of Afghanistan, girls are often taken out of school when they hit puberty. Cultural factors related to the ‘correctness’ of sending girls to school, reluctance to send girls and boys to the same school after third grade, as well as the perceived and real security threats related to girls walking to school and attending classes all contribute to slowing down the enrollment of girls in schools. Likewise, the enormous lack of female teachers, who are fundamental in a country where girls cannot be taught by a man after a certain age, is having a negative impact on girls’ education. While progress has been made since the fall of the Taliban, women are still struggling to see their rights fulfilled. Literacy rates among young Afghan women are disturbingly low: only 18 per cent of women between 15 and 24 can read. While the total number of children enrolled in primary schools is increasing tremendously, the percentage of female students is not.

Husbands in Egypt and Bahrain can file an official complaint at the airport to forbid their wives from leaving the country for any reason. In Syria, a husband can prevent his wife from leaving the country. In Iraq, Libya, Jordan, Morocco, Oman and Yemen, married women must have their husband’s written permission to travel abroad, and they may be prevented from doing so for any reason. In Saudi Arabia, women must obtain written permission from their closest male relative to leave the country or travel on public transportation between different parts of the kingdom.

Women’s unequal legal rights increase their vulnerability to violence. In many countries in the region, no specific laws or provisions exist to penalize domestic violence, even though domestic violence is a widespread problem. Domestic violence is generally considered to be a private matter outside the state’s jurisdiction. Battered women are told to go home if they attempt to file a complaint with the police. Few shelters exist to protect women who fear for their lives. Spousal rape has not been criminalized; husbands have an absolute right to their wives’ bodies at all times. Penal codes in several countries in the region also contain provisions that authorize the police and judges to drop charges against a rapist if he agrees to marry his victim.

In Bahrain, where family law is not codified, judges have complete power to deny women custody of their children for the most arbitrary reasons. Bahraini women who have been courageous enough to expose and challenge these violations in 2003 were sued for slander by eleven family court judges.

Most countries in the region-with the exception of Iran, Tunisia, Israel, and to a limited extent Egypt-have permitted only fathers to pass citizenship on to their children. Women married to non-nationals are denied this fundamental right.

Many countries criminalize adult, consensual sex outside of marriage. In Morocco, women are much more likely to be charged with having violated penal code prohibitions on sexual relations outside of marriage than men. Unmarried pregnant women are particularly at risk of prosecution. The Moroccan penal code also considers the rape of a virgin as an aggravating circumstance of assault. The message is clear: the degree of punishment of the perpetrator is determined by the sexual experience of the victim.

China’s one child policy has heightened the disdain for female infants; abortion, neglect, abandonment, and infanticide have been known to occur to female infants. The result of such family planning has been the disparate ratio of 114 males for every 100 females among babies from birth through children four years of age. Normally, 105 males are naturally born for every 100 females.

Similarly, the number of girls born and surviving in India is significantly less compared with the number of boys, due to the disproportionate numbers of female fetuses being aborted and baby girls deliberately neglected and left to die. The normal ratio of births should be 950 girls for every 1000 boys, however in some regions the number is as low as 300.

Bear Grylls of Man vs. Wild fame has lived an intense life. He was a member of the British SAS, has adventured all over the world, and has walked away from things that would kill an average person. There aren’t many things Grylls won’t do, but everyone has a limit — even him.

These ten adventures are those Grylls hasn’t done, and they may even be too extreme for him… or he hasn’t gotten to them yet. Either way, these adventures are some of the most extreme you can go on if you think you’re anywhere near Grylls’ level of intense adventuring.

10 Wild Stories Of How Celebrities Got Their Scars

10 Volcano Boarding Down Cerro Negro

If you’re not familiar with “volcano surfing,” and think it has something to do with surfing a lava flow, you’re not too far off. Granted, the lava you’ll be surfing on the Cerro Negro just outside Leon, Nicaragua, has cooled considerably since it first erupted from the mountain.

That said, Cerro Negro is an active volcano, as it’s relatively new, having formed a little more than 160 years ago. The cone of the volcano is comprised of small grains of volcanic rock, and somebody figured out that it wasn’t only possible to surf down, it’s also a hell of a lot of fun!

