Some say love makes the heart sore. Well, the love of God must make the body sore, too. That’s certainly the case if these monasteries are anything to go by. Not only are these 10 buildings befitting the worship of the heavens, they’re also a right pain in the backside to get to. “Inaccessible” doesn’t even come close.

10The Monastery Of Ostrog, Montenegro

This Serbian Orthodox Church can be found high up in the rock face of Ostroška Greda—carved out of the stone. It is the most popular pilgrimage site in Montenegro and thousands of people visit each year. Founded by Vasilije, the Metropolitan Bishop of Herzegovina in the 17th century, the bishop is enshrined here, in the cave-church. One of the reasons for the large amount of visits is that many believe praying near the body of Vasilije can cure one’s ailments, or at the very least, have the difficulties of your life reduced.

9Metéora, Greece

Metéora—meaning “middle of the sky”—is high up on a sandstone pillar in the Plain of Thessaly in central Greece. The Eastern Orthodox monastery is a UNESCO World Heritage site with perhaps the coolest origin story of the lot. Fable has it that the founder of the monastery, St. Athanasius, didn’t need to climb the rock face to plonk his religious flag in the sandstone: instead, he was carried to the dizzy heights by an eagle.

For most humble visitors however, carved steps are the only mode of transport to the top. Before the 1920s, most people had to use ropes and pulleys to climb to the top, and when it was built in the 14th century, ladders and nets were used to transport the materials over the 550-meter (1,800-ft) drop. The monastery is also famous for having featured in the James Bond movie For Your Eyes Only.

8Buddhist Monastery Of Ki, India

Looking like something out of Lord of the Rings, the Monastery of Ki (also spelled “Ki,” “Kye,” or “Kee”) is located in Ki Village, in the Himalayas. The Tibetan Buddhist monastery is on top of a hill at an altitude of 4,166 meters (13,670 ft) above sea level overlooking the Spiti Valley. It is a religious training center for Lamas and has seen multiple attacks by the Mongols and other armies.

7Kozheozersky Monastery

The Kozheozersky Monastery is an Orthodox monastery located near the Lake Kozhozero, in the northwestern part of Russia—one of the most remote areas on the planet. The Kozheozersky Monastery, founded in the 1500s, is therefore one of the hardest buildings in the world to get to—in short, no roads lead there.

Instead, anyone wishing to visit the monastery must first hop a train to Nimenga Station, then hitch a lift up a forest track with a lumber truck (or walk if you can’t find a truck), and finally walk the last 32 kilometers (20 mi) by foot. Even then, however, there’s still the tricky obstacle of the lake. Travelers must light a fire and await a boat to be sent over from the other side. Needless to say, the monastery has no electricity or Internet, so make sure you let people know where you’re going before you leave.

6Phugtal Gompa, India

Hidden away in the remote southeastern Zanskar region, high in the Himalayas, lies Phugtal Gompa, chiseled out of the cliff face of a massive gorge some 3,800 meters (12,500 ft) up. Home to some 70 monks, the extraordinary structure was established in the 12th century by Lama Gangsem Sherap Sampo. Rather amazingly, though the structure is made of mud bricks, stones, and wood, it has survived hundreds of years.

5Paro Taktsang Monastery, Bhutan

“The Tiger’s Nest” Monastery hangs precariously off the side of a 3,000-meter (9,800-ft) cliff in Paro Valley, Bhutan in the Himalayas. The legend says that Guru Rinpoche, the second Buddha, arrived on the cliff on the back of a great tigress, before hopping off his unusual mount and toddling off to find a cave to meditate in; a cave that can now be found within the monastery walls. Built in 1692 and renovated in 1998, the monastery is a strictly practicing, Buddhist-only retreat—and the only way to get there is by foot or mule. No tourists are allowed in.

4Xuan Kong Monastery, China

In China’s Shanxi province, there can be found “The Hanging Temple.” This monastery is based on a cliff overlooking the nearby Mount Heng. At first glance, this temple, supported by thin-looking stilts, looks like a strong gust of wind would bring it tumbling to the ground, but it must have the luck of the gods (or a really good structural engineer behind it)—it has survived several earthquakes over the years.

Inside, the building is extraordinary, as the halls and rooms follow the craggy contours of the cliff face. Constructed over 1,400 years ago, the temple is marvelous not only for its sturdy nature but also its architectural merits. How has it stood this long? Well, structural engineers are really smart. Beams were inserted into the rock face that the entire structure was built from.

3Sümela Monastery, Turkey

Sümela is a 1,600-year-old ancient Orthodox monastery, constructed on rocks reached by a long winding stone stairway through a nearby forest, located 1,200 meters (3,900 ft) up a cliff in Turkey’s Altindere Valley. Officially abandoned in the 1920s, the monastery now acts as a museum and popular tourist attraction. However, in 2010, an Orthodox Mass was conducted for the first time since it closed. The Sümela houses a few chapels, a kitchen, and the awesomely named Rock Church.

2Popa Taungkalat Monastery, Myanmar

People who visit Popa have their head in the clouds . . . literally. Set some 737 meters (2,400 ft) up a sheer cliff face, the Popa Taungkalat’s shocking location doesn’t stop there. The monastery overhangs a volcano—a dormant volcano perhaps, but whether that was the case when the building was created nobody knows. This monastery is a famous Buddhist pilgrimage housing 37 Mahagiri Nats (spirits of the deceased who met violent ends). Those wishing to visit the monastery must bear two things in mind, First, you’ll need to climb all 777 steps. Second, avoid having lunch at the top—the macaques have been known to pinch people’s sandwiches.

1St. George Monastery, Israel

Located in the West Bank of the Palestinian territories, St. George Monastery is another of those monasteries you wouldn’t want to go sleepwalking in, seeing as there’s a sheer drop down one side. The sixth-century Christian sanctuary is accessible by a pedestrian bridge across the Wadi Qelt, which some suggest is the Valley of the Shadow mentioned in the Old Testament’s Psalm 23.

The monastery is built near the site of a cave that a group of fourth-century monks considered to be of great spiritual importance (they believed this was the site where the prophet Elijah was fed by ravens). However, the monastery has not always been peaceful. Shortly after it was built, Persian raiders passed through the valley and killed all 14 monks living in the monastery. The bones and skulls of the deceased can still be seen within the hallowed walls to this day.

It is a common trope in comedy that if a clumsy person enters an antique shop, they are bound to knock over a precariously positioned and priceless Ming vase. For centuries, collectors in the West have sought out the rarest Chinese antiquities, of which Ming vases are just the most famous. As China has boomed economically recently, the prices of Chinese artworks have exploded.

This has led to many cases where people who were about to throw away an old pot or donate a cracked plate to a junk shop have suddenly discovered they are actually in possession of something worth a fortune. Here are ten cases where Chinese antiques turned out to be a windfall.

Related: 10 Amazing Antiques Roadshow Discoveries

10 £1 Million Collection in the Attic

Clearing out the attic can be one of the most annoying tasks for any homeowner. It’s dusty and full of spiders, and then you have to decide which of the things you have stored over the years is worth keeping and which should be put in the trash. Sometimes, though, you might just strike gold.

Edward Radcliffe became an antiques dealer just before WWII, and during his career, he built up a nice collection of Chinese antiques. Some of them were so exquisite that he lent them out to museums around the world. But for some reason, after he died, this collection was dumped in the attic and forgotten for over 50 years before his family decided to get it valued.

Among the stars of the collection was an enamel box made for the Xuande emperor of the Ming Dynasty in the 15th century. Finding one is phenomenally rare, as just four are known to exist in the world. The family must have been pleased when it was valued at 10,000 pounds at auction. They must have been beyond belief when the hammer went down, and it was sold for £288,000. With the rest of the collection selling as well, the whole lot made nearly 1 million pounds.^[1]

9 “Teapot”

The British love a cup of tea, so it is not unusual to find an elderly relative who has a teapot or two stored in their home. In 2020, a man finally sorted through the things his parents had stored in their attic. He found a plastic bag containing a tiny metal and enamel teapot, brought from China in the 1940s by his father. He thought of taking it to a charity shop. Instead, it was taken to an auctioneer who valued it at £100-150.

It soon became clear that it was actually something more special than a teapot. It turned out to be an imperial wine ewer made for the Qianlong emperor in the 18th century and one of only three in the world. On the day of the auction, nine bidders from around the world competed to own the minuscule masterpiece, and eventually, it sold for £380,000.

The owner, a construction worker, was thrilled with his sudden fortune. Asked what he would do with the money, he suggested he might buy a metal detector. With luck like his, who knows what treasures he might find.^[2]

8 Imperial Vase

Familiarity breeds contempt, so something we see every day tends to get overlooked. When an auctioneer visited a friend’s house one day, he noticed that an old vase they had just in their kitchen looked quite special. The tall vase had been bought for a few hundred pounds and was a pretty piece of porcelain – but to the owners, it was nothing too exciting.

It was only years later that the piece, made at the Imperial Court of the Qianlong emperor, was put up for sale, and collectors began to get excited. The rich blue vase is decorated with gold and silver and depicts cranes and bats flying against a cloudy sky. A vase of this age, with this decoration and in this size, caused a stir, and it was valued at around £100,000.

Bidding was fierce, and the vase was sold for £1.2 million. Not bad for an old thing shoved in the kitchen.^[3]

7 Loose Change Bowl

Pottery is a sturdy material but easily broken and damaged. For collectors of antiques, even the smallest chip can destroy the value of a piece, so most will do everything possible to protect their treasures. One family inherited a bowl owned by a well-known collector of Chinese antiques but did not give it the same care as he might have liked. They placed it in a guest room where friends would drop their keys and coins while they stayed.

It was only out of curiosity that they took the 9-inch (22.9-cm) wide turquoise glazed dish to an open day at an auctioneer’s event. It was immediately seen to have been produced for the early Ming Imperial Court. Known as a narcissus bowl, the object caused the valuers’ hands to shake, and the owners were happy to put it up for auction.

The bowl sold for £240,000. Hopefully, the new owner doesn’t toss metal objects into it.^[4]

6 Cracked Umbrella Stand

Sometimes, we are given things and don’t know what to do with them, but we hold onto them anyway for sentimental reasons. One couple in England had come into possession of a blue and white vase as a gift and thought no more of it for 50 years. They relegated it to a spare room, and since it was about the right size, they placed their umbrellas in it. Needless to say, this was not the right way to treat the vase.

The vase turned out to have been made for the court of the Qianlong emperor and had survived centuries mostly intact. Unfortunately, the years of being an umbrella stand had left their mark on the vase, with it being cracked and scarred on the inside. Despite the damage, it was still valued at around £500,000.

Buyers seemed able to overlook the hard life the vase had endured and ended up paying £765,000.^[5]

5 Umbrella Stand

There must be something about priceless Chinese vases that makes people look at them and think, “That would make an excellent umbrella stand.” When an expert from Christie’s auction house was made aware of a large, blue and white dragon vase that had once been an umbrella stand, he asked the French owners whether he could inspect it in person. As soon as he looked at it, he knew that the vase was a perfect example of 15th-century Ming Imperial pottery.

