1Ann Hodges
On November 30th, 1954 in Sylacauga, Alabama, a grapefruit-sized meteorite crashed through the roof of Ann Hodges' house and struck her while she was napping. It is noted as, "the first documented extraterrestrial object to have injured a human being."
2. "A Book from the Sky" is a 604-page long book filled entirely with meaningless glyphs designed to resemble traditional Chinese characters.
3. Chandre Oram is an Indian tea estate worker who lives in the Alipurduar district of Jalpaiguri, West Bengal. He is famous for having a 33 cm (13 inches) long tail, which has made him an object of devotion to many, who believe him to be an incarnation of Hanuman, a Hindu deity associated with monkeys.
4. “Tetraphobia” or avoiding the number 4 due to the fact it sounds similar to the pronunciation of death in Mandarin is taken very seriously by the Chinese. In some cases, this can lead to buildings missing multiple floors, so a 20-story building elevator goes up to 22 because there is no 4th or 14th floors.
5. Picking your nose (rhinotillexis) then ingesting your booger (Mucophagy) helps boost your immune system.
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6Adolf Lu Hitler Marak
Many people in the Indian state of Meghalaya have "odd" names, such as "Adolf Lu Hitler Marak", "Frankenstein Momin" or "Boldness Billykid" due to the former UK colonial presence in the state capital of Shillong.
7. A certain portion of the population will consistently feel the urge to defecate shortly after walking into bookstores or libraries. Named after the otherwise-unheard-of woman whose confession to a Japanese book magazine made it famous, it's known as the Mariko Aoki phenomenon.
8. There was a procedure developed in the 1960s that restored vision to those that were blinded, but a critical step involved pulling a healthy tooth from the patient. It's called osteo-odonto-keratoprosthesis.
9. There is something called RAS Syndrome. RAS syndrome (where "RAS" stands for "redundant acronym syndrome", making the phrase "RAS syndrome" self-referential) is the use of one or more of the words that make up an acronym (or other initialism) in conjunction with the abbreviated form.
10. There is a delusional condition called "koro", seen in Southeast Asian and Chinese men, where the patient suddenly grasps his penis, fearing that it will retract into his abdomen and ultimately cause his death.
11Danish Protest Pig
The Danish Protest Pig is a reddish pig breed with a white stripe that looks like the Danish flag. When Danes in Prussian North Frisia were banned from raising their flag, they displayed the protest pig instead.
12. A DMV employee named John Quijada invented Ithkuil, a language so precise and concise that the two-word Ithkuil sentence "Tram-mļöi hhâsmařpţuktôx" can be translated into English as "On the contrary, I think it may turn out that this rugged mountain range trails off at some point."
13. Alien hand syndrome is a neurological disorder that causes hand movement without the person being aware of what is happening. The afflicted person may reach for objects and manipulate them without wanting to do so, even to the point of having to use the healthy hand to restrain the alien hand.
14. During the Norwegian Butter Crisis of 2011, two Swedes were arrested for illegally smuggling more than 250 kg of butter into the country. The police destroyed the confiscated illegal butter.
15. Germans have a word for the proper labeling of beef: Rinderkennzeichnungs- und Rindfleischetikettierungsüberwachungsaufgabenübertragungsgesetz.
16Ruth Belville
A woman named Ruth Belville made a living selling people the correct time. Every day she will calibrate her pocket watch to the official Greenwich Mean Time and travel around town letting people set their clocks to hers.
17. There used to be a thing called horse diving. A person would literally jump a horse off a sixty-foot ramp into a shallow pool of water. A girl named Sonora Carver was a horse diver in the late 19th century, and she went blind doing it when her retinas detached during a dive.
18. The Toynbee Tiles are cryptic messages placed in asphalt on roads in about two dozen major cities in the United States and South America. They started appearing in the 1980s and while there have been different suspects no one has been clearly identified as the creator of them.
19. There is a rare human condition called Trimethylaminuria, also known as Fish Odor Syndrome, that causes a person's sweat, urine, and breath to smell like rotting fish. It is caused by a defect in the production of a particular enzyme.
20. A beer tsunami devastated a neighborhood in London killing 8 and destroying whole houses. The 1500 cubic meter flood was ruled as an "Act of God" and nobody was held responsible.
21Cryptophasia
"Cryptophasia" is a phenomenon where twins make up a language which they only speak with each other. Twin languages often consist of onomatopoeia, and new words twins create by simplifying the words used by adults around them. Up to 50% of young twins may develop their own twin language.
22. Illegal prime numbers exist. An illegal prime is a prime number that represents information that is forbidden to possess or distribute. For example: when interpreted in a particular way, a certain prime describes a computer program that bypasses the digital rights management scheme used on DVDs.
23. Tinnunculite is a naturally occurring material that only forms when Falcons poop directly into burning coal mines as they fly.
24. The man with the longest personal name ever used is Hubert Blaine Wolfeschlegelsteinhausenbergerdorff, Sr. That's only the abbreviation for it; in total his surname is made up of 26 other names and contains 666 letters.
25. Approximately 7000 years ago, humans used to drill holes in their heads to allow spirits to flow in and out of the body. This practice is called 'Trepanation.'