This is one of those adventures that’s not prohibitively dangerous, though it isn’t without risk. To partake of the volcano’s thrills, you need to strap a wooden board to your back and hike 728 meters (2,388 feet) up the black, rocky mountain. It takes about 45 minutes, but once you reach the top, you get to surf down.

Depending on your level of skill (or insanity), you can either sit or stand atop the board as you head down. You have to wear a one-piece suit for crash protection, and you’ll be happy you have it if you fall. Volcanic rock is incredibly sharp, and falling could mean shredding your skin.^[1]

9 The Running Of The Bulls

This particular adventure is one that most people have heard of before, as it’s quite well-known worldwide. Every year, the city of Pamplona, Spain, features the highly publicized running of the Bulls as part of the San Fermín festival, which is held annually from 6-14 July. A run is conducted first on the 7th and then continues each day of the festival at 8:00 am.

The running of the bulls has been publicly broadcast for more than 30 years, and that has resulted in all manner of tourists and locals coming to the city to participate in the event. To do so, you have to be at least 18-years-old, run in the direction of the bulls, not antagonize the animals, and not be under the influence of alcohol.

Participants don’t so much run with the bulls as they run from them, and it’s fairly dangerous. There are six bulls used in each run and two oxen groups, which amounts to several tons of freaked-out animals running like crazy at speeds reaching 24 kph (15 mph).

There are often injuries, and rarely, people are killed, though only 15 deaths have been recorded since record-keeping began in 1910. Participants are more likely to be injured by bumping into one another, or if a pileup occurs, which can result in high numbers of trampling injuries.^[2][3]

8 Wing Walking

Bear Grylls has shown the world that despite his fear of heights, he’s more than willing to jump out of just about anything that flies. Still, he hasn’t done one of the most dangerous extreme sports available to a willing few. Wing walking is pretty much what it sounds like, and it’s not only dangerous, it’s difficult.

To wing walk, you’ll need a couple of things. First, you’ll need some training, and secondly, you’ll need a plane suitable for the endeavor. A jet isn’t going to work due to their speeds, so you’ll want to find a good old fashioned prop plane, and “old fashioned” is key.

Wing walkers typically use biplanes for their aerial acrobatics, which is what performers first used a century ago for daredevil shows. Wing walking is often more than merely strapping one’s feet to the wings of a plane. Many performers have demonstrated an ability to hang on during various aerial maneuvers.

Some have even crossed from one plane to another, though it’s not without risk. In 2018, Canadian rapper Jon “Jon James” McMurray died during a wing walk, which he was doing for a music video.^[4] Typically, wing walking is left to professionals. Still, an average person can give it a shot — they’ll just need to attend training at places like the Mason Wing Walking Academy in Sequim, Washington.^[5]

7 Shark-Diving Around Guadalupe Island Without A Cage

If you’ve seen Jaws, you probably have a fear of sharks, and while it’s rational to give these large fish space, the truth of Great White sharks is that they don’t like eating people. Unfortunately, they like to test bite things they don’t recognize, which could be incredibly dangerous for a diver.

Despite this, people cage-dive among sharks all the time, and because they have the protection of the cage, it’s far less dangerous than it looks. That’s fine for most people, but believe it or not, some divers prefer to chuck the cage and dive right in, though it’s incredibly rare.

It used to be more common, but Mexico rarely grants permits for people to swim its waters without a cage. Still, specialized shark diving permits are granted, so if you can meet the nation’s stringent requirements, you can share the water with a Great White shark, sans the cage.

Because there are far more interesting things for the sharks to eat than a diver, the risk is far less than most people think. Still, it is a risk, and shouldn’t be attempted without knowing what you’re getting yourself into, and at the end of the day, it’s always best to use a cage.^[6]

6 Kayak Across The English Channel

The English Channel is between 240 km (150 mi) and 34 km (21 mi) wide, and like any stretch of dangerous water, it’s one people have been crossing in various ways for centuries. The waters are often frigid, and the Channel is one of the world’s busiest shipping lanes, which makes kayaking across dangerous.