The umbrella stand phase of the vase’s life had miraculously left no trace on the flawless glaze. The large dragon motif was as fresh as the day it had been painted by the imperial artisans. When the vase was put up for auction in Hong Kong, excited bidding led to it reaching $20,447,642.^[6]

4 Yard Sale Bowl

Everyone likes a bargain, and there is nowhere you can pick up an excellent deal as easily as at a yard sale. People use yard sales to get rid of the various stuff they have accumulated over the years and generally just want it out of the house. For $35, you can grab a pretty bowl for your home—or one that might make you a fortune at auction.

When a buyer saw a small blue and white bowl at a yard sale, they liked it so much they didn’t bother to haggle over the $35 price tag. Almost straight away, they suspected they had bought something special and alerted an auction house. It was found that the bowl was Ming porcelain made in the early 15th century in a form called a lotus bowl—with only six examples in museums around the world.

The bowl sold for $721,800, a mere 29,000 times more than it was bought for.^[7]

3 Qianlong Vase

Thrift shops are great places to browse for unusual things because you never know what people have donated. You get to buy things cheap and also help a good cause. Sometimes, you really do find something special.

One shopper spotted a somewhat gaudy-looking vase with a yellow glaze and Chinese characters painted on it. It was only marked at £1 so they decided to buy it. Thinking it might be worth a little more than that, they put the vase on sale on eBay. However, as the price started to skyrocket, they removed it from the site and showed the vase to an auctioneer.

The vase was made at the court of the Qianlong emperor, and a mark on the base stated that it was not meant to be exported from the country. How it came to be in a charity shop in England is not known. At auction, the vase sold for £480,000. ^[8]

2 Brush Pot Donation

Thrift stores do not always let valuable antiques slip through their fingers. Volunteers who sort through donated objects are often given advice on spotting potentially important pieces and having them shown to experts. When one worker at St. Peter’s Hospice charity shop in Bristol, England, picked up a cracked old wooden pot that had been handed in and, for some reason, suspected it might be special—despite it not looking very promising.

The pot turned out to be a brush pot used in calligraphy and was made from bamboo around 1700, which perhaps explained why it was so cracked. Not only did the pot have a charmingly carved landscape scene on it, but it was also created by Gu Jue, one of the foremost bamboo workers at the time.

Luckily for the charity, this precious little object did not end up on their shelves and sell for a pittance. It went to auction and sold for £360,000, far outstripping the estimate of £15,000.^[9]

1 Shoebox Vase

If this list does nothing else, it should make you consider clearing out your attic. The ultimate case of a treasure lurking in the attic comes from France and involves one of the finest Chinese vases ever to be offered for sale.

Sotheby’s auctioneer might well have missed out on this discovery as the owner of the vase simply sent them an email saying she had found some Asian objects in her attic as she prepared to move but would not be able to send them any photographs. Some other details she provided suggested they might be worth looking at, so they invited her to bring them in. Riding on the metro, she carried the vase in a shoebox. The owners had relegated it to the attic after deciding it was “too pink” for their tastes.

The vase, with its animal motifs, was so lovely that even if it had been a copy of what it looked like, it still might have been worth €100,000. However, the experts recognized it as genuine. It really was a vase made for the Qianlong emperor’s birthday and given an auction estimate of €700,000. It blew past this when bidding started and finally sold for €16,182,800.^[10]

Celebs truly are just like us—in the sense that some of them have incredibly unique names! Just like plenty of people around the world, the parents of many celebrities found some very rare and notable inspirations for naming their unborn babies who would go on to be rich and famous. And these are some of their stories!

In this list, we’ll take a look at the tales of ten celebrities who were named after notable things, people, or places. All ten of these stars were unborn, of course, and at the mercy of their parents’ whims and tastes. But their names were memorable from the get-go based on the inspiration these parents had. And now, after having risen to fame, we all know these stars’ tales of how they got their monikers. Get ready for a strange one!

Related: 10 Of The Most Unflattering Nicknames Given To Royals

10 Rachel Zegler

Rachel Zegler may only be in her early 20s, but she’s already made a major impression on Hollywood. The actress won a Golden Globe for her work in Steven Spielberg’s West Side Story, and in 2023, she starred in Shazam. Maybe it makes sense that she’s spending her life working successfully in front of the camera, though. Because the reason she was named “Rachel” in the first place all came down to her mother being a big fan of television! That’s right: Rachel Zegler is actually named after Rachel Green, the iconic character played by Jennifer Aniston on the long-running television sitcom Friends.

“That is a real fact, and nobody ever believes me,” Zegler told Jimmy Fallon during an appearance on The Tonight Show in November of 2023. “They think there’s no way I’m young enough to be named after Friends, but I am.”^[1]

9 Taylor Swift

Taylor Swift may be the biggest pop star on the planet right now, but she was actually named for an even bigger star who shone brightly long before her birth: James Taylor! Swift’s parents were big fans of James Taylor’s music, and so when they had their daughter in 1989, they decided to name her after the folk-singing sensation.

Years later, in 2015, James Taylor reminisced about how he came to learn that fact. And he was very honored by it! “It’s hugely flattering and was a delightful surprise when she told me that,” James said to the outlet Stereogum that year. “We did a benefit together… before Taylor really took off. But she was playing guitar and singing her songs, and I knew how remarkable she was. She told me that her mom and dad had been really, deeply into my music, and I got a real kick out of the fact that she’d been named after me. Obviously, it wasn’t her choice. It was her mom and dad, but nonetheless, a great connection, I think.”^[2]

8 Selena Gomez

Late in 2020, pop star Selena Gomez popped up on her Instagram account and confirmed to fans that she had been watching the then-popular Netflix series about the late Tejano singer Selena Quintanilla. The first Selena, as she was, took the American Southwest by storm and crossed cultural boundaries with both American and Mexican fans before she was tragically murdered by the director of her own fan club in Corpus Christi, Texas, in 1995. But as it turns out, this second Selena was named in a way to honor the first!

“I wanted to check in and say ‘hi’ and that I have been binge-watching the Selena series on Netflix. It’s so good,” Gomez wrote about the late superstar Quintanilla in her Instagram Story in December of 2020. “She’s such an inspiration. I was named after her, and it’s unbelievable.” It’s pretty amazing to think that a future pop singer would be named after another Latina star, but that’s how it turned out. What are the chances?!^[3]

7 Dax Shepard

Dax Shepard rose to fame on the back of pal Ashton Kutcher when the two did the iconic MTV show Punk’d together in the 2000s. Since then, Dax has taken on a number of film roles in various projects, including a memorable turn in Idiocracy. More recently, his “Armchair Expert” podcast has become one of the more popular audio shows to be streamed, and he interviews all kinds of interesting celebrity guests about all sorts of quirky and fascinating things. But he was destined for fame even before birth—because his parents were already thinking uniquely!

According to Dax’s wife, Kristen Bell, who spoke to People Magazine about her beloved husband a few years back, he was named after the protagonist in author Harold Robbins’ 1966 novel The Adventurers. Kristen went so far as to track down an original copy of that book for one of Dax’s birthdays, too. And then she had family members and friends write messages of love for the star in the book! What a way to honor one’s namesake and recall the inspiration with which his parents picked out his name. Very sweet!^[4]

6 Oprah Winfrey

Oprah Winfrey may be a household name by now and one of the most famous women to ever see her star rise on television, but things didn’t start out that way. In fact, her actual name isn’t even Oprah; it’s actually Orpah! (Notice the alternate spelling—it’s easy to miss!) As the story goes, Oprah was named after Orpah, which is a character in the Bible in the 14th verse of the first chapter of Ruth. Basically, the future TV star-to-be’s aunt Ida named her like that. But then, nobody else in the family could pronounce “Orpah” the right way, and the name quickly reverted to what we know today!

“Originally, I was named from the Bible by Aunt Ida who named me from Ruth, the first chapter at the 14th verse: Orpah,” Winfrey explained in 1983 during the audition tape that would end up earning her a turn on her first-ever morning show in Chicago. “But no one knew how to spell in my home, and that’s why it ended up being Oprah.” It’s funny how fate can be changed on a dime like that, isn’t it? We almost had Orpah Winfrey, but instead, Oprah is one of the most recognized names in all of entertainment media!^[5]

5 Leonardo DiCaprio

Leonardo DiCaprio was still in the womb when his artistically inclined mother decided on what to name him. He’s got an Italian last name, of course, so that was a natural move to give him an Italian-inspired first name, too. But that’s not the exact impetus for calling the child Leonardo. What actually happened is that his mom was at a museum in Italy while she was pregnant with then-unborn Leo. She just so happened to be standing in front of a painting produced by the legendary Leonardo da Vinci when BAM! She felt her unborn son kicking in her belly for the very first time.

DiCaprio’s mom took it as a sign that she ought to name the baby after the iconic painter, and so she did. A few months later, Leonardo DiCaprio was born and entered the world with quite a high-end namesake. Of course, we’d say that the Titanic star did pretty well for himself in carrying on the name from there. But it’s definitely funny and unique to learn that he was named after the painter following such a memorable kicking experience in the hallowed halls of a museum that housed da Vinci’s works!^[6]

4 Ciara

In 2016, the R&B singer Ciara became the face of Revlon cosmetics and fragrances. She was officially named a global ambassador for the company that year, and she was extremely happy about it. But it wasn’t just because she’d inked a big deal with a world-famous brand; it was because she was actually named after a Revlon product by her astute parents when she was still in the womb!

“I’ve been a fan of the iconic Revlon brand my entire life,” football star Russell Wilson’s wife touted in a press release celebrating her move to become Revlon’s global brand ambassador. “In fact, my name comes from the Revlon Ciara fragrance. It was a gift given to my mother from my father, and she fell in love with the scent and the name. It’s incredible to think that after all those years, I would be joining the Revlon family as the newest Global Brand Ambassador.” Amazing to think about how that came full circle, isn’t it? From being named after a fragrance by her mother to several decades later becoming the celebrity that the world associates with the brand!^[7]

3 Lil Nas X

Lil Nas X completely took the entire world by storm when his song “Old Town Road” alongside Billy Ray Cyrus debuted and shot to viral fame. And while he hasn’t been quite able to repeat that success with subsequent music, he has made headlines for plenty of other things. For one, he came out as gay after the song got big, breaking down barriers in the worlds of both hip-hop and country music. But there are even more interesting stories beyond that, too—like how he’s named after a Mitsubishi!

Lil Nas X’s given name is Montero Lamar Hill. When he was born in 1999 in Georgia, his mother was apparently really impressed with the Mitsubishi Montero. She didn’t have one at the time, but she badly wanted the SUV for herself. So she willed it into existence by deciding to name her son after the car model! “It’s slightly embarrassing, but [I’m] not embarrassed,” Lil Nas X explained on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon back in 2021. “So my mom wanted the car, the Montero, and she never got one. It’s a Mitsubishi, so ya, I’m named after a car.”^[8]

2 Winona Ryder

Before Winona Ryder was born, her father and her pregnant mother were passing through rural Minnesota. At one point, they stopped in the tiny town of Winona—which today has a population of just 25,000 people and was even smaller back then. As they were there, Ryder’s mom bent down to pick up a pamphlet about the town that was inside a laundromat where they had been washing some clothes. All of a sudden, her water broke, and she went into labor! They rushed to the hospital, and Winona was born a happy and healthy girl. But they were so amazed at the sudden birth in the tiny town that they decided to honor the village in the only way they knew how: by naming their daughter after it!

“[My mom] bent over to pick up this pamphlet with a girl on the cover, which said The Legend of Winona, and she went into labor,” Winona told Vogue Magazine years later. “I was supposed to be named Laura!” Sure, while Laura Ryder may not have a bad ring to it, the name Winona is unique and beautiful. Seems to us like her parents inadvertently picked a winner with that one!^[9]

1 Jane Fonda

Jane Fonda was named after one of the most famous women to ever live: Jane Seymour, one of the wives of the long-dead King Henry VIII. In fact, Fonda is even distantly related to Jane Seymour, so the name makes some sense in that regard. Fonda revealed as much to late-night television host Jimmy Kimmel when she went on his show in 2015. Her full name is actually Jane Seymour Fonda, and the “Seymour” in her middle name is also a nod to the famous ancient wife who was murdered by her rampaging royal husband!

“She was one of the wives of Henry VIII, and we were related to her, which is how come the ‘Seymour’ appears,” Fonda explained to Kimmel during their interview. When she was a kid, it even went so far that everybody in her life called her “Lady Jane” as opposed to only knowing her by her first name. Now, that’s truly the royal treatment! But as it turned out, Jane flipped that script to become something of a modern-day royal herself—at least as far as Hollywood is concerned!^[10]

Some of the festivals we celebrate today can seem quite extraordinary. Just think about the Spanish festival La Tomatina, which is the biggest tomato fight in the world, or the Mexican Night of the Radishes, which is a night for carving oversized radishes into cool shapes. But even they pale in comparison to some of the bizarre festivals that were celebrated by our ancestors.

10Feast Of Fools

The Feast of Fools was a medieval New Year’s Day celebration that usually started on the first day of the year. It originated from the Roman festival Saturnalia and was popular right until the 16th century.

During this mad New Year’s party, people would elect a Lord of Misrule or a king of Fools. This comic king went by many names, depending on the location of those celebrating. For example, in England he was known as the king of the bean and in Scotland as the Abbott of Unreason. During the feast, people, cross-dressed, sang bawdy songs, drank to excess, and gambled on the church altar.

9Feast Of The Ass

During the middle ages, a church festival known as the Feast of the Ass was celebrated. It was most popular in France, where it was known as “La Fete de l’ane.” The bizarre feast was celebrated on the 14th of January and was a way of honoring the donkey that carried Mary from Egypt.

During the feast, a village girl with a baby in her arms was seated upon a bejeweled donkey and then paraded through town and into a church, where a mock mass was to take place. At the end of the mock mass, the priest would turn to the congregation and bray three times. The congregation would then answer with three hee-haws. In France, the congregation often sang a psalm that praised the donkey as “Sir Ass,” who is beautiful and very brave.

8Festival Of Drunkenness

The Festival of Drunkenness was celebrated during the first month of the Egyptian year. The festival was a way of honoring the Eye of Ra and the myth of the slaughter of mankind as well as a way to supposedly appease Egyptian goddesses such as Sekhmet.

The festival, which was a holy event, involved the participants drinking obscene amounts of alcohol. In fact, most of the time the participants would get so drunk that they would fall asleep in the temple forecourt.

The sleeping celebrants would later be awoken by the sound of drums and music, which supposedly helped them to commune with and worship the goddess. In addition to drinking, the participants danced, lit torches, and engaged in intimate encounters with other celebrants.

7Bals Des Victimes

As the Reign of Terror came to an end, the city of Paris was engulfed in frenzied parties and mad events. The citizens of Paris had survived a period of repression and bloodshed, and they were intent on celebrating that they were still alive.

One of the maddest parties hosted during this time had to be Bals des Victimes, supposedly organized by the surviving aristocrats. Only those who had narrowly escaped the guillotine, or the immediate family members of guillotine victims, were granted access to these balls.

Alcohol flowed freely—the insane indulgences were a way of blotting out the painful memories. Most women wore blood-red ribbons around their necks, and those who had barely escaped guillotine themselves sported short hair cropped in prison. This ragged hairstyle became extremely fashionable and was dubbed la coiffure a la guillotine.

While bals des victimes were certainly the most fascinating, other similar balls that commemorated the reign of terror existed. One of them was bal de la veillee, which was memorable for its meowing concert—a harpsichord was rigged up so that the keys moved metal blades which then struck the tails of several cats. Another one was bals des Zephirs which took place inside a cemetery and involved couples dancing on tombstones.

6Fete Des Pinnes

Fete des Pinnes was a Palm Sunday festival celebrated in the town of Saintes in France. On the day of the festival, small cakes were baked in the shape of phalluses and were attached at the end of palm branches. These palm branches were then carried by women and children in a celebratory procession. Later on in the day, the phallus-shaped cakes were blessed by the priest and were then preserved by the women as sacred amulets.

This celebration was not confined to the town of Saintes, however, but took place all over France. In other parts of the Mediterranean these cakes took on the form of the vagina.

5Festival Of The Boy Bishop

The Festival of the Boy Bishop was a curious festival popular during the middle ages throughout Western Europe. It began on December 6, St. Nicholas Day, when the Boy Bishop or Nicholas Bishop was elected by his fellow choristers.

The Boy Bishop not only dressed as a bishop and sat in the bishop’s actual throne but also assumed a lot of the authority of an actual bishop such as blessing people, preaching sermons, and making visitations to all the parishes in the diocese. The Boy Bishop also had the power to declare holidays and distribute sweets and gifts.

4Beltane

Beltane, the second-most-sacred Celtic festival, celebrated the first day of summer and its life-giving and nurturing fertility. Great bonfires were lit, and cattle were driven between them as a way of blessing and purifying them.

Beltane was also a celebration of the sexual union of the God and the Goddess as well as the creative energies born from their lovemaking. It was believed that these creative energies blessed the land, animals, and people, bestowing upon them health and fertility. Thus, in emulation of the gods, people of the Celtic tribes spent the night making love. And it didn’t matter if the man and the woman knew each other—during the night of Beltane, every woman was a goddess and every man a god.

Occasionally, a May Queen and May King were chosen to take part in erotic roles in an especially sacred way or, to reenact the wedding of the God and the Goddess in a non-sexual pageant before the whole village.

And while today a version of Beltane is still celebrated in some parts of the world, most of its rituals, especially those that concern sexual matters, have been heavily subdued.

3Kronia

Kronia was a Greek festival held after the summer harvest that represented the transition into winter. The festival was named after Titan Cronos, who ruled the universe during the Golden Age of mankind when there was no hunger, death, sickness, social distinctions, or oppression.

Kronia was a reflection of Cronos’s reign in that during the festival, the usual order of society was suspended. Slaves dined and played games with their masters, engaged in noisy street riots, and were served and waited on.

The festival usually ended by bringing out a criminal who was previously condemned to death (and thus represented chaos and disorder), giving him wine, and then slaying him.

2The Cerealia

The Cerealia was an ancient Roman festival dedicated to the celebration of Ceres, the goddess of grain and of agricultural and human fertility. It was celebrated over the course of seven days in April.

According to the Roman poet Ovid, the festival involved releasing live foxes into the Circus Maximus with burning torches tied to their tails. The foxes would publicly struggle to shake off the torches and would suffer a terrible end of being burned to death.

Other festival traditions included girls dressing up in white and carrying torches. This reenacted the search for Proserpine, Cere’s abducted daughter, who was carried off by Hades to the underworld where she was raped and imprisoned.

1Bacchanalia

The Bacchanalia was a Babylonian celebration honoring the birth of Tammuz, the son of Ishtar, the queen of heaven. Bacchus was the god of wine and fertility and was also associated with love, sacred prostitution, and the fertility cycle of nature.

The Bacchus festival was also known as the drunken festival and was widely associated with alcohol, dancing, and sacred sexual orgies for the purification of sin. Indulging in sexual orgies with worshipers was supposed to earn admiration from the gods.

It was expected that every young woman would lose her virginity during this festival in dedication to the great mother goddess. The festival lasted five days, during which time the slaves were emancipated and received total freedom for the duration of the festival.

Laura is a student from Ireland in love with books, writing, coffee, and cats.

Each language in the world contains its own beautiful expressions. Learning them may ingratiate you with the local population, enhance your appreciation for the language’s poetry, and even give you new cultured foreign additions to your everyday speech.

We’re not going to talk about any of that today. Instead, we’ll teach you how people around the world swear.

10Greek
Malakas

This phrase expresses contempt and disgust for a man’s stupid, dishonorable, or otherwise harmful behavior. It is often punctuated with the gesture of the moutza, an extension of the hand, palm out and fingers outstretched. This symbolizes spreading manure on the face of the malaka and seems to come from the ancient Greeks via the Byzantine Empire.

In its original meaning, a malaka meant someone spoiled and weak, used to easy life and scared of hard work or violence. It changed to mean a compulsive masturbator, and it ended up having a current meaning similar to the English terms “wanker” or “tosser.”

In the Philippines, it has a completely different meaning. Malaka was a great hero in Filipino mythology, so the word has come to designate a strong person in the vein of Paul Bunyan.

9Irish
Gobshite

This Hiberno-English (Irish) insult is a doozie. “Gob” means mouth, so a gobshite either eats feces (see comemierda, further down) or only speaks worthless crud. Either way, the person is an unbearable idiot whose behavior harms other people.

It is a typically Irish insult, since the Irish culture has traditionally prized the talent of oratory (the gift of the gab, or “blarney” from the Blarney Stone) and valued the trade of storyteller. The curse is moderately accepted on BBC Northern Irish radio, having acquired a milder character over time.

8 Icelandic
Afatottari

Picture that classic American insult which starts with “mother-” and ends in “-ucker.” Now picture what could be even more sacred to anyone than their mothers. What could be more offensive than stating you commit incest with your own mother? How about suggesting you have sex with your grandpa? That’s right—the Icelandic swear afatottari means “grandfather-sucker.”

Other offensive Icelandic terms include fraendseroir (“uncle-sucker”), rollurioari (sheep-diddler”), hringvoovi (“anal sphincter”), and the awesomely offensive mamma pin faeddi pig meo rassgatinu af pvi ao pikan a henni var upptekin (“your mother didn’t give birth to you; she defecated you because her vagina was busy“). A good variety of foul language comes as no surprise in the land where half-rotten shark reeking of ammonia is considered a good treat to offer to visitors.

7Italian
Non Me Ne Frega Un Cazzo

This ultimate expression of indifference translates as “I don’t care a penis.” It is best reserved for those occasions when you are under pressure and some cornuto (literally “cuckold” but effectively a gobshite) is talking cazzate (“nonsense,” derived from cazzo).

The phrase has spawned a whole philosophy of life. Il menefreghismo is a cool carelessness that has been the signature of players from Dean Martin to Silvio Berlusconi.

6Arabic
Kuss Ummak

Paradoxically enough (or not), the more patriarchal a society is, the more offensive it is to say anything bad about mothers. This Egyptian Arabic expression means “your mother’s vagina,” and uttering it is as offensive as it gets.