It’s not the same as kayaking a dangerous river filled with rapids because it’s on open water. It’s best to charter support craft and guides to ensure you get to where you’re going safely. (LINK AAA) Making a crossing can take around six hours, so it’s not for the faint of heart.

Still, it’s possible to go on this particular adventure without being an expert kayaker. Training on the small craft for only a few months may be enough to ensure you get from the United Kingdom to the European mainland in one piece.

While it’s possible to make the crossing with minimal training, it would be wise to train for as much as a year before taking the trip. If you’re feeling particularly adventurous, you could attempt this without a support craft nearby, but it’s not recommended.^[7][8]

Top 10 Most Dangerous Places on Earth

5 Ice Climbing Wolverine At Helmcken Falls

Bear Grylls is no stranger to dangerous climbs, and throughout his long adventurous career, he’s tackled some of the world’s most difficult mountains. There’s one climb he has yet to attempt, and it’s one that’s considered the most dangerous ice climb on the planet: Helmcken Falls.

Helmcken Falls is a gorgeous waterfall that sits along the Murtle River within Wells Gray Provincial Park in British Colombia, Canada. The falls measure 141 meters (463 feet), making them the fourth-highest in Canada. It’s a beautiful sight during the summer months, but once it gets cold, the whole thing freezes into a jagged and perilous series of sharp icicles.

It is possible to climb the falls, though it shouldn’t be attempted by anyone who isn’t an expert climber. When the falls freeze, they create an ice cone extending as high as 50 meters, so climbing them requires going up the cave the falls extend over, and it’s incredibly steep.

The most dangerous climb is called Wolverine, and it’s been rated a WI 11, which is the highest rating on the WI numeric scale. Wolverine is the only known climb to feature this rating, which involves steep climbing through aerated spray ice. The designation was given by Klemen Premrl and Tim Emmett after becoming the first to accomplish the feat in February 2012.^[9]

4 Free Solo Climbing El Capitan

When a person goes rock climbing, they have a ton of gear, and depending on their level of expertise, that gear could mean the difference between life and death. For those climbers far more experienced than most, another option called “free solo climbing” is something they can do, but it’s not for novices.

Free-solo climbing means climbing all on your own without any rope, harnesses, or protective equipment. Essentially, it’s about the closest a person can get to becoming Spider-Man in real life, and there are an intrepid few who do it regularly.

The most dangerous rock to climb in this manner is arguably El Capitan, found in Yosemite National Park. The granite cliff is nearly 3,000 feet high, and it’s almost entirely vertical. If that sounds impossible, it’s actually been done before… by one person.

In 2017, Alex Honnold managed the climb without any ropes or safety gear. He began climbing at 5:32 am and made it to the top just under four hours later. While it’s certainly possible to attempt such a climb yourself, it isn’t recommended unless you’re at Honnold’s level.^[10]

3 Cave Diving The Blue Hole

Diving is a relatively safe activity, so long as you have the proper training. When it comes to cave diving — that’s an entirely different activity, and it’s one of the most dangerous things a person can do. While diving any cave is potentially deadly, the most hazardous underwater cave is “The Blue Hole,” which is found north of Dahab, Egypt, in the Red Sea.

There are many so-called “Blue Holes” around the world, but only one people call The Blue Hole. It is a submarine sinkhole that is 100 meters (328 feet) deep with a shallow opening to the sea, known as the saddle. It has a 26 meter (85 feet) tunnel called “the Arch,” and the area has an abundance of coral and fish.

The Blue Hole attracts freedivers and cave divers from all over, but it’s widely known to be the deadliest dive spot anywhere on Earth. Estimates of fatalities have reached as high as 200+ divers.

People have found the bodies of divers in the Blue Hole’s depths, and there are memorial stones scattered about, marking their passing. The Blue Hole is navigable, and plenty of people survive diving it every year. Still, experienced divers have succumbed to its depths, so enter with caution.¹¹

2 BASE Jumping Mount Everest

This adventure requires an excessive amount of training to do, seeing as it starts with climbing Mount Everest. Grylls famously climbed to the summit at the age of 23, but he didn’t take a flying leap off while wearing a wingsuit.