Curiously enough, mentioning shoes in a rude manner or comparing someone to a shoe is a close second in offensiveness, which is why throwing your dirty shoes at someone is such an insult. In some places, even sitting with your feet pointing at someone is considered a mark of disrespect. Due to the dusty environment of most Arab lands, shoes are almost guaranteed to be dirty. Combine this with Islam’s heavy emphasis on purity and cleanliness, and shoes and feet gain special symbolism.

5Chinese
Wang Ba Dan

The ancient Chinese attributes of subtlety and harshness give rise to this disparaging term, which roughly means “turtle’s egg.” Why, you might ask, should anyone find that insulting? Turtle eggs hatch when the father is away, so being called one implies you don’t know your father—you’re a bastard. Chinese female turtles also have a certain reputation for promiscuity.

Other Chinese disparaging terms have to do with formal education—or, more specifically, the lack of it. China has a long-running tradition of state-run exams that grant access to higher education. Being unable to pass one obliterates any authority you could have, so being called “uneducated” or “peasant” is much more offensive than in the West.

4Spanish
Me Cago En La Leche Que Mamaste

It’s bad when someone insults your mother. But the nastiness goes full throttle when things go to maternal milk mixed with feces.

This Spanish curse means literally: “I defecate in the milk you suckled.” It was thought that the milk you suckled defined your character. Having a sour character is still called tener mala leche (“having bad milk“) and something awesome is la leche. Some speculate that this expression references semen, making it even fouler and tinged with homophobia.

Spanish profanity also has a knack for the liturgical (more on that later) and on the scatological. Low-quality items are disparagingly called nordos (“turds”). The insult comemierda (“turd gobbler”) gained special prominence through a famous prank call to Fidel Castro.

3German
Du Kannst Diesen Scheiszdreck Hinter Den Ohren Schmieren

This German equivalent to non me ne frega un cazzo recently gained prominence through the Brazil World Cup. Striker Thomas Muller replied with this Bavarian expression when asked about not having earned the Golden Boot (a trophy for the tournament’s top scorer). It literally means “You can smear that crap behind your ears.”

The Golden Boot winner was Colombian, and so was the reporter. So with this phrase, Muller expressed his indifference toward her country’s worthless trophy, since he had already won the Big One—the World Cup.

2French
Sacre Quebecois

This phrase literally means “Quebec Sacred,” but it really means just the opposite. It represents the collection of swear words used in the Quebec French dialect. It is not quite a dialect made of swear words but is still a very colorful collection of obscenities, mixing insults, blasphemy, and plain old taboo concepts. It uses liturgical terms such as calice (“chalice”) and tabarnac (“tabernacle”) because people curse what represses them. In traditionally Catholic Quebec, that repression came from the Church hierarchy.

You can similarly find the use of the sacred for the profane among other Catholic peoples, such as the Spanish, who curse the hostia (the Sacred Host) as much as the Quebecers curse their hostie. After all, what’s the point of cursing something you don’t believe in? You need to believe there is some truth in religion for a curse to be truly transgressive.

1Russian
Mat

Would you like to talk in a dialect made up entirely by offensive words? Russia has one, and it shares its name with the item English speakers put at the front door, perhaps because, like our doormats, it picks up all the filth.

Common Russian is quite expressive, but it tends to avoid certain offensive terms best reserved for mat. No school teaches it, and no mention of many mat words can be found in most Russian dictionaries, but it’s the common way of speaking among blue-collar workers in their jobs.

According to one anecdote, a manager was so appalled with subordinates’ profanity that he banned speaking mat altogether. Next month’s output dropped by half—the workers didn’t know the names of the tools and procedures without referring to them as “the f—kingamajig” or “f—king the s—t out of that c—t.”

Mat has been used by people as cultivated as Pushkin, Lermontov, and Tolstoy, and Solzhenitsyn in the 20th century did much to publicize it. Criminals, meanwhile, use an altogether different variety of language, a thieves’ cant called fenya.

We’ve come a long way since the dark days of trepanning and bloodletting, but for all our state-of-the-art equipment, surgery is still really weird. The practice of cutting open another human and rearranging their body parts is inherently bizarre. And as you might expect, the history of surgery is jam-packed with heroes, villains, and more than a fair share of oddballs.

10The Beauty Queen’s Skull

Jamie Hilton had a wonderful life. She was married with kids and was considered one of the most beautiful women in the US. She’d once been crowned Mrs. Idaho and even competed in Mrs. America. But things took a sharp turn in June 2012. While on a fishing trip with her husband, Hilton took a 4-meter (12 ft) fall and smashed her head against on a rock.

By the time she reached the hospital, Hilton’s brain was swelling at an alarming rate. Doctors needed to relieve the pressure, so they removed 25 percent of her skull. They didn’t want to waste so much perfectly good bone matter, and after her brain returned to its normal size, they planned on putting the skull back in. But what would they do with it in the meantime?

The solution was simple. They sewed it into her abdomen.

By putting the skull under her skin, doctors hoped the body would keep the tissue alive and healthy. In the meantime, Jamie wore a helmet to keep her head safe from further trauma. Forty-two days later, the doctors opened up her abdomen, sliced open her head, and bolted the skull back inside.

She seems to be doing pretty well. According to her most recent blog post, she counts her scar as a “blessing” and as proof that she’s a survivor.

9Karl Langer’s Ice Pick

Karl Langer was a 19th-century anatomy professor from Vienna who liked stabbing cadavers with ice picks. But he wasn’t a pervert (as far as we know, anyway). He was doing some valuable research that just involved poking holes in a bunch of dead bodies.

As an anatomy professor, Langer did a lot of work with fresh stiffs. During his experiments, he noticed that whenever he cut a corpse, the incision looked a little weird. Instead of being a circle, the wound was more of an oval even though his ice pick had a rounded point.

The issue had to do with collagen fibers, the structure that makes our skin elastic. Thanks to collagen, certain parts of the body are stretchier than others. Other parts are really tight. So when Langer stabbed these particular spots, the tension pulled the skin in opposite directions, yanking the wound wide open. This was bad news for patients recovering from surgery. If doctors cut these super-stressed areas, the wounds had to heal while the skin tore itself apart.

Determined to find the best spots for a surgeon to slice, Langer rounded up a lot of bodies. Armed with his trusty ice pick, he turned the cadavers into Swiss cheese. After his experiments were through, he developed an anatomical roadmap, showing where doctors should and shouldn’t cut. These epidermal landmarks are known as “Langer’s lines,” and they’re still proving useful today.

While modern surgeons refrain from using Langer’s lines for certain spots, like the forehead, the diagrams are valuable when it comes to cosmetic operations like breast surgeries. And even though many doctors prefer cutting along natural wrinkle lines, Langer’s research spared generations of patients from agonizingly long recoveries.

8Orlan’s Surgical Art

We’ve read about some crazy performance artists in the past, but when it comes to pure, gut-wrenching ickiness, there’s no one nuttier than Orlan. Born Mireille Suzanne Francette Port, Orlan has dabbled in all sorts of art forms, from photography to sculpting, but this Frenchwoman’s main claim to fame was “The Reincarnation of Saint Orlan,” a rather disturbing project involving music, poetry, and cosmetic surgery.

Between 1990 and 1995, Orlan went under the knife nine times. With cameras rolling, she’d enter the OR wearing elaborate costumes. Music would play as surgeons wearing robes danced around the room. Orlan would recite poetry or works by French philosophers as mimes performed by her bedside. And then the scalpels came out.

Orlan turned herself into a collage of great paintings, something like Western art’s greatest hits. During one procedure, surgeons gave her Mona Lisa’s forehead. Another time, her jaw was shaped to resemble the chin of Botticelli’s Venus. And then there were the horns. For some bizarre reason, Orlan had a lump of silicone implanted above each eyebrow. All these procedures were streamed live in art galleries, and Orlan was totally conscious throughout.

According to Orlan, her “carnal art” is a commentary on our perception of beauty, a rebellion against Christianity, and an attempt to become the “ultimate work of art.” There was also money. Orlan sold postcards and photos of her operations and even little preserved bits of flesh. However, if you’re famous, you might not have to pay for a piece of Orlan. The artist once gifted Madonna a chunk of her thigh.

7India’s Kidney Kingpin

Amit Kumar was the king of kidney transplants. People in desperate need of help flocked to his hospital in the Indian township of Gurgaon, where he stole the organs from impoverished workers. Known in the media as “Dr. Horror,” Kumar used tricks, intimidation, and bribery to swipe as many kidneys as possible.

Kumar started his scam in the ‘80s, before India outlawed organ trading in 1994. Back then, Kumar hired cab drivers to look for foreigners in need of a kidney. While cabbies searched for customers, Kumar sent a second group into the slums, hunting for beggars and handcart pullers. These middlemen offered $300–$1,000 per kidney. That isn’t much for an organ that keeps your body free of deadly toxins, but when you’re hungry, $300 seems a lot.

By preying on the poor, Kumar performed hundreds of operations over 20 years. He was occasionally arrested, but whenever he left jail, he just moved to another city and got back to work. He often teamed up with professional surgeons and bribed government officials. But the really scary thing is Kumar wasn’t even a doctor.

Far from being a professional surgeon, Kumar was an ayurvedic practitioner. That’s a form of alternative medicine native to India. In other words, the man wasn’t qualified to remove hemorrhoids, much less a kidney. Three Turkish clients even died under his care. But Kumar was a fantastic crook and had a real doctor whip up some false death certificates claiming that the men died of cardiac arrest.

Kumar’s organization finally collapsed when a man sold him out in 2008. The man claimed to be a victim of Kumar’s scheme, though he was likely an employee who’d been shafted and wanted revenge. Whatever the reason, Kumar was sentenced to 10 years for letting his Turkish patients die and earned seven years for conspiracy, forgery, and intimidation.

6The Man Who Cashed A Check

Photo credit: NBC

David Arndt was a surgical star. Successful, handsome, and incredibly smart, this Harvard-educated orthopedic surgeon was at the top of his game near the turn of the millennium. Then things took a very weird turn in 2002 when Arndt was supposed to operate on spinal patient Charles Algeri.

Arndt showed up looking awful. He hadn’t shaved, and there were dark circles under his eyes. He was also acting strange during the surgery. He kept asking the circulating nurse to phone his secretary and ask if “Bob” had shown up yet. “Bob” was Arndt’s code word for his paycheck.

Eventually, his secretary had the check delivered to the OR, and Arndt seemed to lose his mind. Seven hours into the operation, with Mr. Algeri unconscious and his back wide open, Arndt told his team he was going to step outside for a minute. But instead of taking a quick break, he left the hospital and headed to the bank to cash his check. He was gone for 35 minutes.

Arndt claimed that he needed to cash his check so he could pay some bills. This didn’t sit well with the medical board, and they suspended his license.

Some suspect that Arndt is a major narcissist who put his own needs in front of his patient’s. Another possible explanation is he was a methamphetamine addict. In fact, he made extra money for buying drugs by selling meth himself, which eventually led to his arrest in 2003. This wasn’t his first run-in with the law. Shortly before, he’d been picked up for drugging and having sex with a 15-year-old boy.

Arndt was sentenced to 10 years for his crimes. As for Charles Algeri, Arndt had screwed up so badly that he needed two more operations, and as of 2010, he couldn’t feel anything below his right knee. The man filed a lawsuit and received $1.25 million.

5The Surgery That Made A Monster

In 2013, RadioLab interviewed a man called Kevin, an epileptic who’d undergone surgery to end his seizures. Doctors removed part of his brain, and at first, it seemed like a success. But after Kevin turned 35, the seizures returned.

For a while, Kevin tried to deal with the fits, but they grew so bad that he finally scheduled a second operation. This time, doctors were worried the surgery would impact Kevin’s appreciation for music. Since Kevin was a music lover, he didn’t want to put that part of his brain at risk. So he opted to stay awake and sing. The surgeons poked and prodded at his brain, and when Kevin stopped singing, they knew to stay away from that section.

After the procedure, the convulsions stopped. But Kevin’s personality started to shift. He started playing the piano nonstop, constantly eating, and wanting sex all the time. Things got even worse when Kevin got on to his computer.

Suddenly, Kevin was addicted to pornography, everything from bondage to animal sex—and then child porn. “I didn’t want to do it,” he told RadioLab, but he kept downloading the worst videos and images imaginable. Eventually, in 2006, the authorities showed up on his doorstep and led him off to jail.

Kevin pleaded guilty, but during the sentencing, things got tricky. Neurologist Orrin Devinsky claimed that Kevin wasn’t to blame. He was suffering from Kluver-Blucy syndrome. The doctors had damaged Kevin’s anterior temporal lobes, the part of the brain that keeps our darkest desires in check.

The prosecution argued that Kevin was in control because he kept himself in check when at work. There wasn’t a single pornographic image on his office computer. Devinsky countered that when people are active and mentally occupied, they have more control over neurological problems like Kluver-Blucy, but when they’re bored or irritated, they lose their inhibitions.

When it came time for sentencing, the judge agreed that Kevin was suffering from a disorder. However, in those moments when he was in control of his faculties, he should’ve asked for help. The judge sentenced Kevin to 26 months behind bars and 25 months of house arrest.

Today, Kevin is no longer in prison. He takes medication to keep his urges under control and seems to show sincere remorse. But just how culpable was Kevin? Was he responsible for his acts, or was it really case of “my brain made me do it”?

4William T.G. Morton Saves The Day

Back in the early 1800s, operating rooms were torture chambers. These were the days before anesthetics, and patients were held down by strong men or leather straps as the blades came out. Many people who survived surgery remembered hearing the saws crunching through bone and their limbs plopping onto the floor.

To drive the point home, here’s an account from Fanny Burney, who received a mastectomy in 1811. “When the dreadful steel was plunged into the breast,” she wrote, “cutting through veins—arteries—flesh—nerves . . . I began a scream that lasted unintermittingly during the whole time of the incision—& I almost marvel that it rings not in my Ears still!”

But everything changed in 1846 thanks to dentist William T.G. Morton. He believed the gas diethyl ether might stop the world’s suffering. He tested the stuff on everything from his dog, his patient, caterpillars, and chickens to his pet goldfish. He even used the gas on himself.

Convinced ether would change the world, Morton made an appointment with the greatest surgeon of the day, John Warren of Massachusetts General Hospital. Warren was doubtful but agreed to let Morton try his miracle cure on October 16. The setting was the Ether Dome, an amphitheater atop the hospital building. The patient was Edward Abbott, who had a tumor in his neck. The room was packed with dubious doctors and skeptical students.

As Morton readied his homemade inhaler (which he hadn’t tested yet), Dr. Warren sarcastically quipped, “Well, sir, your patient is ready.” Morton placed the inhaler in Abbott’s mouth. About four minutes later, the man was unconscious. Morton turned to Warren and replied, “Your patient, sir.”

The surgery was a success. Warren quickly removed the tumor, and Abbott never screamed or struggled. When Abbott finally awoke, he reported only a light scraping sensation. There was no pain at all.

News of Morton’s success spread, and soon doctors across the globe were using ether on their patients. Surgeries were suddenly a whole lot quieter.

3TheNoseDoctor

Mark Weinberger called himself “TheNoseDoctor,” and the man got a lot of business. He worked in the town of Merrillville, Indiana, a place full of steel mills. Thanks to the air pollution, people poured into his office, complaining of sinus trouble. Fortunately, Weinberger knew what to do: surgery. Surgery for everyone.

TheNoseDoctor told 90 percent of his patients that they needed sinus surgery during their first appointment. If you walked in with the sniffles, you walked out with holes drilled into the back of your maxillary sinuses. Most of his patients actually didn’t need surgery at all. Making things worse, Weinberger’s methods were outdated, and thank to those holes, many of his patients developed nasty infections.

This was more than negligence. Weinberger was something of a psychopath. He showed his patients terrifying pictures of disgusting, bloody polyps growing in their sinuses—pictures that were entirely fake. There weren’t any other surgeons in his office, and he owned his own CAT scan machine. That meant he didn’t have to send his patients elsewhere for scans. Weinberger was in complete control.

Before things came crashing down, Weinberger earned $30 million. He owned a 25-meter (80 ft) yacht, property in the Bahamas, and a five-story home in Chicago. The man was living large, and his patients were paying the ultimate price. While working on a nine-year-old (who didn’t need surgery because her sinuses were still developing), he missed a tumor growing on her pituitary gland. Even worse, he ignored a woman’s throat cancer, and she soon died.

Eventually, people started filing malpractice suits against TheNoseDoctor, but he wasn’t planning on sticking around. After stealing millions from his own business and loading up on camping supplies, he abandoned his wife in Greece without so much as a goodbye (although he did leave her with $6 million in debt). The surgeon spent five years hiding out in northwestern Italy, but when his new girlfriend discovered his identity, she turned him over to the authorities.

Incompetent to the end, Weinberger tried cutting his throat but screwed up. Instead of claiming his life, he ended up with seven years behind bars. His 282 victims split a $55 million settlement in 2013.

2Ex Vivo Surgeries

Heather McNamara was a seven-year-old girl from Long Island, New York, and she had cancer. This wasn’t your average tumor. This thing was a monster. It had tangled itself in her blood vessels and swallowed up her intestines, stomach, spleen, pancreas, colon, and liver. There was no way doctors could just cut it out.

That’s where Dr. Tomoaki Kato came in. A Japanese surgeon who’d moved to America, Kato specializes in one of the most radical types of surgery imaginable. It’s called “ex vivo” resection, which means “out of the living body.” Instead of leaning over a comatose patient and prodding around her insides, Kato removes all the organs and operates outside the body. It’s an extreme procedure for extreme cases like Heather’s.

By the time Kato was done removing Heather’s guts, the only thing left was the left side of her colon, which had escaped the tumor. Everything else was soaking in a special icy solution. Removing all those organs required cutting out and tying off an incredible number of blood vessels. After the snipping was done, three groups of surgeons scraped away at the entrails, and they had to work fast. If Heather’s organs were outside her body for more than six hours, her circulatory system would shut down.

From the first cut to the last stitch, the whole procedure took 23 hours. That included replacing all the corrupted vessels, using a piece of Heather’s jugular to hook up the liver, and attaching the esophagus to Heather’s intestines as her stomach was too damaged. Of course, Dr. Kato had to take a few quick breaks along the way.

The good doctor has been involved in dozens of “ex vivo” surgeries, most of them successful. There are, however, always cases where there’s just too much damage. In 2010, Kato tried to save a 59-year-old man named Robert Collison who was suffering from a 5-kilogram (10 lb) tumor. Though the surgery was a success, the man died eight weeks later. Fortunately, that wasn’t the case for Heather McNamara. She survived the operation, and as you can see from the above video, she’s doing just fine.

1The Surgeon Who Gave Old Men Monkey Balls

Serge Abrahamovitch Voronoff was quite the crazy character. A Russian surgeon who trained with a Nobel Prize–winning doctor, he studied the effects of castration on eunuchs while working for the king of Egypt until 1910. Obsessed with testicles, Voronoff believed the glands played a key part in the aging process. When he returned to Paris, he began offering “monkey gland operations” to aging gentlemen who wanted to regain their mental prowess and sexual potency.

The first step of a monkey gland operation involves getting your hands on monkey balls. Voronoff often used baboons and chimpanzees (which are technically apes), and the process was quite intense. The primates were anesthetized and placed inside a special box that kept the animals restrained while the doctors snipped away. You don’t want an angry male chimp to wake up while you’re trying to steal the family jewels.

Next, Voronoff sliced the testes into thin layers and grafted them onto the private parts of the gentleman lying on the operating table. As bizarre as it sounds, the operations were wildly popular, and by the time he retired in the 1930s, thousands of men had signed up for the procedure.

The Russian earned quite a bit of cash. He moved into one of the swankiest hotels in Paris and even set up a facility specifically for breeding future “donors.” But as time went on, scientists realized that Voronoff was a major quack. Monkey gland operations were useless and didn’t actually do anything. In fact, some theorize the surgeries helped transmit AIDS from monkeys to humans though others dispute that claim. Either way, it’s safe to say that Voronoff’s operations were totally nuts.

Human ingenuity has led to remarkable advancements, yet the same creative spirit sometimes results in bafflingly impractical inventions. Throughout history, individuals have pursued ideas that, despite their absurdity, were brought to life. Often motivated by a mix of optimism, ambition, and perhaps a dash of delusion, these ventures have left us with a legacy of incredible yet undeniably dumb ideas.

These examples underscore the human tendency to dream big, sometimes at the expense of practicality and common sense. Yet, these stories are not just about failure. They highlight the enduring human spirit to innovate and the lessons we learn from our mistakes.

Whether it’s the world’s slowest car or a spoon that melts at the mere touch of warm food, each entry in this list is a testament to the quirky, sometimes reckless, side of human invention. So, let’s dive into these incredibly dumb ideas that people actually implemented and marvel at the audacity behind them.

Related: Top 10 Dumb Inventions That Made a Millionaire

10 A Bicycle with Triangular Wheels

In the realm of unconventional transportation, few ideas are as puzzling as the bicycle with triangular wheels. This bizarre invention was intended to provide a smoother ride by utilizing a unique wheel shape. However, the reality was far less impressive.

Unlike circular wheels, which roll smoothly, triangular wheels create a bumpy and unstable ride. Each rotation results in a jarring motion that disrupts the cyclist’s balance. This fundamental flaw rendered the bicycle nearly impossible to ride effectively, turning what was supposed to be an innovative solution into an impractical oddity.

Despite its impracticality, the triangular-wheeled bicycle garnered attention as a novelty item. Inventors showcased it as an example of thinking outside the box, albeit without considering practical applications. This invention stands as a testament to the importance of combining creativity with practicality in design.^[1]

9 Building and Buying Properties in Flood Zones

One of the most baffling real estate practices is the persistent development and purchase of properties in flood-prone areas. Despite frequent and devastating floods, cities worldwide continue to expand into these risky zones. This seemingly irrational decision often leads to catastrophic financial and personal losses when the inevitable floods occur.

Government policies and insurance schemes also play a role in perpetuating this cycle. Subsidized flood insurance and disaster relief funds can create a false sense of security, encouraging people to rebuild in the same vulnerable locations. This endangers future residents and places a significant financial burden on taxpayers who fund these relief efforts.