The feat seems impossible, but it’s actually been done once before. Valery Rozov was a famous Russian BASE jumper, and his biggest claim to fame (of many) was a successful BASE jump from the Changtse (northern peak of Mount Everest) using a specially-designed Red Bull wingsuit.

Rozov managed to jump from a height of 7,220 meters (23,690 feet), which was a record at the time. He glided down to the Rongbuk glacier more than 1,000 meters below, reaching speeds up to 125 mph on the trip.

It is possible to do what Rozov did. Still, it requires several things: you’ll need to use a similar wingsuit, you’ll need to train and hike the summit of Mt. Everest, and depending on where you do it, you may need permission from the Chinese government so you don’t violate their airspace.^[12]

1 Solo Cross Antarctica

One of the most dangerous expeditions a person could ever undertake is a crossing of Antarctica. The frozen continent has long been a goal of many an explorer, and it wasn’t until 1911 that an expedition made it to the South Pole. That’s something Grylls has done but crossing the continent… that’s something altogether much more dangerous.

Crossing the continent with a team has been done to death — literally, on many occasions — but doing it solo wasn’t accomplished until 2018. Colin O’Brady and Louis Rudd started on the same day, but took slightly different routes, and managed to cross the continent unsupported and unassisted while dragging a 300 lb. sled behind them.

To do this, they had to make it across without resupplies or supply drops, and they had to make the trek entirely on their own. Their expeditions began at the end of the Ronne Ice Shelf on November 3rd. Both men passed through the South Pole Research Station to complete their trek on 26 and 28 December.

Antarctica is open and ready for anyone willing to make the journey, so it’s possible to attempt a crossing. Doing so requires quite a bit of training, supplies, money, and conditioning, but it is possible.^[13]

10 Insane Tours That Are Extremely Dangerous

No one likes to feel embarrassed for any reason. It’s one of the more unpleasant sensations you can deal with that doesn’t include any physical pain and in the worst instances it can really harm someone emotionally or psychologically. 

There are ways to deal with embarrassment to make sure it doesn’t affect you but not everyone is able to cope with it as well as others. Sometimes the reactions are completely unexpected and extreme.

10. KISS Made a Movie No One Was Allowed to Talk About

KISS was hands down one of the biggest rock n’ roll acts of the ’70s and well beyond. Their shows were theatrical in ways few others were and the band members created personas to go along with the makeup they wore for their performances. It’s no wonder that there was some crossover appeal, and the idea arose that maybe the band should be involved in a movie. So along came 1978’s KISS Meets the Phantom of the Park. 

The movie is a made for TV feature and it was produced by cartoon company Hanna-Barbera which explains the nearly Scooby Doo name for the film and its plot which involves the band using magical powers to protect an amusement park from a sinister inventor who wants to tear it down.

The movie was objectively bad. We know this because even KISS hates it. Paul Stanley says they were sold on the idea of the movie when they were told it was like A Hard Day’s Night meets Star Wars. He also said he and the rest of the band were idiots who didn’t know anything. 

Stanley said it’s kitsch these days, but it was never meant to be while also acknowledging that no one in the band read the script. He said he was so embarrassed upon his initial viewing he basically slid down onto the floor.

Stanley said it’s kitsch these days but it was never meant to be while also acknowledging that no one in the band read the script. He said he was so embarrassed upon his initial viewing he basically slid down onto the floor.

Though the band seems to have more or less come to terms with how bad it is, for years no one who worked for them was even allowed to mention it around them.

9. King Francis Found the Erotic Artwork of Pompeii So Embarrassing He Locked It Up

The city of Pompeii was destroyed by the sudden and devastating eruption of Mt. Vesuvius all the way back in the year 79. The remains were only discovered in the year 1748 and the stark contrast between Victorian sensibilities and those of the ancient residents of Pompeii did not go unnoticed. 

The people on Pompeii were not ashamed of art that included depictions of sex and nudity. But the Victorians certainly were, at least publicly. The erotic artworks were so shocking that Kin Francis had what he considered the worst of it locked away in a secret room after viewing a display in 1819.