The ongoing development in flood zones is a glaring example of shortsighted planning. It highlights the need for stricter regulations and better urban planning to prevent recurring disasters. By prioritizing safety and sustainability over immediate gains, we can avoid the repeated heartbreak and economic strain caused by flooding.^[2]

8 The Concrete Fleet of WWII

During World War II, a remarkable yet impractical solution was attempted to address the shortage of steel for shipbuilding: concrete ships. These vessels, known as the Concrete Fleet, were constructed from reinforced concrete, a material commonly associated with buildings and infrastructure, not seaworthy vessels.

Despite the ingenuity behind this concept, the execution left much to be desired. Concrete ships were significantly heavier than their steel counterparts, making them slower and less maneuverable. Their structural integrity was questionable, leading to numerous maintenance issues and a higher risk of damage in rough seas.

Interestingly, the concrete ships did find some limited success in non-combat roles, such as storage and breakwaters. However, their inability to perform well in active service highlighted the limitations of using concrete as a primary material for shipbuilding. The Concrete Fleet remains a fascinating footnote in naval history, illustrating how innovative ideas can sometimes miss the mark.^[3]

7 The Christmas Bullet: The Worst Plane Ever Made

In the early 20th century, one of the most notorious aviation failures was the Christmas Bullet, an airplane designed by Dr. William Christmas. Promoted as a revolutionary fighter plane, the Bullet was intended to be a marvel of modern engineering. However, its design was fatally flawed from the outset, leading to catastrophic results.

The most glaring issue with the Christmas Bullet was its lack of wing struts, a feature essential for the structural integrity of an aircraft. Dr. Christmas believed the wings would be more efficient if they were allowed to “flap” like a bird’s, a disastrously incorrect theory. During its first test flight, the wings detached from the fuselage, resulting in the death of the pilot and the complete destruction of the plane.

Undeterred, Dr. Christmas built a second Bullet with the same design flaws, which met the same tragic end. Despite the obvious dangers, the project continued to receive funding due to Dr. Christmas’s persuasive abilities and connections within the government. This persistence in the face of repeated failures turned the Christmas Bullet into a symbol of misguided innovation and tragic hubris.^[4]

6 The Peel P50: The World’s Slowest and Smallest Car

The Peel P50, a microcar manufactured in the 1960s on the Isle of Man, holds the dubious honor of being the world’s smallest production car. Marketed as a convenient vehicle for short urban commutes, its design was intended to revolutionize personal transportation. However, the reality of driving the Peel P50 proved far less practical.

Measuring just 54 inches (137.2 cm) in length and weighing a mere 130 pounds (59 kilograms), the P50 was powered by a tiny 49cc engine that delivered a top speed of about 38 mph (61.2 km/h). Despite its small size and low speed, the car was notoriously difficult to maneuver, with a single door on the left side, no reverse gear, and a tendency to tip over due to its narrow wheelbase. The P50’s impracticality was further highlighted by its lack of modern safety features and limited storage capacity.

Interestingly, the Peel P50 has found a second life in recent years as a quirky collector’s item and a symbol of automotive eccentricity. It even holds a spot in the Guinness World Records as the smallest production car ever made. While its practical use remains questionable, its charm and novelty continue to captivate car enthusiasts around the world.^[5]

5 The Useless Spoon That Melts

In the world of kitchen gadgets, few inventions are as bafflingly impractical as the spoon that melts at 86°F (30°C). Marketed as an environmentally friendly alternative to plastic utensils, this spoon was made from a biodegradable material designed to break down quickly.

The most glaring flaw of this spoon is its low melting point. At just 86°F, the spoon begins to soften and lose its shape, making it utterly useless for most hot foods and beverages. Imagine stirring your morning coffee or eating a bowl of hot soup, only to find your spoon disintegrating before your eyes. This renders the spoon not only impractical but also a potential hazard, as it can leave bits of material in your food.

Despite its shortcomings, the melting spoon did gain some attention as a novelty item. It was occasionally used at events to highlight the importance of biodegradable products, albeit more for its shock value than its practicality. Its failure underscores the need to carefully consider functionality when designing eco-friendly alternatives. This kitchen gadget, though well-intentioned, ultimately failed to deliver on its promise of sustainability.^[6]

4 Balfron Tower: The Most Unattractive Building in the World

Balfron Tower, an example of Brutalist architecture, is often regarded as one of the most unattractive buildings in the world. Designed by Ernő Goldfinger and completed in 1967, the tower was intended to provide affordable housing in East London. However, its stark, concrete exterior and imposing design quickly became symbols of architectural excess and urban decay.

Inside, residents faced numerous issues, including poorly insulated apartments, malfunctioning elevators, and inadequate heating. These problems, combined with the building’s austere appearance, led to widespread dissatisfaction among tenants.

Despite its flaws, Balfron Tower has garnered attention from architectural enthusiasts and historians. Some praise its bold design and the vision behind it, while others see it as a cautionary tale of sacrificing functionality for architectural experimentation.^[7]

3 The Voynich Manuscript: The Book Intentionally Designed to Be Impossible to Read

The Voynich Manuscript, often described as the world’s most mysterious book, has baffled scholars, cryptographers, and historians for centuries. Discovered in 1912 by antiquarian bookseller Wilfrid Voynich, this medieval manuscript is written in an unknown script and illustrated with bizarre drawings of plants, astronomical diagrams, and naked figures. Despite numerous attempts to decode its contents, the manuscript remains an enigma.

One of the most perplexing aspects of the Voynich Manuscript is its unique language, which does not match any known linguistic patterns. Some researchers believe it to be an elaborate hoax, intentionally designed to be impossible to read. Others speculate it could be a cipher or a code waiting to be cracked.

The manuscript’s illustrations add another layer of intrigue. The plants depicted do not correspond to any known species, and the astronomical charts do not match any known constellations. Despite extensive research and advanced technological analysis, the Voynich Manuscript remains undeciphered, preserving its status as one of history’s greatest unsolved mysteries. It continues to captivate the imagination of all who encounter it, symbolizing the allure of the unknown and the human quest for knowledge.^[8]

2 The World’s First Underwater Car

The concept of an underwater car sounds like something straight out of a science fiction movie, but in the early 2000s, Swiss company Rinspeed made it a reality with the sQuba. Inspired by the Lotus Esprit from the James Bond film The Spy Who Loved Me, this vehicle was designed to transition seamlessly from land to water, allowing drivers to explore underwater environments.

Despite its futuristic appeal, the sQuba faced numerous practical challenges. It could only submerge to a depth of about 33 feet (10 meters) and had a top underwater speed of just 2 mph ((3.2 km/h). Moreover, the car required its occupants to wear scuba gear, as the cabin was not watertight, adding complexity and inconvenience.

The sQuba also came with a hefty price tag, limiting its accessibility to only the wealthiest enthusiasts. Its limited range and speed, both on land and underwater, further restricted its practicality. While it was a marvel of engineering and showcased innovative technology, the sQuba ultimately remained a niche novelty rather than a revolutionary mode of transportation.

The world’s first underwater car is a fascinating example of pushing the boundaries of automotive design. However, its many limitations highlight the gap between ambitious concepts and practical applications.^[9]

1 The Motorized Ice Cream Cone

In the world of impractical inventions, the motorized ice cream cone stands out as a particularly unnecessary gadget. Designed to rotate your ice cream for you, this device aimed to eliminate the “effort” of turning the cone by hand. Despite its novelty appeal, it quickly became apparent that the motorized cone was more of a gimmick than a practical tool.

The cone features a small electric motor that spins the ice cream while you hold it. This might sound amusing, but eating ice cream is already a simple, enjoyable activity that hardly requires mechanical assistance. The motorized cone complicates this simplicity, adding unnecessary bulk and requiring batteries to function.

Moreover, the device’s environmental impact is concerning. The need for disposable batteries adds to waste, and the additional cost of maintaining the cone outweighs any minor convenience it might provide. The motorized ice cream cone, while an interesting concept, ultimately serves as an example of over-engineering a solution to a problem that doesn’t exist.

This quirky invention reminds us that not all technological advancements improve our lives. Sometimes, the simplest pleasures, like eating ice cream, are best enjoyed without unnecessary gadgets.^[10]

Creepy stories are always a hit, unless you are the star of one. There are hundreds of internet discussions about ghost sightings, weird sounds, unexplained incidents etc. And it’s always those personal experiences that get the most interaction.

See Also: 10 Creepy Things Bodies Can Do After Death

10 Warning note

A hotel guest found more than she bargained for when she discovered an unnerving handwritten note in a drawer, thought to have been left there by a previous guest. In December 2014, Amy Jones was staying in an Edinburgh hotel when she discovered the creepy note that said: “Don’t open the locked door! Don’t trust its whispers. Leave, just lea…”

Instead of being freaked out, Jones took a picture of the note and uploaded it to Twitter. She then proceeded to go to sleep with the door in question facing her from the opposite end of the room. The next morning, she let her Twitter followers know that she was still alive and that she hadn’t heard any whispers coming from the door.

9Satanic panic

In November 2019, an unnamed source reported the killing of a sheep in the New Forest in Hampshire. The sheep corpse had pentagrams, an inverted cross and the number 666 painted on it. It had been stabbed to death. Furthermore, a heifer and two calves were found with stab wounds in Bramshaw and Linwood.

When police investigated the incident, they found that an inverted cross and 666 had also been painted on the door of St Peter’s Church in Bramshaw. The New Forest has a historical connection to witchcraft, but the locals had never experienced anything “occult-like” before the sheep incident. Residents are said to be very disturbed by what has happened and hope that police will bring the perpetrators of the ‘satanic graffiti’ crime to book.

8Sucked into a grave

The sun had just about set on 19 December 2016 when 64-year old Joanne Cullen arrived at the Long Island cemetery to visit her parents’ burial plot. She spotted a bent-out-of-shape bow on the wreath over the plot’s headstone and bent over to fix it. As she did so, the ground beneath her feet gave way and she sank into the grave right up to her hips.

The unexpected event caused her to lose her balance and tip over, hitting her head on the tombstone and cracking a tooth. She grabbed hold of the sides of the tombstone in desperation and shouted for help, but no one heard her.

After she finally managed to crawl out of the grave, she immediately left the cemetery and refused to go back. Cullen also enlisted the help of a lawyer to sue the property owners of the cemetery citing emotional problems and nightmares stemming from the horrific incident.

7 Trapped

Earlier in 2019, a woman fell asleep on a plane en route to Toronto. When she awoke, the plane was empty, dark and it was almost midnight. Luckily, she managed to open the plane door and was rescued by crew on the ground.

Another woman in Xi’an, China found herself trapped in an elevator at the end of January 2016 after repairmen shut it off and let it rest on the first floor of the residential building she lived in.

Unfortunately, the men only returned a month later and found the decomposing remains of the woman inside; her hands disfigured from trying to escape her steel prison. It is alleged that the men never opened the elevator to check for passengers, but simply called out and upon receiving no answer, they shut the elevator off and left to celebrate the Chinese New Year.

The victim is said to have been mentally disabled and was only identified by her surname, Wu. Her family reported her disappearance but did not undertake a search for her inside or outside the building.

6 Ghost couple

On 10 November 2019, 60-year old Soong Rui-xiong left his home and set off on a hike in the Pingtung mountains. He didn’t return home and his family spent an anxious 10 days searching for him before a villager spotted and accompanied Soong to the nearest police station.

Soong had apparently climbed up a rock wall during his hike and lost his glasses in the process, leading to confusion. He then found a cave in which he stayed for a few days but left after realizing he would die there if he didn’t make some kind of plan to be rescued. He told his family afterwards that he drank water from a stream and ate plants after his food ran out the same day he left for the mountains.

When interviewed about his ordeal, Soong also claimed that a ghost couple met up with him outside the cave and walked with him for two hours. He believed them to be the ancient ghosts of indigenous Taiwanese and he further claimed that they disappeared from his side without a sound as soon as he reached the path leading down the mountain.

5 Healed by a ghost

Diane Berthlot suffered a spell of illness after a gall bladder removal operation. She was sick for several months and on a lot of medication, including antibiotics for an infection. Despite this, she determined that she would take a trip to Norfolk during the holidays. During her time there in 1975, she went into the Worstead village church to sit down for a bit and rest.

While sitting on a pew, her husband and son walked around the church taking pictures of the interior. Diane, feeling very ill, bowed her head and prayed for healing. She suddenly felt a tingling sensation all over her body as well as a feeling of comforting warmth.

Six months later, Diane was feeling on top of the world. Her husband decided to develop the pictures they had taken on their trip and while looking through them, they both gasped in unison. On one of the pictures, a woman wearing old-fashioned clothes and a bonnet could be seen sitting directly behind Diane inside the Worstead church. Diane immediately knew this woman had healed her.

The couple returned to the church and showed the picture to the vicar who told them that he believed the woman in the picture was the ‘White Lady’ who was a healer hundreds of years ago. Legend says that a man climbed inside the church belfry on Christmas Eve 1830, shouting that he was not afraid of the White Lady and would kiss her if she appeared. When his friends came looking for him hours later, he was sitting in a corner alone whispering “I’ve seen her” to himself. He died shortly afterwards.

4 A disputed gift

Most people didn’t take Helen Duncan seriously as a medium after it became obvious that her predictions and communication with spirits was all a big fat lie. During the 20s she held seances and ‘produced’ ectoplasm, but she and her spirit guide named ‘Peggy’ soon became objects of ridicule and very few made use of her services.

Then, in November 1941, Duncan held a séance and claimed to have contacted the spirit of a sailor that was aboard the HMS Barham. This meant that she knew the ship had sunk before it was announced.

However, not everyone was convinced that this strange claim was the real deal, with one researcher believing she had simply used rampant gossip to make some extra money for her fledgling business. This conclusion didn’t stop British authorities from arresting and prosecuting Duncan under the Witchcraft Act. She was convicted and sentenced to 9 months in prison.

As time went by, other mediums became convinced that Duncan was indeed one of them and had a real gift. Some are even trying to clear her name, but Helen Duncan remains a very controversial topic in discussions about the paranormal and supernatural.

3 Bleeding walls

When 77-year old Minnie Winston stood up to get out of the bath on 8 September 1987, she noticed a pool of red liquid on the floor. She took a closer look and realized it was blood. When she looked around the bathroom, she saw blood pouring out of the walls and running over the floor into the adjacent hallway.

Frightened that something might have happened to her husband, she called out to him. When he showed up in the corridor, he showed no signs of bleeding. Terrified now, Minnie called the police. Officers scoured the couple’s home but found nothing that could have produced that amount of blood. They took some of it to be tested and later concluded it was human Type O blood. Neither Minnie nor her husband had this blood type.

To date the cause of the ‘bleeding walls’ remains unknown.

2 Bone in sock

On 10 December 2018 an unnamed customer bought a pair of socks at a Primark store in Colchester. What was a very mundane purchase turned out to be quite disturbing when the customer arrived home, took the socks out of their packaging and discovered a human bone inside one of them.

The incident was reported to police on 2 January 2019 and Essex officers started an investigation. Unfortunately, the only thing they could establish was that the bone used to be part of a human finger. Police could not find any link to a criminal act and believed the incident to be a hoax. However, no apparent DNA testing was done on the bone and therefore the identity of the person it belonged to remains a mystery.

1 Real life Pennywise

A not-so-merry prankster has been scaring the pants off people in the Ukraine since early December 2019. A person dressed up as Pennywise from IT decided to hide behind bridges and in trash cans, popping up when unsuspecting passers-by amble past. The clown also pretended to pour gas over cars at a gas station while people are inside paying. Some patrons became so terrified that they ran away, leaving their vehicles behind.

Videos of these pranks have gone viral, but also caught the attention of local law enforcement. A criminal case has been opened against Pennywise under Part 2 of Art.300 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine as it is suspected that the brains behind the clown operation are trying to promote violence.

However, Pennywise is fighting back. He stated on social media that since his pranks are not affecting children or the elderly, he will not stop and that he has merely gotten started.

On a planet where the pyramids, the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, and the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus are among the unchallenged greatest wonders of the world, it is often difficult to believe that such bizarre things as rainbow trees, polka-dotted lakes, and waterfalls of “blood” could even be possible.

But venture into the most beautiful, surreal corners of the world and you’ll find a variety of scientific marvels that form delightful and horrifying scenes straight out of a psychedelic novel.

10 Polka-Dot Shores

Although most lakes are formed and maintained by an ever-present source of water, some are instead an accumulation of melted snow, excessive rain, and trace amounts of groundwater. Bodies of water with this easy-come, easy-go nature (here known as an “endorheic” lake) are susceptible to extreme evaporation.

In fact, the lake itself will completely dry up during the summer. For one lake in Canada, this results in a colorful mosaic of spots. Officially named “Spotted Lake,” this remote location within the Okanagan Valley in British Columbia looks like just about any other lake in the country during the winter, spring, and fall months.

However, when summer rolls around, most of the lake’s volume is lost to evaporation. What is left behind isn’t any old patch of land, though. Spotted Lake is rich in natural resources: Calcium, sodium and magnesium sulphates, and titanium are the chief contenders there, and they are responsible for the colorful hue left behind.

When the water surrounding these elements and minerals evaporates, what remains are multicolored alkaline rings that, depending on the concentration of each, will leave varying hues of green, yellow, and blue rings on the dried-out ground.^[1]

9 Glowing Lakes

From a tourist standpoint, Thailand is known for its beautiful beaches, exquisite cuisine, and backpacking trails that have the popular islands crammed with sightseers. The country is often advertised as a “deserted paradise.”

The vast numbers of tourists who inhabit the place from November to March are most likely unaware of one of the most extraordinary aspects: the blue, bioluminescent water seen only by night. Looking like something out of a fantasy novel, the waters off coastal Thailand are largely inhabited by microscopic plankton which contain many of the same chemical combinations as fireflies.

Using the same luciferin-luciferase chemical reaction as fireflies, the plankton found in these coastal waters glow when irritated. The display was once described as “a magical light show [to rival] the brightness of the stars above.”^[2]

8 A Waterfall Of Blood

When we think of waterfalls, most of us are probably more inclined to think of the commonly known Niagara Falls, the most prominent (and probably overlooked) aspect of which is its crystal clear water. Yet for all the commonness of clear falls, there is a location where the water that pours forth is eerily crimson in color.

First located in 1911, this area of the remote Taylor Glacier in Antarctica appears to be spouting blood instead of water. The reason for this is rather complex. As opposed to being fueled by melting snow and groundwater, the water source of the Taylor Glacier is the saltwater lake that lies beneath.^[3]

Over time, this salt water has picked up trace amounts of iron from constant contact with the bedrock below. What follows is the same chemical reaction that produces rust. The water takes on the deep red hue of iron oxide. When spilling over, the water seems to be made of blood.

7 Rainbow Trees

Looking more like a regular tree splattered with paint, the appropriately named rainbow eucalyptus is most prominently located in the Philippines and Indonesia. It can even be found stateside in Hawaii, California, and Florida.

Wherever you come across this tree, though, its wild coloration is the result of both its unique bark formation and its location. (The most colorful of these trees are found in Indonesia and the Philippines.)

The bark of the tree is formed by dividing cambium cells, each with a high concentration of chlorophyll (the chemical which gives leaves and grass their rich green color). Over the life span of the cambium cells, they become infused with varying levels of tannins, the chemicals which run the visual gamut from red to brown.

The varying combination of these chemicals, along with the relative humidity and the wetness of the bark, creates the rainbow effect.^[4]

6 Stone Roses

Neither a stone nor a rose, a phenomenon found in Mexico and Tunisia (and, less commonly, in Arizona) is known as a “stone rose.” Formed from either gypsum or barite, these roses are produced as a result of evaporation when one or the other of these minerals binds with grains of sand in an arid, salt-rich environment.^[5]

With an average size of 10 centimeters (4 in) per petal, these roselike formations range in color that is directly related to how they were formed. The ones made in shallower locations typically produce amber petals, whereas deeper formations in a wider space often produce yellow or clear petals.

The unique shape of these roses is not the only unusual thing about them. Regardless of their color during the day or where they developed, all will glow the same opaque white color when placed under an ultraviolet light.

5 Blood Rain

Travel to certain locations within India—namely, Kerala—and you may be treated to the seemingly morbid phenomenon of blood rain. While the name calls to mind some kind of biblical horror film, this state’s spookiest weather affliction is not the result of oxidation within the water. Rather, it is due to the state’s proximity to nearby deserts.

Although rain evaporates cleanly, it can pick up a multitude of things on the way back down. (Acid rain is a prime example and result of this.) But chemicals are not the only thing that can be mixed in with the precipitation.

Airborne particles that are thin enough and high enough can also blend with the moisture in the clouds. When reddish particles of sand get mixed with those clouds, they will fall and pool into puddles of bloodred liquid, even leaving a red hue behind when the rain itself evaporates.^[6]

This scientific explanation of particles being mixed with cloud moisture also held true for the same phenomenon experienced in Russia in July 2018. The city of Norilsk was besieged by red rain one afternoon.

The culprit?

A metal processing plant was performing some routine maintenance. Rust shavings which had been scraped from the floor were caught in an updraft which took them high enough to meld with the clouds. Not long afterward, the red rain was pouring.

4 A Lake of Frozen Bubbles

Looking as though it’s full of frozen jellyfish or cartoonish jewels deep beneath its surface, Lake Abraham is an artificial lake located in Alberta, Canada, that dates back to 1972. It is burgeoning with frozen bubbles.

One unique aspect of this lake is that it has high concentrations of methane gas trapped within its surface. Most lakes contain base amounts of methane as a result of decaying matter which sinks to the bottom and is feasted on by bacteria. In turn, that bacteria produces the methane which escapes through the water and eventually goes airborne.

However, Lake Abraham is unique because its water temperature is high enough that methane can still escape into the water but cold enough that escaping gas will freeze into opaque bubbles. They display a hue ranging from white to deep blue depending on their proximity to the surface.^[7]

3 Bubblegum Water

For the strawberry lovers of the world, you’re in luck . . . at least visually. There is a vibrant pink lake off the coast of Western Australia by the name of Hillier. Although it is not the only pink lake in the world, Hillier’s water is distinctive for being the only one with water that does not lose its color when collected.

This color is neither a mere optical illusion nor the result of the bedrock below the water. Rather, it is the result of several factors working together.