The secret room was not fully secret, of course. It could be accessed by “people of mature age and respected morals” which seemed to mean rich men who could afford to see the King’s historical peep show. 

To outsiders it was just an example of the King being embarrassed by what he’d seen since he had gone to the museum exhibit with his wife and daughter for his initial viewing. . 

8. A Russian Chess Master Who Lost to Bobby Fischer Was Punished by His Government

The Soviet Union had a chip on its shoulder when it came to international competition. Rocky gave us a nice fictional version of this with Ivan Drago taking on Rocky, but in real life their chess champ Mark Taimanov dealt with a much worse fate when he proved himself unable to show Soviet dominance. 

In 1971 Taimanov faced off against US champion Bobby Fischer. Taimanov lost 0-6. This loss wasn’t just the loss of a chess game for the Soviets. Mired in the Cold War as they were, it was symbolic and it was considered a massive embarrassment to lose so badly. So they responded in the worst way possible by punishing Taimanov for his failure. 

He was stripped of any titles he had earned and forbidden from traveling. Taimanov had been a pianist aside from being a chess player and the travel restriction meant he had no real way to earn a living anymore, which was intentional. As a Soviet grandmaster, his salary was entirely from the government. They took it from him and left him nothing for two years. 

7. The Guillotin Family Changed Their Family Name

The guillotine is one of the more infamous creations of the French Revolution and synonymous with both the end of the aristocracy and, of course, beheadings. It’s named for Joseph-Ignace Guillotin, a doctor and the man often listed as the device’s inventor. 

Not only did Guillotin not invent the guillotine, he didn’t even like it. He was against the death penalty entirely. However, as a doctor, he wanted to ensure those who were executed were executed as humanely as possible and it was his opinion that the guillotine was the best method France had available when compared to being burned or drawn and quartered. So he reluctantly and unintentionally became the tool’s spokesman in that regard. He convinced the government to use it as the only method of execution.

His family hated that the machine was named after him and even tried to get the government to change the name. They refused. As a last resort, out of sheer embarrassment, they changed their own name to avoid any association. 

6. Stethoscopes Were Invented by a Doctor Too Embarrassed to Listen to the Chest of a Female Patient

A stethoscope is a pretty ubiquitous tool in the world of doctors today but it wasn’t always so. The device only exists because one doctor in the 1860s was too embarrassed to do his job properly.

The stethoscope is used to listen to a heartbeat. Most doctors did this by just putting their ear to a patient’s chest. But French doctor Rene Laennec felt too uncomfortable doing this to female patients. And, in fairness, female patients of male doctors are probably happy to have less direct contact.

In order to get past the discomfort of actually touching his patient, Laennec rolled a tube of paper and used that. He was surprised to notice it worked better than his ear alone. He went on to refine the design by using a wooden tube and they evolved from there.

5. Edward De Vere Farted in Front of the Queen and Exiled Himself for 7 Years

Edward de Vere, the 17th Earl of Oxford was born in 1550 and had an experience no one ever wants. When in the presence of the Queen. His claim to fame comes from a book called Brief Lives by John Aubrey. In it, Aubrey describes the incident in which the Earl met the Queen and let loose a fart in her presence.

So embarrassed was De Vere that he immediately left court and stayed out of England for 7 years in an effort to try to live it down. When he finally returned the Queen was more than welcoming and remarked “My lord, I had forgot the fart.”

4. George Levick Observed Embarrassing Sexuality in Penguins So he Wrote About Them in Greek To Hide the Truth

There’s a reason that we use words like “animalistic,” “savage,” and “bestial” to describe when people are acting a certain way. We describe extreme behaviors in terms we’d use to describe the behavior of animals because they lack the reason and intelligence we expect from human behavior. Usually these words describe violence but they can also describe something remarkably stupid, clumsy or, in some cases, sexual. And that’s where the embarrassment comes in. 

If you’re describing animal behavior, you shouldn’t expect it to have any of the same decorum or morality of human behavior, but explorer Dr. George Levick was not prepared for that when he made it to Antarctica in 1910. When confronted by penguins for the first time, birds he would go on to describe as “hooligans” but not in a way that was meant to be funny, he was shocked. 

The sexual activities he observed among penguins included necrophilia and other unpalatable behaviors. So, despite writing about them, he was too embarrassed to actually share any of his observations. The pamphlet he wrote, “Sexual Habits of Adélie Penguins,” was written entirely in Greek so few if any people back home in England would understand it. Only the “educated” would be able to understand and deal with the shocking truth of penguins. 

3. Orson Welles was Embarrassed By His Own Nose 

To this day, Orson Welles is regarded as one of the best filmmakers of all time. His masterpiece Citizen Kane is considered one of, if not the single greatest film of all time by many critics while some consider Touch of Evil to be even better. 

He was a writer, a director and an actor of great acclaim so it’s kind of curious to note that he suffered a remarkable insecurity in his work life. Welles was terribly embarrassed by his own nose. 

If you watch enough of his films, you’ll notice something unusual about his face. His nose changes from role to role and it almost never looks the same twice. That’s because he was wearing a fake nose in every film he made. He was constantly wearing prosthetics so no one could see his real nose. 

Welles felt his real nose was too small and lacked character. This became such a problem that, on one film, they had to wait two days to film anything because Welles’ nose was lost in transit.

2. Hail to the Chief Was Used to Prevent James Polk From being Embarrassed That No One Noticed Him

If you’re an American or even just someone who’s seen a movie featuring an American President entering a room, you’ve probably heard the song Hail to the Chief. It’s the standard music to introduce the President to a crowd and signal that they have arrived. 

The history of the song dates back to a poem well before it was set to music. It was used to honor George Washington once sometime after his death but the first use of the song for a living President was in 1828 when it was performed for John Quincy Adams. 

Julia Tyler, wife of John Tyler, was the first to ask that it be used to announce her husband’s arrival. But we can thank Sarah Polk, wife of James Polk, who decided it should be standard routine for the song to be played every time the President arrived somewhere. 

The reason for Polk was that her husband was not a man with a commanding presence and it seemed like no one noticed when he arrived most times so, to avoid the embarrassment of no one realizing he was there, the song would make sure everyone knew. 

1. Japan Has Many Sound-Masking Toilet Technologies

There aren’t a lot of things that are so embarrassing on a cultural level that whole industries spring up to profit off of it but there is at least one such case in Japan. 

The cultural taboo around the sounds made in the bathroom has become so prominent that numerous products have been developed to help mask, subdue, overwhelm and disguise those noises so everyone can pretend they don’t exist. 

The Sound Princess or Otohime is one such device. It creates the sound of running water to mask the sound of urination. For a time, the embarrassment over having to hear their own urination had led some women to just constantly flush the toilet again and again to mask it. The Sound Princess was a much simpler and more ecologically friendly way to accomplish the same goal. 

Japan has dozens of high-tech toilet designs these days, all of which seem to include some kind of sound masking technology to assist those who want to mask their own noises. This actually dates back to at least the Edo period in Japan in the 1600s. Bamboo taps would allow water to flow to disguise the sounds of anyone using the facilities.

Self-defense is big business. You could learn boxing, jiu-jitsu, krav maga and dozens of other fighting styles. You can also invest in tools that range from telescoping batons to tasers to high-powered rifles. If you want to defend yourself, the sky’s the limit. Animals, on the other hand, have far less at their disposal. Most rely on their ability to flee or hide and those that fight typically just use teeth and claws. But every so often an animal comes up with a really novel way to protect itself.

10. Exploding Ants Blow Up On Enemies

No one can tell you exactly how many ants there are in the world and for good reason – how would anyone ever know? Even estimates can be pretty wild, but some guess around 100 trillion. Fire ants have painful stings and bullet ants are legendary for the paint that their bites cause. But even among ants, you have to hand it to exploding ants when it comes to self defense. Their name makes it pretty clear these little things are on a whole new level. 

Found in the trees of Borneo, these ants react to threats in the most dramatic way imaginable. Known as Colobopsis explodens, the ants are able to rupture their own bodies by flexing them so hard they burst in a process that not only kills them but covers their attack in a sticky and toxic mixture of internal fluids. The process will either kill or disable the attacker.