Discovered in 1802, Lake Hillier is home to a certain type of halophilic (“salt-loving”) algae known as the Dunaliella which generate their energy via use of all visible frequencies of light except those falling in the red-orange spectrum. In addition to “leaving behind” the red light energy, these algae produce variations of carotene that contribute to the lake’s reddish-pink hue.^[8]

2 Mummified Lake

At first glance, Tanzania’s Lake Natron seems like a morbid oasis with its bloodred waters surrounded by many peaceful birds lurking at its shores. However, the cause of those deep red depths is more than a little unsettling.

Also known as “Stone Animal Lake,” this body of water in Africa was once rumored to have such a high alkaline content that it could instantly kill and petrify any animal that dared wander into its depths. Rather than being the result of an optical illusion or the presence of halophilic bacteria, Natron’s deep red color is attributed to the presence of minerals formed by volcanic processes in the immediate area.

These processes gradually increased the pH of the water until it became saturated with natron and sodium carbonate, the latter of which was once used in the practice of mummification. The presence of these various minerals—along with the decaying remnants of animals that couldn’t live in such harsh conditions—heavily increased the alkaline nature of the water.^[9]

As such, it became favorable to haloarchaea, red-bodied organisms that tint the water of the lake and the plumage of the flamingos which often live by the water.

1 Forest Of Ice Blades

From the childhood favorite of making snowmen to the artisan craft of ice sculpting, the activity of shaping snow and ice into various pleasing formations has been around for a while and seemingly isn’t going anywhere. However, what happens when the Earth itself decides to get in on the fun?

Travel to various regions within Chile, and you will find miniature forests of icy blades . . . that have exactly no snow or ice in the surrounding area. First discovered in 1835, these religiously named “penitentes” can grow to upward of 5 meters (16 ft) tall.^[10]

They are the direct result of sublimation, a chemical process by which a heat source transforms a solid into a gas without first melting it. In a process that only builds on itself, the angular formation of smaller spikes further concentrates the sunlight. This increases the rate of sublimation until entire forests of these spikes will overtake the landscape.

Roxanne is the author of mythological fantasy and paranormal horror novels. She is located at twitter.com/rheathwrites.

With a heaping dose of ‘health and safety hypersensitivity’, any family trip or neighbourhood party can turn into a boring, slow moving dull-a-thon. That grill is too hot, keep the kids away. How deep is that pool? That popcorn is a choking hazard, enjoy some celery soup with your movie. Sometimes, you have to live a little. Not with these products, though. The items listed below will burn you, choke you or pop out your eyes in a second. Enjoy.

10 Products Made From Human Body Parts And Secretions

10 Norodin A.K.A Speed

Who doesn’t love meth? Many happy customers the world over use this wonder drug to increase their ‘vim’ and ‘pep’ before engaging in the usual sorts of activities people like; robbery, prostitution and proclaiming oneself the messiah whilst nude at a public swimming pool.

People in the past were actually able to purchase methamphetamines legally. One brand named version of the drug was Norodin, marketed at ladies who wanted to lose weight. Speed was everywhere. You could even get a Benzedrine inhaler, along with a large scotch and the chicken set dinner, on PanAm flights in the 1940s. That’s exactly what you want on a long haul flight across the pond—a meth head in the middle seat. Speed was popular until a slew of high profile criminal cases all over the world pointed to abuse of these narcotics as a contributing factor. The business moved from control by pharmacists to your friendly, local drug kingpins, bringing an air of the home-grown and rustic to Meth.^[1]

9 A Lot Of Stuff Made By The A.C. Gilbert Company

This company made some pretty cool toys. They also made some of the most dangerous ‘toys’ a kid could ever have the misfortune of playing with. Small cuts, light scalding, choking hazards and pinching injuries are extremely common in kids toys and always have been. Radiation poisoning though? A.C. Gilbert was a multi-talented inventor, but he really pushed the boat out on innovative ways to seriously maim children.

The ‘Gilbert U-238 Atomic Energy Lab’ allowed your budding Einstein to play around with different uranium ores that produced gamma, alpha and beta radiation. Fun! Gilbert also produced a glass blowing kit for kids (presumably so they could engage in the most disfiguring game of pea-shooters ever) and a chemistry kit which included a heaping pile of sodium cyanide, just in case lil’ Bobby jr. wants to bump off the Russian agent next door. Or make a really terrible milkshake for himself.^[2]

8 1920’s Hair Removal

Waxing, shaving, epilating and laser treatments are the ways modern guys and gals use to remove those pesky stray hairs in problem areas. How did the ladies of the 1920s do it? X-rays. I shit you not one bit, folks. X-rays.

The ‘Tricho’ machines, once relatively commonplace in beauty parlours across the USA, were machines that focused doses of X-rays upon the customers’ cheeks and upper lip. This would, after upwards of 15 treatments a year, induce permanent hair removal. And malignant carcinomas. Possibly death. Given that hair removal beauty regimens are more common for men today, you may be curious if this could be just dangerous for ladies in the 1920s. Amazing!—the march of progress, scientific developments, am I right? Well sir, the next time you break your arm, do NOT enquire whether the guy or gal in charge of the X-ray machine minds doing your back, sack and crack. You’ll get rid of those hairs, but gain a few tumours.^[3]

7 The Empire Little Lady Stove

We’ve all read about the dangers of the once popular kids ‘Easy Bake Oven’. This popular mini oven allowed children to play kitchen for real. But for every hundred or so nicely browned jam tarts, you’ll end up burning yourself (we’ve all been there. Damn spun sugar, it’s basically napalm). When you scale it down and allow little kids to do the same, you’re asking for a trip to the burns unit with little Jinny or Jimmy. Imagine your kids’ toy oven could reach temperatures that exceed your own full-size cooker. That’d be the Empire Little Lady Stove.

Modern ovens will reach a temperature of around 550 degrees Fahrenheit before a mechanism clicks in, turning off the oven lest it burn the house down. This children’s toy could reach temperatures of 600 degrees Fahrenheit. That’s just about hot enough to bake some lovely chocolate chip cookies in 35 seconds. Ah, simpler times.^[4]

6 The Zulu Blowgun Game

Zulu warriors employed a whole host of deadly weapons when they went to war. Not blowguns, though. To the makers of this wonderfully safety unconscious game, that didn’t matter. Unsafe and tone deaf, a match made in hell!

This crazy game included a blowgun, paper targets and metal-tipped darts. So, an actual weapon then. This is the equivalent of handing a child a loaded Glock 17 and, without training, calling it their ‘new shooting game’. Have at it, kid. Gotta learn to larp sometime.^[5]

10 Products You Aren’t Using The Crazy Way Their Creators Intended

5 Incredibly Inflammable Clothes

In the words of noted physician Dr. Nick Riviera, “Inflammable means flammable? What a country!” Once you get the definitions straight, now you can venture forth into the world and realise that a wire wool jacket may not be the best item of clothing to wear at the 9V battery factory. Victorian ladies had a hold host of incredibly easy to burn fabrics to choose from in a world that still employed candles and gas-fuelled flames for light. Muslin, gauze, all the open weaved cotton fabrics for dresses was a little like wearing a frock made of match heads. One of the craziest fabrics was flannelette.

The coroner of the city of Manchester, England put it best when interviewed for a local newspaper in 1898:

He noted that he had ‘held several inquests on children burned to death owing to their having played with fire in one way or another. Mr Smelt said there had been seven such deaths within a week that he had had to deal with, and he attributed the fact to the cold weather we had recently experienced. Children would go near fires to warm themselves; it, therefore, behoved parents to watch them strictly. They should also avoid dressing them in flannelette, which was almost as dangerous, if touched with fire, as gunpowder’. Still, those dresses looked pretty.^[6]

4 Roman Blinds

A few of these entries seem to cover danger to children. The toys are obviously going to be very kid-heavy, but window coverings? You better believe it. These fancier looking roller blinds are all but impossible to get in the USA these days, at least with the traditional pull cords.

You may think this is public safety run amok, maybe some crazy attempt to avoid lawsuits based on 1 or 2 kids getting friction burns or a toggle in the eye. But according to data gathered in 2015, more than 200 child deaths could be attributed to pull cords on window coverings. Huge retailers like Target and IKEA have now removed them from the shelves. Fair enough then.^[7]

3 Agene-Treated Flour

White bread was fancy stuff until the advent of sourdough and malted tin loaves with a honey glaze topped with mixed seeds. The whiter the bread, the ‘better’. As mass production and higher wages began to take hold at the turn of the last century, demand for good bread skyrocketed. How could bakers make shiny, brilliant white loves consumers wanted?

It’s all in the milling process. The whiter the flour, the whiter the bread. So they’d bleach the flour, artificially whitening the bread, the process getting better and better until you could buy a loaf that was whiter than Casper the friendly ghost’s taint. One chemical that was commonly used was nitrogen trichloride, or agene. In 1949 it was discovered that this process wasn’t producing flour that was safe for human consumption. Agene treated flour caused neurological disorders. How was this found out? Agene flour was also used in the making of dog biscuits, the dogs consumed them and showed signs of hysteria. Hysterical dogs—always a dead giveaway that something isn’t quite right.^[8]

2 Samsung Galaxy Note 7

This phone blasted onto the market in August of 2016, becoming the latest hot property produced by South Korean tech juggernaut Samsung. It caused an explosion of excitement for users… before causing actual explosions due to faulty batteries.

First, the newly released Note 7s would go boom. Samsung told consumers that they could trade in their recently purchased faulty phones for a new, far less explosive one. The problem was that these new improved phones also tended to overheat and blow up. This led to Samsung pulling the plug. Alongside the many hundreds of disappointed consumer whose new devices had combusted, Samsung took a bit of heat too—to the tune of around $17 billion in lost revenue. Ouch!^[9]

1 Any Car Before The 90s

When you look at car accident photographs from the past (if you’re that way inclined), one wonders why anybody would buy a car back then. They were death machines.

Any petrol head, especially stateside, knows about the infamous Ford Pinto (available from 1971—1980) with its genius design innovation—the fuel tank was right next to the bumper at the rear of the car, making even the lightest bump to the back of the Pinto a potentially explosive crash. What about even further back in time? Well, the amazing Briggs & Stratton Flyer, perhaps the cheapest to produce car ever, was essentially a go-kart primarily made from wood. It had no doors. No windscreen. No safety tech at all. Looks fun, until you consider that the mere addition of a scarf to your driving apparel pretty much guarantees that you’ll lose your head.

Speaking of gruesome deaths caused by automotive accidents, here’s a fun fact for all you vintage car collectors. If you’re driving any car made before 1968, the steering column won’t be collapsible. So what? Well, if you get into a prang, the waist belt (chances are you won’t have a 3 point safety belt) won’t stop you getting impaled on the fixed steering column. Even much loved, iconic classic cars are incredibly unsafe. Say you fancy yourself a bit of a Marty McFly and buy a DeLorean. You’ll look cool as hell… until some jackass undertakes you and you swerve. The you flip over. Then you’re entombed in a metal sarcophagus, facing certain death. Why? Those cool-as-balls gull wings cannot open when the car is upside down. Bet you wish you’d made out with your teenage mother instead… “Great Scott!”^[10]

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About The Author: CJ Phillips is a storyteller, actor and writer living in rural West Wales. He is a little obsessed with lists.