9. Sea Cucumbers Shoot Their Guts at Enemies

Sometimes the best defense is a good offense. And the best offense is to be incredibly disgusting. Enter the sea cucumber and its gut regurgitation method of defense that may not be physically damaging but, if nothing else, is psychologically traumatizing to would-be attackers.

Though some species do vaguely resemble cucumbers, sea cucumbers are classified as echinoderms. They are invertebrates, which means they don’t have a spinal column like shellfish, worms, jellyfish and so on. What they do have is a digestive system and, when threatened, they can force it right out of their bodies at predators.  

A shark is able to puke its own stomach out as a way of cleaning it and then swallow it again, but that’s not how a sea cucumber works. Once those guts come out, they stay out. The animal is then able to just grow new ones. It takes a couple of weeks, but it beats being eaten. 

8. Bees Cook Wasps Or Resort to Poop

Most of us don’t need to be told how a bee defends itself. Bee stings are fairly well known and they’re the reason most of us don’t go stealing honey from hives like we’re bears in the woods. Less well known is what a bee has to do when its sting is not sufficient to take out an enemy.

Giant Asian Wasps have become an infamous species over the last decade or two thanks to the internet and its fascination with unusual life forms. These giant, terrifying insects are known to attack beehives, and just a few can destroy everything. They literally cut bees apart with their mandibles and the bee’s sting is unable to pierce the wasp’s exoskeleton. So how does a hive react when the wasps attack? They form a super hot sphere of bee power and cook their attacker to death.

The bees will swarm on the deadly wasps en masse. Though the wasp will kill many individuals, the hive may be able to survive as the group all work together to beat their wings and generate heat from the effort. They can raise the temperature of a wasp to as much as 47 degrees Celsius, which kills it. Amazingly, the bees are able to properly regulate this temperature so that it’s hot enough to kill a wasp, but not themselves, which could happen if things were just a few degrees warmer.

Some species of wasps have learned to avoid these heat balls by picking off drones outside of the hive until there are no bees left to defend it. But the bees have also adapted to this. Beekeepers have observed honey bees gathering buffalo dung. They place it around the entrance to the hive, something that they would normally never do. Dung is often dangerous thanks to pathogens, and it effectively keeps wasps away. Even when wasps do try to attack a dung-defended hive, they spend 94% less time doing so. 

7. Vultures Projectile Vomit When Threatened

Vultures are considered by many to be rather ugly birds with their bald heads and hooked beaks. They also seem rather objectionable when it comes to their habits, since they feed on carrion and can most often be seen neck deep in a rotten carcass. They also slather themselves in their own waste to keep cool. Their highly acidic urine will lower their temperature as it evaporates and also kills bacteria.  It probably comes as no surprise that their chief method of self defense is also extremely unpleasant.

When threatened, a vulture will force itself to vomit. That’s pretty awful in and of itself. But remember that they eat already rotten meat, so when it vomits it’s throwing up the most vile filth you can imagine. Not only is it going to look gross and smell gross, it’s laden with the bird’s extremely volatile digestive juices which are so potent they can burn. 

This spray of vomit is also projectile and can travel upwards of 10 feet. And while all of that makes it seem like these birds are wretched in every way, remember that they provide a valuable service by cleaning up all that carrion and we’d likely have far more disease and bacteria being spread around if it weren’t for them. 

6. Crested Rats Slather Themselves in Poison 

Humans are renowned for using ingenuity to get a job done, and there are a handful of animals that demonstrate similar talents. Monkeys use tools, coyotes and badgers hunt together, there are a lot of ways to reach a goal. When it comes to African crested rats, they go above and beyond to defend themselves from predators by engaging in chemical warfare.

The rats have been observed chewing on the poisonous bark of certain trees. Once they work up a nice mouthful of toxic spit, they wipe it on their fur, effectively giving themselves a poisonous shield. Similar behavior does exist elsewhere in nature. There are species of toxic toads that get their toxins from the insects they eat, but this is the only mammal known to engage in such behavior. 

Initially, the rats were thought to make their poison until one single rat was observed chewing the bark and wiping the toxins on itself. Researchers then captured some to house them under constant surveillance, and many of them were observed engaging in the same behavior, though exactly why the rat itself is immune is not entirely understood. It may be thanks to their four-chambered stomach full of dense bacteria, but it’s not conclusive. 

5. Spanish Ribbed Newts Force Their Ribs Out and Coat Them in Poison

The Spanish ribbed newt has bug eyes and grows to about 9 inches in length. They look a little cartoonish in real life and aren’t very intimidating, but perhaps that’s just a plot. When it comes to self defense, few creatures go as hard as the ribbed newt. When threatened, the newt is able to freeze and rotate its own ribs inside its body from 27 to 92 degrees relative to its spinal axis. The ribs push right out of the newt’s skin through fleshy warts and are then coated with a poisonous secretion.

In pop culture terms, the newt is like Wolverine if he also poisoned his claws. There is no permanent hole that allows the ribs to protrude. The newt has to pierce its own flesh each and every time it uses the defense. 

4. Blanket Octopuses Rip the Poisonous Arms of Portuguese Man O’Wars

The ocean is full of strange and terrifying creatures more than capable of defending themselves in a variety of ways. From the claws of a crab to the jaws of a shark, you don’t want to tangle with too many beasts of the deep blue sea. Some of the most formidable creatures rely on a bevy of debilitating and deadly toxins that can stop a predator, including a human, with remarkable speed and efficiency.

The blanket octopus has developed a backdoor to its down defenses. Unlike the deadly blue-ringed octopus, a blanket octopus doesn’t produce potent venom. Instead, they will steal weapons from the Portuguese man o’war. 

The man o’war, often mistaken for a jellyfish though it’s actually a siphonophore, has dangerous, stinging tentacles. They’re not usually deadly to humans, but they can cause blisters and welts and are powerful enough to kill small fish. Blanket octopuses are immune, however. They’ll rip the tentacles right off the man o’war and then wield them like toxic whips either to attack or defend themselves.

3. Hoopoe Birds Use Filth as a Defense

Many birds have a pretty decent cache of defensive skills available, chief among them the ability to just fly away. Some birds are also equipped with dangerously powerful beaks and talons as well. But what of the smaller, more delicate ones? What happens when they face danger?

The Eurasian Hoopoe grows to be maybe a foot long and weighs less than a deck of cards. These are not fearsome creatures. So to stay ahead of predators, they’ll smear their own eggs with secretions that smell rotten, and poop all over their own nests. 

Females coat themselves in the secretion, which comes from a gland below the tail. Despite the smell, it’s antimicrobial and makes her feathers more waterproof and flexible. Within six days of hatching, babies are able to fire projectile feces at predators in their own defense as well.  

2. Numerous Kinds of Larvae Make Poop Shields

Turtles, armadillos and shellfish have a good defensive advantage in life thanks to their armor. Other creatures aren’t so blessed genetically, so they have to get creative. Take the tortoise beetle, for instance, which creates a shield out of its own feces to protect it from attackers. 

Many other species of beetle do the same thing in larval form as a means of protection before they grow their own tough carapace. The strategy is oddly ingenious, as it uses a resource that the beetle never runs short of and it’s something very few predators want to get near. The tortoise beetle can even move their shield and attack would-be predators with it like a weapon. 

1. Bombardier Beetles Shoot Boiling Chemicals 

Bugs are generally disliked by most people and the fact that many bite or sting is a big part of that. But a bug that eschews such pedestrian attacks in favor of literally shooting you with scalding hot chemicals is its own special kind of terrifying.

Bombardier beetles are less than an inch long, possibly the only saving grace for these powerhouses. When threatened, a chemical reaction occurs in their abdomen. Hydrogen peroxide mixes with hydroquinone. The beetle has a little nozzle on its backside that it can aim with amazing accuracy to fire at a predator. And you don’t want to be on the receiving end of that blast.

The two chemicals together can irritate the eyes and respiratory system. Worse, the reaction creates heat, so not only is it an irritant, it comes out literally boiling hot at 100 degrees Celsius. The beetle has enough chemicals to fire this 20 times.